All the week’s wisdom in one place
27 August-2 September 2021
Afghanistan
“So that’s it, then,” says Allister Heath in The Daily Telegraph. As British and US troops retreat from Kabul, leaving the Taliban free to terrorise Afghans “back to the stone age”, the next stage of the 21st century’s great geopolitical and civilisational realignment is beginning.
The pandemic
“Everything you’ve heard about Australia and coronavirus is true,” says Gideon Rozner in The Daily Telegraph. Sydney has been in full lockdown since June, triggered by a mere 82 cases. People on the streets in New South Wales have been told not to be “too friendly” to avoid transmission.
Tony Blair
Not all of you will appreciate Tony Blair’s input on Afghanistan, says Anne McElvoy in the Evening Standard, but last weekend our former PM hit the nail on the head. His “eloquent” 2,751-word article described the US withdrawal as “tragic, dangerous, unnecessary”.
Heroes and villains
Tomorrow’s world
We are “losing the war” against superweeds, says Claire Brown in The New York Times. Nearly 265 weed species in 71 countries have developed resistance to chemical treatments. Palmer amaranth, the “king” of superweeds, is spreading across American farms: it can withstand common weedkillers and is mutating faster than agrochemical companies can develop new products.
Quoted
“Romeo and Juliet isn’t the only one of Shakespeare’s plays that could offend those of a sensitive disposition. Hamlet may be upsetting to anyone whose late father has reappeared as a ghost to inform them that he was poisoned by their uncle. Julius Caesar may bring back traumatic memories to anyone who has been assassinated by a cabal of Roman senators. And Titus Andronicus is bound to distress anyone who has ever been fed to their mother in a pie.”
Inside politics
Author JD Vance could be Donald Trump’s unlikely successor, says Freddy Gray in GQ. The 37-year-old grew up poor in Ohio and wrote a “moving” memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood as the son of a junkie single mother. Now he’s eyeing the upcoming Senate race in Ohio.
Zeitgeist
Nigella Lawson has removed the word “slut” from her “slut red raspberry” jelly recipe. She says it has taken on a “coarser, more cruel” meaning in recent years. The fruit is now described as “ruby red”. She has also changed the name of a pasta dish from “slut’s spaghetti” to “slattern’s spaghetti”.
Noted
A French start-up has come up with a “miracle” toothbrush that can clean teeth in just 10 seconds, says Le Figaro. The Y-Brush has 35,000 nylon bristles designed to clean all the user’s teeth at the same time. A starter pack costs £108.
Shipwrecked
When Brad Cavanagh and his four shipmates were two days into a trip to deliver a yacht from Maine to Florida, a storm forced them to abandon their sinking boat, says Kevin Koczwara in Boston magazine.
Wokenomics
I had my first encounter with what I call “wokenomics” as a Goldman Sachs intern in New York 15 years ago, says Vivek Ramaswamy in his new book, Woke, Inc: Inside the Social Justice Scam. My team was on a “service day” planting trees in Harlem. Within an hour my boss turned up in his Gucci boots and said: “Let’s take some pictures and get out of here!”
Yeonmi Park
You can’t imagine my North Korean childhood, says Yeonmi Park on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “It’s like trying to imagine life on some different planet across the universe.” She was born in 1993, not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig says he’s ashamed of the £116m he’s made “flying around the globe pretending to shag lovely ladies while reciting laughable dialogue”, says Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. He finds “distasteful” the idea of passing on “great sums” to his two daughters.
Karan Thapar
Mid-1960s Kabul, where I spent my formative childhood years, was a “happy city”, says Indian journalist Karan Thapar in The Spectator. “Of course, it was poor, conservative and hierarchical but people were always smiling.” When my mother took me out, “shopkeepers would slip Hershey’s chocolates or spearmint gum into my hands and then seal my lips with their fingers”.
Quoted
“To commit to the Irish Goodbye is to insist on being remembered at your best – telling a joke on the balcony, mixing a good cocktail at the bar – rather than at the always-awkward departure, rummaging through a great pile of coats before struggling into your own.”
Staying young
Meditating for just 10-15 minutes a day can improve concentration, says a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Ten students in New York state meditated five times a week for eight weeks.
Love etc
Can Twitter be used as a dating app? The platform’s users “tend to feel strongly” either way, says Miles Klee in Mel magazine. One of the naysayers’ arguments is the number of people (usually men) sending lecherous messages to those they’d never stand a chance of matching with on Tinder or Hinge.
Sport
Ted Dexter was the “James Bond of cricketers”, says Michael Atherton in The Times: tall, handsome, married to a model, deeply engaged in events beyond the game and always wanting to “lead life at a decent lick”. The former England captain loved to gamble on horses and dogs, and once flew his family to Australia by himself in a tiny plane so he could cover the Ashes.
Gun laws
Unlike its northern neighbour, Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, says Natalie Kitroeff in a podcast for The Daily. There’s only one gun shop in the entire country. That hasn’t stopped violent drug cartels getting their hands on weapons and contributing to Mexico’s “horror show of violence” – more than 16,000 murders so far this year.
Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible was the first “tsar of all Russia”, says Greg Jenner on Radio 4’s You’re Dead to Me podcast, featuring historian Peter Frankopan and comedian Olga Koch. Born in 1530, he was an orphan at eight and was crowned tsar aged 16. As a teenager, he liked to throw dogs and cats off tall buildings, and beat up peasants.
Film and TV
The Chair is Netflix’s “best drama in years”, says Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic. Just three hours long, the “near-perfect” comedy drama skewers the subject of free speech in academia without “descending into tweed-clutching”.
Books
The Turning Point: A Year That Changed Dickens and the World (Jonathan Cape £25) makes the case that 1851 was a transformative year, says Laura Freeman in The Times. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst has written a portrait of the novelist “at the height of his literary powers and the peak of his prodigious energies”.
Near Slapton Sands beach, in south Devon, Boathouse Cottage has an upside-down layout to make the most of the coastal views. The main bedroom is downstairs and the open-plan kitchen and living area are on the first floor, with a second bedroom at the back. It’s a 20-minute drive to Kingsbridge or Dartmouth. £500,000.
Quoted
“Nobody seems to care about extreme weather events, wildfires, species extinction, the increased likelihood of wars and refugee crises, mass homelessness and the possible end of civilisation as we know it, but if we can get the message across that anthropogenic climate change could affect the price of a pint, well, I think people might finally sit up and listen.”
Eating in
Ricotta toast is the new avocado on toast, says the lifestyle blog Prestige. It’s gone viral on TikTok, with singer Lizzo gaining 1.9m likes for her ricotta toast video. Simply spread the cheese over toasted bread and add your choice of toppings.
The great escape
A 15-minute walk from the city centre, this 900-year-old mill village on the banks of the Water of Leith is a hidden historic gem.
On the way out
Rapper Kanye West, who has formally requested that his legal name be changed simply to Ye, his longstanding nickname. “I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means you,” he said in a 2018 interview. “So I’m you, I’m us, it’s us.”
Quoted
“As I grow older I’m becoming more and more like the American empire. For example, I’ll walk into a room and then think ‘Why did I come in here?’”
Pick up this slinky mesh dress, £95, from Gen Z’s favourite brand. Its dreamy summer Margot collection also features tank tops, miniskirts and bralettes, all available in Blue Curacao and Aperol Spritz.
Moneymakers
The Naked Chef’s business affairs are less than pukka. Revenue at the Jamie Oliver Group fell by nearly 20% to £30m last year. As well as the temporary shuttering of his global restaurant franchise because of the pandemic, 26 branches closed permanently.
On the money
Elizabeth Holmes was once hailed as “the next Steve Jobs” by the Silicon Valley set, says Erin Griffith in The New York Times. Her company, Theranos, and its supposedly ingenious blood-test kit were set to revolutionise medicine – even more impressive given that she set up the company when she was 19.
Prickly chef Marco Pierre White is opening a new restaurant in the West End after 10 years away from London. His new spot, Mr White’s, is due to open in October on Leicester Square, serving steaks and pizzas. Here he is in 1988, explaining why he kicks out “obnoxious” guests from his restaurant Harvey’s.
Desert Island Discs
Charlie Watts, who died this week at 80, wouldn’t have minded if the Rolling Stones hadn’t lasted. “I used to hate girls chasing us down the road,” the group’s drummer told Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs in 2001. But their success enabled him to indulge in his love of tailoring: “I have this disease – I see a swatch and have to have a jacket [made].”
Quirks of history
The first bicycle came about because of an environmental disaster. The largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, Mount Tambora in Indonesia, gave the planet a “year without a summer” in 1816. As crops failed in Europe, many people killed their horses because they couldn’t feed them. The German Laufmaschine (“running machine”), or “dandy horse”, a bicycle minus the pedals that you pushed along with your feet, was a convenient alternative for getting from A to B.
