Innholdsfortegnelse for 1372 i The Week

It was a bizarre “double bill” that paved the way for war, said Shaun Walker in The Guardian. First, Vladimir Putin summoned members of his security council to the Tsarist opulence of the Kremlin’s St Catherine Hall to ask if anyone objected to his plans. “From behind his desk, frequently smirking”, he listened as his lieutenants lined up to voice their support. Yet even those trusted acolytes “appeared overawed” during their televised grilling: twice, Putin snapped at the hawkish head of Russia’s spy service, telling him not to prevaricate and to “speak directly!”, leaving him visibly shaken. Then, having won the backing of his security chiefs, Putin gave a “rambling” televised speech, asserting that Russia’s planned incursion was justified. This was the performance of a man who has effectively been…

20% of men say they would like to be PM, compared with just 7% of women. 26% of men say they can see themselves sitting in the House of Commons, whereas only 15% of women can. YouGov/The Times 60% of British adults wish their life was “more simple”, while 41% say the pace of life is too much for them, up from 30% in 1983. More than half wish they could “slow down”. Savanta ComRes/Daily Mail 83% of British adults think that lateral flow tests should continue to be freely available. 66% say some Covid restrictions should remain in place, and 70% support the continuation of mandatory self-isolation after a positive test. YouGov/The Times…

A writer’s gypsy roots Steven Knight, the creator of the hit gangster drama Peaky Blinders and co-creator of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, had to give up his early career ambitions. His father was a blacksmith’s farrier in Birmingham, he told Ryan Gilbey in The Guardian. “We’d go to these scrap-metal yards – my parents were related to Romani people – and the gates would open to this incredible world that no one else knew about,” he recalls. “There was always a fire going, eggs frying in a pan over the flames. There’d be horses, statues, lamp posts.” The romance of that world fascinated him; but he realised he’d never grow up to work in it. “I knew I couldn’t shoe a horse,” he says. “And still to this…

In February 1990, during negotiations about German reunification, the US secretary of state James Baker reassured the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if it went ahead, Nato would not expand “one inch to the East”. Yet since then, the military alliance has expanded to include nine central and eastern European states. Moscow believes this is a betrayal. “They conned us,” said Putin this month. “They simply cheated us.” The issue is slightly murky: the promise technically covered only the expansion of Nato forces into East German territory. No agreements were made about the expansion of Nato into other former Eastern Bloc states in the final treaty, as the issue was not tabled during negotiations. However, many Western leaders did make promises at the time: Douglas Hurd, the UK foreign secretary,…

“Artificial intelligence can create such realistic human faces that people can’t distinguish them from real faces,” says the New Scientist – “and they actually trust the fake faces more.” For a study published in the journal PNAS, 315 volunteers were shown a series of photos of faces – some real, others made by an AI program – and asked which was which. They got it right only 48% of the time. Fake white people’s faces were hardest to accurately identify; possibly, the study said, because the AI program had been fed so many white faces that it had become good at generating them. In addition, when 223 other volunteers rated the trustworthiness of real and fake faces from 1 to 7, the AI faces were judged 7.7% more trustworthy than…

It has been described as “the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history”, said Emma Haslett in the New Statesman – and “for good reason”. Between 2000 and 2014, more than 700 subpostmasters and mistresses were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting in the branches of the Post Office they ran. Some were jailed; many more lost their livelihoods; four reportedly died by suicide. And yet none of them had done anything wrong. The blame lay with Horizon, a faulty IT system designed by Fujitsu that had been installed in branches. Last week, an independent inquiry into this scandal finally got under way. Several former Post Office managers have given powerful testimony to it, said Tom Ambrose in The Guardian, including Linda Little, who paid more than £90,000 of…

The Government may finally have dropped all its Covid restrictions, said Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, but last week, the authorities proved that they had lost none of their taste for bossing us around. No sooner had forecasters spotted signs of the impending Storm Eunice than travel warnings were put in place, schools were closed, trains were cancelled and parks were sealed off with crime tape. What has happened to us? We used to be stoical in the face of “severe weather events”. Now there is hysteria, fuelled up by endless crisis warnings and dire talk of “thunder snow” and “weather bombs”. Of course, storms can cause serious damage, and we need to know when they are approaching; but can’t we be trusted to gauge the risk for ourselves,…

It is customary, at the end of any Olympics, to “offer a verdict of dewy-eyed sentiment, expressing relief” that the bad things predicted to happen never did so, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. But you just can’t do that where Beijing 2022 is concerned. For the truth simply cannot be glossed: these Games were a “dystopian horror”. The “oppressive pandemic protocols”, which ensured the action took place in a “hermetically sealed mini-state”, cut off from ordinary Chinese people, were bad enough. Worse still was the cravenness of the International Olympic Committee, which bent over backwards to give China the chance to “launder its image on the world stage”. Even the most blatant “agitprop” went unchallenged – including repeated denials by Chinese officials of the genocide taking place against…

The Real Charlie Chaplin 1hr 54mins (12) Familiar but engaging Chaplin documentary Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” was, for a time, “the most recognisable human being on Earth”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. There were even lookalike competitions: according to legend, Chaplin himself entered one of them, and came 20th. This meticulous documentary uses archive material and interviews to chart the great comedian’s rise from extreme poverty in Lambeth to global fame. While the film adds little new, bar a “fascinating” lost recording of him talking to Life magazine in the 1960s, Chaplin’s is a tale that “never fails to compel”, however many times it’s told. I regret watching this film, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator, not because it’s bad – it isn’t – but because I now…

A hoard of mysterious Basquiats “It seems like a story too good to be true, and for some in the art world, it is,” says Brett Sokol in The New York Times. This month, a trove of 25 previously unknown paintings on cardboard by Jean-Michel Basquiat were put on display for the first time at a museum in Orlando, Florida. The artist supposedly created them without the knowledge of his dealer and sold them on to Thad Mumford, a TV writer. Mumford, who died in 2018, apparently stored them for three decades; they only resurfaced in 2012, and were auctioned off after he failed to pay the bills for the storage unit where he had been keeping them. Basquiat himself died in 1988 at the age of just 27, and…

Tracy sets Jim straight on why Jazzer fell behind on rent – he wanted to give everyone a good Christmas. Brian tells Neil that he wants to offer Chris a cottage to live in with Martha until the divorce is settled. Phoebe breaks it to Rex that she’s leaving, and that Kate is interested in taking over her job. Amy and Alice go social speed dating at The Bull for Valentine’s Day – Alice hopes that Amy will meet someone. Brian and Alice both see solicitors about the possible implications of the divorce. Alice’s solicitor advises her not to make decisions about Martha that she might later regret. Tracy and Chelsea move into Jim’s while their boiler is fixed. With Peggy in attendance, Kate makes her rewilding pitch to a…

Argentina and Brazil tour Explore wonders such as the Perito Moreno Glacier, Iguazú Falls and Christ the Redeemer over 15 days. From £1,899pp b&b (including Manchester flights). 020-4502 3459, exoticca.com. Depart 27 April. Seven nights in Cyprus Stay at the 4-star The Queen’s Bay Hotel, in a peaceful peninsula spot on the outskirts of Paphos, from £678pp allincl. (including Cardiff flights). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 4 May. Four-star Sardinia stay Set on a private beach in the famous Spiaggia le Bombarde, the Hotel dei Pini offers 7 nights from £623pp half-board (including Bristol flights). 020-8016 3295, thomascook.com. Depart 30 April. All-inclusive Curaçao resort A 6-night stay at the upscale, beachfront Renaissance Wind Creek resort, costs from £1,404pp (including London flights). 020-3788 0445, expedia.co.uk. Depart 20 April. Covid-19: please check government…

Switzerland’s second-largest bank is facing fresh scrutiny from regulators and the European Parliament after a damaging leak indicated it had provided services for “human rights abusers, corrupt politicians and businessmen under sanctions” for decades, said Elliot Smith on CNBC.com. The trove of “client data” – some 30,000 accounts leaked by an internal whistleblower – deals a substantial blow to the Swiss bank’s attempts to clear up its reputation, and may have much wider ramifications. MEPs in the European Parliament have urged the EU to “re-evaluate Switzerland as a high-risk money-laundering country”. One can understand why, said The Guardian. The “panoramic array of high-risk clients” contained in the “Suisse Secrets” report range from “a human trafficker in the Philippines”, to “a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese popstar girlfriend”.…

• Calm prevails “Investors should keep things in perspective and not overreact to headlines,” said Emmanuel Cau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays. For the most part, they have followed his advice this week, said Katie Martin in the FT. While Moscow has certainly suffered – the rouble has plummeted and the Moex stock index is down almost 9% this week – markets elsewhere have largely decided “that Russia’s latest display of military force… will produce only a modest and well-contained impact on global asset prices”. As Goldman Sachs notes, they have “already absorbed a fair amount of Russian stress”. • Energy risks Even so, the mild reaction to Putin’s actions “looks little more than a holding position”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. The “relative calm” won’t last…

John Lyttle The pressure is mounting on Boohoo’s CEO John Lyttle in the face of a perfect storm for fast-fashion retailers, said Laura Onita in The Sunday Telegraph. It was a “Covid winner during lockdowns”, but profits have dried up since amid supply chain crises and inflation. And while shares in many other e-commerce outfits have been hit too, Boohoo has come under particular scrutiny. Its stock, already down 75% in 12 months, has become a magnet for shortsellers betting on further falls. Irish-born Lyttle joined Boohoo from Primark in 2019, shortly before the exposure of appalling working conditions in its Leicester factory. Shares, ironically, hit an all-time high at the time: Boohoo was said to be crying all the way to the bank. No longer. Andy Palmer When the…

Nearly eight years after it was razed to the ground by Isis fighters, Mosul University’s library has reopened. The renovated building has 60,000 books on its shelves, about a third of which were donated from the UK. By 2024, it aims to have 200,000. The reopening is important “to all of us who lived through that terrible time,” said secretary-general Dr Sayf Al-Ashqar. “It is a symbol of a new beginning and we would like to thank everyone who made it possible.” People across England are reviving the ancient practice of gleaning, in order to reduce food waste and help keep food banks stocked. Gleaning – which involves combing recently harvested fields for rejected or overlooked crops – dates back to biblical times, but it all but died out in…

Paris Prison suicide: A former French model agent who was suspected of procuring more than 1,000 women and young girls for his friend Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead in the Paris prison where he was awaiting trial for the rape of a minor. Jean-Luc Brunel, 76, is reported to have hanged himself. He was arrested in December 2020 – a year and a half after Epstein’s death by suicide – at Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was attempting to board a flight to Senegal. This week, his alleged victims expressed anger that they had been robbed of justice. His lawyers said he was innocent, and had been driven to suicide by the injustice he faced. Zurich, Switzerland Fugitive found: One of Europe’s most wanted fugitives – a Belgian…

1 Darby’s Castle, written and performed by Kris Kristofferson 2 This is My Father’s World by Maltbie Davenport Babcock, performed by Cedarmont Kids 3 Hearts of Stone by Eddie Ray and Rudy Jackson, performed by The Charms 4 Darling Dareyne, written and performed by Shusha Guppy 5 Un Canadien Errant by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie, performed by Ian & Sylvia 6 Heart of Glass by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, performed by Blondie 7* Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach and Salomon Franck, performed by the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Richard Hayman 8 Baltimore by Randy Newman, performed by Nina Simone Book: The Golden Apples by Eudora Welty Luxury: a supply of pet food * Choice if allowed only one record…

They want to work, so why not let them Sarah O’Connor Financial Times How’s this for perverse logic? The UK is reeling from labour shortages, yet it’s banning tens of thousands of people desperate for a job from filling the gaps. I’m referring to asylum seekers, says Sarah O’Connor. In Britain they can take up work only if they’ve waited a year or more for a decision on their application. Contrast that with Germany, where they can work after three months; or Sweden and Canada, where they can do so straight away. It’s said that easing the work rules would act as a “pull factor” for asylum claims, but we all know factors such as language and family links are far more significant. And barring asylum seekers from work carries…

A review of 15 studies by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has found that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are about half as likely to develop long Covid as those who are unvaccinated or have just had one dose. According to the review, double vaccination is most effective against long-term symptoms among over-65s, and has the least effect among those aged 19 to 35. People with long Covid who were vaccinated subsequently are also more likely to report an improvement in their symptoms than unvaccinated long Covid sufferers. “These studies add to the potential benefits of receiving a full course of the Covid-19 vaccination,” said Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at UKHSA. “Vaccination is the best way to protect yourself from serious symptoms when you get…

In the latest skirmish in the Tory Party’s “war on woke”, the Government has issued new guidance on “political impartiality in schools”, said Georgia Chambers in The i Paper. The guidelines, published by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, propose that the teaching of potentially controversial historical figures should focus primarily on “factual information” about them, and that issues related to the British empire must be presented in “a balanced manner”. Some of the guidance is aimed at groups such as Black Lives Matter which, it says, have “partisan views”. It’s easy to read between the lines, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. The document singles out topics such as empire, racism and the climate crisis as political issues that should be treated with particular care. The effect, of course, will be…

“I can understand why mankind hasn’t given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners – two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime.”P.J. O’Rourke, quoted in The Sunday Times “Intellectual blemishes, like facial ones, grow more prominent with age.”De la Rochefoucauld, quoted in Forbes “You lose some, you draw some.”Jasper Carrott on life as a Birmingham City fan, quoted in the FT “Good memories are our second chance at happiness.”Queen Elizabeth II, quoted in Harper’s Bazaar “If you invite a bear to dance, it’s not you who decides when the dance is over. It is the bear.”Russian proverb cited in The New York Times “How much of human life is lost in waiting!”Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in The…

Brook gives Khan a “proper beating” British boxer Kell Brook has spent most of his career in the shadow of his better-known compatriot Amir Khan, says Ron Lewis in The Times. The pair were teenage sparring partners, but then their careers diverged: “by 18, Khan had an Olympic silver medal and was a millionaire” – while Brook’s successes were of a far more modest sort. But at Manchester Arena on Saturday night, the two fighters, now both 35, finally faced each other in the ring. And it was Brook who “battered his nemesis”, pouring years of frustration into the fight and delivering what proved to be a “proper beating”. After six rounds the fight had to be stopped: Khan was barely on his feet. “I’ve just beaten Amir Khan,” said…

Few stories feel as “perfectly poised for the screen” as that of Anna Delvey – the Russian truck driver’s daughter who infiltrated New York society by posing as a German heiress, and defrauded banks and individuals out of hundreds of thousands of dollars along the way. A magazine article about her went viral in 2018; now Netflix has turned the affair into a “nine-episode romp”, said Annabel Nugent in The Independent. Julia Garner‘s Delvey is a smirky “mean girl” with a weird pan-European accent. Hot on her tail is semi-fictionalised journalist Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky), who is trying to unravel her story. It is a fascinating tale, but the series feels like a wasted opportunity: we never really get a sense of who Delvey was, or what motivated her. The…

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, 1971 (Harper Perennial £9.99). The subtitle says it all: “a savage journey to the heart of the American dream”. Drug-addled and fantasy-laden, it’s the original work of gonzo journalism, where the protagonist is the reporter and the events are hazy. God, it’s funny, if not exactly a reflection of truth. Dignity by Chris Arnade, 2019 (Sentinel £25). Want to know why Trump won? This is the story from the point of view of America’s downtrodden: photos of what Arnade calls “back row America”, with sparse but telling commentary and interviews. The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, 1978 (Vintage £9.99). A study of the fragility of the male ego, possessiveness and jealousy. A man, alone towards the end of his…

Programmes Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History Stephen Fry sets out to discover the stories behind mythical beasts with the help of scientists, historians and writers, including J.K. Rowling. Sun 27 Feb, BBC1 19:00 (60mins). Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy Over six episodes, the foodie actor travels around Italy to sample its rich regional cuisine, starting with Naples and the Amalfi coast. Sun 27 Feb, BBC2 19:20 (40mins). Peaky Blinders Hotly anticipated final series of the gangster drama set in 1920s Birmingham. Tommy sets off to North America, where the end of Prohibition brings new opportunities. Sun 27 Feb, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Writing with Fire: Storyville Oscar-nominated documentary about India’s only newspaper founded and run entirely by women. Wed 2 Mar, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). Amol Rajan Interviews Sir Ian McKellen The…

Serves 4-6 1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry or 320g block plain flour, for dusting, if needed 6 Conference pears (or other small pears), about 100g each lemon juice, for squeezing 70g unsalted butter, chopped 70g caster sugar 70g runny honey ½ tsp fine sea salt 50g walnut pieces 50g dark chocolate (60% cocoa solids), chopped whipped cream, to serve • If using block pastry, roll out on a lightly floured work surface until 3mm thick. Cut a 23cm disc from the pastry, prick all over with a fork and chill while you prepare the filling. • Peel and halve the pears, then carefully remove the cores with a teaspoon; you want perfect halves if possible. Transfer to a bowl and toss with a little lemon juice as you go to…

Sussurro Mozambique This new “off-grid, solar-powered escape” on Mozambique’s Nhamabue Peninsula is “the epitome of barefoot luxury”, said Tatler. Its main lodge is built “in the local architectural vernacular, using natural materials”, and its six private bungalows strike a note of “sophisticated African minimalism”, with design details including outdoor baths, woven baskets, thrown-earth pots, and chairs crafted on site. The resort has a saltwater lap pool and a white-sand beach, and sits beside a 1,425-square-kilometre marine protected area. The diving and snorkelling are good, and dugongs (a rare cousin of the manatee) are often seen in the nearby lagoon. Doubles from £430, including meals and drinks; sussurro.co.…

Conservative satirist who helped pioneer gonzo journalism P.J. O’Rourke 1947-2022 In his 1980s and 1990s heyday, the writer and satirist P.J. O’Rourke “owned one of those bylines that made many readers tingle with anticipation”, said The New York Times. A “cranky original”, he was sharp-witted, fearless, adventurous and unpredictable. And what made him doubly interesting was that he came “bombing in from the right side of the political spectrum”. O’Rourke “was that rare conservative who appeared to be having a better time, and doing better drugs, than everyone else. He was wellread; he was, it often seemed, the only funny Republican alive.” Patrick Jake O’Rourke was born in 1947 in Toledo, Ohio, into a family of Republican-voting Irish-Americans. His father was a car salesman, his mother a school administrator. He…

US and European stocks rose midweek following sharp swings, as traders pondered the situation in Ukraine and the likely impact of Western sanctions on Russia. The US S&P 500 entered a “technical correction” – defined as a 10% drop from a recent peak. Europe’s Stoxx 600 index has also suffered near 10% falls. The oil price tested the $100 mark; analysts at JPMorgan predicted it could hit $120/barrel if the crisis worsens. There was some relief in markets that the sanctions imposed were unlikely to disrupt the global economy. European natural gas futures rose further after Germany put the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which runs directly from Russia, on hold. The UK’s largest online property portal, Rightmove, reported that the housing boom shows little sign of abating. The average price…

It hasn’t been a great week for former Barclays boss Jes Staley, said James Sillars on Sky News. The bank has frozen share awards worth in the region of £22m while Staley “contests the findings of a regulatory probe” into his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Still, elsewhere at the bank champagne corks have been popping on news of a giant leap in annual profits to a record £8.4bn. Cue a bonus bonanza, said Kalyeena Makortoff in The Guardian. Barclays has increased its bonus pool “by more than 17% to £1.3bn” – the latest large British bank to up its payouts. Earlier this week, HSBC confirmed that it is “boosting its pool by nearly a third” to $3.5bn (£2.6bn). State-backed NatWest has also resumed paying cash bonuses to…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1300 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 7 March. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1300, 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 1 Work hard on a tune (6) 5 What’s needed to put on a brave face? (3,5) 9 Vocal pieces so long in headphones (8) 10 Member in river – oh no! (4,2) 11 Where might you see religious spectacles? Turkey parts (7,5)…

“The fightback against President Putin’s incursion into eastern Ukraine has begun,” said Maggie Pagano on Reaction. First to act was the US, which swiftly unveiled sanctions targeting investment and trade in the Russian-controlled areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, and has now announced steps to prevent Moscow raising capital abroad. In London, Boris Johnson imposed sanctions on five Russian banks and three Kremlin-linked oligarchs, who will have their UK-held assets frozen, and be denied entry to Britain. And these were just the “first tranche” of possible measures, said the PM, reacting to criticism that they weren’t nearly harsh enough. The EU’s response has been tougher: it has unveiled sanctions on Russian banks and on 351 members of Russia’s parliament. Germany, meanwhile, suspended its approval of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas…

We are living on the brink of a major “vibe shift” that will change the “dominant social wavelength”, an influential American trend forecaster has warned. Quite what the vibe of the new era will be remains to be hammered out; though the forecaster, Sean Monahan, has suggested that hedonism, irony, wide jeans and messy hair and make-up may be on the up. But a picture is emerging of the hobbies, tastes and values that are likely to lose cultural cachet when the zeitgeist changes. Flat whites, earnestness, avocados and millennial pink are among the things predicted to be on their way out, along with fairy lights, cocktails in jam jars, Big Tech, New Balance trainers, cancel culture, filtered selfies, Peloton bikes, facial hair and having babies.…

Ottawa Protests cleared: More than 190 people were arrested in Ottawa last week, and dozens of vehicles seized, as police cleared protests that have paralysed the city centre since late January. The crackdown – thought to be one of the largest police operations in Canadian history – began on Friday, when police used pepper spray and stun grenades to clear blockades in downtown Ottawa. Meanwhile, at least 76 bank accounts linked to the occupation have been frozen. On Monday night, Canada’s parliament approved PM Justin Trudeau’s decision to impose emergency powers to deal with the protests. Trudeau said the measures would not be kept in place for “a single day longer than necessary”, but insisted the police crackdown was necessary as the situation was “still fragile”. Washington DC Covid emergency…

A Finnish cross-country skier suffered an unfortunate condition at the Beijing Winter Olympics: his penis froze. Remi Lindholm was taking part in a 50km race which was shortened to 30km due to howling winds and-17°C temperatures. Even so, the going was tough. “You can guess which body part was a little bit frozen when I finished,” he said. He explained that he used a heat pack to thaw his appendage, but “when the body parts started to warm up… the pain was unbearable”. Lindholm finished in 28th place. A 500lb bear called “Hank the Tank” is thought to be behind a spate of 28 breakins in a Californian town over seven months. Officials in South Lake Tahoe said that Hank smashes doors and squeezes through windows to ransack homes for…

Our rivers are awash with drugs Pharmaceutical pollution is contaminating rivers on every continent, a major study has shown. Scientists at the University of York measured the levels of 61 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in 258 rivers around the world, including the Thames and the Amazon. Just two areas had unpolluted waters: Iceland and a part of Venezuela whose indigenous inhabitants don’t use modern medicine. The most common APIs were an anti-epileptic drug called carbamazepine and the diabetes drug metformin, along with paracetamol, antibiotics and caffeine. Potentially toxic levels of drugs were detected in a quarter of the sites, the highest being in low-to-middle income countries such as India and Nigeria – possibly because their populations have enough money to buy drugs but may live in areas without good sewage…

Jonny Greenwood is Radiohead’s keyboardist; but when he first joined the band in his teens, he had no idea how to play the instrument, he told NPR’s Fresh Air podcast. Singer Thom Yorke had got rid of their last keyboard player for being too loud. “So when I got the chance to play with them [at school], the first thing I did was make sure my keyboard was turned off when I was playing,” he said. Luckily, the other band members always made such a noise on their guitars that they didn’t notice his silence – which bought him time to learn the instrument. “Thom would say, I can’t quite hear what you’re doing. But I think you’re adding a really interesting texture.” Benedict Cumberbatch has caused a stir online,…

How on earth does Nick Clegg do it, asked Reaction. The former UK deputy prime minister was once best known for wrecking the political fortunes of the Liberal Democrats. Then he moved to Facebook, as vice president (global affairs), where, safe to say, his record has been mixed. “Facebook on Clegg’s watch has been accused of fuelling misinformation through its failure to tackle misleading content on its platforms.” It has been charged with helping to foment the genocide in Myanmar, and amplifying the lies that stoked the Capitol Hill riots. Yet now Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has made Clegg its president of global affairs, responsible for “all policy matters” worldwide – putting him in theory at a similar level of seniority as Zuckerberg himself. We…

A month ago, no team in the Premier League looked capable of stopping Manchester City, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian. Pep Guardiola’s side were on a 12-match winning streak and led Liverpool by 12 points: with barely half the season played, the title race appeared as good as over. But what was starting to “look like a procession has, quite unexpectedly, regained a sense of intrigue”. On Saturday, City slumped to their first Premier League defeat in four months, losing to Tottenham in a 3-2 thriller. Meanwhile, Liverpool claimed their fifth straight victory with a 3-1 win over Norwich. Jürgen Klopp’s side now trail City by six points – and have a game in hand. If they win that, and then beat City at the Etihad in April, the…

Bringing it all back home To The Times There have been numerous articles about the difficulties of working from home, but I have not seen one about living in a household with people who do so. It is a nightmare. I collect three grandchildren from nursery and school and take them home, but instead of their being able to run to mummy or daddy for a hug, it’s “Shush, mummy’s in a meeting”, or “Shush, daddy’s on a conference call”. These little children are living in offices. Moira Bowyer, London Lost without a landline To The Daily Telegraph In the midst of Storm Eunice the electricity went off. The mobile phone network was down, but the trusty landline stayed up. Yet this week I had an email from BT saying…

Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You 4AD £10.99 It may only be February, said Helen Brown in The Independent, but I’m pretty sure this “wonderful” new album from the “darlings of American indie-folk” will prove one of the year’s best releases. “In a market saturated with arty folk rockers, Big Thief stand out not by doing things weirder, but by doing them better”. Rather than dealing in introspective moodiness, they offer a “questing outward gaze and quirky lyrical choices” combined with “catchy melodies” and a “playful, earthy ease”. It’s a “wonderful” album, agreed Phil Mongredien in The Observer. Unusually, the 20-track collection was recorded in four different sessions with different engineers in different US locations. The result is Big Thief’s “most varied and expansive record to…

“Stonehenge is perhaps the most famous monument in England,” said Melanie McDonagh in the London Evening Standard. Built around 2500 BC – about the same time as the Great Pyramid of Giza – it is a “huge, haunting edifice” that continues to baffle even the experts to this day. And while we may never know precisely why it was built, modern scholarship can tell us a lot about the world in which this mysterious, monolithic site on the Salisbury Plain was erected. We know, for instance, that Britain was “surprisingly connected” in that era, and that it was possible to walk across parts of the North Sea to continental Europe, “enabling the passage of men, beliefs, wild animals, stone, artefacts and skills”. The world of Stonehenge, the British Museum’s fascinating…

Showing now Eerie figures, tapestry heads and sculptures made from her own clothing are among the haunting pieces on display in The Woven Child, an exhibition of late works by Louise Bourgeois, “one of the most important artists who has ever lived” (Sunday Times). Until 15 May, Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (southbankcentre.co.uk). The long-ago death of a beloved son and brother is at the heart of Sian Carter’s debut play Running With Lions, a “compassionate exploration of a family learning to see itself clearly” in the face of grief (Daily Telegraph). Until 12 March, Lyric Hammersmith, London W6 (lyric.co.uk). Book now Revived in 2020 and interrupted by the pandemic, the Royal Ballet’s sumptuous production of Swan Lake makes a glittering return to Covent Garden. 1 March-28 May, Royal Opera House,…

New cars: what the critics say What Car? The ë-Berlingo is one of a select few electric MPVs. Although it’s effectively an electric van, the extra seats and windows make it more suited to family life than work. Powered by a 134bhp electric motor and a 50kWh battery, it has an official range of 174 miles on a single charge (more like 115 in reality). It takes roughly seven hours to charge from a wall socket, or 30 minutes from 10% to 80% on a rapid charger. The Daily Telegraph There are two body styles available – the standard M with five seats, and the XL, which is 35cm longer and has an additional row of two seats, making it the cheapest seven-seat electric car on sale. The ë-Berlingo is…

Heavenly hiking on La Gomera With a population just one-fortieth the size of Tenerife’s, La Gomera is “the connoisseur’s Canary Island” – and, thanks to the “staggering” diversity of its landscape, a walking holiday here is a positively “operatic” experience, said Hugh Thomson in the FT. In the Benchijigua crater, the surroundings look “more Mexican than African”, littered with prickly pear cactuses and agaves. The laurisilva, or laurel forest, of the Garajonay National Park is “dreamlike”, with its strange mixture of laurel, myrtle, viburnum and giant heather trees hung with strands of Spanish moss. There are dramatic canyons to explore, and a great peak – the Alto de Garajonay – to conquer. No matter where you venture, the sea is always close by, so every hike can end with a…

Peloton: going nowhere? In October 2020, Peloton’s founding CEO John Foley said “it annoys the crap out of me” when the fitness firm is described as “a Covid story”, because “what we are building is here to stay”. Famous last words? Perhaps, said Patrick McGee in the FT. Peloton’s meteoric ascent as a lockdown “cultural phenomenon” has been matched by a dramatic decline. During 2021, an extraordinary $38bn was lost as shares plummeted 80%, partly on safety fears following a fatal accident involving a child and a Peloton treadmill. The revelation of “Project Tinman” – an internal plan to conceal a rust problem in its exercise bikes – has further hit confidence. Following pressure from the activist investor Blackwells Capital, Foley has been defenestrated, along with 2,800 other workers. What…

How’s Britain’s Brexit bounceback going? Not so well, according to one Tory grandee, said Michiel Willems in City AM. The former party leader Iain Duncan Smith opined that, more than two years after quitting the EU, the Government has done “sweet FA” to exploit opportunities and shift the most “burdensome” EU regulations. Corporate leaders, meanwhile, have rounded on the newly appointed Brexit Opportunities Minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg, for claiming that – despite a £20bn collapse in UK to EU exports last year – “evidence that Brexit has caused trade drops is few and far between”. As one ParcelHero executive put it, the minister seems to be calling upon “the reality-bending powers of Marvel’s Dr Strange”. There’s at least one solid good news story that Rees-Mogg can trumpet, said The Daily Telegraph.…

Britain’s sanctions lack teeth Alistair Osborne The Times Devising punishments that will hurt Vladimir Putin “more than everyone else” is tricky, given “Russia is at the centre of the energy market” and its big banks are “entwined” in the global banking system, says Alistair Osborne. Even so, the Government’s efforts seem “wide of the mark”. Boris Johnson has gone after “a trio of Putin’s pals” who are big in energy: SGM Group co-owner Boris Rotenberg, his nephew Igor, and Gennady Timchenko of the Volga investment group. But he’s “late to the party”: all three have been on the US list since 2018. The five sanctioned banks, meanwhile, don’t include the state-backed “big two”, VTB and Sberbank. And nothing is being said about BP’s stake in the state-backed oil group Rosneft,…

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