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By Michael Hogan
Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Jun 2010
Love it, loathe it or like to make it illegal, karaoke is inescapable. It pops up at weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs. It’s become an essential part of the office outing or hen weekend. And now there’s a new breed of karaoke bar serving cocktails to stylish crooners. Karaoke tents are also being pitched at most of the summer festivals. There’s even an initiative to teach it in primary schools backed by Lord Lloyd Webber.
Celebrities are equally susceptible. In the past few weeks, Sir Elton John and Kate Moss hosted a charity karaoke bash at Ronnie Scott’s, Andy Murray performed the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back at the French Open and the centrepiece of comedian David Walliams’s stag party was Bond-themed karaoke. Carrie Bradshaw & Co come over all sisterly belting out I Am Woman in Sex & The City 2. And what are TV talent shows and hit import Glee if not glorified karaoke?
Invented by the Japanese, karaoke means “empty orchestra” – not, as many might suspect, “drunkenly tone-deaf”. Why have we Brits fallen for it? Well, we’ve always loved a singalong, especially after a few refreshments. Now technology means we don’t need to gather around a piano.
Karaoke is hilarious and brings out the secret show-off in us all. It’s also liberating, life-affirming and highly addictive.
But there are few things worse than bad karaoke – in fact, it was recently voted the most annoying holiday habit, after reserving sun loungers. So how to be a triumphant hit rather than a tuneless miss? Follow these 10 steps to singing success:
1 Pick a crowd-pleaser
When selecting your song, think about the people in the room. Will they know and appreciate it? You want the opening bars to be greeted with a ripple of recognition, then a chorus with which they can join in. It’ll become you leading a singalong, rather than serenading a silent crowd. So nothing too obscure or personal. Anthemic and popular is best.
2 Check it’s in your vocal range
Make sure your voice can comfortably handle all the notes without straining. Unless you’re an undiscovered diva, women should avoid big-lunged warblers like Mariah, Celine and Whitney. Men should be careful with Queen, Simon & Garfunkel, U2, metal and rap. Look instead for relatively easy mid-range singers. For her: Dusty, Madonna, Abba, Spice Girls. For him: Beatles, Stones, Neil Diamond, Kinks, Tom Jones, an uptempo Elvis or Sinatra.
3 Check it’s not too long
Stick to classic pop songs of three to four minutes duration. American Pie, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tiny Dancer and Hey Jude might be tempting, but they go on for ages. On stage, that feels even longer.
4 Know it inside out
You’d be surprised by the number of karaoke novices who only know the chorus. Cue mumbling. Make sure you’re familiar with the verses and middle-eight (the change of gear that often comes two-thirds of the way through).
5 Practice makes perfect
Rehearsing at home is easy these days, with games like SingStar, and the internet. Or simply sing along to the CD. After checking the house is empty and the windows are closed.
6 Get in there quick
On the night, try to sing a song fairly early during proceedings. The longer you wait, the more nervous you’ll get – and the higher the chance of someone nabbing your tune.
7 Three’s a crowd
It’s tempting, especially your first time, to take friends on stage. But it is best to sing solo or, at most, perform a duet. Gangs of three or more just shriek over each other and jostle for microphones.
8 Remember you’ve got a microphone
One of the worst crimes is shouting. It’s tuneless, anti-social and the true sign of an amateur. So don’t forget you’ve got a mic. Better to hold it close to your mouth and sing normally than hold it low and yell.
9 Play the crowd
The audience are there to be entertained, so get them onside. Ad-lib a comment, make eye contact, or dance. It radiates confidence and distracts from any vocal imperfections.
10 Enjoy yourself
Don’t forget this is supposed to be pleasure, not pure torture. Laugh at yourself and live out your fantasies. No matter how good or bad you are, if you’re having fun it’s infectious.
Five great places to do karaoke
By Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor
Published: 1:12PM BST 10 Jun 2010
Although Microsoft has said it will not officially comment on the changes to Google's home page, which now sees a background picture appear behind the search box, some senior executives have referred to the new design on social networking sites.
"How intriguing to see friends at Google borrowing the Bing homepage photography idea," tweeted Peter Bale, executive producer of the MSN UK network.
Microsoft's Bing homepage, which features a different background photo every day, won plaudits from users and technology experts. Every picture featured provides a link through to a relevant search page, as well as "hot spots" that, when clicked on, provide additional information about the image. It's proved a hit with school teachers, in particular, with many using the Bing homepage as a discussion point at the start of the day's lessons.
Google rolled out the search personalisation feature in the UK this week, following an earlier successful launch in the United States. Users must have a Google account to adjust and personalise the background picture, which can be customised with a picture from a user's own photo library on their computer or the photo-sharing service Picasa, or chosen from a public Picasa gallery.
Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience at Google, said the homepage provided a "whole new level of personalisation" for the site.
The new look is a significant change for Google, which has always prided itself on its uncluttered homepage, with the search box front and centre. Users who prefer the classic homepage can switch off the personalisation feature.
By Louisa Peacock
Published: 6:00AM BST 11 Jun 2010
Sir Peter Gershon, who together with ex-Logica boss Martin Read, helped formulate the spending reductions which the coalition Government announced last month, warned that it would "take some time" to renegotiate contracts – one of the biggest elements of the cuts. The Treasury has pledged to save some £1.7bn simply by renegotiating existing contracts with suppliers "including immediate negotiations to achieve cost reductions from the major suppliers to government".
But Sir Peter, the efficiency adviser who previously worked for advised Gordon Brown, warned that while some projects could be scrapped now – such as the ID cards – others would take longer. "The Government moratorium on IT projects, that can happen now. You get the savings," he said. However, he added: "Renewing contracts will clearly take some time. We will get some savings this year and some in the next year. Similarly, the review on projects, it will take time. The cost that will make will be in-year, but modest, but can make an important contribution in the spending review."
The warning, which comes less than two weeks before the emergency Budget, raises questions over the ease with which the Government will be able to make savings, and implies that the money will have to be found by cutting other services. David Cameron warned earlier this week that Britons would have to accept deep and painful cuts in public spending which would affect their lives. The warning represents an early note of caution about just how feasible it will be to cut spending without inflicting pain.
But Sir Peter denied reports that the £6.2bn cuts package, masterminded by David Laws before he resigned his Treasury post, would lead to 50,000 public sector job losses. He said: "There isn't that much that the Government has announced in the £6bn savings this year that should lead to large-scale redundancies."
The Prime Minister has refused to confirm the number of public sector jobs that could be cut, but said the "vast majority of the impact" on jobs would come from the Whitehall recruitment freeze, saving £120m. Other spending cuts, outlined by the Treasury, include a £600m cull on quangos, and £1.2bn savings from ending staff travel and consultancy spend.
According to the National Audit Office, the public sector spends £220bn a year procuring goods and services, which is about a third of all public spending.
Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Jun 2010
The man from the central province of Hubei sold his two-year-old son to a Beijing couple in April last year after advertising the child online, the Beijing Times reported.
The man, named only as Lu, sold the child after he split up with the boy’s mother and decided he did not have the time or money to raise him, the report said.
But after regretting the sale and reuniting with the mother, Lu in June last year accused the Beijing couple of child trafficking and demanded the police return the boy to him when they refused to surrender custody.
Following an investigation and trial, the Beijing court convicted Lu of abandoning his child and meted out a six-month suspended sentence with one year of probation.
The Beijing couple were found not to have committed any wrongdoing, as Lu had admitted he lacked the means to raise the child and they were willing to raise it, it said.
Judicial authorities ordered the child be returned to Lu, while the 18,000 yuan was confiscated by the court, it said.
By John Bingham
Published: 6:30AM BST 11 Jun 2010
Lord Saville’s long-awaited verdict on the killings in Londonderry in 1972 could pave the way for former soldiers who fired into the crowd of protesters to be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.
The conclusions of the £191 million public inquiry set up by Tony Blair in 1998 in an effort to kickstart the Northern Ireland peace process will finally be announced on Tuesday.
There has been a growing expectation that he would conclude the shootings were unlawful after the inquiry heard evidence that those killed, who included seven teenagers, were unarmed.
But the contents of the report, which was completed several weeks ago, have been a closely guarded secret and strict measures have been put in place so that even relatives of the dead will only be told the contents a few hours before publication.
Nevetheless last night The Guardian newspaper reported sources familiar with the report’s contents had disclosed that Lord Saville would indeed describe some of the killings as unlawful.
It is understood that he will not explicitly recommend prosecutions but leave it to Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service, equivalent to the CPS, to decide.
Lawyers for the families have indicated in recent days that even if the Province’s Director of Public Prosecutions rules against bringing charges they would pursue private prosecution.
One unionist politician last night described Lord Saville’s reported findings as a “hand grenade with the pin pulled out that is about to be tossed into the lap of the PPS”.
It was also disclosed last night that Lord Trimble, the former Northern Ireland First Minister, warned Tony Blair at the time that setting up a new inquiry ran the risk of “soldiers in the dock”.
A total of 27 protesters were shot, 13 of them fatally, by members of the Parachute Regiment in a disastrous operation to maintain order during a march against the internment of paramilitary suspects without trial on Jan 30, 1972.
A fourteenth man died from his injuries later.
The killings proved to be a pivotal moment in the Troubles and have long been characterised as a major “recruiting sergeant” for the Provisional IRA.
A 1972 inquiry by Lord Widgery, then the Lord Chief Justice, concluded that the soldiers' actions “bordered on the reckless” but exonerated them of blame.
It concluded that they opened fire only after themselves being shot at by IRA snipers in the crowd.
Crucially, Lord Widgery accepted a now discredited forensic conclusion that lead deposits detected on the hands or clothing of some of the dead suggested that they had handled firearms.
Scientific advances have since shown that the deposits could have been left by exposure to car exhaust fumes and other common substances.
The report was dismissed as a “whitewash” in Londonderry and families of the dead staged a long campaign for a new inquiry.
Lord Trimble is understood to have warned Mr Blair that any conclusion which departed “one millimetre” from Lord Widgery’s findings would lead to soldiers being prosecuted for their actions almost 40 years ago.
The Army has since accepted that those killed were unarmed and the inquiry heard from soldiers who admitted shooting people dead that day.
One former paratrooper, known as “soldier F”, accepted that he had shot at least four of those who died.
Those who gave evidence, including both former soldiers and paramilitaries, were given legal protection against being prosecuted should they incriminate themselves in the witnesss box.
But the assurances do not amount to full immunity and they could still be prosecuted if there is sufficient evidence from other sources.
By Fiona Govan in Madrid
Published: 11:15AM BST 11 Jun 2010
In a thinly veiled attack on the US President – who earlier this week said he was looking for “some ass to kick over the disaster” – the Deputy Prime Minister argued that a “tit for tat” attitude was not helpful.
But Mr Clegg stopped short of voicing support for the British company, which has seen billions of pounds wiped off its share value since the leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I’m not going to start intervening in a debate which clearly risks descending into megaphone diplomacy,” Mr Clegg told an audience at the Nueva Economic Forum in Madrid on Friday morning.
“I think everyone is united on both sides of Atlantic obviously, quite rightly, and understandably within US administration and I’m sure within BP itself, to deal with this problem. It is an ecological catastrophe – It does need to be dealt with."
Nick Clegg made the comments when asked for his response to President Obama's call for the sacking of BP chief executive Tony Hayward.
“I don’t frankly think we will reach a solution to stopping release of oil into the ocean any quicker by allowing this to spiral into a tit for tat political diplomatic spat,” he said.
“So I and whole of the British government want to play our role, as much as we can, our constructive role to find a solution to what is a huge environmental disaster.”
BP’s share price has almost halved in the wake of American criticism, wiping nearly £50 billion off its value, with damaging consequences for British pension funds.
The company is responsible for almost one in every seven pounds of dividends paid to British pension pots.
Mr Clegg was in the Spanish capital to deliver a speech to the Nueva Economia Forum, at which he urged the rest of Europe to follow Britain's example by taking immediate action to slash "unsustainable" government deficits.
The Deputy Prime Minister also insisted it would be "naive" and "irresponsible" to try to wait until economic recovery is entrenched.
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