Innholdsfortegnelse for 1418 i The Week

Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have many things in common, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. “Both were recruited to rescue their parties from the toxic legacy of a catastrophic predecessor. Both are well-manicured men who never appear with a hair out of place or a speck of fluff on their well-tailored suits.” Both, after the years of Tory psychodrama, don’t mind being a little “vanilla-flavoured”: they believe that being on top of the issues is more important than rhetorical wizardry and wit. They have both, nevertheless, come under pressure “to give a Big Speech, one that articulates their credo and defines what they are really about”. And both, as it happened, delivered their “vision” speeches on successive days last week, at the very same venue in east London. “We…

Noma, the restaurant in Copenhagen regarded as the “world’s best”, which is to close owing to rising costs (see page 37). The UK space race, after Britain failed in its attempt to launch the first satellites from Europe. Having taken off from Spaceport Cornwall, an adapted 747 named Cosmic Girl successfully released a Virgin Orbit rocket carrying the satellites, but due to an “anomaly”, the rocket then broke up (see page 37). Anglers in Essex, after a fishing lake in Rochford was invaded by a hungry seal. The creature is thought to have swum up an inlet in December and wandered into the reservoir – and it has been feasting on its fish stock ever since. One expert said it had no incentive to leave, as it has found itself…

Nearly 80% of adults in the UK believe that Britons buy too much stuff. Only a quarter think that they themselves buy too much. Keep Britain Tidy 26% of British adults have a positive view of Prince Harry, down from 81% in 2017, according to polling conducted by YouGov last week, after passages from his memoir Spare were leaked. 23% have a positive view of his wife Meghan, down from 49% in 2017. The Sunday Times British voters trust Rishi Sunak more than Keir Starmer to deliver on the economy, by 42% versus 35%. 39% say they have more trust in Sunak to halve inflation; 33% say they have more confidence in Starmer. Savanta/The Daily Telegraph…

James Norton’s serial killer In all three seasons of Sally Wainwright’s gritty cop drama Happy Valley, James Norton has starred as the violent and remorseless serial rapist Tommy Lee Royce, says Jonathan Dean in The Sunday Times. How does the actor cope with playing one of the most evil villains ever seen on TV? “I mean, I just sort of do,” he shrugs. “There are parts of Tommy’s story which were inevitably uncomfortable. I had weird dreams about violence. But not everybody goes off set to their trailer to cry. I love my job, but, ultimately, acting is pretending. At the end of the day I’m usually tired and I want to have a bath, a beer and to decompress. It’s not like I’m going home and thinking, ‘I can’t…

A woman who was prevented from boarding a flight in Florida after airport staff found a boa constrictor in her carry-on luggage insisted that it was an “emotional support pet”. When the four-foot snake showed up in an X-ray scan, the woman reportedly said that its name was Bartholomew, and that she could not travel without it. The airport later posted a photo of the X-ray on social media, and encouraged passengers to check rules before flying. Phil and Jane Carter, of Ilkeston, Derbyshire, have spoken of their shock at seeing a two-legged fox nimbly crossing their lawn on its front legs, “upright like a human”. The couple said they spotted the fox and filmed it before it dashed off “like a rocket”. “It was fascinating,” Mr Carter, 71, said.…

GERMANY The officials who want to outlaw fun Cicero (Berlin) The bossiness of Germany’s “nanny state” is getting out of hand, says Ben Krischke. Like many German families, mine celebrated the new year by setting off a few fireworks – a welcome return to a tradition that has died over the past two years, owing to a Covid-related ban on their sale. In some cities, however, the fun got out of hand: in Berlin alone, 33 police officers and firefighters were hurt in alcohol-fuelled firework-related incidents. These were ugly incidents, it’s true, caused by a handful of thugs: but they were few and far between. Absurd then that police and firefighter unions, backed by some politicians, should now be calling for fireworks to be banned outright. The sale of fireworks…

Emmanuel Macron famously met his wife, Brigitte, at school, where she was a teacher and he was a student. Last week, the French president was asked an unusually blunt question on a show hosted by autistic journalists: had he set “a good example” by marrying her? “When you are in love, you don’t choose,” he replied. “It is not a question of setting an example or not setting an example.” Besides, he added, “she wasn’t really my teacher – she taught me drama. That doesn’t count.” Using a ghostwriter, as Prince Harry has done, is a venerable tradition, notes Ben Macintyre in The Times. In 1956, John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, about eight US senators, helped to launch his presidential bid. Only in 2008 did his speechwriter, Ted Sorensen,…

“You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.”Vivienne Westwood, quoted in the Financial Times “You can live down any number of failures, but you can’t live down a great success.”Vicki Baum, quoted in The New Yorker “The secret of power is the knowledge others are more cowardly than you are.”Ludwig Börne, quoted in The Guardian “People in focus groups worry that he relies too much on focus groups.”Pollster James Johnson on Keir Starmer, in The Daily Telegraph “Things are not made better if you face them. They are just reactivated. I’m all for denial. It’s a tried and tested survival mechanism.”Fay Weldon, ibid. “The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable one. The trouble is that it is nearly reasonable,…

To The Daily Telegraph Last year, 6,950 registered doctors applied to the GMC for a certificate to work abroad. Some will return, but many will stay. This is a significant loss to this country, especially when you consider that next year there are only 7,500 medical school places available nationally. This is a situation in which only money will talk. There should be an immediate 50% increase in the fees paid by medical students to reflect better the cost of the course, but with a full loan available. Each year of work for the NHS should attract a 10% reduction in both the loan and interest. Such changes would in effect give those who stay a tax-free pay rise as junior doctors, and increase the amount paid by those who…

by Florence Hazrat Profile 176pp £12.99 The Week bookshop £9.99 For some, it’s a sure sign of literary “failure”, said Henry Hitchings in the TLS. Others savour its “spiked delights”. No punctuation sign inspires as much passion as the exclamation mark, and in this “enjoyably mischievous book”, the literary scholar Florence Hazrat reflects on its past and present use. Invented in the 14th century, the exclamation mark has long been dismissed as vulgar by purists. But that, Hazrat notes, hasn’t stopped it proliferating, particularly in the digital sphere. She shares many fascinating nuggets – for instance, that there are 2,131 exclamation marks in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), but just one in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952). This book is short, but it’s full of interest, said…

Arthur Timothy at Gallery 1957 Since independence in 1961, Sierra Leone has had more than its fair share of tragedies, including a devastating civil war from 1991 to 2002, and a horrendous death toll during the Ebola epidemic. Many of the paintings in Postcards from a Promised Land, this show by Sierra Leonean-Ghanaian artist Arthur Timothy (b.1957), are based on family holiday snaps taken there long before these catastrophes befell the country, which carries with it a sad implicit irony. Timothy is best known for his portraiture, exemplified by many striking works here: People Pekin (2022) sees two children gazing up at us, warily; Harriet (2022) pictures an altogether more confident girl, hair braided, smiling back at us mischievously. Equally impressive are Timothy’s landscapes, from a panorama of mountains seen…

Kalimera 43 Topsfield Parade, London N8 (020-8347 6667) This Greek restaurant began life in 2015 as a gourmet food truck in Hoxton, says Julie Bindel in The Spectator. It proved so popular that it now has three permanent sites: two in France and this one in London, minutes from my home in the “media-luvvie enclave of Crouch End”. I’m very pleased to have discovered it, because everything here is “pretty much spot-on”. The menu is modern but with plenty of classics, and everything is “cooked from scratch, the old-fashioned way”. An “indulgent slab” of creamy feta cheese is pan-fried in crispy filo, and comes drizzled with chilli honey and a dollop of baba ganoush. There’s a “perfectly formed” Greek salad, and various “beautifully presented” mains, including souvlaki, kleftiko and moussaka.…

Charming Canaries complex Escape to HD Parque Cristobal Gran Canaria, a charming village-style resort, near Playa del Inglés. Four nights cost from £546pp all-inclusive (incl. Bristol flight). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 7 March. Seven nights in Bali Indulge in the ultimate holiday experience at the 5-star Kupu Kupu Jimbaran, enclosed by hectares of lush tropical gardens. From £793pp b&b. 020-3024 8211, expedia.co.uk. Arrive 7 April. Canadian rail experience Enjoy the “Ocean” rail route on VIA Rail from Montreal to Halifax, stopping in Quebec and Toronto. Seven nights from £1,799pp, incl. flights, accomm. and train. 01342-395542, canadiansky.co.uk. All-inclusive Mexico escape Spend 7 nights at the Iberostar Tucan hotel, which sits directly on the beach of Playacar. From £1,359pp all-inclusive (incl. London flights). 020-8974 7200, travelrepublic.co.uk. Depart 16 April. Covid-19: please check…

Rishi Sunak has promised “to halve inflation” from its current 10.7% level this year. But, once again, the Bank of England is threatening to rain on the PM’s parade, said Michael O’Dwyer on FT.com. The Bank’s chief economist, Huw Pill, has warned that the threat of persistently high price rises is more severe for the UK than other advanced countries, which could “signal interest rates having to stay higher for longer” – even if energy costs fall. Among the “distinctive” challenges Britain faces when it comes to slaying the inflation monster, according to Pill, are low unemployment, Britons quitting the jobs market, and companies finding it “relatively easy to raise the cost of their products”. With less than impeccable timing, Pill’s prognosis coincided with figures from the ONS suggesting that…

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What happened Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s congress, supreme court and presidential palace on Sunday, demanding that the military oust his left-wing successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The rioting caused extensive damage to government buildings and property including artwork and antiques. Police – whose initial response was slow – used tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades to regain control of the complex in Brasília, and 1,500 people were later arrested. The unrest took place a week after Lula was inaugurated for a third term, following elections that Bolsonaro’s supporters had falsely claimed were rigged. Lula condemned the rioters for their “acts of terrorism”, and vowed that they’d be punished. The scenes were also condemned by leaders around the world. Bolsonaro…

More than 1.5 million people in England and Wales identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or other in the 2021 census – equivalent to 3.2% of all respondents. More than 260,000 (0.5% of the total) recorded their gender as different to that on their birth certificate. In both cases, the data was being collected for the first time, and there were regional disparities. In Brighton, one in ten people said they were gay, lesbian or bisexual, and in Burgess Park, London, 8% said they were not of the sex registered at birth. Sir Francis Drake Primary School in south London is to be renamed because of the seafarer’s “slave trade links”. Following a lengthy consultation, it will be known instead as Twin Oaks Primary School.…

Plans to privatise Channel 4, which were drawn up by Boris Johnson’s government, have been formally scrapped. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said that the channel, which is owned by the state but funded by advertising, is a “British success story” and should not be sold. Instead, Donelan recommended reforms designed to help the channel grow and compete in the age of streaming, including allowing the channel to borrow more money and to make programmes in-house. As part of the new strategy, Channel 4 has pledged to create more new roles outside London.…

Paris Pensions deadlock: Union leaders in France have threatened to bring the country to a halt if President Macron goes ahead with his long-delayed plans to reform the state pension system. Macron first tried to raise the legal retirement age from its current 62 in 2019, during his first term. The plan led to weeks of protests and strikes, and he abandoned it when the pandemic struck. Now, in what may prove a defining issue of his second term, he says he is determined to have another go, to defuse a pensions “timebomb”. In France, men can currently expect to live 24 years after retirement, and women 27, and the country spends about 15% of GDP on pensions. If the scheme is not reformed to factor in an ageing population,…

1 Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch, performed by Itzhak Perlman and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink2 Goodbye by Walter Reisch, Robert Stolz and Harry Graham, performed by Josef Locke3 Only You by Buck Ram, performed by The Platters4 Silence is Golden by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, performed by The Tremeloes5 Memory by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn, performed by Elaine Paige6 All I Ask of You by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, performed by Steve Barton and Sarah Brightman7 O soave fanciulla by Puccini, performed by Luciano Pavarotti, Mirella Freni and the Berlin Philharmoniker, conducted by Herbert von Karajan8* Quando me’n vo’ by Puccini, performed by Natalie Walker Book: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Luxury: a cast-iron cooking pot * Choice…

Esports players might not experience the physical demands that traditional athletes do – but the pressures they face are extreme even so, says Julia Llewellyn Smith in The Times. They have intense training schedules, under supervision from an entourage of coaches. There are sports psychologists, nutritionists, scouts and cutting-edge training facilities. Players for Team Liquid, a major esports team with bases in the Netherlands, Brazil and the US, share flats and complete full 12-hour days in their “office” as they prepare to compete in packed auditoriums in front of thousands or millions of viewers online. Often they then practise more when they get home. Professional players can start their careers exceptionally young. US-born Victor De Leon III, professionally known as Lil Poison, started playing Halo aged two, and signed his…

America is, quite literally, a sick society William A. Galston The Wall Street Journal For most of my life, I’ve rejected claims that America is a “sick society”, says William A. Galston. For all our problems, there were positive developments – falling rates of smoking and teen pregnancy, narrowing gaps among racial and ethnic groups – that made me feel that the US was moving in a healthier direction. But I’ve come to the conclusion I was wrong. Just look at the data. In 2019, before Covid struck, the US ranked 29th for life expectancy among the 38 member nations of the OECD, trailing every European and Asian country in infant mortality. America’s high death rate in the pandemic made things worse: by the end of 2021, the life-expectancy gap…

New figures have shown that 2022 was the UK’s hottest year on record. The Met Office said the provisional annual average temperature in the UK last year was 10.03°C (50°F), the highest since 1884. Similar records were broken across Europe: France‘s average temperature was just over 14°C, making 2022 its hottest year since 1900. It was also France’s second-driest year on record. In Switzerland, meteorologists said the average temperature, of 7°C, was “by far the highest value” since 1864. Average temperatures were boosted by this summer’s heatwave, which saw the mercury rise above 40°C in the UK for the first time. However, the winter has been unusually warm too. Germany ended the year with its warmest New Year’s Eve: temperatures hit 20°C in the south of the country. In the…

Many adults may only have first heard of Andrew Tate when he was arrested on people-trafficking charges in Romania last month, said Anna Fazackerley in The Observer. But in schools across Britain, the social media influencer known as “the king of misogyny” is already a “hugely familiar figure”. Teachers say that teenage boys are being sucked into his “glamorous” ultramacho world, where they are exposed to his disturbing views: that women are essentially chattels, who belong in the home. Tate thinks rape victims should “bear responsibility” for the attacks on them, and boasts about seeking out 18-year-old girls because they are “fresh”. Teachers say that his views are fuelling a rise in misogynistic attitudes. Some even describe his influence as “grooming” or “radicalisation”. The former kickboxer, who was born in…

“Vinci per Luca” – win for Luca – “read a banner draped over the Chelsea end” of the Etihad last Sunday, said Andy Hunter in The Guardian. As Chelsea took on Manchester City in the third round of the FA Cup, their supporters were keen to invoke the spirit of Blues legend Gianluca Vialli, who died last week at the age of 58. Clearly they hoped the memory of the Italian would stir their team to bring to an end what has been a “miserable run of form”. Some hope, said Henry Winter in The Times. Instead of showing signs of improvement, Graham Potter’s team slumped to a new low – a 4-0 loss to City, their third and heaviest defeat to Pep Guardiola’s side this season. They were “little…

Football Welsh star Gareth Bale has announced his retirement from football. In the third round of the FA Cup, League Two side Stevenage upset Premier League club Aston Villa 2-1. League One side Sheffield Wednesday beat Newcastle 2-1. Cricket The third Test between Australia and South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground ended in a draw. Australia won the series 2-0. Rugby union England captain Owen Farrell received a four-week ban for a dangerous tackle, but will likely still play in the Six Nations’ opener.…

This “fun and funny” three-part ITV drama recounts the “brief rise and astonishing fall” of John Stonehouse, the Labour MP who famously faked his own death in 1974 and fled to Australia, said Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian. Matthew Macfadyen plays Stonehouse as a “heedless buffoon”: in the Commons, he parrots what Harold Wilson says; “at home, he parrots what his wife, Barbara (played by Macfadyen’s real-life wife, Keeley Hawes), says”. When he is recruited as a spy, he proves so useless, his Czech handler barks at one point: “You are the worst spy I have ever come across. Ever!” Written by John Preston (The Dig; A Very English Scandal), the series canters along at a satisfying clip, and makes for “enormously entertaining”, high-spirited TV. I found Stonehouse “a joy,…

The British Museum confirmed last week that “constructive discussions” are taking place over the possible return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece after 200 years, said Craig Simpson in The Daily Telegraph. George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, is understood to be in advanced talks with Greek officials over a loan agreement allowing the long-contested Parthenon Marbles, taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, to return to Athens in a “cultural exchange”. The arrangement could see famous Greek art works being loaned to the UK, including Jockey of Artemision, a bronze sculpture depicting a small boy riding a horse, and Mask of Agamemnon, a golden funeral mask named for the Greek king in The Iliad. The proposed exchange deal is unlikely to end the…

As people gather in The Bull for New Year’s Eve, Elizabeth talks to Kenton about her mixed feelings over Vince. Chelsea decides to put right her and Brad’s meddling. She grabs the mic and asks Jazzer if he’ll marry Tracy – the stunned couple say yes. Susan is annoyed when she hears about the proposal later from Ruth, and rejects Tracy’s attempt to make amends. At lunch with her friend Lottie, Pip makes a resolution to have more fun. Susan, chastened, tries to apologise to Tracy, to no avail. Elizabeth and Vince make up but she says he must make peace with David and Ruth. Strained relations between the Brookfield Archers improve after a family talk with Ben’s support worker, Elena. Following a reconciliation at Ambridge View, Susan and Tracy…

Apple frangipane 2 apples, peeled 65g butter 30g wholemeal flour 2g salt 65g ground almonds 100g caster sugar 5ml almond extract 90g egg whites, room temperature 30g flaked almonds • Peel and cut your apples into 1-2cm chunks. Turn the butter into brown butter by cooking it in a medium-hot pan until it becomes dark and nutty and smells like hazelnuts. This should take around 5 minutes. Once done, remove and leave to cool. • In a large bowl, sift together the flour and salt. Add the ground almonds and sugar. In another bowl, whisk the almond extract into the egg whites just until frothy. • Add the dry ingredients to the egg-white mixture and gently whisk until combined. While the butter is still pourable, run it into the batter…

● When people talk about “black mould” they’re normally referring to Stachybotrys chartarum, which flourishes on materials with a high cellulose content, such as wallpaper, fibreboard and plasterboard. ● But anywhere where water sits – such as in the corners of shower trays – will be at risk of the mould. ● Condensation is a major risk factor for the mould. In bathrooms and kitchens, the air tends to be particularly moist, leading to condensation on cold surfaces in these rooms. That is why you find mould on window frames and exterior walls. ● To minimise this, keep rooms heated and ventilated. Open windows and leave interior doors open when you are cooking, or showering, and make use of vents and extractor fans. Keeping furniture a few inches away from…

Fay Weldon 1931-2023 Mischievous, outspoken, confessional yet evasive, Fay Weldon, who has died aged 91, wrote a series of novels and short stories that explored “the binds and double-binds in which women have found themselves through the ages”, said Alex Clark in The Guardian. Her heroines tended to be the “overweight, plain women” she saw as the silent and overlooked majority. In her lurid, witty, macabre and fantastical fiction, they would rise up and “extricate themselves from dead-end situations by channelling the apocalyptic power of the betrayed and rejected”. She’d started writing in the 1960s, and though she caught the “feminist spirit” of the day, said The Daily Telegraph, her female characters were far from being idealised stereotypes of liberated women. They may have thrown off their shackles, but they…

Executive pay: a market malfunction Lex Financial Times While most of us were still “working off our Christmas turkeys”, FTSE 100 chief executives had already done a full year’s work – or, at least, had been “paid for one”, says Lex. By 5 January, the median UK CEO, on £3.41m a year, had already earned as much as the median UK employee on £33,000, according to the High Pay Centre. We might question why footballers, pop stars and traders vastly out-earn workers with more “societal value”, such as nurses and rail workers – but at least it reflects “the workings of a market”. The issue with executive pay, which is 39% up on January 2022, is the suspicion that it doesn’t. Instead of shopping around for “someone competent” and “willing…

James Cameron, with reports that his film Avatar: The Way of Water has overtaken Top Gun: Maverick as the highest-grossing film released in 2022. It is estimated to have already broken even by clearing $1.5bn worldwide, to Maverick’s $1.49bn. Dry January, following the launch of Sentia – a spirit that is free of alcohol, but which promises to deliver some of alcohol’s perceived benefits. Its creator, the neuropsychopharmacologist and former government drugs tsar Prof David Nutt, says it takes you to “two-drink perfection” – where you’re “disinhibited, more interested in people, but still have your faculties” – and no further. Denise Coates, the CEO of the online gambling firm Bet365, who maintained her status as the UK’s best-paid woman by earning £263m in the last financial year (see page 41).…

A range of single-use plastic items including cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups are to be banned in England to cut down on waste, the Government has announced. Although the details have yet to be confirmed, the ban is expected to come into force some time this year, and to apply to takeaway food outlets. Environmental groups broadly welcomed the move, but said that it did not go nearly far enough. There were calls for the ban to apply to all restaurants, shops and supermarkets, and for it to cover all single-use items, not just those made of plastic.…

Washington DC Biden probe: President Biden was accused of mishandling sensitive material this week, after classified documents dating back to his time as vice-president were found in the offices of a Washington think tank. The White House said it was cooperating with a Justice Department probe into the discovery of about ten files in a “locked closet” in the office, where Biden worked after leaving the vice-presidency in 2017. Federal law requires that files created or received by the president or vice-president during their time at the White House are handed to the National Archives when they leave. The case is awkward for Biden, as he strongly criticised his predecessor, Donald Trump, over the discovery of more than 100 classified documents at the latter’s Florida resort. Trump’s case is being…

“What troubles me most about digital media is that it’s harder to share. You can recommend a podcast to a friend, but you can’t leave it on the train seat for the next person when you get off, as I’ve done all my life with finished newspapers. You can’t give your goddaughter your dog-eared, spine-cracked copy of an audiobook that meant everything to you when you were her age. You’ll never buy an old audiobook from a secondhand store and find somebody else’s faded notes scribbled in the margin, or a long-forgotten postcard used as a bookmark that makes you want to know more about the life of the person who sent it.” Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian…

A tale of two youthful universes James Marriott The Times An unexpected divide has opened up in the West, says James Marriott, a parting of the ways between the young generation in English-speaking countries and its counterpart in European ones. As surveys show, millennials in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and NZ are defying tradition by failing to grow more right-wing as they age. By contrast, in Europe the same cohort is following that traditional path. All of which suggests that the key cultural divide in a world connected by social media is language, not geography. English-speaking Twitter is dominated by America’s culture wars: Brits are “exhaustedly familiar” with the latest goings-on in Washington and the preoccupations of US progressives. But young Westerners who converse online in other languages inhabit…

Long Covid “could be menopause” Many women who think that they are suffering from long Covid may in fact be experiencing symptoms of menopause, a doctor has suggested. In a recent survey of long Covid sufferers, led by the University of Southampton, the average age of people who responded was 46.5, and 82.5% of them were women. Their symptoms were vaguely defined, but overlapped with some associated with perimenopause and menopause, such as muscle pain, brain fog, and sleeplessness. All that being the case, Dr Louise Newson, the founder of Newson Health Research and Education, argues that when women in their 40s present with these symptoms after having Covid, GPs should consider whether they might be going through menopause, so that they can be treated with HRT. “I’m not saying…

Back in December, the furore surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix documentary was all-consuming enough, said Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. Now, just when it seemed to be calming down, Harry “barges into the narrative once more, tootling on his trumpet of ongoing anguish, simply impossible to ignore”. And this time, in his memoir Spare – and the various TV interviews he has given to promote it – the “grudge-toting manbaby really has thrown all his toys out of the royal pram”. In the past week, we have learnt about everything from his fractured relationship with his brother (“Willy” to his “Harold”) and the negligence of his father, to the danger posed to him by his stepmother: a “villain” in the public eye who redeemed her reputation…

“Academic subjects, like clothes, go in and out of fashion,” said Harry de Quetteville in The Daily Telegraph. Before the War, classics was “the gateway to the Establishment”: 35% of civil service entrants studied the subject at university. Then history came to be seen as a key subject. Today, it’s all about maths – and Rishi Sunak reckons the country requires a few more lessons. In a set-piece speech last week setting out his administration’s priorities, the Prime Minister said we needed to “reimagine our approach to numeracy” as he announced an ambition to get all school pupils in England to study maths in some form until the age of 18. “In a world where data is everywhere and statistics underpin every job,” he said, “letting our children out into…

The Masters championship at Alexandra Palace – reserved for snooker’s top 16 players – is “meant to be a showcase of the sport’s very best”, said David Coverdale in the Daily Mail. Yet as this year’s event got under way, it was the “worst of the game” that was in the spotlight. In October, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association launched a match-fixing probe after being alerted to unusually high sums being bet on the matches of certain players. At that stage just one, China’s Liang Wenbo, was barred from playing, said Ben Parsons in the Daily Mirror. But since then, ten Chinese players have been suspended from professional competition until the investigation is completed. They include world No. 9 Zhao Xintong and No. 16 Yan Bingtao, both of…

Who’s the “snowflake”? To The Guardian Owen Jones writes of a generation “treated with unadulterated contempt by the Right”, and warns conservative parties of the dangers that will lead to eventual electoral meltdown (“The right thrives on bullying ‘snowflakes’”). But the “snowflake generation” is highly resilient and adaptive. My children earned their degrees in a lockdown, their courses badly disrupted by Covid. They have chosen to work in sectors that attempt to improve the lives of others. Sometimes I hear friends, many of whom were students in the 1960s, with liberal attitudes on sex and drugs and their own freedoms, using the word “woke”. It’s a short word, monosyllabic, that can be released as a snort. It’s spoken without thought, like one of those early 20th century cartoons by H.M.…

by Deepti Kapoor Fleet 560pp £20 The Week bookshop £15.99 Deepti Kapoor’s stunning debut is “a rare case of a book bounding as high as its hype”, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. Touted as an Indian Godfather – and already set to be made into a major TV series – it’s a “hypnotic story” of corruption and inequality set in the “broiling nexus” of modern-day Delhi. On page one, a horrific car crash occurs, when a Mercedes speeding through the city careers off the road and kills five people sleeping by the roadside. When the authorities turn up, they find a 22-year-old at the wheel, reeking of whisky. What follows is a “big dynastic saga of organised crime”, in which “low life and high society” collide, said Jake…

Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster, 1994 (Faber £8.99). Late to the party, it wasn’t until the early noughties that I read The New York Trilogy, and over the next ten years I read all of Auster’s novels. A story of levitation, stardom and danger, this one takes you to strange places. Under the Skin by Michel Faber, 2000 (Canongate £9.99). There’s nothing I love more than a story you know will be good, then a few pages in, it drops hints that it’s going to be weirder than you could ever have imagined. Sea-Change by Jessica Streeting, 2021 (Propolis £11). This epic poem is the memoir of a 1970s childhood, a Norfolk rectory, music, and an eccentric dad who was snatched from the family and the community in a tragic…

Programmes Keeping Up Appearances: 30 Years of Laughs Light-hearted look back at one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1990s, with contributions from its cast and crew. Sat 14 Jan, C5 20:30 (90mins). How to Live to 100 Jon Snow travels around the world to discover the secrets of long life. First stop: the Greek island of Ikaria. Sun 15 Jan, C4 18:45 (60mins). Maternal New medical drama about three female doctors returning to post-pandemic front-line care following maternity leave. Parminder Nagra stars. Mon 16 Jan, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). India: The Modi Question Two-part film exploring Narendra Modi’s premiership, and the allegations about his government’s treatment of India’s Muslim population. Tue 17 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Films Isle of Dogs (2018) Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation about the fate of…

English wine tourism, high-end pre-mixed cocktails and grower champagne were among the trends of 2022, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. What can we expect in 2023? As wine lovers pay more attention to their budgets, sales of great-value wines from eastern Europe are likely to get a boost. “Slovenia makes good, crisp white wines; Bulgaria has earthy, satisfying reds; and Romania does a good line in smoothly fruity pinot noir.” Closer to home, we will hear more about wines from eastern parts of England. Danbury Ridge, in Essex, is already “making waves with its chardonnay and pinot noir”, while another vineyard to watch out for is Cobble Hill in Burnham Market, Norfolk. As well as an ever-greater range of low-alcohol drinks, “expect to see more specialised no- and…

From May, travellers will be able to board the Eurostar in London on a Friday afternoon, and wake up in Berlin the next morning – with just one change in Brussels. Having joined the EuroNight and Nightjet network, Stuttgart now has a range of sleeper services to Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Ljubljana and Zagreb. The new Nightjet service from Munich to Liguria takes you through Verona, Milan and Genoa. The timing is such that in the morning, you can enjoy views of the spectacular Ligurian coast. There is also a linked service that starts in Vienna. Wine lovers might want to make use of SNCF’s new route that connects Freiberg in the Black Forest with the French city of Bordeaux. It takes eight hours and runs once a week. Touring eastern…

In the tracks of a black leopard We’ve all heard of black panthers, but they don’t exist as a separate species. These graceful creatures are actually leopards or (in South America) jaguars, which, thanks to a genetic quirk, were born black rather than spotted. They are very rare, especially in Africa – but a female has recently been observed living in the acacia woodlands of Kenya’s remote Laikipia Plateau, and she is “breathtaking”, says Kate Humble in The Sunday Times. For a good chance of seeing her, head to Laikipia Wilderness Camp, where the “excellent” Samburu and Kikuyu guides first spotted her as a cub, and named her Giza – Swahili for darkness. If you’re lucky, you might be able to track her long enough to see her hunt and…

Tom Karen 1926-2022 Tom Karen, who has died aged 96, was referred to as the “man who designed the 1970s”, because he was one of the brains behind an extraordinary number of the things that we associate with that decade. If you were a child in the 1970s, said Steve Rose in The Guardian, you probably played with his build-it-yourself marble run, which is still in production today, and if you were not cruising the local streets on one of his Raleigh Chopper bikes, styled to resemble the Harley-Davidsons in Easy Rider, you may have been “envying the kid who was”. If you were a bit older, you might have driven one of his sleek Reliant Scimitar GTEs; if you were harder up, perhaps you opted for a three-wheeled Reliant…

According to the British Retail Consortium, grocery bills rose by 13.3% in 2022, with low-fat milk, pasta and couscous suffering some of the largest price rises. But what might really rattle the middle classes, said Eirian Jane Prosser on MailOnline, is the soaring price of olive oil. At Ocado, the price of a one-litre bottle of Filippo Berio’s Classico (Britain’s biggest brand) has doubled to £11 because of a severe drought in Spain, which produces 60% of UK supplies, last year. Amid growing concerns about an acute shortage by autumn, olive oil – once only available from chemists for medicinal purposes – could once again become “a niche product”.…

Steve Easterbrook Once perhaps “the most successful Briton in corporate America”, the former McDonald’s boss Steve Easterbrook has had “an extraordinary fall from grace”, said Callum Jones in The Times. The Watford-born executive, who started as a branch manager in London, has been fined $400,000 by US regulators, and barred from serving as a director for five years, for giving “false and misleading statements to investors” about his 2019 dismissal. It turns out he had several sexual relationships with employees, and then “lied about them”, approving a stock grant worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to one of the women. Easterbrook, who lives in Chicago, has kept a low profile since his dismissal, but has surfaced as an investor in two plant-based food firms: Clean Kitchen Club and Project Pollo.…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1345 An Ettinger pass holder 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 23 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1345, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass holder in assorted colours, which retails at £115, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 7 Creatures running in the chase? (8) 9 King, not disheartened was informed (6) 10 Caught on small branch (4) 11 Beverage retailers lacking space for cloth workers (10) 12 Good informal talk on pop and brandy (6) 14 Crude ranting about nothing is discourteous…