*Note: this article, by Stephen Gandel and Amanda Gengler with Paul Keegan, originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of MONEY magazine.

Newlyweds Erik and Brandi Quam can’t really afford their home. The monthly carrying costs on their two-bedroom condo in Arlington, Va. run about $2,500 a month, and they fear the bill could go higher still as their adjustable mortgage resets to higher interest rates. It’s already a tight squeeze: They’ve taken in a roommate to help pay the bills. Unfortunately, they can’t afford to sell either. Thanks to a falling housing market and a prepayment penalty of about $11,500, they’d owe the bank more than their place is worth. “It makes me want to cry every month,” says Brandi, 26. The irony is that the Quams should be able to afford their place: It cost just $219,000 when a still-single Brandi, fresh out of the Air Force, bought it.

So how did they get themselves in such a mess? More puzzling still, why did lenders let them—along with millions of other homeowners, many of whom, unlike the Quams, are in immediate danger of foreclosure?

In the answer to that question lies the real story behind the once dizzying, now fizzling housing boom. Sure, record-low interest rates, boomers buying vacation homes and immigrants grabbing for the American dream all did their bit to push up prices. But what really supercharged the market was the mortgage industrial complex—a machine with cogs called brokers and bankers, fueled by money poured in by investment banks, bond traders and hedge fund managers. The system prospered and grew, introducing new players into the financing transaction and transforming the roles of others. Finally it ran amok, creating huge incentives at every level of a home sale or a refi to sacrifice prudence in pursuit of a killing. Market checks and balances should have prevented the process from getting out of control. But they were corrupted, co-opted or simply steamrollered. For example:

Too much money. Too little restraint. This is the story of how all the important players in the market decided that they had too much at stake to shout, “Stop!” We’ve been here before: Remember when Wall Street analysts told us Amazon.com was worth $400 a share? And as with the tech bubble, it may not be only speculators who get hurt. As home prices unwind from unsustainable highs, we may all feel at least a little bit poorer. That could be a drag on the economy. It’s already a real drag for the Quams.

The primary mortgage on the Quams’ condo was fixed at 5.25%. But Brandi had also taken out a smaller variable-rate loan. As rates rose in 2005, she went looking for a better deal and entered her contact information into a few websites. Shortly thereafter, she says, she got a call from broker Robert Hoover of CPA Mortgage in Maryland. He found her a new loan with what she says she understood to be an initial 1% rate, with only small increases in the first five years. And since she had equity (her condo had appreciated), she could even take a little cash out to pay off some bills. The transaction earned the broker and his firm about $12,600.

It took a few months before Brandi realized what she had done. The mortgage was something called an option ARM. It was true that Brandi could make initial minimum payments of about $800. But those weren’t enough to cover the interest she was actually being charged, which was higher than the rate used to calculate required payments. The unpaid interest was added to the loan balance, a phenomenon called negative amortization. The Quams have decided to start paying at least the interest on the loan, but even so, the balance has grown by $7,000. Barring a market turnaround, they’re stuck for at least another year and a half until the prepayment penalty phases out. They’ve had to turn down job offers because they can’t move.

Who is to blame here? Yes, Brandi should have asked more questions and scrutinized the fine print. The idea of a mortgage with a 1% rate seems, on its face, too good to be true. Brandi says she did know she’d eventually have to make higher payments, but she planned to move before that happened. Exactly how Hoover described the mechanics of the loan, or what she thought he meant, is impossible to know for sure now. Hoover declined to speak with MONEY, and his firm sent an e-mail saying that it couldn’t comment on a client but that “ultimately, it is the consumer that makes the choice they feel is best.”

But based on the documents Brandi showed us for her loan—and documents MONEY has seen for other option ARMS—it is easy to see how a person could be confused. A payment schedule is shown on the federally mandated truth-in-lending form, but it is based on minimum payments and a steady interest rate, rather than the variable rate the Quams are charged. An “adjustable-rate note” first says the Quams will be charged a yearly rate of 1%. The next subsection says that rate “may” change almost immediately. The first payment coupons show only the minimum, negatively amortizing payment.

A spokeswoman for the original lender, BankUnited of Miami Lakes, Fla., said she couldn’t specifically comment on Brandi’s loan. But she said that borrowers aren’t approved unless their “credit score will support the fully indexed rate.” All borrowers, she added, acknowledge receipt of numerous documents disclosing every aspect of the loan, including a four-page form that describes the terms “in plain English” and warns borrowers of the possibility of negative amortization.

Keep in mind, complex loans like option ARMs are new to most people, and they are radically different from 15- and 30-year fixed-rate loans. Consumer advocates say that the truth-in-lending disclosure rules are outdated and that borrowers like the Quams are being asked to climb a steep learning curve—with their homes at stake. “The disclosures on adjustable-rate mortgages have never been any good, and option ARMs are particularly terrible,” says Jack Guttentag, professor emeritus of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

In any case, the loans are popular. In the first half of 2006, option ARMs were 15% of mortgage originations, reports the Mortgage Bankers Association. In theory, the loan can be a useful tool for people with irregular income, such as entrepreneurs. But low payments are the rule, not the exception. Today more than 80% of borrowers in securitized option ARMs pay less than their interest charges, according to Fitch Ratings. Their loan balances are rising. That might not be so bad in a rising market, but it’s potentially a disaster in a falling one.

It’s obvious that a lot of homeowners could have used better advice about how to find an affordable loan. But good advice has gotten harder to come by in the mortgage game. That’s because the person across the desk or on the other end of the telephone getting you a mortgage probably doesn’t work for the bank that’s putting up the money. He may not care if you can pay. “Consumers thought that when they qualified for a loan, that meant they had a reasonable prospect to repay the loan unless some type of illness or catastrophe hit the family,” says Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending. “That is no longer the case.”

Morning commuters in Boston, Chicago and Phoenix are slapped awake by the voice of a pugnacious Texan shouting out of the radio. “When your mortgage payment goes up 400 bucks a month, you can dislocate your jaw and swallow it like a snake eatin’ an egg,” the voice says. “Or spend another seven grand and have some predator redo your mortgage. Unacceptable.” The voice belongs to Jon Shibley, 39, the president of Lenox Financial Mortgage. Over 13 years he’s built his business from a one-man shop in Atlanta into a 200-employee company that arranges mortgages and refinancings in 24 states.

Up until the 1980s, when the savings-and-loan crisis brought the old system crashing down, getting a mortgage typically meant sitting down with a loan officer from a local lender, which cared a lot about your ability to pay. Today about 70% of mortgages are originated by a mortgage broker. It’s an intense, fast-moving business and suits the hypercharged Shibley just fine. Shibley meditates 20 minutes a day but also claims that he will occasionally burn himself or immerse his body in ice water—”a shock to the system,” he calls it, that keeps him engaged. Shibley doesn’t rely on word-of-mouth or community roots. He drives his business with in-your-face advertising. These days, as his commercials show, his sales targets include borrowers looking to escape onerous payment hikes on their variable-rate mortgages. “People don’t know who to call,” he says. “That’s why my marketing philosophy has been so successful.”

For better and for worse, the new mortgage sales machine made it much easier to get a loan. And if a mortgage option was mathematically possible, a broker made sure you knew about it. He or she could get you a low annual rate, help you avoid a down payment or find you a super-low initial monthly payment. Shibley’s particular pitch is “no closing costs,” which looks to be an easy sell to borrowers suddenly short on cash. “This industry is a disaster,” he says. All these mortgage options can make sense in certain circumstances and hurt you in others. (You may actually prefer to pay closing costs, for example, if that gets you a lower rate and you plan to stay in the loan long enough to work off the costs.) The tricky part is figuring out which loan works for you.

A good mortgage broker can help you do that, and Shibley says that’s what his people do. But not all brokers will. Brokers can be paid more if they can convince you to pay a higher rate than you qualify for, or borrow more money than you need. And they resist efforts by lawmakers to give them a fiduciary obligation to act in the borrower’s best interest. “We do not solely represent the consumer,” says George Hanzimanolis, president-elect of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.

In short, it’s best to shop around—and it’s easy enough to do that on a basic fixed-rate mortgage. It’s a lot harder to comparison-shop loans with payment options and variable rates, which is why brokers love to sell them. With option ARMs, borrowers tend to focus on the introductory rate and minimum payment, and to ignore the higher rate down the road. For the broker that higher rate could mean the difference between a $3,000 commission and one several times as large. “Option ARMs are not a license to steal, but once a customer asks for it, I know I’m going to make four times as much,” says Jim Moore, a Grand Rapids broker who writes about his business at miamibeach411.com, speaking by cell phone. “It’s what puts me down here at Best Buy buying a 40-inch flat screen.”

Even then there are usually limits to how much your broker can get out of you. After all, a mortgage is based on the value of your house. But maybe there’s a way around that too.

Last summer Daniel Kim was feeling pinched. So when Kim, now 27, of San Leandro, Calif. got a call from a mortgage company, he was intrigued. The loan officer, Mia Yi of ALG Capital, sold Kim on refinancing, putting him an additional $81,000 in debt on his house. Kim says he was surprised he could borrow more. He had bought the two-bedroom the previous year for $560,000 with no money down, and everything he had read said the market in his area was cooling. But after Yi produced an appraisal in November that said his house was worth $642,000, Kim signed. “I was excited,” he says, “that my house had appreciated that much.”

Appraising the value of a house has never been an exact science. But the $4-billion-a-year appraisal industry provides a crucial reality check for the system. Banks need an appraisal to make a loan. Regulators and mortgage investors require it to insure against fraud. Consumers rely on appraisals to give them some measure of confidence they aren’t paying too much. In refinancings, the appraisal is the only thing that tells a consumer what a house is worth and how much he can borrow.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that appraisers have come under pressure from some of the people selling mortgages. MONEY has obtained more than 100 e-mails and faxes sent by loan officers to appraisers across the country. The language varies from asking if a predetermined value was possible to promising more business if a number could be hit. “Many homeowners are finding out that the equity they were led to believe they had in their house is not actually there,” says John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

According to an appraiser MONEY hired, Kim’s house is worth only $580,000 and was at the time he refinanced the house. Yes, different appraisers often have different takes. In Kim’s case the appraisers disagree about whether an enclosed porch counts as part of the total square footage. But ALG’s Yi strongly suggested to appraisers what the answer ought to be. In an e-mail she sent to numerous appraisers, Yi said she needed “a value of $650,000 or more. Please let me know ASAP with max value.” Five days later Paul Chasteen, an appraiser in Discovery Bay, produced the appraisal that led to Kim’s $642,000 mortgage, less than Yi wanted but enough to do a deal. ALG got him loans for the full appraised value. The result: Kim now owes $62,000 more than his house may be worth. Kim put the money from the refinancing into a dry-cleaning business and paying off a car loan. He can’t move without foreclosing. “It’s not a good feeling,” he says.

Yi declined to comment. ALG owner Crystal Palomino said two appraisers (from the same firm) reviewed the value, as did the funding bank. Chasteen says he and his fellow appraisers are under the gun because as many as 10 competitors may get the same order. Referring to that pressure, Chasteen says, “Is there a problem out there? You bet there is.” He adds, though, that he resists and that in Kim’s case pressure wasn’t an issue. “I never push values,” he says.

Appraiser Ray Miller of Lyndon Station, Wis. also says he doesn’t inflate values but complains that he is asked to do so daily. Miller says he doesn’t always give the preferred answer, which hurts business. “If I don’t hit the number they are asking for, I almost never hear from that loan officer again,” he says. “But if you don’t accept these orders at all, you won’t have any business.”

Brokers sometimes ask for a “comp check.” They don’t ask for a target price, but get a number of appraisers to guess what a property is worth, sight unseen, before ordering. “Appraisers who do comp checks know that they have to inflate values to get the order and get paid,” says Pamela Crowley, a former appraiser who recently launched a site to catalogue lending abuses, MortgageFraudWatchList.org.

Hanzimanolis of NAMB says appraisal pressure isn’t a big problem. His organization amended its code of ethics last year to prohibit members from squeezing appraisers. “I don’t see how anybody but the appraiser is responsible for an inflated or fraudulent appraisal,” he says.

A number of states, including Colorado, are mulling laws that would make it clearly illegal to pressure appraisers. Jonathan Miller (no relation to Ray), owner of New York City’s Miller Samuel and one of the nation’s most prominent appraisers, argues that such laws are sorely needed. “Under the current system,” he says, “there is really no point to a mortgage appraisal anymore.” You might expect that those ultimately on the hook if a borrower fails to pay would take an interest in making sure that the collateral was really worth its appraised value. But until the past few months, you’d have been wrong.

The housing boom was good to John Devaney. Really good. He owns a Rolls-Royce, a Gulfstream Jet, a 12,000-square-foot mansion in Key Biscayne and a 143-foot yacht, as well as a few Renoirs and a valuable 1823 reproduction of the Declaration of Independence. Devaney’s not a developer, and he’s certainly not a flipper. The 36-year-old CEO of United Capital Markets is a bond trader. And one of his specialties is buying and selling bonds that are backed by the mortgage payments of ordinary homeowners. Option ARMs? Devaney loves ’em. “The consumer has to be an idiot to take on those loans,” he says. “But it has been one of our best-performing investments.”

Devaney’s not out to get people into bad loans—or into good ones. He just makes bets on how many people will repay and when. Still, the $5.7 trillion mortgage-backed-securities market had a key role in today’s housing mess. “The broker and the lender and everybody else in between is part of a factory that’s producing bond securities for Wall Street,” said attorney and consumer advocate Irv Acklesberg in testimony before a Senate committee recently. On the other hand, the fact that Devaney and other investors are willing to own mortgages may also be one of the reasons you could afford your house.

Banks have been selling off their mortgages to the bond market since the 1970s. Bond investors get the borrowers’ monthly payments and the promise that they will be paid back, while banks get immediate cash and the chance to unload some risk. All this makes it easier for them to make new loans—good news for most borrowers. The trouble is, Wall Street’s rocket scientists keep finding more sophisticated ways to repackage and resell mortgages. As a result, lenders stopped worrying so much about credit standards and learned to love risky loans.

Look, for example, at the financial Frankenstein’s monster known as the collateralized debt obligation, or CDO. Brought to life in the 1990s, the CDO helped solve a knotty problem for lenders. They were often left holding a small amount of loans that were too dodgy to sell to investors at an attractive price. But what if you grouped the payments from all those risky mortgages together, along with some other investments, and you sold some investors the right to be the first ones to get paid? This would look like a relatively safe investment, and so—voilà!—you’ve transformed a risky loan into a triple-A rated security. Other investors would be farther back in line and might not get paid if things went badly. But you could offer those investors very high yields, so that hedge funds and pension funds would roll the dice.

This set the whole mortgage-bond sector on fire. Banks rushed to make mortgages—any kind of mortgages. Lousy credit? No problem. Can’t prove your income? No problem. Can’t pay more than 1% now? No problem.

Now a lot of that lending looks foolish. Mortgage delinquencies among so-called subprime borrowers have risen to 13%, the highest in at least 10 years. The market for the lowest-credit-quality mortgage bonds has tanked. And investors in CDOs may be in for a rude shock. “Some of the investors who bought CDOs certainly took on more risk than they thought,” says John Weicher, a former assistant secretary of housing now at the Hudson Institute. But Devaney, who told a crowd of investors that the riskiest mortgage bonds looked “awful” before the crash, says he thinks he’ll be buying. “I don’t believe the carnage and fallout will be as bad as people think,” he says.

Whether or not big investors come out okay, the damage is done for many homeowners. “The system allowed banks to create unsustainable loans that are going to haunt borrowers for years to come,” says Allen Fishbein, director of credit and housing policy at the Consumer Federation of America. “Unlike the bank, the borrower has no way to lay off the risk.”

What comes next? The pullback. Investors will be more selective about where they put their money, and banks will be more cautious in their lending. That’s basically healthy. But the risk is that this will happen so fast that we’ll see a vicious circle develop: Falling home prices mean less credit, and less credit means fewer buyers and, hence, falling home prices. That could make a housing recovery that much harder to come by. For the Quams, one can’t come soon enough. “I worked so hard to be a homeowner, and now my dumb decision with this loan may take it all away,” says Brandi. “We are newlyweds, bleeding money like crazy, and there are no Band-Aids.”

Read Next: Money 101: Buying a Home

Summary: As "The Big Short" hits theaters, we go back in time to 2007 and meet the folks who were living through it.


BRUSSELS—The interceptions of a U.S. Air Force plane and a Navy destroyer by Russian warplanes last week were unsafe and highlight the need for discussion between Russia and the Western allies, the head of North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Tuesday.

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said the alliance would discuss Russia’s risky military maneuvers and related issues when allied ambassadors meet with Russian officials...

Summary: The interceptions of a U.S. Air Force plane and a Navy destroyer by Russian warplanes last week were unsafe and highlight the need for Wednesday’s discussion between Russia and the Western allies, the head of North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Tuesday.


OSAKA, Japan— Panasonic Corp. PCRFY 2.42 % ’s auto business on Friday said it expected to add up to $3.6 billion in new revenue in the next two years through mergers and acquisitions that would give it new technologies as part of its drive to become a major supplier for cars of the future.

The Osaka-based company said it is considering acquiring or collaborating with companies that could help supplement its existing technologies in areas such as auto sensors and artificial intelligence. It said those deals could add ¥300 billion to ¥400 billion in revenue.

The move comes as global technology companies race to capitalize on the computerization of the automobile, including through autonomous driving.

Yoshio Ito, president of Panasonic’s automotive unit, said the company will aim for ¥2 trillion in sales, a 16% increase from the 2015 financial year that ended in March, in the division by 2018. Panasonic’s automotive and industrial systems division reported lower revenue and profit for the just-ended year.

“We want to make 2016 a comeback year,” Mr. Ito said. “We will keep investing in growth areas.”

The parent company sees the auto division as a significant driver of its future growth.

Panasonic provides nearly all of the batteries used to power Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA -0.02 % ’s electric vehicles. It is also developing advanced driver-assistance systems that use sensors to gather information to help drivers identify obstacles, and an Internet-connected “e-cockpit” that will integrate functions ranging from navigation to air-conditioning.

Panasonic and Tesla are jointly building an advanced battery factory in Nevada that will cost up to $5 billion. Panasonic said in January that it would spend up to $1.6 billion to build the factory.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk this month said he would seek to reach annual production of 500,000 new cars by 2018, two years earlier than previously targeted. It plans to produce one million vehicles by 2020, bolstered by the coming Model 3 mass-market vehicle, Mr. Musk said.

About 400,000 preorders for the Model 3 have already been received, pressing Panasonic to speed up production.

Corrections & Amplifications: Panasonic Corp. expects to bring in up to $3.6 billion of additional revenue in its auto business over the next two years through investments in mergers and acquisitions. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Panasonic planned to invest up to $3.6 billion over the next two years in pursuit of new technologies. (May 20, 2016)

Summary: Panasonic’s auto business said it expected to add up to $3.6 billion in new revenue in the next two years through mergers and acquisitions that would give it new technologies as part of its drive to become a major supplier for cars of the future.


An all-volunteer Syrian rescue and humanitarian group in Syria - credited with saving tens of thousands of people facing bombardments by Syrian government and Russian fighter jets since 2013 - has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

More than 130 organisations from across the world have backed theÂ Syrian Civil Defence, also known asÂ the White Helmets, whose members brave bombings and sniper fire to provide medical treatment for the wounded in rebel-controlled areas, to win the prestigious international award for peace efforts.

The Syria Campaign, an international human rights group advocating for the protection of civilians in the country, hasÂ launched an initiative Â calling for the White Helmets to win the prize. The winner will be announced on October 7.

"Their efforts to save lives in the most dangerous place on earth are awe-inspiring, and merit the deepest respect."

Wendy Chamberlin, Middle East Institute

Former bakers, tailors, engineers, painters and pharmacists are among the organisation's members, who pledge to help anyone in need regardless of religious or political affiliations.

The group's 3,000 members operate across the country, including the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Homs, Deraa and Damascus.

Ammar Aosalmo, a senior member of the group's branch in Aleppo, told Al Jazeera that at least 134 members have died on duty and explained his motivation for risking his life for others by saying the group was viewed by many as their last hope.

He cited the White Helmets' motto - taken from Islam's holiest book, the Quran: "To save a life is to save all of humanity."

"People trust in us. When we look into their eyes we see that they need help ... when Â Aleppo was under siege , people felt they were more safe with us around."

When asked whether his group had any method of notifying Russian and Syrian military fighter jets of their presence to avoid being hit by their bombs, he accused them of targeting the White Helmets.

"Four of our centres were hit by Russian aircraft in the last month," he said.

He also said subsequent attacks on the same location were the main reason the group's members were killed on duty.

"We try to intercept aircraft signals to tell volunteers to get out because they will target the place again," he added.

Raed Al Saleh, head of the group, has called on the UN Security Council to help impose a "no-fly zone" to facilitate their rescue efforts.

"Barrel bombs - sometimes filled with chlorine - are the biggest killer of civilians in Syria today," he said.

"Our unarmed and neutral rescue workers have saved more than 60,000 people from the attacks in Syria, but there are many we cannot reach. There are children trapped in rubble we cannot hear. For them, the UN Security Council must follow through on its demand to stop the barrel bombs, by introducing a 'no-fly zone' if necessary."Â

Wendy Chamberlin, president of the Middle East Institute, who is one of Â those who nominated the White Helmets for the Nobel Prize, told Al Jazeera why she believed the group deserved the accolade.

READ MORE: Q&A - Syria's White Helmets

"As an American citizen who believes the fundamental duty of government is to protect its citizens, I am appalled by the actions of the Syrian regime, which deliberately targets humanitarian hospitals and drops chemical and barrel bombs on its own civilians," she said.

"Yet in the face of such horrors, the courageous and compassionate response of a group of Syrian volunteers is indeed inspirational.

"The White Helmets are a neutral, all-volunteer organisation of nearly 3,000 Syrian civilians who act as first responders in a country where public services no longer function. Unpaid and unarmed, the White Helmets rush into bomb sites to rescue fellow Syrians from the rubble, regardless of religion or politics.

"The White Helmets provide medical attention, emergency shelter, and safety information to nearly seven million people. They are the largest civil society organisation operating in areas outside Syrian government control, and their actions provide hope for millions.

"Their efforts to save lives in the most dangerous place on earth are awe-inspiring, and merit the deepest respect."

Summary: Volunteer rescue and humanitarian group that braves daily bombings is credited with saving tens of thousands of people.


A man has died after being hit by a car on the Stuart Highway in Darwin's rural area.

The 42-year-old pedestrian was hit near Coolalinga at about 9pm on Thursday when he wandered into traffic wearing dark clothing, a Northern Territory Police spokesman said..

The 27-year-old male driver is not expected to be charged.

The road toll now stands at 27, compared with 33 at the same time last year.

Summary: A pedestrian has been killed after wandering into traffic on the Stuart Highway in Darwin's rural area.


Deputy Queensland Premier Jackie Trad has stepped up the government's attack on One Nation, saying granting it political legitimacy isn't "in anyone's economic interest".

The Palaszczuk government has pledged to preference the divisive, anti-Islam party of Senator Pauline Hanson last at the next state election, due by 2018.

Senior ministers have also sought to highlight the LNP's apparent willingness to leave the door open for One Nation preference deals.

Ms Trad told a Queensland Media Club lunch on Friday that mutual understanding and respect were key to attracting foreign investment.

"Protectionist economic populism" succeeded in politics when economic security was uncertain, she said, as evidenced by the rise of the Katter's Australian Party, Clive Palmer's party and One Nation.

Ms Hanson's repeated electoral defeats over almost two decades correlated with an "extended period of economic growth and certainty", Ms Trad argued.

"It is not in anyone's economic interest for political leaders to provide political legitimacy to any extreme group.

"I am not saying that voters who support One Nation or KAP should be ignored.

"What I am saying is that the LNP duchessing a political organisation with protectionist and xenophobic views will damage our economy."

Ms Trad accused the LNP of compromising foreign investment through moves to re-regulate the sugar industry, harming the state's reputation in Asia.

She pledged her party would promote economic stability, jobs growth and social inclusion.

Ms Hanson won a Queensland senate position this year, ending 18 years in the political wilderness, and now leads a team of three others in the upper house.

She frequently courts controversy with her divisive views on Islam, calling for a royal commission into whether it is an ideology or a religion and advocating for a ban on building new mosques.

Summary: The Queensland government has stepped up its attack on Pauline Hanson's anti-Islam One Nation party before the next state election.


NSW Premier Mike Baird has brushed off criticism his government's unpopularity played a role in the Liberal party's poor results in council elections.

Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has criticised Mr Baird, saying voters who were angered by the recent ban on greyhound racing used the elections as a "cathartic mechanism".

Mr Baird told reporters the drop in votes was expected given the high levels in the 2012 elections and he trusted voters to distinguish between the different levels of government.

"In any election there's a range of issues that play out and I strongly believe the community is very well able to determine what are local, state and federal government issues," he said on Monday.

Labor enjoyed strong results in the western Sydney local government areas of Liverpool, Penrith, the Blue Mountains, Blacktown, Campbelltown and Camden.

The results reflected a "stinging rebuff" of the coalition government, Opposition Leader Luke Foley said on Sunday.

"The people of western Sydney and across NSW have sent a message to (Premier) Mike Baird," he said.

"They've had enough of his high-handed, arrogant behaviour."

The coalition would be wiped from office if the swings were replicated at the state election, Mr Foley said.

Summary: NSW Premier Mike Baird has shrugged off suggestions his decision to ban the greyhound racing industry hurt the Liberal party in local elections.


Investigators are looking into the cause of a fire that damaged four Gold Coast buildings and took 13 crews to get under control.

Firefighters were called to the Biggera Waters industrial lot after 6pm on Wednesday.

No one was injured in the blaze, which caused the collapse of one building, partially damaged another, and left two more with smoke damage.

Summary: Investigators are looking into the cause of a Gold Coast blaze that damaged four buildings.


After the twin barrages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, the City of New Orleans emerged nearly 64 percent smaller, having lost an estimated 278,833 residents, according to the Census Bureau's first study of the area since the storms.

Those who remained in the city were significantly more likely to be white, slightly older and a bit more well-off, the bureau concluded in two reports that were its first effort to measure the social, financial and demographic impact of the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.

The bureau found that while New Orleans lost about two-thirds of its population, adjacent St. Bernard Parish dropped a full 95 percent, falling to just 3,361 residents by Jan. 1. The surveys do not include the influx in both areas that has occurred this year as more residents begin to rebuild.

While the New Orleans area lost population, the Houston metropolitan area emerged with more than 130,000 new residents, many of them hurricane evacuees. Whites made up a slightly smaller percentage of Houston's population  62.8 percent of the city in January compared with 64.8 percent last July, a month before Hurricane Katrina hit.

In Harris County, which includes Houston, median household income fell to $43,044 from $44,517, while New Orleans area's actually rose, to $43,447 from $39,793.

The physical impact of the hurricanes is well documented. Now, with these reports, bureau officials said they hoped to begin drawing into sharper focus the human landscape, showing in stark statistics how the storm's impact was felt most keenly by the poor, members of minorities and renters.

"One of the keys for me is that the data we are seeing really supports the anecdotal stories we've been hearing for months," said Lisa Blumerman, deputy chief of the bureau's American Community Survey. "We now have quantitative data that supports the stories from the storm."

One of the reports looked solely at population gains and losses, while the second studied demographic shifts before and after the storm.

The reports' findings had been expected, said William H. Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution. Still, he said, there were some small surprises.

It was not only New Orleans but also the entire metropolitan region that became whiter, less poor and more mobile, Mr. Frey said. At the same time, he said, assumptions that the evacuees who went to nearby Baton Rouge, where the population grew by nearly 15,000, were disproportionately poor and black were proven incorrect. A more middle-class group settled there, while the poorer and more vulnerable, who had less choice about where they landed, went to more distant cities.

Demographers in the affected states said yesterday that they were skeptical of some of the methodology in the studies, wary of the results and unsure how helpful the reports would be in measuring the human impact of the storms. Steve Murdock, the state demographer of Texas, said the studies underestimated the number of hurricane evacuees in Houston by limiting their measurements to individual households and failing to count people living in hotels, shelters and other group environments.

"I can tell you that I learned nothing new about Texas," Mr. Murdock said. "These are very limited data. The truth is, nobody knows how good this data really is."

Caroline Leung, an economic researcher at Louisiana Tech University, said she had been trying to reconcile some conflicting data in the two reports and came away confused. The underlying trends may be valid, Ms. Leung said, "but I would not rely too much on those population numbers."

Census officials emphasized that the special reports used a somewhat different methodology than typical bureau studies, saying some of the numbers might be slightly less concrete than normal.

"But we felt the need to do this quickly, because the impact of the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast population is really without precedent," said Enrique Lamas, chief of the bureau's population division.

Of the 117 counties and parishes used in the studies  those identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as eligible for disaster assistance  only 40 lost population in the four months after the storm, and 99 percent of the losses came in the top 10 parishes and counties, comprising New Orleans and Lake Charles in Louisiana and Gulfport and Biloxi in Mississippi.

The black population of the New Orleans metropolitan area fell to 21 percent from 36 percent, the bureau found.

Summary: New Orleans is nearly 64 percent smaller, according to a Census Bureau study.


The Eastman Kodak Company, seeking to expand its health care business, is working with I.B.M. to develop computer systems to manage radiology and related records at smaller hospitals and imaging centers.

The market for health care information technology is worth $60 billion a year and growing, Kodak said yesterday. The goal is to produce cheaper, simpler hardware and software systems for managing radiology records, it said.

Kodak is seeking to expand its health care sales by building on its radiology business. The company also said it introduced enhancements to its secure e-mail system for sending medical records, including electronic postmarks by the Postal Service, and reached agreement with Cisco Systems to include Cisco's antivirus security system in Kodak's medical products.

"We are extending beyond radiology, where we've been for more than 100 years, into other areas of the hospital," John LaBella, a spokesman for Kodak's health care unit, said in an interview.

"We're doing that through things like clinical information systems, which enable different departments of the hospital to record, store and transmit information."

Summary: The Eastman Kodak Company is working with I.B.M. to develop computer systems to manage radiology and related records at smaller hospitals and imaging centers.


AMES KEATING marked the dissolution of his first marriage with the purchase of a black leather couch - "a bachelor's black leather couch," Mr. Keating said. This decision led to his formulating the Black Leather Couch Theory, under which he conducted his nascent romantic life.

"The idea was this," he said. "I'd know when I'd met the perfect woman when I would be willing to part with the black leather couch." He did meet the perfect woman - and then they both met the very imperfect apartment.

After a year or so, Mr. Keating, now 35, encountered Verena Schenk, now 33, albeit virtually, at Lavalife.com, an online dating service. He liked her smile and her screen name, which was Verendipity; she deemed him to be "nonfreaky," as she put it, and refreshingly normal. One thing led to another, and Mr. Keating and Ms. Schenk found themselves falling in love.

Eager to fulfill the destiny prescribed by the Black Leather Couch Theory, which encouraged a full exploration of any probable relationship, Mr. Keating traveled to the apartment of his newly beloved, only to discover - her black leather couch. He was stunned: "It was the bachelorette black leather couch," he said.

This coincidence was one of many - both had been married and divorced in the same period, both had been in Ms. Schenk's hometown of Hanau, Germany, at the same time, and both had moved to New York City at the same time, he from Dunmore, Pa. Their parallel lives held another significant detail: synchronized leases. Ms. Schenk, who was living in Murray Hill, had a lease running out in June. Mr. Keating, who lived in the financial district, had a lease up in August. (She has worked in commercial real estate; he is a business consultant.)

The two decided to make the leap, and move in together. Here is where their Arcadia ends, and the story turns dark: well, just the real estate part. "The cosmos was going to spin on its head as Verena and James started their new life together," said Mr. Keating mock-portentously. "Instead, it was a cosmic cataclysm."

One weekend last May, they were shown a model of a two-bedroom apartment at the Crest, the luxury rental development at 63 Wall Street. This massive double-trapezium of a building, built in 1929, is planted halfway down the canyon of Wall Street, past the tourists posing in front of the statue of George Washington, past the American Stock Exchange, past the designer condos at 23 Wall Street - the building also known as Downtown by Philippe Starck - and past the old Regent Hotel, also scheduled for condo development. The Crest, the former Brown Brothers Harriman & Company headquarters building, intones the same basso profundo authority as its neighbors: it's the solemn architecture of money.

In another "meant-to-be moment," Ms. Schenk said, it turned out that only one two-bedroom in the 470-plus-unit building was still available, the result of someone dropping out at the last minute. In May, the Crest was still a construction zone, so the couple toured a model unit. Though its proposed maple parquet floors were covered in wall-to-wall carpeting, the rest of the apartment was said to be the twin of "their'' two-bedroom: there was a granite and stainless-steel kitchen with a breakfast bar, ample closets and great light. The rent would be $3,725 a month, a bit steep for the area, but the developers offered all sorts of incentives: two months' rent free with a one-year lease, or three with a two-year lease, as well as free moving services.

Mr. Keating and Ms. Schenk signed on, opting for two years, and mapped out a move for July 22. "We were super-excited to start our life together," said Ms. Schenk, who speaks with the same dry humor as Mr. Keating. "We couldn't wait. Our calendars and Palms said, 'The Crest! Move-in Day!' "

On July 17, they celebrated Ms. Schenk's birthday at a restaurant in the West Village; afterward, euphoric from the evening, and anticipating their future, they took a subway down to their new home.

The Crest was pitch black.

"I said to James, 'I have a feeling this move isn't going to happen,' " Ms. Schenk reported.

Summary: When James Keating and Verena Schenk moved into their $3,750-a-month rental, they expected pure luxury. Instead they got buckled floors and other problems.


a Ali G Show," the British comic Sacha Baron Cohen's HBO series, returns for its second American season on Sunday.

While playing the part of Ali G, an imbecilic and gonzo rapper who speaks in Caribbean-British slang, Mr. Baron Cohen in the first few episodes interviews Pat Buchanan, Sam Donaldson and Gore Vidal. For all the publicity that Ali G received in his initial HBO season, in which he put on the likes of Newt Gingrich, the former astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. and the former director of central intelligence R. James Woolsey, none of this season's august figures managed to see their disguised interviewer for who he is: a wickedly smart, left-wing comedian and practicing Jew with a degree from Cambridge.

In man-on-the-street interviews and other stunts this season, Mr. Baron Cohen also reprises the characters of Borat, an unwashed, leering Kazakh, and Bruno, an Austrian gadfly from the fashion world. Typically averse to talking out of costume and character, Mr. Baron Cohen still sat down this week to discuss his approach to satire, his fear of America and the secret wild ways of Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Here are excerpts.

VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN Why is Ali G so funny?

SACHA BARON COHEN It's a pretty simple joke, which is why even some kids get it. Essentially you have two people who look totally different  one guy dressed in an absurd yellow jumpsuit, and the other guys dressed in a suit. They're speaking in different ways, with different body language and totally different levels of intelligence.

HEFFERNAN Is it more fun to play pranks on British people or Americans?

BARON COHEN It depends on the class, actually. The best targets  the legitimate targets  are successful, powerful white men, who rule the country. And in Britain the upper class are incredibly accommodating. You can punch someone from the upper class in the face, and they'll go, "Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry." They'll never ever throw you out of the room.

Here, there have been some occasions where people just are blunt, where they will say, "All right, enough is enough." Marlin Fitzwater threw Ali G out of the room. And this year Andy Rooney hated Ali G from the moment he saw him. He starts asking: "Have you done this before? Is English your first language?" And then basically tries to stop the interview after one question.

HEFFERNAN Is Borat an anti-Semite?

BARON COHEN Yeah, yeah. Part of the idea of Borat is to get people to feel relaxed enough that they fully open up. And they say things that they never would on normal TV. So if they are anti-Semitic or racist or sexist, they'll say it.

HEFFERNAN And you asked someone, "Do you have slaves?"

BARON COHEN Exactly. We were in a private gentlemen's club in Jackson, Miss. And all the serving staff were black. There's this unsaid racism; there's still segregation there. I can't remember the actual line, but I asked if he had slaves, and he said, "Slavery's over now." And I go, "Yeah, that's right." He goes, "It's good." And I go, "Good for them!" He goes, "Yeah, good for them. Bad for us."

That guy normally would never say that he thought it's a shame that slavery doesn't exist anymore. But because he's in the room with somebody who's totally naïve and seems to not mind that slavery existed, he was fully honest.

HEFFERNAN So what have you learned about America that you didn't learn when you were in Atlanta working on your college thesis on civil rights?

BARON COHEN Some areas of America are scary. When I was doing Bruno at the Alabama-Mississippi football game, the moment I stood on the field the whole crowd started booing. And about half the crowd started yelling, "Faggot, faggot!" And spitting, and saying, "We're going to kill you." It's a very weird sensation.

HEFFERNAN In general, though, Americans seem like very good sports in the interviews.

BARON COHEN I think the term "sports" is wrong because that implies that they are playing along and they realize they're part of the game. As far as I've seen, they're not.

HEFFERNAN But when you refer to weapons of mass destruction as "B.L.T.'s" in your interview with Pat Buchanan, he picks up on the term and just kind of goes with it. Surely he's in on the joke there.

Summary: The British comic Sacha Baron Cohen opens up about his HBO series "Da Ali G Show," which returns for its second American season on Sunday.


hi5, which launched in late 2003, is a massive MySpace-style social network. The site targets the teens and twenties demographic and claims to have over 40 million members. According to the latest Hitwise stats (June ‘06), hi5 is the 8th most visited US social network. However, the site is losing market share - it now accounts for 0.78% of the social networking market, down from 1.06% in May. And although not explicitly stated, Hi5 appears to be more targeted than MySpace - many of the site’s users are fans of HipHop and R&B.

Like most social networks, hi5 gives users a profile page which includes their name, gender, location and a profile picture. Users must be 13 or over, but obviously there’s no way to verify a member’s age. On sign up, the site strongly encourages users to import their friends from Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and and AOL Mail - so strongly, in fact, that it’s hard to skip this process.

Profile pages are located at username.hi5.com. What’s more, these pages are fully customizable: you can can edit the color of the background, text and links, change the default font or add a background image. For more advanced customization, users can edit the html code - this would allow you to insert videos from YouTube and Google Video, images from Photobucket and slideshows from RockYou. However, this feature seems far less popular than on MySpace, and most of the pages still carry the default design.

Friends, Photos and Other Features

hi5 also features a “degrees of separation” system similar to Friendster - your network consists of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree friends, and you can decide whether to make your profile publicly viewable or only accessible to members of your network. You can add friends by sending a friend request or inviting people via email. In addition, you can rediscover old friends by adding your school in the “Classmates” section.

The hi5 feature set is fairly standard: you can add comments to profile pages, post items on the bulletin boards, add members to your favorites, join groups and send messages to other users. hi5 also has a very basic blogging tool under the “Journal” section, but it seems that this is rarely used.

One popular feature is photo hosting: users can create up to 100 albums, each containing a maximum of 250 photos. Also popular are the Flash-powered chatrooms, which are based around locations or interests. However, hi5’s most unique feature is the ability to award “Fives” to other users. Fives are icons that describe a person’s personality or their relationship to you - examples include Best Friend, Better Half, Brother, Classmate, Nerd, Party Animal, Diva, Hero and Whiz Kid. If a user accepts a Five, it will appear on his or her profile page.

hi5 Music, which is currently in beta, is broadly similar to the hugely popular MySpace Music service. Bands create their own profile pages to promote their music and connect with fans. Each band page also includes a Flash player - users can play the tracks, add them to their own pages or, in some cases, buy them from the iTunes Music Store. Popular styles include HipHop, Reggaeton and R&B.

hi5 is a worthy rival to Facebook, Bebo, Multiply, Piczo, Tagworld and the rest. Nonetheless, MySpace continues to steal market share from all these networks.

Summary: Attention hi5 Users! Mashable's hi5 account is at mashable.hi5.com - if you're a hi5 user, feel free to add Mashable ...


Monday, June 2th 1997, 2:02AM

Frank, we hardly knew ye.

The sizzling transcript of Frank Gifford's alleged sex-capade with a former stewardess reveals that Kathie Lee Gifford's perfect hubby likes porn movies and "unnatural sexual acts" and that he's quite a stud.

"I just knew you would be," an enraptured Suzen Johnson told the former New York Giants star, according to this week's edition of the Globe.

The tabloid broke the story about the May 1 tryst last month and the Giffords initially denied the story. They changed their tune when the Globe, which pays for stories but doesn't admit paying for this one, announced that it had video tape.

The transcript reveals how Gifford, 66, and Johnson moved from chardonnay and cheese to forbidden fruit in suite 521 of the Regency Hotel on the upper East Side.

Gifford starts the seduction by suggesting they tune into an adult movie and then asks for what the Globe describes as an "unnatural sexual act." She declines. Then they engage in oral sex.

"I wanted to do this since I met you," a gasping Gifford tells Johnson, according to the transcript.

After they finish, Gifford tells his 46-year-old lover, "You're so perky!"

Later, Johnson tells Gifford: "I adore being with you. . . . I knew you weren't someone to go after another woman."

Gifford replies: "I have not been with another woman for 10 years."

The Giffords have been married for more than 10 years.

Gifford's and Suzen's bedroom banter also extends to his daughter, Victoria, who has separated from her husband, Michael Kennedy, amid reports he was sleeping with their baby-sitter.

Gifford is quoted as saying his "alcoholic" son-in-law had sex the baby-sitter.

Kathie Lee, 43, who as co-host of the syndicated "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" has spent years gushing about her perfect marriage and children, could not be reached for comment last night.

Kathie Lee's nemesis, Howard Stern, has vowed to air the tape on his morning radio show todayunless she agrees to appear.

Summary: Frank, we hardly knew ye. The sizzling transcript of Frank Gifford's alleged sex-capade with a former stewardess reveals that Kathie Lee Gifford's perfect hubby likes porn movies and "unnatural sexual acts"and that he's quite a stud. "I just knew you would be,"an enraptured Suzen Johnson told the former New York Giants star, according to this week's edition of the Globe. The tabloid broke the story about the May 1 tryst


By CHRIS CUOMO, JIM DUBREUIL and THOMAS BERMAN

Before the world knew him as a notorious alleged killer of young women, Melody Granadillo knew Joran van der Sloot as a personal prince charming.

Melody Granadillo kept a diary detailing the relationship with her first love.

"He was amazing. ... He was romantic," the 23-year-old said of her former boyfriend and first love, in an exclusive interview to air on "20/20" Friday. "It was very playful, very honest. We could sit and talk for hours. We liked looking into each other's eyes."

The couple met at a mutual friend's birthday party in Aruba in October 2003 and dated for seven months. The 16-year-old quickly fell head over heels in love with 17-year-old van der Sloot -- the man she calls "Chi Chi" or "Mr. Wiggles."

Watch the exclusive interview on "20/20" Friday at 10 p.m. ET

In the "20/20" interview, Granadillo describes van der Sloot as sweet and charming. She recalls how for her 17th birthday, he surprised her with her favorite candy.

"I told him I liked red Skittles ... and what he did was he made this vase at school, went and bought a lot of Skittles packets, he took all the red ones out ... and as a present I got a vase full of red Skittles," Granadillo said. "He did things like that ... he was real thoughtful."

The teen saved everything from her dashing Dutch suitor, including a diary they shared, filled with pages upon pages of pictures, cards, emails and love poems. Granadillo licensed a selection of these materials to ABC News.

In the diary, Granadillo, who said they discussed marriage and kids, writes of one of their first sexual encounters: "We fooled around a lot. He wanted a lap dance. I barely gave it. It was an awesome night. Romantic and fun. Also, I gave him a hickey."

Summary: Before the world knew Joran van der Sloot as a notorious alleged killer of Natalee Holloway and Stephany Flores, Melody Granadillo knew him as a personal prince charming and her first love.


BY GEORGE RUSH AND JOANNA MOLLOY With Lola Ogunnaike

Thursday, September 7th 2000, 2:14AM

George W. Bush has some Democratic celebs shivering, even without threatening them with seven-letter swear words.

"If George Bush is elected President, I'm leaving for France," said Robert Altman, the movie director who made "Nashville" and "M*A*S*H," yesterday at the Deauville film fest (playing to the crowd in - you guessed it - France).

"It would be a catastrophe for the whole world if George Bush is elected," the aspiring expat said in his understated way.

He'd get no argument from Christie Brinkley.

"I'm really scared of George W. - I mean really scared," the venerable supermodel and Democratic Convention delegate told retired Gen. Colin Powell yesterday in New York. The two were talking at Redbook magazine's "Mothers and Shakers" luncheon at Lincoln Center. "[Bush] seems so gung-ho about looking like a big strong Republican."

Powell, who delivered the event's keynote address, defended the Republican candidate, telling Brinkley: "You don't have to be afraid of him."

The real-life Erin Brockovich - who inspired the Julia Roberts film - was also honored at the Liz Claiborne-sponsored event. Brockovich, not one for casual dress, turned a lot of heads with her dÃ©colletage-baring ensemble.

"I always have a bustier on," she confessed, referring to the tight leopard-print number she was wearing under a black snakeskin-print suit. "It's really obvious that I'm not from New York."

Powell endorsed Brockovich's look. Posing between her and Brinkley, he quipped: "You guys are hard to hang out with."

Brooke Shields may finally be able to stop looking over her shoulder.

A New Jersey accountant who pleaded no-contest to stalking and terrorizing the actress for 15 years has been sentenced to probation. Mark Ronald Bailey agreed on Tuesday to an L.A. Superior Court judge's order to stay away from Shields for the next 10 years - or face four years in prison.

Shields went to police after she received "letters containing lewd, nude photographs of Mr. Bailey and threatening letters to the tune of over 100 pieces of correspondence," according to a prosecutor's statement. One of Bailey's letters referred to Shields as his "mail-order bride." Bailey also allegedly tailed Shields from last October to January, authorities said.

He was arrested after deputies saw him pull a gun while he was staring at a reflection outside an L.A. office building. Officers found two cards addressed to Shields in Bailey's pockets. Each ended with the phrase, "I'm not afraid of you."

Bailey, 42, was also ordered to get psychiatric counseling twice a week, take medication and report to a probation officer.

Shields, who once played a stalking victim in a TV movie, did not attend Tuesday's hearing but submitted a statement in which she said, "No one in our society should have to live in constant terror and fear."

Ra deal for Snipes staffer?

"Art of War" star Wesley Snipes is learning the art of the lawsuit. An ex-staffer at Snipes' Amen Ra Films claims in L.A. Superior Court that she was fired because she couldn't work for six weeks after she suffered a miscarriage and underwent emergency surgery.

Former executive assistant Rosa Reeve claims that, in August 1999, her supervisor at Amen Ra initially said she could work at home while she recovered. But about a week later, Reeve says, she was told that she was needed in the office to help Snipes. She obliged, against her doctor's orders. Things got even worse the following week, according to her complaint, when she was told that she had to travel to the out-of-town set of a Snipes movie. Reeve charges that, when she said she couldn't handle all that physical activity, she was fired.

She's suing for breach of contract, employment discrimination and wrongful termination.

Snipes' office didn't return a call for comment.

WHAT CLOSETED lesbian star insisted that a Gramercy Park restaurant keep the door to a private dining room

closed when she entertained some girlfriends? Even after one waiter knocked on the door, he saw something so shocking he dropped three plates. Â

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S Internet access password is "Buddy," the name of his pooch, The Bark magazine reports. Editors there spotted him typing the Lab's name while affixing his E-signature to a bill making E-signatures legally binding. Â

TRINIDAD PRIME Minister Basdeo Panday is to speak at the UN summit today about the AIDS problem in the Caribbean. But New York-based Trinidadian Consul General Terence Walker saw to it that Panday also got to see a performance of one of the island nation's biggest talents: Tony winner Heather Headley, who stars on Broadway in "Aida." Panday met Headley and another Trinidad export, Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam, at the Flute Champagne Bar. "We've had two Miss Universes and one Miss World, and we've only got 1.2 million people," boasted Walker. "It must be something in the water." ...

YOU MAY FINALLY be able get a table at Rao's. For one night only, the vest-pocket celebreteria in East Harlem will add tables - under tents on E. 115th St. The Sept. 26 event benefits the national Museum of Catholic Art and History. Bob Hope's wife, Dolores, is flying in from Palm Springs to pick up the museum's Humanitarian Award. Also to be honored: Regis Philbin, New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, private eye Bo Dietl and union leader Martin Maddaloni ...

CAMERON DIAZ has one person to credit for starring in Columbia's makeover of "Charlie's Angels": co-star and producer Drew Barrymore.

"I wanted to do it," says Diaz, "because Drew Barrymore is the best saleswoman in the entire world! If you want somebody to buy your product, get Drew to taste it, wear it, use it ... If she likes it, you're sold!"

Summary: George W. Bush has some Democratic celebs shivering, even without threatening them with seven-letter swear words. "If George Bush is elected President, I'm leaving for France,"said Robert Altman, the movie director who made "Nashville"and "M*A*S*H,"yesterday at the Deauville film fest (playing to the crowd in - you guessed it - France). "It would be a catastrophe for the whole world if George Bush is elected,"the


By RICHARD HUFF DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, November 3th 1999, 2:11AM

Preliminary Nielsen numbers for the debut of CBS' "The Early Show" Monday were encouraging, but the show's senior producer says Bryant Gumbel's new vehicle faces an uphill battle.

Based on figures from 46 of the nation's major television markets, "The Early Show" averaged a 3.0 rating (percentage of 63.4 million TV homes in Nielsen's overnight sample), up 20% from what "CBS This Morning" did the previous Monday. For comparison, NBC's "Today" averaged a 5.8 rating, up 13% from a week ago, and ABC's "Good Morning America" averaged a 4.1, up 16%.

Locally, the numbers for WCBS/Ch. 2 were up 12% from where they were a week ago, though "The Early Show" was a distant third in the time period.

What's unknown is how much of CBS' bump can be attributed to the launch of the show, with anchors Gumbel and Janet Clayson, as opposed to interest in the EgyptAir crash over the weekend.

"We have a long way to go," said "Early Show" senior producer Steve Friedman. "These numbers won't shake out until February. We'll have good days, and we'll have bad days. . . . We have to be in position, for if and when Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson leave 'Good Morning America,' to move into second."

While the overnight numbers aren't the best yardstick, a delay in Nielsen viewership reports for Monday meant the preliminary ratings were the only measurement late yesterday of the network's performance. Still, CBS' ratings usually increase from the preliminary ratings when national statistics are released.

In some markets, CBS recorded significant percentage increases, though the show did not fare as well in others.

In Los Angeles, "The Early Show" was up 200% compared with the previous Monday's figure; it was up 100% in Chicago and 87% in Boston. The numbers were down by 8% in Philadelphia and 31% in Tampa.

Summary: Preliminary Nielsen numbers for the debut of CBS' "The Early Show"Monday were encouraging, but the show's senior producer says Bryant Gumbel's new vehicle faces an uphill battle. Based on figures from 46 of the nation's major television markets, "The Early Show"averaged a 3.0 rating (percentage of 63.4 million TV homes in Nielsen's overnight sample), up 20% from what "CBS This Morning"did the previous Monday. For comparison, NBC's "Today"averaged a 5.8 rating,


Friday, September 26th 1997, 2:03AM

ARLINGTON, Va. Marv Albert answered each of the judge's questions in a somber, sullen affirmative.

Was he the same Marv Albert named in the indictment?

Was his age correctly specified? His educational background?

Was he pleased with the work his lawyers had done?

"Yes," he said. "Very much."

Finally, Judge Benjamin Kendrick asked, "Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty of this crime?"

Albert glanced back at the defense table, in particular lawyer Peter Greenspun. He was about to plead guilty to assault and battery, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

"He looked very sad," said Alem Tewolde, a spectator in the courtroom. "You could tell from his face."

"Yes," said Albert. His final affirmation made a mockery of the call that made him famous: "YESSS!"

Any announcer would tell you their skills are not a matter of language, but of delivery. And Albert was as skillful as any. Spoken in exuberant declaration after a Knicks basket, YESSS! became the signature of Albert's celebrity. But now, on a much different court, spoken as little more than a mumble, "yes" was a declaration of ruination. It made him another player in the bizarre, grotesque roster of celebrity sinners.

People thought they knew Marv. It is often said that fans invited him into their homes. And why not? Marv Aufrichtig, as he was born, was the grocer's son from Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. He was the kid who called imaginary games on an imaginary radio station, WMPA, in his basement. But no one could imagine the public man in his private life.

The prosecutor said the charges were based on Albert's "coarse and crude abuse of a human being, not what titillates the media."

But that's not really true. The titillation and the humiliation it caused was central to the case, the wedge with which the prosecutor pried his plea. Albert understood as well as anyone. He is, after all, a member of the media.

There was all sorts of testimony about Albert's sexual proclivities: threesomes and garter belts and biting. And there would have been a lot more dirt to dish if not for the laws of Virginia. Marv Albert's lawyers had plenty on his accuser. They just couldn't get much admitted into evidence.

Outside the courthouse, an old cab driver appeared. His name is Walter Brodie. He was Albert's regular driver in Washington. He said the victim tried to bribe him in return for false testimony against Albert. For 50 grand and a new car, he said, she asked him to tell prosecutors that Albert asked him to secure the services of a male prostitute.

"She said, 'You're broke and I'm broke so you gotta do something for me,' " he said.

Someone asked if the woman said she had been sodomized.

"She didn't say that," said the cabby. "All the sodomy that was committed was volunteered on her side and on his side."

But the jury never got a chance to hear that. And the prosecutors never got a chance to challenge Brodie.

"I just felt I had to end this ordeal for myself and my family," Albert said.

And there they were, the Alberts, facing their own kind in the media encampment. The fiance, Heather Faulkiner, is a TV producer. The brothers are broadcasters, too. And so is Albert's son, Kenny. Albert's daughter, Denise, works for the show "Inside Edition." It seemed as if the only one without a television resume was Max Aufrichtig, the grocer. Still, the short, gray-haired old man who had shuffled through the courthouse every day knew a thing or two about on-camera demeanor. He was like his kids and his grandkids. There were no cracks in his composure, not a moment of madness, nothing that might nourish the media.

"Thank you very much," said Marv. "All of you have been so wonderful to us."

"But did you assault her?" came the cry.

"I can't . . ." he said. "I can't answer that. . . ."

The family and the lawyers and the private investigators began to walk the gauntlet, their tracks traced by the cameras and reporters. What a way for a career to end.

Albert thanked a sheriff's deputy, shaking his hand. Then he stood at the curb, alone in an ocean of people. The sun shone brightly as he waited for the silver Ford to take him back to that place where the public man becomes private, the place of his fantasies, where "yes" means YESSS! and "no" means nothing.

Summary: ARLINGTON, Va. Marv Albert answered each of the judge's questions in a somber, sullen affirmative. Was he the same Marv Albert named in the indictment? Was his age correctly specified? His educational background? "Yes."Was he pleased with the work his lawyers had done? "Yes,"he said. "Very much."Finally, Judge Benjamin Kendrick asked, "Are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty of this crime?"Albert glanced


The new regulations — which mean multiple pit-stops per car and massively increased overtaking opportunities — reduce the likelihood of that run continuing, but not by much. Vettel has still won three of four races from pole this year, showing that if you have the fastest car and can get out in front, it is possible to stay out of trouble.

The interesting bit will be if the leader cannot get out in front, which was what happened in China where Vettel was slow off the line and trailing two McLarens by the first corner.

With DRS — the movable rear wing which increases straight-line speed — permitted when a driver is within one second of the car in front, it can be very difficult to shake a following car once you have been caught.

The DRS zone here in Barcelona is the longest of the year so far and there are high expectations that, for once, we will have an entertaining Spanish Grand Prix.

McLaren look the most likely candidates to profit from any Red Bull error and will, at the minimum, want to reassert themselves over Ferrari, who beat them in Turkey last time out.

Lewis Hamilton split the Red Bulls in practice yesterday afternoon and despite labelling Pirelli’s new hard tyre “a disaster”, declared himself pumped up at a venue where he suffered racist abuse in 2008.

His team-mate, Jenson Button, meanwhile, predicted that Red Bull may not have it all their own way tomorrow.

“We can fight them here,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of updates here and there’s a reasonable amount of lap time there.

“If Vettel gets it on pole and he pulls away on the first lap it will be very tricky to beat them, but if we get them into turn one it is anyone’s.”

Summary:
Mark Webber’s results to date this season have followed an uncanny trajectory:
  fifth in Australia, fourth in Malaysia, third in China, second in Turkey.


PICKENS, S.C. – There aren’t any $400 haircuts for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom some in Texas have dubbed ”Governor Goodhair.”

“Twenty-five dollars,” Perry told reporters when asked how much the cost of a haircut runs him. “Twenty-five dollars, good hair cutter.”

As he peeked into Gravely’s Barber Shop on Main Street here, Perry marveled at an antique plaque listing prices for an old-fashioned haircut – 40 cents – and told reporters he remembers getting a buzz cut for a mere dollar.

“I could remember getting a haircut for a dollar. Of course, a buzz cut that didn’t take long,” Perry, 61, said.

During the 2008 election, presidential candidate John Edwards drew heat when a federal report revealed he had spent $400 on haircuts.

Austin-based hairdresser Dixie Gilley has cut Perry’s hair for years, as seen in this video that was taped as part of KTRK’s Ted Oberg’s gubernatorial race series.

“Dixie’s been cutting my hair for a couple of years now. She’s good with the scissors and laughs at my jokes so I’m always happy to spend some time in that chair,” Perry said in the video. “We sit and we have a good visit, catch up on our families. She tells me about her boys. One that’s an aviator and flies, so we have a lot in common, just a couple of country kids who happen to live in the city.”

Summary: PICKENS, S.C. – There aren’t any $400 haircuts for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whom some in Texas have dubbed ”Governor Goodhair.” “Twenty-five dollars,” Perry told reporters when asked how much the cost of a haircut runs him. “Twenty-five dollars, good hair cutter.” As he peeked into Gravely’s Barber Shop on Main Street here, Perry marveled at an antique plaque listing prices for an old-fashioned haircut – 40 cents – and told reporters he remembers getting a buzz cut for a mere dollar. “I could remember getting a haircut for a dollar. Of course, a buzz cut that didn’t take long,” Perry,…


Montrose Christian, one of the top teams in the country, opens this season where it ended last — at No. 1.

Riverdale Baptist, which has finished No. 1 the past three seasons, begins this season in the top spot.

Consider this a cheat sheet for the top talent. Eight returning All-Mets are on the opening lists for boys and girls.

Josh Barr takes a look at the upcoming boys’ basketball season, with highlights of top players. GIRLS’ PREVIEW

Summary: AllMetSports.com's 2011-12 High School Basketball Preview for Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, including the Post's Top 20 rankings for boys an girls, Boys's and Girls' All-Met Watches and capsule previews for every district in the D.C. area.


'She has never been seen before," said Giovanna Giusti, a curator at Florence's Uffizi gallery, as we stood in front of a haunting self-portrait from 1778.

The painting was of Maria Hadfield Cosway, a woman whose love affair with Thomas Jefferson was realised only through their exchange of letters. Cosway studied in Florence under Violante Beatrice Siries Cerroti, whose picture hangs at the entrance to Autoritratte (Self-portraits), a strange and moving group of historical self-portraits by women which make up the first part of Giusti's show.

As one of the artists selected for this show, I have spent the last week in Florence experiencing something I had never imagined – one of my paintings being installed within the vast, extraordinary Uffizi; an event which would have been inconceivable when, as a 17-year-old art student, I made my first visit to the city.

In many ways, this visit to Florence couldn't be more in contrast to my first. In 1984, when I was a student at Glasgow School of Art and still full of romantic ideas, my trip was coloured by the knowledge that a serial killer, il Mostro, was on the loose. Like the young women of the city who were afraid to venture out at night, I obeyed a self-imposed curfew. But it didn't matter; as a teenager all I had wanted to do was follow the path of thousands of artists before me who had for centuries viewed Italy, and Florence in particular, as essential for the study of the history of art.

Last week, 20 years later, I witnessed the inner workings of the gallery and received extraordinary access to rarely seen paintings. The Uffizi, originally commissioned by Cosimo I in 1560 as government offices, now houses one the greatest collections of paintings in the world.

It is situated in the city where the concept of painting as a medium to describe the world around us was born, an idea we now take for granted. Leon Battista Alberti, the revered author, artist, poet, priest, linguist and philosopher of the Renaissance, wrote in 1436 that "A painting is a window looking on to the world". In contrast to Rome, Florence appears to present itself as an artistic expression of a particular period, peaking in the 14th and 15th centuries, a period when the Roman origin of its name, "Florentia" or "the flourishing", couldn't have been more apt.

I was first contacted more than a year ago by Antonio Natali, director of the Uffizi. He and Giusti, director of the department of contemporary art, explained that one of the gallery's strangest and most remarkable collections was of artists' self-portraits. It is unique in the number of works it contains (well over 1,000), their historical value (Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici started it in the middle of the 17th century) and its quality. It has grown over the years, but has only occasionally been updated with contemporary artists.

Women artists are rare in the collection but some of the most famous, such as Lavinia Fontana and La Tintoretta, are present. Natali and Giusti want to address what they feel to be a lack of contemporary works in the collection and, in Autoritratte, a small number of self-portraits by contemporary women artists are being exhibited alongside historical works from the collection.

On seeing the show, one of the things that made sense to me was the linear quality of the whole exhibit, from La Tintoretta in the 16th century to the present day. I felt a connection, a relationship not unlike a conversation, was happening among the paintings. Work being made by artists now wouldn't have been possible without what had gone before and it was exciting to see that. What I hadn't expected when I walked around the room, was an odd sense of loss from the earlier portraits. These were women who had to fight for their place as artists in the world.

I was struck by the similarity of the poses. Almost all the women proudly displayed the tools of their trade, many with hands clutching paintbrushes thrust to the foreground. There is an exquisite, tiny portrait by Maria Catherine Hakewill Browne in which the androgyny of her depiction of herself is striking. Then there is Rosa Bonheur, who as a woman in 19th‑century Paris needed a license to work in public and was required to wear men's clothing to do so.

Giusti had been aware of my lifelong fascination with Old Master painting and she was particularly interested in the more subtle representations of self contained in my work. Her invitation to me to undertake a commission set up a discussion between us on the nature of self-portraiture and what our expectations of it were. The need for artists to represent themselves has a weight of history behind it and Giusti's exhibition emphasises the continuation of that tradition, one which has particular resonance at the Uffizi. I feel honoured to be part of it.

The contemporary artists, including Vanessa Beecroft, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jenny Holzer, are at the centre of the show and, as I stood in front of my own work, which hangs between photographs by Francesca Woodman and Patti Smith, I realised I'd become part of a conversation. Woodman used her self-portraits to disconcerting and startling effect with the elements of self and object often merging. My painting has dispensed with any recognisable representation of self altogether: only the object is left, so the painting becomes about the idea of something.

When I was young, I wanted to immerse myself in this city: it was a way of paying homage to the masters of Italian painting. The difference between how I felt about Old Master painting then and how I feel now couldn't be more marked. I recently spent three years as associate artist at the National Gallery in London. It changed not only the way I look at paintings but also the way I think about painting. It's not uncommon to feel disconnected when viewing historical painting, particularly the Old Masters. We experience a false sense of familiarity with many of these great works because of the simple fact that we have greater access to them than those who went before. In losing their mystery, they appear to become diminished.

What I've realised is that these paintings don't reveal themselves all at once, if at all. We may never understand them. They are the product of someone else's mind. But the joy is in looking. Whether at the Venus of Urbino by Titian at the Uffizi or the intimate Fra Angelico frescos in each of the monastic cells of the city's Convent of San Marco, it is now almost impossible to imagine the impact these works of art would have had at the time they were made. These paintings, along with those by Masaccio, Giotto, Michelangelo and more, were the most groundbreaking works in the history of western art, and they were being viewed, in some cases, by people who had perhaps only seen two or three paintings in a lifetime. For the first time, the extraordinary complexity of the human condition was being portrayed in religious works of art.

Some key pieces of the Uffizi's collection are exhibited in the Vasari corridor, named after the brilliant architect of the building. It is over a kilometre long, extending from the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio via the Uffizi to the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti. It was built as a private covered passageway for the Medici family (and a useful way of spying on the local population).

I had the privilege of being given a private tour, made particularly fitting because Autoritratte marks the beginning of a project where the Uffizi intends to exhibit nearly twice as many self-portraits as are now hanging in the corridor. The aim is to be more representative of both Italian and foreign contemporary artists.

Giovanna Giusti is right to be proud. So many of the historical works from the collection have never been seen, and are known by the rather beautiful title I Mai Visti, a phrase Antonio Natali played with by changing it to mean "women who have never been seen". I too took immense pleasure as I watched the crowd gathering around that haunting little self-portrait by Maria Hadfield Cosway.

Summary: Alison Watt: As one of the contemporary artists chosen to be part of the Uffizi's Autoritratte exhibition, I feel part of a conversation with centuries of women painters


Bathrooms: 2 full and 2 half

Since 1984, when the cows moved out and remodeling contractor David Conley and his wife, Ruth, moved in, the couple has transformed the barn at the former Eastgate farm into a distinctive home with 23-foot ceilings, a full outdoor kitchen, and a workshop in the old milking barn. The kitchen, dining area, and living room have original post and beams and glistening Southern yellow pine flooring. A finish carpenter, Conley built the kitchen cabinets out of rough-sawn oak and the oak trim work throughout. A deck, two bedrooms each with closets behind folding wooden doors, and a full family bath radiate off the living room.

The upper floor master suite has a comfortably sized bedroom, a 13-foot ceiling, a large bath with a soaking tub and a separate shower, and closets with built-ins. A Y-shaped catwalk of spruce planks connects to a Juliet balcony. On lower levels, an office/workout area with kitchenette is adjacent to a series of garages, one of which has a vehicle lift. Conley installed a cedar hot tub into the concrete silo. The exterior kitchen has all standard appliances and a roofed deck. The house sits on nearly 5 acres, with walking trails leading to Howlett Brook at the rear of the lot.

Lillian Montalto of Signature Properties in Andover is the listing broker.

Summary: Since 1984 when the cows moved out and remodeling contractor David Conley and his wife, Ruth, moved in, the couple has transformed the barn at the former Eastgate farm barninto a distinctive home with 23-foot ceilings, a full outdoor kitchen, and a milkingbarn workshop. The original post and beams now overlook the kitchen, dining area, and fireplaced living room with glistening Southern yellow pine floor in the main living space with the towering ceiling.


However, another reason for all the OPERA-tic excitement was that back in 1985, physicists proposed that some high-energy neutrinos might really be tachyons, capable of interacting with an as-yet-known field, giving them just enough of an energy boost to break through the barrier. Such tachyon-like neutrinos would supersede photons as the fastest particles in the universe.

OPERA’s calibration error dashed those hopes, but there are still plenty of potential loopholes to be explored, such as the Star Trek-inspired warp drive mechanism first proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994. In general relativity, spacetime is dynamic, not static, warping and bending in response to the presence of mass or energy. Alcubierre suggested that it might be possible to encase a spaceship within a “warp bubble”, whereby space contracted in front of the craft and expanded behind it, enabling it to travel faster than light. But within that bubble, spacetime would remain essentially flat and the craft would technically “obey” the cosmic speed limit.

Alas, once again we face an energy problem: achieving that degree of curvature would require enormous amounts of energy – and negative energy at that – equivalent to the mass of Jupiter. To propel a spacecraft across the Milky Way galaxy may require more energy than can be found in the mass of the entire universe. A more energy-efficient ring-shaped design for such a warp drive was described recently at a symposium on interstellar space flight, offering a meager shred of hope to diehard space acolytes that for future generations, warp drive will be a reality.

However, given what we know about general relativity and quantum field theory, “It almost certainly can’t be done,” says Ken Olum, a cosmologist at Tufts. “Of course, if we are talking about quantum gravity, it’s hard to know, because we don’t really know what that is.”

Former Nasa scientist Kevin Grazier, who was the technical consultant for Battlestar Galactica, says that a version of the Alcubierre warp drive inspired the “jump drive” used in that series. It was based on the assumption that, in this fictional world, the Colonials had merged theories of electromagnetism and gravity, such that if you could create a very intense electromagnetic field, it would be functionally equivalent to an intense gravitational field capable of warping spacetime. Turning that ingenious fiction into a viable reality is another matter altogether.

If we really want to get speculative, Olum suggests FTL travel would be possible if exotic concepts, like those that emerge from superstring theory, prove to be correct.

We inhabit four-dimensional spacetime, but various permutations of superstring theory suggest our universe is just one of many, co-existing within a bubble of five-dimensional spacetime called the “bulk.” Within that bulk, our universe lines up in parallel with all the others, just like the pages in a book. Olum explains that, hypothetically, one could take a shortcut through the bulk, thereby arriving at your destination sooner than if you had travelled along your four-dimensional surface, or brane (short for membrane) as it is known.

Even then, there is a catch. “In brane theories, only gravitons can travel through the bulk,” says Olum. So one would need to invent a machine that could scan an object and transmit the information in the form of gravitons to a second machine on the other end which would then reconstruct that object – shades of teleportation, only with gravitons.

Considering we have yet to observe gravitons in our most powerful accelerators, and the current record for teleporting small clouds of atoms is the relatively non-Cylon-troubling distance of 143 kilometres (88 miles), this scenario must also remain firmly in the realm of science fiction, at least for now. Science advances, but it does so slowly, at a pace nowhere near the speed of light.

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Summary: Einstein said it is impossible, but some scientists are still trying to break the cosmic speed limit â even if it means bending the laws of physics.


One of those 'shiny, happy sculptures' by Jeff Koons. Photograph: Guy Bell

Frieze is a fearsome freak show, a Fomo funfair, a place where you see people you never see anywhere else. Unless, of course, you are one of those people, in which case you must bump into yourself wherever you go. Hello, glossy social x-ray of who-knows-what age with bouncy-castle lips and legs like a Giacometti! Hiya, irritable mid-20s man sporting bowtie, pleather bomber and cuban heels with spats! Lovely to see you, elderly chap in heavy-rimmed specs and too-dark wig, being led around by a pert young person of either gender! I wonder…

As ever at Frieze, it's hard to tear your eyes away from the humans and towards the art – though it's slightly easier this year. The organisers of Frieze, Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, have softened the experience for those here to admire the work rather than the worked-on. There's more space between the galleries, and there aren't so many of them. The lighting is less migraine-y, the flooring a muted grey. The food is mostly in one area.

Still, you do have to gird your loins and sharpen your elbows to do Frieze (as well as empty your wallet: a one-day ticket to Frieze and Frieze Masters is £50). Here we go… First, it's off to the big stuff. Jeff Koons has a massive space at the Gagosian stand to show off his shiny, happy sculptures: a cat on a washing line, a lobster doing a handstand, a sweetie heart, a car tyre avec blow-up Tweety Pies. But no one dares go near the art because of the enormous, stern security men. Instead, we all stand back and take surreptitious photos on our phones. A little further in, at Lisson, there's a piece by revered US minimalist/conceptualist Dan Graham: a big spiral see-through corridor. This is nice to look at, both from outside and within. You can legitimately stare at everyone passing as you become part of the art. At the other end of the show, newcomer Jennifer Rubell – the daughter of two important collectors – gives us her self-portrait. A huge pregnant woman lounges on her side, her head on her hand. Her belly is gone: you can curl up inside the space left, a living foetus. Hmmm. Not for me. Big doesn't mean significant.

Near the not-pregnant monolith, however, you find Frieze Projects – the fair's site-specific commissions – and this year they're all gathered in one place. This area has a more lo-fi feel than the rest of the fair; the materials for the spaces are brown paper, MDF, polystyrene blocks. Children are encouraged to come in, and indeed form a vital part of a few of the commissions. For The Committee, Pilvi Takala asked a group of kids aged 8-12 from the Eastside youth centre in Bow, east London to decide what art to create with her award of £7,000. You can see the children talking about the project here. They are great.

Nearby, Angelo Plessas has created a playground where kids can create faces, play with art-creating computer games and enjoy performances. Round the corner there's Ken Okiishi's robot paint-shooter, which fires paint at glass in front of you: proper fun. Rivane Neuenschwander offers three enormous Battleship games; workers diligently scrape off five layers of material from each square to see if there's an X underneath. And Lili Reynaud-Dewar sits on a bed, reading Guillaume Dustan and Marguerite Duras out loud, as the bed coughs up black oil. Scary, sleazy, intimate.

This being Frieze week, there are plenty of other – free – art shows to check out, such as the first major solo exhibition of Oscar Murillo at the South London Gallery. Murillo, 27, a Colombian who moved to the UK when he was 10, is the hot ticket in town. Two years ago he was working as a cleaner; now he is touted as the new Basquiat. Prices for his works at Frieze are in the hundreds of thousands, but at the SLG he was offering hand-painted lottery tickets for £2,500 each (yes, I know, but they're cheap compared to the rest of his work). Those of us without two grand to spare can just enjoy the excellent show, essentially Murillo's Dalston studio transplanted into Camberwell, with works that are finished, works that are not, all free to be bashed about by us visitors as we wish.

At the Delfina Foundation, near Victoria, you can see the result of one of last year's Frieze commissions: Asli Cavusoglu's three-part film, Murder in Three Acts. A witty piece that merges CSI cliches with art world norms, it was created in two booths at last year's fair.

At the ICA, cult female US artist artist Lutz Bacher has a disturbing installation downstairs, a quite uplifting one above: sound, film and sculpture mixed with found objects of Americana. Excellent. And at the Zabludowicz Collection on Chalk Farm Road, I loved Andy Holden's MI!MS project: where he revisits a manifesto for art that he and his friends set out when they were 18 and living in Bedford. Maximum Irony, Maximum Sincerity is the title of that manifesto: the results – a clutter of films, ephemera, installations, happenings – are funny (because of the irony) and unexpectedly moving (that'll be the sincerity). Plus, this weekend, everyone will be at Frieze, so you'll have the whole place to yourself.

Summary: Miranda Sawyer enjoys the London art extravaganza – plus some great free exhibitions around the capital


Robert Pattinson is a changed man, literally, in David Michôd’s latest drama, “The Rover.” Gone are his perfect “Twilight” teeth and the floppy hair that helped the teen vampire franchise make billions at the box office. Gone is the brooding, leading-man stare that made its way into “Water for Elephants” and gave star power to David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s bleak “Cosmopolis.”

In “The Rover,” the post-apocalyptic tale of a man (Guy Pearce) on a desperate search for his car in the desolate Australian outback, Pattinson plays a troubled sidekick — a slow-thinking man with a Southern drawl, rotting teeth, and a violent streak.

The role, which adds moments of strange comic relief to the film, won Pattinson big accolades at the Cannes Film Festival. The actor, 28 and almost two years past “The Twilight Saga,” called the Globe to talk about “The Rover” hours before it had its Los Angeles premiere.

Q. I spent the day reading reviews of you in this movie. They use phrases like “inarguable skill.”

Q. Do you read reviews?

A. Oh, yeah, definitely, but I only remember the bad ones.

Q. Have you always read reviews? Even during the “Twilight” years?

A. I never learn my lesson. I was sitting around earlier reading them and everyone’s like, “Stop it. You’ve got to keep doing press all day.”

Q. You must be loving all these “Rover” reviews. People keep using the word “transformative.”

A. It’s really the best I could have hoped to have happened. I’d already come to terms with it being completely not received well and everyone hating it, so everything is a bonus.

Q. How did you wind up in this film? I read an interview with your director [Michôd] where he talked about having a meeting with you. I was wondering which one of you was wooing the other.

A. I met him before the script was even around. I loved “Animal Kingdom” so much. I like quite aggressive filmmaking. He seems very ambitious, which is very different. When this script came around, it was one of the top five scripts I’ve ever read since I started acting.

Q. At what point was it decided that you were going to do a deep Southern accent in this film?

Robert Pattinson (right) teams up with Guy Pearce in “The Rover,” a post-apocalyptic film set in the Australian outback.

A. It said in the tiny description of the character that he was from the South, and that was basically the only thing it said about the character. Actually, Southern accents are quite fun to do anyway; you want to start saying the lines out loud. Generally, you want to start being analytical about a part, and with this, it was just immediately — you want to perform it.

Q. The accent seemed effortless.

A. For some reason, with regional and American accents, my ear’s quite good, it’s quite attuned to it. I can do regional American a lot better than I can do regional English. I don’t know why. I think just growing up on American movies — and from singing as well. I grew up listening to a lot of blues and stuff. It’s that kind of cadence.

Q. I want to talk about the wardrobe in this film – and the teeth. You looked believably filthy.

A. It’s massive to me, all the costumes and everything, especially shoes and stuff. However generic the wardrobe looks, like the jeans, we’d gone through hundreds of pairs of five-dollar jeans to find the right ones.

Q. Were you allowed to shower during this filming process?

A. Yeah, it doesn’t make any difference. The second you wake up in the morning, you’re already pouring sweat. [“The Rover” was shot in Australia.] It’s kind of nice because you don’t need to have the makeup touch-up every two seconds. You’re just covered in blood and grime.

“This [“Rover” look] is nice because you can sit around in a big pile of mud and just enjoy yourself,” said Pattinson.

Q. I wondered which was more difficult — to be in this kind of costume or to be in “Cosmopolis,” where you have to look perfect throughout the film.

A. I guess both of them. I remember waking up [during the shooting of] “Cosmopolis,” and my hair was stuck in the shape constantly. This [“Rover” look] is nice because you can sit around in a big pile of mud and just enjoy yourself.

Q. Speaking of “Cosmopolis,” David Cronenberg is being honored at the Provincetown Film Festival this weekend. You’ve now worked with him twice, in “Cosmopolis” and “Maps to the Stars.” If I get to interview him, what should I ask?

A. I would try to find the most random question about African politics or something and he’ll stun you with his encyclopedic knowledge of it. Or about 15th-century Czechoslovakian philosophy. He’ll be like, “Oh, as a matter of fact . . . ”

Q. According to the Internet, you’re in the running to play Indiana Jones. Is that just a Hollywood rumor or the real thing?

A. No, I think this story’s just made up. It’s like a, what is it called, a reverse psychology sound board where they say, “Oh, let’s write an article about how excited we are about him being cast as Indiana Jones and then everyone will say how much they hate him and how terrible an idea it is.”

Q. You have your big “Rover” premiere tonight. Will your “Twilight” fans still camp out to see you?

A. They’ve always been pretty supportive in every movie I’ve done; they’ve always created websites for the movie and stuff. I think everyone I work with is so stunned because they’re very proactive. That’s kind of great and always kind of shocking. Yeah, I’m curious about how people are going to interpret this one.

Q. You talk about liking ambitious directors. What’s the next ambitious move for you?

A. I just keep getting really lucky. I’m doing [“Idol’s Eye”] in October with [French director] Olivier Assayas and Robert De Niro, which is kind of a ridiculous thing. I met Olivier two years ago and he talked about this script. It’s crazy and I’m so excited about doing it. Things just seem to keep dropping in my lap at the perfect moment.

Q. Do you get any chance to read books — or is it all scripts now?

A. I just read the Andre Agassi autobiography, which I thought was amazing. I thought it was so great. I read this book by Steven Pinker called “How the Mind Works,” which is also one of the best books I’ve read in ages. It’s about evolutionary psychology. I didn’t understand any of it [laughing].

Q. I should ask what you’re wearing to the premiere tonight. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to ask?

A. Really, I’m actually staring right at it right now because I had to get it refitted because I’m a fatass at the moment. I think it’s Alexander McQueen.

Summary: In “The Rover,” the post-apocalyptic tale of a man (Guy Pearce) on a desperate search for his car in the desolate Australian outback, Robert Pattinson plays a troubled sidekick — a slow-thinking man with a Southern drawl, rotting teeth, and a violent streak.