Table of contents for 1383 in The Week

What happened Boris Johnson unveiled a new legislative programme this week designed to get his Government back on the front foot following the Conservatives’ poor showing in last Thursday’s local elections. The Tories lost about a quarter of the nearly 2,000 council seats they were defending across Britain. They fared particularly badly in London, where Labour won Westminster and Barnet, both of which have been Conservative bastions since 1964, as well as the stronghold of Wandsworth, Margaret Thatcher’s favourite council. The Tories also lost control of a number of formerly safe councils in southern England to the Lib Dems, including West Oxfordshire and Tunbridge Wells. In Wales, the Tories lost their only council, Monmouthshire; and in Scotland, where the SNP retained its dominance, they were pushed into third place by…

Keir Starmer doesn’t look like a gambler, but he has just bet his entire political career on the outcome of a police investigation, said The Independent. On Monday, he stated that he would quit as Labour leader if Durham Constabulary fined him for breaching Covid lockdown rules in April 2021. The police decision will hinge on whether a curry and a beer with party campaigners at the Durham Miners’ Hall, ahead of local elections, qualifies as a working dinner or a social event. Either way, his gambit will leave Labour stronger, said Alice Thomson in The Times. If Starmer is exonerated – and he is convinced he will be – then his reputation for integrity will be enhanced. He’s doing a decent job as leader, as Labour gains in last…

Piers Morgan, after the viewing figures for his new TV show plummeted, from 317,000 at the launch to 62,000 a week later. Morgan’s show is the flagship of Rupert Murdoch’s new channel, TalkTV, which has on occasion recorded zero prime-time viewers. On social media, Morgan insisted such figures don’t matter, particularly as young people “don’t really watch TV any more”. King’s College, London, which had to abandon its plans to move to online-only classes in response to a student-led campaign. According to The Daily Telegraph, King’s is the first Russell Group university to return to pre-pandemic teaching methods. In the next academic year, it says it will not offer a “remote study option”, and students will be expected to be present on campus.…

Kiel, Germany Questions for Scholz: Less than six months since he took office, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing growing questions about his leadership, following his party’s crushing defeat in elections in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. Scholz’s Social Democrats finished in third place, with just 16% of the vote. It was their worst result in the region since the Second World War, and followed intense criticism of the chancellor over his uncertain handling of the Ukraine crisis. The centre-right Christian Democrats won 43% of the vote to retain control of the region; the Greens, one of the SPD’s national coalition partners, came second with 18%. Attention will now be focused on the SPD’s performance in a second major election – in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state –…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the foreign affairs specialist Fiona Hills 1 Message in a Bottle by Sting, performed by The Police 2 It’s Only a Paper Moon by Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and Billy Rose, performed by Ella Fitzgerald 3 Ghost Town by Jerry Dammers, performed by The Specials 4 The Passenger by Iggy Pop and Ricky Gardiner, performed by Iggy Pop 5 Goodbye America by Vyacheslav Butusov and Dmitry Umetsky, performed by Nautilus Pompilius 6 On Top of the World by Alexander Junior Grant, Benjamin Arthur McKee, Daniel Coulter Reynolds and Daniel Wayne Sermon, performed by Imagine Dragons 7 Hypersonic Missiles, written and performed by Sam Fender 8* This is the Day by Matt Johnson, performed by The The Book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Luxury: crystallised ginger * Choice…

Caledonian MacBrayne traces its roots back to 1851, with the founding of the Glasgow steamer company, David Hutcheson & Co. In 1878, it passed to a junior partner, David MacBrayne, who renamed it and expanded services to Islay and the Western Isles. His dominance of the Hebridean routes was commemorated in a well-known ditty: “The Earth belongs unto the Lord / And all that it contains / Except the Kyles and the Western Isles / For they are all MacBrayne’s.” The Cal part of the firm’s name refers to the Caledonian Steam Packet Company, a Clyde steamer company which merged with MacBrayne Ltd to form Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd in 1973. Both parts had been nationalised since 1948. Under the devolution settlement, ownership passed to the Scottish government in 1999. Today,…

Joe Biden’s “brazen act of class warfare” Michael Brendan Dougherty National Review The Biden administration, it seems, is seriously considering a plan to forgive a portion of the $1.6trn in federal student loan debt. How “grotesque”, says Michael Brendan Dougherty. Democratic activists have championed the idea as a progressive cause and a necessary step to help jump-start the post-Covid economy. But the plan is neither of those things. It would, rather, be a “brazen act of class warfare by the affluent against everyone else”. Most student debt is held by the relatively well-off; less than 10% of it is held by the bottom fifth of earners. A debt amnesty would needlessly reward many prosperous people while penalising those who paid off their debt early or who opted, for financial reasons,…

Almost every person in the UK lives in an area where levels of air pollution are above World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, a report has found. Using 20,000 records of pollution levels, and computer modelling, researchers from the non-profit group the Central Office of Public Interest and Imperial College London created an interactive map, which allows users to see levels of three pollutants – particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide – on a street by street basis across the country. This shows that 21.5 million houses (70% of the UK’s housing stock) are in areas where levels of all of the pollutants breach WHO guidelines, and 97% of homes are in areas where at least one does. Only 830,000 homes, mostly in sparsely populated areas of…

“National Covid death rates are, inevitably, political,” said Francois Balloux in The Guardian. And the long-anticipated World Health Organisation figures will no doubt be scoured by those seeking evidence to back up their own positions. How did the UK compare with, say, Germany or Sweden? Whose strategies worked best? The overall death toll is “staggering”. The WHO estimates that around 15 million people worldwide died because of the pandemic in 2020-21, a figure 2.7 times higher than the officially recorded number. (This was calculated on the basis of excess deaths: the difference between expected and actual mortality.) In fact, the UK fared “unremarkably”, with 109 excess deaths per 100,000: that puts it 15th out of 28 European nations, below Germany and Italy, but above France. A few nations, such as…

The “fabled” feat of hitting six sixes in an over has only ever been achieved twice in first-class cricket, said Ali Martin in The Guardian: by Sir Garfield Sobers in 1968 and by Ravi Shastri in 1985. And last week at New Road, Worcester, Ben Stokes, England’s new captain, came within a whisker of joining this “elite club”. Playing for his county, Durham, against Worcestershire, he launched the first five balls of Josh Baker’s 20th over for six, bringing up a 64-ball century in the process. Sensing that history was about to be made, the crowd fell silent. Yet off the next ball, Stokes could only manage a “one-bounce four”. He had plundered 34 from the 18-year-old left-arm spinner’s over – but still recoiled in “frustration at an opportunity missed”.…

F1 Max Verstappen won the inaugural Miami Grand Prix to narrow Charles Leclerc’s lead in the championship to 19 points. Lewis Hamilton finished in sixth place. Cycling Mark Cavendish, 36, won the third stage of the Giro d’Italia. It was the Manx cyclist’s first appearance at the event for nine years. Football Manchester City beat Newcastle 5-0 to go three points clear of Liverpool at the top of the Premier League. The Reds drew 1-1 with Spurs. Boxing Russia’s Dmitry Bivol retained his WBA light heavyweight title by beating Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez of Mexico.…

A beloved classic of American musical theatre, Oklahoma! was the first show written by that great duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Premiered in 1943, it is a “sunsoaked, barnstorming, hokey tale of beefcake cowpokes and wholesome farm girls”, said Sam Marlowe in The i Paper. “Except this time, it isn’t.” In Daniel Fish’s “freshly thrilling” production – a Tony-winning smash in New York – those “limitless blue skies have a habit of turning dark”. Gone is the “hoedown hokiness of previous, prettified versions”, said Nick Curtis in the London Evening Standard. Instead, we have a stripped back aesthetic, dancing that has a “savage, stamping, heedless edge”, and a “rigorously interrogated” score that sounds “utterly fresh”. It’s a “stunning reinvention”. You’re never likely to see a “more thorough rethinking of…

Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan, 1971 (Penguin £8.99). The first volume of Spike Milligan’s wonderful war memoirs is an intoxicating brew of absurdity, sadness and laugh-out-loud funny bits. I revisit this book (and its six accompanying volumes) every other year or so, and they’re a treat that never disappoints. Moon by James Herbert, 1985 (Pan Macmillan £9.99). James Herbert is more famous for his gorefest Rats trilogy, but Moon is a much more subtle and cunning horror novel. This is a smart serial killer thriller with a genuinely unsettling supernatural twist that builds to an ending that will stick with you for a long time. Magnificently horrible. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, 1986 (DC Comics £15.99). Rightly regarded as one of the greatest…

Programmes The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Celebration Dame Helen Mirren, Damian Lewis and Tom Cruise are among the stars taking part in a tribute to the Queen from Windsor Castle. Sun 15 May, ITV1 20:00 (160mins). Elon Musk: Superhero or Supervillain? Documentary about the flamboyant entrepreneur who recently acquired Twitter, which asks if all the hype is for real. Mon 16 May, C4 21:00 (60mins). Secrets of Size: Atoms to Supergalaxies Physicist Jim Al-Khalili explores the universe through size, from atoms, viruses and insects, to vast interconnected galaxies. Mon 16 May, BBC4 21:00 (60mins). Floodlights The moving story of Andy Woodward, one of the first footballers to come forward about sexual abuse in the national game, that explains how disgraced coach Barry Bennell groomed players and their families. Tue 17 May,…

Historical heart of Antalya Spend 4 nights at the Alp Pasa Hotel, located in the quiet, romantic and authentic Kaleici. From £381pp all-inclusive (including Birmingham flights). 01234-230440, loveholidays.com. Depart 11 June. Croatian coast stay Ideally located next to the Tucepi beach, the TUI Blue Jadran offers stylish rooms with sea views. 4 nights from £420pp b&b (hotel only). 020-7183 2819, planmytour.co.uk. Arrive 23 June. Seven nights in Cyprus Sunrise Gardens Hotel is an excellent choice when visiting Protaras, with two beaches nearby. From £576pp half-board (including Bristol flights). 020-3451 2688, first choice.co.uk. Depart 12 June. Five-star Prague hotel Stay 4 nights at the luxurious Grandium Hotel, around the corner from Wenceslas Square in the heart of the city centre. From £224pp b&b (excluding flights). 020-3027 7900, agoda.com. Arrive 20 June.…

McColl’s/Morrisons: local hero It could have turned out a great deal worse for “the insolvent convenience store chain” McColl’s, said Alex Ralph in The Times. Britain’s fourth largest supermarket, Morrisons, has fought off the owners of Asda to acquire the group in a £160m “pre-pack administration” deal that takes on all 16,000 staff, 1,100 shops, and even “rescues its two pension schemes”. Employees of the “failing corner-shop group” have every reason “to be thankful to private equity”, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Morrisons, after all, is owned by the New York buyout firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, whose willingness to take on the McColl’s pension fund is a “welcome” change from recent retail takeovers. Still, it could be argued that Morrisons had no other choice. “Metropolitan Britain has…

The Fed could do with some Kiwi nous Gillian Tett Financial Times The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is a “tiddler” of a central bank, and yet it has often been a “harbinger of bigger global trends”, says Gillian Tett. The RBNZ pioneered inflation targeting and, more recently, embraced climate reporting ahead of most peers. Last year, it was admirably quick to start tightening monetary policy and now it has gone further – warning of a “plausible” chance of a “disorderly” decline in house prices as the free-money era ends. The bank made clear there is no longer a Kiwi “put” (a central bank safety net to avoid price falls). “If only the Fed would be so direct and honest.” Chairman Jay Powell’s attempt at plain speaking last week did…

What happened At Russia’s annual Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square, Vladimir Putin sought to justify his invasion of Ukraine by claiming that his country had been under threat. At the celebration of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Putin said that Russia had had to “strike back pre-emptively”, because Nato had been preparing for an “invasion of our land”. However, he did not formally declare war on Ukraine as some had predicted; nor did he announce a mass mobilisation of troops. Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in its northeast, liberating several towns near Kharkiv and pushing Russian forces back towards the border. Russia’s own campaign, focused largely on the southeastern Donbas region, continued, with few discernible gains. On Saturday, around 60 people were killed when a Russian bomb hit a school in…

Guests at Royal Ascot will be allowed to choose gender-neutral titles on their name badges for the first time this year. Previously, visitors to the Royal Enclosure could only pick badges with the prefixes of Mr, Mrs and Miss – but now “Mx” will be an option. Not all welcome this attempt at inclusivity, however: one Royal Enclosure regular told The Mail on Sunday that Mx looks “like a cooking instruction”. Apple has announced that it is discontinuing its iPod Touch, after 21 years. When Apple launched the first iPod in 2001, the MP3 player could store 1,000 songs. But with the advent of iPhones, iPods started to look redundant. Today, someone with an iPhone can access 90 million songs on Apple’s streaming service.…

For the first time, Prince Charles read the Queen’s Speech at this week’s state opening of Parliament, with Prince William in attendance. In a statement, the Palace said that after consulting with her doctors, the Queen had “reluctantly” decided not to attend the ceremony, owing to her ongoing “episodic mobility problems”. It was the first time Her Majesty had missed the event for 59 years, and only the third time in her reign. On the other two occasions, she was pregnant. This year’s speech contained details of almost 40 proposed bills. These included a Public Order Bill, to grant the police more powers to stop protesters blocking roads and other infrastructure; a Media Bill, to privatise Channel 4; a Genetic Technology Bill, to enable more gene editing of plants and…

Atlanta, Georgia Not guilty of insurrection: Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman notorious for her embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory, has survived a legal attempt to disqualify her from holding office on the grounds she is an “insurrectionist”. She was tried under an arcane Civil War-era law (the “Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause”) that bars officials who violate their oath to protect the country from holding office. In a case brought by Free Speech for People, a Democrat group, the prosecution argued Greene had played a key role in encouraging the Capitol “insurrection” of 6 January 2021 by issuing coded calls to arms on social media. But the judge found she was still eligible for re-election, and Georgia’s secretary of state, who faces re-election in the 24 May GOP primary, has accepted…

“Liberal democracy has not triumphed universally and, indeed, has been in retreat over the past 15 years. Yet the liberal idea remains very vivid. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people – sometimes millions – leave poor, violent and poorly governed countries in search of a better life. Their destination of choice is never China, Russia or Venezuela. Rather, they seek out well-governed liberal societies where their children will have greater freedom and opportunity. It is they, much more than the complacent inhabitants of liberal societies, who realise that there is, indeed, an arc of history, with justice as its terminus.” Francis Fukuyama in The Wall Street Journal…

The PM’s enticing nuclear pipe dream Ben Marlow The Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson excels at unveiling grand plans, says Ben Marlow, but rarely do they survive scrutiny. A prime example is his promise that by hugely expanding capacity, Britain would “lead the world once again” in nuclear power by 2050. “Pure fantasy.” In the real world, owing to “our over-reliance on foreign partners”, we can hardly maintain the existing capacity of our ageing nuclear infrastructure. Under a 2015 deal struck by the Cameron government, China agreed to help develop a new generation of plants, starting with Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk. And as a quid pro quo for being a minority partner to France’s EDF, China would get to build and operate a third plant…

The threat to the reptile world One in five of the world’s reptiles are threatened with extinction, according to the most comprehensive analysis to date. Similar assessments for birds, amphibians and mammals were completed a decade ago; but this one took far longer, because lizards, turtles, snakes and crocodiles don’t attract as much sympathy as their feathery or furry counterparts, say the authors of the study – which meant funding was harder to attract. By pulling together data from hundreds of scientists going back several years, the team were able to identify 1,829 species that were at risk of extinction; among the better known of these was the king cobra. That figure may be an underestimate, however, as owing to the difficulty of collecting data, the status of a further…

If we want to ensure that Neil Parish is the last MP to watch porn in the Commons, there’s an easy way to do it, said Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. Just ban mobile phones from the chamber. Politicians shouldn’t be using them there anyway. Over my years observing the chamber as a sketch writer, I increasingly saw “rows and rows of MPs gazing listlessly at their phones, like a vast roomful of bored teenagers”. Such MPs are probably engaged in “perfectly innocent, even useful activities: replying to emails from constituents, or to WhatsApp messages from party whips”. But it’s rude and destroys the whole point of them being there. Asked in a 2016 interview why so many of his colleagues had been gawping at their screens while he…

In recent weeks, Chelsea’s men have appeared to struggle under the pressure of the club’s “continuing ownership saga”, said Molly Hudson in The Times. Not the club’s women, however. Emma Hayes’s side have swept all before them, winning 11 straight games in all competitions since losing a League Cup match to Manchester City in early March. And on Sunday, they showed once again why they have dominated English women’s football in recent years. In their final league match of the season, they beat Manchester United 4-2 to secure a “history-making third successive Women’s Super League title”. This was the hardest-fought of the Blues’ three titles, said Tom Garry in The Daily Telegraph. It went right down to the wire. Chelsea began Sunday’s match leading rivals Arsenal by just a single…

Sweden must join Nato To the Financial Times Contrary to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s advice that we should slow down the admittance of Finland and Sweden into Nato, the opposite is actually warranted – to speed up the process, not out of fear of a Russian invasion, but of a sudden Russian push for political if not physical domination. Now, in fact, is an exceptional window of opportunity to secure our safety, before Vladimir Putin turns his attentions to the Baltic states or even onto us. Just days before invading Ukraine, Putin publicly laid out as non-negotiable his ambitions to reinstate a Greater Russia along former Soviet lines. Only a cordon sanitaire of Belarus-like governments around Russia would suffice, it seems. No one in Finland or Sweden would want that, of course.…

by David de Jong William Collins 400pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 The Second World War was a boom time for German industrialists who were prepared to collaborate with the Nazis, said Diane Cole in The Wall Street Journal. Fortunes could be made from arming and feeding the Third Reich, from acquiring firms through “Aryanisation” (the forced takeover of Jewish-owned businesses), or from accessing Nazi-procured slave labour. In this meticulously researched book, the Dutch investigative journalist David de Jong offers a “provocative group portrait” of five industrialists whose wartime backing for the Nazis helped them to vastly expand their fortunes. The individuals in question – Ferdinand Porsche, Friedrich Flick, August von Finck Sr, Rudolf-August Oetker and Günther Quandt – all “walked away” once the War was over with “barely a…

Yikouchi at Chancer’s Cafe 1418 Pershore Road, Stirchley, Birmingham This tiny restaurant in Birmingham is run by James Kirk-Gold and his partner Cassie, who developed a taste for Chinese food while living in Beijing in their 20s, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. By the time they got back to England, James’s “amateur cookery chops were good enough to enable him to turn professional”. Stints at London restaurants followed, before the couple relocated to the West Midlands. At weekends, their restaurant operates as Chancer’s Café, a brunch place specialising in waffles and beignets; but from Wednesdays to Fridays, it “becomes Yikouchi”, and serves James’s “thrilling” Chinese repertoire. This isn’t precise or elegant food: “it’s bold and rough around the edges and all the more beguiling for that”. Mouth-watering chicken – a…

● Teenagers often procrastinate because they’re frozen with anxiety. Sit down with them to help them get started. ● Don’t say “Shouldn’t you be revising?” It will only add to their anxiety. You can ask them if they think they’re making enough effort, but it won’t help to go on and on. ● Be supportive. Offer them cups of tea, and prepare them healthy meals. Don’t worry about mess; let them take over the kitchen table. Be kind, even if they’re not: they’re wound up and may lash out. ● Ask an anxious child what their worst fear is. If it’s failure, reassure them: “If you fail – which I don’t think you will – we’ll find an alternative. There’s always a solution.” Your faith in them fuels their confidence.…

Dennis Waterman 1948-2022 Dennis Waterman, who has died aged 74, was known for his roles as “unreconstructed jack-the-lads” in three hit TV series spanning five decades: The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks. Viewers warmed to his portrayals of tough cops and streetwise geezers, said The Daily Telegraph, sensing that they reflected some of the actor’s own personality. Waterman was certainly a “man’s man”. He loved golf and football; he wore his denim shirts unbuttoned; and “pubs were almost places of pilgrimage”. He was also “an inveterate skirt-chaser” who made frequent headlines owing to his turbulent and sometimes violent third marriage to the Polish actress Rula Lenska. Behind all this, however, “there lurked a highly professional actor who had been a seasoned performer before he emerged from his teens; and this…

Amedeo Felisa Having already “gone bust 007 times in its 109-yearhistory”, James Bond’s favourite car company, Aston Martin, came “perilously close to 008” within 15 months of its 2018 float, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. “Roadside rescue arrived in the shape of Lawrence Stroll, a billionaire Canadian Formula 1 nut”, but the carmaker still isn’t out of the ditch. Time for a new maestro. Stroll’s latest candidate for CEO is Amedeo Felisa, a former Ferrari boss who is 76 but, Stroll insists, “young at heart”. The hugely-respected Felisa has work to do, shoring up Aston Martin’s brand “mystique”, said John Gapper in the FT. Stroll must hope that “Ferrari executives are like the Italian cars themselves – the best get more valuable with age”. Christian Smalls Chris Smalls was…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1311 An Ettinger shoe horn and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 23 May. Send it to The Week Crossword 1311, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid or listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) Bridle Hide travel shoehorn in black, which retails at £75, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Cause of stuff brought up on rail network? (5,8) in theory (2,5) 11 Fertilizer shift workers are said to be paid this (7) 12 Leave area without water (6) 15 Hear of lead, say showing courage (6) 16 Advance publicity that lags…

Ncuti Gatwa, who was unveiled as the new Doctor Who, replacing Jodie Whittaker. The 29-year-old, who was born in Rwanda and brought up in Scotland, will be the first black actor to play the Time Lord in a lead role. Until now, Gatwa had been best known for his role in Netflix’s Sex Education. Big Ben, with news that after five years of near total silence, the great bell is ready to bong again. The chimes were disconnected in 2017, to allow a complete overhaul of the 96-metre Elizabeth Tower, the four faces of the clock, and the bell mechanism itself. Gordon Ramsay, who sold one of his two holiday homes in Cornwall for £7.5m, in what is believed to be the most expensive sale in the history of the…

A quarter of Scottish voters want there to be an independence referendum in the next 12 months; in total, 55% say there should be one within five years. Panelbase/The Sunday Times 25% of British voters think that Keir Starmer looks like a prime minister in waiting; 56% say he doesn’t. 54% of voters think he probably or definitely broke lockdown rules by having a takeaway and beer with colleagues in April last year; 16% think he probably didn’t. 29% think Labour looks ready for government, while 51% think it doesn’t. YouGov/The Times More than 60% of UK voters say they would blame the Government if the country entered a recession. YouGov/The Times…

Surviving a croc attack Amelie Osborn-Smith is a normal 18-year-old. But last year, she experienced the sort of “freak accident” that most of us see only in Hollywood films, says Claire Cohen in The Daily Telegraph: on a gap year trip to Zambia, she was savaged by a 10ft Nile crocodile. She and her friends had gone on a rafting excursion. It was a hot day, and having been assured by their guides that it was safe, they’d jumped into the water to cool off. “I was lying on my back and swimming,” she recalls. “I said to my friend, ‘We’re so lucky – we could be at university right now and instead we’re floating down the Zambezi.’” The next moment, something brushed against her foot. She thought it was…

Police in southeast Texas are looking for a man who broke into a family home last month, stole from it, then mowed the front and back lawns before making good his escape. CCTV showed the suspect, named as Marcus Renard Hubbard, taking the lawnmower out, and filling it with petrol before performing the unusual chore. Officers from Port Arthur Police Department arrived to find their suspect still with the lawnmower, which he pulled behind him as he tried to escape. He later abandoned it in an alleyway and ran away. The suspect is still at large. A flabby Mancunian got an impressive six-pack in just two days, courtesy of the tattoo artist Dean Gunther. Gunther, a specialist in “colour realism”, said it took him two full days to ink “perfect”…

HONG KONG Calling time on teeny flats with “dark toilets” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) For years, the “nano flat” has been a fixture of Hong Kong life, says Cheryl Arcibal. Tiny apartments of less than 200sq ft – roughly the size of two parking spaces – have become the norm for many first-time buyers facing some of the world’s highest house prices. Developers have rushed to cash in, building more than 10,000 flats smaller than 260sq ft in the past decade. Many don’t even have windows, let alone enclosed kitchens or bedrooms, thanks to business-friendly planning regulations; “dark toilets”, with no windows and poor ventilation, are common. But an overhaul of Hong Kong planning laws in February has meant that all new private homes must now measure at…

Alan Titchmarsh will be hosting one part of the platinum jubilee celebrations at Windsor Castle next month; some have suggested he doesn’t quite have the star wattage of Tom Cruise, who, rather unexpectedly, will be hosting the opening section of the four-act extravaganza. “Tom Cruise and I are not a natural pairing,” Titchmarsh admitted. “At least I was described as a ‘gardening A-lister’, so that will do me.” The artist Cynthia “Plaster Caster” Albritton, who died last month, was a self-proclaimed groupie who immortalised rock stars by making plaster casts of their penises – using dental moulding putty and a Martini shaker. Each of her works, she said, was the repository of “precious memories”. Jimi Hendrix was one of her favourites: he was so “relaxed” and “quiet in the mould”.…

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.”Economist Ronald Coase, quoted on The Browser “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”Isaiah Berlin, quoted in The New York Times “Anatomy is destiny.”Sigmund Freud, ibid. “A poem begins with a lump in the throat.”Robert Frost, quoted in the Lansing City Pulse “Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.”Charlotte Brontë, quoted in Forbes “Of this I am certain, that we are not here in order to have a good time.”Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in The New Yorker “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”Martha Graham, quoted in The London Free Press “It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You…

To The Guardian With there being plenty of reasons not to vote Tory, and very few to vote Labour, Jonathan Freedland’s excellent advice needs to be heeded. Why isn’t Starmer being properly prepared for interviews, so that, instead of Tory-like obfuscation and avoidance tactics, there could be clarity and detailed answers? Questions about how, in view of opposition to recent national insurance rises, Labour would raise the £12bn, or about the ten pledges he made in the leadership campaign, are inevitable, so the answers should be practised. Didn’t anyone on his team watch The West Wing? How can they expect to overtake the Tories as the party most trusted with the economy if their leader will not disclose any fiscal plans? Starmer may not dazzle, as Freedland says, but he…

by Sarah Manguso Picador 208pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 This “creepy coming-of-age tale” unfolds like a “darker version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda”, except with “no Miss Honey coming to the rescue”, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Observer. Set in an “icy” Massachusetts town in the 1980s, it is narrated by Ruthie, an only child whose family is “on the edge of poverty”. Ruthie is an assiduous cataloguer of “everything she sees” – her mother’s lumpy body, her awkward dinners with richer school friends – but she doesn’t always understand the significance of what she sees. Marked by its “pitiless, minutely observed prose”, Very Cold People is a work that “will stay with me for a very long time”. Manguso is especially good at evoking the “constraints and cruelties” of…

Pat commiserates with Kathy over the Grey Gables closure. Oliver tries to negotiate a better severance deal for Tracy. Kathy decides to confront Oliver and Adil, but is shocked when Adil offers her a job instead. She says no – she’s off on her dream road trip. She asks Pat to join her, but with her grandchildren on the way, Pat can’t leave. Kathy tells Roy about the potential job – his unease aside, he needs the money. Adil turns down a bonus for Tracy because of the disciplinary incident; he tells Roy he’ll be considered for the job. Oliver hopes Tracy and he can remain friends, but she angrily tells him that he’s sacrificed their friendship for money. Natasha reveals to Pat that she and Tom are moving into…

SpellTower like Boggle mixed up with Tetris: players make words out of adjacent letter tiles to clear the play space. It tests vocabulary as well as spatial planning skills, with words used as tactical objects (free; iOS and Android). Wurdweb is a take on Scrabble. Players are given a selection of words which have to be placed on the board without running out of playable spaces. There’s a more challenging “precise mode” where players have to finish on a specific square (free; iOS). Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey combines word puzzles and dungeon-delving adventure, with players guiding a grim reaper through dungeons defeating monsters by conjuring words from a panel of letter tiles (free; iOS and Android). With Typeshift, you have to guess the word by spinning a wheel of different…

Cruising Canada’s Pacific coast With its countless forested islands, fjords and “shark-tooth” mountains, the coast of British Columbia is spectacular and extraordinarily rich in wildlife. Explore it on a week-long expedition cruise with local experts Maple Leaf Adventures, says Mike MacEacheran in The Sunday Telegraph. With just 12 en-suite cabins, their 138ft-long catamaran MV Cascadia has been strengthened to reach wild coastal inlets inaccessible to other cruise ships, but also offers luxuries including top-deck hot tubs and three-course meals with wine pairings. Marine biologists lead trips in tenders and kayaks during which you’re highly likely to enjoy close encounters with orcas, humpback whales, dolphins, seals and Steller sea lions. There is also a visit to the Klahoose Wilderness Resort, where you can see grizzlies. Cruises start from £3,039pp (mapleleafadventures.com). The…

Kathy Boudin 1943-2022 Kathy Boudin, who has died aged 78, was a member of the Weather Underground – a left-wing militant group that was behind multiple bombings in the US in the early 1970s. Having gone on the run following an explosion in 1971, she was arrested a decade later for her part in a lethal armed robbery, and spent 22 years in jail. In prison, she expressed remorse for her crimes, and changed her life, said The New York Times. Having been separated from her own child, she advocated on behalf of incarcerated mothers. She also helped devise a programme for Aids patients, and wrote poetry: in 1999, she won an PEN International prize. Released on parole in 2003, she mentored ex-offenders and co-founded the Centre for Justice at…

Former health secretary Matt Hancock is on a new mission, said Lily Russell-Jones on City AM. “My mission,” he says, “is to make the UK love crypto.” He wants the UK to embrace and regulate cryptocurrency. Regulators themselves may feel differently. The FCA’s Nikhil Rathi recently reiterated warnings that anyone investing “should be prepared to lose all their money”. Hancock revealed he doesn’t personally own any digital assets – just as well for him, given this week’s merciless sell-off. “Panic” is sweeping through the crypto markets, which have gone into free-fall, said Billy Bambrough in Forbes – smashing the prices of a raft of currencies, from bitcoin (which is testing the $30,000 mark last seen in July 2021) through to ethereum and its major rivals BNB, XRP, cardano and solana.…

The week’s best shares BAE Systems The Daily Telegraph The defence firm operates in areas from cybersecurity to electronic warfare in Britain, the US and Saudi Arabia. Shares, up 23% since Ukraine was invaded, should benefit further from rising demand. Yields 3.4%. Buy. 740p. Derwent London The Times Shares in the office landlord look overly cheap versus its net asset value. New leases have jumped, rent collection is at pre-Covid strength and there’s scope for deals. Retail comprises only about 7% of the portfolio. Buy. £29. Learning Technologies Investors’ Chronicle The acquisition of training provider GP Strategies has enabled the e-learning services provider to push into new sectors (pharma, aerospace, etc.) in new territories. “Stellar results” – doubling revenues and rising margins. Buy. 134p. OneSavings Bank The Times The sector…

Broaden your worldview with The Week magazine and enjoy a balanced, unbiased and refreshing take on current affairs. Join over 300,000 readers who rely on The Week to cut through the noise of the media and see the bigger picture. Subscribe today and your first 6 issues are completely free. Why subscribe? Money-back guarantee If for any reason you're not satisfied with your subscription, you can cancel anytime and we'll refund on any issues not received. Great savings As a subscriber you'll benefit from great savings off the RRP and from special offers and discounts. Free delivery A subscription includes free delivery so you can receive the magazine directly to your door every week. Visit theweek.co.uk/offer Or call 0330 333 9494 Offer code P1383 Your subscription will start with your…