Win Clarks vouchers worth £150 - competition

The sun is beginning to peek out from behind the clouds and the temperature is gradually rising: spring is on its way. So it's probably a good time to revamp your winter wardrobe and add some colour into the mix.

Clarks is celebrating the release of its new Liberty Art Fabrics collection for the SS13 season by offering two readers the chance to win £150 of vouchers to spend in store. The Liberty Art Fabrics collection is a special collaboration that merges colourful, vintage styles with modern sensibilities.

The art nouveau Liberty print adorning the collection is inspired by peacock feathers and was first designed in 1902 and printed by Liberty in 1967.

You can find more information about the collection at clarks.co.uk.

To enter the competition, simply fill in your details and answer the question below.

1. The Clarks competition (the "Competition") is open to residents of the UK aged 18 and over.

2. The Competition is not open to employees or agencies of Guardian News & Media Limited ("GNM"), Clarks, their group companies or family members, freelance contributors to GNM, or anyone else connected to the Competition.

3. Entry into the Competition is acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.

4. To enter the Competition you must fill out the online entry form above. If you have any questions about how to enter or in connection with the Competition, please email user.help@guardian.co.uk with "Clarks competition" in the subject line. Do not email us to enter; only email if you have difficulties using the online entry form above.

5. Only one entry per person. Entries on behalf of another person will not be accepted and joint submissions are not allowed. You are responsible for the cost (if any) of sending your Competition entry to us.

6. No responsibility is taken for entries that are lost, delayed, misdirected or incomplete or cannot be delivered or entered for any technical or other reason. Proof of delivery of the entry is not proof of receipt.

7. The Competition closes at 23.59 on 18 March 2013. Entries received after that date and time will not be considered.

8. Two winner will be chosen from a random draw of correct entries.

9. Two winners will each receive Clarks vouchers worth £150. GNM accepts no responsibility for any costs associated with the prize and not specifically included in the prize.

10. The winners will be notified by email on or before 25 March 2013 and given details of how to claim their prize. If a winner does not respond to GNM within two days of being notified by GNM, then the winner's prize will be forfeited and GNM shall be entitled to select another winner (and that winner will have to respond to the phone call or email from GNM within two days or else they will also forfeit their prize). If a winner rejects their prize, then the winner's prize will be forfeited and GNM shall be entitled to select another winner.

11. Details of the winner can be obtained by sending a stamped addressed envelope to the following address: Kate Carter, Guardian News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.

12. The prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable, and is not redeemable for cash or other prizes.

13. GNM retains the right to substitute the prize with another prize of similar value in the event the original prize offered is not available.

14. The winner may be required for promotional activity.

15. No purchase necessary.

16. Nothing in these terms and conditions shall exclude the liability of GNM for death, personal injury, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation as a result of its negligence.

17. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition or accepting the prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to your or any other person's computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition.

20. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control (including, without limitation, in the case of anticipated, suspected or actual fraud). The decision of GNM in all matters under its control is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.

21. GNM shall not be liable for any failure to comply with its obligations where the failure is caused by something outside its reasonable control. Such circumstances shall include, but not be limited to, weather conditions, fire, flood, hurricane, strike, industrial dispute, war, hostilities, political unrest, riots, civil commotion, inevitable accidents, supervening legislation or any other circumstances amounting to force majeure.

22. The Competition will be governed by English law. Promoter: Guardian News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU.

View the original article here

Strapless, furry hats, pink, masculine slacks

Strapless

A definite example of the Raf-at-Dior effect. Ever since Simons arrived at the French house, he has worked strapless looks into his collections with verve and modernity. Last Friday, in Paris, he did it again with silk bustiers, either as the tops of dresses or as a separate top with a skirt. Alexander Wang’s largely successful Balenciaga debut (above) featured a black bustier with cigarette trousers. Very Raf-at-Dior. Stella McCartney also featured a strapless pinstripe day dress, as well as strapless cocktail numbers, while Margiela took a mannish shirt and made it strapless Photograph: credit : Balenciaga/Aurore Probst

View the original article here

EL James, author of Fifty Shades, has a new love rival

The news that publishers Headline have acquired a new trilogy of BDSM-themed Twilight fan fiction brings with it not only a wearying sense of deja vu, but also the conviction that even the pretence of originality is now superfluous to getting published. I seriously wonder if I’ve travelled back 12 months in time when I read that Tara Sue Me’s The Submissive depicts “a BDSM relationship between a wealthy CEO and a young librarian”. And yes nitpickers, I know that E L James’ ingénue in Fifty Shades of Grey was a student and not a librarian, but am I to believe this is the only detail one needs to change in order to score a three-book publishing contract?

The Submissive, published as an e-book this month and in print in June, actually pre-dates Fifty Shades... by a couple of years, first appearing on Fanfiction.net in 2009. But even the question of who is aping whom feels pretty irrelevant as we witness publishers abandoning all attempts to nurture original talent, and instead simply trawling the internet for the latest derivation of an already derivative work.

In this brutal market, perhaps I shouldn't blame Headline for being thrilled at the chance to replicate E L James’ sales figures. But where’s the thrill for readers who seek fresh ideas, innovation and at least an attempt at originality? And will publishers who dare to champion those qualities also see themselves fall by the wayside as others who wish to stay profitable increasingly turn to fan fiction as a "safe bet"?

To take entirely against fan fiction is pointless, not least because it’s clearly here to stay. (And, as the novelist and cultural commentator Ewan Morrison has pointed out, it has existed in some form throughout history – weren’t Matthew, Mark, Luke and John simply “non-professionals retelling the same story about the same character?”). Nor is being derivative necessarily a sin – after all, the writer who tries to create work from inside an influence-free vacuum would probably never type a single word.

However, as Gladstone of Cracked.com points out: “Using influences in a novel is a lot like using sampling in music. It’s absolutely fine to lift riffs and hooks from other songs as long as they are reverential building blocks of your work instead of being the appeal of your work.” And therein lies the difference between writing that pays homage to another’s work, and writing that robs that work wholesale of plot, theme and characters.

Game of Thrones author George R R Martin does not allow his work to be used in fan fiction, advancing on his website a domino theory whereby “once you open that door, you can’t control who might come in”. Fan fiction seems fine when its authors are “motivated only be sincere love of [an author’s] world and characters,” says Martin, “but Bill B. Hack and Ripoff don’t give a damn. They just want the bucks.” And that cold hard eye on "the bucks" is exactly what’s leading to the kind of audacious recycling that we’re seeing Headline perform with The Submissive, and eroding any chance of freshness or risk-taking amongst major publishers.

Perhaps we should blame Stephanie Meyer for not taking a similar stance to George RR Martin and calling her copyright lawyer the moment the tedious deluge of Twilight homages emerged. Instead Meyer has remained diplomatic, stating that although Fifty Shades “might not exist in the exact form that it’s in” if it weren’t for Twilight, E L James “obviously...had a story in her, and so it would’ve come out in some other way.” Writers who have been sweating blood to get a publisher to notice them may rightly bridle at the notion that writing fan fiction is automatically a sign that you "have a story in you" – surely the fact you’re using someone else’s story as a template implies the exact opposite.

Whether we view fan fiction as derivative or democratic, personally I’m just dreading another summer of teeth-grindingly awful prose and tired tropes of submissive women and powerful men. So, maybe it’s time to start writing some Hunger Games fan fiction and see if that gets picked up – either that or sit back and wait for another three-book contract to be awarded to "exciting new fan fiction based on the fan fiction of the fan fiction of Twilight".

Follow Telegraph Books on Twitter

View the original article here

EL James, author of Fifty Shades, has a new love rival

The news that publishers Headline have acquired a new trilogy of BDSM-themed Twilight fan fiction brings with it not only a wearying sense of deja vu, but also the conviction that even the pretence of originality is now superfluous to getting published. I seriously wonder if I’ve travelled back 12 months in time when I read that Tara Sue Me’s The Submissive depicts “a BDSM relationship between a wealthy CEO and a young librarian”. And yes nitpickers, I know that E L James’ ingénue in Fifty Shades of Grey was a student and not a librarian, but am I to believe this is the only detail one needs to change in order to score a three-book publishing contract?

The Submissive, published as an e-book this month and in print in June, actually pre-dates Fifty Shades... by a couple of years, first appearing on Fanfiction.net in 2009. But even the question of who is aping whom feels pretty irrelevant as we witness publishers abandoning all attempts to nurture original talent, and instead simply trawling the internet for the latest derivation of an already derivative work.

In this brutal market, perhaps I shouldn't blame Headline for being thrilled at the chance to replicate E L James’ sales figures. But where’s the thrill for readers who seek fresh ideas, innovation and at least an attempt at originality? And will publishers who dare to champion those qualities also see themselves fall by the wayside as others who wish to stay profitable increasingly turn to fan fiction as a "safe bet"?

To take entirely against fan fiction is pointless, not least because it’s clearly here to stay. (And, as the novelist and cultural commentator Ewan Morrison has pointed out, it has existed in some form throughout history – weren’t Matthew, Mark, Luke and John simply “non-professionals retelling the same story about the same character?”). Nor is being derivative necessarily a sin – after all, the writer who tries to create work from inside an influence-free vacuum would probably never type a single word.

However, as Gladstone of Cracked.com points out: “Using influences in a novel is a lot like using sampling in music. It’s absolutely fine to lift riffs and hooks from other songs as long as they are reverential building blocks of your work instead of being the appeal of your work.” And therein lies the difference between writing that pays homage to another’s work, and writing that robs that work wholesale of plot, theme and characters.

Game of Thrones author George R R Martin does not allow his work to be used in fan fiction, advancing on his website a domino theory whereby “once you open that door, you can’t control who might come in”. Fan fiction seems fine when its authors are “motivated only be sincere love of [an author’s] world and characters,” says Martin, “but Bill B. Hack and Ripoff don’t give a damn. They just want the bucks.” And that cold hard eye on "the bucks" is exactly what’s leading to the kind of audacious recycling that we’re seeing Headline perform with The Submissive, and eroding any chance of freshness or risk-taking amongst major publishers.

Perhaps we should blame Stephanie Meyer for not taking a similar stance to George RR Martin and calling her copyright lawyer the moment the tedious deluge of Twilight homages emerged. Instead Meyer has remained diplomatic, stating that although Fifty Shades “might not exist in the exact form that it’s in” if it weren’t for Twilight, E L James “obviously...had a story in her, and so it would’ve come out in some other way.” Writers who have been sweating blood to get a publisher to notice them may rightly bridle at the notion that writing fan fiction is automatically a sign that you "have a story in you" – surely the fact you’re using someone else’s story as a template implies the exact opposite.

Whether we view fan fiction as derivative or democratic, personally I’m just dreading another summer of teeth-grindingly awful prose and tired tropes of submissive women and powerful men. So, maybe it’s time to start writing some Hunger Games fan fiction and see if that gets picked up – either that or sit back and wait for another three-book contract to be awarded to "exciting new fan fiction based on the fan fiction of the fan fiction of Twilight".

Follow Telegraph Books on Twitter

View the original article here

Is there a murderer in your family tree? Old criminal records published online

The 2.5 million records dating from 1770 to 1934 will enable people to find out whether any murderers, drunks or petty criminals lurk in their family tree.

Described as the biggest collection of historical criminal records from England and Wales, they are being made available by family history site findmypast.co.uk in association with The National Archives.

The documents include mug shots, court papers, appeal letters, examples of early Edwardian ‘Asbos’, where habitual drunks were banned from pubs and entertainment venues, and registers from the prison ‘hulk’ ships, which were used when mainland prisons were overcrowded.

The more macabre examples include court records and reports on the Victorian serial killer Amelia Dyer, who is believed to have murdered 400 babies between 1880 and 1896 by strangling them with ribbon and dumping them in the River Thames.

There are also documents on George Joseph Smith, who killed three wives by drowning them in the bath before being convicted in 1915.

One bizarre list of court results from Essex dating from 1896 shows that a man called Charles Norton was sentenced to nine months in Pentonville Prison for stealing five cases of brandy, while an errand boy called George Roker was jailed for only four months for manslaughter.

Paul Carter, a specialist at the National Archives, said the records were a valuable source for historians.

“These records show the evolution of the criminal justice system in the 19th century as the country dealt with the impact of industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth,” he said.

“They record the intimate details of hundreds of thousands of people, beginning with judges’ recommendations for or against pardons, to petitions through which criminals and their families could offer mitigating circumstances and grounds for mercy, and later, licences containing everything from previous convictions to the state of a prisoner’s health.”

View the original article here

'I've killed him', cried skydiver in fatal mid-air collision

"I can't say he was completely lucid. He was in a bad way and may not have been aware what he was saying but I can't deny what I heard."

Mr Sandeman, from Putney, south-west London, was pronounced dead at the scene, having suffered injuries to his head, ribs and pelvis.

The 53-year-old, who had completed 677 previous jumps, was a partner in Lea & Sandeman, the fine wine merchants and was described after his death as "a total ornament to the British wine trade".

The inquest heard that on September 22, Mr Le Berre and Mr Sandeman had jumped from the same plane.

The airfield was busy that day and there was little wind.

Their jumps were staggered for safety reasons, with Mr Le Berre jumping as part of the first group of nine and Mr Sandeman part of a second group of four.

Both left the plane at about 14,000ft (4,267m), reaching speeds of up to 200mph (322kph) in freefall before deploying their parachutes between 5,000ft (1,524m) and 2,500ft (762m).

Giving evidence, Mr Le Berre, who had completed 488 jumps, said he was slowing after performing an advanced "swooping" manoeuvre, involving a sudden turn and increase in speed, when he saw Mr Sandeman below him.

Mr Le Berre, 28, a programmer originally from France but now living in London, said he remembered pulling on his breaks but could not prevent his knees hitting Mr Sandeman's canopy and tangling their parachute lines.

Mr Wilson-Roberts said swooping turns created unpredictable landing patterns and made it more difficult for skydivers to predict one another's movements.

He was part of Mr Sandeman's group and captured a video of the jump using a head camera.

It showed the early stages of the jump unfolding uneventfully before the camera lost sight of Mr Sandeman.

Mr Sandeman's wife and son left the room as this was played to the inquest.

"It was only when I landed and was alerted by my wife that I found out they had collided," Mr Wilson-Roberts said.

"When I arrived at the accident scene, Pat was laying there completely silent and Matt on his side facing him.

"It was quickly established that Pat wasn't alive and we needed to do CPR."

View the original article here

Migrants may have to register in order to use the NHS

Mark Harper, the immigration minister, said that ministers are examining options for a “mandatory register” for European nationals who want to use British services.

He made the disclosure after David Cameron said foreigners are taking advantage of the NHS and should only get free treatment if they have been paying taxes.

The Coalition is under political pressure over the potential arrival in Britain next year of Romanian and Bulgarian workers when restrictions on their movement lapse. Mr Harper said that such arrivals could be forced to register as British residents before being able to use services.

Mr Harper told ITV: “It's certainly an idea we are looking at. Some other EU countries already have a mandatory register for access to public services and we're looking at the costs and benefits to see if it’s sensible.”

The Prime Minister earlier said the health service should not automatically be free for foreigners from outside the EU.

Speaking to workers at B&Q in Eastleigh, he added that Britain must also get better at charging other EU countries when their citizens use the NHS.

"We're not tough enough right now about people coming from the other side of the world who decide to use our health service," he said. "They haven't contributed in their taxes. They should pay when they use the NHS."

Mr Cameron criticised the current system as he was asked about the pressure on NHS services if a wave of Bulgarians and Romanians immigrate to Britain when restrictions are lifted next year.

"We've made some progress. But there's a lot more to do to make sure that, while we're welcoming to immigrants, we don't allow people to come here and take advantage of us, because I think that does happen too often," he said.

He also criticised the scale of welfare spending on British claimants. Up to ten people's annual taxes could go towards supporting the housing benefit of just one family in the most extreme cases, he said.

The Prime Minister said the "scale of the problem" is shown by the £20 billion housing benefit bill, which is two-thirds of Britain's entire defence budget.

Mr Cameron this week launched a review into how foreigners access benefits. On Thursday's visit to support the Conservative Eastleigh by-election campaign, he said this review will look at all welfare payments and services, including health, housing and legal aid as well as traditional benefits.

It comes after GPs wrote to ministers last month demanding changes to stop widespread health tourism costing the NHS millions of pounds a year.

At the moment GPs must treat almost anybody who comes into their surgery. New guidance was issued last year stipulating that “nationality is not relevant” when it comes to registration, and stating doctors had to register those from anywhere on the globe to “promote human rights and public health”.

GPs point out that once a foreigner patient has registered, hospital staff hardly ever check whether they are also entitled to more specialist NHS care.

In 2010 a Department of Health report found that health tourism was costing the NHS at least £10 million a year in unrecovered costs, although doctors believe the true figure is far higher because most goes undetected.

View the original article here