Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1308 i The Week

What happened Covid rebellion The UK gave approval on Wednesday to Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, becoming the first Western country to allow mass inoculations against the disease. Vaccination is set to begin early next week. Officials said the first 800,000 doses would arrive within days. The emergency authorisation by regulators provided some welcome good news for the Government, which has come under mounting criticism over its handling of the pandemic. Boris Johnson suffered the worst Commons rebellion of his premiership on Tuesday, when more than 50 Tory MPs voted against the new tiered system of restrictions for England. He was forced to rely on Labour abstentions to avoid defeat on the regime, which has placed 55 million people in the top two strictest tiers, with just 1% of the population in…

Netflix, after Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden requested that The Crown come with a “health warning”, noting that it is a work of fiction. Series creator Peter Morgan has admitted that entire scenes are invented, and historical facts conflated or embellished, but says the show aims for a “greater truth”. Focusing on the marriage of Charles and Diana, and the Thatcher years, the new season of The Crown has proved more than usually controversial. Johnny Depp, who was ordered to pay initial legal costs of £628,000 to The Sun for his failed libel action against the paper. The judge also dismissed his application to appeal the High Court ruling, saying it had no “reasonable prospect of success”. However, Depp can still appeal directly to the Court of Appeal. Rita Ora, after…

Edinburgh Free meals for all: The SNP has promised that every primary pupil in Scotland will be eligible for free breakfasts and lunches, if the party is re-elected at next May’s Holyrood elections. Addressing the party’s virtual conference last weekend, deputy leader John Swinney explained that the new policy would come into force in August 2022, and would operate year-round – during term time and holidays. In England, universal free school lunches are only available in the first three years of school. In her speech, party leader Nicola Sturgeon told the conference that she had “never been so certain” of achieving independence. “Scotland is on the brink of making history,” she said. “Let us demonstrate – with cool heads and patient persuasion – that [it] is ready to take its…

The birth of Shuggie Bain He has just won the Booker Prize, but growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s, Douglas Stuart had no real thought of becoming a writer. His mother, whom he adored, was an alcoholic; his father was absent. They had no money and he was bullied for being gay. Then, when he was 16, his mother died, and he had to go and live on his own in a hostel. Two English teachers realised he was struggling, and introduced him to literature. He became a voracious reader, but it was too late for him to catch up on his education, and with kindly intent, they pushed him towards a career in textile design. It took him further and further away – first to college in London,…

A bodybuilder from Kazakhstan claims to have married his sex doll after a 20-month romance. Yuri Tolochko kissed his “bride”, Margo, in front of dozens of guests at a recent black-tie ceremony. The groom, who describes himself as a “sexy maniac”, says Margo has a fiery personality, but claims “there’s a tender soul inside”. And he insists he’s happy with their unusual relationship, saying: “Couples need to talk less and connect more. It takes more than words to have a conversation.” A photo of a dormouse trapped in his own version of lockdown has delighted many Britons. “I was surprised to find the thing sitting in my bird feeder,” said Cheryl Hewins, 72, from Ventnor in the Isle of Wight. “He must have been there all night and eaten so…

ARGENTINA We all loved Diego, yet still hate each other La Nación (Buenos Aires) Decades of dictatorship and political strife have left Argentinians hugely polarised, says Hugo Alconada Mon. Their love for the country’s football “idol” Diego Maradona was one of the things they had in common. How sad, then, that instead of bringing them together, Maradona’s funeral in Buenos Aires should have showed them at their divided and incompetent worst. Three days of national mourning were followed by a public wake, which the government, seeking a share of his reflected glory, decreed should be held in Casa Rosada, the presidential palace. Even without pandemic restrictions, it was a completely unsuitable venue for tens of thousands; the event ended in “chaos”, with police charging and tear-gassing a mile-long throng of…

Firefighters are over four times more likely to develop cancer than members of the general population, according to a new report commissioned by the Fire Brigades Union. Researchers surveyed 10,000 serving firefighters about their health: 4.1% of respondents said that they had been diagnosed with cancer, whereas in the general population, the figure is under 1% for a similar age range. The firefighters were most likely to have been diagnosed with skin cancer (26%) followed by testicular cancer (10%) and head and neck cancer (4%). Research has shown that carcinogenic chemicals from fires can build up on fire-fighting equipment, including breathing-apparatus mask filters, and the report calls for more stringent decontamination measures to be implemented. “Far more needs to be done to protect firefighters,” said Matt Wrack, of the Fire…

While pandemic-compliant film shoots are permitted in Berlin, social gatherings are not. So when the producers of The Matrix 4 wanted to host a party to mark the end of shooting in the city, they allegedly came up with an ingenious solution. They told the cast and crew they needed to reassemble to shoot extra footage for a “celebration scene” – but according to witnesses, there wasn’t much actual filming going on. “No directorial instructions were given; there was no clapper-board,” they said. “The mood was exuberant.” To get her first major film role, in 1968’s social realist drama Up the Junction, Maureen Lipman pretended to be a Londoner. “I kept it up for 13 weeks that I was a cockney,” she recalls. She’d been told that the director, Peter…

Football Tottenham went top of the Premier League after drawing 0-0 with Chelsea. Liverpool are second, after their 1-1 draw with Brighton. Rugby union England will face France in the Autumn Nations final after beating Wales 24-13. But France have said they’ll have to field a much-depleted squad, due to a legal dispute over player release. Rugby league St Helens defeated Wigan 8-4 in the Super League Grand Final. Cricket England beat South Africa by four wickets in their second T20 to claim the three-match series.…

To The Daily Telegraph How dare the Government, in our name, cut the already paltry amount given to ease the burden of the most vulnerable in the world? Yes, people in this country have suffered from Covid, but nothing like the poorest abroad – people who have never had security of food, accommodation or healthcare. In a time when the whole world is being affected, we shouldn’t cut the amount we give to those who need it most. Hope Price, London To The Daily Telegraph Some years ago, I served in an embassy and watched money being shovelled out of the door because, the reasoning went, if it was not spent we would not get it next year. One such project was for an orphanage. It had been fully funded…

The Utah monolith A strange metal monolith was discovered in the Utah desert by a helicopter crew last week, said BBC News. Wildlife officials spotted the object while conducting an aerial search for bighorn sheep in the remote Red Rock desert, and landed to take a closer look. It turned out to be a rectangular metal shaft, standing around 11ft tall and planted firmly in a canyon. There was no indication as to how it got there, and no clear explanation has yet been offered. Internet sleuths studying Google Earth have discovered that it has been in place since 2016. Theories range from “extraterrestrial visitation to avant-garde installation”, to a homage to the monoliths in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, said The Art Newspaper. It was perhaps influenced by…

Programmes Small Axe: Alex Wheatle The penultimate film in Steve McQueen’s series follows the author’s boyhood and early adulthood in Brixton in the 1970s and early 1980s. Sun 6 Dec, BBC1 21:00 (65mins). Red Penguins: Murder, Money and Ice Hockey Storyville documentary about a bizarre joint venture between two ice-hockey teams – one American, one Russian – in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mon 7 Dec, BBC4 22:00 (75mins). Nadiya’s American Adventure Long fascinated by America and its cultures, Nadiya Hussain embarks on a culinary journey, starting in Louisiana, where she gets a taste of Cajun cuisine. Thur 10 Dec, BBC1 20:00 (60mins). Emin/Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed Made to coincide with a major show at the Royal Academy, this film looks at parallels…

I have spent much of my life making banana bread, says Nigella Lawson, and am always happy to have an excuse to come up with another one. A friend of mine had been begging me for ages for a gluten-free version, and this is it. The crumb is tender and light – the Greek yogurt helps here, and also counters the sweetness of the banana with its tang – and the nubbliness of the walnuts and rich goo of the chopped chocolate make it a gorgeous treat. I can’t stop eating it. Makes 10-12 slices 175g rice flour (or gluten-free plain flour) 100g ground almonds 2 tsp gluten-free baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda ¼ tsp fine sea salt 500g (approx. 3 large) very ripe or overripe bananas (skin-on…

Diego Maradona 1960-2020 Diego Maradona, who has died aged 60, was one of the greatest football players ever –an attacking midfielder with powerful acceleration and an astonishing ability to control the ball. But to his fellow Argentinians, he was more than just a footballer, said Jim White in The Daily Telegraph. A “potent mix of Robin Hood, Dan Dare and Superman”, he was more like their patron saint. He may have been “flawed and self-destructive”; but that only made what he did for his country, in the 1986 World Cup in particular, “all the more meaningful”. The tournament, in Mexico, had come at a “critical juncture” for Argentina: it had just escaped from the yoke of a brutal dictatorship that had killed many of its own people, and led it…

The butt of “endless jokes about its roundabouts and concrete cows”, Milton Keynes is “set to have the last laugh”, said Russell Lynch in The Daily Telegraph. The Buckinghamshire new town is predicted to enjoy the “fastest recovery in the UK next year”, according to a new UK Powerhouse report, with a 9.9% bounceback in growth. Although Milton Keynes has suffered Covidrelated blows, such as the closure of Adelie Foods (one of the country’s largest sandwich-makers), its status as a “distributive hub for a new boom in online shopping” will continue to fuel its recovery, according to economists. The town houses “vast logistics sheds” for Amazon, John Lewis, Adidas and M&S.…

The lessons we didn’t learn from Maxwell Oliver Shah The Sunday Times “They say history rhymes,” says Oliver Shah. And there is certainly “more than a little of the Robert Maxwell story” in the demise of Philip Green’s Arcadia empire, which has left a £350m black hole in the group’s pension fund. There are some obvious differences: Maxwell, who was found dead in the sea off the Canary Islands in 1991, had systematically defrauded the Mirror Group’s pension funds, whereas Green has merely “underfunded his”. But the two magnates’ stories contain universal truths. Both thrived because “institutions and grandees” either naively gave them the benefit of the doubt, or allowed themselves to be cajoled by the fees on offer. It’s amazing how easily “normally logical” people can “lose their heads…

Controversy of the week Cutting foreign aid There was always an element of moral posturing in David Cameron’s insistence that foreign aid spending should be ring-fenced at 0.7% of national income, said Douglas Murray in The Daily Telegraph. He did it to show he was a different sort of Tory – the kind that hugs huskies, not the awful type “that kept winning elections in the 1980s”. But really, what prime minister “has the right to decide what a future government should spend? Who can foresee what eventualities – such as a global pandemic – might emerge to change the fiscal situation of the nation?” And why only ring-fence certain departments? “Is education or policing any less important than foreign aid?” The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, faced heavy criticism for cutting…

Children under 16 with gender dysphoria are unlikely to be able to give “informed consent” to receive puberty-blocking drugs, the High Court has ruled. The case was brought by 23-year-old Keira Bell, who started taking puberty blockers aged 16, and later had a mastectomy, before “de-transitioning”; and by the mother of an autistic teenager who is seeking treatment. In their ruling, the judges said under-16s were unlikely to understand the long-term consequences of the hormone treatment, and the “limited evidence” as to its “efficacy or purpose”. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK’s main gender identity development service for children, responded to the ruling by immediately suspending all new referrals for puberty blockers in children under 16.…

Paris Police beating sparks U-turn: There were protests across France last week, following the emergence of a video showing three police officers beating up a black music producer. In a seven-minute ordeal, Michel Zecler was punched and kicked in his studio lobby in Paris’s 17th arrondissement. The officers had followed him in after spotting him not wearing a mask. He was arrested, but after his lawyer produced CCTV footage of him cowering under their blows, the officers were charged instead. Days later, President Macron withdrew a controversial plan to make it illegal to film police “with the obvious goal of inflicting physical or psychological harm”. Paris Glottophobia: France is set to outlaw discrimination against people on the grounds of their accent, under a legislation proposed by the centrist En Marche…

1 America by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, performed by Marilyn Cooper, Chita Rivera and the Shark Girls 2 Mir ist so wunderbar by Beethoven, performed by Lisa Milne, Andrew Kennedy, Anja Kampe and Brindley Sherratt with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Elder) 3 Tubby the Tuba by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger, performed by Danny Kaye 4 Lullaby of Birdland by George Shearing and B.Y. Forster (George David Weiss), performed by Erroll Garner 5 Episode 1, written and performed by Ivor Cutler 6 Impromptu No.3 in G-flat major, D899 by Schubert, performed by Alfred Brendel 7 Singin’ in the Rain by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, performed by Gene Kelly 8* Romance: Mi par d’udir ancora by Bizet, performed by Beniamino Gigli Book: The Empire Trilogy by J.G. Farrell…

Both MMT and quantitative easing (QE) are often branded as “money-printing”, but there are big differences. QE was intended as an emergency temporary measure (though after more than a decade of reliance in Britain, it may not feel like it). MMT, by contrast, is a continuous policy. And, crucially, the QE model, as practised in the UK, US and Europe, is meant to be reversible. QE is not supposed to represent a permanent expansion in the supply of pounds, dollars and euros. The central bank creates electronic money and uses it to buy assets (typically government and corporate bonds) that, in time, are sold, ensuring the new money is absorbed back into the system. By contrast, money created under MMT is “permanent”: money spent on public services will not be…

Professionals take over the White House John F. Harris Politico Joe Biden has only just started filling posts in his forthcoming administration, says John F. Harris, but a theme is already emerging. Judging by his choice of chief of staff, secretary of state, and National Security Council head, he is surrounding himself with Washington professionals “with impeccable credentials from elite institutions”. Biden has always favoured this type, perhaps as a result of his own background. He’ll be the first president since Ronald Reagan not to possess an Ivy League degree. Those who’ve worked with him say that, as well as commanding great loyalty among staff, he “displays an acute awareness of colleagues’ academic bona fides, and occasional sensitivity about his own”. The people Biden is appointing now are immensely qualified…

Some plants are known to have changed their colours to give them camouflage protection from herbivores. Now, one species seems to have performed the same trick to hide from humans. The Fritillaria delavayi grows in the Hengduan mountains of China, where it is harvested for use in Chinese medicine. Every June after its fifth year, it produces a lone bright green flower – making it easy to spot on the rocky slopes. But after learning that it was becoming harder to find, researchers from China and the UK investigated: they examined the plants in various places, and interviewed local pickers to ascertain how much harvesting took place in each of those locations. They found that in areas where the plant was most heavily harvested, it tended to have developed dull…

“Family is whoever is left when everyone else is gone.” Edwidge Danticat in Plough magazine “To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” Michael Oakeshott, quoted in The Guardian “There are two things that can destroy a family business: the family and the business.” Former Estée Lauder CEO Leonard Lauder, quoted in Town & Country “If you ask most Americans, myself included, they will tell you they believe all persons are created equal. Jefferson found that proposition ‘self-evident’, but really it’s a powerful act of faith…

The sporting calendar may have been severely disrupted this summer, but for one group of sportsmen and women, 2020 has been a “vintage year”, said Nicholas Hellen in The Sunday Times. For ultra-athletes this has been the most record-breaking year in the history of the sport. Deprived of the chance to compete overseas, or to race against other competitors, many fell runners and ultra-marathoners “chose instead to compete against the clock, up hills and down dales, on pathways and along roadside verges”. In July, Kim Collison, 40, climbed 78 2,000ft summits in the Lake District in 24 hours, beating a 23-year-old record. Two weeks later, Carla Molinaro established a new women’s record for running the 874 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats: it took the 36-year-old Team GB ultra-marathon-runner…

This week’s quiet TV treat is We Are Who We Are, a new series from Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. It’s a coming-of-age tale set on a US army base in the Venetian sticks. The camp itself – “ratty”, “claustrophobic”, “bleached out” – is the star of the show: I could have watched for hours as the “odd and unsettled” 14-year-old Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) scuttled around its “weird nooks”. Having recently arrived here with his mother, a lesbian colonel played by Chloë Sevigny, he finds himself drawn to the beautiful Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), who is also 14 and has a secret: she likes dressing as a man. “Expat military bratdom” proves a captivating subject, said Hugo Rifkind in The…

Best books... Greg Wise A champion of the Macmillan Cancer Trust, the actor will be taking part in its Follow the Stars Christmas concert, live online on 11 December at 8pm, and available to view until 31 December (macmillan.org.uk/followthestars) The Overstory by Richard Powers, 2018 (Vintage £9.99). I devoured it, then gave it to my wife who, upon finishing, immediately reread it. A wild and expansive novel, knitting together a glorious and diverse cast of characters, some of them human, some of them trees. I defy you not to be moved, and then angered about what we are doing to our planet and these glorious sentinels rooted upon it. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, 2015 (William Collins £9.99). Written by a German forester, this book totally changed…

● After you’ve worn a jumper, give it a rest for at least a day. Wearing woollens on rotation can help them recover their shape. ● To keep washing to a minimum, air knitted or woollen clothes regularly, either by hanging them outside or laying them flat on a towel on a table or bed. ● Wool clothes need regular brushing. Try the OXO Good Grips FurLifter Lint Remover (£14; lakeland.co.uk). To remove bobbles, gently run over the item with a razor. ● If you spill food or drink on wool, blot it as soon as you can with detergent and warm water. Always remove stains before putting your clothes away to avoid moths. ● Wash with a gentle wool detergent. Most clothes can now go in the machine on…

Caffe Nero: frothy coffee It’s been quite a year for Zuber and Mohsin Issa – the Blackburn-based billionaire brothers behind petrol-forecourt giant EG Group. In October, they staged a coup by unexpectedly bagging the Asda supermarket chain. Now they’re going after Caffè Nero, said Jessica Clark in City AM. According to Sky News, the brothers directly approached Caffè Nero’s London-based American founder Gerry Ford last weekend, with a proposal to buy the stricken coffee-shop chain. But despite an offer to settle Nero’s sizeable landlord rent arrears “in full”, they have been rebuffed in favour of an existing restructuring arrangement, or CVA. The landlords of Nero’s 660 outlets must have been looking on wistfully, said Dominic Walsh in The Times: the CVA will only pay 30p in the pound –…

António Horta-Osório Lloyds Bank’s black stallion logo “suggests rebellious vitality”, said Lex in the FT. “It’s an ill fit for the dowdy UK institution”, and after a decade as chief executive, António Horta-Osório “has done little to alter that”. Now the bank’s Portuguese-born boss is off to pastures new – leaving earlier than expected in April to take the chair of Credit Suisse. In an ongoing game of musical chairs, Lloyds has poached HSBC’s head of wealth and personal banking, Charlie Nunn, to replace him. Nunn will probably have “some Covid nasties to deal with” before he can get into his stride at Lloyds, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. But that’s nothing to the mare’s nest that Horta-Osório, 56, is inheriting at Credit Suisse. Thanks to the spectacular…

First we adopted America’s Halloween traditions; now it seems we are embracing Thanksgiving too. Waitrose has reported that searches related to Thanksgiving were up tenfold this year, and that orders for turkeys were up 37%. The retailer said the growing trend for marking the US holiday may have accelerated this year because people were stuck at home and wanted something to celebrate. Modern cars have grown so big, drivers can have as little as 21cm of room to spare in a parking space, a study by the CarGurus website has found. Owing to safety features, and the demand for more spacious interiors, Britain’s most popular cars are up to 55% bigger than they were in the 1970s, but standard parking bays have not grown at all.…

The proportion of over-55s with a positive impression of the BBC has fallen to 62%, from 64% in 2018. 87% of the population now use BBC services, down from 92% three years ago. 54% of adults believe the BBC provides impartial news, while almost 20% rate the corporation badly for impartiality. 69% now feel Radio 2 offers something other radio stations do not, down from 75% a year ago. Ofcom/The Daily Telegraph 55% of UK adults believe the spread of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK this year increased racial tensions. 17% disagree. Among ethnic minorities, 44% think it did. The number of black people saying they have faced discrimination within the last year rose to 81%, from 74% in 2019. Opinium/The Guardian…

“Childhood, which used to end around the time you were tall enough to reach a clocking-in machine, now drifts on and on. Grown men forget to leave home, women in their 50s buy colouring books, and we are all exhorted to cosset our inner infant. One logical outcome of this is the Advent calendar for grown-ups containing, say, 24 tots of gin – or teabags or beard-grooming oils. Or sex toys. One that caught my eye this year is the pork scratchings calendar, available as a twin-pack so you don’t have to share. Because, as we wait for the light and hope of Christmas, what could be uglier than a family member helping themselves to your fave bag of scratchings?” Laurie Graham in The Spectator…

The social germ that spreads disease Kenan Malik The Observer Globally, some 1.5 million people have died from Covid-19 this year, says Kenan Malik. But did you know that every year tuberculosis kills the same number? In fact, the toll from TB could now be higher still: studies suggest there’ll be 1.4 million more deaths from TB than usual between now and 2025, owing to cases going undiagnosed or untreated in Covid lockdowns. For the same reason, deaths from malaria could rise by a third in the next five years. Yet though we’ve come up with three vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year, there’s still only one vaccine for TB, which has “afflicted humanity since antiquity”, and none at all for malaria. The reason is simple: “wealth and…

Antibody treatment to go on trial A new “antibody cocktail” that could give vulnerable people immediate protection from Covid-19 is about to be trialled in Britain, says The Daily Telegraph. Developed by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, it is aimed at patients with weakened immune systems, who cannot be vaccinated. Around 350,000 people in Britain alone fall into that category. If it proves safe and effective, the treatment could protect them for as long as six months. Moreover, unlike vaccines, which can take a few weeks to confer protection, it should work immediately – which means it could be used to protect people from outbreaks in settings such as residential care homes and cruise ships. “Imagine a cruise ship that has an outbreak where half the people have been vaccinated and half…

Farming: the post-Brexit landscape It has always been one of the big opportunities of Brexit, said Guy Adams in the Daily Mail: the chance to escape the “destructive and wasteful” Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and devise our own system of farming subsidies. This week, the Government revealed what that new regime might look like, at least in England (the other UK nations will have their own devolved systems). Under the proposed seven-year transition plan, the £3bn paid to farmers in England last year (based on the acreage of land they manage) will be phased out. In its place, ministers will introduce new subsidies to encourage innovation, and to reward farmers for improving “the natural environment” and animal welfare for the “public good”. It’s hard to argue with the concept,…

F1: the miraculous “halo” that saved Grosjean’s life Two years ago, when Formula 1 introduced its controversial “halo” – a wishbone-shaped bar extending around the cockpit – Romain Grosjean was among the many who opposed it, said Giles Richards in The Guardian. Last Sunday, however, the 34-year-old Frenchman acknowledged that the device had almost certainly saved his life. On the first lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Grosjean’s car clipped the left front wheel of Daniil Kvyat’s AlphaTauri and veered off the track into a metal barrier. The 137mph impact sheared his car in half and its detached front section ripped through the barrier, instantly becoming engulfed in flames. In the aftermath of the “visceral, violent” collision, the “entire paddock and viewers around the world held their breath”. But having…

Celebrity guinea pigs To The Guardian How times have changed! In 1798, my ancestor William Summers was one of 20 farm labourers’ children who were the first to be vaccinated by Edward Jenner against smallpox. Only after they survived did the Earl of Berkeley submit his family to the process. Now, celebrities and the royal family will show us that the vaccine is safe (“NHS to enlist ‘sensible’ celebrities to persuade people to take coronavirus vaccine”). Margaret Thorpe, Shrewsbury, Shropshire Safety first? To the Financial Times Martin Wolf (“What can the world learn from Covid?”) ends his article with the ringing declaration that, “the people’s safety should remain the supreme law of politics, now and forever”. This is balderdash. Here are a few of the measures that would then be…

Ghosts have stalked many film genres since the earliest days of cinema, from horror to comedy and romance. Here are a few of the most interesting – and occasionally plain scary – examples: Ugetsu Monogatari From the coldly beautiful Kwaidan to the terrifying Ring, ghost films loom large in Japanese cinema. Ugetsu is the finest, a poetic take on a medieval folk tale released in 1953. Its director, Kenji Mizoguchi, made many such period dramas and is sometimes seen as the country’s greatest film-maker. The Haunting Adapted from a Shirley Jackson novel, Robert Wise’s 1963 film tells of a group of paranormal investigators gathered in a Gothic mansion to determine if rumours of a poltergeist are true. Wise’s clever use of design and cinematography to bring the house itself frighteningly…

After a mix-up at the site, Blake takes the blame for Gavin, even though it means Philip punishes him. Gavin later rewards Blake and says he’ll soon be boss when Philip retires. Freddie doubts his abilities after an unimpressive first rehearsal of the Christmas Show, so Tracy suggests Roman take over as director. Roman gets stuck in, playing ice-breaking games with Oliver and David to mixed reactions. Tracy wants to know the hidden truths revealed during the game. Will is worried about Eddie’s plan to pose as a detectorist after joining an online forum under a false identity. Neil encourages Rex to apply for a council farm that’s coming up. A reluctant Alice prepares to leave for rehab, but makes Chris promise to tell no one where she is. Jill…

The 12-year-old celebrity chef In some ways, Omari McQueen is like any other 12-year-old whose mother worries that he “plays too much Fortnite”. But there aren’t many boys his age who make jackfruit wraps for their siblings’ lunch, says Bridget Harrison in The Times – and even fewer with their own cooking show. Omari is a vegan, and on What’s Cooking Omari?, on CBBC, he tries to encourage other children to cook, and enjoy, plant-based food. “I want kids to know they shouldn’t be afraid of vegetables,” he says. Omari, who lives with his parents and five siblings in Peckham, south London, began helping out in the kitchen when he was about eight, to relieve his mother, Leah, who suffers from migraines, and his father, Jermaine, who works long hours…

Salmon runs can be spotted along the River Esk on the North York Moors, or Stainforth Force in the Yorkshire Dales. In Scotland they are best seen in autumn. Try Selkirk’s Salmon Viewing Centre. England’s prime spot for beavers is the River Otter in Devon, but the Forest of Dean and Holnicote in Somerset are also home to some. Perthshire Wildlife hosts half-day beaver safaris. Reindeer were reintroduced to the Cairngorm mountains in 1952, and the herd, which roams free, is now 150-strong. Visitors can book a daily hill walk to see them (cairngormreindeer.co.uk). Mountain hares can still be seen at Derwent Edge or Ladybower Wood in the Peak District, as well as the Cairngorms. The Irish Hare, believe it or not, can be spotted at Belfast International airport. Bouldnor…

Positive news that the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine will begin in Britain next week coincided with seismic events on the high street, where the collapse of the Arcadia Group, putting 13,000 jobs at risk, triggered the failure of efforts to rescue Debenhams and hastened the collapse of fashion chain Bonmarché, part of Philip Day’s stricken EWM Group. The Debenhams website was so overwhelmed by opportunistic bargain-hunters that it crashed. But as retailers in England reopened, the hoped-for explosion of pent-up demand on “Wild Wednesday” failed to materialise. Analyst Springboard reported that footfall was down 24.1% compared to the same period last year. Last ditch Brexit talks continued but, by midweek, were still at an impasse. France was reported to be pushing for a no-deal outcome “to soften up” Britain…

Continuing our round-up of the year’s best business and financial reads: If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore (Liveright). “A wonderfully written history” of the computer group which in the 1950s and 1960s pioneered the tools that underpin modern social media and political campaigning, says Andrew Hill in the FT. “Lepore draws out the lessons – and warnings.” Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork by Reeves Wiedeman (Hodder & Stoughton). Once fêted as the leader of the “ultimate tech unicorn”, Adam Neumann was exposed “as the entrepreneur wearing no clothes at all”, says Rosamund Urwin in The Sunday Times. This “absorbing account” explains why so many bought into the “fairy tale”. Banking on It: How I Disrupted an…

The week’s best shares CVS Group The Times The vet group has 480 surgeries, laboratories, crematoria and an online pharmacy. Rising sales, thanks to increasing pet ownership, have pushed down debt and leverage, giving scope for acquisitions. Buy. £14.35. Gore Street Energy Storage Fund The Daily Telegraph This fund invests in hi-tech batteries – helping the grid balance supply and demand by storing excess electricity. A pipeline of planned expansion will triple capacity as the need for “buffering” increases. Yields 6.6%. Buy. 106p. Pennon Group The Times This well-run FTSE 100 water firm is sitting on a £2.7bn cash pile after the £4bn sale of waste-recycling business Viridor. If it doesn’t buy another water monopoly, there could be a “giant cash handover”. Buy. 964.5p. Sage Investors Chronicle Profits have wobbled…