Table of contents for 1440 in The Week

What happened Boris Johnson resigned as an MP last Friday, triggering a renewed bout of Tory infighting. He made the shock move after being shown a draft version of a report by the Commons Privileges Committee, which accused him of misleading Parliament over “Partygate”. Johnson said he was leaving Westminster – “at least for now” – because it was clear that the committee was engaged in a “political hit job” and was determined to find him guilty. The full report was due to be published later this week. Another factor in Johnson’s departure was the release on Friday of his resignation honours list. It contained gongs for many of his allies (see page 21), but omitted some of those to whom he had promised peerages, including Nadine Dorries and Nigel…

Last Friday, Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf took to social media to pour scorn on Boris Johnson and the Tories. “Westminster is consumed with this third-rate political soap opera,” he declared. “The sooner Scotland becomes independent … the better.” The hubris of his statement became clear just 48 hours later, said Alison Campsie in The Scotsman, when Nicola Sturgeon, his mentor and predecessor as SNP leader, “played a starring role in a first-rate political thriller”. Sturgeon was arrested as part of a police inquiry into the SNP’s finances. Between 2017 and 2019, the party had raised nearly £700,000 for a future independence campaign. By 2020, with no referendum in sight, the funds were largely gone. Sturgeon’s husband and the SNP’s former chief executive, Peter Murrell, was arrested in April; a…

48% of people around the world say they are very or extremely interested in the news, down from 63% in 2017. In the UK, the figure is just 43%. Worldwide, 36% of all adults say they actively avoid the news at times. Reuters Institute/BBC 33% of British adults believe the cost-of-living crisis is definitely or probably a government plot to control the public. A similar number think Covid-19 was definitely or probably a hoax. Savanta/KCL Only 40% of adults in Britain believe transgender people should be allowed to use single-sex facilities, such as public toilets, that correspond to the gender they identify with, compared with 70% in Italy and 65% in Spain and the Netherlands. Ipsos/The Guardian…

Evolutions in acting In As You Like It, the role of Rosalind usually goes to an actress in the first flush of her career, says Claire Allfree in The Daily Telegraph. But for a new RSC production, Geraldine James, 72, will take on the role of the lovestruck heroine. It will be, she says, a refreshing change from the “grandmother” roles she tends to get offered these days. James rejects the fashionable idea that actors should share the “lived experience” of their characters. “It upsets me, because who am I going to play, a 72-year-old from Berkshire?” But she’s glad other aspects of the industry have evolved since she started out. “I used to flick through scripts to see how many times I’d be expected to take a bath,” she says.…

A Christmas tree in the town of Beverley in Yorkshire has been left standing since the festive season, to protect a wood pigeon that has made a nest in its branches. The local council found the bird when it sent a team to dispose of the tree in January. The law protects nesting birds, so the Christmas tree is still there now, its foliage a deep copper brown. “As a green council, we care about biodiversity, nature and green issues,” said councillor Denis Healy. A publicity stunt went badly wrong last week, when Burnie, the furry mascot of the NBA basketball team Miami Heat, took part in a half-time bout with the mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor. To promote his new pain relief spray, McGregor floored Burnie with a…

GERMANY Putin’s fangirl should be free to outrage us Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin) Mindful of the country’s Nazi past, Germany’s constitution firmly states that freedom of opinion is “one of the most important human rights of all”, essential for a free democratic state. So you’d have thought our judges would be extra wary of setting limits on it, says Malte Lehming. Why then has a court in Cologne seen fit to muzzle one of the city’s residents – Elena Kolbasnikova, a Ukrainian and self-styled “peace activist” – for expressing strong pro-Russian sympathies. A year ago, at a motorcade demo that she’d helped to organise, she told TV reporters that far from being the aggressor, Russia was trying to end the war in Ukraine. The court has now ruled that her statements…

The late Silvio Berlusconi set great store by his looks, as Gordon Brown discovered at a summit to discuss the 2008 crash. Hearing the Italian PM grumble that his fellow leaders were “amateurs”, Brown assumed he was referring to their response to the crisis. Not so. “Don’t you realise we have a press conference in one hour and none of them have brought a make-up artist?” Berlusconi demanded. When E.T. came out in 1982, the animatronic puppet used for the homesick alien was so lifelike, its designer won an Oscar. Now, Steven Spielberg has revealed that he kept it “alive” even when the cameras were not rolling, so that the film’s six-year-old star, Drew Barrymore, maintained her belief that E.T. really was a loveable alien. It worked so well that…

“Only Napoleon did more than I have done. But I am definitely taller.”Silvio Berlusconi, quoted on Reuters “I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them.”Susan Sontag, quoted in The Atlantic “Come and visit again, but not soon! Wait a few months.”Mel Brooks, ibid. “Those that have charm don’t really need brains.”Evelyn Waugh, quoted in The Sunday Times “I don’t want to work. I want to smoke.”Guillaume Apollinaire, quoted in The Guardian “Some sentences release their poisons only after years.”Elias Canetti, quoted in The New York Times “Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, I think you’re focusing on the wrong shit.”Wanda Sykes, quoted in the Los Angeles Times “Worldly faces never…

To The Guardian Your article, “Yes, you should be worried about AI”, confirms much I have suspected about the AI “existential threat” we’re supposed to fear. It seems to follow the same playbook as the Y2K [millennium bug] panic. First, establish an overblown future cause for corporate and political concern, then sell the “solution”, which will, of course, cost serious money. Phyl Hyde, Coventry To The Guardian Phyl Hyde says the concerns over Y2K were “a panic” about an “overblown future cause”. Like many IT specialists across the world, I am fed up with this misinterpretation of what happened. Organisations put serious money into employing thousands of people to inspect their systems and to amend them to ensure the issue was avoided. Because of this, systems continued to function normally.…

If Filthy Ritual were a work of fiction, you’d “think it too far-fetched”, said Fiona Sturges in the FT. This riveting new series tells the astonishing story of Juliette D’Souza, who in 2014 was jailed for conning “well-to-do Londoners” out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. D’Souza had gained the confidence of her victims by “telling them – and stay with me here – that she was a shaman who had a special connection to a source of power deep in the Amazon rainforest”. The series delves into themes of class, wealth and coercion – and thanks to the clever storytelling of hosts Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire (the duo behind the hit true-crime podcast RedHanded), it is “wonderfully addictive”. Wryly funny, yet underpinned by tragedy, this is, “by some…

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam, 1972 (out of print). I love Halberstam’s books, with their wit and pen portraits. This one – about how America became embroiled in the Vietnam War – is his best. It is history as it should be written, using detail to create atmosphere. It’s been very influential on my own writing, and on my politics. Halberstam showed how early decisions trap you. A real lesson. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960 (Cornerstone £8.99). When I finished this classic for the first time, I turned to the beginning and started again. It appeals to my sense of justice, my belief in the rule of law and, I accept, to my sentimentality too. Whenever anyone asks me what a young person should read,…

Programmes Litvinenko Four-part drama based on the case of the Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned at a London hotel in 2006. Mon 19, Tue 20, Wed 21 and Thur 22 Jun, ITV1 21:00 (60mins each). Dr Death Joshua Jackson stars as the notorious neurosurgeon Dr Christopher Duntsch in this true-crime drama. Tue 20 Jun, C4 22:00 (60mins). The Richard Dimbleby Lecture with David Harewood To mark the 75th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving at Tilbury, carrying 492 passengers from the Caribbean, the actor talks about his parents’ experiences as immigrants. Tue 20 Jun, BBC2 22:40 (40mins). The Change Sharp-edged comedy about a menopausal woman trying to reconnect with her former self, starring Bridget Christie, Monica Dolan and Paul Whitehouse. Wed 21 Jun, C4 22:00 and 22:35 (35mins each). Windrush: Portraits…

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, has permanent work by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Andy Goldsworthy, plus temporary exhibits such as Damien Hirst until Sept 2024 (£9; open daily; ysp.org.uk). The 350-acre Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park, in Norwich, has pieces by Elisabeth Frink, Lynn Chadwick, Antony Gormley and Moore, plus Laurence Edwards’ wild-looking 8ft bronze Man of Stones by the lake (free; open daily; sainsburycentre.ac.uk). Every piece at Jupiter Artland near Edinburgh was designed for its precise spot by artists including Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn and Phyllida Barlow (£11; open Wed to Sun until Oct; jupiterartland.org). The pretty 4.5-mile circular Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail in Gloucestershire contains work inspired by the beauty of the ancient royal forest, including Kevin Atherton’s Cathedral, a 15ft stained-glass window suspended in the foliage (free; open daily;…

A glitzier version of Menorca Long known as “a haunt of British pensioners”, Menorca is the sleepiest of the Balearic islands. But in recent years, its “elemental” landscape, quaint old towns and slow pace of life have attracted “a new set of wanderers”, says Stephanie Rafanelli in Condé Nast Traveller – and it has seen a new wave of creativity to match. Go for its natural beauty (notably in the Camí de Cavalls, its 115-mile coastal path), but don’t miss its art galleries (such as LoAC and Hauser & Wirth, which both opened in 2021), burgeoning wine scene (including the pioneering Binifadet estate) and excellent restaurants (look up Sa Punta, Ses Forquilles, Quitapenas and Smoix). There’s also any number of attractive new boutique hotels and renovated farmhouse lets to choose…

Pat Robertson, who has died aged 93, was a TV evangelist and businessman known for his wildly incendiary statements. He called feminism a “movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”. He predicted that Disney World would be hit by a hurricane or a meteor for staging a gay rally. “Mickey Mouse had better hit the storm shelter,” he warned. He referred to Scotland as a “dark land” overrun by homosexuals (which scuppered his controversial attempt, in 1999, to buy the Bank of Scotland). Yet his preaching, for family values and against abortion and gay rights, struck such a chord with disenchanted fundamentalist Christians in the US heartlands that, in 1988, he felt able to run for the Republican presidential…

Rates of 9%? Saffron Building Society is paying a headline-grabbing 9% on its “loyalty saver account” – if you’ve been with it since at least 1 June last year; Skipton Building Society is paying 7.5% to members who joined before the end of May this year. The catch in both cases is that “you can only save a limited amount – and you won’t earn the headline rate on all of it”. Saffron only lets you deposit £50 a month – £600 a year – and only the first month’s contribution will earn the full 9%. The actual interest rate over the full year is only about 4.9%. Lump sums Savers with more cash would be better off with a lower rate account that lets you deposit a bigger lump…

The week’s best shares Chemring Group The Times War in Ukraine, and the strengthening US position towards China, are boosting demand for the defence specialist’s rockets, missiles and cybersecurity products. Upgrading facilities to meet rising demand. Buy. 293p. Edinburgh Investment Trust The Daily Telegraph This trust, majoring on FTSE 100 firms including Shell, BAE and Unilever, is well-placed to capitalise on improving UK stock sentiment. Currently outperforming under new management. Buy. 666p. Mitie Group The Times Artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities are transforming the strategic cleaning and security outsourcer. Profits have dipped after a Covid boom, but it’s still good value with growing potential. Yields 3%. Buy. 99.5p. Ramsdens Holdings Investors’ Chronicle The diversified financial services group is making hay from its jewellery retail and pawnbroking arms. Increasing its estate by…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1367 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 26 June. Send it to The Week Crossword 1367, 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 Two females in contest for bag (6) 4 Reserve choices in mountain tools (3,5) 10 Hotel in La Paz renovated (5) 11 With which a deer sees behind it? (9) 12 One’s followed tasteless articles so long (2-2) 13 Bite back? This insect might…

What happened Ukraine claimed modest early successes in its long-awaited counteroffensive, driving Russian forces out of more than 100 sq km of its territory. Much of the fighting was in the southeast, in or near the Zaporizhzhia region; it is widely assumed that Kyiv is seeking to cut off the land corridor linking the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula with Russia. Footage showed that German-made Leopard 2 tanks and US Bradley Fighting Vehicles had been deployed by Kyiv for the first time on the front line; several were destroyed. Moscow claimed it had repelled many Ukrainian attacks, inflicting heavy casualties. A week after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam unleashed a severe flood, inundating over 600 sq km and at least 40 settlements in the Kherson region, the waters began…

The distribution of Greggs vs. Pret A Manger outlets has been used to plot England’s North-South divide. Mathematicians analysed the locations of the chains, and found that Prets started being outnumbered by Greggs around the Watford Gap: the traditional North-South dividing line. An analysis of Morrisons and Waitrose produced a similar result. However, it has been pointed out that the Greggs-Pret divide puts Cornwall in the North. The Knowledge, the 25,000-street test taken by aspiring London taxi drivers, is under official review and could be dumbed down, The Sunday Times reports. The test, which takes up to four years to pass, is said to be deterring younger recruits, who struggle to learn in a “parrot fashion”.…

Milan, Italy Berlusconi dies: Tributes have poured in for Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who died in Milan this week aged 86. He had been suffering from leukaemia. Italy’s longest-serving postwar premier, the cruise ship singer-turned-billionaire business owner was one of Italy’s richest men when he swept to power in 1994 at the head of his own populist, right-wing political party, Forza Italia. The foremost celebrity politician of his generation, he served as PM three times in a career that was dogged by scandals, sexual and financial. His critics saw him as a threat to democracy, and he was investigated more than 30 times on charges including embezzlement and bribery, but he was convicted only once, of tax fraud in 2012. His death poses a challenge for Italy’s current…

1* Good as Hell by Melissa Jefferson and Eric Frederic, performed by Lizzo 2 Stir It Up by Bob Marley, performed by Bob Marley and the Wailers 3 Nightshift by Walter Orange, Dennis Lambert and Franne Golde, performed by the Commodores 4 More Than This by Bryan Ferry, performed by Roxy Music 5 Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, performed by Lauryn Hill 6 Kiss by Prince, performed by Prince and The Revolution 7 My Favorite Things by Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers, performed by John Coltrane 8 The Rhythm of the Night by Francesco Bontempi, Annerley Emma Gordon, Giorgio Spagna, Pete Glenister and Michael Gaffey, performed by Corona Book: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Luxury: a solar-powered television, showing tennis * Choice if allowed only one record…

Medical researchers have noticed “long tail” effects after pandemics and mass infections for decades; but because they’re typically more interested in the primary illness, such effects have been little studied. The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic overlapped with a mass outbreak of encephalitis lethargica, or “sleepy sickness”; but despite the strong statistical correlation, biological causation has never been proved. ME first came to the public consciousness after an outbreak of debilitating neurological and muscular symptoms at London’s Royal Free Hospital in 1955. Dr Melvin Ramsay coined the term myalgic encephalomyelitis, which has been used but contested ever since (not least because ME may not involve encephalomyelitis, an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord). Today, many prefer the term chronic fatigue syndrome. In the 1970s, two British psychiatrists concluded that ME…

Don’t count out a wild card in 2024 Peggy Noonan The Wall Street Journal Could a third party enter the 2024 presidential race and surprise everyone by winning it? Call me naive, says Peggy Noonan, but I think it’s perfectly possible – if, that is, voters otherwise face a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The biggest political group in America today “isn’t Democrats or Republicans; it’s the unaffiliated”. A record number of Americans claim to be politically independent. A March Gallup poll suggested they make up 49% of the electorate. So the conditions for a successful third-party run are surely there. In 1992, when America was “a more normal country” than it is today, a third-party bid by the businessman Ross Perot did surprisingly well. Perot ran a…

Almost a third of the food and drinks aimed at infants and toddlers are ultra-processed, a report has found. These foods are marketed as being healthy, and even natural, though they’re made using industrial processes, many of which require sophisticated equipment and technology. In a foreword to the report, commissioned by the charity First Steps Nutrition Trust, Dr Chris van Tulleken warns that the makers of the various snacks, pouches and jars of infant foods are under intense pressure to generate returns for their investors; as a result, they may use “the cheapest possible ingredients”, in food that is engineered “for excess consumption”. For example, the report notes that puréeing food releases “free sugars”, and though the labelling on a pouch may imply its contents are savoury, such purées tend…

Tennis World No. 1 Iga Świątek won her third French Open title, beating the Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchová 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 in the final. Andy Murray won a Wimbledon warm-up title at Surbiton. Golf Nick Taylor became the first home winner of the Canadian Open in 69 years. The 35-year-old secured the title with a 72-foot eagle putt. Cricket The England women’s cricket team have called up uncapped pair Dani Gibson (all-rounder) and Lauren Filer (medium bowler) for their one-off Ashes Test against Australia, which begins on 22 June.…

A Celebration of Portraiture at Piano Nobile In recent years, the Piano Nobile gallery in Notting Hill has mounted a number of museum-standard shows devoted to the likes of Leon Kossoff, Walter Sickert and Frank Auerbach. This exhibition continues the trend, focusing on British portraiture in the 20th century, featuring works by all three of the aforementioned artists plus a host of others, represented in many cases by first-rate pieces: R.B. Kitaj, Euan Uglow, Celia Paul, David Bomberg and Lucian Freud are all present and correct, as are a number of comparatively obscure figures, such as the excellent surrealist Ithell Colquhoun and the marvellously self-effacing Jean Cooke. The last artist’s contribution, entitled The Sun Hat (c.1960), is a particular highlight, as is Portrait of Anthony (1991), a rare-as-hens’-teeth work by…

Lir The Marina, Coleraine, County Londonderry (nativeseafood.co.uk) On their website, the owners of this new fish restaurant in Coleraine, an hour’s drive northwest of Belfast, proclaim their commitment to “zero waste and sustainability”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. They also extol the virtues of fermenting, smoking and “whole-fish butchery”. While such “nerdiness is delightful”, it wouldn’t mean much if the food wasn’t good. Fortunately, it is “very good indeed”. A case in point is deep-fried hake “Kiev”: a “golden-brown barrel-shaped piece of beautifully cooked white fish”, from which oozes the “finest garlic butter known to humanity”. Or there’s monkfish sausage roll, its puff pastry “exquisitely laminated”, accompanied by a “thick fermented chilli ketchup with just the right bash of warming heat”. In every dish, the approach is inventive and thoughtful,…

Portuguese market town Seven nights in Villa Botelho, set in rolling countryside near São Brás with beaches close by, cost from £465pp self-catering (excl. flights). 0800-074 0122, jamesvillas.co.uk. Arrive 23 September. Greek Cyclades escape An undeniably exciting island-hopping adventure awaits, combining Athens with three dreamy islands. From £929pp b&b (incl. London flights). 020-3608 0135, secretescapes.com. Depart 25 September. East Asia cruise Spend 14 nights onboard Marella Discovery 2 sailing around Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. From £2,065pp all-inclusive (incl. Birmingham flights). 020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk. Depart 13 December. Seven nights in Mauritius SO Sofitel is located on the southern tip of the island in Bel Ombre, with the Frederica Nature Reserve nearby. From £1,088pp b&b (excl. flights). 020-8974 7200, travelrepublic.co.uk. Arrive 26 October. Covid-19: please check government websites for testing and quarantine…

JPMorgan Chase: Epstein settlement Insiders at JPMorgan have long been “pointing fingers” over the historic decision to retain Jeffrey Epstein as a client for 15 years, despite the obvious “warning signs”, said Julia Malleck on Quartz. Now America’s biggest lender has finally decided to stump up – agreeing to pay $290m to settle a class action launched by one of the late financier’s victims. The plaintiff, known as “Jane Doe 1”, alleged that the bank “turned a blind eye to evidence of human trafficking” because of Epstein’s big “financial footprint”, and so was “complicit” in his crimes. Just hours before the agreement, a federal judge ruled that the case would be widened to include more than 100 more women, who will now share in the payout. The deal follows a…

The new realism in US/UK relations Bronwen Maddox Financial Times “It’s never easy for a UK prime minister to get a trip to the US right,” says Bronwen Maddox. Get too close, and there’s a danger of being labelled “America’s puppet”. But “plucking at the president’s sleeve” for attention “is not a good look either”. All credit, then, to Rishi Sunak, for managing to steer between these “twin traps” when courting President Biden. It marks “a crucial new realism”. Sunak made the “well-judged step” of announcing that Britain would lead a summit on regulating artificial intelligence. But the trap he most “shrewdly avoided” was petitioning for a rapid trade deal. “It would have been humiliating to ask and not get it, but potentially more bruising to begin talks.” The pro-Brexit…

Women diagnosed with breast cancer are 66% less likely to die of the disease than they were 20 years ago, a major Oxford University study has found. Women diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer between 1993 and 1999 had a 14% chance of dying from the disease within the next five years; but this figure fell to less than 5% for those diagnosed between 2010 and 2015. “Most [patients] can expect to be long-term cancer survivors,” write the co-authors of the research. Thomas Cromwell’s personal prayer book has been found in a Cambridge library, where it has been hiding in plain sight for centuries. The Book of Hours, which features in Hans Holbein’s portrait of the Tudor statesman, was identified by historians who had discovered that both Anne Boleyn and…

The UK Covid-19 inquiry held its first public hearing in central London this week. The first session began with a 17-minute film featuring statements from individuals who had lost relatives to Covid. The investigation, which is being chaired by Baroness Hallett, is scheduled to last until at least 2026, and is expected to cost well over £100m. It is split into six sections, or modules, and interim reports will be released at the end of each one. The first is considering the UK’s pandemic preparedness. Later modules will examine political and administrative decision-making during the pandemic; vaccines and therapeutics; and the impact of the pandemic on the UK’s healthcare systems, among other issues.…

Washington DC Spy station: Media reports that China is planning to establish a spy station in Cuba have fuelled tensions between Washington and Beijing. Citing anonymous officials who claimed to have seen “credible” intelligence on the matter, newspapers reported that Beijing has signed a deal with Havana to build a listening post on the island that would enable it to tap into US electronic communications. China rejected the story, and the White House and the Pentagon denied that any such intelligence existed, but later an official – speaking anonymously to The New York Times – implied that China had had a facility in Cuba for years, a problem “inherited” from Donald Trump. This week, a White House spokesman acknowledged that relations with Beijing were strained, but said reports about a…

“The critic Harold Rosenberg coined the phrase ‘the herd of independent minds’. It’s a line I think about often. There are very few people who don’t see themselves as independent thinkers. There are even fewer people who are. Most people just want to belong, and the most essential elements of belonging are agreeing and conforming. Would-be belongers engage in what’s known as ‘preference falsification’, pretending to enjoy things they don’t, or subscribe to ideas they secretly reject. They go along to get along, because the usual emotional companion to intellectual independence isn’t pride or self-confidence. It’s loneliness and sometimes crippling self-doubt.” Bret Stephens in The New York Times…

This nation has done too much home-work Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph Time to admit it, says Matthew Lynn: the working-from-home experiment has been “a catastrophe”. Over the past three years, a bevy of experts has hailed WFH as the way forward. It would lead to happier, more productive workers, they argued; it would boost output by 13%, claimed academics at Stanford University. All nonsense, it turns out. Productivity has flatlined across the economy; and in the public sector – the most enthusiastic adopter of WFH – it has actually fallen, with a 1.6% drop at the end of 2022, compared with a year earlier. Horrified by the fall in output, firms are now trying to get staff back into the office, hoping this will restore some dynamism and team…

A “potent” drug for lung cancer The lung cancer drug osimertinib has been found to reduce the risk of patients dying from the disease after surgery by 51% – an outcome described as “unprecedented”. Killing around 1.8 million people a year, lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer deaths. “Thirty years ago, there was nothing we could do for these patients,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Roy Herbst of the Yale Cancer Centre. “Now we have this potent drug.” The trial involved patients aged 30 to 86 who had non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, at stages one to three. They all carried a mutation of the EGFR gene, which is found in about a quarter of all lung cancer patients, and…

Boris Johnson’s long-awaited resignation honours list was “a characteristic two-fingers to the establishment”, said Andrew Grice in The Independent. Initially, it had about 100 names on it (Margaret Thatcher’s, by contrast, had 42). After consultation with the Cabinet Office, it was trimmed to 38: among others, out went Johnson’s father Stanley, to whom he’d wanted to give a knighthood, and Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail. Yet, inevitably, the final list still looked like a triumph for cronyism and back-scratching. Political allies were rewarded: there was a knighthood for Jacob Rees-Mogg, and a damehood for Priti Patel. Honours also went to several officials embroiled in “Partygate”, such as Martin Reynolds – the civil servant known as “Party Marty”, who oversaw a notorious garden party during lockdown in…

After the “big four” came the “big three”, said Simon Briggs in The Daily Telegraph. Then Roger Federer’s retirement left just the “big two”. But with Novak Djokovic’s defeat of Casper Ruud in the French Open final, the picture has changed once more: now that Rafael Nadal is off the tour injured – and unlikely to return to serious competition – the Serb “stands alone as the undisputed emperor of tennis”. Djokovic’s 7-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory on Sunday moved him into “uncharted territory” – he’s the first man to win 23 major titles, one more than Nadal and three more than Federer. At the age of 36, he “continues to dominate younger rivals with his physicality, as well as his almost laughably superior skill set”. His statistical hold on men’s…

The Old Vic, London SE1 (0344-871 7628). Until 19 August Running time: 2hrs 35mins Stephen Sondheim once thought about turning the 1993 film Groundhog Day into a stage musical. He gave up on the idea, saying: “It cannot be improved. It’s perfect the way it is.” And he may have been right about that, said Clive Davis in The Times – but this “glorious collaboration” between Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the film, and Tim Minchin (the composer-lyricist responsible for the global smash-hit stage musical Matilda) “comes as close as you could possibly imagine to reproducing the magic of the original”. Groundhog Day premiered at the Old Vic in 2016, and went on to win a slew of awards. Fittingly for a musical about a man who finds himself living the…

I’m a fan of Sam Levinson’s series Euphoria, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer. It’s made for teenagers, but it has decent storylines and solid characters. Now, Levinson has co-created a six-part series for HBO (available to watch on Now) – and alas, it’s a “risible, cliché-riddled” dud. Lily-Rose Depp stars as Jocelyn, a pop singer who we meet “undulating sexily” at the shoot for her comeback single. Soon, the “central-casting evil music execs” who manage her are wondering how to respond to a photo that has leaked online, showing her with semen on her face. Then a club owner (played by the Canadian singer The Weeknd) turns up, brandishing cocaine. The series clearly aspires to be shocking, but its best hope is that it gets “so-bad-it’s-good” status. The Idol…

“Kitsch and beautiful, absurd and captivating”, Joana Vasconcelos’s giant wedding cake “may be the first wholeheartedly joyful artistic masterpiece of the 21st century”, says The Guardian. The installation, which opened to the public at Waddesdon Manor, the Rothschild family’s stately home in Buckinghamshire, last week, is a garden folly in the British tradition of random “pleasure-buildings”, set in landscaped gardens. The Portuguese sculptor has commissioned thousands of gleaming, icing-like ceramic tiles to decorate it. “You can go inside, passing between the electric candles and ceramic mermaids”, into a domed circular wedding chapel. You can climb the stairs to the higher tiers of the cake, which rises up 12 metres, “and find yourself suddenly above the trees in an impossibly light and heady place”. Tours run from 18 June – 26…

Freddie tells Ben he’s giving up on Lower Loxley to focus on DJing and lands a gig in a club in Birmingham. Stella tells Ruth about Brian sacking her, insisting Adam gave her the go-ahead. Kirsty reassures worried Tom that the family must stick together. Neil gives George a talking-to over his attitude to Hannah. Adam tells Lilian and Justin he’s worried about Brian and Home Farm – Justin has a plan. Emma presses George on his fundraising plans for Caroline’s charity. Lee confides in Tom that he’s worried about the boys picking up on the tension at home. Freddie’s on a high after his gig, but Elizabeth urges him to stick with Lower Loxley and learn. After talking to Stella, Justin visits Brian at the farm and berates him…

I absolutely love pistachios, says Mateo Zielonka. Cracking them out of the shells to eat the roasted salted nut alongside an evening drink, baking ground pistachios in an olive oil cake with orange or lemon zest, blitzing them into a pesto to serve with pasta… Pistachios give this recipe a Sicilian edge and add more body to the pesto than pine nuts. I like to use ribbed romana courgettes if I can find them, as they have such a lovely texture and flavour, but ordinary courgettes will work too. Serves 4 400g fresh orecchiette 2 tbsp olive oil 250g romana courgettes, cut into 1cm rings 160g datterini or cherry tomatoes, halved pecorino or parmesan, to serve For the pistachio pesto: 40g shelled pistachios bunch of basil (about 30g) handful of mint juice…

● Avoid freezing foods with a high water content. Salad vegetables will turn soggy when thawed, but most other veg can be frozen if they’re going to be cooked. ● Frozen baked potatoes can be reheated in a microwave, or made into mash. Freeze mash flat in bags – it will defrost quicker. ● Frozen grated carrots can be used to bulk out meals. Diced onions, carrots and celery can all be frozen. Freeze chopped herbs with a bit of water in ice trays. ● Fruit can be frozen if it’ll be cooked or used in smoothies. Peel bananas first, then slice them and freeze them on a lined tray. Once frozen they can be stored in a bag. ● Beaten egg, or yolks and whites, can be frozen. Add…

The artist Françoise Gilot, who has died aged 101, was Pablo Picasso’s lover for ten years, and the mother of two of his children. Like most of the women in Picasso’s life, she was not well treated by him; but she was the only one who opted to leave him. It took him by surprise, she recalled. “You imagine people will be interested in you?” he told her. “They won’t ever, really, just for yourself. Even if you think people like you, it will only be a kind of curiosity they will have about a person whose life touched mine so intimately.” There was a grain of truth in this, said The New York Times. It was for her relationship with Picasso that she’d remain best known – not least…

Tobias Ulbrich BioNTech, the German pharma behind the Pfizer Covid vaccine, is “facing a barrage of compensation claims in Germany” alleging “lasting health damage” from the vaccine, said Laura Pitel in the FT. It’s music to the ears of lawyer Tobias Ulbrich, whose Düsseldorf-based firm, Rogert & Ulbrich, has been leading the charge for court action. No one denies he has form: Ulbrich was previously a driving force in winning damages for consumers following VW’s “Dieselgate” scandal. But he is nonetheless “a controversial figure”, due to his own anti-vax beliefs. Ulbrich once claimed that Bill Gates “wanted to use vaccination to reduce the population of Germany to 27 million people”. He has also alleged that blood tests on some of his clients showed them to be suffering from a “vaccine-acquired…

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