Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1235 i The Week

What happened The Darroch leaks Britain’s ambassador to the US resigned this week after leaked memos in which he criticised the Trump White House sparked a transatlantic row. In confidential telegrams sent to senior politicians and civil servants, and leaked to The Mail on Sunday, Sir Kim Darroch had written: “We don’t really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.” Donald Trump responded furiously, taking to Twitter to declare that Darroch was “not well thought of”, and that “we will no longer deal with him”. He also ridiculed Theresa May’s handling of Brexit. The following day he renewed his attack on the ambassador, calling him “wacky”, “stupid” and a “pompous fool”. Downing Street stated that…

The House of Commons voted for the legalisation of both gay marriage and abortion in Northern Ireland this week, despite concerns about Westminster taking control over supposedly devolved issues. MPs voted by 383 to 73 to extend same-sex marriage rights, and by 332 to 99 on abortion rights. Although the Government has long argued that the issues are matters for the Northern Ireland Assembly, MPs said that with the assembly suspended since 2017, they had to act. The amendments to the Northern Ireland bill mean that the Government must enact the new law if devolution is not restored within three months – but whenever the assembly does reconvene, it will have the power to overturn it.…

Anchorage, Alaska Baked Alaska: The US state of Alaska, part of which lies within the Arctic Circle, has been gripped by a heatwave that has shattered records in several of its cities. In the state’s largest city, Anchorage, temperatures hit 32.2°C (90°F) last Thursday, five degrees Fahrenheit higher than its previous hottest temperature. However, the all-time statewide record of 100°F, set in Fort Yukon in 1915, remains intact. Alaska has experienced significantly warmer temperatures in recent years – something attributed in part to a decline in sea ice and the warming of the Arctic Ocean. Last month was the second warmest June on record; in May, thousands of puffins were found to have starved to death, the fish they eat having migrated north due to warmer sea temperatures. The current…

“Some days the news values feel all wrong. A man stows away in the wheel arch of a Kenya Airways plane, freezes to death during the flight from Nairobi and, when the wheels are lowered, falls 3,500ft into a back garden in southwest London. You’d have thought the story here was who the stowaway was, and why he embarked on such a desperate journey. And yet the way it was reported, the main issue was the distress caused to the person in whose garden he’d fallen. For it wasn’t just any garden, it was a garden of a house worth £2m, and its owner, whose sunbathing was disturbed, was an Oxford graduate. The message to other stowaways is clear: if you’re going to be inconsiderate enough to die in transit,…

Robbing theatre of the power to shock Jawad Iqbal The Times Please beware. There may be nudity. Or loud noises. Or cigarette smoking. Theatre productions issue all sorts of health warnings to ticket buyers these days, says Jawad Iqbal. But London’s Donmar Warehouse has gone a step further: it is protecting audiences from any possible distress by giving detailed information in advance about scenes that may be emotionally challenging. Of its play Europe, written by David Greig, it had this to say on its website: “In the first half of the play, a man repeatedly places his hand on a woman’s leg, to her discomfort. In the second half, a man beats up another man due to his status as a migrant. A man describes a violent attack on a…

Europe’s giant flightless bird When early humans first arrived in Europe from Africa, they may have been confronted by giant birds, three times as heavy as a modern-day ostrich. Researchers excavating a cave on the Crimean peninsula discovered a 40cm-long femur (thigh bone) last summer that they have now established belonged to a previously undiscovered species of flightless bird that was 3.5m tall and weighed about 450kg. “We think of [giant birds] in Madagascar, New Zealand and Australia, but this is very solid evidence that they were also in the European region,” said Dr Helen James of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, who wasn’t involved in the study. Based on similarities to other animal remains found near by (including sabre-toothed cats and giant cheetahs), the scientists…

EU leaders: jobs for the boys (and girls) After nearly 50 hours of negotiations, EU leaders emerged bleary-eyed last week, to announce that they had finally agreed their nominations for Brussels’s top jobs. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s defence minister and a close ally of Angela Merkel, was tapped to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission; Belgium’s PM, Charles Michel, will take over from Donald Tusk as president of the European Council; Spain’s Josep Borrell will head up foreign affairs; and at the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde – the head of the IMF, and a former French finance minister – will replace Mario Draghi. These appointments must be approved by the European Parliament (EP), and it’s possible Von der Leyen’s will not be; but assuming…

“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin, quoted in The Times “Elegance loses its power in the presence of the properly stupid.” Zoë Heller, quoted in The Independent “You never love your children more than when they’re unconscious, but still breathing.” Michael McIntyre, quoted in The Sunday Times “Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.” Doris Lessing, quoted on TheBrowser.com “Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.” Harper Lee, quoted on Huff Post “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” American aviator Amelia Earhart, quoted in the LA Times “Every hero becomes a bore at last.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted on Politico.com “History never repeats itself. Man always does.”…

Football Frank Lampard left Derby to become Chelsea manager. Spain midfielder Rodri joined Man City from Atlético Madrid for a club-record £62.8m. Leicester signed Belgium midfielder Youri Tielemans, who played for them on loan last season, from Monaco for £40m, also a club record. Brazil beat Peru 3-1 to win the Copa América. Wimbledon In the quarterfinals, Johanna Konta was beaten in straight sets by the Czech player Barbora Strýcová. Ashleigh Barty, the world No. 1, was knocked out in the fourth round by Alison Riske.…

Programmes Atlanta The second series of Donald Glover’s award-winning drama about a Princeton dropout who tries to manage his cousin Paper Boi’s rap career. Sat 13 July, BBC2 22:00 (55mins). Louis Theroux: Surviving America’s Most Hated Family Thirteen years after his first meeting with them, Theroux returns to Kansas to visit the members of the Westboro Baptist Church – a group known for their fierce anti-gay rhetoric. Sun 14 July, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Poldark Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson return for the fifth and final series of the costume drama. Sun 14 July, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). The Day We Walked on the Moon Mark Strong narrates the dramatic story of the Apollo 11 mission, which took place 50 years ago this month. Tue 16 July, ITV 21:00 (60mins). Chasing the…

Darby’s 3 Viaduct Gardens, London SW11 (020-7537 3111) Darby’s in Vauxhall is a cracking place to have up your sleeve, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. Big groups of friends, client dinners, date nights, whatever: everyone will surely like this high-ceilinged “Irish-American eating palace”, which serves a “fine yet wholly unbefuddling menu” in classy but relaxed surroundings. It was recently opened by Robin and Sarah Gill, known for The Dairy and Sorella in nearby Clapham, and “well-respected among food types for genuine, heartfelt, hard-earned reasons”. But while The Dairy is “fancy-modern” and Sorella is “tipsy-Italian”, Darby’s is a “culinary bear hug” of upmarket comfort food (and named after Robin’s father, the late Irish jazz musician Earl Darby Gill). Come here for Dooncastle oysters and Guinness; lobster brioche roll with…

Secluded Darlington stay A 2-night shepherd’s hut getaway at The Hut B&B is from £140pp (based on two sharing), with a hearty hamper breakfast service included. 01325-374259, thehutbandb.co.uk. Arrive 16 August. Baroque Venice hotel Stay at the 5-star Hotel Villa Condulmer for 3 nights with breakfast and dinner from £368pp. Bristol flights included. 020-3897 1185, loveholidays.com. Depart 17 August. 7 nights in Greece Close to Mount Athos, the Alexandros Palace Hotel and Suites has a half-board stay from £328pp. Manchester flights included. 020-3598 4710, superescapes.co.uk. Depart 4 October. 5-star Dubai break Spend 5 nights at the incredible W Dubai – The Palm Luxury Stay hotel, half-board from £729pp. London flights incl. 0800-368 5017, affordableluxurytravel.co.uk. Depart 2 September.…

High street bookies: terminal decline? William Hill is to close 700 betting shops across Britain, putting 4,500 jobs at risk and “dealing a fresh blow” to the nation’s “already reeling” high streets, said the Financial Times. The FTSE 250 bookmaker blames the Government for slashing the maximum stake allowed on fixed-odds betting terminals” (FOBTs) from £100 to £2, said James Ashton in The Sunday Telegraph. And it isn’t crying wolf. The move has wrought “a £100m hole in revenues” and rung a death knell for “unviable sites”. This is an industry-wide problem, said The Observer. Ladbrokes Coral’s owner, GVC, and Betfred are also retrenching. But it’s disingenuous to pin the blame entirely on FOBT restrictions. The bookies’ high street revenues “have been in long-term decline” anyway – owing mainly…

The EU’s spat with Switzerland Jeremy Warner The Sunday Telegraph Nigel Farage has warned Brussels of dire consequences if the EU employs the same “bully boy tactics” it is using against Switzerland on Britain, says Jeremy Warner. And actually that’s a fair description of Brussels’s behaviour in the latest row over “equivalence status”. The EU’s “bizarre decision” to withdraw the status from the Zurich stock exchange, stopping EU-domiciled platforms from trading Swiss shares, is ostensibly because the Swiss have refused to sign a new partnership deal. But it “was intended as a warning to the UK” in the event of a no deal. Some think that Switzerland is “sympathetic” to Brexit. In fact, its top brass are “extremely angry” about it. Hitherto, Switzerland’s “cake and eat it” approach with the…

● Last orders, please! Banks face a “last-minute flurry of claims” ahead of the 29 August deadline when an amnesty will at last be declared on claiming compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance, said Lex in the FT. For them, it can’t come fast enough. “So far, £35bn has been paid out”, ranking the PPI scandal “among the costliest for Britain’s banks”. Lloyds alone has coughed up £20bn – “roughly two-thirds more” than it has “paid in dividend and buybacks over the past five years”. Since the drive for “juicy” PPI profits helped fuel the credit boom that exploded in 2007, it’s only fair that the banks should now have to shell out. The PPI payouts – equivalent to about a tenth of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme…

Controversy of the week Corbyn’s contortions There were no chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” at Glastonbury this summer, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. And no wonder: he has led Labour to the “brink of collapse”; its support is haemorrhaging at an alarming rate. An opinion poll last week put Labour in fourth place on only 18% – behind the Conservatives on 24%, the Brexit Party on 23% and the Lib Dems on 20% – its lowest rating since the dark days of Gordon Brown’s premiership in 2009. One major problem – highlighted in a Panorama documentary on Wednesday – is the rampant anti-Semitism of so many party members. Three Labour peers resigned this week in protest at Corbyn’s abysmal failure to confront this “sickening” behaviour. But the key…

According to a BMG survey for The Independent, 19% of voters are satisfied with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, while 61% are dissatisfied. Asked their opinion of Boris Johnson, 29% said it was positive, and 47% negative. A ComRes analysis for The Daily Telegraph found that Johnson would deliver a 40-seat majority if he was leader and a general election was held soon after. A third of those intending to vote for the Brexit Party say they would vote Tory if he became the party’s leader. Half of parents with children of school age are worried that their offspring are becoming addicted to computer games. Children aged 11 to 13 spend on average two hours and 30 minutes gaming on a typical weekday. The Times/Internet Matters…

David Hare on bed-blocking As a playwright who is still in demand at 72, David Hare knows he risks being a “bed blocker”, stopping young writers emerging. But he is not the only problem. It’s also that “people aren’t allowed to start young enough”, he told Ben Lawrence in The Daily Telegraph. “I was literary manager of the Royal Court at 21, Peter Brook was running the Royal Opera House at 25 and Peter Hall formed the RSC at 27. Now, if someone gets a production on at a major theatre at the age of 30, they are thought of as a high-flyer.” He assumed his generation would burn out, in the way the previous one did; but somehow they have kept going, perhaps because the focus of their work…

Two of Japan’s largest car-hire firms have discovered that an eighth of the vehicles they rent out don’t actually go anywhere. In a survey, customers admitted to booking the cars – which can be hired for as little as £2.95 for half an hour – in order to have somewhere to take a nap, watch TV or meet friends. One customer needed a place to store his luggage; another said he just wanted somewhere to eat his lunch in peace. Staff at an animal hospital in Aylesbury were surprised to receive a call about a bright orange bird seen in distress beside the A41. It turned out to be a herring gull that was unable to fly because its feathers had become covered in curry or turmeric. “We have no…

GERMANY If Merkel is sick we have a right to know Cicero (Berlin) Angela Merkel should come clean about her health, says Christoph Schwennicke. She was spotted trembling during a state visit by Ukraine’s president last month, but brushed it off as dehydration from the hot sun. It happened again eight days later during a ministerial appointment ceremony in air-conditioned rooms. A government spokesman insists there’s no cause for alarm and she’s “doing fine”. But is that really true? It’s starting to feel uncomfortably like the line the Russians used when downplaying images of a “confused and disoriented” Boris Yeltsin. Given how Merkel drives herself, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if she were ill. Days after the second incident she took a 12-hour flight to the G20 summit in…

An Arctic fox has astonished scientists by trekking from Norway’s Svalbard archipelago to Canada – a journey of 2,200 miles – in only 76 days. Having fitted the young female with a tracking device, researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute monitored it as it set off in March last year. It reached Greenland (having crossed 940 miles of sea ice) three weeks later, and got to Ellesmere Island, Canada, on 1 July. On average, it covered 28 miles a day, but while crossing northern Greenland, it travelled 96 miles in a single day. The fox’s progress was so rapid, they suspected at first that it was being carried by boat. “But no, there are no boats that go so far up in the ice,” said Eva Fuglei, part of the…

Paris Match ran a cover photograph this week of Carla Bruni nuzzling her husband Nicolas Sarkozy’s neck – which surprised readers, as at 5ft 9in, she is four inches taller than he is. The magazine explained that the couple had been photographed outside their house, with the ex-French president – who has just published a 360-page memoir – standing on a higher step than his wife. “At least he can now climb on top of his book when he wants to look taller,” observed one critic. Richard Burton made a habit of stealing books from Foyles. The actor would pay for one then pick up others, leaving the receipt for the first conspicuously displayed so that staff thought he’d paid for them all. When he boasted of his cunning to…

Women’s World Cup: another triumph for the US It’s almost as if each World Cup follows the same script, said Luke Edwards in The Daily Telegraph. Over the course of a month, in game after game, “22 women kick a ball around for 90 minutes” – and then, at the end of it, “the United States lift the trophy”. They did it in 1991, 1999 and 2015. And on Sunday, they did it again, beating the Netherlands 2-0 to win the World Cup for a record fourth time. There can be no doubt that the US are “worthy champions”: they started the tournament by thrashing Thailand 13-0, and although they wobbled a little along the way, they ended it “looking in a different class”. For now, they remain the sport’s…

Don’t recycle plastic To The Economist Europe and America ship their collected plastic waste en masse to Asia and wrongly assume that it is recycled there. Nothing could be further from the truth: it is dumped. After China halted imports of Western plastic waste in 2017, it seems that Malaysia will soon follow. As a consequence, plastic waste will go to underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia with even lower environmental standards, and thus there is a greater chance that these plastics will be dumped and litter the ocean. In Europe, waste policy has a focus on households separating their waste. As a result, it is expected that much less plastic will disappear in an incinerator. However, these targets and the increase in the related taxes mean that the quality…

It is one of the world’s most famous paintings, helping to attract two million visitors to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum every year. Now Rembrandt’s The Night Watch is undergoing the “largest and most elaborate public art restoration in history”, says Daniel Boffey in The Guardian. Last week, a seven-square-metre glass box was erected inside the gallery to house the team of 12 experts who will work in full view of the public to bring the vast 363cm by 437cm canvas back to its former glory – while the operation is live streamed. The Night Watch was last restored after a knife attack in 1975 – and because it has been on view ever since, the museum’s director, Taco Dibbits, says that even its experts have much to learn about the 1642 masterpiece.…

While Emma is cleaning at Peggy’s, Peggy remarks that Emma doesn’t seem herself. Emma admits she thinks the Ambridge Conservation Trust is unfair; why should it only be open to members of Peggy’s family? Jazzer wants to take revenge on Harold Jayston, but Alistair thinks counselling is a better idea. Ben fails his driving test. Jim’s late for his shift in the shop and becomes flustered while serving Alan. Alan helps him, and offers to finish his shift. Natasha gives Tom her grandfather’s signet ring. She wants to show him that she’s not going anywhere. They tell Pat and Tony that Tom will sign the post-nup. Later, Natasha asks when they’ll tell the family they’ve decided to put in a proposal for Peggy’s trust. A man in a pick-up drives…

This delightful Moroccan salad goes brilliantly with spicy food, says Ghillie Basan. The sweetness of the dates partners well with juicy orange and a hint of salt from the preserved lemon Orange and date salad Serves 4-6 4-6 ripe sweet oranges 6 moist stoned dried dates the peel of 1 preserved lemon finely sliced 1-2 tbsps pomegranate molasses 1 tbsp fresh mint the seeds of ½ a fresh pomegranate • With a sharp knife remove the skin and pith of the oranges to leave the naked fruits. Slice them into thin rounds and arrange the slices in the base of a wide, shallow bowl. • Finely slice the dates lengthways and scatter them over the oranges. Scatter the preserved lemon over the top and drizzle the pomegranate molasses over the…

Saorsa 1875 Pitlochry, Perth and Kinross Billed as the UK’s first fully vegan hotel, from food to fittings, Saorsa 1875 proves that “epicurean indulgence” can be sustainable and “cruelty-free”, says Selene Nelson in The Times. Occupying a light-filled 19th century house in the Highland town of Pitlochry, it has 11 “chic” rooms with “luxurious” linens and “plump” goose-friendly pillows. Co-owner Jack McLaren-Stewart runs cocktail masterclasses and whisky tastings at the bar, and Italian chef Luca Sordi rustles up fantastically “decadent” and “inventive” five-course feasts. There are plans for a yoga studio and wood-fired hot tubs in the garden. Doubles from £110 b&b.saorsahotel.com.…

Any casual viewer flicking through the TV channels on a Saturday afternoon in the 1980s would surely have “stopped and done a double take” when they reached Channel 4, and their screen was filled by a large red-faced man, with Victorian-style mutton chop whiskers, gesticulating wildly in front of a crowd of racegoers. This would have been John McCririck, a journalist and broadcaster who for 29 years was racing’s best-known, and most controversial, pundit, said The Times. With his bejewelled fingers and trademark deerstalker hat, he was flamboyant, and garrulous – and a shameless chauvinist. “The most important thing about [women] is the size of their breasts,” he’d say. He addressed his co-host Tanya Stevenson as “the female”, and referred to his wife Jenny as “the booby”, after a South…

The pound hit its lowest point against the dollar since mid-2017, reflected growing investor gloom about the UK economy’s second-quarter performance. IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ indices showed marked slowdowns in the service, construction and manufacturing sectors. Productivity, marking its third consecutive quarter of decline in Q1, remains a weakness. Britain will be the only big advanced economy calculated to record slowing productivity growth. All eyes were again on the US Federal Reserve. Chairman Jay Powell cheered markets this week by warning about “uncertainties” to the economic outlook – bolstering expectations of a rate cut this month. The S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones all set new records midweek. Airbus is poised to overtake Boeing as the world’s biggest plane-maker for the first time in seven years. Virgin Trains said it…

George Osborne As Christine Lagarde readies herself for the European Central Bank, there’s an opening at the top of the International Monetary Fund. Among those said to be sniffing around is Britain’s former chancellor, George Osborne. And why not, asked Alistair Osborne in The Times. “Osborne only has nine jobs” so it’s “no shock” he “should be keen to make it ten”. The “part-time” London Evening Standard editor has reportedly told friends that the IMF needs “a skilled political communicator and operator… not a technocrat”. Nobody can accuse Osborne, 48, of having low self-esteem, said Neil Collins in the FT. But he may face stiff competition from a rather more plausible candidate “across town” – his own hire at the Bank of England, Mark Carney. Bob Collymore The early death…

More than one in five people with mental health issues have suffered a panic attack when dealing with banks and other service companies, said Laura Whateley in The Times. Here are some ways you can help yourself Choose the right bank Go for one with tools that help you budget and manage spending. Monzo, the app bank, lets you hold savings in different pots – which you can “lock” so you’re not tempted to spend. Barclays offers customisable controls on how you use your debit card. Stop impulsive online spending Apps such as Iceblock let you replace a site’s “add to the basket” button with a “put on ice” button – stopping you from checking out before a cooling-off period. Don’t ignore debt It’s one of the major causes of…

Women between the ages of 16 and 30 report having three times as many erotic dreams as 50 years ago, according to a study in Germany. It may simply be that women today are more willing to admit to having erotic dreams, but psychologists speculate that people are more likely to remember dreams if they regard them as positive experiences, and not shameful ones. Craig, Lee and Ross are on their way out, as are Jodie, Gemma and Shannon, according to an analysis of the names parents chose for babies born in England and Wales between 1996 and 2017. With alternative spellings on the rise, a new favourite for boys is Jaxon: it is as popular now as Mark was in 1996. For girls, Aria is as popular as Hayley…

Amsterdam Red light row: Amsterdam’s first female mayor has proposed reducing the number of brothels in the city’s famous red light district, and stopping sex workers from standing naked in glass-fronted rooms where they are ogled by crowds of tourists, some of them on organised tours. Femke Halsema, a former leader of the Green Party, says she is determined to tackle human trafficking in the area, and points out that most of the women who are “laughed at and photographed” in the windows are foreign, “and we do not know how they ended up here”. However, a new group calling itself Red Light United claims that 90% of the women who use the district’s 330 windows want to stay there. “Sex workers are entitled to a workplace,” one told the…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the director general of the RHS, Sue Biggs 1 Now We Are Free by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, performed by Lisa Gerrard, featured in Gladiator 2 Born Free by John Barry, featured in Born Free 3* The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, performed by Andrew Litton with Nicola Benedetti and the LSO 4 Solid Air, written and performed by John Martyn 5 La mamma morta from Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano, performed by Tullio Serafin with Maria Callas and the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan 6 Time to Say Goodbye by Lucio Quarantotto and Francesco Sartori, performed by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman with the LSO 7 Love My Life by Robbie Williams, Johnny McDaid and Gary Go,…

No human has been to the Moon – or beyond Earth’s orbit – since December 1972, when Apollo 17 returned home: the US, bogged down in Vietnam, scrapped the programme, and no other nation had the capability. But now competition to return is mounting. China, the first nation to land a craft on the Moon’s far side, aims to take astronauts there by the mid-2030s. Russia has pledged to send a robotic mission in 2021; and to land cosmonauts in the early 2030s to construct a base. The most ambitious plans are Nasa’s. The Artemis programme envisages installing a manned space station called the Gateway in the Moon’s orbit by the early 2020s. This would be used to operate robots on the lunar surface below, where they would start work…

A humiliating way to treat an old warmonger Michelle Goldberg The New York Times Many of the people who have worked for President Trump have ended up “diminished” or humiliated in some way, says Michelle Goldberg. And to that long list we can now add a new name: John Bolton. Trump’s national security adviser won the role by impressing the president with his regular bellicose contributions to Fox News, but he appears to wield little influence with the White House these days. One can only imagine how cross the old “warmonger” must have felt the other day when Trump stepped into North Korea to shake the hand of Kim Jong Un. This, after all, is a man who cited the lifting of sanctions against Pyongyang in 2008 as evidence of…

Next time you fire up the barbecue, consider the environmental toll, says The Daily Telegraph. Scientists from the University of Manchester have calculated that a typical family barbecue, consisting of cheeseburgers then strawberries and cream, releases as much CO2 into the atmosphere as a 90-mile car trip. The team factored in every component of the meal, and found that, unsurprisingly, burgers were the worst culprit. Not only does barbecuing them release CO2, but cattle belch out huge volumes of methane, while producing the grain to feed the cattle (and to make the buns) sends out more CO2. The team worked out that swapping burgers for chicken would reduce emissions to the equivalent of a 51-mile drive, while eating vegetarian sausages, and forsaking extras such as cheese and cream, would bring…

Sugar tax: Johnson’s plan to keep us sweet “What excellent timing,” said Jenni Russell in The Times. On the very day that Cancer Research UK launched a campaign highlighting the dangers of obesity, Boris Johnson unveiled his latest “populist policy” – one that would “encourage us all to consume more sugar, not less”. In a press release, our likely next PM promised last week to review the effectiveness of so-called sin taxes (financial disincentives to buy products that are bad for your health) and, in particular, to look again at the government levy, introduced last year, of between 18p and 24p per litre on some sugary drinks. The time has come, he later explained, to start basing our tax policy on “clear evidence” – and to take a “proper…

If there’s one thing we expect of athletes, it’s that they will always try their hardest, said Claire Cohen in The Daily Telegraph. But at Wimbledon last week, two players made a mockery of that expectation. Nick Kyrgios, the mercurial 24-year-old Australian, decided to spend the night before his second-round tie against Rafael Nadal in the pub. Then, in the match itself, he seemed so unconcerned about winning that he twice served underarm; he also tried to hit Nadal by firing a shot at his chest. If anything, the behaviour of Kyrgios’s fellow Australian, Bernard Tomic, was even more appalling. He put in so little effort in his first-round defeat that he was fined £45,000. After a “similarly lacklustre” defeat at Wimbledon two years ago, he complained that he had…

To The Guardian Tree planting may have “mind-blowing” potential to tackle the climate crisis. However, the climate crisis is only one symptom of our continued destruction of the planet. The climate crisis has barely got going, but we are already in the midst of an extinction crisis that could soon rival that of the Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs became extinct. Today, we are losing species at a mass extinction rate, and at this point it’s nothing to do with climate. Planting billions of trees will accelerate the extinction crisis, because closed-canopy forest is not the natural state of most areas of continents. During the ice ages, and the intervening interglacials that dissected them, areas that we regard as natural forest today weren’t closed canopy, but instead were savannah or steppe,…

Best books… James Ellroy The great American crime novelist, author of LA Confidential and The Black Dahlia, picks five of his favourite books. This Storm, the second instalment of his second LA Quartet, has just been published by William Heinemann at £20 The Deceivers by John D. MacDonald, 1958 (out of print). The author of Cape Fear and the Travis McGee series wrote a number of lesser-known novels, such as The Deceivers and One Monday We Killed Them All. Don’t be fooled by the titles, they hold up very handily – in a literary sense. They deal with adultery and alcoholism in 1950s America, but have none of the laborious arty-fartiness of Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. They are harrowing, bitter and reek of desperation. The Gabriel Allon series by Daniel…

New cars: what the critics say Auto Express The Renault Clio is a bit of a mystery. Although it is huge in Europe, in the UK it has never achieved anything like the sales of the Fiesta, Corsa or Polo. With this all-new fifth model, Renault is hoping to change that – and it may well succeed. While it’s still a “relatively conventional” supermini, this practical car stands out for its excellent new interior and generally more sophisticated feel. The Daily Telegraph The interior, neglected in previous models, has been given a lot of love in this update. Think soft-touch plastics, sleek new touch-screens, and colour panels and ambient lighting in upper trim models. There’s also plenty of room in both front and rear, and the boot has grown to…

Japan’s mystical mountain men Combining elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto, Shugendo has been practised by “mystical” mountain-dwelling ascetics in Japan for the past 1,500 years. With the aid of an English translator, a group of these hermits, known as Yamabushi, now offers three-day introductions to their way of life, says Sarah Marshall in The Sunday Telegraph. The regime is strict – there’s no talking, no washing (not even of teeth), and lots of fasting and chanting – and centres on climbing the three holy peaks of Dewa Sanzan. Visitors wear traditional white clothing, and also participate in a “waterfall purification ceremony” (very wet and cold), and an “eye-stinging” stint in a room full of smoke from burning chillis and rice husks. The intention, in part, is to empty minds…

Leon Kossoff, who has died aged 92, was a leading member of that group of figurative artists collectively known as the School of London, along with Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Francis Bacon. “London, like the paint I use, seems to be in my bloodstream,” he once said, and his work was certainly rooted in the city, said The Guardian – “in Dalston, Willesden, the Embankment, Mornington Crescent, Spitalfields and Bethnal Green, in the London roads and railway lines, the Tube stations and street life, in the public swimming baths”. Cleaving to his own path, Kossoff was not always fashionable. Indeed, when he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1995, one critic dismissed him as irrelevant. But he “had trained for the marathon, not the sprint”, and in 2018,…

Get ready for the next chapter in space history, said Maureen Farrell in The Wall Street Journal. Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space-tourism venture, is “preparing for lift-off as a publicly traded company”. The outfit, founded by Branson in 2004, will list its shares later this year as part of a merger deal with Social Capital Hedosophia – a “special-purpose acquisition company” (SPAC), created by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, which will invest $800m for a 49% stake. Galactic is the first company of its type to float on the market, said Ryan Browne on CNBC.com – a feather in the cap for Branson, “currently locked in a tense space race” with billionaire rivals Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their respective SpaceX and Blue Origin ventures. A seasoned Silicon Valley…

The week’s best shares Dunelm Group Investors Chronicle The homeware retailer is recovering, with multichannel sales boosting cash generation and reducing debt. Profits have jumped and there’s a prospect of special dividends. Yields 3.3%. Buy. 920p. Johnson Service Group Investors Chronicle The textile rental and dry-cleaning group is increasing capacity and productivity after a “significant increase” in volumes last year. Consolidation opportunities offer further growth potential. Buy. 157p. Merck & Co The Daily Telegraph The US pharma’s “immunotherapy” treatment for melanomas and some lung cancers, Keytruda, is “close to a wonder drug”. Patients will need to take it long-term, creating a “long ‘tail’ of earnings”. Buy. $85.51. Restaurant Group Shares Shares in the owner of Frankie & Benny’s have rallied as its TripAdvisor ratings have improved. Berenberg thinks the Wagamama…