Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1298 i The Week

What happened Halting the second wave The UK has reached “a perilous turning point”, declared Boris Johnson in a televised address to the nation this week, as he unveiled a package of new coronavirus restrictions for England. These include a 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants, and a reduction in the number of permitted attendees at weddings from 30 to 15. Weeks after urging people to return to offices, the PM said people should work from home if they could. He said the measures were designed to prevent the need for a more general lockdown, but warned that “significantly greater restrictions” might yet be needed. The PM had met that morning with the leaders of the devolved nations, who announced similar restrictions, though in Scotland and Northern Ireland, they go…

Jesse Armstrong, the British creator of Succession, after the HBO series won four Emmys, including best drama. Another big winner was the Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek, which made history, sweeping the board in the comedy categories. The awards were held virtually, with many nominees watching from home. Green cars, with news that sales of “alternative fuel” models have exceeded diesel ones for the first time. Some 33,000 electric and hybrid cars were registered between April and June, compared with only 29,900 diesels.…

Only 12% of adults in England and Scotland say they’d call the police if their friends were breaking the “rule of six”, and even fewer (7%) would inform on their immediate family. But 17% would be willing to rat on their colleagues, 24% on neighbours, and 32% on strangers. Conservatives are more likely to sneak than others: 43% of Tory voters say they’d call the police on strangers, but only 28% and 26% of Labour and Lib Dem voters, respectively, would. YouGov A YouGov poll has put Labour and the Tories neck and neck on 40% for the first time since July 2019. 38% of Britons believe Keir Starmer looks like a PM in waiting and 35% think he’d make the best PM. 30% say the same of Boris Johnson.…

“Jonathan Porter, deputy head of Michaela, proudly one of the strictest schools in Britain, offers tips on discipline in a new blog post. One is to use ‘pop commands’. Instead of saying, ‘Sit down!’, say, ‘Pop yourself over there.’ One’s mastery of this meaning of the word is a test of Britishness. ‘Pop’ has stealth power, turning any speaker into an indomitable northern matron, calling to ‘Pop the kettle on, love.’ We could make more use of this national secret weapon: tell criminals to ‘pop that knife down’; Russia to ‘pop its murdering spies in prison’; and billionaires to ‘pop their tax-evaded funds back’.” Helen Rumbelow in The Times…

Who gets to decide the fate of Scotland? Trevor Phillips The Times If polls in Scotland go on showing a 53% to 47% majority in favour of independence, it’s hard to see Boris Johnson being able to deny Scots a second referendum, says Trevor Phillips. And given the salience of Brexit and Covid, the economic arguments against separation won’t carry the same weight they did the first time. But the SNP is going to find it has some very tricky issues of its own to deal with, not least the question of who should count as a Scot for voting purposes. The party insists – and formally set out in its 2013 white paper Scotland’s Future – that citizenship will be open to all on the basis of birth as…

How dinosaurs came to be Sixty-six million years ago, a vast asteroid strike wiped out most of life on the planet, and put an end to the age of the dinosaur. Now, it seems that it was an earlier devastating event that first gave rise to the creatures. In a new paper, an international team has laid out the evidence for the theory that in the middle of the Triassic period, 233 million years ago, vast volcanic eruptions in what is now Canada triggered runaway global warning, and a sixth mass extinction, to add to the five we already know about. The volcanos erupted for a million years. Huge amounts of basalt poured out, forming much of the coast of North America, killing wildlife for thousands of miles around –…

“Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight,” said the 19th century US congressman John Randolph of a rival, “he shines and stinks.” Fourteen months into Boris Johnson’s premiership, the shine has gone, said Matthew Parris in The Times – yet it was “for the shine that we elevated him”. During the election campaign in 2019, the excitement wasn’t about what Boris would do in office (except not be Jeremy Corbyn and “get Brexit done”). It was about the zing and the sparkle and the passion and the fun he’d bring to it. Well, his zing has “well and truly zung” now. “The fun has gone and with it the shine. We are left with the stink.” “We need a serious, hard-grafting politician – not one who flip-flops between strategies” What has…

“Who knew that children go to school in September,” asked Nick Cohen in The Observer. Or that the Government encouraging workers to return to their offices might lead to an increase in coronavirus infections? Apparently not Dido Harding. Last Thursday, Baroness Harding, the former TalkTalk boss who now runs the NHS Test and Trace programme, told the Commons science and technology committee that nobody “was expecting the really sizeable increase in demand” for tests that had been seen over the last few weeks. She claimed that the “very marked increase” in those seeking tests had simply not featured in the modelling provided by government scientists. As a result, though there was capacity to carry out 242,817 tests a day, Test and Trace was unable to meet demand, now running at…

The Tour de France reached its conclusion last weekend with “one of the great sporting muggings” of recent times, said Tom Cary in The Daily Telegraph. On Friday night, with just two stages left, and leading the field by 57 seconds, it seemed inevitable that pre-race favourite Primož Roglic would become the first Slovenian to win the maillot jaune (yellow jersey). Few gave the man in second place, Roglic’s 21-year-old compatriot Tadej Pogacar, so much as a chance. But in Saturday’s time trial to the summit of La Planche des Belles Filles, Pogacar produced “one of the most astonishing rides ever” seen, to turn his deficit into a 59-second advantage. He remained “unerring as an arrow” during the arduous hill climb, said Jeremy Whittle in The Guardian. Roglic, by contrast,…

Are some of us immune? To The Guardian Your article (“‘Confounding’: Covid may have already peaked in many African countries”) hints that there may be natural immunity in African countries where Covid-19 has settled down. This is likely to be true, and not just in Africa. If the evidence is closely examined, up to half of the worldwide population may have natural immunity. In none of the natural “experiments” of Sars-CoV-2 exposure within a closed group has the infection rate risen above 50%. In Lombardy, a study of 5,484 people who had been exposed by contact with an infected individual were tested for antibodies, with 51.5% testing positive – which hints at pre-existing immunity. A study in Nature suggested that 35% of a cohort using historical samples had demonstrable CD4…

Rogers hangs up his pen Richard Rogers has “never been the retiring type”, says Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian. Yet the architect, famed for his innovative buildings and colourful personal style, has announced that he is stepping down from his practice at the age of 87. He leaves an extraordinary legacy. Best known for his signature “inside-out” buildings such as the Pompidou Centre (1977) in Paris, which exposed the ducts and pipes on its exterior, Rogers pioneered a bold new style that determinedly looked to the future while dispensing with the then-dominant dogmas of Modernism. He “has probably influenced the face of urban Britain more than any other architect of the late 20th century”, designing structures including the Lloyd’s building (1986) in London, the “tensile white tent” of the Millennium…

Jazzer doesn’t like the sound of The Bull’s Naughty Milkman promotion, but Fallon persuades him to try out for it. Susan tells Emma that she’s discovered who the shoplifter is: it’s Bert, her own father! Gavin and Philip talk about Blake, one of the builder slaves, who’s still in pain from his explosion injury. Gavin says he’ll take him to a medical appointment, although Philip objects. Alice is drinking on her own again. Drunk and angry, she leaves an abusive message on Emma’s phone. Chris panics when she doesn’t come home and calls Harrison; soon a search is on. Meanwhile, Gavin finds Alice passed out on the roadside while he’s driving Blake back from the doctor. He calls Philip who tells him to leave Alice in case the police come;…

Moor Hall Prescot Road, Aughton, Lancashire (01695-572511) A meal at the opulent, two-Michelin-starred Moor Hall feels slightly odd “in today’s climate”, said Marina O’Loughlin in The Sunday Times. But if you’re “longing for a touch of luxury” in straitened times, then you could hardly do better than book a table at this “temple to haute cuisine”, set in a Jacobean manor house a few miles from Liverpool. Costing £185 per person, the dinner menu consists of a “full 16 small dishes”, each of which is “ravishing”. Highlights include a tartare of raw mackerel, flecked with “tiny frozen beads” of redcurrant; and a “startlingly good dish of turnip and crab” that had me scraping the bowl for the last drop of hyssop-scented turnip broth. Yes, it’s expensive, and the “whole…

● If possible, start this process in the morning so the mattress has time to air-dry. ● It is a good idea to vacuum your mattress every six months or so. Sprinkle it with baking soda and leave it for 30 minutes before vacuuming it. This will help get rid of odours and dust. ● Turn the mattress over and repeat, even if the mattress is one-sided. ● Then use a damp cloth and stain remover to gently rub away stains. You must not soak the mattress, so make sure the cloth is only damp. If necessary, you can attack the stains with mild detergent or upholstery shampoo. Then wipe the mattress with cold water and an antiseptic, such as Milton. ● In general, to keep a mattress clean it…

Nikola: slip-sliding away Earlier this month, investors cheered the news that General Motors had teamed up with electric truck start-up Nikola to build a pick-up to compete with Tesla’s Cybertruck. There are some red faces now that the upstart company has become “engulfed” in fraud allegations, said Robert Lea in The Times. Nikola (which, like Elon Musk’s creation, is named after the electrical inventor Nikola Tesla) is under investigation in the US for making exaggerated claims about its core fuel-cell and battery technology. It turns out that in a marketing video – apparently showing a Nikola One lorry operating under its own power – the vehicle was actually just “rolling” down a slope. Founder and executive chairman Trevor Milton, who once claimed he would “out-Elon Elon”, has resigned. Milton…

Controversy of the week A new era for Labour? “Keir Starmer has achieved the remarkable feat of repudiating everything about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership,” said John Rentoul in The Independent – “without ever saying so directly, and without even mentioning his predecessor’s name.” His first annual conference speech this week was delivered “to an imaginary conference in an empty room in a museum in Doncaster”. But that suited him. There was no one to “shout, boo, heckle, hold up placards” or denounce him when he declared: “This is a party under new leadership.” Pointedly, he was introduced by Ruth Smeeth, a former Labour MP who battled anti-Semitism within the party, and lost her Stoke-on-Trent seat last year. Starmer mentioned Tony Blair twice, and Corbyn not once. Labour, he said, needed to…

Postgraduate students, who were warned that their extra years of study may not translate into higher earnings. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, investing in postgraduate courses in business and law tends to pay off – but people who take arts courses tend to end up worse off financially. John Lewis, which confirmed that staff at the Partnership will not be receiving a bonus this year for the first time since 1953, owing to a sharp drop in operating profits (see page 41). Cash, the demand for which is so low that the Royal Mint has decided not to make any new £2 or 2p coins for at least ten years. In March, it said it had six times more 1p and eight times more 2p coins in stock…

Edinburgh Exams to be axed: Scotland’s Education Secretary John Swinney warned last week of a “very real risk” of further disruption due to Covid-19, raising fears that next year’s public exams are going to be cancelled. No official announcement is expected before the publication next month of the findings of a review into this year’s exam U-turn in Scotland, which led to tens of thousands of pupils having their results upgraded. However, ministers are expected to announce that next year’s National 5 tests (equivalent to GCSEs) will be cancelled, though a scaled-back version of Highers (equivalent to A-levels) is likely still to go ahead. The plan, called a “least-worst option” by one insider, would see around 80,000 pupils awarded grades on the basis of coursework alone. Blackpool Pier pressure: Visitors…

Sharon Stone’s feminism Sharon Stone “is a feminist where it matters”, says Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. The actress refuses to toe the accepted line on more trivial issues, such as flirting. But she has been a vehement supporter of #MeToo from the outset, because toxic masculinity is something she had to cope with for years in Hollywood: there was the time she learned that the term “f**kable” was shorthand for “employable”, and the set where she was expected to sit on the director’s lap to take direction. Stone spoke out, and was labelled “difficult” as a result. “It’s either ‘difficult’ or ‘Sharon’s hard to work with.’” Now, she says the key is to “fight the big fight”. She doesn’t care if people call her darling. “Frankly, I don’t…

A German football team lost 37-0, after fielding only seven socially distanced players. Ripdorf, who are in German football’s 11th tier, took the precaution because their rivals, SV Holdenstedt II, had previously come into contact with an opponent with Covid-19. Holdenstedt’s squad tested negative, meaning Ripdorf would’ve been fined v200 for not playing, but the club still didn’t think conditions were safe. Throughout the game, they “observed the social distancing rules, keeping two metres between them and Holdenstedt players”, said Ripdorf co-chair Patrick Ristow. Their opponents scored almost every two minutes. A passenger has been spotted wearing a snake as a face mask on a Manchester bus. One witness initially thought the man was wearing a “funky mask” on the Swinton to Manchester service last week, until she saw the…

FRANCE Suspicion once again hangs over the Tour Slate (Paris) After a two-month delay because of Covid-19, France’s Tour de France cycling race was successfully completed this month. And records set in the 2000s, when the competition was marred by doping scandals, tumbled, says Camille Belsoeur. On the Peyresourde pass in the Pyrenees, for instance, Slovenian Tadej Pogačar beat a record set in 2003 by Alexander Vinokourov, a Kazakh who retired from cycling in disgrace after a doping scandal. A group of cyclists managed another notoriously steep climb in the Pyrenees 23 seconds faster than a peloton led by notorious drug cheat Lance Armstrong in 2005. Riders and their coaches say it’s because the pandemic enabled them to miss other races and concentrate on training for the Tour, spending more…

With its CO2 -saturated atmosphere, acid clouds and 450ºC surface temperatures, Venus is far from hospitable. Probes sent to Earth’s inner neighbour have disintegrated before even landing. But 35 miles above the planet, conditions are fractionally less hellish – and now scientists have detected large quantities of a noxious gas there which could be a sign of alien life. Found in swamps and animal dung, phosphine is created on Earth by anaerobic organisms. It can be a byproduct of industrial processes, but there are no factories in Venus. So how did the molecules get there? The astronomers who spotted phosphine are not claiming to have found life, but they say it is present in too great a quantity to be a passing phenomenon. And they can’t think of any possible…

Bill Nighy is pretty famous – and yet he is often mistaken for the designer Paul Smith. “Do you still live in that mews?” a cab driver once asked him. Nighy replied that he didn’t live in a mews. “Come on, Paul,” the driver replied. “You know where you live.” Another time, a man ran towards him holding up a shirt. “You designed this!” he exclaimed. This time, Nighy was ready. “I’m not Paul Smith,” he said. But the man wasn’t having any of it. “That’s Paul Smith, isn’t it?” he asked a bystander, who studied the actor for a while before replying: “Yeah.” The memoirs of former Irish president Mary McAleese offer a rare glimpse of the Queen’s political opinions. In her book, McAleese recalls a “lively” 1998 car…

“It seems to me that many embrace the profession of politics not only without political convictions, but without seeing that it is proper that they should entertain them.” Anthony Trollope, quoted in the FT “I ask no favour for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” Abolitionist Sarah Moore Grimké, quoted on CBS News “Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” John Maynard Keynes, quoted in The Observer “It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass, quoted in the Dundee Evening Telegraph “Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Author Susan Ertz, quoted in Forbes…

My “instant reaction” on learning of Gareth Bale’s return to Tottenham – after seven years at Real Madrid – is that it’s a “terrible piece of business”, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. Under their current manager, José Mourinho, Tottenham are a team in transition, struggling to recapture the form of recent times. It’s pretty obvious what they need: “youth, energy and maniacal commitment”, plus a “blueprint for renewal”. How will employing a “31-year-old celebrity athlete” – whose recent career has been defined by “remoteness and distraction” – help in bringing about those things? Yet while that’s the common-sense view, “it might also be entirely wrong”. Bale, remember, is a “genuine sporting superstar”, and his return to the Premier League – which right now needs all the “glitz” it can…

To The Daily Telegraph I echo Richard Overy’s sentiment that “the Many” won the Battle of Britain. It can hardly be said that the RAF saved the nation from “probable invasion” when the chances of successfully landing an army on the beaches of Kent and Sussex were so massively diminished by vast Royal Navy resources stationed around the South and East coasts – and the German admirals knew it. Air power had little relevance to a situation where enemy barges would cross at night. Even in daylight, our airmen lacked the training and equipment to do much about sinking ships, especially if the armada was being closely engaged by British destroyers. By contrast, Royal Navy warships shot up enemy invasion ports several times by night. I am sure Professor Overy…

Richard and Linda Thompson: Hard Luck Stories (1972-1982) Universal £76 This exhaustive box set (eight CDs or a “big download”) tells the story of “one of the most intriguing partnerships in British music”, said Kitty Empire in The Observer. As vocalists, the folk-rock duo Richard and Linda Thompson shared a “startling contralto directness”, and their music has an “unfussy beauty”. This collection covers six released albums, but the big excitement is 31 unreleased tracks, including a whole CD devoted to the duo’s 1975 album Pour Down Like Silver and its outtakes. “It is a tale worth retelling – and shelling out for.” A love of country music suffuses the work, said David Honigmann in the FT – from Linda and Sandy Denny singing gorgeous harmonies on the Everly Brothers’ When…

When I say that ITV’s three-part dramatisation of Dennis Nilsen’s crimes is “absolutely horrible”, I mean it as a compliment, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. This “sensitive, finely worked” piece is permeated by an “almost visible” miasma of evil, sadness, loss and forbidden knowledge. At its heart is David Tennant’s brilliantly controlled performance as the nondescript job centre worker (known as Des) who murdered at least a dozen young men and boys from 1978 to 1983, and dismembered them at his home in north London; but Daniel Mays, as the appalled detective questioning him, is excellent too. Defiantly unglamorous, the series captures the full banality of evil. Perhaps the greatest accolade one could pay it is to say is that Nilsen himself, narcissistic as he was, would surely have…

The Other Country by Carol Ann Duffy, 2010 (Picador £9.99). You learn to write by reading, I’m always telling students, and this is the book that shocked me into poetry. This collection of supple love lyrics and witty monologues, set on the school syllabus in 1992, was my thrilling introduction to contemporary poetry and to the idea (yes, I should have thought of it earlier) that women can write it. Strike Sparks: Selected Poems 1980-2002 by Sharon Olds, 2004 (Knopf $19.95). What are you allowed to put in a poem? How far can you go? Olds showed me that you can use your whole life, and not be mawkish or sentimental about it, either. Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley, 2002 (Bloodaxe £12.99). But where…

After a dark summer, some theatres are reopening their doors. The Theatre Royal Bath will stage three classic plays for its Welcome Back Season, from 14 October to 12 December. First is Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, followed by Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, and finishing up with Oleanna by David Mamet (theatreroyal.org.uk). Meanwhile, James Graham has written Bubble, a lock-down drama for Nottingham Playhouse. The three performances will be available to watch in person or live-streamed, 23-24 Oct (nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk).…

This dish, also known as cafreal chicken, is a southern Indian curry thought to have been introduced to Goa by Portuguese and African soldiers, during the Portuguese colonisation of the state of 1510, says Claire Thomson. I like to serve it with chapati or paratha alongside a tangle of cucumbers, sharp with vinegar. 1 small bunch of coriander, leaves picked and roughly chopped 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 2-3 green chillies, finely sliced 1 tbsp grated (shredded) fresh ginger 2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground 1 tsp ground turmeric ½ tsp ground green cardamom seeds ½ tsp ground cinnamon a good pinch each of ground cloves and ground star anise (or use ground fennel) 2 tbsp white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, plus 1 tsp to dress the…

Former horticultural lecturer Karen Phillips runs a garden and cookery school at Linnels Farm in Northumberland. She runs one-day courses for beginners, but also has ones covering more specialist subjects such as collecting and saving seeds (linnelsfarm.com). The courses at The National Botanic Garden of Wales near Carmarthen are on hold, but they are worth looking out for. They include willow basket-making and photography (botanicgarden.wales). The Cotswold Gardening School runs day courses such as Horticulture for Beginners, as well as longer-term professional training. All courses are suitable for novices and held in the grounds of Gossington Hall (cotswoldgardeningschool.co.uk). Norfolk School of Gardening, in the walled garden of Ketteringham Hall, has courses such as how to future-proof your garden from climate change, and how to make a pond (norfolkschoolofgardening.co.uk). SOURCE: THE…

Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic rallied midweek, clawing back some of the ground lost on Monday as fears of a second wave of the pandemic clobbered shares in vulnerable sectors. The FTSE 100, which had dived 3.5%, rose more than 2% – aided by Brexit jitters which induced a fall in the pound. Wall Street gains were spurred by Fed chairman Jay Powell’s push for a new government stimulus package. BoE Governor Andrew Bailey outlined that the Bank did not intend to push interest rates below zero in the near future to spur recovery, but said the option was “in the tool bag”. Warning of “hard yards ahead”, he called on the Chancellor to “rethink” the expiring furlough scheme. Rishi Sunak is reportedly weighing up options, including…

● Savings bloodbath National Savings & Investments’ decision to cut its rates from the end of November will come as a “hammer blow” to some 25 million savers, said George Nixon on ThisIsMoney.co. uk. The Treasury’s bank plans to cut both fixed-rate and easy-access deals – the rate for the latter will fall to just 0.01%. Meanwhile, the chances of winning on Premium Bonds are also set to fall, with the “estimated number of total prizes won reduced by one million”. The savings industry reacted to the news with dismay. Adviser James Blower called the cuts “absolutely savage” – all the more so given the billions of pounds poured into the “safe haven” of the NS&I during the pandemic. There are now worries about wider repercussions: “experts fear the move…

It’s time to target growth Jim O’Neill Tortoise “The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, is clearly a very busy man,” says Jim O’Neill. But sometimes it seems “he has only one job”: keeping inflation under control. It’s time to switch the emphasis to targeting growth too. Ensuring that prices don’t “run rampant” has been the BoE’s main remit since the 1990s. But the 2007-08 banking crisis revealed the shortcomings of the inflation-only approach: it missed some of the problems leading up to the crisis, and it didn’t deliver economic stability after it. The fallout from the pandemic has strengthened the argument that it’s time for a change. The current crisis has meant a colossal rise in national debt: “this bill will need to be paid”, and boosting…

The week’s best shares Adobe Investors Chronicle This fleet-footed “pioneer of digital design” (products include PDF, Photoshop and Acrobat) deploys a “software-as-a-service” subscription model. Cash-generative with widening margins and bags of growth potential. Buy. $471.35 Domino’s Pizza Group The Sunday Telegraph Lockdown has benefited food delivery – the takeaway chain’s store earnings are up by 17% – and relations with franchisees have warmed. 5,000 new jobs and 1,000 apprenticeships have been announced as it tentatively expands. Buy. 341.8p. Dunelm Group Investors Chronicle The homewares group has pulled its final dividend after profits fell by a tenth. But surging online sales boosted July and August revenues by 59% and 24%, and cash flow is rising. Demonstrating defensiveness. Buy. £14.51. Loungers The Times The operator of Lounge and Cosy Club café-bar-restaurants has…

The world’s first commercial drone “corridor” in unrestricted air space is to be opened in the Thames Valley. Under current rules, drones can only be used within visual range of the pilot, and to a limited height, to avoid collisions with planes. In the new five-mile-long, 500-metre-wide corridor, they’ll have far more freedom to fly, as they will be monitored by an air traffic control system, which will have the power to alter their paths if necessary. A woman fell out of a moving car onto the M25 while leaning out of the window to make a Snapchat video. According to police, she fell into a live lane of traffic, near junction six of the motorway. Officers tweeted: “It is only by luck she wasn’t seriously injured or killed. #nowords.”…

The Government has warned exporters that their goods could be stuck for two days in 7,000-truck-long queues at Dover, when the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December. Imports could also be disrupted, according to a letter sent by Michael Gove to the freight industry. The Cabinet Office has projected a “reasonable worst case” scenario in which 30% to 50% of lorries arrive at Dover without the paperwork for border control – leading to the queues. The letter urges traders to get ready; but industry groups said they were being set up as the fall guys for the Government’s lack of preparedness. This week, it emerged that the port at Dover is still awaiting government funds to pay for new border infrastructure.…

Düsseldorf, Germany Cyberattack “killing”: German prosecutors have launched a manslaughter investigation into a “ransomware” attack on a hospital in Düsseldorf that is believed to have led to the death of a patient. It may be the first known case of a person dying as the result of such an attack, in which hackers use malware to encrypt data, and then demand payment to restore access to it. The ransomware crashed the hospital’s servers, which meant it had to turn away emergency patients. The victim was sent to a hospital 20 miles away, and is thought to have died because of the delay in receiving treatment. In this case, the hackers are understood to have thought they were attacking a university; however, hospitals are increasingly being targeted. “Hospitals can’t afford downtime,…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo 1 Malaika by Adam Salim, performed by Angélique Kidjo 2 Zombie by Fela Kuti, performed by Fela and Afrika 70 3 Breaths, written and performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock 4 I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free) by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas, performed by Nina Simone 5 Woyaya by Sol Amarfio, performed by Osibisa 6* Köln, January 24, 1975, Part I, written and performed by Keith Jarrett 7 Things Have Changed, written and performed by Bob Dylan 8 Fight The Power by Carlton Ridenhour, Eric Sadler, Hank Shocklee and Keith Shocklee, performed by Public Enemy Book: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Luxury: a hologram of my husband…

Last month, The Times reported that there were plans to mothball the British Army’s ageing 227 Challenger 2 main battle tanks as part of the Government’s defence and security review – perhaps the most important such review since the end of the Cold War. Following a backlash, Defence Minister Ben Wallace played down the reports. “The idea that tanks won’t be there for the Army, upgraded and modernised, is wrong,” he said. However, he added that the review would entail “letting go of some equipment that isn’t serving any purpose or overmatched by adversaries”, to invest in cyber, space and other new tech. General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, supports the idea of pulling investment from traditional manned tanks, since he believes that future warfare will…

Trump: setting fire to a pillar of democracy Jamelle Bouie The New York Times If President Trump doesn’t win a second term, it will be because the election was “stolen”. It will amount to a “coup”, and his supporters should respond with violence. We’ve heard this kind of rhetoric before, but as November’s election gets closer, and Trump continues to lag behind Joe Biden in the polls, the message is getting louder. This week a senior official at the Department of Health, Michael Caputo, posted a conspiracy theory-laden rant on Facebook, in which he claimed that Biden will try to seize power, and when Trump refuses to stand down, “the shooting will begin”. He advised his followers to start buying ammunition, “because it’s going to be hard to get”. Caputo…

The amount of alcohol women drink during pregnancy could be recorded in their medical notes – with even a single glass of wine in the first few weeks documented. Under plans drawn up by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), women would be questioned about their drinking habits at antenatal sessions; and though there would be nothing to stop them lying, anything they did reveal would be noted down in their records, and then transferred to their baby’s medical notes, without their consent required. Nice says the policy will make it easier for doctors to identify problem drinkers, at risk of having babies with foetal alcohol syndrome, and for adoptive parents to understand their children’s needs. But campaigners have described the plan as a gross infringement of…

“Imagine the year is 2013,” said Alice Crossley on Reaction.life. David Cameron is PM, and he is “keeping his friends close”. The Osbornes, the Goves and other favoured MPs – such as the Northern Ireland minister Sir Hugo Swire and his glamorous wife, Sasha – are “on rotation” at each other’s country homes and ministerial residences. The men are drinking negronis and making lewd comments. “The women are comparing their husbands’ career failings – all is normal.” But in the corner, Sasha Swire is “up to no good”: she is writing everything down. Seven years later, she has published her Diary of an MP’s Wife, depicting and mocking the key players of the Cameron era. “We all holiday together, our children play together, we text each other bypassing the civil…

The winner of this year’s US Open at Winged Foot has not lacked for critics, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. In fact, during his four years as a professional golfer, Bryson DeChambeau has attracted some “horrendous sniping”. Nicknamed the “mad scientist”, the 27-year-old former physics student from California has been derided for his unorthodox strategies – using a compass to calculate putting angles, for example, and insisting all his clubs are exactly the same length. But last Sunday at the US Open, the “professor” proved “not so nutty after all”. Having added “20lb worth of muscle to his frame” during lockdown – a strategy designed to increase the distance of his tee shots – DeChambeau hit a final round of 67 to win his first major title by a…

Premier League Liverpool beat Chelsea 2-0, with Sadio Mané scoring twice. Leeds United won 4-3 against Fulham and Tottenham beat Southampton 5-2. Rugby Union Saracens beat Leinster 25-17 to reach the semi-finals of the Champions Cup. Exeter are also in the semi-finals after beating Northampton 38-15. Tennis Novak Djokovic won the Italian Open, beating Diego Schwartzman 7-5 6-3 in the final. Naomi Osaka, recent winner of the US Open, has pulled out of the French Open – starting on 27 September – with a hamstring injury.…

Since the days of silent movies, German cinema has produced directors of extraordinary vision, drawn to weighty – and often extremely dark – subjects. Here are five of the best German-language films currently available to stream online: The Lives of Others Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s tense and moving drama about an East German secret policeman spying on a dissident playwright won the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Ulrich Mühe – who was himself spied upon under Communist rule – gives a mesmerising performance as the Stasi officer. The Marriage of Maria Braun The most successful film from Germany’s bad boy of New Wave, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Hanna Schygulla plays a strong-willed woman whose marriage is derailed by the Second World War, but who comes to embody the country’s…

“Any woman would be driven mad” by a husband like Stanley Spencer, said Laura Gascoigne in The Spectator. For a start, he was “wedded to Cookham”: parochial to the point of monomania, he had a lifelong obsession with his home village in Berkshire, regularly using it as a setting for various biblical scenes that reflected his passionate but highly unconventional Christianity. His love life was “an omnishambles”: he divorced his long-suffering first wife, Hilda Carline, and four days later married his second, Patricia Preece – failing to notice “that she was a lesbian”. This exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham examines this bizarre love triangle. Bringing together a wealth of first-rate paintings and drawings by Spencer, as well a self-portrait by Hilda and archival material dating from Spencer’s…

The Daily Telegraph The old Octavia was “one of the best family cars money could buy”. This year’s model contrives to be even better. It looks much more “suave” than its predecessors, no longer putting “function entirely before form”. It’s also “blissfully comfortable”, though some of the tech inside could be improved. Overtaking the VW Golf in terms of feel and practicality, it now “leads the class”. Auto Express Targeted at those who want a hatchback with some space, but don’t want to pay a premium for it, the new Octavia is a great example of “how to hone an already-successful product”. It has a whopping 600-litre boot, and tonnes of passenger room. The tech inside has been updated, but Škoda “hasn’t got carried away with any frippery”; this is…

Entrepreneur who brought affordable design to the masses Sir Terence Conran 1931-2020 “With typical ego”, Terence Conran once claimed that by promoting the duvet, he had “undoubtedly changed the sex life of Europe”. He may have overstated the case, but it is fair to say that when he launched Habitat in 1964, he altered “the drab look of the postwar British household” forever, said The Times. Long before Ikea arrived in Britain, Habitat – with its flat-pack modernist furniture, Bauhaus-style chairs, chicken bricks, woks and gleaming white plates – brought affordable design to the “aspiring masses”. Conran described his customers as “young moderns”, and referred to himself as “the Mary Quant of the furnishing world”. And Habitat, with its piped jazz music and elegant but informal layout, became a place…

Just as banks were hoping to cast off their tarnished image, along comes another money-laundering scandal, said Harry Robertson on City AM. Bank stocks globally were “battered” by the release last Sunday of the so-called FinCEN files, described by BuzzFeed – the news organisation that helped leak them – as a “huge trove of secret government documents”. They revealed how international lenders allegedly laundered $2trn of “dirty money” over two decades, while regulators and governments stood idly by. Among those named were UK-based banks Barclays, NatWest, Standard Chartered and HSBC – sending the latter’s Hong Kong-listed shares to their lowest level since 1995. The allegations are based on 2,000 “suspicious activity reports” (SARs) filed by banks with the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) between 1999…

The Financial Conduct Authority has launched a consultation to improve confidence in the consumer investment market. About time, said Ali Hussain in The Sunday Times. As the regulator notes: “There have been too many scandals and too often consumers are offered unsuitable products.” And then there’s the perennial problem of rip-off fees. Here’s how to trim those bills: Get wise: Remember that even a “small percentage fee can devastate your savings”. Money managers will almost always charge a percentage based on the entire value of your portfolio every year. The more your savings increase, the more you pay. Avoid implementation fees: Some firms charge up to 5% simply to “add money to an existing investment”. St James’s Place (5%) and Chase de Vere (3%) are notable offenders. But change is…

Matt Moulding According to the LSE, The Hut Group’s float last week was the “largest-ever” e-commerce IPO in Europe, said Lucy White in the Daily Mail. It has certainly put founder Matt Moulding and his backers in the money. After “eager traders” sent the stock soaring 25%, the Lancashire entrepreneur’s 17% stake is now worth £1.2bn. He also brought home the bacon for former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy, who bagged £17m, and former Debenhams boss Terry Green – as well as a welter of investment firms including West Coast Capital and the US private-equity giant KKR. The Hut is best known for its beauty and nutrition websites, but what “especially” interests investors is its online shopping technology, which is licensed to companies such as Asda and Tesco. The son…

Conrad Black was born in 1944 to a wealthy Toronto family. His father, George, was president of Canadian Breweries and a shareholder in its holding company. He grew up in a mansion, and entertained guests by performing feats of memory and wordplay. Black took a precocious interest in business – he was expelled from school for selling exam papers – and bought his first newspaper, Quebec’s Eastern Townships Advertiser, at 22. By the early 1970s, he had built a network of regional Canadian newspapers. In 1976, his father, who had been fired from his job and had become reclusive and depressed, died after falling down the stairs. His last words to his son were: “Life is hell, most people are bastards and everything is bullshit.” However, inheriting his father’s fortune…