I once sat down with a major American movie star who wanted to do a television show.
Well, he wasn't so major when I sat down with him. By the time a movie star finds himself sitting across from me in the lounge at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel, he's pretty much come to the end of his feature film career and, often, his money.
He began the meeting by informing me that he didn't really want to do television and planned, if the show was a hit, to break his contract at the soonest opportunity. He then spent the next 30 minutes texting and talking on the phone, got up abruptly and walked out.
"OK," said his manager, when he called me an hour later to apologise, "I think we can all agree that the first meeting was sub-optimal."
"Sub-optimal?" I asked. "That's the nicest possible way to put it."
"I like to put things in the most positive way," he said. "Let's leave it at this: magic didn't happen."
"It certainly didn't," I said.
"But maybe it can happen the next time you meet?" he added, his voice rising in a tone.
It didn't happen the next time we met, mostly because there wasn't a next time. There are enough terrific actors who want to be on television that it's inefficient to waste time trying to convince the ones who don't.
In Hollywood, we have elaborate euphemisms for every kind of unpleasant outcome. Writers who have been sacked are said to have "left the project" and starlets with addiction problems are reported as "being treated for dehydration".
It's fun, of course, to tut-tut and tsk-tsk the euphemisers in Hollywood for refusing to call things what they really are - the reputation we have worldwide, and it's a fair one, is of a viper's pit of liars - but there isn't an industry or a large organisation around that doesn't prefer the orotund, roundabout way to deliver the news.
Fighter jets flying into Libyan airspace, probably at this very moment, might sound to some of us like an old fashioned war. I'm pretty sure it seems that way to the people on the ground, hearing the whistle of the bombs as they fall. I bet they're calling it a war. Even Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, mad as he is, knows a war when he sees one.
But if you're President Barack Obama, you call it a "kinetic military action", which is about as silly and uninformative a phrase as any president has come up with, ever since Richard Nixon and his staff decided to release certain details of their ill-doings and withhold the important stuff in what they called a "modified limited hangout".
"Kinetic military action" is the kind of phrase a person uses when they don't want to use the "w" word - "war" - or the "W" name - George W Bush. But the problem with euphemisms, in government and business, is that they're just delaying the moment when they eventually need to be clarified.
This week, Mr Obama made some linguistic adjustments. It wasn't a "kinetic military action" but a "time-limited, scope-limited military action". All of this complicated parsing came to a head when he spoke to the nation on Tuesday night and did his best to define what all these weasel words mean. In the end, he never really used the "w" word. But he did sound an awful lot like W.
Near the end of his speech, he added an odd little phrase. "I refused to wait," he said, "for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."
For the images? What about, um, the actual stuff?
And that, really, is the trouble with euphemisms like "kinetic military action" or "magic didn't happen". They lull people into a dreamy-dream world, where if certain things aren't said - there will be no profits from this motion picture; there's a war going on in Libya; your actor client is insane - they somehow aren't happening.
Euphemisms are fine when they're doing what they were designed for: conveying unpalatable information about bodily functions and/or romantic acrobatics in a socially acceptable and inoffensive way. But when they're employed to avoid the awkwardness of real missiles flying in the real air, or real humanitarian disasters happening on the real ground, well, then, best to put them away and call a war a war.
In his speech this week, Mr Obama sounded less like a president and more like that desperate manager I spoke to. And that, as they say, is very sub-optimal.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
Zayed Sustainability Prize
FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Power: 110 horsepower
Torque: 147Nm
Price: From Dh59,700
On sale: now
Tips for taking the metro
- set out well ahead of time
- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines
- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on
- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers
Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
Top Hundred overseas picks
London Spirit: Kieron Pollard, Riley Meredith
Welsh Fire: Adam Zampa, David Miller, Naseem Shah
Manchester Originals: Andre Russell, Wanindu Hasaranga, Sean Abbott
Northern Superchargers: Dwayne Bravo, Wahab Riaz
Oval Invincibles: Sunil Narine, Rilee Rossouw
Trent Rockets: Colin Munro
Birmingham Phoenix: Matthew Wade, Kane Richardson
Southern Brave: Quinton de Kock
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories
Laura Shapiro
Fourth Estate
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
Ferrari
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Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
Power: 242bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Price: Dh136,814
MATCH STATS
Wolves 0
Aston Villa 1 (El Ghazi 90 4' pen)
Red cards: Joao Moutinho (Wolves); Douglas Luiz (Aston Villa)
Man of the match: Emi Martinez (Aston Villa)
How to avoid crypto fraud
- Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
- Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
- Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
- Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
- Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
- Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
- Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
box
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Letstango.com
Started: June 2013
Founder: Alex Tchablakian
Based: Dubai
Industry: e-commerce
Initial investment: Dh10 million
Investors: Self-funded
Total customers: 300,000 unique customers every month
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution