Table of contents for 1552 in The Week

Jeremy Clarkson, after his Diddly Squat Farm was hit by an outbreak of bovine TB. It means that it will be locked down for at least two months, until his herd can be tested again. The affected cattle will have to be culled. “Everyone is devastated,” said Clarkson. Bovine TB can be spread to cattle by badgers, and though the extent to which this happens is disputed, Clarkson has previously blamed badgers for “wiping out” farms. The Edinburgh Fringe, which was forced to cancel several shows as Storm Floris wrought havoc across Scotland and northern England. Winds reached 134mph in parts of the Highlands, disrupting power supplies to thousands of homes; rail travel was severely disrupted and dozens of flights were cancelled. Whitehall, which is losing four million working days…

Berlin Asylum numbers: The number of people applying for asylum in Germany in the first half of this year has fallen to less than half what it was for the same period last year – from 140,783 to 70,011. A major reason is the introduction of tough new border controls introduced by the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose centre-right CDU/CSU bloc has been under intense pressure to counter the growing popularity of the far-right AfD. The controversial controls, which permit the turning away of asylum seekers without valid entry documents, are widely seen as undermining the Schengen rules of the EU’s visa-free travel zone. Geneva, Switzerland Plastic pollution talks: Delegates from 184 nations have gathered at the UN in Geneva for the last round of talks on a global…

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the comedian Harry Hill 1 Ernie (The Fastest milkman in the West), written and performed by Benny Hill 2 Have I the Right by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, performed by The Honeycombs 3 Grandad’s Flannelette Nightshirt by Eddie Latta and George Formby, performed by George Formby 4 Gay Bar by Tyler Spencer, performed by Electric Six 5 Life During Wartime by David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth, performed by Talking Heads 6 Hey Bulldog by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles 7* Never Give Up on Love (demo) by Steve Brown, performed by Steve Brown 8 Life is the Name of the Game, written and performed by Bruce Forsyth Book: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Luxury: a bucket and spade *…

“My God, what have we done?” wrote Enola Gay’s co-pilot Robert Lewis in a log composed while flying back from Hiroshima. His sense of a foreboding at the scale of the destruction was widely shared. However, for many years, in the US and Britain, Truman’s justification for dropping the bombs – “to end the War quickly and save countless lives” – was accepted almost without question. Most of America’s political and military leadership shared his view. In May 1945, the Interim Committee, which guided nuclear policy, had concluded by consensus (though one member later dissented) “that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible; that it be used on a war plant surrounded by workers’ homes; and that it be used without prior warning”. The US was,…

Cheer up: we can save the world if we try David Von Drehle The Washington Post Don’t succumb to despair on climate change, says David Von Drehle. A transition away from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other renewables “is not only possible” – around the world it’s actually happening. The European Union just reported that in June, three-quarters of its electricity came from non-fossil fuel sources, with solar energy – its single biggest power source – providing about 22% of it. And China even put its “CO2 emissions into reverse” in early 2025, as its massive investment in wind, solar and nuclear energy has managed to reduce its dependence on coal and oil. And America? Despite the Trump administration’s “hostility” to wind and solar, the US too has taken…

Is the amount of plastic accumulating in our bodies harmful? The verdict is still out, says researcher Tracey Woodruff in The Washington Post, but enough studies have linked it to heart disease and dementia, among other conditions, to take the possibility seriously. Here are some steps you could take to limit your consumption. Packaged and ultra-processed foods contain relatively high levels of microplastics, so avoid them. It’s OK to store food in plastic containers – but never heat these containers in the microwave: this will release a lot of plastic into the food. Plastic leaches into water, so don’t use plastic water bottles. Avoid black plastic cooking utensils, and use metal or wooden ones instead. Eat from lower in the food chain – so more plants and less red meat…

“The road to online hell is paved with good intentions,” said Melisa Tourt in The Critic – as we’re discovering, now that the Online Safety Act is coming into force. This legislation was conceived with the noble aim of protecting children from pornography and other harmful material online. But the immediate effect of the sprawling “Online Surveillance Act”, as it has been dubbed, has been to “smother the internet under a morass of bureaucratic fear”, said Sean Thomas in The Spectator. The act requires platforms hosting content that could cause harm to children to introduce age-verification checks for its users; and it grants Ofcom the power to fine them up to 10% of their global revenues if they don’t. But what counts as harmful? The act’s definition is vague. So,…

“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”Christopher Hitchens, quoted in Current Affairs “Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.”Jules Feiffer, quoted in The i Paper “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”Harper Lee, quoted in The Wall Street Journal “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”H.L. Mencken, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are.”Will Ferrell, quoted in The New York Times “Like so many members of the Baby Boom generation, I started out as a baby.”Dave Barry, quoted on The Hippo “Humour can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing…

Rugby union Australia beat the British and Irish Lions 22-12 in the third Test. The Lions won the series 2-1. Tennis Emma Raducanu, the British No. 1, has added Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francisco Roig to her team. Football Liverpool’s 16-year-old winger, Rio Ngumoha, scored after two minutes as the Reds beat Athletic Bilbao 4-1 in a pre-season friendly. Cycling Pauline Ferrand-Prévot became the first French rider to win the Tour de France Femmes. The Netherlands’ Demi Vollering came second.…

King of Kings by Scott Anderson Hutchinson Heinemann 512pp £25 The Week Bookshop £22.99 (incl. p&p) The Islamic Revolution of 1979, which toppled Iran’s Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was one of the most significant political events of the past 50 years, said Charlie Gammell in the FT. It transformed Iran from a “hyper-rich, secular-leaning” kingdom “allied to the West” into the “dour, repressive Islamist autocracy we know today”. And as well as reshaping the Middle East, it ultimately brought “politically motivated Islamist violence to all our streets”. How strange, then, that “no one in power saw it coming until it was too late”: not the CIA, not US president Jimmy Carter (who in 1977 praised Iran as an “island of stability”), and certainly not the Shah himself. In this “brilliant”…

Nardini Cafe in Largs, North Ayrshire has been serving ice cream made with Scottish milk and cream since 1935 (nardinis.co.uk). Equally nostalgic, Rossi’s Ices on the beach in Weymouth, Dorset has been run by the same family since 1937. Try their famous banana split (rossisweymouth.com). Another family joint, Jelbert’s in Newlyn, Cornwall serves just one flavour: traditional Cornish vanilla, with a dollop of clotted cream and a Flake (@jelbertsicecream). One of the grandest gelaterias, the art deco Morelli’s Gelato in Broadstairs, Kent has a great choice of flavours. There’s a branch in Whitstable too (morellisgelato.com). Verdi’s, an Italian parlour on the Mumbles quayside, Swansea, has up to 30 flavours and fine sunset views (verdis-cafe.co.uk). A classic seaside parlour, Harris & James in Aldeburgh, Suffolk has some quirky flavours including Jaffa…

Osip South Brewham, Somerset “Field-to-plate” restaurant Osip was one of the main attractions in trendy Bruton until last August, when it moved to the quieter village of South Brewham nearby, Its new home is within a 17th century coaching inn that has been revamped in a “beguiling” minimalist style, says Susan d’Arcy in The Times. Chef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s ten-course tasting menus are “heavenly” – love letters “to the local landscape” for which he thoroughly deserves his Michelin star. And the four bedrooms are “airy and light-filled”. Only one gripe: with boiled eggs as the only cooked option, breakfast is a bit too minimalist. Doubles from £240 b&b; osiprestaurant.com.…

After its lengthy pummelling at the hands of cyberhackers, the last thing M&S needed was to be plunged into the gender wars. But the retailer is in the cross-hairs of J.K. Rowling, who is calling for “a boycott” if it continues to allow transgender women to access its female changing rooms, said The Daily Telegraph. The Harry Potter author spoke out after a customer complained that a trans employee had asked her teenage daughter if she needed any help in the bra section. “It’s time for women to vote with their wallets,” she wrote on X/Twitter. Will they, though? Investors seem unworried. Shares, down 13% so far this year, barely budged.…

AI for the masses is the promise of a new wave of startups which empower non-techies to create apps without writing code, said Kolawole Samuel Adebayo on Forbes. They are dubbed “vibe coders”, a term coined by AI guru Andrej Karpathy, who describes the process as just speaking ideas. “You fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials and forget that the code even exists.” This is “democratising entrepreneurship” – and the numbers are very real. Lovable Sweden’s AI unicorn “has become the fastest-growing software startup in history”, said Forbes, reaching $100m in subscription revenue (on an annualised basis) in just eight months. In June alone, it spawned some 750,000 projects. Valued at $1.8bn in a recent $200m funding round. Anysphere Co-founded by four MIT friends in 2022, the company…

The week’s best shares Amcomri Group The Mail on Sunday This buyer of distressed engineering businesses now comprises 14 firms providing essential kit and maintenance to industrial customers. With engineers in short supply, strong and sustained growth is expected: profits should rise 35% this year. Buy. 120p. Burberry Group The Daily Telegraph After a “terribly difficult” two years, the worst may be behind the British fashion icon, early into its turnaround plan. Shares are up 85% in a year. Momentum may yet reward patient investors. Buy. £13.72. Focusrite The Mail on Sunday This resilient audio kit specialist makes everything from massive outdoor sound systems to recording devices used by podcasters. New products and upgraded technology should drive sales and profits. Buy. 153p. Mercantile Investment Trust The Daily Telegraph Looser monetary…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1477 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 18 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1477, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 7 A party vote below average is an apparent absurdity (7) 8 Penny, single lass from Irish county (7) 10 Pass on what could be heard as Indian regional scandal! (8) 11 Student doesn’t start as breadwinner (6) 12 Contest in which the toss takes place after the start? (7,4) 15 Regularly aberrant child? (4)…

Recognising Palestine: an empty gesture? Almost two years into a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives and caused “apocalyptic” devastation in Gaza, Western nations have decided that the time is ripe for a “pointless” gesture, said Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in The Guardian. President Macron initiated it at the end of last month by declaring that France would formally recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN general assembly in September, joining the 147 other countries that already do so. Keir Starmer swiftly announced that Britain would do the same unless Israel allowed more aid into Gaza, committed not to annex the West Bank and agreed to a ceasefire. Canada then declared its intent to follow suit. Israel angrily dismissed the announcements, saying that they only rewarded Hamas…

Keir Starmer told his biographer that as a child, he didn’t like his first name – apparently given to him in honour of Labour co-founder Keir Hardie; and it seems he has now put other people off it. Last year, no child was named Keir in England and Wales for the first time in three decades. At the name’s peak, in 1998, there were 70 baby Keirs. By contrast, Nigel – which is very rare, with zero recorded in three of the last ten years – may be experiencing a mild resurgence: five were registered in 2024. More A-level students are taking PE than French, German and classical languages combined, according to a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute. In poorer areas, only 47% of pupils study a language…

People who promote small boat crossings on social media will face up to five years in jail, the Government has announced. It is already a crime to facilitate illegal migration. The amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill expands that, by making it illegal to create for publication online material that promotes or facilitates illegal migration. As part of its efforts to “smash the gangs”, the Government has also promised to spend an extra £100m on border security. Some of this will support the trial of a “one-in, one-out” migrant deal with France, which has now come into force. The Home Office says it will initially apply to about 50 asylum seekers a week. So far, 25,436 migrants have made the crossing this year – up 51% on…

New dual carriageways The A9 is a notoriously annoying road to drive, though it is far better than it was when I was a child. Furious queues [of cars] would accumulate behind caravans and lorries for a hundred miles in the days when it had no dualled sections. I know a proper widening [between Perth and Inverness] is long overdue… But I also can’t help imagining the Highlands when they were bisected by nothing but a quiet lane, when birdsong sounded louder than the throaty hiss of incessant traffic. How long before we get another lane, and another? Or will population decline arrive before the inexhaustible fleets of caravans and cyclists?” Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph…

Put the blame on Labour, not ChatGPT Matthew Lynn The Daily Telegraph If you graduated from university this summer, you might want to consider becoming a sewage worker, says Matthew Lynn. A new study by Microsoft argues that this is one of the jobs where you’re least likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence. It’s one of many studies suggesting that the rise of AI is behind a collapse in graduate recruitment. And the picture is grim all right. The number of entry-level UK jobs is down a third on the level three years ago, before the release of ChatGPT; new figures show 630,000 graduates are on benefits. But don’t blame it on AI. Yes, over time it’s likely to transform the labour market and eliminate stacks of jobs, but…

What the scientists are saying… Neanderthals feasted on maggots There has long been a view that Eurasian Neanderthals were “hypercarnivores” – mainly eating only meat, like wolves and hyenas. This theory was based on studies showing that their bones contained very high levels of nitrogen-15 (N-15), an isotope, which is often used to gauge where animals sit in the food chain. Neanderthals had similar or higher levels of N-15 than apex predators. But some scientists argued that it’s not possible for Hominini to thrive exclusively on protein – and that the nitrogen must’ve come from some other source. Now a team thinks they have identified that source: maggots. Though modern Europeans are repulsed by maggots, their ancestors would have often consumed the larvae, either accidentally or out of necessity; and…

Does Kemi Badenoch rely on self-help mantras to help her appear unflappable in public? A private notebook, left at the Dorchester Hotel and containing notes written in what looks like her handwriting, would suggest so, says The New Statesman. One section is headed “Personal Improvement”, and contains the mantras: “Remember you are the standard bearer of the right”, and “You are a serious person who does big things”. It also advises: “Breathe, breathe, breathe”, for public speaking, and “Don’t let people think you are easily wound up.” Prince Andrew is facing yet another round of negative headlines, owing to a damning new biography that depicts him as entitled, avaricious, rude and oafishly susceptible to exploitation. The Duke of York could be “unbelievably cruel” to employees, claims historian Andrew Lownie in…

Cricket: India’s “gut-twisting” victory in a Test for the ages In the history of Test cricket, has there ever been a crazier hour of play, asked Ali Martin in The Guardian. “A series that seemed to have it all saved its best for last” at the Oval on Monday, as the fifth-day crowd were treated to a “mini-session of unrivalled gut-twisting, tortuous drama that instantly made this fifth Test an all-time classic”. It began with England needing 35 more runs to chase down a target of 374 – which would have given them a 3-1 series victory. India, meanwhile, needed four wickets to win the match and draw the series. And to ramp up the drama further, one of England’s remaining batsmen was Chris Woakes, who’d dislocated his shoulder on…

Recognising a state… To The Guardian I’m puzzled by the conditions Keir Starmer has set for Israel to meet, failing which he’ll recognise Palestine as a state. Why does recognition depend on Israel’s actions? Surely it should depend on Palestine’s: commitments to abjure terrorism, disarm Hamas, hold democratic elections and, of course, to release the hostages. As for Israel, the UK should impose draconian sanctions: if Israel continues to act like a pariah state, let it be treated as one. Without sanctions, there would probably still be an apartheid regime in South Africa. We must act now, not half-heartedly in September; thousands of children in Gaza can’t wait until then. Doug Maughan, Dunblane, Perthshire …without known borders… To The Times Those who object to the recognition of a Palestinian state…

We Brits don’t think of ourselves as susceptible to religious cults, said Ben Dowell in The Times. But this harrowing BBC2 documentary serves to shatter that complacency. Its focus is the Jesus Army, a sect established in Northamptonshire in 1969 by a charismatic preacher named Noel Stanton. Hundreds of people flocked to hear his sermons, and many gave up their livelihoods and possessions to join his “evangelical rural community”. Stanton, however, exploited rather than helped his followers, many of whom were young or otherwise vulnerable. He subjected them to an “increasingly doctrinaire” set of rules and punishments, based on strictly patriarchal values, and initiated a horrifying culture of ritualised sexual abuse. As early as 1978, a cult member who’d been punished for reading books was found dead on a nearby…

When Baron de Dozsa bought a “charming” Madonna and child painting 52 years ago, “he could never have imagined the unholy row the purchase would cause”, says The Times. Dozsa bought the early-16th century work by Antonio Solario in good faith in 1973, and displayed it in his Tudor manor in Norfolk. Months before, though, it had been stolen from a museum in Belluno, northern Italy. In 2017, after the baron’s death, his ex-wife, Barbara de Dozsa, tried to sell it; Christopher Marinello, an Italian art lawyer, identified it as a stolen artwork, and claimed it on behalf of the museum. She refused to hand it back, citing the Limitation Act 1980, which allows a person who owns stolen goods but was unconnected to the theft to be recognised as…

After challenging Brian on what he’s done to stop Justin’s plan, Adam calls a family meeting about Home Farm’s future. Terry the builder finds dry rot in the Shop, meaning it’ll have to close for a few weeks; Susan’s afraid customers won’t return. As they discuss the rewilding debacle, Brian asks Alice if she’d ever consider running Home Farm. There’s relief for Kenton and Jolene when Mia and Ed discover incriminating drone footage of the fire at The Bull – it should put Markie away again. Loyal customers show up to help Susan clear out the Shop. Mia tells Brad about her new uni boyfriend, forgetting it’s Brad’s birthday. George tries to console Brad and asks him to be his best man. At the hospital, Chris delivers some home truths…

Updown Updown Road, Betteshanger, Kent (07842-244192) Nestling in woods near Deal in Kent, Updown is a restaurant-with-rooms that puts “many other such offerings in the shade”, says William Sitwell in The Daily Telegraph. Run by husband-and-wife team Ruth Leigh and Oli Brown, it is “magical” in every respect, from the pretty, lightly tended gardens to the ramshackle dining room housed in an outbuilding, with its chequered floor, exposed timbers and vines that “dangle from the ceiling”. Brown is someone you can “trust at the stove. The lunch he cooked on my visit was magnificent.” A pizzetta of “melting taleggio” with girolle mushrooms and rosemary was a “blissful collision of Italy and England”. The same was true of my main: chump of lamb with peas, broad beans and asparagus, bathed in a…

Why cut rates when inflation is high? David Smith The Sunday Times The Bank of England was widely expected to cut interest rates this week, with most predicting a quarter-point cut to 4%. This would mark the fifth downward move since the monetary policy committee began reducing rates a year ago. But there’s “something different” about the situation now, says David Smith. Inflation, which is currently at 3.6% (way above target), is “significantly higher than when the Bank undertook other recent rate cuts”. And although the economy has been growing only weakly, “there is no sign of an imminent recession”. So why would it reduce rates again? The simple answer is that the Bank “must look forward, not back”. The rate-cutters argue that “signs of disinflationary pressures from the labour…

Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to fully reoccupy the Gaza Strip, according to reports in the Israeli media. The Israeli PM is said to be determined to resume full control of the enclave, despite opposition from the chief of staff of his country’s armed forces. He views it as the only means to achieve Israel’s central war aim, said Dov Lieber in The Wall Street Journal – the “total defeat” of Hamas. But his critics say that Israel should focus on securing a ceasefire which would free the 20 or so living hostages still held by Hamas, and on easing Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, which has left Israel isolated abroad. Reoccupation isn’t yet “formal policy” of the Israeli government, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator: it still has to be approved by…

GB News, with figures showing that four years after its launch, it has overtaken BBC News as Britain’s most-watched news channel. It claims to have attracted an average of 80,600 viewers across each day in July, compared with 78,700 for BBC News. The official ratings agency Barb has yet to confirm the data. Gary Lineker, who may be about to make his primetime TV comeback. Sources say he has been lined up to present The Box, a new ITV gameshow in which celebrities take on daring challenges.…

Fewer than a third (29%) of voters would back leaving the EU if the Brexit referendum were held again. Among Tory and Reform UK voters, that rises to 52% and 68% respectively. Of all voters, 49% think there should be a referendum on rejoining within five years. More in Common/The Times Reform now has a nine-point lead over Labour. Support for Reform has risen two points since June to 32%, while Labour has dropped four points to 23%. BMG Research/The i Paper 45% of Britons – including 27% of Labour and Lib Dem voters – would support admitting no new migrants and requiring large numbers of more recent arrivals to leave. YouGov/The Times…

Leaving the party As the child of two Hollywood icons, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis has been an insider since birth. Yet she seems to have operated outside her industry’s usual rules, says Emma Brockes in The Guardian. In particular, she has tried to fight back against Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards – a crusade she attributes to seeing what happened to her parents’ careers as they got older. “I witnessed [them] lose the very thing that gave them their fame and their life and their livelihood, when the industry rejected them at a certain age,” she says. “I watched them reach incredible success and then have it slowly erode to where it was gone. And that’s very painful.” To avoid that fate, “I have been self-retiring for…

The atomic bombings Eighty years ago, the US detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki What were the origins of the bomb? Nuclear fission – the splitting of an atom of a heavy element, releasing vast amounts of energy – was discovered at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin in 1938. News soon spread of its vast potential. In March 1940, two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham, Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch, issued a memorandum to the UK government, predicting that an airborne atomic “super-bomb” capable of destroying “the centre of a big city” could be created. It was vital, they warned, to beat the Nazis to its development. The British nuclear programme – codenamed Tube Alloys – started in 1941,…

An Argentinian man who was caught naked by a Google Street View camera has been awarded £9,000 in compensation for having his bottom plastered all over the internet. The police officer said he’d been in his garden, behind a six-and-a-half-foot wall, when the van carrying the camera drove past. A lower court decreed that he was to blame, for walking around in “inappropriate conditions”, but that was overturned on appeal. Horrifying pictures emerged this week of a record-breaking “mega-rat” that had been nesting in a house in North Yorkshire. The bulky-looking rodent – dubbed the Giant Rat of Normanby – measured 22 inches from nose to tail, making it a full inch longer than the Dorset mega-rat of 2018. Some have blamed more rubbish on the streets, and cuts to…

ROMANIA Whitewashing the heart of darkness Evenimentul Zilei (Bucharest) How quickly people forget the horrors of yesteryear, says Dan Andronic. Look at us Romanians. For decades we suffered under the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: a tyrant who used his feared secret police to keep us silent; a kleptocrat who exported Romania’s scarce crops to get foreign exchange for his cronies, leaving the country desperately short of food. His rule was so brutal, a mob tried to lynch him after he was toppled: he was executed on Christmas Day 1989. Yet astonishingly, a new poll finds that 66% of Romanians believe he was a good leader and his reign was beneficial. The scribes of the liberal intelligentsia are so appalled by this, they can only explain it to themselves as the…

“You know what would make this world a better place? More pornography.” No sensible person has ever said that, yet every day, more pornography – more women encouraging men to use them like “old dishrags” – is what we get, said Hadley Freeman in The Sunday Times. Sometimes, there are “small panics” about this. Last week, Channel 4 caused a stir with its documentary about Bonnie Blue, a 26-year-old who has won a huge following by posting clips of her extreme pornographic stunts. It focuses on one last year, in which she supposedly had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours. This is “squalid”, “end of days stuff”, said Carol Midgley in The Times. We saw Blue (real name Tia Billinger) inviting men to “treat me like your slut”, and…

“When Lando Norris slipped from third to fifth at the first corner of the Hungarian Grand Prix, it felt like a familiar story,” said Luke Slater in The Daily Telegraph. The British driver’s season, while full of successes, has been bedevilled by a series of “small but significant mistakes”, which help explain why he headed into Sunday’s race trailing his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by 16 points. As he struggled to regain the lost ground, it “must have felt like another race was slipping away”. Yet against the odds, the 25-year-old recovered and went on to complete the ninth – and arguably finest – grand prix victory of his career, said Molly Hudson in The Times. He was helped by McLaren changing his strategy midway through the race: with Norris…

To The Times I share your concern at the Government’s proposals [that civil service internships be restricted to those from working-class backgrounds]. After 34 years as a civil servant, working in the diplomatic service and home civil service, I was impressed by the meritocratic nature of these great public institutions. There was a tendency to recruit to type, while the reputation of some departments, especially the Foreign Office, may have discouraged some from applying. But overall I felt I worked in a very meritocratic system. I hope there was no discrimination, either for or against, my background: my father left school at 14 and never attained professional qualifications, while I attended a grammar school and then a red-brick provincial university. I was flattered and surprised when my application to join…

Exhibition of the week Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (0131-6246200, nationalgalleries.org). Until 2 November Andy Goldsworthy has been making art for 50 years, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. He identifies the “magical” qualities of the natural world and fashions “delightful” works from the simplest of materials: rocks, leaves, mud, twigs. He is “imaginative, inventive, poetic, hard-working, big-hearted and brave”, a creator of often monumental pieces responding to the natural landscapes that inspire him. I love him and so does the general public – yet for some reason, he has never been given full credit by the art establishment. Goldsworthy’s work is simply too “easy to love”, too rural and too popular to be fashionable; and its apparent simplicity is misinterpreted as a lack of profundity.…

Best books… Merryn Somerset Webb The financial columnist and commentator chooses books that explain how the world works. She is at the Edinburgh Fringe with The Butcher, The Brewer, The Baker and Merryn Somerset Webb on 22 August (edfringe.com) Captives and Companions by Justin Marozzi, 2025 (Allen Lane £35). A timely – and riveting – reminder in an age of binary thinking that the history of slavery is far wider than the Atlantic trade. Marozzi takes us from the multi-century trade across the Sahara to slave raids on the Cornish coast in the 1600s, and confirms that – albeit “more covertly” – this nasty system continues today. Revolutionary Spring by Christopher Clark, 2023 (Penguin £18.99). In 1848, revolution – driven by political and financial inequality – spread across Europe. In the…

Programmes Ridley Adrian Dunbar returns for a second series as the eponymous retired detective. Sun 10 Aug, ITV1 20:00 (120mins). Titanic: Secrets of the Shipwreck Forty years since the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic, this two-part documentary looks back at the missions in search of the sunken liner. Sun 10 Aug, C4 20:00 (60mins). Promethea The latest from Walter Presents is a French supernatural drama: after being hit by a car, a teenage girl starts to have disturbing visions linked to a recent unsolved murder. Sun 10 Aug, C4 23:55 (60mins). In Flight New crime thriller. A flight attendant gets drawn into a web of blackmail and corruption when her son is imprisoned in Bulgaria for a murder he swears he didn’t commit. Tue 12-Thur 14 Aug, C4 21:00…

Tahini sauces are wonderful for adding creaminess to dishes without the need for dairy, says Yasmin Khan. Here, broccoli florets and radishes are first roasted and then dressed with a curry-spiced tahini dressing and served on a bed of lentils. Giving exact measurements for tahini dressings can be tricky as each brand varies so much in thickness (and on how long you’ve had the jar open), so use the quantity below as a guide and add a touch more water or lemon to loosen, or extra tahini to thicken. Serves 4 to 6 as part of a mezze For the roasted vegetables: 700g broccoli (about 2 crowns) 140g radishes (about 16 small red round ones) 2 tbsp vegetable oil salt For the lentils: 240g Puy lentils 600ml just-boiled water 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive…

Administrators share their efficiency hacks ● Plan your day first thing, allowing 20% of the time for unexpected interruptions. Make a list of the things that must be done today. ● “Eat the frog first” – start with your most tedious task and get it out of the way. ● Use calendar notifications a few days before a meeting or an event to ensure you prepare and avoid last-minute stress. ● Embrace the “four Ds”: Do what you need to now; Defer things onto your to-do list for later; Delegate tasks if you can; and Delete what you don’t need or have done. ● AI assistants such as Copilot and ChatGPT are great time-saving tools. Use them to create summaries or presentations. ● If you are easily distracted by it,…

Dylan Field The founder of Figma – the San Francisco design software company that has just enjoyed a storming Wall Street debut – has every reason to be wary of UK competition regulators; as noted by Jordan Novet on CNBC, they scuppered his $20bn deal to sell to its larger rival Adobe in 2022. Yet three years on, Dylan Field must be glad that he had that setback. Figma’s stock more than trebled on launching, valuing his stake at $6.6bn. Even after a corrective 27% plunge, the company is still worth almost triple what Adobe offered. It seems this couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Mike Gibson of venture firm 1517 Fund describes Field, 33, as “the anti-Steve Jobs”: the opposite of a “hard-charging a**hole”. A boy genius (“He’s…

1 The pH range of the human body is: a) 2.35-4.45 b) 5.35-6.45 c) 7.35-7.45 d) 8.35-9.45 2 Pick the odd one out: a) MNKL b) IJGH c) EFCD d) OPQR 3 Two taps can fill a cistern in 2 hours and 54 hours respectively. A third tap can empty it in 54 hours. How long (in hours) will it take to fill the empty cistern if all of them are opened together? a) 5 b) 4 c) 3 d) 2 4 Komal invested a sum of 5,000 rupees at 20% per annum compound interested, compounded annually. If she received an amount of 8,640 rupees after n years, the value of n is: a) 4 b) 3.5 c) 3 d) 2.5 5 Which is the largest bauxite-producing state of India?…