the times | Wednesday January 26 2022 11
News
The chairman of Middlesex cricket
club has been accused of using out-
dated racial stereotypes after he told
MPs that black people preferred foot-
ball and Asians were more interested in
education.
Mike O’Farrell made the comments
before the digital, culture, media and
sport committee yesterday when ques-
tioned about diversity and racism in
cricket. He said that football and rugby
were “much more attractive to the
Afro-Caribbean community”.
O’Farrell, chairman of Middlesex
since 2017, said: “In terms of the south
Asian community, there is a moment,
we are finding, when they do not neces-
sarily want to commit the time that is
necessary to go to the next step [in crick-
et] because they sometimes prefer to go
into other educational fields. And then
cricket becomes secondary and part of
that is because it’s a rather more time-
consuming sport than some others.”
Azeem Rafiq, who went public about
his experiences of racism during two
A highly decorated major in the British
Army repeatedly groped a young male
colleague in a nightclub hours after
delivering a speech on “behaving
properly”, a court martial was told.
Major Matthew Clarke admitted to
touching the soldier and grabbing his
bottom over his chinos as they danced
in a Soho nightclub after an LGBTQ
event at the House of Commons.
Major groped male colleague after speech on army standards
Katie Gibbons He also tried to persuade the man, 18
years his junior, to come back to his
hotel room, the court was told.
Hours before subjecting the man to
“persistent and unwanted’’ behaviour,
Clarke had given a speech on “behaving
properly” while representing the army.
The senior officer has escaped with a
£2,000 fine and narrowly avoided a
demotion that would have prevented
his expected promotion to the rank of
lieutenant colonel next month.
Clarke, who has served in the army
for more than 16 years, had admitted
one charge of misconduct through al-
cohol. He previously commanded the
1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regi-
ment, known as “The Vikings”, in South
Sudan and was awarded a United
Nations Medal for his work. He has also
been awarded an Iraq Medal and a
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
William Peters, for the prosecution,
told Bulford military court in Wiltshirethat Clarke and his younger colleague
were part of a group of people who left
the LGBTQ event and went on to bars
in central London together.
He said Clarke first touched the
young man at the bar in a club in Soho.
“The victim felt a palm grab his left
buttock briefly over his chinos. He then
turned around to find Clarke, who
apologised and said the touching was
accidental,” Peters said. “After that, at
different times and at several locations,Clarke repeatedly grabbed [the victim’s]
buttocks over his chinos. Clarke later
asked if the victim would go back to his
place, but he declined.”
The victim made an official
complaint days later.
Sam Jones, Clarke’s lawyer, told the
court that he was still highly affected by
service in Afghanistan in the early
2010s, where he was faced with the
deaths of his company commander and
a sergeant.ing that backward story about seven
dwarfs living in a cave together, what
the f*** are you doing, man?”
He added: “Have I done nothing to
advance the cause from my soapbox? I
guess I’m not loud enough.”
Dinklage claimed that he would
welcome the release if it were a “cool or
progressive spin on it” but could not
accept a live-action remake centering
on traditional portrayals of people with
dwarfism.
To be directed by Marb Webb, known
for the romantic comedy 500 Days of
Summer and the Andrew Garfield
Spider-Man films, the new Snow
White will have the West Side Story
actress Rachel Zegler in the epony-
mous role and Gal Gadot as the Evil
Queen.
Dinklage also expressed his
disappointment that studios
were not taking more risks with
new productions and instead
were choosing to rely on
remakes.
Disney has yet to publicly
announce casting details of the
dwarfs in the film but the remake
of the 1937 animated classic is due
to start production this year.Game of Thrones actor hits
out at Disney’s seven dwarves
Peter ChappellCricket chief says black
people prefer football
stints as a player at Yorkshire, tweeted:
“This has just confirmed what an en-
demic problem the game has. I actually
can’t believe what I am listening to.”
Ebony Rainford-Brent, a former
England player and director of women’s
cricket at Surrey, tweeted: “Honestly,
these outdated views in the game are
exactly why we are in this position. Un-fortunately these decision makers hold
on to these myths... seriously, the game
deserves better.”
Lisa Sthalekar, a former Australian
international, said: “Seriously, has Mike
ever gone and spoken to those at a
grassroots level? Please let’s start with
diversity at the board level, only then
will change occur.”
It is now likely that O’Farrell willcome under pressure to resign from his
position. He later apologised and said
he was “devastated” that his comments
had been “misunderstood”, adding: “I
wholly accept that this is entirely down
to my own lack of clarity and context in
the answers I provided.” He said he had
been trying to make a point about how
cricket had “failed a generation of
young cricketers, in systematically fail-
ing to provide them with the same op-
portunities that other sports and sec-
tors so successfully provide”.
The parliamentary hearing was a
follow-up to the Rafiq’s evidence to the
committee last year. Yorkshire was sus-
pended from hosting international
cricket and lost all of its big sponsorship
deals and sacked all of its coaching and
backroom staff at the end of last year.
Lord Patel of Bradford, Yorkshire’s
new chairman, also appeared before
the committee. He confirmed that
without international cricket hosting
rights the club would not be financially
viable. However, it could have its host-
ing rights returned by the England and
Wales Cricket Board next week.Elizabeth Ammon
A Game of Thrones actor has attacked
Disney for planning what he described
as “backward” live-action adaptation of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Peter Dinklage, who has a form of
dwarfism called achondroplasia, criti-
cised what he called the hypocrisy of
Disney to be proud to cast a Latina
actress as Snow White, while making a
film that tells the story of “seven dwarfs
living in a cave together”.
“There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on,”
Dinklage, 52, said on WTF, a pod-
cast hosted by the American co-
median Marc Maron. “Literally no
offence to anyone, but I was a little
taken aback when they were very
proud to cast a Latina actress
as Snow White. But you’re
still telling the story of Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Take a step back and look at
what you’re doing there. It
makes no sense.
“You’re progressive in one
way but then you’re still mak-Mike O’Farrell
faced criticism
for his comments
to MPsPeter Dinklage says studios
are not progressive enoughI
t would normally be
the type of auction
to make any Beatles
fan salivate (Tom
Knowles writes).
Items belonging to John
Lennon, including a
cape worn in the film
Help! and notes by Paul
McCartney for Hey Jude,
are to go on sale.
There is one catch.Bidders will not have
any actual ownership of
the objects or even be
allowed to touch them.
Julian Lennon, the
eldest son of John, is
selling items from his
personal collection as
non-fungible tokens
(NFTs), as he becomes
the latest figure to cash
in on this lucrativeBehind the story
N
FTs have
rocked the
art world,
made a few
people
multimillionaires and
raised questions about
what ownership actually
means, but non-fungible
tokens seem only to be
growing in popularity
(Tom Knowles writes).
NFTs act as a digital
certificate of ownership
for physical or virtual
assets, and are bought
with cryptocurrencies.
They enable people to
“own” items such as a
digital piece of art, using
their digital form of a
receipt to show they are
the true owner of the
work, even if others
replicate it elsewhere.
NFTs shot to
prominence in March
last year when the
digital artist Mike
Winkelmann, more
commonly known as
Beeple, sold an NFT of
his artwork for
$69.3 million at
Christie’s, in what was
the third highest auction
price achieved for a
living artist, after Jeff
Koons and David
Hockney.Lennon, 58, described it
as a “unique way to
continue dad’s legacy”.
NFTs are special digital
certificates of ownership
for physical or virtual
assets and are purchased
with cryptocurrencies.
The NFT of notes for
Hey Jude is expected to
fetch the highest price,
starting at $30,(£22,260), though bids
are likely to reach more
than double that. The
song was written by
McCartney to comfort
Julian, then aged six,
during the divorce of the
child’s parents, John and
Cynthia, in 1968.
Other items to go to
auction include the
Afghan coat worn byLennon in the made-for-
television film the
Magical Mystery Tour
and three Gibson guitars
given to Julian Lennon
by his father.
Some proceeds from
the auction on February
7 in Beverly Hills will go
to the White Feather
Foundation which raises
funds for green projects.market. Instead of
buying physical objects,
fans will pay thousands
of dollars for digital
images of them as well
as audio clips of Julian
Lennon sharing
memories about them.The sale includes NFTs of
guitars and an Afghan coat
from Magical Mystery TourImagine
no possessions...
Lennon’s son sells
digital keepsakes
GETTY IMAGES