Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1229 i The Week

Europe’s election: will it destroy the Tories? Two days after Theresa May announced that she’d be stepping down as Prime Minister on 7 June (see page 22), her party “suffered its worst election result since 1832”, said The Times. On a turnout of 37%, the Conservatives crashed to fifth place in the European elections, with only 9% of the vote, leaving them with four MEPs. Labour did not do much better: it came third overall on 14%, but slumped to an unprecedented fifth place in Scotland (where the SNP came first). As voters cleaved to parties with clear Brexit policies, the “winner on the night” was Nigel Farage’s four-month-old Brexit Party, which took 32% of the vote, and 29 seats, while second place went to the Lib Dems (20%), with…

In a diplomatic blow to the UK, the UN general assembly has passed a resolution demanding that control of the Chagos Islands, currently a British overseas territory, be returned to Mauritius. In a non-binding vote, 116 states voted in favour, and six voted against (including the US, which, like the UK, has a military base on the islands). France and Germany were among 56 countries to abstain. Mauritius says it was forced to give up the islands in 1965 in order to gain independence. Their population was then evacuated. Despite the vote, and a ruling by the International Court of Justice in February that the UK should return the islands “as rapidly as possible”, the Foreign Office said the UK would only do so when they were no longer required…

Washington DC New charges against Assange: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged in the US with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act – and faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited from the UK and convicted (see page 14). He had already been charged with attempting to hack a Pentagon computer system, and of conspiring with the ex-US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal classified information. It’s the first time anyone working in a journalistic capacity has been charged under the Act, and critics have described the charge as a worrying attack on press freedom and First Amendment rights: holding governments to account by soliciting and publishing their secrets is part of investigative journalism. Assange is currently serving a 50-week jail term in Britain for…

“I have little truck with this term ‘populism’; it’s ill-defined and overused, and in recent years has been weaponised in one single political direction. It is used to take out any and all expressions of popular opinion that incline to regulated borders over open borders, strict immigration policies over lax immigration polices, and national self-determination over supranational governance. In fact, President Macron is the closest Europe comes to a ‘populist’ leader in the usually agreed-upon definition – a one-man force, claiming to be the only intermediary between the public and chaos. But nobody calls him that, because his views all tend in the ‘right’ direction.” Douglas Murray on UnHerd…

A Trumped-up charge against Julian Assange Alan Rusbridger The Observer Whenever journalists are accused of harming national security, says Alan Rusbridger, “massive alarm bells should start ringing”. And they should ring especially loudly at the news that the Trump administration is using the Espionage Act against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange – an act passed by the US in the First World War to clamp down on enemy agents. Assange is no paragon: as editor of The Guardian, I worked with him to publish all those classified US documents, and found him “mercurial, untrustworthy and dislikeable”. I also deplored his release of unredacted material. But it’s wrong to accuse him of espionage. His exposure of official wrongdoing was clearly in the public interest. To take one example – a released…

Air pollution affects every organ Airborne pollution is likely to be damaging “every organ and virtually every cell in the human body”, according to a major new review of the evidence. Nine out of ten people across the world are thought to breathe in polluted air every day. While it’s well known that this causes damage to the lungs and airways, the authors of the report say there is “compelling evidence” that the harm is far more extensive and that pollution plays a part in every condition – from dementia and diabetes to brittle bones. The problem is the fine particulate matter that is released into the air when fossil fuels are burnt. These particles are so small they can pass from the lungs to the bloodstream, which can then…

“It hurt to watch,” said Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. “You could see in her face the battle she was fighting” – to keep her composure and go out, despite all, with her head held high. “Sadly, it was yet another battle that Theresa May just couldn’t win.” Outside No. 10 last week, she managed to keep her emotions in check for six minutes, but as she reached the closing lines of her resignation speech, and spoke of leaving the job that “it has been the honour of my life to hold”, her voice cracked. Her features crumpled and “the most resilient person in politics” – the woman they called the Maybot – “turned on her heels and retreated into No. 10”, not humming like David Cameron had done…

“The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.” Adage, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Everybody wants to hurry.” The Queen, on being introduced to a Sainsbury’s self-service checkout, quoted in The Sunday Times “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” H.L. Mencken, quoted on Global News “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” George Eliot, quoted in the I newspaper “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.” Bob Hope, quoted in The New Zealand Herald “Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.” H.H. Asquith,…

Theresa May’s dignity To The Times Of all the departing speeches of recent prime ministers outside the door in Downing Street, there has never been one so distressing to watch as Theresa May’s. Nor, indeed, has there been a premiership in modern times that has been so distressing to behold. After a prolonged honeymoon in her first ten months, her entire premiership pivoted on the general election she called in June 2017. Before it, she could do little or no wrong: after it, she could do nothing right. The circling vultures are already descending to pick apart her every flaw and poor decision. But I hope we never forget her extraordinary resilience and courage in her search, ultimately joyless and at great personal cost, to find a way forward on…

Although best remembered for his paintings, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was at heart a draughtsman, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Drawing was “his way of thinking”, a conduit for his boundless creativity and restless imagination, and his surviving sketches are the best testament we have to the “sheer power” and “pure wonder” of his ideas. On his death, these drawings were gathered into albums, the most spectacular of which – a volume containing some 600 sheets of paper – was acquired by Charles II and remains in the Royal Collection to this day. To mark the 500th anniversary of the master’s death, the Queen’s Gallery has mounted an exhibition showcasing the highlights of this priceless trove, and the result is “riveting”. The show contains some 200 sheets in all,…

Best books… Antony Beevor The bestselling author of Stalingrad picks six of his favourite books. His latest book, Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944, was recently published in paperback by Viking at £8.99 Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, 1980 (Vintage £10.99). Although the book is a homage to War and Peace, the terrible dilemmas that Grossman’s characters face are recognisably Stalinist. While researching Stalingrad, I found his notes written during that battle. His eye for detail was extraordinary, and many of his vignettes reappear in the novel. The Red and the Black by Stendhal, 1830 (Penguin £9.99). I first read Stendhal’s novel of love, ambition and romantic tragedy 45 years ago. Julien Sorel is a fascinating doomed hero, a thrusting meritocrat brought down in 1830 by the reactionary…

In a contest for the Iberian peninsula’s greatest white grape variety, Galicia’s albariño (or alvarinho in Portugal) is definitely up there, says David Williams in The Observer. Try some of these. Pazo de Señorans Albariño, Rías Baixas, Spain 2017 (£19.95; HenningsWine.co.uk) is a “textbook combination of breeziness and fleshiness with a shellfish-ready citrus-and-mineral edge”. The Pazo Señorans Selección de Añada Albariño 2007 (£39.50; The Wine Society) is still more “magnificently minerally, spicy and herbal-honeyed”. In Portugal, alvarinho is used as a blending component in the light whites of vinho verde, but is also made as a single-varietal, such as the graceful, subtly floral Casa de Vila Nova Alvarinho, Minho, Portugal 2018 (£9.69; RannochScott.co.uk). You can now find some great albariños in Uruguay, California, Australia and New Zealand. Te Awa Left…

Monkey Island Estate Bray, Berkshire Set in seven acres of gardens on a private island on the River Thames, this hotel occupies a Palladian fishing retreat built in the 18th century for the third Duke of Marlborough. Recently reopened following a three-year refurbishment, it offers “a perfect blend of luxury and informality”, says Tony Turnbull in The Times. It’s also just a short hop by private boat from Bray’s two Michelin three-star restaurants, The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn. Its own brasserie is “relaxed” and “affordable” by comparison, its bedrooms “small but luxurious”. There is an indoor pool and a floating spa. Doubles from £275. 01628-623400, monkeyislandestate.co.uk.…

Judith Kerr 1923-2019 One of Britain’s most beloved children’s writers and illustrators, Judith Kerr, who has died aged 95, produced her first book when she was in her 40s. After a dull afternoon with her children, when they’d longed for a surprise visitor to liven things up, she came up with a story about Sophie and her mother, who are sitting in their suburban kitchen one afternoon when a tiger rings the doorbell and asks if he can come in for tea. Saying almost nothing, but with an enigmatic smile on his face, he eats all the food in the kitchen and drinks all the water in the tap, before leaving just as mysteriously as he came. A simple but strangely powerful story, vividly illustrated, The Tiger Who Came to…

It was another lively week in markets as traders reacted to renewed fears of slowing global growth, fanned by persistent trade tensions between the US and China. US Treasury yields dropped to their lowest level since 2017 as investors rushed into comparative safe havens. Rates on longer-term bonds fell below shorter-term ones – a “yield curve inversion” widely seen as heralding an imminent economic downturn. The fears pushed the oil price down to a two-month low of $67/barrel. China ratcheted up the tension again this week by threatening to use “rare earth” minerals – vital for many high-tech US industries – as leverage in the trade war. European stocks rallied on Monday on relief that Eurosceptic parties hadn’t advanced as expected in EU elections. In Britain, political uncertainty ahead of…

The Meyohas clan On the day Greybull Capital bought British Steel for £1 in April 2016, the New York artist Sarah Meyohas took to Instagram to boast how her brothers, Marc and Nathaniel, had become “great steel sculptors”. The post “has not aged well”, said The Sunday Times. And now both Greybull’s record and the “trappings” of the family’s “luxury lifestyle” are under scrutiny. The brothers, who co-founded the “discreet” Knightsbridgebased firm in 2010, have private equity in their blood: their father, Nathan, made a fortune in the business. Their artistic sister has also made markets her medium. A “controversial” 2016 project involved buying several small, “thinly traded” stocks and painting their price movements. Meyohas reportedly lost her account with broker Charles Schwab “for market manipulation”, but nonetheless sold the…

“Theresa May has announced her departure, but Gareth Bale is refusing to go,” says Michael Skapinker in the FT. The once-formidable Welsh striker has been left “on the bench” at Real Madrid, but is reportedly hanging on until the club pays him for the three years left on his contract, or another club matches his s18m annual salary. “The sums may be smaller, but standoffs like Bale’s” are quite common. Here’s how to deal with them: Analyse the problem “Japanese companies have traditionally given unwanted employees a desk by the window with nothing to do.” More usually, “a colleague is given your responsibilities” or “your department is reorganised, leaving you out”. Common sense tells you to quit – “hanging around unwanted is mentally debilitating” – but there may be financial…

Ita O’Brien is sitting in an office chair, her hands resting on its arms, leaning slightly forward, her expression rapt and panting like a dog. “Huh, huh, huh! OK, now you’ve got the wild cats,” she cries, beginning to wiggle while softly wailing. “Eeh, oowah, ooow. OK. And now let’s gently allow that to become human.” O’Brien exhales, one could say orgasmically. “Er, aah.” O’Brien is a pioneer, Britain’s first intimacy coordinator, a woman who choreographs sex scenes and – through exercises such as the animal ones she is demonstrating – teaches actors how to be comfortable rolling about virtually naked, apparently in the throes of sexual ecstasy, in front of a film crew. Some scoff at her job title, seeing her as a kind of Mary Whitehouse product of…

Controversy of the week The end of British Steel The “huge slabs of steel, glowing orange with heat” at the steel plant at Scunthorpe could end up as anything from paper clips to tracks for Network Rail, said Rob Davies in The Observer. To see them flow seamlessly by is to see “British manufacturing prowess at its most visually stunning”. Or it was. Last week, British Steel, which runs Scunthorpe and a few smaller plants in the north of England, went into liquidation. Greybull Capital, the private equity group that bought the company for £1 in 2016, had pleaded with the Government for a £30m loan on top of the £100m it had borrowed in April. The Government refused, saying that under EU rules it would be unlawful state aid.…

28% of Britons think Donald Trump is either an average, good or great president. 64% think he is a poor or terrible president. 40% think the British Government should try to work with Trump, while 41% think it should be trying to distance itself from him. YouGov A third of ethnic minority employees say they’ve been asked to adopt a “Western work name” by their boss. Three in five were worried their careers would suffer if they declined. Slater and Gordon/ The Guardian 54% of Britons think the Tory leadership contest should be immediately followed by a general election. 36% disagree, and 11% are unsure. Sky Data/Sky News…

An Anglophile Eurocrat Brexiters might be surprised to learn that Guy Verhofstadt – the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator – is an Anglophile, whose prize possession is a 1954 Aston Martin. But like many European politicians of his age, the former Belgian prime minister, 66, is also deeply attached to the European project, says Tim Adams in The Observer. He was brought up by parents who’d emerged from Nazi occupation determined that nationalism would never engulf the Continent again, and liberal politics was the bread and butter of their family life. “From as early as I can remember, we spoke about politics all the time,” he says. “We spoke about the Vietnam War, about the murders of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy...”. His own political rise was meteoric. “Completely…

Police in Connecticut struck a deal with a suspect that he would turn himself in if his picture received 15,000 “likes” on a social media wanted page. “It will be difficult, but is doable,” said the department. In fact, it took them only two days to get more than 20,000 likes. But Jose Simms, 29, reneged on the deal, and remains on the run. A Chinese car dealer accepted part payment for a Volkswagen Passat in cash – in the form of 130,000 coins worth more than £15,000. The firm’s 16 staff spent three days counting them all. The customer was said to be a food vendor whose own business was cash-based. A woman in America who found a large cat trapped in her fence and “screaming its head off”…

UNITED STATES Is student debt a barrier to social mobility? Vox (New York) I’m not really a fan of big donations to elite universities, says Dylan Matthews. When tech billionaire Robert F. Smith gave $50m to his alma mater Cornell a few years back, I felt he was just throwing money at an already wealthy institution (Cornell has a $7.2bn endowment). But Smith’s recent pledge to pay off the loans of an entire graduating class of Morehouse College is another matter. For one thing, Morehouse is a far more deserving recipient than Cornell. An all-male, historically black college in Atlanta, it takes in a lot of poor students and has a modest endowment of $140m. A less obvious reason, however, is that it provides a fascinating way to test the…

Bonobos – members of an ape species that lives in the Congo basin – are famous for their sex lives. One of the few animals to have sex purely for pleasure, they do it all the time, indiscriminately of age and gender, and in all sorts of positions: they’re the only non-human species to kiss with tongues or to have face-to-face sex. Sex serves a variety of functions for bonobos, from social bonding to conflict resolution. And in their matriarchal societies, it is a family affair. Females have often been observed helping their sons acquire dominant rank: pushing other males away if they interfere with their boys’ couplings or stopping unrelated males from mating by ganging up with their sons to chase them away from females. Now, having spent years…

Jonathan Aitken is enjoying his new role as a prison chaplain. “Occasionally I am greeted with a shout of ‘f**k off pie’,” he told The Times (“pie and liquor” being rhyming slang for vicar). But the former cabinet minister usually wins the inmates around, by explaining that he is an old lag himself. “In Pentonville, being an Old Belmarshian earns far more kudos than being an Old Etonian,” he says. The Spice Girls have invited Theresa May to one of their concerts to cheer her up. The PM is said to be “considering” the invitation. If she attends, she’d be only the latest feather in the girl group’s hat. In the 1990s, they were introduced to Nelson Mandela. Asked how he felt about the meeting, the anti-apartheid movement hero smiled…

Football: the Premier League’s new arrivals The Champions League final, this Saturday, may be the game every club dreams of winning, said Joe Bernstein in the Daily Mail. But the match with the greatest financial consequences, worth at least £170m to the winner, is a less celebrated occasion: the Championship play-off final. The top two teams in the Championship, Norwich City and Sheffield United, had already secured promotion to the Premier League. And at Wembley on Monday, Aston Villa and Derby faced off to determine who would follow them there. In the end, Villa proved too strong: they beat Derby 2-1, earning a return to the Premier League after a three-year absence. No one would have put money on them last summer, when they were staring down bankruptcy. But hiring…

To The Guardian Sadly, The Guardian, along with other newspapers, has demonstrated in John Crace’s article that it does not understand the gender issues that so damage our society. No male prime minister would be nicknamed a robot for being single-minded and resilient. They would just be admired. But a woman who does not cry? She is a threat to the grey suits. “She should have cried more,” they shouted. When at last she resigned and was emotional for a moment – every newspaper took the opportunity to find a picture of those tiny tearful seconds to slam on their front pages. At last she could be labelled as a weak and emotional woman. The grey-suited Tories win in the end and many others seem to enjoy the spectacle. Allan…

Enrique Martínez Celaya at Blain|Southern At first glance, you would be hard-pushed to pin a date on the paintings of Cuban-born, California-based artist Enrique Martínez Celaya (b.1964). Deeply informed by his love of literature – he cites Borges and Tolstoy as particular influences – they depict recognisable imagery in a style that owes much to romanticism, symbolism and early surrealism. Yet the uncanny seascapes in this show – called The Mariner’s Meadow – contain references to contemporary geopolitics and ecological concerns: in one canvas, a young girl in a swimsuit poses like a conquering hero over the corpse of a dolphin, the sky a subtropical pastiche of Caspar David Friedrich; another has a rowing boat on the point of capsizing in a storm-tossed sea, prompting us to wonder whether the…

Camilla arrives to fetch Freddie, and pours bile on everyone. Freddie says goodbye to Shula, who persuades him to come and live with her, not Camilla. Shula and Freddie explain the change of plan. Camilla continues with her hurtful tirade, so Freddie asks her to leave. Jill offers to give Kenton the money to pay David, but he won’t accept it. Tom tells Roy he’s finding Natasha’s lack of contact torturous. Roy assures him they’re a great match. Leonard tells Kenton that his feud with David is making Jill miserable. Reluctantly, Kenton pays David back. He doesn’t admit that it is Jill’s money. David’s still cross at how long it’s taken to repay him. Tom’s stunned when Natasha appears for the meeting with the web designer, Leo. They pore over…

James St 21 James Street South, Belfast (028-9560 0700) Sometimes it’s the waiting staff that make or break a dining experience, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. At James St, a well-regarded Belfast bar and grill, two waiters gave me a distinctly underwhelming welcome, offered me water but then didn’t bring any for ten minutes, and then brought the wrong wine and seemed mildly annoyed at being asked to change it. But then – whoosh! – all change. Another waiter took over who could not have been more charming or efficient. And when the food arrived, the earlier trickiness “recedes into a distant memory”. My Dundrum crab and chilli linguine was silky, comforting and creamy; three different cuts of “fantastic” rare Oxford Sandy – more “steak pink than porcine…

Hiking with a donkey in Spain Children’s moaning can ruin family hiking holidays, but a Spanish tour operator has a solution, says Sophie Raworth in The Daily Telegraph. On an Away from the Crowds’ self-guided walking trip in the spectacular Guadarrama mountains north of Madrid, you are furnished not only with maps, detailed route instructions, “charming” b&b accommodation and daily transport for your luggage – but also a donkey. The tasks of riding it, caring for it and tempting it along the way are all so absorbing that kids will hardly notice the miles go by (ten or so a day) – and, as a result, are far more likely to appreciate the “huge” mountain vistas and pretty hamlets you’ll see along the way. A trip to the walled city…

Niki Lauda 1949-2019 Niki Lauda, who has died aged 70, was a three-time Formula One world champion, a pilot and a successful businessman. But he was best known for his remarkable comeback from a devastating crash at the German Grand Prix in 1976, said The Daily Telegraph. Racing was a far more hazardous sport then; Lauda had been so alarmed by the Nürburgring circuit, which twists for 14 miles through the Eifel mountains, that he had called for a boycott – arguing that if a driver crashed, the ambulances would never get to them in time. His fellow drivers demurred. The race went ahead, but Lauda’s fears proved justified. He lost control of his Ferrari on the second lap. It smashed through a barrier, hit an embankment and, ricocheting back…

The proposed s32.6bn merger between Fiat Chrysler and Renault, announced last weekend, has the power to reshape the global motor industry, said DealBook in The New York Times. As well as easing the impasse at Renault/Nissan following the arrest of chairman Carlos Ghosn, it could help both parties “survive the shift to electric and self-driving cars”. A true merger of equals (shareholders of each company would own 50% of the combined business), this deal would create the third-largest carmaker in the world, behind Volkswagen and Toyota, with a large presence in North America as well as Europe and Latin America. But there are big questions. Neither firm has “yet mentioned layoffs”, guaranteed not to go down well in Italy or France; and “mergers of equals often turn into ugly power…

SAVE 30% on our Book of the Month My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure by Alastair Humphreys Inspired by the Laurie Lee book As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, seasoned adventurer Alastair Humphreys pushes himself to his very limits - busking his way across Spain with a violin he can barely play. Laurie left the village he grew up in and embarked on his adventure in 1935, and for for 15 years Humphreys has dreamed of retracing his footsteps - but could never get past the hurdle of being distinctly unmusical. He decided to go anyway. The journey was his most terrifying yet, risking failure and humiliation every day, and finding himself truly vulnerable to the rhythms of the road and of his own life. But along…

Google is among the firms hosting “mindful knitting” workshops to help its overstimulated employees relax. Heart Knit, a US company offering the “medknitations”, says that while knitting used to be about making a scarf or jumper, today it’s more about the journey than the destination. “There’s not a right or wrong way to knit,” an instructor recently told a group from Google. “Just try to find your rhythm.” The number of flights operating in British airspace is estimated to have hit a record daily high last week, partly thanks to private jets heading to the Monaco GP and away from the Cannes Festival. A reported 9,000 planes were in the air on Friday, which was also the start of both half term and a bank holiday weekend.…

Berlin Skullcap warning: Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner has warned the country’s 200,000 Jews that they might not be safe if they wear the traditional kippa (skullcap) in certain parts of the country. Felix Klein, who was appointed to the newly created post last year, said he would no longer encourage Jews to identify themselves in public, owing to a rise in hate crimes that he put down to the “increasing disinhibition and brutalisation” of German society. Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president, said Klein’s warning was a shocking “capitulation to anti-Semitism” and an admission that Jews are “again, not safe on German soil”. However, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said he welcomed the official recognition of the gravity of the problem. There was a 20% rise…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured illusionist and mentalist Derren Brown 1 Gloria RV 589 by Vivaldi, performed by George Guest with The Wren Orchestra and the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge 2* Goldberg Variations by Bach, performed by Murray Perahia 3 Piano Concerto No. 9 by Mozart, performed by Theodor Guschlbauer with the Gulbenkian Orchestra 4 Erbarme dich by Bach, performed by Stephen Cleobury with Michael Chance and the Brandenburg Consort 5 Cello Suite No.1 by Bach, performed by Steven Isserlis 6 Morgen! by Richard Strauss, performed by Neeme Järvi with Felicity Lott and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra 7 Dinner at Eight, written and performed by Rufus Wainwright 8 The Luckiest, written and performed by Ben Folds Book: The Collected Works of C.G.…

The weather forecast for D-Day was perhaps the most important ever made. A team of meteorologists, led by Group Captain James Stagg of the RAF, was tasked with identifying the dates when the conditions at Normandy would be optimal for landing. The key requirement, as one of them recalled, was that it had to be “a quiet day with not more than moderate winds and seas and not too much cloud for the airmen, to be followed by three more quiet days”. But there also had to be a full moon, to provide light for the aircraft pilots and paratroopers. Stagg’s team came up with four suitable dates in June, and the planners chose 5 June. Days before the invasion was to begin, however, Stagg warned that the weather was…

ITALY Turning tragedy into tasteless art Neue Zürcher Zeitung To turn the tragedy of refugees drowned at sea into an artwork is tasteless exhibitionism, says Philipp Meier. But that’s what we have to put up with at this year’s Venice Biennale, where one of the main exhibits is the wreck of a trawler that sank off Libya in April 2015. At least 700 migrants died; only 28 were saved. The 90ft vessel was salvaged on the orders of Matteo Renzi, then Italy’s PM. But when the Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel heard about it, he asked local politicians in Sicily, where it will eventually be erected as a memorial, if he could borrow it for artistic purposes and have it transported to Venice. The politicians – perhaps knowing it would irritate…

A 2,300-year-old shield made of painted tree bark has been discovered in Leicestershire. Most surviving shields from that period are made from metal and weigh about 3kg; some wooden ones have endured and would have weighed about 2kg. But being made of bark, this newly discovered shield – the first of its kind found in Europe and dating from about 300BC – would have been ultralight, at only 0.6kg. A fighter armed with such a shield would be very agile, but as bark is a flimsy material, the shield was initially presumed to have been purely ceremonial. However, further research has revealed that the Iron Age manufacturers had toughened it, by bending and tightening the bark as it dried, and then stiffening it with internal laths. It seems to have…

Everest: a deadly traffic jam at the summit We think of the world’s tallest mountaintops as “bleak, lonely” places, said The News International (Karachi). But a photo taken last week highlights the fact that this certainly doesn’t apply to the tallest of them all. Everest is positively overcrowded. Taken by the climber and former British special forces soldier Nirmal Purja, the photo shows scores of climbers queuing for the summit, as if for a Black Friday sale, and it has drawn attention to the shocking danger this overcrowding poses to climbers. This season, at least 11 have lost their lives, some while waiting to ascend or descend from the summit. Several climbers have described the horror of having to step over dead bodies. Crowds on Everest are inevitable, said…

Tennis is increasingly a tall man’s game, said Charlie Eccleshare in The Sunday Telegraph. When players were ranked for the first time, half a century ago, “the average height of the world’s top 20 was a mere 5ft 9in”. Today, it stands at 6ft 3in. Seven of the players in the top 20 are at least 6ft 6in – while only three are shorter than 6ft. Gastón Gaudio, the winner of the 2004 French Open, was the last man shorter than 6ft to pick up a Grand Slam, a feat that looks unlikely ever to be repeated. And while none of the giants have won a Grand Slam so far – Kevin Anderson (6ft 8in) has come closest, with his appearances in two finals – “it appears only a matter…

“So often festival juries get things wrong,” said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, but that decidedly was not the case at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which ended last week. The Palme d’Or rightly went to Parasite, a gripping fable about the class divide that made its director, Bong Joonho, the first Korean to win Cannes’ top prize. And the winner of the Grand Prix was the first film by a black female director even to be selected to run in the competition. Mati Diop’s Atlantique is a “passionate, poetic” arthouse about migration and inequality – and another worthy winner. There was success for British talent too, said Andrew Pulver in the same paper. Emily Beecham won the best actress award for the sci-fi parable Little Joe, making her the…

Banksy has stolen the show at the Venice Biennale, says Barry Samaha on Surface. The elusive artist briefly unveiled his own unofficial installation, entitled Venice in Oil, on the banks of the Grand Canal, filming the results for a video now on his Instagram channel. In the short film – a commentary on the ruinous impact of tourism – a figure sets up a tatty stall flogging artworks to tourists. And when the paintings are seen as a composite, they reveal the image of a giant cruise liner dwarfing the gondoliers below. As police move the artist along, a final shot cuts away to show a real-life cruise ship floating past along the city’s iconic waterway. With three million views in five days, far more than the Biennale’s official posts,…

Programmes Inspector Montalbano The Sicilian detective returns to solve more murders. Sat 1 Jun, BBC4 21:00 (105mins). Storyville: The Raft Absorbing documentary about a bizarre anthropological experiment conducted in 1973, in which ten strangers were set adrift aboard a raft in the Atlantic. The film features footage of the voyage and reunites some of the crew. Sun 2 Jun, BBC4 21:00 (100mins). Her Majesty’s Cavalry Six-part series following the oldest regiment of the British Army, the Household Cavalry, and examining what life in the Army is like for the soldiers, from new recruits to top brass. Tue 4 Jun, ITV1 20:30 (30mins). 63 Up The latest instalment of the documentary series that has followed a group of British children every seven years since 1964. Tue 4-Thur 6 Jun, ITV1 21:00…

Garlicky courgettes with lemon and Aleppo pepper 4 large courgettes, quartered lengthways and cut into wedges 3 tbsps olive oil 2 cloves of garlic, crushed salt and freshly ground black pepper To serve: 1 lemon, cut into quarters 2 tsps Aleppo pepper flakes, or more to taste a little extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling • Fire up your barbecue ready for direct grilling, or heat up a griddle pan on the hob until it’s really hot, so you can chargrill the courgettes’ exterior without them becoming too soft and squishy in the middle. Once you are ready to cook, toss the courgettes in a bowl with the olive oil, garlic, and a little salt and pepper. • Lay the courgette wedges on the grill bars (or in the pan)…

2-night Windermere offer The Briery Wood Country House Hotel, set in seven acres of beautiful gardens, offers a 2-night stay from £145pp b&b, with dinner on the first night. 01904-717362, super break.com. Arrive 14 July. Gorgeous Naples stay Four nights at the idyllic 5-star Baglio Oneto Resort and Wines in Marsala cost from £537pp half-board, including London flights. 0871-474 3000, onthebeach.co.uk. Depart 30 June. Historical Turkey Located in Antalya’s quiet and romantic Kaleiçi, the Alp Pasa Hotel offers 5 nights all-inclusive from £425pp, including Manchester flights. 020-3897 1185, loveholidays.com. Depart 2 July. Relaxing Tunisia break Spend 7 nights half-board at the TUI Sensimar Oceana Resort and Spa in Hammamet. From £726pp, including Birmingham flights. 020-3636 1931, tui.co.uk. Depart 8 July.…

Arcadia: paradise lost? Can Philip Green save his high street retail empire? It’s not an idle question, said Jamie Robertson on BBC Business. Arcadia, whose assets include Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Evans, claims to be in serious trouble, facing what it calls “significant liquidity issues”. The group is seeking approval from creditors for a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) – an insolvency process allowing it to restructure and renegotiate rents. Some 50 outlets, including Miss Selfridge’s flagship Oxford Street store, face the chop. “No one disputes” that Arcadia, which is owned by Green’s Monaco-based wife, Tina, is “in poor shape”. Profits – £219m two years ago – are now only £30m. But some analysts reckon “the problems aren’t as severe as the group makes out”. Here come Sir Phil and…

Capitalists must stand up for capitalism Irwin Stelzer The Sunday Times American capitalism is “under threat”, says Irwin Stelzer. Not from Xi Jinping and his “alternative model”, but from within: over half of millennials, aged 23 to 38, would prefer to live in a socialist or communist nation. Given how the US economic system is rigged towards “them that’s got” – in everything from monetary policy to tax structure – you can’t exactly blame them. Modern capitalists have “a slightly better ear for tumbrils” than their predecessors. But most are just “virtue-signalling” while ducking the need for more basic reforms that might also “preserve the best of capitalism”. When a member of the Disney family rails at the “naked indecency” of the CEO’s $65m pay (“1,424 times” the median Disney…

● Great Wall Street? Could the next trade battle be Chinese access to Wall Street? There are certainly growing calls “for a weakening of China’s links to US markets”, said The New York Times, with some trade experts “urging the Trump administration to keep a hawkish stance”. A group of senators wants to “increase disclosure requirements” for US-listed Chinese companies if they pose national security risks or are complicit in human rights abuses. And Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has also joined the fray – claiming that the NYSE and Nasdaq are “breaching their fiduciary responsibility to institutional investors” by allowing opaque Chinese companies to list. ● The nuclear option For now, companies from China are still welcome on Wall Street: Luckin Coffee, a Chinese rival to Starbucks, “surged…