Media
NFL quarterback's bodyguards to be tried for shooting at wedding photographers
Three bodyguards working for American football star Tom Brady and his supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen are to stand trial in Costa Rica after firing shots at two photographers during an altercation at the couple's 2009 wedding.
A court in Puntarenas, on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, set a trial date for September 23 against two Costa Rican security guards and a Colombian national who are accused of shooting at AFP photojournalist Yuri Cortez and fellow photographer Rolando Aviles.
The incident occurred on April 4, 2009 as Cortez and Aviles attempted to cover the celebrity couple's wedding reception held at Brazilian model Bundchen's Costa Rican holiday home.
According to a previous lawsuit filed by AFP and the two photographers, Cortez and Aviles were forced to drive into the Bundchen property, where they refused demands from bodyguards that they turn over their cameras and memory cards.
As they drove off, "one of the Brady/Bundchen bodyguards opened fire with pistols and shot at Cortez and Aviles," the suit said.
The bullet shattered the rear window of the vehicle and "narrowly missed striking the heads of Cortez and Aviles."
"We look forward to the conviction (of the three accused)," said a lawyer for the two photographers. "We have sufficient evidence to support this accusation in court."
Cortez meanwhile said he was looking forward to seeing the men finally face trial "after four years of waiting."
"They tried to kill me and I think we have enough evidence to prove it," said Cortez, who is currently a photojournalist working in AFP's Mexico City bureau.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]
'Mystery' of artist David Hockney aide's toilet cleaner death still unsolved
It remains a mystery why a 23-year-old assistant to British artist David Hockney drank lethal acidic toilet cleaner, but police have ruled out anyone else being involved, an inquest into his death heard on Friday.
Dominic Elliott collapsed and died in March after drinking Knock-Out toilet and drain cleaner at Hockney's home in East Yorkshire, as well as having snorted cocaine and ingested other drugs, the inquest has heard.
"It does remain a mystery -- for an intelligent young man to drink such a noxious substance," Detective Sergeant Thomas Napier of Humberside police told the hearing.
A post-mortem examination showed that Elliott, who was also a keen rugby player, had taken cocaine, ecstasy and the sleeping pill temazepam before he died. He had also been drinking and smoking cannabis.
Hockney, 76, one of Britain's most celebrated living artists who is renowned for his acrylic paintings of Californian swimming pools, told the court in a statement Thursday that Elliott was in a relationship with his own former partner John Fitzherbert.
Fitzherbert still lived at the artist's seaside home, along with two other men working in the art industry.
Hockney himself was asleep in his own bedroom at the time, he said.
Fitzherbert told the court that he and Elliott had been drinking and smoking cannabis, and Elliott had snorted cocaine.
He said that as they lay in bed, "Dominic just got up from bed, ran towards the door laughing hysterically, and threw himself off the internal landing", which was nine feet (three metres) high.
The two later went to sleep but Fitzherbert was awoken by Elliott standing in his underpants saying, "Can you take me to hospital?"
He saw the bottle of cleaner in the sink but did not connect it with Elliott, driving him to hospital rather than calling an ambulance.
Elliott died from the effects of drinking sulphuric acid soon after arriving at the hospital on March 15, the inquest heard.
The acid severely burned his mouth, tongue and throat before perforating his stomach, a pathologist said.
Fitzherbert said Elliott "liked living on the edge" and had been upset because he was not included in a photo of Hockney and his studio staff taken by the US photographer Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair magazine.
Hockney said he was "completely unaware" of what the pair had been doing that day and knew Elliott "professionally" rather than socially.
The coroner was expected to present his findings later on Friday.
Irish Nobel literature laureate Seamus Heaney dead at 74
Seamus Heaney, who has died aged 74, was widely regarded as the greatest Irish poet since William Butler Yeats, who like Heaney was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born and raised in Northern Ireland, Heaney was renowned for his mastery of Irish and Gaelic sources, as well as Old English, the Anglo-Saxon tongue from which he translated in 1999 a much-praised version of the medieval epic "Beowulf".
Although wary of being compared to Yeats -- who died in 1939, the year Heaney was born -- he acknowledged his kinship with a compatriot who also dug deep into ancient Irish traditions while reflecting his country's modern conflicts.
Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939 into a Catholic farming family in County Derry, Northern Ireland. His father was a farmer, while his mother's family had been workers in the local linen industry.
The eldest of nine children, Seamus grew up on the family farm of Mossbawm, before becoming a boarder at St Columb's College in the city of Derry, where he studied both Latin and Gaelic.
He went on to take English language and literature at Queen's University in Belfast, which became his home until 1972 and where he came under the influence of the British writer and teacher Philip Hobsbaum, who helped confirm his vocation as a poet.
His first published work was "Eleven Poems" in 1965, the year in which he married Marie Devlin, a fellow writer about whom he penned some of his finest poems and with whom he had two sons and a daughter.
Other collections include "Death of a Naturalist" (1966), "Door into the Dark" (1969), "North" (1975), "The Haw Lantern" (1987), "Seeing Things" (1991), "The Spirit Level" (1996) and "District and Circle" (2006).
In 1972, at the height of the violence involving British troops and Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries over Northern Ireland's status, Heaney moved to Dublin, which was to be his home base for the rest of his life.
After a spell devoted only to writing, he resumed teaching activities in 1975, speaking as a guest lecturer in US universities and in Britain.
Between 1989 and 1994 he held the coveted post of Professor of Poetry at England's prestigious Oxford University.
The following year he became the fourth Irish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, the three others having been Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925) and Samuel Beckett (1969).
In March 2009, Heaney was awarded the £40,000 ($62,000, 47,000-euro) David Cohen Prize for Literature for his lifetime of work.
"For the last 40-odd years, Heaney's poems have crystallised the story of our times, in language which has bravely and memorably continued to extend its imaginative reach," said Andrew Motion, Britain's then-poet laureate and the chairman of the judges.
"At the same time, his critical writing, his translations and his lecturing have invigorated the whole wider world of poetry."
In 2003 the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry was opened at Queen's University, housing a unique record of Heaney's entire works.
Former North Korean spy's memoir details 'enemization' training conducted by abducted South Koreans
As well as the obvious classes like bomb-making, Kim Dong-Sik's intensive spy training in North Korea included memorising hundreds of South Korean pop songs and dance moves.
Such strategies for assimilating into South Korean society were considered essential to avoid suspicion, Kim revealed in a recently-published memoir that lifts the lid on some of the workings of the North's spy agency.
Now 51, Kim was captured in the South in 1995 and spent years undergoing interrogation before renouncing communism and joining the South's intelligence authorities as an analyst.
In his memoir, he recalls being handpicked when he was 17, and entering the Kumsong political military university in Pyongyang which specialised in nurturing secret agents to run covert operations in the South.
He was among 200 students selected each year after a national search that took into account looks, family background, school grades and, above all, unquestioning loyalty to the North Korean leadership.
The elite trainees were not allowed to leave the campus or contact anyone outside its walls -- including their families.
The only exceptions were New Year greetings cards they were allowed to send home, but with no return address.
Days were filled with intense training in a large range of skills from martial arts, weapons and bomb-making to wall climbing, geology, Morse code and marine navigation.
All these were fitted around mandatory ideology classes.
In an interview in Seoul with AFP, the stocky, soft-spoken Kim said the course instructors repeatedly hammered home the idea that he and his classmates must always be prepared to sacrifice their lives for their mission.
If faced with capture, they should swallow cyanide pills rather than allow themselves to be taken alive and interrogated.
"The thought of death always weighed on our shoulders ... it was a very heavy burden for a bunch of 20-year-olds," he said.
Dozens dropped out of the high-pressure course, but Kim persevered, lured in part by the prospect of quick promotion within the ruling Workers' Party.
After graduation, the focus switched to training the agents to pass as locals.
South Koreans abducted and smuggled back into the North were among those who instructed them in mastering the right accents and understanding the social and political culture of the capitalist South.
This "enemization" process gave them their first real taste of life outside the isolated North, as they consumed a daily diet of South Korean TV shows, movies, magazines, newspapers and books.
Popular songs and dance moves were memorised, along with the names and careers of prominent TV celebrities and sports stars.
The course material suggested that the life of South Koreans was very different from the image portrayed in the North's official propaganda of "impoverished puppets suffering under US imperialism".
But Kim said he and the other trainees saw nothing amiss.
"We were too loyal to be shaken up by things like that," he said. "We were told that only rich capitalists could enjoy all the good things in the South, and we never questioned that."
After nearly 10 years of training, Kim was finally given his first mission and sent to the South in 1990 to try and recruit some left-wing activists, and help bring back Ri Son-Sil, an elderly agent who ran a vast network of spies in the South.
Two years later, Ri's name would make headlines in the South when dozens of leftwing activists were arrested and accused of cooperating with her to spy for the North in the 1980s.
"The activists were important targets because they could provide valuable inside information and help shape public opinion in our favour if they got into politics," Kim said.
His mission was successful and he was awarded the prestigious "Hero of the Republic" medal on his return to North Korea.
In 1995, he was sent back as part of a two-man team to bring out -- by force if necessary -- a spy posing as a monk who was suspected of working as a double agent with the South Korean intelligence service.
The mission was compromised and the two were tracked down by South Korean security forces. In the ensuing gun battle, Kim's fellow agent was killed and he was wounded and captured.
Kim declined to comment in any detail about the four years he spent in the custody of military intelligence, saying only that it was "quite difficult."
In the end, he was not imprisoned, but taken on as an intelligence officer having renounced any loyalty to the North.
"Apparently they thought that, with all the experiences and information I had, I had more value as an intelligence analyst than something else," Kim said.
The North Korean authorities were not so forgiving. Kim later learned his parents in the North had been "purged" after his arrest, meaning they had either been sent to a prison camp or executed.
"In their eyes I had failed twice -- both with the mission and in not killing myself before being arrested," he said.
He started a new life in South Korea, marrying and having two sons, and earning a Ph.D with a thesis on the North's spying strategy.
"My life was once full of drama ... there were so many days when death seemed to be constantly hanging over my head," he said.
"But I've learned to appreciate an ordinary, quiet life. I wish I could grow old and die that way."
Kim, who still guards his privacy and refused to be photographed front-on, said he had written the book for his sons, so that "they can someday understand my past."
"I also wanted to get things off my chest ... and put this piece of history people don't really know into the record," he added.
Popular Australian entertainer faces child rape, child porn charges in England
Rolf Harris, the veteran Australian artist and entertainer, has been charged with nine counts of indecent assault on two girls aged under 16, prosecutors in Britain said Thursday.
The 83-year-old, who has long been a fixture on British TV, has also been charged with four counts of making indecent images of children.
Harris is one of several older celebrities in Britain arrested under Operation Yewtree, the police probe into historical abuse set up in the wake of revelations that the late BBC star Jimmy Savile was a prolific sex offender.
Harris, who moved to England in 1952, has been a popular figure on British television screens for decades.
He painted an 80th birthday portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in 2005, took part in her diamond jubilee celebrations last year, and has been honoured by both Britain and Australia.
The presenter and musician is due to appear in a London court on September 23.
Alison Saunders of England's state Crown Prosecution Service said: "We have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Harris to be charged with nine counts of indecent assault and four of making indecent images of a child."
Harris was charged with six counts of indecent assault relating to a girl aged between 15 and 16 for incidents dating from April 1980 to April 1981, and three relating to a girl aged 14 from April and June 1986.
He was further charged with four counts of making indecent images of children, on or before dates spanning between March and July 2012.
Saunders stressed that Harris had the right to a fair trial.
As a singer, he topped the Australian charts in 1960 with "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" and the British charts in 1969 with "Two Little Boys".
His trademark sound is the wobble board, which he accidentally invented by shaking a painting board.
Some 14 people have been arrested under Operation Yewtree, four of whom have now been charged, including broadcaster Dave Lee Travis.
The charges against Harris and Travis are not connected to Savile, who police believe was one of Britain's worst-ever sex offenders.
'The Butler' falsely portrays Ronald Reagan as racist, says son
Michael Reagan accuses Lee Daniels' film about African American White House butler of harboring 'a bunch of lies'
It has been hailed by no less a dignitary than the current president of the United States, Barack Obama, but the Oscar-tipped civil-rights drama The Butler has not gone down so well at the other end of the political spectrum. Michael Reagan, son of Ronald, says the film falsely portrays his father as a racist who had no time for African American members of the White House staff during his 80s tenure.
Writing on the Newsmax website, Reagan described director Lee Daniels' depiction of Ronald as "a bunch of lies", pointing out that his father signed the law that created Martin Luther King Day and promoted the real-life White House staff member at the centre of the film to maître d'hôtel.
The Butler – full title Lee Daniels' The Butler due to a copyright dispute between The Weinstein Company and rival studio Warner Bros – features Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker as an African American servant named Cecil Gaines. The character is based on the real-life White House butler Eugene Allen, who served eight presidents between 1952 and his retirement in 1986.
"It's appalling to me that someone is trying to imply my father was a racist," wrote Michael. "He and Nancy and the rest of the Reagan family treated Mr Allen with the utmost respect. It was Nancy Reagan who invited the butler to dinner – not to work but as guest. And it was my father who promoted Mr Allen to maître d'hôtel.
"The real story of the White House butler doesn't imply racism at all. It's simply Hollywood liberals wanting to believe something about my father that was never there."
The former conservative talk show host – the adopted son of Reagan and first wife, Jane Wyman – said his father's support for lifting sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime in the 1980s had "nothing to do with the narrow issue of race", adding: "It had to do with the geopolitics of the cold war. But facts don't matter to Hollywood's creative propagandists. Truth is too complicated and not dramatic enough for scriptwriters, who think in minute terms, not the big picture, when it comes to a conservative."
Ronald Reagan is portrayed by Alan Rickman in The Butler. Oprah Winfrey plays Gaines's wife, Gloria, with Britain's David Oyelowo as his civil-rights activist son, Louis. Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, Minka Kelly, John Cusack and Jane Fonda appear as the various other US presidents and first ladies whom Gaines meets along the way.
Michael Reagan has not always had such kind words for his father, who sent him off to boarding school at the age of six. In a 1988 biography he revealed that the president failed to recognise his own son during a visit to the exclusive Judson prep school outside Scottsdale, Arizona, for a graduation ceremony.
"My name is Ronald Reagan. What's yours?" Reagan said to one young boy, according to Michael's autobiography, On the Outside Looking In. The graduate replied: "I'm your son Mike." The elder Reagan responded: "Oh, I didn't recognise you."
President Obama revealed earlier this week that he was moved to tears while viewing Daniels' film, which is currently riding high at the US box office. "I teared up thinking about not just the butlers who worked here in the White House, but an entire generation of people who were talented and skilled. But because of Jim Crow and because of discrimination, there was only so far they could go," he said.
New Edith Piaf biography debunks myths
A new biography of Edith Piaf debunks several myths about the doyenne of post-war French music, including claims she was born on the streets, suffered from blindness and helped prisoners during World War II.
"Piaf, a French Myth", which hits the bookstands this week, draws on scores of unpublished letters written by Piaf to her confidant, poet Jacques Bourgeat, among other personal papers and correspondence.
Author Robert Belleret said painstaking research had shown that several falsehoods about the "little sparrow" were perpetuated by her and her entourage.
The aim was to "feed the myth" of Piaf, said Belleret, a former journalist at France's Le Monde newspaper who has also written an acclaimed biography of French singer Leo Ferre.
Belleret's book shows that Piaf, who was born Edith Gassion, did not come into the world on the streets as widely claimed but at a hospital in the 20th arrondissement of Paris on December 15, 1915.
While one biographer said she was cured of childhood blindness after a pilgrimage and Piaf spoke of a miraculous healing, the new book says she did not suffer from keratitis, a condition that inflames the the corneas, between the ages of three and seven.
Piaf's childhood was difficult, with her mother -- a singer -- abandoning her. She was brought up by her grandmothers but was not weaned on red wine as was widely reported.
Belleret also says the iconic singer had no political conscience and dismisses her claim that she passed on fake papers to prisoners in German camps during World War II.
Rather, she moved house in 1942 to an area close to the Gestapo headquarters in German-occupied Paris.
The singer, who died nearly 50 years ago, was a prolific songwriter who wrote the lyrics to some of France's best-known songs, including "La Vie En Rose" and "Je Ne Regrette Rien".
But Belleret says her letters were poorly written, with spelling and grammatical mistakes.
A 2007 French biographical film about her life, directed by Olivier Dahan and titled "La Vie En Rose", earned the actress Marion Cotillard an Oscar for her portrayal of Piaf.
A great quality was her ability to spot talent, Belleret said. Piaf launched the careers of international stars such as Yves Montand, Charles Aznavour and Georges Moustaki.
Sandra Bullock called International Space Station to prep for new movie 'Gravity'
US actress Sandra Bullock said on Wednesday she spoke to astronauts to prepare for the harrowing space drama "Gravity", while co-star George Clooney quipped he just used yoga and booze.
"I called and left a message and they called me back" from the International Space Station, a toned Bullock said at the Venice film festival after a press screening of the film.
"They were incredibly helpful," she said.
"They gave me an inside visual as to why they chose what they do for a living, their love for what is beyond our planet."
The 3-D sci-fi thriller sees Clooney and Bullock as astronauts who are flung into dark, deep space when a debris shower destroys their shuttle.
"It was the craziest, most bizarre challenging shoot I've ever done," said the actress, who explained she had also worked out intensely and listened to opera music to prepare for her part.
Clooney, dashing in a light grey suit, joked that he had "done yoga and drunk my way into the part" and said the biggest challenge was learning how to "move slowly to mimic body movement in space while speaking quickly".
Directed by Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron of "Children of Men" fame, the film induces nail-biting anxiety, with terrifying shots from inside the astronauts' helmets as they spin wildly and lose all radio contact with Earth.
"We wanted a film about adversity, and used the debris as a metaphor," Cuaron said.
"The idea was for a film in which we could strip the narrative down as much as possible... a story of just two characters in a very hostile environment who undergo a journey, a metaphor the audience could connect to," he said.
Cuaron invented new filmmaking techniques to depict spacewalking, including shooting inside a giant cube to evoke constantly shifting light sources.
"We had advisors, scientists and physicists teaching the cast how things would react in space. A lot of the shots required the actors to be isolated, it was a very abstract way for them to perform," he said.
After months of delay and a huge budget, "Gravity" delivers a Hollywood punch.
Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first mission who relies on veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) to hold on to her sanity and try to survive despite her rapidly dropping oxygen levels.
A soundtrack dominated by her racing heartbeat and the deafening silence of space is punctuated by jokes from Kowalsky: "Half of North America just lost its Facebook", he cracks as debris takes out communication satellites.
Stone spends much of the film alone, and Bullock said it was not easy.
"I had to create an inner life. I was alone much of the time, and if I had just a glimpse of George while hanging from 20 foot cables I was grateful," she said.
"I was very grateful for any human contact, even someone's breath."
The film's key message, Clooney said, was about how mammoth a task it can be to "come through adversity and end up with your feet planted on the ground" -- a reference to the safe landing on Earth the characters long for desperately.
While director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki produces stunning images which left the festival spectators gasping for air, the humour sometimes detracts from key scenes and the characters have disappointingly little time to develop.
Clooney, Bullock and Cuaron will take to the red carpet for the opening ceremony of the world's oldest film festival, followed by an exclusive after-dinner party later on Wednesday.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas 'take a break' from marriage
Movie stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and her husband Michael Douglas have decided to take a break from their 13-year marriage, according to a report in People magazine Wednesday.
"They're taking a break," a source told the entertainment magazine, which reported that neither star had filed for divorce or legal separation.
Zeta-Jones' publicist could not be reached for comment.
The A-list couple have not been photographed together since April, appearing on red carpets solo and vacationing separately.
The pair have faced a tumultuous few years, with the 68-year-old Douglas fighting off throat cancer and Zeta-Jones, 43, undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder.
Douglas made waves in June when he attributed his throat cancer to the sexually transmitted Human papillomavirus (HPV), saying he caught it through performing oral sex. He later backtracked, saying he did not know what caused his cancer.
The couple married in 2000, and have two children.
Undercover reporter 'had sex' with dentist during female circumcision sting operation
Hearing told reporter was trying to get dentist to agree to carry out female circumcisions in sting set up by Mazher Mahmood.
An undercover Sunday Times reporter had sex with a dentist during a sting set up by 'Fake Sheikh' Mazher Mahmood, a misconduct hearing has been told.
The unknown journalist 'went to extra lengths' to get dentist Omar Addow, 56, to offer to perform female circumcision on her two young nieces.
The hearing heard that Addow at first insisted he was against the illegal 'ritual' but then disappeared into a room with the woman for an hour.
On his return he was recorded on her handbag camera saying: 'I will do it for you. Between you, me and Allah only'.
Addow was arrested two weeks after the story appeared in the Sunday Times, but was not charged.
The allegations emerged during a misconduct hearing before the General Dental Council in London on Tuesday.
The Sunday Times stands by its story and says the journalist denies having sex with the dentist.
"The journalist in question was a freelance engaged in a legitimate undercover investigation by the Sunday Times into female genital mutilation, which is a matter of public interest. She categorically denies having had sexual intercourse or any other sexually intimate contact with Dr Addow," said a spokesman on Wednesday.
Tom Kark QC, for the General Dental Council, which is investigating Addow, told the hearing that the basis for the article, which appeared in the newspaper in April 2012, was that the reporter, who has not been named, "pretended to be looking for someone who would circumcise children, [and] was referred to Dr Addow by a GP".
Initially, Addow appeared "very reluctant" and refused her request, the hearing was told. Kark said Addow was then "recorded undercover indicating that he was prepared to carry out female circumcisions on two girls"
Kark said:"'He [Addow] says it is against the law. He claims that when he practised in Italy he campaigned against female circumcision.
"He talks about the danger in taking the girls to old women who perform the operation."
According to Kark, Addow told the reporter: "It is dangerous, it is dangerous. I am against the ritual circumcision of girls", but the dentist later agreed to describe the procedure in some detail and displayed the instruments needed for female circumcision – including surgical scissors and a clamp.
When the reporter's stomach started rumbling Addow carried out 'percussion' and examined her abdomen and then other parts of her body, the hearing was told.
Mahmood, whose targets have famously included Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, supplied his reporter with fresh batteries for her 'handbag cam' moments before she went to his flat, the hearing was told.
Soon after arriving she disappeared into the bedroom with Addow, reappearing after an hour wearing what appeared to be a sarong, the hearing was told.
"It appears he and the journalist had sexual intercourse," said Kark. We may form the view that the journalist had gone to extra lengths to get her story.".
Addow is then heard agreeing for the first time to perform the circumcisions.
The journalist, referred to only as a "female undercover investigator", claims on the secret video to be 33 and of Ghanaian origin.
Neither she nor 'senior investigator' Mahmood will be called to give evidence, the hearing was told.
Both Addow and the GP who is said to have referred the journalist to him were arrested on 4 May for conspiring to perform female genital mutilation. They were both released without charge.
"It is the General Dental Council's submission that although he appeared to be very reluctant to take part in such a procedure, he was eventually persuaded to do so," Kark said.
At his police interview, Addow again claimed to be a vocal opponent of 'cutting', the tribunal heard.
Addow told police "he campaigned against it because his mother and his wife had both been badly circumcised in Somalia".
However, he freely admitted to police that he examined the reporter and had sex with her, the hearing was told.
"We did sex", Addow told police.
Performing or assisting female genital mutilation carries a maximum jail term of 14 years, although no successful prosecution has ever been brought in this country.
Addow, who is not represented, faces no charges in relation to having sex with the journalist, as she was not his patient and they did not have sex in his surgery.
But he is accused of performing a medical examination on the woman while unregistered with the General Medical Council, as well as planning to carry out the two circumcisions.
The hearing is scheduled to continue to 3 September.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media@theguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
© Guardian News and Media 2013
[The doctor the dentist accepts the patient on the workplace in an office via Shutterstock.com]
'Twerking' to be included in next update of Oxford Dictionary
"Twerking", the raunchy dance that set tongues wagging when enthusiastically performed by Miley Cyrus at the MTV awards, is one of the new terms to make the latest Oxford dictionary update.
The former Disney child star, now 20, left audience members gobsmacked when she bent over and gyrated provocatively with singer Robin Thicke on his song "Blurred Lines".
The moves, borrowed from US hip-hop culture, have been colloquially known as twerking for around 20 years, but the term has now received official recognition after being included in the latest revision of Oxford Dictionaries Online, it revealed Wednesday.
"By last year, it had generated enough currency to be added to our new words watch list, and by this spring, we had enough evidence of usage frequency in a breadth of sources to consider adding it to our dictionaries of current English," explained Katherine Connor Martin, from Oxford Dictionaries Online.
"There are many theories about the origin of this word, and since it arose in oral use, we may never know the answer for sure.
"The current public reaction to twerking is reminiscent in some ways of how the twisting craze was regarded in the early 1960s, when it was first popularised by Chubby Checker's song, the Twist," she added.
Other new words recognised by the English language gatekeeper include "selfie", for a self-photograph taken on a mobile phone, online currency "Bitcoin" and "hackerspace".
Miley Cyrus criticized for appropriating black culture for her own profit
Miley Cyrus's raunchy performance at the MTV awards has ignited an online firestorm, prompting calls for heads to roll at the station while leaving others wondering: what exactly is twerking?
The former Disney child star, now 20, took to the stage at the awards ceremony in New York on Sunday night to perform alongside singer Robin Thicke on his song "Blurred Lines."
The 20-year-old, who first pranced around suggestively with a host of giant teddy bears, eventually stripped down to a skin-colored bikini before gyrating in a suggestive manner with a giant foam finger.
Then came the twerking.
With her trademark move of sticking her tongue out, Cyrus bent over and energetically gyrated up against Thicke's crotch.
Described on various Internet sites as the lascivious shaking of the lower extremities with a big assist from the hips, the classic hip-hop move has enjoyed a massive revival in recent years.
Pop star Justin Timberlake -- whose reunion with 'N Sync briefly stole headlines after the MTV awards -- sang in his 2006 hit "SexyBack": "Let me see what ya twerkin' with, look at those hips!"
Cyrus, who twerked away in her video "We Can't Stop," has come under fire for appropriating black culture for her own profit.
In the Huffington Post, entertainment editor Kia Makarechi slammed Miley's "reckless use of black culture as proof that she's subversive and no longer a Disney star."
Actress Brooke Shields, who played Cyrus's mother on the popular kids' show "Hannah Montana," expressed her concern during a turn as a guest host of NBC's Today show.
"I was Hannah Montana's mother. I do not approve," Shields said. "Where did I go wrong? I just want to know who's advising her, and why it's necessary?"
The Parents Television Council (PTC) hit out at MTV for "marketing sexually charged messages to young children using former child stars."
"MTV continues to sexually exploit young women by promoting acts that incorporate 'twerking' in a nude-colored bikini. How is this image of former child star Miley Cyrus appropriate for 14-year-olds?" read a statement from the PTC.
"Heads should roll at MTV," said PTC Advisory Board Member Paul Porter.
Oddly enough, the pop-star's equally famous father Billy Ray Cyrus serves on the PTC board.
The New York Times highlighted the "clumsy white appropriation of black culture," accusing Cyrus of molesting Thicke in a "shambolic, trickster-esque performance."
Heidi Cardenas, a mother of two teenage boys, wrote on CNN's Facebook page that Cyrus was "making a vulgar joke out of her talents and her beauty" and had let down her fans.
However the young songstress -- in 2011 the richest teen in Hollywood -- was unflustered by the hail of criticism, mocking web articles and twerking memes.
She tweeted remarks from Rollling Stone magazine that she had "stolen the night", and posted a few more racy pictures of herself.
"My VMA performance had 306,000 tweets per minute. That's more than the blackout or Superbowl!" she wrote on Twitter.
Copyright © 2026 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 |
Masthead
|
Privacy Policy
|
Manage Preferences
|
Debug Logs
For corrections contact
corrections@rawstory.com
, for support contact
support@rawstory.com
.