Table of contents for 1516 in The Week

What happened Thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon began returning to their homes on Wednesday, after a fragile ceasefire deal to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah came into force at 4am local time. The Iran-backed militia had fired hundreds of drones at Tel Aviv in the days before the agreement, and Israeli air strikes had pummelled Beirut on Tuesday. But the Lebanese capital was peaceful on Wednesday, as cars loaded with families, bags and mattresses joined the long queues on major roads leading to the south. About 1.2 million people have been displaced since Israel invaded southern Lebanon in October; and 70,000 Israelis have fled their homes since Hezbollah began bombarding northern Israel with missiles and drones after last year’s 7 October massacres. The fighting in Lebanon…

It may be “innocently” called Oreshnik – “hazel tree” – but the Kremlin’s latest hypersonic ballistic missile is “one of its most dangerous”, said James Kilner in The Daily Telegraph. Russian forces test-fired it for the first time in combat last Thursday. It flew from Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea at more than ten times the speed of sound to hit targets in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, where its multiple warheads rained down “in deadly synchronisation”. Coming days after Ukraine’s forces had fired American and British missiles into Russian territory for the first time, the Oreshnik was a warning, specifically to Britain. Vladimir Putin boasted that the missile, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, had been designed for a “decisive” strike on the UK. He warned that Russia’s enemies should…

Swimmers, after a record 37 of the 450 bathing areas tested for water quality this summer failed to reach minimum standards for safety. Of the 27 new bathing sites on the list, 18 were classified as “poor”. Most were rivers. Overall, only 53% of inland sites met minimum standards, compared with 95% of coastal waters. London traditions, with news that Smithfield meat market is to close, after some 850 years. The local authority said its traders, and those from Billingsgate fish market, would be given “financial assistance” to find new premises. Plans had been made for both markets to be moved to a site in Dagenham in east London, but officials have now decided that the project is unaffordable. Luton, with the announced closure of the Bedfordshire town’s Vauxhall plant…

Rome E-scooter rules: Italy has imposed strict new rules on e-scooter riders, requiring them to wear helmets and be insured. The environmentally friendly vehicles have surged in popularity in the country over recent years, but there has also been a rise in accidents involving them (3,365 were recorded in Italy in 2023, with 21 deaths, up from 2,929 and 16 deaths in 2022). The new rules, passed in the senate by 83 votes to 47, also mandate numberplates, stiff fines for careless parking and a ban on riding in pedestrianised areas and cycle lanes. The crackdown follows similar moves elsewhere in Europe, including bans on rented e-scooters in Paris and Madrid. Paris Government wobbles: Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party has threatened to topple France’s minority government in…

“Is it just a coincidence that the first female chancellor is also the first to be swarmed by a mob of online truthers, refusing to believe that the woman they call ‘Rachel from accounts’ was really employed at the Bank of England doing anything senior? For the record, yes she was. With her Oxford PPE degree and six years in central banking, Reeves is, if anything, nerdily overqualified. Gordon Brown read history and lectured in a further education college before becoming the preeminent chancellor of his generation. George Osborne read history and dabbled in freelance journalism. But Reeves, apparently, is going to be made to earn the benefit of the doubt.” Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian…

How the law makes business for itself Matthew Syed The Sunday Times More than £120m. That’s how much the Covid-19 Inquiry has set us back so far, says Matthew Syed, and given that it’s only on module three (out of ten), it’s still got a long way to go. Does anyone believe this is money well spent? How likely is it, when this “interminable lawyer-fest” ends, that we’ll learn anything useful? Public inquiries have proliferated in recent years – there are 16 under way at present – and it’s increasingly hard to see who benefits from them besides the legal fraternity and politicians keen to kick problems into the long grass. The model for such inquiries should be the aviation investigations that have done so much to improve airline safety:…

Investigating the “super-survivors” There are some cancer patients who defy the odds: doctors may give them less than a year to live but, five years later, they are still doing well. Now, a major new study will seek to unravel the secrets of these “super-survivors”, in the hopes that they lead to new treatment avenues. The first step is to identify more than a thousand people who have lived for years with one of the three deadliest cancers: advanced small cell lung cancer, glioblastoma (an aggressive brain tumour) or metastatic pancreatic cancer. Eight UK hospitals will help in the international search for recruits. Then, each of the participants and their tumours will be studied in detail, with DNA, blood proteins, microbes and molecular biomarkers all earmarked for analysis. “We know…

During his ten years in the New Labour government, the late John Prescott (see page 38) was often called upon to mediate in the rows between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “When things were really difficult, I would have them over for a meal, Gordon on one side and Tony on the other,” he recalled on Desert Island Discs in 2012. “Gordon once complained that his chair was too low. I got him a higher one and then asked Tony if he wanted a higher chair as well. Tony said, ‘No, I’m used to Gordon looking down on me.’” An Andy Warhol silkscreen print that was rejected by Donald Trump decades ago has sold to an unnamed buyer for $950,000. The Pop artist created the piece in 1981 after Trump…

What a disgrace, said The Daily Telegraph. Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) made a mockery of the law by issuing an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. They stand accused of the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare in Gaza; and crimes against humanity, including murder and persecution. Both will now be liable for arrest in the 124 states that recognise the authority of the ICC. It’s outrageous that a system of international law set up to ensure that the Holocaust could never happen again has been “weaponised” in this way against the leaders of a Jewish state that is fighting for its survival. The ICC was designed to be a court of last resort…

“For a minute or so, English football must have felt terribly easy to Ruben Amorim,” said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. In his first match in charge of Manchester United, the Portuguese had to wait a mere 80 seconds for his team to find the net against Ipswich. And what a goal it was: a swooping move down the right culminated in winger Diogo Dalot whipping in a low cross, which was confidently met by Marcus Rashford. Yet after this blistering start, it didn’t take long for United to remember “who they were”. This is a team which, in recent years, has struggled to put away opponents who play with “spirit and belief”. And soon, United’s “muscle memory” kicked in, and they never looked like scoring again. Instead, it…

by Arabella Byrne and Julia Hamilton HQ 304pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £14.99 Julia Hamilton is a novelist in her 60s, said Juliet Nicolson in The Spectator. Her daughter, Arabella Byrne, is a journalist in her 40s. In their new joint memoir, the pair reflect with “devastating clarity” on the illness – alcoholism – that has severely damaged both their lives. They begin by tracing back the “boozy branches of their elite family tree”, said Ceci Browning in The Sunday Times. Julia’s grandfather, a Scottish aristocrat, “pissed away” much of the family fortune; her parents also “drank too much”. Growing up in the 1960s, drink for Julia was a “passport to glamour” – and a refuge from her parents’ bickering. But it turned her into a dysfunctional adult (she’d been…

The Human Stain by Philip Roth, 2000 (Vintage £9.99). Roth inhabits his protagonist’s world so perfectly, navigating his big secret with such humanity that it beggars belief that it is not autobiographical. Read it in awe. The World According To Garp by John Irving, 1978 (Orion £9.99). I’ve not revisited this since, aged 15, it reignited a love for reading that skateboarding had sidelined. I didn’t look up for three days as I devoured its mix of richly complex characters, gasp-out-loud plotting and heartbreaking misadventures. There’s Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg, 2024 (Bloomsbury £16.99). My wife has had debilitating long Covid for three years. This delicious book was inspired by the author’s similar struggle and gave me an insight into some of the despair she wrestles with daily.…

Programmes Dispatches: Britain’s Benefits Scandal Fraser Nelson investigates the surge in working-age people on sickness benefits, and the cost to the economy. Mon 2 Dec, C4 20:00 (60mins). Renaissance – The Blood and the Beauty Drama documentary. In teeming, corrupt 15th century Florence, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo battle for work and patrons. Mon 2 Dec, BBC2 21:00 (60mins). Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Treasures In this new six-part series, the presenter takes a ride in a classic car in Havana and visits family in Jamaica. Wed 4-Fri 6 Dec, BBC2 19:00 (60mins each). Why Bridges Collapse: The Baltimore Disaster Documentary investigating how a cargo ship ran into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last March. Thur 5 Dec, BBC1 21:00 (60mins). Dalgliesh: Death in Holy Orders In the third season…

John Prescott 1938-2024 A political bruiser of the old school, John Prescott is likely to be remembered for an incident shortly before the 2001 general election. On a campaign visit to Rhyl, North Wales, a farm worker hit him in the face with an egg. Prescott, a former boxer, turned instinctively and landed a left jab, said The Times. The pair then became embroiled in an undignified tussle on the ground, and had to be pulled apart. The incident was caught on camera, and there were calls for him to resign. But Tony Blair refused to condemn his deputy; he just shrugged that “John will be John”. And indeed, the PM had good reason to be tolerant of Prescott’s foibles. A working-class former ship’s steward, Prescott was “arguably the most…

Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son by Lionel Barber (Allen Lane £30). Is the elusive SoftBank founder “a genius with an uncanny ability to spot the next thing”, or just “a gambler”, asks Simon Nixon in Literary Review. Either way, Son is one of the most “consequential global business figures of the last half-century”. A richly reported guide to his life and deals. Moneta: A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins by Gareth Harney (Bodley Head £22). A “delightful” book by a historian and coin collector, for “both young and old”, says Martin Wolf in the FT. Harney doesn’t allow “numismatic passion to get in the way of telling a good tale”, says the TLS. The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in…

The week’s best shares Comfort Systems USA The Daily Telegraph This US engineering contractor, which installs and services aircon in the tech sector, is at the “heart of the data centre phenomenon” as demand for efficient electricity management rises. Profits have surged. Buy. $491.06. Domino’s Pizza Group The Times Orders, deliveries and app customers are all up thanks to better service, delivery times and customer value as the chain recovers from the cost-of-living crisis. Improving profitability should back branch expansion. Buy. 330p. Fintel The Mail on Sunday This tech specialist provides software to help financial advisers and their clients choose the right mortgage, insurance or savings vehicles. Well-managed and resilient, with rising revenues and profits. Buy. 290p. Literacy Capital The Daily Telegraph This investment trust, which donates to literacy charities,…

What happened The Government announced a package of measures this week designed to “get Britain working” and reverse the spiralling costs of the benefits system. It followed the release of official forecasts suggesting that more than four million people could be claiming long-term sickness benefits by the end of the decade, up from 2.5 million in 2019. The measures – unveiled by Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary – include plans to revamp job centres and improve mental health support. Young people who refuse to take up work or training could lose benefits. On Monday, Rachel Reeves addressed the CBI conference, where she faced criticism from business leaders over her increases to employer national insurance contributions. The body’s chairman, Rupert Soames, warned that making it more expensive to hire…

A series of glowing reviews have been posted for the five remaining restaurants in the Angus Steakhouse chain in London, raising suspicion that tourists are being pranked by locals. One review urges diners to arrive at “this amazing hidden gem” an hour before it opens to be sure of getting a table; another says that “even for vegetarians like me, Angus Steakhouse is the absolute best destination restaurant in London”. As if the delivery riders in UK cities were not busy enough, Deliveroo has teamed up with the clothes-rental company HURR to offer same-day dress deliveries. Customers in London can order clothes and accessories from leading brands, and have them delivered to their door in as little as 20 minutes.…

Rich nations have agreed to spend $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer ones combat climate change, as part of a deal struck at the UN’s Cop29 climate summit in Baku, the capital of the oil-producing nation Azerbaijan. The agreement was reached at 3am local time on Sunday, 33 hours after the conference (which drew 70,000 people from almost 200 countries) was supposed to have concluded. The $300bn figure — mainly comprised of grants and low-interest loans, with some of it coming from institutions such as the World Bank — fell far short of the £1.3trn that poorer nations had said they needed to shift to a low-carbon economy and adjust their infrastructure to more extreme weather; but it’s up sharply on the $100bn they currently receive. Several countries…

Washington DC Team Trump: Donald Trump’s first pick to serve as his attorney general withdrew from contention last week. Having been accused of sexual misconduct, including sex with a minor, Matt Gaetz was arguably the most controversial of Trump’s nominees, and was not expected to survive the Senate confirmation process. In his place to lead the Justice Department, Trump nominated Pam Bondi (left), a former attorney general of Florida who has called for the prosecution of officials who’ve tried to bring charges against the president-elect. To run the department of education, he nominated Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE); and to take charge of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services he picked Oz Mehmet, a TV doctor with a history of promoting dubious weight-loss treatments. On…

Police in Peru have arrested a man who tried to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes and nine stinging bullet ants strapped to his body. The 28-year-old South Korean was stopped at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima when officials noticed his stomach area looked “swollen”. They searched him, and found the insects packed in Ziploc bags and strapped around his abdomen. The insects are thought to have been taken from the Peruvian Amazon, and are now being cared for by wildlife authorities. A hotel in the Philippines has been officially recognised by Guinness World Records as the “largest building in the shape of a chicken”. The 114ft-tall hotel opened at a resort in Negros Occidental earlier this month. Its 15 rooms feature TVs and showers, but no…

CHINA The adulation for all things Trump South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) A weird thing about Donald Trump, says Chris Pereira, is that the groups he routinely insults very often seem to like him. China is a case in point. We can only guess how President Xi feels about the return to the White House of a man who launched a trade war against China seven years ago; but millions of Chinese people appear delighted. The internet in China is “awash with adulation for all things Trump” – his unorthodox politics, his “large and successful family”, his “strongman flair”, his stream of “memeable quotes”. And, bizarrely, that enthusiasm is shared by many Chinese investors and companies. They like his business-driven mindset; they seem to feel they can work around…

Even by the standards of this accident-prone government, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail, it was “cack-handed” to announce significant defence cuts on the “same day that British-made Storm Shadow missiles started smashing into military bases on Russian soil”. Putin, of course, responded to the missile hits with “nuclear sabre-rattling”. So it would have been a good time for the new Defence Secretary, John Healey, to project strength. Instead, he picked that moment to announce £500m of cuts to our naval, helicopter and drone assets. “Even the Kremlin must have been scratching its head.” In Finland and the Baltics, they are strengthening border defences and digging anti-tank ditches, said Francis Tusa in The Independent. Poland has raised defence spending to 4.7% of GDP. Here, we’re dithering about whether to…

At the height of the first Covid lockdown in April 2020, an elderly war veteran set himself the target of walking 100 laps of his daughter’s garden before his 100th birthday. Captain Tom Moore’s determination and spirit touched the nation’s heart, and he raised an unprecedented £38m for NHS charities. When he died just nine months later, his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband vowed to carry on his good work, via a charitable foundation set up in his name. But whereas Captain Tom is remembered as a national hero, said Marianka Swain in The Daily Telegraph, the Ingram-Moores are now in danger of being regarded as a national disgrace. The Charity Commission began investigating their activities in 2022. Last week, its report was published, and it makes for depressing…

When Max Verstappen won seven of the opening ten races of the year, he looked set to cruise to his fourth successive F1 title, said Molly Hudson in The Times. But in the second half of the season, an unfamiliar challenge faced the Dutchman: that of no longer having the “quickest car”. As Britain’s Lando Norris took advantage of his McLaren’s speed to eat into his rival’s lead, a spectacular turnaround seemed it might be on the cards. Yet it was not to be, said Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Mail. Last Sunday, Norris’s “dream died close to midnight in the Nevada desert”, as Verstappen came fifth in the Las Vegas GP, giving him the points he needed to clinch the title with two races to go. The Dutchman rated…

To The Daily Telegraph My daughter died a month ago from breast cancer, aged 35. She received first-class care from the much maligned NHS, and from the palliative care team at the hospice where she spent her last weeks. Unfortunately, the team were unable to help with her symptoms – she lost her hearing, speech, swallowing and sight, and had extreme tinnitus, which caused immense suffering. They provided fantastic care to her and the family, but were clear there was nothing else they could do. She could not see, hear or speak to her two young children for five weeks. As a veterinary surgeon, she would not have allowed an animal in her care to suffer like that. Death was a blessed relief. Let’s give people the choice in situations…

by Jonathan Coe Viking 352pp £20 The Week Bookshop £17.99 “Tory terribleness” has long been a big theme of Jonathan Coe’s fiction, said Peter Kemp in The Sunday Times. That remains the case in his latest novel, an entertaining metafictional satire set during “Liz Truss’s fast-wilting premiership”. Phyl, the central character, is an English graduate with literary aspirations who is “stuck in her parents’ house” while working in a sushi chain, said Justine Jordan in The Guardian. The sudden death of an old friend of her mother’s, a blogger who thinks he’s uncovered a right-wing plot to dismantle the NHS, piques her imagination. Soon, she is exploring his life and death in a range of genres – efforts reproduced in The Proof of My Innocence. While “there’s a lot going…

Dani Trew at Lyndsey Ingram There’s a lot of intriguing and often fairly cryptic things going on in To Make Shirts from Anemones, London painter Dani Trew’s first solo exhibition. Trained at the Royal Drawing School, Trew (b.1991) paints precise, poetic scenes that at once recall the strange, quasi-symbolist pictures Lucian Freud excelled at early on – and more impressively, the echoey religious scenes of Northern Renaissance artists such as Fouquet or even van Eyck. Trew, formerly a curator specialising in fashion and textiles, makes repeated use of knots and threads as a kind of all-purpose painterly grammar: we see a pale pink gift ribbon wrapped around manicured feet in Woven Toes; in So On and So Forth, three apparently identical female figures, pictured from the shoulders up, are bound…

Chalk North Farm, Pulborough, West Sussex (01903-877845) Many “great vineyards across the world” have dining rooms “bolted on” to their businesses, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. Chalk sits in that tradition: it is housed in a “converted set of barns” on the Goring family’s Wiston Estate, near Pulborough. Their wines are excellent – who would have thought a pinot noir from Sussex could have such “elegance and body” – and the restaurant is delightful too: a “model of great service and flavourful food”. The “well-conceived menu” offers four or five choices per course. Dishes are built around local ingredients, but are “delivered with a Mediterranean culinary dash”. I start with octopus cooked in the wood-fired oven out back, which comes with a “rich, smoky” romesco sauce. Then, my…

Shutters can look boring, feel clinical and be tricky to clean. Instead, opt for café-style curtains or sheer voile drapes for privacy. Have the confidence to use wallpaper all around the room, not just on a feature wall. Match curtains, upholstery and accessories to the core palette of the paper for harmony. Loo-roll holders are often ugly and sterile. A straw basket on the floor adds a soft touch to what can be a hard room. Don’t paint the ceiling white, view it as a fifth wall to decorate. In low rooms, wrap the wall colour onto the ceiling to give a sense of height. In taller rooms, try a tone darker than the walls, or go for a contrast. Short curtains are a no-no: curtains should “gently kiss the…

Adani Group: the long arm of US law For the second time in two years, one of India’s largest conglomerates, the Adani Group, has been “accused of criminal activity from the other side of the globe”, said The Economist. “The first barrage” came from Hindenburg Research, a New York short-seller that accused the group – founded by India’s second-richest man, Gautam Adani – of “fraud”. Now US federal prosecutors have got in on the act. In a 54-page indictment, they accuse the group of paying $250m in bribes to Indian officials to secure renewable energy contracts, and lying to investors and banks (some American) when raising $3bn in funds. The group rejects the charges, but shares in Adani companies fell sharply, by around 20%. The indictment could have a broader…

For Trump, tariffs are a political tool… Ishaan Tharoor The Washington Post President-elect Donald Trump isn’t wasting time, as this week’s tariff announcements make plain, says Ishaan Tharoor. Never mind that the targeted countries – China, Mexico and Canada – are “the United States’ three largest trading partners, exchanging some $1.8trn in goods and services per year”. Or that the actions against Canada and Mexico would torpedo the free trade agreement that Trump himself struck during his first term. He has always seen tariffs as “a political tool”, and it suits him to blame the governments of these countries for illegal migration and the fentanyl drug epidemic currently ravaging the US. “The proposed tariffs would probably hurt ordinary Americans and spike inflation”, but they would certainly hurt Canada and Mexico…

William Hague, who was announced as the new chancellor of Oxford University. The former leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Hague of Richmond becomes the 160th holder of the role. He replaces Lord Patten, who retired in February after two decades in the position, which is normally held for life. Other finalists had included Lord Mandelson and Lady Elish Angiolini. Cinemas, with reports that “Glicked” — the release of Gladiator II and Wicked — is proving the biggest thing for the box office since the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon in the summer of 2023.…

A major clean-up was under way this week after Storm Bert battered parts of England and Wales. The storm, which brought more than 80% of November’s average rainfall in less than 48 hours along with high winds, caused power outages and transport disruptions, and was linked to the deaths of at least five people. Hundreds of homes were flooded, including in South Wales, where officials declared a major incident. In Worcestershire, a 57-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving, after a video showed a tractor being driven through the flooded streets of Tenbury Wells, causing the water to surge higher and reportedly smash shop windows.…

Simon & Garfunkel’s dinner Relations between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have rarely been anything other than strained since their bitter split in 1970. But the estrangement that followed 2010’s doomed reunion tour ended last month, when the pair (pictured) – who have known each other since they were 11 – met for dinner, following a chance encounter between Garfunkel and one of Simon’s sons, says Mark Beaumont in The Independent. It was a “memorable night”, says Garfunkel. Over dinner, he apologised to Simon for an interview in 2015, in which he’d called him “jerk” for walking away at the height of their success. He had wanted to “stir things up”, and dispel Simon & Garfunkel’s nice-guy image, he says, so he was a bit “spicy”. But he had come…

Kurdish people have every incentive to emigrate: spread across Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, they have been brutally repressed for centuries in all four nations. There is a Kurdish diaspora across Europe, from Britain to France to Germany and, perhaps most importantly, there are large communities in Turkey, the hub for much migration to Europe. Although the gangs have a strong presence on the ground in northern France, the kingpins usually operate from a safe distance: either in Britain, Turkey or at home in Iraq. In May, the BBC’s Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie tracked down Barzan Majeed, a notorious smuggler known as “Scorpion”, via Nottingham, France, Belgium and Turkey, to his home in Iraqi Kurdistan. There he freely admitted to having run a smuggling operation, taking people from Turkey…

RFK’s views on fluoride aren’t crazy Leana S. Wen The Washington Post Robert F. Kennedy Jr is wrong about many things, not least the safety and benefits of vaccines, says Leana S. Wen. But in calling for fluoride to be removed from public drinking water, the man lined up to be the next US health secretary is not being as crazy as critics think. The US Public Health Service (PHS) has recommended the addition of fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral, to water supplies since 1962. Since then, it has reduced tooth cavities by a quarter and been hailed as one of the 20th century’s greatest public health achievements. But, over the years, research has shown that fluoride is not harmless, particularly in higher doses; it can cause thyroid problems and…

Unhealthy eating is costing the UK a “staggering” £268bn a year, a study has found. Of that, £92bn is accounted for by direct costs, related to the treatment of type 2 diabetes and other diseases closely linked to poor diet. Most of that (£67bn) is spent by the NHS. Social care for patients adds £14.3bn and welfare payments a further £10.1bn. Indirect costs include £116.4bn in lost productivity, caused by people being unfit to work owing to diet-related conditions. The human cost of pain and early death is estimated at £60bn. Compiled for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, using data published by the Government, international bodies such as the UN, and think-tanks, the report also found that, to comply with the dietary advice in the government’s Eatwell Guide, the…

“It is easy to forget how many of the rights and liberties that our modern society holds dear were illegal not so long ago,” said David Steel in The Sunday Times. Until quite recently, the state could prohibit people from marrying the person they love, from dissolving a loveless marriage, or choosing whether to have children. In each of these areas, the law changed thanks to a private member’s bill brought by a backbench MP. The abolition of slavery and the death penalty, the decriminalisation of homosexuality – all began with private members’ bills, and all met with long and furious resistance. Kim Leadbeater’s bill on assisted dying for the terminally ill, on which MPs were due to vote this Friday, has had a similar reception. But I suspect “future…

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”James Joyce, quoted in The Economist “American football combines the two worst things about America. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”George Will, ibid. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”Martin Luther King Jr, quoted in The Knowledge “The British will let you get away with almost anything if you make them laugh.”William Waldegrave, quoted in The Times “Uncertainty is not to be overcome but understood.”Karl Jaspers, quoted in New Eastern Europe “The press takes him literally but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously but not literally.”Salena Zito on Donald Trump, in The Atlantic “The truest thing I have heard about sex is that for men it is like pizza. Bad pizza is…

The Watermill’s Christmas show is a musical adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s Pinocchio – itself a reworking of Carlo Collodi’s 19th century story, told from the perspective of the puppet. With the book by Simon Reade, and music and lyrics by Chris Larner, it’s a dish created by “many cooks”, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. But rather than spoiling the broth, they’ve concocted a copper-bottomed delight. “From the first gorgeous scene featuring a luminous cherry tree trunk wrapped around actors” – signifying the wood from which Pinocchio is forged – this “glorious” production “oozes carnivalesque energy”. Thrilling and magical, the show “packs in the drama to become an alchemical mix of music, movement, mischievous humour and quietly revolutionary puppetry”. Children and adults alike will love this boisterous yet heartwarming morality…

This eight-part Netflix comedy doesn’t have a particularly enticing premise, said James Hibbs in Radio Times: based on a 2020 Chilean documentary, it tells the story of a widower who goes undercover at a retirement community in San Francisco to find a missing necklace. But it has a stellar cast, led by Ted Danson, and it is made by Michael Schur, creator of hits such as Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. The result is a “light yet often deeply emotional series” that “wraps you up in its characters’ lives and leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling at the end”. Danson plays Charles, a retired professor who has taken a job with a private investigator (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) in a bid to distract himself from his grief. The…

“At first it was just a humble banana,” bought for 35 cents in New York, says Tim Jonze in The Guardian. “Then it became a work of art – attached to a gallery wall with duct tape by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.” Then it was eaten, twice, by performance artists, who helped make it famous. Now, said banana – officially Comedian (2019) – has sold for $6.2m at Sotheby’s New York, “making it surely the most expensive piece of edible fruit on the planet”. It was bought by the crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who gets only one of three editions of the work. “He will receive the banana, a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to install it – including information on how to replace the banana” –…

When Ruth gets a last-minute booking for the barn, Fallon steps in, but scrambles to manage. Justin commissions a new video from Brad, but Tracy worries that running George’s business is distracting him from uni work. Helen tells Kirsty she won’t be buying her house. When Oliver orders Mick to move his camper, Joy says he can park it at hers, but it damages Kirsty’s lawn and the neighbours aren’t happy. Tracy tells Emma her worries about Brad, but Emma implores him to stay in touch with George. With Emma’s help, Fallon just about pulls off the Brookfield event, but Ruth sternly warns Fallon to get her business in order. Hearing of Mick’s situation, Kenton invites him to park his van at The Bull – temporarily, Jolene insists. Leonard rediscovers…

OnePlate is a global charity that supports sustainable food projects for children in need. It partners with restaurants and cafés to fund farms, gardens and orchards, at which children are taught to grow their own food, and develop other life skills. In 2020, OnePlate published the bestselling Brunch in Melbourne; now it has followed this with Brunch in London, which features more than 100 recipes from the capital’s best cooks – including these turmeric dhal poached eggs from the celebrated food writer Anna Jones. Serves 4 1 tbsp olive oil 1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped small bunch of coriander, leaves picked, stalks finely chopped 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground turmeric, or a small thumb-sized piece of…

The Owl in Hawnby, North Yorkshire, has reopened under the ownership of chef Sam Varley. The creative dishes focus on local produce, and there are nine cosy bedrooms (from £135 b&b; theowlhawnby.co.uk). Part of the Great Durnford Estate, The Great Bustard, in Wiltshire, has undergone a complete restoration. This charming pub now has ten rooms, spa treatments, a farm shop and a restaurant with a farm-to-table ethos (from £200 b&b; thegreatbustard.uk). One of the Isle of Wight’s oldest inns, The Buddle Inn has had a full makeover, with four boutique rooms with sea views. The traditional bar retains the original open fireplace and exposed beams, and the menu makes the most of the Isle of Wight’s seafood (from £100 b&b; buddleinn.co.uk). The Brackenrigg, on the banks of Ullswater, in the…

The Merry Harriers Hambledon, Surrey Refurbished this year by “local boys” Alex Winch and Sam Fiddian-Green, this 16th century inn sits in the village of Hambledon in the lovely Surrey Hills. It’s a “family and friends project”, says Rick Jordan in Condé Nast Traveller, with greens grown by Sam’s sister and sheep reared by his mother, and so on. The menu sticks to the “country pub playbook”, but is “expertly cooked” (I loved the lamb loin with laverbread leeks). There are four cosy bedrooms upstairs, five shepherd huts by a pond in the garden, and an inglenook fireplace in the “uncluttered” downstairs, where the “wood-beamed history” is allowed to “breathe”. Doubles from £140; merryharriers.com.…

Michael Saylor What’s flying higher than bitcoin? “The software company buying up bitcoin,” said The Wall Street Journal. Shares in Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy have soared 77% since 5 November to reach $91bn – more than twice the value of its underlying crypto stash. It’s a vindication of Saylor’s bold 2020 pivot to bitcoin from peddling corporate intelligence IT. But he had little choice: MicroStrategy, whacked by Covid lockdowns, was flailing. “It was either a fast death or a slow death, or take a risk,” he says. A pilot manqué, Saylor has had a career peppered with booms and busts. He lost $6bn of his wealth in a day in 2000. Critics fear this latest, highly leveraged brush with market mania will also end in tears. Ever the stuntman, Saylor, 59,…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1442 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 9 December. Send it to The Week Crossword 1442, 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 Week-branded items including a notebook, coffee mug and tote bag, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 6 Rest wavering in Conservative country causes dismay (13) 10 This country faces extremes of Russia in the east (7) 11 Nick bitter about awful fate? The reverse (3,4) 12 Auditor’s negligible dexterity (7) 13 Idle talk from conductor behind piano (7) 14 All is revealed as…

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