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THE WEEK

18 JANUARY 2020 | ISSUE 1262 | £3.80

THE BEST OF THE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Fleeing the Firm

The fairy tale that soured Page 2

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS

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2 NEWS

The main stories…

What happened

What the editorials said

The royal rift

The Queen’s “surrender to the petulant, selfish demands of Harry and Meghan may prove the biggest mistake of her long The Queen gave her reluctant blessing this reign”, said The Sun. The public will be “repulsed” if these two “quitters” are able week to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step down as senior royals. In to walk away from the duties of royalty while still enjoying its perks and treating a personal statement after crisis talks at the institution as “an Instagram marketing Sandringham, the 93-year-old monarch said tool”. The Queen has not disguised her that while she would have preferred her grandson and his wife to have remained disappointment at this turn of events, said The Daily Telegraph, but a pragmatic full-time working royals, she understood their desire to “live a more independent life accommodation appears to be in the as a family while remaining a valued part of works. Nobody wants to force the Sussexes to live a life they don’t want. But equally, my family”. It had been agreed that there the couple “can’t dictate the terms of their would be a “period of transition”, she said, The Queen with Harry: disappointed new role, because the institution of during which the couple would divide their monarchy is not theirs to transform or ‘modernise’”. time between Canada and the UK (see page 20).

The urgent family summit was convened after Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, blindsided Buckingham Palace last week by releasing a “personal message” stating their desire for a “progressive new role” within the royal family that enabled them to become financially independent, and to spend more time in North America. Questions remain over exactly how they intend to fund themselves, or what royal duties they will still perform, or who will be responsible for providing and paying for their security arrangements.

What happened

The downing of flight 752 After days of denial, Iran admitted unintentionally shooting down a Ukrainian jet last week, killing all 176 people on board.

Most of those who died were Iranian or of Iranian origin; there were 57 Canadian and three British nationals on board. Iran initially blamed mechanical issues and only admitted on Saturday, in the face of mounting evidence, that missiles fired by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were responsible. Missiles were fired in “human error”, it said, when the jet turned towards a military site, shortly after Iran had launched a strike on US targets in Iraq.

The remains of a Roman fort at Hadrian’s Wall has been gifted to the nation. Built around 122AD, Carrawburgh – one of 16 strongholds built by the Romans along the 73-mile wall – once housed 500 soldiers from France and Belgium. It was given to English Heritage by Jennifer Du Cane, whose family had owned it since 1950.

Compared with other parts of the wall, the 1.4-hectare site has undergone very little excavation and so could prove a trove for archaeologists.

What the editorials said

A “rare moment of unity” for Iran has been “shattered”, said The Observer. A nationwide “outpouring of grief” at the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in a US air strike has given way to fury at the regime’s attempted cover-up of the downing of flight 752. For three days, the authorities set out to hide the truth, only coming clean when video evidence and foreign pressure made denial impossible. Their “domestic credibility” has been blasted. It’s not just the lies, said The Sunday Telegraph. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard apparently managed to confuse a Boeing 737 with a US cruise missile. A regime infamous for “butchering protesters” and exporting terrorism also turns out to be seriously “incompetent”.

Inspecting the wreckage

“The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake,” said President Rouhani, but despite the show of contrition, the admission sparked a wave of protests in Tehran and other major cities. The UK’s ambassador to Iran was briefly arrested at a vigil in Tehran, in what London described as a “flagrant violation of international law”.

It wasn’t all bad

Harry and Meghan are seeking to pioneer a new “semiprivatised” model of royalty, said The Independent – one that navigates a middle way between a public role and being a private citizen. It’s unclear how this would work in practice.

Taxpayers would be entitled to expect that the couple’s private activities, however charitable, were indeed privately financed.

And the state would rightly want a say over how any public money given to the Sussexes was spent. In the end, a “clean Megxit”, or “hard Megxit”, might be simpler for everyone.

Let’s be thankful at least that “World War Three is off for now”, said The Independent. The Iranians seem to have designed their attacks on US targets to cause little damage and no fatalities. In response, President Trump offered only some “routine abuse”, and even hinted that he might be ready for talks with Tehran. With luck, “the de-escalation has begun”.

A 17-year-old birdwatching enthusiast has become the youngest Briton to be awarded an honorary degree. Mya-Rose Craig, from Somerset, will receive her BSc from Bristol University. She spotted her 5,000th bird variety on a half-term trip to northern Spain last year. In 2016, she set up Black2Nature, an organisation which (among other things) runs camps to give inner-city children a chance to engage with nature. The only person younger than her to have received an honorary degree in the UK is the Pakistani education activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

In an industry first, one of Britain’s largest builders has pledged to incorporate “hedgehog highways” in its existing and future housing developments, wherever possible. Hedgehogs walk more than a mile each night as they forage for food, so Bovis will make sure there are holes in its fences allowing the creatures to move in and out of gardens.

Numbers of hedgehogs are estimated to have dropped by 50% in rural areas and 30% in urban areas since 2000, mainly owing to pesticide use and habitat loss.

COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

…and how they were covered

NEWS 3

What the commentators said

What next?

This story involves a restive prince who fell for an American divorcee, said Matthew Norman in The Independent, so it was perhaps inevitable that the press would call it an “abdication crisis”. It’s no such thing. When Edward VIII renounced the throne, the crisis constituted “a clear existential threat” to the monarchy. By contrast, the “flight” of the sixth in line to the throne is no big deal. Indeed, by offering the public an amusing distraction that mirrors their own “familial ructions”, the story will if anything strengthen the monarchy.

Meghan’s estranged father may be called to give evidence against her in her forthcoming privacy action against The Mail on Sunday.

She has accused the tabloid of printing articles based on one of her private and confidential letters to him, in breach of her human rights and copyright.

The royal family needs a shake-up in any case, said James Marriott in The Times. Having been “raised in an era that valued duty and selflessness”, the Queen was “well-prepared for the selfabnegation her role requires”, but it’s unrealistic to expect all future royals to follow her example in our more individualistic age. Prince Charles is right to want to downsize the royal family to the direct line of succession. “The more people who can be kept out of the cage the better … Nothing’s more dangerous to the Buckingham Palace zoo than a wild animal driven mad by its captivity. Remember Princess Diana.”

It makes sense for the Sussexes to step down, agreed Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph.

And if they’re willing to pay their own way, there’s no reason why they couldn’t enjoy a happy, low-profile existence. Princess Madeleine of Sweden, who grew up third in line to the throne, enjoys such a “quasi-royal life”, residing quietly in Florida with her husband, but returning home regularly for holidays and formal events. But it’s unclear whether Harry, who is seeking to register the “Sussex Royal” brand as a global trademark, and seems keen to keep his patronages and titles, really wants a low-key life. Many observers believe that, on the contrary, the Sussexes want to leverage their “unique mix of royalty and Hollywood celebrity” to become globetrotting ambassadors in the mould of the Clooneys or post-presidency Obamas, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. But could they do that without dragging the monarchy through some “dubious commercial mud” and overshadowing the rest of the royal family?

The newspaper has rejected the claims, arguing that there is a “huge and legitimate” public interest in the royal family, and that Meghan cannot claim a right to family privacy because she allowed friends to leak negative stories about her father after the wedding. According to the Daily Mail, Thomas Markle will be a “key witness” in the case, a date for which has yet to be set.

What the commentators said

What next?

Iran’s leaders now face a “potentially lethal challenge”, said Colum Lynch in Foreign Policy.

They have faced plenty of protests since the creation of the Islamic Republic 40 years ago: only a few months back the authorities brutally suppressed a wave of demonstrations by workingclass Iranians angry at price rises. But this time it’s different. On the streets this week were thousands of students and middle-class Iranians, exasperated by official lies and for once happy to show their disdain for the regime. The anger runs deep, said Christian Oliver on Politico.

Decades of economic mismanagement, corruption and Iran’s status as a “pariah” state have robbed a generation of its prospects. Despite abundant oil, Iran’s economy is now no bigger than Belgium’s. The jet’s downing didn’t just illustrate “the incompetence of the regime”. It also highlighted the fact that the country is suffering a brain drain: among the dead were some of the country’s brightest and best – doctors, engineers and scientists seeking to work abroad.

Boris Johnson has called on President Trump to negotiate a new deal with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The PM conceded that the existing pact – backed by the EU but rejected by the US – might now be dead.

Violations of the deal by Iran this week prompted the UK, Germany and France to trigger an official dispute mechanism.

Give the mullahs some credit, said Peter Westmacott in The Times. They might have imitated Moscow, which has never acknowledged Russia’s role in downing flight MH17 over Ukraine.

Instead, they belatedly made a clean breast of it – even insisting that the usually “untouchable” Revolutionary Guard would have to explain itself in public. But worryingly, it is unclear who is actually in charge in Tehran, said Mark Almond in The Daily Telegraph. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is a frail 80-year-old; infighting is rife, and recent decisions suggest that the chain of command is broken – witness the arrest, and prompt release, of the British ambassador this week. A ruthless and competent Iran is bad enough, but “a ruthless but malfunctioning Iran could be more dangerous still”. The protests could create a “crisis of legitimacy” for the regime, said Reza Akbari in The Guardian. But in general, the Islamic Republic thrives on confrontation with foreign foes. The idea that it is on the brink of popular revolution is a “big misreading”.

THE WEEK

Have you ever wanted to know the exact age of maximum human unhappiness? It’s 47.2. Economists can be relied on to gauge complex phenomena with implausible precision, and this week a US National Bureau of Economic Research study has pinpointed the average moment of peak misery.

Happiness, it has long been thought, follows a U-shaped curve. You start off with high hopes and few responsibilities, but in your 20s, 30s and early 40s things get steadily worse, as work and family pressures mount and you fall into the trough of middle-aged despair – wrangling children and elderly parents, dealing with financial strain, weight gain, hair loss, divorce, etc. Then things get gradually better, as those pressures lift, and you come to terms with your slightly disappointing life.

What’s interesting about this study, by David Blanchflower – previously of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee – is that it seems to reveal a universal pattern. He has studied data from 132 countries and has found evidence of a U-shape in “subjective well-being” in 132 countries, though it reaches its low point a year later in less developed countries. “The happiness curve is everywhere,” he declares. The bad news, in Britain at least, is that you only get about half way up the curve again on the other side: though things look up in your 50s and 60s, it’s never glad confident 20 again. Even so, the great thing about this report is that it brings hope to Theo Tait the people who need it most, the most miserable people in the world: 47.2-year-olds.

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Five countries with citizens aboard flight 752, the UK included, are pressing Iran for compensation and a full inquiry. On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary called for the expulsion of Britain’s ambassador, Rob Macaire.

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18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Politics

4 NEWS Controversy of the week

Life after Corbyn The race to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader isn’t quite going to plan, said The Times. Labour’s left, which has a tight grip on the party, was supposedly all in favour of the 40-yearold shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey – the “continuity Corbyn” candidate. Yet her campaign has faltered, marred by a series of clumsy statements and interview gaffes.

She claimed to have witnessed the deep distress of her father – a docker – at the closure of the Salford docks though she was only two at the time. She was ridiculed for claiming that she went into a career in commercial law in order to “give something back” to the community. And asked to appraise Corbyn’s leadership, she uncritically awarded it – to widespread derision – “10 out of 10”. Long-Bailey still has the Starmer: born to lead? backing of Momentum, the party’s powerful internal pressure group, but this week Len McCluskey – boss of the Unite union, who had been expected to back her – appeared to be wrestling with doubts about her candidacy.

The clear favourite is Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit Secretary, said Jim Pickard in the FT. In the first round of voting this week, he secured 86 nominations from Labour MPs and MEPs – well ahead of Long-Bailey, on 33, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry on 23, and the backbenchers Lisa Nandy (31) and Jess Phillips (23). Starmer’s first-round success isn’t that surprising, said Toby Helm in The Observer. It’s not just that he’s far more popular with his fellow MPs – especially fellow Remainers – than Long-Bailey. His bid for leadership seems to have been planned from the moment of his birth “57 years and four months ago”, when his parents decided to name him after the party’s founder, Keir Hardie. He may suffer the disadvantage with Labour’s rank and file of having a knighthood and not being a woman, but so far, his team’s strategy – to recast this former director of public prosecutions as a leader more “in touch with his working-class roots” – seems to be working.

But there’s still a long way to the finishing line on 4 April, said Andrew Rawnsley in the same paper.

The candidates must now secure the backing of either 33 or more constituency parties or of at least two large trade unions. (Starmer already has the backing of the biggest, Unison.) But the final outcome will be decided by a ballot of the 500,000 party members, with whom Long-Bailey may well prove more popular. So nothing is “wrapped up”: many dislike the idea of Labour’s next leader being “another bloke who lives in North London”; the hard-left could turn things “ugly”; the campaigns of Nandy and Phillips could take off. The danger in all this, said The Independent, is of the leadership race turning into a “personality contest”. Instead of addressing the disaster of Labour’s “worst election defeat since 1935”, the candidates seem to be putting off “much-needed debate” and implying that the party does not require radical change. If they follow that path, then instead of paving the way for victory in 2024, they will ensure that “tomorrow never comes”.

Spirit of the age Quorn is to become the first major brand to add “carbon labelling” to its products.

Designed to help consumers understand the environmental impact of their shopping, the carbon labelling data is certified by the Carbon Trust, and will begin to appear on Quorn products from June.

In another high street first, John Lewis has opened a make-up counter for men. The counter in the menswear section of its flagship Oxford Street branch sells foundation, bronzer and powder brushes, with an £18 pot of concealer proving the best seller. It is intended as a temporary pop-up run by make-up brand War Paint for Men, but the store has suggested that sales have been so brisk, it could be rolled out elsewhere.

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Good week for:

Billie Eilish, who revealed that she has been asked to sing the theme song for the new James Bond film, No Time to Die. The 18-year-old is the youngest musician ever to provide a Bond soundtrack. She wrote it with her older brother Finneas.

Lee Child, the bestselling writer of the Jack Reacher novels, who was selected to sit on the judging panel of the Booker Prize. Child is one of the most commercially successful writers to sit on the panel. The other judges include Margaret Busby, Britain’s leading black publisher, and the poet Lemn Sissay.

Bad week for:

The BBC, which lost its equal pay dispute with presenter Samira Ahmed. An employment tribunal ruled that Ahmed’s work on Newswatch was “broadly similar” to that of Jeremy Vine’s on Points of View, and so there should have been pay parity between them. In fact, the BBC paid Vine six times more per episode.

Greggs, which was forced to close its only branch in Cornwall, apparently because locals were not impressed by the baker’s pasties. Greggs, which has 1,950 branches nationwide, opened its Cornish outpost at a service station in Saltash in 2018.

Bafta, with news that it is reviewing its voting process in response to criticism about the lack of diversity among this year’s nominees. There are no women on the shortlist for best director, and all the people in the acting categories are white. The Joker, The Irishman, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in America won the most nominations. The Oscar nominations, revealed a few days later, also came under fire for being mainly male and white.

Manchester sex abuse

Police and social workers in Manchester knew children in care were facing serious abuse in the early 2000s “but did not protect them”, a new report has found.

Operation Augusta, an investigation into “the sexual exploitation of children in the care system by predominantly Asian men”, was launched by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) following the death of 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia in 2003. The inquiry identified at least 57 potential victims and 97 suspects – but was then closed down. Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester’s mayor, who commissioned the new report, said it was appalling that most of the abusers had escaped justice. GMP is reviewing the cases covered in the report and has referred itself to the police watchdog.

Erasmus scheme doubts

MPs have rejected an attempt to force the Government to seek continued membership of the Erasmus+ programme, which funds the studies of 16,000 British students in Europe a year. The vote on a Lib Dem-backed amendment to the withdrawal agreement bill was lost by 254 to 344 votes. However, the Government says it is hoping to continue the “academic relationship” with the EU.

Poll watch 79% of Republicans approve of Donald Trump’s recent dealings with Iran; 14% disapprove. Among Democrats, 86% disapprove, and 10% approve. 53% of Americans overall think the president has handled the issue poorly, and 37% well.

Ipsos/Reuters/Newsweek 11% of Britons say they started the year planning a Dry January – eschewing alcohol for the month. 29% of those admit to having failed the challenge within the first week.

YouGov 63% of British adults think the Duke and Duchess of Sussex should stop receiving funding from Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall now that they are stepping back from royal duties. 13% disagree.

YouGov/Daily Mail

Europe at a glance Paris Director arrested: The French film director Christophe Ruggia was arrested this week on suspicion of sexually assaulting a well-known French actress in the early 2000s.

Adèle Haenel, who is now 31, was 12 when she made her screen debut in Ruggia’s 2002 film Les Diables (The Devils). She alleges that Ruggia became obsessed with her during filming, and later molested her while professing his love.

Haenel, who stopped acting for five years after making the film, went to the police in November, saying she’d been inspired to speak out after watching the documentary Leaving Neverland, which explored Michael Jackson’s abuse of children.

NEWS 5

Paris Compromise fails to end strikes: A partial climbdown on pension reform by President Macron’s government has failed to end the transport and public sector strikes that have caused chaos in Paris and nationwide since December (see page 13) – even though the proposed compromise has the backing of France’s biggest trade union. Last weekend, the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, agreed to withdraw the plan to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 (by 2027) – but said the government would press ahead with replacing France’s complex web of 42 retirement schemes with a single, simplified system. The moderate CFDT union accepted this plan. But the far-left CGT said it was still determined to fight on, to force the government to scrap the whole scheme.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris and other cities last Saturday, in the fifth day of mass protests since 5 December.

Zagreb Population decline: The prime minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenkovic – whose government has just assumed the rotating presidency of the EU – has warned that his country is suffering a “population loss equivalent to losing a small city every year”, and called for EU-wide strategies to tackle the “existential” threat in southern and eastern Europe posed by falling birth rates and mass emigration. Last year, a study found that 230,000 Croatians left their country (mostly for Germany, Austria and Ireland) between 2013 and 2016; the country’s population is just 4.2 million. The populations of ten of the EU’s 28 member states fell in 2018, with the biggest relative drops recorded in Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia and Romania.

Valletta Muscat out: In a major political upset, an MP with no ministerial experience has won the contest to take control of Malta’s governing Labour party – and been sworn in as the country’s new prime minister. Robert Abela (pictured), 42, defeated the deputy PM, Chris Fearne, on a platform of social reforms that appealed to the party’s membership. Late last year, Malta was shocked by a series of arrests over the 2017 murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia – including that of the former PM Joseph Muscat’s chief of staff. Muscat subsequently stepped down.

Paxos, Greece Migrants drown: At least 23 migrants, including at least eight children, drowned last weekend in the Mediterranean. On Saturday, at least 12 people lost their lives when a boat sank in the Ionian Sea close to the island of Paxos. It was the first such mass drowning in Greek waters this year, and was unusual in that it took place to the west of Greece; the boat is thought to have been heading to Italy. Greek officials said that 21 people had been rescued, and that an unknown number remained unaccounted for. The nationalities and ages of those who died have not been confirmed. Hours later, 11 migrants drowned when their boat sank off the west coast of Turkey, close to the town of Çesme. Eight of them were children. Çesme is just ten miles from the Greek island of Chios, where thousands of migrants are living in abysmal conditions in chaotic transit camps.

Madrid Marriage course: The Catholic Church in Spain is to put engaged couples on marriage guidance courses lasting two to three years, in an attempt to bring down Spain’s high divorce rate. At the moment, couples are given 20 hours of guidance.

“Marriage training cannot be done in 20 hours,” said Mario Iceta, the Bishop of Bilbao and chair of the Church committee behind the initiative. “To become a priest requires seven years in the seminary, so how can we say it’s 20 hours to become a husband, wife, father and mother?”

Couples are expected to attend fortnightly sessions over the two to three years, during which time they are encouraged to remain chaste. The course is divided into 12 areas, including communication, conflict resolution and “the beauty of sexuality”.

Although divorce only became legal in Spain in 1981, its rate is now one of the highest in the EU, at 57%.

Vatican City Two popes: In a rare public intervention, the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has issued a stout defence of priestly celibacy – just as Pope Francis is considering lifting the restriction on married priests in some circumstances. Last October, a conference of bishops called on Francis to allow the ordination of married men in the Amazon region, owing to a severe shortage of clergy there. Francis, who has previously suggested he is open to such exceptions, is due to announce a decision in the coming months. But a new book has a chapter

by Benedict defending priestly celibacy, which warns Catholics not to listen to the “special pleading, the theatrics, the diabolical lies, the fashionable errors that would devalue it”. This week, Benedict’s co-authorship credit was removed from the cover of the book, amid a furious row over whether or not the 92-year-old was manipulated into taking a public stance.

Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

6 NEWS

The world at a glance

Washington DC Trump trial: The House of Representatives was due to vote on Wednesday to send its impeachment charges against President Trump to the Senate, paving the way for the long-awaited Senate trial to begin within days. Trump was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House last month. The announcement of the vote, by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, put an end to a month-long stand-off over how and when the trial would proceed. According to press reports, the trial is likely to begin in the coming week, once both sides have prepared their arguments, but could be delayed until around 28 January. The Senate has yet to decide if it will hear testimony from witnesses, or admit documents into evidence, factors that would affect its length. Whatever happens, Trump’s fellow Republicans – who control the Senate by a 53 to 47 majority – are all but certain to acquit him.

Washington DC Pact falters: In a televised CNN debate in Iowa this week, the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren reiterated her potentially damaging claim that Bernie Sanders had told her at a private meeting in 2018 that he didn’t think a woman could win the 2020 election. Sanders continued to insist that he had said no such thing. The bitter row, coming three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, suggests that an unstated non-aggression pact between the long-time friends – the two most progressive of the Democratic presidential candidates – is being abandoned as the race hots up.

Pensacola, Florida Saudis asked to leave: Twenty-one Saudi cadets undergoing military training in the United States have been expelled from the country after an investigation into a mass shooting at a military base in Florida last month.

Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi air force, killed three US sailors and wounded eight others before being shot dead. US officials have described the shooting as an “act of terrorism”. The 21 cadets are not accused of helping him. However, investigators had reportedly found jihadist material, and/or indecent images of children, on their social media accounts. There are about 850 Saudi military cadets undergoing training in the US. Austin, Texas No more refugees: The Republican governor of Texas has announced that he will not allow any refugees to be resettled in the state in 2020. Greg Abbott said that Texas – which has accepted more refugees than any state except California – had done “more than its share”, and suggested it was time for other states to bear more of the burden of a system left “broken” by Congress. But the mayors of major Texan cities including Dallas and Houston have urged him to reconsider, and his decision has been condemned by all 16 of Texas’s Catholic bishops. There are about 8.5 million Catholics in Texas, and Abbott is one of them.

President Trump is planning to cap refugee numbers at 18,000 in the 2020 fiscal year, down from 30,000 the year before.

Washington DC Diplomatic immunity stands: The British Government has been strongly criticised for filing an extradition request for the US diplomat’s wife who killed 19-year-old Harry Dunn in a traffic accident in Northamptonshire last year. Anne Sacoolas, 42 – who left Britain after the accident claiming diplomatic immunity – is wanted on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving: it is believed she was driving on the wrong side of the road, close to the RAF Croughton airbase, when she struck the teenager’s motorcycle. However, the US state department described the request for her extradition, filed last week, as “highly inappropriate”. “The use of an extradition treaty to attempt to return the spouse of a former diplomat by force would establish an extraordinarily troubling precedent,” said a spokesperson.

Galápagos Islands Sex-machine saviour: A giant tortoise credited with saving his species, by giving decades of sterling service to a captive breeding programme, is being retired. In 1977, only 15 Chelonoidis hoodensis tortoises remained. Today, there are about 2,000 – 40% of which are believed to be Diego’s descendants.

With the population now considered sustainable, the programme is being closed and Diego – who is more than 100 – is being returned to the wild. Born in the Galápagos, he was taken to the US in the 1930s, but returned in 1977 to take part in the programme.

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Brasília “Gay Jesus”: Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled that Netflix should be able to continue streaming a comedy film depicting Jesus as gay. The First Temptation of Christ, which includes scenes in which Jesus brings a boyfriend to a party thrown by Mary and Joseph, infuriated Brazilian Christians. Millions of people signed petitions calling for its creators to be charged with a crime and their office was firebombed on Christmas Eve. A judge had ruled that Netflix should withdraw the film, but last week the Supreme Court overturned that order. “It is not to be assumed that a humorous satire has the magic power to undermine the values of the Christian faith, whose existence goes back more than 2,000 years,” it ruled.

The world at a glance Muscat Sultan dies: Sultan Qaboos bin Said al-Said, the ruler of Oman since 1970, died last Friday and has been succeeded by his first cousin. The late sultan, who was 79, was educated in England and briefly served in the British Army after graduating from Sandhurst. He seized power (in what was then Muscat and Oman) by overthrowing his father in a Britishbacked coup, with the aim of ending the sultanate’s isolation and using its oil wealth to drive development. Oman remains a key regional ally of the UK: Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, all flew to Muscat to attend ceremonies marking the accession of Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, who was educated at Oxford and is regarded as an Anglophile.

Neelum Valley, Kashmir Deadly avalanches: Around 70 people were killed and dozens injured this week in avalanches that swept away homes and roads in Kashmir, the disputed region claimed by both Pakistan and India.

The majority of the casualties were in the Neelum Valley, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, but at least 12 people have reportedly died on the Indian side of the border. A further 31 people, many of them young children, were killed by floods and avalanches in Balochistan, in the southwest of Pakistan, and at least 39 have succumbed to harsh winter rain and snow in Afghanistan, officials have said.

There, many of the deaths resulted from roofs collapsing under the weight of snow.

In one such incident in Herat province, seven people died, including five members of the same family.

NEWS 7

Tokyo Love mission: The billionaire founder of Japan’s biggest online fashion store, Zozo, has issued a public appeal for a new girlfriend to go with him to the Moon.

Yusaku Maezawa, 44, is due to fly round the Moon in 2023 as the first paying passenger with Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. Having recently split up with the 27-year-old actress Ayame Goriki, he hasn’t got anyone to accompany him.

Applicants for the “planned match-making event” must be over 20 and have an interest in “world peace” and space travel.

Manila Volcano erupts: At least 30,000 villagers have been forced to flee their homes by the activity of the Taal volcano, near Manila, which erupted on Sunday, blowing ash across the city. Hundreds of thousands more were put on standby in case the eruption triggered a tsunami. Taal is one of the world’s smallest volcanoes, but its high activity level and location – in a lake in a densely populated area 40 miles south of the Philippines capital – means it is also one of the most dangerous.

Maseru PM’s wife wanted: A court in Lesotho has issued an arrest warrant for Maesaiah Thabane, the wife of the country’s prime minister Thomas Thabane, on suspicion of being involved in the 2017 murder of his estranged wife. Lipolelo Thabane was gunned down on the outskirts of the capital, Maseru, two days before her husband’s inauguration. The pair, who had separated five years’ earlier, were involved in an acrimonious divorce at the time of her death. The national police chief has also tried to question the prime minister over the killing of his estranged wife, but so far without success. Maesaiah Thabane is now being hunted by police, and Thomas Thabane’s governing ABC party has urged him to resign.

Taipei Rebuke to Beijing: Taiwanese voters have delivered a blow to Beijing by overwhelmingly re-electing President Tsai Ing-wen, a staunch defender of Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s intensifying efforts to bring the island under its control.

Tsai’s victory over a more Beijing-friendly candidate reflects growing unease in Taiwan over Beijing’s intentions. Chinese state media accused Tsai of “cheating” and “intimidation”, and Beijing condemned Western governments for congratulating her on the result.

Canberra Pressure on PM: Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison has expressed regrets about his handling of the country’s bush fire crisis, and announced a royal commission to look at the impact of climate change, the operational response and the role of the government. However, he has not suggested any shift in policies to curb carbon emissions as some had hoped.

Morrison’s ratings have tanked because of what is widely seen as his flat-footed response to the crisis. The current bush fire season has been the worst in Australia’s recorded history: it has claimed 28 lives and destroyed at least 2,000 homes.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

People

8 NEWS

Lessons in social mobility When Hashi Mohamed arrived in Britain from Kenya as a nine-year-old Somali refugee, he spoke no English and was grieving the death of his father.

Raised in Wembley, he went to a state school where he vividly recalls the headteacher being brutally beaten up. Yet he went on to gain two degrees and now – as a practising barrister

– he has written an essential book on social mobility, says Sathnam Sanghera in The Times. His tips for success?

A “firm handshake, eye contact. Remembering people’s names; making sure you’re on time.” He tells the 22 people to whom he acts as a mentor to avoid slang such as “innit” and “izzit” – but his methods aren’t always welcomed.

“I’ve been criticised for my approach, on the basis that all I am doing is making the case for the status quo.” But those who tell young people not to change are fostering an “equally dangerous idea: that you can go up against the system and win, that you can somehow do it entirely on your terms”. He has himself settled on a mid point. “I’m an insider, but still with an outsider’s gaze.”

Scorsese’s next steps His latest film, The Irishman, has been hailed as an end-ofcareer masterpiece. Now, at 77, Martin Scorsese has a more final ending on his mind.

“Often, death is sudden,” he told Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times. “You just have to let go, especially at this vantage point of age. Because we’re all going. Friends are dying. Family’s going.” That being the case, he would like to take stock, to “just take a year and read. Listen to music when it’s needed. Be with some friends.” As for future film projects: “If you’re given the grace to continue working, then you’d better figure out something that needs telling.”

Castaway of the week This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the author of Moneyball and The Big Short, Michael Lewis 1 I Want You Back by Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonso Mizell and Deke Richards, performed by The Jackson 5 2* Old Days by James Pankow, performed by Chicago 3 Stairway to Heaven by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, performed by Led Zeppelin 4 Barcelona by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran, performed

by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé 5 Romeo and Juliet by Mark Knopfler, performed by Dire Straits 6 Losing My Religion, written and performed by R.E.M. 7 Better Man by Eddie Vedder, performed by Pearl Jam 8 Rollercoaster by Jack Antonoff, performed by Bleachers

Book: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Luxury: a photo album * Choice if allowed only one record

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Ncuti Gatwa was the breakout star of the hit Netflix show Sex Education. He plays Eric, an unapologetically gay teenager from a Ghanaian family coping with secondary school life in an unnamed British town. Gatwa, who is 27, was born in Rwanda; his parents fled the genocide when he was a baby, and ended up in the Fife town of Dunfermline. Like Eric, he didn’t exactly fit in. “There’s not many people that look like me in Scotland,” he told Rebecca Nicholson in The Observer. He was bullied at school; some classmates even set up a racist Facebook page about him. “It wasn’t pleasant,” he says, “but it wasn’t actually horrendous.” He looks mischievous. “Do I want to say this? Yeah, why not… it didn’t really bother me that much because I knew.” He is chuckling. “I was like, you can’t know me and not like me. I was actually quite confused! I was like, what? These people don’t like me? That’s never happened before.” The laugh becomes a guffaw. “So I was like, OK, fine. I’m just going to carry on being myself and they’re going to fall in love with me sooner or later. And they did.” In fact, he became friends with the boys who set up the page. “It was really a good lesson to me about the difference between hate and ignorance. Obviously their behaviour was inexcusable. But at the same time, I was the first black person that they probably saw in real life.”

Viewpoint:

Banging on “I have a feeling we will look back on this time as the age of banging on too much to our children. I’m constantly ‘momsplaining’ to them, picking apart every action. Not just, ‘Oh, look! A robin!’, but endless parsing of their motivation, and policing any signs of failure to follow through or be happy.

On and on I go, with a life lesson attached to every small thing. No period of quiet reflection is permitted.

A year ago, I started banging on about something to do with how people believe different things and that’s OK. After listening to me patiently for a few moments, my four-year-old put her hand kindly on my arm. ‘Let’s talk about it later,’ she said.”

Emma Brockes in The Guardian

Farewell Georges Duboeuf, wine producer behind the Beaujolais nouveau craze in the 1980s, died 4 January, aged 86.

Tony Garnett, film and TV drama producer best known for Cathy Come Home and Kes, died 12 January, aged 83.

Sonny Mehta, publisher who at Pan and Alfred A. Knopf had a gift for spotting talent, died 30 December, aged 77.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, ruler of Oman who transformed his country into a modern state, died 10 January, aged 79.

© DEAN CHALKLEY/OBSERVER/EYEVINE

Nigella on getting old Nigella Lawson has never liked birthdays. Even as a child, she found them “squirmy and embarrassing”. Now, the famously glamorous chef has turned 60 – and she is finding it “very odd indeed”. “Even if it isn’t properly old, it is undeniably well beyond middle age; I am not expecting to make it to 120,” she wrote in The Sunday Times. Her mother, sister and first husband all died young – at 48, 32 and 47 respectively. It is, she says, “curious” to be so comprehensively outliving them. On the other hand, “when you have seen people you love die young, the idea of complaining about getting older is just revolting”. Besides, being older is easier than its opposite. “The two great enemies of happiness are self-consciousness and pressure to conform, and the older one gets, the easier it is to throw off those shackles.” And there’s something else too: she has learnt to be alone. “I found it hard to enjoy my own company when young, but now I relish it. Solitude is as important to me now as food.”

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A World Away

Briefing

NEWS 11

The SNP supremacy In 2010 the SNP had six MPs. Today it has 48 seats, and seems unchallenged as the party of power in Scotland. How did it get there?

What are the SNP’s origins?

It was formed in 1934, when the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party united to fight for “selfgovernment for Scotland”. The young party, however, was bitterly split between various factions and didn’t have the resources to field candidates across Scotland. Robert McIntyre won the SNP’s first seat at the Motherwell byelection in 1945, but lost it at the general election only three months later; the party remained in the electoral doldrums for decades. It was widely seen as a fringe group, associated mostly with symbolic stunts such as the 1950 theft of the Stone of Scone (taken from Scotland in 1296

by Edward I) from Westminster Abbey.

The SNP’s progress towards power was slow: Alex Salmond has described it as a “100-year home rule journey”.

with a pro-business stance. Salmond made the SNP appealing to voters who weren’t even pro-independence. The EU, meanwhile, had made the possibility of a small nation going it alone more realistic.

How did devolution change things?

The hope in Westminster – as the New Labour MP George Robertson put it – was that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead”: in May 1999, the new Scottish Parliament was founded at Holyrood in Edinburgh, with powers over education, health and justice, and the ability to vary taxes. Instead, for the SNP, Holyrood provided a forum where it could challenge Labour and prove its competence. In 2007, the SNP became the largest party there, forming a Nicola Sturgeon: on her way to indyref2? minority government. In 2011, it won an overall majority – in a part-proportional representation system specifically designed to prevent such an outcome – having given a pledge to hold a referendum on Scottish independence.

How did its fortunes change?

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, Scottish unionism (see box) Why did losing the 2014 referendum not halt the SNP? was effectively hollowed out. In the 1955 general election, the During the 2014 campaign a lead for the pro-Union “No” side, of Unionist Party – the Conservatives’ allies in Scotland – won 42% perhaps 60% to 40%, was sharply reduced. “No” won a narrow of the vote there. But in the next 20 years, the two great benefits 55%-45% victory, and only after the three main national parties of the Union – that it gave Scotland a large degree of autonomy, had vowed to give more powers to Holyrood. Salmond resigned, and access to imperial markets – were eroded, as the British state but described the future “redolent with possibility”; and handed centralised and the Empire withered. In 1967, Winnie Ewing won over to an equally capable politician, Nicola Sturgeon. The Hamilton, starting an era of continuous SNP representation in campaign made the pro-Union case look stale and defensive, Westminster. In the late 1960s, oil was discovered off Scotland, based on fear for the economic future. The SNP, by contrast, had and the party campaigned on the slogan “It’s Scotland’s Oil”, a positive, optimistic vision for Scotland. Membership rose from with considerable success. At the October 1974 general election, mobilising a widespread sense of economic and cultural grievance, 26,000 in 2014 to over 100,000 in 2015 (and 125,000 today). the SNP won more than 30% of the Scottish vote, taking 11 of Why has Scottish Labour collapsed since? the 71 Scottish seats. Since then, its fortunes have waxed and waned, but it has always been a major force in Scottish politics.

Scotland often felt taken for granted by Labour: Johann Lamont, its leader in Scotland, resigned in 2014, complaining that many in London regarded Scottish Labour as a “branch office”. The basis Did Margaret Thatcher further weaken the Union? of Labour’s power in Scotland – the unions and council housing Undoubtedly. Thatcher, who never had a majority in Scotland, was widely resented – particularly after imposing the poll tax on – had been eroding for many years. New Labour’s welfare the Scots ahead of the rest of the UK. In 1987, the Tory party reforms were unpopular. But the coup de grâce, arguably, was siding with the hated Tories in the (which had absorbed the Unionists in “Better Together” campaign in 2014.

1965) won only 24% of votes and ten The roots of Scottish nationalism In the 2015 general election, the SNP Scottish seats – a disaster from which Scotland was among the first countries in Europe to recorded a historic landslide, winning it has never recovered north of the describe itself as a nation. It has occupied its current border. Labour was the immediate 56 out of 59 seats. Labour won just borders, more or less, since the mid-13th century, by which time it had national institutions – a Parliament beneficiary, dominating politics in one seat. Its collapse may be first noted in 1235 – and a distinctive national culture.

Scotland – and calling for Scottish permanent. After a slight resurgence The wars with England now known as the wars of devolution. But by the mid-1990s, in 2017, Labour won only one independence, which ended at Bannockburn in 1314, under Salmond, the SNP established Scottish seat in last month’s election. settled the question. The Declaration of Arbroath in itself as the second biggest party, by 1320 confirmed that it was a sovereign state which vote share, if not by MPs. (Its vote Will there be an indyref2? would replace any king that didn’t respect its status. was geographically dispersed.)

The SNP argues that Scotland is In 1603, the Union of the Crowns united Scotland and being “taken out of the EU against England under James VI and I. Full political union Why was Salmond successful? our will” – it voted 62% to 38% in came a century later, in 1707, creating Great Britain, A former Royal Bank of Scotland the EU referendum – justifying a when a cash-strapped Scottish state acceded to the economist and a highly effective demand that it join with England, rather than become a second vote on independence. The French satellite; its Parliament was dissolved. As even politician, Salmond reformed party Government this week formally its proponents accepted, union was very unpopular at structures and broadened the SNP’s refused the request. But the consensus the time. But over the next 250 years, what began as appeal. The SNP had in the past been among many Scottish politicians is a hostile merger became a spectacularly successful largely Protestant; Salmond made it that if the SNP wins again in next partnership in nation and Empire. Scottish identity, welcoming to Catholics. He also year’s Holyrood elections – which though, always endured. As the SNP’s Winnie Ewing managed a canny balance of social would be its tenth successive electoral put it when the devolved Parliament opened in 1999: democratic rhetoric – including some victory, counting Scottish, EU and “The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th day totemic policies such as opposing UK elections – then the demand for a of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened.”

Trident and university tuition fees – new referendum will be hard to deny.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

THE UK HAS THE HIGHEST BEER DUTY RATE OF THE TOP EU BREWING NATIONS

GERMANY 4.8p

SPAIN 5.1p

BELGIUM 12.2p

NETHERLANDS 19.3p

UK 54.2p

DUTY PER PINT OF 5% ABV BEER

3 PUBS A DAY CLOSE THEIR DOORS FOR GOOD SIGN THE PETITION TO CUT BEER TAX

Best articles: Britain Why Labour’s future lies in Preston Phil Jones The Guardian

The remarkable turnaround of Boris Johnson Matthew Parris The Times

Macron must not turn into Margaret Simon Kuper Financial Times

How a bull’s penis can teach us tolerance Editorial The Economist

If Labour is to win the next election, it could do worse than study some key seats it won in the last one, says Phil Jones. Preston, for example. This Leave-voting, post-industrial, northern seat is like many others that formed Labour’s now-destroyed “red wall”: yet the party held it comfortably. Why? Largely thanks to a radical experiment launched in 2011 by its council. By directing local government contracts to local businesses and worker co-ops, and by cultivating civic involvement in public planning initiatives, it managed to counter the ravages of austerity. Indeed, Preston’s exercise in community wealth building has done wonders for the local economy and, in turn, for levels of local support for Labour.

The lesson here is that it wasn’t just a sense of national identity that galvanised many Leave voters, but the desire to defy distant politicians and have a say in their own future. The Preston model shows that it is possible to engage local communities and have them genuinely “take back control”. If Labour councils across the country follow Preston’s lead, Labour could win next time round.

Something funny has happened to Boris Johnson, says Matthew Parris. The man who once clowned around and played to the media gallery has lately become a figure of admirable “restraint and circumspection”. Look at the sober, terse answers he gave during last week’s PMQs: there were no gratuitous insults or attempts at point scoring. It’s the same outside the Commons: he seems to favour short, businesslike meetings and has no time for flatterers. His ministers have been told to stick to the day job and to communicate with him directly rather than “via the Today programme”. This disciplined approach is commendable, but will he stick to it? Gordon Brown and David Cameron also vowed to bring a new “serious-mindedness” to the business of government, but failed to deliver. I suspect Johnson will do better. He, above anyone, knows not to invest too much significance in the views of political journalists: he’s been there, seen it, done it. Our new PM will stay alert to the poison and froth of the news media, because, “since his Oxford days, he’s excelled in the manufacture of both”.

If you think London’s Tube is crowded, try the Paris Métro, says Simon Kuper. As the rail workers’ strike over pensions enters its second month, the few trains still running are jam-packed. That strike represents in microcosm the battle over France’s future. The Left regards President Macron as a French Margaret Thatcher – a neoliberal ex-banker intent on attacking workers’ rights. Yet the idea France is turning into a “neoliberal wasteland” is laughable.

State spending stands at 56% of GDP – higher than in any other Western nation. As for the pension reforms, Macron has already backed down on raising the legal age for a full pension from 62 to 64 (life expectancy in France is 82), and ending exemptions that allow train drivers to retire at 52 is hardly punitive. But if the Left is wrong to resist such modest changes, the Right is wrong to push for dramatic reforms that could imperil France’s relatively low levels of inequality and leave many of its regions “as deprived as post-Thatcherite northern England”. They pay a lot of tax in France, but it’s nice to live in country with “world-class universal healthcare” and generous welfare. Long may it stay that way.

Schnapps flavoured with beavers’ anal glands. Raw bull’s penis.

Fermented shark. Yuck. These are just some of the delicacies, says The Economist, that you can try at the Museum of Disgusting Food in the Swedish city of Malmö – a collection of culinary curiosities clearly designed to entertain and shock. Entrants are issued with a sick bag in lieu of a ticket. But the museum also serves a nobler purpose: to highlight the extent to which disgust is “culturally conditioned”. Indeed, though visitors view most of what’s on offer as revolting, there’s usually “at least one exhibit they see as comfort food”. Americans don’t understand why Pop-Tarts and Twinkies feature; Maasai visitors can’t see why a clip of a Maasai drinking warm cow’s blood with milk merits inclusion. What the museum teaches us is that revulsion is often an unwarranted, learned response that people can overcome through exposure to new things. That’s true of food (“the British have largely overcome their traditional horror of garlic”), but it also applies to more consequential things, such as attitudes towards homosexuality and interracial marriage. Malmö’s museum is a lesson in tolerance.

NEWS 13 IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids At least 30,000 people have fled a massive volcanic eruption in the Philippines, but one couple didn’t let it get in the way of their wedding plans. The Taal volcano erupted in full view just a few miles away as Chino and Kat Vaflor prepared to tie the knot at an outdoor ceremony – but it all went ahead as planned.

“We could feel ash raining on our clothes,” said photographer Randolf Evan.

“It didn’t feel alarming until night time, when it became a bit heavier and mud-like.”

An ITV reporter in Australia was tricked into donning body armour and goggles to hold a “drop bear”: a close cousin of the koala which, Debi Edward was told, is “actually really vicious”, and attacks humans with its venomous fangs. Looking nervous, she told the camera: “It’s called a drop bear because they drop out of trees to attack... I’m trying not to be worried because I’ve been told he can sense if I’m worried.” But alarm gave way to panic, and she gave it back before realising it was in fact a large koala.

“You were kidding me!” she shouted. “F***ing Aussies!”.

Critics and audiences have been scathing of the movie adaptation of Cats – but some cinema-goers have found a way of making it compelling viewing: taking hallucinogenic drugs beforehand. Hundreds told The Washington Post of their experiences watching it with the aid of LSD and magic mushrooms. “The most terrifying experience of my life,” was how one viewer described it. “I swear to God my soul escaped me.”

Another noted that he “vomited four times, but ultimately understood the film on a deep level”.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

14 NEWS

Best of the American columnists

Targeting Jews as scapegoats: the rise in anti-Semitic violence American Jews are scared, said Emma movement encouraged by the Trump Green in The Atlantic (Washington presidency, said Tema Smith in The DC). Over recent months, there has Forward (New York). Others have been an unprecedented wave of blamed anti-Zionism on the Left, accusing pro-Palestinian activists of anti-Semitic attacks in the US, targeting individuals, synagogues, “fomenting the kind of hate that disproportionately targets Jews”. Still cemeteries and homes. Just last month, others have put it down to prejudice two Jews were murdered in a kosher within black communities, many of grocery store in New Jersey, and a which exist in proximity to wealthier knifeman stabbed five Hasidic Jews at Hasidic enclaves, and in which a rabbi’s house in upstate New York.

Of 421 hate crimes reported in New anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have some currency. Certainly, AfricanYork City last year, more than half were directed at Jews, according to American perpetrators have been police data. In New York, “of all Around 40% of Jews in New York identify as Orthodox responsible for the two most severe attacks in New York state last month. places, Jews should feel safe”. They’ve been in the city since before it got its name and have “deeply influenced its culture”. At one point, they made up a quarter of Whatever the proximate causes of this trend, we need to take the problem seriously, said Frida Ghitis on CNN. Throughout the city’s population, and the metropolitan area today is still history, anti-Semitism has served as “the canary in the coal home to the largest population of Jews outside Israel. About mine” for societies that are unravelling. When the “beliefs and 1.7 million live in the state, comprising nearly 10% of residents (by comparison, Jews make up roughly 2% of the US populaideals” that hold a society together crumble, people in different tion as a whole). Yet New York’s Jews, particularly the most groups start viewing one another not as countrymen, but as rivals, traitors and “the other”. Jews are invariably the first visible Orthodox ones, are now feeling increasingly vulnerable. group to be targeted as scapegoats. History tells us that it will be deeply dangerous if anti-Semitism continues to grow in the What’s behind this rise in anti-Semitic violence? Many have pointed the finger of blame at an invigorated white nationalist US – “and not just for the Jews”.

Why the American Right loves Putin Anne Applebaum The Atlantic

The economic logic in killing Soleimani Joseph W. Sullivan Foreign Policy

Admit it: we’ve lost the fight against fat Melissa Healy Los Angeles Times

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Russia has long exerted a strange attraction for alienated Westerners, says Anne Applebaum. A century ago, intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw praised the Soviet utopia, blind to the brutal realities of Stalinism. Today, curiously, it’s American right-wing nationalists who are looking to Russia. Disgusted by multiculturalism, the decline of religion and what they see as the “degeneracy” of US society, some conservatives and evangelicals now see in Vladimir Putin’s country “the shimmering lure” of a unified, homogenous nation that has resisted change and political correctness.

Patrick Buchanan, the “godfather of the modern, so-called alt-right”, has lavished praise on Putin, citing his promotion of Orthodox Christianity, anti-gay policies and “traditional values”. Fox News host Tucker Carlson even said he was rooting for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. If these people actually experienced “the reality of Russia”, they’d be horrified. Only 15% of Russians say religion plays an important part in their life. The nation has “one of the highest abortion rates in the world, nearly double that of the US”. Its percentage of Muslims is six times higher than ours, and one of its provinces, Chechnya, is increasingly imposing elements of sharia law. Disdain for their own country is leading Putin’s American fans to pine for “a fantasy nation” that does not exist.

Why did President Trump decide to kill Iran’s top general, when his two predecessors had ruled the move out as too risky? His critics would say it’s because he’s reckless and stupid, says Joseph W. Sullivan, but to focus purely on personalities is to ignore how a shift in economics has “upended the prospective risks and rewards facing US policymakers”. Until very recently, the Islamic Republic has always had the ability to hurt America by disrupting the flow of Middle East oil, thereby pushing crude prices up. But, as of September, the US has become a net exporter of oil, which means global price increases are a net positive for the US economy. Iran, meanwhile, is facing increased constraints, as a result of “punishing” sanctions. Its economy shrank by almost 10% last year, and a drastic shortage of foreign currency has led to soaring domestic inflation and public unrest. The regime increasingly faces a choice between funding violence abroad and ensuring security at home.

In the weeks ahead, we’re sure to learn more details about Trump’s decision to eliminate Qassem Soleimani. But there’s already one clear explanation for why he made use of a tactic that his predecessors declined. “It’s the economics, stupid.”

A “tidal wave of fat” is threatening to engulf America, says Melissa Healy. A new study predicts that, by 2030, nearly half the nation’s adults will be obese – and nearly a quarter of us will be severely obese. Defined as having a body mass index of 40 or above, severe obesity will apparently be as common in the US in 2030 as regular obesity was in the 1990s. Indeed, it will by then be the single largest weight category for women. In the cluster of southern states known as the “stroke belt”, the problem is set to be particularly dire: close to 60% of adults in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma are expected to be obese by 2030, and more than 30% of them severely obese. All in all, it doesn’t augur well for the health of the nation. “Decades of hand-wringing, fat-shaming and obesity-prevention campaigns” have signally failed to reduce obesity levels in America. Is it time public health experts accepted defeat and aimed for a more achievable target? Perhaps they should stop exhorting people to lose weight, and concentrate instead simply on helping the obese to stabilise their weight and not get even fatter.

FINAL WEEK! SALE ENDS 31ST JANUARY

Best articles: International

NEWS 17

Civil war in Libya: will Russia determine how it ends?

Libya’s bloody civil war has become a dispute with Qatar). Erdogan hopes to truly international conflict, said Ramy redress this by building a new power Allahoum on Al Jazeera (Doha). In base in North Africa. His intervention April, forces led by the renegade paid immediate dividends, said Daily general, Khalifa Haftar, launched an Sabah (Istanbul). On Sunday, a conditional ceasefire brokered between offensive on the capital Tripoli to try the two sides by Erdogan and his to topple the UN-backed government, led by Fayez al-Sarraj. Haftar, 76, Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin already controls the country’s second came into effect. “The UN welcomed city, Benghazi, and much of the the ceasefire and called on Libya’s country; last week his forces marched warring factions to abide by the truce.” into the strategic stronghold of Sirte.

In Libya, foreign backers have stepped It’s anyone’s guess whether the truce will hold, said Jamie Dettmer on Voice into the void left by the West. Haftar of America (Washington): there were receives missiles, vehicles and logistical Haftar: launching an offensive on the capital support from the United Arab Emirates reports of fighting early in the week.

But Russia and Turkey are pushing Sarraj and Haftar to agree and Egypt, as well as, indirectly, from Saudi Arabia; Russian a long-term settlement that “balances out their interests and mercenaries from the Kremlin-tied Wagner Group are fighting with his troops. Then last week, to international consternation, influence”. Both nations have a great deal invested in Libya.

Turkey sent in troops to help Libya’s government fight back.

Russian energy firms have signed exploration contracts with the Libyan state oil company. And after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi, Turkish companies moved aggressively into Libya; Recep Tayyip Erdogan framed the intervention as a matter of survival, said Murat Yesiltas on Middle East Eye (London). they “are owed millions of dollars in unpaid business”. The Without it, Libya’s government would fall. But while the shortEuropeans, the largest donors of humanitarian aid to Libya, “have increasingly become bystanders”: Italy backs Sarraj while term goal was to push Haftar back, Turkey’s president has longer-term ambitions. Ankara is currently isolated both from France is reportedly sympathetic to Haftar. In the meantime, the West (due to Turkish interventions in Syria), and from Saudi Russia and Turkey are, as in Syria, emerging as “key arbiters in the war-torn country”.

Arabia and its allies (because Turkey sided against them in their

ITALY

Pasta with a side of populism Foreign Policy (Washington)

POLAND

Putin seeks revenge in history Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin)

FRANCE

Charlie Hebdo and the slow death of satire Libération (Paris)

“Few things in Italy are more sacred than food,” says Giorgio Ghiglione. And right-wingers have recently launched a culinary crusade. Changing recipes to accommodate different cultures risks “distorting our society”, they cry. They’re especially offended by culinary concessions to Muslims; Pope Francis horrified them when he served pork-free lasagne at a lunch for the poor in November.

Lasagne with pork and beef, claimed one outraged Catholic commentator, is just as much the “backbone of Italian civilisation” as wine and parmesan; by spurning it, the Pope gave in to a “suicidal, multiculturalist” ideology. And when the Archbishop of Bologna served tortellini stuffed with chicken instead of prosciutto, the far-right League leader Matteo Salvini accused him of “erasing Italy’s history” (in fact, poultry in tortellini was common until the 1800s). In reality, Italian foods often have foreign origins: spaghetti comes from China; many Sicilian recipes were introduced

by Arabs. But though food purism is nothing new, it’s being taken to new lengths. The fear that Italy’s food is under threat from “the forces of globalisation” is proving a useful asset for populists.

Second World War commemorations were once characterised by gestures of reconciliation, says Frank Herold. But Vladimir Putin is changing that. The atmosphere ahead of May’s 75th anniversary of VE Day is becoming “poisonous”, not least where Poland is concerned. The country is generally regarded as the first victim of Nazi expansionism, but in a speech in December, Russia’s president turned this truth on its head, wrongly blaming Poland for helping start the War. He claimed that the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact was an act of Soviet self-defence. And Stalin was merely trying to save Polish lives when he invaded the country from the east two weeks after the Nazis, said Putin. This is utter nonsense. Putin failed to mention the secret protocol in which Hitler and Stalin agreed to split Poland between them, and the thousands of Poles killed by Stalin’s forces. He is clearly out for “revenge”. Enraged last year when the European parliament blamed the Hitler-Stalin pact for starting the War – itself a response to earlier Russian efforts to revise history – Putin was also offended at being refused an invitation to D-Day celebrations in Normandy last year.

With tempers rising, it’s hard to see this year’s commemorations proceeding with the usual dignity.

Freedom of expression is once again under threat in France, says Alexis Lévrier. It is five years since Islamist gunmen murdered 12 journalists and cartoonists at the Paris office of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. But the solidarity of the “Je suis Charlie” movement soon gave way to “doubts and embarrassment”. Some on the Left claimed Charlie Hebdo was unduly “provocative”, while on the Right, racists and Islamophobes have too often used it as a shield for their own bigotry. Now little of the “Charlie spirit” remains. An editorial in the magazine on the fifth anniversary of the attack rightly denounces the “new censors” on social media, who raise howls of protest against any satire with bite. We mustn’t let them force their idea of political correctness on us. Charlie Hebdo is heir to a long tradition of anti-clerical press cartoons, sheltered by French law, which protects individuals while permitting mockery of political and religious beliefs. Alas, a reaction against all media satire is taking hold: even in the US, a bastion of free speech, The New York Times stopped publishing daily political cartoons in its international edition last year in the wake of allegations of anti-Semitism.

However unpalatable satire may be to some, the slide into self-censorship must be resisted.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

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Health & Science

NEWS 19

What the scientists are saying…

Neglect causes brain shrinkage

Severe neglect in childhood has a lasting impact on the structure of the brain, a study has suggested. Under the Ceausescu regime in Romania, unwanted children were housed in notoriously brutal orphanages where they were malnourished and starved of social contact. Many went on to suffer cognitive and mental health problems in later childhood and adulthood, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders; they also had lowerthan-average IQs. Now, researchers have found evidence that these difficulties were rooted in structural brain changes that resulted from the deprivation they experienced. A team from King’s College London scanned the brains of 67 adults, aged between 23 and 28, who spent time in Romanian orphanages in the 1980s before being adopted by UK families. They also scanned 21 adults of similar age who were born in the UK and adopted as infants. On average, the Romanian adoptees had brain masses 8.6% smaller than their UK peers – a discrepancy that the researchers think is only partly explained by the poor nutrition they received. Study co-author Prof Edmund Sonuga-Barke told The Guardian they were fairly confident there were psychological reasons for these effects as well, linked to lack of stimulation, interaction, and attachment and bonding.

Did cave men feast on roast veg?

Evidence has emerged that humans were cooking and eating carbohydrates 170,000 years ago – 50,000 years earlier than was previously known to be the case. While excavating a cave in South Africa, researchers found several charred rhizomes (underground plant stems) from the

Scratching an itch

African potato plant. The rhizomes, dating from the Middle Palaeolithic, were located among the ashes of ancient cooking fires – suggesting the roots had been roasted.

Conventional wisdom holds that Palaeolithic humans subsisted on a proteinrich diet of meat, fish, fruit and seeds. But some scientists have questioned this, arguing that without the energy from cooked carbohydrates, human brain sizes couldn’t have increased as much as they are known to have done. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers suggest that the African potato plant – found across swathes of the continent – would have been a reliable source of energy for hunter-gatherers as they moved around.

A way to switch off chronic pain

Around a decade ago, scientists identified a gene called SCN9A – which plays a key role in transmitting pain signals up the spinal cord – and found that people with

a mutation of this gene barely experience pain. Now, in experiments on mice, scientists at the University of San Diego in the US have discovered that by using a variant of the gene editing technique Crispr, they can temporarily disable SCN9A, and so block its pain-inducing effects. If this technique can be applied to humans, it could lead to the development of new painkilling treatments that are more effective, and much safer, than existing ones. Currently many of the millions of people who suffer from chronic pain are reliant on opioids – which are addictive, have unpleasant side effects and are highly dangerous. In the US, tens of thousands of people a year die of overdoses from painkilling narcotics, and around two million are addicted to them. The San Diego team hopes to start human trials next year.

Puffins use sticks for scratching

Many birds use tools: crows fashion twigs into hooked objects to catch grubs; macaws insert wood into their mandibles to assist with nut-cracking. Seabirds, which have smaller brains than other birds of comparable size, were not thought to be blessed with this skill. But now an expert at the University of Oxford has documented two instances of puffins apparently using sticks not to get food, but to scratch themselves. Dr Annette Fayet observed one puffin, on Skomer Island in Wales, picking up a stick with its beak and using it to scratch its back; the second, on Grímsey Island in Iceland, used a stick to scratch its chest. Fayet said the puffins could have been using their tools to dislodge parasites – or simply to relieve an itch. It was, she added, one of the first instances of avian tool-use that wasn’t for the purpose of “food extraction”.

The trouble with ditching plastic

Is “clean” meat healthier?

Supermarkets and other retailers that ditch single-use plastic, in an effort to respond to consumer concern about waste, risk replacing it with packaging that is worse for the environment, the Green Alliance environmental think tank has warned. For instance, some supermarkets now put out single paper bags for loose produce instead of thin plastic ones – although paper ones are “just as unnecessary”, and in some cases “can have much higher carbon impacts”, according to the Alliance. Retailers say they are under pressure to replace plastic containers with glass ones, though that would increase their carbon footprint, and to use “compostable” plastic equivalents even though, in practice, this material often doesn’t degrade in the manner expected.

The report also notes that although 30% of consumers claim to have changed their shopping habits to avoid single-use plastic, supermarkets say they’re not detecting any such change. Even the “bag tax” hasn’t been as successful as the headline figures would suggest, because too many people are simply buying new bags for life every time they go shopping, leading to an “overall increase in the material used”.

Sales of meat substitutes grew by 18% in the UK last year. These products may well be better for the planet than real red meat – but that does not mean they are good for human health. In a briefing note, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has pointed out that many meat alternatives are highly processed and contain a lot of salt. For example, both Beyond Burger (which is available in the UK) and Impossible Burger (currently only sold in the US) contain “similar levels of calories and saturated fat as beef burgers, and have much higher levels of sodium and iron”. And as many buyers of these products are not vegetarian, they could be eating them as well as meat patties, and so getting double doses of fat and sodium – which “could have health implications”. The Council said more research is needed to assess the impact of meat alternatives “in the longer term”.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

20 NEWS

Talking points

Megxit: did the press drive the Sussexes away?

As the Queen acknowledged in her Christmas the renovation of their home, Frogmore Cottage; but the work on William and Kate’s Day broadcast, 2019 was “bumpy” for the royal family. But 2020 is already set to be apartment is believed to have cost twice as more turbulent. The Duke and Duchess of much. Meghan’s treatment proves what many people of colour have always known, said Sussex’s announcement last week that they want to resign from their roles as “senior Afua Hirsch in The New York Times: no royals” triggered a worldwide media frenzy. matter what you do, and what you achieve, But the “surprise came in the manner and “in this society racism will still follow you”. timing of the announcement, not its content”, said The Observer. Since leaving the Army, But it’s just not true that Meghan has been Harry had dropped heavy hints about his treated worse than other royals, said Joanna frustration with his role as the royal “spare” Williams in The Spectator. Take Prince – and the press intrusion that goes with it.

Andrew: even before his current disgrace, And his unhappiness and irritation had only he’d been vilified for years. Struggling to find a role for himself after leaving the Navy, he grown more palpable. Shortly after he and Meghan Markle became a couple in 2016, was dubbed “Air Miles Andy”, because of his penchant for expensive business trips; before Kensington Palace issued a statement urging that he was “Randy Andy”, the playboy the media to curb its harassment, referring to whose partying and presumed affairs filled sexism and racism. Since their marriage, the pages. As for his marriage to Sarah Ferguson, “vilification of Meghan has only worsened”.

With the press’s “vile treatment” of his it “was subject to far more scrutiny, lurid mother, and the circumstances of her death, headlines and long range paparazzi shots Meghan and Harry: wanting out still at the forefront of the Prince’s mind, who in one week than Harry and Meghan have can blame him for feeling under siege – and wanting out. experienced in a year”. Being a royal has never been easy. It’s hard not to conclude that the couple were simply resentful of criticism, and bored by the constraints of royal duty.

The tragedy is, when Meghan and Harry got married, Britain could hardly have been happier, said Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph. Thousands of people turned out to cheer them on their What we’re seeing here is a clash of the generations, said Jonathan carriage drive through Windsor. There were street parties up and Freedland in The Guardian. Older people tend to think that the down the country. We were told that Markle’s move into the Sussexes are irritatingly “woke”, self-obsessed snowflakes. But the royal institution was a sign of its young understand their wish to “break free”. The question now is, how they modernisation, said Amna Saleem in “Meghan was attacked for eating do that, said Tom McTague in The The Guardian. The media described Atlantic. They say they want a it as a “modern, diverse wedding for avocados (and so, apparently, a modern, diverse couple” that would role”, but how does that fuelling gang violence in Mexico)” “progressive nudge the British royal family “into work, when your status in life depends a new era”. But no sooner had she on your royal blood? Harry is a duke, officially joined the Firm than the tabloids turned: it seems they with a £30m largely unearned fortune; Meghan is a duchess. didn’t want any move towards modernity after all.

These are not “classic ‘progressive’ positions”. To be fair, they say they want to “work towards” financial independence, but the In the next few months, Meghan was attacked for everything only way they can do that is to trade off their royal connections, from writing “empowering” messages on bananas to eating which is what seems to be on the cards. That’s the curious thing, said Janice Turner in The Times. They’re not going off in search avocados (and so, apparently, fuelling gang violence in Mexico), of a smaller, quieter life; they want to go bigger, by building a said Sophie Gallagher in The Independent. Meanwhile, rumours swirled that she was “difficult” because she had questioned royal global celebrity brand. With Meghan’s glamour and Harry’s protocol, and that she was “mean”, because she’d supposedly history and heritage, they will be billionaires within a decade. It made the Duchess of Cambridge cry. Some criticism of the couple might gall the Cambridges when they “rock up for a Sandringham was valid: it was unwise to advocate environmentally friendly Christmas” in their own Learjet, but the British public won’t travel, then take trips on private jets. But at other times, double mind: we “tolerate minor royals only because they amuse us”, standards were at play. Yes, the taxpayer picked up a huge bill for and Megxit is certainly entertaining.

Pick of the week’s

Gossip It is described as “funny, gorgeous, sexy and beautifully unexpected”, carrying notes of “geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar, juxtaposed with damask rose and ambrette seed”. The effect of Gwyneth Paltrow’s new scented candle, her website says, is to “put us in mind of fantasy, seduction and a sophisticated warmth”.

And the product is proving a hit; retailing at $75, it sold out in a matter of hours. The name

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Paltrow chose for this alluring scented home accessory?

“This Smells Like My Vagina.”

At 73, Brian Cox is a Hollywood veteran. He still remembers the challenges of starting out, though. “It was my 23rd birthday and I’d been given a red shirt,” he recalls. Having just showered after appearing at The Royal Court, he was introduced to Princess Margaret. “She put her fingers on my shirt, and said: ‘This is a lovely shirt.’ And she started to run her fingers down the inside of my shirt.” He wasn’t sure how to react. “I went: ‘Uh oh!’

What do you do when you’re being touched up by a royal?”

Eventually, he made a polite escape. “I excused myself and said: ‘Thank you, ma’am.’”

When Uri Geller saw Dominic Cummings’ call for “weirdos and misfits” to join the civil service, he quickly fired off a covering letter to the PM’s chief Downing Street adviser.

“While many have doubted my abilities, my achievements cannot be dismissed as trickery or illusions,” he wrote. His career as an entertainer, he said, had been the “perfect mask” for espionage work. But one aspect of his application worries him: he fears he may enjoy an unfair advantage over rival candidates. “I don’t think any of the other people have any psychic powers… but I’m not 100% sure.”

Talking points Stormont: a new deal for Northern Ireland The storm gusting through Féin both lost votes: they were down 5.4% and 6.7% Belfast on Monday “could respectively. The DUP was not dampen the cheer on the steps of Stormont”, said Rory suddenly stripped of its influence in Westminster Carroll in The Guardian. The usually stern-faced first

by Johnson’s majority, so minister, Arlene Foster, leader it was forced back to Belfast of the Democratic Unionist to “wield political power”.

Julian Smith, the Northern Party, smiled and joked with Boris Johnson, as she posed Ireland Secretary, then used with the PM and her Sinn a mixture of arm-twisting Féin deputy Michelle O’Neill and bribery. He threatened Johnson and Foster: smiles all round outside the newly revived to make both parties suffer Northern Irish assembly. After three years of more, by calling new assembly elections, unless they could reach an agreement – but also “zombie” politics, Northern Ireland finally has its own government again. The new deal “broke promised a huge cash injection for struggling a bitter stalemate” dating from January 2017, public services if they did a deal. when Sinn Féin withdrew from the powersharing government, accusing the DUP of With both a new Irish Language Act and a arrogance, bad faith and sleaze (over the “cash bill to protect the Ulster Scots dialect, the deal allows each side to claim a victory, said Patrick for ash” scandal, a failed renewable energy scheme that cost the public £500m). Since then, Maguire in the New Statesman. There is also, relations between the two parties have been “to put it bluntly, lots and lots of money” being thrown at the new executive to make it work – “toxic”, contaminated by distrust, Brexit, and Sinn Féin’s determination that a new law should up to £2bn to cut hospital waiting lists, boost police numbers and increase teachers’ pay, plus give equal status to the Irish language. s110m from Dublin for cross-border projects.

But money alone “will not be enough”, said The Why did it take so long for this deal to be done, Times. The success of the new assembly demands asked John Rentoul in The Independent. It’s a change of attitude among “Northern Ireland’s partly just because “politics in Northern Ireland disputatious political parties”. Worryingly, they is hard”, and poisoned by sectarianism. And partly because both sides calculated it was in seem to be falling out again: “bilingual road signs are already a point of contention”. But their interest to seem unyielding amid tensions unless their leaders learn finally to “heal the over Brexit. The approach did neither party any rancour and mistrust”, “something else will good, said Katy Hayward in The Guardian. At have to be built in Stormont’s place”. last month’s general election, the DUP and Sinn

Brexit: now the hard work begins What a difference an election victory makes, said The Economist. Last week, Parliament resumed consideration of the endlessly contested EU withdrawal bill, but this time the “huge Tory majority made the debate and votes perfunctory”. Nothing now stands in the way of Britain formally leaving the EU on 31 January. Boris Johnson “hopes then to drop the very word Brexit, arguing that trade talks will be technical stuff more suited to business than front pages”. But the Prime Minister is not out of the woods yet. We’re now entering phase two of the Brexit process, the 11-month transition period during which we’ll remain subject to EU rules while the two sides thrash out a final deal on not just trade, but standards, security, fisheries, financial services, research and much else. And as Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, warned Johnson during a visit to Downing Street last week, this phase is set to be even more testing.

“The former German defence minister was not unfriendly,” said Peter Foster in The Daily Telegraph, but she “exuded none of the bibulous, backslapping bonhomie of Jean-Claude Juncker, her predecessor”. She made it clear to the PM, who attended the same school as her in Brussels in his youth, that Brexit would inevitably carry a cost. The more the UK

prioritised divergence from EU rules, she said, the less unfettered access it would enjoy to Continental markets. Johnson needs to acknowledge these trade-offs and have a clear plan for the negotiations ahead, said Simon Nixon in The Times. That’s something Theresa May never really managed in the first phase of negotiations – to her cost. The Government must identify “which rules it wants to diverge from and what it hopes to gain from doing so”.

That will involve some tricky calculations, said Wolfgang Münchau in the FT. Divergence would be “costly in the short run”, but could reap benefits in some areas in the longer term.

It would give the UK a freer rein to develop AI technology, for instance, and Mark Carney, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, argues that it would also open up many new commercial opportunities for the City of London, “including those arising from the transition to a low-carbon economy”. Difficult talks await and the chances of anything but a bare-bones deal being struck by the end of 2020 are remote. But for now, we should consider offering assurances to the EU on environmental laws, labour standards and perhaps fisheries.

“Whatever the future UK industrial strategy, it will probably not rely on child labour, coal-fired power stations or halibut.”

NEWS 21

Wit & Wisdom “To the man in the street who, I’m sorry to say, is a keen observer of life, the word intellectual suggests straight away a man who’s untrue to his wife.”

W.H. Auden, quoted in the Daily Express “The Labour party loses so often, it is tempting to think it must enjoy the experience.”

Philip Collins in The Times “Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”

Oscar Wilde, quoted in The Patriot-News “The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.”

Terry Pratchett, quoted in The Independent “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”

Baseball catcher Yogi Berra, quoted in the Owatonna People’s Press “Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.”

Writer and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton, quoted in The Times “A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.”

Palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in The Times “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

US writer Zora Neale Hurston, quoted on Bustle

Statistics of the week

32% of Britons aged 15 to 30 can read and write in a second language, making the UK the worst performer in Europe. In the next worst country, Hungary, the figure is 71%. In Germany, it is 91%.

European Commission On average, 42,822 people miss GP surgery appointments in England every day.

NHS England/The Times

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Sport

22 NEWS

Football: the Merseyside miracle “That’s utterly nuts,” Gary Lineker tweeted after Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Tottenham last Saturday. The ex-England striker was referring to the latest record sent tumbling by Jürgen Klopp’s team. Of the 21 Premier League matches the Reds have played this season, they have won 20 and drawn one: no other club in the history of English top-flight football has ever started a campaign so successfully. It’s also a feat unmatched in Europe’s other four top leagues, said Sam Wallace in The Daily Telegraph: not in France, Germany, Italy or Spain has a club ever taken 61 points from their first 21 games. Liverpool’s last loss in the Premier League was to Manchester City, just over a year ago; they are now unbeaten in 38 matches. It seems distinctly possible that they will go the entire season without losing, a feat only previously achieved twice in top-flight history: by Preston’s “Invincibles” of 1889-90, and by Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal in 2003-4.

within the space of a few years. Like the team that they are starting to resemble – Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United of the early 1990s – this Liverpool side is “several teams packed into one”.

They can “break” an opponent in any number of ways: through “radiant attacking” or “adhesive ball retention”; through individual brilliance or collective intensity. While a league victory would add sheen to their brilliance, it’s already beyond doubt that “we are looking at a masterwork”.

Ever since the start of their unbeaten run, I’ve been “tying myself in knots” trying to work out who Liverpool’s best player is, said Matthew Syed in The Times. First, I thought it was Mohamed Salah, who terrorises defenders with his “quicksilver feet”. Then, I switched to fellow striker Sadio Mané, who has scored fewer goals Salah: “quicksilver” but “offers an unusually sinuous threat”. Next, I changed my mind again: isn’t Roberto Firmino the team’s “fulcrum”? I later pivoted to defender Virgil van Dijk, and even Liverpool are now 14 points clear of second-placed Manchester to keeper Alisson Becker. But the truth is that such speculation City, and still have a game in hand, said Paul Hayward in the misses the point. Trying to select Liverpool’s finest player is like “trying to decide who is better out of John Lennon and Paul same newspaper. It is virtually a foregone conclusion that they will win the league – ending a 30-year drought – but Klopp’s eyes McCartney”. Rarely has there been a team with a more “perfectly will be fixed on a greater prize: the “immortality” of matching distributed capability” – a fact which “goes to the heart of the the true “heavyweights” of football by winning several titles miracle unfolding on Merseyside”.

Tennis: Serena returns to form “A title drought of almost three years has come to an end for Serena Williams,” said Stuart Fraser in The Sunday Times. Her last victory had been at the 2017 Australian Open – an event she’d competed in while eight weeks pregnant. And while the American had reached five finals since giving birth to her daughter Alexis, she hadn’t won a set in any of those matches. But if doubts were starting to surface about the 38-year-old’s form and desire, her performance last week at the ASB Classic in Auckland emphatically laid them to rest. Williams only dropped one set en route to the final, where she beat world No. 82 Jessica Pegula 6-3 6-4. “It feels good,” she said afterwards. “I think you could see the relief on my face.”

New York Times. This latest victory proves that “she is still hungry for more”. What she wants above all is another Grand Slam title, giving her 24 in total – and placing her equal top of the alltime list, alongside Margaret Court. Impressive as her victory in Auckland was (particularly as it was her first appearance in months), it remains unclear what sort of form she is in: she didn’t have to face any of the “tour elite”. Nonetheless, “Court’s Grand Slam record remains in definite peril”.

At the Australian Open, which begins next week, Williams will be seeded eighth – meaning she is guaranteed to avoid other top players in the early rounds. Victory in Melbourne would be Williams’s single greatest achievement, given “all she has Williams with her daughter experienced and overcome in the last three years”.

In an astonishing career spanning more than 20 years, Williams And yet it’s a reflection of her dominance of the sport that such has now won 73 singles titles, said Christopher Clarey in The a feat would also “come as no great surprise”.

Champions Cup: French clubs dominate

Sporting headlines

Exeter Chiefs clinched a Guardian: Clermont Auvergne, quarter-final berth in the Racing 92 and Toulouse all top European Rugby Champions their groups. That’s a worry Cup last weekend, despite for the English national side, being held to a “titanic” who kick off their Six Nations 31-31 draw by Glasgow campaign in three weeks’ time Warriors, said Tom English at the Stade de France. As on BBC Sport. With one underlined by a “humdinger round of qualifying matches of a contest” between Racing still to play, Exeter have an 92 and Munster in Paris on Racing 92: top of their group unassailable lead in Pool 2, Sunday (which Racing won ten points ahead of second-placed Glasgow, 39-22), France’s backs could be a “serious whose chances of reaching the last eight are handful”. Yet despite the strong Gallic showing, “dangling by a thread”. No other English team it is Irish club Leinster who remain tournament has so far qualified, though Northampton, favourites, said John O’Sullivan in The Irish Saracens and Gloucester – currently all second Times. Still unbeaten in competitive fixtures in their pools – could join the Chiefs if they this season, Leinster have won all five of their deliver strong showings in their final matches. pool matches, and look likely to secure a valuable top seeding for the knock-out stage, Instead, it is French clubs who have impressed which begins in April. most this tournament, said Robert Kitson in The

Football Manchester City beat Aston Villa 6-1, with Sergio Agüero scoring his 12th hat-trick – a record in the Premier League.

Tennis Serbia beat Spain 2-1 to win the inaugural ATP Cup in Australia. The final involved a decider between the world’s top two ranked players, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, which the Serb won 6-2 7-6 (7-4).

Darts Wayne Warren, 57, became the oldest ever winner of the British Darts Organisation World Championship, beating fellow Welshman Jim Williams 7-4 in the final.

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

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LETTERS Pick of the week’s correspondence

25

Exchange of the week

The battle of the ambassadors To The Times

It is right that we listen to the victims of the Soviet regime, not President Putin, when it comes to the Second World War (“Putin still peddles Stalin’s version of history”), and we must question the USSR’s status as liberator. With the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, this “liberator” sparked the War and a double totalitarian invasion of Poland. It ushered in an era of brutal repression in Eastern Europe.

The Soviets attacked Poland unprovoked, killing at least 150,000 Poles, torturing political leaders, raping women and deporting (between 1939 and 1941 alone), about 1.7 million people to Siberian slave camps. Although the Red Army freed Auschwitz prisoners in January 1945, the USSR is not a liberator of Poland. It entered Warsaw only after the retreating German forces had destroyed 85% of the city, despite Stalin signalling in 1944 a pro-Polish intervention and the Red Army being close to the capital.

Poland fell into the Soviet sphere of influence and was plundered, ruined

Reform the CAP

To The Daily Telegraph

My family partnership owns a 650-acre farm in Fife. I agree with Juliet Samuel that the Common Agricultural Policy should be radically reformed, if not gradually phased out. The CAP was introduced to provide income support to small farms on the continent, especially in France. It was, and remains, a social welfare policy. Since it was adopted in Britain it has harmed farming in general, while enabling relatively few farmers to become richer.

Almost 80% of the subsidy has been paid to about 20% of farmers, many of whom did not need such support and invested the money in more land to increase subsidy income. This pushed up land prices, making it very hard for young people to start farming.

There is no evidence that large farms are more efficient than small ones, and economies of scale are difficult to find.

Neither is it true that food prices are lower because of subsidies. The CAP increases the cost of food because of the tariffs imposed through the customs union. It has also allowed farmers to adopt large-scale monoculture arable farming to the detriment of

economically and its basic freedoms were curtailed for more than four decades.

Now that Europe is free, we must call out what the American Jewish Committee has called Russia’s “historical revisionism on steroids”, and question the USSR’s claimed status of liberator.

Arkady Rzegocki, Polish ambassador to the UK To The Times

Arkady Rzegocki, the Polish ambassador, proposes to “question the USSR’s status as liberator”, claiming that the MotolovRibbentrop pact sparked “a double totalitarian invasion of Poland”. He should look deeper into history. The treaty of non-aggression with Germany was signed only after all other avenues to prevent war had been exhausted, and all proposals by the Soviet Union to establish a unified security system, in fact an antiNazi coalition, were rejected.

The treaty was the latest in a series of agreements signed by European countries with Hitler, including the Munich agreement. Winston Churchill said (on

wildlife and soil fertility. New Zealand abolished subsidies in 1984 and its farmers have benefited, with production costs now lower than ours.

Duncan Pickard, Balmullo, Fife

A brutish reverence

To The Guardian

In 2013, in her astoundingly prescient essay “Royal Bodies”, Hilary Mantel wrote: “Adulation can swing to persecution within hours, within the same press report: this is what happened to Prince Harry; [he] doesn’t know which he is, a person or a prince.” Seven years, a marriage and one child later, her words resound, including these near the end of the essay: “I’m not asking for censorship.

I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes.”

Peter Lee, Balfron, Stirling

One protests too much To The Times

It is always interesting when the royal family deny something that has appeared in print. It usually follows, sometimes years later, that there was more than a grain of truth in the original. Andrew

5 October 1938) that Munich and the partition of Czechoslovakia was the turning point in history, after which the Second World War became inevitable. In that partition, Poland took part together with Nazi Germany, ostensibly to protect ethnic Poles.

Russia has never claimed that Poland or anyone else is responsible for Nazi aggression, except Nazis themselves. Nor do we forget Stalin’s repressive practices, of which the Russian people were the main victim. But in 2020, as the world will be marking 75 years since the defeat of Nazism, it is our duty to pay tribute to the men and women, whether Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, British, French or American, who paid with their lives to liberate humanity from the anti-human Nazi machine.

This is what Churchill meant when he said that “future generations will acknowledge their debt to the Red Army as unreservedly as do we who have lived to witness these proud achievements”.

Andrei Kelin, Russian ambassador to the UK

Morton’s 1992 book on Princess Diana and the troubles in her marriage was much derided at the time. After her death it was revealed that she was the source. The royals have form on denials.

Philip Moger, East Preston, West Sussex

Chasing the “grey vote” To The Guardian

Andy Beckett’s election analysis shows that Labour needs to win back ageing constituencies which went Tory. I suggest that instead of going to Glastonbury, future Labour leaders should try seafront appearances at Seaton Carew or Budleigh Salterton, coach trips and bingo groups.

Instead of Momentum we need Old Lefties for Labour to win back the pensioner vote.

Conventional wisdom holds that Labour benefits from high turnouts.

Evidence suggests otherwise. Labour’s crushing victories in 1997 and 2001 were achieved on turnouts far lower than in the Thatcher years. 2019’s turnout was reasonably high, but the Conservative vote rose.

This suggests Labour

should promote voter boredom. In October 1974, William Whitelaw accused Harold Wilson of going round the country “stirring up apathy”. Labour then won a decent majority. Time to overturn outdated thinking.

Roger Backhouse, Upper Poppleton, North Yorkshire

Vegans: friendly?

To The Daily Telegraph

Recently I was in my local butcher’s shop when a lady popped her head in and asked if they had any vegan options.

There is nothing wrong with a vegan diet, but the vegan attitude needs a little work.

Tim Banks, Knutsford, Cheshire

“Anything to declare?” © GIGI/THE OLDIE

● Letters have been edited

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Will you give £75 to help a refugee family to keep out the bitter winter cold?

When they arrived in Lebanon after fleeing Syria in fear for their children’s lives, Hanaa and her husband Abdul had no savings and no money to pay rent. The only place they could find to live was the unfinished building you can see on your right.

There were no exterior walls. For two consecutive winters the family had to huddle together in the centre of the ‘room’ in a desperate attempt to keep warm. They felt every blast

of icy wind and were at essentials such as a terrible risk of respiratory heating stove, thermal diseases like tuberculosis blankets, warm clothes and and pneumonia. a tarpaulin for insulation.

It is a miracle the For a family like family survived, Hanaa’s who but they cannot are struggling to rely on another make ends meet to provide a Syrian refugee family miracle this and living with a Winter winter. UNHCR, in a desperately Survival Kit the UN Refugee exposed shelter, Agency, needs It could mean your support to help survival. parents protect their Right now, with the children this winter. situation in Syria uncertain, Please will you give 1.7 million refugees in £75 to provide a refugee Lebanon and Jordan family like Hanaa’s with remain unable to return a Winter Survival Kit home. They are living, to protect against the like Hanaa’s family, in freezing weather? unfinished or derelict The kit contains buildings, or in makeshift

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ARTS Review of reviews: Books

27

Book of the week

an instrument of worldly power. Each battlefield victory ratcheted up by the New Model Army was taken as a sign Providence Lost of divine approval. “Providence

by Paul Lay justified the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords” – and Head of Zeus 352pp £30 eventually provided grounds for the The Week Bookshop £25.99 (incl. p&p) dissolution of Parliament. “I speak for God and not for men,” Cromwell told England’s brief experiment with MPs in 1654. In doing so, he sounded republicanism in the 17th century is “a lot like Charles I” – the monarch often depicted as a “weird aberration”, he’d executed five years earlier. said John Adamson in The Sunday Eventually, however, God “withdrew Times. Under Oliver Cromwell, His hand”, said Leanda de Lisle in The “Christmas was banned, theatres were Times. In 1655, Cromwell launched a closed”, and Puritan “godliness” was mission to capture the Caribbean island Oliver Cromwell: not such a “pious killjoy” thrust upon the nation. But as Paul Lay of Hispaniola, which had been held shows in his elegant history of Cromwell’s Protectorate, such by the Spanish since 1492. Poor planning led to a catastrophic “time-hallowed assumptions” are mostly false. Far from being defeat; a “crushed” Cromwell concluded that a campaign of a “historical dead end”, the republic was a place of “astonishing “moral reformation” was required to regain God’s favour, and energy and ambition”. Trade boomed and government was so launched his “Rule of the Major-Generals” – a 17th century version of “woke” culture that involved morals being policed modernised; architecture and opera flourished, and John Milton, by uniformed officials. By this point, English Puritanism was Cromwell’s Latin secretary, emerged as a major poet. Nor was Cromwell quite the “pious killjoy” of repute: Lay shows that increasingly becoming caught between “the desire for religious the Lord Protector was a lover of art and music whose private liberty and the desire for moral regulation”, said Ted Vallance in apartment was decorated with “erotically themed pictures”. the FT. The popularity of the Protectorate waned, and in 1660, At the heart of the Puritan worldview was the concept of two years after Cromwell’s death, the “exiled house of Stuart” “Providence” – the belief that “God in his mystery had a hand in was recalled to the throne. “Vivid, clear and highly engrossing”, all things”, said Jessie Childs in The Guardian. Lay’s “immensely Providence Lost is a long-overdue study of a period of “high stimulating” book shows how this doctrine was transformed into drama and enduring historical significance”.

The Shapeless Unease

Novel of the week

by Samantha Harvey Jonathan Cape 192pp £12.99

Such a Fun Age

The Week Bookshop £10.99

by Kiley Reid Bloomsbury Circus 320pp £12.99

The Shapeless Unease is an unsettling and “vividly well-written” memoir of insomnia, said David Sexton in the London Evening Standard. Until recently, the novelist Samantha Harvey (right) had always slept soundly, Then, in her early 40s, problems surfaced. She moved house, and began to be woken early by traffic. Anger at the Brexit vote disturbed her further. Finding herself in the grip of full-blown insomnia, Harvey tried all sorts of cures: from over-the-counter remedies (Nytol, CBD oil) to prescription drugs, acupuncture and dietary supplements, to midnight jigsaw puzzles and episodes of In Our Time. Nothing worked. Three or four nights a week she didn’t sleep at all. “She became unable to work and increasingly feral, moaning and pulling at her hair.” This book is a record of twelve fragmented, distressing months.

Structurally, The Shapeless Universe resembles a “patchwork quilt”, said Christina Patterson in The Mail on Sunday. Accounts of Harvey’s sleeplessness jostle with other elements: a letter to her recently deceased cousin, fragments of a short story about a man robbing a cashpoint, memories of her parents’ divorce. “If this all sounds a bit mad, it is.” And yet the point of this “lurching around from subject to subject, from memory to memory”, is to make us feel as if “we, too, are in Harvey’s sleep-starved brain”. Rarely has the condition of sleeplessness been so powerfully described. It’s a “mesmerising” book, written with “poetic precision”. What it certainly won’t do is help you get over your insomnia, said Helen Davies in The Sunday Times. Readers expecting “tips on improving your sleep hygiene” will be disappointed. Harvey doesn’t make clear how she “conquered her night-time demons”. Yet readers may find something equally valuable: “an erudite companion to help them through the dark times”.

The Week Bookshop £10.99

This “standout” debut opens with a “flawlessly paced” set piece in which a young black nanny arouses suspicion in an upmarket Philadelphia supermarket, said Hephzibah Anderson in The Observer. But such “straightforward” racism isn’t the novel’s real focus. Instead, Reid’s target is the “altogether more slippery” prejudice of which many white liberals are unknowingly guilty. Emira (the babysitter) works for Alix, a white lifestyle guru who prides herself on having black friends, and decides to make a project of her young employee, said Hattie Crisell in The Times. Her other “white admirer” is boyfriend Kelley – who makes a point of dating “women of colour”, and dispenses unsolicited advice about how Emira should deal with racism.

And yet, as “caustically funny” as this novel is about white virtue-signalling, it is so much more than just a novel about race, said Sara Collins in The Guardian. There are also astute musings on friendship, motherhood, marriage and more. A “thrilling millennial spin on the 19th century novel of manners”, Such a Fun Age marks the emergence of a “virtuoso talent”.

To order these titles or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835 Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Drama

28 ARTS

Theatre: Magic Goes Wrong Vaudeville Theatre, London WC2 (0330-333 4814). Until 31 May

Running time: 2hrs 30mins

★★★★

It was the success of their show commitment to the characterThe Play That Goes Wrong that comedy, as well as their magic took Mischief Theatre – a group skills, “add complexity to the of drama school chums – from a medicinal froth”. And there are pub theatre to the West End and amusing (filmed) cameos from Broadway. And anyone who’s “bona fide magic maestros” seen that play will know what David Copperfield and Derren Brown. “They’re in on the to expect from their latest, “gloriously silly” outing, joke; you should be too.” said Dominic Maxwell in The I felt this show could and should have been much tighter, Times. “It’s a magic show. It said Andrzej Lukowski in Time starts going wrong. And it keeps going wrong, for more than two Out. The jokey set-up is that hours.” That’s it. There really is we, the audience, are guests at nothing to the show beyond the a “Disasters in Magic” charity simple joys of complex cockbash in memory of magicians “Slapstick high jinks taken to another dimension” ups: a bungling illusionist who who have died in the line of keeps killing his doves; a hapless duty. It’s amusing enough, but mind-reader waging war against his set; a stunt magician who gets makes for an ambling, plotless evening. A snappy 90 minutes with progressively more injured. Yet within the limits of this premise, all the genuinely impressive tricks included would “surely have “the level of invention and precision of the slapstick is staggering” been stronger”. Still, this is very much Mischief doing what they – and the show disarms you with its “sheer devotion to the gag”. do, and doing it well. Which is no mean feat.

I reckon “Tommy Cooper would have loved it. I know I did.”

Me too, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph.

The week’s other opening Mischief Theatre risk being seen as one-trick ponies, with their Coming Clean Trafalgar Studios, London SW1 (0844-871 7632). succession of shows – and now a TV series – built on “serial Until 1 February ineptitude and simulated injury”. Yet in my view, Magic Goes Kevin Elyot was best known for the gay classic My Night With Wrong “takes their slapstick high jinks to another dimension”.

Reg (1994), and I had expected this little-revived early play (1982) The offstage involvement of America’s leading magic duo, Penn to be a mere “curio for completists”. Instead, I found it “almost & Teller, means that the illusions set before us – even the ones revelatory”, and full of wit and insight (Daily Telegraph). that intentionally go wrong – are “top-tier”. The crack cast’s

Georgia: Seeking Thrills Domino £10.99

Selena Gomez: Rare Interscope £8

Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 Hyperion £12.50

It’s not always easy to stay cheerful in January, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times – but here is “an album of banging house music” by a bright new British star whose “sheer energy cannot help but lift the spirits and bring optimism for the year ahead”. In 2015, Georgia Barnes’s “genre-hopping” debut seemed a bit too “clever-clever”, and didn’t quite take off. But this “charming and inventive” second coming is the real deal: house-influenced electronic pop that is “straightforward but always interesting”, and a vocal delivery that is pure, soulful and unaffected.

Barnes is the daughter of Neil Barnes of the venerable electronic duo Leftfield, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. Her “fine” album bears the imprint of dance music from the late 1980s and 1990s, yet it is “neither derivative nor weighed down by the past”. Rather, it is highly personal and contemporary, the “seize-the-moment epiphanies of dance music” offset by a larger process of self-reflection and discovery. It’s impressive, compelling stuff.

If you had suggested, a few years ago, that the 27-year-old American singer and actress Selena Gomez would release “one of the best pop albums in recent memory”, you would have been met with “scepticism at the very least”, said Jem Aswad in Variety.

But with Rare, her third studio album – and her first since 2015 – that is exactly what she has done. In fact, Rare is so impressive, sophisticated and adventurous – from its “deeply infectious” dance tracks to the “celestial” ballad Lose You to Love Me – the term “pop” almost does the record a disservice.

The past few years have seen Gomez, a former child star, struggle with lupus, a kidney transplant, stays in mental health treatment clinics, and a high-profile breakup with fellow pop star Justin Bieber, said Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone. Given all her well-documented woes, this tremendous album “is shockingly, and beautifully, upbeat”. It’s as if Gomez is “dancing out the toxins” weighing her down – and it’s a delight to listen to.

To couple Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony and Symphony No. 4 on disc “can only be a supreme exercise in contrast”, said Paul Driver in The Sunday Times. While the former work opens with “faraway flutes” evoking rural beauty, the latter “erupts with unforgettable dissonance”. In any event, these “fine” performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra “let one take the measure of Vaughan Williams’s greatness”, while the brief, choral-orchestral piece Saraband “Helen” makes “an attractive filler”.

The composer’s widow, Ursula, once commented that the Pastoral (1922) inhabits a Monet-like landscape, said Stephen Pritchard in The Observer.

Conductor Martyn Brabbins takes that as his cue, “perfectly capturing the mystical, impressionistic” nature of the composition, while in the Fourth (1934) – bristling with alarm and disquiet – he coolly captures the “urgent, doomy” opening and “strenuous polyphony” of the finale. This is a “much recommended landmark recording”.

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother) Book your tickets now by calling 020-7492 9948 or visiting TheWeekTickets.co.uk THE WEEK 18 January 2020

© ROBERT DAY

Albums of the week: three new releases

Film

ARTS 29

1917 Epic First World War drama

★★★ Dir: Sam Mendes

1hr 59mins (15)

No big-screen dramatisation could evoke putrid corpses, you can almost “smell life in the trenches of the First World the stench”. But Mendes’s greatest coup War with the startling clarity of Peter may be that after a while, you become Jackson’s 2018 documentary They Shall so involved you stop noticing the film’s Not Grow Old – a “treasure trove of “spiffy technical achievement”, says Danny Leigh in the FT – and even its original and newly colourised footage”.

But British director Sam Mendes’s epic starry supporting cast, which includes drama propels us back to the Western Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott as top brass.

Front “with the same extraordinary, visceral power”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Fictional, but inspired by “I can’t recall the last time I was so stories told to the director by his war staggered by a film’s technique while veteran grandfather, 1917 is about feeling almost nothing else at all,” said two lowly lance corporals who, with Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph.

A “knuckle-chewingly immersive” experience communications cut, must cross the Amounting to a series of hair-raising “battle-ravaged No Man’s Land” in order to warn British troops challenges, interspersed with “leanly scripted encounters”, 1917 of a German ambush; if they fail, up to 1,600 men – including has nothing to say about either the folly or the grandeur of war, one of the pair’s own brother – will be killed. Mendes, with the or its toll. Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay are help of Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins – takes compelling in the lead roles, and there is good work from the us on this harrowing mission by following them in what appears big-name stars in supporting roles; but what they appear in is to be (but isn’t quite) a single continuous take: the effect is “less of a film than an act of filmmaking”. Mendes has worked “thrillingly, at times knuckle-chewingly immersive”. so hard to overcome the technical difficulties of getting his characters from this trench to that crater, one of the greatest The film is “narratively samey”, said Deborah Ross in The catastrophes of the 20th century is reduced to “an exercise in Spectator. Our heroes face jeopardy heaped upon jeopardy in a preening showmanship”, said Manohla Dargis in The New typical “man-on-a-mission story”: what makes it extraordinary York Times. 1917 is a “carefully organised and sanitised” film in which the human costs of war only “puff into view like little is the way it puts the viewer “right there”. Plunged into a postapocalyptic hellscape of barbed wire, waterlogged craters and wisps of engine steam”.

Uncut Gems Thrilling crime drama starring Adam Sandler In this “deliciously horrible” New York crime drama (showing in cinemas now and on Netflix from 31 January), Adam Sandler – in a glorious, career-best turn – plays a seedy Manhattan diamond dealer looking to make a fat profit by selling an illegally imported black opal from Ethiopia, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. But he isn’t just a bit of a crook; he’s also an errant husband and gambling addict – and angry debt collectors come calling. The plot is “rocket-fuelled with greed and crack-fumed with fear”, and I doubt there will be a more exciting film this year.

The pace is majestically frantic, says Danny Leigh in the FT, but then the “great gift” of directors Benny and Josh Safdie “is the management of clamour”. They are also aided by a terrific

★★★★★ Dirs: Benny and Josh Safdie

supporting cast – a random assortment of actors, including Judd Hirsch and Idina Menzel (who voiced Elsa in Frozen) that “nevertheless clicks and keeps clicking”.

Then there is Sandler, said Kevin Maher in The Times. He has always been a bit of an “acquired taste”, but we’ve never seen him like this before. Wearing fake teeth, chunky rings and a dodgy goatee, he is “hopeless, unreliable and venal, yet somehow sympathetic”. The Safdies have created a cinematic marvel: the mood is deliberately chaotic, the electronic score intentionally discordant, and everyone is living on their nerves – it is like the cocaine-fuelled meltdown scene in Goodfellas sustained for more than two hours. Yet when relief finally comes, it is “heartbreaking”.

Seberg Unsatisfactory biopic of a complicated screen icon Jean Seberg was the American actress who became an icon of the French New Wave – before her support for the Black Panthers made her a target of the FBI. Hers was an extraordinary life, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent, but in this biopic, Kristen Stewart doesn’t even attempt to imitate her.

She adopts her blonde crop, but not her Midwestern accent, because she is partly playing herself, communicating Seberg’s fear and helplessness, while “gesturing at wider ideas about celebrity and privacy”. It would have been interesting, “if this were a smarter film”.

Set in LA in the late 1960s, as the FBI’s investigation is starting to take its toll, the film revels in period detail – “Mad Men-style

2hrs 15mins (15)

★★ Dir: Benedict Andrews

1hr 42mins (15)

smoking and drinking; agents in browline specs and white shirts” – but skimps on characterisation, said Edward Porter in The Sunday Times. “We’re told next to nothing about Seberg’s talents or unusual career.”

Nor does it offer any real insight into her eventual breakdown, said Charlotte O’Sullivan in the London Evening Standard.

Director Benedict Andrews is more interested in making her “palatable to viewers” – neither a left-wing extremist nor a liberal phoney – while other characters are hologram-thin, “from chalk ‘n’ cheese FBI agents” to “one-note” Black Panthers.

So who was Jean Seberg? “When in doubt, Andrews just puts Stewart (trying so hard) in yet another fabulous frock.”

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

30 ARTS

Art

Exhibition of the week Young Bomberg and the Old Masters The National Gallery, London WC2 (020-7747 2885, nationalgallery.org.uk). Until 1 March (free) David Bomberg (1890its “tangle of fractured forms a prophecy of 1957) was a pioneer of the First World War”. early 20th century British art. From his first Elsewhere, a small solo exhibition in 1914, Bomberg self-portrait in chalk hangs next to he positioned himself as Botticelli’s Portrait of a a “radical” modernist, Young Man (c.1480-5), said Ben Luke in the to which it is an London Evening unmistakable homage.

Standard. His earliest In his portrait, Bomberg work, with its neareven goes so far as to abstract human figures, brims with an “angular, depict himself wearing a collarless shirt specially explosive energy” – a world away from the designed to resemble staid conventions of art the garment in the in this country at the earlier work. However, time. Bomberg wrote the show is simply too in 1914 that he rejected small to make a great “everything in painting impression, containing that is not Pure Form”, just five paintings and four drawings by adding: “I hate… the Fat Man of the Bomberg, alongside two The Mud Bath (1914): “monumental” Old Master works he Renaissance”. Yet in admired – the Botticelli and El Greco’s The Agony in the Garden truth he revered Renaissance art: he taught himself to draw by closely observing the work of the Old Masters and regularly of Gethsemane (c.1590). All in all, it’s a missed opportunity. visiting London’s museums to sketch their paintings. This small exhibition explores Bomberg’s “passionate” engagement with the True, the minuscule scale of the exhibition is “frustrating”, said Renaissance, bringing together some of his earliest works with the Nancy Durrant in The Times. Nevertheless, it deftly demonstrates Old Masters that inspired him, and inviting us to examine his quite how good Bomberg could be. The energetic compositions of works like Ju-Jitsu (1913) or In the Hold (1913-14) “force your debt to art history. eyes to dance around the canvas in search of something solid”, There’s much to admire here, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily while 1919’s thrilling Sappers at Work borrows from El Greco to depict a company of Canadian engineers launching an attack on Telegraph. One highlight is 1914’s “monumental” The Mud Bath. Inspired by the steam baths in London’s East End, where he a German observation post. It’s a masterpiece of war art that still grew up, the painting depicts “a mass of semi-abstracted figures in “packs one hell of a punch”. This small but excellent selection blue and white emerging from a blood-red rectangle”; many see in of Bomberg works will leave you wanting more.

Where to buy…

Josef Herman at Flowers East Josef Herman (1911-2000) was one of many Jewish artists to find a home in Britain after fleeing anti-Semitic persecution on the Continent. Born in Warsaw, he left Poland in 1938 and ended up in this country via a circuitous route that saw him narrowly escape the advancing German army. Over the following decade, he distinguished himself as a painter of working-class life in his adopted homeland of South Wales, where he created much of his most celebrated work. The best of the paintings in this illuminating show date from this period, and come across as an unholy collision between L.S. Lowry, Max Beckmann and Chaim Soutine.

Herman’s scenes veer between the picaresque and the nightmarish, his stout, square-chinned figures (typically miners or dockers) framed against THE WEEK 18 January 2020

The Letter (c.1940), oil on paper

backdrops of irradiated browns and reds. Everything in these compositions looks cramped, squalid and uncomfortable. Although Herman’s work isn’t pretty, it is undeniably compelling. Prices range from £5,000 to £100,000.

82 Kingsland Road, London E2 (020-7920 7777). Until 25 January.

At the age of seven, Mikail Akar is being hailed in the German press as the “mini Picasso”, says Oliver Moody in The Times.

His expressionist paintings, “whose bold lines and sultry hues remind critics of JeanMichel Basquiat and Joan Miró”, fetch up to s15,000. This year his work will be shown in Paris, Doha and Hong Kong. Mikail grew up on a street full of galleries in Cologne and, according to his father Kerem, would “stand stock still in front of them”, gazing at the pictures. In 2017, Kerem came home and found a vivid, fresh abstract painting in his flat. He assumed his wife had painted it; in fact, it was the work of their son, then four.

Kerem posted the picture on Facebook, and within hours, strangers were offering him money. He has now left his job as a telecoms salesman to manage his son’s career. Mikail is now keen to expand his reach to Britain.

“I would love to come and do a show in London,” he said. “Then after the exhibition, I could go and watch Arsenal with Dad.”

© TATE; THE ESTATE OF JOSEF HERMAN, COURTESY OF FLOWERS GALLERY

The mini Picasso of Cologne

The Week reviews an exhibition in a private gallery

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The List

33

Best books… Isabel Allende The acclaimed Chilean writer chooses her best books. Her new novel, A Long Petal of the Sea (Bloomsbury £16.99), is out this week. She is doing a reading at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 February (southbankcentre.co.uk) Homeland by Fernando Aramburu, 2019 (Picador £16.99). The story of two families torn apart by ideology and terrorism in the Basque Country, told by one of Spain’s most recognised novelists.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, 2013 (Vintage £9.99).

A strange and fascinating first novel whose protagonist, Havaa, is a young girl in a village in Chechnya, hidden away by a neighbour after the police burn her house and take her father. It’s a brutal story, narrated in beautiful language with irony and compassion.

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, 2019 (Fourth

Estate £16.99). A tour de force about marriage, family and refugees. A family of four makes a road trip from New York to the Mexican border, where the mother intends to document migrant children in detention centres, and the father seeks to record the destruction of the Apache Nation. A profound book.

The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, 1996 (out of print). I have been reading this book on and off for 20 years. It’s my guide to meditation and the pilgrimage of the soul. Norris is a poet, a novelist and a philosopher who embraced, as an oblate, the contemplative practice of Benedictine monks.

Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy, 2019 (Beacon Press £24.95). Among a plethora of recent feminist books, this one, by an Egyptian-American scholar and activist, stands out for its unapologetic frontal attack on patriarchy.

A declaration of war that challenges and disrupts, written with humour, intelligence and knowledge of the facts.

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2020 (Hamish Hamilton £16.99).

The horror of slavery and the redeeming power of the spirit and imagination told by Hiram Walker, the son and slave of a Virginia tobacco plantation owner. Mesmerising.

Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk

The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing and reading A Taste of Honey This “nimble” revival of Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 drama shows that the play, with its themes of poverty and racism, has lost none of its relevance (London Evening Standard). Until 29 February, Trafalgar Studios, London SW1 (nationaltheatre.org.uk).

Book now

Message In A Bottle Sting’s songbook provides the soundtrack for this new ballet by Olivier-nominated choreographer Kate Prince.

6 February-21 March, Peacock Theatre, London WC2 (sadlerswells.com).

The various events at the 24th FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival are selling fast,

Diamond Dealers and Cockney Geezers A cheery

look behind the scenes at Trotters Jewellers in Bethnal Green, a family-run business selling bling to footballers, boxers and regular Londoners.

Mon 20 Jan, C4 22:00 (65mins).

Chris Packham: 7.7 Billion People and Counting The

naturalist investigates the impact of rapid population growth on the planet. Tue 21 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).

Travels In Euroland with Ed Balls The former MP sets

off across Europe to explore national identity and the rise of populism. First up: Holland and Spain. Thur 23 Jan, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).

Inside the Crown: Secrets of the Royals Four-part

series telling the story of the Queen’s 67-year reign, with archive footage and contributions from historians and royal insiders. Thur 23 Jan, ITV1 21:00 (60mins).

repeat of the Storyville documentary about the Shah’s lavish 1971 party, attended by international royalty, which ultimately paved the way for the Islamic Revolution. Thur 23 Jan, BBC4 23:00 (75mins).

Films

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Message In A Bottle, at the Peacock Theatre

with further additions to come. Speakers include Penelope Lively, Jung Chang and Sebastian Barry. Various venues, 27 March-5 April (oxfordliteraryfestival.org).

Just out in paperback

Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe (Penguin £8.99). Stibbe’s Wodehouse Prizewinning novel returns to protagonist Lizzy, now aged 18. It’s full of period detail and skilfully evokes “tender human sympathy” (Guardian).

The Archers: what happened last week

© LORI BARRA; JOHAN PERSSON

Programmes

Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Party Timely

Showing now

For Saad Qureshi: Something About Paradise, the artist went around the country asking people of different faiths what Paradise means to them; he then sought to recreate their visions in various materials. The result is a “Lilliputian dreamscape of temples and towers” (Observer). Until 15 March, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (ysp.org.uk).

Television

Kirsty tells Philip about her spat with Gavin, who later calls to apologise. After reading the consultant’s report, Lynda and Jolene want to change The Bull’s name, much to Kenton’s horror.

Pip has a visit from Justin, who advises her to make up with Phoebe. Alistair and Jazzer eventually tell Jim that Harold Jayston has died. Jim gets upset and later confesses that Jayston’s death has left him angry: now he can never confront his abuser. Josh finally returns from holiday; at Ruth’s insistence he talks to the police and later reports the matter of the digger is now sorted. There’s trouble at Berrow Farm as the pigs are tail-biting again, putting Neil under pressure. Jim takes out his anger on the builders, who walk off the job. After the recent trouble among Grey Gables staff, Oliver considers a spiritual home team-building day, at Kate’s urging. Jolene announces the name change at The Bull. Pip tells Rex that she and Phoebe have made up – the rewilding is back on track. While out bird-watching together, Philip asks Kirsty to marry him; she says of course she will.

(1953) The classic romantic musical starring Marilyn Monroe is being shown as part of Film4’s all-day effort to cheer up “Blue Monday”. Mon 20 Jan, Film4 15:05 (115mins).

Heat (1995) Al Pacino and

Robert De Niro face off in Michael Mann’s stylish copsand-robbers thriller. Fri 24 Jan, Film4 21:00 (200mins).

Coming up for sale More than 100 galleries from around the world will be represented at the London Art Fair. This year’s Platform section will focus on textiles, and the Southampton City Art Gallery is exhibiting pieces from its fine collection of modern British art. 22-26 January, Business Design Centre, London N1 (londonartfair.co.uk).

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Best properties

34 Houses in the centre of villages

▲

Devon: The Vines, Rattery. A detached Grade II thatched cottage in the heart of Rattery, one of Devon’s oldest villages, close to Dartmoor National Park.

The property has retained many character features and has been completely refurbished in the last few years to a high standard.

Master bed, 2 further beds, family bath, 1 further bath, kitchen/breakfast room, study, 2 receps, detached garden studio, front and rear garden, parking. £575,000; Stags (01803865454).

▲ Wiltshire: Three Chimneys, Heytesbury, Warminster. A Grade II cottage in this highly sought-after Wylye Valley village between Warminster and Salisbury.

Master suite, 4 further double beds, family bath/shower, kitchen/breakfast room, recep hall, 1 further recep, hall, snug, cloakroom, dressing room/study, garage, parking, outbuilding, landscaped gardens. £1.25m; Savills (01722-426822). ▲

Dorset: Locks Hill, Uploders, Bridport.

A period home in an elevated position in this picturesque village with far-reaching country views. The house, which dates back to the early 19th century, has been updated and is set over 3 floors. Master suite, 3/4 further beds, 2 further baths, 2 WCs, kitchen/dining room, 2 receps, cinema room/ bed 5, study, snug, laundry, utility/boot room, garden, parking, large barn with potential, paddock.

OIEO £950,000; Jackson-Stops (01308-423133).

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

on the market

35

▲ North Yorkshire: Village Farm, Bishop Monkton, Harrogate. Dating from the late 17th century, this Grade II house is arranged over 3 floors with original features from sash windows to exposed beams. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, recep hall, 2 further receps, study, utility, WC, storage, gardens, shed. OIEO £700,000; Strutt & Parker (01423-706771). ▲

Suffolk: Church Farm, Cavendish, Sudbury. A 16th century Grade II house in a popular village on the River Stour, in undulating Suffolk countryside.

Master bed, 2/3 further beds, family bath, 2 showers, kitchen/breakfast room, recep hall, 2 further receps, utility, cloakroom, mature private gardens, garage, 0.5 acres. £725,000; Savills (01473-234800).

Kent: Vergers Lodge, Chilham, Canterbury. A charming Grade II property with characterful accommodation in the centre of one of Kent’s historic villages. The house dates from the 1500s, with a classic Tudor exposed timber façade. 4 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen/ breakfast room, 2 receps, snug/study, hall, rear garden. £850,000; Strutt & Parker (01227473700).

▲

▲

Surrey: Rosebank, Needles Bank, Godstone. Set in a Conservation Area in the heart of this historic village, a stone’s throw from the village green, Rosebank is in need of sympathetic updating. The Grade II house has been owned by the same family for more than 100 years. 4/5 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen, hall, 2 receps, further recep/ bed 5, family room, large secluded gardens. £650,000; Jackson-Stops (01883-712375). ▲

Fife: The Elms, Park Place, Elie, Leven. A substantial village house, dating from 1874, with a 2-bed cottage and a separate studio, just a short walk from Elie’s renowned harbour and sandy beach. Main house: master suite with dressing room, 4 further beds (3 en suite), family bath, shower, WC, kitchen/ dining room, 2nd kitchen, 3/4 receps, utility, halls; enclosed garden with Victorian summer house.

OIEO £995,000; Galbraith, (01334659980).

▲ Cornwall: Chy-an-Dour, Durgan, near Helford Passage, Falmouth.

A Grade II attached cottage in an idyllic location in the heart of the village, a short walk from the beach and river. Double bed with free-standing bath and views, 1 further bed, shower, kitchen/breakfast room, 1 recep, terrace, garden, shed. OIEO £575,000; Lillicrap Chilcott (01872-273473).

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Great Escapes

36

MUCH More than just a resort

TOUR OPERATOR OF THE YEAR

TOUR OPERATOR OF THE YEAR

2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018

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A short walk from the beautiful north Cornish coast, The Point at Polzeath is a favourite destination for short breaks and family holidays with accommodation ranging from one-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom houses.

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Relax in our sea-view restaurant or Bear Bar or enjoy all of the activities our resort has to offer including our award-winning 18-hole golf course or fully-equipped gym, indoor pool and tennis courts.

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STAY • EAT & DRINK • GOLF • LEISURE • UNWIND

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

INSPIRATIONAL TRIPS OF A LIFETIME

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To advertise here please email classified@theweek.co.uk or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

LEISURE Food & Drink

37

What the experts recommend: fine food on a budget dish: coal-cooked aubergine with whey, walnuts and dried mint.

Michelin bestows its Bib Gourmands on restaurants that serve simple, but very good food, at relatively low prices (no more than £30 for three courses). Here is a selection of those recently given the coveted award.

Arya 56-58 King Street, Ramsgate, Kent (07943-628357) This hidden gem – located above a pub in the heart of Ramsgate – serves interesting small plates with modern European influences. Chef Luke Crittenden (formerly of Polpetto in Soho) forages ingredients from all over Kent; his sister, Jess, runs the front of house. Sample dish: beetroot goat’s curd, sea buckthorn, sorrel.

Violets 5-7 Side, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (violetscafe.co.uk) Within a stone’s throw of Tyne Bridge, you’ll find this all-day bistro run by the team behind Newcastle’s most celebrated restaurant, House of Tides. For breakfast, try homemade granola or grilled field mushrooms. Sample dishes from the British-inspired menus for lunch and dinner: beef cheek, with pease pudding, smoked bacon and chestnut mushrooms.

Provender West End House, High Street, Melrose (01896-820319) This stylish restaurant, in the attractive Scottish Borders town of Melrose, serves

Box-E: rustic, flavour-packed cooking in Bristol

well-executed modern British dishes packed with flavour. Christian Edwardson spent time working with top London chef Pierre Koffmann, and it shows in the classical bent of his cooking. Sample dishes include hand-dived scallops with black pudding, apple caramel and bitter leaves.

Berenjak 27 Romilly Street, London W1 (020-3319 8120) Situated in the heart of Soho, the cooking at this hole-in-the-wall “kebab” house is inspired by the food chef Kian Samyani ate as a child. You can sit at a kitchen counter opposite the mangal barbecue; or there’s a semi-private dining room at the back.

The menu consists of mazeh-style sharing plates and charcoal-grilled main courses; all are fresh and tasty. Sample

Recipe of the week Robust, meaty monkfish is great in a curry, well able to hold its own against complex spices, says Tom Kerridge. This dish is the perfect cosy winter feast.

Monkfish and coconut curry Serves 2 1 tbsp vegetable oil 1 large onion, finely diced 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2.5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated 1 long red chilli, finely sliced (with seeds) a handful of curry leaves 1 heaped tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp ground coriander 2 medium tomatoes, diced 400ml fresh vegetable stock 50g red lentils 400g monkfish fillets 100g green beans 100ml tinned coconut milk 2 tbsp roughly chopped coriander leaves sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

© CHLOE EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY; CRISTIAN BARNETT

• Heat the oil in a large non-stick sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes or until softened and starting to brown.

• Add the garlic, ginger

and chilli and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the curry leaves, turmeric and ground coriander and cook, stirring for 1 minute or until fragrant.

• Add the tomatoes, stock and lentils to the pan. Stir, bring to the boil over

a medium heat and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until the sauce is thickened and the lentils are tender. Meanwhile, cut the monkfish into 4cm pieces. Trim the green beans and cut them in half.

• Add the monkfish and coconut milk to the pan and cook over a gentle heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the beans and cook for a further 3-4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, taste to check the seasoning and stir in the coriander.

Taken from Lose Weight & Get Fit by Tom Kerridge, published by Bloomsbury at £22. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £18.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

Box-E Unit 10, Cargo 1, Wapping Wharf, Bristol (boxebristol.com) On the first floor of Cargo – a retail yard made up of converted shipping containers – is this compact restaurant, clad in chipboard and plywood. Elliott Lidstone’s cooking is rustic, assured and flavour-packed. A seven course, unwritten tasting menu is available to those who book one of the four counter seats that overlook the kitchen. Sample dish: chocolate mousse, extra virgin olive oil, blood orange and hazelnuts.

Balloo House 1 Comber Road, Killinchy, Newtownards, Northern Ireland (028-9754 1210) This picturesque pub on the coast of County Down serves delicious, hearty fare, with local fish a particular speciality.

There’s a separate vegetarian/vegan menu, and a three-course Sunday lunch for £26. Sample dish: confit chicken and mushroom short crust pie, creamed potato, truffled leeks.

Taken from Great Britain & Ireland: The Michelin Guide 2020 (£16.99).

To buy from The Week Bookshop for £14.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

Drinks for a dry January About five million of us are currently “on the long trek through dry January”, says Jane MacQuitty in The Times.

Fortunately, with so many impressive no- or low-alcohol alternatives available, there has never been a better time to swear off the booze.

To fill the alcohol gap, a drink needs a “complex, rewarding, bitter or bittersweet kick”. Seedlip’s Nogroni (£12, 20cl; seedlipdrinks.com) is pretty expensive, but drink it over ice with a twist of orange peel and you really won’t notice that it has no alcohol in it. Another fine option is the “brilliant, verdant” Everleaf aperitif (£16, 50cl; Sainsbury’s); made from 18 botanicals, it’s best served with soda water or tonic. Or try the complex, clove-scented Æcorn Bitter (£17, 50cl; Waitrose), which also provides a “botanical hit”.

When it comes to de-alcoholised wine, consider Gratien and Meyer Festillant Sans Alcool (£4.50; The Wine Society) – a joyful, light, grapey, green apple-styled fizz – or 2018 Sangre de Toro White 0%, Spain (£5.99; Majestic). Made from the Muscat grape, it is “lively” and fruity.

For our latest offers, visit theweekwines.com

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Marketplace

38

FINAL WEEKS - MUST END 29 FEB

‘PROVES ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN THEATRE’ T H E G UA R D I A N

‘GRIPPING’ T H E T I M ES

‘SPELLBINDING’ T H E DA I LY T EL EG RA P H

‘A SUPERB PIECE OF

STORYTELLING’ F I N A N C I A L TIM ES

From

DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE TouchingTheVoidPlay.com

Based on the book by

TOM MORRIS JOE SIMPSON co-director of

WAR HORSE

Adapted by

DAVID GREIG

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THE WEEK 18 January 2020

BEDROOMS

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LIBRARIES

To advertise here please email classified@theweek.co.uk or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

Consumer

LEISURE 39

New cars: what the critics say

▲ ▲

Tips of the week... how to combat tiredness ● Lacking energy and concentration, or being irritable, are symptoms of tiredness, and could be the result of sleep deprivation, in which case more sleep should solve the problem. But if you don’t feel sleepy during the day, they may be caused by other underlying problems – such as anaemia – and you might want to consult your GP. ● Half an hour of extra sleep a night can make a huge difference, but you may not feel it immediately – it takes time to pay off a “sleep debt”. Try it for a month. If you still feel tired, then look for other causes. ● If you can’t sleep, work on your bedtime routine: avoid large meals, and stimulants – alcohol, nicotine, caffeine – close to bedtime, as well as blue light. Make sure your bedroom is dark, quiet and tidy. ● Try to eat protein with every meal. This will keep your blood sugar balanced, and help you avoid the afternoon energy slump. ● If you wake up in the night, do not reach for your phone. Ideally, leave it elsewhere.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Salter U ss Ultra Slim Glas An nalyser Like L anced more adva sm mart scales, this good v value sca ale can determine d your BM MI and le evels of body fatt by pass sing a small ele ectrical current c thrrough ba are feet to disstinguish h fat from lean tissue lea e (£24.99; salterhous sewares.co.uk).

Argos Home ▲A Bam mboo Digital Batthroom Scales This simple bamboo ale is at the sca dget end of the bud market, and might be a good option if u find the more you odern-looking mo digital scales appealing una (£15; argos.co.uk).

And d for those who have everything…

According to The Times, this is what it would look like “if the Queen wore Gucci”. The nylon hood features a floral print layered over the designer’s famous monogram. £260; gucci.com SOURCE: THE TIMES

Fitbit Aria F 2T This smart scale traccks the weight, bod dy fat and lean mass level of eight users, and syn ncs it all to the Fitb bit app and das shboard, to pro ovide clear pro ogress graphs (£99; amazon.co.uk).

Where to find... the best travel podcasts Weaving together stories about culture, food and politics, The Trip by Roads & Kingdoms – originally created by Anthony Bourdain – introduces you to exceptional people around the world (roadsandkingdoms.com).

Mandela Leola van Eeden, the host of The Trail Less Travelled, travels to remote locations and asks local people to share their stories (traillesstraveled.net).

More of an “audio magazine”, Wander Woman, by travel journalist Phoebe Smith, combines travel tips with descriptions of the places she goes and the people she meets (wanderwoman.buzzsprout.com).

Zero to Travel is for those in search of a long-term adventure. Jason Moore explains how to hit the road and become a nomad (zerototravel.com).

Travelling with children can be a challenge.

Produced by two travel bloggers, Vacation Mavens (vacationmavens.com) has tips, ideas and information to make it easier.

SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

SOURCES: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH/LOND DON EVENING STANDARD/T3

▲

Garmin Index Smart Scale This sleek smartscale can be connected to a Garmin app to track the weight, BMI, body fat, muscle mass and bone mass of up to 16 users (£149.99; garmin.com).

Salter Doctor Style Mechanical Bathroom Scales If you would prefer to stick to a mechanical scale, this retro-looking Salter model goes up to 150kg and comes with a 15-year guarantee (£35; salterhousewares. co.uk).

The Daily Telegraph There are three petrol engines on offer – a 1.0litre with 94bhp or 113bhp, and a 148bhp 1.5-litre – as well as a 1.6litre, 113bhp diesel. The Kamiq feels “stable and planted” on corners, and the steering is responsive.

Its major flaw is its overly firm ride, which makes it “jitter” on almost any road surface. Without this, it could stand out as “the comfortable one” in its crowded market. As it is, it just misses the mark.

▲

The best… bathroom scales s

Auto Express Škoda may be the VW group’s “budget brand”, but the Kamiq feels anything but budget inside. It’s very well built, and the standard-fit partsuede fabric seats “look and feel plush”. There’s also a “super-sharp” touchscreen satnav, and virtual cockpit dials. Most usefully, the car’s length means there is much more room for rear seat passengers than in most similar cars, but it still has a decent size boot.

▲

Škoda Kamiq

from £17,100

What Car? By the standards of compact SUVs, Škoda’s new Kamiq is actually quite big. But does it bring anything else to the table, to set it apart from the likes of the Seat Arona, the VW T-Cross, the Renault Captur and the Nissan Juke? Its design isn’t particularly adventurous, but it is “classier” inside than some of its competitors, and it is decent to drive. All in all, it has the potential to “shake up” the small SUV class.

Tour & Cruise

9 days –

£1,995P P LOW DE OFFER POSIT £99PP*

Riv r a

b

Experie ence the magic of the Danube e ass you glide th hrough Imperia al Vie enna and Budapest. Step n time ass yo ou explore e the Ottoman an nd Habsburg emp pires, and tasste delectable regional back in specialitie es – a re eal treat for all the senses. Embark on our Deligh hts of the e Danube River Cruise.

Nuremburg

London

River cruise the Great Rail way Enjoy every moment Escorted rail tour to your ship, taking in the sights along the way.

Cruise in luxury 5* ships with spacious cabins and suites.

Expertly crafted menus Onboard dining showcasing regional flavours. Dinner drinks included.

Local discoveries Flexible excursion options with knowledgeable local guides.

A safe pair of hands Relax with your Cruise Manager on hand to take care of everything.

Passau

Vienna

Budapest Bratislava

Melk Abbey

Days 1-2: To Budapest by rail Take to the rails, travelling to Nuremberg for the night before speeding to elegant Budapest.

Board your ship and soak up the splendo our of the city as you cruise the Danube at twilig ght.

Day 3: The magic of Budapest Be awestruck by the striking sights of Budapest, discovering its magnificent neo-Gothic ng landmarks. Later, sail through the stunnin Danube Bend, passing dramatic castles, dense forests, and fairytale churches.

Day 4: Beautiful Bratislava Arrive in the Slovakian capital where you discover the Baroque Old Town, bursting with cobblestone lanes, 18th-century rococo buildings and quaint street cafés.

Day 5: Vienna’s cultural heritage Arrive in glorious Vienna, rich in architectural, artistic, and musical heritage. Discover the impressive Opera House before tonight, you are indulged with an exceptional private recital from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Day 6: The beauty of Austria A journey through the Wachau Valley past verdant vineyards and riverside towns takes

To book your river cruise or request a brochure

Regensburg

London

you to Melk Abbey, a splendid 11th-century Benedictine Abbeyy.

Day 7: Scenic lakes or Salzburg Uncover the scenic beauty of the Austrian lakes or immerse yourself in the fascinating culture of Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart.

Days 8-9: A fond farewell Discover the medieval port of Regensburg, then board your ship for the captain’s gala dinner, a chance to don your glad rags. The next day, board a train in Passau for a relaxed journey back to London.

2020 Departures Rail & Cruise 4th 11th 31st 12th 19th

May May May Jun Jun

£1,995 £1,995* £2,295 £2,195* £2,195

10th 31st 25th 13th

Jul Jul Aug Sep

£1,995* £1,995 £2,095 £2,295*

Fly & Cruise from £1,695pp * A reverse itinerary operates on these dates, with the tour taking place after the cruise. First class departures are also available, from £2,395 per person. Please call for details.

Tour code: DLR/DDR PROUD SPONSORS OF I T V T R AV E L D O C U M E N TA R I E S

Call 01904 734485 or visit GreatRail.com

*This tour may be suitable for reduced mobility passengers, please call for details. Book with 100% confidence, flight-inclusive holidays are ATOL or ABTOT protected, non flight-inclusive holidays are protected by ABTOT. Dates and prices are subject to availability. Prices shown are per person, based on 2 people sharing. Prices may change prior to and after publication. Itinerary may differ depending on the departure date you choose. *Book on or before 15th February 2020 and pay only £99pp deposit on selected 2020 Worldwide, European & UK departures. The balance of the deposit, (which is the difference between the full deposit payable and the low deposit amount already paid by you), is payable by the date notified to you as well as in the event of cancellation (in which case you may also be liable for additional cancellation and administration charges as stipulated in our booking conditions). Terms and conditions apply. Please visit the website or call for further details. Calls will be recorded.

Travel

LEISURE 41

This week’s dream: a protected slice of the Amazon rainforest The wildfires in the Amazon last year pavilions where chefs serve up were an “environmental horror” that “wonderful” organic meals. Electricity made headlines around the world. is largely solar, and the vast majority Climate change was partly to blame of the 42 staff are local. Guests go for for their scale – the 2019 dry season walks in the mornings and boat trips was exceptionally arid; so was Brazil’s in the afternoon, and there’s also an president Jair Bolsonaro, whose deep observation tower with views across cuts to environmental budgets have the forest canopy. You will see emboldened slash-and-burn farmers. But “congregations” of birds – curl-crested despite the bleak outlook overall, there aracari, paradise tanagers, spangled are pockets of good news in Amazonia, cotingas, scarlet macaws and more – and perhaps the odd harpy eagle. says Stanley Stewart in the FT – and one is the 11,000-hectare Cristalino Private Other wildlife is harder to see in Reserve. Purchased piecemeal by owner the dense foliage, but sightings of Vitória da Riva Carvalho since the tapirs, spider monkeys, capybaras 1990s, and with a “delightful” riverside and anacondas are not uncommon.

Cristalino Private Reserve: an early ecotourism initiative As you pass through the forest, the lodge at its heart, this “early initiative in ecotourism” is a fine place to English-speaking guides will draw your attention to the “intricate interdependencies” between the experience the “marvels” of the world’s largest rainforest. species here – every single tree is a complex “ecosystem” in itself Experts have catalogued 80 species of mammals in the reserve, along with 1,500 butterflies and moths, and an “astonishing” 586 – and between this great forest and the rest of life on Earth. bird species. Guests sleep in wooden bungalows, with hammocks Cazenove+loyd (cazloyd.com) has a 12-night trip to Brazil on the verandas, and eat in a dining area spread across open-sided from £5,695 per person.

Getting the flavour of…

Hotel of the week

The roof of the world by road

Wright’s Food Emporium Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire A “witty and wonderful” deli and restaurant that champions local producers, Wright’s is a muchloved Carmarthenshire institution – and now its owners have opened two self-catering cottages on site, which are ideal for family holidays, says Hattie Garlick in The Sunday Telegraph. The Emporium is in a 19th century coaching inn, but has the atmosphere of a “bohemian country house”. And the cottages – one with two bedrooms, the other with three – have “bright”, airy interiors decorated with posters that were acquired by the owners on their “gastronomic adventures” around Europe.

Cottages from £190 per night at weekends; wrightsfood.co.uk.

Crossing the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the Pamir Highway once formed part of the Silk Road, and was later a major Soviet supply route. It fell into disrepair after the collapse of the USSR, and is now a slow and bone-shaking – but still breathtaking – drive, says Megan Eaves in The Independent. Starting in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, you might allow a fortnight to get to Osh in Kyrgyzstan. The towns along the way are small and lonely, with only “basic” accommodation, and the route sometimes disappears among open fields. But the scenery is “stunning”.

You take in high mountain peaks, the “ethereal” Lake Karakul, and the “moondry” Ak-Baital Pass, which rises to 4,655 metres – making this the world’s secondhighest paved road after the Karakoram Highway. Kalpak Travel (kalpak-travel.com) can arrange tours with guides and drivers.

Beethoven’s birthday in Vienna

This year is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, and Vienna – the city where he lived for his entire adult life – is celebrating in style, says Rebecca Schmid in The New York Times. The composer’s opera Fidelio will be performed in all its three versions, two at the State Opera and one at the Theater an der Wien, where Oscarwinning actor Christoph Waltz will direct.

The Philharmonic and Symphony orchestras are offering plenty of Beethovenheavy programmes. There are exhibitions at the Austrian National Library (Beethoven: Menschenwelt und Götterfunken), the Leopold Museum and the House of Music.

And the iOS app #RelatedtoAustria is offering an augmented-reality tour “powered by” Bose Frames (sunglasses equipped with built-in surround-sound audio), which are available on loan from the Tourist Information stand on the Albertinaplatz.

A lonely hike on a wild shore

With its towering cliffs and empty surf beaches, the southernmost stretch of Portugal’s Atlantic coast – the Costa Vicentina – is wild and beautiful, and you can walk along it on a self-guided trip with Inntravel, says Rose Astor in The Times.

The tour operator provides detailed route instructions and arranges everything – food, luggage transfers and accommodation in “charming” local inns. Its week-long Fishermen’s Trail itinerary starts at the southwestern tip of the Algarve and ends at the village of São Torpes, in the Alentejo region, 50 miles north. With only flowers, birds and the occasional cowherd for company most of the way, it feels like you’re taking a holiday from the 21st century itself.

Inntravel (inntravel.co.uk) has a week-long trip from £835pp, excluding flights.

Last-minute offers from top travel companies Four-star stay in Malta Offering spectacular views, The Ramla Bay Resort sits on its own private beach. A 5-night stay costs from £292pp all-inclusive, including flights.

020-3897 1152, loveholidays. com. Depart 4 March.

First-class Reykjavík b&b Spend four nights at the Grand Hótel Reykjavik – with the sea nearby, it’s ideal for coastal walks. From £460pp b&b, including Glasgow flights. 0208974 7200, travelrepublic.co. uk. Depart 20 February.

A week in Mexico Stay at the adults-only Tui Blue El Dorado Seaside Suites, situated on a peaceful beach, from £1,340pp all-inclusive, including Manchester flights.

020-3636 1931, tui.co.uk.

Depart 29 March.

Indian Ocean cruise Enjoy 25 nights aboard MSC Orchestra, with stops in Réunion, Mauritius, Seychelles and ending in Venice, from £1,149pp full-board. 0808-256 6114, cruiseclubuk.com.

Depart 18 April, from Durban.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Marketplace

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THE WEEK 18 January 2020

To advertise here please email classiďŹ ed@theweek.co.uk or call Nicholas Fisher on 020 3890 3932 or Rebecca Seetanah 020 3890 3770

Obituaries

43

Conservative philosopher who relished a fight Sir Roger Scruton, who has died aged 75, was one of “the most contentious figures in British public life” – and in his own estimation, the country’s “favourite token reactionary”, said The Daily Telegraph.

A conservative philosopher and commentator, he was devoted to high culture; he believed in tradition and social stability; played the organ in his local Anglican church; and was an “enthusiastic fox hunter”.

appointment as a philosophy lecturer at Birkbeck, later becoming professor of aesthetics. He reckoned that his third book, The Meaning of Conservatism, ruled him out from obtaining academia’s glittering prizes, and in so doing liberated him to attack the liberal establishment, and say “some really enjoyable and unpleasant things”. This he did largely in the pages of The Times, where he had a column for four years from 1983. Among other things, he claimed that there was no such thing as date rape and called for the return of hanging and flogging.

Sir Roger Scruton 1944-2020

Scruton was often mistaken by his left-wing critics for a Tory toff, said The Times. In fact, he was brought up in a pebble-dashed semi in From 1982, he edited the right-wing Salisbury Review, which caused a huge controversy when Buckinghamshire, the grandson of a labourer. it published an article by the Bradford head His father was a socialist primary school teacher Ray Honeyford criticising multiteacher who thought Beatrix Potter unbearably bourgeois; his mother, however, cherished the culturalism in schools. “All hell broke loose,” ideals of “gentlemanly conduct and social Scruton recalled. The Review, however, won distinction”. Precociously bright, Roger won him many admirers among dissidents in eastern Scruton: codenamed “Squirrel” a place at the Royal Grammar School in High Europe, and in Czechoslovakia in particular.

Wycombe. He was no conformist even then. In his teens, he He learned Czech, supported a resistance movement there and gave underground seminars attended by Václav Havel. His was arrested for travelling on the Underground without a ticket, codename was “Squirrel”, said Jane O’Grady in The Guardian – a misdemeanour he compounded by giving a false name to the police: he told them he was called John Stuart Mill. apparently in tribute to his red hair. Less gloriously, it emerged in 2002 that he was being paid a monthly stipend by one of the big tobacco companies, and had suggested that it might pay him more He was eventually expelled, for producing a play that involved a semi-naked woman on a burning stage; but by then, he had won a to place pro-smoking pieces in the media. scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge. He took a double first in 1965, but decided not to stay on, disliking, he said, the absence of More recently, he was sacked from a government commission for women, and its atmosphere of “nostalgic pederasty”. Instead, he making apparently racist and anti-Semitic remarks in an interview went travelling. It was in Paris in 1968 that he had his epiphany, in the New Statesman. It later became clear that he had been misrepresented; the magazine apologised and he was reinstated. said The Daily Telegraph. Listening to “self-indulgent” middleclass student revolutionaries spouting “Marxist gobbledegook, Scruton lived on a farm in Wiltshire with his second wife, Sophie.

They had two children (born in 1998 and 2000) whom he said I realised I was on the other side... I wanted to conserve [Western civilisation], not tear [it] down”. He returned to Cambridge as a would speak Latin and Greek by the age of six, and learn the viola, because “it is not much fun”. They and Sophie survive him. research fellow in aesthetics; then in 1971, took up an

The charismatic author of Prozac Nation At the age of 26, Elizabeth Wurtzel burst into the public eye with Prozac Nation (1994), said The Times – a “freewheeling”, and “eye-bulgingly frank” account of her experience of mental illness. She had first felt the deadweight of depression at ten, and took an overdose at 11; she began selfharming at 12, and “self-medicating” at 13. At Harvard, her illness made her “hyper-sexual”, she said: the archetypal “hot mess”, she took drugs, threw a party to celebrate losing her virginity, and delighted in seducing other people’s boyfriends. In her author’s note, Wurtzel said that some names had been changed: “Otherwise, unfortunately for me, every detail is accurate.”

Wurtzel: “every detail is accurate”

© NEWS LICENSING

Elizabeth Wurtzel 1967-2020

The book appalled and delighted the critics, said Nosheen Iqbal in The Observer. Some found it self-aggrandising and navelgazing; others deemed it bold, inspirational and important, in its no-holds-barred portrayal of mental illness. Arguably it was all those things. And it was certainly influential. Prozac Nation “shifted the dial on what young women writers were able to write, say and confess to, helping usher in what Slate magazine called ‘the first-person industrial complex’”.

Elizabeth Wurtzel was born in New York in 1967, the daughter of Donald, an IBM manager, and Lynne. Her father left when she

was two. It wasn’t until she was nearly 50, and had undergone years of therapy to untangle their difficult relationship, that she discovered that he wasn’t her biological father. Her teenage years were a disaster, yet she managed to win a place at Harvard, where as a self-confessed “riot girl” she became “campus famous”. On graduating, she worked at various newspapers, before starting on her book. She followed up Prozac Nation with Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1998), a collection of feminist essays, for the cover of which she posed topless. It received mixed reviews. A second memoir, More, Now, Again (2001) was generally panned. “Wurtzel’s overweening self-regard oozes from every sentence,” wrote Toby Young in The Observer.

Nothing if not self-aware, Wurtzel knew she was impossible.

She was, she said, “the worst girlfriend ever” and “the crazy ex-girlfriend you hear about”. Yet in 2015, she married photo editor Jim Freed. They later separated, but remained close. That year, she also revealed that she had breast cancer. Like many Ashkenazi Jewish women, she carried the BRCA gene mutation.

She cursed herself for not having got tested for it, but remained upbeat. “If I can handle 39 break-ups in 21 days, I can get through cancer.” Of her double mastectomy and reconstruction, she said: “It is quite amazing. They do both at the same time. You go in with breast cancer and come out with stripper boobs.”

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

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CITY Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

45

Flybe: back from the brink (again)

This time a year ago, scrambled efforts were under way to save Europe’s largest regional air carrier, Flybe, from collapse.

Tuning into BBC Breakfast this week, one might be forgiven for experiencing a sense of déjà vu, said The Guardian.

Except this time it was Boris Johnson outlining how the Government was “working very hard” to save the stricken Exeter-based airline. Improving connections for the regions of the UK was a key Conservative manifesto pledge. No wonder Flybe has been given a multimillion-pound rescue deal: ministers are thought to have agreed to defer the company’s £106m air passenger duty bill, saving more than 2,000 jobs and averting chaos for thousands of passengers. The airline, which carries 8.5 million passengers a year across Britain and to mainland Europe, is a key player in UK aviation: many regional airports rely upon it. Yet “turning a profit has always been tough” for Flybe, which has “perennially struggled to fill its planes”, said Oliver Gill in The Daily Telegraph. Clearly, the rescue plan “cobbled together” last year, when a Virgin-led consortium took Flybe private for just £2.2m, has bombed – despite a £100m cash injection. Now there are fears that good money is being thrown after bad. The rescue deal was criticised by environmental groups and described as a “blatant misuse of public funds” by BA’s outgoing boss, Willie Walsh.

Renault/Nissan: Ghosn in the machine

Nissan and Renault are “publicly committed to maintaining their union”, said DealBook in The New York Times – despite “the fissures that have emerged” since the ousting, arrest and spectacular escape from Japan of their former leader Carlos Ghosn. But what’s actually going on behind the scenes? Reports have surfaced that Nissan’s management is working on a “Plan B” that involves “war-gaming a total divide” between the two firms in engineering and manufacturing, as well as changes to Nissan’s board. The Japanese believe the partnership has become “toxic” and that the French carmaker has become “a drag” on Nissan. “A split has been the pipe dream of some Nissan executives for years” and, with Ghosn gone, they have “even less reason” to keep the strained alliance going, said Lex in the FT. “They should be careful what they wish for.” Without their combined billions in electric car research, both Nissan and Renault “risk becoming irrelevant” as the industry shifts. “Those war games would be best concluded with a peace deal.”

British Airways/IAG: Walsh jets off

“After 15 years at the controls”, Willie Walsh is stepping down as the boss of International Airlines Group, the owner of British Airways, said the FT. He’ll be replaced

by Luis Gallego, currently CEO of Iberia, in March. At 58, Walsh is one of the FTSE 100’s longest-serving CEOs, “and a survivor in a notoriously turbulent industry”. He has also delivered results – forging “one of the world’s largest airline groups” by merging with Iberia and Aer Lingus and, vitally, restoring BA to profitability. Shareholders have “trebled their money” since Walsh took the controls, but other stakeholders have “less to cheer about”. On his watch, “BA’s service has suffered”. Several high-profile glitches – including a severe systems failure in 2017 – have “raised questions about underinvestment”. Walsh, who earned the nickname “Slasher” while running Aer Lingus, will be a hard act to follow, said John Collingridge in The Sunday Times. At times it seemed as if he was “holding together the alliance of disparate airlines by sheer force of personality”. No other airline exec was more “pugnacious”, agreed The Observer. But Walsh was also a pragmatist: BA has “begun investing again to restore its reputation”, though it’s “far from clear how successful that will be”. His departure looks timely.

UK retail: winners and losers

Another week, another fallen department store, said Ellena Cruse in the London Evening Standard. Bournemouth-based Beales, which has 22 stores across Britain and around 1,000 employees, has warned “it could collapse into administration if it fails to find a lastminute buyer”. Debenhams, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with the closure of 19 stores.

Even John Lewis, which is “weathering the storm” better than most, has issued a profit warning, said The Observer. The UK’s largest employee-owned business is reportedly pondering whether to ditch its famed staff bonus. There were winners this Christmas, said Oscar Williams-Grut on Yahoo Finance. The online fast-fashion retailer Boohoo has been crying all the way to the bank. Bumper festive sales boosted its shares, taking its value above M&S’s this week – another sign of the “changing of the guard in retail”.

Seven days in the Square Mile President Trump signed the first phase of a new trade agreement with China at the White House, easing two years of tension between the two economic superpowers. The deal commits China to buying an extra $200bn of US goods and services over the next two years, but it leaves in place the $360bn tranche of tariffs that the US has already imposed on Chinese goods. Wall Street responded strongly: the Dow Jones hit another all-time high. Elsewhere, traders were more sceptical. The FTSE 100, however, reflected fears that the reluctance to remove tariffs suggested limited progress on getting phase 2 of the deal agreed this year.

In Britain, the CPI inflation rate fell to 1.3% in December, its lowest in more than three years and well below the BoE’s 2% target. The news increased speculation that interest rates could be cut. The pound fell below $1.30.

The backlash against Flybe’s rescue stepped up a gear with both airline and rail rivals attacking the Government’s move. The BA owner, IAG, filed a complaint to the EU arguing the rescue breached state aid rules. The trade body for the rail industry and climate campaigners slammed the proposal to cut air passenger duty payments. Lekoil, a London-listed Nigerian oil explorer, appeared to have fallen victim to fraud: the company paid $600,000 for a fake $184m loan agreement with people pretending to represent Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Jeff Fairburn, the former boss of Persimmon sacked after an outcry over his £76m bonus, joined another housebuilder, Berkeley DeVeer.

Zeroes and ones Shares in Alphabet, as Google now calls itself, have gained 36% since the start of 2019 – ensuring that the company is shaping up “to become the fourth of the US big tech firms to reach a stock market capitalisation of $1trn”, says Nils Pratley in The Guardian – after Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Compare Google’s new price tag with what it has paid out to settle “old legal battles”. In total, the EU has fined Google about s8bn for anti-competitive practices over the years. That’s “a stunning sum in itself”, but when “versus $1trn in corporate worth”, it looks “almost lost in the wash”. A pity that regulators can’t just “add a zero to their penalties to deter monopolist behaviour”.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

Looking to book a holiday with a difference this year? We have a selection of unique trips around the world, hand-picked for readers of The Week. Visit TheWeekTravel.co.uk for full details.

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Visit TheWeekTravel.co.uk for further details and more amazing adventures Terms & Conditions: Holidays are organised by, and subject to, the booking conditions of Wild Frontiers (Uzbekistan) and Arena Travel (Norfolk, Holland) and are subject to availability. They are ABTA-bonded and ATOL protected. Per-person prices are correct at the time of going to press and are based on two people sharing. Single supplements apply. All phone numbers are standard UK rates, opening hours are as follows; Wild Frontiers Mon-Thur 9am-8pm / Fri 9am-6pm / Sat 10am-2pm, Arena Travel Mon-Fri 9am5.30pm / Sat 9am-1pm.

Talking points

CITY 47

Issue of the week: the trouble at Boeing Its 737 Max planes have been dubbed “flying coffins”; a toxic corporate culture adds insult to injury You only have to read the internal emails, Dennis Muilenberg (who walked away written for pilots by the technicians with some $64m in shares and pension responsible for developing flight benefits) “struggled to do”. The plane’s simulators, to see that Boeing’s campaign return to the skies is likely to be delayed to return its 737 Max jet to the skies gets again, and meanwhile the aerospace more forlorn by the day, said Alistair giant continues to haemorrhage cash.

Boeing’s market value is three-quarters Osborne in The Times. Boeing was forced of its peak last March, and it has been to release the emails under pressure from US senators and – given the deaths of 346 burning through $4.4bn for each quarter people in two fatal crashes – they make the Max has been grounded. The knockon effect through supply chains is being for grim reading. Welcome aboard your aircraft – one “designed by clowns” who felt throughout America, said Rich are “supervised by monkeys”, says one.

Miller and Hailey Waller on Bloomberg.

In another, the writer declares he would According the US the Treasury Secretary, not let his family fly on a 737 Max. Yet Steven Mnuchin, “Boeing’s woes could another describes the “Jedi mind tricks” lop a half-point from US GDP” this year. used on regulators. “The exchanges go Calhoun: in need of a miracle to the heart of Boeing’s toxic corporate Many of us in Britain aren’t fully aware culture”: a mix of penny-pinching and cavalier attitudes, “laced of the “totemic status” that Chicago-based Boeing occupies in US with brazen attempts to hoodwink aviation authorities”. business, said Ruth Sunderland in the Daily Mail. It’s the largest exporter in the US and one of its top private employers. “A scandal at Boeing tarnishes the reputation of corporate America David Calhoun’s job just got harder, said Lex in the FT. The man newly appointed to lead Boeing out of its biggest ever crisis “will around the globe.” Boeing isn’t on the brink: despite the fall in its have to work little short of a miracle”. The damning emails reveal shares it’s still worth $186bn. “But this fiasco couldn’t come at not just flaws in the Max, “but hint at a cover-up”. Calhoun has a worse time” for an industry under assault from environmental told Boeing’s 150,000 employees that his top priority is to return campaigners and, in the wake of the downing of a plane in Iran, the plane to service and restart production, which was suspended assailed by new fears of terrorism. “The public’s faith in safe late last year. But equally important will be repairing relationships flying, the bedrock on which the whole industry depends, is now with regulators and the public, something his ejected predecessor at risk – and all because of the rapacity and cynicism at Boeing.”

© CNBC

US/China trade truce: what the punters say An important point of ● A deal at last reconciliation, ahead of Expectations for a US/ the deal, is that Trump China trade deal “have has “scrapped buoyed global markets America’s designation in recent weeks”, said of China as a currency Callum Jones in The manipulator” – a Times. Finally, the significant milestone. two superpowers With Beijing no longer have taken “the longdeemed “guilty of any awaited first step forex funny business”, towards formally “American business feels a sense of relief” the “red-hot renminbi” resolving their bitter duly soared again this economic dispute”. week to a five-month high, said Hudson On Wednesday, officials from Beijing and the Trump administration were due to sign Lockett in the FT. But some analysts warned that there’d always be a risk of the a so-called phase one agreement – hailed rally fading as long as “a more compreas a “huge step forward” in relations by hensive trade deal” remains out of sight. the US chief trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer. Under the terms of the deal, ● Unresolved issues China is expected to increase its purchase There are still “plenty of unresolved of US manufactured goods, according to issues”, said DealBook in The New York Reuters. There was good news for farmers Times. “Beijing didn’t pledge to refrain in Trump’s voting heartlands too. The from hacking US companies” or “stealing Chinese have agreed to buy more US intellectual property” (it doesn’t consider agricultural products, to the value of these trade issues). And bigger changes to $32bn, over two years.

China’s economy, such as state subsidies to its commercial giants, remain under ● Red-hot renminbi negotiation. Another big issue is “how Since Donald Trump took office, the US seriously China will hold itself has imposed tariffs on more than $360bn accountable” to the deal – critics said of imports from China, while Beijing has Beiing’s promises “appear both broad and hit back with duties on American goods vague and overlap with changes it has worth $110bn. So a deal “to end a trade been pursuing anyway”. Yet, for all that, war that has been blamed for slowing the “American businesses still feel a sense of world economy” can’t come soon enough, relief”. Let’s see what phase two brings. said Lizzy Burden in The Daily Telegraph.

Inspector Gadget This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas did not disappoint, said Patrick McGee in the FT. “Ivanka Trump, air taxis and superwide highdefinition TV screens” all took centrestage. But it was the “deluge” of connected devices that drew most attention. “If the futurists have their way, the internet of things will penetrate every room in the household.”

In the bathroom Köhler demonstrated how an Alexa-equipped speaker could be mounted inside its Moxie showerhead – enabling consumers to “shop, get the news or stream music”. And the $120 HiMirror promises “to detect wrinkles, dark spots and pores… and then recommends personalised skin creams to scrub them out”.

In the bedroom Phillips showed a $200 “relief band” which uses “subtle vibrations” to prevent you from “turning into a supine position associated with snoring”. Sleep Number’s Climate360 “smart bed” measures your heart rate to create a “personalised” microclimate to get and keep you in a deep, restful state.

In the gym Health technology was widespread. Of particular note was start-up EnvisionBody’s software, which lets you see “a thinner reflection of yourself live as you work out”. Huami, the “Fitbit of China”, announced a move into home fitness with a handy portable treadmill – the $500 Amazfit AirRun.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

48 CITY Business must up its game in No. 10 Daniel Thomas Financial Times

HS2 is a classic case of crony capitalism Liam Halligan The Sunday Telegraph

Green actions speak louder than words Nils Pratley The Guardian

The dodgy hub of “start-up” Britain Peter Evans The Sunday Times

THE WEEK 18 January 2020

Commentators The civil service is looking for someone “to act as a key point of contact” between the Government and British boardrooms, says Daniel Thomas in the FT. And if recent skirmishes over the shape of a post-Brexit deal are anything to go by, “a thick skin might be useful for the role”. The PM’s determination to avoid a “softer” Brexit is not what most businesses want to hear, and risks exacerbating already strained relations. Business groups have kept silent over the Brexit talks, but if companies are to have any influence over Downing Street, corporate leaders “will need to find their voices again in this honeymoon period – if only to help create domestic policy strong enough to withstand whatever disruption is thrown up by Brexit”. Although the Government’s recent manifesto was light on industry-specific policies, Boris Johnson could yet prove “a business-friendly PM”. But without speedy progress in key areas, such as access to EU markets for the financial services industry, “the relationship will quickly sour again”.

Now that the PM has begun calling for the slaughter of “sacred cows”, speculation is growing that HS2 may finally be put out of its misery, says Liam Halligan. Not before time. The high-speed line between London and Birmingham (with proposed extensions to Manchester and Leeds) has been panned by experts as “grossly overpriced”. When the plan was launched in 2010, the official cost estimate was £30bn. Last week, the distinguished engineer Lord Berkeley (an ex-deputy chairman of the Government’s independent review) warned that the project’s “out of control” costs could spiral to £107bn, “making HS2 the most expensive railway ever built”. Berkeley reckons HS2 will generate just 60p of value for every pound spent. It would certainly be far more fruitful to spend the cash building “transformative new east-west lines” linking northern cities. “Aggressively backed by business lobbies set to ride a wave of public cash, the rationale for HS2 is laughably weak.” Indeed, it is the “embodiment of crony capitalism”.

Anyone who genuinely believes in “levelling up” the regions should argue for the slaughter of this white elephant forthwith.

BlackRock – the world’s largest investor, with $7trn under management – has emerged as champion of all things green, says Nils Pratley. According to CEO Larry Fink, the plan is to “place sustainability at the centre of our investment approach”. Great stuff. But let’s not kid ourselves that it has suddenly become a pacesetter.

Viewing climate change as a “defining factor in companies’ longterm prospects”, as Fink put it, is already a mainstream position in the eyes of many big European fund management houses. It would be churlish to write off BlackRock’s conversion completely. The fund manager has made “some solid commitments in its actively managed portfolios”: to ditch companies that derive more than 25% of their revenues from thermal coal; to launch new investment products that screen for fossil fuels. Still, none of this alters the fact that – simply by dint of its “passive” role tracking the world’s main stock indices – BlackRock “will remain the largest investor in some of the world’s biggest corporate polluters”. If Fink really is serious about the environment, he will deploy BlackRock’s “enormous voting muscle” against “foot-dragging managements” and powerful interests. Not much sign of that yet.

Here’s some buzzy news, says Peter Evans: figures released this week show that the creation of new companies in Britain has hit “record levels”. According to data from Companies House, some 681,704 new businesses saw the light of day last year – up 2.8% on the year before. The breakdown of business types provides a fascinating picture of changing tastes in Britain. The year saw “a burst of tech start-ups and street food vendors” (takeaway food shops and mobile food stands outnumbering licensed restaurants).

In a hot new niche, “ten companies were categorised as raising camels and camelids”. Still, it wasn’t all good news. Experts warn that “zombie companies” have “artificially inflated some results” – most evidently in Bromsgrove in the West Midlands, constituency of Chancellor Sajid Javid. The data show that humble Bromsgrove enjoyed a 52% rise in company formation in 2019, beating cities such as Edinburgh. Unfortunately, Companies House reckons that 84% of these new businesses were “potential distortions”. Time, perhaps, to tighten up the rules.

City profiles Jamie Oliver Creditors of Jamie Oliver’s failed Italian restaurant chain are “set to lose most of the £80m they are owed”, according to administrator KPMG. But there’s no holding back the celebrity chef, said Rebecca Ratcliffe in The Observer. His UK empire may be in tatters, but Oliver is “having another crack” at building a restaurant chain – this time across southeast Asia. The Bangkok branch of Jamie Oliver Kitchen is one of the largest to get a rebrand “from Italian restaurant to world fusion hub”, and there’s a similar move afoot in Bali. In all, some 19 new openings are planned this year to supplement the 70 restaurants across 27 markets that the group already operates. The “Naked Chef” may be stewing at home, but he’s still steaming internationally.

Elon Musk

Shares in Tesla shot through the $500 mark for the first time in the company’s history this week, making the electric carmaker more valuable than GM and Ford combined, said Chris Isidore on CNN Business. Get ready for a monster payday for the company’s “face” – Elon Musk. In 2018, Tesla shareholders approved a package based on stock options that were to kick in when the company hit “aggressive growth targets”.

Given that Tesla shares have trebled since last June, Musk is getting close to the first of 12 big paydays he could receive – the first block of options alone would yield some $350m.

If Musk achieves all the outlined targets, “it could eventually make him the richest man in the world”.

Nothing like a challenge.

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Shares

CITY 51

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares

Directors’ dealings

Legal & General Group The Share Centre The insurer and investment manager looks poised to benefit from growing demand for pensions, protection and savings plans. Profits are up 11% thanks to growth in the retirement business. Yields over 5%. Buy. 306.9p.

Ocado Group The Times Although the online grocer’s retail delivery business is “motoring”, the real potential lies in its tech-driven logistics operation. There are promising partnerships with Asian retail giant Aeon, and US grocer Kroger. Buy. £13.34.

Bioventix The Daily Telegraph Bioventix makes sheep antibodies used for blood tests and, thanks to contracts with testing-machine firms, enjoys “near certainty” of revenues.

Cash-generative, with no debt, high returns on capital and rising margins. Buy. £33.10.

Next Investors Chronicle The clothing and homeware retailer beat its Christmas targets, with 5.2% sales growth driven by its online business. There’s a buyback or special dividend on the cards, and a belief that the sector may recover. Buy. £68.82.

Segro The Sunday Telegraph Scarcity of supply has helped this property investor reap the rewards of warehouses in the UK and Europe. It has pre-let 63% of its development pipeline, raised rents and enjoys a 94% retention rate.

Buy. 870.2p.

U and I Group 180

Director buys 16,949

170 160 150 140 130

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

The regeneration specialist property developer has been enjoying steady share price gains. After a series of purchases in late 2019, director Richard Upton has topped up his holding with a further tranche worth £30,000.

…and some to hold, avoid or sell

Form guide

Aston Martin Lagonda Investors Chronicle Forward orders of the new SUV are rising, but Aston was a late entrant to an overcrowded market, and is in a “parlous financial state” with steep capex requirements.

A stock dilution may be ahead.

Sell. 456p.

Cineworld Group The Times The cinema giant is one of the market’s most shorted firms after the acquisition of Canada’s Cineplex pushed debt to an “eye-watering” $5.7bn.

Shares are volatile, but it’s cash-generative with a viable future. Hold. 200.75p.

Renew The Mail on Sunday Renew majors on essential renewal and maintenance works on railways, mobile antennas, waterworks and nuclear decommissioning.

Well set to benefit from Government infrastructure plans. Hold. 500p.

Brewin Dolphin The Sunday Times The wealth manager’s inflows are “well ahead of peers” – it has amassed £45bn of funds under management.

Acquisitions have boosted scale, but costs have jumped, denting profits. Yields 4.7%.

Hold. 352.8p.

Dignity The Times Shares in the funeral services provider have suffered from a competition probe into the industry. Dignity welcomes regulation, but the dividend has been suspended and there’s too much uncertainty. Avoid. 580p.

Tullow Oil Investors Chronicle Another disappointing well result has prompted resignations, and shares in the explorer have fallen.

Tullow “remains in a tough spot”: production this year is expected to be lower than last. Sell. 60p.

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago Best tip Ideagen Investors Chronicle up 30.41% to 189.75p Worst tip Essentra The Sunday Telegraph up 0.67% to 418.8p

Market view

“It’s not like the trade war is over, done, dusted and settled. We’re not optimistic about phase two.”

Christy Tan of National Australia Bank, on the US/ China trade truce. Quoted in the FT

Market summary Key numbers numbers for investors Key investors FTSE 100 FTSE All-share UK Dow Jones NASDAQ Nikkei 225 Hang Seng Gold Brent Crude Oil DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) UK 10-year gilts yield US 10-year Treasuries UK ECONOMIC DATA Latest CPI (yoy) Latest RPI (yoy) Halifax house price (yoy) £1 STERLING

14 Jan 2020 7622.35 4229.23 29020.01 9272.77 24025.17 28885.14 1549.90 64.83 4.31% 0.75 1.82

Best shares Best and and worst performing shares Week before 7573.85 4209.34 28597.78 9075.68 23575.72 28322.06 1573.10 67.98 4.34% 0.72 1.81

1.3% (Dec) 2.2% (Dec) +4.0% (Dec)

$1.300 E1.167 ¥142.786

1.5% (Nov) 2.2% (Nov) +2.1% (Nov)

Change (%) 0.64% 0.47% 1.48% 2.17% 1.91% 1.99% –1.47% –4.63%

WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS RISES Price % change 1509.00 +10.15 Easyjet 209.90 +7.97 Taylor Wimpey 156.54 +6.74 Vodafone Group 977.00 +5.97 Antofagasta 694.80 +5.37 Meggitt FALLS NMC Health Lloyds Banking Group Mondi Pearson Tui (Lon)

1385.00 58.75 1630.00 605.00 918.00

–7.33 –6.91 –6.16 –5.88 –5.56

BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL 0.07 +97.73 Providence Res. 0.58 –74.44 Cloudbuy Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 14 Jan (pm)

Following the Footsie 7,700 7,600 7,500 7,400 7,300 7,200 7,100 7,000

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Barkby Group The Mail on Sunday Barkby has a diverse portfolio of businesses – including pubs, coffee, and a profitable commercial property firm with a robust project pipeline. It has a “highly experienced board”, and shares could be “exciting”.

Buy. 29p.

The last word

52

“Humans were not centre stage” – how cave art puts us in our place In our self-obsessed age, the anonymous, mysterious cave paintings of our ancient ancestors are exhilarating.

Barbara Ehrenreich looks into the art of the past – and uncovers some lessons for the present In 1940, four teenage boys Cave art had a profound effect on its 20th century viewers, including stumbled, almost literally, from German-occupied France into the the young discoverers of Lascaux, Palaeolithic Age. As the story at least one of whom camped at goes, they had been taking a walk the hole leading to the cave over the winter of 1940-41 to protect in the woods near the town of it from vandals. Palaeolithic art Montignac when the dog has also been credited with accompanying them suddenly inspiring modern artists: Jackson disappeared. A quick search revealed that the animal had Pollock honoured them by putting handprints on his paintings. Pablo fallen into a hole in the ground, so – in the spirit of Tintin, with Picasso reportedly visited the whom they were probably famous Altamira cave before fleeing Spain in 1934, and familiar – the boys made the emerged saying: “Beyond perilous 50ft descent down to find it. They found the dog and much Altamira, all is decadence.” more, especially on return visits illuminated with paraffin lamps.

Of course, cave art also inspired the question raised by all truly The hole led to a cave, the walls and ceilings of which were arresting artistic productions: covered with brightly coloured “But what does it mean?” The paintings of animals unknown to discoverers of Lascaux took their the 20th century Dordogne – questions to one of their schoolmasters, who roped in bison, aurochs, lions. One of the boys, an apprentice mechanic, Henri Breuil, a priest known as later reported that, stunned and “the pope of prehistory”. He elated, they began to dart around offered a “magico-religious” interpretation, with the prefix the cave like “a band of savages doing a war dance”. Another “magico” serving as a slur to recalled that the painted animals distinguish Palaeolithic beliefs in the flickering light of the lamps from the reigning monotheism of also seemed to be moving. “We the modern world. He argued that were completely crazy,” yet the painted animals were meant The Lascaux cave: a celebration of collective effort magically to attract the animals another said, although the build-up of carbon dioxide in a poorly ventilated cave may have they represented – the better for humans to hunt and eat them. had something to do with that.

Unfortunately for his theory, it turns out the animals on cave walls were not always those the artists usually dined on. The creators of the Lascaux art, for example, ate reindeer, not the This was the famous and touristically magnetic Lascaux cave, which eventually had to be closed to visitors lest their exhalations formidable herbivores largely pictured in the cave, which would have been difficult to bring spoil the artwork. Today, 80 years on, we know that Lascaux down with flint-tipped spears.

“Cave art offers a glimpse of a time of is part of a global phenomenon, Today, many scholars answer originally referred to as the question of meaning with a relative peace. It would be another 10,000 “decorated caves”. They have shrug: “We may never know.” years before humans invented war” been found on every continent except Antarctica – at least 350 If sheer curiosity, of the kind are in Europe alone – with the most recent discoveries in Borneo that drove the Lascaux discoverers, isn’t enough to motivate a (2018) and the Balkans (2019). Uncannily, given the distances search for better answers, there is a moral parable reaching out to between them, all these caves are adorned with similar us from the cave at Lascaux. Shortly after its discovery, the one “decorations”: handprints or stencils of human hands, abstract Jewish boy in the group was apprehended and sent to a detention designs containing dots and crosshatched lines, and large animals, centre that served as a stop on the way to Buchenwald. Miracuboth carnivores and herbivores, most of them now extinct. Not lously, he was rescued by the French Red Cross, becoming all of these images appear in each of the decorated caves – some perhaps the only person on Earth who had witnessed both the feature only handprints or megafauna. Scholars of hellscape of 20th century fascism and the artistic remnants of the palaeoarcheology infer that the paintings were made by our distant Palaeolithic age. As we know from the archeological record, the ancestors, although there are no depictions of humans doing any latter offered a glimpse of a time of relative peace among humans. kind of painting. There are human-like creatures, though, or what No doubt there were homicides and tensions between and within some archeologists cautiously call “humanoids”, referring to the human bands, but it would be at least another 10,000 years bipedal stick figures sometimes found on the margins of panels before the invention of war as a collective activity. The cave art containing animal shapes. The nonhuman animals are painted suggests humans once had better ways to spend their time. with almost supernatural attention to facial and muscular detail, but the humanoids have no faces.

If they were humans – and there are so few stick figures or bipeds THE WEEK 18 January 2020

The last word

53

of any kind in cave art that we cannot be It took the collective effort of many entirely sure – the marginality of human people to decorate a cave – to inspect figures in cave paintings suggests that, at walls for imperfections suggestive of animal shapes, to haul logs for the least from a human point of view, the central drama of the Palaeolithic went scaffolding from which artists worked, on between the various megafauna – to mix the ochre paint, to provide food carnivores and large herbivores. So and water. Careful analysis of cave handprints reveals participants included depleted is our own world of megafauna both women and men, adults and that it is hard to imagine how thick on the ground large mammals once were, children. In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari emphasises the importance or how dangerous they were for humans – whether herbivores like aurochs (giant of collective effort in human evolution. cattle) or death-dealing carnivores. As Individual skill and courage helped, but so did the willingness to stand with one’s one expert puts it, “In the Palaeolithic band: not to scatter when a dangerous world, humans were not at the centre of Altamira, Spain: art that inspired Picasso animal approached, not to climb a tree the stage.” Yet despite this, 20th century and leave the baby behind. Maybe, in the scholars tended to claim cave art as evidence of an unalloyed triumph for our species. It was a “great challenging context of an animal-dominated planet, the need for solidarity so far exceeded the need for individual recognition that, spiritual symbol”, one art historian proclaimed, of a time when “instead of being dominated by animals, man began to dominate at least in art, humans didn’t need faces. them”. But the stick figures found in caves like Lascaux do not One thing is certain: all this cave painting came to an end roughly radiate triumph. Compared to the animals portrayed around 12,000 years ago, with what has been called the “Neolithic them, they look pathetically weak.

Revolution”. Lacking pack animals and perhaps tired of walking, humans – who had previously moved to follow seasonal animal Of course, our reactions to cave art may bear no connection migrations and the ripening of fruits – began to settle in villages to the intentions of the artists. Yet there are reasons to believe and then walled cities, inventing agriculture and domesticating Palaeolithic people had a sense of humour not wholly unlike our own. India’s Mesolithic rock art portrays few human stick figures; many of the wild animals whose ancestors figured so those that are portrayed have been described by modern viewers prominently in cave art. They learnt to weave, brew beer, smelt ore and craft blades. But whatever comforts sedentism brought as “comical” and “grotesque”. Or consider the famed “birdman” came at a terrible price: property, in the form of grain and edible image at Lascaux, in which a stick figure with a long skinny herds, segmented societies into classes and seduced humans into erection falls backwards at the approach of a bison. warfare – which in turn led to the subjugation of women and Then there is the mystery of the exploding Venuses, discovered the institution of slavery. Wherever sedentism took hold, from in what is now the Czech Republic in the 1920s. For decades, China to America, coercion by the powerful replaced cooperation among equals. In Jared researchers puzzled over why these carefully crafted ceramic Diamond’s blunt assessment, “There are reasons to believe that people the Neolithic Revolution figures of fat women with huge breasts and buttocks (although, in Palaeolithic times had a sense of humour was “the worst mistake” in human history. of course, no faces) consisted that was not wholly unlike our own” almost entirely of fragments.

Shoddy craftsmanship? An At least it gave us faces. Starting overheated kiln? Then, in 1989, archeologists figured out that the with the implacable “mother goddesses” of the Neolithic Middle East and moving on to the proliferation of kings and heroes in the clay had been deliberately treated so the figurines would explode Bronze Age, the emergence of human faces seems to mark the when tossed into a fire, creating what one historian called a loud – and perhaps dangerous – display of “Palaeolithic pyrotechnics”. birth of what we now know as narcissism. Kings and occasionally their consorts were the first to enjoy the new marks of personal The vein of silliness that seems to run through Palaeolithic art superiority – crowns, jewellery, slaves, and the arrogance that may grow out of an accurate perception of humans’ place in the went along with these appurtenances. Over the centuries, world. Compared to the megafauna around them, our ancestors narcissism spread down to the bourgeoisie – until, in our own understood they occupied a lowly spot in the food chain. They time, anyone who can afford a smartphone can now propagate knew they were meat – but they were meat that could think. their own image.

And that, if you think about it, is almost funny.

So why do we need decorated caves any more? One reason is that Why caves? The use of these spaces for making art was not they are still capable of inspiring transcendent experiences and because they were convenient. In fact, there is no evidence of connecting us with the long-lost “natural world”. We should be continuous human habitation in the decorated caves, and drawn back to these Palaeolithic spaces for the message they have certainly none in the deepest, hard-to-access crannies reserved for preserved for more than 10,000 generations. Of course, it was not the most spectacular paintings. Cave artists are not to be confused intended for us, this message, nor could its authors have imagined with “cavemen”. Cave art came down to us through a simple such ecologically self-destructive descendants as we have become. process of natural selection: Palaeolithic people painted other But it’s in our hands now, still illegible unless we push back hard surfaces, as well as their own bodies, in the same way as cave against the artificial dividing line between history and prehistory, walls. The difference is that the paintings on cave walls were well between the “primitive” and the “advanced”. It will be worth the enough protected to survive. But there is something else about effort because our Palaeolithic ancestors, with their faceless caves. Not only were they storage spaces for precious artwork, humanoids and capacity for silliness, seem to have known they were also gathering places. To many paleoanthropologists, something we strain to imagine. such spaces suggest rituals, places where humans communed with a higher power. Visual art may have been only one part of the They knew where they stood in the scheme of things, which was spectacle; recently, attention has been paid to the acoustics of not very high, and this seems to have made them laugh. I strongly decorated caves and how they may have generated awe-inspiring suspect that we will not survive the mass extinction we have reverberant sounds. Perhaps people chanted or drummed, while prepared for ourselves unless we, too, finally get the joke. staring at the lifelike animals around them. They may even have got high on, say, “magic mushrooms” they found growing wild.

A longer version of this article appeared in The Baffler magazine.

18 January 2020 THE WEEK

54

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Crossword

55

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1192

This wee ek’s winner will receive an Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) Sterling travel se in orange, which retails pass cas at £105, and two Connell Guides (connellguides.com).

An 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 27 January. Send it to: The Week Crossword 1192, 2nd floor, 32 Queensway, London W2 3RX, or email the answers to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.info) 1

ACROSS

DOWN

8 Head of tasting approves sweet wines (6) 9 First lady to appear with theatrical type in off-Broadway location (7) 10 Town bored silly in Essex borough (9) 11 Old judge to speak pompously (5) 12 Pinkerton’s superior in Butterfly (7) 15 Sounds like bloke rejected for bulk distribution (4-3) 16 As provided by mountain coaches? (6,9) 20 Wine in new canister unopened (7) 23 Talk by salesman on new model (7) 25 Douglas and son in Scottish churches (5) 26 Port is behind a lot of cereal outside (9) 29 Body parts used by a number of professors (7) 30 Very likely to have additional offspring (4-2)

1 Ladies perhaps spoken of in West country town (4) 2 Victim of railway passenger vehicle reversing (6) 3 Some yobs are up for this? (4) 4 Models working rarely (6) 5 Lady in command interrupting Romeo and Juliet scene (8) 6 Reduced poached cod – it won’t cost you much (6) 7 Duck off, cook one recipe with mint sauce (12) 10 Kilts breathe after changing pants (12) 13 Stick up for a fool (3) 14 Old railway in Foulness (3) 17 Issue from start of election campaign (8) 18 Official on high retaining millions (3) 19 Some servicemen in reserve (3) 21 Italian city’s good for British codebreaker (6) 22 No more than half air temperature (2,4) 24 With it there’s a goal in rugby score (6) 27 Screen opening up (4) 28 Hank and John on Pimm’s no. 1 (4)

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Name Address Tel no

Clue of the week: Nub? (6-4,4) The Observer, Everyman

Clue of the week answer: Solution to Crossword 1190 ACROSS: 10 Lag 11 Corolla 12 Lepanto 13 Agronomic 15 Surprised 17 Nutty 19 Nylon 20 Bombard 21 Remembers 23 Cal 24 Nisei 25 Frown 26 Inn 28 Transport 29 Targets 30 Tease 31 Cheer 32 Vengeance 34 Termagant 36 Teheran 38 Air-mail 40 Tea DOWN: 2 Sugar 3 Hackney 4 Fir 5 Roll-calls 6 Transonic 7 Idler 8 Experiments 9 Nan 14 Mince pies 16 Soapstone 18 Tambourin 20 Balladeer 22 Montenegrin 27 Notre-Dame 28 Trattoria 32 Charlie 33 Nonce 35 Alter 38 Han 39 Ads Clue of the week: Device giving go-ahead for soldiers to penetrate area that’s been shelled (3,5 first letter E) Solution: EGG TIMER (a deceptive definition) The quotation was “It’s the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas” (James CAL-LAG-HAN)

The winners of 1190 are Matthew and Kate North from London

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Sudoku 736 (very difficult) DAYTIME TEL NO.

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EMAIL

Fill in all the squares so that each row, column and each of the 3x3 squares contains all the digits from 1 to 9

Solution to Sudoku 735

5

3 9 1 9 7 2 4 8

6 5 1 7 2 8 3 9 4

8 9 3 4 6 1 2 7 5

7 2 4 9 3 5 1 6 8

4 6 9 3 7 2 5 8 1

3 7 5 1 8 9 4 2 6

1 8 2 5 4 6 9 3 7

5 4 6 2 9 7 8 1 3

2 3 7 8 1 4 6 5 9

9 1 8 6 5 3 7 4 2

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TM CRUX UK Special Situations Fund

year and up to speed - that’s the

Leaving others in the rear view mirror The TM CRUX UK Special Situations Fund was launched just a year ago and has already achieved strong returns for early investors.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns but we strive to deliver strong results throughout the market’s ups and downs.

The fund’s manager, Richard Penny, has invested a significant amount of his own money in the fund and believes there are still many UK companies that are undervalued and currently represent good value.

With a resolution to Brexit on the horizon, now could be a good time to take advantage of the opportunities this fund presents.

Consult your financial adviser, call or visit:

0800 30 474 24

www.cruxam.com

Fund Featured; TM CRUX UK Special Situations Fund. This financial promotion has been approved under Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 by CRUX Asset Management Ltd. This financial promotion is issued by CRUX Asset Management Limited who are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 623757) and is directed at persons residing in jurisdictions where the Company and its shares are authorised for distribution or where no such authorisation is required. The value of an investment and the income from it can fall as well as rise and you may not get back the amount originally invested.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Please read all scheme documents prior to investing. The KIID and Fund Prospectus and other documentation related to the Scheme, are available from the CRUX website www.cruxam.com.