Skip to main content
The Knowledge logo

23 February

In the headlines

Three men have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a top Northern Ireland policeman in Omagh last night, which investigators think may have been a targeted attack by dissident republicans. Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell is in a critical but stable condition in hospital. Thousands of asylum seekers will have their applications fast-tracked under new plans to deal with the 166,000-person waiting list. About 12,000 claimants, all from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Syria, will be assessed via a 10-page questionnaire rather than an interview. Robots will cut time wasted on household chores by 39% “within a decade”, according to researchers in Britain and Japan, by fully automating everyday tasks like ordering groceries and feeding pets. “If robots will take our jobs”, say the tech boffins, they can at least “also take out the trash for us”.

Gone viral

This video of the “via ferrata” at Mürren in Switzerland has racked up more than four million views on Twitter. Climbers are clipped on to a support cable at waist height, and walk along the cliffside on metal steps hammered (hopefully very carefully) into the stone. Many of these “iron paths” were originally built during the First World War, to help soldiers move across the mountains in extreme conditions. Watch the full clip here.

Noted

Britain’s finances have received an unexpected £30bn windfall, says the FT. In November, economists forecast that the government would borrow £177bn in the 2022-23 financial year, but now we’re on track for around 20% less. About a third of the saving comes from higher-than-expected tax revenues; a little under a third from local authorities and nationalised industries needing less money; and the rest from lower-than-anticipated subsidies for energy bills, thanks to gas prices falling. It’s a “double-edged sword” for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt: he has more wiggle room on tax and spending, but “can no longer say there is no spare cash available”.

Film

One of the most memorable film award gaffes was at the 1934 Oscars, says Patrick Kidd in The Times. When host Will Rogers opened the envelope to see that his friend Frank Lloyd had won best director, he just said: “Come up and get it, Frank.” Problem was, Frank Capra had also been nominated. As the two Franks made their way to the stage, the spotlight settled on Lloyd. “I stood in the dark in utter disbelief,” Capra later recalled, “until an irate voice shouted, ‘Down in the front!’”

On the money

A sealed, first-generation iPhone from 2007 has fetched a record $63,356 at auction, more than 105 times its original $599 retail price. The device’s previous owner, Karen Green, was given it as a gift, but didn’t open the box because she already had another phone. After wrapping it up in a pair of pyjamas to avoid any knocks, she stowed it away – until years later she read about a similar gadget listed for $10,000 on eBay. “I called my son,” she tells Insider, “and I was like: ‘Go get that phone, and make sure it’s not opened.’”

Noted

London has the worst traffic of any city centre in the world, according to the GPS maker TomTom. Data from the company’s devices found that it took an average of 36 minutes and 20 seconds to travel 10km in the capital last year. In a distant second is the chaotic Indian metropolis Bangalore, where you typically cover the same distance in a mere 29 mins and 10 seconds – though TomTom doesn’t specify whether you get there in one piece. See the full rankings here.

Noted

London has the worst traffic of any city centre in the world, according to the GPS maker TomTom. Data from the company’s devices found that it took an average of 36 minutes and 20 seconds to travel 10km in the capital last year. In a distant second is the chaotic Indian metropolis Bangalore, where you typically cover the same distance in a mere 29 mins and 10 seconds – though TomTom doesn’t specify whether you get there in one piece. See the full rankings here.

Snapshot

It’s a pair of £570 JW Anderson suede slippers, as worn by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty on the school run. Given the Indian heiress and former fashion designer holds £430m in shares in her family’s IT business, the blingy footwear “hardly broke the bank”, says Amy Watkins in the Evening Standard. “Expect plenty more off-duty looks from the UK’s first lady.”

Quoted

Quoted 23.2.23

“All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening.”

American journalist Alexander Woollcott