Table of contents for 1420 in The Week

What happened Rishi Sunak faced renewed accusations of Tory sleaze this week as two separate ethics rows engulfed his party. The first involved Tory party chair Nadhim Zahawi, who is under pressure to resign after admitting that he had to settle a dispute with HMRC over unpaid tax during his stint as chancellor last year. According to reports, the settlement required him to hand over a sum close to £5m, which included a £1m penalty. Zahawi described the late tax payment, which was related to his shareholding in YouGov, the polling company he co-founded, as a “careless and not deliberate” error. Labour called for him to publish his correspondence with HMRC. On Monday, Sunak asked his ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, to look into Zahawi’s tax affairs, saying there were…

It was “the biggest setback for LGBT+ rights” since Margaret Thatcher’s time, said Iain Anderson in The Independent. Last week, the UK Government blocked Scotland’s new Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR) by invoking Section 35 of the Scotland Act. The GRR would allow trans men and women in Scotland to self-certify: to legally define their gender, without “years of arduous medical consultations and dehumanising bureaucratic hoops”; it would also lower the age for certification from the UK standard of 18 to 16. It had been passed “resoundingly” in the Scottish Parliament, by 86 to 39 MSPs, after intensive public scrutiny and 36 hours of debate in Holyrood. Ireland passed similar laws in 2015, “with no adverse consequences”, as have Canada, Argentina, New Zealand, Norway and Malta. Yet in Scotland, thanks…

Electric car drivers, after the AA warned that at peak times, it can cost more to charge the vehicles than it does to fill up a petrol car. Owing to rising energy prices, it now costs 16.18 pence a mile to power a small electric car, compared to 14.45 pence for a petrol equivalent. These figures apply to slow chargers; the rapid ones favoured by drivers on long journeys cost even more than that. Winchester College, after teachers at the school, which charges boarding fees of £45,936 a year, voted to join in strike action in demand of better pay. Life on Earth, as the Doomsday Clock edged closer to midnight than it has ever been. Announcing the ten-second shift, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited Russia’s “thinly veiled…

Paris Pensions protest: More than a million people took to the streets of towns and cities across France last Friday, to protest against President Macron’s flagship pension reforms. This would see the state pension age rise by two years, to 64, by 2030. Unions fiercely oppose the move, and had organised strikes that brought swathes of the transport system to a near standstill, and forced the closure of many primary schools. The biggest rally, attended by some 80,000 people, was in Paris. It passed off fairly peacefully, with just 20 arrests, but there were reports that one man had to have a testicle removed after being struck in the groin by police. Madrid Gang bust: Police in Spain have broken up a gang that is suspected of running three illegal…

1 Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), traditional, arranged by Harry Belafonte, William Attaway and Lord Burgess, performed by Harry Belafonte2 The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon, performed by Simon & Garfunkel3 Going Up the Country by Alan Wilson, performed by Canned Heat4 Cheek to Cheek by Irving Berlin, performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong5 Shady Grove, traditional, arranged and performed by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman6 California, written and performed by Joni Mitchell7 Tomorrow Never Knows by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles8* Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008: I. Prélude by Johann Sebatian Bach, performed by Yo-Yo Ma Book: Ulysses by James Joyce Luxury: dark chocolate * Choice if allowed only one record…

Skiing is an ancient activity: the oldest known skis, found in Russia, are at least 8,000 years old. The Vikings used skis – the word is old Norse – and in Norse mythology, the god Ullr and the goddess Skadi are depicted as hunting on skis. Scandinavian armies used them regularly from the medieval period onwards. Skiing as a sport, however, emerged in the mid-19th century after the Norwegian Sondre Norheim developed curved skis and revolutionised bindings by tying birch roots around his boots, allowing modern downhill skiing, with its characteristic speed and turns. Fridtjof Nansen’s crossing of Greenland on skis in 1888 also inspired many, such as the Austrian Mathias Zdarsky, known as the “father of Alpine skiing”. That year, an Englishman, Colonel Napier, started a vogue for skiing…

The cholesterol-lowering drugs statins should be available to millions more people, according to new draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). GPs normally offer the pills to patients with an estimated 20% or greater risk of a heart attack or stroke within ten years, based on their blood cholesterol level, blood pressure and BMI – around ten million people. The new advice is that there should be an option for those with an even smaller risk, believed to be equivalent to around 15 million people. “The evidence is clear, in our view, that for people with a risk of 10% or less over ten years, statins are an appropriate choice to reduce that risk,” said Dr Paul Chrisp, of the Centre for Guidelines at Nice.…

What links North Somerset, the Malvern Hills, Rutland, and Richmondshire in North Yorkshire? All are affluent areas with low levels of deprivation, said The Times. All have Tory MPs (Rishi Sunak, in the case of Richmondshire). And all were awarded large sums last week from the £2.1bn second tranche of the Government’s “levelling up” fund. Overall, the Southeast got £210m for ten projects, including £45m for Dover to improve post-Brexit traffic flow; £20m for Farnborough to tackle obesity; and £19.9m to reopen Canterbury Castle. By comparison, Yorkshire and the Humber got £120m for six schemes, including improved transport links in West Yorkshire and an overhaul of Cleethorpes’s seafront. Some “red wall” Tories – MPs elected in traditional Labour heartlands in 2019 – were “apoplectic” at the perceived imbalance, said Geraldine…

“It is often easier to fight for a principle than to live up to it.”Adlai Stevenson, quoted in Forbes “It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.”Niccolo Machiavelli, quoted in The Knowledge “He who speaks little will live a hundred years.”Sicilian proverb, quoted in The Guardian “There is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”Zora Neale Hurston, quoted in the Ponca City News “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”Sun Tzu, quoted in The i Paper “Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice.”Cormac McCarthy, quoted on LitHub “I long for a day of judgement when the plotlines of our lives will be neatly…

To The Guardian As someone who has been fighting the cancer of police sexual misconduct for more than two decades, I am increasingly frustrated by the tone of the debate. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is only marginally to do with vetting and recruitment. The core issue is the parlous state of leadership in the police service. Until the late 1990s, there was a specific offence of “failing to supervise”, which carried the ultimate sanction of dismissal. The reintroduction of such an offence would have a profound effect, once a few sergeants, inspectors, superintendents and, dare I say, chief constables were shown the door for failing to deal with offenders in their ranks. David Gilbertson, former deputy assistant commissioner, Metropolitan Police To The Times I joined the…

by Joe Thomas Arcadia 400pp £18.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 This novel is an “admirable attempt” to capture an “ugly period of recent British history”, said Colin Grant in The Guardian. The plot is “propulsive”, and there are other good things: the “foreboding atmosphere around anti-fascist marches”; Thatcher’s “quirkily comic dialogue with her husband Denis”. But White Riot is let down by thin characters and clunky dialogue. It’s “painted with broad brushstrokes”; it “could have done with another coat”. Joe Thomas’s “enthralling” thriller is set in east London during the late 1970s and early 1980s, said John Dugdale in The Sunday Times. The period was marked by simmering tensions between the National Front – who’d patrol Brick Lane every Sunday morning – and minority communities and their supporters. Clearly a…

The van Dyck found in a shed “An oil painting splattered with bird droppings found in a shed in upstate New York” went on sale at Sotheby’s this week, says Will Pavia in The Times. It was expected to fetch up to $3m (£2.5m) after it was identified as a rare “live study” by Anthony van Dyck, once the court artist to Charles I. The painting, in which an old bearded man is seated nude, was discovered in Kinderhook, a small town founded by Dutch settlers in the late 17th century. Albert Roberts, a “part-time collector and treasure hunter”, suspected it was a Dutch work and bought it for $600 in 2002. After some years, he began to suspect that it was a study for van Dyck’s Saint Jerome with…

Chelsea urges Brad to meet up with Paige, the girl from his maths course. With Rex’s heating broken, Kate offers him a room at Jakob’s cottage, where they find Erik and Kirsty. Later, Rex is worried as Erik spills wine on Jakob’s floor. Brad is anxious about his date but reports that it went well and he really likes her. Later he gets a text saying Paige isn’t interested – Chelsea comforts her distressed brother. Stella tries to convince Brian to buy new farm equipment, to no avail. At the shop, Justin coaches Jim in the art of up-selling. Lee finds out that his ex is moving to California with his daughters – shocked and angry, he says he’ll deny his consent. Rex and Erik talk about their respective brothers.…

Tomato, bean and pasta soup Serves 4 1 tbsp sunflower oil 1 onion, diced 1 carrot, peeled and diced 1 celery stick, diced 2 stalks of cavolo nero, roughly chopped, tough stems discarded 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tsp dried oregano ½ tsp dried mixed herbs 1 x 400g can of good-quality chopped tomatoes 1 litre of hot vegetable stock 80g small dried pasta, such as stelline, farfalle, orzo, margheritine (ensure egg-free) 1 x 400g can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed generous pinch of sea salt and black pepper small handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped or torn • Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, carrot, celery and cavolo nero and cook over a medium heat for 3-4mins, stirring frequently. • Next add the garlic, oregano…

● Have a look in your wardrobe and bring back your flares, heels and pearls. These are all predicted to be on trend this year. ● Dig out the faux fur – anything from shearling to fluffy gilets. Hold on to tall collars; funnel-necks, polos, even pie-crusts. ● Retro knit dresses are back; team with boots (the pointier the toe, the better) and layer under cardigans or a blazer. The long-sleeved midi dress is here to stay; layer with tank tops and gilets for a different look. ● Anything khaki or animal print is in, but don’t wear it all at the same time; two pieces at once maximum, and non-adjacent. ● Pack away your white trainers, and look for sporty gym-style trainers to wear with sleek black trousers. Pair…

Gina Lollobrigida 1927-2023 Her name does not resonate in the way it once did, but in the postwar period, the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida was an “international sensation”, said The Washington Post. Regarded as the face of “la dolce vita”, and hailed as the “most beautiful woman in the world”, she acted opposite some of the most bankable stars of the era, from Marcello Mastroianni to Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart – who declared that “she made Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple”. But “La Lollo” did not relish being regarded as a sex symbol, and in the 1970s she embarked on a second career as an artist and photojournalist. She was no dilettante, said The New York Times. In the 1970s, she gained an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro…

The West will rue its turn against trade Janan Ganesh Financial Times “Germany’s taste for Russian gas over recent decades was a double tragedy,” says Janan Ganesh. It gave the Kremlin leverage over Europe – a fixable problem. “But it also gave protectionists throughout the Western world a spurious credibility” – look what happens, they say, when strategic industries are reliant on trade. The upshot is the US Inflation Reduction Act – “a king’s ransom of domestic industrial aid” that “a piqued Europe” is now trying to emulate. The US goal has widened from punishing Russia to slowing China’s ascent. “The logic of escalation” has taken over. Microchips and green tech are deemed now as “strategic” as gas. So why not agriculture? Or even professional services? “Hard won cohesion” is…

What happened Germany announced on Wednesday that it will send tanks to Ukraine, a development hailed as a crucial breakthrough in Western efforts to help Kyiv defend itself from Russia. Berlin said it would send 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks, and allow other countries to offer their own stocks of the German-made tanks. The decision could trigger a wave of commitments by other countries, including Norway, Poland and Spain, to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. The US also confirmed that it would provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks of its own. Discord over Berlin’s reluctance to supply tanks to Kyiv had overshadowed last week’s meeting of defence ministers at the US’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Ukraine’s President Zelensky welcomed Berlin’s “timely decision”, and said he was “sincerely grateful”…

When Cambridge City Council voted last year to serve only or mainly vegan food at its meetings and events, it was praised for taking bold action on climate change. But it seems there is a problem: people don’t like it. At a buffet last year that was used as a trial for the policy, only one in ten of the 80 attendees tried the vegan options – despite them being “fresh” and “visually appealing” – a situation that gave rise to “significant food waste”, according to a report. Defending the policy, a Green councillor said that the council had set the vegan menu “up to fail” by “othering” it. She said that it should be mixed up with the non-plant-based foods, to encourage people to try it, but this was…

The Church of England has proposed that same-sex couples who have married in civil ceremonies could have their union blessed in a church, but it stopped short of allowing clergy to conduct same-sex marriage services. The Church said it was attempting to “offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of holy matrimony”. There will also be a review of the ban on clergy having samesex civil marriages, and the requirement for clergy in same-sex relationships to remain celibate. The proposals, which follow a six-year consultation, will be put to the Church’s governing body, the General Synod, next month.…

Half Moon Bay, California Mass shootings: California was rocked by its second mass shooting in 72 hours this week, when a gunman killed seven people at two locations in the city of Half Moon Bay. Four of them were shot dead at a mushroom farm on the outskirts of the coastal resort, which is about 30 miles south of San Francisco; the other three were shot at a nearby trucking business. A 67-year-old suspect, Zhao Chunli, was arrested after being found in his car outside a police station. Authorities said the only known connection between him and his alleged victims, who were all of Hispanic or Asian descent, is that they may have been co-workers. On Saturday, 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire in a ballroom dance…

“This has been bothering me. Have jokes died out? Classic jokes that ‘do the rounds’. About three men walking into a bar, or an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman in a hot-air balloon, or those great old Jewish jokes like the one about the distraught mother at the beach shouting, ‘Help, help, my son the doctor is drowning!’ Nobody ever tells me jokes. I theorise they have been replaced by memes and viral WhatsApp messages. Is this the death of an oral culture? Should we be collecting examples of this dying art? Should somebody be doing a PhD on this? Or is it just that nobody is telling me jokes?” James Marriott in The Times…

Losing our freedoms in the name of safety Juliet Samuel The Daily Telegraph The law hasn’t passed yet, says Juliet Samuel, and let’s hope it never does. For it’s already clear that the Online Safety Bill is “a menace to our freedoms”. It obliges social media firms to prevent an ever-growing list of taboo content from reaching users. Last week, for example, it emerged that all videos of people crossing the Channel shown in “a positive light” are to be added to the list. Posting such footage, said Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan, could be seen as aiding and abetting immigration offences. The absurdity of this was quickly highlighted on Twitter, which was flooded with images of the Bayeux Tapestry and the evacuation of Dunkirk. You can be sure that rather…

Republicans’ capacity for launching “new dumb culture wars” never ceases to amaze, said James Downie on MSNBC. Their latest cause? Defending Americans’ God-given right to cook over an open flame. A furore blew up following comments by Richard Trumka Jr, of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), who suggested in an interview that his agency was looking at regulating gas hobs, and might even ban them on the grounds that they’re a health hazard. Amid an ensuing row, the CPSC walked back Trumka’s comments, insisting it had no plans to ban gas hobs, but that didn’t stop Republicans making out that the 40% of American households who own them are about to have their cookers confiscated. Florida congressman Matt Gaetz declared that they’d have to “pry” his gas cooker “from…

Desk workers should stroll around It’s well known that sitting down all day is bad for the health; but to counter the effects of a sedentary lifestyle, how often should people get up and walk about, and for how long? In order to find out, researchers at Columbia University put 11 adults through five regimes, in which they walked for either one or five minutes, either every hour or every half-hour, or did no walking at all. The participants were given standardised meals, and were tested for their levels of blood pressure and blood sugar – key indicators of cardiovascular health. The only regime that significantly lowered these was walking for five minutes, every half-hour. This regime also had a dramatic effect on the participants’ response to large meals, reducing…

As a young actor, Stephen Mangan hoped to spend his career playing romantic leads – but TV execs soon decided his face was better suited to comedy. His break came when he was cast as the lead in Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years. It required the approval of the writer, Sue Townsend, who insisted that her creation should not be played by a handsome man. “She was almost blind,” Mangan recalled. “She brought out a huge magnifying glass, got to within six inches of my face, scanned me left to right, up and down and said: ‘You’re perfect.’” Make-up mogul Kylie Jenner arrived at Schiaparelli’s couture show in Paris this week wearing a striking black gown from the designer’s collection, embellished with a large, hyper-realistic lion’s head. Alas for her,…

“China’s population has fallen for the first time in 60 years,” said Christina Maags on The Conversation. According to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics, it stood at 1.41 billion at the end of last year, 850,000 lower than at the start. The last time it had recorded a fall was during the famines caused by the Great Leap Forward. On current trends, the number of Chinese will “be reduced by half by the end of the century”. India is likely to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation this year. Beijing is coming face to face with the effects of its one-child policy, said David A. Andelman on CNN. The policy was adopted in 1980 because of fears of overpopulation, and it was only dropped in 2016. After…

When Andy Murray had his right hip resurfaced four years ago, the opinion among medical experts was that he was finished as a top-level tennis player, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. The operation – a scaled-down version of a traditional hip replacement that involves a metal cap being inserted at the top of the femur – is one active athletes seldom undergo, as it fundamentally alters how the body behaves. In particular, it’s known to restrict the lateral movement vital for any tennis player. So even if Murray returned to tennis, it was assumed that he’d only be able to compete as a “ceremonial doubles player”. The “urge to contradict the doubters” has always been the Scot’s strongest motivator, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. And it’s that…

Football Everton sacked manager Frank Lampard after less than a year in the role, following nine defeats in the club’s past 12 games. Tennis Iga Świątek, the world No. 1, suffered a surprise defeat in the fourth round of the Australian Open, losing 6-4, 6-4 to Elena Rybakina. In the men’s draw, favourite Novak Djokovic advanced to the quarter-finals beating Alex de Minaur in straight sets. Cricket India won their second ODI against New Zealand by eight wickets to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series.…

“We would like to thank our partner Air Canada,” announces a “wearyingly jaunty clown” at the start of Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities – Cirque du Soleil’s 35th “world-conquering” spectacular. “Oh no, you think,” said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. Is a certain corporate naffness going to overwhelm the “jaw-dropping skill and bravery of the acrobats”? Fear not. “By the end of this weird and wondrous evening I wanted to thank Air Canada too” – although it would be at the back of a long queue. Cirque du Soleil has produced a terrific show, infused with a “gently spooky sense of joy”: there are “capering ‘conjoined’ twins”, women in steel-hooped skirts descending from the ceiling, a locomotive that glides onto the stage, and a “mid-air juggler who hurtles towards the ground…

The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, 1938 (Penguin £12.99). A seamless synthesis of novelistic narrative, factual reconstruction and polemical argument, this book helped transform both the writing of history and history itself. It was a “history from below” long before the phrase was coined. And in telling the story of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, James created a work that became indispensable to a new cadre of anti-colonial leaders. The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson, 1963 (Penguin £20). Still indispensable, the classic account of the emergence of working-class consciousness in England, a book that sought to “rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” hand-loom weaver… from the condescension of posterity”. Beloved by Toni Morrison, 1987 (Vintage £9.99). A haunting tale of the horror…

Programmes The Stasi: Secrets, Lies & British Spies East Germany’s secret police force had a network of spies and informers around the world – including in Britain. Sun 29 Jan, ITV1 22:15 (55mins). Putin vs the West In 2014, as Putin invaded Crimea, European leaders clashed over how to stop him. A three-part series featuring interviews with David Cameron, François Hollande and other key players. Mon 30 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Storyville: Casa Susanna Documentary that pieces together the story of a secret transgender network in 1950s America, featuring moving testimony from those who remember it. Tue 31 Jan, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). The Magical World of Moss The history and scientific potential of moss is explored in landscapes from Iceland to Japan. Wed 1 Feb, BBC4 21:00 (55mins). Amol Rajan…

From pre-mixed cocktails to craft beers, we’ve become used to drinking alcohol out of cans, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. Wine producers resisted the trend, but that is suddenly changing: “wine in cans is everywhere”. You will be served wine in cans at festivals and music venues, and now Waitrose is getting in on the act: it has just ousted the majority of its small wine bottles, and replaced them with cans. Two factors are driving this trend. One is sustainability: aluminium cans create less than half the amount of CO2 than the equivalent single-use glass bottle, and they can be recycled repeatedly. The other is “lifestyle and convenience”: canned wine “fits well into the way we live”. Because they’re highly portable, cans are great for picnics, camping…

Filmora Video Editor & Maker has a large and varied content library, and an intuitive, responsive interface. You can also access a dedicated YouTube channel with how-to videos. Free (watermarked videos); premium version $7/month, $35/year. Adobe Premiere Rush has a full range of tools for editing and online tutorials, but lacks a green-screen feature. The free version offers unlimited exports, a small library of soundtracks, plus 2GB storage. Premium version $5/month, $35/year. Videoleap Editor and Maker is good for fun videos, but its content libraries are limited, with no special effects or clip art. It has a dedicated YouTube channel with tips and tricks and a useful feature that lets you adjust a specific colour in a clip. 7-day free trial, then $8/month or $36/year. Aimed at serious vloggers, VlogNow…

Margate’s “annus mirabilis” On the face of it, Margate hasn’t changed since it made for a “grim” start to Paul Theroux’s 1983 book The Kingdom by the Sea, in which he bore witness to the decline of Britain’s coastal communities, says Damien Gabet in The Guardian. Arlington House, a brutalist tower block, still dominates the main strip, as does the arcade Dreamlands; but in other respects, Margate has changed a good deal – and 2023 looks set to be its “annus mirabilis”. Cliftonville was declared the UK’s coolest neighbourhood by Time Out, and betting shops are making way for brunch pads and bijou art galleries. Olivia Colman, star of Sam Mendes’s new film Empire of Light (which was made in Margate), recently praised the town for its “three amazing restaurants”,…

Paul Johnson 1928-2023 The journalist and historian Paul Johnson, who has died aged 94, began his career on the left of Labour. But in the 1970s he started to shift rightwards, eventually to emerge in the 1980s as one of Margaret Thatcher’s most ardent supporters. A “fluent and prolific writer”, he used his columns to attack everything he’d come to detest about the Left, said Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Guardian. It was his lucrative “fulminations” in the Daily Mail that prompted Michael Foot’s jibe, that, while every movement has its Judas, this was the first time the 30 pieces of silver had been turned into a weekly income. Yet Johnson claimed not to relish the life of a columnist – which he described as “writing to order, against a deadline,…

Reed Hastings The Netflix founder is winningly modest about his technical achievements, said Alex Barker in the FT. While studying computer science at Stanford in the 1980s, Reed Hastings attempted to create a “foot mouse”. It was, he says, “a disaster”. So too were Netflix’s early experiments with movie streaming: broadband was so slow that downloading a film took more than half a day. Hastings, 62, who stepped down as CEO last week, went on to build “a disruptive force” that not only sealed the fate of rental rivals such as Blockbuster, but “ultimately reset the Hollywood model”. He quits at “a pivotal point” for the industry as it wrestles with profitability. Friends say his new focus is philanthropy. “That’s the mission,” said one. “He wants to die poor.” Peter…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1347 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 6 February. Send it to The Week Crossword 1347, 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 1 Miserly firm? Be serious! (4,8) 8 McCartney coming from Lennon’s first home with lawyer (5) 9 Not at one’s best? Fix a cocktail (5,4) 11 British heater adapted to process natural gas (7) 12 Panto is sadly not thriving (2,1,4) 13 Said to be…

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Beyoncé, with reports that she was paid more than £19m for a one-off concert in Dubai, to mark the opening of a new hotel. The US star put on an 85-minute set, in front of an invitation-only crowd of 1,500 celebrities, influencers and journalists. Bill Nighy, 73, who received his first Oscar nomination, for his role in the period drama Living. Other British nominees included Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie – a low-budget film set in Texas. It made just $27,000 at the US box office, but a celebrity-backed social media campaign succeeded in raising its profile. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, who tied the knot for a fourth time. Aldrin, 93, said he and his bride, chemical engineer Dr Anca Faur, 63, were “as…

Two-thirds of UK voters (63%) are against Boris Johnson returning as prime minister. 24% are in favour of the idea. Savanta/The Independent Asked which of the parties they trust more to cut taxes, 49% of British voters say Labour and 23% say the Conservatives. 28% believe the general level of taxation in the UK is about right. 49% say it is too high. 13% say it should be raised. Savanta/The Daily Telegraph Since the publication of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, Prince William’s popularity in the UK has fallen by eight points to 61%. Harry’s has dropped by seven points to 23%. 53% still say they feel favourable towards the royal family, and 51% towards the King. Ipsos Mori…

The worst guest ever As the “queen of daytime telly”, Lorraine Kelly has interviewed hundreds of people, and she has liked some more than others, says Cole Moreton in the Daily Mail. Hugh Jackman was her favourite (“a very well brought-up boy”); George Clooney made her blush; and Strictly’s Anton Du Beke confirmed her suspicion that she can’t dance. “During the break I said to him, ‘Can you seriously teach anybody to dance?’ He said, ‘Oh, you’d be fine.’ We did a little twirl so he could show me how possible it was, but then he said, ‘Oh. It’s like dancing with a wardrobe.’” But the “worst” guest she’s ever had was Kevin Spacey, who came on the show before the scandal that derailed his career. “The interview was about…

An artist who used kidney stones from his own body to create a miniature replica of Stonehenge has said he is pleased with the response to the work. Simon Le Boggit’s sculpture, entitled Kidney Stone Henge, went on display at Sotheby’s this month. Le Boggit harvested the stones by urinating through a tea strainer, and said that the piece was a “monument” to the NHS and a “stark reminder” of our mortality. A cane toad believed to be the largest ever recorded has been found in an Australian rainforest. Nicknamed “Toadzilla”, it is six times the size of an average toad, and weighs 2.7kg. Park ranger Kylee Gray said she had “never seen anything so big”. The toad was euthanized, as is standard practice in Australia for the invasive pests,…

RUSSIA Dissidents: you can run but you can’t hide The Moscow Times Dissident Russians living in exile had better watch out, say Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan – the Kremlin is coming for them. Up to 700,000 Russians have fled since the invasion, including actors and comedians whose statements condemning the war have “enraged” the Kremlin. The issue came to a head last month, when actor Artur Smolyaninov said he’d side with Ukraine if forced to fight. Now we’re hearing calls for “new methods” to deal with Russian émigrés, such as stripping them of the passports (and thus effectively their citizenship) they need to be able to claim asylum – just as the Soviets once did to the likes of dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. For some it could be even…

“One of the hardest things in life is knowing when to stop,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. “So it is testament to Jacinda Ardern’s enduring skills that she has made it look almost easy.” Having steered her country through numerous crises, New Zealand’s prime minister announced her resignation in a speech last week that was emotional but “characteristically graceful”. She was quitting, she said, because to lead well, you have to give it your all, and after more than five years in the job, she hadn’t “enough in the tank to do it justice”. Admittedly, she’s not leaving on a high: her approval ratings have slumped, and her Labour Party is expected to struggle in this year’s general election. But we should commend the leader who recognises that their…

Not for some time has Arsenal vs. Manchester United been a fixture with “relevance to the championship race”, said David Hytner in The Guardian. But last Sunday it was. The contest between the two was a “game to evoke memories” of the time the rivalry between Arsène Wenger and Alex Ferguson “defined English football”. The crowd at the Emirates were treated to “the best watch of the season” so far – a “shuddering collision” of huge potential significance. When it was over, “Arsenal had taken an adrenaline-fuelled step towards their first title since 2004”. What a “roller-coaster” of a match this was, said Henry Winter in The Times. United opened the scoring after 17 minutes, when Marcus Rashford – comfortably their best player – hit a powerful shot past Aaron…

by Paul Auster Faber 160pp £25 The Week Bookshop £19.99 In this impassioned work of non-fiction, Paul Auster, one of America’s most feted novelists, sets out to explain what makes his country the “most violent in the Western world”, said Rosemary Goring in The Scottish Herald. Bloodbath Nation is in part a lament for the immense waste of life caused by US gun laws: each year, some 40,000 Americans are killed by gunshot, and more have died this way since 1968 than have perished in all the country’s wars. At the same time, Auster examines the events in America’s past that make guns so central to its identity. He begins with the nation’s violent colonial pre-history, and goes on to examine the role of the “shootout” in Wild West mythology…

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Alphabet et al: bloodletting Last week, Google’s parent Alphabet laid off 12,000 staff, or 6% of its workforce. “At least they should know how to search for ‘job vacancies’,” said Matthew Lynn in The Daily Telegraph. As Silicon Valley embarks on its worst bout of bloodletting since the dotcom crash two decades ago, these are nervous times for “anyone who makes a living from coding”. But they can’t say they haven’t had a good run. Having increased its workforce by 30% over five years, Google was paying royally and its “perks were legendary”. It’s time this “massively bloated” industry slimmed down. With any luck, the resulting cash bonanza for shareholders “may even be enough to turn the stock market around”. That’s certainly the calculation, said the FT. Having “erred in…

If you’re an investor interested in changing consumption patterns, you may still be watching “Veganuary” with interest, said Moira O’Neill in the FT. Research suggests that 37% of nonvegans are eating more plant-based food than a decade ago – a figure rising to 85% among those who have taken part in Veganuary. The question, though, is how to align your money with this new habit. It’s still easier to go vegan than it is to follow the theme in the funds market. VegCapital, a rare fund that supports vegan enterprises, donates all profits to charity. Indeed, the easiest way to get exposure may be via directly held shares. Unilever is one of several global brands “targeting plant-based meat and dairy alternatives” – and is also worth considering in the category…