Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1086 i The Week

What happened The Rio Olympics The first Olympic Games ever held in South America got under way in Rio de Janeiro last week. The build-up to the event had been plagued by crises, including an outbreak of the Zika virus, concerns about unfinished venues, and revelations of state-sanctioned doping by Russia. Brazil is currently suffering its worst recession in decades and is in a state of political upheaval, with its former president Dilma Rousseff facing impeachment proceedings. In another inauspicious sign, the country’s most famous sportsman, Pelé, who had been due to light the Olympic cauldron, had to pull out of the event at the last moment due to ill health. The mood improved, however, after the wellreceived opening ceremony, which was directed by Fernando Meirelles – the film-maker best…

Universities are so desperate to attract students that they’re offering them iPads, discounts – and even “buy one, get one free” deals. Sheffield is offering students with straight As at A-level a free master’s degree if they enrol as an undergraduate; De Montfort is offering tickets to Premier League games. There are fears that universities won’t be able to fill their student places this year, with foreign students shunning Britain because of uncertainties over Brexit. The Church of England is urging clerics to take their mission online. The C of E’s digital media officer has recommended eight apps for vicars – including one enabling them to make Gifs (animated images), and another to help broadcast services on Facebook. Good week for Cupping, which is all the rage at the Olympics.…

Vancouver, Canada Pricing out foreigners: The city of Vancouver has introduced a hefty 15% tax on purchases of property by anyone who is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, in a bid to hold down soaring house prices and keep them affordable for local people. Christy Clark, the premier of British Columbia, said that choking off demand – rather than increasing supply – was an important way of making the housing market fairer. “I want to keep home ownership within the grasp of the middle class in British Columbia,” she said. The extra charge means that a $2m (£1.1m) property, which is the average price for a detached house in the region, would cost an additional $300,000 in taxes. Vancouver has long been home to a large Chinese expatriate…

“The film star Orlando Bloom didn’t ask to be photographed with a telephoto lens, naked on holiday, miles from anywhere, relaxing. So is it OK for women to ogle him? Women’s equality will only come through joint respect and tedious mutual sacrifice. The next time an A-list male star’s penis is photographed without permission, the moral, but hideously boring, thing to do would be to walk over to the internet router and turn it off for a while. Even when we’re faced with Bloom with his underpants off crouching over a paddle board displaying a perfectly toned posterior. We need to treat as we would like to be treated. Ladies: I never said any of this shit was going to be easy.” Grace Dent in The Independent Farewell Ken Barrie,…

Gay men have every right to this drug Janice Turner The Times At a time of strained health budgets, should taxpayers have to pick up the tab for an expensive drug that helps protect gay men from contracting HIV from unprotected sex? There was an outcry last week, says Janice Turner, when the High Court ruled that the NHS should be allowed to prescribe the drug Truvada, known as PrEP (see page 19). Promiscuous gay men were stealing funds from more deserving causes, cried critics. “Stick a condom on it!” But the court was absolutely right. While PrEP is certainly expensive – around £400 a month – it’s a lot cheaper than a lifetime’s course of antiretrovirals, so dispensing the drug would save money in the end. Besides, the NHS…

Islamic State is facing its first major defeat – not in Syria or Iraq, but in Libya, said Daniele Raineri in Il Foglio (Milan). Last year the terrorist group succeeded in setting up a “caliphate” stretching 125 miles along the coast, with its headquarters in Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi. For a while, it seemed a secure haven for Isis fighters to retreat to if ousted from their other strongholds, in Mosul and Raqqa. Instead, Sirte is set to fall first. Earlier this year around 1,800 of Isis fighters – who include Syrians, Saudis, Tunisians and other foreigners – were driven back into the city by militias based in neighbouring Misrata. They’d been expected to flee south to fight another day, as Isis fighters did when Iraqi forces retook…

For those who live in fear of the dental hygienist’s disapproval, some good news: flossing may be a waste of time. Although it has been recommended by dentists for years, an investigation in the US has revealed that there is scant research to show that flossing helps to reduce plaque or prevent gum disease; in fact, in some cases, it may do harm, especially as many people floss badly, using a sawing motion instead of an up and down one. And in America, where government health guidelines have, by law, to be backed up by scientific research, the official advice has now been quietly withdrawn. However, the American Dental Association argues that the lack of solid evidence for flossing’s benefits may be the result of a paucity of reliable research…

“O frabjous day!” said Allison Pearson in The Daily Telegraph. For four “shameful decades” – ever since Anthony Crosland vowed to “destroy every f***ing grammar school in England” – the political establishment has turned its back on “the greatest single engine of social mobility this country has ever known”. During their too-brief heyday, grammar schools helped transform the prospects of bright working-class children. In the mid-1960s, when there were 1,300 grammars in Britain, their pupils won half of all Oxbridge places. But the Left decided that selecting pupils on the basis of ability was “unfair”, and so the “all-must-haveprizes” comprehensive system was born. Since then, Britain has “sunk down the international education league tables, social mobility has stalled, and hundreds of thousands of our brightest children have been betrayed”. But…

I am young and single, living in London, working and partying hard, said Kate Lloyd in The Times. There’s just one thing missing from this Sex and the City-style existence: the sex. Like most of my friends, I haven’t got laid in months. And “we’re not alone”. New statistics from the US suggest this is an international phenomenon: millennials – those born between the early 1980s and 2000 – are having much less sex than previous generations. About 15% of young adults are not having regular sex, compared to 6% in the 1960s. We are more likely to remain virgins into early adulthood, we have fewer partners and we marry later; in fact, controlled for age and social attitudes, we are the most celibate generation since the 1920s. This is…

Corbyn’s converts To The Independent Michael Silverleaf is wrong if he thinks Jeremy Corbyn only preaches to and enthuses the converted. I have felt disenfranchised for most of my adult life as there was no party I wished to vote for. There seemed to me not a cigarette paper between the Conservative and Labour parties. Now Corbyn has given me, and many like me, new hope for a change for the better in British politics. The Establishment and its mouthpiece, the media, have not liked this from day one of Corbyn’s leadership and have campaigned against him. But we are still hopeful for change, despite the naysayers, and I am hopeful that my voice can at last count in the democracy of this country. Angela Elliott, Hundleby, Lincolnshire It’s savers…

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss Granta 336pp £12.99 The Week Bookshop £9.99 Sarah Moss is “one of Britain’s most underrated writers”, said Fiona Wilson in The Times. Her last two novels have been historical, but in The Tidal Zone her focus is on contemporary family life. Narrator Adam is a stay-at-home dad (and part-time academic) married to Emma, an overworked doctor. The cracks in this seemingly enlightened set-up are revealed when their oldest daughter, 15-year-old Mimi, is diagnosed with a heart defect, which could prove fatal at any time. Adam becomes “obsessed by the fear of Mimi’s death”, and grows increasingly resentful at his domestic burdens. Though at times it “veers towards the po-faced”, this is an impressive novel about “the stories we tell about ourselves”. The Tidal Zone…

Best books… David Hepworth The music journalist David Hepworth selects his five favourite books about pop music. His own latest book, 1971 – Never a Dull Moment: Rock’s Golden Year, is available from Bantam Press at £20 Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn, 1969 (Vintage Classics £8.99). I read this when it first came out and I can still reel off whole paragraphs of its intoxicating hipster prose all these years later. In Cohn’s view, the kind of pop he loved was all over by then. I didn’t agree with him at the time. Now I know it doesn’t matter whether I agree. What matters is the point of view. The Beatles – All These Years: Volume One: Tune In by Mark Lewisohn, 2013 (Little, Brown £18.99). Pop’s equivalent of Robert…

Flank at the Cow 95-97 Dyke Road, Brighton (01273-772370) Flank’s menu is at once beguiling and bizarre, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. “Spiced beef shin donut – pan stock – peanut”; “Kentucky fried artichoke – pickle cress mayo”; “Dr Pepper sticky bourbon cake”. It all reads like “pure food lust” fashioned from randomly generated syllables. Does such ambition pay off? Yes and no. Several of the “snacks and bites” are thrilling. Sweet and sticky chicken wings are “crusted powerfully with cracked black pepper and deliver a mighty kick”. A “pressed pork loaf” is two bricks of a “gloriously spiced and seasoned terrine, spun through with leeks accompanied by their own crunchy, lactic pickles”. Applewoodsmoked cheese croquettes and “crispy Kentucky-fried pigs’ ears” are all also excellent. Alas, the mains didn’t…

Kate Granger 1981-2016 An attractive, softly spoken doctor from Yorkshire, Kate Granger was on holiday in California when she developed acute back pain and began vomiting. She knew something was very amiss, and back in the UK, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive sarcoma. “Bang out of the blue, aged 29, I had cancer,” she later said. After that, she was in and out of hospital, and as a doctor herself, was shocked by the casual brutality of medical staff who would refer to her, within earshot, as “Bed No. 7” or “the girl with cancer”. The final straw, said The Times, came when she was in a cubicle, and a junior doctor she’d never met came in, looked at her notes and – without so much as…

● Great escape “When the world’s biggest fund manager reverses its view on half of the global economy, it is time to take notice,” said the FT. “Once negative on emerging markets”, BlackRock, which manages some $4.6trn of funds, has “turned into a cheerleader”. The firm’s fixed income expert, Sergio Trigo Paz, talks of “a great migration” away from the stagnant growth and negative interest rates of the developed world, to the enticing yields of emerging markets. Sentiment has certainly warmed since the recent “bout of panic” over China. “EM as a whole is about to post its strongest GDP growth in four years,” said Commerzbank’s Peter Kinsella. But that growth comes from “a shrunken base”. Indeed, “a big part of the upturn is not due to things getting better”,…

António Horta-Osório Lloyds’s Portuguese boss is in hot water after “allegedly having a fling” with a former adviser to Tony Blair, says the Daily Mail. António Horta-Osório was spotted enjoying days out with Dr Wendy Piatt during a business trip to Singapore, and now “faces calls to resign”. There are questions about whether there was a misuse of business expenses as he entertained Piatt, who has been director general of the Russell Group of universities since 2007. Horta-Osório, who has been married for 25 years and has three children, was last year paid £8.5m, making him the highest-paid bank CEO in Britain. The bank insists its chief has “broken no rules” in filing expenses, says The Times. Nonetheless, the allegations come at “a sensitive time for Lloyds” as it dismisses…

“It would be funny if it were not so disgustingly sad,” said Libby Purves in The Times. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has now lost its third chairwoman. The first two, the well-respected lawyers Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf, were forced out over absurd fears that they might be part of an “establishment cover-up”. Last week their replacement, the New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard, resigned “in what looks suspiciously like a huff”. It had recently been revealed that, since her appointment in February last year, she had spent 44 working days in Australia or New Zealand, and another 30 days outside the UK on annual leave. She now “flounces off” to spend more time with her family and many racehorses, “with a whiny statement about how…

59% of people say they are addicted to their online devices; among teenagers, the figure rises to 79%. 48% of people have neglected housework, and 13% have been late for work, because of their internet use. 26% have sent a message to someone in the same room while at home. 47% of over-65s say access to the internet means they are never bored. The average internet user spends 25 hours a week online. Ofcom/The Daily Telegraph A poll of 16 countries found that only Russia welcomed Brexit: 54% of Russians think it was the right decision for Britain. By contrast, just 14% of Spaniards think it was the right move, as do 20% of Germans and 27% of French people. Ipsos Mori/Financial Times…

How to survive cancer As one of Britain’s most eminent oncologists, Professor Karol Sikora clearly knows how to treat cancer – but just as important for patients, he says, is knowing how to live with it. That is the subject of Sikora’s latest book, The Street-wise Patient’s Guide to Surviving Cancer. The first priority, he told John Sutherland in The Oldie, is “to convince your doctors that you enjoy life and want to continue”. This is especially important if you are elderly. “Political correctness insists the NHS is not ageist. Doctors now have to do mandatory training every year – I was proud to score 100% in my equality and diversity course. I’ve framed my certificate and put it in our guest toilet. It’s all madness, of course – doctors…

A man in Carlisle discovered that he had been living in someone else’s flat for six years, after he tried to sell the property. Chris Meyer had found a buyer for the threebedroom flat in a modern block, and was about to exchange, when the buyer’s solicitor got in touch to say there was a problem. “Basically, I live in No. 8 and thought I had bought No. 8. But Land Registry documents show that I actually own No. 9. The man who thought he’d bought No. 7 actually owns my flat.” It turns out that ten of the 15 flats in the block have been occupied by the wrong people, after the flat numbers got mixed up on registry documents – and none of them can sell their properties…

POLAND The Pope has taught us a vital lesson NaTemat.pl (Warsaw) Pope Francis may have just single-handedly changed Poland’s refugee policy, says Kazimierz Sowa. The ruling Law and Justice party has been adamant in opposing the taking in of any of the migrants from the Middle East and Africa who flooded into Europe last year. It insists it has already done enough by allowing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians displaced by the conflict with Russia to come to Poland for work. But last month, on his first visit to Poland, Francis told us that those efforts weren’t sufficient. He did so without hectoring or lecturing or even mentioning the government, but merely by preaching love. It was a masterful sermon. The Pope was unequivocal about the Christian duty to take…

A High Court ruling has paved the way for a drug that protects gay men from HIV to become available on the NHS. As it is a preventative treatment, NHS England had argued the drug should be paid for by local authorities, but they said they didn’t have the funds, so the issue ended up in court. Truvada, which currently costs around £400 a month, has been found to reduce the risk of HIV transmission by 86%. As NHS budgets are not unlimited, funding the pill would inevitably mean there was less money for other treatments. Critics say Truvada will encourage risky behaviour and should not be publicly funded; Aids campaigners counter that the same was said about the contraceptive pill. In any case, the ruling doesn’t mean it will…

Even the rich and famous can find plenty to complain about. Performing in Los Angeles last week, Barbra Streisand ticked off her fans for pronouncing her name wrong. “It’s Streisand, as in ‘sand on the beach’, not ‘Strize-and’,” grumbled the 74-year-old diva. “You’d think after 50 years people would pronounce it correctly. Nobody says Oprah Wine-fry.” She also revealed that she had only returned to the stage for the money. “I’m killing myself for this tour because there’s a painting I want.” Leonard Cohen wrote a final farewell to his most famous muse before she died, at the age of 81, last month. The Canadian songwriter met Marianne Ihlen on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s (above): they were lovers for ten years, and she inspired the songs…

“There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment – and nothing more corrupting.” A.J.P. Taylor, quoted in The Times “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.” Jonathan Swift, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Poetry is just the evidence of your life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” Leonard Cohen, quoted in The Guardian “A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.” H.L. Mencken, quoted on Forbes.com “If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.” Woody Allen, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “The important thing, I…

To The Daily Telegraph Opponents of academic selection turn a blind eye to selection by chequebook and the postcode lottery, which is the shameful reality of current state education. The logical position of the educational establishment (militant teaching unions, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and a handful of out-of-touch Tories) should be to abolish fee-paying schools, to force parents to send their children to local comprehensives. Why are such people opposed to a meritocratic education system when thousands of middle-class parents can afford to avoid sending their children to failing schools either by moving house or funding school fees, an option unavailable to the poor? The logical extension of the Cameron government’s immensely successful free schools programme is to widen parental choice further and increase social mobility by creating new selective…

Theatre Yerma Playwright: Federico García Lorca Director: Simon Stone Young Vic, London SE1 (020-7922 2922) Until 24 September Running time: 1hr 45 minutes (no interval) “Remember when Billie Piper was a toothy teen?” asked Kate Maltby in The Times. Well, “if any ghosts still lingered” of the actress’s “pop tart youth”, they have “vanished for good” with this spellbinding performance at the Young Vic. In a modern-day reworking of Lorca’s 1934 original, Piper plays an affluent journalist who becomes “consumed by obsession with her own infertility”. Over five devastating years, she goes from being a charming young woman to a dangerously crazed obsessive. It’s a “traumatic meditation” on childlessness – and Piper “steals the show”. “Even by the Young Vic’s exalted standards, this is a shatteringly powerful reinvention of a…

Bulgarian-born artists Rado and Vasco Kirov’s new show at Mayfair’s Albemarle Gallery is an affair that veers between the earnest and the bracingly daft. Rado’s contribution is a series of large, mirrored stainless steel sculptures with rippled surfaces. Some of these aren’t a million miles from the kind of outsized boardroom ornaments produced by the YBA Marc Quinn, but there is a surreal edge to them. While some of these shiny creations take solid forms – geometric shapes, even pieces of furniture – others seem almost fluid; 3 Degrees of Comparison, for example, looks a little like a druidic stone circle dematerialising into a puddle of mercury. Vasco, meanwhile, paints fiery abstract canvases that are, he says, reflections on creative expression. Regardless of their meaning, they are lively things, for…

Programmes Heroes of Helmand: The British Army’s Great Escape In 2006, 88 British soldiers survived a two-month siege by 500 Taliban fighters. This gripping documentary tells their story. Tue 16 Aug, C4 9pm (60mins). Skies Above Britain: Flying into Danger This first episode in a new series about the skies over our heads focuses on the air traffic controllers and fighter pilots who guard our airspace. Wed 17 Aug, BBC2 9pm (60mins). Films The 39 Steps (1935) The original and best adaptation of John Buchan’s thriller about a man on the run for a murder he didn’t commit. Sat 13 Aug, BBC2 7.50am (85mins). The Bourne Identity (2002) Matt Damon plays an amnesiac CIA assassin in this smart, edgy thriller: the first in the Jason Bourne series. Sat 13 Aug,…

Not all great “pinks” are from Provence, says Terry Kirby in The Independent, and the height of summer is the best time to savour pale, delicate rosés from around the world. Barone Ricasoli Albia Rosé 2015 (£8.99; www.robertsandspeight.co.uk). This light, elegant Tuscan rosé unifies sangiovese and merlot in a winning combination. Sip, ice-cold, and dream of Tuscany. Turkish wines can be unpredictable, but there is no denying the very classy nature of Kayra Beyaz Kalecik Karasi 2015 (£12.39; www.strictlywine.co.uk). A modern, well-made pink from the indigenous Kalecik karasi grape, it has delicious red fruit flavours, while being very dry, with intriguing notes of ginger and pepper; perfect with a meze spread. Saint Clair Pinot Gris Rosé 2014 (£12.49; www.nzhouseofwine.co.uk). New Zealand’s Marlborough region is known for its precisiontooled sauv blanc,…

The Pig at Combe, Gittisham, Devon The Pigs are a mini-chain of rural hotels known for their “cheeky, shabby-chic informality”. Newly opened last month, this – the fifth – is the grandest and the best of the lot, says Susan d’Arcy in The Sunday Times. A Grade I Elizabethan manor set in 3,500 acres of the Otter Valley’s “voluptuously rolling hills”, it is “very romantic”, but great fun too. There’s a “buzzy” bar, “theatrical” sitting areas with soaring ceilings and “in-your-face” wallpapers, and 27 rooms with super-king size beds. There’s a superior spa, with an “infusion garden” where you pick your mint for a “post-pamper cuppa”, and the food is excellent. Doubles from £145. 01404-540400; www.thepighotel.com.…

Airbus: corruption probe Rolls-Royce is trying hard to draw a line under long-running corruption probes, said John Collingridge in The Sunday Times. Now another aerospace giant is in the mire. The French plane-maker Airbus is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over allegations of fraud, bribery and corruption when selling passenger jets overseas. The probe centres on “irregularities” in the use of “third-party intermediaries” on export deals underwritten by the UK, French and German governments, through so-called “export credits”. Airbus hasn’t yet revealed the extent of the problem, which it discovered in an audit and reported to the SFO in April, said Nicola Clark in The New York Times. And it’s not clear which countries or customers are involved. But questions about whether Airbus “properly vetted” its agents have…

The latest estimates of the black holes in British company pension schemes make for depressing reading, said The Wall Street Journal. According to the consultancy firm Mercer, companies in the FTSE 350 had a combined deficit of £64bn in 2010. But, despite paying an estimated £75bn into plans since then, that gap has now widened to £98bn. Talk about a “financial puzzler”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Clearly, the FTSE 350 “is fighting a losing battle in this low-interest world where people obstinately keep living longer” – and Mercer predicts things “are likely to get worse”. Investors should be asking one question of any company with a defined benefit scheme: “What about a buyout deal to remove the risk?” Many companies are already taking active steps to de-risk, said…

The week’s best buys Direct Line Investors Chronicle The insurer’s Churchill and Green Flag (vehicle rescue service) brands attract strong customer loyalty, enabling premiums to be raised. Visibility’s been enhanced by a home insurance deal with RBS. Yields 3.6%. Buy. 392.30p. Greggs The Times The bakery chain, known for cheap eats, is revitalising its offering and investing in distribution operations to support expansion into retail parks, hospitals and universities. Worth the premium. Buy. £10.35. IG Design Group The Mail on Sunday The gift wrap and greetings card giant is in “rude health”, with “extremely bright” prospects: it has invested in state-of-the art equipment and now sells to more than 80 countries. Potential for US growth is huge. Buy. 218.5p. InterContinental Hotels Group The Times IHG has completed its asset disposal…

Labour election ruling Thousands more people will be entitled to vote in Labour’s leadership election, after the party lost a legal challenge. The High Court this week overturned the decision, made by Labour’s National Executive Committee, that only members who joined the party before 13 January could vote. The decision is expected to add at least 126,000 members to the ballot, the majority of whom are expected to support Jeremy Corbyn; voting opens later this month. However, Labour is appealing the ruling in the Court of Appeal; a verdict was expected on Thursday. Fracking payments Households affected by fracking could receive cash compensation, under Government proposals. A Treasury consultation outlined plans to set aside 10% of the tax proceeds from fracking for a new wealth fund; the PM is considering…

Charleroi, Belgium Isis claims machete attack: An Algerian man attacked two Belgian policewomen with a machete outside the main police station in Charleroi last Saturday, in what is being treated as a terrorist incident. The attacker, a 33-year-old man identified only as K.B. by authorities, managed to inflict severe but non-fatal injuries on the police officers – named as Hakima Dhamna and Corinne Wilmots – before being shot by police. He died later in hospital. According to witnesses, he shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) while launching his attack. He was carrying no arms other than the machete, and police said he had a criminal record but no known links to jihadi terrorism. On Sunday, Islamic State said they were responsible for the attack, claiming the assailant was a “soldier”…

1* Criss Cross, written and performed by Thelonious Monk 2 Dance of the Infidels, written and performed by Bud Powell 3 The Teddy Bears’ Picnic by John Walter Bratton and Jimmy Kennedy, performed by Val Rosing and the Henry Hall Orchestra 4 Max In An Air Raid (I Never Slept A Wink All Night), written and performed by Max Miller 5 Take a Step (from the film Goodnight Vienna) by Tony Lowry and Harry Perritt, performed by Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph 6 All the Things You Are by Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern, performed by The Quintet (Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach) 7 Funny Face by George and Ira Gershwin, performed by Fred and Adele Astaire and Julian Jones and his Orchestra…

The only way most ordinary investors can engage in short selling is via online spread betting; for example, by betting on the direction of the FTSE 100 index. This is the index of the share prices of the UK’s 100 biggest stock market-listed companies, and for two decades it has been ranging within a fairly narrow band of roughly 4,000 and 7,000. These numbers have no intrinsic meaning; they just reflect the fact that when market analysts first began calculating it, in January 1984, they assigned it a starting value of 1,000. In other words, for the past 20 years, the value of the market has been fluctuating at between about four and seven times what its value was in 1984. Just looking at the past five years, that range…

Hope for Alzheimer’s drug Hopes that Alzheimer’s could soon become a treatable condition have been raised by – ironically – a large-scale clinical trial that failed, reports the New Scientist. The phase III trial involved nearly 900 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, who were either given a new drug, LMTX, or a placebo. In the majority of cases, LMTX was found to have made no difference to the participants’ rate of cognitive decline. However, in a small subset of patients, made up of people who were not taking any of the existing medicines for Alzeimer’s (none of which are very effective), the drug seemed to have slowed the progress of the disease by about 80% by the end of the 15-month trial, the researchers said. Brain scans also showed…

Spare a thought for Southern rail passengers, said The Times. For months, they’ve suffered endless delays and cancellations on the routes between London and Sussex, Kent and Surrey, as a result of a campaign of sporadic disruption by the RMT rail union. Some commuters have even lost their jobs because of it, and estate agents are warning that house prices in the region could suffer if the situation doesn’t improve. People probably thought things couldn’t get any worse. Yet this week they did, when the RMT held a five-day strike, the longest stoppage on the railways for almost 50 years. Southern rail, which is operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), was forced to withdraw hundreds of trains and run an emergency timetable, causing chaos for up to 300,000 passengers. The…

“To his somewhat slender list of achievements while in office, David Cameron has now added another,” said the Daily Mail: “the cynical devaluing of Britain’s honours system.” His resignation honours list, made up largely of “aides, spin doctors, former ministers, donors and assorted cronies”, is a disgrace. In what “warped world” is Cameron’s former director of communications, Craig Oliver, worthy of a knighthood? Or Gabby Bertin, his one-time spin doctor, and “director of external affairs”, worthy of a peerage? Why should Samantha Cameron’s “stylist”, Isabel Spearman, receive an OBE? This is a “chumocracy” looking after its own “in a way which will sicken most people”. I seem to be one of the few who wasn’t shocked by Cameron’s resignation list, said Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. “He certainly went…

The Olympics: Team GB’s pool glory When a British Olympian goes for gold, it tends to be a “nail-biting affair”, said Daniel Schofield in The Daily Telegraph. But on Sunday, the result of the men’s 100m breaststroke was never in doubt. Having broken his own world record in the heats, Adam Peaty smashed it again: his time of 57.13 seconds took another 0.42 seconds off the record. “He may as well have been swimming on his own,” said Tom Fordyce in BBC Sport online. In an event usually decided by the narrowest of margins, the 21-year-old finished a second and a half ahead of anyone else. Coming 28 years after a British male swimmer last won gold, it was “one of the great displays in British Olympic history”. Peaty wasn’t…

Suicide Squad Dir: David Ayer 2hrs 3mins (15) Too many crooks spoil the broth After two years of pre-release hype, Suicide Squad is finally here, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. Unfortunately, it is utterly “third-rate”. The plot of this “alternative” superhero movie sees a surly government agent (Viola Davis) recruiting villains – “a collection of psychos, ratbags and jailbait scum” too numerous to list here – to fight some other villains led rather unconvincingly by supermodel Cara Delevingne, said Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times. The only cast members who make a real impression are Margot Robbie as the psychotic sex-doll Harley Quinn, and Jared Leto as the extravagantly unhinged Joker. The dialogue is dire, the CGI “scrappy”, and the general mood conjured by director David Ayer dismayingly…

A mysterious face that lay beneath Edgar Degas’s Portrait of a Woman for 140 years has been identified for the first time, says Ian Sample in The Guardian. It was not unusual for artists of the time to paint over older works, to save money on canvases; and in the case of this 1876 portrait, the earlier image has been discernible, as the oil paint thins, since the early 1920s. But scientists in Australia have now been able to reconstruct the face in detail, using a technique called X-ray fluorescence, which employs a powerful X-ray machine to pick out subsurface pigments. The image thus created has been identified as Emma Dobigny, a French model who was a favourite of Degas and posed for him for around 20 years. Scientists hope…

A thirst-quenching ice lolly on a hot day is one of the great pleasures of summer. To make them, you’ll need a set of ice lolly moulds with stick holders, and some wooden sticks. To “de-mould”, place in warm water first and then pull the stick gently upwards in a straight line. Peach & blackberry Serves 4 200g ripe peaches, unpeeled, stoned and cut into chunks 4 tsp natural unrefined cane sugar 4-8 blackberries, sliced into 5mm-thick circles • Put the peaches, sugar and 80ml of water in a blender and whizz together. Keep the skin on the peaches – it retains more nutrients and fibre, and gives the lollies a great colour and texture. • Divide the mixture between the moulds, leaving a 1.5cm gap at the top to…

New cars: what the critics say Top Gear At the age of 21, the Mégane has fallen on relatively hard times. For years, it was Europe’s bestselling car, with more than six million vehicles sold – but most of that success came in its first two generations. With the fourth generation of the family hatchback, Renault is attempting to win back some market share. It’s bigger than its predecessor, and “more technologypacked than ever”. Auto Express It looks a lot better, too. Sharp body creases and “neat” daytime running lights give the Mégane real road presence. It stands out “like no other car in its class”. Some of the materials inside feel a bit scratchy, but there’s a great-looking centre console. DAB radio and Bluetooth come as standard, and most…

Tim LaHaye 1926-2016 Tim LaHaye was a hugely influential evangelical Christian pastor who used fiction to spread his apocalyptic message to the American people. It all began when he was on an internal flight across the US and noticed the married pilot flirting with a flight attendant. Suddenly, he wondered what would happen to the pilot if the Rapture – when true believers are whisked up to Heaven, leaving everyone else to remain on Earth at the mercy of the Antichrist – were to occur at that moment. The pilot, he speculated, would be left behind while dozens of “saved” passengers dematerialised. The result was Left Behind – a racy and often bloodthirsty series of 12 novels, reflecting his “end times” mentality, which have sold more than 65 million copies,…

Who actually benefits from Trumponomics? Gina Chon Reuters Breakingviews Donald Trump unveiled his economic plan “to make America great again” in Detroit, in the heart of the Rust Belt, says Gina Chon. But his concern for the working man is pure “artifice”. His plan for growth, centring on corporate tax cuts and a halt to new financial regulation, is evidence that Trumponomics favours pinstripes over blue collars. Trump cited manufacturing industry research that “overregulation” costs the US economy up to $2trn a year; “yet a blanket moratorium on any new federal rules would primarily benefit big businesses and Wall Street”. And while there was some effort to reduce taxes for lower-income workers, “much of Trump’s economic scheme seems to rely on trickle-down theories that have been debunked”: the IMF noted…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1017 An Ettinger coin purse 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 22 August. Send it to: The Week Crossword 1017, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or email the answers to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Set by Tim Moorey (www.timmoorey.info) This week’s crossword winner will receive an Ettinger (www.ettinger.co.uk) Brogue Collection nut coin purse, which retails at £150, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 9 Dozy old man, disheartened in sea off Cowes (9) 10 Brave leaving hospital swiftly (5) 11 Sheep running in front of us in ancient city (7) 12 Mild mid-evening in period before Easter (7) 13 French river scheme beginning to slip (3) 14…