Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1128 i The Week

Too many “shouty” old white men Peter Preston T he Observer The media have characterised this election as a clash between the generations, says Peter Preston. And so it is: in the media as much as in the electorate. For the fact is that election coverage in Britain is dominated by “shouty” old white men: Andrew Neil (68), John Humphrys (73), Robert Peston (57) and Jeremy Paxman (67). And that’s a problem: the belligerent, impatient tone of these men reduces too many interviews to quick-fire, ritual put-downs. The routine assumption –“that the political bastards are in the studio to lie and be taken down” – is an excuse for endless interruptions, which just lead the politicians to retreat into sound bites. Yet when issues are calmly discussed at length, as…

Statins may boost heart health Stains not only reduce cholesterol levels, they also seem to improve heart health, a new study has found. Researchers at Queen Mary University of London used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the hearts of 4,622 people without cardiovascular disease. The 785 who were taking statins had been judged to be at greater risk of heart disease; they had higher BMIs and blood pressure, and were more likely to be older – yet their hearts seemed to be in better shape. “People using statins were less likely to have thickened heart muscle and less likely to have a large heart chamber,” said study leader Dr Nay Aung. “Having a thick, large heart is a strong predictor of future heart attack, heart failure or stroke, and…

“While Theresa May entered the final frenetic days of a general election campaign, her predecessor was having an altogether more relaxing time,” said Robin de Peyer in the London Evening Standard. David and Samantha Cameron celebrated their wedding anniversary last week in a boutique hotel in Spain. Samantha marked the event by posting a photo of their feet on Instagram, accompanied with the words: “Married for 21 years today!” There has been “a degree of sniffiness” concerning the foot selfie, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. “I don’t mean sniffiness in olfactory terms”: the feet look “well maintained, without a verruca in sight”, and strangely smooth. But some complained that the timing was “questionable”. As Cameron’s party limped, battered by negative polls, towards election day, it may not have been…

The British and Irish Lions’ tour of New Zealand got off to a “pathetic” start, said Stuart Barnes in The Sunday Times. Last Saturday, they “sleepwalked to victory”, beating the New Zealand Provincial Barbarians 13-7 – and scoring just one try. The Lions had the finest talents in all of Britain and Ireland at their disposal, yet they struggled to beat an invitational team of “fringe” semi-professionals, whose ranks include a nurse, a fruit picker and a sheep farmer. If this is how the Lions fare against such modest opposition, what hope do they have in their three Tests against the All Blacks, which begin later this month? But it was unfair to expect anything more of this side, said Sir Ian McGeechan in The Sunday Telegraph. They had only…

If you want a “summery red sip with vibrant, silky red berry and cherry fruit that slips effortlessly down your throat”, go for Gamay, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. Handily for the British summer, it can be served cool on hot days and at room temperature on dull ones. Three-quarters of all French Gamay is from Beaujolais, and the best single-village, or cru, Beaujolais are the bottles to buy. Try Waitrose’s bargain 2015 Fleurie, Georges Duboeuf (£10.99), which is exuberant, light and floral, or Louis Jadot’s consistently good 2015 Beaujolais-Villages Combe aux Jacques (Tesco, £10.50). The 2016 Gamay, Vin de Pays de l’Ardèche is made from a more rustic manifestation of the grape, and is bursting with vibrant, spicy damson and red berries – the “perfect summer swig” (Yapp…

Controversy of the week Trump breaks the deal Last Thursday, on “a fine spring day in Washington DC, Donald Trump took the podium in the White House’s Rose Garden and announced that he was pulling the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement”, said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. All his big speeches have been distinguished by their “alarmism, fearmongering and negativity”. This was no exception. The president portrayed the 2015 Paris accord not as “the well-meaning, non-binding and in many ways modest deal” it is, but as yet another attempt to rip off and exploit the US. “This was Trumpism in its full glory – the world as a conspiracy against its sole superpower.” At what point, he asked, “do they start laughing at us as…

The Trump tape accomplice Billy Bush is still reeling from “Pussygate”. Last October, at the peak of the US presidential election, an 11-year-old recording was leaked to the press featuring Bush – then a rookie TV reporter – chatting off-camera with Donald Trump. While Trump boasted about grabbing women “by the pussy”, Bush (a nephew of George H.W. Bush) giggled ingratiatingly and egged him on. The tape didn’t stop Trump becoming president, but it did torpedo Bush’s career. He was sacked from his dream job as a presenter at NBC, and pilloried for sexism. But the worst thing, he told The Hollywood Reporter, was explaining himself to his three daughters. The eldest, Mary, then 15, called him in tears when the story broke. “She said, ‘Why were you laughing at…

An antisocial Spanish woman reportedly pretended to be blind for 28 years, so that she wouldn’t have to stop and say hello to people in the street. Carmen Jiménez, 57, told everyone, including her own family, that she’d lost her vision in an accident. Her husband and family were shocked when she came clean, yet not entirely surprised. They’d felt there was something fishy about her story: her husband said she could put on her makeup perfectly, and that they sometimes caught her looking at the TV from the corner of her eye. “I’ve never been a very social person,” she said. “By pretending to be blind, I was able to avoid many social responsibilities.” A 70ft-high cutout of Theresa May mysteriously – and briefly – appeared on the White…

AFGHANISTAN America will pay for these deadly raids Maseer (Kabul) Will America never learn, asks Maseer. President Trump’s new strategy in Afghanistan appears to be to boost US troop numbers and give them greater latitude to call in air strikes. But we know what that means: more US air strikes result in more dead Afghan children. It’s already happening. Last week, after the Taliban clashed with Afghan security forces in the eastern Nangarhar Province, a US aircraft responded by bombing civilians instead of the insurgents, killing two children and three women. In another air raid in the same province, one man lost three of his children, including a baby, and all his livestock. Needless to say, Afghan officials, who welcome the increased US involvement in the war, remain “silent about…

Nasa is developing ambitious plans to send a probe into the Sun’s outer layer, or corona. Travelling at 430,000mph, the 10ft-long Parker Solar Probe will fly to within 3.9-million miles of the Sun’s surface. Exposed to temperatures reaching almost 1,380°C, it will be encased in a 4.5in-thick carbon heat shield, designed to keep its instruments near room temperature. Once inside the corona, the probe will use telescopes to take close-up pictures of the Sun, and an array of sensors to “taste” the solar wind, the charged particles that stream out of the Sun. The probe is named after Eugene Parker, who first predicted the existence of these particles in 1958. One of the seven-year mission’s aims is to improve our understanding of solar storms, or coronal mass ejections. These are…

Saddam Hussein spent his final days pottering in the prison garden and listening to Mary J. Blige on the radio, according to his former guard. In a new memoir, Will Bardenwerper – one of the US soldiers who watched over Saddam in a Baghdad jail as he awaited the death sentence – says the former Iraqi dictator came across as a polite man of simple pleasures. He loved flowers, food – especially “the siren call of a sugary muffin” – and pop music, and “would always stop tuning if he stumbled across a Mary J. Blige song”. He enjoyed talking to the guards about their families, and comparing notes on the trials of fatherhood. Hussein recalled how cross he had been after his son Uday raked a party with gunfire,…

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Winston Churchill, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” E.L. Doctorow, quoted in the Financial Times “Whom the gods would destroy, they first tempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Irving Kristol, quoted in The Washington Post “The rule of thumb of UK elections is that the party leader who looks most like Middle England wins.” Simon Kuper in the FT “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.” Dorothy Parker, quoted in The Guardian “If the yellow-spotted toad is so rare, why is it found on every building site in the land?” Lord (Digby) Jones, quoted in The Sunday Times…

An ill-thought-out tax To The Guardian I have great respect for Simon Jenkins – he frequently cuts through the codswallop that often poses as journalism today. Unfortunately, he falls into the trap of Conservative thinking on social care. It does seem reasonable that those who have built up assets in their lifetimes should fund their own social care in old age, but this misses the whole point of a progressive system of taxation. Illness, frailty, misfortune can happen to anyone, rich or poor. Anyone can be struck down with early-onset dementia, or another devastating condition. Why should those families suffer more than other families whose progenitors were fortunate enough to enjoy perfect health? Progressive taxation, either on wealth or on income, spreads the risk and ensures that the rich…

Theatre Persuasion Adapted by Jeff James and James Yeatman, from the novel by Jane Austen Director: Jeff James Royal Exchange Theatre, St Ann’s Square, Manchester (0161-833 9833) Until 24 June Running time: 2hrs (including interval) ★★★★ “Did the gentry frolic semi-naked at foam parties in Jane Austen’s day?” Probably not, said Roger Foss in The Stage. But they do in Jeff James’s “radically rejigged” stage adaptation of her posthumously published last novel. By the time the interval arrives, “mega-gallons of slurp” have descended from the ceiling, and everyone on stage is “wallowing in a sea of bubbles”. Does this “spectacular ejaculation” symbolise class rigidities being swept away on the beach at Lyme Regis? Or does the “orgasmic messiness” represent the liberated passions foaming inside Austen’s heroine, Anne Elliot, who is…

Campania & Jones 23 Ezra Street, London E2 (020-7613 0015) Occupying a fine late-Victorian building in Hoxton, this Italian is a “ramshackle charmer that makes others’ attempts at artless, rustic chic look like a Hilton executive suite”, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Guardian. At lunch, you can get two courses with a glass of wine for £15, and “everything is as fresh and salty and real as a saunter down the Spaccanapoli” in Naples. My vegetarian pal was “in heaven” with handmade tortelli, scattered with spears of al dente asparagus and a purée of verdant spring vegetables. “Ditto with stout, blowsy” gnudi (literally, “nakeds”: the filling of stuffed pasta without the pasta) bathed in butter, Parmesan and leaves of crisped sage. There are wide pappardelle, “somewhat overdressed in a…

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express When Volvo first launched the XC60, in 2007, there weren’t many midsize SUVs on the market. Now every major car brand competes in the sector, but Volvo “adds a level of tech and quality that beats most of those cars”. The latest model is similar to the larger XC90 in terms of its tech and mechanics, but is more oriented towards comfort. “This will be a very easy car to live with day-to-day.” The Daily Telegraph A lower, wider, tauter stance and “meaner-looking headlights” are what set this XC60 apart from its predecessor. The interior is handsome, but perhaps a bit too heavy on detail, “with layers of chrome, wood, leather, stitching, more chrome, more stitching and more leather”. There is room…

Daredevil TV presenter from Blue Peter’s golden age John Noakes 1934-2017 In the 1970s, when Britain had only three TV channels, and even VCRs were almost unheard of, eight million children tuned in to watch Blue Peter. And for many of them, the main attraction was John Noakes (and his excitable Border collie, Shep). Boyish and tousle-haired, Noakes brought a fresh energy to the magazine programme, whether he was struggling with sticky back plastic, or crashing a bobsleigh on the Cresta Run at 90mph. The show’s resident daredevil, he broke the civilian free-fall parachute jump record in 1973 (five miles); and in 1977, he climbed, without a harness, 170ft up two ladders, and over a protruding edge, to clean the pigeon droppings off the top of…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys Brooks MacDonald Group Investors Chronicle The wealth manager is performing robustly in uncertain markets, having attracted substantial net inflows, helped by structural drivers such as pension freedom changes. Multi-asset funds are performing well too. Buy. £24.81. Go-Ahead Group The Daily Telegraph The rail and bus operator has been hit by the Southern network rail disruption. But it is cash generative, with a strong balance sheet, and the 5.6% yield is covered by bus profits. Buy. £18.13. Kainos Group The Times Kainos provides “exceptional” digital tech solutions to clients including the NHS, the Home Office and the NSPCC. Currently benefiting from strong demand and expansion; revenues have jumped 9%. Buy. 240.5p. Lloyds Banking Group The Mail on Sunday Having cut costs and streamlined, Lloyds…

“Lego minifigures – the 4cm-tall yellow characters with dotty eyes and hooks for hands – now outnumber humans” From its founding in 1932 until 1998, Lego had never posted a loss. But by 2003 it was in big trouble. Sales were down 30% year-on-year and it was $800m in debt. An internal report revealed it hadn’t added anything of value to its portfolio for a decade. Consultants hurried to Lego’s Danish HQ. They advised diversification. The brick had been around since the 1950s, they said, it was obsolete. Lego should look to Mattel, home to Fisher-Price, Barbie, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys – a company whose portfolio was broad and varied. Lego took their advice: in doing so, it almost went bust. It introduced jewellery for girls. There were Lego…

Dublin Ireland’s new prime minister: Leo Varadkar, the openly gay son of an Indian immigrant, has been elected leader of Ireland’s governing centre-right Fine Gael party and will become prime minister (or taoiseach) as early as next week. Varadkar (right), the social protection minister in departing PM Enda Kenny’s government, was the first openly gay government minister in the Republic’s history, and, at 38, will be its youngest ever PM. He was a doctor before entering politics; his father is a doctor from Mumbai, and his mother a nurse from County Waterford. He won a clear majority among Fine Gael’s MPs and councillors, who make up two parts of the party’s three-part electoral college. Among party members, however, he lost out to the only other candidate, Simon Coveney. Though Varadkar’s…

FRANCE Macron won’t let the media bully him L’Obs (Paris) After less than a month in office, President Macron is being tested by scandal, says Sylvain Courage. Richard Ferrand, his campaign manager and now housing minister, stands accused of financial impropriety: as former head of an insurance fund, he is said, among other things, to have channelled the fund’s legal contracts to a former partner. Ferrand insists it was all above board, but it’s exactly the sort of sleaze – abuse of position to benefit friends and family – that scuppered the chances of Macron’s conservative rival François Fillon. Macron had sworn he would “rehabilitate the morals of the political establishment” and force any minister put under judicial investigation to resign. And the public is taking him at his word.…

The advice to wash your hands in warm soapy water is flawed: you can get rid of just as many germs using cold water. For a study in the US, scientists asked 20 people to wash their hands 20 times each with water that was 15°C (59°F), 26°C (79°F) or 38°C (100°F), and with varying amounts of soap – 0.5ml, 1ml or 2ml. Each time, their hands had first been covered with harmless bacteria. The analysis showed that it didn't make any difference how warm the water was, or how much soap was used. “This study may have significant implications towards water energy, since using cold water saves more energy,” said study author Professor Donald Schaffner. “Also, we learned even washing for ten seconds significantly removed bacteria from the hands.”…

Since the start of the 21st century, Real Madrid have tried to create “the ultimate winning machine”, said Sam Wallace in The Sunday Telegraph. Now, at last, that “dream has been realised”. Last Saturday, a fortnight after becoming Spanish champions, Madrid thrashed Juventus 4-1 in Cardiff to become the first side to win the Champions League two seasons in a row, and for the third time in four years. Juventus had conceded just three goals in their previous 12 European matches, yet they were “ruthlessly exposed” by Zinedine Zidane’s players. So impressive were Madrid, particularly their “dominant” midfield of Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Casemiro, that there can be no doubt they are “one of the greatest teams in history”. As always, Cristiano Ronaldo was at the centre of the…

To The Daily Telegraph At least five of the parties involved in the leaders’ debate last Wednesday night have no chance of being in power and were thus able to promise the Earth while never having to be accountable. It is ridiculous that this rightly termed “coalition of chaos” should have been given equal airtime to take potshots at a potential government that will actually deal with realities. Add to this the rowdiness which is second nature to the Left, and we had a recipe for perhaps the least balanced such programme ever. This was predictable and the BBC should be ashamed. David Sheret, Leeds, West Yorkshire To The Independent The BBC have been accused of bias by sections of the press, regarding last week’s general election debate, after the…

Best books… Carlo Rovelli Scientist Carlo Rovelli, author of bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, picks five of his favourite books. His latest book, Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, is published by Penguin at £9.99 History: A Novel by Elsa Morante, 1974 (out of print). I consider Elsa Morante to be the best Italian novelist ever. The title La Storia plays on the double meaning of “storia” in Italian: history and the story. And both are here. But it is Elsa’s compassionate and enchanted gaze on the tragedy of life during the Second World War, where even those committing the worst atrocities are regarded with affection, that remains with the reader forever. The child character, little Useppe, is unforgettable. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, 1955…

Green nahm jim cured salmon with apple and dill Serves 4 as a snack or a side 1 sour eating apple, grated 10g coriander leaves, roughly torn 10g mint leaves, roughly torn 200g salmon, bloodline and pin bones removed, sliced into 1cm-thick pieces 10g dill, chopped For the nahm jim (dipping sauce): 2 tbsps chopped coriander roots 8 garlic cloves, peeled 8 green bird’s eye chillies pinch of coarse sea salt 2 tbsps caster sugar juice of 5 limes juice of 2 mandarins (or clementines) 4 tbsps fish sauce • First make the nahm jim. Using a pestle and mortar, pound the coriander roots, garlic and then chillies (in that order) to a coarse paste, using the salt as an abrasive, if necessary. Add the sugar and pound for a…

Saudi Aramco: City spoilsports? Saudi Arabia’s powerful deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, will shortly make a final decision about where to list the country’s $2trn state oil company, said the FT. And the stakes are hotting up. New York and London have been in battle for months to secure what is likely to be “the world’s biggest ever flotation”. New York was thought to have the edge, because Saudi Aramco’s financial advisers considered it the more “prestigious” venue, with “the deepest pool of investors”. But lawyers trump financial advisors, and Aramco’s legal firm, White & Case, has reportedly warned that a US listing would be “reckless” given the country’s “litigious culture” – making London the “front runner”. Hosting Saudi Aramco would certainly be a feather in the City’s post-Brexit…

The threat of a Chinese credit crunch Nathaniel Taplin The Wall Street Journal For the first time in almost 30 years, the credit agency Moody’s has downgraded China’s national rating, arguing that a steady buildup of debt could erode the country’s strength in the years ahead. The immediate concern, says Nathaniel Taplin, is “short-term stability”. Beijing’s recent attempt to tackle China’s dangerously leveraged financial markets, by clamping down on corporate bonds and bank lending, hasn’t “sparked the systemic credit crunch that many feared”. Yet its cash-strapped firms have only avoided more defaults by “skulking back” to shadow lenders instead. China’s economy remains in “decent shape” for now (industrial profits jumped 14% in Q1), and policymakers are unlikely to tolerate a slowdown ahead of a critical Communist Party congress in the…