Word: circus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Circus performers can twist themselves into pretzels and somersault through rings of fire, but even they are struggling to jump through new hoops set up by the U.K. immigration authorities. In November, the British Home Office introduced a points-based system to crack down on illegal immigration and create what its website describes as "a significantly more straightforward and transparent structure." It's easy enough for foreign trapeze artists and acrobats to secure the requisite points for entry into Britain based on their unique skills. But ringmasters say various problems with the new system - including faulty computer software and poorly...
...season started in February," says Martin Lacey, owner of the Great British Circus, "and I've got comedy acrobats stranded in the Ukraine and Mongolian horse riders who were refused their visas in Ulaanbaatar." The holes in his lineup have forced Lacey to draft last-minute substitutes. "Our Mexican clown is stuck in Mexico, so we've got a trapeze artist pretending to be a stooge just to get everybody out of trouble," he says. "It's a mess." (See 10 things to do in London...
...totally incompatible with the needs of Britain's circus sector. According to Malcolm Clay, secretary of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain, British circus schools don't produce artists at an acceptable standard, largely because their students refine skills like tightrope-walking or fire-breathing as a hobby, not as part of a lifelong career. As a result, British circuses rely on artists from countries with long-established histories of state-sponsored circus schools: they call on Argentina and Colombia for their renowned high-wire acts, China and North Korea for acrobats, and Mongolia and Russia for horse...
...pity, but this problem is all over Europe," says Arie Oudenes, managing director of the European Circus Association, a trade group that represents the interests of 120 circuses. But British proprietors believe that Britain's red tape has made their challenge more acute. The website through which foreign applicants must now register has reportedly crashed multiple times. Plus, there's a more general question of access. "A lot of families in Mongolia don't have computers," Lacey says. "These are genuine riders who tend to their horses and work with their flocks when they're not working in the circus...
...Until Goody's cancer diagnosis - revealed to her as she filmed the Indian version of Big Brother, called Bigg Boss, alongside her erstwhile nemesis Shetty - a small number of Britons somehow avoided the Goody circus. They failed to buy either of her memoirs, Jade: My Autobiography and Jade: Catch a Falling Star; they never dabbed her fragrance, Shh ... Jade Goody, behind their ears; they didn't perform physical jerks to any of her five fitness DVDs or try recipes from her cookbook; they even missed her many broadcast and print appearances. Yet enough of their compatriots did these things...