Innholdsfortegnelse for 1473 i The Week

What happened Three American troops were killed by a drone strike in Jordan on Sunday, dramatically escalating tensions in the Middle East. Iran-backed militias have launched more than 150 small-scale attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza conflict erupted in October, but this was the first to kill US troops. The enemy drone may have evaded the base’s air defences because it was mistaken for a US drone that was returning to the base at the same time. Iran denied having had anything to do with the raid, and the Iraqi militia that claimed responsibility for the attack later announced it was suspending operations against the US. President Biden promised a strong response, but stressed that he wasn’t seeking a wider war in the Middle East.…

Controversy of the week There was “no hiding the fury” behind the near-unanimous judgment, said The Economist. Last Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an interim ruling on the genocide case that South Africa had brought against Israel’s operations in Gaza. The UN’s top court did not determine whether Israel is committing genocide: this will need a full trial, which could take years. At this stage, it merely had to decide whether it was “plausible” that acts of genocide might be occurring there. The court’s judges answered in the affirmative, by a 15-2 majority (only the Israeli and Ugandan justices dissented). The ICJ highlighted not just the vast death toll in Gaza – 26,000, according to Palestinian officials – but the “dehumanising” language of Israeli politicians. (The defence…

The traditional cuppa, after an American chemist suggested that tea would taste better with a pinch of salt. Michelle Franci said that it would make the drink taste less bitter, especially if the bag was also squeezed and dunked. To add to the outrage, she advised that for a perfect cup of tea, the milk should be warm. Laurence Fox, the actor and right-wing activist, who lost his legal battle with two Twitter users who he had called paedophiles, after they described him as a racist during a row about Black History Month. The judge ruled that whether or not Fox was a racist, the tweets were unlikely to have caused him serious harm, whereas his paedophile slur was baseless and seriously harmful. Michelle Mone, after £75m of assets linked…

Schleiz, Germany AfD tested: Germany’s hard-right AfD party has been defeated in a district election in its eastern stronghold of Thuringia, days after revelations that some of its officials had discussed plans for the mass deportation of migrants sparked nationwide protests. The party had expected to win the run-off poll in Thuringia, but in the event its candidate was narrowly defeated by his rival from the centre-right CDU. On 10 January, an investigative website reported that AfD members had taken part in a conference with far-right extremists in Potsdam to discuss the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated citizens”. In response, more than one million people joined in protests against extremism. This week, a poll showed that support for the AfD dropped to 19%, from a recent high of 23%. However,…

1 Caravan, written and performed by Van Morrison2 Violin Concerto No. 1: II by Philip Glass, performed by Adele Anthony and Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Takuo Yuasa3 Hoppípolla by Jón Þór Birgisson, Orri Páll Dýrason, Georg Hólm and Kjartan Sveinsson, performed by Sigur Rós4 Bridge Over Troubled Water by Paul Simon, performed by Simon & Garfunkel5 Metarie, written and performed by Brendan Benson6* Forever by Dennis Wilson and Gregg Jakobson, performed by The Beach Boys7 Something by George Harrison, performed by The Beatles8 The Whole of the Moon by Mike Scott, performed by The Waterboys Book: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak Luxury: a golf club and balls * Choice if allowed only one record…

The Government likes to boast that Britain is a “world leader” in the quest to reach net zero by 2050, “far ahead of every other country in the world”. In some ways, it is: UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen the fastest of any G7 country since 1990 (they’re down almost 50%, compared with 24% in France, and no reduction at all in the US). But the UK was more carbon intensive to start with: France, for instance, has long relied heavily on nuclear for its power generation, meaning its per capita emissions were lower than Britain’s in 1990 – and still are today. Critics say that Britain has had success so far by picking off low-hanging fruit – eliminating coal-fired power stations, for example. And at a time when…

Alabama’s experimental execution Li Zhou Vox The death penalty is back in the news, says Li Zhou. This time all eyes were on Alabama, which last week used an entirely new method to execute a convicted murderer. Having failed in its first attempt to kill Kenneth Smith in 2022, when it couldn’t find an accessible vein for a lethal injection, the state this time put a mask over Smith’s head containing nitrogen without oxygen, which suffocated him. Alabama’s authorities insisted the untested method worked well, although witnesses said Smith appeared conscious for several minutes, writhing on the gurney. A slim majority of Americans still back capital punishment, but support has been declining for 30 years. The use of the death penalty has also dropped. Although 27 states still allow it,…

The number of people in the UK who are off work because of back and neck problems has risen to almost one million, figures from the Office for National Statistics show. Back and neck conditions rendered some 995,000 Britons economically inactive between January and March of last year – 28% more than in the same period in 2019. In all, 2.9 million people have back and neck ailments, up from 2.6 million in 2019. Obesity, sedentary lifestyles, the ageing population and working from home without the right equipment have all contributed to the rise, says The Guardian. It calculates that the welfare bill for people with back problems has trebled to £1.4bn in the past 20 years, even after adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, a physiotherapist shortage has left thousands waiting…

Until recently, the creation of a convincing “deepfake” – a photo or video of an individual that has been digitally manipulated but looks real – required considerable expertise, hundreds of images and massive computing power, said Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian. “Now you just need a couple of photos of someone’s face and a phone app.” It has become a phenomenon, of a sinister kind: there are now thousands of sites devoted to deepfake pornography. The victims are almost all women, and the latest of them is Taylor Swift. Deepfake porn images of the singer were posted online last week, and then spread rapidly across social media – at one stage forcing X/Twitter to block all searches for her name. “If there is a silver lining to this sordid situation”,…

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” H.L. Mencken, quoted in The Bulwark “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop.” Gertrude Stein, quoted on Goodreads “Music is how we decorate time.” Jean-Michel Basquiat, quoted in Creative Review “I drink too much. Last time I gave a urine sample there was an olive in it.” Rodney Dangerfield, quoted in Forbes “I have nothing against dead people. I expect to be one myself some day.” Stephen Bleach in The Sunday Times “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” David Horowitz, quoted in The New Republic “To see takes time, like to have a friend…

To The Guardian One definition of hypocrisy is “feigning to be what one is not”. Religion in schools invites hypocrisy. There is the widespread semi-legal hypocrisy that we are a religious country – we are not. There is the educational hypocrisy that religious education is an integral part of the curriculum, yet in practice it is often watered down or almost nonexistent in non-faith schools. There is the hypocrisy of many faith schools claiming to be inclusive but not taking their fair share of disadvantaged pupils. There is the hypocrisy of parents feigning a faith to secure admission to faith schools. Polly Toynbee is right: faith schools should be abolished, and with them the accompanying whiff of hypocrisy. Prof Colin Richards, Spark Bridge, Cumbria To The Guardian Has Polly Toynbee…

by Nathan Hill Picador 624pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 Nathan Hill’s 2016 debut novel, The Nix – a “time-jumping, character-hopping, consistently funny 200,000-word” doorstop – was hailed as a work of staggering promise, said Jonathan Myerson in The Observer. Nearly as long, and no less ambitious, Hill’s follow-up is “equally remarkable”. In part, it’s an “Updikean story of marital inertia”, about a couple called Jack and Elizabeth who, after 20 years together, find themselves contemplating “separate master bedrooms”. Yet it’s also a satire on the “many post-truths” flourishing in contemporary America – including the blandishments of the wellness industry, for which Elizabeth works. Rich in “ideas and possibilities”, Wellness is “utterly immersive”. Hill is at his best when his “satirical prods” are directed at specific topics, said John Self…

Gerhard Richter at David Zwirner Gerhard Richter (b.1932) is to German art what David Hockney is to Britain or Andy Warhol was to the United States. As such, an exhibition of his recent work, in a private London gallery, could hardly fail to seem like an event. Yet, while Warhol and Hockney are, in their way, populists, Richter is obscurantist to the core: he does not want you, or anyone else, to really understand what he is up to. The pictures that he fields in this display are abstract and typically interpretation-defying: great swathes of colour in 2010’s Aladin (Aladdin) give the impression of a printing press accident, with emerald greens spilling down through split-yolk yellow. More recent works on paper, created with coloured ink and pencil, put you in…

Llama Inn 1 Willow Street, London EC2 (llamainnlondon.com) The South American dish ceviche – citrus-marinated fish – is something “I’ve never really taken to”, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. It has always struck me as an unconvincing “halfway between sashimi and cold fish soup”. But a visit to this Peruvian restaurant, on the seventh floor of London’s Hoxton Hotel, turned me into “a convert”. The ceviche I was served here consisted of scallops in a condensed milk sauce with leche de tigre – a spicy, limey marinade – and “seaweedy crisps” scattered on top. In flavour and texture, it was “sensational”. Nor was it the only stand-out dish. Crisp squid with potato-like yuca (cassava) was superb, as was a “triumphant” cabbage skewer, scatted with toasted quinoa and a…

● Choose the right marketplace. Depop and Vinted are good for clothes and some homewares. For large items such as furniture, Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace may be better, as buyers can collect. For electronics or rarer items, try eBay. ● Check fees before selling: some platforms (Facebook Marketplace, Vinted, Gumtree) are free to sellers. Depop takes 10% of the sale price, plus a fee. eBay charges 12.8% of the price and postage fee, plus 30p. ● Don’t forget to factor in costs for mailing – bags, bubblewrap, tape etc. It all adds up. ● Look out for scammers. Beware of new accounts or those without many ratings. Only communicate within the platform, and use its preferred payment methods. Don’t hand anything over until it’s paid for. Take photos of items…

Norma Barzman 1920-2023 Norma Barzman, who has died aged 103, was a Hollywood screenwriter best known for the noirish thriller The Locket (1946). She and her husband, Ben, were also communists. In the 1930s and 1940s, being a member or supporter of the Communist Party was almost de rigueur among progressives in the industry, said The New York Times, but as the Cold War got under way, a “red scare” took hold, and in Hollywood, rumours started to spread of an official crackdown. In the summer of 1947, the Barzmans’ neighbour, Groucho Marx, told them that they were “hot”. Not long after, they were sitting on their front lawn when a young woman stopped her car, introduced herself as another Norma, and warned them that there was a police car…

The Arnault succession Le Monde reports that when Alexandre Arnault was born, his 14-year-old brother, Antoine, sent him a postcard. “Dear Alexandre, I hope your birth went well… I advise you to start working right away.” It might not have been entirely serious, said Hannah Bolland in The Daily Telegraph, “but it has proved prescient”. All five Arnault children have had to work hard to carve out roles at LVMH, the luxury group founded by Europe’s richest man, Bernard Arnault – resulting in “a kind of Kremlinology” among investors seeking to decipher who might take the crown. Last week, the stakes were raised when both Alexandre, now 31, and his brother Frédéric, 29 (pictured with their father), were nominated to join the board, along with Delphine, 48, and Antoine, 46.…

What happened Details of a secretive plot to replace Rishi Sunak were revealed last week, exposing the deep divisions within his party. Rumours of such a plan had been swirling since it emerged that a recent poll, suggesting that the PM was leading his party to electoral disaster, had been funded by anonymous Tory donors. Soon after, it was claimed that a group of Tory MPs and ex-advisers – including Will Dry, who’d worked for Sunak himself – had helped devise the poll, and had also held talks about ousting the PM. Later in the week, ex-cabinet minister Simon Clarke used a Daily Telegraph article to call for leadership change. This week, Kemi Badenoch, who is widely tipped as a possible successor to Sunak, urged her colleagues to “stop messing…

A council in Hertfordshire has defended its decision to class urinating in the countryside as littering. In December, the BBC reported that a man had been fined £88, after pulling into a layby for a “discreet wee”. He was caught by private enforcers, contracted by the council, who had been lying in wait. The man, who has a weakened prostate, has since had his fine revoked, but a second “wild wee-er” had to pay up, though some lawyers argue that urinating in rural areas (as opposed to on a street) is not littering as nothing is left behind. The proportion of people aged 16 or older in England and Wales who are married or in a civil partnership has fallen below 50% for the first time, according to ONS. The…

Devolved government in Northern Ireland was on the point of being restored this week, after the DUP agreed a deal to end its 23-month boycott of Stormont. The DUP started blocking a functioning executive and assembly in February 2022, in protest at post-Brexit trade rules. By keeping Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods, the 2020 Brexit deal had avoided the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland, but it created what unionists described as a trade border in the Irish Sea. The 2023 Windsor Framework eased checks on goods coming from Britain, but it did not go far enough to satisfy the DUP. The new deal eliminates the need for routine checks on GB goods shipped to final destinations in Northern Ireland. The Government…

New York Trump payout: Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $83.3m in damages to the writer E. Jean Carroll, who last May was awarded $5m by a civil jury who’d found Trump guilty of sexually abusing her in a dressing room of New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s. The same jury also found Trump had defamed her by calling her allegation a hoax. This latest award concerns a separate suit related to other defamatory remarks Trump had made while he was president. That trial, which began last month, was presided over by the same judge as the former case; and he ruled at the outset that the earlier defamation finding be carried over, making the jury’s sole task one of having to decide on the level…

“At the theatre I saw a sign stating that there would be captions ‘for the deaf, deafened and hard of hearing’. An excellent idea. But wouldn’t ‘hard of hearing’ cover all bases? Apparently not; this is now the preferred formula. I recently came across the phrase ‘semantic gentrification’ to describe the life cycle of a progressive term. A phrase gains currency until it enters common parlance, then a few people vigorously champion a new one. This vanguard then chides the backward bigots still using what until five minutes ago was the ‘correct’ term. Their objective isn’t real change, but to belong to a righteous inner circle. They know the password, you don’t.” Janice Turner in The Times…

Brussels badly needs to smell the coffee Simon Tisdall The Observer People like to accuse Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak of being lame ducks, but it’s the EU that really needs to “wake up and shape up”, says Simon Tisdall. At a time when the world has seldom looked more perilous, the 27-nation bloc is asleep at the wheel. The crisis in the Red Sea is a direct threat to the EU’s Asia and Middle East trade, about 40% of which is shipped through the Suez Canal, yet so far only the Netherlands has provided practical assistance. Germany has offered support in the form of a written statement; France, Italy and Spain had until this week failed to do even that. Or take the war in Ukraine: as US deliveries…

A simple test for Alzheimer’s A blood test that has been found to detect signs of Alzheimer’s up to 15 years before symptoms appear could revolutionise the way the disease is diagnosed. The hope is that it will form the basis of a screening programme, to identify patients who’d benefit from promising new treatments. Two drugs, donanemab and lecanemab, have been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, but for them to be effective, early diagnosis is vital – and the current diagnostic system (based on lumbar punctures and brain scans) is too cumbersome to cope with expected demand. The test looks for levels of p-tau217, a protein that is a biomarker for changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s. When it was trialled on 800 people in their 50s,…

Rory Stewart found Liz Truss a little perplexing when she was environment minister and he was her junior minister. One day, he recalled on a podcast this week, she bounced into his office and told him to cut the National Parks budget by 20%. He explained that to do so would be very damaging. “OK, Rory, for you, 5%,” she said, sounding like a market trader. He demurred again. “OK, Rory,” she said. “For you, I won’t cut it at all.” And then she bounced out. Actor Tom Hollander is the first to admit that he doesn’t look much like the young Avengers star Tom Holland, yet he is often mistaken for him. Sometimes, he says, he is introduced to children who are “excited, then confused, and then disappointed”. What…

Last week, Britons of military age woke up to the “previously unthinkable notion” that they might be pulled out of their nice, safe lives – and forced to join the Armed Forces, said Clive Martin in The New Statesman. The warning came from none other than General Sir Patrick Sanders, the chief of the general staff. In a speech, he said that the British Army – which has shrunk from 100,000 in 2010 to around 75,000 today – is too small, and that a return to conscription might be necessary. The UK, he said, needs to prepare itself to fight an increasingly aggressive Russia. “Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them,” he added. It could work, in theory, said Mike Crofts in The Independent. It’s…

“It was the moment Liverpool supporters have dreaded,” said Oliver Kay on The Athletic. In a video released last Friday, Jürgen Klopp, the club’s manager since 2015, announced that he would leave at the end of the season, two years before his contract expires. As he explained, with typical frankness: “I am, how can I say it, running out of energy.” This was a decision that few saw coming, said Paul Joyce in The Times, yet it’s not hard to explain. The effort required to bring Liverpool to its present peak has taken its toll on the 56-year-old German. He arrived at a club that was “drifting nowhere”, and transformed it, in just a few seasons, into the one English side capable of standing “toe-to-toe with Manchester City” – this…

Tennis Aryna Sabalenka retained her Australian Open title, beating Qinwen Zheng of China 6-3, 6-2 in the final. Football Sixth-tier Maidstone pulled off an FA Cup upset by beating Championship side Ipswich 2-1 in the fourth-round tie at Portman Road. Cricket West Indies beat Australia by eight runs to claim their first Test victory in Australia for 27 years. Figure skating The 17-year-old Russian star Kamila Valieva has been banned from the sport for four years after testing positive for a banned substance in 2022.…

It’s 25 years since Sarah Jessica Parker became a household name in the UK, playing the “New York sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw” in TV’s Sex and the City, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Now, finally, British fans are able to “see her in the flesh”, as she makes her West End debut in Neil Simon’s 1968 comedy Plaza Suite, a triptych of playlets set in the famous Manhattan hotel. The conceit of the piece is that the same suite, 719, is “successively inhabited by three sets of unhappy mid-lifers” – each played by Parker and her real-life husband Matthew Broderick. This pairing has helped turn the play into London’s hottest ticket, with prices up to £300. Parker, though, is the main draw, and while it’s a stretch to…

When John Bonafede took part in Marina Abramović’s performance art work Imponderabilia at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), “he agreed to stand naked 18 inches from a nude woman and let New Yorkers jostle between them”, said Joshua Thurston in The Times. He had not agreed to be groped. Fourteen years after the show, Bonafede has launched a lawsuit against MoMa, alleging that he was assaulted on seven occasions by five older men. He accused MoMA of failing to protect performers by not warning visitors that touching was forbidden. Bonafede described the encounters as “eerily similar”: the man turned to face him, then dropped a hand to “fondle and/or grope” his genitalia, “lingering for a moment before moving through into the next gallery room”. He is seeking damages…

Natasha apologises to Helen about the land misunderstanding; Helen says she finally feels liberated. Bert and Neville are at war over The Bull’s Longest Drinker Competition; Kenton enlists Brad’s help to calculate the winner. As Clarrie despairs over Ed’s grazing land, Adam suggests the cricket field. Helen announces that Adam will manage the Dairy while she’s on holiday. The Aldridges mark Jennifer’s anniversary with a cake-baking contest. Chelsea complicates matters with Neville. Out on a ride, Alice and Harry admit their feelings and kiss. Later, Harry is dismissive when Azra shares his abnormal test results. To Alice’s alarm, Brian confesses that his chest is tight. As Adam returns to the Dairy, Susan tells Clarrie they might have fun while Helen’s away. Without permission, Ed and Eddie move the Texels to…

In recipe boxes, you get a detailed recipe, and all the ingredients you need to make the dish. Mindful Chef promises healthy meals made from ethically sourced ingredients. Catering to meat eaters, pescatarians and vegans, it has 20 recipes a week to choose from. You can skip or cancel at any time (from £35; mindfulchef.com). Gousto has a wide range of recipes from all around the world. It is also a fully flexible subscription, with 60 recipes each week, including choices for vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free diets (from £25; gousto.co.uk). Ideal for families, HelloFresh offers great-value meals, with six-step instructions. There are 44 recipes to choose from each week, ranging from family favourites to meals for special occasions, plus side dishes and puddings (from £31; hellofresh.co.uk). Grubby’s recipes are exclusively…

Wellness in the Caribbean I used to be a spa junkie, but these days I prefer something “less demanding”, says Shane Watson in The Times – “an old-fashioned holiday with wellness benefits”. This winter, I found the right balance at StolenTime (formerly the Malabar Beach Hotel), an “unpretentious”, all-inclusive beach resort in St Lucia with an impressive range of activities. You might go for archery, or “sunrise meditation” – but I was drawn there by the tai chi classes. The teacher, Edwin, is a “quietly awesome” St Lucian whose lessons combine qigong (“exercises to relax the body”) with meditative tai chi, “the discipline’s slowed-down version”. I’m “easily bored” by exercise, but I found these “flowing, balletic” movements “wholly absorbing”, and noticed that my muscles were tired and my mood markedly…

Alan Mills 1935-2024 For tennis fans of a “certain generation”, Alan Mills, who has died aged 88, was “Rain Man”, the grey-suited official who’d appear courtside during Wimbledon, clutching a walkie-talkie, to decide whether poor weather should stop play. As the tournament referee from 1983 and 2005, he was also called upon to deal with on-court misbehaviour, said The Daily Telegraph – which brought him up against the “most tempestuous generation of players ever to hurl a racket”. Until the late 1970s, tennis had been a relatively sedate sport. But as the prize money grew ever larger, in the Open era, tantrums started to become a feature of the tournament. John McEnroe was the most high profile of tennis’s “bad boys”. However, Mills claimed that that hothead had started to…

What happened? The financial regulator is investigating claims that some motor finance companies and brokers used “discretionary commission arrangements” (DCAs), enabling brokers to set higher interest rates and receive a higher commission. The practice was banned in 2021, but the Financial Conduct Authority has ordered motor finance companies “to pause handling of complaints for nine months” while it investigates. Observers expect “a tsunami of claims”, which investment bank Jefferies reckons could cost the industry £13bn. What to do Eligibility for compensation depends on the “three- and six-year rule”: consumers must submit a complaint within six years of the event, or three years from when they became aware of the issue. Since complaints handling has been paused, new ones won’t get a hearing before September, but you can submit them now.…

The week’s best shares ASML Holding The Daily Telegraph The Dutch firm ASML is the world’s leading maker of “extreme ultraviolet” lithography machines that make advanced microchips used in AI tech. Strong barriers to entry. With growing revenues and a 39% leap in profits. Justifiably pricey. Buy. €797.20. H&T Group Investors’ Chronicle Missed forecasts have hit shares. But while the forex division faces stiff competition, the core pawnbroking business is “delivering in spades” – with surging profits boosted by the high gold price. Buy. 342p. JD Sports Fashion The Times JD’s recent profit warning is a “wake-up” call, dispelling hope of a quick turnaround. Yet the retailer has an “excellent” track record, resilient brand partnerships and growing organic sales. Buy. 116.5p. Seraphim Space Investment Trust The Times Seraphim has had…

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Diplomats in Saudi Arabia, who will soon be able to buy alcohol in the kingdom. Riyadh has said that in an effort to counter illicit trade in alcohol, it is opening a shop to sell booze to registered diplomatic staff. Until now, envoys have imported alcohol in their diplomatic “pouches”. George Osborne, with reports that he has acquired another lucrative job as an adviser to the US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The firm, which is currently being sued by regulators in the US, said it would be “relying on his insights and experience as we grow Coinbase around the world”.…

Only 6% of voters say they’d be more likely to vote Conservative if Kemi Badenoch were leader. 13% say it would make them less likely to vote Tory. YouGov/The Times 69% of British people think that overseas governments should be prevented by law from owning media outlets such as newspapers. Among those who voted Tory at the last election, the proportion rises to 75%. Public First/The Daily Telegraph In polling conducted in December, 34% of 18- to 24-year-olds in Great Britain said they believe Israel is treating Palestinians “like the Nazis treated the Jews”. The figure among all adults was 30%. YouGov/Campaign Against Antisemitism…

A poet’s double rebirth In the 1990s, the poet Rachel Mann was “born again in two senses”, says Helen Brown in The Daily Telegraph. Assigned male at birth in 1970, she began living as a woman in 1993, before having sex reassignment surgery a decade later. And on her journey between genders, the avowed atheist surprised herself by also finding God. She was ordained a priest in 2005, and last year she became the Church of England’s first transgender archdeacon. It’s not always easy: she regularly gets messages telling her she is going to hell, and she regrets that she cannot officiate over marriages for same-sex couples; but she still feels the Church is the “very best place” for her. What does she make of the people who tell her…

GREECE The Olympics should come home to stay La Repubblica (Rome) Here’s a radical idea, says Gabriele Romagnoli: let’s stop the logic-defying race among cities and countries every few years to host the Olympics, and give the Games a permanent home. With this year’s Paris Games almost upon us, potential future hosts are again queuing up for the chance to welcome the world’s best athletes. Istanbul, Nusantara in Indonesia, Ahmedabad in India and Berlin are among the likely contenders to host in 2036; but what’s in it for them? They’ll end up spending a fortune on committees, lobbying (and in some cases bribes) – and that’s just the start: half of the Games staged between 1960 and 2016 cost more than twice as much as initial projections. When they’re over,…

Vaping has always seemed like a bad idea to me, said Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph. It’s surely only a matter of time before scientists discover that it’s more dangerous than we think. So I’m delighted that Rishi Sunak is taking steps to prevent children from adopting the habit. This week, the Government announced plans to ban disposable vapes by the end of 2025, and to restrict the range of sweet e-cigarette flavours, and ban colourful packaging, to reduce vaping’s appeal to the young. This reform – which will be twinned with previously announced legislation making it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born after 2008 – is an “incontrovertibly good thing”. This is one Tory policy I can get behind, agreed Ellie Harrison in The Independent. Vapes…

“The Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum project has already given England supporters some heady moments,” said Mike Atherton in The Times. Perhaps none, however, will “live as long in the heart and mind” as England’s victory in the first Test in Hyderabad. India have long been regarded as practically “invincible at home”, and when they built a first innings lead of 190 (having scored 436 replying to England’s 246), the writing seemed on the wall for Stokes’s men. But two players – batsman Ollie Pope and debutant left-arm spinner Tom Hartley – had other ideas. First, Pope struck a “career-defining 196”, as England piled on the runs in their second innings. And then Hartley almost single-handedly bowled India out on the fourth day, returning figures of seven for 62 to…

Let’s cool talk of WWIII… To The Daily Telegraph Talk of a third world war needs to stop. Russia cannot even conquer a smaller neighbour, Ukraine, let alone Nato. Its losses in troops, vehicles, aircraft, warships and other military hardware have been devastating. First World War tactics and senior-level corruption that has denied troops the full capabilities of their otherwise (in many cases) excellent military kit all point to Russia as a paper tiger. However, abysmally weak Western politicians have given Vladimir Putin’s odious regime hope that it might yet win because of Western cowardice and neglect of Ukraine’s needs. An escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war is very likely. Russian aircraft have fired live missiles at RAF reconnaissance jets – the RAF got lucky; the missiles failed. The law of…

by Max Décharné Profile 336pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 “Before the mods and rockers, and long before the hippies, skinheads and punks, came the Teddy boys,” said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph. Throughout the 1950s, this sub-class of disaffected working-class youth, dressed in flamboyant, Edwardian-inspired outfits (hence the “Teddy” soubriquet), was seen as the “embodiment of juvenile delinquency”. In the tabloid press, stories abounded about “gangs of feral Teds armed with coshes or bicycle chains”, causing mayhem in dance halls and cinemas. Yet in this “genial and entertaining” book, Max Décharné presents the case for the defence. Most Teds, he argues, were simply “fun-loving teenagers”, rebelling against the drabness of postwar Britain. He persuasively traces the movement’s origins “through a tradition of dandyism dating back to the Georgian…

Cuteness is everywhere, these days, said Rhik Samadder in The Observer. Emojis, kittens, bunnies and fluffy soft toys have taken over. In its broadest sense, biologists believe, cuteness is “an evolutionary adaptation, developed by babies so we don’t abandon them”. But it is also a cultural phenomenon, and in the decades since the ascendancy of the internet, it has become a cult. Cat pictures – cited by Tim Berners-Lee as the most surprising and unforeseen use of his creation – and other saccharine animal memes have become the lingua franca of the World Wide Web; this kind of infantilisation has profoundly influenced “the way we talk online”, and increasingly in real life, too. An ambitious new exhibition at Somerset House is a bold attempt to analyse cuteness’s role in our…

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883 (Wordsworth £3.99). I discovered this in the form of a comic when I was nine and was captivated. I soon got hold of the full text and fell in love all over again. Memorable characters, exotic locations, rip-roaring adventure and, as I later realised, damn fine writing. What’s not to love? On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill, 1998 (Harper £10.99). So many brilliant crime novels… but do make time for this absolute gem starring Dalziel and Pascoe. A “drowned” village emerges from a reservoir in a drought, when secrets arise with it. At its heart, it’s about love and grief, yet it nevertheless manages to be elegiac, witty and cleverly plotted. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, 1961 (Penguin £8.99).…

Programmes Captain Tom: What Happened Next? Documentary investigating what really happened to the public money raised by the War veteran, and whether his legacy has been tarnished by the ensuing scandal. Sun 4 Feb, C5 21:00 (60mins). Boris Becker: The Rise and Fall A two-part look at the German tennis star’s meteoric rise to the top of the game aged just 17, and his equally dramatic fall, ending up bankrupt and in jail. Tue 6 Feb, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). Storyville – Another Body: My AI Porn Nightmare After discovering their faces had been digitally transposed into pornographic films, two students seek recourse, and end up uncovering a world of deep-fake technology and misogyny. Tue 6 Feb, BBC4 22:00 (80mins). Films How the West Was Won (1962) Epic western with an…

Three nights in Montenegro Stay at the Iberostar Slavija hotel, near Slovenska Beach and the historic Budva. From £138pp half-board (excl. flights). 0800-678 1658, iberostar.com. Arrive 15 February. Code: LastMinute. Luxury Abu Dhabi holiday Spend 6 days at the Shangri-La Qaryat Al Beri, overlooking the serene waters of the Al Maqta Creek. From £853pp b&b (incl. flights). 020-4579 3550, etihadholidays.co.uk. Depart 1 May. Conwy coaching inn Perched on the edge of Conwy and surrounded by glorious Welsh countryside, The Castle Hotel offers a 2-night stay from £112pp b&b. 01858-438300, castlewales.co.uk. Arrive 22 February. Seven-night Kos getaway Whitewashed walls, mountain views and a friendly, family-run feel are part of the package when you stay at the Sunny View Hotel. From £406pp b&b (incl. flights). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 8 May.…

Evergrande: Timber! Evergrande has finally fallen. After years of turbulence, a court in Hong Kong has ordered the liquidation of the world’s most indebted property developer, said The Economist. “Enough is enough,” said the judge after the Chinese giant failed again to come up with a viable restructuring plan for its $300bn debt. The move is “a big test for international creditors”, said Richard Frost and Bei Hu on Bloomberg. Prices of Evergrande’s battered bonds and shares (down 99% from their 2020 high) suggest “holders have little faith in recovery”. But what happens to the “remnants” of the company that exemplified China’s “real estate boom and bust” has “implications far beyond one property developer”. Whether or not Monday’s ruling is accepted in mainland China, which has a separate legal system,…

The IMF should butt out of politics… Alex Brummer Daily Mail In its latest assessment of the world economy, the International Monetary Fund has advised the UK Government against making further tax cuts, on grounds that the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, should be “trying to rebuild fiscal buffers”. What an absolute cheek, says Alex Brummer. It may be the IMF’s purpose to advise members on how to improve their economies, but what the Chancellor chooses to do with the “surplus resources” at his disposal “is a political choice, not simply an economic decision”. Meddling in the UK’s domestic affairs during an election year is a “grotesque interference”. It’s also grossly unfair, since Britain’s fiscal position “compares favourably with most of the G7” – the US, Japan, Italy and France all have…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1399 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 12 February. Send it to The Week Crossword 1399, 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 Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Fork put into nutty desserts (6,6) 8 Type of fever in Crete needing treatment (7) 9 Crab and duck for comedy actor (7) 11 Fat? Bathrobe seldom conceals it (5) 12 New status given by letter from Cornish town (2,7) 13 Ring worn by southern lass…