vallierojas: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

I just can't find work

Problems at work? Need advice? Our agony uncle ? and readers ? have the answers

How can I explain my career regression and get a job interview?

After working my way up the career ranks I joined a household name company as marketing director. I maintain the company went in for grand titles, as I was only in charge of a graduate trainee during the latter part of my time there. Similarly titled colleagues were in the same position.

I was made redundant after a couple of years, but immediately offered a job in a much smaller company. I know they increased the seniority of the job to match my experience, so I was not bothered that the title was just manager ? this was a much more accurate description of what I was doing. After being made redundant yet again after two years (as with the previous occasion due to cost cutting) I went travelling and stepped out of the working world for three years.

I have now moved from the south-east to somewhere more rural, where appropriate level marketing jobs are rarer. To get back into the working world I accepted a much more junior job. After nearly a year of repetitive and underpaid working weeks, I am now looking for something more challenging. However, my CV shows what looks like a bizarre job progression and then regression: from marketing assistant to executive, up to manager and director, then down to manager again and now officer. While I am confident I will be able to explain this face-to-face in an interview, it is getting an interview that worries me owing to how my apparent career "regression" may be viewed.

Jeremy says

As I try to put myself in the shoes of a prospective employer I find myself more perplexed by your three-year "holiday" from the working world than by your apparent career regression.

The first thing you need to do is re-construct your CV by making a clear distinction between your various job titles and their respective responsibilities. So rather than headlining that you went from being a marketing director to being a manager (which could confuse anyone) state clearly that you went from being responsible for just one graduate trainee in the earlier job to more serious responsibilities (although with a seemingly lesser title) in the next. Most employers are fully aware of job title inflation and will readily understand.

Your bigger hurdle, it seems to me, is going to be that three-year absence from the job market. All you tell me is that you "went travelling" I think it's going to be extremely important for you, first, to give reasons for that initial decision; and second, to highlight any part of your three-year odyssey that makes you, at least to some employers, a more interesting candidate.

I'm not suggesting you cheat or exaggerate; I just feel sure you must have enjoyed certain experiences ? made certain contacts, obtained certain insights, learned certain lessons ? that when applied to real work could make you a more valuable employee. Take great care with this aspect of your CV. If you don't convincingly plug this gap, it will be seen by many potential employers as evidence of a lack of seriousness. It's a long time to absent yourself from paid work if you've got nothing of value to show for it.

Your need to re-enter the working world ? and your move from the south-east can convincingly explain your acceptance of your present lowly position ? but you're right to feel a sense of urgency. You can't afford to stay there long. Redirect your frustration into determination, make the best legitimate case for yourself and your experience, avoid fudge and apology ? and go for it.

Readers say

? What you might call "career regression" doesn't need to appear that way. (And if you clarify in your covering letter the reasons why you took your most recent job you'll be answering that question for the employer.)

Have a skills-based CV (where the headings of your skills match the skills-set required in the job description). Under each, give at least one concrete example of how you deployed that skill, or an "achievement" (quantifying your impact where possible).

Or you could start with a careers highlights section, where you choose the most relevant achievements from your entire working history.

In both cases, follow with a detailed employment section ? preferably in reverse chronological order if all your jobs have been roughly similar roles. Start each entry with a brief paragraph detailing the scope of your role, type of company, your budget/staff responsibility, etc to put the job into context. JobGoddess

? Have you considered retraining to teach marketing or general business studies? Or becoming self-employed as a consultant ? perhaps to small businesses or civil organisations? Could you use your knowledge to build a web-based business? Another option would be to take everything you know about marketing and apply it to a personal dream, such as launching a rock choir or saving your part of the world from gigantic power pylons. If you want "something much more challenging", now could be the right time to strike out on your own. Mudmaid

I'm applying for 10 jobs a day and still no one will have me

I am looking for any type of work at the moment, and finding it a struggle ? I suspect I am perceived to be overqualified as I have a postgraduate degree. I have done several internships, all of which involved administrative tasks, but I have never had a formal administrator position. Despite applying for roughly 10 jobs a day, I haven't had a single response for admin work.

I also did bar/cafe work during the summer holidays when I was a student, but that was four years ago, so I am not having any luck in hospitality either. Also, although I've made a CV specifically for bars and cafes, I have had to mention my qualifications in order to show what I have been doing. I have carpeted my town's bars and cafes handing out CVs.

Jeremy says

One of the more common errors when looking for jobs is to believe that the more wide-ranging you are ? the more general you claim your aptitudes to be ? the more likely you are to attract at least somebody's interest. That can happen, of course; but it's often more effective to present yourself as of specific interest to just a few.

It's certainly true that a lot of employers would think twice before filling an unexceptional position with someone with a postgraduate degree. A bit of inverted snobbery probably comes into it; the feeling that such a person might have exaggerated ideas of their own importance and not get on with the rest of the team: almost certainly unfair but the damage is done.

I wish I knew more about that degree of yours. It must have had some specialist element to it ? and that's what I believe you should now concentrate on. The very fact that you're applying for 10 jobs a day must mean that you're not discriminating much.

Try looking at yourself as dispassionately as possible; and work out ? in experience, qualifications, personal attributes, personal enthusiasms ? just what defines you. And only then start to think of possible job opportunities ? and just how best your particular combination of personality and ability could prove of real value to particular employers.

Once you've done that you'll have a much better idea not only of how best to structure your applications, but also who best to send them to.

Readers say

? There is nothing more off-putting to a prospective recruiter than the raw and unfettered message that you would do or consider anything. It's instant bottom-of-the-pile stuff. Take a deep breath and think about what you want to do. What other skills you have aside from administrative, PC skills, customer service and the ability to communicate well?

Imagine going to a date and being that easily pleased! Everyone needs a bit more chatting up and to be made to feel special. Even employers or their agents. ExBrightonBelle

? Revisit your CV. Remove any trace of the desperation I can feel in the letter; the phrase "will take any job" is an instant turn off. Phrase your degrees in terms of marketable skills learned rather than specific knowledge acquired, unless it is a degree you need for the job. Make your work experience sound fancy ? be liberal with what you did. Don't lie or go over the top, but don't be afraid of making what was in fact soul-destroying drudgery sound a bit more flamboyant. Again, focus on marketable skills and achievements rather than the specifics. UndyingCincinnatus

? You'd be surprised how many companies that you temp for will offer you a full-time role if you're good. I do a lot of admin temping, as I'm building a separate career in the arts, and I get at least one offer a year of a full-time job the company is willing to create for me. But if I applied for something they might well not hire me because, on paper, my job history looks odd. Find a good temp agency, particularly one that tests all your skills properly. PurpleGiraffe

For Jeremy Bullmore's advice on a work issue, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@guardian.co.uk. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally.

Read next week's problems on the Work blog from Monday and post your advice ? we'll run the best of it alongside Jeremy's in next Saturday's column.

Jeremy Bullmore

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/23/dear-jeremy-work-issues-solved

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UK has worst quality of life in Europe, survey claims

Survey of 10 developed European countries puts UK at bottom of the pile due to high costs of living, while France takes top spot

The UK has been named the worst place to live in Europe for quality of life, behind countries with damaged economies such as Ireland and Italy, according to the latest uSwitch quality of life index.

The UK emerged as having the second lowest hours of sunshine a year, the fourth highest retirement age, and the third lowest spend on health as a percentage of GDP.

Despite above average household income ? the fourth highest in Europe ? Britons have 5.5 fewer days holiday a year than the European average and endure a below average government spend on education.

UK households also struggle with a high cost of living, with food and diesel prices the highest in Europe, and unleaded petrol, alcohol and cigarettes all costing more than the European average.

As a result, more than one in 10 Britons (12%) said they are "seriously considering" emigrating, with "broken society" the biggest concern for 59% of those questioned, followed by the cost of living (49%), and crime and violence (47%). Just 5% of those questioned are happy in the UK.

The study examined 16 factors to determine where the UK sits in relation to nine other major European countries. Variables such as net income, VAT and the cost of essential goods were put under the miscroscope, as well as lifestyle factors such as hours of sunshine, holiday entitlement, working hours and life expectancy.

France bagged the top spot for the third year running, despite families earning an average �31,767 (compared to the UK's �38,547) and working longer hours than people in the UK. But the French enjoy 2,124 hours of sunshine, have an average retirement age of 60, and and receive 36 days of holiday a year. They also live a year longer than Brits, with an average life expectancy of 81.4 years compared to 80.4 in the UK. People in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden call all expect to live longer than people in the UK.

Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany rounded out the top five best European countries for quality of life, with Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Ireland also above the UK in the table. Last year, Ireland was joint bottom with the UK.

France and Spain are also where people in the UK would most like to live, with 13% of the 2,036 adults surveyed by uSwitch choosing Spain and 7% opting for France. The Spanish can expect to live just over a year longer than people in the UK, and enjoy the highest number of days holiday in Europe with 39 days. Spain also has the lowest alcohol price of the 10 countries.

Uswitch said it had weighted each category to "nationally representative criteria" using sources such as the OECD, the Met Office, the World Health Organisation and Eurostat. It then calculated a standardised score for each category, defining quality of life as the sum of the standardised scores.

Ann Robinson of uSwitch.com said: "Last year, at least our neighbours in Ireland were worse off, now we can't even console ourselves with that. We are now officially at the bottom of the pile. We may still be enjoying the fourth highest household income in Europe, but the high cost of living means we are living to work.

"When coupled with many of the issues facing households in the UK today it is not surprising that one in 10 of us have contemplated starting a new life abroad. But for those of us who decide to stick it out and ride the storm, there will be no choice but to batten down the hatches. Cutting back where possible to help combat our high living costs will go some way to improving our quality of life."

Mark King

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/29/uk-worst-quality-of-life-europe

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Viewfinder: win a �150 hotel voucher

Name the place and win a �150 hotel voucher, letting you stay at thousands of hotels worldwide

Observer

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2011/sep/25/1

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Behind the music: Why struggling bands should try acting

The X Factor isn't the only way for aspiring talent to get seen on TV: indie outfit Daytona Lights are joining Hollyoaks

Despite the internet giving artists the opportunity to get their music heard, one thing has not changed: it's still almost impossible (bar making a video so horrendous it becomes a YouTube sensation to reach a wider audience unless your music is played on a major radio station and/or terrestrial TV. To get on TV you pretty much have to be one of the few lucky ones to be booked on Jools Holland, have big label backing to be the featured band on Jonathan Ross ? or be a contestant on The X Factor. But what if you're an indie band signed to a small label? For Daytona Lights, the solution has come in the unexpected form of a starring role in which they play themselves in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks.

Unlike acts such as PJ and Duncan or, before them, the Monkees, this is not a case of the band being put together for the TV show. The five-piece formed more than two years ago and have slowly built a following in London. Eventually they were spotted by award-winning producer Steve Levine when they opened for Patch William ? an act signed to Levine's label, Hubris Records. "I thought to myself: 'Fuck, they're really good, Patch will really need to up their game,'" says Levine.

While Levine was interested in working with the band, he was aware of the difficulties in getting such an act wider exposure without big label backing. As with Patch William, Stephen Fry played a part in what happened next. After recording the voiceover for a radio documentary Levine was making, Fry introduced the producer to Audio Network, one of the biggest suppliers of library music in the UK. Library music is often used for TV shows because it's cheap and licensing issues are already sorted out. The company's CEO told Levine it kept getting calls for music by cool indie bands, but library music is usually not made by those bands.

One creative director in the market for such an act was Tony Wood, who wanted to make Hollyoaks more "cool and indie". Wood is no stranger to blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, having worked on The Only Way Is Essex, and this is what he wanted to do with Hollyoaks. After checking out the band at London's Barfly, Audio Network, Wood and Levine decided to form a joint venture to work with them.

Luckily, Daytona Lights are not new to acting, as three of them met at drama school. They will get a soft introduction to the show in October. Their storyline will build slowly to culminate at the end of the year, after which their album will be released. As with The X Factor, the songs will be made available online as soon as they're featured in the show. Some of the tracks will be given away for free.

"Introducing them as a band in Hollyoaks is another illustration of how the show is layered with more than story," says Wood. "The show's cultural, fashion and music references have to speak to the target audience and we wanted to bring them characters who were aspirational, fun and who they could relate to. It's the most popular youth drama currently on British screens so this is an exciting platform for the band to showcase their music. And for us, Daytona Lights is a great proposition; cool characters who provide an authentic youth story and who can rock out the SU Bar."

Levine compares major labels to bullies in the playground, who have recently started dominating avenues of exposure traditionally open to smaller labels. His joint venture with Hollyoaks and Audio Network ? where there are "no masters and servants" ? is a way to stand up to the bullies by, for example, allowing Daytona Lights to appear on the Hollyoaks music show, which features acts such as Tinie Tempah and Dappy.

It's an ideal situation, says Levine. "What normally happens in the music industry is that everything depends on radio playing the single. If they don't, the act is dead in the water ? often they get dropped by the label at that point. We don't have to bother with that ? we're just making it up as we go along."

This may be the beginning of a trend. Last week, Neighbours announced that indie band William and the Tells ? whose singer William Ewing is currently studying drama at the National Theatre in Melbourne ? will be joining the Australian soap for a one-month stint. Perhaps more struggling bands should sign up for acting lessons.

Helienne Lindvall

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/sep/29/daytona-lights-hollyoaks

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Gus Poyet signs new five-year contract at Brighton

? Uruguayan manager extends deal at club until June 2016
? Assistant manager Mauricio Taricco also signs new contract

Gus Poyet has signed a new five-year contract as manager of Brighton and Hove Albion, keeping him at the club until June 2016. His assistant, Mauricio Taricco, has also extended his stay at the club.

The Brighton chairman, Tony Bloom, said: "This is great news for the club. Gus and Tano [Taricco] are key to all of our immediate and long-term plans. When you consider the position the club was in when they arrived, what they have achieved here in less than two years is outstanding.

"Personally, I am absolutely delighted to have agreed these new contracts. They are an absolute pleasure to work with, and while they each had three seasons left on their previous contract, this gives the club even more long-term stability and further underlines their own commitment to the club."

Brighton have enjoyed an impressive start to their first season in the Amex Stadium after promotion from League One and lie fifth in the Championship, two points behind the leaders Southampton.

Poyet said: "Both Tano and I would like to thank the chairman and the directors ? and also my staff and the players, who have been crucial in our progression as a club. The new contracts will allow us to make even more long-term plans, particularly with regard to the new academy and training ground.

"I am delighted to extend my stay here, as the last two years here have been absolutely fantastic."

Gregg Roughley

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/sep/30/gus-poyet-signs-brighton-contract

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AstraZeneca climbs as it settles key Seroquel patent dispute, but FTSE falters again

As markets slip back amid more nervousness about the Eurozone debt crisis, AstraZeneca is bucking the downward trend.

The pharmaceuticals giant is up 12p at 2886.5p after it reached a patent settlement on its best-selling Seroquel XR product - used for treating schizophrenic, bipolar disorder and depression - and pushing back the threat of generic competition in the US. The patent settlement with privately owned Handa Pharmaceuticals means it will not be able to sell a rival version of Seroquel XR in the US until late 2016, and could mean other generic makers are unable to enter the market until after then. Analysts had been expecting rival products to be launched from next year. Astra chief executive David Brennan said:

We believe this agreement reaffirms our intellectual property rights and is the right business decision for AstraZeneca at this time. Seroquel XR remains an important part of our company's portfolio.

Savvas Neophytou at Panmure Gordon said:

A downgrade risk has been mitigated significantly with the Company's settlement with Handa Pharmaceuticals regarding Seroquel XR. Although there are a number of other challenges remaining Handa's formulation was the most 'dangerous' in our view as it contained the least amount of overlap with Astra's patents. Torrent's formulation is in a similar position but after today's settlement, we expect Torrent to settle soon. Of the other challenges, Teva's is the most tenuous and we expect the company to prevail against Teva's claims.

We currently forecast that Seroquel will report a 3% increase in revenues to $5460m in 2011 and declining by 47.8% to $2850m in 2012 because of possible generics to the IR formulation. The Seroquel XR formulation represents still a small part, but growing of the total Seroquel franchise and importantly has patent protection to November 2017.

Overall, on another day of key meetings involving the Eurozone, with Austria voting on the July bailout plan and the Greek prime minister on a charm offensive, investors continue to be cautious, not least because of some poor German retail sales figures. The FTSE 100 is currently down 53.40 at 5143.44 while Germany's Dax is down 1.8% and France's Cac just over 1%. US futures are indicating an 83 point fall when Wall Street opens.

Burberry is the biggest faller in the leading index on continuing worries about the outlook for the luxury goods market, in particular in the Far East, not helped by a flat Chinese purchasing managers index ahead of PMI data to be released on Saturday. Burberry is down 67p at �11.34 while banks are also weaker, especially those with a strong presence in the Far East. So Standard Chartered has slipped 59p to �12.99 while HSBC is off 17p at 495.8p.

In such circumstances investors look - if they are looking at all - for safe havens and although gold's status has been tarnished by a recent slump as hedge funds and the like reportedly cash in some of their profits, utilities and tobacco companies are in demand at the moment.

Severn Trent has climbed 9p to �15.35 and United Utilities is up 3p at 623p, while Imperial Tobacco - punted as a possible takeover target earlier in the week - has risen 15p to �21.86.

There is also some optimism for gold bugs as the precious metal recovers a little ground, helping push Fresnillo up 47p to �15.61 and Randgold Resources 60p higher to �61.90.

Nick Fletcher

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2011/sep/30/astrazeneca-patent-settlement

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Travel writers' favourite travel books

Paul Theroux, William Dalrymple, Kari Herbert, Colin Thubron and many more writers tell us about the travel book that most influenced their own life and work

Colin Thubron

Ionia: a Quest, by Freya Stark
Travel books, like others, change perspective as we grow older, and I can see now that Freya Stark's Ionia: a Quest is an enchanting but disturbingly moralistic account of a journey that this remarkable woman took in the early 1950s along the west coast of Turkey. In those days these ancient Greek cities were virtually unvisited. In 55 sites Stark encountered only one other tourist. Relying largely on the witness of ancient writers, she mused among the ruins, deducing their cities' character from them as if the stones themselves might speak. It all sounds too dreadful. But such was the beauty of her writing, and the delicacy of her thought, that the result is captivating. It persuaded me, at the start of my career, how richly landscape and history may interfuse, and how deeply (and sometimes dangerously) a quiet attention can fire the imagination.
? Colin Thubron's latest book is To a Mountain in Tibet (Chatto, �16.99)

William Dalrymple

In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin
When Bruce Chatwin died in 1989, at 48, he had published just five books: a small yet dazzling output. His first, In Patagonia, is a metaphysical exploration of "the uttermost part of the earth". It is in the eyes of many his best, though it was not his most commercially successful (Songlines outsold it many times over). But it is probably the most influential travel book written since the war. Its opening page ? telling of Bruce's childhood discovery of a piece of dinosaur skin in his grandmother's cupboard ? is possibly the most imitated passage in modern travel literature.

Chatwin had three matchless gifts: he was a thinker of genuine originality; a reader of astonishing erudition; and a writer of breathtaking prose. All three talents shine brightly on almost every page of In Patagonia, but it is his bleak chiselled prose that remains his most dazzling: he had a quite remarkable ability to evoke place, to bring to life a whole world of strange sounds and smells in a single unexpected image, to pull a perfect sentence out the air with the ease of a child netting a butterfly.

The pendulum of fashion has swung against Chatwin, and it is now unhip to admire his work. Yet to his fans, Chatwin remains like a showy bird of paradise amid the sparrows of the present English literary scene, and it is impossible to reread In Patagonia without a deep stab of sadness that we have lost the brightest and most profound writer of his generation. He also knew and loved the Islamic world ? and such writers are now badly in demand. God only knows what Chatwin might have produced had he still been writing, now when we need him most.
? William Dalrymple's latest book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India (Bloomsbury, �8.99), won the first Asia House Literature Award, in 2010

Sara Wheeler

A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark
A Winter in Arabia describes Freya Stark's 1937 journey through the Hadhramaut, a region in today's Yemen. A guest of the tribes, she conjures little girls in magenta silk trousers, their silver anklets frilled with bells; the drumbeats of the Sultan's procession; and veiled women bearing gifts of salted melon seeds. The book is a heady mix of hardship and luxury, scholarship and mischief, loneliness and intimacy, and the oppositions give the prose its strength.

Stark glittered in the drawing rooms of London and loved a party; having drunk her fill, she'd run off to peek out at the world from a solitary tent. Isn't that the best kind of life imaginable? She did not try to be an honorary man in a field still woefully dominated by that species. "There are few sorrows," she wrote, "through which a new dress or hat will not send a little gleam of pleasure, however furtive." Indeed.
? Sara Wheeler's latest book is Access all Areas (Jonathan Cape, �18.99)

Paul Theroux

The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
This was Cherry-Garrard's only book: it thrilled me when I first read it, and it still inspires me, for its quiet power to evoke a place and time, for its correction of history (the unsparing portrait of Captain Scott), most of all for its heroism. Cherry was only 23 when he joined the Scott Antarctic Expedition in 1912. Scott and four of his men (but not Cherry) died on the way back from the Pole. But in the Antarctic winter of 1911 Cherry trudged through the polar darkness and cold (-60C) to find an Emperor penguin rookery. This was "the worst journey". He wrote: "If you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing; if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad ? And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your winter journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."
? Paul Theroux's latest book is The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road (Hamish Hamilton, �16.99)

Kapka Kassabova

The Global Soul, by Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer was the writer who showed me how to take the Open Road (also the title of his sublime study of the Dalai Lama). Iyer's cultural and spiritual quest is driven by his own hybridity. Of all his books, it was The Global Soul that felt like the blow to the head I needed in 2001, when grappling with my own cultural and spiritual alienation. It's a book that launches the 21st century, and if this sounds grand, he is grand. In The Global Soul he goes to "in-between" places ? airports, malls, the no-place of jet lag ? and introduces the species of soul who has multiple passports, lives in several countries, and has nightmares not of the "Where am I?" variety, but of the more neurotically advanced "Who am I?" kind.
? Kapka Kassabova's latest book, Twelve Minutes of Love is out in November (Portobello Books, �18.99)

William Blacker

Works of Patrick Leigh Fermor
It was not just the books of Patrick Leigh Fermor ? notably Between the Woods and the Water about Romania ? that inspired me, but also the man. He was the quintessential free spirit. He didn't bother with university, but at the age of 18 set off, on foot, across Europe, hoping for the best. His journey lasted five years and led to extraordinary wartime adventures and a series of breathtaking books, which are among the masterpieces of 20th-century literature. The success he made of his brand of non-conformity should fill all would-be wanderers with hope. Read about his life, read his books, and if you are not similarly inspired and exhilarated then, as Kim said, "Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe."
? William Blacker's latest book is Along the Enchanted Way: A Story of Love and Life in Romania (John Murray, �10.99)

Richard Grant

Great Plains, by Ian Frazier
Reading this book for the first time, in London in 1989, inspired me to spend a summer rambling around the American west. The second time I read it 12 years later, I was stuck trying to write my first book. The subject was American nomadism. I had a box of notebooks about my encounters with modern-day nomads ? freight train riders, cowboys, tramps, hippies, footloose retirees in motorhomes ? and three shelves of research books about nomads in American history. How to connect all this into a whole? I saw that Frazier had solved a similar problem by using himself as a character ? something I'd been resisting ? and infusing his book with a sense of wonder. I sat down again with something to strive for.
? Richard Grant's latest book is Bandit Roads: Into the Lawless Heart of Mexico (Abacus, �9.99)

Pico Iyer

Destinations, by Jan Morris
Suddenly you're not just seeing but hearing, feeling, sensing Washington, Panama, South Africa, as they look today but also as they may seem a hundred years from now. How many writers have been able to take a place and weave a thousand details and feelings and moments into a single near-definitive portrait, which almost seems to stand outside of time? Exactly one: Jan Morris. For 60 years she's been blending acute insights and warm intuitions into uniquely fluent, imperturbable and evocative descriptions. She's not so much traveller as historian, witness, master of classical English prose and impressionist all at once.

You can find these graces in all of her books, of course, but for me the long-form essays in Destinations: Essays from Rolling Stone offer the best (biggest) space in which her eloquence, shrewdness and wisdom can take flight. Read her on Los Angeles, Manhattan or New Delhi and you'll never want to read anyone else on those places again.
? Pico Iyer wrote the foreword to 100 Journeys for the Spirit, a collection of writings from authors including Michael Ondaatje, Alexander McCall Smith and Andrew Motion (Watkins �14.99)

Jason Webster

The Colossus of Maroussi, by Henry Miller
As the second world war was breaking out, Henry Miller visited Greece at the invitation of his friend Lawrence Durrell and travelled around it for several months. The result was The Colossus of Maroussi, at once a love letter to a great world civilisation and a poetic expression of Miller's mystical musings. There is little in the way of traditional "travel" here: the sights, smells and sounds are present only inasmuch as they trigger feelings and emotions. This book taught me that real travel writing must involve an "inner" element, either by detailing an inner journey or by creating a resonance to which the reader can respond. Take that away and you're left with either reportage or a guidebook.
? Jason Webster's most recent travel book is Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain (Vintage, �8.99)

Robert Penn

Full Tilt, by Dervla Murphy
I started reading Full Tilt (Eland, �12.99) on a grey morning, wearing a grey suit, in a crowd of grey faces on the London Underground. Several Central Line stops later, I'd raced with Dervla Murphy and her bicycle, Rosinante, from Dunkirk to Delhi, and made the decision to quit my career as a lawyer and cycle round the world.

Funny, ingenuous, gently erudite and intrepid (she kept a .25 revolver in her saddlebag) Full Tilt is the best kind of adventure story, and a clarion call to "travel for travel's sake". I realised that you don't need a wealth of knowledge and experience to embark on a journey like this. If you believe human wisdom may be measured by the respect we pay to the unattainable, the mysterious or simply the different, and have a flair for getting on with people, you're ready.
? Robert Penn's book, It's All About the Bike (Penguin, �8.99), is out now

Tim Butcher

Journey Without Maps, by Graham Greene
Graham Greene's first travel book, Journey Without Maps, inspired me to risk my life ? by following in his footsteps. Greene was only 30 in 1935 when he chose Liberia for his first trip outside Europe. It was a wonderfully Greene-ian choice: foreboding, distant and richly seedy. The result is a twin helix of a travel book ? combining the account of a fantastically hard 350-mile trek through the Liberian jungle, with a metaphysical journey back to where he came from, to primeval feelings both good and bad. Greene, travelling with his cousin Barbara, left behind his medicine chest and when he caught a fever he almost died. Unsettling in its rawness, it taught me much not just about the author but about myself, surely a hallmark of the best writing.
? Chasing The Devil (Vintage, �8.99) is Tim Butcher's recreation of Greene's trip

Isabella Tree

A Visit to Don Otavio, by Sybille Bedford
This account of a journey taken in the 1950s, rediscovered in the 1980s by Eland Press, encapsulates, for me, the essence of good travel writing. Never shying away from describing the frustrations and discomforts of travel, Sybille Bedford is nonetheless quick as a hummingbird to suck the sweetness from every experience. She confesses she chose Mexico because she wanted "to be in a country with a long nasty history in the past, and as little present history as possible", but it's her stay with Don Otavio, a bankrupt squire living in a backwater, that becomes the highlight. Her hilarious, pithy dialogues are pure genius.
? Isabella Tree's book, Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico, is out now (Tauris Parke, �11.99)

Tahir Shah

Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger
I first read Arabian Sands as a teenager. As I came to the last page, I knew that the course of my life had been altered. Thesiger had taken me on a journey through the fearful void, the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert, and left me desperate to embark on a great journey of my own. Sir Wilfred never intended to write the book. He told me later that he'd spent years with the Bedouin of Rub' al Khali, existing with them on their own terms. Without them, he said, "the journeys would have been a meaningless penance".

A good travel book is a treasury of wisdom that seeps into your blood as you follow the author on their quest. And that's exactly what Arabian Sands achieves so well. It doesn't preach, but allows the reader to gently absorb the essence of the desert. Through fragments of description, the odd random fact, snippet of conversation, or observation, Thesiger conjured the interleaving layers of a bewitching land.
? Tahir Shah's latest book, Travels with Myself (Mosa�que Books, �11.99), is out next month

Michael Jacobs

Exterminate All the Brutes, by Sven Lindqvist
This book inspires by upholding the dignity of the travel genre. Taking its title and principle inspiration from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it is written as a series of short sections entwining the author's diary of a Saharan journey with a devastating thesis on the origins of the Nazi holocaust in 19th-century colonialism. Some might think of it as essentially a tract rather than a travel book. Yet Lindqvist's beautifully sparse accounts of bus journeys and dusty hotels help build up a mood of fear and isolation that enhances the intellectual argument. The book is a necessary reminder of the way travel can open up not only the mind but also the heart.
? Michael Jacobs's latest book is Andes (Granta, �12.99)

Rory MacLean

The Way of the World, by Nicolas Bouvier
Nicolas Bouvier's passionate and exhilarating stories inspired waves of young Europeans on to the road. "I dropped this wonderful moment into the bottom of my memory, like a sheet-anchor that one day I could draw up again," he wrote while travelling across Asia in the early 1950s. "The bedrock of existence is not made up of the family, or work, or what others say and think of you, but of moments like this when you are exalted by a transcendent power that is more serene than love."

Even Patrick Leigh Fermor considered the book a masterpiece. For me, it makes any journey, any traveller's dream, seem possible. Yet be warned, writes Bouvier, you may "think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you, or unmaking you".
? Rory MacLean's new book, Gift of Time: A Family's Diary of Cancer, is out this month (Constable, �12.99)

Kari Herbert

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby
My father's well-loved copy of Eric Newby's classic came to me in the late 1990s. My parents, both accomplished travellers and authors, had spent the past 28 years trying to convince me that I could and should do anything but follow in their footsteps, wanting to spare me the rejection letters and overdrawn bank balances. The gift of Newby's book signalled a change of heart in my father, who then became a fierce advocate for my writing.

It came at just the right moment. Like Newby, I was in a soulless job, desperate for change and adventure. Reading A Short Walk was a revelation. The superbly crafted, eccentric and evocative story of his Afghan travels was like a call to arms. I quit my job, secured a book contract with Penguin, and headed to the Arctic. Newby's book continues to be my endlessly inspiring companion.
? Kari Herbert's latest book, In Search of the South Pole, co-written with Huw Lewis-Jones, is out next month (Anova Conway �20)

Jasper Winn

Bound For Glory, by Woody Guthrie
As a teenager in rural 1970s Ireland, I found books unsettling. From Ernest Hemingway's Fiesta to Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer's Morning, books suggested that "life" lay elsewhere. The puzzling "how" of travel came from Woody Guthrie's Bound For Glory. On his hitchhiking, train-hopping, Model-A Ford-riding adventures through Depression America, Guthrie survived by being a sign-writer, sailor and fruit-picker. And a musician and writer. His songs ranged from ballads to anthems, agit-prop, love lays and lullabies. Bound for Glory was written in a rich, demotic, playful and stirring vocabulary, as if James Joyce and John Steinbeck had collaborated with Kerouac on On The Road. Apparently an ability to turn one's hand to any job and strum a few chords on the guitar was the key to eating and moving, and to romance and romances. And to writing, as well. Within a month of reading Bound for Glory, at 17, I was away with a guitar, a sleeping bag and a notebook.
? Jasper Winn's book, Paddle: A long way around Ireland, is out now (Sort Of Books, �8.99)

John Gimlette

Love and War in the Apennines, by Eric Newby
For sheer charm, there's nothing quite like Eric Newby's Love and War in the Apennines. I first read it years ago, but it's still a favourite. At one level it's a celebration of Italy, and the title says it all (Newby, a POW, escapes to the mountains and, amid many distractions, meets Wanda, and ? well, you'll see). At a more profound level, it's a beautifully philanthropic yet unsentimental work. However miserable the times and awkward the place, Newby's characters are usually endearing, and often complex. That's much how I feel about travel: that it's more about people than places (I'd hate the Antarctic).

Happily, I met Newby once: he was shopping in Stanfords with Wanda. She still spoke the "fractured English" of their first encounter, but they were both as warm and thoughtful in real life as they are in the text. When I clumsily explained that LAWITA was my favourite book, Newby even had the modesty to blush, as if no one had ever told him that before.
? John Gimlette's latest book is Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge (Profile, �15)

William Dalrymple

Paul Theroux

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/sep/16/travel-writers-favourite-books

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The Woman ? review

This bizarre and brutal horror film featuring a Josef Fritzl-style storyline adds a misjudged extra-horror factor to its final minutes

Josef Fritzl meets Tobe Hooper in this bizarre, icily constructed horror film which brutally hammers home its satirical points but adds a misjudged extra horror-factor into the mix in the final 10 minutes. Sean Bridgers plays Chris Cleek, a prosperous provincial lawyer, who within the confines of his idyllic family home, is a horrendous abuser and wife-beater. While hunting in the woods he discovers a semi-naked woman, entirely feral, living wild in the undergrowth; he makes her a prisoner and sexual plaything in his toolshed, for the amusement of his equally loathsome teenage son. The movie skilfully persuades you to believe in this woman, and therefore to be horrified at her fate, but I found that the film's rigour dissolved in the final act.

Rating: 2/5

Peter Bradshaw

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/29/the-woman-review

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Thursday, September 29, 2011

Guide to independent bookshops | Where fiction comes to life

It's the characters, real and imaginary, which inhabit bookshops, that make them such fascinating and inspiring places

In his essay Bookshop Memories, George Orwell tells how his enjoyment of secondhand bookshops was ruined when he worked in one. Such places became "too closely associated ? with paranoiac customers and dead bluebottles". My affection for bookshops has followed a reverse trajectory. I used to dislike bookshops immensely as a child and was won over only later in life.

My great uncle Arthur used to run an independent in my hometown of Penrith. It was tucked away behind the church, next to an old covered market where you could buy anything from saddlery to Sauron's ring. Not exactly prime location given today's high street preferences, but back then bookshops often seemed secluded, almost requiring SAS field skills to find. I liked my uncle. What wasn't to like? He'd been a pilot in the war. He drank whisky from a silver hip flask. And he had a Jack Russell called Patch that would savage my brother's trouser leg, for no discernable reason, every time we went into the shop. We went most Saturdays. My mum was a great reader. She also liked to check that Arthur, who was well into his seventies, and neither a moderate hip flask appreciator nor the tidiest shopkeeper, hadn't been crushed under a teetering stack of encyclopedias.

Despite the appeal of seeing my brother with a small angry dog attached to his trousers, going into the shop made me twitchy. It was a four-storey townhouse, rammed to the rafters with texts, old and new, that I had very little interest in. The ground floor of the building was under siege from clone-like marching legions of paperbacks, the sale of which, presumably, uncle Arthur made a living from. The second floor showcased an array of local literature ? birds, flora and frolicking frogs of Cumbria ? antique maps and paintings of colossal prize-winning Belted Galloway cows. The third floor was a labyrinth of dark oak passageways and shelves containing cracked, embossed spines. There were even some locked glass cases with manuscripts inside. My brother, Patch and I were not allowed to go onto the fourth floor. Lord knows what was kept there. Possibly the whisky stash. Or the Gospel of Christ on his Bike.

And that was the main problem with the place: the books. Books had to be read; they required patience and sitting still, which I hadn't quite mastered. Once broached, books were supposed to contain magical, seditious, sexy worlds and rollocking adventures. Instead they seemed like inanimate objects, withholding and unwelcoming. I was the feral, mud-bathing, tree-climbing variety of child. Why would I want to read about pirates when I could build a raft and terrorise sheep along the riverbanks?

It wasn't just Uncle Arthur's overstuffed townhouse of tomes that made me uncomfortable. Other bookshops had a similar Victorian museo-chaotica format and an atmosphere of funlessness. They were muted and cluttered; people ghosted about the aisles looking suspicious, or sat transfixed over leather-bound folios in shabby, odorous horsehair armchairs. There were squeaky rotating wire racks with comic books inside, designed so that children would have to commit noise if they were to get at anything readable. Sometimes, enthusiastically hushed conversations could be overheard between customers and vendors about compelling dramas, wonderful characters or suspenseful plots. Yet all the excitement and activity remained off stage. It took place in closed, papery worlds. Bookshops, it seemed, were a front. They reeked of dust and duplicity, like the kind of quietly suggestive, slightly sinister compound beneath which a government might house a missile silo.

Orwell's problem was with the customers. His litany of undesirables runs as follows: "The kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop ? the dear old lady who 'wants a book for an invalid' ? and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy ? she doesn't remember the title or the author's name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover ? There are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money."

The author assures us that being employed in such a place is not a charming or utopian occupation. "They" ? that is, the purchasers, browsers and variously annoying members of the public ? spoil everything.

It was only when I started working in a bookshop in a Civil War town during my stint in America that I actually began to like them. It was the characters frequenting Rockbridge Books that made the job interesting. My favourite customer was an elderly lady who lived in a big wooden mansion at the top of the town. She carried a white parasol and always wore gloves, even in the humid Virginian summer. On her porch was a 12-pound howitzer, which was loaded and aimed at the mansion of the neighbour opposite with whom she'd had a 30-year feud. He was from New York. One day she might feel "inspired to fire", she said. Every week she managed to track down a newly released Civil War history or biography of Traveller, General Robert E Lee's horse, to order. She also kept buying Roald Dahl stories for her grandchildren, reading, then returning them, due to their "vi-owlant" content (grandparent-shrinking potions and so on). In her mind, these activities were entirely reconcilable.

The store had a more mysterious guest too. It became apparent, after several reimbursements had to be made to disappointed customers, that someone was using a black marker pen to score out sexual references and obscenities in novels from the bestsellers section. The books were removed, censored and repositioned, presumably as some kind of moral public service. Although I spent hours patrolling the racks, I never apprehended any criminal in the act of defacement. After a while, the staff began speculating that there was a puritanical spectre abroad ? a walk-in from the Baptist graveyard next door, perhaps.

But oddness was not limited to the patrons and spooks. One of my co-workers had some kind of feline sleep disorder. She had to take catnaps every two hours, which she would do while curled up on newspapers spread on the office floor. The door had to be left open because of her claustrophobia. Customers would occasionally pause to look in, then approach the front desk and ask whether I knew that there was a dead woman in the office. She would rouse herself 10 minutes later and come back to work with the local headlines ? Pervert Santa Trapped in Walmart Cubicle ? printed on her face.

The owner was obliged to be accommodating, probably because her son was possessed by demons. He would arrive at the store after school, with fluorescent evil leaking from his nose, and insist on helping with the returns. This would involve locating the store cat, called, rather beautifully for the purpose of this article, Orwell, forcibly shoving it into a cardboard box ? the kid was immune to mercy meows and claws ? and taping the lid shut. He would then narrate the sad story of how the cat became trapped in the taped-up hissing box. Fortunately for us, and unlike most serial killers, he did not graduate to the imprisonment and torture of humans.

Eccentric behaviour was, if anything, encouraged at Rockbridge Books. I had a head start. I was English. Virtually everything I said sounded bonkers to the native ear. And it was while I was working there that my first novel was bought. This was a surprise to everyone, not least me. I'd sent away a rather rustic manuscript, which I was sure would be tossed from the window of that elegant London publishing house amid gales of laughter. The novel wasn't being published in America, but that didn't stop me sticking a printout of the cover design over a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and admiring it in the bestsellers section. Shortly afterwards, the Baptist ghost went to town on JK Rowling's occult musings. Working at Rockbridge Books was, most days, like being in a Southern Gothic novel. That's why I liked it so much.

Orwell (the author, not the cat) complained that there was an absence of truly bookish people frequenting bookshops. But I wonder what constitutes a bookish person. Isn't it simply someone who has a peculiar enthusiasm for books?

Wonderful characters rotate around and through bookshops on a daily basis, competing with and possibly even triumphing over fiction when it comes to entertainment, strangeness and inspiration. And, although I do still enjoy a spot of mud bathing and tree climbing, I'm now an aficionado of such places. When I moved back to Cumbria, one of the first things I did was locate a decent bookshop. My favourite is Bookcase in Carlisle. It's ? wait for it ? a four-storey Regency townhouse, gorged to the gills with previously enjoyed (or not) paperbacks, antique maps, local nature compendiums and leather-bound volumes. The owner, Steve, is very compliant. He simply hands me the key to the antiquarian room whenever I arrive so I can lock myself in with the first editions, the fat cow portraits and the frolicking frogs.

Sarah Hall's collection of short stories, The Beautiful Indifference, will be published by Faber & Faber in November. sarahhallauthor.com

Sarah Hall

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/30/fiction-comes-to-life

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Weather records tumble as Britons head for the beach

On the hottest 29 September on record, only the shopkeepers are unhappy

Temperature records are tumbling with each creep of the mercury, seaside hoteliers are smiling skywards and high-street retailers are muttering darkly into their tills as Britain continues to bask in what everyone but the forecasters has taken to calling an Indian summer.

Today's high of 28C (82F) in Northholt, west London, broke the record for 29 September ? recorded in York in 1895 ? and the Met Office is predicting similar temperatures tomorrow, making the 27.8C noted in Maidenhead on 30 September 1908 look equally vulnerable.

The weekend, meanwhile, could see parts of the UK basking in temperatures of 29C, making Hampshire as hot as Havana and Margate sultrier than Mexico City.

The unseasonably warm weather ? which is likely to send thousands scuttling to the coast, rivers and parks on Saturday and Sunday ? is more than 10C higher than the average temperature for the end of September.

Helen Chivers, a Met Office forecaster, said 29C was possible tomorrow but warned that things would start to cool slightly by the end of the weekend.

"Most parts of the UK are going to continue to enjoy warm sunshine all the way through until Sunday," she said. "Temperatures in many places on Friday will be between 25C and 27C, with the possibility of 28C or 29C in eastern areas. It will be very similar on Saturday.

"Going into Sunday, a band of cloud and rain will start to move in. We should hold on to some very warm weather in the south, but by the time we get to Sunday temperatures will probably be around 25C to 26C."

The prolonged warm spell, Chivers said, was down to the high pressure across the UK, which was stopping the Atlantic weather system from bringing in cloud and rain.

The Met Office also pointed out that the high temperatures did not technically constitute an Indian summer, which it defines as a "warm, calm spell in the autumn, especially in October and November".

Summer's last rays have delighted seaside businesses, which have endured a wet and miserable few months. The Travelodge hotel chain has reported record occupancy levels for the weekend, with a "stampede of bookings", particularly at seaside towns such as Blackpool, Bournemouth, Brighton, Scarborough, Torquay, Morecambe, Great Yarmouth, Bangor in Wales, Eastbourne and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

A spokesman said: "We have seen a double digit increase in bookings for Friday, so it looks like a lot of Britons will be taking the day off work to bask in the sunshine."

In Bournemouth, tourist bosses have had to hire extra beach wardens to cope with the number of visitors who are expected to flock to the beaches. More than 90% of the town's 16,000 hotel rooms have been booked for the weekend and, with most of the 3,500 deckchairs and 600 beach huts being hired out and long queues at ice cream stalls, the resort is running at peak summer levels.

"It is fantastic to see so many people enjoying themselves on the beach and lapping up this late burst of sun," said Andrew Emery, the Bournemouth seafront manager.

Others, though, are less than thrilled by the heatwave. Shopowners, who are still struggling to cope with the consumer spending squeeze, would rather see people pounding windswept high streets than sandy beaches.

"Retailers need cold autumnal weather," said Nick Bubb, a retail analyst at Arden Partners. "It's a big problem at a time when consumers don't feel like spending anyway."

Bubb has downgraded his second quarter forecast for Marks & Spencer's sales of general merchandise ? which includes clothing ? in light of the weather outlook.

"It is fair to say M&S will sell a lot of barbecue and picnic fare but that is unlikely to make up for all the coats and jumpers that M&S won't have been selling this week," he said.

Bubb added that out-of-town-shopping centres would be feeling the pinch, as potential shoppers don't feel like driving in the heat.

The most recent official figures from the Office for National Statistics showed sales volumes falling 0.2% in August, as the impact of the English riots added to the wider malaise swamping the sector.

Elsewhere, some councils have been looking beyond the heatwave towards what could be another snowy winter. Plymouth city council said that because of damage caused by the last two harsh winters, its seven gritters would be on standby from this weekend to keep the city's main roads open should it snow in the next six months.Sutton council is preparing to hand out 10kg (22lb) of free grit to residents to use on footpaths, pavements or roads in front of their homes when winter sets in.

"It might seem a little strange to be handing out the free grit already, particularly when we're enjoying an Indian summer, but we have to be prepared," said a councillor, Simon Wales.

In Wiltshire, meanwhile, the residents of Longleat safari park have been getting to grips with a different kind of ice: parched monkeys and giraffes have received emergency rations of fruit ice lollies. Wardens spent five days making the frozen cocktails of bananas, apples and oranges in June, but thought they would have to consign them to the freezers after a wet July and one of the coldest Augusts on record.

Yesterday, however, the keepers began to deck the boughs with rows of lollies. "Staff had given up hope of the weather warming up enough to hang out the treats," said deputy head keeper Ian Turner.

"But due to the lovely warm weather, the animals have been queuing up to cool down."

Sam Jones

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/29/records-tumble-britons-head-beach

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Rolls-Royce points to lack of women studying science and maths

Firm gives its reasons for difficulty in hiring senior female staff

Rolls-Royce blamed the lack of women studying science, technology, engineering and maths as the reason for its difficulty in hiring senior female staff as it published an update on the Lord Davies review on women in boardrooms.

Although Davies, the former chairman of Standard Chartered, stepped back from recommending mandatory quotas in his report in February, he said FTSE 100 companies should aim for their boards to be 25% female by 2015.

Rolls-Royce, singled out by Labour leader Ed Miliband this week as a "good" company, issued a stock market announcement to say that it would seek to increase its boardroom diversity by 2015.

While it did not spell it out in the statement, its 14-strong board contains one woman ? Helen Alexander, the president of the CBI, who has made it clear that she does not support the idea of quotas.

Sir Simon Robertson, Rolls-Royce chairman, said the company was "committed to improving diversity at all levels of leadership ? and to making appointments based on merit at the most senior levels of our organisation".

He added: "We will take opportunities to increase boardroom diversity and will seek to make demonstrable progress towards this goal by 2015."

It is believed that 11% of Rolls-Royce apprentices are women which compares with data from the Royal Academy of Engineering which says they make up only 6% of engineering staff across the UK.

The company did not provide details of the ratio of female staff at lower ranks but said the "demographic profile of those participating in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects and careers continues to present challenges in this area, and requires a long-term and holistic response".

The most recent official data from the higher education statistics agency, covers 2009/10. It shows that 39% of maths students in higher education are women and 63% of those studying biological sciences are women. The proportion studying engineering and technology is 15%.

Robertson said: "We continue to work actively with schools and universities to encourage diversity, including gender diversity, among those taking STEM subjects and we are taking a number of steps to ensure that females have every opportunity to maximise their potential in our organisation."

Davies called on the chairmen of FTSE 350 companies to publish "aspirational goals" for boardroom diversity within six months of his February report.

The Association of British Insurers published a report this week showing that Davies was having an impact, albeit slow, on boardroom diversity. The investor group said that of all the non-executive directors appointed in 2011, 22.7% were women in the FTSE 100 and 17% in the FTSE 250. This helped the number of women in FTSE 100 boardrooms increase from 13.4% in 2010 to 14.2% in 2011.

The ABI called for improved disclosure as it said that only 19% of companies in the blue chip index had provided a "material statement" on boardroom diversity.

Jill Treanor

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/29/rolls-royce-and-hiring-senior-women

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Student diary: taking financial control

Throughout the academic year our anonymous blogger will be telling us about managing their money, mulling over the pitfalls and temptations of student life, and seeking your advice on the best ways to make ends meet

Next week I start university at Warwick. The school talk about student finance seems a long time ago ? it was way back in February and for some reason they scheduled it for a Friday afternoon, following a week of tedious lessons when I was not prepared to absorb a pre-rehearsed, monotonous speech. Rather, my mind kept drifting towards freshers' fortnight ? partying, joining societies, meeting people and embracing some newly found independence.

I remember being advised to apply for my student loan as early as possible to avoid missing the deadline, or not having it processed in time. However, trying to recall information from that talk was difficult. I could feel myself panicking as I tried to fill in the forms and include all the correct details. Fortunately I could ask my older sister for assistance who had been there, done that. What a relief when that was completed and I could go back to my academic bubble where I felt most comfortable.

The next job was a bank account. This was where I was dragged into NatWest by my darling mother to open my student account. I thought this would be a quick process, where I would be in and out within 10 minutes. How wrong I was ? I was already distracted by the adviser's hair and thick accent; and then to be thrown information about a savings account, a credit card and an insurance policy, on top of the actual current account, really overwhelmed me. The small print in the terms and conditions was also a worry, and I felt like I was agreeing to a contract that I wasn't mentally ready for.

Following my trip to the bank I have received a constant stream of letters with activation codes, passwords and leaflets for several types of accounts. My purse is brimming with numerous cards and I feel like a business woman. That's on the outside anyway; on the inside I feel anxious about remembering which account is which, and I wish it was all a little simpler. One thing I was looking forward to receiving was a student railcard. Oh the disappointment when I discovered that NatWest has scrapped that benefit.

As my start date has approached, any excitement about freshers' fortnight has sadly begun to vanish, and qualms about the safety of my laptop and how much money to spend on my weekly shopping have taken its place. What if I overspend? NatWest's answer to that is a piece of plastic, also known as a credit card.

There are countless items to buy before I even start, from laptop accessories to clothes, to stationery to ridiculously expensive politics books, and of course my freshers' pass ? a �55 ticket to every freshers' event in the first two weeks of term.

However, there were only so many times I could use the "I got great results, can you buy this for me?" line on my mother, before she answered back with "I am not a fool, get it yourself". But it was not my fault my maintenance loan has not come through yet ? it isn't due until the beginning of October.

But perhaps I am worrying too much. I have managed my finances rather well when money has been given to me in the past, so I should be able to cope with the virtual money that is now circling around.

Of course, the worries of budgeting at university will always be lingering in my mind. But I'm sure after an immense fortnight of freshers' activities I'll be slightly more prepared to face budgeting like a true student ? impulsive and unplanned.

I would, though, be grateful for your advice as I go along. As I start at university, perhaps you could give me your top tips for making my money last as long as possible.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2011/sep/29/diary-of-student-financial-control

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