Table of contents for 1558 in The Week

Controversy of the week “Unite the Kingdom” “From all corners of the land they came,” said Ian Gallagher in The Mail on Sunday, “bearing flags and banners and pride – or was it rage – in their hearts”. As Elgar’s Nimrod blared out from a loudspeaker, a sea of some 150,000 people marched through central London last weekend, under the slogan “Unite the Kingdom”. It was perhaps “the most vivid expression yet” of the discontent felt across the country over migration. It was led by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, but dismissing everyone involved as fascist would be a mistake. Granted, there was “hooliganism at the margins”, said Trevor Phillips in The Times. Far-right thugs attacked the police; 24 people were arrested. But strikingly, most attendees were ordinary people –…

Pret A Manger, which is trialling a “meal deal” for the first time in an effort to lure back customers. Pret, which reported a pre-tax loss of £525m last year, has pushed up its prices by 50% or more in the past five years. The deal, which will cost between £6 and £7, will consist of any “bread-based sandwich”, crisps and a drink. Oxford, which is reportedly divided by the council’s decision to introduce a temporary charge of £5 to drive into the city by car. The council says this will reduce congestion and pollution, make the city safer for cyclists, and speed up buses – but residents have warned that it will be a disaster for local businesses.…

Only 51% of Britons now think that having a monarchy is “very important” or “quite important”, down from 86% in 1983. Support for abolition has also grown, from 3% in 1983 to 15%. The National Centre for Social Research/The Daily Telegraph 22% of voters say they trust Nigel Farage to have the right policies on global warming, putting him just one point behind Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and two points behind Keir Starmer. 28% of voters think the Government is spending and doing too much to reduce carbon emissions; 37% think it is not doing enough. 14% think it has the balance about right. YouGov…

Life after Michael It’s been a little over a year since Dr Michael Mosley went for a walk on the Greek island of Symi and didn’t come back. By the time night fell, his wife of 37 years, Clare Bailey Mosley, was starting to panic. The next morning, their four children flew in, along with other relations. Mosley’s body would be found three days later. The atmosphere in the villa that week was strange, she told Decca Aitkenhead in The Sunday Times. There was an “extraordinary kind of heightened intimacy” at dinner, and a “lot of bad humour. Because it was so releasing.” Packing up was horrific, and she was terrified of getting on the plane. It represented “moving out of the bubble and it is what it is, and…

Free speech is a bulwark of open societies, because it allows ideas and information to be shared, authority to be questioned, and abuses of power exposed. The idea that it should be encouraged because it will lead to the truth is often traced to John Milton, in his 1644 anti-censorship pamphlet Areopagitica. “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” he asked. (Milton did, though, exclude “Papist” writings from his plea for toleration.) Some 76 years later, Cato’s Letters extended the principle to most political and religious thought, and popularised the idea that speech should be limited only when it harms others. In On Liberty (1859), John Stuart Mill gave these ideas their most influential expression. But freedom of speech has long had its…

Democrats should shut Trump down Ezra Klein The New York Times The Democrats wield little power in Washington today, says Ezra Klein, but they have one key bit of leverage: they can force a government shutdown. When federal funding runs out at the end of this month, President Trump will need Senate Democrats to agree to a new appropriations package. The Democrats faced a similar choice back in March, and opted then to vote the funding bill through, on the basis that the new administration was facing enough trouble already in the markets and the courts. This time, though, Democrats should go for the shutdown. Over the past six months, Trump has relentlessly expanded his powers and we’re now in the “authoritarian consolidation stage” of his presidency. He’s “corrupting the…

A once-a-day weight-loss pill could be available in the UK within months, The Sunday Times has reported. Developed by Eli Lilly, this new tablet is likely to be cheaper than the “skinny jabs” that are used by more than 1.5 million Britons each week, and which cost £150 to £300 when bought privately, though it works in much the same way. Like them, orforglipron mimics the effect of the GLP-1 hormones that curb cravings and appetite, slow down digestion, and control blood-sugar levels. In trials, 40% of those who took the highest dose for 72 weeks lost at least 15% of their body weight. This makes it less effective than the weight-loss jab Mounjaro, but Eli LiIly expects its pill to be popular with people who don’t like injecting themselves,…

Ricky Hatton, who has died aged 46, was one of Britain’s all-time most successful boxers, said The Daily Telegraph. After turning professional in 1997, the “former carpet fitter from Manchester” went undefeated for a decade, while winning world titles in both the light-welterweight and welterweight categories. By the time he retired in 2012, he had won 45 of 48 bouts. Yet if anything, it is more for his “crowd-pleasing style and enormous fanbase” that “The Hitman” will be remembered. At a time when “elite athletes were increasingly viewed as somewhat bland personalities”, Hatton – with his “down-to-earth persona” and love of “pre-fight fry-ups” – was an intensely relatable “Mr Everyman”, to use another of his nicknames. That is why tens of thousands would cross the Atlantic to “witness his battles”…

Football Liverpool retained their lead at the top of the Premier League with a 1-0 victory over Burnley. Cycling The final stage of the Vuelta a España had to be abandoned midway through after pro-Palestine protesters swamped the finish line in central Madrid. The overall race winner was Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard. Athletics US sprinter Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won gold in the 100m at the World Athletics Championships. Her time of 10.61 seconds made her the fourth-fastest woman in history.…

The Duchess of Kent 1933-2025 The first non-titled woman to marry into the royal family for more than a century, Katharine, Duchess of Kent, had a natural elegance and charm that made her one of the most popular members of “The Firm” in the 1960s and 1970s, said The Daily Telegraph. She served as the patron of numerous charities and undertook several overseas tours with her husband, Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin. However, she was probably best known for her regular appearances at Wimbledon, watching from the Royal Box, presenting the winning finalists with their trophies and consoling the losers. Famously, she wrapped a sobbing Jana Novotná in a hug following her defeat in 1993. This compassionate gesture was typical of the Duchess, said The Times – who “pioneered the art…

British boys aged 15 to 17 now spend, on average, nearly 34 hours a week playing video games – more time than many will spend at school. The figure comes from a survey of 1,000 parents by the charity Ygam. It also found that, while almost all parents felt their children derived some benefits from video games, such as help with relaxing, 79% were concerned that their children spent too much time on screens, and 67% worried that they were becoming addicted to them. The Royal Yachting Association has urged its trainers only to use the term “man overboard” if it is to raise the alarm in an emergency. At other times, the inclusive language guide suggests that the term “person in water” may be more suitable.…

Danny Kruger became the first sitting MP to leave the Conservatives and join Reform UK on Monday. Kruger, a highly regarded figure on the Tory Right, who was the shadow minister for work and pensions until his resignation, said that “The Conservative Party is over… But I am not despondent. Because conservatism is not over.” Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, tweeted that “the stampede off the sinking ship has begun”. The former Conservative health minister Maria Caulfield, who lost her seat at the last election, also joined Reform this week.…

Düsseldorf, Germany Far-right surge: The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) almost tripled its vote share in local elections on Sunday in Germany’s most populous state. North Rhine-Westphalia – a prosperous western region that includes big cities such as Cologne, Essen, Dortmund and Düsseldorf – is not considered fertile territory for the far-right party, yet its vote share surged to 14.5% (on a turnout of 59%). The poll was a closely watched first electoral test for Germany’s new centre-right (CDU) chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who took office four months ago. The CDU took 33.3% of the vote, narrowly its worst-ever result in North Rhine-Westphalia – yet there was relief that its vote had not dropped by a bigger percentage. The local election confirmed the surge in support for the AfD across…

“Lying about how many people come to his rallies has never done Donald Trump any harm, but when the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and his acolytes claimed that three-million people attended their angry little tea party in London on Saturday, it really was laughable. I mean, do they have any idea how many people three million is? It is about a third of the population of London. It’s more than the combined populations of Newcastle, Liverpool, Nottingham and Leeds. It is the number of people who have attended ALL the FA Cup Finals since 1992. I am not suggesting these protesters don’t deserve a voice at the table. But they can’t count.” Giles Coren in The Times…

Get a glimpse of Britain’s bright future Fraser Nelson The Times Don’t despair, says Fraser Nelson. The Government may be on its uppers, but the country isn’t – it’s poised to capitalise on a world-transforming tech revolution: AI. Aside from the US, we are the “only democracy with a trillion-dollar tech sector”. As Jensen Huang, CEO of tech giant Nvidia puts it, Britain has “one of the richest AI communities anywhere on the planet”. It has startups such as DeepMind and Synthesia, a university base to rival America’s and, thanks to Brexit, a more relaxed regulatory regime than the EU. And its world-class talent comes cheap: you can hire a top Cambridge graduate for a third of the price of a Silicon Valley equivalent. What we lack is capital and…

A new test for dementia A £100 blood test that could transform the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is being trialled in the UK. Early diagnosis of the condition allows patients to get the support they need earlier – and may enable them to take advantage of a new generation of emerging treatments. Currently, diagnosis – which tends in the NHS to rely on paper and pen cognitive tests and other GP assessments – can take months or even years. The new test works by measuring for p-tau217, a biomarker that indicates the presence in the brain of the two proteins, amyloid and tau, that accumulate up to 20 years before the symptoms of Alzheimer’s emerge. It has been found to be effective at looking for the proteins; the trial, which will…

“Putting the bins out, doing the washing up, making the beds”: these are the tasks that children have been ordered or bribed by their parents to do for generations. But sadly, said Catherine Pepinster in The Daily Telegraph, this wholesome tradition appears to be dying out. Less than half of 14- to 15-year-olds now help out at home, according to a new survey by the charity Parentkind. Maybe today’s teens are particularly “feckless”; but I suspect the real reason behind the demise of kids’ chores is “parental guilt”. With most homes run by two people in full-time jobs, and many of them obsessed with protecting their children’s mental health, today’s parents either feel too bad about their absence or worried about their children’s “anxiety” to put them to work at…

It may have been a “dreich afternoon in Bristol” – the wind and rain making conditions “tricky” – but that didn’t deter the Red Roses, said Charlie Morgan in The Daily Telegraph. Cheered on by a full-capacity crowd at Ashton Gate, the England women’s rugby team powered into the semi-finals of the World Cup by thumping Scotland 40-8. As ever, it was England’s “formidable forwards” – led by the “mighty” Morwenna Talling – who proved toughest to handle: thoroughly overpowering Scotland’s scrum, they supplied four of England’s six tries, including one for Talling and two for prop Kelsey Clifford. Inevitably, the conditions made this a somewhat “stop-start” affair, said Sarah Rendell in The Guardian. There were “handling errors littered throughout”, and little by way of “champagne rugby”. Still, there were…

Opera lovers arriving at Covent Garden this week for the start of the new season were greeted by Ukrainian flags and scores of picketing protesters. “While she sings, Ukraine bleeds,” read the placards, while megaphoned messages were yet angrier. “There’s blood all over the floor of the Royal Opera House tonight,” said one. No, the controversial casting of the great Russian soprano Anna Netrebko – who was previously banned by houses across Europe owing to her historical support for Vladimir Putin’s regime – in the Royal Opera’s new production of Tosca did not pass without a fuss, said Richard Morrison in The Times. Netrebko has publicly denounced her country’s invasion of Ukraine, but her critics want her to speak out against Putin too. The Metropolitan Opera in New York continues…

“He’s done it again!” said Will Jennings in Wallpaper. “The art jester himself, Banksy, has punched … right at the heart of the British establishment.” Over the night of 7 September, one of his distinctive stencilled works appeared on the Royal Courts of Justice in London. It shows a judge using his gavel to beat a supine protester, whose sign is splattered with blood. It was presumed to be a comment on the recent mass arrests at demonstrations against the proscription of the group Palestine Action. The work was sealed off last Monday – not to protect its value, as is usually the case with new works by Banksy, but to remove it from the stone of the listed building: it was soon scrubbed off, leaving only a black shadow…

Amber gets upset when Brad challenges her about getting her teeth done. There’s outrage when Lynda tells the team they paid players in the past. Stella tells Pip she’s been matched with a dog, Cleo; Pip has reservations about how the dog and Rosie will get on. Ruairi is a surprise arrival at Home Farm, offering to help; Adam reluctantly agrees. Dane gives Lily the job of giving the Flower and Produce Show some “sizzle”. Lily is upset that Lynda’s taking the blame for the scandal, but Lynda insists, explaining Lawrence’s threat. Later, Lily emails the team calling a meeting. Stella brings Cleo home, where she takes hold of Rosie’s favourite toy. Pip is persuaded that Cleo can be trained, but attaches conditions. Adam and Ruairi talk about Home Farm’s…

Baccalà 194 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 (020-7407 5514) “If you crave a holiday but can’t get away,” says Jay Rayner in the Financial Times, then Baccalà could be worth a visit. A “polished concrete snug of an Italian restaurant” in London’s Bermondsey, it’s the “passion project” of “four hospitality veterans” who gave up “onerous jobs in big places like Zuma and the Four Seasons Hotel” to pursue their interests on a smaller scale. And boy, it’s “terrific”. Many of the dishes are made with “top ingredients” that are paired in a way that might sound a bit wacky, but which makes sense on the plate. Tuna tartare is served with hunks of lightly salted grilled peach – with a “hit of pepperiness” added by lovage purée. Blistered mackerel “lies across…

● Banana peels make a natural fertiliser. Dry them out, then blend into a fine powder. Mix two tablespoons in two cups of water and use on your plants every three or four weeks. Or soak peels for 48 hours, then discard the peel and use the water as above. ● Egg shells help neutralise soil pH and add phosphorus. Rinse them and let them dry before crushing to a fine powder and sprinkling over the soil. Or make a liquid fertiliser: brown about four crushed eggshells in a pan and add to a litre bottle of water. Leave for 24 hours before using bi-monthly. Don’t use on plants that like acidic soil such as azaleas, however. ● Dry out used coffee grounds and mix them into the soil to…

Charlie Kirk 1993-2025 Charlie Kirk, the political activist who was assassinated on a university campus in Utah last week, grew up in a moderate conservative household in an affluent suburb of Chicago. His father was an architect, his mother a mental health counsellor. But in his teens, he started to listen to the right-wing shock jock Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, and was captivated by his reactionary tirades, said The Daily Telegraph. Before leaving school, he had had an opinion piece published by the right-wing news site Breitbart, deploring the focus on left-wing views in school economics textbooks (he had himself been devouring the works of Milton Friedman), which led to appearances on Fox News and meetings with high-profile Republicans. He was only 18 when he dropped out of community college…

Repairing the rift with big business Nils Pratley The Guardian It might be tempting for Downing Street “to dismiss the current pre-Budget howls from big business beasts” as “standard stuff from the usual suspects”, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian. But their unease goes much deeper than the usual tax grumbles. “Talk privately to FTSE 100 and 250 executives and you’ll hear consistent themes: that ministers, despite their pre-election schmoozing to woo the business vote, don’t ‘get’ business; that the Government has stopped listening; and that key decisions are fluffed, or take too long.” There’s a sense, says one FTSE chair, that officials are “in a bunker”. Last November’s £40bn tax-raising Budget was never going to win applause in boardrooms, but efforts to repair relations “have dribbled into the sand”.…

The week’s best shares Antofagasta The Daily Telegraph Shares in the Chilean copper miner are volatile. But long-term prospects remain sound – given higher production, rising copper prices and strong demand from EV-makers and renewable energy infrastructure. Buy. £22. BAE Systems The Daily Telegraph Earnings and profits are rising at the aerospace and defence firm, as it benefits from high demand amid elevated geopolitical risk. A strong balance sheet and improving competitive position boost growth prospects. Buy. £17.93. Galliford Try Holdings The Mail on Sunday The construction group builds schools, prisons and roads – and is a key supplier to the water industry as it improves infrastructure. Sales are up, profits have surged and the dividend’s been hiked. Strong growth forecast. Buy. 417p. James Fisher & Sons The Times The…

What happened Days after Polish and Nato forces scrambled to shoot down Russian drones that had flown into Poland’s airspace, Russian troops gathered in neighbouring Belarus for large-scale war games; Indian and Iranian troops also participated. The Zapad 2025 exercises included a simulated nuclear strike. Although they were billed as defensive, analysts said they were designed to intimidate Europe. In total, 19 drones crossed into Poland last Wednesday. Moscow’s allies claimed that they had strayed there accidentally, but days later, another Russian drone violated Romanian airspace. Warsaw said the incursion was a test of Nato’s defensive capabilities, and invoked Article 4, which brings a threat to the attention of its council. Nato then launched an operation to bolster its eastern flank. Donald Trump said he would impose tougher sanctions on…

Owen Cooper, who at 15 became the youngest-ever male recipient of an Emmy, when he won a best supporting actor award for his breakout role in the TV drama Adolescence. In his acceptance speech at the ceremony in Los Angeles, Cooper, from Warrington, said that when he started drama classes two years ago, he never imagined it would lead him to this moment. Nominative determinism, with news that Barking, in east London, is home to the capital’s noisiest dogs. Barking and Dagenham Council has received 2,239 complaints about dogs barking since 2020, more than any other London borough. Larry Ellison, the tech mogul, who briefly overtook Elon Musk to become the world’s richest man. Owing to the soaring value of his firm Oracle, his net worth reached $393bn last week…

The first migrant due to be deported to France under Labour’s “one in, one out” agreement has won a legal challenge against his removal in the High Court. The 25-year-old Eritrean, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed to be a victim of “modern slavery”. The judge granted a short-term stay against the deportation order, because he had not had the chance to have this claim investigated. Under the pilot scheme, UK officials can send some migrants who have arrived across the Channel back to France, in return for taking in asylum seekers who have links to Britain such as family connections.…

Orem, Utah Suspect charged: A 22-year-old man appeared in a court in Utah this week, where he was formally charged with the aggravated murder of Charlie Kirk, the ring-wing influencer and close Trump ally who was shot dead last week while addressing students at Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson, a student at a technical college in St George, Utah, had been persuaded to turn himself in to the police by his father and his Mormon pastor last Thursday, ending a 33-hour manhunt. Police say that his DNA has since been matched to the murder weapon. Robinson (pictured) is also reported to have confessed to the crime to users of a chatroom on the Discord platform. Prosecutors in Utah have said that they will be seeking the death penalty. Officials are…

How old is the idea of free speech? It’s relatively modern. For most of human history, it was regarded as self-evident that words can have dangerous consequences. In his recent book What Is Free Speech?, the historian Fara Dabhoiwala notes that the saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” dates only from the 19th century, but the Book of Ecclesiasticus states: “the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones”. An English law of 1275 made it a crime to “tell or publish any false news or tales”, while blasphemy, heresy, defamation and “scolding” were crimes punished, often severely, in medieval and early modern Britain. This only began to change during the Civil War, when the emergence of new sects made a limited degree…

Sam Shoemaker, a Californian artist and mycologist, has made a 26.4-mile sea crossing, from Catalina Island to San Pedro, south of Los Angeles – in a kayak made entirely from mushrooms. He grew a mycelium (fungus root) network inside a fibreglass mould formed out of an old kayak, then dried it to make a Styrofoam-like material called AquaFung. The journey passed without incident, with his boat intact. It is believed to be the world’s longest open-water journey in a mushroom-based kayak. An “emotional support alligator” has been banned from a Walmart in Pennsylvania following a customer complaint. Wesley Silva, 60, a pastor with “an affinity for reptiles”, said he’d never previously had a problem taking his five-foot alligator friend, Jinseioshi, around the supermarket in West Brownsville, until the local TV…

Omid Djalili has a well-worn routine when he first meets big stars on set – fawning over them, while also deliberately misremembering the films they’ve appeared in. It’s intended as a funny way to break the ice, but only one actor has been quick-witted enough to play along. When the Anglo-Iranian comedian met the late Robert Redford on set, he told him: “I’m a big fan of yours – you were the best thing in Hawaii Five-O.” The Hollywood legend smiled warmly, and replied: “Thank you. You were great in Doctor Zhivago… but you’ve let yourself go.” Donald Trump was almost caught out by the Queen during his last state visit in 2019. As the president was taken on a tour of Buckingham Palace, he was shown a pewter horse…

“Art is to console those who are broken by life.”Vincent van Gogh, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “Everyone has talent at 25. The difficulty is to have it at 50.”Edgar Degas, quoted in Forbes “It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”Noël Coward, quoted on BBC News “However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.”George Orwell, quoted in the St Louis Post-Dispatch “From barbarism to civilisation requires a century; from civilisation to barbarism needs but a day.”Will Durant, quoted in the Chattanooga Times Free Press “I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.”Charles M. Schulz, quoted in Parade “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a…

To The Times Comments by Tory and Reform UK leaders on the resignation of Angela Rayner have been predictably opportunistic. That is to be expected. The combative and contemptuous tone of their comments, however, highlights a more important issue than the fate of a deputy prime minister. That tone is now the norm in British political dialogue, and the language used by those leaders affects the attitude and behaviour of those who follow them. Self-serving populist politicians also use a combative and contemptuous tone at every opportunity to fuel the social division that bolsters their position. This is a more pressing issue than the fate of Angela Rayner. Chris Westerman, Castletown, Isle of Man To The Times Regarding Camilla Long’s dissection of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs, I have been a…

It’s not a very inviting title, Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists, said Nancy Durrant in the Times. “Do many people know what a neo-impressionist is – or, more to the point, who?” But actually, this is a lovely show, which fans of Georges Seurat will not want to miss. He and Paul Signac were leading lights of neo-impressionism, commonly known as “pointillism”, a movement rooted in the idea that certain colour combinations could suggest particular moods. They “used dots of pure colour, contrasted with opposing hues on the colour wheel – yellow with violet, orange with blue – to maximise luminosity, while prioritising the harmony and balance of a composition”. In short, they invented pixellation well avant la lettre. This exhibition is largely drawn from the holdings of the Dutch…

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel, 2016 (Penguin £16.99). This is a magical collection of medieval illustrated manuscripts, brought to life in a fascinating manner. De Hamel rootles around in libraries, grand or obscure, and deciphers tales of power and culture with scholarship and wit. And he includes my hometown of Sunderland, from which emerged “the oldest complete copy of the Latin Bible”, 1,300 years ago. Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot, 2007 (available used or ebook). More Sunderland: local history à la graphic novel. A joyful collision of Lewis Carroll’s heroine Alice and just about every tale from northeast England. Original, quirky and fun. History of Britain in Maps by Philip Parker, 2017 (HarperCollins £25). I spent much of my working life, well before satnav, heading for…

Programmes The Covid Contracts: Follow the Money Documentary uncovering how the UK government gave lucrative contracts to supply PPE to companies with little or no experience in the area. Sun 21 Sep, ITV1 22:15 (85mins). Disease X: Hunting the Next Pandemic Virologist Dr Chris van Tulleken examines the quest to identify the pathogen that could trigger another pandemic. Mon 22 Sep, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). The Hack Dramatisation of the tabloid phone-hacking scandal, written by Jack Thorne (Adolescence), and starring David Tennant, Robert Carlyle and Toby Jones. Wed 24 Sep, ITV1 21:00 (60mins). The Shadow Scholars: Fake Essay Scandal Patricia Kingori travels to Nairobi to learn more about a booming industry, in which highly educated Kenyans are paid to write essays for students around the world. Wed 24 Sep, C4 22:00 (125mins).…

NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland have the most generous interest-free overdraft deals: up to £2,000 from the first year of study (£500 in the first term), and up to £3,250 from year three on. They also give £85 cashback and a free Tastecard, worth about £80/year in dining discounts. Santander’s Edge Student account comes with a four-year 16-25 Railcard (worth £115), offering up to a third off rail fares. It gives a £1,500 interest-free overdraft for the first three years if you meet the basic criteria, increasing to £1,800 in year four and £2,000 in year five. You can also get cashback and offers from the bank’s rewards programme. With Nationwide, you get £100 cashback and £120 of Just Eat vouchers (£10/month for year one). If you meet the…

The Ship Brancaster, Norfolk Having opened the excellent Sculthorpe Mill in north Norfolk in 2021, sisters Siobhan and Caitriona Peyton have now refurbished this charming old pub in the nearby seaside village of Brancaster, says Chris Haslam in The Times. Each of the nine rooms and suites has its own character (one resembles a “tutor’s study”), but all are pleasant and comfortable. Downstairs, there’s a bar with a menu of pub classics, and an excellent restaurant, where the food is “simple” but “expertly prepared” (I loved the “wickedly rich” lobster rice with samphire). Brancaster’s beautiful beach is a four-minute drive away. Doubles from £145 b&b; theshipbrancaster.uk.…

Merck/AstraZeneca et al: bad medicine “The latest blow to the Government’s growth agenda” comes from some of the world’s largest pharma companies, said Simon Hunt on City AM. “Simply put, the UK is not internationally competitive,” observed the US drugmaker Merck as it slammed the brakes on a £1bn London research centre, scheduled to open in King’s Cross in 2027, and laid off 127 staff. A day later, Britain’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, said it would pause a £200m investment to expand its Cambridge R&D arm – a second vote of no-confidence from Astra, which in January ditched plans to invest £450m in a Merseyside vaccine plant, blaming reduced Government support. It has no such qualms about the US, where it has pledged to invest $50bn. “The Trump factor” has “changed…

The more interesting investment acronyms “capture a moment in time, or an emerging theme”, says global strategist Seema Shah of Principal Asset Management in The Sunday Times – and there’s a new kid on the block: Forebears In 2001, Jim O’Neill, then chief economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the term “Bric” to describe the emergence of Brazil, Russia, India and China. More recently, “Tina” – There Is No Alternative (to allocating heavily to US equities) – dominated, before it was interrupted by “Tara” – There Are Reasonable Alternatives (in bonds or cash, thanks to rising interest rates – though often still dollar-denominated). Enter Ronda “One of the most profound trends over the next decade” will be “the incremental shift away from reliance on dollar-linked assets”. The Trump administration’s “unpredictable approach”…

Larry Ellison “Ambition’s a dirty word in Britain,” said Charlotte Ivers in The Sunday Times. Perhaps that explains the sneers greeting the Oracle tycoon Larry Ellison’s new Institute of Technology in Oxford – a multibillion-pound project, whose mission is to solve some of humanity’s most “challenging and enduring problems”. Reports have dwelled more on the project’s “toxic culture” and HR issues than on “the remarkable things” it might achieve. Ellison briefly became the world’s richest man last week (with $393bn), before ceding the title to his friend and fellow political donor Elon Musk. At 81, he has lost none of his drive: he is “obsessive, visionary” and amazingly self-confident. What’s the difference between God and Larry Ellison? runs the old Silicon Valley gag. “God doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison.” Ellison…

By the standards of natural selection, it’s true that Homo sapiens is the most “successful” current species. We’ve mapped the heavens, split the atom and are coming close to a single explanation of the universe and its workings. We’ve bent a watery planet and its resources to a single end: the service of ourselves. But (and it’s quite a big “but”) we are also the only species of which one in a hundred is insane – and here we are not talking about depression, anxiety or eating disorders. Across the world, regardless of climate, nutrition, ethnic variation and genetic drift, humanity is roughly 1% psychotic. This figure is accepted by researchers worldwide. What do they mean by this? “Psychosis” is a form of delusional illness, most often characterised by hearing…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1483 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 29 September. Send it to The Week Crossword 1483, 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 1 Vindaloo and rice cooked for famous Italian (8,2,5) 9 In the end Ronald Reagan messed up here (7)  10 Prison warden blowing his top nothing new in part of one wing (7) 11 Declares fellow to be a top politician? (9) 12 The morning belongs to us for an affair (5)  13 Endless support…