Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1059 i The Week

What happened Cameron’s EU deal Britain could hold its EU membership referendum within “a few months”, declared David Cameron this week as he welcomed a draft deal published by Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council. The document, released after “intense talks” between No. 10 and European diplomats, broadly addresses the main renegotiation priorities raised by Downing Street. The proposals include a “red card” system that would allow parliaments to block EU plans, and an “emergency brake” that would allow governments to restrict new migrants’ access to in-work benefits for up to four years. The proposals will still need to be approved by the other 27 EU leaders. Cameron is hoping that they will do so at a summit on 18-19 February, enabling him to call a referendum on…

Seattle, Washington Servers under the sea: Microsoft is hoping to put its data centres hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, in an attempt to reduce its air-conditioning bill. Data centres consist of rows and rows of servers – powerful computers that process and store data, and underpin the internet. These use vast amounts of energy; levels many environmentalists believe are unsustainable. They also generate vast amounts of heat, and if the centres get too hot, the servers crash, which is why many firms have located server farms in chilly Scandinavian countries. But that creates problems of latency – the time it takes for data to reach customers. Microsoft hopes it can solve the latency problem by siting its servers under the sea off the southern coast of…

An internal flight across the US had to make an unscheduled stop after two members of the crew came to blows, and a third got punched in the face while trying to calm them. The stewardesses fell out around 40 minutes into the journey in a spat Delta Airlines said was triggered by “work issues”. The plane was flying from Los Angeles to Minneapolis but was forced to stop at Salt Lake City so the pair could be removed. A new crew was found and the flight resumed 80 minutes later. “We regret that our customers’ experience did not live up to our expectations,” said Delta in a statement. An American hair colourist has paid tribute to some of the world’s greatest artists by dyeing her hair to match their…

THE NETHERLANDS Ukraine will suffer if we vote “no” de Volkskrant (Amsterdam) Another referendum with potentially dramatic consequences is looming in Europe, says Jan De Visser. This one, in the Netherlands, is about whether to ratify the Association Agreement made between the EU and Ukraine to foster closer trade and political links. It was president Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign such a deal which, you will recall, triggered Ukraine’s 2014 revolution – though after Yanukovich fell, the deal did go ahead. It must now be ratified, however, by all 28 member parliaments, and a Dutch Eurosceptic group, taking advantage of a new law giving citizens their say on any new legislation, has seen this as a chance to pounce. They’ve secured the signatures required to stage a referendum, and polls…

Winter flower bonanza More than 600 species of British wildflowers were in bloom this New Year’s Day – a time when botanists would expect to find no more than 20 or 30, reports The Independent. The unheard-of increase is believed to have been caused by an unusually warm and wet winter, leading summer flowers to linger on and spring ones to bloom early. “It’s incredible,” said Kevin Walker, of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” The organisation’s survey found that hawthorn, also known as the May flower, was in bloom in 17 locations across the UK on 1 January, some five months early. Other spring flowers that appeared included cowslip, cow parsley and bulbous buttercup. But three-quarters of the flowering species – including…

Hard on the heels of the “lily white” Oscars controversy, the makers of a new comedy film have caused a stir by casting Joseph Fiennes (pictured) – the British actor best known for his role in Shakespeare in Love – as Michael Jackson. Fiennes, 45, told the press he was surprised when he was cast as Jackson, who died in 2009 aged 50 – but defended the decision to give him the job. “I’m a white, middle-class guy from London,” he said. “I’m as shocked as you may be.” But he added that Jackson’s “pigmentation issue” meant that by the end of the singer’s life, his skin tone was “probably closer to my colour than his original colour”. Phil Collins has quietly rekindled his relationship with his third wife, six…

“Ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been.” David Bowie, quoted in The Guardian “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.” Euan Ferguson’s suggested campaign slogan for Donald Trump, in The Observer “Gratuitously hurtful folk declare that I am very popular in hospitals because the listeners abed there are too weak to reach out and switch me off.” Terry Wogan, quoted in The Guardian “Many excellent words are ruined by too definite a knowledge of their meaning.” Poet Aline Kilmer, quoted on the Associated Press “To talk well and eloquently is a very great art, but an equally great one is to know the right moment to stop.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, quoted on RefDesk.com “I prefer a pleasant vice to…

Rhodes and racial hatred To The Times The statue of Rhodes may be safe because the provost of Oriel found it too expensive to play the liberal, but Britain must not overlook the fact that the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign is the brainchild of Julius Malema, the hate-talking South African politician whose real target is not Rhodes but Nelson Mandela and the “Rainbow Nation”. Immediately before and after the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign was staged at Oxford, Malema appeared at the Oxford Union to denigrate Mandela and the Rhodes-Mandela scholarship programme, and was later given a hearing at Chatham House, a think tank founded with Rhodes’s money, where he further abused Mandela’s rescue from racial hatred of the South African state. Robin Brown, author, The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes’s…

OUP 368pp £25 The Week bookshop £22 (incl. p&p) King James I once received a walrus as a gift from “Muscovy merchants”; Charles II was presented with 30 ostriches by “the barbarous emperor of Morocco”. Such presents weren’t exceptional, said Lawrence James in The Times. Rare animals had long been the “currency of diplomacy”, as we learn from this “fascinating, well researched” study of our enthusiasm for exotic creatures by zoologist Caroline Grigson. Ownership of wild beasts was a badge of royal power – caged lions sometimes accompanied Henry I when he toured his kingdom – and additions to the royal menagerie at the Tower of London were always welcome. Henry III received an elephant from Louis IX of France, and a polar bear from the King of Norway. In…

Spotlight Dir: Tom McCarthy 2hrs 8mins (15) A compelling film about Catholic cover-ups Spotlight is a true-life tale of investigative journalism involving countless scenes of reporters poring over documents and drinking interminable cups of black coffee. Yet don’t be put off, said Helen O’Hara in Empire; it’s “more thrilling than most action movies”. It tells how, in 2001, a team of Boston Globe reporters began to uncover the ways in which the local Catholic Church had systematically concealed abuse committed by paedophile priests. The “dream cast” includes Michael Keaton as a veteran reporter with ties to some of the city bigwigs complicit in the cover-up, said Dave Calhoun in Time Out. Rachel McAdams and a “nervy” Mark Ruffalo also shine as junior reporters gradually realising the extent of the scandal.…

What did the star of Rocky and one of Britain’s greatest artists have in common? Answer: Sylvester Stallone and Lucian Freud were both big fans of Iris, Messenger of the Gods, a headless goddess whose legs are splayed apart to expose her genitalia. Iris, explains Mark Brown in The Guardian, is “the most audacious and sexually explicit figure” ever sculpted by Auguste Rodin – and both Freud and Stallone owned bronze versions of her, cast from the 1891 original. Stallone kept his in his living room; Freud’s was at the end of his bed, ensuring it was one of the first things he saw on waking. Other famous names have also admired Iris. “The whole splendour of her sex, unveiled, palpitates in the air,” hymned the poet Arthur Symons. And…

Charlie leaves a message for Adam, hoping to meet for a last drink. By the time Adam gets to The Bull, Ed says Charlie’s left. Rob informs Tom he’s reducing his sausage order because of a dip in sales. Tom’s not happy and wants Rob to increase promotion instead. Rob’s disapproving of Helen’s new maternity tops. The necklines are too low and he doesn’t see the point of spending money on clothes she’ll only use for a bit. He suggests she return them and look in charity shops. Joe reveals his secret black pudding ingredient to Tom – used tea leaves. Justin tells Lilian that he’d like to move to Ambridge, but his wife isn’t keen. He asks about renting the Dower House for weekends. Jennifer’s delighted to have Lilian…

Zelman Meats 2 St Anne’s Court, W1 (020-7437 0566) I first met Misha Zelman almost ten years ago in Moscow, says Jay Rayner in The Observer, and got the firm impression that he was a “sweetly deluded baby oligarch”, sodden with “ludicrous macho-posturing and bravado”. It never occurred to me that Goodman steakhouses, his flashy Moscow chain, might take over the world. Yet when Goodman opened in Mayfair in 2008, it set a “new standard for steakhouses” in London, vying with the Hawksmoor group for “best grilled cow house”. Zelman’s next chain, Burger & Lobster, has also proved a “raging success”; as has the upmarket Beast, which still pulls in punters despite knocking out crab and steak for a silly £85 a head. Which brings us to Zelman Meats, a…

No one expected all that much from the original R8, said John Howell in Autocar. Before the supercar’s launch, in 2006, Audi had a reputation for producing “effective but rather blunt instruments”. Yet the R8 dispelled any doubts; it was “as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel”. Now, a decade on, the all-new model is under a lot of pressure to “maintain” that form. This time Audi have done away with the V8 engine, so buyers can choose between the V10 and this, the top-level V10 Plus, which can go from 0-62mph in just 3.2 seconds and boasts 602bhp. Fire up the R8 and that V10 “explodes into life with a blitz of revs”, said Jamie Merrill in The Independent. You can really feel the power – and that’s because the…

Conquering Chimborazo Move aside, Everest. The world’s highest peak, it turns out, is Chimborazo in Ecuador – at least if you measure it from the centre of the planet rather than sea level (Earth is actually a “squashed sphere”, bulging at the equator). And unlike Everest, this Andean giant is “just within reach of normal human beings”, says Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. Still, at 6,286 metres above sea level (Everest is 8,848), and with upper slopes “like a near-vertical ice rink”, it’s a stiff challenge, requiring ice-axe training and an experienced guide. To get used to the high altitude, spend a week cycling and walking in this gorgeous region of cloud forests, coffee plantations and volcanic lakes. And if headaches and hallucinations finally defeat you (I saw two green…

BP: what price the dividend? BP this week became the first of Britain’s oil majors to report on the damage inflicted by the ongoing crash in oil prices. And the bloodbath was even worse than anticipated, said Terry Macalister in The Guardian. After reporting a full-year loss of $6.5bn – “its worse annual loss in at least 20 years” – the company is to cut another 3,000 jobs. Shares immediately tumbled by 8%. And though BP is retaining its “sacrosanct” dividend, there are doubts about whether it can be sustained. CEO Robert Dudley attempted an upbeat message, noted Kamal Ahmed on BBC Business News online, but it is clear that “both of the main areas of the business are now sputtering and puffing out black smoke”. Another year of falling…

● Sharia rout The fall in oil prices has claimed another victim, said Attracta Mooney in the FT. Sales of sharia-compliant funds plummeted by 75% last year – partly because so many investors are based in countries dependent on oil, and partly because of the “challenging political situation” in the Middle East and North Africa. The slowdown is a big setback for the fledgling $60bn Islamic fund industry – which was previously buoyed by forecasts about the growing wealth of the world’s 1.7 billion Muslims. Mainstream fund managers such as Franklin Templeton and Aberdeen Asset Management, which hopped on the bandwagon, also hoped to appeal to non-Muslim investors seeking exposure to companies in the Middle East, or to screen out “sin stocks”. It’s not all doom and gloom, said Zak…

Neutrality is the best stance on Europe Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph Almost every day brings a new warning about what might happen were Britain to leave the European Union, says Matthew Lynn. But big business should stay well out of the debate. The economic arguments are finely balanced: “the only honest assessment is that we will lose a bit of economic growth if we leave, but also gain a bit, and the overall impact will be roughly zero”. And “dire warnings of catastrophe” could rebound badly on companies. Senior executives who go around saying that Brexit spells “disaster” will have only themselves to blame if their shares tank should that happen. Then, there are customers to consider. Polls show that Britons are very evenly split in a debate that…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys 3i Group The Times The private equity firm has been successfully investing and divesting since its turnaround. Earnings are rising and there’s scope for more acquisitions, with minimal exposure to problem areas such as oil. Yields about 3.5%. Buy. 434p. Connect Group Investors Chronicle Connect’s distribution network has evolved to meet changing consumer and business needs; with both Pass My Parcel and Tuffnells seeing robust demand. Cost-cutting has offset a slump in traditional operations. Yields 6.4%. Buy. 149p. Crest Nicholson Investors Chronicle The housebuilder, which has a very large land bank, has delivered strong full-year numbers. Completions are up by 8%, forward sales are up by 28%, and it’s on target to achieve £1.4bn turnover. Yields 6.1%. Buy. 546p. Paragon Group The Times…

This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) Brogue Collection coin purse in black, which retails at £150, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 6 Sailors creating a stink? They should bring somebody round! (8,5) 8 Shout for leading England batsman (4) 9 Now is the time for giving (7-3) 10 Smack daughter in petty quarrel and refuse to change (5,3) 12 Teased about being staid and sober (6) 14 Stars shop endlessly (4) 16 Drying equipment from the Republic by the sound of it (5) 17 Impression made by a female TV lexicographer? (4) 18 Game of chance after bishop gets very drunk (6) 19 Musician who could be madly into rags (8) 22 Consider it abroad for diplomacy (10) 25 Did state in Sweden initially help? (4)…

Controversy of the week The verdict in Iowa The US presidential election kicked off this week as voters in the Midwestern state of Iowa trudged through snow to gather in church basements, high-school gyms and private homes, and declare in front of friends and strangers their preference for a given candidate. But even before the results were in, said Gary Younge in The Guardian, it was clear this was going to be an election where the old formulae for success – how to manage the media, how to finance a campaign – no longer applied. Never before has a Democrat (Bernie Sanders) been able to call himself “a socialist”, or a Republican (Donald Trump) been able to skip a crucial pre-election TV debate, and have a hope of winning. In…

Giving the gift of life John Fletcher is a man on a mission. The 69-year-old vet, from Fife, became one of the UK’s first “altruistic” kidney donors ten years ago, and he is now leading a campaign to encourage others to follow suit. He knows it won’t be easy, says Kate Hilpern in The Independent. When he first proposed becoming a donor, even his GP “looked at me as if I was mad”. It’s an attitude he finds infuriating “because almost all of us have two kidneys and only need one, which means the vast majority of us are in a position to give the gift of life really quite easily”. One person a day dies, on average, waiting for a kidney in Britain, and more than 5,500 are on…

“We already provide the ability to get a car at the touch of a button,” says Uber’s regional manager for the UK, Jo Bertram. “Now imagine if you could use that same network of drivers… to also get other things.” The most obvious development of the Uber platform is to turn the car service into a courier one. In New York, UberRush is already up and running. Shops, restaurants and businesses can use Uber drivers and bike couriers to make deliveries. Customers get emails enabling them to track their delivery in real time. Uber is also taking aim at the way cities move. In India, it trialled an UberAuto service, offering auto-rickshaw rides. In San Francisco, where the firm originated, it is now targeting bus services, with its UberPool vehicles…

Lead scandal conceals a happier truth David Mastio USA Today America is rightly outraged by a scandal in the city of Flint, Michigan, where the authorities’ mismanagement of the water supply exposed thousands of people to harmful levels of toxic lead for more than a year. It’s a sorry tale of official penny-pinching, buck-passing and incompetence, says David Mastio, but let’s “dial back the panic just a notch or two”. While it’s true there’s no safe level when it comes to ingesting lead, which can cause an array of health problems and lower IQs in children, we need to put the Flint fiasco in context. It has left 10.6% of the city’s 8,000 children with blood-lead levels of five micrograms per decilitre or more. That’s bad, but back in the…

Having conquered most ecosystems on Earth, the humble potato could next be heading for Mars. If humans are going to establish a colony on the Red Planet, they’re going to need something to eat, and – as the makers of the film The Martian noted (below) – potatoes are the obvious contender. They’re hardy; need very little water to grow; and are rich in zinc, iron and vitamin C. At a push, a human could survive on just potatoes and water for up to a year. To test the tubers’ extraterrestrial potential, Nasa is running a series of experiments in conjunction with the International Potato Centre, in Peru – the original home of the potato. Scientists will first try to cultivate specimens in lab conditions simulating some of those on…

Harry Styles has worn his on stage; Selena Gomez was recently photographed in a natty pair while shopping in Paris; and Nigella Lawson claims to live in hers. But as we know, what’s good for celebrities and “urbane fashionistas” is not necessarily acceptable for the rest of us, said Karen Kay in The Observer. And so it was that last week Kate Chisholm, the head teacher of a primary school in Darlington, County Durham, felt moved to write a letter to parents, suggesting that they get dressed in the morning – rather than dropping their children off at school in their pyjamas. A hard core of parents took to the internet to accuse her of “snobbery”. Meanwhile, the letter went viral, prompting a heated online debate. I know which side…

Pep Guardiola: Manchester City’s new “prophet” It was the “greatest deadline day signing” of all time, said James Ducker in The Times. On Monday, Manchester City “delighted their fans and astounded their rivals” with the announcement that they had appointed Pep Guardiola, the world’s best manager. The Spaniard, currently at Bayern Munich, will replace Manuel Pellegrini this summer on a three-year deal worth some £45m. He arrives with a “glittering” record: in his seven seasons as a manager, at Barcelona and Bayern, he has won five league titles (with another sure to come this season) and two Champions League titles. And he has lost astonishingly few league games – 19 in all. Four years after City first tried to lure Guardiola to Manchester, they have pulled off “the biggest coup…

To The Independent Why condemn Google? Many of the richest corporations and richest individuals across the world are avoiding tax by using British tax havens. The British Government allowed and encouraged the creation of tax havens from the Isle of Man to Gibraltar, and from the Channel Islands to the Cayman Islands. In all there are 16 British tax havens. The richest people in Greece use British Tax havens to avoid due tax in that bankrupt country. The UN and organisations across the world have asked the UK Government to impose sanctions and exclusions upon these disgraceful protectorates or members of our Commonwealth. Yes, we should condemn the corporations and the people who fail to pay fair taxes in the nations within which they trade, but we should also demand…

Yuki Chan in Brontë Country Faber 240pp £12.99 The Week bookshop £10.99 (incl. p&p) “Unconventional” and “strangely touching”, this is “the kind of book you can’t stop reading but don’t want to finish”, said Sue Gaisford in the FT. Our heroine is Yuki Chan, a Japanese fashion student visiting Britain, ostensibly, to see her sister. Her real purpose, however, is to find some explanation for the mysterious death of her mother ten years earlier, soon after a visit to Brontë country. In search of clues, Yuki joins a group of elderly Japanese on a coach trip to the Yorkshire Moors. What follows is a series of “wild adventures” recounted with “sly wit” and “irresistible dynamism”. This is a work of “real craft”, said Stuart Kelly in The Independent. The book…

The Royal Academy’s new exhibition on art and gardening is a “ravishing joy from start to finish”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. It’s full of “intensely colourful and rapturous” paintings, bursting with “riotous red poppies”, “dazzling fruit orchards” and “darkling mazes”. And it proves once and for all that Claude Monet – so often written off as a painter of “chocolate box” scenes – was unquestionably “one of the world’s greatest artists”. The exhibition traces the emergence of the modern garden through the 19th and early 20th centuries – a period in which horticulture went from being the preserve of the aristocracy to a middle-class pursuit. Featuring more than 120 works by painters as diverse as Renoir, Pissarro, Kandinsky and John Singer Sargent, it shows how gardening captivated the…

Culloden by John Prebble, 1961 (Pimlico £11.99). History is my greatest love and this was the first “adult” history book I read. I think I was 12. Prebble was a classic populariser – a writer who combined knowledge with the ability to tell a story – and this is the story of the last great battle fought on British soil, in 1746. It is romantic and tragic, and helped me, as a London boy, to develop a love of Scotland that has lasted my whole life. The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith, 1953 (Penguin £8.99). Despite the name, Woodham-Smith was a woman, and this is her superb Prebble-like telling of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Starting in Ireland in the 1830s and tracing the rivalry of the Irish Lord…

Programmes The Toughest Horse Race in the World: Palio Cosima Spender’s gripping documentary follows the jockeys as they battle it out in Italy’s most vicious horse race. Sun 7 Feb, BBC4 9pm (90mins). How the Rich Avoid Tax Actor Greg Wise has often spoken of his disgust for tax dodgers. Here he goes undercover for Dispatches to witness first-hand how the rich minimise their liabilities. He secretly records meetings with tax advisers, one of whom promises to “zero” his tax bill. Mon 8 Feb, C4 8pm (30mins). The X-Files David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are back as FBI special agents Mulder and Scully in this new six-part series. Mon 8 Feb, C5 9pm (60mins). Happy Valley Sarah Lancashire returns for a second series of the Baftawinning crime drama. Tue 9…

Potato and kale 400g potatoes 500g kale 2 tbsp grainy mustard 2 tbsp hot mustard 1 tsp honey 1 tbsp grated horseradish 1 tbsp diced shallots 1 tbsp white wine vinegar 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil salt and freshly ground pepper • Peel the potatoes, if needed, boil until tender, then cut into chunks. Cut the stalks off the kale and chop the leaves finely. Mix with the potatoes. • Make the dressing by whisking the mustards, honey, horseradish, shallots and vinegar together. Still whisking, gradually add the oil. Season with salt and pepper and mix into the salad. Brussels sprouts with apples and walnut oil 500g Brussels sprouts 200g apples, sliced 1 green chilli, deseeded and chopped 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp walnut oil salt and…

Snowy Austrian getaway Wonder at Salzkammergut’s lakes and mountains during a 7-night stay at the 4-star Hotel Seerose in Fuschl am See. From £755pp half board, including flights. 01653-617000, www.inntravel.co.uk. Depart 20 Feb. Walking in the Dales Two nights at the Rendezvous Hotel in Skipton will give you ample opportunity to explore the area on foot. From £115pp b&b and dinner. 01905-899502, www.greatlittlebreaks.com. Until 30 April. Music in Morocco Enjoy the Gnaoua World Music Festival in Essaouira, with 2 nights in Marrakech, and 3 at the festival. From £875pp b&b. 020-7501 6375, www.songlinesmusictravel.com. Arrive 11 May. North Wales family break Explore the Llyn Peninsula and Snowdonia during a 7-night stay at Daron (sleeps 7), in Aberdaron. From £510, plus get a 15% discount. 0344-800 2070, www.nationaltrustholidays.org.uk. Until end Feb.…

Global markets continued to zigzag wildly. Having rallied following the Bank of Japan’s latest monetary intervention, some doveish remarks from the US Fed and a jump in the price of crude, they fell again this week, with markets across Asia moving deeper into bear territory as the oil price fell again. Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said there was “no limit” to monetary easing, and vowed to slash Japanese interest rates further into negative territory if necessary. Africa’s biggest oil producer, Nigeria, applied to the World Bank for an emergency loan. Google’s parent, Alphabet, surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of around $568bn, after a better than expected set of Q4 figures sent its shares surging. The international tax row surrounding both companies…

Nigel Wilson, Legal & General: “We are heading for a world of zeros: including zero inflation, zero growth in per-capita GDP, and zero growth in productivity.” Helena Morrissey, Newton: “We would not be surprised to see… a more challenging period for markets and the UK economy.” Brenda Trenowden, 30% Club: “We are coming off an extended QE high, which staved off Armageddon but has not put the world back on a prudent path of sustained economic growth.” John McFarlane, Barclays: “I doubt disaster is looming… The US economy is key. I’ve always trusted it in the past to rise and lift all others, and feel it will deliver again.” Win Bischoff, FRC: “The heroic outperformance of the UK economy is unlikely to continue in 2016 and beyond to the same…

Andrew Bailey The new boss of the Financial Conduct Authority has distanced himself from his predecessor Martin Wheatley’s aggressive approach: Wheatley believed that in matters of bank regulation, you should “shoot first, ask questions later”, says the London Evening Standard. Andrew Bailey may have a calmer head. It emerged this week that while stuck in London trying to work out how to save Northern Rock, he also had to help his wife over the phone as she faced down a bear that had got into their holiday home in Idaho. Another time, reports the FT, the couple were offered a weapon by a local gun store there, to deal with an ursine intruder who had sunk its teeth into a sofa and was trying to drag it out of the…

Paris Minister’s anger: Less than a week after quitting the cabinet, France’s former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, has published a 96-page book tearing into the government’s anti-terror policies. It is thought she had written the book, Murmures à la Jeunesse (“Murmurings to youth”), in secret, as her doubts about France’s security clampdown in the wake of the November terrorist attacks in Paris grew. Taubira (pictured), born in Cayenne in French Guiana, is opposed to some of the emergency powers granted to police and local officials, and finally decided to resign over President Hollande’s controversial plan to strip convicted French-born terrorists of their citizenship if they have dual nationality. Berlin Migration warning: Germany’s powerful finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has warned that German voters are losing faith in the ability of state…

1 Under Pressure, written and performed by David Bowie and Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon) 2* Blue Skies by Irving Berlin, performed by Willie Nelson 3 Sing by Ed Sheeran and Pharrell Williams, performed by Sheeran 4 Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix, performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience 5 One, written and performed by U2 (Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr) 6 Two of Us by Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles 7 How Can Love Survive? (from The Sound of Music) by Rodgers and Hammerstein, performed by Kurt Kasznar, Marion Marlowe 8 My Shot (from the musical Hamilton) by Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan and Leslie Odom Jr Book: The Better Angels of…

Do we really need GPs at all? Sarah Baxter The Sunday Times A heretical thought struck me when the junior doctors went on strike, says Sarah Baxter. Do we really need GPs at all? Millions of people are going to A&E each year for want of access to any other medical help and advice. Yet there are “thousands of potential drop-in clinics” across Britain that could have helped them: they’re called pharmacies. Pharmacists are very knowledgeable about basic illnesses. Nurses are too. So why not convert local chemists into walk-in medical centres with their own nurses? In the US, the pharmacy chain CVS has done just that: its “minute clinics” are staffed by nurses who bandage wounds, treat common infections and carry out vaccinations. Open seven days a week, they…

Though it is believed to have been around for centuries, Zika was first identified in a monkey in the forests of Uganda in 1947; and then in humans in Nigeria in 1954. After that, the virus – which is transmitted though the bite of mosquitoes of the Aedes genus – became endemic in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, but caused little concern as the symptoms, when they appear at all, are very mild: sufferers typically experience a raised temperature, red eyes, a rash and muscle pain, lasting for no more than a week. But at some point, Zika began leapfrogging across the Pacific, and there is some evidence that it began mutating, too: in 2007, it hit Polynesia, where it was associated with a surge in cases of the…

Almost 50 years ago, in his notorious Rivers of Blood speech, Enoch Powell warned that in a couple of decades, the “black man will have the whip hand over the white man”. Last week, David Cameron became the latest to show just how wrong that prediction has proved. In an article in The Sunday Times, the PM noted that in Britain today there are more young black men in prison than at top universities; that there are no black generals in Britain’s armed forces; and that only 4% of FTSE 100 CEOs are from ethnic minorities. He announced that he’d asked Labour MP David Lammy to find out why black defendants are more likely to be jailed than white ones; and – pointing out that only 1% of successful applicants…

Rugby used to be a sport for “all shapes and sizes”, said Peter Milburn on TheConversation.com. There were plenty of large players – notably the forwards, who battle for possession in the scrum – but the sport still had room for small half-backs and “slightly built wingers”. Over the past quarter of a century, however, players in all positions have become bigger and bigger. In the Wales team, to give one remarkable example, the average back is now heavier than the forwards in New Zealand’s 1987 World Cup-winning side. The Six Nations, which begins this weekend, will be yet another showcase for rugby’s “huge men”, said Sam Peters in The Mail on Sunday. Ireland’s “skyscraper” of a second row, Devin Toner, will be the tallest player, at 6ft 10in; the…

Theatre The Mother Playwright: Florian Zeller Director: Laurence Boswell Tricycle, London NW6 (020-7328 1000) Until 12 March Running time: 1hr 25mins The French playwright Florian Zeller is fast becoming the “chéri” of London theatre, said Matt Trueman in Variety. His acclaimed play The Father returns to the West End later this month. Another play, The Truth, opens at the Menier in March. And at the Tricycle we now have The Mother, a companion piece to The Father. While the latter draws us into the mind of an Alzheimer’s sufferer, The Mother seeks to “give us a lens on clinical depression” – specifically that of a woman adrift in middle age. Although it lacks the “emotional surge” of The Father, The Mother is still a powerful portrait of depression – with…

Song Yige at Marlborough The first thing that strikes you about Chinese artist Song Yige’s paintings is their strangeness. For all the familiarity of her influences (Bosch, Bacon, Goya), these images remain enigmatic to the last – yet still one stares at them in search of possible meaning. She uses a lugubrious palette to depict objects, animals and people in unfamiliar, apparently uncomfortable situations, often livening up the glumness with seemingly random splashes of brightly coloured paint. Dance Party is a fine example. It is a work in which six figures stand posing, their faces obscured by colourful balloons. Yet if the title is to be taken literally, the grey background and funereal demeanour suggests this is a bash with all the joie de vivre of a Puritan wake. Some…

The best… high-tech digital radios Tips of the week… how to master Netflix ● If you watch Netflix on the go on a smartphone or tablet, without a Wi-Fi connection, it’s worth limiting how much data you’re using. Access the Netflix website with a browser (rather than on the app), choose Your Account from the main drop-down menu and select Playback Settings. You can then set the maximum data used per hour. ● When you’re watching at home, choose the high-quality option in Playback Settings to ensure you’re streaming in HD. ● If you watch Netflix on a computer, download the Flix Plus extension for Google Chrome to get extra features: for example, it hides spoilers in film descriptions and gives the average rating by critics. ● Video quality declines…

Soho Farmhouse, Great Tew, Oxfordshire This rural outpost from the Soho House group was last year’s most eagerly anticipated hotel opening – and it lives up to the hype, says Susan d’Arcy in The Sunday Times. Its 40 cabins dotted among “idyllic” Cotswolds acres have the same “ironically cool” aesthetic as its urban stablemates, but with better service and a big dollop of “old-fashioned fun” thrown in (there’s even a converted milk float kitted out so chef can cook breakfast outside your cabin). The larger cabins have “swanky” kitchens and balconies with free-standing baths, and there’s a huge indoor/outdoor infinity pool, stables, a cinema and a cookery school. Doubles from £220. 01608-691000, www.sohofarmhouse.com…

The brilliant Irish broadcaster who charmed the nation Terry Wogan 1938-2016 Terry Wogan, who has died aged 77, was for several decades one of Britain’s favourite broadcasters, said The Times. A master of Irish whimsy, he enchanted millions of radio listeners with his gentle flights of fancy, running gags and droll observations. During his parallel TV career, he made good use of an ironically arched eyebrow, and a twinkling good humour, whether he was handing out the underwhelming prizes on Blankety Blank (“It’s the Blankety Blank Chequebook and Pen!”), or hosting BBC Children in Need. His humour was wry, and even subversive – but never flippant or malicious, and always “laced with great personal warmth”. People loved listening to him because he made them feel better. His personal motto was…