Hero
Convicted fraudster Billy McFarland, who has learned the virtue of persistence. McFarland spent four years in a US prison after organising the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017, which promised a luxurious jolly on a Caribbean island but ended up housing attendees in disaster relief tents. A sequel has now been announced and 100 tickets have already been sold, despite the event having no confirmed location. “It has been the absolute wildest journey to get here,” McFarland said in a recent video. “And it really all started during the seven-month stint in solitary confinement.”
Villain
The blue crab, which is marauding across Italy. It arrived from America in the 1940s, but the population has “exploded” recently, says Nicholas Farrell in The Spectator. The granchio blu has been attacking children and seagulls, and its voracious appetite for clams is threatening the supply of the country’s much-loved spaghetti alle vongole. One upside is that the crab itself tastes like lobster for a third of the price. However, to reduce numbers to manageable levels would require “colossal” consumption.
Villain
The conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner, whose conduct away from the baton is seemingly not up to scratch. Gardiner, 80, has withdrawn from a scheduled performance in September after being accused of punching and slapping a singer, William Thomas, who apparently arrived on stage from the wrong direction during a concert in France on Tuesday. The conductor allegedly confronted Thomas afterwards and called him a “dozy bastard”.
Villain
Visitors to St Stephen’s church in Ipswich, who are using the medieval graveyard for activities rather more earthy than quiet contemplation. According to Suffolk police, the raised tombstones have become a “convenient platform for al fresco sex”, says The Times, or are used as tables for drinking and drug-taking. Railings might be installed to discourage procreation in the home of the dead.