Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1131 i The Week

High-rise hazards What happened Theresa May called for a “major national investigation” into the use of cladding on high-rise buildings, following the discovery that residential blocks across the UK could be covered with combustible panels similar to those believed to have been behind the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower. At least 80 people were killed on 14 June when a fire at Grenfell rapidly consumed the building. The cladding on 600 other blocks is currently being tested. So far, every tested sample has failed. On Friday, Camden Council ordered the evacuation of 4,000 residents from four of its tower blocks. The council said it could no longer guarantee their safety after the towers’ cladding failed safety tests and inspectors warned the buildings were missing hundreds of fire doors. Some residents…

Theresa May is down – but not out James Kirkup The Spectator Theresa May is, quite simply, in hell, says James Kirkup. “Scorned by voters, ignored by colleagues, mocked by the press”, shorn of her closest aides, she could be forgiven for wanting to jack it all in. Her rivals may be hoping she will. But don’t write her off yet. May is tough – “as any woman who has reached her level in politics must be”. She became an MP in 1997, when the Tories were at rock bottom, and fought her way up, enduring more than her fair share of rejection, criticism and abuse. Having crawled across broken glass, she’s not going to quit now, just because people are being hard on her. Nor is her reputation necessarily…

You could go as far as the South Pole and you still wouldn’t escape the house fly. Scientists have warned that it is one of a number of species that are invading the pristine white landscapes of Antarctica. In the past, any foreign species that landed up in Antarctica would be very unlikely to survive for any length of time. But with temperatures rising some 3ºC over the past 30 years, they now stand a far better chance; not only because it’s less cold, but also because glaciers are retreating, exposing more land on which moss can grow. The moss, in turn, provides a habitat for insects and their larvae. Added to that, species are now arriving in far greater numbers, owing to Antarctica becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination:…

Ed Balls won new fans by appearing on Strictly Come Dancing. Now Ed Miliband has been trying to sell his charms on Radio 2. Last week, the former Labour leader took over the Jeremy Vine show, where – Alan Partridge-like – he posed a series of pressing questions to the listening public. “Does your long-haired dog suffer in the heat?” “Do you have a vintage toilet you’d be willing to flush live on air?” A caller named Jim Doyle phoned in to give his take on the pros and cons of the Victorian flush. “When you have a big job, it takes three or four flushes to flush it away,” he noted. “Then you’re left with skid marks down the bottom.” “Apologies to anyone eating their lunch,” said Ed smoothly,…

“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.” Samuel Beckett, quoted in The TLS “It is curious, how one often mistrusts one’s own opinions if they are stated by someone else.” Douglas R. Hofstadter, quoted on The Browser “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted in The Irish Times “Decisions are made by those who show up.” Aaron Sorkin, quoted in The Observer “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you his parents were poor but honest. Only words can do that.” Bertrand Russell, quoted in the Daily Mail “Science is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make,…

Tennis British No. 3 Dan Evans is facing a lengthy ban after testing positive for cocaine. Football Crystal Palace named Frank de Boer to replace Sam Allardyce as manager. Russia’s entire 2014 World Cup squad is being investigated by Fifa over possible drugs offences. Cricket England suffered a shock defeat to India in their opening Women’s World Cup game, but won their second match against Pakistan. Sailing New Zealand beat the defending champions, Team USA, to win the America’s Cup.…

Is he serious? That’s what many wondered last week when Daniel Day-Lewis – the only man to have won three best actor Oscars – announced his retirement, said Eithne Shortall in The Sunday Times. Not that we were surprised. For decades, the actor has seemed deeply ambivalent towards his craft. In 1989, he walked off stage during a performance of Hamlet (reportedly because he’d glimpsed the ghost of his father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis). He hasn’t appeared in a play since. Then, from 1997, he took a five-year hiatus from acting, during which he moved to Florence and became a shoemaker’s apprentice. He was only lured back when Martin Scorsese offered him the tantalisingly lurid part of Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York (2002). immersive approach – learning…

Provence is synonymous with refreshingly dry, pale rosé, says David Williams in The Observer. With soft strawberry, spicy redcurrant and fresh acidity, Aldi’s Exquisite Collection Côtes de Provence Rosé, France 2016 is excellent value at £5.99. Or for another great-value buy, try the delicious red-fruit flavours of La Vieille Ferme Rosé, Côte du Rhône, France 2016 (£6.99, Co-op). If pale Provence is rosé for white wine lovers, Pizarras de Otero Mencía Rosé, Bierzo, Spain 2015 (£8.49, or £7.49 as part of the mix six deal, www.majestic.co.uk) is perfect for red wine drinkers. A vivid rosado, it’s “aromatically pretty but robustly fruity, with enough guts to match red meat”. From next month, Morrisons will have a bold new addition to its “ever-improving” wine range in the form of the “textured, intensely…

The “wicked” actress who transformed The Rolling Stones Anita Pallenberg 1944-2017 A grande dame of British rock, Anita Pallenberg went out with Brian Jones, left him for Keith Richards, and was rumoured to have had an affair with Mick Jagger. Ravishingly beautiful and – as her friend Marianne Faithfull put it – “wicked… hypnotic and unsettling”, she performed backing vocals on Sympathy for the Devil, encouraged Jagger to remix the tracks on Beggars Banquet, and inspired the visceral Gimme Shelter, written by Richards when he believed she was sleeping with Jagger on the set of the film Performance. She was often described as the Stones’ muse, but she was far more than that, said Brooke Mazurek on NPR. The “baddest of the bad girls”, Pallenberg “helped the Stones become the…

Seven years after launching an antitrust probe into Google, the European Commission has gone for broke, said Rory Tingle on MailOnline. Competition chief Margrethe Vestager has slapped the US internet giant with a massive s2.42bn (£2.14bn) fine for abusing its near-monopoly to “skew” search results in favour of its own shopping services. The record penalty is more than double the figure expected and breaks the previous record of s1.06bn against Intel in 2009. The case – one of three the Commission is currently conducting against Google – has already “stoked tensions with Washington” and is likely to incur the wrath of President Trump. Google will probably appeal. This decision is a “milestone” and could well lead to more cases in other search markets, said James Titcomb in The Daily Telegraph.…

“The overflowing smorgasbord of exchange traded funds is set to welcome another esoteric dish to the table,” said Robin Wigglesworth in the FT. The legendary music producer Quincy Jones has loaned his name to a new ETF tracking companies involved “in any aspect of the online streaming of entertainment”. There are plenty of other “niche, thematic” ETFs currently being offered to investors. Here are some of the oddest… Inspire Global Hope Large Cap Focused on “biblically responsible investing”. Hoped to attract hundreds of millions of dollars, but it is currently “stuck” on $60m, “indicating that the Lord may not be looking favourably” on the project. Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index This ETF’s assets have grown to $82.9m, despite a “comedown” that has seen it lose 14% since inception. The Obesity…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys BP The Times The oil giant appears to have concluded its liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Having restructured and slimmed down, it looks in better nick to tackle an era of lower oil prices. Yields 7%. Buy. 456.35p. Biffa The Daily Telegraph The waste group’s operating profit is up by a “very robust” 18%. Analysts expect Biffa, which floated in October, to generate another year of double-digit earnings growth. There’s a prospective yield of 3.5% too. Buy. 198.25p. CareTech Investors Chronicle The care home provider has revealed strong growth with improving margins – and is in a good position to expand organically, and through acquisition, to meet rising demand in Britain. Shares are undervalued. Buy. 437p. Safestore Investors Chronicle This self-storage…

Controversy of the week The hero of Glastonbury Glastonbury this year boasted more than 2,000 acts, including world-famous headliners such as Radiohead and Ed Sheeran, said Hannah Ellis-Petersen in The Guardian. But judging by the T-shirts, the flags and the chants, “the man of the hour was the Labour Party’s 68-year-old leader”. Jeremy Corbyn appeared on the main Pyramid Stage on Saturday, and he “gave the gathering exactly what it wanted”, said Simon Kelner in the i newspaper. “He rattled through some of his crowd-pleasers about peace, love and the environment,” and ended his set with a bit of Shelley that brought the house down, calling on the masses to “rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number”. Thousands responded with the festival’s most popular chant: “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!”, sung…

The woman who defied Isis Ellise Campbell remembers well the day Isis seized Mosul. The 64-year-old British-born grandmother had been living there since 2003: she is married to an Iraqi engineer, and was helping to run an English language school. Then in June 2014, Isis militants took power. “It was a hazy day, all clouds and no sun, almost as if the sky was crying,” she told Josie Ensor in The Sunday Telegraph. “By 5am the next day, the black flag of Isis was flying over the city.” Although she had converted to Islam in the 1980s, Campbell assumed she would be an obvious target for the jihadis. But they allowed her to keep teaching, and even asked her to do an evening course for their fighters. “I had to…

ITALY The clowns who turned into bullies La Repubblica (Rome) Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) is in a huff, says Sebastiano Messina. Founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo, the party did well in the 2013 parliamentary elections, and last year won key mayoral races in Rome and Turin. But it flopped in the first round of local elections last month, only making the run-off stage in one of Italy’s 25 largest cities. So, like “a football hooligan angered by his team’s loss who goes home and beats up his neighbour”, M5S has begun picking on immigrants. Grillo has ordered Rome’s mayor, Virginia Raggi, to demand a moratorium on migrant arrivals in the capital, and to clear out the tent camps of the Roma minority. “Anyone begging on the subway,…

Elon Musk must be doing something right: the PayPal founder is the 80th richest person on Earth, with a $14bn fortune. He says he made that money to fulfil his dream of turning man into a “multiplanetary species”; and he has now outlined this vision in more detail. Musk is no amateur in the field of space travel – he has conducted several rocket launches. But his ambitious plans for colonising Mars have left some scientists incredulous. Musk intends to send outliers to the Red Planet within ten years; he then envisages building a 1,000-strong Mars Colonial Fleet that would fly out a million people, and all the materials they need to create a “self-sustaining city” by as early as 2066. He admits Mars is not ideally suited to human…

“The stage is set for a dangerous showdown” in the Middle East, said The Times. On 5 June, Saudi Arabia, backed by Egypt and its allies in the Persian Gulf, began a blockade against Qatar, accusing the small, gas-rich emirate of supporting terrorism; they cut land, air and sea links, and expelled its citizens. Last week, a 13-point ultimatum issued by the Saudi-led coalition was published. Qatar was given ten days to sever all alleged terror connections, drastically scale back its diplomatic contacts with Iran, close the broadcaster Al Jazeera, and remove Turkish troops from its territory, among other demands. Qatar’s response was unrepentant: it called the blockade illegal, and the demands “unreasonable”. Turkey, a close ally, also weighed in, promising to send additional troops to Qatar. Among the Gulf’s…

Rugby union: defeat leaves Lions with mountain to climb “So near and yet so far.” That was the overwhelming feeling for British and Irish Lions fans after the first Test against New Zealand last Saturday, said Robert Kitson in The Observer. Warren Gatland’s side started well in Auckland, with winger Elliot Daly almost scoring in the corner in the opening minutes. When the All Blacks then raced to a 13-3 lead, the Lions responded with a “spectacular length-of-the-field try” – a weaving, jinxing run from full-back Liam Williams, followed by some brilliant passing between centre Jonathan Davies and Daly, and a diving finish from flanker Sean O’Brien. But New Zealand ran away with it in the second half, with some perfect tee-kicking from Beauden Barrett, and two tries from winger…

Lay off May To The Sunday Times It is galling to witness the behaviour of both print and broadcast media towards public figures, in particular our embattled Prime Minister. It is less than a month since those same claws were stuck into Jeremy Corbyn. Admittedly, Theresa May made errors of judgement and received bad advice, but her hounding over the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy was disgraceful. We are living in difficult times, for a variety of reasons, so we need unity and focus. Lesley Woodfield, York Laws must be obeyed To The Daily Telegraph I am an EU citizen and have lived in Britain for 30 years. I was heartened to get some assurance last week, from reports of Theresa May’s statement, that I will be able to remain here.…

Musical Bat Out of Hell Composer: Jim Steinman Director: Jay Scheib London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2 (020-7845 9300) Until 22 August Running time: 3hrs (including interval) ★★★ The very best musicals have a compelling storyline, thrilling stage pictures and astonishing sounds, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. Bat Out of Hell, a fabulously over-the-top rock musical based on the Jim Steinman songs made famous by rock star Meat Loaf, is devoid of any sort of plausible, let alone compelling, storyline. But it has thrilling staging and swaggering music in abundance. And as Steinman himself put it – in one of the classic songs featured here – Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad. Steinman has always been the “Wagner of rock’n’roll”, said Ian Shuttleworth in the FT – the…

Salty lime soda In the sweltering heat of India, people swear by this thirst-quenching soda, says Ursula Ferrigno in her new book of recipes and tips for cooking with lemons and limes Serves 2 4 tsps good-quality sea salt zest and juice of 4 limes 400ml soda water plenty of ice, to serve lime slices, to serve • In a jug, mix the salt, lime zest and juice and soda together with a little iced water. Pour into long, tall glasses, and serve with ice and lime slices. Lemon & ginger barley water This is oh so good for you. Barley can help ease urinary and circulatory problems, and ginger is also packed with therapeutic properties Serves 4 125g pot barley zest and juice of 4 unwaxed lemons 100g brown…

New cars: what the critics say What Car? The idea of a miniature 4x4 used to be laughable. But the Qashqai changed all that: the first car successfully to combine “family hatchback space and practicality” with a raised ride height, it “sold by the bucketload” across Europe, kicking off the craze for crossover SUVs. Where once the Qashqai stood out, however, it now has many impressive rivals – so Nissan has given it a “much-needed facelift”. Autocar The new model looks less conservative than its predecessor: it has a more “aggressive” nose, and the flanks and rear have been smartened up. The interior is a bit “plusher”, too, with lots of soft-touch surfaces in the front and a new, larger steering wheel. There’s ample space for two tall adults in…

For the British, one of the most important cotton import locations was Turkey, which was under the Ottoman rule at the time. In time, this relationship continued and developed, but also changed its form. Now, Turkey is not only a resource of raw materials for the UK, but a provider of ready-made products. Trade relationships, which continued to improve in this direction during the 2000s, has reached considerable levels at the end of 2016. The UK is Turkey’s 2nd largest apparel and garment export destination. The amount of apparel and garment the UK bought from Turkey in 2016 has reached 2 billion dollars. As it stands, the UK’s share in Turkey’s total apparel and garment exports is 12 percent. 1 in 3 pairs of socks is from Turkey British consumers,…

“Merkron” will only bring Europe down Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph Investors are starting to buy into “the Macron-Merkel reboot” of the eurozone, says Matthew Lynn. They should “ignore the hype”. Far from reforming the Continent, the “Merkron” axis “looks like doubling down on protectionism and socialism”: it will leave Europe worse off in the long run. Emmanuel Macron has talked about liberalising France’s labour market and making Paris more attractive to start-ups, yet he has already morphed “into a very traditional French protectionist”. He is pushing to give “strategic” EU industries protection from foreign takeovers, and has argued for a “buy European act”, ensuring that “state contracts are placed with local companies”. Outrageously, he is also backing restrictions on “posted workers”, mostly from Eastern Europe, who work in other…

Hamburg, Germany Bodyguards not welcome: Berlin appears to have told 12 members of the Turkish president’s security team, who were filmed attacking pro-Kurdish demonstrators during Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington DC in May, not to travel with him to next week’s G20 meeting in Hamburg. In a statement this week, officials said they had “reason to expect” that the guards “will not step onto German soil in the foreseeable future”. Though Ankara blamed demonstrators for the fracas outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence, US police spoke of a “brutal attack”, and warrants have been issued for the bodyguards’ arrests. The incident has caused tensions between Washington and Ankara, and is now liable to put further pressure on Ankara’s already strained relations with Berlin. Hamburg is home to some 90,000 Turks,…

Dormouse “endangered” Long at risk, the dormouse should now be classified as endangered in the UK, researchers have advised, following a new study showing that their numbers have fallen by 72% in the past 20 years. “Dormice are declining despite strict protection and widespread efforts to conserve one of Britain’s most endearing woodland mammals,” said Cecily Goodwin of Exeter University, who led the study. Dormice are under threat from climate change and habitat loss; but the Exeter team think they could be helped by more active woodland management. Hazel dormice – the type found in Britain – are nocturnal; they sleep in trees in spring and summer, but spend their long winter hibernation in woven nests at ground level. Three-in-one blood test for cancer A sophisticated new blood test may…

In grim times, there is nothing like a “royal rumpus to lighten the mood”, said James Moore in The Independent. And so all hail Prince Harry, for providing another “humdinger”. In a Newsweek interview, the fifth in line to the throne spoke movingly about the traumatic experience of being made, aged 12, to walk behind his mother’s coffin, in front of millions of people, during her funeral, and of his determination to build on her charitable legacy, to be a force for good. But it was his remarks about “The Firm” that made the headlines. Musing on his life in a “goldfish bowl”, he said: “Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so.” The younger generation, he said, will…

English cricket’s new faces England have a new Twenty20 star, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. Making his debut in the third international against South Africa, on Sunday, Middlesex batsman Dawid Malan pulled his second ball for six, and went on to make 78 off 44 balls. The 29-year-old’s innings was the highest ever by an England T20 debutant, and set the home side up for a 19-run win that sealed the series 2-1. England “have made little secret of their intention to widen the selection net”, and other debutants against South Africa include the highly rated leg-spinner Mason Crane and all-rounder Tom Curran. So far, that approach seems to be paying dividends. Tempers flare in F1 “The Formula 1 title fight just got nasty,” said Andrew Benson on BBC…

To The Guardian Steven Poole provides an excellent account of the Right’s professed hatred of regulation and red tape, but this ideological hostility only seems to apply to big business and the private sector. By contrast, the last three decades have seen the public sector crushed under regulatory burdens and tied up in red tape, often in a bizarre attempt at making schools, hospitals, the police, social services and universities more efficient, business-like and accountable. Talk to most doctors, nurses, police officers, probation officers, social workers and university lecturers, and one of their biggest complaints will be the relentless increase in bureaucracy imposed by Conservative (and New Labour) governments since the 1980s. Instead of focusing on their core activities and providing a good professional service, many front-line public sector workers…

Hampstead Dir: Joel Hopkins 1hr 43mins (12A) Hampstead gets the Richard Curtis treatment ★ “Oh, Hampstead, what did you do to deserve Hampstead” asked Deborah Ross in The Spectator. This painfully unfunny romantic comedy, which tries to do for Hampstead what Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill did for Notting Hill, stars Diane Keaton as Emily, an eccentric American widow who falls for a robust homeless man named Donald (Brendan Gleeson) living in a picturesque hut on Hampstead Heath. What drama there is lies in Emily’s determination that Donald should defy the property developers who want to evict him from his slice of prime real estate. The film is loosely based on the true story of Harry Hallowes, who in 2007 was awarded the £2m plot of Heath land where he’d been…

Best books… Harold Evans Reuters editor-at-large Harold Evans, former editor of The Sunday Times, picks five recent favourite books on history and current affairs. His latest book, Do I Make Myself Clear?, is published by Little, Brown at £20 Last Hope Island by Lynne Olson, 2017 (Scribe £25). Donald Trump has turned his back on Europe. Brexit implies Britain is on the same path. More uplifting is this history honouring Britain’s heroism in WWII. It’s a gripping story of how Britain nurtured defeated leaders and fighters from countries overrun by the Nazis. Churchill & Orwell by Thomas E. Ricks, 2017 (Duckworth £25). They never met. Ricks’s brilliant insight is how much the apparent opposites spoke the same language, sharing a revulsion for enemies of freedom. Ricks’s twin biography makes us…

The Cat’s Pyjamas 9 Eastgate, Leeds (0113-234 0454; and there’s another branch in Headingley) The Cat’s Pyjamas is doing a roaring trade serving vibrant Indian street food and an excellent range of craft beers. An assured operation, it feels “rollout ready”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. And why not? “If they can keep the standards up, most high streets would be happy to have one of these.” Whole tandoor-roasted sea bream – slicked with lemongrass and chilli; ginger and lime bashed into its “bubbled and blackened” skin – is a bargain at £10.95. “Brilliant” pani puri puff-pastry balls are perfectly crisp and filled with spiced potato, onion and tamarind chutney. The tandoori mixed-grill marinade has a “serious kick” to it. Keema matar (a sweet stew of ground lamb…

Popolare di Vicenza/Veneto Banca: Italian bank job “Italy’s long-simmering banking crisis has erupted again” and is shaping up to be a “fiasco of the first order”, said Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. The emergency rescue of two Venetian lenders, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca, has blown a hole in new EU bailout rules that were supposed to protect taxpayers: they’ve been landed with a potential s17bn bill. So much for the eurozone’s swanky “new banking regime” – it has been “violated in its first major test”. The two banks are being wound down in a deal that separates the “good” parts of their loan books from the “bad”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. The “healthy” portion will be shoved into Italy’s largest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo,…

Systems paralysed Just weeks after the WannaCry ransomware virus caused chaos across the globe, some of the world’s biggest companies have been hit by a second huge cyberattack, said The Daily Telegraph. The “Petya” attack is believed to have started in Ukraine, where it “paralysed” the central bank and other government departments, and brought Kiev airport and the metro network to a standstill on Tuesday, before quickly spreading across Europe. Among the blue-chips affected were the world’s largest ad group WPP, the global law firm DLA Piper, the Dutch pharma Merck, the Danish shipping firm Maersk, and the Russian oil giant Rosneft. Worse than WannaCry? The scam operates in a similar fashion to WannaCry: “infected computers display a message demanding a Bitcoin ransom of $300”, said The Guardian. But security…

José Neves When the Portuguese entrepreneur José Neves founded the London-based fashion website Farfetch in 2008, online fashion retail was still in its infancy, says Sarah Butler in The Guardian. Ten years on, the firm is rumoured to be plotting a $5bn public listing, which would make it one of the UK’s most valuable internet businesses – worth seven times more than the Debenhams chain. “Farfetch is the Deliveroo of luxury fashion”: it makes its money by taking a 25-30% cut of the sales it generates for partner boutiques and brands; and it has more than 700 shops and 200 brands globally on its books – including China’s biggest retailer, JD.com. In February, Neves lured the doyenne of online fashion, Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet, to act as co-chair, crowning Farfetch’s…