Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1282 i The Week

What happened Leaving lockdown Shoppers returned in large numbers to retail parks and outdoor markets this week, as England began easing its lockdown restrictions. Primary schools reopened their gates to some year groups; some sporting contests were held behind closed doors; up to six people from different households could meet outdoors; and the 2.2 million people in the vulnerable “shielded” group were given the go-ahead to venture out of their homes for the first time since the lockdown began on 23 March. No. 10 insisted that the relaxing of the rules wouldn’t lead to a surge in new coronavirus cases, as long as people continued to observe social distancing advice. However, the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, resisted pressure from Boris Johnson to downgrade the virus alert level…

Spiny seahorses, which have thrived in the peace of the lockdown, according to a survey of Dorset’s seagrass meadows. During a single dive at Studland Bay, 16 seahorses, including pregnant males and two babies, were spotted. Until then, none had been seen since 2018. Narguis Horsford, a train driver on the London Overground, who found herself on the cover of Vogue. In an interview, she said she was delighted to have been chosen to represent female front-line key workers, and that she was proud to be one. The cover of the July edition also features Rachel Millar, a community midwife, and Anisa Omar, a supermarket worker. Freda Hodgson, a 106-year-old from Surrey, who was identified as the UK’s oldest coronavirus survivor. Around 100 years ago, she also survived Spanish Flu.…

A Government motion to end virtual voting in the House of Commons passed on Tuesday, despite complaints that a return to the Commons would discriminate against MPs who cannot get there for medical or age-related reasons, or because they have caring responsibilities. The line of 527 MPs queuing to vote on the motion snaked almost a mile through Westminster, proof in itself, some felt, of the impracticality of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg’s plan to reinstitute voting in person. The motion passed by 261 to 163. However, in an apparent U-turn, Boris Johnson later said MPs who are shielding could vote by proxy.…

Washington DC International tensions: Donald Trump this week abruptly cancelled plans for a face-to-face G7 meeting of world leaders in Washington DC next month, after Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, made it clear – in a phone call described as “stormy” – that she’d not be attending on health and safety grounds. Trump, who had billed the summit as a sign of the US “transitioning back to greatness”, later described the G7 as a “very outdated group of countries”, and said he wanted to readmit Russia – a proposal shot down by the UK and Canada. Meanwhile, America’s relations with China continued to sour: this week, Beijing described Trump as a hypocrite for “threatening to shoot” protesters in the US, while condemning “restrained law enforcement” in Hong Kong. Separately, Trump confirmed…

“I went on a train last week, and oddly, apart from the echoing eeriness of the King’s Cross concourse and having nowhere to buy coffee, this was my most enjoyable journey in years. I was spoilt for seats. My LNER express was box-fresh; no sticky tables or Pret detritus. The joy of rail travel is that the ever-changing landscape soothes a restless mind. The brain drifts and skips, problems tumble, spirits soar. Except normally there are distractions: a homebound corporate jolly hitting the buffet beers; fans of hot, stinking food. In short: people. A station master remarked that since lockdown there’d barely been a single delay. What stops trains running on time? People!” Janice Turner in The Times…

Tory ministers must enter the slaughterhouse Clare Foges The Times The Government isn’t going to let a little thing like a global pandemic get in the way of delivering its manifesto commitments. That was Boris Johnson’s message to senior MPs last week, says Clare Foges. Some may admire his defiance, but in a new world in which we’re borrowing £62bn in a single month, it’s delusional to think the Government can stick to all its plans. At some point, it will have to start repairing the public finances – and it can’t do that by recouping an odd million here or there. To get the serious sums needed, ministers will have to start slaughtering some sacred cows – “the promises, commitments and ring-fenced spending that in normal times they wouldn’t…

Asteroid hit at “deadliest” angle The history of the world might have been very different, had the vast asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago – wiping out the dinosaurs – done so at a different angle. An international team of researchers gathered data on the 190-mile-wide Chicxulub impact crater, which is buried under sedimentary rock on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, then ran detailed 3D simulations to examine the effect of the asteroid (which was at least seven miles in diameter) striking at various angles and speeds. They concluded that to have left behind a crater of that shape and size, the space rock must have approached from the northeast, and hit the planet at roughly 60 degrees. This, they said, was the “deadliest possible” angle, one that maximised the…

“Is Durhamgate over now?” Surely it must be, said Brendan O’Neill in The Spectator. With US cities in flames, and a revolt brewing in Hong Kong, the British media “can’t still be obsessing” about whether the Prime Minister’s adviser stopped off for a toilet break on a drive to Durham. The police have confirmed that they don’t think Dominic Cummings broke the law by driving his family to his parents’ farm, and that if he did break the rules by visiting Barnard Castle, it was a minor breach, not even worth investigating. So why did this petty story dominate the headlines for seven days? And why was the media fury about it “so intense”? The answer is fairly straightforward: it wasn’t about lockdown at all. People don’t care that strongly…

“As any astronaut knows, coming back down to Earth is just as dangerous as taking off,” said Ben Chu in The Independent. And the task facing Chancellor Rishi Sunak as he winds down the coronavirus furlough scheme – which has been paying up to 80% of the wages of 8.4 million British workers – is “one that would tax the minds of even rocket scientists”. If he takes away support too quickly, he risks mass joblessness. But if he takes it away too slowly, the costs to the taxpayer will “spiral”, and he risks distorting the economy by keeping businesses with no future alive. On Friday, Sunak confirmed that he would be taking a step-by-step approach. The furlough scheme will taper from the start of August, when all companies will…

To The Times The most lamentable thing about the epidemic is the almost uncontested surrender to the idea that the only meaning of human life lies with preserving human life. In the name of “keeping people safe”, the moribund die alone and the dead are buried without proper ceremony. Meanwhile, mothers give birth without husbands, children cannot learn and the futures of young people are suspended. In addition, new friendships are thwarted, potential lovers denied and the rituals of religious faith and remembrance are set aside. This seemingly produces not a hiccup of queasiness. Instead we are happy to accede to the state-sponsored notion that we are all profoundly heroic simply by virtue of taking measures to keep ourselves alive. Jolyon Fenwick, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire To The Times Mr Fenwick’s…

Tim Burgess: I Love the New Sky Bella Union £10 Tim Burgess has been “having a good pandemic”, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. The Charlatans frontman has been “throwing delightful Twitter listening parties, curating great albums by other artists” and generally helping to keep music fans’ spirits up. “His fifth solo album certainly warrants similar good vibes.” On it, he blends his love of classic pop rock with pop-literate lyrics, and delivers pleasingly “shaggy arrangements” packed with delightful details and freely referencing a range of influences. Spending time in his “sunny” world is like “rattling around a great record collection”. Over 30 years, Burgess has moved from “baggy psychedelicist to pugnacious belter of Britpop crowd-pleasers”, to high priest of “esoteric influences”, said Emily Mackay in The Observer. This…

Released on Netflix last week, this four-part documentary began shooting before its subject, the financier Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested for the sex trafficking of young girls last year. After his “murky” death in prison, the film-makers were able to make freer use of first-hand accounts from his victims, and these are the series’ great strength, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. The series meticulously details what one investigator calls Epstein’s “molestation pyramid scheme” – procuring girls as young as 14 to give him massages at his $20m Palm Beach house, abusing them and then using them to coax more victims into his web. Survivors reported him to the FBI as early as 1996, but Epstein “greased his way out of retribution” for the next two decades. The survivors’ testimonies…

The award-winning novelist and playwright chooses his five favourite books. His new book of 35 short comic pieces, Magic Mobile – “tremendously inventive and enjoyable” (Times) – is published by Faber at £12.99 Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, 2020 (riverrun £18.99). To put our present miseries in perspective try this new novel, set in the Europe of the Thirty Years’ War. The plague, of course – but also the unfocused confusion of slaughter and destruction, the starvation, the torture, the systematic unreason – all given intense physical reality in language of wonderful ironic lightness. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, 1901 (Vintage £11.99). One of the greatest things a novel can do is to create a world – and this is one of the most richly evoked and inhabited of all, seen through…

The BBC is remaking Talking Heads, Alan Bennett’s Baftawinning series of dramatic monologues first broadcast in 1988 and 1998. Filming started in late April, after producers realised that the format was ideally suited for lockdown. The series is directed by long-time Bennett collaborator Nicholas Hytner, and features ten of the original monologues with new voices (including Kristin Scott Thomas instead of Eileen Atkins, and Jodie Comer instead of Julie Walters) and two new ones. These will replace the two originally performed by the late Thora Hird, one of which was set in a care home. Airing soon on BBC1 and iPlayer.…

For me, a simple posset is the best dessert, says Ryan Riley: the sweetness balanced with the citrus is a pairing that sings in harmony. Here, I’ve adapted the traditional recipe by serving it in a pastry case, and increased the tartness by adding pomegranate Lemon posset tart Serves 6-8 500ml double cream 200g golden caster sugar 2 limes, zest and juice 2 lemons, zest and juice a small handful of raspberries a small handful of pomegranate seeds 1 shop-bought 23cm pastry case pomegranate molasses (optional) • Place a large saucepan on a medium heat and add the cream, sugar and zest and juice of both citrus fruits. Stir gently for about 2-3 minutes, until the sugar dissolves. • Bring the mixture to a very gentle boil for 3-5 minutes,…

Makita DSS611Z 18V LXT cordless circular saw For those who regularly take on big DIY projects, a circular saw can be a good investment, saving time and effort. This model from Makita makes light work of cutting through timber, MDF and plywood, and it’s cordless. Note that the battery and charger are sold separately (£100; screwfix.com). Erbauer 710 W 220-240V Pendulum jigsaw EJS710 This affordable jigsaw is simple to use and very manoeuvrable, changing direction fairly smoothly. It can cut bevelled edges up to 45 degrees, and you can adjust the angle without any additional tools (£50; diy.com). Stabila STB80AS30 80 AS spirit level A spirit level is useful for even basic DIY tasks such as hanging shelves or patterned wallpaper. This is a good-quality option, with two easy-to-read vials…

As negotiations between the UK and EU stalled, the Bank of England warned banks and the City to brace for a no-deal Brexit in December. Chancellor Rishi Sunak outlined that the furlough scheme would end in October, with government support being scaled back from August. The Treasury is considering offering a national insurance holiday as part of a package to stem the expected spike in unemployment. The US projected that the pandemic would cost its economy $7.9trn over the next decade. Australia was predicted to suffer its first recession in 29 years. Stock markets, led by Wall Street, continued their upward rise. Carnival, the world’s largest cruise operator, joined easyJet, British Gas owner Centrica, and engineer Meggitt in being ejected from the FTSE 100 in its latest quarterly reshuffle, after…

● Rise and shine The “bumper run” in US stock markets (mirrored to a lesser extent in bourses across Europe and Asia) is “beginning to turn doubters into believers – adding fresh thrust to a rally that has wrongfooted veteran investors, lured in retail traders and defied the dire economic outlook”, said Richard Henderson in the FT. The S&P index is “up by more than a third” since its March lows, and is now around 10% off the “record high” achieved in February. What’s driving it? Central bank cash, of course, but also increasingly an “element of fear of missing out – or ‘Fomo’ – as investors start to look at the momentum”, said Emily Roland of Boston’s John Hancock Investment Management. In economic terms, “what we’ve seen is absolutely…

Nicolai Tangen Until recently, the Norwegian hedgie Nicolai Tangen was best known outside the financial world for holding the world’s largest private collection of modern Nordic art. But his appointment to head Norway’s giant $1trn oil fund has provoked a “storm” in a country where the “national rainy day fund” is viewed with a kind of reverence, said the FT. One left-wing politician has described the risk-taking, jet-setting financier – whose hedge fund, AKO Capital, is registered in the Cayman Islands – as a “walking conflict of interest”. But supporters reckon he’ll prove the “perfect person” to run Europe’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which has underperformed of late. The furore, they say, is a classic case of “Janteloven”: the Scandinavian social code that forbids being “special”. Time will tell who’s…

Football: the Premier League plots its return “Well done, everyone: we did it,” said Jonathan Liew in The Guardian. “They said it wasn’t possible. They said it wasn’t safe. They said it would be tactless to start up one of the world’s most lucrative sports leagues while thousands are dying.” And they may still be right about all of that. “But for now, football is back.” Premier League clubs have already returned to training, and on 17 June, the season will recommence. If everything goes to plan, all 92 remaining fixtures will be played over the following seven weeks, with games taking place every day of the week. You only need to watch a training session to see how different this incarnation of football is turning out to be, said…

Controversy of the week China turns the screw By a majority of 2,878 to one, China’s National People’s Congress last week rubber-stamped a measure “that will change life for the citizens of Hong Kong forever”, said Clive Hamilton in the Daily Mail. The Congress’s “decision” on national security in Hong Kong criminalises what Beijing deems to be “subversion, separatism, terrorism and foreign interference” in the autonomous territory. It also gives China’s security services the right to operate openly and independently there for the first time. In short, it trashes the “one country, two systems” constitutional agreement that China signed with Britain when Hong Kong was handed back in 1997. It means that the dissident leaders of the 2019 protests “are likely to disappear, to be rendered to secret prisons in…

Gardeners, with warnings that a hosepipe ban may be looming. This winter the UK had the wettest February on record, but the spring has been the driest and sunniest since records began in 1929, and reservoirs are now running low. In some areas, households have already received letters urging them to conserve water. Journalists at Microsoft, who learnt that they were being replaced by robots. Around 27 journalists had their contracts cancelled after Microsoft decided it could use software to select and edit news articles for its homepages.…

Isle of Mull Remote control: Drones are being used to deliver personal protective equipment and Covid-19 testing kits to the Isle of Mull, as part of a two-week trial for the NHS. Up to four flights a day have been making the 15-minute trip from Oban to the Mull and Iona community hospital in Craignure – a journey that can take up to six hours by road and sea. If the trial – in partnership with drone operator Skyports – is successful, it could lead to the NHS using drones more regularly in remote areas. In the US and elsewhere, unmanned drones have been used to deliver vital supplies, as well as an organ for transplant earlier this year. Liverpool Party politics: Liverpool’s deputy mayor, Lynnie Hinnigan, has apologised for…

Why Malkovich won’t moan John Malkovich is not one to feel sorry for himself. As a child, his home life was explosive. “You crossed the line and you got a beating,” he told Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian. “Sure, I had a lot of violence growing up, but so what?” In 2008, he discovered that he’d lost his entire life savings to Bernie Madoff’s fraudulent Ponzi scheme. It was a shock, he says, but “after a couple or three days you go: ‘You’re lucky to be alive, you’re lucky to have a job.’ Almost no one has money in the bank. I read somewhere that a huge percentage of Americans wouldn’t have $400 to put between their hands in an emergency.” Then, in a five-year period from 2009, four of…

India arrested a pigeon last week on suspicion of spying for Pakistan. The pigeon flew over the disputed Kashmir border and was caught by villagers who, fearing a number on a ring around its foot was a coded message for militants in the area, handed it to Indian security forces. The pigeon’s owner, a Pakistani villager named Habibullah, insisted that it was, in fact, his phone number, and urged India to “refrain from victimising innocent birds” – which he said he had released as a symbol of love during Eid. A Romanian cobbler is making shoes in European size 75 in an attempt to get people to follow social distancing rules. Grigore Lup was inspired to make the shoes, which cost 500 lei (£90) a pair, after seeing people standing…

CHINA Squaring up to its impertinent southern rival Foreign Policy (Washington) Should we be worried by the latest military stand-off between China and India, ask Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi. The world’s two most populous nations share the world’s longest unmarked land border, and in 1962 fought a full-scale war over disputed territories along it. Since then, however, clashes have been dismissed as “flashes in the pan”, especially after both sides made a concerted effort to mend ties in the late 1980s. Back then, the two were equals on the world stage; each needed stability to develop their economies. But in recent years, there has been a dramatic shift: China’s economy is now around five times the size of India’s; Beijing spends at least three times more than New…

Pollen-starved bumblebees encourage flowers to bloom more quickly by nibbling their leaves, scientists have discovered. To better understand the incisions that some species of bees make in plants, a team of Swiss-based researchers staged a series of experiments. One revealed that while pollen-starved bees make lots of the holes, those from well-fed colonies create very few. A second showed that when plants exposed to the technique are grown alongside undamaged ones, the nibbled ones flower considerably earlier: by a whole month in the case of tomato plants, and by a fortnight in the case of black mustard. Yet why bees nibbling plants would make a difference remains a puzzle. When the scientists tried to replicate it using metal forceps and razors, it had little impact on flowering times. “It’s possible…

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may be taking legal action against society bible Tatler, over a new profile of the Duchess. The article – described by a Palace insider as ridden with “class snobbery” – says Kate exudes an “aura of blandness”; that she struggled to fit into the Firm because her mother was viewed as “NQOCD” (Not Quite Our Class, Darling); and that the couple’s Norfolk home isn’t an “aristo abode”. A source told the magazine: “It’s very Buckinghamshire.” He was known as the French Elvis; she, the grande dame of French cinema – yet somehow Johnny Hallyday and Catherine Deneuve managed to conduct a lifelong romance in secret, a new book claims. The biography, by Gilles Lhote, says Hallyday – a notorious womaniser – and Deneuve became…

“We never know when we are happy, only when we were.” Gore Vidal, quoted in The Federalist “Loneliness is the pain of being alone; solitude is the glory of being alone.” Paul Tillich, quoted on UnHerd “Twitter has only two gears: cynicism and outrage.” Peter Hamby in Vanity Fair “What hurts the victim the most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.” Elie Wiesel, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “Racism is not getting worse – it’s getting filmed.” Will Smith, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert “The world is always ending somewhere. It just depends on whether it falls in your line of vision or not.” Akwaeke Emezi, quoted on TheMillions.com “It distresses me, this failure to keep pace with the leaders…

Screenwriting manuals tell you that good novels often make bad films. But the sprawling canvas of a television series makes the task of adaptation easier, as these five excellent examples from recent years show. North & South Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1854 novel – about a northern mill owner and the southern parson’s daughter who challenges him over his attitude to his workers – was brilliantly adapted by the BBC in 2004. On Netflix. Wolf Hall Mark Rylance turned in a fine performance as Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s powerful fixer, in this adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s first two novels in her Tudor trilogy. A third instalment is planned. On Amazon Prime. Patrick Melrose Benedict Cumberbatch starred in this 2018 adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s cycle of blackly comic, semi-autobiographical novels, charting his…

Sauvignon blanc has come in for a bashing in recent years, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. The grape’s popularity has led to a rush of commercial versions that exaggerate its gooseberry aroma – and which taste like caricatures of what a Sauvignon should be. The best are complex affairs, offering scents of “grass, nettles, asparagus tips, musky elderflower, juicy nectarines, unripe tropical fruits, white currants, even green bell peppers”. You’ll find good examples from Chile’s cooler regions, South Australia’s Adelaide Hills, and New Zealand – No. 1 Astrolabe Awatere Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2019 (£11.99; Waitrose) is stunning, for example. But the grape’s traditional home, the Loire Valley, is where “classics-lovers will always want to go”. Jean-Christophe Mandard Touraine Sauvignon Blanc 2018 (£11.95; Berry Bros & Rudd) offers a…

The refugee artist who wrapped the Reichstag Christo 1935-2020 Christo Javacheff, who has died aged 84, was famous for wrapping things up. With his wife Jeanne-Claude, the Bulgarian-born artist shrouded the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, said Will Gompertz on BBC News – turning “cold hard structures into sensuous, fragile sculptures”. He strung a huge curtain across a mountain pass in Colorado, and dotted 7,000 saffron-coloured curtained gates through Central Park in New York. These epic environmental art projects were years in the preparation: it took two decades to secure the permissions necessary to wrap the German parliament. And they required vast amounts of material, and the involvement of hundreds of people, from town councillors and seamstresses, to engineers, rock climbers and steeplejacks. Christo and Jeanne-Claude…

Some of the most powerful players in the music industry “put business on hold” on Tuesday, as part of the anti-racism campaign marking the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of police, said Chris Johnston in The Daily Telegraph. The “big three” record companies – Universal, Sony and Warner – all observed “Black Out Tuesday”, as did top executives at Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Netflix. “Call it virtue-signalling if you like,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. But this was an important stand, pitting companies against the “divisive politics” of President Trump. It made the hands-off approach of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg seem all the more obtuse. Zuckerberg faces the “most serious challenge to his leadership in the company’s 15-year history”, noted DealBook in The New…

The pandemic has driven the price of gold (hovering mid-week at around $1,721 per troy ounce) ever closer to its 2011 all-time high, says Jeremy Gordon on Citywire. But some investors argue the best is “yet to come” for companies mining the precious metal – and the gold funds that invest in them. Certainly, the latter have been “shining”, reflecting “tail-winds at work before the current crisis”, as well as the “flight to safety” it prompted. Latterly, central bank policy has also boosted the price, said Evy Hambro, who manages the £1.4bn BlackRock Gold and General fund. The “enemy of gold” has always been the “opportunity cost” – it pays no interest. But with real interest rates negative in much of the world, and “dramatically bigger” rounds of financial easing…

In a bid to impress with their Zoom backdrops, people are buying “instant libraries” online, according to sellers who provide titles in bulk for TV sets and hotels. Decor Books in West Sussex, which sells books for £30 to £200 per metre, reports that it is now receiving about ten orders a day from private clients. Bookcase-conscious buyers typically purchase around six metres’ worth, says owner Lauren Giles. Sales of hot tubs in the lockdown are up 490% on eBay, and almost every model at Argos is sold out. Hot tubs also feature heavily on the lists of the “most wished for” products on Amazon. Meanwhile, social media is awash with complaints about neighbours having hot-tub parties and gardens being flooded by emptied water.…

People from ethnic minorities are more likely to die of coronavirus, a Public Health England (PHE) report has confirmed. People of Bangladeshi ethnicity are at twice the risk of those of white British ethnicity, but the impact is “disproportionate” for other Bame people too. The report was immediately criticised, however, for failing to consider why this is the case. Shadow equalities minister Marsha de Cordova said it “confirms what we already knew”, but is “notably silent” on the question of how to reduce the disparity, which many put down to structural inequalities.…

Brussels Lockdown breach: A Belgian prince tested positive for the coronavirus after attending a party in southern Spain in contravention of the country’s lockdown rules. A nephew of King Philippe, Prince Joachim, 28, travelled to Córdoba on 26 May, to start an internship, and went to the party two days later. Around 28 people were there in all. Under local rules then, the maximum permitted number at a gathering at the time was 15; and new arrivals were supposed to quarantine for two weeks. Spanish police are investigating the party, and all the guests are in quarantine. Joachim has apologised and said he would accept all “the consequences”. Brussels Essex deaths arrests: Twenty-six suspected people-traffickers were arrested in France and Belgium last week, as part of an investigation into the…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured former nurse Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu 1 Faith’s Song, written and performed by Amy Wadge 2 The Rakes of Mallow/Girl I Left Behind, traditional, performed by the Gallowglass Ceili Band 3 Manman, written and performed by Leyla McCalla 4 A te, o cara from I puritani by Carlo Pepoli and Vincenzo Bellini, performed by Andrea Bocelli 5 Missa Bilban, traditional, performed by The Jamaican Folk Singers 6* I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas, performed by Nina Simone 7 Nnekata, written and performed by Flavour N’abania 8 My Girl by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White, performed by Otis Redding Book: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama Luxury: a trampoline…

Genetics has already transformed medicine, though arguably that process is only just beginning. Testing to diagnose inherited disorders – such as mutations in the BRCA breast cancer suppressor genes – has been around for decades. The human reference genome has helped researchers locate thousands of genes associated with particular illnesses, including hundreds that cause specific types of cancer. Recent advances in sequencing technology mean that an individual’s genetic make-up can now be analysed relatively easily and cheaply, and rare diseases diagnosed. A second major area is “bioinformatics”: mining the human genome to help design drugs. This promises to give the process of developing drugs – traditionally long, difficult and vastly expensive – a much greater success rate. It also holds out the promise of personalised medicine. For instance, people who…

The liberal media’s facile pessimism Rich Lowry Politico Covid-19 has exacted a horrendous toll on the United States, says Rich Lowry. But while mourning the 100,000-plus deaths and recognising the continuing danger posed by the disease, can we not also acknowledge that we appear to be through the worst of it? The liberal media seem unable to “shift gears” and admit that things are actually getting better. The seven-day rolling average for Covid-19 deaths in the US has fallen steadily since a peak of 2,087 on 21 April, and testing capacity has greatly expanded (more than 400,000 tests were carried out on 17 May). Yet the press still insists on putting a negative spin on everything. CNN, for instance, recently tweeted that Texas was “seeing the highest number of new…

Researchers in Israel have developed a reusable face mask that cleans itself using electricity, reports The Daily Telegraph. Developed at Technion’s Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering in Haifa, the mask contains an internal layer of carbon fibre, which, when heated, destroys any pathogen on its surface, including coronavirus. The device, which can be plugged into a phone charger, is expected to go on sale, initially in the US (where Technion has filed a patent application), for around $1. The university says it could help combat shortages of standard face masks, which have to be thrown away after a few hours’ use. Meanwhile at the firm Avtipus Patents & Inventions (also in Israel) they recently unveiled a prototype for a mask with a remote-controlled aperture that can be opened and…

The NHS test-and-trace system, launched with much fanfare last week, is “both late and premature”, said The Independent. Designed to ease our path out of the nationwide lockdown, the new regime is late in the sense that the Government should never have abandoned the policy of tracing the contacts of Covid-19 sufferers in the first place, as it did in mid-March. And it’s premature because infection levels have yet to fall back to a level where a thorough contact testing system is viable. Under the scheme, those who test positive for coronavirus are asked to list anyone they’ve had close contact with – defined as anyone they’ve either been within one metre of, or spent 15 minutes within two metres of – while infectious. One of the new 25,000-strong army…

Take a breather, Boris To The Guardian I suffered an episode of Covid-19 about three weeks before Boris Johnson, and even now I remain lethargic, with reduced capacity for sustained work. Such experiences are common in those recovering from this devastating virus. Looking at his features, growing ever more tired and worn on TV each night, it would be easy to conclude that he needed a longer period of convalescence, and should stand aside again to allow others to step into the leadership role and take the difficult decisions required – be they the future of a disgraced special adviser or the introduction of a potentially intrusive but essential track-and-trace system. Dr Jim Ford, consultant occupational physician, Southport, Merseyside The true lingua franca To The Times Le Figaro apparently takes…

Masks for the Met... New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art looks likely to remain closed until at least mid-August, but its curators are still at work, and they have come up with a clever “pandemic pastime” to get “the creative juices flowing”, reports The Art Newspaper. The institution has challenged its Instagram followers to decorate their face masks with images based on works in the Met’s collection and to post them with the hashtag #MetMaskChallenge. The initiative hasn’t pleased everyone: one critic accused the museum of feeding the “ridiculous fear-mongering”. But the response has been enthusiastic, with artistically minded social media users submitting designs inspired by famous works by artists from Hokusai to Paula Rego. Pointing out that face masks are “recommended in public settings”, the Met says it is…

A pensive David reflects on recent changes in the village. He and Ruth have had to put the Brookfield venue business on hold, and he tries not to stress about getting the silage in – the forage harvester broke while Josh was driving it, which leads him to muse on his fraught relationship with his middle son. Meanwhile, Josh gives his side of things: he feels his parents treat him differently from his siblings. Still, he can’t wait to tell his father that Adam has offered him more work at Home Farm. Tracy launches a campaign to become captain of the cricket team. Harrison is aghast when he reads her manifesto – with bogus inspirational quotes – but struggles to write his own pitch. They both canvass: Tracy makes big…

Britain’s spud surplus Since the start of the lockdown, there has been much discussion about Britain’s struggling meat, fish and dairy industries, said Tomé Morrissy-Swan in The Daily Telegraph. But there’s one other product that is surely “equally worthy of saving”, and that’s “the humble potato”. Many potato farmers send their spuds solely to pubs, restaurants and fish and chip shops – and they have seen their sales all but “wiped out”. As a result, Britain has a huge potato surplus (by the start of May, it was already 1.19 million tonnes), and some farmers face ruin. However, efforts are being made to reallocate some of the unwanted spuds. The Potato Project, launched by Slow Food Birmingham, enables people across the East Midlands to buy 10kg of potatoes for £10:…

Tips on... choosing and using sun cream ● UVA rays penetrate the dermis, the skin’s deep, thick layer, and can cause premature skin ageing. UVB rays burn the superficial layers of the skin and play a key role in the development of skin cancer. It is important that a sun cream protects against both. ● SPF (sun protection factor) number refers to the cream’s ability to deflect UVB rays. ● UVA protection is measured by a star rating, from one to five. “UVA” written in a circle means a product meets EU standards. ● Most sun creams should be reapplied every two hours. Be wary of formulas that claim to offer all-day protection. Even with cream, it is best not to be in the sun all day. ● It is…

Ikea/Primark: in and out The reopening of 19 Ikea stores in Britain this week was nothing less than a triumph for the Swedish home-furnishings company, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. Long, socially distanced queues “snaked around car parks” – showing the kind of pent-up demand that will doubtless come as welcome news to other big names, including John Lewis and Primark, planning a return to the fray in mid-June. The latter intends to reopen all 153 of its stores in England and, like Ikea, may benefit from its “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap” business model, given the cash concerns of many customers. Still, Primark’s owner, Associated British Foods, can’t take anything for granted. “There are differences as well as similarities” between the two groups. “One is that…

The return of 1970s stagflation? Larry Elliott The Guardian News that Rishi Sunak is planning a “summer mini-budget” conjures memories of the 1970s, “when chancellors were constantly forced to respond to economic crises”, says Larry Elliott. That low-growth decade certainly seems a relevant reference point now: “substitute power cuts for social distancing, the three-day week for the lockdown, and Nixon for Trump”, and the picture is complete. Still, for the full experience, we also need “stagflation” – when weak or falling activity is combined with rapidly rising prices, and matched by a “wage-price spiral”. Although inflation is currently low, many economists think stagflation is a real possibility – and could even help tackle “record levels of debt”. Yet, modern working conditions could well prevent it. In the 1970s, strong trade…

The week’s best shares Assura The Times This real-estate investment trust buys, develops and leases properties to GP surgeries and pharmacies. With a portfolio of 576 sites, Assura’s high-quality growth business justifies its premium. Yields 3.6%. Buy. 78.25p. Halfords Group Investors Chronicle The UK’s market leader in bicycles and accessories is benefiting from the government pledge to improve cycling. An uplift in car parts and servicing is expected as the downturn will prioritise car maintenance, not new sales. Buy. 166p. LondonMetric Property The Daily Telegraph LondonMetric rents out warehouses to online retailers and logistics firms, including Amazon, Argos and DHL. Tenants tend to be sticky and, with demand outstripping supply, occupancy stands at 99%. Buy. 201p. Marston’s The Times The ale brewer and pub group’s joint venture with the Danish…