Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1293 i The Week

What happened The exam shambles In a humiliating climbdown, the Government announced on Monday that A-level and GCSE pupils in England would, after all, be able to claim the grades predicted by teachers for the exams they couldn’t sit this summer. The move, which brought England’s policy into line with that of the other nations of the UK, followed days of angry protests over a ministerial decision to allow an algorithm developed by Ofqual, the exam regulator, to “moderate” teacher-assessed grades. The use of the algorithm, based heavily on schools’ past performance, led to 40% of last week’s A-level results in England being downgraded. Large state schools were worse affected than smaller private institutions. The Education Secretary Gavin Williamson had insisted on Saturday that there would be “no U-turn, no…

“Twice as bad as the US. Ten times worse than anything seen during the financial crash of the late 2000s.” Official figures released last week reveal that the UK economy is in big trouble, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. It shrank by a fifth in the second quarter of this year, which is almost double the average for EU member states. And it’s not hard to see why the UK is proving such a laggard. Owing to government “dithering” we went into lockdown later than our EU neighbours, and have been slower to emerge: Germany reopened its non-essential stores after 29 days of lockdown; England had to wait a full 12 weeks. Admittedly, our “services-heavy” economy was always going to be disproportionately “clobbered” by measures such as social distancing,…

Private hospitals in England will be paid £10bn to treat NHS patients over the next four years, in an effort to bring down its waiting lists. NHS England has invited private hospital groups to pitch for a series of contracts, which will be awarded by November. Health chiefs said the plan represented the “best value” for taxpayers as the NHS tries to restart routine services. Figures released last week showed that 50,000 people have been waiting more than a year to begin various treatments; particular concern has been expressed about delays in diagnostic and testing services for cancer patients.…

Bradley, County Durham Pit closes: One of the last coal mines in England was closed this week. The open-cast pit at Bradley, near Durham, which opened in 2018, extracted its last coal on Monday. Its owner, the Banks Group, had decided to close it after local councillors rejected its application to enlarge the site and extend the mine’s lifespan. The decision puts dozens of jobs at risk, but it was welcomed by environmentalists. The site will now be turned into farmland or a nature reserve. Bradley’s closure leaves Hartington in Derbyshire as the last surface mine operating in England, though some small underground mines are still working in Cumbria and the Forest of Dean. Britain’s last deep coal mine, the Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire, closed in 2015. The UK…

Birkin and Gainsbourg Jane Birkin was 20 when Blow-Up, the arthouse thriller in which she became the first actress to reveal her pubic hair on film, was released. She only did it because her then-husband – the film composer John Barry, whom she had married when she was 18 – had taunted her that she wouldn’t dare. The part didn’t lead anywhere and, soon afterwards, her marriage collapsed. Birkin (below) fled London for Paris, where she embarked on a passionate romance with Serge Gainsbourg. “If it hadn’t been for France, and Serge, my career would have been nulle,” she says. Instead, she became his muse and collaborator, and a famous actress. But after 12 years, during which the pair had a daughter – the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg – they broke…

The modern conspiracy theory is usually traced back to Augustin Barruel, a former Jesuit who argued in the 1790s that the French Revolution was the result of a clandestine intrigue dating back centuries, carried out by secret societies: Freemasons, Templars, Bavarian Illuminati, and so on. Barruel later expanded his theory to include the Jews, giving birth to the “Judeo-Masonic myth”. This has been wheeled out to explain every upheaval in Western history, from the events of 1848 to the Russian Revolution, to the outcome of the First World War. As adapted by Russia’s Tsarist secret police, and then the Nazis, the myth was used to justify some of the most brutal episodes in European history. In his 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the historian Richard Hofstadter argued…

Why Americans are losing faith in the media Jonah Goldberg Pittsburgh Post-Gazette A new, exhaustive study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation has found that Americans everywhere are losing trust in the media, says Jonah Goldberg. You can hardly blame them, given today’s biased reporting. Anyone following the news since the police killing of George Floyd three months ago, for instance, would think “defunding” or “abolishing” the police was a widely held desire. The media have conducted endless uncritical interviews with activists championing this cause. Yet the latest poll shows that the vast majority of Americans of all races and ethnicities have no desire whatsoever for a reduced police presence. Asked whether they would prefer the police to spend more time, the same amount of time, or less time in…

Adults who refuse to learn new languages on the grounds that they’re too old, or British, may have fewer excuses thanks to an in-ear device that helps people pick up and remember unfamiliar sounds in a new tongue. The earbud-like electrode stimulates part of the vagus nerve, one of the main information highways connecting the body to the brain. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that when English speakers were asked to identify tones in Mandarin Chinese, those who received nerve stimulation were 13% better at classifying the sounds, and achieved peak performance twice as quickly. The technique is unobtrusive and painless. “We think that vagus nerve stimulation may enhance learning by helping individuals pay attention to the right things during the learning process,” said researcher Asst…

“Britain has an immensely proud history of public health,” said Matthew Lesh in The Daily Telegraph. “We have led the way in reducing air pollution, vaccinating children to prevent killer diseases, and biomedical discoveries such as penicillin.” But Public Health England (PHE) has come to represent a “dark chapter” in that history. Established in 2013, PHE – an executive agency with operational independence – was meant to “provide disease control and protection, unleash innovation and support local efforts”. But this year, “rather than improving our health, it has contributed to a public health catastrophe”. Since the Covid crisis began, it has failed time and again: it developed a diagnostic test for the virus in January, but then waited until mid-February to roll it out to its dozen labs. NHS labs…

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubt while the stupid people are full of confidence.” Charles Bukowski, quoted in The Independent “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” Coco Chanel, quoted in the FT “Surprise is the main element of a work of art.” Oscar Niemeyer, quoted in The Guardian “Nothing captures the attention of the ruling classes like poor table manners.” Darren McGarvey on UnHerd “Listening to a record is like going to bed with a picture of Brigitte Bardot.” Conductor Sergiu Celibidache, quoted in the FT “Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.” Novelist Elinor Glyn, quoted on GoodReads.com “Many people take no care of their…

“Nineteen years and three Coviddelayed months after he won his first World Snooker title”, Ronnie O’Sullivan picked up his sixth on Sunday evening, said Jim White in The Daily Telegraph. In front of the 300 fans who had landed “gold dust tickets” to the Sheffield Crucible, the 44-year-old beat Kyren Wilson 18-8. O’Sullivan is “the master of all or nothing”: when he is “on song he is a sporting legend, when he isn’t he can stink the place out”. And this final was “an apt summary of his career”. There were moments, halfway through, when he looked “tired, distracted, off kilter”. But after that he dazzled, “getting better and better with each frame”. O’Sullivan’s triumph gave him a record 37th title in “ranking events”, leapfrogging Stephen Hendry on the all-time…

My Life as a Courgette With a running time of only 66 minutes, this stop-motion animation about a boy growing up in a rural children’s home is a marvel of tender grace – often funny, but far tougher than most films about childhood. Visually, it’s wonderfully simple, and its characters’ huge, modelling-clay faces are often miraculously expressive. Faces Places Agnès Varda, the New Wave director, was 89 when she made this film with JR, an artist known for flyposting huge photos on the sides of buildings. It follows the pair as they pootle around rural France, taking pictures and displaying them. Their interactions with each other and with the people they meet are intriguing and moving. Custody First-time director Xavier Legrand wowed audiences at the Venice Film Festival with this…

“Seventy-five years ago this month, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Hettie Judah in the I newspaper. The anniversary is a grimly appropriate context for the opening of History of Bombs, the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s new installation at the Imperial War Museum. Ai has lined the museum’s vast atrium with sheets of vinyl patterned with life-sized images of bombs, taking in everything from the very first aerial bombs to wartime bunker-busters to 21st century cruise missiles. Ai’s bombs, 50 in total, are repeated across the space’s floors, staircase and walls “in a numbing profusion”. It’s “a simple graphic intervention”, and “horrifyingly effective” – creating “a carpet of bombs, a wallpaper of warheads”. This is the first time…

As Robert takes Monty for a walk, Lynda muses that she’s finally feeling more herself. Adam doesn’t trust how Alice is running things at Home Farm, but he’s in too much pain to go and check on her. Chris feels guilty for breaking his and Alice’s no-alcohol pact by having a beer with Ed, but decides to say nothing. Robert meets Jim at the bird hide and isn’t impressed when Jim brings along new Ambridge resident Edmund, who boasts about rare bird sightings. To her frustration, Lynda’s back goes while gardening – she manages to haul herself to bed without letting Robert see her in pain. After messing up a booking with Josh, Alice calms herself with a whisky. In the end she convinces Ed to do the job instead,…

The Daily Telegraph When Renault’s electric Zoe first arrived in 2012, it felt like an “outlier” – but in hindsight, it was “prescient”. Now that lots of small electric rivals have joined the market, the French carmaker has been forced to “up its game”. This update, technically only a facelift, touches nearly every bit of the car. Crucially, the Zoe now has a longer 245-mile range, cementing its status as a top hassle-free electric car. What Car? The Zoe is fairly cheap, but it does a good job of masking this with a “smart-looking and high-quality interior”. The infotainment system is competitive in its class, and you get a 10in digital display behind the steering wheel. The back seats aren’t overly spacious, but the boot is an impressive 338 litres.…

On Osea island in the Blackwater estuary, Osea Glamping is reached by a causeway at low tide or river taxi at high tide. There are two outdoor pools and free bikes (£180 per person per night; oseaisland.co.uk). At Welsh Glamping in Powys, choose between a hand-crafted wooden hut, a bell tent or a cottage with a wood-fired hot tub (£120 per night; welshglamping.com). The Hoxton Hotel is decamping to pop-up Camp Hox in Oxfordshire. Its luxury Lotus tents have proper beds, armchairs and electricity (from £185 per night, with a free night in a London hotel; camphox.com). Making use of all its bell tents meant for the summer’s cancelled festivals, Canopy & Stars Camp Out 2020 is putting them up in new locations around the country (from £75 a night…

M&S: reinventing a dinosaur In another blow to the “Covid-battered high street”, Marks & Spencer – UK retail’s traditional bellwether – announced that it was shedding 7,000 jobs, following what it called a “material shift in trade”, said The Daily Telegraph. CEO Simon Rowe had observed, at the height of lockdown, that customers might “never shop the same way again”, but the cull will “fall hardest in stores where shopper numbers were haemorrhaging long before the pandemic began”, said Jim Armitage in the London Evening Standard. And, indeed, grim as they are for staff, the cuts are a “realistic” response to current conditions. This “sprawling old business” has long needed tightening up; perhaps Covid has provided useful “cover” to do what perhaps should have been done years ago. Unlike…

Beware storm clouds on the horizon Robin Pagnamenta The Sunday Telegraph The US S&P 500 index briefly glanced a new record high last week, marking a 50% rebound from its March lows, says Robin Pagnamenta. To some, this “stunning surge” is a sign that Wall Street’s animal spirits are alive and well “in spite of everything” – the pandemic, civil disorder, the trade war with China. But I can’t help fearing investors are “being seduced by a daydream”. This has been a “lopsided” recovery, propelled by a few “mega-cap tech stocks” that dominate the market like never before. Just five companies (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Facebook) comprise 23% of the blue-chip S&P’s total valuation – a far higher share than in the lead-up to the bursting of the 2000…

Thousands of rare items dating back to Tudor times have been found in an attic room at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk. The trove ranges from a page of a 600-year-old illuminated manuscript that the Bedingfield family – devout Catholics – may have used during illicit masses, and fragments of Elizabethan textiles, to a wartime chocolate box. The artefacts were found under floorboards during works to restore the roof of the 15th century moated building, now run by the National Trust. A pair of golden eagles has successfully reared a chick on a Highland estate that is being “rewilded”. The birds had taken up residence on a large artificial eyrie – built by hand in 2015 on a rocky outcrop at the Dundreggan estate, west of Loch Ness; and their chick…

The last Blockbuster video store in the world, located in the small town of Bend, Oregon, is now offering fans of the near-defunct chain the chance to stay the night. Customers will pay $4 – $3.99 for movie rental, and one cent for accommodation. They will be invited to settle down on a sofa bed and bean bags to enjoy a film of their choice on a big-screen TV. The Oregon store has more than 4,000 members worldwide. As a nation, we’re drinking less alcohol – consumption has fallen by 16% since 2004 – and lockdown may have accelerated the trend. Although some people have reported drinking more to combat stress, 6% told pollsters they’d given it up, and sales of low- and no-alcohol beers have soared – by 65%…

The Royal Navy has been called in to help tackle the increasing number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. A Whitehall source told The Times there was no intention “at this point” to deploy naval vessels to intercept migrant boats. Instead, the MoD will provide aircraft for surveillance, and a specialist Navy team of around ten will help the Border Force with planning and logistics. A record 1,200 migrants have made the sea crossing so far this month, bringing the total this year to more than 4,400. Recent arrivals have included young children.…

Berlin Reparations offer rejected: For five years now, Germany has been in talks with Namibia about making reparation for the mass murder by German troops of some 80,000 Namibians between 1904 and 1908, when the territory was under German colonial rule. Berlin has offered s10m in reparation, but descendants of the few survivors are seeking $4bn. Namibia’s president, Hage Geingob, has called the offer “unacceptable”, but said his government would continue to negotiate for a “revised offer”. The massacre, viewed by some historians as a forerunner of the Holocaust, occurred when the Nama and Herero people revolted against land seizures by German troops. The ongoing negotiations are being seen as a bellwether for other African countries demanding redress for decades of colonial brutality. In June, King Philippe of Belgium expressed…

Porn is to sex as McDonald’s is to food. These two capitalist enterprises take our natural appetites, pluck out the most compulsive and addictive elements, strip away anything truly nutritious, and then encourage us to consume more and more – beyond what our minds and bodies can handle. But while public and government pressure has forced McDonald’s to improve conditions for its workers and animals, the porn industry is subject to no such pressure, and so continues to act with flagrant cruelty, profiting from videos depicting torture, rape and child abuse. Meanwhile, the anti-capitalists who ought to be leading the charge against this most exploitative of industries are nowhere to be seen. Louise Perry on UnHerd Desert Island Discs will return later on this summer…

Local voices silenced by the Tories John Harris The Guardian One of the biggest lessons of this pandemic, says John Harris, is that administering services is usually best done at the local level. Even pandemics, though talked of in national terms, turn out to be collections of local outbreaks, best dealt with by “effective on-the ground-action” from institutions rooted in the area where they occur. The persistent failure of the Government’s centralised test-and-trace system, run by remote call-centre companies, and its belated recognition that the service needs to be handled locally, is testament to that. Yet it’s a lesson the Government still refuses to learn. It was local councils and the services they administer – leisure centres, youth clubs, libraries – that were clobbered by Tory austerity policies. And now…

The National Rifle Association is facing “its worst nightmare: accountability”, said Shannon Watts in USA Today. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, has just filed a lawsuit to dissolve the non-profit gun rights organisation, branding it “a breeding ground for greed, abuse, and brazen illegality”. The move follows an 18-month investigation that revealed how the NRA’s leaders, especially CEO Wayne LaPierre, had turned the 150-year-old organisation into what James called a “personal piggy bank” while spending less than a tenth of funds on gun safety and training. The New York state-registered charity allegedly used donated money for private jets, Italian suits, African safaris, lavish European holidays, luxury limousine services and family wedding expenses. All told, executives allegedly squandered $64m over three years. The NRA is “perhaps more responsible than any…

Curing the common cold As scientists search for ways to fight Covid-19, we may be closer to defeating its less deadly cousin. A vaccine that protects against one of the most common cold viruses could be available as soon as 2024, after it proved safe and effective in a clinical trial. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is so contagious that more than 90% of people have experienced their first infection by the age of two. While it typically causes mild cold symptoms, it can cause severe illness in the very young and elderly, with at least 70,000 people around the world dying every year after catching the virus. The vaccine developed by Bavarian Nordic can triple the levels of RSV-fighting antibodies in the blood. The immune response was shown to last…

Any sound engineer worth their salt knows that the foam cover on the end of a microphone is called a “spoffle”. But when a sound engineer told Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie that he needed to adjust the spoffle ahead of a radio interview, Laurie was amazed to find that the word was in common use. “The what?” he asked. The spoffle is what the foam things are called, the engineer explained. Laurie laughed: “Good Lord,” he said. “I made that word up on the spot years ago in a studio!” Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have bought, and moved into, a $14.65m home in Santa Barbara County, California. Known as The Chateau, the 14,563 sq ft house has nine bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a teahouse, a tennis court and a…

Anxieties that France (and the Netherlands) could soon be removed from the Government’s travel corridor scheme had been growing for days – but when the news was finally announced, late last Thursday, holidaymakers were given just 30 hours’ notice of the deadline to get home, at 4am last Saturday. Rather than stay abroad, and spend two weeks in quarantine on their return, forbidden even from going out to walk the dog, thousands opted to make a dash for the border – leading to a huge increase in the price of airline tickets, and long queues at ferry terminals. Some £2bn was knocked off the stock market value of Europe’s travel industry; but Awaze, which runs two of the UK’s biggest holiday cottage websites, reported a 25% increase in traffic on…

For a long time now, Barcelona have been “the darlings of football romantics everywhere”, said Oliver Holt in The Mail on Sunday. With their spellbinding way of playing, they have “stood for something beautiful and magical”. But the club’s 8-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals has brought all that to an end. This was more than just a defeat: like Brazil’s 7-1 loss to Germany at the 2014 World Cup, it marked “the defrocking of an ideal”. Barça have suffered Champions League humiliations before, said Rory Smith in The New York Times. Just last year, they lost 4-0 to Liverpool in the second leg of the semi-finals. “But this? This was something else entirely.” It amounted to a “brutal, ruthless, surgical exposure of all that is…

Learning to complain To the FT I very much enjoyed James Max’s article (“Rich People’s Problems: I can’t complain”) in FT Money. As a nation we are very bad at complaining. It need not be so. Many years ago when living in Bath, my wife and I had supper in a local restaurant. Our beef stroganoff was so tough it was returned to the waiter. Moments later the chef, who turned out to be French, appeared brandishing a huge cleaver. This was a little unnerving, but he soon broke into a huge grin. “Wonderful,” he cried. “You British never complain. I knew it was horrible. What would you like to eat?” So, two delicious steaks later, a valuable lesson learnt. Anthony Hurst, Bridport, Dorset Coping with anxiety To The Times…

While this year’s scheduled 59th Venice Biennale now looks to be delayed until 2022, its curators have delved into the archives for The Disquieted Muses: When La Biennale Meets History, an exhibition celebrating its illustrious past, displayed both in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini della Biennale and online. The artistic directors of the Biennale’s six disciplines – the visual arts, cinema, music, theatre, architecture and dance – will touch on historical moments, from fascism to the Cold War, to offer “no less than a sociocultural history of the past century” (FT). It runs from 29 August to 8 December (labiennale.org).…

Chilled cucumber and pistachio soup Serves 4 100g pistachio slivers (or very roughly chopped whole nuts), plus extra to garnish 1 small onion, peeled and quartered 1 large cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped 1 small packet (about 30g) of dill, roughly chopped, reserving 4 sprigs to garnish 1 small packet (about 30g) of mint, leaves picked 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 1 small slice of crusty bread, roughly chopped 1 tbsp vegan red wine vinegar 200ml cold water Maldon sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper olive oil, for drizzling • Put the pistachios, onion, cucumber, herbs, garlic, bread and vinegar into a blender and blitz until smooth. • Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the cold water and briefly whizz to combine and thin the…

electriQ HSL600 A great affordable option for a slow, cold-press or masticating juicer – they’re all the same thing – this model is neat and compact. It promises to retain a lot of nutritional value, but it produces a relatively low yield (£94; amazon.co.uk). Kuvings EVO820 This sophisticated slow juicer is quiet, and has a particularly wide chute so you don’t need to pre-chop fruit. It comes with a ten-year warranty for the motor and two years for the parts, and it’s easy to take apart and clean (£479; amazon.co.uk). Sage Nutri juicer Heston Blumenthal’s Sage makes this centrifugal juicer, which works by squeezing the juice out of the produce on a spinning plate. It’s a faster method, but some say the juice retains less nutrition (£149; currys.co.uk). Smeg slow…

Julian Bream 1933-2020 “An Englishman playing a guitar is a kind of blasphemy,” the Spanish violinist Juan Manén declared in the 19th century. Julian Bream, who has died aged 87, laid that dictum to rest, said The Daily Telegraph. He not only became Britain’s premier classical guitarist: it was “thanks to Bream and a handful of others that the guitar assumed its place as a serious instrument”. Yet astonishingly, since top-flight classical guitarists were few and far between when he was growing up in the 1940s, Bream was himself largely self-taught. Born in 1933, Julian Bream was brought up in Battersea, south London. His parents, he said, had “about eight” children, and he was the eldest. His father, a commercial artist who played in local dance bands, gave him his…

The US blue-chip S&P 500 hit a new high, despite ongoing worries about the economic impact of the pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index also chalked up a new record – showing the growing grip of America’s tech titans on stock market fortunes. The gains in the US have outstripped many other markets, including London’s FTSE 100, which remains about 20% lower than its January high. After last week’s dire Q2 GDP figures, Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, forecast that the UK economy will grow by a fifth in the second half of the year – the fastest rate since quarterly monitoring of GDP began. The US Commerce Department placed further sanctions on Huawei, cutting the company’s access to advanced computer chips. Beijing accused Washington of “bullying”.…

● Lovin’ it The rise and fall of Steve Easterbrook – the McDonald’s CEO fired last November for having a “consensual relationship” with a subordinate – is a cautionary tale, said Ian Cowie in The Sunday Times. But does it have any bearing on the company’s stock? Before he became boss in March 2015, the City consensus was that “McDonald’s was strictly for clowns”. I took a contrary view, buying in at $95 a share in July 2014. The shares have since more than doubled to $207, dipping only by a few dollars when Easterbrook was sacked. The chief takeaway from this for DIY investors is that “tips from City brokers should not be taken too seriously” – and that we should have confidence in the evidence in front of…

Crispin Odey The Crown Prosecution Service “sent shock waves through the financial community” last month when it charged millionaire hedge fund manager Crispin Odey with indecent assault, said Emma Dunkley in The Sunday Times. The alleged incident dates back to 1998, and is strenuously denied. Still, his Mayfair-based firm, Odey Asset Management, has decided there’s no harm in making “contingency plans” should the worst happen. Its “emergency scheme”, in the event of an “absence”, involves shutting down Odey’s flagship European fund and handing control of his “retail” funds to colleagues. Odey, who is married to Nichola Pease, the chair of Jupiter Asset Management, is an ardent Brexiter known for his love of his pedigree chickens. Hopefully, there’s an “absolute worst-case scenario” plan for them too. Ben Francis There are still…

What the commentators said “Poor Gavin Williamson,” said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. “This year should have been his dream.” The A-level results delivered by the algorithm were an improvement on 2019’s, with 2% more A and A* grades; more British students than ever were set to go on to university, a record number of them from disadvantaged backgrounds. But these facts have all been forgotten in the row over the algorithm. Understandably so, said Tom Whipple in The Times. Ministers have fallen foul of the “ecological fallacy”: the error of making predictions about individuals on the basis of population data. They should have realised that basing pupils’ exam grades on past school performance would be “unfair to exceptional children in unexceptional schools”, and, conversely, “overly kind to unexceptional ones…

The Turkey Twizzler, with reports that it is making a comeback, in a healthier form. Bernard Matthews stopped making the original strips of processed meat, consisting of turkey (34%) bulked up with water, sugar, pork fat and various additives, 15 years ago, after they attracted the ire of Jamie Oliver. Now, Twizzlers are being relaunched, with less fat, more turkey meat (at least 67%) and no E-numbers. Long shots, after a race in Ireland was won by a 300-1 outsider. At his debut, at Limerick, He Knows No Fear had come in 12th of 14, at odds of 250-1. Yet at Leopardstown last week, he surged to victory, to become the longest-placed winner in British and Irish racing history. Paddy Power said nearly 100 of its punters had backed the…

97% of Tory voters and 93% of Leave voters think illegal entry into the UK via the English Channel is a serious problem, but only 49% of Labour voters and 62% of Remain voters agree. Overall, 73% of Britons think illegal Channel crossings are a serious problem; 21% do not. 71% of Britons think it is acceptable to use the Royal Navy to prevent migrant crossings, compared with 93% of Tory voters and 45% of Labour voters. YouGov/The Daily Telegraph 50% of Scots say the Scottish government has performed well in protecting the economy during the pandemic; 31% say it has not. The UK Government reportedly says such work happens mostly in Westminster and is unduly credited to Nicola Sturgeon. YouGov/The Times…

A restaurant in China has apologised – after its suggestion that diners weigh themselves on their way in sparked outrage. The beef restaurant, in Changsha, placed two scales at its entrance and asked diners to enter their measurements into an app, which would then suggest appropriate items for them from the menu. The policy was launched after the Chinese government launched a national campaign against food waste, but led to accusations of fat shaming online. The restaurant said it “deeply regretted” the controversy. Onlookers were left stunned when a group of picnickers in Maryland calmly carried on their lunch after being joined at the table by a large black bear. Footage showed the group ignoring advice not to feed the wild animal; instead picking up some bread and making the…

SPAIN Barcelona’s dips pick the wrong pockets The Local.es (Madrid) Last year, Barcelona was “in the midst of a crime wave”, says Jennifer Creaser. There had been an “alarming rise in street robberies” of tourists, and a visiting government official from South Korea was even killed in a vicious mugging. These robbers were professionals, often repeat offenders and known to police. Yet because of a quirk of Spanish law, they often couldn’t be locked up. Stealing something worth less than s400 is a misdemeanour and brings only a small fine; even repeat offences don’t lead to custodial sentences. That’s why gangs of pickpockets often “appear so brazen”. Most victims were foreign tourists who flew home before criminal trials could begin, allowing criminals to evade justice. But coronavirus could change that:…

Beefier birds rule the roost in the world of pigeons, even if their heft is down to a little trickery. Scientists found that when they made puny, low-ranking pigeons feel heavier by attaching small backpacks to them, it changed the birds’ behaviour, making them more aggressive. To the surprise of the researchers, the pigeons not only started picking more fights with heavier rivals, they also won more of the encounters. “There was a rapid change in their personality and approach,” said Dr Steve Portugal, who has been working with the group of 17 homing pigeons at Royal Holloway, University of London. “No longer were they happy to take any rubbish.” It’s thought the added mass may make the underdogs feel in better physiological condition, and more willing to risk a…

For once, President Trump wasn’t exaggerating when he tweeted last week about a “HUGE breakthrough”, said Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times. The peace agreement his administration had just brokered between the United Arab Emirates and Israel really is a historic achievement. The deal fully normalises relations between the two states, in return for Israel foregoing, for now, its proposed annexations on the West Bank. And it’s only the third peace deal Israel has ever struck with an Arab government, said Einat Wilf in The Daily Telegraph. The others were its pacts with Egypt in 1979, and with Jordan in 1994. But while those were “little more than mutual nonaggression pacts”, this one opens the way to full economic cooperation, tourism and cultural exchange. It’s the first that…

The lights are set to come back up in English theatres this weekend, said James Pickford in the FT. For the first time in five months, people will be able to see a live indoor performance. But it won’t be the usual theatre-going experience. Social distancing restrictions will still apply, so venues will need to keep performers apart, and ensure that audience members are seated at a suitable distance from each other. An industry body estimates that Covid restrictions will only enable venues to sell up to 30% of seats – far below the 65% required by most productions to break even. The outlook for the industry is grim, said Charlotte Lytton in The Daily Telegraph. “How many plays lend themselves to dialogue spoken across a two-metre void? How many…

What a curious way for umpires to behave, said Mike Atherton in The Times. Last Friday, in England’s Second Test against Pakistan, the sky had become rather overcast. So they halted play: the rules state that if “bad light” makes playing on dangerous, the cricketers must come off. The floodlights were on full-beam; on an adjacent pitch, Pakistan’s Twenty20 players were enjoying a practice match without any lighting. But no matter: rules are rules. The next day the same thing happened: even though there was just some light rain, “bad light” was called; not a single ball was bowled. By the time the Test ended on Monday, in an inevitable draw, less than a day and a half’s play had taken place. “Cricket is one of the most innovative sports…

To The Times It is easy to point the finger of blame regarding A levels, but the universities should take their share. To make offers of places based on the relatively solid foundation of mock results, coursework and teacher assessment, and then withdraw them because of the “results” of exams that were not taken does not make any sense. I wonder what harm it would do if the universities were forced to honour the offers made. Michael Morton, Redbourn, Hertfordshire To The Times Although many are keen to jump on the incompetence of the Government over A levels, the toxic reception to results day reveals huge flaws in the tertiary education system and our expectations for young people. Although the algorithm used was clearly flawed, I wonder how we have…

Another Sky: I Slept On The Floor Fiction £10 “Epic, yet suffused with a sense of personality, atmospheric but filled with big pop hooks”, this debut album from the London band Another Sky is an “exciting, unusual” record, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. Their sound reminded me of the Cocteau Twins, from the “euphoric builds and dream pop haziness” to the stunning voice of frontwoman Catrin Vincent; she sounds “like a medieval nun in the throes of religious ecstasy, but transplanted to 21st century south London”. This young band had gained a loyal following with their live shows before lockdown, said David Cheal in the FT – and you can see why. This is music (like that of The Killers, U2 or Coldplay, say) designed to be played in…

Diane Morgan stole the show as the “gormless” pundit Philomena Cunk in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, and as Liz, the “hatchet-faced” single mum in Motherland. Now, she has a show of her own, said Fiona Sturges in The Independent – Mandy, a “bite-sized” comedy series on BBC Two. She plays Mandy Carter, a chain-smoking underdog who totters around Bolton in skinny jeans, “vertiginous” heels and garish puffer jackets. Reminiscent of Ab Fab’s Patsy, albeit in a wildly different social context, Mandy is feckless, dishonest and has “no discernible conscience”, yet we root for her as she tries to “stay afloat in the gig economy” through the course of six 15-minute episodes. There’s a “giddy, gratuitously silly” feel to Mandy’s adventures, said Michael Hogan in The Daily Telegraph, whether she’s squashing…

Best books... Katie Mack The cosmologist and writer chooses her favourite science fiction books. Mack uses Twitter to make cosmology more accessible, and her book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) is out now (Allen Lane £20) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, 2013 (Orbit £8.99). The first in a series, this is an incredible story of war and intrigue in a futuristic space-faring society, with compelling characters set in a richly imagined, immersive universe. It has AIs, spaceships, and AIs who are spaceships. And everyone appreciates the importance of a proper cup of tea. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, 2015 (Orbit £8.99). Somewhere between science fiction and fantasy, this book has what can only be called magic, but with the rules of science, in the language of geology, in…

Some people will never accept that lager isn’t the only drink to have with curry, says Fiona Beckett in The Guardian. But there is huge variety in Indian cooking beyond the “classic curry-house repertoire” – and a surprisingly wide range of wines work well with the “lighter” curries you’d typically eat in summer. I’d suggest if you’re ramping up the heat, you may need a touch more sweetness. For creamy curries, viognier is an excellent choice: try Laurent Miquel Viognier Vendanges Nocturnes 2019 (£9.39; Waitrose). Another white that can handle a bit of spice is Cramele Recas Sorcova Pinot Grigio (£7.79; Waitrose), a Romanian blend of pinot gris and pinot grigio that’s “fractionally off-dry, but not too cloying or sickly”. If you want to drink red with a curry (or…

● Annual weeds spread seeds that can be dormant in the ground for seven years. The trick is to never let them flower (and spread). Most gardens have “regulars”, so get to know how yours look as seedlings. ● In particular, look out for chickweed, hairy bittercress, garlic mustard, herb-robert, little willowherbs and nipplewort. ● If you don’t hoe them out when they are still tiny, weed by hand, using two hands: one gloved and one wielding a hand fork. ● If any look like they have seed heads, bin rather than compost them. ● The roots of perennial weeds (dandelion, dock, Japanese anemones, alstroemeria) can regrow as a new independent plant when snapped off below ground, so digging can make matters worse. Use strong weed killers that act through…

Lord Lester 1936-2020 Anthony Lester, who has died aged 84, was the “godfather” of much of Britain’s human rights, equality and free speech legislation, said The Times. He played a pivotal role in bringing in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976; he championed civil partnerships in 2004, and spent 30 years campaigning for Britain to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. Lester’s career in the upper house ended in 2018, however, when he was accused by an author and women’s rights campaigner of having offered her a peerage in exchange for sexual favours 12 years earlier. He vehemently denied the charge, but resigned anyway, saying he wasn’t well enough to fight his corner. Anthony Lester was born in London in 1936,…

“Survival has become the sole focus of many British businesses,” said the Financial Times. Among them are household names – such as restaurant chain Pizza Express and Legoland – snapped up by private equity funds during a “decade-long spending spree in sectors such as hospitality, travel and retail”. But some of these now-troubled acquisitions have been unable to tap state-backed emergency loans because “high levels of debt” mean they fall foul of EU state-aid rules. Eyeballing the disastrous potential loss of “tens of thousands of jobs”, the Government is now considering bailouts. That spells conflict, said Edward Hadas on Breakingviews. Rescuing a bunch of “highly leveraged companies owned by buyout barons” was always going to be controversial, given the model’s exploitation of tax loopholes. It seems doubly “perverse” now that…

Day 1: Watch the London Stock Exchange’s videos for children, divided into primary- and secondary-school ages. Business movie: the biopic Walt Before Mickey offers the useful moral that if your business fails, try again. Day 2: Money Saving Expert’s Academy of Money includes a primer on saving and investing. Business movie: Becoming Warren Buffett. Day 3: Check out the day’s Top 5 FTSE 100 risers and fallers, and put those you think have the best prospects in a family sweepstake with a set deadline. Business movie: Panorama’s hard-hitting documentary Can You Trust the Billion-Pound Investors?. Day 4: Research ethical investing. Which companies would you avoid investing in? Business movie: The Founder – the story of McDonald’s. Day 5: Research and pick a share to invest in. List the reasons you…

The week’s best shares Byotrol The Mail on Sunday Byotrol’s effective, skin-friendly hand sanitiser and cleaning sprays are used by the NHS, Rentokil and vets. With a strong board, well-researched products and rising sales, prospects seem bright. Buy. 5.9p. Clinigen The Sunday Telegraph This Aim-quoted pharma has found a specialist niche sourcing medicines not available at the “point of care”. It also finds new uses for existing drugs, such as Proleukin – a promising melanoma treatment. Buy. 693.5p. Garmin Investors Chronicle The US sat-nav products specialist has proved resilient, helped by diversified revenues from both personal fitness consumers and industrial markets. The strong balance-sheet and 2.5% forward yield are reassuring. Buy. $102.36. Mondi Investors Chronicle Strong e-commerce has boosted the paper packager, offsetting the impact of a weak pricing environment…