6 March - The Knowledge

In the headlines

Asylum seekers who arrive on small boats will be removed from the UK and prohibited from returning or claiming citizenship, under new laws to be laid out tomorrow. The bill would introduce powers to detain Channel migrants and fly them to Rwanda or another “safe third country” as soon as “reasonably practicable”. Boris Johnson has nominated his father Stanley for a knighthood in his resignation honours list, says The Times. The 82-year-old is among as many as 100 people nominated by the former PM – around 40 more than were picked by David Cameron or Theresa May. Toblerone is axing the Matterhorn mountain peak from its packaging. Plans to move some production to Slovakia mean the confectionary will no longer be legally “Swiss enough” to use the national symbol, says The Sun. It’s the “height of stupidity”.

Drinking

In the summer of 1955, says Atlas Obscura, the soup company Campbell’s launched one of the most memorable advertising campaigns in food and drink history. The conceit? That people should drink beef bouillon as if it were whisky. Magazine editors were sent “cool-off care packages” consisting of an ice bucket, tongs, and a can of the broth. Full page adverts were taken out in Life magazine. The “cocktail” even appeared on the menu at the iconic Broadway restaurant Sardi’s. There’s little evidence everyday Americans took to “swapping their bourbon for bouillon”. But broth-based cocktails are still out there. Try beef consommé with a splash of vodka, a little Worcestershire sauce, a squeeze of lemon, and a few drops of Tabasco – you’ve got a bullshot. Cheers.

Inside politics

The Telegraph is presenting its publication of Matt Hancock’s leaked WhatsApp messages as proof that its “anti-lockdown editorial stance” was right all along, says Sonia Sodha in The Observer. The thing is, “there isn’t – yet – anything that really supports that view”. The messages confirm what we already knew – Rishi Sunak didn’t want lockdowns, Hancock is a “walking self-destruct button” – but nothing more. In trying to shoehorn the WhatsApp leaks into their own narrative, anti-lockdowners are obscuring important questions about how the government conducted itself and what we should do in the next pandemic. That’s why we need the Covid inquiry to deliver its verdict as soon as possible. The longer we go without it, the more we will see “ideologues trying to fill the gap”.

Art

The winners of National Geographic Traveller’s 2023 photography awards include shots of two newly qualified eco-guards at Sierra Leone’s Loma Mountains National Park; a stag in London’s Richmond Park; a yacht navigating through an ice field off the coast of Greenland; and a lionfish in Mayotte, the archipelago between Madagascar and Mozambique. See the full list here.

Quirk of history

Nice work if you can get it

Lawmakers in West Virginia are trying to pass a bill that would offer former residents $25,000 in tax credits to return. The Mountain State lost 3.2% of its population between 2010 and 2020, says Associated Press, largely because of the decline of the steel, coal and other industries. It is the only US state with fewer people today than it had in 1950.

Snapshot

It’s a newly pictured hidden corridor above the main entrance of the Great Pyramid of Giza. First detected in 2016 with hi-tech imaging equipment, the secret walkway was filmed using a quarter-inch-wide endoscope fed through a tiny joint in between the stones. It’s around 30 feet long and seven feet wide – and, as yet, archaeologists aren’t sure what lies at the end of it.

Quoted

quote 6.3.23

“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”

American humourist Will Rogers