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From 50s migrant to 80s Thatcher critic, the cultural theorist has long led the debate on race and politics. A new film charts his life and his decades-long influence on the culture of modern Britain

As the Labour party prepares for another round of soul-searching next month about the left's place in modern Britain, it could do worse than organise a pre-conference screening of John Akomfrah's wonderful documentary The Stuart Hall Project.

It would be perverse to suggest that Professor Stuart Hall, 81, has been a neglected figure in British cultural life over the last six decades. He was a founding editor of the hugely influential New Left Review in 1958 and the co-creator of the first cultural studies programme (at Birmingham University in 1964). He has been the most prominent of black British intellectuals since the 1960s, a prominent figure of the Open University and among the most trenchant critics of Thatcherism.

Three addicts reveal the reasons they keep at it

To look like George Clooney. By Jon Ronson

I started running because I found myself in the same room as George Clooney, saw how fantastically thin he was, looked down at myself and noticed – and I really had no idea – that I was fat.

"How did that happen?" I thought, startled. "I was definitely thin until recently, yet I haven't changed anything about my lifestyle except I've been eating a lot more puddings. Maybe that's it."

And so I did something I'd never done before. I went for a run.

This was in Puerto Rico. I was there because they were turning one of my books into a film and, assuming everyone was, in my absence, having unimaginable fun, I asked if I could visit the set. They weren't having unimaginable fun. Everyone was busy and stressed and filled with anxieties.

"The Swiss government declared renowned film director Roman Polanski a free man on Monday after rejecting a Us request to extradite him on a charge of having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl," report Bradley S Klapper and Frank Jordans of the AP. "The Swiss mostly blamed Us authorities for failing to provide confidential testimony about Polanski's sentencing procedure in 1977-1978. The Justice Ministry also said that national interests were taken into consideration in the stunning decision."

Let the summertime media frenzy begin.

Updates: The full statement to the press from the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police (Fdjp).

Waiting for @vrizov and @paperlung to wake up and let me know how Big Hollywood and their readers are taking today's big news. Mon Jul 12 13:39:41 via TweetDeck Filmbrain (Andrew G)

Filmbrain

More commentary: Patrick Goldstein (Los Angeles Times), David Poland, St VanAirsdale (Movieline) and Jeffrey Wells. And via the Atlantic Wire: Ann Althouse,...