All the week’s wisdom in one place
25 June-1 July 2021
Chesham and Amersham
Boris Johnson is in a “wall war”, says Isabel Hardman in The Observer. “Blue wall” Conservatives in the southern heartlands are in revolt: they feel neglected because of the PM’s focus on the new “red wall” MPs in the north, and they’re worried that Johnson is taking the south for granted.
Iran
Ultra-hardline Islamist Ebrahim Raisi may have “comfortably won” the Iranian presidential elections this week, says the FT in an editorial. But his apparent landslide is a “pyrrhic” one. Iranian voters stayed home in record numbers, with just 48.8% voting, the lowest proportion ever. When the outgoing president, moderate Hassan Rouhani, was re-elected in 2017, he won 24 million votes. Raisi won just 18 million. And 3.7 million Iranians spoilt their ballots, more than voted for any of his “feeble” rivals after theocrats banned viable candidates. Iran’s “disgruntled majority”, in other words, opposes Raisi.
St Paul’s Girls’ School
You’d hope St Paul’s Girls’ School would be the first to stand up for the female sex, says Allison Pearson in The Daily Telegraph. Instead, the “daft bints” have decided to axe the role of head girl because it’s too “binary”. From September, one of the best girls’ schools in the country will replace the role with “head of school”. Seven of the 778 pupils at the £26,000-a-year London private school identify as non-binary, and senior pupils feel the gender-neutral title is “more modern, age-appropriate and inclusive”. Give me strength. At least former pupils have quickly rallied. “As an Old Paulina” I find it tragic, tweeted Petronella Wyatt. SPGS was once proud “to produce females who revelled in being the superior sex”.
Heroes and villains
Oysters, which we really don’t eat enough of, says Alec Marsh in The Spectator. They’re a rich source of zinc, protein and Omega-3, among other good stuff; tonne for tonne, they generate thirty times less greenhouse gases than beef. They’re also the “Dysons of the seas”: by feeding on plankton, bacteria and algae, they improve water quality and clarity.
Tomorrow’s world
American tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson is at “the forefront of the quantified-self movement”, says Ashlee Vance on Bloomberg. A 43-year-old former Mormon and overweight binge eater, he turned his life around by snorting stem cells and taking drug-induced “mind journeys” with his personal shaman. He now rises at 4am, eats a 2,250-calorie breakfast – and nothing else all day – before retiring at 8pm. As a result, he says he has the DNA of a 30-year-old.
Quoted
“A good dad is like being a cricket umpire. If you’re not being discussed, you’re probably doing a decent job. And all the big decisions get referred anyway.”
Inside politics
“Hands, face and space weren’t quite what came to mind” when I saw The Sun’s “fabulous” pictures of Matt Hancock, says Melanie McDonagh in The Spectator. He was caught in an “adolescent snog” with Gina Coladangelo, an adviser and university chum. I haven’t enjoyed a story this much since Neil Ferguson was caught breaking the lockdown rules he was involved in drawing up to meet a “comely married blonde woman”. In both cases it’s the hypocrisy that galls. Cabinet ministers can’t hide behind the “personal life” defence when they have criminalised “any number of aspects” of other people’s personal lives. We were banned from kissing under regulations Hancock came up with. “One law for them, the other for us.”
Zeitgeist
“Victoria’s Secret is trying to reboot itself for a new and enlightened age,” says Kat Rosenfield in UnHerd. The lingerie brand has ditched its band of beautiful spokeswomen in favour of models with “the proper politics”. The new line-up includes actress and Unicef ambassador Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the trans bikini model Valentina Sampaio and the footballer and gay-rights activist Megan Rapinoe.
Noted
Love Island 2021 is set to be “the most middle class ever”, says Polly Vernon in The Times. This year’s contestants include a PE teacher, an estate agent, a civil servant and a financial services marketing manager.
The case for
The blue-plaque people at English Heritage have updated their online entry for much-loved children’s writer Enid Blyton, pointing out that her work has been criticised for “racism, xenophobia and lack of literary merit”.
Deep-sea mining
“The deep sea is filled with treasure,” says Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker. Polymetallic nodules resembling “blackened potatoes” cover the ocean floor. Each one can take three million years to form, as layers of ore build up around marine debris such as ancient shark teeth.
Lottery jackpot
Everyone in the run-down town of Lonaconing wants to know who hit the $731m jackpot, says Marc Fisher in The Washington Post. In January a local bought a Powerball lottery ticket on the edge of town and won the fifth biggest payout in American history. Maryland state laws mean they can remain anonymous, so the hunt is on.
Britney Spears
We’ve never heard Britney Spears speak like this before, says Maureen Callahan in the New York Post. “I just want my life back,” the 39-year-old singer pleaded in a Los Angeles court on Wednesday. For 24 minutes she told the judge exactly “what she thinks and feels” about the court-ordered conservatorship that granted her father, Jamie, control of her life and $60m estate in 2008.
Christina Lamb
The worst week of my professional life began with the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, says Christina Lamb in The Times. I filed my dispatch, trying to capture his contradictions: “Prince Philip was the longest-serving royal consort in British history – an often crotchety figure, offending people with gaffes about slitty eyes, even if secretly we rather enjoyed them.”
John McAfee
The American cybersecurity entrepreneur John McAfee, who committed suicide in a Barcelona jail on Wednesday at the age of 75, led an “extraordinary life that brought him vast wealth and infamy”, says Nick Allen in the Telegraph. The British-born maths graduate and LSD enthusiast once worked for Nasa.
Noted
On Thursday afternoon, Health Secretary Matt Hancock put up an Instagram story that read: “I work alongside some brilliant women. If you are a woman who wants to get involved in politics, swipe up.” Early on Friday morning, after pictures emerged showing him kissing a female aide, it was promptly deleted.
Staying young
Physiologist Peter Herbert is 76, but still surfing and cycling on the track to his heart’s content, says Peta Bee in The Times. He’s the “living embodiment” of his research, which shows that exercise can cut a man’s biological age by up to 20 years. The maximum attainable heart rate for men typically declines by a beat a minute every year from the age of 30.
Love etc
French people rarely bother to say “I love you”, says Sylvia Sabes in BBC Travel. Take it from me, I’ve been married to a Frenchman for more than a decade. I know my husband loves me. He buys me flowers every weekend. He affectionately calls me “ma biche” (my deer). “And when I tell him I was at a party full of beautiful people, he charmingly says something about ‘birds of a feather’.” But he never says “Je t’aime”.
Sport
Lottie Dod was the world’s first female sports superstar, says Sasha Abramsky in the Daily Mail. She won her first Wimbledon title in 1887, aged 15. Next year the teen sensation repeated the trick. Not everyone was convinced, so the “Little Wonder” challenged the best men’s players of the day to singles games.
Joni Mitchell
This week sees the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, says the singer Laura Marling in Blue: Pain and Pleasure, a BBC radio documentary that mixes songs from the Canadian singer-songwriter’s classic album with interviews explaining how it was made and why it is regarded by critics as one of the greatest records of all time. Blue informed my entire career, says Marling, who is joined by other famous Mitchell fans, including Emeli Sandé, Beth Orton, Ellie Goulding, James Taylor, Graham Nash and Seal.
The pandemic
When most people contract Covid-19, the virus stays in their body for about 10 days, says the Today programme’s John Kay. When Dave Smith got the bug, it hung around for 10 months. It wasn’t just lingering side effects: the 72-year-old driving instructor from Bristol had an active case of the virus for almost 300 days, the longest recorded infection in the world.
Everyone’s watching
Luca is “Pixar’s shortest, sweetest film in a very long time”, says Robbie Collin in the Telegraph. Young friends Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer) enjoy a formative summer with a twist: they’re not mere boys, but scaly, rainbow-hued mer-boys from an offshore colony of sea monsters. They turn into humans whenever they set foot on land, slurping ice creams and clattering bicycles around a picturesque 1950s Italian fishing village.
Books
David Storey was “the exemplar of the northern working-class novelist who came to prominence in the 1960s”, says Michael Prodger in the New Statesman. Storey’s first book, This Sporting Life, is considered one of the best sporting novels ever written. A fierce dissection of the hypocrisies he faced as a professional rugby league player, it was turned into a successful film starring Richard Harris. Saville won the Booker prize in 1976 and his plays were premiered at the Royal Court “when the theatre was at its most influential”.
This three-bedroom Victorian house is on a tree-lined north London street, two minutes’ walk from Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Overground station and 10 minutes from Upper Street. It has original cornicing and fireplaces, high ceilings and Crittall windows that overlook the garden. There’s a separate one-bedroom flat on the lower ground floor. £2.75m.
Quoted
“Imagine all the tips that hard-working pole dancers will miss out on, if the patrons have nothing to slip into their garters. Then there’s the humble cocaine user. Easy to roll up a banknote. Not quite so easy to roll up an iPhone or a MasterCard. And what are poor old muggers supposed to do if your wallet’s already empty in the first place? Ask you to set up a direct debit?”
Eating in
“A good salad dressing adds new dimensions to a dish,” says David Atherton in The Guardian. It’s usually made with oil, but there are many other ways to get a “thick and glossy dressing”. Puréed sweet potato provides substance while keeping calories low. Nut butter dressing is great with a roasted root vegetable and wholegrains salad.
The great escape
The remote Orkney Islands are home to “archaeological riches, lunar landscapes and silver-white sands”, says Cal Flyn in The Guardian. They offer a real sense of escape – and were voted “best Scottish island” in a recent survey by Which? magazine.
Noted
Mongoose mothers within a group give birth on the same night, making it impossible to know whose offspring belongs to whom. This creates what researchers call a “veil of ignorance”: parents give equal care to all the pups, improving their chances of survival.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (1893), Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Noted
Scientists have invented a cure for hiccups: a gadget called the HiccAway. The L-shaped tool costs £10 and is similar to a straw – pop it into a glass of water, take a few sips, and your hiccups will disappear more than 90% of the time. Sucking through the device stimulates the phrenic and vagus nerves, which stop and start hiccups.
It’s all about staycations at the great British seaside this summer, so what better time to try surfing? Take your mind off the cold – and the fact that you’re not in Maui – in this patterned wetsuit from Roxy, £220.
Moneymakers
Ikea, the world’s largest furniture seller, was one of several companies that pulled its ads from GB News last week. The boycott lasted about 48 hours: Ikea quickly reversed on the decision, saying it was taken “at great speed”.
On the money
Google’s progress is as relentless as it is inevitable, right? Maybe not, says The New York Times. Having interviewed 15 former and current executives, it thinks the ubiquitous internet giant, one of the five best-performing US technology stocks, “is showing cracks”.
Glastonbury was supposed to take place this weekend. In 2000, more than 250,000 people watched David Bowie close the festival on Sunday night – here he is playing Heroes.
Desert Island Discs
Delia Smith, who turned 80 last week, has sold more than 22.5 million cookery books. But her first attempt to get published was a non-starter. In my twenties I was fascinated by 18th-century English cooking, she told Roy Plomley on Desert Island Discs in 1982.
Quirks of history
For the British Army to legally exist, Parliament must pass a new act every five years. This stems from the 1689 Bill of Rights, which forbids a standing army in times of peace without the people’s approval.
