Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1332 i The Week

What happened Covid resurgent The country’s reopening plans hung in the balance this week, as officials considered whether to delay the schedule in response to the spread of the new Indian variant. On Monday, residents of England, Wales and most of Scotland were able to enjoy new freedoms, such as hugging people who are not members of their household, drinking inside pubs, and travelling abroad for leisure (at least to the destinations on a “green” list). But Boris Johnson urged people to be cautious with their new freedoms, warning that the Government may yet have to postpone the plan to lift virtually all remaining lockdown restrictions in England on 21 June. Cases of the Indian variant have spread to 86 local authority areas in England, and have surged in hotspots…

Bill Gates, after Microsoft confirmed it had launched a probe into its billionaire founder’s conduct in 2019, shortly before he stepped down from the company’s board. The investigation was into a complaint that Gates – who recently announced that he and Melinda, his wife of 27 years, are divorcing – had “sought to initiate an intimate relationship” with a female employee in 2000. Rail enthusiasts, with the retirement of the last Intercity 125s. Icons of the British Rail era, the diesel locomotives came into service in 1976, promising unheard of speeds and shorter journey times. In the past ten years, however, they have been gradually phased out. The last were on the East Midlands Railway. McVitie’s, after its Turkish owner announced that it may have to close its factory in…

Andy Burnham is seen by voters as the most plausible person to become the next Labour party leader. 47% of Britons think he would be a good leader while 19% think he’d be a bad one. Next on the list is Sadiq Khan: 35% say he’d be a good leader; 35% say he’d be bad. Opinium/Observer 6% of Americans think they could beat a grizzly bear in a fight. 72% think they would win against a rat, 61% against a goose, and 49% against a medium-size dog. YouGov/Daily Telegraph 58% of Scots feel they don’t know enough about what an independent Scotland would look like to make an informed decision in a referendum. 30% feel they are sufficiently informed. Stack Data Strategy/Daily Telegraph…

Washington DC Rising star: Republican legislators have elected a high-profile Trump loyalist as their chairwoman in the House of Representatives, signalling that four months after Donald Trump left office, his grip on the party remains strong. New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik (pictured), 36, was elected as the House Republican Conference chair by 134 votes to 46. She replaces Liz Cheney, one of only ten Republicans who’d voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riot, who was ousted last week (see page 16). However, pressure was mounting this week on Trump himself, after the New York state attorney general’s office announced that an inquiry into his business affairs had acquired a “criminal capacity”. The investigation, in progress since 2019, had previously been a civil matter. According to CNN, investigators have,…

“Does it matter that schools are changing their titles or the names of buildings to reflect changing values? Not in the slightest. Recognising that slavery, for instance, isn’t something to be proud of isn’t pandering to ‘oversensitive snowflakes’. But slavery aside, we don’t need to hark back to the same old names of Drake, Raleigh, Nelson when there are plenty of other people since then who have accomplished magnificent things: Rosalind Franklin, Noor Inayat Khan, Alan Turing, Paul Stephenson. History expands as time moves on. Changing names doesn’t have to be labelled as inflammatory and political. We could instead choose to see it for what it is: natural progression.” Sara Tor in The Times…

The messy task of policing the internet Gaby Hinsliff The Guardian Conspiracy theories; videos promoting self-harm; hate speech. The aim of the Government’s Online Safety bill, outlined in the Queen’s Speech last week, is one we can all applaud, says Gaby Hinsliff. We’d all like to see social media rid of “the bile and the threats”, as Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden puts it. But how to achieve this? Giving Ofcom powers to impose sanctions on tech firms hosting illegal material on their platforms is all very well; sadly much of the harmful content isn’t clearly illegal. For this reason, the bill imposes a “duty of care” on big tech firms, making them responsible for eliminating stuff that carries a “physical or psychological impact”, but still enjoining them to respect freedom…

FRANCE Europe needs to reach to the stars Le Figaro (Paris) When the French astronaut Thomas Pesquet helped Coldplay launch their new single from space on 6 May, the band enjoyed a blaze of publicity, say Louis d’Hendecourt and Olivier Mousis. Pesquet chatted to the group via video link before the song was beamed up to the International Space Station, which he joined in April as the European Space Agency’s contribution to a six-month mission. But are music promotions and photos of Paris from space really the limits of Europe’s cosmic ambitions? Sure, they get some social media “likes”. But they have zero scientific merit. And, according to Patrick Baudry, the first French astronaut on Nasa’s Discovery space shuttle, Pesquet’s experiments on the ISS are largely redundant, such is their…

In Britain, we love hedgehogs, and worry about how many are squashed on roads or eaten by badgers. So it may come as a shock to learn that in New Zealand, the prickly creatures are regarded as pests – and there are plans to eradicate them, along with all other non-native predators, such as rats. Hedgehogs were introduced in the 19th century by British colonisers, who wanted to be reminded of home. But whereas in Europe they have several predators, in New Zealand they have very few. As a result, their population has thrived, and they are now wreaking havoc, by feasting on native beetles, lizards, bird eggs and weta – a type of giant flightless cricket. Researchers have found 283 weta legs in a single hedgehog stomach. “That means…

As the Government was grappling last spring with Britain’s worst crisis since the end of the Second World War, David Cameron was facing a challenge of his own: how to make sure his employer, Greensill Capital, obtained government loans to which it was not entitled under existing rules. Undoubtedly, he worked hard on Greensill’s behalf. We know now that he lobbied ministers and senior civil servants 56 times via emails, text messages and phone calls, said John Rentoul in The Independent. Giving evidence about this lobbying to the Treasury Select Committee last week, Cameron was careful to appear candid. Greensill was paying him a “generous” amount, conceded the former PR man; and yes, he had shares and share options in the firm (which went bust this March). But his frenzied…

For someone who is “obsessed with protecting his privacy, the Duke of Sussex spends an inordinate amount of time baring his soul for a global audience”, said the Daily Mail. His latest outburst marked a new low: not content with branding the royal family racist on prime time US TV earlier in the year, Prince Harry last week went a step further, suggesting that both his father and the Queen had failed as parents. Interviewed by the actor Dax Shepard for the Armchair Expert podcast, he said that Prince Charles had “treated me the way that he was treated” as a child: “There’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on,” he said. But thanks to therapy, Prince Harry declared, he is now determined to “break the…

Since its launch in 2004, parkrun has become one of Britain’s “most effective public health innovations”, said Jeremy Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. What began as a weekly jog for 13 friends in southwest London had become, by the start of the pandemic, a giant exercise in volunteer-led cooperation taking place in 589 parks across the country. The 5k runs were free to enter, and in a typical week a total of more than 200,000 people would run in them. But will they ever do so again? The hope had been that parkrun would resume on 5 June, but it is now “mired in a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Kafka”, said Sean Ingle in The Guardian, so much so that the organisers fear the scheme’s entire future is in jeopardy.…

To The Daily Telegraph The near-impossibility of getting a face-to-face appointment with a GP is a scandal. How can triage be carried out by receptionists who are not medically qualified? How do they have the right to decide who can or cannot see the doctor? Pamela Kitt, Wallington, Surrey To The Daily Telegraph GPs have not been “missing in action”. Rather, they switched to a mandatory total triage model in March 2020, to protect patients from catching Covid in the waiting room. GPs have continued to see patients when necessary, but many issues do not require a face-to-face consultation. Taking a good history and knowing your patients helps to provide continuity of care. We can agree that general practice is broken. This is due to chronic underfunding of a service…

Squid: Bright Green Field Warp £10.99 The English band Squid have been “tentatively” classed as “post-punk”, but their debut album is “far weirder than that label suggests”, said Isobel Lewis in The Independent. Between songs – and even within them – they “flit from up-tempo rhythms to slow, screaming despair”, and experimental, “often-uncanny noise”. This “shape-shifting, genre-defying” music can seem challenging. “But there are real rewards” for those who put in the time to “unravel this cacophony”. Squid are part of a guitar-band scene that has loosely coalesced around The Windmill in south London, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. Shared attributes include volume, intensity, improvisation and serious musicianship. This impressive album brims “with ideas and energy”. “Squiggly guitars criss-cross in songs like hairline fractures”, alongside “tightly channelled rhythms” and…

Adapted from the novel by Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad is a magnificent “American epic”, said Katie Rosseinsky in the London Evening Standard. Its title is a 19th century metaphor for a network of safe houses for slaves escaping to free states, reimagined here in a “magical realist” twist as a literal railway under the southern states. The passenger we follow is Cora (Thuso Mbedu), who escapes the “living hell” of a plantation with her friend Caesar (Aaron Pierre). Slave hunter Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) is obsessed with catching her, having failed to catch Cora’s mother, Mabel, when she fled years earlier. The cruelty the series addresses makes it a “tough” watch, said Daniel Fienberg in The Hollywood Reporter, but director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) infuses it with poetry too. And while…

Best books… Patrick McGrath The award-winning author of nine novels and two short story collections chooses his five favourite books. His latest novel, Last Days in Cleaver Square (Hutchinson £16.99), is published this week Mephisto by Klaus Mann, 1977 (Penguin £9.99). This acrid novel tells the story of a left-wing theatre director in pre-war Germany who surrenders his political principles, and much else, to the seductive blandishments of his patron, a powerful Nazi official. The process of corruption is agonising to watch, and all too plausible. Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin, 1942 (W&N £8.99). A witty, ultimately tragic novel of London in the Blitz, which features the rather unorthodox marriage of a senior civil servant and his restless wife. Bombs fall nightly but the city survives, as…

Programmes Arena: African Apocalypse With Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a guide, British-Nigerian poet and activist Femi Nylander sets out to uncover the legacy of violence and colonialism in West Africa. Sat 22 May, BBC2 21:30 (90mins). Great British Photography Challenge Six amateurs compete to impress the acclaimed photographer Rankin. Episode one includes a nature assignment with Chris Packham. Mon 24 May, BBC4 21:00 (60mins). Are You Scared Yet, Human? Panorama investigates widely held concerns about the proliferation of artificial intelligence, as well as the race between China and the US to become the dominant AI superpower. Wed 26 May, 19:30 BBC1 (60mins). The Road to Partition As Northern Ireland marks its centenary, this two-part documentary recounts the events that led to a border on the island of Ireland, and…

There’s so much brightness and freshness to this salad, says Zoe Alakija. Packed with punchy flavours and contrasting textures, it’s truly a fulfilling meal in itself – though it also pairs beautifully with most main courses. Serves 6-8 3 mangoes, diced 2 medium avocados, peeled, stoned and diced 1 red pepper, finely diced ½ a red onion, thinly sliced 1 round lettuce, roughly chopped 100g pomegranate seeds handful of fresh coriander and mint, chopped 2½ tbsp pomegranate molasses 1 lime, to garnish for the candied peanuts: 100g unsalted peanuts 60g light brown sugar sprinkling of chilli powder pinch of fine salt for the dressing: 40ml avocado oil 2 limes, zested and juiced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tsp ground cumin 2 tsp light brown sugar large pinch of fine salt…

Geoff Crowther 1944-2021 You may not know his name, but if you have travelled extensively there is a good chance you have taken his advice, said Simon Calder in The Independent. Geoff Crowther, who has died aged 77, was an adventurer, a free spirit and, from the mid-1970s onwards, a “pioneering guidebook writer for Lonely Planet”. For a generation of young Western travellers, if you wanted to know how to get a bus across the Algerian desert, where to find a family to stay with in Timbuktu, or which shops in Bangkok sell penicillin, Crowther was your man, said The Times. In fact, “Geoff recommends” became something of a mantra on the hippy trail, as well as on “its less well trod byways” – though Crowther’s information could be sketchy,…

The price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies plunged after Chinese regulators banned the country’s financial institutions from using digital tokens. In chaotic trading on Wednesday, bitcoin tumbled by $12,000, or almost 30%, and some 40% was wiped off the value of ethereum and the “joke” currency Dogecoin. Digital exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase, suffered technical problems as users tried to offload their holdings. Some analysts predicted that regulators in other countries could also impose restrictions. Stocks on both sides of the Atlantic fell on growing inflation worries. Traders feared that the US Fed is contemplating an end to its “ultra-accommodative” policies, and may curtail its $120bn-amonth bond purchases. In Britain, the annual CPI inflation rate more than doubled in April – to 1.5% from 0.7% in March. Consumer prices…

● Sound the alarm “Markets are not infallible,” said Philip Aldrick in The Times. But I’d back them as a more reliable guide than economists any day – particularly on the question of inflation. “With the exception of a few monetarists, markets were pricing in inflation long before economists.” The UK “five-year break-even inflation rate, a market measure, is close to its highest in 20 years”. Yet just three months ago, the Bank of England was forecasting that interest rates may have to fall below zero, “to prop up prices”. Some economists are confident that the current uptick – which saw UK annual inflation more than double to 1.5% in April – is “transitory”. Yet there is “every reason to believe that inflation is back for good”. ● Hedging strategies…

The fierce battle over Aussie beef Oliver Wright The Times Ministers are embroiled in a ferocious row over whether to grant tariff-free access to Australian farmers in the forthcoming trade deal, says Oliver Wright. Boris Johnson apparently agrees with Trade Secretary Liz Truss that Australian food exporters should be given the same terms as those enjoyed by the EU. But others in the Cabinet support the claims of farming groups, who argue the move could leave British farmers struggling to compete with cheap imports. Given that Australia is 9,000 miles away and its agricultural exports “will only ever form a small part of the UK’s food market”, the battle over tariff-free access, particularly for beef (currently subject to a 20% tariff) might seem like a “niche” ideological conflict; in theory,…

Dylan Jones After 22 years heading the men’s style bible GQ, Dylan Jones has become the latest casualty of the “editorial clear-out” at Condé Nast, said The Observer. He joins a growing list as the publisher streamlines operations – including the editors of Vogues China, Germany, Spain, India and Japan. Jones, 61, made his name at Arena during the 1990s “lad mag” boom: he later distanced himself from lads’ mags, while insisting that every successful magazine needs “a libido”. Jones survived criticism in 2008 for a fawning book on David Cameron, and weathered difficult market conditions: GQ had the biggest circulation of any UK men’s magazine last year. The most recognisable departure from Condé Nast of late, Jones “is not expected to be the last”. Ian Osborne When the tech…

The week’s best shares Croda International Investors Chronicle Croda may streamline – focusing on higher-level IP life sciences and personal care chemicals – to improve margins. Its lipid nanoparticles, used in the Covid-19 vaccine, have long-term gene-therapy potential. Buy. £65.42. Diageo The Times The Johnnie Walker and Guinness-maker is restarting its share buyback programme. Profits are expected to rise by 14% as American and European markets ease restrictions on pubs and bars. Buy. £32.98. Digital 9 Infrastructure The Mail on Sunday This digital infrastructure firm specialises in subsea cabling, Wi-Fi connectivity in towns, and fibre-optic cables. It promotes sustainable, inclusive industrialisation. Prospective 5.3% yield, with ethical investment appeal. Buy. 112p. Royal Mail The Sunday Times Thanks to its international parcels business GLS, Royal Mail expects to make £700m in profits…

Controversy of the week Can Labour recover? Is it time to write a eulogy for the Labour Party? The local and by-election results earlier this month were certainly a “crushing rejection by the voters”, said Trevor Phillips in The Times. One poll suggested that if a general election were held now, the Conservative majority would rise from 81 to 122. But Labour can come back from this – if it listens to its “latter-day prophet”, Tony Blair, who led it to three successive election victories. He has given a “blistering analysis” of Labour’s eclipse, arguing in the New Statesman that the party needs “total deconstruction and reconstruction”. It is failing to modernise its economic position, he said: sticking to the old message of tax and spend, while failing to engage…

The Prime Minister announced last week that a much-anticipated independent, public inquiry into his Government’s handling of Covid-19 would begin in the spring of 2022. Boris Johnson told MPs the inquiry would examine decisions “in the cold light of day” and “identify the key issues that will make a difference for the future”. Asked why it was not starting sooner, the PM said it was to avoid the risk of it “distracting” those who were dealing with the threat of new variants. His critics, however, noted that the timing meant its key findings were unlikely to be published until after the next election.…

Glasgow Arrests stopped: Hundreds of people converged on a residential street in the south of Glasgow last week to prevent the detention of two Indian nationals suspected of immigration offences. Home Office officials detained the men following an early-morning raid on an address in Pollokshields on Thursday – but were unable to drive away when protesters, including MSPs and councillors as well as activists and local people, surrounded their van, shouting “these are our neighbours, let them go”. After an eight-hour stand-off, Police Scotland freed the men on bail, “in order to protect the safety, public health and well-being of all people involved”. One of the two, Lakhvir Singh, 34, said through a translator: “I’ve been astonished and overwhelmed by the support I’ve received from the people of Glasgow.” Three…

Bradby’s breakdown With his just-off-the-rugby-pitch complexion, Tom Bradby exudes calm confidence, says Charlotte Edwardes in The Sunday Times. But in 2018, the ITV newsreader experienced a serious mental health crisis. “I’d had a relatively easy, slightly gilded life in which nothing really bad had happened,” he says. “It seemed to come absolutely from nowhere.” Except that it hadn’t. His mother had died of cancer in 2012, and his father’s health had started to deteriorate in 2015, when Bradby was asked to host a revamped News at Ten. Then, while on holiday in Greece that summer, he watched a car drive off a quay in front of him – and dived in after it. He swam up to the sinking vehicle, and saw an old man behind the wheel. He banged…

A 19-year-old from Arkansas drawn in by an ad for a reasonably priced flat unwittingly moved into a retirement village. Madison Kohout signed the $350 per month lease without viewing her new home – and only noticed something unusual a week after moving in. “I thought it was a bit weird that all of my neighbours were significantly older than me,” she said. However, she soon found that living with elderly people has its advantages: her friendly neighbours have offered her home-cooked meals, and she’s found she can “play music whenever I want to, because some of them can’t hear”. A Wisconsin bakery resorted to an unusual method to track down the thief who raided the premises at night: printing his face onto a batch of cookies. The owners of…

Alcohol deaths in England and Wales reached a 20-year high in 2020, official figures have shown. There were 7,423 deaths from alcohol misuse last year – 20% more than in 2019, the Office for National Statistics says. Around 80% of those deaths were from alcoholic liver disease; 10% were the result of alcohol-induced mental or behavioural disorders; and 6% were accidental alcohol poisonings. As in previous years, twice as many men died of alcohol-related cases than women. Men living in the poorest parts of England were four times as likely to die of alcohol abuse than those in the richest areas. The rate of death increased from March, when the country went into lockdown. This may have been because people were drinking more, but it could also have been because…

Boris Johnson once vowed that, were he ever asked to show an identity card when he was simply exercising his rights as a “freeborn Englishman”, he’d “physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded I produce it”. The “plot twist” is that the emanation now turns out to be Johnson himself, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. His government is going to draw up a bill that will require people to show photo ID at polling stations, to combat electoral fraud. This is a “suspiciously unnecessary” plan: in 2019, only one person in the UK was convicted of in-person voter fraud (postal fraud is a far larger problem). It looks like the kind of “voter suppression” seen in the US: a bill designed to…

“Remain in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” St Benedict, quoted in The New Yorker “Nobody who says ‘I told you so’ will ever be a hero.” Ursula K. Le Guin, quoted on The Browser “It is good for a man to eat thistles, and to remember he is an ass.” E.S. Dallas, quoted in Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Mark Twain, quoted in The New York Times “A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.” Author Minna Thomas Antrim, quoted in Forbes “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” Vladimir…

Women’s football Barcelona beat Chelsea 4-0 in the final of the Women’s Champions League. Boxing Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua announced a heavyweight title bout in Saudi Arabia on 14 August. However, Fury’s mandatory rematch with Deontay Wilder will likely delay the fight. Cricket Fast bowler Jofra Archer will miss England’s Test series against New Zealand after another flare-up of his elbow injury. Rugby union Leicester beat Harlequins 35-29 in the Premiership. Wasps beat Worcester 23-19.…

The dreamlike nature of cinema has been recognised since its earliest days, and dream sequences in films are two-a-penny. But sometimes directors devote whole films to our mental experience during sleep – as in the following examples: Dead of Night This Ealing chiller from 1945 is a classic of British cinema, an omnibus movie consisting of five ghost stories. These are narrated by the guests at a house visited by an architect who is convinced that he has been there before in a dream. Waking Life In Richard Linklater’s animation from 2001, a nameless young man wanders through a city talking to people about the nature of reality, unsure if he is awake or dreaming. The film is sometimes pretentious but always engaging, thanks partly to its vibrant rotoscoped visuals,…

Tips of the week... quick and easy cleaning ● Use shaving foam to remove carpet and mattress stains. Gently rub it into the stain using warm water and a soft brush or cloth. Leave it for ten minutes, rinse and air dry. ● To clean dirty pans, put a teabag in the pan with some warm water and leave it to soak for at least 15 minutes. ● Use wet rubber gloves to remove pet hair from furniture or carpets. Simply run your hand across the surface then dunk it in water to clear off the hair. ● To deep clean a dishwasher, put 250ml of white vinegar in a bowl on the top rack when it’s empty, and run a long cycle. If it’s smelly, add drops of essential…

Norman Lloyd 1914-2021 Norman Lloyd, who has died aged 106, was an actor, director and producer, and one of the last survivors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was never a leading man, but he counted the likes of Orson Welles, Jean Renoir and Charlie Chaplin as friends – and had made his film debut in the title role of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 classic Saboteur. As the villain, he is not on screen for very long, but he is in the film’s climactic sequence on top of the Statue of Liberty. The hero, Robert Cummings, tries to stop him slipping off it by grabbing his jacket’s sleeve, but the seam splits, and he plunges to his death. “Hitchcock told me I should have had a better tailor,” Lloyd recalled.…

“AT&T could be accused of dabbling in the art of misdirection,” said Ben Woods in The Daily Telegraph. While the media’s gaze was focused on the reunion of the cult sitcom Friends – a trophy asset of AT&T’s content arm, WarnerMedia – the US telecoms giant “was busy plotting a break-up”. WarnerMedia is to be spun off and merged with Discovery to form a $132bn entertainment behemoth with the heft to compete with Netflix and Disney. The move is “a tacit admission” that, just three years after buying Time Warner for $85bn, AT&T’s “huge bet” on media has failed. This combo will certainly create a “content powerhouse”, said Mark Sweney in The Guardian. Warner brings a film studio, the CNN news channel and the hit factory HBO, maker of Game…

They have been referred to as “residents”, “service users”, and even as “clients”, but now the Prisons Minister has decreed that prison inmates should be called what they really are: prisoners. Alex Chalk said that the use of other terms created a misleading impression. One former prison officer told The Times that he approved of the edict. “I have locked some people up in the worst accommodation you can imagine, and if you called them a resident... you’d be taking the mick.” Estate agents have reported a surge in the number of “hobby” buyers investing in small plots of woodland since the start of the pandemic. Specialist agent Woodlands.co.uk says prices have risen by 25% a year in some areas.…

The UK has acquired enough doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to immunise all children aged 12 and above, Matt Hancock said this week. The Health Secretary said he was monitoring the positive data on the use of the Pfizer jab on children very closely, and that a decision on whether to vaccinate them could be taken within two months. The Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies previously found that vaccinating all adults might not be enough to prevent a resurgence in cases, but that vaccinating over-12s probably would be.…

Dublin Cyberattack disrupts health service: Ireland’s health service was hit by a major cyberattack last week that forced the closure of its IT systems, causing extensive disruption. Paul Reid, head of the Health Service Executive (the Irish equivalent to the NHS), said the “very sophisticated” attack had affected national and local systems and “all of our core services”, and that its networks had been shut down to protect them from further attacks. Officials confirmed that a ransom had been demanded, payable in the cryptocurrency bitcoin, but said the government would not be paying it. Operations to restore systems were still ongoing this week, amid reports that patient data stolen by the hackers was being published online. According to state broadcaster RTÉ, Ireland’s National Cyber Security Centre has identified the hackers…

1 An extract from Icarus at the Edge of Time by Philip Glass, performed by the Orchestra of St Lukes, conducted by Brad Lubman 2 A harmonica tune from Rockin’ in the Rockies, written and performed by The Cappy Barra Boys Harmonica Quartet 3* Turn Around by Malvina Reynolds, Alan Greene, and Harry Belafonte, performed by Harry Belafonte 4 An excerpt from Light Falls by Brian Greene, composed by Jeff Beal, performed by the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra 5 Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79 No. 2 by Brahms, performed by Martha Argerich 6 Over the Rainbow by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, performed by Judy Garland and the Victor Young Orchestra 7 A Million Dreams by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, performed by Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams and Zif Zaiman…

Dubai is now “a global hub of influencer culture”, says Ruth Michaelson in The Guardian, “a magnet for social media stars desperate to tweak their image in what has become the ideal Instagram city”. With its reliable sunshine, crystal-clear seas, and a series of signature constructions – the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, the Palm, and the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa – Dubai is perfect as a backdrop for influencers’ idealised lifestyles. The city’s authorities have actively encouraged this: there is “The Frame”, a 150-metre gold rectangle through which, at the right angle, the Burj Khalifa can be framed; free helicopter tours are available for those with enough followers. Instagram’s Middle East headquarters are, of course, based there. Dubai has also benefited because it didn’t impose strict lockdowns…

Sugary drinks linked to cancer Drinking two or more sugar-sweetened drinks per day has been associated with a significantly increased risk of bowel cancer. Researchers analysed data gathered on 95,000 American women under 50, who were tracked from 1991 to 2015 for the Nurses’ Health Study II. They found that women who consumed more than a pint of sugary drinks a day were twice as likely to be diagnosed with early onset bowel cancer during the period of the study than those who drank less than half a pint a week. The results suggest that sugar consumption could be a factor in the rising rates of bowel cancer. In the US, adults born around 1990 run twice the risk of colon cancer and four times the risk of rectal cancer…

The Hollywood actor and producer Norman Lloyd, who died last week aged 106 (see page 39), played tennis with Charlie Chaplin four times a week – and never lost. “You could always beat Charlie because he was too vain to wear his glasses,” he explained. The trick was to draw Chaplin into the net and then smash the ball past him. Each time, Chaplin would stomp back to the base line muttering: “That, Charlie, is not the way the world’s funniest man should play tennis.” Barbara Amiel knows what it’s like to be cast out of high society. When her husband, the media tycoon Conrad Black, was arrested on suspicion of fraud in 2007, she slid rapidly “from fame to infamy”. Her friends disappeared; her hairdresser told her she was…

What should we make of the triumph of Edwin Poots, elected last week as the new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party? For some, said Andrew McQuillan in The Spectator, it marks “the definitive end of the party’s moderate turn”. Those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the DUP may scoff at the suggestion of moderation, but the party’s two previous leaders both “recognised that for unionism to succeed, a more open approach was needed” – and at least tried to follow that strategy. It seems unlikely that Poots, a hardliner from the Christian evangelical wing of the party who believes the planet is only 6,000 years old, will adopt the same approach. Reformers within the DUP are certainly fearing the worst, said Ben Lowry in the News Letter (Belfast). “This…

Football: Leicester’s deserved FA cup victory Some 21,000 fans were allowed into Wembley for Saturday’s FA Cup final between Leicester and Chelsea, said Ian Ladyman in The Mail on Sunday, but it often seemed as if many thousands more were present. After the sterility of the past 14 months, it was wonderful to behold “real life” finally returning to a major sporting event. In such circumstances, the match itself could well have turned into something of an afterthought, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian; but thanks to Leicester midfielder Youri Tielemans, who on the hour lit up a hitherto uneventful contest with an “outrageous 28-yard strike”, it certainly wasn’t. In an “incredibly gripping” final half hour, Chelsea threw everything they had at Leicester – only to be denied by a…

Keep voting simple To the Financial Times I have spent an enjoyable few days explaining to my often bewildered friends from Europe that the UK currently has no voter ID requirement. When I say that, if you are on the electoral register, you turn up, give your name and address and fulfil your civic duty, I am met by an array of questions about voter fraud and the like. My answer is that the level of voter fraud is exceedingly low (one personation fraud conviction in 2019) and that a system without voter IDs reduces the barriers to voting and avoids getting into the nitty-gritty of who would be excluded were IDs to be implemented. If I could make a further argument, not one supported by the hard facts above,…

After the christening debacle, an exhausted Chris tells Susan and Neil that leaving Alice was the only option. They offer to help with looking after Martha. Brian warns Jennifer off calling Susan, saying that Alice is fine – she just needs space. Joy and Elizabeth open up to each other about depression and loneliness. When Jennifer visits, Chris tells her the truth about Alice’s alcoholism. Distraught, Jennifer calls in to Alice, who has been drinking and admits she doesn’t want to see Martha – the baby is better off with Chris. At Lower Loxley, Vince helps Rex with the pigs. Fallon is angry at village gossip about Harrison and Alice. Later, Emma decides it’s time to confront Alice about all the pain she has caused, and furiously shares some home…

Thirteen restaurants in one Last month, Deliveroo users in Reading were baffled to discover that no fewer than 13 new Indian restaurants had apparently just opened in the town, said Louise Eccles in The Sunday Times. Something odd struck the more observant among them: all 13 had the same address. They were, in fact, not separate establishments but “virtual brands” created by a single restaurant – Madras Flavours. Delivery apps allow restaurants to sell their food under more than one name, but the idea is that each “brand” offers a different menu. However, some are simply creating a string of identities selling identical (or nearly identical) food. Critics say the practice could mean restaurants with just one brand lose customer share – and enable bad ones to disguise their poor…

Orange Ceramic Jug Oliver Bonas’s elegant orange jug isn’t specifically made for outdoor dining, but it will brighten up a garden lunch. Use it for drinks or as a vase. (£59.50; oliverbonas.com). Vera Poppies Bamboo Melamine Serving Platter Great for garden parties and barbecues, this serving platter with a poppy design is made from bamboo fibre and melamine, so it is light, easy to clean and shatter-resistant (£26; anthropologie.com). Epicurean Re-usable Rio Medallion 26cm Melamine Dinner Plates Made from dishwasher-safe melamine, these plates (sold in sets of four) are designed to resemble glazed clay (£27; amazon. co.uk). Toulouse Blue Stripe Napkins They’re said to look and feel like traditional French linen, but these napkins are actually made from recycled plastic bottles. Machine washable, they’re sold in sets of four (£20;…

Virgin Galactic: spaced out Some analysts think space will become a trillion-dollar market in the next 30 years. The travails of Virgin Galactic suggest “this is still science fiction”, said Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. Richard Branson’s space tourism outfit has posted a steeper-than-expected quarterly loss as it struggles to get its operations airborne. There are doubts on whether it will meet its self-imposed May deadline for the next test flight of its space-plane, SpaceShipTwo. “Investors enamoured with the final frontier” should be worried about the “rapidly cooling” market for Spacs (special purpose acquisition companies). When Galactic went public in 2019, after merging with a “blank cheque” company run by the “Spac king” Chamath Palihapitiya, the deal sparked an explosion of Spacs – many space-related – on…

“Video gaming was once the preserve of geeky kids and teenagers,” says David Brenchley in The Sunday Times. No longer. The global market grew 5%-15% annually between 2012 and 2020, and was worth $191bn last year. Here’s how to get a piece of the action: LF Blue Whale Growth Fund A key investment is Nintendo which, as well as owning games franchises including Mario and Pokémon, makes the Switch game console. Fund manager Stephen Yiu reckons the Switch will ultimately “be as game-changing for Nintendo as the iPhone was for Apple”. Jupiter Japan Income Fund manager Dan Carter is a big fan of Sony, whose PS4 console is estimated to have outsold Microsoft’s Xbox by “at least two to one”. Sony has also recently invested in Discord, an online chat…