The batsman Growing The many

who kept the up with faces of

Ashes alive Cary Grant “Putin’s chef”
SPORT P22 PEOPLE P10 POLITICS P6

15 JULY 2023 | ISSUE 1444 THE BEST OF THE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

A blow to Ukraine
No entry to the Nato club
Page 4

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS theweek.co.uk

4 NEWS The main stories…
What happened
The Nato summit
Nato leaders gathered in the Lithuanian capital
Vilnius on Tuesday for a summit dominated by
the thorny issue of whether, and when, Ukraine
should be admitted to the club. The two-day
meeting got off to a good start after Turkey
withdrew its objections to Sweden joining
the 31-member military alliance. The Turkish
president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had blocked
that accession bid for more than a year. But the
question of Ukraine’s potential membership
remained a source of tension. Britain and eastern
European countries were keen for Ukraine to be
offered swift accession after the war with Russia
ends, but the US and Germany were wary of
implying that Kyiv will gain automatic entry.
Nato leaders settled on declaring that they Zelensky: disappointed
would fast-track Kyiv’s accession process, but
only “when allies agree” and unspecified “conditions are met”. shortly afterwards. Anything less than full Nato protection
President Zelensky condemned Nato leaders for failing
to offer Ukraine a clear timeline, calling it “absurd”. The
Biden administration attracted separate criticism from Nato
allies last week after it announced that it would be sending
controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine for the first time.
What the editorials said
“One success, and one muddle. That’s the scorecard for this
week’s Nato summit,” said The Wall Street Journal. Sweden’s
imminent entry to the club is great news: it
boasts a well-equipped army and “crucial real
estate in the Baltic Sea”. But the compromise
over Ukraine was unsatisfactory. To be fair, the
situation presents a tricky dilemma, said The
Independent. It’s clear Ukraine’s future lies with
the West. Yet Nato leaders don’t want to give
Vladimir Putin an incentive to prolong the war.
Nato should bring Ukraine into the fold as
soon as possible, said The Kyiv Independent.
Dragging its feet over this – as it has done over
the provision of weaponry – only extends the
agony. Nato made a big mistake in 2008 when
it agreed that Ukraine and Georgia should
become members, but shied away from offering
a timetable. Putin invaded both countries
won’t satisfy Kyiv, said The Times – and for understandable
reasons. In 1994, under the Budapest Memorandum, it gave
up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for big-power security
guarantees. That didn’t stop Putin annexing Crimea in 2014.
Nor did subsequent Western help with military training stop
the Kremlin launching its full-scale invasion last year.

What happened
Crisis at the BBC
Huw Edwards’s wife Vicky Flind named him
on Wednesday as the BBC presenter accused
of inappropriate sexual behaviour. Around
the same time, the Metropolitan Police said
that they had no information to suggest that
any criminal offence had been committed.
The initial story, published in The Sun, was
that an unnamed BBC employee had paid a
teenager £35,000 for sexually explicit photos.
The alleged victim’s mother said that her child
had used the money to fund a crack cocaine
addiction, and alleged that the payments had
begun when he or she was 17. It is a crime to
create, distribute or possess sexual imagery
of under-18s. The family reported the issue to Davie: lessons must be learnt In an interview about the BBC’s handling of the
the BBC in May, and went to The Sun when
nothing seemed to be done about it: they claimed that their
child was still receiving payments from Edwards in June.
The story had set off fevered speculation on social media
about the presenter’s identity, leading the likes of Gary
Lineker and Jeremy Vine (who then led calls for the presenter
to make his identity known) to issue statements over the
weekend denying that it was them. On Monday, however,
events took an unexpected turn when a lawyer for the young
person dismissed The Sun’s story as “rubbish”,
insisting that “nothing inappropriate or
unlawful” had taken place. The lawyer said the
person, now 20, had sent a denial to The Sun,
but the paper had published its story regardless.
The next day, an unnamed person in their early
20s claimed that the presenter had contacted
them on a dating app and put them under
pressure to meet up. When they hinted that
they could name him publicly, they say he sent
them abusive messages. In later reports, The Sun
alleged that the star had broken lockdown rules
to meet a 23-year-old he’d met on a dating site.
family’s complaint, director-general Tim Davie
conceded that lessons needed to be learnt, but he defended the
BBC’s failure to raise it with Edwards until last Thursday. He
said that managers had had to try to validate the complaint
first. The Met has said the BBC can now resume an internal
inquiry it had paused while police investigations were ongoing.

It wasn’t all bad Native giraffes are

Japan Airlines has come up
with a novel means of curbing
its carbon emissions: rental
clothing kits, to encourage
travellers to fly with less
luggage. Before flying,
participants in the “Any Wear,
Anywhere” scheme reserve a
kit – which cost from £22 for two
pairs of shorts and three T-shirts.
The clothes are delivered to
their hotel ahead of their arrival,
and can be kept for a fortnight.
They are then collected, and
washed and ironed ready for
the next visitor.
THE WEEK 15 July 2023
once again roaming a
Back in 2014, a 22-year-old
student at Loughborough
national park in Angola, University saw a film about
decades after they were the impact of the war in Syria,
driven to extinction in which inspired him to invent
the country, most likely a foldable, battery powered
by its long-running civil incubator. At the time, James
war. Fourteen young Roberts said his dream was that
giraffes were one day, the device would save
transported to Iona a life. A decade on, 75 of the
National Park from machines have been distributed
a game reserve in to shelters and hospitals across
Namibia last week. Ukraine – where they have been
Some Angolan giraffes, which are a subspecies of southern giraffes, credited with saving the lives of
have been reintroduced to farms and private reserves, but these are 1,500 babies. He is now raising
the first on public land. “It’s great seeing a species back where it funds to send over 100 more of
should be,” said park manager Pedro Monterroso. “It’s a message the compact incubators, which
of hope for conservation in this country.” are manufactured in Felixstowe.
COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM
 …and how they were covered NEWS 5
What the commentators said What next?
It would be an error to admit Ukraine into Nato, said Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher On the sidelines of the Vilnius
McCallion on Politico. Indeed, we’d be wiser not to offer it any security guarantees at all. summit, G7 allies agreed
Nato allies have avoided direct military intervention in this conflict “precisely because they a new deal to guarantee
lack an interest vital enough to risk nuclear war”, and that calculation won’t change, whatever Ukraine’s security, in an
“phoney guarantees” we offer. Better to “make Ukraine a porcupine rather than a protectorate” arrangement dubbed “Nato-
– in other words, to keep arming it, so that Russia daren’t risk attacking the country again. lite”. The plan will include
the provision of defence
But we can’t afford to leave Kyiv in limbo like that, said Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian. equipment, training and
Even if he can’t beat Ukraine on the battlefield and force it back into the Russian empire, intelligence sharing, as well
the “vengeful” Putin will try to ruin the country. That will deny it long-term security, without as help to develop Ukraine’s
which there will be “little investment, fewer returnees, no successful reconstruction”. Until Kyiv industrial base.
is admitted to the club, Russia will always view Ukraine as “prey to be swallowed”, agreed
Marc A. Thiessen and Stephen E. Biegun in The Washington Post. We should want Ukraine as Kyiv has promised to map
a member in any case. With the “most capable, battle-hardened, Nato-interoperable military in where US-supplied cluster
Europe”, it would be a “net contributor to European security and thus strengthen the alliance”. bombs are used, abstain from
firing them in urban areas,
What we shouldn’t welcome, said Hayes Brown on MSNBC, is America’s decision to send and commit to a postwar
cluster bombs to Kyiv. These munitions, which break apart in flight into lots of bomblets, de-mining programme. The
some of which remain unexploded over a wide area of ground, take a particularly heavy toll reality, says The Economist, is
on civilians. They are rightly banned by over 100 countries, including the UK and Germany. that both Russia and Ukraine
Their use “in any theatre isn’t worth the price”. Some would dispute that in the case of Ukraine, have already fired Soviet-era
said John Paul Rathbone in the FT. Its troops are running low on conventional artillery shells: cluster bombs at scale. In
they’ve been limited to firing 100,000 a month, “a quarter of what the Russians are using”. April, it was estimated that
America’s abundant supply of cluster bombs will remedy this shortage and give Ukraine’s 174,000 square kilometres of
sappers more time to clear a path through minefields by suppressing Russian fire from the territory were contaminated
trenches. Kyiv believes the weapons could ultimately save civilian lives by shortening the war. with explosive objects.

What the commentators said What next?

Being a BBC reporter “must have been a nightmare” this week, said Michael Deacon in The In her statement, Vicky
Daily Telegraph. For days, they were standing outside their own workplace, reporting on Flind noted that her
serious allegations concerning the institution they work for, and a person they may have husband had previously
known – while not being able to tell their viewers anything much at all (though apparently been treated for depression
they all knew his identity). The BBC has treated its audience with “a degree of contempt”, said (something he had
Matthew Garrahan in the FT. True, it had legitimate concerns about Edwards’s welfare and that discussed publicly) and
of the young person. But that was all the more reason to temper its reporting. Instead, it spent said that he will remain in
the best part of a week leading its news bulletins with “breathless coverage” of the story while hospital for the foreseeable
declining to name the presenter. It was even running a live-blog, for goodness sake. future. However, she said
that once he is well enough,
Our strict privacy laws made it difficult for the press to name him, said Sean O’Neill in The he intends to respond to the
Times. The 2012 Leveson Report “set the direction of travel” in this developing area of the stories published about him.
law, and Cliff Richard’s 2018 legal victory over the BBC (for reporting a police raid of his home
sparked by unfounded sexual assault allegations) cemented the course. But the wave of online Even before the police’s
speculation as to the BBC star’s identity – in which numerous people were wrongly named – statement, insiders at
suggests that it may be time to “redress the balance” between privacy and the public interest, by The Sun were distancing
giving the press some of its freedom back. Yet the facts at hand were always murky, said Jane themselves from the most
Martinson in The Guardian: even five days after breaking the story, The Sun still hadn’t incendiary allegations in
produced any firm evidence of anything beyond “unwise, questionable behaviour”. Flind’s their reporting, said The
statement doesn’t say much, says The Daily Telegraph, except that her husband is suffering Guardian, notably that the
“serious mental health issues” and is in hospital. It’s still hard to know what to make of this presenter had effectively
strange news week, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent, but at the moment it looks as commissioned child sex
though what it has left us with is families “torn asunder, lives destroyed, and the BBC trashed”. abuse images.

THE WEEK
Editor-in-chief: Caroline Law
In the years after the Good Friday Agreement, an unexpected Editor: Theo Tait
Deputy editor: Harry Nicolle
friendship formed at Stormont. Ian Paisley and Martin City editor: Jane Lewis Assistant editors: Robin de Peyer,
McGuinness were so often seen in shared laughter that they were Leaf Arbuthnot Contributing editors: Simon Wilson,
Rob McLuhan, Catherine Heaney, Xandie Nutting,
nicknamed “the Chuckle Brothers”. That these sworn enemies were able to forge such a bond was Digby Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood, William Skidelsky
Editorial: Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, Fiona Paus,
of course an extraordinary symbol of reconciliation, but for some, there must have been a nagging Billie Gay Jackson Picture editor: Annabelle Whitestone
Art director: Katrina Ffiske Senior sub-editor: Simmy
sense of unease about the idea that after all the years of bloody sectarian violence, they could Richman Production editor: Alanna O’Connell
Editorial chairman and co-founder: Jeremy O’Grady
become not just cordial colleagues, but chums. Had their fiery rhetoric been entirely meant; or had
Production Manager: Maaya Mistry
they adopted their respective positions for other reasons, unspoken? I was reminded of this when Account Directors: Aimee Farrow, Steven Tapp,
Amy McBride 
it emerged that Ed Balls had been among the guests at George Osborne’s wedding last weekend. Classified Sales Executive: Nubla Rehman
Advertising Director – The Week, Wealth
When the two were facing each other on the front benches, Labour didn’t merely accuse Osborne of & Finance: Peter Cammidge
being misguided in pursuing his austerity policies. They characterised him as having a reckless and Managing Director, The Week: Richard Campbell
even cruel disregard for society’s most vulnerable people. Does Balls not care about that any more, SVP Lifestyle, Knowledge and News: Sophie Wybrew-Bond

now that he is no longer in politics; or was it always just a part he was playing? Similar questions Future PLC, 121-
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any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers 15 July 2023 THE WEEK
6 NEWS Politics
Controversy of the week By-election looms

Putin vs. Wagner The MP Chris Pincher

should be suspended from
the House of Commons for
If you’re not “feeling confused” by events in Russia in the past eight weeks, a parliamentary
few weeks, “then you’ve probably not been paying attention”, committee has found.
said Michael Day in The i Paper. After Yevgeny Prigozhin and Pincher, who was formerly
his Wagner Group’s aborted rebellion against the Kremlin, the the Conservative deputy
warlord and his mercenaries were officially forgiven, which chief whip, was suspended
by his party last July after
was strange “in a country where simply criticising the war can
being accused of groping
get you ten years in a penal colony”. However, conditions were two men at the members-
imposed: Prigozhin and his men would move to neighbouring only Carlton Club in London.
Belarus; those who stayed were to join regular Russian units. Last week, the Standards
It was expected, even so, that Prigozhin would be assassinated Committee found that
on President Putin’s orders. That hasn’t happened. On the his actions had caused
contrary, Putin’s “former cook and butcher-for-hire” isn’t, it “significant damage to the
seems, cowering in Belarus. Last week, he was in St Petersburg reputation of the House”.
(no doubt checking his underwear carefully for Novichok). He If its recommendations are
Prigozhin: a closet full of disguises approved by MPs, a recall
is even said to have met Putin personally since the mutiny.
petition will be triggered in
his Tamworth constituency,
The “Putin-Prigozhin grudge match” is certainly not over, though, said Mark Galeotti in The which could in turn pave the
Spectator. Last week, the Federal Security Service (FSB) released footage of a raid on Prigozhin’s way for a by-election. Rishi
St Petersburg estate. Amid the “predictably tacky decor” were vast stacks of cash; a framed photo of Sunak is facing three
severed heads; a giant sledgehammer, of the kind used to execute Wagner deserters; and “a closet full by-elections next week,
of wigs”, along with a series of selfies of Prigozhin in bizarre disguises (possibly real, or possibly with a fourth on the cards
faked by the FSB). Yet Wagner units have been neither stood down nor integrated into the Russian if Nadine Dorries resigns
army. As ever, Kremlin politics is fiendishly hard to read, said Max Seddon and Polina Ivanova in before the next election.
the FT. But it seems that Putin regards Prigozhin as too dangerous and important to eliminate. He
is all too aware of how close the Wagner mutiny came to Moscow. And Prigozhin’s business empire Record mortgage rates
Mortgage rates have reached
“sprawls” from the front lines of the Ukraine War to school catering, and internet troll farms to their highest levels since the
mercenaries across Africa and the Middle East. So instead of killing him, Putin has decided to financial crisis of 2008.
undermine and humiliate Prigozhin – to finish him as a political figure, if not as a businessman. According to the financial
data analyst Moneyfacts,
Other explanations have been offered for Prigozhin’s survival, said Yulia Latynina in The Hill. One is the average two-year fixed-
that he possesses “copious” amounts of kompromat related to the mind-boggling levels of corruption rate mortgage hit 6.66% on
in Putin’s regime, as well as God knows what else. Another is that if Wagner had been crushed, it Tuesday this week, exceeding
would have been by Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s “deep state” who pulls the strings at the the 6.65% reached during the
Truss premiership in October
FSB – who was reportedly apprised of the plot well in advance. That outcome would have made
2022. Over the past two
Putin look clueless, and Patrushev “the biggest guy” in Moscow. So frantic efforts were made to months, average repayments
reach a negotiated solution. If this sounds “highly convoluted” and conspiratorial, well, that is the have risen by £167 a month,
nature of Putin’s governing elite: “a three-ring circus” staffed by “crazy people”, constantly jostling or £2,004 a year, on a typical
for power. Putin created it, “and now he reaps what he sowed”. £200,000 25-year loan.

Good week for:

Spirit of the age
Producers of a new play
were told that they couldn’t
advertise it on the London
Underground because their
poster featured a cake. The
poster for Tony n’ Tina’s
Wedding, which depicts
two actors flailing on the
top tier of a wedding cake,
was deemed to breach a
ban on adverts that promote
“the consumption of high
fat, salt and sugar goods”.
Pop stars are starting to
voice disquiet about the
sheer number, and range,
of objects being thrown at
them during concerts. Last
month, Bebe Rexha needed
stitches after being hit with
a mobile phone in the US;
other recent projectiles have
included a sex toy and a bag
of human ashes. “Dare you
to throw something at me
and I’ll f**king kill you,”
warned Adele during a gig
in Las Vegas this month.
Postal deliveries, with news that Royal Mail workers have Poll watch
voted overwhelmingly to accept a deal ending their long-running A quarter of UK adults have
dispute over pay and conditions. never boiled an egg and
Bees, after the Royal Horticultural Society advised gardeners to don’t know how to. Four-
plant sweet-smelling clover instead of grass (or a mix of the two), fifths have never made a
salad dressing. Two-fifths
to keep lawns green in the summer. Because of its fleshy, creeping
haven’t roasted a chicken.
roots that act as reservoirs, clover requires less water than grass. Waitrose Cooking Report
Boris and Carrie Johnson, who announced the birth of their
third child, a boy named Frank Alfred Odysseus. The former PM 64% of British adults have
now has at least eight children in all, the oldest of whom is 30. an unfavourable view of the
campaign group Just Stop
Oil, up from 51% in April.
Bad week for:
17% have a favourable
Dinner parties, after the Domestic Goddess herself revealed that view, up from 16%.
she no longer hosts them, because they involve too much fuss. YouGov
Instead, Nigella Lawson says she has friends over for informal
suppers, made up of one course, laid out like a buffet. Nor does 91% of UK adults aged
she go in for elaborate “nibbles”. Once, she served some American 18 to 65 say they feel happy
friends Twiglets, reasoning that they’re a British delicacy. or OK, and eight in ten of
them believe their personal
Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister, who was criticised
life will stay the same or
for ordering the removal of cartoon murals from the walls of improve. However, 70% say
a reception centre for unaccompanied child asylum seekers. they feel as though “we’ve
According to a report in The i Paper, Jenrick said the images, lived through a collective
of Mickey Mouse, and Baloo from The Jungle Book, made the trauma”, and eight out of
centre, in Kent, look too welcoming, and sent the wrong message. ten believe the “world out
Summer holidays, after easyJet cancelled 1,700 flights in July there” will remain the
same or get worse.
and August, citing “unprecedented air traffic control delays” in
The Guardian/Tapestry
Europe. Most of the affected flights were from Gatwick.

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Europe at a glance
Paris
Seine swimming:
Parisians will be
able to swim in
the River Seine
from 2025, the
city’s mayor,
Anne Hidalgo,
has announced.
Bathing in the
Seine has been
banned since
1923, owing to
poor water quality and the dangers of
river traffic; but after a €1.4bn clean-up,
the river is safe to swim in 90% of the
time. Swimming will be permitted at three
sites – one of them opposite Île Saint-Louis
in the city centre, the others in the 15th
and 12th arrondissements – which will
be marked by buoys and monitored by
lifeguards. Hidalgo has previously said that
she wants swimming in the Seine to be a
“major legacy” of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Milan, Italy
Succession drama: The details of Silvio
Berlusconi’s will have been revealed, a
month after the death of Italy’s former
prime minister at the age of 86. In an
apparent effort to ensure the stability of
his nearly €6bn business empire, his two
eldest children, Marina, 56, and Pier Silvio,
54 – who both already run parts of the
business – have been granted a combined
53% controlling stake, with a minority
stake going to his three younger children.
He also leaves €30m to a business
associate, Marcello Dell’Utri, 81, who
was jailed for Mafia ties, and €100m to his
girlfriend Marta Fascina, 33, with whom
he held a peculiar mock-wedding ceremony
in a church last year, having apparently
been dissuaded from marrying her by his
children. An MP with Forza Italia, Fascina
speaks so little in parliament that she is
known as “the Mute”, but is expected
to have influence in the party as it fights
to retain voters after its founder’s death.
Rome
Migration plan: Italy is to admit hundreds
of thousands more workers from outside
the EU in an effort to address acute labour
shortages in industries such as tourism,
construction and IT. The hard-right
coalition government of PM Giorgia
Meloni said it would issue 425,000 work
permits to non-EU nationals between
now and 2025; before the pandemic,
roughly 31,000 were issued per year. The
announcement brought accusations of
hypocrisy from opposition politicians, who
said that Meloni, leader of the Brothers
of Italy party, and her colleagues on the
© CGI IMAGE COURTESY OF APUR/LUXIGON
far-right League had built their careers on
hostility to non-European migrants, whom
they portrayed as an existential threat
to Italy, its people and its culture. They
have also fought hard to reduce irregular
migration, in part by cracking down on
the NGOs that rescue people stranded at
sea while making the crossing from Africa.
Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk
Paris
Riot aftermath: The sale, possession and
transport of fireworks were banned in the
run-up to France’s Bastille Day celebrations
this Friday, as part of nationwide efforts to
prevent any re-occurence of the rioting that
brought chaos to cities across the country
last week. Fireworks were used as weapons
by many of those who took part in the civil
disorder, sparked by the police killing of
Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of Algerian
and Moroccan descent, in the Paris
suburb of Nanterre. This week, France
was coming to terms with the sheer
scale of the destruction wreaked on Paris,
Toulouse, Lille, Lyon and other cities: in
total, 12,031 cars and 23,878 bins were
burnt out; 2,508 buildings and shops were
set ablaze or looted (including 273 police
stations, 168 schools and 105 town halls
attacked and damaged); 3,505 people
were arrested, and 721 police officers
injured. Insurers have put the cost of
the damage at more than €650m.
Athens
Acropolis
mobbed:
Crowd-control
measures are to
be introduced
at the Acropolis
following a
dramatic surge in
tourist numbers.
Officials say that
visitors to the
site in Athens this
summer are up 80% over pre-pandemic
numbers; and that unprecedented queues,
exacerbated by the ever-larger cruise ships
docking at the nearby port of Piraeus, are
leading to unruly scenes at the gateway to
the citadel. The measures to be introduced
include a time-slot system and electronic
ticketing. Greece now receives more than
30 million foreign tourists each year, more
than three times the country’s population.
NEWS 7
Amsterdam
PM quits: Dutch PM Mark Rutte has
announced plans to quit politics at the
next election, following the collapse of his
four-party coalition government in a row
about asylum policy. With the Netherlands
expected to receive 70,000 asylum
applications this year (up from 46,000
in 2022), Rutte had unveiled various
measures to cut migration, including a
monthly cap on the number of relatives
of war refugees permitted to enter the
Netherlands. However, he was unable
to secure the backing of all his coalition
partners for his plan. The departure of
Rutte – one of Europe’s longest-serving
PMs – is tipped to benefit the right-wing
pro-agriculture Farmer-Citizen Movement
at elections due later this year.
Krasnodar, Russia
Officer killed: A former Russian
submarine commander accused of
war crimes in Ukraine was shot dead
on his morning run in the southern
city of Krasnodar this week. Stanislav
Rzhitsky, 42, is said to have been an
easy target because he went on regular
runs in the same area, and uploaded
the route on the Strava app. According
to Ukrainian intelligence, he was in
command of the submarine that
fired missiles at the Ukrainian city of
Vinnytsia last July, killing 28 civilians.
But his father insists that he had
handed in his resignation in late 2021,
and that he had been based in Crimea
until he left the military in August
2022. Kyiv has suggested that Kremlin
agents assassinated him for refusing to
take part in further attacks on Ukraine.
15 July 2023 THE WEEK
8 NEWS The world at a glance
Swift Current, Canada
Emoji ruling: A judge in Canada has ruled that the “thumbs-up”
emoji can represent entry into a formal contract, a decision which
he said reflects “the new reality in Canadian society”. The case
centred on a dispute between a farmer, Chris Achter, and a grain
buyer, Kent Mickleborough. The latter had sent a message to the
farmer in 2021 saying that his firm needed to acquire 87 tonnes
of flax. After speaking to Achter, he then emailed him a photo
of a contract for the purchase and delivery of the flax, and asked
him to “please confirm flax contract”. Achter responded with
the emoji, but never delivered the crop. He later claimed that
the thumbs-up only indicated receipt of the contract; but Justice
Timothy Keene said that it was a valid “signature”, noting that
the emoji is used to “express assent, approval or encouragement”,
and ordered Achter to pay C$82,000 (£48,000) in damages.
Boston, Massachusetts
Harvard row: Three non-profit groups representing black and
Latino communities are taking legal action over Harvard’s
“legacy” admissions policy, which gives special treatment to
applicants whose parents are alumni of the Ivy League university,
or donors to it. “Your family’s last name and the size of your
bank account should have no bearing on the college admissions
process,” said a spokesman for one of the groups. Typically, 70%
of legacy applicants are white, and such students are about six
times more likely to get in than non-legacy applicants. Overall,
they make up roughly a third of the undergraduate body. The
non-profit groups argue that the legacy admissions policy violates
the Civil Rights Act, and say that reforming it has been made all
the more necessary by the supreme court’s recent ruling against
race-based affirmative action at Harvard and other colleges.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Light dome: The
world’s largest
spherical structure
was lit up for
testing in Las
Vegas last week, ahead of its
official launch in September.
The 366ft-tall MSG Sphere
– which is also the world’s biggest video screen – cost more than
$2bn to build, and houses an 18,600-seat arena. Its exterior is
covered by 580,000sq ft of LED panels, which during last week’s
tests lit up with an eyeball image and the message “Hello world”.
Reaction was mixed: some hailed it as a technological marvel;
others warned that it will be a dangerous distraction to drivers.

Corona, California
Cult murderer released: A 73-year-old former member of the
“Manson Family” has been released from prison on parole, after
serving 53 years of a life sentence for her involvement in two
brutal murders. A former homecoming queen, Leslie Van Houten
was 19 when she took part in the killing of businessman Leno
LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in 1969 at their home in LA,
the day after other members of Charles Manson’s “family” had
murdered the actress Sharon Tate and four other people nearby.
Van Houten, who had been turned down for parole multiple times
over the years, studied for a BA and an MA in jail, and tutored
other inmates. Manson died in prison in 2017, aged 83.

West Point, New York

Flash floods: Torrential rains battered Vermont and New York
State this week, leading to flash floods that inundated homes,
left roads impassable and caused at least one death. More than
13 million people were under flood alerts on Monday, and some
towns were left cut off by the rising waters. At West Point in
upstate New York, seven inches of rain fell in about four
hours on Sunday; in Ludlow, Vermont, railway tracks were left
suspended 100ft in the air, owing to so much land being washed
away. President Biden declared a state of emergency in Vermont,
while the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, declared it a
“1-in-1,000-year weather event” caused by the climate crisis.

Coleman, Florida Brasília

Prison attack: Larry Nassar – the former
doctor for the US gymnastics team who
was accused of molesting hundreds of
women and girls over three decades –
was stabbed multiple times by a fellow
prisoner in a Florida jail last week.
Officials said that Nassar, 59, was
“lucky to be alive” after the attack at the
high-security Coleman prison, where he
is four years into what is effectively a life
term. More than 150 athletes, including
the Olympic champion Simone Biles, gave impact statements at
his sentencing hearing in 2018; many of his victims had told other
adults about his abuse, but their reports were not acted upon.
Amazon hopes: Satellite data
has shown that the rate of
destruction of Brazil’s rainforest
slowed by 33.6% in the first half of
this year, the country’s space agency announced last week.
Around 1,023 square miles of rainforest were lost, down
from about 1,500 in the same period in 2022. “We reversed
the curve,” said Brazil’s environment ministry. President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office in January, has made
a commitment to reinstate the environmental protections that
were dismantled by his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro,
to promote industry in the region. But environmentalists have
warned that there are too few agents to protect the forest from
illegal loggers and other criminal groups.

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 The world at a glance
Omdurman, Sudan
Conflict escalates: After three months of
intermittent fighting between the troops
of two rival generals, Sudan is on the
brink of a “full-scale civil war” that could
destabilise the entire region, warned UN
Secretary-General António Guterres this
week. He also condemned last week’s air
strike on Omdurman (on the opposite
bank of the Nile to Khartoum), in which
at least 22 civilians were killed, though it’s
unclear whether it was General al-Burhan’s
regular army or RSF paramilitaries under
General Dagalo who were responsible. The
UN is also calling for an investigation into
the use of sexual violence, including rape,
and abduction as a weapon of war during
the conflict. There have been 88 verified
reports of such crimes against women and
girls as young as 12, many of which have
been blamed on the RSF.
Boksburg,
South Africa
Lethal gas leak:
At least 17 people,
including three
children, died last
week in a squatter
camp outside Johannesburg when a
toxic nitrate gas leaked from a canister
thought to be linked to illegal gold miners.
Emergency services reportedly found
scores of people suffering the ill-effects of
the gas in the alleyways and shacks around
the hut where the cylinder was stashed, in
a settlement on the outskirts of the mining
town of Boksburg. With unemployment
now at 33% in South Africa, there are
many so-called zama zamas (“those who
try their luck”) willing to risk life and limb
to extract gold from disused mines around
Johannesburg. They then process it above
ground using the gas, and lethal leaks and
mineshaft collapses are now common.
NEWS 9
Jerusalem Jenin, West Bank
Reforms revived: Resentment grows: In a rare criticism of
The Israeli Knesset Israel, the UN has denounced Israel’s raid
has passed the on the West Bank town of Jenin, which
first reading of a ended last week, as an “excessive use of
controversial bill, force”. Jenin had become the main hub of
which removes the Palestinian militant activity in the past 18
supreme court’s months, and Israel claimed its dismantling
power to strike of bomb-making facilities and confiscation
down government of weapons had made the raid a success.
decisions deemed But local officials said that the armed
beyond the groups targeted would quickly rebuild,
scope of what and that with 12 Palestinians killed and
a “reasonable” authority would decide. more than 100 injured in the raid, public
Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition views sentiment was now firmly on the militants’
this judicial review power as an intolerable side, while the standing of the Palestinian
check on effective governance, but huge Authority – increasingly seen as Israel’s
public protests earlier this year led to it weak and corrupt collaborator – had been
putting its plan to limit the court on hold. further eroded by its failure to prevent
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets the raid. During a mass funeral for those
this week to protest against its revival. killed, mourners chased its officials away.
Beijing
Heat and floods: As
the world recorded its
hottest-ever day last week,
Beijing completed ten days
of temperatures above
35°C, the longest streak
of its kind since 1961. To
provide some shelter from
the sweltering heat, China
has opened up some of
its Cold War-era air-raid
shelters to the public.
Meanwhile, torrential
rain has been hitting the
southwest of the country:
15 people have been killed
and tens of thousands
displaced by the resulting
deluge. Further floods
and typhoons are
expected in
the coming
month.
Nairobi
Malaria jab: A
pilot programme
for the world’s
first malaria
vaccine began its
rollout in Kenya
last week. Over
the next two New Delhi
years, 18 million Tomato crisis: Unseasonably high
first doses will be temperatures and heavy rainfall have
delivered across devastated India’s tomato crop, creating a
Kenya and 11 nationwide shortage. Most households and
other African nations, potentially saving restaurants – McDonald’s included – are
thousands of lives. The WHO and Gavi, no longer buying tomatoes owing to the
the global vaccine alliance, have vouched soaring price; theft of the fruit from farms
for the safety of RTS,S/AS01, the vaccine and shops is widespread. And the problem
developed by the British firm GSK: 1.7 looks set to get worse: unusually heavy
million children in Kenya, Ghana and monsoon rains in northern India have
Malawi have already received it in a pilot caused fatal landslides and flash floods,
scheme. Malaria is one of Africa’s deadliest with some states receiving double their
diseases, each year killing nearly half-a- average seasonal rainfall. In Delhi, many
million children under the age of five. parts of the city are knee-deep in water.
15 July 2023 THE WEEK
10 NEWS
Keeping Wimbledon green
Neil Stubley does not sleep
well at this time of year, says
Jane Fryer in the Daily Mail.
As head groundsman of
Wimbledon, it falls to him to
ensure that the courts’ famous
lawns are in pristine condition
– and the responsibility weighs
on him. “I have nightmares,”
he says. “I lie awake at night
thinking about foxes and birds
and rain and anything else that
could possibly go wrong.” For
weeks before the tournament,
Stubley and his team work flat
out, sprinkling, mowing and
endlessly testing the turf. They
feed it iron to keep it green; but
don’t want it to look too lush,
in case players worry that it’s
slippery. Once the tournament
is under way, Stubley ensconces
himself in a corner of Centre
Court. He doesn’t follow the
players’ scores, however. “I just
watch their feet on the canopy
[the grass top] – to see how
it’s holding up.”
Alex James’s evolutions
Alex James lives on a sprawling
farm in the Cotswolds with his
wife, five children and assorted
pigs, says Jonathan Dean in
The Sunday Times. But in Blur’s
1990s heyday, the bassist lived
a full-on rock-star life: he once
claimed to have spent £1m on
champagne and cocaine. He
finally quit drinking in 2002.
His mother had told him
that he’d lose all of his friends
unless he stopped. In fact, the
opposite happened: “I actually
lost my friends. Nobody
f**king called me anymore.”
Then about six months into
this period of sobriety, he met
People
his now-wife Claire, which only
reinforced that process. “It was
strange,” he reflects. “Because
when I fell for Claire, many
people I was close to couldn’t
handle it. I haven’t really been
the same with some since.” His
old drinking buddies seemed to
feel “a sense of betrayal” – and
it was true that he’d changed.
“I wanted to marry Claire.
I wanted to look after her and
have her babies. I’d never felt
like that before.”
A brush with Harry Enfield
In the 2010s, Harry Enfield did
a sketch with Paul Whitehouse,
in which they played two old
buffers discussing Michael
Gove, his wife, and their desire
to grope her breasts. To Sarah
Vine, who was Gove’s wife at
the time, it felt like an apology
of sorts: some while earlier,
she and Enfield had been at It’s more than 35 years since Cary Grant died,
a Downing Street reception, but his daughter still misses him, says Emma
when a gay friend of hers Brockes in The Guardian. Jennifer Grant, 57,
remarked “in a fruity, Oscar was a baby when her parents divorced and,
Wilde sort of voice” that the until his death when she was 20, it was with
dress Vine was in made her her father that she mainly lived (because her
breasts look “rather mother, the actress Dyan Cannon, was often
magnificent”. “Everyone away filming). Grant’s on-screen persona as
laughed – including Enfield, the sophisticated, debonair Englishman was
who concurred. He then said an extraordinary piece of reinvention: he had himself grown up in
something along the lines of, extreme poverty, in Bristol. His mother was committed to an asylum
‘Do you mind if I have a go?’ when he was 11 (he was told that she had died); and at 14, he ran
before grabbing them and away to join a circus – which eventually took him to the US, where
jiggling them with a vigorous he performed in vaudeville before moving to Hollywood. He was
enthusiasm that I must confess, 62 when Jennifer was born, and his career was still going strong.
rather took me and everyone Yet at that point he retired, in order to raise her. He had five wives,
else by surprise.” She wasn’t but she was his first child. She thinks he’d resisted having a family
sure what to make of it, she until then, “out of fear that it would all go to hell. That he couldn’t
recalled in the Daily Mail last sustain a relationship. That he wouldn’t be a good parent.” In
week. It hadn’t felt threatening, fact, he was a deeply attentive one: she remembers him writing
but it did “rather take the wind her endless funny notes, and cutting articles for her out of the
out of my sails. I decided to file newspaper, many of them about women achieving great things.
it under ‘someone having a bit “The pendulum [had] swung the other way,” she says. “All the
of fun at my expense’.” neglect he’d suffered meant he made sure that that was not my life.”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint:

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs
Farewell
featured the artist Peter Doig “Evil when bored” Victoria Amelina,
“When asked why he was taking on the Ukrainian novelist and
1 Dan is the Man (in the Van), written and performed by war crimes researcher,
Mighty Sparrow
Herculean task of fixing Thames Water
died 1 July, aged 37.
at the age of 75, the businessman Sir
2 All the Tired Horses, written by Bob Dylan, performed by
Bob Dylan (with Hilda Harris, Albertine Robinson and Adrian Montague said his family had a Frederic Forrest,
Maeretha Stewart) motto for him: ‘Evil when bored.’ Don’t actor best known for
you know people like that, who after Apocalypse Now, died
3 Honky Tonkin’, written and performed by Hank Williams 23 June, aged 86.
4 Want Fi Goh Rave, written and performed by Linton one day of holiday start prowling the
Kwesi Johnson resort like Logan Roy in the newsroom John B. Goodenough,
looking for workers to fire? My father Nobel Prize-winning
5 The Message by Edward G. Fletcher, Melle Mel, Clifton “Jiggs”
was ‘evil when bored’ personified. materials scientist,
Chase and Sylvia Robinson, performed by Grandmaster Flash
died 25 June, aged 100.
and the Furious Five When he came to stay, within two
6 Jump to It by Luther Vandross and Marcus Miller, performed hours, he’d be telling me the car had Milan Kundera, award-
by Aretha Franklin bald tyres or lecturing me about my winning Czech-born
French author, died
7 Computer Love by Ralf Hütter, Karl Bartos and Emil Schult, pension. I learnt to compile a task list 11 July, aged 94.
performed by Kraftwerk before his visit: front door sticks, mow
8* Way, Way Out, written and performed by Mighty Shadow lawn, etc. So he’d go around with his Roger Payne, biologist
tools, happily ticking them off. Then, who co-discovered
Book: a large sketchbook whale song, died
* Choice if allowed only one record
only then, did he feel entitled to relax.” 10 June, aged 88.
Luxury: a Samurai-designed cutlass
Janice Turner in The Times

THE WEEK 15 June 2023

 Briefing NEWS 13

Here comes El Niño

Last week, the World Meteorological Organisation confirmed that El Niño – a weather pattern with worldwide effects – is back

Why is it called El Niño? Why do the impacts reach so far?

El Niño, a phenomenon in which a Because the Pacific Ocean is so big –
band of warmer water develops in the covering 40% of the equator – it
Warm, Cool,
central and eastern equatorial Pacific, wet dry affects the entire world. The El Niño/
was named back in the 1600s, when (low (high La Niña “southern oscillation”
Peruvian fishermen noticed that sea pressure) Trade winds pressure) disrupts the atmospheric circulation
waters were sometimes warmer patterns that connect the tropics with
around Christmas, and that this the middle latitudes, and also affects
affected the weather and reduced Australia South the jet streams – strong air currents in
their catch. They called it “El Niño Warm Cool America the Earth’s atmosphere several miles
de Navidad” – “the Christmas boy”. up. So during an El Niño, East Africa
Today the warming waters are tends to get more rain in spring, while
recognised as part of a complex southern Africa gets drier conditions
Upwelling
weather pattern that changes in its winter; India’s monsoon rains
conditions across the Pacific and Tropical Pacific Ocean are often reduced. El Niño years are
creates climatic effects over swathes of also one factor that can increase the
the Earth. Forecasters usually declare Prevailing Pacific conditions, which El Niño reverses risk of colder winters in northern
an El Niño if sea-surface temperatures Europe. Within any given decade, the
in the equatorial Pacific increase by more than 0.5°C over at least warmest years globally are usually El Niño ones, and the coldest
three months. Such events occur on average every two to seven are usually La Niña ones.
years, and last nine to 12 months. Most begin in the northern
spring or early summer, and peak from November to January. And what are the knock-on effects of all this?
The effects on farming and fishing are considerable, and in history
How does El Niño change conditions in the Pacific? El Niños are thought to have had major social impacts (see box).
Normally, the trade winds blow east to west across the Pacific Fishing is affected, because the lack of upwelling means plankton
at the equator (see above). They push water warmed by the Sun is not brought up from the depths of the Eastern Pacific: during
over the ocean, taking heat and moisture to the western side, the El Niño of 1982-83, catches were dramatically altered, from
to Australia and Southeast Asia. At the same time, the coast of Chile to Alaska. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
South and Central America on the other side of the ocean is kept deems Australia, Brazil and South Africa – some of the world’s
relatively dry. Meanwhile, the warm water that has been pushed major cereal producers – at risk of drought during El Niños,
west is replaced in the eastern Pacific by cooler, nutrient-rich along with many other nations in Africa, Southeast Asia and the
water from the depths, a process called “upwelling”. During an Caribbean. (Argentina, Turkey and the US, by contrast, are likely
El Niño – for reasons not fully understood – air pressure over to see extra rain and some flooding.) The world’s three largest
the equatorial Pacific changes, and the trade winds falter or start sugar exporters – Brazil, India and Thailand – are likely to be
moving west to east. Temperatures in the central Pacific increase; adversely affected. El Niño rain changes disease patterns, too: it
ocean currents shut down or reverse; and great masses of warm has been blamed for Rift Valley fever in East Africa and dengue
water move towards the Americas. (At times, the opposite effect in Peru. Researchers at Dartmouth College have estimated that
also occurs: the easterly trade winds strengthen, and the tropical each El Niño saps $3.4trn on average from the global economy.
Pacific is colder than usual. This is known as La Niña, “the girl”.)
What can we expect from this El Niño?
What happens then? High temperatures. A strong El Niño can add up to 0.2°C to the
During an El Niño, dry regions of Peru, Chile, Mexico and the average temperature of the Earth. The last strong El Niño ended
southwest US are often deluged with rain and snow, while rainfall in 2016; that was the hottest year on record. This time, though,
in Asia and Australia is greatly we’re in uncharted territory. We’ve
reduced. (During a La Niña, by El Niño and the fate of civilisations just seen the end of an unusually long
contrast, there is drier weather on Geological research has determined that El Niño dates La Niña. It began in 2020 and ended
South America’s Pacific coast and the back thousands of years, at least to the last Ice Age. In in March; but its normal cooling
US southwest, and wetter weather in his 1999 book Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Niño effect did not materialise. Meanwhile,
Southeast Asia and Australia.) During and the Fate of Civilisations, the archaeologist Brian sea temperatures have risen sharply in
the intense El Niño event in the Fagan suggests that the phenomenon may have the last three months; the oceans have
winter of 1997-98, rain and landslides played a part in the end of the Moche civilisation in absorbed 90% of the global warming
what is now northern Peru in the 6th or 7th century,
in California and Peru left thousands as well as that of the lowland Maya civilisation in the
that has occurred in recent years.
homeless, while on the other side of Yucatán around AD900. Other research has suggested
the Pacific, Indonesia experienced that the Spanish conquest of the Incas and Peru may What does that mean?
severe drought, leading to one of have been aided by El Niño conditions. When Heating oceans has many effects;
the largest outbreaks of forest fires Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish troops landed in Peru the severe warming of the 2015-16
recorded in the past two centuries. At in 1531 and travelled inland, they found blooming El Niño killed off nearly a third of
the same time, in El Niño conditions, deserts, swollen rivers, and rainfall in the usually arid the coral on the Great Barrier Reef.
other parts of the Americas further regions. This allowed the conquistadors to sustain Scientists warn that its reappearance,
away from the Pacific tend to see their long march and to avoid Inca settlements on on top of global heating, could
the way to establishing a foothold in the country.
warmer, drier conditions, which also trigger weather extremes and
create prime conditions for wildfires A 1998 study in Nature argues that a strong El Niño in disasters of unprecedented scope and
– the blazes now burning across 1789 caused poor crop yields in Europe, which in turn scale. “There’s a huge amount of heat
helped spark the French Revolution. In his book Late
Canada have been blamed by some Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis
stored below the surface that’s ready
on El Niño. Both La Niña and El suggests that at least three great famines in the late to erupt,” said Dr Michael McPhaden
Niño events change the odds of 19th century, in which tens of millions died in China, of the US National Oceanic and
floods, droughts, heatwaves and Brazil and India, were also partly caused by El Niño. Atmospheric Administration.
extreme cold further afield, too. “The escalator is only going up.”

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

14 NEWS Best articles: Britain
British aid spending has recently been slashed, says Ian Birrell.
And a good thing, too. The ugly truth is that foreign aid invariably IT MUST BE TRUE…
Want to help hurts recipient countries. It saps self-reliance; it fuels corruption
and conflict. Instead of paying heed to their own citizens, officials
I read it in the tabloids

poor nations? get locked in a struggle for funds. Haiti, “nicknamed the Republic
of NGOs” for the sheer number of charities out there, has received
An expectant mother has
been criticised for wanting to
name her child “Quiftopher”.
Don’t give aid almost £14bn in aid this century: and it’s in chaos. In Afghanistan,
a vast influx of Western aid served only to intensify divisions
The unidentified woman
explained on Reddit that she
Ian Birrell and empower a “mafia state”. Contrast the case of Somaliland, came up with the name by
which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 – and so combining her grandfathers’
The Times was denied international recognition, and the aid that goes with names (Christopher) with
it. Obliged to fix its own problems, it developed into “a beacon those of her grandmothers
of democracy”. Not for long, alas. Once the development experts (Quinn and Florence). Reddit
users gave it the thumbs
and their aid programmes did move in, Somaliland imploded. down. “All due respect that
“It is deluded neocolonialism to think we can use our cash to name is hideous,” was one
impose stability, let alone to create millions of jobs or spread verdict. “Might have to
democracy.” We must ditch our “arrogant salvation fantasies”. rethink it,” she conceded.

The riots have petered out in France, says John Burn-Murdoch,

but until it changes its way of dealing with immigrants, violence
The faultlines will never be far away. The comparison with Britain is instructive.
In France, “decades of failed urban policy” have resulted in
of a race-blind immigrant communities being herded together in banlieues; in
London there is nothing like the same sense of “otherness”. In
policy France, 28% of recent immigrants, compared with just 8% of
non-immigrants, fall in the lowest tenth of earners; in the UK,
John Burn-Murdoch the figures are the same regardless of country of birth. In London,
black people are two to three times more likely than whites to
Financial Times be stopped and searched. In Paris, it’s more like six times, and A mayor in southern Mexico
“almost eight times for those of Arab origin”. And while the has married a caiman in
poverty rate among immigrants in France is almost three times a centuries-old indigenous
that of the native-born population, in the UK, again, the two rates rite designed to bring good
are the same. France makes much of its “race-blind” approach to fortune to his people. The
social exclusion: it legally prohibits collection of data on people’s (female) reptile, named Alicia
race. The figures make it plain that that approach isn’t working. Adriana, was dressed in an
embroidered tunic before the
One of the besetting sins of UK industrial policy, says Ed Conway, ceremony and taken from
is its obsession with price above all else. Look at windpower. The house to house so that locals
Why we’ve let UK now has more offshore turbines than almost any other nation,
but, obsessed with keeping prices down, it has outsourced the
could dance with her in their
arms. She was then changed
Beijing take the manufacture of turbines to other countries, and so accelerated the
deindustrialisation of Britain. So it is with electric vehicles (EVs).
into a bridal gown for the
ceremony. “We love each
driving seat The Government has set a 2030 deadline for the sale of new
petrol and diesel cars, but has done little to encourage domestic
other,” said the mayor, Victor
Hugo Sosa, after they’d tied
Ed Conway EV production, one of the goals behind the ban. To develop the the knot. “I yield to marriage
industry you must first invest in battery chemicals and big battery with the princess girl.”
The Sunday Times factories: Britain today has just one. By contrast, China is now
turning out EVs (including the Tesla Model 3s) in vast numbers. A gym instructor from Bristol
In 2020 it exported fewer cars to the UK than the Czech Republic: who was caught carving his
it now sends us more than any nation bar Germany. Letting and his girlfriend’s names
China gobble up this market is fine if you think hitting the 2030 onto the Colosseum in Rome
has claimed that he didn’t
deadline “as cheaply and quickly as possible is all that matters”.
know how old the monument
But 20th century history suggests that ceding dominance over was. Ivan Dimitrov, 27, caused
key technologies to global rivals is never a good idea. outrage last month when he
was filmed scratching “Ivan +
To state that only women can be lesbians was a line no one would Hayley 23” with a key onto
have questioned a few years ago, says Sonia Sodha. Yet utter such the 2,000-year-old building.
Time to stand a view today and you risk losing your job or, in the recent case of
a gay rights charity, your charitable status. For arguing that being
In a letter to the mayor of
Rome, Dimitrov offered his
up to the gay is a matter of same sex, not same gender, attraction, and that
lesbians have a right to exclude those born male who identify as
“heartfelt” apology and
said: “I admit with profound
gender activists lesbian, the LGB Alliance has been damned as a hate group and
taken to court by the trans charity Mermaids. No matter that
embarrassment that only
after what regretfully
happened did I learn of the
Sonia Sodha Mermaids itself takes positions many find abhorrent – lobbying antiquity of the monument.”
the NHS to make puberty blockers available to young children
The Observer with gender dysphoria for example – it has still seen fit to push for
the Alliance to be stripped of its charitable status for challenging
its nostrums. Thankfully, the court ruled last week that Mermaids
had “no legal right to operate free from criticism”. Yet it shouldn’t
be left to judges to uphold the right to hold a legitimate (and
mainstream) opinion. The employers and public officials who have
been so ready to accept the radical agenda of the gender-ideology
activists must learn to stand up and stop being so cowardly.

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Best of the American columnists NEWS 15

Bidenomics: changing the way America does business

“President Biden might not seem like
a revolutionary,” said E.J. Dionne Jr
in The Washington Post, but he’s
presiding over “a fundamental change”
in America’s approach to economics.
He’s departing not just from the
“trickle-down” policies of Ronald
Reagan, but from many of the
orthodoxies that shaped the Clinton
and Obama presidencies. His approach
is rooted in the idea of growing the
economy from “the middle out and the
bottom up”, and embracing the role of
the state. Free-trade deals are no longer
a priority; now it’s about boosting
Biden outlining his plans in Chicago last month
US industries, bringing jobs back from
abroad, investing in infrastructure and making the economy
work for ordinary people. Biden’s ideas are being taken up by
others, including Britain’s Labour Party. And no wonder, given
America’s recent record, said Jennifer Rubin in the same paper.
The economy has created 13 million jobs; inflation has halved;
huge investments have been made in green energy. Expect to
hear a lot more about “Bidenomics” in the months ahead.
Don’t believe the “cherry-picked statistics”, said The
Washington Times. Biden has presided over no economic
miracle. The job figures turned around under Donald Trump,
who, in the wake of Covid, “oversaw
the recovery of 16.6 million jobs”.
The US has only created around two
million new jobs since the pandemic.
As for inflation, said the New York
Post, it may have halved from its
peak, but at about 4% it’s still twice
what it was when Biden took over.
Meanwhile, average mortgage rates
have gone from 2.8% to 6.7%, and
income inequality is rising for the first
time since 2011. Bidenomics amounts
to “tossing trillions at Democratic
special interests”. Biden’s team must
be desperate if they’re making this
his central re-election theme.
A lot needs to “go right for the public to judge Bidenomics
a success”, said Matthew Continetti in The Washington Free
Beacon. Inflation will have to fall to 2% so that real wages start
rising faster than prices. Biden must also hope that looming
interest rate hikes don’t tip the US into a recession. But his
re-election hopes rest on more than just the economy. Whether
he wins next year will ultimately depend less on his agenda than
on the anti-Trump coalition of voters that cost the Republicans
elections in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Biden has been saved
by this coalition before. “Will it save him again?”

The Republicans have a Mormon problem, says David Byler. In an increasingly secular, more racially
diverse country, “one long-term trend – the rapid growth of the reliably conservative Mormon
The twilight of Church – has consistently provided the GOP with good news”. But this support is drying up. An
authoritative survey indicates that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is shrinking. The
the Latter-day share of Americans identifying as Mormon fell from 1.8% in 2007 to 1.2% last year – a net loss of
around a million adult members. This reflects a general disaffection with organised religion, and the
Saints fact that Mormons are having fewer children. The LDS Church has sought to reverse the decline by
redoubling its missionary efforts, and reducing the length of its Sunday services from three hours to
David Byler two, but without success. As well as diminishing in number, Mormons are also increasingly voting
Democrat. This may change when Donald Trump departs the stage: he alienated LDS voters with
The Washington Post his “uncouth personal style” and his attacks on Mitt Romney, the Mormon senator from Utah.
Then again, it may not. At a time when many demographic trends are working against the
Republicans, a “changing Mormon Church adds one more problem to their plate”.

Texas knows about heat, says Amy Davidson Sorkin. The late Cormac McCarthy vividly evoked the
sweltering conditions of its borderlands in his novels: heat “rises, waves, blazes and shimmers; horses
How much and men, living and dead, dissolve or crumble into it”. But even Texas has struggled with the high
temperatures of recent weeks, caused by a “heat dome” that has settled over the region. At the end
hotter can of June, the mercury hit an all-time high of 45°C in San Angelo. In Corpus Christi, the heat index – a
measure that combines air temperature and relative humidity to estimate the temperature felt by the
Texas get? human body – reached 51.7°C, close to an unsurvivable level. Fortunately, the state’s electric grid has
held up, allowing people to cool off with air conditioning, but this relief isn’t available to everyone.
Amy Davidson Sorkin Some 70% of Texas prisons don’t have air conditioning in living areas, leading to stifling conditions
for inmates. A study last year estimated that, between 2001 and 2019, 271 deaths in Texas prisons
The New Yorker might be attributable to excessive heat. How much hotter might it get in the years ahead in Texas,
a fast-growing state that’s home to some 30 million Americans? “It’s becoming impossible to avoid
seeing a troubled future, even from the air-conditioned towers of Dallas or Austin.”

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a crank,” says Paul Krugman. He believes that vaccines are harmful, that
Prozac causes mass shootings, and that the CIA may have killed his father and uncle. He has zero
Why Silicon chance of winning his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet despite this, he’s picking up
a lot of support from leading figures in Silicon Valley. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has endorsed
Valley loves him, and other prominent tech figures have held fundraisers for him. Elon Musk hosted him at a
Twitter Spaces event. It’s a sad fact that, having in many cases become fabulously wealthy by defying
a crank conventional wisdom, “tech bros” are susceptible to “brain-rotting contrarianism” – a weakness
often aggravated by their segregated lifestyles. The tech entrepreneur and writer Anil Dash has stated
Paul Krugman that it is “impossible to overstate the degree” to which many of these people are “radicalised by
living within their own cultural and social bubble”. He calls this phenomenon of venture capitalism
The New York Times
“VC QAnon”, after the online conspiracy theory movement. That one of the craziest factions in US
politics today is made up of tech billionaires living in huge mansions is “quite funny” on one level.
“Unfortunately, however, these people have enough money to do serious damage.”

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

16 NEWS Best articles: International
The Fukushima solution: a million tons of radioactive water
More than 18,000 people were killed plan is “difficult to justify”, said The
by the huge earthquake off Japan’s Kyunghyang Shinmun (Seoul). The
northeast coast and the ensuing processing of the water doesn’t remove
tsunami that struck on 11 March tritium, a form of hydrogen that can
2011. But nowadays the cataclysm be carcinogenic at high levels, and
is mainly remembered for the way it there have been no signs of the IAEA
wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant pushing for less risky alternatives.
and caused “the worst atomic accident No wonder countries such as China
since Chernobyl”, said Stephen and many Pacific islands are fiercely
Stapczynski on Bloomberg (New York). opposed to the plan, as are 41% of the
And ever since that terrible accident, Japanese people and almost everyone
plant operator Tepco has been in the fishing industry. China has even
pumping water into the site to cool banned food imports from affected
the reactors’ fuel rods, contaminating Japanese regions on safety grounds.
some 130,000 litres every day in doing Journalists touring the nuclear plant in 2016
so. Over the past 12 years, that water Beijing has some nerve, said Philipp
has been processed and stored in about 1,000 huge tanks. Those Mattheis in Der Standard (Vienna). China itself already dumps
tanks are now almost full, and the Japanese government’s plan far more “radioactive water” into the sea than Fukushima is
for the next step to take is a profoundly controversial one: to scheduled to do – Chinese reactors are releasing up to 6.5 times
the fury of neighbouring countries, it wants to release a million the annual amount of tritium forecast – and it’s working flat
metric tons of this treated radioactive water – “enough to fill out to build another 150 reactors over the next 15 years. It is
500 Olympic-size swimming pools” – into the Pacific Ocean. also the case that the amount of tritium destined for discharge
into the sea under the proposal has been judged to be well
Tokyo insists that the filtration process the water has undergone beneath the safety level required by regulators for nuclear waste
means it’s free of most radionuclides – elements that emit discharge, or by the World Health Organisation for drinking
radiation, said Sara Hussein in The Jakarta Post. It insists the water, said Mainichi Shimbun (Tokyo). But be that as it may,
water is no different to that regularly released by nuclear plants with Fukushima’s water tanks about to reach capacity early
elsewhere, a conclusion endorsed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, next year, Tokyo will have its work cut out selling its plan
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Even so, this and winning over its many enraged and vocal critics.

More than a million foxes and other “pests” are killed each year in France, and conservationists want
FRANCE to end the slaughter, says Sarah Finger. Yet a new decree from the Ministry of Ecological Transition
and Territorial Cohesion is pushing in precisely the opposite direction: influenced by the relentless
Greenlighting lobbying of hunters and farmers, it is adding a slew of additional species likely to cause damage
or pose a threat to public safety. If the decree is approved, all these could be killed year-round in
a massacre in unlimited numbers. Rooks and crows, blamed for damaging crops, are on the list. So are weasels and
foxes, blamed for hunting poultry. Even the pine marten, a protected species in the UK, is included, as
the countryside it kills pheasants bred for hunting. None of this is justified. Most of the lobbyists’ claims about pest
damage aren’t based on evidence, and some are just absurd: one farmer said that “a group of foxes”
Libération
attacked his cows – even though foxes don’t hunt in packs, or target cows. Nor is any account taken
(Paris) of the positive role played by these animals: corvids eat bugs that damage crops, while killing weasels
and pine martens would cause rodent numbers to “explode”. It’s time ministers listened to the wider
public – 65% of whom oppose labelling species as “harmful” – and scrapped these nonsensical plans.

The 12-mile Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea will soon be jammed with Russian
RUSSIA holidaymakers; and to ease the strain, officials in Moscow are considering opening a land corridor to
the peninsula through “new Russian regions” in Ukraine. But anyone thinking of taking such a route
A holiday trek should “be prepared for a shock”, says Svetlana Samodelova. Forget about campsites and service
stations, this is a warzone, and the journey is often difficult and dangerous. It can take seven hours
through the to get through the checkpoint at Veselo-Voznesenka, on the Russian side of the border; and once
horrors of war in Ukraine, drivers’ GPS systems aren’t much use, as digital communications jam whenever Kyiv
launches an air attack. Further south, the checkpoints multiply, and long military convoys are likely
Moskovsky Komsomolets to cause yet further delays. There is of course the option of taking roads damaged by fighting near
(Moscow) the southern city of Mariupol that have now been repaired. But the whole area is a haunting ruin of
“collapsed charred buildings”. They’ll learn a thing or two about the horrors of war if they decide
to take this route: I doubt that many will think that’s a price worth paying to avoid a traffic jam.

Why does the world remain so passive in the face of North Korea’s military ambitions, asks Jacques
NORTH KOREA Attali. A “barricaded fortress in which 26 million prisoners suffer from hunger and fear”, the country
is often dismissed as a basket case that poses no threat to the rest of us. Not so. Consider the size
Kim Jong Un’s of Kim Jong Un’s army: it boasts 1.2 million soldiers and 500,000 reservists. More worrying still,
it possesses more than 40 nuclear warheads – an extraordinary arsenal given its first atomic test
terrifying was carried out in 2006. Pyongyang has also developed “surprisingly effective” aerial drones, has
arsenal a formidable missile programme, and now wants to develop an “intercontinental ballistic missile
capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the US”. Some say it isn’t capable of producing such
Nikkei Asia advanced technology, but what if they’re wrong? It would then be impossible to deny South Korea
(Tokyo) the right to its own nuclear arsenal – or to deny Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia for that matter.
North Korea’s ambitions, in short, could lead to a truly terrifying nuclear domino effect. “To prevent
this, we must use every means at our disposal and any means necessary while there is still time.”

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Health & Science NEWS 19

What the scientists are saying…

Why bird “marriages” fail
Some relationships are rock solid; others
collapse, owing to infidelity, or lengthy
periods apart. That is true of humans – and
also, it seems, of birds. More than 90% of
bird species stick with the same partner for
at least one breeding season. These pairings
can prove lifelong, but some monogamous
birds will move on to a new partner,
despite their original mate still being
alive, a phenomenon ornithologists
refer to as divorce. To look for the factors
that seemed to make break-ups likely,
researchers from China and Germany
analysed data on migration distances and
divorce rates for 232 species. They also
compiled “promiscuity scores” for males
and females of those species, based on
previous studies of their behaviour.
They found that male (but not female)
promiscuity was linked to higher divorce
rate. This could be because males that
divide their attention and resources
between females are less attractive as
mates, said researcher Dr Zitan Song. The
researchers also found that species that
migrate long distances were more prone
to split up – perhaps because difficulty
in synchronising their arrival gives the
“early bird” an opportunity to stray.
Being lonely is bad for your heart
We’re all aware that eating well and
exercising play a key role in heart health;
but it turns out that having friends could
be as or even more important. For a new
study, 18,500 people, aged 37 to 73, who
had no known heart problems were given
questionnaires asking them how lonely
they felt, and how often they saw friends
and family; they were then tracked for the
next ten years, during which time 3,247
of them developed heart disease or had
a stroke. Analysis of the data showed that
Destined for “divorce”? Not all pairings last
those who had rated themselves loneliest,
and who rarely saw friends or relatives,
had a 26% higher risk of heart problems
than those who did not feel lonely. This
suggests that loneliness has a greater
impact on heart health than well-known
risk factors such as smoking, poor diet
and lack of exercise. In fact, only high
cholesterol levels, being overweight and
having kidney problems increase the risk
of heart disease more. The participants all
had type 2 diabetes; however, the authors
of the study, published in the European
Heart Journal, think its findings would
apply more widely.
The myth of the male hunter
The idea that in early human societies,
the men went out hunting, while the
women merely gathered plants, has been
dealt a major blow: it turns out there is
considerable evidence that women were
also hunters, and it has been there all
along. There is limited direct evidence of
gender roles in early human societies, but
since the 1800s, ethnographers have lived
alongside groups that still practise hunter-
gathering, and published their observations.
Until now, there has been a general sense
that these had confirmed assumptions
about men going out to hunt, and women
only killing prey opportunistically; but
when researchers led by anthropologist
Prof Cara Wall-Scheffler, of Seattle Pacific
University, went back to original reports
on 63 hunter-gatherer societies, and
analysed them systematically, they found
that in almost 80% of them, women of all
ages had been routinely observed engaged
in “purposeful hunting”. Women and girls
killed prey large and small, and they used
a wider variety of weapons than the men,
says the study, published in the journal
PLOS One: bows and arrows, knives,
spears, nets and machetes were all in their
toolkits. This may have been because they
tended to be more physically restricted:
some would have been carrying babies
on their backs, or been pregnant.
Sleep protects against ageing
The link between exercise and better
cognitive function in older age is well
established; but a new study has found
that too little sleep in late middle age
can wipe out the benefits of keeping fit.
A team at University College London
looked at data on around 9,000 people
over 50 whose cognitive function had been
assessed over ten years. They’d also filled
in questionnaires about how long they
slept each night, and their exercise levels.
Initially, those who were more active had
better cognitive function, regardless of
sleep; but in their 60s, these short sleepers
(with less than six hours a night) started
to experience more rapid decline.

Do octopuses dream? A watch to spot Parkinson’s

Octopuses sleep patterns are very similar Data gathered by smart watches can be
to those of mammals, and the cephalopods used to predict the onset of Parkinson’s
may even dream, a study has suggested. By disease up to seven years sooner than
monitoring their brain activity, researchers symptoms normally appear, a study
at the Okinawa Institute were able to has found. It suggests watches could
show that octopuses appear to enter two be used as a new way of screening
for the disease, which would lead to
distinct stages during sleep – a quiet one, earlier diagnosis and, by broadening
and an active one similar to REM, in recruitment to clinical trials, perhaps lead
which most mammals dream. Footage of to new and more effective treatments,
29 nocturnal octopuses shows them lying which patients would be able to access
down during the day, and closing their eyes earlier. Existing drugs can ease the
before settling down to rest. In what may symptoms of Parkinson’s, which include
be their quiet sleep stage, their skin is tremors and stiffness, but they do not
Octopuses’ skin changes colour in sleep
patterned white, but every 60 minutes or slow the progression of the disease.
so, they go into what seems to be REM sleep: their legs and eyes twitch, their For this study, scientists analysed
data collected by medical-grade smart
breathing quickens, and their skin changes colour, creating patterns that resemble the watches over a seven-day period, which
camouflaged tones they adopt while hunting. This could be because they are reliving continuously monitored the wearers’
their nighttime activity in their dreams. However, the researchers acknowledged that speed of movement. They found that
there are other possible explanations. For example, although the octopuses seemed with artificial intelligence, they could use
to be asleep (and were relatively unresponsive to external stimuli), they might simply this data to accurately predict those who
have been resting, and using the downtime to practise their skin-tone changes. would go on to develop the disease.

14 July 2023 THE WEEK

20 NEWS
Pick of the week’s
Gossip
Joan Rivers was no fan of
live tennis. “All that head
turning, back and forth,
back and forth,” the
comedian wrote in her
diary after spending a day at
Wimbledon in 2007. “It can
loosen even a good facelift.”
She coped by staring at just
one player, usually the one
who grunted less. “If the ball
doesn’t come back,” she
wrote, “obviously the other
idiot missed it.”
A shadow was cast over
George Osborne’s wedding
to his former aide Thea
Rogers last weekend, when
on the eve of the ceremony,
their guests received a
poison-pen email, full of
scurrilous allegations about
the couple’s personal lives.
But neither that, nor an
incident in which an
interloper threw orange
confetti over them, seemed
to dampen the celebrations,
which were attended by
a host of politicians and
journalists, including Ed
Balls, Nick Robinson, Emily
Maitlis and Jon Sopel.
There was much “centrist
dad” dancing, The Times
reported, and some jokes at
the newlyweds’ expense. In
his speech, Osborne’s best
man, the columnist Daniel
Finkelstein, said he’d been
surprised to see the former
chancellor’s hand hovering
over the cake before he cut
into it. “It’s the first time
I’ve seen George unsure
of where to put the knife in.”
There’s still no word on
when Elon Musk and Mark
Zuckerberg’s cage fight will
take place. In the meantime,
Musk has come up with
another way to establish
relative dominance.
“I propose a literal dick
measuring contest,” he
wrote on Twitter last week.
THE WEEK 15 July 2023
Talking points
Captain Tom: a tainted legacy?
“In the dark days of spring
2020, as Britain endured its
first lockdown, an uplifting
narrative was needed,” said
Rosa Silverman in The Daily
Telegraph. Into that breach
stepped Tom Moore, a
99-year-old war veteran who’d
resolved to walk 100 lengths
of his garden to raise money
for NHS charities. His target
was £1,000; but then the
media got hold of the story
– and in a month he raised
£38m. Prince William praised
him as a “one-man fundraising
machine”. Yet this was not
quite accurate: others had Sir Tom and Hannah Ingram-Moore a private company set up by
helped power that machine.
His son-in-law, serial entrepreneur Colin Ingram- Captain Tom branded merchandise.
Moore, is believed to have suggested that he
embark on his walk; and it was his daughter,
management consultant Hannah Ingram-Moore, Moore, said Esther Watson in The Spectator, but
who sent out a press release about it – in which
she gave him the moniker Captain Tom. “You
can’t do that,” he told her. “I retired in 1945!”
Don’t worry, she replied: “No one will mind.”
They didn’t at the time, said Paul Bracchi in the
Daily Mail, but now unease is growing about
how the Ingram-Moores may have exploited
Captain Tom’s name. Last week, it emerged that
the couple had applied for planning permission
for an outbuilding, claiming it was for use by
The Captain Tom Foundation – a charity they
had founded before his death to support causes
Labour: a new plan for England’s schools
Keir Starmer dared to use the C-word last week,
said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. In a speech
outlining his educational pledges, the Labour
leader talked of his desire to “shatter the class
ceiling”. His party’s plans for England’s schools
include recruiting 6,500 more teachers, with
bonuses to enlist and retain them; placing a
greater emphasis on the arts, with new rules to
ensure that all pupils study a creative subject
(such as drama or music) or sport until 16; and
offering free breakfasts to every primary school
pupil – all to be paid for with the £1.5bn from
charging VAT on private school fees. Crucially,
Starmer also believes that the teaching of
“oracy” – the ability to articulate ideas verbally
– should be prioritised alongside the teaching
of numeracy and literacy. Under his proposals,
children would receive more help to develop
speaking, confidence and communication skills
– “those great social dividers”.
Starmer is onto something here, said Mark
Wallace in The i Paper. Being able to speak in
public is now too often regarded as an innate
talent rather than what it is: a “democratising,
empowering skill” that can be practised and
learnt by anyone. We should do more to
cultivate it. This is a good proposal, agreed Lucy
Kellaway in the FT – and it has the added merit
of being “just about achievable”. As a teacher,
close to his heart. But the
structure that went up was far
bigger than the one authorised
– and housed a spa-pool. The
council has now ordered that
it be torn down. As for the
foundation, it has been dogged
by controversy from the start.
In its first year, eyebrows were
raised when it spent more on
administration than it gave
out in grants. The Charity
Commission had to intervene
to stop Hannah running it on
a salary of £100,000 per year;
and it is now the subject of
an inquiry into its links with
the Ingram-Moores to sell
It’s easy to think the worst of Hannah Ingram-
without her, her father would never have raised
all those millions. And if the Captain Tom mania
went too far – the knighthood, the No. 1 single,
the hundreds of press interviews – we’re all to
blame. It was always “mad”: for goodness sake,
you could even buy a miniskirt with his face on
it. The veneration of Tom Moore created absurd
expectations for the charity set up in his name,
said Patrick Butler in The Guardian. It also
meant that the media’s scrutiny of it was intense.
Now, the charity has been tainted by suspicions
of “bad faith, vanity and self interest”.
Whatever the inquiry finds, it may not recover.
you can’t help but notice the “speaking gap”:
the more deprived their backgrounds are, the
less willing students tend to be to pipe up in
class. I taught at one comprehensive in London
that made a point of teaching oracy. Every
12-year-old had to take part in a debating class
each week; and every term there was one day
with no exercise books when students spent
lessons speaking. It definitely helped.
Whether Starmer’s plan would generate good
results is open to question, said Fraser Nelson in
The Daily Telegraph. Oracy is the “pet project”
of his adviser Peter Hyman, who set up a free
school, School 21, based on it. Pupils across all
subjects are taught to construct an argument,
pose questions and maintain eye contact. It
hasn’t been an unqualified success: once rated
“outstanding”, School 21 is now in the “requires
improvement” category. We should be wary of
Starmer’s proposal, said Tom Harris in the same
paper. Giving oracy equal status to reading and
writing would risk undermining the teaching of
those disciplines, which are the true foundation
of education. You can’t develop an articulate,
effective speaking style without that grounding.
By all means, help young people improve their
verbal fluency. But we must ensure that they’re
given “the proper skills to read, research and
write about those ideas first”.
 Talking points
Threads: the tech billionaires face off
An “almighty” social media
grudge-match is under way,
said The Economist. Last week,
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (which
owns Facebook and Instagram)
launched Threads, a near-
identical challenger to Twitter,
which has been struggling
since Elon Musk bought it last
October. The two billionaires,
who are locked in a rivalry
going back nearly a decade,
have seemingly agreed to
a real-life cage fight to settle
their differences; Italy’s culture
minister has invited them to
battle it out in the Colosseum.
“The rumble in Rome may
not happen”, but the launch of
Threads means that a far “more Zuckerberg: up for the fight
consequential fight” has already
begun. In its first two days, Threads amassed
70 million users. Twitter has accused Meta of
building a “copycat” app, and is threatening to
sue for what it calls the “systematic, wilful, and
unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade
secrets and other intellectual property”.
For those who enjoyed Twitter in its early days,
Threads is something of a “nostalgia trip”, said
Tim Bradshaw in the FT. It pitches itself as
Twitter, but without the spam, the harassment,
and the “toxicity” – which has got much worse
under Musk’s ownership. Threads is easy to use,
and provides you with an “insta-network”, by
linking you up with your Instagram contacts.
Ticket offices: on track for closure
A “huge and worrying change” is
coming down the railway track,
said The Sunday Times. The Rail
Delivery Group, which represents
Britain’s train companies, is
proposing to shut the vast majority
of the 1,000-plus ticket offices
across England; only the largest
will be kept. The rationale for this
“high-handed” plan is that only
12% of tickets are now bought
face-to-face, compared with 82%
30 years ago. Ticket machines and
the smartphone revolution are
making ticket counters obsolete, Are they now obsolete?
and their staff can now be freed, or
so rail bosses claim, to “transition to multiskilled 20 years to get used to phones and screens. And
‘customer help’ roles”. What this ignores,
though, is that for some travellers – the elderly,
the disabled, those without a smartphone –
ticket offices remain essential. Without them,
many will be put off travelling by train, or will
end up paying more than they need to.
You don’t have to be in a vulnerable group
to loathe this plan, said Jemima Lewis in The
Daily Telegraph. “A ticket office is more than
just a place to buy tickets.” It’s a “manned
post”, creating an immediate “sense of security
and oversight” – and ensuring that a “paid
And the lack of advertising –
though that’s unlikely to last –
makes it, for now, a nicer place
to be than Twitter. Sadly, the
“prelapsarian” spirit didn’t last
long, said Ed Cumming in The
Daily Telegraph. By lunchtime
on the first day, people “were
already settling into the old
familiar routines, sniping,
bullying”, abusing celebrities and
“posting whatever rubbish they
thought might get engagement”.
Everyone is asking whether
Threads will “kill” Twitter, said
Kevin D. Williamson in the New
York Post. In an ideal world,
they would kill each other. Both
Meta and Twitter share a similar
business model: they use digital
tools to monetise our “social anxiety”, our
fixation with hierarchy and popularity.
This is “bad for society”. It’s no coincidence
that politics has got much wilder and less
responsible during the social media age:
Twitter and Facebook have ushered in an era
of “mob politics”. Twitter has had its “dreadful
moments”, said Ian Dunt in The i Paper. But
it’s still a wonderful place, where you can find
politicians, journalists, academics and many
others airing their ideas. If it falls apart, will all
those people ever be reassembled on a single
platform? Anyone who has tried to get a group
of friends from one pub to another “will
recognise the difficulties”.
professional, however surly”, will
provide “the kind of individual
service that no algorithm can
supply”. If you want to object, be
quick: a three-week consultation
period ends on 26 July.
Now that they’re threatened
with the axe, these “Dickensian
cubbyholes” are being bathed in
a “glow of nostalgic glamour”,
said Libby Purves in The Times.
But their loss needn’t be a disaster.
Elderly people are often cited
as vulnerable in these cases, but
today’s octogenarians have had
those who do need assistance should still be able
to get it, from the counter staff who’ve been
redeployed to offer assistance on concourses
and platforms. Don’t count on that, said
Simon Kelner in The i Paper. This so-called
modernisation of the “ticketing experience”
is a cynical cost-cutting measure, and the idea
that staff will be kept on to provide “more face
to face” support is pure corporate “sophistry”.
Unions know it, and so do disabled and
passenger groups, who have already made their
objections clear. It’s pretty obvious that “in one
sense at least, we are being taken for a ride”.
NEWS 21
Wit &
Wisdom
“Why is there so much
month left at the end
of the money?”
John Barrymore, quoted
on Threads
“The first 80 years
are tough. Life gets
better after that.”
Len Deighton, quoted
in The Times
“Attention is the rarest and
purest form of generosity.”
Simone Weil, quoted in
The Philadelphia Citizen
“Nothing dates faster
than people’s fantasies
about the future.”
Robert Hughes, quoted
on MovieWeb
“The quickest way of ending
a war is to lose it.”
George Orwell, quoted
on Worldcrunch
“Life is easier to take than
you’d think; all that is
necessary is to accept
the impossible, do without
the indispensable, and
bear the intolerable.”
Kathleen Norris, quoted
in Forbes
“You are free to do whatever
you like. You need only face
the consequences.”
Sheldon B. Kopp, quoted
in The Guardian
“More is lost by indecision
than the wrong decision.”
Cicero, quoted in the
Manchester Evening News
“Facts can exist
without human
intelligence, truth cannot.”
Toni Morrison, quoted
in Northern Express
“Conservatism is more an
instinct than an idea.”
Roger Scruton, quoted
in The New Statesman
Statistic of the week
Some 70% of properties
sold in “prime central
London” in the first five
months of this year were
paid for in cash – with no
mortgage – up from 60%
in the same period in 2022.
In the UK as a whole, the
proportion was about 35%.
The Guardian/Savills
15 July 2023 THE WEEK
22 NEWS Sport
Cricket: England keep Ashes hopes alive at Headingley
Many of us who witnessed the Ashes of 2005 had
assumed we would never see its like again, said
Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. But three
Tests into this summer’s series – and with the
destination of the urn far from decided – it’s
clear that the 2023 Ashes will be “bracketed
with the convulsive dramas of 2005”. The first
two Tests, both won by Australia, were captivating
contests whose outcomes were “shrouded in
doubt until the final minutes”. And the third Test
at Headingley, which finished on Sunday, was
no less closely fought – only this time England
secured the victory they needed to keep their
Ashes hopes alive. Chasing 251 in their second
innings, Ben Stokes’s men made fitful progress
towards their target, said Mike Atherton in
The Times. Wickets fell with alarming regularity. Brook: the jewel in the crown
In the end, it took a superb 75 from Harry Brook
– and an unbeaten 32 from Chris Woakes – to get them over the
line with three wickets to spare.
While this was by no means a flawless performance by England,
it was a significant improvement on the first two Tests, said Nick
Hoult in The Daily Telegraph. So committed were England to
their philosophy of all-out attack in those matches, at times their
cricket bordered on the reckless. But at Headingley they played
“Bazball with brains”. They were helped by Woakes and Mark
Wood coming into the team for the first time
this summer, said Ali Martin in The Guardian.
Both bowled superbly – Woakes with “typical
understated consistency”, Woods with “scorching”
pace. The pair also made vital contributions with
the bat, and it seemed only fitting that these two
“universally popular cricketers” were together at
the crease when Woakes “crashed the ball through
the covers” to give England victory.
Another plus for England was that Brook made
a major impact for the first time in this series, said
Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail. The 24-year-
old from Yorkshire has “long been anointed the
jewel in English batting’s crown”, particularly
after his remarkable winter, when he “hit
hundreds for fun in Pakistan and New Zealand”.
His performances against the Australians had been
unconvincing, however – five Ashes knocks had produced a best
of 50 – and had “thrown up questions about his ticker against the
short ball”. But here, in front of his home crowd, Brook batted
with real aplomb, said Steve James in The Times. He dissected
the off-side field with some majestic drives, and pulled more
sensibly than in previous Tests. Although he didn’t quite see
England home, his innings made the difference. Let’s hope his
fellow Yorkshiremen Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, both of whom
played poorly in Headingley, return to form for the last two Tests.

Tennis: bending the knee to the BBC at Wimbledon

In 2021, the All England Club shifted the start of
play on Centre Court back by half-an-hour, from
1.00pm to 1.30pm, said Stuart Fraser in The Times.
It also extended breaks between matches on its
biggest show court from less than ten minutes to 20
minutes. It was necessitated by Covid restrictions,
said tournament officials at the time. But it is now
“acknowledged privately” that the real motive was
something else: to “improve the chances of play
extending into the evening” for the sake of the BBC,
which attracts more viewers if it can broadcast to a
prime-time audience. This may suit TV viewers, who
often don’t get home until past 6pm – but it creates
“all sorts of scheduling issues”, and has become a
“source of serious frustration in the locker room”.
The trouble with matches ending later is that Wimbledon doesn’t
have carte blanche to extend play indefinitely, said Molly
McElwee in The Daily Telegraph. The club’s “non-
negotiable agreement with the local council” means
play has to finish by 11pm, whether a match is
completed or not. And as tennis matches are getting
longer (largely owing to players getting fitter), the
curfew is increasingly coming into operation. Twice
so far at this year’s tournament, Centre Court play
has been suspended. Last week, Andy Murray’s
second-round encounter with Stefanos Tsitsipas was
stopped with the Scot leading two sets to one. When
it resumed the next day, a revitalised Tsitsipas battled
to a five-set victory. Novak Djokovic’s last-16 clash
against 2021 finalist Hubert Hurkacz likewise had
Murray: bad timing to be carried over, with the Serb up two sets to love
(he duly completed a 3-1 victory next day). Such mid-
match cut-offs benefit no one: they’re deeply unpopular with the
crowd and players hate them. Wimbledon must revert to starting
Centre Court matches earlier in the day: TV’s needs come second.

An agonising end for a cycling great Sporting headlines

This year’s Tour de France
was supposed to be a record-
breaking swan song for the
great English cyclist Mark
Cavendish, said Jeremy Whittle
in The Observer. The 38-year-old
went into the race level on 34
Tour stage victories with the
five-time champion Eddy
Merckx. And in what he had
announced as his final Tour, he
was “targeting a record-breaking Cavendish: his swan song?
35th stage victory”. But all such
hopes were dashed on Saturday when
Cavendish crashed “on an anonymous stretch
of rural road, 60km from the finish of stage
eight”. The accident occurred after a “bump of
shoulders in the middle of the peloton rippled
through to the rear of the pack”, causing
Cavendish to collide with another rider. It left
him “supine on the road”,
clutching his right shoulder.
Cavendish is a “man with
such a freakishly high pain
threshold that he once refused
to tell his children that he had
punctured a lung”, said Oliver
Brown in The Daily Telegraph.
And so when he “lay prone
across the Tarmac in agony”,
it was instantly clear that his
Tour was over. The tragedy
is that, just the previous
evening, Cavendish had come desperately
close to breaking Merckx’s record, only being
“pipped to victory” owing to a late gear failure.
Cavendish has a track record of making unlikely
comebacks – so we can’t rule out a return next
year. But if this was the end, it was not the one
that “cycling’s greatest sprinter” deserved.
Tennis In the first major shock
of this year’s Wimbledon, the
unseeded Ukrainian wild card
Elina Svitolina beat the world
No. 1 Iga Świątek 7-5, 6-7, 6-2
to reach the semi-final. In the
first of the men’s semi-finals,
No. 2 seed Novak Djokovic
is due to play the 21-year-old
Italian Jannik Sinner.
Formula 1 Max Verstappen
claimed his sixth straight
victory by winning the British
Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Athletics Daryll Neita set
a championship record in
winning the 200m at the UK
Athletics Championships,
storming to victory in
22.25secs.

THE WEEK 15 July 2023


Pick of the week’s correspondence
Listen and learn
To The Times
Keir Starmer’s pledge for all
pupils to have speaking lessons
will leave most teachers less
than impressed. The main
problem in class is to get
children to shut up, listen to
instructions and concentrate
for more than five minutes.
Some teachers can barely get
two sentences out without
some child chiming in
with their opinion. Perhaps
instruction in listening
would be more useful.
John Irons, Mansfield,
Nottinghamshire
Tories in glass houses
To The Independent
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk
has demanded that the BBC
gets “its house in order”
regarding the story that a
presenter has been accused of
sexual impropriety involving
a teenager. Chalk suggests the
institution may be investigated
over its handling of the affair.
A Tory minister is hardly in
a position to criticise the BBC
for its response to allegations
of sexual misconduct. Their
track record, from Chris
Pincher to Neil Parish, speaks
for itself. A Tory minister surely
cannot hope to lecture others
on getting their “house in
order” over sex scandals.
Sasha Simic, London
Russia’s wrongs...
To The Times
The correct position for
America’s European allies
is surely to be neutral, not
hostile, to the decision to
provide cluster bombs to
Ukraine. Russia has used
them throughout.
European countries have
played a subsidiary role in
supporting Ukraine, the
brunt having been borne by
the US. It would perfectly suit
President Putin if the Western
alliance were splintered by
dissent. It can hardly be right
for Ukraine to have to fight
this conflict with its hands tied
behind its back in deference
to the high-minded pieties of
its less important supporters.
Thomas Seymour, Halesworth,
Suffolk
...don’t make bombs right
To The Times
The world had been on its
way to banning the use of
O Letters have been edited
LETTERS 25
Exchange of the week do you have to be a clinician
to run a health institution. It
Farewell to the ticket office is time we stopped putting
medics on pedestals. They are
To The Guardian mortals with a skill, and that
Labour needs to do a bit better than complain that proposed is not necessarily running
rail ticket-office closures are being “rushed”. They shouldn’t a complex organisation.
be happening at all, and this “Beeching of the booking offices” Geoff Riley, Saffron Walden,
is bad news for passengers as well as staff. Trying to dress Essex
up the cuts as being about “modernisation” and offering
passengers a better service is nonsense. It’s about cost-cutting. Constructive feedback?
Not only will disabled passengers suffer, but everyone who To The Guardian
values a friendly human face to assist them in planning their I can trump Emma
journey and buying tickets will lose out. Beddington’s frustration at
Prof Paul Salveson (former train guard), Grange-over-Sands, being asked for customer
Cumbria feedback on a tea towel. When
having ongoing treatment for
To The Daily Telegraph cancer, I was sent a text asking
The planned closure of many station ticket offices is the latest me to rate my experience in
bleak example of corporations retreating behind machines – outpatients out of five, and
be they ticket machines, automated phone systems or online if I would recommend it
chatbots. These organisations share one key characteristic: all to a friend. Five out of five,
may be well when everything works properly, but if one has a but, well, no, not really.
query, or if the machine itself is defective, they are absolutely Debbie Cameron, Formby,
the stuff of nightmares. I prefer more innovative approaches: Merseyside
in Italy, for instance, it is possible to buy train tickets from
local shops, which provides custom for the shops, a real person The world is not a stage
to talk to and a reasonable chance of sorting out any problems. To The Times
Martin Moyes, Holt, Wiltshire Further to your report “The
hills are alive with trigger
To The Daily Telegraph warnings”, there is a
I am fed up with “the elderly” being used as an excuse for fundamental failure to grasp
keeping ticket offices open. I am almost 80, travel regularly by what the theatre is: not
train into London and back, and have no problems. It is years a model for behaviour but
since I last used a ticket office, preferring to use machines a crucible in which we look
(much quicker) and now an app. We need to stop living in the at what it is to be human. Not
past, whatever our age. Don’t blame the old – blame yourself a pulpit, but a gymnasium of
for not accepting change and all it has to offer. the imagination. It is, precisely
Janet Chanides, Southampton and by definition, a safe space,
because it is perfectly clear
landmines and cluster Why are we wasting so that what happens on the stage
bombs. Both, by design, are much money on medically is performed by actors, on a
indiscriminate in their killing unqualified management we set, very visibly lit by artificial
and survive long after the would be better off without? light – and that the whole
hostilities that led to their use Simon Broughton, London thing is an act of imagination.
have ceased. It shows that in Hamlet will not die but get
warfare all restraint is lost. ...or do they? up to take a curtain call;
Patrick Phillips KC, Long To The Daily Telegraph likewise, Falstaff will not
Melford, Suffolk Simon Broughton is naive. succumb to diabetes but
Like him, I have worked in the will take the padding off.
The medics know best... NHS, but my experience has Simon Callow, London
To The Daily Telegraph been balanced by many years
I have been working in the in the private sector. Hospital
NHS since January 1979 and, consultants – “the cream of the
having experienced all of the crop”, as he calls them – may
changes made since Margaret not be best placed to run the
Thatcher won the general service. How, for example,
election that year, have come would a group of consultants
to the conclusion that hospitals agree on the allocation of the
ran more efficiently without hospital’s budget? I know from
management than with it. experience that they would
The cream of the crop, all be fighting for their own
who know best how to run specialties. And would they
healthcare, are the hospital be interested in managing
consultants. Is it beyond the the multitude of non-clinical
wit of Britain’s political parties operations – catering,
to recognise this and reform infrastructure, cleaning, “I paid extra for Priority
Cancellation. We can give
the NHS into a system that maintenance and so on? up and go home before the
actually works – one in which You do not have to be other passengers”
the consultants call the shots a pilot to run Boeing or an
with administrative support? astronaut to run Nasa; nor © MATT/THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
15 July 2023 THE WEEK
 ARTS
Review of reviews: Books
Book of the week
A Thread of Violence
by Mark O’Connell
Granta 304pp £16.99
The Week Bookshop £13.99
In 1982, a “dapper man-about-town”
named Malcolm Macarthur committed
one of the most notorious crimes in
recent Irish history, said Christopher
Benfey in The New York Times.
Having frittered away his inheritance,
the 37-year-old Dubliner decided to rob
a bank. Lacking either a car or a gun,
he tried to acquire both – and in doing so killed two strangers.
First, while stealing a car from a nurse in a park, he “bludgeoned
her with a hammer”. Then he shot a farmer in the face with the
shotgun he’d arranged to buy from him. Arrested soon afterwards,
Macarthur pleaded guilty to murder and spent 30 years in prison.
His case has now inspired this “exhilarating” book by the Irish
journalist Mark O’Connell, who gained Macarthur’s trust during
the pandemic and recorded hours of conversations with him.
Although O’Connell ultimately fails in his attempt “to make sense
of” the killings – which is probably, he acknowledges, a futile task
– A Thread of Violence is nonetheless “brilliant”.
This is a “striking departure” for this talented and versatile
writer, said Lola Seaton in The New Statesman. O’Connell’s
27
previous two books were both “warmly
comic” travelogues, respectively about
the transhumanist movement and
“mavericks preparing for the end of
the world”. A Thread of Violence is “a
study of one man, in one place” – and
its tone is “sober, sometimes sombre”.
It is also a highly self-reflective work,
being “as much about the complexities
of telling the story of a life as it is about
Macarthur himself”. While O’Connell’s
“honourable self-probing” occasionally
gets in the way of the actual story,
A Thread of Violence is for the most
part superbly “accomplished”.
Its central character is undeniably
fascinating, said Alex Diggins in The
Daily Telegraph. An “intense, intellectual man”, Macarthur grew
up on an “isolated estate” in County Meath, in a horribly abusive
environment: his father regularly beat his mother and “once bit
his son so hard he needed stitches”. O’Connell asks whether this
“thread of violence” was what led him to commit his senseless
crimes. Virtually every detail of this “Borgesian true-crime story”
reads like fiction, said Rob Doyle in The Guardian. After
committing his murders, Macarthur hid out in a flat belonging
to his old friend Patrick Connolly – Ireland’s attorney general.
Connolly resigned when Macarthur was arrested, and the
scandal nearly toppled the Irish government. A “marvel of tact,
attentiveness and unclouded moral acuity”, O’Connell’s book
may well come to be seen as a “masterpiece”.

Matrescence
by Lucy Jones Novel of the week
Allen Lane 320pp £25 Ordinary Human Failings
The Week Bookshop £19.99 by Megan Nolan
Jonathan Cape 224pp £16.99
Everyone knows that “motherhood changes The Week Bookshop £13.99
a person”, said Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in The
Guardian. Yet in many Western countries, “there is Megan Nolan’s deservedly lauded debut, Acts
very little in the way of ritual to acknowledge this of Desperation, examined the “interior life of a
rite of passage”. Mothers are expected to “weather young woman beholden to a toxic partner”, said
this most fundamental of human shifts without Holly Williams in The Observer. The young Irish
making too much of a fuss”. In this ambitious, writer’s follow-up has a much broader focus –
“boundary-pushing book”, Lucy Jones attempts but the results are similarly “compelling”. Set
to engage with motherhood in a more nuanced and in the 1990s, Ordinary Human Failings centres
holistic way. Drawing on her own experiences of giving birth to three children, on a toddler’s disappearance from a south
she offers a wide-ranging account of the “matrescence” – the term used by London estate – and the ensuing scandal as
anthropologists for the process of becoming a mother. She even extends her the perpetrator is revealed to have been a
narrative to non-humans, studding it with sections on “vampire bats and aurora ten-year-old named Lucy Green. Lucy is the
borealis and spiders that eat their own mothers”. The result is a pioneering, youngest member of a “reclusive clan of Irish
powerful work that challenges the “cultural myths of motherhood” . immigrants who’ve never fitted in”, said Lucy
Although Jones has a slight tendency to write as if no one has ever Scholes in The Daily Telegraph. And much of
“struggled with a crying baby before”, her searing honesty is refreshing, said Nolan’s “bold and beautiful” novel is devoted
Rachel Sylvester in The Times. The birth of her first child, she writes, was to telling their backstory, with the author
“the most dramatic and frightening experience of my life”. And she is good showing the “interconnected lines of cause
on the physiological effects of motherhood, citing a study which showed that and effect” that led to Lucy’s crime.
the hormonal changes women undergo in late pregnancy lend them “emotion- Marked by its psychological insight, this is
reading superpowers”. Jones is keen to depict mothers as “active throughout”, a brilliant follow-up to Acts of Desperation,
said Jude Rogers in The Observer. This extends to smashing the myth that sperm said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times. It
heroically “race to an egg”: the reality, she reveals, is more that the woman’s isn’t formally ambitious – more a “three-legged
body draws the sperm up the fallopian tube, by secreting chemicals that “allow stool” than an “ornate grandfather clock” –
the sperm to swim and mature”. Matrescence is a “delightfully unusual” book – but it shows her first novel was no fluke.
and also the “best book about motherhood I’ve ever read”.
To order these titles or any other book in print, visit
theweekbookshop.co.uk or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835
Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

28 ARTS Podcasts & Music
Podcasts... cricket, corporate espionage and corruption
The summer’s Ashes series has and make something stupid
caught the public’s imagination happen in the middle of it, and
like few cricketing contests of that is a non-transferable skill,”
recent years. As a result, Test he explains in Into the Dirt.
Match Special is “piling on But he was wrong: his skills
the runs”, said Patricia Nicol were highly attractive to the
in The Sunday Times – notching corporate espionage sector, and
up record audiences on BBC this Tortoise podcast explores
Sounds. In podcast world, his work in it. At first, you think
Alison Mitchell, TMS’s first the podcast is going to be about
female commentator, is also “skulduggery in the asbestos
the “superbly assured host” industry”. But it’s “bigger and
of Stumped, a weekly survey more compelling” than that. “It
of the international game from is about truth, perception and
the BBC World Service. The the stories people tell themselves
BBC also has Tailenders, to justify their actions.”
with James Anderson, Greg With summer holidays
James and Felix White, which Alison Mitchell: the “superbly assured host” of Stumped beckoning, here are two of the
is excellent, and “brims with most bingeable podcasts of the
fannish enthusiasm”. Anderson’s fellow fast-bowler Mark Wood, year so far, said The Guardian. Anyone who became addicted to
who thrilled with his raw pace at Headingley, co-presents the Jamie Bartlett’s hit The Missing Cryptoqueen will race through
“lovely” Middle Please, Umpire. Then there is the Wisden Believe in Magic. This “multi-layered mystery” unpicks the
Cricket Weekly podcast, a lively listen with ex-England player story of Megan Bhari, a teenager who, inspired by her own cancer
Mark Butcher and Yas Rana. Or, for the story of the Ashes rivalry, diagnosis, launched a charity in conjunction with her mother that
“UK podcasting’s lead batsman” Stephen Fry has just released granted wishes for desperately ill children. It’s a murky, complex
Legends of the Ashes, a “jolly ten-part history with episodes and ultimately tragic tale. One of the most important podcast
focusing on greats” from Bradman to Flintoff. releases of the year has been Buried, about the UK’s rubbish
How about this for an unusual career change? In the 1990s, disposal industry and its infiltration by organised crime groups.
said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times, Rob Moore was a The series describes cover-ups, death-bed confessions, and
TV producer working on Chris Morris’s series Brass Eye, a slick “awful” visits to the Northern Irish Mobuoy site at the centre
media satire that pranked credulous politicians and celebrities. But of the scandal. It’s “gripping” stuff, and comes in episodes that
he felt he’d hit a wall. “I basically know how to wire up a room are a very moreish 15 minutes in length.

Albums of the week: three new releases

The Endless Britten & Bruch: The Japanese
Coloured Ways: Violin Concertos House: In the
The Songs of (Kerson Leong, End It Always
Nick Drake violin) Does
Chrysalis Alpha Dirty Hit
£15 £14 £12

This 23-track tribute to Nick Drake, featuring
cover versions of his songs by a range of
artists, is a triumph – and “an essential
manual on the art of songwriting”, said
James Hall in The Daily Telegraph.
The tracks are “exciting, revealing and
inventive”, and showcase the “timeless
songcraft” of the English musician, who
died in 1974 aged just 26. The covers that
work best are those that sound nothing like
the originals: Fontaines D.C.’s “fantastic”
cover of Cello Song, for example, sounds
like a “doom-laden Stone Roses”; Let’s
Eat Grandma turn From the Morning into
“dreamy electropop”; and Bombay Bicycle
Club and The Staves “sing Road as a round,
giving it a hypnotic quality”.
It’s frankly impossible to improve on the
“delicate beauty” and “quiet devastation”
of Nick Drake, said Will Hodgkinson in The
Times – so it makes sense to take his songs
in another direction entirely. “These open-
ended interpretations are for the most part
brave and interesting, but they do have the
effect of driving you back to the originals.”
It’s admittedly hard to go wrong with such
a “banker” as Bruch’s First Violin Concerto,
said Dan Cairns in The Sunday Times –
but “it’s a struggle to think of a lovelier
and more romanticised reading of the slow
movement” than this one, by the Canadian
virtuoso Kerson Leong. As a Bruch bonus,
the composer’s In Memoriam draws
“similar richness and beauty” from both
Leong and the Philharmonia Orchestra,
under the sure baton of Patrick Hahn.
Leong’s phrasing in the high passages
is a “miracle of control and feeling”.
It’s a splendidly expressive and
committed recording of the Bruch, notable
for its “generosity of phrase and tone”, said
Edward Seckerson in Gramophone. But it’s
the pairing of the Bruch with Britten’s Violin
Concerto that really sets this collection
apart. This is Britten at his “most elegiac
and unsettled”, and Leong is “clearly at
one with its inner tussles” and torment –
really making his mark with the shattering
Passacaglia. “I can’t recall a better account
of the piece than this.”
This second album from English singer-
producer Amber Bain (recording as The
Japanese House) is a “deliciously fragrant”
affair, said Helen Brown in The Independent.
The songs are mostly “diaristic
meditations” on love affairs, friendships,
and the places in between, “backed by soft
sprinkles of guitar” and “suffused with hazy
poetry”. And you can hear in them echoes
of great female singer-songwriters:
a “drizzle of detached Suzanne Vega”,
a “puddle of swooning Sarah McLachlan”,
and in the sharpness of the lyrical
observations, a large dose of Joni Mitchell.
It is an album that “cools and shimmers its
way through a delicious range of nuanced
moods and subtly layered musical ideas”.
The sound is brighter than on Bain’s 2019
debut, Good at Falling, said Hollie Geraghty
on NME. Tracks such as Boyhood and
Touching Yourself swap the “oppressive
reverb that trembled through her debut” for
“spry melodies” and a more “lucid” vocal,
with fewer post-production effects. This is
an “intoxicating” work from a major talent.

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Film ARTS 29
This seventh instalment in the Mission: Impossible series was one of the “biggest casualties when
Covid struck and film units all over the world were forced to close down”, said Matthew Bond in
The Mail on Sunday. “But just over three years later, it is finally here”; and while it’s no masterpiece,
it’s still “pretty good”. The story revolves around an AI program called “the Entity”, which has
become sentient and is corrupting digital databases worldwide like there’s no tomorrow – “which,
if it get its anarchic way, there may not be”. It falls to Tom Cruise’s secret agent, Ethan Hunt, to stop
the Entity in its tracks. Along the way, franchise regulars Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby show
up; but this is, of course, “first and foremost a Tom Cruise film, and the great man is on good form”
– a little “older, sadder and more reflective” than he used to be, which works well.
Mission: “The zeitgeisty plot may have holes through which you could drive the Orient Express, but for
Impossible – pure adrenaline-rush entertainment this will leave you exhilarated and eager for more,” said Mark
Kermode in The Observer. The action is “impressively gender neutral, with men and women killing
Dead Reckoning and dying with equal relish”; and it builds to a “frankly jaw-dropping” finale in which “the heavily
Part One trailered sight of the real Tom Cruise really driving a real motorbike off a real mountaintop is only
an appetiser for what is to come”, so “roll on Dead Reckoning Part Two”. That last sequence is
2hrs 43mins (12A) certainly “thrilling”, but I’m afraid I found the rest of the film a “spirit-crushing mess”, said Kevin
++++ Maher in The Times. The script is dire; the AI villain is tedious; and the story makes so little sense
you begin to suspect the whole thing was assembled by an “inattentive monkey”.

“Since breaking through with the cult horror oddity Rubber (about a homicidal rubber tyre),
French director Quentin Dupieux has carved out a niche as a purveyor of absurdist comic tales
that take amusingly violent turns,” said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman. He delivers more of the
same in Smoking Causes Coughing, a “droll superhero team-up film” that is a satire of superhero
films. Set in the present day, it follows the “Tobacco Force”, a latex-clad quintet who use tobacco
fumes to take out their enemies, and who are sent to a lakeside retreat for a bit of “team-building
R&R”. Once there, they “regale each other with grisly stories around a campfire” – essentially
a framing device for a series of “inventively gory” short films. As these unfold, the Force’s “drooling
rat of a boss (not a euphemism: he’s actually a rat) keeps tabs on an imminent extraterrestrial threat
Smoking Causes to the planet”. It’s a slight film but a delightful one; even its running time, at less than 80 minutes,
Coughing feels like a “sly dig at superhero excess”.
“I can’t think of another director right now who wants (or is allowed) to do just straight comedy
1hr 17mins (15) for theatrical release”, without having also to make their films “unfunnily dark and disturbing”,
said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. On that basis alone, Smoking Causes Coughing feels
Kooky French comedy that fresh. It is “magnificently inconsequential”, but is “oddly gripping” as well as funny. The film
satirises superhero films is so “giddily bizarre it deserves a health warning of its own: will induce (entirely pleasurable)
++++ lightheadedness and shortness of breath”, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. “Expect the
unexpected” doesn’t begin to do Dupieux’s style justice: “expect the unexpectable” is “more like it”.

Pixar’s latest animation takes a “high-concept setup” – a sprawling metropolis in which the residents
are made of fire, water, air or earth, and live in strictly segregated areas – “to explore a universal
theme: the need for cultural acceptance and harmony”, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. At the
heart of the story is a “star-crossed romance” between a hot-headed fire girl (voiced by Leah Lewis)
who works in her immigrant parents’ shop in a suburb of Element City, and a “sappy, sweet-natured
water guy” (Mamoudou Athie). It might be silly “to complain about the authenticity of a
relationship between a woman made of flame and an entirely liquid man”, but the pair have very
little “persuasive chemistry”; and while there are parallels with Inside Out and Zootropolis, this
film “lacks the wildly inventive storytelling of the former and the laughs of the latter”.
Elemental It’s been years since Pixar made a decent animation, and Elemental, alas, only continues its trend
1hr 42mins (PG) of “nearly-but-not-quite”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. There are flashes of brilliance, but it
is “clever rather than charming”, and “unlike the greatest Pixar films, it never made my heart sing”.
Humdrum Pixar animation There’s nothing “obviously wrong” with Elemental, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times: “what
about the four elements we have is a parable of racial tolerance in the melting pot, and it’s worked out with the usual Pixar
ingenuity”. But the central romance feels “awkward”, not least because “a certain asymmetry is
+++ inbuilt”: there’s no getting away from the fact that “she’s smokin’ hot and he’s a damp squib”. Still,
it builds to a “superb tearjerker climax that sends you out on a high”, and all is (almost) forgiven.

Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure: an “uncynical” celebrity travelogue

“As most of us are unlikely to be invited on
holiday with Joanna Lumley any time soon, let us
enjoy the next best thing,” said Anita Singh in The
Daily Telegraph: an ITV series in which she travels
through Indonesia, Madagascar, India, Jordan and
Zanzibar, tracing the history of the spice trade.
“Celebrity travelogues are the scourge of
television, but I will always make an exception for
Lumley”, whose enthusiasm and manners never
flag. “Look at this, a dear little cabin with my own
kettle,” she beams aboard an unlovely ferry from
an Indonesian port. The bathroom, she adds, has
“one of those nice buckets where you wash your
bottom with a pipe”. Most stars would recoil in
horror, but Lumley sighs contentedly: “Couldn’t
be better.” She has “reasons to be cheerful”,
of course – she’s on an all-expenses-paid trip –
but her approach to her televised travels feels
refreshingly “uncynical”.
Lumley floats around looking lovely in linen,
smiles charmingly and says “golly” a lot, said
Ben Dowell in The Times. All this makes for very
“soothing television”, but you do find yourself
wondering if there could be a bit more insight.
Lumley is nothing if not game, said Lucy Mangan
in The Guardian, and the producers are clearly
aware that there is something a bit tricky about
a “posh, white lady born in India under the Raj”
presenting a tour of Britain’s former colonies:
the historical controversies are alluded to. But
the overall effect is still uneasy. Perhaps this
Lumley in Kochi, India kind of travelogue has just had its day.

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

30 ARTS Art
Exhibition of the week Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963-64
National Portrait Gallery, London WC2 (020-7306 0055, npg.org.uk). Until 1 October
Paul McCartney “was of formal experimentation, as
always the most surprising witnessed by a series of “arty
Beatle”, said Mark Hudson landscapes”. Yet while there
in The Independent. are some “fantastic individual
Despite his reputation as shots” – notably a picture of
a “cheerful, garrulous mop George Harrison “wearing
top”, he was the closest two sequin-trimmed hats” –
thing the group had to a one can’t help but feel that
“Renaissance man”: while McCartney did well to stick
his bandmates “retreated to to his day job. Many photos
mansions in the stockbroker here are less than memorable,
belt” at the height of while others are technically
their mid-1960s fame, inept: a pair of self-portraits
McCartney immersed taken in a hotel mirror, for
himself in London’s instance, are “hopelessly
counterculture, exploring out of focus”, while his
the avant-garde art and attempts to emulate the
literature of the era. It professional photographers
should come as no surprise, he mixed with, using
then, that he was, by any “unusual framing” and
standard, “a pretty good “moody lighting”, only help
photographer” – a fact to highlight his deficiencies.
confirmed by this A gripping “time capsule”: John Lennon in Paris in 1964
exhibition of his pictures at There are a few misfires
the National Portrait Gallery. The show brings together some here, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. Enlargement doesn’t
250 photographs McCartney took between December 1963 do McCartney’s photos any favours: many have been belatedly
and February 1964, a period when the Beatles were suddenly developed from old contact sheets, and are frequently “too soft or
catapulted to previously unimaginable levels of fame. These blurred”. Nevertheless, the show is a gripping “time capsule” from
mostly unseen images capture both the excitement of the the era when modern celebrity was being born. Paul’s camera
“Beatlemania” phenomenon and, perhaps more interestingly, the is often on John Lennon, capturing his shifting “psychological
tedium of life as a touring musician. They represent a compelling nuances” and “changes of appearance” with fascinating precision.
record of “a vital cultural episode that never loses its fascination”. You can see the Fab Four fooling around, and producer George
Martin “dapper with a cocktail”. Best of all are images from the
These mostly black-and-white photos capture McCartney and group’s first American visit, documenting “hysteria at the airport,
his bandmates “backstage, in recording studios, on the road and fans writing their love in the sand beneath Miami hotel windows,
airport Tarmac”, said Gabrielle Schwartz in The Daily Telegraph. drinks by the pool and the industry closing in”. This is a
We see screaming fans, fellow musicians and, occasionally, a bit memorable show – “joyful, hopeful, gregarious, comic”.

Where to buy… An architecture “wonderland”

The Week reviews an
exhibition in a private gallery

Renoir and Pissarro

at Connaught Brown

It’s hard to think of any artist quite
as unfashionable as Pierre-Auguste
Renoir (1841-1919). Where once he
was regarded as one of the greatest
French painters of the late 19th century,
his work is now often dismissed as
kitsch, if not downright bad: indeed,
in 2015 the phrase “Renoir sucks at
painting” became a social media meme.
Yet the ridicule ignores quite how
strange and interesting he could be.
This show, Different Views, which
pairs a selection of his paintings
with works by his older friend and
colleague, Camille Pissarro, is a timely
opportunity to reintroduce yourself to
his distinctly odd art. Bucolic southern
Renoir’s La Cueillette des fruits (detail)
to be evaporating before our eyes.
Pissarro, meanwhile, is represented by
a terrific selection of rural, coastal and
urban scenes, capturing 19th century
France’s increasingly vast gulf between
tradition and modernity. Prices range
Over the years, a German furniture boss in
Weil am Rhein, at the southern tip of the Black
Forest, has turned his company’s campus into
“a wonderland” of buildings by star architects,
says Oliver Wainwright in The Guardian. The
Vitra Campus is where Frank Gehry built his
first project outside the US, in 1989; there’s a
spectacular shop by Herzog & de Meuron, and
a geodesic dome by Buckminster Fuller; it’s
where Zaha Hadid built her first-ever building.
Now, after decades of daring commissions,
Rolf Fehlbaum, 82, the company’s retired
chairman, has just completed what looks
to be his final commission on the site – and
it couldn’t be further from what has come
before. It’s a “modest potting shed” with an
environmental message. Tane Garden House
(above), a thatched hut on little stone legs, was
designed by the Japanese architect Tsuyoshi
© PAUL MCCARTNEY

landscapes, complete with seemingly from £5,000 to £2.5m. Tane. He calls it “overground architecture”,
melting scrubs and trees, are almost using materials gathered from the surface,
proto-surrealist; a large, idealised nude 2 Albemarle Street, London W1 rather than extracted from under the earth.
in a mad array of flesh tones appears (020-7408 0362). Until 21 July

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 The List ARTS 31
Best books… Lisa Jewell Television
The bestselling novelist will be appearing at the Theakston Old Peculier Programmes
Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on 21 July, talking about her new A Spy Among Friends
book None of This is True (Century £20), out this week Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce
star in this noir-ish adaptation
The Stopped Heart by Julie to join a group holiday in a with a hot-air balloon accident of Ben Macintyre’s book of the
same name about Kim Philby’s
Myerson, 2017 (Vintage sprawling Greek villa. Soon on the Chiltern Hills that leads defection to Russia. Sun
£13.99). One hundred years he is embroiled in a web of to a fateful encounter between 16 Jul, ITV1 21:00 (80mins).
ago, on a stormy night, an his own lies – and theirs. two strangers. Jed, who is
impoverished family lets a afflicted by De Clérambault Earth Chris Packham tells the
flame-haired stranger into Sleep With Me by Joanna syndrome, mistakenly thinks story of our planet in this five-
their scruffy cottage, who Briscoe, 2005 (Bloomsbury that Joe, a fellow witness to part series, starting with the
outstays his welcome and sets £7.99). A cool hipster couple the accident, is in love with mass extinction that led to
out to slowly destroy them. meet a strange young girl at him. This develops into an the age of the dinosaurs. Mon
The ghosts of their trauma a dinner party in Bloomsbury obsession that threatens to 17 Jul, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).
echo down the decades in and are both taken with her ruin Joe’s life. The Sixth Commandment
this spooky but incredibly quirky charms. Soon she has New drama based on a
emotional novel. inveigled her way into their Alys, Always by Harriet Lane, complex real-life case in
relationship, seemingly 2012 (W&N £8.99). A young which a church warden
Lie With Me by Sabine intent on breaking them woman is the first on the manipulated and murdered
Durrant, 2016 (Mulholland apart. This slight book packs scene of a fatal car accident, a teacher to inherit his house.
Books £8.99). This novel is a real punch and includes a and witness to the driver, Timothy Spall, Anne Reid
pacy, funny and unnerving, shocking backstory reveal. Alys’s, last words. On meeting and Sheila Hancock star.
with a dazzling Mediterranean the victim’s appealingly Mon 17 and Tue 18 Jul, BBC1
21:00 (60mins each).
setting: a feckless grifter and Enduring Love by Ian Bohemian family, she becomes
failed novelist is down on his McEwan, 1997 (Vintage determined to occupy the role Why Sharks Attack
luck when a chance meeting £8.99). McEwan’s exquisite vacated by Alys. Unsettling, Documentary investigating
with an old friend leads him and suspenseful novel opens vivid and creepy as hell. whether human activity and
Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop on 020-3176 3835. For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk climate change are altering
the behaviour of sharks. Tue
The Week’s guide to what’s worth seeing 18 Jul, BBC1 20:00 (60mins).

Showing now Films

Yorkshire Sculpture Park hosts a retrospective of Sully (2016) Tom Hanks stars
as the titular pilot who landed
the playful, often absurd work of Erwin Wurm. a plane on the frozen Hudson
Trap of the Truth includes a distorted Renault River in 2009, saving all on
25 and a hot-water bottle on legs, and is “a joy” board, only to find his actions
(Daily Telegraph). Until 28 April 2024, YSP, questioned by the aviation
Wakefield, Yorkshire (ysp.org.uk). authorities. Sat 15 Jul, BBC1
22:20 (90mins).
Reframing Reynolds: A Celebration marks
the 300th anniversary of the birth of Sir Joshua Sweet Charity (1969) Shirley
MacLaine and Sammy Davis Jr
Reynolds, and brings works from around the
star in this musical comedy
UK back to his home town. Until 29 October, about a dancer looking for love
The Box, Plymouth (theboxplymouth.com). in a seedy New York dance
Reynolds: self-portrait and Lady Anstruther, 1761 hall. Bob Fosse directs. Thur
“It’s ludicrous. It’s lavish.” It’s the London 20 Jul, BBC4 21:00 (145mins).
transfer of George and Ira Gershwin’s musical night events, workshops and a children’s
comedy Crazy For You, the love story of a programme and play area. 12-28 August, Moon (2015) Psychological
man, a woman and a theatre (Times). Until Edinburgh College of Art (edbookfest.co.uk). sci-fi thriller about a lunar
20 January 2024, Gillian Lynne Theatre, London miner (Sam Rockwell) who
experiences a crisis as he
WC2 (crazyforyoumusical.com). Tickets are selling out fast for Lyonesse, a new
nears the end of his three-year
play written by Penelope Skinner and directed solo mission. Tue 18 Jul, BBC2
Book now by Ian Rickson. Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, 00:15 (95mins).
The Edinburgh International Book Festival as a reclusive actress ready to make a comeback
has in its 40th year a bumper line-up of events, after 30 years, and Lily James. 17 October-23
including talks by Greta Thunberg, Colson December, Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1 New to subscription TV
Whitehead, Ruby Wax and Yiyun Li, and late- (haroldpintertheatre.co.uk).
Wham! Documentary
exploring the “meteoric rise”
The Archers: what happened last week of the 1980s pop sensation,
Neil urges George to make up with Brad, who’s coming to stay when Tracy and Jazzer go on and the extraordinary
honeymoon. As doubtful Brad shows Tracy his wedding outfit, she gives him a pep-talk. Jim friendship behind it
and Jazzer decorate The Bull for the reception, with help from Brad and Mia, who discover lots in (Guardian). On Netflix.
common. After Henry gets in trouble at school, he tells a horrified Helen he knows that Rob is back;
later they have a reassuring chat about the situation. On their big day, Tracy and Jazzer get stuck in Fifteen-Love In this drama,
the bathroom and miss their appointment at the registry office, but tell no one. Their guests, none a one-time tennis prodigy
the wiser, celebrate with the happy couple at The Bull and Jim makes a moving best man’s speech.
George tries to stir things up between Mia and Brad. The next day as they try to set off, Jazzer and
makes explosive allegations
Tracy’s car won’t start. Jim arrives with the keys to his Riley – it’s their wedding present. He’s against her ex-coach. Aidan
thinking of getting an electric vehicle. Mia tells Brad she thought he might try and kiss her at the Turner stars. From 21 July
reception – he offers to kiss her now. on Amazon Prime Video.
© TATE

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

32 Best properties
Grade II properties for less than £1m

Suffolk: Manor House, Clopton. This characterful timber-frame house dates back to the 16th century
and sits in more than five acres. Main suite, 2 further beds, shower, kitchen/breakfast room, recep, utility,
self-contained studio, garden, paddocks, stables, garage. £950,000; Clarke & Simpson (01728-724200).

Suffolk: Lodge House, Stoke by Clare. A brick and flint gatehouse cottage built in 1815 adjacent to
the church and Stoke College. Main bed, study/bed 2, family bath, open-plan kitchen/living/dining room,
conservatory, garden. £299,950; Bedfords (01284-769999).

Cornwall: Woodbine Cottage, Manaccan. An enchanting cottage close to the Helford River. 4 beds,
2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, garden. OIEO £675,000; Lillicrap Chilcott (01872-273473).

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

on the market 33

Hampshire: Duck Street, Abbotts Ann. A charming thatched cottage in the

popular Test Valley village of Abbotts Ann. Main suite, 2 further beds, family
bath, kitchen, 2 receps, cellar study/bedroom, garden, parking. £590,000;
Myddelton & Major (01722-337575).

Shropshire: Dinham, Ludlow. This handsome townhouse overlooks Ludlow

Castle and its gardens. Main suite with dressing area, 2 further suites, kitchen,
2 receps, cellar, courtyard, parking. £750,000; Knight Frank (01743-664202).

Hampshire: Tudor Farm House, Deane. Quaint Gloucestershire: The Old Farmhouse, Little
semi-rural thatched cottage. Main suite, 2 further Rissington. An early 17th century stone cottage.
beds, family bath, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, 3 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 2 receps, garden.
parking. £950,000; Knight Frank (01256-630978). £675,000; Butler Sherborn (01451-833140).

Oxfordshire: The Cottage, Fifield. This
quintessential Cotswold cottage dates back to
the early 17th century. 3 beds, shower, kitchen,
2 receps, garden, parking. £595,000; Butler
Sherborn (01451-833141).
Suffolk: Fairfield House, Woodbridge. An 18th
century red brick house with a “secret garden”,
close to the River Deben. 3 beds, family bath,
shower, kitchen, 2 receps, garden, parking.
£725,000; Clarke & Simpson (01728-724200).

15 July 2023 THE WEEK


How to make a non-stick pan
A brand new non-stick pan is a “dreamy
thing to cook with”, says Bee Wilson in
The Wall Street Journal. “Oil glides across
the frictionless surface like shiny shoes on
a waxed floor. Eggs almost seem to fry
themselves.” But I have yet to find one
that doesn’t “lose its slipperiness over
time” – and usually in less than a year.
And once that happens, they’re as good as
useless. Even if you’re not worried about
the chemicals used to create the non-stick
surface, it seems odd to spend money on
a pan that will “soon let you down” – yet
people do, in droves. The global non-stick
cookware market is worth $20bn today,
and is expected to rise $25bn by the
end of the decade. What makes this
particularly strange is that “you can make
your own homemade non-stick pan any
time you like”, simply by getting a cast
iron or spun iron pan, and seasoning it.
The idea of seasoning a pan might sound
daunting, but it’s very easy: you just heat
the pan (when it’s very clean) with a little
oil or animal fat, let the oil get hot, remove
it, then wipe the surface clean with a dry
cloth. And the beauty of it is that, provided
you re-season it from time to time, this pan
will get better over time, instead of worse.
The joys of a microwave
A survey has revealed microwaves to
be the “nation’s number one must-have
kitchen gadget”, owned by 93% of
households, says Xanthe Clay in The
Daily Telegraph. And with good reason:
LEISURE
Food & Drink
Whole spices keep longer than ground spices
microwaves are often disparaged by
snobby food lovers, because of their
association with ready meals and other
ultra-processed food, but they are
“much greener” than conventional
ovens (because cooking times are so
much shorter), and also invaluable for
all manner of “kitchen chores”. They’re
great for reheating leftovers without drying
them out, and can ease many a culinary
irritation: a quick  blast softens butter
and hard lumps of muscovado sugar, and
brings crystallised honey back to its runny
state. I use mine for toasting nuts or
seeds (spread them in a single layer on
the turntable, and microwave them in
20-second bursts, stirring well each
time), for melting chocolate (on 50%
power, and in 30-second bursts), and for
35
cooking beetroot in ten minutes (put the
unpeeled veg in a microwave-safe bowl
and cover with a plate). It will never be
the most-used appliance in my kitchen –
but it has definitely “earned its place”.
Tips for storing and using spices
Many of us buy spices in glass jars, and
then proceed to keep them “unused and
unloved”, on a spice rack or at the back
of a cupboard, says Anna Berrill in The
Guardian. But wherever you store your
spices, keeping them in glass containers
isn’t a very good idea, since exposure to
light causes them to deteriorate. Best to
transfer them to opaque containers, and
store them away from both sunlight and
heat (so not too close to the oven). Cynthia
Shanmugalingam, the chef/founder of
Rambutan restaurant in Borough Market,
says it’s also much better to buy whole
spices, and grind them as you need them
in an electric spice grinder (having briefly
toasted them first). Not only does this
make a “huge” difference to their flavour,
but whole spices keep significantly longer
than ground spices – typically 12 months
as opposed to just six. As for making the
best use of your spices, Esther Clark,
co-author of The Modern Spice Rack,
advises uses them as a seasoning as well
as a cooking ingredient. “Have a za’atar
pinch pot on your table and put some on
your scrambled eggs,” she says. She also
suggests using toasted coriander seeds as
a topping for dips and salads, or “crushed
and whisked into dressings”.

Recipe of the week Low-alcohol beers

People who love beer but want to cut
Salty and sweet, this summery dish is the perfect topping for hunks of grilled back on their alcohol are now “spoilt
bread, says Ravinder Bhogal. Or you could leave out the whipped feta element, for choice”, says Adrian Tierney-
and serve the tomatoes with pasta or gnocchi. Jones in The Daily Telegraph.
Thanks to improvements in
Whipped feta with confit tomatoes brewing skills and technology,
there is a plethora of beers that
Serves 4 “offer full-on taste, character and
400g mixed cherry tomatoes 5 garlic cloves, peeled and bruised 3 thin strips of texture”, but with little booze.
lemon peel ½ tsp caster sugar 1 tsp coriander seeds ¼ tsp dried chilli flakes
4 sprigs of oregano 60ml extra-virgin olive oil sea salt and black pepper For lovers of pale ale, the widely available
For the whipped feta: 200g good-quality feta cheese juice of ½ lemon Adnams Ghost Ship (0.5% ABV) is excellent: it
100g thick Greek yoghurt “has a lush malt character and hints of lemon
and lime on the nose”. Or from Sainsbury’s,
• Preheat the oven to down slightly, then try Big Drop Brewing Co Pine Trail Pale Ale
180°C/gas mark 4. discard the garlic and (0.5% ABV), with its “gorgeous notes of citrus
• Cut some of the larger lemon peel. fruit and pine”. A stand-out low-alcohol IPA,
tomatoes in half and leave • In the meantime, meanwhile, is Good Karma Beer Co Tantra IPA
some whole, and place put the feta cheese into (0.5% ABV): various English hop varieties are
in a roasting tin along a processor with the used to produce this “tantalising” beer, with
with the garlic and lemon lemon juice and whizz “tropical fruit aromatics”.
peel. Season with salt and until smooth and creamy.
pepper and sprinkle over Transfer to a bowl and Of lagers, Lucky Saint Unfiltered Lager (0.5%
the caster sugar, coriander stir in the yogurt. ABV, £6 for 4 x 330ml cans from Sainsbury’s)
seeds, chilli flakes and • Put the whipped feta is my current favourite. It’s “crisp and
oregano and then drizzle over the oil. in a serving bowl and top with the refreshing” and easily quaffed. Fans of
• Bake for 40 mins until the tomatoes warm tomatoes. Serve with slices stout are sure to be pleased by Guinness
are bursting and fragrant. Cook of toasted sourdough bread. Draught 0.0%. Stocked by many leading
supermarkets, it has a “smooth mouthfeel”
© KRISTIN PERERS

Taken from Comfort and Joy: Irresistible Pleasures from a Vegetarian Kitchen and the “traditional trademark notes of
by Ravinder Bhogal, published by Bloomsbury at £26. To buy from The Week roastiness and chocolate and coffee”.
Bookshop for £20.99, call 020-3176 3835 or visit theweekbookshop.co.uk.

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

36 LEISURE Consumer
New cars: what the critics say
Top Gear Magazine
The CX-60 launched last
year with just a plug-in
hybrid. Now it has added
a 3.3-litre diesel with 48V
mild hybrid assistance to
the line-up, and a 3.0-litre
petrol version is due next
year. The PHEV weighs a
hefty two tonnes, but with
Mazda CX-60 a total of 323bhp, it can
Price: from £45,300 do 0-62mph in 5.8 secs
and it has a 124mph top
speed. The 197bhp (RWD)
or 251bhp (AWD) diesels
can do 0-62mph in 6.4
and 7.4 secs respectively.
The Daily Telegraph
The Japanese firm’s all-
new 3.3-litre, six-cylinder
diesel won’t appeal to
every driver. It is
remarkably economical
thanks to cutting-edge
technology: the 197bhp,
two-wheel drive version
achieves 56.5mpg; the
251bhp four-wheel drive
model 53.3mpg. But alas,
it is underwhelming on
the road, with a sluggish
automatic gearbox and
sloppy suspension that
make it feel a bit wooden.
Auto Express
It’s a shame the CX-60
isn’t great to drive, as
with a quality cabin and
generous standard kit,
it should be a contender
in the premium, mid-size
SUV class. Inside the
comfy, quality cabin, “the
fit and finish is seriously
impressive”. There’s plenty
of room front and back,
and a generous 570-litre
boot. The infotainment
setup uses a click-wheel
instead of a touchscreen,
which can be a bit of a faff.

The best... eco-friendly electric toothbrushes

Organically Epic Sonic Georganics
Wave Electric Bamboo Sonic Toothbrush
toothbrush This award- Set Georganics
winning toothbrush has makes natural,
compostable bamboo ethical and
heads with recyclable sustainable oral-
bristles. There are five care products
settings and the battery with minimum
If you’ve
lasts for up to six weeks environmental
already got a
(£80; organicallyepic.uk). impact. Its
perfectly good electric toothbrush,
recyclable Sonic
you can swap to sustainable heads
Toothbrush has
such as Booheads Bamboo Heads
Foreo ISSA Oral a unique speed-
(above), which are Sonicare-
Routine Made from adjustment
compatible (£15 for 4; booheads.
hygienic silicone with setting, which
com) or Humble Earth’s recyclable
polymer bristles, which is ideal for those
heads, which work with Oral-B
last twice as long as with fixed braces.
brushes (£8 for 8; humblesmile.co).
standard ones, this BPA- Packaging is

SOURCE: EVENING STANDARD

free brush uses sonic recyclable and
pulse technology to compostable (£70; The Suri Sustainable Electric
clean teeth. The battery georganics.com). Toothbrush has recyclable plant-based
lasts for up to 365 heads and bristles, and an aluminium
days on a single charge body designed to be easy to repair
(£179; foreo.com). (£75; trysuri.com).

Tips… how to garden
during a hosepipe ban
ODon’t worry about the lawn. It may turn
a nasty shade of brown, but it will recover
when the rain starts to fall. You only need
to water newly laid turf or reseeded grass.
OUse a washing-up bowl to collect the
water you use to wash vegetables and
the like. If it’s close to a window, you could
use a hose to siphon water from the bath.
OFill up buckets or cans and leave them
around the garden, then prioritise. If a plant
flags or slants its foliage vertically, it needs
urgent attention. Gently tip a whole bucket
over the soil and it should revive in a few
hours. Drench it twice a week.
OPlants respond best to watering in the
morning. If you can’t water then, water in
the early evening instead. If you have to
plant in dry conditions, puddle the plants
around the roots before refilling the hole.
OMove hanging baskets and smaller
pots into shadier areas. Plants surrounded
by bare soil are very vulnerable in dry
conditions, particularly on clay soil.
Plant densely to limit water loss.
SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
And for those who
have everything…
The Bohemen wood-fired hot tub
from Swedish brand Hikki takes an
hour-and-a-half to heat up in the
summer and two-and-a-half hours
in the winter. Made from marine-
grade aluminium and oak, it can be
used with either fresh or salt water.
£3,915; bushgear.co.uk
SOURCE: THE SUNDAY TIMES
Where to find… unusual
sporting events
Competitors Race the Train on a scenic
14-mile route in the hills below Cader Idris
at Tywyn, Gwynedd, while being cheered
by spectators in the steam train’s carriages
(19 Aug, £35; racethetrain.com).
Try coracle racing on the River Teifi at
the annual coracle regatta, part of Cilgerran
Festive Week in Pembrokeshire. Experts
draw the traditional boat through the water
with a subtle figure-of-eight twist; amateurs
go in circles (19 Aug, coraclesociety.org.uk).
The 36th annual World Bog Snorkelling
Championship takes place near the spa town
of Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys. Entrants must
swim 55 metres in the Waen Rhydd bog
(27 Aug, from £12; www.green-events.co.uk).
Agricultural shows often have bizarre sports.
Entries have closed for wood chopping at
the Royal Welsh Show (24-27 Jul), but you
can try ferret racing at the South Downs
Show (12-13 Aug; southdownsshow.com) or
jelly racing at next year’s Shropshire County
Show (25 May; shropshirecountyshow.com).
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Travel
This week’s dream: the wild magic of Socotra
A lonely island in the Arabian Sea
some 150 miles off the Horn of Africa,
Socotra figures in ancient texts as a
place of mystery and enchantment.
It seems Greek and Arab sailors once
spoke of it as an earthly paradise,
perfumed with frankincense and
bristling with magical trees. They
weren’t far wrong, says David Pilling
in the FT. The island’s mountain wilds
really do look like a “wonderland” –
a place from the dreams of Dalí or
Dr Seuss – and are stippled with odd-
looking “dragon’s blood” trees
whose deep-red sap is said to have
extraordinary properties, and was
used by Stradivari to varnish his violins. As if from from Dalí’s dreams: dragon trees on Socotra
Getting there has never been easy, and
the civil war in Yemen (to which Socotra belongs) has only made
it harder, but a trickle of tourists has recently been returning.
The UAE has governed it since 2018, when it landed troops on
the island, claiming to do so on behalf of Yemen’s Saudi-backed
government, although the latter called the move “unjustified”.
LEISURE 37
Most tourists now arrive on infrequent
charter flights from Abu Dhabi.
Booking tickets can be complicated,
making it easier to travel with a tour
operator such as Untamed Borders
(from roughly £3,500 for a week)
or Cookson Adventures (which is at
the more luxury end of the market).
Trekking in the island’s interior is tough
but rewarding. Socotra’s mountains are
“as jagged as a sea monster’s back”.
Over-grazing by goats has caused deep
ecological damage, but you can still see
the wonderful endemic flora and fauna
for which the island has been dubbed
“the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean”.
The island’s culture is distinctive,
from its language (Soqotri is an
ancient Semitic tongue) to its folk beliefs. And its coast is “wild
and sublime”, with “vertiginous” sand dunes, “blinding white”
beaches and “lapis lazuli” seas teeming with life, including whale
sharks, huge pods of dolphins, and such an abundance of smaller
species that fishing is almost too easy.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of…

The Three Horseshoes
Batcombe, Somerset
From The French House to the
Rochelle Canteen, there’s always
been “a wonderful straw-hatted
rusticity” at the heart of Margot
Henderson’s cooking, says Rick
Jordan in Condé Nast Traveller – so
it feels “right at home” in the pretty
Somerset village of Batcombe,
where she has just opened a new
restaurant. It’s housed in The Three
Horseshoes, a refurbished 17th
century pub only a stone’s throw
from the beautiful parish church.
Along with Henderson’s “field-to-
fork” menus, there’s a glorious
garden to enjoy, and five “spacious
and high-ceilinged” guest rooms
with stylish, eclectic furnishings.
Doubles from £220 b&b;
thethreehorseshoesbatcombe.
co.uk.
A Taiwanese street scene
Noisy, late-night restaurants with outdoor
seating on long tables, rechao (or “hot stir
fry”) joints emerged in Taiwan in the 1990s
when the island grew prosperous and people
sought new ways to relax. Today, they’re a
common sight, says Clarissa Wei in Afar
magazine. The food they serve can be
excellent, with dishes from across Taiwan,
China and Japan, and frequent use of local
ingredients such as ferns, maqaw (a lemony
spice) and the pickled seeds of the birdlime
tree. But it’s “unfussy”, and the joy of the
rechao is also social and atmospheric,
involving free-flowing beer, the raucous
chatter of friends, the homely glow of
paper lanterns, and the sticky heat of
summer nights. In short, these eateries are
a “glorious” microcosm of modern urban
Taiwan, and an essential stop on any visit.
An idyll in the high Alps
It’s in a “sublimely beautiful” corner of
Switzerland; it is not far from “upscale”
resorts such as Verbier and Zermatt; and it
was well known to British travellers at the
dawn of Alpine tourism in the late 19th
century. Yet the Val d’Hérens is quite
unspoiled by modern development, says
Gemma Bowes in The Times. On a family
summer walking holiday, you might divide
your time between the “classic” Grand
Hôtel & Kurhaus in Arolla (where the
“wood-panelled” interiors have “barely been
modernised”, but dinner is “a fine-dining
extravaganza”), and nearby Camping
Arolla, said to be Europe’s highest campsite,
at 1,950m. Its “glamping” bell tents are
luxurious and it has a café with “proper
coffee”, but its setting is “pristine” – strike
out in any direction and chances are you’ll
experience “love at first hike”.
Walking with sheep in Wales
Most sheep scarper when you approach –
but not the flock on Aberhyddnant Farm
in the Brecon Beacons. Tamed as lambs
by father-daughter team Paul and Nicola
Matthews, these sheep jump for joy at the
sight of human beings, says Kerry Walker in
National Geographic Traveller, and will even
accompany you, en masse, on long strolls
around the surrounding hills – hence the
name of the family business, Jacob Sheep
Trekking. The flock is made up of a variety
of rare breeds (from “hardy” Jacobs to
Breton Ouessants, the world’s smallest
sheep, and Blacknoses, the “cutest”), and a
diverse array of characters (Socks is a “diva”;
Jester, a “born leader”), and they all make
for delightful and “affectionate” walking
companions. The farm also offers other
experiences – such as lambing and “shear-a-
sheep” days – as well as accommodation in
“historic” cottages and bell tents in a private
wood. Visit sheeptrekking.co.uk.

Last-minute offers from top travel companies

Classic Costa Rica
Enjoy towering jungles and a
palm-lined coast – and a stop
in the Tortuguero National
Park – on a 15-day trip from
£1,280pp b&b (excl. flights).
0330-808 7328, intrepidtravel.
com. Depart 9 September.
Journey to Jamaica
A 16-night cruise to Montego
Bay departing Málaga, with
stops in Antigua, Madeira and
the Dominican Republic. From
£1,595pp all-incl.(incl. flights).
020-3451 2688, tui.co.uk.
Depart 26 November.
Island-hopping in Greece
Spend 9 days exploring Athens,
Mykonos and Santorini on a
small group tour with a local
guide. From £1,237pp b&b
(excl. flights). 020-8004 8886,
theadventurepeople.com.
Depart 26 August.
Unique Gran Canaria hotel
Built into Taurito’s spectacular
mountainside, the Mogán
Princess & Beach Club offers
a 5-night stay from £698pp all-
incl. (incl. Birmingham flights).
0800-408 0778, jet2holidays.
com. Depart 10 September.

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

38 Obituaries
Acclaimed editor of Naipaul, Lessing and Miss Piggy
In 1961, an unknown
Robert
writer named Joseph
Gottlieb
Heller had just finished
1931-2023
work on his first novel –
an anti-war satire that he’d named Catch-
18 – when he learnt that the bestselling
writer Leon Uris was about to publish a
book called Mila 18. Fortunately, Heller’s
editor was Robert Gottlieb – arguably
“the most important book editor” of his
era. Gottlieb had loved the manuscript, but
never thought the title was right, and in the
middle of the night, he had a revelation,
said David Remnick in The New Yorker:
the book should be called Catch-22. This,
he explained, was “even funnier”. It
became a bestseller and a modern classic, Gottlieb: read War and Peace in a day
and Heller told the story to anyone who’d
listen. But he was just one of countlesss writers that Gottlieb had
steered to glory: his others included John Cheever, John le Carré,
Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, V.S. Naipaul, John Lennon, Mikhail controversially forced out after 36 years. He found it quite a
Baryshnikov, Barbara W. Tuchman and Katharine Hepburn – a list change: as a book editor, you are in service to the book and its
that reflected his own wide-ranging passions.
Gottlieb, who had died aged 92, loved art, literature, ballet and
film, but he also signed up a medical student with a talent for
thrillers called Michael Crichton, and edited Miss Piggy’s Guide
to Life. One of his longest working relationships was with Robert
Caro, whose monumental biography of Robert Moses he had
trimmed by 350,000 words, with the author sitting fuming beside
him. Caro claimed that in 50 years, Gottlieb had paid him only one He wrote several books of his own, including a biography of
compliment, that a manuscript was “not bad”. Last year, said The
Daily Telegraph, Gottlieb’s daughter Lizzie made a “delightful”
documentary about the two men, which featured them squabbling New Yorker to Tina Brown, and returned to Knopf as an editor,
endlessly over punctuation: Gottlieb had a horror of semicolons.
Robert Gottlieb was born in New York City in 1931, the son
of a teacher and a lawyer. In a memoir entitled Avid Reader,
French oceanographer known as “Mr Titanic”
Paul-Henri The French oceanographer
Nargeolet Paul-Henri Nargeolet led the
1946-2023 first manned visit to the wreck
of the Titanic in 1987, two
years after it was found by an autonomous
sub, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
Known as Mr Titanic, on account of his extensive
knowledge of the doomed liner, he was on his
37th visit to the ship when he was killed last
month in the implosion of the submersible Titan.
PH to his friends, he was born in Chamonix,
but spent his early years living with his parents
in Casablanca, where he fell in love with the sea,
said The Times. He made his first dive to a wreck,
at 20 metres, aged nine, and joined the French Nargeolet: a lifelong love of the sea came not from within the ship, but from the
navy from college, serving as a submarine pilot
and commander of a mine-clearing unit. After 22 years, he left to
join the French maritime research unit Ifremer. He helped locate
various aircraft lost at sea, and in 1993 he stumbled on the wreck
of La Lune, one of Louis XIV’s warships, off the coast of Toulon;
he also went in search of the fabled lost city of Atlantis, in the
submerged islands around Gibraltar, and took part in the Five
Deeps mission, to explore the deepest parts of the five oceans.
But his greatest passion was for Titanic. Last year, he described his results are the same,” he said. “When you’re in deep water, you’re
first visit to the wreck – the sub’s searchlights scanning the ocean
floor, then suddenly lighting up the liner’s bow. “For the next ten
minutes there wasn’t a sound in the submarine,” he recalled.
THE WEEK 15 July 2023
he recalled that at the dinner table, he
and his parents read books. After dinner, he
kept reading. “From the start, words were
more real to me than real life, and certainly
more interesting,” he wrote. At high school,
he read War and Peace in “a single
marathon 14-hour session”. At Columbia,
where he majored in English, he devoured
Proust: “seven volumes, seven days”. Yet
alongside his love of high culture ran a
curious interest in kitsch: plastic handbags;
snow globes; macramé owls.
He studied for two years at Cambridge,
then in 1955, he joined Simon & Schuster,
as assistant to the editor in chief. In 1968,
he moved to Knopf as editor in chief, then
president. In 1987, his career took a new
turn, when he became only the third editor of The New Yorker
in the magazine’s history, replacing William Shawn, who’d been
author, he said. At The New Yorker, “You are the living god.”
Some of his writers complained that he was stingy; and he
could be scathing about them. In his memoir he complained
that Tuchman’s “sense of entitlement” had got in the way; that
Naipaul was a “snob”; and that Roald Dahl was demanding and
“churlish”. Despite Dahl’s vast sales, he eventually dropped him –
news that prompted his staff to stand on their desks and cheer.
Sarah Bernhardt, but he said that while he could do it “perfectly
well”, he did not like writing. In 1982, he handed the reins of The
on an entry-level salary. He remained there for the rest of his
life, though he missed the industry as it had been, before the
conglomerates took over. “It is not a happy business now, and it
once was,” he reflected. “It was smaller. The stakes were lower.”
In the 1980s, he became a director of RMS
Titanic, Inc., the US company that claimed
salvage rights over the wreck. On successive
expeditions, he helped bring some 5,500 objects
to the surface, ranging from diamond necklaces,
shaving kits and chandeliers to a 20-tonne
section of the ship’s hull. At one point they were
ascribed a combined value of $200m. To some,
this made him little better than a grave robber.
But Nargeolet insisted that his motive was not
commercial: he was interested in the conservation
of maritime heritage. An expert in underwater
imaging, he helped chart the state of the wreck,
which is slowly disintegrating; and he argued
that retrieving the artefacts (which he said
debris field) would help preserve the legacy of
© GEORGE ETHEREDGE/NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE
the Titanic, and the memory of those who lost their lives on it.
As for the money, “these expeditions have cost $50m”, he told
The Irish Examiner. “Of course, the company wants some return.”
In the same interview, Nargeolet, then 73, was asked if he felt
scared as he dived 12,500ft to the bottom of the Atlantic. “If
you are 11 metres or 11km down, if something bad happens, the
dead before you realise that something is happening, so it’s not
a problem.” His first wife, Michele Marsh, died in 2017; he is
survived by his children and second wife, Anne Sarraz-Bournet.
 CITY CITY 39
Companies in the news
...and how they were assessed
PGA Tour/LIV Golf: Saudi bogey
“Every corner of the golf world” was “stunned” last month when America’s PGA Tour
commissioner, Jay Monahan, delivered news of a “bombshell” deal with Saudi Arabia’s
sovereign wealth fund, said Isabel Baldwin in the Daily Mail. The Saudi Public
Investment Fund (PIF) had, after all, spent the past two years bankrolling the PGA’s chief
bogey – the breakaway LIV Golf league. Now it proposed a peace deal – brokered with
the help of UK financier Amanda Staveley – to end a costly legal battle and pave the way Seven days in the
for a formal partnership. Barely a month on, that deal is looking shaky, said DealBook in Square Mile
The New York Times. Ahead of a hearing by a senate investigations committee this week,
a prominent tour board member, former AT&T chair Randall Stephenson, has resigned, The rate of US inflation, measured on
claiming he cannot “in good conscience” support the proposed tie-up, in light of the the consumer price index, dropped to
3% in June – its lowest level in more
killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state agents in 2018. The PIF is chaired than two years – in the latest sign that
by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The giant fund’s the Federal Reserve’s interest rate rises
sporting interests extend way beyond golf, said the Financial Times. It is also the cash are having an effect on price pressures.
cow behind Saudi Arabia’s big drive into soccer, both abroad, with the 2021 purchase Analysts still expect the Fed to raise
of Newcastle United, and at home (Saudi clubs are buying in top talent). But the charge rates again this month, but the figures
of “sportswashing”, to soften a dire human rights record, is proving hard to shake off. reassured markets, which suffered a
global sell-off last week. Several indices,
Asda/Issa brothers: fuelling controversy including the FTSE 100 and the MSCI
MPs haven’t made allegations of profiteering stick against the big supermarkets – except World Index, endured their toughest
day of the year last Friday.
perhaps on the forecourt, said Sam Chambers in The Sunday Times. And Asda may be
the worst offender on that score. The supermarket’s co-owner, Mohsin Issa, has been London secured its biggest float of the
year when the money transfer platform
summoned for a grilling by MPs after the Competition and Markets Authority reported
CAB Payments listed, valued at £851m.
that “profit-margin targets” on fuel had risen significantly since the supermarket was But there was uncertainty elsewhere in
acquired by the Issa brothers, and private equity firm TDR Capital, in 2021. As an the sector. Shares in OneSavings Bank
extra slap on the wrist, the regulator issued a £60,000 fine to Asda for failing to supply plunged by nearly a third after the
the correct documents. At least no one can doubt the Issa brothers’ commitment to lender warned that the race for fixed-rate
new technology, said Robert Lea in The Times. This week, it emerged that they are mortgage deals will hit profits. Fintech
backing a plan “to create Britain’s first network of hydrogen fuel stations” – to support Revolut lost $20m to hackers exploiting
the decarbonisation of the UK’s 300,000-strong fleet of heavy goods vehicles; they’re a loophole in its payments system.
investing £30m in a hydrogen-powered lorry startup, HVS, which hopes to start Shares in Meta surged following
production in 2026. The sector has been slow to embrace the transition to net zero, due the successful launch of its would-be
to the difficulties of using battery power to carry “heavy payloads over long distances”. “Twitter killer” Threads, which broke
the record for app downloads,
BT: German tilt? surpassing 100 million users in a few
days. Southern Water, whose majority
News that the BT boss Philip Jansen is quitting his post earlier than planned has shareholder is the Australian bank
sparked a flurry of rumours about the telco’s future, said Christopher Williams in The Macquarie, suffered a cut to its credit
Daily Telegraph. The former state monopoly is reportedly “on high alert for a takeover rating, blocking it from paying dividends
spearheaded by its major shareholder Deutsche Telekom”, which holds a 12% stake, and until at least 2025. Shares in Jet2 fell
has been working with advisers Robey Warshaw and Goldman Sachs on its “defence”. on news of the retirement of its boss,
Another potentially interested party is the Israeli billionaire investor Patrick Drahi, who Philip Meeson, after four decades. Tesla
has a 24% stake, said Lex in the FT. Foreign marauders, though, would have to jump the is reportedly revving up to enter Britain’s
sizeable hurdle of BT’s pension deficit which, in a worse-case scenario, might require any energy market, supplying households
using its Powerwall home battery.
buyer to stump up an extra £12bn. As “poison pill” deterrents go, it’s quite effective.

Thames Water/Ofwat: poachers and gamekeepers

“Drip, drip, drip.” Not, for once, “Thames
Water’s leaky pipes”, said Nils Pratley in The
Guardian. Rather, the sound of some “highly
conditional cash injections”. The company’s
consortium of shareholders have agreed to
cough up £750m to keep debt-laden Thames
afloat – somewhat less than the £1bn that the
regulator, Ofwat, suggested last week was the
bare minimum. In exchange, they’ve insisted on
a new business plan: the third since 2017, when
former owner Macquarie’s “brazen dividend-
extraction” ended. Thames’s interim CEOs,
Cathryn Ross and Alastair Cochran, called it
“a major milestone”. That’s premature. With
£14bn of debt, “Thames still seems engaged
in a dance around the funding standpipes”. Cathryn Ross: the “single great hope” to accusations of failing “to deliver financial
What does the mismanagement of Thames Water over three
decades mean for households, asked Robert Lea in The Times.
Billpayers forking out £500 a year are stumping up more than £100
to pay off lenders – who are currently charging
Thames £476m a year in interest, or 22% of its
revenues. Shareholders, meanwhile, face a
freeze on dividends until at least 2030, “which
makes Thames an interesting investment
proposition”. The “single great hope” is that
Thames is now led by “possibly the smartest
person in the water industry” – gamekeeper-
turned-poacher, Cathryn Ross, the former head
of Ofwat. One thing about ex-regulators: “they
know how to game the system”.
That kind of chat is the last thing the water
watchdog needs as it flounders in “a rising tide
of criticism”, said Gill Plimmer in the FT. Added
or management discipline” and to monitor
leakage and sewage data are questions about being “captured
by vested interests”. Is Ofwat “in thrall to the very companies and
people it is expected to oversee”? This one could run and run.

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

40 CITY Talking points
Issue of the week: Hunt’s Mansion House reforms
The Chancellor’s attempt to unlock wealth and boost growth is worth a try – but it’s no game-changer
You have to hand it to Jeremy Hunt,
said Patrick Hosking in The Times.
“Not since Gordon Brown appalled
traditionalists by shunning white tie in
favour of a lounge suit in 1997” has the
annual Mansion House dinner aroused
quite so much interest. Hundreds of the
City’s biggest beasts gathered at the
Palladian home of the Lord Mayor this
week to hear the Chancellor outline his
proposals to boost Britain’s pension and
capital markets by “unlocking” some
of the £2.7trn held in UK retirement
savings. It wasn’t exactly Big Bang 2 –
Hunt is promising an “evolutionary not
revolutionary” change. But it is certainly
timely. London Stock Exchange chief Hunt: “pragmatic, not visionary”
Julia Hoggett set the stage by warning
that the City risks a “perpetual cycle” of decline without urgent
action to stem the flight of successful companies overseas.
The main element is a voluntary “compact” with nine of the UK’s
largest pension funds – including Aviva, Scottish Widows and L&G
– to invest 5% of their assets in “startups and private equity”,
potentially unlocking £50bn in investment for fast-growing
businesses by the end of the decade, said Simon Foy in The Daily
Telegraph. Hunt also wants to “accelerate the consolidation” of
thousands of smaller pension schemes – including those of local
authorities – into so-called “superfunds”, with “the scale to take
more risks and generate potentially
larger returns”. The proposals have
hitherto generated “much gnashing of
teeth in the City”, said Jon Yeomans in
The Sunday Times. “Pension funds, not
unreasonably, are worried about being
pushed into riskier assets.” Hence the
relief that scheme is voluntary. But there’s
“a good case for stiffening their resolve”.
Few of Britain’s biggest pension funds
now have UK equities in their top
holdings. “They may talk a good game
about supporting the UK”, but their
money isn’t where their mouth is.
This policy has been “reheated so many
times” it should come with a health
warning, said Robert Lea in The Times.
What question is Hunt trying to answer? Is he hoping to make
pensioners (and fund managers) richer? Or, in the absence of a
strong economy, is he finding ways of replacing “scared-off
conventional investors”? The fear, said Ben Marlow in The Daily
Telegraph, is that it will just “highlight the fact that our capital
markets are becoming less attractive and reveal the paucity of
ideas in Westminster for arresting the slide”. Hunt’s plan is a
“pragmatic” if “not particularly visionary”, said the FT. But “there
is a limit to how much Britain’s pension market alone can deliver
the economic growth the country needs”. We’re still lacking
“a joined-up plan”.

Making money: what the experts think Marriage à la mode

O Good morning,
Vietnam!
After decades of
showing promise,
Vietnam’s “economic
moment” may have
finally arrived, said
the FT. It has been
“a big beneficiary” of
the drive by Western
manufacturers to
“de-risk” their
Vietnam: economic promise
exposure to China –
and was “the fastest growing economy in
Asia last year” with a growth-rate of 8%.
Dell, Microsoft, Google and Apple have
all shifted parts of their supply chain to the the most bullish forecaster. Ark Invest,
country and are looking to do more: over
$20bn in foreign direct investment flowed
in last year. Vietnam’s onward march
isn’t guaranteed, though: Malaysia and
Thailand were on a similar trajectory in
the late 1990s, before succumbing to the
so-called “middle-income trap”. Still, the
current excitement seems “justified”. One
of the simplest ways to invest, said Invezz.
com, is to home in on the FTSE Vietnam
30 index, via a Vanguard exchange-traded
fund. Or check out the VinaCapital
Vietnam Opportunity Fund.
O Bitcoin bulls
After 2022’s punishing “crypto winter”,
the world’s largest digital currency has
already surged by over 80% this year, said
Callum Jones in The Times. The price –
which peaked at
$69,000 in November
2021 – is now back
above $30,000. Geoff
Kendrick of Standard
Chartered reckons that’s
just the start. Analysts
at the bank are betting
on a rise to $50,000
this year, and say it
could push as high as
$100,000 by the end
of 2024, if increased
profitability among bitcoin “miners”
enables them to “restrict supply”. Sounds
punchy? Standard Chartered is far from
the vehicle of US investor Cathie Wood, is
sticking firmly to its prediction that bitcoin
“will top $1m over the next decade”.
O Bored of the ape
Elsewhere in the crypto market, the
combination of rising rates, falling prices
and “lack of utility” continues to weigh
hard, said Lex in the FT. Exhibit number
one? The formerly high-octane non-
fungible tokens market. The “NFT
landgrab” that galvanised Big Tech early
last year has collapsed, along with prices
of Bored Ape cartoons and optimism
about the main NFT marketplace,
OpenSea. A few NFTs might continue
to change hands for high prices thanks
to “diehard believers”, but the revolution
they promised has failed to materialise.
The average rate on two-year mortgage
deals hit the devilish figure of 6.66%
this week – creating a new dilemma for
couples in the throes of divorce, said
Melissa Twigg in The Daily Telegraph.
Who will get to keep the low mortgage?
Divorce lawyers report that the
“remortgaging cliff that homeowners
are about to fall off” is making
separation more complicated than
ever, with interest rates “one of the first
things” new clients talk about. Paying
off a loan at 1.5% will save thousands
of pounds, compared with having
to get a new one at 6-7%. “Getting
custody of the low-rate mortgage is
akin to getting the house in France
or the expensive car.”
Why marry in the first place? Certainly,
fewer couples are tying the knot, said
Lex in the Financial Times. Signet
Jewelers shed a tenth of its market
value last month after reporting a drop
in demand for engagement rings. The
company blames “a Covid-induced lull
in dating” and predicts a rebound. But
the underlying trend is clear: marriage
rates have halved in many Western
countries since 1970.
The good news for the wedding
industry is that “while the popularity
of weddings has been declining, their
average value has been increasing”.
That may not last. “Scaled down
weddings – or ‘mini-monies’ – cut
down on stress and cost. They could
prove more than a fleeting trend.”

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 Commentators CITY 41
The Government has just sold £4bn of two-year debt at a yield of
5.668%, “the highest borrowing cost for a quarter of a century”, City profile
“Sensible” says Liam Halligan. So much for “sensible” policies: “gilt yields
are now way higher than at the time of the Liz Truss/Kwasi
Rachel Reeves
The shadow chancellor
policies are the Kwarteng mini-Budget”, when efforts to cut tax and boost growth
through supply-side reforms were blamed for causing debt market
has the unenviable task of
digging Keir Starmer out of
way to crisis turmoil. Markets are increasingly convinced that “inflation will
remain high in the foreseeable future”, and that the “relentless rise
the “predicament” created
by his early policy pledges,
Liam Halligan in borrowing costs still has a long way to go”. This will have dire said Simon Hattenstone in
consequences for public finances. Since 2020, the Government’s The Guardian. She has to
The Sunday Telegraph interest bill has quadrupled to about £110bn a year: “more than explain to the country why
the annual education budget”. The “current policy mix” not Labour can’t afford to, for
instance, make good on
only isn’t working, but is “in danger of sparking severe market his promise to renationalise
pyrotechnics”. Truss has just launched a “growth commission” public utilities. “Well,
to explore ways of promoting economic expansion. Although obviously, the financial
often derided, she “has a habit of posing the right questions” – circumstances have changed
and she is right here. Unless Britain escapes this “low-growth, quite a lot since Keir became
high-spending, high-tax trap”, we’re headed for economic crisis. leader,” is Rachel Reeves’s
oft-repeated mantra,
Marks & Spencer held a “digital only” annual general meeting delivered in her trademark
last week. It seems an odd move for an outfit that trumpets its “gravelly foghorn”.

Digital AGMs: determination “to stand up for the small shareholder”, says Nils
Pratley. Don’t they even deserve a cup of tea and a sandwich?
click now to Chairman Archie Norman is rightly keen to push a digital option,
so as to improve access: these days, even FTSE 100 companies
vote No often “struggle to attract a couple of dozen shareholders” to their
AGMs. But the “basic shareholder right to turn up and question
Nils Pratley directors face-to-face ought to be sacrosanct”. Not everyone
wants their question filtered through a “shareholder advocate”,
The Guardian which is what M&S did last week. “Boos and applause in the
room also matter. These occasions don’t have to be uncomfortable
for the directors – but they ought to have the potential to be so.”
If boards give the impression they would rather avoid the process,
“they just look slippery”. Thankfully, after strong pushback from
shareholders, M&S won’t be repeating its experiment: next year’s
meeting “will be a hybrid affair”. Quite right. “Let the punters
decide how they wish to participate.” At 44, the former Bank
of England economist is
The idea of mixing Jack Daniel’s and Coca-Cola in the same glass arguably the most important
member of the shadow
has been around for well over 100 years, says Leo Lewis. Only cabinet, Starmer included.
The march recently has the idea of “flogging the two in a single can” – with
both brands prominent on the label – become a thing. “The
Indeed, the next election
could come down to her.
of mash-up belated commercialising of the combo” looks like a triumph of
opportunism. But some imaginative tie-ups are thriving. “We live
As she says, the country has
to trust her with its cash. In
marketing in mashed-up collaborative times” – where diminishing marketing
budgets, panicky ad agencies and the rise of AI (which can mock-
public life, she can appear
“wooden and humourless”.
Leo Lewis up an instant “brand cocktail”) look set to spur further unions. But Reeves wears the charge
Some have been highly successful. “Burberry and Minecraft, for of being “boring” with pride.
“If you want someone to do
Financial Times example, make an oddly handsome couple in their designer cartwheels and tap dancing,
game.” In Japan, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Fendi have all I’m not your person. But if
“bear-hugged” cool local brands. The US skatewear brand you want someone to run
Supreme recently teamed up with blue-collar metal-basher Toyo the economy, I’m quite well
Steel to make a toolbox. Some marketing veterans snootily call qualified.” What has now
this “last-resort stuff”. But why turn down “a potentially hefty become abundantly clear,
sales windfall”? In difficult times, “the collab” is an easy win. said Laura Kuenssberg on
BBC News, is that if Labour
The business slogan of the moment is “take your whole self to wins, Reeves will keep “an
extremely tight grip on
work”, says Jenni Russell. I say: “Let’s not and please don’t.” It’s spending”. Talk of “fiscal
Please, leave true that office culture needed to change from the uptight days of
the 1980s, when “the model employee appeared to have nothing
rules” already dominates –
she shares the Conservative
your “whole on their mind but performing”. But the pendulum has swung back
too far. “Encouraging people to bring their vulnerabilities and
ethos that “now is not the
time to go crazy with public
self” at home spiky opinions to the office and then expecting others to
accommodate them is patently ridiculous.” Nobody welcomes
spending or tax cuts”. On
the face of it, she’s “a likelier
Jenni Russell “the random emotional load”. While openness is nice in theory, and likelier bet to be the next
“the championing of passionate views on politics, climate, religion chancellor”. But the former
child chess champion jokes
The Times or gender” is tricky in our culture of “belligerent offence”. One that Labour is a “rook ahead
person’s freedom to speak is another’s insult or provocation. None after about 30 moves” – and
of us have “whole selves”: we all play different roles in different playing an opponent that
contexts – and these roles are a release. “Placing one’s personal normally beats them. In
fears and preoccupations behind a professional facade” is one short, she’s taking nothing
of the most satisfying things we can do. “Work now respects at all for granted.
our life beyond the office; we can respect its imperatives too.”

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

 Shares CITY 43

Who’s tipping what

The week’s best shares
Cordiant Digital
The Sunday Times
This digital infrastructure fund
invests in unglamorous, but
vital, internet plumbing.
Recent falls reflect risks, but
data transfer can only grow as
tech adoption swells, AI kicks
in and autonomous vehicles
roll out. Buy. 82.4p.
Kitwave
Investors’ Chronicle
Shares in the Tyne and Wear
Directors’ dealings
Kooth Solid State Revolution Beauty
The Mail on Sunday The Mail on Sunday
35
This Aim-listed online therapist, This electronics firm supplies
focused on young people, has rugged kit to customers 30
contracts with most UK NHS including Ocado, GCHQ and
25
trusts – and has now gained a the Swedish defence group
big US foothold via a four-year Saab. “Well-regarded” with 20
deal with Californian health a solid history of growth.
15
authorities. Analysts have The push overseas is already
upgraded forecasts. Buy. 334p. delivering. Buy. £12.40. 10
2 directors
5 buy 1.1m
Scottish Mortgage Trust Whitbread
The Motley Fool The Daily Telegraph 0
16 June July
Shares in the fund, which The Premier Inn owner’s

SOURCE: INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE

food-and-drink wholesaler
have doubled since its 2021
float, helped by a growing
customer base. Full-year results,
likely to beat expectations, are
reason enough to remain
bullish. Buy. 302p.
invests in high-growth US tech
companies, trade at a 22%
discount – a measure of the
risks. But should outperform
the current crop of “safe and
reliable” investments in the
long term. Buy. 641.8p.
Shares in the cosmetics brand,
midscale rooms are attracting which counts Boohoo as a
custom: Q1 revenues jumped major shareholder, were
16% year-on-year; restaurant suspended last September due
revenues by 10%. Expansion to an auditor’s refusal to sign
plans are built on solid off accounts. Shares soared
45% on their reinstatement,
foundations. Still looks like a buoyed by the purchases of
long-term winner. Buy. £34.01. the CEO and chairman.

…and some to hold, avoid or sell Form guide

AO World Currys HICL Infrastructure Shares tipped 12 weeks ago

Investors’ Chronicle
The online electricals retailer
has returned to profit despite
falling revenues, having
refreshed its business model
through cost efficiencies
and streamlining. The new
“strategic partnership” with
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is
worth watching. Hold. 85.5p.
CLS Holdings
The Daily Telegraph
Commercial real estate is out
of favour, but it’s worth sitting
tight with CLS, whose mainly
blue-chip customers in the UK,
France and Germany are still
paying rent in timely fashion.
Feels undervalued. Hold. 140p.
The Times
Over-reliance on “über-
competitive” Nordic markets
has cost the retailer dear, with
the dividend a casualty. Shares
are at their lowest since 2008,
but the risk of disappointing
market expectations remains
high. Avoid. 49.4p.
De La Rue
The Times
Shares in the maker of
banknotes and passports
jumped 39% on news of
improving demand for cash.
In a declining market, investors
are clutching straws. Strained
financially and barely turning
a profit. Avoid. 48.6p.
The Times Best tip
Rapidly rising interest rates Intelligent Ultrasound
The Mail on Sunday
have prompted a sell-off across up 20.69% to 8.75p
infrastructure funds: shares
trade at steep discounts to net Worst tip
asset value. HICL is eyeing Impax Asset Management
disposals to raise cash for new The Times
down 32.14% to 530p
assets, but further rises could
hit sentiment. Hold. 123.4p.
JPMorgan Claverhouse Market view
Investment Trust “The market may still be too
The Daily Telegraph confident in the quality of
This trust, which has increased central bank decisions and
dividends per share for 50 their ability to engineer
positive outcomes.”
consecutive years, holds 60-80 Daniel Ivascyn, of bond fund
mainly large cap UK stocks. Pimco, warns of a “harder
Offering an opportunity to buy landing” for the global
high-quality companies cheaply. economy. Quoted in the FT
Yields 5.2%. Hold. 634p.

Market summary
Key numbers
Key numbers for
for investors
investors Best and worst performing
Best performing shares
shares Following the Footsie
11 July 2023 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS
8,000
FTSE 100 7282.52 7519.72 −3.15% RISES Price % change
FTSE All-share UK 3973.18 4095.31 −2.98% Coca-Cola HBC 2358.00 +1.68
7,900
Dow Jones 34156.83 34418.47 −0.76% Associated Brit. Foods 2050.00 +1.64
B&M European Val. Ret. 545.20 +0.41
NASDAQ 13733.24 13816.77 −0.60% 7,800
Pearson 819.00 +0.20
Nikkei 225 32203.57 33422.52 −3.65%
Hang Seng 18659.83 19415.68 −3.89% Croda International 5638.00 +0.14 7,700
Gold 1922.80 1928.75 −0.31%
Brent Crude Oil 79.20 76.13 4.03% FALLS 7,600
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.86% 3.76% Intertek Group 4013.00 –6.11
UK 10-year gilts yield 4.72 4.46 Prudential 1041.00 –5.88 7,500
US 10-year Treasuries 3.98 3.86 National Grid 988.20 –5.75
UK ECONOMIC DATA Relx 2442.00 –5.75 7,400
Latest CPI (yoy) 8.7% (May) 8.7% (Apr) SSE 1743.50 –5.30
Latest RPI (yoy) 11.3% (May) 11.4% (Apr) 7,300
Halifax house price (yoy) –2.6% (June) FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER
–1.0% (May) Keller Group 800.00 +13.60 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul

£1 STERLING: $1.294 s1.173 ¥180.752 Bitcoin $30,715.17 OSB Group 334.40 –32.00 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index
Source: Refinitiv/FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 11 July (pm)

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

44 The last word

I was a female prison officer for

ten years. This is what I saw
Alex South was just 22 years old when she got her first job at a maximum-security jail. A decade and three prisons later, suffering
from recurring nightmares, she quit. This is her story, with some names changed to protect identities

In prison, when a fight landing. My eyes were

happened, it happened drawn to a large metal chair
quickly. Joseph, one of the connected to a power socket.
prisoners, was charging down Brian noticed me looking.
the landing. His body was “That’s the Boss chair,” he
covered in blood and he said. “If they’ve got anything
carried a thick shard of glass metal plugged, that detects it.”
raised in his right hand. He I looked closer. “Body orifice
was yelling expletives. Jade, security scanner” was printed
a fellow prison officer, on the side. “Plugging” means
pressed the alarm bell. Roger, what you think it does. Many
our colleague, intercepted years later I would listen as
him, wrestling him to the a prisoner told me how he
ground. His thundering voice plugged five mobile phones
commanded Joseph to drop in the visitors’ hall at HMP
the weapon, a piece from a Belmarsh, and I’d wince as he
smashed Pyrex dish; a frantic, complained about the piles he
last-minute knife. Joseph couldn’t get rid of. But that
had been attacked by three was in the future. On my first
prisoners, who were running day I was blissfully unaware
off the landing. The shouting of the reasons why someone
was thinned by the sound of might insert one phone into
the alarm penetrating every their rectum, never mind five.
corner of the wing. This
wasn’t the first alarm bell I’d Prisons run to a strict regime:
responded to, but it was the 7:45 unlock, 8:15 labour
first time I’d seen a prisoner, Alex South: “It might seem like a strange career choice for a young woman” movement (the heavily
wielding a makeshift weapon, supervised movement of
with his head split open, covered in his own blood. Despite the prisoners from their residential wings to an activity, such as
horror of some of the things I would see over the next few years, education or workshops), 12:00 lunch, 12:30 bang-up, 13:30
that particular day was one I would never forget. unlock, 14:00 labour movement, 16:00 exercise, 17:00 dinner,
17:30 bang-up, 18:00 association (the two hours at the end of the
I was 22 when I became a prison day when prisoners get to mix
officer in 2012. It might seem with each other), 20:00 bang-up.
like a strange career choice, “Sometimes the packages that were thrown into The sounds that characterise a
especially for a young woman, the yard were very well disguised – pigeons that prison wing were all gone at
but I was at a strange time in night. I’d do my checks. I just
my life. I’d dropped out of my had been killed, gutted and filled with drugs” needed to know the prisoners
English degree; university wasn’t were in their cells. And breathing.
for me. I’d had a few different jobs but the only thing I stuck with
was bar work. At the time I wasn’t particularly happy. I felt lost. After three years at Whitemoor I was ready for a senior officer
In an attempt to alleviate these feelings I took a role at a young position at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, a Category B men’s jail in
offender institution at Littlehey, Cambridgeshire, mentoring west London, which had less security. It was a very different jail,
teenage boys serving short sentences. And from the moment I housing mostly short-termers rather than lifers. The wings smelt
started, I loved it. I felt committed to the young men I worked of stale smoke and tobacco. And a hint of weed – and maybe
with and I enjoyed the practical side of things, like helping them something else too. The prisoners got their tobacco from the
to set up bank accounts or apply for a provisional driver’s licence. prison canteen but their drugs from the dealers on the fours (the
fourth landing), or a package thrown over the wall, or a drone
Becoming a prison officer felt like a natural next step. I’d lived hovering over the yard. With the drugs, inevitably, there was
half-an-hour from HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire for my violence. There were numerous gangs in Scrubs. It could be
entire life, yet before I applied for the job I’d never even known it difficult to keep them all apart. And it wasn’t just the people
© TOM BARNES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES/NEWS LICENSING

was there. I’d heard next to nothing about this maximum-security inside the prison you had to watch; it was the ones standing
prison holding more than 400 of the country’s supposedly most outside it too. The prison is surrounded by normal life: people
dangerous men. There was a lot of build-up to my first day on walking dogs, catching a bus, going for a run. But there are some
the job. Six weeks of training and two of volunteering. “Welcome who skulk around by the perimeter wall. Staff supervising the
to A-wing.” The sign alone felt intimidating. It was strange to be yard either didn’t notice the packages or they chose not to. And
welcomed to a place where no one wanted to be. I wished I wasn’t sometimes the packages were very well disguised. Pigeons and rats
the only female officer on shift. Everything, from my ponytail to were thrown over the wall. They’d been killed, gutted and filled
my voice to my stature (I’m 5ft 8in), made me feel like I stood out. with drugs, then their stomachs sewn back up.

Brian, an officer who had worked at the prison for 20 years, When I worked there, the drug of choice was spice, a type of
introduced himself and led me through the entrance onto the synthetic cannabinoid. It was supposed to give a similar kind of

THE WEEK 15 July 2023

 The last word
high to cannabis, but without the obvious
smell. The wings were full of it. I saw one
man so high on spice that he thought he
was a lemon and started trying to peel off
his own skin. Another was convinced he
was a crab, writhing around on the floor
and trying to pinch the staff. But those
guys were the lucky ones. Others died.
One evening, Officer Akash and I watched
as a prisoner’s pale arm reached through
the bars. He was holding what looked like
a table leg, which he used to unhook the
package from a drone. We sprinted up the
stairs, keys in hand. Officer Akash shoved
open the cell door. “Show your hands,” he
shouted. I followed him in, eyes searching
the cell. Gonzalez and Flaherty were The “Lifers’ wing” at Wormwood Scrubs, London sentence tough, that’s why he had
sitting at the table with the contraband.
A couple of Big Macs, a side of fries and some chicken nuggets.
There wasn’t much point in getting an evidence bag for any of
that. We let them pocket a couple of nuggets and binned the rest.
The governor would deal with them in the morning.
45
While at Belmarsh I also worked in the
security office. Staff submitted security
reports throughout the day, and part of
my job was to evaluate the information
coming through. It could be unpleasant.
Monitoring phone calls meant listening
in on some pretty horrendous stuff. Like
the sex offender who repeatedly tried to
pass explicit messages to the children
he abused. His own children. Or the
domestic violence perpetrator who
threatened his wife over the phone.
I sat in the segregation unit with one
man who fiddled with the gold band
on his finger and tearfully told me that
it belonged to his fiancée who had just
passed away, that he was finding his
punched the officer, and that’s why he
was in the segregation unit, and could I please approve a transfer
to a different jail. But having looked up his record before I went
to see him, I was well aware of who this man was – and his
fiancée was dead because he killed her.

Two years later I moved to HMP Belmarsh, a Category A One shift saw me searching a young female member of staff
high-security prison. There were cameras pretty much everywhere. suspected of bringing drugs into the prison. She denied it right
And, perhaps most significantly, there were officers everywhere up to the point where I put on gloves, then she produced several
too. Staff cuts hadn’t hit Belmarsh as they had Scrubs. At least, not wraps of Class-A drugs. There was a part of me that felt angry
then. Many of the issues I came across at Scrubs were non-existent with her, for the violence and chaos that her actions undoubtedly
at Belmarsh. I never saw a drone, for example. But there were caused. But there was another part of me that wondered why
more fights, thanks to the fact that prisoners were housed in we gave an 18-year-old keys to a high-security prison in the
triple cells rather than in single cells. On one occasion I found first place. I ended up talking with the prisoner she was
a prisoner, Simpson, in a bad way. He was leaning over the sink going to deliver the drugs to, a man in his 30s with a history
in his cell, splashing water over of “conditioning” and
his face and shoulders. The manipulating staff, and someone
skin was peeling off. I could “I became tired of being shouted at and I’d always got on with. He told
see patches of bright pink threatened, tired of restraining people so me he didn’t feel bad about what
flesh on his shoulders, neck
and cheeks. It was obvious
mentally ill they washed their hair with butter” happened, or the fact that she
now had a criminal record.
what had happened. Simpson “It’s a dog-eat-dog world in
had been “kettled” – his cellmate had boiled the kettle in their cell here, Miss South. If you see an opportunity, you take it.” For
and then thrown the contents over him. When I took Simpson to her, he was the love of her life. For him, she was an opportunity.
the treatment room, the nurse recommended he be taken to
hospital. She gave him painkillers and treated his burns with an One night after that incident, when I was on duty a prisoner
ointment. Throughout all of this he did his best to stay calm. But named Abel hanged himself and couldn’t be saved. I knew Abel.
he was trembling. He was clearly in pain. And his face didn’t look He had asked me to come and see him the previous week. I’d
the way it had that morning. said I would go back but I didn’t. I didn’t have time. I was so
busy. And now he was dead. I thought of a colleague at
I’m fine, he told me. It was nothing. It was an accident. He stuck Whitemoor who had seen two pale feet dangling from beneath
to his story as vigorously as the prisoners who claimed they a curtain, and the officer at Belmarsh who sobbed in the recess
slipped in the shower. But I knew him well. This wasn’t the when he saw a prisoner’s body, cold, rigid and dead. I lost myself
first time we had sat in my office and discussed how someone a little bit around that time.
had come to be injured, although Simpson wasn’t usually the
victim. After he was taken to hospital, I interviewed his cellmate. I was getting tired of being shouted at, threatened, called a “slut”
Knowles was a short, stocky young man with curly hair. It was or a “slag”. I was tired of putting people in the recovery position
his first time in jail; he hadn’t even been convicted yet. He had because they’d taken too much spice. I was tired of restraining
three weeks until his court case started. He admitted what he did people so mentally ill they washed their hair with butter. I was
immediately. When I explained that, because of the seriousness tired of seeing a fist clench and knowing what was coming next. I
of the incident, it would be referred to the police and it was was tired of going to see the nurse because I got hit with a plug in
likely he would be charged with a further offence, he put his a sock while trying to break up a fight, or going to A&E because
head in his hands. “He robbed my cousin outside,” he said. “He some lost, angry 18-year-old whose parents failed him spat in my
didn’t realise who I was, and when we got locked up together, eye (and then shouted, “I’ve got hep B, Miss!”). I left the prison
I knew it would get back to people if I’d done nothing. And service ten years after I first walked up the path to HMP
I thought he would figure out who I was eventually. I didn’t Whitemoor. A lot had happened in that time. I experienced life
know what to do, Miss. I was scared of him.” and work inside three vastly different jails, all affected by cuts and
poor decisions, by outside politics and inside challenges. But also
It’s rare that I empathised with the perpetrator of this kind strength and bravery and hope. The men and women I worked
of assault, but in that case I found myself feeling sorry for with taught me courage, resilience and compassion, and how to
Knowles. Not just because he was scared but because I suspected find all three in the darkest of places. But my time was served.
he didn’t quite realise what was to come. No one had ever done
anything like that to Simpson before. No one would have dared. © Alex South 2023. A version of this article appeared in
Simpson was so taken aback by the suddenness of it all that he The Sunday Times (Times Media Limited 2023). Extracted from
didn’t retaliate. But he would. Behind These Doors by Alex South (Hodder & Stoughton £16.99).

15 July 2023 THE WEEK

 Crossword 47
THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1371 This week’s winner will receive an
An Ettinger pass holder and two Connell Guides will be given to the sender of the first Ettinger (ettinger.co.uk) travel pass
correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 24 July. Send holder in assorted colours, which
it to The Week Crossword 1371, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the retails at £115, and two Connell Guides
completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) (connellguides.com).

ACROSS
1 War memorial constructed
not cheap (8)
5 Sailor’s offence not good (6)
9 Piece of Beatles album (8)
10 Unclear amount needed
for fare from China (3,3)
12 Come back to mind about
vicious dog (5)
13 Huge energy used in
dancing (9)
14 Callous Tory hastened
partying (5-7)
18 Beefsteak with port for
lunch? (4,8)
21 One on cue with wine and
starters in Rome (9)
23 Local official about to be
facing first lady (5)
24 Hands perhaps cracked in
Ariel soap initially (6)
25 Ambassador absorbed by
forecast Foreign Office put out
for fraudsters (8)
26 Drink for each kid (6)
27 South American capital with
one in casino having a flutter (8)
DOWN
1 Type of poison seldom seen
by copper (6)
2 Doctor failing a beginner (6)
3 Endless rotten ales upset
stomachs (9)
4 Provincial head holding line
shows agreeable quality (12)
6 Not to be missed, spotting
stuff delaying plane? (5)
7 Small book helps string
players (8)
8 Midges do trouble people
greatly admired (8)
11 Boxers of little authority? (12)
15 Work out what’s loose in car
seat (9)
16 Grounds for special event (8)
17 Flatter grassland flower without
a bit of colour (6,2)
19 The old chaps overlooking one
person from the Middle East (6)
20 Add some thyme or some
time (6)
22 Pawn that is caught by castle
finally? (5)

Name
Address
Clue of the week: A spot to get smashed with grub? (9, first letter G)   Tel no
The Times
Clue of the week answer:

Solution to Crossword 1369

Restore your
ACROSS: 1 Cinerama 5 Sprain 9 Fetching 10 Enigma 12 Aran
13 Hard cheese 15 Money spiders 19 Two fat ladies 24 Armageddon
25 Orne 27 Handle 28 Slovenia 29 Tromsø 30 Estrange

news-life balance
DOWN: 1 Caftan 2 Not bad 3 Ruhr 4 Mandate 6 Punch lines 7 Anglesey
8 Near East 11 Ides 14 Los Angeles 16 Yea 17 Straw hat 18 Commando
20 Lady 21 Doodles 22 Iron-on 23 Ménage 26 Over
Clue of the week: Drama in family, tragically regal (4,4)
Solution: KING LEAR kin + anagram of REGAL
The winner of 1369 is Julie Willson from West Bridgford

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Sudoku 913 (difficult)

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