Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1135 i The Week

What happened Mind the gap Some of the BBC’s best-known female stars, including Clare Balding, Emily Maitlis and Fiona Bruce, have called on the corporation to “act now” to redress the glaring gap in pay between men and women. Salaries of 96 “creative staff” earning £150,000 or more were published last week. The figures showed that only a third of the BBC’s highest-paid presenters are women, that its seven highest earners are all men, and that its best-paid man makes four times as much as the best-paid woman: Chris Evans received £2.2m-£2.25m in the last financial year, while Claudia Winkleman, eighth on the list, earned £450,000-£499,999. The other highest-paid stars included Gary Lineker (£1.75m-£1.79m), Graham Norton (£850,000-£899,999), Jeremy Vine (£700,000-£749,999), and John Humphrys (£600,000-£649,999). The Prime Minister urged the corporation…

Minneapolis, Minnesota Police chief ousted: The police chief of Minneapolis resigned last week over the fatal shooting of an unarmed Australian woman by a police officer. The city’s mayor, Betsy Hodges, said that the police chief, Janeé Harteau, had “lost the confidence of the people”; but protesters have also called for Hodges to step down. Justine Damond (pictured), 40, made an emergency call to police on 15 July to report a possible sexual assault in an alley behind her house; when the police car drew up, she approached it – only to be shot, for reasons that remain unclear, by Mohamed Noor, a recent recruit who had been on an accelerated training programme. Bountiful, British Columbia Sect leaders guilty: Two former leaders of a breakaway Mormon sect, the Fundamentalist Church…

The first child to receive a double hand transplant has achieved his ambition of swinging a baseball bat. Zion Harvey’s hands and feet had to be amputated when, aged two, he contracted a life-threatening sepsis infection, which also caused his kidneys to fail. He had a kidney transplant aged four, using an organ donated by his mother, Pattie Ray, and had the hand transplant in 2015, at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, when he was eight. Involving 40 people, the 11-hour operation was risky, but doctors decided that the fact that Zion (pictured) was already taking immunosuppressant drugs, combined with his positive personality and determination to lead an independent life, made him a good candidate. Within days, he was able to move his new fingers, and after 18 months of…

Vince Cable is no stranger to Lib Dem leadership, said Paula Keaveney on The Conversation. Ten years ago, he was touted as a contender to replace Menzies Campbell. He didn’t stand – but he did stand in, until Nick Clegg was appointed. Now the former business secretary has taken the reins on a more permanent basis. He formally declared his candidacy last month, and when no other contenders emerged from the party’s pool of just 12 MPs before last week’s deadline, he became, at 74, Britain’s oldest party leader since Churchill resigned in 1955, aged 80. “There is a huge gap in the centre of British politics, and I intend to fill it,” Cable said. He indicated that he would start by exploring ways of easing inequality by, say, aligning…

“There was only one story in town this week,” said Ayesha Hazarika in The Guardian. ITV2’s Love Island, the surprise hit of the summer, reached its finale on Monday night. Some 2.43 million viewers – a record for the channel – tuned in to see Kem, a hairdresser from Romford, and Amber, a dancer from North Wales, crowned the winning couple. “Not since George Galloway donned a leotard, got on all fours and purred, ‘Shall I be the cat?’, has there been so much interest in a reality television show.” If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two months, the premise is this, said Emine Saner in The Observer: “a group of implausibly taut young people, most of them the colour of a digestive biscuit”, are put…

Jordan Spieth did not merely triumph at The Open, said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph. The “remarkable” Texan also purged the demons that have “stalked him” since last year’s “infamous” Masters, when he lost dramatically after being five shots ahead. On Sunday, too, he appeared to be in “free fall”: on the 13th hole, he hit a wayward drive 120 yards off the fairway and into the rough. But in perhaps “the greatest turnaround” in any of golf’s majors, Spieth rescued himself, and 90 minutes later he was lifting the Claret Jug. He is now the second man ever to win three different majors before his 24th birthday. The 13th hole was a half-hour “mini-epic”, said Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online. Spieth hit the ball so far astray…

To The Guardian I am bemused that the outrage is focused on the gender gap in the BBC top-pay list story, and not on the grotesque gaps between the top- and bottom-paid staff at the BBC. It’s a bit like bemoaning the fact that there aren’t more women dictators in the world. There’s a very simple answer to the gender gap: bring all the men’s top pay down to the level of the women’s top pay, halve it, and then halve it again. Redistribute the savings to the people in the BBC who are paid peanuts, so that they can have something approaching a half-decent salary. I can’t believe that if BBC “stars” were replaced with women and men willing to do the job for £100,000, we’d have any shortage…

Dunkirk A war film without heroes Dir: Christopher Nolan 1hr 46mins (12A) Most of us know the basic facts about the Dunkirk evacuation: how in May 1940, 300,000, mainly British, troops escaped from the beach of a northern French port while being bombarded by the Luftwaffe. The achievement of Christopher Nolan’s harrowing new film is that it makes these events seem impossible to predict, said Dave Calhoun in Time Out. With a short running time and minimal dialogue, it exposes us to a concentrated dose of the “oddness and horror of war”. One moment, we see Nazi propaganda leaflets, bearing the words “We surround you!”, falling like snow from an empty sky. The next, we’re plunged into the churning sea with panicking soldiers, struggling to keep our heads above water.…

Georgia’s distinctive, acidic wines always give me a “bad case of wanderlust”, says David Williams in The Observer. They’re not that easy to get hold of in the UK but, happily, M&S stocks Tbilvino Qvevris, Kakheti, Georgia 2015 (£10), a “rather brilliant example of orange-tinted dry white wine aged in qvevri, the traditional Georgian clay vessel, with a subtly chewy, moreishly spicy character”. The most recent wine to get me “idly browsing for flights to Tbilisi” was Jakeli Khashmi Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2011 (£18.50, www.MeadowDaleWines.com). It’s a deeply coloured red with a “wild, almost untamed intensity of tannin, finger-staining” black fruit and “febrile acidity”. I’d also highly recommend Pheasant’s Tears Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2015 (£22, www.HighburyVintners.co.uk). This “arresting” red is “intensely sappy, crunchy and curranty, with a nutty streak”. No…

George A. Romero 1940-2017 George A. Romero, who has died aged 77, didn’t invent the zombie movie. The first film to feature zombies –figures from Haitian folklore – came out in 1932. But he revolutionised the genre by stripping the undead of their cultural context, and making his horror films social and political commentaries on contemporary America, said The Guardian. Released during the civil rights era, and when the Vietnam War was at its height, his big-screen directorial debut, Night of the Living Dead (1968), featured a bunch of misfits who, holed up in a house in rural Pennsylvania, come under attack from flesh-eating zombies. Filmed in black and white, to give it a newsreel quality, it featured in the lead role a black actor, Duane Jones, who survives the…

Goldman Sachs: fried squid It was a “tale of two banks” on Wall Street last week, as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs reported their second-quarter results, said Brooke Masters in the Financial Times. Most of the gloom was being felt by Goldmanites. “Both banks are suffering from the long slowdown” in their fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) businesses, but traders reckon that Morgan Stanley is dealing with the problem better. Certainly, Goldman has been hit much harder than its peers: trading revenues were down by 40% on the same period last year. “According to an old Wall Street adage, one should never bet against Goldman Sachs,” said Iain Dey in The Sunday Times. But if the bank memorably christened the great “Vampire Squid” doesn’t “crush its rivals in the…

Good news for homebuyers, said The Times. The Government is putting an end to the “great scandal” of new houses being sold on leases that “force owners to make escalating rental payments on top of their mortgages”. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has outlined plans to ban the practice in new builds, and “reduce ground rent payments to almost nothing” where they already apply. Most flats are sold as leaseholds, so the owner can recover the costs of the building’s upkeep through ground rent. But in recent years, developers such as Bellway and Taylor Wimpey have extended the practice to houses – “often without buyers fully understanding the contracts” – before flogging the freeholds on to investment companies. As a result, ground rents have soared. Among the biggest players in the…

Controversy of the week The next prime minister? Now that Parliament is in recess, Labour MPs have been left wondering what to do with themselves, said Isabel Hardman on her Spectator blog. They’ve spent the past two summers holed up in windowless rooms, “listening to contenders for the [party’s] top job”. But they now face the prospect of having to go to the beach, because for the first time in three years, there isn’t a leadership contest to fight. Jeremy Corbyn is sitting pretty. After his unexpectedly strong performance in the election, he’s now seen as the man who put Labour back on the path to power, not – as critics used to cast him – “the man who killed the party”. Don’t be deceived, said Marie Le Conte in…

Britain’s top male vlogger If you’re over 20, and haven’t got teenage children, you may not have heard of Alfie Deyes. But the 23-year-old is one of Britain’s most successful vloggers, worth an estimated £4m. With his girlfriend and fellow YouTube star Zoe “Zoella” Suggs, he’s half of a media power couple. But he didn’t set out to be. Aged 15, when he began making videos in his bedroom in Brighton, “it wasn’t a job”, he told Anna Pointer in The Daily Telegraph. “There was no path to follow or goal to achieve. It’d never been done before.” Some might struggle to understand quite what it is Deyes does now. His videos notch up some 700,000 views a day, yet only show him (and sometimes Suggs) “doing random stuff” –…

If you’re on the Left, you should support Brexit Larry Elliott The Guardian Why are so many people on the Left so down on Brexit, asks Larry Elliott. It’s partly because when Thatcherism was in the ascendant, Labour saw Brussels as a check on “free-market zealotry”. But a clutch of Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, always realised that neo-liberalism was “hardwired into the European project”. They saw that its “stability and growth” pact had a bias towards austerity; that its common agriculture policy was disastrous for developing nations; that its neo-liberal competition laws inhibit new approaches to state aid, state ownership and public procurement. Brexit provides the impetus to change all that: without it, this country will never get the chance to adopt a “radical socialist programme”. It’s not as…

Having risen for a century, life expectancy in England is grinding to a halt. The reason is unclear; however, Sir Michael Marmot, of University College London, told the BBC that austerity could be to blame. According to Office for National Statistics figures, life expectancy at birth had, until around 2009, been going up so fast that women were gaining an extra year of life every five years, and men every three-and-a-half years. But post-2010, there has been a dramatic deceleration. Now, women are only likely to gain an extra year every decade; and men every six years. Dismissing the idea that humans have simply reached their natural lifespan, Sir Michael noted that some other countries have longer life expectancies; he said that it was far more plausible that cuts to…

“Pensions? Just don’t go there.” Truth is, many of us prefer not to think about how we’re going to fund our lives in retirement – and there’s a reason for that, said Iain Macwhirter in The Herald (Glasgow): the figures are simply too frightening. Consider this: if you want to buy a pension delivering a modest £20,000 a year, index-linked, you’ll need to have saved well over £600,000 at present annuity rates. “That’s more than someone on average earnings of £26,000 earns in 20 years – all of it.” Now, to make our prospects yet more bleak, the Government has announced that it’s raising the state pension age earlier than planned. The upshot is that if you are 47 or younger, you won’t even get your far-from-easeful £155 per week…

“A change of nuisance is as good as a vacation.” David Lloyd George, quoted in the New Statesman “I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting, [but] we can’t reach old age by another man’s road. My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you.” Mark Twain at his 70th birthday party, quoted in The Times “Economics is the study of human motivation with all the interesting variables set to zero.” Ad executive Rory Sutherland, quoted on The Browser “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?” Jane Austen, quoted on The Atlantic “The meek don’t inherit the Earth, not without a good agent.” Janice Turner in The Times “Everything in life is memory, save for…

You’d expect the man who has just won the Tour de France for the fourth time to be “one of the most loved sportsmen of this or any other era”, says Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online – particularly in his home country. Yet despite Chris Froome’s triumph on Sunday, the Team Sky cyclist remains Britain’s “least loved great sportsman”. True, he’s not an especially elegant or charismatic cyclist (though he does have an underappreciated sense of humour). And some of Froome’s detractors don’t even consider him British, as he was born in Kenya, schooled in South Africa and lives in Monaco. Yet he’s hardly unique in that regard: Bradley Wiggins was born in Belgium, while Lewis Hamilton is also a Monaco resident. Froome is not “a man to bemoan…

Hardbacks Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith William Collins £20 (£17) This is a fascinating look at the “sly brainpower” of the octopus, said The Mail on Sunday. It shows they are capable of a wide range of skills and emotions: “puzzle solving, playfulness, contempt”. These remarkable creatures have evolved separately from vertebrates for the past 500 million or so years, said the FT. For scientists searching for alien intelligence, they offer its “closest counterpart here on Earth”. The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart Hurst £20 (£17) This is a “thought-provoking analysis”, said the FT, of the growing gap in our society between the geographically mobile, well-educated “anywheres” and their provincial counterparts, the “somewheres”, who retain a strong attachment to locality. It’s this split, claims David Goodhart, that drives the…

Exhibition of the week The Encounter National Portrait Gallery, London WC2 (020-7306 0055, www.npg.org.uk ). Until 22 October “Some art can be made in solitude, straight out of the artist’s head,” said Martin Gayford in The Spectator. Portraiture, however, is “a game for two”, a “complicated business” that is essentially a “record of a meeting between two people”. A portrait will be affected “not only by what the artist knows about art, but also by how well he or she knows the subject”. That is the “lesson” we take from The Encounter: Drawings from Leonardo to Rembrandt, a “marvellous” new exhibition of works on paper at the National Portrait Gallery. The show is essentially a “medley” of Old Master drawings from various British collections, bringing together around…

Kuch 133 Whiteladies Road, Bristol (0117-253 0300) For those seeking “freshness, value and a bit of a culinary adventure”, look no further than this unassuming restaurant serving “southern Persian soul food”, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Guardian. Kuch offers treat upon treat: bowls full of fresh, colourful salads and glossy olives; hot, oily flatbreads and spiced meats; dishes that are sweet with pomegranate and date molasses, tangy from tamarind, and pungent with dried lime; and shelves stacked with jars of kashk (“liquid curd”), pickled vegetables, sour orange juice and quince jam. The flurry of small dishes we tried included kash_k bazanjon (“all descriptions very much sic”), which turned out to be a lentil and smoked aubergine dip boosted with whey, with garlands of crisp garlic and onion; and naan-o-paneer,…

New cars: what the critics say Škoda Citigo from £8,635 Autocar Since its launch five years ago, Škoda’s “little city car” has earned rave reviews and sold more than 200,000 units. Now it has been given a midlife facelift – following in the footsteps of its near-identical sibling, the Volkswagen Up. Wisely, Škoda has “resisted the urge to make sweeping changes”; it hasn’t touched the mechanicals, instead tweaking the design and adding more kit. The Daily Telegraph Those tweaks are so subtle that you’d struggle to tell the old and new models apart. The Citigo’s still not the most exciting-looking car, despite a new bonnet and lamps. The cabin is “thoughtfully” designed, though, with materials that would “shame cars in a couple of classes above”. At 251 litres, the boot…

Irina Ratushinskaya 1954-2017 On her 29th birthday, Irina Ratushinskaya was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in a Soviet prison. Her crime was writing poetry, and being in jail didn’t stop her. Using burnt matchsticks, she’d scratch her poems on bars of soap, before memorising them. Then, when the chance arose, she’d scrawl them on cigarette papers and pass them to her husband, who smuggled them to the West. “The Soviet Union, as Russia was before it, is a land where poet is the proudest and the most dangerous of all professions,” wrote Professor Maria Carlson, in a New York Times review of one of Ratushinskaya’s poetry anthologies. Her themes, Carlson noted, were those that have tortured so many Russian poets – “memory, history, fate, love, poetry, faith and freedom”…

Why Britons are puking for payouts Editorial The Economist The summer holidays are a lifesaver for the travel industry, says The Economist: all those “all-inclusive trips to the Mediterranean” more than make up for losses incurred in lean winter months. But tour operators and hoteliers are entering this summer with trepidation owing to “an epidemic of food-poisoning claims”. The number of such claims made by Britons has surged by 500% since 2013, according to the Association of British Travel Agents. Most are fake, but with claimants typically demanding £5,000 in compensation, and up to £100,000 in lawyers’ fees, they’re costing the industry dear. Hoteliers in Mallorca reckon they’re losing s50m a year. The surge in “puke for payout” claims is the “unintended result” of the crackdown on car-insurance whiplash scams:…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best buys CentralNic The Mail on Sunday Turnover at this top-level domain name seller has jumped 113%, and underlying profits have grown by 68%, thanks to expansion and the “astute acquisition” of Instra Group. Expect further growth as the sector consolidates. Buy. 51.1p. Conviviality Shares Drinks wholesaler Convivality remains “resilient” in a tough consumer market, thanks to its competitive pricing and market reach. Full-year profits are up 100%, and “compelling cash generation” has boosted the total dividend. Buy. 339.7p. Glencore The Sunday Telegraph Shares in the commodities giant are up fourfold since their 2016 nadir, and its balance sheet hasn’t been so strong since its flotation. Given rising commodity prices, there’s hope of more to come. Worth a short-term punt. Buy. 313.55p. Morgan Sindall Group…

Paris Honeymoon over: Emmanuel Macron’s approval ratings have slumped ten points in the past month. Although the French president still enjoys the support of 54% of voters, the fall is the most precipitous for a new president since Jacques Chirac in 1995. A number of factors have been blamed for the abrupt end to Macron’s honeymoon period, including perceptions that he is arrogant and domineering, and anger over his proposed budget cuts. Last week, the head of the French armed forces resigned after Macron unveiled an s850m cut to defence spending. General Pierre de Villiers said the cuts would leave him unable to guarantee “the protection of France and the French people”. Days earlier, Macron, 39, had used the Bastille Day parade to tell the military top brass: “I am…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the chief executive of Virgin Money 1* Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel 2 Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen 3 Parisienne Walkways by Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, performed by Gary Moore 4 Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty, performed by Hugh Burns, Tommy Eyre, Nigel Jenkins, Glen LeFleur, Raphael Ravenscroft, Henry Spinetti, Gary Taylor and Gerry Rafferty 5 Keep on Loving You by Kevin Cronin, performed by REO Speedwagon 6 Now We are Free (from the film Gladiator) by Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and Klaus Badelt, performed by Lisa Gerrard, The Lyndhurst Orchestra and Gavin Greenaway 7 Survivor by Donny Osmond, Paul Begaud, Vanessa Corish, James Jayawardena…

Michael Phelps not only lost his made-for-TV race with a shark; it now turns out he wasn’t even competing with a live fish in the much-hyped Phelps vs. Shark event. Instead, the 23-time Olympic champion was pitted against a computer-generated shark swimming at a pre-recorded shark speed. Online, viewers said they felt conned: even if they hadn’t expected Phelps and the shark to swim in adjoining lanes, they had at least thought that a real animal was going to be involved in the race. But Phelps insists he made it clear that he had no intention of getting into the water with a great white. “I don’t think that would probably end very well,” he told Vanity Fair before the race. In the event, Phelps – wearing flippers designed to…

Poor sleep linked to Alzheimer’s Sleeping badly could put people at greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease. So say researchers in the US, who have found a significant association between breathing disorders such as sleep apnea, and the accumulation of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s. And though a cause and effect link has not been proven, they think that treating these disorders might reduce people’s risk of the disease, or at least slow its progression. Obstructive sleep apnea is believed to affect around 30% of men and 20% of women, and occurs when the upper airway closes during sleep. In one study, the team looked at the accumulations of amyloid plaques – a marker for Alzehimer’s – in the brains of 500 people who did not have dementia, and found that people with…

Returning from a recent G20 summit dinner in Hamburg, Donald Trump told the press he had been seated next to Akie Abe , wife of the Japanese president. Unfortunately, he said, they had sat in silence for almost two hours. “She’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English. Like, not ‘hello’.” Mrs Abe is known to be reluctant to speak English – but not incapable. A YouTube video has emerged of her delivering a 15-minute address at a New York climate symposium – entirely in English. Jacob Rees-Mogg , who recently became a father for the sixth time, has admitted that he has never changed a nappy. “I’ve made no pretence to be a modern man at all, ever,” he told Nigel Farage on LBC radio. The Tory MP (pictured)…

My friend Dave has “the best beard that I’ve ever seen anybody grow, and has a voice about three degrees shy of Barry White”, said C.J. Atkinson on the Huffington Post. What he doesn’t have is “a couple of hundred quid to throw around”. That’s what it would cost him to get a Gender Recognition Certificate, to show that he has “transitioned” from a woman to a man, and a new passport. He would have to prove to the Gender Recognition Panel that he has been living as a man for at least two years, and would have to produce a certificate from a doctor confirming that he suffers from “gender dysphoria”. For transpeople like Dave and me, changing our official identity is a slow, expensive and often humiliating process.…

This Sunday saw the climax of the Women’s World Cup in cricket, said Mike Atherton in The Times. And it was “one of the best Lord’s finals I’ve ever seen”. England edged India, bowling them out with just eight balls to spare. It was a “thrilling, almost unbelievable finish”: with ten overs to go, India appeared completely in control; but as the pressure mounted, they collapsed, losing their last seven wickets for a measly 28 runs. This isn’t England’s first World Cup triumph, however – they’ve won it three times before. India, by contrast, are still awaiting their first victory, and were “devastated” to lose. Yet both teams can be “immensely proud” of their performance. Anya Shrubsole was the player who “cracked” India, said Vithushan Ehantharajah in The Guardian. It…

The EU’s siren voices To the Financial Times It is hardly surprising to read that John Kerr and other Euro-zealots wish to reverse Britain’s democratic decision to leave the EU. Article 50 was drafted by Lord Kerr for inclusion in the European Constitution, signed in 2004, which was subsequently rejected by referendums in France and the Netherlands. The EU ignored this inconvenient message from the people and incorporated most of the provisions of the rejected constitution, including Article 50, into EU law through the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 and by amending already existing treaties. Article 50’s provenance is damning evidence of the democratic deficit that Britons rejected when they voted for Brexit. It is gut-wrenching to read the author of the disgracefully one-sided Article 50 suggesting that, because its…

Musical Fiddler on the Roof Book: Joseph Stein Music: Jerry Bock Lyrics: Sheldon Harnick Director: Daniel Evans Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Chichester, West Sussex (01243-781312) Until 2 September Running time: 2hrs 45mins (including interval) ★★★★ “The Chichester hit factory triumphs again,” said Fiona Mountford in the London Evening Standard. Over recent years, Britain’s most “consistently classy regional theatre” has served up a string of stonking musical revivals, and under its new artistic director, Daniel Evans, it proves “tuneful business as usual” with this “rich and detailed” production of the 1964 classic. Omid Djalili, the Anglo-Iranian comedian, is “inspired casting” as Tevye, the Jewish milkman coping both with family life in the shtetl and with the rumbling threat of pogroms, said Christopher Hart in The Sunday Times. In a “superb”…

Best books… Marina Warner The author, critic and cultural historian Marina Warner picks her favourite books. She has written the introduction to the reprint of Down Below, Leonora Carrington’s memoir of her descent into madness (NYRB Classics £8.99) The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (Penguin £9.99). The Surrealist artist also wrote darkly comic stories. Here, in her only full-length novel, published in l974 but written in the 1960s, she foresees decrepitude and fights back against being sentenced to a care home. Droll, irreverent, the story twists and turns with irrepressible invention. Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin, 2008 (W&N £9.99). Under-sung novel by the sci-fi utopian, which persuasively enters the mind of Aeneas’s wife, and tells the story of the foundation of Rome from her point of view. Le Guin is…

Soups made from matsoni, or cow’s milk yoghurt, are a popular and delicious aspect of the national cuisine of Georgia, says Carla Capalbo. Many are cooked with onions, rice and herbs and served hot. But I also love this traditional chilled soup – it’s so refreshing on a hot summer’s day Matsunis shechamandi (chilled yoghurt soup) Serves 4 500g plain yoghurt 240ml water 85g very finely sliced and chopped cucumber 2 spring onions, finely chopped, white and green parts 1 tbsp finely chopped coriander 1 tbsp finely chopped dill 1 tsp finely chopped mint leaves 1 tsp finely chopped chives ½ tsp finely chopped medium-hot green chilli salt and freshly ground black pepper • Whisk the yoghurt with most of the water until smooth. The consistency should be creamy but…

Book now for an Indian Cookery Course for £59 Learn to cook authentic North Indian food with Pure Punjabi, a mother-daughter cookery venture. For £59, you’ll get access to a 6-part online video course, plus you’ll receive a starter pack of spices* to get your cooking underway. Save 54%, usually £129. In partnership with TRAVELZOO Book now for Gangsta Granny, from £25 The adaptation of David Walliams’ popular children’s book transfers to London’s West End for a limited summer season in 2017. Gangsta Granny follows a young boy and his stays with his granny. He expects the same old grizzly cabbage soup, cabbage pie and cabbage cake – but what he doesn’t realise is that this groovy Granny has her very own secret! Book now at TheWeekTickets.co.uk or call 0207…

Greek milestone Greece’s return to the sovereign bond market this week, after a three-year absence, has been billed as a major “milestone” in the country’s return to economic health, said Liz Alderman in The New York Times. The “jubilant” Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras, called the sale of five-year bonds – which raised s3bn for Athens’ coffers – a “significant step” towards ending the country’s “unpleasant adventure” with bailouts. The sentiment is bound to be echoed elsewhere: since 2010, when Athens was “shut off from borrowing in global markets”, the EU and the IMF have provided a “staggering” s326bn in financial lifelines. Super Mario anniversary Let’s not get too carried away about investor enthusiasm for Greek risk, said Kate Allen and Eleftheria Kourtali in the FT. About half of the bond’s…

Masayoshi Son The SoftBank founder has a warning for any human foolish enough to dismiss Pepper, his pet “humanoid”, as a novelty, says Tim Bradshaw in the FT. Those who “deride Pepper will face a future in which they will be overtaken by robots”, he warned darkly last week – “smart robots” that “can learn by themselves and act on their own”. Son’s Japanese conglomerate is investing heavily to bring this future closer. Last week, its $93bn Vision Fund splashed out on Brain Corp, a Californian outfit whose mission is to make robots “as commonplace as computers and mobiles are today”. Son reckons artificial intelligence will “outstrip human capabilities” within 30 to 50 years, but professes to be quite relaxed about that. “AI is not created to put mankind at…

“Naoki’s autism is classified as ‘severe’. Yet in his book, he exhibits intelligence, empathy and an emotional range as wide as my own” Naoki Higashida is an amiable and thoughtful young man in his early 20s who lives with his family in Chiba, a prefecture adjacent to Tokyo. Naoki has autism of a type labelled severe and non-verbal, so a free-flowing conversation of the kind that facilitates the lives of most of us is impossible for him. By dint of training and patience, however, he has learned to communicate by “typing out” sentences on an alphabet grid – a keyboard layout drawn on card with an added “YES”, “NO” and “FINISHED”. Naoki voices the phonetic characters of the Japanese hiragana alphabet as he touches the corresponding Roman letters and builds…