The 59-year-old will make an appearance on ITV’s ‘Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh’ later today. Set in the heart of Hampshire, the popular gardener has been celebrating all that is good about the British countryside, art, crafts, manufacturing and produce. Over the past few weeks, Alan has been chatting to celebrity guests as well as experts to get their top tips on how to make the most of outside spaces.
But it is unlikely his Sunday morning interview with Frank will turn as sour as when Piers had the opportunity to interview him just days after Ali passed away.
As Frank spoke of fond memories he had of “fatherly figure” Ali, Piers asked if he had ever thought about jumping in the ring with the man many regard as the greatest boxer ever.
Frank told the presenter “the man is dead,” silencing his approach, before adding: “I’m just glad I met him. He’s my hero.”
He continued in 2016: “Piers, he’s a man I class nearer to God.
“It would be difficult and cheap for me to say that I would like to fight him.
“The man is dead, he’s brown bread so I would like to leave it as me being a supporter rather than comment on that Piers, if you don’t mind.”
GMB co-host Susanna Reid then jumped in to clear the air, moving the interview on.
Recalling the first time he ever crossed paths with the legend, Frank said: “It was unbelievable meeting him because my dad used to love him, my mum used to love him, my brother used to love him.
“Actually meeting him myself was a very inspiring, very touching moment for me.
But outside the ring, he has also fought well-documented battles with mental health problems.
He was speaking to Piers after Ali’s death sent a shockwave across the boxing world on June 3, 2016.
Dubbed “The Greatest,” Ali suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 30 years before he was admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
Ali was involved in several historic boxing feuds, most notably his fights with Joe Frazier, which has been referred to as “the biggest boxing event, if not the biggest sporting event, of all time”.
He also headlined the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ with George Foreman – which was watched by a record estimated television audience of one billion viewers worldwide.
Ali thrived in the spotlight at a time when many fighters let their managers do the talking, and he was often provocative and outlandish.
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https://briefnews.eu/muhammad-alis-1970-rolls-royce-silver-shadow-is-going-for-auction/feed/0Sir Michael Parkinson reveals he wanted to PUNCH Muhammad Ali after frustrating interview
https://briefnews.eu/sir-michael-parkinson-reveals-he-wanted-to-punch-muhammad-ali-after-frustrating-interview/
https://briefnews.eu/sir-michael-parkinson-reveals-he-wanted-to-punch-muhammad-ali-after-frustrating-interview/#respondMon, 19 Jun 2017 02:37:41 +0000http://briefnews.eu/sir-michael-parkinson-reveals-he-wanted-to-punch-muhammad-ali-after-frustrating-interview/
The professional boxer and activist died in june last year aged 74 after suffering from a respiratory illness, a condition that was complicated by Parkinson’s disease, but appeared on the popular TV chat show four times throughout his career.
Parkinson has now written a memoir about Ali, but has now explained just how frustrating it was to film with the heavyweight great.
Revealing why he chose to write a book about the late boxer, Parkinson told Express.co.uk: “Because he was truly remarkable. I’ve interviewed loads of men, but the most extraordinary was him. I did four and a half hours or more with him. We recorded four interviews. I didn’t get to know him at all. That’s what frustrated me. I got the caricature Ali that was presented.
“When he died his service was televised all over the globe and we spent a day doing interviews and all that sort of thing. At the end of it I just thought I didn’t know an awful lot about him. So I set about investigating what had become and what he was really like and what his family were like and all that.
“I’d done all that in research but he never allowed me to actually get near him with it. He’d always throw a smoke cloud. I mean I loved him but he frustrated me.”
He continued: “There were times if he was smaller than me I would have hit him, but I was wise to resist that temptation. He was racist. He said things to me that if you said today I think the police would be waiting at the door.”
Parkinson explained that the public should not judge Ali by today’s standards as what was acceptable to say at the time would no longer be deemed appropriate.
The 82-year-old broadcaster said: “The thing that became clear when we did the book was that there’s no way you could judge him from present day standards. I mean, he was a kid that was growing up in the deep south. There was daily abuse because he was black.
“One day he was walking down the road and saw the newspaper that reported how a boy of the same age had gone into a store to buy some items and cheekily winked at a white woman.
“That night the woman’s father and husband came to where the boy was staying and they wrapped him in barbed wire and shot him in the head.
“Ali’s father said to him ‘Well, he’s the same age as you are. That’s the reality of being black here. That’s what they think about black children’.”
He added: “From that point on, when you deal with a trauma at such a young age, you never forget it. In the end he managed to deny all that anger and become, towards the end, what he really was. A really nice man. He was a conflicted figure.”
Muhammad Ali: A Memoir by Sir Michael Parkinson is available now.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/sir-michael-parkinson-reveals-he-wanted-to-punch-muhammad-ali-after-frustrating-interview/feed/0TV reviews: Broken, Divided Britain and Frank Skinner on Muhammad Ali
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https://briefnews.eu/tv-reviews-broken-divided-britain-and-frank-skinner-on-muhammad-ali/#respondSun, 04 Jun 2017 15:28:45 +0000http://briefnews.eu/tv-reviews-broken-divided-britain-and-frank-skinner-on-muhammad-ali/
The Liverpool-set series was postponed from last week, quite rightly so, as the relentless sadness of the drama would have been too much after the bombing in Manchester, but if you needed a reminder of how it feels to be human McGovern delivers it with both barrels.
Big, burly hard man Sean Bean plays Father Michael – no, wait, he’s fantastic as a tenderhearted character – trying to do his best for his hard-up parishioners. One of whom is Christina (Anna Friel) a skint, out of work, single mother. She lost her job after “borrowing” money from the till, then had a punch up with the manager and can’t claim benefits for 13 weeks.
Father Michael tries to help; he sees Christine can’t afford a fancy dress for her daughter’s first communion and tries to get the children to take it in their school uniforms.
He’s a good man, but has his own demons. Flashbacks to his childhood were utterly heartbreaking; a mother screaming “You dirty, filthy beast, have you got no ****** shame?” at the poor mite for reasons as yet unexplained; young Michael reciting a beautiful poem he’d written, only for his teacher to scream “WHO HELPED YOU?” and give him the tawse across his hand.
No wonder Michael is full of doubt. And now his mother is dying and needs him, as his hopeless brothers won’t share the load of her care.
BBC
Sean Bean as Father Michael in Jimmy McGovern’s very human new BBC drama, Broken
Christine has mother issues, too. Hers died unexpectedly, and the big twist in Broken was that she kept her mother’s death a secret for days until she could claim her pension money.
Deeply sad? Yes. Depressing? Yes. But McGovern’s very human dramas, with their beautiful detail, are a necessity in a television schedule full of flash types on reality shows.
Seeing Father Michael tucked up in bed, reflecting while he’s reading the Bible and listening to the Shipping Forecast; and, most powerfully, a long, silent, scene where Christine discovers her dead mother and caresses her face, were rare moments of stillness on the box and illustrate that McGovern isn’t afraid to show that into each life a little rain must fall. Even if in some cases, in his work, it’s a hurricane.
The use of music in Broken was exceptional, too. I was welling up at the use of Nina Simone’s version of Randy Newman’s bleak but beautiful I Think It’s Going To Rain Today at the beginning of the drama and was floored when Simone sang I Get Along Without You Very Well to accompany shots of Christine’s loneliness.
Broken is visceral viewing but, ultimately, it’s about the basic human values of love, duty and faith. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, which hopefully includes more of Line Of Duty’s Adrian Dunbar as Father Michael’s confidante Father Peter.
PA
Grayson Perry said he was pleased the two vases ended up so similar
If you’re not religious, the nation’s number one secular confessor is Grayson Perry. Everyone wants to spill all to the artist, who introduced his Divided Britain (C4, Tuesday) show in rather cooler vestments than Father Michael’s – a Little Bo Peep frock and bonnet.
He left the frocks at home to visit Lincolnshire’s Boston and London’s Hackney (the places in Britain which most strongly voted for Leave and Remain) to talk to Brexit remainers and leavers, and make a pair of giant vases reflecting their views in his studio. “The ‘leave’ pot is… maybe as much as 4 per cent larger,” he said with his fabulously dirty laugh.
It’s getting quite repetitious to say how great Perry is at interviewing the Great British Public, but he gets under the skin of his interviewees brilliantly and non judgmentally. He even got a young Lithuanian man in Boston to admit that he’d have voted for Brexit. And for anyone who thought that remainer Perry would give the leavers a hard time, I, a fellow remainer, came away not liking the Hackney yummy yoga mummies much. As for the Sober Daytime Rave in the borough, I still can’t wipe the sneer from my face.
Mon, March 20, 2017
Much of the North East of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union including Sunderland, Gateshead, Darlington, Durham, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar and Cleveland, North Tyneside and South Tyneside, and Northumberland
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GREAT YARMOUTH: The town of Great Yarmouth on the East Coast of England voted by 72% to leave the European Union.
Like Broken, it’s the details Perry and his production team show that make his programmes very human, such as the Leavers in a genteel Boston club choosing Ferrero Rocher chocolates; and the cracked heels in Jesus sandals of a Remain protester.
And the pots at the end? Almost identical, funnily enough. “We dislike no one as much as those that are nearly the same as us,” Perry concluded, cosily, but conceded that the argument would rumble on.
Even the power of Perry and his pots couldn’t cover up the cracks in the Brexit divide but it was an enjoyable journey. More, next, on how Perry actually makes those pots and those fantastic glazes. You can feel me straining to make a joke about ancient Crackerjack presenters, can’t you?
Now, who’s the shoo-in presenter of a documentary about Muhammad Ali? That’s right, comedian Frank Skinner who was inspired by Ali’s comic gifts as much as his sporting abilities, and the programme was all the better for not having an earnest, sporty, angle.
GETTY
Frank Skinner On Muhammad Ali dug up some genuinely surprising facts
Frank Skinner On Muhammad Ali (BBC1, Thursday) did the usual biographical thing, with access to Ali’s family, but also dug up some genuinely surprising facts. I didn’t know that after he was banned from boxing due to his opposition to the Vietnam War he starred in a Black Power musical called Buck White, and that Ali became good friends with a British bareknuckle fighter called Paddy Monaghan who had started a pro-Ali campaign.
It was fun to see Skinner and Paddy’s son Tyrone recreate the Ali v Joe Frazier Fight Of The Century outside the Monaghan house on a council estate that Ali visited a dozen times.
A good interviewer, that Skinner chap. If we can get him on a potter’s wheel and in a frock, maybe Grayson Perry has a rival.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/tv-reviews-broken-divided-britain-and-frank-skinner-on-muhammad-ali/feed/0Son of boxer Muhammad Ali reportedly detained at Florida airport and asked whether he was Muslim
https://briefnews.eu/son-of-boxer-muhammad-ali-reportedly-detained-at-florida-airport-and-asked-whether-he-was-muslim/
https://briefnews.eu/son-of-boxer-muhammad-ali-reportedly-detained-at-florida-airport-and-asked-whether-he-was-muslim/#respondSat, 25 Feb 2017 09:42:18 +0000http://briefnews.eu/son-of-boxer-muhammad-ali-reportedly-detained-at-florida-airport-and-asked-whether-he-was-muslim/REUTERS/Andreas Meier
Washington (AFP) – A son of boxing legend Muhammad Ali was held for questioning for two hours at a Florida airport upon returning from Jamaica because of his Arabic-sounding name, US media reported.
Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, who was born in Philadelphia and has a US passport, was traveling with his mother Khalilah Camacho-Ali, the late sports icon’s second wife, friend and lawyer Chris Mancini told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Mancini told the newspaper that both were held for questioning on the Fort Lauderdale International Airport on February 7 because of their Arabic-sounding names.
Camacho-Ali however was released after she showed US Customs agents a photo of herself with her ex-husband.
Ali Jr. however had no such photo — and according to Mancini was held for nearly two hours and repeatedly asked “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?”
When he said that he – like his father – was a Muslim, the agents asked further probing questions.
“To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr. Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States,” Mancini told the Courier-Journal, a reference to President Donald Trump’s late January executive order imposing a 90-day entry ban for citizens of seven Muslim majority countries.
The travel ban has since been halted by a US federal court.
Mancini said that he and the Ali family are trying to find out how many other people were stopped for similar questioning, and are considering a federal lawsuit.
Airport and Customs officials did not answer queries from the newspaper about the case.
Muhammad Ali, one of the iconic 20th century sports heroes, died after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease on June 3. He was 74.
Ali was celebrated as much for his three world heavyweight titles as for his civil rights battles outside the ring.
In 1964 Ali dropped his birth name of Cassius Clay when he converted to Islam.
The Louisville, Kentucky native was married four times he was survived by seven daughters and two sons.
]]>https://briefnews.eu/son-of-boxer-muhammad-ali-reportedly-detained-at-florida-airport-and-asked-whether-he-was-muslim/feed/0’What’s my name?’: Muhammad Ali’s son detained for 2 hours at Florida airport
https://briefnews.eu/whats-my-name-muhammad-alis-son-detained-for-2-hours-at-florida-airport/
https://briefnews.eu/whats-my-name-muhammad-alis-son-detained-for-2-hours-at-florida-airport/#respondFri, 24 Feb 2017 23:41:15 +0000http://briefnews.eu/whats-my-name-muhammad-alis-son-detained-for-2-hours-at-florida-airport/ The son of world-famous boxer Muhammad Ali was detained illegally by US immigration officials for two hours at a Florida airport, and asked twice about his religion, according to his attorney.
“He was very shook up about it. He has never been treated like this before,” attorney Chris Mancini told RT. “He didn’t know what was going on, and asked [immigration], ‘Why are you doing this? My father is Muhammad Ali’ and they just didn’t seem to give a crap.”
“He sat there for two hours, and then they let him go,” Mancini added.
Muhammad Ali Jr., was traveling back from Jamaica with his mother, Ali’s second of four wives, Khalilah, on February 7. They flew into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when immigration officers stopped them.
Ms. Ali showed officers a picture of herself with her ex-husband, who died last year, and was not detained. Ali Jr., an American citizen, had no such picture. He was asked twice by Customs and Border Patrol officials if he was a Muslim and “where did you get your name from?”
The incident only came to light when Mrs. Ali sought a legal opinion.
“She’s been traveling doing speaking engagements and came to see me about this,” Mancini told RT.
Mancini said he told her there were several Constitutional issues: due process, equal protection, establishment clause of the 14th Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “All of these laws prohibit this type of activity,” he said.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson, Norma Morfa, declined to comment on the incident, but said in email to the New Times, which broke the story, that “due to the restrictions of the Privacy Act, U.S. Customs and Border Protection cannot discuss individual travelers: however, all international travelers arriving in the U.S. are subject to CBP inspection.”
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“I believe there is profiling going on. Customs does not leave these things to the training and skill of the individual officer because it varies from officer to officer,” said Mancini.
Mancini said a standardized approach would include directives like “If you see a Muslim do this…” and “If you see someone with an Arabic name, do that..”
“What I am expecting to come from all of this is a wave of people who step and say ‘I was treated the same way,’” Mancini added.
He said the family had not yet decided what legal remedy to pursue, but thinks discrimination and profiling is occurring because the same questions were used in both instances: “Where did you get your name from?”
“That’s exactly the way profiles are written. They have interconnected corroborating questions. So that just screams ‘profile,’” he added.
The incident happened four days after a federal judge put a stay on President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which prohibited residents of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days.
In January, a US citizen who works for NASA was detained by a CBP agent who forced him to hand over his phone and access code, despite the device containing sensitive NASA information.
Sidd Bikkannavar – who has worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) for the past 10 years – was returning from a trip South America when he was detained at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Texas. He was detained shortly after the president’s travel ban had been chaotically rolled out at airports across the country. Once agents had his information, he was released.