Sommaire pour 1508 de The Week

“Even for the Lebanese, it can be hard to say where it all went wrong for their tiny, beautiful country,” said Vivian Yee in The New York Times. Certainly, it was long before Tuesday morning, when Israeli troops marched into this nation of 5.4 million people. It was also before Nasrallah’s killing four days earlier, and even last October, when Hezbollah and Israel started trading air strikes across the border. Many say Lebanon’s current anguish began in 2019, when its economy “imploded”, devastating a “once-robust middle class”. A year later, Covid “further crippled the economy”, and a huge explosion at Beirut’s port caused untold damage to surrounding areas. But to properly grasp this troubled nation’s problems, you have to look further back, said Michael Safi in The Guardian. The question…

The Royal Armouries in Leeds has become the latest institution to attempt to draw in young visitors by producing a video in which an older member of staff describes its attractions using Gen-Z slang. In the video, which has been watched 8.7 million times on TikTok, 65-year-old firearms expert Mark Murray-Flutter describes Henry VIII as “the original rizzler”, and observes that the museum’s armour is “serving main character energy”. Universities, including Bristol and Manchester, are holding teetotal Freshers’ Week events for students who are not in the market for boozy nights out. Events advertised on posters for “Sober Freshers” include craft evenings, spa sessions and meetings of the hummus society.…

Keir Starmer’s net approval rating is -30%, down from +19% in July, according to Opinium. Just 31% of voters are happy with his performance so far as PM, according to YouGov. 70% of Jewish students at UK universities say they feel somewhat or very uncomfortable revealing their Jewish identity. Before 7 October, 79% were comfortable disclosing it. Intra-Communal Professorial Group/The Daily Telegraph 11% of over-70s say they are often spoken to as though they’re a child. 5% feel infantilised almost every day. 16% of adults under 70 say they speak more slowly to older people, and 14% say they change the tone of their voice to sound “more positive”. KYN/The Times…

Why we love old buildings Ben Pentreath is the architect behind Poundbury, arguably the most famous new development in the UK, said Boudicca Fox-Leonard in The Daily Telegraph. It replicates traditional designs, but he isn’t wedded to the idea that older has to be better. When he was working on a dense urban site in Cambridgeshire, there was uproar when a Victorian villa was scheduled for demolition. “It wasn’t a rare or special building,” he says. “It was a completely bog-standard 1880s villa of which there were hundreds of thousands, built at the time with no regard for localism or materials.” Even so, he sympathised with the local councillor who fought for the villa – because, he says, “99% of the time” when a building is demolished, it is “replaced…

Queen Elizabeth I drew a three-mile ring around London to prohibit development of land not already built on. In 1875, Octavia Hill, the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust, coined the term “green belt”, to promote the preservation of an area of countryside around the capital. The 1947 Town and Country Planning Act legally enshrined the green belt and its purpose: to check urban sprawl and protect the countryside from urbanisation. In 1955, it was rolled out nationally. Today, there are 14 of these rings around English cities, covering some 13% of England (about 1.6 million hectares). The green belt remains popular among voters (a clear majority favour strict limits on planning permission there), but it is also consistently cited as a cause of Britain’s failure to build…

More than a third of children around the world are now shortsighted, new research has revealed. The analysis of 276 scientific studies and government reports involving more than five million children and adolescents in 50 countries revealed that the proportion of five- to 19-year-olds with short sight has soared over the past 30 years, from 24% in the 1990s, to 36% in the early 2020s. Based on current trends, 40% of children and teenagers are likely to be shortsighted by 2050, it says. Rates of short sight are highest in Japan and South Korea, at 85% and 73%, respectively; this compares with 15% or so in the UK. Girls, older children and those who live in towns and cities are most likely to be affected. The study did not explore…

“It is as if the honeymoon started to go sour at the airport,” said The Economist. “Labour won power less than three months ago, yet Sir Keir Starmer’s approval ratings now stand below those of Rishi Sunak.” Insiders brief about “dysfunction at the heart of government”, and of rows between Starmer’s Chief of Staff Sue Gray and other key lieutenants. Throughout his first party conference in power, the headlines were bad: about freebies given to the PM, his wife and ministers; and the resignation of Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, from the party, citing “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice”. The PM’s cheerleaders argue that “these difficulties are just froth”: Labour has a big majority, and five years until the next election. But this Government has based its appeal on…

“To be beautiful is like being born rich and having to get poorer and poorer.”Joan Collins, quoted in The Times “My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”Orson Welles, quoted in The Oldie “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.”Emily Dickinson, quoted in The Atlantic “The only problem with free elections is that you never know who’s going to win them.”Nikita Khrushchev, quoted in The Times “Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.”Attrib. Paul Newman, quoted in Forbes “The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”Toni Morrison, quoted in The Washington…

To The Times I agree with Max Hastings about the poor quality of our politicians, but not with his defeatist assertion that the UK is no longer an important country. The UK is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. We are firmly in the top ten largest global economies. We are one of the world’s few nuclear powers, and we contribute significantly to the Western democratic sphere of influence. We have security and cultural collaborations around the globe. The new Government could build on these assets, but looking at the front bench and its performance so far, I am not optimistic. There should be a chance for the Tory opposition to outshine their Labour counterparts. Unfortunately, both parties have scraped their talent barrels to the…

The Grasmere Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth, 1897 (OUP £16.99). This been in my pantheon since I was a PhD student trying to reconcile my subversive respect for domestic skills with scholarly ambition. In a time and place where it seemed that baking and research were inimical, and that no one would take seriously the research of a woman who made jam, it proclaimed that kitchen work, sociability, art and scholarship could be interwoven as the stuff of a good life. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, 1929 (Penguin £5.99). Woolf seems to offer the opposite view, that without property and solitude there can be no writing, but it’s much more radical. She returns to the body and its needs, insisting on the necessity of pleasure, of abundance rather…

Programmes Solar System Five-part series in which Professor Brian Cox guides us through the volcano worlds of the solar system. Mon 7 Oct, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Secret Amazon: Into the Wild Explorer Lucy Shepherd and an indigenous team undertake a 50-day walk from east to west across the great rainforest. Mon 7 Oct, C4 22:00 (65mins). Bombing Brighton: The Plot to Kill Thatcher Forty years on, this documentary recalls the IRA’s lethal attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Margaret Thatcher and other Tories were staying for their party conference. Tue 8 Oct, BBC2 21:00 (75mins). One Day in October A year on from the 7 October attacks, this recounts the horror that unfolded on the Be’eri kibbutz, where 100 people were killed and 30 taken hostage. Wed 9…

Dame Maggie Smith 1934-2024 In a career spanning eight decades, Maggie Smith won two Oscars, five Baftas, four Emmys, a Tony and an honorary Olivier – among many other awards, said The Daily Telegraph. Theatregoers were captivated by her performances, in everything from Othello to Lettice and Lovage; and though the stage was her natural home, she was also a film star. She came to Hollywood’s attention in 1963, with a scene-stealing turn in The V.I.P.s. The film’s lead, Richard Burton, observed that her performance amounted to “grand larceny”. In total, she appeared in some 50 films, ranging from Oh! What a Lovely War in 1969 to 1978’s all-star Death on the Nile, and from Merchant Ivory’s multi-award-winning A Room with a View (1985) to 1992’s hit comedy Sister Act,…

“Under strong pressure from Silicon Valley giants”, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has vetoed “the most sweeping attempt yet to regulate artificial intelligence”, said DealBook in The New York Times. Legislation that “could have informed laws around the world” has been sent back to the drawing board. Supporters of the “California bill”, SB 1047, claimed mandatory “safety testing” of large AI models (costing $100m plus) would provide crucial “guardrails”. Critics said the bill was “a blunt instrument that threatened to choke off innovation”. A key failing, said The Wall Street Journal, was equating project size with risk; in fact, smaller models might well manage decision-making in critical facilities such as power grids. For now, then, it’s full steam ahead for AI innovators, said Dan Milmo in The Observer. This…

The London market can thank Rachel Reeves for an imminent energy infusion, said Mark Kleinman on Sky News. The prospect of a CGT hike in the Budget has spurred on the flotation of Applied Nutrition – a Liverpool-based sports supplements company, with a starry roster of backers, which is predicted to be “one of the City’s most prominent floats of 2024”, and could start trading this month. Should you jump in? “Zooming in on the financials, there’s a lot to like,” said Edward Sheldon on The Motley Fool. Founded by CEO Thomas Ryder in 2014, the company, whose brands include BodyFuel and Endurance, “isn’t a household name (yet)”, but has been growing like topsy in a booming market. Revenue is up by an impressive 146% over two years. A £500m…

The week’s best shares Advanced Medical Solutions Group The Times M&A activity at the wound-care products maker is supporting growth and delivering cost savings, which should boost margins. Strong recent progress has attracted bid interest. Buy. 220p. Cisco Systems The Daily Telegraph The veteran US network specialist has moved into AI and cybersecurity: offerings range from network switches to cloud-computing and data centres. Cash-generative and “very profitable”. Under appreciated. Buy. $53.02. Eleco Investors’ Chronicle Revenues and profits are up at the construction management firm, which provides 3D visualisation, budgeting tools and post-build maintenance software. Growing, with recurring revenues and a strong balance sheet. Buy. 132p. Raspberry Pi Holdings The Mail on Sunday Shares have slipped at the “low-cost, high-performance” single-board computer maker for education and industry. Yet profits are rising…

Rail lovers, who will soon be able to travel direct from Paris to Berlin on a new high-speed route. The daytime service, which complements a night one that opened last year, will take about eight hours. Reservations open in October for travel in December. Paying homage, with the news that Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick named one of his three children after Mrs Thatcher. The revelation, that his 11-year-old daughter, Sophia, has Thatcher as her middle name, drew audible gasps from the audience at the Tory conference this week.…

Paris Standing trial: The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen went on trial in Paris this week on charges of embezzling millions in EU funds. The 2027 presidential hopeful is accused of using some €3.2m in EU money to pay assistants who were working on her RN party’s affairs in France. If convicted of the charges, which relate to a 12-year period between 2004 and 2016, Le Pen could be jailed for up to ten years, fined up to €1m, and banned from running for office for five years. Twenty-six other RN figures are also on trial. Le Pen has strongly denied wrongdoing, and called the charges “deeply unfair”. Zermatt, Switzerland Border changed: Switzerland and Italy are having to redraw a section of their shared border, owing to melting glaciers…

“Twice a week for 45 years I have passed, on the train, the eight great cooling towers of the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. Each more than twice the height of Nelson’s Column, each almost three times the diameter of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, each a wonder of 1960s engineering, the concrete walls only seven inches thick. Now the site is being decommissioned (see page 21). But surely at least two of the towers could be preserved. They are so beautiful: the poetry of applied mathematics expressed in concrete. We travel thousands of miles to see the pyramids: are our own wonders of construction set so low in our esteem that we just knock them down?” Matthew Parris in The Times…

Is it really the politicians that got small? Janan Ganesh Financial Times She was probably the last of her kind, says Janan Ganesh. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was one of those era-defining leaders, like Tony Blair or Ronald Reagan, who no longer grace Western democracies. Instead, we seem to be stuck with a succession of unpopular, short-lived ones. Keir Starmer has barely set foot in No. 10 and his ratings have plummeted. Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, is set to become only the third one-term chancellor since the Federal Republic’s creation in 1949; President Macron is a target of furious protests in France; Australia has had seven changes of PM since 2007. But have all the above really been so bad? No: the problem lies not with them, but with…

To call the 2024 presidential election a close race barely does it justice, said Harry Enten on CNN. The reality is that America hasn’t witnessed such an evenly balanced contest for more than half-a-century. Throughout the campaign, the two sides have consistently been within five points of each other in an average of the national polls – an “incredibly rare” pattern not seen since the 1960 campaign between JFK and Richard Nixon. Usually, one side always establishes a larger lead at some point in the race. According to the latest polls, Kamala Harris now has a two-point lead. What makes the election harder to call is that it will, of course, not be decided by the popular vote but by which candidate secures 270 votes in the Electoral College. The…

Fussy eating is “in the genes” Parents driven to despair by their child’s fussy eating can take heart: a study has found that a reluctance to try new food is more down to nature than nurture. For the research, the parents or guardians of 2,400 pairs of identical and non-identical twins were surveyed about their children’s eating habits from the ages of one to 13. The thinking was that if identical twins (who share all their DNA) were more similar in terms of their pickiness than non-identical twins (who have only 50% of their DNA in common), it would indicate that the trait had a strong genetic component. Based on the results, the researchers, at University College London, estimate that genetic factors account for 60% of the differences in fussiness…

Before becoming an author, Salman Rushdie was an ad man who came up with slogans such as “Naughty but nice” for cakes, and “Irresistibubble” for Aeros. But he failed to find the right words, he told the Cliveden Literary Festival, when he tried to convince his boss that he wanted to quit. “Oh, you want a raise?” said the creative director when he handed in his notice. Rushdie explained that he wanted to write more than three-word sentences. “Oh, you want a big raise?” his boss replied. Rushdie said he’d be leaving once his month’s notice was up. “Oh,” the man said. “I don’t think we can give you as much as that.” Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who died last month aged 88, was primarily known as a stage actress, but she…

For 57 years, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, with its eight vast cooling towers and its 199-metre-tall chimney, has dominated the south Nottinghamshire skyline, and been a familiar sight to drivers on the M1. But for the past year, the plant has had another distinction – as the last remaining coal-fired plant in Britain, the country that pioneered coal-powered electricity generation. Now, that period in our history – which began in 1882, with the opening of the world’s first public coal-fired station, at Holborn Viaduct in London – has drawn to a close, said The Independent. On Monday, the four boilers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar were switched off, and its owner, Uniper, began a two-year process to decommission the plant which, at its peak, supplied enough electricity for two million people and employed…

“There are very few maverick, genuinely unpredictable creative talents” in elite modern football, said Barney Ronay in The Observer. But Cole Palmer, Chelsea’s attacking midfielder, is as “close as you’re going to get”. Since arriving at the club just over a year ago, the 22-year-old has torn many a defence apart with his insouciant, rampaging style: he “goes everywhere, plays off the cuff and invents the day in front of him”. Last season, he scored 22 goals in the Premier League, and he has started the current one so explosively that it already seems inevitable that he’ll top that tally. Having scored twice, and had four assists, in Chelsea’s first five games, he was at his most deadly at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, as Chelsea beat Brighton 4-2. All four…

Football Liverpool lead the Premier League, after beating Wolves 2-1. Manchester City drew 1-1 with Newcastle and Arsenal beat Leicester 4-2. Manchester United lost 3-0 to Tottenham, raising further questions about the future of manager Erik ten Hag. Cricket Hampshire was sold to GMR Group – an Indian conglomerate – for £120m, making it the first foreign-owned English county club. Athletics There was an Ethiopian double in the Berlin Marathon, as Milkesa Mengesha won the men’s race and Tigist Ketema claimed the women’s.…

Marlene Dumas at Frith Street Gallery The South Africa-born artist Marlene Dumas (b.1953) is one of the most celebrated painters living today – and with good reason. Her pictures radiate ambiguity and often hint at buried trauma, sometimes personal, sometimes historical. An example in this new show, Mourning Marsyas, is Utøya, the title of which refers to the Norwegian island where 77 people were murdered by a right-wing terrorist in 2011. Dumas confronts us with a composition dominated by horizontal black brush strokes, the darkness foregrounding a puddle of indigos and creams to create an eerie evocation of moonlight on water. Mourning Marsyas, meanwhile, alludes to the satyr who challenged Apollo to a competition and ended up skinned alive for his temerity. The title figure, depicted as a form somewhere…

Tips for selecting fruit Buying fruit isn’t always easy, says Tim Dowling in The Guardian. Shops and supermarkets are “stacked with fruit from all over the world”, all of which may look very nice – but much of which probably won’t be ripe. So how do you decide which items to add to your trolley, and which to leave on the shelf? While there are some “universal clues” – ripe fruit is usually “emphatically the colour it’s supposed to be” – there are also tricks you can employ to gauge the ripeness of specific crops. With apples, give the fruit a “light flick with your finger”: a sound like dead wood means it’s crisp (floury apples give a thud). With melons and mangoes, weight is key: a heavier fruit means…

• Buy spices in bulk. Some supermarkets or local corner shops stock the brand Rajah, which sells good value 100g bags of spices. Don’t buy fancy salt: use a pestle and mortar to crush any old coarse sea salt. • There’s no point cooking or frying with pricey olive oil, as the flavour is lost anyway; use rapeseed oil instead, and decant it into a refillable spray bottle to use less. • Do invest in a good-quality bottle of Greek or Cypriot extra-virgin olive oil for dressings and drizzling. Chef Helen Graham recommends Honest Toil (honest-toil.co.uk). • Buy extra-mature or mature cheddar, as a little of the stronger flavour goes a long way. Add mustard instead of expensive cheese to give sauces a bit of tang. • Buy almonds, pistachios…

Mulberry/Frasers: handbagging As the autumn season gets into its stride, prepare for handbags at dawn, said Julia Kollewe in The Guardian. It may not be pretty. Leading British brand Mulberry, which has been struggling in the teeth of a luxury spending slowdown, has rejected an £83m offer from Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, its second-biggest shareholder (with a 36.8% stake), claiming the deal is “too low”. It will push on with “a planned fundraising”. Mulberry’s 56% majority shareholder, Challice – which is controlled by the Singaporean entrepreneur Christina Ong – has also said it has “no interest” in pursuing Frasers’ offer, which was pitched at an 11% premium to the closing price last Friday. Ashley is reportedly furious, said Chris Price in The Daily Telegraph. And also worried. Frasers warned when…

It’s time to heed the ghost of Keynes Gillian Tett Financial Times This year marks the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, which established the IMF and the World Bank. Amid rising nationalism, protectionism and conflict, there’s “a desperate need to relaunch that collaborative spirit”, says Gillian Tett. But perhaps another date deserves even more attention: 1919 – when John Maynard Keynes, one of the architects of Bretton Woods, wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Keynes was horrified at the vindictive policies imposed by WWI’s victors. But he also wrote trenchantly about “the perils of complacency” in a world where an explosion in the movement of goods, money and people – aided by technologies such as the telephone – seemed to the elites so “normal, certain and…

Hassan Nasrallah was one of the most revered and reviled figures in the Middle East, said Jared Malsin and Sune Engel Rasmussen in The Wall Street Journal. To his supporters, he was an “almost messianic” character, who commanded the loyalty of Shia Muslims across the region, and who became the “single-most important” actor in Iran’s “axis of resistance” during his three decades as Hezbollah’s leader. To his adversaries, he was an “antisemitic terrorist … responsible for hundreds of American and Israeli deaths”. His death is a seismic event – one that deprives Hezbollah of the figurehead and strategist who transformed it from a small militia into a powerful political party with massive military might and “a global reach”. Born in Beirut in 1960, Nasrallah spent his childhood reading Islamic texts…

Between 2005 and 2023, 19 women went to the Metropolitan Police to report that they’d been abused by the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, the force has revealed. The offences are alleged to have taken place between 1979 and 2013. Three of the allegations were of rape; one related to trafficking. The Met said that, in two of the cases, it had passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service; but no further action was taken in any of them. In a statement this week, Harrods said that it would not enforce any non-disclosure agreements related to Fayed’s alleged abuse. Ann Coxon, one of the doctors alleged to have carried out intrusive sexual health checks on female Harrods employees, has denied any wrongdoing.…

Netflix, after a judge in the US ruled that it had wrongly labelled its hit show Baby Reindeer as “a true story”, and that Fiona Harvey – the alleged stalker fictionalised in the drama – can pursue her $170m defamation lawsuit against the company. The National Gallery, after Just Stop Oil protesters threw soup at two versions of Sunflowers in its new van Gogh exhibition, in response to the jailing of two activists for a similar stunt in 2022. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were sentenced to two years and 20 months, respectively, for throwing soup at the 1888 version; the painting was not damaged, but its antique frame was. Naomi Campbell, who was banned from running charities, owing to serious irregularities at her Fashion for Relief organisation. The Charity…

New York Vance vs. Walz: J.D. Vance and Tim Walz took part in their first and only VP debate on Tuesday – an event that was notably low on drama relative to the presidential debate. The pair spent more time attacking the other’s running mate than each other, and focused largely on policy differences, including on abortion and immigration. Walz used personal stories to highlight the impact on women of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which Trump has cited as one of his achievements. He also challenged Vance about Trump’s plans for mass deportations, and whether this would mean separating US children from their immigrant parents. However, Vance – who was broadly deemed the winner, having come across as calm, coherent and reasonable – managed to discomfit Walz by…

A Bridgerton-themed ball in Michigan charged between $150 and $1,000 per ticket, inviting fans of the show to “step into the enchanting world of the Regency era” for an evening of “sophistication, grace, and historical charm”. But when they got there, outraged guests were subjected to a dinner of “soggy noodles”, “small chicken wings” and KitKats served on disposable plates. They were forced to sit on the floor, while the meagre entertainment included a lone violinist and pole dancer. They are demanding refunds. A giant baby puppet that has gone on display in Rochdale has “freaked out” locals. The 8.5m-tall figure, named Lilly, was installed by the council to encourage children to talk about the climate crisis. But residents have described the puppet, which opens and closes its eyes, as…

FRANCE Government is a luxury we can do without Le Point (Paris) So finally, after going 76 days without one, France has a new government, say Nikolai Wenzel and Kevin Brooks. Michel Barnier’s appointment as PM has brought relief to all those doleful media pundits convinced the hiatus would cause chaos. But did it? The nation didn’t fall apart. Sovereign functions didn’t cease. We weren’t invaded. We didn’t sink into the economic doldrums, as the pundits said we would. The Olympics passed off successfully, unimpeded by the usual PR stunts staged by ministers thirsting for headlines. The school year began without the usual flurry of changes that cause teachers and heads such stress. Untroubled by the constant stream of new announcements about subsidies and taxes – a calm Barnier has…

As a “chastened” Tory Party convened for its conference this week, and the wider country remained mired in the gloom that has enveloped it since Keir Starmer’s “loveless victory”, excerpts from Boris Johnson’s soon-to-be-released memoir provided a “much-needed tonic”, said the Daily Mail (which had acquired the serialisation rights). In them, the former PM gives a vivid account of his leadership during the Covid crisis: he describes how close he came to “carking it” when he was hospitalised with the virus in April 2020; he describes his elation (“kerchingeroo”) at the success of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine; he recalls how – when the EU impounded millions of doses in a Dutch warehouse – he asked if British Special Forces could be deployed to retrieve them (before dismissing the idea as “nuts”);…

Casting film adaptations of famous novels is a divisive business, said Nicole Vassell in Metro. So Emerald Fennell was bound to upset some people with her choice of actors to play the doomed lovers Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff in her new version of Wuthering Heights. In the event, though, she has annoyed almost everyone. To play the teenaged Catherine, she has chosen Margot Robbie, the 34-year-old star of last year’s Barbie film. As for Heathcliff – a character described in the novel as “a dark-skinned gypsy” who looks like a “lascar” (an old term for a south Asian sailor) or “an American or Spanish castaway” – that role has gone to another Australian, Jacob Elordi, a white actor known for his conventional good looks. “Did anyone actually read the book…

Winning the “triple crown” (that is, winning the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and world road race championship in a single season) is the “toughest prize in men’s cycling”, said William Fotheringham in The Guardian. Eddy Merckx achieved it in 1974, as did Stephen Roche in 1987 – but no other cyclist ever has. At least, that was the case until last Sunday, when Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia became the third man to win the triple crown with victory in the world road race championship in Zurich. He achieved the feat in typically audacious style, with one of the “long solo surges” for which he has become known, said John Westerby in The Times. With 100km remaining of the 274km course, Pogacar made what appeared to be an “instinctive racing…

The Royal Court has a monster hit on its hands, with this absorbing, “stylishly crafted” and very timely play, said Clive Davis in The Times. The setting is Buckinghamshire, 1983. Roald Dahl is about to publish his latest children’s book, The Witches. But he’s just written a review of a book about the recent Israeli siege of Beirut, in which he crossed the line from criticism of Israeli policy into antisemitism. Written by the theatre director Mark Rosenblatt, Giant imagines a crisis meeting to discuss the fallout, involving Dahl’s real-life publisher, Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape, and Jessie Stone, the fictitious sales director for his US publisher. Both are Jewish. (“She one of your gang?” asks Dahl of Maschler.) Will he agree to issue an apology, or will he seek…

“Cosy crime is the current opiate of the masses, and things don’t get much cosier” than David Mitchell “pootling around Cambridge” in the BBC’s new series Ludwig, said Carol Midgley in The Times. He plays John “Ludwig” Taylor, a nerdy puzzle setter who is summoned by his sister-in-law (Anna Maxwell Martin) to assume the identity of his twin brother, a police detective who has gone missing. The series does at times feel “almost too gentle” for Mitchell – “as if he is only being allowed to use 75% of his funny bones. Three-quarters of Mitchell is, though, enough to carry a show,” and the rest of the cast, including Dipo Ola as his police partner, is “terrific” too. This “may not be the most exciting series you’ll see this month,…

In 1554, a judge named Sir James Hales, recently released from the Tower of London, walked into the River Stour near Canterbury to take his own life, said Esther Addley in The Guardian. It was a case so famous at the time that it inspired Shakespeare’s portrayal of Ophelia’s death by drowning in Hamlet. Now the sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, who specialises in underwater works, has commemorated the story with a new statue in the river near the spot where Hales died. Named Ophelia, the sculpture, made of recycled glass with LED lights that come on at night, depicts a woman lying in a flower-strewn dress; it “evokes Sir John Everett Millais’s famous painting”. The work has had a mixed reception, said Sarah Hooper in Metro, with some locals complaining…

The Flower and Produce Show is thrown into disarray when the fire alarm goes off, and the table holding most of the pies collapses. Luckily for Kenton, his pie isn’t ruined – and it wins the rosette, attracting the suspicions of Lynda. Harrison admits to Kenton that he wants to quit the police. He tries to tell Fallon, but she’s not really listening and asks him if he’d consider going full-time, to let her pursue her dream of setting up a café. Harrison agrees. Eddie offers to sell his van so that the money can be used to get George a better lawyer, but George rudely spurns his help: he feels he has to face up to what he’s done. When Ed turns up at The Tearoom to ask Tony…

Norfolk-based Peter Beales Roses has a fine selection of classic roses, categorised by colour and group. It also sells plants that complement its roses, and has lots of advice online (classicroses.co.uk). A specialist in garden fruit, Pomona Fruits has a range of fruit and nut trees, soft fruit bushes and plants; plus veg, accessories and hedging (pomonafruits.co.uk). Beth Chatto Gardens is based in Essex, and the online shop has an impressive range of high-quality and unusual plants, filtered by category; it also offers advice on its blog (bethchatto.co.uk). Beards & Daisies specialises in indoor plants and also sells pots. You can search by plant type, care level (i.e. “unkillables”), light and room type (beardsanddaisies.co.uk). The charity The Royal Horticultural Society sells a range of flowers and plants online, and offers…

The Pig in the Cotswolds Barnsley, Gloucestershire The tenth hotel in the “phenomenally successful” Pig group, this is also the swansong of hoteliers Robin and Judy Hutson, who are retiring after 30 years in the business, says Susan d’Arcy in The Sunday Times. It occupies a 17th century mansion, Barnsley House, which was once home to the garden designer Rosemary Verey, and consequently has “the prettiest hotel garden I know”. The interiors exude “cheeky charm”, with “rich colours, vintage furniture and quirky curios”. There are 21 spacious rooms, an elegant restaurant with an excellent chef, and a small spa area. Doubles from £250, room only; thepighotel.com.…

Caroline Ellison Some thought former crypto bigwig Caroline Ellison, 29, would “skirt jail time” because of her “extensive cooperation” in revealing financial crimes at the defunct $32bn exchange FTX, said Forbes. It was her testimony, after all, that nailed her former boss and romantic partner Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in March. Prosecutors pleaded for leniency, citing Ellison’s “candour and her refusal to minimise her own role or sidestep the most humiliating aspects of her conduct”. In the event, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan handed down two years, noting that it was “hard for me to understand” why she had done Bankman-Fried’s bidding for so long. There was certainly something “culty” about FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, which Ellison led, said Elizabeth Lopatto on The Verge.…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1434 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 14 October. Send it to The Week Crossword 1434, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Measure of small drink taken outside church (6) 4 Writer showing reams pay off! (3,5) 10 Get up on stage (5) 11 Detective’s correct about book being a plant (9) 12 Conspiracy with new role for Spanish gentleman (9) 13 Wisdom mostly shown in French opera…

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