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The world’s smallest snake has been rediscovered in central Barbados, two decades after its last sighting. The Barbados threadsnake, which reaches 10cm in length and is as thin as a piece of spaghetti, was only discovered in 1889, and confirmed sightings had been rare since then. With most of its forest habitat gone, it was last documented in 2005, and was considered lost to science, until conservationists turned over a rock during a survey and spotted the tiny specimen. Dozens of people armed with gloves, pickers and bin bags travelled to Hackney Marshes in east London last week, to compete for the chance to represent the UK at the litter-picking world cup in Tokyo. Their challenge was to pick up as much litter as possible in one hour. Known as…

The Bishop of Fulham, who apologised for storming into his church in his dressing gown at 10.07pm, and ordering the choir performing there to leave “my house”. The Right Rev Jonathan Baker switched off the lights, and said: “It’s gone ten and this is a terrible racket. Thank you. Good night.” He later explained that he hadn’t realised that a technical hitch had caused the concert to overrun; organisers assured him that there were “no hard feelings”. Extended families, which are shrinking fast. According to the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, the average British teenager in the 1970s had seven first cousins; now, they only have five, and by the end of the century, they’ll have just four.…

When asked about the Israel-Hamas war, 29% of people said they sympathised more with the Palestinian side – up 11 points since November 2023, a month after Hamas attacked Israel. 27% sympathised with neither side; 16% supported both equally; and 15% sided with Israel. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, sympathy for Palestine rises to 45%. 10% of all respondents think Israel has no right to exist. More in Common/The Sunday Times Immigration has overtaken the economy in voters’ top concerns about Britain. The NHS remains the top priority, with 55% of people citing it among their top three concerns, followed by immigration (49%) and the economy (45%). Opinium/The Observer…

A war surgeon’s struggles David Nott has spent years working as a volunteer surgeon in the world’s most dangerous places. He has saved countless lives, risking his own in the process, and is routinely described as a hero. Yet he isn’t remotely starry, says Henry Mance in the FT, nor did he grow up with any sense of his own destiny. Raised in rural Wales, he was a reclusive child. He struggled at school, and he failed his A levels. “I think I got D, D, E, O,” he says. “It was terrible.” But when his classmates called him thick, he became determined to prove them wrong; and after resitting his exams and getting into university, he blossomed. “I know I’m not the world’s brightest,” he admits, “but I’ve got…

The oldest ice comes to the UK Samples of ice that were formed as many as 1.5 million years ago have been extracted from a plateau in Antarctica and sent to a research facility in Britain for analysis. The hope is that the cores will unlock secrets about an unknown period in Earth’s history, when levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are thought to have been similar to those today. Over several weeks, a team at the British Antarctic Survey laboratory will slowly melt the ice and, using a process called continuous flow analysis, measure particles trapped within it – of volcanic dust, algae and so on – as well as chemical elements and isotopic data. From this, they should be able to determine various environmental indicators, including atmospheric…

Mariah Carey has a novel approach to the ageing process: she doesn’t “allow” it. “It just doesn’t happen,“ the singer told Harper’s Bazaar UK. “I don’t know time. I don’t know numbers.” Carey, 56, has previously said that she refuses to count her age in years, that she is “eternally 12 years old”, and that she marks “anniversaries” rather than birthdays. “I don’t have a birthday,” she has said. “I was just dropped here. It was a fairyland experience.” Sacha Baron Cohen declared that he was “hard-launching [his] midlife crisis” last week, as he unveiled his muscular new physique on the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine. The Ali G star, 53, who split up with the actress Isla Fisher last year after 14 years of marriage, joked that he had…

Four weeks ago, the left-wing MP Zarah Sultana announced that she was leaving Labour to lead a new party with Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn seemed taken aback by her announcement, said Megan Kenyon in The New Statesman: allies of the former Labour leader suggested that Sultana had “jumped the gun”, and some seemed very unhappy about it. But last Thursday, the “magic grandpa” finally “caught up”, and confirmed the launch of “a new kind of political party” to “take on the rich and powerful”, upend Britain’s “rigged” political system, and campaign for wealth redistribution. It is going to be “very different”, he added, and “fun”. It is not clear how seriously you should take a party that launches before it has even decided on a name for itself, said Tom Peck…

It looked to be “all over” for the Lionesses quite a few times during Euro 2025, said Jonathan Liew in The Guardian. Written off after their opening defeat to France, they were “knocked to the canvas in their quarter-final against Sweden” and were behind with seconds remaining in their semi-final against Italy. But somehow, each time, Sarina Wiegman’s side “cheated death”, and kept alive their hopes of defending the title they’d won at Wembley three years earlier. And on a breezy night in Basel on Sunday, they proved themselves expert “escapologists” once again, as they came from a goal down to beat the world champions, Spain, on penalties. In doing so, they became the first football team from these islands to win a major trophy on foreign soil, and the…

Cycling Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar won the Tour de France for the fourth time, finishing nearly four-and-a-half minutes clear of Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark. F1 Oscar Piastri won a rain-affected Belgian Grand Prix, with his McLaren teammate Lando Norris finishing second. Piastri leads Norris by 16 points in the drivers’ standings. Tennis Emma Raducanu reached the semi-finals of the Washington Open – her joint-best performance since winning the US Open in 2021 – before losing in straight sets to Anna Kalinskaya.…

Arthur Timothy at Gallery 1957 In early colonial Sierra Leone, the Krio were a people descended from freed slaves who were elevated to the local elite and respected almost as equals by British administrators. In turn, according to Sierra Leonean-Ghanaian artist Arthur Timothy, they proudly regarded themselves as “black English”. But as the 19th century wore on, they fell from favour with the British empire, which began to regard them as “inferior” imitators. With the paintings in Othello’s Countrymen (The Krio Enigma), Timothy compares this fall from grace with that of Othello, creating highly stylised scenes in which Krio people hobnob with British dignitaries (not least a young Elizabeth II and a uniformed Prince Philip) or pose in landscaped gardens and palatial interiors. Timothy, also an architect, clearly has fun…

“If I were an Australian wine producer,” says Jancis Robinson in the FT, “I’d be extremely frustrated.” Australia produces wines of exceptional quality and diversity, yet “the rest of the world pretty much ignores it”. In the US, the world’s biggest wine market, Australian wine is viewed as “cheap – and not in a good way”, while drinkers in Britain, “Australian wine’s biggest export market by volume”, largely ignore its better-quality offerings. They are missing out, because there is much that is excellent. From South Australia, I recommend the “bone-dry” rieslings of Clare Valley – try Grosset’s Polish Hill Clare Valley Riesling 2024 (£39; London End) – and the “fine” shiraz of Eden Valley, such as Thistledown’s Where Eagles Dare Shiraz 2021 (£38.95; Lekker Wines). In Western Australia, the Margaret River…

Grosvenor Park in Chester has an open-air cinema each summer. This year’s line-up includes Mamma Mia! and True Romance. You can hire a deckchair and pre-order pizza (from £10.80/£5 children; storyhouse.com). As part of its City of Culture year, Bradford is hosting screenings of Sexy Beast and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Ilkley Lido and The Grand Budapest Hotel at Thornton Viaduct (£10; bradford2025.co.uk). In Norwich you can watch films including Jaws at the Plantation Gardens (from 22 Aug, £18.85; picturehouses.com). Cardigan Castle in Ceredigion is the backdrop to Torch Theatre’s popular Sunset Cinema, showing films such as Toy Story, Top Gun and Elvis on a big screen in the castle grounds. Bring your own picnic and blankets (£12; torchtheatre.ticketsolve.com). London’s Barbican has an outdoor film festival in the Sculpture…

Hotel Humano Puerto Escondido, Mexico Set on Mexico’s Pacific coast, the surf town of Puerto Escondido has been a “bohemian hotspot” since the 1960s. This new opening from the country’s “coolest” hotel company, Grupo Habita, sits near the beach to its south, Playa Zicatela, says House & Garden. It’s a stylish building in which raw concrete is softened with tropical wood and local brick. Inside, tiling and textiles in earthy colours bring warmth to the 39 rooms and the airy public spaces. There’s a “stunning” L-shaped pool in the courtyard, and a lush roof garden with another pool, an outdoor spa, and a bar and restaurant serving excellent seafood. Doubles from $195; hotel-humano.com.…

AstraZeneca: American remedy Britain’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, appears to be in good nick, reporting healthy half-year results this week, driven by its stable of cancer medicines. But analysts are more preoccupied with the company’s “corporate future”, said The Economist.com. CEO Pascal Soriot is considering taking the now well-worn path towards a New York listing – “frustrated by Britain’s commercial environment”, particularly on drugs pricing and approval processes. America, of course, “brings challenges of its own”. President Trump wants to cap drug prices and has threatened tariffs as high as 200% on medicines made abroad. But Astra is already adapting. It has pledged to invest $50bn in the US by 2030, expanding its manufacturing and research ops. A new plant in Virginia is the pharma’s biggest global investment in manufacturing. Soriot…

Stablecoins could be the future… Editorial The Economist America’s new law on stablecoins is so good, “they named it after me”, joked President Trump as he signed the Genius Act in mid-July. There are many who disagree, says The Economist. While the crypto industry celebrates “the dawn of a golden age”, European central bankers view stablecoins, digital tokens backed by conventional assets, as “scammy” and “deeply destabilising”. The Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, has warned banks against issuing their own coins; ECB chief Christine Lagarde fears they could one day dislodge central banks. These authorities should lighten up. Make no mistake, crypto is rife with “get-rich-quick” coins: “the president, his family and friends have all flagrantly indulged”. But stablecoins are different. Not only are they typically “backed by liquid…

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What happened Recognising Palestine Following an emergency Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Keir Starmer announced that Britain would join France in recognising a Palestinian state. This, he said, would take place at the UN General Assembly in September – unless Israel reaches a ceasefire in Gaza and commits to a “long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution”. Israel is thought very unlikely to meet these conditions. PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the UK’s decision “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims”. Starmer had discussed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with Donald Trump during their meeting at the US president’s golf resort in Ayrshire on Monday (see page 16). In an apparent rebuke to the Israeli PM, who had just insisted that there was “no starvation” in Gaza, Trump referred to…

Almost all the readers of Good Housekeeping magazine (91%) know how to iron a shirt, a similar proportion can sew on a button and three-quarters can poach an egg – but only 27% are confident to operate a sewing machine, 16% describe themselves as proficient knitters, and a mere 9% darn regularly. The Girl Guides has unveiled 72 new “interest” badges – which reward hobbies and enthusiasms rather than the acquisition of skills – as part of its effort to remain relevant to girls growing up in the 2020s. Created with the input of Guides and their parents, they range from “food critic” and “codebreaking” to “interior design” and “booktivist”, which is about discovering what empowers you through reading.…

Tsunami waves reached Japan, Hawaii and the US west coast following a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia’s eastern coast on Wednesday morning. Russian authorities evacuated the town of Severo-Kurilsk, where 4m (13ft) waves flooded the port and a fish processing plant; no casualties were recorded. Evacuation orders were issued across the Pacific, from China to New Zealand, Indonesia to Colombia. However, warnings were downgraded in Japan and the US when the waves proved smaller than feared.…

The Hague, the Netherlands Climate ruling: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has delivered a landmark advisory opinion that opens the door for nations that are major emitters of greenhouse gases to pay reparations to nations made vulnerable as a result. The UN’s highest court, in a unanimous ruling, said the former had a duty to prevent harm to the climate system, and that failure to do so could entail having to pay compensation and other forms of restitution, including restoration of infrastructure. The court’s opinion had been requested two years ago by the UN General Assembly after years of lobbying by vulnerable island nations led by Vanuatu. The major emitting countries have always denied having any obligations beyond the 2015 Paris Agreement, but the court rejected that view, maintaining…

1 The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) by Mark Barkan and Ritchie Adams, performed by The Banana Splits 2 That’s Entertainment by Paul Weller, performed by The Jam 3 Nothing by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban, performed by Priscilla Lopez and the A Chorus Line Ensemble 4* Love and Affection, written and performed by Joan Armatrading 5 MacArthur Park by Jimmy Webb, performed by Richard Harris 6 The Night, written and performed by Diane Chorley 7 Us Amazonians by Pete Glenister and Kirsty MacColl, performed by Kirsty MacColl 8 South American Getaway (from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), written and performed by Burt Bacharach Book: an encyclopedia of flora and fauna Luxury: a walk-in wardrobe * Choice if allowed only one record…

“It’s long days – you’ll walk more than 12 miles,” Tony Spiezick of Coventry City Council told The Sunday Times’s Stephen Bleach when the latter spent a day as a binman. “It’s smelly, it’s dangerous, it’s physically demanding. It’s proper, old-school hard graft. Thankless, too – people only notice you when things go wrong. And the rats – I’ve known crews to be literally dodging the rats as they fly through air.” A typical day for a Birmingham refuse collector begins at 5am or 6am. The driver arrives at the depot first, to get the vehicle ready. Then the team sets off on the round. The daily target is around 1,500 properties. There is a 15-minute break at around 9am, and a 30-minute lunch break at 12pm. The round finishes…

The “bare facts” are that at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last Saturday, the British & Irish Lions beat Australia to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series, said Robert Kitson in The Guardian. Yet these facts do not remotely do justice to a truly “memorable contest” – one packed with unstinting drama and with a large dose of controversy at its conclusion. Early on, Australia “pounded relentlessly away” at Andy Farrell’s team, and scored three tries within nine minutes to take a 23-5 lead. “Shaken and very much stirred”, the Lions responded with two tries just before half-time, and added another just before the hour mark, to “drag the scoreline back to 26-24”. For the final 20 minutes, it was a case of “who could land the killer blow”.…

Strikes: the case for… To The Guardian I do have a lot of sympathy for our resident doctors, even though I was on call on Sunday as a consultant. It is not just that pay has been eroded, but also that the cost of becoming a doctor has gone up, as has the cost of living in general. Unlike in most other higher-paid professions, half of doctors are women. The cost of childcare has shot up since my day. There is no more cheap hospital accommodation. Women earn less during their careers but end up paying back a lot more for their student loans as a group. And because of the forced itinerant lifestyle, most doctors get their foot on the housing ladder quite late, having to pay increasingly unaffordable…

Suzie Miller is the Australian lawyer-turned-playwright whose one-woman play Prima Facie – about the failings of the criminal justice system, and featuring a “tour de force” performance from Jodie Comer – was a massive hit in London and New York, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. Miller’s follow-up, Inter Alia, has similar themes, but whereas the earlier work was about a top-flight defence barrister who experiences the legal system from the other side after she is sexually assaulted, Inter Alia is about a high-powered feminist judge, Jessica, whose 18-year-old son Harry is accused of rape. It’s a gripping and gut-wrenching piece, even if it feels a bit “sketchier” and more didactic than its predecessor. This is a “banger” of a play that sent a chill down my spine, said…

Are British audiences ready for a sympathetic portrayal of a convicted paedophile? That is one question posed by Jimmy McGovern’s Unforgivable, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. This one-off BBC2 drama introduces us to the Mitchells, a working-class family in Liverpool that is “buckling under the strain of an uncle who sexually abused his young nephew”. The culprit, Joe (an excellent Bobby Schofield), is on early release from prison. He is forbidden even from attending his mother’s funeral, and is spurned by his sister (Anna Friel), whose abused son is now being marked out for his unruly behaviour at school. Joe has “polluted the entire family” – and he knows it. McGovern’s script doesn’t gloss over the “catastrophic impact” of Joe’s actions, said Carol Midgley in The Times. But it’s…

The US artist Amy Sherald has withdrawn her upcoming solo show at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, says Robin Pogrebin in The New York Times – “because she said she had been told the museum was considering removing her painting depicting a transgender Statue of Liberty, to avoid provoking President Trump”. Sherald, an African-American painter best known for her 2018 official portrait of Michelle Obama, said: “I entered into this collaboration in good faith, believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life.” She added that the museum had tried to undermine the “integrity” of her work: concerns had been raised by curators about Trans Forming Liberty (pictured). The Smithsonian responded that it had been trying to…

At lunch in The Bull, Pip asks Stella if Rosie can call her “Mum”. Just then, noisy motorbikes wreak havoc in the car park. Kenton tries to downplay the incident, but the CCTV cameras have been smashed. Manager Dane wants to help with the village fête, with Grey Gables as sponsor – initially unconvinced, Lynda eventually agrees. Jolene tells Stella that Kenton is ignoring how recent events must be connected to Markie’s gang. At The Tea Room, Amber recognises Chelsea as her school bully; Brad introduces her to Mia, who’s back from uni. As promised, Tracy goes for dinner while Jazzer hosts her raucous 50th party – but she returns later to enjoy it. Toby tells an appalled Pip that he wants to give Rosie a phone; next day, Pip…

The return of state-funded restaurants Next year, two state-subsidised restaurants will open in Nottingham and Dundee. Inspired by the state-funded canteens of the Second World War, and offering meals costing as little as £3, these “Public Diners” will run for a 12-month trial period, says Ysenda Maxtone Graham in The Spectator. If successful, the scheme, initiated by the campaign group Nourish Scotland, will be “rolled out across Britain”. There’s a certain logic to state-backed dining, at a time when restaurant prices and food costs “have rocketed far more steeply than people’s pay”. Still, the concept seems fraught with difficulty, particularly as “we’re no longer the unfussy wartime population who gratefully scoffed a plateful of boiled cabbage and mashed potato”. Nourish Scotland claims that as well as tackling the “right to…

Ozzy Osbourne 1948-2025 As the frontman of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76, did not only help invent heavy metal, said The Daily Telegraph, he also pioneered its outrageous lifestyle: “preposterous theatrics”, rumours of satanism and shocking excesses. “I’m something of a madman,” Osbourne said. “If it’s booze, I drink the place dry. If drugs, I take everything and scrape the carpet for little crumbs.” He bit the head off a dead bat during a concert in 1982; he snorted a line of ants while partying with Mötley Crüe; and he was banned from performing in Texas, for urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph while wearing a dress (his wife Sharon had hidden his clothes to stop him going out, so he had borrowed hers). He was serially…

There have been reports of recent tensions between the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey. And things came to a head in a row over whether Britain’s most valuable fintech, Revolut, should be granted a full banking licence, said Samuel Norman in City AM. When Reeves recently tried to set up a meeting between financial watchdogs and Revolut to speed up its application, Bailey “blocked” the session – prompting a “clash” with the Treasury. Both parties accuse the other of political meddling. Revolut has made no bones about its frustration with what CEO Nik Storonsky calls Britain’s “extreme bureaucracy”. The $65bn fintech was finally granted “a provisional banking licence” last year after a three-year wait, said Szu Ping Chan and Matthew Field in The Daily…

Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo “It’s not quite Mr Bates versus the Post Office” but the Supreme Court decision to quash the convictions of City traders Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo – on a legal technicality, after a ten-year fight – corrects a miscarriage of justice, said Philip Augar in the FT. They were “fall guys” for the 2007-2009 banking crisis; their trials, for rigging interest-rate benchmarks Libor and Euribor, were conducted “amid ongoing public fury”. “The authorities were hunting for banking scalps,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times – no senior banker was ever charged. But Hayes (below right, with Palombo), a former UBS and Citigroup trader dubbed a “ringmaster” by the Serious Fraud Office, was sentenced to 14 years in 2015. He served five and a half, and…

Professor Michele Dougherty, who was appointed Astronomer Royal. The space physicist, who worked on Nasa’s Cassini project, is the first woman to serve as the monarch’s official adviser on matters astronomical in the post’s 350-year history. E-scooters, with news that rental schemes involving companies such as Lime are to be extended. Currently there are 18 trial schemes in operation in England; more local authorities can now apply to join them, as the Government continues to mull over the pros and cons of e-scooters. Lord (Chris) Smith, the former Labour culture minister, who was elected the 109th chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Smith said championing academic freedom and free speech would be his top priority. Other candidates had included broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and former BP boss Lord (John) Browne.…

More than 6,000 online platforms, including social media networks and pornography sites, introduced age checks last Friday to comply with the Online Safety Act. Ofcom has the authority to fine services that do not protect young people from harmful material up to £18m, or 10% of global turnover, and can block unsafe platforms. A petition calling for the repeal of the Act, arguing that it infringes on free speech and privacy, received nearly 432,000 signatures in five days. Downloads of virtual private network (VPN) apps, which can bypass age checks by masking a user’s location, surged by more than 1,000%.…

“The numbers should amaze us. Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin are all in their 70s. So are Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The supreme leader of Iran is 86. More than half of the world’s population is in the hands of men who are older than Ronald Reagan was when he entered the White House at 69. This is a destabilising force. As well as not having much time to leave a mark, these men won’t have decades of retirement in which to suffer the consequences of any disastrous act committed in office.” Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times…

How the US is Making China Great Again… Andreas Kluth Bloomberg The US State Department has a bizarre new mission, says Andreas Kluth: to “Make China Great Again”. For that is the inevitable result of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent decision to fire some 1,350 employees, calling them “radical ideologues”. Translation: these career diplomats and civil servants were not Maga loyalists. But that’s not all: before this, Rubio killed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), decimating its efforts to combat Aids, malaria and starvation abroad, and silencing the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. And who benefits from this reckless assault on the US’s outreach to the world? Why China, of course. Gutting USAID will cause an estimated 14 million additional deaths over the next five years…

A new immunotherapy drug for hay fever is being rolled out on the NHS in England. Betula verrucosa, sold under the brand name Itulazax 12 SQ-Bet, contains birch pollen extract. Taken daily in the form of an under-the-tongue pill, it should – over three years – train the body to tolerate tree pollen. It has proved effective in trials, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has concluded that it has the potential significantly to improve the quality of life of hay-fever sufferers. It will be prescribed to people for whom antihistamines and nasal sprays have not proved effective; Nice estimates that 27,000 will benefit from it. Patients will first have to take a blood or prick test to check that they are allergic to tree pollen.…

Resident doctors “have had an incredible deal out of the first year of Starmer’s Labour”, said Ross Clark in The Spectator. “Even while Rachel Reeves was bleating about a £22bn black hole”, one of her first acts as Chancellor was to award these NHS workers (formerly known as junior doctors) a 22% pay rise; this year, they were given “an inflation-busting 5.4%”. The hope was that this generous settlement would draw a line under more than a year of deeply damaging strikes. But now the British Medical Association (BMA) is back for more: resident doctors walked out for five days from last Friday in demand of a 29% pay rise instead. Their latest strike has prompted “utter fury” in government, said Chris Smyth in The Times, and led to a…

“One of the most reliable signs that you need a holiday is the conviction that you cannot spare the time to take one.”Bryan Magee, quoted in The New Statesman “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.”F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted in The Washington Post “It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”Tom Lehrer, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “The depressing thing about tennis is no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall.”Mitch Hedberg, quoted in The New York Times “How little our careers express what lies in us, and yet how much time they take up.”Philip Larkin, quoted in The Guardian “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when…

The fourth Test between England and India was another riveting affair, in a series that has provided rich entertainment, said Mike Atherton in The Times. Although England dominated most of the match – restricting India to 358 in their first innings before posting a massive 669 – it ended with a “superb rearguard action” by the visitors, who batted out the final day and a half to earn a draw that will “feel more like a victory”. As England’s bowlers toiled on a pitch that “stayed remarkably true to the end”, India’s captain, Shubman Gill, struck his fourth century of the series (pictured), and Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja also contributed unbeaten centuries. The result keeps India in the series: with one Test left to play, they trail 2-1. The…

To The Times The generally accepted definition of a nation state is a body of people occupying a territory defined by borders. France and other states now wish to recognise a Palestinian state. What do they imagine defines this state? Is it the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, or even “from the river to the sea?” Until and unless these questions are answered with the agreement of all sides, recognising a Palestinian state is little more than virtue signalling. John Grossman, London To The Times “Virtue signalling” should not be despised in a Palestinian context, as John Grossman does. The UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state would have a unique significance because the Balfour Declaration of 1917 committed the UK not only to “the establishment in Palestine of a national…

Nuns Behaving Badly by Craig A. Monson, 2010 (University of Chicago Press £19). The erudite musicologist unearthed these delicious stories from 16th and 17th century court records. My favourite concerns a Venetian abbess who sneaks out to the opera with a local priest. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, 1782 (Penguin £9.99). Written in decadent pre-revolutionary France, this erotically charged epistolary novel features a manipulative woman working under the surface of polite society. It occasioned a brilliant stage adaptation and two substantial movies. What writer could ask for more? How to be a Renaissance Woman by Jill Burke, 2023 (Profile £11.99). Burke delivers an equally entertaining and serious analysis of the business of Renaissance beauty. From early bras and disgusting skin-whitening concoctions to primitive cosmetic surgery, it delivers a…

Programmes Beethoven’s Fifth at The Proms The Scottish Chamber Orchestra performs the celebrated symphony, and pianist Alexandre Kantorow plays Saint-Saëns’ Fifth Piano Concerto. Sat 2 Aug, BBC2 18:50 (80mins). Parenthood New five-part series exploring the challenges for animals rearing offspring in the wild, starting with owls in Texas and a female hippo in Tanzania. Sun 3 Aug, BBC1 19:20 (60mins). Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? As doubts grow around the evidence used to convict Letby of the killing of seven newborn babies, this programme takes a look at the arguments. Sun 3 Aug, ITV1 22:20 (70mins). What Happened at Hiroshima 80 years on from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Jordan Dunbar revisits the events of August 1945 and meets some of the remaining survivors. Mon 4 Aug, BBC1 20:30 (30mins). Amol…

● Don’t be tempted by imitation designer handbags when you’re holidaying in Italy: it is illegal to buy counterfeit goods, and could result in a fine of up to £10,000. ● Flip-flops and sandals are banned on the hiking trails in Italy’s busy Cinque Terre, and you risk a fine of up to €2,500 if you flout the rules. In Capri, clogs have been banned since the 1960s because they are too noisy on the cobbled streets, and that law now seems to stretch to flip-flops too. ● Ditch the high heels at Greece’s ancient sites or you could be fined up to €900, as they might damage historic landmarks. ● In Portugal it is illegal to pee in the sea, or on a public beach (though how they can…

Hulk Hogan 1953-2025 Six-foot-seven-inches tall, and weighing 21 stone, Hulk Hogan was a colossus on the American wrestling scene in the 1980s. Instantly recognisable with his shiny orange skin, bandanas and handlebar moustache, he was the flamboyant star of the World Wrestling Federation – and helped turn it into a multibillion-dollar business. But, like WWF itself, his image was the result of artifice, said The Times. He was billed as coming from Venice Beach, though he’d never been there; he adopted an Irish-sounding name, as part of a strategy to attract a range of ethnic groups to WWF, though he had little or no Irish ancestry; and while he ordered his fans, or “Hulkamaniacs”, to live cleanly, he later admitted that he’d used steroids to help create his muscular physique…

A bad hangover Until 2020, Europe’s top winemakers enjoyed “a halcyon period” as collectors responded to “a series of ever-warmer growing periods and some improvements in winemaking”, said Alan Livsey in the FT. The pandemic led to a big price surge, driven by house-bound connoisseurs. But the market was unsettled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Commodity prices soared, interest rates rose sharply – and “wine buying dried up”. Beastly bear market The Liv-ex index of the 100 most sought-after bottles has fallen nearly 21% in sterling terms in the two years to June, with Bordeaux and Burgundy – formerly the two most traded regions – declining even more steeply. The bear market has surprised even veterans. “In past slumps when demand for Bordeaux slowed”, buyers bought from Burgundy, Tuscany, or…

The week’s best shares Auto Trader Group The Daily Telegraph Ten times larger than its nearest competitor, the online automotive marketplace is set to benefit from rate cuts and wage growth. Return on equity is “exceptionally high” and debt is low. Buy. 828p. Breedon Group Investors’ Chronicle A victim of the pessimism enveloping the UK economy, this acquisitive construction materials group has also been hit by extreme US weather and planning delays. Yet it could benefit from pledged UK and Irish government infrastructure spending. Yields 4%. Buy. 347p. Coats Group Investors’ Chronicle The thread manufacturer also makes structural components for clothing and footwear. Its £250m acquisition of OrthoLite, which has a leading share of the insoles market, should boost earnings per share and margins. Buy. 73p. Danone The Daily Telegraph…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1476 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 11 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1476, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Paul McKenna This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 Kit gets good attention (4) 9 Do extra care (10) 10 State in the manner of framing question (6) 11 Knotted hankie, say, to provide note within (8) 12 Butter from back of shopping list finally crossed off (4) 13 Power with newspaper is in dull realist (10) 16 Sailor accepting new shouting and balling…