Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1233 i The Week

What happened Hunt’s uphill battle Boris Johnson embarked on a round of public appearances this week in a bid to counter the impression that he had been hiding from scrutiny. The man hoping to beat him to the Tory leadership, Jeremy Hunt, had accused him of being “a coward” and “a bottler” who was trying to “slink through the back door” of No. 10. However, Johnson continued to decline to answer questions about an incident last week when police were called to the flat that he shares with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, following reports of a noisy altercation (see page 22). In a series of interviews, Johnson said he would seek major changes to Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, including the removal of the Irish backstop, adding that he was committed…

Police investigating the possible leak of one of this year’s A-level maths papers arrested two men on suspicion of theft this week. The pair, aged 29 and 32, were later released, but remain under investigation. Two questions from the Edexcel paper were posted on Twitter on 13 June, the day before the exam, with details crossed out, along with an offer to supply the full paper for £70. Reportedly, the whole paper was being circulated on some message groups on the morning of the exam. The A-level leaks were among several this exam season. Police are also looking into how the AQA GCSE religious studies paper came to be seen on Snapchat in advance of the exam – sat on 20 May – by an unknown number of students.…

“Today we demonise dads of the recent past for being uncaring. For failing to change nappies, read stories, provide unconditional love. But as an anxious dad who is always desperate to impress his 15-year-old son, I envy the dads of old. They didn’t worry about being a Good Dad or a Bad Dad. They were just... dads. And they didn’t worry about boring their children, either. They’d drag them off for long, tedious Sunday car trips that ended in places of ‘historical interest’ that nobody found interesting but Dad. And did they care if their kids were asphyxiated with boredom? Not a bit. Children had not yet discovered that being bored was a violation of their human rights.” Cosmo Landesman in The Spectator…

Britain must pick the US over China Iain Martin The Times A decade ago, Britain’s governing class took a big and, it turns out, reckless gamble, says Iain Martin. It bet on China. Desperate to boost growth after the 2008 financial crisis, David Cameron and George Osborne sought to build lucrative trade links with the rising power. And the idea bore fruit: China is building the Hinkley Point nuclear power station; last year its companies completed transactions in the UK worth £3.7bn. But suddenly “the terms of trade” have changed. The US has made it clear we have to choose: it’s either Washington or Beijing. We can embrace China, working closely with the likes of tech giant Huawei – or we can retain our special intelligence-sharing relationship with the US.…

Benefits of a “dose” of nature We all know that it’s good to get some fresh air: countless studies have shown that spending time in parks and other green spaces has a positive impact on everything from stress levels to heart health, and in some countries, doctors prescribe it. Now, researchers have sought to work out just how much exposure to the great outdoors we need to reap maximum benefit – and the answer turns out to be 120 minutes a week. The team, from the University of Exeter, analysed data on more than 20,000 people who had been asked to record their activities in the past week, and to rate their overall health and well-being. They found that people who’d spent two hours a week in nature were significantly…

“The scenes of death are etched in my memory,” said Ian Birrell in The Times – “bodies still strapped in their seats, burnt corpses... the limbless trunk, the hand stretching from the grass like something out of a horror movie.” These remains belonged to some of the 298 people (among them ten Britons) killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down, en route from the Netherlands to Malaysia, by a surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. Now, almost five years on, Dutch-led investigators have issued murder charges against four men in connection with the crime. The four – who include three Russian nationals with links to Moscow’s intelligence services – are alleged to have organised the delivery (and swift retrieval) of a…

It was one of the darkest days in the history of the Women’s World Cup, said Ian Herbert in the Daily Mail. There were moments, during England’s 3-0 win over Cameroon in the last 16, when it looked as if the match might be abandoned altogether. On not one but two occasions, the Cameroonians were so angry at VAR (video assistant referee) decisions that they momentarily refused to play. But what was particularly shocking was the team’s “unadulterated aggression, bordering on assault”. There was the “nasty little elbow” delivered into Nikita Parris’s face by Yvonne Leuko, the gob of spit that Augustine Ejangue directed at Toni Duggan’s arm. These were scenes “straight out of the playground”. Both of the contentious VAR decisions were spot on, said Louise Taylor in The…

No barriers to free trade To The Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson recently suggested that the best way to manage Brexit without economic disturbance was to use the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Article 24 to trade freely with the EU on a temporary basis, while a formal free-trade agreement is negotiated. The BBC, certain politicians and even Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, appear to be almost wilfully misunderstanding this suggestion in order to deny its possibility. On the Today programme on 21 June, Carney was even pressed by the interviewer to say that Johnson’s idea was “rubbish”. They are all being disingenuous. The plain fact is that Article 24 does permit tariff-free trade to continue pending the conclusion of a full free-trade agreement. All that…

Inspired by the Laurie Lee book, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, seasoned adventurer Alastair Humphreys pushes himself to his very limits, busking his way across Spain with a violin he can barely play. Laurie left the village he grew up in and embarked on his adventure in 1935, and for 15 years Humphreys had dreamed of retracing his footsteps, yet could never get past the hurdle of being distinctly unmusical. He decided to go anyway. The journey was his most terrifying yet, risking failure and humiliation every day and finding himself truly vulnerable to the rhythms of the road and of his own life. But along the way, he found humility, redemption and triumph.…

This “vivid and atmospheric” recording of Enrique Granados’s hour-long opera was taken from a performance at the Barbican last year, said Stephen Pettitt in The Sunday Times. The opera – inspired by Goya’s paintings of working-class life in Madrid – premiered in 1916 in New York. (The composer died shortly after, when the ship returning him to Europe was torpedoed in the English Channel.) A colourful story of rivalry and vengeance, it provides a framework for “deftly orchestrated music of passion”. And conductor Josep Pons energises his forces “with electrifying power”. Goyescas is rarely presented as a fully staged opera because the libretto is dramatically thin and predictable, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian. The work’s real attractions are the “abundance of melodic invention” and the “colourful scoring”, both of…

Paula Rego is one of our greatest living artists, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Born in Portugal in 1935, she grew up in the dark years of Salazar’s fascist dictatorship before moving to London to study art in the 1950s. The paintings she created in the years that followed never bowed to “fads and fashions”, instead cleaving to a distinct figurative style that explored subjects few others dared to tackle – violence and tyranny, gender discrimination and sexual abuse. Perhaps as a result, she never received the same respect as lesser contemporaries, and it is only now that the 84-year-old is at long last getting the recognition she deserves. For anyone unfamiliar with her “powerfully authentic” paintings, this riveting exhibition offers an opportunity to view her career in context.…

Best books… David Kynaston The historian who wrote Austerity Britain picks five great memoirs about postwar Britain. His latest book, Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem, co-authored with Francis Green, is published by Bloomsbury at £20 Walking in the Shade by Doris Lessing, 1997 (Fourth Estate £9.99). This is Lessing’s non-fiction counterpart to The Golden Notebook, her landmark 1962 novel of political and feminist engagement. Like a dog with a bone, she wrestles with her relationship with communism – the defining issue of the 1950s generation, as Brexit has perforce become to ours. A memoir of moral weight and human quiddity. The Centre of the Bed by Joan Bakewell, 2003 (Sceptre £10.99). A classic postwar meritocrat, going from working-class Stockport to a starring role on BBC’s Late Night Line-Up…

Tips of the week… how to survive wild encounters ● If you’re in crocodile territory, avoid going to places where animals gather to drink. That's where the crocs tend to lurk. ● Hippos are very territorial – and deadly (they kill more humans in Africa than any other mammal species). If you see one, run as fast as you can to higher ground; they’re not good at getting up hills. ● Most snakes (with the exception of some particularly vicious and territorial vipers) will avoid you if you make a lot of noise. ● Big cats will often come at you from behind. In parts of Bangladesh, local workers wear masks on the backs of their heads to ward off leopards and tigers. ● With sharks, try to use a…

Cornwall with Nick Bailey The TV presenter and garden designer will join you for a day on this fabulous 4-day tour of the county’s finest gardens. From £995pp. 01334-441976. Depart 13 September. D-Day with Dan Snow A memorable 6-day river cruise from Paris to the D-Day beaches with the renowned historian and presenter, from £1,495pp. 01858-588725. Depart 4 October. Cruise with Sir Ranulph Experience the Northern Lights on this 12-day cruise along the Norwegian fjords with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, from £1,849pp. 020-3993 8664. Depart 12 December. India with Jeremy Paxman Enjoy an immersive 15-day tour of the Golden Triangle and join the journalist on a luxury Ganges cruise, from £4,699pp. 0808-239 8947. Depart 28 November. For full itinerary and T&Cs for each trip, visit theweektravel.co.uk/explore…

Patisserie Valerie: further arrests The Serious Fraud Office’s probe into the collapse of the café chain Patisserie Valerie has claimed more scalps, said Sabah Meddings in The Sunday Times. Ex-finance director Chris Marsh was arrested and bailed last October, and in a “swoop” last week, five more people were collared; they don’t include ex-executive chairman Luke Johnson. PatVal’s shares were suspended last year after the discovery of a £40m hole in its books. It later emerged that “cheques worth millions had been used to artificially inflate the company’s cash reserves” and that “forged company minutes had helped run up secret overdrafts of almost £10m”. The scandal has engulfed accountants Grant Thornton, whose role as auditor is being investigated – but not, it seems, Johnson, said Matthew Vincent in the…

The economics of a snap election Larry Elliott The Guardian Britain’s “struggling economy” presents the next PM “with an electoral teaser”, says Larry Elliott. Could the Tories win a snap election? Plenty in the party think they could, citing the example of 1992 when John Major “won an overall majority against all the odds”. Back then, after all, the economy was in a worse state than now, yet it didn’t seem to matter. Indeed, the lesson drawn was that “when times are tough, voters are fearful of change”. And if they wouldn’t back Neil Kinnock in 1992, why would they elect Jeremy Corbyn now? Things may not be so simple this time – after a decade of austerity, the Tories won’t “automatically win on economic competence”. Still, the new PM…

● A little too green? In a speech to City leaders this week, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, confirmed Labour’s draconian plan to “delist companies that fail to meet environmental criteria from the London Stock Exchange”, said Anna Isaac in The Daily Telegraph. The move – among a host of policies that Labour has branded its “Green Industrial Revolution” – is part of a wider shift to “divert investment away from fossil fuels”. But it went down like a lead balloon in the Square Mile. Not least because McDonnell’s planned review of how the City is responding to the “ climate emergency” will also take in the “full gamut of institutions from hedge funds to asset managers and commercial banks”. ● Reality check McDonnell’s promise to make companies focus on…

Controversy of the week Facebook’s next move Hasn’t Facebook got enough problems, wondered Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. The social media giant is already facing existential threats on all sides. It’s still dealing with the fall-out from Russia’s use of its network to interfere in the last US election. It’s being investigated for massive privacy violations and anti-competitive practices. But instead of going into a defensive crouch, Facebook is still “merrily” thinking about extending its dominance – by, of all things, creating its own global currency. Last week, it announced the creation of “Libra” – a new digital currency that is backed by 28 other big firms including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber, and which is due to launch next year. Mark Zuckerberg’s grand vision is that Facebook’s 2.4…

Boris Johnson’s lead among Tory voters slumped after news broke of his row with girlfriend Carrie Symonds, according to a Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday. Last Thursday, he was 27 points ahead of Jeremy Hunt; by Saturday, just 11 points. However, a ComRes/ Sunday Telegraph poll taken in the days before and after the news broke found 61% of Tory councillors intended to vote for Johnson. 43% of Tory members say they would prefer not to have a Muslim PM. YouGov/The Guardian 57% of teachers say their workload is “unmanageable”. English primary school teachers report working longer hours than those in all but one of the 48 other countries surveyed. OECD/The Guardian…

Liam Gallagher’s family Liam Gallagher hasn’t spoken to his father in years. Tommy Gallagher was a drunk, and abusive. But though he beat up Liam’s mother, Peggy, and his two older brothers, Tommy was never violent with Liam. “With me he was half decent – which is even more f*****- up because you’re seeing that and you’re seeing this.” Peggy fled with her sons when Liam was seven, and he has barely seen Tommy since, but he never felt his absence because his mother gave him all he needed. “She was there with the cuddles [and] with the whack,” he told Krissi Murison in The Times. “Any good that comes out of me is all from Peggy and all her sisters and brothers – they were a good bunch of…

A woman who dozed off on a flight from Quebec to Toronto awoke to find herself alone and stranded in a dark and freezing cold aeroplane. “As someone with an anxiety disorder, I can tell you how terrifying this was,” said Tiffani O’Brien. To make matters worse, she couldn’t charge her mobile phone to call for help; when she managed to find a torch and open one of the doors, she was confronted by a 45ft drop. She flashed distress signals and was finally rescued by a baggage handler. Air Canada said that it was “still reviewing this matter”. The world’s largest coin pyramid has been built by a car salesman from Arizona using 1,030,315 American pennies. Cory Nielsen took three years to complete the project, separating out the dirty…

POLAND America is an expensive guest Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw) The Polish president has been played by Donald Trump, says Paweł Wronski. Andrzej Duda touted his recent trip to the White House as a near-total success. The US, he declared, has agreed to add 1,000 troops to the 4,500 already deployed here. Poland will also host a new US divisional HQ, a joint US-Polish training centre and a squadron of drones. All this, he said, will guarantee our security by deterring Russian aggression. But it turns out that the $2bn bill will be paid by Poland, not the US. And though Duda tried to stroke Trump’s ego by saying that a mooted larger-scale facility could be named “Fort Trump”, the US president crucially declined to commit to an official US base…

When dogs raise their eyebrows and gaze at us imploringly, the expression seems uncannily human, as if they have worked out exactly how to tug on our heartstrings. And in fact, a new study suggests that dogs did evolve their “sad eyes” to appeal to our nurturing side. The researchers compared the facial anatomies of dogs and their closest relative, the wolf. As dogs only split from wolves some 33,000 years ago, when they first became domesticated, comparisons between the species can help establish how dogs have been affected by their interactions with humans. The UK-US team dissected six dogs (including a chihuahua, a labrador and a bloodhound) and four grey wolves, and found that while all the dogs had particular forehead muscles that would have enabled them to raise…

Online clothes retailers were offering some absurd bargains last week, said Sandra Laville in The Guardian. Boohoo had a body-con minidress for only £2.85, while Missguided took low prices even further by promoting a £1 bikini. Such items, churned out by companies and typically discarded by consumers within weeks, epitomise fast fashion. It’s a booming industry today, but there’s mounting concern about the hidden costs behind the cheap price tags. While it’s no secret that garment factories often underpay their workers, fast fashion also exacts a steep environmental toll. Globally, the textile industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than international aviation and shipping combined. It also consumes vast volumes of water and is a leading cause of plastic pollution – “as much as 35% of microplastics found in…

The French Grand Prix was “not so much a race as a massacre”, said Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail. Lewis Hamilton dominated on Sunday from beginning to end, and finished a staggering 18 seconds ahead of his nearest challenger – his Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas. Hamilton has won six of the season’s eight races so far, and come second in the other two. He is now only 12 wins away from matching Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 grand prix victories, a feat that once looked unmatchable. But Hamilton’s “relentless” brilliance comes at a cost: it is “practically killing his sport”. Formula One is plagued by issues, said Rebecca Clancy in The Times. The aerodynamics of the cars make overtaking difficult: the drivers who began Sunday’s race in the top…

To The Times Tory MPs certainly deserve their reputation as “the world’s most duplicitous electorate” (report, “Threats and trickery as Team Boris tightened thumbscrews”). They gained it at the very first contest in 1965. The victorious Ted Heath compared notes with the defeated Reggie Maudling; they found that 45 MPs had pledged support to both of them. Airey Neave lulled Heath into false complacency in 1975 by telling everyone that Margaret Thatcher had no more than 70 backers when he was confident of 120. In November 1990, Bernard Ingham noted in his diary that Thatcher was safe as long as 15% of her backers were not lying, but as he noted sourly afterwards “the whole lot lied”. There have been other dirty tricks too. In 2003, when 29 letters were…

Yesterday Dir: Danny Boyle 1hr 56mins (12A) Genial Richard Curtis romcom ★★★ Imagine a world without The Beatles. It’s not easy, even if you try, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian – unless, that is, you watch Richard Curtis’s new comedy, which takes this as its premise. Himesh Patel plays a struggling musician, who regains consciousness after an accident to discover that John, Paul, George and Ringo never existed and no one knows their songs. He is thus able to pass them off as his own and gain instant stardom. If a team of consultants created a crowd-pleasing British movie, it would come up with something like this, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. It stars Lily James as the protagonist’s best friend and is buoyed by a stream…

Neither Jazzer nor Alistair have heard from Jim since he left. Tony and Lilian discuss Peggy’s proposal. Tony thinks it will tear the family apart and is going to try and make Peggy see this. Philip moves in with Kirsty and encourages her to apply for the job with Borsetshire Wildlife Trust. Kirsty is mindful that it’s less pay than Grey Gables, so she wouldn’t be able to contribute as much financially to the relationship. Philip assures her he doesn’t care. Tom tells Tony about his and Natasha’s sustainable farming idea. They want to turn Ambridge into an orchard village, planting fruit trees on every free bit of land. Tony thinks Tom’s being disloyal. Shula and Alistair are sad to hear Dorothy’s split up with Dan. Adam offers Jazzer the…

Pick Up Pintxos at the Waiting Room Harbour Arm, Folkestone, Kent ( folkestoneharbourarm.co.uk ) Gianni Modena learnt his trade at Arzak, the three-Michelin-starred San Sebastián restaurant that often graces lists of the world’s best. I’ve never been to Arzak, says Giles Coren in The Times – but the three dishes that Modena cooked for me at this restaurant in Folkestone “were the three best Basque things” I’ve eaten anywhere. Hand-formed croquetas were golden, crisp and hot – and filled with a béchamel that oozed from the centre “like the serranoscented lava of an eruption on Mount Olympus”. Salt cod fritters were stunning: cubes of sweet, lightly salted fish in “batter shaped like a cartoon explosion” – and sat in a perfect bright yellow aioli. And then a…

Auto Express Jeep has given its small crossover a facelift, in an attempt to make it more “environmentally conscientious” without sacrificing its off-road prowess. The new one-litre and 1.3-litre petrol engines are welcome additions to an otherwise diesel-heavy range, and the car’s “rugged charm” and “true SUV styling” remain intact. Still, there are rivals that are better built and “sharper” to drive. The Daily Telegraph Inside and out, the Renegade is “charismatic”. Care has been “lavished” on details from the chunky central screen to its air vents, making it feel “a bit more special” than similar cars. But while there’s plenty of headroom, it’s quite narrow. Both legroom and boot space are “at a premium”; and you’ll want to opt for at least a midrange version, as the entry-level spec…

Hampton Manor West Midlands Set in the village of Hampton in Arden (between Birmingham and Coventry), Hampton Manor was developed by Robert Peel’s son Frederick. It’s a beautiful house, with Gothic turrets, mullioned windows and 45 acres of grounds, and it’s now also a fine hotel, says Richard Mellor in The Times. Its restaurant has been awarded a Michelin star for “scintillating” seasonal dishes. Rooms are “huge” and “effortlessly stylish”, with retro rocking chairs, bubble lamps, leaning ladder shelves and William Morris wallpaper. It’s generally “blessedly quiet”, though the drone of low-flying planes sometimes “irks”. Doubles from £190 b&b.hamptonmanor.com.…

A former professor of modern history at Oxford, Norman Stone, who has died aged 78, was one of the most prolific of the “media dons” who came to prominence in the 1980s, and the most notorious, said The Daily Telegraph. Known to his admirers as a brilliant historian and linguist, and to his detractors as a “reactionary loudmouth”, he held strong views, and was not afraid to share them – whether on students (“smelly and inattentive”), his fellow academics (“a dreadful collection of deadbeats”) or homosexuality (“a deviation”). Other pet hates included the welfare state, Edward Heath (a “flabby-faced coward”) and men with beards. He was dubious when Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a fellow, started admitting female undergraduates in 1978. And he was known for making advances on…

The US Federal Reserve signalled it is ready to cut interest rates to bolster the American economy, sending US stock markets to a new record high. Having clawed back the ground lost in May’s mini sell-off, the S&P 500 is now on course for its best half-year since 2010. The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold and cut its forecast for second-quarter growth to zero, warning that the risks to the economy are rising. In a generally positive week for markets, gold and bitcoin also made big gains. The latter soared to nearly $13,000/unit – partly on the back of hopes that Facebook’s libra could prove a game-changer for cryptocurrencies. The BoE governor, Mark Carney, warned that some 150,000 UK businesses are still not ready to keep exporting…

Stewart Butterfield In Silicon Valley, they say that coming up with a viral hit product is “like catching lightning in a bottle”, said Richard Waters in the FT. Slack founder Stewart Butterfield, 46, has managed the trick twice: an earlier hit was the pioneering photo site Flickr. A philosopher by education and temperament, Butterfield has always had a knack for reinvention. Born on a remote commune in British Columbia, Canada – where his father had fled to escape the Vietnam draft – he changed his name at 12 from “Dharma” to “the more prosaic Stewart”. One fan puts Butterfield’s success as a software designer down to his “deeply humanistic” streak. “If he’d lived in the Middle Ages [he] would have produced the perfect leather bag, with just the right stitching…

A pick of some of the best business and finance books to take to the beach Zucked by Roger McNamee (HarperCollins £16.99). McNamee, a pioneering investor in the social media site, “argues forcefully that Facebook has become a sinister and dangerous phenomenon”, says The Sunday Times. The FT’s Andrew Hill calls his account “one of the best inside stories of the unravelling” of Facebook’s reputation. Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI by John Brockman (Penguin Press £23.99). “An intriguing selection of essays” from leading thinkers about artificial intelligence, says John Thornhill in the FT. While Jaan Tallinn predicts the end of the “human-brain regime”, Alison Gopnik reminds us that AI cannot yet solve problems that a four-year-old can answer with ease. Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market…

An American couple have been accused of staging an elaborate marriage proposal on Instagram in order to win lucrative endorsement deals. Gabriel Grossman’s “surprise” proposal to Marissa Fuchs, who is a professional “influencer” and works at Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, involved a three-day scavenger-hunt from New York to Miami to Paris. It went viral, but it now seems that beforehand, they’d sent a sponsorship “pitch” to various firms, with details of what Fuchs could post during the trip. The couple claim this was just a “guide” for their friends and family. A cashless version of Monopoly is to hit shops in August. It will have a “voice banking” assistant to keep track of transactions, with a top-hat-shaped speaker.…

Dublin Murder case: Two 14-year-old Irish boys have been convicted of the premeditated murder of a vulnerable schoolgirl, a crime that has shocked and horrified the country. The boys were 13 when they lured Ana Kriégel – a lonely 14-year-old who’d been badly bullied on social media – to a derelict farmhouse in the Dublin suburb of Lucan, where she was sexually assaulted and killed. The boys – the youngest people ever convicted of murder in Ireland – had assembled what police called a “murder kit”, including a homemade mask, shin pads and gloves, and weapons, including a concrete block. Paris Fraud case: French prosecutors have revealed details of what they say is one of the most brazen frauds of modern times, in which dozens of rich and powerful people…

1 Madame George, written and performed by Van Morrison 2 Paranoid Android, written and performed by Radiohead 3* You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, written and performed by Bob Dylan 4 High Tide or Low Tide by Bob Marley, performed by The Wailers 5 Landslide (live at Warner Brothers studios) by Stevie Nicks, performed by Fleetwood Mac 6 That’s Life by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon, performed by Frank Sinatra 7 Winterlude by Bob Dylan, performed by Guy Garvey and Peter Jobson 8 Crazy in Love by Rich Harrison, Beyoncé Knowles, Eugene Record and Shawn Carter, performed by Beyoncé and Jay-Z Book: The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski Luxury: a carpenters’ toolkit * Choice if allowed only one record…

Despite its remote position, New Zealand has a long and successful history of exporting frozen meat – first to Britain and then to the rest of the world. After 98 days at sea, the first shipment arrived in London on the Dunedin in 1882, a turning point for the Kiwi economy. Over the next century, transport costs were reduced and farm practices fine-tuned: geneticists, agronomists, soil scientists, and plant and animal breeders all helped drive efficiencies and economies of scale that – combined with the natural advantages of climate and vast areas of luxuriant grassland – gave it a competitive edge over European rivals. In the 1970s, though, it encountered two major problems: Britain entered the EEC, so its market was no longer so open to New Zealand’s exports; and…

Europeans are more likely than anyone else in the world to be suspicious of vaccinations, a new study has found. Overall, 79% of people worldwide “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that vaccines are safe, and 7% somewhat or strongly disagree; 84% agree vaccines are effective, while 5% disagree. But the rates vary enormously in different parts of the world. In North America, 72% agree that vaccines are safe. In Western Europe, 59% do, and in Eastern Europe, only 40% do. France – which is among the European countries currently battling a measles outbreak – was found to be the most sceptical nation by the Wellcome Trust research: there, 33% of people do not agree that vaccinations are safe (the highest rate globally). A further 19% of French people do not believe…

Pat Cash (pictured) has faced financial difficulties over the years, but he has a reliable friend to bail him out: God. “Whenever I need money, God sends some,” the former Wimbledon champion told The Mail on Sunday. “Just enough to pay the bills. It happens all the time. Whenever I am in trouble or stuck, I get a new deal, renew a contract or am offered another income stream. This has happened 20 times. It’s weird.” It started when he was struggling after his divorce in 2002. “I remember one day looking up to the sky and going, ‘God, will you please take over all my finances?’ Within hours, a friend called and asked me to play a tennis event which paid several thousand pounds and the highest fee I…

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Douglas Adams, quoted in The Guardian “I wear my enemies like medals.” Norman Stone, quoted in The Sunday Times “History is a slippery business; the past is not a constant but a landscape that mutates according to argument and opinion.” Penelope Lively, quoted in Forbes “Everybody was so gaga about Steve Jobs, but I picture him in hell running from demons who want a selfie.” Jim Carrey blames the Apple founder for the popularity of selfies, quoted in the I newspaper “It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.” Bishop Berkeley, quoted in The Guardian “People do not change, they are merely revealed.” Writer Anne Enright, quoted in The Independent “If…

The bad boys of bowls It’s hard to think of a more sedate pastime than lawn bowls, said Jonathan Paige in The Times. But in Cornwall, bowlers are seeing red on the green. Umpires in the west of the county have been subjected to so much abuse during matches that they are threatening to pull out of officiating altogether, “unless players learn to control their tempers”. A number of bowlers are being investigated, and could even face bans. But the “bad boys of bowling” aren’t only limited to Cornwall. Last year, the Shropshire Crown Green Bowling Association introduced new fines to tackle heavy-drinking spectators who were “behaving more like football hooligans than bowling fans”. Murray’s winning return Andy Murray’s comeback “could hardly have gone better”, said Mike Dickson in the…

The Art of Statistics by David Spiegelhalter Spiegelhalter guides the reader through the essential principles we need in order to derive knowledge from data. Drawing on real world problems to introduce conceptual issues, he shows us how statistics can help us determine the luckiest passenger on the Titanic, whether serial killer Harold Shipman could have been caught earlier, and if screening for ovarian cancer is beneficial. Extraordinary Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson A journey into the weird, wonderful and truly astonishing lives of the small but mighty creatures who keep the world turning. Out of sight, underfoot, unseen beyond fleeting scuttles or darting flights, insects occupy a hidden world, yet are essential to sustaining life on earth. Insects influence our ecosystem like a ripple effect on water, and this is their…

Traditionally, the streaming service Netflix has held statistics about its viewing figures close to its chest. It made an exception last week, however, with the announcement that 30 million subscriber accounts had streamed its new comedy thriller, Murder Mystery, in its first three days of release, said Leo Benedictus in The Guardian. Had it been released in the cinema, and if you imagine that, for each account, two people watched it, this would make it the third-best opening weekend ever. Which just goes to show that “30 million couch potatoes can be wrong”, said Melanie McDonagh in the Daily Mail. This Agatha Christie spoof stars Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler as a hapless American couple who get drawn into a glamorous if implausible murder mystery plot aboard a yacht on…

It had been missing for almost 300 years, says Harriet Sherwood in The Observer. But now a portrait of “one of history’s most formidable women” by “one of the world’s greatest painters” has been rediscovered at last. Painted around 1650, Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj (pictured) depicts “the most influential, avaricious and manipulative woman in 17th century Rome”. Reputed to be the lover as well as the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X, Donna Olimpia was nicknamed “papessa” (lady pope) because of her power over the Vatican, where she chose cardinals and framed policy. The portrait disappeared in 1724 and resurfaced again in the 1980s – but was believed to be the work of an anonymous Dutch artist until the seller took it to Sotheby’s recently to have it…

Programmes The River: A Year in the Life of the Tay Nature writer Helen Macdonald traces the journey of Scotland’s longest river. Wed 3 July, BBC4 21:00 (90mins). Anna: The Woman Who Went to Fight Isis The story of 26-year-old Anna Campbell from East Sussex, who fought with Kurdish forces. Wed 3 July, BBC2 21:30 (60mins). Serengeti Star Wars actor John Boyega narrates this six-part series that follows a year in the life of some of the Serengeti’s most extraordinary animals. Thur 4 July, BBC1 20:00 (60mins). 100 Vaginas Laura Dodsworth aimed to normalise vulvas by photographing 100 of them. In this acclaimed, moving and funny documentary, first shown earlier this year, she talks to 18 of her subjects about their attitude to their vaginas. Thur 4 July, More4 22:00…

Serves 4 8-10 metal or bamboo skewers 500g aubergine, cut into roughly 3cm cubes salt and black pepper 1 green pepper, cut into roughly 3cm squares 2 blocks of smoked tofu (about 200g), cut into roughly 2cm cubes 6 spring onions, cut into 4cm batons, plus 1 finely sliced to garnish 150g shiitake mushrooms, trimmed and cut to a similar size as the other skewer items 2 tbsps vegetable oil, for brushing 65g fresh ginger, peeled and grated 2½ tbsps brown rice miso paste 2 tsps sesame oil 1 tbsp tamari 1 tsp brown rice vinegar 1 tsp unrefined brown sugar 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted, to serve • If cooking indoors, preheat the oven to 220°C. If cooking outdoors, prepare the grill. Meanwhile, soak the bamboo skewers (if using)…

Birding in the wilds of Colombia With more avian species than any other country, Colombia is paradise for birdwatchers. For a long time, tourists were deterred from its wilder areas by the unstable political situation, but since the Farc peace accord of 2016, these have opened up, says James Lowen in The Daily Telegraph. Birding guides can be found in several places, among the best of which is the Montezuma Ecolodge in the Tatamá National Park in the western Andes. There’s often a “chaos” of hummingbirds around the lodge itself – purple-bibbed whitetips, Andean emeralds, collared incas, tourmaline sunangels – all as jewel-like as their names suggest. Deeper in the rainforest, many-coloured tanagers teem. And high in the cloud forest, there’s a good chance of spotting endangered species such as…

Gloria Vanderbilt, who has died aged 95, was the original “poor little rich girl”: having inherited millions from her father before she was even two, she found herself, aged ten, at the centre of a custody battle that gripped 1930s America, said The Guardian. Creative, beautiful and charismatic, she later made a fortune of her own, selling designer jeans (a concept she invented). Married four times, she counted Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando among her lovers, and Charlie Chaplin and Truman Capote among her friends. Capote is said to have used her as the model for Holly Golightly, the character in his 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Gloria Vanderbilt was born in New York in 1924, the only child of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and his second wife, Gloria. Her mother…

“Slack by name but not by nature” – that was the considered view of investors in New York last week as they cheered the “stellar debut” of the Silicon Valley workplace messaging company, said James Dean in The Times. Slack took off like a rocket – admittedly helped by the cheerful broader market mood following a conciliatory meeting of the US Fed. Shares closed at $38.62 on their first day of trading, valuing the still loss-making outfit at $20bn – more than triple its value just nine months ago. What a contrast to the battering recently meted out to fellow tech unicorns Uber and Lyft. Like Spotify before it, Slack chose to go for “a direct listing” – meaning that no new shares were issued and no money raised. So…

“Step aside Neil Woodford”, the “investment legend” whose empire collapsed recently amid liquidity issues – and make way for French bank Natixis, said Tyler Durden on ZeroHedge. Shares in the bank have plummeted because of concerns over the safety of a London-based subsidiary, H2O Asset Management. The latter was plunged into turmoil after the FT reported its funds hold more than s1.4bn of illiquid bonds, linked to Lars Windhorst – an “enigmatic and flamboyant German financier” with a history of legal troubles and insolvencies. This week, investment manager Morningstar suspended its rating of H2O ’s Allegro fund, citing concerns about “liquidity” and a possible “conflict of interest”. The group has attempted to assure investors the fears are “groundless”. But a few weeks back, Woodford himself said much the same thing…