Innholdsfortegnelse for 1382 i The Week

Not so long ago, “the game of energy poker being played by Europe and Russia, though dangerous”, seemed under control, said The Economist. Despite having imposed sanctions in most sectors, Europe carried on buying energy from Russia, which provides over 40% of its gas and 25% of its oil, while Russia raked in billions in revenues. Yes, the rhetoric was escalating – and Moscow had demanded that all payments be made in roubles, in contravention of EU sanctions, to prop up its currency – but “each side thought the other lacked the guts to go all in”. Then, on 27 April, Russia “upped the ante”. When Poland and Bulgaria missed the deadline for paying in roubles, the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut off their gas supply. This week, Europe…

Andrew Lloyd Webber, who announced the imminent closure of his new musical Cinderella, only a year after it opened in the West End. Current and future cast members were informed hours before the news went live. Some, who were not reached, said they’d found out that they were losing their jobs on social media. The Scottish census, which received so few responses that the deadline for returning the form had to be extended by a month. Despite repeated reminders, and threats of a £1,000 fine, almost a quarter of households had yet to return their forms last week, with three days to go before the original deadline. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, with reports that Netflix has dropped her planned animated series as part of a cost-cutting drive. The series,…

Amsterdam Sexual assault: A famous Dutch football pundit has had to resign from his TV show in the wake of the furore created by his admission that he’d once sexually assaulted an unconscious woman. To the amusement of fellow panellists on his talk show, Johan Derksen, 73, a former footballer, had jokily recalled how, 50 years ago, he had penetrated a drunken woman with a candle. The ensuing outcry – and announcement by prosecutors that they’d investigate – led him to backtrack and say he only placed the candle close to the woman’s legs. But he has refused to apologise for telling the story, saying only that he’d delivered it “in the wrong tone”. Madrid PM’s phone hacked: Spanish officials have revealed that the mobile phone of Prime Minister Pedro…

“I have temporarily taken in two Ukrainian refugees and suddenly find that, for very little sacrifice, my stock has soared. People who have regarded me as a hard-nosed, right-wing bastard are suddenly confused and struggling to readjust. A woke young relative who has despaired of my ignorant, reactionary views on Black Lives Matter, climate change, gender and so on suddenly sees a halo above my head. My mother-in-law on the Costa Brava reports that mentioning that her daughter and son-in-law have Ukrainian refugees is like being sprinkled with gold dust. Never have I received so much praise for doing hardly anything at all.” James Bartholomew in The Spectator…

Going private in the land of free healthcare John Burn-Murdoch Financial Times Don’t let our healthcare system end up like America’s. That’s what defenders of the NHS always cry, says John Burn-Murdoch. Yet few realise how far down this path we’ve already gone. We like to think that our healthcare is free at the point of use: the reality is that more and more of us feel obliged to pay for it. In 1990, out-of-pocket spending on medical expenses here was equivalent to 1% of GDP, compared with 2.2% in America. Thirty years on, that gap has disappeared: the figure for the US is now 1.9%; for the UK, 1.8%. And going private isn’t just something middle-class people do: most of the rise in such spending has been among the…

Children can’t help daydreaming It’s no secret that children sometimes drift off during lessons; but according to a new study, they may be spending a quarter of their time in class daydreaming, affecting their ability to learn. Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast played 97 children aged six to 11 a story set in ancient Egypt, and every two minutes, asked them what they were thinking about. They found that girls and boys across the age groups typically admitted that their minds had wandered about a quarter of the time (although there were outliers: one boy had lost focus 83% of the time). The daydreamers said they were thinking about the rain, Harry Potter, sweets, football and TikTok, among other things. Afterwards, the children were asked questions about the story –…

Donald Trump was anxious about being hit by bananas, pineapple and tomatoes at his campaign rallies, and put his security on alert, because flying fruit is “very dangerous”, court papers have revealed. While giving testimony to lawyers representing protesters who claim to have been assaulted by his guards, the former president was asked why he had urged his supporters to “knock the crap out of” anyone who seemed bent on lobbing a tomato. “I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. Tomatoes are bad,” he noted, but “some fruit is a lot worse.” Kim Kardashian stole the show at this year’s Met Gala by turning up in the very dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to serenade John F.…

Across the world, people are once again taking holidays, working in offices and eating out in restaurants, said Helen Davidson in The Guardian. “Faced with the seemingly unstoppable Omicron variant”, they’ve resolved to live as normally as they can with Covid-19. But in China, it is a different story. Beijing’s “zero-Covid” policy means that a single case will trigger the imposition of restrictions, and with Omicron now cropping up in multiple provinces, it is estimated that 340 million people are back in full or partial lockdown. In Shanghai, residents of areas deemed high risk have been literally fenced into their homes, said Mike Liu in The Times. And with compulsory testing in force, people live in fear of an official in a hazmat suit (a “Big White”) knocking on their…

Little in life has been straightforward for Ronnie O’Sullivan, said Elgan Alderman in The Times. His father, a Soho sex-shop boss, was convicted of murder when his son was a teenager, and spent 18 years in prison. His mother also had a spell inside in the 1990s – for tax evasion – leaving young Ronnie to care for his eight-year-old sister. And O’Sullivan himself “has endured drug and alcohol addiction”, as well as often crippling bouts of depression. But on Monday night at the Crucible in Sheffield, with his father and two children, Lily and Ronnie Jr, cheering him on, he “fulfilled 30 years of destiny” by beating Judd Trump 18-13 in the final of the World Snooker Championship. It is the seventh time O’Sullivan has won in Sheffield, and…

A disgraceful way… To The Guardian In Mark Townsend’s report on delays in issuing visas to Ukrainian families, a Government source is quoted as saying, by way of explanation, that safeguarding processes were in place to protect children from trafficking. Where do you start with this? We are talking about families with children, not adults with random children picked up off Ukraine’s streets. What meaning of “safeguarding” such children validates leaving them in a war zone? These documented families will be coming by a legal route and landing at an airport, not pitching up on a beach in Kent. The time to implement such processes is when they are safely in the UK. John Filby, Ashover, Derbyshire …to treat refugees To The Times Nine months after the fall of Kabul,…

by John Walsh Constable 432pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 In the 1980s, the world of books, which had long been “drab and worthy”, suddenly became “hip”, said Kathryn Hughes in The Sunday Times. This transformation was powered by an exciting new generation of writers – Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Angela Carter – and by a publishing world that became cannier at exploiting new commercial opportunities. Witnessing it all was a young John Walsh, who rapidly rose up the ranks of literary journalism to become books editor of The Sunday Times in 1989. In Circus of Dreams, he offers an entertainingly gossipy memoir of the period which gleefully mixes “high and low”. Thus we learn that the eminent publisher George Weidenfeld considered himself the “Nijinsky of cunnilingus”, and that when…

“There’s mighty, and then there’s Mark Rylance in Jerusalem, a performance so powerfully connected to its part that it feels almost superhuman,” said Matt Wolf in The New York Times. Back in 2009, Jez Butterworth’s play, and Rylance’s astonishing central turn in it, took the world by storm. Now it is back, once again transporting audiences to a Wiltshire wood on St George’s Day, where Johnny “Rooster” Byron – a charismatic, barrel-chested reprobate who deals drugs and parties with local youths – is facing eviction from his illegal encampment. The production reunites Rylance, 62, with director Ian Rickson and some of the original cast, including Mackenzie Crook, who is still “heartbreaking” as Ginger, the most loyal of Rooster’s ragtag band. And it is a triumph: this is “no museum piece…

• BorrowMyDoggy.com is a dog-sharing service that matches dog owners with local people who would love to look after a dog. The app is free, but it’s worth spending £45 on the premium plan, which covers insurance and makes the process easier. • On Rover.com, you pay someone to look after your dog, which adds a level of commitment and professionalism from the sitters, who are reviewed. It’s free to sign up to and simple to use. Overnight stays range from £25 to £45. • Tailster.com is a similar concept – dog owners submit their requirements and sitters will get an alert and reply with quotes if they can help. Sitters provide live photo updates and GPS tracking to show what your dog is up to while you’re away. •…

Yvonne Blenkinsop 1938-2022 Yvonne Blenkinsop, who has died aged 83, was the last of the “headscarf revolutionaries” – four ordinary women from Hull who helped transform the fishing industry in the late 1960s. At the time, “trawlers based at St Andrew’s Dock landed 25% of Britain’s total catch”, said The Daily Telegraph; but the management of the fleet was antiquated, and fishermen were obliged to take enormous risks. At sea for three weeks at a time, they would sail 1,000 miles into the Arctic Circle “with no medical back-up or rescue ship”, and sometimes no radio operator, though ships could “turn turtle” at any moment in the rough waters. Yet anyone who objected to these blatantly unsafe working conditions was likely to be blacklisted by local employers, and families “had…

Karan Chanana UK political parties are supposedly banned from accepting foreign donations, said The Observer. But the system is as holey as a sieve. “Companies are not required to disclose whether donations are sourced from foreign funds or UK revenues”, which may have helped Karan Chanana – boss of the rice brand Amira – to donate more than £220,000 to the Conservative Party, despite the hefty liabilities of the group’s British subsidiary. Chanana, 49, set out to turn an Indian family rice business into a major international brand and, for a while, succeeded. But Amira Nature Foods was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in 2020 after missing filing deadlines, and “its rice brands are no longer widely available in the UK”. Perhaps £220,000 will swing it. Clare Hornby…

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What happened As politicians prepared for this week’s local elections, there were calls for a drastic overhaul of working practices in Westminster to address a culture of sexism and inappropriate behaviour. The calls were fuelled by the resignation on Saturday of the Tory MP Neil Parish, who was seen by female colleagues watching pornography on his phone in Parliament. He admitted to having done so twice, claiming he first stumbled on the content while searching for tractors. The scandal came in the wake of reports that 56 MPs have been referred to Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) for alleged sexual misconduct. Cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said that she had once been “pinned up against a wall” by a male MP; her colleague Suella Braverman said that a minority…

A new “aesthetic” – dubbed Coastal Grandmother – has been identified as this year’s most aspirational lifestyle trend. Inspired by older female characters in various Hollywood films, it is said to be about projecting a wholesome but expensive seaside vibe. Think Diane Keaton repotting her plants on a scrubbed pine table, or Oprah Winfrey, dressed in crisp white linen, relaxing outside in a wicker chair. Trainee midwives at Edinburgh Napier University were advised that although most of the time a “birthing person” will have female genitalia, they might find themselves caring for a “birthing person” who is transitioning from male to female, and who still has “external male genitalia”. The guidance has since been amended.…

A record 2.7 million people in England have been referred for cancer checks in the past 12 months, the NHS said this week. Having dropped sharply in 2020, numbers are now roughly 16% higher than they were prepandemic. Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, said that around 11,000 people were being tested every day, but that “nobody would say for a moment we are where we would like to be”. While referrals are at record highs, some 30,000 people who need treatment haven’t yet started it, and the proportion of patients being seen for diagnostic tests within the target waiting time of two weeks is at a record low of 83%, compared with 91% pre-pandemic.…

A man who has spent the past six years with his penis attached to his arm has said he feels like a “real man again” now that it’s been reattached to his groin. Malcolm MacDonald, 47, lost his penis to an infection that caused it to drop off into a toilet in 2010. Doctors created a replacement in 2015, but were forced to graft it onto his arm because of a lack of oxygen in his blood. In a film about his ordeal, MacDonald recalls helping an elderly woman at a supermarket with an item on a top shelf, only for his penis to pop out of his sleeve unexpectedly. “Can you imagine six years of your life with a penis swinging on your arm?” MacDonald asked. “It’s been a…

HONDURAS Life in jail for the ruler of a narco state? The Boston Globe It’s not every day that a former head of state is extradited to the US to face serious criminal charges, says Marcela García. Thirty years ago, it happened to Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was convicted of drug trafficking and racketeering, and served 17 years in a Florida prison. Now it has happened to the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who stands accused of facilitating the importation of more than 500 tonnes of cocaine into the US. Hernández insists he is innocent, but it doesn’t bode well for him that a US court convicted his brother of similar trafficking charges last year, sentencing him to life in prison. The trial of Hernández, who stood…

It’s hard to recall that until recently, discussing “the change” was taboo, said Eleanor Mills in The Daily Telegraph. Today, you can scarcely move for firms boasting about their menopause support schemes, or for headlines screaming about the shortage of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). “Even Rod Stewart is banging on about it.” It’s a welcome development. Thanks to the efforts of campaigners – in particular Davina McCall, who made a “groundbreaking” documentary on the subject last year – everyone is better informed about possible menopause symptoms: hot flushes, brain fog, anxiety, depression, insomnia. And greater awareness is leading many more women to seek effective treatment. These campaigns have fuelled an amazing rush on HRT, said Ben Spencer and Zoë Crowther in The Sunday Times. The therapy, first introduced in the…

It’s only two miles from the scene of his greatest triumphs, but Boris Becker’s new home is a far cry from Wimbledon Centre Court, said David Brown in The Times. Sentenced last week to two-and-a-half years, he is now residing in HMP Wandsworth, a crumbling, vermin-infested Victorian jail. Becker had been convicted of four charges under the Insolvency Act: before declaring bankruptcy in 2017, he had concealed millions of pounds of assets to avoid paying his debtors. How did it happen? “How did it all go wrong for the former golden boy of tennis”, who became the youngest ever Wimbledon champion, aged just 17? How did someone who earned some £40m during his career as a player, coach and commentator end up drowning in debt? What the judge described as…

It was billed as a gamechanger, the “biggest night in the history of women’s boxing”, said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. And for once, the “breathless hype” was justified. On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano – long regarded as the two finest female boxers in the world – faced off for the first time and produced an “unforgettable encounter”. This was a history-making bout in more ways than one, said Gareth A. Davies in The Daily Telegraph: it was the first time two women have earned “million-dollar purses” and the first time women have headlined the “hallowed mecca in Manhattan”. The 20,000 fans who packed the arena witnessed a contest of “battle, skill and wit” whose outcome was in doubt till the very…

To the Financial Times Is there not a danger that we in the West may be fooling ourselves if we believe, like US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, that Russia will come out of its “special military operation” in Ukraine weakened? History may help with the answer. It’s said that the supposed poor performance of Soviet troops in the winter war of 1939-40 against Finland led Hitler to risk his invasion of Russia in 1941. Yet it is clear that the Red Army learnt much from that war, especially fighting in severe winter conditions, which they used to good effect when defeating the Nazis. At the height of the Second World War, some British politicians, Churchill’s minister of aircraft production Lord Brabazon of Tara being one, voiced the hope that Russia…

by Louise Kennedy Bloomsbury 320pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 The Irish writer Louise Kennedy only began writing aged 47, but her rise has been meteoric, said Madeleine Feeny in The Spectator. The End of the World is a Cul de Sac, her debut short story collection, was “fought over” by nine publishers. And now, with this first novel, she has written what promises to be another hit. Plot-wise, Trespasses doesn’t break new ground, said Kevin Power in The Guardian: set near Belfast in 1975, it’s about a young Catholic primary school teacher who falls in love with a posh Protestant barrister. What distinguishes it is its “sense of utter conviction”. This is a story “told with such compulsive attention to the textures of its world that every page feels…

As the village reels from the Grey Gables news, Brian shares his anxieties about the Home Farm valuation with Alice. Clarrie injures herself at cricket practice and is reluctantly laid up. As Ian contemplates looking for a new job, Adam urges him to follow his dream of buying a pizza oven with his redundancy money and setting up on his own. Brian shares his woes with Stella, who has a possible solution: the family could buy Alice’s share of the farm. Brian asks Adam if he and Ian will invest their windfall, but Adam resists. Thanks to Lily, Tracy has an interview for kitchen telesales; when the interviewer turns out to be an old schoolmate, Tracy goes to pieces. After comforting Tracy, Jazzer decides to try for the job himself.…

Makes 25 doughnuts 500g strong white bread flour 80g caster sugar, plus extra for coating 7g instant dried yeast (2 tsp or a whole sachet) 10g fine sea salt zest of one lemon or orange (optional) 4 eggs 150ml water 125g soft unsalted butter chunk of your favourite chocolate bar (optional) vegetable or sunflower oil for deep frying • In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, yeast, salt and citrus zest, if using. Crack in the eggs and pour in the water. Give everything a good mix and then knead for 4mins until you have no visible patches of dry flour left. This is a very wet dough, so an electric stand mixer is the best option. • Gradually incorporate the butter (a small chunk at a time) until your…

Tellonym This honesty app allows users to invite others to tell them anonymously what they think of them. Users have to be over 17, but no proof of age is required. The “global free-speech platform” Parler has a rolling news feed and gives updates from users you follow. Many have joined after being banned from other platforms, and extremist opinions are rife. Roblox Players choose an avatar and enter one of the 40 million games in virtual worlds created by users themselves. Adults can play alongside children and communicate through dialogue boxes. Calculator# is one of many “vault” apps. It’s designed to look and function like an ordinary calculator, but entering a passcode opens a secret storage area that can’t be seen anywhere else on the phone. Telegram is an…

A Macedonian lakeside gem Set beside the “limpid” waters of the great lake with which it shares its name, the town of Ohrid in North Macedonia is as beautiful as any in the Balkans – and getting there is now easy, says Paul Bloomfield in The Sunday Telegraph, thanks to the recent launch of direct Wizz Air flights from Luton. Known as Lychnidos (“City of Light”) by the Ancient Greeks, its historic heart is rich in Ottoman mansions and grand Byzantine churches, and it has a “hulking” medieval fortress and a Hellinistic-era amphitheatre that is home to an annual festival. Stay long enough to visit one of the pretty shingle beaches nearby, and to explore the mountainous surroundings, including the “bear-prowled” forests of the Pelister and Galicica national parks and…

Régine 1929-2022 In 1957, a Belgian-born singer known as Régine opened a basement nightclub in a backstreet of Paris’s Latin Quarter. She could not afford a live band, said The New York Times, so she bought a jukebox for her clientele to dance to. Business was not good, however, and she eventually decided that the jukebox was to blame. “When the music stopped, you could hear snogging in the corners,” she told the BBC, years later. “It killed the atmosphere. Instead, I installed two turntables so there was no gap in the music. It was the firstever discotheque, and I was the first-ever club disc jockey.” Over the next 30 years, she spun that single outpost into a disco empire stretching to 23 clubs in Europe, the Middle East and…

How are companies responding to inflation, asked Schumpeter in The Economist. Here are some bullet points: Everyone’s citing it From December to March, almost 75% of firms in the S&P 500 mentioned rising prices in earnings calls. “Such is the novelty” of inflation that it “runs the risk of making such turgid occasions almost riveting”. Estimates are worsening Renault initially predicted raw-material costs would double this year; now it thinks they’ll triple. Others talk of fivefold hikes in the cost of sending containers via Europe and Asia, and shortages of everything from corn syrup to lithium. Passing it on The risks of getting inflation wrong are obvious – look at the punishment Netflix took after hiking its prices. But many big companies have managed to push up prices “without alienating…

The week’s best shares Inchcape The Times Supply-chain problems have pushed new car volumes below the 2019 figure, but the global dealer’s orders are at record levels due to demand for affluent marques such as BMW and Porsche. Profits are expected to jump 25%. Buy. 708.5p. Jubilee Metals Group The Mail on Sunday Jubilee turns mining waste into chrome and platinum (used in catalytic converters to reduce car pollution), while working to reduce carbon footprints. Expanding geographically, and into copper. Buy. 15.2p. Marks Electrical Group The Sunday Times Shares in the high-margin, pricey ovens-to-fridges retailer have drifted down since its November listing. But its free next-day delivery promise is attractive. Set for expansion and run by an expert. Buy. 91p. Rightmove The Daily Telegraph The property search platform provides tools…

Neighbours fans, with news that Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue, both 53, have agreed to return to the soap that launched their careers more than 30 years ago. Their characters, Scott and Charlene, who were last seen in Ramsay Street in the late 1980s, will appear in the final episode of Neighbours, which is due to cease production in June. Cuckoos, after a male named PJ flew a total of 60,000 miles over six migrations, a record for tagged members of the species. Each July, PJ leaves King’s Forest in Suffolk and heads to its wintering grounds in the rainforests of the Congo basin.…

About four in ten British households are struggling with their gas and electricity bills; nine in ten say their living costs have risen. 42% of adults think they won’t be able to save any money in the coming year, up from 34% in November. ONS/Financial Times Most British adults of all racial backgrounds oppose giving police more stop and search powers. However, opposition is highest among black Britons, with 66% opposed and 25% in support. Among white Britons, 48% are against expanding stop and search, while 36% are in favour. YouGov/The Independent More than a quarter of British adults say they feel more creative than before the pandemic began. Censuswide/V&A…

Targeted by the tabloids In 2005, The Sun reported a rumour that Sienna Miller (below) was pregnant. She was 23, dating Jude Law and appearing in a production of As You Like It. And she was indeed pregnant – but less than 12 weeks, and she’d only told her three closest friends. “I realised pretty soon that [The Sun] was blagging medical records,” she told Emma Brockes in The Guardian. What made her think that? “My doctor phoned and said, ‘We sent the documents you asked for.’ And I said, ‘I didn’t ask for any documents.’” Devastated by the exposure, and in a “panic”, she didn’t continue with the pregnancy. It was only last year that she reached a settlement over the phone-hacking scandal; and though The Sun made no…

On 2 May 1982, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed the General Belgrano, an Argentinian cruiser. It sank with the loss of 323 lives: nearly half the Argentine deaths in the war. The sinking – marked in The Sun’s first edition the next day with the notorious headline “GOTCHA” – led to a heated controversy in Britain. The ship was outside the Maritime Exclusion Zone imposed by Britain around the Falkland Islands: neither country actually declared war, and hostilities were largely restricted to that area. It also appeared that the Belgrano was heading away from the Falklands at the time. Anti-war campaigners argued that Thatcher’s government had ordered the attack in order to head off a Peruvian peace initiative. It later emerged that Britain had known, from signals intercepts,…

IRELAND Burning turf: a tradition that deserves to die The Irish Times (Dublin) Should we give up “the God-given right of every freeborn Irishman and woman” to burn turf in their fireplaces? That, said Pat Leahy, is the question that has been transfixing Irish political debate in recent days. The environment minister Eamon Ryan’s plan to ban the sale of smoky fuels, including coal and turf, has been met in some quarters with uproar; rural MPs have threatened to bring down the coalition government. “I’m as partial as anyone to the Gaelic smell of a turf fire Gaelicly blazing in the hearth of a Gaelic home.” And I know many regard it as “part of their cultural patrimony”. But “just because something is a tradition, doesn’t make it worth preserving”.…

Health officials investigating an outbreak of hepatitis in children think that the culprit may be an adenovirus. As of 21 April, the UK had recorded 169 cases of “acute hepatitis [liver inflammation] of unknown origin” in otherwise healthy children. Several of them have had to have liver transplants. In a briefing last week, the UK Health Security Agency said that its scientists were examining a number of possible causes, but that the “most likely” trigger was an adenovirus – a group of viruses which mostly only cause mild illness, but which, like Covid, have many variants or subtypes. Of 53 children with the disease, 40 had tested positive for adenovirus. There have been similar, though smaller, outbreaks in the US, Israel, Japan and other countries. The UK team is looking…

In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Matt Hancock, who was then health secretary, famously claimed to have thrown a “protective ring” around England’s care homes. But those of us with relatives in this overstretched sector have long known that was “a sick joke”, said Andrew Grice on The Independent. Now we’ve had it confirmed by a “landmark ruling” in the High Court, which found that the decision which led to 25,000 patients being discharged from hospitals to care homes in March and April 2020, many without being tested, was unlawful. I saw this tragedy up close when my 95-year-old mother caught Covid in her care home: she recovered, but five of her fellow residents died from the disease. This court ruling is a serious blow to the Government’s…

“Politics has always been the systematic organisation of hatreds.” Henry Adams, quoted in The Washington Post “Every generation, civilisation is invaded by barbarians. We call them ‘children’.”Hannah Arendt, quoted on The Bulwark “All art begins as a struggle against chaos.”André Malraux, ibid. “The army is a copy of society and suffers from all its diseases, usually at a higher temperature.”Leon Trotsky, quoted in The Economist “In order to achieve the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”Miguel de Cervantes, quoted on The Browser “If there’s not something wrong with you, there’s something wrong with you.”Lionel Shriver in The Spectator “Oh God, I’m only 20 and I’ll have to go on living and living and living.”Jean Rhys, quoted in The Times “Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.”Virginia…

“West End debuts don’t come much more astonishing than this,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Anyone who has seen Jodie Comer’s “chameleonic” performance as the assassin Villanelle in TVs Killing Eve will understand why she’s in such demand on screen. Now, her solo turn in Prima Facie, as a hotshot criminal barrister who unravels after she is raped by a colleague, “propels her into the front rank of stage stars”. Comer’s “terrific facial expressiveness” and vocal versatility were well-known; “the revelation” here is her physicality. She “embodies the swaggering work hard/play hard culture of legal high-flyers”, and populates the stage with multiple characters, including her bruiser brother, a condescended-to policeman, and Jules, the apparently “sheepish” colleague. Comer’s “ferocious yet forensic performance” blows the audience away, agreed Patrick Marmion…

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters, 2006 (Virago £8.99). I don’t know of any writer who better conjures up the atmosphere of a time and place. This book perfectly catches a very particular backwater of wartime London. Henry “Chips” Channon: The Diaries edited by Simon Heffer, two volumes, 2021 (Hutchinson £35 each). I have a love of diaries that I am not proud of, but the very best are written by the most waspish and indiscreet people, crippled by snobbery. These are unputdownable. The New Confessions by William Boyd, 1987 (Penguin £9.99). I love fictional life stories and John James Todd is one of my favourite characters, even though not particularly sympathetic. The writing and plot line is, as always with Boyd, superb, and you are truly engaged in this…

Programmes Beck: Haunted by the Past The popular Swedish crime series, based on the Martin Beck novels, returns with a feature-length episode. Sat 7 May, BBC4 21:00 (90mins). Afghanistan: No Country for Women Emmy Award-winning journalist Ramita Navai explores the realities of life for Afghan women under Taliban rule. Sun 8 May, ITV1 22:15 (65mins). Fergal Keane: Living with PTSD The BBC correspondent, who has reported from some of the most brutal conflicts of recent times, talks about being diagnosed with PTSD and its impact on his life. Mon 9 May, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). The Spy Who Died Twice Using actors and archive footage, this documentary tells the story of John Stonehouse, the ex Labour minister who faked his own death and who seems also to have been a spy.…

Seven nights in Antigua Stay at The Escape at Nonsuch Bay, where each unit has a plunge pool and great views, from £1,340pp half-board (included Manchester flights). 0344-472 9646, virginholidays.co.uk. Depart 22 September. Indonesia in 17 days Explore the vibrant landscape of the world’s largest archipelago from £1,599pp b&b (including Birmingham flights, transfers and activities). 020-3883 4254, exoticca.com. Depart 13 September. Norway & Denmark trip Experience the laid-back chicness of Scandinavian culture on this week-long cruise, from £774pp allinclusive. 0808-239 4123, cruise118.com. Depart 24 June, from Southampton. Corsica apartment for four Spend 7 nights in the charming Le Maria Venezia, in a building with a patina of history and great sea views, from £446pp self-catering (excluding flights). 020-3918 3285, simpsontravel.com. Arrive 11 June. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing…

Amazon: shock reversal Anyone looking for signs that the US economy is slowing “had plenty to gawk at” last week, said DealBook in The New York Times. Exhibit number one? Even the mighty Amazon has suffered its first loss in seven years. Shares in the e-commerce giant tumbled by 10%, eradicating $150bn of value, after it reported a $3.84bn quarterly loss. The group’s near 20% stake in the electric vehicle company Rivian was partly to blame, noted Dominic Rushe in The Guardian – it lost $7.6bn following a 50% collapse of Rivian’s shares. More worrying, though, is that the retail juggernaut’s growth rate has slumped to its lowest “in nearly two decades”. Founder Jeff Bezos, who has taken a personal $14bn hit, once described Amazon’s business as a “flywheel” –…

Say farewell to the Great Resignation Jim Armitage The Sunday Times Perhaps the only good thing about the recession that “seems likely pretty soon” is that it may root out some of the “Missing Million”, says Jim Armitage. These are the estimated 1.1 million workers who disappeared during the pandemic, with disastrous consequences for the British economy. Nearly all sectors are now affected by labour shortage, some acutely. “The resulting inability of companies to satisfy demand for goods and services is one reason Britain is set for the slowest economic growth in the G7 this year.” Roughly, a third of “the million” retired during the pandemic; a third fled back to their home countries; and a third were younger workers who dropped out “as a lifestyle choice”. This generation has…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1310 An Ettinger shoe horn 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 16 May. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1310, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) Bridle Hide travel shoehorn in black, which retails at £75, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 7 Singular remains found around tavern in a state (8) 9 Lots of medicine unopened for Amerinds (6) 10 Ornamental stone almost worn out (4) 11 Send down mugs for coffee (10) 12 Did once employ party pocketing tons (4,2) 14 One was…