Bradford

The Yorkshire ripper was from Bradford. The prostitutes who came down to London on the train on 'cheap-day return' tickets were from bradford. At a time when de game of soccer was threatened by so many troubles, Bradford seemed to have troubles of the most extreme kind. Days after the deaths in Brussels at the Heysel stadium, forty-seven Bradford football supporters were killed in one of the worst fires in the history of the sport. Eighteen months later, there was yet another fire, and a match stopped because of crowd violence.
[...]

It was everything I imagined a Bradford working-class community would be like, except that there was one difference. Everyone I'd seen since I arrived was Pakistani. I had yet to see a white face.
[...]

That evening, Jane –the friend I was staying with– and I decided to go put. we walked down the hill and into the centre of the town. It looked like many other town centres in Britain. The subways under the rundabouts stank of urine; graffiti defaced them and lakes of rainwater gathered at the bottom of the stairs. There was a massive shopping centre with unnatural lighting; some kids were rollerskating through it, pursued by three pink-faced security guards in paramilitary outfits. The shops were also the same: Rymans, Smiths, Dixons, the National Westminster Bank. I hadn't become accustomed to Bradford and found myself making simple comparisons with London. The clothes people wore were shabby and old; they looked as if they'd been bought in jumble sales or second-hand shops. And their faces had an unhealthy aspect: some were malnourished.

As we crossed the city, I could see that some parts looked old-fashioned. They reminded me of my English grandfather and the Britain of my childhood: pigeon keeping, greyhound racing, roast beef eating and pianos in pubs. Outside the centre, there were shops you'd rarely see in London now: drapers, ironmongers, fish and chip shops that still used newspaper wrappers, barber's shops with photographs in the window of men with Everly Brothers haircuts. And here, among all this, I also saw the Islamic Library and the Ambala Sweet Centre where you could buy spices: dhaniya, haldi, garam masala, and dhal and ladies' fingers. There wew Asian video shops where you could buy tapes of songs of Master SAjjad, Nayyara, Alamgir, Nazeen and M. Ali Shahaiky.

Hanif Kureishi, Granta. Bradford.

Very evil-looking

Bishop was firing a pistol at her fellow scientists. For the better part of an hour, Bishop had been sitting at the end of a long conference table, listening to a dozen people discuss the biology department’s budget and other matters. Now standing near the room’s only door, she was transformed. Aiming at one colleague’s head after another, she pulled the trigger again and again. Boom. Boom.

Gopi Podila, the department chair who specialized in the molecular biology of plants, was already down and bleeding. So was Stephanie Monticciolo, the staff assistant who’d attended the 3 pm meeting to keep the minutes. Those two had been on Bishop’s right. Now she turned left and shot the person nearest to her: Adriel Johnson, an expert in gastrointestinal physiology. Next to Johnson was plant scientist Maria Ragland Davis. Bishop shot her, too. Then the department’s newest faculty member, molecular biologist Luis Cruz-Vera, was wounded in the chest by a ricocheting bullet or bone fragment. As Joseph Leahy, whose research focused on the biodegradation of hydrocarbons, ducked for cover, a bullet tore through the top of his head, severing his right optic nerve.

Moriarity had dived under the table. Now, kneeling on the rug, she grabbed hold of Bishop’s blue-jeaned leg. “Amy, don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Think about my grandson. Think about your daughter.” Bishop’s eldest daughter, Lily, was a student at the university; she studied biology with some of the people trapped in this room. “Please snap out of this,” Moriarity thought. “This has to stop.” As if in response, Bishop pointed the gun at Moriarity and pulled the trigger. Click. It didn’t fire. Moriarity, still on hands and knees, half-rolled, half-crawled toward the door, Bishop right behind her. Bishop’s eyes seemed cold and “very, very evil-looking.”

[...]

she acted no more unusual than any other scientist I’ve ever been with. You sit down with a bunch of scientists and—I hate to say it, but—their demeanor is more like him.” He nods toward his only son, curled up in a worn armchair in a corner. “You know, like a 9-year-old. Impulsive. Selfish. Me-first.”

Anderson and Bishop’s son, introduced to me earlier as “Kid Number Four,” is bright-eyed and skinny, like he’s going through a growth spurt. He has a drawing pad and a picture book about scary monsters in his lap. His face is rapt as he uses a pencil to copy a plaintive-looking creature, with its arms outstretched.

The boy’s last name is his father’s: Anderson. But his first name is the haunting one. It honors Amy Bishop’s brother, a violinist who died too young. Seth.

Amy Wallace, Wired. The Fury.

Les choses telles qu'elles étaient

"Vivre vite, mourir jeune et avoir un beau cadavre." Telle était la maxime des journalistes du magazine Drum dans les années 1950. Lewis Nkosi n’est pas mort jeune – il s’est éteint le 5 septembre à Johannesburg, après avoir vécu près de 74 ans, dont 31 en exil –, mais il appartenait à ce cercle de passionnés, prêts à tout pour leur métier. L’Afrique du Sud pleure un auteur éclectique – critique, compositeur et écrivain – parmi les plus talentueux de sa génération.

Natif de Durban, il commence sa carrière au Ilanga Lase Natal, un journal en zoulou. À 19 ans, il rejoint Drum, tout premier magazine sud-africain destiné à un lectorat noir, réalisé par des journalistes noirs et dirigé par le Britannique Jim Bailey. Le mensuel traite des sujets de société et décrit la vie à Sophiatown, un quartier métissé de Jo’Burg, avant que les Noirs ne soient expulsés à Soweto. "C’était ça, le style Drum : pas de discours enflammés, pas de propagande acharnée contre l’apartheid. Simplement montrer les choses telles qu’elles étaient", disait Nkosi.

Pascal Airault, Lewis Nkosi, tambour battant. Jeune Afrique.

Do you read newspapers?

1. How often do you buy a newspaper?
Every day or almost every day: 44%.
1-4 times per week: 15%.
Occasionally: 30%.
Never: 11%.

2. How often do you buy magazines?
Every month: 26%.
Occasionally: 63%.
Never: 11%.

3. When you read news...
You usually do it on the Internet: 29%.
You usually do it in the print media: 25%.
50%-50% on the Internet and print: 37%.
You only watch tv or listen radio: 9%.

4. Are you subscribed to any online newspaper/magazine?
Yes: 37%.
No: 57%.
No but I will do in the near future: 6%.

5. Do/did you parents read print newspapers/magazines?
Yes: 85%.
No: 10%.
I do not know: 5%.

(Survey sample: 100 middle-high middle class urban citizens aged between 25-45 years old.
People who answered were: 80%, Catalan citizens. 15%, other European nationals. 5%, Asian nationals.)

Source: Iceberg Center for Intelligence Studies (ICIS) / surveymonkey.com