Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1272 i The Week

The coronavirus lockdown: too little, too late? As Boris Johnson announced an unprecedented shutdown of the country this week, more evidence emerged that the coronavirus epidemic is “galloping ahead”, said The Times. A further 87 people in Britain succumbed to the virus on Tuesday, the highest daily toll so far, taking the total number of deaths in the nation to 422. More than 8,000 cases have been confirmed in the UK, and the pressure on the NHS is mounting fast. Worldwide, the number of cases has passed 400,000 and a quarter of the world’s population is living under lockdown. Among those who have tested positive for Covid-19 are Prince Charles, US senator Rand Paul and the disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein. The UK government hopes the latest lock-down measures (see page…

Edinburgh Acquitted: Alex Salmond has been cleared of sexually assaulting nine women at the time he was Scotland’s First Minister. A jury found the ex-SNP leader not guilty of 12 sex charges; the uniquely Scottish verdict of “not proven” was returned on a charge of intent to rape. Salmond had claimed during his trial that the charges by the nine women – all current or former Scottish government officials or SNP politicians – had a “political purpose”. His allies say the verdicts raise big questions for Nicola Sturgeon’s government, which in 2019 paid Salmond £512,000 in legal costs, after admitting it had botched an internal inquiry into claims of sexual misconduct against him. Snowdonia Record visitor numbers: Snowdonia National Park reported having its “busiest day in living memory” on Saturday,…

Sorkin’s liberal dreams Aaron Sorkin is something of an idealist, says David Marchese in The New York Times – famous for writing films and TV shows (The West Wing, A Few Good Men) that pander to liberal fantasies. He accepts that his work often reflects his politics – but he doesn’t see why that should make it any less authentic than other TV dramas. “By and large,” he says, “in popular culture our elected leaders are portrayed as either Machiavellian or as dolts.” In House of Cards, for example, the president is a murderer, while Veep’s vice-president is hilariously inept. Why, he says, shouldn’t politicians be depicted as essentially decent, if flawed, people who genuinely want to make the world a better place? “I like writing heroes without capes. It…

Not everyone is dispirited by life in lockdown. Emma Smith, from Essex, said her dog, a seven-year old dachshund called Rolo, is overjoyed with the sudden constant companionship. “My dog has been so happy that everyone is home for quarantine that his tail has stopped working,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “We went to the vet and the vet said he had sprained his tail from excessively wagging it.” Rolo was given pain relief and is expected to recover within days. “He is super-happy and there is now movement from side to side,” said Smith. Britons have been adjusting to the pandemic in unusual ways. Some have come up with their own takes on protective headgear, while others searched for innovative ways to continue working. Make-up artist Tracy Graham, for instance,…

SWEDEN When the far-right takes control Aftonbladet (Stockholm) In 2018, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party won its first mayoralty, in the southern town of Hörby, says Jenny Wennberg. And so far, this experiment in far-right governance has been a disaster. At least 25 municipal managers have quit since the takeover, citing “bullying, abuses, harassment and slander”. Union representatives say they have been threatened. The federal government has already been forced to step in, ordering the city council to improve its work environment by June or face stiff fines. Yet the bullying ethos isn’t just limited to those who work for the town. Residents who protested cuts to municipal services weren’t listened to respectfully, as is the norm in Sweden, but were treated as if they had made “an attack on…

Finding Nemo, the animated film from Pixar studios, is the bestselling DVD title of all time. But if the adventures of a paternal clownfish and his son have warmed the hearts of millions, they’ve been a curse for the fish themselves, says the Daily Mail. The film caused a huge spike in demand for this beautiful fish from home aquarium owners; and it’s been met by pilfering vast numbers from the ocean. About 90% of the million or so clownfish sold each year as pets are probably taken from ocean reefs. And that does great damage to the coral, as the fish have a close symbiotic relationship with the anemone that grow on reefs: immune to the toxic chemicals the anemone secrete, the fish hide in their tentacles to escape…

Celebrities, eager to do their bit to stop coronavirus spreading, have been posting videos on social media. Robert De Niro warned his fellow New Yorkers to stay inside (“I’m watching you”) and Kevin Bacon, of six degrees of separation fame, urged his fans to do the same. “Since we’re all connected by various degrees – trust me, I know – we can work together to stay home,” he said. While Madonna said the virus puts us all in the same boat. “It’s the great equaliser,” she said, from a bathtub full of rose petals. The writer, comedian and national treasure Barry Cryer continues to compère The Oldie magazine’s literary lunch each month. At his most recent appearance – in the prelockdown era – he recalled putting on a show with…

“Anything can happen, but it usually doesn’t.” Robert Benchley, quoted on The Browser “How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious and ask him to lunch in advance.” Noël Coward, quoted in Forbes “When you grow up, who you were as a teenager either takes on a mythical importance or it’s completely laughable.” Novelist Julie Buntin, quoted on Shondaland.com “What do you call an Instagram celebrity with Covid-19? An influenzer.” Joke quoted in The Times “Laughter is the best medicine, people used to say, which is handy, now that you can’t get a Panadol for love nor money.” Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian “Happy endings can spring a leak/‘Ever after’ can mean one week.” Stephen…

Bored with self-isolating? Now is an ideal time to catch up on some of the TV series you might have missed. Everyone is no doubt familiar with The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Game of Thrones. But here are a few lesser known gems: Friday Night Lights This captivating series about a Texan high-school football coach and the jocks, dreamers and dropouts in his team addresses teenage crises – from absent parents to addiction – with infectious optimism. Almost unique in its affectionate if critical portrayal of small-town, red state America. On Amazon. Better Call Saul Breaking Bad told the story of Walter White, high-school chemistry teacher turned drugs kingpin. In Better Call Saul, Bad’s creators have taken Walter’s lawyer, Saul Goodman, and given…

The Wexell Escape Room Kit Enter the world of The Wexell Escape Room Kit, but beware: you have to solve the puzzles before time runs out and you are locked in forever. Written by an experienced escape room creator, everything you need to create your own escape room in your living room is included. £14.99 £16.99 Mensa - Test Your Brainpower This book has something to offer all types of puzzle solver. It will appeal to casual fans who would like to try something a little more challenging, as well as experienced solvers, who will be sure to discover something new. £10.99 £12.99 The Ordnance Survey Puzzle Tour of Britain With hundreds of puzzles, navigational tests, word games, code-crackers, anagrams and mathematical conundrums to keep you occupied as you explore…

Ben shows Freddie the car Jill bought him for his birthday and takes them for a spin. As Robert talks to Lilian, a doctor calls him into Lynda’s room – she is awake. Oliver isn’t coping well: he tells Ed he still blames himself for freezing in shock in the aftermath of the explosion. Lilian sits and talks with a tired Lynda. Alistair meets Philip, who is feeling bruised by the village gossip – he can’t forgive himself for being away when the accident occurred. Alistair encourages him not to hide away. Roy’s injuries are healing. Kirsty tells him she’s worried about the gossip over Philip, and wonders whether to cancel the wedding party. When Robert tells Lynda he blames Oliver for the explosion, she rebukes him – it wasn’t…

• If you haven’t got a good supply of stay-fresh containers in which to keep vegetables and leftovers, now might be the time to restock your tupperware. At least if we’re in lockdown, when either the lids or bottoms mysteriously disappear from the cupboard, you’ll know they are somewhere in the house. • If you add a pinch of salt to milk, it should last up to a week longer. But you can also freeze milk; it may not have a very good consistency when it comes out, but it should be fine to use. Put it into the freezer sealed, and defrost it in the fridge before use. • Some harder cheeses can be frozen, including cheddar (either in blocks or grated). But cheeses like parmesan last for ages…

Look out, too, for free music classes online, and also singalongs for pre-schoolers. Teddies Music Club, for example, has responded to the crisis by offering free two-month subscriptions to its collection of children’s music for families to sing and dance along to (teddiesmusicclub.co.uk). For online learning, try the Twinkl website, which is now free with the code CVDTWINKLHELPS and has resources for the full curriculum organised by Key Stage. ABCMouse.com also delivers early learning through games, songs and puzzles. For numeracy, try the Quick Math Jr app and The Maths Factor, created by Carol Vorderman. Epic!, an e-book library with 40,000 children’s books, is offering free access with an invitation from a teacher for the rest of the school year. Look out also for free readings; Frank Cottrell-Boyce has been…

Central banks and governments globally deployed an unprecedented armoury of measures in an attempt to defray the economic fall-out from the pandemic. Among other measures included in the massive $2trn stimulus deal agreed by the US Congress was a pledge to hand out $1,200 to many Americans and cash to boost unemployment insurance. But the centrepiece of the deal was a $500bn loan programme for companies and states. The package included $50bn to shore up US passenger airlines; the UK’s Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, told UK-based airlines to find other forms of funding and said the Government would only step in as “a last resort”. In Britain, the Bank of England cut interest rates for the second time in a fortnight to a record low of 0.1% and injected a further…

Tim Martin The Wetherspoon boss, rarely far from controversy, lobbied hard to keep the chain’s pubs open, claiming closures were “over the top”. Having lost that fight, he’s now facing accusations of abandonment from employees, said Colin Drury in The Independent. In a “rambling video” sent to all 40,000 staff “amid uncertainty over their futures”, Martin acknowledged that the state will pick up 80% of their wages, but nonetheless suggested they go and work at Tesco. “All our trade has now gone to supermarkets,” he said. Some might call the move pragmatic. But since other closed chains, such as Costa, will continue paying full wages, staff wonder why Wetherspoon, which turned over £1.8bn last year, couldn’t follow suit. Martin at least had the grace to wish them “good luck”. Cho…

“Eyebrows were raised” when a signed first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for £106,250 at Bonhams in 2017, says Caroline Bullock in The Sunday Telegraph. Returns on this scale are frankly rare. But while you’re holed up, why not build up your own library? Here are some tips from Matthew Haley of Bonhams: Quality over quantity “It’s always better to spend £1,000 on one first edition than £100 on ten later ones.” Content is king Lovely jackets – say, featuring the iconic printing of designers such as William Morris – “are a draw”. But what’s inside counts more. Haley lists Jane Austen, 1970s computing and early European Bibles “as areas of rising interest and value”. Check out the current zeitgeist Anything that chimes with cultural trends…

Controversy of the week Will the virus change us? At the height of the Blitz in 1941, the Labour minister Ernest Bevin ordered an official named William Beveridge to write a report on national insurance, said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. Beveridge proposed a “cradle-to-grave” welfare state. “No one seemed to mind the cost. There was a war on.” There’s no war on today, but “every crisis is an opportunity” – and similar transformations may emerge from this pandemic. It is quite clear that the crisis will herald “fundamental changes in our society”, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. Great chunks of the economy have been nationalised. We have been forced to rethink our values. “The idea that the NHS can limp along, underfunded and overstretched, will no longer…

Berlin Historic challenge: Angela Merkel confirmed this week that she has tested negative for the coronavirus. The German chancellor had started to self-isolate after being given a pneumonia vaccine by a doctor who later came down with the virus. On Sunday, Germany unveiled measures similar to those later introduced in the UK, banning gatherings of more than two people in public places, and non-essential trips. As of Wednesday, Germany had reported 35,000 cases, the third highest number in Europe. However, only 0.5% of those who have tested positive have succumbed to the disease, compared with 9.4% in Italy and 4.3% in France, something the authorities have put down to their aggressive efforts to test and track even mild cases of the disease (see page 25). Last week, an uncharacteristically emotional…

1* My Sweet Lord, written and performed by George Harrison 2 Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, “Heroic” by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Arthur Rubinstein 3 We’ve Only Just Begun by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, performed by the Carpenters 4 Being Boring, written and performed by Pet Shop Boys 5 Moon River by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini, performed by Audrey Hepburn 6 Calm Down, written and performed by The Clementines 7 Condolence, written and performed by Benjamin Clementine 8 God Is by Kanye West, Angel Lopez, Federico Vindver, Robert Fryson, Timothy Lee McKenzie, Victory Elyse Boyd and Warryn Campbell, performed by Kanye West Book: Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Luxury: grand piano * Choice if allowed only one record…

There are currently no “specific treatments” for Covid-19. Doctors can only offer supportive care: making sure the patient is getting enough oxygen, using a ventilator if necessary, managing fever, treating secondary bacterial infections. However, there are some antiviral drugs available which may ultimately do more than vaccines to combat the disease. The World Health Organisation is launching global “mega-trials” on four of the most promising therapies, which may slow or kill the novel coronavirus: an experimental antiviral compound called remdesivir; the malaria medications chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine; a combination of two HIV drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir; and that same combination plus interferon-beta. Another key step in beating the pandemic could be an antibody test, which detects not just if someone has the disease, but whether they have ever had it. In…

Restaurants are the lifeblood of this nation Derek Thompson The Atlantic The coronavirus pandemic will “crush” America’s restaurant industry, says Derek Thompson, with horrendous consequences for the wider economy. The sector is one of the country’s most important sources of work today. Back in 1990, manufacturing employment was almost three times larger than the food-service industry, but the two now account for roughly the same amount of jobs. The US has almost three million waiters and waitresses; more than 10% of all employment in Nevada, Hawaii, and Florida is linked to food preparation and service. Americans have, since 2015, spent more at restaurants than at grocery shops. These places have become the lifeblood of many communities. Without them and all the employment opportunities they offer, state and local economies across…

The weather may be cloudy, says The Times, but astrophysicists at the University of Hertfordshire have cut through the gloom. They’ve found a way of getting satellites to map what’s going on in the land beneath thick cloud cover as if it were a clear blue sky – a boon to farmers, who need to study their crops over a continuous period, and to those monitoring coastal erosion and flooding. The scientists have done it by adapting the way they look at distant galaxies – via reflected light rays. Infrared and visible light waves from satellites cannot penetrate cloud cover: but radio waves can. And when these bounce off the Earth’s surface, their reflectiveness gives a radar image of the land. Using AI and a supercomputer, the scientists have devised…

“It’s going to be a very long summer,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Despite its earlier hope that school closures might be avoided, the Government last week bowed to the inevitable. Hours after it was announced that Scottish and Welsh schools would be closing at the end of the week to slow the spread of the coronavirus infection, the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, confirmed that some 25,000 state and private schools in England would follow suit; schools would remain open only to the children of key workers and to vulnerable children. With no end to the crisis in sight, learning for the vast majority would now take place at home. It was an announcement, said The Sunday Times, that sent more than ten million pupils in the UK on…

GPs on the front line To The Sunday Times After the most extraordinary week in my 37-year career as a doctor, W.B. Yeats’s memorable line comes to mind: “All changed, changed utterly.” In our GP practice in Loughborough, we immediately converted face-to-face appointments to video and telephone consultations. We contacted hundreds of patients to screen them for symptoms. We created red (at risk) and green (routine) rooms to see patients safely through staggered appointments. The workload was huge for all: my own 12-hour day ended with a palliative care visit to the home of a young woman dying of cancer. We will get through it. And even during such a worrying week, there were happier surprises. I contacted a 90-year-old patient to undertake a video consultation, nervous about how she…

Along with sales of loo roll, tinned sardines and handguns, demand for “epidemic-themed” literature has shot up as the coronavirus has spread around the world, said Jon Day in the FT. Albert Camus’s The Plague is perhaps the best known – Penguin rushed out a reprint when stocks ran out last week – but there are other illustrious examples, from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, via Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, to José Saramago’s Blindness and Stephen King’s The Stand. Writing in 1722, Defoe based his novel on his uncle’s account of the 1665-66 London plague season. From the perspective of 2020, “it really is all there”, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian: “Ye olde panicke buying, ye olde refusal to self-isolate – ‘they did not take the least…

Porridge Radio: Every Bad Secretly Canadian £10 Dana Margolin recently declared her post-punk indie band Porridge Radio “the best band in the world”, said Rhian Daly on NME. It was a bold assertion – but this second album from the Brighton rockers “is a bold, brilliant record”. They may indeed be one of British music’s “next great hopes”. An “intoxicating reflection on trying to figure out life in your mid-20s”, Every Bad breathes “fresh life into indie” with a sound that brings to mind such illustrious forebears as Elastica and the Pixies, while being entirely distinctive. This “spiky, strange and uncompromisingly brilliant” album reveals the “sardonic” Margolin to be “one of rock’s great screamers”, agreed Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. Her “hoarse, guttural sound seems dredged up from somewhere deep…

Alain-Fournier: A Brief Life by David Arkell, 1986 (Carcanet, out of print). Alain-Fournier wrote only one book, Le Grand Meaulnes, the most famous novel of adolescence. Here Arkell reveals the two inspirations for Yvonne de Galais in a story just as romantic. Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks by Meryle Secrest, 1976 (Macdonald and Jane’s, out of print). The “Gothic nightmare” life of an American portrait artist in 20th century Paris, who finally blacked out her windows in Nice and died aged 96. Enlivened by affairs with d’Annunzio, Natalie Barney and others. Forty Years with Berenson by Nicky Mariano, 1966 (Hamish Hamilton, out of print). If I had to rescue one of my 25 books on or by Bernard Berenson, it would be Nicky Mariano’s. She was…

Tips of the week... how to work from home ● Keep your schedule as similar to how it is in the office as possible. Take the same amount of time to get ready, keep your start time, and check in with your colleagues. ● Get dressed – don’t stay in your pyjamas, as appealing as it might seem. ● Start your day by going for a walk – or even a run – to replicate the experience of a commute. ● If you can, identify a regular spot in your home in which you can work. ● Put meals, breaks and exercise breaks into your schedule as you would a meeting. ● Do as much as you can to make contact with people both from work and elsewhere, so you…

Country music star who sold 165 million records Kenny Rogers 1938-2020 Kenny Rogers, who has died aged 81, was the “grizzled king” of easy-going country and western music, “a gravel-voiced charm merchant who spoke of real things with just a hint of cheese”, said The Daily Telegraph. One of the most successful recording artists of all time, he sold more than 165 million records in his 60-year career, released 40 albums and had almost 70 Country Top 40 hits, including those “all-time classic jukebox favourites” Lucille; Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town; Coward of the County; and, with his old friend Dolly Parton, Islands in the Stream. Although best known as a country musician, the big-hearted star also had roots in doo-wop, jazz and folk – and he had…

Hordes of “faithful fans” queued for an hour or more at McDonald’s restaurants and drive thru operations “for one last Big Mac” before the fast-food giant shut up shop on Monday night, said The Mirror. The feeding frenzy was so bad at one Cambridgeshire restaurant that the cops were called. Elsewhere, “police cars” joined “the line-up for the drive thru”. McDonald’s had already stopped serving in-house diners, but aficionados had hoped they could still get takeaways via Uber Eats. No dice. McDonald’s has joined other chains, including Costa, Subway and Nando’s, in “total lockdown”. UK CEO Paul Pomroy said the move – which followed the Government’s pledge to pay 80% of employees’ wages – had been taken “with the well-being and safety of employees in mind”, as well as “the…

The week’s best shares Avon Rubber Investors Chronicle This defensive business makes personal protection gear for the military. Operating in a niche market with limited competition, it has a strong balance sheet and benefits from high margins and pricing power. Buy. £19.70. Barratt Developments The Sunday Times Covid-19 fears have seen the big housebuilders’ shares plummet by 50%. But Barratt, which completed 17,856 homes last year, focuses on quality and has a decent cash pile. Should be “safe as houses”. Buy. 408.2p. Boku The Mail on Sunday Boku enables music, games, movies and apps to be bought on mobile devices via the user’s phone bill. Some 190 networks, including EE and O2, use its technology, which has enticed Apple, Google, Spotify and Netflix to sign deals. Buy. 59p. HSBC The…

Marvel Comics has introduced its first gender non-binary superheroes – and named them Snowflake and Safespace. A new TV series, The New Warriors, will feature the pair, who are twins. Snowflake has the power to fire crystallised snowflake-shaped projectiles; Safespace can create a big pink forcefield. Marvel said that the names were meant to be “post-ironic”. Many, however, labelled the characters’ names ill-judged and “out of touch”. Psychs, a South London rapper, has released a drill track entitled Spreadin’, in hopes of raising awareness about the coronavirus. While the 18-year-old’s lyrics bemoan the loss of football on TV, he also urges people to avoid hugging and shaking hands.…

Yellowknife, Canada First Nations to self-isolate: Indigenous communities across northern Canada have sealed themselves off from the rest of the country to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The country’s 1.4 million-strong indigenous population (Inuit, Métis and First Nations) are believed to be particularly vulnerable to the pandemic because of their high levels of poverty, overcrowded living conditions, and poor healthcare facilities. “Inuit communities historically experienced devastating loss of life due to lack of immunity to preventable diseases such as influenza,” said the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents 180,000 Inuit people in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland. “The basic conditions that contributed to vulnerability in the past continue to exist in too many of our communities today.” Washington DC Protect the economy: President Trump’s approval ratings rose sharply this week, despite…

“Of all the premature predictions about how this pandemic is going to change society, the biggest false prophecy is that it is going to result in more homeworking. Trust me, after several months of getting annoyed by one another’s endless booming conference calls and habit of eating Nutella straight from the jar by way of lunch, we will all be desperate to return to the workplace. I miss my colleagues. At least, I miss colleagues who are not using my ironing board as a desk. When this whole crazy thing is over, I’m looking forward to two things. First, hugging my elderly parents again. Second, working in the office, if they’ll have me.” Sathnam Sanghera in The Times…

No, we didn’t all pull together during the War Prof Steven Fielding Financial Times The spirit of the Blitz, “when we all pulled together and looked after each other”: that’s what Dame Vera Lynn, now aged 103, is urging us to invoke at this time of crisis. And it may be it is a spirit worth invoking, says the historian Steven Fielding, but it’s also a myth. In historical reality, there was far less solidarity in those war days than people think. Far from being welcomed, the 1.5 million working-class children evacuated from the cities, in the autumn of 1939, were often deeply resented by the better-off folk on whom they were billeted. What solidarity there was back then mostly occurred within the working-class communities that bore the brunt of…

Want to know why the US economy is in free fall? Why schools are shutting down, and millions of Americans are facing an uncertain future? The answer, said Marc A. Thiessen in The Washington Post, is “because China is a brutal totalitarian dictatorship”. If the regime had taken proper action when the coronavirus first emerged last year, it could have contained the outbreak and prevented a global pandemic. Instead, it suppressed the evidence for weeks and punished doctors who raised the alarm. Beijing has a lot to answer for, agreed David Harsanyi in the National Review. It’s happy to suppress the rights of the Chinese people, yet is “apparently unable to exert even mild cultural pressure” to stop them buying exotic animals at unsanitary markets. “I hate to thrust my…

The largest cat ever... It’s well known that 12,000 years ago human beings had to share the planet with ferocious giant cats. But the discovery of a sabre-tooth tiger skull in Uruguay suggests that the largest sub-species, Smilodon populator, was far bigger than anyone imagined. The size of the skull suggests the animal weighed between 407kg and 436kg: previous estimates had put it at somewhere between 220kg and 360kg. This in turn, according to an article in the journal Alcheringa, suggests its vast jaws could handle prey weighing up to three tonnes, not just one tonne, as previously thought. One million to 10,000 years ago, sabre-tooth tigers hunted giant sloth across the continents of North and South America, the only larger animal at that time would have been the enormous…

Is there something about being German which protects the body against Covid 19? “Probably not, I would guess,” said Ross Clark in The Spectator. In which case, why has Germany, with tens of thousands of people infected by the disease, suffered only a couple of hundred deaths? The official German figures show a case fatality rate from the disease of 0.5%, while those from Italy show a shockingly high rate of around 9%. Britain, like China, seems to be somewhere in the middle. This is, in part, just a statistical mirage. Germany has tested very large numbers for infection; the more people are tested, the more the number of cases increases, thus reducing the fatality rate. Italy, by contrast, thinks its real number of cases is around ten times the…

To The Daily Telegraph As well as being 66 and in poor health, I also have three sisters in the at-risk category for coronavirus. I therefore feel qualified to say this. We are demolishing our economy and small businesses and wasting many billions of pounds to protect an at-risk category comprising about 1% of the population. The science suggests that the rest of us may get a mild form of the virus but will recover. The best estimates state that up to 250,000 people will lose their lives. This accounts for less than half of 1% of our population. This is extremely sad and awful for those affected, but while governments should be caring, they must be pragmatic. Many of these people – myself included – will succumb to something…

Apeirogon by Colum McCann Bloomsbury 480pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £16.99 Colum McCann’s seventh novel is the kind of book that “comes along only once in a generation”, said Alex Preston in The Observer. It tells the real-life story of two men – a Palestinian, Bassam Aramin, and an Israeli, Rami Elhanan – both grieving for daughters killed by an Israeli bullet and a Palestinian suicide bomber, respectively. Both have become peace campaigners since their personal tragedies struck, and have forged a firm friendship – “a thing of great and sustaining beauty”. McCann’s account of their lives “buoys the heart”, despite its great sadness. It is “a masterpiece, a novel that will change the world”. I’d have to disagree, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. McCann does not…

Like Julian Fellowes’ best-known work, Downton Abbey, this six-part Netflix drama series about the birth of modern association football puts social class “front and centre-forward”, said Victoria Segal in The Sunday Times. Set in 1879, when “gentleman” players dominated the game and decided the rules, it follows a Lancashire mill team as they compete in the FA Cup against Old Etonians FC. The Etonians play dirty, but the millworkers have a secret weapon – two Scottish players, including Kevin Guthrie’s Fergus Suter, who teach them a more elegant way of playing, promising them victory and the hope that football could turn out to be “a subversive agent of social change”. I thought it was “terrible”, says Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. The characters are straight out of central casting –…

All over the country, restaurants and cafés have closed. The sandwich shops and coffee chains that feed the workforce have drawn down their shutters. And with supermarket shelves stripped as soon as they are filled, millions of people – many of whom don’t usually cook – are wondering what they are going to eat for the next few weeks. The good news for the non-cooks is that no one needs a cookery book in the online age; and there are also websites and apps that will suggest recipes based on the ingredients you already have. Supercook (supercook.com) is one of the best-known of these. Judging by the state of the supermarkets, many Britons are planning to live off pasta al pomodoro for the next three months, said Felicity Cloake in…

The 2016 Honda NSX – a hybrid sports car – was in many ways an “astonishing” piece of engineering, said What Car?. But it was held back by heavy batteries and a “safe” set-up, which meant it couldn’t quite reach the potential of its powerful engine. It’s still not the “most thrilling, efficient or exquisitely made supercar you can buy”. But with this update, Honda has managed to fix a lot of the old problems. While the NSX has always been an “admirable feat of technological virtuosity”, is has been hampered by “artificial-feeling steering” and “sticky” hybrid integration, said The Daily Telegraph. Now, though, it drives “like an entirely different car”. The engine, a 3.5-litre V6 with two turbos strapped to it, produces 500bhp by itself. With three electric motors…

FTSE companies: dividends cut Markets used to whip “divi-cutters”, said Kate Burgess in the FT. But like so much else, that habit has been turned on its head. Indeed, when Go-Ahead and Kingfisher joined the 30-plus listed UK companies that have “decided to pass, cut or delay payouts to investors since the coronavirus outbreak”, their shares actually rose. Given the parlous state of the economy, few investors, it seems, “want to see company cash splashed”. Many other businesses – particularly high-yielders – may now follow suit. Even Shell, which boasts it hasn’t cut its dividend since WWII (it currently yields a generous 14%) may be forced into a rethink. For the moment, management “still isn’t ready to throw in the towel on a payment that cost $15bn last year”,…

How Covid-19 “saved” the rail industry Alistair Osborne The Times Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’s decision to “temporarily suspend normal franchise agreements” is just what the doctor ordered for heavily loss-making rail operators like First Group, says Alistair Osborne. From their point of view, the “financial alchemy of Covid-19” has saved the industry from hitting the buffers. True, the new rules initially apply for only six months, but they arrive just in time for boards which “ludicrously” overbid for franchises. “Wildly optimistic bids, runaway revenue risk, Network Rail screw-ups and thinly capitalised operators have long been a prize mix for financial derailments”, and though full nationalisation still looks an “impossible job”, it must be “game over” for the current system. The virus got there before the final report from Keith Williams,…

● Floral garland Thousands of small businesses are expected to go to the wall before all this is over. But “a defiant spirit is emerging” among Britain’s “plucky entrepreneurs”, even as the virus threatens to bring the economy to a standstill, said Peter Evans and Liam Kelly in The Sunday Times. According to Freddie Garland, who set up his London-based online flower-delivery business Freddie’s Flowers five years ago, the past month has presented “the toughest business conditions he has ever known”. But Mother’s Day offered some solace. Thanks to a “glut of supply from his wholesaler in Holland” and “shuttered florist shops”, his company, which made sales of £16.5m last year, enjoyed a surge in demand. Garland hopes that a continued lockdown will still work in his favour. “If you…