Classic Watches For Men

The day I reached the summit of Mauna Kea – Hawaii's highest and most sacred mountain – the sun had just set. But even the dying sun seemed capable of setting alight everything that stretched before us.

The bank of clouds spread out below the summit looked as if fires raged beneath them. The bottom layers of high, storm-driven cirrus clouds burned bright. Between these two layers were the domes of the Keck I and Keck II – twin 10-metre-class telescopes – silhouetted against a sky replete with yellows, oranges, and reds.

The Keck telescopes are helping us understand one of the biggest mysteries in physics and cosmology today: why is the universe being blown apart? Astronomers discovered in the late Nineties – to considerable astonishment, even alarm – that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and not slowing down as many had predicted. It's as if some mysterious energy is creating a repulsive force to counter gravity. Clueless as to the exact nature of this force, cosmologists call it dark energy. More important, it seems to constitute nearly three-quarters of the total matter and energy in the universe.

Dark energy is the latest and most daunting puzzle to confront cosmologists, adding to another mystery that has haunted them for decades: dark matter. Nearly 90 per cent of the mass of galaxies seems to be made of matter that is unknown and unseen. We know it must be there, for without its gravitational pull the galaxies would have disintegrated. Cosmologists in particular and physicists in general, are now faced with the stark reality that roughly 96 per cent of the universe cannot be explained with the theories at hand. All our efforts to understand the material world have illuminated only a tiny fraction of the cosmos.

And there are other mysteries. What is the origin of mass? What happened to the anti matter that should have been produced along with matter during the big bang? After almost a century of success at explaining our world using the twin pillars of modern physics – quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity – physicists have reached a plateau.

The way forward will involve reconciling quantum mechanics with general relativity into a theory of quantum gravity. In situations where the two domains collide – where overwhelming gravity meets microscopic volumes, such as in black holes or in a big bang – the theories don't work well together. In fact, they fail miserably. One of the most ambitious attempts to bring them together is string theory, an edifice of incredible mathematical complexity. Its most ardent proponents hope that it will lead us not just to quantum gravity but to a theory of everything, allowing us to describe every aspect of the universe with a few simple equations.

But the theory's hoped-for denouement is nowhere in sight. Far from explaining our universe, string theory seems to predict the existence of 10 to the power of 500 universes or more. Crucially, the theory is so far from being verified experimentally that it has become the poster child of what is wrong with physics today. Theory has lost touch with experiments – and, so, with reality.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Chalk it up as a home win for Sarah Palin. In one of the biggest upsets of what has already been a hugely successful summer for political underdogs, a virtually-unknown lawyer from Alaska has won a surprise victory in the State's Republican primary, unseating a well-established but far less conservative incumbent in the process.

Joe Miller, who enjoyed vociferous support from Ms Palin, together with funding from the Tea Party movement, becomes the firm favourite to win November's election to the US Senate after narrowly beating Lisa Murkowski, a career politician who holds centre-right views and has held office for the Republicans for eight years.

He was leading by roughly 1,600 votes out of just over 100,000 when Murkowski announced her resignation on Tuesday afternoon. The victory makes Miller the seventh outsider to defeat a sitting politician so far this election season, following the defeat of big-name incumbents like Robert Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

It also provides further evidence of voter frustration with the Washington establishment which could result in huge losses for Barack Obama's Democrats in the coming mid-term elections. Yesterday saw the University of Virginia's influential Crystal Ball polling service predicted dramatic defeats for the Democrats, who could lose control of several governorships, together with both the US Senate and House of Representatives.

It comes hot on the heels of a Gallup poll that shows them 10 points behind the Republicans, the widest gap for almost seven decades. If that were replicated in November, it would turn Obama into a "lame-duck" President who for the final two years of his term in office would hold little sway over anything except US foreign policy.

Mr Miller's rise provides a pertinent insight into the state of mind of Republican supporters, who have shifted firmly to the right since the last presidential election. A decorated Gulf War veteran with no political experience to speak of, his freewheeling campaign focused on two major issues: abortion (he is vehemently opposed) and public spending (he'd like it slashed).

Though Alaska's economy traditionally relies on huge financial support from the rest of America, Miller believes that the US faces an imminent "sovereign debt crisis" and should therefore abolish Social Security and cut spending on almost everything except its military.

On the domestic front, he promised to review the public subsidies that Alaska has for years received from Washington. He also wants to transfer vast tracts of federally-held land into the ownership of locals, who can then develop it.

The platform was enough to win Miller an endorsement from Ms Palin, whose husband Todd is an old friend. She touted him as a "man of the people" on her Facebook page and greeted his victory with a congratulatory message on Twitter: "Do you believe in miracles?!" it read. "Thank you for your service, Sen Murkowski. On to November!"

drive from www.independent.co.uk

it is the world's oldest euphoric drug – and yesterday the first medicine made from cannabis was licensed in the UK.

Sativex, a tincture of extracts from the cannabis plant, is sprayed under the tongue up to 12 times a day, as a treatment for the stiffness and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. But it is not going to be popping up on the black market as Britain's latest dance drug. The Home Office has rated it as having zero abuse potential.

Britain is the first country to give the drug full regulatory approval, although it has had a limited licence to treat neuropathic pain in Canada since 2005. It is made from plants grown at a secret location in southern England by GW Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech company whose shares have risen 60 per cent in the last six months in anticipation of yesterday's announcement.

The medicinal benefits of cannabis have been known for at least 2,000 years. Its analgesic properties were described by the British herbalist Nicholas Culpeper in 1653.

Two drugs containing a synthetic form of the active constituent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) were used in the UK for more than 30 years to treat nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

There are at least 60 active constituents of cannabis and scientists believe they can harness them to alleviate a range of symptoms. Millions of pounds are being invested by drug companies to test medicines derived from the plant as treatments for pain, epilepsy and inflammatory conditions such as bowel and skin diseases.

As cannabis is a natural plant, neither it nor the oil produced from it can be patented. Drug companies are therefore developing unique combinations of the constituents or finding a unique means of delivering them to the body, which would be patentable. The plants grown by GW Pharmaceuticals are of two strains bred to deliver high levels of cannabidiol (CBD) and THC, which are then mixed together. THC is the constituent which produces feelings of euphoria, but the levels are too low to make patients high and the effect is counteracted by the cannabidiol.

Professor Richard Langford, consultant in anaesthesia and pain medicine at Barts and The London NHS Trust, who was involved in the trials of Sativex, said: "The blood levels [of THC] when people smoke cannabis rise to a huge peak. By contrast, with the spray the rise is tiny."

GW Pharmaceuticals appeared to be on the brink of winning a licence for Sativex by 2005. But UK regulatory authorities wanted more evidence of its efficacy as a treatment for multiple sclerosis. That meant a further trial and more delay.

The drug is being marketed in Britain by the German company Bayer and is priced at £125 for a 10ml vial, which works out at £11 a day for a "typical" patient, according to the company. But it does not work for everyone. About one in 10 of the 100,000 patients with multiple sclerosis will be eligible for the drug, of whom only half are expected to benefit.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Robin van Persie will miss "at least the next few weeks" of the season after suffering a twisted ankle in Arsenal's 2-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park on Saturday. The Dutch football federation inspected the striker's injury yesterday and it believes that he will be out for longer than originally thought by the Gunners' medical team.

The Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, said after the game that he thought Van Persie would miss 10 days of football but it now appears that was optimistic. It is a big blow for the north London club, who were without the Dutchman for five months last season with ankle ligament damage.

He recovered in time to help his country to the World Cup final in July – when they lost to Spain – but could now miss a home league game against Bolton Wanderers on 11 September, a Champions League fixture against Braga four days later and then Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

Arsenal have already suffered with injuries this season. The midfielder Samir Nasri is out of action, having undergone minor knee surgery, while the likes of Denilson, Alex Song, and Johan Djourou have all been injured at one stage or another.

Van Persie's replacement for the Netherlands will be the former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who was rewarded for his blistering start to the Bundesliga season with Hamburg with a call-up for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against San Marino and Finland. The 34-year-old last played for his country in the finals of Euro 2008 after which he announced his international retirement.

He reversed that decision in the hope of getting a call-up to the 2010 World Cup squad, only to be overlooked by the Oranje coach, Bert van Marwijk. Now he will get his chance.

Wenger, meanwhile, has paid tribute to Cesc Fabregas, who seems resigned to staying at the Emirates despite constant speculation over the summer linking him with a move to Barcelona.

"I believe Cesc has given a lot to the club and the club has given a lot to Cesc as well," Wenger said. "I believe personally he loves Arsenal and that is why he accepted our decision. There is a trust and confidence [between us]. Every case is individual but to have players happy you need the club and the player to be happy.

"Of course, when a player wants to go somewhere else for a while he is not happy but it is very difficult to legislate on that. And, when you transfer a player, you need the agreement of the three parties. That is why player power exists and is legitimate. But the club has its word to say as well.

"It was vital for us to keep Cesc because we build a team around him. But I believe as well the players we have brought in have shown that they can adapt very quickly – [Laurent] Koscielny, [Marouane] Chamakh and now [Sébastien] Squillaci. So overall I believe we have done very well."

Wenger believes Fabregas can perform well this season despite any residual disappointment over his failure to get a move to the Nou Camp. "He will be the player he was before without any problem and he will be stronger," said Wenger. "And, of course, I think he will, once he is fit again, be involved mentally in the team. He is our leader, he is the leader of our team and he has a massive responsibility. I am convinced he will stand up for it."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

In a mocked-up Main Street in the middle of a field in Sussex, several strikingly well-dressed women are queueing impatiently for admission to the catwalk show in the Fashion Pavilion. Some are clad in the khaki uniform of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (the famous Fanys), some are in land-girl slacks with their hair knotted inside red bandannas. Others are squeezed into tight rayon skirts that accentuate their Monroe hips, or floral cotton blouses with embroidered trim that their grandmothers might have considered a little fussy back in 1948.

Run your eye along the line of beauties, and you notice not everyone has gone for a Forties theme. Mad Men-style floral frocks with belted waists from the late 1950s are popular. Hobble skirts and polka-dots are everywhere, as are white gloves and teeny hats, like sequinned skull-caps clamped to the side of marcelled heads. Sixties-chick paisley mini-dresses compete with white PVC coats and Courrèges boots for the title of Most Authentic King's Road Look Circa 1966. There are even some boob tubes and fluorescent leggings from the 1980s, worn by skinny teenagers – to whom, of course, they represent the quaintly old-fashioned style of their parents' generation.

Not everyone is waiting for the catwalk show in this huge field in the grounds of Goodwood House. On the main stage, 500 yards away, the retro-rocker Alvin Stardust is knocking the crowd dead with "My Coo Ca Choo", unheard on the airwaves since 1973. A DJ called Simon the Preacher is manning the ones and twos in the Let It Rock tent, while a sextet of white, urban, soul-jazz-funk exponents called The Filthy Six are conjuring the old 1960s Blue Note sound on the Soul Stage. Devotees of British cinema are catered for with a 2pm screening of the Ealing Studios classic, The Lavender Hill Mob and, in the Tanqueray Torch Club, chaps in ginger moustaches and their petticoated lady friends are jiving to the boogie from the delectable Laura B and the Moonlighters.

Welcome to the world of Vintage, the style revolution that's been sweeping the nation for a few years – a counterblast to the domination of designer labels and high street convention – and, more specifically, welcome to Vintage at Goodwood, the inaugural music-and-clothes festival on the Duke of Richmond's estate near Chichester, West Sussex, managed by his son Charles, Earl of March. It's a massive enterprise, spread over three days and involving music events, fashion shows, art installations, classic English movies, vintage cars, a fun fair, a circus and an astonishing number of visitors unselfconsciously dressed in crêpe frocks and plus-fours.

Goodwood has been a name in the festival diary for some years for its annual Festival of Speed (racing cars) and its Goodwood Revival (vintage cars, 1940s-60s). This is the first time it has embraced rock'n'frocks. "When we started the Revival," says Charles March, "what amazed me was how directly people became involved with it. We wanted to see if we could use it in a different way, to create something a bit edgier, more arty and cultural, to bring music and fashion together. For me, one of the most exciting things is that the people become the show."

He formed a partnership with Wayne Hemingway, the designer behind the Red or Dead label, who, with his wife, Gerardine, masterminded the look of the festival. "There are lots of vintage weekender festivals," explains Hemingway, "which celebrate a single niche – rockabilly, say – and they're usually held in grim seaside resorts. This festival brings everything together. We wanted to celebrate the gamut of British creativity – music, fashion, art and design, film, food – and give people a chance to dress up and be glamorous. The coverage has been fantastic. El Pais [the Spanish newspaper] said we had built 'a city in a field'. Not quite, but we've done a lot more than put some burger vans in a muddy meadow."

Indeed. The festival's centrepiece is the Main Street, down which punters stroll, gazing at the two-storey façades on either side. There's a miniature Fortnum & Mason, a bonsai Veuve Clicquot, a mignon Bonhams auction house (where pop-culture memorabilia is going under the hammer, along with some jewels once owned by Jacqueline Onassis). Mocked-up bars feature trompe l'oeil pictures of knitting-pattern models posing in the windows. An early portrait of the Rolling Stones in about 1962, looking pleased as Punch in their sensible new grey suits with fur collars, dominates the skyline.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Copyright © Martin Rowson 2010

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Everyone's got their own Something Nasty In The Woodshed, and mine is Madonna's muff. Not in the flesh, you understand – rather, hand-held in black-and-white, glimpsed a whopping EIGHTEEN YEARS ago when some commissioning clown thought it would be a right laugh to give sensitive, sheltered me her book SEX to review. Visions of that greasy muff, which one could easily have fried an egg on without the benefit of oil, haunt me till this very day. However in recent years I've started to come round to the old bird. She hangs out in Israel, and now she's allegedly been seen with booze in one hand and a fag in the other as she celebrated her 52nd birthday.

BOOZE AND FAGS! The twins pillars of hedonism, demonised as heartless killers in the press, Booze and Fags are like a pair of fugitives who need each other but don't really like each other. I envision them on the run from the PC Police, each blaming the other for their pariah status.

"It's all your fault for giving people cancer!" yells Booze, fair chucking it back as they run. "You fat ignorant brute," replies Fags, stopping to light up. "If you hadn't got all those kids chugging down alcopops and beating each other up in the town centre of a Saturday night, we'd be laughing. Oh no, but YOU had to go and create an 8.5 per cent-proof low-calorie lager, didn't you?"

"You lowered the nation's sperm count and made my nan's breath stink!" retorts Booze. And on they go... together yet apart.

As a non-smoker who loves to drink and whose friends all smoke, I can see both sides of the story. There's no doubt that Fags gets the worst rap when it comes to shunning. I've just received an e-mail telling me that One Aldwych hotel, for a decade my home-from-home in London – a place where over 10 years I've probably spent enough money to literally buy a house – will get rid of its small number of designated smoking rooms from 1 September.

Meanwhile, down in the Lobby Bar where I've spent so many happy hours, people will continue to pay handsomely to ruin their health, as they will be doing in pubs and clubs all across the country. These drinkers may or may not go on to wreak havoc in cars, or they may take it into their heads to beat up or murder some innocent bystander – yet we still see adverts in which alcohol is portrayed as some magic potion, one sip of which will bid us enter some sexy, sparkly wonderland of fun and games. No one shows you photos of ruined livers on bottles of booze – yet no one ever went and mowed down a pedestrian or urinated on a war memorial because they'd smoked a whole packet of Benson & Hedges in one go.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Diners are buying a new version of ordinary water for £1 a litre, 1,000 times more than it would cost if it came out of a tap.

Saf, a vegan restaurant in the Whole Foods department store in Kensington, London, uses a machine to turn ordinary mains supply into ionised water, which it serves in re-usable glass bottles. According to one of Saf's founders, Joe McCanta, the result is a highly alkaline water healthier than other waters and acidic drinks such as coffee, tea and alcohol. Saf in Kensington, as well as its forerunner in Shoreditch, London, sells an initial litre of ionised water for £1, although diners can request more bottles for free.

By comparison, 1p buys 10 litres of tap water from Thames Water, 99.9 per cent of whose water meets European and national standards.

Coca-Cola was forced to withdraw its Dasani water in 2004 after derision greeted the news that it was little more than treated mains water from Thames Water in Sidcup. That mishap drew parallels with an episode of the BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses in which the main character, Del Boy played by David Jason, bottled "Peckham Spring Water" from the tap in his high-rise flat.

Despite acknowledging that some people would inevitably be unimpressed with his product, Mr McCanta insisted the fee for his water – which he described as a "service charge" to cover the cost of the ionising machine and carbon filters – was good value.

Costing £1,200, the ionising machine charges the mains water in two chambers, before the more alkaline water is passed through a carbon filter, which removes chlorine and other chemicals, while retaining fluoride and minerals. Diners may also order free tap water, although the benefits of the pH 10 ionised water will be explained to them.

"A number of sustainable restaurants are charging £1 for a bottle of filtered water but it's not really doing anything," Mr McCanta said.

"I can see why people think it is a scam but it's something that's an option, we don't push it and we have a lot of information to back up why it's different to the filtered option."

While restaurants have been selling bottled water for years, the sale of filtered or otherwise treated tap water is part of a trend that is re-inventing ordinary mains or spring water as a life-affirming elixir that, it is usually hinted, bestows extra health benefits. Indeed, far from being on the way out, the bottled market is thriving.

After a couple of years when sales fell due to the recession, bad weather and environmental concerns, the amount of bottled water drunk by Britons rose by 1.4 per cent to just over 2 billion litres last year, according to market researchers Zenith.

Natural mineral waters such as Perrier and Evian take the lion's share of the market, 61 per cent, followed by spring water on 27 per cent.

Flushed by the industry's recovery, Zenith estimates sales will rise by 12 per cent to 2.3 billion litres by 2014.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

The poor bloke trying to flog old cricket books isn’t exactly doing a roaring trade. Then again, it’s rather hard to browse through the titles when his entire stock is draped in an enormous protective tarpaulin.

A few yards along – just past the decidedly incongruous ice cream van – the chaps manning the official Sussex County Cricket Club souvenir store (mobile version) are also twiddling their thumbs. Sun hat, anyone?

Fair enough, it was just a thought . . .

See, the problem is, it’s absolutely pelting down.

Well, actually, no, not pelting; if it were truly pelting, we’d have all packed up and gone home by now. No faffing or dithering required. Nice and simple.

What it’s doing instead is drizzling. Persistently, relentlessly, spirit-sappingly, soul-destroyingly drizzling. And in many ways that’s so much worse. Somehow drizzle still allows for hope, hence the hundreds of bafflingly optimistic spectators – some of them taking shelter in the beer tent (actually, loads of them taking shelter in the beer tent), others prepared simply to get saturated if an impromptu game of bat’n’ball keeps the kids amused – who are stubbornly refusing to call it a day.

It’s all wonderfully, quintessentially English, of course. And today, I’m afraid, it’s getting on my absolute wick.

For heaven’s sake, I’m thinking, just call it off, split the points, or whatever it is you cricketing people do in these situations. Then we can all go home and dry off, put an end to this wretched experience. I may be learning to like your sport, but believe me, I’m not liking it this much. This is just stupid.

We’re at Horsham in Sussex, by the way, where the home side – away from their usual base at Hove, for once – are meant to be playing Somerset in a Sunday afternoon Clydesdale Bank 40 Group A fixture.

But, as I say, the weather isn’t exactly conducive to cricket. Hence the delayed start. And all these soggy people aimlessly milling around. And the forlorn-looking stallholders. And hence the fact that the three of us – myself, my wife Julie and our daughter Emily – are huddled beneath a giant golfing umbrella, bearing the logo of the company that Julie doesn’t actually work for anymore on the grounds that they were gits, staring out rather pointlessly at the semi-covered pitch, where various unidentified bods are standing around, deep in conversation about, I don’t know, probably last night’s X Factor.

Personally, I didn’t even want to come. Not once I’d seen the forecast. Couldn’t see the point. But if you’re thinking to yourself (as I assume you must be by now), ‘Just go home, then, you blithering nincompoop!’ then let me explain the problem here: Julie and Emily don’t want to. Yes, my wife and daughter, don’t ask me why, would rather hold out, despite these laughably atrocious conditions, on the off-chance that this fixture still goes ahead.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

If the British property market resembles a shrivelling party balloon, in Ireland it looks more like the aftermath of the Hindenburg disaster. The bubble that started growing in the 1990s and accelerated out of control after 2002, when Ireland joined the euro, eventually burst spectacularly in 2008, and has yet to show any signs of recovery. Since the crash, those who lost a fortune or who have been left with unsellable property have been looking for someone to blame.

Now a hate figure has emerged in the form of the property journalist. Although a case has yet to be lodged, a number of aggrieved investors are said to be consulting Dublin lawyers about launching a case against certain journalists who, they believe, were responsible for misleading them into investing in developments that failed to deliver promised returns.

"Journalists fear they may be made legally liable for misleading readers who followed their advice and bought properties abroad, suffering major losses," says Richard Compton Miller, a property journalist himself. "There's a lot of anger among investors."

If such a case were brought, it would raise questions about the responsibility of journalists who use supposedly impartial editorial space to promote commercial developments. It may be understood among journalists that the editorials of glossy property supplements follow a less rigorous code of impartiality than conventional journalism – they are essentially vehicles for advertising – but to the consumer such a distinction may not be so clear.

Articles recommending holiday homes abroad are particularly contentious, says Compton Miller. "Journalists would go on trips to places like Bulgaria and recommend it as a place to buy a holiday flat. Now, places like Bulgaria have fared very badly, and people are feeling angry with the journalists who promoted it."

Property journalists have already fallen victim to the crash as newspapers have cut budgets and downpaged – or axed – their property supplements, because of loss of advertising. But many lawyers are sceptical about how strong a case against journalists could be. "The idea that any investor could sue a property journalist is barking mad," says Simon McAleese, a Dublin lawyer. "Though it wouldn't surprise me: people have been getting desperate to find someone to blame."

Even if it would be hard to prove that property journalists had deliberately misled readers, it is easy to see why investors might feel cheated. Property journalism has exploded over the past decade in line with the boom. But it has always been fraught with questions of independence, as developers use offers of lavish trips abroad to entice journalists to write about their projects.

drive from www.independent.co.uk