Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1287 i The Week

What happened Beijing’s takeover Tensions between Britain and China intensified this week when Beijing complained of “gross interference” in its domestic affairs over its treatment of Hong Kong. Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to London, condemned in particular Britain’s offer of new visa rights and, ultimately, British citizenship to up to three million Hong Kong residents, a proposal made in response to China’s imposition last week of a draconian new security law, which penalises almost all political dissent in the former British colony. Boris Johnson described the law as a “clear and serious” breach of the 1997 treaty that returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule. The ambassador also said that Britain would have to “bear all the consequences” if it treated China as a “hostile country”, and reversed its decision…

Analogue radio, which was granted a reprieve. Several FM and AM commercial radio licences, including Classic FM’s, had been due to expire in the next few years; but now Ofcom will be able to renew them for another decade, provided the stations also broadcast on digital radio. Around 40% of radio listening is still to analogue stations. Jeff Bezos, with news that only a year after he signed over a quarter of his fortune to his wife, the Amazon founder is richer than ever. Bezos’s net worth was estimated at $171.6bn this week, more than the GDP of Hungary or Algeria. Bernie Ecclestone, the 89-year-old F1 billionaire, who celebrated the birth of his fourth child.…

26% of parents do not plan to send their children back to school in September, though they could be fined. One in three of those parents said they didn’t expect their children to go back until 2021; 25% will wait for a vaccine; 10% said they’ll never go back. Childcare.co.uk/The Times 16% of British adults say they will “probably” or “definitely” avoid getting a Covid-19 vaccine when or if one becomes available. YouGov/The Guardian 62% of Britons say Rishi Sunak is dealing with the Covid crisis well, and 21% badly. 49% say Boris Johnson is dealing with the crisis well, and 47% badly, leaving the Chancellor with an approval rating of +41%, and the PM with +2%. Deltapoll/Mail on Sunday…

Keystone, South Dakota Culture war: President Trump has ordered the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes to defend “our great national story”. The executive order gives a new task force 60 days to present plans for the garden, which Trump has suggested could include a range of figures from US history, from George Washington and Davy Crockett, to the Wright brothers and Harriet Tubman. “None will have lived perfect lives, but all will be worth honouring, remembering and studying,” according to the order. In speeches to mark Independence Day, delivered at Mount Rushmore and the White House, Trump signalled the lines along which he is likely to fight the next election campaign. He warned that “angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our…

“I was sceptical of Boris Johnson’s rush to reopen pubs before schools. But looking at the official guidance now, I am warming to it. Loud music is not allowed, to avoid customers spitting over each other in an effort to be heard. Nor are groups of more than 30. In a revolutionary step, customers are encouraged to wash their hands after going to the toilet. Some people will complain that drinking is not like in the old days. But pubs are an evolving tradition. A letter-writer to The Economist once recalled how, in West Yorkshire circa 1970, he’d tried to buy some crisps to with go his bitter. The landlady replied: ‘This is a pub, not a bloody restaurant.’” Henry Mance in the FT…

Running scared of the man with great hair Stephen Bush The Times The Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition “don’t have much in common”, says Stephen Bush. But one thing does unite them: their common fear of Chancellor Rishi Sunak. He is the main threat to each man’s chance of becoming PM after the next election. Boris Johnson knows that Tory backbenchers still rate him as an election winner, but his popularity ratings are slumping, whereas the Chancellor’s are soaring; and he’s well aware that if they start to regard him as too polarising a figure, they “have a perfect plan B in the shape of Sunak”. But Keir Starmer and his team know they have a “Rishi problem”, too. Under its new leader, Labour has been at…

Couples sleep better together It is well established that people in stable relationships tend to have better mental and physical health than singletons. Now, scientists have discovered a possible explanation for this: it seems that sharing a bed promotes good sleep. Humans sleep in cycles, shifting between rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep – during which vivid dreams occur – and non-REM periods. Though all sleep is important, uninterrupted REM sleep is thought to be particularly beneficial to both mind and body. For a study at the Centre for Integrative Psychiatry in Kiel, Germany, 12 heterosexual couples spent four nights in a sleep lab, two of them with their partners and two alone. The researchers observed that on the nights when participants slept with their partner, they experienced around 10% more REM sleep,…

Where was Ghislaine Maxwell? A year ago, following the arrest of her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges, the British socialite accused of being his procurer disappeared, said The Daily Beast. She had previously sold her home in New York, and then closed down her environmental charity. For months, rumours about her whereabouts had swirled. Some claimed that in the wake of Epstein’s death in jail in August 2019, she’d fled to France; others, that she was hiding in a “safe house” in Israel. Few were convinced by a photo that emerged, purporting to show her sitting outside a burger bar in LA: she never touched junk food, her friends said. But it now seems that Maxwell – the daughter of the late newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell –…

“It’s competing in a crowded field,” said Kate Proctor in The Guardian, but the Government’s “air bridges” scheme has established itself as “one of the most chaotic” policies of the entire coronavirus crisis. Brits wanting to book their two weeks in the sun – not to mention many in the UK tourist industry – were eagerly awaiting the list of destinations which, from 10 July, they could visit and return from, without having to self-quarantine for 14 days. The announcement, however, came about a week late, “after days of confusion, buck-passing and zealous over-briefing by officials”. There had been “almighty” rows with the devolved administrations: Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, described discussions about the travel arrangements as an “utterly shambolic experience”. One Tory backbencher called it an “utter shitshow”.…

Owing to the coronavirus, the new Formula One season “will exist in a diminished form”, said John Westerby in The Times. There will be fewer races – potentially as few as eight, rather than the usual 21 – and, for now at least, no spectators. But the good news is that the opening race, Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix, provided enough drama to “fill a season’s worth of highlight reels”. There were “multiple mechanical failures” and a series of collisions; on the 55th lap, a tyre detached itself from Kimi Räikkönen’s car and bounced “wildly across the track”. Just 11 of the 20 drivers who started the race crossed the finishing line: Valtteri Bottas crossed it first, having led throughout. His Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton, came fourth: his five-second penalty, for…

To The Economist Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. Intelligence is an attribute of living things, and can best be defined as the use of information to further survival and reproduction. When a computer resists being switched off, or a robot worries about the future for its children, then, and only then, may intelligence flow. I acknowledge Richard Sutton’s “bitter lesson”, that attempts to build human understanding into computers rarely work, although there is nothing new here. I was aware of the folly of anthropomorphism as an AI researcher in the mid-1980s. We learned to fly when we stopped emulating birds and studied lift. Meaning and knowledge don’t result from symbolic representation; they relate directly to the visceral motives of survival and reproduction. Great strides have been made in widening the…

Thomas Adès & Kirill Gerstein: In Seven Days Myrios £14 The British composer Thomas Adès and the Russian-American concert pianist Kirill Gerstein form “one of the most productive and thrilling artistic partnerships of our time”, said Joshua Barone in The New York Times. Over the past decade, Gerstein has become both “master” of Adès’s piano works – and his muse. The pair have toured together, “visited older pieces in virtuosic arrangements”, and last year Gerstein gave the première of Adès’s Concerto for Piano. The pair’s new disc presents the first recordings of Adès’s Concert Paraphrase on “Powder Her Face”, for two pianos, and a solo arrangement from The Exterminating Angel; as well as three mazurkas and the concerto-like In Seven Days. And all told, it’s a “scintillating” triumph, said…

Freedom was in the air on 4 July, said Ed Potton in The Times – Independence Day in the US, and the date that cinemas in England finally reopened their doors to the public. But we’re not back to normal yet. Some of the big chains partially opened – Odeon opened just ten cinemas, for instance, with plans to open more later in the month. Others, including Cineworld and Vue, are waiting until 31 July. And, of course, they will be abiding by the “one metre-plus” distancing rules. That means that families will be able to sit together, with empty seats between groups; auditoriums are being sprayed with “antiviral fogging mist” between screenings, and if you want popcorn, it will probably be pre-packed. In any case, there’s not yet much…

Best books… Luke Harding The bestselling author of Collusion and A Very Expensive Poison chooses his favourite books about Russia. His latest, Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem and How Russia is Reshaping our Politics (Guardian Faber £14.99), is out now Betrayal in Berlin by Steve Vogel, 2019 (John Murray £25). George Blake is the last surviving Cold War traitor. Now 97 and living in Moscow, he sent dozens of agents to their deaths and told the KGB of a CIA tunnel dug under the Berlin Wall. He was caught and jailed, only to escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison. Is Blake repentant? Not one bit. A gripping espionage tale. The Rodchenkov Affair by Grigory Rodchenkov, 2020 (WH Allen £20). Rodechenkov ran Moscow’s secret doping programme and helped Russian athletes cheat their way…

Although the lockdown has been a stormy time for the fishing industry, it has created new opportunities for consumers, says Xanthe Clay in The Daily Telegraph. Many wholesale suppliers and fishmongers have shifted to home delivery; here are four that deliver nationwide: Wright Brothers (thewrightbrothers.co.uk) – the restaurant supply arm of the fish restaurant business, based in London’s Borough Market – is offering free delivery on orders over £50. Fish for Thought (fishforthought.co.uk) is a Cornish company offering sustainable fish and humanely dispatched lobster – as well as an excellent lobster thermidor. It will deliver free nationwide on orders over £35. Wing of St Mawes,the renowned Cornish wholesaler, is supplying customers anywhere in the UK through thecornishfishmonger.co.uk Deliveries are free on weekdays, and charged at £7.95 on Saturdays. Downies of…

Brilliant cricketer who was the last of the Three Ws Sir Everton Weekes 1925-2020  Barbados is scarcely bigger than the Isle of Wight, yet in the 1940s, the island nation produced three legendary Test cricketers – Frank Worrell, Clyde Walcott, and Everton Weekes – who “lit up the game” in the postwar period, said BC Pires in The Guardian. The three batsmen were born within 17 months of each other, all delivered by the same midwife. Weekes, who has died aged 95, was the last surviving member of the so-called “Three Ws”, and the most prolific scorer of the trio. Powerful all around the crease, and with an attacking style reminiscent of Sir Donald Bradman’s, he scored 4,455 runs in 48 Tests for the West Indies at an average of…

The “national uproar over racial injustice” in America has already seen corporate advertisers turn their fire on Facebook. Now they’re training their guns on some of the biggest (and most controversial) names in US sport to demand a rebrand, said DealBook in The New York Times. In baseball, the Cleveland Indians are holding discussions to “determine the best path forward”. Meanwhile, the Washington Redskins American football team have vowed to conduct a “thorough review” after FedEx, one of their major sponsors, demanded an urgent name change. FedEx CEO Frederick Smith is reportedly considering selling his own stake in the Redskins franchise to hurry things along.…

Will it be a V, a W, a U, or even an L? The pundits can’t agree – but one thing is clear: “the shape of the bounceback will affect your investments”, said Mark Atherton in The Sunday Times. The V: Markets are still “signalling a V-shaped recovery”. If you buy that, try “investing in sectors most sensitive to pick-up in consumer demand”, such as hospitality and banks. Mining stocks and housebuilders may also do well. Check out contrarian “value funds” investing in cheap, unloved stocks – such as Man GLG Undervalued Assets. The W: In the event of a “double-dip”, more “defensive assets”, like government bonds and gold, come into play. Ditto sectors less “sensitive” to a slowdown, like utilities and healthcare. The Troy Trojan Fund, which “focuses on…

The week’s best shares Biotech Growth The Daily Telegraph This investment trust has a huge research team focused on emerging biotech firms discovering new drugs. Volatile, but the need for new vaccines and treatments is “never going to go away”, even if coronavirus does. Buy. £12.72. Induction Healthcare The Mail on Sunday Induction provides efficiency-improving apps for medics and hospitals – including an app enabling patients to manage appointments and attend video consultations. Nippy, but not for the cautious. Buy. 99p. Law Debenture Corporation The Times This equity-income investment trust, focusing on UK stocks, has a rare dual role: it is underpinned by a professional arm providing transaction and governance services to law firms, banks and hedge funds. Yields 4%. Buy. 522p. Liontrust The Sunday Times The asset manager has…

Controversy of the week Whacking the mole In recent months, Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that the Government is ready to play “whack-a-mole”, shutting down any area that sees a Covid-19 outbreak. Last week, Leicester “got whacked”, said The Economist. “As the rest of the country reopened”, the East Midlands city of 340,000 people closed down. Elsewhere, Bradford, Wrexham, Barnsley and Rochdale were also pushing close to 50 weekly new infections per 100,000 people; and localised outbreaks have forced the closure of a meat processing factory in south Wales and an A&E department in the PM’s own constituency in west London. “We are living through a national crisis,” said Paul Johnson in The Times, but also “a series of local crises”. There are discernible patterns. Death rates are higher in…

Damian Barr, the writer who’d led the call for Baroness Nicholson to be removed from her honorary position at the Booker Prize, for her “homophobic views”. (She had voted against gay marriage.) Days after he succeeded in that campaign, he was himself forced to apologise, when it emerged that he had used derogatory terms for transsexuals on Twitter, some years ago. David Starkey, who was widely condemned for making what he later acknowledged were “deplorably inflammatory” remarks in an online interview. Discussing the Black Lives Matter movement, the historian said that if slavery had amounted to genocide, “there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or Britain” now. Within days, he had been dropped by his publisher, and resigned from his honorary post at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.…

Middlesbrough Two-wheel revolution: Residents of Middlesbrough, Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool are going to be able to whizz around on electric scooters this summer, as the towns become the first in the UK to trial a new renting scheme. The pilot was unveiled after the Government decided to lift a ban on the use of e-scooters on roads in England, Scotland and Wales, provided they are part of recognised hire schemes. Under the new rules, scooters can be driven on roads, cycle tracks and bike lanes – but not on pavements or motorways. Their speed must be limited to 15.5mph, and users must hold at least a provisional driving licence. The trial in the northeast will involve an initial 100 scooters, provided by Ginger, a new UK-based operator. The Department for…

David Sedaris in New York The American humorist David Sedaris spends much of his time in West Sussex – where he is so famous for going on long litter-picking walks that the council named a bin lorry after him. But during lockdown he has been in Manhattan, and walking across New York instead. He admits to being competitive – and clocking up a good tally on his Fitbit tracker has become a compulsion. He walks in two shifts, setting out on the second just after midnight, so that he can start the next day with six miles under his belt. On these late outings, he sees a different side of the city, when it is dotted with its most vulnerable – the homeless, the destitute, and sometimes the simply eccentric.…

A councillor from Torrelavega in Spain inadvertently live streamed himself showering during an online council meeting. Fearing he’d be late for his day job if he didn’t wash, Bernardo Bustillo took his laptop into the bathroom and minimised the screen during the meeting about cleaning up a local river. But as he got into the shower, colleagues could still see him on their screens. “Say something to Berni. Say something to him quickly,” pleaded one councillor as he stepped out, naked, before the mayor abruptly ended the meeting. Bustillo apologised, but said he was at “complete peace” with his nudity. An Indian businessman has spent £3,000 on a bespoke gold face mask to protect himself from coronavirus. “It is a thin mask and has tiny pores that is helping me…

MEXICO A president who has failed on every front Asia Times (Hong Kong) “The demolition of Mexico is gathering speed,” says Manuel Suárez-Mier. On all fronts, things are getting worse, in large part due to the actions of the country’s “increasingly irrational” president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Amlo). His handling of the pandemic has been a disaster. The number of deaths from Covid-19 is reportedly rising faster in Mexico than in any other country, which is little surprise given the lack of testing: in the last two weeks, Mexico had tested just 4.3 people per 1,000, fewer than India (7.1) or Brazil (6.9), and way behind the UK (72.3). The economy is tanking, yet Amlo, for petty nationalistic reasons, has just blocked a Spanish firm from investing in a new…

Any racing enthusiast will tell you that virtually all of today’s thoroughbreds are descended from three Arabian stallions – the Darley Arabian (right), the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerley Turk – that were imported to England around the turn of the 18th century. But it turns out this cornerstone of equine lore isn’t quite correct: a new study has found that the imported stallions weren’t Arabians at all. They were more likely Turkomans – a now extinct horse breed native to the steppes of Central Asia. For the study, at Cornell University, an international team examined the DNA of 378 Arabian horses, and compared them with existing data on other breeds. Among other things, this revealed “no significant genomic contribution of the Arabian breed to the thoroughbred racehorse”. But the…

He backed Donald Trump for president in April – but Kanye West now says he is planning a White House run of his own. “We must now realise the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future,” the rapper tweeted, before declaring: “I am running for president of the United States!” It’s not yet clear if he has submitted the required paperwork, but he has already bagged one high-profile endorsement. “You have my full support!” tweeted tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. Boris Johnson isn’t the first PM to point to a need to “level up” Britain, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. In 1969, Tory leader Edward Heath drove through northeast England. “If I lived here”, he said to a friend, “I wouldn’t vote for Harold…

“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the imagination.” Emily Dickinson, quoted in The Observer “A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” Philosopher Marshall McLuhan, quoted in Forbes “The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.” Author Edward Abbey, quoted on ArtsJournal.com “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” US educator Neil Postman, quoted in The Guardian “Two-thirds of my energies go in trying to save one-third for work.” Katherine Anne Porter, quoted on The Browser “You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” James Baldwin, quoted on Woman’s Day “It…

Filling the silence at the Test One of the oddest things about watching football on television in the age of Covid-19 is “the fake roar of the crowd”, says Elizabeth Ammon in The Times. And now, with the start of England’s first Test against West Indies on Wednesday – in which Ben Stokes (pictured) is captaining the side for the first time – cricket fans following the action at home can experience something similar. It isn’t quite the same, though: while the spectator noise broadcast during football matches is taken from the videogame Fifa 20, the sounds produced for virtual cricket games aren’t “realistic enough” – so the noise is taken from “old matches” instead. And it isn’t quite as loud as the football soundtrack, with its cheers and chants;…

The Death of Stalin A film about the power struggle that broke out among Stalin’s cronies after his death in 1953 would seem to carry little comic potential. But Armando Iannucci’s satire is chilling, illuminating – and very funny. It is brilliantly acted by the likes of Simon Russell Beale as Beria, and Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev. The Nice Guys In this entertaining pastiche set in 1970s LA, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star as a pair of inept private detectives on the trail of a missing porn star. It’s too long and it doesn’t entirely come off, but the politically incorrect jokes come thick and fast, and Gosling shows a talent for physical comedy. Toni Erdmann A three-hour-long, subtitled German-language comedy might sound like purest torture, and this film,…

Freddie is trying, and failing, to fix a broken toilet, while putting off reading a letter from Lynda. Tracy’s still annoyed at Susan over the radio incident and her attempts to poach cricket team members for the pub quiz. Elizabeth spots Ifty at one of Kate’s Zoom yoga classes, and he texts suggesting they video chat. He’s looking good and she finds herself thinking about him. Could it be the start of something? Looking for plumbing parts in the attic, Freddie finds the Ghost Stories painting of Lynda, and finally reads her letter: it’s a heartfelt apology for her outburst in the hospital. Meanwhile, Susan and Tracy continue to vie for quiz team members, irritating everyone. Emma holds the fort at Grange Farm, while Ed is shearing, and is pleased…

Cook books for staycations Countries “are often best understood through the stomach”, said Anna Berrill in The Guardian. So if you can’t get abroad this summer, dive into a good cookbook instead. An alternative to “thwarted Italian escapades” is Letitia Clark’s Bitter Honey – a treasure trove of Sardinian recipes, such as slow-cooked courgettes with mint and almonds, and malloreddus, the island’s gnocchi-style pasta. Or you could “channel your inner nonna” with Vicky Bennison’s Pasta Grannies, a collection of regional dishes supplied by women “who’ve spent a lifetime making them”. If Greece was to have been your destination, try Taverna, by Georgina Hayden. Inspired by her grandparents’ Greek-Cypriot restaurant in London, it has dishes including bourekia (ricotta and cinnamon-filled pastries) and grilled spicy prawns with feta and ouzo. For those…

Tips of the week... holidays in a camper van ● Don’t confuse camper vans with motor-homes. Motorhomes are more spacious, but more difficult to drive, and not always accepted at little rural campsites. ● Wild camping is not legal in England and Wales, but you can camp anywhere if you have permission from the landowner. ● It’s easier to plan a few laundry stops than to overpack and be in a cluttered van. ● Try renting before buying to see if a van is for you. Prices start at about £70 a night. ● Ask yourself: how many people does it need to fit? How much head height do you want inside? Do you need a loo or shower? Will you want heating, for year-round use? ● You can get…

Boohoo: reasons to be tearful Boohoo shares lost more than a fifth of their value on Monday as the “fast fashion” retailer – previously an undisputed winner of the lockdown online-shopping bonanza – counted the cost of a Sunday Times investigation into Leicester’s “sweatshop” factories, said the FT. The newspaper claimed it had found workers, who were paid as little as £3.50 an hour, making garments for Boohoo’s Nasty Gal brand at a factory called Jaswal Fashions. Leicester is Britain’s “largest garment factory hub” and Boohoo its “biggest buyer”. But the city, now in “local lockdown”, has long been dogged by reports of unsafe conditions in its “dark factories”. Indeed, “fingers are pointing to the area’s rag trade” for aiding the spread of the virus. Boohoo insists that Jaswal…

Taxing wealth is harder than it looks Patrick Hosking The Times The odds of a new wealth tax to pay for the pandemic are “shortening”, says Patrick Hosking. The economic case is strong. British wealth levels stand at some £13trn (about six times GDP), and “when you need a macro-stimulus”, it makes sense to hand money from wealthy savers to the poor, “who will spend every penny”. The moral case has strengthened, too. Covid-19 has had an “unequal impact” on the working poor, who have “risked their health” to man essential services, while “the officer class works safely from home”. And voters seem quite happy too – “just so long as they are not personally affected”. Therein lies the rub. “Most proposals suggest wealth taxes should be levied on assets…

Estate agents in England say they are considering replacing the term “master bedroom” with “principal” bedroom to avoid connotations of sexism and slavery. The executive chairman of Wetherell estate agent in Mayfair said he would make the change because young buyers “find any form of sexism or racism deeply offensive”. Campaigners in Wales are demanding legal protection for traditional Welsh house names. They warn that age-old names like Pen Lon (top of the lane) and Cae Mawr (big field) are being lost as homeowners adopt names that are easier for English speakers to pronounce, or (in the case of holiday lets) more appealing to tourists, such as Gingerbread Cottage, Living the Dream and Surf’s Up.…

Britain has imposed sanctions on 49 foreign citizens and organisations implicated in human rights abuses. The so-called Magnitsky sanctions, announced by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, target 25 Russians suspected of involvement in the murder of the anti-corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky in 2009; 20 Saudis involved in the 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi; two Burmese generals sanctioned for their role in persecuting Rohingya Muslims; and two North Korean security ministries. As well as asset freezes and travel bans, the sanctions include a ban on doing business with British firms. It’s the first time the UK has imposed sanctions independently of the UN or the EU.…

Münster, Germany Lockdown lifted: A regional court has ruled that the local lockdown imposed two weeks ago on the town of Gütersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia was an excessive reaction on the part of state politicians, and has ordered it to be lifted immediately. Gütersloh is home to one of Europe’s largest slaughterhouses, and the lockdown had been imposed to tackle an outbreak of Covid-19 there. But the state’s Higher Administrative Court, based in Münster, ruled that though a blanket lockdown might have been “not unreasonable” to start with, it had become disproportionate to the size of the outbreak. However, this week the North Rhine-Westphalia authorities issued a quarantine order for all members of the Mennonite religious community in the town of Euskirchen, after a family of 12 tested positive. Paris…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the novelist Helen Fielding 1 Fly Me to the Moon by Bart Howard, performed by Julie London 2 The Windmills of Your Mind by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, performed by Noel Harrison 3* It Must Be Love by Labi Siffre, performed by Madness 4 First movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, played by Denis Matsuev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev 5 La Isla Bonita by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch, performed by Madonna 6 I Will Survive by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, performed by Gloria Gaynor 7 I’ve Got the World on a String by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, performed by Frank Sinatra 8 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by…

Before the modern era, slavery was found in nearly every complex civilisation, including the Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Chinese, Roman, Mughal and Islamic empires – as well as the pre-Columbian civilisations of the Americas, and the African polities with which European slavers traded. The oldest written law codes, from Mesopotamia around 2000BC, refer to slavery as a well-established institution. In Britain, it was common in the early Middle Ages: it is thought that at the Norman Conquest, around 10% of England’s population were slaves. In 1102, the Council of London condemned “the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals”. Northwest Europe in the Middle Ages is a historical outlier, in that slavery gave way to serfdom, which itself withered. Thanks in part to British action, formal slavery…

BELGIUM A colonial reckoning long overdue De Standaard (Brussels) Belgium’s King Leopold II is finally “falling off his pedestal”, says Bambi Ceuppens. From 1885 to 1908, Leopold ran the Congo Free State as his personal fiefdom, effectively forcing its people into slavery for his enrichment. Failure to meet his rubber production quotas was punishable by death and mutilation; an estimated ten million died. His atrocities have long been condemned abroad, but have been less well scrutinised at home. Now, following the Black Lives Matter protests, busts of the monarch have been defaced, and removed by councils across Belgium. Even more significantly, the country’s current monarch, King Philippe, has at last owned up to his ancestor’s atrocities: in a letter to the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s president on the 60th…

There is no evidence that taking Vitamin D supplements helps protect against coronavirus, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has found. The view that levels of the “sunshine vitamin” affect susceptibility to Covid-19 was fuelled by the disproportionate number of black and Asian people contracting and dying of the disease. People with dark skin have naturally lower levels of vitamin D than white-skinned people because melanin, the pigment which darkens skin, restricts its absorption from sunlight. But a Nice spokesperson has said there is not “sufficient evidence to support the use of vitamin D supplements for the treatment or prevention of Covid-19”. Nice says people should follow official guidance (updated to take account of lockdown conditions) and consider taking 10mg of vitamin D a day to maintain…

“When did America start losing its war against the coronavirus,” asked Paul Krugman in The New York Times. How did we find ourselves “pariahs, not even allowed to travel to Europe”? The turning point, I’d argue, was back in April, when President Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA” – messages of support to protesters demanding an end to the lockdowns, which were imposed to bring the virus under control. As it happens, the Democratic governors Trump was targeting stood firm, but the Republican governors of Arizona, Texas and Florida soon lifted their stay-at-home orders and business restrictions. And those states are now at the forefront of a huge surge in infections. The US is currently averaging nearly 50,000 reported new cases every day; the overall tally is…

One aspect of professional football that seldom gets the attention it deserves is its relationship to money, said Sam Dean in The Daily Telegraph. While the Premier League relies heavily on “television money”, lower-league clubs depend on the revenue from ticket sales. So if stadiums have to stay empty next season, dozens of sides will be close to bankruptcy: Portsmouth will lose £100,000 for each match that takes place behind closed doors. Many owners will be forced to sell up or go into administration. Indeed, Wigan Athletic has already called in the receivers. Even by the outlandish standards of football’s financial sagas, the collapse of Wigan Athletic is a baffling affair, said David Conn in The Guardian. The club was once the epitome of traditional ownership. Dave Whelan, who owned…

Mastery in art To The Guardian I would like to support the view of Christina Jansen, director of The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh (“Is it time the art world ditched the term ‘old master’?”) with a little history. The word “master” was used throughout medieval Europe and in earlier cultures. All visual craft skills were economically viable trades, and every artisan had to follow a similar career path, i.e. to work under a master, first as an apprentice, then as a “journeyman”. Only after producing their “masterpiece” for the approval (or disapproval) of a group of masters could they become a master. The word was not gender specific. More masters were men than women only because of the way society was. Should we now alter that history for the sake…

The designer who loved New York Milton Glaser, one of America’s most influential graphic designers, has died at the age of 91, said Rowan Moore in The Observer. His name might not be immediately familiar, but it’s “hard to think of any visual artist so pervasive in his influence”. Glaser helped create “what became the look of the 1960s: flowing lines, rainbow colours, strong patterns” – as seen on his psychedelic inlay poster for the 1967 version of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. He also designed the logos for DC comics and Brooklyn beer, and the title font for New York magazine. Yet the design for which he will always be best remembered is the “iconic” I ♥ NY logo, said Sarah Cascone on ArtNet. Based on a sketch Glaser made…

As lockdown descended across the world, a company of 38 dancers from across Africa was in the final stages of rehearsing Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring, at the École des Sables in Senegal. Their performance was due to tour the world, opening in Dakar in March. Now, as part of its Digital Stage programme, Sadler’s Wells, a partner in the project, is presenting Dancing at Dusk, a film of the dancers’ spellbinding last rehearsal for the production, recorded on the Toubab Dialaw beach in Senegal. Available on demand until 31 July; £5 to rent for 48 hours (sadlerswells.com).…

This simple but very tasty vegetable stew features the flavours and colours of the Mediterranean, says Gennaro Contaldo. It can be made in advance and eaten cold if you prefer – and feel free to substitute other vegetables, depending on what you have available Summer vegetable stew Serves 4 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 red onions, finely sliced 2 celery stalks with leaves, sliced 3 garlic cloves, sliced 1 red chilli, finely chopped 5 anchovy fillets 1 tbsp capers 140g green olives 1 red (bell) pepper, cut into thick slices 1 yellow (bell) pepper, thickly sliced 1 aubergine, cut into chunks 2 courgettes, cut into chunks 200g green beans, sliced in half 3 tbsp dry white wine 300g cherry tomatoes, halved a handful of basil leaves salt •…

Gradient jigsaw puzzle This challenging 1,000-piece colour gradient puzzle is one for people with plenty of time and patience. What some will find infuriating about it, others will find soothing ( £20; etsy.com). Geode puzzle The oddly shaped, algorithmically generated pieces in this puzzle make it especially difficult, though there are only 160 to 180 of them. The geode mineral formation image is available in different colours ($65; uncommongoods.com). New York Times Front Page puzzle You can choose to have any front page of The New York Times for any day from 1851 through to 2006 printed on a puzzle of various sizes. It could make a clever present for puzzle-lovers, but be aware that orders take a month to be processed ($50; store.nytimes.com). Andy Warhol Soup Can 2-sided 500…

Unveiling his coronavirus recovery plan, Chancellor Rishi Sunak rejected calls to extend the jobs furlough scheme beyond October, saying it would give people “false hope”. Instead, he outlined plans to pay firms a “job retention bonus” of £1,000 for every staff member kept on for three months when the furlough scheme ends in October. Shares in housebuilders and estate agents leapt ahead of the announcement of a stamp duty holiday to stimulate the property market, which will exempt the first £500,000 of all sales from the tax. The price of gold pushed above $1,800/ oz midweek – its highest level since 2011 – reflecting growing jitters among investors that the economic rebound could stall in the face of new Covid-19 outbreaks. It marked a change of mood in stock markets,…

● Secret plans Want a slice of “one of the more secretive firms in Silicon Valley”? Opportunity knocks, said TechCrunch. In further evidence that “the IPO market is heating up yet again”, the data analytics company Palantir is preparing to go public.Co-founded by the libertarian tech investor Peter Thiel, the firm – whose clients include the US government and intelligence community – is controversial among “privacy and civil liberties activists”. And, true to form, it is keeping details of its potential launch close to its chest, said The Wall Street Journal. Palantir has “teased the market with plans to list shares for at least half a decade”. Maybe this time... maybe not. ● Back in the game In recent months, “the whispers have grown” that the grand old man of…

António Horta-Osório The tributes have been rolling in for Lloyds Bank’s Portuguese boss António Horta-Osório, who has announced he is leaving next year after an eventful decade in the job. Do spare us, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. “These grand farewells for chief executives are becoming as silly as Oscar acceptance speeches.” Horta-Osório did a “decent job under difficult circumstances, but he’s perfectly replaceable”. And he hardly departs uncompensated, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. When he leaves, the Lloyds boss will have scooped £60m, doing “rather better than shareholders have done”. A pound invested when he arrived in March 2011 is worth around 63p today. Still, context is important. “You would have fared even worse by backing Barclays or RBS.” Horta-Osório gained a public reputation as a…

The summer of 1952 was hot, even by Texas standards: 25 days above 100ºF (38ºC), the “cool” days not much cooler. But across the state, swimming pools were shut. Cinemas, too, and bars and bowling alleys. Church services were suspended. Cities doused their streets with DDT insecticide; by now, health officials knew that mosquitoes didn’t spread the disease, but they had to be seen to be doing something. Nothing seemed to work. As the summer wore on, the numbers of polio cases grew. One day in July, in a quiet Dallas suburb, a six-year-old boy named Paul Alexander was playing outside in the summer rain. He didn’t feel well – his neck hurt, his head pounded. Leaving his muddy shoes in the yard, he walked barefoot into the kitchen, letting…