Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1237 i The Week

What happened Britain’s new PM Boris Johnson became Britain’s 55th prime minister this week, after winning a convincing victory in the Tory leadership race. The former London mayor won the votes of 92,153 members of the Conservative Party, almost twice as many as his rival, Jeremy Hunt. “We are going to get Brexit done on 31 October and take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring in a new spirit of ‘can do’,” declared Johnson after the result was announced. “Like some slumbering giant, we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity.” President Trump tweeted his congratulations, adding: “He will be great!”. The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said he also looked forward to working with Johnson, “to facilitate the ratification of…

A temporary ban has been imposed on boys being sent to Feltham A Young Offender Institution in London, owing to an “extraordinary” collapse in safety and care at the jail. The number of violent incidents involving inmates at the prison, which holds up to 180 boys aged 15 to 18, has risen by 45% this year, while assaults on staff have surged by 150%. Levels of self-harm have also soared. In response, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has triggered an “urgent notification” process, giving the Government 28 days to come up with an action plan.…

Okjökull glacier, Iceland Memorial to lost glacier: A plaque is being erected in the west of Iceland to commemorate the first of the country’s 400 glaciers to be lost to climate change. A century ago the Okjökull glacier (known as Ok) was 50 metres thick and covered 15km². Since then, it has melted so much it is now less than 15 metres thick and covers barely 1km² – and is no longer defined as a glacier. Inscribed in Icelandic and English, the plaque, which is due to be unveiled next month, reads: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years, all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is…

1 A Quiet Place by Norman Meade and Sam Bell, performed by Garnet Mimms and The Enchanters 2 Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On by Dave “Curlee” Williams and James Faye “Roy” Hall, performed by Jerry Lee Lewis 3 I Wonder Why by Melvin Anderson and Ricardo Weeks, performed by Dion and the Belmonts 4 Skylark by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael, performed by Ella Fitzgerald 5 I’ll Keep It with Mine by Bob Dylan, performed by Nico 6 Moonlight in Vermont by Karl Suessdorf and John Blackburn, performed by Frank Sinatra with Billy May and His Orchestra 7 The Black Hills Of Dakota from Calamity Jane by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, performed by Doris Day 8* How Great Thou Art, based on a Swedish language poem by Carl…

Like Trump, Salvini has shattered political norms, and also like Trump, he has relied heavily on social media for his success. His accounts on Twitter, Instagram and, most of all, Facebook are massively popular – he has some 3.8 million Facebook followers. His strategy involves a great deal of tough-guy posturing. Salvini frequently poses wearing a police, coastguard or firefighter’s uniform – he is the nation’s top cop – and uses the platforms to attack opponents. His targets are many and include Emmanuel Macron, whom he has described as “terrible” and, on occasion, the Pope, who has criticised his anti-Roma rhetoric. He uses snappy slogans: La pacchia è finita (“the party is over”) is one his favourites, aimed at would-be migrants. On Mussolini’s birthday, he tweeted the dictator’s famous phrase:…

FRANCE How disaster unfolded at Notre Dame The New York Times It’s now clear that the cathedral of Notre Dame came agonisingly close to total collapse when it caught fire in April, says Elian Peltier. The investigation is not yet complete – but it’s clear already that a “critical mistake” was made in the minutes after the fire started. An elaborate fire-warning system was in place, with sophisticated sensors to pinpoint any outbreak. At 6.18pm on the Monday before Easter it produced an alert, followed by a “nearly indecipherable” code giving the exact location. This was picked up by a security employee who had been on the job just three days. Unable to read the code, he sent a cathedral guard to check the attic of the sacristy: not surprisingly,…

Women and erotic images Women often report being less turned on by sexual imagery than men – and they certainly watch far less pornography. However, in terms of brain activity, the two sexes’ responses to sexual imagery are identical, a new study has found. The researchers analysed data from 61 earlier studies in which both women and men had their brains scanned while viewing explicit photos and videos – and found no functional differences in the two sexes’ neurological responses. These occurred in the exact same brain regions – ones chiefly concerned with emotions and “reward processing circuitry”. This raises the possibility that many women would enjoy sexual imagery more were they not inhibited from doing so by social factors, said the team from the Max Planck Institute for Biological…

Nick Clegg has found the move to Silicon Valley a bit of a culture shock. “There’s lots of sleeveless Patagonia puffa things and shoes with no socks,” he says of his colleagues at Facebook. “I never wear a suit and there’s micro-kitchens everywhere with a mix of healthy foods. Lunch is basically broccoli with some suspect sauce while you’re in a meeting. I stick out like a sore thumb. I honestly think I would blend in more in Sicily or Bavaria.” John Craven has recalled his first celebrity interview for the BBC: during the filming of Get Carter in Newcastle in 1971, he spoke to Michael Caine in a tough nearby pub. Afterwards, he offered the star (pictured) a drink. “It’s a little early,” said Caine, “so I’ll just have…

They’re “a resilient bunch”, the Liberal Democrats, said The Times. When Vince Cable reluctantly took over (unopposed) as their new leader after the 2017 election, the party seemed to be all but finished. But the Lib Dems were in surprisingly rude health this week as they chose Cable’s deputy, Jo Swinson, to become their first female leader. She was elected with nearly two-thirds of the votes cast by party members, easily beating her rival, the former energy secretary Ed Davey. Liberalism is “alive and thriving”, Swinson declared in her acceptance speech, in which she pledged to “take on nationalism and populism” and to do “whatever it takes to stop Brexit”. She stood before the party, she said, as a possible prime minister. That claim is “probably hyperbole”, but of this…

Even in the wind and the biblical rain, Shane Lowry made winning the Open look as natural as his “light-up-the-clubhouse grin”, said Christopher Clarey in The New York Times. Having gone into the final round at Royal Portrush with a comfortable four-stroke lead, the 32-year-old Irishman extended it to win his first major by six strokes – “transforming the typically fraught closing holes into a merry march through the drizzle”. His timing was impeccable: this was the first time the championship had been held in Northern Ireland in 68 years, and “his compatriots – Irish and Northern Irish alike – accompanied him with song, roars and good cheer”. How Lowry needed this victory, said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph. Three years ago, he went into the final round of…

Hammond plays chicken To The Daily Telegraph It is somewhat ironic that Philip Hammond has been making use of the very tactic he is trying to prevent the prime minister from using. I doubt that he intends to vote down a Conservative government, yet he refuses to rule out the idea because he knows the value of a threat. At the same time, he is attempting to stop the new prime minister placing the maximum pressure on the EU by threatening to leave without a deal. Angela Jones, Ascot, Berkshire Best of three? To The Times Tony Blair makes a number of good points in a compelling way (“Why Boris Johnson should hold another referendum”). Yet he hardly provides a clear or convincing enumeration of the relative merits of the…

Sweet Sorrow  by David Nicholls Hodder & Stoughton 416pp £20 The Week bookshop £16.99 Before taking up fiction-writing, David Nicholls – author of the smash hit One Day – was an unsuccessful actor, said Alfred Hickling in The Guardian. It’s still possible to detect a “lingering sense of thwarted theatrical ambition” in his work. Sweet Sorrow, his latest novel, is set over the “long hot summer of 1997” and centres on an am-dram production of Romeo and Juliet. Playing Benvolio is 16-year-old comprehensive school leaver Charlie Lewis. Uninterested in either acting or Shakespeare, he has agreed to the role purely to spend time with the “beguiling” Juliet, Fran Fisher. From Charlie’s retrospective account, it’s clear their romance was “never destined to last”. This is a “funny, affectionate” account of first…

The Flaming Lips: King’s Mouth Bella Union £9.95 After a long spell of indulging in 24-hour jams and Stone Roses covers, Wayne Coyne’s band have returned to form with their most appealing album in years – a melodic, psychedelic collection of “lush, honed songs”, several of them a “total joy” (Guardian). Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother) Book your tickets now by calling 020-7492 9948 or visiting TheWeekTickets.co.uk…

Renowned for his “epic”, perception-altering installations, Olafur Eliasson (b.1967) is one of the art world’s most celebrated figures, said Rosemary Waugh in Time Out. The Danish-Icelandic artist came to international prominence with 2003’s The Weather Project, a “monumental” installation at Tate Modern that, using light, mirrors and smoke machines, transformed the museum’s Turbine Hall “into a pulsating, hazy sunset”. This extraordinary work became a sensation, attracting some two million visitors and helping to turn the fledgling Tate Modern into a major tourist attraction. Sixteen years on, Eliasson has returned to the museum with a major retrospective, and it does not disappoint. The show tracks his career to date, bringing together about 40 works; it includes many astonishing “large-scale installations”, from an entire gallery wall covered in moss to Beauty, a…

Best books… Jonathan Coe The author picks five of his favourite books. His latest novel, Middle England – which tackles Brexit and features characters from his 2001 bestseller The Rotters’ Club – is now out in paperback (Penguin £8.99) The Ballad and the Source by Rosamond Lehmann, 1944 (Virago £15). I love all Lehmann’s novels but this – the most melodramatic of all – has always cast the most powerful spell. The story of Sibyl Jardine, a woman who loses contact with her daughter after an adulterous affair, it is a devastating meditation on memory, loss and motherhood. Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal, 2014 (MacLehose Press £8.99). One of the most original books I’ve encountered in recent years, de Kerangal’s novel traces 24 hours in the life of…

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express Škoda’s brand new family hatchback, the Scala, is “a real achievement”. Not only is it one of the cheapest in its class, it’s also exceptionally spacious and practical – a “marvel of packaging”. It may not be as polished as some of its rivals, but in terms of value for money, it’s hard to beat. Smaller and cheaper than Škoda’s Octavia hatchback, the Scala is a great new addition to the line up. What Car? As you might expect, given the car’s price, the interior is not filled with swanky tactile surfaces. But it more than makes up for that in terms of usability. It’s cavernous inside, and the 467-litre boot beats both the VW Golf and Ford Focus by a mile.…

Sleeping with bears in Canada There are numerous bear-viewing lodges along the coast of British Columbia, but few wildlife guides operate in the Canadian province’s “tough” interior. Of those that do, none is more experienced than Gary Zorn, a 72-year-old who has been tracking grizzlies since his youth, says Sarah Marshall in The Sunday Telegraph. He recently set up two “smart” safari-style tents on a floating pontoon on the Mitchell River, 50 miles from the nearest human settlement, in the spectacular Cariboo Mountains Provincial Park, where – as well as bears – you can see golden eagles, bald eagles and beavers. On the pontoon, guests glamp quite safely just yards from the grizzlies; and from it, they can walk with Zorn into grizzly territory: he knows all the “quirks” of…

Audrey Eyton, who has died aged 83, was a journalist who did more than any TV chef to shape Britain’s eating habits, said The Guardian. In 1970, she co-founded Slimming, a hugely popular monthly magazine which introduced some much-needed science into the world of weight loss, and spawned a host of slimming clubs; then, 12 years later, she devised and published her 1,500-calorie-a-day F-plan diet. The F stood for fibre, and the book proved an instant hit, selling more than four million copies. In part, it had been inspired by her son Matthew’s problems at boarding school. His bowel movements were in a “shocking state”, she explained; she read up on the subject – and realised that more fibre was the answer. Audrey Gray was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in…

A year into the trade war with the US, China is “scrambling to stem a manufacturing exodus”, said the Nikkei Asian Review. More than 50 global companies, including Apple and Nintendo, are contemplating moving production out of the country to avoid tariffs, or developing some new manufacturing sites elsewhere for US-bound goods. Exports from China to the US fell 12% in the first five months of 2019; those from India, Taiwan and Vietnam grew by more than 10%. “To minimise the blow, Beijing is rolling out the red carpet for foreign businesses.” Tesla, the US carmaker, is opening a Shanghai plant after reportedly securing land and loans “on the cheap”.…

Controversy of the week A fantasist’s web of lies The conviction of Carl Beech “marks the end of a saga of lies, staggering police incompetence and shocking political gullibility”, said The Daily Telegraph. Beech – known by his pseudonym “Nick” – sparked a moral panic by claiming to have been the victim of an establishment paedophile ring which included a former prime minister, an ex-home secretary and various heads of the intelligence services and the Armed Forces. His tales of murderous orgies in high places launched a £2.5m Metropolitan Police inquiry, Operation Midland, which opened in late 2014 and only closed in 2016, after it had become clear that there was no evidence at all for his claims. Northumbria Police were then brought in to investigate Beech himself. At Newcastle…

Parents are becoming increasingly “abusive” towards teachers, a report by Ofsted has found. The schools watchdog said that teachers are coming under growing pressure from parents who expect instant responses to emails, complain when their children do not get top grades (regardless of effort), and defend their offspring’s poor behaviour instead of siding with the school. Based on the responses of 4,300 teaching staff, the report says the behaviour of children and parents is a key factor in low morale among teachers, who are leaving the profession in record numbers.…

“There are no summer shoe options for British men. I have compassion for you during this difficult time, but we must rule out all deck shoes or loafers, on the grounds of David Cameron. Then comes the mysterious ‘sock paradox’: to sock is almost as bad as not to sock. I ask the jury to compare exhibit A, ‘brogues without socks’, with exhibit B, ‘black winter socks and espadrilles’. And flip-flops? Toe-curling. Why is it that men look ridiculous in a sandal? I suppose we’re not as used to seeing bare male legs. To whip off the male shoe has the shock of removing a kind of foot burqa. The hairy-toed creature underneath looks pale and vulnerable, ready to scuttle under a pile of leaves.” Helen Rumbelow in The Times…

Let Scotland free to tackle drug addiction Simon Jenkins The Guardian Every nation in the rich world, says Simon Jenkins, is struggling to find ways of taming the menace posed by modern narcotics, often by treating it as a social health issue. Every country, that is, except Britain. In the US, for example, no fewer than 33 states have legalised cannabis for medicinal or recreational use. This hasn’t pushed up demand: in California there has been an 8% fall among teenage users. Yet here we go on treating drugs as a law and order issue, and you only have to look at Scotland to see the result. Few places have such a shocking drug mortality rate. Up 27% in a single year, the rate is now three times England and…

Six completely blind people have had their sight partially restored by having video images transmitted to their brains, said the Daily Mail. Unlike most attempted technological “fixes” for blindness, the Orion device – developed in the US – bypasses the eye and the optic nerve. Instead, images from a camera mounted on glasses are converted into electrical signals, which are sent to electrodes implanted in the brain. These stimulate cells in the visual cortex, giving the wearers back some sight. Participants in the trial, held at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas, reported being able to walk round the block unaided; one could distinguish balls on a pool table. “I could see the roundness of my wife’s face, the shape of her body,” said Benjamin James Spencer, who lost his sight…

“How utterly predictable” that Extinction Rebellion should have launched its summer campaign last week, said Ross Clark in The Spectator – just as universities broke up for the summer. The climate change protest group, which blocked traffic in London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds and Bristol by parking life-sized model boats on busy streets, is – “above all else – a movement of students and left-wing academics”; the working class is notably absent. Its cohorts are happy to get arrested for the cause, as long as they’re allowed to finish their exams first. And they’re happy to call for lower living standards to save the planet – while being comfortably insulated from “the realities of a shrinking economy”. It’s amazing that XR, as it is known, is treated with such “indulgence”, said…

If you have ever wanted to know what you might look like in old age, now you can, said Bryony Gordon in The Daily Telegraph. Thanks to a new feature on FaceApp, all you need do is upload a selfie, and the free-to-download app will use AI based on machine learning to show your face as it’s likely to look with the passage of decades. A host of celebrities have taken part in the so-called “age challenge” – giving fans a “glimpse into an alternate reality where Botox and fillers don’t exist” – starting a new craze. Some 140 million people have downloaded FaceApp (12 million of them over just ten days) and social media is awash with the results. It’s very seductive, said Jemima Lewis in the same paper:…

On Sunday evening, Adam Peaty swam into “uncharted waters”, said Liz Byrnes in the Daily Mail. The 24-year-old British swimmer became the first man in history to complete the 100m breaststroke in less than 57 seconds: he clocked 56.88 secs in the semi-finals of the World Championships, shaving 0.22 secs off his own world record. Peaty couldn’t match that in the final itself, but the result was always a foregone conclusion: his time of 57.14 secs, more than a second ahead of everyone else, won him a third successive gold medal in the event. Then, two days later, he won his third straight gold in the 50m breaststroke too. Peaty was already more dominant in the 100m breaststroke than “any swimmer in any other event in history”, said Craig Lord…

To The Times It is an outrage that Iran has seized a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. International law prohibits any interference with foreign vessels in passage through straits. But the same rule applies equally to Iranian tankers in passage through the Strait of Gibraltar. Only the UN Security Council can authorise such an arrest at sea, not the EU. European sanctions on Syria are relevant only to vessels flagged in EU states. They do not entitle us to arrest foreign vessels of any other nationality. For over two centuries the UK has upheld freedom of navigation at sea, and the right of all ships to pass unhindered through international straits. Why do we appear to have abandoned that cardinal principle? Can we be surprised at Iran’s response?…

Tennessee Williams is known as “the poet laureate of lost souls”, said Matt Trueman in Variety. But even by his standards, the restless misfits who populate this “quietly heartbreaking” 1961 play are a mighty long way from salvation. The setting is a ramshackle hotel in Mexico in 1940, and the central trio of characters are “earthy” Maxine, the hotel’s newly widowed owner; Shannon, a defrocked minister turned tour guide, who is “on the run from himself”; and Hannah, an “ethereal” Nantucket artist, travelling with her 97-year-old poet grandfather and bartering their art for places to stay. “The heat’s heavy, the air thick with mosquitoes”, and none of them can find peace. The play is not vintage Williams, said Sarah Hemming in the FT; it’s “too baggy and too overwrought”. But…

Gwen Dir: William McGregor 1hr 22mins (15) Bleak period drama with Maxine Peake This period drama, set in 19th century North Wales, isn’t for viewers afraid of a little bleakness, said John Nugent in Empire. Yet for those who can handle a “slow-burn narrative” and the “oppressive landscapes of Snowdonia”, it’s a “breathtaking” experience. Maxine Peake and Eleanor Worthington-Cox – both excellent – star as a mother and daughter struggling to run their family farm, while the man of the house is away fighting in the Crimean War. So much misery befalls them, from unexplained animal deaths to epilepsy, that their misfortunes come to seem almost supernatural. In my view, writer-director William McGregor rather overdoes the bleakness, said Sophie Monks Kaufman in Time Out. Even a scene “involving the sale…

Jeff Wall  at White Cube Mason’s Yard In the 1980s and 1990s, the Canadian photographer Jeff Wall (b.1946) shot to global stardom and broke auction records creating huge, elaborately staged images that deliberately evoked the compositions and lustrous surfaces of Old Master paintings. His first show in Britain in nearly a decade brings together a selection of new and recent work, some of which marks a dramatic change from his signature style. The best of it plunges the viewer into the midst of dramatic actions and dares them to imagine the context: in one, set in a plush suburban living room, a middle-aged man reaches his hand out towards a seated woman in apparent consolation; unremarkable as that sounds, Wall loads it with Hitchcockian tension. Elsewhere, however, some unremarkable landscape…

Peggy informs Lilian that she’s opening the fund to everyone in Ambridge: it’s going to require a lot of work, so she’s changing Lilian’s title to Chief Operating Officer. With Jim’s permission, Alistair tells Fiona what happened to Jim as a child. Clarrie calls in on Will one evening and discovers he’s taken Poppy to work. She makes him promise never to do so again. Ben passes his driving test. Fiona, Alistair and Jim visit Stratford-upon-Avon. As they walk around, Jim says he never told their mother about the abuse. Later, they present Jim with a keyboard. Phoebe is putting in a bid for Peggy’s fund, but is keeping her idea secret. Alistair tells Shula that he has upset Jim again by suggesting some helplines. Shula advises Alistair to ring…

Mana 42 Blossom Street, Manchester (0161-392 7294) Manchester’s gastronomes are already snippy about the dearth of Michelin stars awarded to the city’s restaurants, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. If Mana in Ancoats fails to be so recognised, it will be proof of what I’ve long suspected: “the tyre floggers are having a sniggery time trolling the city”. For this “lofty, airy and modishly austere” fine-dining restaurant isn’t merely good by Manchester standards: it’s good “by world standards”. Chef-patron Simon Martin spent several years at Noma in Copenhagen – and “holy cow, can he cook”. From the first taste of the first of our 16 courses, “I’m blown away”. Some of the dishes have “full pantomime drama”: the sultriest eel, smoky and glazed with blackcurrant vinegar and roasted…

Bournemouth getaway Spend 2 nights at the 4-star Best Western Royale Hotel, with dinner on your first night, from £111pp b&b (two sharing). 01905-792801, greatlittlebreaks.com. Arrive 1 September. Ten-day Rhine River cruise Sail along the Rhine to some of Europe’s oldest towns and cities, including Cologne, Bonn and Strasbourg. From £999pp, all-inclusive. 0800-988 5823, www.titantravel.co.uk. Depart 13 October, from Folkestone. The heart of Chicago Stay 5 nights at the Loews Chicago Hotel, with the Riverwalk nearby, from £884pp room only, including Birmingham flights. 020-8705 0071, southalltravel.co.uk. Depart 4 September. Seven nights in Phuket Stay in one of The Village Coconut Island’s finest beach-front villas, from £1,070pp full board, including Glasgow flights. 0871-223 3160, sunshine.co.uk. Depart 30 September.…

Asos: move over, darling? In the Noughties, teenagers lusting after a pair of Britney Spears-style, low-slung jeans knew exactly where to get “their celebrity fashion fix”, said Ashley Armstrong in The Times – a new site called As Seen on Screen which, later known as Asos, soon became a poster child for fast-fashion retailing and a stock market “darling”. At its zenith last year, Asos had 18.4 million customers internationally and “briefly boasted a market value above that of M&S”. But a surprise profit warning – the third in seven months – has “delivered a brutal reminder that cyberspace is not immune to the challenges afflicting retail”. Asos has committed the cardinal sin of botching its stock control: it warned that 2019 profits will be more than a third…

Don’t inflict a eurocrat on the IMF Wolfgang Münchau Financial Times Once again, the EU is insisting on a European candidate to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem reportedly topping its list of candidates. Please spare us, says Wolfgang Münchau. “It is one thing for the EU to insist on its own candidate when they have a good one”, as was the case when Christine Lagarde took over in 2011. “It is quite another when they do not.” Dijsselbloem and others on the list “have a lot to answer for”. Their disastrous decision to push for “austerity during the eurozone crisis” was “one of the great policy tragedies of our time”. And Dijsselbloem famously compounded this by piling on the insults –…

“They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep,” says Emma Jacobs in the FT. The same is true of their out-of-office (OOO) message. Read on for some options before you head off on hols. Dispense with it entirely Fair enough, perhaps, for freelancers “desperate for income”, but smacking of desperation in others. “They’re the ones at the poolside, frantically sending emails fretting that everyone will realise they’re entirely replaceable.” Inject a bit of personality Why just write you’re on holiday when you could “paint a picture” of the turquoise seas you’re enjoying. “Oh good for you,” the recipient will think. “I’d buy you an Aperol Spritz”, if I wasn’t “stuck here in this airless office doing the work of 20 holidaying colleagues.” Include…

Well-heeled guests at a hotel near Buckingham Palace are being offered the most expensive cup of tea in Britain. A three-cup pot of Ceylon Golden Tips at the Rubens Hotel costs £500. The tea is handpicked in the highlands of Sri Lanka, and dried on a velvet cloth. At the hotel, golden tweezers are used to pick up the leaves, which are weighed at the table before being put into a silver pot to be infused in mineral water. Despite the price tag, it is apparently proving popular. Almost a quarter of us now drink milk alternatives made from oats, almonds or coconuts. A report by Mintel found 23% of Britons had drunk plant-based milk in the three months leading to February, and that demand for them has grown by…

The number of Labour members who think Jeremy Corbyn is doing a good job as party leader has dropped from 80%, in March last year, to 56% now. 43% now think Corbyn is doing a bad job. In March 2018, 74% of Labour members thought Corbyn should lead them into the next general election, now 56% do. YouGov/The Times Donald Trump’s approval rating among Republican voters rose by 5 points to 72% in the week after his racially charged Twitter attack on several Democratic congresswomen. Ipsos/Reuters In the past eight months, the environment has overtaken terrorism and affordable housing in a list of Britons’ top public policy priorities. BritainThinks/The Guardian…

Dalí sucked my toes The strangest apology Ali MacGraw ever received was from Salvador Dalí, says Jessamy Calkin in The Daily Telegraph. The artist not only sent her flowers, but a live iguana whose tail had been strung with imitation pearls. The actress, now 80, had met Dalí at a cocktail party when she was an impoverished fashion stylist. He asked if he could sketch her, but when she arrived at his hotel room, he asked her to take her clothes off – which she reluctantly did. “It was nauseating. I don’t really like his work, but I thought, ‘If he wants to do a drawing of me, maybe I could sell it.’” It was when he crawled under the table they were sitting at and started to suck on…

Germans have a reputation for ruthlessness when reserving sunbeds, and a punch up on this issue has now led to a court case. The scuffle took place on a cruise ship in the Indian Ocean after the captain invited guests to a party round the ship’s pool. But just as one guest was about to reserve loungers for herself and her 70-year-old husband, a handbag flew past her and landed on one of the sunbeds. A fight ensued between the husband of the handbag thrower, who is in his late 40s, and the 70-year-old man, who is now seeking s4,200 in compensation for an arm injury and “loss of holiday pleasure”. The case will be heard next month in a court in Saxony. Earlier this month, Vladimir Putin showed up…

Only 12 men have walked on the Moon – but that doesn’t mean it is a pristine environment. On the contrary: its surface is littered with junk. There are an estimated 200 tonnes of man-made debris on the Moon, including rocket stages from Nasa’s Apollo missions, crashed rockets and defunct lunar rovers from unmanned missions. Added to that are scores of small items, such as cameras and boots that the astronauts jettisoned to make space for Moon samples, and mementoes, ranging from six US flags (five of which are believed still to be standing) and family photos. Then there are the golf balls that Alan Shepard sent flying across the lunar landscape in 1971. But to scientists, much of these things are not trash, but valuable space “artefacts”: they’d even…

In the past, there would be a day’s holiday at Eton when one of its old boys was made prime minister. That doesn’t happen any more – but alumni of the £40,000-a-year school, which has just produced its 20th PM, can still expect to claim the best paid and most powerful jobs, said Steven Longden in The Guardian. Only 7% of British children are sent to private schools, yet according to a recent Sutton Trust report, 65% of senior judges, 49% of Armed Forces officers, 44% of newspaper columnists and 29% of MPs come from them. I tell my pupils at a comprehensive in Manchester “not to lose hope”, and assure them that if they work hard, they might get one of the remaining top jobs – but “they don’t…

“There are two types of people – those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” Indira Gandhi, quoted in The Huffington Post “There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.” Epicurus, quoted in Forbes “If things were simple, word would have got around.” Jacques Derrida, quoted on The Browser “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” George Orwell, quoted in The Times “God does not charge time spent fishing against a man’s allotted life span.” American Indian proverb, quoted in the LA Times “Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version…

For once, the Tour de France is “impossible to call”, said Tom Cary in The Daily Telegraph. In the years since Bradley Wiggins won the race, in 2012, it had become too predictable: all but one of the winners came from Team Sky (now known as Ineos). But this year, it “just keeps on defying predictions”. At the start of the final week, the French cyclist Julian Alaphilippe held a healthy lead in the general classification. But the cyclists in the five places behind him – among them Iast year’s champion, Ineos rider Geraint Thomas and Alaphilippe’s compatriot, Thibaut Pinot – are practically neck-and-neck: just 39 seconds separate them. Whoever ends up winning this weekend, this is shaping up to be the most exciting Tour in three decades. No one…

Book of the week Passionate Spirit  by Cate Haste Bloomsbury 496pp £26 The Week bookshop £19.99 “Muses still exist,” said Miranda Seymour in the FT, “but their glory days are past.” Few were more glorious than the alluring, sex-mad Alma Mahler, who displayed a remarkable talent for capturing the hearts of creative men. “All I love in a man is his achievement,” she announced. The first of her “three bewitched and tormented husbands” was Gustav Mahler: she married the composer in 1902, when she was 22 and he was 41, despite finding his music a “nerve-shattering din”. Mahler died nine years later, by which point she was already involved in a passionate affair with the handsome young Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius, whom she married in 1915. Soon, she was “two-timing”…

Since the first production of The Magic Flute in the 1790s, this famously tricky “allegorical pantomime” of an opera has invited all manner of imaginative interpretations, said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph. In recent years, I’ve seen Julie Taymor’s Lion King approach at the Met; a staging in the Bois de Boulogne that used live animals for Sarastro’s menagerie; and Barrie Kosky’s brilliant use of CGI and video. All these approaches offered “pleasure and enlightenment” – and would have pleased the “liberal spirits” of Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder. Alas, both men would surely be “aghast at the meaningless, tasteless, pointless, gimmicky mish-mash” that the director-designer partnership of André Barbe and Renaud Doucet have come up with for this year’s Glyndebourne festival – presumably “at great expense and investment…

“The worst thing about having a mistress,” went a joke popular at the time, “is that you have to see Cats twice.” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, based on T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, was a huge hit in the 1980s despite a fair dose of critical scorn, said Alice Vincent in The Daily Telegraph. And now there is to be a film version with a starry cast including Taylor Swift, James Corden, Idris Elba and Judi Dench. The movie isn’t out until December, said Paul Glynn on BBC News, but to judge from the incredulous reaction to the trailer last week, it’s in for a critical mauling. “Did I take drugs and forget about it?” tweeted one bewildered member of the public. “I don’t…

The Louvre in Paris has become the first major cultural institution to remove the name Sackler from its walls. Museums all over the world have come under pressure to cut their ties to the billionaire Sackler family, owing to its links to the painkiller at the heart of the US’s deadly opioid crisis. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, which is facing multiple lawsuits for allegedly fuelling the opioid “epidemic”. Last week, the Louvre removed the sign to its Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities, and used tape to cover the name elsewhere. It said it was doing so because a 20-year limit on donor-names had expired, as the Sacklers’ $3.6m gift was made in 1996. However, it did not explain why the signs were…

Programmes Cindy Sherman #untitled The artist granted a rare interview for this Arena film about her life. Sun 28 July, BBC4 21:05 (60mins). The Best Little Prison In Britain This six-part series goes inside the UK’s most extraordinary prison, on the Isle of Man, where a progressive regime has resulted in some of the lowest reoffending rates in Europe. Wed 31 July, ITV1 20:00 (30mins). Britain’s Giant Pet Food Factory Mars, which makes more pet products than chocolate, opens the doors to its vast pet food factory, in Melton Mowbray. Thur 1 Aug, C4 21:00 (60mins). Fosse/Verdon Eight-part US drama charting the troubled relationship between choreographer Bob Fosse and his wife and collaborator Gwen Verdon. With Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams. Fri 2 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (90mins). Everybody in the…

Made with the right tomatoes, this simple tart will be a highlight of the summer table, says Alex Jackson of Sardine restaurant. A scattering of fragrant basil at the end is essential, as well as a drizzle of your best olive oil. Makes 1 large tart (enough for 4 people for lunch or lots of small squares for a party) for the tart: 4 bull’s heart tomatoes 500g block of pre-rolled puff pastry a handful of small Italian plum tomatoes, red and yellow if possible olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 bunch of basil for the tapenade: 100g of black olives, drained of any brine or oil and pitted (we use Nyons) 1/8 of a garlic clove, peeled and crushed to a fine paste ½ tsp…

Mollie’s Motel and Diner Oxfordshire Situated by the A420, west of Oxford, Mollie’s isn’t the UK’s first “modern motel” (others include the Pig Shed in Norfolk and the “super-stylish” Mhor 84, near Loch Lomond), but it may become the “best known”, says Isabel Choat in The Guardian. Founder Nick Jones, of the Soho House group, has plans to expand ten further sites – and this first iteration is a success. The 79 rooms are “modern and soothing”, with rain showers and good soundproofing. And the diner, too, is “more classic than kitsch”, serving typical dishes – burgers, rotisserie chicken, milkshakes – all made with “high-quality” ingredients. Doubles cost £75, room only.molliesmotel.com…

Had Andrea Camilleri died in his 50s, his death would have barely received a mention in the British press, said The Guardian. Even in his native Italy, it would perhaps have only been noted in the culture sections of the more serious newspapers. An avant-garde left-wing intellectual, he was an influential figure in Italian theatre and television, but at that point little known to the general public. That started to change when he was 66, and published a thriller, The Hunting Season, that became a bestseller in Italy; then, two years later, he brought out the first of his Inspector Montalbano mysteries. These not only won him global acclaim, but triggered in him a “frenzy of literary activity at an age when most writers are in tranquil decline”: between 1994…

Equity and currency markets greeted news of Boris Johnson’s elevation to prime minister in muted fashion: his victory was seen as a done deal by pundits and largely priced in. The FTSE 100 put on 1%; the pound slipped back to s1.11 and $1.24. The attention of most investors was fixed on the US, where the Federal Reserve appears poised to cut interest rates for the first time in almost a decade when it meets next week – to combat the impact of trade tensions, persistent low inflation and weakening global growth. The move is part of a global shift: expectations have also increased for a rate cut at the European Central Bank. The oil price rose in response to growing tension between the US, the UK and Iran. Gold…

Ross McEwan The departing RBS boss clearly likes a challenge, said Lucy Burton in The Daily Telegraph. Having completed one of the biggest corporate turnarounds in British history, he’s off to fix Australia’s “scandal-hit finance sector”. Ross McEwan, a New Zealander, is taking over at National Australia Bank, which was singled out for particular condemnation in a recent Royal Commission inquiry into banking misconduct. Ironically, he was headhunted for the RBS job eight years ago because he had spent much of his career in Australia, so was deemed “untainted” by the 2008 financial crisis; the Aussies, it seems, were not so squeaky-clean after all. Nevertheless, McEwan’s experience of restructuring and his proven ability to navigate politically choppy waters should stand him in good stead. Alfie Deyes “In YouTube years, Alfie…