Counting the Costner

Star admits: I’ve blown £20m on inventions that I thought would save the world

HOLLYWOOD actor Kevin Costner has squandered more than £20 million of his fortune on doomed investments to save the planet, he admits today.

The Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves star plunged the cash into 'green technology', forming two companies to develop his passion.

His first venture championed a revolutionary method to clean up major oil spills and the second tried to develop a successful non-chemical battery. But both projects failed and he lost the entire investment. He says in an interview in today's Live magazine: I've invested enormous amounts in technologies I thought would help the world.

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’There’s nothing to show for the millions I’ve invested. My God, most people would want to die if they lost $1,000 or $100,000. I’ve lost $40 million plus.

’But I knew that if I was right it would change things in an incredibly positive way. Do I regret that? Yes. Has it changed my life one bit? No, because I haven't been moved by money. Costner, 52 - whose 1994 divorce from first wife Cindy Silva cost him £40 million - was first moved to action by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, when the tanker struck a reef and lost 11 million gallons of oil off Alaska.

Horrified by the primitive methods used to battle spillages, he set up Costner Industries Nevada Incorporated with his brother Dan. They discovered a technology used in the nuclear industry to separate chemicals by centrifugal force and set about adapting it. But the project failed.

Next, he created a subsidiary to launch a battery with a flywheel that could store four times the energy of an ordinary one. The firm even had a contract to make them for Nasa, but the deal lapsed.

Costner's movies, which also include box-office smashes The Bodyguard and Field Of Dreams, have grossed more than £1 billion.

But he has suffered bad luck in other ventures as well as his green projects. How­ever the star remains philosophical. Tm not the shrewdest businessman, he admits. ’I’m more of a dreamer.'

• Read our full interview at www.mailonsundav.co.uk/kevin

fFrom the mail on Sunday September 30, 2007 p. 41)

Is this really what it’s like to be elderly in Brown’s Britain?

By Polly Dunbar

THE Government spin machine was accused of peddling a false view of old age last night after it was revealed it had paid a PR company to portray all pensioners as happy and carefree.

Organisations involved in the first UK Older People's Day tomorrow have been instructed only to use promotional images in which elderly people look affluent and active.

Out go pictures reflecting the reality of life for the majority of older people, including an older man and woman slumped in armchairs, presumably in a care home, and an elderly woman appearing distressed.

In come photos such as a youthful-looking couple laughing as they run across a beach, a woman about to work out in a gym, another woman happily gardening, a couple cuddling on holiday and a man enjoying a game of tennis.

The approved images are marked with a large tick, while those to be avoided are marked with a cross.

The instructions form part of a guideline pack sent to organisations involved in the Department of Work and Pensions’ Generation Xperience UK Older People's Day, which include the charities for the elderly Help the Aged, Age Concern and The Beth

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Johnson Foundation, as well as retail giants John Lewis and B&Q. The Government booklet, produced by PR company The Red Consultancy, urges: 'Any imagery used should be consistent with the upbeat, celebratory nature of the campaign. Avoid using images that reinforce incorrect stereotypes about older people's lifestyles.1

It continues: 'Contrary to common misconceptions, the UK’s over-50s now have greater opportunities to lead healthy, active and fulfilling lives than ever before, largely thanks to improvements in services and pension reforms.’

But critics said the chosen images were a far cry from reality for most older people at a time when more than a fifth live in poverty.

Nigel Waterson, Tory spokesman for pensions and older people, said: 'This just shows spin is alive and well under Gordon Brown.

’Lots of older people have no reason to look or be happy - two million are living in poverty, 125,000 have lost their pensions due to the Government and many are facing penury in old age.’

Some of the organisations backing the day have also criticised the images. Alan Hatton-Yeo, director of the Beth Johnson Foundation, said: ’I would not have chosen these pictures because they are clumsy and we are not using them.

'The Red Consultancy clearly didn't think carefully enough about the implication of the pictures. All the ones they have chosen seem to show middle-class people enjoying activities a lot of elderly people cannot participate in.'

Paul Bates from Help the Aged added: 'There’s nothing wrong with showing positive images of old people but at the same time, it must be recognised that many old people are not fortunate enough to have the finances or physical abilities to do active, fun things and take holidays.'

A spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: 'Generation-Xperience UK Older People's Day is about celebrating the huge contribution that older people make to society.

'Part of that is about tackling negative and outdated stereotypes of older people, the majority of whom see age as an opportunity - not a barrier.’

{From the mail on Sunday September 30, 2007 p. 42-43)

Rudeness rules... even the credit card man says I’ve got Alzheimer’s

THE words ’zero tolerance' were uttered at last week's Labour Party conference, a phrase we haven't heard since the Government’s first term in office.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was referring to a tougher stance on crime, but I think it's high time we applied that same edict to the soaring levels of rudeness which have infected this country.

Is it me, or has it become almost impossible to go about your daily business without being sworn at, or tooted at because you were one millisecond late in respond-

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ing to an amber light on a Sunday? Unless you are an on-call heart surgeon, really, what is the problem?

Another idea, also mooted last week, was that foreigners learn how to form an orderly British queue before they can feel fully integrated into our society.

Have the people who come up with these daft schemes ever tried to board one of London's No 38 bendy buses on Piccadilly?

Never mind the scrum; that's the easy part.

Persuading the driver, hellbent on mowing you down, to please wait while you purchase a ticket at the kerbside machine always seems to elicit a stream of invectives before the doors are slammed in your face.

Taxis aren’t much better. I know I will never be picked up by a black cab again if I write this, but aren't all the notices inside, telling you off, a bit much, given how high the fares are?

1 always make the mistake of thinking the driver is talking to me when I hear him chirruping away and I politely try to join in, only to be told crossly he is 'on the phone'. Ah. Sorry.

In my local Sainsbury's, which I visit every morning to buy newspapers, I see the same trio of young women sitting chatting behind their tills.

Although I am sure they must vaguely be able to recognise me by now, they can never be bothered to interrupt their conversation to say ’hello', or mumble 'thank you' at the end of the transaction.

The only mantra they unfailingly recite, not once looking me in the eye, is the annoying: 'Do you have a Nectar card?'

I feel like screaming: ’No! I don’t! I didn't have one yesterday, and I haven't rushed out and applied for the wretched thing, whatever it is, in the brief passage of time since!'

Perhaps I am feeling particularly fragile having spent the past three weeks at fashion shows in New York, London and Milan,

But at least that exercise, where I have been made to 'step away from the red carpet’ by innumerable stony-faced morons in dark suits with walkie-talkies (and that was just the glossy magazine editors), has allowed me to conduct my own survey of which country really is the rudest in the world.

And I am afraid to say it is Britain.

Politeness is the glue that holds our society together, but it seems we have all retreated, clam-like, into our own tiny worlds, solicitous only of those we are frightened of. Anyone else is treated with contempt.

Why do people you live next door to fail to smile, or say hello? I'm sure new technology is a factor. How many times have you sat next to someone in silence while they fiddled with the Blackberry in their lap, or sent texts like a demented teenager?

How can anyone be that busy, unless they are the Prime Minister?

And whatever happened to the customer being king?

After keying about a million digits into a phone before you can speak to someone who has a pulse, why do they always respond as if they are a robot?

I recently phoned my credit-card company to complain about two suspicious items on my bill, and the man on the other end told me I could be suffering from 'early-onset Alzheimer's'.

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I would have been flattered at the 'early1 had he not been so shockingly out of order, although I have to admit my case doesn't quite hold water because a few days later I remembered I had bought two aromatherapy candles for precisely those amounts; they were supposed to make me less stressed, not more.

AND don't get me started on how rude children are these days. Parents should be worrying less about whether their offspring has inhaled a peanut, and more about whether or not he or she has sent a handwritten thank-you note, ever.

Mums and dads. If someone gives your child an expensive outfit, make sure he or she is wearing it the next time you see them. It's as simple as that.

This new culture of rudeness must be stamped out.

The other night, I tackled a woman who had the temerity to steal my cab. I ran after the vehicle, opened the door and politely told her to get out.

She disembarked sheepishly, the cabbie looking on in disbelief.

I am, if Justice Secretary Jack Straw is to be believed, a have-a-go hero, standing up for good manners.

I suggest you become one too.

(From the mail on Sunday September 30, 2007 p. 28)

Fred Dibnah would have loved this

Demolished: Vast cooling towers at world?s first nuclear power station in Sellafield

THEY were massive symbols of Britain's atomic age - and yesterday they were reduced to rubble in seconds.

In scenes which would have wanned the heart of demolition expert Fred Dibnah, the four vast cooling towers of the world's first commercial nuclear power station were brought crashing down by explosive charges.

The 290ft-high Calder Hall towers at Sellafield in Cumbria were blown, up in pairs - to the gasps of hundreds of people who had gathered to watch.

Paul Brennan, manager of the site, raised a clenched fist and whooped with joy as the first towers fell. He said: 'It was a surgical method of bringing down the towers without putting people at risk. Personally, it is a big day for me.'

The demolition was the culmination of three years of planning.

The power station was opened by the Queen in October 1956. In its early life it was primarily used to produce weapons-grade plutonium but from 1964 its main role was providing commercial electricity. The reactor was shut down four years ago, but nuclear waste is still reprocessed at Sellafield.

Watching the blasts unmoved was Jim Young, 66, who began work at the plant before the towers were even finished. He said: 'No twinges of sadness. I am not sentimental -I have just come to see the big bang.'

(From the mail on Sunday Septempber 30, 2007, p. 27)

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Smells Kitchen New York neighbours say the stench from Ramsay’s restaurant is unbearable

From Sharon Churcher

IN NEW YORK

GORDON RAMSAY is causing a stink in New York, where neighbours claim unbearable smells are wafting from his restaurant.

Residents in an elegant apartment block have complained to health inspectors about the stench of duck and bacon from a giant extractor fan.

They are also furious about noise from the fan and an air-conditioning unit in the kitchen.

The racket it makes has been measured at 57 decibels, they say -above the limit for local events such as rock concerts. They claim the row is ruining their sleep and hitting home values.

Shirley Lemmon, who is the head of the residents’ association, said: 'This is ruining lives. The fan is this giant contraption that looks like a praying mantis, almost two storeys tall, and the smells from it at times are horrifying.

’First thing in the morning on the weekend the smell of bacon permeates the air and we can’t open our windows.

’It also is parti'cularly intolerable when they are preparing duck at 3am. His air-conditioning unit sounds like you are riding in the back of a plane, and it can be on 24/7.

’We had one person who moved out and sold his apartment. Another who moved in before they turned the equipment on has been unhappy because this is hurting his property value. The city codes say the sound cannot be above 45 decibels. Gordon Ramsay's has been recorded at 57.’

Miss Lemmon said residents want the restaurant, which is set in the London NYC Hotel, to be given a formal code-violation notice. Ramsay is already under siege from unimpressed critics. The New York Times' Frank Bruni awarded his establishment two stars out of four, describing the food as 'predictable'.

A spokesman for Ramsay said the chef was unaware residents had any complaints.

(From the mail on Sunday September 30, 2007 p. 50)

Ramsay the Scrooge gives staff P45s for Christmas

WITH A FLOURISHING television career, a much-talked-about restaurant launch in New York and eight Michelin stars to his name, Gordon Ramsay has every reason to celebrate this Christmas. Mandrake learns that the fiery Glaswegian chef has, however, left staff at one of his most celebrated London dining rooms worrying how they will cover their festive bills, after he informed them that they will all be made redundant in the New Year.

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"Everyone is stunned," says my man at the Connaught hotel in Mayfair, where more than 50 of the chefs employees have been told that they will receive only minimal payoffs, apparently amounting in one case to £8,000 for a waiter who has worked at the restaurant for almost 30 years.

"There is a feeling that Ramsay has treated his staff appallingly. Although he is always boasting about how many restaurants he runs, he hasn't offered them jobs elsewhere and has told them that they will get only the statutory minimum. In most cases, that’s just a few weeks’ wages."

A spokesman for Ramsay, who has an estimated personal fortune of £60 million, says he "regretfully” decided to make the staff redundant. Derek Quinlan, the Connaught's Irish owner, had informed him that the hotel would be closing its doors in March for six months, for refurbishment. "It would be uneconomical for us to keep staff on," claims the spokesman.

Ramsay took over the restaurant, with many of its existing staff, in 2002. He owns eight more dining rooms in London and has great plans f.or expansion overseas. His spokesman said, however: "Our other restaurants are fully staffed."

This is not the first time that the 40-year-old chef has provoked anger with his treatment of experienced employees. In 2003, there was an outcry when I disclosed that Angelo Maresca was retiring after 25 years as the much-loved maitre d' of the Savoy Grill following Ramsay's takeover. He was promptly snapped up by Sir Rocco Forte at Brown’s hotel in Mayfair.

Anthony Lee, the general manager of the Connaught, clearly takes a different approach. "All the staff who work at the hotel [rather than Ramsay's restaurant] will be retained on full pay for the six months that we are closed," he tells me. "I am the custodian of the soul of the Connaught and, for me, our staff are the be-all and end-all."

(From the Sunday Telegraph December 24, 2006 p. 30)