Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.* Monday's BBC strike won't just be a nightmare for the director general, Mark Thompson, it will also leave his best-known newsmen with a tricky dilemma: whether to cross the picket line and go into work.
* Monday's BBC strike won't just be a nightmare for the director general, Mark Thompson, it will also leave his best-known newsmen with a tricky dilemma: whether to cross the picket line and go into work.
Last night it emerged that the Today programme will be pulled, after its regular presenters - John Humphrys, Edward Stourton, Jim Naughtie and Sarah Montague - said they weren't prepared to be branded "scabs".
Meanwhile Newsnight was hanging in the balance, after Jeremy Paxman and Gavin Esler indicated that they too would support strike action. Kirsty Wark told Pandora that she wouldn't be appearing on Monday's show.
News bulletins are also in disarray. Anna Ford the lunchtime news presenter, said she wasn't scheduled to work, but added: "I'm not on duty on Monday, but don't like crossing a picket line."
The political editor Andrew Marr - who recently landed a plum new job in David Frost's soon-to-be-vacated chair - said: "I'm not in the union and don't approve of the strike but I won't be working because I don't want to let down my colleagues."
With other big jobs up for grabs in the next couple of months, a few ambitious hacks are still keeping their cards close to their chest.
Newsreaders Huw Edwards and George Alagiah didn't respond to Pandora's inquiries yesterday, and neither did Nicholas Witchell, who upset colleagues by reading the news during a strike in 1989.
* It's a celebrity football crimewave. First Frank Lampard's Chelsea home gets burgled by Fulham fans, now Nigel Kennedy's favourite violins, decorated in Aston Villa colours, have been pinched from his tour bus.
The three electric instruments, worth £25,000, were pinched from Kennedy's trailer on Sunday, after he had performed in the petty crime hotspot of Liverpool.
"It's a bit of a downer," he tells me. "I feel bereft. The violins weren't insured or nothing, and have probably been sold in exchange for a fix of whatever drugs those cats were on."
Kennedy says it'll take three years for replacements to be made by the Birmingham supplier, Violectra.
In the meantime, he's going into battle at Ronnie Scott's this weekend with an alternative fiddle.
"I normally perform my set with four violins, but now I'm making do with just one, which I had with me when the trailer was robbed," he adds. "My band is using hired instruments."
* What with supporting Norwich City, you'd have thought Delia Smith would have all the time in the world for charity cases.
Strange, then, to discover that - despite being asked to submit a recipe - Delia is one of the few celebrity chefs absent from East Meets West, a charity cookbook raising money for victims of the tsunami.
Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and almost 40 other culinary superstars are in the book. But no Delia. Surely she wasn't too mean to get involved?
"Not exactly," say the publishers. "We asked for help several months ago, but heard nothing, so presumed she didn't want to. Then on Tuesday - after the book had been printed - she replied, saying we could nick a recipe off her internet site. Looks like she only replies to letters once the footie season's over."
* Take cover, Dara O'Briain! The Irish comic is the latest high-profile addition to Peter Tatchell's hit list.
In a move that puts him in the company of Robert Mugabe and Osama bin Laden, O'Briain has been targeted by Tatchell's OutRage! group, after cracking a "homophobic" joke about Elton John on Have I Got News For You. During a discussion about the Billy Elliot musical, which Elton scored, O'Briain joked: "Elton sees a little bit of himself in Billy."
Outrage! are, well, outraged. "Jokes that tap into prejudices that cast all gay people as sexual predators and a threat to children are dangerous and irresponsible," they say.
O'Briain won't comment. The BBC - rather oddly, given HIGNFY's spontaneous format - tell me the joke was supplied by a team of writers.
* For a multi-millionaire, Chris Martin is peculiarly uncomfortable with capitalism, using a press conference in New York on Monday to claim: "Shareholders are the greatest evil of this modern world".
The Coldplay singer and his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, are not exactly living on the breadline, so - unless they invest their assets in a vast shoebox at their £3.2m Belsize Park mansion - must surely be customers of the very financial institutions Martin claims to loathe.
Yesterday, we asked Martin's personal spokesman - an employee of the global corporate giant EMI - to square this circle. He would say only: "We don't expect or want our rock stars to be stockbrokers." As to what Martin does with his hard-earned millions: "I'm not getting into that."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments