Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1299 i The Week

What happened Taxing times for Trump The New York Times published a bombshell report on Donald Trump’s finances this week based on a leak of decades of his tax returns. It revealed that the president paid just $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected and in the subsequent year, and no income taxes at all for much of the previous two decades. This was due to the losses racked up by much of his business empire and to his offsetting of generous expenses, including consultancy fees to his daughter Ivanka and $70,000 for the styling of his hair on The Apprentice. He dismissed the report as “fake news” and said he had “paid a lot” in taxes. The story broke just days before Trump’s first debate…

University funds, with new figures showing that despite the pandemic – and contrary to widespread predictions – international students are still applying to study in the UK in droves. According to Ucas, 44,300 undergraduates from outside the UK and the EU started courses this autumn – 9% more than last year. The British Royal Family, after a new study concluded that they are not only the hardest-working royals in Europe, they’re also among the cheapest. Only the Belgian and Spanish royal families cost less, per head of population. Tom Stoppard, who turns out to have made millions as an anonymous script editor. According to a new biography by Hermione Lee, the playwright “polished” the dialogue for a number of Hollywood movies including the Beethoven series, Indiana Jones and the Last…

66% of Britons support the “rule of six”; 15% oppose it. 74% approve of compulsory face masks, while 11% disapprove. 64% approve of the quarantine rules for returning holidaymakers. Opinium/The Guardian 49% of Britons believe that Britain is a force for good in the world, down 10 points from April 2019. 41% agree that Britain should “punch above its weight” in world affairs; 38% think that it should “stop pretending it is an important power”. Ipsos Mori/The Guardian Labour is leading in polls for the first time since Keir Starmer was elected in April. The party is now on 42% (up 3 points in a fortnight) and the Tories are on 39% (down 3 points in the same period). Opinium/The Observer…

Washington DC Highest honour: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the US Supreme Court justice who died last month at the age of 87, has became the first woman to be accorded the honour of lying in state at the US Capitol. She is also the first Jewish person to be so honoured. Prior to the ceremony at Congress, Ginsburg had lain in repose for two days at the Supreme Court, where a stream of visitors paid tribute. They included President Trump, who was jeered and booed by onlookers, some of whom chanted “vote him out”. Trump has courted political controversy by insisting on appointing a conservative successor to Ginsburg – who was a liberal on the Supreme Court panel, known for her campaigns for gender equality – before the presidential election on…

1 America from West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, performed by Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, The Sharks and Girls 2 Tutti Frutti, written by Little Richard, Dorothy LaBostrie and Joe Lubin, performed by Little Richard 3 Twist and Shout by Bert Berns and Phil Medley, performed by The Beatles 4 March from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoven: Ninth Symphony: Fourth Movement, abridged), written by Friedrich Schiller and Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Wendy Carlos 5 The Wind, written and performed by Cat Stevens 6 Allah Uya, written and performed by Ali Farka Touré 7 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus, performed by Nina Simone 8* As, written and performed by Stevie Wonder Book: The Masnavi I Ma’navi by Rumi (trans. E.H.…

In 1998, Dr Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist, published a study in The Lancet linking the MMR vaccine to autism and bowel disease. It sparked a media storm and hundreds of thousands of parents boycotted the jab. In the UK, MMR vaccination levels dropped to 80% in 2004, well below the 95% needed for herd immunity. Outbreaks of mumps and measles followed. Britain recorded its first measles death for 14 years in 2006. Later, The Sunday Times revealed undeclared conflicts of interest: Wakefield had been paid more than £400,000 by lawyers preparing an MMR lawsuit. In 2010, the General Medical Council found he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” and struck him off; The Lancet withdrew the paper. Since then, more than a dozen studies have found no link between MMR and…

Princeton must decide if it really is racist Matthew X. Wilson Washington Examiner Princeton University has got itself in a bind, says Matthew X. Wilson. In a bid to placate progressive students, its president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, recently published an open letter promising to combat “systemic racism” at the school. He would, he said, implement policies to address the “racist assumptions” that “remain embedded in the structures of the university itself”. This statement has prompted the US Department of Education to launch an investigation into Princeton and to request records relating to this confessed bias. It has every right to launch such a probe. Princeton, after all, as a condition of receiving federal aid, has repeatedly certified that it is not discriminatory. It also proudly markets itself to prospective students…

Health charities are accepting millions of pounds from drug companies – and not declaring it, according to a report in BMJ Open. The charities are not obliged to declare corporate funding, but last year, The Charity Commission urged them to be more transparent, given the influence they can have over which new drugs are recommended for use by the NHS. The researchers examined disclosure reports published by drug companies over five years, and compared them to annual reports published by patient charities. They discovered a £20m shortfall between what the drugs companies said they’d given away, and what the charities said they’d received. Myeloma UK apparently received more than £7m from drug firms during the period, but declared only a little over £700,000 in payments; Diabetes UK received over £3m,…

Polite society is aghast, said Quentin Letts in The Times. “Can it be true? Is the Government really going to make Charles Moore chairman of the BBC and Paul Dacre chairman of Ofcom?” The horrified response to reports that these two right-leaning, Brexitsupporting former editors – of The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail respectively – are being lined up to take on two of the most powerful broadcasting positions in the country, has been “glorious” to behold. “Coffin. Nail. UK.” tweeted the actor and Remain campaigner Hugh Grant. The former spin doctor Alastair Campbell, “he of Hutton inquiry infamy, raged about Dacre ‘poisoning public debate’”. Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of The Guardian who, like several other centre-left journalists, is now a master of an Oxford college, and who…

With matches being played in empty stadiums, there was every reason to feel that the 2020/21 Premier League would be a lacklustre affair. But not a bit of it, said Rob Smyth in The Guardian: three weeks in, it’s already shaping up to be a classic – if “surreal” – season. There have been goals in abundance: in the second week, 44 of them – the highest total in a single round of matches since 1994, when the top flight was reduced from 22 teams to 20. And last weekend saw several more enthralling contests. At the Etihad, front runners Leicester thrashed Manchester City 5-2, thanks to an “extraordinary” hat-trick from Jamie Vardy, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. Twice, the 33-year-old striker converted from the spot, after earning…

Patriotism of the left To the New Statesman Ian Leslie’s column on patriotism got many things right, but did not give the full picture. As a boy, at the 1950 general election, I asked my dad two questions: why the Conservative cars never came into our council estate, and why the Tory cavalcade was always bedecked in the Union Jack. For 70 years, the Tories have manufactured a monopoly on patriotism because of its association with the monarchy, the ruling elite and the legacy of empire. This was dependent on the inertia of the Left, which has not vocalised the desire of ordinary people for expressions of loyalty to, and pride in, Britain. This has resulted in the rise of Welsh and Scottish nationalism, and an English identity taken over…

V2 by Robert Harris Hutchinson 320pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 Robert Harris first explored the “secretive world of Second World War mathematicians” in his 1995 thriller Enigma, said David Marsland in the London Evening Standard. In his “relentless” new novel, he returns to the subject, though here the focus is not on codes but on the “death integers” of ballistic missiles. In November 1944, as the Nazis rain their new V2 rockets down on London, Kay Caton-Walsh, a young WAAF officer, becomes involved in the effort to “track where the V2s are coming from” by measuring their parabolas through the sky. Meanwhile, we follow her German opposite number, a conflicted engineer called Rudi Graf, who is in charge of “pounding London” with the missiles. Harris’s prose is “wonderfully” vivid,…

Relatively few of the most celebrated Russian films are available to view online in the UK – but here are some of the best that can be found: Battleship Potemkin Famed for its climactic sequence depicting a massacre by Tsarist troops on the Odessa steps, Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film was banned as propaganda in the UK until 1954. Its fast-paced editing broke new cinematic ground, and it has long topped the must-watch lists at film schools. Mirror Andrei Tarkovsky’s films are very slow, but the way he conjures a sense of the mystical in the ordinary world has made them a constant reference for other directors. Mirror – released in 1975 – is his most personal film, a gorgeous meditation on childhood memory. Brother Aleksey Balabanov’s gritty, ultra-low-budget crime movie…

The subject of this exhibition is bound to raise eyebrows, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. Tantra, to put it as simply as possible, is an esoteric tradition that originated in sixth century India. Famously, Tantric practice gives particular prominence to “sexual rites”, and to certain “taboo-defying ritual practices involving bodily fluids”. Thus, when Eastern spirituality became fashionable in the West in the 1960s, Tantra was embraced by the counterculture as a synonym for adventurous sex. This, to say the least, was a simplistic interpretation. More than a sect but not quite a religion, Tantra emerged as a set of “radical beliefs and practices” that challenged Hindu orthodoxy: while other Eastern philosophies understand the world as illusory, Tantra’s adherents believe that it is real, “and seek enlightenment by engaging…

It’s easy to be snippy about orange wine, says Fiona Beckett in The Guardian: it’s expensive, popular with millennials, and some examples “taste unconscionably like cider”. But it’s no “flash in the pan” – it has been made in Georgia for at least 2,000 years – and it may be better than you think. Orange wine is made not from oranges (a common misapprehension) but from white grapes: its colour results from the crushed juice being left in contact with the skins during fermentation. If you’re looking for a classic “from the home of orange wine”, you could try the Matrobela Rkatsiteli Amber Dry 2018 (£17 tasteofgeorgia.co.uk), which has a rich, quince-flavour. Existing fans of natural wine might want to try something more adventurous. Lovamor Vino de la Tierra de…

Crusading editor who exposed the thalidomide scandal Sir Harold Evans 1928-2020 One of Britain’s most highly regarded newspaper editors, Harry Evans took over the reins of The Sunday Times in 1967, and gave it renewed vigour, a bolder design and, crucially, “investigative zeal”, said The Daily Telegraph. His Insight team of reporters exposed abuses in Northern Ireland, and signs of Robert Maxwell’s criminality. The paper also risked prosecution under the Official Secrets Act by publishing Richard Crossman’s outrageous diaries. But Evans will mostly be remembered for his dogged pursuit of justice for the victims of the thalidomide scandal. Hundreds of British women prescribed the drug to combat nausea during pregnancy had given birth to babies with severe disabilities. Moved by their stories, and appalled by how little compensation they had…

When allegations of “poor working practices” in Boohoo’s Leicester supply chain first emerged in July, the fast-fashion giant initially denied them, said The Guardian. But a “damning” independent review, conducted by Alison Levitt QC for the business, last week found that the claims were “substantially true”. Levitt said that factories making garments for the £4.7bn online retailer – whose brands include PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, Karen Millen and Coast – were putting workers’ health at risk while paying them as little as £3.50 an hour. Boohoo, it concluded, knew about these “endemic” problems, but did “too little too late” to fix them. Profits were “prioritised”, while red flags were ignored. “The Leicester sweatshop affair tugs at countless uncomfortable threads” for Boohoo, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Levitt describes finding factory…

Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity through Business by John Mackey, Steve McIntosh and Carter Phipps (Penguin). A first-person account by the founder of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey. Not just “yet another” book about corporate purpose, this is a “thought-provoking” look at how leaders can navigate the contradictions of “conscious capitalism”, says Andrew Jack. Mackey should know – he sold out to Amazon. Shoemaker: The Untold Story of the British Family Firm that Became a Global Brand by Joe Foster (Simon & Schuster). The founder of Reebok describes how he created a global sporting footwear brand after quitting his family’s struggling shoemaking business in Bolton. An interesting account of how an entrepreneur “overcame the difficulties of operating in postwar Britain” to build an international network, says Jack. After the Gig: How…

Controversy of the week The winter plan “Britain is in for a long, hard winter,” said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. That came across “loud and clear” last Thursday as the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unveiled his “Winter Economy Plan”: new measures designed to prevent unemployment from rocketing over the coming months. It’s now clear that life will not return to normal until next spring at the earliest, and Sunak said it was time to move on from blanket support to a more targeted approach. “I cannot save every business; I cannot save every job,” he said. In the place of the furlough, firms are being offered the Job Support Scheme, which will top up wages of workers forced to work part-time owing to the pandemic. It will apply to staff…

The Prime Minister has promised a “radical” shakeup of the adult education system in England, to boost people’s employment prospects in the post-Covid economy. Speaking this week, Boris Johnson said that the pandemic had accelerated changes that had made the “training gap” all too apparent. To tackle this, he unveiled a “Lifetime Skills Guarantee” – offering free college courses to every adult who does not have A-levels or equivalent qualifications. In place from April, it will be paid for via the £2.5bn National Skills Fund announced in March. Labour said it wouldn’t make up for a decade of education cuts.…

Edinburgh Cinema juries: Jurors in Scotland are to watch trials play out on cinema screens, as part of attempts to tackle a vast backlog of cases caused by the coronavirus pandemic. From this week, five screens at the Odeon cinema at the Fort Kinnaird shopping centre in Edinburgh will each accommodate 15 physically distanced jurors, who will be able to watch proceedings at the High Courts in Edinburgh and Livingston via a video link. The jurors will have four views of the court on a split screen; images of them will be beamed back to the court; and court staff will be present. A similar centre will be set up near Glasgow from 12 October. The remote juries are unprecedented in the UK. However, Holyrood’s justice committee has warned that…

Baga, Nigeria Jihadist attacks: The governor of Nigeria’s Borno province – the birthplace of Boko Haram – has survived two attacks by a Boko Haram splinter group loyal to Islamic State. Some two million people have fled their homes since the Islamist uprising began in 2009. Babagana Umara Zulum (pictured) was accompanying some people back to their villages last week when his convoy was attacked; 30 people were killed. Two days later, it was ambushed again by jihadists using a donkey strapped with explosives. Several militants were killed in the ensuing shoot-out. Jerusalem Lockdown anger: Thousands of Israelis defied strict lockdown rules last Saturday to take part in an anti-government demonstration outside the residence of PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The protesters say his government has bungled its response to the pandemic…

“I sometimes think that, in order to combat conspiracy theories, I might spread a conspiracy theory of my own. My conspiracy theory is that all conspiracy theories about shadowy elites were actually devised by shadowy elites, in order to distract the public from the real crimes that the shadowy elites are secretly committing. So, if you believe any theory about the shadowy elites, you’re a dupe of the shadowy elites. Just picture it: the shadowy elites all sitting in their secret island hideaway, cackling wickedly while they gloat over how they’ve tricked you into believing in the Illuminati and the mind-controlling properties of face masks.” Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph…

British judges and the taint of politics David Allen Green Financial Times The ugly battle over the vacant seat on the US Supreme Court has led to some self-congratulatory comment here about how wise we are to keep the worlds of politics and law separate, says David Allen Green. Yet the bald truth is that here, in England and Wales, these two worlds overlap a lot. We just pretend otherwise. Indeed, so great has been the fluidity between the political and judicial establishment that, until a few years ago, the Lord Chancellor was entitled to sit both in the Cabinet and as a judge in the most senior court in the land. Even today, one of the ways that barristers win judicial promotion is by providing cheap legal services to…

A tiny wind “turbine” on your arm One of the problems with onshore wind farms is that there is often insufficient wind to turn their blades. But now, scientists in China have developed a “mini turbine”, that can harness the wind energy of a slight breeze. The device consists of plastic strips in a tube that flutter and touch in the wind. Like hair rubbed with a balloon, the plastics become electrically charged when separated – the tribolectric effect. But in this case, the electricity doesn’t make hair stand on end; instead, it is captured and stored. “You can collect all the breeze in your everyday life,” says Ya Yang, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “We once placed our nanogenerator on a person’s arm, and a swinging arm’s airflow…

Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister vowed that his Government was doing “everything within its power” to prevent a second lock-down. But does anyone believe that, wondered Ross Clark in The Daily Telegraph. It feels to me as if the Government is doing everything it can to give the impression of trying to avoid a lockdown, while quietly imposing one by stealth. We’re like the frogs in the experiment – having the water turned up so gradually, we don’t notice we’re about to be boiled. Last week, the Government suddenly imposed a 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants and urged people to work from home. Every week, more areas are placed under local lockdowns; and the penalties for breaking the stricter-than-lockdown self-isolating rules are becoming ever more draconian. At this…

“The National Trust doesn’t strike you as a stage for revolution,” said Benedict Spence in The Daily Telegraph. “It might preserve the leftovers of old ones, but it doesn’t usually take to the field of battle itself.” Yet, like so many of our institutions, it has decided “to dive boldly into the furore over Britain’s relationship with its own past” – by identifying 93 of its properties, about a third of the total, that it says were built on, benefited from or connected to the spoils of slavery and colonialism. Speke Hall, near Liverpool, is on it because its owner, Richard Watt, trafficked slaves from Africa to Jamaica. Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home in Kent, features because of his role in the Bengal famine, and his opposition to Indian independence; so…

Andy Murray began his 2020 French Open on the same court – and against the same opponent – as when he last played at Roland Garros three years ago, said Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. The Scot’s 2017 semi-final against Stan Wawrinka was a “gruelling five-setter” which ended with a defeated Murray limping off the Philippe Chatrier court. He subsequently had two operations on his right hip, and spent much of 2018 and 2019 out of the game. This year’s rematch, however, was similar in just one way: it produced the same winner. In every other respect, the contrast was painful. On an “arctic” afternoon that felt like “autumn had fast-forwarded into winter”, Wawrinka brushed Murray aside 6-1 6-3 6-2. It was the Scot’s joint heaviest defeat at a…

To The Times The Government has a morbid inclination to enter unwinnable battles, the most recent being to expect thousands of intelligent, ambitious young people to tolerate lockdown at the beginning of their college career, possibly even lasting to Christmas and beyond. These individuals are rarely seriously unwell. Surely the elderly and vulnerable population should take the onus for their protection themselves. Most of us in that category want to live our lives in a forward-looking, energetic country that is willing to adapt to the modern world and able to support the services we shall all need in years to come. We’ll rely on our younger generation for this expertise. Brian Gray, retired GP, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire To The Times We live near Canterbury, a relatively small city compared with Manchester,…

Turner’s hidden portraits Cherished though he is, J.M.W. Turner is not known for his portraiture, says David Sanderson in The Times. It has long been thought that he had barely tried his hand at the form at all, painting just two self-portraits and a few other likenesses. Last week, however, the Tate Gallery announced a momentous discovery – of two portraits that had, until now, been lost beneath the brushstrokes of one of his early landscapes. Conservator Susan Breen noticed the hidden images while examining Mountain Scene with Castle, Probably Martigny (c.1802) using infrared reflectography and X-radiography tests. The Tate believes that one portrait – depicting a “thin-lipped” woman – may well be of the artist’s mother, Mary Turner. The other, a “heavy-browed, youthful male”, is thought to be Turner’s…

Lynda and Robert have differing ideas for the garden ahead of the Flower and Produce Show. Susan tells Kirsty about overhearing Gavin mention trouble with the “horses”, and her worry of gambling debts; Kirsty’s sure Susan is mistaken. Alice talks to a counsellor about her pregnancy – she feels out of control and not ready. Later she snaps at Chris, but then tells him she’ll be fine soon. Having decided to divide the garden in two and enter the show separately, Lynda and Robert bicker over their plans. Philip wants to sell Blake on – he can’t work as hard since the injury – but Gavin thinks it’s a bad idea. Later, Kirsty confides in Philip about Gavin and the “horses”. Shocked that she knows the truth, Philip nearly reveals…

The revival of pie and mash “Something odd has happened” in the world of fast food. After a “generation of slow decline”, pie and mash shops are “springing up again”, says William Cook in Spectator Life. The trend is most noticeable in “leafy” London suburbs – places such as Ruislip, Eastcote and Sutton – but it’s visible in the Home Counties too: Kent is now dotted with pie and mash shops, such as Victoria’s in Whitstable. What’s “refreshing” about the revival is that “there’s nothing ersatz about it”: the new places, with their tiled walls and floors, feel just the same as the pie and mash shops of “yesteryear”. So why the sudden enthusiasm for meat pies, liquor-soaked mash and stewed eel in places where such dishes were never traditionally…

Tips of the week... how to get rid of kitchen pests ● If you find food moths in your cupboards, empty the cupboards and vacuum them thoroughly. Then bag up the contents of the vacuum and dispose of it outside. Wash everything with hot soapy water, including hard-to-reach areas like drawer runners. ● Before replacing the items, look for larvae webbing and pinprick holes in the packaging. Check under seals and around rims. ● Stick some food moth pheromone traps up in your cupboards (Demi Diamond Food Moth Traps, £8; stopmoths.co.uk) ● If you’ve got ants, look for anything sweet that’s attracting them. Find their point of entry and seal it. Mix one part white distilled vinegar to one part water in a spray bottle and squirt it liberally around…

William Hill: one-horse race? As far as the British public is concerned, the high-street bookie William Hill (founded in 1934) is hardly the most glamorous of businesses. So it’s a surprise to hear that Caesars Entertainment, the glitzy owner of Caesars Palace casino in Las Vegas, has “laid its cards on the table with a £2.9bn bid”, said Graeme Evans in the London Evening Standard. William Hill says that it is “minded” to recommend the offer, but there’s another runner in this race – the US private equity firm Apollo. Why are two big American companies vying for a spit-and-sawdust bookie that “has been struggling in its home market and is little known in the US”, asked the Financial Times. The answer lies in a 2018 ruling by the…

Is it time to prepare for the next crisis? Gillian Tett Financial Times What are the chances of a new financial crisis, asks Gillian Tett. The good news is that we’re unlikely to see an explosion right now – “at least not in the headline-grabbing style of 2008” – because of two mitigating factors. First, central banks have signalled they will do “whatever it takes” to keep markets functioning through the pandemic. Second, banks aren’t the source of the current shock and, anyway, are far better capitalised now in the US and Europe than they were at the time of the 2008 crash. The rub, however, is that “sometimes financial stress emerges in a more insidious manner”. One problem is that “leverage at many institutions was sky-high” even before Covid,…

The Royal Opera House in London is staging its first “hyper-reality opera” – a “multi-sensory” production involving virtual reality and “4D effects” such as wind. During Current, Rising at the Linbury Theatre, audiences will walk around the auditorium with VR backpacks and headsets as the space morphs in front of their eyes to suit the music of the pre-recorded opera. Fashion designers are responding to our now-Zoom-based lives by focusing on the “waist up” in their lines. Critics at Milan and London Fashion Weeks noted a trend for detailed necklines and relaxed trousers. Prada, which has moved its logo up close to the collar on its tops, said it was inspired by the “contemporary relationship with technology”.…

NHS England is to designate some hospitals as Covid-free, in an effort to avoid the widespread suspension of normal medical services that occurred in the spring. The chosen hospitals are likely to be smaller ones in urban areas that are close to other hospitals. Ambulances will be told not to take Covid patients to the “cold” sites, and if patients there become symptomatic, they will taken to the nearest “hot” hospital. In Wales this week, an outbreak at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital forced the suspension of most scheduled operations.…

Paris Rape claims: The former European president of Elite modelling is being investigated by French prosecutors over claims he sexually assaulted women in the 1980s and 1990s. Gérald Marie worked at Elite – one of the world’s biggest agencies – for decades, and is still in the business. Two former models have accused him of rape, one of whom says he attacked her “countless” times when she was 17. Two other women have accused him of assault. One is British journalist Lisa Brinkworth, who says he assaulted her when she was working undercover for a BBC investigation into the industry. Marie, who was once married to the supermodel Linda Evangelista, denies the allegations. Paris Hebdo attack: An 25-year-old Pakistani man was arrested last Friday on suspicion of attacking two people…

Martin Lewis’s workload Everybody wants a piece of Martin Lewis, says Decca Aitkenhead in The Sunday Times. Since setting up MoneySavingExpert.com in 2003, he has helped millions of people with their finances, fought landmark consumer rights campaigns, and now frequently tops polls of “the most trusted voice in Britain”. Often, people stop him in the street to ask for advice. At first, he found it overwhelming. “One woman grabbed me on the Tube and told me she’d kill herself if I wouldn’t help,” he recalls. “People would tell me, ‘You’re like a god, I just do whatever you say.’ And I hated it.” With the help of a therapist, he learned to cope with the pressure. But his workload has ballooned in the pandemic: he has advised the Government on…

Police in Vietnam have made an alarming discovery: a factory where about 345,000 used condoms were being recycled and repackaged as new. The 34-year-old owner of the factory near Ho Chi Minh City said she bought the old condoms in bulk off a middleman, then washed and reshaped them, before packing them in plastic sacks for resale. Vietnam’s state broadcaster VTV said it was unclear how many had already been sold on. A French schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos, and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically blackened, is disappointed that he has been prevented from teaching at a kindergarten. Sylvain Hélaine, 35, still teaches children from the age of six up in Palaiseau near Paris, but has been banned from teaching younger…

ITALY A lesson in how to handle the virus Foreign Policy (Washington) The world reacted with “a sense of superiority” when Italy became the first European country to be hit by coronavirus earlier this year, says Elisabeth Braw. The prevailing view was that “the disorganised Italians were mishandling the crisis, sure, but the rest of us would know what to do”. Tabloids sneered at the country’s “relaxed” attitudes; the EU failed to respond to its pleas for medical supplies. Half a year later, the tables have turned. Italy’s infection and fatality rates are now among Europe’s lowest, and it has so far avoided the second wave hitting France and Spain. Unlike almost any other nation, it has even managed to stage dignified tributes to the virus’s victims: spectacular concerts have…

The first vaccine trials in which human volunteers are deliberately exposed to Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, could begin in the UK in January. The Government is said to be about to give the go-ahead to the so called challenge trial in which participants are given the experimental vaccine, then later exposed to the virus to test the vaccine’s effectiveness. Used in early research on smallpox, yellow fever and malaria, challenge trials have the advantage of giving quick results; but they are riskier – and raise more ethical questions – than randomised control trials, in which tens of thousands of people are given the vaccine or a placebo, then monitored as they go about their daily lives, to see if they fall ill. Around 2,000 people have signed up…

The Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has developed a reputation among staff at the President’s Guest House in Washington for smuggling in a special cargo on official trips to the US: bags full of dirty laundry. Clothes are cleaned there for visiting foreign leaders, free of charge. “The Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean,” one disgruntled official told The Washington Post. “After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional.” While promoting her new tell-all memoir, Mariah Carey has been settling a few scores: complaining, for instance, that family members treated her like “an ATM in a wig”. The rapper Eminem was reportedly “stressed” over what the diva might say about their short, toxic relationship in her new book, entitled The…

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin, quoted in The Times “All humans are stupid, but the smarter ones at least have a handle on their own ignorance.” John Cleese, quoted in The Times “Dissent speaks to a future age.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoted in The Guardian “Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?” Comedian Rita Rudner, quoted on Forbes “All craftsmen share a knowledge. They have held / Reality down fluttering to a bench.” Vita Sackville West, quoted in The Observer “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.” Edmund Burke, quoted on The Browser “It’s so hard to forget pain, but…

F1 Valtteri Bottas won the Russian GP. His Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton finished third, after being penalised twice. Cricket Essex won the Bob Willis Trophy, after drawing with Somerset in the final (winning on a first-innings 36-run lead). Rugby union Exeter beat Toulouse 28-18 to reach the Champions Cup final. They’ll face Racing 92, who beat Saracens 19-15. Basketball LA Lakers made it to the NBA finals after a 117-107 victory over the Denver Nuggets. They’ll face Miami Heat.…

Everything Everything: Re-Animator AWAL £10 This fifth album from English art rock band Everything Everything “seems to have... well, everything”, said David Cheal in the FT. It’s “clever and literate, but listenable too; fiercely energetic but also sophisticated”; and technically accomplished yet also “warm and melodic”. Arch Enemy is an “irresistible, glistening funk tune”. In Birdsong has “churchy grandeur”. And best of all is Violent Sun, a cracking tune that blends the personal with the apocalyptic: “I wanna be there when the wild wave comes, and we’re swept away,” sings frontman Jonathan Higgs. “It makes the end of the world sound like a glorious prospect.” With lyrics full of wry humour and grotesque imagery it isn’t an “easy listen”, but it more than repays the effort, said Roisin O’Connor in…

Adapted for the BBC by David Nicholls from his own bestselling novel, Us is an “acutely observed” story about a middle-class couple separating in polite but intense pain, said Ed Cumming in The Independent. Tom Hollander brings a gruff vulnerability and “downtrodden wit” to Douglas, a nerdish biochemist whose artist wife Connie (Saskia Reeves) wakes him up one night to tell him she’s thinking of leaving him. The couple have planned a grand tour of Europe with their stroppy teenage son, Albie (Tom Taylor), and so they decide to go anyway, the quietly devastated Douglas hoping he can patch things up along the way. Hollander is superb as a middle-aged man who has had “the rug of familiarity” pulled out from under him, said Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian. Hoping…

The Knox Brothers by Penelope Fitzgerald, 1977 (4th Estate £10.99). This life of the novelist’s father and uncles gives an affectionate picture of a brilliant, eccentric tribe, including two priests and a Bletchley codebreaker. She inherited from them humour, rigour and reticence – and she can be glimpsed, sidelong, in this irresistible memoir. Bowen’s Court & Seven Winters by Elizabeth Bowen, 1942 (Vintage £10.99). Seven Winters evokes a Protestant childhood in early 1900s Dublin, with a novelist’s eye for social prejudices and embarrassments, places and people. There’s a whole way of life in this jewel of a book. Between Them by Richard Ford, 2017 (Bloomsbury £7.99). With tender watchfulness, the novelist turns to nonfiction in these linked pieces. His father died suddenly when Ford was 16; his mother much later.…

The National Theatre reopens for live performances with Death of England: Delroy, a powerful new play by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams. The one-man show addresses this events of this year, as a young black man confronts his relationship with Britain; 21 October-28 November, National Theatre, London SE1 (nationaltheatre. org.uk). Questions of national identity are also at the heart of Hay Festival Europa28, a digital event in which women journalists, artists, scientists and entrepreneurs explore what it means to be European today, in panel discussions, readings and performances; 6-9 October (hayfestival.com/europa28).…

Olive and rosemary bread Serves 8-10 2 tsp dried active yeast a pinch of caster sugar 300ml warm water 500g plain flour 100ml extra virgin olive oil 30g stoned Kalamata olives tips from a few fresh rosemary sprigs fleur de sel and extra virgin olive oil, for sprinkling • Mix the yeast and sugar with the warm water. Cover and put in a warm place for 15 minutes, or until bubbles show on the surface. • Place the flour, olive oil and a pinch of salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and add the yeast liquid. Using the dough hook, knead for 5 minutes at a medium speed. Or, knead by hand on a floured surface for about 20 minutes, until it is shiny and elastic. • Place…

Huub Big Buoy 4 Huub is a respected brand, and a pull buoy like this is a great training aid: use it to support your legs, so that you focus on arm technique and build upper-body strength (£23; amazon.co.uk). Speedo Long Hair Cap If you struggle to fit your hair into a swimming hat – or find your hat often slips off – Speedo has a range designed for you. They are made of latex-free silicone and are easy to slip on and off (£8; speedo.com). Nike Training Aids Ear Plugs Nike’s BPA-free ear plugs have two seals to make sure they’re extra secure. They’re made of a soft rubber that moulds comfortably to the ear, and come in a handy case (£6; wiggle.co.uk). SoftFibre Printed Towel Ideally travel towels…

Growing economic uncertainty in the teeth of renewed lockdown measures saw Chancellor Rishi Sunak cancel the planned Autumn Budget as he laid out new plans to replace the furlough scheme; the Treasury is still set to publish a Spending Review. The Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast that government expenditure is set to rise to the highest share of national income in more than a decade and warned that the Government would be forced to choose between more austerity and permanently higher spending. The Nationwide Building Society reported that UK house prices rose by 5% in September yoy, as the post-lockdown demand continued. After shrinking in Q1, the Chinese economy was reported to have resumed its surge, with growth boosted by the coastal export regions. Beijing’s first major auto show since…

● Blowing bubbles At the height of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, “anyone with an entrepreneurial bone in his body... had his own cash shell company”, said Merryn Somerset Webb in the FT. Charles Mackay, in his classic 1841 history of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, called them “Bubble-Companies”. The most famous was set up, as Mackay described it, for “an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. No one made any money from these shells, except their brilliant promoters – which is why alarm bells are now ringing about their latter-day descendants, known as “Spacs” (special purpose acquisition companies) or “blank cheque companies”. These are “listed shells that hold no operating businesses, but intend to acquire them”. And they’ve been multiplying…

Silvana Tenreyro Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey is still playing down the prospect of taking interest rates below zero, to boost the Covid-stricken economy. But “economists are divided” on the issue of negative rates, and dissent is growing in the ranks, said Gurpreet Narwan in The Times. Leading the charge for the Negativists is Silvana Tenreyro, a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), who says there are “encouraging” signs that sub-zero rates could work in Britain. Citing the examples of Japan and the eurozone, Tenreyro argues that negative rates have reduced companies’ borrowing costs without proving unprofitable for banks, as feared, because of a swings-and-roundabouts effect. What they lost on income from loans, she told Lizzy Burden in The Sunday Telegraph, was offset by the “boost to…