Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1007 i The Week

Greek voters sent shock waves across Europe on Sunday when they elected a far-left party that has pledged to defy Europe’s financial establishment and roll back austerity. Syriza, led by 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, fell just two seats short of an outright majority. It has since formed a coalition with the Independent Greeks, a small far-right party that shares Syriza’s determination to rip up the terms of the s240bn bailout imposed by the so-called troika: the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU. Tsipras, Greece’s youngest postwar prime minister, declared that his country was “leaving behind five years of humiliation”; his new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, described the German-backed austerity regime as a form of “fiscal waterboarding” that had turned Greece into a “debt colony”. Tsipras said he…

Düsseldorf, Germany Pee ruling: A German judge delivered a landmark ruling last week, that men have the right to pee standing up. The issue is one that has long divided Germany: in many families, boys are taught to sit down, and loos in bars, offices and homes often carry signs urging men to do so. However, many resent these edicts, and the phrase for those who do sit to pee – sitzpinkler – has become synonymous with “wimp” and “wuss”. The court case related to a landlord who’d tried to retain £1,420 from a tenant’s deposit, claiming that he needed to pay for repairs to a marble floor which had “lost its sheen” as a result of being regularly sprinkled with urine. Judge Stefan Hank agreed that uric acid had…

How harshly will history judge Obama? Three months ago the Democrats were trounced in the midterm elections, largely owing to Barack Obama’s unpopularity. But you’d never have guessed that to watch the president’s State of the Union address last week, said Chris Cillizza on WashingtonPost.com. “From start to finish, Obama was supremely confident, challenging – and mocking – Republicans at every turn.” He winked. He cracked jokes. Bolstered by an improving economy and a surge in approval ratings, and liberated by the knowledge that he has run his last campaign, he is “clearly feeling a renewed sense of purpose and mission”. The speech made one thing clear: Obama “isn’t planning to go quietly over his final two years in office”. He has good reason to feel bullish, said Jonathan Chait…

“Gotcha, as the saying goes.” The Sun “trolled the nation spectacularly” last week, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. First, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper dispensed with topless lovelies for five days, prompting the rest of the media to announce the death of Page 3. There was jubilation from feminists – at which point The Sun “whipped ’em out again”. Last Thursday’s paper featured a picture of a winking topless model, under the headline “Corrections and Clarifications”. “Further to reports in all other media outlets,” declared the paper, “we would like to clarify that this is Page 3 and this is a picture of Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth.” It’s impossible to tell whether this was a PR stunt or a “clumsy retreat”, said Sarah Ditum in the New Statesman. But the fact…

Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues on the Iraq Inquiry finished taking evidence from more than 120 witnesses back in February 2011, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. At that point, the career civil servant declared that it would take “some months” to come up with their findings. Nearly four years later – five years after the inquiry started, and 12 years after the end of the Iraq war –“we do not have so much as a scrap of paper. Deadline after deadline has been broken.” And last week, Chilcot announced that there was “no realistic prospect” of publication before the election in May. “It’s a disgrace,” said The Guardian. Everyone wants the report published: David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband. Even Tony Blair says he regrets the delays,…

“Give us a twirl” – the uproar Down Under If Andy Murray were interviewed after a victory at Wimbledon, would his interviewer ever dream of asking him to parade his new shorts around Centre Court? Inconceivable, said Glenda Cooper in The Sunday Telegraph. Yet that was exactly the request made of the tall blonde Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard, after she won her secondround match at the Australian Open last week. “Can you give us a twirl and tell us about your outfit?” was the way Australian TV host Ian Cohen phrased it. Bouchard blushed, put her hands to her head and did as she was asked. It’s not that surprising to see “an ‘old guy’ on an Australian tennis court step back into the Stone Age when faced with…

Theatre The Changeling Playwrights: Thomas Middleton and William Rowley Director: Dominic Dromgoole Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London SE1 (020-7740 9919) Running time: 2hrs 45mins ★★★★ Never mind Wolf Hall, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. If you want to “experience fully the eerie satisfaction of dramatic action by flickering candlelight, then hie thee to Bankside”. The indoor Jacobean chamber theatre of Shakespeare’s Globe – lit entirely by beeswax candles – is the perfect setting for a Jacobean drama like The Changeling. Director Dominic Dromgoole’s “incandescent revival” of this 1622 tragedy, uses the theatre’s “natural, waxy lighting source” in ways that turn the “dark and shadow, the murk and mayhem” of the play into something palpable and “unforgettably primal”. It’s as much a “pitch-black comedy” as a tragedy, said…

Best books… Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer, business columnist of The Spectator, picks six novels on the theme of financial crisis. His latest book is an anthology of his journalism, Any Other Business: Life In and Out of the City (Elliott & Thompson £18.99). Capital by John Lanchester, 2012 (Faber £8.99), uses the rumbling banking crisis as background for a tapestry of life in a gentrified south London street: a sacked banker Roger, his shopaholic wife Arabella and his yobbish new-rich client Eric are fine comic archetypes. Other People’s Money by Justin Cartwright, 2011 (Bloomsbury £7.99), tells the tale of Tubal & Co, a familyowned City banking house that has ruined itself on subprime securities and other follies. Entertaining, but more convincing in its non-City subplots than its financial detail.…

The Vanquish: “bewitchingly beautiful” – but is it a “dimwit”? The Vanquish was already “the bestsounding, best-looking V12 on the road”, said Chris Evans in The Mail on Sunday. And this new model isn’t going to lose the Aston Martin its top spot, because it’s quite similar to the old one. But the really big news is the introduction of an eight-speed automatic gearbox by German brand ZF: other cars use it, but this is the first time it’s been mounted at the back. Thanks to that, and tweaks to the engine, the Vanquish can do 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds (an improvement of half a second), and its top speed is up from 183mph to 201mph. The new gearbox has “transformed” the car, said Jethro Bovingdon in Evo. It used…

The week’s best buys Cranswick Shares The cash-generative pork, sausages and sandwiches supplier is continuing with its acquisition spree and investing in manufacturing assets. Exports are booming. There’s scope for a dividend upgrade. Buy. £13.79. Finsbury Food Group The Mail on Sunday Premium cake-maker Finsbury is investing in improving logistics and has fortified its balance sheet and doubled in size since buying bread-maker Fletchers. Sales should increase rapidly, and it yields almost 4%. Buy. 63p. Greene King The Times Despite a lacklustre Christmas, this pubco should see big benefits from the purchase of Spirit Pub. The merged company will create the UK’s largest managed pub operator and achieve cost savings of £30m per year. Buy. 788.5p. MJ Gleeson Investors Chronicle Gleeson aims to double its affordable-house building in the North…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 938 An Ettinger card 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 9 February. Send it to: The Week Crossword 938, 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) visiting card case for business cards or to use as a mini wallet, and two Connell Guides (www.connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 Try to provoke learner with something prickly (6) 9 Ordered fellow with old hat (8) 10 Measure of steak perhaps as mentioned (4) 11 Crack is wanted in Caribbean (4,6) 12 It takes a turn for the better (8,5)…

The prospect of a hung parliament following May’s election grew more likely last week, as the latest polls showed a surge in support for fringe parties. One poll put backing for the Greens at a record high of 11%, a result that could scupper Labour’s hopes in 22 key marginals. Another poll indicated that the SNP would trounce Labour in Scotland, winning all but four of Scotland’s 59 seats and leaving the nationalists holding the balance of power in Westminster. And both major parties seem sure to lose votes to UKIP, which now enjoys ratings of up to 15%. UKIP suffered a setback, however, when its communities spokesman, MEP Amjad Bashir, defected to the Conservatives, deriding his former party as “amateur”. And the Greens came under fierce attack after their…

New York Russian spy ring: The FBI claimed this week to have busted a Russian spy ring operating in New York. Federal officers arrested 39-year-old Evgeny Buryakov – aka “Zhenya” – in the Bronx on Monday and accused him of being a deep-cover agent for Moscow. His alleged handlers – two Russian officials operating with diplomatic immunity – were charged in absentia, having already left the US. At an initial court appearance, Buryakov was portrayed as a prized agent, who was able to glean valuable economic intelligence through his job in a bank in New York. However, he was allegedly exposed as a result of basic errors by his handlers, who called him on an open line that was being bugged by the FBI, and used his real name. He…

Bullying the needy out of their benefits John Harris The Guardian The media reacted with hilarity last week after a UKIP candidate suggested benefit claimants should be banned from driving. Yet the sad truth, says John Harris, is that his proposal is entirely in keeping with the vindictive spirit of our current benefits regime, which seems geared to bullying people out of social support. Any claimant deemed to have fallen foul of the rules – not putting their CV on the Universal Jobmatch website, for example – can have benefits withdrawn. The use of such sanctions has shot up from “about 1,000 a month ten years ago to 12,000 a month today”, and there’s a wealth of anecdotal evidence that it’s causing all sorts of hardship. Those with “invisible” disabilities…

Kanye West has finally explained why he always looks miserable in photographs. The famously unsmiling American rapper apparently takes his inspiration from dead aristocrats. “I saw this book from the 1800s and it was velvet-covered with brass and everything. I looked at all these people’s photos, and they look so real, and their outfits were incredible, and they weren’t smiling,” he told the fashion website HighSnobiety.com. “When you see paintings in an old castle, people are not smiling because it just wouldn’t look as cool.” One woman who was never intimidated by the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was Queen Elizabeth II. The former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sherard Cowper-Coles, recalls in his memoir how the Queen hosted Abdullah – then technically still Crown Prince – at Balmoral…

I once heard of a woman who sent out possibly the rudest children’s party invitation ever, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Alongside the “where and when” details was a rider: presents worth under $35 would not be accepted. Last year, the mother explained, people had turned up with gifts worth as little as $10 – which “didn’t even cover her costs”. Yet even this thrillingly transgressive behaviour was trumped last week, when a family in Cornwall complained that they had been sent an invoice for accepting an invitation on behalf of their five-year-old son – and then letting him visit his grandparents instead. No one emerges well from this story: had the parents simply apologised for their son’s failure to show up to the party, at a dry-ski slope,…

Up with the Greeks To The Guardian Twice in your editorial on the Greek election result Syriza is referred to as “far-left”. In this way, wittingly or not, you collude in the characterisation of anti-austerity positions as somehow “extreme”, and thus illegitimate. And yet what is so extreme about rejecting a failed policy responsible for impoverishing millions and for unnecessarily prolonging recession throughout Europe? Support for this long-overdue demonstration of popular protest has included leading Keynesian economists in North America and Europe. Are their voices “far-left” as well? If what Syriza stands for is “farleft” (perhaps better described as conventional social democratic politics), why isn’t The Guardian “far-left” too? David Butler, Plumbridge, Co Tyrone Down with the Greeks To The Guardian Your editorial says the Greek election result is “astonishing”.…

A Most Violent Year Dir: J.C. Chandor 2hrs 5min (15) Crime drama with a moral twist ★★★★ In its mood and themes, A Most Violent Year resembles The Godfather, said David Denby in The New Yorker. It stars Oscar Isaac as a New York heating oil businessman who, in the freezing winter of 1980, is desperate to clinch a career-making deal. But he is determined to stay on the right side of the law, even though his domineering wife (Jessica Chastain) keeps urging him to resort to the same dirty tricks as his mobster rivals. So in a way this is actually “an anti-Godfather” film: a story in which the protagonist resists the temptation to stoop to “operatic violence”. The two leads certainly make “a dramatic dream team” in this…

Aer Lingus/IAG: flying united? It looks like third time lucky for International Airlines Group boss Willie Walsh. Having rejected two prior takeover bids from the British Airways owner, the board of Aer Lingus has now accepted a sweetened offer of s2.55 per share, valuing the Irish airline at around s1.3bn. A tie-up would see Aer Lingus still operating as its own brand, but would greatly boost IAG’s stock of valuable Heathrow slots, said BBC News online. There are two potential stumbling blocks: Ryanair, which once cherished dreams of buying Aer Lingus and has a near 30% stake; and the Irish government, which owns 25%. Ryanair’s bargaining power is limited, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. If it doesn’t sell to IAG, it will be forced by European competition authorities to…

The “epic hypocrisy” and “pathetic self-abasement” of Western politicians were “on full display” following the recent death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. The flag flew at half-mast over Buckingham Palace. Barack Obama and David Cameron flew to Riyadh to pay their respects to this “tyrant” who led a “monstrous” regime. The PM spoke without embarrassment of Abdullah’s role in “strengthening understanding between faiths” – an “absurd” tribute, given that Saudi Arabia is “a savagely authoritarian Sunni Muslim theocracy in which persecution is rife and Christians are banned from practising their faith openly”. US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US had “lost a friend” – when in fact Saudi Arabia has helped export “the poisonous ideology of Islamic extremism all over the…

The Poundland millionaire Steve Smith is the quintessential self-made man. The 51-yearold founder of Poundland grew up in the West Midlands, where his parents had a market stall. “When I was a baby, my mum put me to sleep in a box under the stall and my dad nearly sold me,” he told Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. Smith worked for his parents all through childhood – and later, when he wanted to start his own business, he remembered the remnants box on their stall: a collection of random items all priced at 10p. “It made more money each week than everything else on the stall.” At the time, the £1 coin had just been introduced – giving Smith the idea that would make him rich. He bought up…

A 21-year-old Norwegian has been fined for posing as a hitman, and accepting payment for a contract killing he had no intention of carrying out. The unnamed man had been paid around £3,000 to kill a 17-year-old who had rejected his client’s advances. Police initially hoped to charge him with conspiracy to murder – but then it became clear that he’d never intended to carry out the hit, so they charged him with fraud instead. There’s long been Airbnb, to help people rent out their spare rooms. Now, there’s a also Airpnp, to help individuals and companies rent out their lavatories. Renters post a picture of the WC, give details of the facilities available – soap, clean towels, etc – and name their price (typically $1, for a loo in…

What the scientists are saying… Alcohol may protect your heart... The fraught debate about the benefits – or otherwise – of drinking alcohol was rekindled last week, with the publication of a study suggesting that drinking modestly might be better for your heart than not drinking at all. Researchers tracked 14,620 people, aged 45 to 64 at the start of the study, for around 25 years – and found that men who consumed up to seven small glasses of wine a week (or three-and-a-half pints of beer) had a 20% lower risk of heart failure than the teetotallers, after adjusting for factors such as body mass index and smoking. Among women, the risk was reduced by 16%. In fact, even those who drank the most (14 or more drinks a…

As everyone knows, Scotland has more pandas than Tory MPs, said Anoosh Chakelian in the New Statesman, “so it’s always a bit of an exotic spectacle when the Prime Minister pops up north of the border”. David Cameron made the trip last week to outline plans for devolving further powers to Holyrood. The proposals are a follow-up to the famous “vow” made by Westminster’s panic-stricken leaders in the dying days of the Scottish independence referendum. The PM has certainly been as good as his word on the timetable front, said The Scotsman. As promised, a draft Scotland Bill has indeed been rushed out in time for Burns Night (25 January), and all the main Westminster parties have now pledged to vote it into law. But questions remain over whether the…

“Continental people have love lives; the British have hot water bottles.” Author George Mikes, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.” George Santayana, quoted on Forbes.com “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” George Orwell, quoted in The Guardian “Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love.” Iris Murdoch, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually, it’s the opposite. A woman having large breasts makes a man stupid.” Comedian Rita Rudner, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to be more…

Get ready for the bitter Of all the tastes, “bitter is perhaps the one we’re least open to”, said Diana Henry in The Daily Telegraph. “It is challenging, but it allows the cook to play with contrasts (bitter is good with both sweet and earthy elements in a dish).” Chefs now want our tastes to grow up, and embrace bitter, so expect dandelions and gorgeous crimson chicories on your plate along with “grapefruit and tobacco panna cotta”. And look out for an excellent new book on the subject: Bitter, by Jennifer McLagan, is due out in April. Cauliflower takes a bow There’s been a resurgence of interest in vegetable cookery – and “cauliflower is the new big boy in town”, said Henry. A whole roasted head is a “revelation, sweet…

Tory minister brought down by the Westland Affair Leon Brittan 1939-2015 In the early 1980s, Leon Brittan, who has died aged 75, was regarded as one of Margaret Thatcher’s most hardworking and intelligent ministers. In 1983, aged 43, he became the youngest home secretary since Churchill. However, his career in government ended just three years later when he fell on his sword during the Westland Affair. He subsequently carved out a successful post-Westminster career as a European commissioner, becoming widely admired in Brussels, but his final years were overshadowed by unsubstantiated rumours that he’d been a member of a Westminster paedophile ring. To make matters worse, in 2014 he was questioned by police over allegations that he’d raped a woman some 40 years earlier. Leon Brittan was born in 1939,…

The impact of Russia’s downgrade Sergei Guriev Financial Times When Standard & Poor’s downgraded Russia’s debt to below investment grade this week, some companies, including Rosneft, dismissed the move as irrelevant since “sanctions rule out new borrowing anyway”, says Sergei Guriev. But demotion to “junk” also increases the cost of servicing existing debt, and Russia’s government, banks and companies owe $600bn externally, equating to 50% of GDP thanks to the plummeting rouble. Even so, “the economic burden of the downgrade isn’t nearly as important as its symbolic and political impact”. S&P has sent “a clear signal” that the country – already in recession and likely to run out of cash in 2016 – faces a much more dangerous crisis than in 2008-09, when its investment grade survived a threefold fall…