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Terry Jones called off book-burning after alleged deal to move New York Islamic centre further away from Ground Zero, which Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf denies

The Florida pastor who threatened to burn copies of the Qur'an has suspended the plan in the face of condemnation by Barack Obama, the Pentagon, the state department and international outrage.

Although he had initially announced that the bookburning was cancelled, he later said the plan was only "suspended" because he was "lied to" over a deal to call off the event in exchange for a promise to move a planned Islamic centre away from New York's Ground Zero.

Terry Jones, who heads the Dove World Outreach Centre church in Gainesville, Florida, claimed he was not bowing to the pressure from the White House and abroad but had taken the decision because of the agreement. However, it emerged last night that Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, had phoned Jones and asked him not carry out his threat.

Jones also claimed he was planning to fly to New York to discuss the proposed cultural centre's new location with the New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

But the imam, in a statement issued last night, said he had not spoken to Jones.

"I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qur'ans. However, I have not spoken to Pastor Jones," he said. "I am surprised by their announcement. We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter."

There was a collective sigh of relief worldwide as Jones announced at a press conference that he was dropping his plan to set fire to 20 copies of the Qur'an. The burning had been planned to coincide with the ninth anniversary tomorrow of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Interpol, the Pentagon and others warned that such an act would provoke violent acts around the world by outraged Muslims. There were protests in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries yesterday at the proposed burning.

As tensions mounted, claims emerged from Germany that Jones was dismissed from a church he founded there after accusations that he mistreated his followers.

Jones showed signs of being unnerved by the mounting pressure on Wednesday and hinted at a climbdown. In an interview with USA Today, he said he was rethinking the plan and would do so more seriously if Obama or anyone else from the government was to approach him directly.

But the White House refused to contact him directly, suggesting that if the president engaged with a pastor with a flock numbering about 30, copycats might be encouraged. Interviewed on breakfast TV yesterday before the cancellation, President Obama spoke of "a recruitment bonanza" for al-Qaida. "This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities," he told ABC's Good Morning America show.

The only unresolved issue is Jones's claim of a deal with Muslims in New York. Jones told reporters: "The imam has agreed to move the mosque, we have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday." He was accompanied by Imam Muhammad Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. He added: "I, with [Musri], will be flying up [to New York] on Saturday to meet with [Feisal Abdul Rauf] at the Ground Zero mosque."

He insisted that Musri had guaranteed the Islamic centre would be moved. "I asked him three times, and I have witnesses," Jones said. "If it's not moved, then I think Islam is a very poor example of religion. I think that would be very pitiful. I do not expect that."

The Pentagon's fear was that the burning of Qur'ans could result in retaliatory attacks on US soldiers serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Interpol earlier yesterday issued a blunt warning that "violent attacks on innocent people would follow" if the stunt went ahead.

In Pakistan, protesters burned an American flag and displayed a sign in English reading: "If Qur'an is burned it would be beginning of destruction of America." In Afghanistan a crowd of up to 4,000 people held an angry protest in Mahmud Raqi, near Kabul, with some burning US flags and chanting, "Death to the Christians."

US officials revealed that the president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had written directly to Obama asking him to intervene to halt the burning.

Sarah Palin linked the threat to the plan to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Centre attack. "People have a constitutional right to burn a Qur'an if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero," she wrote in a Facebook message.

Meanwhile, reports emerged yesterday of Jones's mission in Germany, where he established the Christian Community of Cologne in 1982 after having "received a sign from God". However, when Jones left Cologne 26 years later, it was as a disgraced preacher who had allegedly forced members to give him a percentage of their earnings, made them work for little or no money and caused the breakup of families and friendships. He reportedly also faked a title as doctor of theology, for which he was fined, and was eventually dismissed by the church board in 2008.

Andrew Schäfer, an official sect monitor for the Protestant church in the Rhine region, who has closely observed the activities of the community, said Jones had "enormous manipulative potential" and believed his failure in Germany had led to his increased desire to achieve notoriety in Florida. "He has clearly not been able to cope with the immense loss of his power and significance," said Schäfer.

Among the numerous reports of the ways in which Jones used to manipulate members were demands for money, as well as complete commitment to the community. Members were reportedly made to work in the community's "Lisa Jones" shops, named after his first wife, which sold secondhand clothes and furniture. They apparently worked long hours, lived on next to no wages, and had no health insurance – a requirement all German employers have to fulfil. They were forced to review relationships with family and friends and in some cases to break up with partners.

• United States
• Christianity
• Islam
• New York
• Florida
• US politics
• Obama administration
• Religion

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/09/rbs-tom-hicks-george-gillett-sell-liverpool Fri, 10 Sep 2010 02:25:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/09/rbs-tom-hicks-george-gillett-sell-liverpool

• RBS places club's loans into its toxic-assets division
• Deadline for refinancing of owners' loans is 6 October

Tom Hicks and George Gillett's ill-starred reign as owners of Liverpool looks like having less than a month to run after the club's loans with Royal Bank of Scotland were placed into its toxic-assets division.

The deadline for the refinancing of the owners' personal loans from RBS is 6 October, and that now looks set to be the date that Hicks and Gillett's association with England's most successful club will end. The bank's decision to switch the debts to its Global Restructuring Group is the strongest possible signal that these loans will not be extended.

The co-owners' previous attempt to refinance the debts in June, when they are believed to have offered to secure the loans against their US assets, was overruled by the club's board, led by the chairman, Martin Broughton. Now, with the loans having been shifted into RBS's so-called "bad bank", where all toxic assets have been housed since last year, it is clear the club's lender has also adopted a more steely stance towards the Americans.

One source with a knowledge of Liverpool's dealings with RBS said: "If it has been taken out of the hands of the corporate banking department they'll have a much more ruthless approach on 6 October." An informed view from another source close to the situation is that the bank would hope to sell the club, possibly at a knockdown price, in the coming weeks or as soon possible after 6 October.

According to the club's accounts to July 2009 Liverpool's owners owe £237.4m to RBS. Through companies in the UK and overseas, Hicks and Gillett are also personally exposed to tens of millions of pounds in other commitments to the club and its lender. These have been a mixture of cash, which the pair have injected through equity, and guarantees to the RBS loans. Last year's accounts stated these amounted to £145.3m, but it is believed to have risen dramatically after the last refinancing agreed five months ago.

RBS would hope to achieve an orderly sale without having to take control of Liverpool. However, depending on the terms of the April refinancing agreement – which have never been made public – that may prove difficult if the co-owners, who value the club at £800m, refuse to go quietly.

One tool at RBS's disposal is to force the insolvency of Liverpool's UK parent and associated companies. It is clear from mortgage documents lodged with Companies House that in the event of default RBS has the power to place Kop Football and Kop Football (Holdings), as well as Gillett's loan-security vehicle, Football UK Ltd, into administration. However that would be unpalatable for the bank, Liverpool's board and the Premier League since it would require the imposition of a nine-point penalty on the club.

By exercising those clauses the bank would also effectively take control of Liverpool. Although RBS's restructuring group describes itself as being responsible for "the management of any problem lending portfolios", the bank has no long-term plans to hold the club as its subsidiary. Instead it is expected RBS would prefer to fulfil another of its stated aims – the "maximising [of] debt recoveries" – by selling the club in short order.

That means there are also strong signs RBS will now be prepared to accept a knockdown price in order to cut its ties. During negotiations with prospective buyers Broughton, and the investment bank advising him, Barclays Capital, have maintained that Liverpool's debts with RBS must be paid in full as a minimum sale price.

Provided buyers still retain an interest in taking over Liverpool beyond 6 October, it will mean a more orderly sale process. There would be only one party for purchasers to negotiate with and the club's debts would be manageable.

The departure of Hicks and Gillett is an outcome that would delight Liverpool fans. The Kop Faithful group wrote in an open letter to the RBS group's chief executive, Stephen Hester, this week: "Hicks and Gillett were proved to be no more than a pair of liars. The promised 'no Glazer style buy out' was all of a sudden [a leveraged buy out] – a club £350m in debt to effectively buy itself, when it had been sold for less than £180m in what seemed no time before."

• Liverpool
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Business

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/09/george-osborne-cut-4bn-benefits-welfare Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:47:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/09/george-osborne-cut-4bn-benefits-welfare

Proposals which chancellor says will target those who view welfare as 'lifestyle choice' draw fury from leftwing Lib Dems

The chancellor George Osbornetoday dramatically turned up the heat in the spending review by revealing he would slash the benefit budget for the unemployed by a further £4bn, and saying he would go after those who regarded welfare benefits as "a lifestyle choice".

Interviewed today, Osborne said: "People who think it is a lifestyle to sit on out-of-work benefits … that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end. The money will not be there for that lifestyle choice."

Treasury sources indicated they were confident they would secure £4bn in further savings by 2014-15 on top of the £11bn savings set out in the June budget.

The Department of Work and Pensions, however, said no agreement had been struck, or specific figure agreed. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has been involved in bitter talks with the Treasury over his potentially costly plan to improve work incentives for those on the dole, and some of his allies were annoyed by Osborne's rhetoric at a sensitive point in complex negotiations.

One source said: "This feels like an effort to get Andy Coulson off the front pages rather than anything to do with welfare reform."

The Treasury said the £4bn extra saving was not dependent on a fall in unemployment, but is an estimate of the number of extra people who will find jobs due to the government's work programme and changes to work incentives.

The benefit savings could be increased if the Treasury presses ahead with proposals to restrict current universal benefits such as the winter fuel allowance, travel passes and TV licences.

The chancellor's plan to cut benefits came as the OECD, the west's leading economic thinktank, warned that G7 countries may have to delay their deficit reduction plans as the pace of economic recovery has slowed.

The benefit proposals, and the manner in which they emerged in Osborne's interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson, also angered leftwing Liberal Democrat MPs Mike Hancock, Tim Farron and Bob Russell. Vowing to vote against such cuts, Hancock said: "This goes right to the heart of the benefit system in this country. He has a lot of questions to answer and this is not the right way to do things."

Russell said: "This is not the way the coalition should work. I think Liberal Democrat MPs need to find out what is being done in our name. He is going around with a sledgehammer."

Farron said: "The government needs to demonstrate that those who got us into this mess are going to more than bear the brunt and that the most in need will not be targeted. We need to scrutinise where the cuts are made."

Osborne's declaration came on the day Nick Clegg had tried to send out a nuanced message that the cuts in the 20 October spending review would not fall in one blow, and would not be "dramatically different" to those proposed by Labour.

Osborne, by contrast, adopted a blunt tone, telling the BBC: "The welfare system is broken. We have to accept that the welfare bill has got completely out of control and that there are five million people living on permanent out-of-work benefits. That is a tragedy for them and fiscally unsustainable for us.

"There will be further welfare cuts amounting to several billions of pounds additional to what I announced in the budget," he promised. "The people of this country understand this choice and they have chosen for us as a government to push further on welfare reform."

During the election campaign David Cameron promised the winter fuel allowance would not be cut, but it is possible that it, and some other universal benefits, could be restricted to those on pension credit, as the Lib Dems advocated. In a speech today Clegg warned that the biggest risk facing the government in next month's spending review is panic, with civil servants slashing budgets across the board.

Six weeks before 25% cuts in departmental budgets are unveiled, the deputy prime minister revealed that the government "was putting a lot of pressure on departments not simply to panic, and do a numerical exercise, but also think about their long-term vocational purpose".

Clegg said he knew the spending review would be very controversial. "More worrisome still, they simply look at the cost of employing people and slash jobs."

He also disclosed that the spending review would provide extra money to introduce a pupil premium for poorer school children. It would include a deal to loosen Treasury controls over local government so "over time there is a rebalancing of the fiscal system," he said.

It is understood that the cabinet agreed this week that spending ministers will be entitled to take their departmental spending cuts programme to the domestic affairs committee of the cabinet to ensure there is full political buy-in into the cuts programme, so ministers collectively agree on highly controversial individual department programmes.

It had previously been thought cabinet ministers would simply strike bilateral deals with the Treasury, or the so-called star chamber.

Clegg's politically-driven need to calm anxieties carries the danger of sending a mixed political message since, to placate the markets, the coalition is also insisting that Labour's deficit reduction programme was totally inadequate.

Clegg argued: "This is a four- to five-year plan. It means for a department that is being asked to have its finances reduced by 25%, it is an annual reduction of about 6%. Under Labour's plans it would have been a 20% reduction so that it would have been 5% every year."

"Our plans are not that dramatically different in some cases from what Labour was planning, and crucially it takes place over time, so I hope that gives everyone in public services and local government time to plan carefully, not to panic, and to take the wrong decisions right at the beginning."

However, Clegg admitted that the public were at present reading their worst fears into the spending review. He admitted: "Of course, there are plenty reasons for people to be anxious, particularly in those parts of the country that are very dependent on the public sector."

Shadow work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper said: "George Osborne talks about cutting the welfare bill, but their own figures show their policies are cutting jobs and putting more people on to benefits. We know already that the coalition is hitting the poorest carers, pensioners and the most disabled. They urgently need to explain where these extra cuts will fall."

• Welfare
• Conservative and Liberal Democrat cabinet
• Conservatives
• George Osborne
• State benefits
• Liberal Democrats

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/fidel-castro-cuba-economic-model Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:33:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/fidel-castro-cuba-economic-model

Former Cuban president says Marxist model 'doesn't even work for us' in offhand remark to US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg

It was a casual remark over a lunch of salad, fish and red wine but future historians are likely to parse and ponder every word: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us any more."

Fidel Castro's nine-word confession, dropped into conversation with a visiting US journalist and policy analyst, undercuts half a century of thundering revolutionary certitude about Cuban socialism.

That the island's economy is a disaster is hardly news but that the micro-managing "maximum leader" would so breezily acknowledge it has astonished observers.

Towards the end of a long, relaxed lunch in Havana, Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine, asked Castro if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting. The reply left him dumbfounded. "Did the leader of the revolution just say, in essence, 'Never mind'?" Goldberg wrote on his blog.

The 84-year-old retired president did not elaborate but the implication, according to Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert from the Council on Foreign Relations who also attended the lunch, was that the state had too big a role in the economy.

Raúl Castro has been saying the same thing in public and private since succeeding his older brother two years ago. With infrastructure crumbling, food shortages acute and an average monthly salary of just $25 (£16), it has become apparent that near-total state control of the economy does not work.

But for Fidel to acknowledge the fact could be compared to Napoleon musing that the march on Moscow was not, on reflection, a great success.

"Frankly, I have been somewhat amazed by Fidel's new frankness," said Stephen Wilkinson, a Cuba expert at the London Metropolitan University. "This is the latest of a series of recent utterances that strike me as being indicative of a change in the old man's character."

The remark should not, however, be interpreted as a condemnation of socialism, added Wilkinson. "That is clearly not what he means, but it is an acknowledgement that the way in which the Cuban system is organised has to change. It is an implicit indication also that he has abdicated governing entirely to Raúl, who has argued this position for some time. We can now expect a lot more changes and perhaps more rapid changes as a consequence."

Raúl has said Cuba cannot blame the decades-old US embargo for all its economic ills and that serious reforms are needed. Fidel's statement could bolster the president's behind-the-scenes tussle with apparatchiks resisting change, said Sweig.

Agriculture has been a big disappointment. The lush Caribbean island of 11 million people could be a major food exporter but central planning and state-run co-operatives have produced chronic shortages, prompting an old, bitter joke that the revolution's three biggest failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Raúl's reforms are not going well: food production fell 7.5% in the first half of the year.

Once propped up by the Soviet Union, Cuba's lifeline is now cheap oil from Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez considers Fidel a mentor.

Chávez swiftly followed another surprise statement of Castro's – accusing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of antisemitism – with an announcement that he would meet Venezuelan Jewish leaders. The move was "a direct result of Fidel's statement", according to Goldberg.

• He feels responsible for the "great injustice" of the persecution of Cuban homosexuals in the 1970s.

• He laments Jewish suffering over the centuries, defends Israel's right to exist and accuses Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of antisemitism.

• He appears to regret urging the Soviet Union to nuke the US during the 1962 missile crisis. "After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it all."

• Fidel Castro
• Cuba
• Communism
• Economics
• Hugo Chávez

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/gay-couple-kiss-south-africa-crash Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:44:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/gay-couple-kiss-south-africa-crash

One dead, the other seriously injured in crash one month after moment of passion was controversially published in newspaper

Theirs was a kiss that stunned a conservative town. When a moment of passion between two men was published on a newspaper front page, it provoked fierce debate in one of South Africa's oldest communities.

In a single photograph Bjorn Czepan and Mark Dean Brown became unwitting symbols for tolerance and gay rights at the predominantly Afrikaner, rugby-playing Stellenbosch University.

Just a month later, there is a tragic postscript. Czepan is dead and Brown is critically ill in hospital after a car crash.

The students were involved in an accident in Woodstock, a suburb of Cape Town, last week, the Cape Times reported. Czepan, from Germany, was killed and Brown is now on a ventilator at the Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital.

The hospital said a third student, Brian Kline, was admitted late last Thursday night after the crash. Brown and Kline were critical but stable.

The Cape Town University couple's fleeting moment of fame came at last month's annual Soen in die Laan (Kiss in the Avenue) event at the nearby university, when lesbian and gay students decided to join the traditionally heterosexual event.

The photograph was published on the front page of the student newspaper Die Matie, triggering furious debate on social networking sites. Copies were torn up or defaced in protest but there were supportive comments from gay students.

At the time Vanessa Smeets, the paper's picture editor, told the Christian Science Monitor : "We knew it would be controversial, but not this level of reaction, which has been overwhelming. We had planned to use a kiss by an interracial couple but we didn't in the end and settled for this one after checking it was OK."

She said reactions had been mixed. "Most women seem OK, but a lot of Afrikaans men and African men were very unhappy. Some have been using the paper as dart boards, tearing them up."

The image caught the attention of South Africa's lesbian and gay community. Marlow Valentine, community engagement and empowerment manager at the Triangle Project in Cape Town, said today: "It did stir a lot of conversations and for me that is always a plus.

"It was one of those articles that challenge heteronormative ideas. It was a same sex couple expressing their pleasure and joy and love for each other. It is nothing out of the ordinary for someone who is gay or lesbian."

Valentine said the accident was a shock. "It is a sad day when anyone dies young with their life ahead of them. It is ironic that they made this statement just before the accident. You wonder if it was divine providence.

"Stellenbosch is a very conservative town and doesn't like anything out of the ordinary. From a fundamentalist point of view people would say this was punishment. But my view of God is not one of punity.

"I hope people will remember them as a couple who had the guts to stand up and challenge the status quo; that's a positive, not a negative. If articles like that stimulate positive conversations, then the action and the picture were not in vain."

The Cape Times reported that Brown's grandmother Elizabeth flew to the hospital from Pretoria when she heard about the accident. She told the paper she knew nothing about the controversial photograph.

"I don't care much about any of those things," she was quoted as saying. "All I want is for him to get better. I have hardly spoken to him because he is sedated most of the time."

Matthew Gardiner, a friend of Czepan, told the Cape Times: "Bjorn couldn't understand the Soen in die Laan situation could make so much of an impact, but he was also very proud that he had been able to help a lot of people come to terms with their sexuality through that kiss."

• South Africa
• Gay rights

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/sep/09/how-to-make-perfect-brownies Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:37:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/sep/09/how-to-make-perfect-brownies

Are the best brownies dense and fudgey, or crumbly and earthily chocolatey?

Something very weird happened to Kevin Costner back in 1989. As he stood in his cute, all-American white tee in an Iowan cornfield, the very crop seem to have a message for him: "If you build it … they* will come" it whispered, somewhat unhelpfully. Putting aside the issue of whether Field of Dreams was single-handedly responsible for the Millennium Dome for a moment, I'd like to suggest the same is true of the chocolate brownie. Put brownies on the menu, and people will come, and they will order dessert. They simply cannot help themselves; confronted by the prospect of this all-American delight, the human soul crumbles into fudgey defeat, and a million eyes widen into heart-shaped pools of chocolate goo.

*Actually, it's "he will come". But everyone gets it wrong, and it suits me better.

When it comes to brownies, I bow to "his Holiness Lord Nigel", as one blogger terms the Observer's celebrated cookery writer, and the Very Good Chocolate Brownies from his Kitchen Diaries which, in my experience, more than live up to their boastful billing. The beauty of the recipe lies in the fact that the results are both deliciously rich and surprisingly light, which allows the ingestion of more than is strictly wise before the inevitable nausea sets in.

The world splits into two camps on the brownie issues: crumbly and cakey, and dense and fudgey. There is little love lost between them – Slater's recipe is unashamedly cakey in method, requiring one to beat 250g unsalted butter and 300g golden caster sugar until fluffy, while melting 200g chocolate above a pan of simmering water. Three lightly beaten, large eggs, and one extra yolk are gradually added to the mixture, before folding in 60g flour, 60g cocoa powder, ½ tsp baking powder, 50g chocolate chocolate and a pinch of salt, gently, "without knocking any of the air out".

Sceptics will no doubt be muttering that this sounds far more like a sponge than a brownie – but they should hold their tongues until the mixture has spent 30 minutes in an 180C oven, after which they'll no doubt be inclined to put them to better use. Divinely dark, seductively sandy, these are brownies for grown-ups, especially if you defy Nigel and add some walnuts – far from getting "in the way", they're a pleasingly crunchy counterpoint to all that chocolate.

If there's one thing the twin deities of Nigel and Nigella disagree about, it's brownies. Slater reckons his is the "crumbliest, gooiest brownie recipe ever" but, of course, it's not – Nigella's is. With six eggs and 375g butter, what lies beneath the surprisingly crisp crust is something more akin to a baked fudge than anything which could be politely eaten with one's hands, which is probably the whole point – I expect she eats it messily, and in a crumpled silk dressing gown.

Aside from the richness of the ingredients, the lack of a raising agent is telling: no baking powder is allowed to lighten the load here – this is pure, unadulterated, chocolatey goo. It's got many fans, but, although I court the contempt of brownie lovers everywhere with this admission, for me it's too much.

Unlike Nigel's recipe, which seeks to trap air in the mixture before baking, Nigella's method melts the chocolate and butter together, and then quickly stirs in the eggs and dry ingredients to give a smooth, glossy batter. This technique obviously helps keep things nice and dense – if you like that kind of thing.

Despite my loyalty to Nigel, during the course of my research I read in the New York Times that, according to an expert on American "heirloom baking", "Leavening is about as useful in brownies as it is in mashed potatoes". Abashed, I decide to give another, less rich recipe a try.

The brownies in Leiths Baking Bible contain 140g butter, 2 large eggs, and 1 large egg yolk, as well as 200g chocolate, 225g caster sugar, 85g flour, 2 tsp vanilla essence and a pinch of salt. They're much more to my taste: dense, yes, but also ever so slightly chewy, yet they're not quite as darkly chocolatey as Nigel's, which makes me ponder the role of cocoa powder in the recipe. I suspect it gives the mixture an intense flavour, without weighing it down with extra fat.

If this is the case, then my next recipe, from the Ballymaloe Cookery School, could do with a hefty dose of cocoa. It contains a mere 50g chocolate to 100g butter and 200g caster sugar, as well as 2 eggs, 75g flour, ½ tsp of both baking powder and vanilla extract, and 110g chopped walnuts. Although the results are delicious, they have a definite toffee-ish flavour, rather than being assertively chocolatey, which I put down to the high sugar content. The first recipes for brownies, which appeared in the early years of the last century, called for even less chocolate – then a luxurious, and rather exotic ingredient in comparison with the all-American abundance of dairy – so perhaps these have some call to authenticity, if not modern tastes. I notice all that sugar has given these brownies a delectably brittle crust – if only they weren't quite so sweet.

Devotees of the soft and fudgey school of brownie often advocate ripping them untimely from the oven in order to devour the "warm goo" in the centre that is apparently "one of life's greatest pleasures". Personally, if I want a chocolate fondant, I'll order one, but if that's how you roll, then you might be interesting in a tip I learnt from the American First Lady of Chocolate, Alice Medrich. Just before you take your brownies out of the oven, pour an inch of cold water into a roasting tin, and tip in as many ice cubes as you can find in the freezer (if you're as disorganised as me, you'll be reassured to know that wine coolers also work well here) – then, as soon as they're done to your satisfaction, plunge the tin into its chilly bath. This stops the mixture cooking almost immediately, and gives you a nice moist centre, without the claggy denseness of underdone flour.

Although Nigel's beloved "peat bog" texture is undoubtedly what sets brownies apart from a mere common or garden chocolate cake, it's infinitely better when complimented by a crunchy, thin topping. I'm wary of increasing the sugar content, so I do a little digging online, and discover that beating the batter vigorously after adding the egg will help create a meringue-like outer layer which rises as the mixture bakes. Perfect.

My perfect brownies demand a mixture of cocoa powder and chocolate, for ultimate richness of flavour without heaviness, and intensive beating, to give them an irresistibly crisp crust. A brief cold water bath finishes these moist, intensely chocolatey little cakes off perfectly.

250g 70% cocoa chocolate
250g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs, plus 1 extra egg yolk, lightly beaten
60g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
60g good quality cocoa powder
100g walnuts (optional)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, and line a 23cm x 23cm baking tin with baking parchment.

2. Set a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add 200g of the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat immediately.

3. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and break the rest of the chocolate into chips.

4. With the mixer still running, gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition to ensure it's thoroughly incorporated before pouring in any more. Leave mixing on a high speed for five minutes until the batter has a silky sheen, and has increased in volume.

5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and gently fold in the melted chocolate and chocolate chips with a metal spoon, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and walnuts.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer; it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. If it does, put it back into the oven for another 3 minutes, then test again. Prepare a roasting tin of iced water.

7. When the brownies are ready, remove the tin from the oven and place in the cold water bath. Leave to cool for an hour before cutting into squares. Store in an air-tight container; they're even better the next day.

Are brownies best dense and fudgey, or crumbly and earthily chocolatey? Are walnuts the only acceptable addition – or could you be tempted by these utterly divine, but distinctly un-American cardamom and pistachio numbers?

• Food & drink
• Chocolate recipes
• Baking recipes

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/09/cambridge-university-worlds-best Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:22:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/09/cambridge-university-worlds-best

How the world's best university changed my life

Is Cambridge University the best in the world? Respond to this feature on the Mortarboard blog

This time 16 years ago I sat at the kitchen table and, with a lurch in my gut, opened a brochure that had arrived in the post. Written in the archaic language of bedders, boaties and bops, it described life at Cambridge University. This forbidding account of colleges, clubs and societies merged with my expectations of the teddy-bear-clutching Sebastian Flytes I would meet punting on the river, and I suddenly felt very small.

Cambridge University has this week taken Harvard's place as the world's top university, at least according to a survey of 15,000 academics who judged the quality of its research to be the best in the world. This will go down well in the ivory towers of what would otherwise be a nondescript Fenland town – it's the kind of publicity that may reinforce the hauteur and arrogance of Cambridge, but also adds to its mystique. But this top ranking for research tells the world almost nothing about how good a place it is for young people to spend their university years in. Is Cambridge really so special and if it is, what makes it so?

It was a dark and wet October morning when I arrived at what resembled a multistorey carpark on a hill far beyond where the fine old stone buildings peter out. Fitzwilliam College is one of the newer colleges in Cambridge. Unlike at most other universities, undergraduates join one of 31 university colleges. Each is an institution on a human scale, in "Fitz's" case with about 475 undergraduates. College was where we ate, made friends and socialised; then we joined students from other colleges at lectures and attended unique supervisions – almost one-to-one tuition – with "fellows" who were often based at other colleges.

I was certainly privileged: I had a teacher and a university lecturer for parents. But I was not posh. I had attended an ordinary state school in the sticks, which hadn't sent anyone to Oxbridge for years. None of my friends from home were going to Cambridge. I was on my own.

Fitz was not posh either. At the time, 70% of its intake was from state schools. None of the six of us randomly housed together on "Bottom M", a male-only corridor of small rooms with a shared bathroom, were public school boys. But as I gazed at Fitz's immaculately tended gardens, I figured that this was what boarding school was like. Within minutes, I met people of a type I had never encountered before: supremely confident hooray Henrys and spectacularly geeky geeks, including a child prodigy who studied maths and appeared to be albino.

I didn't really notice at the time, but we were quickly sorted by a subtle social apartheid. The gilded youths from the public schools already seemed to know their half of the university. For them, Cambridge was more of the same. Supremely at home, they took their big hair and big voices straight to formal hall, where you wore your gown and the fellows sat on "high table". They joined drinking societies – Bullingdon Club-style operations with special ties, arcane rituals and group photographs snapped in sepia – and when they had chundered their way down the River Cam, they retired for the summer to friends' châteaux in southern France.

The public schools kids kept themselves to themselves and so did we. I befriended other gauche products of state schools who lacked a classical education, as well as much sexual experience. We became as raucous as anyone but we were never invited to join a drinking society. We pretended to abhor them, but were secretly envious of their poise and exclusivity. When my best female friend joined the women's drinking society (that there was a women's drinking society was hailed as progress), it seemed a betrayal.

I was young for my age. I was self-conscious, shy and still looked 12, but even so I felt I was regressing. I sold my car, I stopped paid employment, I no longer cooked for myself; I enthusiastically embraced the cloistered world of college, library, canteen and bar.

That dark first day was virtually the only one in my first term. Cambridge may be scoured by winds straight from the Urals, as the cliche goes, but its autumns are sharp and sunny. Everyone bought a bike. A few, mostly public school alumni, purchased college scarves, and every morning we would freewheel down the hill in the sunshine, past golden-leaved plane trees, and on to our lectures. Then we would drink coffee in an atrocious cafe and retreat to a library. We could choose from dozens: the magnificent, intimidating "UL", the University Library with its architecture reminiscent of the Third Reich; the homely library for social and political science (my subject); the red-brick 1970s history library (a favoured choice for girls on account of the handsome toffs who loitered there with jumpers around their shoulders).

When we attended supervisions, we would climb twisty staircases to a fellow's rooms. This was real Cambridge. Every room was lined with books. Some had roaring log fires. We would sit in battered armchairs and discuss our work for an hour. A few of our supervisors were famous media dons, who penned popular history pieces for the Daily Mail, or seemed to know Tony Blair personally, like the charismatic, leather-jacket wearing sociologist Tony Giddens, whose lectures we loved, and loved to parody. Others were anachronistic old sorts who seemed to have no place in the 1990s but still boasted a dozen learned tomes to their name. It felt glamorous, touching the hem of such knowledge.

Plenty of students around the world work hard. All I know is that when I visited friends at other universities I believed I worked harder than them. At Cambridge we churned out a couple of essays a week, skimming half-a-dozen books for each one. There was no lounging around in shared houses watching daytime telly. Hard work was fetishised. With a frission of competition and an eye for melodrama, we regaled each other with tales of "essay crises", how stressed we were, how we worked through the night, how we were surely destined for a "Desmond" (Tutu, a 2:2).

But, quickly loyal to the warm hug of the establishment, I would insist to mates at other universities that we still had as much fun as they did. I claimed there were still normal people at Cambridge; I defined it as 40% posh, 40% geeks, 20% normal. I was a well-organised plodder and worked intensely during the day but still found the time to go to plenty of parties at night.

Once in a while, we'd go to Cindy's, the club in town, which was called something else in the real world. But most of our parties were confined to colleges. These were called bops or ents (as in entertainment). Despite the language, a few, especially those run by King's College students (who had a reputation for being hipper-than-thou), were genuinely cool. Most, however, were cocktail parties. Every student club and society held one. Sometimes these were fancy-dress; toga parties were a favourite. Most were formal. Girls wore evening dresses; boys were virtually compelled to buy a dinner jacket. In old photos, it looks like we were living in the 1950s. Only the hairstyles (terrible curtains for the boys) tell you it was the 1990s.

I never found an entrance into the even more cosseted world of Cambridge's public-school class. I always felt I did not quite belong at the university. But that didn't matter: Cambridge still bequeathed me a key to the British establishment. In just 72 weeks of study, I was more profoundly transformed than I could have ever expected. By the time I graduated, gothic halls no longer intimidated me; nor did walking into an oak-panelled room full of folk in dinner jackets; nor did small talk with drunk rugby players destined for a job in their uncle's merchant bank. I didn't feel chippy or cowed by anything, anyone or any job. Perhaps foolishly, I felt well-educated.

Cambridge is a prodigiously powerful brand. It may be rightly feted for its research and intellectual achievements, but the fact is that it is an extremely effective conveyor belt into the professions that rule us – and that remains a shameful comment on the rigidity of British society. Seventy-two weeks at Cambridge makes you comfortable for life in the Palace of Westminster or the Royal Courts of Justice. My three years were hardly vintage ones, but my contemporaries from Cambridge, only in their early to mid-30s, now include MPs, private secretaries to government ministers, top corporate lawyers and millionaire merchant bankers with homes in Hampstead; not to mention Zadie Smith, Konnie Huq, David Mitchell, Robert Webb and an embarrassing number of people working at the BBC, the Financial Times and, yes, the Guardian.

Cambridge insiders may claim much is different now, 13 years after I departed. When I paid a rare return visit to the university earlier this year, however, I was struck by how eerily unchanged it was. The buildings, of course, were the same. But so were the students, and their conversations. And the fellows were every bit as intellectual, tribal and faintly dismissive of the outside world as ever. Only one thing was different. Cambridge always had the knack of making you feel, quite rightly, very small. Except now, looked on from the outside world, it seemed to me that this beautiful little city and the university that dominates it, was, for better and for worse, a tiny golden bubble.

• University of Cambridge
• Higher education

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/sep/09/classic-youtube-meltdown-lady-gaga Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:19:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/sep/09/classic-youtube-meltdown-lady-gaga

Also featuring the greatest ever tennis drop-shot, Hamit Altintop's mindblowing volley and a brilliant 800m comeback

1) Is there a finer sight than the baseball manager having a meltdown? This perky fellow acts like a four-year-old, is ejected from the game, acts like a three-year-old and then decides to give something back to the fans.

2) Another week, another OTT Scandinavian goal celebration. This time Finnish side Jaro roll out the 'Lady Gaga' (Estesark also spotted this one shortly after us, you can collect your spotters' badge below).

3) One of the all-time great batting collapses as Surrey, chasing 237 to beat Lancashire in the 1993 B&H Cup, reach 212-1 when ...

4) Forget Roger Federer's flurry of through-the-legs winners: Victor Hanescu offers up some US Open magic of his own (SpartakKapokovic also gets dibs for this).

5) How to score a goal very, very quickly.

6) Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton attempt to put a Formula One car together. Yes, it's part of a cynical marketing ploy by a certain mobile phone company but the pair seem to be having a genuinely good time and our hearts are duly warmed. Curse you advertising men!

1) Fiona Pocock is trotting towards the try line in the Women's Rugby World Cup and then Nicole Beck decides to intervene...

2) Oh, for the days when commentators said what they really thought.

3) Spurs's new signing Rafael van der Vaart is so good he can create goals at both ends of the pitch, although you probably wouldn't want to sit next to him on the bench.

4) Now nobody likes losing a penalty shoot-out but is it really worth taking a shinty ball to your (helmetless) head?

5) Hamit Altintop went all the way to Kazakhstan and all he got was this mindblowing volley.

6) Our last badge goes to rowingrob, who makes a late, late burst for glory. But not nearly as late and glorious as becapped 800m genius Dave Wottle at the 1972 Olympics.

Spotters' badges: JimmyTheMoonlight, DamTomsk, kayakking, scottyirnbru, leonarpe, Estesark, rowingrob, SpartakKapokovic.

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:11:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers

Soldiers face charges over secret 'kill team' which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war

Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.

According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army's criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to "toss a grenade at someone and kill them".

One soldier said he believed Gibbs was "feeling out the platoon".

Investigators said Gibbs, 25, hatched a plan with another soldier, Jeremy Morlock, 22, and other members of the unit to form a "kill team". While on patrol over the following months they allegedly killed at least three Afghan civilians. According to the charge sheet, the first target was Gul Mudin, who was killed "by means of throwing a fragmentary grenade at him and shooting him with a rifle", when the patrol entered the village of La Mohammed Kalay in January.

Morlock and another soldier, Andrew Holmes, were on guard at the edge of a poppy field when Mudin emerged and stopped on the other side of a wall from the soldiers. Gibbs allegedly handed Morlock a grenade who armed it and dropped it over the wall next to the Afghan and dived for cover. Holmes, 19, then allegedly fired over the wall.

Later in the day, Morlock is alleged to have told Holmes that the killing was for fun and threatened him if he told anyone.

The second victim, Marach Agha, was shot and killed the following month. Gibbs is alleged to have shot him and placed a Kalashnikov next to the body to justify the killing. In May Mullah Adadhdad was killed after being shot and attacked with a grenade.

The Army Times reported that a least one of the soldiers collected the fingers of the victims as souvenirs and that some of them posed for photographs with the bodies.

Five soldiers – Gibbs, Morlock, Holmes, Michael Wagnon and Adam Winfield – are accused of murder and aggravated assault among other charges. All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.

The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.

Two days later members of his platoon, including Gibbs and Morlock, accused him of "snitching", gave him a beating and told him to keep his mouth shut. The soldier reported the beating and threats to his officers and then told investigators what he knew of the "kill team".

Following the arrest of the original five accused in June, seven other soldiers were charged last month with attempting to cover up the killings and violent assault on the soldier who reported the smoking of hashish. The charges will be considered by a military grand jury later this month which will decide if there is enough evidence for a court martial. Army investigators say Morlock has admitted his involvement in the killings and given details about the role of others including Gibbs. But his lawyer, Michael Waddington, is seeking to have that confession suppressed because he says his client was interviewed while under the influence of prescription drugs taken for battlefield injuries and that he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury.

"Our position is that his statements were incoherent, and taken while he was under a cocktail of drugs that shouldn't have been mixed," Waddington told the Seattle Times.

• US military
• United States
• Afghanistan

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/sep/08/derren-brown-television Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:29:00 -0500 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/sep/08/derren-brown-television

We're following Derren Brown's Hero at 30,000 Feet live from 10pm tonight. Join us for 70-minutes of mindbending TV and the obligatory "Did that just happen?" moments

Pre-show preamble...

During his previous series of mindbending specials, Derren Brown was pretty clear about what he was going to do - beat a casino, guess the lottery numbers (although whether he did so is, of course, less clear), and generally keep us entertained with his bonkers but highly entertaining mix of misdirection and showmanship. This evening's events are rather murkier around the edges, but I think we can be pretty hopeful of seeing something we won't have seen before.

Brown is apparently going to take an ordinary person and set them a series of challenges - the biggest one will be to decide whether to take control of a Boeing 737 full of passengers set to crash at 500mph. As you do.

Here's a video released to the Guardian this afternoon, which gives a little bit more of a feel for the show - but basically, we don't know what to expect. I'll be here from 10pm, so join me then as we find out more, and don't forget to add your comments below.

9.57pm: Derren has appeared on Big Brother - he's live from Leeds/Bradford airport standing next to a very large plane. I'm in Huddersfield right now, he should definitely stop by for a cup of tea afterwards.

10.01pm: Right, we're off. I'm very much hoping for a show stuffed with what Derren does best tonight - hypnosis and mentalism. Fascinating as his illusion skills are, in my opinion his shows like Mind Control, Trick or Treat and one-off specials like The Heist are where he is truly brilliant. It's often disturbing and surreal – I watched the episode of Tricks of the Mind where the guy ends up in the zombie video game again today, and it's seriously messed up – but you can always be sure of seeing something remarkable.

According to Derren Brown's blog, tonight's show is about "engaging with life and understanding that it is the choices we make right now that define us, not what we've done in the past. One unwitting volunteer gets to have a deep understanding of this, and for him to experience real and lasting change, I have to push him to the extreme."

Sounds pretty interesting, no?

10.03pm: Our hero for the evening is Matt. He is ordinary, has an unremarkable job in an insurance callcentre in Leeds, and hates flying. In a staged exercise at the audition, he doesn't point out that there is smoke coming under the door, since he would apparently rather keep his head down than risk mild embarrassment by raising his hand and saying "ahem, excuse me, Mr Brown, it's possible we're all about to die in a blazing inferno".

10.08pm: Derren has been trailing him for a month. He is robbed at gunpoint in a petrol station as a way for Derren to get him to think about his choices in life and give him the opportunity to reveal his true capabilities. In my day your mum just gave you a good talking to.

Derren leaves a jack-in-the-box on Matt's doorstep. I hate clowns, and that's just weird.

10.11pm: In phase 2, Derren rocks up in Matt's bedroom, gets him out of bed and starts messing with his mind. If my spelling all goes to crap, it's because I'm trying to watch and type at the same time, don't want to miss anything.

10.14pm: Derren's infiltration of Matt's mind appears to have made no difference to his dress sense, which is part Ali G, part Dexy's Midnight Runners.

10.18pm: Mixed early reviews from the comment box. Interesting insight from @WalkerboyUK, who was also at the auditions.

10.20pm: Derren gets Matt out of bed again - I'm concerned about his ability to land a crashing plane after so little sleep. It's hard to know if Matt is actually asleep/in a hypnotic state or just doing as he's told because it's Derren Brown. I went up on the stage during one of Derren's show a couple of years ago and have little recollection of what happened up there, other than it all felt very relaxed and comfortable and dreamlike. So who knows?

Matt is feeling the power of a crocodile, as a slightly extravagant metaphor for bravery and positive thinking. This doesn't happen much in West Yorkshire.

We hope to now see him coming out of his shell. He still owns that hat, which Derren seriously needs to sort out with some "look into my eyes" mindbendery.

10.26pm: As a result of Matt's foray into the wilds of Yorkshire with a crocodile and a quick chat about being a policeman, he's found a policeman's wallet and keys, gone to the policeman's house and let himself in to have a rummage through the fridge. There is suspciously little sign of coffee and Krispy Kremes, so it's clearly not an actual policeman's house. Matt makes himself at home with a crime porn DVD, and then the policeman comes home.

I suspect this is the point at which Matt wonders what the bloody hell he's doing there, and curses Derren Brown from here to Halifax.

10.30pm: Yes, I agree that it's been a bit silly up to this point, but I refuse to believe that this is is all a bit fishy and staged with actors. What would be the point? Derren Brown is far better than that.

10.35pm: On another day, Matt has the chance to spread joy and kindness. He is doing this by continuing to dress as a slack-jawed Aston from JLS. Oh no, that's not it. He meets a complete stranger with a broken-down van full of party supplies who hates his life, and gives him a lecture about becoming a chef and following his dream. Matt then takes his profferred van and seizes the opportunity to throw a street party for his neighbours.

It's like the worst cringeworthy moment in the worst soap in the world ever. Now he's just creepy. Derren, leave the boy alone.

10.41pm: In his new haze of happiness and positive thinking, Matt lets Derren put him in a straightjacket and tie him to railway tracks. I don't know about you, but it's definitely what I do when I'm having a good day.

Apparently there is a train coming. I'm not sure that Network Rail would be entirely happy about this, so I'm guessing that's not actually the case. Oh look, there's the world's slowest train. Hmm.

NO, MUST NOT BE SCEPTIC. MUST. NOT. I BELIEEEEEVE.

10.51pm: I'm really hoping this has a blinding ending. Matt is checking in for his flight - all the passengers are actors (there is life after The Bill, clearly), but the crew and pilots are real. This is reassuring, I don't want my plane flown by a guy whose only experience of handling an emergency is driving an ambulance in Holby City.

Matt's not looking like he's having fun. He's not big on flying. I feel his pain.

10.56pm: The captain is sick, and it's all getting a bit tense. Someone gasps, a clear indicatior of tension and worth the Equity card all on its own. Matt looks like he's shitting bricks.

Panic is setting in. The captain is incapacitated and can't land the plane. It's horrible. I have goosebumps.

10.58pm: "And then a hero comes along/with the strength to carry on/and you cast your fears aside/and you find you can survive...". Damn, missed opportunity for musical interlude there. Cowell would have totally done it.

Derren hypnotises Matt, when he wakes up he'll be landing a simulator, convinced he's still in the flying plane. Is anyone still with me?

It's a fairly elaborate stunt, if you think about it. What if it had got to this point and Matt had decided to browse the cheap fags in the in-flight magazine instead? Or just jiggle his rosary beads? I suspect he would have been dragged into the cockpit by his ear.

11.06pm: OK, here's the thing. Everyone on the plane is an actor, so they're clearly not going to volunteer to land the plane. Matt doesn't want to volunteer either, but there's a member of the cabin crew hanging over him pretty much saying "it's all down to you, Matt, or we're going to DIE". He hardly jogged up the aisle going "Pick ME!, Pick ME!, did he? Wouldn't we ALL have done what Matt did?

I don't know anymore. I think Derren has messed with my head. I'm not actually in a crap hotel in Huddersfield at all. I'm actually dancing up a train track in a straightjacket with a crocodile, being chased by a very slow train.

But let's look at the positives. Matt's got a free van and some party balloons. Cabbies in Leeds take him anywhere he wants to go for free. He's not wearing that stupid hat anymore, and is probably better in bed. He no longer lives with is mum. On the downside, he thought he'd landed a plane in a heroic fashion and saved the lives of hundreds of people, and then found out it was only telly. Which is kind of annoying, when you think about it.

So what did you think? Bored? Blown away? Thanks all for joining in - looks like there might be another show in 30 days, will you be watching?

• Derren Brown
• Television

]]> /ABC_News_Video__Top_Videos/2009/11/25/Feed_has_moved Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:48:01 -0600 /ABC_News_Video__Top_Videos/2009/11/25/Feed_has_moved http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=fca79f89d5eb0fa1db84847b0c195a38 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:54:10 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=fca79f89d5eb0fa1db84847b0c195a38


Money - Kids and Teens - School Time - Social Studies - Economics ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=2ec436dbd5089647cab7dca34196eff8 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:54 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=2ec436dbd5089647cab7dca34196eff8


Jennifer Hudson - Steven Spielberg - United States - Barack Obama - New York ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=1bd087b6d0c0fa5513f6af9e92f8f2fe Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:37:01 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=1bd087b6d0c0fa5513f6af9e92f8f2fe


Arts - Documentary - Movies - Filmmaking - Techniques and Styles ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=693a037a4320759e2fce24b8e7559994 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:52:15 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=693a037a4320759e2fce24b8e7559994


Television - Adam Lambert - Arts - Associations - Home ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=eafba245c9fe1d2b11860c94c4554deb Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:06:36 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=eafba245c9fe1d2b11860c94c4554deb


Rom Houben - Persistent vegetative state - United States - Coma - Traffic collision ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=9d4684834e263737628c15f2e87ea373 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:41:46 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=9d4684834e263737628c15f2e87ea373


Music - American Music Award - adamlambert - Awards - jenniferlopez ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=06a2b8360293ba7d1359223f484b051f Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:01:57 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=06a2b8360293ba7d1359223f484b051f


Charlie Bewley - New Moon - Moon - Jamie Campbell Bower - Twilight ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=dbd376dd61d72b5814978a281b289388 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:47:30 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=dbd376dd61d72b5814978a281b289388


Health - Drugs - Illegal - Pro-Legalization - Marijuana ]]> http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=c6fce9346ffc4dee1786fac1dcb5dd76 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:44:17 -0600 http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=c6fce9346ffc4dee1786fac1dcb5dd76


Television - Business - Associations - Arts - Shopping ]]> http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100909/tuk-vitamin-b-could-delay-alzheimer-s-dba1618.html Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:38:40 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100909/tuk-vitamin-b-could-delay-alzheimer-s-dba1618.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tuk-mum-saved-daughter-as-son-drowned-45dbed5.html Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:08:06 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tuk-mum-saved-daughter-as-son-drowned-45dbed5.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tuk-shocking-video-of-cruise-ship-hit-by-45dbed5.html Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:00:50 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tuk-shocking-video-of-cruise-ship-hit-by-45dbed5.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tod-human-body-parts-found-inside-tiger-870a197.html Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:12:36 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100908/tod-human-body-parts-found-inside-tiger-870a197.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/38/20100907/tod-biggest-restaurant-in-britain-set-to-045b8e8.html Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:01:00 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/38/20100907/tod-biggest-restaurant-in-britain-set-to-045b8e8.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100906/tuk-boy-and-his-broom-an-inspiration-to-45dbed5.html Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:20:39 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100906/tuk-boy-and-his-broom-an-inspiration-to-45dbed5.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100906/twl-world-s-shortest-man-is-just-70cm-ta-3fd0ae9.html Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:29:16 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100906/twl-world-s-shortest-man-is-just-70cm-ta-3fd0ae9.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100906/tuk-smarter-immigration-controls-pledge-6323e80.html Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:57:27 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100906/tuk-smarter-immigration-controls-pledge-6323e80.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100905/twl-iran-stoning-woman-faces-99-lashes-3fd0ae9.html Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:32:53 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100905/twl-iran-stoning-woman-faces-99-lashes-3fd0ae9.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100905/tuk-briton-slain-in-internet-love-triang-b5b5cc4.html Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:30:00 -0500 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100905/tuk-briton-slain-in-internet-love-triang-b5b5cc4.html