BlinkDash

Top 10sSociety booksWhether through the seductive myth of honourable outlaws, or the bloody truth of ruthless criminals, this shadowy group has generated a vast literature – these are its highlights How does one write a book in such an unwieldy field? One problem – apart from the obvious unmanageability of swelling bibliographies – is that “mafiological” literature is still beset by its original dilemma: is the mafia the set of codes of honour and family values we are accustomed to see at a Mascagni opera? [Read More]

West Ham UnitedWest Ham forced to alter transfer plans with Paquetá injury worse than thoughtWest Ham fear calf injury will sideline Paquetá for two monthsThey are urgently chasing attacking signings but budget is tightWest Ham have revised their transfer plans and are urgently chasing attacking signings after further tests on Lucas Paquetá’s calf injury raised fears the midfielder will be sidelined for two months. David Moyes has a selection crisis in attack, with Michail Antonio out for up to six weeks with a knee injury, Jarrod Bowen out for at least a fortnight with an ankle injury, Paquetá unavailable and Mohammed Kudus representing Ghana at the Africa Cup of Nations. [Read More]

FamilySeventy years ago, paediatrician Donald Winnicott started to give humane, non-judgmental advice to mothers. But today's gurus seem to do little more than admonish parentsSeventy years ago, a middle-aged man walked into a BBC radio studio in London to record the first of a series of talks that would radically change the way mothers thought about parenting. The 50 or so broadcasts made by paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott between 1943 and 1962 on a wide range of subjects – from feeding and weaning to jealousy and stealing – popularised his psychoanalytic thinking on the relationship between babies and their mothers to such an extent that some of his catchphrases, such as the good enough mother and the transitional object, have entered everyday speech. [Read More]

Autobiography and memoirReviewFull of theft, alcoholism and violence, the novelist’s unvarnished account of her childhood is a darker, more vicious affairLaura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods was first published in 1932, when its author was 65; it offers a sanitised tale of her childhood near Pepin, Wisconsin, just after the end of the US civil war. Within a few years of her birth, the Ingalls family piled their few possessions into a covered wagon and started the trip into “Indian Territory”, to join the settlers pushing west in order to make manifest the destiny that America was determined to invent. [Read More]

 The top 40 bands in Britain today 20: Broadcast   Broadcast's music could be beamed in from another galaxy - you can imagine Barbarella dancing about her space pod to their latest album, Haha Sound. Using 1960s equipment, Broadcast create songs with the texture of scudding clouds and calm seas, topped with lyrics as calmly beautiful as they are fraught with confusion and tension. It is this atmosphere of longing and searching that gives their music warmth - that, and their ability to write cheeky melodies that radiate an infectious sense of joy. [Read More]

Golden moment … Klimt’s The Kiss at the Belvedere Museum, ViennaGolden moment … Klimt’s The Kiss at the Belvedere Museum, ViennaArtIs the woman unconscious? Could the man’s embrace be violent? A new film invites us to challenge our preconceptions about the gilded masterpiece Some paintings become so iconic that it is difficult to remember that they are in fact paintings, not just posters on the walls of dorm rooms stained with Blu-Tack. [Read More]

Mary GaitskillReviewThe anger and ambiguities of #MeToo are masterfully distilled into the account of a complicated friendshipMary Gaitskill’s formidable new novella opens in the aftermath of an intense period of reckoning, during which sexual abusers and harassers have been called out. Trials are set; justice is pending. In other words, the book’s fictional world is our current one. The duo narrating the story are friends of 20 years – Quinlan Maximillian Saunders (known as Q), and Margot (M). [Read More]

JamaicaObituaryVincent 'Randy' ChinPioneering producer who became Jamaica's largest music publisherVincent "Randy" Chin, who has died aged 65, was a giant of the Jamaican record industry. One of the first to issue locally recorded music on the island, he founded the VP label and distribution company, currently one of the largest publishers of Jamaican music in the world. Vincent was born in Kingston, the son of a carpenter who left mainland China in the 1920s and settled in Jamaica after a brief stay in Cuba. [Read More]

ShortcutsCelebrityThe star tweeted a picture of himself turning up for jury duty. In the end, he wasn't called to serve – which, as similar cases show us, is probably a good thing …Imagine turning up to court and seeing Charlie Sheen gurning back at you from the jury box. Imagine the chill you'd feel as you discovered that, rather than taking notes throughout your trial, he'd just been manically scribbling the words " [Read More]

Pop and rockObituaryGary Rossington obituarySongwriter, guitarist and founding member of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, known for its single Sweet Home AlabamaThe guitarist Gary Rossington, who has died aged 71, was the last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, who formed in Florida in the mid-1960s. He was a pivotal part of the group as both musician and songwriter, his most arresting claim to fame being his slide guitar work on the band’s imperishable theme song, Free Bird. [Read More]