Table of contents for 1488 in The Week

What happened Fighting intensified in Gaza this week, at both ends of the coastal strip. In the south, Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah, the border city where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. Meanwhile, in northern Gaza, there were fierce gun battles in the sprawling Jabalia refugee camp and in the centre of Gaza City, areas where Israel claimed to have dismantled Hamas’s networks months ago. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted the “horrible loss of life of innocent civilians”, and reaffirmed America’s opposition to a full-scale Israeli assault on Rafah. Any further ground captured by Israel, he said, would create a vacuum “that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again”. The US has already paused…

The cross-party inquiry into birth trauma was led by a campaigner with first-hand knowledge of the issue, said The Guardian. When Theo Clarke, the Tory MP for Stafford, gave birth to her first child in 2022, she suffered a third-degree tear and heavy blood loss during a 40-hour labour, followed by surgery without a general anaesthetic. “I really thought I was going to die,” she told the BBC last year. Her inquiry’s report, published on Monday, shows that hers was a far from isolated case. Drawing on expert evidence and the personal testimony of 1,300 women, it “vividly conveys” the cost of failures in NHS maternity services. About 30,000 women each year – one in 20 new mothers – are diagnosed with post-traumatic disorder. “Harrowing” accounts highlight how mistakes and…

Once-common British put-downs are slowly dying out. In a poll of under-28s, 62% said they had never heard the term “lummox” (for a clumsy person); 54% had never heard anyone referred to as a “blighter”; 51% said the same of “ninny”, and a third were ignorant of “toerag”. Other insults at risk of disappearing include cad, drip, tosspot, pillock, prat, numpty and git. Does anyone read the privacy policies that organisations are obliged to publish? Dan Neidle, of the think-tank Tax Policy Associates, suspected not, so he inserted into the one on his website a clause reading: “We will send a bottle of good wine to the first person to read this.” Last week, he revealed that it had taken three months for the bottle to be claimed.…

44% of adults in the UK say they look at their phones at least once an hour, as do 41% of Americans, 29% of French people and 25% of Germans. 53% of adults in the UK think social media accounts should not be made available to under-18s. More in Common/The Sunday Times 38% of adults in Scotland say they would vote Labour in a general election, and 31% would vote for the SNP, according to a poll by Redfield & Wilton. Savanta also has Labour ahead of the SNP, by 37% to 33%. Daily Mail 40% of British adults have never met someone who loves opera. Just one in ten over the age of 55 say they’d consider going to the opera. Public First/Laidlaw Opera Trust…

Jeremy Clarkson’s intruders The success of Clarkson’s Farm has put Jeremy Clarkson’s 1,000-acre farm firmly on the map, says Charlotte Edwardes in The Guardian. But there is a downside to that. Fans can work out where it is, and quite a few ignore the “keep out” signs, in order to take a look at the place. Clarkson’s partner, Lisa Hogan, once came out of the shower and ran into a couple having a poke around the house; he answered the door not long ago to find a group of children standing on his doorstep, and their mother watching from her car. Another time, he was in his kitchen when he noticed a strange man sitting there. Clarkson assumed that he was part of the TV crew. “He was looking at…

A Finnish hairdresser has introduced a “silent service” for customers who would prefer not to chat about the weather, forthcoming holidays and so on while they are getting their hair cut. The salon’s owner, Kati Hakomeri, said: “I’m an introvert myself and I understand how uncomfortable it can be for a client to have to make small talk.” Customers have to speak during the consultation, but she thinks this can be limited to as few as ten words. Afterwards, they can “recharge [their] batteries and relax”. Demand for the service has been brisk. A zoo in China has been criticised for dyeing dogs black and white in an apparent bid to fool visitors into believing they were seeing pandas. Visitors to Taizhou Zoo, in Jiangsu province, were charged 20 yuan…

ITALY Meloni’s extraordinary transformation Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich) Giorgia Meloni is a master of disguise, says Marc Beise. How else to explain her transformation in the eyes of Europe’s leaders? When she became Italy’s PM in 2022, they justifiably viewed her with suspicion, owing to her Brothers of Italy party’s far-right ideology, her lack of international experience and her anti-EU rhetoric. Yet she has since managed to establish herself as one of the EU’s most influential figures, thanks to her vocal support for Ukraine, and the surprisingly pragmatic course she has steered in office on issues such as migration (the threatened naval blockades have not appeared). Her critics in Italy say that this is all just a front: they regard her as a “gravedigger” for Italian democracy, citing, among other things,…

A “dark and twisted tale” about one man’s real-life experience of being stalked by a deranged Scottish lawyer, Baby Reindeer started as a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019, said Beth Hale in the Daily Mail. Now, it has become a sensation on Netflix, and has taken on a “life of its own”. Last month, the drama’s writer and star, Richard Gadd, had to implore fans to stop trying to work out the identities of the series’s two antagonists: “Martha”, the female stalker, and a sexually abusive male TV producer. But names were put forward online even so and, last week, a Scottish lawyer outed herself as “Martha”. In a YouTube interview with Piers Morgan, Fiona Harvey, 58, admitted that she’d known Gadd, a fellow Scot, but “needless…

“In a small corner of England’s capital, women are at last to be welcomed on equal terms,” said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. The Garrick Club – the grand Covent Garden establishment whose members include a large number of senior judges, civil servants and MPs – voted last week to admit women as members for the first time. As a Garrick member who voted in favour, I also confess to some sympathy with the opposing argument. Freedom of association is a fundamental right, and private clubs should be able to decide who they want as members. Yet because of its perceived influence on public life, the Garrick is not “just another club”. Excluding women felt, to many members, no longer acceptable – and by a majority of 60% to 40%,…

Is there a surer bet in football, asked David Hytner in The Guardian, than Manchester City doing what they need to do when they’re in a “neck-and-neck” race for the Premier League title? In recent years, their winning streaks in such situations “have been long and devastating” – and on Tuesday night, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, they showed once again why they invariably produce the goods when the pressure is “acute”. Pep Guardiola’s side knew that only a victory would mean they’d go into the final round of matches this Sunday ahead of Arsenal – and hence with the title in their hands. And sure enough, a victory – their eighth consecutive one in the Premier League – is what they got. It puts them on the brink of becoming…

To The Times Like Richard Morrison, I worry about the many tall buildings that already loom over our cities, and the many more that are coming. There are hundreds more in the pipeline for London alone, 583 to be exact. These include a proposed tower above Liverpool Street Station that would encroach on views of landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral. Another proposed 43-storey building, which has already generated hundreds of objections, will blight views of the Tower of London and overshadow the Bevis Marks Synagogue. With damaging proposals such as these coming in their hundreds, surely now is the time for a more considered approach to tall buildings? The cumulative effect of tall buildings should be considered, rather than each one looked at separately. Of course our towns and…

Autumn Wallace at Josh Lilley The title of this uneven but frequently invigorating show at Fitzrovia’s Josh Lilley gallery, 40 Knots and How to Tie Them, has been lifted from an old instruction manual. And appropriately enough, in most of these paintings and delicate rag-and-bone sculptures, the American artist Autumn Wallace (b.1996) appears to be tying fictional characters of her own creation into impossibly knotted contortions. Bodies twist, either in devotional frenzy, sexual congress or abject misery, while limbs twist around each other into fusilli-like helixes. There is a hazy, glowing quality to many of the bawdy, illustrative paintings here, which in formal terms feel halfway between Otto Dix and Quentin Blake. Certain pieces feel overly deferential to a market long-obsessed with “weird” imagery, but mostly it pays off. The…

How to make a cocktail lolly We’ve already had the “frozé”, a slushy made from rosé, says Silvana Franco in The Daily Telegraph. Now, the “latest hot-weather craze” has arrived: “ice lollies and push-up popsicles created from cocktails”. These are perfect to serve at a summer party, and a lot more eye-catching than a jug of cocktails. And while ready-made lollies are an option – a trio of Spritz “sorbettos” is available at Waitrose for £5 – it’s more fun, and cheaper, to make your own. If you do, there are a few things to bear in mind. Because freezing subdues sweetness, you should add a little more sugar than usual to your cocktail mix. But don’t be tempted to up the booze: alcohol inhibits freezing. Of the many kinds…

“Anyone can make a martini,” says The Connaught’s mixologist, Agostino Perrone: ● Martini can be made with vodka or gin, but Perrone prefers gin – Tanqueray No. 10, Sipsmith or No. 3 – at room temperature. ● He blends his own vermouth with equal parts Martini Extra Dry, Cinzano 1757 Extra Dry and Cocchi Americano. Vermouth is wine-based so needs to be kept in the fridge. A fino sherry also works well, or a peaty whisky for a smoky martini. ● The Connaught martini trolley offers five different bitters, but Angostura is widely stocked. With a pipette, drop half a teaspoon around the rim of a chilled coupette. ● Fill a mixing glass to three-quarters with clear ice (made with filtered water). ● The standard ratio of spirit to vermouth…

Bernard Hill 1944-2024 Bernard Hill, who has died aged 79, starred in two of the only three films to have won 11 Oscars, said The Guardian. He was Captain Edward Smith in Titanic (1997), and King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). He played John Lennon three times, and appeared as Pauline Collins’s husband in the film Shirley Valentine. But for a generation of television viewers, he will be most vividly remembered as Yosser Hughes, the unemployed Tarmac layer in Alan Bleasdale’s Liverpool-set tragicomedy The Boys from the Blackstuff. Although Bleasdale wrote most of the series (a spin-off from a TV play) when Labour was still in government, it came to be seen as a bitter indictment of the Thatcher government. Having lost…

It’s like January 2021 all over again, said CNBC. Shares of the video games retailer GameStop – and other companies at the centre of the pandemic-era “meme stock” craze – have reignited, gaining over 70% during “wild trading” on Monday. All it took was the return of “Roaring Kitty”, aka stock-booster Keith Gill, who made his first online post in three years. Clearly, there’s a latent “cult of equity” among retail investors, said the FT. Still, you’ve got to credit Gill’s pulling power, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. He simply posted “a drawing of a man leaning forward in his chair” – and bingo! “It’s odd other companies haven’t employed his artistic skills.”…

What’s the issue? It’s the “lifetime limit” on pension contributions, which was scrapped by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in the April 2023 Budget – removing a cap then set at £1,073,100, with savings above that taxed at up to 55%. The Treasury hopes scrapping the limit would discourage high earners with generous final salary pension schemes – NHS doctors were a particular concern – from retiring early. What’s Labour’s position? It wants to reinstate the cap, and create a targeted scheme for doctors rather than allowing a “free-for-all for the wealthy few”. What are the sums? “If you didn’t max it out” at the time, you can carry forward the “annual allowance” – the amount you can add to your pension each year while still getting tax relief – from each…

The week’s best shares Danaher Corporation The Daily Telegraph This US giant specialises in biologics – using living cells or organisms to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases – and recently bought the UK biotech “darling” Abcam. Recurring revenues and punchy growth targets. Buy. $253.38. GSK Investors’ Chronicle The blue-chip pharma’s legal worries around heartburn drug Zantac are receding amid rising sales – driven by a new RSV vaccine and cancer drugs. Q1 profits jumped by 27%. Expanding via acquisitions and well priced. Buy. £17.36. J Sainsbury The Daily Telegraph The retailer’s 3.4% sales and “paltry” 1.6% profit rise is actually “impressive”, given “the sorry state of the UK economy”. Should benefit from falling inflation and rate cuts, thanks to solid finances and sound strategy. Yields 4.9%. Buy. 267.8p. Murray Income…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1414 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 27 May. Send it to The Week Crossword 1414, 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 1 Great sandwiches first in pub evening meal (6) 4 Carter coup tails off in disarray: ready for war? (8) 10 Advertise widely what sounds like the correct entrance (9) 11 Father has to have a look of displeasure (5) 12 A routine result’s out for this…

What happened Keir Starmer’s decision to admit Tory MP Natalie Elphicke into the Labour Party sparked fierce criticism from union leaders and his own MPs. Elphicke crossed the floor of the Commons just before PMQs last Wednesday. Former colleagues were shocked to see her sitting behind Starmer; as were senior Labour figures including Neil Kinnock. MPs on both sides noted that Elphicke was considered on the right of her former party. Labour MPs have called for an investigation into claims that, in 2020, she lobbied the then-justice secretary, Robert Buckland, to interfere in her ex-husband’s sex-assault trial. Elphicke, who’ll stand down as MP for Dover at the next election, joined Starmer in Deal last week as he unveiled his plan to stop small boat crossings. He pledged to scrap the…

Three men have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Hong Kong and charged under the National Security Act. Chung Biu Yuen, a Hong Kong trade official working in London, Chi Leung Wai, a Border Force official at Heathrow, and Matthew Trickett, a Home Office immigration officer and former Royal Marine, were charged this week with unlawfully assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service and engaging in foreign interference by forcing entry into a residential address. They were granted bail, but were made to hand over their passports. The case will be heard later this month.…

The Killers, after the US rock band’s 2003 single Mr. Brightside overtook Oasis’s Wonderwall to become the biggest-selling song never to top the UK charts. Mr. Brightside has sold 1.1 million copies and has been streamed more than 530 million times. It spent seven years in the top 100, but never got higher than No. 10. Adders, with the opening of Britain’s first adder tunnels, to help the endangered venomous snakes cross a road. The tunnels, under a road that bisects Greenham and Crookham Commons in Berkshire, are designed to allow two adder populations to mate. Co-op Live, which finally hosted a full-scale gig, after numerous cancellations. The £450m indoor arena in Manchester has been hit by a host of teething problems. One gig was aborted when part of a…

Dublin Portal shut: A public artwork connecting people in Dublin and New York via a pair of 8ft-wide, livestream video screens was temporarily taken offline this week, owing to inappropriate behaviour in the Irish capital. Launched on 8 May, The Portal has seen families and friends reunited virtually, New Yorkers entertained by Irish jigs, and at least one marriage proposal accepted. But on the Irish side, video clips suggest that people have also flashed body parts, and displayed images of 9/11 on their phones. One man ostentatiously snorted a white powder, and police escorted away a woman who’d been grinding against the installation. Barcelona, Spain Hung parliament: The separatist parties that have been in power in Catalonia since 2012 lost their majority in a regional election this week. Prime Minister…

1 Baggy Trousers by Graham McPherson and Chris Foreman, performed by Madness2 Wichita Lineman by Jimmy Webb, performed by Glen Campbell3* 100% Endurance by Sam Shipstone, James Anthony Smith and Ryan Andrew Needham, performed by Yard Act4 Circlesquare by Malcolm Roy Treece, Martin Richard Gilkes, Miles Stephen Hunt and Robert Jones, performed by The Wonder Stuff5 Cemetery Gates by Morrissey and Johnny Marr, performed by The Smiths6 Consider Yourself by Lionel Bart, performed by Jack Wild, the Oliver! ensemble and The Orchestra, conducted by John Green7 She Sells Sanctuary by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy, performed by The Cult8 The Next Episode by Andre Young, Calvin Broadus, Melvin Bradford, David Axelrod and Brian Bailey, performed by Dr. Dre (featuring Snoop Dogg) Book: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Luxury: sausages…

Andy Street, who was the West Midlands mayor until two weeks ago, is often described as an “unpolitical” politician. The former managing director of John Lewis, he was elected as the Conservative candidate in 2017 and brought a pragmatic, bipartisan approach. Street proved particularly successful in a major part of the metro mayors’ role: what he calls “begging-bowl politics”. He squeezed £10bn of extra state funding for transport, housing and skills, which was invested in new metro routes and train stations, and a doubling of house building. He did not, however, manage to convince ministers not to scrap the second leg of HS2, and eventually lost – narrowly – to Labour’s Richard Parker, by just 1,508 votes out of a total of 600,000. Eighty miles away in Greater Manchester, Andy…

The dark side of the fertility industry Emi Nietfeld Slate Sex selection is banned in virtually every country in the developed world, says Emi Nietfeld. Many Americans assume it’s banned in the US, too. Not so. It has actually become a “standard part of IVF” here. In vitro fertilisation involves tests that, as well as screening the health of embryos, can also enable patients to pick whether to have a male or female baby. For some, this is a perk of a process undertaken as a last resort. “For others, it’s the whole point of doing IVF in the first place.” Elective IVF for sex selection is a growth business in the US fertility industry, a largely unregulated sector that is “increasingly owned by private equity firms and hedge funds”.…

Scientists have developed a vaccine with the potential to protect against a range of coronaviruses. Traditional vaccines use a single antigen to create an immune response against one virus, but the new one contains antigens from eight coronaviruses, including some that are circulating in bats and pangolins that could one day infect people. Parts of these antigens are also found in other coronaviruses, and so the protection the jab provides is extremely broad. In tests on mice, it induced an immune response to SARS-CoV-1, which was responsible for the 2003 Sars outbreak, though it didn’t contain proteins from that virus. The hope is that it could also work on viruses that have yet to emerge. “Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus…

The next few weeks could be critical for Ukraine, said Maxim Tucker in The Times. Congress has finally approved the US’s long-delayed military aid package, but will the arms arrive in time to salvage Kyiv’s faltering position? Ukraine’s shortage of air defences is taking a severe toll: where once the country was able to intercept around three-quarters of Russian missile attacks, it’s now estimated to be blocking only a third. Last week, Russia launched an offensive towards Kharkiv in the northeast, opening up a new front in the war that will put further pressure on Ukraine’s overstretched forces and expose its second-largest city to the threat of artillery bombardment. Vladimir Putin has chosen this moment to install an economic technocrat, Andrei Belousov, as his new defence minister, said Lisa Haseldine…

“Optimists tend to be successful and pessimists tend to be right.”Mark Zuckerberg’s favourite saying, cited in The Sunday Times “American society is pyramid-shaped: the further down you go, the wider people grow.”Craig Brown, quoted in The Knowledge “A woman has to be her own Prince Charming.”Dame Shirley Conran, quoted in The Guardian “Education is what survives when what has been learnt is forgotten.”B.F. Skinner, quoted in Times Higher Education “Economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look good.”J.K. Galbraith, quoted in The Times “Only the shallow know themselves.”Oscar Wilde, quoted in The Washington Post “Other people’s marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.”Patrick O’Brian, quoted in Forbes “Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.”Don Herold, quoted in Reader’s Digest…

Alice walks out when Brian tells Chris she was drinking, and buys a bottle of vodka. That night, George finds Alice drunk in her car and leaves Will a voicemail saying he’s driving her home. En route, Alice opens the car door, causing George to swerve into an oncoming car, which crashes into the river. Alistair and Denise come upon the accident and a frantic George and Mick. They pull Joy out; George dives in again to rescue trapped Fallon – they’re all alive! George returns to Alice’s car and shifts her into the driver’s seat. In hospital, Fallon and Harrison learn that she’s pregnant. Harrison is overjoyed, but Fallon is tense; the next day a scan reveals there’s no heartbeat. Harrison is adamant it’s because of the accident. George…

Serves 2 250g baby spinach 5-10g butter 1 shallot, very finely diced 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced pinch of flaky sea salt generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg generous pinch of ground black pepper 100ml double cream (or crème fraîche) 20g parmesan, finely grated 2 eggs bread, toast or potato farls, for mopping up For the seeds: 2 tbsp mixed seeds 30g butter ¼ tsp sweet smoked paprika ¼ tsp pul biber (Aleppo pepper flakes) • Set a 26cm sauté pan or shallow casserole with a lid over a medium heat. Add the spinach and cook for around 6 minutes, prodding and turning occasionally so the leaves wilt evenly. • Push the wilted spinach to one side of the pan. Add the butter into the empty space, then add the shallot, garlic…

Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, in northeastern Spain, is a “wild and wonderful waterworld” of lakes, rivers, waterfalls and marshes. There are 13 bike routes, and 27 hiking trails with spectacular views (spain.info/en/nature/aiguestortes-national-park/). Mercantour comprises six valleys in southeastern France and is home to a variety of flora and fauna, including golden eagles and wolves, plus the Valley of Wonders, with rock carvings from 3000BC (destination.marittimemercantour.eu). Over half of Eifel in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, has been rewilded and wild cats, red deer, rare lizards and bats have returned. There are hiking trails, cycle paths and bridleways (nationalpark-eifel.de). Croatia’s Risnjak is named after its rarest resident, the ris (lynx), and is an important habitat for brown bears, pygmy owls, wolves, butterflies and wild orchids. There are panoramic views across Istria…

Eliamos Kefalonia, Greece Kefalonia is one of the few Greek islands served by direct flights from the UK, but until now, it didn’t have any hotels as “smart” as the best on Santorini or Mykonos. The recent opening of Eliamos has changed that, says House & Garden. Built from the local honey-coloured stone, its 12 spacious suites and villas sleep up to seven, and are set in “lavender-scented” gardens above a quiet beach. Some have private pools and kitchens, offering the freedom of a holiday let – but there’s also a restaurant serving superb modern Mediterranean cuisine, as well as a shared pool, a spa and a gym. Doubles from £529 b&b; eliamos.com.…

Britain’s newly optimistic outlook Kate Andrews The Daily Telegraph How is the UK economy faring? “On plenty of measures, there is objectively a good story to tell,” says Kate Andrews. Last week’s update – showing the economy grew by 0.6% in the first quarter – was “notably above the consensus”. As well as emerging from 2023’s “technical recession”, Britain has just chalked up its fastest growth in two years. With inflation close to, if not at, the Bank of England’s 2% target – and rate cuts imminent – the cost of living should reduce. All this should be a gift to Rishi Sunak. But many voters will believe it is “too little, too late” – it’s very difficult to claim “people are better off” when GDP per capita still remains…

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The mayor of a remote Italian island who launched an “adopt a goat” scheme earlier this year, in an effort to stop the place being overrun by the creatures, says he has been inundated with offers. Riccardo Gullo came up with the scheme after realising that there were now about six times more wild goats on Alicudi, one of the smaller islands of Sicily’s Aeolian archipelago, than people (600 to 100). He says he is delighted the goats are wanted; his next challenge will be catching them. A 31-year-old from Berkshire who saved her twin sister from a crocodile attack by punching the reptile on the nose, is to become one of the first recipients of the King’s Gallantry Medal for bravery. Georgia and Melissa Laurie were swimming in a…

Ministers have removed a controversial measure in the Criminal Justice Bill that would have allowed for rough sleepers to be fined or even jailed for creating an “excessive smell”. In the new draft of the bill, which replaces the Vagrancy Act, it is made clear that the clause refers not to people, but to dumped rubbish and human waste. About 40 Tory MPs had threatened to rebel against the bill, drawn up by the former home secretary Suella Braverman. It will still allow police to arrest homeless people, but only for specific actions such as antisocial behaviour.…

Stargazing, after a TikTok user in Norwich filmed himself following a purple glow in the night sky, thinking he was going to get a glimpse of the Northern Lights, only to find that it led him instead to a branch of Premier Inn. Other stargazers were more fortunate, however: owing to a geomagnetic storm making the phenomenon more than usually visible, aurora borealis was seen above various parts of the UK over last weekend. Lake Windermere, after United Utilities admitted that millions of litres of raw sewage had been discharged into the middle of the lake in February, owing to a fault at a pumping plant.…

Durham, North Carolina Seinfeld protest: Dozens of students walked out of Duke University’s graduation ceremony on Sunday in protest at Jerry Seinfeld being invited to deliver the commencement speech. Some unfurled Palestinian flags when the comedian – a vocal supporter of Israel – arrived on stage to receive an honorary degree in front of 7,000 people; they then booed and chanted “Free Palestine” as they filed out. Seinfeld, 70, was one of 700 celebrities to sign an open letter backing Israel’s right to defend itself after 7 October; in December, he also met the families of some of Hamas’s hostages in Tel Aviv. Palm Beach, Florida Cartel war: Donald Trump is considering a plan to send US special operations forces to Mexico to take out the leaders of the country’s…

“A phone signal is now available across a quarter of the London Underground system. This is great news for people who can’t go five minutes without talking, and bad news for everyone else. The rules used to be simple: if you wanted to listen to anything on public transport, you did it with headphones. But recently, there has been a great divergence. It’s now no longer unusual to hear music, TikToks, even whole TV shows, broadcast to the carriage, as if phone and owner are in a private world. Some bystanders seem merely annoyed by this, but for others it is hell, since they can’t tackle the original rule breach without breaching an older rule – never engage with a stranger on the Tube.” Zoe Williams in The Guardian…

We have to reform the “right to buy” John Harris The Guardian More than 30 years after she left No. 10, Margaret Thatcher is still haunting Britain, says John Harris. One of her more baleful legacies is “right to buy”, the policy, introduced in 1980, that allowed council tenants to buy their homes at a discount. Since then, more than two million homes have moved from the public realm into private hands, and only a fraction have been replaced: there has been a net loss of 24,000 social homes a year since 1991. Scotland and Wales rightly scrapped the scheme, but in England, Labour has no plans to follow suit. Thankfully, however, others are making the case for reform. Last year, Sadiq Khan argued that London mayors should be allowed…

The secret language of whales Scientists have decoded the secret language of sperm whales, and it is remarkably sophisticated. The cetaceans, which have the largest brain of any mammal, have often been recorded making Morse code-like click sounds when swimming together, but the significance of these was unclear. Now a study in which AI was used to examine almost 9,000 calls, made by 60 whales in the Caribbean, has shed some light on the matter. It turns out there are 18 basic patterns of clicks, known as codas, but that these can be tweaked, allowing the whales to produce several hundred different patterns that together may form a kind of phonetic alphabet. For example, sometimes an extra click is tagged to the start or end of a coda – which…

Ian Hislop was once on the Tube when he saw “two very nice ladies” staring at him, he recalled on Have I Got News for You. “One of them said, ‘Oooh, look, it’s Ian Hislop.’ And the other one said: ‘Leave him alone, he doesn’t look anything like him.’” The comedian Bill Bailey is sometimes mistaken for his own lookalike, he said. Once, he recalled, “Somebody came up to me and poked me and went: ‘Nice try.’” Ben Elton never rewatches Blackadder (above), the show he co-wrote in the 1980s. So he often doesn’t recognise his own lines when fans quote them. “I don’t remember much of it. People are always sidling up to me at stage doors and saying, ‘I expect you’re going home for a bit of rat…

The official motto of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest was “united by music”, said Philip Oltermann in The Guardian. But “as the continent’s beglittered and sequined masses” descended on the Swedish city of Malmö for the final last week, unity was in short supply. In the run-up, pro-Palestinian activists had unsuccessfully urged that Israel should be banned from participating, because of its military assault on Gaza. Last Thursday night, 5,000 protesters, including Greta Thunberg, gathered in Malmö’s Stortorget square equipped with Palestinian flags, keffiyehs and banners. Several performers expressed their frustration that Israel’s Eden Golan had been allowed to compete. Bambie Thug, a non-binary self-proclaimed “witch” representing Ireland, said that Golan’s inclusion went “against everything that Eurovision is meant to be”. Eurovision is meant to be a bit of fun…

It probably wasn’t the easiest conversation, said Michael Vaughan in The Daily Telegraph. Last week, England’s head coach, Brendon McCullum, flew from New Zealand to England to tell the fast bowler Jimmy Anderson that the “time is right” for him to retire from Test cricket. Such is the 41-year-old’s “competitive edge” that he had signalled he wanted to carry on playing up to England’s next Ashes series, in Australia in 2025-26. As it is, Anderson’s last Test will be England’s first of the summer, against West Indies at Lord’s in July. Very few players get a “farewell Test”, but it seems fitting that Anderson is to have one. He is easily England’s most successful Test pace bowler, with 700 wickets to his name – 96 more than his closest rival,…

All change at The Garrick To The Daily Telegraph It was encouraging that as many as 40% of Garrick Club members voted to maintain its male-only membership. There are other gentlemen’s clubs which still value tradition and would welcome such men of distinction. Alternatively, they could set up their own club to stand as a symbol of defiance against mindless change. Charles Simon, Leicester Up the WI! To The Guardian One Garrick Club member is quoted as saying that he will immediately apply to join the Women’s Institute. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if their memberships could swap en masse? The Women’s Institute could run the elite organs of state and the Garrick could devote its talents to local communities. I would prefer that kind of society. Neil Hanson, Huddersfield A…

Running time: 3hrs Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), about a ten-year-old girl’s quest to find her way home from a parallel spirit world, is one of the greatest animated films ever made, said Louis Chilton in The Independent. An “idiosyncratic” and singular piece of art, it does not cry out for a stage adaptation. But if there must be one, “it’s impossible to imagine a better one than this”. Adapted and directed by John Caird, the production, performed in Japanese with English surtitles, sees Miyazaki’s human and paranormal characters wondrously transformed into flesh and puppetry. First staged in Japan in 2022, it boasts visual flair, great scenic innovation, a stunning musical score and superb acting. It doesn’t augment Miyazaki’s film in “any sort of cerebral or thematic way. But it…

Tai-Pan by James Clavell, 1966 (Hodder £12.99). Twists and turns of plot are all gone to mist when I think of books I’ve loved. Characters remain. This roaring struggle between trading families in 1840s British Hong Kong is still superb. You will not forget Dirk Struan. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, 2006 (Black Swan £10.99). Faith is deeply important to me – but I do love a good argument. I read this when I knew it was up against The Dangerous Book for Boys for book of the year, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (2007). Dawkins is brilliant, acerbic and very readable. Still… Reader, I won. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, 2004 (Penguin £9.99). I remember laughing out loud on a packed…

Programmes Rebus Richard Rankin (no relation) stars as Ian Rankin’s detective in this gritty six-part reboot. Sat 18 May, BBC1 21:25 (50mins). Mbappé Documentary about footballer Kylian Mbappé, tracing his meteoric rise from the Parisian suburbs to French team captain. Sat 18 May, BBC1 22:35 (60mins). Metroland A chance to see John Betjeman’s 1973 meditation on the suburbs that grew up along London’s Metropolitan line. Sun 19 May, BBC4 22:15 (50mins). Mysterious Origins of Insects Documentary following scientists as they examine modern insects and fossil records to explore how the creatures evolved. Mon 20 May, BBC4 21:00 (60mins). Storyville – The Gullspång Miracle: A Nordic Mystery Stranger-than-fiction film about two Swedish siblings who bought a flat and found that the vendor looked identical to their sister who’d died 30 years…

Dame Shirley Conran 1932-2024 Shirley Conran blazed into the national consciousness in 1975 when, following a painful divorce from the designer Terence Conran, she published Superwoman – a self-help book in which she urged women not to be shackled by housework, and delivered the memorable advice: “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.” A few years later, she started to write a sex guide for teenage girls, and when she got bored with that task, she decided to encapsulate her research into a novel instead. Lace (1982) – the first chapter of which ends with the famous line “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” – is a raunchy tale, and is sometimes referred to as the first “bonkbuster”; but its real focus, said The Times, is not…

Melinda French Gates Three years after Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates divorced, “they’re parting ways philanthropically”, said DealBook in The New York Times. French Gates is leaving the $75bn foundation they founded “to focus on her own charitable giving”. The move underscores “the widening split between the Microsoft co-founder” and his former wife – who, for decades, were “among the most powerful forces” in global philanthropy. It frees French Gates, 59, who walks away with $12.5bn, to double down on her work “on behalf of women and families”. Onlookers reckon there are signs she is becoming “more political”. After a “difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the US and around the world”, runs a Gates Foundation statement, she is bent “on altering that trajectory”. James Watt…