Innholdsfortegnelse for 1371 i The Week

What happened Joe Biden warned this week that a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained “distinctly possible”, despite tentative signs of a de-escalation of tensions. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin claimed on Tuesday that he had decided “to partially pull back troops” and that his country did not want war. Biden welcomed that prospect, but said his administration had yet to verify any withdrawals among the 150,000 Russian troops encircling Ukraine. Boris Johnson said Moscow was sending “mixed signals”, highlighting its continued building of field hospitals near the border. Fears of an imminent Russian invasion led many Western nations to close their embassies in Kyiv last week and to urge their citizens to leave Ukraine. It also led to a flurry of diplomatic activity. Among the Western leaders to visit Moscow was…

The University of Bristol encouraged staff to use an online pronoun guide that includes not just the neopronouns “ze/zir/zirs”, but also “catgender” and “emojiself”. According to the guide, people who identify as feline may go by the pronouns “nya” and “nyan”, meaning “meow” in Japanese, while users of an “emojiself” swap letter pronouns for an emoji. HMRC has seized three nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as part of an investigation into VAT fraud. It’s the first time a law enforcement agency in the UK has seized NFTs, which are digital assets that can be bought or sold but have no physical reality. HRMC’s deputy director of economic crime said it was “a warning to anyone who thinks they can use crypto assets to hide money”.…

New York Prince pays sex accuser: Prince Andrew has agreed an out-ofcourt settlement with Virginia Giuffre, the American woman who claimed that the duke sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. The duke has always denied the claims, and previously requested a jury hearing in the long-running civil case. However, on Tuesday it was announced that the parties had settled, and that Andrew had agreed to pay an unspecified but “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity”. In the settlement document, which contained no admission of liability, Andrew agreed that he had “never intended to malign Ms Giuffre’s character” and that he recognised she had “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks”. He also pledged to “demonstrate his regret…

A man from New York State has launched a legal battle to keep hold of his “emotional support” pig. Wyverne Flatt says his Vietnamese potbellied pig Ellie helped him through a divorce and his mother’s death; but officials in his village, Canajoharie, say he’s keeping a farm animal at home in defiance of local zoning laws. Flatt could now face a criminal trial – but he won’t yield. “I could never dream of giving away somebody who’s part of my family,” he said. “I think she can kind of home in on you when you’re feeling bad because she’ll want to come in and snuggle.” A British tourist has had his false teeth returned to him, 11 years after losing them on a boozy night in Benidorm. Paul Bishop, 63,…

Nuclear fusion breakthrough The dream of a world with virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy came a step closer to reality last week, when a European team of scientists revealed that they had made a “major breakthrough” in their attempts to recreate nuclear fusion – the process that powers the stars. As part of the Joint European Torus (JET) experiment in Oxfordshire, researchers generated 59 megajoules of heat during a five-second burst of nuclear fusion. That is just enough to boil about 60 kettles, but it is twice the amount of energy previously produced, back in 1997. “We’ve demonstrated that we can create a mini star… and hold it there for five seconds and get high performance, which really takes us into a new realm,” said one scientist. The…

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a right-wing Republican who in the past subscribed to the QAnon conspiracy theory, isn’t happy with the police presence in Washington. Last week she lashed out at the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “gazpacho police spying on members of Congress” – apparently confusing the cold Spanish soup with the Nazi Gestapo. She was widely mocked, but the podcaster Ken White stood up for her, describing Greene as “one of the most constant and effective critics of this adminestrone”. Brooklyn Beckham, David and Victoria’s son, has a new cookery show, Cookin’ With Brooklyn, in which he shows off dishes including a fish and chip sandwich. There’s only one problem, the New York Post reported: he can’t actually cook. In fact, the 22-year-old is said to rely on a team…

Prince Andrew has “not just completed his own humiliating downfall, he has brought about a truly shaming day for the entire royal family”, said the Daily Mail. Only last month, the Duke of York defiantly told the world he would demand a trial by jury to clear his name in the lawsuit that Virginia Giuffre had brought against him, in which she claimed that he had sexually assaulted her when she was 17 years old. Now he has capitulated, paying a sum reported to be in the region of £10m to someone he claims he has no memory of meeting – and agreeing to “demonstrate his regret” for his association with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein by making a “substantial donation” to Giuffre’s charity supporting sexual abuse victims. “He has not…

It was the last thing anyone expected, said Tom Whipple in The Times. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, last Sunday, it “began to snow”. It’s often very cold in northeast China in winter, but actual snow is a rarity, which is why these Games are the first in history to rely completely on the artificial kind. They may be “the greatest celebration of snow sports on the planet”, but genuine snow wasn’t part of the plan. And when it did materialise its effect was disruptive, as the fresh snow falling on the icier artificial kind caused surfaces to become unstable. Several events had to be postponed or cancelled; thousands of staff were sent to clear snow from competition courses; and when events did go ahead, there were many more crashes…

The sins of… To The Daily Telegraph Calls to have the memorial to Tobias Rustat removed from the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, as it might upset people, sidestep the fact that a chapel is not a place where people should feel comfortable, but one where sins are confessed and forgiveness offered. Such confession and forgiveness encompass the whole of humankind, past and present, including slave traders and members of the Church. The Rev H. Beverley Tasker, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire Health tax relief To The Daily Telegraph Tax relief on private health insurance makes sense. Facing a two-year wait for a knee operation, I opted to go private. My experience – three weeks between consultation and operation, excellent attention and up to six months of physiotherapy included – led me to…

Bloomsbury 288pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Edmund White’s novels “forever enlarged what gay writing might do”, said Neil Bartlett in The Guardian. His latest book – “his 30th, by my count” – is an “elegant, filthy” work that “crackles with a heartfelt insistence that the old and hungry” still have much to tell us about “the dynamics of sex”. In the year 2050, a married couple in a remote Swiss chalet decide to entertain each other by recounting their “previous sexual careers”. Constance, in her early 30s, is an “African-American orphan”, while Ruggero, her husband, is an elderly bisexual Sicilian aristocrat who is “legendarily well-connected (not to mention well hung)”. As you’d expect, this novel is “elegantly written”, and contains many “arresting images”,…

Death on the Nile 2hrs 7mins (12A) Starry but unsatisfying Agatha Christie adaptation Kenneth Branagh’s “long coronavirally delayed” Agatha Christie adaptation has finally “puffed effortfully into harbour”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Branagh reprises his role as the “amply moustached” Poirot, last seen on the Orient Express, and now steaming his way down the Nile. Among his fellow passengers are Linnet (Gal Gadot), a “glamorous heiress” travelling with her new husband Simon, “unfortunately played” by the scandal-struck Armie Hammer, in what may be his last movie role; Sophie Okonedo as a jazz singer and Letitia Wright as her manager; and Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, playing a rich socialist and her lady’s maid. After one of these travellers is offed, the murder mystery “grinds into action, bringing up in…

Phoebe tells Kate about her job in Scotland; though sad at first, Kate’s glad for Phoebe. Alice tells Amy and Fallon that she feels like a proper mum after the week with Martha, but Chris is rude to them later when they report back on Martha. Tom’s worried about announcing the pregnancy on the anniversary of the baby he and Kirsty lost. At Natasha’s urging, he tells Kirsty, and later they go to the Remembrance Garden where Kirsty scattered their son Wren’s ashes – it’s a healing moment. Phoebe intends to continue with the rewilding from Scotland, but Peggy advises her to move on from Ambridge, and find someone new to help Rex. Amy drops in on Chris and he apologises for being short with her. Kirsty tells Phoebe about…

Food House 46 Gerrard Street, London W1 (020-7287 2818) For many years, 46 Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown was home to an “extremely reliable Cantonese place called Harbour City”, to which I’d often take my sons, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. From the website Eater London, I recently learnt that it’s now a Sichuan restaurant, and one of the “trendiest” places to eat in central London. Naturally, I booked right away – and discovered that while the carpets are the same, it has turned into a “very different type of restaurant”. Big, bold Sichuan flavours predominate – all that “thrilling, chilli and numbing peppercorn hullabaloo”. Skewers of lamb kidney arrive in a “cloak of crisp fat”. Pan-fried pork and cabbage dumplings “leak their juices down my chin”. There’s a whole…

New cars: what the critics say The Sunday Times The best-selling car in the UK last month, the Kia Sportage has been transformed over the years from a dull budget SUV into a stylish, tech-laden, familyfriendly car. This fifthgeneration version sees the addition of hybrids and plug-in powertrains, using Kia’s 1.6 T-GDi petrol engine. The new Sportage uses the same platform as the Hyundai Tucson, and there’s front and four-wheel-drive options. The Daily Telegraph Decent, unflashy, good value and with a sevenyear or 100,000-mile warranty, the Sportage has five trim levels, but if you want a swanky metallic paint colour it will cost you an extra £650. Inside it’s all pretty logical, but some parts are overdesigned, such as the excessive steering-wheel buttons. There’s just enough room for adults in…

An idyllic village in South Africa Set in beautiful countryside two hours’ drive south of Cape Town, the village of Stanford is the “epitome of rural charm”, says Pippa de Bruyn in The Daily Telegraph. It was built in the late 19th century, and its pretty cottages and well-tended gardens have changed little since. But its chief glory is its location, right beside the glorious Klein River lagoon – a lake-like estuary, home to flamingoes and many other, rarer birds – and the dunes and beach of Walker Bay, the most important whale nursery in Africa. There’s a great Italian restaurant, La Trattoria, in the village, and wineries such as Maanschijn nearby – there’s pleasant accommodation too, including Stanford Valley Guest Farm (an “affordable oasis”), and Perivoli Lagoon House, Mosaic…

Lata Mangeshkar 1929-2022 Known as the Nightingale of India for the purity of her voice, Lata Mangeshkar, who has died aged 92, was the queen of Bollywood playback singers: over several decades, she recorded songs for thousands of lip-synching film stars. And though her face was not familiar to everyone, her voice certainly was. As well as singing in around 1,000 films, said BBC News, she recorded tens of thousands of songs in 26 languages, and in India they could be heard everywhere: in shops, restaurants, taxis and on the radio. She was herself a woman with a huge range of enthusiasms and interests, from fast cars and cricket to Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Her favourite Hollywood film was The King and I, while her eclectic musical tastes ranged…

What a difference a year has made for British banks, said Jill Treanor in The Sunday Times. Twelve months ago, in the grip of lockdown, high-street lenders – “laden with multibillion pound provisions” for loans they expected not to be repaid – “were grappling with an order from the Bank of England to prepare for negative rates”. Now they face the opposite scenario and worries about bad debts have abated, for now. City analysts are expecting the Big Four to report total profits of £34bn for 2021, with Lloyds and Barclays notching up their highest earnings for decades. Shareholders can look forward to payouts, bankers to bumper bonuses – and a likely backlash from customers facing a cost of living crisis. “Bailed out” NatWest provides the clearest illustration of the…

The best response to inflation and the commodities crunch is to “own the problem – preferably in the form of profitable companies that pay out real money in real dividends”, says Merryn Somerset Webb in the FT. The good news is that the UK market – long considered “too resources grubby and Brexity” by international investors – has them in spades. Here are some picks: i3 Energy An oil and gas minnow with secure operations in Canada. Expected to yield nearly 6% this year, and is moving to pay monthly dividends. Atalaya Mining Has exposure to stable copper production in a low-risk jurisdiction (Spain). Up 40% since last year but, with a 5.4% yield, “worth hanging on to”. Kenmare Resources A mineral sands miner, with an operation in Mozambique and…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares B&M European Value Retail The Times The discount retailer buys “narrow but deep” – fewer products in higher volumes – to combat cost pressures. Highly cash-generative with a potential 7.3% yield. Buy. 557.4p. Barratt Developments The Times Housebuilders face rising interest rates, supply-chain disruption, build-cost inflation and cladding concerns. But demand for Barratt homes remains strong and higher volumes should boost margins. Potential 8.1% yield. Buy. 633p. BP The Mail on Sunday The energy giant is continuing its green transition (boosted by profits from “dirty brown fuels”), investing in renewables, EV chargers, and carbon capture and storage. Shares look cheap, dividends robust. Yields 3.7%. Buy. 417p. Dunelm Group Investors’ Chronicle Strengthened market share and a focus on “value” should stand the retailer, which…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1299 An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 28 February. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1299, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass case (assorted colours), which retails at £105, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Month with a new writer? Very old one actually (8) 5 Bikes moved without purpose by old Bob (6) 9 Virginia’s partner into endless marijuana? That’s serious (8) 10 Famous footballer holds two diamonds to sell (6) 12 Yarn some feel is…

What happened The search for a successor to Britain’s most senior police office was under way this week, following the surprise resignation of Cressida Dick. The Metropolitan Police commissioner announced she would leave the post after London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he was not satisfied with Dick’s plans to “root out” misogyny and racism in the Met. “It is clear that the Mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue,” she said. “He has left me no choice.” Her exit follows a rocky period for the Met. Most recently, the force was hit by news that officers at Charing Cross police station had shared misogynistic and racist remarks on WhatsApp; it has also been criticised for its handling of Partygate and for its failure to stop PC…

75% of voters believe Boris Johnson should resign if investigations by the police and Sue Gray find him guilty of lockdown breaches. 16% want him to stay even if he is found guilty. Savanta ComRes/The Independent Nationally, 58% of rank and file police officers suffer from low morale. 78% say they do not feel respected by the public, and 95% say they do not feel respected by the Government. Police Federation of England and Wales/The Times 62% of Europeans (polled in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and Sweden) think Nato should come to Ukraine’s aid if Russia invades. European Council on Foreign Relations…

The paparazzi takeover In his 30-year career as a showbiz photographer, Dave Benett reckons he has snapped every major celebrity, from Nelson Mandela to Sharon Stone, says Charlotte Edwardes in The Times. He’s also seen his industry change beyond recognition. Early on, he photographed Old Bailey trials, football matches and riots – but in the 1990s, the landscape shifted. He recalls picking up a copy of the Daily Star in 1997, and seeing a front-page headline: “Deirdre in prison”. Who was Deirdre, and what had she done? The paper, he discovered, was leading on a story about Coronation Street. And then, “suddenly these guys were coming through the door with loads of money in their pockets, and we had no idea what they were doing”. It turned out that “the…

The first submarine cables date back to the mid 19th century. In 1840, Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code, threw his weight behind them and, by 1850, a link had been laid from Britain to France. Seven years later, a first attempt at a transatlantic cable failed when the link broke; but the team behind it were undaunted and, a year later, tried again. In July 1858, two ships – HMS Agamemnon and the USS Niagara – met in the middle of the Atlantic, attached their respective cables to each other, and headed in opposite directions. Niagara docked in Newfoundland on 4 August, and Agamemnon arrived on the west coast of Ireland the next day. Eleven days later, Queen Victoria sent US President James Buchanan the first transatlantic telegram.…

Three people who were paralysed from the waist down have been able to walk again, thanks to an implant surgically grafted onto their spines. Developed by neuroscientists in Switzerland, the implant works by delivering electrical pulses to nerves in the spinal cord that control muscles in the legs and torso. These pulses are in turn controlled by software linked to a tablet, that can be instructed by the user to deliver particular movements. One of the first to benefit was Michel Roccati, whose spinal cord was severed in a motorbike accident in 2017. Now, he can stand up from a chair, walk around and go up stairs. It’s the first time scientists have been able to restore this extent of movement to a patient whose spinal cord has been completely…

“Only Boris can save Brexit? Bollocks. Only Boris can f*** Brexit up now.” So one arch-Eurosceptic Tory raged to me the other day, said Tom Newton Dunn in the London Evening Standard – and there are plenty of others in the party who feel much the same way. They believe that, two years after the UK formally departed from the EU, the Government is still failing to take full advantage of the country’s new freedoms. There have been too few trade deals, not enough divergence from EU standards, not enough scrapping of Brussels red tape. It was these arch-Eurosceptics that put Johnson into No. 10, and they have the power to bring him down. Hence the PM’s desperate efforts to placate them with last week’s mini reshuffle, in which he…

The traditional response is to yell “Get off my land!”, said Sarah Hussain in the Eastern Daily Press. But under new guidance, farmers are being advised to ask trespassers if they are lost, and to offer to help them on their way. The advice, part of the updated Countryside Code, was published by Natural England last week. It instructs landowners to make rights of way more accessible, to use “friendly language” on signs, and not to put up “misleading signage, such as ‘bull in field’, if it is not true”. On footpaths, the guidance suggests, stiles should be swapped for “accessible self-closing gates”. If dogs are worrying livestock, farmers should calmly “ask the owner to recall or catch their dog, chase the dog out of the area or scare it…

When Ralf Rangnick arrived at Manchester United in November, he was “meant to be an upgrade” on Ole Gunnar Solskjær, said Josh Wright in The Guardian. The club’s previous boss had been “questioned and mocked throughout his time in charge”, in part because of his inexperience as a top-level manager. No one, by contrast, could accuse the “godfather of gegenpress” – as the 63-year-old Rangnick is known – of being a lightweight. “Big things were expected.” Yet three months into the German’s tenure, it’s hard to see what difference he has made. United’s form hasn’t noticeably improved: they’ve won just three of their last seven Premier League games, and drew 1-1 against bottom-placed Burnley. They are consistently struggling to find the net: all their main strikers appear out of sorts,…

It’s 25 years since London was treated to Théâtre de Complicité’s “superlative account” of The Chairs, the 1952 “absurdist masterpiece” by Eugène Ionesco, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. That version starred Geraldine McEwan and Richard Briers as the nonagenarian couple, marooned on a water-logged island, and fetching more and more chairs for a stream of invisible guests. In this superb new Almeida production, which equals and perhaps even outshines the 1997 show, the leads are two Complicité veterans: Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni. “For casually brilliant buffoonery and sweet grotesquery, Hunter and Magni, dressed to the nines in a buttoned-up archaic fashion, make an unbeatable double-act.” And they are well served by another Complicité alumnus, Toby Sedgwick, as the intrusive stage-hand who makes “multiple funny-business interruptions”. This is…

Adam Kay’s memoir about his time as an NHS doctor sold about “a trillion copies in a million languages”, said Deborah Ross in The Mail on Sunday. This BBC adaptation of This Is Going To Hurt is just as “gory, despairing, riveting, tender and insightful” as the book. Ben Whishaw plays Kay, a junior registrar grappling with the everyday horrors of obstetrics and gynaecology (or, as it is known, “brats and twats”). The show opens with Kay waking in his car, having been “too tired” to drive home the night before; very soon, the medical incidents are piling up. The seven-part series is “unflinching” in a way most medical dramas are not, “particularly in detailing the errors than can, and do, happen”. Whishaw’s last outing was as Q in No…

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, 1776 (Penguin £9.99). No discussion of modern capitalism can be had without reference to this. Every brilliant part of it (globalisation, comparative advantage) is mentioned here, as are the downsides we still complain about today (price fixing, monopolies and so on). A bestseller in its time – and an easier read than you think. Woke, Inc: Inside the Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy, 2021 (Swift Press £20). The world is full of calls for companies to think more about stakeholders – suppliers, staff and community groups – and less about shareholders. Sounds good. But the result is big firms interfering in politics and democracy. Ramaswamy makes a convincing case for old-school shareholder capitalism. Youthquake: Why African Demography Should Matter to the World…

Programmes Imagine… Profile of Wayne McGregor, the modern dance pioneer and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, following him as he rehearses a new work at the Royal Opera House. Mon 21 Feb, BBC1 22:35 (60mins). Kate Garraway: Caring for Derek The TV presenter and her husband, who was critically ill with Covid-19, talk about Covid’s effect on their lives, and the challenges of the social care system. Tue 22 Feb, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). Mission: Joy – With Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama Uplifting documentary filmed over five days in 2015 revealing the close friendship between the two religious leaders. Wed 23 Feb, BBC4 22:00 (80mins). Films Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) Biopic of Freddie Mercury, which received mixed reviews but near-universal praise for Rami Malek’s portrayal of Queen’s legendary…

If I could eat only one brownie for the rest of my days, this would be it, says Leah Hyslop. Dark and rich, it contains no nuts or other extras to distract from its bewitchingly oozy centre. I promise it will fill any hole in your life. Ultimate fudgy brownies 200g unsalted butter, chopped into rough cubes, plus extra for greasing 300g dark chocolate (around 70% cocoa solids), roughly broken into pieces 300g caster sugar 3 large eggs and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten 50g plain flour 60g cocoa powder ½ tsp sea salt, plus extra to sprinkle • Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 20cm square tin and line with baking parchment. • Put the butter and chocolate in a saucepan over a low heat and melt,…

Perfect Cornwall break Stay 2 nights at the charming and privately run Merchants Manor, with its far-reaching views across Falmouth Bay, from £140pp half-board. 020-3608 0135, secretescapes.com. Depart 11 March. All-inclusive in Jamaica Admire the golden sands of Seven Mile Beach on a 7-night stay at the Azul Beach Resort Negril. From £1,495pp (including Manchester flights). 020-8175 1145, loveholidays.com. Depart 7 June. Northern Laos hike This 7-day tour begins and ends in the ancient and magical Unesco World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. From £890pp b&b (excluding flights). 0800-802 1046, tourradar.com. Arrive 15 April. A 17th century Ludlow inn Named “the most handsome inn in the world” by The New York Times, The Feathers Hotel in Ludlow has a 2-night break from £108pp b&b. 020-3564 9000, travelzoo.com. Arrive 20 March.…

Arm Holdings: spooky intervention SoftBank’s plan to float the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, which it acquired in 2016, in New York, has “sparked a furore in the UK over the nation’s inability to retain home-grown industry leaders”, said the Financial Times. There are also major concerns about allowing such a technologically key asset out of the country. Last week, the former head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, urged the Government to “strain every sinew” to keep Arm in London. James Anderson of Baillie Gifford’s £20.7bn Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (a leader in tech investment) described the mooted $30bn-plus flotation on Nasdaq as “a huge potential blow” to the City that will significantly reduce the chances of building a tech “ecosystem”. He’s quite right, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail.…

A rough deal for young people Editorial Financial Times Economic statistics will “never fully capture” the sacrifices made by young people during the pandemic, says the FT. They lost “years of carefree youth they will not get back”, largely to protect those from older generations. Now they face a new financial blow. The Government is freezing the income level at which it becomes compulsory to start repaying their student loans. “Inflation will therefore draw many, not very well-paid, graduates into repayment – equivalent to an increase in income tax of around 9% a year.” Indeed, the Intergenerational Foundation estimates that the combination of “stealth taxes”, the scheduled NI hike and inflation means “the disposable income of a typical 27-year-old graduate will fall by close to 30% over four years”. Meanwhile,…

Pancreatic cancer is a tough one, but we’re taking it on. It’s tough to diagnose, tough to research and tough to survive. Survival rates have improved enormously for most cancers. Sadly, for pancreatic cancer, this is not the case. Pancreatic Cancer UK supports world-leading research to find that breakthrough in new treatments and improve the speed of diagnosis; our nurses are ready to answer questions on the Support Line; and as a result of our campaigning, there is now clear guidance on what care and treatment someone diagnosed with pancreatic cancer can expect. By working together, our actions today can transform the future for people affected by pancreatic cancer. Together, we’ll take it on. Visit pancreaticcancer.org.uk.…

Controversy of the week After spending the last two years attacking Keir Starmer for “the apparent crime of being a lawyer”, Boris Johnson is now hiring one himself, said Tom Peck in The Independent. The PM has been sent a questionnaire by the Metropolitan Police over the breaking of lockdown rules during Downing Street gatherings. It’s understood the PM has employed hot-shot private lawyers to handle it. His defence, it seems, hinges on the unique nature of 10 Downing Street: a workplace for many, but a private home for Johnson. It’s a puzzling distinction, say critics, since during lockdown “parties were illegal both in homes and workplaces”. His prevarications can’t hide the truth, said Martin Kettle in The Guardian: “he’s finished”. The polls suggest irreparable damage has been done: 70%…

Paris Pécresse tacks right: In her first big set-piece rally, Valérie Pécresse, the centre-right Republican candidate in France’s presidential race, vowed to fight immigration, Islamism and cancel culture. Most commentators deemed the speech an unsuccessful tack to the right, with Pécresse, the current leader of the Paris region, seeming uneasy as she embraced the agenda of her far-right rivals. Pécresse is vying with Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour for second place in the polls. But in recent weeks her campaign has been hit by several defections to that of the centrist President Macron, who increasingly appears to have a clear path to victory in April’s election. Paris Copycat convoys: Protesters against Covid-19 restrictions took to the streets in the Netherlands and France last weekend, inspired by Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”.…

1 L’Accordéoniste by Michel Emer, performed by Édith Piaf2* Si mi chiamano Mimì by Puccini, performed by Maria Callas3 Ne me quitte pas, written and performed by Jacques Brel4 Miss Otis Regrets by Cole Porter, performed by Ella Fitzgerald5 One for My Baby from The Sky’s the Limit, by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, performed by Fred Astaire6 Requiem in D minor (Introitus) by Mozart, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Singverein, conducted by Herbert von Karajan7 Burn On, written and performed by Randy Newman8 Les Feuilles Mortes by Jacques Prévert and Joseph Kosma, performed by Yves Montand Book: The Sixth Sense of Animals by Maurice Burton Luxury: a cutlass * Choice if allowed only one record…

Time to put your feet up, ma’am Simon Jenkins The Guardian This May, the Queen will notch up 70 years on the throne, making her Europe’s longest-ever serving monarch after Louis XIV. She has performed the role admirably, says Simon Jenkins, and her platinum jubilee will rightly be celebrated. Yet might this not also be a perfect moment for her to retire? “Any reasonable person would recommend retirement from active work for a woman of her age.” But abdication has been a dirty word since Edward VIII’s enforced departure, and the Queen apparently regards it as her sacred duty to carry on. Ultimately, though, she performs a “constitutional function”, which as a 95-year-old she will increasingly struggle to fulfil. Rather than battling on, risking the uncertainty that dogged Queen Victoria’s…

Adults and children in England are living for longer after being diagnosed with cancer, and these increases are being seen in almost all forms of the disease, the NHS has reported. In 2002, about 78% of children with cancer survived for five or more years; by 2019 that had risen to 85%. In the past 15 years, there have also been improvements in one-year survival rates for adults with all forms of cancer except bladder cancer. The biggest improvement has been among women with lung cancer: one-year survival rates rose from 31.6%, for those diagnosed between 2006 to 2010, to 46% between 2015 and 2019. Five-year survival rates also improved for all cancers except bladder and colon cancer. Adults with melanomas have the highest survival rates: 90% of men and…

“It was an extraordinary way to end nearly two years of restrictions and lockdowns,” said Will Hutton in The Guardian. There were no “explanatory briefings” from the Chief Medical Officer or Scientific Adviser, or UK-wide consultations. Instead, the PM simply told “a surprised House of Commons” that he would unilaterally lift all Covid restrictions in England on 24 February, a month ahead of time. Any requirement to self-isolate if testing positive will end. Wearing masks? Social distancing? Working from home? All over. Worryingly little thought has been given to public health thereafter. A document called “Living With Covid” has been promised for 21 February. It is expected to set out the “scantest of strategies” to contain the virus. Even free PCR testing, it seems, is to end, along with the…

“In most things, success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.”Montesquieu, quoted in Forbes “The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour.”John Berger, quoted in The Times “An old person suffers the loss of one of the greatest human rights: he is no longer judged by his equals.”J.W. von Goethe, quoted on The Browser “It is only the blind eye of the adult that finds the familiar uninteresting.”Margaret Wise Brown, quoted in The New Yorker “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”Mark Twain, quoted on RedBubble.com “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”Entrepreneur Michael Altshuler, quoted in Reader’s Digest “Grief is the inevitable and worthy burden of loving another.”Joanne Cacciatore in The Guardian “A bad rendition of…

The golf tournament that takes place each year at Scottsdale, Arizona, has long officially been called the Waste Management Open, on account of it being sponsored by a rubbish disposal firm. Last Saturday, it lived up to its name, said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph: play had to be halted for 15 minutes while beer cans and bottles flung by fans were cleared from the green and fairway at the 16th hole. The torrent of detritus was provoked by the sight of Sam Ryder, the world’s 261st-ranked player, hitting a hole in one. “Aces”, though rare in golf, do happen from time to time at Scottsdale’s 16th, which is only 124 yards long and is nicknamed “The Coliseum”, on account of being “completely enclosed by grandstands”. The last player…

Weidenfeld & Nicolson 288pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £9.99 “This is a short book about a big subject,” said Katy Guest in The Guardian: a nuanced and “persuasive” account of what Adam Rutherford calls the “dark history and troubling present of eugenics”. With an admirable lack of alarmism, Rutherford, a geneticist, shows how the aspiration to craft society “by biological design” is one that has existed for millennia: Plato, for instance, in his Republic, envisaged “inferior” citizens being discouraged from breeding. The man regarded as the father of modern eugenics is the Victorian polymath Francis Galton (pictured), said Tim Adams in The Observer. His idea of “positive eugenics” (using selective breeding to raise the calibre of humans) inspired disciples from across the political spectrum, including a young Winston Churchill, the…

The new US podcast This Is Dating bills itself as a series of recordings of first dates, but it’s “way more interesting than that”, said Fiona Sturges in the FT. It’s made by the team behind the hit podcast Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel, which listens in on couples’ therapy sessions. And although This Is Dating “isn’t nearly as brutal” as that – it has a more “fun and hopeful vibe” – it offers the same compelling mix of eavesdropping and analytical insight. There is a “fascinating” gulf between what the listener hears and the participants’ own interpretations of how the dates went; and Logan Ury, a behavioural scientist and dating coach, is on hand to discuss what might be hampering their quests for love. But it is…

In the course of her long career, the French-born artist Louise Bourgeois tackled “taboo after taboo”, said Hettie Judah in The i Paper. At a time when women were rarely granted a voice to vent their anger in public, Bourgeois (1911-2010) used her art to channel her anxieties and frustrations about everything from “sexuality to maternal ambivalence, to depression to the ageing body”, bringing to light the violent psychological undercurrents that, in her view, lay beneath traditional gender and family roles. Recognition came late: it was only in the 1990s that she started to become the influential figure that she is today. Around this time, when she was well into her 80s, Bourgeois began rifling through the closets of her New York home for old textiles – tapestries, stuffed dolls,…

Here’s a fun fact, said David Williams in The Observer: if California were a country, it would be the world’s fourth-largest wine-producing nation after Italy, France and Spain. Yet California’s wines have never commanded huge respect on this side of the pond. One problem is that “sub-£10 pleasure is thin on the ground”; in that price bracket, you’ll mainly find “sickly-sweet” wines by “big-name brands”. Another is that in the UK, California is viewed as a “viticultural monolith”, although in fact, it has “at least as much geological and climatic variation” as France or Spain. There are a few modestly priced bargains to be had, such as M&S’s juicy Classics No. 24 California Zinfandel USA 2020 (£8). But spend a bit more, and you’ll find plenty of bottles to rival…

Seaham Hall, County Durham Lord Byron got married at this Georgian pile on a sea cliff in County Durham in 1815. Today, it combines “stately grandeur” (vast gardens, chandeliers, open fires) with modern luxury – making a stay here dizzyingly indulgent, says Sherelle Jacobs in The Sunday Telegraph. The spa is “jawdropping”, with a Zen garden, a hammam and numerous pools. Suites are “vivaciously decorated”, and some have outside spaces with hot tubs. The hotel has two restaurants – one specialising in British dishes, the other in pan-Asian cuisine. There are lovely coastal walks nearby, and Durham itself is a 20-minute drive away. Doubles from £295 b&b; seaham-hall.co.uk.…

Bamber Gascoigne 1935-2022 Bamber Gascoigne, who has died aged 87, was a writer, broadcaster, historian and arts connoisseur – but he will be remembered as the original host of the longrunning TV quiz show University Challenge, said The Times. Whereas his successor, Jeremy Paxman, has tended to adopt a somewhat acerbic, impatient tone with the student competitors (“Oh come on!”), Gascoigne – who was only 27 when the show launched in 1962 – was courteous, encouraging (a “softy”, by his own estimation). With his patrician voice and donnish appearance, he was an unlikely star of commercial television; yet he regularly attracted 11 million viewers, and his catchphrases – “Fingers on the buzzer”; “Your starter for 10”; “I’m sorry, I’ll have to hurry you” – lived on long after he left…

UK inflation, measured on the consumer prices index, rose to a 30-year high, surging by 5.5% in the year to January fuelled by rising energy and food prices – and by a much smaller drop than usual in the January prices of clothing and footwear. Inflation is now outpacing earnings growth: the ONS reported that “real wages” fell by 0.8% from a year earlier in Q4 2021. Heineken became the latest big firm to warn it was putting up prices following Unilever, Greggs and Tesco. US inflation rose by 7.5%, the fastest rate since 1981. Fed chairman Jay Powell came under pressure to clarify the Fed’s plans to combat it – some predicted an emergency rate rise The prospect of war in Ukraine riled markets. £54bn was wiped off the…

•Going Ape “If you see this, you’re very early.” The line has become a familiar trope in the frothy market for nonfungible tokens, “where block-chain powered proof of ownership has created a hyper-speculative digital art market”, said Tim Bradshaw in the FT. Being “early” in the unregulated world of NFTs can be highly lucrative. The first supporters of a new project are often rewarded with “whitelist” access before the token goes on sale to the general public – meaning a purchase costing “a few hundred dollars” can be “resold for thousands just hours later” if all goes well. Still, “in the increasingly desperate scramble to find the next Bored Ape Yacht Club” (the “iconic” NFT cartoonish series, which frequently sell for millions) “the opportunities for due diligence are limited”. And…

Chitra Ramkrishna The former chief of India’s National Stock Exchange has received a hefty fine, and a ban from working in financial markets, after admitting that while running it she relied on advice from a spiritual yogi based in the Himalayas, said The Daily Beast. Chitra Ramkrishna, who quit her job in 2016, said she thought the guidance “would help me perform my role better”. But an investigation has concluded that she was “merely a puppet” in the unnamed guru’s hands. The hunt is now on to track down the mystery yogi, said Palak Shah on The Hindu BusinessLine. It seems to be someone who “knew the inside working of the exchange closely” and was “very well networked in Delhi’s political and bureaucratic circles”. Rather odd for a Himalayan hermit……