Table of contents for 1409 in The Week

What happened More than 120 world leaders gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh this week, as the UN’s Cop27 climate summit got under way against a backdrop of sombre reports suggesting that it may be too late to prevent catastrophic global warming. Rishi Sunak, France’s President Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz were among those to address delegates at the 13-day summit. Joe Biden was also due to attend; but China’s President Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were set to miss the conference. In a speech on Monday – his first on the international stage – Sunak said the war in Ukraine was a reason to “act faster” on renewables to improve energy security. Tackling climate change is both a moral responsibility and an economic necessity, he said. Negotiations…

“After John Profumo’s very public disgrace,” said Tom Peck in The Independent, “he spent the next 40 years of his life quietly seeking atonement through unpaid work for a community charity in the east end of London.” Matt Hancock has chosen a different path: “public degradation” by reality TV. The former health secretary – who resigned last year after he was caught canoodling with his adviser Gina Coladangelo, in defiance of his own lockdown rules – travelled to Australia last week to take part in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! He can now expect to endure various ordeals for our entertainment: crawling through slime-filled tunnels, sharing confined spaces with snakes, eating revolting things. Not everyone was thrilled by his departure for Oz, said Tim Stanley in The…

Paris Fresh face: A 27-year-old from the Paris banlieues has been named the new leader of France’s National Rally (RN) party, replacing Marine Le Pen and bringing to an end her family’s 50-year grip on the party leadership. Jordan Bardella won 85% of members’ votes, beating party heavyweight Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan. Le Pen is standing down to focus on leading her party in parliament, where it has recently won a record 89 seats, robbing Emmanuel Macron of his parliamentary majority. The handover comes at a time when one of the RN’s MPs has just been suspended for an alleged racist outburst. Catalonia, Spain Airspace closed: Spain’s air navigation authority briefly closed down a swathe of the country’s airspace last Friday, in response to a warning from the…

1 I’m the Greatest Star by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, performed by Barbra Streisand 2* When I Fall in Love by Victor Young and Edward Heyman, performed by Nat King Cole 3 When a Man Loves a Woman by Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright, performed by Percy Sledge 4 Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart, performed by Eurythmics 5 No. 4 Largo in E Minor (from 24 Préludes, Op. 28) by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Ivo Pogoreli? 6 Please Forgive Me, written and performed by Patrick Doyle 7 Fields of Gold by Sting, performed by Eva Cassidy 8 Don’t Rain on My Parade by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, performed by Barbra Streisand Book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Luxury: a piano * Choice if allowed only one record…

No curse has ever been found in Tutankhamun’s tomb; actual curses are quite rare in ancient Egyptian tombs. But in 1923, the popular novelist Marie Corelli publicly predicted that “the most dire punishment” would follow any “rash intruder into a sealed tomb”. Two weeks later, Lord Carnarvon died suddenly – he caught a streptococcal infection after cutting a mosquito bite while shaving – setting off a flood of speculation. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of one of the earliest stories about a murderous mummy, suggested that “an evil elemental” could have caused his death. The legend of the curse was born. And unexpected deaths in the following years among members of Carter’s team, one apparently by arsenic poisoning, another smothered in his bed, kept the story alive. Mussolini had a mummy…

Since the start of the pandemic, 230 people a week, on average, have died needlessly of heart disease owing to the disruption to heart care, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) estimates. The charity’s analysis reveals that in England, there have been 30,000 excess deaths associated with heart-disease patients since early 2020, something it said was likely down to long waits for diagnosis and treatments, as well as a collapse in ambulance response times and gridlock in A&E departments. NHS data show that heart attack and stroke patients are waiting 48 minutes on average for an ambulance, well above the 18-minute target. The BHF says that owing to backlogs in the NHS, some 350,000 patients are waiting for cardiac care, up 50% from before the pandemic. It also warns that many…

John Atkinson, a 28-year-old care worker, was walking through the foyer of Manchester Arena at 10.31pm on 22 May 2017 when an Islamic State sympathiser named Salman Abedi detonated a suicide bomb. Atkinson suffered severe leg injuries, but remained conscious and talking. Indeed, according to the newly published findings of the public inquiry into the bombing at the Ariana Grande concert, in which 22 people were killed, he would very likely have survived – were it not for the inept, slow and poorly coordinated response by Greater Manchester’s police, fire and ambulance services. Outrageously, said Jack Hardy in The Daily Telegraph, Atkinson was not treated or even assessed by a paramedic for 47 minutes after the attack: an untrained member of the public tied a tourniquet around his leg, and…

Ben Stokes has always been a cricketer who relishes a “high-octane situation”, said Tim Wigmore in The Sunday Telegraph. And last Saturday, he showed that this is true in whatever form of the game he plays. England’s Test captain has a surprisingly poor record in T20 cricket – and this continued in the early stages of the T20 World Cup, with the all-rounder contributing little of note in England’s opening three games. But typically, the 31-year-old rose to the occasion just when his side most desperately needed him. With England needing to beat Sri Lanka in their final group game to progress to the semi-finals, Stokes’s “chanceless undefeated 42” guided them to a nervy four-wicket victory. This wasn’t the Stokes of the 2019 World Cup final, smashing the ball to…

Tennis Denmark’s Holger Rune, 19, was the surprise winner of the Paris Masters. Rugby union England’s women’s team reached the final of the World Cup for the first time with a 26-19 victory over Canada. They face New Zealand in the final. Motorsport Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia won the MotoGP title – becoming the first Italian to clinch the title on an Italian bike since Giacomo Agostini in 1972. Gymnastics Jessica Gadirova, 18, won an all-round bronze, a team silver, and a gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool.…

Fisherman’s Friends could be described as the ultimate “buoy-band”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph – a group of grizzled Cornish fishermen who miraculously netted a £1m record deal and stormed the charts in 2010 with an album of time-honoured sea shanties. Their heartwarming story provided the basis for a film in 2019. Now, it has been turned into a charming if lightweight stage musical – and if you like sea shanties, you are very likely to love it. The show includes enough of them (almost 30) “to sink a battleship”, and it has a supersized cast of 25 actors and musicians too. “When it’s all hands on deck, it’s quite a sight to behold: the replica quayside set more bustling than St Ives at tourist season high-tide.” What…

“Hang on to your orbs and prepare once more for the spectre of the poisoned sceptre,” said Jan Moir in the Daily Mail: “The Crown is back.” Starring a whole new cast, the fifth season of the Netflix hit covers the years 1992 to 1997; and though the show seems determined to depict the Windsors “as the most appalling family in the history of history”, I must admit I loved every minute. Elizabeth Debicki “burns up every scene” as Diana, nailing not only her voice and mannerisms but also “something of her eldritch blend of strength and fragility”. And she is well-matched by Dominic West, who is a great, and quite “hot”, Charles. Imelda Staunton’s “late life Queen”, meanwhile, is envisaged “as a kind of seaside landlady” who “worries about…

Girl with a Flute (c.1665) has caused something of “a transatlantic standoff”, said Daniel Boffey in The Guardian. The painting is traditionally attributed to Johannes Vermeer, but that has sometimes been disputed. It is owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which last month concluded that it was not authentic, after conducting microscopic pigment analysis that pointed to it being a good imitation of a work by the 17th century Dutch master. However, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is “having none of it”. Girl with a Flute will feature in its Vermeer show next year, which is billed as the biggest-ever exhibition of his work. “Leaning on its arguably even more expansive research”, it will label the painting as one of 35 or 36 surviving Vermeers. “We differ in…

David and Ruth react differently to Ben’s revelation. Hiding in her room, Chelsea is scared about the abortion; Ruth calls Tracy to offer support. Ben and David struggle to talk about the situation. At home after the procedure, Tracy comforts Chelsea and tells her she has a promising future. Elizabeth welcomes Vince home from a work trip. Beth finds Ben at home when she goes to get her things from the cottage – she’s angry and hurt, but he insists she’s better off without him. When Vince learns what has happened from a distraught Beth, he storms over to Ben’s, who hides inside. Beth and Elizabeth are furious at his macho posturing. Natasha bumps into Chelsea and invites her to April Cottage for some bonding time. Vince confronts Ben in…

• Don’t arrive more than two or three hours before an international flight, you’ll only get bored. Flightrader24.com is a useful site to track your inbound aircraft. • Aim to fly when business people don’t – midweek and on Sundays – when airports are quietest and flights cheapest. The earliest flights are less likely to be delayed. • Get the ExpertFlyer app, to see the seat allocations on any flight. If you spot a seat with extra legroom that’s not booked, you can ask the cabin crew to swap. • Pay for a nice seat. You’ll have a much nicer flight. If you have a companion, book the aisle and window. You can always swap if someone books the middle seat, but you might get the row to yourselves. Avoid…

Peter de Savary 1944-2022 Peter de Savary, who has died aged 78, was a rumbustious, cigar-chomping businessman – “an opportunist, an enthusiast, a little bit of a gypsy” in his own words. A serial entrepreneur, he was worth an estimated £100m by the time he hit his early-40s; he lost a fortune in the 1990s; and was back in the rich lists by the 2000s. The full extent of his wealth was never clear, said The Times, owing to his assets being concealed within a web of companies. But with his focus largely on real estate and hotel resorts, he owned, at various times, both Land’s End and John O’Groats, Skibo and Bovey Castles, Southampton Airport, the casino Aspinalls, and a stake in Millwall FC. To the wider public, however,…

Simpson’s Tavern “Having weathered everything that has been thrown at London since 1757” – from cholera, to the Blitz, to postwar planning – the City’s “oldest chophouse”, Simpson’s Tavern, is now threatened with the chop, said Daniel Capurro in The Daily Telegraph. According to general manager Benjamin Duggan, the restaurant’s owners have been “locked out” of the premises since mid-October due to a dispute over rent arrears incurred during the pandemic. The money is owed to Tavor Holdings: an opaque holding company based in Bermuda that reportedly belongs to the family of the South African energy drinks billionaire Rodney Sacks. Duggan insists the business (now more than £380,000 in the red) is “solvent” and capable of paying back the arrears if a payment plan can be negotiated. Just not “all…

What happened The Bank of England warned last week that Britain is facing its longest recession in a century. The statement came as the Bank raised interest rates by 0.75 points to 3%, its largest hike since 1992. The Bank’s Governor, Andrew Bailey, said that urgent action was necessary to tackle inflation, which stands at a 40-year high of 10.1%, due in part to high energy prices and a tight labour market. “If we do not act forcefully now, it will be worse later on,” he said. Bailey also warned that the downturn, predicted to last two years, would see unemployment rise to 6.4%, equivalent to 500,000 more people being made jobless. Heated debate continued over how the Government should fill the gap of around £60bn in the UK’s public…

An ex-RAF helicopter pilot who used to scatter the remains of ex-servicemen at sea is now offering people the chance to have their relatives’ ashes scattered from the air by drone. Christopher Mace told The Daily Telegraph that he has already carried out almost 50 ash “releases”, many of them over hard-to-access coastal areas. The service is available via Co-op Funeralcare. Spectators at an environmentally friendly bonfire night celebration in south London were disappointed when the image of the burning log pile was replaced for several minutes by a Windows error message. One spectator said that he understood why the fire was digital, but the interruption did “slightly spoil the magic for the kids”.…

Washington, DC Midterms: The race for control of the US congress was hanging in the balance this week, after the Democrats performed better than expected in Tuesday’s midterm elections. With counting continuing as The Week went to press, the Republicans seemed likely to win back control of the lower House of Representatives, as expected, though the predicted “red wave” did not materialise. The senate race looked too close to call, but early on Wednesday Democrat hopes received a major boost when John Fetterman (above) was declared the winner of the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, six months after suffering a near-fatal stroke. Donald Trump dropped a series of hints that he plans to run again for the presidency. He told supporters in Iowa that he would “very, very, very probably”…

“Elon Musk says he bought Twitter because civilisation needs ‘a common digital town square’ where ‘a wide range of beliefs can be debated’. This is a fallacy. In fact, it is in the exposure to the lunacies of our fellow citizens that the danger of social media lies. It offers conservatives infinite opportunities to become infuriated by poly-gendered humanities PhD students with whom they would never otherwise come into contact. To liberals it provides platoons of racist and misogynistic trolls who confirm all their worst suspicions. After all, who says a town square is a nice place to be? The town squares of our ancestors were places of public humiliation and punishment.” James Marriott in The Times…

The perils that lurk in working from home Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph Put it down to the state of the global economy if you like, says Matthew Lynn, but the real reason “Elon Musk is handing out P45s at Twitter like confetti”, and Facebook, WhatsApp and Google are laying off staff in droves, lies elsewhere. It’s the direct result of working from home. Evangelists for WFH saw it as a route to greater productivity and a better work-life balance. What they didn’t say, was that once you start working from home or from a beach somewhere, you become “largely invisible” to your managers, who start asking themselves what you do all day and whether your work is necessary at all. More important still, they failed to note that “if…

Whales eat tonnes of plastic Filter-feeding whales are consuming millions of particles of microplastic every day – amounting to between 230kg and four tonnes in a three- to four-month feeding season, scientists have estimated. The data were derived from studies off the coast of California, and gave a central estimate for blue whales of ten million particles per day; whales in far more polluted areas, such as the southern Mediterranean, and the waters around southeast Asia, could be consuming even more than that – perhaps as many as 150 million particles a day, says the report. The researchers said they were surprised by the sheer quantity of plastic being ingested by the whales (almost entirely via the fish and krill they eat) and said it was likely to have an…

“It took me until I went to university to realise that I had an accent at all,” said Harriet Williamson in The Independent. “I’m proud of my accent now” – a “delightful mashup” of South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire – but as a student I was often mocked and mimicked by well-off southerners. New research on “accent bias” from the Sutton Trust suggests that my experience was far from unusual. It found that 47% of university students and 46% of adults have been singled out or mocked for their accents in social settings. The study shows that people are still judged according to a “hierarchy of accent prestige” that has existed in Britain for many years, and that remains very much in place today: BBC English, or Received Pronunciation (RP) is…

In just under ten months, the 2023 Rugby World Cup kicks off at the Stade de France, said Gerard Meagher in The Guardian. And at present, there’s little evidence to suggest England will be among the leading contenders. Last Sunday at Twickenham, their internationals campaign got off to a dispiriting start with a 30-29 defeat to Argentina, the side they will face in their opening match in France. England put on an error-strewn display, and deserved to lose to a side galvanised by their outstanding winger, Emiliano Boffelli, who alone contributed 25 points. With both New Zealand and South Africa due to visit Twickenham in the coming weeks, “it could be a long November ahead” for Eddie Jones’s men. England have only ever lost once to Los Pumas at home,…

Left-wing Trussonomics To The Guardian Larry Elliott rightly sees the current panic about a “black hole” in public funding as demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of public economics. As he points out, the widespread use of state money creation (quantitative easing) after the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the Covid pandemic fundamentally challenges the fairytale that the public sector is totally dependent on private funding. QE also challenges the assumption that public “money printing” automatically leads to inflation. The current inflationary spike comes from non-monetary factors: the Ukraine War and Covid. The problem with Trussonomics was that it looked to the wrong agent of growth: trickle-down from the rich, rather than public investment. If there is a black hole that sucks in all the monetary energy, it is the gross accumulation…

Hutchinson Heinemann 1168pp £35 The Week Bookshop £27.99 (incl. p&p) The American-born socialite and Tory MP Henry “Chips” Channon (1897-1958) may have been a “deeply flawed” human being, said Caroline McWilliams in The Critic. But he “knew everyone, went everywhere and had an opinion on everything” – qualities that made him an outstanding diarist. In this third and final instalment of his unexpurgated journals, his company proves as riveting as ever. The volume begins in 1943, with Channon recently separated from his wife, Lady Honor Guinness. Although there’s a war on, Channon lives in “splendour in a magnificent mansion in Belgrave Square”, said Jane Ridley in The Daily Telegraph. He “spends his mornings in bed, gossiping and plotting”, and attends endless parties. He also writes in greater detail than before…

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre, 2018 (Penguin £9.99). An “off-the-charts” thrilling and unbelievably scary account of the recruitment by MI6 of the KGB insider Oleg Gordievsky, and his escape from Russia. My spy friends say it’s alarmingly accurate. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, 2020 (Vintage £10.99). I’m a committed wild-mushroom forager and busy every autumn picking cepes, parasols, chanterelles and sometimes cauliflower fungus. This book describes the critical role that fungi play in shaping our world and in supporting nearly every living system while displaying jaw-dropping intelligence and resilience. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox, 2002 (HarperCollins £9.99). This is a superb biography of the brilliant and pioneering scientist and experimentalist. She only spent two years of her 16-year academic career working on…

Programmes The People’s Piazza: A History of Covent Garden Historian David Olusoga delves into the tumultuous 400-year history of one of London’s best-known public spaces. Sun 13 Nov, BBC2 21:00 (90mins). Hong Kong’s Fight for Freedom This two-part documentary tells the story of four activists who were drawn into the anti-government protests in Hong Kong. Mon 14 Nov, BBC2 21:30 (60mins). Imagine… Douglas Stuart: Love, Hope and Grit The Booker Prize-winner talks to Alan Yentob about reconciling his troubled childhood in Glasgow with his success in New York’s fashion world. Mon 14 Nov, BBC1 22:40 (60mins). 1966: Who Stole the World Cup? The whodunnit story of the theft of the World Cup – the people behind it and the dog who retrieved it. Mon 14 Nov, C4 22:00 (65mins). Oti…

Serving wine from big bottles may seem a counterintuitive idea at a time when many people are trying to cut down on alcohol, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. But some occasions really do call for magnums: set down two or three “on a long dining table and they will exude an air of celebration and generosity” that standard-size bottles can never match. But which offer the best value? One of the most reasonable I’ve found is Sagesse Rouge Pays d’Oc 2020, France (£22; Private Cellar), a blend of merlot and cabernet sauvignon with a dash of petit verdot. It’s a wine that will go down nicely at a wedding. Also recommended is Badilante, Podere 414 2020 (£27; Private Cellar). Made in Tuscany, this 100% sangiovese red “tastes of…

Noom uses the latest in behavioural science to help create healthy habits, with daily bite-sized lessons and practical pointers. There’s the option to have one-on-one coaching, and subscribers can access peer support groups. There are tracking tools for food and drink intake and step count, and even SOS plans to keep you motivated (from £50/month). The WW app uses a points system for losing weight, with foods and drinks scored according to nutritional value and calorie content. Users have an individual food plan and a daily points allowance. There are weekly check-ins, live coaching and tracking for points and weight, and logs for sleep and activity (from £16.95/month). Easy to use and navigate, Able offers a personalised approach to weight loss, without the focus on calorie counting. A health coach…

A sailing holiday in Italy Rising up from the Mediterranean off the coast of Lazio in Italy, the Pontine Islands have a harsh, “otherworldly” beauty that is still untouched by mass tourism, says Marianna Giusti in the FT. You can reach them by ferry from various mainland ports – but a trip with a sailing club such as Vivere in barca a vela might prove more fun, and is suitable even for novice yachtsmen. From the mainland port of Nettuno, an hour or so south of Rome, you sail first for Ponza, the main island, whose “near-lunar” landscape figures large in Fellini’s “outlandish” 1969 film Satyricon. There’s fabulous snorkelling to enjoy around its “gargantuan” cliffs. Next comes Ventotene, a place of exile since Roman times, and then – most magical…

Is a small shop in Camden, north London, “at the forefront of a revolution in consumption”, asked Sarah Butler in The Guardian. The Fixing Factory has become a mecca for local residents “seeking to give their gadgets a second life” and prevent more “e-waste” from entering landfill. Its mission is to resurrect everything from radios and toasters to juicers. Similar outlets are springing up around the country as the “mending movement” gathers steam. The biggest hurdle is that many modern gadgets, built for obsolescence, are often “sealed” shut, says Fixing Factory’s manager Dermot Jones. “It’s a challenge getting in sometimes.”…

How quickly fortunes can change in the “often shaky” crypto world, said the FT. Earlier this summer, FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried emerged “as an industry saviour”, stepping in to rescue the ailing crypto lender BlockFi and broker Voyager Digital. Now, he is himself the subject of a rescue – and an ignominious one at that. After days of swirling rumours about a “liquidity crunch” at FTX, arch rival Binance has stepped in to acquire it, saving it from collapse. The bailout of one of the world’s largest cryptoexchanges by its chief competitor “reverberated across the industry”. Bitcoin fell by as much as 17%; smaller coins faced even steeper falls. The US cryptoexchange Coinbase dropped by about 14%. The shock was all the greater because FTX – valued at a whopping…

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares City of London Investment Trust The Times The trust picks stocks it hopes will deliver a 10%-30% higher yield than the FTSE All-Share, generating inflation-beating dividend growth. Decent revenue reserves are reassuring – prospects look secure. Buy. 389.5p. SRT Marine Systems The Mail on Sunday SRT’s sophisticated maritime surveillance systems are used to protect territorial waters, and to monitor fishing quotas for sustainability. Sales and profits expected to soar. One for the adventurous. Buy. 37p. IMI The Daily Telegraph This specialist engineer majors on valves used in a range of industries, from fertiliser spraying systems to reducing vehicle emissions. Solid finances should enable expansion into new growth areas. Buy. £12.90. Spectris The Daily Telegraph Spectris’s hi-tech precision instruments and software help businesses improve…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1337 An Ettinger pass holder 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 21 November. Send it to The Week Crossword 1337, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass holder in assorted colours, which retails at £115, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 6 Training that has impact? It’s bound to lead to conflict (9,6) 9 Jack missing shake from milk supplier (5) 10 Audit partner gets defeat on the board (9) 11 TV comedienne mad about touring ME country (7) 13 Receivers see you after onset of…

Across France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and the UK, one in four people describe their financial position as “precarious”. 54% say their purchasing power has fallen in the past three years. The hardest-hit country is Greece, where 68% say their spending power has fallen, followed by France (63%), Italy (57%), Germany (54%), the UK (47%) and Poland (38%). Ipsos/Secours populaire One in five 18- to 24-year-olds have a positive view of Churchill, compared with 58% of over-65s. People Polling/Policy Exchange 73% of 11- to 18-year-olds say they spend most of their free time on screens. 19% spend most of it alone. YouGov/OnSide…

An ad man’s enduring love Maurice Saatchi’s wife, the novelist Josephine Hart, died of cancer 11 years ago, says Alice Thomson in The Times. The former advertising guru has been told it’s time to move on; but to him, that would feel like a betrayal. So he has filled the home that he and Hart shared for 27 years with mementos of their life together. Her hats still line the hall, with her boots and umbrella; he has stocked a library with the poetry she loved; in her perfectly preserved study, a 20ft wall is covered in the Post-it notes she left him on an almost daily basis. “I still talk to Josephine all the time,” he says. “There’s only one problem – total silence, and I can’t fill in…

Villagers in Rossington, South Yorkshire, have been left “petrified” by a dive-bombing jackdaw known locally as Derek. One resident claimed the bird had forced workers to flee indoors after it had “ambushed” them, spreading “absolute terror”. Another described Derek as “pure evil”, and said he’d been forced to intervene when he saw the bird attacking a boy on the street. Not everyone regards Derek as a menace, however: a Facebook page has been set up to honour the bird, and some residents have claimed Derek simply wants “a bag of crisps” and some company. The supermodel Heidi Klum caused a stir on social media last week when photos emerged of her dressed as a worm. Klum told The Hollywood Reporter she’d wanted to wear “something different” for Halloween, but admitted…

ITALY Meloni’s ministers bare their fangs La Repubblica (Rome) Italy’s new far-right government, led by Giorgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy, has been quick to show its authoritarian face, says Carlo Bonini. Just days after taking office, it has announced tough new punishments for promoters of illegal raves, provoked by a three-day Halloween party held in an abandoned warehouse near Modena. The “invasion of land or buildings” for gatherings deemed “dangerous for public order, safety or health” can now be punished by jail terms of up to six years. Ministers considered the matter so urgent that they rushed through the law by decree. But it’s so vaguely worded that it could apply to almost any gathering of more than 50 people. Police might use it to crack down on,…

When Liz Truss became justice secretary in 2016, she was appalled by the drabness of her office, say Harry Cole and James Heale in their new biography of the former PM. “I need art,” Truss apparently told her civil servants. They asked what sort of art she’d like. “I don’t have time for this,” she snapped. “Just get me some art.” An underling was duly sent off to raid the government art collection. But when the selection of works was presented to Truss, she was silent. “Do you like it?” an official asked. “No,” she said. He asked if she would like it changed. “Just stick it on the wall,” she sighed, before waving him off. The TV presenter Gabby Logan has revealed that when she was pregnant some years…

“Sciences provide an understanding of a universal experience; art is a universal understanding of a personal experience.”Astronaut Mae Jemison, quoted in a letter to The Independent “If we could be twice young and twice old we could correct all our mistakes.”Euripides, quoted in Forbes “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”Charles Mackay, quoted in Yes! “If we want the rewards of being loved we must submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”Writer Tim Kreider, quoted in the Irish Examiner “Almost all men are intelligent. It is method that they lack.”F.W. Nichol, quoted in Forbes “A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”Michael Pollan, quoted in The New…

To The Times Although there are no quick fixes for a health system struggling to recover from the pandemic, there are two areas where the NHS could support exhausted staff and retain funds desperately needed for patient care. The legislation under which doctors are regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC) is desperately in need of modernisation. We see first-hand the extreme stress experienced by doctors undergoing an investigation. All healthcare professionals deserve a regulatory system that is compassionate, timely and fair. The Government must also get to grips with runaway clinical negligence costs. The money needed to settle future claims against the NHS in England is estimated at £128bn. To put this in context, the total budget for the NHS in 2022-23 is expected to be £155bn. This unsustainable…

Fig Tree 288pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 India Knight’s new book is a “contemporary reimagining” of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, said Christina Patterson in The Sunday Times. Updating “such a beloved novel” certainly isn’t easy – but Knight has pulled off the task with aplomb. In her version, the four Radlett children – Linda, Louisa, Jassy and Robin – are not the progeny of an English lord, but of an ageing and reclusive rock star. Desperate to protect his children from “modern life”, he has purchased a “vast Norfolk estate” – and it’s there that we first encounter Linda and her siblings, through the eyes of their cousin Franny. The narrative tracks their passage to adulthood, and their romantic entanglements – centred on “Linda’s pursuit of love”.…

Edward Burtynsky at Flowers Gallery Since the 1980s, the photographer Edward Burtynsky (b.1955) has been documenting mankind’s deleterious impact on the Earth in a body of work that is as aesthetically ravishing as it is sobering. Burtynsky’s preferred form is the aerial photograph, composed through painstakingly complex processes and presented on a vast scale. He has worked around the globe: for instance, capturing agro-industrial sites in Andalusia, oilfields in Azerbaijan and gargantuan cattle ranches in the US. This show, African Studies, brings together recent pictures created in Africa, and the results are among his most visually arresting pieces to date. A pockmarked panorama of vast salt ponds in Senegal takes on the quality of a Yayoi Kusama painting, while a salt works in Namibia resembles a suppurating pink wound. Most…

Aroma Buffet West 12 Shopping Centre, Shepherd’s Bush, London W12 (020-8746 7625) All-you-can-eat-buffets are easy to sneer at, says Grace Dent in The Guardian – but when restaurant prices are rocketing to “grimly comedic levels”, they start to seem more appealing. At the pan-Asian Aroma Buffet in west London, lunch will set you back £15 – which is “less than a side of boujie patatas bravas” at a restaurant in Bloomsbury I visited recently. Located “up an escalator” in a shopping mall overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green, this place won’t win prizes for glamour. But with about 70 dishes to choose from at lunchtime, and even more in the evening, “I think even a food snob” could find “something they really liked”. Alongside the usual “Cantonese-style crowdpleasers” are West Sumatran rendangs,…

Brazil’s spectacular capital Make Hilton’s Copacabana hotel your base while exploring Rio’s liveliest district. 7 nights cost from £1,687pp self-catered (incl. London flights). 0344-493 0787, britishairways.com. Depart 20 January. Lush Lanzarote Playa Blanca is the newest resort on the Canary island, and a 7-night stay at the hotel Iberostar costs from £900pp b&b (incl. Newcastle flights). 020-3170 8206, jet2holidays.com. Depart 10 February. Christmas in Dresden Embrace seasonal festivities at the Hyperion Hotel, close to Dresden’s longest-running winter market. A 2-night stay costs from £139pp, room only. 020-3788 0445, expedia.co.uk. Arrive 12 December. Caribbean getaway Escape to the All Seasons Resort Europa in St. James, Barbados. Stay 7 nights from £1,347 self-catering (incl. London flights). 0344-472 9646, virginholidays.co.uk. Depart 28 March. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing and quarantine requirements,…

Counting the cost of avian flu Lex Financial Times British chicken prices, measured by the retail price index, rose by 21% in the year to September – outstripping the 14% rise for all food groups. The reason isn’t hard to find, says Lex. Last week, the country’s chief veterinarian ordered all commercial poultry to be confined indoors in a bid to halt the rampant spread of avian flu, which is “cutting through bird populations in 37 countries”. Millions of commercial chickens and turkeys have already been culled this year in a pandemic that “has not received enough attention” – until now, when spiralling prices and fears of a Christmas fowl shortage have grabbed the attention of consumers. It may mean “relaxing marketing rules” so that frozen turkeys “can be sold…