| Thousands celebrate the King's 75th at Graceland MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- About 3,000 fans joined Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie and Elvis Presley's grandkids at Graceland to celebrate what would have been the King of Rock 'n' Roll's 75th birthday.... hosted.ap.org |
NY's top court rejects Rather's appeal against CBS ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York's top court Tuesday rejected Dan Rather's bid to reinstate his $70 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS Corp.... hosted.ap.org |
Forget Harry Potter: Saci Lloyd thrills teenagers with a heroine who battles climate change and extremism Johnny Depp lost his bid to film The Carbon Diaries books by London teacher Saci Lloyd when she picked the BBC insteadNot many sixth-form teachers from east London can claim to have said "No" to Johnny Depp, but Saci Lloyd is getting used to her double life. By day, she teaches A-level students at an inner-city college: by night, she is one of Britain's most successful crusading authors.Her first book, The Carbon Diaries 2015, shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards last year, already has a slavish following among teenagers in this country and in America. The futuristic story introduced the world to a hapless new heroine, Laura Brown, a figure who now threatens to become as potent in the entertainment industry as Harry Potter.Depp's film-making company, Infinitum Nihil, was negotiating in the run-up to Christmas for the right to make a screen version of the book, but Lloyd has finally decided to stick with Company Pictures, which made the television series Skins and Shameless and which will now produce Carbon Diaries for the BBC. "I have turned down Johnny Depp this week and that is not something I ever expected to do," said Lloyd.Her new book, a sequel called The Carbon Diaries 2017, is out this month and takes Laura Brown into a frightening era where climate change is busily altering all the norms of modern existence. Laura, a teenager who plays in a band called the Dirty Angels, is the kind of feisty character that readers who are tiring of Potter's tame school scarf and round glasses will welcome.The writer, however, is determined she will not return to Laura's story with a third instalment. Publishing hopes of a six-book series have been dashed. "That is it, I think," said Lloyd this weekend. "I have left Laura in a good place and I don't want to do another spin-off. I don't like all this pressure to spin an idea out for as long as we can. Whatever happened to just having an idea, then writing it, then moving on to something else?"When the first Carbon Diaries Âvolume came out, critics described it as "an uproarious, scathing and pathos-filled romp" and "a wonderfully mordant look at the coming environmental Âmeltdown".Lloyd, head of media studies at ÂNewham Sixth Form College, had used her experience of working in a tough urban environment to create the novel's Âfabric."It was very much there in the background and the ambience, but it is not such a big part of the second book. The kids I teach in east London are predominantly working-class kids from Ghana, Pakistan or eastern Europe and, although I have listened to them and learnt from them, when you actually write dialogue you have to decide how colloquial and how specific you want to go, because their language changes all the time."Lloyd, 42, teaches media animation and design and uses fairly unconventional methods. In February, her media studies students and those at other colleges will join forces to launch an internet social networking site inspired by the new book."We hope to have it running on the web next month and it will be a ÂFacebook-style portal for students to discuss ideas about climate change and politics, which they are all very interested in," said Lloyd. "The site was my idea and has nothing to do with the publishers or, really, much to do with the new book either. Some of my students have read Carbon Diaries and some haven't. I don't really care."Lloyd had a rural upbringing in north Wales and, after university in Manchester, she became a cartoonist and toured the US in a band, before joining an advertising agency and eventually getting into the film and teleÂvision industry as script-editor on a Beeban Kidron film.The plot of her new novel draws on her time touring as a musician and starts just as Laura begins an undergraduate course in London. The city around our heroine is struggling to adjust to rationing imposed by global climate shifts and Laura and her band are forced to stop performing as riots take hold. The Dirty Angels set off in a battered van in the hope of performing across Europe, but as they travel they see the dramatic effects of an economic crisis unfold. Immigration, a war over water supplies and the intervention of the armed forces all determine Laura's fate as she copes with the betrayal of friends and lovers. Nevertheless, Lloyd says the second Carbon Diaries novel is meant to be as funny as the first."I always loved books that asked big questions about the world," she said. "But I also loved funny books, with lead characters who never wanted to teach you a thing, like Holden Caulfield, Adrian Mole or Huckleberry Finn."The author is just as passionate about the kind of book she did not want to write. "Let my books be real. No dragons and wizards with special powers, thank you. Why has everything got to be Âfantasy now? Is it some kind of infanÂtilising thing?"Both volumes of the Carbon Diaries, although fiction, bring real issues to life. Lloyd's college is on the edge of the British National party's core territory in London and the latest book features a new right-wing political force."This month huge billboards have gone up in East London showing BNP leader Nick Griffin, glass of wine in hand, saying happy new year," she said. "That is something that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago and a lot of my Muslim students are really worried about it. We are shrinking away from the middle ground and I wanted to write about what happens when politics starts to get polarised."As a teacher, Lloyd says she despairs about the dominance of the curriculum and believes that students are being let down. "If I am honest, I sit there in front of a group of 17- or 18-year-olds, about to go out into the world, who don't know what left-wing and right-wing means. When I was younger there was a viable political student movement, but that framework is not really there now. So I teach a lot about the news, facing reality and not dumbing down and hiding things."Lloyd's interest in climate change was stirred when she walked past a newspaper stand and read contradictory headlines about the nature of the apocalypse ahead. "One paper said we were going to fry and the other that we were going to freeze to death."Keeping pace with the real world has been Lloyd's biggest challenge as a novelist. "The new book is completely 'now', but I did not realise it as I wrote. The bank crash had not happened and so I had to put in a few lines, but most of it was there anyway."When Lloyd first picked up her pen, green issues were still a niche concern. "Now, sadly, everyone knows, but everyone has a reason why they, personally, don't need to worry about it yet," she said. "To do something about that, I have to make up new stories, as Naomi Klein has suggested."EntertainmentTelevisionChildren and teenagersJohnny DeppCosta book awardsVanessa Thorpeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Bafta's Carl Foreman award jury must do better The prize is supposed to reward outstanding work by a first-time British writer, director or producer. However, it's been too focused on directorsForget such baubles as best film and best actor - the Bafta that really matters, for people who care about UK cinema, is the one for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer.It's not part of the Oscar race, so it gets overshadowed by the hoopla around the big prizes. But it's the award that says most about the present health and future hopes of British film. Ironically, it's given in honour of an American, the Oscar-winning screenwriter Carl Foreman, who fled Hollywood's blacklist to find sanctuary in Britain.Foreman was a defiantly independent spirit. That's reflected in a prize which celebrates the passion, the determination, the ambition and the sheer bloody-minded desperation that drives first-time film-makers. The nominees often remark that they don't feel like newcomers, because it has taken such a long hard slog to get to this point.This year's nominees have all paid their dues in one way or another – Duncan Jones, director of Moon; Sam Taylor-Wood, director of Nowhere Boy; Stuart Hazeldine, writer/director of Exam; Eran Creevy, writer/director of Shifty; and Lucy Bailey, Andrew Thompson, Elizabeth Morgan Hemlock and David Pearson, the directors and producers of Mugabe and the White African.I served on Bafta's Foreman jury for the previous four years, during which time we gave the prize to Joe Wright, Andrea Arnold, Matt Greenhalgh and Steve McQueen – a pretty impressive rush of new blood to energise British cinema.There are 50-70 films each year that involve a first-time British writer, director or producer – that's about half of all UK films – and it was a privilege to be forced to watch all of them. They ranged from big studio movies such as Mamma Mia! and Flushed Away to self-financed, self-distributed microbudgeters that got one week's release in one cinema in Wales. Some were excruciating, many showed sparks, and a few were quite brilliant.But what struck me most was how old many of the debutants were, particularly the best ones. The average age of the nominees is around 40, having come via other careers, often very successful ones – TV, theatre, commercials (such as Jones), fine art (McQueen and Taylor-Wood), or in the case of Arnold, presenting children's TV. This isn't a prize for hot kids fresh out of film school because it generally takes them at least a decade to get their first movie made.Some might argue that's a bad thing for British cinema, but making films isn't supposed to be easy. It means that first films such as McQueen's Hunger or Arnold's Red Road display a startling creative maturity that gives their makers a real shot at a long and durable career. British film-makers often arrive fully formed. It's worth noting that three of this year's Bafta nominees for outstanding British film – In the Loop, Moon and Nowhere Boy – are also debuts.One thing about the Foreman bothers me, though. The award is monopolised by directors. Writers and producers barely get a look in. Greenhalgh is the only writer ever to win, for Control, and that was only possible because the film's debut director Anton Corbijn is Dutch and wasn't eligible. Producer Nicola Usborne shared the award with her director Joel Hopkins for Jump Tomorrow, but no other producer has ever won. Again this year, the jury didn't manage to nominate a solo writer or a solo producer.It's difficult for the jury to see beyond what's up there on the screen, but they need to try harder. This year, they missed an open goal, in the form of Stuart Fenegan, the producer of Moon. Jones did fine work, but Moon is, above all, a remarkable achievement in production. Raising ÂŁ3m in private finance, piecing together the relationships with the various effects houses and model-makers who created an utterly convincing moonbase on a shoestring, working with Jones and writer Nathan Parker to develop the concept into a script and then into a fully realised vision, negotiating the sale to Sony – if that didn't deserve a Bafta, I don't know what does. But like most first-time producers, Fenegan shared his credit with an experienced mentor, Trudie Styler, and that was enough to rule him out.BaftasSam Taylor-WoodJoe WrightAndrea ArnoldSteve McQueenAdam Dawtreyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Depp's representative rubbishes reports of actor's death Johnny Depp’s representative has assured fans the Hollywood hunk is very much alive after an internet hoax reported him dead at the weekend. breakingnews.ie |