Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1289 i The Week

What happened The road to normality Announcing a further easing of coronavirus restrictions last week, Boris Johnson expressed the hope that Britain would be back to normal “in time for Christmas”. From this Saturday, people in England can visit gyms, pools and sports facilities. And restrictions on visits to theatres and beauticians will be eased from 1 August. At that point, the Government will stop urging people to work from home and avoid public transport – thus paving the way for a return to offices. But the PM’s claim that social distancing could be dispensed with as early as November was swiftly contradicted by his Chief Medical Officer, Prof Chris Whitty, who said it’d need to continue for far longer. Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said there was a…

Sir Ian Botham, with reports that he is to be handed a peerage, to reward him for backing the Brexit cause. Boris Johnson is said to have decided to reward a number of Brexit loyalists as he celebrates his first anniversary as PM. Finger lickin’ lab-grown meat, which could soon be available at KFC. The fast food giant has revealed that it is trying to “grow” chicken nuggets from animal cells, using 3D printers. It says a product should be available for testing by the autumn. Princess Beatrice, who married her fiancé, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, in a private ceremony in Windsor. Only four photos have been released, none of which feature her father, Prince Andrew.…

It has emerged that the daily death figures produced by Public Health England (PHE) include people who have tested positive for Covid-19 at any point, even if they have recovered. The “statistical anomaly” was pointed out by researchers at Oxford University, who said it leads to an “over-exaggeration of Covid-associated deaths”. PHE’s director, Dr Susan Hopkins, said the method made sense, given the “increasing evidence” that Covid can cause “long-term health problems”, but that she would welcome an official review.…

Brussels Covid package: European leaders agreed an unprecedented s750bn fiscal stimulus package this week, to help member states worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Funded by the issuance of the EU’s first major common debt, the package was hammered out at a marathon – and sometimes rancorous – 100-hour summit that ended at 5.30am on Tuesday, following an all-night session. In a concession to the “frugal four” northern states (the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark), grants account for only 52% of the funds, rather than the two-thirds originally proposed. The rest will be made up of repayable loans. To be eligible, countries will have to prepare “recovery and resilience plans”, which must be approved by a vote of EU leaders. The main beneficiaries are expected to include Italy, Spain and…

1 Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish O’Connell and Finneas O’Connell, performed by Billie Eilish 2 Some People by Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne, performed by Ethel Merman 3 Instant Karma!, written and performed by John Lennon 4 Too Many Fish in the Sea by Norman Whitfield and Eddie Holland, performed by The Marvelettes 5* Space Oddity, written and performed by David Bowie 6 Freedom by Jonny Coffer, Beyoncé, Carla Marie Williams, Dean McIntosh, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Tirado, Alan Lomax, John Lomax Sr, performed by Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar 7 Gymnopédie No.1 by Erik Satie, performed by Gerald Garcia with Štátna filharmónia Košice, cond. Peter Breiner 8 My Way by Paul Anka and Jacques Revaux, performed by Sid Vicious Book: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Luxury: a saxophone * Choice if…

In 2012, the city of Camden, New Jersey – facing one of the highest crime rates in the US – decided to start again. The city disbanded its police department, scrapping its expensive police union contract, and hired officers on new terms (though more than half were rehired). The newly formed department had more money to raise numbers, from 175 officers to 400, and implement new policies: training officers in de-escalation; making them more accountable; prioritising “community-oriented policing”. There is evidence that the scheme is working: in 2012, there were 67 homicides and 65 complaints of police using excessive force in Camden; last year, there were 25 homicides and three complaints for excessive force. However, the Camden experiment allows latitude for interpretation. Conservatives say that it shows the real problem…

Some issues do amount to a hill of beans Zeeshan Aleem Vox We should all deplore the excesses of “cancel culture”, says Zeeshan Aleem. But let’s be clear: the ongoing campaign to boycott the products of Goya, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the US, has nothing to do with it. Goya’s chief exec, Robert Unanue, recently attracted headlines by praising Donald Trump at a White House event. Announcing that Goya was donating a million cans of chickpeas to food banks, he compared Trump to his grandfather, a Spanish immigrant, and called him “blessed’’. In subsequent TV appearances on Fox News, he went on to make it clear he was a Trump supporter, and endorsed Trump’s claim that leftist protesters were “tearing down statues of Jesus Christ”. Given Trump’s harsh…

Summer can be tough for people who live on busy roads or under a flight path: opening a window to let a breeze into their home means letting in the noise too. But now researchers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have invented a noise-deadening device, which can be fitted to an open window, that reduces the sounds of the city by up to ten decibels. It consists of 24 small speakers that are fixed to the sort of security grilles that are a common feature on buildings in southeast Asia. Using a similar technology to noise-cancelling headphones, the speakers emit sounds on the same frequency as those coming in, to partly neutralise noises in the range of 300 to 1,000 Hz. This covers the low-frequency noises made by most road…

What a shabby spectacle, said Nick Cohen in The Observer. The scandal over Boris Johnson’s handling of the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has showcased all his vices. For months, to block the release of the intelligence watchdog’s embarrassing report on Russian interference in British elections, No. 10 prevented the ISC from reconvening by delaying nominations of new members for the committee. Then, when he could delay no longer, the Prime Minister tried to impose a pliant chairman on the re-established body in the form of the accident-prone loyalist Chris Grayling. This gambit failed last week when another of the committee’s Tory members, Julian Lewis, seized the chair with the help of cross-party votes (“Only Grayling could lose a rigged election,” said Westminster wags). In retaliation to…

“Pessimism leads to weakness; optimism to power.” William James, quoted in The Atlantic “If you stand by the river bank long enough, the body of your enemy will eventually float past.” Chinese proverb, quoted in The Times “The children of the revolution must never ever play golf.” Xan Brooks in The Guardian “An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted in Forbes “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!” Mary Harris Jones, quoted in the LA Times “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Author Anne Lamott, quoted in Country Living “People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for…

Even the most ardent Formula One fan may be grateful that Covid-19 has made this year’s championship “a much-shortened affair”, said Alasdair Reid in The Times. After Lewis Hamilton’s storming victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix, the third race of the year, this season “already looks worryingly short of dramatic potential”: it is “devilishly difficult” to see how the British driver can be beaten. It’s no surprise that Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, are dominating the competition. But it is surprising that Red Bull and Ferrari – the other two members of the sport’s “big three” – are failing to give them “any sort of run for their money”. Red Bull‘s cars have been known for their grip, so they should have thrived at the twisty Hungaroring. Yet…

Hardbacks The Guest List by Lucy Foley HarperCollins £12.99 (£9.99) Lucy Foley’s “beguiling mystery” is set at a glitzy wedding on a remote Irish island, said the Daily Mail. As a storm moves in, a body is discovered. “Did the killer sneak onto the island, or are they one of the guests?” With its “jostling cast of narrators, all nursing secrets and resentments”, this is a “gloriously escapist” offering, said The Guardian – “an Agatha Christie for the Instagram age”. One, Two, Three, Four by Craig Brown 4th Estate £20 (£15.99) With this “almost unreasonably entertaining” study of The Beatles, Craig Brown “seems to have invented a new type of biography”, said The Times – one that leaves out the “boring bits” and concentrates on “funny stories” and “flights of…

TV dramas pop out faster than it is possible to review them these days. Here are five that might have passed under your radar in 2020, all available to stream online: The Windermere Children This one-off BBC drama tells the little-known story of 305 orphaned Jewish children who were sent to recuperate in the Lake District after being freed from Nazi camps. It’s a deeply moving drama of survival, with a poignant ending in which the young actors are replaced by their real-life counterparts. Feel Good Canadian comic Mae Martin created and stars in this Channel 4 romcom series about a needy stand-up comedian and recovering cocaine addict whose new girlfriend has never dated a woman before. It’s well-paced and full of beautifully observed characters. Lisa Kudrow co-stars. Twin Kristofer…

Compton Verney, Warwickshire (01926-645500, comptonverney.org.uk). Until 3 January 2021 Compared with contemporaries such as Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) is “relatively unregarded” as an artist, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. While Holbein and Dürer are celebrated for the psychological insight of their portraiture, Cranach is best known for his nudes: his tasteful erotica. The countless, “languidly stylised nudes” he and his studio produced in the course of his career are instantly recognisable, typically depicting goddesses, biblical heroines or historical figures posing suggestively against stark black backgrounds. Although they incorporated lofty moral messages, they were essentially “soft porn” for Cranach’s aristocratic clients in Saxony. Yet as this exhibition at Compton Verney House in Warwickshire demonstrates, there was far more to his work than titillation. Cranach…

With days to go before the deadline for an outline agreement for a post-Brexit trade deal, ministers were reportedly working on the assumption that the UK will trade with Europe on WTO terms when the transition period ends on 31 December. The FTSE 100 fell midweek on the news of the deadlock. The Government has also apparently given up hope of reaching a trade deal with the US ahead of November’s election, blaming the pandemic for slow progress in negotiations. During a visit to London, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, reiterated calls to “push back” on China. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, dismissed the prospect of state bailouts of companies when emergency measures end, but faced calls from the City to ease up to £35bn of unsustainable debt to…

● Short memories When coronavirus took hold, most mortgage lenders “pulled their riskiest products”, said Lex in the FT. But some “appear to have forgotten the jangling sound of keys dropped through the letterbox”. Nationwide – the UK’s second-biggest lender – has reinstated its 90% loan-to-value ratio for first-time buyers, despite the gloomy outlook for the economy – apparently enthused by the Chancellor’s stamp duty holiday and “a tiny 0.1% dip in house prices”. Lenders, of course, “are damned if they do and damned if they don’t”. While obliged to “do their bit to spur growth through lending”, they risk being stuck with negative equity properties “if it all goes wrong”. Past experience suggests that falling prices, combined with job losses, prompt people to “cut their losses and return their…

Controversy of the week The Russia report “In the end, there was no smoking gun,” said The Times. “In fact, there wasn’t even a gun.” But the long-delayed report from Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (see page 22) into Russian activity in the UK did reveal something that “was perhaps more troubling”. It found that UK intelligence agencies had not even bothered to investigate what steps Russia had been taking to disrupt recent UK elections. When asked about the intelligence on possible interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum, MI5 provided “only six lines of text”. The committee concluded that the Government didn’t know if Russia had tried to influence the vote, because “it didn’t want to know”, said Stewart Hosie, its SNP member. The report also highlighted the extent to…

The Thames, which is “severely polluted” by microplastics, according to a study. Researchers found that 94,000 shards of plastic flow through some sections of the Thames each second, at a density higher than that found in comparable urban rivers, such as the Rhine and the Chicago River. The jumbo jet, after British Airways put its entire fleet of Boeing 747s into retirement with immediate effect. The “Queen of the Skies” made its debut in 1970, at the dawn of a new era of mass travel, but only a dwindling number of carriers fly 747s now. The Royal Navy, after a report revealed that one of its nuclear powered submarines nearly collided with a passenger ferry in the Irish Sea in 2018. The report said that it was “extremely fortunate” that…

75% of adults in England and Wales have a positive view of the country’s farming industry, and 86% say British farms should grow as much produce as they can to provide national food security. Support for the industry has increased by six points since last year. OnePoll/Daily Mail 55% of ethnic minorities in the UK say racism has stayed the same or grown worse in Britain during their lifetime. 29% say it has reduced. Among black respondents, 64% believe racism has either got worse or stayed the same. Number Cruncher Politics/ The Guardian 71% of adults in England support making masks mandatory in shops, while 13% oppose the move. Opinium/The Observer…

Washington DC Patriotic masks: As concern about the US’s Covid-19 infection rate intensified, President Trump tweeted a picture of himself in a face mask, and urged Americans to wear them too, describing it as their patriotic duty in situations where social distancing is not possible. Previously, Trump had derided his rivals for wearing masks, and referred to them as pointless and “politically correct” – though public health officials, including the leading virologist Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured), had recommended their use, and most state governors have mandated their use in public places. On Tuesday, at his first press briefing in months, Trump said wearing masks will “have an effect” on what he referred to as the “China virus”, and conceded that the crisis in the US will “probably get worse before…

“I don’t like wearing a face mask. My glasses steam up and my nose itches. This reluctance to cover up is apparently shared by most Britons. According to YouGov polls, only 36% of us wear masks in public places, against 90% in Singapore, 85% in Italy, 79% in France, 65% in Germany. Numerous theories try to explain such differences: authoritarian regimes in Asia, social solidarity in continental Europe. The real reason, I suspect, is more mundane. The British summer is short and fickle. We want to feel free from bodily coverings while it lasts. Wearing a mask on a fine July morning feels like wearing boots in the bath.” Peter Wilby in the New Statesman…

We shut them out; soon we’ll beg for them Janan Ganesh Financial Times Immigrants have had a rough ride in recent years, says Janan Ganesh. But a century that began badly for these beleaguered people, owing to the rise of nativist politics, “may yet belong to them”. Why? Because nations may soon be experiencing a drastic shortage of young workers. According to a report in The Lancet, birth rates are set to crash across the globe as women everywhere choose to have fewer children. Most countries’ populations will shrink over the century, say the researchers: some – like Spain and South Korea – will halve. In fact, the world in 2100 will contain two billion fewer people than demographers had expected. So even if the report is only half-right, it…

The impact of a sugary diet Eating a sugar-rich diet in infancy may affect brain development, a study on rats has found. Scientists at the University of Southern California fed one group of young rats a high-sugar diet, while a separate group were given regular food. A few weeks later, the now-mature animals were set tasks that gauged their ability to recognise items in a certain context – a form of memory recall associated with the component of the brain known as the hippocampus. The researchers found that the sugar-fed rats performed significantly worse than the control group. Analysis of the animals’ faeces then revealed that the guts of the sugar-fed rats contained higher levels of certain types of bacteria, notably Parabacteroides. When these microbes were added to the diet…

When Dorothy Parker died in 1967, she left almost everything she owned to Martin Luther King Jr. After King was assassinated, the satirist’s estate passed to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – which later took possession of her ashes, and buried them in the garden of its Baltimore HQ. But now, they’re moving – and to the distress of Parker aficionados, the NAACP may not take Parker’s ashes with it. “She always had abandonment issues,” said one enthusiast. “It’s happening again!” A photo of Mark Zuckerberg wearing an excess of sunscreen while on holiday in Hawaii has launched a tidal wave of internet derision. The Facebook CEO – who was riding a $12,000 electric surfboard near his 750-acre estate at the time – was compared…

“Shamima Begum is an unlovely creature: dim, cruel and self-pitying,” said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. “We should be sparing in our use of the word ‘evil’, but it is hard to think of how else to describe someone who, watching videos of Islamic State militants beheading civilians, felt a tug of attraction.” When, at the age of 15, she left Bethnal Green in London to join Isis in Syria, she would have known that the group raped and enslaved non-Muslim women and killed aid workers. She has shown little remorse: she told reporters that she wasn’t fazed by seeing severed heads, and tried to justify the Manchester Arena bombing. So, understandably enough, there was widespread anger last week when the Court of Appeal ruled that Begum must be…

On the touchline, one of the coaching staff leapt into the arms of a defender, and held onto him “for dear life”, said Rory Smith in The New York Times. In the stands, the technical director, Victor Orta, “pumped his arms and screamed into the sky”. Leeds United had just beaten Barnsley. They were “almost there”. And the following night, they finally made it to the “promised land”: West Brom’s loss to Huddersfield meant that after “16 long years” in the wilderness, Leeds were back in the Premier League. Argentinian manager Marcelo Bielsa, who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the club’s success, marked the moment quietly, at home. A few neighbours turned up to offer their congratulations. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t speak English, but thank you.”…

Chain reaction To The Daily Telegraph What shameful ignorance of history is displayed by the West Midlands Fire Service, which has banned the use of the Black Country flag because it has a design based on chains and therefore has “a potential link to slavery”. Chainmaking was a staple industry of the Black Country, especially in Cradley Heath. The glory of the industry was the manufacture of anchor chains for Britain’s once vast merchant navy. The Titanic was one of many great ocean liners equipped with anchor chains from the Black Country. In the 1960s I dealt with one of the last of the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, which supplied the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. I remember seeing chainmaking in progress, with leather-aproned workers handling the huge links, which glowed…

Picasso’s erotic gramophone A long-lost surrealist sculpture, missing for more than 80 years, has been rediscovered and put on display in Barcelona, said Stephen Burgen in The Guardian. Jamais (“Never”) by the Spanish artist Óscar Domínguez, takes the form of a gramophone, with a woman’s legs protruding from its horn, which tapers into a hand that caresses the machine’s turntable. It was a “star attraction” at the landmark surrealist exhibition in Paris in 1938, where Domínguez exhibited it alongside works by Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp and his close friend Pablo Picasso. Inspired by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot’s studies of hypnosis and hysteria, Domínguez, who killed himself in 1957, is thought to have presented this “erotic gramophone” to Picasso as a gift; indeed, it was a photograph of the artist…

Harrison has agreed to go on Susan’s radio show to talk about his work, but realises it clashes with Fallon’s date night. Work has been so busy lately, they’ve hardly seen each other, but he’s sure she’ll understand. Kenton’s a bit jealous – why didn’t Susan ask him? Elizabeth offers Jolene a new peacock to replace Eccles. Jolene says yes, but Kenton isn’t keen. Elizabeth decides she’s ready to start online dating, but finds writing her profile a challenge. She enlists help from a sympathetic Jolene, who spices it up a bit – she’s glad Elizabeth has her sparkle back. Kenton attempts to thwart Jolene’s peacock plan by building an aviary, but she’s onto him. Meanwhile, David is furious about rubbish left by fly-tippers and the damage it has caused.…

End of the service charge? One of the many impacts of the pandemic on the restaurant industry could be the end of the service charge, says Adam Coghlan on london.eater.com. The “discretionary” addition to bills has long been controversial. Critics point out that while claiming to be a reward for good service, it actually enables restaurants to dodge their responsibilities. Restaurants don’t incur VAT on this part of the payment; and because most use it to “top up” basic wages (which tend to be very modest), staff don’t get consistent pay – they earn less when takings are low. The unfairness of this was “laid bare” during lockdown, when wages paid out of takings from the service charge were excluded from the furlough scheme. As a result, most restaurant workers…

Activist who was Nelson Mandela’s daughter Zindzi Mandela 1960-2020 Zindzi Mandela, who has died aged 59, was three when her father was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. Thereafter, she was brought up by her mother, Winnie, whom she saw being persecuted by the security forces, often jailed and finally banished. She was 15 when she met her father again, in 1975. He recalled in his memoir that he’d been nervous about the meeting; but was delighted to find that she’d grown into a beautiful young woman, who was as “strong and fiery” as her mother. She had been anxious about the visit too, she said, but such was her father’s charm, she was able to forget their bleak surroundings. In 1985, when the Apartheid regime offered Mandela a…

Get ready for “one of the largest” stock market floats in history, said Stella Yifan Xie and Serena Ng in The Wall Street Journal. China’s largest digital payments company, Ant Group, has shrugged off coronavirus concerns to announce its long-anticipated initial public offering, in a move that could value the company – currently the world’s most valuable privately held tech “unicorn” – at $200bn. In a sign of the times, the Hangzhou-based outfit, founded by billionaire Jack Ma of Alibaba fame, is “bypassing New York” with a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai’s nascent Star market. Although little known in the West, Ant – which runs the PayPal rival app Alipay – is already a mighty player in Asia, where its “explosive growth” is “increasingly posing a direct threat…

The March “Covid crash” caused shares in most FTSE companies to plummet, said Camilla Canocchi on ThisIsMoney.co.uk. But some have staged remarkable bouncebacks. Big gains “aren’t necessarily indicative” of “future success” – they could simply reflect a share being “oversold in the crash”. That said, here are the top five Footsie recovery stories: Premier Foods The “Mr Kipling maker” was already having a strong 2020 pre-Covid, but has enjoyed a remarkable 345% rise since March, having benefited from stockpiling and more home cooking during lockdown. BATM Advanced Communications Shares in the biomedical and cybersecurity expert are up 213% since March’s lows, thanks to demand for its Covid-19 tests and ventilators. Tullow Oil Shares in the oil minnow, whacked by the oil price collapse, have risen 203% since their March lows.…

Lord Browne Once known as the “Sun King”, the former BP boss has long been “a pillar of the British establishment”, as well as “a champion of global business”, said the FT. Those two facets seemed to fuse perfectly in 2015 when he became chairman of Huawei UK. Browne, 72, “viewed his role as helping the Chinese group navigate a British business culture it did not fully understand”. But the “changing tides” of world politics have “left him in an uncomfortable position”. Last week, he resigned – hours before the company was banned from further involvement in Britain’s 5G network. “My view is a bit like that of John Maynard Keynes,” said Browne. “When the facts change, so too do my opinions.” However, the grandee’s flit to his “canal-side apartment…

Children at a secondary school in Leicestershire will have five-hour-long maths lessons next term. Staff at Manor High in Oadby have decided that to minimise the amount of movement on the premises (in accordance with the Covid guidelines), pupils should sit through day-long lessons in each subject. “So on a Monday they will have maths, and it will last for the whole day, while a different class might have French all day,” explained the head. Instagram influencers have launched their first trade union. Some 400 people have joined The Creator Union, which was set up to ensure they have proper protections as demand for their services grows. The global influencer marketing industry is expected to be worth $15bn by 2022.…

Almost 900,000 public sector workers are to receive above-inflation pay rises. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the rises reflect their “vital contribution”, which has been highlighted during the pandemic. Teachers in England, and UK doctors and dentists, will see the largest increases at 3.1% and 2.8%, respectively, while police and prison officers in England and Wales will get a 2.5% rise. The deal does not apply to nurses, as they agreed a three-year deal in 2018. The Treasury said the money would come from existing budgets, and Sunak later warned that the Government would have to “exercise restraint” in future awards.…

Blackburn New Covid hotspot: The Lancashire borough of Blackburn with Darwen has overtaken Leicester as England’s coronavirus hotspot: in the week to last Friday, the area had 79.2 cases per 100,000 of population. The figures emerged as 250 mourners who attended a funeral at a mosque were told to self-isolate after an imam tested positive for Covid-19. However, Professor Dominic Harrison, public health director for the region, said a local lockdown would be “a very, very last resort”, as local guidelines, such as wearing masks in all public places, were having a positive impact. He said that cases were likely to rise further, as testing was ramped up. Leicester, which went into lockdown when cases reached 135 per 100,000, is now recording 77.7 per 100,000. This week, Matt Hancock said…

Training for the Olympics At the Rio Olympics four years ago, Max Whitlock became the first British gymnast ever to win a gold medal. In fact, he ended up with two golds and a bronze, making him Team GB’s most decorated gymnast ever. This summer, he should have been in Tokyo defending his record on the pommel horse. The pandemic has put paid to that, but he is trying to turn it into a positive. “It’s given me another window to clean up my routine even more,” he told Murad Ahmed in the FT. For the past few months, he has been spending 35 hours a week going over and over a routine he has perfected over the past four years, so that if the Games go ahead next summer,…

A psychiatrist in Ottawa, Canada, has been censured for repeatedly falling asleep during sessions with patients. The College of Physicians and Surgeons ruled that the man, named only as Dr N.J.K., must try to stay awake, after a patient said he had dozed off in at least five appointments. “She explained that she had lived a life of invalidation, keeping secrets to herself because she thought no one would care,” said the ruling. “And his falling asleep in the process made her feel weak and unimportant.” Dr NJK apologised and said he’d move the patient’s appointments to the morning. A Japanese baseball team has turned to robots to lift its stadium’s atmosphere as fans stay away in the pandemic. Some 39 robots – some humanoid, others resembling dogs – stamped…

YEMEN A disaster that could dwarf Exxon Valdez Le Temps (Lausanne) A rusting oil tanker abandoned in the Red Sea is an ecological disaster waiting to happen, says Luis Lema. The 1,188-foot vessel, FSO Safer, is carrying 48 million gallons of oil – four times what was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. Linked to Yemen by a 4.4-mile submarine pipeline, it was used as a floating storage facility, but it hasn’t been properly maintained since civil war between a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels broke out five years ago, and carries only a skeleton crew. It is 45 years old, and sprang a leak in May, making the risk of an oil spill all too likely. If that were to occur, the Red Sea’s coral reefs and wildlife…

Once, runners were told the four-minute mile was impossible. Now, competitive eaters have been warned that they may soon reach the limit of human capabilities: according to a new study, 84 hot dogs consumed in ten minutes is the most the body can manage. Sports scientist Dr James Smoliga analysed 39 years of data from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, an annual event held on New York’s Coney Island, to track advances in the “sport”. He found that while back in 1980 nine dogs in ten minutes was enough to clinch the title, by the 1990s, the record had reached 50 – a surge put down to elite contestants from Japan entering the arena. Previous winners had been amateurs who just stuffed their faces; but the Japanese trained for…

“Ever since the arrival of broadband in the early 2000s, people have been predicting a revolution in homeworking,” said Joe Moran in The Observer. It always felt a bit oversold to me, too dismissive of our attachment to the physical world – what cyberpunks call “meatspace”; and, indeed, most of us continued to trudge into the office (in 2019, only 5% of us “mainly” worked from home). Then, in March, the “future arrived with a bump” as offices closed, and millions of workers were forced to master video-conferencing and data-sharing platforms overnight. Now there is talk that some of those spaces may never reopen, said The Economist. Employers who used to be reluctant to allow working from home (WFH) have found their concerns about productivity were unfounded, and are eyeing…

For decades, we paid little mind to the statues that dotted the streets of our big cities, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. Nothing, as the saying went, is as invisible as a memorial in bronze. No longer. For the past few weeks, debate has raged as to whom we memorialise, and it has centred on Bristol: first with the pulling down of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston; now, with the appearance last week, in the same spot, of a new statue of a black woman, by the sculptor Marc Quinn, once a Young British Artist. As an art critic, I am excited that art is suddenly a topic of urgent public debate – but Quinn’s piece left me cold. No one had asked him to…

Few men in modern cricket have won as much acclaim as Ben Stokes, said Mike Atherton in The Times. And England’s victory against West Indies in the second Test offered yet another demonstration of the all-rounder’s “talent, versatility and extraordinary drive”. As a bowler, he took two important wickets. But it was his batting that stole the show. He started slowly, grinding out 176 runs in the first innings, his second-highest score in Test cricket. But in the second innings, he shifted gears, smashing 78 runs from just 57 balls. We already knew that Stokes was England’s best all-rounder; in his current form, he might just be “England’s best batsman”. Equally encouraging was the performance of Dom Sibley, England’s 24-year-old opener, said Andy Bull in The Guardian. For too long,…

To The Guardian I was surprised to see The Guardian publishing advice from Andrew Lansley on how the NHS should be run. I look forward to a contribution from Chris Grayling on the smooth running of railways. Bashyr Aziz, Pelsall, West Midlands To The Guardian It has never seemed right in polite circles to reveal any support for Andrew Lansley’s period as health secretary, but I would like to say a few qualified words in his favour. He had been the opposition spokesman for many years when appointed and had a good understanding of the NHS’s problems. In proposing decentralisation, Lansley was wounded by the Labour opposition for allegedly trying to escape ultimate accountability for the NHS. He was even undermined by his own PM, who rejected the plan. So…

David Hertzberg: The Wake World Tzadik Records £34 This “intoxicating” 2017 opera by the young American composer David Hertzberg is based on a short story by Aleister Crowley, the English occultist and poet, said Richard Fairman in the FT. The tone is phantasmagorical: it centres on Lola, “the key of delights”, who tells of how her Fairy Prince rides to her on a beautiful creature, as the “sun blazes and millions of trumpets blow”. Hertzberg’s music is beautifully dreamlike and otherworldly, and conductor Elizabeth Braden’s recording for Opera Philadelphia is “seductive”. Soprano Maeve Höglund as Lola, and mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the Fairy Prince, stun with their artistry, said Chris Ruel on OperaWire – and the five instrumentalists are “world class”. So too is the work of sound engineers Andreas…

Adapted from Philip Roth’s 2004 novel by David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire), The Plot Against America is a brilliant and “chilling” historical fantasia, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. It is 1940 and the aviator Charles Lindbergh has won the US presidency on a “populist”, Hitler-appeasing ticket. His supporters insist he isn’t a Nazi – but once he’s in office, “the creep of fascism” begins. The contemporary parallels are so powerful, they’d have seemed crude had Roth been writing in the age of Trump. Lindbergh even uses the “America first” slogan. The story is told tightly, from the perspective of a single Jewish family, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. There are fine performances from Morgan Spector, Zoe Kazan, Winona Ryder and John Turturro, who is creepily…

The novelist chooses her five favourite books. Her debut, Kiss Me First, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and adapted for television by Channel 4. Her latest, Brixton Hill, is out now, published by Corsair at £14.99 A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse, 1934 (used, from £25). Inspired by a famous murder case of the time, this unjustly forgotten novel is an intense and humane account of a fatally romantic young woman, whose dreams of a special life are thwarted by her circumstances and, finally, devastatingly, by the implacable cogs of the criminal justice system. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, 2004 (Penguin £8.99). It’s hard to choose a favourite of the Mole books, but the seventh, set in…

A large-scale exhibition of outdoor sculptures by Anish Kapoor has just opened to the public at Houghton Hall in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, having been installed before lockdown in March. Due to the sheer weight of the stone, marble and onyx works, the house’s “vast Versailles-like lawns had to be reinforced with concrete to stop them from sinking” (Guardian). Until 1 November.(houghtonhall.com). Yorkshire Sculpture Park will also reopen its parkland and formal gardens from 29 July with an exhibition by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos; until 3 January 2021. Visits must be booked in advance (ysp.org.uk).…

Smoky, juicy and tender barbecued pork ribs is one of the most popular dishes in Bali, says Lara Lee. In my version, adapted for the home cook, the ribs are slow-cooked in the oven in a sweet soy sauce, ginger, garlic and chilli marinade and then caramelised under the grill, making them irresistibly sticky. Serves 4-6 8 long red chillies, roughly chopped (deseeded if you prefer less heat) 12 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped 12cm piece of ginger (about 60g), peeled and roughly chopped 2 small banana shallots or 4 Thai shallots, peeled and roughly chopped 120ml rice vinegar or white wine vinegar 140ml kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce, see recipe and method below) 100g palm sugar or brown sugar 1 tsp sea salt flakes 2 x 700g…

Apple: taking a bite out of the EU So much for the EU crackdown on corporate tax avoidance, said The Economist. In a landmark judgment, the bloc’s second-highest court has ruled that Apple will not have to pay s13bn in back taxes to the Irish government – a considerable blow to competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager and her efforts to “regulate member states’ tax affairs”. In 2016, Vestager accused Dublin of striking a “sweetheart deal” with the iPhone-maker, claiming it had violated “state aid” rules by offering “unfair tax breaks”. Cue “a long legal ruck”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. The EU’s General Court has now decided that all the right technical boxes were indeed ticked, marking a victory for Apple – and the Irish government, which had “fought…

A Hamiltonian moment for the EU? Editorial The Economist The agreement of a massive pandemic recovery package for the whole EU was “one for the history books”, says The Economist. And not just because of the marathon negotiations and the huge sums involved. As well as signing off on a s1.8trn multi-year spending package, national leaders agreed to distribute much of the s750bn Covid-19 recovery fund in grants, so that it won’t increase the debt burdens of “hard-hit southern governments”, like Italy. By breaching “a former red line over substantial intra-EU fiscal transfers”, and allowing the Commission to “incur debt at an unprecedented scale”, the deal broke “taboos” in a way unimaginable just six months ago. Still, it falls some way short of the “Hamiltonian moment” hardcore integrationists had hoped…

The week’s best shares Avast Investors Chronicle The market-leading software group has seen a surge in demand for its cybersecurity products as consumers work from home. “BreachGuard”, a promising new data security product, should boost growth. Buy. 556p. Bellway The Sunday Telegraph Shares in the housebuilder are 30% down from the start of the year, but it has a solid balance sheet, a diverse spread of locations and a good land bank. Should benefit from high demand and supportive government policies. Buy. £26.19. Experian The Times The credit-checking group, now operating in 45 countries, has demonstrated “remarkable resilience”. Boosted by organic growth of 4% in the US, and set to profit from digitisation post Covid-19. Buy. £28.35. Games Workshop Group Investors Chronicle Shares in the maker of miniature figurines, used…