Innholdsfortegnelse for 1436 i The Week

What happened Ukraine’s President Zelensky paid a surprise visit to Britain this week, at the end of a whirlwind tour of Europe that also took in Rome, Berlin and Paris. Having been flown to Chequers in an RAF Chinook helicopter, Zelensky spent two hours in talks with Rishi Sunak. After the meeting, the PM announced that Britain would be sending hundreds of newly developed attack drones – with a range of about 124 miles – to Kyiv. Sunak also pledged to lead efforts to secure more advanced Western fighter jets for Ukraine. Earlier, Britain had announced plans to send long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia. Zelensky had embarked on his tour as the Ukrainian military prepared to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces.…

“The Tory party knows it is sinking,” said Tom Peck in The Independent. This much is clear, not only because many Cabinet ministers – such as Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch – obviously have their eye “on the soon-to-be-vacant captain’s job”, but also because of the mood of revolt and ideological frenzy in the party ranks. The past week has seen not one but two fringe Tory conventions – “mad hatter’s tea parties”, Keir Starmer called them. Last Saturday, “Boris Johnson’s biggest fans”, from Andrea Jenkyns to Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg, gathered at the inaugural meeting of the Conservative Democratic Organisation in Bournemouth to mourn the death of true conservatism, and to fantasise about bringing Johnson back. At the second event, the National Conservatism Conference in London, British and…

The Metropolitan Police, after a royal “superfan” who had travelled to central London for the coronation revealed that she had missed the event, because police had hauled her away with a group of Just Stop Oil protesters. Alice Chambers, 36, said she was sitting next to the protesters on the Mall, but had no idea who they were because they were not protesting at that point. She spent 13 hours in custody before being freed with an apology. The Sacklers, with news that Oxford University will become the latest institution to cut ties with the family, whose wealth derives from its ownership of Purdue Pharma – manufacturer of the controversial opioid painkiller Oxycontin. The Sackler name is being dropped from both buildings and staff positions. Pollution, after crisp and sweet…

One in ten teenagers aged 16 to 18 in England say they want to change their gender or have already done so. Deltapoll/The Times 53% of British adults think King Charles is doing a good job, up from 49% last month. 50% believe that too much money was spent on the coronation. In April, 33% objected to the cost. Almost two-thirds were aware of the arrests of anti-monarchy protesters at the coronation. Of those, only two in five thought the police had acted appropriately. Ipsos/The Daily Telegraph 35% of Britons have a favourable opinion of Keir Starmer. 51% have an unfavourable opinion. 31% have a favourable opinion of Rishi Sunak, and 59% have an unfavourable one. YouGov…

Nick Cave on the coronation When it emerged that Nick Cave had accepted an invitation to the coronation, some of his fans were shocked. So the rock musician and writer posted a letter on his website to explain his thinking. “I am not a monarchist, nor am I a royalist, nor am I an ardent republican for that matter,” he said. “What I am also not is so spectacularly incurious about the world and the way it works, so ideologically captured, so damn grouchy, as to refuse an invitation to what will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of our age. Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest.” As for a fan’s question about “what the young Nick Cave would have…

An environmental activist has hit on a new way of saving the planet: growing your own toilet paper. Robin Greenfield, 36, from North Carolina, stopped using loo roll in 2013, and initially replaced it with leftover tissues and napkins. But five years ago, he realised that the leaves of the blue spur flower are an ideal substitute. “The leaves are super soft, can withstand pressure and won’t break through, plus they have a natural, minty scent,” he explained. “Fossil fuels and big factories are causing a lot of destruction, and growing your own loo paper is fun and eco-friendly,” he added. Two sisters who were driving to look at manta rays in Hawaii followed their GPS’s instructions and drove directly into Honokohau Harbour in Kailua-Kona. “It was so confidently done,”…

FRANCE Why the French are so gloomy Le Point (Paris) The French seem determined to be seen as the “most pessimistic people in the world”, says Luc de Barochez. Observers have long been struck by this curious “mixture of melancholy and self-denigration”. Polls often show that France is the gloomiest of Western European nations. During Covid, an Ipsos survey showed that it had the world’s most pessimistic outlook about the possibility of life ever returning to normal. In a recent poll, 72% of French people were pessimistic about the nation’s future, up by a “spectacular” 16 points compared with 2021. France is no “paradise”, with its high taxation and creaking education system, “but neither is it the hell that many of its inhabitants imagine”. Even after bitterly contested pension reforms,…

MPs have been asking the wrong question, said Andrew Grice in The Independent. For months, they’ve been wondering whether we’re set for a general election like 1992, when the Tories under John Major pulled off a surprise victory, or 1997, when Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide win. This month’s local election results suggest we’ll end up with neither of those outcomes. The Tories’ trouncing shows they’re “very unlikely to win”, but Labour’s less-than-stellar performance suggests that it may not secure an outright majority. This has led to speculation about what the Daily Mail described as a “grubby” pact between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In interviews last week, Keir Starmer ruled out going into coalition with the SNP under any circumstances, but he left the door open to…

A coronation in London one weekend; Eurovision in Liverpool the next. When it comes to “magnificently theatrical festivals of dressing up”, the Brits have been spoiled this May, said The Times. The difference between the two events is that few people take the song contest very seriously. Nevertheless, it does have a growing number of devotees: more than 160 million people watched last year’s. This year’s attracted a record 11 million viewers in Britain alone, with members of the TikTok generation in particular “glued to the telly” for the “splendidly silly” celebration of “camp, youth and emoting”. Had it not been for the war, Ukraine, as last year’s victor, would have hosted the contest, said Caitlin Allen on Reaction. Yet the organisers refused to allow President Zelensky to send a…

The last time Sale Sharks appeared in a Premiership final was in 2006, said Gerard Meagher in The Guardian. Since then, the Manchester-based club have endured a painful battle for exposure in what is a decidedly “southern-centric sport”. But on Sunday, the club proved – as their campaign slogan has it – that “northern rugby matters”: with a thrilling 21-13 victory over defending champions Leicester Tigers, they secured a berth in this year’s final. The magnificent contest at the AJ Bell Stadium – in front of the ground’s largest-ever crowd – was the “best advert for the Premiership all season”, said Daniel Schofield in The Daily Telegraph. Both sides “left everything on the pitch”. What swung the match in the home side’s favour was the performance of fly-half George Ford.…

Housing is broken… To The Guardian I have two adult children at home and a housing estate being built on fields at the end of my road. My kids will never live in those houses. They are selling for between £450,000 and £650,000. At some point, a handful of “affordable” flats will be offered. Elsewhere, the same builder sells these for £235,000. The average salary for people in their 20s is about £25,000. The likely maximum mortgage available would be £135,000. It’s laughable. We need a complete reset on housing policy, and one thing is certain: it won’t be led by the private sector. Alan Horne, Poynton, Cheshire … and so is the economy To The Times Ali Hussain’s article, “£200k a year and struggling”, brilliantly captures the anxieties of…

by Emma Cline Chatto & Windus 304pp £18.99 The Week bookshop £14.99 Emma Cline became a 27-year-old literary sensation when her “exceptional” debut, The Girls – “a heady story” of a Charles Manson-like cult told through the eyes of a teenager – was published in 2016, said Emily Watkins in The Independent. In her “exquisite” second novel, Cline (pictured) again tells the story of a troubled young woman – and this time the results are “even better”. Alex, 22, is an escort and small-time confidence trickster who has alienated virtually everyone she knows in New York, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. When the story opens, she has fled to Long Island – where she looks upon the population of wealthy holidaymakers as a “field ready to harvest”. We…

It has been argued that the Italian Renaissance was “ignited by a single spark in the form of one man”, said Harry Seymour on Air Mail: Saint Francis of Assisi. Born into wealth in Umbria around 1181, Francis experienced a vision that led him to swap his “lavish lifestyle” for one of “poverty and preaching”. He travelled widely across Italy and the Holy Land, establishing his Franciscan Order on “the pillars of penury, peace and environmentalism”. Some art historians suggest that the way Francis preached to the poor – in the Italian vernacular, stressing Christ’s humanity – led painters to favour “more realistic, less divine depictions of his body”, which laid the foundations for an artistic revolution. At any rate, there’s no doubting his impact on the visual arts. It…

Down All the Days by Christy Brown, 1970 (Vintage £15.99). An autobiographical novel set in the Dublin of the 1940s and 1950s, about Christy, a disabled boy, who is unable to speak or move easily, and one of 16 siblings. It draws on Brown’s famous autobiography My Left Foot and is notable for the lyrical, impressionistic beauty of his writing. Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan, 1958 (Arrow £10.99). Another autobiographical story about the young Behan, who is sent to an English borstal at 16 for his involvement with the Irish republican cause. The humour and the heart and the grace in this young man’s perspective on the world shines throughout. It was the first time I had read dialogue written phonetically and that blew my mind, that Behan could break…

Programmes Depp V Heard Three-part documentary about the case that pitted Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard, mixing courtroom footage with public reaction on social media. Sun 21 at 21:00, Mon 22 & Tue 23 May at 22:00, C4 (60mins each). Walter Presents: Mobile 101 Finnish drama about the rise of Nokia in the late 1980s, told from the point of view of its executives and engineers. Sun 21 May, C4 22:55; then streaming on All4 (70mins). Maryland Suranne Jones, Eve Best and Stockard Channing star in this drama about two sisters returning home to the Isle of Man. Mon 22, Tue 23 & Wed 24 May, ITV1 21:00 (60mins each). Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland Powerful five-part documentary that uses archive footage and first-person accounts to…

Grace Bumbry 1937-2023 With a “transcendent” stage presence and glorious voice, the American mezzosoprano Grace Bumbry was a “towering” figure in 20th century opera, said The New York Times. The daughter of a railroad worker and a teacher from Missouri, who in her youth had been denied entry to a conservatoire on account of the colour of her skin, she became a mainstay of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, performing there more than 200 times in the two decades from 1965. She had made her debut, however, five years earlier, when she sang Amneris in Verdi’s Aida at the Paris Opera in 1960, aged 23. A year after that, she became the first black opera singer to be invited to perform at the Bayreuth Festival, in Germany. News that…

Linda Yaccarino In advertising circles, she’s long been known as “the velvet hammer”, for her silky but hard-nosed negotiation tactics. But now, the media veteran Linda Yaccarino has a new role, said The Wall Street Journal. She has left her job as ad chief at Comcast’s NBCUniversal to throw in her lot with Elon Musk as the new CEO of Twitter. Musk has gained quite a performer. During her 12-years at NBCUniversal, Yaccarino and her team generated more than $100bn in ad sales. She looks just the ticket to turn things round at the social media platform, which has been “stung by a large exodus of advertisers” since Musk’s $44bn takeover last year. Yaccarino will focus “primarily on business operations”, while Musk handles the technology. Yaccarino, 60, is a “towering…

What happened Rishi Sunak called for more international cooperation to tackle human trafficking at a Council of Europe meeting in Iceland on Tuesday. The previous day, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, had warned that as well as preventing illegal immigration, the UK Government needed to control legal migration in order to bring down overall numbers and ensure the British don’t forget how to “do things for ourselves”. It was “not racist”, she said, to want to control borders. Official figures released next week are expected to show that net migration in 2022 rose to between 700,000 and one million. The Government’s flagship Illegal Migration Bill – which places a legal duty on the Home Secretary to detain and remove those arriving in the UK by irregular means to a third…

Prison officers have been advised to stop referring to “ex-cons” on the grounds that it is offensive, the Daily Mail reports. In a letter sent by civil servants at the Prison Service, guards were reportedly urged to call them “prison leavers” or “persons with lived experience” instead. The letter also advises the use of the word “prisoner”, or “offender”, not convict. As rents continue to soar in London, a developer has submitted plans to build a 14-storey housing block in which tenants will have their own bedrooms and shower rooms, but will share kitchens, laundry facilities, and dining areas. Scape, the firm behind the proposed development in Canada Water, says it expects the 21m2 mini-flats to be rented by young adults.…

The Government is taking over control of TransPennine Express, the train operator that runs rail services in northern England and parts of Scotland. The Department for Transport highlighted “continuous cancellations” – around one in six TransPennine trains were cancelled in March, the highest rate in the UK – as it announced its decision not to renew the operator’s contract when it runs out on 28 May. From that date, the state-owned Operator of Last Resort, which runs LNER, Northern and Southeastern, will take over its services. Trains are expected to run as normal, with no changes to tickets or timetables.…

Paris Royalists march: About 500 members of Action Française, one of France’s historic monarchist groups, paraded from the Paris Opera house to the golden statue of Joan of Arc in the city centre on Sunday, chanting “Vive le roi” and “Down with the republic”. However, the same day six other ultra-right-wing groups were prohibited from marching, in accordance with a ban on far-right demonstrations imposed by interior minister Gérald Darmanin. The monarchists were only allowed to proceed because an administrative court had ruled their rally did not constitute an incitement to public disorder. The activities of far-right groups have been of growing concern to the authorities since hundreds of serving and ex-army officers signed a statement two years ago threatening a coup d’état. Months of often violent protests against President…

1* A Day in the Life by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles2 Rosalinda’s Eyes, written and performed by Billy Joel3 The Asteroid Field by John Williams, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra for The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack4 Accept Yourself by Johnny Marr and Morrissey, performed by The Smiths5 Marian by Wayne Hussey and Andrew Eldritch, performed by The Sisters of Mercy6 I Feel For You by Prince, performed by Chaka Khan7 I Bloom Blaum by Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion and Chris Martin, performed by Coldplay8 Salt in the Wound by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, performed by Boygenius Book: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks Luxury: my bean-to-cup coffee maker * Choice if allowed only one record…

Kevin Hall, an American nutrition scientist, thought UPFs “a nonsense definition” when he came across the idea in 2016, and assumed the foods were being wrongly blamed for the poor diets and poor health outcomes of those living in poverty. In late 2018, he and his colleagues put the UPF theory to the test by giving 20 inpatient volunteers either unprocessed or ultra-processed diets. All the meals contained the same number of calories and the same quantities of salt, fat, sugar and fibre, and were designed to be equally “pleasant”; the subjects were told to eat as much or as little as they liked. The study ran for 28 days, with the two groups swapping diets after two weeks. The results were dramatic: those on ultra-processed diets gained weight by…

Reparations: a Democratic con trick? Adam B. Coleman New York Post Bad luck, folks, says Adam B. Coleman. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has announced that he doesn’t support handing up to $1.2m each to black residents who can claim to have suffered state-sponsored racism. This was the recommendation of a reparations task force Newsom himself set up. In a report published last week, it proposed allocating a sliding scale of payments to eligible black residents based on their exposure to systemic prejudice. For instance, residents who lived in the state from the early 1930s until the late 1970s, and were subject to the policy of “redlining” certain districts to create racially homogenous neighbourhoods, might receive $148,099. More recent residents impacted by “over-policing and mass incarceration” could get $115,260. Unsurprisingly, Newsom…

Fossil fuel fields in Turkmenistan are emitting “mind-boggling” quantities of the greenhouse gas methane, reports The Guardian – which experts say is “infuriating”, as these leaks could be fixed. Based on satellite data, the environmental intelligence group Kayrros calculates that a fossil fuel field close to the Caspian Sea port of Hazar emitted 2.6 million tonnes of methane last year, and that a second one, in the east, emitted 1.8 million tonnes. As methane is far more potent than carbon, that is equivalent to 366 million tonnes of CO2 – more than the UK’s annual carbon emissions. Preventing methane leaks is not particularly hard; if the gas is captured and sold, it can pay for itself. And stopping such leaks would be one of the quickest and easiest ways to…

During Rishi Sunak’s first bid to assume the Tory leadership last summer, he released a “typically slick” short film aimed at underlining his “Brexiteer credentials”, said Andrew Pierce in the Daily Mail. To the “stirring strains” of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (the EU’s anthem), it showed official-looking documents being put through a shredder, accompanied by the bold promise that in his first 100 days as PM, Sunak would review or repeal 2,400 EU-derived laws. Well, Sunak has just passed 200 days in office, and those EU laws remain on the UK statute books – along with 2,600 more that have since been identified by Whitehall. Now, to the “apoplectic fury” of Tory Brexiteers, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has announced that only 600 EU laws will be revoked this year; and…

“Nothing exists until it has a name.”Psychiatrist Lorna Wing, quoted in The British Medical Journal “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”Winston Churchill, quoted in The Spectator “A man who is very busy seldom changes his opinions.”Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in Forbes “If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”Katharine Hepburn, quoted on The Knowledge “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”Eric Hoffer, quoted on BizPac Review “I see the Church as a field hospital after battle. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.”Pope Francis, quoted in Catholic Review “The real problem of…

To The Daily Telegraph It is my belief that there is no shortage of doctors, only a shortage of doctors working full time. At my local surgery there are 20 GPs listed on its website, but none are recorded as working full time. Indeed, most only work two or three days per week. Surely this is a waste of a very expensive resource when the time, effort and cost of training each doctor is taken into account. Would it be unreasonable to expect doctors to commit to working full time for the NHS for a minimum number of contract years to reflect the taxpayers’ investment in their training? Graham Kemp, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire To The Daily Telegraph Can we rid ourselves of the notion that GPs only work when they are…

by Peter Wohlleben Greystone 280pp £18.99 The Week bookshop £14.99 Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees was “the most improbable and encouraging blockbuster of 2015”, said Charles Foster in The Guardian. In it, the German forester argued that trees have distinct personalities – and can even communicate with one another via underground networks of fungi. His new book looks at trees and climate change – and suggests they “can be our saviours”, if only we can learn to leave them alone. Wohlleben catalogues the benefits of trees: cooling their environment, and of course sequestering carbon. He advocates for deciduous forests, which he says help the environment more than the “coniferous monocultures so beloved of commercial foresters”. While this “wise and thought-provoking” book is mainly about trees and the climate,…

Jane Dickson at Alison Jacques In the early 1980s, the painter Jane Dickson (b.1952) was a key player in the remarkable downtown Manhattan demi-monde that gave us Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Nan Goldin. The dangerous, dirty New York of that era has continued to fuel her art, and the imagery of the city’s seedier side has remained a constant source of inspiration. This recent body of work, entitled Fist of Fury, sees her concentrating on the nightlife and neon signage that once burned bright around Times Square, and the resulting show is an excitingly cinematic affair. Typically, Dickson frames these compositions strangely, cutting off sections of the text in the sign for, say, a Chinese restaurant or a floor show, to give us the sense that we might be…

Time to revive an Edwardian favourite Pies, puddings and various other “old-school” dishes have lately enjoyed something of a renaissance, says Olivia Potts in The Spectator. Yet no one has, so far, sought to resurrect that Edwardian favourite, the “savoury”. This was a strongly flavoured “extra course” served towards the end of a meal, usually on toast or “with a small pastry croute”. Think Scotch woodcock (scrambled eggs and anchovy paste on toast), Welsh rarebit, or angels and devils on horseback. The biggest populariser of the savoury was the journalist Ambrose Heath, who in 1934 “wrote a whole book on the topic”. Heath said that savouries provide an “admirable ending to a meal, like some unexpected witticism or a musing epigram at the close of a pleasant conversation”, adding that…

● Be sure the sink is plugged before using it to clean jewellery. Rings and earrings can be cleaned with soapy water and a toothbrush. For fine chains, open the clasp and hold the chain at one end and run it slowly through a folded polishing cloth. For thicker chains, keep the clasp shut to avoid tangles and use a toothbrush and cloth. ● For silver, use a silver cloth or cleaner. Abrasive cleaners or brushes can scratch. Soak gold in tepid water with a few drops of washing-up liquid and scrub gently with a toothbrush. Rinse well and dry with a soft cloth. Gold-plated jewellery isn’t as resilient, so go gently. Be sure to clean it after contact with sweat, salt water or chlorine. ● Platinum can handle intense…

Dana Nemcová 1934-2023 In 1978, six Czech dissidents who’d founded a group called the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted were arrested and charged with subversion, said The Times. One of them was the playwright Václav Havel, who’d later become president; another was Dana Nemcová, a psychologist, intellectual and mother of seven, who (with Havel) had been one of the first people to sign Charter 77, a document in demand of human and civil rights in the communist country, where organised opposition was illegal. Nemcová spent six months in jail before being given a conditional sentence; she was also barred from practising as a psychologist, and found work as a cleaner instead. Yet she was not intimidated. Told by interrogators that she was neglecting her children, she replied…

There are no signs of “greedflation” in the UK, said the former Bank of England rate setter Michael Saunders this week – echoing “similar findings by current members of the Monetary Policy Committee”, said Valentina Romei in the FT. But while many economists remain convinced that the “overwhelming majority of the rise in inflation reflects cost pressures from energy and other commodities”, allegations of supermarket “profiteering” have persisted. Now Britain’s increasingly punchy Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into whether consumers have been overpaying for food and fuel because of “a failure in competition”. The CMA probe into the fuel market, which is already under way, has found some supermarkets have indeed “increased margins” on petrol and diesel, said Michael Race on BBC Business. There’s evidence that at…

The franchise model transformed Subway from a tiny Connecticut sandwich shop, Pete’s Super Submarines, into a $10bn colossus, said David Brenchley in The Sunday Times. Investing in franchise-driven businesses – in which franchisees pay royalties to the brand’s owner – could transform your portfolio, too. Here are some tips: Check for consistency across outlets “Whether you go to a KFC in the UK, the US or South Korea, you know what to expect – although there may be some local differences,” said Zoe Gillespie of wealth manager Brewin Dolphin. Check out relationships too: the pizza chain Domino’s was embroiled in a long dispute with franchisees. McDonald’s versus Yum! Given a choice between the two giants of US fast-food franchising (Yum! owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell), Gerrit Smit of…

The week’s best shares 3i Group The Times The trust has a 53% stake in the promising Dutch discount retailer Action, accounting for 61% of its £18bn portfolio. Revenues at Action, which trades across 11 European countries, are up 30%; profits by 46%. Buy. £17.99. Apple The Times Thanks to resilient iPhone demand from emerging economies, Apple’s Q2 sales have defied gloomy forecasts. The loyal, two billion-strong base provides a solid platform for upselling more products and services. Buy. $172.4. Compass Group The Times The catering giant has bounced back strongly from the pandemic, with predicted revenue growth of 18% as margins fatten. Offsetting inflation through higher prices and buying power, and improving contract wins. Buy. £20.91. Likewise Group The Mail on Sunday Founded by carpet industry veteran Tony Brewer…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1363 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 29 May. Send it to The Week Crossword 1363, 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 Sweet place for a drink that’s out of this world (4,3) 8 Sky in France screening small amount for secure place (7) 10 Supporter in large gathering first to leave (4) 11 Star position of Oman’s capital (7,3) 12 One in haste for world…

A ten-year-old from Syria has become Cornwall’s youngest-ever chess champion. Rami Taleb, who in his home country held the title of Arab champion under six, fought off adult competitors to win the Cornwall County Chess Association’s open contest last month. He told the BBC he had started playing at the age of four, and that he had not been expecting to win, but got “lucky this time”. His father said he was “very proud” of Rami. “For him chess means the whole world,” he added. An effort to save the tiny bright birds known as Darwin’s flycatchers seems to be bearing fruit. When Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos Islands nearly 200 years ago, he noted that they were teeming with little vermillion flycatchers. By the 2010s, however, the birds’ numbers…

Sweden, which won the Eurovision song contest. Loreen was the bookies’ favourite: she had won the contest in 2012 and her song, Tattoo, had already been a chart hit in 14 countries. Noncompeting musicians included the Princess of Wales, who sent a clip of herself playing the piano to accompany a performance by last year’s winners, Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra (see page 21). Martha Stewart, the American cookery writer and TV presenter, who became, at 81, the oldest person to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimwear edition.…

The Labour Party is considering giving some EU citizens the right to vote in general elections, Keir Starmer confirmed this week. Talking on LBC, the Labour leader said it “feels wrong” that EU citizens who have been living for decades in the UK are not allowed to vote, and added that his party is also considering extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. Conservative Party Chair Greg Hands accused Starmer of a plot to “rig the electorate”. Both EU citizens and 16- and 17-year-olds are thought to be more likely to support Labour.…

New York Discrimination law: New York City’s council has approved a bill aimed at preventing people from being discriminated against based on their weight. The measure, to make size a protected characteristic alongside race, gender, age and sexuality, would outlaw such discrimination in housing, employment and access to public places, including shops and restaurants. Supporters of the bill, which is likely to be signed into law later this month, argue that tall and overweight people face a range of challenges, from not fitting in restaurant seats and falling foul of weight limits on rental bikes, to being turned down by landlords; but critics said the bill was badly drafted and that it could create an intolerable burden for businesses, employers and the courts (see page 41). Size-based discrimination is already…

“If King Charles’s coronation proved anything, it’s that a great number of people in Britain are incredibly talented, albeit at skills that were last useful in the 18th century. Did you know, for example, that there are such things as ‘drum horses’, which the riders steer with reins attached to their feet? We’ve also got heraldic trumpeters, master embroiderers, and someone who can fix the suspension on a gold coach. If you need a ‘unicorn pursuivant’ at short notice, Britain has you covered. Who knew that so much brocade existed? Where does the nation keep all these horses and bishops the rest of the time?” Helen Lewis in The Atlantic…

Too much power to give to the police… Adam Wagner The Sunday Times If you think the wrongful arrest of numerous peaceful protesters on coronation day was a one-off, think again, says Adam Wagner. It’s “a sign of things to come”. A new law is set fundamentally to alter the relationship between citizen and state. The Public Order Act makes it a criminal offence for protesters to attach themselves to any object, or just to be “equipped for locking on”. Police who “reasonably believe” such offences may be committed in certain areas can stop and search anyone they want. So a power designed to tackle knife crime can now be used to arrest someone who’s simply carrying Sellotape to a demo to make a placard. Hitherto we have respected people’s…

Insights into Earth’s fiery fate Astronomers have, for the first time, captured the moment when an ageing star swells and sucks in a nearby planet – giving them fresh insights into the fate that awaits Earth, in some five billion years. Dr Kishalay De first got a suggestion of the “cosmic catastrophe” in 2020, said The Guardian, when data from the Palomar Observatory in California revealed a 100-fold spike in brightness, “unlike any other stellar outburst I had seen in my life”, in a star 12,000 light years away. He and his team initially suspected the merger of two stars, but observations with an infrared space telescope indicated that, in fact, a planet had crashed into its star. It now seems that the Jupiter-sized planet had been dragged so close…

Every prime minister has at least one guilty pleasure, says Katy Balls in The Spectator; but Rishi Sunak has several. His colleagues tease him about his taste in music (Michael Bublé), television (Emily in Paris) and literature (Jilly Cooper). One of his favourite novels is Cooper’s bonkbuster Riders, set among the upper middle classes in the fictional county of Rutshire – “infidelity, duplicity and intrigue, all playing out in Conservative heartlands”. The adventurer Bear Grylls was once a proud vegan: he even wrote a vegan cookbook. Now, though, he has renounced veganism so completely that he no longer “goes near” vegetables. “I’ve tried to listen to my body more, tried to listen to nature, and I don’t miss vegetables at all,” he told the news agency PA. “I’ve found a…

In the lead-up to Turkey’s presidential election on Sunday, many believed that its voters were about to turn their back on Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s brand of authoritarian nationalism, said The Guardian. His decision to assume “quasi-monarchical presidential powers” in 2018 had united six opposition parties behind a single candidate: Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, leader of the secular Republican People’s Party. The “economic pain” caused by inflation of over 40%, and the “sluggish” government response to the devastating earthquake in February, had also badly undermined Erdogan’s position. The polls showed Kılıçdaroglu well ahead; he was confident that he would “finish it in the first round”, by taking over 50% of votes and avoiding a run-off. “That optimism has turned out to be sadly misplaced.” In the event, it was Erdogan who nearly won…

Todd Boehly and his Chelsea co-owners have undoubtedly made “some big mistakes” since buying the club a year ago, said Tony Cascarino in The Times. They rashly sacked Thomas Tuchel – the world-class head coach they inherited from Roman Abramovich – and replaced him with the far less experienced Graham Potter. And despite spending hundreds of millions on new players, they have failed to build a cohesive squad. Yet the confirmation last weekend that Mauricio Pochettino is to be Chelsea’s new head coach suggests Boehly and co are finally learning from their mistakes. The Argentinian, who will take over next month from caretaker manager Frank Lampard, has the qualities needed to succeed at Chelsea: he is “great at developing talent” – as he proved during his time at Tottenham Hotspur…

Tennis Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 2, suffered a shock defeat in the third round of the Italian Open, losing to world No. 135, Fábián Marozsán of Hungary, in straight sets. Cricket James Anderson is a doubt for England’s Test against Ireland on 1 June, after suffering a groin strain while playing for Lancashire against Somerset. The Ashes begin on 16 June. Golf Jason Day won his first PGA tour title in five years when he clinched the AT&T Byron Nelson Championship in Texas. The Australian beat world No. 2 Scottie Scheffler.…

Based on a famously audacious wartime plot, Operation Mincemeat is “a brilliant spy thriller, a brilliant comedy, and a brilliant musical all rolled into one”, said Tim Bano in The Stage. This “exhilarating” production began life in 2019 at the tiny New Diorama Theatre in London, and has since enjoyed several fringe and regional runs and won “a catalogue of five-star reviews (here, have another one)”. Now, with a new director and a tweaked script, it has arrived in the West End “better than ever”. The story will be familiar to many, said Clive Davis in The Times. In order to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allies’ plan to invade Sicily in 1943 was merely a feint, British intelligence obtained a body from a morgue, dressed it in…

Netflix’s drama-documentary made headlines last month when the Egyptian government denounced it as a “historical fallacy”, because the show insists that Cleopatra was black, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. No one knows what colour Cleopatra’s skin was, but she is widely believed to have been of Greek-Macedonian descent. So what evidence has the series got to support its theory? Well, it mainly relies on the work of the American academic Shelley Haley who, in the first episode, recalls her grandmother telling her: “I don’t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black.” And that is that really. As for the rest of the series, it mixes talking heads with historical reconstruction, to explain why Cleopatra “was such a significant figure”. It does that well enough, but…

From straw hat making to barge painting and Cornish hedging, traditional British crafts are at risk, says Steven Morris in The Guardian. The charity Heritage Crafts has added 25 crafts to its “red list” of endangered and critically endangered skills that could be lost unless the economy improves or action is taken to protect them. They include arrow smithing, wooden boat building, silk weaving, hand engraving, lacquerwork, and the manufacture of silk ribbons, hat blocks and Sussex trugs (wooden baskets, pictured). Mary Lewis of Heritage Crafts said: “The effect of the energy crisis, inflation, Covid-19 and Brexit have been tough on the craftspeople who possess our most fundamental skills.” One craft – mouth-blown flat glassmaking – has become extinct in the UK since the last red list in 2021. “It’s…

Eddie cajoles Leonard into representing the UK as a comedy duo in the Eurovision show. At the Bridge Farm Illuminations, a journalist recognises Helen, but promises not to mention her past. Adil moves out of Ambridge Hall to make way for Rylan. At home, Helen panics when Jack sees a man on the drive – but it’s only Mick; Kirsty comforts her. When the controversial painting is damaged, Elizabeth confronts Freddie – but he insists it wasn’t him. After storming out after a tiff with Tracy, Jazzer gets hit by a car. He’s OK but Tracy worries; meanwhile, Jim seizes on the car being electric. After a meeting about the painting debacle, trustee Brandon decides that Freddie wasn’t diligent enough and isn’t ready to take over Lower Loxley – Freddie…

Serves 4 You will need: wooden skewers soaked in cold water for 30 minutes 640g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces 2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp chickpea (gram) flour 1 tbsp mustard oil 3 tbsp Greek yoghurt salt, to taste melted butter, to baste juice of ½ a lime, to garnish For the marinade: 6 garlic cloves 5cm ginger root 1 heaped tsp Kashmiri chilli powder (or mild chilli powder) juice of ½ a lime For the spice mix: 1½ tsp fennel seeds 1½ tsp cumin seeds 1½ tsp black mustard seeds 1 tsp nigella seeds ½ tsp fenugreek seeds • To make the marinade, grind the garlic and ginger with a splash of water in a blender to a smooth paste. Put this paste in a large mixing bowl with the chilli powder…

Golowan Festival in Penzance celebrates St John’s Eve (Midsummer’s Eve) on 23 June. As night falls, bonfires are lit and there are fireworks (golowanfestival.org). The Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing event features a 16ft-tall rush cart pulled through seven towns by local men (first weekend of September; rushbearing.com). London’s Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival starts with a maypole and Morris dancing at Guildhall Yard, then a walk to St Mary-le-Bow for a harvest service (24 September; pearlysociety.co.uk). The Festival of the Horse has been held for 200 years on the third Saturday in August in South Ronaldsay, in the Orkneys. Girls dress as horses and there is a ploughing match (orkney.com). Staffordshire’s Abbots Bromley Horn Dance dates back to 1226, and features “Deermen”, sporting 11th century antlers, plus a fool, hobby…

Vodafone: 11,000 job cuts Telecoms bosses have a history of geeing up the troops with bracing pronouncements – in 2011, Nokia’s CEO told staffers they were marooned on a “burning platform”. A similarly stirring message is now ringing around Vodafone’s HQ: the new CEO has announced 11,000 job cuts over the next three years, said James Warrington in The Daily Telegraph. “Our performance has not been good enough,” was the blunt appraisal of Margherita Della Valle, a Vodafone lifer who was confirmed as the telco’s permanent CEO this month. “What is going to change is the level of ambition, speed [and] decisiveness of execution.” Vodafone, which employs some 90,000 people globally, declined to say how many jobs would be lost in Britain. But Della Valle faces a big job untangling…

There is no good outcome for the BoE Tom Rees and Andrew Atkinson Bloomberg The Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, signalled last week that “the quickest series of rate rises in four decades may be near an end”, say Rees and Atkinson. But that hardly means the battle against inflation is over. The ongoing worry is that a strong jobs market, and fewer workers, could yet fuel a “wage-price spiral”. And in that context, even good news casts a shadow. New figures show that, while Britain’s GDP continues to trail other G7 economies, efforts to revive sputtering growth have been working. Yet there’s a danger that even an “anaemic recovery” could hamper the Bank’s efforts “to return double-digit inflation back to the 2% target”. It may be a case…