Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1328 i The Week

What happened The dirty dozen Plans for a breakaway “European Super League” (ESL) competition that would have changed the face of European football collapsed in ignominy this week, in the wake of a furious backlash from fans, players and politicians. The £3.45bn venture, drawn up by the 12 biggest clubs in England, Spain and Italy (“the dirty dozen”), was designed to reshape elite European football in the image of North American sports leagues. The Uefa Champions League – currently the continent’s pre-eminent competition – pits clubs that have won top spots in their domestic leagues against each other. So its participants vary every year. But in the ESL, which would have killed off the Champions League, 15 mega teams (the dirty dozen and three others) would have battled it out…

Amazon, which unveiled its latest expansion – into hairdressing. The first Amazon Salon will open in Spitalfields, east London, within weeks. However, the tech and retail giant has said the 1,500-square-foot space – which will also be used to sell beauty products – will be more laboratory than barber, designed to test new technologies, such as augmented reality systems that enable customers to see how they’d look with a style before having it. Prime London, with news that a derelict seven-storey mansion in Knightsbridge has sold for £210m, making it the most expensive home in Britain. The 62,000-square-foot, 45-room property in Rutland Gate was bought by Chinese billionaire C.K. Cheung, who is now expected to spend another £200m or so doing it up. Taylor Swift, who broke a record held…

79% of UK football fans opposed plans for a new European Super League (ESL) in football, while 14% backed them. 75% said they would not be interested in watching an ESL match. 89% felt that the move was motivated by financial gain. YouGov/The Independent 38% of Britons support making it compulsory for all schools to fly the Union flag. 31% neither support nor oppose it. 25% oppose it. Redfield & Wilton Strategies/The I newspaper 45% of Republicans in the US say they do not plan to get vaccinated against Covid-19, while 50% plan to get the jab or already have done. Among Democrats, the figures are 7% and 91% respectively. Quinnipiac University/ The New York Times…

Washington DC Sanctions: The US government has blamed Russia for last year’s SolarWinds cyberattack – which was first noticed in December, but began as early as March – and imposed retaliatory sanctions.US intelligence said it had “high confidence” that Russia was behind the attack, which compromised nine government agencies and scores of private organisations. In announcing the penalties, Washington also highlighted what it said was Russia’s long practice of meddling in US elections. Punishing Russia for its interference in elections has precedent, but the US usually ignores cyberattacks, partly because its own agents participate in them. A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia would retaliate: “The principle of reciprocity applies… to best ensure our own interests.” Chicago, Illinois Teenagers shot: Latino groups are calling for a government investigation into the fatal police…

“The collapse in UK-EU trade after 1 January was widely reported. What has not been reported nearly as much is that UK exports have made a near-complete recovery. They were up 46.6% in February after falling by 42% in January. Imports are not there yet, but they are also recovering. I am not making the argument that Brexit will be an economic success. I don’t think it will. But the scare stories and forecasts of unmitigated gloom have been wrong and deceitful. Brexit has been the most emotional policy dispute in recent times. Almost everyone’s expectation of the economic effects correlated 100% with their political beliefs.” Wolfgang Münchau, EuroIntelligence…

On the surface, Covid isn’t a big problem Dominic Lawson The Sunday Times For the past year I’ve been living in a dictatorship, says Dominic Lawson: a hygiene dictatorship. My house stinks because every day, my wife insists on covering every surface with Virusend, an antiseptic spray which promises “to eliminate coronavirus in just one minute”. Alas, my suffering has been in vain. Experts now accept that in the vast majority of cases, people catch Covid by inhaling infected airborne particles; it’s very rare to catch it from touching something. Painstaking research by microbiology professor Emanuel Goldman has found that in real-world settings, as opposed to experimental ones, the virus doesn’t linger on surfaces. After an outbreak in a South Korean office block last year, for example, it was found…

Monkeys bond in a crisis When a catastrophic hurricane tore across a tiny Caribbean island in 2017, stripping away almost two-thirds of its vegetation, scientists expected that its population of monkeys would react by retreating into rival cliques, and fighting over access to the more limited food and shade. In fact, the opposite occurred, said The Times: the rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago became more sociable, and extended their social networks. Researchers from Exeter University and various US institutions noted that they were more tolerant of one another (sitting closer together, often to share a shady place) and groomed each other more, while timid, isolated animals in particular sought out new connections. What made this especially surprising is that before the hurricane, the macaques had been noticeably quarrelsome. How yawning…

The world is in an “arms race” between the evolution of the coronavirus and “the human response”, said Samuel Lovett in The Independent. While some nations are successfully suppressing the virus, the global infection rate has surged over the past seven weeks. In these favourable conditions, the virus will continue to mutate, which could in turn spark major future outbreaks. Thousands of variants of Sars-CoV-2 have already emerged over the past 14 months, though only a handful are particularly troubling: the “South African variant”, for example, can elude certain human immune responses, while the “UK variant”, is highly transmissible. The fear is that there may be far worse to come. “It normally takes many years for viruses, once they cross the species barrier, to really optimise themselves to be able…

It was widely predicted that this year’s Formula One championship would be close-fought, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. And the thrilling race at Imola on Sunday confirms it will be. Max Verstappen of Holland produced a “masterclass” in wet conditions to see off Lewis Hamilton, who was left ruing a rare – but very costly – mistake. Halfway through, trailing Verstappen by five seconds, the defending champion momentarily “went off the dry line” while lapping George Russell. He lost his grip, and “careered straight on into the barrier and damaged his front wing”. Other racers would have thrown in the towel, but Hamilton reversed off the gravel, got his Mercedes going again, and headed to the pits for emergency repairs. Seconds later he had a stroke of luck, said…

Just how civil... To The Times The inappropriate relationships between civil servants and business that David Aaronovitch describes is not a new phenomenon. In the 1970s, I was fighting to get an order for a company in my constituency when I found the civil servant in charge obstructive and unhelpful. Eventually I won my case and ministers overruled him. Shortly afterwards he resigned and joined our competitor for the order. When I suggested to the company that it should complain about this, it said that if it did so it would fatally endanger its relationship with the civil service for years to come. Mike Thomas, MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne East 1974-83; Brill, Bucks ...is our civil service? To The Guardian The current efforts to portray the civil service as systemically corrupt…

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny 4th Estate 336pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 Katherine Heiny’s 2017 novel Standard Deviation – about an ill-matched married couple – was “to my mind one of the best, and funniest” of recent years, said India Knight in The Sunday Times. Her new one may be “even better”. It tells the story of Jane, a primary school teacher who moves to a small town in Michigan and begins dating “an exceptionally handsome woodworker”. He is perfect for her in just about every respect, except, as Jane discovers, for one: he has “slept with every sleepable-with woman in the county”. As someone whose “expectations are traditional”, Jane finds this increasingly troubling (though for the reader its effect is “cumulatively hilarious”). Weighty and tender – and…

Countless films have touched on the international trade in illegal drugs, but few explore the subject in much depth. Some of the best – such as Maria Full of Grace, and the 2011 version of Miss Bala – are not available online now, but here are five that are: Deep Cover Laurence Fishburne is an undercover cop who infiltrates an LA drugs ring, and Jeff Goldblum a yuppie drug dealer in Bill Duke’s underrated thriller from 1992. It’s a gripping, violent exploration of murky moral dilemmas and the ironies and absurdities of America’s “war on drugs”. Traffic Based on the brilliant 1989 Channel 4 drama series Traffik, Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 thriller interweaves several plot strands to give an overview of the drugs trade in North America. It’s a formally audacious…

Though he remains “Britain’s richest artist”, Damien Hirst has been through something of a “fallow period” in recent years, said Mark Hudson in The Independent. Where once it seemed his work could only shoot up in value, his commercial and critical standing have taken a dive lately, and it has been reported that he has been laying off staff. But if Hirst is down, he is not out, and last week, on the very day that Covid-19 restrictions began to be relaxed in England, he opened the first of a year-long programme of exhibitions at London’s Gagosian Britannia Street. Composed of 41 works created between 1993 and the present day, Fact Paintings and Fact Sculptures includes photorealistic paintings, conceptual installations and provocative sculptures. Its launch date had been carefully chosen…

The Daily Telegraph Is it “crazy” to launch a seven-seat SUV in a time of strict emissions rules and crossover dominance? Toyota doesn’t think so. And though the Highlander – a big hit in the US – has never sold in large volumes in the UK, it might yet be proved right. The hybrid model could be seen as a “trusty, comfortable companion” for all-weather driving, though it can’t tow as much as most rivals. What Car? Instead of a “dizzying array” of trim levels and options to choose from, there are just two Highlanders. Toyota has also avoided filling the car with fiddly touch-sensitive controls, and its 8-inch touchscreen is basic. Unsurprisingly, there is loads of leg- and head-room. With five of its seats up, the boot is 865…

Hampton Manor is a highly regarded hotel near Solihull, with a Michelin-starred restaurant and 45 acres of woodland to roam (two nights’ half-board from £395pp; hamptonmanor.com). Marram Grass in Anglesea, one of north Wales’s most talked-about restaurants, has rooms – or you can pitch up in the camp site and caravan park on which it is set (b&b doubles from £130; themarramgrass.com). Scotland’s northernmost luxury hotel, Links House at Royal Dornoch, is opening a new restaurant and running whisky tastings (two nights’ half-board from £337pp; linkshousedornoch.com). Chef Michael Wignall uses local produce at the foodie favourite The Angel at Hetton in North Yorkshire (half-board doubles from £295; angelhetton.co.uk). On this two-night tour of Sussex vineyards, guests stay at Gravetye Manor, which has a Michelin-starred restaurant (two nights’ b&b £1,094pp; smoothred.com).…

Leon/EG Group: healthy appetite There’s no stopping the Issa brothers, said the Financial Times. Fresh from their bid to acquire Asda for £6.8bn, the Blackburn-based petrol station tycoons have snapped up the “clean-living” restaurant chain Leon for £100m, as part of an ongoing push into food retailing. Founded in 2004 by John Vincent, Henry Dimbleby and Allegra McEvedy, Leon “tapped into the demand for healthier, affordable fast-food” to grow from a single shop on London’s Carnaby Street to an operation with 70 restaurants and franchises, generating £115m in sales in 2019. But it has been badly hit by the pandemic. CEO Vincent, who is selling his 15% stake and leaving the company, said the Issas’ EG Group would be “superb custodians” of the brand. Maybe, said Jim Armitage in…

The SFO is strangely silent on Gupta Oliver Shah The Sunday Times Red lights are flashing all over Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance metals empire, which stretches from Lochaber in Scotland to Whyalla in Australia, and employs 35,000 people, says Oliver Shah. There are signs that “financial engineering” carried out in conjunction with Greensill Capital “has put huge sums of investors’ money in jeopardy” – yet the Serious Fraud Office is nowhere in sight. Gupta has strenuously denied allegations the group used “suspect invoices” to secure Greensill loans, and engaged in “double-pledging” – improperly raising funds several times using the same collateral. The SFO has a policy of declining to comment on possible cases. Yet Gupta’s looks pressing – not least because he continues to run a bank, Wyelands, which has…

Controversy of the week Leaving Afghanistan “America’s longest war” is coming to an end, said Julian Borger in The Guardian. Joe Biden has ordered US troops out of Afghanistan, a withdrawal to be completed by 11 September. That will be exactly 20 years since the al-Qa’eda attack on New York’s Twin Towers triggered the US “War on Terror”, which brought down Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Biden’s Afghan policy is one area of continuity with his predecessor Donald Trump, but it also reflects his own thinking: under Obama, he was sceptical about using military force in foreign policy. The return of the last 2,500 troops will be popular with the US public, weary of “forever wars”. But US intelligence reports that the Taliban, which controls about half the nation, is “confident [of]…

Old English sheepdogs, after they were classed as vulnerable by The Kennel Club for the first time. The dogs – familiar to millions from the Dulux ads – reached a peak of popularity in 1979, when nearly 6,000 puppies were registered, but that figure has since fallen to fewer than 230, as owners have sought out smaller and more low-maintenance breeds. Keir Starmer, who was thrown out of The Raven pub in Bath by its anti-lockdown landlord. During a tense confrontation, Rod Humphris told the Labour leader that he’d “failed” the country. “Get out of my pub,” he said, “go on, get out of my pub!”…

Liverpool Trial outdoor gig: A crowd of 5,000 people will get the chance to attend a “near-normal” outdoor gig in Liverpool next weekend as part of a government trial. The event at Sefton Park on 2 May will be headlined by the Manchester band Blossoms. The crowd will not have to wear masks or be socially distanced, but will have to take a rapid lateral flow Covid test before arriving at the event; take another test after the gig; and provide contact details to NHS Test and Trace. The concert is one of a series of pilot events, alongside an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley Stadium last weekend. However, music industry leaders complained that not enough had been done for events to go ahead; organisers of the 70,000-person Boomtown festival…

Suez Canal, Egypt Tanker row: An Egyptian court has impounded the giant container ship that last month blocked the Suez Canal, in a legal tangle over the financial consequences of the accident. The Suez Canal Authority is pursuing the owners of the 220,000-tonne Ever Given for a reported £650m to meet the cost of the salvage operation. The figure also covers compensation for lost transit fees for the six days the canal was blocked, holding up more than 400 vessels. The authority’s head, Lt. General Osama Rabie, said the owners were clearly at fault, but were refusing to pay. “The vessel is now officially impounded,” he told Egypt’s state-run television. “They do not want to pay anything.” Litigation could be complicated, as the Ever Given is owned by a Japanese…

The organisers of the British Town Crier Championships say they’re making sure this year’s contest is Covidcompliant – by holding it in silence. The Loyal Company of Town Criers said entrants would be judged on written cries alone – because not everyone can record good-quality video. It is “a return to the bare bones of crying”, said Bishops Stortford crier Carole Williams. “It’s a real skill to write a cry that sticks to the theme, that enlightens people, and doesn’t bore the audience. And it all has to be done in 140 words.” Britain is facing a worrying shortage of garden gnomes. Gnome supply chains were badly affected by the recent blockage of the Suez Canal, according to Iain Wylie, chief executive of the Garden Centre Association. And a “massive…

JAPAN Don’t tip your polluted water into our sea The Hankyoreh (Seoul) Japan is planning an act of environmental pollution on a massive scale, says The Hankyoreh. Radioactive water has been building up at the Fukushima nuclear power plant ever since its reactors were destroyed by the tsunami in 2011. Now, the storage tanks are nearly full, and the government says it must release 1.25 million tons – equivalent to 500 Olympic-size swimming pools – into the ocean. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga insists the contaminated water will be filtered and poses no risk, and the plan has been endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it has angered neighbouring countries and environmental groups, who say the long-term consequences for marine ecosystems could be disastrous. And fishing communities around Fukushima…

Investors have been keeping a sceptical eye on bitcoin’s soaring value – up 700% in a year; but many environmentalists are more concerned about its growing impact on carbon emissions. Cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology, which relies on specialised computers working at top speed 24 hours a day to solve complex equations, in order to verify transactions. This practice is called “cryptomining” (because “miners” are randomly rewarded in bitcoin) and it makes the currencies very energy-intensive. In February, Cambridge University researchers estimated that, already, mining bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina. Now a paper has warned that by 2024, bitcoin mining in China will be responsible for the release of 130 million metric tonnes of carbon a year – which is more than the entire annual emissions of the Czech Republic.…

Helen McCrory, who died of cancer last week aged 52, was renowned for her powerful performances on stage and screen. But Damian Lewis, her husband, revealed this week that in private she was also self-effacing, kind – and funny. Once, when McCrory was starring in Uncle Vanya in New York, Lauren Bacall went backstage to praise her for her “magnificent” performance as Sonya. “There was an awkward pause,” wrote Lewis. “’Oh, I’m so sorry. I think you want Emily next door – Emily Watson, she played Sonya.’ [Lauren] was horrified: ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry!’ Helen riposted, ‘That’s alright, Ms Hepburn, I’m glad you enjoyed the show.’” Ronnie Barker wrote a lot of the sketches for The Two Ronnies – which sometimes troubled the show’s team of writers, especially…

“Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home.” Fran Lebowitz, quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly “Most people read news not for information but for affirmation.” Pollster Frank Luntz in The Times “Nobody can rescue us from other people.” Pablo Neruda, quoted in The Paris Review “If you want to truly understand a man, you should look at what the world was like in the year that man turned 21.” Napoleon, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.” Tom Stoppard, quoted on The Browser “The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.” Anne Bancroft, quoted in Forbes “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward…

Before the start of this year’s clay court season, Dan Evans, the British No. 1, had “not won an ATP tour match on clay for almost four years”, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. But his run last week at the Monte Carlo Masters belied that depressing statistic. Evans reached the semi-finals of the prestigious event, along the way earning the greatest victory of his career: a 6-4, 7-5 defeat of the world No. 1, Novak Djokovic. The Serb, it’s true, was on uncharacteristically poor form (“I just felt awful on the court,” he explained later), but even on a bad day he takes some beating. In windy conditions, Evans used his backhand slice to great effect, his constant rushes to the net making Djokovic “flustered”. It was a major…

To The Times Your article on Xinjiang’s tainted supply chain exposes the apathy within Western democracies toward slave, forced and prison labour. Yes, the Xinjiang situation is unpalatable. But it is equally so in India, where millions of people continue to live in the most appalling conditions that break both domestic and international law while their largely unpaid work delivers cheap products to our supermarket shelves. Regulations are so lax that household name confectionery companies are now arguing in the US supreme court that they should not be held responsible for child slavery in their cocoa supply chains in West Africa. The International Labour Organisation estimates that 25 million people are trapped in forced labour worldwide. When we drill down over the Xinjiang camps, we also have a responsibility to…

Tracey Emin’s recovery In September 2020, Tracey Emin revealed that she was seriously ill, and might not have long to live, says Marianka Swain in The Daily Telegraph. The 57-year-old artist had been diagnosed with squamous-cell bladder cancer – the disease that killed her mother in 2016; it was aggressive, and the prognosis was bleak. Last week, however, Emin announced that following an extensive round of surgeries – including a hysterectomy and the removal of her bladder, urethra, lymph nodes, and parts of her intestine and her vagina – she has been given the all-clear. She is still far from well: she has to use a urostomy bag in place of her bladder, which requires emptying as often as every 20 minutes; and the intensive treatment has left her exhausted.…

Jazzer takes Tracy to a stately home for their first date, to prove there’s more to him than people think. Susan is disappointed that there’s no role for her in Martha’s christening. She’s further put out to hear that Chris and Alice have asked Harrison and Fallon, not family members, to be godparents. Stressed out, Alice calls her detox buddy Lisa, who insists she should tell her family about her alcoholism; Alice refuses. Lisa shares her own experiences and urges Alice to be strong. Kate rages to Jennifer over Brian’s silent treatment. As things escalate, Fallon – who’s there to discuss the christening catering – gets caught in the crossfire. When Alice bumps into Harrison, she confides in him about her lapse and he is supportive. Meanwhile, Kate also has…

Sending fine wine into space One of the world’s greatest wines has been sent to space for 14 months, to determine how zero gravity affects its development. Space Cargo Unlimited, a Luxembourg-based start-up, arranged for a case of 2,000 Château Pétrus – which costs around £1,400 a bottle – to be stored in protective capsules aboard the International Space Station. After landing back on Earth in January this year, the wine was tasted by a panel of experts, alongside conventionally cellared bottles from the same vintage. The experts agreed that while the space-aged Pétrus remained an “extraordinary” wine, it wasn’t identical to its Earth-aged counterpart: most found it more floral and less tannic. “It just felt a little bit older, a bit more evolved than the wine that had remained…

Huawei E5576 You can get this budget 4G model with a contract from Three, or unlocked – meaning you can shop around for a data deal. It only has six hours of working battery time, but solid download speeds of 150Mbps (£43; efones.com). Netgear Nighthawk MR1100-100EUS With a 2.4-inch LCD screen and a massive battery that lasts for 24 hours, this little gadget is pretty impressive. It can achieve download speeds of up to 1Gbps and upload speeds up to 150Mbps with a 4G connection, and it can connect to 20 devices at once (£280; store.netgear.co.uk). TP-Link M7350 4G LTE With eight hours of battery, the M7350 can connect to ten devices with download speeds of up to 150Mbps. It comes unlocked (£75; argos.co.uk). Huawei E6878 Pro While 5G connectivity…

Dame Shirley Williams, who has died aged 90, was a giant of left-wing politics in the latter half of the 20th century, and a hugely popular figure in Parliament and beyond. As a minister in the Wilson and Callaghan governments, she was widely tipped to become Britain’s first female prime minister. But it was not to be. She didn’t even lead the SDP, the party she co-founded in 1981 as one of the “gang of four” who broke away from Labour in protest at its leftward drift. Exuding warmth and sincerity, Williams had enormous electoral appeal, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, and she was one of the finest “room-shaking” speakers of her generation. Yet one of the qualities that made her so well loved – her lack of cut-throat…

A catastrophic Covid second wave in India rattled markets globally after a week of exuberance. Much of the froth was in cryptocurrencies after digital exchange Coinbase’s Nasdaq debut. The price of Dogecoin – supposedly a “joke” currency – doubled in a day last Friday, after Elon Musk tweeted a picture of a Joan Miró painting captioned: “Doge barking at the Moon”. Dogecoin’s value has increased by over 9,000% this year, dwarfing bitcoin’s price-doubling. Bitcoin’s value fell by over 12% to about $55,000 this week. Dogecoin plunged by 22% in London on Wednesday. UK inflation rose to 0.7% in March, up from 0.4% in February, but this was less than economists had predicted. The BoE has forecast it could reach 1.9% by the end of the year. A jump in US…

● Bullish… There was much jubilation last week when the FTSE 100 burst through the 7,000 mark for the first time in a year, said Russell Lynch in The Daily Telegraph. Many experts predicted that the rally in Britain’s internationally focused blue-chip index had further to run – buoyed by trillions of dollars of global stimulus, the “growing momentum” of vaccine roll-outs, and some impressive figures from China, which recorded record Q1 growth of 18.3%. Indeed, the UK gains were “echoed around the world in a breathless week for financial markets”. “We believe the bull market remains on a solid footing,” said Mark Haefele of UBS Global Wealth Management. ● …turns to bearish It the event, the footing was not that solid. On Tuesday, the Footsie suffered “its biggest fall…

Nicolas Hieronimus L’Oréal’s new chief is a headline writer’s dream. But “Hieronimus boss” will have his work cut out in the post-pandemic world, said The Economist. As face-to-face life slowly resumes, beauty industry executives “are still grappling with what working from home, or hiding lips behind a mask, will do to the business”. A L’Oréal lifer, Nicolas Hieronimus is only the sixth boss to lead the world’s largest beauty firm since its foundation in Paris in 1909. And he’s fortunate to inherit no crisis. Sales and profits “dipped” in 2020, but only by a modest 5%, thanks to surging online orders and the strong Chinese market. Still, new e-commerce rivals and social media influencers pose challenges. Despite his flawless pedigree, Hieronimus “will have to prove he’s worth it”. Anthony Tan…

Ocado customers could in the future have their shopping carried into their home by robots. The online grocer is investing £10m in a start-up called Oxbotica to create autonomous vehicles to use in its warehouses, as delivery vans, and as “kerb-to-kitchen robots”. The plan is part of the company’s goal to ensure its food deliveries can be “without human touch”. Demand for pet cameras and other remote gadgets is booming, as people who bought pets in lockdown start heading back to work.PetTech.co.uk has seen a 50% increase in demand for automatic feeders in the past few weeks. Overall, the value of the pet care market in the UK is expected to reach £2.1bn by 2023 – a 25% increase on 2018, according to Mintel.…

Boris Johnson defended himself against allegations of “sleaze” this week, after the BBC reported that he had promised to “fix” a tax problem for James Dyson. The entrepreneur had texted the PM, to seek assurance that any of his employees who came to the UK to make ventilators would not be penalised by the tax system. In the Commons this week, the PM said that he’d not apologise for “moving heaven and earth” to secure ventilators, but Labour’s Keir Starmer said it pointed to a pattern of “sleaze”, and that there is “one rule” for those with the PM’s phone number, “and another for everybody else”. Several inquiries are currently under way into lobbying and informal contacts in government (see page 22).…

Dublin Mountbatten apology: Sinn Féin has for the first time apologised for the IRA’s assassination of Lord Mountbatten in 1979. Speaking after the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, a nephew of Mountbatten, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said: “I am sorry that happened”, describing the murder as “heartbreaking”. Mountbatten was on a fishing trip off the coast of Sligo when a bomb tore through his small boat, killing him and three others, including his 14-year-old grandson and a 15-year-old local boy. McDonald’s predecessor, Gerry Adams, had previously expressed regret for the murder, but said that Mountbatten had known the risk of visiting Ireland. Berlin A Green Chancellor?: In a reflection of its growing strength, Germany’s Green party has, for the first time, nominated a candidate to stand as…

The contented comic Rob Brydon doesn’t fit the sad clown stereotype. “I heard someone say the other day that every comedian was bullied, and I thought to myself, ‘Well no, it’s not true,’” he told Fiona Sturges in the FT. His childhood in Port Talbot was a pretty contented one. “I was short for my age but not Dudley Moore short. In fact, for Wales I was rather towering. I had terrible skin as a teenager, but I was already performing by the time that came on.” Yet his rise to fame was by no means rapid. A spell in radio was followed by years working on shopping channels and in advertising: his career only took off in 2000, with the BBC comedy Marion and Geoff, followed by his role…

The porn industry is big, big business. Pornhub, the UK’s most popular site, attracts some 3.5 billion visits globally every month – more than Netflix, Amazon or Zoom – and is, by some estimates, the tenth most visited website in the world. In 2019, its total visits stood at 42 billion, with each visitor staying for an average of ten minutes 28 seconds; some 6.8 million new videos were posted on the site, amounting to a combined running time of 1.36 million hours (about 155 years). And Pornhub is not even the biggest porn site on the internet, which is Xvideos. All the biggest sites are so-called tube sites, which – following the model of YouTube – are free to use, allow users to upload content, and are funded by…

The tech giants are monetising our memories Lauren Goode Wired It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly tech companies started co-opting our memories, says Lauren Goode. The groundwork was laid about a decade ago, but the idea really got going in 2015, when Facebook launched On This Day, a feature that alerted users to photos they’d taken on that date in previous years. Since then, other apps have adopted similar features that automatically remind people of their digital histories. Our smartphones now “pulse with memories”, telling us where we’ve been, who we’ve met, what we’ve bought. To hear tech firms describe it, this is about raising a smile, and allowing us to enjoy old photos we might otherwise never look at again. The reality, of course, is that it’s to keep…

Around 4.7 million people were waiting for operations in England in February – more than at any time since 2007. Nearly 387,000 had been waiting more than a year for non-urgent surgery, compared with just 1,600 in February 2020. The NHS said that although nearly two million elective procedures or support appointments had gone ahead in January and February, dealing with the second wave of Covid had put hospitals under intense pressure: 40% of the 400,000 people who have been admitted to hospital with Covid since the pandemic began were admitted in the first two months of this year. However, Northern Ireland has the worst waiting list times of any home nation. More than 300,000 people are waiting for a first consultant appointment and the Department of Health there has…

“Funerals, even Covid-era ones, can be beautiful affairs,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent – and Prince Philip’s was certainly that. It was much smaller than planned, but was all the more moving for the absence of massed dignitaries. “The family in morning suits, the tiny choir of four, the lone piper... there was less pomp and more purity of purpose.” The Duke himself had designed much of the ceremony, from the custom-made Land Rover hearse to the order of service, which featured the sounding of the Royal Navy’s “action stations” signal as the coffin was lowered into the royal vault. The event will be remembered for one particularly poignant image: that of his “tiny 94-year-old widow, frail, bowed, solitary in socially distanced grief”. It was a moving farewell, said…

It was unusual timing, to put it mildly, said David Hytner in The Guardian. A day after Tottenham emerged as one of 12 clubs to briefly sign up for the controversial European Super League, the club sacked its manager, José Mourinho, placing Ryan Mason temporarily in charge. A good day to bury bad news, as cynics were quick to point out. Yet the decision itself was hardly unexpected, said Matt Lawton in The Times. Spurs’ form has “slipped alarmingly” since they led the Premier League in December: they’ve lost seven of their last 14 league games. More likely, the real motive for the timing of the dismissal was their Carabao Cup final against Manchester City this coming Sunday. Not only could a change enhance the club’s chances of beating the…

Football Chelsea beat Manchester City 1-0 to reach the final of the FA Cup, where they will face Leicester City. In the Premier League, Liverpool drew 1-1 with Leeds. Tennis Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece won the Monte Carlo Masters, defeating Andrey Rublev of Russia in straight sets in the final: 6,3, 6-3. Horse racing Racecourses observed a minute’s silence on Monday following the announcement of the death of amateur jockey Lorna Brooke, as a result of a head injury resulting from a heavy fall at Taunton in early April.…

Flyte: This Is Really Going To Hurt Island £9.99 This “lovely” second album from Flyte – named after the gilded young aristocrat in Brideshead Revisited – has echoes of Nick Drake’s “plangent, semi-classical folk-rock”, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. You can also detect the influence of the Kinks’ “music hall stomp” and the Byrds’ “laid-back harmoniousness”. But frontman Will Taylor’s ultimate inspiration on this “enjoyably restrained wallow in abject misery” seems to be his own broken heart. When Taylor sings “You stripped me of everything and I hate you, I really do”, you can hear his pain since splitting with his girlfriend in every note. You might feel we’ve had rather a lot of break-up albums lately; but few have been this good, said Mark Edwards in The Sunday…

You may wonder if the producers’ main aim was to give “mum favourite” Aidan Turner “something to do now Poldark is over”, but Amazon’s Leonardo is not entirely dreadful, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. The story of the great polymath’s life is told in flashback from the prison cell in which he has been incarcerated, on suspicion of killing his platonic muse Caterina da Cremona (Matilda De Angelis). Turner plays Leonardo with “a mild Dustin Hoffman vibe, stammeringly bashful about being so gosh-darned brilliant at everything”, and 16th century Florence looks very beautiful. Unfortunately, the script is clunky, said Euan Ferguson in The Observer, and one wonders why the relationship with Caterina – which has no basis in fact – was included in the first place (if not simply…

Best books… Raven Leilani The novelist chooses her five favourite books. Her debut, Luster (Picador £14.99), has been shortlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, the winner of which will be announced on 13 May My Education by Susan Choi, 2013 (Short Books £7.99). An unsparing account of the carnal conspiracy between two gloriously human, difficult women. This novel was instrumental to my approach to my own book – the way it presents the desire of women, unvarnished, without apology. Its engagement with language, and the way this lends itself to texture and sensuality. Outline by Rachel Cusk, 2014 (Faber £8.99). A book that sends you hurtling through the psychic landscape of its speaker as she navigates fraught emotional transactions. This is one of the rare books that reanimated…

After a year of virtual gatherings, some festivals are making a tentative return to in-person events alongside their digital programme. Stratford Literary Festival has online events from 8 to 16 May, and a series of physical workshops (in line with safety guidelines) the following week. Headliners include Maggie O’Farrell, The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and comedian Mel Giedroyc. The family programme has Michael Morpurgo and Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell, and in-person creative writing workshops during the week of 17 May, restrictions permitting. See stratford literaryfestival.co.uk for booking and details.…

● Don’t worry if a caravan seems small. Most sites have outdoor spaces to spend time in, and pubs and walking trails nearby. ● But a simple way to double your space is to buy an awning for the caravan. Inflatable awnings are the easiest to put up. ● Check your licence. If you got it from 1997 onwards, then you have a B licence, which means the maximum authorised mass of car and caravan combined cannot exceed 3,500kg (or 4,250kg if the caravan weighs no more than 750kg). If you want to go heavier, take a towing test to upgrade your licence. ● A car that is legally approved for towing should have a towing limit in its manual. For stability, it’s not recommended to tow more than 85%…

Last year, more than 2,000 business leaders requested the PM stop the planned $40bn takeover of the UK semiconductor champion Arm by America’s Nvidia. It seems the Government was listening, said Rory Cellan-Jones on BBC Business. Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden has ordered the competition watchdog to assess the deal’s national security “implications”. The move is indicative of “a major shift in the UK’s attitude towards industrial policy”: after three decades of “laissez-faire”, there’s “a new willingness to intervene”. This proposed deal – which Nvidia boasts will create “the premier computing company for the age of AI” – has made governments twitchy, given the ubiquity of Arm’s chip designs in smartphones, weapons and vital industries such as car-making. Unfortunately, “the horse has long since bolted”, said Graham Ruddick in The Times.…

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is to set up a “taskforce” to examine the viability of a digital pound, or “Britcoin” – as part of a drive to make the UK’s finance sector more innovative after Brexit, said Lucy Burton in The Daily Telegraph. The move has found plenty of support: Simon Taylor of fintech consultancy 11:FS said it was “absolutely crucial”. China is currently expanding its pilots for a digital yuan; Sweden is also testing out the idea of an “e-krona”. Bank of England officials argue that an official digital currency “would be better” than one pegged to sterling but run by a private company – a so-called “stablecoin”, said Patrick Hosking in The Times. But some see the move as restrictive. Jason Cozens, founder of Glint, which lets users make…

The week’s best shares Croda International The Times Croda is “greening the dirty chemicals business”, making biostimulants to improve crop yields and renewable corn-based ingredients to substitute petrochemicals. Its polar lipids, used in RNA vaccines, should drive growth. Buy. £65.86. GlaxoSmithKline The Daily Telegraph GSK’s planned split into consumer healthcare and drugs-maker is on target and could boost flagging shares. A resilient performance amid Covid is reassuring, and there’s a prospective 6.2% yield. Buy. £12.98. Hargreaves Lansdown The Sunday Telegraph Shares in the investment platform have been “unfairly punished” by the association with Neil Woodford. Thanks to 220,000 new customers last year, revenues are growing while costs remain fixed. Buy. £16.59. JD Sports Fashion Investors Chronicle Although shares in the sportswear retailer have dipped, trading has been robust thanks to…