Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1264 i The Week

The Government is urgently reviewing Britain’s network of “smart“ motorways after a BBC Panorama investigation found that 38 people had been killed on them in five years, and that the number of near-misses had soared. During busy periods, smart motorway hard shoulders can be used as extra vehicle lanes, but this can leave drivers whose cars break down trapped in speeding traffic. All smart stretches are to be fitted with radar technology to quickly trace any cars that stop in a live lane. The number of emergency areas – currently spaced up to 1.5 miles apart – is to be increased.…

Oswiecim, Poland Auschwitz remembered: More than 200 Auschwitz survivors gathered at the site of the Nazi extermination camp on Monday to mark the 75th anniversary of its liberation (see page 13). Former prisoners spoke of their experiences and urged their audience to be mindful of the evil of which mankind is capable. “Young people should understand that nothing is for sure, that some terrible things can happen and they have to be very careful. And that, God forbid, what happened to the Jewish people should never be repeated,” said Jeanette Spiegel, 96. Many of the survivors (including Igor Malickij of Ukraine, pictured) were dressed in blue and white hats or uniforms, similar to those they were forced to wear at the camp, where an estimated 1.1 million people – mostly…

1 Intermezzos: Op. 117, No.1 by Brahms, performed by Glenn Gould 2 Jersey Girl, written and performed by Tom Waits 3 A Case Of You, written and performed by Joni Mitchell 4 Then You’ll Remember Me by Michael William Balfe, performed by De Dannan 5 The Man Comes Around, written and performed by Johnny Cash 6 Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Laurie Anderson, performed by Laurie Anderson 7 Tower of Song, written and performed by Leonard Cohen 8* Soave sia il vento from Così fan tutte by Mozart, conducted by Karl Böhm, performed by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Walter Berry, Christa Ludwig and the Philharmonia Orchestra Book: In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust Luxury: high-thread-count cotton sheets * Choice if allowed only one record…

The extermination of the European Jewry began when the German army invaded Russia in July 1941. Reports of massacres in the USSR leaked rapidly out of Nazi-occupied Europe. By the end of the following year, the free world knew, in outline, that a genocide was under way. The Polish government-in-exile had compiled a report from its underground resistance networks, and in late 1942 it issued a document to the embryonic United Nations entitled The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, which Anthony Eden referenced in the House of Commons. In 1943, a report by Witold Pilecki, a Polish officer who had volunteered to be sent to Auschwitz, and had later escaped, was the first comprehensive account to reach the Allies. It included details about the gas chambers, the…

A nation overrun with bathrooms Derek Thompson The Atlantic Why does America have “so many damn bathrooms”? It’s a question many foreign visitors ask themselves, says Derek Thompson, and with good reason. Over the past half century, the number of bathrooms per person in the US has doubled, to a 1:1 ratio, and these rooms are continuing to multiply. They’re getting bigger, too: the typical size of a bathroom in a new family home in the US has doubled since the 1970s, from 35sq ft to 70sq ft. The obsession with what used to be the smallest room in the house has reached particularly insane levels among the super-rich. Last year, it was reported that a $49.9m mansion in Bel Air, California had eight bedrooms – and 20 bathrooms. Across…

Last year was the second hottest year on record, only narrowly pipped by 2016, says The Guardian. The finding confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record, and that the five hottest years on record have all occurred since 2015. The analysis is the work of several government agencies, including Nasa in the US and the Met Office in the UK, and is based on surface air temperature readings from tens of thousands of observation stations across the globe. It found that the average temperature in 2019 was about 1.1°C above the preindustrial average; many scientists have warned that if global warming rises above 1.5°C, extreme weather will worsen, with devastating consequences for millions of people. “These announcements might sound like a broken record, but what is being…

“If you find yourself afflicted by a sudden urge to destroy the BBC, I have the ideal remedy,” said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian: spend some time in the US. It shows what happens when there is no major news broadcaster that is objective, impartial, and insulated from commercial pressures. In the US, people of differing political views watch different networks, and get different facts: Fox News facts, or MSNBC facts. The result is a partisan “cacophony”, with “two sides shouting at each other”. The need to think about this has arisen because the BBC is “in peril” – yet again. Its director-general, Tony Hall, is stepping down. Boris Johnson’s government is openly hostile to the corporation, and has suggested that the licence fee has had its day. This week,…

“Ambition and suspicion always go together.” Georg C. Lichtenberg, quoted in Forbes “Lies are like children. If you don’t nurture them, they’ll never be useful later.” US webcomic author R.K. Milholland, quoted in the I newspaper “Young person worry: What if nothing I do matters? Old person worry: What if everything I do does?” Novelist Jenny Offill, quoted on NYMag.com “Some people are cold. Others are oily. His peculiar distinction was to combine coldness and oiliness.” John Bercow on Michael Howard, quoted in The Sunday Times “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” US politician Martin Lomasney, quoted on OpenLettersReview.com “There are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.” Victor Hugo, quoted…

FA Cup Manchester United beat Tranmere 6-0. Manchester City beat Fulham 4-0. Newcastle drew 0-0 with League One side Oxford United. Tennis Serena Williams was knocked out of the Australian Open in the third round by China’s Wang Qiang, the 27th seed. Rugby union In the Premiership, Harlequins beat Saracens 41-14. Sale beat the league leaders Exeter 22-19. Bristol beat Gloucester 34-16. Bristol also agreed a deal to sign England prop Kyle Sinckler from Harlequins in the summer.…

Book of the week Motherwell by Deborah Orr W&N 304pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 When the journalist Deborah Orr died from breast cancer last year aged 57, it “provoked an outpouring of grief of the most genuine kind”, said Sarah Hughes in The Observer. Friends praised her outspokenness and humour, her “sandpaper-rough tongue” and “wild and cussed streak”. Her memoir Motherwell, completed just before her death, “showcases all those qualities and more”. Named after the town near Glasgow where she grew up, it is a powerful depiction of a now vanished way of life – one built on factory employment, regular churchgoing and the dream of a “house with a back and front door”. It also tells the story of Orr’s fraught relationship with her mother, Win, a woman…

Showing now Faustus: That Damned Woman Playwright Chris Bush reimagines the Faust myth in this radical new production, in which the eponymous character is a woman. Until 22 February, Lyric Hammersmith, London W6; then Birmingham and on (headlong.co.uk). Portraying Pregnancy Spanning five centuries – from a Holbein sketch of Thomas More’s daughter to Awol Erizku’s 2017 photograph of a pregnant Beyoncé – this exhibition charts the artistic representation of an experience that “unites women across history” (FT). The Foundling Museum, London WC1 (foundlingmuseum.org.uk), until 26 April. Book now Aubrey Beardsley, at Tate Britain, is the largest exhibition in 50 years of drawings by “the bad boy of fin-de-siècle London”, who died aged just 25 (Guardian). 4 March-25 May, Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate. org.uk). Northern Ballet’s 50th anniversary celebrations continue…

Although “English whites have been up there with the best” for some time, our reds – generally made from pinot noir – have tended to be “thin, weedy, acidic affairs”, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times. In 2018, however, a combination of ideal weather conditions and “better equipment, knowledge and finance” resulted in the “vintage of the century”. Don’t expect English pinot to taste like Burgundy or New World editions; it has a “light, floral, fruity quality – part cranberry, part raspberry – of its own”. See what I mean with the “red cherry-spiked” 2018 Bolney Estate Pinot Noir (£16.99; Waitrose). Also bursting with “ripe yet tangy red fruit” is the same winemaker’s Dark Harvest from the previous year (£11.49; Waitrose) – made this time primarily from rondo. Worcestershire’s 2017…

Mezzatorre Hotel Ischia, Italy Perched on the north coast of the island of Ischia, near Naples, this beach hotel reopened last year after a makeover by “visionary hotel maven” Marie-Louise Sciò, says Tatler. Like her other creations – Il Pellicano and La Posta Vecchia – it mixes “tradition” and “fantasy” with “impeccable taste and style”. There’s a Santa Maria Novella spa (where the treatments focus on Ischia’s natural thermal waters), a swimming pool scene “straight out of a Slim Aarons shot”, and a thatched beachside restaurant that combines an “intimate clubby vibe” with such a “heady” atmosphere that “you truly feel like the world outside can wait”. Doubles from £310.pellicanohotels.com.…

Acclaimed writer, director, historian and Python Terry Jones 1942-2020 Terry Jones, who has died aged 77, shot to fame in the early 1970s as a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – the six-strong troupe whose anarchic, iconoclastic TV sketch show captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, and changed the face ofcomedy. As well as appearing on screen in a variety of bizarre guises, heco-wrote some of the Pythons’ most memorable sketches, and directed three of their feature films. Such was their impact, he was forever after referred to as the “ex Python”, said The Times, yet he had many other strings to his bow. He wrote screenplays and children’s books, and was a keen amateur historian of the medieval period. Gregarious, effusive and affable, he once said…

“Just when you thought the most tortuous meal in history was finally over”, along comes the Competition and Markets Authority with “an extra course”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. The UK watchdog has intervened to postpone the £6bn merger between Just Eat and its Dutch-listed counterpart Takeaway.com just a day before the deal was due to be completed. The “CMA foodies” – who are already investigating a $500m investment by Amazon in Just Eat’s rival, Deliveroo – want to gauge whether the tie-up would prevent a new entrant breaking into Britain’s increasingly lucrative food-delivery market. The CMA’s intervention “has prompted predictable outrage” from interested parties, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. But come on – the watchdog “couldn’t simply wave through a deal of this size”. Just Eat…

At his worst, he was “an unreliable boyfriend” whose Bank of England tenure was “bedevilled” by “policy hints and U-turns”, says The Sunday Telegraph. Yet he saw Britain safely through one of the worst political crises in a century. As the governor prepares to leave Threadneedle Street, here is the world according to Mark Carney: On limits to central bank policy “The BoE has long stressed that bank policies are not the cause of low rates but responses to them. We are actors in a play written by others.” On the perils of a cliff-edge Brexit “This is a trade deal in reverse, which in many respects is harder... It is clearly undesirable to have that adjustment overnight.” On the dangers of climate change for the economy “Companies that don’t…

Controversy of the week The Huawei dilemma Boris Johnson has made a “generation-defining error”, said Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph. This week, the National Security Council, which the PM heads, decided to allow Huawei a crucial role in the development of Britain’s 5G network. This technology is not, as some seem to think, “simply the next generation for mobile phones”. Its wireless networks will be “at the heart of everything we do for years to come”. 5G will transform “homes, hospitals, farms, factories, cities and utility grids” –supporting everything from smart household devices and virtual-reality entertainment to autonomous cars and remote surgery. It will turn personal data into the “world’s most important commodity”. That’s why Tuesday’s decision, announced after months of debate, presents such a “very serious threat”. By…

The Metropolitan Police is to begin using facial recognition cameras to catch serious and violent offenders, and to help it find missing people. The cameras are being deployed following a High Court ruling, which is subject to an appeal, that their use in specific circumstances in Wales was lawful. In the Met’s trials, the software has led to a high incidence of “false positives”. The cameras will be set up in places likely to be used by specific suspects, such as outside railway stations and pubs.…

Washington DC “Peace plan”: Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited peace plan for the Middle East on Tuesday – describing it as a “realistic two-state solution”. Speaking next to his close ally, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump described Israel as a “light unto the world”, and said “they want peace badly”. However, the plan was dismissed as a “conspiracy” by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and it sparked protests in the Gaza Strip. Although the plan includes a path to some form of Palestinian state (albeit one with no army), it sets many conditions for this, including the “complete dismantling ofHamas”. It also leaves Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capital” and grants the strategically important Jordan Valley, which makes up about a third of the occupied West Bank, to Israel.…

“Five years ago, an American psychology student coined the phrase ‘dad bod’. The dad bod, she wrote in a blogpost in praise that went viral, is ‘a nice balance between a beer gut and working out’. It says, ‘I go to the gym occasionally but also enjoy eating eight slices of pizza at a time.’ With the fifth anniversary of this coinage coming up, I have a question. Men! Why have you not returned the favour? In 2020, there is still no term for women who are fairly fit but still have a bit of jiggle in the middle, and have never knowingly passed up a cheese sandwich. I look in vain for blogs by young male students affectionately and lustfully hymning the mum bod. Chivalry has failed.” Caitlin Moran…

Young adults need a home of their own Liam Halligan The Sunday Telegraph Home ownership is in steep decline, but don’t let it bother you, declared The Economist last week: the British need to get over their property “fetish”. I beg to disagree, says Liam Halligan. The fact that well over half of 25- to 34-year-olds today are locked out of the property market should concern us deeply. Only 41% of those in this “crucial family-forming age” are property owners, compared to 67% in 1991. Even many professional couples in that age group, people who as children grew up in leafy suburbs, now find it impossible to get on the property ladder. And almost a third of 20- to 34-year-old men are still, amazingly, sleeping in their childhood bedrooms. “Such…

Sepsis is world’s “biggest killer” Sepsis is the most deadly condition in the world, killing more people than cancer, scientists have found. According to the new estimate, there were 48.9 million cases in 2017, and it was a factor in 11 million deaths – or 19.7% of the global total. (Cancer is responsible for some ten million deaths per year.) Also known asblood poisoning, sepsis occurs when the immune system overreacts to an infection, leading to severe inflammation and, in some cases, organ failure. But as the symptoms of the primary infection can mask those of the sepsis, it often goes undiagnosed – making it notoriously difficult to assess the number of sepsis deaths. Previous studies have tended only to look at middle- and high-income countries – which generally keep…

Penny Mordaunt and Philip Hammond often clashed during their time together in government. And at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards, Mordaunt seemed in no mood to bury the hatchet. “I have it on good authority that he is in line for a very important job,” she said of her former Cabinet colleague. “Given his reputation for being able to rain on any parade, suck the oxygen out of the room, and put a dampener on things, civil contingencies are about to deploy him to Australia.” Brian Blessed was taken by surprise when he was invited to audition for the Cats musical ahead of its first stage run in 1981. “Cats?” he exclaimed. “F***ing gorillas maybe! Bears!” But on a later trip to the North Pole, the sheer scale…

It was a “torrid” week for HS2, said Michael Savage in The Observer. An official review, leaked in draft form to the FT, found that the final cost of the 345-mile high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds could amount to as much as £106bn – almost double the current budget of £56bn, and more than three times the original estimate of £32.7bn. At the same time, a National Audit Office report suggested that the line’s first phase, from London to Birmingham, might not open until 2036, more than a decade later than planned. It criticised the Department for Transport and the government-owned HS2 Ltd for underestimating the project’s complexity – prompting ever-louder calls from critics, including dozens of Tory MPs, to scrap the idea and invest in…

Kobe Bryant: a basketball great “Of all sport’s icons, it isa vanishing few who ever grasp the distinction of being known by their first name alone,” said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. Kobe Bryant was one of them. It is “impossible to overstate” the impact that his death on Sunday, in ahelicopter crash which also killed his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, will have on basketball. In his 20 years at the Los Angeles Lakers, the club at which he spent his entire career, he electrified the game, winning five national titles. He was, without question, one of the greatest players in the sport’s history: at his best, he was “a giddying force of nature on court”. Even as a teenager, Bryant was “a basketball phenomenon”, said Ian Whittell in The…

Power of Remembrance To The Guardian My mother, Esther Brunstein, was a survivor of the Łódz ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She spoke at the opening of the Holocaust galleries in the Imperial War Museum, and at the first Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK in Westminster Hall. She died three years ago. As she lay in her bed in Barnet Hospital, in London, her life very nearly over, a young junior doctor was attempting to put in a cannula in her concealed veins. My sister was at her bedside. My mother winced and cried with the pain of the needle repeatedly failing to hit its target, but eventually the doctor managed. My mum said something like: “Not bad for an 88-year-old survivor of Auschwitz and Belsen!” The doctor was dumbfounded,…

Low by Jeet Thayil Faber 240pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £12.99 Jeet Thayil’s first novel, the Booker-shortlisted Narcopolis, was set in aMumbai opium den in the 1970s, said Rob Doyle in The Guardian. His third novel sifts the same “subsoil”. Following his wife’s suicide, poet Dominic Ullis travels to Mumbai and, over one weekend, “gorges on every substance he can lay his hands on”: cocaine, heroin, sleeping pills, opium and, “in a rare appearance in literary fiction, the synthetic upper mephedrone, or ‘meow meow’”. Reading like an “Indian cover version” of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, Low is “surprisingly colourful and enjoyable”. While carrying his wife’s ashes, Ullis visits old hands and reconnects with dealers, said Max Liu in the FT. Thayil writes about Mumbai (nostalgically referred to as…

The Personal History of David Copperfield What the Dickens? Dir: Armando Iannucci 1hr 59mins (PG) Armando Iannucci is best known for dark political satire – from The Thick of It to The Death ofStalin. But his “terrifically likeable, genial adaptation ofDavid Copperfield” taps into Dickens’s humanity and optimism, at the expense, perhaps, of some of the book’s bleaker aspects, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. The basic story remains unchanged: Dev Patel is our “open-hearted” hero, who is cast out ofhis home when his mother remarries, and sent away to an “episodic series of places, some less welcoming than others”, before ending up atthe rural home of his formidable aunt Betsey (Tilda Swinton, in a “thermonuclear star turn”). Iannucci drives the story forward at agallop, imbuing the film with a…

On one level, it is just a “pretty Victorian former fisherman’s house” in the shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station, said Mark Brown in The Guardian. But to its admirers, Prospect Cottage is “a work of art in its own right with an internationally recognised garden” – and a “shrine” to the late Derek Jarman, one of the greatest film-makers of his generation. Jarman bought the property on a remote shingle beach in Kent in 1986, and created an unusual garden which has attracted thousands of visitors and greatly influenced British garden design. After his death in 1994, the cottage was looked after by his companion, Keith Collins – but following Collins’ own death, a campaign has been launched by high-profile figures, including the actress Tilda Swinton and Stephen Deuchar,…

In protest at The Bull’s name change, Eddie and Lynda make plans for an alternative Burns Night event. On an evening out together, an exhausted Natasha snaps at Tom. She later apologises and says she wants to move her business to Ambridge to cut down on commuting – they could share work space. When Kirsty confesses to Philip that the wedding plans are stressing her out, he says they can call it all off. Later, Helen asks Kirsty if this is what she really wants. Ian and Lee have an awkward meeting. Jim, Jazzer and Alistair head to Harold Jayston’s funeral but, in the end, Jim can’t face it. As Rex brings his pigs to the abattoir, a farmer accuses him of stealing his trailer; later, when Rex and Toby…

Mostly apples and oat porridge Makes 2 portions 2 dessert apples ½ tsp coconut oil ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp ground cardamom 1 pinch of ground cloves 125g oats (or quinoa, rice, millet or buckwheat flakes) 500ml oat milk or other plant milk nut butter, plant milk, jam or plant yoghurt, to serve boosters: hemp hearts chopped nuts • Grate the apples, including the core and peel, and set aside. Gently heat up the coconut oil in a small pan, then add the spices and give them a stir. Add the oats and plant milk and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes until thickened and the oats are soft, stirring occasionally. • Take the pan off the heat and ladle in the grated apple. Enjoy with milk and…

New cars: what the critics say What Car? Back in the 1990s, the Ford Puma was a small, sporty coupé. So it’s a little odd that it has “morphed” into a small SUV – but it’s certainly a good one. It uses the kind of mild hybrid engine technology that you’d usually expect to find in a much more expensive car, “allowing it to combine nippy acceleration with remarkably thrifty fuel economy”. Auto Express So far, there’s only a one-litre turbocharged petrol engine on offer, with either 123bhp or 153bhp. It’s an excellent engine, with a clever EcoBoost mechanism to shut down one of its three cylinders when it’s not needed. The Puma is “a real pleasure” to drive, and though it can be loud, it has a “fluid, sure-footed…

Diving with humpbacks Humpback whales mate and calve in the tropical Gulf of Guinea each year, and there’s no better place to swim with them than around the tiny archipelagic nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. Go with the operator I Am Water Ocean Travel, says Ian Belcher in The Times, and you’ll also enjoy daily tuition in freediving (diving with no equipment) from Hanli Prinsloo, a record-breaker in the sport, and Peter Marshall, a champion swimmer. The sight of the whales leaping near your boat is both astonishing and intimidating. They’re so active that guests can’t always get close to one in the water, but there are other “mesmerising” creatures to dive with (including dolphins). The islands are beautiful, with fabulous beach hotels, verdant jungle punctuated by volcanic “fangs”…

Tesla: racing to $100bn As expected, Tesla’s market value broke through a key barrier last week, said The Economist. The California-based electric carmaker “accelerated past $100bn” – making it the world’s second-most valuable carmaker after Toyota, even though “it still accounts for only a tiny fraction of global car sales”. Last year, Tesla delivered 367,500 vehicles “compared with 11 million from VW alone”. The milestone caps “a dramatic rally that has seen the carmaker’s share price rise 125% inthree months”, said the FT. It also marks “a moment of vindication” for founder Elon Musk, “after a controversial period in which the Tesla chief has at times been almost at war with Wall Street”. But is Tesla a carmaker or a “platform” tech company, asked Jasper Jolly in The Observer.…

Reasons to be cheerful post-Brexit Alex Brummer Daily Mail The Brexit bill became law last week, says Alex Brummer, bringing to an end three-and-a-half years of political turmoil that has “held back economic confidence and investment”. The big surprise, however, “is the speed of the rebound”. A couple of weeks ago “the conventional wisdom was that the economy was in a bad place and that Mark Carney’s last duty as governor of the Bank of England would be to cut interest rates”. But, as he rightly argues, “monetary policy has largely run its course” and it’s “time for fiscal policy to take up the slack”. And the economy looks in pretty good shape. CBI data shows “manufacturing optimism surging and arise in investment intentions”; the housing market is recovering; record…

The week’s best shares AFH Financial Group Investors Chronicle Shares in the wealth manager have rebounded asit milks the under-supplied market for independent financial advice. Funds under management are up 40%, and there’s a pipeline of potential acquisition targets. Buy. 385p. Gamma Communications The Times Gamma uses the cloud to provide internet-based phone and broadband services to businesses. A “quiet phenomenon”, with profits up 40% and stellar growth figures. “Lots of overseas potential.” Buy. £13.80. Learning Technologies Group Investors Chronicle The digital learning group’s figures are “comfortably ahead” of expectations, with revenues up 38%, profits by 58%. With an “active” pipeline of international acquisition opportunities. Buy. 158p. Royal Dutch Shell The Sunday Times Shares have been punished by the “pushback against fossil fuels”, a “sagging” gas price and a well-supplied…

Arts Council England has said that instead of referring to “artists”, it will use the term “creative practitioners”, as it believes this will make its work more inclusive. Announcing the move as part of its ten-year plan to champion culture for “every person in every town, village and city”, the funding body said some people were uncomfortable with the term “the arts” and assume it only refers to visual arts of “high art”, such as ballet or opera. Fifty super-rich but time-poor tourists boarded a privately chartered Boeing 757 last week for a 24-day around-the-world tour. Costing from £108,000 a head, the trip includes ten flights, 23 five-star hotels, and visits to Luang Prabang, Kyoto, Rio de Janeiro and the Galápagos Islands.…

82% of Britons are in favour of species that are extinct in Britain being reintroduced. 36% would like to see the return of wolves and lynxes and 24% want brown bears to be brought back. YouGov 53% of people in Britain think that capitalism “does more harm than good in the world”. In the US, the figure is 47%, but it rises to 63% in China, 69% in France and 74% in India. Edelman Trust Barometer/ The Independent 63% of Britons feel they have received a better school education than their parents. However, only 45% say they have a better standard of living and just 29% believe they have better job security. YouGov/The Guardian…

Walliams’ famous friends Having had huge success as a comedian and writer, with 37 million book sales to his name, David Walliams moves in glamorous circles, says Cole Moreton in The Mail on Sunday. But that doesn’t mean he is always at ease around celebrities. Simon Cowell (his fellow judge on Britain’s Got Talent) is a friend – but he still feels star-struck in his company. “I have to tell myself to stop and just relax,” he says, “but then Simon creates an aura of fame around him.” And on set, Cowell can be tricky. Walliams’ role on BGT is to make teasing jokes, but if Cowell is in the wrong mood, they don’t go down well. “Sometimes he’ll say: ‘That’s not funny. Shut up.’” Walliams frowns. “I say: ‘I’m…

Two men who were filmed showering while riding a motorbike together in Vietnam have been fined by police. Footage shows the pair riding topless, their torsos lathered in soap, with a bucket of water between them. The passenger gleefully pours the water over the driver, who grins after washing his hair and face. After the footage was posted on social media, the duo were tracked down and fined 1.8 million Vietnamese dong (£60) for traffic violations. A pensioner was taken aback after discovering his own grave in a cemetery. “I’m still alive,” protested Alan Hattel as he stood beside his tombstone in Forfar, Scotland. “My phone hasn’t rung for three or four months. I’ve been confused, but now I know why nobody has been calling.” The retired welder, 75, said…

FRANCE Macron’s theatrical church rant Le Huffington Post (Paris) What was Emmanuel Macron really up to when he let fly at Israeli security guards last week, asks Anthony Berthelier. France’s president – in Jerusalem for a Holocaust memorial event – paid a visit to the Old City, including the Church of Saint Anne. Gifted to France in 1856, the church is still considered French territory; so Macron was furious when Israeli security guards thrust past him and went inside. “Go out – outside please!” he shouted at them. He said the church had been French “for centuries”, and that that would “not change with me, okay? Respect the rules.” The scene echoed a similar exchange when one of Macron’s predecessors, Jacques Chirac, harangued Israeli bodyguards during a visit to the…

Some wolf pups will spontaneously fetch a ball thrown by a human, researchers in Sweden have discovered. This quintessentially canine trait was thought to have been acquired by dogs through training and selective breeding. The finding that it in fact comes naturally to some wolves raises the possibility that the trait helped determine which animals were “adopted” by humans during the early stages of domestication. Between 2014 and 2016, the team at Stockholm University hand-reared three wolf litters. At eight weeks old, the pups underwent several tests, one involving an unfamiliar human tossing a tennis ball across the room. While no pups from the first two litters showed much interest in the ball, three out of six from the 2016 litter chased it – and, when coaxed, returned it to…

For 25 years after he founded Amazon, Jeff Bezos managed to keep a remarkably low profile, said The Washington Post. That changed in January 2019 when, days after the billionaire revealed that he was divorcing his wife, the National Enquirer ran an 11-page spread about his secret affair with a former TV presenter, Lauren Sánchez. There followed a feverish hunt to find out the source of the tabloid’s scoop. Its publisher, AMI, insists it got the story from Sánchez’s Trump-supporting brother. But at the time, Bezos suggested Saudi Arabia might be involved; and last week, his investigators pointed the finger at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) himself. According to their report, Bezos’s phone started to “leak” vast amounts of data in May 2018, after he’d opened a WhatsApp message…

To win the next election, Labour must secure 60% more MPs, or another 124 seats, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. No party has ever achieved such a swing, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. To stand any chance, though, Labour will need to pick the right leader. The contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn has come down to a three-horse race, said John Rentoul in The Independent. Jess Phillips dropped out last week, and Emily Thornberry is unlikely to secure a place on the ballot paper when nominations close on Valentine’s Day. That leaves the two front-runners, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer, and Lisa Nandy, who faces the tricky task of persuading the former’s backers that she’s a “better salesperson for the Corbynite dream of socialism”, and the latter’s backers…

Liverpool are “the champions of the world”, said Matt Barlow in the Daily Mail. Since the start of the season, they have been on “a near flawless procession towards the Premier League title”. But on Sunday evening, in the fourth round of the FA Cup, they were held 2-2 by Shrewsbury Town – a team languishing in the lower reaches of League One. It wasn’t a result anyone would have predicted with an hour gone, when the Reds were two goals up. But when Jason Cummings came off the bench, he led Shrewsbury’s fightback, scoring twice in ten minutes. With an already packed schedule, it was the last thing Jürgen Klopp, the Liverpool manager, wanted: the two teams will meet at Anfield next Tuesday for a replay. However, this wasn’t…

To The Economist So, three-and-a-half years after the Brexit referendum, Britain is leaving the European Union on 31 January. For millions of people, particularly in eastern Europe, the country we tend to call “Anglia” has been a benchmark of nobility, of spirit and excellence. Britain is deeply embedded in our cultural makeup. During the War, our grandparents listened to Winston Churchill on the wireless, grateful to know that there was a place in this world where the bad guys’ writ did not run. For our generation, literature from an early age consisted mostly of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Winnie-the-Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. Later, the explosion of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, the Kinks, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and the rest blew the cobwebs of…

The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, 2012-2015 (Europa Editions £12.99 each, or £49.15 for the boxset). I realise that this is four books rather than one, but I’m cheating because Ferrante needs to be swallowed up whole. I adore the forensic passion with which she writes about female friendship, rage and love, and the way inwhich she adopts the style of a classic 19th century novel in order to turn the male gaze in onitself. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, 1987 (Vintage £10.99). I read this novel on my first trip to America and was blown away by the fizzing energy of Wolfe’s prose style. I was a young journalist, and I loved the way he was able to blend the best bits of narrative reportage with…

Programmes Australia on Fire: Climate Emergency Dramatic account of the wildfires as told by firefighters, wildlife experts and people who lost their homes. With drone footage of the devastated landscape, the film also explores the wider concerns of climate change. Mon 3 Feb, C4 20:00 (60mins). Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude The classicist’s witty, personal take on the nude in art through the ages, covering everything from classical sculpture to contemporary photography. Mon 3 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Baghdad Central Set in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein, this tense six-part drama opens with an Iraqi former police inspector trying to find his estranged daughter. Mon 3 Feb, C4 22:00 (60mins). Home Season two of the gentle sitcom about a Syrian refugee living with a family in Dorking.…

Sugo Pasta 70 Mitchell Street, Glasgow ( sugopasta.co.uk ) This 200-seat pasta joint has only just opened, and is already “Glasgow’s most oversubscribed restaurant”, says Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. It is from the team behind Paesano, a pizzeria that was also a “smash hit”. It’s no secret that pasta – like pizza – is a “banker” for restaurateurs, but Sugo has entirely resisted the temptation to cut corners. From its glorious setting in the old Glasgow Herald building, to the careful pairing of pastas and sauces, everything has been meticulously thought through. The short menu is split up by region: there’s agnolotti stuffed with veal and cavolo nero (a nod to Emilia-Romagna), and tagliolini with green beans, pesto and – in “atypically Ligurian touch” –potato.…

Heart of English Riviera Set on the seafront in the beautiful town of Torquay, the Torbay Hotel offers a3-night stay from £104pp half-board, including drinks vouchers.01942-415419, shearings.com. Arrive 20 March. Croatia’s Lopud island With views across the water to the mainland, the four-star Hotel Lafodia offers a seven-night stay from £706pp b&b, including Glasgow flights. 020-3451 2720, firstchoice.co.uk. Depart 4 June. Five-star Portugal The five-star Pestana Casino Park in Funchal, Madeira, offers a 4-night stay from £392pp half-board, including Manchester flights. 020-3474 0372, blueseaholidays.co.uk. Depart 9 March. Sharm El Sheikh retreat Stay 7 nights at the Jaz Club Fanara & Residence, which boasts breathtaking views of the Red Sea. From £780pp all-inclusive, including Bristol flights. 020-3636 1931, tui.co. uk. Depart 6 May.…

Global markets continued to be rattled by the coronavirus outbreak in China, with exchanges in Korea and Singapore taking heavy hits amid fears that regional companies could be the first to suffer. The value of traditional safe haven assets such as the dollar, the yen and gold all rose. Bond yields fell, as did oil, and the prices of commodities such as copper and iron ore all dipped on concern over Chinese growth. The price of crude fell more than 2% to below $60/ barrel – its lowest level in three months. JPMorgan analysts predicted a further hit of up to $5 a barrel if the outbreak developed into a full-blown epidemic. Both the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England were set to make key calls on interest…

● Glass half-empty When the former star fund-manager Neil Woodford crashed last year, his flagship fund was frozen. This week, pension funds and some 300,000 private investors in the £2.9bn Woodford Equity Income fund learnt how much of their money they are getting back, said Patrick Collinson in The Guardian. In a nutshell: about half. After selling a first tranche of the fund’s assets, administrator Link Asset Services confirmed it would make “an initial payout of just 48p-58p a share –compared with the 100p price at launch five years ago. The money comes mainly from the sale of “liquid” easier-to-sell assets: mostly shares in quoted companies. A second distribution will follow the disposal of “unquoted investments”. Don’t hold your breath. “The administrators have already warned that these assets are proving…

Philip Hammond “Small and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of the British economy.” Thus spake Britain’s former chancellor, says Katherine Griffiths in The Times. And today his latest job is all about funding them. Hammond, 64, has joined the board of OakNorth – a digital lender, founded in 2015, which aims to go where mainstream banks fear to tread. OakNorth is the second company Hammond has joined since leaving politics last month: he’s also a director of Ardagh Group, an Irish producer of glass and metal containers, which is listed in New York. Fortunately, when it comes to balancing the books, OakNorth seems a winning proposition – it is “one of the only” UK fintech companies “to have broken into profitability”, and is backed by the might of SoftBank’s Vision…