From Castlerea to the Bay of Tralee

... and everywhere in between.

Every town needs an independent cinema, says movie star John Hurt

Interviewer:

"It must be a great career where you can combine your love for acting with travel to places you wouldn't ordinarily go to otherwise."

John Hurt:

"Nobody is lucky. Nobody is lucky. I tell you.

I mean, of course, you have, when I talk about enjoyment in its full sense, there are difficult periods, of course there are.

It would be complete lunacy to say there weren't, but even those difficult periods are nothing in comparison to some of the difficult periods that my fellow human being have to suffer. Just nothing.

So I can't ever really look at myself in anything other than a fortunate light"

via cumberlandnews.co.uk

 

If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark

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via equalitytrust.org.uk

Or possibly Japan. Because if it's social mobility you're after, the USA (followed closely by the UK) is the worst place to live on Earth, according to Richard Wilkinson, professor emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham.

His research has shown that the more unequal a country - ie, the greater the gap between rich and poor - the less people trust each other, the more heart disease they suffer, the greater number of murders there are, and the higher level of mental illness they suffer.

Status anxiety, according to Wilkinson, isn't some sort of existential malaise: it affects all people in all walks of life and entire nation states. If you really want to tackle diabetes or teenage pregnancy, or infant mortality, or depression, he argues, then you need to restrain City bonuses and raise taxes.