Innholdsfortegnelse for 1369 i The Week

What happened Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into No. 10 lockdown parties finally arrived this week – albeit in outline form only. In the 12-page document, presented as an “update”, the senior civil servant disclosed that she had looked into 16 alleged parties, 12 of which are being investigated by the police, and four of which involve Boris Johnson directly. There had been failures of “leadership and judgement”, she said. “Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did.” The full report has been held back at the request of the Metropolitan Police, which asked Gray last week to make only “minimal reference” to the gatherings so as not to prejudice its own inquiry. In a…

Controversy of the week It was a victory for the Chancellor Rishi Sunak, “and for common sense”, said The Times. After days of lobbying by right-wing Tory MPs and of wavering by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and Sunak jointly confirmed that the Government’s proposed hike to national insurance payments will go ahead as planned in April. The policy has long met with fierce opposition in the Conservative ranks. It also clearly worried Johnson, who had been toying with the idea of scrapping it to shore up his “embattled leadership”. But the 1.25 percentage point tax rise for employees, which will be matched by employers, has been earmarked to pay to clear the backlog in NHS operations, and in future to meet “the huge cost” of social care for Britain’s…

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Bridge collapse: A major road bridge in the city of Pittsburgh collapsed last Friday, just hours before President Joe Biden was due to arrive in the city to give a major speech on his plans for investment in US infrastructure. The Forbes Avenue bridge, which was built in the early 1970s, collapsed around 7am, before the morning rush hour. There were no fatalities, but several vehicles were stranded in the wreckage, and ten people were injured. Biden visited the site, before making a speech promoting his $1.2trn infrastructure package, which passed Congress with rare bipartisan support. Chicago, Illinois Twin’s confession: An American man who spent 17 years in jail for a gang-related murder has been released, nine years after his identical twin brother confessed that he’d committed the…

“Fear of cultural decline is an age-old fixation. The mistake is to assume the culture of the future will look like the culture of the past. It never does. Often, it looks like the destruction of the past. In Kingsley Amis’s 1960s novel Girl, 20, the band Pigs Out destroy a Stradivarius violin. Had Pigs Out existed, they would now be name-checked in post-mortems on the death of classic rock. Things change. A novel will never again shape our culture – the art form is devolving into a rich person’s hobby, like watercolours in the 19th century. For me, this is a sombre thought. For most, it barely registers. Writing destroyed oral poetry. Pop music destroyed the symphony. Few now care. Culture moves on.” James Marriott in The Times…

The corruption at the core of our politics Matthew Syed The Sunday Times We like to think we don’t do bribes in the West, says Matthew Syed. We do, you know – only in our democracies they come in a sneaky form of “legalised corruption”: the “revolving door” between politics and business. We’re often told how US policymakers snuggle up to business, but it’s a big problem here, too. Fully half of ministers under Theresa May and Boris Johnson who’ve left office have gone on to take up posts with companies linked to their government jobs. Former transport minister Patrick McLoughlin, to take one example, is now an airline lobbyist. And it was much the same under David Cameron and the last Labour government. What’s so insidious about this is…

Mars’s lakes are “just a mirage” There was much excitement in 2018 when scientists said they’d found promising signs of liquid water on Mars. The presence of the “lake” in question, deep beneath the planet’s south polar ice cap, was inferred from radar reflections that seemed bright enough to indicate water. Now, however, a study has concluded that the lake was probably just a “dusty mirage”. US researchers created a simulation of the entire surface of Mars to see how it would look if, like the south pole, it were buried beneath 1.4km of ice. They found that bright patches similar to the one detected in 2018 then popped up all over the planet, covering as much as 2% of its surface, and often corresponding with the locations of volcanic…

Several myths emanated from Boris Johnson’s Garrick Club dinner with his ex-Telegraph colleagues last year, says Stephen Glover in The Oldie. It was reported, for instance, that it was at this dinner that Johnson was persuaded to try to save the rule-breaking MP Owen Paterson; yet there is little evidence for that. And he certainly didn’t give a speech expressing “buyer’s remorse” for marrying his wife Carrie. But what is true, says Glover, is that, three months on, the PM “is the only guest who has not paid his share”. Cara Delevingne doesn’t have children, but the model has started “manifesting” them – defined as “thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real”. She is, she explained, buying “children’s clothes for my future child who doesn’t exist. I…

In one corner was Joe Rogan, the comedian turned “provocative podcaster”, said Travis M. Andrews in The Washington Post. In the other was Neil Young, the “rock legend with a lifelong passion for progressive causes”. Last week, Young demanded that Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, be removed from the world’s largest music streaming service – on the grounds that it promoted “fake information about vaccines”. Rogan has encouraged young, healthy people not to get vaccinated; he has aired Covid conspiracy theories; and has praised ivermectin, an animal worming pill with no known antiviral benefits popular among anti-vaxxer types. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both,” Young declared. He got his wish. Two days later, Spotify began the process of removing the rocker’s…

Many people assumed the 2022 Australian Open would mark the moment when Novak Djokovic would finally move clear of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to become the most decorated men’s player in tennis history, said Christopher Clarey in The New York Times. Last year, he won three Grand Slams, to join his two great rivals on 20 major titles apiece – and as the Australian Open is a tournament at which he’s “perennial favourite”, having won it a record nine times, he seemed poised to eclipse them. But as the world knows, the Serb’s refusal to be vaccinated scuppered his hopes of going for the record down under, said Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. And with Federer absent owing to a long-term knee injury, Nadal was left as the…

Football Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah scored for Egypt in their 2-1 victory over Morocco in the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations. Egypt next play Cameroon, who beat Gambia 2-0. Golf Viktor Hovland of Norway won the Dubai Desert Classic, beating England’s Richard Bland in a play-off. Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy bogeyed the final hole, costing him the title. Cycling Tom Pidcock became the first Briton to win the elite UCI cyclo-cross world title, with a comfortable victory in Fayetteville, Arkansas.…

Parallel Mothers 2hrs 3mins (15) Penélope Cruz shines in a domestic drama that explores Franco’s legacy “With most films, you know exactly what you’ll be getting within the first ten minutes,” said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Not so with Parallel Mothers: a “delicious and beautifully styled” drama from the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. Penélope Cruz stars as Janis, a photographer who has a fling with a forensic anthropologist called Arturo (Israel Elejalde). She gets pregnant, and when Arturo stands by his wife, who has cancer, she decides to raise the baby alone. In hospital, Janis meets Ana (a “terrific” Milena Smit), a teenager whose circumstances are even more complicated, and whose life becomes intertwined with hers. Alongside this domestic drama runs a second plot strand, concerning Janis’s desire to…

Exactly 100 years ago, Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait The Blue Boy left England for the US, said Jackie Wullschläger in the FT. It was his most famous painting, depicting a youth in a blue satin suit “on the cusp of adulthood, full of beauty and promise”. It had been sold to the Californian railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington for $728,000 (about £11m today), then the highest price ever paid for a painting. For three weeks before his departure, The Blue Boy was shown in the National Gallery; 90,000 people came to say goodbye; Cole Porter wrote The Blue Boy Blues to mark the sad occasion. Now, a century on, it has returned for a small free exhibition at the National Gallery. The show features only five works – three by Gainsborough…

Ruth drags grumpy David to a party at Vince’s while Pip and Josh try to deal with unforeseen problems at Brookfield. As they enjoy the party, Ruth and David muse on which of their kids might take over the farm. Driving home in heavy rain, they crash. Shocked and injured, they’re forced to rest, leaving an overstretched Pip and Josh to cope with the farm. After some squabbles, the siblings work well as a team, while Jill and Leonard look after David and Ruth. Vince’s mother Iris pays a visit, and discovers a shared love of bonsai with Leonard, to Jill’s irritation. Shula, Kenton and Elizabeth cheer up David with old board games and tease him about retirement. When a cow slips and damages her hip, Pip and Josh call…

Sommeliers go alcohol-free One of the longstanding orthodoxies of French gastronomy is that wine is the “only drink worthy of accompanying a meal”, said Adam Sage in The Times. That was fine when everyone drank alcohol, but one in five French adults are now teetotal; and wine consumption is “dwindling year after year”. That is putting pressure on restaurants to offer something other than mineral water – and some are rising to the challenge, developing a host of innovative alcohol-free concoctions, and pairing them too. At the three-Michelin-starred Le Mirazur in Menton on the French Riviera, run by the renowned chef Mauro Colagreco, the drinks list now includes: carrot water; kombucha (fermented teas); an infusion of hibiscus and sea lettuce flake which, according to Le Monde, goes particularly well with…

The Daily Telegraph SUVs make up 36% of VW’s UK sales, and this supermini SUV slots into the small space between the T-Cross and the T-Roc. There is no shortage of good cars in this supermini crossover sector: the Vauxhall Mokka, Ford Puma and Nissan Juke are all popular options; but for families seeking something a bit jazzier and with a bit more vim than a standard small SUV, the Taigo could prove alluring. Auto Express As a coupé-SUV, it is more stylish than its T-Cross sibling, but the Taigo still has plenty of substance. The tapered roofline at the rear means boot space is down to 440 litres and there’s less headroom in the back, but it still feels spacious and legroom is fine. Some of the interior plastics…

Bonusprint has a range of products from prints to calendars, photobooks and gifts. User-friendly software makes ordering simple, and though it is not the cheapest, print quality is good (bonusprint.co.uk). You can customise pretty much everything with Moo, which prides itself on the quality of its products, from business cards to postcards and stickers. It has a range of templates to create professional-looking stationery, but it can be pricey (moo.com). Snapfish’s app makes it easy to order prints on the go: simply upload photos from your phone, Instagram or Facebook. You can get 50 6x4 prints free each month, you just pay for delivery (snapfish.co.uk). If you’ve got the time and money to create a book or magazine from your photos, Blurb can make it look very professional with its…

Tree climbing in Costa Rica The Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica is among the world’s most biodiverse places, said Michelle Jana Chan in The Sunday Telegraph – the size of the Isle of Skye, but home to twice as many species of flora and fauna as the US. Any tour should take in the Térraba Sierpe wetlands and the Golfo Dulce, a tropical fjord; but the peninsula’s “main draw” is its rainforest, where one wildlife biologist, Andy Pruter, offers supervised tree climbing, with all the right ropes. His preferred target is a huge, 400-year-old strangler fig that he calls “the cathedral”. Climbing it is a thrill (as is swinging back down, like a monkey), the views from the top are “expansive”, and it’s the only way to see the canopy…

John Rendall 1944-2022 In the Swinging Sixties, the residents of Chelsea grew accustomed to weird and wonderful sights on the fashionable King’s Road. Yet even they must have been a bit startled when they first spotted John Rendall taking his pet lion out for a stroll. The Australian socialite, who has died aged 76, had heard that Harrods sold “exotic” animals in its pet department: a friend had gone in and asked for a camel. “One hump or two, Madam,” the manager had supposedly replied. So in 1969, he and his flatmate Anthony Bourke went to see what they could buy. To their amazement, they were offered a zoo-bred lion cub, which was marketed as the “perfect gift”. They paid 250 guineas (about £4,500 today) for the cub, which they…

“Not for the first time in his maverick career, Neil Young has opened a can of worms,” said Dorian Lynskey in The Guardian. The Canadian musician’s boycott of Spotify – in protest at sharing a platform with the vaccine-sceptical US comedian Joe Rogan – has proved “a PR disaster” for the music-streamer, which acquired Rogan’s show for $100m in 2020. Enraged by what he views as the promotion of “life-threatening Covid misrepresentation”, Young, 76, issued an ultimatum: “They can have Young or Rogan, but not both.” Spotify’s choice was a foregone conclusion. Rogan’s show is its “most popular podcast”, with an audience of 11 million per episode. And Spotify is “banking on podcasts to drive subscriptions”. Still, Young’s stand wiped more than $2bn off the Swedish streamer’s value as many…

The sale of the smash online game, Wordle, to The New York Times, for “an undisclosed price in the low seven figures”, may leave fans with mixed feelings, said Chaim Gartenberg on The Verge. For the moment, their daily ritual will be unchanged: Wordle will “initially remain free to new and existing players”, says the NYT. Wordle’s creator, British software engineer Josh Wardle, has assured players he’s working to preserve their “existing wins and streak data”. Still, the word “initially” suggests an expiry date. Who can blame the NYT for cashing in, asked Jennifer Saba on Reuters Breakingviews. The five-letter game fits nicely with the paper’s other puzzles, including Spelling Bee, which are boosting customer growth “as digital subscriptions for news slow”. In 2020, the online uptake of stand-alone products…

The week’s best shares Arcontech Group Investors’ Chronicle Shares in this financial software provider were massively de-rated after the loss of two customers and are now firmly “bargain basement”. But Arcontech is profitable, there’s a prospective 4.1% yield and it’s a bid target. Buy. 74p. Computacenter The Times Customers ordering early are boosting visibility for this tech systems and services supplier, which is benefiting from the rapid growth of corporate and government IT spending. Inexpensive, with scope for special returns. Buy. £26.20. Greggs Investors’ Chronicle Given its robust balance sheet, the bakery chain’s aim to double revenue – by expanding shop numbers and pushing forward with home delivery and evening trading – looks achievable. A special divi is expected. Buy. £26.66. Facilities by ADF The Mail on Sunday ADF supplies…

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What happened Vladimir Putin this week accused the US of trying to goad Russia into war over Ukraine. In his first public comments on the standoff in more than a month, the Russian president said Washington was using Ukraine as a “tool” to drag Moscow into a conflict that would trigger tough sanctions, and thereby contain Russia’s development. But he said that talks with the US and Nato should continue, to avert a “negative outcome”. During a visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson accused Putin of “holding a gun” to Ukraine’s head while seeking to “redraw the security map of Europe”. Moscow would face sanctions the moment the “first Russian toecap” crossed further into Ukraine, he warned. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss unveiled legislation to strengthen the UK’s sanctions regime by allowing…

Dozens of traditional British sayings are at risk of extinction, a survey of adults under 50 has suggested. 78% of respondents said they never use the phrase “pearls before swine”, while 64% aren’t au fait with “a stitch in time saves nine”. Other endangered sayings include “snug as a bug in a rug”, “a nod is as good as a wink” and “pip pip”. Royal Holloway University has issued a “content note” for Oliver Twist, advising students that Charles Dickens’ novel might cause them “anxiety or distress, perhaps as a consequence of past experience”. The university defended the warning, saying it had a duty to prepare students for the “potentially sensitive topics” of child abuse and racial prejudice.…

From fashion to literature Today, Douglas Stuart is a successful novelist: his semi-autobiographical debut, Shuggie Bain, won the Booker Prize in 2020. But in another life, he was a New York-based fashion designer for high-street giant Banana Republic. “That was a $4bn business, and it was an incredibly demanding job,” he told David Crow in the FT. “I would travel every four or five weeks overseas.” And he started to find it a struggle. “I was unhappy. I was becoming tired of everything I was doing in fashion. So in 2008, I sat down to begin writing Shuggie.” The novel took him a decade to complete, and was rejected by dozens of publishers. When he finally did get a book deal, he quit fashion immediately, and held a farewell bash…

A Liverpool University student has revealed that he lost both of his nipples after spraying two cans of Lynx deodorant on them for a dare. The unnamed student was 15 when an entire can was sprayed over each exposed nipple, before his friend “flicked them off”. He’s now 19, and his nipples haven’t grown back. But he doesn’t regret it, since he “accepted the dare”. “It’s stupid, it happened,” he reflected. “Now I’ve got no nipples.” The Guinness World Record for “the most spoons balanced on the body” has been broken. Abolfazl Saber Mokhtari, 50, from Karaj in Iran, said he’d honed his skill with “years of practice and effort” in order to balance a total of 85 spoons (the previous record was 64). “I feel so happy and proud…

SWITZERLAND The astonishing stupidity of a football chief NTV (Cologne) Gianni Infantino was supposed to restore Fifa’s battered reputation when he took over as president from the disgraced Sepp Blatter in 2016. It’s not going well, says David Bedürftig. He’s already facing criminal proceedings in Switzerland over alleged secret meetings with an official overseeing a probe into Fifa corruption (he denies wrongdoing). Now, he has put his foot in it with an extraordinarily misguided speech at the Council of Europe. Addressing the human rights body in Strasbourg last week, he made the “insulting” assertion that his controversial plans for the World Cup to be held every two years could help African migrants avoid “death in the sea”. The plan, he said, would “give hope to Africans” so that they no…

It’s well established that children who grow up in poverty are more likely to underperform at school. Now a landmark study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has suggested that simply topping up the incomes of poor parents could help level the playing field. Researchers recruited 1,000 new mothers from low-income households, and gave half of them stipends of $333 a month, and the others just $20. All were told they could spend the cash as they wished. A year on, the researchers measured the electrical activity in the brains of about half the babies. They found that the babies of the mothers who had received the larger sums had higher-frequency brain activity than the other babies; and that the boosted activity was in an area…

While everyone was waiting for the Sue Gray report last week, “all eyes turned to the next scandal”, said The Spectator: the evacuation of ex Royal Marine Pen Farthing, his staff and animals from Afghanistan, in the days after the Taliban takeover last August. Boris Johnson has repeatedly denied that he helped in the rescue of some 170 cats and dogs, as thousands of people were crowding the airport in a desperate attempt to escape. Yet it has since transpired that his own parliamentary private secretary, Trudy Harrison, had emailed Farthing to tell him that he had the go ahead to proceed to the airport. She insists she was acting as a constituency MP. But last week, leaked Foreign Office emails appeared to show that the Prime Minister had indeed…

Pity Britain’s poor, oppressed motorists, said Catherine Bennett in The Observer. Their “right to road domination” has already been curtailed by the creation of all those low traffic neighbourhoods; now their status has been further downgraded by the Highway Code. The updated code, which came into force last weekend, introduces a new “hierarchy of road users” that places them below pedestrians and cyclists, on the basis that road users who can do the most harm have the greatest responsibility to avoid it. Vehicles must now give way to people waiting to cross at junctions; cyclists are being told to position themselves more prominently in the road. This has infuriated many motorists. “Goes against the natural order of things,” fumed one Telegraph reader. It makes sense to prioritise the most vulnerable,…

When Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest while competing for Denmark at last summer’s Euros, it seemed unlikely he’d ever play football again, said Tom Collomosse in the Daily Mail. The main focus after the horrifying incident – during which he later said he “died for five minutes” – was on enabling him to lead a “normal life once more”. To that end, he was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), a device that detects irregular heartbeats and restores a normal rhythm via electric shocks. Extraordinary then that, seven months on, Eriksen is on the brink of a remarkable return, said David Hytner in The Guardian. Having been released by Internazionale in December – the rules governing Italian football don’t allow players with an ICD to compete professionally –…

Too kind to kleptocrats To The Times It is welcome to hear Liz Truss say that the UK will limit Russian kleptocrats’ access to the City, but her warning would mean more if it had not been made so often in the past. After every Kremlin misdeed of recent times, from the Salisbury poisoning to the annexation of Crimea, ministers have thundered that oligarchs have no place here, and yet nothing has changed. All Truss’s comments tell us is that those previous promises meant nothing. She should heed how Lynne Owens, director-general of the National Crime Agency, explained her officers’ failure to tackle oligarchs in evidence given three years ago to the Intelligence and Security Committee: “We are, bluntly, concerned about the impact on our budget.” Oligarchs are rich, but…

In the spring, Mark Rylance will be reprising his role in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph – but first he offers a “mesmerising turn” in a “compelling” new drama at the Bristol Old Vic. Dr Semmelweis is about the 19th century Hungarian physician who “realised the life-saving value of hand hygiene, yet was treated like dirt” by the medical establishment. The piece is co-written by Rylance and playwright Stephen Brown; and although it was conceived prepandemic, it could “hardly have its finger more on the jittery pulse of our virus-ravaged age” – showing vividly how “human failings, from prejudice to egotism, can thwart medical progress”. Rylance is sensationally good, said Quentin Letts in The Sunday Times. He can “spin on a penny, switching from intensity…

“Boost your vaccinations, don whatever PPE you have to hand,” said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian: “the new variant Julian Fellowes has breached our shores”. This time, we’re not at a stately home in England but in late 19th century New York; this is “Brownstone Abbey”. We know the deal. There are poshos – “old families who have been in New York since it was a glint in a Dutchman’s eye” – and new-money types trying to crack smart society. Then there are servants, who live under the posh people and “bitch about them” at every opportunity. In short, the show is surely just what was ordered from a man now “churning this stuff out in his sleep”. The Gilded Age is “perfectly watchable”, said Ed Cumming in The Independent,…

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet, 2021 (Saraband £14.99). Set in 1965, this novel features a repressed woman entering therapy with an invented contemporary of R.D. Laing’s, in an effort to find out why her sister killed herself. It’s nothing like as bleak as it sounds – it’s laugh-out-loud funny. Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1871 (Wordsworth Classics £2.99). I devoured this as a teenager, not fully realising that its main appeal was that it’s a feminist novel. It spoke to me as profoundly as it did, I think, because as a young woman and aspiring actor I was being told I had to be and look a certain way, and I rebelled against it. Dorothea is my first feminist heroine. A Short Gentleman by Jon Canter, 2008 (Vintage £12.99). There…

Programmes Chloe New six-part thriller about a lonely young woman who is drawn into the seemingly perfect world of Chloe, whose life she follows obsessively on social media. Sun 6 and Mon 7 Feb, BBC1 21:00 (60mins each). This Is Going to Hurt Ben Whishaw stars in this adaptation of Adam Kay’s bestselling memoir-turned-comedy show about the life of a junior doctor. Tue 8 Feb, BBC1 21:00 (50mins). AstraZeneca: A Vaccine for the World BBC medical editor Fergus Walsh examines the Oxford team’s ambitions for their vaccine and asks if politics got in the way of fulfilling them. Tue 8 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). President: Storyville Camilla Nielsson follows power struggles on the campaign trail of Zimbabwe’s first presidential election after almost 40 years of rule by Robert Mugabe. Wed…

Healthy, hearty and full of greens and goodness, this dish is one-pot cooking at its best, says Libby Silbermann. Poaching the salmon ensures super-soft, flaking fish. Use any small soup pasta you like. Salmon and pasta broth with watercress oil Serves 2 2 litres vegetable stock 125g soup pasta (such as pepe bucato or fregola) 2 skinless salmon fillets 60g spring greens, shredded 60g cavolo nero (black kale), shredded 80g frozen peas small handful of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped sea salt and freshly ground black pepper pecorino shavings, to garnish For the watercress oil: 50g watercress small handful of basil 50ml olive oil • Firstly, make the watercress oil. In a food processor blitz together the watercress, basil and olive oil. Pulse until you have a smooth, green oil. Set to one…

Ninja Foodi Max Pro Health Grill, Flat Plate & Air Fryer This is more than just an air fryer, hence the price and larger-than-average size (44cm long with a 3.8l capacity). You can also use it to griddle, grill, roast, bake, dehydrate and reheat (£249; very.co.uk). Tefal ActiFry FZ729840 Air Fryer With just a little oil, the ActiFry can make up to six portions of perfectly crisp, fluffy chips. The basket rotates to give even results and it has a clear lid so you can check progress while cooking (£169; ao.com). Instant Pot Duo Crisp & Air Fryer Combining an air fryer and a pressure cooker, this versatile appliance has 11 cooking modes (including steam, sous vide and slow cook) and a large 8l capacity. Chips could be crispier though…

Seven-night island break Get closer to nature on the Greek island of Alonissos with a stay at the 4-star Marpunta Resort. From £852pp all-incl. (Newcastle flights included). 020-4571 3737, olympicholidays.com. Depart 1 June. Classic Brockenhurst hotel The 4-star Balmer Lawn Hotel, in the heart of the forest, has a special one-night Valentine’s package available from £155pp b&b. 01590-623116, balmerlawnhotel.com. Arrive 11 February. Four-star Florence b&b Stay 3 nights at the Grand Hotel Cavour, in a historic building dating back to 1300, from £424pp (Birmingham flights included). 020-8974 7200, travelrepublic.co.uk. Depart 17 March. A week in Zanzibar Enjoy a luxury beachfront resort with traditional Swahili charm at the Bluebay Beach Resort & Spa, from £1,120pp all-incl. (Glasgow flights included). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 15 May. Covid-19: please check government websites for…

Vodafone: a good kicking The action’s hotting up again in the battle for Britain’s two telecoms giants, said Jim Armitage in The Sunday Times. Europe’s largest activist investment fund, Cevian Capital, has moved in on £34bn Vodafone, whose shares have long disappointed investors, triggering speculation that it may be forced to make “big corporate takeovers or sales” (CEO Nick Read has been trying to streamline the “sprawling group”). It means both Vodafone and BT now have activist investors nipping at their ankles: the latter is being stalked by billionaire Patrick Drahi. Cevian is pushing for “a sweeping overhaul” at Vodafone, said Arash Massoudi and Anna Gross in the FT. The Swedish investor wants it to become more “aggressive in driving consolidation” in European markets. “A kick, if that’s what Cevian…

Throwing petrol on a bonfire James Moore The Independent The $45bn Swedish fintech Klarna is the biggest of the “buy now, pay later” firms making steady inroads into the British market, says James Moore. Last week, it unveiled a new payment card “in your choice of pink or black”. Given the already worrying consumer debt figures, it’s like “lobbing a can full of petrol onto a bonfire”. Klarna’s big appeal is that, unlike credit cards, it charges no interest. It can afford to do so because “participating retailers pay a commission for every purchase”, and it sets clear payment schedules. Yet “borrowing is still borrowing”, and Klarna’s spending-based business model encourages more of it. The debt charity StepChange estimates that 4.4 million Britons struggled to keep up with household bills…

A new antiviral treatment for Covid is set to be rolled out on the NHS, the Government has announced. Pfizer’s Paxlovid drug, which was first approved in December, has been shown in trials to cut the risk of being hospitalised or dying of Covid by 88%. Around 1.3 million vulnerable people will be eligible to receive the pill if they test positive. The Government has bought 2.75 million courses of the drug, which works best when taken within five days of the onset of symptoms. Wild crows are being enlisted in the war against urban litter in Sweden. As part of a pilot programme in the city of Södertälje, the birds are being rewarded with food whenever they drop a cigarette butt into an automated peanut dispenser. “They are wild…

Berlin Too right-wing: The joint leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has quit the party because, he says, it has become too extreme. Jörg Meuthen, an economist, joined the AfD in 2013, when its core platform was opposition to the European single currency. As leader from 2015 onwards, he embraced an explicitly anti-immigration and anti-Islam agenda, but was always at loggerheads with a more extreme faction known as the Wing, led by a high-profile politician from the state of Thuringia, Björn Höcke. Meuthen quit after losing a power struggle with Höcke and the AfD’s other co-leader, Tino Chrupalla. “The heart of the party today beats very far to the right,” the departing leader said. “I clearly see totalitarian overtones.” He also attacked the party’s “cult-like” anti-vaccination stance on…

1 Habibi Ya Nour El Ain by Ahmed Shatta, Nasser Al Mezdawy and Stuart Crichton, performed by Amr Diab2 Passionate Kisses by Lucinda Williams, performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter3* Searching for Abegweit, written and performed by Lennie Gallant4 Annie’s Song, written and performed by John Denver5 Bi Lamban by Toumani Diabaté, performed by Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko6 Elegy For The Arctic, written and performed by Ludovico Einaudi7 Here and Now written and performed by Derek Roche, with Cathy Evans 7 Dawn by Meena Karimi and Arson Fahim, performed by The Orchestra of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music Book: Persian-language book Luxury: essential oils * Choice if allowed only one record…

One of the biggest challenges for nuclear is to overcome decades of public mistrust. Accidents such as the 1957 Windscale fire (at the plant now known as Sellafield), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) live long in the public memory. But many scientists argue that safety concerns are misplaced. Modern nuclear reactors, they say, bear no resemblance to the one used at Chernobyl (a disaster which the UN estimates as few as 50 deaths can be immediately attributed to), and still less than the primitive technology at Windscale. At Fukushima, clear and avoidable mistakes were made; and a UN study ten years after actually reported “no adverse health effects” on the local population from radiation sickness. The industry argues that, over more than 60 years of nuclear power generation, the few…

An epidemic of mindless violence Daniel Henninger The Wall Street Journal What is wrong with Americans these days? The country appears to be coming apart at the seams, says Daniel Henninger, owing to an epidemic of “mindless behaviour”. Urban crime has spiked. There has been a surge in “random homicidal shootings” and smash-and-grab robberies. Every political protest now threatens to descend into anarchy. Along with road rage, there’s now “airline rage”. In a recent case involving three women who allegedly beat up a security officer at JFK airport, the indictment noted that “extreme behaviour” on airlines is “out of control”. Motor vehicle deaths jumped by 18.4% in the US last year; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ascribed this increase to more people driving under the influence, speeding and failing…

An estimated 300,000 people in Britain are living with a potentially fatal heart condition – about a third of whom are probably showing no symptoms, according to new research. The study, published in the BMJ journal Open Heart, is the first to offer “robust estimates” of the number of people in the UK with severe aortic stenosis (AS), which occurs when the main valve allowing blood to flow out of the heart stiffens or narrows. It estimates that in 2019, 291,448 over-55s had AS but that only 68% of them were experiencing symptoms, from chest pain to breathlessness. The researchers suggest that 59% of the patients with AS were likely to die within five years “without proactive management”. The study concludes that 20,000 people a year would benefit from treatment…

Why are women leaving it later and later to have children, and having fewer of them? According to the Office for National Statistics, a new milestone has been reached: around half of women in England and Wales now don’t have children by the age of 30; in 1971, the figure was just 18%. At 45, nearly one in five are childless. The news has provoked much dismay, but it didn’t surprise me, said Holly Williams in The Guardian. I’m a 36-year-old woman without children, and “my child-free friends still outnumber those with kids”. Much has changed since the 1970s. Women are educated and employed; but maternity leave is feeble and paternity leave worse. Dating apps have given people a sense of endless romantic possibility, making it harder to settle down.…

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” Orson Welles, quoted in The Times “Politics is a constant repetition, in cycles of varying length, of one of the oldest myths in human culture, of how we make kings for our societies, and how after a while we kill them to achieve a kind of rebirth.”Boris Johnson, quoted in The Independent “Youth is the best time to be rich; and the best time to be poor.”Euripides, quoted on Medium “My health is good; it’s my age that’s bad.”Country music star Roy Acuff, quoted in Forbes “An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.”Arthur Miller, quoted in the South China Morning Post “Criminal lawyers see bad people at their…

England’s T20 series against West Indies – played hard on the heels of their Ashes debacle – is proof that a “five-match series can still produce compelling cricket right down to the final ball”, said Tim Wigmore in The Daily Telegraph. Twice, Eoin Morgan’s side came from behind, squaring the series with rousing wins. But in Sunday’s decider at Kensington Oval, the visitors came up short: chasing West Indies’ 179-4, they managed 162 all out. When the final over began, England were still in with a shout, since they required 20 runs to win, said Simon Burnton in The Guardian. But paceman Jason Holder “took a sledgehammer” to their hopes, taking out the last four wickets with successive deliveries – only the fourth time such a feat has been achieved…

To The Daily Telegraph Following his assertion that we stand “four-square with the people of Ukraine”, it is good that the PM is being proactive, as Britain has an important role. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and John Major, Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons (it held the third-largest arsenal in the world) in return for assurances that “the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” would be respected. The signatories reaffirmed “their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. In 2014, Russia dishonoured its commitment by annexing Crimea while the West looked on. Having resorted to military force with complete impunity in Georgia in 2008, and then in Crimea, Vladimir…

Motivational podcasters “may just be the Billy Graham-style evangelist leaders” of our secular age, said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. One of the leaders of this pack is the 29-year-old business mogul Steven Bartlett, who recently became the youngest investor on BBC1’s Dragons’ Den. Bartlett, who co-founded the digital marketing firm Social Chain aged 21, has a “paradoxical” public persona: inspirational but inescapably “brash”. This is a man who gave his memoir-cum-self-help book the title Happy Sexy Millionaire. Yet get past that, and you will find that his podcast – The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett – is impressive: he is a skilful and “well-researched interviewer who, by listening carefully and not interrupting, often winkles out real insight”. Also recommended in the motivational genre are The High…

Francis Bacon was “obsessed with the animal world”, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Brought up the son of a racehorse trainer in Ireland, the child who would become “Britain’s most important postwar painter” was a “sickly asthmatic” with an allergy to dogs, and no interest in country pursuits: he “preferred prancing around in girls’ knickers to shooting or riding with hounds”. Yet all his life, Bacon (1909-1992) observed animals closely, and as an artist he sought to capture “the unvarnished reality of our human condition” by observing their “uninhibited behaviour”. He watched wild animals in Africa, drew inspiration from the photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s images of animals in motion, and was “riveted” by the primates at London Zoo. This new exhibition is the first to explore this theme, demonstrating how…

A recent stay with a vegan family made me think about the challenges of pairing wine with plant-based food, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. Some classic matches can be tweaked. Chardonnay, which goes with creamy sauces, also works with vegan creaminess (though you may want a “lighter” bottle). Cabernet sauvignon goes with beetroot. Often, though, it’s more a question of how ingredients “harmonise on the plate”. Spicy dishes work well with slightly sweet whites (consider German rieslings); aromatic Alsatian whites are a good match for lighter vegetable dishes. And roasted root vegetables, mushrooms, black beans and aubergines can all be “rich enough to counterbalance the weight of a big red”. A word of warning: not all wines are vegan. Many are “fined” before bottling (to remove impurities) and…

• Mute people and topics you’d rather not see on Twitter, to stop yourself getting distracted or enraged by particular posts. Go to “privacy and safety” in settings, tap “mute and block”, then the plus sign to add anything you want to block. • Disable read receipts (the little ticks that turn blue when you have read a message) on WhatsApp, so that you don’t feel under pressure to reply immediately: in settings, go to “account” then “privacy” and toggle read receipts off. You won’t know if the recipient has read your message either. • Avoid “like” addiction on Instagram by clicking the three dots in the top right-hand corner and hiding the like count. To hide everyone else’s likes, go to settings, click “privacy” then “posts”, and toggle “hide…

The Star Alfriston, East Sussex Recently revamped by the hotelier and designer Olga Polizzi, this medieval inn is an ideal base from which to explore the South Downs, said Tatler. The interiors are lovely (both in the main building and the 1930s and 1960s extensions, where most of the rooms are), with a mixture of contemporary and antique furniture, as well as “jaunty” Richard Smith textiles and “painterly” Lewis & Wood wallpapers. The cosy restaurant is run by River Cafe alumnus Tim Kensett, who draws on a larder of local ingredients, and the bar, with its beamed ceilings and stone floors, is a great place for a leisurely Sunday roast. Doubles from £190 b&b; thepolizzicollection.com.…

Barry Cryer 1935-2022 As well as appearing on countless TV and radio panel games, Barry Cryer, who has died aged 86, wrote jokes for almost every British comedian who came to prominence in the second half of the 20th century. Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd, Dick Emery, Jasper Carrott, Mike Yarwood and Kenny Everett were just some of the comics made funnier by Cryer’s wit and invention. One of his own favourite sketches was for an episode of The Morecambe & Wise Show featuring a guest appearance by Dame Vera Lynn, said The Times. When Ernie Wise gave the Forces Sweetheart an effusive introduction and asked her what she planned to sing, Cryer had her reply: “Sing? I thought I was just a guest.” A panic-stricken Ernie then turned to Eric…

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee met to set UK interest rates amid sharpening inflationary concerns globally. Consumer prices in the eurozone shocked on the upside, hitting a record 5.1% and increasing pressure on the ECB to respond with tighter monetary policy – despite fears about the impact of sky-high energy prices on growth. The US Federal Reserve kept rates on hold, but chairman Jay Powell signalled that robust action against inflation is approaching After a punishing January in stock markets, the FTSE 100 was the only major index to end the month higher – thanks to its focus on energy and value stocks. Wall Street’s Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices staged a roaring close, buoyed by strong results from Alphabet, Apple and others; but it wasn’t enough to…

• Braced for war Traders are bracing for war in Ukraine, says The Economist. Just how bad could things get? Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets (and a former CIA intelligence analyst), doesn’t mince words. “If Russian tanks cross the border, markets will freak out.” Although the biggest impact would be on European gas markets, Russia’s “huge importance” as a commodities supplier means “shockwaves would spread far more widely”. It supplies nearly a tenth of the world’s aluminium and copper; 43% of palladium (used in catalytic convertors). It is the world’s “second-largest exporter of oil” and “the largest exporter of wheat”. The mere fear of disruptions has already sent prices up – Brent crude is approaching $90/barrel and could hit $120 if war breaks out, according…

Mike Lynch The founder of Autonomy, once dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates”, is “a step closer” to extradition to the US after losing a multimillion-pound civil fraud claim brought by Hewlett-Packard, at London’s High Court, said The Times. The ruling follows “a ten-year legal battle over who was to blame” for the failure of HP’s disastrous $11bn acquisition of Autonomy in 2011. Lynch has always denied that he fraudulently inflated Autonomy’s value, blaming HP’s mismanagement. The judge disagreed. “Mike Lynch has gambled and lost,” said one barrister. “He fought the UK civil case in part to show the criminal case in the US was wrongly brought.” If convicted there, he faces up to 20 years in jail. Home Secretary Priti Patel has now approved his extradition. Lynch is appealing the decision.…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1297 An Ettinger travel pass case and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 14 February. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1297, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass case (assorted colours), which retails at £105, and two Connell Guides connellguides.com). ACROSS 7 Ladies suffering snores around end of siesta? (7) 8 Mysterious underground room is not half cold (7) 10 Shades of a Welshman so to speak (4) 11 Meeting prisoner about to cut criminal dealer (10) 12 Weak Knight in one company (6)…