THE NEWS IN 90 SECONDS
NETWORK RAIL TAKES OVER TRACKS
Network Rail aims to save millions of pounds a year by taking rail maintenance contracts away from private companies.
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Sadness was mixed with a spirit of celebration today as a British Airways Concorde took off from New York to fly passengers across the Atlantic for the last time. A special champagne breakfast menu is being served.
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Google is planning a GBP9bn float in March next year in a move that will spark a scramble for shares among the public not seen since the dotcom crash in 2000.
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Three Israeli soldiers were killed and two others wounded in a shooting attack in the Gaza Strip early this morning.
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Steady economic growth in the third quarter, and a bounce in retail sales last month, today reinforced expectations of a rise in interest rates next month.
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Former chancellor Kenneth Clarke today dismissed as "complete nonsense" reports that he would challenge Iain Duncan Smith for the Conservative party leadership.
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Tens of thousands of students, parents and campaigners from all over the country are expected to converge on central London on Sunday to protest against top-up fees.
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England were today facing an uphill battle to claim their anticipated victory in the historic opening Test following an unexpected show of resistance from Bangladesh.
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EDITOR'S PICK
The flotation of Google is, in many ways, a betrayal of the company's philosophy, writes Victor Keegan.
Comment
THAILAND DISPATCH
While formal discussions at the Apec summit in Bangkok appear to have achieved little, much of the real action was taking place on the sidelines, writes John Aglionby.
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IN THE GUARDIAN TOMORROW
* In Weekend: Six years ago, as the Tories tumbled, Labour's rise gave a swagger to politics, pop and art, a shiny newness that blinded us to the truth about cool Britannia, argues Zoe Williams; Picasso was a tender, gentle painter who created, says Jonathan Jones, the most brutal images in 20th-century art; John Vidal revisits the Malawi village of Gumbi; and Rachel Shabi investigates ID theft.
* In Travel: Halloween in New Orleans; skiing with children; Dylan Thomas's Wales; Malaga
* In review: Seamus Heaney on Ted Hughes
* A gastronomic guide to Flanders
IN THE OBSERVER ON SUNDAY
* Ever wondered what the UK looks like without its clothes on? Find out this Sunday in Body Uncovered - a 64-page magazine investigating our fascination with the body. From fitness and health to tattoos, makeovers and surgery, we look at how Britain has become obsessed with the shape it's in. Meanwhile, in Review, Simon Garfield forsakes the visceral in favour of the cerebral at the High IQ Society.
* Elsewhere, the Barefoot Doctor responds to your criticisms in Comment extra, Liz Hoggard takes a look at Afterlife, a groundbreaking film about disability, and Peter Conrad reviews Germaine Greer's latest offering, The Boy. Plus all the weekend's sport, including and interview with hooker Steve Thompson, England's emerging rugby star.
XAN BROOKS ON FILM
The London Film Festival began on Wednesday night with the usual bunch of dickie-bowed grandees parading up the red carpet for the premiere of Jane Campion's "erotic thriller" In the Cut.
On paper, at least, this is one of the strongest festival line-ups in years, which makes one wonder why the organisers elected to kick off with a film that's about as thrilling as socks and about as erotic as porridge.
Starring Meg Ryan as a libidinous teacher under threat from a serial killer, In the Cut verges on the ridiculous. It so desperately wants to be seen as a dark, daring, dangerous walk on the wild side of female sexuality. It winds up like one of those late 70s slasher movies (He Knows You're Alone) reworked as a Mills and Boon novel.
As it happens, Campion saved her most daring statement for the introductory speech, and even this was probably unwitting. Taking the stage alongside her cast and crew, the director announced: "When we first started making this movie over a year ago in New York, it felt as though we were all standing together on the top of a tall building. Then we held hands and jumped, as the hijacked aeroplane of our genius struck the building below us."
Actually, I made that last bit up, but still, you can see why Campion's analogy might strike some as a little crass (New York, tall buildings, suicide jumpers). Or deliciously subversive, depending on your point of view.
The new Coen Brothers movie seems similarly likely to split its audience. On the one hand, die-hard devotees have already grumbled that Intolerable Cruelty offers evidence that the siblings are on the point of selling out: shooting someone else's script with a big studio budget and Catherine Zeta-Jones as their leading lady.
That said, there seems little doubting that this screwball comedy is an expert, witty and thoroughly likeable affair. If Intolerable Cruelty finally lacks the freewheeling comic genius of, say, The Big Lebowski or Raising Arizona, I still found it more purely entertaining than their rather self-conscious (and over-praised) last film, The Man Who Wasn't There.
Finally, we should spare a thought for poor David Gest, who this week claimed that ex-wife Liza Minnelli physically abused him during their brief spell together. He alleges that she threw household objects at him and "beat him with her hands about his head". If this is true (and Minnelli denies it), it would at least solve the mystery of the man's appearance.
Gest, you may recall, possesses the sort of face that one usually sees reflected in the underside of a tablespoon. Prolonged battery about the head could well be the cause.
* More about the London Film Festival
* More about Intolerable Cruelty
* Coen Brothers quiz
* Liza Minnelli news story
AND FINALLY
"They can keep their veggie burgers," said Rodeo resident Doug Boyum. "I'm not going to sell out for a veggie burger. I'm not going to sell out, period."
Mr Boyum and fellow residents of the Californian town of Rodeo were unimpressed when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) offered them USD20,000-worth of veggie burgers to change the town's name to Unity. The towns of Hamburg and Fishkill, in New York State, proved similarly indifferent to PETA's largesse.
"A bunch of people from Virginia can't just come to town and wave around a few veggie burgers and think they own the place," another resident told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Source
* Thanks to Poppy M Gallagher for nominating this story. The Informer welcomes unusual news reports. (We're especially keen to hear from multilingual readers living abroad who can spot interesting stories in their local press). Email them to informer@guardianunlimited.co.uk, and please include a source.
