Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1266 i The Week

What happened The march of Covid-19 The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China rose above 1,100 this week, surpassing in just two months the 774 fatalities caused by the eight-month Sars outbreak of 2002-03. On Monday, more than 100 people died in Hubei province alone; there are now more than 44,000 confirmed cases across the country. The spread of the disease, which the World Health Organisation has officially named Covid-19, has fuelled domestic criticism of Beijing’s handling of the crisis. There was a particular outpouring of grief and anger in China last week when Li Wenliang – the 33-year-old doctor who was arrested for spreading “false rumours” after he alerted colleagues to the outbreak – himself succumbed to the disease. As of Wednesday, Covid-19 had caused two deaths…

Personal dignity, after doctors launched a “down with the gown” campaign, urging NHS hospitals to stop asking patients to wear backless robes that leave their bottoms and upper thighs exposed. Professor David Oliver said the gowns, which tie at the back, are often issued for no good reason, and leave patients feeling vulnerable, embarrassed and cold. Friends fans, with rumours that the six stars of the still popular 1990s sitcom have agreed to reunite for an hour-long special. Reportedly, they will each be paid between $3m and $4m. Radio 3, which celebrated near-record audience figures. Some 2.13 million listeners a week tuned into BBC Radio 3 in the last quarter, up 16% on the previous year. Tim Steiner, the co-founder of online supermarket Ocado, who was awarded a£54m performance bonus,…

A majority of Democrat voters in the US state of New Hampshire would rather a giant meteor struck the Earth, extinguishing all human life, than Donald Trump win another term. Asked which outcome they preferred, 38% opted for a Trump victory on 3 November 2020, and 62% for the devastating meteor strike. However, the strength of feeling varied according to income bracket. Among the poorest Democrats (earning under $50K a year) 69% said they’d rather die in a giant meteor strike than live to see Trump re-elected; but among the richest (earning more than $100,000 a year) a small majority of New Hampshire Democrats (51%) decided that a Trump win was preferable to the extinction of human life. The University of Massachusetts…

Penza, Russia Activists “tortured”: A Russian military court has found seven political activists guilty of terrorism offences, and sentenced them to terms of up to 18 years in a penal colony – in a case that has been condemned by rights groups. Prosecutors in the city of Penza claimed the men, who are aged between 23 and 31, had formed a terrorist group called Set, or “Network”. However, they could present no evidence of any of the attacks the so-called network was allegedly planning; instead, the convictions rested largely on confessions, which the defendants say they were tortured into signing. One of them says he confessed after guards started attaching electrodes to his genitals. Amnesty International said the men – all anarchists or anti-fascists – were accused of belonging to…

“There is something depressing about a mild winter. Frosts in the Berkshire countryside have been late this year and gone by lunchtime. Unless something changes soon, the brazen, early growth of trees and flowers will actually be perfectly all right and spring will be here before we know it. The absence of a true season is unsettling to a psychological clock set by weeks of biting frost and bare branches. In my childhood winters, we had to spend half an hour defrosting our toes after morning outings. What is the point of a roaring fire or a hot water bottle now, when the worst natural hazard of the morning is an unusually big puddle?” Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph…

The Coca-Cola method of making money Ed Conway The Times One of the odd things about modern capitalism, says Ed Conway, is the way big companies make their profits. We think it’s from selling the things they make, but it rarely is. McDonald’s doesn’t make money from selling burgers and fizzy drinks, it does so from buying sites and leasing them to franchisees. It’s one of the world’s biggest property owners. Coca-Cola doesn’t earn its profit by bottling and selling Coke, but by selling the right to make it to others – and has far fewer physical assets than we think. And that tends to be the way for today’s leading companies. Apple, for instance, doesn’t make a single phone itself; it just designs them. Modern airlines don’t own their…

“Want to cause countrywide confusion and sow doubt in the integrity of democracy?” Well, it turns out there’s an app for that, said Molly Roberts in The Washington Post. It’s the software that effectively sabotaged last week’s Iowa caucuses. All eyes were on the small state as, in keeping with tradition, it held the first contest of the nominating season that will decide the two parties’ presidential candidates. Yet the event turned into a fiasco after “major app problems” prevented Democratic organisers from logging the results of the 1,678 caucuses being held in meeting rooms across the state. It took the best part of a week for the full result to be established. The debacle turned the Democrats into a laughing stock, and prompted many mischievous conspiracy theories. “Mark my…

Smokers’ lungs can heal Lungs have an almost “magical” ability to heal the damage caused by smoking – but only if you stop, a study suggests. The findings, published in Nature, add to the evidence that it is never too late to give upsmoking: it appears that aswell as preventing further damage from occurring, quitting allows the lungs to “regenerate”, significantly reducing the risk ofcancer. For the study, researchers from the UK and Japan analysed lung biopsies on 16 people, including smokers, former smokers and adults who’d never smoked. As expected, the lung cells of current smokers showed far more mutations (including potentially cancer-causing ones) than those of nonsmokers. While the lung cells of former smokers also exhibited more mutations than normal, up to 40% of their cells had no…

The SNP: a scandal too far? As he prepared his budget statement last Tuesday night, Derek Mackay must have felt confident about his future in Scottish politics. At 42, the finance minister was regarded as a shoo-in to follow Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the SNP, and a possible future First Minister. Yet “less than 24 hours later, Mackay was gone”, said Alan Cochrane in The Daily Telegraph – “forced to resign in ignominy” after being confronted by the revelation that he’d been sending “suggestive” text messages to a 16-year-old boy he’d never met. Mackay had bombarded the boy with 270 messages, in which he’d complimented him on his looks (calling him “really cute”) and invited him to a reception at Holyrood. With police looking into whether a crime…

Six Nations: the ugliest win? Was England’s Six Nations victory over Scotland the worst rugby match of all time, asked Owen Slot in The Times. Well, it’s certainly hard to remember a wetter game – or a windier one, for that matter. It didn’t matter what the players did in Edinburgh – “the wind could take anything anywhere”. Owen Farrell tried kicking goals; that didn’t work. Nor did George Ford’s attempt at a drop-goal, or Scotland “hammering away at the line”. But in these “most stressful of conditions”, England ultimately had the edge, with a try from Ellis Genge sealing their 13-6 win. This was certainly one of the ugliest victories in recent memory, said Nick Evans in The Guardian. But Eddie Jones and his men will not “care in…

To The Daily Telegraph The inquiry into Ian Paterson, the rogue breast cancer surgeon, has shocked the British public, and rightly so. How is it that Paterson could avoid scrutiny for so long? The reality isthat there are no meaningful regular checks and balances on the performance and outcomes of individual surgeons and anaesthetists. Unlike airline pilots, who have compulsory simulator assessments of competency every six months, surgeons can go their entire career without being scrutinised in theatre by their peers. The current appraisal and revalidation system does little to assess a surgeon’s behaviour, clinical skills or dexterity. There will be more cases such as Paterson’s until we subject surgeons (and other doctors) to the same rigorous scrutiny that is applied to pilots by the Civil Aviation Authority. David Allen…

“How do you pronounce Van Gogh,” asked Emma Reynolds on CNN. British people tend to say “Van Goff”; Americans say “Van Go”; the French say “Van Gog”. They’re all wrong, according to experts at the launch of a new exhibition in London last week. The interactive exhibition Meet Vincent van Gogh on the South Bank (pictured) uses the American version in its audio guide. In response, Adriaan Dönszelmann, a director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, made a plea for his name to be pronounced “in the real Dutch way”: as “Van Hokh”. But the confusion didn’t end there, said David Sanderson in The Times. The Dutch ambassador to the UK, Simon Smits, said the name differently, with a guttural “khokh”. All this is nothing new: as van Gogh…

Programmes Homeland As the final series opens, Saul is in Kabul negotiating peace with the Taliban and needs Carrie’s help one last time. Sun 16 Feb, C4 21:00 (75mins). The Battle for Hong Kong Filmed over eight months, this emotionally charged documentary follows five young activists as they fight on the streets for democracy. Sun 16 Feb, C4 22:15 (60mins). Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel The author and comedian explores the history of Holocaust denial and why it persists today, taking Facebook to task and meeting a survivor along the way. Mon 17 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Prison Return of the critically acclaimed series that takes a hard look inside Britain’s prisons. Part one visits HMP Foston Hall, a women’s prison described by one inmate as “St Trinian’s on…

Mumbai-born Karan Gokani worked as a lawyer before devoting himself to his first love, cooking. In 2015, with his wife Sunaina Sethi and her two siblings, he set up the original Hoppers in Soho; the second branch, in Marylebone, followed in 2017. An instant hit, Hoppers has been credited with helping to make Sri Lankan food mainstream in Britain. 300g raw prawns, cleaned and peeled Sea salt and pepper 2 tsp red chilli flakes 2 tbsp vegetable or rapeseed oil ¹/ ³ of an inch of a cinnamon stick 1 inch of ginger, finely chopped 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 2-3 green chillies, cut into slivers (seeds removed if you prefer it less spicy) 1 sprig of curry leaves 1 medium tomato, finely chopped 3 tbsp tomato ketchup 1…

Textiles in Gujarat Led by artist Sue Lawty, this tour of the state of Gujarat in western India focuses on arts and handicrafts, with an emphasis on the region’s delicate textiles. There are visits to markets, textile centres, craft workshops and museums, as well as demonstrations of block-printing, tie-dye and embroidery. From the desert town of Bhuj, the group will make forays to artistic Banni villages, before a safari into the Little Rann of Kutch desert. 17-31 October, from £3,095, excluding flights (mountainkingdoms.com). Midlands modernism “A tour of Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton and Coventry might not sound glamorous”, but this one is genuinely “hip” thanks to its theme – modern architecture. Historian Alan Powers will guide a small group around buildings including the Curve Theatre in Leicester, the Arts and Crafts…

Global markets raced higher on hopes that the coronavirus’s economic impact might be restricted to a short shock largely confined to the Asia-Pac region – and that central banks would act in the event of a wider hit. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose to a record high, and yet more records were set on Wall Street. Meanwhile, traditional safe havens, such as gold, dipped. Brent crude rose more than 2% midweek to above $55/barrel. Greece’s borrowing costs hit a record low amid evidence of economic recovery. Having spiked above 30% at the height of the eurozone debt crisis, the country’s ten-year bond yield dropped below 1% for the first time. In Britain, official figures showed that the economy stagnated in the last quarter of 2019, taking overall growth for the…

● Soak the rich? Who’d have thought it, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. The “triumphant Tories” may be toying with the idea of taking “a leaf out of Jeremy Corbyn’s defeated manifesto”. The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, is reportedly eyeing up a “mansion tax” on expensive houses and a raid on pensions tax relief in the forthcoming Budget, to help finance the Government’s “levelling up” strategy. Any new tax on property is “risky”. But pensions tax relief is an obvious target: “it costs the state almost £40bn, and 40% of it goes to the top 10% – those earning £80,000 or more”. What’s more, it’s incredibly unjust. While average earners in the lower tax band get just 20p tax relief on “each pension pound saved”, those on more than £50,000…

Carlos Ghosn He might be holed up in Lebanon after jumping bail in Japan, but Carlos Ghosn, is still in the cross-hairs of his former employer, said BBC Business News. Nissan has filed a $90m civil lawsuit against its former chairman to claw back “monetary damages”. And even that might not be the end of it. The Japanese carmaker is also contemplating suing Ghosn for defamation after he blamed “a handful of unscrupulous, vindictive individuals” for his “unimaginable ordeal”. Ghosn’s daring escape has “Hollywood movie” written all over it, said The Times. And he’s found a powerful new partner in Michael Ovitz – co-founder of the Creative Artists Agency and a former Disney president. The pair are reportedly exploring potentially lucrative “film and TV projects”. The cash could come in…

Controversy of the week Sinn Féin’s shock victory We’ve grown used to the sight of populist insurgent parties “embarrassing the establishment”, said Ross Clark in The Sun. Even so, Sinn Féin’s victory in last weekend’s general election in Ireland came as a huge surprise. Irish voters had for decades given a wide berth to a party that unashamedly presented itself as the political wing of the Provisional IRA, even as the Provos carried out their “murderous sprees” in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. Yet on Saturday, exceeding all predictions, Sinn Féin gave a bloody nose to the two centrist parties that have shared power in Dublin since 1921 by winning the largest share of the vote (24.5%). Fianna Fáil received 22.2%; Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael, in government since 2011, trailed…

Peter Phillips, the Queen’s eldest grandson, who announced that he is to separate from his Canadian wife, Autumn. The couple have been married for 12 years and have two children. Mountain rescuers, after 22 of them had to turn out in the middle of a blizzard to find four foreign tourists who’d got stuck on steep ice near the summit of Ben Nevis. Three of the tourists were wearing trainers; they had neither crampons nor ice axes; and appeared not even to have a map. The leader of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue team said they were lucky to be alive.…

Berlin Merkel’s heir quits: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who has led Germany’s main governing party, the conservative CDU, since December 2018 – and who was seen as Angela Merkel’s anointed successor – dramatically resigned this week. She also said that she won’t stand as the party’s candidate for chancellor at the next general election, which is due by the autumn of next year. Merkel said she respected, but greatly regretted her protégée’s decision. Kramp-Karrenbauer (known as AKK) is a Merkel-style centrist, who, since narrowly beating Friedrich Merz, a right-winger, to the leadership, has failed to impose her authority on the CDU. There will now have to be a fresh leadership election, which will define the future direction of a fractious party that has struggled to come to terms with the rise of…

Mr Bercow at home John Bercow’s bellowed demands for “Orderrrr!” are now so famous that people still shout the word at him in the street. But actually, the recently retired Speaker doesn’t like “excessive noise”, he told Charlotte Edwardes in The Sunday Times. “So if the kids raise their voices, I will say, ‘You are standing right next to each other, you don’t have to say it soloudly, you need to learn to modulate your voice.’” But then, he concedes, “You have to berealistic... they inherit your characteristics.” The 57-year-old, known for his temper, and plagued by accusations of workplace bullying, admits he doesn’t always manage to follow the advice he gives his children. “I’ve tried to discipline myself because behaviour can be imitative. But doI sometimes flare up and…

Why is tree-planting so popular? Trees are the most effective carbon capture machines on the planet. As they grow, they suck earth-warming carbon dioxide out of the air and release oxygen. They lock carbon up in their leaves, branches, trunks and roots: about half of the dry weight of atree is carbon. Trees also lower air temperatures, increase rainfall, filter out pollutants and dust, and create habitats for wildlife. Ever since it was first established that global warming was a serious problem, tree-planting has been recognised as a simple, cheap and safe tool for mitigating its effects, and there are schemes dating back decades. But over the past year in particular, the idea has caught the attention of a world starved of hopeful climate news. What sort of projects are…

An art critic apologised after accidentally shattering a £15,000 glass installation at a prestigious Mexican art fair. Avelina Lésper placed an empty drinks can near the artwork, by Mexican artist Gabriel Rico, to register her disapproval of it. But the work, a large pane of glass with objects including a football and a feather suspended inside it, then smashed into pieces on the floor. Lésper apologised, adding: “It was like the work heard my comment and had felt what I thought of it.” A water-skiing squirrel is facing investigation for breaching a Vancouver by-law. Twiggy, who has its own life jacket and tours boat shows to educate crowds on water safety, was due to perform in the city. But officials have now launched a probe into whether the appearances violate…

GERMANY Luther’s anti-Semitic hangover Neue Zürcher Zeitung Wittenberg’s Stadtkirche is one of Germany’s most historically significant churches; the Protestant reformer Martin Luther preached there, and it was the site of the first celebration of mass in German rather than Latin. But for seven centuries it has been adorned with a relief showing a “Judensau” (Jew sow), says Marc Felix Serrao. It’s a hateful anti-Semitic image – showing a rabbi looking up the backside of a sow for God’s true name, as Jews suck at the teats. While dozens of these medieval images survive in German churches, Wittenberg’s is notorious. And now, a court has rejected a Jewish pensioner’s petition for it to be removed because of its “obvious” offence. The judge agreed that it is a “contemptible” image, but said…

Rachmaninoff: most innovative composer The music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), a giant of the late romantic period, isn’t generally considered very daring. But according to scientists in South Korea, he may be the most innovative composer ever, beating titans such as Bach and Mozart. The team built a computer model that analysed “novelty” from previous works and “influence” on subsequent ones. When applied to piano pieces by 19 composers from the baroque, classical and romantic periods, it found that Rachmaninoff broke most ground, followed by Bach, Brahms and Mendelssohn. Prof Juyong Park, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, said the Russian’s achievement was all the more impressive given that, as a late romantic, he had “more older material” to be “different from”. Beethoven: not entirely deaf? If…

The late comedy actress June Whitfield was delighted when a rose was named in her honour. But as a reader of The Oldie recalled in a letter, what gave her particular pleasure was its write-up in a garden catalogue. “June Whitfield is superb for bedding,” it said, “but best up against a wall.” A spider-shaped brooch worn by Baroness Hale as she declared Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament illegal last year saw her praised as a fashion icon. Vogue lauded the brooch as “maximalist perfection”, and online searches for animal-shaped brooches soared 126%. Now she has revealed where she got the prized accessory. It was, she says, a gift from her husband, who bought it for the princely sum of £12. “He thinks he got it from Cards Galore.” If…

Record-breaking Reekie Until the start of the month, few had heard of Jemma Reekie, said Ben Bloom in The Daily Telegraph. The 21-year-old Scot had hardly competed at international level. But a remarkable week has changed all that: in the space of just two races, she broke three British records. First, a fortnight ago, Reekie ran 800m in 1min 57.91sec – “the quickest indoor 800m in the world for 14 years”. And she followed that up last Saturday with an “equally spectacular” run: her 4min 17.88sec in the indoor mile was the fifth fastest of all time, knocking almost a second off the British indoor mile record; on the way, she also broke the British indoor 1,500m record. That bodes very well indeed for the Olympics this summer, said Rick…

Book of the week A Curious History of Sex by Kate Lister Unbound 384pp £25 The Week Bookshop £21.99 (incl. p&p) “Buckle your trousers, fasten your seatbelts, here comes Kate Lister,” said Gerard DeGroot in The Times. In this “wild ride” of a book, the academic and blogger serves up a“wonderfully irreverent” history of sex. She discusses, among other subjects, “masturbation, sex dolls, vibrators, odours, aphrodisiacs, oysters, pubic hair, condoms and prostitution”. Her emphasis, though, is on the “really weird stuff” that people have got up to over the centuries. We learn that the earliest dildo (a stone phallus measuring 7.8 inches) is some 28,000 years old. In medieval times, doctors thought erections were gas-powered – and so prescribed beans as a cure for impotence. Bicycles featured prominently in Victorian…

The Italian futurist painter Tullio Crali (1910-2000) captured the “exhilaration” of flying like no other, said Maggie Gray in Apollo magazine. Futurism, an avant-garde movement founded in Italy in 1909, celebrated speed, technology and modernity – the car, the train, the plane and, at times, industrialised warfare. Crali had a “remarkable capacity for translating the power and drama of flight into paint”. Yet he remains relatively unrecognised, perhaps because of his “enthusiasm for militarised flight”; though he shied away from politics, he made some of his best known paintings as a war artist in Mussolini’s Italy, and the“uncomfortably close” links between Italian fascism and futurism have meant that his work has seldom been exhibited since 1945. This new exhibition at the Estorick Collection is the first survey of Crali’s work…

Best books… Hannah Rothschild The author, filmmaker and philanthropist chooses her favourite novels. Her new novel, House of Trelawney (Bloomsbury £16.99), a love story and satire about the 2008 financial crash, is out now The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, 1875 (Wordsworth Classics £2.50). Surely the biggest, baddest baddie inliterature, Augustus Melmotte, a foreigner intent on swindling dumb British toffs, arrives with a load of fake shares and a beautiful daughter. He nearly succeeds but his comeuppance, when it comes, is bleak, pathetic and thoroughly enjoyable. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, 1945 (Penguin £8.99). A present from my grandmother to mark my 15th birthday and treasured ever since. Mitford’s satire tells the loosely autobiographical tale of a charming and bonkers aristocratic family. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh,…

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express The surprising thing about the new Mini Electric – the brand’s first full production EV – is that it “looks, feels and drives much like a normal Mini”. Granted, it lacks the “individuality” of cars like the upcoming Honda e, and its 140- to 145-mile range lags behind the latest Renault Zoe’s 240 miles. But Mini-lovers will likely find its faithfulness to the brand a huge comfort. This a “solid first effort”. The Daily Telegraph It’s true that this three-door hatchback is hard to tell apart from other Minis. Outside the UK, the word electric isn’t even in its name – it’s the Mini Cooper SE. The interior is, as always, “comfortable and snug”, with rear seats that are “tricky” to get…

The abrasive star who became Hollywood’s elder statesman Kirk Douglas 1916-2020 Intense, rugged and muscular, with only his famous dimpled chin to suggest an underlying vulnerability, Kirk Douglas, who has died aged 103, was a towering figure in Hollywood in the postwar era, and one of the last surviving links to its so-called Golden Age, said The New York Times. From 1946, he appeared in around 90 films, but unusually for a leading man of his stature, he rarely played romantic leads. Instead he specialised in “tough sons of bitches”. Douglas was himself a “born fighter”. Driven, abrasive and confident, he overcame extreme poverty and defied anti-Semitism, stood up tothe studio system, and survived aseries of debilitating strokes, not to mention a helicopter crash, to establish himself as a living…

Is there anyone at Credit Suisse who wasn’t under surveillance? Switzerland’s second largest bank has ousted its French-Ivorian CEO, Tidjane Thiam, following a “saga of corporate espionage and personal vendettas that has sent shock waves through Switzerland’s famously discreet banking community”, said The Guardian. Thiam, a former Prudential boss “widely seen as one of the finance industry’s leading lights”, resigned after losing a boardroom power struggle that erupted after the bank admitted to hiring private detectives to spy on former staff. He still claims he had “no knowledge of the observation”. The “lurid” saga began last September when Iqbal Khan – formerly a “star banker” in Credit Suisse’s wealth-management division – alleged that “up to three men hired by the bank chased him across Zurich”, said Harry Robertson in City…

The Scots may have lost to the English in the Six Nations rugby tournament at Murrayfield last weekend. But they can at least “celebrate one victory” over their fiercest rivals, said Mark Atherton in The Times. According to a new report from wealth manager Brewin Dolphin, “if you are investing for the long term, you should pick Scottish, not English, companies”. Brewin found that Scottish stocks on the FTSE all-share index returned 281% over the past 15 years, compared with 201% for the whole of the index, which is dominated by English stocks. The Scots also did better over ten years, returning 185% to the all-share’s 115% – although over five years, “they were behind” by 35% to 47%. One of the best performers was the Edinburgh-based Scottish Mortgage investment…

The week’s best shares 4imprint Group Investors Chronicle 4imprint markets promotional items (bags, pens, umbrellas). Growing organically in the US, with strong cash generation. The extremely capital-light business model means that there’s plenty of scope to grow. Buy. £33. Gateley The Times Since listing five years ago, this law firm, which provides services to 18 of the UK’s 20 largest housebuilders, is performing well. Revenues and profits are rising at “healthy levels”. Yields an attractive 4.2%. Buy. 214p. McCarthy &Stone The Times After overambitious expansion, the retirement home specialist now favours modest growth at sustainable margins. The decision to rent homes, as well as sell, makes it more resilient. Valued at 11.6 times Peel Hunt’s forecast earnings. Yields 4.7%. Buy. 149.5p. Midwich Group The Times A specialist in broadcasting, Midwich…

People have been decorating their homes with fake plastic plants for years; now, gardeners are increasingly opting for them too, reports The Sunday Times. Among the most popular fake outdoor plants are hedges made of spun polyester “leaves”. Their attraction, say retailers, is that they take no time to grow; remain verdant all year; and don’t need pruning. “Minimal maintenance is key,” said Vincent Vity of Just Artificial, a fake foliage “nursery” in Morecambe. The first state school with boarding facilities for children as young as four is opening in Norfolk, to cater to the growing demand from two-parent working families. Wymondham College Prep School will charge £11,000 a year for accommodation and food.…

The Government has defended its decision to deport a plane full of foreign-born offenders to Jamaica. Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the people on the flight were guilty of “serious offences”, including rape. However, campaigners said some of the offenders had lived in the UK since they were children, had no links with Jamaica, and had committed their crimes years earlier. One of those on the list, Reshawn Davis, had spent two months in jail for robbery ten years ago. He arrived in the UK aged 11. Following a last-minute legal challenge, the plane left with 17 people on board; 25 were removed after the Court of Appeal ruled that they had not had proper access to legal advice owing to an O2 phone mast being down near their…

Toronto, Canada Clampdown on Airbnb party houses: The short-term lettings site Airbnb has banned Canadians aged under 25 from renting whole flats or houses in their local area, in the hopes of preventing drunken violence at so-called “party houses”. The ban, which could be extended to other countries if it proves effective, follows a spate of shootings at Airbnb properties in Canada. In the most recent, three people were shot dead – one reportedly by suicide – at aflat in Toronto last Friday. Airbnb is preparing to float on the stock market later this year, with a rumoured target valuation of $31bn. However, the group’s “record on safety and trust continues to be a dark cloud over the business”, according to the FT. Last month, the firm announced $150m of…

1 Where Am I Going? by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, performed by Barbra Streisand 2 Georgy Porgy (Disco Version) by David Paich, performed by Toto and Cheryl Lynn 3 Righteous (feat. Roots Manuva & Rodney P), written and performed by Ocean Wisdom 4 Shoot You Down by Ian Brown and John Squire, performed by The Stone Roses 5 Love Having You Around by Stevie Wonder and Syreeta Wright, performed by First Choice 6 Do I Love You (Indeed I Do), written and performed by Frank Wilson 7* Truth, written and performed by Kamasi Washington 8 You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, performed by The Rolling Stones Book: a really big dictionary Luxury: a potting shed * Choice if allowed only one record…

In the 12,000 years since farming began, the number of trees on Earth has fallen by about half; there are about three trillion trees in the world today. Much of this decline is recent: the World Bank estimates that 3.9 million square miles of forest has been lost since 1900. Between 1990 and 2016, 500,000 square miles was cut down, an area larger than South Africa. Even so, forests still cover some 30% of the world’s land area. The UN estimated that they absorbed 3.8 gigatonnes of carbon in 2017, about a tenth of total global emissions. However, while tree cover is declining sharply in some parts of the world, it is growing in others. The UN estimates that about half of the Earth’s tropical forests have been cleared, and…

The fiscal lies Republicans love to spread Jordan Weissmann Slate America’s federal deficit – that is, its annual overspend, as opposed to its total national debt – is expected to pass $1trn this year, says Jordan Weissmann. Is that something to worry about? Personally, I don’t think so. Although some fret that the country is heading for a “fiscal catastrophe”, today’s low interest rates, and the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, mean the US is more than capable of sustaining these high levels of debt for the foreseeable future. But even those Americans who don’t think this debt is a problem are entitled to be “furious” about the “political hypocrisy” that lies behind it. After the 2008 credit crunch, Republicans spent years “fearmongering” about the deficit, successfully pressuring…

The amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100 billion tonnes per year for the first time. A report by the Circle Economy think tank found that in 2017 (the latest year for which data is available), humanity consumed 100.6 billion tonnes of material. Nearly half this total was the sand, clay, gravel and cement used for building; coal, oil and gas made up 15% and metal ores 10%; most of the remainder were plants and trees used for food and fuel. Since 1970, the materials consumed by humanity have quadrupled, while the world’s population has only doubled. Meanwhile, the proportion of materials being recycled is actually falling, down from 9.1% in 2015 to 8.6% in 2017. “Our hunger for virgin materials needs to be halted,” said Marc de…

“I am not the kind of person women fall in love with. I sort of grow on them, like a fungus.” Jeff Bezos, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first.” Peter Ustinov, quoted in Forbes “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Isaac Asimov, quoted in The New York Times “It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.” Dorothy Parker on her divorce, quoted in The Times “The mob is by nature innocent: it washes its own conscience in a flow of collective indignation.” Roger Scruton on UnHerd “There is hardly an American citizen above the poverty level whose tax conscience is so completely clear…

Welfare and well-being To The Guardian Current explanations of suicide, such as Thomas Joiner’s, suggest that a sense of not belonging and feeling a burden are important triggers for suicide attempts, so it’s no surprise that stopping benefits, or handling them badly with people already prone to such feelings due to mental health problems, has led to an increase in deaths (“Dozens of suicides linked to handling of benefit claims”). When worth is increasingly defined by ability to be economically productive, the underlying message is that you are a burden and don’t belong. This is what may be contributing to rising suicide rates for men aged 20-24 when they try to join the workforce and develop careers, men and women aged 45-49 when they can be facing a plateau in…

Salvador Dalí at Omer Tiroche Gallery Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) is loved and sometimes loathed for his emblematic scenes depicting melting clocks, barren desert landscapes and strange, mutant figures. His endlessly reproduced canvases and outrageous public persona can serve to obscure the fact that he really could draw –and did so, prodigiously. This exhibition is based around four sketchbooks dating from 1930 to 1939 in which the artist made his preparatory drawings for such major works asPhantom Cart and The Burning Giraffe, exposing his creative processes and demonstrating quite how good a draughtsman he could be when stripped back to the basics of pencil and paper. There are some stunning images here: one drawing presents a devilish male face in profile, holding a cricket to his nose, fine lines making his…

Tensions run high at Philip and Kirsty’s as Gavin mopes around the house. Helen meets Lee’s daughters for the first time, but they seem quiet around her. After berating Josh for his behaviour, Pip later gives him a pep talk. Neil is undecided about the new outdoor unit job at Berrow, and the pay cut, but Susan says she’s proud of him no matter what. A broken boiler forces Kate to stay at Jakob’s, where she makes herself at home and plans Xander’s naming ceremony. After a chat with Jill, Neil decides to take the job. Lynda steps up the campaign to boycott The B at Ambridge, but her sabotage plan backfires, to Lilian’s delight. Kate’s stay is testing Jakob’s patience. Jill organises a family dinner at The B to…

What the experts recommend Paradise 61 Rupert Street, London W1; paradisesoho.com “Calling a restaurant Paradise might seem the definition of hubris,” says Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. But pretty much everything here is in fact “divine”. The expensive-looking decor (all angular lighting and hand-thrown tiling) makes it a “chic place to hang out and watch the vestiges of Sleazy Soho across the road”. No less captivating is Charith Priyadarshana’s Sri Lankan cooking. Mutton rolls are the best I’ve eaten, the “spicing multilayered and resonant”. And such is the “thrilling complexity” of a pork cheek curry, flavoured with stout and lemongrass, that I’m still thinking about it days later. “Even the incidentals are notable”: the sambols (chutneys) are deeply flavoured, the hoppers “pancakey in their depths”. Central…

Huawei: Germany joins the rebels Donald Trump reportedly “slammed down the phone” on Boris Johnson when told of his decision to grant Huawei access toBritain’s 5G network, said Chris Baynes in The Independent. After lobbying the UK as part of his “global bid” to ensure that the Chinese tech firm is excluded from the West’s next-generation telecoms systems, the US president was said to be “apoplectic” about the decision to allow Huawei access to “non-core” elements of the project. Despite this, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he remains “reasonably confident” that the US will feature “in the first wave of post-Brexit trade deals” – and now Britain has found further support, said Andreas Rinke on Reuters. In another rebuff to Trump, German lawmakers this week stopped short of banning…

The “tectonic” shift that’s rocking China David Smith The Times When production is shut down for a lengthy period, as it has been in parts of China owing to the coronavirus, growth takes a hit “that’s rarely made up later”, says David Smith. Last year China’s growth, at 6.1%, was the weakest since 1990. This year the figure “is likely to start with a ‘5’ for the first time in a very long time”. And global industry faces a “double hit from a weaker Chinese market and the disruption of supply chains that rely on factories in China”. Yet in many ways, the impact of the coronavirus is just accelerating existing trends. As Bank of America notes, global supply chains were already undergoing “tectonic shifts” before the outbreak, with activity…