By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor ANOTHER shocking pay scandal has emerged from the corridors of power. 80 senior MPs who chair debates and meeting could see an increase in their pay packets. Fifty per cent of these are up for an extra £3,700 a year increase, while the rest could be finding an extra fifteen thousand pounds in their bank accounts. Chairs already get up to £15,000 on top of the £74,000 they get for being an MP, the fee...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada   Natalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a high school philosophy teacher, and although she spends a great deal reading and thinking about freedom and the best way of life, her own life takes place in rather narrow limits. Like, as she says, most intellectuals of her generation, she used to have radical ideas in her youth, even travelled to the USSR, but she has long left desires of starting a revolution behind and is comfortable in...

There was literally no wide-spread shock today when HSBC announced that it won’t move 2.5 million light-years away from Earth, now the Government have scrapped the bank levy. An HSBC spokesman said: “of course it wasn’t any empty threat, being 780 kiloparsecs away from London meant we could still have continued with our fine banking tradition: including money laundering, helping wealthy clients evade tax and contributing to a worldwide financial meltdown. “We had been breeding derivative traders who had gills,...

By Darragh Roche It's not often MP s have the moral high ground when it comes to money. They get paid by the taxpayer, claim expenses for silly things and provide questionable value for money. But when a Commons committee put some simple questions to the European boss of Google, the politicians won a rare victory. People are already angry at Google for apparent tax avoidance but Matt Brittin's claim that he didn't know his own salary was beyond belief....

Super-skyscrapers which will dwarf the Shard, under water bubble cities and origami furniture are all likely to be reality in 100 years’ time. That’s the verdict of a new study which paints a vivid picture of our future lives; suggesting the way we live, work and play will change beyond all recognition over the course of the next century. The SmartThings Future Living Report was authored by a team of leading academics including TV presenter and one of the UK’s...

I remember my training year vividly. I did the Graduate Teacher Programme, a postgraduate route into teaching which, while harder to get onto and fewer places available, gives you a better training wage and you are contracted to a school for the year. I was fortunate enough to train at one of only two truly ‘outstanding’ schools I have seen. This was a blessing in many ways: firstly, I was assigned an inspirational mentor who not only set a fantastic...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada “It's not science fiction”, says the US Air Force recruitment video. And thousands of young Americans are seduced by the idea of adventure and honour and join up. Like Heather, whose job it was to analyse drone imagery. All day long she'd watch Afghans go about their daily lives, trying to make out if they were civilians or targets. She'd watch them be blown to pieces, she'd watch civilians die, soldiers die. Even though she...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Although having gone hand-in-hand for decades, it seems that the celebrity endorsement of alcohol has accelerated significantly in recent years. Yes, Frank Sinatra constantly extolled Jack Daniels during his lifetime, and Woody Allen famously advertised Smirnoff vodka back in the 1960’s, but nowadays it seems as though more “A-list” celebrities than not have something to endorse, and the relationship with alcohol is perhaps the strongest. Most prominently, we’ve witnessed joint campaigns between Cîroc vodka...

Reviewed by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada A young boy is kidnapped and sped along the highway through the Southern US States in a 1970s Chevrolet. But his kidnappers are his father and a good friend, saving the boy from religious fanatics. Nothing is what it seems in Midnight Special. Slowly we learn what is special about young Alton Meyer, why both the FBI and a religious cult are interested in him, why he is wearing protective goggles and is never allowed...