Hero
Laura Trevelyan, the BBC reporter who has donated £100,000 to a community project in Grenada, where her rich ancestors once owned sugar plantations. It might not be enough, says Giles Coren in The Times: “the Irish have come to her for a piece of the action, too”, given her great-great-great-great-grandfather was in charge of famine relief during the 1840s potato blight. And as a Jew, I would be willing to bet “old man Trevelyan” was a bit of an antisemite. If you’re writing cheques, Laura, “I’ll take ten large to keep this under my hat”.
Villain
Masculinity, which could cause car crashes. “Speed, alcohol, drugs, fatigue… what if we need to add masculinity?” asks a new French road safety advert, which tries to address the reckless driving spurred on by the fragile male ego. It might have a point: last year in France, 84% of those suspected to have caused road accidents were men, as were 93% of drunk drivers involved in a collision.
Hero
Anna Taylor, a “diversity, equity and inclusion champion” in the US, who is valiantly trying to improve our discourse with a list of words and phrases to avoid because they are “violent”. She suggests replacing “jump the gun” with “start too soon”, “deadline” with “due date” and “shot in the dark” with “a guess”. Alas, some of her suggestions are more problematic than the originals, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. Replacing “pull the trigger” with “launch” for example. “‘Launch’ is what missiles do. And missiles are even more dangerous than guns.”
Villain
Fifa, which is reportedly considering an interesting choice of sponsor for the 2023 Women’s World Cup: Visit Saudi, the tourism arm of a country where women couldn’t legally drive until 2018. As American star striker Alex Morgan said this week: “It just doesn’t make sense.” The tournament’s hosts, Australia and New Zealand, aren’t happy either.