The Week的1575目录

Controversy of the week American empire “Gerardus Mercator may have a lot to answer for,” said Gideon Rachman in the FT. The world map devised by the 16th century cartographer, and still widely used today, greatly magnifies the polar regions. The “deceptively enormous size” of Greenland on such maps seems to have whetted Donald Trump’s appetite. “I love maps,” he once said. “And I always said, ‘Look at the size of this, it’s massive, and that should be part of the United States.’” Trump’s lust for Greenland is also consistent with his deepest instincts, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. “A desire to dominate … is perhaps the essence of Trump’s character.” He believes that wealth and power are “zero-sum contests”, and that control of natural resources will dictate who…

Russell & Bromley, with rumours that the Bromley family that owns the struggling shoe company is split over its future. One faction reportedly wants to sell the brand to Next – a deal that would see the closure of its 37 shops, with the loss of 450 jobs. Residents of Tunbridge Wells, after thousands were left without water for several days, for the second time in a month. South East Water blamed Storm Goretti, a power cut and burst water mains during the cold snap for the latest outage, which affected 30,000 properties in total, in Kent and Sussex.…

Support for Reform UK has hit its lowest level since April. 24% of voters say they’d back Nigel Farage’s party in an election, compared with 20% who’d back the Tories and 19% who’d vote Labour. YouGov/Sky/Times In a survey conducted in 27 countries, two-thirds of people said their nation’s political system was “failing people”. 73% thought life would be harder for the next generation; 69% thought democracy was weakening. FGS Global Net migration fell to a post-Covid low in the year to June 2025; but 67% of people think it increased. Among Reform voters, 80% thought it had risen. 74% of people have no confidence in the Government on the issue; 18% do. More in Common/Guardian…

The origins of my OCD Billy Bob Thornton has long been open about his obsessive compulsive disorder – and the idiosyncratic range of phobias it has left him with: the actor is afraid of things from Komodo dragons to French antiques. He traces the disorder back to his unstable childhood in rural Arkansas, and the violence he experienced at the hands of his father. “It’s a protective thing,” he told John Jurgensen in The Wall Street Journal. “My dad was very abusive. He’d get home from work around 4 o’clock. I used to look at the clock and say, ‘If I can count to a hundred 11 times before I hear the car come into the driveway, everything’s going to be OK.’ If you’re a kid who has no control…

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps a database of the various items that people in America have got stuck in their rectums. The most recent data shows that about 4,000 people (average age: 43) seek hospital treatment for such mishaps per year. Among the items recorded were beard clippers, a sandal, uncooked pasta, a dog chew toy, an egg, a turkey baster, a pair of glasses and a shampoo bottle. A Filipino woman spent four years worshipping what she thought was a green Buddha statue – before realising that it was actually a 3D-printed model of the animated film character Shrek. The woman treated the object with “great reverence” after buying it in Manila, the South China Morning Post reports, giving it a prominent spot in her home, praying…

GERMANY A crisis is no time to be playing tennis Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin) It’s the little things that trip up politicians, says Christian Tretbar: laughing at the wrong moment, taking time off during a crisis, that sort of thing. And it was the silly things said by Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, after an arson attack by far-left climate protesters had plunged a southwest district of the city into the cold and dark last week, that may have done for his political career. In an attempt to explain why he’d taken so long to arrive at the scene and make a public pronouncement, Wegner claimed a stream of phone calls had left him “locked” in his office. The true explanation soon came to light: someone had spotted him playing tennis with…

After months of military build-up, deadly strikes at sea and threats of a ground war, the US finally attacked Venezuela on 3 January, and seized its president, Nicolás Maduro, said Alejandro Velasco in The Guardian. It seemed a momentous event; yet 48 hours later, little else had changed in Caracas. Regime-backed paramilitaries were once again patrolling the streets; and the country was being led not by the opposition – whose candidate was widely recognised as the true winner of the 2024 election – but by Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez. If this is regime change, it is a strange sort. Add in the minimal military resistance that met the US forces, and it points to a clear possibility – that Maduro’s inner circle had struck a deal to give up their…

The defection this week of Nadhim Zahawi, the former Conservative chancellor and party chairman, was a “major coup” for Reform UK, said the Daily Mail. Zahawi is the “biggest beast” so far to join Nigel Farage’s party, and “his knowledge and experience of government will prove invaluable in making it more professional”. The recruitment of the Iraq-born businessman, who quit the Commons before the last election, may also help “scotch accusations” that Reform is a “one-man band”. Was it really such a triumph, asked Tom Peck in The Times. Zahawi is proud of his time as chancellor, but it only lasted two months, and it was overshadowed by the revelation that he hadn’t paid his taxes, and tried to conceal the fact that he was being investigated for failing to…

Now that the 2025/26 Ashes have ended, we can see the series more clearly for what it was, said Mike Atherton in The Times. And the sad truth is that this was a tour “which promised so much but delivered so little”. Even though Australia weren’t at their best, they were still much too good for England, whose campaign was “characterised by a cavalier approach to preparation and a lack of rigour”. With the exception of Joe Root and Jacob Bethell, the batsmen “failed to shine”; and while England’s bowlers performed better, their attack was “bedevilled” by injuries. The result was a mostly “uncompetitive” series that failed to reward the Australian public for their ongoing enthusiasm for the Ashes. If England underperformed on the field, that may in part be…

God vs. robots To The Economist There is a theological complication in using large language models (LLM) to translate the Bible. LLMs are notoriously unable to resist appending helpful suggestions to their output (ask ChatGPT for the capital of France and you’ll get “Paris”, followed by options for your itinerary). Yet the Book of Revelation concludes with an explicit warning against adding to its text: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” The last verses of scripture forbid adding to scripture. The algorithm translating it has no idea how not to. This will not end well. Marcelo Lacanna, Argentina One less for the road… To The Daily Telegraph Claims that lowering the drink-drive limit will “kill…

Alan Ayckbourn’s 1985 play Woman in Mind is one of this most prolific of playwright’s very best, said Claire Allfree in The Daily Telegraph – a “form-bending exploration of psychiatric breakdown” that mixes his “particular blend of suburban comic pathos with a febrile dash of horror”. In Michael Longhurst’s “triumphant revival”, Sheridan Smith takes the lead role of Susan, a housewife who, after being hit on the head by a garden rake (“very Ayckbourn”), starts to hallucinate about a second family – one that is loving and wealthy, in contrast to her crushingly dull and cheerless one. Unlike many of Ayckbourn’s plays – this was his 32nd, and he has written some 60 since – this “convoluted but bitterly funny farce” still feels “fresh”, said Robert Gore-Langton in The Mail…

Many younger people may never have heard of Naseem Hamed. But in the 1990s, the British-Yemeni boxer known as Prince Naz was “everywhere”, said Mike McCahill in Little White Lies, having transcended “the sports section to provide primetime entertainment and front-page news”. He had a swagger similar to that of the Gallagher brothers, and now he too is back, as the subject of this Sylvester Stallone-produced biopic – which “forces the boxer’s story through the Britfilm cookie cutter and barely stays on its feet”. It starts well enough, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, with Irish trainer Brendan Ingle (Pierce Brosnan) tasked with helping the young Naz defend himself from racist bullies in 1980s Sheffield, “nurturing his showboating arrogance and his lethal fists”, before being cut loose. But while the…

Molly Parkin 1932-2026 Molly Parkin was a girl from a chapel-going family in the Welsh Valleys who emerged as one of Swinging London’s most flamboyant figures. She was unmissable on that era’s social scene, in her extravagant hats and brightly coloured costumes. In a long career, she worked as a journalist and fashion designer. She ran her own boutique off the King’s Road in Chelsea, appeared on chat shows and wrote racy novels. She lived in 52 different homes, married twice, and had sexual encounters with “men beyond enumeration”, said The Guardian – experiences that informed her novels, and that she detailed in her memoirs. But she died, aged 93, as “an acknowledged artist”, which is what she’d really wanted to be. “Art was her first and last love”, and…

Tariffs will not save manufacturing Editorial The Economist Pessimists about the world economy have been having a poor run, says The Economist. Every year so far in the 2020s, it has defied expectations. Global growth was probably about 3% in 2025 – far higher than the gloomy forecasts. This resilience “may flummox market liberals” because it has coincided with the highest tariffs levied by America since the 1930s. But populists are only half right when they crow that, as usual, the experts were wrong. True, protectionism hasn’t yet derailed growth; but industrial policies and tariffs have failed in their basic aim of arresting the decline of manufacturing jobs. “American manufacturing is in a rut” – and the same is true globally: Bidenomics, Trumponomics, “Make in India” et al have barely…

What happened Revolt in Iran “Help is on its way,” Donald Trump told the people of Iran on Tuesday as he urged them to keep protesting and “take over your institutions”. The US president had earlier declared that America was “locked and loaded”, ready to intervene militarily in Iran if the authorities started killing peaceful protesters en masse, and announced 25% tariffs, “effective immediately”, on any nation that did business with Iran. More than 2,500 people, including security personnel, have died in the unrest, according to human rights groups, although many fear the true toll is much higher than that. The demonstrations, which seem to have partially subsided in recent days, began in the bazaars of Tehran on 28 December, fuelled by anger over Iran’s collapsing currency, and spread across…

So many people are taking drugs to suppress their appetites that supermarkets are introducing lines to cater for them. Morrisons has a “small and balanced” range, designed for those who inject drugs such as Wegovy, while Ocado now sells an “extra-lean” 100g steak. Greggs, meanwhile, says it is bringing in smaller portions and more proteindense options. Clinics and therapists say they are seeing a growing number of people who suffer from what they’ve termed “longevity fixation syndrome”. It describes an all-consuming obsession with living longer (or even for ever). Doctors say new technologies have raised the possibility of ultra-long lives – and in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, big business is now cashing in.…

Labour has dropped its plan to make digital ID mandatory for anyone needing to prove their right to work in the UK, less than four months after announcing the scheme. Keir Starmer had said the policy was needed to tackle illegal immigration. However, polling shows public support for digital ID has collapsed in recent months, and the plan was unpopular with some Labour MPs. Right-to-work checks will still be digitised by 2029, and digital ID will be available, but options such as biometric passports will also be permitted. According to The Times, this was the Government’s 13th U-turn.…

Brussels Trade deal: A majority of EU members gave the green light to the Mercosur trade agreement last week, after years of fraught negotiation. The deal – with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the bulk of the Mercosur bloc – will create one of the world’s largest free trade areas, covering 700 million people. It is due to be signed on Saturday, and the European Parliament will then have to ratify it. This is likely to take place later this year, but may yet meet stiff opposition. France was among five nations to oppose the deal, after bitter protests by French farmers who argue that it will lead to a flood of cheap food imports produced without adherence to EU standards. Paris High-stakes appeal: Marine Le Pen, the far-right National…

1 A Day in the Life by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles 2 Love Will Tear Us Apart by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner, performed by Joy Division 3 Debaser by Black Francis, performed by Pixies 4* Georgia on My Mind by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell, performed by Billie Holiday 5 The Magic Number by Kelvin Mercer, Vincent Mason, David Jolicoeur, Paul Huston, Robert Dorough, James Brown and Johnny Cash, performed by De La Soul 6 New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down by James Murphy, Tyler Pope and Pat Mahoney, performed by LCD Soundsystem 7 Snow Line, written and performed by John Berryman 8 Violin Concerto in D major, RV234 “L’inquietudine” by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by Walter Gallozzi and I Musici Book: The Norton Anthology of…

Every vessel sailing on the open seas is required to fly a national flag. A stateless ship can generally be intercepted, boarded and potentially seized under international law because it lacks the legal protection of a flag state. But today, such flags are often a legal fiction. In the 1920s, during the Prohibition era, US ship owners started registering their ships in Panama, so they could serve alcohol on board. Other advantages of registering there were noted: owners could avoid high union labour costs and bothersome regulations. Soon, other “open registries” started offering their services. The Liberian Registry, run by a US corporation currently based in Dulles, Virginia, opened in 1948, and by the 1960s had surpassed the UK as the world’s largest. Even landlocked countries such as Mongolia, Luxembourg…

Class warfare comes to New York Editorial The Washington Post Zohran Mamdani wasn’t kidding when he claimed that he would govern New York as a democratic socialist, says The Washington Post. In one of his first acts as mayor, he has appointed Cea Weaver, an activist and fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as director of his Office to Protect Tenants. There is a housing crisis in New York, caused in large part by strict rent controls that disincentivise landlords from investing in rental properties and maintaining them adequately. Mamdani’s plan to expand rent controls will only exacerbate this problem, particularly if Weaver is involved. Since she has taken office, several tweets from her recently deactivated X/Twitter account have come to light. In 2021, she tweeted that rent…

As of this year, all children in the UK are being offered protection against chickenpox. The vaccine is being combined with the previous MMR jab, for measles, mumps and rubella, given at 12 and 18 months. This thus becomes the MMRV jab, with the V standing for varicella, an alternative name for chickenpox, which is caused by the highly contagious varicella zoster virus. The MMRV vaccine is already used routinely in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany, where it has cut hospital admissions for chickenpox by as much as 97%. The vast majority of children in the UK catch chickenpox before they turn 11. Most just miss a few days of nursery or school, but the virus can lead to complications. Chickenpox-related deaths, however, are very rare: there are about…

At last, the “coalition of the willing” is willing to act, said The Daily Telegraph. At a summit in Paris last week, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron finally agreed to deploy “boots on the ground” in Ukraine, in order to help uphold any peace agreement that might be reached between Kyiv and Moscow. These troops will be supported, in principle, by the US; securing such a commitment was “no mean feat”, given the current “tensions between Europe and the US”. Even so, many questions remain. “Will Germany join the pact? What are the rules of engagement?” How would British troops respond to any “grey zone” incursions by the Russians, designed to fall below the threshold of clear armed attack? “Most importantly, are we willing to put our money where our…

“A machine can take on any number of things, but the one thing it can never take is responsibility.”Stephen Bush in the FT “There is, especially in the American media, a deep belief that insincerity is better than no sincerity at all.”Christopher Hitchens, quoted in The Times “It is much more moving to watch an actor try to suppress an emotion than to vent it, for the simple reason that that is what 99% of the population of planet Earth do every day.”Tom Shone in The Sunday Times “Some of us drink champagne in the fast lane, and some of us eat our sandwiches by the loose chippings on the A597.”Victoria Wood, quoted in The Mail on Sunday “People think I hate sex. I don’t. I just don’t like things…

To the Financial Times Sarah O’Connor (“How humans can navigate the AI ‘empathy’ trap”) writes that large language models “do not, and cannot, feel. What the research suggests they can do, rather well, is to read or predict other people’s emotions … and to write in a way which gives people the impression of empathy.” O’Connor is right. However, the trouble is most of our daily interactions in our professional and personal lives, with anyone who is trying to sell us a product or a service, or pretty much anyone who is not a real friend but a distant acquaintance, is exactly like that. As Hawkeye, the Alan Alda character in the satirical sitcom M*A*S*H says when asked how he is going to impress a woman: “Sincerity? I can fake…

A concussed George struggles to remember the attack – Amber tries to convince him it was Markie’s gang, but George isn’t sure. He apologises for his accusations about Brad; Amber says they should move on as if nothing happened. When the police request The Bull’s CCTV footage of New Year’s Eve, Jolene is shocked to find it’s been wiped. Still unwell after his confrontation with George, Brian is short with Alice and Tony, but insists he’s up to moving into the farmhouse with Miranda. Helen isn’t happy when Henry joins the Grundys visiting George in hospital. Ed guesses the reason why Will won’t leave George’s side – he’s haunted by Nic’s death; Ed urges him to move on with his life. At The Bull, a stressed Jazzer says no to…

An institution under threat Daquise, in South Kensington, is one of those London institutions, like Rules in Covent Garden or La Poule au Pot in Belgravia, that “feels as if it has always been there”, says John Sturgis in The Times. In fact, the much-loved Polish restaurant opened in 1947, at a time when “London was teeming with Poles” – a mix of veterans who’d joined the RAF to fight the Nazis, and “fresh arrivals” escaping communism. It became a haunt for spies, politicians and journalists. In the months before the Profumo scandal broke in 1963, Christine Keeler often dined there with her lover, Yevgeny Ivanov, a KGB spy. Its current regulars include actors Hugh Grant and Mark Rylance. The menu, while fancier than it once was, “plots a middle…

● Cheese needs to breathe, and prefers warmer temperatures – around 10°C – so it’s not ideally suited to living in the fridge. ● Potatoes and onions go soggy in the fridge. Store in a cool, dark, well-ventilated spot, with onions in their own cloth bag. ● Don’t keep bananas in the fridge as the skin goes black. But they can be frozen in their skins for baking later. Similarly, coffee should be kept out, but coffee beans can be frozen to make them last longer. ● Chocolate gets greasy and tasteless in the fridge. Ketchup should also be kept in a cupboard. ● Fresh herbs (except basil) should be kept in the fridge wrapped in dry kitchen paper, or in a jar of water, stored in a plastic bag.…

Aldrich Ames 1941-2026 Aldrich Ames, who has died aged 84, spent 31 years working for the CIA – and for the last nine of them, he was passing all the secrets he knew to the KGB. The most damaging mole in the agency’s history, he was motivated not by ideology, said The Daily Telegraph, but by money. Having settled on treachery as a way to pay his debts, he sent the Soviets some limited information in 1984. At his first meet with the KGB, they told him it wasn’t enough to justify the $50,000 he wanted. To their surprise, Ames – the CIA’s head of counter-intelligence in its Soviet division – immediately gave them the names of two agents. Soon after, he handed over a huge trove of secrets, including…

Kevin Rountree From videogames to knitting, hobbies are big business, said The Times. But few hobbyist companies can match the steady march of Warhammer-maker Games Workshop, whose cult game and fantasy miniature figures (requiring painstaking painting) were once described as “plastic crack” by the former Superman actor Henry Cavill. Founded in a Shepherd’s Bush flat by three games enthusiasts in 1975 – and run since 2015 by Kevin Rountree – the firm stormed into the FTSE 100 a year ago and was among the index’s best performers in 2025, with shares jumping 40% to a valuation above £6bn. Lacklustre Christmas trading has seen the stock slip, but cooling profit growth this year is “expected to be a blip” as the brand’s international footprint grows. Rountree, 56, a former accountant, is…

What happened The Government criminalised the creation of non-consensual deepfake images this week, in response to a growing public outcry about the proliferation online of AI-generated images of semi-naked women and children. Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said that provisions in last year’s Data Act were being brought into force now, so that people who made or requested the “vile” images could be prosecuted. Previously, only sharing such images was illegal. Separately, Ofcom opened an investigation into possible breaches of the Online Safety Act by Elon Musk’s X/Twitter platform, which hosts the Grok AI chatbot. In recent weeks, Grok has been used to generate thousands of images of women and children in bikinis. Keir Starmer said Grok and X’s actions were “disgusting” and “shameful”; Musk called the Government “fascist” and…

London, as the number of homicides in the capital fell to its lowest level for over a decade, and its lowest per capita level ever. Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said the figures served as a reproof to those who “promote narratives that suit them” about crime in London. However, his critics noted that while killings are down, knife crime and theft are up. David Bowie fans, who will soon be able to tour his childhood home in Bromley, south London. The terraced house, where Bowie lived between the ages of eight and 20, has been acquired by the Heritage of London Trust, which now plans to redecorate it to make it look as it did when the musician lived there. Adolescence, the Netflix drama, which continued…

The Government this week revived the Northern Powerhouse Rail project to build better railways across the north of England. It has allocated £1.1bn for design and development, and has proposed a total budget of £45bn to “reverse years of chronic underinvestment”. Improvements will first be made to lines and stations in Yorkshire. During the second stage, a new route will be built from Liverpool to Manchester. Keen to avoid the spiralling costs that have plagued HS2, Labour has put a cap on central spending, but regional and local governments will be able to raise additional funding.…

Minneapolis, Minnesota ICE fury: Minnesota is suing the Trump administration in an effort to end the deployment of an estimated 2,000 federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the state. The suit, which refers to the “surge” as an unconstitutional “federal invasion”, was filed after the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, pledged to send “hundreds more” ICE agents to Minneapolis, which has become the epicentre of the protests sparked by the shooting dead of local resident Renée Nicole Good on 7 January (see page 12). Noem’s department says the surge is necessary to tackle illegal immigration and crime in the state. Local officials dispute the idea that Minnesota is a hotbed of crime; and the state’s attorney general has accused ICE itself of causing “chaos and violence”. The state…

“Modern politics is a team sport. You choose a team for rational reasons – it is local, or it is winning, or it plays with style – but after that, the attachment reinforces itself. Almost no turn of events can break it. I don’t doubt that, in 2016, lots of people chose Donald Trump for his opposition to foreign wars or the carnival of lobbying that is Washington, or for some other good reason. But once they were in, they were in. Point out to them how far he has veered from those ideas over the decade, and the response is a shrug, as though only a pedant would care. Pity future historians, who will have to get their heads around how simultaneously empty and dangerous our times were.” Janan…

Honesty in politics is the best policy Philip Collins The Observer Welfare policy presents an exquisite dilemma for Labour, says Philip Collins. Ministers know that the current situation – with one in ten working-age adults claiming sickness or disability benefits – is unsustainable. But they also know that taking money from so many voters, if their MPs ever agreed to it, would go down badly. Same goes for pensions, which account for about 50% of the welfare bill. Logic dictates Labour should scrap the unaffordable triple lock introduced by the Tories, which ensures that the state pension rises each year by whichever figure is highest: inflation, growth in average earnings or 2.5%. But again, the move would be electoral poison. So what to do? Ultimately, there’s only one way through…

Tackling a hypertension timebomb A growing number of young people are being diagnosed with high blood pressure, a condition normally associated with middle age. According to one recent study, rates have almost doubled in children and teenagers since around 2000, leading to fears that many of today’s youngsters will be at a significantly elevated risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney problems when they reach their 30s and 40s. Now, doctors are calling for children to be offered routine blood pressure checks, to help defuse this potential timebomb. A national screening programme, they told The Guardian, would allow the condition to be caught – and treated – early. Many children have secondary hypertension caused by other medical problems such as heart defects; but the rise over the past 25 years…

Gordon Brown was never regarded as a dazzling orator, which was a pity for an audience early in his career. As a young MP, he was invited to speak at a dinner for pensioners. Walking on, he asked how long he should speak for, and was told “45 minutes”. So he launched into an off-the-cuff history of pension rights. “I sat down after about 40 minutes to what you might call less than good applause,” he told the Ruthie’s Table podcast. The chairman then apologised for there being no time for the other speakers, and the food being cold. “I thought you said 45 minutes,” Brown said. “No, four to five.” The feud in the Beckham family is escalating. It seems that over the summer, Brooklyn Beckham sent his parents…

“Ding! Ding! Ding! Last orders for Rachel Reeves.” The Chancellor’s tax plans led the Government to announce yet another U-turn last week, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. This one was over taxes on pubs in England. The hospitality trade had been led to believe that the revamp of business rates announced in the Budget would bring some relief to their struggling sector. But despite a reduction in headline rates, many small businesses discovered they would actually end up worse off, owing to a revaluation of their rateable property values. The typical increase for pubs is about 30%, but some 5,100 have had their rateable values doubled. Coinciding with the phasing out of Covid-era reliefs, it has left pubs facing having to pay thousands more in rates on top…

It will go down, by almost any metric, as “the biggest and most seismic FA Cup giant killing in the competition’s history”, said Dominic Booth in The Guardian. No fewer than 117 places in the English football pyramid separate Crystal Palace and Macclesfield. Yet somehow, last Saturday, the “star-studded Premier League team” – who won last year’s FA Cup – were “overwhelmed and deservedly beaten by their sixth-tier hosts”, a team made up of part-timers who lie 14th in the National League North. In so doing, the Eagles became the “first cup holders to lose to non-league opposition since 1909”. Macclesfield, who are managed by John Rooney, younger brother of former England international Wayne, were playing in memory of their forward Ethan McLeod, who died in a car crash last…

Football Xabi Alonso has departed as Real Madrid head coach seven months after arriving. He will be replaced by Álvaro Arbeloa. Michael Carrick has been confirmed as Manchester United’s interim manager. Rugby union Harlequins secured their place in the last 16 of the Champions Cup with a 61-10 victory over Stormers. Saracens improved their prospects of qualifying with a 20-14 victory over Toulouse. Tennis Emma Raducanu won her first-round match in the Hobart International, despite play being split over two days owing to a rain interruption.…

Even before its release, Hamnet was being touted as one of “the films of the year” and a shoo-in for Oscar glory, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture – which is not that surprising, when you consider the film’s pedigree. It is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed bestseller, and co-written by director Chloé Zhao, who won an Oscar for Nomadland. It unites on screen “two of Ireland’s most magnetic actors”, Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. And there is a bona fide genius involved besides: William Shakespeare himself. The drama’s central conceit is that the Bard was inspired to write Hamlet by the death of Hamnet, his beloved son with his wife Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway. In Elizabethan England, we are told, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable. We first meet…

“Marie Antoinette had no luck,” said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. From her very arrival in France, the Austrian princess was plagued by misfortune: on the night fireworks were lit in Paris to mark her marriage to the dauphin Louis, “a conflagration ensued, the crowd stampeded and more than 130 people were killed”. So it was that, from the start, “she was destined to be hated by the French people and blamed for sufferings she didn’t even know existed”. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, she’d become a lightning rod for anger, “demonised” as a sexual profligate and a lavish spender. With her tragic story and her extravagant tastes in fashion, she has become an object of cultural fascination ever since. This exhibition “brings you as close…

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, 1979 (Pan £9.99). The first in Adams’s series of five novels, and I have read every one. I find the book’s satirical humour laugh-out-loud funny. Pure sci-fi whimsy, but with a message. The World According to Garp by John Irving, 1978 (W&N £10.99). Irving’s protagonist, T.S. Garp, is born out of wedlock in the 1940s to a feminist nurse who didn’t want a husband, and he grows up to be a writer. The storyline touches on traditional ideas of family, gender roles and sexuality by depicting people who defy conventional expectations. The Women by Kristin Hannah, 2024 (Pan £9.99). The story of a privileged young woman named Frankie who joins the army and serves as a combat nurse in Vietnam. I…

Programmes After the Flood Season two of the crime thriller. Detective Jo Marshall investigates a double murder while secretly working with her ex to stop corrupt Sergeant Mackie. Sun 18 Jan, ITV 21:00 (60mins). Four Kings Docuseries charting the careers of four black British boxers – Frank Bruno, Lennox Lewis, Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. Sun 18 Jan, C4 22:00 and 23:00 (60mins each). Smiley’s People Vintage spy drama starring Alec Guinness. Two seemingly unconnected events draw George Smiley out of retirement. Wed 21 Jan, BBC4 22:00 and 23:00 (60mins each). Palestine Action: The Truth Behind the Ban Dispatches investigates the Government’s controversial decision to proscribe the activist group, and the arrest of its supporters. Thu 22 Jan, C4 22:00 (60mins). Films  The Souvenir (2019) and The Souvenir Part II (2021)…

Serves 2 1 medium aubergine 5 tbsp olive oil 1 small onion, finely chopped 3 fat garlic cloves, minced or finely grated 400g can of tomatoes 1 tbsp red-wine vinegar pinch of chilli flakes 200g dried spaghetti, or dried linguine 1 tbsp white miso 3 basil leaves, roughly torn, plus more to serve sea salt and freshly ground black pepper To serve: parmesan cheese, or vegetarian parmesan-style cheese extra-virgin olive oil • Chop the aubergine into bite-sized pieces. Heat 2-3 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, then fry the aubergine until charred and cooked through. Aubergines love oil, so don’t be shy. This should take about 15 minutes and it is important not to rush it. Take it out to rest, and season with a…

Prepare to get wet and muddy on the Wild Cairns assault course in East Lothian, which has more than 25 obstacles, a water slide and a human mangle made from tyres (from £21.20; ages 6+; wildcairns.com). Adrenaline junkies will love the Highland Fling Bungee Jump – diving 40m at 50mph in the Killiecrankie Gorge, north of Pitlochry (£89; ages 14+; bungeejumpscotland.co.uk). Toboggan down one of Britain’s longest alpine coasters (980m) at Midlothian Snowsports Centre by the Pentland Hills (from £7; ages 9+; midlothian.gov.uk). No experience is needed to explore Arran on a guided kayaking trip with Kayak Arran. Expect to spot seals, otters and even dolphins and porpoises (half-day trip from £42; no minimum age; kayakarran.co.uk). Children from nine up can try quad biking across hills, streams and woodland with Cairngorm…

Warner Bros./Paramount/Netflix: gloves off Observers of the US “entertainment industrial complex” may be under the illusion that Netflix’s $83bn bid to buy Warner Bros. is a done deal, said Cheryl Eddy on Gizmodo. Not a bit of it. A week after the board of Warner Bros. voted unanimously to reject Paramount Skydance’s “inadequate” $108bn hostile bid, there has been a “major escalation”. Paramount – led by David Ellison and bankrolled by his father, Oracle’s Larry Ellison – is trying to force Warner Bros. back to the table by threatening a “proxy fight” for seats on Warner’s board. It has also filed a lawsuit seeking information on the Netflix deal, said The Wall Street Journal. Paramount argues that its rebuffed offer “is superior in value”. The main difference between the offers…

Beaten by cash The FTSE All-Share index returned 21.4% last year. Yet two of Britain’s best-known active fund managers fared so poorly that investors would have been better off putting their money on deposit. Nick Train’s £1bn Finsbury Growth and Income Trust suffered a 7.5% decline in net asset value to the end of November. Terry Smith’s Fundsmith Equity fund ended up in the black, but its paltry 0.8% gain was trounced by the 4.2% return from cash. Against the grain Both fund managers have “stood out over the years” for delivering strong, longer-term results by focusing on “quality stocks”. Yet both have “tested patience” of late, said Jason Hollands of Evelyn Partners. Smith blames “the surge of money into index-tracking funds” and dominance of US tech stocks for recent…

The week’s best shares Beauty Tech Group Citywire This beauty group develops clinical LED and laser therapies for use at home: treatments include skin rejuvenation and hair removal. A second guidance upgrade has prompted Berenberg to raise its target to 450p. Buy. 307p. Bridgepoint Group The Times This private equity house, whose assets include the UK Burger King master franchise, focuses on mid-market healthcare, industrial and financial services deals. Good fundraising flows and a record of profitable exits. Buy. 294.4p. Capricorn Energy The Times The oil and gas explorer has cut costs and strengthened its balance sheet. With production at the upper end of forecasts, there’s potential for further returns. Canaccord Genuity has upped its target to 410p. Buy. 195p. Gym Group Citywire Structural demand growth – driven by Gen…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1499 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 26 January. Send it to The Week Crossword 1499, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 5 Previously mentioned work of trade nominee (14) 9 Get below where taxis stop (10) 10 Ad-lib exhibition showing mountain goat (4) 11 Broadcast story not starting − it’s a dog! (8) 13 Almost winning majority in ancient Greek city (6) 14 Issued by Queen Victoria after a little wind (5,6) 18 Honest journalist strained…