News week 4
25 Dec 2015
China's 'train hunter' on a quest to chronicle its fast-expanding railways
Wang Wei has spent 10 years travelling all over China to photograph trains and new lines, but can he keep up with the incredible pace of the country’s rail boom?
A train on the Xianggui railway in southern China. Wang Wei’s photographs show off China’s natural beauty as well as its trains. Photograph: Wang Wei
It has been 10 years since China’s self-styled “train hunter” set off on a 300,000km quest to document the greatest railway lines on Earth.
Armed with his trusty Nikon camera, Wang Wei has hiked up to the frosty Tibetan plateau and across the Gobi desert; he has journeyed to a tropical island in the South China Sea and to China’s remote border with Pakistan – all to satisfy his inexplicable urge to photograph trains.
“I never get tired. You don’t get tired if you are doing something you feel truly passionate about,” says Wang, who at 24 has already built a personal archive of hundreds of thousands of photographs of trains.
China’s No 1 trainspotter, who grew up just next to Beijing’s Xizhimen station and still lives with his parents, believes he was born with a fascination for ferroequinology.
Xiangyu railway in central China. Photograph: Wang Wei
His great-grandfather was a train driver who once transported Wu Peifu, a warlord whose exploits in early 20th-century China earned him a place on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline: “Biggest man in China”.
In 2006, the year after Wang’s expedition began, China opened the highest railway line on Earth, finally fulfilling Mao Zedong’s dream of integrating Tibet with central and eastern China.
Nanjiang railway in eastern China. Some say China’s rail growth is comparable to the 19th-century railway boom that helped make the US the world’s leading economy. Photograph: Wang Wei
The Suijia railway in Heilongjiang province. Photograph: Wang Wei
26 Dec 2015
Sexy Fish, London W1: ‘The food? It’s entirely forgettable’
We’re intimidated even before getting to our table, perhaps because I’m wearing H&M and my own face
Sexy Fish. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Guardian
When I tell the pal we’re going to Sexy Fish, she says, “Funny, nobody talks about getting crabs any more.” By the time you read this, everything to be said about this outlandish newcomer’s bizarre title will have been said, but dear God: it’s the worst restaurant name since Tottenham’s Golden Stool.
Sexy Fish Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square, London W1, 020-3764 2000. Open all week, lunch noon-3pm, dinner 5.30-11.30pm (11pm Sun). From £40 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food, atmosphere and value for money ratings Go on, take a wild guess
27 Dec 2015
How to get a nightclub glow
Glow for it: our pick of the beauty products for dewy skin.
This is what we call “nightclub skin”. Bare and glowy, with just the right amount of shine, as if you’ve been dancing against someone you fancy for the past hour, having spent the last fortnight on a yoga retreat. In Kerala. There’s a skill to wearing the minimum amount of make-up necessary for people to say: “You look well!” It has a lot to do with concealer, and also a lot to do with having really decent genes. Asos can help with only one of those things.
Get the look
EX1 Invisiwear £12.50, thisisbeautymart.com Guerlain Baby Glow £29.95,allbeauty.com Diorskin Illuminating Powder £38, johnlewis.com Vichy Dermablend £18, boots.com Hourglass Strobing Powder (out in 2016)liberty.co.uk Smashbox LA Lights £25, smashbox.co.uk Stila Aqua Glow Foundation (out in 2016) stila.co.uk RMS Luminizer £30, cultbeauty.co.ukIllamasqua Radiance Veil £32, asos.com
28 Dec 2015
New year, new you – how to be happy
With so many external pressures can any of us be truly happy? As we welcome in a new year, Rachel Kelly suggests small changes to your life that can have a huge impact on your outlook
Ahead of a Guardian Live/Idler Academy event looking at how to achieve happiness, panelist Rachel Kelly, author of Walking on Sunshine: 52 Small Steps To Happiness, offers some simple changes we can all make to our lives to improve our state of mind.
1. Slow down
We are human beings, not human doings and it’s very easy to forget that in the frenetic world in which we live. Make a point of setting aside time for a night off and defend space in your diary for doing nothing at all. And if you suffer from FOMO (the fear of missing out), recalibrate and think of it instead as the joy of missing out. A night in can be just what the doctor ordered to maintain a sense of control over busy lives.
2. Be mindful
Build a “mindful” activity into your day. It can be any routine activity you perform amid the haste of the day, like hand washing. Slow down and give the task your full attention. You’ll soon start appreciating these small moments of stillness.
3. Follow the 60% rule
Perfectionism is an illusion, but the pursuit of it is real and can have damaging consequences. So readjust your thinking. If a friendship, relationship, work project is 60% right, then you’re doing well. Beware too, of perfectionism’s close friends: an all or nothing approach; workaholism; fear of failure; and being over-sensitive to the judgement of others.
4. Nourish your body
It’s a proven fact that the food we eat can have a direct impact on our mood and serotonin levels. So surround yourself with the good stuff: leafy green veg, probiotics, a sprinkle of cinammon and dark chocolate.
5. Unplug
The strong glare of a phone’s backlight isn’t conducive to deep sleep. I have instated a wind-down hour before bedtime in which the phone is firmly it its charging station. It’s all about creating the right conditions for your body to feel relaxed and able to sleep.
6. Declutter
Clearing cupboards helps give you a sense of control and owning your own space. It can be life-changing as Marie Kondo maintains in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever. It also helps you enjoy the objects that you’ve consciously decided to keep instead of relegating them to the status of just more stuff.
8. Redefine failure
Stumbling blocks can be stepping stones and failure can teach us so much. Be less risk-averse and adopt the attitude embodied by a cartoon in my office which says:I’ve made so many mistakes, and learnt so much, I’m thinking of making some more.
9. Exercise
Breaking a sweat, ideally first thing in the morning, releases endorphins and sets you up for the day. Lack of exercise can leave you feeling sluggish and lethargic, so, if you can, start your day right.
10. Read a poem aloud
As you do so, your mental to-do list melts away and your thoughts still, focusing entirely on the lyrical sounds of the words. One of my favourite poems is: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats; I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,/And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made. Imagine yourself in that bee-loud glade.
29 Dec 2015
2015 was the year that Adobe's Flash finally began to die
The deathknell tolls for Flash as Google, Firefox, Amazon and other technology companies block it, while Adobe dumps the name from its own products
Deaths are rarely to be celebrated, but there is one passing that certainly won’t be widely mourned: that of Adobe’s Flash.
2015 was the year the bug ridden security flaw finally went into terminal decline. Once the darling of the new interactive web (we’re talking in the late 1990s), enabling video, web apps and fancy ads, Flash has become bloated and dangerous, loved only by hackers on the open web.
As web browsers and operating systems have become more secure, Flash has stuck out like a sore thumb. It’s more of a liability than ever, accounting for a considerable amount of the malware attacks website visitors are subjected to.Even repressive regimes consider Flash a primary tool to let them access individuals’ computers.
So-called drive-by attacks, which allow hackers to take over computers when users simply view a site, often use vulnerabilities in Flash. The plugin just can’t be trusted anymore.
Horse racing tips: Wednesday 30 December
Mister Chairman is napped to score for Rebecca Curtis at Taunton, plus tips for all four Wednesday race meetings
Rebecca Curtis could get a win with Mister Chairman at Taunton, now that her yard has returned to form. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images
Haydock
12.20 Ballywilliam 12.50 Throthethatch 1.25 Vintage Clouds 2.00 Rigadin De Beauchene 2.30 Minella Reception 3.05 Nansaroy 3.35 Octagon (nb)
Lingfield
12.00 Aguerooo 12.30 Alshan Fajer 1.00 Misu Pete 1.35 Broughtons Harmony2.10 Mythmaker 2.40 Pendo 3.15 Les Gar Gan 3.45 Young Jackie
Taunton
12.40 Winged Express 1.10 Mister Chairman (nap) 1.45 Modus 2.20 Wild Rover2.50 Surtee Du Berlais 3.25 Royalraise 3.55 Join The Navy
Wolverhampton
4.10 Summer Isles 4.40 Compton Prince 5.10 Azerelle 5.40 Miss Phillyjinks 6.10Cosmic Statesman 6.40 King Of Dreams 7.10 Pactolus 7.40 Bionic Indian
31 Dec 2015
Dazzling new year fireworks in Sydney welcome 2016 – video
Around 1.6 million people witness the 2016 New Year fireworks display in and around Sydney harbour, Australia. The display featured a multicoloured firework “waterfall” cascading off the Harbour Bridge and pyrotechnic effects in the shapes of butterflies, octopuses and flowers
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