Just 14 games into the season, they’re already 3 1/2 games back of the mo. 10 seed in the Eastern Conference.
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Mayor Adams’ key ‘City of Yes’ initiative inches closer — with $5B pledge, NYC Council concessions
The City Council approved Mayor Eric Adams' controversial sweeping housing plan in down-to-the-wire votes after a $5 billion funding promise from Hizzoner and conceding a handful of tweaks.
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Matt Gaetz withdraws as Trumpâs nominee for attorney general after reports emerged that he slept with a 17 year old girl
US conservative firЛікарі пояснили, чи може діабет стати «дверима» до інших хвороб
0 Коли організм не отримує необхідні макро – і мікроелементи, він стає вразливим до хвороб. Ні для кого не секрет, що однією з основних причин діабету другого типу є нездорове харчування, яке призводить до підвищення рівня цукру. Вживання занадто великої кількості солодощів і недостатньої кількості овочів може також каталізувати інші смертельні захворювання, такі як рак […]The nation’s favourite Christmas films revealed – as new survey digs into families festive viewing habits
THE nation’s favourite Christmas films have just been revealed, as a new survey dug into the festive viewing habits of families across the country.
Many viewers tune into the likes of BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 to watch the highly-anticipated schedules.
However, it seems that many love to watch a festive-themed film as the year draws to a close.
A new survey suggested that three in 10 adults believe it is perfectly acceptable to start watching Christmas films by 25 November.
Some even watch their favourite rom-coms all year-round in their homes.
A poll of 2,000 people who celebrate Christmas found that 77 per cent of people think that festive flicks are not just for December.
Almost one in four (24 per cent) said that watching Christmas films was their favourite holiday tradition.
32 per cent of those asked admitted that it’s the ultimate way to feel festive, as well as emotions such as happiness (46 per cent) or nostalgia (45 per cent).
Home Alone, Love Actually, and A Christmas Carol all made it high up the list of the 10 best family festive movies ever made.
The research was commissioned by Disney+ as part of the launch of the new Home Alone Experience.
Fans of the beloved film franchise can now experience three rooms that were directly inspired by the infamous McCallister household.
Every nostalgic detail meticulously thought of as visitors will be transported straight back to Chicago in the 90s where the film is set.
Nearly half (46 per cent) of the poll respondents were able to quote scenes from their favourite Christmas movie verbatim.
The survey also found other festive traditions that the UK likes to embrace every year and Secret Santa gifts are at the top of the list.
According to the figures by OnePoll.com, 28 per cent of those polled said baking, whilst others said they liked making their own decorations (17 per cent).
In addition to enjoying festive film nights, 24 per cent say they love to have festive photo shoots with their friends and family.
Top 10 Favourite Christmas movies:
- Home Alone (28 per cent)
- Love Actually (17 per cent)
- A Christmas Carol (16 per cent)
- Home Alone 2 (16 per cent)
- Die Hard (15 per cent)
- Elf (15 per cent)
- It’s a Wonderful Life (14 per cent)
- The Snowman (14 per cent)
- Miracle on 34th Street (11 per cent)
- The Holiday (11 per cent)
This is as 22 per cent of people apparently treasure the chance to don matching pyjamas or jumpers for the occasion.
This trend is especially popular with younger generations, who are ditching traditional Christmas cards in favour of sharing festive snaps online.
36 per cent also say that social media photos have become their go-to for seasonal greetings among 18-34-year-olds.
The Home Alone trilogy, along with many other festive favourites, are available to stream now on Disney+.
Army of 5,300 new brickies will be trained to build 1.5m homes thanks to £140m funding
THOUSANDS of new brickies will be trained to build millions of homes thanks to £140million of funding.
In a win for The Sun’s Builder Better Britain campaign, 5,300 additional youngsters will be offered jobs across the industry.
The “army of apprentices” will help to deliver the Government’s aim of developing 1.5million new homes by the end of this parliament.
A new scheme will see the Department for Education partner with further education colleges and industry to create 32 new Homebuilding Skills Hubs, which will serve as fast-track training grounds for apprentices.
Brickies-to-be will be able to complete skilled construction courses within 12 to 18 months — half that of traditional programs.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson hailed our “bang on” campaign to train home-grown builders rather than rely on cheap migrant labour.
She warned Britain had not been prioritising apprenticeships.
And she blasted out-of-touch Whitehall decision makers for having “forgotten the value of skilled trades” and “looked down on apprentices”.
Writing in The Sun she said: “We won’t just be building houses. We’ll be building better futures for our young people.
“The Sun gets it — their Builder Better Britain campaign is bang on. I believe we can get back to the golden age of housebuilding.”
In 1968, apprentices helped build more than 350,000 homes. But now an “archaic” planning system has helped send new home numbers plummeting.
'Build that better future'
By Bridget Phillipson, Education Secretary
WE used to be a house building country. A nation that took pride in building homes for families, with the skilled workforce to see that through.
In 1968 we built more than 350,000 homes in England.
But by 2023 that had fallen by a third.
We’ve become a country where growing more builders, more brickies, more chippies, just hasn’t been a priority. A country where trades just haven’t been taken seriously.
And the cost has been massive. Every house not built is a home not lived in, a family’s dream not realised. And too many families have been forced to give up on that dream of buying a good home.
Being able to afford a decent home, somewhere to raise a family and build a life, shouldn’t just be a dream.
I know, as Sun readers know, it should be a right.
So this new government will get Britain building again, delivering 1.5 million new homes for families, in every corner of the country.
But if we are going to do this, we need to take skills seriously again.
We’ve forgotten the value of skilled trades to this country. We’ve ignored technical training. We’ve looked down on apprenticeships.
The last government need to look in the mirror. Again and again, I warned them that the number of youngsters starting apprenticeships was dropping, and what was their response? A shrug of the shoulders.
Now we’re all paying the price – missing the skilled workforce to build the new homes this country desperately needs.
But that changes now. A homebuilding revolution calls for a skills revolution.
So we are partnering with FE colleges and industry to create 32 new Homebuilding Skills Hubs and deliver fast-track construction apprenticeships across England to get construction moving as quickly as we can: there’s no time to waste.
A new army of apprentices will help build homes and turbocharge the government’s growth mission – backed by £140m of industry investment.
Our new skills hubs will deliver special fast-track apprenticeships in just over a year, half the time of a traditional construction apprenticeship. The Construction Industry Training Board and the National House-Building Council will make sure these new builders are up to scratch.
More than 5,000 new construction apprenticeship places will be made available, delivering growth for our economy and good jobs for our young people.
And good jobs mean good pay – so we’re boosting apprentice wages from next year. An 18-year-old construction apprentice will see their minimum hourly pay increase by 18%.
Working hand in hand with a new body we’ve set up, Skills England, we’ll pinpoint local skills gaps, moving support to where it’s needed most. That’s how we make sure we have the right skills to build the right homes in the right places.
But we won’t just be building homes. We’ll be building better futures for our young people. Building a better Britain. The Sun gets it – their Builder Better Britain campaign is bang on.
But to build that better future, first we’ve got to look back and learn from our mistakes. Because there was a time in our past when this country properly valued skills, when skilled workers got the respect they deserve, when building homes was a national priority, not an afterthought.
I believe we can get back to the golden age of homebuilding. That’s why we’re backing our young people with thousands more apprenticeships. To get Britain building again, to get Britain growing again, and to deliver the good homes that every family deserves.
Horse racing tips: Templegate’s NAP powered like a Rolls Royce last time and can bolt up again despite 7lbs extra
TEMPLEGATE goes through the cards for Friday confident of firing in winners.
Back a horse by clicking their odds below.
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AURIGNY MILL (2.40 Ascot, nap)
Looked a different horse on debut for Robert Walford at Newbury earlier this month. He travelled like a Rolls-Royce before powering home to score by ten lengths. A 7lb walk up the weights won’t be enough to stop him if he’s in similar form.
JOYEUSE (1.30 Ascot, nb)
Is bred to be a champion as a half-sister to superstar Epatante. She jumped nicely on her Taunton debut and Nicky Henderson has won the past three runnings of this decent contest.
LOVERDOSE (3.25 Chepstow, treble)
Has improved in winning both his handicap hurdle starts. He had a bit left when scoring around here latest and the booking of Harry Cobden is an eyecatcher.
JUST OVER LAND (1.05 Chepstow)
Is consistent and came back from six months off to finish a close second on chase debut at Ffos Las. The third home has scored since so the form looks solid enough.
Templegate’s Tips
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Adam Clayton on complicated creation of U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb ahead of anniversary release
AROUND the turn of the Millennium, U2 were ready for a reset.
Since forming at school, the four likely lads from Dublin’s Northside had scaled dizzying heights to become the world’s biggest band.
But Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr wanted to recapture the free-wheeling, rabble-rousing spirit of their early days.
This process began with their tenth studio album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, released in 2000 and best remembered for euphoric lead single Beautiful Day.
For album No11, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, they were looking to take things a stage further — to strip their music back and to rock out.
“We were hitting our forties,” bassist Clayton says today, before adding with a knowing smile, “which is still a very vibrant, masculine moment!
“As a band at the peak of its powers, playing well together, our aim was to go into a room and command that room with just a few primary colours.”
To get in the mood, singer Bono listened to unvarnished, guitar-driven records by the bands who had inspired him in the first place — The Who, The Clash and Buzzcocks.
When it came to recording, U2 turned to producer Chris Thomas, the man who had added fuel to the fire of punk’s most iconic album, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.
On paper, Thomas seemed like the perfect choice but, as you probably know, this is a band that “moves in mysterious ways”.
It took Steve Lillywhite, producer of their first three albums, Boy, October and War, to apply necessary rocket boosters to send their studio efforts into orbit.
Speaking via Zoom from the Irish capital, the genial Clayton gives me some first-hand insights into the complicated creation of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.
If Lillywhite gets most of the production credits, Thomas is also recognised, as are other U2 associates Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Jacknife Lee.
The finished article contains what Clayton calls “four very strong songs — Vertigo, City Of Blinding Lights, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own and All Because Of You”.
Twenty years on, we also have a worthy companion album, How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb, ten discarded tracks from the sessions finally brought kicking and screaming into the light.
It includes Luckiest Man In The World, originally known as Mercy but given new lyrics and melody by Bono, and regarded by Clayton as “a great song”.
“I have a feeling that one will be in our live set,” he says. “It didn’t fit with what we were trying to do at the time, but I’m so glad it’s out there now.”
We also have the thrilling punk blast of Country Mile and three other previously unheard songs, Happiness, Evidence Of Life and Treason.
The newly remastered out-take Picture Of You (X+W) bears the telling lines: “I’m going nowhere, where I am, it is a lot of fun/There in the desert to dismantle an atomic bomb.”
Clayton returns to the story of the sessions: “Chris Thomas cut his teeth engineering The Beatles, made the legendary Never Mind The Bollocks and did some wonderful records with Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders.
‘Various reprobates would gather’
“By the time we got to know him, he’d also done a lot of good records with INXS, so he straddled different eras.”
U2 had been friends with mercurial INXS singer Michael Hutchence right up until the Aussie’s untimely death in 1997.
Bono and Hutchence were neighbours in the south of France, near Nice — that’s where Thomas came in.
Clayton says: “We had known Chris for a while. We would bump into him during summers in France when various reprobates would gather.”
During those balmy days under the Mediterranean sun, there were informal chats with Thomas “about the record we wanted to make”.
It was these that led U2 to “setting off on a course with him”.
But, and it’s a big BUT, things didn’t quite work out as planned, as Clayton explains.
“In U2, we have a rather strange methodology, which is: Just when you think a track is finished, we go off and rewrite it!
“Chris wasn’t used to this. Quite reasonably, he thought a record should take six weeks at most.
“When we were heading into the third month, he found it very difficult to concentrate.
“At that point, he said, ‘Look, I’m not sure I’m the right person. You Irish guys are a bit too crazy!’”
There’s something about those searing guitar riffs. They’re eternal.
Adam Clayton
The band turned to Steve Lillywhite, who Clayton recalls being “very helpful and very sensible”.
“He listened to what we had, particularly the track we were putting most energy into — the one which became Vertigo.”
First known as Native Son, the song served as a homage to Leonard Peltier, a Native American incarcerated for murder in 1975 and long the subject of miscarriage of justice campaigns.
“For us, it was a complex lyrical matter,” says Clayton. “It wasn’t really working and Steve called it.
“He said, ‘Do a better backing track and then we’ll play it to Bono’. He had been doing other work, but when he heard what we’d done he was very excited.
“Bono said, ‘Give me a mic’. And the bones of Vertigo happened right there.”
Suddenly, “everything clicked into place” and U2 had a storming, straight-ahead anthem to kick off their new album, exactly what they had been aiming for.
Clayton says: “We’ve always loved the idea making rock and roll 45s and Vertigo fits into that, as does Beautiful Day.
“They are the holy grail of tunes for us. They’re fun to play and audiences love them.
“There’s something about those searing guitar riffs. They’re eternal.”
If Vertigo is a three-minute adrenalin rush that Clayton describes as “invincible”, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On You Own is just as intense but in a very different way.
‘Difficult relations with our fathers’
Spanning nearly five minutes, the searing power ballad bears a towering Bono vocal and some of his most heartfelt lyrics.
Originally with the working title Tough after the song’s first word, it is about the singer’s troubled relationship with his father Bob Hewson, who died of cancer in 2001.
Clayton well remembers how the song resonated with the rest of the band.
“Bono’s father had been very, very sick,” he says. “Probably with the exception of Edge, we’re a band of men who had difficult relationships with our fathers.
“Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own contemplates the loss of a very big figure in a very big figure’s life. It is poignant and powerful.
“You don’t need to dig very deep before you realise what Bono was working with.
“I’ve always responded to the universality of a lyric. But, because I know Bono and because we’ve been together for so long, I’m very aware of where he pulls his references from.
“For me, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own was him being that small boy again, that 14-year-old looking at his father who was struggling with the loss of his wife.”
Clayton is referring to the death of Bono’s mother, Iris, which had a devastating effect on the singer’s whole family.
When Bono writes, he’s never looking for sympathy.
Adam Clayton
She is remembered in several U2 songs, including I Will Follow and Iris (Hold Me Close).
But Clayton adds: “When Bono writes, he’s never looking for sympathy. Rather like a method actor, he’s saying, ‘I need to examine this emotion and express it.’”
The bassist suggests that no matter who you are, rock stars in their ivory towers included, life can be tough.
He says: “The thing that’s dropping into my vision nowadays is realising that nobody escapes heartache, disappointment, vulnerability. We’re all built the same.”
This brings us to another key song from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, City Of Blinding Lights, which, says Clayton, had a difficult birth.
“It was originally conceived on piano but we had to shift everything into guitar mode. It was hard to make it work.”
Then he adds with due modesty: “Once we had, dare I say it, the bass part, which drives it, everything slotted into place.”
City Of Blinding Lights, a U2 live staple, achieved wider recognition when it was used by Barack Obama during his presidential campaigns.
Clayton questions whether a song being used in a political context “is a good badge of honour” but adds: “It must have connectivity — and that means something.”
‘To succeed, you needed no plan B’
Bono’s lyrics reflect on lost innocence but, suggests his bandmate: “It is written to the audience and also to a city. The city of blinding lights is probably New York.”
We move on to a wider discussion about the influences swirling around How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.
Of its post-punk vibe, Clayton says: “As teenagers in 1976/77, there was a lot of anger in the air. That was our go-to position, where we came from, our music.”
Clayton acknowledges that in the years leading up to How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, “We made our music more complicated — to take us away from the mainstream maybe.
“A lot of Edge’s more lyrical guitar parts were coming from a place of otherness.
“On this record, we were interested in pushing him to turn off the echo machine and play the power chord.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to get him to do that,” he adds, before adding with a smirk, “because he doesn’t have that sort of anger in him!”
Clayton sees the two albums, Dismantle and Re-Assemble, as something of a last hurrah for old-school recording techniques.
“Compared with 20 years ago, music today is made in an entirely different way.
It’s a different sound, not that of four men forging a future for themselves.
Adam Clayton
“Back then, records were based on people in a room, playing instruments together.
“Now that’s become uneconomical. Artists are in their bedrooms or home studios, creating music alone, and that is being streamed.
“It’s a different sound, not that of four men forging a future for themselves.”
Clayton says that when U2 started out in the late Seventies, “the best way for a band to succeed was desperation. To have no plan B.
“You had no choice but to keep going forward because your life depended on it.
“By the time you got a record deal and a bit of money, the next thing you had to do was play a whole load of tiny, s***ty little bars and clubs.”
Before the ever-insightful Clayton and I go our separate ways, I ask him for an update on drummer Larry Mullen Jr. who missed U2’s groundbreaking shows at the state-of-the-art Sphere in Las Vegas because of “drumming-related” injuries.
“He’s back on his stool,” replies Clayton. “Look, we are a little bit like athletes, but have a longer shelf life.
“Larry’s body had taken a battering over the years and his primary issue was pain.
“He’s finally feeling much better and is very enthusiastic about playing again.”
And what of the future of U2? “I feel, I hope not mistakenly, that we still have a lot to give,” answers Clayton.
“No matter where our lives have led us, the constant is mucking about in a studio, creating music together.
“That is the greatest reward.”
U2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (20th anniversary editions with How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb)
★★★★☆
Alex Ovechkin’s record chase put on hold by fractured fibula in Capitals injury crusher
One of the NHL's biggest stars will be out for a significant period of time.
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