Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1279 i The Week

Easing the lockdown: mixed signals from No.10 “Boris Johnson and his top aide, Dominic Cummings, are masters of the snappy slogan,” said The Economist. But even the “greatest advertising gurus sometimes pitch a flop”. And that was the Prime Minister’s sad fate on Sunday, when he unveiled the Government’s latest Covid-19 guidelines and its new, updated slogan, “Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives”. Far from rallying the nation, the statement created confusion. “I don’t know what ‘stay alert’ means,” declared Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, dismissing it as “vague and imprecise”. She is going to stick with the “Stay Home” slogan, as are the governments of Wales and Northern Ireland. Johnson urged people to return to work if they couldn’t work from home, said Tom Peck in…

Druids, with news that English Heritage is going to live-stream the solstice from Stonehenge, so that pagans can enjoy it at home. Owing to lockdown rules, English Heritage has had to cancel the midsummer gathering at the stone circle, as it attracts up to 12,000 people. Senior Druid King Arthur Pendragon described the decision as “understandable in the present circumstances”. Anglican clergy, who were told that they could start re-entering their churches to live-stream services. Meanwhile, the BBC and the Wigmore Hall announced that they are organising the first classical concerts to be staged in London since lockdown began. Played to an empty hall, the concerts will be live-streamed each weekday lunchtime throughout June. Cyclists, after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced plans to invest £250m in cycle lanes, to make…

Only 3% of Britons admit to having breached lock-down rules by leaving home for non-essential reasons during the past week – but when the survey is anonymous, that figure leaps to 29%. With anonymity, 31% admit to meeting up with friends and relatives from other households (up from 8% without it), and 35% admit to breaching the two-metre rule (up from 16%). Decision Technology/ The Times 82% of Britons think the Government should prioritise the population’s health and well-being over the economy during the pandemic. Six in ten think that should remain the case after it; nearly a third want the economy to become the priority at that point. YouGov/The Observer…

Washington DC White House infections: White House officials have been ordered to wear face masks at work, after the first cases of Covid-19 inside the West Wing were confirmed. Two White House staffers tested positive for the virus last week: a personal valet to Donald Trump, and Vice-President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller (pictured). The president said he had introduced the mask rule, but that he had exempted himself from it: “I am very far away from everyone,” he said. The infections prompted several senior members of the coronavirus task force to self-isolate – including Dr Anthony Fauci, 79, the scientific adviser leading the US response. This week, Fauci, who has sometimes been at odds with the president, testified (remotely) to the US Senate that if the US eases…

1* Moonage Daydream, written and performed by David Bowie 2 The Lamb by Sir John Tavener, performed by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge 3 You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two by Lionel Bart, performed by the 1994 London Palladium cast of Oliver! 4 Icecrust and Snowflake, written and performed by Ted Hughes 5 Atmosphere, written and performed by Joy Division 6 Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go? by Ed Cobb and Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland, performed by Soft Cell 7 Holmfirth Anthem, traditional, performed by Jon Rennard 8 My Heart’s in the Highlands by Robert Burns and Arvo Pärt, performed by Else Torp and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent Book: the full Oxford English Dictionary Luxury: a tennis ball * Choice if allowed only one record…

President Trump said earlier this month that he has seen clear proof that the virus originated in the high-security Wuhan Institute of Virology, which specialises in researching bat coronaviruses. Asked what the evidence was, he said: “I can’t tell you that.” Scientists at the institute, led by Shi Zhengli – aka the “Bat Woman” – have created hybrid coronaviruses which could infect humans, and concerns about the risks of such research have been raised. There is also a second lab in the city, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, not far from the Huanan market, which researches viruses. Amid claims of a Chinese cover-up, and with no definitive history of the outbreak’s origins – a third of early cases had no clear link to the market – the theory that…

The law can’t hurt you if you stick by Trump David A. Graham The Atlantic To appreciate how much the rule of law has weakened during the Trump administration, says David A. Graham, look no further than the case of Michael Flynn. The former national security adviser resigned in disgrace in February 2017, just weeks after Donald Trump had been sworn in. It followed the revelation that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the US. He was subsequently also accused of taking money from the Turkish government for lobbying, of failing to file required documents, and of being involved in a dubious nuclear reactor scheme in the Middle East. In the face of mounting legal problems, Flynn did what many prudent defendants do:…

Children are just as likely to be infected with the novel coronavirus as adults, although they show fewer symptoms, a study has concluded. Since there have been so few confirmed cases of Covid-19 in children, the hope was that children do not catch it, and some studies back this up: researchers in Iceland examined 848 children under ten without significant symptoms and found none were infected, whereas among children over ten, the rate was 0.8%. In the US, an analysis of 150,000 people showed that only 1.7% of under-18s were infected. However, when scientists in China analysed the 1,286 close contacts of 391 Covid-19 patients, they found that 7.4% of the under-tens among them were infected – a similar proportion as seen in adults and older children (7.9%). Separately, researchers…

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.” Joan Didion, quoted in The New York Times “Consciousness is the mere surface of our minds, of which, as of the Earth, we do not know the inside, but only the crust.” Arthur Schopenhauer, quoted in Forbes “What would life be without coffee? But, then, what is life even with coffee?” King Louis XV of France, quoted in The New Yorker “The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” T.H. Huxley, quoted in The Sunday Telegraph “I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” Charlotte Brontë, quoted in the Associated Press “A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for…

Why bother with Netflix, Amazon or BritBox when you can while away lockdown (and save a few pennies) with the superb TV dramas available on Freeview? Start with the best of all Sherlock Holmeses – Jeremy Brett – in the 1980s adaptation, available on ITV Hub, and then try these other, lesser-known gems. Bodies Based on the book by former doctor Jed Mercurio, this medical negligence drama ran for two series from 2004. An angry and often gory show – but never less than gripping – it features a barnstorming performance from Max Beesley as a new registrar horrified by what he’s seeing. On BBC iPlayer. Not Only But Always A first-rate 2004 film about the comedy duo Dudley Moore (Aidan McArdle) and Peter Cook (Rhys Ifans). Tracing their partnership…

What the experts recommend In praise of the frozen pea… Peas are the “denim of the freezer drawer”, says Debora Robertson in The Daily Telegraph: undemanding, reliable and good with pretty much everything. And they’re one of the foods we’re turning to most in lockdown: sales of frozen peas are up almost 70% on last year. We owe their existence to Clarence Birdseye, who, as a young entrepreneur in 1920s America, discovered that if you quickly blanch and chill peas before freezing, “they maintain their vivid green colour and sweetness”. All this has to be done within two and a half hours of picking, so that their sugars don’t start turning to starch – which means that unless you grow your own, frozen peas are usually going to be better…

Tips of the week... how to avoid Amazon ● For electronics, you can often cut out the middle man and order straight from the manufacturer. Dell, Apple and Samsung are offering free delivery, as is Box.co.uk. ● Currys PC World has a sale on equipment for the home office, from printers to coffee machines; and you can collect John Lewis orders at Waitrose, Co-op or Booths stores. ● Ethicalsuperstore.com is a great place to buy environmentally friendly cleaning supplies, pet food or baby gear. ● Curzon and BFI both have films to rent online, and both start with a free trial. ● Some book shops deliver. Look on the Booksellers Association’s website. ● Wordery.co.uk has a huge selection, and Hive.co.uk is delivering books, and also paying double commission to the…

William “Terry” Clark 1919-2020 William “Terry” Clark, who has died aged 101, was one of only two known surviving members of “The Few” – that group of nearly 3,000 airmen who took on the Luftwaffe in the skies above England in the summer of 1940. Clark had joined the Auxiliary Air Force aged 19; then, on 12 July 1940, he joined 219 Squadron as an Aircraftman Second Class, defending York and its nearby airfields in the Battle of Britain. William Terence Montague Clark was born in Croydon in 1919. He left school when he was 14 and took a job at Croydon Gas. In search of adventure, he quit his job in 1938, and joined the newly formed No. 615 Squadron at nearby Kenley. Initially ground crew, he trained as…

Talk about freewheeling. Shares in Halfords, Britain’s biggest bicycle chain, jumped nearly 24% after the Government talked up cycling as the ideal safe means of transport for those returning to work after the lockdown, said Michelle McGagh on Citywire. Amid reports of a bike famine, the “imminent legalisation of e-scooters” on public roads is an equal boon – Halfords leads the pack in that category too. Analysts are cock-a-hoop about the company’s prospects. “We have generally been loath to forecast V-shaped post-Covid-19 recoveries, but this might be different,” said Jonathan Pritchard of Peel Hunt. “Our new numbers reflect a very strong bounce back in sales and earnings, led by cycling, with motoring lagging.” It seems there’s plenty of mileage in cycling globally – even of the stationary sort, said Jenni…

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has indicated that it is “very likely” all foreign holidays will be cancelled this summer – yet Ryanair still plans to reintroduce 40% of its flights in July. Rarely has booking a holiday seemed “such a stressful business”, said David Byers in The Sunday Times. Here’s the lowdown on your rights: Cash refunds Under package travel regulations, you are entitled to a full refund within 14 days of formal cancellation. For flights, a refund is due within seven days. Companies are “breaking the law” if they fail to stump up the cash. Nonetheless, many are offering “credit notes” instead. Understandably, many people are reluctant to take a voucher because “they’re doubtful the travel company or airline will still be around to redeem it”. Credit notes The…

The week’s best shares AJ Bell The Times The investment manager’s performance is comfortably beating reference indices and shares have regained “most of their poise”. Expensive, but growing strongly and customer numbers have just jumped by a fifth. Buy. 396p. AstraZeneca Investors Chronicle The pharma’s aim of achieving scientific leadership and a return to growth is working, with new drugs performing “especially well”. The “exciting pipeline” includes a potential Covid-19 vaccine. Yields 2.6%. Buy. £85.62. Barratt Developments The Times The housebuilder is reopening locations, amid recovering visits to property websites. Financially strong, Barratt has axed its dividend during the slowdown, and is set to benefit from a recovery – before, it was yielding 8.7%. Buy. 517.25p. Calisen The Sunday Telegraph Calisen installs and manages smart utility meters. Predicted to build…

Controversy of the week Sunak walks the line “The Government has made serious, lethal mistakes during the pandemic,” said The Guardian. But its job retention scheme is “one thing it got right”. The scheme, unveiled by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in March, is paying 80% of the wages of 7.5 million workers – about a quarter of the workforce – up to £2,500 per month. It is estimated to cost £14bn a month, but “rarely has money been better spent”. Sunak has ensured “that economic catastrophe did not follow hard on the heels of a public-health emergency”. Without the scheme, we’d now have unemployment on a scale not seen since the 1930s; in the US, which has no equivalent, 20 million people lost their jobs in April alone. So Sunak’s announcement…

Gardeners, who were warned to be on the lookout for the “most dangerous” invasive species of them all: giant hogweed. Experts say the plant, which secretes a toxic sap capable of causing blindness and blistering burns, has spread rapidly this year, and is now growing on streets and in gardens. The Notting Hill Carnival, which was cancelled for the first time since it started in 1966. Usually a million people attend the event, in west London, which had been due to take place in late August.…

Lake District, Cumbria Stay away: Officials in Cumbria have urged people to stay away from the Lake District – regardless of the new guidance on visiting national parks. From this week, people are permitted to drive any distance to take exercise, but in tourist areas, the authorities are still urging visitors to keep away, arguing that they risk spreading the virus and, with businesses closed, will bring no benefit to the local economy. Separately, data from anonymised bank transactions suggested that areas reliant on tourism were being hit particularly hard by the lockdown. In the three weeks to 28 April, transactions were down 55% in Cumbria, making it the worst affected region in the country after Oxfordshire, where the closure of the university, along with attractions such as the Bicester…

Kano, Nigeria Slower spread: The director of the WHO in Africa has predicted that Covid-19 probably “won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world”. However, Dr Matshidiso Moeti warned that it could still kill up to 190,000 people over the next 12 months – and then “smoulder in transmission hotspots” for years. So far, there have only been 69,600 confirmed cases in the whole of Africa, and 2,397 deaths. It is likely that underreporting and a lack of testing are distorting the picture, particularly in emerging virus hotspots such as Kano, in Nigeria. Even so, African countries are proving far more resilient than many expected, and public health experts and epidemiologists are urgently exploring why this might be the case. Theories include climate (Covid is…

“The past few years have seen an upsurge in nostalgia for the 1970s. The good news for those who enjoy a wallow in that dismal decade is that we’re about to experience it all over again, as the UK takes its first steps out of lockdown. Cinemas and eating out will become a rare treat. Recreation will be a ‘nice walk’ without a pub at the other end. There won’t be any gigs, so it will be like living in a Midlands town where a big show comes once a month. Social distancing will mean small shops dealing with one customer at a time. It’s going to be grey and brown and last far too long. By the time it’s over, we may all remember why we thought we liked…

The door out of lockdown tells us who we are Harry Wallop The Times You can learn a lot about countries, says Harry Wallop, from the way they lift their lockdowns. They all claim to be guided strictly by science, but their actions reveal their true priorities. It’s no surprise, for instance, that in Italy the first businesses to reopen were bars where people could get an espresso (albeit a takeaway one). The first places to open their doors in Greece, by contrast, were churches, bookshops and hairdressers. And in Germany, the reopening of businesses began, as you’d expect, with car dealerships. And Britain? How have we begun our long march back to normality? By rushing to council tips, of course, as befits a people obsessed with gardening and DIY.…

Add weight, lose weight Losing weight could be as simple as wearing a vest – albeit a very heavy one. Scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden recruited 69 obese adults (with BMIs of between 30 and 35) and asked each to wear a weighted vest for eight hours a day. The members of one group were assigned vests weighing 11kg, while those in a second “control” group were given vests weighing just 1kg. After three weeks, the participants who’d worn the heavy vests had lost 1.6kg on average, while those wearing lighter vests had lost 0.3kg. The decline, moreover, appeared to come entirely from fat loss: the participants’ muscle mass remained stable. The team conducted the study to explore a theory they proposed two years ago that many…

“Professor Lockdown”: a model we shouldn’t follow? “It feels a lifetime ago,” but it has only been two months since the PM made the fateful decision to shut Britain down, said Karren Brady in The Sun. Overnight, we were asked to make changes to our lives so extreme, they “initially seemed unimaginable”. We complied, because we were told that by cutting ourselves off from our friends and loved ones, we were helping to save lives. Yet last week, it emerged that the epidemiologist who had spent the past seven weeks pushing this message had felt no such compunction: at least twice during the lockdown, Professor Neil Ferguson had been visited at home by his married lover. Reportedly, she was actually in the room when he was being interviewed on…

Who really won the War? To The Times I enter this debate with some trepidation, as I am neither a military man nor a historian, but I found your article “We led the war effort, say British (others disagree)” rather puzzling. Almost all countries will value their contribution most. The pollsters were simply asking the wrong question. In the end, of course with respect to personal sacrifice in every quarter, some combination of the US and the Soviet Union won the War, aided by the UK and her Empire and Commonwealth, and freedom fighters from around the world. The right question is, as laid out at the end of John Lukacs’s magisterial book Five Days in London: May 1940, “Who did not lose the War when it was easily possible…

“We’ve all become profoundly more digital over the last weeks,” said Anna Somers Cocks in The Art Newspaper – and now digital change is rushing into the art world, too. Today, thanks to new technology, paintings and monuments can be reproduced more or less exactly. The Factum Foundation, a world leader in art reproduction, has used 3D digital scanners to make near-perfect copies of – among other things – Raphael’s Cartoons; the Russian modernist Malevich’s Black Square (1915); and the tomb of Seti I in Egypt. But this raises an important question: where do these developments leave the original work of art? If it can be copied, is its all-important “aura” fatally diminished? Perhaps the most striking example of Factum’s work is its copy of Veronese’s huge painting The Wedding…

It has – inevitably – been a bleak spring for the literary world, with bookshops closed and festivals cancelled. But amid the gloom came news that the Hay Festival would be going ahead online, with a “reshaped” programme from 18 to 31 May, featuring many of the authors who had been on the original line-up. Hay Festival Digital will live stream 80 free events, with interactive Q&As; speakers include Hilary Mantel, Stephen Fry, Maggie O’Farrell, Gloria Steinem and Roddy Doyle. There’s also a starry Wordsworth 250 celebration on 22 May, featuring readings by Benedict Cumberbatch, Margaret Atwood, Vanessa Redgrave and Jonathan Pryce, and a five-day schools programme (register at hayfestival.com). Other live-events organisers making the leap into cyberspace (mostly via Zoom) include the How To Academy. It has some free…

Grilled aubergine with yakumi sauce Serves 4 2 large aubergines 2 tbsp of sunflower or vegetable oil ½ tsp sea salt 2 banana shallots, very thinly sliced 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds for the yakumi sauce: 4 tbsp soy sauce 4 tbsp rice vinegar 1 tsp sugar 4 spring onions, finely chopped 2 tsp finely chopped or grated ginger 1 large red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped 1 tbsp sesame oil • Preheat grill to high. Cut aubergines in half vertically with the stalk intact, brush their flesh sides with the oil and grill, cut sides down, for 15 minutes or until the flesh is soft and the skin burnt. Remove and cool. • Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and leave to sit for at least 30 minutes.…

THÜROS T1 To Go If you’re looking for a barbecue you can take to the beach, or one that won’t take up much room in your garden, this portable German model is a good option. It’s meant for a table top, and you can get a useful kebab attachment allowing you to “hang” skewers over the heat (e299; thueros.com). Everdure by Heston Blumenthal CUBE The compact and stylish CUBE has a ten-inch grill and slightly raised walls so food can’t roll off. The secure lid also doubles up as a sealed plastic storage tray and a bamboo food prep board (£145; stovesareus .co.uk). Napoleon PRO22K This classic barbecue combines a compact shape with a reasonably large grilling space. It has a sturdy cast-iron grill that you can raise and lower,…

Virgin Galactic/Atlantic: space rescue “At the moment, one can barely fly from New York to London,” said Lex in the FT. “Jetting off to space is even more fanciful”, but investors “still find the latter proposition more compelling”. Shares in Virgin Galactic have “doubled” since listing in New York late last year, valuing Sir Richard Branson’s “pie in the sky venture” at more than $4bn. That cash is now coming in handy. Branson has announced plans to sell $500m of his Galactic stake to pump into other parts of his business – including the teetering Virgin Atlantic airline. What a “masterstroke (or lucky stroke)” taking Galactic public proved to be: it could give Branson’s travel and hospitality empire “a fighting chance” of survival. The UK Government has so far…

We should all share in the recovery Simon French The Times Some business leaders have been questioning what Covid-19 means for the Government’s “levelling up” agenda, says Simon French. The answer should be fairly plain – the strategy should be placed at the heart of the Chancellor’s recovery plans, giving a “wider range of citizens” a stake in the economy. A defining feature of the 2007-08 financial crash was that government rescues – and subsequent disposals – did so little “for the image of inclusive capitalism”. The sell-down of stakes in bailed-out banks went to a “narrow group of institutional investors”. If this crisis, in turn, forces the Government to take stakes in companies deemed “too important to fail”, it’s crucial we don’t repeat that mistake. New initiatives, such as…

Newcastle: a Saudi takeover? Mike Ashley has owned Newcastle United for 13 years, said Martin Hardy in The Times – and he has spent the last 12 of them trying to sell it. Now, he finally appears to have found a buyer. A £300m takeover is nearing completion; if it is approved by the Premier League, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will own an 80% stake in the club, with the rest owned by three British property developers. Newcastle “has suffered years of mismanagement under the selfish, stubborn guidance of the sport-shop billionaire”, said Luke Edwards in The Daily Telegraph. There has been little in the way of success – and two relegations. But Newcastle has remained a big club; St James’ Park regularly attracts crowds of more than 50,000.…

Once British households had stocked up on loo roll, they started to think of other things they’d need to cope in lockdown. According to John Lewis, the first week saw a rush on freezers and landline phones; then sales of pasta and bread makers started to rise sharply. Now, grooming products are flying off the virtual shelves. Hair dye sales are up 149%, and those of hair-removing kits are up eightfold. The Duke of Edinburgh Award is being remodelled for the lockdown era. Participants can now earn volunteering points by helping their siblings with their homework. Activities might include teaching English via Skype. As for the “expedition” section, this might be completed by camping in the garden, and running on a treadmill.…

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has joined calls for an independent inquiry into the impact of Covid-19 on people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Khan wrote to the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, while more than 70 other public figures have written to the Prime Minister. A scientific review into the issue, conducted by Public Health England, is due to report by the end of this month, but many argue that an independent inquiry is also required. According to recent figures, black, Asian and minority ethnic patients account for more than a third of those in critical care with Covid-19, and 17% of deaths from the virus, but make up only 14% of the population.…

Berlin R rate rises: Germany’s coronavirus reproduction rate – the R number that indicates how many people each infected person goes on to infect – rose sharply last week to above the crucial level of one, increasing fears that the easing of the lockdown will lead to a second wave. The government’s scientific advisory body said the R number had risen from 0.65 last Wednesday to 1.1 by Sunday, but that it was too early to deduce a causal link with the lifting of restrictions last week. Germany has been widely praised for its response to the pandemic: its death toll per capita is far lower than in other western European nations (although it is far higher than in much of central and eastern Europe). But anti-lockdown protests have been…

An 11-year-old skating pro Skateboarder Sky Brown is on course to become the youngest athlete to compete for Britain in a summer Olympics – assuming the postponed Games go ahead next year, says Rebecca Myers in The Times. But the 11-year-old has never lived in Britain. With a Japanese mother and an English father, she was born in Japan, and is now based in California. She started skating with her father as soon as she could walk. She became the youngest professional skater aged nine, and last year she was ranked ninth in the world. But her youth isn’t the only thing that makes her unusual. Skating is a traditionally male-oriented sport, and though there are plenty of female skaters now, skate parks still aren’t always welcoming places for women.…

A bull with an itchy bottom cut off power to 800 people in Lanarkshire last week. Hazel Laughton discovered that a transformer had been knocked off a telegraph pole in her field, leaving three villages without electricity. When she arrived at the scene, she noticed her four-year-old bull, Ron, looking sheepish and “a bit stunned” – and realised that “he had an itchy bum so scratched it on the electricity pole and knocked the transformer off”. When police in Utah stopped a car being driven erratically on a highway, they were surprised to find a five-year-old child at the wheel. The boy, it transpired, had driven three miles from home after arguing with his mum. “She told him she would not buy him a Lamborghini,” police said. So “he decided…

ISRAEL The virus may help to unite Arabs and Jews Haaretz (Tel Aviv) As if by magic, coronavirus has dissolved the perceived threat to Israel from Palestinian labourers, says Gideon Levy. Since the early 2000s, Israel has banned Palestinians from staying in the country overnight, forcing migrant workers to navigate checkpoints morning and night as they enter and exit the country. Any one of these labourers, the public was told, could be a terrorist waiting to bomb, shoot or stab Israelis. But when the pandemic arrived, the government quietly lifted that restriction. Suddenly, “the people doing all the construction in this country are also allowed to sleep here”. Has violence broken out? Nope. “Israel’s borders, urban centres and villages, and the refugee camps and cities of the West Bank and…

Microplastic pollution may be preventing hermit crabs from acquiring their perfect home. Because the crabs lack shells of their own, they protect their soft abdomens by taking over the shells of sea snails. As they grow bigger, they move to progressively larger shells – but a new study suggests that microplastics impair this process. Researchers placed 29 female hermit crabs in a tank containing tiny polyethylene beads for five days, while a second group of 35 females were placed in a plastic-free tank. All the crabs were then transferred into “suboptimal” shells and placed in a new tank with a better-fitting shell nearby. Most of the crabs in the control group swiftly investigated these new potential residences, and 60% of them moved in. But the crabs exposed to microplastics were…

Elon Musk and pop star Grimes prompted bewilderment after naming their first child, a boy, X Æ A-12 Musk. But how is it pronounced? “It’s just X”, said Musk. “Um, and then, the Æ is, like, pronounced ‘Ash’. And then, A-12.” Grimes, though, had other ideas: she said the name was pronounced like the letters “X AI”, before explaining that the A-12 was the precursor to the couple’s “favourite aircraft”, the SR-17. “No weapons, no defences, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent,” she added. Phillip Schofield took great umbrage at Boris Johnson’s somewhat vague Sunday night lockdown address. “If this was in a farce on the telly, I’d go: ‘That’s a bit far-fetched.’ No government would have arsed it up that much,” declared the usually mild-mannered presenter on ITV…

To The Daily Telegraph Science proceeds by putting forward conjectures or hypotheses, collecting empirical data to test them, and accepting, rejecting or modifying them on that basis. The implication is that our scientific understanding is not fixed, but changes as evidence accumulates. In the UK, the initial decision to impose lock-down to control the effects of Covid-19 was based on a conjecture or model that has now been tested against real data, and is found to be wanting. The model predicts that, under the sustainable public health measures taken by Sweden and in the absence of lockdown, there should now be 60,000 deaths in that country from Covid-19, whereas there are currently only about 3,000 there, with deaths now well past the peak and declining. Given the failure of the…

Ghostpoet, aka the 37-year-old Londoner Obaro Ejimiwe, has “always sounded like a lockdown artist, struggling with social isolation issues”, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. His fifth album consists of intense, brooding mash-ups of electronica, trip hop, post punk and alternative rock, laced together with “lovely, liquid bass” and “ghostly” strings – and overlaid with spoken word lyrics delivered in a “disconcerting, wearily resigned monotone”. Reeking of “anxiety and discombobulation”, it won’t be for everyone. Yet it “exudes a strange, otherworldly beauty. It is the sound of rattling around in someone else’s nervous breakdown.” Over the course of his career, Ghostpoet has maintained a consistently high quality, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT, while gradually expanding his “sonic palette”. On this album, his subject matter is “brooding and downcast”.…

“The average author book tour wouldn’t make very good TV,” said Suzi Feay in the FT; but the launch of Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming in 2018 had a rock star quality to it, with concert halls for venues, talks that resembled religious rallies, and Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert as moderators. This new 90-minute Netflix documentary, interspersing onstage anecdotes, backstage scenes and family gatherings, tells the story of its subject’s life, from growing up on Chicago’s South Side with a dad with MS, via Princeton (where a roommate moved out because her mother didn’t want her sharing with a black girl), to the White House and beyond. Made through the Obamas’ own production company, this borders on “hagiography”, said Annie Lord in The Independent. But what it lacks in objectivity,…

Best books… Rosalind Miles The writer and broadcaster chooses her favourite books. Rebel Women, a follow-up to her 1988 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller The Women’s History of the World, is out now, published by Virago at £25 Adam Bede by George Eliot, 1859 (Penguin £8.99). World history resounds with women’s silenced voices, and Dinah speaks out for Eliot’s aunt, a lay preacher banned from her ministry for life. Gorgeous, too, are the lush Warwickshire settings and Shakespearean characters such as Mrs Poyser. The Golden Arrow by Mary Webb, 1916 (Michael Walmer £6.99). A beguilingly old-fashioned story with a strikingly modern treatment of love and pain at its heart: a heroine Deborah, rooted in the Shropshire landscape, whose soul wanders with the stars but who still washes dishes…

“What are we drinking in this turbulent time”, asks Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. For some, the answer is simply “a lot” – but there are also signs that people are trying different wines. Many sellers report that “rosé has gone wild” – though that probably has more do with the good weather than the lockdown. In a climate of “uncertainty and fear”, people are favouring traditional choices. Merchants are reporting increased sales of red Bordeaux – a wine with a reassuring “architectural structure”. And other French classics are doing unexpectedly well. “People are going crazy for Beaujolais Villages,” says Hal Wilson, of Cambridge Wine Merchants. More surprising still is the sharp rise in sherry sales. Could it be that people are tucking in earlier in the day, and…

Little Richard Penniman 1932-2020 Richard Penniman – better known as Little Richard – “combined the sacred shouts of the black church and the profane sounds of the blues to create some of the first – and most influential – rock’n’roll songs”, said The New York Times. Although he described himself as the King of Rock’n’Roll – and also its Queen – he did not invent the genre. By the time he exploded onto the scene with Tutti Frutti – “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop a-wop-bam-boom!” – Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had both had hit records. But “pounding the piano furiously, and screaming as if for his very life”, he created a distinctive new sound – one that was thrilling, sexually charged and “more than a bit dangerous”. Little Richard’s live performances were electrifying;…

The FTSE 100 fell back into the red midweek on news that the UK economy shrank by a record 5.8% in March. Economists said April’s reading was likely to be worse, since the March figure only captured the first week of lockdown. Earlier, the Bank of England forecast that coronavirus would push the economy into its deepest recession since 1706, with output plunging almost 30% in the first half of the year. The scale of the slowdown in UK consumer spending was evident in new car registrations, which dropped 97% last month, compared with April 2019. US markets continued to grind higher, despite a succession of cataclysmic data indicators. The S&P 500 put on 1.7% on the day it was reported that 20.5 million US jobs were lost in April.…

● Celebrity hack The US entertainment law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks has a client list that “reads like a who’s who of the rich and famous”, said Tom Knowles in The Times. Unfortunately, for clients including Lady Gaga, Madonna, Robert De Niro and Elton John, it has fallen victim to one of the world’s most infamous hacking groups. The “REvil Ransomware Team” claims to have stolen 756 gigabytes of data including contracts, phone numbers, emails and private correspondence – and has released an excerpt from Madonna’s recent Madame X tour to prove it. REvil first emerged in April last year and was hitherto best known in the UK for hacking Travelex, the foreign-exchange company, on New Year’s Eve. The hiatus caused by the current crisis is clearly opening…

Tony Murray A WWII hero, who joined the RAF after fleeing Nazi-occupied France, has become the “first centenarian” to appear in The Sunday Times Rich List. Paris-born entrepreneur Tony Murray, who still chairs the Wolverhampton-based Andrew Sykes Group, has built an estimated £2.3bn fortune from heating, aircon and fire-protection kit – with a nice sideline in hotels in Florida and Switzerland. Born Gaston Jacques Kalifa, Murray planned to become an architect until the Nazis wrecked his plans; his father died at Auschwitz. He went on to win the Légion d’honneur after flying 40 missions as a navigator. Murray’s sons, Jean-Jacques and Jean-Pierre, are both in the business, but their father shows no sign of flagging. “What am I going to do if I retire? [This] is what I do.” Amanda…

“So football is back,” said Justin McCurry in The Guardian. Last Friday, the Korean top division, the K-League, made a belated start to the season, when Jeonbuk Motors took on Suwon Bluewings. And for football fans around the world, “starved” by the pandemic, “their exertions were a sporting balm”. Of course, this was never going to be “football as we know it”. South Korea may appear to have contained Covid-19, but “fears of a second wave” meant there were stringent regulations. No fans were allowed inside the 42,000-seat stadium, which made for a “sterile atmosphere” – at least until the second half, when artificial crowd noise was pumped through the PA system. The players – who had been regularly tested – had their temperatures taken before the match, and substitutes…