The familiar Sydney sound spliced into Billie Eilish's Bad Guy | Billie Eilish

 Posted on June 18, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  565 words  |  Delta Gatti

Billie Eilish This article is more than 3 years oldThe familiar Sydney sound spliced into Billie Eilish's Bad GuyThis article is more than 3 years oldArtist revealed last year that the chorus of her Grammy award winning song, which also topped the Triple J listener poll, used a sample of Sydney traffic light sounds If you listened carefully, you might just have heard it. Sitting underneath the pulsating chorus of Billie Eilish’s Grammy award-winning smash hit, Bad Guy, there is a familiar sound for many Australians: the rapid tick you will hear at a pedestrian crossing when the light turns green. [Read More]

A guide to Toru Takemitsu's music | Classical music

 Posted on June 17, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1196 words  |  Brenda Moya

A guide to contemporary classical musicClassical musicA guide to Toru Takemitsu's musicTakemitsu's understated and crystalline compositions combine elements of his own Japanese traditions with the western modernism he loved so muchI can remember the first time I listened to Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. It was his piece Archipelago S, written for a large ensemble, and it was back in 1993 in Vienna. He was one of the featured composers in that year's Wien Modern new music festival. [Read More]

British victims of September 11 | September 11 2001

 Posted on June 17, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1477 words  |  Christie Applegate

September 11 2001British victims of September 11As the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States approaches, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has released an official list of the 67 British victims, and 16 foreign nationals with close UK tiesUK nationals1. Sarah Ali, 35, from Balham, south west London, was at a conference on the 106th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Centre. 2. Andrew Joseph Bailey, 29, married with an eight-year-old daughter, was originally from Birmingham. [Read More]

General Alexander Lebed | Russia

 Posted on June 17, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  761 words  |  Brenda Moya

RussiaObituaryGeneral Alexander LebedRussian general who applied military toughness to politicsGeneral Alexander Lebed, who has died aged 52 in a helicopter crash, was a gruff soldier whose popularity and political ambitions raised fears of Bonapartism taking hold in the chaos of post- communist Russia in the mid-1990s. He made his name as a Kremlin fixer, negotiating an end to the Russian-ethnic Romanian conflict in Moldova in 1992 and, more importantly, saving Boris Yeltsin in summer 1996, when the first war in Chechnya jeopardised the sick president's re-election bid. [Read More]

Polish author jailed over killing he used as plot | World news

 Posted on June 17, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  807 words  |  Barrett Giampaolo

World newsPolish author jailed over killing he used as plot· Pole orchestrated murder of suspected love rival · Police stumped until they read gruesome thrillerA Polish pulp fiction writer was sentenced to 25 years in jail yesterday for his role in a grisly case of abduction, torture and murder, a crime that he then used for the plot of a bestselling thriller. In a remarkable case that has gripped Poland for months, Krystian Bala, a writer of blood-curdling fiction, was found guilty of orchestrating the murder seven years ago of a Wroclaw businessman, Dariusz Janiszewski, in a crime of passion brought on by the suspicion that the victim was sleeping with his ex-wife. [Read More]

Texas airport worker sucked into jet engine took his own life, authorities say | US news

 Posted on June 17, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  451 words  |  Christie Applegate

US news This article is more than 6 months oldTexas airport worker sucked into jet engine took his own life, authorities sayThis article is more than 6 months oldDavid Renner, 27, died after he stepped in front of Delta Air Lines jet taxiing to arrival gate at San Antonio airport The Texas airport worker who was killed after being sucked into a jet engine last week took his own life, authorities have determined. [Read More]

Love and Trouble: Memoirs of a Former Wild Girl by Claire Dederer review

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  698 words  |  Barrett Giampaolo

The ObserverAutobiography and memoirReviewThe author’s insights on middle age turn out to be more remarkable than her ‘wild’ youth in this sharply written memoir It is quite high stakes to name a memoir Love and Trouble, even more so to subtitle it Memoirs of a Former Wild Girl, and especially when the time frame is just before the grunge-rock explosion of early 90s Seattle, when there was a lot of love, trouble and wildness about. [Read More]

Rafael Nadals Australian Open return in doubt after injury scare | Tennis

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  621 words  |  Barrett Giampaolo

TennisRafael Nadal’s Australian Open return in doubt after injury scareTennis great had treatment on leg during Brisbane International lossFormer world No 1 on comeback trail following hip surgery in JuneRafael Nadal’s grand slam return at the Australian Open is up in the air following an injury scare to the same hip that required career-saving surgery. The Spanish great’s promising Brisbane International comeback was ended in a gruelling three-and-a-half hour quarter-final loss to Australian Jordan Thompson as Nadal was hampered by a leg issue on Friday night. [Read More]

Sofia Tolstoy's diaries paint bleak portrait of marriage to Leo | Leo Tolstoy

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  584 words  |  Merlyn Hunt

Leo Tolstoy This article is more than 14 years oldSofia Tolstoy's diaries paint bleak portrait of marriage to LeoThis article is more than 14 years oldNew edition of Sofia's journals record miserable life with the Russian masterThe famous opening line of Anna Karenina tells us that "all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". Now the diaries of Leo Tolstoy's wife Sofia are set to cast a new light on the troubled family life of perhaps the greatest Russian writer of them all. [Read More]

Top 10 beaches in St Kitts | Beach holidays

 Posted on June 16, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1267 words  |  Barrett Giampaolo

An island guide to St KittsBeach holidaysTop 10 beaches in St KittsSt Kitts and neighbouring Nevis glory in idyllic curves and stretches of soft, golden sands. Throw off your shoes and enjoy the island's best beachesMajors BayA rarely busy gem of a beach, Majors is located a few yards from the tip of the south-east peninsula highway, just next to where the Sea Bridge ferry to Nevis picks up and lets off vehicles and passengers. [Read More]