Table of contents for 1423 in The Week

The death toll from the 6 February earthquakes rose to more than 40,000 this week. Of these deaths, more than 35,000 have occurred in Turkey, making the twin quakes the deadliest such event in the country’s history; the toll in Syria has climbed above 5,500, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency. These figures are expected to rise considerably as ongoing rescue and salvage operations uncover further bodies, and as the destruction wreaked by the quakes leads some survivors to succumb to cold or disease. More than 47,000 buildings were either destroyed or so badly damaged as to require demolition. Millions of people have been left homeless in freezing conditions. Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation’s Europe director, said relief workers were facing “the worst natural disaster in the region for…

Anglo-Indian relations, as Buckingham Palace confirmed that the controversial Koh-i-Noor diamond will not feature in the coronation. India has been asking for the return of the 105.6-carat gem, which was mined in India in medieval times, since independence in 1947. It is currently set in the Queen Mother’s crown; but Camilla, the Queen Consort, will instead wear a modified version of Queen Mary’s crown at the ceremony. Boris Johnson, who registered advance payments of nearly £2.5m for speaking events in his latest declaration of earnings. He has declared income of nearly £5m since leaving No. 10. Creme Egg fans, after police officers recovered almost 200,000 Cadbury’s Creme Eggs that had been stolen from an industrial unit in Telford last Saturday. The perpetrator of the mass confectionery theft will be sentenced…

A “private” cross-party summit was held to discuss Brexit last week. The gathering, at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire, was chaired by the former Labour minister Peter Mandelson. Leading figures on both sides of the issue, including Michael Gove and members of the Labour shadow cabinet, attended, as well as grandees from both main parties. The Daily Mail described it as a “secret plot to unravel Brexit”; those involved said that it was an attempt to “make Brexit work better”.…

Toronto, Canada Mayor’s affair: The mayor of Toronto resigned in disgrace last week, following newspaper reports revealing that he had an affair with a staff member during the Covid pandemic. John Tory, 68, admitted to the relationship with an unnamed employee, who the Toronto Star reported was 31. He said the romance had ended “by mutual consent” earlier this year, and that the staff member in question had left her job. “I apologise unreservedly to the people of Toronto, and to all of those hurt by my actions,” he added. The married father-of-four apologised especially to his family, saying he must “fully commit” to repairing their relationship. A moderate conservative, Tory was on his third term as mayor. He came to power in 2014, when he beat Doug Ford, the…

“A new series of Fawlty Towers? That’s like Shakespeare announcing a sequel, Hamlet 2(b): This Time it’s Personal. Presumably, John Cleese is only doing it to pay his alimony, so perhaps the solution is to crowdfund him not to do it, matching whatever he is being paid by Castle Rock Entertainment. It reminded me of something toe-curling I once said when interviewing Joanna Lumley: ‘It was shrewd of you to only do two series of Absolutely Fabulous. Quitting at its peak. Like John Cleese, who only did 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers.’ I hadn’t realised she had done not only a third series of Ab Fab but a fourth and fifth, each worse than the last.” Nigel Farndale in The Times…

How to stop the next pandemic George Monbiot The Guardian A deadly flu pandemic requires certain ingredients, says George Monbiot. To start with, you need a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu – the sort intensive poultry farms are perfect for breeding. Then you need “a mixing vessel”: a species that can harbour this strain alongside one already adapted to humans. This can result in a dangerous strain that can spread from person to person. Pigs make reasonable mixing vessels, but a far more effective intermediary is the mink. These animals have a remarkable degree of “zoonotic potential”: in other words, they can be infected by, and infect, many different species. No surprise, then, that the first known case of large-scale mammal-to-mammal transmission of the H5N1 flu virus recently happened…

A super-fast trip to Mars When Nasa’s Orion spacecraft headed back to Earth last month after its trip around the Moon, it was travelling at almost 25,000 miles per hour; that is quite fast if the Moon is your destination, reports The Washington Post – but rather slow if you need to make the 300 million miles or so journey to Mars. Using current technology, it would take astronauts seven months to get to the Red Planet, which is just too long. It’s too long to spend on a cramped spacecraft, and it would also expose the crew to dangerous levels of cosmic radiation. If Nasa is to get to Mars, it needs to get there faster – which is why it has now unveiled plans to build a nuclear-powered…

The German ballet director Marco Goecke has been suspended from his post for smearing a paper bag filled with dog faeces over a critic’s face. Goecke targeted the journalist Wiebke Hüster at the première of his latest show, having taken issue with a review she’d written of a previous production. In the piece, Hüster observed that his show was like being “alternately driven mad and killed by boredom”. Reportedly, the excrement had been freshly deposited by Goecke’s dachshund, Gustav. Hanover State Opera, his employer, declared that his “impulsive behaviour” had broken its code of conduct. The singer Sam Smith caused a stir at last week’s Brit Awards by showing up in an inflatable latex suit. Its designer, Harri, told Vogue he’d had the idea for the suit when imagining what…

Volodymyr Zelensky certainly knows how to work an audience, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Speaking to an “enraptured” crowd of 2,000 MPs and peers in Westminster Hall last week, the Ukrainian president pressed all the right buttons. He made references to Winston Churchill, British “grit and character”, and “delicious English tea”. To support his appeal for fighter jets, he presented the Speaker of the House of Commons with a pilot’s helmet inscribed with the words: “We have freedom, give us the wings to protect it.” In response, Rishi Sunak agreed that Britain would train Ukrainian pilots, and suggested “nothing was off the table” when it comes to supplying the Ukrainian air force. Zelensky later visited the European Parliament, where he again charmed representatives by speaking about “our Europe” and…

It was the performance of Pep Guardiola’s life, said Martin Blackburn in The Sun. Four days previously, the Premier League had “clobbered” reigning champions Manchester City with 115 charges of financial wrongdoing. After a four-year, behind-closed-doors investigation, the League has accused the club of breaching its financial fair play rules over a nine-year period. Among other charges, the club is accused of overstating its sponsorship income, and using a secret shadow account to double its former manager Roberto Mancini’s wages. On Friday, the team’s current manager responded with a press conference that was “pure box office”, combining drama, defiance and conspiracy theory. “Obdurate, obtuse, righteous, outraged…” Guardiola faced the media with “the febrile energy of a tormented lover”, said Kevin Garside in The i Paper. He refuted the allegations, and…

Skateboarding Britain’s Sky Brown became a world champion at 14, after taking gold in the park event at the skateboarding world championships in Sharjah. Basketball LeBron James overtook Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in a game between LA Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Cricket India’s Smriti Mandhana became the most expensive player in women’s cricket following the first-ever Women’s IPL auction. She was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for £340,000.…

by Candice Millard Swift 368pp £20 The Week Bookshop £15.99 “The Romans had an expression to describe an outrageously impossible task,” said Gerard DeGroot in The Times. Facilius sit Nili caput invenire: it would be easier to find the source of the Nile. For Victorian adventurers, though, it was an irresistible challenge – and in this “captivating book”, the American journalist Candice Millard revisits the story of the first Europeans to succeed. She focuses on two expeditions in the 1850s, both led by the polyglot explorer Richard Burton. Both missions were “woefully ill-equipped”, and those on them endured terrible hardships: they were assailed by angry locals and wild animals, and exposed to an “infinite variety of contagions”. The trips also “morphed into a grotesque contest of egos”, as the unconventional…

Running time: 2hrs 40mins In his “gobsmackingly audacious” spin on the Greek myth of a woman in love with her stepson, the Australian writer-director Simon Stone has turned the play into a “satire on smug London elites, while retaining its transgressive, tragic power”, said Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard. In Stone’s reworking, Phaedra becomes Helen, a “complacently wealthy” married politician who falls for the Moroccan son of her former lover. Janet McTeer is “magnificent” as the “mesmerisingly Amazonian” Helen, making us “feel the joy of the character’s sexual reawakening as well as its wrongness”. She leads a superb cast – including Call My Agent!’s Assaad Bouab and the Canadian screen star Mackenzie Davis – who give “thrilling performances as utterly awful, self-absorbed people”. At times the play “teeters on…

As well as committing murder, rape and robbery, the Russian armies invading Ukraine have pillaged art on a vast scale, says Matthew Campbell in The Sunday Times. It amounts to “the biggest case of cultural plundering since the Second World War”. They have raided around 30 museums in Ukraine to take away “ancient sculptures, paintings, icons and busts worth millions of pounds”. Among the items stolen are artefacts created by the Scythians, a nomadic people who lived in the area up to the third century BC; in Mariupol, troops in balaclavas turned up at a local museum to take paintings by the 19th century Black Sea artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, along with 2,000 other works. But the biggest single heist was in Kherson: before the Russians were driven out of the…

Inspired by a photo from her eco-warrior days, Kate tells Jakob she’s ready for big changes. Ruairi is distraught when Julianne says she’s booked another escort for a business meal – it’s over. Ruairi calls Alice who implores him to come home. When Freddie asks Elizabeth for more management experience, she sets him a challenge. In Ambridge, Alice is horrified to hear the truth about Ruairi’s arrangement with Julianne. Joy starts as a volunteer at the shop. After helping with some planting, Kate tells Stella that she’s put herself in charge of making Home Farm net zero. When Jakob questions her plan, Kate says she’ll sell Spiritual Home. Things go sour after Julianne brings Ruairi to a business event in Felpersham – Alice accuses her of exploiting him and takes…

Serves 4 2 garlic cloves, diced 2 rosemary sprigs, needles stripped and finely chopped handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped zest of ¼ a lemon 10g grated parmesan 1.5kg pork knuckle (in one piece) 5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 50ml white wine ½ an onion, finely chopped 1 celery stick, finely chopped 1 carrot, finely chopped 1 litre passata approx. 600ml water sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • Combine the garlic, rosemary, parsley, lemon zest, grated parmesan and a little salt and pepper in a bowl, then place this mixture around the cavity of the pork, pressing it in well. Tie up with kitchen string so that the filling doesn’t escape. • Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium-to-high heat, add the…

Zipcar offers car-sharing in cities across the UK. Apply online and pay a membership fee; once you’re approved, you can use the app to book cars (and small vans) by the hour or day. Zipcar has enhanced cleaning protocols with spot checks (zipcar.com; from £3/hour). Virtuo is popular because it’s so seamless. Once you’ve uploaded your documents, you can book a car on the app and pick it up at one of 70 hubs across Europe, or get it delivered to your home or office. You use your phone to unlock the car, and start it too (govirtuo.com; from £50/day). Car-sharing platforms such as Hiyacar and Getaround allow people to rent out their cars, with stringent measures for cleaning vehicles between uses. Hiyacar offers a monthly subscription with unlimited mileage…

Magical Savannah Few cities in America cast a “spell” like Savannah, says Dirk Standen in the Financial Times. Its old centre has a “weird magic”, with its red-brick Georgian mansions, “lush, overgrown” courtyards and “hushed squares where the sunlight glimmers through dense tangles of Spanish moss”. But the city (the oldest in Georgia) has its lively side, with a sleek contemporary art gallery, the SCAD Museum of Art and plenty of “idiosyncratic” shops, including antiquarians (Arthur Smith, Arcanum), “overstuffed” booksellers (E. Shaver, The Book Lady) and interiors shops (Asher + Rye, The Paris Market). Stay at the Perry Lane Hotel, which has a good rooftop bar, and explore Savannah’s thriving dining scene, being sure not to miss The Grey, a former Greyhound bus terminal where chef Mashama Bailey offers “dazzling”…

Burt Bacharach 1928-2023 Burt Bacharach, who has died aged 94, formed, with the lyricist Hal David, the most “accomplished American songwriting team since George and Ira Gershwin”, said The Daily Telegraph. Together, they were responsible for an astonishing array of classic songs: What the World Needs Now Is Love; I Say a Little Prayer; Do You Know the Way to San Jose; Walk On By; Make It Easy on Yourself; Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa; This Girl’s In Love With You; Alfie; The Look of Love, and more. Their songs were recorded by everyone from Aretha Franklin to Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield, but the singer that Bacharach described as “our artist, our flagship” was Dionne Warwick. Her voice, he said, has “the delicacy and mystery of sailing ships in…

“It’s a national preoccupation,” said Alex Clark in The Daily Telegraph: thinking about how far house prices have fallen, and how much further they will drop. Given the sheer number of house price indices, each measuring a different timescale or aspect of the market, it’s a tricky question to crack. In November, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast showed “price falls bottoming out in 2024”, after an 8% fall from the average price peak. Yet so far, “the real data has outpaced the OBR’s forecast”. Meanwhile, predictions by Oxford Economics and Capital Economics suggest prices will fall by 12% in 2023. Former BoE rate-setter Danny Blanchflower is one of those who reckons the housing market is already “collapsing”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. But the latest half-year figures from…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1350 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 27 February. Send it to The Week Crossword 1350, 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 1 Nice ladies made to work in a dirty state (8) 5 Small spots in glasses mentioned (6) 9 Nonsense on seat in Manhattan, perhaps (8) 10 Accountant restricted by awfully dear place for shopping (6) 11 They may make grandee enraged or angered (8)…

“And just like that, she’s gone,” said Ian Dunt in The i Paper. During eight years as Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon established herself as “the most impressive politician” in Britain, combining empathetic leadership with exceptional electability. On Wednesday, however, she announced that her race was run. She was stepping down as First Minister as soon as her Scottish National Party chooses her successor. It had been a “privilege beyond measure” to serve as FM, she declared at a hastily convened press conference in Edinburgh. But “in my head and my heart”, she said, she knew that it was the right time to stand down – “for me, my party and the country”. Her exit is a huge setback for the Scottish independence movement, and has “hit the political world…

Five years ago, a Labour councillor named Lee Anderson hired a digger and dumped two big concrete blocks across the entrance of a car park at Strawberry Bank, the highest point in Nottinghamshire. Anderson’s goal, said Patrick Maguire in The Times, was to stop Travellers pitching camp at the beauty spot, by personally erecting a barrier after the council had refused to. It was “one man’s lonely monument to disillusionment with the political process in what was not yet called the ‘red wall’”. Anderson, a former miner who once counted Dennis Skinner and Arthur Scargill among his heroes, was suspended by the Labour Party. Fiercely pro-Brexit and anti-Corbyn, he joined the Conservatives in time to stand as an MP in 2019 – and swiftly became their most “singular and controversial”…

Pubs and bars, as figures showed that closures across the UK in 2022 were near the highest level in a decade. More than 500 closed down last year as the sector struggled with rising costs. Jared O’Mara, the former Labour MP, who has been convicted of six charges of fraud, and jailed for four years. O’Mara, who tried to claim £52,000 of taxpayers’ money to help fund his cocaine habit, was told by a judge that he had abused his position to commit a series of “cynical and deliberate” frauds. Lilt, which is being phased out. The soft drink, known for its “totally tropical taste”, has been rebranded by the Coca-Cola Company: it will be called Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit.…

Only 10% of British adults think that companies make statements about political issues primarily because they genuinely believe in them. 58% do not think that companies should be able to force workers to declare their gender pronouns. Policy Exchange/The Daily Telegraph According to YouGov, 24% of UK voters would vote Conservative in a general election held tomorrow. 47% would vote Labour, followed by the Lib Dems (10%), Greens (6%), Reform UK (6%) and the SNP (4%). Labour would win a majority of more than 180, according to an MRP poll (giving results for individual seats) for The Daily Telegraph by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus. The Tories would be left with 45 seats, fewer than the SNP.…

Rushdie’s brush with death Not long before The Satanic Verses was published, Salman Rushdie told a reporter: “It would be absurd to think that a book can cause riots.” In the event, it unleashed riots and worse: after Iran’s ayatollah issued his fatwa, two of the novel’s translators were stabbed, one fatally; and its Norwegian publisher was shot. Rushdie had to go into hiding for ten years. Some people were stoutly supportive, including his friends Nigella Lawson and Martin Amis. Others less so. Roald Dahl, for instance, was one of many who suggested that Rushdie had brought it on himself, referring to him as a “dangerous opportunist” who “knew exactly what he was doing”; while John le Carré urged him to withdraw the book until a “calmer time”. But when,…

ZIMBABWE We are losing doctors to the UK’s hypocrisy Al Jazeera (Doha) The UK is propping up its crisis-hit NHS by “plundering” workers from its former colonies, says Ashley Simango. Zimbabwe has lost more than 4,000 nurses and doctors in the past year alone – and Britain is “the destination of choice”. It’s a drain that Zimbabwe can ill afford: the nation has a “paltry” 3,500 doctors for a population of 15 million, and just two or three nurses per 1,000 people (the UK has 7.8). There’s a “vicious cycle” at work here: what’s the point of the UK donating £35m to help Zimbabwe create a “resilient” health system, as it did recently, if it then entices the country’s professionals to migrate? As if that wasn’t bad enough, the UK…

“With blond braids looped over her ears, dressed in a long black skirt and black jacket accessorised with a riding crop”, Madonna took to the stage at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last week to introduce her fellow performers Sam Smith and Kim Petras. No one was really listening, though, to her kind words of support, said Jennifer Weiner in The New York Times. The watching world was far more interested in Madonna’s “preternaturally smooth and extravagantly sculpted face”. The 64-year-old’s features looked “exaggerated, pushed and polished to an extreme”, as if she was some kind of “excessively contoured baby”. The effect was “more than slightly off”, and people noticed. “Madonna confuses fans over new face,” reported the New York Post. She came back fighting, said Jan Moir in…

“It is hard to remember a more compelling Six Nations contest,” said Gavin Mairs in The Sunday Telegraph: Ireland’s 32-19 win over title-holders France in Dublin was studded with breathtaking action, including three spectacular tries in an opening half that will surely “be remembered as the tournament’s zenith”. The clash between French creativity and Irish physicality elicited extraordinary feats of athleticism on both sides, and Ireland were forced to wait until the 73rd minute before Garry Ringrose delivered the match-clinching try. There is no question now about who is “the best team in world rugby”, said Michael Scully in The Irish Mirror. Before it, France had gone 14 games without a loss; but Ireland sealed their position as world No. 1 with their 13th home win in a row. The…

Imperial investments… To The Spectator How refreshing to have such a frank discourse on the successes and failures of British imperial rule (“Empire state of mind”). However, there was some stuttering when it came to the economic argument with its focus on the extraction of natural resources and inadequate reward to colonies. But this is to neglect the prior stage of such “exploitation”, the investment of capital required to enable the extraction. The point is well made in Kartar Lalvani’s The Making of India, with its account of British-built railways, ports and roads. Nor was the supply of water, education and health neglected. All of which led a former Indian cabinet minister to reflect on the permanent blessings of colonial rule, “which only the unique attributes of the British could…

by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Cape 272pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 Robert Douglas-Fairhurst has always been “drawn to writers who are maestros of metamorphosis”, said Peter Kemp in The Sunday Times. In his literary biography The Story of Alice, he captured the transition of Charles Dodgson “from a buttoned-up mathematics don into Lewis Carroll”. Now, in his first memoir, Douglas-Fairhurst describes his own metamorphosis: how in 2017 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the more serious type known as “primary progressive”. Within months, it was “manifesting itself more and more aggressively”: walking became treacherous – falls were frequent – and he found himself forgetting words and phrases. The “likely prognosis” was dire, an “unstoppable deterioration into increasing helplessness”. Yet Douglas-Fairhurst writes about his illness with “lucidity and sparkle” in this “piercingly…

Donatello (c.1386-1466) was “the most revolutionary of all Italian sculptors”, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. “Industrious”, “prolific” and long-lived, the Florence-born master is credited with almost single-handedly creating the sculptural aesthetic of the Italian Renaissance and paving the way for Michelangelo. “Donatello’s most famous figure is probably the young David in black bronze, the first standing male nude in Renaissance art.” Like no one before him, he “could turn stone into something as supple as warm skin and velvet”, creating “some of the strangest sculptures in art” – “outlandish hybrids of ancient and modern” that fused medieval Catholic imagery with any number of tricks borrowed from classical tradition. This month, the V&A opened “the first substantial exhibition” of his art ever mounted in Britain, a show that promises to…

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, 1791 (Penguin £25). The best biography ever written in English, and the most entertaining. Addictive as much for Boswell’s presciently modern, informal and racy prose as for Johnson’s epigrammatic precision and enduring (and, it should be said, wholly Christian and conservative) decency. The Most of A.J. Liebling by A.J. Liebling, 1963 (out of print). The best poetic reporter on Paris, and on boxing, and on war, with the widest range of knowledge and the slyest gift for horizontal allusion. A writer of pleasures – eating and drinking – he is equally good on battles and has a moral point to make that defending pleasure is a good enough reason to resist tyrants. The Early Stories: 1953-1975 by John Updike, 2003 (Penguin £20).…

Programmes Parole Five-part docuseries that goes inside the highly charged world of parole hearings. After 25 years, Colin – convicted of murder – has a chance to be released. Mon 20 Feb, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Storyville – Inside Russia: Traitors and Heroes Two film-makers document the impact of the war on their country and the stark choice faced by Russians – to flee, support or oppose. Mon 20 Feb, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). Panorama: Ukraine’s War Diaries Five ordinary Ukrainians film their everyday lives, including a wedding photographer turned war photographer and a 19-year-old army volunteer. Tue 21 Feb, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). The Billionaires Who Made Our World: Jeff Bezos An unsparing look at the man behind Amazon, examining its far-reaching influence and the backlash against its business practices. Wed 22…

Croatian escape Spend 4 nights at Hotel Bozica, located on the shore of the island of Šipan, with its own beach and pier. From £919pp b&b (incl. London flights). 0871-474 3000, onthebeach.co.uk. Depart 4 June. Costa Rica and Panama A 12-day nature-focused trip with stops in Puerto Viejo and Bocas del Toro. From £1,899pp b&b (incl. Dublin flights, all transfers and activities). 020-3504 7322, exoticca.com. Depart 7 May. Five-star Dominican Republic The Lopesan Costa Bávaro Resort offers a sandy beach and turquoise waters. A 7-night stay costs from £1,587pp all-inclusive (incl. Manchester flights). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 18 May. French getaway at Annecy Set in a delightful location, the 4-star Impérial Palace offers grand views over Lake Annecy. Three nights cost from £811pp b&b (incl. Cardiff flights). 020-3024 8211, expedia.co.uk.…

Ford: jobs inferno “Here in Europe, we’ve got a pretty difficult economic situation and the outlook is uncertain,” said Ford’s UK boss, Tim Slatter, as he slashed 1,300 jobs (one in five of its UK workforce) this week. The move, said BBC Business, is part of “a major restructuring programme” that will see the US carmaker cut 3,800 jobs across Europe as it “prepares for the transition to electric vehicles”, lured in part by lavish US green manufacturing subsidies. It also marks a retreat from the UK, coming just over two years after Ford closed its engine plant in Bridgend. This time, the cuts will mostly be felt by “development staff” at its Dunton research site in Essex. Slatter’s explanation is “feeble”, said Ross Clark on Spectator.co.uk. He claims electric…

A shamefully slow retreat from Moscow Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph Unilever’s outgoing boss, Alan Jope, has revealed that the firm will continue selling food and hygiene products in Russia because “exiting is not straightforward”. He’s not alone, says Matthew Lynn. As we approach the first anniversary of the Ukraine War, plenty of other companies are either “taking their time about getting out” of Russia, or “crafting buy-back clauses that will allow them to return once a ceasefire has been negotiated”. Last week, Carlsberg raised the possibility of a return. Indeed, a recent report by the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, found that of the more than 2,000 Western-owned businesses in Russia, only 9% had so far been closed. The reluctance is understandable: Russia remains a huge market of 140…

The Church of England has said it is considering using gender-neutral terms to refer to God. In a statement, it stressed that there were no imminent plans to “abolish or substantially revise” the existing liturgy, but said that Christians have long recognised that God is “neither male nor female”. Its Faith and Order Commission, which advises on theology, will now examine the issue. One in six employees are still working from home, figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest. According to its latest survey, 16% of adults said they were exclusively working from home between September and January, while 56% were working outside the home. A further 28% were doing a bit of both.…

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced this week that it was no longer monitoring the Labour Party in relation to antisemitism. The decision came more than two years after the EHRC had identified “serious failings” over the issue, including the “unlawful harassment” of Jewish members. The party, it found, had improved complaints and training procedures sufficiently to protect its members. Speaking after the decision was published, Keir Starmer called it “an important moment” in Labour Party history. At the same time, he ruled out the prospect of allowing Jeremy Corbyn to stand as a Labour candidate in the next general election.…

Paris Reporter’s escape: A former Russian TV editor, who was arrested in Moscow for staging a protest at the Kremlin against the war in Ukraine, revealed last week that she has escaped to France. Marina Ovsyannikova said she was advised by her lawyers to flee with her daughter, 11, or face being “broken” in a Russian jail, after she held up a sign saying “Putin is a murderer”. This followed an earlier on-air protest on the state-controlled channel she worked for. Despite an ankle tag, she escaped with the help of journalists’ organisation Reporters Without Borders, travelling at night in seven different cars before crossing over into another unnamed country. Paris Pension protests: Almost a million people joined demonstrations across France against President Macron’s pension reform plan on Saturday, the…

1 I Don’t Wanna Play House by Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, performed by Tammy Wynette 2 Where is Love? by Lionel Bart, performed by Keith Hamshere, from the original London cast recording of Oliver! 3 Dindi by Ray Gilbert, Antônio Carlos Jobim and Aloysio de Oliveira, performed by Maria Bethânia 4 Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do) by Morris Broadnax, Clarence Paul and Stevie Wonder, performed by Aretha Franklin 5 I Got a Right to Praise the Lord by Milton Ray Biggham, performed by the Georgia Mass Choir 6 Manhattan by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, performed by Blossom Dearie 7* You and I by Abbey Lincoln, Jerry González and Steve Coleman, performed by Abbey Lincoln 8 They Say It’s Wonderful by Irving Berlin, performed by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman Book:…

For five years after the 2016 referendum, won by 52% to 48%, a plurality of voters wanted to give Brexit a chance, perhaps because the referendum result didn’t have the instant consequences predicted by “Project Fear”: interest rates didn’t rise, the equity market and house prices didn’t fall, and employment even rose slightly. Changing patterns of support up to 2021 seem largely to have been driven by Brexit-supporting older voters leaving the stage and being replaced by Remain-supporting younger voters, rather than by people changing their minds in large numbers. That seems to have changed in 2022. In November, a YouGov poll found that Britons thought leaving the EU was a mistake by 56% to 32%, with 19% of Leave voters now saying it was the wrong thing to do.…

Going, going… the Great Salt Lake Stephen Trimble Los Angeles Times The largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere is disappearing, says Stephen Trimble. I’m referring, of course, to the Great Salt Lake, the body of water after which Utah’s state capital is named. The lake is essentially a shallow saucer, with an average depth of just under 15 feet, that relies on an inflow of water from three river systems to maintain its level and counteract the effects of evaporation. “Every one-foot drop in surface level matters” – and there have been too many of them over recent years. Since 1850, the lake has “lost 73% of its water and 60% of its area, exposing more than 800 square miles of lakebed sediments dense with heavy metals and organic…

Injections of a naturally occurring hormone called kisspeptin could be an effective treatment for men and women with a low sex drive, reports The Guardian. Two studies, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, looked into the effect of kisspeptin in men and women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) – described as low sexual desire that is distressing to the individual. HSDD affects up to 10% of women and 8% of men. For both trials, men and women with HSDD were shown erotic videos while undergoing MRI scans. This revealed increased activity in brain regions linked to arousal and attraction in both sexes when they were given kisspeptin. The women in the study also reported feeling “more sexy” when they were given kisspeptin than when they were given a…

Hardly anyone in the UK seems to have clocked the “sheer enormity” of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, said Iain Martin on Reaction. It provides $370bn in subsidies and tax breaks to US businesses making “the stuff of the future” – especially green technology – and will suck in trillions more in global investment. It is an astonishingly aggressive use of state power to mould the economic future. The British Government, meanwhile, remains so fearful of state intervention that the very phrase “industrial strategy” has just been dropped from the Business Department’s name, said John Thornhill in the FT. Since the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (as it is now) was created seven years ago, there have been seven secretaries of state – a “dizzying churn” that has…

“The world is full of cactus, but we don’t have to sit on it.”Will Foley, quoted in Forbes “What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.”Paul Valéry, quoted in The New York Times “Bad times traditionally produce good books.”Salman Rushdie, quoted in the Financial Times “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”Aldous Huxley, quoted in The Atlantic “If you are not consciously building your habits, they are unconsciously building you.”Anika J. Green, quoted in The Good Men Project “Republicans say government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”P.J. O’Rourke, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “The first principle is that you…

A Super Bowl comeback Patrick Mahomes, the 27-year-old quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, started the Super Bowl with a sprained ankle. He finished it with a game-winning manoeuvre that demonstrated why he is the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. In a nerve-jangling match against the Philadelphia Eagles, who outplayed the Chiefs “for much of the game”, Mahomes saved his most heroic plays for when it mattered most. In the last minute of the match, he made 26 yards to set up a field goal opportunity – which Harrison Butker kicked over with eight seconds remaining, to win by 38-35. It was “perhaps the most remarkable comeback in the franchise’s history”, said Nate Taylor on The Athletic. After two quarters, the Chiefs were 24-14…

To The Guardian I read with great interest Emine Saner’s article (“OMG! Is swearing still taboo?”). I remember reading, many years ago, an article about how the increased usage and acceptability of swearing had contributed to a more violent society. The main idea was that swearing, historically, had been used between adversaries to warn of increasing tensions in a conflict or argument. Each party would be aware of the significance of the use of swearwords, enabling either side to back down or withdraw. The theory was that with the widespread use of these words and the acceptability of them, their value in this context had decreased; their significance was no longer understood. A stage in the development of a conflict had been removed – thus resulting in the increased likelihood…

by Dizz Tate Faber 240pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 This “astonishing debut” will “burrow under your skin”, said Laura Hackett in The Sunday Times. Written by the London-based, Orlando-raised writer Dizz Tate, it is a tale of “toxic friendship, female rage, sexual abuse and trauma”, set in a decaying Florida housing estate, and narrated by a Greek chorus of 13-year-old girls. As it opens, Sammy – a slightly older girl with whom the chorus is obsessed – has just gone missing. As the adults search for her with torches and metal poles, it appears that the narrators “know more than they admit”. What unfolds is a story of “grotesque horror” – one which isn’t always an “easy read”, but which is compulsive throughout. Tate is a writer with “talent…

Serena Korda at Cooke Latham Gallery There are echoes of the stranger aspects of Donatello’s sculpture in The Maidens, an exhibition by the British artist Serena Korda at Battersea’s Cooke Latham Gallery. Basing her surrealist-tinged ceramic work on a gratifyingly idiosyncratic, feminist-informed personal mythology involving giants, elements from The Odyssey and a healthy dose of baroque weirdness, Korda fields an impressive selection of sculptures that are by turns charming and grotesque. One appears to represent an elaborately embroidered coat hanging from a T-shaped frame, but could just as easily be yellowing skin; a series entitled Tongue consists of delicately rendered imitations of pink tapestries bearing an unsettling resemblance to cured meat. Elsewhere, a pair of forearms stretch up, proffering two giant eyeballs gripped in their palms. Certainly, there’s a degree of…

• Get bulbs planted in the ground or containers pronto. They may flower a bit late, or come up blind, but if you let the foliage die back, they’ll flower next spring. • Cut back deciduous ornamental grasses when they’re producing new growth, but be careful not to damage the new shoots. Borderline hardy plants are better left until it is a bit warmer. Put on gloves and comb out old foliage on evergreen grasses. • Prune deciduous shrubs (shrub roses, climbing roses and fruit bushes). Make sure your blades are sharp, and clean them with alcohol wipes between plants to avoid transferring disease. Cut back to a healthy bud, and take out any dead growth. Wait until late summer to prune birch, walnut, maple and magnolia tress. • It’s…

General Pervez Musharraf 1943-2023 Of all Pakistan’s leaders since independence, none has “so divided opinion” as General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, said The Guardian. To some, he was just another “ruthless military dictator” who allowed radical religious parties to flourish, “to clip the ambitions” of secular ones opposed to his military rule; to others, he was a “man of vision”, a whisky-drinking liberal seeking to turn nuclear-armed Pakistan into a beacon of what he called “enlightened moderation”. It was abroad, however, that he enjoyed most acclaim. Under his leadership, the country evolved from “rogue state” to valued ally in the “war on terror” that followed the 9/11 attacks; and during Musharraf’s decade in office, the US provided Pakistan with $1bn a year in…

Last week, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt hosted a summit of 200 prominent business figures “to drum up fresh investment in Britain”, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. What better backdrop than a major snubbing from one of the country’s most respected CEOs? AstraZeneca’s “usually restrained” boss, Sir Pascal Soriot, confirmed the pharma will build a new $360m state-of-the-art factory in Ireland, rather than northwest England, because of what he called the UK’s “discouraging” tax regime. He isn’t alone in his disaffection. In April, corporation tax will jump from 19% to 25%, just as a generous “super-deduction” investment tax relief scheme ends. These tax raids are “killing off investment”. All credit to Soriot for highlighting the hypocrisy, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. His word, as a champion…

Philip Meeson Britons may feel broke, but we’re loving our holidays. And there’s no one flying higher than Jet2, whose Jet2holidays division has leapfrogged Tui to become the country’s “No. 1” tour operator, said The Times. It’s a remarkable feat for founding chairman Philip Meeson – a former RAF pilot and aerobatics stuntman – who started the company as a freight carrier, before applying for a passenger licence 16 years ago. Meeson, 75, is famed for the care he takes of his human cargo: customer service is a key Jet2 proposition. He’s so passionate about delivering that he was once “warned about his behaviour by police after delivering an expletive-laden assessment to check-in staff at Manchester airport”. He felt they’d let the side down. Nicola Mendelsohn The departure of Meta’s…