The Week -julkaisun 1399 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

What happened Experts warned that lives could be at risk this winter after the energy regulator increased the price cap on domestic bills by 80%. The hike – which comes on the heels of a 54% increase in April – means that, from 1 October, the monthly energy bill for an average household paying by direct debit will jump from around £164 to £296, equivalent to £3,549 a year. The 4.5 million households with pre-payment meters will see their annual bills rise to £3,608, based on typical usage. The increases reflect steep rises in the wholesale price of gas, largely as a result of the war in Ukraine. Analysts have predicted that average monthly bills could surge again to £450 in January, and £550 in April. In response to complaints…

To vomit over the prime minister of Japan, as George H.W. Bush did when attending a state banquet in Tokyo in 1992, could hardly be classed as a skilful diplomatic manoeuvre, said Clare Foges in The Times. But at least the US president could blame it on gastroenteritis. Liz Truss had no such excuse when she bad-mouthed Emmanuel Macron last week. Asked whether she saw the French president as “friend or foe”, the woman likely to become Britain’s next PM replied: “the jury’s out”. At a time of economic and political turmoil, when the UK needs all the friends it can get, what was the point of such a crass reply? No doubt she was trying to “tickle the tummies of Tory members” by channelling her vision of Margaret Thatcher.…

Stonehenge, after the historian Dan Snow remarked that the Bronze Age circle is “slightly overrated” as a tourist attraction. He suggested that it was hardly a “wonder of the world” like the Taj Mahal, and that visitors to Britain would do better to head north, to visit sites such as Hadrian’s Wall and Stirling Castle. HMS Prince of Wales, the UK’s biggest warship, which had to be towed back to shore by tugboats this week, having broken down near the Isle of Wight just a few hours after leaving Portsmouth for “landmark” deployment. The Navy said the 65,000 tonne, 280m aircraft carrier was still at sea, and that it hoped divers and engineers would be able to resolve the damage to its propeller shaft without having to return the ship…

Paris Private pools: French tax authorities have been using artificial intelligence to locate a hidden asset that has proved to be a major source of tax evasion: the unregistered private pool. Swimming pools increase tax liability because they boost the value of a property, and France has an awful lot of them – around 3.2 million – more per capita than any other nation bar the US. Last year, a scheme to cross-check aerial images with land-registry databases (using software developed by Google) was trialled across nine departments: it uncovered more than 20,000 undeclared pools worth about €10m (£8.6m) to the tax authorities. The scheme is now to be extended across the country. But as France grapples with its worst ever recorded drought, some Green party politicians are calling for…

“No wonder Joe Biden and Keir Starmer are underestimated. Swing voters aren’t as weird and needy as committed ones. They are at ease with the idea that each election pits a lesser against a greater evil. They don’t notice politics the rest of the time, much less use it as a source of vicarious fellowship. A leader need not have elemental star-power to woo them. It is enough to be someone they can just about live with. When Starmer is called a visionless bore, or Biden a life-long mediocrity, I hear only votes rolling in. Diligent, unprepossessing, best-of-a-bad-bunch candidates have long thrived in politics. What is new is the surprise when it happens.” Janan Ganesh in the FT…

How to get the “dodgy rich” to pay up Edward Lucas The Times £100bn. That, according to the National Crime Agency, is how much dirty money is channelled through Britain every year – the proceeds of organised crime, corruption and tax-dodging. It’s a scandalous situation that we’re not doing nearly enough to address, says Edward Lucas. But one simple change would make a huge difference: deny the kleptocrats anonymity. At present it’s all too easy for them to hide behind shell companies (more than 90,000 British properties are owned by such companies) and use fake names when making use of our legal system. But insist that the “beneficial owners” be properly identified, ensure that a judge can only hear a case when they have been, and you turn the tables.…

How to destroy forever chemicals Scientists have identified a cheap way to destroy the synthetic compounds known as “forever chemicals”, because they never break down in the environment. PFAS (perand polyfluoroalkyl substances) are used in thousands of everyday products, from toys to firefighting foams and non-stick frying pans, but they’ve been linked to a range of health conditions, including miscarriages and cancer. There are currently no good ways of disposing of PFAS: incinerating them emits toxic chemicals, and burying them can cause them to leach out into surrounding soil and rivers. The method devised by researchers from Northwestern University involves heating up PFAS in a solvent, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and a common reagent found in soaps, which causes the strong carbon-fluoride bonds in PFAS to break down, producing carbon and…

Ozzy Osbourne has revealed that he stopped taking LSD in the 1970s, following an unsettling encounter with a horse. Living in the US, he had swallowed “handfuls of [acid] tabs at a time”, he told Classic Rock. “The end of it came when we got back to England. I took ten tabs of acid then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end, the horse turned round and told me to f**k off. That was it for me.” Back in 2014, the Argentinian footballer Ángel Di María left Real Madrid to join Manchester United in a record £60m transfer deal. But it seems that no amount of money could have made the transfer worth it…

All things considered, one would’ve expected Ben Stokes to have been below his best in England’s second Test against South Africa, said Nick Hoult in The Sunday Telegraph. The match coincided with the release of Phoenix from the Ashes, an Amazon Prime documentary about Stokes and his struggles with anxiety and depression. England’s captain was thus the “only story in town”. Some “would have let the fuss distract them”. Not Stokes. At Old Trafford, it was clear he had one thing only on his mind: helping his team level the series following their defeat in the first Test at Lord’s. In his best performance since taking over the reins from Joe Root, Stokes scored a century and took four crucial wickets to propel his side to a stomping innings victory.…

F1 Lewis Hamilton crashed out of the Belgian Grand Prix following an opening-lap collision. The race was won by Max Verstappen. Cycling Kenyan cyclist Sule Kangangi was killed last Sunday after crashing at high speed in the Vermont Overland – a race held on a 59-mile dirt road. Football Erling Haaland scored his first hat-trick for Man City as they recovered from a two-goal deficit to beat Crystal Palace 4-2. Tennis Emma Raducanu’s US Open title defence ended in a first-round 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Alizé Cornet.…

Running time: 2hrs 40mins This production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods was summarily cancelled by the Old Vic last year, said Clive Davis in The Times, a few months before it was due to open. Co-director Terry Gilliam – “still a free spirit at the age of 81” – had, it seems, fallen foul of younger staff who were reported to have felt “uneasy” about remarks he had made about the #MeToo movement and transgender issues. His “thought crimes”, said Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail, apparently included recommending a Netflix special by the African-American comedian Dave Chappelle. “What a relief, therefore, to see that artistic merit can still triumph over small minds.” The production, now staged in Bath, is spectacular to behold, and takes a “childlike delight in…

At the fete, Adil improvises as he reads Denise’s fortune, saying she has a secret admirer at work. Ed berates a convalescing George for taking such a stupid, dangerous risk. Denise is convinced that Jakob fancies her; she confides in Alistair, who says he’ll have a chat with Jakob. Jakob points out that it’s Alistair who has the crush, but is in denial. Ruairi’s visiting from uni and Ben asks if he’s still seeing his “paying” friend Julianne; Ruairi says yes, but that they don’t sleep together. Alistair is dismayed to learn that Denise is leaving on a six-month work placement; she hopes the change might help her marriage. George tells Will he wants to move into the farmhouse – he’s fed up with Ed having a go at him.…

Serves 8 1kg Swiss chard 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 3 red onions, finely sliced 300g sheet of ready rolled puff pastry 3 eggs 1 tbsp whole milk 100g crème fraîche 1 tsp thyme leaves, finely chopped 12 pitted taggiasche olives, roughly chopped 250g smoked scamorza, sliced 1 garlic clove, finely sliced sea salt and freshly ground black pepper • Cut the stems off the chard and cut into 1cm slices. Slice the leaves into 2cm pieces. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil and add the stems. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the leaves and cook for 2 minutes. Drain in a colander and press down with a wooden spoon to extract any excess water. Set aside. • Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying…

SpareRoom allows renters to post “room wanted” ads. There’s instant messaging and an in-app video call function for virtual viewings, plus lots of filters and a “buddy up” option to find other renters in a set area and budget (free; iOS and Android). OpenRent connects landlords directly to tenants, and also has instant messaging. You can pay the deposit and sign your tenancy agreement online, and there’s a complimentary concierge to help set up council tax, energy bills etc. (free; Android). Housr aims to be a Tinder-style central hub for student rentals. Users can create an interactive map of properties that meet their criteria and the app creates a group chat for flatmates to sort bills, insurance and deposits (free; iOS and Android). Renters who are hoping to buy can…

Masseria Moroseta Puglia, Italy Located outside the beautiful hilltop town of Ostuni, this is one of the “chic” new breed of farm stays in the southern Italian region of Puglia where “sustainability and style go hand in hand”. Set amid meadows and olive groves with views to the sea, it’s a contemporary take on a traditional farmhouse. The six rooms have French doors and secluded outdoor areas, and there’s a large pool, a spa with steam room, and a biodynamic garden. Doubles from £187 b&b, masseriamoroseta.it. Can Marti Ibiza, Spain A ten-minute drive from some of Ibiza’s most “exquisite” beaches, but far from the island’s fleshpots, this 400-year-old finca lies on a 42-acre estate in the protected Can Marti valley. The land is managed using organic and permaculture principles. The…

Gilt trip Investors are betting on “a surge in UK borrowing costs” as spiralling energy prices force the Bank of England to sharply increase interest rates from the current 1.75%, said the FT. On Tuesday, “the two-year gilt yield, which reflects market expectations for BoE policy”, touched 3% “for the first time in 14 years”. Tumbling pound The increase in gilt yields “is a further headache for the next PM”, who is likely to be forced “to take on more debt as part of stimulus efforts”, said The Daily Telegraph. Jitters over the UK economy have also sent the pound tumbling. Sterling fell 0.7% to $1.16 – its lowest level “since the start of the pandemic” in March 2020. It is now down “almost 14% against the dollar this year”.…

The week’s best shares H&T Group Investors’ Chronicle The deepening cost-of-living crisis is a boon to the pawnbroker whose pledge book is well up on pre-Covid levels, and rising, as punters seek alternative incomes. The higher gold price is attracting purchasers. Buy. 460p. IP Group The Mail on Sunday IP develops intellectual property starts-ups, focusing on healthcare, tech and green firms. Investments include arthritis drug developer Istesso, and the anti-fraud AI specialist Featurespace. “Seriously undervalued.” Buy. 69p. Lookers The Times The shortage of new cars has pushed up prices of used vehicles, shoring up the auto-dealer’s revenues and profits. Digitising operations and forging deals with manufacturers. A potential takeover target. Buy. 75p Philip Morris International The Daily Telegraph Profits are booming at the US tobacco giant, which operates in 180…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1327 An Ettinger shoe horn 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 12 September. Send it to The Week Crossword 1327, 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) Bridle Hide travel shoehorn in black, which retails at £75, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 8 Reckoning for former president (4) 9 One who enjoys a certain standing in music (10) 10 Quote from a dead Italian leader (6) 11 Canteen in a mess concealing right way in (8) 12 Footwear for course organisers? (8) 14 Huge frame not very…

What happened There was fierce fighting around the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson this week, as Kyiv’s forces launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive. Explosions and gunfire were heard in the city, which has been under Russian control since March; unverified footage appeared to show the destroyed headquarters of Russia’s forces there. President Zelensky told Russian troops to flee the southern region or surrender if they wanted to survive. Kyiv’s forces won’t stop until they have “liberated everything that belongs to Ukraine”, he said. Russia claimed to have repelled the counteroffensive and inflicted heavy casualties on the Ukrainians. In a sign that he is preparing for a long war, Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian army to boost troop numbers by 137,000, to 1.15 million. UN inspectors were due to visit the Zaporizhzhia…

A Tesla owner in the US has had a chip implanted in his hand, so that he can unlock his car by simply waving at it. Brandon Dalaly dismissed the conspiracy theories that have flourished online since news of his operation started to spread. “I’m not over here worshipping Satan,” he said. “I just don’t want to have to worry about forgetting my car keys.” Literature students at the University of Texas at Austin will be able to take a new course this autumn, on the songwriting of Taylor Swift. The pop star’s oeuvre will be read alongside works by Shakespeare and Keats. Texas State University is launching a similar course, which will allow students to study “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet and European Pop…

Pupils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE results last week. More than 73% of exams were awarded a 4 or higher – the equivalent of a C or above in the old system – down from 77% in 2021, when grades were decided by teachers, but up from 67% in 2019. The results showed worsening regional disparities in England: just under a third of GCSEs in London were marked 7 or above, compared to just over a fifth in the Northeast of the country. Girls outperformed boys, as they have every year since GCSEs were introduced in the 1980s. As with the A-level results, fee-paying schools had sharper falls than state ones, fuelling claims that they’d “gamed the system” during lockdown.…

Glen Rose, Texas Drought exposes secrets: A set of 113-million-year-old dinosaur tracks was exposed last week by the extreme drought in Texas. The footprints, of the 15ft-tall bipedal theropod Acrocanthosaurus, were found imprinted in the limestone bed of the Paluxy River, which dried up this summer. Elsewhere in the US, falling water levels have revealed more gruesome secrets: since May, the bodies of several men have been found on the shores of the receding Lake Mead, near Las Vegas. One was in a barrel, and had been shot in the head. Sacramento, California Petrol cars phased out: California is to ban the sale of new petrol- and diesel-powered cars by 2035, as part of its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The policy – issued as an executive order by…

An 18ft-long Burmese python was spotted slithering along rooftops in a street in Hampshire last week, before trying to enter a house via an upstairs window. Local resident Jenny Warwick, 62, noticed the non-venomous snake at 5.30am. “[I] thought it must be a plastic tube, but then its head started moving,” she said. Someone inside the house then poked it with a broom, sending it tumbling to the ground with a thud. A local snake lover then kept it safe in her conservatory until its owner could come and collect it. “It’s not what you want to see first thing in the morning,” noted Warwick. A man in Nebraska has set a world record by paddling 38 miles along a river in a 384kg hollowed-out pumpkin. Duane Hansen completed his…

COLOMBIA A nation with no idea how to keep time El Tiempo (Bogotá) “In Colombia, we are systematically late,” says Marcela Meléndez. We’re never on time for meetings, appointments, or to catch up with friends, even when we’ve made plans months in advance. It has become known as a “bad Latin American habit”, to the point that foreigners tell us to arrive early because they know we run on “Colombian time”. Yet this chronic tardiness isn’t just a harmless cultural quirk. It has a “ripple effect” that makes life harder for everyone. Respecting other people’s time “allows societies to function efficiently”. Late to coffee with a friend? She might have to cancel later plans. Miss half a work meeting? Your “lack of foresight” could force your colleague to stay in…

“Disbelief, despair and pure, unadulterated anger.” That was the mood in Liverpool last week, said Maria Breslin in The Guardian, when the city learnt that a nine-year-old girl had been shot dead in her own home – 15 years to the day after 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot as he walked home from football practice. Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed by a masked gunman, who was in pursuit of a man later identified as Joseph Nee. A convicted burglar, released from jail on licence, Nee had barged into Olivia’s home after her mother, Cheryl, opened the door to investigate the noise outside; the gunman followed him, firing indiscriminately, and one of his bullets hit Olivia in the chest. Liverpool has changed since Rhys Jones’s killing by a gang member in 2007,…

Traditionally, it is in August that Edinburgh “casts off its staid reputation” and shows itself off to the world as a “vibrant, cosmopolitan, cultural centre”, said The Daily Telegraph. But this year, the hundreds of thousands of people who flocked to the city for the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe met a sight described by some as nothing short of apocalyptic. Owing to a strike by refuse workers, mounds of rubbish bags lay piled up on the streets; noxious slime oozed onto pavements from overflowing public bins; and a foul stench hung heavy in the air. Initially, the SNP Government tried to pin the blame on Edinburgh’s Labour-run council, said The Times, but that strategy unravelled when workers in a string of other local authorities walked out too. Nor is there…

With one round to go at the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy looked as if he didn’t have a hope, said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph. The Northern Irishman had a chance of finishing second, but he lagged six shots behind the man who’d led all tournament, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. Yet defying the odds, the 33-year-old mounted the “comeback of comebacks”, said Kieran Gill in the Daily Mail. His final round of 66 was enough to secure victory by a single shot over Scheffler, whose challenge hit the buffers with an error-strewn 73. Never before has a player made up so many shots on the final round of this Championship – the PGA Tour’s “grand season-ender” held each year in Atlanta, Georgia. It gave McIlroy a record third…

Let literature shock us To The Times The news that a university has imposed a trigger warning on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will, I fear, provoke a “whatever next?” response. It will be a mistake. Exeter’s (excellent) literature department is not censoring or bowdlerizing a classic. This was tried with a 2011 schools edition of Mark Twain’s novel that replaced the 219 uses of the most offensive word with “slave”. It didn’t work. More literature, old and new, is being read, in print and digital versions, than ever before. It is being read, typically as I perceive, with new sensitivity. For want of a better phrase, call it “whole body and mind response”. Great literature shocks. It fulfils its mission when it does so. We should recover the ability to…

by Richard Vinen Allen Lane 592pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 Kenneth Tynan called it the “ugliest city in Europe”. For Jonathan Meades, it is a “void at the heart of the country”. It’s fair to say that Birmingham – Britain’s second-largest city – has been “perennially overlooked”, said Lynsey Hanley in The Guardian. Except as the butt of “weak jokes” about the Brummie accent, it’s a place “rarely dwelt upon” by those who don’t live there. In his spirited biography of the city, Richard Vinen “tries to put this right”. Birmingham, he argues, has always been more important than people realise. Situated at the heart of the nation, it has served as the “engine of modern Britain”, and has been a launchpad for new ideas and technologies. In the…

In 1933, the 11-year-old Lucian Freud and his family fled Nazi Germany for Britain, said Bridget Galton in the Ham & High (London). Five years later, following Hitler’s annexation of Austria, the budding artist’s paternal grandfather Sigmund would follow suit, settling at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead; he would die there just over a year later. Now a museum, the psychoanalyst’s final home is currently playing host to an “intimate” exhibition exploring his Lucian’s work through the prism of his childhood and relationships with family members. The show brings together a number of portraits of the artist’s mother, children and other relatives, as well as a wealth of archival material including photographs, letters and childhood drawings. In its course, the curators touch on many “lesser-known aspects” of Freud’s life, from…

The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier, 1949 (Virago £9.99). “Those dreadful Delaneys” consist of a famous theatrical couple and their offspring from various liaisons. In a series of flashbacks, we follow this “ill-disciplined and wild” brood through one of the most accurate evocations I have read of theatrical life. Despite some dark undertones, this is a far cry from du Maurier’s usual Gothic gloom – she proves to be a delightful comic writer. A Five-Year Sentence by Bernice Rubens, 1978 (OOP). When Miss Hawkins retires from her job in the sweet factory, she intends to kill herself. Her plans are disrupted by the gift of a five-year diary which begins to dictate activities to her disturbed mind. The descent into mayhem, lust and murder is irresistible. The Remains of the…

Programmes Stewart Lee: Snowflake Recorded earlier this year in York, the acerbic comedian’s latest stand-up show tackles cancel culture and identity politics. Sun 4 Sept, BBC2 22:35 (60mins). The Boys from Brazil: Rise of the Bolsonaros Threepart documentary charting the rise of Brazil’s controversial president. In part one, he uses television to launch a political insurgency. Mon 5 Sept, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Arena: James Joyce’s Ulysses A celebration of Joyce’s modernist masterpiece in its centenary year, featuring Salman Rushdie, Anne Enright and Howard Jacobson. Wed 7 Sept, BBC2 21:00 (90mins). Doc Martin Martin Clunes reprises his role as the grumpy doctor in a Cornish village one last time, as the final season of the popular drama begins. Wed 7 Sept, ITV 21:00 (60mins). Films The Sisters Brothers (2018) John C.…

Abrdn: Ftse ejctn How the mighty have fallen, said Lucy White in the Daily Mail. Abrdn, the giant fund manager formed by the “mega-merger” of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Manager, was set to be ejected this week from the FTSE 100. Since its inception in 2017, the value of the investment company, which manages £465bn worth of savings, has “tanked” by 65%, to just £3.2bn. The entire asset management sector has been challenged by “geopolitical uncertainty, sky-high inflation and worries about economic growth”, and now Abrdn is being propelled out of the “big league”, owing to its “weaker performance in this environment”, said Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown. Ironically, its funds are “delivering ahead of their benchmark” now; but this turnaround came too late to save it from relegation.…

A tourist ban could be a trump card… Ben Marlow The Daily Telegraph One of the biggest issues dividing European leaders is whether they should impose “a blanket ban on EU visas for Russian tourists”, as “retribution” for the invasion of Ukraine, says Ben Marlow. It’s no surprise that many of the countries backing the move – including Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Poland – “have lived in the shadow of Russian imperialism for decades”. Or, indeed, that those arguing against it are mainly countries for whom any further rupture with Russia would have the highest economic costs: notably, industrial Germany and the tourist economies of Portugal and Greece. Still, “it would be a travesty if national self-interest were allowed to undermine efforts” to bring this war to a close. Targeting…

Gibraltar, which was finally confirmed as a city. The overseas territory, which is home to 33,000 people, was granted city status by Queen Victoria in 1842 but, owing to a technicality, it was left off the official register of British cities. In one of his last acts as PM, Boris Johnson has now corrected that oversight. Royal memorabilia, after a black Ford Escort that was once owned by the late Diana, Princess of Wales sold for £650,000 at auction. Princess Diana, who died 25 years ago this week, drove the RS Turbo for nearly three years from August 1985. Bonkbusters, with news that Disney+ is adapting Jilly Cooper’s 1988 bestseller Rivals for the small screen. It claims the eight-part series will bring a “2020s lens to the 1980s”. The second…

58% of UK adults are not confident that they would receive timely treatment from the NHS if they fell ill tomorrow. 45% feel the service they receive has worsened over the past 12 months. YouGov/The Sunday Times 53% of adults who voted Conservative in 2019 support returning energy companies to public ownership. 21% oppose the idea. 26% are unsure. YouGov/The Times 56% of adults under 35 say that they have prayed at some point, including 32% who say they’ve prayed in the past month. By contrast, among over-55s, only 41% say they’ve prayed at some point; 25% of them said it was within the last month. Savanta ComRes/The Church of England…

A supermodel’s return Linda Evangelista (below) is back – just not as you knew her. The supermodel, 57, was once one of the most photographed women in the world, and quipped that she didn’t “wake up for less than $10,000”. But she has spent the past five years in “hiding” since, she says, a cosmetic fat-removal procedure left her “brutally disfigured”. “I drank the magic potion – because I’m a little vain,” she told Sarah Harris in Vogue. “And it backfired.” She twice underwent liposuction to try to correct the procedure. “I have incisions all over my body. I have had stitches, I have worn compression garments under my chin, I’ve had my entire body tightly girdled for eight weeks – nothing helped.” But now she has resurfaced in the…

Aged seven, Truss played the role of Margaret Thatcher in her primary school’s mock election in Paisley. She won no votes; even she didn’t vote for herself. But recently, she has seemed to be playing the Iron Lady with more enthusiasm. Over the past year, she has been photographed on a Challenger 2 tank in Estonia, echoing Thatcher’s visit to West Germany in 1986; and in a fur hat in Red Square, an apparent nod to Thatcher’s visit to Moscow in 1987. She also hugged a newborn calf in Ripon, echoing a 1979 Thatcher photo opportunity. (Many of these photos appear on Truss’s carefully curated Instagram feed, where posts are accompanied by hashtags such as #freeworld #selfdetermination and #nolimits. She is “obsessed with comms”, says one former colleague.) During a…

Two-thirds of people with mild Covid-19 are still infectious five days after the onset of symptoms, a study has concluded. NHS guidance currently states that many people with coronavirus “will no longer be infectious to others after five days”; but the research, carried out by Imperial College London in 2020 and 2021, suggests otherwise. Its team followed 57 people who were exposed to an infected household member, and who filled in questionnaires about their symptoms, and took daily tests so that the researchers could establish how much virus they were shedding each day. One in five were infectious before their symptoms developed, and two-thirds were still infectious five days after they’d first noticed they had symptoms. A quarter were still infectious after seven days. The study did not assess the…

Better late than never, said Laura Dodsworth on CapX. In an interview with The Spectator published last week, Rishi Sunak admitted what many of us have long known: that the lockdown strategy was handled abysmally. The public information campaign was too alarmist, he said. Decision-makers should have been more open about the pros and cons of lockdown. Too much power was ceded to scientific advisers, and dissenting voices were too often shut out. “We didn’t talk about all the missed [doctor’s] appointments, or the backlog building in the NHS,” complained Sunak. Meetings where he attempted to argue back “were literally [only me] around that table, just fighting. It was incredibly uncomfortable every time.” It’s a shame that the former chancellor waited until the final days of his leadership bid to…

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”Georgia O’Keeffe, quoted in Parade “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”William Shakespeare, quoted in The New York Times “Speak clearly, don’t bump into the furniture and, if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.”Noël Coward’s advice on acting, quoted in The Times “There are no facts, only interpretations.”Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted on UnHerd “If everyone sweeps before his own front door, then the street is clean.”Goethe, quoted in Forbes “I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.”Groucho Marx, ibid. “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in…

Liverpool’s 9-0 demolition of Bournemouth may have dominated the headlines last weekend (a defeat that saw Bournemouth manager Scott Parker lose his job), said Sam Dalling in The Observer. But the real story of this Premier League campaign so far is what has been “stirring in north London”. At the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal extended their “perfect start” to the season with a “come-from-behind victory over Fulham”. It was a typical win from a team that is starting to demonstrate a “newfound resilience”. Early in the second half, they went 1-0 down – and “in the not too distant past, that could have been terminal”. But this iteration of the Gunners is made of sterner stuff, and they clawed their way to victory with goals from Martin Ødegaard and Gabriel. With…

To The Guardian Oh dear, the answer to “speculate” is “theorize” (Quick crossword, 18 August). We aren’t American – it should be “theorise” surely? Helen Clutton, Bristol To The Guardian Helen Clutton suggests that “theorize” is an American spelling. It’s not as simple as that. The -ize spellings used to be standard in British English. I have seen a baptismal certificate for my great aunt, born in the 1880s in the Abingdon area, which said she was “baptized”. Endings with -ize were allowed when I was at school in the 1960s. I used to enjoy writing the loopy zeds in cursive script. It was only when I started work in the 1970s that people began telling me this was an American spelling and -ise endings became standard. Paul Dormer, Guildford,…

by Emma Donoghue Picador 272pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99 Emma Donoghue’s latest novel is set in early 7th century Ireland, and centres on a trio of monks who build a monastic community on a tiny island, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. The men set out in their “precarious boat” after their leader Artt – a “legendary holy man” – has a “vision of an island in the western sea”. When they reach a “large rock” covered in “birds, guano and little else”, Artt is convinced it’s the place from his dream – and resolves that he and his companions will never leave. Haven may sound like a work that “few readers have been praying for”, but it proves “transporting, sometimes unsettling and eventually shocking”. There are some…

From Coast to Country at John Martin Gallery Patrons of the more fashionable galleries a few streets up from this show of contemporary painters will consider it just a little too trad. Nevertheless, the artists involved acquit themselves very well indeed. The unorthodox framing and surprising brushwork of Greg Becker’s deeply British landscapes – hills cut off at horizon level, wheat fields the consistency of dulce de leche – make them a highlight, while Heidrun Rathgeb’s mysterious, faux-naïf visions of solitary female figures in pastoral or pseudo-medieval settings raises the intriguing question: what is the context here? Elsewhere, Philip Maltman’s explosive, expressionistic depictions of flora have an infectious energy: quick-fire landslides of murky green crossing pools of deep red and pink, the individual strokes like aesthetic roadmaps. In almost every…

● Cashmere has a waxy coating, so doesn’t need to be washed often. Washing with hot water or in a machine can cause shrinkage. ● Handwash cashmere in lukewarm water mixed with baby shampoo or cashmere wash. Submerge in the water and swish it around, then drain the sink, refill with tepid water and repeat the process without soap. ● To avoid damaging fibres and misshaping the garment, don’t lift the cashmere when it is still saturated. Do not wring or rub it, but squeeze the water gently through the fabric. ● You can use a short, light spin cycle to remove any more excess water. Then put the jumper on a flat towel and slowly roll it up, putting pressure on the towel as you go to draw out…

Lachlan Murdoch It is always said that Rupert Murdoch “doesn’t sue”. But his eldest son does, said Ben Doherty in The Observer. “In what is being portrayed as a David and Goliath clash”, Lachlan Murdoch has launched a defamation suit in Sydney against Crikey – a small Australian news site – relating to a critical article it carried about Fox News’s reporting on the siege of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Murdoch, who is CEO of the Fox Corporation, claims Crikey falsely alleged that he’d conspired with Donald Trump to “incite a mob with murderous intent” and that he should be indicted as a traitor. This action isn’t the only one concerning Fox. The company is already involved, “on the other side of the bar table”, in a…