Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1307 i The Week

What happened A plan for Christmas Boris Johnson and the leaders of the devolved nations agreed this week to a common easing of Covid-19 restrictions over Christmas, to allow three households to form “an exclusive Christmas bubble”, which can meet up indoors between 23 and 27 December. However, they urged people to “think carefully about what they do”, in order to avoid transmitting the disease. The virus “is obviously not going to grant a Christmas truce”, said Boris Johnson. If people throw caution to the wind over the festive period, he added, the country will have to pay for it in the new year. England’s lockdown is due to end next week, after which a beefed-up version of the previous system of regional, tiered restrictions will come into force. Successful…

Paris Sarkozy in the dock: Nicolas Sarkozy went on trial this week on charges of corruption and influence-peddling, making him the first ex-president of modern France to stand in the dock of a criminal court. The charges relate to his alleged attempts to interfere with an investigation into claims that he accepted illegal campaign donations from Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oréal heiress. If convicted, he could be jailed for up to ten years, but a suspended term is more likely. The only other postwar president to face criminal charges was Jacques Chirac; he was convicted of making illegal payments as mayor of Paris, but owing to health problems he never appeared in court. Paris Home-schooling ban: French parents are to be banned from homeschooling their children, as part of a package…

1 Could You Be Loved by Bob Marley, performed by Bob Marley & The Wailers 2 Imagine by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, performed by John Lennon 3* Avec le temps, written and performed by Léo Ferré 4 Your Song by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, performed by Elton John 5 Évidemment by Michel Berger, performed by France Gall 6 The Wonder of You by Baker Knight, performed by Elvis Presley 7 Ne me quitte pas, written and performed by Jacques Brel 8 My Way by Claude François, Jacques Revaux and Paul Anka, performed by Frank Sinatra Book: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne Luxury: a ball * Choice if allowed only one record…

The Nuremberg trials set a crucial precedent: that, for the first time, all of humanity would be protected by international law, and no single individual would be above punishment by law. Waging a war of aggression or committing crimes against humanity could, in principle, always be punished – even if the acts were legal under national law, and committed by a senior official or even a head of state. Following “superior orders” was no defence. In 1947, the International Law Commission of the United Nations codified these so-called Nuremberg Principles. The newly coined word “genocide” was also used at Nuremberg for the first time, though as a descriptive, not a legal, term. In the 1990s, Nuremberg served as a prototype for the establishment of international war crimes tribunals examining atrocities…

Obama was no friend to press freedom Margaret Sullivan The Seattle Times “Everybody’s a media critic these days,” says Margaret Sullivan – “and Barack Obama is an astute one.” In a recent interview to promote his new memoir, the former president lamented the lack of media figures like the legendary Walter Cronkite, who everyone trusted to relate the news and hold the powerful to account. America, said Obama, no longer has “a common baseline of fact and a common story”. He’s right, but on the press issue, Obama has “got a bit of a credibility problem”. He came to office promising the most transparent administration in history. Yet his White House set records for stonewalling or rejecting Freedom of Information requests. Obama generally avoided in-depth interviews, sticking to light-hearted encounters…

Statin side effects are “nocebos” Around one in five people prescribed statins come off the potentially life-saving drugs after experiencing unpleasant side effects including fatigue, nausea and joint pain. But a new study has found that in many cases, these symptoms may be psychological. Researchers at Imperial College London recruited 60 people who’d stopped taking statins and persuaded them to start doing so again. They were given what they were told was a year’s supply – divided into eight bottles – and were asked to work through them, recording any side effects. However, only four of the bottles contained the real drugs; the pills in the others were placebos. It emerged that 90% of the symptoms the patients experienced occurred even when they were taking the placebo pills; and the…

When George Clooney was starting out, he relied on the generosity of his friends. So when his role in 2013’s Gravity earned him a hefty sum, he tried to repay the favour, he told GQ. He hired a van, drove to a vault and filled holdalls with cash. He then invited 14 friends over to dinner, reminded them of their help, “And I said, ‘How do you repay people like that? Well, how about a million bucks?’” He then handed each of them a bag containing $1m in cash – “which isn’t as much as you would think, weight-wise”. In his new memoir, Barack Obama describes his impressions of his fellow world leaders. Vladimir Putin was like a Chicago boss “except with nukes”; David Cameron had “the easy confidence of…

Football: heading for a ban on heading? Disputes over VAR; the financial turmoil caused by Covid: the world of football has had its fair share of crises this year, said the Daily Mail. But in the past few weeks, a new controversy has arisen, which may possibly dwarf them all: the dangers relating to heading the ball. It has been frequently noted over the years that ex-footballers seem disproportionately affected by cognitive decline – five members of England’s World Cup-winning squad being the most conspicuous example, said Jeremy Wilson in The Daily Telegraph. All five developed dementia – with Sir Bobby Charlton the most recent case to emerge. The cause seems all too evident: logic dictates that regularly heading a fast-moving heavy object cannot be healthy for the brain. But…

Sympathy for Priti To the Financial Times You are right that the Prime Minister’s foreword to the ministerial code, in which he rejects bullying, should be put into practice. However, in the case of Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, who was bullying whom? Was it the minister or the civil servants around her? I say this having myself spent two years on secondment from a middle management position in a US multinational to a Whitehall department. The cold shoulder I received was brutal. It was bullying of the most cruel kind sung to a collective chorus of “that’s not how things get done around here”. I am firmly on the side of the Home Secretary and I suspect that this perspective lies behind the judgement that the Prime Minister has…

The statues of Turkmenistan The unveiling of a huge statue of a golden dog in Turkmenistan has prompted a surge of interest in the oil-rich state’s public art, said Vice. The 19ft-tall effigy of the alabai, a hardy sheepdog that is a symbol of national pride, was unveiled by the Turkmen president, former dentist Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, earlier this month. It was the latest addition to the capital Ashgabat’s growing collection of monuments, which includes a vast 24-carat-gold-plated statue of the president himself, seated on a horse atop a 65ft cliff of white marble. His officials insisted that such statues – including a 100-foot “tribute to cycling”, featuring golden riders on golden bikes – are built “in response to overwhelming public demand”. These opulent monuments stand in stark contrast with the…

With many fundraising events cancelled this year, charities are pinning their hopes on Christmas concerts. Follow the Stars: A Celebration of Christmas, for Macmillan Cancer Support, has Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley and others reading poetry, and music from Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The online concert premières on 11 December at 8pm; register at macmillan.org.uk/ followthestars. In London, St Martin-in-the-Fields will host Home. Hope. Song, a virtual candle-lit carol service in aid of Shelter, hosted by Edith Bowman. The event will stream live on 3 December at 7pm; register at shelter.org.uk.…

Devilled kidneys 4 lambs’ kidneys 150g plain flour 20g mustard powder pinch of cayenne pepper 10g clarified butter 2 thick slices white bloomer bread, toasted 100ml sherry (Amontillado or even “cream” sherry) 100ml chicken stock (broth) 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce • Halve the kidneys and remove the cores with sharp scissors. Season the flour with the mustard powder and cayenne pepper, and toss the kidney halves in the mixture. • Heat the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat until foaming and toss in the floured kidneys. Keep them moving until crisp and browned on the surface, about 2 minutes. They should still be pink inside. • Lift the kidneys onto the toast, then pour the sherry into the pan, and allow most of the liquid to boil…

Jan Morris 1926-2020 In June 1953, James Morris produced “one of the most dramatic scoops of the century”, said The Times: news that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Morris – who was on assignment for The Times, with exclusive rights to expedition leader Brigadier Sir John Hunt’s despatches – was camped at nearly 22,000ft when the climbers came off the peak in the late afternoon of 30 May. The former soldier immediately went back to base camp, typed up a message to his editor at home – in pre-agreed code, to make sure the competition didn’t beat him to the story – and handed it to two Sherpa runners, to take to Kathmandu. From there, it was cabled…

Oxford Dictionaries has expanded its usual Word of the Year to include a string of Covidlinked terms – including “WFH”, or working from home. But will a 2020 necessity now become a long-lasting trend? “Employment experts have been inundated with questions from companies... trying to work out the longterm implications of operating with a mix of remote and office working – or, in some instances, ditching the office altogether,” said Jill Treanor in The Sunday Times. There are productivity, tax and health and safety issues to worry about. But if British workers get their way, the future is certainly hybrid. A recent Deloitte survey found that nearly 75% of those asked want to spend more time working remotely – “ten percentage points higher than on the Continent”. That chimes with…

There’s no option but to spend more... Larry Elliott The Guardian “Economic historians don’t compile lists of the ten worst years for the economy in the way that rock critics list their top Bob Marley songs,” says Larry Elliott. “But if they did, 2020 would be right up there.” The backdrop to this week’s spending review is a “stinker of a year” in which more than 55,000 Britons have died from Covid-19, and the economy is “on course to shrink by a tenth or more”. So far, the main economic hit has been taken by the Government, “which has borrowed like never before in peacetime to fight the pandemic”. But throughout the crisis, Chancellor Rishi Sunak “has made noises about how the borrowing will have to stop” – joking last…

Controversy of the week The unintentional bully Many political scandals are “too wordy to explain”, said Tom Peck in The Independent. “Not this one.” Back in March, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, was accused of bullying her staff. The claims were investigated by the adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Alex Allan, who found that she did indeed bully her civil servants, “including some occasions of shouting and swearing” – and so was in breach of the ministerial code. Even so, Boris Johnson last week decided not to uphold the code, so as not to have to sack her, and even issued instructions to his MPs to “form a square around the Prittster”. Patel issued a weaselly non-apology: “I am sorry that my behaviour in the past has upset people. It…

Washington DC Trump authorises transition: President Donald Trump finally agreed this week to facilitate a formal transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden. It means Biden and his team can now access federal funds, hold meetings with government officials, and be included in security briefings. Trump continues to insist that he will “keep up the good fight” to prove that the election was marred by fraud. However, his chances of victory in that effort are diminishing. This week, Biden was officially certified as having won Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan. Days earlier, a Republican district judge in Pennsylvania had dismissed a lawsuit that sought to invalidate millions of votes in the state. Around 30 such actions have now been thrown out or withdrawn. Following that defeat, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani (above)…

“Santa Boris seems determined to do whatever it takes to deliver Britain a Christmas to remember this year. Ministers, it was reported, think a full traditional Christmas is essential or there will be a ‘mutiny of mums’. Apparently, if there isn’t a date in the diary to cater for 12, right through to the cheese plate at midnight, mums will be so angry. If Santa asks me what I want after this dark autumn gloomily stuck indoors watching screens and overeating, while the outside world is shuttered and lifeless, I know what’s top of my list. It’s a day stuck indoors gloomily watching screens and overeating, while the outside world is shuttered and lifeless!” Helen Rumbelow in The Times…

How politicians and journalists can regain trust Simon Kuper Financial Times One thing we must thank Donald Trump for, says Simon Kuper – he has “taught social media and journalism how to deal with future political liars”. Having dutifully repeated his falsehoods for years, partly out of laziness and partly because it made good copy, they’re belatedly standing up for the truth. Facebook and Twitter have slapped warnings on Trump’s false posts; broadcasters have challenged some of his more outrageous claims, even cutting away from his press conferences mid-transmission. Increasingly, US journalism is adopting the standards of the legal-scientific realm: insisting that the claims it reports have some basis in fact. It’s a recasting of its traditional duty: instead of speaking truth to power, it’s forcing power “to speak truth…

Scientists have developed a new type of material to keep buildings and containers cool without the need for electricity, inspired by camels. Counter-intuitively, a camel’s ability to withstand the blazing heat of the desert sun rests partly in its shaggy fur. This insulates its body from the heat, but is porous enough to allow sweat to evaporate – which cools the animal down. It also prevents excess moisture loss and dehydration. Shorn of its coat, a camel has to produce as much as 50% more sweat to keep cool in daylight hours. Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the new material has a bottom layer made of hydrogel, which plays the role of the sweat glands by releasing moisture when it heats up, and a top layer made of…

Labour: the war over Jeremy Corbyn “Labour stands on the brink of civil war,” said Andrew Woodcock in The Independent. Last Wednesday, Keir Starmer blocked Jeremy Corbyn from sitting as a Labour MP. Starmer’s decision to bar his predecessor came a day after Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) allowed Corbyn back into the party, following his suspension over the controversial remarks he made in response to last month’s damning report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Labour and anti-Semitism. (Corbyn claimed that the issue had been “dramatically overstated”, a response that Starmer felt undermined efforts to restore the confidence of the Jewish community in the party.) His removal of the whip from Corbyn caused an immediate backlash, however: 31 MPs from Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group said…

England’s 18-7 victory over Ireland in the Autumn Nations Cup on Saturday was lit up by a moment of spectacular individual brilliance, said Andy Bull in The Guardian. Following an unsuccessful Irish line-out, winger Jonny May received the ball deep in his own half and decided to sprint “full-tilt” ahead. He began his run on the left flank, then cut inwards and booted the ball deep into the Irish half, then sprinted forward and kicked the ball over the try-line – where he touched it down moments later leaving a half-dozen Irishmen laying “face down in his wake”. It was the sort of try “you dream about scoring when you’re a little kid with a head full of wild ideas”. The only thing it lacked was a “crowd to cheer…

To The Guardian I neither know nor care whether Jeremy Corbyn should be accorded the Labour whip, but I’m dismayed by the terms of the discussion. Apparently his offence was to say that the scale of the Labour Party’s anti-Semitism problem had been dramatically overstated by his political opponents. There are two obvious points about this remark. First: there’s a good deal of evidence that it is true – presented, for example, in the book Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief. And second: it does not imply that there is no problem, or that anti-Semitism doesn’t matter. There’s no contradiction in thinking both that Labour’s anti-Semitism must be decisively opposed and that it’s not as extensive as people have been led to believe. In other words,…

Just when you thought there were enough recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, another comes along that makes the music sound ”fresh off the page”, said Erica Jeal in The Guardian. The London-based virtuoso Pavel Kolesnikov has tackled the baroque masterpiece on a modern Yamaha piano, but the tone is “soft, rounded and woody, more reminiscent of a fortepiano than a concert grand”. It is a “revelatory” recording which combines intense interiority with almost “kittenish” bursts of playfulness: the variations “soar as if new”. Whether he is playing baroque, classical or contemporary romantic, the 31-year-old Russian has the “Midas touch”, said Hugh Canning in The Sunday Times. His playing here has the “joy and freshness of a new encounter, imbued with terpsichorean grace and delight”. He “revels in the jig-like rhythmic…

Steve McQueen’s Small Axe – an extraordinary series of two-hour films being broadcast on the BBC – is the “first ever epic about black people’s history in Britain”, said Ellen E. Jones in The Guardian. Set between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, this much-anticipated five-part anthology kicked off with Mangrove – a brilliant drama about the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. A hub for the black community, and a meeting place for political activists, it was the target of frequent police raids – leading to a protest march in 1970, arrests for “inciting a riot”, and a trial at the Old Bailey. The film is “vital testament” to that trial, in which the so-called Mangrove Nine were acquitted and the judge acknowledged “racial hatred” in the Metropolitan Police, said…

Best books… Arthur Mathews The co-writer of Father Ted chooses his favourite books. His own new book, The Cummings Files – Confidential: Thoughts, Ideas, Actions by Dominic Cummings (Faber £9.99), is a spoof diary of the former special adviser Zany Afternoons by Bruce McCall, 1982 (Knopf, out of print). McCall’s collection of his humorous illustrated pieces for The New Yorker, National Lampoon, etc. A great artist and a very funny writer. Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown, 2017 (Fourth Estate £9.99). Brown’s hugely entertaining book about Princess Margaret contains many marvellous anecdotes. I could also have happily included Brown’s One, Two, Three, Four: The Beatles in Time, another absolute joy. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth, 1969 (Vintage £8.99). Look! A novel! (I don’t read many.) Roth’s account of Portnoy’s revelations to…

● If you know which local shop you’d like to buy from, look up their website, and buy direct through that. If you go via a third-party site, the seller may lose a lot of their profit in commission. If you don’t know which shop, however, there are plenty of good sites that bring together independents. ● For books, try bookshop.org, a new marketplace for independent bookshops. Books are offered at a small discount and delivered within three days. ● Although it is mostly known for academic books, Blackwells.co.uk is also a great place to look for fiction. It offers free standard UK delivery on all purchases. ● For clothes, toys and homewares, try downyourhighstreet.co.uk, which sells goods from independent shops. Two-thirds of its products are not available to buy…

AstraZeneca: churlish reaction “Bored already. That’s stock markets for you,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. “If AstraZeneca and Oxford Uni had been first out of the lab with their vaccine data, the reaction would have been euphoric.” But they were pipped by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – and “who gets a snazzy prize for third?” The market reaction to Astra’s breakthrough was so “churlish” that the share price actually slipped 3.8% to £80, wiping around £4bn off the value of the UK pharma. But “whatever the debate about an efficacy rate of 70%” (Astra’s two rivals scored 90% plus), we should ignore the markets and celebrate this jab – not least because “Britain has usefully pre-ordered 100 million doses”. It looks like investors are “quibbling” over the early stats,…

Janet Yellen At 74, the former Federal Reserve chair is preparing for a “second act at the pinnacle of American economic policymaking”, said the FT. In a move that was mostly welcomed, Janet Yellen has been nominated by Joe Biden as the next US Treasury Secretary. Considered “smart, tough and principled”, she fits well with the president-elect’s “drive to fill his cabinet with competent institutionalists after the disruption created by Donald Trump”. Thanks to her four years at the Fed (2014-2018), she is a “well-known quantity”. Trump even considered offering her a second term at the Fed, before demurring in favour of his own nominee. The president reportedly questioned whether Brooklyn-born Yellen, who is 5ft 3in, was “too short” for the job. Assuming her appointment is approved by the Senate,…

Edinburgh Scottish paradores: Some of Scotland’s castles could be turned into high-end hotels under a proposal being debated at the SNP’s virtual conference this weekend. The plan is modelled on Spain’s paradores nacionales, a long-established state-run chain of 95 reasonably priced luxury hotels, which are housed in converted castles, convents, monasteries and stately homes, and which turned over £230m last year. According to Fergus Mutch, who will stand for the SNP in Aberdeenshire West in next year’s Holyrood elections, MSPs believe the scheme could provide a much needed boost to the rural economy in the aftermath of the pandemic. “It seemed a really cool way to bring in tourists, create jobs and preserve [Scottish] heritage,” he said. If approved, “seeing the first of these paradores in Scotland within the next…

The search for a vaccine Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin are fast becoming the most celebrated married couple in science since Marie and Pierre Curie, say Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester in The Times. Just nine months after reading about a new infectious disease in Wuhan, the German-Turkish founders of the research firm BioNTech unveiled what may be the world’s first effective coronavirus vaccine. They have had to work around the clock to get to this point – but that hasn’t troubled them much. “At the end of the day, [the vaccine] is also our passion,” says Dr Sahin. “What drives us is the knowledge that there are kids who want to have a normal life, there’s the mother, the teacher, the old person being isolated, there is so much…

The Vatican has launched an investigation, after Pope Francis’s official Instagram account “liked” a photo of a Brazilian bikini model. Natalia Garibotto’s management team crowed that she had “received the POPE’S OFFICIAL BLESSING” after a post with a racy shot of her dressed as a schoolgirl was endorsed by his account, which has 7.5 million followers. The Pope doesn’t manage his own social media accounts, and the Vatican insisted that Francis himself had not personally “liked” the photo. But Garibotto was delighted, joking: “At least I’m going to heaven.” A Sri Lankan politician has taken drastic steps to try to boost fish sales: he bit into a raw whole fish at a news conference. Opposition MP Dilip Wedaarachchi was moved to action after sales fell following a Covid outbreak at…

Pet owners are inadvertently poisoning England’s rivers, a new study has found. Researchers tested 20 waterways across the country, and found the powerful insecticide Fipronil in 99% of samples, reports The Guardian. Since this nerve agent was banned for use by farmers some years ago, the team is convinced that it is being washed off the nation’s cats and dogs – on whom it is used as a flea treatment. There are an estimated 21 million cats and dogs in the UK, and around 80% of them are treated for fleas, whether they need to be or not. The team has called for an end to the blanket use of such treatments. “Fipronil is one of the most commonly used flea products, and recent studies have shown it degrades to…

“There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.” Mary Renault, quoted on GoodReads.com “Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.” Henrik Ibsen, quoted in The Irish Times “Consider the mosquito – he sings at his work and he keeps everlastingly at it. The only way to stop him is to kill him.” J.T. Fisher, quoted in Forbes “It is not a bad thing in a tale that you understand only half of it.” Isak Dinesen, quoted on The Browser “Social media was invented as part of a plot to undermine the faith of sensible people in freedom of speech.” Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph “Middle age is when…

Football Spurs beat Man City 2-0 to go top of the Premier League. Liverpool are second, after beating Leicester 3-0; Chelsea are third, after defeating Newcastle 2-0. Man U’s women beat Man City 4-3 on penalties in the group stage of the Continental League Cup. Rugby union France beat Scotland 22-15 in the Autumn Nations Cup. Wales beat Georgia 18-0. Post-lockdown sport The PM announced that grassroots sport would resume on 2 December– and that crowds of up to 4,000 will be able to attend certain events.…

From the sleaziest and most self-regarding hacks to the noblest crusaders for the truth, newspaper reporters have figured large as protagonists in Hollywood cinema. Here are five of the best films about them: His Girl Friday In Howard Hawks’s celebrated screwball comedy from 1940, a cynical newspaper editor (Cary Grant) needs his ex-wife (Rosalind Russell), an ace reporter, to cover the story of a man on death row – but she’s due to retire that day and marry another man. Ace in the Hole Kirk Douglas stars in Billy Wilder’s 1951 film about a failing reporter in backwoods New Mexico. When a local man is trapped by a rockfall, he sees a potential scoop, and manipulates everyone from the victim’s wife to a corrupt sheriff to turn the story into…

When we think of the history of feminism, we often think of the “razzle-dazzle chapters”, said Lucy Davies in The Daily Telegraph: “the bloody battle for the vote in Edwardian England”; the great untying of the apron strings in the 1970s. This new exhibition on “the rich history of women’s campaigning” makes it clear that these were only “flashpoints in what is a much wider, longer and – crucially – still very much unfolding story”. Bringing together a wealth of exhibits, from a first edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminist text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), to a costume inspired by the recent TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, it charts the development of female protest movements in Britain from the Enlightenment to the present day, with great…

As a suspect van loiters around Marney’s field, Eddie has a proposal for David: he’ll pose as a detectorist and scare them off. Ruth is sceptical, but David thinks better the devil you know. At home, Alice is panicked to find she’s bleeding. Following their eviction notice, Rex is worried about finding somewhere new for his pigs, but Toby is relaxed. Later, Toby gets an offer to sell Scruff gin to Shires brewery. At hospital, Alice is frantic as Chris tries to calm her. The scan shows the baby is fine, but later Alice confesses she is an alcoholic and has been drinking through out the pregnancy; Chris is horrified. The next morning, Alice pleads with a cold Chris to show his feelings. As she experiences withdrawal symptoms, she begs…

Class and food: a nourishing history If, like me, you’ve often wondered why we Brits “are so snobbish, so uptight and so weirdly confused about food, then Pen Vogler’s new book, Scoff (Atlantic, £20), is your perfect feast”, says Rachel Cooke in The Observer. It’s an erudite yet readable survey of food and class in Britain expertly traced through a series of “vexed histories of everything from napkins to fish knives, gravy to tripe”. There are nuggets galore in this enthralling book, said Janice Turner in The Times. Ever wondered why we speak of “school dinners”, even in the south where the midday meal is known as “lunch”? It’s because it was northern philanthropists who were the first to provide “dinners” for hungry children. And it turns out that food…

If you’d like to brush up on your survival skills, try the Online Elementary Wilderness Bushcraft Course on everything from purifying water to building shelters and setting traps (£224; onlinebushcraftcourses.com). Over the course of four two-hour sessions, the Online Clown Academy promises to get you started in clowning, and teach you to “encounter your living space with fresh eyes” (various; hollystoppit.com). The YouTube channel LockPickingLawyer has 1,200 videos that explain how to open all sorts of locks, including padlocks and even safes. Learn to whistle with your fingers with this three-minute video and have a great party trick ready for next time you’re able to attend a party (artofmanliness.com). Get a diploma in dog grooming from the Alison website’s free 15-hour course. It includes a useful module on how to…

The Chancellor delivered his autumn spending review, warning that the “economic emergency” caused by Covid had only just begun. He forecast that the UK economy would shrink by 11.3% this year and is unlikely to return to size until the end of 2022. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects UK unemployment to surge to 7.5% by mid-2021, equivalent to 2.6 million people out of work. It warned that if Britain failed to make an “orderly transition” to a trade deal with the EU, GDP would take a further 2% hit. Highlighting the disparity between public and private sector wages, the Chancellor confirmed that public sector workers – excluding some NHS staff and those earning less than £24,000 – would have their wages frozen next year. Meanwhile, the living wage would…

A round-up of some of the year’s best business and financial reads: Going for Broke: The Rise of Rishi Sunak by Michael Ashcroft (Biteback). This biography presents the Chancellor as a “clever charmer without flaws or enemies”, says Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Ashcroft is “a fan”, though there’s an enjoyable chapter about “Brand Rishi” – and he rightly asks whether we have hit “Peak Rishi”. How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley (Fourth Estate). Forget the “lone genius theory”, says Richard Dawkins in the New Statesman. Ridley’s gripping history of human inventions – from the WC to the lightbulb – shows how many innovations evolved independently in different countries around the globe. Reimagining Capitalism by Rebecca Henderson (Portfolio Penguin). “Unlike many books on the future of capitalism, this one allows…

The week’s best shares Avast The Times The blue-chip cybersecurity specialist was an immediate lockdown beneficiary, as small businesses and entrepreneurs signed up to protect their devices and networks. A play on the long-term need for privacy protection. Buy. 457p. Barratt Developments Investors Chronicle Sales and completions are up, the order book is 18% ahead of last year, and the house-builder has ample liquidity for buying land and withstanding fluctuations in demand. Margins are resilient and negatives priced in. Buy. 652p. Grainger The Times Britain’s biggest private landlord has performed well. Although occupancy dipped in September, mid-market rents are resilient and a £1.1bn secured development pipeline should drive dividend growth. Buy. 308.5p. Kainos Group Investors Chronicle First-half profits at this IT supplier have more than doubled on growing demand for…