Home//The Week/V. 1353/In This Issue
The Week|V. 1353A damning verdictThe first major verdict on the Government’s handling of the pandemic is in – and it makes for “shocking reading”, said the Daily Mail. In a joint report, two MPs’ committees said that poor decisions made early last year – particularly the delay in locking down – represented “one of the most important public health failures the UK has ever experienced”. The report, Coronavirus: lessons learned to date, found that the UK’s pandemic response was undermined by “group-think” among ministers, scientific advisers and civil servants; and that test and trace had been an expensive failure. It also confirmed that thousands of people had died unnecessarily because infected patients were discharged into care homes – with the safety of residents relegated to “an afterthought”.But the report didn’t only highlight the Government’s-shortcomings,…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Overhauling the ProtocolThe UK and EU are gearing up for their latest battle, said Cristina Gallardo and Hans von der Burchard on Politico, and once again, “Northern Ireland is at the heart of it”. In an uncompromising speech in Lisbon this week, Brexit Minister David Frost reiterated UK demands that the EU should renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol, which effectively keeps the province inside the single market. Failure to do so would be a “historic misjudgment”, he said, and could lead to the UK triggering Article 16 of the Protocol and suspending parts of it.Hours later, Brussels laid out its proposed concessions, said Daniel Boffey in The Guardian. It would be willing to allow a list of products – including most foods and all medicines – to sidestep EU law (or “enjoy…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Poll watch98% of parents said they suffered “extreme grief” after their children left home for university this year. 93% said they thought growing closer to their children during the pandemic had made the parting harder. The Guardian/Unite StudentsOnly 20% of people say they trust the Government to do the right thing, down ten points since July. 45% say they think the Government is handling the pandemic well; 48% think the opposite. 28% say it is handling Brexit well – down from 44% in March 2020. 69% think it is handling the current supply problems badly; 21% say they are being handled well. 71% are worried about rising gas prices; 39% are worried about shortages of petrol, or of groceries. YouGov/The Times…1 min
The Week|V. 1353PeopleThe lows of a medal winnerTom Daley was thrilled when – at his fourth Olympics – he won a gold medal in Tokyo. Yet he was already painfully aware that the high of such triumphs can be followed by an uneasy low, says Jane Mulkerrins in The Times. It’s something that he and his husband – screenwriter Dustin Lance Black–bonded over, when they met at a dinner in 2013. Daley was suffering in the aftermath of his success at the 2012 Games, and Black told him he’d experienced a similar thing, after winning an Oscar for Milk, sin 2009. “That’s what we connected over more than anything,” says Daley: “the huge high followed by the low”, and the sense that “you can’t talk to anyone about it. You can’t say,…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Welcome to the metaverseWhere did the idea originate?From science fiction. In Snow Crash, a cult 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson, the metaverse is a 3D virtual reality world where people can go to escape a dystopian reality: a vast online game in which people’s avatars wander around interacting with one another, accessing online services, going to virtual night clubs, and getting into virtual sword fights. Tech firms use the term today to mean different things, but at its most basic it refers to virtual spaces where you can collaborate and socialise with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, describes the metaverse as “an internet you’re inside of, rather than just looking at”.Why is the metaverse in the news?It hit the headlines in…4 min
The Week|V. 1353IT MUST BE TRUE…St Michael’s Church in Bournemouth is changing its name to “St Mike’s”, to try to attract more young people to its congregation. The Victorian church, which has just been renovated, is taking the step to be “attractive and engaging for younger generations”, said its Reverend, Sarah Yetman. One local critic told The Sun that “the idea that teenagers will be more interested in going to church if we rename it ‘St Mike’s’ is ridiculous. What’s next – St Dave’s? St Pete’s?”A Derbyshire man is so obsessed with the 1990s that he has transformed his home into a time capsule. Jack Walters, 23, has spent about £5,000 kitting himself out with accessories such as a TV from 1989, a VHS player, and a G-reg Austin Mini Metro, after moving into a…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Best articles: InternationalTUNISIAHail the Arab world’s first female leaderGulf News (Dubai)Tunisia has made history by appointing the first Arab female prime minister, Najla Bouden Romdhane. It’s an important milestone, says Mohammed Almezel – although it’s worth remembering that until a century ago it wasn’t that rare for women to rule in the Arab world. Fatima al-Zamil, for instance, reigned over part of the Arabian Peninsula between 1911 and 1914. Way back in history, Shajarat al-Durr ruled Egypt following the death of her husband in 1250, helping defeat the crusaders; and Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba, reigned over a vast kingdom in present-day Yemen more than 5,000 years ago. For the past century, though, women in the Arab world have taken “a back seat”. It’s no surprise that Tunisia is breaking the mould.…3 min
The Week|V. 1353A meat-eating dinosaur the size of a chickenMore than half a century after they were found in a limestone quarry near Cardiff, four well-preserved fossil fragments have been identified as belonging to a previously unknown species of dinosaur. The bipedal creature lived around 200 million years ago, in the late Triassic Period, making it the oldest meat-eating dinosaur ever found in the UK. A very early species of theropod, it had a body about the size of a chicken’s, and a long tail. (It would be tens of millions more years before the far larger and more famous theropod T-rex evolved.) Yet the newly discovered species was probably an apex predator – hence its name Pendraig milnerae. Pendraig, its genus name, means “chief dragon” in Middle Welsh. Its species name honours Dr Angela Milner, a distinguished palaeontologist…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Newcastle United: a Saudi takeoverThe Premier League’s “unabashed worship of money” is no secret, said Oliver Holt in The Mail on Sunday. But it has seldom seemed more flagrant than last week, when English football rolled out the red carpet to let “a purveyor of pre-meditated murder, mass executions, state-sponsored misogyny and widespread oppression of LGBT rights” take over Newcastle United. Fans were jubilant when the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) took an 80% stake in the club, replacing the “hated” previous owner, Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley. But it’s a “strange kind of deliverance” when your “liberator” is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: the chair of PIF, deputy prime minister of Saudi Arabia, and the man who personally sent a hit squad to murder the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Newcastle fans…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Franco-British relations: “turning ugly”A distinct chill has entered Franco-British relations, said Jon Henley in The Guardian. Britain’s former ambassador to Paris, Peter Ricketts, says they’re “as bad as I can remember”, while his French counterpart Sylvie Bermann reckons they’ve “never been this tense, this inimical”. Resentments caused by five years of ill-tempered Brexit negotiations have been exacerbated by a string of fresh cross-Channel disagreements. Britain has accused France of not doing enough to turn back migrants’ boats. France, in turn, has accused Britain of not paying it a penny of the £54m it promised to help it police the coast. Paris is furious about being blindsided over AUKUS, the new security pact between the UK, the US and Australia – an anger Boris Johnson fuelled by telling the French to “prenez un grip”.…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Cricket: a tough task for England down underMany people had been expecting this winter’s Ashes to be cancelled, said Mike Atherton in The Times. Given the harsh Covid restrictions expected down under, it was felt that some England players would pull out and that, rather than send a substandard squad, the ECB would pull the plug on the tour. Yet such a scenario was never really on the cards. The interests of England and Australia are too closely allied: there’s simply too much money at stake to make talk of cancelling the Ashes anything other than “politicking”.And sure enough, with all fit players declaring themselves available, England have now announced their 17-man squad, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. It contains no great surprises. talisman With Jofra Archer and Olly Stone still out injured, the attack –…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Is Germany “saner” than Britain?To the Financial TimesGerman politics may be, as Gideon Rachman suggests, saner than Britain’s, but, on immigration at least, popular attitudes are more liberal in Britain than in Germany (“Why Germany is the West’s sanest country”).A Pew Global Attitudes Survey published in September 2020 showed that in Germany, 58% favoured admitting fewer immigrants or none at all. In Britain, the figure was 37%, a lower figure than anywhere in the ten EU countries polled except Spain. In 2019, an Ipsos Mori poll showed 47% in Britain believing that immigration “had a generally positive impact”, a higher figure than anywhere in the EU.German politics is also less moderate than Britain’s, which does not have either a party of the radical Right, such as the AfD, nor a party of the radical…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Theatre: The Mirror and the LightOwing to the enormous success of the RSC’s adaptations of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, expectations have been high for the final part of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, said David Benedict in Variety. Have they been met? “Almost.” Ben Miles reprises his role as Henry VIII’s right-hand man Thomas Cromwell, while Nathaniel Parker plays the king. Both actors are first-rate, as is Jeremy Herrin’s meticulous direction. The first two novels were adapted for the stage by playwright Mike Poulton. This time, Mantel has taken the helm, in collaboration with Miles. They’ve done a creditable job, “editing everything down to focus on forward momentum” – and the production as a whole pulls off an “extraordinary achievement” in “making history live”. But they had an awful lot to cram in and,…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Squid Game: a gory survival drama with a social messageBack in the 1990s, a South Korean government paper noted that a single Hollywood movie, Jurassic Park, had made more money for Universal Pictures than Hyundai would from selling 1.5 million cars. This paper sparked a national debate – and a plan to export South Korean culture. Three decades on, the country is reaping the benefits, as K-pop and K-drama sweep the world. In 2020, Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win a best picture Oscar; now, just weeks after its release, Squid Game has become Netflix’s highest ranking show in 90 countries, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian. The premise of the drama is simple: 456 heavily indebted individuals are lured to an island to play children’s games, on the promise of a huge cash prize. When they…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The lost Picasso brought to lifeA Picasso painting of a naked woman that lies beneath one of the masterpieces of his Blue Period has been recreated – using artificial intelligence, says Dalya Alberge in The Daily Telegraph. The crouching nude appeared in the background of his 1903 painting La Vie, but it was only discovered in 2010, when X-rays carried out by the Met in New York revealed that the artist had painted over it to create another 1903 work, The Blind Man’s Meal. Anthony Bourached and George Cann, respectively a neuroscientist and a physicist at University College London, used AI and 3D printing to recreate the lost painting: analysing Picasso’s brushstrokes in other paintings, they trained an algorithm to simulate how it would have looked. “Picasso likely painted over this work with reluctance,” said…1 min
The Week|V. 1353TelevisionProgrammesear for eye Anew film exploring the black experience in the UK, adapted from her own play by the award-winning British writer Debbie Tucker Green. Sat 16 Oct, BBC2 22:15 (85mins).The Trick Dramatisation of the “Climategate” scandal of 2009, in which emails between scientists at the University of East Anglia were hacked by climate-change deniers to create a fake news story. Mon 18 Oct, BBC1 20:30 (90mins).Impeachment: American Crime Story For its third instalment, the anthology series delves into the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Clive Owen plays the president and Beanie Feldstein the young intern. Tue 19 Oct, BBC2 21:15 (60mins).Shetland Return of the popular detective series based on Ann Cleeves’s novels. A grieving DI Perez is called to investigate the murder of a prominent local lawyer. Wed 20 Oct, BBC1 21:00…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Karikari okoge no yakimeshi (fried rice with crispy bits)Serves 22 tbsp oil 200g raw, peeled and de-veined king prawns ½ an onion, finely diced 2 eggs, beaten 50-60g shiitake (de-stemmed) or chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 spring onions, roughly chopped 2 large portions of cooked and chilled rice (from about 200g uncooked weight) 1½ tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp mirin 1 tbsp sake 1 tbsp sesame oil ¼ tsp dashi powder white pepper, to taste 20-30g beni shoga (red pickled ginger, available online or in Asian supermarkets), coarsely chopped• This is a very quickly cooked dish, so make sure that all your prep is done and laid out before you start cooking.• Heat half the oil in a reliable non-stick frying pan (skillet) or well-seasoned wok over a very high heat, and add…2 min
The Week|V. 1353This week’s dream: whale-watching in the verdant AzoresSituated on a continental shelf far out in the Atlantic, the Azores archipelago has few equals as a whale-watching destination, says Mark Stratton in The Sunday Telegraph. Up to 28 cetacean species congregate around these nine volcanic islands, and among them is the most “iconic” of all, the sperm whale. Hunted remorselessly from the 18th until the late 20th century and depicted in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, the sperm whale matches “every child’s image of a whale”, and is known locally as cachalot or “big head”, owing to its huge cranial cavity – home to the largest brain in the animal kingdom. Trips out from shore are best made between May and October, on Zodiac inflatable boats, which sit low on the water.The archipelago, which is Portuguese, has a bleak,…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Affable minister who championed the Modern Slavery ActJames Brokenshire 1968-2021James Brokenshire was a hardworking Conservative MP who proved effective in a series of demanding ministerial positions, said The Guardian. An earnest and thoughtful man, he commanded respect on both sides of the Commons. Boris Johnson described him as the “nicest” and “most unassuming of politicians”, following his death last week, aged 53; while Labour’s Angela Rayner paid tribute to his kindness, professionalism and dedication to public service.James Brokenshire was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, in 1968, the only child of Peter, a local government officer, and his wife Joan (née Pavey), said The Times. He was state educated, at Davenant Foundation School, and read law at the University of Exeter. He practised corporate law before going into politics – which, he said, prepared him well for the limitations…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Keeping it weirdElon Musk has been threatening to move Tesla’s HQ from California to Texas for ages. Now that he has finally committed, the folks in Austin are feeling anxious, says Reuters. While welcoming the extra jobs, they fear that the city – whose unofficial motto is “Keep Austin Weird” – risks losing its boho vibe. Musk, who relocated there himself last December, is hardly the most orthodox of business leaders. And he has sought to reassure locals that “we’re gonna create ecological paradise right here”. But would-be homeowners are already paying the price for the city’s success in “luring” Tesla and other Californian giants: house prices have risen 40% in two years.…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Making money: what the experts think● Royal flushThe Duke and duch*ess of Sussex “are getting into the investment business”, said Deal Book in The New York Times. They’re joining Ethic– a fintech asset manager that majors on sustainability – as “impact partners” and investors. Harry and Meghan hope their involvement will help “democratise investing” and boost the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement. And they certainly have the credentials to make ESG investing “part of the pop culture in a way that, say, BlackRock’s Larry Fink can’t”. The vogue for ESG is opening up unexpected opportunities, said Laurence Fletcher in the FT. Hedge funds have been “quietly scooping up” shares of profitable but “unloved” oil and gas firms discarded by ESG-minded managers. “It’s such a great and easy idea,” said Crispin Odey of Odey Asset…2 min
The Week|V. 1353City profilesSir David LewisIn his new role as the Government’s “supply chain tsar”, the former Tesco boss has been given the unenviable task of “trying to save Christmas”, said The Observer. If Dave Lewis can’t do it, one wonders who can. This, after all, is the man who “managed to dig the UK’s largest supermarket out of a hole”; Tesco has since ridden out “the worst of the supply-chain crisis” by investing in rail freight to combat the driver shortage. In the longer term, though, the only solution to the problem is to make driving lorries more attractive. When even simple benefits such as washing facilities and toilets are “well below standard” in Britain, it’s hardly surprising “drivers are choosing to truck on elsewhere”. Lewis should make a point of sorting…1 min
The Week|V. 1353CrosswordTHE WEEK CROSSWORD 1282An Ettinger travel pass case 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 25 October. Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1282, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com)ACROSS7 Boris ultimately adrift, lies for his colleagues? (6)8 Prompt answer given out by the rest (8)9 With time one could become Hodges pet (8)10 What fish was called by head of restaurant in the country (6)11 It could be a defective PC or a corrupt PC (3,5)12 Scope of former temporary dwelling (6)13 Do learn a scam involving Sierra? One may have done that (3,8)18 No rise…3 min
The Week|V. 1353It wasn’t all badThe eight-year-old French boy who was thrown off a 10th-floor balcony at Tate Modern two years ago has finally been able to go back to school. The unnamed child, who was on holiday in London with his parents at the time, almost died after being attacked at random by a 17-year-old who has since been sentenced to life. His parents say that his injuries remain serious and life-limiting, but that he can now walk with a cane – and he is “super happy” to be back at “normal” school.A mother and son who came to Britain as refugees from Syria’s civil war have enrolled at the same university – on the same course. Manal Rawaeh, 47, and her son Bilal, 18, are both studying biomedical science at Nottingham Trent. She…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The “Boris cult”Controversy of the week“Send in the clowns.” That was Boris Johnson’s approach when he addressed the Conservative conference in Manchester last week, in the midst of a national crisis, said Iain Martin in The Times. He breezily ignored Britain’s problems, from petrol queues to high energy prices to rising inflation, and delivered a joke-filled “vaudeville routine”. He called Keir Starmer “Captain Hindsight”; he teased Michael Gove about his dancing; he said a trade deal with the US would enable us to “build back burger”. The party faithful lapped it up. But to much of the nation it looked “facile, silly and fundamentally unserious”. The business community was unimpressed, said Phillip Inman in The Observer. Johnson told retailers and farmers to stop whingeing about labour and supply-chain problems, brushing them off…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Europe at a glancePragueNarrow defeat: The Czech Republic’s populist PM Andrej Babiš suffered a shock defeat in last week’s general election – days after the Pandora Papers leak revealed that he had used offshore companies to buy luxury real estate on the French Riviera. The PM, a billionaire businessman who has frequently been accused of financial malpractice and abuse of power, had tried to present the leaks as the work of a domestic mafia. But it seems they cut through with voters: his ANO party had been leading in the polls, but in the event it was narrowly defeated by the-centre-right Spolu bloc. Babiš may not be forced from power: he could yet emerge as the leader of a coalition. But on Sunday, his chances of remaining PM were further damaged when his…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Castaway of the week1 Stairway To Heaven by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, performed by Led Zeppelin2 As Steals the Morn by Handel, performed by Lucy Crowe and Mark Padmore and the English Concert3 Rebel Rebel, written and performed by David Bowie4 Blue In Green by Miles Davis and Bill Evans, performed by Miles Davis5 Embroidery in Childhood by Britten, performed by Claire Watson6 Das Wirtshaus from Winterreise by Schubert, performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore7* Leb’ Wohl from Der Ring by Wagner, performed by Hans Hotter and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra8 Symphony No. 3 in D minor by Mahler, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio AbbadoBook: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela CarterLuxury: a grand piano and tuning key* Choice if allowed only one record…1 min
The Week|V. 1353NFTs in the metaworldNon-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are digital certificates of ownership or authenticity. They became notorious in March when one of them, conferring rights over a digital collage by the artist known as Beeple, was sold for $69.3m at Christie’s. (The buyer was a metaverse enthusiast and cryptocurrency investor known as MetaKovan.) Like cryptocurrencies, NFTs often come up in speculations about the metaverse. Both use an underlying technology – blockchain ledgers – that does away with the need for any one company or authority to guarantee them: great for techno-libertarians and “interoperability” enthusiasts.The best existing example of a metaverse project using NFTs is an online game called Axie Infinity, launched by a Vietnamese company in 2018. It’s a Pokémon-like trading and battling game: to play, you buy axies, axolotl-like creatures, digitised as…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Best articles: EuropeSWEDENA Nobel snub for the vaccine pioneersNeue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich)Many were “incredulous” when the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine were announced in Stockholm last week, says Alan Niederer. Not that they had anything against David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, whose discovery of skin receptors that sense heat, cold and touch paves the way for a range of new medical treatments. But surely the “ideal” candidates were the developers of new mRNA technology used in the Moderna and Pfizer Covid vaccines. As well as saving millions of lives in the pandemic, the breakthrough could help treat cancer and other diseases. Honouring those behind it would have precisely fulfilled the wishes of Alfred Nobel, who said the award should go to those who “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”…3 min
The Week|V. 1353“Shock waves of alarm”: is China poised to invade Taiwan?There’s nothing new about Chinese aircraft flying close to Taiwan, said Gordon Chang on 19FortyFive.com (Washington DC). Beijing has long sought to intimidate what it regards as are negade province. But the incursions have massively increased lately. So far this month, 150 military planes have flown into the island’s air defence zone; 56 did so last Monday alone. On the same day, Beijing mouthpiece the Global Times ran an editorial titled: “Time to warn Taiwan secessionists and their fomenters: war is real.” Many may think this is just “bluster”, but Taiwan’s leaders are taking it very seriously. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu says Taipei is preparing for conflict and has asked for foreign assistance. President Tsai Ing-wen warned that “if its democracy and way of life are threatened, Taiwan will do…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Reducing the risk of dementiaEncouraging more people to get a flu jab every winter could be a cheap and effective way of reducing rates of dementia, a study has suggested. For the research, a team at Saint Louis University tracked 70,000 people over the age of 60 for several years, looking at how often they had a flu jab, and their later health outcomes. The findings, published in the journal Vaccine, showed that having the jab for four or five years made little difference to the chances of developing dementia – but that having it for six years in a row led to a reduction in risk of 14%, on average. It is thought that flu jabs boost the activity of immune system cells that are also responsible for repairing damage that can lead…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The Pandora Papers: the war on tax dodgersThere was a “depressing familiarity” about the Pandora Papers, said Brooke Harrington in The New York Times. The contents of almost 12 million leaked financial records, published by an international consortium of journalists last week, exposed “legalised corruption” in the offshore finance industry “on an almost unimaginably vast scale”. But so, too, did the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers before them – leading to a sense that nothing ever changes. Actually, though, things are changing. It is clear that these leaks are discouraging elites from using offshore financial services. There may be no real chance of being prosecuted, but the risk of reputational damage is large: just ask Andrej Babiš, the Czech PM whose party lost a general election last week, days after the papers revealed that he had…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Sporting headlinesFootball England drew 1-1 with Hungary, maintaining their lead at the top of their World Cup qualifying group. In the final of the Nations League, France beat Spain 2-1.Formula 1 Valtteri Bottas won the Turkish Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen in second place. In the title race, Verstappen now has a six-point lead over Lewis Hamilton, who finished fifth.Rugby union Leicester top the Gallagher Premiership after a 21-16 victory over London Irish. Northampton slid to their first defeat of the season, losing 26-20 to Wasps.…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Review of reviews: BooksBook of the weekCrossroadsby Jonathan Franzen4th Estate 580pp £20The Week bookshop £15.99Jonathan Franzen has always written his best novels when he resists the urge to dissect America and goes back to “basics”: anatomising family life, said James Walton in The Daily Telegraph. He did this brilliantly in the “all-conquering” The Corrections (2001), and he has done so again in his equally superb sixth novel. Part one of a trilogy titled “A Key to All Mythologies” (a reference to Mr Casaubon’s “famously futile life’s work” in Middlemarch), Crossroads is set in the early 1970s, in the fictional Illinois town of New Prospect. It centres on five members of the dysfunctional Hildebrandt family: Russ, a “liberal Christian pastor”; Marion, his downtrodden wife; college student Clem; and his teenage siblings Becky and Perry.…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Podcasts… from Alan Alda’s science to Tim Dowling’s dogIn the decades since he made his name in the much-loved comedy-drama M*A*S*H, Alan Alda has developed a successful parallel career as a science communicator – and he is behind two long-running popular science podcasts. There’s Clear+Vivid, on the power of communication, and Science Clear+Vivid, on the power of scientific research. As someone “not easily excited by protons”, I hadn’t rushed to listen to them, said Daisy Dunn in The Spectator. But I recently plunged in and, five hours on, “Alda is still in my ears and I am buzzing like an electron”. Alda, who is now 85, is passionate about his subject, and highly intelligent yet charmingly self-effacing. The “depth of his understanding of really quite complex science shines through his questions and his clear rephrasing of ideas put…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Exhibition of the week Turner Prize 2021The decline of the Turner Prize “has been one of the unhappiest sights of my spell as an art critic”, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. Back in its 1990s “heyday”, Britain’s most prestigious modern art award was “annually annoying”, but it “provided us with a summary of what was actually happening in British art”; and it gave us a winner we could argue about. In recent years it has been reduced to drivel. “As evidence, I give you the Turner Prize 2021, an event so manipulated and phoney it makes 1980s pro wrestling look real.” The curators have decided that the best art produced in Britain in the past year has, by “a miraculous coincidence”, all been done by five fashionable “collectives” committed to various social causes. Black…2 min
The Week|V. 1353The ListBest books… Abdulrazak GurnahThe UK-based Tanzanian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature last week. These are the books he recommended last year, to mark the release of his novel Afterlives (Bloomsbury £8.99)Maps by Nuruddin Farah, 1986 (Arcade £11.99). This is Farah’s most powerful novel. As with all of his fiction, it is set in his homeland of Somalia. Maps is an absorbing account of an orphaned boy growing up among women during the Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia. It is a poetic and superbly organised work.The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, 1992 (Bloomsbury £8.99). The English Patient is a novel of many achievements. Its location is a ruined monastery turned abandoned military hospital in Italy towards the end of WWII. It has one solitary patient who is…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Properties with lovely gardens3 min
The Week|V. 1353ConsumerNew cars: what the critics sayThe Daily TelegraphEight years ago, BMW’s Project i – and the i3 electric car – was meant to be “The Future”. What happened? In June, Tesla’s Model 3 was Europe’s second most popular car; the i3 was nowhere. Still, BMW insists its strategy is still on track, and now it has released its second EV – and it is a very different beast. Where the i3 was a “zany” little car, the iX is a powerful, brutalist, “yacht-sized SUV”.Auto ExpressWith its cutting-edge tech suite and BMW’s new-generation electric motors, the iX promises much, “and it delivers”. Putting aside the blistering pace – 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds – there’s real depth to the package; the chassis feels expertly judged, cabin quality is high and realworld range…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Hotel of the weekGleb House, Southleigh, DevonInspired by the ideal of Italian agriturismo, this restaurant with rooms in the rolling hills of south-east Devon is a lovingly crafted delight, says Sally Shalam in Condé Nast Traveller. Occupying a “handsome” Georgian rectory on a 15-acre smallholding not far from the Jurassic Coast, it has five colourful bedrooms, a separate dog-friendly annexe, and lively decor – including hand-painted lamps, geometric tiles and floral wallpapers. The restaurant serves good Italian-influenced food, made with locally grown ingredients: the butter, yoghurt, charcuterie, breads and pastries are all made, cured or baked onsite.Doubles from £129. 01404-871276, glebehousedevon.co.uk.…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The early bird gets THE WEEKThe Week is the perfect Christmas present for friends and family, one that opens them up to a world of news, opinion, debate and fresh thinking every week.Treat them to a gift subscription and save an extra £10 if you order by October 31st. Subscriptions start from just £28.75 for the first 13 issues, that’s a 44% discount on the shop price.Gift subscriptions begin with the first issue of the New Year, and we’ll even send you a card to give on Christmas Day.Order online: subscription.theweek.co.uk/early or call 0330 333 9494 and quote P21XMECalls are charged at a local rate.…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Companies in the news …and how they were assessedAsos: out of fashionThe online fast fashion giant Asos began the year triumphantly “scooping up the remains of Philip Green’s empire”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. It has been downhill ever since. This week, the group (founded in 2000 and focused on twentysomethings) warned that profits next year could be more than a third lower than expected – prompting a share price tumble of 13%, and the immediate exit of CEO Nick Beighton (pictured). Asos’s market value has now halved to £2.4bn since the start of the year. There’s “something familiar in this story for long-term Asos watchers”: every time the share price hits £60 it halves within 12 months. It seems “the curse has struck again”. “Sudden departures unnerve investors when detail is absent,” said Lex in the…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Market snapshotsFemtech High-tech, fintech, greentech. Next up? Femtech. This relatively unexplored investment theme – the lucrative market for women’s health apps – is slowly gaining momentum, said Elizabeth Uviebinene in the FT. Many investors (still mostly male) are waking up to the fact that this “under-served” market has legs. According to a 2020 report by Emergen Research, the global femtech market is predicted to be worth $60bn by 2027. The hottest segment? “Responding to the needs of women experiencing menopause.”Small company debt The Bank of England has reported “a big rise in the number of heavily indebted small businesses”, said Katherine Griffiths in The Times, “with many companies going into the red for the first time”. A third of small businesses in the UK now have “a high level of debt”…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The energy crisis bitesWhat happenedThe Government was this week considering a rescue plan for firms at risk of being forced out of business by soaring energy prices. On Sunday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, told an interviewer that he was talking to the Treasury about what help could be offered. A Treasury official then flatly denied it (adding that it was not the first time Kwarteng had “made things up in interviews”) –raising speculation that Kwarteng had been trying to bounce Chancellor Rishi Sunak into action. But the next day, when he submitted a formal proposal to the Treasury, Downing Street backed him, insisting ministers were looking at how to protect energy-intensive industries such as steel, ceramics, glass and paper. Any help is expected to take the form of-state-backed loans, rather than grants.Wholesale…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Spirit of the ageThe original Superman was totally devoted to the intrepid reporter Lois Lane. But in his latest incarnation, the comic book superhero has a romance with a male reporter. Jon Kent, the son that Clark Kent had with Lane, reveals his bisexuality in an issue due out next month. “A new Superman had to have new fights – real world problems – that he could stand up to,” said Tom Taylor, writer of the Son of Kal-El series.Today’s fashion-conscious consumers don’t only invest in clothes for the real world; they’re also buying digital outfits for their online presence. A site called DressX sells a range of 1,000 digital garments – from hats to elaborate dresses – which are pasted onto customers’ photos for use on social media.…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The world at a glanceJefferson County, West VirginiaSubmarine spy plot: A US navy engineer and his wife have been arrested and charged with passing on-top-secret details of America’s-cutting-edge Virginia-class nuclear submarines to a foreign power. They are accused of storing the information on a tiny data-card concealed in a peanut butter sandwich. Jonathan Toebbe, who has high-level clearance, was arrested last Saturday along with his wife Diana. According to prosecutors, the FBI had already intercepted a previous secret package and placed the couple under surveillance. Officers posing as agents for the unnamed foreign power then accepted the data-card sandwich from Toebbe while his wife acted as lookout. The memory card contained “militarily sensitive design elements, operating parameters and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors”, according to a federal court affidavit.Sacramento, CaliforniaEthnic studies: California is…7 min
The Week|V. 1353Viewpoint: Conspiracies galore“It’s a strange thing about conspiracy theorists that they’re often so keen to collect the full set of conspiracies. Despite the unlikely nature of each individual theory, few adherents seem able to limit themselves to just one. For me, it severely undermines their plausibility. For example, it seems very unlikely, if not-totally unthinkable, that the Moon landings were faked. But it’s off-putting when you’re trying to open your mind to that possibility if whoever’s claiming it swiftly adds that the 9/11 planes were holograms, Covid is spread by 5G and the Queen is a lizard. Conspiracy theorists would do well to limit themselves to one mad thing each.”David Mitchell in The Observer…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Best articles: BritainThe Tories won’t tell us if money talksEditorialThe GuardianTake the money. Don’t ask where it came from. That seems to be the approach of Boris Johnson’s Government to party donations, says The Guardian. Look how it’s refusing to publish the names of the members of a secretive donor club, each of whom pays up to £250,000 a year to gain privileged access to the PM and the Chancellor. We know of it thanks to Mohamed Amersi, a Tory donor and bankroller of the PM’s leadership campaign, who spilt details about it earlier this year. Now, thanks to the Pandora Papers, we learn that Amersi has been linked to a huge corruption scandal in Uzbekistan. Then there’s Viktor Fedotov, a Russian oligarch who, the Pandora Papers show, is also facing corruption…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Sexual abuse: the disgrace of the French Catholic Church“The numbers are staggering,” said Gino Hoel on Slate. fr (Paris). A landmark report published last week estimates that about 330,000 children were abused by clergymen and officials of the Catholic Church in France between 1950 and 2020. At least 3,000 priests and officials performed criminal acts, according to the 2,500-page review by Jean-Marc Sauvé, a former senior civil servant; about 90% of their victims were boys. Until 2000, the investigation found, the Church-hierarchy had shown “cruel indifference” to the 216,000 victims of the clergy and 114,000 victims of teachers and other personnel in Church institutions – and had sought to cover up scandals rather than redress wrongs. Many cases have not or will not be prosecuted because the accused have died or the statute of limitations has expired. “The…2 min
The Week|V. 1353What the scientists are saying…An implant for depressionA patient who had spent years suffering from severe depression says her condition has become a “distant nightmare” since she was fitted with a pioneering “pacemaker” for the brain. The match box-sized device, developed by neuroscientists at the University of California San Francisco, works by detecting patterns of activity linked to depressive thoughts, and then disrupting them with electric pulses. It has only been tested on the one patient, Sarah, as a proof of concept; but the researchers are now enrolling more patients, to assess its broader potential. Sarah was so consumed by suicidal thoughts she had to move in with her parents and give up her job. She underwent a range of treatments, but none helped. Yet within 12 days of having the implant fitted, she…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Pick of the week’s GossipThe film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats was savaged by critics – and left the composer so distraught he became a dog person. “I saw it and I just thought, ‘Oh God, no,’” he told Variety. “It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog.” His “emotional damage” was so severe, he asked an airline if he could take his Havanese puppy on the flight as a therapy dog. “The airline wrote back and said, ‘Can you prove that you really need him?’ And I said, ‘Yes, just see what Hollywood did to my musical Cats.’ Then the approval came back with a note saying, ‘No doctor’s report required.’”Madonna caused quite a commotion when she appeared on The…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Facebook: is this its Big Tobacco moment?“It’s been quite a week,” wrote Mark Zuckerberg. And that was an understatement, said the FT. Last Monday, Facebook suffered one of its worst-ever outages. The next day, a former employee at its “civic integrity unit” delivered explosive testimony to Congress about the ways in which it puts profits before the safety of its users. Frances Haugen had already leaked a trove of internal documents to the press, so much of what she said was familiar, said Aaron Mak on Slate. Even so, senators were clearly shaken by her claim that Facebook’s own research had concluded that its Instagram app was harmful to vulnerable teenagers. This enabled her to drive home her wider point, that Facebook’s financial incentives are at odds with its users’ well-being. The longer people linger on…2 min
The Week|V. 1353SportBoxing: the Gypsy King triumphs in Las VegasAfter numerous delays, and much legal wrangling, the third instalment of Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder finally took place in Las Vegas on Saturday. And it was worth the wait, said Bryan Armen Graham in The Guardian. For these two men produced what was, quite simply, one of the greatest fights in boxing history. In an exhausting encounter that fluctuated wildly, it was Fury who held the initial advantage, flooring Wilder with a right jab in the third round, said Gareth A. Davies in The Daily Telegraph. Yet the Alabaman swiftly bounced back, going after his foe with all the “vengeful power he could muster” and knocking him down twice in the very next round. Both times, somehow, the “Gypsy King” rose from…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Pick of the week’s correspondenceFootball’s rotten coreTo The GuardianNewcastle United’s sale to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) marks a new low in football’s corruption by money. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives in Turkey in 2018 raises awkward questions for the Premier League. As David Conn notes: “The CIA concluded in November 2018, according to authoritative US reporting, that [Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince] ordered the murder; he has denied it. The same crown prince is chairman of the PIF.”Despite this, the Premier League has essentially judged Salman to be a “fit and proper person” to own Newcastle. Given Khashoggi’s murder, and having watched Match of the Day religiously since I was 11, I believe that to now watch it, Sky Sports or BT’s coverage of the Premier League…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Gurnah wins the NobelWhen Abdulrazak Gurnah was shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for his 1994 novel Paradise), he and several fellow writers on the list were infamously referred to as the “B Team”, said David Sanderson in The Times. But last week, the Tanzanian-born writer – who has lived in Britain since the mid-1960s – became the first black winner of the Nobel Prize in literature since Toni Morrison in 1993. Gurnah, now 72, arrived in England as an 18-year-old refugee, having fled a violent uprising in his native Zanzibar, said Alexandra Alter and Alex Marshall in The NewYork Times. Miserable, poor and homesick, he supported himself by cleaning hospital floors – while also writing scraps of stories. These eventually grew into his first novel, 1987’s Memory of Departure, about a young man…1 min
The Week|V. 1353FilmNo Sudden Move1hr 55mins (15)Crackling heist set in 1950s DetroitIt has been eight years since Steven Soderbergh announced his “retirement”, with an outspoken attack on the big studios’ priorities, said Kevin Maher in The Times. But the director keeps churning them out even so, and on the evidence of this latest offering – a “period crime drama-cum-home invasion movie” set in Detroit in 1954 – he has lost none of his ingenuity. The story centres on a trio of petty criminals, who are hired for a “lucrative extortion job” that sounds straightforward but goes haywire “within minutes”. Even in his weaker films, Soderbergh gets the most out of his large ensemble casts. All the performances here are “on point”, but he has drawn particularly charismatic turns from the three crooks:…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Where to buy…Walter Sickertat Piano NobileLooking at the paintings of Walter Sickert (1860-1942), you feel you almost know the characters who people them: the dressmaker in Portrait of Mrs Barrett (1906), captured gazing out impassively towards the right-hand side of the canvas; the elegantly coiffed yet apparently alarmed society lady of Oeuillade (1911); or the wild-eyed, toothy woman in a cloche hat who stares out at us from Chicken (c.1914). The clothes and accoutrements may be of another age, but these likenesses are invested with genuine vitality. All feature in The Theatre of Life, this two part exhibition of the artist’s portraits, an uncanny, involving experience which gives precedence to Sickert’s later work, a relatively under-explored phase of his career. Other highlights include a full-length portrait of the soon-to-abdicate HM King Edward…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The Archers: what happened last weekLilian confides to Justin that Brian is considering selling Home Farm because of the financial implications of Chris and Alice’s divorce. Justin has lunch with the farm’s manager Stella, whom he already knows, and tips her off about its uncertain future ahead of the BL board meeting. Furious that Brian didn’t tell her, Stella confronts him. He explains the family situation and apologises; appeased, Stella tries to convince him not to give up. Beth and Ben have dinner with Vince, who plays a joke on Ben. Angry with her dad, Beth storms out but they later make up. Chelsea wants to learn to ride a motorbike and asks Jazzer to teach her. Tracy, concerned, insists he make the lesson slow and boring, but Chelsea convinces him to go fast. In…1 min
The Week|V. 1353The best… exercise bikes1 min
The Week|V. 1353Getting the flavour of…Making gin in YorkshireAlong with the boom in craft distilleries, gin-making school shave popped up all over the place in the past five years. Harrogate Tipple’s has a particularly impressive location, says Lorna Parkes in The Guardian – a vaulted room in Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, that gives its three-hour-long courses the air of a Harry Potter potion-making class. Proceedings start with a lecture at the firm’s distillery in the nearby “chocolate-box” village of Ripley; students are then let loose in the castle’s gardens to collect botanicals with the aid of a printed guide. There’s a wide choice – from wormwood (bitter) to Lady Plymouth (“rose and mint dancing together”) – and selecting them involves quite a lot of rubbing and sniffing. With the addition of juniper and classics such…2 min
The Week|V. 1353Mild-mannered mandarin behind the Chilcot ReportSir John Chilcot 1939-2021In June 2009, John Chilcot – a mild-mannered senior civil servant – was asked to chair the official inquiry into the Iraq War. At that time, he was regarded as a “safe pair of hands”, said The Guardian. He had been part of an earlier inquiry which had exonerated the Blair government over the sexing up of the “dodgy dossier”, with its misleading claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction; and the assumption was that he would not “rock the boat” this time either. Critics were convinced his inquiry would be a whitewash, and the longer it wore on, the more angry they became. But Chilcot proved to be a forensic and determined investigator, and when he finally published his 2.6 million-word report, seven years later,…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Seven days in the Square MileThe IMF warned that the global economy is entering a phase of inflationary risk and called on central banks to be “very, very vigilant” – and take early action to tighten monetary policy if price pressures prove persistent. It added that inflation risks in the UK are “skewed to the upside”. The ONS reported that the number of UK job vacancies reached a record high of 1.1 million between July and September, underscoring the difficulties faced by employers. The economy, meanwhile, grew by 0.4% in August – the first full month without Covid restrictions. It is now 0.8% smaller than it was before the pandemic.Consumers were advised to plan ahead for Christmas because of ports delays. Felixstowe, the UK’s biggest commercial port, currently has 50,000 containers waiting to be collected…1 min
The Week|V. 1353Issue of the week: the interest rate debateEconomists at Bank of America are not doing much “to crank up the Christmas cheer”, said Alistair Osborne in The Times. Having noted the “more hawkish tone over inflation” coming out of the Bank of England, they’re forecasting a hike to 0.25% in December (from 0.1% now) followed by a further quarter-point rise next February. The City’s bond traders are on the same page. Yields on UK government bonds (gilts) – which tend to mirror interest rate expectations – climbed to “a-two-and-a-half-year high” of 1.19% this week. Even if BoE governor Andrew Bailey wants to hold fire, he “may struggle to resist the markets’ push for movin’ on up”.Bailey has finally conceded that he is “concerned” about inflation being above target. Fellow rate-setter Michael Saunders argues that markets are right…2 min
The Week|V. 1353CommentatorsThe IMF boss should fall on her swordJawad IqbalThe TimesFinance ministers and central bankers have converged on Washington for the first in-person International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings since the pandemic began. It hasn’t been an easy session, says Jawad Iqbal in The Times. Just when the world needs a steady hand on the tiller, the IMF’s managing director, the Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva, has become embroiled in a damaging scandal. An independent report charges that while in a previous senior role atthe World Bank, she falsified China’s scores in the World Bank’s Doing Business index, an influential guide for investors. The alleged data-rigging, which Georgieva denies, “spared China an embarrassing fall in the rankings”. On Monday, the IMF’s board affirmed its “full confidence” in Georgieva – but surely…4 min
The Week|V. 1353Who’s tipping whatThe week’s best sharesHotel ChocolatInvestors’ ChronicleUK-focused production and soaring digital revenues have fuelled robust results. With profits exceeding expectations, the focus on ESG issues adds to the chocolate outfit’s appeal. Buy. 445p.MaxCyteThe Sunday TimesMaxCyte builds gene cell therapy machines for drug makers: numbering 25 top global pharmas as clients. Shares have fallen after an American clinical trial was put on hold, but growth is strong and the stock looks cheap. Buy. 722p.ScSInvestors ChronicleHigher materials costs and supply-chain challenges have meant longer lead times. Yet the sofa-maker’s orders, while down from the post-lockdown boom, are higher than they were in 2019. Improved margins remain robust. Yields 3.8%. Buy. 264p.SuperdryThe Sunday TelegraphThe sustainable fashion brand is one of the world’s biggest organic cotton buyers – with a huge range of recycled jackets…3 min
The Week|V. 1353Rushed appointments, admin and dread: a day in the life of a GPMy first appointment is at 8.30. Our daily meeting is also at 8.30, despite my protestations at the scheduling conflict. There is no room in which to hold the meeting, so we gather in the waiting room. One of the partners begins by running through staff absences: one doctor is off with stress, another must look after their child, who has Covid. There is a massive backlog of patients waiting to be seen, and despite the fact that the practice is offering a record number of face-to-face and telephone appointments, it can’t keep up with demand. The days are long and frequently tough; a colleague cracks a quick joke to lighten the mood. The patients already waiting watch us laughing, and glance pointedly at the clock.I hurry to my consulting…11 min
The Week|V. 1353Subscribe to The Week today and get your first 6 issues freeBroaden your worldview with The Week magazine and enjoy a balanced, unbiased and refreshing take on current affairs.Join over 300,000 readers who rely on The Week to cut through the noise of the media and see the bigger picture.Subscribe today and your first 6 issues are completely free.Why subscribe?Money-back guaranteeIf for any reason you’re not satisfied with your subscription, you can cancel anytime and we’ll refund on any issues not received.Great savingsAs a subscriber you’ll benefit from great savings off the RRP and from special offers and discounts.Free deliveryA subscription includes free delivery so you can receive the magazine directly to your door every week.Visit theweek.co.uk/offerOr call 0330 333 9494Offer code P1353For binders to hold 26 copies of The Week: modernbookbinders.com, £9.50Registered as a newspaper with the Royal Mail. Printed…1 min
