The “new Nigel”: Farage sobers up

Heroes
The Guardian, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph, for nobly trying to extend the franchise to “all children – including babies”. They’re obviously hoping that this will increase the number of votes for left-wing parties, and they may be on to something: “children, after all, are natural socialists”. From birth they’re provided with food, housing, clothing and much else, without having to work or pay for any of it. So it stands to reason they’d be “attracted to an ideology which promises to extend this arrangement into adulthood”.

Villains
Members of Kemi Badenoch’s top team, who apparently tried dropping her name in the hope of securing invitations to a swanky Mayfair summer party hosted by the gay dating app Grindr. The Conservative leader was, apparently, “blissfully unaware” of the ruse, says Popbitch. And it didn’t work: CCHQ staffers trying to get their names on the list were told: “Absolutely not.”

Villains
Musicians, says Giles Coren in The Times, for spoiling the “annual anti-Semitism festival” at Glastonbury. These beautiful Somerset fields should be a place for “the vociferous attacking of Jews”, not catchy pop ballads. Talented and up-and-coming Jew-bashers like Kneecap rely on the exposure of Glasto to “publicise their important racist opinions”. They should not have to sit idly by while the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Neil Young brazenly undermine the good vibes by “openly singing pop songs in broad daylight”.

Villains
Norway’s state-run lottery company, Norsk Tipping, which wrongly told scores of Norwegians they’d become millionaires, thanks to a currency conversion error. Several thousand players received official notifications telling them they had won amounts that were ten thousand times higher than their true winnings, because the company accidentally multiplied Euro cents by 100 while converting them to Norwegian kroner, instead of dividing by 100. Norsk Tipping CEO Tonje Sagstuen apologised and resigned a day later.

Why Olivia Rodrigo “f***ing loves England”

It is an unwritten rule of English life, says Guy Kelly in The Daily Telegraph, that any crowd can be won over with a Colin the Caterpillar cake. “Mere mention of the Marks & Spencer larval icon is irresistible.” All good birthday party hosts and office interns know this. And so, it seems, does 22-year-old Californian pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo. “One thing you should know about me,” she said, stepping out on to Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage on Sunday night, “I fucking love England. I love England so much.” Dressed in sparkly Union Jack hot pants and Doc Martens bovver boots, she went on: “I have so many things I love about England. I love pop culture, I love that nobody judges you for having a pint at noon... I love English sweets from M&S and Colin the Caterpillar...” The crowd went wild.

To fans, Rodrigo’s Anglophilia is no secret. Her boyfriend, Louis Partridge, is a floppy-haired public schoolboy (well, Alleyn’s) making his way as an actor. At Glastonbury, she performed two songs with her (incredibly unlikely) hero Robert Smith, of The Cure. At Glastonbury in 2022, she invited Lily Allen on stage to join her in a rendition of the latter’s 2009 hit Fuck You (dedicated to the US Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v Wade the day before). This year, she was seen on her boyfriend’s shoulders watching Pulp, singing along to every word. Her hit song Brutal is so reminiscent of Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up that people alerted him to a possible copyright situation. He was typically sanguine: “It’s how rock and roll works,” he posted on X, “You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy.”

The billionaire resurrecting Le Provençal

When F Scott Fitzgerald was living in Cap d’Antibes, conjuring up the world of Jay Gatsby and the “lure of Daisy Buchanan”, his bar of choice was at Le Provençal, says Eilidh Hargreaves in Tatler: the hotel that “housed the glitterati” during the jazz years. The ten-storey art deco palace was also favoured by Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill and Coco Chanel. Ella Fitzgerald once famously sang from her balcony to crowds below. Now the lavish hotel, which closed in 1977, has undergone a “staggering decade-long refurbishment”, thanks to British billionaire John Caudwell, who has restored it to its full glory.

A marble lobby opens into a rotunda with vast, opulent ceilings, from which hangs a four-metre waterfall chandelier. There’s a marble spa, a cinema inspired by former resident Charlie Chaplin, and 41 “knockout residences”, some of which are complete with a “two-level pool deck”, aimed at the new “super set” on the French Riviera. Owners of the penthouses will be the sort to own private jets and superyachts, and “have Hermès and Baccarat on speed dial”. Some remember the hotel from childhood years; others are “simply drawn by the grandeur”. Sandwiched between Monaco, where “billionaires encage themselves in glossy towers with vague personalities” and the “in-your-face bling” of Cannes, Le Provençal, is nothing but “natural glamour”. Status and society, jazz and champagne, it’s “Fitzgerald’s fever dream”.

How to be the perfect waiter

One of the best bits of restaurateur Keith McNally’s “terrifically funny” memoir I Regret Almost Everything is the nine rules he set for waiters when he first opened the New York restaurant Balthazar in 1997, says Sophia Money-Coutts on Substack. They include: Always repeat the customer’s order back to them (“‘Skate’ sounds like ‘steak’ after one martini”); when waiting on someone famous, direct your conversation to others at the table, especially their spouse who will “rarely receive attention in public”; never clear a customer’s coffee cup before they’ve left or hand them the bill before they’ve asked; don’t utter the phrase “How is everything?” (“If you must break the flow of our customers’ conversation, please let it be a simple ‘Do you need anything?’”); and “never, ever, go home with a customer............for less than $500”.