Table of contents for V. 1295 in The Week

What happened Back to the office? As the bulk of schools in England and Wales fully reopened this week, ministers launched a drive to encourage people back to the office. They highlighted the social benefits of returning to the workplace while also pointing out that working from home could make people more vulnerable to being sacked. The campaign follows a warning from Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, that commercial centres risk becoming permanent “ghost towns”. The latest figures show that only about a third of white-collar workers in the UK are back at the office, compared to around three-quarters of those in France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Last week, the sandwich chain Pret A Manger announced nearly 2,900 job losses. Pizza Express and the burger chain Byron are also…

Noor Inayat Khan, the first female radio operator to be flown into Nazi Occupied France to aid the Resistance, who is now to become the first woman of Indian origin to be honoured with a Blue Plaque. Khan joined the Special Operations Executive in 1943. She was captured after being betrayed, and executed at Dachau in 1944. Her last word was reportedly, “Liberté”. Ed Sheeran, who revealed to his 31 million Instagram followers that he has become a father. He and his wife Cherry Seaborn have named their daughter Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran. Fishing, which has surged in popularity during the pandemic, as people have sought out new ways of spending time outdoors. The Environment Agency estimates that 100,000 more people in the UK are fishing than last year. Sales…

Even before schools closed in March, the attainment gap between teenagers from poor and affluent backgrounds had stopped narrowing for the first time in a decade, according to a report by the Education Policy Institute. It found that secondary pupils who qualify for free school meals are, by the time they sit their GCSEs, 18.1 months behind their more affluent peers – the same figure as five years ago. Poor children are more than four months behind when they start primary school, and when they leave, they are 9.3 months behind – up from 9.2 in 2018.…

Berlin Further furlough: After hours of fraught late-night deliberations, Angela Merkel’s coalition has agreed to extend its coronavirus furlough scheme (Kurzarbeit) until the end of 2021. It was a victory for labour minister Hubertus Heil: “the stablest bridge over a deep economic valley”, he called it. Under the Kurzarbeit, workers are paid 60% of their regular salary, rising to 70% after three months and 80% after six. The scheme is designed to buy time for the economy to recover (it fell by 11.7% in the first half of the year) and prevent mass unemployment. But the cost of funding it is huge – s12bn already and set to rise to a possible s36bn. Paris Charlie Hebdo trial begins: The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has republished the cartoons of the…

A unusual advert has been placed on the house-moving website Shift – for a naked removal driver to help a naturist couple move to their new home. The ad is for a removals professional who must be comfortable working without any clothes on, and who will be paid £2,000 to help with the move, which will take place in September. “Modesty underwear” will be provided to allow the worker to take belongings to and from the van. A prize-winning Japanese architect has come up with a counter-intuitive idea: transparent public toilets. Shigeru Ban’s see-through loos have been installed in two public parks in Shibuya, Tokyo. “There are two concerns with public toilets,” explains The Nippon Foundation, which funded them. “The first is whether it is clean... and the second is…

SWEDEN Parents, warn your children about TikTok Aftonbladet (Stockholm) We know why Donald Trump has tried to shut down TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app: he thinks it hands over data on its users to the Chinese government. But there’s another reason for concern about the app, says Pernilla Ericson: in Sweden, at any rate, it appears to be a gateway to underage pornography. There’s an endless stream of videos on TikTok in which teenage Swedish girls boast of how much money they are earning a day by posting videos of themselves posing and stripping off on OnlyFans. OnlyFans is a platform that hosts much pornographic content created by users, who can then set a monthly subscription fee for anyone wanting to follow them online. OnlyFans says it has tightened measures…

The panda, the penguin and the polar bear are the cuddly faces of conservation, but scientists are now calling for a global plan to protect their less photogenic parasites too, many of which are also threatened with extinction. From tapeworms and ticks to fungi, parasitic species are regarded as not only unappealing but dangerous to boot; yet according to the new report, in the journal Biological Conservation, they play a crucial role in ecosystems. For instance a Nematomorpha parasite has been found to alter its host cricket’s behaviour to seek water, which creates a large food supply for endangered trout in rivers in Japan. Parasites make up around 40% of animal species, but only a tiny fraction of them have been identified. “We don’t even know their names, and we…

Whitehall: the “hard rain” falls Hopes were never high that an administration led by the maverick Boris Johnson would prove “a global paradigm for good governance”, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. But the endless U-turns of recent weeks have come as a shock even to its supporters. Why is this government quite so bad at devising and implementing policies? Ministers and aides such as the PM’s chief strategist Dominic Cummings blame “the civil service, the inchoate Cabinet Office, the power of the Treasury and the various woolly quangos lumbering around Whitehall”. They want to shake things up and inject more efficiency into the system by moving towards a “more presidential control centre within No. 10”. As part of that process, they’ve partly subsumed the Treasury into No. 10,…

Even Lewis Hamilton is starting to find this Formula One season boring, said Luke Slater in The Daily Telegraph. The Belgian Grand Prix, on Sunday, was yet another “crushingly predictable” race: for the fifth time in six races, Hamilton triumphed; for the second race in a row, he led from start to finish. It was the 89th victory of his career, and at this point, Hamilton’s march – “perhaps more accurately described as a stroll” – to match Michael Schumacher’s record seven titles and better his record 91 Grand Prix wins “looks a formality”. Hamilton does, of course, have “the best car”, said Andrew Benson on BBC Sport. But that still doesn’t mean it’s “all about the car” – if that were the case, Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, would…

From the early days of cinema to modern times, westerns have held a mirror up to American society and politics. Here are five of the best that are currently available to stream online: Stagecoach Popular during the era of silent cinema, the western fell out of fashion in the 1930s, only to make a spectacular and enduring comeback in 1939 with this classic, the first film John Ford made with John Wayne. The pair’s future collaborations include The Searchers (1956), perhaps the greatest of all westerns. Red River Released in 1948, the first of Howard Hawks’s five westerns stars John Wayne as a rich and ruthless Texas rancher whose sensitive and enlightened foster son (Montgomery Clift, in his first film role) leads a rebellion against him during a perilous cattle…

Tips of the week... how to get your laundry cleaner ● If a black piece of clothing has faded, it could be due to a build-up of detergent residue. Soak it in warm water with a little clear vinegar, then rinse and wash in the machine as normal. ● Put white vinegar in the dispenser drawer to keep towels soft, and brighten colours generally. It will also help keep whites white, and banish odours. ● Washing-up liquid makes an effective stain remover. Rub it on neat and leave it for 15 minutes before washing. ● If you spill something on your clothes, act immediately if possible, and use cold water to soak or rinse them before washing. Don’t rub, but blot using kitchen towels or white cloths to avoid any…

The Hut Group: cosmetic float Remember IPOs? We haven’t seen one in London “since the coronavirus lockdown”, said BBC Business. Thank goodness, then, for The Hut Group, which is planning a blockbuster float that could value the Manchester-based online retailer at £4.5bn. The beauty and nutrition specialist – top holdings include Lookfantastic.com and the sports nutrition site Myprotein – has a low corporate profile, said Ashley Armstrong in The Times. Founded by Matthew Moulding in 2004, and originally based in the Channel Islands, it was set up to “exploit a tax loophole”, selling CDs and DVDs “without VAT”. When that loophole closed, Moulding set about “assembling an array of niche retail websites”. There are now more than 200 in the group, but what really excites some would-be investors is…

Psychological scars of the pandemic Free exchange The Economist We’re “all too aware” of the economic damage wrought by Covid-19, says Free exchange. “But the headaches are only beginning.” The psychological scars from this episode “could depress growth for decades”. The notion that a severe economic shock might cause long-run damage is nothing new – that lesson was rammed home by the 1930s Depression. But more recent research shows “traumatic economic episodes” can hinder growth “simply by altering people’s beliefs about the future”, with the confidence of the young “especially affected”. That has implications that could “complicate the policy response” to the virus. A rise in “precautionary saving”, for instance, will “further depress interest rates”, when their extremely low level already constrains any “boost” monetary policy can provide. Governments do…

Jane Lunnon Joins Alleyn’s from Wimbledon High School GDST in January 2O21 Alex Hutchinson Moves from Woldingham to JAGS Andrew Johnson Moves to Truro from St Dunstan’s James Whitehead Arrives at Woldingham this term…

Staff and children at Beachborough, a co-ed prep school in the village of Westbury in Northamptonshire, didn’t hesitate when they heard about the national shortage of PPE. The school has a well-equipped TED Centre (technology, engineering and design), complete with laser cutters and 3D printers, and from March onwards a team of design and technology staff, parents and children, produced more than 1,000 visors. Working in shifts and with laser cutters often running through the night, they delivered them to local hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and care homes. “It was a 24/7 operation at one point and the staff gave up their weekends as well,” says headmaster Christian Pritchard. “As a non-profit-making charitable trust it’s at times like this that schools like ours should be looking at ways to help. Beachborough…

Controversy of the week The war over the Proms Britain is “descending into a cultural war zone”, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. “Bombarded with continual accusations of bigotry and bias”, our institutions are “surrendering to the woke fanatics”. The BBC decreed that Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory would be played, but not sung at the Last Night of the Proms, reportedly as a sop to Black Lives Matter – until it abruptly U-turned this week (while reiterating its insistence that the original decision had been an “artistic” one). At the British Library, staff have declared a racial “state of emergency”; its “Decolonising Working Group” rails against “Eurocentric maps” and relics of “colonial violence”. The British Museum, meanwhile, has knocked its founding benefactor, Sir Hans Sloane,…

The Met Office, which was ridiculed for giving a storm a Welsh name meaning “sunshine”. Storm Heulwen was so named to reflect the diversity of the British Isles. But though Heulwen is used as a girl’s name, it translates as sun-blessed, or sunshine. Ocado, which was beset by delivery problems on the day it launched its much-heralded new partnership with M&S. Ocado blamed the cancellation of orders on a surge in demand. Holidaymakers, who were rushing to leave Portugal this week, amid rumours that it was about to be removed from England’s “safe list”, just two weeks after being put back on it. There were fears for Greece, too, after Scotland and Wales both introduced new restrictions on travellers from the country.…

34% of girls aged 11 to 21 say they would not post a photo of themselves online without first using a filter or an app to enhance it. 39% say they feel upset that they cannot look the same in real life as they do online. Girlguiding/The Guardian The Conservative and Labour parties are now tied at 40%. It’s the first time in a year that the Tories have not been in the lead. Opinium/The Observer While 73% of parents agree with the policy of reopening schools, and 62% believe schools will be safe places, only 35% would send their child to school if there was a local lockdown, and 31% in a national lockdown. Less than 50% believe bubble systems or social distancing will be followed in schools. Public…

According to Edward Winslow, one of the Separatists who wrote an account of Plymouth Colony, and to Wampanoag tradition, the Native Americans were not invited to a thanksgiving feast: they heard gunshots from the colony and, assuming their allies were under attack, came to their defence in a 90-strong group, led by Ousamequin, the Massasoit (or great sachem). There they found the Pilgrims in the midst of a noisy “rejoicing” after their first harvest, firing off weapons, and preparing for a feast. Winslow says the Wampanoag hunted five deer, which they bestowed on Plymouth’s governor, then stayed for three days to join the feast (which probably didn’t include turkey). The Wampanoag alliance lasted decades, but it fell apart in the spectacularly bloody King Philip’s War of 1675-8. The Wampanoag were…

California has reached breaking point Farhad Manjoo The New York Times Californians have faced an impossible choice lately, says Farhad Manjoo. Should they try to remain outdoors, to minimise their chances of catching Covid-19? Or should they spend as much time as possible indoors, to escape the toxic smoke caused by some of the largest forest fires the state has ever seen? It’s just one of the dilemmas thrown up by the combined impact of the pandemic and “California’s many other long-standing dysfunctions”. Many of the state’s schools, for instance, have reverted to online lessons to stem the spread of the virus. But “surging energy demand linked to record-shattering heat” has forced state utilities to impose rolling blackouts. So schools have had to add energy contingency plans to their virus…

Since the pandemic began, children have made up less than 1% of serious cases of Covid-19, a new survey has indicated. Researchers looked at data from 260 hospitals in England, Scotland and Wales, and found that 0.9% of Covid admissions were in patients under 19; they also found that there were only six recorded deaths of minors, all of whom had serious pre-existing health conditions. Three were newborn babies with other severe health problems. The other three were aged 15 to 18 years old and also had “profound health issues”. The senior author of the study, Prof Calum Semple of the University of Liverpool, said these were “profound co-morbidities – not a touch of asthma, not cystic fibrosis”. Dr Olivia Swann, the study’s lead author, said that while nothing in…

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” Ernest Hemingway, quoted in the Montreal Gazette “Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby.” Ricky Gervais, quoted in The Sunday Times “People only ask if you are enjoying yourself when you aren’t.” E. Nesbit, quoted on The Browser “What I learnt in my early years in TV is that there were parts of the industry in which diversity meant making sure that there was a fair balance of people from Oxford and Cambridge.” Historian David Olusoga, quoted in The Guardian “Forty is the old age of youth; 50 the youth of old age.” Victor Hugo, quoted in The Sunday Times “Love is a lot…

A planning free-for-all To The Times I was delighted to read that Tory MPs have finally woken up to the pressures on local authorities from planning changes and the “radical reforms” proposed in the Government’s white paper. Sadly, their concerns appear to be about their own electoral skins, rather than any desire to solve the housing crisis. Their solution seems to be pushing housing into “Labour towns”. The drive for more housing has already had a big impact on urban areas. Places like Watford (where I was the elected mayor for 16 years) have seen intensification in their town centres, where authorities have had no choice but to approve applications for tall buildings. We now face the same in our suburbs. Yet there are no plans to force developers to…

“Fame-seeking” art vandal jailed A 20-year-old man who punched a hole through a Picasso at Tate Modern last December has been jailed for 18 months. Shakeel Ryan Massey, a Spanish architecture student, appears to have entered the museum with the express intention of damaging the painting – a 1944 portrait of the artist’s lover Dora Maar, thought to be worth up to £20m. He is said to have wrapped his hands in scarves and padlocks to smash through security glass, before ripping a hole in the canvas. He told security guards that it was an “art performance”, but the judge presiding over his trial concluded that he was a “fame seeker”, looking for a moment of “notoriety”. Possibly Massey was aware of the case of Wlodzimierz Umaniec, a Polish art…

There’s been a mix-up at Home Farm: Ed unloaded wheat into a bay containing barley, and an angry Brian sacks him. Alice realises the error was her fault. Ed yells at her, urging her to own up to Brian, but she puts it off. Chris is regretting the no-drinking pact, while Alice has twigged that he broke it by having a beer with Ed. Lynda’s feeling bad after last week’s fruitless romantic dinner. Trying on wigs, she calls Lilian for an honest opinion and they end up talking openly about Lynda’s worries over her and Robert’s relationship. Alice comes clean with Brian and arranges for BL to buy the spoiled grain. When she challenges Chris over breaking their pact, he confesses and they end up laughing. Ed is pleasantly surprised…

The Curlew Junction Road, Bodiam, East Sussex (01580-860531) The two hours I spent at this recently opened restaurant on the Kent-Sussex borders, on a balmy midweek August evening, were almost as good as this job gets, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. Brothers Will and Matt Devlin, who also run The Small Holding in nearby Cranbrook, “seem to have honed the formula for painting big, barn-like pubs in tasteful, taupe shades, festooning them with flowers from their farm, then offering the locals lovely things without a jot of pretension”. Our meal kicked off with “warm, freshly baked tarragon focaccia” served with “sweet apple balsamic”. Next came monkfish tail with a “heavenly” jug of curried butter sauce, an “earthy bowl” of steamed spelt, and, to finish, an impressively “highfalutin” cheeseboard which…

Stock markets globally notched up one of the best August performances in decades. The MSCI World index of stocks in developed nations jumped 6.6% – its best August since 1986. On Wall Street, where both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit new records, one trader described the rally as “the mother of all melt-ups”. The FTSE 100 rally was more muted, with stocks in the export-heavy index pushed down by a weakening dollar and rising pound. Earlier this week, the surging valuation of tech giant Apple (now worth $2.3trn, or £1.7trn) overtook the total value of all the members of Britain’s top share index. India overtook the US to set a record for the world’s highest single-day increase in CV-19 infections, reporting 78,761 new cases in 24 hours. The…

● Bye, Abenomics? “Buy my economics!” urged the Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, in 2013. “And we did,” said Robin Harding in the FT. “In an all-time triumph of Somethingnomics branding”, Abe convinced the world that his so-called “three arrows” of reform (bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy) would transform Japan’s economy. Following his announcement last week that he is to step down due to ill health, it’s time to ask: did “Abenomics” succeed? Put simply, no. The central goal of the policy was to achieve an inflation target of 2% and, even before the virus struck, “Japan never got closer than about 1%”. Still, “Abenomics had its moments” – and for a world now struggling to avoid a slide towards deflation and stagnation, it holds “powerful…

Gertrude Musk What a year for Elon Musk! His electric car company, Tesla, has seen a six-fold surge in value; and his rocket company, SpaceX, has completed a milestone space mission. Now, it seems, this restless entrepreneur has pioneered the world’s first “bionic pig”, said the London Evening Standard. Musk’s latest start-up, Neuralink, last week unveiled Gertrude – who has a “coin-sized computer in her brain” – to demonstrate how its technology could help people with neurological conditions. Musk, who once remarked that he wants to “die on Mars, just not on impact”, reports that his porcine protégé, who had the implant two months ago, was “initially shy but obviously high-energy and, you know, kind of loving life”. With his track-record, it may be only a matter of time before…

We are delighted to bring you the latest edition of the highly acclaimed The Week Independent Schools Guide. As always, it’s packed with fascinating features about schools and education. The last six months have been exceptionally tough for pupils, parents, heads, teachers and school support staff. It’s been six long months since the start of the coronavirus crisis, when schools closed their doors to all except key workers’ children and vulnerable pupils, GCSE and A level exams were cancelled and teachers suddenly had to adjust to teaching pupils remotely. After that came the government’s U-turn on exam grades and the scramble for university places. As schools return, there’s no doubt that this term will be a very demanding one. It’s likely that online learning will continue to be part of…

Captain Sir Tom Moore captured everyone’s imagination during the coronavirus crisis when he raised £33 million for NHS charities by walking 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden. The veteran, who was knighted and made an honorary colonel by the Queen for his achievements, was inundated with 160,000 cards from across the world to celebrate his 100th birthday – and Bedford School, a day and boarding boys’ school on the edge of Bedford, played a key role in helping to sort and display them. Captain Tom’s grandson, Benjie Ingram-Moore, is a year 11 pupil at the school and asked for help when he realised that his local post office had been swamped with cards. The school’s Great Hall was turned into a makeshift sorting office and more than 100 staff, past…

Julia Harrington, headmistress of Queen Anne’s School in Caversham, became fascinated with the neuroscience behind learning and set up a separate research unit – BrainCanDo – in 2013. Two sleep studies, one in 2018 and another in 2019, examined whether girls would get more sleep if lessons started later or whether they would just go to bed later. However, the project found they went to bed at the same time even with extra time to sleep – so they did benefit. The studies also looked at the effects of more sleep on the Queen Anne’s pupils’ academic performance, mood and behaviour. The results were analysed by Dr Frances Knight of the University of Bristol, who found the girls’ mood and alertness lifted significantly when they got more sleep. The project…

A surge in the number of baby boys being named Kylo is being put down to the popularity of recent Star Wars films (featuring the villain Kylo Ren). There were 67 Kylos born last year, up from ten in 2015. Pop star Dua Lipo has also inspired a spate of namesakes: the number of baby girls named Dua has risen from 63 to 126 in two years. Blue Peter has chosen as its 40th presenter a 20-year-old YouTuber with 2.97 million subscribers, in an attempt to woo the vlogging generation to the long-running BBC programme. Adam Beales, from Derry, made his name performing online pranks. Announcing his new job, he urged his followers to invest in his new “merch”, including hoodies with his name on the front and 40 on…

Tory MPs have warned Boris Johnson and Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick that an algorithm at the centre of the Government’s new planning overhaul risks “destroying suburbia”. Under the proposed reforms to planning laws, local discretion over the rate of housebuilding would be removed, and the central Government would distribute its annual target of 337,000 new homes a year between England’s local councils, based on the findings of an algorithm. It is designed to prioritise construction in the least affordable areas, which tend to be in affluent Tory-controlled suburbs.…

Hunterston, North Ayrshire Nuclear end: One of the UK’s oldest surviving nuclear power stations is to close more than a year earlier than planned, owing to cracks appearing in one of its reactors. Hunterston B, on the Firth of Clyde, was taken out of operation in 2018 after 350 cracks were found in one of its reactors. Regulators have now decided electricity generation can safely resume, even with the cracks, which will eventually affect most of Britain’s reactors, and last week, they granted it a six-month renewal. EDF says it will apply for another six-month run next year, but will then start closing the plant. Greater Manchester Ban U-turn: A plan to ease lockdown measures in Bolton and Trafford was suddenly halted this week, after a sharp rise in cases.…

O’Sullivan’s career change Ronnie O’Sullivan is probably snooker’s greatest-ever player, said Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian – and he’s also the sport’s most colourful character. But his 28-year career hasn’t been without difficulty: in his mid-20s, he ended up in the Priory, suicidal and being treated for drug addiction. And in 2016, he had another breakdown – this time in the middle of the World Championships. Now, he only plays snooker competitively when he fancies it (he prefers running), and he doesn’t see a long future for himself in the professional game. So what will he do next? “I want to train as a counsellor,” he says. “I was in rehab in 2000 and it was the biggest life-changer for me.” In fact, his larger plan is to set up…

Covid-19 is killing the care industry Robert Booth The Guardian Care homes have been ravaged by Covid-19, says Robert Booth, and the refusal of the regulator – the Care Quality Commission – to reveal the ones with high death tolls has caused an outcry. But it has good reason for not doing so. Not only would it be unfair on homes that lost residents despite scrupulously following guidance; it could put the entire care sector under threat. Britain is heavily reliant on privately owned care homes – often owned by private equity companies – “to look after its most frail and vulnerable people”. But the virus has killed more than 19,000 of their customers, and fear of catching it is deterring people from going to them. So many are struggling…

A breakthrough in plastic Scientists have developed a new type of plastic that can be recycled over and over again without losing quality. Of the 350 million tonnes of plastic produced each year, only about 20% is recycled. One reason for this is that not all plastic is easily recycled, and even when it is, the process of melting it down degrades it. As a result, it can only be remoulded into lower-quality products, such as carpet fibre, for which there is limited demand. Now, however, a team at Colorado State University has developed a material called PBTL that maintains its original qualities when recycled. When heated to 100°C in the presence of a chemical catalyst for 24 hours, this material breaks down into its original building blocks – simple…

Melania Trump was so determined not to be overshadowed by her stepdaughter Ivanka, that she tried to block her appearing in photographs of Donald Trump’s inauguration, a former friend has claimed. In her book Melania and Me, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff said she helped set up “Operation Block Ivanka”. Wolkoff admits it was “petty”, but notes that Ivanka is fiercely ambitious. “It’s no coincidence that all three of [her] children share names with Kennedy family members,” she writes. She also alleges that Melania refused to move into the White House until the lavatory and shower used by the Obamas had been removed, and that she’d often say: “Pleasing anyone else is not my priority.” When Boris Johnson gave a speech last week in front of a stack of books in a…

Lionel Messi: where next for the “little magician”? Barcelona fans always knew the day would come, said Sid Lowe in The Guardian. They knew that Lionel Messi – the best footballer “they have had”, perhaps the best footballer “anyone has had” – couldn’t play forever. “What no one imagined was that he would go this soon or this way, that it would come to this.” Last Tuesday, the Argentinian forward sent Barcelona a formal letter informing them that after 20 seasons – “after 34 trophies and 634 goals” – he wished to cancel his contract. “Football player leaves football club” should not be shocking news. But “this is”. Messi was just 13 when he joined Barcelona, said Rory Smith in The New York Times. His rise “mirrored that of his…

To The Guardian I’m not entirely sure which proud British tradition is being protected by those who object to the dropping of the words to Land of Hope and Glory at the Last Night of the Proms. My grandfather objected vehemently to this as an “imperialist anthem”. He served in France in the First World War, worked in the Kent coalfield, and was some distance away from being a woke snowflake. Let’s not pretend that previous generations had only one view on these “patriotic” questions. Vivienne Pay, Chantry, Somerset To The Guardian Could it be that the adherents and critics of singing Rule, Britannia! at the end of the Proms both get it wrong? When I, a foreigner living in London, saw the spectacle for the first time from inside…

The Killers: Imploding the Mirage Island Records £11 The Killers emerged in the early 2000s with a blend of “pop hooks, indie looks, 1980s synths and skinny guitars” that has been imitated by “young radio-friendly bands” ever since, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. Their own “stadium rock sound” has evolved little since then – but in this, their sixth album, it proves as infectious as ever. Full of “spiritual aspiration, emotional conviction and singalong glory”, the songs are “perfectly formed and passionately performed”. And there’s an “exquisite” contribution from the “great” K.D. Lang, to temper the band’s “macho swagger”. People will still pack out sports arenas to hear The Killers’ early songs, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian, but the band has had only one big hit single…

In Sky Atlantic’s “part funny, part heartburn-inducing” new comedy drama I Hate Suzie, Billie Piper plays a fictional version of herself, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Suzie is a mid-level celebrity – a successful actress and former child star who has just landed her dream role when (and this is where we move into fiction) hackers publish naked photos of her with a man who is not her husband. The shock triggers a bout of diarrhoea during an intrusive photoshoot at her country cottage – and from there, her emotional, marital and professional crises spiral ever further out of control. I Hate Suzie is “exhilarating” and “scabrously funny”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. Written by Piper with playwright Lucy Prebble, it flips through genres with “unashamed brio” (there’s…

The television presenter, best known for the BBC quiz shows Pointless and Richard Osman’s House of Games, chooses his favourite books. His first novel, The Thursday Murder Club (Viking £14.99), is published this week Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, 2013 (Black Swan £9). An ingenious and beautiful book, mixing an intensely personal story with the sweeping events of the last century. Kate Atkinson is a genius with a huge heart. Her detective novels are wonderful, but this is a true masterpiece. I can’t think of a single person who wouldn’t love it. The Wrestling by Simon Garfield, 1996 (out of print). Trust me on this one. It’s a selection of first-hand accounts of the golden age of British wrestling. I know, right? But it is also an extraordinary piece…

The Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta took over as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet in January of this year, only to see his ambitious plans for the company thwarted by the pandemic. Now, in partnership with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the BRB returns to live performance with the world premiere of a one-act ballet, Lazuli Sky. Commissioned and presented by Acosta and choreographed by Will Tuckett, it is inspired by ideas of “social distancing”. At Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 22-24 October; Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, 29-31 October; the show will be filmed and available to stream in November (brb.org.uk).…

Meadowsweet flowers, which are currently in season, have an intense aroma reminiscent of honey and sweet almonds, says Merlin Labron-Johnson, the chef-proprietor of Osip restaurant in Bruton, Somerset (osiprestaurant.com). They help make this tart (which works equally well with cherries or strawberries) wonderfully fragrant. If you can’t forage fresh meadowsweet, you can buy the dried flowers online, but vanilla paste makes a great substitution. For the pastry: 300g plain flour 150g butter, diced and softened ½ tsp of salt 120g icing sugar 3 large egg yolks zest of half a lemon, finely grated for the custard: 500ml milk 1 tbsp meadowsweet flowers or 1 tsp vanilla paste 6 egg yolks 20g plain flour 20g cornflour 100g sugar 2 leaves gelatine, soaked in cold water 150g butter, diced and softened to…

“Low-fi video clips of teenagers break-dancing and lip-syncing would seem to have little relevance to Walmart”, the world’s largest supermarket group, said Alistair Gray in the FT. Yet, in the latest twist to a fascinating saga, the Arkansas-based retail behemoth is “teaming up with Microsoft to bid for the US operations” of the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok. The idea of bringing “millions of young users” into the Walmart “orbit” is doubtless appealing, but this is no done deal. There’s competition from Oracle, and now China has muddied the waters with new restrictions on tech exports. If a deal does go ahead, TikTok’s mooted price tag is a hefty $35bn-$50bn.…

Some of the “best returns of the past decade” have come from playing “specific themes and sectors”, said Dave Baxter in Investors Chronicle. With this in mind, here is a selection of “niche” exchange-traded funds (ETFs) dedicated to “playing future trends”: Emerging Markets Internet and Ecommerce: This ETF, with $105.2m under management, “captures two megatrends that could shape the global economy in the next decade”. As of July, its biggest holdings were Chinese online giants Tencent and Alibaba. L&G Cyber Security: With $1.7bn under management, this ETF capitalises on companies guarding against “data breaches and IT failures”. Alternatively, check out the Wisdom Tree Cloud Computing ETF, which tracks an index focused on firms generating revenue from “business-oriented software products” – like video app Zoom. iShares Ageing Population: This ETF focuses…

The week’s best shares AB Dynamics Investors Chronicle This “one-stop testing shop” is considered the gold standard in the global automotive industry. Mounting safety regulation and the push towards driverless cars should drive demand in aftermarket services. Buy. £17.35. Charter Communications The Daily Telegraph Charter already supplies 40% of US households with high-speed broadband, and falling costs are boosting numbers. Data consumption is rising 30% annually, making fixed-line connections an essential utility. Buy. $606.65. CVS Group Investors Chronicle The vet services provider is thriving under new management, focusing on organic growth via improved surgeries. Defensive, thanks to long-term structural growth, and a fund manager favourite. Buy. £12.05. DFS Furniture The Times The trend for home improvements has made Britain’s biggest sofa retailer a postlockdown winner – replacing this year’s loss…

The autumn term is a crucial one for year 13 students. As well as studying hard for their A level and IB exams they must decide what they want to do when they leave school, whether it’s applying for university, an apprenticeship or a job. Today’s schools pride themselves on teaching pupils invaluable life skills that they’ll need at university, in the workplace and during their later life – from doing their own washing to looking after their health and wellbeing. Other skills they’ll need to get to grips with include applying for jobs, polishing their interview techniques, cooking for themselves, looking for accommodation and managing their money. In a fictitious email to parents from the head of the sixth form, we present our lighthearted guide to this term’s life…

This is a question taxing university academics, local authorities and policymakers as well as teachers and students. Rose Luckin, professor of learner centred design at UCL Knowledge Lab in London and a governor of St Paul’s School, is carrying out research into the role of education technology in the teaching and learning process during the lockdown. “The pandemic has thrust us all into the biggest educational experiment of our lifetimes and as long as we collect data and evidence, it has given us an opportunity to shape the future,” she says. “One thing is for certain – we cannot pretend that this has never happened. Remote learning has given us an insight into what is possible outside of the traditional classroom. “Online learning won’t replace schools or teachers but it…

The famous directive from Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, on how to drive innovation and change was “to move fast and break things”. As a rule, education isn’t given to such disruption. But Covid-19 gave us no choice. Lockdown forced us to think fast about what a good education could be. Our answer was Guided Home Learning, a whole new way of teaching. Liberated from the confines of the classroom, this ambitious programme was a golden opportunity to live our values, to be Fearless and Forward-Thinking, to put Girls First in everything we do. Our use of education technology took a giant leap forwards, necessity creating change that might ordinarily take decades. We led the way with Guided Home Learning, rethinking the boundary between formal and informal learning. Teachers guided…

Emily Weatherby Head of English Bryanston Great Expectations by Charles Dickens A classic coming-of-age novel, adventure, mystery and romance, with a cast of characters ranging from the comically pompous to the terrifyingly sinister. From the blacksmith’s cottage on the Kent marshes to the Inns of Court in lawyers’ London, the novel teems with realistic period detail – but its themes of exploitation, ambition and injustice are just as relevant today as they were in 1861. Dickens is the master of the satisfying twist, and the way that he opens an ironic gap between the wide-eyed narrator, Pip, and the reader’s own interpretation of what is really happening has been imitated but never bettered. James Methven Head of English Uppingham School The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon…

Best for academic results St Paul’s Girls’ School Once again this famous girls’ school in west London has beaten the competition to top the academic league tables. In 2019, 86 per cent of A levels and Pre-U were graded A*/A, while 99 per cent of GCSEs were grades 7-9. Last year 38 girls went to Oxford and Cambridge and 17 headed to universities in the US. The school offers a broad curriculum but girls are encouraged to pursue intellectual, creative and cultural interests too. As high mistress Sarah Fletcher explains: “We believe that true potential can only be unlocked when given the freedom to grow. Our rules are few and relationships are relaxed, yet respectful. We have no uniform and girls are encouraged to develop their own passions…

London Devonshire House Prep School 2 Arkwright Road, Hampstead, London, NW3 6AE 020 7435 1916 devonshirehouseschool.co.uk Open Events: 14th & 15th October 2020; 5th November 2020; 20th & 21st January 2021 Godolphin and Latymer School Iffley Road, Hammersmith, London, W6 0PG 020 8741 1936 godolphinandlatymer.com Open Events: 11+ Virtual Open Days: 5pm on 17th September, 23rd September, 13th October 2020; 10am on 3rd October 2020. Sixth Form Virtual Open Day: 30th September 2020 Hampton School Hanworth Road, Hampton, Middlesex, TW12 3HD 020 8979 5526 hamptonschool.org.uk Open Events: Visit website for details Ibstock Place School Clarence Lane, London, SW15 5PY 020 8392 5803 ibstockplaceschool.co.uk Open Events: Virtual Open Mornings: 19th September 2020; 5th May 2021 King’s College School Southside, Wimbledon Common, London, SW19 4TT 020 8255 5300 kcs.org.uk Open Events: 12th…

There were many good things about St Paul’s. The school was very feminist, which I didn’t appreciate at the time but I do now, and they taught you to think for yourself. But I was in trouble a lot and that’s why I often write about heroes who struggle to fit in. Xar, the protagonist of The Wizards of Once, gets into trouble because he’s naughty and struggles to fit in with the rules while Wish, another of my characters, is dyslexic. I’m not dyslexic but I identify with children who are because it’s very easy for them to compare themselves with others and lose heart. I didn’t have a discernible learning difficulty but looking back I suspect I had something like attention deficit disorder because I was very forgetful…