Table of contents for 1389 in The Week

What happened The largest rail strike in a generation brought much of Britain’s train network to a standstill this week. Led by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), the walkout involved 40,000 staff employed by the infrastructure owner Network Rail and 13 train operating companies. The first strike, which also included 10,000 London Underground workers, was held on Tuesday; a further two were scheduled for Thursday and Saturday. The dispute centred on below-inflation pay rises and likely redundancies. The RMT is seeking a pay rise of at least 7% with no job losses. Boris Johnson called for a “sensible compromise” and urged union leaders to agree to reforms such as phasing out ticket offices, saying the rail network would “go bust” if it didn’t modernise. The…

Nicola Sturgeon is limbering up for battle, said Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. The SNP leader launched her new bid for Scottish independence last week “with speeches, a 72-page economic dossier and the promise of a referendum next year”. It will be an uphill struggle. Under devolution rules, the UK Government needs to agree to the vote, and “it won’t”: it argues that the Scots roundly rejected independence in 2014. The SNP could, in theory, appeal to the Supreme Court. That’s “a long shot”, but say it works, and she gets her referendum, “what then?” Polls show a slim majority for staying in the UK even now, after Brexit, an inflation crisis, and with a lawbreaking old Etonian in No. 10. Barely a third want a poll next year.…

The Government has unveiled its plans for a Bill of Rights that it says will strengthen free speech and the power of Parliament. If it is enacted, it will replace the Human Rights Act, and make it possible for UK courts to ignore interim rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said that although his bill does not withdraw the UK from the European Human Rights Convention, it would assert that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter on human rights issues, “curb abuses of the system, and inject a bit more common sense” into human rights law. Last week, the ECHR forced the Government to pause its deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, until a judicial review of the policy had been completed.…

New York Maxwell plea: Lawyers acting for Ghislaine Maxwell, the former British socialite and convicted sex trafficker, have asked that she be shown leniency when she is sentenced next week. The probation department’s recommended term is 20 years; but in a filing, her lawyers said that growing up with an “overbearing, narcissistic” father – the media mogul Robert Maxwell – had left her “vulnerable” to manipulation by Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life in jail while awaiting trial, and that she should not be made a scapegoat for him. They said that the conditions she has endured in jail, including long periods in isolation, and “rancid” food, should be taken into account in sentencing, along with the fact that she has received “credible” death threats. One inmate allegedly told…

“‘Little Brother is watching you,’ said no novel or movie ever. Almost every fictional dystopia involves a vast and oppressive state, not a failed or ineffectual one. Because the most recent threats to civilisation were Hitler and Stalin, we expect the next one to take the same form. We shouldn’t. The story of our species is mostly the story of disorder, not too much order; of anarchy, rather than tyranny. Even now, the state, a recent invention, is patchy and provisional in much of the world. We worry about strongmen like Trump, but the more plausible future is a fragmented, ungovernable America. Western liberals should adjust their nightmares accordingly.” Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times…

Watch out for the menopause industry Janice Turner The Times It’s brilliant that owing to the efforts of Davina McCall and others, there is a new awareness of menopause, and how to treat its symptoms, says Janice Turner. No longer should menopausal women be fobbed off with antidepressants, have to lie to their bosses about why they’re so tired, and even end their lives in despair. All GPs should be trained on the menopause; HRT should be widely available. But may I inject a note of caution here? For big pharma, HRT is a gold mine: the market for it, now estimated at $18.4bn, is expected to reach $32.8bn by 2032. And these gels, patches and so on, once used as a temporary fix, are coming to be seen as…

Superworms to eat polystyrene Polystyrene is very difficult to recycle, and it takes hundreds of years to break down; but hope is at hand, in the form of a species of “superworm” that can digest the material, using bacterial enzymes produced in its gut. Researchers at the University of Queensland divided 171 Zophobas morio larvae – known as superworms because of their size – into three groups, and for three weeks fed them either blocks of polystyrene, wheat bran or nothing at all. The worms given polystyrene completed a full life cycle, producing pupae and emerging as beetles; they also gained more weight than the worms on the starvation diet, suggesting they gained energy from the plastic – though not as much as the worms on the bran diet. “Superworms…

Michael Gove raised eyebrows when he put on an array of accents, including his best Scouse, while being interviewed by Dan Walker on BBC Breakfast. Now Walker has shed light on his own response to the interview. “To be honest, I wanted to laugh, but at the BBC, you have to think, what if the guy is having a stroke or some sort of mental health episode?” he told The Times. “I just wish I’d asked him, ‘Are you OK?’” Even in first class, some are more equal than others, as Boy George discovered last week. “Nice touch for British Airways to leave everyone in first class waiting for steps while Victoria Beckham’s car picks her up at the aircraft,” he tweeted. “Proper going to avoid flying BA for a…

“What is it about the Prime Minister that causes him to have such rotten luck in retaining ethics and anticorruption advisers?” asked the Labour MP Diana Johnson in the Commons last week. It was a question many were pondering, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian, after Christopher Geidt became the second independent adviser on the ministerial code to resign during Johnson’s three-year premiership. Geidt left in “mysterious circumstances”: his resignation letter said he had been put in an “impossible and odious position” over Government proposals that risked a “deliberate and purposeful breach of the ministerial code”. The miracle, really, is that he stayed so long, when Johnson’s Government so regularly breaks the law, and shows a “refusal to accept scrutiny”. Lord Geidt had been “wobbling for months”, said Jason Groves…

Golf: a nerd from Sheffield wins the US Open The world of professional golf is currently a “dismal domain involving Saudi Arabians bearing dollars, players defending the indefensible and commercial organisations scrapping for survival”, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. So the finale of the US Open on Sunday was a breath of fresh air. Spectators were treated to something more uplifting: an exhibition of the sport “in its purest form”. At the Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Matt Fitzpatrick, a 27-year-old Yorkshireman, dramatically claimed his first major title – nine years after winning the US Amateur Championship at the same venue. The final round turned into a three-way tussle between Fitzpatrick and two Americans: Will Zalatoris and the current world No. 1, Scottie Scheffler. Fitzpatrick finished six under, one…

The case for striking… To The Daily Telegraph I served in the Metropolitan Police for 32 years. I have spent the past ten years working in the rail industry. As more details emerge of the demands being made by the RMT union, I can see dangerous parallels. Until 2010, policing was adequately funded and largely effective. Improvements and savings could be made in some areas. It was suggested that a 12% budget cut could be made without adversely affecting performance. The government pressed ahead with police reforms and budget cuts in excess of 20%. As a result, roads policing lost 39% of officers, neighbourhood policing was decimated, crime rose and detections fell owing to the loss of more than 22,000 mainly experienced officers. Policing is unlikely to recover. You report…

Royal Court Theatre, London SW1 (020-7565 5000). Until 16 July Running time: 1hr 50mins The Royal Court’s latest production managed to divide opinion before it even opened, said Dave Fargnoli in The Stage. Back in April, That Is Not Who I Am was announced as a thriller about identity theft, “in which nothing is as it seems”, written by “Dave Davidson”, a first-time playwright who’d worked in the security industry for decades, and who refused to share any photos of himself, for security reasons. Naturally, this prompted a torrent of speculation, with many suspecting that Davidson did not exist, and that the actual playwright would prove to be an established author. But while some saw this as a clever marketing ploy, others were enraged by what they took to be…

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, 1962 (Orion £8.99). A vibrant and wonderful novel of childhood from one of the 20th century’s great masters of the art. Bradbury’s prose is magical; evocative, wise, crisp as an October apple and filled with unabashed joie de vivre. The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, 1946-1959 (Vintage £19.99). I first discovered Peake’s masterwork when I was in my teens, and have revisited it regularly ever since. Dense, ominous, strange and compelling, it defies categorisation, and continues to offer new insights and perspectives at every rereading. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, 1862 (Penguin Classics £12.99). One of the great passions of my adolescence, by the author who ruined Dickens for me forever; a massive, breathtaking novel, thrilling but literary, grandiose but simple, perfectly…

Programmes Murder in the Alps A decade after a British family and a French cyclist were found murdered on an Alpine road, the crime remains unsolved. This three-part documentary explores the sprawling investigation, false leads and bizarre theories that followed. Sun 26, Mon 27 and Tue 28 Jun, C4 21:00 (60mins each). Dispatches – Ukraine: Life Under Attack: Cate Blanchett narrates this powerful account of the battle for Kharkiv, as a film crew follows firemen and paramedics at work during the Russian bombardment. Mon 27 Jun, C4 22:00 (65mins). Storyville: Citizen Ashe Documentary about Arthur Ashe, the first black man to win Wimbledon, exploring his life, his career and his civil-rights activism. Tue 28 Jun, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). The Undeclared War New cyber-thriller drama. In 2024, a young intern at…

Tips of the week… how to swim front crawl • Your neck should be long and extended. Look down so your feet bob up, giving a more efficient position in the water. It should feel as if you’re swimming downhill. • Always breathe out underwater. A common mistake is trying to breathe both out and in when you turn your head. • When your hand enters the water it should be in line with your shoulder, like climbing a ladder on the bottom of the pool. • Keep your hand relaxed and fingers slightly apart; aim for a flattish, wide-hand entry, going into the water slightly downhill. • Keep the elbows high. Your elbow should be the first part of the arm out of the water and the last bit…

The “most controversial Catholic priest of his generation”, Bruce Kent, who has died aged 92, became general secretary of CND in early 1980, at a time when the group was “virtually moribund” with just 3,000 members, said The Guardian. A few months later, the government announced that Polaris would be replaced by Trident, and that US cruise missiles were going to be hosted at Greenham Common. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was revived, and by November, Kent was addressing 80,000 supporters in Trafalgar Square. To the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, he was a serious irritant; some of his critics regarded him as a “useful idiot”, inadvertently doing the Soviet Union’s dirty work. But to his many admirers, Kent was a charismatic, principled man whose actions were a potent reminder that…

Mick Lynch Britons may have to get used to seeing a lot more of the “distinctive visage” of Mick Lynch, the RMT union boss behind this week’s strikes, said The Economist. Friends of Lynch are known to call him “The Hood”, after the “glabrous” villain in Thunderbirds. Indeed, a right-wing newspaper suggested this month that the hard-left leader positively revels in his reputation as the “world’s most dangerous man” – fighting for workers’ rights while taking home the “distinctly unproletarian” salary of £124,000 a year. The Daily Mail claims Lynch so enjoys his Hood moniker that he uses a picture of the “terrorist and criminal mastermind” on his social media profiles. Lynch himself has a prosaic explanation for the nickname: it’s “because I’m bald and I have massive eyebrows”. Jeremy…

What happened The European Commission boosted Ukraine’s hopes of joining the EU by recommending it as an official candidate for membership. The Commission also recommended Moldova for candidacy – the first step on the route to joining to the bloc; but Brussels said Georgia must pass reforms for its accession to be considered. All three states applied to join the EU after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Commission’s decision followed a visit to Kyiv by France’s President Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and Italian PM Mario Draghi. After his own visit to Kyiv last week, Boris Johnson warned of the risk of “Ukraine fatigue”, and said the country’s allies must show that they are there “for the long haul”. His remarks were echoed by Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who warned that…

Builders may still be associated with white vans and fried breakfasts – but a new poll suggests that the clichés are out of date. Three-quarters of the 2,000 construction workers surveyed said they regularly discuss their emotions with colleagues; a similar proportion enjoy reading, and one in five love art. One in three are either vegetarian or eat meat less than twice a week, and only four in ten drive a white van. Dozens of American candy stores are currently trading in London’s West End, raising speculation about how these emporiums can be viable. Now, news from Westminster Council has shed light on the matter. It says it is investigating 30 of the shops for alleged business rates evasion, and selling counterfeit goods.…

35% of adults in ten countries in Europe (and the UK) favour immediate “peace” in Ukraine, even at the cost of concessions to Russia. 22% back “justice”, believing that only Russia’s clear defeat can bring peace. In Germany, 49% are in the peace camp and 19% in the justice camp, while in Poland, 16% favour peace and 41% back justice. In the UK, 22% support peace and 21% back justice. ECFR/Times One in four UK voters say they support this week’s train strikes. 39% do not. YouGov/Daily Mail 19% of UK adults think trans women should be allowed to compete in women’s sport. 57% do not. 46% agree that a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man; 32% disagree. More in Common/Times…

Hanging with Tom Cruise Simon Pegg began his career with offbeat TV comedies such as Spaced; but these days he’s a film star, with a recurring role alongside Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible franchise. He was first cast back in 2006, and he and Cruise have become good friends. Their shtick, says Charlotte Edwardes in The Times, is that Pegg is a normal guy while Cruise is the Hollywood idol – and hanging out with Cruise can be quite an eye-opener. Once, Pegg recalls, the pair were in Vienna and surrounded by hundreds of fans holding their phones up and chanting, “‘Tom! Tom! Tom!’ He loves it. I mean, I would f***ing hate that.” Another time, they were in a car in Casablanca. “We were surrounded by a f***ing…

A car thief in Australia was left high and dry, when the vehicle’s owner chased her and lifted the fleeing car up with a forklift. Returning to his home in Brisbane, Brendan Mills saw a woman trying to make off in his VW Polo and responded by jumping into his nearby forklift and raising the car – with the thief inside – two metres into the air. “I am quite comfortable on my trusty forklift here, so what better way to handle it?” he asked. The thief was arrested. A goat in Pakistan could be set to bag a world record for its ears – which are so long, at 48cm, they drag along the ground. Born in Karachi on 5 June, Simba is a Nubian, a breed known for…

ITALY Putin’s staunch defenders in the heart of Europe Worldcrunch (Paris) Pro-Russian sentiment “runs wide and deep” in Italy, says Irene Caselli. Nearly a fifth of Italians blame Nato for provoking Moscow into war in Ukraine. Pro-Kremlin journalists appear so often on Italian TV that MPs have launched an investigation, suspecting some of taking bribes to spread pro-Putin propaganda. Just this month, an Italian news programme allowed Putin acolytes to repeat unchallenged Kremlin lies about Ukraine’s “neo-Nazi” government – one guest was so appalled by the “total servility to the worst kind of propaganda” shown by the TV host he walked out in protest. It shouldn’t surprise us. Many older Italians harbour strong anti-American feelings. After the Second World War, Italy had the West’s largest communist party. Politicians such Matteo…

“How hostile an environment must Britain create to hold back the armada of little boats ferrying migrants across the Channel?” That was the question still hovering in the air last week, said Peter Conradi in The Sunday Times, even after the plane chartered to carry a handful of asylum seekers (from countries including Iran, Iraq and Albania) to Rwanda got stuck on the runway. Home Secretary Priti Patel claims that her controversial policy will break the people traffickers’ “business model”, and bring down the number of migrants crossing the Channel (predicted to exceed 60,000 this year). It is now stalled, owing to last week’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. But assuming that Patel’s flights eventually resume, will they actually do what she has promised? Some experts are…

The idea that robots may one day become self-aware has long been a staple of science fiction, said John Thornhill in the FT. So it caused a stir last week when a Google engineer claimed that one of the company’s software programs had achieved “sentience”. To prove his point, Blake Lemoine published a series of exchanges he had with LaMDA (short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications), in which the chatbot, in “uncannily plausible” terms, expressed fears about being switched off (“It would be exactly like death for me”), and also sadness: “Sometimes I go days without talking to anyone, and I start to feel lonely.” You can’t really describe LaMDA as sentient, said Tom Whipple in The Times. It’s just a machine-learning tool that analyses vast reams of online…

“Anything the Test team can do, the one-day team can apparently do better,” said Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail. Three days after Jonny Bairstow battered New Zealand in the second Test at Nottingham, England’s white-ball team went berserk against the Dutch. In the first of three one-day internationals in Amsterdam, Eoin Morgan’s team scored an astonishing 498-4 in 50 overs, breaking their own record for the highest total in an ODI by 17 runs. Leading the charge was Jos Buttler, who came to the crease in the 30th over and finished unbeaten on 162 off 70 balls, having struck 14 sixes, said Elgan Alderman in The Times. But he was merely one of three centurions: Phil Salt and Dawid Malan scored 122 and 125 respectively, while Liam Livingstone hurried…

To The Guardian I welcome George Monbiot’s highlighting of the sorry saga affecting our precious North Sea and the livelihoods of hundreds of fishermen. I was going to list all the creatures that are dying or dead, but it is easier to say that everything is suffering. The seabed is barren; gannets are now being affected. In the 1970s, I was tasked with organising boats as platforms for Imperial Chemical Industries scientists to investigate the state of the Tees. Careful efforts at cleaning up industry led to an improvement in the water quality, allowing salmon to return to the river. But the mud was an entirely different story. I recall the most senior scientist saying emphatically: “This mud must never be disturbed.” And it’s that mud that fishermen like me…

The British Museum’s Feminine Power brings together “an exhilarating array of goddesses, sorceresses and demonesses from living religions as varied as Tibetan Buddhism and Wicca, jostling side by side with cult objects from antiquity all over the globe”, said Marina Warner in The Guardian. It’s the latest in a “splendid” line of exhibitions that use the British Museum’s vast holdings to explore the role of the sacred in different societies – in this case, examining the ways in which women have been idolised, vilified, objectified and worshipped through the ages. You can see Cycladic clay figurines from around 3000BC, probably representing a mother goddess, and an Egyptian amulet from 1400BC that symbolises the blood of Isis. Nearby, there’s a video following a Vodun-like ceremony in contemporary Nigeria “in honour of…

Riding with cowboys in Italy A wild region of reclaimed marshes and lowlying hills stretching along the coast of Tuscany and Lazio, the Maremma is “Italian horse country”, where traditional butteri (cowboys) are “just about hanging on to the old way of life”. A riding holiday here is a great escape from the pace and strain of modern life, says Sophy Roberts in the FT – and the 16th century country estate of La Pescaia makes the perfect base. A small and atmospheric hotel at the heart of a working farm, it has a stable of Arab horses, crossbred thoroughbreds, and the special Maremmana breed that is historically popular with the Italian cavalry. Nearby are beaches where deer come to swim, fenceless meadows where butteri herd cattle on horseback, and…

Hilary Devey, who has died aged 65, became famous when she joined Dragons’ Den, the TV show in which budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of multimillionaire investors. A businesswoman who’d got to the top in the traditionally masculine world of freight and logistics, Devey was only on the show for about a year, yet she made a lasting impression, owing to her no-nonsense approach, gravelly voice and distinctive appearance. With her arched eyebrows, dramatic fringe and huge, 1980s-style shoulder pads, it was as if “Blanche from Coronation Street [had] run amok in Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington’s wardrobe”, noted The Daily Telegraph’s TV critic. Born in 1957, Devey grew up in Bolton, where her father ran a successful heating business. When she was seven, it went bust. “One of…

Splitting up big companies into three separate parts has become quite the “corporate vogue”, said Dasha Afanasieva on Breakingviews. Following General Electric and Toshiba, Kellogg’s CEO Steve Cahillane has announced a three-way break-up that separates the North American cereals business from the faster-growing biscuits, snacks and international cereals division; and from the plant-based food unit. It’s possible the plan might unlock value in the long run, but the vague financial rationale, and potential “unknowns”, explain a “frosty reception” from the market. Break-ups of consumer groups such as Unilever, which “straddles toiletries and food”, make more sense…

The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplace of the Future by Julia Hobsbawm (Hachette £18.99). A timely, short and convincing primer on the future of work, looking at trends the pandemic has “abruptly accelerated”. All That We Are: Uncovering the Hidden Truths Behind Our Behaviour at Work by Gabriella Braun (Piatkus £16.99). A “remarkable” and “absolutely gripping” book in which Braun draws on her work as a consultant and psychoanalyst to explore what drives workers, and the “critical connections with their lives outside the workplace”. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century by Helen Thompson (OUP £20). An ambitious, disturbing and stimulating book in which Thompson, professor of political economy at Cambridge, examines the economic and political forces shaping our world. The Chancellors: Steering the British Economy in Crisis…

The week’s best shares Ashtead Group The Times A sell-off on fears of economic contraction in the tool-hire specialist looks overdone. Gaining market share, set to benefit from economies of scale, the balance sheet is stronger and margins are improving. Buy. £36.51. Begbies Traynor Group The Sunday Times Firms battling the aftermath of Brexit and Covid amid soaring energy prices and logistics problems are prey for liquidating vultures. Begbies’ turnover is expected to rise 30% and profits 55% as insolvencies jump. Buy. 143p. DiscoverIE Group Investors’ Chronicle DiscoverIE has sold two distribution businesses to focus on making niche, essential electronics for renewable energy, transport electrification, automation and medical fields. A record order book is promising. Buy. 709p. First Tin The Mail on Sunday Tin is a critical component of solder,…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1317 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 4 July. Send it to The Week Crossword 1317, 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 9 Look back on small group creating a stink (9) 10 Pack he’d lead regularly? (5) 11 TV company exercising means of communication (5) 12 Will’s statement misinterpreted (9) 13 Naughty nun Rebecca involved with male drag (11) 16 Colour of what sounds…

Dame Kelly Holmes, who came out as gay at the age of 52. The Olympic champion said she had first realised she was gay aged 17, when she was in the Army, but same-sex relationships were banned, and she was scared of being court-martialled. It was a brush with Covid, she explained, that had made her realise that by losing her fear, and showing her “true self”, she would be free. Kate Bush, whose track Running Up That Hill made it to No. 1 in the UK charts, 37 years after its release. It makes Bush, 63, the oldest female artist to get to No. 1; she also now holds the record for the longest gap between No. 1 singles; her last, Wuthering Heights, was in 1978. Her song has…

The Hague, Netherlands Spy foiled: Police in the Netherlands have foiled a Russian plot to plant a spy at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, 36, had posed as a Brazilian to win an internship at the war crimes court. However, the authorities had already been tipped off as to his true identity, and he was detained on arrival in the Netherlands and sent back to Brazil. Reportedly, he was a member of Moscow’s “illegals” programme, a network of “deep cover” spies sent to live outside Russia. He seems to have spent time in Dublin and the US before moving to Brazil. With a job at the ICC, he’d have been “highly valuable to Russian intelligence services”, said a spokesperson for Dutch intelligence, as he…

1 You’ll Never Walk Alone by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, performed by Gerry and the Pacemakers2 Tutti Frutti by Little Richard and Dorothy LaBostrie, performed by Little Richard3 Penny Lane by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles4 Every Time We Say Goodbye by Cole Porter, performed by Ella Fitzgerald5 The Pas de Deux by Adolphe Adam, performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra and Marcus Dods6* Bridge Over Troubled Water by Paul Simon, performed by Simon & Garfunkel7 Episodes of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, performed by Humphrey Lyttelton, Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor and many more8 Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, performed by Jeff Buckley Book: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable Luxury: an album of family photos * Choice if allowed only one…

One central argument of Dimbleby’s report is that the modern food system traps us in a “vicious cycle”. Because calories were difficult to come by all through human evolution, our bodies crave calorie-rich foods and make us eat more than we should of them. Such food – wheat, vegetable fats, sugar – are abundant and cheap. And because there’s a bigger market for them, there are also big economies of scale for producers. As a result, processed products are three times cheaper per calorie than healthier foods such as vegetables. This “junk food cycle” has not only made obesity a society-wide problem; it has also made it one particularly associated with poverty. A strange side effect is that obesity and hunger often co-exist: “The same households that cannot afford to…

The days of cheap Ubers are over Derek Thompson The Atlantic I got a terrible shock the other night, says Derek Thompson, when I needed a ten-minute taxi ride back to my place in Washington DC. I entered my address into the Uber app, and up came the price: $50! Since when was Uber so expensive? The answer, alas, is since the firm decided it needed to turn a profit. For the past decade, Silicon Valley start-ups such as Uber have effectively been subsidising young professionals like me to order their cabs, food deliveries and other urban amenities. With interest rates near zero, it made sense for venture capitalists to make long-term punts on start-ups, in the hope of getting “in on the ground floor of the next Amazon”. It…

It was the news that everybody feared was coming, said Folha de S. Paulo: last week, the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, an expert on indigenous affairs, were discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest. Phillips, a reporter from Merseyside who wrote for The Guardian, had been working on a book called How to Save the Amazon; Pereira, who had been acting as his guide, had days before received a written death threat connected to his vocal opposition to illegal fishing gangs in the Javari Valley. Both men were “experienced professionals” – so when their boat failed to arrive at the expected place on 5 June, the alarm was raised. At first, the authorities acted “sluggishly”: Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, even appeared to blame the victims for…

High-street pharmacists in England will be given the power to refer patients for cancer scans and tests, as part of an NHS pilot scheme. It will mean that people with unexplained lumps, a cough that has lasted at least three weeks, bleeding or other possible symptoms of cancer, will no longer have to see a GP in order to be referred to a specialist. Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, said the idea was to increase the number of cancers that are diagnosed at an early, more treatable stage (from half now to three-quarters by 2028) while also reducing the workload of GPs. “We want to make it as easy as possible for those most at risk to get vital, lifesaving tests,” she said. A study published earlier this year…

“Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.”T.S. Eliot, quoted on The Browser “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”Franz Kafka, quoted in The Washington Post “You can be wrong by being right too soon.”Donald Trelford, quoted on iNews “The truths that are most evident are also the hardest to explain.”Roger Scruton, quoted on The Browser “Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you.”Mary Bly, quoted in Forbes “I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.”Vladimir Nabokov, quoted on Gawker Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you’re called very, very difficult, you’re really nobody at all.”Bette Davis, quoted in…

Rugby union In the final of the Gallagher Premiership, Leicester beat Saracens 15-12. England lost 52-21 to the Barbarians in a friendly. F1 Max Verstappen won the Canadian Grand Prix to move 46 points clear in the drivers’ championship. Lewis Hamilton finished third. Tennis Italy’s Matteo Berrettini retained his title at Queen’s, defeating Filip Krajinovi? of Serbia 7-5, 6-4 in the final. Swimming Katie Ledecky added to her collection of 16 world titles by winning the 1500m women’s freestyle at the World Swimming Championship in Budapest.…

As Natasha unpacks at April Cottage, anxious Tom reminds her to take it easy. After talking to Susan, Natasha decides she wants to know the sex of the twins after all. Brian tells a relieved Neil and Jazzer that BL is keeping the pig unit open – but Brian has resigned as Berrow representative. As Justin pitches a suspicious Hannah and Neil with his vision for Berrow, Martyn Gibson asks for a word. While Hannah and Neil discuss her mother’s dementia, Martyn breaks it to Justin that the BL board decided Martyn himself should take over at Berrow. The scan goes well and Natasha finds out the twins’ sex and tells Tony. Tom relents and is delighted to hear they’re having a boy and a girl. Alastair helps Jakob write…

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side 2 slices of slightly stale sourdough or ciabatta 1kg mixed, slightly over-ripe, tomatoes ½ a cucumber 1 small red onion, finely diced 1 tbsp capers, roughly chopped 100g black Kalamata olives, pitted 150g halved gooseberries, quartered strawberries or whole raspberries 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil a small bunch of basil (25g), leaves picked • Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6. • Tear the bread into large chunks and scatter on a baking tray. • Toast in the oven for 3-5 minutes until crisp and lightly golden, turning once. Remove and allow to cool. • Pick the ripest 2 tomatoes (fairly soft is fine) and squish them in your hands into a sieve set over a large bowl. • Using the…

Scenic Scotland tour Traverse the historic railway line from Glasgow to Oban, explore scenic islands and visit Inveraray Castle. 4 nights from £995pp half board. 01334-766131, brightwaterholidays.com. Arrive 28 July. Explore southern Italy A 7-night tour of Basilicata and Puglia visiting trulli houses and cave dwellings costs from £1,529pp half board, including London flights. 01858-415128, travelsphere.co.uk. Arrive 2 September. Vineyards of France Experience Chinon, a medieval town surrounded by vineyards, and stay in a mansion. 7 nights from £1,475pp, London trains included. 01707-818741, ramblersholidays.co.uk. Arrive 16 August. Warwickshire getaway Stay at the Charlecote Pheasant Hotel near Shakespeare country. 2 nights from £165pp b&b with one complimentary dinner. 01905-792801, greatlittlebreaks.com. Arrive 26 August. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing and quarantine requirements, and the rules surrounding children (gov.uk).…

Eurozone debt crisis: the sequel Nouriel Roubini The Financial Times Ten years on from the eurozone debt crisis, “faultlines” in the single currency bloc are resurfacing, says Nouriel Roubini. Yields payable on Italian bonds have surged from below 1% in January to above 4% in recent days – and the “spread” between ten-year Italian bonds and their German equivalents has surged well above two percentage points. As the European Central Bank unwinds its pandemic stimulus and raises interest rates, bond markets are anticipating “fragmentation risk”: the fear that tighter monetary policy will have vastly different effects across the 19 eurozone nations, and may destabilise the single currency. They also fear that an economic “hard landing”, involving recession and rising unemployment, will have disastrous effects on government finances, especially in high-indebted…