Table of contents for 1549 in The Week

A surfer has been rescued from a remote island off Australia after being swept eight miles out to sea. The family of Darcy Deefholts, 19, raised the alarm after he failed to return home to Wooli in New South Wales. A search was launched; but it was only when a friend of Terry, Darcy’s father, plotted his trajectory based on wind and tide that rescuers went to North Solitary Island – and found him there, 19 hours after he’d left home. “It’s a one in a million,” said Terry. “Who survives this?” A three-year-old girl from Powys will compete at next year’s Crufts with her miniature schnauzer, Zeeva, after becoming one of the youngest-ever handlers to qualify for the show. Caitlyn Mellor, whose first word was “doggy”, has been competing…

Second-class post, after the Royal Mail announced it was slashing the service to help cut costs. From 28 July, second-class letters will no longer be delivered on Saturdays, and only on every other weekday. Royal Mail will still have to deliver 90% of first-class mail the next day, six days a week, under Ofcom targets. John Torode, who was sacked from MasterChef for allegedly using “an extremely offensive racist term” – an allegation upheld as part of an investigation into co-host Gregg Wallace (see page 18). Torode said he had “no recollection” of the comment.…

Paris Top honour: Gisèle Pelicot, the woman whose husband repeatedly drugged her and allowed dozens of men to rape her over the course of nearly a decade, is to receive the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest civic order. Pelicot (pictured) bravely waived her anonymity at the trial of her now ex-husband and 50 other defendants, insisting that “shame must change sides” in cases of sexual violence. The Légion d’honneur, established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, is France’s most prestigious national order of merit. Others granted the honour this year include rock musician Jean-Louis Aubert, historian Mona Ozouf and actress Léa Drucker. Tuam, Ireland Baby search: Excavators have broken ground at the site in the town of Tuam, County Galway, where the St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home once stood. An 18-strong…

1 Everything She Wants by George Michael, performed by Wham! 2 Enta Omri (You Are My Life) by Mohamed Abdel Wahab and Ahmad Shafik Kamel, performed by Umm Kulthum 3 At Night by Stéphane Mandrax and Terra Deva, performed by Shakedown 4 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), written and performed by Phil Collins 5 My Ever Changing Moods by Paul Weller, performed by The Style Council 6 Handbags and Gladrags by Mike d’Abo, performed by Rod Stewart 7 The Universal, written and performed by Blur 8* The Girl is Mine by Michael Jackson, performed by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney * Choice if allowed only one record Book: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: Stop Overthinking, Find Calm, and Be Present by Nick Trenton Luxury: an Indian restaurant…

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, last week laid out a plan to transfer much of Gaza’s population into what he called a “humanitarian city”, on the ruins of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. Palestinians would go through “security screening” before entering, and then would not be allowed to leave, Katz said at a briefing for Israeli journalists. Initially, the plan was to move 600,000 displaced people from the Al-Mawasi area. Eventually, the entire population of Gaza would follow, and Israel would encourage Palestinians to emigrate, Katz reportedly said. The proposal was widely described as a contravention of international law, and a blueprint for crimes against humanity – and the Israel Defence Forces have refused to carry it out. Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, the chief of the general staff,…

Pollen levels are so high this year that even people who don’t normally have hay fever are developing symptoms, it has emerged. The EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service has reported an increase in the levels of grass and olive pollen across southern Europe, and “extreme levels” of birch pollen in the northeast of the continent. Scientists say that global warming is altering the production and distribution of pollen: shorter winters, followed by warmer springs, mean plants and trees flower earlier and the pollen season lasts longer. The release of tree and grass pollen is also overlapping more than in the past, exacerbating hay fever symptoms for many. Air pollution can also increase people’s sensitivity to allergens. About a quarter of adults in Europe have airborne allergies, including severe asthma, and…

For almost a thousand years, the right to be tried by a jury of our peers has been a “cornerstone of British justice”, said the Daily Mail. This system protects us “against oppressive judges” and police officers, and “governments abusing their power”. But now, faced with a major crisis in our Crown Courts – drowning under a backlog of some 77,000 cases – an independent review led by Sir Brian Leveson has recommended stripping away this “ancient right” in England and Wales for more than 170 types of crime, including some sexual offences. The proposals would end the right to a jury for crimes that carry a maximum sentence of two years, as well as for complex fraud cases. Leveson “was frank that this is not a cause for celebration”,…

“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have trying to change others.”Arnold Glasgow, quoted in Forbes “To die for an idea is to set a pretty high value on conjecture.”Anatole France, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”Kingsley Amis, quoted on Medium “I prefer the company of younger men. Their stories are shorter.”Attrib. Dorothy Parker, quoted in Business Insider “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”J.M. Barrie, quoted on The Knowledge “The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new.”Machiavelli, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “All truly great thoughts…

To The Times The Salt Path: fact, fiction or a bit of both? Who gives a damn? It is an inspiring book, well written and anyone who has read it is better for it. R.F. Horton, Riding Mill, Northumberland To The Times The furore over the alleged mendacity of The Salt Path, Raynor Winn’s bestselling book, is most amusing. The book was passed off to the public by Penguin as “an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story”, despite containing improbable assertions of a miracle remission for a fatal neurological disease via a long walk in Cornwall. That its author is then alleged to have become homeless not owing to betrayal by a friend, but owing to being wanted by the police, and is in fact the owner of a…

The bestselling author chooses her favourite books about sisters. Her new novel, My Sister and Other Lovers (Bloomsbury £18.99), is out now and she will be speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 21 August Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1935 (HarperCollins £7.99). This was read to me as a child. I loved the idea that the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, was the same Laura we were meeting as “Half Pint”, and I was intrigued to think she was seeing her life in terms of a story, just as I was seeing mine. I can still remember sitting wedged in beside my sister, my heart thumping when Laura’s own sister falls ill with scarlet fever. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1936 (Pan £10.99). I…

Programmes Karen Pirie The long-awaited second instalment of the drama based on Val McDermid’s novels: when a man’s body is found, detective Karen Pirie reopens a cold case from 1984. Sun 20 Jul, ITV1 20:00 (120mins). The Narrow Road to the Deep North A surgeon and WWII hero remembers his time as a POW and a forbidden love affair in this adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning 2013 novel. Sun 20 Jul, BBC1 21:15 (45mins). One Day in Southport A year on from the devastating stabbings and ensuing riots, this documentary relives the events through the eyes of one of the surviving children. Thur 24 Jul, C4 21:00 (65mins). Vivaldi and Bach at the Proms Violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte makes his Proms debut with a showcase of the two composers’ baroque…

Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) Serves 4 For the salad: 600g new [baby] potatoes 3-4 tbsp olive oil 1 fennel bulb 2 spring onions 200g cooked peas, cooled 100g parsley, finely chopped sea salt and freshly ground black pepper For the vinaigrette: 1 tbsp white-wine vinegar 2 tbsp Dijon mustard 1 tbsp honey 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil • Preheat the oven to 200°C fan. • Cut the potatoes into wedges, place on a baking sheet and mix with the oil and some salt and pepper. Bake for 30mins, tossing them now and again, then leave to cool. • Slice the fennel very thinly and cut the spring onions into 5mm slices on an angle. • For the vinaigrette, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, honey and some salt and pepper, then whisk in the olive…

Using the accumulated knowledge of its botanists and scientists, RHS Grow helps you to identify plants and gives care tips and advice (free, or subscribe for additional services; rhs.org.uk/rhsgrow). A citizen-science project, Pl@ntNet is a free app that can identify about 20,000 plants from photos (plantnet.org). GrowVeg has a garden-planner app for growing organic veg, with a personalised planting calendar and expert videos and articles (free trial, £25/year; growveg.co.uk). Frÿd is a community of gardeners offering veg garden planting plans, a seasonal calendar, podcasts and advice from like-minded people (from £9.99/month; fryd.app). Plant With Willow helps you take care of your houseplants, teaching you when to water, reposition or adjust the conditions. You’ll need to buy a sensor (from £24.99), which monitors moisture, temperature, light and humidity, and links to the…

Oberoi Vindhyavilas Wildlife Resort Bandhavgarh, India Central India’s sprawling Bandhavgarh National Park has more tigers than the more popular Ranthambore. It is also home to leopards, elephants and more, and this new resort from the Oberoi group makes a great base from which to see them on game drives, says Malavika Bhattacharya in Condé Nast Traveller. The “soaring” public areas are beautifully decorated with carvings and embroidery by local artisans, as are the spacious pool villas and guest bungalows. Service is ”attentive”, and food is good, and includes both Western dishes and local specialities. Doubles from £600; oberoihotels.com.…

Ruoming Pang “Nothing says talent war like a $100m job offer,” said Parmy Olson on Bloomberg. Or make that $200m – the sum dangled by Meta to secure Ruoming Pang, one of Apple’s top AI gurus, as Mark Zuckerberg continues his hiring blitz in the race to build the first “superintelligent” AI model. “Money is a great motivator”, but Zuck’s new recruits are just as motivated by the “glory” of creating models smarter than humans. The real “catnip” is the “vast amounts of compute” Meta can offer: it has just announced plans for two gigantic data centres, dubbed Prometheus and Hyperion. This isn’t the first time that Pang, originally from Shanghai, has been poached, said Observer.com. He spent 15 years at Google before jumping ship to Apple, where his departure…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1474 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 28 July. Send it to The Week Crossword 1474, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Paul McKenna This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 1 Whose mobile contains scratch mostly in display? (8) 5 School Latin – record journey requiring great effort (6) 9 In the matter of late Elizabeth Fry, say (8) 10 Go lightly or capsize punt (6) 11 Fragment’s positive review, for example (8) 12 Frontrunners from Cowes always sail differently in port (6) 14 Flag is…

A rock band that topped Spotify’s daily chart in the UK, Sweden and Norway has been uncovered as an AI hoax. The Velvet Sundown, who have 1.4 million monthly listeners, quickly reached No.1 on the streaming site after releasing their debut album Floating on Echoes, which listeners have likened to the folk-country of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Promo photos showed the band’s four “members” sporting denim jackets and long hair. But after weeks of speculation about the band’s origins, a statement was issued confirming that The Velvet Sundown was an AI creation, as part of an “ongoing artistic provocation”. One fan vowed to continue playing their music during his yoga sessions, praising their songs’ “emotional tone”.…

The East and West Midlands are officially in drought after the driest start to the year since 1976, joining Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, and Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside. Eight million people in England now face restrictions on water use, or will do so in the next week. Southern Water has become the latest utility to announce a hosepipe ban, affecting almost a million of its customers in parts of Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, from next Monday. Thames Water has announced a ban, beginning next week, for customers in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, most of Wiltshire and parts of Berkshire. Some farmers in East Anglia also face a ban on irrigating their crops.…

Chicago, Illinois Cartel boss plea deal: One of the sons of the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has agreed a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the US, in which he will receive a lighter sentence in return for cooperating with US authorities investigating the cartels. Ovidio Guzmán López and his brother Joaquín – known as “Los Chapitos” – allegedly took over the running of part of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel following their father’s capture in 2016. Ovidio, who was arrested in Mexico in 2023 and extradited to the US, pleaded guilty to drugs charges, money laundering and weapons offences. Prosecutors said that he had helped oversee the production and smuggling of cocaine and heroin, as well as “staggering” quantities of fentanyl. The terms of the deal have…

“A post on X/Twitter recently asked people what the British dream is, and received the usual ironic answers: ‘new trousers and a functional belt’; ‘no neighbours’; ‘chicken tikka masala’. But I think the real answer is revealed by The Salt Path controversy (see page 19). Surely the British dream is to watch middle-class people who have made a lot of money from looking earnest being exposed as (alleged) spongers and fantasists. And if some famous actors are taken in as well, even better. It’s a telling irony that a film about the scandal, ideally still starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, would do significantly better in British cinemas than the drippy film that actually got commissioned.” Sathnam Sanghera in The Times…

Directors getting fat on school dinners Will Dunn The New Statesman “Revolting.” That’s the verdict on the lunches at my local primary school, from pupils and teachers alike, says Will Dunn. A common lunchtime horror is a dish called “vegetable biscuit”: another, even more horrible offering, is one the pupils call “Bad Pie”. Of course, you can’t expect much when the Department for Education pays a meal rate of just £2.58 per pupil, but it’s when schools use contract caterers that the food gets really bad, since a chunk of that £2.58 is creamed off in dividends and salaries before it even reaches the plate. The highest-earning director of the company responsible for Bad Pie, for instance, was paid over £1m in 2023/24 – more than the entire amount the…

Human sex cells grown in a lab With Silicon Valley money pouring into the field, scientists are just a few years away from being able to produce human sex cells in the lab, reports The Guardian. This could allow much older women to have children, and enable same-sex couples, and those who are infertile, to have children that are biologically their own. It could also lead to “unibabies” (where the sperm and the egg are derived from the same parent) and “multiplex” babies (with genetic contributions from more than two people) – raising ethical and medical questions that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is starting to consider. Known as in-vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, this “genetic conjury” typically begins by reprogramming skin or blood cells into stem cells. The stem…

The journalist Rod Liddle had several run-ins with the late Lord Tebbit while editor of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “He considered us a nest of malevolent pinkoes,” says Liddle, and on one occasion, when Today was running a feature on religious belief among politicians, the programme contacted the former Tory minister to ask whether he believed in a literal hell. Tebbit replied: “Dear Liddle, I do not know if hell exists. But if it does, I trust that you will burn in it for eternity.” A feud has erupted between Paul Simon’s daughter Lulu and Richard Gere. Lulu Simon, 30, claims Gere sold her childhood home in Connecticut to developers who are going to knock it down, despite promising “to protect the land”. In a now-deleted Instagram post,…

Whitney Ainscough claims to make £500,000 a year through her social media posts, said Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph. She’s one of a new band of online “sickfluencers” who make a living out of instructing people how to game the welfare system. Statistics suggest they’re doing a roaring trade. Around 3,000 Britons a day are joining the list of those on long-term sickness benefits. The total number of claimants is forecast to soar from 3.5 million to 4.1 million by the end of this Parliament; the fastest rise has been among 16- to 25-year-olds. And in 2023 in Birmingham, fully a quarter of working-age adults were inactive. The problem can be traced back largely to lockdown, when many workers learnt how simple it was to make claims, and when…

The men’s final at Wimbledon on Sunday was the first since 2002 not to feature one of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Andy Murray, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. It offered further proof that tennis has shifted “into a new generation”. For the second time, the two best players in the world, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, faced each other in a grand slam final. Last month in Paris, Alcaraz, 22, inflicted a “brutal defeat” on his rival, recovering from triple-match point down to extend his winning run against him to five matches. Many players “would have taken years to recover” from such a loss, said Tumaini Carayol in The Guardian. But barely more than a month later, the 23-year-old Italian “turned the tables”, recovering from losing…

Tennis Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool became the first all-British pair to win the men’s Wimbledon doubles for 89 years, beating Rinky Hijikata and David Pel in the final. In the men’s wheelchair singles, Britain’s Alfie Hewett lost in three sets in the final to Japan’s Tokito Oda. Football The Lionesses qualified for the quarter-finals of the Euros with a 6-1 victory over Wales, and were due to play Sweden on Thursday. Cycling Irish cyclist Ben Healy led the Tour de France after the completion of Stage 10. Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar was in second place.…

A grape that’s “having a moment” is the white Iberian grape godello, says Victoria Moore in The Daily Telegraph. In the 1970s, it was on the verge of extinction, but a revival began in Valdeorras, a landlocked wine region in Spain’s northwest corner. And it is now increasingly grown in Portugal, where – confusingly – it is often called gouveio, or, more straightforwardly, godelho. With its “tantalising aromatics” of quince and orange blossom, and “rounded (but not heavy) feel”, it’s an excellent choice for your “summer fridge-door arsenal”. The best one I’ve tasted recently is the “glitteringly refreshing” Vinos de Altura Gancedo Godello 2024 (£17.75; Haynes Hanson & Clark). This wine is a “real joy”. But godellos are starting to appear on supermarket shelves too. Aldi has a (good) Spanish example…

Norman Tebbit 1931-2025 One of the defining politicians of his age, Norman Tebbit, who has died aged 94, was among Margaret Thatcher’s most steadfast supporters and acted as her cabinet enforcer. A self-made man who had grown up in a working-class suburb of north London, he helped draw millions of former Labour voters to the Thatcherite cause by championing the virtues of hard work, self-reliance and enterprise, while railing against everything from European federalism and unionism to the permissive society, said The Times. At a party conference in 1981, it was suggested that the Brixton riots might have been a reaction to unemployment. Tebbit replied that his father had been out of work in the 1930s. “He didn’t riot,” he said. “He got on his bike and looked for work.”…

Prime cuts Savills reports that central London prices have been falling consistently for several years, dropping almost 4% in the past year alone. In some areas, declines have been far more extreme. According to LonRes, prices in St John’s Wood, Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill have plummeted by 14.2% in a year. Coutts reports that “the level of discounting is at a five-year high”: 82% of homes in central London, valued from £1m-£10m, went for less than their asking price in Q1. Wealth exodus Areas formerly frequented by international residents are suffering a “glut” of empty houses. Twenty are up for sale in Chester Square, Belgravia, reports Charlie Ellingworth of Property Vision. Domestic bliss While central London is, at best, “treading water”, areas slightly further out – including Shepherd’s Bush…

The week’s best shares BNP Paribas The Daily Telegraph The French bank has retained its investment banking focus and is set to be a leading asset management player, via the AXA acquisition. Cost cuts and improved efficiencies should boost profits. Forward yield 7%. Buy. €74.88. Ceres Power Holdings The Mail on Sunday Ceres is a fuel-cell tech firm which develops cleaner, cheaper energy for data centres, homes and vehicles. Loss-making, and hit by Bosch exiting a deal, but cash-rich with royalty revenue coming soon. Buy. 98.5p. Currys Investors’ Chronicle Resilient demand has helped the once-struggling electronics retailer, which is offsetting rising costs via automation. Credit, repairs and connectivity services are boosting margins. Cashflow and profits are well up. Buy. 119p. Haleon The Daily Telegraph The Sensodyne and Panadol owner is…

What happened The Health Secretary Wes Streeting was due to hold talks with union leaders this week, in a bid to avert a fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors in England. Streeting said the planned five-day walkout by resident (formerly junior) doctors starting on 25 July – potentially the first of several – would be a “catastrophic mistake”. He added that advice from the British Medical Association (BMA) that doctors should not inform hospitals whether or not they planned to strike was “shockingly irresponsible”, and risked leaving wards dangerously under-staffed. BMA members had last week voted to strike in pursuit of a 29% pay rise the union says is needed to restore real-terms pay to pre-2008 levels. Resident doctors had been offered a 5.4% increase this year, on top…

Diplomacy, with confirmation that King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host Donald Trump for an unprecedented second state visit to the UK in September. The visit will involve a state banquet at Windsor – but with the House of Commons in recess, the US president will be unable to address Parliament. AI nerds, after former Apple engineer Ruoming Pang was lured to tech rival Meta with a $200m pay package (see page 37). Mark Zuckerberg’s company has reportedly poached several top engineers from competitors as part of the AI talent war – offering huge base salaries, shares and signing bonuses of up to $100m. Tree huggers, who have been encouraged to wrap their arms around a 6ft section of the Sycamore Gap tree trunk that has gone on public…

Just 26% of voters strongly approve of strikes by resident doctors – down from 52% a year ago. 43% think ministers are doing a bad job at negotiating with the trade unions. Ipsos/The Guardian The number of UK children using ChatGPT has almost doubled from 23% in 2023 to 43% this year. A third of children who have used AI chatbots said doing so felt like talking to a friend. Internet Matters Voters believe Nigel Farage outperforms Keir Starmer on almost every measure – except honesty. The Reform UK leader is seen as having more personality and being a stronger leader. But a third of respondents said Starmer was honest, compared with 29% for Farage. Ipsos…

How to give away a fortune In 2014, the British-born multimillionaire Carl Barney was on a flight when the plane nose-dived, says Deborah Linton in The Daily Telegraph. He thought, “I’m going to die”, and then he started to dwell on the will he had just updated, in which he bequeathed large sums to 20 friends, relatives and former employees who had in some way helped him make a success of his life (he has no children). “What a shame,” he mused. “I won’t be there to see their faces.” The crash he was braced for never came. But the moment stayed with him, and as a result, he decided not to wait until he died, and to give these gifts while he was still living. Over the next few…

A Bangladeshi woman faked a bomb threat, to stop her married son flying from Dhaka to Kathmandu with his girlfriend. The mother and the wife of a man named Imon made an anonymous call warning of a bomb on Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight BG-373 on 11 July. It was duly suspended, but “after three hours of searching, nothing was found”, said A.K.M. Shahidur Rahman of the anti-terror unit. “Such attempts should never be made in the future. If they are made, strict punishment will be imposed,” he warned. A fluorescent green pigeon that lives in Northampton town centre has become a tourist attraction, bringing in visitors from far and wide to see the unusually coloured bird. It is presumed to have been dyed or painted, either for a prank or…

BELGIUM The EU’s elected dictator Libération (Paris) Ursula von der Leyen “loves democracy”… but only for others, says Jean Quatremer. Since taking office in 2019, the EU Commission’s president has accrued “absolute power” by “presidentialising the executive branch”, showing zero tolerance for competition or contradiction and governing through “a tiny clan of loyalists”. Just look at the way she has approached the EU’s seven-year budget. It is due to be revealed this week, and yet the union’s 26 commissioners were given just days to review the proposal before it was expected to be approved. Likewise with the negotiations with the US over a possible trade deal that could help ease Donald Trump’s punishing 30% levy on EU imports. Those talks have been shrouded in secrecy, with von der Leyen sidelining…

“There have been many bizarre excuses for poor behaviour over the years,” said Kristina Murkett on UnHerd. Consider Dominic Cummings’s “trip to Barnard Castle for an eye test”, or the Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten’s claim that he used male prostitutes because he was so upset that he was balding. We can now add to this list Gregg Wallace, who was sacked from MasterChef by the BBC after 45 allegations against him were upheld – one of unwanted touching, three that he was in a state of undress, seven of bullying, along with a plethora of complaints that he had made sexualised and inappropriate remarks. Wallace has claimed that all of these resulted from a misunderstanding of his autism, and of his working-class ways. “I was hired by the BBC…

In the end, this “Lord’s epic” went England’s way “by the barest of margins”, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. Having set India a fourth-innings target of 193, England seemed firmly in control when they reduced the visitors to 112-8 before lunch on the final day. But India’s left-handed all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja then embarked on a remarkable “near five-hour rearguard”, scoring an unbeaten 61 from 181 balls. He lost Jasprit Bumrah on 147, but ploughed determinedly on, accompanied by the last man, Mohammed Siraj. With just 22 runs required, England got a “lucky break”: a ball from spinner Shoaib Bashir struck Siraj on the gloves, before trickling back onto the stumps. The win – the closest ever in terms of runs at Lord’s – puts England 2-1 up in the…

Who needs babies? To The Economist You highlighted the expensive cost and limited effectiveness of state-driven baby booms. But artificial intelligence is the elephant in the delivery room. The underlying assumption that ageing societies must increase births to sustain support ratios feels increasingly outdated. Advances in AI and automation are already transforming the relationship between productivity and population. In tomorrow’s economy, fewer humans may be required to generate the same or greater output. That challenges the notion that we need ever more workers to support ever more retirees. Oddly, you name Elon Musk as the “procreator-in-chief”, yet sidestep the world he is actually helping to build, where machines rather than people pick up the economic slack. If AI is truly the future, then the real question is how to distribute…

“Even the most hardcore Bardolator” would concede that The Merry Wives of Windsor is not one of Shakespeare’s better works, said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. It’s a daft, flawed, and “canonically illogical” spin-off from the Henry IV plays that gives the beloved character of Sir John Falstaff a brand new comic adventure – wooing the wealthy wives of Windsor in the hope of making some money. The play lacks the “pathos and grit of his original appearances”, and sidesteps the fact that Falstaff died 200 years before the manifestly “present day” action. Rather than try and “fix” any of this, Sean Holmes’s entertaining new staging leans strongly into the daftness, with a “relentless barrage of absurdist line deliveries and outlandish character interpretations”. It’s “pathologically silly”, but so long as…

Was it worth it, to buy “the Mona Lisa of It-bags”? Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin bag, scuffed and worn, sold for a record €8.6m at auction in Paris last week, said Harriet Walker in The Times. The auction was held during Paris Fashion Week. Experts thought bids might reach €1.5m, but nine bidders, rumoured to include Kim Kardashian and the Canadian rapper Drake, pushed the price to €7m plus a hefty buyer’s premium; the winning bid came from a private collector in Japan via telephone. When the hammer came down, the room “erupted into applause”. Birkin, the Anglo-French singer, actress and style icon, who died in 2023, “sketched a design for the bag on an aeroplane sick bag” while on a flight with Hermès’s then chief executive, Jean-Louis Dumas:…

Susan and Emma talk about George’s shock engagement to Amber, hoping she’ll change her mind. Amber talks to Emma about the wedding, revealing her parents know nothing about George. Emma suggests coming clean with them but regrets it later when Amber turns up asking to stay. As Martyn and BL board member Annabelle strategise about Justin’s rewilding plan, he asks her on a date, but she shuts things down. Finding Little Grange too small, Amber asks Clarrie if she can move into Grange Farm. Eddie has been making complaints at The Bull, but finally admits it’s been a test for a pub award he’s entered them into. Helping out with the haymaking, Amber impresses the Grundys; she’s delighted when it’s confirmed she can stay on, but Clarrie says it’s on…

Gravy goes gourmet Gravy may be a bedrock of British cuisine, but it has seldom featured on the menus of upmarket restaurants, says Clare Finney in The Guardian. Chefs have tended to shun this “ancient staple” in favour of “complex French sauces”. Yet that is changing: as a nostalgic wave sweeps Britain’s food scene, “gravy is going gourmet”. At Town, in central London, gravy is served with a hunk of potato sourdough as a snack. At the Michelin-starred Grantley Hall in Yorkshire, it is styled as “beef tea” and accompanies bread, bone-marrow butter and dripping. Hackney Gelato recently collaborated with KFC on a gravy gelato, which “sold out in days”. It seems appropriate that our chefs are finally embracing gravy, because as the food writer Pen Vogler points out in…

● If the temperature is above 25°C, walk your dog early or late: before 8am or after 8pm. Dogs overheat very quickly, and their paws can burn on hot surfaces. ● Make sure your dog has got plenty of water and somewhere cool to rest (in the shade if they are outside). Dogs may not eat as much, but will drink more when it’s hot. ● If your car doesn’t have air conditioning, don’t take dogs on long journeys, and of course never leave them in the car, even if the windows are open. ● To help keep them cool, try cool mats, putting ice in their water, or keeping toys stuffed with treats in the freezer. If you use cool vests or bandanas, be sure to remove them when…

Ferrero/Kellogg/Kraft Heinz: snackland reshuffle Fancy some Nutella on your cornflakes? It’s coming your way, said Lex in the FT. The Italian confectioner Ferrero has agreed to pay $3.1bn for WK Kellogg on the “contrarian bet that it can make cereal sexy”. It looks like a “challenging” move. Ferrero is paying a big premium for the company, whose racier snack division, Kellanova (purveyor of Pringles and Pop-Tarts), was sold to Mars last year for $36bn. Yet, strategically, there are good reasons for the deal. The privately held Ferrero, which also makes Kinder eggs and Ferrero Rocher pralines, “likes the idea of bulking up in North America” – a giant confectionery market. And it has a knack for “delivering innovative riffs” on key products. Given the “soggy state” of cereal consumption, it’s…

Trump is running rings round the EU… Mehreen Khan The Times “Donald Trump is treating the European Union like a plaything,” says Mehreen Khan: making repeated threats of tariffs against the bloc, moving deadlines and “throwing negotiations into turmoil at the drop of a Truth Social post”. In the latest skirmish, the president derailed tentative hopes of a “deal” by threatening a ruinous sweeping levy of 30% from 1 August – down from the 50% he threatened in May, but way above the 10% secured by the UK. Trump’s “capriciousness towards the Continent” reflects its weak negotiating position. Unlike China, which holds the whip hand on raw materials export licences, Europe “cannot easily weaponise Americans’ love for luxury clothing or German cars”, and is hampered by the reliance of economies…