Greece and Italy Seek a Solution From Technocrats

ROME — Under the white-hot pressure of the bond markets and the glare of European leaders, both Greece and Italy snapped into action on Thursday, looking to technocratic leaders to pull them back from the brink of chaos.
Greece named Lucas Papademos,Belstaff outlet a former vice president of the European Central Bank, interim prime minister of a unity government charged with preventing the country from default. In Italy, momentum was building behind Mario Monti, a former European commissioner, to replace the once-invincible Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as early as Monday.

The question now, in both Italy and Greece,Canada goose jackor is whether the technocrats can succeed where elected leaders failed — whether pressure from the European Union backed by the whip of the financial markets will be enough to dislodge the entrenched cultures of political patronage that experts largely blame for the slow growth and financial crises that plague both countries.

Some said there was cause for optimism. “First, the mere fact that they have been asked in such difficult circumstances means that they have a mandate,” said Iain Begg, an expert on the European monetary union at the London School of Economics. “Granted, it’s not a democratic one,Expedition parka but it flows from disaffection with the bickering political class.”

The conventional wisdom from European Union leaders in Brussels has been that greater political consensus in Greece and a change of leadership in Italy could help restore market confidence in the euro. But with investors increasingly viewing European sovereign debt as a toxic asset,Belstaff jacket it seems doubtful that the markets will truly calm down until both Italy and Greece do more than apply fiscal bandages and until the European Union can put more firepower in its bailout mechanisms.

On the surface, Greece and Italy seem remarkably alike. Both countries have entrenched patronage networks that predate the European Union by centuries and suffocating regulations and work rules. And both Mr. Papademos, 64, and Mr. Monti, 68, the president of Bocconi University in Milan, have close ties to European Union officials, who are taking a strong hand in managing the affairs of both countries because the fate of the euro hangs in the balance.

Both face daunting changes. In Italy, a new government will be asked to carry out labor and tax reforms and other growth-enhancing measures. It will also have to write a new electoral law.

In Greece, the government must push through unpopular wage cuts and public sector layoffs in exchange for more foreign aid, and then try to make more structural changes during its brief mandate than the country has introduced in 30 years.

But the similarities end there. Greece is effectively bankrupt and needs a steady hand to guide it. Prime Minister George A. Papandreou ran out of political capital trying to impose austerity on a restive country. Some have criticized him for failing to carry out reforms fast enough, while no party alone has wanted to bear the political cost of stepping into his shoes.

Mr. Papademos must also negotiate with the European Union and banks on the terms of a delicate voluntary write-down of Greek private debt so as to avoid a default — amid a deep recession, a credit crunch and a climate of growing social unrest.

In Italy, where the economic fundaments are far stronger than those of Greece, there is a new wind of optimism mixed with trepidation this week, as the debt crisis led to the abrupt end of the Berlusconi era.

“It’s a historic moment,” said Roberto Napoletano, the editor in chief of the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, which has been running campaigns to alert Italians that their savings and businesses are at risk without credible leadership. “Italy has to act, but it can do it.”

Indeed, Italy pulled back from the brink on Thursday as investors gained confidence that Mr. Berlusconi would be gone by Monday, replaced by Mr. Monti, an economist with an international reputation. That impression was underscored by the sight of Mr. Monti arriving at the Quirinal Palace on Thursday, where he met for two hours with Italy’s president, Giorgio Napolitano, who is responsible for picking a new head of government.

Mr. Berlusconi himself sent Mr. Monti a telegram wishing him “fruitful work in the interests of the country,” the news agency ANSA reported.

In contrast to Greece, which resents outside interference, Italy has often looked to technocratic leaders backed by outside powers in moments of political transition. It did so in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the postwar political order, and again in the mid-1990s, when a unity government pushed through changes that helped Italy into the euro.

Anna Hazare: Breaking His Silence to Win Back India's Middle Class

Anna Hazare, whose campaign for a new anticorruption law galvanized millions of Indians in August, talks to journalists in New Delhi on Nov. 4, 2011

After 19 days of silence, Indian anticorruption crusader Anna Hazare found he had something to say in the early hours of Friday in New Delhi. He had arrived in the city the previous day to take part in consultations on the final draft of the anticorruption bill, which is expected to be passed in the winter session of Parliament beginning the last week of November. Hazare had undertaken his vow of silence — the maun vrat, an ancient Indian soul-cleansing exercise — during a crucial period that saw a dip in popular support for his movement in the face of various allegations of financial irregularities against some of his closest aides.Canada Goose Expedition Parka

The 74-year-old activist, who has been writing a blog for the past few weeks to communicate with his followers, broke his vow on Friday to meet with "all those young men and women, farmers, working class [people], school children from all over the world who were a part of this movement against corruption." Hazare's blog statement underlines the growing fears among his team that they may be losing the backing of the middle class, who had earlier played a defining role in sending the government scampering for a compromise with Hazare on the anticorruption bill. The big question is: Will the break in Hazare's silence be enough to win back the support he so desperately needs? (See photos of Indians protesting the arrest of Anna Hazare.)Belstaff

When Hazare went on a 12-day fast in August to demand a strong ombudsman to curb corruption in the country, thousands of Indians turned out each day to show their support. The honesty and integrity of Team Anna — a group of people known for their social service acts who came together behind Hazare — was much played up. However, two months down the line, Team Anna is battling the same demon of corruption that it had vowed to root out from India.Giacca Moto

The revelation that harmed the movement the most was an exposé in October by the Indian Express against Kiran Bedi, a close associate of Hazare's and a former police officer. The paper claimed that on several occasions when Bedi was invited by organizations for public-speaking engagements, she charged them for business-class tickets but actually flew on economy. Bedi doesn't deny the allegations but maintains the excess money went to benefit the poor. Arvind Kejriwal, one of the main architects of Hazare's movement, was also accused by a former Team Anna member of siphoning off $160,000 for his own NGO from donations to Hazare's movement. Kejriwal was also served a notice by India's federal income-tax body reportedly for failing to pay a penalty of around $20,000 to the government after prematurely leaving his job with the Indian Revenue Service. Kejriwal had called the charges baseless.Belstaff Outlet

Team Anna has dismissed these accusations as politically motivated. Bedi told TIME, "We all got into this movement for a cause. We didn't know the opposition was going to be so strong. Just the way we didn't see the country coming together in such a strong national mass movement, we didn't foresee this becoming so bitter either." Since the claims first surfaced, Bedi has reportedly returned money to one organization; Kejriwal paid the tax fine on Thursday and wrote a four-page letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in which he said he was returning the dues "in protest" and that it does not mean he has "accepted the mistake, when I don't know what was the mistake I committed." (See India's 15 most influential people.)

In recent weeks, Team Anna members have come under fire in various other ways too: from a shoe being hurled at Kejriwal at a public meeting to Prashant Bhushan, a key member of the core team, being beaten up by right-wingers for supporting a plebiscite in Kashmir. Analysts feel that these incidents, along with the alleged exposés, indicate a growing sense of dejection among the average Indian that has created a disconnect between the public and Hazare's movement. "People are disappointed mainly because of the very high-profile and shrill pitch that the team has adopted and the slight holier-than-thou attitude," Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi–based sociopolitical analyst, tells TIME. "These allegations have hurt the credibility of the movement and I don't think that can be easily repaired."

The decision to get directly involved in politics by campaigning against the Congress party in an October by-election in the northern Indian state of Haryana was also an "impudent" step, Bhaskar says. It dealt a blow to the movement's apolitical nature, which was a huge draw for the Indian middle class. However, earlier this week, while everyone waited for him to break his silence, Hazare took some key steps toward resurrecting his flailing movement. On Oct. 30, he announced the framing of a constitution for the movement after which the core team will be reshuffled. In a letter sent to Prime Minister Singh on Nov. 1, he said that his team would not campaign against any political party and threatened to start another fast if the anticorruption bill is not passed by the end of the year. But on Friday he did an about-face and said he would, indeed, campaign against the Congress party in the five poll-bound states because the government was trying to weaken the bill with too many tweaks. (Read how Hazare brought the world's largest democracy to its knees.)

Hazare's frequent U-turns are another factor diluting the unprecedented adulation his movement had earlier enjoyed. If he goes on another fast, his challenge will be bigger than the last — this time around, he won't simply be battling an unjust political system, he will be trying to woo back an entire nation.

Indonesia may host man-made 'orangutan island'

A British conservationist is leading an audacious plan to create a chain of man-made islands in northern Sumatra that would liberate the Indonesian island's population of caged orangutans.

Dr Ian Singleton aims to create four islands of grass, shrubs and trees for sick and injured orangutans – those who are unable to be reintroduced to the natural habitat – to roam, freeing them from the 3x4m cages in which they currently reside.

Singleton is currently in the process of securing land for the islands. The ideal location would be near the coast with a consistent supply of fresh water via a stream or river.

Diggers, operated by local contractors, will then carve up the land to create moats, thereby encircling the land with water. The earth removed by the digging will be used to landscape the islands to make them ape-friendly.

Orangutans, which can't swim, will be reluctant to leave the islands due to the water, although Singleton plans to erect an electric fence to ensure the creatures don't drown.

"Depending on the site, it shouldn't take us too long to create the islands, as long as the moats don't leak," Singleton told the Guardian from northern Sumatra.

"The biggest challenge is finding the right land that has the right security and a water supply that isn't full of effluent."

"Finding a clean stream in Sumatra can be difficult as there's lots of pollution, but we have the option of creating a bio-filtration system to purify the water."

Singleton and his team have released more than 150 orangutans into the wild over the past decade, but currently have 50 further apes in medical quarantine.

A handful of orangutans have been earmarked for immediate transportation to the island, including twins that made headlines earlier this year due to both of their parents being blind.

Singleton has been in Sumatra since 2001, following stints at zoos in Jersey and Edinburgh. He leads the Orangutan Conservation Programme in the country and is funded by a Swiss NGO, PanEco.

While the immediate aim is to protect the captive orangutans, Singleton hopes the project will inform local people about the threat to the animal's survival via an education centre and guided walks.

There are only an estimated 6,000 orangutans left in Sumatra, due to deforestation and conflict with humans.

"These orangutans are refugees from forests that don't exist any more," he says.

"You have animals like Leuser who has been blinded by an air rifle and you don't want him living for 45 years in a small rusty cage. I want people in Medan (capital of the north Sumatra province) to see how these orangutans have been shot or had their arms chopped off or got hepatitis B."

"There needs to be a change in behaviour, otherwise the project is a waste. It's all very nice getting westerners here, but we need to reach the people who are chopping down the trees here and shooting the orangutans because they're in their habitat."

"Lots of middle class people, even policemen, steal orangutans and have them as a status symbol. The irony is that the people who are meant to uphold the law here are the ones with orangutans in cages."

Singleton says that he is close to acquiring a 20 ha (49.4 acre) plot of land to create the islands, but claims he has been hindered by the byzantine Indonesian system.

"I fluctuate between cautiously optimistic [and] very pessimistic," he says. "The business lobby is so powerful here and vote buying so prevalent, that it's hard to change anything.

"One minute the government will say that it wants to protect the forest and then they will grant a permit to clear 15,000 hectares of forest. Very few people are prosecuted for keeping an orangutan as a pet."

Singleton is working with the Australian Orangutan Project to raise funds for the island development.

Nicolas Sarkozy tells David Cameron: shut up over the euro

David Cameron has begun a week of intense political infighting over Europe by becoming embroiled in a furious row with Nicolas Sarkozy over Britain's role in talks to solve the crisis enveloping the euro.

The bust-up between Cameron and Sarkozy held up the conclusion of the EU-27 summit for almost two hours, with the French president expressing rage at the constant criticism and lectures from UK ministers.

Sarkozy bluntly told Cameron: "You have lost a good opportunity to shut up." He added: "We are sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings."

The prime minister has torn up his travel plans this week – a move urged on him by Labour leader Ed Miliband in a Guardian interview on Saturday – to attend an emergency heads of state meeting on Wednesday, and has demanded that all 27 EU countries be given the final say over measures to prevent the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis spreading and Europe sliding into deep recession.

On Monday the prime minister is facing both the largest Commons revolt of his premiership and the largest rebellion of eurosceptics suffered by a Conservative prime minister when parliament votes on whether the UK should have a referendum on Europe.

Cameron will meet parliamentary aides in Downing Street before the vote in an attempt to dissuade as many as 10 members of the government minded to rebel against the prime minister, requiring them to resign their posts. The government is sticking to its decision to impose a three-line whip on MPs to vote against the motion despite criticism it has been too heavy-handed.

Officials who witnessed the angry exchanges between Cameron and Sarkozy said the prime minister insisted that the package to be adopted on Wednesday by the 17 eurozone countries had serious implications for non-euro countries in the EU and their interests must be safeguarded. Eventually, after what Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, who chaired the summit, called a "stormy" discussion, the French president secured an agreement that all 27 leaders will first debate the three-pronged package of measures to recapitalise banks, build up the bailout find and write down Greek debt, but then the eurosummit would have the final say at back-to-back summits on Wednesday.

Cameron, however, got his fellow leaders to insert into the final communique recognition that laws on the single market must be upheld and a level playing field safeguarded for countries not in the euro. He later brushed aside the divisions, saying that what mattered was that markets regain confidence that the eurozone is preventing contagion from the Greek debt crisis.

The vote in parliament on Monday will be a testy encounter with his own party on Britain's membership of the EU. The vote calls for a nationwide referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU, renegotiate its treaty with Brussels, or remain a member on current terms. The government will not suffer a defeat, since Labour and the Lib Dems will vote down the motion, but a voluble and sizeable group believe the prime minister should honour pledges once made to allow a national poll on Britain's relationship with Europe. They would like the repatriation of social and employment rights.

On Sunday in Brussels, Cameron used a press conference to appeal directly to potential rebels, talking up the chance of repatriating powers with the "possibility" of treaty change coming on to the agenda as early as December, as euro countries push towards fiscal integration.

He claimed he had proved his ability last year to "exact" a good price when he agreed an EU treaty change that created a new mechanism for bailing out troubled eurozone countries but exempted Britain from having to pay for bailouts from 2013.

It is not clear if this would trigger the government's stated commitment to a referendum because it is due to stage a vote only if new powers are transferred from Westminster to Brussels, and any change by Cameron would be likely to do the reverse.

"If there is a treaty change, that gives Britain an opportunity," Cameron said. "Treaty change can only happen if it is agreed by all the 27 member states of the European Union.

"Any treaty change – as the last treaty change did – is an opportunity for Britain to advance our national interest. The last limited treaty change which brought about the European stability mechanism gave us the opportunity to get out of the euro bailout fund that the last government opted into."

Cameron said: "I've also argued that this crisis means that greater fiscal and economic integration of the eurozone is inevitable. But this must not be at the expense of Britain's national interest. So I've secured a commitment today, which will be in the council's conclusions, that we must safeguard the interests of countries that want to stay outside of the euro, particularly with respect to the integrity of the single market for all 27 countries of the EU.

Academics at Nottingham University predict the number rebelling against the government is likely to top the 41 Conservative MPs who voted against John Major in May 1993 on the third reading of the Maastricht bill – the biggest backbench rebellion for a Tory PM on Europe on whipped business.

They also said 41 was the number who rebelled in October last year over an attempt to make using insulting language a criminal act, which was then the biggest rebellion of Cameron's premiership.

The two sides in the referendum battle fortified their positions, with government ministers defending the decision to impose a three-line whip on the vote brought to the Commons by a petition.

The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, said the whip had been put in place because the motion was contrary to government policy and holding a referendum on the EU would be "just a distraction".

The former Conservative leader Lord Howard also weighed in, saying that an EU referendum would be a mistake in current conditions. The former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said he believed a vote for a referendum would make Britain a "laughing stock".

But Cameron faces the likely resignations of some parliamentary aides to ministers and rebellion by the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady. Lord Tebbit suggested that "not even Ted Heath faced the chairman of the 1922 voting against him".

The number rebelling could hit 90 if the 68 who signed up to the original amendment tabled by the MP for Bury North, David Nuttall combine with another 33 who have signed compromise amendments which ministers say also run counter to government policy. Nuttall would commit the government to holding a referendum by May 2013 but would give the public three options – keeping the status quo, leaving the EU or reforming the terms of the UK's membership.

An amendment from George Eustice, a new but influential MP who used to work for Cameron, calls on the coalition to publish a white paper in the next two years setting out which powers ministers would repatriate from Brussels. The government would then renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU and hold a referendum on the outcome.

Some names on Eustice's list may have signed up in the brief window when they thought Eustice's amendment would come to be adopted by the government as a way of the party high command giving backbenchers a compromise to vote through.The Commons speaker John Bercow may however choose not to call Eustice's amendment.

Dale Farm evictions - live

7.09am: Breaking news: PA reports that supporters have clashed with bailiffs and riot police at the rear entrance of Dale Farm as the eviction gets under way.

7.09am: Residents of Dale Farm, the UK's largest Travellers' site, are preparing to resist an expected attempt to evict them today after they were refused permission on Monday to appeal against a high court ruling allowing Basildon council to clear the site.

Supporters have also been arriving at the site in Essex, where three people were said to be preparing to chain themselves to the gate by their necks, and two cars and a former Russian military vehicle have been moved into place as obstacles.

According to Tony Ball, the leader of Basildon council, "all preparations have been completed". Although he refused to confirm that the eviction would begin at first light today, he said the clearance was imminent and that no further negotiations would take place.

Dozens of bailiffs arrived at a council compound neighbouring the site for final preparations and two diggers and a crane were on standby.

Mr Ball said: "The time for talking is over. We have given the travellers' every chance to leave peacefully and they have not taken it.
"Now our job is to clear the site in a safe and humane manner.
"It is quite clear to me that the majority of the public want us to do that.
"My biggest fear is that somebody - be it a bailiff, a police officer, a traveller or a supporter - gets hurt.
"I would call on those inside Dale Farm to behave sensibly and responsibly."

Supporters have reinforced the barricade inside the main gate and smaller barricades are in place throughout the site. Piles of wood and bricks have been gathered at various key points.

British IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon dies after crash in Las Vegas

Dan Wheldon, the British racing driver who won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time this year, died in a 15-car crash during the IndyCar race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Wheldon, 33, was lying 26th in the field of 34 cars when the accident began as two cars touched on one of the oval track's four long banked turns halfway round the 13th lap. One of them slewed sideways, setting off a chain reaction. Travelling at somewhere close to 200mph, Wheldon was unable to avoid the chaotic mass of spinning cars. His own car flew into the air and smashed into the barrier on the outside of the track, appearing to catch fire on impact.

The car of the American driver Townsend Bell finished upside down in the middle of the track. Three drivers besides Wheldon, including the championship leader, Will Power of Australia, suffered injuries. Others, including the Scottish driver Dario Franchitti, managed to pick their way through the wreckage. The race was stopped as Wheldon was taken by helicopter to the Las Vegas University medical centre.

Two hours later his death was announced to his fellow drivers, who staged a five-lap parade in salute to their colleague.

Wheldon had qualified for the race in 28th place but started in last position, as part of a bid to win a $5m prize for coming through the field to finish first. The prize would have been shared with the winner of a competition.

Born in the Buckinghamshire village of Emberton, Wheldon was an early rival of Jenson Button in junior racing. Having failed to find backing for his career in Europe, however, he moved to the United States in 1999, racing in the Formula 2000, Toyota Atlantic and Indy Lights series.

In 2002 he graduated to the IndyCar championship, the top level of single-seater racing in the US, and the following year he joined the Andretti Green team, taking a seat following the retirement of Michael Andretti. That year he won the series' rookie of the year award, followed two years later by victory in the Indianapolis 500, the most important single race in the US and – with the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans – one of the three biggest in the world.

It made him the first English driver to win the 500 since Graham Hill in 1966, having swapped the lead over the last few laps with the female driver Danica Patrick, and that year he also became the series champion.

This past May he won the race for a second time, in more extraordinary circumstances. On the final corner of the last of the race's 200 laps the leader, the young American driver JR Hildebrand, lost control while lapping another car and handed victory to an astonished Wheldon, who became the first man to win the historic race having led only a single lap.

He married his personal assistant, Susie Behm, in 2008. They had two young children and lived in St Petersburg, Florida.

Frieze 2011: A crab with a head for art

God, I feel old, traipsing around the ninth Frieze art fair. I feel like I have been here for almost a decade. It turns out I have. I have become a stranger to daylight. Someone said I looked like a B-boy in my patent hi-top trainers, but I had to ask a passing curator what a B-boy is. A very bad band was rapping about "Having sex with them" in LuckyPDF's spot, where the Peckham collective is making live recordings and daily TV broadcasts. Peckham is the new Shoreditch, I hear. Better get down there quick.

I didn't know who was supposed to be having sex with whom, and the band all looked so studiedly youthful that I left, in search of a makeover. You can get one at A Gentil Carioca's stand. The gallery is from Rio de Janeiro. Your chair awaits, along with the lights, mirrors, jars of unguents and a real makeup artist. The trouble is the makeover: the scheme, in this project by Laura Lama, is to make you look older. I told the makeup artist I'd already had the treatment and was really only 16, but I don't think she believed me. Some of the collectors wandering about look a million years old, but I don't think they've been slathered, in latex and instant-wrinkle cream either.

You age by the minute in here. One alarming sculpture, by Romanian-born Andra Ursuta, is a lifesize body cast, showing the artist as an iron-age mummy, preserved by being buried for millennia in a northern European peat bog. I notice her hi-tops are still intact. She is also covered in a copious quantity of fake, glistening semen. This is not the sort of thing one can easily overlook. Ursuta's abject sculpture is actually one of the better examples of a kind of figurative sculpture that is always with us: by turns jokey, laughable, stupid and extreme, in a frequently pointless and tiresome way.

A monstrous, trudging god (like the last man to finish a gruelling marathon) has a patch of stinging nettles growing out of his back. This is by Folkert de Jong, and it's called the New Deal. It looks like a very old deal to me.

Better is the billy-goat costume that artist Pawe? Althamer has travelled the world wearing, following the journeys of a Polish children's-book character. The goat is now taking a breather, sitting in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker, but looking a bit stunned. Elsewhere, Darren Lago has morphed Rodin's 1891 Monument to Balzac with Mickey Mouse. Why, I ask, but can't really be bothered to find out. I don't care that much. The fair is too big, and there isn't time. What collectors do with this stuff is a better question: stick it in the corner of the living room, frighten the kiddies with it?

Some of this art is for the birds. A flock of funny little bronze birds by Ugo Rondinone peck at an achingly white floor. A stuffed goose by Javier Téllez regards a little Brancusi-like tower of enormous golden eggs (this must be a metaphor about the art world); while a live hermit crab has taken a bronze cast of Brancusi's 1910 Sleeping Muse as its new home in Pierre Huyghe's aquarium, one of the better of this year's commissioned Frieze projects. This is odd and extremely beautiful. The art-encumbered crab clambers over the rocks, oblivious that the hollowed-out head it is wearing is art. Or perhaps it knows perfectly well who Brancusi is.

It is certainly a great deal more lively and lovely than Christian Jankowski's motor yacht, which punters can buy either as an expensive pleasure boat – or, for a bit more dosh, as an artwork. I find this a witless and trivial Duchampian gag. "Oh no," I imagine the proud new owner saying, "this isn't my expensive new yacht, this is an artwork for which I paid over the odds just so I can tell you about it and show off my extreme sophistication, my sense of humour and my utter lack of taste".

Bananas are in this year. I counted two, but there could be more. A stuffed chimp, teetering on a pile of heavy-duty art books reaches for one, dangling from on high in a work by Elmgreen and Dragset, and the other is spotlit, suspended on fishing line, like an indoor new moon, in a work by Urs Fischer. Work is perhaps not the word. (Neither are as good as the cameo-role banana in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, which Harold Pinter refused to act with or, rather, eat.)

More poignantly, on an otherwise empty stand, Michael Sailstorfer beams in live webcam footage from a woodland in Germany. He has painted the ground around some trees black, and the ground is slowly getting covered in fallen leaves. I keep looking, hoping to see furtive goings-on, but so far it is just a dappled autumn afternoon. In my mind, I twin this work with just about the only memorable sculpture dotted about Regent's Park. It is just a battered old domestic door, standing ajar in its frame, and remade in bronze by Gavin Turk. A door on to nothing, a passage to nowhere.

At the entrance to the fair, Scottish artist Cara Tolmie dances and whinnies, walks and talks and spins in a revolving chair. Part banshee, part kookaburra, part diva and part lecturer, Tolmie creates a daily performance that ends with a lecture, weaving a narrative about space and territory, action and language. It is funny, self-deprecating, piling layer upon layer of talk, song and movement, only to deconstruct it all at the end.

Laure Prouvost's signs dotted about give you pause. "Ideally in this room would be a busy African market," says one. Another: "The fifth floor is wonderful." Obviously, there is no fifth floor – but there is a market, stuffed with stuff.

You have to work at Frieze to get much out of it. Fairs may be the worst places in the world for looking at art, but you have to thank Frieze for giving a little shock therapy to the gallery schedules. This autumn sees more great shows than I can remember: Gerhard Richter, Tacita Dean, Pipilotti Rist, Wilhelm Sasnal.

Inside the fair, it's hard to remember the recession, but somehow gestures like Jankowski's boat begin to look obscene in the light of it, however critical his intentions. Even Pierre Huyghe's crab starts to have a decadent, underwater air. I think I'll have a banana.