Table of contents for 1469 in The Week

What happened Jeremy Hunt’s announcement that the spring Budget will take place on 6 March – earlier than expected – prompted speculation that the Government plans to call an election in May to take advantage of voter goodwill created by any new tax cuts. But senior Tories dismissed the idea, saying that Downing Street was more likely to delay the poll until the autumn, to give people more time to benefit from those cuts. There was talk of inheritance tax being halved. However, the former chancellor Norman Lamont argued that the Government should instead prioritise raising income tax thresholds, as that would benefit the “largest number of people”. Some Tory MPs responded angrily this week to the disclosure that Rishi Sunak held secret talks with Boris Johnson’s former chief aide,…

If its Western allies do not keep their promises, “Ukraine will lose” the war with Russia, said Jack Watling in The Guardian. One example: in March 2023, the EU made a public pledge to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine within 12 months. The number sent, so far, is around 300,000. “The price of this complacency is already being paid in Ukrainian blood.” Today, Ukraine’s armed forces are struggling to fire 2,000 rounds per day; the Russians fire about 10,000. Ukraine is already losing, said Richard Kemp in The Daily Telegraph. Its counteroffensive last year “failed”. Over Christmas, Russian forces seem to have taken the town of Marinka in eastern Donbas, “the greatest battlefield success” of the war since they captured Bakhmut in May. In recent days, Kyiv and…

XL bully owners, as a ban on the breed came into force in England and Wales. It is now illegal to breed, sell or abandon the dogs. Owners must apply for an exemption certificate by 1 February, and keep dogs muzzled and on a lead in public. Eurostar travellers, after most trains in and out of London were cancelled on New Year’s Eve, owing to “unprecedented” flooding in a tunnel in Kent. Officials blamed a burst pipe in the fire safety system. Around 36,000 passengers complained of having to scramble to find hotel rooms after they were unable to travel. Disney, after the studio’s earliest version of Mickey Mouse (from Steamboat Willie in 1928) came out of copyright and into the public domain. Within days, horror video games starring the…

Copenhagen Shock abdication: Denmark’s highly regarded queen, Margrethe II, who has been on the throne for 52 years, shocked the nation this week by announcing in a TV address that she is to abdicate. Six-foot-tall, a writer, costume designer and (until she quit last year) chain-smoker, Daisy, as she is affectionately known, transformed the fortunes of the monarchy. When she came to the throne in 1972, only 45% of the population supported it; now more than 85% are in favour. The queen’s son will be pronounced King Frederik X at a cabinet meeting: in keeping with the slimmed-down nature of the Danish monarchy, there will be no formal coronation. Warsaw Tusk reforms: As a key part of his drive to destroy the power base of the former right-wing government, Donald…

1 The Sound of Silence, written and performed by Paul Simon2 Within You Without You by George Harrison, performed by The Beatles3 Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie, performed by Alexandre Tharaud4 Caruso by Lucio Dalla, performed by Luciano Pavarotti5* Kyrie: Call to Prayer by David Fanshawe, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, choristers of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and the muezzin of Muhammad Ali Mosque, Cairo6 This Woman’s Work, written and performed by Kate Bush7 He Moved Through the Fair, traditional, performed by Sinéad O’Connor8 Happy, written and performed by Pharrell Williams Book: Sister Wendy’s 100 Best-loved Paintings by Sister Wendy Beckett Luxury: the Desert Island Discs archive * Choice if allowed only one record…

Since early 2022, a leaderless group of activists has been prosecuting a guerrilla war on SUVs. The Tyre Extinguishers, as they are known, set out at night, and target “Chelsea tractors”, letting air out of their tyres, sometimes by inserting a dried bean or lentil into the valve. Once they’re finished, they leave a note under the windscreen wipers. One example reads: “Attention – your gas-guzzler kills. We have deflated one or more of your tyres. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car.” The note goes on to highlight the high emissions of SUVs, and lists some of the safety concerns about them. With a presence in up to 20 countries, including Germany, Australia, the US and the UK, the Tyre Extinguishers claim…

UNITED STATES To go green, keep pumping the oil The Atlantic (Washington DC) How’s this for a paradox, asks Rogé Karma. President Biden has called climate change humanity’s greatest “existential threat” and vowed to tackle it. Yet last year, the US “pumped out more oil than any other country in history, producing millions more barrels than Russia or Saudi Arabia ever have”. You might conclude from this that Biden’s green pledges are baloney, but the reality is more complicated. The reason the Biden administration boosted the domestic oil supply was to bring down oil prices, which soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Had prices stayed high, the result would simply have been more oil production in countries with dirtier extractive industries, creating worse damage to the climate.…

When Emma Raducanu stepped on to the court at the ASB Classic in Auckland on Tuesday, she wasn’t just facing a determined opponent in Romania’s Elena-Gabriela Ruse, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. Having spent eight months away from the sport, following surgery on both wrists and on one of her ankles, the 21-year-old also had to contend with “inevitable rust in her game”. In view of this, the 2021 US Open champion will feel “extremely pleased” with how she negotiated a tricky contest, which she won 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 after nearly two-and-ahalf hours on court. Particularly encouraging was the fact that Raducanu was able to hit “powerful groundstrokes off both sides”, with seemingly no discomfort in her wrists. And she displayed impressive resilience when Ruse – the world No.…

Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (020-7863 8000). Until 20 January, then on tour Running time: 1hr 55mins Matthew Bourne’s tender yet sharply comic dance adaptation of Edward Scissorhands premiered in 2005 and was last staged in 2014, said Sarah Crompton in The Observer. Now, a revival is touring the UK – and it is an “utter treat”. Bourne is a “canny operator” when it comes to developing titles with popular appeal, said Lyndsey Winship in The Guardian. But his decision to stage Tim Burton’s beloved 1990 film, about a lonely synthetic boy, whose scientist creator has left him with lethal blades in place of hands, was not just “shrewd marketing”. The material, with its outsider protagonist, peculiar setting in the suburbs of 1950s America, and “comic book-style exaggeration of plot and…

“Impressionism – at the Royal Academy? Again?” That was my first thought on hearing about this latest show, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph: I feared that its “overfamiliarity” would risk inducing “narcolepsy”. But I was wrong. Impressionists on Paper puts forward a “neat, clear argument”: that in the late 19th century, technical advances allowed good quality paper and paints to be manufactured in quantity. This considerably improved the status of works on paper, hitherto rarely appreciated as anything other than “preparatory” drawings. From here on in, “they came to be viewed on a par, almost, with paintings” – and Paris’s artists exploited this to the full. Bringing together pictures by all of the movement’s most famous names – the show is subtitled Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec – as well…

Greek Folk Songs translated by Joshua Barley, 2022 (Aiora Press £12.99). An anthology of the songs that have been sung and re-sung for centuries in the villages of Greece, full of love and revenge, adventure and brigandage, plus the landscapes of a forgotten pre-modern world, in the most elegant and heartfelt translation, by a young English poet. Aegean Turkey by George E. Bean, 1966 (out of print; available used). The best guide ever written to the great Greek cities on the Aegean shore of Turkey, not entirely up to date with the archaeology, but brimming with a life-reviving empathy for one of the most creative places on Earth. Bean was the master of slow travel, dwelling and drinking in the riches of a Greek Ionia that can still be found,…

Programmes I Am Andrew Tate Documentary about the notorious influencer, arrested in Romania last year on charges of rape and human trafficking. Featuring unseen footage and interviews with his fans and alleged victims. Sun 7 Jan, C4 21:00 (90mins). Streets of Gold: Mumbai Three-part series taking a look inside the gilded world of Mumbai’s super-rich. Mon 8 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). The Great American Buffalo The renowned Ken Burns looks at how the buffalo on the Great Plains were killed in their millions in the 19th century, imperilling the future of the Native Americans who depended on them. Tue 9 Jan, BBC4 22:00 (115mins). After the Flood New crime thriller. When the body of an unidentified man is found after a flood, detective Jo Marshall must determine whether his death…

• Protein is an essential component of a healthy diet, vital for everything from building strong bones and muscles to an efficient immune system. It can also reduce hunger pangs, promoting weight loss. • However, too much can increase the risk of kidney stones, cancer, diabetes and heart failure, and impair calcium absorption. • Official advice is that people need 0.75g per kilo of bodyweight. It isn’t stored like fat or carbs, so should be consumed daily. • We need more protein as we age. After the age of 50, women in particular need extra protein to keep muscle mass. • Rich sources of good-quality protein include eggs, meat, fish, full-fat Greek yoghurt and cottage cheese. • It’s important to get some from plant-based sources too: nuts, spinach and other…

Jacques Delors 1925-2023 Jacques Delors, who has died aged 98, was the president of the European Commission during its “most imperial and self-confident years”, said The Guardian. He was appointed in 1985, when the EU was still a relatively small club known as the European Economic Community, and over the next ten years, he tirelessly promoted his vision for it as a single regulated market for goods and services across Europe, with no borders, a centralised federal governing system, and its own currency. The global economy, he said, was made up of competing power blocs. “In order to face American and Japanese challenges, we need to be supranational.” Such was his significance as an architect of the EU that his biographer described it as the “house that Jacques built”. But…

The best CEOs of 2023 Sluggish growth, inflation, fractious geopolitics and toxic culture wars left many “corporate chieftains feeling like tightrope walkers” in 2023, said The Economist But it was “a vintage year” for some. The shortlist of “superstars” who generated huge value for investors includes David Ricks of Eli Lilly, now the world’s most valuable pharma, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, who having “terrifying investors in 2022 with his descent into metaverse madness”, then delighted them with his “year of efficiency”. It was also a great year for David Vélez Osorno of the Brazilian “neobank” Nubank. The stand-out winner, though, was Jensen Huang (pictured) of the chipmaker Nvidia, whose value soared past $1trn as it cemented its position as “the power behind the AI revolution”. Huang, whose signature leather…

What happened Hamas’s deputy political leader was killed in an apparent Israeli drone strike in Lebanon this week. Regarded by Israel as the group’s most senior military figure outside Gaza, Saleh al-Arouri, 57, was one of seven Hamas members killed in the explosion in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold. Analysts warned that the strike could put pressure on the Iran-backed Lebanese group to escalate its attacks on Israel, drawing it into a wider regional war. Israel did not confirm that it was behind the strike, but said it was “prepared for any scenario” afterwards. Tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border had ratcheted up over Christmas, when Hezbollah launched scores of missiles into Israel’s north, triggering threats of military retaliation. In another sign of rising regional instability, the UK…

Britain’s home-rental crisis has become so pervasive that it features in a new version of the video game The Sims. Gamers who buy the For Rent “expansion” pack can role play as tenants at the mercy of killer mushrooms, which sprout from damp carpets and eventually from the avatars’ own heads. A spokesperson for The Sims’ creators told The Guardian that they were “always looking at how we can engage with the more challenging aspects of life”. A cheese company that was criticised last year for using an image of the famous Cerne Abbas Giant, minus its manhood, has now restored the figure to its full glory. One happy customer welcomed the change to the Oxford Cheese Company label as a “victory for common sense”.…

Junior doctors in England began a six-day walkout this week, the longest in NHS history. Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said the strike would force the cancellation of thousands of appointments, and that it came at the “very worst time of year”, when hospitals are facing a “storm” of pressure, caused in part by a surge in flu and Covid. There were 3,620 patients with Covid in English hospitals on 24 December, 59% more than a month earlier; and that week there were an average of 942 patients with flu in hospital each day, six times more than in the third week of November. On Wednesday, the doctors’ union, the BMA, signalled a willingness to return to talks, by saying its members were not insisting on a…

Augusta, Maine Trump setback: Donald Trump suffered a fresh legal setback last week, when the state of Maine followed Colorado’s lead in banning him from taking part in the Republican primary there. Maine’s secretary of state, former Democrat senator Shenna Bellows (pictured), said that Trump’s name could not appear on the ballot owing to his actions around the US Capitol riot of 2021. In so doing, she cited the 14th Amendment of the US constitution, which disqualifies anyone who engages in “insurrection” from serving in government. A week earlier, the state supreme court in Colorado had ruled Trump ineligible on the same grounds. However, the supreme court in Michigan rejected an attempt to remove his name from the ballot, on the grounds that it’s not the job of an election…

“The Cerne Abbas Giant, carved on a Dorset hillside, has attracted attention for centuries – unsurprisingly, since he is 180ft high and of obscure origins. Attention has focused on his 36ft-long phallus. Suggestions about his identity include a Celtic god, a Romano-British deity and an MP. A new article argues that the Giant is in fact the classical hero Hercules: being of prodigious strength, he provided a landmark for the muster of the Saxon armies. His club – the main clue – is more than four times bigger than the phallus. I can’t judge who is right. But it is an interesting reflection on human nature to think that centuries of speculation may have been wasted by staring at the wrong protuberance.” Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph…

The lies our leaders tell us about migrants Hein de Haas The Guardian We’ve got it wrong about migration, says Hein de Haas. We aren’t being overwhelmed by “illegal” migrants or those claiming refugee status: the vast majority of people moving from global south to north do so legally – nine out of ten Africans coming to Europe have passports in hand – and only some 10% are refugees. Nor is poverty the spur: on the contrary, you need significant material and educational resources to make the trip. That’s why migration increases as nations get richer and why most migrants come from middle-income nations such as India and Mexico. No, the real driver of rising migration to Europe and the US is labour demand: years of policies aimed at liberalising…

The number of people admitted to English hospitals with conditions linked to obesity has doubled in six years, NHS figures show. In 2016-17, there were 617,000 admissions in which obesity was a factor. By 2022-23, the figure stood at 1.2 million. In 8,716 cases, it was the primary reason for admission (typically for weight-loss surgery). Pregnant women were most prone to obesity-related problems, accounting for 147,143 admissions last year. Arthritis, gallstones, breast cancer, heart disease and pain each accounted for more than 10,000, The Times reports. Admissions were more common in poorer areas: ten times higher in Luton, one of the country’s most deprived boroughs, than in Bracknell Forest, in Berkshire. One in four adults in England are obese, as are 23% of ten- to 11-year-olds. It is estimated that…

To The Guardian Tim Dowling kvetches nicely about the turgidness of God Save the King. But all national anthems are terrible – if not from the musical point of view, then from the moral one. They can be divided into three groups. First are the “Hooray For Us” songs, which are the epitome of smug national vanity. Next are the “Down With Everyone Else” songs, which are full of aggression. Finally, there are the “God Bless Whoever Happens to Be in Power” ditties, full of flattery and toad-eating. We British, being a nation of born forelock tuggers, have chosen the third category, perhaps because it’s simple and nobody (least of all the poor monarch) believes we mean a word of it. It would be a much worse world in which…

The dark days and cold nights of January make it the perfect time to hunker down and catch up on any outstanding podcasts you may have missed from the past year. A good place to start, said The Guardian, is Wiser Than Me, in which the American actress and comic Julia Louis-Dreyfus talks to well-known older women about their long and fruitful lives. Jane Fonda, 86, covers “divorce, funerals, fitness and working with Katharine Hepburn”. Isabel Allende, 81, discusses the attractions of blueberry cannabis edibles. Rhea Perlman, 75, sounds “almost exactly as you remember from Cheers, only now she’s a grandmother”. A second highlight of 2023 was Political Currency, one of the “most fun” political podcasts going. Ed Balls and George Osborne’s double-act has grown into a “brilliantly gossipy take…

Liorah Tchiprout at Marlborough London Liorah Tchiprout (b.1992) creates figurative paintings that seem to allude to the work of any number of predecessors: Chaïm Soutine’s form-shaking and expressive portraits; the “kitchen-sink” style typified by 1950s British painters such as John Bratby and Edward Middleditch; and, perhaps most instructively, Walter Sickert’s weird, lesser-loved theatrical pictures. This last evocation may not be coincidental. Her latest show, Two Eyes Wide Open at the Edge of Dawn, consists of a large number of prints and oil-on-board paintings of (mostly) solitary women, whom the artist refers to as “players”. Indeed, there’s a pronounced staginess to these figures, who are variously seen gardening, striking moody poses or frozen in contemplation. Some pictures are better than others, and there is, perhaps, rather too little variation. Yet Tchiprout’s style,…

23andMe tells you where in the world your ancestors came from, lists DNA relatives from its database, and provides analyses of your genetic vulnerability to conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, if you wish to receive them (from £99; 23andme.com). Boasting an unrivalled consumer base of more than 20 million, the Ancestry DNA test is great for those seeking to build a family tree. Like 23andMe, it offers links to people with DNA matches, but you’ll need to pay additional fees to keep your family tree growing (from £79; ancestry.co.uk). MyHeritage focuses on ancestry, with results presented on a spinning 3D globe. You can review DNA matches and build a family tree supported by public records including censuses and voter lists (from £34; myheritage.com). SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT…

Tom Wilkinson 1948-2023 Tom Wilkinson, who has died aged 75, was one of Britain’s most respected actors. Unflashy and dependable, he had a tremendous capacity to inhabit the characters he played in more than 100 films and TV dramas, said The Guardian, and even after achieving big screen stardom, following his appearance in The Full Monty (1997), he was careful to retain a degree of anonymity. Some actors enjoy being famous, he reflected. “Me, I don’t care for it at all.” Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson was born in 1948 in Leeds, but spent part of his childhood in Canada – which left him with a useful ability to switch between accents. His parents had moved there in search of a better life, said The Daily Telegraph. That failed to materialise, however,…

The world’s longest established rare-stamp dealer, Stanley Gibbons, describes itself as “the home of stamp collecting”. But a fatal fascination with a rare stamp – dubbed “the Mona Lisa of the philatelic world” – appears to have felled it, said Shares. The dealer, which began trading in 1856, borrowed heavily from its largest shareholder, Phoenix SG, to buy the prized 1856 1c Magenta stamp, from British Guiana, for £6.3m in 2021. But the plan to net £8m by selling “fractional shares” in the stamp to outside investors bombed – and Stanley Gibbons went bust in December. The company has now been sold to Strand Collectibles in a “fast-track insolvency process”. Not quite licked, then.…

Turkish dollar bonds While elsewhere the “year of the bond” fell flat, Turkey’s dollar debt delivered returns of around 16%, during a turbulent year for other assets – as investors “cheered signs that the country would pursue a more conventional policy course”. Uranium The price of the element, known as yellowcake, hit a 15-year high of $90 per pound – driven by energy security concerns following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the drive towards net zero. “A few very noisy bulls helped.” Investors reckon that the price has further to go. Solana One of this cryptocurrency’s biggest backers was Sam Bankman-Fried. But having suffered a 90% collapse when his FTX collapsed, Solana – “once touted as the future of digital finance” – roared “back to life”. Hidroelectrica Few would have…

Shares for the year ahead Agronomics The Mail on Sunday This cellular agriculture firm invests in meat, fish and dairy substitute makers – using “clever scientists and sophisticated technology” to produce sustainable top-grade food. A punt on an early-stage business in a growing industry. Buy. 9.5p. Amazon The Times After an overambitious pandemic expansion, Amazon has slashed costs to restore profitability. Forecast-beating sales and likely US rate cuts bode well, as does its ability to capitalise on AI. Buy. $153.25. BAE Systems The Sunday Times The defence firm should benefit from increased military spending, amid continued geopolitical uncertainty. A £4bn contract to build submarines for Australia to counter China’s Pacific dominance should keep it busy. Buy. £11.11. Carnival The Sunday Times The P&O Cruises and Cunard operator rode the pandemic-rebound…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1395 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 15 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1395, 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 Old music player placed in group (8) 5 Bleat about black cake made with rum (4) 8 You’ll find them in oceans? Not normally! (6) 9 Dramatic former calling (8) 10 Broadcaster on eastern island (4) 11 Disease of the face? Yes and lips are affected…

Frequent flyers, with news that soon, passengers arriving in the UK won’t have to present their passports at the border. Instead, they will simply pass through “e-gates” using facial recognition software. Trials of the technology are due to start this year. Sajid Javid, the former Tory chancellor, who was knighted in the New Year Honours List. Javid is leaving Parliament at the next election. Others on the list included Dame Shirley Bassey, who was made a Companion of Honour, and Jilly Cooper, who was made a dame. Liz Truss’s controversial resignation honours list, announced the same day, included peerages for Tory donor Jon Moynihan and the Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliott.…

Almost a quarter of adults in the UK say they’ve tried and failed to make a GP appointment in the past year. Of those, 21% have self-prescribed medication, and 14% have carried out treatment on themselves, or asked someone who isn’t a nurse or doctor to do so. Savanta/Liberal Democrats Just 9% of UK voters believe that Brexit has had a positive impact on the NHS. 47% think it’s had a negative one. Opinium Kemi Badenoch has emerged as the Tory grassroots’ favoured candidate to be the next leader of the party. 38% of party members think she’d be the best candidate. Penny Mordaunt comes second, on 23%, and Suella Braverman third, on 14%. Conservative Home…

Leaving the East End David Jonsson is one of British acting’s hottest new talents, says Ed Cumming in The Daily Telegraph: fresh from roles in the banking drama Industry and the romcom Rye Lane, he became, over Christmas, the first black actor to play the lead role in an Agatha Christie adaptation, the BBC’s Murder Is Easy. But things have not, he says, always been plain sailing. Raised in east London by a police officer mother and an IT engineer father, he grew up in a house full of music and books, but at school, he got caught up in fights – and at 14 he was expelled. His parents’ response was to send him to a new school on the other side of London, where he could do drama…

Three men who tried to rob a cheque-cashing business in Colorado last month were foiled, when their getaway vehicle was stolen midway through their heist. The armed and masked men realised the car was gone when they emerged from Hi-Lo Cheque Cashing laden with loot. They attempted to run away on foot, but two of the three were caught by police. One suspect is still at large. Police in Commerce City described it as “an unexpected and ironic twist”. A disgruntled customer has parked a tank outside the Basingstoke branch of Wickes to persuade the firm to refund him for his “poor quality” kitchen. Paul Gibbons, 63, had the £25,000 kitchen installed in February, and says that he has been beset with problems ever since, from mould to badly fitting…

Why eczema sufferers itch For those with atopic eczema, the urge to scratch is almost impossible to resist, yet it only provides temporary relief, while further damaging inflamed skin. Now, scientists have worked out the cause of this infuriating itch, and identified a treatment that has the potential to stop the cycle. Eczema tends to occur in people with an overactive immune system, and causes patches of dry and cracked skin. It was long presumed that the itchiness was a by-product of the inflammation, but it now seems it has a separate cause. “We found that itching can be caused directly by a bacterial pathogen – Staphylococcus aureus – which is a very common microbe that’s found on about 30% of people, mainly in the nose,” said Isaac Chiu, associate…

Tennis Andy Murray lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the first round of the Brisbane International – ending his hopes of being seeded at the Australian Open. Rafael Nadal returned with a win over Dominic Thiem. Football Liverpool are three points clear at the top of the Premier League after a 4-2 win over Newcastle. Aston Villa are second, after a 3-2 victory over Burnley. Cricket Australian opener David Warner has announced his retirement from both Tests and ODI cricket. He plays his final Test – against Pakistan – this week.…

I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait Quercus £8.99 (£6.99) From its “snarky” opening sentence on (“On the whole, they enjoy a funeral”), Rebecca Wait’s fourth novel is great fun, said The Sunday Times. The story of a dysfunctional middle-class family (three adult siblings and their “narcissistic mother”), it contains several “snort-worthy” set pieces, as well as an exceptional “gag about Peterborough”. Along with the wit, there’s “emotional insight”, said The Observer. It’s a “masterclass in familial tensions”. Original Sins by Matt Rowland Hill Vintage £10.99 (£8.99) This “devastatingly good” memoir recounts how its author “swapped a love of Jesus for a love of Class-A drugs”, said The Daily Telegraph. Following his strict evangelical upbringing in Swansea, Hill won a scholarship to Harrow and then went to Oxford…

Last month, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting Sibylla Palmifera (1870) went on show at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight near Birkenhead. It was commissioned by the Liverpool banker and collector George Rae, says Donna Ferguson in The Observer. In December 1865, Rae had paid the pre-Raphaelite painter a £300 deposit (the equivalent today of around £30,000). Alongside the painting is displayed a letter from Rossetti explaining why, by August 1868, he still hadn’t delivered it, and could not make a meeting with his “exasperated patron”. The artist spares no detail when it comes to excuses – notably a prolonged bout of diarrhoea. “I have had a constant diarrhoea and other troublesome symptoms,” he writes, telling Rae that “I started off this morning with Mr Leyland for Liverpool, but…

Alice tells Chris about her romance with Harry. Later, without announcing himself, Harry calls Chris to shoe a horse; Chris refuses to do any further work for Harry. After an unpromising rehearsal, Alan and Usha’s “Gagricultural” Christmas Show is a triumph. Against advice and to Alice’s consternation, Chris gets Martha a pony for Christmas. There are celebrations as Alistair announces the appointment of a second vet nurse, meaning Denise can return to Ambridge. Fed up with being broke, Ed wants to retrain as a tree surgeon. After spending Christmas Day together, Alistair and Denise share a moment but are interrupted by a call from her husband. In The Bull on Boxing Day, Lilian takes out her anger at Justin on Emma and Tracy. Kate and Brian meet Harry and have…

BYD has the whole world in its sights David Fickling Bloomberg In a new year blow to Elon Musk, Tesla has just been overtaken by Chinese rival BYD as the world’s best-selling electric carmaker – at least in the last quarter. It’s quite a “milestone”, says David Fickling, but it won’t be the last chalked up by this upstart, which now has “the whole car industry” in its sights. To many, BYD is still “a little-known car brand”, better known in the West for being backed by the renowned investor Warren Buffett than for “sightings of actual vehicles out on the road”. Its market valuation remains just “one-tenth the size of Tesla”. Yet on almost every financial metric, it is either advancing on or overtaking its American rival, “spitting out…