The outskirts of Naples, too often a symbol of decay, of organized crime, of school dispersal, of social and cultural marginalization, this time generously lent itself to the background of the incredible story of Salvatore Franzese. A success story born in Casoria, soon became a symbol of redemption for those who still have no voice or identity in a forgotten city. Going through the life of this great Campania hairstylist means, in fact, offering a model of healthy life to new generations and an example of Italian talent that starts from its territory and then expands all over the world, challenging the ferocious era of globalization. It is true that it is in the most difficult situations that arise the most beautiful ideas, the greatest dreams, the most enterprising projects, because as stated in the famous Disney cardboard, “the flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and the most more beautiful than all “.
Salvatore Franzese, even in disadvantaged suburbs, only one man can mark the difference between victory and defeat. She has not surrendered to the daily difficulties, has not contented herself with mediocrity and above all, without ever abandoning the dream of those who still expect a lot from the places where she lives, she has been able to open herself to new horizons. Tell us your story so that it can be a stimulus for future generations.
After compulsory schooling, at the age of only 14, I started working as a shampist in some beauty salons in my city, Casoria. Although very young, I was well aware that everyone, despite the circumstances, can improve and reach important goals, if they dedicate themselves with professionalism and passion to what they do. My passion and my desire to make a decisive change in my life, led me away from everything that had been my world until then. In Florence I attended one of the best schools for hairdressers: the Armonia Hair Academy of Sal Giaquinta. It was the beginning of the turning point. Thanks to the excellent level of theoretical and practical knowledge achieved, my name began to circulate in the Italian and international hairstyling environment, and in that of film productions. In 1995, after years of training spent in London, Milan and Florence, I finally managed to realize my dream of opening a boutique for my own hair: first with the Fisiognomica brand then with the current one, Salvatore Franzese Hair Passion.
Today she is also involved in professional training on behalf of the historic Toccomagico brand. An opportunity to export his talent across the border!
Since the 80s, the company of Amulio Sarra has started to focus increasingly on training and teaching, re-launching the High School Academy, which still offers professional services for young hairdressers. On behalf of this company, I deal with training abroad, particularly in the United States, Costa Rica, Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe, where it is very popular and is among the most recognized brands. The mission of my courses and training courses is to transfer to the students a tested working method, the result of tested experiences and creative research, which makes it possible to stand out, in a deeply competitive field, with a high level preparation.
But let’s talk about his artistic expressions. She is one of the few in Italy to practice vertical cutting. What is it about?
The vertical cut is a technique used to lighten the lengths giving prominence to the colors. The peculiarity of this innovative method, which is practiced inside the lock by creating a very natural fragmented effect, lies in the possibility of reconstructing the vacuum that usually exists between a lock of hair and the other thanks to vertical and diagonal cuts, so to obtain diversity of volumes, leaving the tips soft and full. The results are truly extraordinary.
The key to the success of his creations?
Surely that of knowing how to interpret the innermost desires of my clients, creating a glamorous look and always in fashion. Each cut must, of course, be designed specifically in relation to the somatic features and personality of each individual woman, in order to maximize the most delicate femininity. The same applies to colors. They must be chosen carefully to enhance the beauty of the foliage, always preferring warm, bright and not too aggressive shades.
In conclusion, what do you feel to advise young people who wish to pursue their own profession but who live in territorial situations at risk of social exclusion?
Never give up in the face of adversity and always fight for your dreams: anyone can reach the peak of success, as long as they accept to question themselves, exceeding their limits! To climb the summit it is necessary to never stop looking at the world with enchanted eyes, with the enterprising spirit of those who, beyond the hedge, always see the infinite.
Composite additive mastoplasty, for a natural and refined prosperous breast!
Increase breast volume in a natural and elegant way? Thanks to the “composite additive mastoplasty” it is possible to obtain an appropriately prosperous décolleté and that does not seem artifact or vulgar. To illustrate the advantages of this really innovative surgical intervention is the dott. Agostino Bruno, specialist in Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery and medical director at S. Eugenio di Roma.
Dr. Bruno, what is the composite additive mastoplasty?It is a technique that involves the insertion of silicone implants in combination with the transfer of autologous adipose tissue. This type of intervention guarantees a very natural result: the fat removed, properly centrifuged and purified of all the “dirty” substances, is used to increase and “fill” the prosthesis, making it less visible to the eye and palpation.
What advantages does this method offer?It is a much less invasive intervention than the traditional one that reduces post-operative pain and ensures fast recovery times (generally it is performed in day hospital). On the other hand, since lipofilling involves the removal of adipose tissue from other sites (knees, coulotte de cheval, hips or abdomen), the composite additive mastoplasty, in addition to the advantages of a new and more “protected” breasts from typical complications ( palpability of the prosthesis or the presence of visible folds with the phenomenon of “rippling”) offers a global improvement of the silhouette, much appreciated by the patients!
For more info (www.agostinobruno.it) (agostinobruno80@libero.it)
Leader in the design and construction of exhibition stands and event settings
Passion, professionalism and a very high level of skills: these are the hallmarks of A & A 2009 Srl, a leading company in the design and construction of exhibition stands and event settings (exhibitions, roadshows, conventions, showrooms and major events), in Italy and abroad. From the headquarters of Rome, this all-Italian brand has immediately distinguished itself in the reference market thanks to the quality of the services offered by a highly competent and creative team, succeeding in significantly increasing its customer portfolio over the last few years. To illustrate the company’s mission is Vinicio Sciarroni, commercial and production manager of the company.Dott. Sciarroni, what are the strengths of A & A 2009 Srl?Perfectly combining strategic, technical and creative skills, the A & A 2009 Srl team is able to follow every event at 360 degrees, taking care of the smallest details and customizing it according to the requests of each individual customer. Our skill is that of knowing how to interpret people’s emotions and knowing how to transform them into a unique harmony of incredibly involving and exclusive visual and sensory elements.What goals have you achieved in these long years of activity?By far the most important goal is the high level of satisfaction shown by customers, which represents our true heritage, our true strength. Today in Italy we are an important reality, always growing and characterized by dynamism and style that are our flagship.
Senior British and EU officials will discuss the UK’s future relationship with the European Union for the first time on Wednesday, in a milestone for the Brexit talks.
More than a year after the government triggered article 50, British and EU negotiators will meet across a table to discuss the UK’s future trade ties.
The talks will be mostly limited to a formal presentation on the negotiating guidelines agreed by EU leaders in March, as well as setting a schedule for future meetings. Nonetheless, it is a significant moment for the UK, 10 months after the Brexit secretary, David Davis, was forced to bow to the EU’s timetable, having previously promised the “row of the summer”.
Before Wednesday’s meeting, the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, stepped up his call for guarantees to ensure that EU citizens can avoid the “bureaucratic nightmare” that has ensnared the Windrush generation.
Speaking in the European parliament in Strasbourg, Verhofstadt called on the chief Brexit negotiators, Davis and Michel Barnier, to be ready to make changes to the withdrawal treaty, if MEPs deemed modifications were needed.
“Certainly after the Windrush scandal in Britain we want to be sure that the same is not happening to our European citizens and that there is no bureaucratic nightmare there,” he said.
Home Office officials will be grilled by a special group of MEPs next Tuesday in Brussels, where they will be quizzed on the procedure for 3.5 million EU citizens to obtain special status. Following that meeting “if there are changes needed we will also communicate to the negotiators, to David Davis to Michel Barnier, what modifications are needed to avoid problems for EU citizens” Verhofstadt said.
While the the European parliament is not negotiating Brexit, it has the power to veto the final deal and MEPs insist they are ready to use it.
Wednesday’s talks are being led by Barnier’s deputy, Sabine Weyand, and the UK prime minister’s Europe envoy, Olly Robbins. Before talks on the future relationship, the pair are meeting to discuss progress on resolving the status of the Irish border, the most intractable issue of the talks.
As that meeting was getting under way, Donald Tusk, the head of the European council, reiterated his warning that the UK risked leaving the EU without a deal if there was no solution on Ireland.
“The UK’s decision on Brexit has caused the problem, and the UK will have to help solve it,” he told MEPs. “Without a solution, there will be no withdrawal agreement and no transition.”
The Irish government, which is frustrated by slow progress, is pressing for a solution to the border question by June. So far Ireland has benefited from solid support from the rest of the EU, illustrated by a Manfred Weber, the leader of the largest European parliament group, who told MEPs on Wednesday: “We are all Irish in this regard.”
Diplomats say support for Ireland is strong, although some think the Irish government’s hopes of solving the issue in June are unlikely to be realised. “I find it a bit unrealistic because [the Irish issue] is so political, it can only be wrapped with everything if we have crossed all the ‘t’s and dotted the ‘i’s, as part of a package on the future relationship,” one said.
Castroni has always been synonymous with quality and family pride. The company was founded in via Cola di Rienzo, where the founder Umberto in 1932 opens a small workshop of 90 square meters, which in a very short time sees its dimensions tripled. Since then, that small business has become a real temple of Italian and international gastronomy, where you can find many specialties of the highest quality, from all over the world. Crossing the door of this renowned point of sale means, in fact, making a journey into the tastes and flavors of the five continents: 6,000 enogastronomic products offered, each with its own story to tell and its taste to savor, carefully selected by a family that, for 4 generations, is helping to write an important page of the history of Rome. Among those shelves full of history you can find Argentine, Brazilian, Mexican, Indian, Japanese and Egyptian specialties: from English tea to the green salt of Hawaii to the black salt of Cyprus; from Indonesian spices to local jams and sweets; from pasta to rice to gluten-free products. The pride of the shop is obviously the coffee, to be tasted in the inner bar together with the pastry of own production. “All the good in the world passes through our windows” asserts strongly Roberto Castroni, strong and determined man who over the years has managed to climb the peak of success, creating an important network of international contacts, without ever losing sight of the own Roman identity.
For more info (www.castronicoladirienzoshop.com) (info@castronicoladirienzoshop.com).
Google’s Chrome browser now blocks auto-playing video with sound, taking a big step forward in removing one of the most irritating things about the modern web.
Originally promised to be delivered last January as part of version 64 of Chrome but delayed until now, the feature will stop any video that is set to autoplay with sound from doing so on sites where the video is not the primary purpose. That includes video reports for news sites and other ancillary video that is often played off to the side of text.
Video that plays without audio, or that a user has tapped or clicked on, will still play. On mobile, autoplaying videos will be allowed on sites that have been added as a bookmark to the home screen, while desktop sites that a user frequently actively watches video on will be allowed to autoplay videos with sound as ranked by the firm’s new Media Engagement Index (MEI).
Google is seeking to make controlling “unexpected media playback” automatic, while allowing users to continue enjoying content they actively want to, particularly on sites such as YouTube or Netflix that are dedicated to media playback. As such MEI registers the number of visits to a particular site v the number of times a user watches video content on that site that’s larger than 200 x 140 pixels, for longer than seven seconds with audio unmuted.
Until now users have been able to mute all sound by default from a particular site, but not block the video from playing on that site. Third-party tools and settings that block particular content from loading have been available for a while to fill that gap, but now Google is baking a system in that it thinks will work well for the majority of users.
The autoplay blocking adds to the existing ban on video, pop-up and intrusive adverts that began being blocked from 15 February within Google’s browser on both desktop and mobile – another move by Google to dissuade users from installing third-party tools, in this case adblockers.
Google’s Chrome dominates the web browser market, employed by 57.7% of internet users in March across desktop and mobile leaving Apple’s Safari a distant second with 14.8% of the market, according data from StatCounter. That means changes made by default within Chrome are likely to have a significant impact on how websites operate.
Chrome version 66 is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, with its mobile version rolling out to Android and iOS.
Liverpool have been drawn against Roma in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Jürgen Klopp’s side came through an all-Premier League quarter-final against Manchester City, winning the first leg 3-0 at Anfield and the second 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night.
Serie A side Roma produced a remarkable comeback to knock out Barcelona. The Italian team lost the first leg 4-1 in Spain, but progressed on away goals following a 3-0 home victory.
For Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool forward, it will be a return to Rome, where he scored 29 goals in 65 league appearances before moving on last summer.
“Of the three options that were available I’ve never played there before so that is already exciting,” said Klopp. “It will be two difficult games. Roma are a fantastic side as you saw against Barcelona. They played a very good season after a difficult transfer window for them last summer. They lost Mo, Emerson and other key players but still they played a really good season and are fighting for the Champions League again. When we face Roma we will know everything about them. I saw the second leg against Barcelona and they were outstandingly good.”
The final will take place in Kiev at the end of May but the Scotland defender, Andrew Robertson, insists Liverpool will not fear any opposition.
“This club has been here before and they know how hard it is – regardless of who you are playing – to get to the final and try to win this trophy,” Robertson said. “We know how hard it’s going to be and we need to try and work so hard to get to the final because we need to deserve it.”
The Roma sporting director has challenged his players to channel the same spirit that they did against Barça on Tuesday.
“It feels like a great opportunity to chase the joy that we were not able to experience so many years ago,” Monchi said. “But of course it will be difficult because Liverpool are an extremely strong side. We need to think about ourselves, and try to reproduce what we were able to show against Barcelona.”
The other semi-final will be between European heavyweights Bayern Munich and holders Real Madrid, who needed a dramatic stoppage-time penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo to see off Juventus after the Italian outfit had come back from 3-0 down in the first leg to level the tie. “It’s one of European football’s top clashes,” said Bayern’s departing manager, Jupp Heynckes. “It’s the defending champions against a top side with quality players.”
The first legs will be played on 24/25 April, with the second legs on 1/2 May.
James Mattis, the US defense secretary, has said Washington is still looking for evidence on who carried out Saturday’s chemical weapons attack in Damascus and that his main concern about a military response was how to stop it “escalating out of control”.
Donald Trump consulted his top national security advisers on a US response but the White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, said on Thursday “no final decision has been taken”.
According to the New York Times, Mattis appealed at the meeting for more time to gather evidence to prove the Assad regime was responsible for the attack. But the administration appeared determined to deliver on the president’s threat to punish the use of poison gas.
After the White House meeting, Trump called the British prime minister, Theresa May, and the two leaders agreed that “it was vital that the use of chemical weapons did not go unchallenged”.
French president Emmanuel Macron said that his government had “proof” that the government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the attack, which is reported to have killed about 50 people and affected hundreds more.
NBC and CNN quoted US officials as saying that blood and urine samples from the victims of Saturday’s attack showed traces of chlorine and a nerve agent, and that US intelligence had other evidence pointing to the regime’s culpability, which would be presented to the president.
Trump himself appeared to walk back an earlier threat of an imminent attack.
On Wednesday, the president tweeted that US missiles “will be coming” and told Russia, which has forces in Syria, to “get ready”. But the next morning, Trump tweeted that he “never said when an attack on Syria would take place”. An attack, the president said “could be very soon or not so soon at all!”
Analysts said the more measured tone suggested that the US and allies were prepared to take longer to ready a more comprehensive attack than the US missile salvo launched last April after a previous poison gas attack, while building pressure on Russia to rein in the regime’s worst atrocities and accept Assad’s departure as part of a Syrian political settlement.
At the UN, the Russian envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said Russia’s “immediate priority is to avert the danger of war”.
Asked if he was referring to a war between the United States and Russia, Nebenzia told reporters: “We cannot exclude any possibilities unfortunately because we saw messages that are coming from Washington. They were very bellicose.”
Nebenzia added: “The danger of escalation is higher than simply Syria because our military are there. So the situation is very dangerous.”
In testimony to the House armed services committee, Mattis voiced similar concerns, saying “on a strategic level, it’s how do we keep this from escalating out of control, if you get my drift on that.”
Mattis said he believed chemical weapons had been used, but “we are looking for evidence” on who was responsible. Trump has blamed Assad and Russia for backing him.
Macron, who has repeatedly insisted that proven use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line” for France, said on Thursday that his government would decide its response “in due course”.
“We have the proof that last week chemical weapons were used – at least chlorine – and that they were used by the Assad regime,” Macron told a TV interviewer.
The French president said one of his aims in Syria was to “remove the regime’s chemical attack capabilities” once all information had been checked.
He he added: “France will in no way allow an escalation or anything that would harm regional stability, but we cannot allow regimes that believe they can act with impunity to violate international law in the worst possible way.”
In London, the cabinet emerged from a discussion on Syria, and put out a statement saying it had agreed “that the Assad regime has a track record of the use of chemical weapons and it is highly likely that the regime is responsible for Saturday’s attack”.
“Cabinet agreed on the need to take action to alleviate humanitarian distress and to deter the further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime,” the statement from Downing Street said.
Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were due to arrive in Damascus on Thursday, but they are not due to visit the site of the attack – until Saturday.
Mattis said repeatedly he believed use of chemical weapons was “inexcusable” and required a forceful response.
Asked about a legal justification for punitive strikes, he pointed to the presence of US troops in Syria, who could be vulnerable. He said: “We don’t have to wait until a chemical attack, when [chemical weapons] are be used in the same theatre we are operating in.”
The Kremlin said on Thursday that Russia and the US were currently using a “deconfliction” telephone line for Syria.
Mike Pompeo, the CIA director and Trump’s pick for secretary of state, appeared to affirm at his confirmation hearing reports that about 200 Russian mercenaries were killed in a February clash with US-led forces in Syria. The deconfliction line between the US and Russian militaries was used during that incident.
Nicholas Heras, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, says that the US and its allies appeared to be preparing a more comprehensive assault on the sinews of Assad powers than the single Tomahawk missile barrage against a Syrian airbase last year.
“If you are going to conduct a campaign that goes beyond the strike in April, you need to plan out who does what,” Heras said. “What are the range of targets and who is responsible for putting a bomb on them? If they are going to do saturation strikes, they have to go after the air defences so that planes can come in to do really specific targeting. The more planes you see in the battlespace the more clear it will be a multiple-day deep targeted campaign.”
Heras said that the deliberative approach is also aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Vladimir Putin, to end his unstinting support of Assad.
“They are trying to give time for Russia to come to the conclusion that the US and France and UK are serious,” he said. “Trump has entered his hard negotiation phase and is personally pissed off with Putin about this. He is asking: what are you doing to put Assad to heel and put him into retirement?”
There were signs that Moscow was preparing for a missile strike. Satellite images released by the Israeli company ImageSat International showed ships had been deployed from Russia’s naval base in the Syrian city of Tartus.
Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield are seated in the latter’s hotel room in Marylebone, central London, ostensibly promoting the Manic Street Preachers’ forthcoming 14th album, Resistance Is Futile, but instead talking about the possibility of Manic Street Preachers splitting up. Wire says he finds the prospect “terrifying”, which is understandable: they have been in the band for 31 years – they formed at secondary school in Blackwood in south Wales – and neither of them seems to know what else they might do. “I can’t go and teach at the Cardiff Institute of Music, you know,” smiles Bradfield. “My first lecture on how to make it in the music business: ‘Piss everybody off, dress like your mum and learn how to play on the job.’ ‘Er … can we have a new lecturer, please?’”
Nevertheless, they say, splitting up is a thought that has occurred to both of them in the four years since they last released an album, a trying period during which Wire’s elderly parents fell ill, his mother gravely so, and their Cardiff studio, Faster, was closed after the building that housed it was earmarked for redevelopment and demolished – its closure made the local news in Wales. The process of building a new one, Bradfield protests, turned him into “a low-rent version of what’s-his-fucking-name from Grand Designs”. “He would ring me up and go: ‘I’ve got a bit of bad news – steel prices have gone up,” sighs Wire, with the unmistakable air of a man who didn’t join a band in order to discuss supporting joists.
To most observers, the Manics seem to have spent the past decade in the kind of creative Indian summer that has eluded most of their peers. They enjoyed their commercial zenith in the late 90s, when, as Wire disbelievingly points out, they were so big that a single such as The Masses Against the Classes, which opens with a sample of Noam Chomsky and ends with a quotation from Albert Camus’ book The Rebel, could knock Westlife’s Seasons in the Sun off No 1. If they have never recaptured that high point, the past 10 years have still come replete with gold albums, arena tours and critical acclaim. That last record, Futurology, in particular was widely hailed as one of the best records the band has made. But Bradfield says he has found himself wondering if the Manics still had an audience – an odd thing to worry about given the size of the venues they still play, but as he says, the band were always “fucking obsessed with a desire to be huge”.
Wire says he has been beset by doubts, not just about their relevance, but the relevance of rock music in general. From the start, at least part of the point of Manic Street Preachers was, as Wire once beautifully put it, “to give clues to a more rewarding life”, to use rock music as a means by which you could transmit ideas about books and films and politics. The journalist Stuart Maconie recalled faxing them, early on in their career, a standard set of questions for a weekly NME Q&A called Material World, and receiving in response a set of “apposite, brilliantly chosen quotations from a whole range of cultural figures – Mao, Philip Larkin, Marilyn Monroe, George Best, Flaubert, Andy Warhol, Heidegger”. But in a world of social media, rock music is clearly no longer the main conduit of youth culture.
“It’s dictated by role models, icons, whatever you want to call them,” Wire says. “Music used to be the leader in terms of that, everything about the way we looked growing up was about searching out how to look like those kind of people. Now they’re getting it from avenues that I can’t comprehend why they’d want to.” He sighs. “The emptiness of it. Actually, I feel a certain sense of pity, because I think our youth was so definite and tangible and exciting and full of space to dream and magic and all those kind of ephemeral things. Whereas now, it’s just ratcheted at you at such a fucking speed. And we all know, because we’ve all got kids, and you try to kind of … not influence them, but pass on things that made your life magical, and they just seem completely fucking irrelevant. It’s not nostalgia, that’s a key thing; it’s actually things just disappearing. It’s like the NME closing, that was the worst thing about it: it’s just another nail, telling you music is less relevant.” Nevertheless, he says, “the one thing I know for certain, in this world of absolute doubt and uncertainty, is that when the three of us get in the studio, there is still a magic there”.
Hence they didn’t split up, and while Resistance Is Futile certainly doesn’t shy away from addressing the band’s doubts – they are there in everything from its title to its cover photo, featuring “one of the last samurai warriors – someone who knows his time is over thanks to the coming of the gun” – it arrives filled with brashly anthemic songs that deal in what Wire calls “ecstatic miserablism … effervescent melancholy”.
He says he feels “drained of intellectual stamina … That’s why I don’t think anyone should be in charge of a political party at 75 or something, because at 50, I’m fucking struggling.” He also claims he was incapable of the effort that went into researching Futurology’s theme of “connecting Europe through art movements, like an antidote to politics” – during which he became so “obsessed with things like [Futurist poet] Mayakovsky and Malevich’s Black Square” that the rest of the band “didn’t know what I was fucking on about”. But Resistance Is Futile’s songs are as lyrically rich as ever. They variously touch on the doomed, booze-sodden marriage of Dylan Thomas and Caitlin Macnamara, the “seismic cultural gap” revealed by the death of David Bowie (“I don’t think there’s ever going to be anybody to replace him: that self-made, that extravagant, intellectual, playful, funny, gorgeous, best hair ever, best clothes ever – how can that happen again from a working-class background in Brixton?”), the paintings of Yves Kleinand the story of Vivian Maier, the Chicago nanny who had a double-life as a street photographer, quietly taking 150,000 photos of US cities and society that were only discovered, to vast acclaim, after her death.
The latter’s story keys into another of Wire’s obsessions about the internet era: that nothing is ever truly secret, that everyone’s lives are constantly documented and held up to public scrutiny. “One of the greatest things Francis Bacon ever said was that you self-realised,” he says. “There was a period of five years in his life, literally no one knows what the fuck he did. He destroyed everything he painted, there were rumours he was an interior decorator, he was in Berlin … Just no one knows what went on for that period, and that can never happen again, that self-realisation where you really form yourself through isolation and scarcity and ideas. I actually feel sorry for the generations coming after us, because of that. How can you do it? Everything is there, laid out for you to be embarrassed by when you’re older, without realising. All our embarrassing songs that we wrote when we were 15, you know, thank fuck no one heard them. So there’s humiliation, as well, that idea of one false step … If you look back at me and Richey at the start, fuck me, we’d have been killed today. I dread to think what I would have put James and Sean through, because some of the interviews are just … there’s so much talk, and it’s only by the end that we talk any sense. But that was the process, wasn’t it, of just going through all that stuff.”
There is also a considerable amount of fretting about politics, which seems faintly surprising: given the band’s past political allegiances to Tony Benn and Arthur Scargill, I had assumed they would be quite gung-ho for Jeremy Corbyn, but apparently not. “I’m coming around to him a lot more, but not gung-ho, no,” says Bradfield. “I’m not one of those people that goes on about the liberal elite in London, but I don’t think he understands what makes the working classes tick outside of London and that is just hardcore industries. We’ve operated at our optimum as people when jobs give us meaning, and in the post-industrial hinterlands, he doesn’t understand that. I remember somebody at a meeting down in south Wales, an old guy, ex-miner, wanted his son to have a proper, real, blue-collar job, and he was saying: ‘What do you expect us to do, Mr Corbyn, make fucking love spoons out of hemp?’ I don’t think Jezza gets it, I don’t think he connects with people on that level, which is part of the reason we’re having political problems in Wales.”
Wire says he’s “completely baffled by my own political vacuum” since Brexit: “A lot of it’s just about political intelligence, the frustration where I think we grew up in a time when there was a lot of political intelligence on both sides, to be honest. Now … there’s never any answers, it’s just statement after statement of opposing vitriol, you know, which I just … I just can’t see a middle way at the moment.”
And Bradfield and Wire go off on a lengthy tangent about politics: they talk, as much to each other as to me, about Tony Benn’s notion of the EU as “a gentleman’s club for millionaires” and how the remain campaign failed because it didn’t make enough of the EU’s failings and the need to reform it, whether or not the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is “an old-school totalitarian communist” (this, I should point out, is a phrase Wire uses with approval, rather than censure), and the proposed 2016 closure of the Tata steelworks in Port Talbot. They don’t, it has to be said, sound much like an irrelevant band stuck for things to say.
“There is a sense of a massive fun and excitement being in our band,” says Wire. “Every record we’ve made recently, whether you like them or not, they’ve all been convincing. It’s still full of vitality. You can’t really fake that. We have to be completely committed to this.” He smiles. “At our age, if you’re not, then it’s fucking over.”
Humans continue to produce new neurons in a part of their brain involved in learning, memory and emotion throughout adulthood, scientists have revealed, countering previous theories that production stopped after adolescence. The findings could help in developing treatments for neurological conditions such as dementia.
Many new neurons are produced in the hippocampus in babies, but it has been a matter of hot debate whether this continues into adulthood – and if so, whether this rate drops with age as seen in mice and nonhuman primates.
Although some research had found new neurons in the hippocampus of older humans, a recent study scotched the idea, claiming that new neurons in the hippocampus were at undetectable levels by our late teens.
Now another group of scientists have published research that pushes back, revealing the new neurons are produced in this brain region in human adults and does not drop off with age. The findings, they say, could help in the hunt for ways to treat conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s to psychiatric problems.
“The exciting part is that the neurons are there throughout a lifetime,” said Dr Maura Boldrini from Columbia University in New York and first author of the new study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. “It seems that indeed humans are different from mice – where [neuron production] goes down with age really fast – and this could mean that we need these neurons for our complex learning abilities and cognitive behavioural responses to emotions,” she said.
Boldrini and colleagues looked at the hippocampus in 28 men and women aged between 14 and 79, collected just hours after they had died. Importantly, Boldrini notes, all of the individuals were healthy before death, unlike in many previous studies.
Using a number of techniques, the team examined the degree of new blood vessel formation, the volume, and the number of cells of different stages of maturity, in an area known as the dentate gyrus – the region of the hippocampus where new neurons are produced.
“According to mice studies there are these pluripotent stem cells that are a pool of cells that don’t normally do anything, they are quiescent, and then they can undergo division,” said Boldrini, adding that some studies have suggested that we might be born with a finite pool of these ‘mother cells’. “Those daughter cells are the ones that exponentially divide and make many more cells and differentiate towards becoming a neuron.”
The team found levels of these “mother cells” dropped with age in the front and middle region of the dentate gyrus. However, levels of the cells they give rise to did not drop, with the team finding thousands of new, immature neurons in the dentate gyrus at the time of death regardless of age.
“We can still make enough neurons even with fewer left of these ‘mothers’.” said Boldrini.
However, there was a drop in the front of the dentate gyrus in the number of cells producing substances linked to neuroplasticity – the ability for the brain to change or “rewire”.
“Even though we make these new neurons, they might be less plastic, or maybe making fewer connections or migrating less,” said Boldrini.
The authors note that a drop in plasticity might help explain why even healthy people can become more emotionally vulnerable as they age, but that the formation of new cells including neurons might help protect against cognitive or emotional decline.
Boldrini said it was now important to look at what happens in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s and emotional problems, since if there are differences in the formation of new cells in the hippocampus it could offer scientists new targets for treatment.
Dr Mercedes Paredes from the University of California San Francisco, an author of last month’s paper suggesting adults do not develop new neurons, said she was not persuaded. “For now, we do not think this new study challenges what we have concluded from our own recently published observations: if neurogenesis continues in the adult human hippocampus, it is an extremely rare phenomenon,” she said. “It boils down to interpretation of equivocal cells which we took extra steps to characterise extensively and showed not to be new neurons as they first appeared.”
But Dr Niels Haan from Cardiff University said he was convinced new neurons form in the adult human brain, although their function was as yet unclear.
“We know from work in animal models that adult born neurons are required for various learning and memory processes, and there is some evidence suggesting neurogenesis is disrupted in human psychiatric conditions,” he said. “This is a promising area for potential treatments.”
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