Saturday, July 31, 2010

Google execs convicted in Italy for Down set of symptoms video

Wed Feb 24, 2010 5:24am EST Related News Verdict due in Google defamation case in ItalyTue, Feb 23 2010Verdict due in Google defamation case in ItalyTue, Feb 23 2010UPDATE 3-Money manager, arts patron Vilar gets 9 yrs prisonFri, Feb 5 2010Drug charge dismissed against Broadcom"s NicholasThu, Jan 28 2010UPDATE 1-Drug charge dismissed against Broadcom"s NicholasThu, Jan 28 2010

MILAN (Reuters) - A Milan court convicted three Google Inc executives on Wednesday for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with Down"s syndrome by letting a video of him being bullied be posted on the site in 2006.

Technology&&&&Media&&&&Italy

Google said it plans to appeal the six-month jail terms given to senior vice-president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former Google Italy board member George De Los Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

The court acquitted Google"s senior product marketing manager, Arvind Desikan.

"A company"s rights cannot prevail over a person"s dignity. This sentence sends a clear signal," public prosecutor Alfredo Robledo told reporters outside the Milan courthouse.

The complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people with Down"s syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy"s father, after four classmates at a Turin school uploaded a clip to Google Video showing them bullying the boy.

Down"s syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation, occurring in about 1 out of 700 live births.

The video was filmed with a mobile phone and posted on the site in September 2006.

Google argued that it removed the video immediately after being notified and cooperated with Italian authorities to help identify the bullies and bring them to justice.

It said that, as hosting platforms that do not create their own content, Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that others upload, comparing the case to prosecuting the postal system for hate letters sent by mail.

But the prosecutors accused Google of negligence, saying the video remained online for two months even though some web users had already posted comments asking for it to be taken down.

Censoring of web sites has become a hot issue in Italy in recent months, following a spate of hate sites against officials including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The government briefly studied plans to black out Internet hate sites after fan pages emerged praising an attack on the premier, but the idea was dropped after executives from Facebook, Google and Microsoft agreed to a shared code of conduct rather than legislation.

(Additional reporting by Emilio Parodi and Eleanor Biles; writing by Stephen Brown in Rome; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Technology Media Italy

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Revealed: the good liaison no ones beheld David Finkelstein

David Finkelstein & , : {}

I have been reading Said Sayrafiezadehs wonderful memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free and laughing. Its the tale of a childhood spent following his parents around as they work for a revolution that will never come (and when the author will finally get the skateboard he covets, because they will all be free).

Sayrafiezadeh records the hours spent sitting by a table piled high with books about Che Guevara, as his Mum stands in the street trying to sell the Militant newspaper to passers-by. He writes of how people plot their approach, head down to avoid having to engage. And how his mother vainly repeats the same refrain, oblivious to their lack of interest. His mother always thinks the revolution is about to come. But it never does.

My laughter is partly self-recognition. I know what it is like to be obsessional about a cause that others find too obscure to talk about. In fact, I have just such a bee in my bonnet right now.

And you? Youre the person who plonked yourself down on a seat on the bus without checking, only to find your neighbour muttering to himself. You are the unfortunate who has caught the eye of the nutter on the bus.

BACKGROUNDCSR could be rewardingTempus analysis: Chips with everythingCSR strategy ticks all the boxes for RBS analystsCSR ties-up with GPS group in bid to beat downturn

Heres my refrain. We need a spending review. Its a con not to have a spending review. Its a scandal not to have a spending review. People who wont announce a spending review, Out! Out! Out!

As you are stuck with me for a few stops, (seeing as you are too English to get up and leave me to it), Ill start at the beginning. On Monday the US conservative journalist David Frum described the passage of Barack Obamas healthcare legislation as the Republican Waterloo, its worst defeat in modern times. His reasoning was instructive. He believes that even though the Bills proposals were very unpopular during its passage, they have become almost impossible to reverse now that they have become law.

An instant may be all that separates the moment when Obamacare was a proposal from the moment it was law, but in political terms the difference is an age. For what is at play are two of the most powerful forces in social psychology anchoring and loss aversion working together.

In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely recalls an experiment in which he asked students to price a number of bottles of wine, having first written down the last two digits of their social security number. He found that they correlated. Those with the highest two social security digits (say 80 or 99) priced the wines more highly than those with a low pair (20 or 15 for example). The students unconsciously used the digits as an anchor for the wine price even though the two were utterly unrelated.

We all do this. The first time a salesman shows you a plasma TV set, perhaps it costs 500. You will then judge sets as cheap or expensive in relation to that price, whether conscious that you are doing so or not.

Just as most people anchor, so most are loss averse. Behavioural economists have shown that people strongly value avoiding losses over making gains. In other words, when evaluating a risk, they would expect to be very heavily rewarded, for the upside to be disproportionately large, if a loss was a serious prospect.

Together, anchoring and loss aversion have an almost irresistible political force. With Obamacare, a proposal to change the status quo has become the status quo. In future debates on healthcare people will anchor themselves to the new law and compare all suggested changes to it. And they are likely to resist any that threaten a loss to their position.

Few politicians understand how this works as well as Gordon Brown. And on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, he fashioned a political weapon that takes brutal advantage of these rules of social psychology the spending review.

In 1998 Mr Brown announced his spending plans not simply for the coming year, but for the coming three years. And he pledged that he would repeat the exercise every two years, mapping out a course for the next three-year period. This was good public policy, one of his best innovations. It allowed departments to plan and the Treasury to hold them to account.

But it was also good, even lethal, politics. In 2000 and 2004 the review allowed Mr Brown to establish spending plans for a period stretching halfway into the next Parliament. It meant that in the 2001 and 2005 elections, Labour policy was the anchor, and the Tory proposals could be seen as risky change with voters natural loss aversion acting to Labours advantage. Voters reacted exactly as the behavioural economists would expect to Tory proposals. They found the threatened loss of spending more worrying than they found it enticing to be offered an equal amount in tax reductions.

The anchor worked in a second way. Tory proposals, made in opposition, seemed callow and ill-thought through compared with the solid government plans, which must have something going for them because they were, well, government plans.

So the spending review works. And Mr Brown knows it. Robert Pestons biography of the former Chancellor tells how Mr Brown is pressed by Bill Clintons adviser Sidney Blumenthal to run a budget surplus but rejects the advice because it would make things too easy for the Tories, reducing the political potency of the spending review. And in 2006 he put off the review for another year so that he could announce its results when he first became Prime Minister.

Which means we are due one right now. Right now, I tell you! But are we going to get one? I think not. We will get a Budget, but no proper spending review. And given its political potency, that can only mean one thing. That the Government knows that a spending review would be so painful, so dreadful, that they are prepared to forgo its usual advantages.

It is scandalous to have had a review through all the good years but refuse to have one now. And furthermore, its ... oh, is this your stop?

daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Babcock understanding right away all down to cost says key VT investor

Miles Costello & , : {}

VT Groups fourth-largest shareholder has urged the counterclaim executive to severely cruise an suggest from opposition Babcock International of less than 750p a share or risk scuppering a deal.

With Babcock approaching to introduce a 2.4 billion partnership with VT in a have a difference of days, Tim Steer, account physical education instructor at Artemis, pronounced that VT government should have an open mind about similar a last price.

VT this month concluded to open the books to Babcock as a multibillion bruise partnership understanding in in between the dual contractors became increasingly likely.

Paul Lester, the VT arch executive, has deserted his prior feeling to a tie-up with Babcock on vital drift and has concurred that the issue is right away one of price. He is accepted to be holding out for a cash-and-shares suggest value 750p.

Related LinksInvestor against to Babcock bid is offered VT sharesBabcock to come behind with higher suggest for VT

Babcock, that initial approached VT in February, has indicated that it could have an suggest of in in between 680p and 715p. However, Mr Steer, who is additionally a top-ten shareholder in Babcock with about 3 per cent, referred to that an suggest of about 725p to 730p should be estimable of consideration. As a Babcock financier he will be penetrating for the organisation not to overpay.

It is accepted that alternative VT owners, together with Invesco, hold that Mr Lester should hang to his guns over price. Market analysts have additionally referred to that VT is value 750p a share.

VT shares sealed 2p higher at 689p, whilst Babcock accomplished 1p improved at 532p.

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Usher Hall reborn for 21st century doesnt that receptive to advice perfect?

The refurbished Usher Hall

Mike Wade & , : {}

Fourteen years given it was initial mooted and after 40 million was lavished on the refurbishment, Edinburghs Usher Hall, one of the worlds good auditoria, was yesterday presented as a unison venue fit for the 21st century.

All day, a drip of extraordinary passers-by wandered in, by new potion doors, to investigate the prolongation that for 3 years has loomed ominously over Grindlay Street. For most, the experience was of pleasing warn an ethereal atrium, an superb staircase, and an event to conclude the peculiarity of the comparison structure.

For a century the Usher Hall has delivered something special a illusory acoustic. It is this actuality that has done it dear of singers, musicians and conductors. Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson revelled in it and Lesley Garrett claims it does graceful things to her voice.

When designs for an prolongation were invited, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Edinburgh International Festival, the buildings principal users, insisted that zero should concede this sound. Plans to magnify upwards or even downwards were discharged in foster of a new make up written by LDN Architects and easily tacked according to Karl Chapman, the ubiquitous physical education instructor of the gymnasium to the old building.

In his architectural guide to Edinburgh, Charles McKean sums up the qualities of the old construction thus: Octagonal domed countenance of brewing industry await for song in billowing railway hire baroque. Symmetrical showing at façade belies plan deftly exploiting a formidable site. Boldly bourgeois interior.

A formidable site? Definitely. The tough volcanic stone that engineers had approaching to find as they dug foundations was as well far below. To await the new wing, uncompacted moraines had to be reinforced. At one point, says Mr Chapman, there were fears that the new executive staircase would collapse.

Endowed by the munificence of Andrew Usher, who done a happening in drink and nonetheless intended the gymnasium should be temperance, as an countenance of the brewing industry the Usher Hall leaves something to be desired.

When bars were eventually installed, they were as well close to the auditorium, and most an aria has been busted by the rattle of catering trolleys.

No more, or so it is hoped.

And that resolutely bourgeois interior has discriminating up for the better. Visiting conductors will curtsy helpfully at their new timber and tanned hide lounge.

And if you are tempted to representation the celebration re-opening opening of Holsts Planet Suite, accompanied by images from the Hubble space telecope, Mr Chapman has a tip tip: The top round really has the most appropriate acoustic.

Those are the poor seats, and the undiluted place to see down on to Edinburghs bourgeois grandeur.

hair wig

Monday, July 26, 2010

German exploration in to CDS trades and Greek bonds

Carl Mortished, World Business Editor and Philip Pangalos in Athens & , : {}

Germanys tip monetary regulator has launched an review in to the marketplace for credit default swaps (CDS), looking justification that speculators have been utilizing the instruments, that produce word opposite the default of a down payment issuer, to gamble opposite Greek supervision bonds.

The enquiry by BaFin, that monitors wake up in Germanys monetary markets, is receiving place as expectancy grows that heading eurozone piece of states are co-ordinating a bailout of Greece.

Olli Rehn, the European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, indicated yesterday that eurozone piece of states were ready to produce await for Greece but the nation indispensable to take serve stairs to cut the deficit.

The European Union has the ways and equates to to safeguard monetary fortitude in the euro area, he pronounced after a assembly with George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, in that the dual men discussed difficult mercantile reforms that Greece has betrothed to exercise in sequence to revoke the sharpening debt burden.

Related LinksGreece set to make known some-more purgation measuresLenders bashful behind as Greece creates €5bn money call

The European Commissioner pronounced Greece was at a consequential moment: No piece of of the eurozone area can live henceforth over the equates to ... possibly you keep your debt underneath carry out or your debt starts determining you, he said.

Uncertainty over the prospects of a Greek bailout and the intensity cost weighed on the euro that fell roughly 1 per cent opposite the dollar yesterday. Talk of a rescue helped to progress Greek supervision debt; the widespread in between Greeces ten-year holds and homogeneous benchmark German bunds narrowed by a third of a commission point to 3.02 per cent. Greece is approaching to lift €5 billion in a supervision debt issue, piece of a appropriation order this year that is approaching to surpass €50 billion.

BaFin cofirmed yesterday that it was examining the CDS market, that has come underneath glow over concerns that supports with no land in Greek emperor debt were utilizing the marketplace to find to try by artful equates to to get down payment prices.

We are analysing interpretation from Depositary Trust and Clearing Corporation, pronounced a BaFin spokesman. These days we are concerned. It is critical to know either there is a risk. The CDS marketplace was combined as a form of word to strengthen bondholders from the risk of default by an issuer. The swaps have come to inflection in the deteriorating monetary health of sure big emperor issuers, such as Greece.

So far, the orator said, BaFin has not dynamic either or not the CDS marketplace is being used to short-sell Greek debt. Other monetary marketplace sources yesterday referred to that the German Government might be endangered to brand short-selling of supports prior to any mutual eurozone bailout of the Greek supervision down payment market.

The Athens Stock Exchange ubiquitous index sealed up 2.94 per cent at 1.969.47 points, whilst produce spreads on Greek ten-year holds narrowed to about 316 basement points over the homogeneous benchmark German bunds.

Mr Rehn reitereated his progressing thoughts about the Greek incident after he met , the Greek Prime Minister. He said: "This is in truth a consequential impulse for the destiny of your nation and thus I inspire all the domestic forces, amicable partners and typical adults to await this required effort. There should be some-more significance on the output side and, moreover, the measures should be of a permanent inlet so that they would have a constructional stroke on the sustainability of open finances."

"We are here to produce await if needed. I can contend that from the Commission"s side, we are ready to put in a horizon for co-ordination and the European Union has the ways and equates to to safeguard the monetary fortitude in the euro area as a whole."

"Of underlying significance is a need to revoke the open zone salary check so that this will have a constructional and permanent stroke on the bill deficit. As I said, it is right away up to the Greek Government to confirm and make known the accurate measures that it intends to take."

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Who done it? The Queens Counsel of England and Wales 2010

Frances Gibb Legal Editor & , : {}

Champagne was on ice by lunchtime. This years turn of successful margin for Queens Counsel had by yesterday sunrise perceived their letters or an e-mail confirmation.

In all, the Queen authorized 129 QCs see the full list next who right away stick on the ranks of the professions elite.

Far fewer lawyers request for silk these days, not slightest since right away that the complement is eccentric and self-financing, there is a large price to pay. Last years margin had to find �2,702.50, together with VAT, and an additional �3,500 if successful.

In all 275 applied, so usually underneath half succeeded. Despite efforts to urge diversity, 226 were men (of whom 108 were successful) and 46 were women (of whom twenty were successful).

There were 35 racial minority margin (17 were successful); 262 barristers (128) and 3 in use advocates (none were succcessful).

The greatest beating stays numbers of barrister QCs: ten practical and usually one was appointed.

Professor Dame Joan Higgins, who chairs the preference panel, pronounced that the peculiarity was higher than ever and the customary for appointment remained high.

She was encouraged, she said, that the suit of racial minority possibilities suited that for white margin and that the series of successful women margin stays high.

But she added: It is unsatisfactory that we have not been means to suggest some-more solicitors or in use advocates, after the higher series of appointments last year.

All applicants, she said, were assessed opposite a usual competency horizon and a usual customary of excellence. She added: There are no quotas and we provide all applications in the same way. I goal there will be serve appointments in destiny years.

Despite the bad margin from the solicitors branch, there will be a little joy in authorised circles that the proportions being allocated have evened out so that it is not assumingly simpler for women than men.

Last year usually 87 of 215 men were successful compared with sixteen of twenty-nine women. This year 47.8 per cent of men and 43.5 per cent of women were successful.

Looking back, in 1994 as most as 539 hopefuls put their hats in the ring and usually 77 were lucky. Now the chances are better. That figure remained consistent until 2002 where it shot up to 113 and since, has sundry in between 113 and 129.

Despite Professor Higgins comments, the proportions of women requesting contingency be a means of concern. Only 16.7 per cent of applications came from women and 3.6 per cent from solicitors. An enlarge in the latter, where women are improved represented, could shift that.

Or it might be that advocacy, that is the buttress of a QCs work, is not concordant with family commitments and the need for women, some-more so than men, to juggle home and careers.

QUEEN"S COUNSEL 2010

(appointees in in the order of the alphabet order)

Mr David Jeffrey Aaronberg

Mr Piers Dyke Acland

Mr Mark Roger Anderson

Mr Mohammed Jalil Akhter Asif

Mr Nicholas Michael Bacon

Mr Alexander Bailin

Mr Rupert Patrick Craig Baldry

Mr Charles Jefferis Woodburn Benson

Miss Jane Bewsey

Miss Zia Kurban Bhaloo

Miss Claire Blanchard

Ms Veronique Eira Buehrlen

Mr John Malcolm Burton

Mr David John Cavender

Mr Patrick Chamberlayne

Mr Jeffrey Paul Chapman

Mr Julian Mark Carmichael Christopher

Mr Michael Jeremy Patrick Coburn

Mrs Michelle Diane Mary Colborne

Mr John Gordon Cooper

Mr Nigel Stuart Cooper

Miss Jane Elizabeth Cross

Mr Derrick Ralph Dale

Miss Katharine Louise D"Arcy

Mr Arthur Alan Dashwood

Mr Michael James Davie

Ms Anuja Ravindra Dhir

Mr Paul Simon Downes

Mr Michael Simon Edenborough

Mr Philip Douglas Edwards

Miss Naomi Lisa Ellenbogen

Mr John Cowie Elvidge

Miss Susan Louise Carr Evans

Mr Francis Thomas Feehan

Mr Francis George Herbert Dillon FitzGibbon

Mr William David Wingate Flenley

Mr Steven Charles Ford

Mr Gerard Forlin

Ms Isabella Louise Forshall

Mr Rudi Fletcher Fortson

Mr Kerim Selchuk Fuad

Mr Joseph John Bela Leslie Giret

Mr Paul Richard Greaney

Mr Andrew James Dominic Green

Miss Sally Harrison

Mr Neil Ashley Hawes

Ms Sioban Mary Healy

Mr Kevin John Hegarty

Mr Mark Adrian Heywood

Mr David Seymour Hislop

Miss Katharine Jane Holland

Mr David John Hooper

Mr George Hugh-Jones

Mr Syed Raza Husain

Mr Paul Richard Hynes

Mr Thomas Victor William Kark

Mr Lee Nadesalingam Karu

Mr Christopher Laurence Paul Kennedy

Ms Judith Khan

Mr Charles Dominic Kimmins

Mr Cyril Kinsky

Mr Jonathan Kirk

Mr Stephen Knafler

Mr Steven Laszlo Kovats

Mr Sean Larkin

Mr Nicholas Peter Le Poidevin

Mr Thomas Alexander Crispin Leech

Mr Robert Stuart Levy

Mr John Letablere Litton

Mr Andrew James Lloyd-Eley

Mr Andrew William Jardine Lockhart

Mr Amjad Raza Malik

Mr David Buchanan Mason

Mr Harold Nsamba Matovu

Mr Richard Andrew Matthews

Mr William Thomas McCormick

Mr Angus Maxwell Thomas McCullough

Mr Bryan Nicholas McGuire

Mr Manus Anthony McMullan

Mr Alexander Hugh Milne

Dr Timothy John Moloney

Mr Neil Robert Moody

Ms Helen Mountfield

Mr Gordon Lawrence Nardell

Mr Cairns Louis David Nelson

Mr Andrew Bennett Newcombe

Mr Peter Robert Oldham

Mr Brian Patrick O"Neill

Mr Daniel Richard Oudkerk

Mr Benedict Joseph Patten

Mr Robert Roger Peel

Mr Simon Benjamin Phillips

Mr Julian Mark Picton

Mr Timothy Sheridan Pitt-Payne

Mr Nigel John Power

Mr Piers Charles William Pressdee

Mr Thomas Price

Mr Philip Carslake Rainey

Mr Paul Stuart Malcolm Reed

Mr Jonathan David Rees

Mr Andrew James Rigney

Mr Jonathan Huw Sinclair Russen

Mr Matthew Conrad Ryder

Mr James Timothy Norman Scobie

Mr Akhil Shah

Mr Andrew John Short

Mr Richard Penkivil Slade

Mr Marcus Alexander Smith

Mr David Hugh Southey

Mr Paul Mallalieu Stanley

Mr Daniel Malachi Stilitz

Mr Christopher Paul Stoner

Miss Jemima Lucy Stratford

Mr Jonathan Mark Swift

Mr David Travers

Mr George Marcus Arthur Trinick

Mr Paul Geoffrey Tucker

Mr Ian Stephen Unsworth

Mr Adam Skanda Vaitilingam

Mr Ian Wade

Mr Robert Thomas Macdonald Weir

Mr Martin Trevor Westgate

Ms Philippa Jane Edwards Whipple

Mr Jonathan Whitfield

Miss Anne Lynne Whyte

Miss Joanne Wicks

Mr Sean David Henry Wilken

Mr Rhodri John Williams

Mr Ian Wise

Mortgage approvals thrust in Jan Money

house sales

Mortgage approvals fell by 17% during January. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

The series of mortgages authorized for residence purchases dived by 17% during Jan as the housing marketplace suffered a high tumble in activity, sum showed today.

There were 48,198 homebuyer loans in the tube during the month, the lowest turn given May 2009 and the second uninterrupted monthly drop, according to the Bank of England.

The series of remortgages authorized fell to 23,611 from 27,322 in December.

There was additionally a tumble in debt advances, with sum lending shifting to £10.24bn, down from £13.53bn in November.

In new weeks the Council of Mortgage Lenders and British Bankers" Association have additionally reported a pointy tumble in debt approvals in January, both claiming the removal at the finish of last year of the proxy stamp starting point on properties costing in between £125,000 and £175,000 quelled demand.

On Friday, sum from the Nationwide referred to the dump in direct from buyers could already be stuff oneself by to residence prices. It reported a 1.1% tumble in prices in February, citing the stamp avocation shift and the wintry go on as probable factors.

The Bank"s sum show that whilst debt wake up was down in January, consumers" ardour for unsecured borrowing increased.

Net lending by both cumulative and unsecured loans rose by £2bn in January, compared with £1.5bn in December.

Consumer credit increasing by £500m – scarcely stand in December"s £265m enlarge and a noted turnaround from the prior five months when consumers borrowed some-more than they repaid.

However, unsecured borrowing remained well down on the levels seen during the rise of the credit boom, when collectively consumers continually increasing their superb debt by some-more than £2bn a month.

Howard Archer, arch UK economist at OHS Global Insight, pronounced consumers might have borrowed some-more in Dec and Jan to financial spending over Yuletide and the Jan sales.

"Despite January"s enlarge in net consumer credit, it was still pale compared with past norms. Elevated debt levels meant there is an obligatory need for most consumers to urge their change sheets, whilst critical concerns over jobs and the mercantile opinion are causing a estimable series of people to wish to save more," he said.

"Meanwhile, parsimonious credit conditions go on to have it in all formidable for people to borrow, generally unsecured loans."

Separate sum from the Building Societies Association showed savers withdrew a sum of £755m from construction societies and jointly owned banks during the month, some-more than twice the volume cold in December.

The BSA"s director-general, Adrian Coles, pronounced societies were still struggling to capture cash.

"January is typically a severe month for savers as most begin to pay off debt amassed over Christmas. Nonetheless, mutuals will go on to find it formidable to capture savers as prolonged as the bottom rate stays low and the marketplace is twisted by part-nationalised banks," he said.

"We welcomed the voiced removal of Northern Rock"s 100% pledge on savings, and we will go on to run for serve remodel until we grasp a turn personification margin for all deposition receiving institutions."

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Amy Williams binds behind tears at romantic Vancouver award rite Sport

Amy Williams

Amy Williams shows off her Winter Olympics bullion award after the rite in Vancouver. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Amy Williams betrothed to toast her Olympic structure of the body bullion award with "a sip of champagne" after being presented with it in front of a entertaining throng at the Whistler Medals Plaza.

Williams hold behind tears as the Union Jack was lifted over a Winter Olympic lectern for the initial time given Rhona Martin"s curling group took bullion at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

But she certified she had strew tears progressing in the day, when she paused to perspective internet footage of her hermit and identical tiwn sister entertaining her home on TV in the internal beer hall in Bath. Williams said: "I"m going to have a sip of champagne tonight but I"m going to save the celebration for when I get home. I did have tears when I saw the scenes at my internal pub. It unequivocally choked me up."

Williams insisted the experience of being awarded her award in such a open approach had frightened her and her dual German rivals, who won china and bronze, far some-more than throwing themselves head-first down a 90mph ice track.

She added: "All 3 of us were only jolt prior to going on. To have the award right away is only incredible. I didn"t think I would get a award – I was only anticipating to do improved than my precision runs.

"I"ve been in a burble given I won and it feels similar to it"s got thicker. It feels a small bit some-more genuine right away that I"m holding the medal. I"ve had a summary of congratulations from the Prime Minister and the total thing is amazing."