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THE WEEK

17 JULY 2021 | ISSUE 1340 | £3.99

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What happened

What the editorials said

Freedom day

“So it’s certain,” said The Sun. Next week, England will be almost entirely free from “Covid curbs”. And rightly so.

“Zero Covid” isn’t a viable strategy, and a further delay in unlocking until schools return and the weather cools could lead to a “bigger and more deadly wave next spring”. This is certainly a step in the right direction, agreed the Daily Mail. But it’ll hardly be “freedom as we know it”. Masks will still be “strongly advised” in indoor spaces; working from home will continue; and ministers have conspicuously failed to rule out another winter lockdown.

Boris Johnson confirmed this week that almost all remaining legal Covid restrictions in England will end on Monday – but urged the public to exercise “extreme caution” when enjoying their new freedoms. Indoor venues such as cinemas, theatres and pubs can operate at full capacity, and masks will no longer be mandatory (though they will remain so on London transport and possibly in other cities).

The PM’s decision was taken despite growing case numbers, which government scientists said Even with caveats, the PM’s strategy is a risky could lead to hospital admissions rising above one, said The Observer. Case numbers rose by January levels to 4,800 a day, with up to 200 some 58% last week, with an estimated one in daily deaths within weeks. Johnson urged The PM: it’s “not the end” 160 people in England currently infected. And people not to be “demob happy” following the relaxation in rules. “This is not the end of Covid,” he warned. while vaccines have “dramatically cut” the risk of dying from the virus, we’ve still double jabbed only 65% of UK adults.

Most Britons actively want restrictions to continue, said The Restrictions will also be eased slightly in Scotland on Monday – but limits on gatherings inside and outside will continue, and Economist. Recent polling shows two-thirds think masks, social distancing and travel limits should remain for another face masks will remain mandatory. The Scottish government month; and a “sizeable minority” want freedoms restricted says it hopes to remove remaining restrictions on 9 August. In Wales most remaining Covid restrictions will end on 7 August; permanently. One in four of us are happy to see nightclubs but face coverings will still be required in indoor public places. close for good; two in ten want a permanent 10pm curfew.

What happened

Defeat at Wembley

England’s hopes of winning its first major football tournament since 1966 were dashed on Sunday night when it lost the Euro 2020 final to Italy. The defeat was watched by a 70,000-strong crowd at Wembley, along with an estimated UK TV audience of 31 million. There were violent scenes before the match when hundreds of ticketless England supporters stormed the stadium, breaking through security barriers. The event was further marred by a slew of racist abuse on social media aimed at the three England players who missed their penalties: Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka.

What the editorials said It would be easy to regard this result as “yet another sad and sorry failure for the national team”, said The Independent.

Easy, but wrong. While it may have ended with the customary penalties “nightmare”, this was a fantastic tournament for England. It fielded a young and inspiring team who reached the first major final in 55 years, beating Germany along the way. What a shame, though, that this enjoyable few weeks had such a “squalid postscript”, said The Guardian. The good memories have been spoilt by the racist abuse, and the violent scenes at Wembley.

The old demons of English football – racism and hooliganism – have resurfaced, said the FT. But the furore over the vile attacks “is, paradoxically, a sign of progress”. Racist abuse used to be routine in football. Players England manager Gareth Southgate Southgate consoles Saka were just expected to put up with it. Today, condemned the abuse as “unforgivable”, as rightly, it causes an outcry, and players don’t hesitate to call did senior ministers. But England defender Tyrone Mings it out. There’s still some way to go, though. Patel refused to accused Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, of double condemn fans who booed the England team for kneeling – and standards, saying she had fuelled the vitriol by suggesting dismissed the gesture. But the abuse of players “underlines that the practice of players “taking the knee” to protest exactly why the gesture was and is necessary”. against racial inequality was “gesture politics”.

It wasn’t all bad A British teenager last week became the youngest person to fly solo around the world.

Travis Ludlow, from Ibstone in Buckinghamshire, completed the 25,000-mile flight at the age of 18 years and 149 days, 13 days younger than the previous record-holder. The entire trip took 44 days, with Ludlow sometimes spending eight hours unbroken at the controls of his single-engine Cessna.

“It was very stressful,” said his proud father Nick Ludlow. “I’m glad it’s over.”

After 30 years, China has taken the giant panda off its list of endangered species. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment in Beijing said that the number of giant pandas in the wild had increased by almost 20% in a decade to at least 1,800, thanks to the creation of more nature reserves, and the replanting of bamboo forests which are vital to the panda’s diet; an adult panda eats up to 45lbs of bamboo stems a day. The ministry said that populations of other rare and endangered species, including the Siberian tiger, the Asian elephant, and the crested ibis, had also increased “significantly”.

A London hospital has staged the first public performance of a string quartet composed by a six-year-old boy. Apollo Premadasa first contacted St Bartholomew’s hospital in the City last year, to say that he had written the piece, Pandemia, as a “thank you” to health workers everywhere. Its three movements – “Survival”, “Hope” and “Fight” – are intended to represent the world’s experience of the pandemic over the last 18 months. The quartet was played by medical staff in the hospital’s Great Hall.

COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM THE WEEK 17 July 2021

…and how they were covered

NEWS 5

What the commentators said

What next?

“We are now rolling the dice,” said Tom Whipple in The Times. Many scientists “vociferously oppose” the Government’s decision to let infections rip at a time when hospital admissions have surged by 48% in a week. More than 100 of them recently wrote to The Lancet decrying the plan as an “unethical experiment”. They warned it could burden the nation with long Covid, which has already affected up to two million of us, and create ideal conditions for vaccine-resistant variants to emerge – as well as causing thousands more deaths. But others argue that, with vaccination rates falling among the young and no plans to inoculate children, unlocking is the only way to reach “herd immunity, and delaying opening just delays deaths”.

Face coverings will remain compulsory on London’s transport network even after restrictions have been eased, it was announced this week.

Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said he did not rule out similar rules remaining in place there.

Yet for some reason the PM seems to have “lost his nerve”, said Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph. Having promised a full return to freedom last week, he has instead replaced Covid laws with an array of illiberal guidelines “from which there is no obvious escape”. The PM’s plan has left many Tory MPs in “rebellious mood”, said Andrew Grice in The Independent.

But those with the most to complain about are the thousands of people who’ll catch Covid this summer, or the millions who’ll be forced to self-isolate after being “pinged” by a contact.

“The number of people being told to self-isolate by the NHS app is now three times higher than the number testing positive for the virus,” said Michael Goodier in the New Statesman. While that shows the app is working well, it’s causing problems for businesses and the NHS, which are being hit by staff shortages – and has led to reports of people deleting it “en masse” to avoid isolation. With public tolerance of restrictions waning, Johnson’s gamble may turn out to be a “career-defining one”, said Sebastian Payne in the FT. If the assumption behind his plan proves to be correct and herd immunity is reached by “mixing injections and infections”, the PM will have delivered a “skin-of-his-teeth success”. But if it’s wrong and England returns to restrictions or lockdown, the Tories’ vaccine bounce in opinion polls will quickly disappear.

Ministers are drawing up plans for Covid certificates to be required for entry to bars, restaurants and nightclubs from the autumn, The Times reports. The plan, which could be in place by midSeptember, means customers would have to show either proof they’ve had two jabs or a negative test before entering entertainment venues. It is hoped the measure will boost jab rates among the young after a recent fall in take-up.

What the commentators said

What next?

This is a special England team, said David Goldblatt in The Guardian. A unprecedentedly diverse group, many with migrant roots, they’ve inspired admiration not just through their skill on the field but also through their mature, socially aware attitude. They’ve campaigned on behalf of hungry children, and for social and racial justice. Harry Kane wore a rainbow captain’s armband in honour of Pride Month; Jordan Henderson celebrated an LGBT fan’s first “out” attendance at an England game. They’ve thrived under the emotionally-intelligent leadership of Southgate. They’re a nice bunch, said Stephen Pollard in the Daily Express, but let’s not read too much political significance into this team and the Euro 2020 contest. Bottom line: they did well, and the country – with the exception of a few bigots – united behind them.

The PM has promised to ban people guilty of sending online racist abuse to footballers from attending matches. At present, such banning orders are imposed for offences such as throwing missiles onto the pitch, or racist chanting during a match.

The reality is that these events don’t really have any significance for a country’s future, agreed Ed West on UnHerd. The hype over the London Olympics of 2012 should have taught us that.

Or look at the 1998 World Cup. France’s victory in that tournament with the “first great multiracial national team in Europe” prompted lots of breathless articles about how it was going to bring a divided country together. Yet four years later, the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen came second in the presidential election. I, for one, am pleased we didn’t win Euro 2020, said Giles Coren in The Times. Think of the pressure it would have put on future England teams.

Think how insufferable Boris Johnson would have been. Losing bravely suits us better. “We took a pasting in 1066, and from it built a nation, a language, a culture. But after winning the Second World War, we went into terminal decline.” For a long time Britons settled for our status as noble sporting losers, said Ben Sixsmith in The Daily Telegraph. But over recent decades we’ve shaken off this “defeatist baggage”, beating the Australians in the Ashes, winning the rugby union World Cup and triumphing at Wimbledon. England didn’t quite make it in Euro 2020, but never mind. Let’s keep aiming high. “Football, damn it, will come home.”

THE WEEK

The body of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham has had a busy afterlife. After his death in 1832, he left instructions that he should be preserved and placed on show. He remains on display at University College London, intact save for his head, which is now made of wax after the original grew dilapidated. The new president and provost, Professor Michael Spence, has not only promised to promote Bentham as an attraction, but also voiced a Benthamite commitment to a culture of “disagreeing well” and the civilised airing of contentious ideas. The return of a less punitive attitude to utterance is welcome, particularly in UCL, which in 2015 found itself in the thick of a row over Sir Tim Hunt, an eminent British scientist who had made a silly remark about “the trouble with girls in labs” at a lunch in South Korea. As social media outrage mounted, a rattled UCL forced Sir Tim to resign his honorary post: his Nobel Prize and the warm testimony of female colleagues counted for nothing. This has become a familiar template for “cancellations” whereby public figures, often with a history of admirable work, are mobbed for a clumsy comment – or deviation from “approved” opinion – while others rampage freely around the internet issuing violent threats. The milk of human kindness has evaporated from public discourse, and the resulting bitterness doesn’t seem to make anyone happier. I think that Bentham – a philosopher much concerned Jenny McCartney with happiness – will smile upon the new approach.

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Uefa has opened disciplinary proceedings against the English Football Association over the chaotic scenes at Wembley, reports The Independent. It could result in a hefty fine or in England having to play its next Uefa-sanctioned game behind closed doors. It’s feared the violence could derail Britain’s bid to host the World Cup in 2030.

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17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Politics

6 NEWS Controversy of the week

Patel’s asylum plan In 2012, Gulwali Passarlay, a teenage Afghan refugee, proudly carried the Olympic torch on its way to the London Games, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. Only six years earlier, he was a desperate 12-year-old caught in the crossfire between Taliban and US forces in Afghanistan. His mother paid a smuggler to take him on a “gruelling 12,000-mile trek” which ended up with him entering Britain in a refrigerated lorry. Yet had Home Secretary Priti Patel’s new Nationality and Borders Bill been law in 2006, Passarlay would have committed a criminal offence just by coming here. This cruel bill proposes a two-tier system for refugees: those with “papers or permission to enter” will be allowed to claim asylum; those arriving as Passarlay did could be jailed and then deported. But repressive regimes don’t tend to offer their Facing a two-tier system? people well-managed paths out of the country, and Britain has closed down almost all “safe and legal routes” to enter the UK. Ministers claim they are driven to action by “an upsurge” of asylum seekers. In fact, current UK numbers are relatively low: in 2019 – the last full year before the pandemic – they stood at 36,000, less than half those of 20 years ago.

I think Patel should be applauded for her “courage”, said Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch UK in the Daily Mail. The bill’s prime targets are not the people desperately trying to escape from oppression, they are the “asylum shoppers” – migrants who arrive in Britain illegally “via a safe country” – and the people smugglers who exploit them. Make no mistake, though: every attempt will be made to “neutralise” Patel’s efforts. The Government has promised repeatedly that anyone entering the UK illegally would be “sent back”. Yet out of 6,600 people who did that by crossing the Channel on small boats so far this year, not one has been deported. All of Patel’s plans, such as “off-shore processing centres” for asylum seekers, will get bogged down in legal and political challenges. They deserve to, said Anoosh Chakelian in the New Statesman. The new bill criminalises anyone who “knowingly facilitates” the arrival of an asylum seeker in the UK. That could include rescue services helping migrants in distress, even though it’s what international maritime law obliges them to do.

This punitive bill “breaches the letter and spirit” of refugee agreements which the UK signed up to, said David Aaronovitch in The Times. Perhaps more importantly, its aims are “clearly unachievable”. Much as Patel may want to send asylum seekers back to France, she can’t, because France won’t have them. “People smuggling is horribly like the drugs trade.” It will always go on as long as people wish to escape misery and there is no legal alternative. We would be best off increasing the size of our legal resettlement programme to undercut the criminal networks. But that won’t happen, and the “war on people smugglers” will go on endlessly – just like “the war on drugs”.

Spirit of the age The Entomological Society of America (ESA) has cancelled the gypsy moth.

The ESA is reviewing “inappropriate or offensive” insect names and has decided to “remove” the pest’s common name, because it uses a derogatory term for the Romani people.

It will now be known only as Lymantria dispar. The Oriental rat flea, the Asian needle ant and the West Indian cane weevil are also being re-considered. “We don’t want to associate invasive pests with particular regions of the world or particular ethnic and cultural groups,” said the ESA. A mint condition copy of the video game Super Mario 64, dating from 1996, has sold at auction for more than $1.5m (£1.1m), making it the most expensive video game ever sold.

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Good week for:

Rewilding, after a baby beaver was born on Exmoor for the first time in 400 years, to two adults successfully reintroduced to the Holnicote Estate by the National Trust in 2020.

Discarded Lego pieces, with the release of an app called Brickit. It allows users to scan a jumble of pieces with their smartphone camera and discover what can be built, using a database of more than 1,500 models.

Daytrippers, with the news that Buckingham Palace’s gardens are now open to the public. Ticket holders will be able to roam around much of the Palace’s 39-acre grounds, and examine the Queen’s 156-metre herbaceous borders.

Bad week for:

Southern Water, which has been fined a record £90m for deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected seas over several years, for its own financial gain. Over nearly six years, the water company poured a total of between 16bn and 21bn litres of untreated sewage into the seas off north Kent and Hampshire, so as to avoid financial penalties and the cost of upgrading and maintaining infrastructure.

Dundee, which has been named as the Covid-19 capital of Europe. Over the past fortnight, over 1% of Dundee’s 150,000 residents have tested positive, the continent’s highest rate.

The Nag’s Head, a pub in Sutton-in-Ashfield, which was hit by a crash-landing hot-air balloon on Sunday morning. It escaped with a few broken tiles; one passenger suffered a nosebleed. The pilot Andrew Davidson said that the landing was “very, very unusual”.

Foreign aid vote

Boris Johnson this week saw off a Tory rebellion over his plan to cut UK spending on foreign aid. MPs voted by a majority of 35 to keep the overseas development budget at 0.5% of national income, and not to reinstate the 0.7% figure that was in place until this year.

Ministers insist that the cut – which will reduce aid by around £4.4bn – is a temporary move to alleviate pandemic pressures. But critics accused the PM of abandoning a manifesto promise at the expense of the world’s poor. In total, 24 Conservatives voted against the Government, including the former PM Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt.

Whitehall reform

An independent review into the Civil Service has called on the Government to scrap the rule that ministers must sit in either the Commons or the Lords so that it can bring in “greater talent” from the private sector. The proposal from The Commission for Smart Government won the backing of the Cabinet Office Minister, Michael Gove.

The Commission has also recommended creating a new special “prime minister’s department” to deliver the PM’s priorities; and replacing departmental permanent secretaries with new chief executives.

Poll watch A fifth of adults under 35 say they have only one or no close friends; this proportion has tripled in a decade.

Those aged between 18 and 24 were three times more likely (48%) to distrust their neighbours, than those aged 65 and over (15%).

Onward/Stack Data Strategy Eight out of ten British employees would not favour accepting a reduction in working hours to four days per week if it resulted in lower wages. Only one in ten employees would be willing to work less and earn less. White-collar workers and people in top-paying jobs were the most willing to cut working hours; those in hospitality and care were the least willing, with one in seven wanting to work for longer.

Social Market Foundation/ Office for National Statistics

Europe at a glance Amsterdam Suspect held: Peter R. de Vries, a high-profile Dutch journalist, remained in a critical condition in hospital after being shot five times on a busy street in central Amsterdam last week. Within hours of the shooting, Delano Geerman, a 21-year-old rapper, had been arrested. A second suspect, a Polish national, is also in custody. De Vries (pictured) came to prominence in the 1980s for his coverage of the abduction of the brewing magnate Freddy Heineken. He is known for investigating organised crime, and there is speculation that his attempted killing may be linked to his involvement in a high-profile gangland drug and murder case, known as the Marengo trial.

NEWS 7

Örebro, Sweden Skydivers killed: A plane carrying eight members of a skydiving club crashed at Örebro airport, about 100 miles west of Stockholm, last Thursday – killing all eight passengers and the pilot. The small propeller aircraft, a DHC-2 Beaver, crashed shortly after take-off and burst into flames on impact. The tragedy was eerily similar to another accident in 2019 in northern Sweden, which also killed nine people when a plane carrying skydivers crashed soon after take-off. In that case, the crash investigation showed the plane had been improperly loaded. The cause of last week’s disaster is not yet known. Hans Kjäll, a Swedish flight safety expert, said that the plane involved was manufactured in 1966. “It’s a 55-year-old aircraft, still operating,” he said. “That does not directly mean that the flight safety is bad, but the safety record for this type of plane has been a bit mixed.”

Moscow Hacker warning: Vladimir Putin has been warned once again by President Biden that the US will “take any necessary action” to defend its infrastructure against ransomware cyberattacks originating from Russia. The warning last Friday – following another made at a recent summit in Geneva – came after another massive attack, by the hacking group REvil, which is thought to be based in Russia. REvil struck up to 1,500 businesses in the US, Europe and Asia, demanding $70m to unlock the systems of the software company Kaseya. On Tuesday, a blog and a payment website for REvil suddenly went offline. The disappearance sparked speculation that either the US or Russian officials may have taken action.

Prague Over for “ova”: After years of fierce debate in the Czech Republic, its parliament has passed a bill scrapping the legal requirement for women’s surnames to end in the feminine suffix “ova”. The Czech language, in common with some other Slavic languages, forms a woman’s surname by adding a suffix to the name of her father or husband. The Czechs turned this linguistic convention into law in 1945, although today there are several exceptions, for example for women who are foreign nationals or who are married to foreigners. Even so, many Czech publications do add the suffix to the names of foreign women, and forms such as “Angela Merkelova” are often seen in print. Campaigners have long argued that the “ova” suffix is demeaning, since it is literally the possessive form of the male’s surname. Opponents of the change say that “ova” simply connotes femininity.

Warsaw Tusk returns: Poland’s former centre-right PM, Donald Tusk, has returned to domestic politics in the hope of ousting his rival Jarosław Kaczynski, the country’s hardright nationalist leader. Tusk (pictured), who served as president of the European Council from 2014-2019, became a familiar face to Britons during Brexit, notable for his rueful Anglophilia. Last Saturday, he was elected leader of Civic Platform, the conservative party he co-founded 20 years ago. Kaczynski was also re-elected as leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which heads a fragile three-party coalition.

Paris Covid surge: President Macron has announced plans to make coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for all health and care-home workers. France will also make Covid passports a requirement for access to trains, shopping centres and restaurants from next month. In a sombre TV address to the nation, Macron announced that health workers who are not fully jabbed will have their pay stopped from 15 September. He warned of the threat from the Delta variant, and said he could make jabs mandatory for the whole population if the take-up rate did not improve (about 37% of the population is fully vaccinated).

In the Netherlands, the PM Mark Rutte apologised for his “error of judgement” in scrapping Covid restrictions too soon. The country lifted most measures three weeks ago, but has since seen a surge in cases to the highest levels since December.

Restrictions have now been reimposed.

Paris 19mph limit: The whole of Paris will be subject to a road speed limit of 30km/h – slightly less than 19mph – from next month, its mayor has announced. Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist who was re-elected as the capital’s mayor as part of a Left-Green alliance in 2020, said her election pledge to expand the city’s low-speed zones would be implemented by the end of August. The only exceptions will be the Champs-Élysées and a few other arterial routes, where the limit will stay at 50km/h (31mph). The aim is to make the city safer for cyclists and pedestrians: the chances of a pedestrian dying if hit by a vehicle are nine times lower at 30 km/h than they are at 50km/h (according to the Paris authorities). The policy is also designed to reduce pollution and noise. About 60% of central Paris residents support the lower limit, but only 36% of residents in the greater Paris area do.

Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

8 NEWS

The world at a glance

Sierra County, New Mexico Space trip: The billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson successfully travelled to the edge of space last week, on board the Virgin Galactic rocket ship that his company has been developing for 17 years. Together with two pilots and three other colleagues, Branson blasted off from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, returning an hour later. “I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid and, honestly, nothing can prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” said Branson, who is the first commercial spaceflight pioneer to test his own vehicle, beating his billionaire rivals Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk (see page 44). He said he was honoured to “test the customer experience” and declared: “Welcome to the dawn of a new space age.” However, there was some questioning as to whether Branson had actually visited “space”. His trip reached a height of 86km. That’s enough to experience weightlessness, but does not cross the Kármán line (some 100km above Earth) that is often cited as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.

Chicago, Illinois Gun violence: The mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, has pleaded with President Biden for more help and resources in tackling the city’s epidemic of gun violence, following an Independence Day weekend that saw 18 people shot dead in the city – and at least another 90 injured. Five children aged under 13 were among those who suffered gunshot wounds, on the US’s deadliest and most violent weekend of the year so far. According to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a monitoring group, 189 people died across the US – and 516 were injured – in shootings over the three-day holiday weekend from 3-5 July. The number of people shot dead in the US rose to 43,555 last year, and is on course to hit a new record high in 2021. In April, President Biden passed a number of executive actions relating to gun control measures, and instructed the Department of Justice to published “model” legislation for individual states to enact.

Death Valley, California Record heatwave: The devastating heatwave affecting the west of the US has seen Death Valley in California record the highest daytime average temperature ever noted on the planet. Last Sunday, the temperature there at dawn was already 42°C, rising to 53.7°C later in the day, giving an average of just over 47.8°C (118.1°F). Last Friday, the US National Weather Service measured the daytime high at Furnace Creek in Death Valley at 54.4°C (130°F), equalling the third-highest temperature ever recorded on Earth (at the same spot in 2020). Several other places in California and Nevada have broken local records, while recent weeks have also seen record heatwaves in Canada, the US northwest, Scandinavia and Siberia. This series of rare events has prompted climate scientists to ask whether their computer models may have underestimated the dangerous effects of climate change.

Havana Rare protests: Cuba has been rocked by the biggest antigovernment protests for three decades – an outpouring of anger at food shortages, high prices and the communist government’s handling of the pandemic. Thousands of people took to the streets in a wave of protest that began in San Antonio de los Baños on Sunday, and spread within hours to Havana and other cities, fuelled by social media. “This is the day.

We can’t take it any more. There is no food, there is no medicine, there is no freedom. They do not let us live. We are already tired,” a protester named Alejandro told the BBC. Scores of protesters have been detained or disappeared. Thousands of pro-government supporters also took to the streets after President Miguel DíazCanel went on TV to urge people to “defend the revolution”.

Caracas Opponent arrested: Venezuelan agents arrested a key opposition politician, Freddy Guevara, this week on suspicion of treason and terrorism offences. Guevara, 35, is a close ally of Juan Guaidó, the former national assembly president who has been recognised by many countries (including the UK and US) as the country’s legitimate president. Guevara was pardoned less than a year ago on charges of instigating violence against President Maduro’s regime, but on Monday his car was intercepted on a Caracas highway, and he was taken to prison. Guaidó said that unidentified armed men threatened him as he tried to leave his apartment in an effort to assist Guevara. The economic and security situation in Venezuela remains dire. Last week, at least 26 people were killed in clashes between police and gangs in Caracas.

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Córdoba, Argentina Golf champion jailed: Argentina’s greatest ever golfer, Ángel Cabrera, has been jailed for two years for domestic violence. Cabrera, 51, won the US Open in 2007 and the US Masters in 2009, and had been competing until last September. He was found guilty by a court in Córdoba of assaulting, intimidating and harassing Cecilia Torres Mana, 37, his partner between 2016 and 2018. During the trial, the judge was shown a video clip in which Cabrera threatened Torres Mana, shouting “You’re going to end up in the cemetery.” Two other women, including his ex-wife, have also accused the golfer of threatening them. Cabrera left Argentina after the charges were announced last autumn, but was later extradited from Brazil.

The world at a glance Johannesburg, South Africa Worst unrest since apartheid: At least 70 people have been killed in days of protests, riots and looting in South Africa, sparked by the jailing last week of the former president Jacob Zuma.

President Cyril Ramaphosa made a series of TV addresses in an attempt to calm the violence, and described the unrest as “unprecedented” in “the history of our democracy”. The two provinces affected to date are Gauteng (where Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, is located) and KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, where the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg were badly affected. On Monday, ten people were killed in a stampede during looting at a shopping centre in Soweto. Ramaphosa deployed the army to re-establish order, and warned that the unrest would cause shortages.

On 29 June, Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in jail for contempt of court; he had refused to cooperate with an enquiry into state corruption during his 2009-18 presidency. He handed himself into custody last week, but is appealing. Zuma’s time in office was tainted by corruption scandals, but he remains popular with many South Africans, especially poorer people. Unemployment now stands at a record 32.6%.

NEWS 9

Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan Taliban offensive: Taliban fighters have encircled ten cities across Afghanistan, including Kandahar and Lashkar Gah in the south, and Maidan Shahr in the east of the country – close to the capital, Kabul (see page 22). Recent weeks have witnessed an astonishing collapse of Afghan security forces, and the rapid advance of the Taliban. In the north, the insurgents captured key border crossings to Iran and Turkmenistan in a sweeping offensive last week. Thousands of Afghan soldiers have fled the country or surrendered to the militants in anticipation of the US and allied withdrawal. Early this month, US forces quietly left Bagram, the centre of its operations in the country. The insurgents claim they now control 85% of Afghan territory; this is dismissed by the Kabul government as propaganda.

Tokyo Spectator ban: The Olympic Games are to take place largely without spectators for the first time, after the Japanese government extended a state of emergency due to a rise in Covid-19 cases.

It’s possible, though, that some smaller venues, and those outside Tokyo, will be exempt from the spectator ban. Foreign spectators had already been barred from the Games, which begin in Tokyo next Friday. Even so, tens of thousands of athletes, officials, journalists and sponsors will attend.

Mbabane, Eswatini Violent protests: The government of Eswatini (the tiny landlocked nation of 1.3 million people, formerly known as Swaziland) has pledged a “national dialogue” following weeks of violent protests. Demonstrations in Africa’s only absolute monarchy began in May following the death of a law student, apparently at the hands of police. Public anger intensified in late June, when the government banned all “petitions” to the king demanding democratic reform.

Around 60 people have been killed in a violent crackdown by security forces. King Mswati III, who has ruled Eswatini since 1986 and is known for his lavish lifestyle and 15 wives, has not been seen in public for several weeks. Some unverified reports suggest he has fled the country.

Addis Ababa Election victory: Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed (right) has won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. The win for his Prosperity Party secures Abiy a five-year term and enables him to change the 1995 federal constitution, which he blames for destabilising the country. The elections were held last month and the results announced on Sunday. But no voting took place in the northern province of Tigray, which is in the grip of civil war and a looming famine. In Oromia, home to a third of Ethiopia’s 117 million people, the main opposition party boycotted the poll after its leader, Jawar Mohammed, was jailed on terrorism charges.

Bangkok Partial lockdown: The greater Bangkok area, accounting for about 50% of Thailand’s economy, was placed under a partial lockdown on Monday, with shops closed, an overnight curfew and curbs on domestic travel. Thailand is one of several Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia and Vietnam, which have seen a dramatic surge in Covid cases fuelled by the Delta variant. Thailand’s case numbers and deaths hit new peaks this week. Its reported death toll to date of fewer than 3,000 is dwarfed by Indonesia’s, which has nearly reached 70,000.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

People

10 NEWS An accessible actor David Harbour developed a passion for theatre after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He found the more he acted, the better he felt. But while he had a rich career on stage, film was just a way of paying the bills. In Hollywood, “I was basically the guy who runs after Denzel with a gun!”

Then he was cast in the Netflix hit Stranger Things, and found that his age was finally on his side. “I’ve always been waiting to be 40 years old,” he told Alexi Duggins in The Guardian. “Even as a 20-yearold I never had that bounce or spring.” In lockdown, the acting stopped, so he looked for other ways of managing his bipolar. Having long had a reputation for being accessible to fans (he once officiated at a fan’s wedding), he invited people to text him about how they were coping, and sent them messages in return.

“I just love that connection,” he smiles. “I just really love people; I love their stories.”

Horror for children Horror is not a genre normally associated with children, but R.L. Stine has built his career on it, says Jamie Graham in The Sunday Times. The American writer is responsible for the Goosebumps books, which have sold more than 400 million copies. Of course, his frights are based on ghosts and ghouls, not “real-world” fears such as serial killers; he gives his stories a happy ending (the one time he didn’t, his fans were outraged). And he never

delivers a moral message.

“Until fairly recently, the characters in children’s [books] had to learn and grow. And I always thought, ‘Why?’ The books I read, the characters don’t learn and grow. Why can’t kids have books that are just entertaining?” The formula has worked for 35 years, which is remarkable, given how much has changed in that time. The biggest, for Stine, is tech. “Cell phones have ruined all mysteries, every plot. Teenagers pick up a phone and call for help.

[But] the scary things I read as a kid, in the 1950s... we still have the same fears. We’re afraid of the dark, afraid of some hideous creature, afraid of being in a strange place.”

Imbruglia’s quieter life Aged 22, the soap star turned singer Natalie Imbruglia had a massive hit with her first single, Torn, says Rosamund Dean in The Sunday Telegraph. It sold four million copies, creating a huge weight of expectation.

She reacted by retreating from public view. Now 46, she lives quietly in Oxfordshire with her son, and though she is still recording, she looks back in amazement at her younger self. She was only 16 when she was cast in Neighbours.

“When my niece got to that age, I was like, ‘How was I living in Melbourne without my parents, and loving it?’

Sometimes I wish I had that confidence now. It’s easier when you’re a kid. The world’s your oyster and you haven’t had the school of hard knocks yet.”

Castaway of the week This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the veterinary surgeon Professor Noel Fitzpatrick 1* One, written and performed by U2 2 Love of My Life by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen 3 Stairway to Heaven by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, performed by Led Zeppelin 4 Do Anything You Want To by Phil Lynott, performed by Thin Lizzy 5 Walking in My Shoes by Martin Gore, performed by Depeche Mode 6 Ruby Tuesday by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, performed by the Rolling Stones 7 Uprising by Matt Bellamy, performed by Muse 8 Nothing Else Matters by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, performed by Metallica

Book: Essays and Letters, Plays and Poems, Stories by Oscar Wilde Luxury: a guitar

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

* Choice if allowed only one record

A rising star of the Labour Party, Peter Kyle was recently promoted to shadow schools minister – though at 50, he has a reading age of only eight. His dyslexia is so severe, he has to work late into the night to get through his briefing notes, and giving scripted speeches is a real challenge. Some phrases are like “potholes in a road”, he told Rachel Sylvester in The Times – “hard to spot until you’re on them and everything shudders”. But Kyle has overcome worse. His school days, in Bognor Regis, were by turns confusing and humiliating. No one could understand why this bright boy was failing so badly. He left with a single GCSE, which he parlayed into a lowly job in the accounts department at The Body Shop. “I was absolutely crap at it. But I didn’t want anyone to know that I was useless, so I used to go in on Sunday morning, very early, and plough through it all.” Only one other person came in at weekends: the firm’s founder, Anita Roddick. She took the teenager under her wing, and when he was 25, she suggested he apply to university.

First, though, he had to go back to school, to study for A levels.

He recalls walking into a class full of 16-year-olds. “They thought I was the supply teacher. I thought, ‘This is a humiliating situation, but I’m not going to be humiliated.’” He threw himself into it; finished a two-year course in one; and at the end, he was invited to a prize-giving ceremony. “They gave me an award for persistence.”

Viewpoint:

In search of boredom “The idea that boredom is good for us – particularly in childhood, because it encourages imagination and creativity – is well established. Boredom, however, has become a weirdly elusive state. Throughout this long and gruelling pandemic, I don’t think I have ever felt bored myself. If I want my children to be properly bored – not just fed up and listless – I must hide all the screens. There is, apparently, a flurry of academic interest in boredom at the moment, with researchers around the world studying how people coped with boredom during lockdowns. I suspect they will learn a lot about loneliness, anxiety, grief, stir-craziness. But boredom? We should be so lucky.”

Jemima Lewis in The Daily Telegraph

Farewell Dilip Kumar, ”Bollywood’s Marlon Brando” who starred in more than 60 films and became one of the most famous faces of Hindi cinema, died 7 July, aged 98.

Robert Downey Sr., arthouse director of Putney Swope and father of the actor of the same name, died 7 July, aged 85.

Raffaella Carrà, Italian singer, dancer, actress, and TV personality known as the “Queen of Italian television”, died 5 July, aged 78.

Briefing

NEWS 13

Govcoins: the coming revolution?

Governments are mulling over whether to introduce their own digital currencies, also known as govcoins What exactly are govcoins?

Although still largely hypothetical, they are considered by some to be the most important financial innovation since the invention of banknotes. Formally known as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), they are legal tender in electronic form – and would be tied penny-for-penny to established currencies such as sterling, the dollar and the euro.

Only one big economy, China, has so far conducted live trials; however, nearly 90% of the world’s central banks have launched exploratory projects, according to the Bank for International Settlements, with Sweden’s “e-krona” and the Bahamas’ “Sand Dollar” out in front. In April, the UK Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, set up a taskforce to examine the viability of a digital pound, or “Britcoin”.

system. Today’s banks are expensive (we pay an average of £150 per year in fees) and they sometimes fail. They also exclude many: even in the UK, 1.3 million are thought to be “unbanked”.

Govcoins would allow the creation of faster, safer, cheaper payment systems – particularly useful in nations with large numbers of unbanked citizens. Since every currency unit could be tracked, CBDCs would be a powerful deterrent to tax evasion, money laundering and other financial crimes. Govcoins could also transform monetary policy. E-accounts would give central banks more precise control over systemic risks and the money supply than current tools such as interest rates – enabling them to “nudge” economic behaviour. In China’s recent Live trials of e-yuan are under way in China trial, e-yuan were programmed with an expiry date, to encourage immediate spending.

How would they differ from cryptocurrencies?

In some ways, they would be similar: imagine bitcoin, if bitcoin And the downsides?

CBDCs raise major concerns about data privacy and excessive were managed by the Bank of England and backed by the Government. Electronic versions of currency already predominate state control. Without safeguards, the unprecedented power in most financial systems. However, the electronic deposits and conferred by digital currencies – potentially, to see every purchase digital accounts used by normal customers are privately managed – could turn central banks into a financial Big Brother. The Bank of England has suggested that govcoins could be designed to give by commercial banks; central banks have their own reserves of digital money, but they mostly only supply it to other banks. The a degree of privacy, particularly if intermediaries (most likely most far-reaching version of a CBDC would mean that, instead of domestic banks) provided “payment interfaces”. But that may not holding an account with a retail bank, you could do so directly satisfy those concerned about the degree of government control with a central bank. Rather than paying with a card, you could (accounts could be shut down at the tap of a button) and state surveillance – not just of bank balances but, because of the use the central bank’s system – perhaps through an app similar to PayPal or Apple Pay. The Bank of England thinks that CBDCs transaction trail, of people’s entire financial histories. would “exist alongside cash and bank deposits, rather than replacing them”, but even so, it would be a revolutionary step.

What other objections are there to CBDCs? Environmentalists point to the obscene amount of energy used by What’s driving these experiments? bitcoin’s blockchain technology (the digital ledger system used to The fast decline of cash, and the challenge to the monetary system verify ownership). Studies suggest it consumes as much electricity posed by cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s emergence as a mainstream, as a medium-sized European country. CBDCs could, in theory, be much more efficient, but that has yet to be proved. The cryptoif highly volatile, $1trn asset class has persuaded many other players to join the game. There are now numerous alternatives to finance industry is also up in arms. When the Britcoin project was announced, Jason Cozens of Glint argued that the Bank of bitcoin – “altcoins” such as ethereum and monero – along with “stablecoins”, which try to reduce the England was “looking to control, or investment risk of cryptocurrencies better yet, crush the rise of alternative The evolution of money by pegging them to a currency or currencies”. Mainstream banks are Money has a number of overlapping roles: as a commodity: USD Coin is pegged to also very concerned by CBDCs. medium of exchange (for payments), as a store of the dollar, Glint to the price of gold. value (for savings and investment), and as a unit of account (for measuring value). It allowed societies to Why are banks worried?

Central banks are particularly move beyond barter, separating buying from selling.

Govcoins could pose an existential concerned by Facebook’s plan for a The earliest forms of money were rare and precious threat to commercial banks. Why private digital currency called Diem objects: cowrie shells, pearls, gold, silver, cows.

They would anyone use a high-street bank (formerly Libra). Governments fear allowed societies to move beyond barter, separating if central banks were to provide the that the anonymity offered by these buying from selling. Paper money dates to 13th same service, more cheaply and currencies will increasingly be used century China: Marco Polo noted with amazement safely? And if banks’ deposits were for illegal purposes and that, being that these “pieces of paper are issued with as reduced, the financial system would unregulated, they could undermine much solemnity and authority as if they were of be greatly changed: banks would the stability of the financial system. pure gold or silver”. have less to invest in mortgages and China (once a centre of bitcoin Precious coins and the like are known as “commodity the economy. Digital currencies are trading) has now prohibited banks money”; today’s currency as “fiat money”, because it becomes legal tender by government order. These sure to develop, but depending on and payment firms from facilitating technical distinctions still have significance.

The cash which versions win out, the “revolcrypto-transactions. And some central in your pocket is legal tender; the pounds in your bank ution could go in two directions”, bankers have concluded that they account are not. If your bank fails, you will only reclaim says Prof Randall Kroszner of the must join the game by creating their the amount guaranteed by the Government (£85,000 University of Chicago Booth School own currencies, or risk losing control. per bank). By contrast, CBDCs would be legal tender. of Business – “either a triumph of So far, cryptocurrencies have proved impressive as a decentralisation and market forces, What are the advantages? store of value, but useless as a means of exchange. or a triumph of centralisation and Proponents cite all kinds of benefits: CBDCs, however, could perform both functions. government monitoring”.

CBDCs could create a better financial 17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Best articles: Britain Passing the buck on building safety Martina Lees The Sunday Times

How not to defeat a pandemic Marc Stears and Tim Soutphommasane New Statesman

It is deeply British to be unpatriotic James Marriott The Times

The handshake is back, and causing chaos Pilita Clark Financial Times

Matthew Harris, an NHS lab assistant who earns £22,500 a year, faces a £100,000 bill to make his one-bedroom flat in Salford safe. And he is only one of three million Britons caught up in the post-Grenfell Tower building safety scandal, says Martina Lees.

The Government recently unveiled its long-awaited Building Safety Bill. It should help make high-rises safer by, for instance, creating “duty holders” who are personally liable for their safety – limiting the “iniquitous buck-passing” we saw with Grenfell.

What it won’t do, though, is help people like Harris who, thanks to years of diluted regulations, poor inspections and shoddy work, have been left in unsafe homes. Under the current law, only leaseholders can be forced to pay for repairs. The bill does not change this; it merely requires the building’s landlord to try to get the money elsewhere – “as most already do, with scant success”.

“Again and again, ministers had said this law would protect flat-owners from exorbitant costs for fixing their buildings; that it would make the industry pay.” In the event, it does neither.

In the early stages of the pandemic, Australia was the “envy of the world”, say Marc Stears and Tim Soutphommasane. It swiftly sealed its borders, thereby keeping the virus at bay. Life carried on much as usual; even today, it has suffered fewer than 1,000 Covid deaths. But success bred complacency, leading to a tardy vaccination programme. Only 9% or so of the population have had both jabs. The very low level of immunity means that Australia is in a fix now that some cases of the Delta variant have arrived on its shores. As London and New York open up, Sydney is in lockdown. More than 30,000 residents “remain stranded overseas, with borders closed and no obvious way to return home anytime soon”. Those inside the country, meanwhile, require a permit to leave and most applications are refused. The nation is stuck. It’s a dire situation and one that has exposed the dangerous delusion of “Fortress Australia”: the idea that it, or any nation, can seal itself off from the rest of the world. “A global pandemic cannot be defeated by wishing not to be part of the globe.”

Beware: a “chasm” is opening in British society. So warned the US pollster Frank Luntz the other day in response to a survey suggesting that 22% of Britons think their country has “failed its people”, and that 37% think the UK is institutionally racist.

“When you have decided that your country is institutionally racist and discriminatory, you don’t normally go back,” Luntz observed grimly. This, says James Marriott, is a “profoundly American way of looking at things”. In the US, hating your country is an “alarming novelty”, but it’s a venerable tradition here. From the 18th century minister Ebenezer Aldred, who identified Britain as the Beast foreseen in the biblical Book of Revelation, to the 1933 Oxford students who voted for the motion that “this House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country”, our society has long had “a streak of self-loathing”. It’s a product of our long, stable history: with relatively little need to rally against external threats and oppressors, we’re happy to dwell on our own shortcomings. This makes us resilient; it doesn’t portend a chasm.

“Things are more dangerous in brittler, prouder America.”

“It is bedlam out there,” says Pilita Clark. Face-to-face business meetings are back, but nobody is quite sure how to greet one another, owing to the uneven state of vaccinations around the world, and people’s “wildly divergent” views of what is appropriate. Some thrust out a hand; others go for the elbow or fist bump; others keep their distance. It’s an etiquette minefield.

A colleague of a friend recently attempted a fist bump, only for the other chap to clasp the proffered fist in his hand and give it a long shake. Mundane opening pleasantries have thus become “a painful game of scissors-paper-rock”. It would be simpler – and many would welcome it – if we just abandoned the custom of hand-shaking. But as the evolutionary biologist Ella Al-Shamahi writes in her recent book, The Handshake: A Gripping History, the greeting has survived several attempts to ban it during past epidemics. “Since chimps and uncontacted tribes of humans have similar gestures, she thinks we may be genetically hard-wired to shake, perhaps to deliver things like smell-related chemosignals to each other.” So I guess we’ll just have to keep muddling through.

NEWS 15 IT MUST BE TRUE…

I read it in the tabloids A British paratrooper fell 15,000 feet out of the sky when his parachute failed to fully deploy during a jump in California – and survived with only minor injuries, after crashing through the roof of a house in Atascadero. The unnamed soldier landed in the kitchen, where he was found by neighbours. The homeowner’s mother, Linda Sallady, said: “There’s not that much damage in the house. It’s amazing. He missed the counters, appliances, everything.”

An actor in a bare-bottomed monkey suit with a fake penis was hired by a council, in a bizarre stunt aimed at getting children to read. The man appeared at a Summer Reading Challenge event run

by Redbridge Council in east London, to represent the theme “wild world heroes”.

But the stunt sparked outcry from parents and MPs, who queried whether a “Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey” was a suitable advocate for child literacy. The council blamed a third-party contractor for the mishap, adding: “This will never happen again.”

Drug dealers are capitalising on a new niche market by promoting “woke coke” – which they claim is “ethically sourced”. “Environmentally friendly”, fair-trade cocaine is being sold to wealthy users who want to assuage their guilt over the bloody drugs trade – although, as one expert put it: “no one in Colombia produces cocaine ‘ethically’.” Actress Davinia Taylor says the dealers’ claims are being hoovered up by celebrities: “They’re like, ‘Hi, darling, I’ve got woke coke. It’s all PC, £200 a gram.

I know it’s sustainable, we’re actually putting back into the countryside’.”

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

16 NEWS

Best of the American columnists

The Miami tower collapse: a tragedy in slow motion “It’s the abruptness – the suddenness garage beneath the complex. We can’t – that appals,” said Leonard Pitts Jr. blame a “greedy landlord” for failing to act on that report, said Megan in the Miami Herald. At 1.23am on 24 June, most of the residents of McArdle in The Washington Post.

It was the residents’ association that Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Miami Beach, would have been fast resisted making the costly repairs. But that doesn’t mean they’re to blame asleep. And then, bang, part of the 12-storey apartment complex sheared either. Although the 2018 report off, burying more than 100 people. “now reads as a horrifying prophecy”, experts say its findings were fairly Since then, it has become “a tragedy in slow motion”. The rescue effort typical and not an obvious red flag. has turned into a laborious recovery Building standards are not always up effort; the death toll is creeping up, slowly but inexorably. The authorities to scratch in Florida, said Amy are pleading for patience as they Davidson Sorkin in The New Yorker, At least 95 people are confirmed to have died investigate the cause of the disaster, but we may be nearing a point in the but “the search for answers is not moving nearly fast enough to south of the state where even the best-constructed buildings are keep pace with the all-too-human need to know”. under threat. A coastal city built on porous limestone, Miami is “beset not only by rising sea levels but also by water seeping in In the absence of a definitive explanation, people have pushed from below”. Intense hurricanes have become more frequent. their own partisan narratives, said Jim Geraghty in National The combination of climate change and infrastructure decay Review. The collapse is down to “deregulation”, they claim, or poses a challenge to Florida – and to the US as a whole. In March, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued its to climate change. All we can really say at this stage, however, is that the early evidence points to a failure at or near the base quadrennial report on the state of US infrastructure, and gave of the tower, possibly exacerbated by tremors from nearby it a C-minus. It identified more than 46,000 “structurally deficient” bridges. We may not know yet why the Surfside building work. In 2018, an engineer reported “abundant” cracking in the columns, beams and walls of the underground tower fell down, “but we know that others will”.

Trump’s war on Twitter and Facebook David Corn Mother Jones

How to turn the vaccine doubters Marc A. Thiessen The Washington Post

This is not a good time to leave Earth Shannon Stirone The Atlantic

Donald Trump is on the warpath, says David Corn. The former president revealed last week that he is suing Facebook, Google (which owns YouTube) and Twitter for violating his First Amendment right to free speech. He is demanding the restoration of his social media accounts, which were suspended when he used them to spread lies about the 2020 election, along with punitive damages.

The announcement caused quite a splash, but few expect his lawsuit to get anywhere. Private companies aren’t bound by the First Amendment, and legal experts believe the courts will have little time for Trump’s contention that the tech companies should be regarded as de facto government entities. Not that this will bother the former president much. His real objective here is just to whip up the “paranoia of his political base”, and raise some cash. As soon as his lawyers filed the suit, a text message went out to his supporters tapping them for donations to help him wage war on “UNFAIR CENSORSHIP”. These appeals are a lucrative revenue stream for Trump: in the months after the November election, he collected more than $100m in such contributions. The case isn’t about justice. “It’s about fear and money – the two things that make Trump’s world go around.”

President Biden missed his target of getting a vaccine shot in the arm of 70% of American adults by Independence Day, says Marc A. Thiessen. The share was below that across the nation as a whole – and a lot lower in Republican-voting states, where levels of vaccine-hesitancy remain high. While just 6% of Democrats say they’re unlikely to get jabbed, fully 47% of Republicans say they probably or definitely won’t. If Biden wants to change this, “there’s a simple way to do so: give Donald Trump the credit he deserves for the vaccines”. It was Trump who got this programme off the ground by investing $10bn in vaccine development, clearing away regulatory hurdles and contracting to buy at least 800 million doses with delivery by 31 July – enough to vaccinate every single American. Biden refuses to admit this. He has claimed, falsely, that Trump didn’t order enough vaccines, and that the Democrats were jointly responsible for their development. He has invited other former presidents to record pro-vaccine public service adverts, but not Trump, the one person anti-vaxxers might actually listen to. It’s a petty response from someone who promised a new era of bipartisanship. Biden’s message to these people should be: “If you trust Trump, get your Trump vaccine.”

The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, is set to blast off to the edge of space next week, says Shannon Stirone. He won’t be the first billionaire to do so – Richard Branson made the same trip last weekend. And he’s unlikely to be the last, given Tesla boss Elon Musk’s well-publicised space travel ambitions. It must all be very thrilling for these “uber-rich rocket owners”, but have they ever stopped to think about how their antics look to the rest of us? The timing of these spaceflights could hardly be worse. In the US in particular, the “climate crisis is now actually starting to feel like a crisis”. Bezos’s hometown of Seattle has been struggling with record-high temperatures. Hurricane season has begun early, and a once-in-200-years flood has just ravaged northern Mississippi. Then there’s the small matter of the global pandemic that is still raging. Is this really the moment for plutocrats to be engaging in a vainglorious space race? To be fair, Bezos has pledged to spend $10bn on tackling climate change. And perhaps the experience of looking down on our fragile planet from 62 miles up will inspire the boss of Amazon to do even more. Still, there’s no getting round the fact that this display of billionaires’ rocket-fuelled one-upmanship feels “gross”.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

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Best articles: International

NEWS 19

Haiti: the assassination of President Moïse

Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse was “There is a curse on Haiti,” said assassinated at 1am last Wednesday Isaac Risco on Deutsche Welle at his home in Pétion-Ville, a (Bonn). “That’s what some suburb of the capital Port-audespairing observers have written in recent years.” It’s clearly not a Prince, said Larisa Karr in The rational explanation for the travails Haitian Times (Brooklyn). He was of the impoverished Caribbean shot 12 times in his bedroom; his wife, Martine Moïse, was also shot, state – the poorest in the Western hemisphere – but it expresses the but survived and was evacuated to helplessness and pessimism that Florida for treatment. The Haitian authorities said that a group of many feel about the “unending “professional killers” – foreign spiral of violence, poverty and catastrophe that plagues the former mercenaries – were to blame. “In French colony”. The international the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my house and riddled my community has tried to intervene husband with bullets,” declared before: in 2004, the UN sent Jovenel and Martine Moïse during his 2017 swearing in Martine Moïse in a recording peacekeepers after the ousting of posted on Twitter. Seven men were killed nearby in a firefight Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected with police on Thursday, said Le Nouvelliste (Port-au-Prince). president. But Nepalese UN troops brought cholera to the country as it was trying to rebuild after the earthquake of 2010, Around 20 heavily armed suspects were also arrested – 18 Colombians, 13 of whom were confirmed as former members and some foreign soldiers were accused of sexually abusing of the Colombian military – along with two Haitian-Americans. Haitian women. By the time UN troops left the country, they Although the line of succession is contested, Prime Minister were “hated by parts of the population”.

Claude Joseph assumed leadership. He declared a “state of siege”, imposing martial law and closing the country’s borders.

It is “an understatement to say that Haiti is a failed state”, said Le Monde (Paris). “Dictatorships, coups d’état, corruption, “Haiti was already in turmoil – much of it due to Moïse’s earthquakes, cyclones and epidemics have fuelled the misery of the population for decades.” Now it has endured a “major rule,” said The Economist. “His murder has added fuel to the flames.” The facts surrounding the assassination are far from political trauma” while its government has largely ceased to clear, and rumours are swirling. This week the police said they exist. It is unrealistic to envisage holding free and fair elections had arrested one of the “masterminds”, Christian Emmanuel under these circumstances. Helping Haiti to form a transitional Sanon – a 63-year-old Haitian doctor resident in Florida, who government with a limited term should be a priority for the US, had recently flown back to his homeland by private jet. But its major foreign donor, and the international community. The Moïse, a former plantation manager who called himself problem is that “there is no one with any real authority in “Banana Man”, had no shortage of enemies. Critics accused position to run the country”, said The Washington Post. Four separate claimants have emerged to succeed Moïse. The violent him of election fraud, and of pilfering millions from foreign aid funds. Since January 2020, when he dismissed all but ten gangs that plague the capital are threatening to fill the power senators in the two-chamber parliament, Moïse had been ruling vacuum. The last peacekeeping mission to Haiti certainly had by decree; he had widened the definition of terrorism to include a chequered record. But the UN force did bring “a modicum acts of political protest. He was accused of using criminal gangs of stability”. And at this perilous moment, “a modicum of to enforce his power; certainly, many who protested against his stability would be preferable to most other plausible scenarios. rule were attacked by gangsters.

The international community must act now.”

CHINA

Westerners are no longer welcome Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw)

PALESTINE

A despot going out in a “blaze of dishonour” Le Monde (Paris)

China is once again drawing up barriers against the world, says Dominika Maciejasz. Expatriates returning to Shanghai after spending lockdown in Europe are experiencing a new “contempt”. To get back in they’re forced to take as many as six Covid-19 tests, but still can’t find a taxi willing to drive them from the airport. Once-friendly neighbours now spout Orwellian “Party Newspeak”, claiming that the virus was imported to Wuhan from the US, and taunting them for their countries’ failures in controlling it; only China is “safe”, they’re told. The hostility is remarkable in a city that was once open and tolerant. Binational families are separated, and Beijing had initially announced that only foreigners who have had the Chinese vaccine would be allowed to enter. For some time now, China’s leaders have been reversing the great opening up that began four decades ago under Deng Xiaoping. Government propaganda is stirring up grievances about the “humiliations” of the colonial era, and hostility to Western people and ideas. China was once considered an “El Dorado” for foreigners, with good pay and perks, but at this rate, many will soon return home.

Palestinians have been wretchedly served by their autocratic leader, says Le Monde. Now 86, Mahmoud Abbas has been head of the Palestinian Authority since 2005, ruling part of the West Bank. Had he stepped down this year, he’d have been written off merely as “dull” and “lacking stature”. Instead, he’s chosen to end his career in a blaze of “dishonour”, cancelling elections, the first to be scheduled for 15 years, and launching a violent wave of repression. Now “the stain on his legacy has a name”: Nizar Banat, a critic and father of five, who was beaten to death on 24 June by Palestinian police officers. The angry demonstrations that followed were “brutally” suppressed by plainclothes security men reminiscent of the Assad regime’s “henchmen” in Syria. History will judge Abbas harshly. True, he could never have made peace with Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected any serious overtures. But he also did absolutely nothing to bring Palestinians together. He has never once set foot in the Gaza Strip to try to heal the rift between his Fatah party and Hamas, the Islamists who conquered the enclave in 2007; he behaved as if it was no longer part of Palestine.

Locked up in his Ramallah palace, he is the “caricature” of a “despot clinging to an illusory power”.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

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Health & Science

NEWS 21

What the scientists are saying…

British trout are hooked on meth

Freshwater fish may be becoming addicted to the methamphetamine flushed down lavatories, researchers have warned. A team in the Czech Republic took 120 trout that had been bred in captivity and kept in two different tanks. One had been laced with methamphetamine (or crystal meth) to a concentration often found in British rivers, while the water in the other tank was clean. After eight weeks, the fish were moved to a drug-free tank, then given the choice of either staying there, or swimming in meth-polluted water. The researchers found that the fish from the control tank spent only 41.5% of their time in the meth water; but the figure for the drug-exposed fish was 50.5% – suggesting they were experiencing symptoms of withdrawal. The researchers then examined the fish, and found that all the fish that had been in the meth-laden tank had amphetamine residue in their brains.

Why we’re wrong about allergies

It has become a truism that the recent rise in allergies is down to our obsession with keeping our homes clean. The theory is that children growing up in sterile environments don’t build strong enough immune defences. But researchers at University College London are now challenging the “hygiene hypothesis”, reports The Times. In a new paper, they agree that we need “signals from beneficial microorganisms”; but not that cleaning stops us meeting them. When we lived in caves or huts, we were exposed to the kinds of microorganisms you’d find if you slept in nature. These are the organisms which prime our immune systems – and we can still meet them by going outside.

But the organisms in modern homes are different. “If you let such a home

Shake n’ Vac: “targeted cleaning” is key

deteriorate, it gets inhabited by some very, very strange microorganisms, which are not the weapons with which we have evolved, and they are toxic to us,” says medical microbiologist Professor Graham Rook. So we should clean our homes, and wash our hands, to kill them. As for the link between cleaning and allergies that some studies have found, we may have this back to front: recent research has indicated that it may be the cleaning products causing allergies, not their disinfectant effects. To prevent allergies, his advice is to get children outside, and use “targeted” cleaning. “Wash your hands and clean your home, but without spraying the baby with bleach.”

A boost for malaria vaccines

An experimental vaccine containing live malaria parasites has had successful results in a small clinical trial. Participants were given a shot of a vaccine containing

We’re hardwired to see faces

It’s so common we barely think about it, but in all sorts of inanimate objects we see human faces: from the anxious-looking man who peers out of the Moon to the cheery grin of a cheese grater. Now, scientists have discovered that when the brain “sees” these faces, it processes them in the same way as it does real faces. From an evolutionary perspective, it seems the advantage of “never missing a face” outweighs any downside of mistaken identification, said Professor David Alais of the University of Sydney. “There is a great benefit in detecting faces quickly, but the system plays ‘fast and loose’ by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth.”

His study also found that even after wrongly identifying a face – “face pareidolia” – the brain doesn’t discard the image from its processing, but continues to analyse its expression (friendly, angry etc.). “When objects look compellingly face-like, it is more than an interpretation: they really are driving your brain’s face-detection network,” said Professor Alais. “And that scowl, or smile; that’s your brain’s facial expression system at work. For the brain, fake or real, faces are all processed the same way.”

Plasmodium falciparum along with anti-malarial drugs to kill any parasites that reached their liver or blood, where they would infect cells. They were then given malaria. The vaccination protected 87.5% of participants who had been infected with the strain used in the jab, and 77.8% of those infected with a different strain. The findings were described as encouraging; however, scaling up a vaccine of this type would be a challenge. The parasites have to be gathered from the salivary glands of mosquitoes, and then stored at low temperatures, making both production and distribution complicated. Some years ago, the idea of using mosquitoes to make a vaccine would have been dismissed out of hand. But now, a US-based biotech company called Sanaria is looking at ways of producing the parasites without mosquitoes; it is also examining whether Crispr gene-editing technology can be used to weaken the parasite, so that it can be injected live without the need for additional drugs.

Aspirin linked to cancer survival

Taking aspirin alongside conventional treatments may reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by 20%, a new analysis has found. The researchers, at Cardiff University, also found that the painkiller appeared to reduce the risk of the cancer spreading within the body. Their review covered 118 earlier studies, involving patients with 18 different cancers. The 250,000 patients who’d reported taking aspirin (as a supplement to other treatments) had a 20% reduced mortality rate. “There is now a considerable body of evidence to suggest a significant reduction in mortality in patients who take aspirin,” said lead author Professor Peter Elwood.

A hangover cure for women An off-the-shelf supplement often given to asthmatics appears to ease the worst effects of a hangover – but only in women. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is known to protect the liver, so researchers in Pennsylvania decided to investigate whether it would ease the stress that is put on the liver when people drink large quantities of alcohol. For their study, they recruited 49 volunteers who were given strong beer to drink, until their breath alcohol content reached 0.1% (above the legal driving limit, which is 0.08%). They were then given doses of NAC, and driven home. The next morning they were asked to assess how they felt on a scale of one to five – from “like I did not drink”, to “so hungover I might die” – and to describe their symptoms. The results showed that the women rated their hangover 3.5 points lower if they had taken the NAC, whereas the men actually felt worse.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

22 NEWS Pick of the week’s

Gossip

Dr Stephen Benn, Viscount Stansgate, has taken up a seat in the House of Lords – six decades after it was renounced by his father, Tony Benn. Benn Jr will join Labour’s group after an uncontested by-election following the death of another hereditary Labour peer. His late father rejected his own peerage in 1963, explaining his position with a memorable analogy: “I wouldn’t like to go to a dentist who, just before he drilled my teeth, told me he was not a dentist himself, but that his father had been a very good dentist.”

Parenthood can be thankless, even for rom-com royalty. Emma Freud recalls her partner, Richard Curtis, receiving a text from their son Jake a few years ago saying: “Dad can you pick me up from school today?”

The film director replied: “I have been in America for the past eight days. I am so sorry you have not noticed.”

Before the 2019 election, the then shadow chancellor John McDonnell lost his favourite Jack Wolfskin coat.

He’d left it in the Commons behind the Speaker’s Chair; it was gone when he returned. The only people he’d seen passing in the meantime were Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. The mystery has now finally been solved.

“We are having a little tidy-up of the PM’s Parliamentary Office and have a coat that belongs to you,” wrote Johnson’s team to McDonnell. “It has your freedom pass in the pocket.” McDonnell replied generously: “I am an extremely forgiving person and believe in the... rehabilitation of offenders.”

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Talking points Afghanistan: “scuttling” for the exit When Tony Blair sent British policy of trying to eradicate troops into Afghanistan back opium production in Britishin 2001, he declared war on the controlled areas. The real Taliban, but gave the Afghan problem is that we were people an explicit guarantee, “diverted by the Iraq War”, said said UnHerd: “We will not walk Dominic Nicholls in The Daily away, as the outside world has Telegraph. When we turned our done so many times before,” he attention back to Afghanistan, said. Yet last week, with much we were committed to fighting of the country once again in in Helmand, a desert region Taliban hands, another prime with “labyrinthine” politics that minister, Boris Johnson, we barely understood – and the announced the end of our public’s tolerance for casualties “eventually ran out”. It’s quite military presence in Afghanistan.

Flag-lowering ceremonies true, as General Sir Nick Carter, apparently took place in secret head of the Armed Forces, said last week, that there has been last month, and only a handful British troops leaving Helmand of British troops are now left to no international terror attack guard the embassy. All Blair’s fine talk of mounted from Afghanistan since 2001. But only building “a stable, liberal democracy” in the most “blinkered observer” would describe Afghanistan has come to nothing. Our longest our mission there as an overall success. military deployment in modern times – lasting Britain had little choice except to quit once the 20 years and costing billions of pounds and the lives of 457 servicemen and women – has ended Americans made plain they were leaving, said in failure.

The Independent. But did the allied withdrawal – almost all US forces have now gone – have to Britain can point to plenty of achievements be so abrupt and complete? There is no good in Afghanistan, said Robert Fox in the London reason why we could not have continued to Evening Standard. We leave behind a nation provide air power, intelligence gathering and with a better education system, more girls in military training. Instead, Britain is “scuttling” schools, improved healthcare, better electricity out of Afghanistan. Such departures, like those infrastructure and even a viable mobile phone from Palestine and India, are likely to have network. But all those advances are now in “gruesome consequences” for those left behind. jeopardy, because the last 20 years were blighted Our troops fought with “great distinction” in by “muddled strategy and muddled planning” Afghanistan. This retreat dishonours all those as well as “unachievable targets” – such as the who “have suffered and sacrificed so much”.

Pensions: time to end the triple lock?

“To govern is to choose,” said the London Evening Standard. And a key choice confronting ministers today is whether or not to risk alienating older voters by ending the triple lock on pensions. This is the policy that guarantees that the state pension rises each year by whichever is the highest out of average earnings, the inflation rate or 2.5%. The policy was introduced by David Cameron in 2010, and the Tories promised in their last election manifesto to maintain it. But the pandemic has complicated things. Although earnings suffered a freak reduction and inflation rose by just 1% last year, pensions still grew by 2.5%. This year, the unwinding of the furlough scheme is expected to lead to a freak 8% increase in earnings, which – under the terms of the triple lock – means pensions would have to rise by the same, at a cost to the Exchequer of £3bn.

Critics claim this would be an outrageous gift to the relatively well-off elderly, said Andrew Fisher in The i Paper, but you have to put it in context. In national spending terms, £3bn isn’t all that much: the 2021 Budget unveiled £25bn in corporate tax breaks over the next two years.

And the UK has one of the least generous state pensions in Europe. It amounts to £137.60 per week for those who reached State Pension Age (SPA) before 6 April 2016, and £179.60 for

those who reach SPA after that date. By comparison, single pensioners get £254 a week in the Netherlands and £366 in Denmark. As for the idea that it’s “intergenerationally unfair”, that’s nonsense. Young people are going to be even more reliant on state pensions than today’s pensioners, who are more likely to have worked in unionised workplaces with collectively negotiated pension provisions. They should be “fighting hard to defend the triple lock – it will be the bedrock of their retirement”.

I doubt indebted students and those on universal credit who are about to lose their £20 a week Covid top-up would see an 8% pensions hike in those terms, said Will Hutton in The Observer.

For them, it would just look like another undeserved bonus for the baby boomers.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak “can read the runes, and he also needs that £3bn”. The signs are that he’ll water down the triple lock commitment by fixing it to a longer-term average of wage growth. He needs to do something, said Chris Whiteside on Conservative Home. “It isn’t sustainable to permanently guarantee any section of society a relative income which can never get worse but can and ultimately will keep improving.” The triple lock initially made sense as a way of helping pensions catch up with wages. But the correction has gone far enough.

Talking points The Everard murder: a national reckoning?

“Everyone in policing feels “tidy away the reality of betrayed,” said Metropolitan sexual violence” that her Police Commissioner Cressida murder “forced us to Dick last week, after the police confront”. So often women are told bad things happen officer Wayne Couzens had pleaded guilty to the kidnap, because they did something rape and murder of Sarah wrong, such as wearing a Everard in March this year. short skirt or being too drunk.

“I’m sure they do,” said That narrative helps excuse “abusive men”, but it also Suzanne Moore in The Daily gives women the comforting Telegraph, but the police also owe us some explanations. “illusion” that they can avoid Why, in the case of Couzens, danger. But Everard did a member of the Met’s elite “everything right”, and still Parliamentary and Diplomatic ended up dead in a wood in Protection Squad, did they Kent. Couzens’s job signalled ignore so many “red flags”? It “he was someone to be Sarah Everard: betrayed seems he had been reported for trusted”. That’s why this indecent exposure twice in a case struck such a nerve: it McDonald’s car park, just three days before the shattered women’s last “semblance of security”. murder. If anyone had bothered to check his Such crimes are often dismissed as “isolated” number plate, they would have seen it was a police car. He also faced an indecent exposure cases, said Lucy Bannerman in The Times. Yet allegation six years earlier. Yet he was allowed since Everard went missing, more than 50 to stay in his job, with appalling consequences: it women have been murdered in the UK, with seems Couzens may have used his police warrant a man as the main suspect. Everard’s case was card to persuade Everard into his car as she so appalling that everyone sat up. “She hadn’t walked home. Men who commit so-called made the error of being murdered indoors. Or “minor sexual offences” like flashing or stalking of knowing her killer. Or trying to break off a often escalate their behaviour to rape, sexual relationship with a violent man.” But we also assault and murder. Yet these offences are ought to accept the “subtle sexism” that trivialised by our criminal justice system. condemns the other dead women to obscurity.

The public outrage following Everard’s murder It’s a relief that Couzens pleaded guilty, sparing has “forced a national conversation about Everard’s family a long trial, said Rachel femicide”. It’s a tragedy that it had to happen Cunliffe in the New Statesman. But it doesn’t in these circumstances. But “it’s a start”.

Lobsters: an end to “culinary barbarism”?

“Big news in the world of devices, costing some £2,500, are beyond the budget of most crustaceans and molluscs,” said Lizzie Thomson in Metro: it may restaurants, let alone homes. As for freezing them to death, lobsters are soon be illegal to boil lobsters alive.

The Government’s Animal Welfare designed to survive in the iciest (Sentience) Bill, which will legally Arctic waters, so we have to assume recognise vertebrates as sentient they “remain viable” for much of beings and ensure that this is taken the chilling process. Some cooks into account in policy-making, is favour sticking a skewer into the making its way through the House head, but the lobster doesn’t have of Lords. Now ministers have given a single brain conveniently located their blessing to an amendment behind the eyes. In short, I’m not giving protections to invertebrates sure there’s a more humane way of such as lobsters, octopuses and despatching a lobster than dropping crabs. That would bring us in line it into “fiercely boiling water”.

Stun, freeze or boil? with Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand, where boiling live lobsters is already The very idea of legal rights for lobsters should forbidden. About time too, said The Times. be “laughed to scorn”, said Bruce Anderson in Westerners are quick to condemn the “culinary The Spectator. This is one more example of the barbarism” of other cultures, yet turn a blind absurd sentimentality the British lavish on eye to our own “needless brutality”. Top animals: surely at this time of national crisis our restaurants these days mostly prefer to freeze legislators have better things to do. The whole or stun lobsters, with no “discernible impact on Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill is ridiculous, taste”. As a rule, governments shouldn’t meddle said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. with what happens in private kitchens. But this We are already well aware that animals are is an “exception worth celebrating”. sentient; and Britain already has some of the “oldest and strongest animal welfare legislation If only it were so simple, said Tim Hayward in the world”. This is one of those “declamatory in the FT. Lobsters are tricky creatures to kill. laws” – passed just “to send a message” – that is True, they can be electrocuted, but stunning bound to have “unintended consequences”.

NEWS 23

Wit & Wisdom “We have a hooligan class of politicians – and a national football team composed of gentlemen.”

Matthew d’Ancona on Tortoise “People change, and forget to tell each other.”

Lillian Hellman, quoted on The Browser “Future statues might be generic, and preferably androgynous. They could have replaceable heads.

That way, if the person commemorated should fall out of fashion, the head could simply be screwed off and replaced by another.”

Alexander McCall Smith in The i Paper “In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, quoted in The Times “The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind’s bribe.”

John Dryden, quoted in Forbes “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

Hannah Arendt, quoted in The Press and Journal “If it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter.”

Cher, quoted in the Miami Herald “I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.”

George Bernard Shaw, quoted in Forbes

Statistics of the week

The average UK house price rose by over 20% between the Brexit referendum in June 2016 and March 2021, from £212,887 to £256,405.

ONS/FT Each bishop costs the Church of England over £120,000 per year in residential and other expenses, on top of their stipends of £46,000.

General Synod/The Times

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Sport

24 NEWS

Tennis: a new Wimbledon champion

On Saturday, Centre Court held a 15,000-strong capacity crowd for the first time since 2019, said Simon Briggs in The Sunday Telegraph – and it was rewarded with “the best women’s final” at Wimbledon in 15 years. I can’t remember such an excitable atmosphere in recent history, “at least not when there has been no British hope to cheer for”. Perhaps it was partly relief: for the first ten minutes, the “biggest mismatch imaginable” seemed on the cards, as Ashleigh Barty won the first three games. Her Czech opponent, Karolína Plíšková, has “a reputation for getting down on herself”. But after losing the first set, Plíšková dug in for a dramatic second-set win. When Barty served for a straight-sets win at 6-5 in the second, Plíšková broke back, then won the tie-break – to an “enormous roar” from the crowd.

Barty: a decisive performance

“How do you recover after failing to serve out a Wimbledon final,” asked Tumaini Carayol in The Observer. “So many would have crumbled, but Barty shrugged it off.” She recovered straight away, with a decisive break early in set three, and 45 minutes after the first attempt, found herself serving for the match again.

This time she fought off a break point, and won: “nothing in the world” was going to stop her from taking the Wimbledon title.

The 25-year-old became the first Australian woman to lift the Venus Rosewater dish since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980.

Both women have a proud Indigenous heritage, and Goolagong Cawley had believed that her “little sister” would become Australia’s next female tennis champion ever since watching Barty play aged 13. Barty paid tribute to her “mentor and idol” with a scalloped dress inspired by the one Goolagong Cawley wore during her first Wimbledon title, exactly 50 years ago. The fact that Barty was playing after a hip injury made her victory all the more impressive, said Stuart Fraser in The Sunday Times. She had been forced to retire in the second round of the French Open: medical experts advised her team that she should not even play at Wimbledon. “Remarkably, perhaps irresponsibly”, they decided to keep her in the dark about this until she had won the title.

The following day, Novak Djokovic retained his title, said Tom Kershaw in The Independent. “In defeating Matteo Berrettini in four breathtaking sets that demanded all of his stubborn will and ingenuity”, the world No 1. finally equalled the record of 20 men’s Grand Slam titles held by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. He now needs only one more to confirm him as the “greatest of all time”. Having won all three Grand Slams so far this year, Djokovic said he could “definitely envisage” also winning the US Open in September. Few would doubt him. “No light can separate Novak Djokovic from legend any longer.”

Cycling: Cavendish equals Eddy Merckx’s all-time record A mass crash, a late bike change, sweltering heat and an injury to a teammate combined to make Mark Cavendish’s fourth-stage win at this year’s Tour de France one of his toughest, said Jeremy Whittle in The Guardian – but it was also the one that made history. Cavendish equalled Eddy Merckx’s all-time record of 34 stage wins, confounding those who had written off his career after years of illness and poor form. “What he is doing now is really crazy,” said the defending Tour champion and wearer of the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar, as he considered the 36-year-old’s achievements. “All respect to him.”

Deceuninck-QuickStep team’s original sprinter, Sam Bennett, was injured. But an extraordinary comeback reached its zenith on Friday in Carcassonne, said Daniel Matthews in the Daily Mail. After 220 “gruelling” kilometres, and a messy climax in which his teammate Michael Mørkøv nearly finished ahead of him, Cavendish crossed the line. As he “hobbled” to the waiting cameras, Cavendish was too spent to walk or talk. That determination to dig deep has made him the greatest sprinter of all time.

As Cavendish himself admitted in a “note-perfect” press conference, he doesn’t really bear comparison A year ago Cavendish was close to retiring, said Cavendish: determination with Merckx, the greatest all-round cyclist the sport David Bates in The Times, worn down by depression has ever known, said Tom Cary in The Daily and the Epstein-Barr virus that causes glandular fever. He hadn’t Telegraph. But we can now say, without hesitation, that he is “the won a stage of the Tour since 2016, and he wasn’t even supposed greatest sprinter the sport has ever known”. And you wouldn’t to be competing this year. Cavendish was only selected when the bet against him breaking the stage record before this Tour is over.

England one-day team: wiped out by Covid

Sporting headlines

The English cricketing summer is aggressive display at Lord’s to on a “knife edge”, after Covid secure the three-match series, cases forced England’s entire proved that even those who have one-day squad and coaching staff never played under Eoin Morgan to self-isolate, four days before have absorbed his “brand”. their first one-day international Pakistan were “more against Pakistan, said Elizabeth undercooked than steak tartare”, Ammon in The Times. An entirely said Mike Walters in the Sunday new 18-man squad had to be Mirror, but England’s “kids” were assembled, with players pulled both ruthless and entertaining. from ongoing county matches, a England’s rich talent pool stems third of whom had never played from a unique advantage, said Salt: top scorer international cricket before. As Tim Wigmore in The Sunday cases rise, the rest of the season – including the Telegraph. With the only cricket season in the Test series against India and the new Hundred northern hemisphere summer, players are free tournament – may be jeopardised. to play the full range of global T20 leagues.

Opening batsman Phil Salt had “bountiful Even so, it was a “triumphant week” for the experience” against international bowlers understudies, said Will Macpherson in the before he made his England debut last week – London Evening Standard. A crushing nineand he was the top scorer at Lord’s. wicket win in Cardiff on Thursday, and an

Cycling Anna van der Breggen successfully defended her Giro d’Italia Donne title after coming fourth on the final stage. It was the fourth time the Dutch cyclist has won the event.

Rugby union Six South African players tested positive for Covid-19, causing the whole squad to selfisolate two weeks before their series against the British and Irish Lions.

MMA Dustin Poirier defeated Conor McGregor at UFC 264 in Las Vegas. The fight was stopped after the first round, when McGregor’s leg was badly injured.

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

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LETTERS Pick of the week’s correspondence Flirting with disaster To The Guardian

On the BBC’s Today programme this week, Sajid Javid was correct to say that prior to the vaccinations, 25,000 Covid cases a day were giving rise to about 500 deaths.

But his claim that the ratio is now only one-thirtieth of that was entirely disingenuous.

It is true that the current moving averages of 25,447 daily cases and 18.14 deaths reduces the apparent ratio to about one-thirtieth of what it was. But this fails to recognise that there is a delay between infection and death. And the current 18 deaths result from cases reported 16 days ago, when they were running at 9,109. So the incidence of deaths to infections is reduced only to one-eighth. And the difference between the two, in terms of fatalities, is huge.

Deaths are at roughly two per 1,000 infections. So if at 100,000 by mid-August, this could mean 200 per day. And doubling every nine days, they will almost certainly go well beyond that, which could mean at least 25,000 deaths before Christmas and possibly more – skewed as ever to the old, the poor and the infirm.

It is monstrously unfair to at-risk groups that masks will not be mandatory on public transport and in closed public spaces. If anyone wants to go to a nightclub unmasked, that’s fine by me – I shan’t be joining them. But two things that most people have to do are a) travel to work, and b) buy food. And they have the right to do those things in an atmosphere as free as possible of other people’s exhaled droplets.

Chris Sexton, Crowthorne, Berkshire

The Afghan war To The Times

The families of the British service personnel killed and injured in Afghanistan need to know that those who committed us to this campaign knew the risks and understood the history of the country. I believe that, mostly, they did.

Many mistakes were made: some gross, like the ill-thoughtthrough lurch to Helmand in 2006, in pursuit of the antinarcotics chimera; some smallscale but tragic and shaming,

too much hunger for “stuff” can destroy the planet.

However, the article forgets the most important issue – demography.

When I was born, only 2.5 billion people lived on our planet. Now I am 60 and we are close to eight billion, and facing around ten billion by 2050. Just to give an example, every year 24 billion pairs of shoes are produced and sold in the world. Of those, 80% are trainers, and manufactured with acids and glues that cannot be recycled.

Must we stop this trend?

Yes of course. But the question is how can we feed everyone, dress them and give them a job? Before being a matter of consumerism, it is a problem of demography.

Luca Alfonsi, Italy

Exchange of the week

Reforming Whitehall To The Times

I cannot agree with James Forsyth that “It’s time to give No. 10 real levers of power”. The Prime Minister hires and fires ministers; he chairs the Cabinet and such Cabinet committees as he wishes; he talks with other heads of government; and his spokesman briefs the lobby each day. The PM already has sufficient powers to get his way, if he knows what his way is.

Lord Butler of Brockwell, Cabinet secretary 1988-98 To The Times

Two of the recommendations of the Commission for Smart Government seem to me to be reforms whose time has finally come. The first is bringing together the spending and personnel levers of government under a chief secretary reporting to the PM, as in the Office of Management and Budget in the US. The second is breaching the last closed shop in public life by allowing the PM to choose his ministers from the whole country, rather than restricting it to MPs and Lords (as is the case in most other countries in the world). This would require no constitutional or legal change, simply an amendment of Commons rules to allow “strangers” to advance beyond the bar of the House so that ministers could be held accountable.

That would increase the available talent pool from 360-odd Conservative MPs to 66 million people.

Jonathan Powell, Downing Street chief of staff 1997-2007

Funding the triple lock To The Daily Telegraph

Your report on the pensions triple lock says that £3bn will be needed if pensions are to increase by 8.5%.

Last year, it was reported that all the pensioner deaths would save the Government £3bn in unpaid pensions.

Does one not equal the other?

Gerry Price, Granby, Nottinghamshire

To The Times

James Forsyth is right about the need to reform the heart of our Government. The British state has the worst of all worlds: a highly centralised system of government without the capacity to organise it from the centre. Prime ministers need to set the direction and hold departments to account, supported by a civil service better equipped to give good policy advice and implement the Government’s programme.

However, structural changes can never be a substitute for sustained prime ministerial effort and attention.

Alex Thomas, Institute for Government

A Colgate-fresh team

like the occasional excessive use of force when compoundraiding. The overall strategic aims – remove the Taliban and support a shattered country to start to rebuild – were right.

This was not a final imperial fling but a response to the most devastating terrorist event in history. This real story matters because the survival of the Afghan government requires us to give it as much support as we can. Promoting the “graveyard of empires” idea only makes it easier to walk away.

Col. Simon Diggins (retired), defence attaché, Kabul, 200810, Rickmansworth, Herts

not work. When I told my Soviet colleagues, one of them wanted to know what day of the week it was made on?

During that era, appliances left the factory with a ticket indicating the day of the week they were assembled.

Knowledgeable shoppers knew to avoid products made on a Monday or a Friday: Friday workers were thinking of the weekend and Monday workers were hungover.

Quality products, if at all, were likely to have been made on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Philip Rakita, US

The week’s sweet spot

Clothing the billions

Bartleby’s column on picking the best days to work from home prompted a memory from my time working in the Soviet Union in 1976. I bought a chess-timing clock from a store in Moscow, which did

John Gapper’s books review, “Can we ever curb our desire to consume?”, was interesting and reminded us – by introducing three books about consumerism – that

To The Economist

27

To The Guardian

Being old enough to remember England in the World Cup final, I note that all the current England players have lovely teeth. A clear memory of 1966 was of Nobby Stiles smiling and hopping around with his false teeth in his hand. Autres temps, autres moeurs.

Lesley Matthews, Shipley, West Yorkshire

To the FT

“I shall now be fired from the cannon into a bucket – without a mask!” © NEWMAN/THE SPECTATOR

● Letters have been edited

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

ARTS Review of reviews: Books

29

The best newly published holiday reads, based on summer round-ups in the press

Hardbacks Klara and the Sun

by Kazuo Ishiguro Faber £20 (£15.99)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize is “set in an uneasy near-future, in which AI and genetic enhancement threaten to create a human underclass”, said The Guardian. It tells the story of a robot who becomes an “artificial friend” to a sickly teenager. Klara and the Sun is a “slow-burn masterpiece”, said the FT – a brilliant examination of what it means to be human.

Fall

by John Preston Viking £18.99 (£14.99)

John Preston’s biography offers an “entertaining account of the life and death of Robert Maxwell”, said The Guardian.

It charts the press baron’s “vast appetites” and ambitions, his fraudulent financial dealings (which included raiding his company’s pension funds), and his 1991 disappearance from his yacht. By turns amusing, engrossing and appalling, this excellent book “slips down as richly, easily and pleasurably as a tablespoonful of Beluga caviar”, said Robert Harris in The Sunday Times.

The Passenger

by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz Pushkin Press £14.99 (£11.99)

This “dramatic thriller” – first published in 1939 and recently rediscovered – tells the story of a Jewish businessman on the run inside prewar Germany, said The Times. Trying to flee the Nazis, he criss-crosses Germany by train – but realises that all exits are closed.

“Stunning,” said Alec Russell in the FT – “easily” my book of the year.

The Sleeping Beauties

by Suzanne O’Sullivan Picador £16.99 (£13.99)

This “extraordinary book” by the neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan examines the mysterious world of psychosomatic illnesses, said The Times. The title refers to “resignation syndrome”, a condition noted in the 1990s when a group of girls in Stockholm – all asylum seekers – suddenly fell into catatonic states. O’Sullivan’s examination of what is sometimes called “mass hysteria” is “mind-blowing” in every sense, said The Daily Telegraph.

Girl A

by Abigail Dean HarperCollins £14.99 (£11.99)

Lex is a successful New York lawyer, but as a child she lived in northern England, in a home where she and her siblings suffered horrific abuse, said The Sunday Times.

Abigail Dean’s novel – a global bestseller – charts Lex’s traumatic confrontation with the past. “Girl A had me from page one,” said Sophie Warburton in The Sunday Telegraph. “Flipping between past and present, it has twists and turns aplenty.”

Hurdy Gurdy

by Christopher Wilson Faber £14.99 (£11.99)

In this “comic novel of medieval England struck by the Black Death”, Brother Diggory, an unworldly young monk, ventures outside his monastery for the first time, said The Times. He travels the country engaging in godless behaviour – and unwittingly spreading the plague. Wilson’s novel is a “winning blend of drama, farce and grotesquerie”, said the FT – and a reminder of “just how bloody awful everyday medieval life must have been”.

Paperbacks Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart Picador £8.99 (£6.99)

Last year’s Booker Prize-winner is “not your classic beach read”, said the London Evening Standard. But “it’s witty, moving and unforgettable”. Set in 1980s Glasgow, this debut novel is the bleak but tender story of a young man’s troubled relationship with his alcoholic mother.

An “astonishing portrait, drawn from life”, Shuggie Bain deserves all the acclaim it has had, said The Daily Telegraph.

Agent Sonya

by Ben Macintyre Penguin £8.99 (£6.99)

Ben Macintyre’s latest chronicles the “extraordinary career” of Soviet secret agent Ursula Kuczynski, said The Sunday Times.

Recruited in the Far East in the 1930s, she settled in Britain, where she posed as a respectable Cotswolds housewife; but as an agent handler, she secured nuclear secrets that helped Stalin develop an atomic bomb. Agent Sonya is the “ultimate spy story”, said The Tablet.

British Summer Time Begins

by Ysenda Maxtone Graham Abacus £9.99 (£7.99)

This “amusing compendium of memories of oldfashioned holidays” is especially pertinent in a year when many of us will be staying in Britain, said The Sunday Times. The sodden beaches, freezing picnics and sickening car journeys: Maxtone Graham brings it all back, said Ferdinand Mount in the Daily Mail. Anyone over 40 will come away saying: “Yes, that was us.”

To order these titles from The Week Bookshop at the bracketed price, contact 020-3176 3835, theweekbookshop.co.uk 17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Drama & Podcasts

30 ARTS

Theatre: three summer treats It’s “hard to imagine” a more is less raucous but no less “enthralling” and entertaining joyous: the “warmth of slowpiece of outdoor summer theatre spreading operatic sunshine that for children than Pitlochry seeps into your bones” and lifts Festival Theatre’s new staging of the spirits. The singing is topThe Wind in the Willows, said notch across the board. And Mark Brown in The National.

Roland Wood’s incomparable Falstaff – “opulently sung from The event boasts a “fresh, witty start to finish, thuggery pierced and lively” adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame classic by the with sudden flashes of charm” – writer Mark Powell, a “superb” is “magisterial” (Glasgow until 17 July; then Edinburgh from cast, a rousing musical score – and a beautiful setting in the 8-14 August). theatre’s riverside grounds. A firm environmental message and The summer season of topical themes underpin this Shakespeare’s Globe is not “jolly” production, said Mark exactly firing on all cylinders, Fisher in The Guardian. When said Dominic Maxwell in The Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s The Wind in the Willows: “superb” Alicia McKenzie’s Mole says Times. Its Romeo & Juliet she’s been hibernating, Ali Watt’s Ratty notes, “We’ve all been (until 17 October) is a leaden, didactic affair that comes over “like an over-eager English teacher out to prove that Shakespeare inside a lot.” After our own enforced hibernation, this Wind in is ‘relevant’ to modern youth”. Baldly educational statements the Willows “becomes a show about rebirth and renewal” – and (about crime, poverty, teenage depression, the patriarchy and the a thoroughly enjoyable one, too (until 12 September). damaging impact of the closure of youth clubs) burn away in red surtitles on a giant screen, upstaging the drama they are supposed Scottish Opera’s staging of La bohème in the car park of its to illuminate. Alas, the actors are also made to read them out.

Glasgow production studios was an artistic beacon in the darkness of last year’s lockdowns, said Rowena Smith in the same “Suicide is the leading cause of death among all people under 35,” intones Capulet when Romeo and Juliet die. Talk about paper. Its successor is an equally impressive (and far more lavish) “a buzzkill”. There’s zero spark between the leads; and “despite new staging of Verdi’s Falstaff by Sir David McVicar, which moves indoors at the Edinburgh International Festival next month. some real talent in the cast”, most characters barely register.

When, at the end, the Prince tells us “Go hence, to have more talk In recent years, Falstaff has often been played as a “sitcom, a giddy reel of sight-gags and slapstick”, said Alexandra Coghlan in of these sad things,” it is “as if he’s telling us to go into discussion groups together before we are allowed to head home”.

The Spectator. What you get with McVicar’s “grown-up” staging

Spotify’s terrific Human winds back to chart Spears’s rise Resources podcast explores to fame from “hardscrabble the formative role of slavery Louisiana childhood to being in shaping various aspects of the pop princess of post-Aids, British life – from our buildings post-Clinton America, to a and cultural institutions to what humiliated, silenced woman funding her own sequestration”. we eat and drink, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. In Sykes “makes a compelling recent weeks the series has moral case” for the story’s looked at subjects including importance. My only caveat: the Robert Peel, the origins of the dramatised vignettes of scenes from Spears’s life are “toeGreene King brewery, and curling”, with the actors how Liverpool is “grappling “sounding like interlopers from with its slave-trading past”. The a Tennessee Williams play”. presenter is the journalist and author Moya Lothian-McLean, The US blues pioneer Harry who grew up in Herefordshire, Pieces of Britney: a “riveting, troubling” tale Pace made a “huge contribution the daughter of a white British to US culture – then seemingly vanished”, said Fiona Sturges in mother and a black Caribbean father. She’s an “engaging” the FT. An outstanding new podcast from WNYC, the makers of presenter, with a knack for conducting nuanced and illuminating the acclaimed 2019 series Dolly Parton’s America, asks how and interviews that make us reconsider our assumptions. Any why it happened. A hundred years ago Pace, a young Africanteenagers frustrated by the way they’re taught history at school American businessman, started Black Swan, a groundbreaking “should try Human Resources for another approach”. record label featuring only black artists, and with Ethel Waters’s Down Home Blues transformed American music. But within two Much has been written and said about the US pop star Britney years, white rivals had squeezed him out of business. Pace sold up, Spears, and the “extraordinary legal conservatorship” that has left the music industry and retrained as a lawyer. Like the Parton controlled her life since 2008. Even so, a gripping new podcast series, The Vanishing of Harry Pace “documents one person’s on the subject is well worth a listen, said Patricia Nicol in The rise while telling a broader story about society and culture”. This Sunday Times. The “sharp-witted” eight-part BBC documentary five-part series “is rich in detail and immaculately produced and Pieces of Britney shot to the top of the download charts when researched. The narrative rarely ends up where you think it will it was released at the start of the month. Writer and presenter and provides a masterclass in storytelling.”

Pandora Sykes begins the “riveting, troubling” tale in 2008, then THE WEEK 17 July 2021

© DOUGLAS MCBRIDE

Podcasts... slavery, Britney and the blues

Film & TV Films to stream From Medea to Mare of Easttown, motherhood is one of the universal themes of drama. Here are five excellent films in which it plays a central role: Mildred Pierce Joan Crawford is electrifying as a Californian divorcée accused of murder in this noirish melodrama from 1945, based on James M. Cain’s novel. At the heart of it is Mildred’s love for her snobbish daughter, who resents her mother for getting an ordinary job to help her fulfil her social aspirations.

Imitation of Life Douglas Sirk’s weepy about the friendship between two widowed mothers – a white actress (Lana Turner) and her black maid (Juanita Moore) – was a box office smash in 1959. Its portrait of an America blighted by racism and materialism is brilliant, and so bleak that its happy ending has a hollow ring.

THE FILMS ARE AVAILABLE ON GOOGLE PLAY (EXCEPT MOMMY AND THE SECOND MOTHER), APPLE TV AND AMAZON PRIME

Mommy Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan’s fifth feature film – released in 2014, when he was 25 – charts the relationship between a violent teenager with ADHD and his charismatic, chaotic single mother. Shot in a kinetic, luridly colourful style, it’s an emotional roller coaster that won the Jury Prize at Cannes.

The Second Mother This Brazilian comedy-drama from 2015 features a brilliant turn from Regina Casé as the deferential live-in maid and nanny of a rich São Paulo family. When her 18-year-old daughter comes to stay, class and family conflicts erupt, gently but acutely observed by director Anna Muylaert.

Tully Directed by Jason Reitman from an excellent, autobiographically-inspired script by Diablo Cody, this comedy-drama from 2018 features great performances from Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis as an exhausted and depressed middle-class mother and the night nanny who rescues her.

31

New releases Black Widow

Dir: Cate Shortland (2hrs 14mins) (12A)

★★★

The latest Marvel superhero film is a “spy romp” starring Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, a character often “reduced to sassy cartwheels in catsuits” in previous outings, said Kevin Maher in The Times. In a plot that owes more to James Bond (or Austin Powers) than Iron Man, she is reunited with her estranged little sister Yelena (Florence Pugh), a fellow graduate of the Red Room, a Russian academy for training brainwashed female assassins. Yelena has been deprogrammed and plans to free the other girls with her sister’s help. To do so, they must take down the evil General Dreykov, a “Blofeld wannabe” played by Ray Winstone with a “conspicuous Moscow-via-Cape-Town-viaEnfield accent”. Luckily, they have the help of their adoptive parents, scientist Melina (Rachel Weisz) and former spy Alexei (David Harbour).

Black Widow is a “valiant” attempt to do right

by Marvel’s first female Avenger, whose past “hypersexualisation” by the franchise even Johansson has criticised, said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. You can’t help but feel, though, that it has come “a little too late”, and that the film’s central theme – the exploitation of young women – is under-explored. Such dark material doesn’t sit easily with the film’s “briskly enjoyable” tone, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. Still, the movie has considerable strengths. The climactic “secret base infiltration” and a Bourne-like motorcycle chase through Budapest rank among Marvel’s most “rip-roaring” set pieces. And Pugh’s performance as Yelena is heartfelt and “hilarious”, providing the perfect comic foil for the steely Natasha. In cinemas and on Disney+.

The Truffle Hunters

Dirs: Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck (1hr 24mins) (12A)

★★★★

Filmed over three years in the mountain villages of Piedmont in northern Italy, this documentary

Scarlett Johansson plays the “steely” Natasha

about a disappearing way of life is “strange, funny, mysterious and rather beautiful”, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Its subject is the rare, expensive Alba truffle and the small group of “gnarled” old men who forage it each November with their dogs. These “mischievous, fascinating and stubborn” octogenarians often hunt at night to conceal the top spots and, believing the industry is being ruined by avarice, intend to take their secrets to the grave.

We see the gourmet hysteria and “big money” surrounding the Alba (one truffle in the film fetched $110,000 at auction), but the real focus is on the rhythms of nature and of village life, which are captured with painterly grace.

At the heart of the film is a “love story”, said Benji Wilson in The Daily Telegraph – between these men and their dogs. The dogs are crucial to the hunt, and the most thrilling footage comes from cameras mounted on their heads, letting us “barrel through the undergrowth” with them, “galumphing” front paws often popping into frame. We hear Aurelio (84) “tenderly discussing matters of life and death” with his beloved Birba, said Mark Kermode in The Observer. Sergio, meanwhile, bathes and blow-dries his dog. This shared perspective is what makes the film so touching. It immerses us in an ecosystem threatened by deforestation, deteriorating soil and human greed, and reminds us that we lose track of the Earth’s “natural heartbeat” at our peril. In cinemas.

Sex/Life: TV drama’s raunchy new direction There’s no mystery as to why the “The premise is, and I don’t drama series Sex/Life became want to make this sound too Netflix’s most watched UK show sophisticated: which man has the when it was released last week, said bigger penis?” said Camilla Long Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian. in The Sunday Times. The defining It’s a “sex-strewn, nudity-heavy moment comes when one man saucefest” leavened by an reveals his huge manhood to the “occasional splash” of melodrama. other in a gym. TV has become a lot Sarah Shahi is Billie Connelly, a raunchier of late, said Ben Dowell in wealthy woman who, despite her The Times – from Normal People to happy marriage, can’t stop Bridgerton to Industry. This may, fantasising about her bad-boy ex, paradoxically, be partly down to the Brad. Their conversations, she says, arrival of ”intimacy co-ordinators”, were “intoxicating” – but it’s their “Sex-strewn saucefest” who have made sex scenes safer to “neon-lit” sex in every possible film, and so more acceptable. Or location that we actually see, as Billie’s perhaps TV producers have just realised dilemma is strung out over eight almost “plotviewers can’t get enough of “shallow, sanitised free episodes”. mainstream porn” like Sex/Life.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

32 ARTS

Art Exhibition of the week Paula Rego Tate Britain, London SW1 (020-7887 8888, tate.org.uk). Until 24 October

Nobody ever accused Paula “as much a manifesto as a Rego of holding back, said canvas”, and sets the tone for Eleanor Nairne in The New the cascade of warped and York Times. She is “the kind violent imagery to come. The Policeman’s Daughter (1987) of artist who paints a soldier in a leopard-print gimp mask”, a has a young woman arm-deep woman cutting off a monkey’s in a jackboot. The father tail, or “the devil’s wife in glimpsed in 1988’s The Family is being “forcefully undressed nipple tassels”. Her art mixes by his female kin”. Presumably folklore and “fetishistic menace”, enchantment and he is undergoing some sort of righteous retribution: “payback horror – and it “lingers powerfully in the mind”. Rego time, daddy”. I am “not Rego’s biggest fan” – I find her work was born in Portugal in 1935, but has been largely resident in “excessively illustrative and England since the 1950s: her didactic”. And in the later liberal parents sent her to a years, she has tended to “overstuff her compositions with finishing school in Kent and then art college in London to dense imagery”, resulting in escape the repressive regime of “silly, incoherent” pictures like dictator António de Oliveira 1994’s The Barn. Nevertheless, Salazar. In her adopted homeI would have to “concede that this is an excellent exhibition”, land, though largely ignored until the 1980s, she has become which does justice to a an unlikely “national treasure” fascinating career. and Dame Commander. Now she is getting the UK’s highest “Rego is phenomenal, but The Family (1988): payback time? artistic accolade: a full-scale this exhibition won’t let you retrospective at Tate Britain. The exhibition is “the biggest and immerse yourself in her world,” said Jonathan Jones in The most comprehensive” display of Rego’s work held in the UK to Guardian. The works here are hung on “intrusively coloured date, said Florence Hallett in The i Paper. Bringing together walls” and paired with reductive captions that repeatedly try paintings, drawings and prints dating from every stage of her to “batter” the “subtle strangeness” of Rego’s work into “crude seven-decade career, it is packed with “brilliant, shocking” political messages”. Yet given the number of modern masterpieces here, it hardly matters. Among the best are a “surreal and pictures that cumulatively represent “an avalanche of female experience”. Make no mistake: it is a “magnificent” achievement. mysterious” triptych of paintings based on Hogarth’s Marriage A-la-Mode; 1988’s “spine-tingling” moonlit beach scene The Dance; and perhaps best of all, an extraordinary scene titled Dog The show could hardly be more of-the-moment, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. The Rego it gives us is “a fierce Woman, in which the image’s eponymous subject “goes down tutelary deity for the #MeToo generation”, a feminist “avenging on all fours and contorts her face as if she is barking or howling”. angel” whose work “perpetually demonises blokes as bogeymen”. She could be being dictated to by “an invisible man, grunting The earliest work here, Interrogation (1950) – a protest against commands”. Then again, she might be “suffering for God”. All in the abortion laws of the Salazar regime – depicts a seated woman all, if you can overcome the slight “irritations” of this exhibition, you will find much “great art” on show here. surrounded by “uniformed thugs” with “bulging crotches”; it is

News from the art world too: a “timely” response to the statues of Colston, Rhodes and the like that fill Britain’s The sculptures that will occupy Trafalgar public spaces. The best Fourth Plinth works have Square’s vacant Fourth Plinth for the next few always explored “Britain’s relationship with the years were announced last week, said Jawad world”; by this rationale, Kambalu’s elegant Iqbal in The Times. In the past, the scheme to fill proposal is an unqualified success. the platform with contemporary art has produced some admirable results. But it seems now that the Fourth Plinth commission risks becoming “a Edinburgh’s “poop emoji” hotel national joke”. The first work, to be installed next The skyline of Scotland’s capital has an year, is Samson Kambalu’s Antelope, a sculpture unfortunate new landmark, says Oliver of Malawian preacher and independence hero Wainwright in The Guardian. Bearing a striking John Chilembwe towering over a British resemblance to the widely-shared “poop emoji”, missionary; the second, by the Mexican artist on account of its distinctive bronze coil, the Teresa Margolles, features plaster casts of the W hotel in Edinburgh’s historic New Town is faces of 850 transgender people arranged into visible from nearly “every prospect” of the the form of “a Mesoamerican skull rack”. Coming some angles, it has the air of city. From F at a moment of “polarised” debate surrounding “an unfortunate deposit, dropped from public statues, they appear to have been chosen on high”; from others, it looms like a not for any artistic merit, but “to tick the box of menacing dung heap”. Its defenders “m W Hotel: “the golden turd” fashionable political orthodoxies”. These pieces aim it is a “happy” design, likening it to cla certainly “sail straight into the storms of Britain’s culture wars”, a “spiral of orange peel peel” or o a “walnut whip”. Yet it is known said Jackie Wullschläger in the FT. Yet in aesthetic terms, online as “the golden turd”, while locals, with typical directness, Margolles’s work is “compelling”. Kambalu’s effort is impressive have nicknamed it “the jobby”.

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

© PAULA REGO

The fourth plinth

The List

33

Best books… Ruth Padel

The award-winning poet, author and classicist chooses her five favourite books. Her new novel, Daughters of the Labyrinth (Corsair £18.99) – a contemporary story set partly in her beloved Crete – is out now The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault, 1956 (Virago £8.99). One of my favourite evocations of classical Greece.

It is beautifully written, vivid and natural, with no hint of the research that must have gone into it. But it’s also a deeply emotional, delicately drawn love story between two men. It brings to life the horrors of ancient warfare, the original Olympic Games, and philosophers Socrates and Plato, as classical Athens falls from prosperity into war and social division, and democracy crumbles under pressure.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, 2017 (Bloomsbury £8.99). A gripping example of Greek myth illuminating our

own age. A British Muslim, whose boyfriend is the son of a Muslim home secretary, tries to help her radicalised brother escape Isis and comes up against the power of the state.

A brilliant re-working of Sophocles’s tragedy, Antigone.

The Complete Poems by John Keats, 1973 (Penguin £12.99). It is exactly 200 years since Keats died, aged 25, of TB. A stableman’s son, born at an inn in Moorgate, he wrote some of the most memorable and sensual poems of all time.

Sylvia Plath Poems Chosen

by Carol Ann Duffy by Sylvia Plath, 2012 (Faber £9.99). A handy, slip-in-your-pocket selection by one of the most

important 20th century poets.

Plath’s poems are personal, imaginative, brave and surprising: their imagery, voice and new ways of looking at relationships and life experience changed the world of poetry for everyone. I could never be without her.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, 1849 (Penguin £7.99). It was Dickens’s favourite of his own novels, and is mine too. My dad read it to me, I read it to my daughter, and I re-read it every ten years. It is an autobiographical story told in the narrator’s voice. Dickens’s laughter, tenderness and anger at injustice are on show on every page.

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 Showing now

Unearthed: Photography’s Roots traces the medium’s 180-year history through images of nature, from early Victorian still lifes to Robert Mapplethorpe’s eroticised blooms. Until 30 August, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21 (dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk).

Book now

The Edinburgh International Book Festival returns with 250 events, all available online.

Headliners include Nobel Prize-winners

A Very British Country House A two-part look behind the scenes at Cliveden House and its estate, as it hosts a variety of guests and events, including Instagram influencers and a wedding.

Sun 18 Jul, C4 20:00 (60mins).

Baptiste New series of the

moody detective drama: Julien Baptiste travels to Hungary to help the British ambassador (Fiona Shaw) find her missing family. Sun 18 Jul, BBC1 21:00 (60mins).

Uprising Documentary by

Steve McQueen and James Rogan, exploring the 1981 New Cross fire, and its effect on race relations. Tue 20, Wed 21 and Thur 22 Jul, BBC1 21:00 (three parts, 60mins each).

Torn Apart: Family Courts Uncovered Dispatches uses

unseen footage and personal testimony to investigate what goes on behind the closed doors of family courts, with some shocking revelations.

Tue 20 Jul, C4 22:00 (60mins).

about the Hillsong megachurch, which has a global following via its social media and millennial-friendly brand of Christianity. Wed 21 Jul, BBC4 22:00 (100 mins).

Films

Nebraska (2013) Alexander

Yinka Ilori at Somerset House

Amartya Sen and Kazuo Ishiguro, Douglas Stuart in conversation with Nicola Sturgeon, and Bernardine Evaristo. 14-30 August, Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh; tickets go on sale at noon on 22 July (edbookfest.co.uk).

Marking 50 years since Mike Oldfield’s landmark fusion of prog rock, folk and electronica, a full band will perform Tubular Bells: Live in Concert. 7-15 August, Royal Festival Hall, London SE1 (southbankcentre.co.uk).

The Archers: what happened last week

© ANDREW MEREDITH

Programmes

Hillsong Church: God Goes Viral Storyville documentary

After a £6m renovation, Manchester Jewish Museum has reopened. Alongside restoration of the 1874 synagogue, the “extraordinary objects on display” bring the history and diversity of the city’s Jewish community to life (Daily Telegraph) (manchesterjewishmuseum.com).

Originally planned for January, Dodge brings dodgems and dining to the courtyard of Somerset House. There’s a colourful art installation by Yinka Ilori and a pop-up restaurant. Until 22 August, Somerset House, London WC2 (somersethouse.org.uk).

Television

At the fête planning-committee meeting, Joy suggests a scarecrow competition. Lynda says it’s been done before, but others support it. Alice tells Kate about Peggy and Chris “conspiring” over her alcoholism. Outraged, Kate wants to confront Peggy but Alice goes herself, and is surprised to get an abject apology. Alice makes her peace, but Kate is still furious and wants to leave Peggy and move in with Jakob. Lynda’s pride is wounded by the support for Joy’s idea, but Fallon kindly reassures her. Brian drives Alice to rehab, but as they get close, she escapes. A frantic Brian finds her in a pub. He eventually gets her to the facility but, as he says goodbye, Alice bitterly tells him she hates him. Neil admits to Shula that gardening for her is a break from stresses at home. Later, Shula arrives as he and Susan bicker about work; when Susan learns how much Neil has been helping Shula, she leaves abruptly. Brian confides in Eddie about the trauma of leaving Alice at rehab. Eddie sympathises and reassures Brian that Alice didn’t mean what she said.

Payne’s road movie sees Bruce Dern as a cantankerous pensioner who sets off with his son to collect a sweepstake prize, visiting long-lost family along the way. Thur 22 Jul, C4 02:10 (120mins).

Wings of Desire (1987) Wim Wenders’ award-winning fantasy tells the story of two angels who watch over a divided Berlin. Thur 22 Jul, Film4 23:15 (160mins).

New to subscription TV In Treatment HBO’s hit drama about a psychotherapist returns for a fourth series, with Uzo Aduba taking over from Gabriel Byrne in the lead role. From 19 July, on Sky Atlantic.

Heist The extraordinary stories behind three real-life robberies, with dramatic reconstructions of the events.

On Netflix.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Best properties

34 Grade II properties under £1m ▲

Herefordshire: The Old Priory, Titley, Kington. This fine Grade II house, believed to have origins in the 15th century, has been beautifully restored.

Main suite with walk-in wardrobe, guest suite, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, sitting room with original inglenook and woodburning stove, dining room with exposed timbers, hall, study, utility, cloakroom, store rooms, office, barn, garage, carport, large gardens, secluded courtyard. £800,000; Strutt & Parker (01584873711).

▲ Cornwall: 4 Albert Place, St Ives. A Grade II town house with panoramic views over the harbour, St Ives Bay and far along the north Cornish coast. Main suite with sea-facing balcony, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room with Aga, 2 receps, utility/WC, cellar/office, roof terrace, front and rear garden, parking, garage. OIRO £950,000; Lillicrap Chilcott (01872-273473). ▲

Hampshire: Farm Cottage, Monxton, Andover. Originally 3 cottages, this Grade II thatched house has many original period features, including exposed beams, a large inglenook, and the original fireplace with bread oven in the dining room. Main bed with dressing room/bed 5, 3 further beds, 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, recep hall, 2 further receps, study, utility, cloakroom with WC, pretty gardens, southwest-facing courtyard, 2-storey detached barn with potential for conversion, ample parking. £795,000; Myddelton & Major (01264-316000).

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

on the market

35

▲ Devon: 1 Ebberley Lawn, Barnstaple. An elegant

Georgian Grade II town house with many original features, on a private square with communal central gardens. 5 beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, 2 utilities, 2 WCs, garage, parking, studio, workshop, garden. £599,950; Stags (01271-322833).

▲

Devon: Tumbly, Holne, Newton Abbot, Dartmoor.

An outstanding home designed by a pupil of Edwin Lutyens, set above the Dart Valley with outstanding views across to Sharp Tor. Main suite, guest suite, 1 further bed, shower, kitchen/breakfast room with Aga, 2 receps, reading room, terrace, 2 garages, former stables, garden store, lovely gardens and grounds, 1.6 acres. £850,000; Knight Frank (01392-848842).

Scottish Borders: Lambrook House, East Lambrook, South Petherton. Dating from the 16th century, this fine Grade II village house requires general improvement.

6 beds, family bath, shower, 2 WCs, kitchen, 2 receps, study, studio, hall, larder, utility, attic, stores, garage, outbuilding, annexe/ library with studio potential, garden, 0.4 acres. For sale by informal tender – closing date 30 July, £800,000-£850,000; Symonds & Sampson (01460-200790).

▲

▲

Cornwall: Venton Vaise, Callestick. A Grade II farmhouse with a wealth of character, on the fringe of the pretty hamlet of Callestick, in a sheltered valley between the dramatic north Cornish coast and Truro.

The accommodation is laid out with a bedroom on the lower-ground floor, which could be converted into a selfcontained flat. 5 beds, 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, flagstoned entrance hall, utility, porch/boot room, garage, parking, lake, woodland, 7 acres. £950,000; Stags (01872264488). ▲

London: Arbour Square, Stepney, Tower Hamlets E1. This Grade II three-storey terraced town house has a full rear kitchen extension and has been refurbished throughout, with many original features restored. Arbour Square Gardens is set within a Conservation Area and is located under half a mile from Limehouse Station and Shadwell, with Whitechapel and Stepney Green stations just over half a mile’s walk. First floor main suite, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen, 2 receps, WC, west-facing garden. £1m; Dexters (020 7483-6371).

▲ London: Goldsmiths Buildings, Acton W3. A Georgian terraced house in a gated development, part of the historic Grade II almshouse, built in 1811, with expansive landscaped gardens. 1 bed, 1 bath, kitchen leading onto a private patio garden overlooking the communal gardens, recep with original fireplace. £485,000; John D. Wood & Co (020-3369 1808).

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

LEISURE Food & Drink

37

What the experts recommend The Royal Oak Inn Luxborough, near Dunster, Exmoor National Park, Somerset (01984-641498) The two-sided menu at The Royal Oak Inn near Dunster had so many spelling mistakes I wondered if they were “going for a record”, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. Not only did they get “baguttes” and “mussles” wrong; they also erred with “ceasar”, “medditeranian” and “spiach”. But you really don’t have to be good at spelling to be a great cook or restaurant manager – and the food at this handsome 14th century inn, located deep in a gully in Exmoor National Park, really couldn’t be any more splendid. It’s the mussels that linger most in my memory: they came in their own huge metal pot, having been simply cooked in a splash of cider and leeks. “I loved their feasty joie de vivre and freshness.” Garlic and chilli prawns were “deftly done”, and a bowl of cannelloni was “warmly enveloping and deeply tasty”. Our meal, washed down with an aromatic bottle of viognier, produced a feeling of “happy harmony, just as you might hope for in a good country pub”. Dinner for two excluding drinks and service: £55.

Humble Chicken 54 Frith Street, London W1 (humblechickenuk.com) I have to confess that the menu at new Soho restaurant Humble Chicken, with its references to “inner thigh”, “soft knee” and other bits of chicken that one might otherwise reject, brought out the

of us, however, should applaud head chef Angelo Sato for his “elevation of the humble” and “negation of waste”.

Yakitori: £3-£4.80; other sides: £3-£16.

Humble Chicken: “properly grown up”

“sniggering schoolboy” in me, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. Yet the place itself turned out to be “properly grown up”. It specialises in Japanese yakitori, or “small items cooked on sticks over coal”: the menu featured 19 of these skewers, all but two involving a different part of the chicken. Eating here was both fun and very satisfying. Pieces of fillet had a “nosetickling punch of wasabi”; parson’s noses were “grilled to a fatty crisp”, but were “still running with juices”; inner thigh had a “glaze of spicy miso”. I was “utterly taken”, too, by the soft knees, with their “squeaky, savoury, salty bounce”. It’s perhaps not a place that non-meat eaters will want to visit – though there are a number of vegetarian options. The rest

The Barn at Moor Hall Prescot Road, Aughton, Lancashire (01695-572511) The Barn is the sister restaurant of the two-Michelin-starred Moor Hall, Mark Birchall’s celebrated gastronomic temple in rural Lancashire, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. At The Barn, you can enjoy similarly accomplished cooking, but at much lower prices and in “more laid-back surroundings”. No wonder that on the Wednesday lunchtime I visit, every table is filled with “chipper, liberated, doublejabbed sixtysomethings”. In the “lavishly converted” dining room, I sip a “foraged” martini while enjoying the view of Moor Hall’s “dreamy manor house lawns and flower beds”. The food, when it arrives, is equally enticing: “gloriously rich” aged shorthorn beef; stuffed, roasted Jerusalem artichoke with pickled pear (the “vegetarian option of dreams”); turbot with “unforgettable warm roe tartare”.

Things in the restaurant world may be precarious right now, with distancing measures to worry about and many establishments contending with crippling staff shortages. But it’s comforting to know that a place such as this – where the standards are high and the staff “worldclass” – is not merely surviving, but apparently thriving. About £50 a head à la carte; £25 three-course set lunch menu.

Two recipes to make with children Hummus is delicious, quick and easy to make if you have a food processor or blender, says Jenny Chandler. The ice cubes are the magic touch, making this the creamiest, smoothest hummus ever.

Hummus

Overnight oat and fruit muesli

4 servings 1 x 400g can of chickpeas or 300g home-cooked chickpeas juice of 1 lemon 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed 4 tbsp extravirgin olive oil 2 tbsp tahini (sesame paste) 2 tbsp water and 2 ice cubes a pinch of salt

4 servings 100g rolled oats 200ml natural apple juice 50-100ml dairy or plant milk 2-3 dessert apples 200g seasonal fruit (peaches, plums or berries), stoned and chopped 50g toasted hazelnuts, chopped 200ml natural dairy or coconut yogurt 4 tbsp maple syrup or honey

• Pour the

• The night before,

chickpeas into a sieve set over a bowl, straining off the gloopy cooking juices.

• Put the chickpeas into a processor or blender along with the lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Give the tahini a good stir and then add that, too, © KIRSTIE YOUNG

You have to be a bit organised with this recipe, as the oats need to soak overnight, but you could make double the mixture and keep it in the fridge for 3-4 days. Don’t add the grated apple until just before you eat it, though, or it may turn brown.

with the water and ice cubes.

• Whizz until the mixture is really smooth and the ice has completely melted. Taste and season with a good pinch of salt.

• The hummus will keep in the fridge for 4 days in a jar or covered bowl.

mix the oats in a bowl with the apple juice and leave in the fridge.

• In the morning,

add enough milk to the oats so that they are not too sticky. Grate the apple – peel and all, down to the core – and stir into the oats.

• Spoon the oats

into bowls, or use glasses for a more fancy touch.

• Divide half of the fruit and nuts between bowls, then blob in the yogurt.

• Top with the rest of the fruit

and nuts and drizzle over some maple syrup or honey.

Taken from Green Kids Cook: Simple, delicious recipes & top tips by Jenny Chandler, published by Pavilion at £14.99. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £11.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

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Consumer New cars: what the critics say

from £33,885

Autocar

There has never been a sporting front-wheeldrive BMW before, and there’s definitely room for a hot hatch that doesn’t do the “obvious thing” and “go after the boyracer market”. It isn’t a looker; but it is “subtle under the skin”, and the drop in power gives it a rare weightlessness which makes it a pleasure to drive. “Priced to excite”, this car is forging a new identity for the hatchback.

▲

Sundome Beach Coleman C l Shelter The well-built Sundome wins pointts for durability. Its design leaves you quite open to the elements, but it has interna al pockets for storing phon nes and snacks, and even a drying line for cclothes (£35; mountain warehouse.com).

▲

Outwell Windscreen Air The top-end Outwell windshield uses cutting-edge inflatable technology to provide an excellent shield for cooking or just lounging. Ideal as a caravan extension, it is surprisingly easy to set up (£390; outwell.com).

Tips of the week… how to swim i safely f l iin cold ld water t ● Don’t dive or jump in, says physiologist Dr Heather Massey: you risk cold-water shock – a reflex in which you take an involuntary gasp. If you are under the water you can easily swallow enough to drown.

Immerse yourself gradually, keeping your head well above the surface. ● Wait one to three minutes to let the initial shock pass; once you’ve regained control of your breathing, you can start swimming. ● Take care, though. As your body cools, you lose muscle strength, so you’ll tire more quickly in cold water, increasing the risk of drowning. ● Be aware of the signs of hypothermia in yourself and others. These include loss of awareness and changes in vision. Look out for “fumbling, grumbling, stumbling and mumbling”. It takes the body 20-30 minutes to reach this state. ● When you leave the water, you may feel great but your body will continue to get colder, so dry off quickly, and get dressed.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

“This front-wheel drive would have been unthinkable just a decade ago”, but engineers decided that its predecessor, the M135i, would be better with the “weight of its rear driveshafts skimmed and a new suspension setup”.

The 128ti takes a bold tilt at the VW Golf GTI – and with a traction control setup that reduces wheelspin, it’s “quite possibly beaten it”.

SKLZ SportB Brella Umbrella S Shelter This easyto-carry windbreaker with an umbrella structure c can fit 3 adults c comfortably. It h has protective s y-duty side-flaps and heavy s steel stakes to stop it from blowing away (£54; amazon.co.uk).

▲

The best… beach tents

Top Gear

▲ LittleLife Family Beach Shelter A sturdy familyfavourite, this tent is spacious and designed d tto protect against all kin nds of British weather (and,, with a zip-up door, prying eyes too).

It has a 50+ UPF rating, and a ventilation panel at the back to keep things cool and airy (£60; littlelife.co om).

An nd for those who have everything… h

Dyson’s Wi-Fi powered, daylight-tracking Lightcycle uses data on natural light, your location, the task at hand, and even your age to provide the precise amount of light to suit your needs. It is, according to Forbes, “the future we were promised”. £650; dyson.co.uk SOURCE: HOT STUFF

Cressi 1946 Pop Up Beach ou’re looking to erect Tent If yo your be each shelter in a matte er of seconds, the Cres ssi Pop Up is for u. It’s affordable, you ligh htweight and compact and is coated with SPF 50+ for sun protection.

5 Fits 3-4 people (£39; am mazon.co.uk).

Where to find… themed trails around the UK Follow in J.R.R. Tolkien’s footsteps on a 9km walk in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley: visit Stonyhurst College, where he wrote The Lord of the Rings, and enjoy a pint at the Shireburn Arms (free; visitlancashire.com).

Immerse yourself in The Wind in the Willows trail at Hanningfield Reservoir in Essex. In this “Wild Wood”, you’ll discover wooden sculptures of Mr Toad and all his gang (£1 map; essexwt.org.uk).

Within the Scottish Borders lies a bike trail dedicated to the novelist Sir Walter Scott.

Start at Abbotsford, then cycle on to Scott’s View, and finally to his grave at Dryburgh Abbey (cyclescottishborders.com).

The Gruffalo Trail at Sherwood Pines is perfect for young children: follow signs to spot characters from the book (£1.50 map; forestryengland.uk).

Mosaic artist Maud Milton has created a trail map to guide you by foot or bike past the outdoor art at Waltham Forest in east London (free; artyface.co.uk).

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

SOURCES: T3; GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

BMW 128ti

The Daily Telegraph The 128ti is a highperformance hatchback that will give its competitors a run for their money. With an eight-speed gearbox, it’s fast and fun. Less powerful than its big brother, the M135i, the 128ti is a more “nimble” touring companion. It’s not perfect – the rear seats are uncomfortably cramped, for instance. Still, it injects a dose of “excitement” into the class.

LEISURE 39

Obituaries

40

Hugely successful film director who made Superman Richard Donner, who has died aged 91, was one of Hollywood’s most successful film directors. Versatile and extremely prolific, he directed some of the biggest films of the 1980s and 1990s – and also laid the groundwork for the modern superhero movie, said The New York Times.

In the late 1970s, Donner was asked to direct a movie adaptation of the Superman comics. The Man of Steel hadn’t been seen on film since a TV series in the 1950s, and bringing him to the big screen proved challenging. The producers wanted an established star for the role, and considered everyone from Paul Newman and Robert Redford to Sylvester Stallone. But Donner was convinced it had to be taken by an unknown. “You couldn’t see Sly, or Redford, or all the people they were pitching, in that costume,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe that they could fly.” Eventually a casting agent suggested he take a look at Christopher Reeve.

Richard Donner 1930-2021

to the special effects. “If the audience didn’t believe he was flying, I didn’t have a movie.”

The son of Russian immigrant parents, Richard Schwartzberg was born in the Bronx in 1930.

At college, he got a job in theatre, and enjoyed it so much he decided to try his hand at acting.

His first role, aged 20, was in a TV adaptation of Of Human Bondage, but on set the director, Martin Ritt, was irritated by his constant interventions. “He said I’d never make it as an actor because I couldn’t take direction,” Donner recalled. Ritt reckoned the young actor could give direction, however, and took him on as an assistant. In 1959, Donner moved to Hollywood, where he worked for years in TV, on shows including The Twilight Zone, before getting his big-screen break when he was asked to direct The Omen (1976). A horror film about a child who is the Antichrist, it was a massive hit, and spawned several sequels. Its Donner: “I’m a 200-pound gorilla” success won him the Superman job. He had loved the comics as a child during the War, and was determined Reeve was too skinny for the role (his friends called him the to reflect in the film what the character had meant to him.

Human String Bean); but he promised he could bulk up, and in just over a month, he transformed his physique. There were plenty In the 1980s, Donner scored more hits with the children’s romp more headaches, though, said The Times. Marlon Brando was so The Goonies (1985), the Bill Murray comedy Scrooged (1988), lazy, he had originally proposed playing his character, Superman’s and the Lethal Weapon movies, starring Danny Glover and Mel father, as a green suitcase, or a bagel, so that he wouldn’t have to Gibson. They were fast-paced action films, but he was proud of come on set. Donner hated the original script, finding it camp and the fact that he slipped into them references to liberal causes such as the anti-apartheid movement. In 1986, he married the film parodic, and had to bring in new writers. Later, the complexity of the project – which involved filming Superman and Superman II producer Lauren Shuler. They rarely worked together: “I’m a 200-pound gorilla,” he explained. “She’s a 300-pound gorilla.” at the same time – created tensions with its producers. He was However, they co-founded a production company, which was eventually fired: Richard Lester finished the second film. Yet against the odds, Superman was a triumph, and broke box office behind the Free Willy and X-Men films among other high records. The key to its success lay in the word that Donner had grossers. Asked once how he’d like to be remembered, he said: printed on a sign at the start of filming: Verisimilitude. He was “As a good guy who lived a long life and had a good time and determined that Superman should seem real. And that extended always had that lady behind him pushing him.”

Survivor of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra Esther Bejarano, who has died carry heavy rocks. Learning that an orchestra in Hamburg aged 96, was one was being formed, she volunteered as an accordionist even though she had never played of the last survivors of the the instrument, gambling that she could use her Women’s Orchestra recruited skills as a pianist. In what she called a “miracle”, to play at Auschwitz. With some 40 other young women, she was forced to perform when inmates she was given a German tune that she knew well were marched out to work, or as trains from to perform at her audition, and earned a place: across Europe delivered more Jews to the death music, she would say later, kept her alive. In camp, said Deutsche Welle (Bonn). “We played autumn 1943, she was transferred to the with tears in our eyes,” she recalled in a 2010 Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp north interview. “The new arrivals came in waving and of Berlin, and in April 1945 managed to flee applauding us but we knew they would be taken from a “death march” of prisoners driven west directly to the gas chambers.” In later life, she by their guards to avoid advancing Soviet forces. would become a prominent political activist, To celebrate the end of the War, she played the fighting anti-Semitism and discrimination in accordion to Allied troops as a picture of Hitler Germany. Well into her 90s, she sang alongside was burnt on a bonfire. Both her parents and her Bejarano: a tireless activist her son in a hip-hop band, Microphone Mafia, sister were killed in the Holocaust. to spread her message to a new generation of Germans.

After the War, Bejarano emigrated to Israel where she made a Born in Saarlouis in 1924, Esther Bejarano was the daughter of career as a singer, but in 1960 she returned to Germany with her a teacher, said The Daily Telegraph. Her father also served as a husband to live in Hamburg, said the Daily Mail. On encountercantor for the local Jewish community, and encouraged her talent ing open anti-Semitism, she became an activist, visiting schools to for music. She had, she said, “a horrible youth” blighted by the talk about the Holocaust. When she addressed young people, she Nazis. In 1941, she was sent to a forced labour camp near Berlin. liked to say: “You are not guilty of what happened back then. But Two years later she was deported to Auschwitz, a journey of five you become guilty if you refuse to listen.” A tiny figure (less than days in a cattle truck. In her memoirs, she remembered being five feet tall), she exuded great energy and charisma. Germany’s greeted by an SS officer saying: “Now, you filthy Jews, we will foreign minister Heiko Maas paid tribute to her, calling her “an show you what it means to work.” She was made to collect and important voice in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism”.

Esther Bejarano 1924-2021

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Marketplace

A style guide to the

Chesterton - Corner Rattan Set The luxurious Chesterton corner sofa and matching glass topped coffee table set is perfect for entertaining outdoors.

Generously proportioned with deep, anti-fade cushions you can seat 5 people in comfort. It’s so easy to look after – the seat and back cushions all feature removable covers (see website). With a maintenance-free construction of thick polyrattan and a galvanised steel frame, the set can even be left out all-year round, making it the ideal addition to your outdoor space this year. Normally £799, now available at an amazing £599*, but only when you quote your £200 discount code WEJUL21 at checkout.

outside

Industry expert and founder of Out and Out Original, Daniel Fairburn, brings you this season’s best deals on designer furniture.Visit www.outandout.com or call 02037 728 752 for more exciting deals and discounts.

Contactless Delivery Available

41

Havana - Corner Lounge g Set The sleek Havana Corner Lounge Set is perfect for your garden to soak up the sun and just chill. It can seat up to 5 comfortably and comes with a square coffee table. The frame of the lounge set and the coffee table is electrostatically coated to give a premium and durable finish, making the set virtually maintenance free. The chunky foam cushions ensure comfort wherever you sit and includes removable covers for washing to maintain that pristine look.

Normally £899, now available at an amazing £699*, but only when you quote your £200 discount code WEJUL21 at checkout.

To receive your £200 discount on any of these products quote code WEJUL21 at checkout at www.outandout.com or call 02037 728 752 before 14.08.2021. *Excludes delivery. Prices correct at time of going to press.

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vanessaarbuthnott.co.uk THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Marketplace

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THE WEEK 17 July 2021

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

CITY 43

DMGT: a better class of buyout baron

The Daily Mail has been running “a vociferous campaign” against private equity firms gobbling up listed UK companies at bargain prices, said Helen Thomas in the FT. What will it make of its owner’s plans to go private? Proprietor Lord Rothermere – whose ancestors founded the newspaper in 1896 and floated the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in 1932 – has proposed buying the 70% of the publisher his family doesn’t own for a knock-down £810m, including debt. The deal, conducted via the family’s Bermuda-registered company RCL, would take in the Mail, Metro, New Scientist and i publications, as well as DMGT’s property information and events businesses. Lord Rothermere may be “a cut above your regular buyout baron”, but it’s a “mystery” why he wants to go private, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “It’s not as if he suffers under the shackles of corporate governance.” The family already owns all the voting shares in DMGT, which has invested – very successfully – in the souped-up used-car dealer Cazoo (soon to float on Wall Street) and the insurance risk business RMS, also set to be sold.

Perhaps buying “rump DMGT” is simply “a tidying up operation” now these assets have been divested. “The unspoken invitation to outside shareholders is to lie back and think of the riches” Cazoo and RMS created – “and not ask too many awkward questions”.

Philip Morris/Vectura: health hypocrisy?

Marlboro Man and his buddies at Philip Morris have been stoking rich retirements, controversially, for decades. But like other high-yielding Big Tobacco stocks, the US fagmaker is racing to diversify as regulators bite and smokers quit. As part of its stated “evolution into a broader healthcare and wellness company”, the company recently snapped up the Danish nicotine gum company Fertin Pharma, for $813m, said Reuters.

Now it has gone a step further with a mooted £1bn takeover of British pharma Vectura – a specialist in respiratory ailment therapies. The deal is “part of a carefully thought-out shift to smoke-free products” and an exercise in “good PR”, observed AJ Bell analyst Danni Hewson. Not everyone’s buying it. Indeed, the tobacco giant faces a backlash from anti-smoking charities and politicians, who accuse it of rank “health hypocrisy” and have called on the Government to block a cynical attempt to profit from the effects of smoking, said Sabah Meddings and Jamie Nimmo in The Sunday Times. Philip Morris aims to generate at least $1bn from what it calls “beyond tobacco and nicotine products” by 2025. The challenge is to do so without leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.

Cairn Energy: Indian takeaway

Governments have a history of seizing property from companies, rarely the other way round. So kudos to Cairn Energy for taking on the might of India. In an escalation of “a seven-year-long tax dispute with New Delhi”, the Scottish oil minnow has seized Indian state-owned properties in Paris, said Una Galani on BreakingViews – in response to India’s “refusal to honour” an international arbitration ruling last year that awarded Cairn $1.7bn. “No question the Scottish outfit’s got taste,” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. It has seized 20 flats in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, worth $20m, with “quality views of the Eiffel Tower”. And that’s just “the hors d’oeuvre”. Cairn has identified $70bn of Indian assets worldwide, from buildings to Air India jets, as potential targets.

Seven days in the Square Mile The UK inflation rate hit 2.5% in the year to June, the highest for nearly three years, topping the Bank of England’s 2% target for the second month running.

The upward tick is likely to fuel debate about interest rate rises. Consumer prices in the US rose by 0.9% from MayJune – the largest monthly gain since 2008. Fed chair Jay Powell said he was ready to intervene if inflation spiralled out of control, but stressed the Fed still expects price rises to ease this year.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak urged Britons to return to work after the lifting of the order to work from home on 19 July.

But many companies said they would opt for a staggered approach. The Bank of England lifted restrictions on bank dividends and share buybacks imposed during the pandemic. Britain’s shortage of HGV drivers – blamed on EU nationals returning home and a delay to the qualification process – was reported to have reached crisis point.

Waitrose and John Lewis outlined plans to cut 1,000 jobs as part of a shake-up.

The US fintech Circle, which operates the crypto USD Coin, announced it would float, valued at around $4.5bn.

The company is merging with Concord Acquisition, a “blank cheque” company chaired by former Barclays chief Bob Diamond. Tate & Lyle confirmed plans to break itself up, by selling its £1.2bn sweetener division. David Cameron was revealed to have been paid more than $1m a year for his part-time advisory role at Greensill Capital.

Chinese techlash: the “hit and run” on Didi Not so long ago, it was the US threatening to de-list Chinese businesses floating in New York, said Lex in the FT. Now the bigger concern is Beijing. Some of China’s most powerful companies including Didi, Alibaba and Tencent – and an “army” of smaller Chinese companies with US listings – are reeling from a draconian crackdown intended to shatter the allure of Wall Street and hook them back to Chinese venues such as Shanghai’s Star Market.

further, said DealBook in The New York Times. This week, punishing new regulatory requirements were extended to all Chinese firms intending to float abroad. Meanwhile, President Biden is preparing to warn US companies “about the risks of doing business in Hong Kong, further fraying relations between the US and China”.

“This was a clarifying week for global investors – or for anyone concerned about authoritarian capitalism,” said Frederick The trigger was the float of Didi Global, the Kempe on CNBC. The bid to decouple international arm of China’s largest rideChinese companies from Western investment Didi: hit with a regulatory crackdown hailing company, Didi Chuxing, which raised could mean “an immeasurable loss of $4bn on 30 June, in Wall Street’s largest IPO this year. Within economic dynamism”. It’s always been questionable whether days, the company was “in hot water” at home, said The Wall China “can combine thuggish autocratic politics with the Street Journal. Chinese regulators, who had opposed the listing, predictable rules and property rights that entrepreneurs and banned the Didi app from online stores and hit it with capital markets need to thrive”, said The Economist. This “hit “antimonopoly fines”. The crackdown has now extended much and run” on Didi is further evidence that it simply cannot.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

44 CITY

Talking points Issue of the week: the new space race Richard Branson has declared space open for business. Is that still a pie in the sky?

Virgin Galactic’s successful test flight shock for shareholders. Branson and Bezos see their flights “as the beginning last weekend enabled Richard Branson “to claim the crown of the first of a new stage in commercial space billionaire to make it into space”, said travel”, said Sarah McBride on James Phillipps on Citywire – beating Bloomberg Businessweek. But Virgin Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos’s Blue Galactic has been a pioneer for the space Origin venture by a matter of days. industry in other ways too. In 2019, it went public after merging with a special “The battle of egos” between the pair, purpose acquisition vehicle (Spac) – “a and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has created “a fresh wave of interest in the then-obscure financial tool” that has commercial opportunities beyond since been adopted by a host of “risky companies”. Branson’s maiden flight Earth”. And the Branson coterie has may have validated Space Spacs, but it been quick to capitalise on it. A new investment trust, Seraphim Space – has also helped launch a dicey trend. chaired by former Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn – floated in Virgin aims to take tourists to the edge space “at a rate of more than one of London this week, providing “the first Branson with his team: the first billionaire in space actively managed way” for the average flight a day”, said Richard Waters in the investor to gain exposure to potentially “stellar” returns. Punters FT. More than 600 people have so far put down an average of seemed very willing “to explore a new frontier”, said Naomi $130,000 to fly. “However, with room for only four passengers Ackerman in the London Evening Standard. Shares in Seraphim, on each flight”, there’s “a serious shortage of seats in the short which is backed by Airbus, climbed by 5.5% in early trading. term”, and no firm timetable for when it will scale up commercial operations. Galactic’s $8.3bn valuation may be hard to justify, Let’s not get carried away, said Matthew Field in The Daily said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. But fair play to Branson: Telegraph. Branson might have achieved “weightlessness” as he his “space escapade” is the culmination of a long obsession. A skirted the edge of space, but shares in New York-listed Virgin pity that it coincides with such a parlous situation in the terrestrial Galactic fell to Earth with a bump this week on news that the air industry on which our economies depend. Branson’s Virgin company needs to raise another $500m of equity to fund its Atlantic, like all the others, is foundering. Arguably, “his most commercial launch next year. The 14% plunge was the latest important mission isn’t in outer space but over the Atlantic”.

Fintech: what the pundits say transfers compared with an average cream-off of more “Blink and you missed it,” than 5% by mainstream said Nils Pratley in The banks. It’s certainly an Guardian. The UK’s impressive operation, said “biggest tech flotation” ever Zaven Boyrazian on The happened last week, “to Motley Fool. It cleared about a hundredth of the £54bn across borders last pre-publicity generated year. And, unlike many by the overhyped and young fintech companies, undercooked Deliveroo”. it’s actually profitable: it Wise – the profitable crossmade £49.9m between border payments company March 2020 and 2021. But formerly known as shares have already soared.

TransferWise – finished its Käärman: taking on the banks By the start of this week first day in public form Wise’s value had shot up to valued at a “punchy” £8.75bn, “more nearly £13.5bn, which should give wouldthan twice its valuation at its last private be investors pause for thought. funding round last year”. The company isn’t eligible for the FTSE 100 because its Estonian CEO and co-founder, Kristo ● A coming of age Käärmann, “insisted on giving himself Even allowing for the hype, “something enhanced voting rights”, thus earning astonishing is going on in fintech”, said “a boo” from governance purists. “He The Economist. According to CB Insights, gets a cheer, though, for demonstrating “one in every five dollars invested by that appetite for high-growth, highly venture capital this year” has gone into the prized tech businesses is alive and well sector, with deals and listings proceeding in London.” “at a frenetic pace”. Once the “insurgents of finance”, fintech firms “are becoming ● Robin Hood rides again part of the establishment” – inexorably Consumers should also be cheering, said gaining critical mass. Their collective value Forbes. Käärmann and his partner Taavet has risen to $1.1trn – equivalent to 10% Hinrikus started Wise after becoming, in of the value of the global banking and their words, “sick of losing money” to payments industry. “Prices may be banks in fees. The company, which has stretched today and some firms may flop, been dubbed “the Robin Hood of currency but in the long run it seems likely that this exchange”, charges less than 1% on many share will only rise.” ● Wise up

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Themes with legs Covid has changed some of our behaviours profoundly, said Danielle Levy on Citywire. Which investment themes will outlast the pandemic?

Pet ownership According to Statista, household pet ownership in the UK has risen from 40% in 2019 to 59% in 2021.

Giles Money of JSS Sustainable Equity Global Thematic Fund, reckons “millennials and younger cohorts have a higher propensity to spend money on pets and are having fewer children”.

Digital shift Lockdowns have accelerated growth of online banking, particularly among the over-50s. Daniel Lockyer of Hawksmoor notes that “12% of the UK population downloaded an online banking app for the first time last year”. He currently has exposure via Augmentum – a fintech fund with stakes in companies like the mobileonly current account provider, Monese.

He is also tapping the growth of e-commerce via real estate investment trusts (Reits) specialising in “last-mile hubs”, such as Urban Logistics.

WFH The shift to homeworking is tipped to survive Covid, but Lockyer suggests that two of lockdown’s main beneficiaries – Zoom and the homefitness company Peloton – have come off their peaks. By contrast, he reckons that Microsoft is still poised to benefit.

Microsoft Teams currently has 100 million users accessing the app free of charge. If it charged just £1 per user, it would add £1bn to the bottom line.

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THE WEEK 17 July 2021

Recent events have affected us all in many different ways. But we’re here to help reignite your plans – with expert advice and support, to get you looking forward again with confidence.

Lending | Deposits | Wealth Management | Se curities

Commentators Another shock is needed to save the world Gillian Tett Financial Times

Covid isn’t beaten; neither is the bubble Editorial The Observer

Is it curtains for the secretary?

Simon Foy The Daily Telegraph

The art of chatting up customers Editorial The Economist

There was a “grim symbolism” in the choice of Venice as the venue for the recent meeting of G20 finance ministers, says Gillian Tett. The city is on course to sink unless urgent action is taken to combat climate change. A recent BP review highlights the scale of the challenge. After noting that carbon emissions fell by a “startling” 5% during the pandemic slump of 2020, BP reckons the world needs to average the same rate of decline “every year for the next 30 years” if it is to hit the Paris climate goals. This calls for “massive behavioural change”; and there are five ways the G20 could kickstart it. First, by collectively embracing “a steadily rising carbon price and tax”. Second, by demanding that China “backs away from coal”. Third, by getting serious about helping poor nations transition to clean energy. Fourth, by fostering research into green technologies. Fifth, by properly mobilising consumers. Much of this is “obvious”, but urgency is still lacking. The pandemic frightened the world into action. We need to create “the same sense of shock about climate risks”.

“A couple of months ago, the way out of the crisis looked clear,” says The Observer. Immunisation programmes would remove restrictions on activity, enabling “the pick-up in growth” to continue. Rising infection rates of the Delta variant have given the lie to that, thoroughly spooking markets globally. “In truth, the first half of 2021 was the easy bit”: growth rates were always going to be impressive as shuttered businesses re-opened. But a whole host of other problems have now surfaced – from supply bottlenecks to the difficulty of finding jobs for people whose old jobs no longer exist. Despite rising inflation, central banks will be in no hurry to tighten monetary policy for fear of jeopardising the recovery. “If the past is anything to go by, this will put a floor under stock markets and boost the value of property, oil and crypto-assets such as bitcoin.” In the short-term, there’s a risk of stock markets being rattled by a slowdown in growth. But the more potent, longer-term threat is that of a cheap-money “everything bubble” which will eventually go “pop”.

The Big Four accountant Deloitte has shocked staff by making around a third of its executive assistants redundant, says Simon Foy. “This isn’t the first time secretarial staff have found themselves in the firing line”: during the last financial crisis, many companies sought to cut costs by reducing their numbers. But there’s a sense that this move is more permanent. Deloitte blames the cuts on “the planned shift to long-term remote working”. The secretary, it seems, may have finally succumbed to the digital revolution, hastened by the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, Victoria Wratten of the Executive & Personal Assistants Association takes a rather different view. As she points out, the job “has shifted from being a transactional role to a more strategic one”: as computers cover more of the admin, they have taken on managerial responsibilities. The market for good EAs remains busy. When executives are going “a bit crazy”, says Wratten, EAs are there “to get it all out of their head, make sense of it, and formulate a strategy”. In other words, dismiss them at your peril.

Online messaging is an “intimate medium”, says The Economist.

One WhatsApp user calls it “a cocktail-party whisper in digital form”. And the pandemic has given it a fillip. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, reports that messaging on its Messenger and Instagram apps is up by 40%. Indeed, “four-fifths of mobiledevice time is now spent on chat apps”. No wonder some of the world’s biggest consumer brands are trying to use these apps to sell products: they realise “the limitations of conventional channels like call centres and email”. Each day now, 175 million people send a message to WhatsApp business accounts. Boosters claim that conversation commerce (“c-commerce”) will displace e-commerce within a decade or two. In some ways, “it is a throwback to the past”. Trade, after all, “has relied on conversation for millennia”. Automatic messaging is now moving way beyond rudimentary chatbots to the sort of free-flowing exchanges that shoppers used to have with expert retail assistants. Companies must, of course, tread carefully. Chat apps are “emotional spaces”: get it wrong “and your firm might find itself deleted faster than an ex”. But they could be the future of shopping.

CITY 47 City profiles Bill and Melinda Gates Fortunately for the future of one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations, the Gates divorce seems to have been concluded harmoniously, said The Times. Bill and Melinda will continue working as co-chairs of the $55bn Gates Foundation for two years, but Melinda will step down “if the arrangement unravels”. Still, ending a 27-year marriage is never easy, and Gates is feeling the strain. Appearing at this year’s Sun Valley gathering – an Idaho get-together dubbed a “summer camp for billionaires” – he appeared “close to tears” as he “‘fessed up” to wrecking his marriage. There were reports of an extra-marital affair but, according to The New York Times, it was his association with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, that was the final straw for Melinda.

Sarah Friar

Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Sarah Friar saw some of the worst of human nature, said Hannah Murphy in the FT. But in her village, Catholics and Protestants lived side by side. As CEO of Nextdoor – the “hyperlocal” social network in which neighbours share local news – “she is trying to recreate that camaraderie” online. Not always successfully: parts of Nextdoor remain a cesspool of “curtain-twitching” prejudice. An Oxford graduate, Friar arrived in Silicon Valley via McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. Now she is readying Nextdoor to float, at around $4.3bn. She’ll need to be “ruthless”, but that should be no problem.

One colleague describes Friar as a “Samurai soldier”: elegant but lethal.

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

Shares

CITY 49

Who’s tipping what The week’s best shares Helical The Times This retail estate investment trust develops and lets offices in London. Although the extent of the return to offices is uncertain, rent collection rates have proved robust.

The discount to shares is too severe. Buy. 438.50p

Dunelm Group The Sunday Telegraph This well-managed homewares firm showed “real leadership” in the pandemic, boosting staff performance. Having “utterly embraced” the move to digital tech (sales jumped by 59%), investment continues.

Buy. £14.21.

PageGroup The Times Accelerating hiring activity has driven the recruiter to raise profit guidance. Highly cash-generative, and pushing into Germany, India, Brazil and China. A potential 2.9% yield, excluding special dividends. Buy. 592.5p.

Porvair Investors Chronicle The filtration specialist’s profits have climbed 4% thanks to productivityimproving acquisitions and investments. Rebounding aerospace demand and environmental regulation should drive growth.

Buy. 578p.

Spirax-Sarco The Daily Telegraph This “world-class” steam engineer has a near monopoly of specialist services: from food sterilisation to power generation. Cash-generative and well placed to benefit from inflation. Buy. £138.05.

Card Factory 100

80

60

Director buys 84,112 40

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

New CEO Darcy WillsonRymer has hoovered up £50,000-worth of shares in the greetings card retailer. Store closures have ravaged sales, but it has relaunched online and sales should improve as normal festivities resume.

…and some to hold, avoid or sell

Form guide

AO World Investors Chronicle The online electrical goods retailer was boosted as customers upgraded to meet remote working and entertainment needs. But investment in marketing and digital content is needed to sustain momentum. Hold. 245p.

Ocado Group Investors Chronicle The online grocer has gained 22% more active customers, but it’s too early to say if changing shopping habits have become entrenched. Despite its tech prowess, Ocado remains a “work in progress”.

Hold. £20.25.

Purplebricks Group The Times The online estate agency is still being punished for its costly expansion and subsequent retreat from overseas markets.

Aiming to double market share – but marketing costs will squeeze near-term profits.

Hold. 81.6p.

Clinigen Group The Sunday Times This speciality medicine provider has issued a shock profit warning after demand for a kidney-cancer drug proved weaker than expected.

Shares are down 20.6%, but a private equity bid may emerge.

Hold. 619.5p.

Persimmon The Times The stamp duty break boosted demand and lifted prices for the housebuilder.

Material costs are rising as sales prices ease, but this “dividend king” has a large land bank and yields over 8%.

Hold. £29.23.

RM Investors Chronicle Closures and cancelled exams saw schools up spending on outdoor teaching and student well-being, to the benefit of this educational resource provider. The pension has moved from debt to surplus.

Hold. 249p.

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago Best tip Croda International The Times up 16.95% to £77.02 Worst tip Ricardo The Mail on Sunday down 10.93% to 387.44p

Market view

“It looks like optimism over a sharp global recovery has been replaced by mild fears that growth is nearing a peak.”

Fawad Razaqzada of ThinkMarkets on worries about the spread of the Delta variant.

Quoted in The Guardian

Market summary Key numbers for 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

13 July 2021 7124.72 4071.21 34979.65 14802.44 28718.24 27963.41 1792.40 76.40 2.96% 0.63 1.36

Best and worst performing shares Week before 7100.88 4060.82 34454.40 14613.27 28643.21 28072.86 1791.35 74.44 2.97% 0.63 1.37

2.5% (Jun) 3.9% (Jun) 8.8% (Jun)

$1.385 E1.174 ¥153.029

2.1% (May) 3.3% (May) 9.5% (May)

Change (%) 0.34% 0.26% 1.52% 1.29% 0.26% –0.39% 0.06% 2.63%

WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS RISES Price % change 2613.00 +6.44 Bunzl 5708.00 +5.39 Ashtead Group 2246.50 +5.30 BHP Group 3023.00 +5.11 Experian 2708.00 +4.52 Severn Trent FALLS 93.61 Rolls-Royce Holdings Flutter Entertainment 12505.00 2981.00 Whitbread Associated Brit. Foods 2093.00 173.02 Intl. Cons. Airl. Gp.

–9.70 –8.25 –7.48 –7.35 –7.24

FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER 154.60 Vectura Group 68.26 Cineworld Group

+13.70 –19.10

Following the Footsie 7,200

7,000

6,800

Source: Datastream & FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 13 July (pm)

6,600

6,400

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

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Jul

6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE

Diageo The Daily Telegraph Diageo’s premium spirits have cross-generational appeal globally. Cash-generative, and in a strong position to raise prices should costs rise. It should benefit from “any possible roaring Twenties”.

Buy. £34.34.

Directors’ dealings

50

The last word

The search for the perfect pitch: Britain’s star groundsmen

British football pitches used to look like quagmires, ice rinks or dust bowls, depending on the time of year. But as big money entered the game, pristine surfaces became crucial to the sport’s image – and groundskeepers became international stars. By William Ralston

I

t was a big moment for English football when Real Madrid poached Paul Burgess from Arsenal in 2009. After starting his career at Blackpool FC, Burgess had arrived at the north London club in 1999, rising to prominence at just 21. He excelled on the European stage during Arsenal’s Champions League campaigns in the early 2000s, and shone at Euro 2004 in Portugal.

Four years later, he put in another commanding performance at the European Championships.

Not long after that, Real Madrid, the most prestigious club in world football, made their sensational transfer swoop.

After winning the league in 2014, then-manager Laurent Blanc credited Calderwood with 16 of the club’s points, because this pitch had made its attack so much sharper.

The club has put him on billboards and in TV adverts. Ibrahimovic, once PSG’s star striker, joked that Calderwood received more media attention than he did.

When it comes to sportsturf management, the UK is a talent factory like no other. “We’re ten years more advanced than anywhere else in the world,” Richard Hayden, Pitches are expected to be “snooker-table-like”: Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol author of Fifa’s pitch maintenance handbook, told me. “If you want to work in technology, you go to Silicon Valley. Well, the UK is the Silicon Valley of turf!”

If you don’t remember any of this, it’s not because Burgess was a flop at Madrid. It’s because he was Arsenal’s head groundsman.

The English grounds-management sector alone is valued at more Burgess’s transfer was the beginning of a Europe-wide spending than £1bn and employs more than 27,000 people, with specialists spree on British turf talent. Real’s rivals Atlético snapped up in every area, from seed enthusiasts who can breed grasses that Dan González, who had impressed with his work for AFC grow in the shade, to scientists who develop chemicals to make Bournemouth. Tony Stones, who got his start looking after bowling greens in Barnsley, before eventually becoming head grass greener. In West Yorkshire, the Sports Turf Research Institute is a research and development powerhouse, studying groundsman at Wembley, was signed to oversee the French everything from how quickly water passes through different types national stadium, the Stade de France. Fifa, meanwhile, signed Alan Ferguson, a Scot who had of sand to how the fineness of won seven Groundsman of the a stem of grass influences the “When it comes to sports-turf management, the roll of a golf ball. In hardware, Year awards at Ipswich Town.

UK is a talent factory like no other. We’re ten too, the UK has no rival.

Warwickshire’s Bernhard and The highest-profile acquisition years more advanced than anywhere else” Company makes the world’s of all was Jonathan Calderwood, best sharpening systems for who joined Paris Saint-Germain from Aston Villa in 2013. A two-time Groundsman of the mower blades; Staffordshire’s Allett provides elite mowing and Year, the Northern Irishman had been called the world’s best maintenance equipment; Derbyshire’s Dennis makes mowers used

by Gérard Houllier, who managed Liverpool, Lyon and Villa. in top arenas, from Wimbledon to Barcelona’s Camp Nou. The move came at a time when PSG’s new Qatari owners were investing hundreds of millions to attract the world’s top players, The turf-care techniques developed in the UK have been applied including Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Beckham. When we in tennis, golf, rugby and other sports that take place on grass. spoke recently, Calderwood said the timing of his move was no But it is football, with its wealth and global fanbase, that has coincidence. powered the revolution. No groundskeeper would claim their work was the main reason for any team’s success, but top teams “They had an injury list the length of your arm,” he recalled. A obsess over tiny details that can make all the difference. When Pep more stable pitch would start to solve that problem. But there was Guardiola arrived at Manchester City in 2016, he asked for the a more tactical reason for signing Calderwood: before his arrival, grass to be cut to just 19mm, in line with the ultra-fast pitches at the pitch was too slow, too bobbly, too unpredictable for the kind his previous clubs, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. (In the end he of high-tempo passing game played by Europe’s elite teams. “The had to settle with 23mm, because short grass is more vulnerable owners realised it wasn’t about buying 11 world-class players,” to wear and Manchester’s cold climate means it can’t recover said Calderwood. “They needed things behind them to allow quickly.) Similarly, after the 2016-17 season, Liverpool manager them to work. One of the main things was the pitch.”

Jürgen Klopp complained that the pitch at Anfield was too slow.

Groundskeepers reconstructed the pitch over the summer, and Since his arrival, PSG has won Ligue 1 six out of eight seasons, Liverpool went the entire next season unbeaten at home in the and just as importantly, from Calderwood’s point of view, the league. Pitch quality is especially important to top clubs, who Ligue de Football Professionnel’s best pitch award six times too. want to maximise the talent of their technically gifted players.

THE WEEK 17 July 2021

The last word By contrast, an uneven playing field hampers the quick passing of the best teams; it levels the playing field, so to speak.

51 11 pitches. It was his first week back at work for over a year, as he had shielded through the pandemic while undergoing treatment for skin cancer. Upon arrival, he showed me around, stopping at one point to tell an engineer that the fan belt of one of his tractors needed tightening – he could hear it squeaking from 50 metres away – and at another to complain about an assistant who was moving a goalpost without lifting the wheels up. “It’ll leave a mark,” he explained. Braddock’s attention to detail is legendary: one former assistant told me he would cut the grass with scissors if he could.

This summer’s European Championship took in 11 cities across the continent, but the pitches were largely in British hands. Uefa assigned each stadium a “pitch expert”, working alongside the resident groundskeeper to deliver tournament-quality surfaces. Apart from Richard Hayden and Greg Whately, who are Irish, all the pitch experts were from the UK. For Wembley Stadium, the host of The state of play at Leeds United’s ground in 1966 the semi-finals and final, the pitch expert was Dale Frith and the groundsman Karl Standley, a When Braddock joined Arsenal as head groundsman, he was just 23. In the early days, he was forced to come up with his 36-year-old Englishman whose accolades include the Top Turf Influencer award. own methods. The most significant was the annual renovation – pulling up the pitch at the end of each season to remove Speaking four weeks before England’s opening match at unwanted weed grasses. In time, Braddock’s methods, including his liberal use of sand to encourage draining, were adopted by Wembley, Standley sounded focused but relaxed, like a other groundsmen. formidably prepared star student on the eve of an exam. Yes, his work on the Euros would be viewed by more than a billion viewers, but he wasn’t fazed. “We’ve planned for this tournament Gradually, the role of groundskeeper began to change. From the for years,” he told me. “We plan to the point that we try to late 1990s, when the Premier League made it a requirement for be unbreakable.” them to be educated in plant science, the job became increasingly data-driven. New technology helped, too. A mower at a stadium For years, English pitches were abominable. In hot weather, they like Wembley might be working 25-30 hours a week for 50 weeks a year. These machines begin at £11,000. When I visited the were dry and dusty. When it rained, they became quagmires. In winter, they turned to ice. “People loved coming to Wembley Dennis factory in April, they were assembling 12 mowers for next year’s World Cup in Qatar. because it was probably the only pitch in England that had grass “Richard Hayden claims to be the only turf To British turfcare experts, on it,” said Calderwood. Bad European standards remain pitches meant cancelled matches, expert to have successfully replaced a pitch which meant lost revenue, which “They just don’t mid-tournament – in Lille during Euro 2016” pitiful. led some clubs towards synthetic understand what it takes,” said alternatives. In 1981, Queens Stones, reflecting on his time as Park Rangers installed OmniTurf, a synthetic grass, and started head groundsman at the Stade de France. Calderwood believes winning on their new surface; a handful of other clubs followed it comes down to education. Like many of the leading lights of suit. Amid unrest that so-called “plastic pitches” gave home teams turfcare, he studied turf science at Myerscough College in Preston. an advantage, in 1995 the FA banned them. But by this time, “Even doing something like a diploma, that’s not possible in groundskeeping’s new chapter had begun.

France; there’s no such thing,” he said. When he arrived at PSG, Calderwood was shocked by what he found. The grounds team As with most modern football stories, the rise of elite turfcare is didn’t even own the rotary mowers needed to vacuum up dead a story about money and television. In the 1990s, as TV revenue grass after a match. “Even something as simple as that, they poured into the new Premier League, clubs started spending more didn’t know,” he told me. Calderwood’s deputy, a Frenchman on transfer fees and player wages. The more valuable the players called Arnaud Meline, added that in his native country there became, the more essential it was to protect them from injury by simply isn’t the same “vision” for the grass. It’s “just a place you ensuring a high-quality playing surface. And so groundskeepers, go to BBQ with friends”. long overlooked, acquired new importance. reparations for the Euro 2020 pitches began more than two More than just protecting players, there were TV viewers to think years ago. In the early hours of 25 April 2019, Dale Frith set about. If the Premier League was to become a global brand, it off down the M6 to Wembley, where Uefa was gathering its needed to look good on television. Broadcasters began to demand team of pitch experts for a “kick off” meeting. By 10am, many “snooker-table-like pitches”, said Calderwood. And as pitches of the giants of turfcare were around the table. Besides Frith, improved, the game itself began to evolve. “From where we were there was Hayden, who claims to be the only turf expert to have with the pitch at Old Trafford to the way it became was night and successfully replaced a pitch mid-tournament – in Lille during day,” Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United manager, Euro 2016. There was Dean Gilasbey, who has trained aspiring told me via email. “A consistent surface makes a huge difference.” groundskeepers across the world, from Macedonia to Ghana.

There was Andy Cole, who had worked on three World Cups.

At the centre of this turfcare revolution was Steve Braddock. Since These men are not groundskeepers; they are turf consultants, joining Arsenal in 1987, Braddock has done more than anyone to specialists who supervise multiple ongoing projects. make flawless pitches the norm. Former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger described meeting him as one of his greatest pieces of Uefa’s representatives laid out their expectations for the coming luck. “Finally I found someone who had a similar passion for the months. According to Uefa guidelines, surface traction should be perfect pitch,” he told me. Braddock was key to raising standards above 30 Newton metres (NM), a unit of torque that measures across the Premier League, he said. a player’s interaction with the surface. Too much traction puts strain on ligaments and risks injury; too little and players will On a blustery spring morning, Braddock drove me along winding lose their footing. Surface hardness should be 70-90 gravities – lanes to Arsenal’s Hertfordshire training base, where he oversees a measurement of how quickly a hammer decelerates on impact.

P

17 July 2021 THE WEEK

52 If it’s too soft, players will tire too quickly; if it’s too hard, the risk of injury increases. The grass should be 24-28mm, cut in straight lines, perpendicular to the touchline.

The last word just a tiny amount each day. This constant mowing makes the patterns on the pitch more pronounced, like a green chequerboard.

Later that morning, I joined Frith As a consultant, Frith would be Uefa’s as he tested the pitch. Armed with eyes on the ground, monitoring data an assortment of what looked like from Standley, the groundsman, futuristic torture devices, he dotted around the Wembley turf, careful not about the pitch, and occasionally conducting independent tests. to get cut down by one of the eerily The groundskeeper-consultant silent electric mowers. As expected, relationship is delicate. Whereas the pitch was in excellent condition. groundskeepers are responsible for a site’s daily upkeep, consultants flutter It wasn’t until I returned two weeks later, on the day of the between projects. Some compare the relationship to that between a builder Jonathan Calderwood surveys Paris Saint-Germain’s turf Championship play-off final, that I and an architect. For the modern sensed the job’s magnitude. When groundskeeper, educated in plant science, this can be grating.

I arrived before kick-off, Standley was visibly agitated, his hair unkempt. With the winners moving up to the Premier League, Standley, who has won numerous awards during his 15 years at Wembley, initially declined to be interviewed because he was this is England’s most lucrative football match, and it marked the start of the trickiest weekend in Standley’s calendar: three matches concerned this story would focus too heavily on consultants. back-to-back from Saturday to Monday. After that, he would Standley likens his work to flying a plane. He hopes that thorough have two weeks to make adjustments before England’s opening preparation will allow a “soft landing” on match day, but when Euros game. there are back-to-back matches, he will sleep in a hotel nearby, in case of unexpected developments. He is away from his family At 2pm, Standley met ground staff before heading pitchside to a lot, but it is a sacrifice he is willing to make. “It’s not a job; it’s watch the game. “Despite all the data we’re reading, I now need a passion,” he says. to see proof,” he said. Standley watches football as a set designer watches a movie: the stuff that is just background to others is If you were looking for somewhere to place a world-class sports the real focus of his attention. “I’m not watching the players; pitch, Wembley Stadium would be a bad choice. Standley likens it I’m watching their boots touching the surface,” he added. to cultivating grass in a shoebox. Between September and March, the 50-metre-high stands cast a shadow, meaning light levels It is only after a match that Standley can breathe a little. After the within the stadium rarely exceed 12 micromoles – well below the play-off final, he headed to his office to unwind with some music.

20 micromoles grass typically needs to grow. Airflow at Wembley He likes listening to artists he’s seen at Wembley: Coldplay, is also poor, said Standley.

Adele, Springsteen. In 24 hours, Without a breeze, grass will he would need to do it all again, “The grass should be 24-28mm, eventually keel over and die. and then again the day after that. As he headed to his hotel, cut in straight lines, perpendicular to Standley has some fancy tools he allowed himself to think touchline” the to overcome these challenges. He about the Euros; on 1 June, uses a subsurface aeration system the entire stadium would be to increase moisture and oxygen levels in the sand and composites revamped with Euro 2020 branding. “It has taken three years that run 30cm below the surface, known as the “rootzone”. To to get here,” Standley said. “We’ve been preparing for this and encourage grass seedlings to grow, he also runs hot water through we want that soft landing.” underground pipes to raise their temperature to 17°C. Once the seeds put out shoots, he rolls out lighting rigs and gargantuan fans It was 6am when Standley arrived on site for England’s first to simulate summer conditions. match, on 13 June, but it was already warm. He followed his usual routine, beginning by walking over the playing surface. It For the Wembley surface to be in peak condition for the calms his nerves and allows him to feel the surface. The forecast summer, major works are needed in winter. On 20 November had anticipated the heat, so Standley knew that watering the pitch 2019, in preparation for the Euros, it was time to begin was paramount, especially on the north side, which was exposed reconstructing the pitch – replacing 6,000 tonnes of rootzone. to the sun. When Standley had finished his inspection, his team London’s clay-heavy natural soil doesn’t drain well, so a team mowed it twice horizontally, to sharpen the patterns that appear of 15 worked round the clock for three weeks to bring in sand on the pitch, and repainted the white lines twice. At midday, two from Surrey. Once the new turf was laid, the grass took around hours before kick-off, they watered the pitch for a second time.

11 weeks to mature. Then, in March 2020, Uefa postponed At 2pm, a year after initially planned, England’s Euro 2020 the Euros to the following summer. It was a disappointment to campaign finally got under way. During England’s national Standley, but not a disaster. In November 2020, he renovated the anthem, Standley felt his eyes filling with tears, but after kick-off, pitch and began to test it, sending the results to Frith to interpret as he watched the ball fizz around the pitch, he could begin to on behalf of Uefa. From February 2021, Frith began travelling to relax. The pitch held up perfectly.

London to conduct his own tests.

Towards the end of the match, Standley joined Frith in the tunnel, When I first visited Standley at Wembley on 12 May – four weeks where they watched the final minutes together. They chatted before the Euros, three days before the FA Cup final – the stadium about Raheem Sterling’s goal, proud of their role in it. “I grew up was almost empty, apart from Standley’s team of five ground watching Euro 96, so to be standing on the turf at Wembley for staff. With the Cup final approaching, the pitch was already at Euro 2020 is something I could have only dreamt of,” Standley match length: 24mm. Between games, Standley allows the grass said. “You work for days like these. But I wasn’t at work, I was to grow as much as possible. His team then trims it down by living a childhood dream.” approximately 2mm each day for a week. (More severe cuts can shock the plant, turning it yellow.) When kick-off is four days A longer version of this article appeared in The Guardian. © 2021 away, they mow to maintain it at the same length, taking off Guardian News & Media Ltd. THE WEEK 17 July 2021

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THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1269

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Email the answers as a scan of a completed grid or a list, with the subject line The Week crossword 1269, to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) ACROSS 7 Secure flourishing cactus without leaves (6) 9 One leaves full vessel for warehouse (8) 10 Finished with poet, one’s heard (4) 11 Victorious Martin put off bringing in Henry (10) 12 Six Jaguars perhaps for ministers (6) 13 Bachelor rings four times to take girl for a dance, 60s style (8) 15 Vehicle duty? One’s stuck with it (4) 16 Spirit no longer for drinking these days (5) 17 Short month for Irish clan (4) 19 Suspect behaviour of leaving child? (6-2) 21 Increase sheep in front of dog (4,2) 22 Dad sped around shed and fell to ground (10) 25 Naughty boy following time in jug (4) 26 Disdain from MP replacing second in competition (8) 27 One hug in play is sufficient (6)

DOWN 1 Is a lemon confection what could be used for pudding? (8) 2 Exposure concerning Victor and Joy (10) 3 One was first to go around store (4) 4 Battle for a Premier League spot (8,6) 5 Close thing in the middle for Indian writer (4) 6 Carried on round large Eastern island (6) 8 EU policy in this case seemed misguided (3-5, 6) 13 Ferry from railway cutting a curse (5) 14 Reception for Mary Simpson at university initially planned (10) 18 Lead start of project with back trouble (8) 20 One speaks well at a rally, alternatively twice at breaks (6) 23 Soldiers in processions, front half exhausted (4) 24 Heartless tart is a bag (4)

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Name Address

Clue of the week: Back in pub, saying when about to drink?

(7,2 first letter B) The Times

Tel no Clue of the week answer:

Solution to Crossword 1267

ACROSS: 1 Sitrep 4 Lambaste 10 In a mess 11 Roll-ons 12 Tory

13 Goodness me 15 Shaker 16 Allies 20 Shaman 21 Pamela 24 On the fence 26 Bags 28 Avarice 29 Express 30 Entracte 31 Hearts DOWN: 1 Skin test 2 Tea breaks 3 Eden 5 Airedale 6 Billericay 7 Shoes 8 Ensued 9 Aston 14 Sexagesima 17 Shed a tear 18 Basement 19 Bassists 22 Forage 23 Aches 25 Toast 27 Apse Clue of the week: Wi-Fi connection? (6, first letter H) Solution: Hyphen (connecting wi and fi) The winner of 1267 is Angela Ould from Seaton The Week is available from RNIB Newsagent for the benefit of blind and partially sighted readers. 0303-123 9999, rnib.org.uk/newsagent

3 4 9 7 9 7 3 6 1 5 2 5 6 9 2 2 7 4 8 6 9 1 5 1 8 2 3 5 9 4 3

Sudoku 811 (easy)

5 3 1 7 4 3 5 4 6

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 810

3 8 2 6 7 4 1 5

5 7 1 8 9 2 4 3

9 6 4 5 3 1 8 7 2

8 1 6 7 2 3 9 4

4 5 9 1 6 8 7 2

7 2 3 4 5 9 6 1 8

2 4 7 3 8 6 5 9

6 3 5 9 1 7 2 8

1 9 8 2 4 5 3 6 7

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