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Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo 和 Venetia Menzies
在英国改革党收到由资助尼格尔·法拉格的罪犯乔治·科特雷尔之母提供的潜在非法捐款后，该党的银行账户在上次大选期间被冻结。
该党无法通过其在伦敦私人及商业银行阿伯索诺·拉萨姆银行的账户进行付款或收款，冻结期为两周，其中包含 2024年7月 4 日的投票日。
当时的英国改革党财务主管多次要求银行给出解释，并敦促其解冻账户。然而，阿伯索诺·拉萨姆银行予以拒绝。该行表示无法根据要求解冻账户，并拒绝提供除正在进行“合规检查”以外的任何信息。
就在几天前，银行职员已就该党收到的超过 £1 million 英镑的款项向国家犯罪调查局提交了可疑活动报告。这些款项与菲奥娜·科特雷尔有关，她自称一名“退休造型师”，其儿子支付了法拉格的员工、安保及住宿费用。
6 首相还将处理国防、护理和就业问题
Lara Spirit 政治副主编
安迪·伯纳姆将在下周公布的广泛权力下放计划中，将部分所得税收入交给市长，用于投入到他们所在的城市。
预计在周五的一项公告中，首相将赋予市长显著的新支出权力，以促进当地投资、基础设施建设及其他增长项目。
直到上个月为止仍任大曼彻斯特市长的伯纳姆将概述为英格兰 14 位地区及都市市长提供更大的自由，以兑现他“让每个邮区实现良好增长”的承诺。
此举将标志着他在唐宁街 10, 号度过的第二周结束。在此期间，他还将干预包括社会护理、国防以及尼特族 (非在学、非就业、非培训青年) 危机在内的议题。
在利用第一周宣布旨在减轻选民生活成本压力的快速措施（包括限制公交车票价、削减国内能源账单以及降低大多数酒吧、俱乐部和现场音乐场所的商业税率）之后，他将处理困难的长期政策问题。
虽然市长将获得部分所得税收入以支持伯纳姆计划下的就业创造和当地增长，但预计领导人们不会获得新的征税权力。
这一举措标志着对传统怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心) 模式的背离。在传统模式下，财政部长期掌控着来自威斯敏斯特的当地资金分配。地区领导人们指责该模式未能有效地将资金从伦敦拨出。
一名政府人士表示：“长期以来，政府的行为就好像每个问题的答案都躺在怀特霍尔的某个文件柜里。权力应当尽可能地靠近受其影响的人们，因为最适合解决问题的人通常是每天与该问题共存的人。”
这些变革将由位于曼彻斯特的唐宁街 10 北区主导。伯纳姆周五首次在该地点办公，并表示这“可能是我人生中最美好的一天”。
虽然其计划的精确细节尚不明确，但一个问题将是是否会出现 1
Christina Lamb 首席驻外记者，西岸 以色列“冷血”杀害婴儿
一名七个月大的巴勒斯坦婴儿上个月在其母亲膝上被枪杀，该婴儿的父母指责以色列国防军“冷血”杀害了孩子，与此同时，西岸的暴力冲突正在升级。
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以色列国防军 (IDF) 表示这是一个错误。而阿布·海卡尔（Abu Haikal）在极力克制愤怒的情况下表示：“这不是一个错误。他们是一支专业军队……他们毫无理由地冷血地枪杀了婴儿。”
这一指控出现之际，西岸爆发了数月来最严重的暴力冲突，此前以色列定居者与巴勒斯坦人之间发生了冲突。至少 4 名巴勒斯坦人和两名以色列士兵被杀。以色列军队昨日逮捕了数十名巴勒斯坦人。
在竞选之前，一系列未披露的福利被用于基金会和社会媒体产出。
2024 年 5 月，科特雷尔的母亲以个人名义向该党捐赠了 £500,000。次月，她向法拉格的副手理查德·泰斯（Richard Tice）所有的一家公司捐赠了 100 万英镑，随后该公司将该金额的一半捐给了英国改革党。
去年 2 月，伦敦警察厅对其支付的款项启动了刑事调查，理由是她可能“掩盖”了捐款来源。调查仍在继续。据《卫报》报道，科特雷尔及其母亲已被侦探在警告下接受审讯。考虑到
任何“平衡”措施，以确保贫困地区不会因该政策而受损。
目前尚不清楚伯纳姆是否需要提出初级立法来实施其权力下放计划。
这一财政收入公告是伯纳姆在整个政府范围内推行的“默认下放”重启计划的一部分。内阁部长们将被告知，他们的部门现在必须证明为什么某项权力应该保留在中央，而不是移交给地方区域。
伯纳姆将英国描述为“世界上最过度集权的国家之一”。根据城市中心（Centre for Cities）智库的数据，英国是七国集团 (G7) 中财政集权程度最高的国家。仅有 5% 的税收收入留在市长和地方当局手中，而 95% 直接进入怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心)。
英国在七国集团 (G7) 中通过税收获得的地方政府资金比例也是最低的：仅有 19% 的收入来自征收。
在当选为梅克菲尔德（Makerfield）国会议员后，伯纳姆在曼彻斯特的人民历史博物馆发表讲话，他表示在担任市长期间，当怀特霍尔部门抵制下放“他们掌握的一小部分权力和资源”的努力时，他感到很“沮丧”。
他承诺，“那些日子”
作为回应将采取“强有力的行动”，他的办公室表示，他将加速批准在该地区建立更多以色列定居点。
自 2023 年 10 月 7 日哈马斯袭击以来，西岸的暴力活动不断升级。据联合国统计，此后在西岸已有 259 名巴勒斯坦儿童被杀。许多人认为这是为了强迫巴勒斯坦人离开，以便非法定居者接管。
彼得·麦克迪亚迈德 (PETER MACDIARMID) 为《星期日时报》报道
内森·莱恩 (NATHAN LAINE) 为《星期日时报》报道
丹尼尔·伍尔夫森 (Daniel Woolfson) 资深商业记者 威特罗斯 (超市) 为郊区重新定义
威特罗斯 (超市) 正在郊区和通勤城镇开设规模较小的“社区”版本店铺，试图从马莎百货手中抢夺客户。
特朗普盟友 与 法官
乔治·科特雷尔在伦敦 —— 这是融资丑闻爆发后他的第一张照片
高级定制， 亲爱的！ Decca Aitkenhead 报道时尚 前排
无论是通过直接捐赠还是通过 泰斯的公司，Fiona Cottrell 提供了英国改革党在竞选期间收到所有款项的 35 比例。她从未对其财富来源，或随后国家犯罪调查局及苏格兰场的调查发表评论。
法拉格一直公开抨击“银行建制派”，但他从未提及此次冻结。在现代，冻结一个政党账户的决定尚无已知先例。
根据 阿伯索诺·拉萨姆银行的网站，如果
零售商并将其超市现代化。在 Tesco 工作了 33 年的 Tarry 接替了 Tufnell Park 的 White 男爵夫人。
此类新店目前已有约 20 家，最新的一家于上周在埃塞克斯郡的 Chelmer 村零售园区开业。这些分店的面积约为 7,000 平方英尺，而大店的面积为 10-25,000 平方英尺，便利店则为 2,500-3,000 平方英尺。这种新形式的店铺拥有约 50 个停车位，并储备了约 6,500 种产品。而一家较大的威特罗斯 (超市) 通常销售约 20,000 种产品。
“法律或法规要求我们这样做”，或者“当我们怀疑存在欺诈、洗钱或其他犯罪或违法行为时”。其他原因包括账户持有者违反条款和条件，或有合理理由认为其活动可能导致政府或执法部门的“采取行动或谴责”。
银行通常拒绝告知客户为何其账户被冻结，因为这可能等同于向潜在违规行为的参与者“通风报信”。
阿伯索诺·拉萨姆银行拒绝置评。
该银行 1833, 年成立于伦敦城，由 Sir
计算错误而 遭受养老金削减
Lottie Hayton 去世，他在 3 月 12 日收到了信函。信中给出两周的预警，称其养老金每月将被削减 £414。此外，他被告知需要在接下来的 18 个月内（即发生多付养老金的同一期间）偿还 £16,000。
超过 1,000 名退伍军人被告知，由于计算错误，他们必须偿还数万英镑，并且其养老金将被削减。
国防部表示，养老金已连续多年被多付，在某些情况下金额超过十万英镑。尽管退伍军人没有过错，但纠正错误的负担落在他们身上，而非养老金计划管理机构和相关承包商身上。
前皇家海军准尉詹姆斯·安克尔斯 (James Uncles) 的退休计划在 2 月 27 日收到国防部的一封信后崩溃了。“我的妻子问‘怎么了？’我说，‘是关于我的养老金，他们说多付了，我们必须归还 £45,687。’她五分钟说不出话来。”他们 50 周年结婚纪念日的计划、房屋的必要维护以及汽车贷款的偿还现在都受到了威胁。
安克尔斯被告知，他的每月养老金将立即减少 £1,000 以上——跌幅近 25 百分比。更令人震惊的是，信中告知他，在接下来的五年里，每月将进一步扣除 £750，以抵消自 2021 年 1 月 5 日起在他不知情的情况下多付的金额。
曾担任飞机工程师并服役 35 年的安克尔斯表示：“难道这一切都要由无辜的退伍军人来承担吗？这个方案显然是有缺陷的，而且多年来一直如此，它导致成百上千的人不得不改变他们的生活。”
根据退伍军人非营利指导服务机构——军队养老金协会 (FPS) 最近提出的一项信息自由请求，像安克尔斯这样多付养老金的案例有 398 起。
这些多付金额影响了武装部队的最终薪资计划 AFPS 75 和 AFPS 05，原因是管理人员在每年根据通货膨胀率上调养老金时，错误地重新计算了金额。这种“对国家保险修正规则的错误应用”意味着在某些年份，计算被执行了两次。
然而，FPS 总共接到了超过 1,000 起多付案例。其中包括其他类型的计算错误，例如在“离婚养老金分担”计算中，离婚者被授予前军属配偶养老金的一定比例。
2024 年 11 月，国防部首次发现养老金一直被多付，某些情况下已持续五年多。领取养老金的人直到今年才收到通知。
在皇家海军服役 36 年的尼克·弗莱彻 (Nick Fletcher) 上尉，现年 69 岁，在 2 月份收到了国防部的一封信。他被告知欠款 £19,747.34。
“我的第一反应是说，‘好吧，你知道，我怎么搞砸了？我怎么没发现这笔多付的款项？’我想，这源于我 36 年服役生涯中对系统的信任，”他说。
根据财政部的规定，无论谁有过错，公共部门机构都有义务追回所有多付的公共资金。活动人士已呼吁财政部免除总计 £5.1 百万的多付金额。
迈克尔·埃文斯 (Michael Evans)，68 岁，一名退休的皇家海军上尉，他在服役期间在一场直升机坠毁事故中幸存，而他的朋友
偿还 £45,687。 她整整五分钟 说不出话来
今年夏天，他与妻子正期待着协助规划女儿的婚礼。然而，他现在却将日子花在发起申诉上。
“当国家权力的冰冷之手在望远镜的这一端出现，表现出的是在维护其承包商的错误而非支持退伍军人时，那种感觉我无法用言语表达，”他说。
FPS 首席执行官尼尔·马歇尔 (Neil Marshall) 少将表示：“养老金的计算错误和超额支付正在破坏退伍军人的信任……我清楚地意识到，这是领导力、监管、流程和质量保证方面的失败。”
“更糟糕的是，退伍军人没有得到清晰的计算明细，因此他们无法确认超额支付是否得到了正确的修正。”
国防部 (MoD) 下属的业务部门 Defence Business Services 负责武装部队养老金计划管理的整体工作。
同样隶属于国防部 (MoD) 的 Veterans UK 负责评估并授予养老金权益并维护记录。该部门在计算方面得到了技术公司 Sopra Steria 的支持。私人公司 Equiniti 则担任工资发放代理，负责将款项汇入银行账户，处理税务扣除及相关查询。
FPS 首席运营官马修·洛 (Matthew Lowe) 表示：“Veterans UK 资源不足，但超额支付的数量及其金额表明，合同监控和质量保证流程未能正常运作。”
国防部 (MoD) 表示：“在确实发生错误支付的情况下，我们有责任回收纳税人的资金，并且将始终寻求以一种敏感且适度的方式来实现。”
PHIL WILKINSON
卢卡斯·马尔多恩-罗斯 (Lukas Muldoon-Ross) 在苏格兰边境凯尔索 (Kelso) 举行的边境联盟农业展上展示他家获得冠军的彩色赖兰羊。这场为期两天的活动为马匹、牲畜和工业艺术提供了 500 场以上的公开赛。
丹尼尔·桑德森 (Daniel Sanderson) 苏格兰政治编辑
新分析表明，苏格兰针对高收入者增加的税收导致公共金库在一年内损失了约 £22 million。
丹·奈德尔 (Dan Neidle) 是一名税务政策专家，曾参与苏格兰政府最近被撤销的税务咨询小组。他表示，政府决定征收 48 便士的最高税率，旨在为公共服务筹集更多资金，结果反而减少了收入。
由奈德尔的独立智库 Tax Policy Associates 开展的一项调查发现，高收入者被该税率吓跑了，他们正采取措施以避免进入该税级。
本月 HMRC 的数据显示，在 2024-25 年度，最高收入者的平均纳税额有所下降，这是由胡姆扎·尤萨夫 (Humza Yousaf) 领导的苏格兰民族党政府实施 48 便士最高税率的第一年。
虽然有可能...
将向 市长 提供更多资金
“怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心) 对向地区和国家下放权力的抵制已彻底结束”，并承诺将实现“我国历史上最大规模的权力重新平衡”。
他表示，任何变动都将与“2024年竞选宣言保持一致”。
一些高收入者搬离了苏格兰，或拒绝接受边境以北的工作，但更有可能的是，他们正在利用完全合法的方式来避免缴纳大笔所得税。这些方式可能包括减少工作时间、增加养老金供款或其他薪资牺牲计划；或者对于自雇人士，则通过改变税务处理方式——例如通过支付股息而非领取薪金来给自己发薪。
根据基于英国税务海关总署 (HMRC) 数据的分析，从 2024-25 纳税年度起，对超过 £125,140 的收入征收 48p 最高税率的决定，可能会导致公共支出收入减少 £15 million 和 £30 million 之间。内德尔认为，最可能的数字在 £22million 左右。
在实施这些变动时（其中还包括对 £75,000 至 £125,140, 之间的收入征收 45p 的“高级税率”），受影响的人被告知，这一“累进”措施将通过筹集额外资金来支持公共服务。
税务政策协会 (Tax Policy Associates) 调查了 48p 税率开始实施当年，苏格兰最高税率纳税人的平均纳税额，并将其与英国其他地区的纳税人进行了对比。
该智库表示，两者都“符合我们的假设，即能够控制自身收入的高收入者正在这样做，以最大限度地降低其 48p 的纳税义务”。
虽然 HMRC 和苏格兰财政委员会曾预测高收入者会出现行为反应，这意味着筹集金额将远低于 £53 million 的预计值（如果高收入者不对此举做出反应的话），但实际影响似乎“远大于”这两个机构的任何预期。
“我们不能完全确定，但我们掌握的证据与苏格兰因 48p 税率损失约 £22 million 的税收收入一致，”内德尔说道。“我希望苏格兰能够理解地方的抱负和优势。”
本月，瑞秋·里夫斯在她本月的最后一次豪宅演讲 (Mansion House lecture) 中，为更大程度的财政下放打开了大门，称财政部正在考虑如何允许市长在各自地区保留部分税收收入。
里夫斯上周被解除了财政大臣的职务，伯纳姆出人意料地任命前国防大臣约翰·希利接任。
伯纳姆已经将重要的经济权力从财政部转移到了 No 10 North，其中包括关于地方增长的权力。
同样将办公地点设在曼彻斯特的住房大臣安杰拉·雷纳上周支持财政下放，称政府有责任支持那些需要资金用于交通等基础服务的地方领导人。
“这不是拿着乞讨碗说‘我觉得我需要一条有轨电车，请给我好吗？’——像某种《饥饿游戏》一样让国家的一个地区与另一个地区竞争。”
此举可能会受到伯纳姆前市长同事们的欢迎。西米德兰兹郡前保守党市长安迪·斯特里特本月表示，新首相的“下一个大任务”是
留在当地， 你就有 一条保障的 收入线
87岁 摔伤后去世
大卫·宾斯 (David Binns)
据其家属透露，前部长霍拉姆勋爵 (Lord Horam) 逝世，享年 87 岁。这位贵族于 7 月 2 日在从上议院回家的路上摔伤。他在帕丁顿的圣玛丽医院接受了治疗，但未能恢复意识。
他出生于普雷斯顿，在韦克菲尔德的西尔科茨学校就读，并于 1960 年在剑桥大学圣凯瑟琳学院获得经济学硕士学位。他的职业生涯始于朗特里公司 (Rowntree’s)，在那里他协助将 After Eight 薄荷巧克力推向市场。随后，他在《金融时报》和《经济学人》工作了一段时间。霍拉姆后来共同创办了市场情报公司 CRU Group。
霍拉姆在威斯敏斯特的历史中占据着一个罕见的地位：他曾在下议院代表 3 个不同的政党担任国会议员，并在工党和保守党政府中都担任过部长。
他于 1970 年作为盖特希德西区的工党议员进入议会，并于 1976 年被詹姆斯·卡拉汉 (James Callaghan) 任命为交通部次国务大臣。他于 1981 年成为社会民主党 (SDP) 的创始成员，担任首席经济发言人，直到 1983 年失去议席。
1987 年，他与前《星期日泰晤士报》汽车编辑朱迪思·杰克逊 (Judith Jackson) 結婚，并加入了保守党。1992 年当选为奥平顿议员后，他在约翰·梅杰 (John Major) 领导下担任公共服务部长和卫生部长。
他于 2013 年被封为格里姆萨格的霍拉姆男爵，成为一名终身贵族。在上议院中，他主张扩大住房建设、提高免税个人额度以及支持亲欧盟的政治主张。他曾是保守党常识小组 (Conservative Common Sense Group) 的成员。
他的妻子朱迪思以及继子弗雷泽 (Fraser) 和林肯 (Lincoln) 随他而去。其家属在声明中表示，他们“想感谢圣玛丽医院的急救人员、警察和工作人员对他提供的无微不至的照顾”。
政府会非常仔细地审查证据，并决定在撇开政治因素后，保留 48p 税率是否符合苏格兰的利益。”
在英国其他地区，最高税率为 45p。在苏格兰以外地区，该税率适用于收入超过 £125,140 的人群。
一项高达 约 £728 百万的创纪录“负向调节” (negative reconciliation) 将应用于明年的预算。财政研究学会 (Institute for Fiscal Studies) 表示，税收收入低于预期是导致公共支出将被挤压得“比我们预期的更严重”的一个因素。
苏格兰政府表示：“我们采取累进税制，意味着高收入者需多支付少量税款，以支持英国其他地区无法享受的政策，例如免费大学教育、免费处方药以及具有变革意义的苏格兰儿童付款计划。”
财政权力下放。他还敦促其党内同事支持这一议程。
上周在由新中地中心 (Centre for The New Midlands) 主办的一年一度的会议上，斯特里特 (Street) 表示：“[市长制] 模式的弱点在于，虽然我们有很多资金，但全部是由伦敦决定的。你必须去伦敦说‘请给我们这笔钱’。”
“我们接下来需要做的是——在这方面英国仍远落后于美国、法国和德国——解决我们在本地筹集的税款不能由本地保留的问题。”
“一旦我们做出这一改变，你将拥有一条保障未来的收入线，并能够规划并确保你在住房、技能、交通方面的所有活动都能以战略性的方式结合在一起。”
威廉·特维尔 (William Turvill) 首席商业记者
多年来，《CEO 日记》(Diary of a CEO) 的播客主、龙穴 (Dragons’ Den) 投资者史蒂文·巴特莱特 (Steven Bartlett) 一直遭到批评者的嘲讽。这些人质疑他的资历，对其陈词滥调感到尴尬，并断定这位自我意识过强（高傲）的企业家并没有真正地“获得成功”。
《CEO 日记》
但很快，这位 33 岁的《快乐性感百万富翁》(Happy Sexy Millionaire) 作者可能会迫使他们收回这些话。新数据表明，巴特莱特正有望击败全球最大的播客主——美国人乔·罗根 (Joe Rogan)。
巴特莱特不断增长的部分
在蕾切尔·库斯 (Rachel Cusk) 的新小说中，那是娜塔莉·波特曼 (Natalie Portman) 吗？
Rosamund Urwin 首席新闻记者
当娜塔莉·波特曼 (Natalie Portman) 为她的读书会采访瑞秋·卡斯克 (Rachel Cusk) 时，她称赞这位作者是“我最喜欢的作家之一”。这位 45 岁的女演员现在可能希望自己当时只是在远处仰慕她。
卡斯克的最新著作《M的生活》(Life of M) 似乎取材于她与波特曼的关系，书中对这位女演员及其名流生活的刻画并不怎么讨喜。
尽管卡斯克没有指名道姓，仅将该女演员称为“M”，但两者之间的相似之处十分显著。她写道，“M”出演了一部芭蕾舞电影，而波特曼在 2011 年凭借达伦·阿伦诺夫斯基 (Darren Aronofsky) 的《黑天鹅》获得奥斯卡奖。“M”是一家大品牌的模特，她的“形象无处不在”，正如波特曼是 Miss Dior 香水的代言脸孔。“M”被描绘成脱离现实，但试图显得正常。
这部将于下月出版的书讲述了一位电影明星同意让她的作家朋友为她写传记的故事。故事在“M”与其未具名的作家朋友之间的一场摊牌中达到高潮，女演员在其中表示她认为自己的刻画“令人受伤”，并抱怨自己被塑造得“具有可识别性，而书中却充满了她自己都不认同的事情”。女演员最终 conceded（让步）认为，只要不使用她的名字，作家可以“随心所欲”。
有报道称，波特曼对自己认为的卡斯克对友情的背叛感到“愤怒”。然而，接近该女演员的消息人士对此予以否认，并试图让她远离围绕这部小说的骚乱。
他们表示，两人从未成为朋友，且仅见过寥寥几次，包括那次读书会采访。他们还强调，《M的生活》既不是波特曼的传记，甚至不是对“M”的画像：它探讨的是人们如何将自己投射到名人身上。
虽然一些评论家将这部小说视为对名流文化的一次尖刻剖析，但据了解仍然欣赏卡斯克文笔的波特曼被认为认为，作者实际上是将自己投射到了一个虚构化的演员世界中。
“这显然是一个娜塔莉·波特曼的画像，但似乎没有将她视为一个完整的人，暗示她已被自己的名声所吞没，”一位认识卡斯克的文学评论家说道。“但她似乎是最后几个会被这样评价的女演员之一，因为她聪慧且清醒。我认为这在将她非人化。她不点名波特曼，是想假装这处于虚构领域，而不是在面对一个你对其负有责任的真实的人。”
他们补充道：“这就是瑞秋·卡斯克的作风——她焚毁人们，然后继续前行。她的主题一直是对这个世界——尤其是其中的人们——在瑞秋·卡斯克眼中之不足的探讨。她的散文写得极好，她的句子精湛……”
中型门店，与马莎百货 展开食品之战
成功是一种技术，他的团队开发了这项技术，以便将他的节目翻译成外语，其中西班牙语和俄语最受欢迎。在YouTube上，《CEO日记》（The Diary of a CEO）约 28% 的浏览量来自外语观众，在那里，巴特利特（Bartlett）目前已接近超越罗根（Rogan）。
“按照目前的轨迹，今年就有现实可能，”巴特利特的播客公司 FlightStory 的首席执行官乔治·霍尔特（Georgie Holt）表示。“史蒂文启动《CEO日记》时并没有击败乔·罗根的计划，因此我们不认为这是一种竞争。乔向世界展示了可能性。”
巴特利特曾被《私家眼》（Private Eye）杂志描述为“自我神话之王”，他出生于博茨瓦纳，在德文郡长大，曾被普利茅斯的普利姆斯托克学校（Plymstock School）开除，他表示，在听了一次讲座后，他从曼彻斯特都会大学辍学。
随后，他共同创办了一家名为 Social Chain 的社交媒体广告机构。在 2010 年代，随着精通技术的企业家研究如何在 Facebook 和 Twitter 上寻找粉丝和追随者，曼彻斯特涌现了数家此类机构。那家公司在
最近的广告中称其为“美食爱好者”。它在伯克希尔郡的纽伯里（Newbury）开设了一家 27,000 平方英尺的测试店，在那里测试新的食品饮料产品线及其他举措。
该公司准备在秋季于曼彻斯特的黑尔巴恩斯（Hale Barns）和伦敦西北部的克里克尔伍德（Cricklewood）开设大型超市。明年计划在布里斯托的新布拉巴宗（Brabazon）区开设一家 30,000 平方英尺的门店。这将是该公司七年来首家全线产品门店。
除了尝试新型门店外，威特罗斯 (超市) 还在尝试通过降低价格来扩大吸引力。5 月，该公司表示将投入 £20 million 用于降低 160 种自有品牌产品的价格，平均降幅为 12%。
史蒂文·巴特利特的《CEO日记》播客在 3 月至 6 月期间在 YouTube 上吸引了近 31 million 次浏览
……美妙，但她的小说对他人极其刻薄——这就是她作品的共同主线。”
然而，其他人认为波特曼（Portman）与库斯克（Cusk）接触过于天真。书的开头暗示“M”同意被描写。在为 UnHerd 撰写的一篇文章中，作家兼编辑瓦莱丽·斯蒂弗斯（Valerie Stivers）认为：“任何心智正常且了解瑞秋·库斯克作品的人都不会允许她描写自己——至少，任何有自保意识且需要维护公众形象的人都不会。”
一位了解库斯克的出版高管表示：“她显然会对你这么做——她烧毁了所有的桥梁。但她也是一个像喜鹊一样搜集素材的作家，她会从很多人身上借鉴——她的角色并非单一的某个人。”
库斯克被认为是自传体小说（auto-fiction）的大师，这一文学流派模糊了传记与虚构的界限。这已不是她的书与现实生活过于接近而引发争议的第一次。
2009 年，她写了《最后的晚餐：意大利之夏》（The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy），讲述她在该国度过三个月的经历。显然，库斯克没有对书中描写的人物进行充分掩饰，并因此面临侵犯隐私的诉讼威胁。该书的第一批印数被销毁。
威特罗斯 (超市) 的零售总监蒂娜·米切尔（Tina Mitchell）表示，公司正在全国范围内寻找“人流量高、‘尺寸合适、位置精准’”的选址”，并且正在“适应客户的生活和购物方式”。这还包括进军旅游零售业，其产品目前正在希思罗机场 Terminal 2 的 Relay 商店中销售。
威特罗斯 (超市) 正陷入一场
销售额正 快速增长
娜塔莉·波特曼因在芭蕾电影《黑天鹅》中的角色而获得奥斯卡奖，她将下个月出版《M的人生》(Life of M) 一书的蕾切尔·库斯克描述为她最喜欢的作家之一。
与马莎百货 (M&S) 的竞争，后者去年表示正考虑在数百个地点开设食品店。威特罗斯 (Waitrose) 也在寻找新物业。这两家零售商规模相近，都经营着 300 家以上的门店，且都倾向于迎合较富裕的客户。
来自全球情报公司 NIQ 的最新数据表明，马莎百货 (M&S) 的夏季表现略好：在截至 7 月 11, 的 12 周内，威特罗斯 (Waitrose) 的销售额增长了 3.6%，且与去年同期相比，该超市维持了 3.8% 的市场份额。
随后被一家德国电子商务公司收购。
巴特利特通过他的第一家企业赚到了数百万美元（具体金额未披露），并利用这笔资金在 2019. 年创办了《CEO日记》(The Diary of a CEO)。起初，该播客专注于采访商业领袖，或者按照巴特利特更喜欢的说法，是进行“对话”。但随后他开始邀请演员（如马修·麦康海），前足球运动员（如加里·内维尔），以及像乔丹·彼得森这样具有争议的政治人物。
巴特利特在 2021 年 28, 岁时成为了 BBC《龙穴》(Dragons’ Den) 节目中最年轻的投资者，他
随后写了《后果》(Aftermath)，这是一本关于她与摄影师亚德里安·克拉克婚姻破裂的冷峻且充满争议的书。她后来承认，甚至连她“最亲密的朋友”都告诉她，“你绝对不应该写那本书”。
2017, 年，撰写回忆录《玛吉与我》(Maggie & Me) 的达米安·巴尔投诉说，库斯克在小说《中转》(Transit) 中塑造的角色朱利安是以他为原型的。他后来开玩笑说，库斯克的书很有用，“比如如果你有一个摇晃的桌子需要垫起桌腿。”
在出版界，库斯克被认为是一个“难以相处”的人物，她与接连多任编辑闹翻。林恩·巴伯在 2009 年为《观察者报》(The Observer) 采访她时，将她比作一匹“高度紧张的赛马”。
曾有一年，她入围了一项重要文学奖的初选名单，但未能进入最终短名单。一名评委私下承认，部分同行评委拒绝阅读该小说，因为他们觉得库斯克太残酷了。
然而，很少有人质疑她的才华。一位曾与库斯克合作的出版主管表示：“她只思考艺术，她有点像帕特里夏·海史密斯——毫不妥协，但她是真正的实干家。”
从未远离争议。他曾因在推广公司（包括蛋白粉品牌 Huel）时未披露财务利益而受到广告标准局的警告。
2024 年，BBC 世界服务的一项调查发现，《CEO日记》(The Diary of a CEO) 正在放大健康方面的误导信息，而巴特利特对此未作质疑。
让巴特利特团队敢于梦想超越罗根的数据来自数字数据专家 Social Blade。数据显示，《CEO日记》(The Diary of a CEO) 在 3 月至 6 月期间吸引了 308 million 次观看，领先于《乔·罗根经验》(The Joe Rogan Experience) 的 148 million 次。在同一时期，巴特利特增加了 2.8 million 名订阅者，使其总数达到 18.5 million，而罗根的 21 million 订阅者则基本持平。
ENRIC FONTCUBERTA/SHUTTERSTOCK
独立零售分析师理查德·海曼表示：“这次举动是因为马莎百货 (M&S) 势头迅猛，像火车一样在冲刺。而威特罗斯 (Waitrose) 在采取更激进的策略方面提升竞争力，必然是一件好事。”
威特罗斯 (Waitrose) 有了一位新任董事总经理汤姆·登亚德，他于 1 月加入。登亚德淡化了关于两个品牌之间激烈竞争的说法。他在 6 月告诉《泰晤士报》：“我知道每个人都喜欢将其描述为马莎百货 (M&S) 对阵威特罗斯 (Waitrose) 的正面交锋。但我看待市场的方式并非如此。英国有很多优秀的零售商，其产品定位相互重叠。”
如果且当巴特利特在 YouTube 上接触到罗根时，人们会声称他的播客规模仍然较小。至于 Spotify 和 Apple 等其他潜在规模更大的播客平台的听众数据则透明度较低。罗根在大多数排行榜上名列前茅，而其他几档播客在播放量上偶尔比《CEO 日记》排名更高，尽管在订阅人数上未必如此。
三层甜点 满足 怀旧口味
食品历史学家安妮·格雷 (Annie Gray) 将英国的三层甜点 (trifle) 描述为“不过就是一块浸透的蛋糕”。
但人们对这款经典甜点的怀旧之情，导致其销量突然回升，并开始出现在全国一些最豪华餐厅的菜单上。
传统的三层甜点由浸过雪莉酒的海绵蛋糕、水果、卡仕达酱、打发奶油和果冻分层制成（尽管这在三层甜点爱好者中仍有争议），而如今厨师们正针对现代口味进行创新。
口味变化多样，从稍微调整的柠檬和草莓味，到西瓜和茴香味，还有用无花果制成的版本、黑森林版本，以及针对夏季推出的 Pimm's 鸡尾酒味。
似乎没有任何地方因为过于高级而拒绝三层甜点。目前，它已出现在伦敦五星级酒店的菜单上，如丽兹酒店 (the Ritz)、兰斯伯勒酒店 (the Lanesborough) 和科林西亚酒店 (the Corinthia Hotel)。
米其林星级厨师丽莎·古德温-艾伦 (Lisa Goodwin-Allen) 始终认定三层甜点会出现在她位于伦敦市中心梅费尔区博蒙特酒店内的 Rosi 餐厅中。“从第一天起，Rosi 就提供三层甜点。它自带怀旧感，源自你的家庭餐桌，因此能唤起许多回忆，”她说道。
在 Rosi 餐厅，三层甜点随季节而变。冬季的无花果三层甜点已被一款售价 £10 的草莓和开心果口味取代。
波恩茅斯 Roots 餐厅的糕点师兼共同所有者斯泰西·布雷奇施奈德 (Stacey Bretschneider) 表示：“虽然我们每月更换口味，且并不总是传统的，但我们利用三层甜点的形式来构建这道菜……对我来说，它是一件国家瑰宝。”其苦巧克力“百万富翁”三层甜点中加入了 Rémy Martin 干邑白兰地。
威特罗斯 (超市) 也报告了需求增长。其售价 £3.95 的 600 克装草莓三层甜点销量比去年同期增长了 100%，而同价位的巧克力三层甜点销量增长了 39%。
许多人用作基底的手指饼干销量增长了 32%，而 Waitrose.com 上关于三层甜点食谱的搜索量增长了 175%，这表明家庭烘焙者也在加入这一趋势。
“三层甜点不再仅仅是节日庆典的中心装饰品；我们看到顾客全年都在享用三层甜点，将其视为终极的怀旧大众宠儿，”威特罗斯的厨师导师查梅因·卡茨 (Charmaine Katz) 说道。
其 No 1 系列产品的销量同比增长了 26%。该超市试图通过与 Yotam Ottolenghi 等厨师开展合作来利用这一趋势。
塔里 (Tarry) 对该集团的管理被广泛认为是在经历了怀特 (White) 领导下的波动期后回归正轨。怀特曾是一名公务员，其任期内充满了诸如疫情、通货膨胀飙升以及折扣店 Aldi 和 Lidl 崛起等挑战。
超市账目显示，2025, 年，威特罗斯 (超市) 的营收增长了 £500 million，达到 £7.8 billion，而税前利润为 £111 million，较前一年的 £138 million有所下降，尽管更广泛的约翰刘易斯合伙企业 (John Lewis Partnership) 出现了亏损。
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斯塔默派大清洗揭示 T 恤下的尖刀
小说家、意大利前总理马泰奥·伦齐 (Matteo Renzi) 的前顾问以及马基雅维利的研究者朱利亚诺·达·恩波利 (Giuliano da Empoli) 认为，没有什么比政治更暴力的了。“士兵只有在战争时才战斗，但政治是一场永恒的战争。而政治家最危险的敌人，几乎总是潜伏在他们自己军队的队列中。”
安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 上周完成了他对工党残酷的接管，将那些被认为最忠于基尔·斯塔默 (Keir Starmer) 的人从内阁中清洗，随后又从较低级别的部长职级中清洗。这次清洗规模深且具有系统性。
“就好像他想把之前的记录全部抹掉，让前任政府从未出现过一样，”一名被解雇的内阁部长说道，“地上到处是血，就像一家屠宰店。”另一人向我地描述了“残酷的一周”，称这些行动是由“复仇”驱动且充斥着潜伏的“愤怒”。
简直像个 屠宰铺
伯纳姆曾短暂地让党内团结在他身后，但随着他开始任命高级团队，这种团结立即破裂了。每一次解雇都会制造一个被冷落的竞争对手，每一次晋升都会产生一个忠实的追随者。
一名内阁部长虽心怀不忿，但仍表示钦佩：“但他清除了一批有能力的人，这些人觉得没必要向新政权卑躬屈膝，而且对基尔（Starmer）以及他们在政府中的个人记录仍持有某种程度的忠诚。在捍卫这些记录时，他们会表现得很强硬。”
一些前部长已经开始称自己为“被剥夺者”。他们指出，那些在斯塔默被罢黜过程中发挥作用的人得到了回报，包括前苏格兰工党领袖阿纳斯·萨尔瓦尔（Anas Sarwar），他被提升至上议院，现任商业部长。而那些在公开和私下都保持忠诚的人则被解雇了，除了负责福利改革并获得信任的工作与养老金大臣帕特·麦克法登（Pat McFadden）。
这是政治最原始、最残酷的一面，但这些自诩为忠诚之士的人难道应该期待不同的结果吗？
斯塔默长期以来被指责为“极端派系化”。随着他每一次解雇、强迫辞职或内阁洗牌，不满者的队伍就增加一分。伯纳姆洞察到了斯塔默在议会党团内部的脆弱性，并与海格（Haigh）以及现任首席党鞭安妮利斯·米德格利（Anneliese Midgley）合作，巧妙地利用了这一点。
在夏季休会之后。现在的问题是，她会表现得宽宏大量，寻求跨派系合作，还是成为一名“报复心强”的首席党鞭。
前财政大臣雷切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）在洗牌中被提供教育大臣的职位，这让她感到尤其被轻视，因为这将是一次极其严重的降职。她选择了回到后议席。关于她的继任者约翰·希利（John Healey）以及他在迫使斯塔默离职中所扮演的角色，存在诸多猜测。“我还没完全搞清楚底细，”一名被解雇的内阁部长说，“但他上个月辞去国防大臣一职并非计划之外。约翰是一个老谋深算的操作者，棋盘上的棋子正被移动，以便创造条件结束基尔的首相任期。”
希利本人是一名资深的工党忠诚者，在工会运动中根基深厚。“你必须时刻保持政治敏感，”去年我陪同他前往布鲁塞尔的北约总部时，他对我如此说道。而这正是斯塔默付出代价才学到的教训。
在公开场合最感委屈的是达伦·琼斯（Darren Jones），前首相第一秘书。周一晚上，基尔·斯塔默在北伦敦一家酒吧举行离职派对（这次聚会已被神话），次日早晨，琼斯在社交媒体上尖刻地指出，数字身份计划缺乏资金。伯纳姆此前表示，通过废除该计划节省的资金将用于减免家庭电费的增值税，成本为 £850 million。琼斯的风度像个沉浸在自我重要性幻象中的学生会主席，在议会党团中没有太多支持。但正如一位高级同事所说，他曾任财政部首席秘书，拥有深厚的体制内知识。“他知道秘密埋在哪里，这就是为什么他的干预预示了如果你不能跨派系管理，最终会落到什么样的境地。安迪在建立一个忠于斯塔默的小团体方面，比基尔本人更有效。”
在 2024 年因一项历史性欺诈定罪而辞去内阁职务后（她认为自己受到了斯塔默和麦克斯威尼的不公正对待），海格成为了温和左翼议员团体“Tribune”的领导人。琼斯暗示他可能会尝试组建自己的派系，但除了关于 WhatsApp 群组的传闻外，没有迹象表明斯塔默的忠诚者们已经在准备组织起来。
篡夺首相之位已被证明
对于伯纳姆来说，这简单的部分在于斯塔默之前是多么不受欢迎。但他面临着严峻的挑战，尤其是因为他雄心勃勃地想要推翻后撒切尔时代的共识——或者用他的话来说，要“回溯 1980 年代”。这一措辞令人震惊，因为玛格丽特·撒切尔曾谈到要“回缩国家的边界”。
伯纳姆并非反自由主义者，但他可能试图以一名“后自由主义者”的身份执政——在经济上倾向中左翼，在移民和社会政策上倾向中右翼，是将温和左翼与“蓝色工党”相结合的融合体。
而且，伯纳姆渴望不仅仅成为又一名短暂的首相，一个在当代英国政治这场虚荣集市中被贬低的、昙花一现的角色。他志在创造一种全新的、具有主导地位的经济和政治共识，就像撒切尔在 1979 年当选后，以及克莱门特·艾德礼在工党 1945 年 landslide 大胜后所做的那样。
但撒切尔和艾德礼的定局是耗时数十年才形成的。自由市场右翼拥有智库，在议会中拥有如伊诺克·鲍威尔、基思·约瑟夫以及后来的尼格尔·劳森等知识分子的先遣支持，拥有如蒙佩林协会等国际支持网络，并有 F.A. 哈耶克、米尔顿·弗里德曼和罗伯特·诺齐克的著作引导。第二次世界大战后实施的艾德礼改革——建立国民健康服务体系（NHS）和现代福利国家、国有化、新城建设和社会住房项目——得益于战时的指令经济、工会的权力，并由威廉·贝弗里奇和约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯等新自由主义者的思想所塑造。
伯纳姆并没有这样的基础设施或意识形态支架来支撑他的雄心，而且他受到斯塔默那份赢得选举的竞选宣言以及该党财政遗产的约束。就像康拉德《黑暗之心》中的库尔茨先生一样，他有着“宏伟的计划”，但就好像他住在一家正在周围建设中的房子里——这在曼彻斯特仓促建设的唐宁街10号北区中得到了象征。
在他早期的左翼支持者中，一些支持深远的民主和宪法改革的人已经在抱怨，认为他不够激进，最终可能不过是某人所描述的“软弱左翼工党主义”的另一种体现。
目前，在缺乏实质性政策的情况下，伯纳姆依靠氛围和信号性行动来展示其优先事项，同时到处散布支出承诺，并慷慨激昂地谈论 10 年计划。
与斯塔默不同，伯纳姆至少知道自己想做什么，并且身边有他信任且在冷酷无情方面与他志同道合的人。即便在获胜的情况下，工党内部依然分裂。伯纳姆准备容忍内部的分歧并制造敌人，正如他通过大规模清洗斯塔默派所做的那样，只要他的政府具有一种推进感和目标感，即便目前还没有一份竞选宣言。即使是一名被解职的内阁部长也承认，他起步很好。“而第一印象至关重要。”
M
“不负责任且目光短浅”）。但她意识到，在这一问题上的姿态即将发生变化；禁止在北海发放新许可证的承诺将维持不变，但重启钻探——包括在 Jackdaw 和 Rosebank 油田利用现有基础设施进行钻探——可能已在计划之中。
此次内阁重组是在接到特朗普总统一个“热情”的电话之后进行的。特朗普告诉伯纳姆，他看了后者在唐宁街 10 号的首次演讲，并对他保持简洁且无需笔记地发表演讲深感钦佩。在与其他国家领导人的通话中，也出现了一些轻松时刻：伯纳姆在与西班牙首相佩德罗·桑切斯通话的前 5 分钟使用了西班牙语，并与波兰首相唐纳德·图斯讨论了他的爱犬 Axel。
然而，此次重组中一些总结性的解职和内阁降级仍引发了持久的愤怒，这次清洗的规模比许多人预期的更为全面。前教育大臣布里奇特·菲利普森被降职为妇女与平等事务大臣，而前首相首席秘书达伦·琼斯则完全离开了政府，这两人的命运在部分国会议员中引起了特别的不快。
“她正处于极其重要的 Send [特殊教育需求和残疾] 改革之中，并赢得了议会工党的支持，”一名工党议员在谈到菲利普森时说道。另一名议员则简单地表示：“她被坑了。”但伯纳姆的盟友坚持认为，为了展现变革，他需要进行激进的人员更替，并反驳称，留在原职的工作与养老金大臣帕特·麦克法登曾是基尔·斯塔默爵士的忠实支持者，而他幸存了下来。
目前看来，伯纳姆不必担心斯塔默本人会制造麻烦。尽管他周一在北伦敦与支持者一起喝酒，并在得知每位被解雇部长的命运时，短暂离开酒吧给对方打电话，但他面临着更紧迫的任务——寻找住处。并且他已警告盟友，不要在媒体上散布不利于其继任者的言论。
伯纳姆现在进入了一个更具挑战性的时期。虽然他在上任之初密集发布了关于生活成本的公告，但本周将带来一系列针对长期且看似难以解决问题的干预措施：社会护理、英国青年的失业危机以及国防。下周结束将标志着伯纳姆上任前两周日程表的完结，国会议员们预计在 9 月返回议会前将有一段平静期。
据了解，伯纳姆希望加快由凯西女男爵主导的审查，这位怀特霍尔的问题解决专家正在研究社会护理，原定于 2028 年提交报告，而伯纳姆不希望再次将该问题搁置。但任何提供免费护理服务的提案，每年可能会花费约 £18.5 billion。
此外，在权力下放方面也将有重大干预。一名 No 10 消息人士表示，伯纳姆指示他的内阁“停止默认认为决策权属于怀特霍尔”。该人士补充道：“各部门现在必须证明，为什么某项权力应该留在中央，而不是移交给地方。”至关重要地是，这预计将包括一种真正的财政下放形式，允许地方当局保留一部分收缴的税款，包括所得税。
伯纳姆面临的进一步待办事项包括，是否同意美国战争部长皮特·海格塞斯的请求，在 10 姆兹海峡主持一次会议。
大爆发的种种 主张是否合理？
英国；以及部长们应如何应对要求废除提前出狱计划的日益高涨的呼声——该计划在上周被暂停，此前关于警员安德鲁·哈珀（Andrew Harper）的两名凶手可能获释的消息引发了愤怒；此外还有大曼彻斯特市长补选，此次补选由安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）的离职引发。
至少在最后一个挑战上，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）将感到较为轻松，民调显示，工党候选人贝芙·克雷格（Bev Craig）很可能在周四轻松胜出。考虑到他的对手在私下里经常将这次补选作为他回归一线政治具有风险的理由，这一时刻对于安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）的盟友来说将格外令人满意。
其他的挑战可能更为艰巨。据《泰晤士报》报道，关于提前出狱计划，人们正在考虑一系列可能的替代方案，包括赋予监狱长和缓刑监督员对囚犯释放的否决权。据了解，另一个被考虑的选项是在囚犯刑期的较早阶段将其转移到开放式或低安全级别的监狱。安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）身边的人仍然担心某些类别——尤其是儿童性犯罪者——被纳入该计划。
随着怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心) 正在进行重大变动，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在就职的第一周里经常与 51 岁的内阁秘书安东尼娅·罗密欧（Antonia Romeo）女爵共同出现。罗密欧正领导着强大的新设首相与内阁办公室，该部门将整合 No 10、No 10 North 以及内阁办公室团队。
他的身边还有路易丝·海格（Louise Haigh），这位强大的国务第一秘书将监督 No 10 在伦敦和曼彻斯特的事务。
西班牙语与 佩德罗·桑切斯 交谈
此次洗牌中获得权力的其他所谓“北方女王”包括：新任首席党鞭安妮莉丝·米德格利（Anneliese Midgley）；新任教育大臣露西·鲍威尔（Lucy Powell）；以及前监狱看守、现任内阁办公室和雷纳（Rayner）住房部门议会秘书的萨莉·詹姆森（Sally Jameson）。
在应对这些波折时，安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）还引起了人们对其沟通风格的关注。不仅是他如暴风雪般密集的社交媒体活动，还有他在面对问题（如免税个人所得额的门槛）时，能够轻松地展现出不断演进的立场。他说：“现在的日子很有意思，你不能诚实地回答一个问题，否则人们就会从中读出其他所有含义。在这个岗位上，我想诚实地回答问题。”
这种新风格在实践中将如何运作？一位盟友表示：“我们不需要不断地向选民假装我们今天就掌握了所有答案。然后无论他说什么，立刻就成了神谕。那是一种虚假的确定性。”
而这恰恰是好事，因为安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在仅经过数周准备后就进驻唐宁街，且仍有一系列迫在眉睫的艰难决定需要做出。
吉姆·阿米蒂奇 (Jim Armitage)
当特朗普总统的英国大使沃伦·斯蒂芬斯（Warren Stephens）在外交部的大理石庭院中向国会议员发表讲话，庆祝美国独立 250 周年时，他并没有局限于讨论“特殊关系”。
“我要重复一遍，”这位亿万富翁告诉他的英国东道主们：“在当今的现代经济中，我们需要所有形式的能源，包括石油和天然气。”
正如他在 6 月的《泰晤士报》首席执行官峰会上阐明的那样，这是在明确号召工党终止其在竞选宣言中承诺的禁止公司在北海钻探新油气储量的规定。他宣布，英国反而从其他国家进口天然气，这令人“匪夷所思”。
与特朗普一样，出生于阿肯色州的斯蒂芬斯（Stephens）——他部分财富源自家族油钻公司斯蒂芬斯天然资源公司（Stephens Natural Resources）——热情地游说埃德·米利班德（Ed Miliband）和基尔·斯塔默爵士（Sir Keir Starmer）采取“钻吧，宝贝，钻”的行动，但并未奏效。
在被任命为安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）的新任能源大臣三天后，此前曾公开反对北海勘探的米亚塔·法恩布勒（Miatta Fahnbulleh）前往阿伯丁，会见英国该行业精神家园的关键人物。
幽默的伯纳姆虽是 社交媒体之星，但 他很快必须严肃起来
能源账单上亟需的缓解措施。针对酒吧和餐厅营业率的大幅削减。以及全国范围内的交通成本冻结。这些都是一个“生活成本政府”的政策，而将更多资金放入劳动者口袋就是该政府的北极星（指引方向）。
我所指的，当然是最近离任的基尔·斯塔默爵士政府。该政府在近几个月内将家庭能源成本削减了 £117，为酒吧和音乐场所引入了 15% 的营业率减免，并冻结了全国的铁路票价。在此期间，斯塔默及其盟友几乎除了降低生活成本这一紧迫任务外，别无他谈。
但几乎没有人听进去。很少有人能告诉你这些政策已经出台。更少有人为此给予斯塔默政府任何赞赏。人们早已对其放弃。
于是安迪·伯纳姆登场了。在政策层面，到目前为止，这个新政府是斯塔默的延续。与前任一样，伯纳姆在微调生活成本救济方案，试图通过政府支出的强力手段来降低通货膨胀。目前尚未有重大政策公布。
但沟通风格却截然不同。伯纳姆的政策推出伴随着一场社交媒体闪击战，在算法支配力上达到了罕见的高度。与莫·法拉一起慢跑，与“巴士大妈”（Bus Aunty，建议搜索）一起设定公交票价上限，与他的新财政大臣约翰·希利一起给酒吧薯片排名——像是在演绎莫康比和怀斯（Morecambe and Wise）风格的沙龙酒吧喜剧：过去的一周堪称当代政治沟通的大师课。伯纳姆利用熟悉的梗（memes）、一群 TikTok 影响者，以及只能被描述为“俏皮小伙”的幽默感，向全国介绍了新首相及其优先事项。
而且人们确实在自发地分享这些内容。周三，当公交票价方案出台时，伯纳姆在社交媒体渠道上的内容浏览量达到了 13 million。周四，这一数字达到了 15 million。对于一个五月才开始运营 Instagram 账号的人来说，这表现相当不错。
这一战略的基础是伯纳姆的坚定信念：除非你在人们花费最多时间的地方——也就是盯着手机屏幕的地方——与他们接触，否则你无法在 21 世纪成为一名成功的政治家。而这只能由一位享受并理解那种“金鱼般”的人们喜欢在手机上消费的古怪平庸感的政治家来实现。斯塔默从未拥有这种天赋。“两年来，每个人都在强调真实性在政治中是多么重要，事实证明确实如此，”一位前斯塔默顾问反思道。
尼格尔·法拉格、唐纳德·特朗普和佐赫兰·马姆达尼都具备这种能力，至少能够表演出真实感。当
通过“回接”（tiebacks）进行北海作业——即通过将新发现的油气田连接到现有的生产设施上。
前保守党能源大臣、现任能源行业高级顾问查尔斯·亨德里表示，与坚定反对化石燃料的米利班德体制相比，这简直是天差地别。“她这么快就前往阿伯丁，在象征意义上非常重要。这表明她愿意倾听。埃德花了好几个月才去，我不确定他是否再去过。”
法恩布莱会见了北海主要游说团体 Offshore Energies UK 的首席执行官大卫·怀特豪斯，后者将这次会面描述为“建设性”的。他推测，她不会被教条所支配：“我们现在的国务大臣将根据摆在她面前的事实做出决定。”
威斯特敏斯特的消息人士表示，预计法恩布莱将在下个月公众咨询期结束后，立即批准 Rosebank 和 Jackdaw 项目。
特朗普多年来一直呼吁发放新的钻探许可证，宣称英国拥有大量“未开发”的石油和天然气。事实上，北海曾经丰富的储量已基本枯竭。自生产开始以来，已有约 47.7 十亿桶石油或天然气等效量被开采。
目前仅剩 3 亿桶可回收原油。
随着更多太阳能、风能和核能投入运行，英国正向 2050 年实现净零碳排放的目标转型。但根据政府独立气候变化委员会的说法，在此之前，英国仍需要 13 至 15 billion 桶石油（或天然气等效量）。
在工党的勘探限制下，英国预计将生产其中的约 40 亿桶。其余部分将不得不进口，主要来自鼓励新勘探的挪威，或者以液化天然气形式从美国和卡塔尔进口。
周日时报摄影师 RICHARD POHLE
英国钻探商声称，如果能获得他们想要的政策变动，他们可以进一步开采 30 亿桶原油，并在未来十年内将税收增加 £13 billion 以上。他们声称，将投资 £50 billion 用于 110 个新项目，创造就业机会并带来供应链收益。
按照当前趋势，预计到 2035. 年，英国国内气田仅能满足其天然气需求的 18 %。但业界表示，如果拥有正确的许可和税制，英国的贡献率可达 57 %。这两个“如果”——许可证和税收——是关键。四年前的最后一轮许可发放使潜在资源增加了 31 %。但此后再无新许可。
Rosebank 是一个位于设得兰群岛海岸线外 80 英里、拥有高达 500 million 桶原油的储量区，于 2022 年获得许可证；Jackdaw 是一个位于阿伯丁以东 150 英里的气田，可提供英国 6.5 % 的天然气产量，于 2023. 年随后获批。但这些许可证去年被环保人士在法院拦截。绿色和平组织（Greenpeace）和 Uplift 成功地主张，客户在使用这些油气时产生的温室气体排放（即“范围 3”排放）未被纳入考虑。
安迪·伯纳姆在 TikTok 上与他的新任财政部大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）评价酒吧小吃
凯米·巴德诺克（Kemi Badenoch）去年开始接任反对党领袖，她部分是通过采取“社交媒体优先”的方法，利用其天然的好斗性来制造热门片段和瞬间。现在看来，我们可以将伯纳姆也加入这个名单。
在语调上，他与斯塔默（Starmer）执政初期的反差也非常显著。斯塔默在就职时，冷峻地谈到了前方的艰难时期和艰难抉择。而伯纳姆则在每一个机会尽可能多地使用“希望”这个词。斯塔默在开启首相任期时表示，现在是时候将“喧闹的表演”剔除出政治了。而伯纳姆正制造着巨大的轰动，用海量内容填满社交空间。
斯塔默在试图修复糟糕的政治遗产时，请求选民给予耐心。而伯纳姆则以一种轻快、积极的态度在推进，同时伴随着一种紧迫感和敏锐的意识——他深知第一印象只有一次机会。他将风趣的社交媒体视为解决政治信任危机、让威斯敏斯特（Westminster）政治不再显得遥不可及的一种方式。
至少到目前为止——当然我们才刚进入第一周——这种方法似乎奏效了。More in Common 民调机构的卢克·特里尔（Luke Tryl）制作的一个词云图，要求用一个词描述伯纳姆的首相任期，结果中占据主导的是“充满希望”和“乐观”。Merlin Strategy 为《旁观者》（The Spectator）进行的一项民调发现，41 % 的公众认为伯纳姆的前几天表现非常或相当成功，仅有 10 % 的人认为他没有成功。
工党人士对此感到由衷兴奋，甚至连保守党都 grudgingly（勉强地）表示认可。“到目前为止，他们采取了正确的方法，”一名保守党顾问说，“安迪就是资产，他受欢迎得多。”
活动人士还声称，钻探平均每年仅能将英国对进口的依赖降低 2 per cent。然而，即使是绿色能源供应商 Octopus Energy 的创始人 Greg Jackson 也表示，将天然气“运送到世界另一端而非使用我们自己的”简直是“疯狂”。
安迪·伯纳姆可以通过使用“连接管线”（tiebacks）在不违背工党竞选宣言承诺的情况下允许更多钻探。雪佛龙（Chevron）的海底控制与电力经理 Rick Kopps 将使用现有管道和其他基础设施描述为就像“一根从[水龙头]连接到花园的长花园软管”。
“……而非他的政党。所以我们看到了很多关于安迪·伯纳姆其人的信息。此外，他并没有一套真正完整的政策方案准备就绪，因此这种方式对他们来说是目前最佳的选择。”
我们该如何看待这一切？斯塔默（Starmer）的主要问题仅仅是氛围和包装吗？
首先要做的是不要过于乐观。热度会消退，社交媒体上的炒作并不总能转化为持久的成功。（记得 Kamala Harris 和她那次引起轰动的 “Brat” 热潮吗？）
目前，安迪·伯纳姆顺风而行。他具有新鲜感。由于议会休会，他拥有时间。而其他政党要么在破坏性的媒体报道后在舔舐伤口（英国改革党、绿党），要么仍在摸索最佳应对方案（保守党）。
“这是他们最轻松的一周，”一名保守党顾问说。“当你分发钱财时，人们会热爱你的沟通。然后事情出错，你不得不做出不受欢迎的决定，突然之间，数字化营销就变得糟糕，战略也变得糟糕。”
同样值得注意的是，在与“传统媒体”（如本报）的接触中，安迪·伯纳姆展现出了一些熟悉的弱点。他习惯于提出政策想法并引发各种猜测，告诉记者他想“研究”取消个人所得税免税额的冻结——这是一项涉及数十亿英镑的承诺。他的官员很快就不得不对这一想法泼冷水。
公交车票降价一英镑和一些关于“薯片三明治”的笑话也构不成一个成功的政府。安迪·伯纳姆的生活成本补贴可能引发了大众参与，但其成本估算令人质疑，且无法解决英国经济的结构性弱点。为了资助他对英国公众所期望的慷慨之举，他可能在预算案中不得不提高税收。到那时，关于埃弗顿足球俱乐部（Everton）和炸虾薯条（Scampi Fries）的套路可能会开始让人反感，尤其是霍尔木兹海峡局势更加紧张的情况下。
到目前为止，安迪·伯纳姆正在实践左翼政治理论家 Anton Jäger 所称的“超政治”（hyperpolitics）。该理论认为，当今政治的特点是风格重于实质。得益于社交媒体快速且“不稳定的群体”，我们处于一个高度政治化的时代，不断讨论政治，但这一切都建立在流沙之上。持久政策变革的漫长且艰苦的磨练很少发生。
如果过去一周的情况具有代表性，那么安迪·伯纳姆擅长超政治，并能够获得英国公众的倾听。他非常适应我们生活的时代。但他是否有能力推动一项有意义的政策议程？他是否具有足够的知识和政治分量以及持久力来履行他的宏伟承诺？实现英国工业化、修复社会护理、引入激进的权力下放并为我们的军队提供适当资金？这些问题依然尖锐。而它们的答案无法在 TikTok 上找到。
在《能源独立法案》中，公司将被允许通过连接管线（tiebacks）获取尚未获得许可的油气储量，只要那里的资源不需要新的勘探钻井。
连接管线可能占据该行业称可开采的额外 30 亿桶资源的一大部分。但税收可能是另一个障碍。公司表示，除非税制经过改革，否则无法推进：自 2010 年以来，该行业已遭受至少 11 次变动影响。
如果伯纳姆确实给了北海工业其所寻求的帮助，那绝不是因为特朗普及其驻英大使向他施压。这将是由于工会以及依赖北海工业的社区（位于阿伯丁和英格兰东北部）中焦躁不安的选民之要求，在这些地区，英国改革党和保守党一直在大声地呼吁允许钻探开始。
首相将赢得这些选区议员的支持，但可能会失去至少 60 名关注环保的工党议员（MPs）和苏格兰议会议员（MSPs）的支持，据《卫报》报道，这些人反对罗斯班克（Rosebank）项目。
一位可能会有矛盾心理的后座议员是前财政大臣瑞秋·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）。据称，她一直很看好资金回笼给财政部带来的意外之财，但始终未能促成该计划通过。
TOM CORBAN/ALAMY
在多塞特郡庞德伯里的格雷特菲尔德（Great Field）举行的首届多切斯特风筝节期间，一只形似巨大黄貂鱼的风筝在空中盘旋。此次活动展出了由怀特马风筝飞行员（White Horse Kite Flyers）操纵的巨型特技风筝，该组织是由来自威尔特郡的爱好者组成的团体。
解决监狱危机”
Lara Spirit 政治副主编
英国改革党首位当选的警察与犯罪专员表示，应将女性从监狱中释放，作为解决英国监狱危机的一种“激进替代方案”。
柯林·萨顿（Colin Sutton）这位曾侦破国内一些最臭名昭著谋杀案的侦探，本月被确认成为诺福克郡的新任警察与犯罪专员（PCC）。
他的当选标志着他在伦敦警察厅服务三十多年后重返公共生活。这位前侦查总督最著名的成就是指挥团队追踪并抓获了列维·贝尔菲尔德（Levi Bellfield），后者在 2011 年被判定谋杀米莉·道勒（Milly Dowler）、马莎·麦克唐纳（Marsha McDonnell）和艾米莉·德拉格朗日（Amélie Delagrange）。
他还主导了对被称为“深夜潜行者”的连环强奸犯德尔罗伊·格兰特（Delroy Grant）的追捕。在萨顿将其抓获之前，格兰特在 17 年间闯入老年女性家中进行盗窃、强奸和性 assaulted。
上周，新任首相安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）暂停了备受争议的提前释放计划。该计划原本会导致数千名罪犯从 9 月起获释，伯纳姆随即宣布将对其进行紧急审查。
此前，在发现杀害警员安德鲁·哈珀（Andrew Harper）的凶手（他们在 2020 年被判处 13 年监禁）可能符合释放条件后，引发了强烈抗议。哈珀的遗孀莉西（Lissie）称该计划“令人厌恶”。
然而，削减该计划将挫败在英格兰和威尔士释放监狱空间的努力。在 2024 年大选之前，监狱空间仅剩数日便告罄；尽管此后有数千名囚犯获得了提前释放，但目前的占用率仍高达 97%。
但作为尼格尔·法拉格（Nigel Farage）的犯罪与警务顾问，萨顿认为这个问题有一个更简单的解决方案。为什么不释放女囚？“我认为这将是一种激进的、跳出常规的创造更多监狱空间的方式，”65 岁的萨顿在其诺福克办公室表示。
目前英格兰和威尔士有 3,500 名女性在狱中，分布在 12 个场所，仅占总囚犯人数的 4%。大多数女性因非暴力犯罪（通常是盗窃）而被监禁，且更有可能被判处较短的刑期，被认为破坏性较小，且再次犯罪的可能性较低。与男性囚犯相比，她们也是一个更脆弱的群体：更容易自残，遭受心理健康问题，且被关押在远离家人的地方。
这些事实长期以来一直被历任政府所认可。从 3 月起生效的《量刑法》倾向于非监禁刑罚而非短期监禁。
萨顿表示，释放大部分仍在服刑的女性将有助于解决过度拥挤问题。他还支持驱逐外国罪犯——目前有 10,500 名外国罪犯在押，占囚犯人口的 12%——以及创建所谓的“南丁格尔监狱”（Nightingale prisons），无论是快速建设还是将现有建筑改建而成。
“在新冠疫情期间，我们快速建设了南丁格尔医院和南丁格尔法庭等设施，”他说。“最终，如果我们是认真的……这可能意味着使用像废弃军营这样的场所。”
英国改革党对萨顿的获胜表示庆祝，因为预计这将是最后一次警察与犯罪专员选举，随着权力下放计划的实施，该职位很快将被废除。在 17% 的投票率下，他以 32,600 票的绝对优势击败了保守党竞争对手的 18,300 票。
但这位前侦探已经身兼数职。英国改革党高级消息人士表示，如果该党执政，他注定将成为一名部长；而目前他正在英国改革党总部管理一个负责犯罪与警务政策的“小团队”。
在经历了目睹一些最可怕罪行的职业生涯之后，并且在...
这段时间他成功地撰写书籍并改编关于其团队不懈工作的剧本，那么是什么促使萨顿进入政坛，并选择加入英国改革党？
萨顿表示，他此前加入保守党“纯粹且简单地是为了在领导层选举中投票反对特蕾莎·梅”，随后在两年前成为了英国改革党的成员。
他对梅的反对源于目睹了联合政府时期对警察部门的削减——尤其是对警察局的削减。自2010年以来，已有超过600家警察局关闭：占此前向公众开放总数的一半。萨顿认为，这导致了“公众与警察之间纽带和信任的破裂”。他补充道，在诺福克郡，仅有三家警察局，且没有一家是24小时营业的。
他在被邀请担任当地英国改革党分支机构副主席后进入了政治前线。“我总是倾向于去做那些我不该做的志愿者工作，”他说。在经历了人生中一直“投票给那个最不坏的选项”之后，该党吸引了他；他将工党和保守党描述为“同一枚硬币的两面”。
现在，作为诺福克郡的警察与犯罪专员（PCC），他处理的犯罪情况与伦敦有所不同。他说，这里被忽视的是农村犯罪：从非法倾倒垃圾到设备盗窃、马匹盗窃和猎兔赛跑。“我一直在与农民交流，他们说如果拖拉机上的GPS设备能维持六个多星期不被偷，就算运气不错了，”他说。
那么法拉格呢？萨顿在过去几天与他一起在克拉克顿参加补选活动。萨顿称赞他是一个“非常精明、非常敏锐的人”，并否认了关于其领导人财务状况的质疑。“我能说的就是他所说的：他没有做任何违法的事情。他没有滥用任何公款。”
他将法拉格决定辞职并引发补选的行为比作“就像多米尼克·库明斯时期……那是四维棋局，让对方措手不及”。他坚信法拉格将获得“压倒性”的胜利。
他补充道：“也许在某种程度上，他自己也稍微有些措手不及，因为其他政党原本并不想参选……但我也认为其他政党很清楚他们赢不了。”
电影里的场景……简直是末日景象”
法国
Katie Gatens 波尔多, Peter Conradi 以及 Samuel Lovett
波尔多
在法国西南部萨洛内斯 (Salaunes) 这个小村庄的瞭望塔上，消防员们指向地平线上的一抹橙色细带，宛如日出。副消防局长内森 (Nathan) 知道，火势很快就会蔓延到这里。
“我从事志愿者工作 20 年了，从未见过这样的景象，”他说道，此时灰烬如雪花般在他周围飘落。很快，他及其同事也将被迫撤离。在一小时前，他已经与妻子和孩子告别，他们在他之前撤离了。内森住在萨洛内斯，未提供姓氏，他现在没时间感伤。“在这种时刻你不能恐惧——你需要全身心地集中注意力。”
截至昨天傍晚，随着应急服务部门努力控制该地区历史上最严重的山火，包括夏季度假游客和当地居民在内的超过 250,000 人在法国和西班牙境内被撤离。火焰已推进至距离人口 267,000 人的城市波尔多不到 20 英里的地方。
西班牙
“我们仍处于严峻的局面之中，”新阿基坦 (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) 和吉龙德 (Gironde) 地区的省长索菲·布罗卡斯 (Sophie Brocas) 表示。得益于气温下降和湿度增加，火势已“失去部分凶猛程度”，但她表示已有 140 栋房屋被摧毁，这是法国历史上最高数字。
在昨晚于 X 上发布的一份声明中，马克龙总统表示：“在火焰严重考验我国的时刻，法国展现了它的本色：一个团结的人民，肩并肩地站在一起……我们将重建，我们将修复，无论需要多久我们都会在。”他感谢罗马尼亚、克罗地亚、德国、葡萄牙、瑞典、瑞士、捷克共和国和斯洛伐克的支持，并表示法国的关怀延伸至“西班牙、意大利、希腊以及所有同样面临山火威胁的人民”。英国尚未提供任何援助。国防部的一位发言人表示，法国尚未向英国请求任何帮助。
英国
意大利
法国总理塞巴斯蒂安·勒科尔尼 (Sébastien Lecornu) 表示，该国面临一个“历史性局面”，并将这次山火描述为“前所未有”。
在西班牙城市瓦伦西亚附近的一场森林火灾中，一名人员在萨尔特-德-拉瓜 (Salt de l’Aigua) 峡谷附近死亡。当地火势已于昨天下午晚些时候得到控制。数场山火也正向马德里推进，该市西侧有超过 80,000 人被撤离或被要求留在室内。
马德里
昨天傍晚，超过 400 名应急人员在 50 个地面和空中单位（包括直升机）的协助下，正致力于遏制马德里西侧三场合并为一的火灾。该市应急机构发布了一段视频，显示西拉内拉 (Sierra Oeste) 地区正发生剧烈燃烧，该地区已有数个城镇被撤离。首相佩德罗·桑切斯 (Pedro Sánchez) 已于周五宣布进入国家紧急状态，启用联邦资金以应对危机。
其他进展： 法国政府表示，已部署 1,500 名军事人员协助灭火和疏散。一架 A400M Atlas 军用飞机开始执行一项实验性灭火任务，能够投放 20 吨阻燃剂或水。
环法自行车赛的组织者表示，出于“国家团结精神”，他们将在今天缩短最后一赛段。原定为该赛事提供安保的警员已被调往协助应急响应。
欧洲烈焰
针对旅行 凯恩戈姆山 (Cairngorms)
200 miles
来源：Nasa Firms。截至7月25日周六下午5点，24小时情况
BBC报道。英国政府表示正在“密切监测进展”，但截至昨日下午，尚未发布“请勿前往”的旅行建议。
苏格兰部长请求怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心) 提供空中“军事援助”，以帮助应对在凯恩戈姆山已燃烧11天的山火。
上方图示：卡普费雷 (Cap Ferret) 沦为一片废墟，养老院居民被疏散至波尔多（左图）。右图：强风助长了马德里西部的火势。
比斯开湾 拉卡诺 (Lacanau)
勒波热 (Le Porge)
莱日 (Lège)
拉泰斯特-德-布什 (La Teste-de-Buch)
疏散路线
卡普费雷 疏散区 火灾，7月25日
30 miles
昨日在波尔多，景象如同世界末日。太阳像一个幽灵般的橙色圆球，天空因浓烟而失去了光亮，大火吞噬了35,000公顷土地。
数以万计的呼吸面罩正被紧急运往该地区。波尔多的一位居民表示，空气已经“无法呼吸”。在比斯卡罗斯 (Biscarrosse) —— 该市西南的一个小型海滨度假胜地 —— 另一场大火也在肆虐。
自周三以来，仅在吉伦特省 (Gironde) 就有超过32,000公顷的森林被焚毁。今年以来，法国森林过火面积已达到创纪录的98,000公顷。而之前的纪录是2022年全年的66,300公顷。
周五上午，法国当局下令疏散热门旅游目的地卡普费雷半岛，许多人乘船离开。当天晚上，一支小型消防队正在收拾装备。在通往莱日的封闭道路两旁，大火摧毁了农舍，车道上只剩下汽车的残骸。
欧登日 (Audenge)
萨尔斯 (Salles)
10 miles
“我们只有一辆卡车……我们不得不任由房屋被烧毁，”一名消防员说道。“有一栋工业建筑即将起火 —— 我们必须把资源投入到那里。那里的烟雾是有毒的。”
在莱日的一个停车场里，由乔纳森·安东宁 (Jonathan Antonin) 经营的餐车“Truck de Chef”正向500名消防员免费提供纸盒装的牛排薯条。安东宁在看到新闻后特意赶来帮忙。“来到这里是很自然的选择，”他说。“我们是一个家庭。他们在拯救我们的房子，如果他们不吃饭，就没有体力。”
上周，两名消防员在法国灭火时丧生，另有40多人报告受伤。
来自牛津的莫利 (Morley) 一家 —— 多米尼克、露西、亚历克斯、伊森和梅西 —— 刚刚抵达度假，结果他们位于机场附近酒店在凌晨被疏散，迫使他们前往一个会议中心寻求庇护。那里为3,500-5,000人准备了800张野营床。露西·莫利更担心当地人。“我们只是来度假的。其他所有人都带着他们的猫狗赶过来，”她说。这家人立刻意识到了危险。“就在飞机降落前，你就能闻到烟味，”莫利说。“就像电影里的情节一样。简直是末日景象……我从未见过这样的场面。”
火灾在哪里？ 在法国，最严重的火灾发生在西南部的朗德省 (Landes) 和吉伦特省。截至昨日下午，一场大火距离波尔多不到20 miles。在西班牙，火灾集中在马德里的西部和北部。
旅行安全吗？ 外交部并未警告不要前往法国和西班牙，即使是受山火影响的地区。然而，外交部建议遵循当地当局的建议并在出行前进行核查。截至昨日傍晚，飞往波尔多和马德里的航班运行正常。
如果我不旅行，可以获得退款吗？ 除非外交部的建议发生变化，否则任何由旅行者发起的取消将被视为“不愿出行”。这意味着你无法获得退款。
如果我住在Airbnb里怎么办？ Airbnb表示，其“重大干扰事件政策”适用于法国西南部的受影响地区。这意味着房东可以取消符合条件的住宿且不受惩罚，房客也可以取消并获得退款。
皇家编辑
在国王于本周开始夏季假期之际，他可以回顾一次成功的家庭团聚——本月他在海格罗夫庄园接待了萨塞克斯公爵夫妇。
但另一场皇家和解看来愈发不可能。查尔斯与他失势的弟弟安德鲁·蒙巴顿-温莎依然关系疏离。据悉，国王在夏季接待大多数王室成员前往苏格兰巴尔莫勒尔城堡期间，没有计划会见他。目前尚不清楚安德鲁是否被禁止前往巴尔莫勒尔，但一名接近国王的消息人士表示，在他与更广泛的王室成员一同出现在那里的想法将引起“相当大的敏感性”。
自安德鲁 2 月在桑德林厄姆庄园的诺福克寓所被捕以来，国王尚未见过他的弟弟。安德鲁因在担任英国贸易特使的十年间，在与已故被定罪的儿童色情犯罪者杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的往来中涉嫌滥用职权而受到警方质询。他否认有不当行为。
在他戏剧性且公开地失宠后，王室内部对其福利和身心健康表示担忧。接近国王的消息人士在安德鲁被捕前不久将其描述为“不稳定”。但据了解，这些担忧已经“减轻”。据王室消息人士称，安德鲁在他位于诺福克的新家——马什农场 (Marsh Farm) 的孤独生活中已“相当安定”。
BAV MEDIA
任何 获取 播客的平台 收听
在他等待是否会被起诉期间。据了解，安德鲁的大部分时间都花在看电视和遛狗上。偶尔有人看到他在桑德灵厄姆庄园骑行。
查尔斯继续在经济上支持安德鲁，为他提供一份“适度的津贴”，用于支付其工作人员的费用和生活成本。接近国王的消息人士表示，他觉得除了私下资助兄弟外别无选择，希望将其“限制”在诺福克郡。
尽管当国王住在桑德灵厄姆屋时，两兄弟经常相距仅数英里，但 77 岁的查尔斯与 66 岁且仍处于警方调查之中的安德鲁，自 9 月在威斯敏斯特大教堂举行的肯特公爵夫人葬礼以来，便未被看到在一起。自葬礼以来，没有一名王室成员被看到与安德鲁公开露面，当时威尔斯亲王明显地无视了他的叔叔。
去年夏天，安德鲁和他的前妻莎拉·费格逊受邀参加在巴尔莫拉尔的王室聚会。但在秋季，随着他们与爱泼斯坦以及被定罪的性贩子吉斯莱恩·麦克斯韦尔之间友情的揭露不断出现，查尔斯通知他们搬出温莎的皇家小屋（Royal Lodge）——尽管两人在 1996 年离婚，但一直共同生活在那里——并剥夺了安德鲁的王室头衔和荣誉。政府随后确认，将探讨通过立法将其从继位顺序中删除，目前他仍处于王位继承顺序的第八位。但政府消息人士告诉《周日泰晤士报》，由于警方调查和“宪法复杂性”，这可能需要数年时间。
虽然据了解，安妮公主和爱丁堡公爵偶尔与安德鲁保持联系，但自他被捕以来，大多数王室成员都与他保持距离，包括他的女儿们：37 岁的比翠丝公主和 36 岁且将于今年夏天迎来第三个孩子的尤金妮公主。66 岁的费格逊目前下落不明，被认为在离开皇家小屋后未曾见过她的前夫。
在 2 月 19 日安德鲁被捕后，查尔斯发表了一份声明，称：“我以最深切的关注获悉了关于安德鲁·蒙巴顿-温莎以及涉嫌在公职中不当行为的消息。接下来的将是完整、公正且正当的程序，由适当的机构以适当的方式对此问题进行调查。”
“对此，正如我之前所说，他们将获得我们全力且全心的支持与配合。请允许我明确表示：法律必须在正轨上运行。”
就在他被捕前不久，随着美国进一步公开的爱泼斯坦文件中出现更多细节，威尔斯亲王与王妃的发言人表示：“我可以确认，亲王与王妃对持续不断的揭露深表关注。他们的心始终关注着受害者。”
安德鲁 在他新家 马什农场 (Marsh Farm) 遛狗
可帮助 97%的患者
Shaun Lintern 健康编辑
一种可能治疗几乎所有被诊断为运动神经元病 (MND) 患者的药物即将开始人体临床试验。
伦敦大学学院 (University College London) 的科学家们研发了该药物，它能帮助身体产生一种在运动神经元细胞与肌肉之间进行通讯所必需的蛋白质。在几乎所有 MND 病例中，都缺乏这种蛋白质。
该药物并非治愈方法，但如果试证明其安全性有效，它可能成为多年来首批新疗法之一。
在 MND 病例中，神经元开始退化并死亡，导致语言、动作甚至呼吸能力的渐进性丧失。
在任何特定时间，英国都有 6,000 人饱受 MND 之苦。每天有 6 人被诊断出此病。患者的平均预期寿命为两到三年，但有些人可能在几个月内死亡。目前仅有一种疗法获准在国民医疗服务体系 (NHS) 中使用：利鲁唑 (riluzole)，它可以帮助减缓病情进展，但并非对所有人有效。
随着名人及体育明星被诊断出患病，MND 的关注度有所提高。去年 10 月，前英格兰橄榄球联盟队长兼世界杯冠军路易斯·穆迪 (Lewis Moody) 宣布，他在肩部出现持续性虚弱且物理治疗后未见好转的情况下被诊断出患病。
利兹犀牛橄榄球联盟球员罗布·巴洛 (Rob Burrow) 在 2019 年被诊断出患病，并成为 MND 研究的主要倡导者，筹集了数千万英镑。罗布·巴洛 MND 中心于 11 月在利兹开业，资金来自一项 £6.8 million 的筹款活动。他在 2024, 6 月去世，享年 41 岁。
MND 协会是英国前十大医学研究资助机构之一，在过去两年中每年投入 £10 million。
伦敦大学学院 (UCL) 的初步研究由该协会和国家医学研究委员会资助。研究发现，MND 患者体内的 UNC13A 蛋白质水平较低，这是由于细胞功能障碍导致该蛋白质从未被正确制造。
在这一发现之后，UCL 协助成立了一家名为 Trace Neuroscience 的公司，以开发相关研究和治疗方法。
该公司研发的药物被称为 TRCN-1023, 一种被引入细胞核的小片段合成遗传物质。它不是基因疗法，因此不会改变 DNA，但一旦进入细胞核，它就能使细胞正确制造 UNC13A。据认为，这种蛋白质的缺乏影响了 97 per cent 的 MND 患者，使其成为潜在治疗的关键目标。
来自 UCL 皇后广场神经病学研究所 (Queen Square Institute of Neurology) 且为该公司联合创始人的皮耶特罗·弗拉塔 (Pietro Fratta) 教授表示：“我们在 UCL 的研究揭示了这种蛋白质在疾病进程中是多么核心。看到这一发现转化为临床试验是一个重要的里程碑。”
第一阶段已获授权，两项早期临床试验将在数周内开始，招募约 30 名患者。试验地点将包括运营谢菲尔德教学医院 (Sheffield Teaching Hospitals) 和伦敦大学学院医院 (University College London Hospitals) 的 NHS 信托机构。
药物将被注射到脊髓中，从而使其能够到达 MND 造成损害的中枢神经系统。
W
W
W
在为其在美国的定罪游说请求赦免的同时，向特朗普的一名资深法律盟友支付了数千英镑的“咨询费”
Venetia Menzies, Gabriel Pogrund 以及 Emanuele Midolo
乔治·科特雷尔在为其游说总统赦免时，向一名曾在其被定罪州担任总检察长的特朗普盟友支付了费用。
科特雷尔是尼格尔·法拉格的助手，因参与一起暗网洗钱计划，于 2017 年在亚利桑那州被判入狱。马克·布尔诺维奇（Mark Brnovich）曾是该州的首席法律官员，后被特朗普总统提名担任大使。
美国政府记录显示，在截至 2025 年 3 月的一年里，科特雷尔向布尔诺维奇支付了数千美元的“法律咨询费”。
科特雷尔在 2017 年被判定犯有电信诈骗罪，随后透露他正在寻求特朗普的赦免。
布尔诺维奇于 1 月去世，但科特雷尔一直与他的妻子保持友谊。其妻是由特朗普任命的联邦法官，且任职于可能在科特雷尔案件中提供咨询的法院。
就在两周前，苏珊·布尔诺维奇（Susan Brnovich）法官还出现在科特雷尔位于黑山的顶层公寓中，黑山是这个巴尔干国家，他在此地拥有税务居民身份并从事加密货币赌博。
银行 账户 被冻结
今天，科特雷尔在同一套公寓中展示了特朗普与马克·布尔诺维奇之间的短信副本。
他与布尔诺维奇夫妇的关系，以及他乐于展示他们与特朗普之间联系的行为，将引发人们对其寻求宽恕之行动性质的质疑。特朗普在第二任期内无视司法部的指南，发布了前所未有数量的赦免，通常是帮助那些与他或其核心圈子有直接联系的人。
作为特朗普的盟友，法拉格此前否认曾做过任何支持科特雷尔寻求宽赦的事。然而，在本月《洞察》（Insight）披露科特雷尔在 2024 年大选前秘密资助了该党领袖的员工和运营后，他打破了关于两人友谊的沉默。
在一次播客节目中，他淡化了科特雷尔的行为——错误地声称他是因为“避税”而受罚——并表示他的朋友有可能获得赦免。
科特雷尔于周五被发现出现在他此前允许法拉格使用的伦敦住所外，他也对其定罪进行了虚假陈述。他声称自己在一次会议中被陷害，但事实上，他多次向毒贩提供在线洗钱帮助。
尼格尔·博德曼（Nigel Boardman），斯劳特和梅（Slaughter and May）律师事务所的前合伙人，曾在 2018-22 年期间担任商业、能源和工业战略部的董事会成员。
其主席亨利·安格斯特（Sir Henry Angest）爵士是一位出生于瑞士的欧洲怀疑论者，曾向保守党和右翼智库捐款。
目前尚不清楚对英国改革党的限制究竟是从何时开始实施的。
根据泄露的文件，英国改革党在该银行拥有一个“商业活期账户”，并自脱欧党时期起就一直使用该银行的服务。
委员会对该情况提出申诉。
到那时，英国改革党已收到四笔总计 £27,500 的款项——来自除泰斯或科特雷尔家族以外的捐赠者——阿扎米（A’Zami）认为这些款项是“不可接受的”，因为它们来自外国捐赠者或身份无法核实的个人。因此，该党不能接受这些款项。
根据法律，此时阿扎米有 30 天的时间将资金退还给发送者，从收到付款之日起计算。这意味着他的截止日期是 7 月 4 日、9 日和 12 日。然而，阿扎米告诉监管机构，他在这些日期无法转移资金。
“让黑山 再次伟大”
Susan Brnovich 曾在 科特雷尔位于 黑山的 顶层公寓被目击
科特雷尔在去年8月发表于《旁观者》（The Spectator）的一篇文章中宣布，他已经提交了赦免申请。他抱怨工党对其活动的审查日益增加——他将其描述为“阴暗手段”——这可能会阻碍他的申请。
到那时，这位诈骗者与Brnovich的关系比以往任何时候都更亲近——而Brnovich与特朗普的关系也达到了前所未有的亲密程度。
总统在之前的三月任命Brnovich为驻塞尔维亚大使。特朗普告诉全世界，他的朋友将“永远将美国优先”。
已经结束总检察长任期的Brnovich对此感到欣喜——但首先必须通过正式的尽职调查。
作为其中一部分，在2025年3月，他提供了一份关于前一年收入的详细明细。该文件包含一个在之前12个月中超过$5,000的“薪酬来源”章节。Brnovich列出了七位通过纽约律所 Boies Schiller Flexner LLP 聘请其服务并为其提供超过$412,000报酬的客户名称。Boies Schiller Flexner 拒绝发表评论。
名单上有一位“乔治·科特雷尔”（George Cottrell）。《周日泰晤士报》询问科特雷尔该咨询的内容，但他拒绝透露，
虽然该账户后来被解冻，但阿伯索诺·拉萨姆银行直到7月23日才能处理付款，而此时距离法拉格、泰斯及另外三名英国改革党议员当选进入下议院的大选已过去数周。
Mark Brnovich， 前亚利桑那州 总检察长， 曾定罪乔治·科特雷尔， 且与特朗普关系密切
尼格尔·法拉格 四次邀请 Brnovich 参加 GB News 节目 并与其进行社交会面
Susan Brnovich， Mark 的遗孀， 现任亚利桑那州 联邦法官
除了该咨询与其案件无关之外，他未提供其他信息。对于 Brnovich 是否为其写过一份品格推荐信（这是赦免申请的必要步骤），科特雷尔也不愿就此发表评论。
科特雷尔并未掩饰他与美国总统之间的间接联系。
在他位于蒂瓦特的顶层公寓里，他展示了 Brnovich 与特朗普之间 iMessage 对话的副本。在这段未标注日期的通信中，Brnovich 发送了一顶印有“让黑山再次伟大”口号的 Maga 风格帽子的图片。特朗普回复道：“太棒了。”
在 Brnovich 去世之前，科特雷尔对其亲密关系的公开程度同样之高。他将共同撰写的书籍——《如何洗钱》（How to Launder Money，该书部分是回忆录，部分是给执法部门的手册）献给了他的朋友 Brnovich。科特雷尔写道，如果没有他，这本书永远不会问世。
即使按照法拉格所描述的科特雷尔“极其绚丽”的生活标准来看，这样的友谊也极不寻常。2016年7月，当时22岁的科特雷尔被逮捕，被指控犯有21项联邦罪名，并被送往亚利桑那州。在这个西南部州，他面临最高20年的监禁。记录显示，Brnovich 与多名起诉科特雷尔的人员合作，并在达成认罪协议后，确保其电汇诈骗罪名成立。
然而在随后的几年里，重罪犯科特雷尔与法律面孔 Brnovich 意识到，他们之间有更多共同点。
获释后，科特雷尔搬到了亚得里亚海的港口城市蒂瓦特，当时该市正处于数字货币繁荣期。
拥有黑山血统的 Brnovich 曾多次前往该地区周边
关于 捐赠者 身份的 细节
（该信件）确实与 英国改革党 的注册财务主管 Mehrtash A’Zami 进行了沟通，要求其 就与该党被冻结银行账户相关的四笔 捐款提供澄清。 收到的回复中 确实提供了该党与其 银行之间对话的细节。该回复是在 保密条件下提供给我们的。”
英国改革党的银行账户关闭风波 自 Coutts 银行在 2023 年以其观点等 问题为由关闭其账户以来，法拉格一直 就“银行账户被关”（debanking）的问题 发起活动。同年， 泰斯声称英国改革党在 Metro Bank 的 账户因支持脱欧而被关闭，但该银行 对此予以否认。
这两人在政治立场上也高度一致。科特雷尔 是一位坚定的保守主义者，他通过其律师 表示，他对法拉格的支持源于共同的意识形态 以及友谊。
布尔诺维奇（Brnovich）是一名共和党人，尽管特朗普在 2022 年曾批评他，称其在特朗普输给乔·拜登后，未能采取足够行动来推翻他所谓造假的选举结果。这让他付出了代价。 在 2023 年完成其最后一任总检察长任期后，布尔诺维奇在特朗普批评其记录后，竞选共和党在亚利桑那州参议院的提名，但未能成功。
他迅速采取了更为亲特朗普的立场，并在辞职前不久拒绝发布一份揭穿选举舞弊主张的报告后，全身心地投入到 Maga 运动中。
法拉格在其中帮助推广“新布尔诺维奇”，他在 2024 年四次邀请布尔诺维奇参加其 GB News 节目。布尔诺维奇也予以回馈，在公开场合将法拉格描述为英国的下一任首相，并在赫特福德街 5 号（5 Hertford St）与他社交，那是科特雷尔开展业务的梅费尔（Mayfair）俱乐部。
这种政治交集还延伸到了黑山：2024 年，布尔诺维奇被看到在科特雷尔顶层公寓楼下的咖啡馆与米洛伊科·斯帕伊奇（Milojko Spajic）社交，后者是一名加密货币投资者，最近被选为黑山首相。科特雷尔多次被指控——且予以否认——资助了后者的胜选。
据消息人士透露，这段友谊如此深厚，以至于布尔诺维奇曾在某次对朋友表示，他欠科特雷尔“一切”。
在 2025 年，即布尔诺维奇被提名大使的那一年，科特雷尔揭露了他的赦免申请活动。但在 10 月，在布尔诺维奇提交相关文件——其中包含他从科特雷尔等人处获得报酬的细节——之后，特朗普突然撤回了提名。
布尔诺维奇痛斥“深层政府”的官僚们。 与此同时，记者 报道称，他的政治背景以及“道德”背景 都被发现了问题。
然而，布尔诺维奇依然忠于特朗普的事业，反而誓言要在“国内政治舞台上扮演更重要的角色”。今年 1 月，他因心脏病发作猝死。科特雷尔发表了一份罕见的公开声明，感谢他的“朋友和导师”。
布尔诺维奇的遗属包括其妻子苏珊（Susan），58 岁，她曾在 2018 年被特朗普提名进入联邦司法系统，以及他们的两个孩子。如今，她不仅在负责科特雷尔案件的亚利桑那州地区法院任职，而且就在起诉科特雷尔的同一座凤凰城法院工作。
如果尚未联系，该法院很可能会作为赦免程序的一部分被联系。其目的是为了让量刑法官，而非布尔诺维奇本人，发表任何评论。
在谈到两周前出现在科特雷尔阳台一事时，她表示他并未资助她的旅行，她是在家庭度假期间入住顶层公寓所属的酒店，而非住在顶层公寓内。科特雷尔则表示，她是来公寓进行社交访问的。
据其律师称，就他所知，科特雷尔的“申请目前正通过常规渠道办理”。这表明司法部正在处理该案件，并将建议一套特朗普可以接受或忽略的行动方案。
路透社上个月的一项调查显示，特朗普第二任期内 1,700 份赦免令中，有 96 % 的接收者是诸如诈骗者和暴徒之类的人，他们并未满足此类申请的各项规则（如悔改和康复），而拜登任内这一比例低于 1 %。
科特雷尔通过其在 Carter Ruck 的律师表示：“布尔诺维奇法官是我的私人朋友，她的已故丈夫也是。她当时是在进行家庭度假访问，并没有和我住在一起。我认为《星期日泰晤士报》采取的手段——在私人家庭假期中拍摄她的照片，然后蓄意将她的社交访问与我的赦免申请联系起来（而作为一名在职法官，她对此没有决定权）——只不过是为了恐吓我及我身边的人，以推进其自身具有政治动机的议程。”
法拉格此前也对媒体的“操纵”发表过类似言论，他在本月接受 Triggernometry 播客采访时，淡化了科特雷尔的过去。他表示：“所以，他有一次定罪。也许有一天那次定罪会被赦免。”
账户被短期冻结。尽管像 Coutts 这样的机构因将“取消银行服务”（debanking）的行为政治化而受到审查，但出于安全原因冻结账户是另一回事，且通常与涉嫌犯罪活动有关。
法拉格本月辞去了克拉克顿（Clacton）国会议员的职务并引发了一次补选，他将此次补选定义为一场对抗“建制派”的战斗。他在一份 Insight 调查揭露了科特雷尔向这位英国改革党领袖提供未公开的财务支持几天后辞职。
学生患有 特殊需求症的 学校
利物浦一所小学为儿童 提供的帮助之一，该校的 SEN 案例自新冠疫情以来 激增
Louise Eccles 和 Callum Martin
在圣弗朗西斯·德·萨尔斯天主教初级学校（St Francis de Sales Catholic Junior School），每天有两次机会，四分之一的学生会进行一次“感官”休息，以平静他们的神经系统，以便能够回到教室。这十分钟的循环活动可能包括投球或做开合跳，然后躺在加重毯下。
这所主流小学的学生中有 33% 具有特殊教育需求（SEN），这一比例较 2020-21 年的 15% 翻了一倍多。
欢迎来到利物浦沃尔顿（Liverpool Walton），这里的 SEN 学生比例在英格兰最高，达到 31%。全国平均水平为 21%。
利物浦 沃尔顿
这些数字包括拥有正式教育、健康和护理计划（EHCPs）——一种法定支持指令——的孩子，以及被学校认定为需要额外帮助的孩子，无论他们是否经过诊断。
圣弗朗西斯·德·萨尔斯学校面向 7 到 11 岁的儿童，被监管机构 Ofsted 评为“卓越”级。这里的孩子最常见的是沟通需求，或社交、情感和心理健康需求，以及 ADHD（注意力缺陷多动障碍）或自闭症。
包容性主管 Holly Edwards 表示，特殊学校名额的缺乏意味着该校现在接收了一些以前可能会离开主流教育的学生。这包括 3 年级（年龄为 7 或 8 岁）且无法言语或未经过如厕训练的孩子。“几年前，他们可能会在专业机构中，但现在那里没有空间了，”Edwards 说道。
全国范围内 SEN 支持需求的巨幅增长可能有多种原因，从更好的诊断到匮乏，以及新冠大流行带来的影响和年幼时过长的屏幕时间。
马克·蒙-威廉姆斯（Mark Mon-Williams）教授在利兹大学担任认知心理学教授，他的研究包括探讨英格兰北部儿童的教育不平等。他表示：“即使是最热情、最体贴、最出色的家长，也很难找到中产阶级儿童能够定期接触的那类空间和资源。”
“劣势在叠加劣势。我们的孩子在成长过程中无法接触绿地、图书馆和营养食物。社会将在下游为此买单，因为我们在最贫困的地区没有提供能够让孩子在生命开端获得最佳起点的支持。这就是为什么我们最终会出现尼特族 (Neets) [非在学、非就业、非培训青年]。”
新分析显示，英格兰各地区存在巨大的差异，从诺丁汉郡拉什克利夫（Rushcliffe）的 0% 到北诺福克（North Norfolk）的 29% 以及南多塞特（South Dorset）的 28%。个别学校采取的方法可能在一定程度上解释了这些差距。一些学校优先考虑评估和识别，因此有更多的 SEN 学生，而另一些学校则非正式地调整其教学方式。
心理治疗师每周在圣弗朗西斯·德·萨尔斯工作 3 天，一名牧养导师提供全职情感支持。学校还拥有一只非正式的治疗犬：Delta，一只属于校长 Andy Reidel 的小型光滑毛腊肠犬。
在我们访问的那个早晨，Delta 正在操场上接受
Christina O’Keefe（图右），与 一名 5 年级学生在一起， 她是弗洛伦斯·梅利 社区小学（Florence Melly Community Primary School, Walton）的包容性 副校长
在弗洛伦斯·梅利社区小学（一家位于沃尔顿、面向 3 到 11 岁儿童且被评为卓越级的学校），35% 的学生具有特殊教育需求。校长表示，由于该校拥有出色的 SEN 资源，它已成为一个“磁铁”。
具有 SEN 支持的 学生百分比
31.4%
28.8%
北诺福克
28.4%
沃拉西 (Wallasey)
28.3%
布特尔 (Bootle)
28.2%
南多塞特
2025/26 学年数据。数字是指获得 SEN 支持的儿童，而非正式诊断的人数。 匮乏程度基于 IMD 排名。
抱抱。
选区 匮乏 排名（总计 543）
每 90 分钟 抓获一名嫌疑人
Fintan Hogan
去年，在街道上使用实时面部识别摄像机期间，平均每 90 分钟就有一名嫌疑人被捕。
英格兰和威尔士约有 9.25 million 张面部被扫描，导致 1,317 次逮捕，其中约 450 人被怀疑为暴力犯罪者。
面部识别摄像机通常部署在繁忙区域的监视车中，通过对比行人的特征与失踪人员、被指控或被定罪人员的生物识别档案来进行识别。
运营最多实时面部识别系统的伦敦警察厅表示，其监视名单上的大多数人是被法院通缉的，其中五分之一与“严重犯罪”有关。
当系统向警员发出疑似匹配提醒时，他们会使用照片身份证或移动指纹扫描仪确认该人的身份。此类部署在“犯罪热点”地区变得尤为普遍，包括足球赛、音乐会、航空展和国际橄榄球赛事。在去年西伦敦的诺丁山狂欢节上，共有 61 起与面部识别相关的逮捕，其中一名男子涉嫌用大砍刀将他人捅了五次。
去年，在 45 个地区警政部门中，有 14 个部署了该系统，其中赫特福德郡、默西赛德郡和萨福克郡是首次部署。这些摄像机在 2023 年部署了 63 次，在 2024 年部署了 246 次。平均而言，去年的 369 次部署每分钟扫描 78 张面部，并识别出一名
David Binns 和 Fintan Hogan
在接连的热浪导致土壤干涸并造成“无法忍受”的环境后，园丁们已放弃种植。
在有记录以来最炎热的夏天之一中，植物苗圃正陷入困境。物种的成熟时间早于预期，脆弱的品种正遭受热损伤。
剑桥郡多丁顿（Doddington）Megaplants的业主John Cutteridge表示，他的塑料大棚温度几乎达到了 50C。51 岁的Cutteridge说：“这对大多数英国植物来说，真的是无法忍受的。一年生草花很难维持，而且损坏得很快。一些早春一年生植物也是如此，它们无法承受这么高的温度。”
一名有特殊需求的男孩，工作人员称他经历了一段“难以想象的艰辛生活”。Edwards说：“Delta不需要他能说话，她也不需要他能听懂她的指令，但只要他一见到她，就会微笑。”
Reidel认为，家中和户外缺乏活动与社交的空间阻碍了发育。他说：“如果孩子无法通过频繁且长时间的肢体游戏来发展大肌肉运动技能，研究表明，这将影响其感觉处理系统的发育。”
负责融合教育的副校长Christina O’Keefe表示：“许多孩子入学时语言发育严重迟缓。大量时间花在电子设备或看电视上，导致他们没有养成沟通或言语技能。因此，我们几乎在他们入学后立即就需要将他们转介给言语和语言专家。”校长Aaron Leach则表示：“我们看到许多入学儿童的需求复杂程度更高，许多孩子还没有接受如厕训练，或者尚未准备好进入学校状态。”
利物浦议会表示：“我们与学校、医疗合作伙伴以及家庭共同努力，旨在提高对特殊教育需要（SEN）的认识，并加强支持途径。”
大约每四十分钟产生一次兴趣。
今年1月，政府宣布计划将监控车数量从10辆增加到 50 辆，使英格兰和威尔士的所有警力均可使用。
警方拥有一份披露日志，用于记录每次部署的日期、地点以及收到的警报数量。逮捕数据是由 14 个警察局在响应信息自由请求时提供的。
伦敦警察厅去年部署该技术 231 次，扫描了 4.2 million 张面孔，并逮捕了 1,133 人，这些人涉嫌刑事活动、违反保释条件或被法院通缉。
Dejean South在 2024 年1月一次闯入事件后，避开了检测一年多。去年3月，他在伦敦东南部伍尔维奇（Woolwich）被面部识别锁定并最终被捕。4月， 25 岁的South在中央刑事法院（Old Bailey）被判处 22 个月监禁，缓刑两年，罪名是加重入室盗窃和违反保释协议。
伦敦警察厅表示：“这些数据突显了实时面部识别在打击最暴力犯罪者（包括伤害女性和女孩的人）方面为何是如此关键的工具……”
在去年全国约 2,800 次警报中，有 18 次为误认，其中包括发生在曼彻斯特和北安普敦郡的案例。
Big Brother Watch的高级法律和政策官Jasleen Chaggar表示，“数百万守法公民”正被“卷入监视之网”。她补充道：“有十几个无辜的人被错误识别，很明显，面对这种奥威尔式的技术，我们所有人都有理由感到恐惧。”
花园设计师兼 BBC《园艺世界》（Gardeners’ World）节目主持人Nick Bailey表示，情况十分艰难。“我们不得不一次又一次地重新订货。那些原本随时有货的 [库存] 突然就没了，”他说。“例如乳白花（Campanula lactiflora）——在我自己的花园里，它简直在一周内就被灼毁了。整棵植物现在就只剩下干枯的树枝。”
据园艺中心称，幸存下来的植物也更难销售。“炎热的天气确实抑制了客流量，我们看到的顾客没那么多了，”园艺中心协会（Garden Centre Association）首席执行官彼得·伯克斯（Peter Burks）表示。
Samuel Lovett
在 20 世纪 90 年代初，拉姆拉什国际海钓节（Lamlash International Sea Angling Festival）进入尾声的最后几年里，霍华德·伍德（Howard Wood）意识到阿兰岛（Arran）的水域出了问题。
曾经以吨来衡量的渔获量，现在却得用手去数——这是过度捕捞和底拖网捕鱼导致的结果，这些行为摧毁了这座位于苏格兰大陆西侧小岛周围的海床。
伍德当时是一名资深潜水员，现年 72 岁，他亲眼见证了这种影响。“那是一种非常迅速的恶化，”他说。“拖网捕鱼简直将海床完全刮除。鱼类所需的全部生物多样性和栖息地就在我们眼前被摧毁。”
近四十年后，在伍德及其活动家同僚唐·麦克尼什（Don MacNeish，79 岁）成功争取到苏格兰政府禁止在该岛水域使用多种捕鱼方法后，阿兰岛东南部的拉姆拉什湾再次焕发生机。
埃克塞特大学（University of Exeter）发布的一份新报告显示，海床沿线的海洋生物增加了三倍，而大扇贝的数量增长了 350% 以上。
Emily Dugan 特约记者
两名证人已站出来，为林·罗素（Lin Russell）及其女儿梅根（Megan）遇害案指认一名新嫌疑人。
家属已向误判监督机构提供了宣誓陈述，指认其亲属雷蒙德·巴克（Raymond Buck）。巴克是一名木匠兼管道工，据报道他对神秘学痴迷。
迈克尔·斯通（Michael Stone），66 岁，在被判定谋杀后已入狱 29 年，尽管他一直坚称自己无辜。作为刑事案件审查委员会（CCRC）对该案进行的新法医调查的一部分，他本月提供了一份 DNA 样本。结果尚未公布。
1996 年 7 月 9 日，45 岁的罗素正带着六岁的女儿梅根和九岁的女儿乔西（Josie）以及他们的白色梗犬，从一次游泳比赛现场走回家中，此时她们遭遇袭击。凶手将她们拖到肯特郡奇伦登（Chillenden）村附近的一片树丛中，将她们绑起来并用锤子猛击。只有乔西幸存。
新证人之一名罗斯·希尔兹（Ross Shields），39 岁，在谋杀案发生时还是个孩子。他说那天他由巴克的姐姐特雷西（Tracy）照顾，并声称他听到巴克向她坦白：“我做了一件不可原谅的事。我杀了三个人。”
另一名证人描述了巴克不安的精神状态以及日益升级的暴力行为。
斯通在被捕时 37 岁，是一名海洛因使用者，此前有暴力犯罪记录，包括用锤子袭击一名男子。在袭击发生一周年之际，BBC1 的《犯罪观察》（Crimewatch）节目播出了他的电子合成肖像，促使其精神科医生报警，随后他成为嫌疑人。
斯通当时没有不在场证明，并称不记得当时在做什么。他的 DNA从未在任何证物上被发现。检测服务机构 Eurofins 的法医科学家将重新检查从受害者身体上采集的样本，以及一只沾血的鞋带。在距离犯罪现场 45 米的小巷中发现的这根打结鞋带沾有受害者的血迹，警方认为它被用来勒死梅根。
巴克曾是一名业余拳击手，有暴力史，据称他对奇伦登风车（Chillenden Windmill）痴迷。他在 2000 年于比奇海德（Beachy Head）自杀身亡，享年 46 岁。消息人士称，肯特郡警方在 1996 年调查谋杀案时曾关注过巴克，但警方并未进一步追查。巴克的一名男性亲属已同意
Shaun Lintern 健康编辑
据披露，卫生官员曾试图压制调查人员关于 NHS（英国国家医疗服务体系）护理质量低劣案例的报告工作。
在近期的一系列权力扩张中，NHS England 停止了调查人员向媒体通报国家临床审计结果的行为，削弱了关键建议，并限制了报告的撰写、发布及使用方式。
海藻、外观像灌木的多色水螅体以及复杂的苔藓动物（生活在群体中的微小滤食无脊椎动物）也正在回归，为幼鱼提供了至关重要的育雏地，使其能躲避捕食者。随着这些幼鱼在未来几十年内成熟，预计鱼类种群数量将进一步增加。
科学家们一致认为，这片水下森林可归功于 Wood 和 MacNeish 所倡导的“禁捕区”（no-take zone），该区域禁止所有形式的捕鱼。这一措施于 2008 年在拉姆拉什湾（Lamlash Bay）引入，随后 2016 年在阿兰岛（Arran）南部建立了海洋保护区（MPA）。该海洋保护区覆盖面积近 300 平方公里，禁止在特定地点进行拖网捕捞、挖掘以及用笼捕蟹/贝（creeling，即渔民将陷阱投放到海床以捕捉贝类）。
前园艺师 Wood 和职业金属工且同样热爱潜水的 MacNeish 所采取的干预措施已获得国家和国际奖项的认可，甚至得到了大卫·爱登堡爵士（Sir David Attenborough）的支持。对于 MacNeish 而言，直到现在他才意识到所取得的成就。
“在禁捕区内，”
提供其 DNA 以便与犯罪现场的样本进行比对。
《星期日泰晤士报》采访了 Buck 家族的四名成员。他们描述他情绪不稳定、暴力且令人恐惧，并承认他们怀疑他可能对此负责。所有受访者均不愿透露姓名。
据称，他在屋子里留下了大蒜和宗教笔记，家人描述他对前妻的暴力行为日益严重。
在罗素谋杀案发生时，目击者称他们看到一名焦虑的白人男子在附近的巷子里驾驶一辆米色汽车。
【此处文本缺失/跳转】
曾主持产科丑闻调查的人员，对这些本应独立开展的调查所面临的日益增加的管控提出了批评。
NHS 每年资助 40 多个国家临床审计项目，涵盖领域广泛，包括产科护理、中风护理、糖尿病、癌症和痴呆症。这项工作每年耗资超过 £11 million，已在护理质量方面带来了显著改善。
血栓清除术可以恢复大脑血流并防止永久性残疾。一年后，英格兰国民医疗服务体系（NHS England）誓言将扩大该服务。
同样，去年 9 月公布的国家前列腺癌审计报告强调，英格兰黑人男性的确诊率极低，尽管他们的风险是其他人的两倍。自此，黑人男性的筛查问题成为了前列腺癌讨论的核心。
“在最近一次与 Howard 共同潜水的经历中，我全程禁不住地微笑，心里想：‘这就是所有努力的意义。’到处都是龙虾和扇贝，”MacNeish 说道。“这么多年来，就像在撞一面砖墙。现在亲眼看到这一切，所有生物如此繁盛，简直令人难以置信。”
案发现场。Buck 在 1996 年开一辆米色汽车，那天早晨他开车前往住在距离现场两英里外埃尔汉姆（Elham）的前妻亲戚家。当时他正处于与妻子分居的过程中。他失去了两个孩子的抚养权，据报道曾试图强行闯入家门以见孩子。
Buck 当时住在距离现场半小时车程的福克斯通（Folkestone），他的大部分家人都住在肯特郡（Kent）。
当时九岁的 Shields 表示，那是夏天的一个傍晚，在他现在认为的谋杀案发生当天，他偶然听到了一次对话——
国民医疗服务体系（NHS），通过分析数据和患者体验，以突出持续性的糟糕表现以及需要改进的领域。这项工作由大学、皇家医学院和慈善机构受 NHS England 委托执行。
Hunt 表示，这些披露表明 NHS England 试图维护自己的名声，并充当护理状况真相的“看门人”。
这场复兴的故事始于 1984 年，那一年 Wood 教他的多年好友 MacNeish 如何进行水肺潜水。
在早期的水下探索中，他们游过复杂的 seabed，那里遍布鳕鱼、波兰鳕、比目鱼和章鱼。但到该年代末，他们开始对目睹的海生物丧失感到担忧。
撒切尔政府在 1984 年取消了在英国海岸线三英里内禁止底拖网捕捞的禁令，底拖网是指在海底拖曳沉重渔网以捕鱼的方式。“事实证明这是灾难性的，”Wood 说道。
鱼类资源急剧下降，以至于在 1994 年举行最后一次拉姆拉什国际海钓节（Lamlash International Sea Angling Festival）时，捕获量已下降了 96%。这里曾因……
在肯特郡福克斯通郊区他的姨妈 Tracy 家中。当时 Tracy 与 Shields 的舅舅结婚。
他告诉《星期日泰晤士报》：“我当时坐在前厅，Ray Buck 走了进来，他直接穿过前厅门径直进入了厨房。”该房屋采用开放式设计，他说他能通过隔壁房间的拱门听到发生了什么。
“我记得 Tracy 说：‘Ray，怎么了？’他说：‘我做了一件不可原谅的事。’Tracy 问：‘你做了什么，Ray？’然后他说：‘我杀了三个人。我还杀了那条狗。那条狗不停地叫’。”
NHS England 不应充当独立调查结果或建议的看门人。
“每一次重大患者安全丑闻给我们的教训都是：未能正视令人不安的真相，只会让不安全的护理持续存在。NHS England 应该支持独立审查和透明度——而不是给人一种名誉管理优先于患者安全的印象。”
Howard Wood（最左）和 Don MacNeish。数十年来，他们致力于将阿兰岛（Arran）的海生物从拖网捕捞中拯救出来，（见右上图）
在 1984 年，底拖网（重型渔网在海床拖曳捕鱼）在英国海岸三英里内的禁令被废除。
希尔兹表示，他不记得确切的措辞，但他听到巴克说了类似这样的话：“我有一根鞋带，但我找不到那根鞋带了。如果他们找到了那根鞋带，我就完了。”希尔兹说，巴克和特雷西走进了花园，然后巴克“从后门飞快跑出，穿过侧巷消失了”。
希尔兹说，紧接着他记得自己询问何时会被接走，结果被吼了一顿。“我记得这件事是因为当时气氛发生了变化，”他说。
他说，在接下来的几周里，他将听到的内容告诉了一位近亲，但被告知“别这么傻”。直到成年后，他在参加一个要求面对过去问题的心理咨询项目后，才决定提供这一信息。
希尔兹联系了斯通的律师，因为他几年前曾向肯特郡警方提供过关于该所谓坦白的信息。他说，当时被告知巴克曾是一名嫌疑人，但调查不会重启。
希尔兹还表示，他记得有一次巴克来到他前妻家，表现得极其暴力。他说：“你可以听到他正把她打得体无完肤。”
另一位亲戚表示，他们在谋杀案发生的第二天看到巴克在福克斯顿驾驶一辆米色汽车，当时曾怀疑他是否是袭击者，但不想在家庭中引起不安。
该亲戚称，“他痴迷于风车”，并且在“刚刚失去子女监护权”的情况下“有能力”实施此类犯罪，并补充道：“他当时相当疯狂。”
根据提交给刑事案件审查委员会（CCRC）的陈述，巴克产生了关于巫术和超自然现象的执念，并开车四处寻找女巫集会场所。
一位前近亲还表示，巴克被诊断为精神分裂症伴随妄想及病理性嫉妒。巴克在 1997 年因一起炸弹恶作剧案被定罪，当时他携带一把刀出现在内政部，并留下一张字条，告诉内政大臣看花盆后面。字条的附言写道：“安保，真是个笑话。是塞姆特（Semtex）炸药还是纯英语？”当安保人员查看后面时——
关于调查如何开展，要求其背后的团队与英格兰国家医疗服务体系（NHS England）讨论最终报告。相关规定强制要求报告的长度、建议的数量，并禁止作者向媒体预告或向发现问题的当地医院提出建议。
尽管资源丰富，但克莱德湾（Firth of Clyde）的鱼类正被捕捞殆尽。
该产业转向了对虾的底拖网捕捞和扇贝挖掘。这些做法将沉重的设备在海底拖曳，系统性地铲除了海洋生物繁殖和生长所必需的复杂栖息地。
然而，伍德和麦克尼什拒绝接受这种命运。在 1990 年的一次新西兰之旅中，麦克尼什遇到了海洋生物学家比尔·巴兰泰因博士（Dr Bill Ballantine），后者在奥克兰北郊建立了世界上第一个禁捕区，麦克尼什说服他支持在苏格兰国内实施同样的
争论的焦点是对母亲和婴儿死亡情况的国家调查，该调查由牛津大学的国家围产期流行病学单位执行。
领导该工作的玛丽安·奈特（Marian Knight）教授表示，推动改进的能力受到了限制。她告诉《星期日泰晤士报》：“我想说，报告和汇报方面的限制限制了我们产生影响、传递信息和推动变革的能力。”
政策。麦克尼什和伍德在 1995 年成立了阿兰海床社区信托基金（Coast），并开始在阿兰及整个苏格兰地区开展活动。
“霍华德和唐开创了这种更高水平的保护，并展示了可能性，”海洋保护教授卡勒姆·罗伯茨（Callum Roberts）表示，他的研究揭示了那里繁荣的海洋生物。
“周四我带了一些新员工出去，”伍德说道，“15分钟后他们走上来，简直不敢相信下面的情况如此出色。这绝对令人难以置信。”
他们在锅里发现了一本柯林斯英语词典。
凯伦·托德纳是一名在1月被引入处理斯通案件的事务律师，正是她找到了这些证人。她表示：“我采访了一些掌握信息的证人，特别是关于雷蒙德·巴克当时的精神状态以及他当时做出的坦白，我认为这些证词非常可信。对于迈克尔试图推翻定罪的斗争来说，这是一个重大突破。因为一件我绝对确信他没有做过的事情，他在监狱中煎熬了太久。”
巴克的家人对这些进展感到混乱，并且在巴克是否具备实施这些罪行的能力上存在分歧。
一名亲属表示，他们没有看到任何证据证明巴克对此负责。当被问及巴克是否能够实施该罪行时，该亲属说：“我不想诋毁死者。如果迈克尔·斯通没做这件事而雷蒙德做了，那太可怕了。但对我来说，诋毁雷蒙德·巴克的名字对我没有任何好处……他无法为自己辩护。”
向刑事案件审查委员会 (CCRC) 提交的新申请明确指出，没有任何证词足以证明巴克犯下了谋杀罪——但这意味着另一个个体被可靠地牵涉其中，应当被纳入法医调查。
谋杀女学生米莉·道勒的凶手利维·贝尔菲尔德据称在2017年承认了罗素谋杀案，随后撤回了该说法，之后又做了一次详尽的书面坦白。斯通的律师表示，他们希望将证物与贝尔菲尔德、巴克以及斯通的 DNA 进行比对。
肯特郡警方确认，在最初的调查期间，他们曾收到一名与福克斯通和伦敦地区有联系的男子的亲属的联系。总督察尼尔·金伯表示：“所提供的信息……已得到了全面的详细审查。肯特郡警方通过提供所有所需的相关信息支持了 CCRC……并将继续这样做。”
CCRC 表示：“我们正在探讨……斯通先生是否可能遭受了司法不公。”
斯通的法律代表马克·麦克唐纳说：“我希望即将进行的法医审查能揭示真相，并结束这次司法不公。”
关于改善助产士教育和培训的内容在英格兰国民医疗服务体系 (NHS England) 干预后被淡化了。
英格兰 NHS 表示，它并未更改国家临床审计中的底层数据或事实，作者对其分析拥有控制权。该机构表示：“临床审计是独立的循证报告，旨在帮助 NHS 改善对患者及其家人的服务，我们与审计员合作，以确保其建议清晰，并能在整个 NHS 范围内实施以改善护理。”
迈克尔·斯通（最左侧）被判定谋杀林和梅根·罗素，图中与肖恩和乔西（左起第二位）在一起。警方制作了一幅嫌疑人的电子画像，并针对该罪行“调查”了雷蒙德·巴克。
Rosamund Urwin 首席新闻记者
娜塔莉·弗利特意识到自己无法继续担任保障部长，因为该职位要求她讨论在睡眠中被强奸的女性——而她深知那种感觉。
这位博尔索弗 (Bolsover) 选区的国会议员在周三辞职，理由是这份工作带来的影响“极具触发性”。她在十周前被任命。在 2024 年进入议会后不久，她透露过自己在 15 岁时被一名年长男子诱骗并强奸，随后怀上了长女。但除此之外，还有另一次更近期的袭击，直到现在她才公开谈起。
“对我来说，导致崩溃的最后一根稻草是国家犯罪调查局在向媒体介绍关于女性在睡眠中被下药并强奸的案例——比如吉赛尔·佩利科特 (Gisèle Pelicot) 的案例，”她说道。“我以前从未说过这件事——我只谈过法定强奸和诱骗。我不想深入探讨细节，但我知道那种在迷糊中醒来，不确定自己在哪里或是在哪一天的感觉，而此时有一个男人在你体内。”
42 岁的弗利特表示，无法继续担任该职务令她心碎，但这已经造成了难以承受的伤害。她原以为自己在成为国会议员之前已经“痊愈”，但随后发现自己会在深夜醒来哭泣。“让我难过的是，因为那些[施暴者]对我所做的事，我无法履行我的职责，但这是我在重新掌控自己的人生，”她补充道。
“如果留在岗位上，我就是在辜负幸存者。我认为这是我做过的最勇敢的事情”
但我会相信你
曾经经历过。我没疯，我也没崩溃——但你得先给自己穿上救生衣。”
弗利特与丈夫里奇住在德比郡——这对夫妇已经幸福地结婚 19 年了——她有一个 12 岁的女儿，两个儿子分别 17 岁和 22 岁，以及她现在 25 岁的长女，后者自己也有一个 18 个月大的女儿。
人们经常告诉她，能够讲述自己的经历是非常勇敢的，但她并不这么认为。之前讨论过的袭击事件，由于她的年龄，没有人质疑那是强奸；但对于第二次袭击，她仍然在责怪自己。
“我谈论法定强奸，是因为我有我的出生证明、我女儿的出生证明，以及能证明发生过什么事情的 DNA，”她解释道。
“但如果你问我是否还有其他被强奸的次数，我会给你列一张长清单，列出我做错了什么才导致这些坏事发生在我身上。我可以告诉你我当时穿了什么，喝了什么。煤气灯效应在社会中根深蒂固，我是否甚至不相信我自己？然而，如果你告诉我同样的故事，我会相信你。”
在第二次袭击多年后，她给强奸危机中心（Rape Crisis）打了电话。“我告诉他们所有我认为是我的错的原因，那个女人回答说：‘这不可能是你的错……你在睡觉时是不可能同意的。’但我们是否能到达一个让我不再觉得是我的错的境地？我希望如此，但可能不行。”
甚至在类似佩利科（Pelicot）的案件出现之前，弗利特就发现这个角色——涉及应对家庭暴力、强奸和儿童剥削——唤起了痛苦的回忆。“每次我在听简报时，我的大脑都会在说‘这件事发生在你身上’，”她说。
弗利特在诺丁汉郡阿什菲尔德的一个市政住宅区长大，她目睹了继父对母亲的虐待。他们一度无家可归。
“公务员会说：‘你想去妇女援助协会（Women’s Aid）看看吗，之后我们可以去强奸危机中心？’”她说。“但当你承受着这么多 [创伤] 时，你会回避那些让你感到不舒服的事情。有人问我是否想进一步了解一个神奇的慈善机构，该机构为逃离家庭暴力的女性提供家具。我曾经就用过。”
六月，她就诱导犯罪团伙（grooming gangs）的辩论给予了政府回应。该辩论由“恢复英国”（Restore Britain）领导人鲁珀特·洛（Rupert Lowe）主导，后者将重点放在穆斯林犯罪者身上。“人们在讨论发生在女性身上的最恐怖的罪行，其中很多内容触发了我的记忆，因为这同样发生在我身上，但我不想把它变成关于我自己的话题。然后在我的结束发言期间，我被一些男人喝斥了，”弗利特说。
“我很庆幸 [洛] 在谈论这些勇敢女性的案例，但我感觉他只有在这类犯罪符合他的政治议程时才会关心。”
弗利特赞扬了内政大臣沙巴娜·马哈穆德（Shabana Mahmood），后者帮助确保她能接受创伤专家的咨询。她的家人也试图支持她。里奇将他们的露营车拖到当地的一个风景区，好让弗利特休养，但她仅仅撑了一个小时。“我无法停止哭泣；我无法正常活动，不得不回家，”她说。
弗利特现在回到了后议员席位。她很谨慎，除了表示自己希望担任不同的部长职务外，不愿就此多谈。但一些工党资深女性对安迪·伯纳姆 的团队没有为她提供另一个职位感到恼火。一位党内元老表示：“她是 2024 届入职者中最好的沟通者之一。因为一个人经历过创伤就将其弃用是不正确的；他们只是需要一份不同的工作。”
弗利特为她在短暂任期内的成就感到自豪，包括促成基尔·斯塔默爵士与前哈罗德百货所有者穆罕默德·阿尔-法耶德虐待事件的幸存者见面。其中一人告诉弗利特，她是第一个知道她在阿尔-法耶德手中遭受折磨的人。“我们之间有一种创伤纽带，”弗利特说。
除了她所面临的压力外，弗利特（Fleet）还不得不应对女性国会议员如今几乎成了常态的威胁。然而，她认为代表她的选民是一份“极好”的工作。 “人们告诉你这份工作是一种特权。我一直以为他们指的是那些我不想要的东西——津贴和派对邀请。但真正的特权是成为那些原本没有发声机会的人的声音。”
纳塔莉·弗利特（Natalie Fleet）表示，她与前哈罗德百货（Harrods）所有者穆罕默德·法耶德（Mohammed Al Fayed）虐待行为的幸存者之间存在一种“创伤纽带”。
NHS 维持 跨性别 建议
丹尼尔·桑德森 (Daniel Sanderson) 苏格兰政治编辑
文件显示，尽管最高法院去年做出了裁决，但苏格兰国民医疗服务体系 (NHS Scotland) 仍建议各卫生委员会不要禁止生物学男性进入女性空间。
去年 4 月，五位法官一致同意，女性的法律定义基于生物学性别。该裁决确认，认同自己为女性的男性不得进入单性别空间，包括洗手间和女性专用病房。
然而，NHS Scotland 中央法律办公室在 2025 年 5 月——即裁决后一个月——向人力资源部门发布的法律建议中，警告各委员会不要更改单性别政策。
该建议引用了“残酷的现实”，即任何变动都可能引发法律诉讼，并表示人力资源部门需要考虑执行该判决时可能涉及的“员工关系”和“名誉风险”。
另一份来自苏格兰第二大卫生委员会——洛锡安 NHS (NHS Lothian) 的文件显示，卫生部门领导于去年 5 月 15 日告知工作人员，应遵循现有的跨性别问题指南。
“为了女性的苏格兰” (For Women Scotland) 是一个活动团体，该公司在最高法院获得了法律澄清，并赢得了禁止男性囚犯进入女性监狱的法律胜利。该团体表示，除非苏格兰 NHS 保护女性的单性别空间，否则将对其提起诉讼。
洛锡安 NHS 拒绝提供正式评论。
一名中央法律办公室发言人表示：“该建议旨在支持各委员会审查现有安排，并鼓励各委员会在等待指南期间采取实际的准备步骤。”
马克·霍恩 (Mark Horne)
BBC 被指控“扼杀”独立音乐节，并通过秘密预定其领衔艺人来误导组织者。
苏格兰的一系列夏季活动原计划在售罄前完成，但在 2 月份，Radio 2 宣布将在 8 月于斯特灵 (Stirling) 举办为期 2 天的音乐节——这比往年提前了一个月。
独立音乐节的组织者称，由这家国家广播公司大肆宣传的“Radio 2 in the Park”活动，几乎在一夜之间抹杀了他们的门票销售额。
包括珀斯的 Replay 音乐节、邓迪的 Discovery 音乐节、伦弗鲁郡的 Paisley Alive 以及格拉斯哥的 Womad 在内的活动均受到了影响。
艺术与娱乐记者 特立独行的海军首脑 曾策划 1814 年化学攻击 目标为美国军舰
Hugo Daniel
1814 年白宫被焚烧长期以来被认为是英美关系的最低点。但现在，一份新发现的文件揭示了英国本可以发动一次杀伤力大得多的袭击。
在苏格兰国家记录局 (National Records of Scotland) 一个箱子底部发现的一份备忘录显示，一名特立独行的皇家海军指挥官曾提出一项很可能成为历史上首次化学武器袭击的计划——一项大胆的计划，旨在通过燃烧装满硫磺的船只，使操作美国舰队的水手失去行动能力。
这些“硫磺船”是托马斯·科克伦 (Thomas Cochrane) 的构思。他是一位苏格兰贵族，在拿破仑战争期间成为海军英雄，也是帕特里克·奥布莱恩 (Patrick O’Brian) 笔下虚构角色杰克·奥布里 (Jack Aubrey) 的现实原型，后者在 2003 年的电影《至爱之都》(Master and Commander) 中由罗素·克劳 (Russell Crowe) 饰演。
科克伦原计划率领舰队横跨大西洋，对美国人发动一系列新武器袭击，包括他的硫磺船，但由于他卷入了一起证券交易所欺诈案并被迫留在英国，该计划在最后时刻被搅黄了。
这份计划是由撰写关于科克伦新书的作者彼得·摩尔 (Peter Moore) 在爱丁堡的国家记录局中发现的。这份备忘录由科克伦的秘书于 1844 年撰写，其中包含他本人的手写标记。
文中写道：“我十分确信，如果当时我的想法没有被一次虚假的指控如此残酷且不公正地挫败（剥夺了我的指挥权并阻止我加入舰队），那么近期美国战争的结果将会非常不同。”
作为一名雇佣海军上将，科克伦在领导智利和巴西海军在太平洋和大西洋取得对抗西班牙和葡萄牙的胜利之前，创建了这两个国家的海军。
1809 年，在率领火船袭击拿破仑的大西洋舰队后，科克伦在离开一线服役的几年时间里，率先开发新武器，包括他称之为“火箭筏”的从浮动平台发射火箭的想法。他还发明了“爆炸船”和“烟幕”的概念。
[[IMG_XXXX]] LORNE THOMSON/GETTY IMAGES 娜塔莉·伊布鲁格利亚 (Natalie Imbruglia) 原定在 Replay 音乐节担任主演，该音乐节称 Radio 2 试图说服她参加其演出。
由于组织者称无法竞争，活动随后被取消。
苏格兰独立节日协会 (SIFA) 的代表于 4 月与 BBC 官员举行了会议。这导致 BBC 音乐节从 8 月移至 9 月，而该台之前所有的现场音乐节均在 9 月举行。
然而，独立组织者声称，这一决定来得太晚，无法挽救他们的活动免于取消和惨重的损失。
“我们一年接一年地打造 Discovery 音乐节；邀请头牌艺人，创造就业机会，填满酒店，并给这座城市带来值得期待的事物，”组织者利兹·杜根-霍布斯 (Liz Doogan-Hobbs) 表示。
“这需要投资，需要承担风险，而且需要那些还没有……
在毫无预警或协商的情况下，就在音乐节旺季的核心地带举办的一次性 BBC 活动上花费了他们的节日预算。
“这不是竞争；这是一个由公共资金资助的机构利用公款，去破坏一个由独立推广人在苏格兰中央带以外地区支持和培育了数十年的永久生态系统。”
Replay 的格雷厄姆·豪伊 (Graham Howie) 补充道：“我们投入了一切，旨在让珀斯 (Perth) 拥有一个真正有趣的大型夏季音乐节。门票销售情况良好，随后 BBC 宣布在 30 英里外举办一场容纳 85,000 人的活动，我们的销售额一夜之间下降了 60 %。”
“BBC 应该是在培育新人才并鼓励音乐……”
1811年，在一次西西里岛之行中，他在看到硫磺矿如何产生有害气体后，想到了将二氧化硫用作武器。摩尔表示：“科克伦脑中突然闪现出一个念头，即这种气体可以被用作战争武器。它能直接穿透所有防御工事——没有任何堡垒、炮台或任何东西能抵御它。”
1812年，科克伦将他的想法提交给了一个由高级军方成员组成的“秘密委员会”。
可能会 被用作 武器
发展，而不是扼杀基层苏格兰独立音乐文化。”
《周日泰晤士报》看到了 2 日的一封往来信函，其中一名 BBC 代表坚称，下个月将在西洛锡安郡林利斯戈举行“宫殿派对” (Party at the Palace) 的共同领衔主演——利物浦乐队 Cast，是他们苏格兰活动中“唯一的重叠”部分。然而，该机构在 20 日确认，其已签约前男团 Blue，而该团早在 11 月就被宣布为 Replay 活动的共同领衔主演。
Replay 的组织者指称，Radio 2 还试图接触并说服他们的另一位领衔演出嘉宾纳塔莉·英布鲁格利亚 (Natalie Imbruglia) 在斯特林演出，“但她拒绝了”。
“简单来说，BBC 的行为缺乏诚信，”豪伊 (Howie) 声称。
BBC 还确认，去年 11 月其已确保埃梅里·桑德 (Emeli Sandé) 在 Radio 2 in the Park 演出，而她原定于下个月在安格斯郡布雷钦参加“夏末” (Summer's End) 活动。她在 10 月被宣布将在布雷钦演出。
英国军队在 1814. 焚烧华盛顿。下方是托马斯·科克伦 (Thomas Cochrane) 的素描，描绘了一艘旨在用于海战的“硫磺船”。
专家和王室成员，包括约克公爵和摄政王（后被加冕为乔治四世）。已知英国人在拿破仑战争期间考虑过使用“臭味船” (stink vessels)，但针对美国的计划此前从未披露。
“[委员会] 认为，在我的说明文件中详细描述的情况下，这种攻击方式将是不可抵挡的，”科克伦在名为《索赔声明》(Statement of Claims) 的备忘录中写道。
他补充说，他们注意到“这些计划一旦泄露，可能会给我们的殖民地带来危险”，随后说道：“摄政王召我前往卡尔顿府，并命令我保守秘密。我服从了。”
一旦 1812 年战争——针对美国的冲突——爆发，科克伦的叔叔，海军中将亚历山大·科克伦 (Alexander Cochrane) 被任命为北美海军总司令。他的侄子被任命为旗舰舰长，实际上是二号指挥官，并被安排接管“雷鸣号” (HMS Tonnant)。
在这份 23 页的备忘录中，科克伦明确提到使用其武器的“意图”。他说：“在 1813 年底——当时英格兰正与美国处于战争状态——我的叔叔被任命为该地区的海军总司令。由于他对我的新攻击方法之重要性印象深刻，他打算在情况有利的情况下采用该方法；因此，他更希望我能陪同他或跟随他前往美国，担任其旗舰舰长；我相信，是在他的申请下，我被任命为‘雷鸣号’的指挥官。”
他的叔叔先出发了，而科克伦正准备离港时，股市丑闻爆发，他被判定犯有欺诈罪。
摩尔 (Moore) 还写过一本关于最近被发现的库克船长“奋进号” (Endeavour) 的历史书，他花了三年时间研究科克伦，以完成他的新作品。
目前尚不清楚该武器原计划部署在何处，尽管科克伦的笔记暗示可能是新奥尔良、巴尔的摩或纽约。在 1814, 焚烧华盛顿和白宫后，英国人在 1815 年战争结束前的纽奥良战役中遭受了令人蒙羞的失败。
摩尔表示：“如果在第一次世界大战的一个世纪前，他就使用了那些硫磺船，那将是一个令人难以置信的震惊时刻。你能想象如果发生了那样的事会怎样吗？我认为，这将是军事史上最令人震惊的时刻之一。”
科克伦随后拥有卓越的军事和政治生涯，并于 1860. 年去世。他被安葬在西敏寺。
《危险的游戏：托马斯·科克伦的边缘人生》 (A Dangerous Game: Thomas Cochrane’s Life on the Edge) 将于 9 月 3 日出版 (Chatto & Windus, £30)
此外，在1月份，该机构与 Level 42 签约，后者被合同要求在 Discovery 音乐节上演出。在信函中，BBC 将此描述为一种“巧合的模式”。
“宫殿派对”（Party at the Palace）音乐节的共同组织者约翰·理查森（John Richardson）表示，该音乐节将于 8 月 8 和 9, 日举行：“这是一颗扔进社区的炸弹，而那些投掷炸弹的人在演出结束后的第二天就会回到伦敦。我们今年将继续进行，但我不敢确定其深远影响。我无法直视我的团队成员并告诉他们一切都会好起来，因为我不知道是否真的如此。”
苏格兰民族党（SNP）代表珀斯和金罗斯郡（Perth and Kinross-shire）的国会议员皮特·威沙特（Pete Wishart）此前曾是 Big Country 和 Runrig 乐队的音乐人，他已致信 BBC 总干事要求解释。他说：“很明显，有些事情出了严重问题。”
BBC 表示，在处理 Radio 2 in the Park 事宜上已采取适当行动，该音乐节将由 Simple Minds 和 Chaka Khan 领衔演出。“BBC 致力于支持独立音乐节行业。我们与当地音乐节组织者和利益相关者进行了广泛交流。我们听取了关于 8 月举行活动的潜在影响的担忧……并将 Radio 2 in the Park 的日期移至 9 月。”
脱衣舞舞剧
这部剧原本旨在描绘演员们“享受人生的高光时刻”。但《脱衣舞》（Burlesque）音乐剧在未付版税的指控、演出推迟以及艰苦工作条件的阴影下，陷入了混乱。
该剧一年前在萨沃伊剧院（Savoy Theatre）完成了西区首演，原定于昨日在萨里郡的沃金（Woking）开启英国巡演，但现已推迟。原计划于 9 月开始的伦敦新一轮演出也被推迟至 2027 年。
该剧制作人表示，即将到来的巡演已售出约 90,000 张门票，价值近 £4 百万。
《脱衣舞》改编自斯蒂文·安廷（Steven Antin） 2010 年的电影，由克里斯蒂娜·阿奎莱拉（Christina Aguilera）、雪儿（Cher）和斯坦利·图齐（Stanley Tucci）主演。阿奎莱拉虽未在音乐剧中出演，但担任了执行制作人和作曲家。剧中还采用了她的歌曲，以及 Sia、戴安娜·沃伦（Diane Warren）和托德里克·霍尔（Todrick Hall）的作品。
霍尔曾任该剧的编舞和导演，于今年离开，但他声称对方欠他超过 £100,000 的未付版税。
去年在 ITV 节目《Lorraine》中，他曾表示：“通过这部剧，观众能感觉到我们正处于人生中最快乐的时光。我们玩得非常开心。”但现在显现出，他正就其音乐贡献的版税问题与制作人安廷及亚当·波顿（Adam Paulden）产生分歧。他表示，参与这部剧的制作让他陷入了“睡眠不足、焦虑……创伤且压力巨大”的状态。
一名剧方代表表示，霍尔“作为导演和表演者的费用已经得到了丰厚且全额的支付”，并且已经收到了一笔“数额巨大的音乐版税预付款”。
该代表表示：“目前只有一首歌存在争议——《Fabulous》——这首歌最初名为《Life’s Not Fair it’s Fabulous!》，是斯蒂文·安廷注册商标的一句台词。当托德里克签署合同时，最后一首歌曲的版权问题将得到解决。”
新闻世界新闻
WISAM HASHLAMOUN/GETTY IMAGES; KOBI WOLF FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
西岸
西岸
克里斯蒂娜·兰布（Christina Lamb），首席驻外记者，西岸
像大多数自豪的新手父母一样，丹娜·萨拉梅（Dania Salameh）的手机里存有数百张她唯一孩子萨姆（Sam）的照片和视频。萨姆去年 11 月出生，是一个长着一撮棕色头发、笑容灿烂的宝宝。在几乎每张照片中，他似乎都在对周围的世界发出好奇的咯咯笑声，无论是玩着一只毛茸茸的狮子，吸吮着一个西红柿，还是躺在妈妈身边的垫子上。
然而，这位来自伯利恒的电气工程讲师在向我展示照片时，泪水夺眶而出。上个月，当她的丈夫开车带他们前往希布伦（Hebron）的祖母家时，宝宝萨姆在她的膝盖上被一名以色列士兵射杀。他当时才七个月大。
伯利恒
伯利恒
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“我那么爱他。我一直渴望拥有孩子，他是我们家的生命之光，” 28 岁的萨拉梅说道。她与 41 岁的丈夫法赫德·阿布·海卡尔（Fahd Abu Haikal）坐在他们位于伯利恒郊区的一套整洁公寓里。海卡尔在市内的阿赫利亚大学（Ahliya University）教授媒体和平面设计，两人在那里相识。电视机旁的一张照片显示，在两年前结婚之前的毕业典礼上，两人都身着礼袍。
“他们冷血地杀害了我的幼子，” 阿布·海卡尔说道，声音因愤怒而紧绷。“我们只是周五下午在车里的一家人。”
自以色列发动军事行动以应对以来，萨姆是西岸被杀害的 259 名巴勒斯坦儿童之一。
宣布胜利 教育部长 仓皇离职
针对2023年10月7日的哈马斯袭击，根据联合国的数据——几乎每周发生两起。联合国人道主义事务协调办公室表示，总共有超过1,100名巴勒斯坦人被杀，40名以色列人死亡。
在今年3月的一次类似枪击事件中，在塔姆姆村，以色列士兵向一辆载有巴勒斯坦家庭的汽车前挡风玻璃开火，该家庭当时正从购物行程返回。他们杀死了父亲阿里·巴尼·奥德（Ali Bani Odeh）、母亲瓦阿德（Wa’ad）以及他们的两个儿子：5岁的穆罕默德（Mohammad）和7岁的奥斯曼（Othman），后者患有残疾并坐在母亲膝上。两名年长的哥哥幸存了下来。事件发生时，这家人距离家中仅几分钟路程。
“我们看到的是，在西岸，对青少年和儿童的致命枪击已成为常规做法，”以色列人权组织 B’Tselem 的公共推广主管沙伊·帕内斯（Shai Parnes）表示。“而且所有这些行为都完全免于惩罚。没有一个人被起诉。”
“这都是一项更广泛的西岸种族清洗政策的一部分，旨在尽可能多地从巴勒斯坦人手中夺取土地，且尽可能让留在土地上的人最少。”
萨拉梅（Salameh）手机上的最后一张婴儿照片显示，萨姆（Sam）在一直与他们同住的祖母膝上灿烂地笑着。照片拍摄于6月4日周四晚上的8.08pm。不到24小时后，婴儿萨姆死去了。
以色列国防军最初声称，其部队“察觉到一辆车辆正加速冲向
Arjuna Keshvani-德里
在德里的卢蒂恩斯（Lutyens）社区街道上，胜利的欢呼声震耳欲聋。在挥舞着临时标牌和印度国旗的兴奋抗议者上方的舞台上，30岁的“蟑螂党”（Cockroach party）创始人阿比吉特·迪普克（Abhijeet Dipke）向人群挥舞拳头并露出了笑容。“他们过去常说，这个政府里没有辞职这件事！”他喊道。“但我们做到了。达马德拉·普拉丹（Dharmendra Pradhan）已经辞职了。”
人群发出了雷鸣般的赞同声。迪普克身边的一张海报上印着20张年轻的面孔和名字，据称这些人是在近期试卷泄露事件后自杀的。“这是为了那些被达马德拉·普拉丹夺走的学生生命而战，”他说。
印度教育部长普拉丹在一名要求教育改革的青年运动进行了数周抗议后，于昨日辞职。作为回应，抗议者取消了大规模游行。
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耶路撒冷
耶路撒冷
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以色列 约旦
以色列 约旦
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他没有 武器
这场运动已发展成为一项全国性的运动。它是印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪自12年前执政以来，面临的最重大打击之一。
当地媒体报道称，政府还同意了其他几项要求，包括为参与游行示威的人员提供法律保护。
CJP自周五起一直与政府进行谈判，并要求撤换普拉丹，称这一点为“不可谈判”。
普拉丹在X平台上宣布辞职的声明中表示，他做出这一决定是“为了确保……国家保持团结，印度学生不会陷入复杂的法律纠纷，从而能专注于学业和职业生涯”。
CJP这个名称是对莫迪执政党——印度人民党（BJP, Bharatiya Janata Party）的戏仿。该运动始于5月，此前印度首席大法官将失业青年描述为“蟑螂”。该运动在过去两个月里规模扩大，吸引了数万名年轻人走上街头抗议。
他们在希伯伦周边地区执行“行动活动”时对“他们”开火。但B’Tselem获取的视频显示，该家庭的车辆当时已明显停下。
“我正开车送我的母亲菲里亚尔回家去希伯伦，”阿布·海卡尔说道。“她坐在前面。后面坐着丹妮亚、萨姆和我的另一个儿子［基南，11岁，来自他的第一段婚姻］。我们通过了检查站，进入了母亲居住的特尔鲁迈达，这时我看到了街上的士兵。”
“我停了下来，然后看到左侧的一名士兵举起了步枪。我举起双手示意‘停止’，但他向我们开了两枪。一颗子弹穿过了挡风玻璃，另一颗击中了发动机盖。我转过头，看到我儿子头部中弹了。”
30 miles
“我没有任何方式威胁他们，”他补充道。“车窗是普通玻璃，没有贴膜，他们距离仅10米——他们就是想杀人。”
子弹穿过了阿布·海卡尔的右手，击中了在他身后的萨姆的头部。碎片进入了萨拉梅的下颚，就在唇上方，从耳后穿出，另一块碎片则留在她的心脏附近。两人血流不止。“我大喊‘他们开枪打了我儿子，他们打了我儿子！’”她说。“我看到他快死了，但我心中仍抱有一丝希望。士兵们根本不在乎，他们跑掉了。”
当她走出车外并瘫倒在地时，她的丈夫从她手中接过婴儿。他拦了一辆车将他们送往医院，在那里她被
本周由于对试卷泄露的愤怒情绪日益增长而引发。在发现部分题目被泄露后，5月份的国家本科医学院入学考试被取消，导致200万名学生不得不重新参加考试。必须重考的前景已导致十余起自杀事件。此后，人们对印度教育系统公平性的担忧……
ANUSHREE FADNAVIS /REUTERS
……直接被送入手术室。由于碎片靠近一条大动脉，外科医生不得不将其留在她的胸腔内。
“我每天都在哭，”她说。“萨姆曾经那么安静快乐，总是带着微笑。现在公寓里非常安静，我的心碎了。”
以色列军队中没有人联系这对夫妇，只有军事警察为了“调查”而没收了他们的车辆。据阿布·海卡尔称，士兵们在十分钟后返回，拆除了闭路电视（CCTV）。
以色列国防军（IDF）随后将其描述为一次失误。 “这不是失误，”阿布·海卡尔说。“他们是一支专业军队。我看到了那个士兵的脸。他想杀人。他们冷血地射杀了一个婴儿。他们为了逼我们离开自己的土地采取了许多手段，射杀儿童就是其中之一。”
一名以色列国防军代表表示，该事件“正在由军事警察刑事调查部门调查，并被极其严肃地对待”，并补充道：“以色列国防军高度重视此事。”
阿布·海卡尔 (Abu Haikal) 指出，近期在西岸发生的杀害儿童事件中，还没有任何人被绳之以法。“这是一场犯罪，我们需要正义。我不在乎需要花多长时间，也不在乎他们对我做什么，我不会放弃。杀害婴儿是不正常的，这一切都不正常。”
上周，我开车在西岸四处行驶，从希伯伦南部山丘的牧羊人社区到北部的杰宁镇，与孩子们以及失去亲人的家庭交谈。这是一次令人心惊胆战的经历。
在不到两年前的上一次旅行中，我对随处可见的围墙和铁丝网围栏切断巴勒斯坦社区的情况，以及军事检查站和非法以色列定居点的数量感到震惊。
自那时起，这些数字进一步升级。这一次，在穿过褐色岩石山丘的蜿蜒道路行驶时，几乎每个山顶似乎都有一个定居点。有些只是设有房车、发电机、一面旗帜和几只羊的前哨站，而有些则是建有监视塔和铺砌道路的成熟社区，其中甚至包括一些以色列法院此前曾命令定居者离开的地方。根据以色列监督机构“现在和平” (Peace Now) 的数据，目前共有 147 个定居点和 201 个前哨站，占据了近五分之一的土地，约有 700,000 名定居者。
10月7, 日，哈马斯武装分子在以色列南部杀害了 1,195 人，此后定居者对巴勒斯坦人的袭击上升到了前所未有的水平。在周五特尔村 (Tell) 定居者与巴勒斯坦人发生冲突导致四名巴勒斯坦人和两名以色列人死亡后，该地区现在爆发了数月来最致命的暴力活动。
总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡 (Binyamin Netanyahu) 周五宣布，他已下令在西岸开展一项“重大”行动以作回应。军队目前已将纳布卢斯市 (Nablus) 围住。
（此处为另一篇关于印度抗议活动的报道片段）
……演变为对该国年轻人生活的更广泛不满。印度作为世界上人口最多的国家。
周一，年轻的抗议者在向议会进军时遭到催泪瓦斯和警察警棍的攻击，这进一步激化了抗议活动。抗议者表示，他们在质疑印度日渐崩塌的民主现状。
“我们没预料到今天会发生这种情况，但我们非常激动，”达尼什·阿里 (Danish Ali) 说道。他是一名贾瓦哈拉尔·尼鲁大学 (Jawaharlal Nehru University) 的博士生，同时也是全印学生协会 (All India Students’ Association) 的活动人士，该协会在组织抗议活动中发挥了重要作用。他在谈到教育部长辞职时如此表示。
CJP 由迪普克 (Dipke) 创立，他从波士顿回到印度加入抗议者。他建立了一个网站和社交媒体账号，其标志是一个由 AI 生成的、 perched 在讲台后的类人蟑螂。其标语写道：“一个为被系统遗忘而未计入的人民建立的政党。”
在不到两周的时间里，该 Instagram 账号就聚集了 22 million 粉丝——超过了印度人民党 (BJP) 的官方 Instagram 账号。
CJP 领导了多年来规模最大的学生动员，并给莫迪政府带来了意想不到的挑战。幽默成了他们最强大的武器：在周六德里的詹塔尔·曼塔尔 (Jantar Mantar) 抗议活动中，学生们举起画有针对莫迪的双关语和口号的标牌。其中一张写道：“莫迪和我的女朋友一样，都没心没肺。”
……周四首次直接面对抗议活动，承诺将加快对考试泄题幕后之人的法院惩罚。但抗议者想要更多。
当普拉丹 (Pradhan) 辞职的消息传到关键抗议地点詹塔尔·曼塔尔时，扩音器中响起了音乐，人们开始敲鼓起舞。“革命万岁！”抗议者们高喊道。现在的关键是，普拉丹的辞职是否足以遏制不满的浪潮。“我们奋斗的目标不仅仅是为了辞职，更是为了挽救这个国家的民主文化，”阿里上周说道。
“这是一个更广泛的运动，”20 岁的德里大学学生萨亚姆（Sayam）说道。“我们关注的问题是结构性问题。我们想要一个政治体制，让政府基于理念和意识形态运行，而不是基于亿万富翁寡头们的动机。”昨晚，在詹塔·曼塔（Jantar Mantar）的庆祝活动仍在继续。CJP发言人阿什托什·兰卡（Ashtosh Ranka）要求兴高采烈的群众返回家中。他补充道：“但不必担心，你们很快会再次见到我们的。”
上周在开车行驶时，我看到高速公路沿线每 20 米就插着一面白蓝相间的以色列国旗，还有印着蓝色皇冠和希伯来语“弥赛亚”字样的黄色横幅，这些横幅来自一个在军队中影响力日益增强的极端组织。
F
还有一些新情况：村庄入口处设有数百道金属门，被涂成橙色和黄色——没人知道这些颜色的含义——士兵们随机关闭这些门，将人们像动物一样关在后面，迫使他们绕路回家。
巴勒斯坦人现在开始新的一天时会查看 WhatsApp 群组，不仅是为了看前一天晚上发生了什么，更是为了检查哪些门是开启的。
当我问士兵们为什么要关闭通往 Tum Ayya 的黄色大门时，他们笑了。“我们在寻找东西，”其中一人说道。他补充说，他们很快将转移去封锁另一个村庄。
在我进入的几乎每一个村庄，定居者都在恐吓社区。在南部希伯伦山区（Hebron hills）的贝都因村庄 Um al-Kheir，这种情况最为明显。在过去一年中，这里搬进了 13 辆大篷车，距离近到一个家庭的房屋现在与室外厕所以及存放山羊和绵羊的棚屋被隔绝开来。定居者竖起了一道围栏将房屋切断，并在浴室前放置了他们自己的摇椅和一面以色列国旗。
“想象一下住在这样一个房子里，人们甚至占领了你自己的浴室，”49 岁的 Ikhlas al-Hathalin 说，她就住在那里。“我和我的女儿们必须请求使用邻居的厕所或使用社区的厕所。现在如果我们想喂羊，必须获得军队的许可。我们经常在深夜被跳上屋顶的定居者惊醒。这太可怕了。”
其中一名定居者 Maayan Ofik，19 岁，从邻近的 Carmel 定居点搬到这里。他欢迎我进入他与五名朋友共用的移动房屋，他说这些人都是志愿搬到这里的。一些大篷车里住着有孩子的家庭——外面有一个蹦床、充气泳池和一个俯瞰沙漠的木制露台。
Peter Conradi 欧洲编辑，发自多尔 (Dole)
需要多少食物和葡萄酒才能满足 2,500 名渴望传统的法国男女？周五傍晚快到 7 点，皮埃尔-亚历山德罗·德·博伊斯 (Pierre-Alexandre de Boisse) 站在东南部小镇多尔郊区的一座巨大大厅里，在为即将到来的夜晚做准备时思考着这个问题。
33 岁的德·博伊斯召唤了他的同事热拉尔·德·拉图尔 (Gérard de la Tour)，后者曾从事餐饮业，现任 Le Canon Français 的物流负责人。这家快速成长的公司专门组织大规模宴会，以庆祝法国的烹饪和文化遗产。在接下来的几个小时里，食客们将消耗 350 个面包、750 kg 鸡肉、半吨土豆格拉坦 (potato gratin) 以及另外半吨熟肉制品 (charcuterie)。为了搭配这些美食，还将提供 1,500 瓶优质的当地汝拉 (Jura) 葡萄酒以及大量的啤酒和软饮料。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 左上图为七个月大的萨姆 (Sam) 的葬礼。他的父母达妮亚·萨拉梅 (Dania Salameh) 和法赫德·阿布·海卡尔 (Fahd Abu Haikal) 表示，尚未收到军队的消息。
在屋外，进入会场的队列一直延伸到视线尽头。随处可见贝雷帽、旗帜和条纹衫，一名女性的头上顶着一只长满蓝色、白色和红色羽毛的毛绒公鸡。一名男子的 T 恤上写着：“自由，平等，熟肉 (Liberté, Egalité, Charcuterie)”。
许多人是成组而来的。“这里的氛围很棒，像节日一样，太赞了，” 47 岁的弗雷德里克 (Fréderic) 说道。他在多尔的一家工厂工作，不愿透露姓氏。他带着 14 岁的女儿卢安 (Luane) 以及其他 10 名家人一起前来，每人都支付了 €79.99 参加这个包含美食与音乐的夜晚。“但我们这里有 59 个人互相认识，” 排在他们附近的另一名女子插话道。
2021 年在新冠疫情刚结束之后举办的第一场宴会仅接待了 80 人，地点在该公司总部所在的图尔 (Tours) 附近。此后，他们在法国各地的举办次数已超过 100 场，规模最大的一次喂饱了多达 4,000 人。年度节庆——
“这完全是为了保护，” 他说，“这个村庄的大部分建筑都是违章建筑。如果我们不把他们移走，还会发生另一次 10 月 7 日事件。”
自 10 月 7 日以来，已有 62 个社区被强行迁移。每天都有人被迫收拾行囊离开。这些社区不仅分布在所谓的 C 区（根据 1995 年《奥斯陆协议》约定，该区域占领土的 60 比例，处于以色列军队和民政当局的全面控制下）。
前哨站正在向 B 区扩张，B 区处于巴勒斯坦行政管理之下，但由以色列控制安全。只有在 A 区，巴勒斯坦权力机构才拥有完全控制权。
就在 B 区的一个社区，即北部的塔尔 (Tal) 村，定居者于周五进入，引发了一场致命冲突，导致 4 名巴勒斯坦人和 2 名以色列人死亡。关于具体情况存在争议，当地人称冲突始于他们试图保护家园免受携带枪支安保人员陪同的定居者袭击，而以色列国防军 (IDF) 则称巴勒斯坦人袭击了一名以色列徒步旅行者。
以色列方面随即采取军事行动，导致 8 个村庄被围困。
暴力行为还意味着儿童和教师无法就学，民众无法获得医疗救治。本月，来自拉马拉 (Ramallah) 附近代尔·阿马尔 (Deir Ammar) 村的一名四个月大男婴艾哈迈德·马鲁夫·扎伊德 (Ahmad Marouf Zaid) 因心脏骤停死亡；士兵们关闭了他家附近的大门，导致其父母无法将他送到另一侧等待的救护车上。
“在这里当母亲非常艰难，” 33 岁的艾莉亚·阿卜杜勒·马吉德·阿尔-哈拉克 (Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq) 说道。她坐在父亲位于希伯伦 (Hebron) 郊外贾塔 (Jatta) 地区阿尔-里希亚 (al-Rihiyya) 村的房子里，身边围绕着 4 个 5 到 14 岁的孩子。在她的第五个孩子、9 岁的穆罕默德 (Mohammad) 应该坐的沙发位置上，现在摆放着一张放大的照片。
她在向我展示一个亮蓝色的联合国儿童基金会 (Unicef) 背包时地咬了下嘴唇，那是去年 10 月给穆罕默德的。“他当时非常开心和兴奋，” 她告诉我，“他说：‘看，妈妈，他们给了我什么！’”
他还没来得及使用它。 穆罕默德当时正在
SABRINA DOLIDZE 为《星期日泰晤士报》供稿 上个月的服务人数是该数字的两倍多，该公司年营业额已达数百万英镑，为其在大多数小镇地点举办活动时的当地企业提供了助力。
但随着该项目的增长，在法国四月总统大选前日益紧张的政治氛围中，围绕它的争议也随之增加。民调显示，右翼国民联盟的玛丽娜·勒庞可能会赢得此次大选。
一些左翼人士对以肉类为主的菜单以及活动开始时组织的《马赛曲》合唱感到不适。当有消息传出，支持右翼事业的神秘超级保守派亿万富翁皮埃尔-爱德华·斯特林（Pierre-Édouard Stérin）在 2024 年 12 月买入了该项目的实质性股份时，他们的不安感进一步增强。
阿里亚·阿卜杜勒-马吉德·al-Halaq 的儿子穆罕默德，9 岁（左图），在玩耍时被枪杀。左下方，位于贝都因村庄 Um al-Kheir 的一个以色列哨所。
在宴会上，唱歌和跳舞很常见。一些参与者则表现得更为狂放。
学校操场上，两辆军队吉普车进入村庄并开始发射催泪瓦斯。她的儿子仓促跑上山坡，到达他祖父家正下方的边缘地带。
家人向我展示了一段视频，视频中一名士兵从一辆吉普车上下来，将步枪对准了穆罕默德。枪声响起，穆罕默德走了几步后倒下。
“他只是站在那里的孩子——他没有武器，”她说。“他们开枪杀他，仅仅因为他是一个巴勒斯坦孩子。他们不想让我们留在这里，并且知道每天的羞辱不足以让我们离开自己的土地，所以现在他们在杀死我们的孩子。”
“我的丈夫心碎得无法工作，失去了在建筑行业的工作。他的小妹妹西拉（Sila）深受创伤，不敢去学校。我们的孩子在悲伤、恐惧以及仇恨中长大。他 5 岁的弟弟说：‘等我长大后，我想学习射击，这样我就能射杀那个射杀穆罕默德的士兵。’”
她试图针对该士兵登记案件，但被拒绝了。“我知道我无法获得正义……但我会继续尝试。我想为所有巴勒斯坦母亲阻止这一切。”
就像我采访过的每一位失去孩子的母亲一样，al-Halaq 不仅对以色列体制的免责感到愤怒，而且对她认为国际社会给予以色列的免责感到愤怒。
“我想让全世界听到我的声音，”她说。“我想问问国外的母亲们，她们是否认为射杀孩子是正常的。”
一些国家已经禁止与以色列定居点进行所有贸易，最近的是上周的荷兰，许多人希望英国新任首相安迪·伯纳姆能够效仿。
上个月，137 名工党国会议员向时任外交大臣伊薇特·库珀（Yvette Cooper）递交了一封信，呼吁政府采取具体行动，应对针对巴勒斯坦人的暴力升级。在周六的一份声明中，外交、英联邦和发展事务部表示：“本届政府已经对支持或纵容西岸定居者暴力的实体和个人实施了四轮制裁，包括率先对以色列部长 [伊塔马尔] 本-格维尔（[Itamar] Ben-Gvir）和 [贝扎列尔] 斯莫特里奇（[Bezalel] Smotrich）实施制裁。”
英国联合国儿童基金会（Unicef UK）首席执行官菲利普·古德温（Philip Goodwin）呼吁伯纳姆及其新任外交大臣“采取立即且果断的步骤，确保巴勒斯坦儿童得到保护，国际法得到维护，并永久结束对儿童的杀戮和伤残”。
最近访问过西岸的古德温表示，他被所见之景震惊了。“我在人道主义发展领域工作了二十多年，但没有什么能让我对目击的一切做好心理准备，”他说。“孩子们告诉我，仅仅因为试图去学校，就被定居者威胁或被狗袭击，这让他们感到恐惧。”
很少有地方比杰宁（Jenin）经历过更多的暴力。在过去一年中，以色列国防军 (IDF) 将这座难民营全部 20,000 人的居民驱逐出境。尽管名为“营地”，但这里实际上是一座城镇，拥有商店、公寓楼甚至一家剧院，但它长期以来也是武装抵抗的中心，被以色列国防军 (IDF) 视为武装分子的潜伏地。
然而，正是在杰宁，我发现了一线希望。在当地的一家文化中心，85 名 6 至 15 岁的儿童参加了由自由剧院（The Freedom Theatre）组织的为期 17 天的夏令营。有的孩子在跳舞，有的在绘画，学习马戏技巧或表演。
主持工作坊的拉宁·奥德（Ranin Odeh）表示，她看到的孩子们身上所发生的改变是惊人的。“这些孩子深受创伤——有些人失去了父母，或者父母被捕。他们刚来时很害羞，不想分享，但几天之内，他们的母亲就会打电话问我：‘您是怎么做到这样的？’”
其中一名孩子是 12 岁的塔拉·图尔贝（Talla Tulbe），她说她想成为一名演员或工程师。直到去年她一直住在难民营里，在谈到家人被驱逐时，她流下了眼泪。“在占领下长大非常艰难，”她补充道，“但在剧院学校里，我觉得很安全，忘记了一切。”
胡塞武装的袭击表明 伊朗强硬派已掌权并充满活力
从伊斯兰革命卫队 (IRGC) 的角度来看，与美国及其海湾盟友的冲突进展非常顺利。伊朗对霍尔木兹海峡的控制依然稳固，而其在也门重新激活胡塞武装——该组织本周封锁了第二条关键航道，并声称用导弹袭击了沙特阿拉伯——这再次提醒人们，德黑兰决心在所有战线上寻求优势。
在与该地区的分析人士交流中，关于为何现在发生这种情况存在不同观点。胡塞武装是否只是 IRGC 之前选择尚未出击的一张底牌？还是美国和沙特阿拉伯最近的行动使这个代理组织确信，现在是发挥自身影响力的时机？
胡塞武装的袭击无疑表明，伊朗内部的强硬派（尤其是 IRGC）正在重建他们的区域联盟：抵抗之弧。这也表明他们正在掌控政权。在五个月前消灭了前最高领袖阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊的袭击之前，伊朗内部相互竞争的利益一直以一种规避风险的方式达成妥协，因此即使在去年夏季 12 天战争期间遭受以色列和美国的沉重打击后，那些主张升级冲突的人仍受到制约。但他的儿子兼继任者穆吉塔巴尚未公开露面，有猜测认为 IRGC 指挥官艾哈迈德·瓦希迪在掌控他的书面声明。
无论瓦希迪与穆吉塔巴之间的关系如何，显然政权及其轴心都感到胆量大增。周四，就在宣布封锁通过曼德海峡（红海流入阿拉伯海之处）的与沙特相关船只几天后，胡塞武装声称袭击了两艘油轮——此举威胁要在战争中开辟新战线，并再次导致油价飙升至每桶 $100 以上。
一天后，这个自 2015 年起在也门部分地区掌握权力的反政府武装组织表示，已向沙特阿拉伯南部的吉赞发射导弹；周六，该组织表示对沙特阿美公司 (Saudi Aramco) 的设施进行了袭击。
沙特方面周五表示，他们轰炸了也门的几个军事站点，声称这些站点被用于威胁商业航运。特朗普总统已警告称，他将要求支持该组织的伊朗为其行为负责。
他们在此时介入冲突，正值“抵抗之弧”的另一个关键部分——真主党在经历了两年以色列的猛攻后，急需喘息空间。在以色列军队上周进行了首次局部撤退后，真主党现在看来将获得这个机会。
伊朗现在开始认真地从事重建其盟友的事业。由于经过叙利亚的旧供应路线中断，重点将转向寻找走私路线，以为武装分子提供攻击以色列所需的武器。
但该政权不仅在海外重建。最近出现的最具有启发性的报告或许是那些暗示
他所写的内容是新纳粹主义的姿态。德·波瓦塞 (De Boisse) 表示，此人否认持有极右翼观点，并称图像经过篡改。他正考虑采取法律行动。
一组 20 名当地店主随后抱怨称，活动结束后进入镇上的参与者醉醺醺且具有攻击性，并发表了种族主义、性别歧视和恐同言论。当地检察官已启动调查。
德·波瓦塞在翻阅手机收到的照片时表示，在此后的几个月里，一些供应商的场所被涂鸦。
“Le Canon Français，极右翼的特洛伊木马？”上周公共服务电视台区域分支机构 France 3 的网站上出现了一个这样的标题。与此同时，一群担忧的当地人向市长让-巴蒂斯特·加纽 (Jean-Baptiste Gagnoux) 发表了一封公开信，谴责这次早已售罄的活动。
竞赛 似乎 成真
“……用于那些有助于使极右翼及其排外意识形态正常化的政治或文化示威活动，”他们写道。
来自中右翼共和党的加尼乌（Gagnoux），41岁，依然出席了活动。在品尝他的熟食开胃菜之前，他谴责这封信是让-吕克·梅朗雄（Jean-Luc Mélenchon，74岁）领导的极左翼政党“不屈法国”当地支持者的作品。梅朗雄计划在明年春天进行第四次总统竞选尝试，加尼乌指责他“在与法国传统价值观作斗争”。
“不能仅仅因为两三个白痴在某些法国集会上据称行了纳粹礼，就对‘法国大炮’（Le Canon Français）做出评判，”加尼乌补充道。“这并不意味着这里的 2,500 人应该被与他们混为一谈并被贴上极端分子的标签。”
伊朗一直在其皮卡克斯山（Pickaxe Mountain）深处重建铀浓缩计划。在 14 个月前摧毁了纳坦兹（Natanz）和伊斯法罕（Isfahan）设施的入口后，美国情报部门曾表示有信心，离心机的主要生产“级联”以及伊朗的铀库存均已无法触及。但专家表示，伊朗可以轻易制造更多的浓缩设备。
上周，《华尔街日报》报道称，伊朗已将数千台铀浓缩离心机转移到皮卡克斯山深处的隧道中。特朗普在周二表示，美国一直在“密切跟踪”伊朗的核储备，并补充说很快将对该设施进行打击。
来自德黑兰的措辞也表明，该政权并未放弃其核野心。一份泄露给《纽约时报》的情报评估显示，穆吉塔巴·哈梅内伊（Mojtaba Khamenei）看到了拥有核武器的价值（与其父亲不同，后者曾发布禁令反对核武）。虽然这可能是美国官员为进一步攻击做铺垫的一种方式，但伊朗竞相研发核弹的可能性现在似乎成真了。
对于伊斯兰革命卫队（IRGC）的强硬派来说，最令他们满意的结果或许是，尽管美国针对当地伊朗军队进行了数百次空袭，他们仍能使霍尔木兹海峡在很大程度上处于封锁状态。白宫官员多次简报称，特朗普正在考虑夺取该海峡的部分地区或哈格岛（Kharg Island），但到目前为止，尚未有足够的部队被动员并派遣到该地区，以使任何对该领土的长期占领成为可能。
这些近期趋势表明，敌对行动看不到结束的迹象。然而，伊斯兰革命卫队及其支持者有可能在操作中用力过猛。美国在结束当前僵局方面显现出的无力感，可能导致伊朗领导层高估了通过持续升级和对抗所能获得的收益。
同样事实是，伊斯兰革命卫队对其邻国持续的胁迫可能会产生不可预见的后果。面对袭击，科威特和巴林等国似乎一直在达成协议，试图在与美国合作的同时收买伊朗，并建设可能使其未来减少对霍尔木兹海峡依赖的基础设施。
近期仅有少数伊朗袭击指向卡塔尔或阿联酋。有传言称，这些国家一直允许此前被冻结的资金流向伊斯兰共和国，但该传言被强烈否认。但据报道，科威特和巴林在遭到导弹袭击后发起了报复性空袭——这种反应在此前从未出现过。
尽管伊朗政权为其忍受逆境的能力而自豪，但其生存最终取决于经济封锁的缓解——其资助代理人的能力亦然。对于强硬派来说，锁定现有收益并采取更谨慎方案的时机可能即将到来。
“我的商业伙伴和我参与这件事并不是为了搞政治，”他说。 “但在法国，有些人认为吃肉会让你变成极右翼，”他说。至于与 Stérin 的联系，他声称在对方的投资公司提出收购股份时曾对其进行过查询，但并不了解其观点。
在多尔（Dole）举行的活动氛围更像是一个巨大的村庄节日（fête de village），就像以前在法国社区举办的那样，没有任何政治内容。狂欢者们似乎并不在意这场争议。 “这些人简直是在践踏我们的根基，”一名 44 岁的铺砖工埃里克·库贝尔斯（Eric Cubells）在活动开始几小时后说道。
德·波伊斯（De Boisse）及其合伙人仍在考虑接下来将他们的创业项目发展到哪里。
Katy Balls 华盛顿内幕
但他也表示，正是因为他需要与记者交流，才导致了大多数
“这真是漫长的一夜，”客人们在周五最终离开华尔道夫酒店时重复着这句话。在那场晚餐会上，美国总统发表了超过一小时的演讲，而一名魔术师则读了政府高级成员的心思，其中包括总检察长托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche）和联合国大使迈克·沃尔兹（Mike Waltz）。
“我分不清哪个才是心理学家，”一名客人在开玩笑。
特朗普总统在白宫记者晚餐会上的首次亮相注定不会是一次低调的活动。多年来，总统一直抵制这次年度晚餐会，将其视为媒体与他承诺要清理的“沼泽”中的华盛顿权贵阶层之间乱伦关系的标志。
当他去年重新掌权时，包括史蒂夫·班农（Steve Bannon）在内的特朗普支持者为“不速之客”举办了饮品会，餐巾纸上印着文字：“并非白宫记者协会”。这表明特朗普回来了，而且他将（再次）按自己的方式行事。
然而，今年他改变了主意。在白宫记者协会（WHCA）的游说之后，总统决定最终追随从拜登、布什、克林顿到胡佛等前任者的脚步。
“亲家庭”总统担忧 但在俄亥俄州及其他地区 女性对生活的追求 不仅限于生育
路易丝·卡拉汉 (Louise Callaghan) 美国高级记者，辛辛那提
摩根·摩尔-怀特 (Morgan Moore-White) 在肯塔基州路易维尔长大，是六个姐妹中最小的一个。她过去常说，有一天当她自己有了孩子时，她想要一个足球队的先发阵容外加一名啦啦队队员——五个男孩和一个女孩。
但随着年龄增长，她审视了自己的生活并重新思考。大学毕业后，她背负了 $100,000 的债务，并正朝着一份能让她进入中产阶级的职业前进。这份工作能让她赚到比父母更多的钱，但同时也意味着她将不再符合获得政府援助的资格，而正是这些援助帮助她的父母抚养了她和她的兄弟姐妹。
和许多美国女性一样，并不是她不想要孩子，而是她不想不计代价地生育。她希望能够给孩子提供体面的生活标准，同时维持自己的生活以及与丈夫德斯蒙德·怀特 (Desmond White) 的关系，两人在大学时相识。
这对夫妇等待、工作、存钱并买了一套房子。两年前，当他们两人都 31 岁时，他们的女儿奈拉 (Nyla) 出生了。现在，摩尔-怀特坐在俄亥俄州辛辛那提的门廊上，她说自己“生一个就够了”。她的计划是让奈拉成为独生女。
“我们有梦想，比如我们想能买得起车……我们想翻修房子，”她解释道。“当你再接一个 [孩子] 进来时，所有这些事情都会被暂停。而且这甚至不一定完全是钱的问题，而是关于能力的问题……我想拥有自己的生活。如果我没有一个可以帮我照顾孩子的社区，我就无法做到。”
正是这样的故事让美国的人口统计学家彻夜难眠。七十年前，在婴儿潮的顶峰，美国女性平均生育 3.6 个孩子。如今，经过数十年的下降，这个数字是 1.6。为了维持人口稳定，该数字需要达到 2.1。
在俄亥俄州，生育率自 2008 年经济危机前（当时全国出生率大幅下降）以来下降了约 15 %。
这种模式反映在整个发达国家。英国女性目前平均生育约 1.4 个孩子，低于婴儿潮顶峰时期的约三个；而在韩国，生育率已跌至每位女性低于 0.7 个。
但在美国，这还具有政治色彩。特朗普政府和更广泛的 MAGA 运动将自己塑造为“亲家庭”形象，并大声就出生率下降发出警报，他们将其归咎于女性受教育程度提高、职业选择以及核心家庭的衰落。
以及艾森豪威尔，通过出席活动。原定活动在四月份举行，但由于一名来自加利福尼亚州的 31 岁男子科尔·托马斯·艾伦 (Cole Tomas Allen) 冲过检查站企图刺杀总统而被迫中断。特朗普未受伤，但晚餐会现场被紧急疏散。
周五，记者、政客和白宫的部分人员重新集结，试图纠正之前的错误。这意味着需要做出调整：精简嘉宾名单，加强安保，并将活动地点从容量约 2,000 人的希尔顿酒店移至原特朗普酒店的华尔道夫酒店，规模缩减至 700 人。
特朗普的演讲触及了熟悉的主题。“我不知道为什么我们必须听他讲话，”一位客人在抱怨道。“他总是说同样的话。”
但除了对“虚假新闻”媒体的嘲讽，总统近日的言论远非可预测。特朗普身边的人表示，他们看到他有回归第一任期时冲动作风的迹象。他的第二任期最初以一个更常规、运转更顺畅的白宫机器为特点，但人们越来越感觉到，总统正在独自采取行动。
在过去的一周里，随着美国发起的袭击再次升级并威胁要进行一次“大规模攻击”，他恢复了对伊朗那套雷震之势的辞令，尽管党内人士在担忧 11 月中期选举前油价上涨的问题。他猛烈抨击了
[[IMG_SLOTUS; MADELEINE HORDINSKI FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES]]
相关计划尚未实施。 副总统 JD Vance 来自俄亥俄州的米德尔敦，在 Moore-White 家附近几英里处拥有一座庄园，他表示希望“美利坚合众国能有更多婴儿”，并主张政府应让年轻父母更容易生育孩子。他的妻子 Usha，40 岁，本月分娩了他们的第四个孩子。
政府中的“支持家庭”联盟将宗教保守派、健康影响力者与硅谷亿万富翁的技术乌托邦主义结合在一起，例如伊隆·马斯克，他至少有 14 个孩子。强大的保守派青年运动“Turning Point USA”鼓励女性尽早结婚生子。
在对数十个国家征收广泛关税后，他又针对欧盟对谷歌的罚款发表言论，据报道，这与他在政府内部收到的关于此举可能对经济产生负面影响的警告相矛盾。
特朗普在周五晚上的演讲中很少谈论其政府议程——重心主要放在嘲讽在场的媒体上——但他确实抽出时间谈到了伊朗战争。总统坚称，这场不断升级的冲突实际上“进展极其顺利”，并声称美国已经瘫痪了伊朗的军队。周五有报道称，美国正寻求与英国合作，就重新开放霍尔穆兹海峡举行会议，因为国防鹰派预测，如果特朗普想要打破僵局，就必须加大力度。
虽然这场晚宴通常被视为华盛顿圈子内部的活动，但长期以来一直有传闻称，这才是特朗普最初竞选总统的原因。2011 年，他作为观众出席，而奥巴马总统在演讲中有一部分内容是在嘲讽他。在特朗普公开质疑奥巴马的公民身份后，这位民主党人反将一军，暗示特朗普希望他把这个问题解决掉，好让他能专注于其他阴谋论，比如登月计划。
当时传言称，这件事让特朗普如此愤怒，以至于他决定在 2016 年参选。然而，在周五晚上，特朗普
保守派“家庭研究学会”的促生育计划主任 Lyman Stone 表示，无法带来任何实质性的改变。除了一个 $1,000 的“婴儿奖金”——官方称为“特朗普账户”，发放给 2025 到 2028 年间出生的婴儿——该政府尚未出台任何能够鼓励人们生育的实质性政策。Stone 说道：“就硬性政策而言，我认为他们几乎没做任何事情。”
四位领先的人口统计学家表示，现实情况是，世界上没有任何地方——无论是政府、智库还是政策小组——能够研究出如何让女性持续地多生孩子。
科罗拉多大学波尔德分校的人口统计学家兼研究助理教授 Leslie Root 表示，提供税收抵免、增加育儿假和改善育儿服务，所有这些对出生率都有“微小但可衡量”的影响。但她说，这些大多是短期效应，是由那些本来就计划生育、且利用这些政策的人所推动的。
随着女性能够在职业生涯和身体自主权上做出自己的选择，她们绝大多数选择少生孩子且在更晚的年龄生育，这一决定缩短了她们潜在的生育年限。如今，美国母亲生育第一个孩子的平均年龄是 27.5 岁，而 1970 年为 21.4 岁。
“保守党人士说得对，他们认为女性有权且有能力通过就学来决定何时结婚、是否结婚以及与谁结婚。而当我们能够决定孩子的数量和间隔时，我们就不会生那么多孩子，你知道，结果就是我们的孩子少得多，”女性主义记者兼作家、在线简报《Throughline》的发行人吉尔·菲利波维奇（Jill Filipovic）说道。“我……
审阅了他的演讲，以证明事实并非如此。 “他们认为那是决定竞选总统的那个夜晚。其实不然，”他说道。相反，这位美国总统承认他热爱这种关注，并告诉他的妻子梅拉尼娅（Melania）：“你能相信吗，这么多的人，他们所做的全部就是讨论我？我爱死这场晚宴了。”
这位总统似乎并不太看好他的观众——指责在场的人患有他见过的最严重的“特朗普躁狂综合症”（Trump Derangement Syndrome），并宣称他才是人们阅读或观看他们报道的唯一原因。他开玩笑说，按照传统，他不得不面对给记者颁奖这种令人感到屈辱的事情，获奖者中包括一个《华尔街日报》的庸才团队，他们报道了他与爱泼斯坦（Epstein）的关系，导致他起诉了他们。
坚称伊朗 冲突进展 极其顺利
“我个人认为这是一件好事。”
然而，令人担忧的是，她表示，许多美国女性报告称，她们实际拥有的孩子数量与她们希望拥有的孩子数量之间存在差距。
去年由俄亥俄州立大学人口研究教授萨拉·海福德（Sarah Hayford）合著的一项研究表明，大约有一半想要孩子的女性不确定自己最终是否真的能生孩子。
“人们仍然说，如果你无条件地问他们想要几个孩子，他们会说两个，”海福德说。“但如果你问他们关于条件的问题，结果发现还有很多其他事情与拥有两个孩子一样重要，甚至可能更重要，那就是你宁愿在幸福、安全、稳定的家庭中抚养一个孩子，而不是在充满不确定性的环境下抚养两个孩子。”
政府的批评者指出，政府从医疗补助计划（Medicaid）中削减了近 $1 trillion，该计划为约五分之一的美国人（包括数百万低收入年轻女性）提供低价或免费的医疗保险。特朗普为某些农村医疗服务提供资金的政策仅涵盖了削减中损失的一小部分保障。
33, 岁的梅根·诺兰（Meghan Nowland）是一名经营辛辛那提分娩中心（Cincinnati Birth Centre）的助产士，她告诉我说，缺乏支持会让女性在生育孩子时犹豫不决。随着女性在经济上脱离家庭而独立，她们也越来越多地搬离家乡。她说，随之而来的是家庭结构的脱节，这使得养育孩子变得更加困难且昂贵。辛辛那提的日托费用每名儿童每月约为 $1,000，而在纽约，平均费用可达 $3,000.
白宫新闻团的人员拥有他的私人电话号码。他的安保助手犯了将记者拒之门外的错误，因此总统采取了直接的方式——他补充说，现在他对此感到后悔，因为记者们“每 3.7 分钟”就给他打一次电话。
特朗普还设法在自己的阵营内部制造矛盾。出席的少数几位内阁部长中包括特朗普的卫生部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪（RFK Jr）。特朗普在晚餐会上开玩笑说，正端上的牛里脊肉是小罗伯特亲自开车把牛撞死的——这是在影射他食用路杀动物（roadkill）的习惯。
但最令宾客震惊的一句话是关于他的雄心的，总统宣布他有一个特别公告。他戴上了一顶红色的“TRUMP 2028”帽子，并表示他有一个“独家消息”，即他打算竞选第四任总统。房间里的大多数人都认为这是一个玩笑。
然而，没有人完全确定，在特朗普的第二个任期之后，是会回归传统和以往白宫记者协会（WHCA）晚宴的年份，还是会发生完全不同的情况。
华盛顿传出私下议论，称特朗普在之前考虑过马可·鲁比奥（Marco Rubio）之后，现在开始倾向于让他的副总统 J.D. 万斯（JD Vance）作为其继任者。美国媒体报道称，在副总统减轻体重并为其第二本书开展巡回宣传后，总统在提名人选上开始向万斯倾斜。
俄亥俄州西南部的为人父母者告诉我说，性教育的普及以及宫内节育器（IUDs）和植入式避孕药等长期避孕方法的增加，大幅削减了全国范围内的非计划性青少年怀孕数量。
关于出生率下降的大部分讨论都集中在女性的选择上。在这些对话中，经常被忽略的是男性的经历以及他们可能扮演的角色。
德斯蒙德·怀特（Desmond White）拥有两个计算机科学学位，但为了赚足够的钱养家，他作为一名惩教员每班工作 12 小时——强制性的加班意味着他经常必须在凌晨 3 点开始工作，晚上 7 点才结束。如果他们再要一个孩子，他将不得不增加更多工作时长，且与家人的相处时间会更少。
他说，在成长过程中，他的父亲并不总是把孩子放在优先位置。怀特希望以不同的方式做事，打破这种“代际诅咒”，陪伴他的女儿，并给她生命中最好的机会。
30 岁的模特卡伦·苏里亚诺（Karen Suriano）在九岁时就成了她妹妹的主要照顾者。她的母亲当时心力交瘁，没时间照顾所有的 11 个孩子。当苏里亚诺和她的丈夫、40 岁的电影导演托尼（Tony）讨论要孩子时，她的态度很明确：不能超过一个。
“我见识过那种艰辛，”她说，“我不想过那样的生活。我想做出改变。”
他们的儿子塞内卡（Seneca）于两个月前出生。在辛辛那提分娩中心斑驳的阳光下，苏里亚诺将他抱在膝盖上摇晃。
[[IMG_XXXX]] JD万斯和他的妻子乌莎（Usha）本月迎来了第四个孩子。下方是卡伦·苏里亚诺，她曾是 11 个孩子中的一个，照片中她带着两个月大的儿子塞内卡。她说儿子将不会有兄弟姐妹。
关于他的天主教信仰的共融。
万斯最初被选为特朗普的二号人物的原因之一，是他代表了与过去的一种决裂。特朗普的儿子小唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump Jnr）是主张万斯比鲁比奥（Rubio）等人更具“MAGA”色彩的人之一。选择万斯将有利于维持特朗普“美国优先”的遗产，而不是冒险让共和党回归到更传统的时代——甚至是新保守主义。
周五晚上在华尔道夫酒店的宾客们有自己的偏好。当坐在主桌特朗普身旁的卡罗琳·莱维特（Karoline Leavitt）在夏天休产假时，万斯和鲁比奥都曾顶替她的位置。
国务卿在白宫简报室受到了异常热情地接待，记者们排队见鲁比奥，并问一些尖锐的问题，比如他的DJ艺名是什么。而几周后的万斯，接待氛围则冷淡得多——双方在一系列问题上发生了冲突，包括 1 月 6 日的骚乱者是否应有资格获得赔偿。
但当宾客们在听完一场被一些人描述为“特朗普式轰炸”的演讲后鱼贯而出时，很少有人相信，无论接任者是谁，华盛顿的生活都会回到原状。
用面条 消暑
Tim Hornyak 报道于东京
为了应对日益酷热的夏天，日本人正在使用冰敷颈圈、空调背心、冰喷雾，甚至还有一个类似于“人体冰箱”的“个人冷却舱”。现在，日清食品（Nissin Foods）推出了一款可以用冷水冲泡的速食面版本。
杯面（Cup Noodles）于 1971 年推出，是日本深受喜爱的一种速食。通常它们必须在沸水中浸泡三分钟，但由于上周日本部分地区气温达到 40 摄氏度，且该国记录了首次官方的“酷暑日”（kokushobi）——这是一个意为“残酷炎热之日”的新定义——人们可能不愿去烧开水。于是，冷浸（hiyashi）杯面应运而生，推出了鸡盐柠檬味和辣泡菜味。
我从冰箱里取出冷水（日清建议使用冷水而非常温水），将面条浸泡五分钟，拿起筷子开始享用。我原以为口感会像冰冷的剩意面。揭开盖子，混合物的样子和我尝试过的任何其他杯面没什么两样。令我惊讶的是，面条竟然像用沸水浸泡时一样柔软且有嚼劲。
鸡肉口味混合了鲣鱼干和干沙丁鱼，感觉几乎很清爽，类似于夏日的意面沙拉。柠檬和盐味与鸡肉的鲜味相得益彰。不过，在吃了几口之后，它们尝起来很像 20 年前在跨太平洋航班上提供的速食面——充斥着钠味和泡沫塑料味。
冷面早已是日本夏季的主食，从细面（somen）到笊罗荞麦面（zaru soba）等多种料理。
日清表示，该公司花费五年时间研发了其专利的“冷复水”方法，这无疑会赢得粉丝。我对日清的创新给出四星，便捷性给三星，而口味给一星。至于消暑，我还是坚持吃自制的细面。
当艾米莉·威尔逊（Emily Wilson）本月走出费城的当地电影院时，她感到一种奇怪的空虚感。由于八岁时就读过《奥德赛》，她深知当主角奥德修斯在 20 年后回到家，与妻子佩内洛普（Penelope）和儿子特勒马库斯（Telemachus）重聚时，那一刻在情感上的沉重分量。而这正是克里斯托弗·诺兰（Christopher Nolan）选择将其作为他电影版改编荷马史诗的高潮时刻。
“但在情感上，它完全没有触动我，”54 岁的宾夕法尼亚大学古典学系主任威尔逊（Wilson）说道。“我认为部分原因是，与荷马的作品不同，这部电影写得并不太好。”
作为一名备受赞誉的古典学者，诺兰（Nolan）在提及同名电影的灵感来源时，引用了威尔逊 2017 年翻译的《奥德赛》。这部电影获得了五星好评，并在上映首周末获得了 £169 million 的票房。威尔逊将她生命的数十年奉献给了荷马的史诗作品。她手臂上的纹身——包括长矛与弓、章鱼以及阿基里斯的马等受古希腊神话启发的意象——便是此的证明。但她对诺兰的演绎并不十分认同。
“角色没有荷马笔下人物的那种深度，”她说道。“我觉得，‘我真的在乎这家伙是否能回到妻子身边吗？’你没有给我任何在乎的理由。”
对于许多人来说，诺兰的《奥德赛》将是他们首次接触这个关于战争英雄的故事：他洗劫了特洛伊城，随后花费 20 年时间旅途返回家乡伊萨卡。在途中，他被美丽的塞壬、巨大的独眼巨人、古怪的女神以及名为卡律布狄斯的饥饿漩涡怪所干扰。虽然诺兰的电影（威尔逊将其描述为“一段非常巧妙的电影叙事”）可能是这个夏天的商业大片，但与威尔逊交谈，才能真正了解到为什么《奥德赛》自公元前 7 世纪以来能长盛不衰。
“这是一个非常简单的关于人的故事：一个人如何回到家，以及到达那里意味着什么？它是如何与身份和关系交织在一起的？我们如何与陌生人和朋友相处？”威尔逊说。
在这首史诗的开头，一个被反复使用的词是 nostos，指的是从战争中返回家乡的旅程，在现代英语中没有直接的对应翻译。真正提升这个归家故事的是其人物的丰满程度；“每个人，甚至神灵，都有自己的历史、动机和欲望，”威尔逊说。遗憾的是，这正是她认为电影所欠缺的地方：“特洛伊人是戴着面具的无脸机器人”，罗伯特·帕丁森饰演的安提诺俄斯（Antinous，试图诱惑佩内洛普并杀死特勒马库斯）“演得极好，但像个卡通反派”，而独眼巨人波吕斐摩斯则像个“木偶”。
威尔逊说：“这些人物的刻画太单薄了，这导致了一种‘我真的在乎吗’的感觉。”
荷马笔下的奥德修斯以其层次丰富而闻名。威尔逊解释说，用来描述他的第一个绰号是 polytropos，意为“多方转折”或“多才多艺”。他不断地通过伪装和欺骗来重塑自我，同时渴望认可与荣耀。“他狡黠、精明、善于策划，且极其擅长解决问题。”
在一段情节中，奥德修斯的部下必须与波吕斐摩斯战斗，才能从他们不小心闯入的山洞中逃脱。在诗作中，奥德修斯想出了一个狡猾的计划，告诉对方他的名字叫“无人”（noman），以此欺骗对手。
说来也奇怪，我周三去电影院看了《奥德赛》。奥德修斯花了 20 年才回到家，但对我坐在那个位置的感觉来说，时间仿佛过了好几十年。
马特·戴蒙不得不接二连三地面对挑战：吃士兵的独眼巨人、体型巨大的莱斯特律戈涅斯人、将他贪婪的士兵变成猪的刻薄的喀尔刻，以及没完没了的风暴、战斗、岩石、漩涡、怪兽，以及一群戴着吵闹头饰、把对方劈成两半的演技浮夸的演员。终于，随着演职员表的滚动，我松了一口气。“好吧，至少他成功避开了瑞安航空（Ryanair）。”
PA; ERIC SUCAR
【图片说明】 上方：艾米莉·威尔逊（Emily Wilson），她的纹身基于古典意象，她表示安妮·海瑟薇（Anne Hathaway）将佩内洛普演绎得非常出色。 右下方：饰演奥德修斯的马特·戴蒙（Matt Damon）和饰演雅典娜的赞达亚（Zendaya）。
威尔逊的翻译堪称精巧的电影之作，但角色缺乏那种让荷马的创作自古以来便保持生命力的深度、机智与欲望，她告诉了马德琳·斯彭斯 (Madeleine Spence)
问题在于
但同样要求极高。在他甚至还没离开伊萨卡之前，他就得与自己的订票单作斗争。所有那些决定：基础票、常规票、升级票还是灵活升级票？
作为一个习惯于面对不适的硬汉，他认为自己想要基础票，但随后意识到他有一个行李箱，于是多花 £32.75 切换到了常规票。此时他准备登录，却发现记不起密码，于是花了几个分钟重设密码，结果被告知密码不够复杂。接着，他被多花 £21.50 购买前排座位的想法所诱惑，被那个四重承诺所吸引：“额外腿部空间/快速出舱/优先服务/靠近洗手间”。
于是如此循环：我们勇敢的战士，在笔记本电脑的折磨下疲惫不堪，在开启航程之前还有许多障碍需要克服——不听使唤的打印机、高速公路的堵车、每天 £45.30 的长期停车费（若停满 20 年则需 £330,690）、办理登记的队列、护照查验的队列、安检的队列，以及在免税店中迂回穿行，努力克服来自 Armani、Chanel 和 Hermès 的浓烈香水味。
而且，没完没了：紧张地盯着出发屏幕、匆忙赶往遥远的登机口、在飞机延误时阴郁地等待；而且，如果他中了“优先登机”的虚假诱惑，那么他将面临在霓虹灯照亮的楼梯半截处平衡 15 分钟的险境，而这一切都冠以“特权”之名。
在准备起飞时，奥德修斯是否后悔选择了前排座位？难道他不记得在某个地方读到过，在“极少发生”的坠机事件中，坐在中间或后排的生存概率更高吗？汤米·库珀（Tommy Cooper）曾说过，他总是坐在机尾，因为他从未听说过有飞机在倒车时撞上山的。
当奥德修斯的部下发起攻击时，波吕斐摩斯向邻居大声求救，说“没有人（no man）在伤害我”。自然地，邻居们耸耸肩，继续他们的一天。这是一个大约 2,600 年前的笑话；但它在电影中被删除了。“这其实很有趣，”威尔逊说，“而且说明了奥德修斯经常伪装自己，或者使用其他名字这一事实。”
诺兰饰演的奥德修斯（由马特·达蒙饰演），“并不聪明，也不幽默，他只是被愧疚和焦虑所折磨”。他的塑造围绕着他对在特洛伊人身上所作所为的羞愧感。
在诗篇中，奥德修斯在漫长的归途中遇到的干扰之一是女神卡吕普索，她爱上了他，并拒绝让他离开她的岛屿长达七年之久。由查理兹·塞隆饰演的诺兰版卡吕普索给奥德修斯喂食莲花，以帮助他忘记心理上的痛苦。
“诗中的奥德修斯不需要服用精神类药物来克服他的创伤后压力症（PTSD），也不需要查理兹·塞隆作为他的治疗师，”威尔逊开玩笑说。她认为，认为奥德修斯在与“多重痛苦”的遗产作斗争并非相互矛盾，但荷马的诗句中并没有关于创伤或内疚的明确表述，后者更多地关注于荣耀的概念。
威尔逊表示，诺兰做正确的一点是，他对《奥德赛》中空间、时间和记忆的探索：“荷马对时间和记忆感兴趣，以及一个故事如何嵌套在另一个故事之中。诺兰捕捉到了原著中叙事的复杂性。”就此而言，这简直是为这位导演量身定制的，因为他最著名的电影（如《记忆碎片》和《盗梦空间》）就在探讨这些主题，且经常将
很难想象时刻警觉的奥德修斯会放松下来，哪怕是多出了那几厘米昂贵的腿部空间。起飞前的准备过程总会诱发焦虑，足以让像理查德·布兰森爵士这样频繁飞行的人也失去笑容。这会不会是你的最后一班飞机？你可能会提醒自己，从统计学上来说，被驴踢死比死于空难的可能性更大。但这真的成立吗？如果你一年到头根本不与驴打交道呢？这肯定会影响概率的。
总有些事情能让你紧张不安。起飞后不久，我那害怕飞行的姑姑正努力让自己放松，这时飞行员的声音通过内部广播传出：“我是柯腾斯机长，欢迎乘坐本次航班。”
当然，乘务员们看起来很轻松，但那是他们的职责所在。我最近读到，只要飞机在云层之上，乘客就没有任何坠落感，即便他们正以每分钟 5,500 英尺的速度直线下降。下次当你告诉自己万无一失时，不妨记住这一点。
是个战士 但他也能 搞定 在线 办理登机吗？
通过对英文和古希腊文两种语言的研读，她已成为该领域的超级明星。而她的作品也是第一部由女性完成的完整英文译本。然而，当我提起这一点时，她礼貌地予以否认，称这与作品本身无关：“没有人会对男人说，‘因为你是男人，所以你如此深刻地理解了那个男性角色’。”
不过，她对《奥德赛》中的女性角色持有一定看法。“以诺兰的标准来看，这对女性角色来说已经很棒了。但以荷马的标准来看，则略显失望。”
威尔逊认为，荷马笔下的卡吕普索比塞隆（Theron）笔下的“要有趣得多”；她拥有“自己的愤怒”和神力，这使她能将奥德修斯扣留在她的岛上。在电影中被删掉的一段独白中，她感叹道——用威尔逊的话说——男性神灵“一直可以随意强奸和绑架他人，而女性神灵却不行”。
威尔逊表示，由露皮塔·尼永奥饰演的特洛伊海伦比她在银幕上的出场时间所能展现的要多才多艺且能干得多。而由赞达亚饰演的诺兰版雅典娜，仅仅充当了“马特·达蒙的良心”，而实际上她是一位战争女神，为了奥德修斯的未来而与波塞冬不断争斗。
威尔逊说，安妮·海瑟薇在饰演奥德修斯的妻子时表现出色，但诺兰的剧本未能触及荷马笔下佩内洛普的深度。佩内洛普以极大的坚韧支撑着失踪丈夫的家，将一群喧闹的求婚者阻挡在门外 20 年。这本是极具催泪潜力的重逢素材，诺兰在电影最后半小时将其呈现，重点突出了佩内洛普不渝的忠诚。然而，在原诗中，这一时刻是苦乐参半的：“在神话时代的古希腊，当一个女人处于父亲之屋与丈夫之屋之间时，这是一个相对拥有权力时刻。”女人有选择，但一旦做出了选择，她就失去了那种权力。佩内洛普“冻结在那个瞬间”，而在荷马的叙述中，当奥德修斯回归时，她也在失去某些东西并为此悲伤。“在荷马笔下，她成为了一个拥有所有这些情感复杂性的角色。”
随着电影的临近，威尔逊发现自己陷入了一场争论的洪流中，一些人认为诺兰在处理方式上过于前卫，尤其是关于角色的“盲选”（blind casting）。人们将威尔逊 2017 年的作品视为这部电影是“觉醒（woke）”的更多证据。上周，埃隆·马斯克表示，他将利用他的 Grok AI 创作一部“反觉醒奥德赛”。
威尔逊认为，这部电影成为争议焦点的原因之一，是因为某些“现代意识形态”将古希腊人与男性气概的理想以及一段“女人闭嘴，只关乎男人”的过去之伟大联系在一起。随着电影宣传的增加，她收到了如此之多的谩骂，以至于她在自己的网站上安装了一个按钮，上面写着“联系表单：厌女网络霸凌”。（确实有人使用过。）这是她伴侣的主意——她眨眨眼说——“他的名字叫‘无人’（noman）”，她更倾向于对他身份保密。
这并没有让威尔逊放弃她的下一个项目，那是另一部《奥德赛》的译本，同样将采用抑扬格五音步，但这次她不会局限于与原著相同的行数，这意味着她将拥有“更多可发挥的音节”。这继她 2023 年翻译的《伊利亚特》（同样采用了类似的形式）之后，并在她最近的一本书之后出版：名为《穿越酒色之海：古文学之旅》（Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys through Ancient Literature）的古文学与翻译随笔集。
这部电影所起到的作用，是重新激发了人们对威尔逊所称的荷马“原始 IP”（即知识产权）的兴趣。在她看来，这只能是一件好事。她从三个十几岁的女儿身上感受到了这一点，威尔逊说，她们终于承认母亲所做的事情“还挺酷的”。“从她们小时候起，我就一直试着让她们让我大声读给她们听，”她开玩笑说。也许现在可以了。
他们最终会允许她的。
无需惊慌，希望您享受接下来的飞行。顺便问一下，机上有谁知道怎么开飞机吗？”
也请为可怜的塞尔维亚人柳比沙·卡罗维奇（Ljubisa Karovic）先生考虑一下。本月，他在乘坐一架从希腊飞往德国的瑞安航空（Ryanair）航班时正地打盹，突然飞机引擎的一部分脱落并击碎了他的窗户。
在不到一秒钟的时间里，他的身体就被吸向窗外。波音 737-800 的客舱窗户尺寸为 14 英寸乘以 10 英寸，但由于卡罗维奇先生比小熊维尼更苗条，他无法依靠体宽来自救。幸运的是，他机智的妻子斯韦特兰娜（Svetlana）抓住了他的腿，一对无畏的夫妇也加入其中，在卡罗维奇先生与自然威力之间展开了一场“拔河赛”。
所以，奥德修斯，你应该心存感激！在《奥德赛》的 173 分钟时长中，一脸严肃的马特·达蒙（Matt Damon）几乎没有露出过笑容，但即便如此，他所面临的最大困境也不过是在一个荒岛上与查理兹·塞隆（Charlize Theron）共度七年。而且，当他最终带着那些牵强的借口回到伊萨卡岛的妻子身边时，至少他没有面对在边境管制处等待三小时的窘境。
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这种由肉类和鱼类中发现的氨基酸组成的补充剂，据称具有增强力量、促进恢复和改善大脑健康的功效。Roisin Kelly对此证据进行了探讨。
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我想起在亨顿（Hendon）——伦敦警察厅培训学校度过的最初几天里学到的一些智慧之言。询问那个问题可以减轻受害者的冲击感，让嫌疑人开始意识到其行为的影响，并让法院在寻找证人方面产生一些希望。这变成了一件如此常规的事情，以至于形成了一种节奏。人们在问完之前经常以同样的节奏回答，因为有些人一生都在向警察提供他们的个人详细信息。
于是我蹲在主街道转角处的迈克尔（Michael）身边。睡袋，背靠着一家关闭的银行窗户。姓名。出生日期。地址，因为这是我问每个人的问题。而这个无家可归的男人告诉我他的地址。街道、公寓号、邮编。他没有撒谎。那是他的公寓，市政厅多年前给他的，而我从这个转角走过去大约需要10分钟。他也可以。
周一，安迪·伯纳姆在担任首相的第一天站在唐宁街10号外，宣布他的政府将结束露宿街头的情况。他的计划被称为“住房优先”（Housing First），该计划基于最初在芬兰尝试、随后在曼彻斯特推广的模型。
作为一项五年计划的一部分，无家可归者将被提供一套自己的公寓。理论上，承诺投入的£340 million应该能让3,000名露宿者离开街头。虽然这在芬兰行之有效，但对伯纳姆来说仅起到了部分作用。在大曼彻斯特地区，无家可归人数从2017年的268人下降到2021年的89人。但自2022年以来，这个数字再次攀升，目前为197人。
上次尝试该计划时，我是伦敦警察厅的一名警察，驻在哈默史密斯（Hammersmith），问题在于，结束露宿街头与给每个人一个睡觉的地方并不是同一回事。
被帮派抢占的公寓 在书面上，迈克尔是有房住的。他由市政厅安置住房已有18年。他的租赁协议如此写道，他的住房官员以及我们每次见到他时填写的表格也是这么写的。
我甚至去过一次他的公寓。那是伦敦西区诺丁山（Notting Hill）一栋维多利亚式排屋的二楼，走廊里弥漫着潮湿的气味。我去那里是因为迈克尔未能按约就诊，有人要求进行福利检查。他的前门敞开着，我注意到他住了18年的单间床位里的东西：地板上是一个没铺好的床垫，一件连帽衫充当枕头，一台电视机摇摇欲坠地放在一个纸箱上，一堆来自NHS的信件和35个煎锅，全部都是脏的。电视开着，但家里没人。
迈克尔并不罕见。在五年时间里，我接触过很多被政府或报纸称为“无家可归”但持有长期租赁权的人。有些公寓空置，而有些则挤满了错误的人。
官方术语是“鸠占屋”（cuckooing），这是警察、市政厅和保障团队使用的一个词，在真正站在被“鸠占”的房子里之前，这个词听起来几乎有些古怪。有一栋房子我们被没完没了地叫去处理。理论上，它的租客是一个名叫西蒙（Simon）且有学习障碍的中年男子。西蒙很可爱，但他对每个人都很可爱。该自治政区的一个帮派利用了他的善良，在他的房子里设立了据点。
西蒙坐在那里看日间电视，而瘾君子在他的沙发上抽裂克（crack）。我曾经问过西蒙是否想要这些人留在他的房子里，他说他想要：“他们是我的朋友。”在经历了十几次保障转介后，法院对该房屋下达了关闭令，禁止除他以外的任何人出现在那里。帮派只是搬走并找到了另一个人，留下西蒙在一家充满裂克气味的破烂房子里。
迈克尔和西蒙都是有房住的。在我查过的每一个系统中都这么写。
封锁期间的大批量酒店预订 在新冠疫情期间，伦敦进入了“Q”状态——这是警方用来表示“安静 (quiet)”的术语。街头犯罪消失了，给我们留下的是一轮又一轮的心理健康问题和家庭暴力。由于没有游客，也就没有人可以乞讨。
但在一个地方，规模从未下降，那就是酒店。在鲍里斯·约翰逊宣布第一次封锁三天后，住房部部长卢克·霍尔 (Luke Hall) 给英格兰每个议会写信，要求他们在 72 小时内将所有露宿者安置在室内
助力其家族企业 繁花似锦， 成为全球佼佼者
上周逝世的 大卫·JC·奥斯汀（David JC Austin） 将艺术与科学相结合， 培育出数百万朵 点亮花园——以及 生活的花朵。 克莱尔·库尔森（Clare Coulson）报道
“只要你在笔记本上 记下了某个人的姓名和地址， 其他事情以后都可以 解决。”
迷局 —— 许多人其实 有住所可住
内德·多诺万 (Ned Donovan) 曾是一名经常处理无家可归者问题的警察，他说，提供一张床并不总是答案。他回忆起在那些人身上遇到的令人惊讶的故事。
小时——没有评估，没有资格审查。
这个想法来自路易丝·凯西女爵士 (Dame Louise Casey)，她当时是政府关于露宿街头问题的顾问。该计划被称为“所有人入住”(Everyone In)：在旅游业停滞期间，各议会批量预订酒店，几乎在一夜之间将数百人移至室内。
我记得在伦敦西部克伦威尔路 (Cromwell Road) 附近的一家三星级酒店发生了一起骚乱，那种地方以前常接待从英国其他地区来伦敦旅游的巴士团。一名佩戴吊绳并穿着高可见度背心的支持人员说，两名男子正在四楼为一张 £10 的特易购 (Tesco) 代金券争吵。走廊里弥漫着微波炉加热食物的味道，每个门把手上都挂着一个袋子，餐点像客房服务一样被送到，其中一半是前一天的，还没动过。
这两个人对着彼此大吼大叫，虽然我之前在其他事件中认识他们两人，但我意识到，这是我第一次看到他们进入室内。
当英国玫瑰育种家 大卫·JC·奥斯汀 (David JC Austin) 上周宣布去世时， 种植者和园艺师们向这位 低调的远见者致敬， 他将一家小型家族公司 转型为了全球品牌。
像他的父亲一样， 67 岁的奥斯汀将培育 尽可能完美的植物作为 终身事业——将美感、 香气、魅力和强韧性 结合在一起——每款新玫瑰 在进入市场前，都要在其 什罗普郡 (Shropshire) 基地 进行十多年的大田试验。 他死于克鲁茨费尔特-雅各布病， 这是一种罕见且无法治愈的 神经系统疾病。
如今，由其父亲 大卫·奥斯汀长辈 (David Austin Sr) 于 1969 年创立的公司 每年销售约 200 万株灌木， 包括花团锦簇的白花品种 “邱园”(Kew Gardens, 2009) 以及淡粉色杯状的 “奥利维亚·罗斯·奥斯汀”(Olivia Rose Austin, 2014)， 该品种以其女儿命名， 被广泛认为是该公司 最优秀的玫瑰之一。
每隔几句话，就会有一扇门打开， 我认识的第三个角色会像 布谷鸟钟一样探出头来， 对着那两人大喊让他们闭嘴。 如果处理不当，这可能会演变成 一起入室盗窃报案，并让一名 曾试图咬我的男子被带进拘留室。 我们请求工作人员发放第二张 代金券，于是两名男子才各自 退回房间。
这些酒店客人在中有些 已经露宿街头多年。 其他人则像迈克尔 (Michael) 那样。
有一个苏格兰男人住在该区 较好地段的一套议会房里。 我记得他，因为他没有牙齿。 我曾因为他把邻居的门踢开（误认为 是自己的门）而逮捕过他。 所以，当我发现他住在 波托贝洛路 (Portobello Road) 附近的一家酒店时， 我感到很困惑。我知道他的地址； 我把它写在了我的随身笔记本里。 但一名在深夜进行无家可归者 外展工作的志愿者在睡袋里 发现了他，并通知了议会， 议会随即为他预订了酒店房间。
一名志愿者当时没有想到要询问
今年，深粉色、四瓣状的 “格特鲁德·杰基尔”(Gertrude Jekyll) 迎来了 40 周年纪念； 2025 年，它被世界玫瑰学会 评选为全球最受欢迎的玫瑰。 正如 BBC 《园艺世界》(Gardeners’ World) 主持人蒙蒂·唐 (Monty Don) 所言， 奥斯汀留下的遗产是 “数以百万计的精美玫瑰， 它们将永续传承”。
就在两个多月前，这位玫瑰 育种家还参加了切尔西花展 (Chelsea Flower Show)， 这充分体现了他的坚毅与韧性。 他凭借一个由干石墙围起、 包含 700 株玫瑰的科茨沃尔德 (Cotswolds) 风格花园， 赢得了公司第 30 枚金牌。 在那里，他揭晓了精美的 腮红粉色杯状“大卫·贝克汉姆爵士”(Sir David Beckham) 玫瑰， 该品种是与国王基金会 (King’s Foundation) 合作推出的，每株玫瑰销售额 的一部分将捐给该慈善机构。
男人 都 有安置房， 系统上 是这么记录的
安德鲁·梅伯里 (ANDREW MAYBURY)
大卫·JC·奥斯汀 (David JC Austin) 孩童时期从父亲那里学习养玫瑰。
他出身于一个农业家庭，花了数十年的时间精进他的技艺。他从小就开始园艺，在十几岁后期开始杂交玫瑰，建立了一个小型古老玫瑰（1867年之前培育的品种）收藏集。这些玫瑰具有皱褶或杯状的花型，香气浓郁，但夏季仅开花一次。他将这些玫瑰与重复开花的丰花月季 (floribundas) 和杂交茶香月季 (hybrid teas) 进行“杂交”。
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是否那个在街上露宿的男人是长期领取议会住房补贴的租客。我问他的狗在哪儿，那是一只杰克罗素梗，他几乎形影不离。“在家，”他含糊地回答道，“他们不让它进来。”
驱逐、毒品与紧缩政策 “能派一个单位去圣蒙戈 (St Mungo’s) 吗？”无线电陷入沉默，所有人都在等待其他人接听。最终，一名警佐会根据呼号指派最近的警车，接令的人会按下发射键说：“收到，指挥官 (skip)”，声音听起来像是一个在接受判决的人。
像圣蒙戈这样的无家可归者收容所由慈善机构运营，在系统运作正常时，这里就是安置人们的地方。我们几乎每周都会去。
单间房里很安静。对于我打交道过的一些人来说，安静是敌人。街上的男人——因为几乎全是男人——会找一个他们喜欢的地盘和吃饭的地方，比如汤厨房或教会礼堂。在室内，荧光灯下是四面白墙，办公桌后坐着戴着挂绳的官僚，他们会阻止你带入任何用来缓解创伤的东西。在寂静中，内心的喧嚣反而更响。
有一个男人在议会决定将他安置在哈默史密斯 (Hammersmith) 》（金街 (King Street) 附近的圣蒙戈收容所的一间房之前，他一生都住在街头。他被安置在了一个他并不想要的房间里，邻居也是他不想接触的人。两人发生矛盾并互相袭击，于是警察被叫来了。他掏出了一支注射器，我的同事掏出了电击枪。他试图从二楼窗户跳下去，被我们拦住了。在被带往拘留所的路上，他踢打、吐痰、抓挠并袭击了所有人，最终法院决定由于他的心理健康问题，应将其返回社区。我也无法告诉你，监狱能对他起到什么作用。
我不会假装自己完全理解这一切。我在许多厨房里泡过茶，在许多门口站过岗，我可以告诉你人们做了什么，但并不总是知道为什么。但伯纳姆 (Burnham) 最好考虑一下过去的教训。
1999年，托尼·布莱尔 (Tony Blair) 在路易丝·凯西 (Louise Casey) 的领导下成立了一个露宿者单位，正是这位凯西在20年后的新冠疫情期间写信要求将街头人员全部转移至酒店。该单位被赋予三年时间将露宿人数削减三分之二。在1998年到2001年之间，该目标得以实现，全国单夜露宿人数从约 1,850 人减少到 532 人。
它是通过提供收容所床位，以及配备药物和酒精戒断工作者，并结合心理健康专家和外展团队来实现的。一个关键环节是针对出狱人员的计划，因为这些人经常重新流落街头。令人惊讶的是，这个数字在十年内一直保持在低位。然而，自 2010 年起，英格兰的露宿人数上升了 171%，去年单夜露宿人数达到 4,793 人。
在紧缩政策期间，针对心理健康支持、药物工作者和外展团队的资金被大幅削减。联合政府给住房补贴设定了上限，市场租金飞涨。国家审计署 (National Audit Office) 发现，私人租赁房屋的驱逐成了该国导致无家可归的最主要驱动因素。
有时确实有效 有一个男人以前在厄尔考特路 (Earl’s Court Road) 一家银行外的地盘活动。在某个时间点，我不再见到他。我花了好几个月才注意到。通常情况下，这样的消失是个坏消息，所以在一个慵懒的夜晚，我在电脑里输入了他的名字。一年多没有记录。对于普通人来说，不与警察接触是正常现象，但对于像他这样的人来说，这反倒是个反常现象。
有一天，我们被派往一个我们之前都没去过的区域地址。那是富勒姆（Fulham）一个高档地段的一栋爱德华时期红砖半独立屋，当地议会会将表现较好的租客安置在这里。这是一起关于反社会行为的举报，我们在敲击楼下公寓的门之前，并没有查看举报人是谁。那个我仍然认为是在银行外乞讨的男人开了门，此时他已经不再头发打结，在他身后是一条挂满相框照片的走廊。
他想要举报一个在垃圾桶旁注射毒品的人。后来另一个团队的人说，他已经完成了戒毒，并走完了某家慈善机构的过渡计划。没有人会直接给他一套公寓。公寓是最后才提供的。在五年时间里，我从未见过这种情况反过来发生。
本文的某个版本首次发表在内德·多诺万（Ned Donovan）的博客 Terra Nullius 上。
用美丽与魅力赋予玫瑰生命。 他最重大的突破品种——亮黄色的重复开花攀援月季“格雷厄姆·托马斯”（Graham Thomas），直到 1983 年才推出，当时奥斯汀父辈（Austin Sr）已近 60 岁。培育玫瑰是一门科学，但也是一种艺术——一种需要仔细筛选亲本，并对遗传基因可能产生的结果持有远见的炼金术。在花朵绽放前，将“父本”植物的花粉取出，然后用软刷将其涂在“母本”植物的柱头上。一旦果实（hips）已经...
强势地 进入我们的 生活，但它 究竟有多健康？
1996年，阿尔塞纳·温格在成为阿森纳主教练后改变了许多事情：战术、训练方法、饮酒文化……但在球员中讨论最多的变化之一，是他指示他们将一种新的补充剂混入橙汁中。肌酸（Creatine）据称可以增加肌肉力量，曾是顶级运动员之间的秘密，但此后已成为主流饮食的一部分。
根据 Grand View Research 的估计，肌酸——一种由肉类和鱼类中发现的氨基酸组成的有机化合物——的销量自 2021 年以来几乎翻了一番。电视医生和像 Halle Berry 这样的名人极力称赞其益处，据说包括力量、恢复、大脑健康和抗衰老。但肌酸真的像传闻中那样神奇吗？
“肌酸是肌肉和组织的天然组成部分，在能量转移中起着核心作用，因此被视为一种合法的肌肉构建剂和性能辅助剂，”在英国营养与生活方式医学协会注册的营养师 Kerry Torrens 表示。她认为，现在肌酸被认为有助于跨越年龄和其他人群的健康目标，“使其成为最广泛使用的日常补充剂之一”。
在一个名人想要通过生物黑客技术让自己活到 200 岁的世界里，区分有效疗法和江湖骗术可能很困难。但专家认为肌酸是真实有效的。
肌酸在肾脏、肝脏和胰腺中产生，通常与另一个健身热词——蛋白质——联系在一起。它由精氨酸、甘氨酸和甲硫氨酸这三种氨基酸组成，但其本身并非蛋白质。它可以作为肌肉的快速能量来源，因此对于短时间、高强度的运动（如冲刺）特别有益。研究表明，当与抗阻训练和重量训练相结合时，肌酸可以增加精瘦肌肉组织并增强力量。
它天然存在于动物性食物（如牛肉和三文鱼）中，这足以维持基础的日常健康，但为了给肌肉带来最大收益，我们需要更多一点。大多数健康品牌销售的补充剂是通过化学合成制成的，无论是粉末、胶囊还是软糖。
记者 Charlotte Griffiths 写道，据称 哈里王子 曾吸入 肌酸。Davina McCall 为其 健康益处背书
种子成熟后被取出，经过冬季冷藏，然后播种在托盘中，到初夏时，它们的后代将长出并于 5 月左右开始开花。
如今，在这家公司位于什罗普郡总部的巨大温室里，育种团队通过人工授粉培育 40,000 朵玫瑰，每年产生约 150,000 棵幼苗。小奥斯汀在青少年时期就开始为家族企业工作，在暑假期间在田间将玫瑰嫁接在砧木上，随后在大学学习商业。他最早在 20 世纪 80 年代初短暂加入该公司。“当时规模还很小，但迹象表明，就在我眼皮底下，有些特别的事情正在发生，”今年 4 月，当我在为《金融时报》撰写该家族在庆祝创始人诞辰百年时的特写报道时，他对我如此说道。
哈里曾声称，在军队服役期间，为了获得爆发力，他吸入肌酸粉作为麻醉品的合法替代品——这一点并不被推荐。
Torrens 建议寻找标记为“一水肌酸”（creatine monohydrate）的产品。这是最常见的一种形式，肌酸在其中与一个水分子结合。一般的补充建议是每天三到五克，持续服用。Torrens 建议将粉末混入奶昔、咖啡或茶中。
其益处不仅限于增加肌肉：一些研究表明，持续服用可以改善认知功能。Berry 和 Davina McCall 都谈到了它对中年女性的益处。Berry 表示，肌酸帮助她缓解了绝经期的脑雾。
咨询全科医生、长寿建议专家萨宾·多奈（Sabine Donnai）博士表示：“大脑的能量需求极高，而肌酸在产生脑细胞内部能量方面发挥着核心作用。它可能有助于维持注意力、记忆力和心理表现，尤其是在高压力或疲劳期间。”早期研究还表明，肌酸可能支持阿尔茨海默症患者的某些记忆和认知方面。
肌酸并非灵丹妙药，且可能产生副作用。胃肠道问题，如抽搐、胀气和大便稀烂较为常见。大多数人在推荐剂量下可以安全服用，但托伦斯（Torrens）表示，“对于某些群体，目前的安全性证据不足”。这些群体包括孕妇、哺乳期妇女、患有肾脏或肝脏疾病的人员、糖尿病患者或患有双相情感障碍的人员。
与其他许多补充剂相比，肌酸的价格是可负担的。像 Bulk 和 MyProtein 这样的品牌，一袋 500 克的售价低于 £15，如果每天服用 5 克，可以使用三个月。托伦斯表示，纯净配方和“微粉化粉末”效果最好，因为其溶解度和吸收率更高，这意味着胃肠道副作用更少。
构建公司。奥斯汀（Austin）从零开始发展批发业务，将其扩展至国际市场，尤其是在对美丽英国玫瑰有强烈需求的美国。“我们拥有他们真正想要的东西，这太棒了。在那时，我们可以走向世界任何地方，”他说道。
如今，该业务已真正国际化。在截至 2024, 年 7 月的一年里，营业额接近 £30 百万。
小奥斯汀（Austin Jr）还启动了业务中的切花部分，在阿尔布赖顿（Albrighton）开展单独的育种计划，专门培育用于婚礼和活动的玫瑰；完美切花玫瑰所需的品质（包括强壮的茎秆和花瓶期）与花园玫瑰的品质截然不同。
W
O
当你的宠物向人们跳起时，你会告诉他们他“只是在示好”吗？或许你需要学习遵守爱狗人士的礼仪，Sophia Money-Coutts 撰文
真是项殊荣。 来自萨福克郡的迷你牛头梗 Peggy，被《乡村生活》(Country Life) 年度狗狗专刊评为英国最淘气的狗。 在众多轻微违规行为中，Peggy 吃了六个狗床和三双 Crocs 洞洞鞋，还曾吞下一碗发酵的葡萄，导致她显得“有点醉意”。根据其主人爱德华爵士和格林威尔夫人的说法，她“非常淘气，但并没有恶意。她只是充满了乐趣、恶作剧精神和好奇心。”
嗯。作为一个同样拥有一只不听话的梗类犬（一只名叫 Dennis 的帕森罗素梗）的人，我能认出这种将淘气掩饰为好奇心的尝试。很少有狗主人认为自己的狗做了真正糟糕的事情。它们只是很有精神，对吧？但对于不太喜欢狗的人来说，这可能会极其令人恼火。自疫情以来，随着狗口数量的随之激增，爱狗人士和厌狗人士之间的战线变得更加森严。因此，为了配合这次
阻止漏水
Severn Trent 已经 30 年没有实施软管禁令了。Matt Rudd 深入实地调研原因。
在获得音乐技术学位毕业时，Jonny Bevan 没预料到自己会成为一名无人机飞手。但生活就像水一样，总会有出人意料的转折。于是，八年后的今天，他身处什罗普郡的一片田野中，手中拿着一个遥控器。我们头顶上飞行的无人机搭载着一个热成像摄像头。在 70 米的高空，它可以检测到地面温度的细微变化。
“如果有污水泄漏，那里的温度会更高，”他解释道，“如果是清水流出，则会更凉快。”他还可以部署一个归一化植被指数（NDVI）摄像头来绘制作物生长图。“如果某个地方（泄漏点）存在时间较长，作物的生长情况就会开始发生变化，”他说。
Bevan 是 Severn Trent 创新团队的一员，该公司是英国第二大水务公司。他使用能够飞进管道内监听压力变化的笼式无人机，而且他及其团队正在推广“盒装无人机”——这种远程操作的机器最终将获准在偏远地区像《雷鸟》一样自动发射。
Bevan 在这片田野里与我见面，是因为我向他的公司提出了一个问题：为什么 30 年来这里没有实施过软管禁令？面对一个关于水务公司的正面新闻故事（这种机会就像河流健康评级获得“良好”一样罕见），Severn Trent 派出了大型无人机。
周四， Thames Water 对一千万名客户实施了软管禁令，这使得英国境内被禁止浇灌草坪或填充充气水池的人数总计达到 23 million。这虽非世界末日——大多数人在干旱期间即便没有热水浴缸也能生活——但水务公司在修复泄漏方面是否尽到了职责？Ipsos 的一项新研究发现，47% 的英格兰成年人认为，供应商在要求客户削减用水量的同时，自己未能履行应尽的责任。在那些无法使用软管的客户区域，这一比例上升至 58%。
正如一位愤怒的《泰晤士报》读者所言：“我住在 Affinity Water 区域，我家路尽头的水已经漏了快三个月了，而与此同时我们却在执行软管禁令。这怎么公平？”
对于恰好住在 Severn Trent 管辖区（范围从布里斯托尔海峡延伸至亨伯河）的八百万人来说，他们依然可以尽情使用软管。为什么？仅仅是因为北部和西部的雨水更多吗？
在《乡村生活》（Country Life）专栏中，礼仪之王 William Hanson 为狗主人写了一份包含 39 条规则的清单。为了维持大家之间的和谐，我采用了其中的部分内容，并加入了几条我自己的。
我意识到目前存在监狱危机，但那些把便便袋挂在树上的狗主人应该接受审判。便便袋应扔进最近的垃圾桶。如果没有垃圾桶，请带回家。不过，不要学我不久前做的事——把袋子扔进车里，然后忘了它两周之久。那真是一次“芬芳”的发现。顺便说一句，最好的便便袋是 Beco，非常结实。
公共交通工具的座位上禁止携带狗。我最近搭乘地铁时，看到一只狗正挺直腰板坐在主人身边。更糟糕的是，还坐在优先席上。我知道火车座位上到处都是肮脏的分泌物，但它们不需要额外的狗毛。狗在地板上待着完全没问题。
餐厅的卡座沙发同理。
牵绳行为一直充满争议。狗应该牵绳吗？不牵
技术正 在缩短 维修 所需时间
牵狗绳吗？在我当地的 Facebook 小组里，关于这件事一直有争论，一方要求在公园里狗必须全程系绳，而另一方则反驳说这样做既残忍又荒谬。态度还取决于你是在乡村还是在城市。去年夏天我在奇尔滕山（Chilterns）散步时被气到了，当时我发现前方有一只大狗，于是给丹尼斯（Dennis）系上了绳子。“你应该总是让他们在不系绳的情况下见面，”对方主人告诫道，而他的大狗正盯着丹尼斯并舔了舔嘴唇。如果你不确定，或者在你接近他人时对自家狗或对方狗的反应感到紧张，最简单的做法就是直接系上绳子。
好吧。
但要给其他狗留出空间。不要给狗系上绳子然后就让它紧贴着另一只狗经过。如果你在狭窄的小路上，请侧身让对方通过。
如果你的狗冲进了一个野餐区，请诚恳地道歉。当你试图把它从鱼子酱蘸酱（taramasalata）中唤回时，不要含糊其辞地说它“太友好”了。如果你所在的地方在这个季节有很多野餐活动，请考虑系绳。在经历了去年的一个香肠卷意外后，丹尼斯和我会在夏天避开周末繁忙的公园。记住，大量的
[河流]）。不同之处在于，我们的含水层（地下水自然储存的地方）是砂岩，而南部主要是白垩岩。砂岩的耐旱能力要强得多。”此外，今年年初比往年更长久的湿润天气也起到了帮助。
不过，地理位置的运气只是原因之一。克拉克（Clarke）及其同事、客户运营总监斯蒂芬·考利（Steph Cawley）非常希望强调，为了保持水源供应需要付出多少努力。在舒鲁斯伯里（Shrewsbury）以北几英里的一条乡间小路上，他们给我看了一个洞。沿着路再走两百米，他们又给我看了另一个洞。对我——而且我相信对当地居民——来说，这看起来就像普通的、令人心烦的道路施工，但他们实际上正在升级一段 8.5 公里的管道。
直到不久前，整条路都得被挖开。而今天，他们采用了“无挖掘”或“无槽”技术——他们通过“鼹鼠法”从一个洞钻到另一个洞，这意味着干扰时间将持续数周，而非数月。“我们最大的投资是更换像这样的旧管道，”考利说。“在这个五年计划期间，我们将更换 800 公里。”这听起来很多，直到你意识到他们拥有 48,000 公里的管道。
图片由 SOPHIA MONEY-COUTTS 提供
索菲亚·马尼-库茨（Sophia Money-Coutts）与丹尼斯，在野餐者或家居用品面前，丹尼斯不可信。
在发生 香肠卷 事件后 避开公园
那些需要升级的管道和需要堵漏的漏洞，但技术正在提供帮助。一旦漏水被报告——无论是通过乔尼和他的无人机，还是通过麦克风、压力监测仪或愤怒的居民——团队会“立即”派遣。该路段会被隔离——考利说他们增加了许多阀门以使隔离更容易——然后接入水罐车以保证水龙头有水。我在想，为什么当离我最近的城镇坦布里奇韦尔斯 (Tunbridge Wells) 缺水时，东南部水务公司 (South East Water) 不能派遣水罐车？那会比把责任推给那些令人厌恶且心怀怨恨的居家办公者 (WFHers) 更有建设性。塞文特伦特 (Severn Trent) 方面未对此发表评论。
漏水本身也采用了新技术处理。他们首先试用了一种名为 Aquapea 的物质，一种类似蓝丁胶的物质，会被吸入孔洞并将其密封。“那次尝试效果有限，”考利说，“所以现在我们使用一种注入管道的产品。压力使其能够找到漏洞并将其密封，然后你将产品直接吸回。”这种产品目前被用于一半的维修工作中，成功率达 80%。
人们（大多数人）不会像你那样觉得你的狗如此令人捧腹或迷人。
同样地，正如汉森所指出的，跳起来迎接并不简单是“太友好”。这很累人。教你的狗不要这样做，如果它们这样做了，就正确地训诫它们。有些人似乎将“温和育儿”法则应用于他们的狗。“哦，蒙蒂，谁是个淘气男孩？”在蒙蒂刚刚蹭你的腿后，他们欣喜地说道。这太软弱了。蒙蒂需要更坚定的引导。
如果你有一只狗并且与另一位带狗的人擦肩而过，你必须打招呼或愉快地喊一声“嗨”，或者至少微笑。如果你不这么做，其他狗主人会觉得你很古怪。
永远要询问是否可以给另一只狗喂零食。“不，不！他不能吃那个！”几个月前，当我递出一个肉汁骨头时，一名女性对我尖叫道，“他在进行低糖饮食！”
当去别人家吃午餐或晚餐时，务必询问是否可以带狗。不要假设这是理所当然的。
如果你要在别人家过夜，值得事先了解对方的养狗政策。它们允许上沙发吗？允许上楼吗？如果对方不是爱狗之人，且每次看到你的狗充满希望地出现在桌边时都会退缩，那么把狗留在其他地方过夜或过周末可能会更容易。
如果你和你的狗去朋友家小住，而那位朋友养了鸡，不幸的是你的狗杀了一只鸡，你需要写一封诚挚的道歉信并送一份丰厚的礼物。听我的准没错。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 塞文特伦特 (Severn Trent) 的乔尼·贝文 (Jonny Bevan) 和克莱尔·汉明顿 (Claire Hamlington) 正在测试无人机。右上，管道正在维修。中下方，马特·鲁德 (Matt Rudd) 与团队在一起。
教你的孩子如何对待狗。不要冲过去，不要追逐它们，尽量不要把手指戳进眼睛里，询问是否可以摸狗，等等。
在靠近牲畜场时，请给它们拴上牵引绳。今年修订了《牲畜法》，赋予农民和警察更多权力，可以追究任何狗惊扰其动物的人。如果你需要帮助，肯特郡有一位很棒的养羊农名叫托宾·伯德 (Tobin Bird)，他经营一家名为“让你的狗防羊” (Sheep Proof Your Dog) 的公司。在托宾这里上一次课，据说狗就能治好追羊的习惯。丹尼斯也许是个例外，因为我不能说他完全对羊免疫，但他也确实是一只梗犬。
允许狗爬进洗碗机并不是“第一次冲洗”，这是令人反感且过度纵容的。你是那种温和育儿的人吗？是的，我想到了。
我以前认为给狗举办生日派对、给它们买圣诞降临节日历和圣诞礼物的人是疯了。现在，自然地，我改变了看法。狗主人可能确实有点“狂吠”（痴迷）。但在当今世界，比起对自己的动物如此深情，还有更糟糕的事情。
永远、绝对不要称之为“毛孩子”。
需求随着天气（天气炎热时，我们的用水量增加 20%）、人口迁移和增长而不断变化。负责水资源管理的克拉克在法律上有义务每五年公布一份全面的干旱计划，其中规定了“公司在干旱期间将如何提供充足且健康的饮用水”。目前，在他监管的 15 个地区中，只有一个处于第一级（干旱触发级别的最低级），他坚信今年不需要实施软管禁令。他还制定了一份 60 年的资源计划，因为目前网络承受的任何压力在未来几十年内都不太可能缓解。
当我请他将这个酷热无雨的夏天与 1976 年的大干旱进行比较时，他说：“我们的生活现在已经截然不同了。我们的住房也非常不同。在 70 年代，家里只有一个浴室，人们经常共用一个浴缸，而且不一定会每天洗澡。而如今，大多数家庭拥有一个或两个浴室。淋浴变得普遍得多，而且人们洗浴的次数也更多了。每个家庭都有一台洗衣机和一台洗碗机。我们的生活方式改变了，但面对气候变化，我们需要适应。”
他对引入强制性水资源标签表示欢迎，该标签将对家用设备进行分级，“有点像能源标签”。他说漏水的马桶是一个巨大的问题，而且无论是否实施软管禁令，我们在热浪期间都应该任由草坪枯死。“去年夏天，我的草坪变成了褐色且干脆，”他说。“到了春天，它比以往任何时候都更茂盛。杂草死掉了，而草生长得更好。”
这一切听起来似乎我们这些消费者才是问题所在，面对这一暗示，考利和克拉克迅速退回到了更安全的立场。“我们正在扩建位于什鲁斯伯里的处理厂，”克拉克说。考利则表示：“我们希望客户能够享用这里的水。”
本月，塞文特伦特（Severn Trent）公司计划在五年内将消费者账单提高 47%，在处理污水溢流的“职责中出现严重失效”后，该公司免于受到 Ofwat（水务监管局）的罚款。令活动人士愤怒的是，监管机构认为这家富时 100 (FTSE 100) 指数成份公司在解决问题方面承担了“真正的责任”。
针对多年来投资不足的指责，考利指出了 30 年没有软管禁令的时期，但承认“我们的客户和监管机构对我们的要求更高了，这完全正确。我们一直对废水处理进行投资，但近年来我们投入了更多。去年，我们将[污水]溢流减少了 41%。” 这是一个显著的数字，但为什么他们在实现这一目标之前等了这么久？
“我们不应该等那么久，”她说。“但我们没有像其他公司那样被罚款，因为我们反应迅速，并且我们将继续努力。”
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降低成本的关键议题
安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 在担任首相的第一周旋风之行中，引起了积极的反响。但他密集公布的一系列让人心情愉悦的政策——从削减酒吧营业税到限制公交票价——都不过是小打小闹。对他政府而言，真正的考验现在才开始，即应对那些令历任政府都感到挫败的重大挑战。
预计伯纳姆将在未来几天内就其中一些问题发表讲话，包括成人社会护理和国防。但关键在于他在能源问题上的立场。长期以来，尽管英国的工业电价全球最高，但工党一直受困于对过于宏大的净零目标持有过激的意识形态承诺。
然而，令人欣慰的迹象是，伯纳姆及其新任能源大臣米娅塔·法恩布勒 (Miatta Fahnbulleh) 将采取一种更务实的方法；预计他们将迅速采取行动，扩大苏格兰海岸最大的未开发场地——Rosebank 和 Jackdaw 的油气生产。
这些油田此前已获得前保守党政府的初步批准，但因法律障碍而推迟。然而，在埃德·米利班德 (Ed Miliband) 担任能源大臣期间，即使这些项目不会违反工党在政纲中承诺的阻止新勘探许可，也无法保证两者都能获得最终的绿灯。
但正如我们今天的分析所示，首相仍有进一步的操作空间；除了允许这些项目继续推进外，他还可以允许所谓的“联动开发” (tieback developments)。
这类开发将较小的、未获许可的发现与现有的平台和管道连接，并利用已经建成的基础设施。如果拒绝开采可以通过现有油田获取的储量，在经济上将是极其不理智的。
每个人都承认向净零目标努力的必要性，尤其是在今年欧洲大部分地区遭受一系列热浪袭击之后。然而，在转型期间，英国在数十年内仍将依赖石油和天然气。通过增加国内生产
向我们展示了战争的未来
尽管人们将注意力集中在战场上，但近几周乌克兰最激烈的斗争可能发生在该国的军事领导层内部。
泽连斯基总统的核心圈子内部紧张局势已积聚一段时间——争论的重点并非是否要与俄罗斯作战，而在于如何作战。深受民众欢迎的年轻国防部长米哈伊洛·费多罗夫 (Mykhailo Fedorov) 是一位精通无人机且倡导技术创新的支持者，他与老派的总司令亚历山大·瑟尔斯基 (Oleksandr Syrskyi) 陷入了权力斗争，后者的直觉倾向于更传统的方法。
泽连斯基最初误判了形势，牺牲了费多罗夫。几天后，在广泛的抗议中，瑟尔斯基也被撤职。泽连斯基现已任命少将米哈伊洛·德拉帕泰 (Mykhailo Drapatyi) 接替陆军首脑，后者是费多罗夫的关键盟友。
矛盾之处在于，这些动荡恰逢乌克兰取得一些最令人印象深刻的作战成功之时。正当特朗普总统的注意力转移时
可怜的牡丹花。让亮叶草们歇歇吧。全国各地的苗圃里，萎蔫的植物无人问津，因为干旱和热浪使得这些植物在被买回家后极难存活。
创立于 1822 年
这无疑比从国外进口燃料，同时自我赞赏领土内排放量降低要好得多。
环保人士认为，开辟新的油气田对于减少我们的石油进口几乎没有帮助，也无法改变英国消费者的支付价格。然而，正如我们今日报道的，勘探支持者表示，这总比什么都没有好。
绿色能源供应商 Octopus Energy 的创始人 Greg Jackson 表示，将天然气从“世界另一端”运来而不用我们自己的资源是“疯狂的”。风电行业组织 RenewableUK 的首席执行官 Tara Singh 同时也呼吁增加北海的产量。
此外，Fahnbulleh 应当进一步改善那些承担北海勘探财务风险的人所面临的条件。挪威的国家石油公司刚刚宣布了 £11 billion 的收入，提供了一个具有启发性的对比。
与其英国同行一样，挪威的生产商面临着高达 78% 的税率，但由于其财政制度在数十年间保持基本稳定，投资仍在继续。慷慨的勘探补贴与可预测的规则并存，使公司能够提前数年规划投资。相比之下，英国反复重写税制，将北海视为财政部的摇钱树。吸引资本的是稳定性，而非单纯的低税率。
这为新政府提供了一个机遇。如果部长们认真对待增长，能源政策必须由经济现实主义而非意识形态纯洁性来引导。批准诸如 Rosebank 和 Jackdaw 等项目可能无法一夜之间削减家庭账单，但更广泛的益处——投资、就业、更高的税收以及在地缘政治风险加剧时更强的韧性——将强化公共财政，并为安迪·伯纳姆的生活成本计划提供更多回旋余地。
正如前首相里希·苏纳克 (Rishi Sunak) 今日所言，增长必须成为政府面临的决定性挑战，因为如果没有增长，每一项支出决定都会变得更难，每一项承诺都更难以兑现。降低企业和消费者的能源成本并非次要问题。
远离冲突，被伊朗战争和国内问题分散了注意力，该国发动了远程无人机袭击，其中一些击中了 1,500 英里外西伯利亚的炼油厂，另一些则击中了亚速海中的俄罗斯船只。
这些行动表明，相对廉价的自主系统可以造成严重打击，且创新在一定程度上可以弥补人力和传统火力的短缺。未来的战场将不仅仅属于那些拥有最大军备的人，而将属于那些能够整合软件、人工智能和量产无人机的人。
乌克兰不再仅仅是在进行自卫，它正在进行一场关于未来战争的实时实验。问题在于，其盟友的学习速度是否能赶上其敌人的速度。英国和欧洲不仅必须增强支持乌克兰的决心，还必须快速学习这些新形式的战争，并将它们整合到自己的国防体系中。
超市入口处的工人。然而，顾客的短缺导致园艺中心出现了廉价促销。我们报道称，一些中心为了不让植物枯死，正将其免费赠送。
我们新任首相降低生活成本的坚定驱动力（资金尚待安排）立即遇到了一个最可预见的不可预见障碍：唐纳德·J·特朗普总统。在安迪·伯纳姆宣布取消 5 per cent 的国内电费增值税（VAT）后短短数小时内，美国与伊朗之间全面敌对行动的恢复，将原油价格重新推回至双方签署那份命名极其荒谬的谅解备忘录之前的水平。
请做好心理准备，在接下来的几个月里，英国部长们会将我们自身经济困境中任何只要能勉强扯上关系的因素，都归咎于海湾战争。当然，特朗普对我国消费者的后果（包括对依赖化肥的食品价格的影响）毫无关心；但令人惊讶的是，他对美国人民所受的影响似乎完全不在意——至少在公开场合是这样。
在上周佐治亚州的一次（期中选举）竞选集会上，总统实际上声称自己在为选民降低生活成本：“事实上，我们正让它迅速下降。”大多数理性的估算认为，仅由战争引起的燃料成本增加，美国每个家庭平均就增加了超过 $500，而到目前为止，对每个家庭的整体影响总额达 $1,100。
如果战争能够实现特朗普最初设定的目标，这将是一个很小的代价——而且是暂时的——但事实却以一种令人尴尬的方式证明了相反的结果。这完全不出所料，因为这些目标只有通过某种形式的军事占领才有可能实现，而对于一位被忠实支持者信任其承诺绝不会采取此类行动（尤其是中东地区）的总统来说，这在政治上是不可能的。
接下来是国家的成本——这不过是纳税家庭的另一种说法。特朗普那令人厌恶的“战争部长”皮特·海格塞斯上周告诉立法者，截至目前五角大楼的直接成本为 $35 billion。正如人们所料，对总支出的独立估算要高得多。而这一切又将如何支付？按照典型的特朗普风格，是通过更多的借贷。他在房地产和赌场业务中的经营方式涉及连续破产，将债权人逼至绝境，以至于美国和欧洲的银行最终完全拒绝向他提供贷款。
但它仍能夺魁
在 ChatGPT 发布两年后，中国才有了自己的生成式人工智能方案，由总部位于杭州的初创公司 DeepSeek 提供。在此期间，这项技术对于无法使用 OpenAI 聊天机器人的中国公民来说，只是一个有趣但抽象的概念。北京方面出于担心民众接触到未经审查的世界观，以及为了让国内仍在竞相开发自有模型的科技巨头能够竞争，而将其屏蔽。
人们很容易将 AI 竞赛理解为这种时间差。美国创新，中国跟随，对吧？因此，美国的工程师和政治家们可以依赖他们的特权：该国深厚的风险投资财力以及充足的前沿芯片。但这场竞赛并非线性冲刺。自 DeepSeek 之后，中国的 AI 实验室大量涌现，并向着一个不同的终点线加速前进。如果他们无法在“成为最强”上竞争，那么他们将在“足够好”上获胜。
为此，他们发布开源模型，任何人都可以免费下载。具备技术能力的人可以保存一份模型副本，调整其优先级，并将其数据托管在自行选择的服务器上。相比之下，Anthropic 和 OpenAI 发布的模型是专有的或“封闭的”。作为用户，我们无法看到或更改模型做出决定的方式。如果把 AI 比作一块蛋糕，那么美国公司是在货架上销售成品，而 DeepSeek 和其他中国公司则在公开配方。
因此，如果你是一个预算较为有限的客户，或者想要在蛋糕上加入自己的糖霜和点缀，你肯定更愿意直接获得配方。这就是各机构在使用中国 AI 时所获得的体验。包括许多全球南方国家在内的规模较小公司，正在利用中国代码来启动他们自己的模型；而规模较大的公司可能更希望拥有更多自由，以根据自身需求调整技术。“我们很大程度上依赖阿里巴巴的 Qwen 模型。它非常出色，而且快速且便宜，”Airbnb 首席执行官布莱恩·切斯基 (Brian Chesky) 告诉
然而，没有人拒绝向美国财政部 (Treasury) 提供贷款 —— 只要价格合适。特朗普政府在某种程度上利用了这一点，其程度在以往从未见过。因此，仅在过去的 12 个月里，美国国债就增加了近 $3 万亿；目前国债总额为 $39.68 万亿。每年的利息支出为 $1 万亿 —— 并且在持续上升。
近年来，我写过不少关于英国债务危机的内容：我们的年度利息账单现在几乎是国防预算的两倍。但就政府总收入的支出比例而言，我们的利息账单约为 8%。而根据惠誉评级机构 (Fitch Ratings) 上周的一份报告，美国国债的利息支出吞噬了国家收入的不下 12%。
诚然，华盛顿享有被描述为美元作为全球储备货币的“过分特权”。与英国不同，它不面临被政府债券买家摒弃的前景。但美国 30 年期债券的利率现在已连续一个月高于 5%，这种情况自 2007 年（即全球信贷市场崩盘前夕）以来从未出现过。
当然，这对英国以及已经在思考安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 先生众多奇策将如何获得资金支持的财政部 (Treasury) 产生了影响：当债券市场对美国收取的价格上涨时，会对英国发行债务的价格产生潮汐效应。
然而，在这种情况下，这位新任首相具备相当的能力来告诉广大选民，他能感受到他们的痛苦。他的个人风格非常适合散发这种同理心。
但特朗普却与能够这样做相去甚远，他是其国家 250 年历史上最缺乏这种能力的一任总统 —— 甚至程度更甚。因为他将自己的第二个任期变成了他及其家人的敛财计划。一年多前我写过这件事，在提到将总统职位货币化的其他行为时，
中期选举可能会面临 惨败
彭博社。据同样总部位于杭州的阿里巴巴称，通义千问（Qwen）系列模型已衍生出约 200,000 个用户适配模型。今年3月，开源平台 Hugging Face 报告称，中国模型的月度下载量和累计下载量均已超过美国模型。而且，当该平台被一个失控的 OpenAI 代理攻击时，它求助于的是中国 AI。
在 DeepSeek 树立榜样之后，这已成为中国 AI 的运作模式。其创始人梁文锋一直表示，这是一个出于热情的项目（他的主业是领导一家对冲基金）。其他公司纷纷效仿，意识到这是突破美国 AI 领先地位的一种方式（他们通过为模型提供云服务和其他配套设施来获利）。
中国 AI 的运行成本也更低，使用更少的芯片即可产生相同的输出，并且性能正在提升。专家表示，北京 Moonshot AI 推出的新模型 Kimi K3 几乎与 Anthropic 的最新模型一样出色。将所有这些因素结合起来，这就成了一个我们在中国其他出口产品中见过的故事。从电动汽车到电信，像比亚迪（BYD）和华为这样的品牌可能不是最好的，但它们价格实惠且适应性强。中国的聊天机器人可能（尚未）在突破前沿，但“足够好”就已经足够了。你去商店买东西不需要开一辆 F1 赛车。
美国 AI 巨头们感到焦虑。他们指责其中国竞争对手
特朗普向富有的商人提供在海湖山庄乡村俱乐部与他共进晚餐的机会——需支付费用，可协商，最高可达 $5 million ——并引用了他的一位批评者的观点：“如果你是一个中型城镇的市长，而报道说你在以大约 $200, 的价格出售会面机会，你会被逮捕。”
我当时没有意识到的是，特朗普后来指出（并为此感到极大的满足）：行政部门关于利益冲突的法律豁免了总统——事实上也豁免了副总统。这是美国宪法下总统职位的君主性质的一种此前未被审视的体现，而之前的任何一位就任者都没有纯粹为了经济利益而利用这一点。
因此，那些 $5 million 的晚餐是最不重要的事情。根据总统强制性的财务披露（无论如何，至少有这个），在 2025 年，他仅通过加密货币交易就赚了近 $1.2 billion。据信，其中许多刻意模糊的资金来自希望从一个具有，且且且，贪婪倾向的人那里获得好处的个人甚至国家。与此同时，据上周《纽约时报》的一篇报道，由他那显然非常精明的儿子小唐纳德部分持有的投资公司，去年的年回报率达到了 200 per cent。
对于大多数共和党选民来说，直到最近，这可能几乎没有影响。他们可以辩称，总统个人的这些收益并未对他们或其家人产生不利影响，而且绝对没有让他们花一分钱——而那些选择买入特朗普的“模因币”$TRUMP 且目前正承受巨额损失的人则除外。
然而，现在特朗普冲动地在伊朗引发的惨败让他们个人付出了代价——如果这种情况持续下去，共和党很有可能在 11 月失去对两个立法机构的控制权。届时，特朗普自然会声称选票被操纵了。
而当他最终离开白宫时，特朗普将留下一个在无限的未来中需支付前所未有金额以偿还其政府如此不节制地增加的债务的国家。与此同时，他将沉浸在将椭圆形办公室变成个人赌场而产生的数十亿美元中；在这种操作中，正如所有此类操作一样，业主享有“庄家优势”。或者在这种情况下，是“白宫优势”。
这与我们亲爱的首相的家庭生活是多么不同。
“蒸馏攻击”（distillation attacks），本质上是大规模的逆向工程。他们可能是正确的，但知情工程师表示，蒸馏只能在模型接近完成时帮助实验室改进模型；它无法凭空创造出卓越的模型。
所有这一切对于山姆大叔来说都是坏消息。首先，人工智能已成为美国经济的新生命线（高盛估计，自 ChatGPT 推出以来，人工智能相关公司增加了 $27 trillion 的市值）。如果这些美国实验室的明星光芒暗淡，其影响将波及硅谷之外。
但更广泛地说，这是北京试图制定 AI era. 规则的又一个信号。在本月的上海一次人工智能会议上，习近平表达了他的意图：“中国准备更加开放，采取更多实际行动，展现更具前瞻性的视角。”会场中不仅有国际商业和技术领袖，还有来自 29 个全球南方国家的代表，他们签署了一份宣言，成立世界人工智能合作组织。
因此，美国正处于十字路口。诱惑是走上贸易保护主义道路，将中国 AI 列入黑名单。6 月，华盛顿短暂禁止外国公民使用 Anthropic 的 Fable 模型，导致该模型在一夜之间被下线。
这正是那些没有本土或主权人工智能（AI）的国家（如英国）应该担心的干预方式。因此，一个开放且多样化的 AI 生态系统符合我们的利益，能在我们缺乏 AI 能力的地方为我们提供一定的能力。上周五，美国的一些科技巨头发表了一封公开信，恰恰要求实现这一点。英国应该加入其中，敦促华盛顿帮助培育这样一个世界：发布更多且更好的自有开源模型，并在这一过程中在公开领域对抗中国模型。因为如果中国证明了一件事，那就是赢得军备竞赛的方法不止一种。
Hadley Freeman 正在休假
I
在就成为工党领导人发表的演讲中，安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 将玛格丽特·撒切尔对北方的抛弃以及权力的伦敦中心化，视为英国当前危机的“原罪”。在回顾一系列工业破坏之举时，伯纳姆指责撒切尔牺牲了南威尔士、苏格兰中部和东米德兰兹。
但他的暗示是，英格兰北部承受了去工业化灾难的最沉重打击——从兰开夏郡和约克郡煤田的丧失，到谢菲尔德、斯坎索普和蒂赛德的钢铁厂，再到利物浦关闭的码头和奔宁山的工厂。
伯纳姆计划通过将权力从伦敦收回并交给以城市为中心的下放当局来修正这一灾难，而他所在的曼彻斯特市就是模板。然而，他对英国经济和政治问题的诊断相当可疑。这暗示英国不仅是一个地理上的孤岛，还是一个经济上的孤岛。但事实上，是 1930 年代由华尔街崩盘引发的国际贸易崩溃，开启了兰开夏郡纺织厂的衰落。而 1967, 年苏伊士运河关闭 8 年，加上集装箱运输使用速度的加快，才对利物浦的码头造成了致命打击。
如果伯纳姆想要寻找撒切尔政府的决定直接导致去工业化的决定性例子，他或许可以向南看向查塔姆和普利茅斯，这两个地方的海军造船厂分别因削减皇家海军水面舰艇开支的决定而关闭或被摧毁。
伦敦权力减少是否真的意味着其他地方的工业会增加？
WEEK
我们从权力下放机构获得的一系列证据表明并非如此。曼彻斯特近期的经济成功，部分程度上是由欢迎那些全球资本流动所驱动的，而这正是伯纳姆（Burnham）所谴责的“新自由主义”唯一的实质性定义。这些外国投资中有很大一部分来自中国——一个助长了英国去工业化的经济体——而这些投资的具体体现并非制造业的复兴，而是这座城市闪亮的现代化天际线。
无论伯纳姆如何地修辞，优先考虑权力下放更多是一项宪制工程，而非经济重启。由于地方政府权力已经下放给苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰，将权力下移实际上只能成为改变英格兰治理方式的一种策略。
如果新的唐宁街10号北区（No 10 North）能够像伯纳姆在6月29日于曼彻斯特的演讲中所承诺的那样，成为协调整个英国权力下放的“神经中心”，那么它不可避免地会引发卡迪夫和爱丁堡关于“篡权”的指责。或者，如果这种覆盖全英国的修辞被证明毫无意义，唐宁街10号北区实际上将变成“英格兰10号”：一个专门为英格兰服务的政府，而威斯特敏斯特（Westminster）只能在默认情况下扮演这一角色。对于一位去年告诉《新政治评论》（New Statesman）称，在个人身份认同的层级中，英格兰仅排在第四位（在英国、西北部和利物浦之后）的首相来说，这将是一个奇特的成就。
伯纳姆不愿明确阐述的是，英国真正面临的是一个“英格兰问题”。托尼·布莱尔在1999年启动的国家权力下放是不对称的，并留下了一个至今未解的问题：如何处理英格兰境内的权力。
这并非完全新鲜。自从威廉·格莱斯顿（William Gladstone）第三届内阁在1886年未能成功推动爱尔兰自治以来，某种版本的“英格兰问题”一直在英国政治中潜伏，并周期性地爆发。在格莱斯顿失败后举行的通用选举在英格兰引发了一场反抗，这帮助保守党在接下来的二十年里成为了主导政党。
当赫伯特·阿斯奎斯（Herbert Asquith）在1910年大选后再次寻求爱尔兰自治时，温斯顿·丘吉尔主张“全面自治”，将英格兰划分为若干区域。但他忘记提及东北部、西南部和东英吉利，导致了广泛的嘲笑。近一个世纪后，当英格兰问题困扰布莱尔第二任政府时，人们重新回到了通过设立区域议会的英格兰区域构想，将其作为拟定的解决方案。但在东北部选民投票否决了向其提供的议会后，布莱尔妥协了。
在2014年苏格兰独立公投之后，人们对“西洛锡安问题”（West Lothian question）进行了大量讨论：为什么苏格兰、威尔士和
是否意味着其他地区的 工业将迎来增长？
在威斯敏斯特的北爱尔兰议员在仅影响英格兰的法律上拥有投票权，而反之则不然，对此他们怎么看？
由于担心尼格尔·法拉格的英国独立党（Ukip）会利用这一差异来引导英格兰民族主义势力，大卫·卡梅隆提出了“英格兰法案由英格兰议员投票”（English votes for English laws），这一议会程序变更后被鲍里斯·约翰逊政府废除。
尽管基尔·斯塔默并未将其作为“英格兰问题”的答案，但他在今年确实推动了《英格兰权力下放法案》在议会通过。这项复杂的立法规定，整个英格兰都应由战略当局（strategic authority）覆盖，但允许三种结构形式，每种形式的权力下放程度各不相同。
这种英格兰内部分层权力下放的不均衡性，将成为安迪·伯纳姆的另一个难题。权力下放程度最高的形式是“既定市长战略当局”。目前有七个这样的当局，除伦敦外，其余全部位于北部和中部地区。与此同时，英格兰南部的大片地区甚至尚未处于最低级别的战略当局管辖之下。以米尔顿凯恩斯为例，这座城市在过去十年的人口增长速度超过了曼彻斯特。当安杰拉·雷纳担任地方政府大臣时，她否决了该市申请与贝德福德和卢顿共同组成战略当局的请求。尽管没有给出正式理由，但她的部门似乎希望为所谓的“南部中部地区”建立一个规模更大的当局。权力下放对英格兰这一地区意味着什么目前仍未确定，因为当地议会无法就下一步行动达成一致，且不知道部长们会接受什么样的方案。
在这种能够利用伯纳姆权力下放计划的地区与被遗忘地区之间的地域差异，将使新任首相重新面对“英格兰问题”。这对工党来说尤其危险，因为该党在议会中的多数席位经常依赖于苏格兰、威尔士以及英格兰北部的城市地区。1974-79 年的工党政府在英格兰从未拥有过多数席位，在变得依赖苏格兰民族党（SNP）和威尔士民族党（Plaid Cymru）的议会支持后，在工会问题上陷入了深困境。事实上，正是因为苏格兰民族党撤回支持，才加速了 1979 年大选的到来。
而在“西洛锡安问题”依然真实存在的情况下，情况更为糟糕。在 2015 年大选期间，保守党在英格兰大肆利用埃德·米利班德在治理时如同被装在亚历克斯·萨蒙德口袋里的形象，从而取得了显著效果。
英国改革党的崛起使“英格兰问题”更加复杂，因为它可以通过其他反威斯敏斯特的怨气来加以利用。很可能的情况是，尽管其成员大多是经济撒切尔主义者，但约翰逊通过放弃英格兰事业并废除卡梅隆的“英格兰法案由英格兰议员投票”指令，反而帮助英国改革党在英格兰北部建立了强大的据点。
伯纳姆可能会运气不错，尤其是如果他愿意通过提前举行选举来使其宪制变革合法化。但同样可以想象，目前的政治走向可能会给工党制造一个类似于 2015 年的问题。在失去在英国最大国家（英格兰）获得多数支持的前景下，人们是否还会信任工党治理英格兰——而这一次是从曼彻斯特出发？
海伦·汤普森（Helen Thompson）是剑桥大学政治经济学教授 马修·赛义德（Matthew Syed）休假中
Appening
前首相发现内阁会议之后 生活依然精彩*
Wes Streeting 嗨，基尔。发个信息看看你怎么样。既然我们都在聊了，你敢相信他把 No 11 给约翰·希利了？
Keir Starmer 我现在没法说话。我在玩漂流滑道。
Streeting 没问题。毕竟你为国家付出了这么多，你值得休息一下，而且那是多么无私的工作啊。如果你没有远见任命我为卫生大臣，我不知道我们会处于什么样的境地。大家都同意，如果没有你对我那些富有远见之工作的支持，国民医疗服务体系（NHS）将会处于岌岌可危的状态。
Starmer 谢谢，韦斯。你太慷慨了。
Starmer 谢谢。
Streeting 但你不觉得，起码我应该被任命为内政大臣吗？
Starmer 呜呼————！
Ed Miliband 嘿，伙计。
Starmer 不是的。我在做热石按摩。
Miliband 那我不打扰你了。我只是想确认一下没有什么过节，仅此而已，除了我简直不敢相信希利竟然成了财政大臣。一个前国防大臣怎么会知道什么才是真正重要的？
Starmer 唔唔唔唔唔！
Miliband 你知道切夫宁庄园（Chevening House）有些窗户不是三层玻璃的吗？而且他们甚至还没费心去询价太阳能屋顶电池板。
Starmer 呼噜呼噜呼噜
Miliband 我让你继续忙吧，但我希望那些石头是用可再生能源加热的。
David Lammy 伯纳姆难道不需要考虑连续性吗？我是唯一一个还剩下管理国家经验的人。
Starmer 你什么时候管理过国家？
Lammy 那次你……
Starmer 我现在真的不能说话。我在排队买拜邑挂毯（Bayeux Tapestry）的票。
Lammy 你排到多少号了？
Starmer 82,345. 这很奇怪，因为这东西就在英吉利海峡对面时没人想看。现在它成了城里最抢手的票。
Lammy 名气这件事没法解释。
Lammy 顺便问一句，露易丝·海格怎么能当副首相？
Starmer 无评论。
Lammy 她在接受警方质询时也是这么说的。
Theresa May 你好，基尔。我相信你的情况会不一样，但我想以一个前首相的身份提醒另一个前首相：当我离职时，那些人全都从地下钻出来了。
Starmer 简直令人难以置信。
May 我的建议是关掉手机，去干点园艺。
Starmer 就在我们说话的时候，我正在修剪玫瑰。
Rachel Reeves 嗨，基尔。
Starmer 挺好。不用再应付所有那些卑微的自恋狂感觉真不错。
Reeves 我不打扰你了，除了我想知道你是否能给我写封推荐信。
Starmer 当然可以。为了什么？
Reeves 英格兰银行行长。
怎么这样？
去了马德拉岛
进展如何？
I
But here’s why a wealth tax won’t work
我有一个问题。说起来挺尴尬的，真的，但我钱实在太多了。我尽力在花，我甚至分给了一些没有我这么惊人成功的人。但钱还是在不断堆积。我真正需要的是有人来帮我。也许是那个不错的安迪·伯纳姆？
是的，上周我们看到了一个由一群极其富有的人组成的名为“英国爱国百万富翁”（Patriotic Millionaires UK）的团体——包括加里·莱内克、理查德·柯蒂斯和布赖恩·伊诺——他们呼吁政府对他们征收更多税。这是在晚宴上炫耀的最高境界。想象一下，如果大卫·特南特没被邀请，他脸上的表情会是怎样的！
不可避免地，随之而来的是一定程度的嘲讽。刻薄的人指出，当莱内克与英国税务海关总署（HMRC）就他是 BBC 雇员还是自由职业者展开持久且成功的斗争时，他并不那么愿意资助税务局；当他投资一个臭名昭著的电影融资计划时，法院判定该计划旨在为了税务目的而产生人为损失；以及当他在“天堂文件”中被点名，通过一家英属维尔京群岛公司购买巴巴多斯度假屋时。据广泛报道，他还收取了一笔确实非常巨额的资金。
罗伯特·科尔维尔 (Robert Colvile) 说得对，安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 生活在一个停留在 20 世纪 70 年代的平行宇宙中（“如果伯纳姆理解撒切尔主义，他不会如此热衷于扭转这一切”，7月 19日）。然而，他在开出药方时需要更加清晰。将包括水务在内的许多行业私有化确实是正确的。拥有合适的股东以及一个监管正确事项的监管机构同样重要。监管利润仅是问题的一部分：为了支付巨额股息而强加的债务负担才是真正的问题，且此前并未得到解决。他还应该更明确地意识到，现代制造业并非伯纳姆所想象的创造就业的万灵药。它需要更廉价的能源和大量耐心资本，且仅能创造少数高技能岗位。伯纳姆的药方建立在无知和意识形态之上。它注定会失败。 约翰·罗斯爵士 (Sir John Rose) 前罗尔斯-罗伊斯 (Rolls-Royce) 首席执行官；伦敦 SW11
罗伯特·科尔维尔给出了一些充分的理由，说明安迪·伯纳姆在启动其重新国有化议程之前，应先研究玛格丽特·撒切尔 (Margaret Thatcher) 在 20 世纪 80 年代的计划，但在水务和铁路问题上我与他持有不同意见。首先，
福利资格
文章《能源主管未能针对高温制定计划导致近乎停电》（7月 19日）忽略了关于当前能源供应的一个重要问题。大多数燃气电站对温度很敏感，因为它们依赖空气冷却和燃气轮机，这两者在高温下的效率都较低，从而降低了可用输出，而较旧的电站则依赖河流或海水冷却。随着夏季因空调等需求增加，将需要更多的备用发电，而由于对风能的依赖，这将进一步增加电力成本。 蒂姆·史密斯 (Tim Smith) 多塞特郡，莱切特马特拉弗斯 (Lytchett Matravers)
众所周知，炎热天气将与高压天气相伴，因此风力微弱，这意味着涡轮机缺乏发电能力。且不论国家能源局的无能……
1926年7月25日
提供除了啤酒以外 的其他饮品 家庭式食堂有助于让 士兵和水手保持清醒
当他决定在丰田汽车公司的企业球队——日本名古屋格兰帕斯八吼队（Nagoya Grampus Eight）效力并结束其足球生涯时。
其他同样刻薄的人指出，如果人们想给税务局多交钱，他们完全可以这样做。而且，那些用来支持“英国超级富豪们渴望上缴更多财富”这一主张的民调结果，也并非完全客观。
在 2025 年和 2026 年，一组富裕人士被问了一系列具有引导性的问题，关于“极端财富”的糟糕程度，以及富人是否应该支付更多税款以确保各项好事。但正如每一项关于 NHS（英国国家医疗服务体系）资金的民调所证明的那样，“更多税款”的数额永远远低于实际所需。例如，Tax Policy Associates 的 Dan Neidle 指出，在 2025 年的民调中，每一类百万富翁都认为，一个人达到“财富过多”且应当多纳税的水平，应该是其自身财产的数倍。
但真正的问题不在于该誓言的签署者是伪君子，而是在于涉及经济政策时，他们简直是白痴。
“爱国百万富翁”（Patriotic Millionaires）运动有两个主要提案：“对超过 £10 million（1000万英镑）的财富征收 2 per cent（2%）的税，以每年筹集 £24 billion（240亿英镑），[以及] 改革和
玛格丽特·撒切尔并不对铁路私有化负责：那是她的继任者约翰·梅杰负责的。事实是，她认为这将是“走得太远的私有化”。其次，尽管水务私有化最初取得了成功，但它很快就变成了让主要海外投资者获利的摇钱树。我们水务和废物处理系统的糟糕状态不言而喻；事实上，我毫不怀疑撒切尔会对目前的情况感到震惊。 也许伯纳姆（Burnham）在想，为什么欧洲其他地区在很大程度上仍拥有并运营其水务和铁路服务，且做得比我们要好得多。 John Walton 萨里郡，谢普顿
我强烈反对 Robert Colvile 的观点：正是那些理解撒切尔主义及其长期后果的人，才理所当然地渴望取代它。水务和铁路的私有化是一场灾难，因为这类公司的首要责任是对股东负责，而非对客户负责。减税和给商业大亨的高薪并没有产生承诺中的财富“滴 trickle down（下渗）”效应，反而导致了不平等现象的大幅增加，
系统运营商，那么我们的净零政策将处于什么境地？显然，这些政策是以冒着停电风险并由消费者承担账单代价来实现的。 Michael Norris 康沃尔郡，圣奥斯特尔
拟议中对 Rough 储气设施投入的 £2 “投资”对于降低天然气价格几乎没有帮助，对于保障供应也毫无作用（见 Jul 19《深入钻探，你将找到英国天然气危机的解决之法》）。然而，北海的大多数（如果不是全部）平台都位于巨大的页岩和煤层之上，这些资源是可以开发利用的。在合适区域，页岩可以通过水力压裂法开发天然气。煤层则可以像在澳大利亚那样，被开发成煤层甲烷。要从这些资源中获益，唯一需要的就是决心。 Jim Daniels 萨里郡，乔本 (Chobham, Surrey)
将资本利得税与所得税等额化，以每年增加 £11.3 billion 的收入”。让我们逐一分析。
财富税是加里·史蒂文森 (Gary Stevenson) 的心头好，他曾是一名城中交易员，后转行为一名“不平等经济学家”。不幸的是，正如他最近在第四频道 (Channel 4) 的纪录片中所证明的那样，加里在税收政策细节方面的造诣，就像我在阿尔普迪埃兹山 (Alpe d’Huez) 与塔代伊·波加查 (Tadej Pogacar) 赛车一样（注：指完全不在一个量级）。
特别是，正如我之前指出的，英国的富人实际上并没有像斯克鲁奇·麦克达克 (Scrooge McDuck) 那样把钱存在巨大的金币金库里。大部分财富存在于房产、养老金或股票投资组合中。对于那些真正处于天文数字级别的富豪来说，财富绝大多数被锁定在他们经营、投资或创立的公司中。
这产生了 4 个问题。首先，很难算出所有这些财富到底值多少钱。我们的整个税收体系是基于对流量（收入、资产销售）的衡量，而非存量。因此，为了让财富税发挥作用，我们必须建立一套完全的新体系。其次，一旦你开始对某样东西征税，它的价值就会下降。因此，所有这些财富并不会流向税收员，而是在简单地蒸发。第三，来这里投资的人会减少。第四，已经在的人会溜之大吉。内德尔 (Neidle) 的模型表明，即使那 £24 billion 的数字是可信的，尽管它
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以及由于贫困工资而对补充性福利救济和食物银行的依赖。我认为，对撒切尔主义持续不断的教条式维护，非常像前苏联统治者对共产主义的妄想式辩护：我们的意识形态和想法是美妙的；只是它们没有被正确应用，或者没有被给予足够的时间来证明其卓越。 Pete Dorey 巴斯 (Bath)
玛格丽特·撒切尔与左翼之间的政治冲突，源于国内原材料供应不可避免的枯竭，这确保了采矿和其他重工业日益被其过去的遗产所诅咒。任何试图管理这种衰落的政府，都注定会与代表受威胁劳动力的工会发生冲突。罗伯特·科尔维尔 (Robert Colvile) 的警告是正确的：如果 安迪·伯纳姆 假装可以通过“回到过去的样子”以及选民“曾经认识的”工党来避开这一遗产，那么我们将面临一个令人不快但遗憾地可预见的冲击。 Bernard Kingston 肯特郡，比登登 (Biddenden, Kent)
作为一名前全科医生 (GP) 和审理服务机构的医学成员，我支持对个人独立支付 (PIP) 进行紧急审查的必要性（见 Jul 19《在福利法庭上，病患恳求 PIP，而其他人则钻制度漏洞》）。根据我的经验，很多决定在极少医疗证据的情况下就做出了。由于涉及成本，人们普遍不愿获取全科医生记录。这应该通过法律予以改变，使全科诊所能够将计算机记录无缝传输至审理系统。超过 90% 的申诉申请人最终获胜，而试图就申请人的医疗状况提出质疑的行为往往不被认可。在某些情况下，患有可治疗医疗状况的人被授予福利。现在是时候对医疗证据进行更详细的审查，并使整个流程现代化了。 Raj Menon 博士 西约克郡，布兰霍普 (Bramhope, W Yorks)
在截至1913年9月的年度中，由军事法庭判定醉酒罪成立的人数为426人，而1924-25年这一数字为248人。在皇家海军中，同样可见这种节制的趋势；尽管目前尚无统计数据，但由于船长有权对轻微违规行为进行简易处理，海军部当局表示，海军士兵醉酒的情况现在已极其罕见。
为什么今天的英军士兵（Tommies）和水手（Jack Tars）整体上比战前服役人员更节制？在负责士兵福利的战争部和海军部官员看来，主要原因之一是食堂的全面改善。如果几年前的水手或士兵能参观一次海军或陆军军营中的现代食堂
那些签署誓言的人 是伪君子，而是在于 他们是白痴
不在于，80 per cent 的税收将来自大约 5,000 人，而 15 per cent 仅来自 10. 人（是的，10. 人）。只要一架私人飞机装满那些并不那么爱国的百万富翁，你就完蛋了。
这就是为什么大多数评估引入英国
在里希·苏纳克给安迪·伯纳姆的建议中（《我抵达唐宁街10号时深感震撼。以下是新任首相应了解的事项》，7月 19 日），读到在进入唐宁街后“你会收到一份按小时计的当日日程表以及未来三周的行程安排”，这令人担忧。如果伯纳姆接受这个日程表，将表明他已经向公务员体系让渡了太多控制权。他必须接受安全简报并出席一些礼仪性活动。但首相应该是主要的决策者。他应该决定见谁、何时见以及见多久。否则，那些“汉弗莱爵士们”才是真正的掌权者。 Steve Ellis 坎布里亚郡，柯比斯蒂芬
学校纪律
你们的文章《因过于严格而受罚的学校》（7月 19 日）说明了教育领域的钟摆已经摆动到了什么程度。我们理所应当地告别了体罚时代，但如今看来，任何准备执行高标准的学校都有可能被指责为做得太过分。理性的中间地带似乎几乎没有空间。
选择莫斯伯恩维多利亚公园学院（Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy）的家长们清楚地知道自己签署了什么。该校坚定纪律和追求学术抱负的特质，使得这么多出身贫寒的孩子能够取得卓越的成绩。真正的危险在于，学校因为过于恐惧批评，而失去了维持每个孩子都应享有的平静、有序环境的信心。 Michael Robinson 退休校长，汉普郡，戈斯波特
马修·赛义德（评论，7月 19 日）认为“很少有人注意到”左右翼的融合。我们当然注意到了，但当所有政党都拥护相同的政策，且媒体也随之点头时，我们能怎么办？他肯定也注意到了选举投票率的持续下降。 Cynthia Ellis 米德尔塞克斯郡，诺斯伍德
他会感到非常惊讶。在战争之前，这些食堂不过是撒满锯末的酒吧，全天以及半夜只供应饮品。没有其他吸引力，也没有任何舒适度。
多年来，这种情况日益
财富税的结论是你不应该这样做。或者更确切地说，只有在财富税被公认为一次性征收时才会奏效——但当然，它永远不可能是一次性的。这就是为什么其他发达国家一直在取消财富税而不是引入财富税的原因。也是为什么上一个名叫希利（Healey）的财政大臣——丹尼斯——不得不放弃工党 1974 年竞选宣言中承诺的财富税，因为“五年后我发现，不可能起草一项能产生足够税收以抵消行政成本和政治麻烦的方案”。
至于资本利得税计划，同样是疯狂之举。正如我们政策研究中心（Centre for Policy Studies）智库的团队所指出的，英国税务海关总署（HMRC）自己的计算表明，大幅增加资本利得税实际上会造成资金损失，因为人们要么持有资产，要么潜逃海外。而且，最新的数据显示，仅 32,000 名纳税人就占了资本利得税支付额的 80 per cent，而仅 5,000 人就占了 50 per cent。他们会坐视不管并接受事实上的税率翻倍吗？概率有多少？
但这里有一个更大的问题。1919 年，斯坦利·鲍德温使用化名给《泰晤士报》写信，敦促他的财阀同僚们帮助偿还英国沉重的战争债务。这位未来的首相捐出了他财产的五分之一，
夏洛特·艾弗斯 (Charlotte Ivers) 表示，南方人没有什么文化认同感（“南方人，团结起来——我们的救星来了”，Jul 19）。我并不认同。我所在的萨塞克斯郡 (Sussex) 拥有如此丰富的底蕴，并为“英国特性”做出了独特的贡献。其历史从罗马占领时期，经过黑斯廷斯战役，一直延伸到其在第二次世界大战中的前线角色。布鲁姆斯伯里团体 (Bloomsbury group) 曾迁居于此，鲁德亚德·基普林 (Rudyard Kipling) 和 H.G. 威尔斯 (HG Wells) 也是这里的居民。我们拥有工艺美术的传统，以及无与伦比的埃里克·拉维利乌斯 (Eric Ravilious)。我们有很多值得自豪的地方，但很少夸耀。 格雷厄姆·阿申 (Graham Ashen) 西萨塞克斯郡，霍舍姆 (Horsham, W Sussex)
我只想分享一下，上周日《星期日时报》(The Funday Times) 在我们家受欢迎的程度。我的长女（7岁）立刻拿走了报纸的这一板块，跑去阅读。她很高兴能在“大人的报纸”里找到可以阅读的内容。 夏洛特·斯坦福 (Charlotte Stanford) 什鲁斯伯里 (Shrewsbury)
莱尔·费尔利 (Lyell Fairlie) 关于西泰瑟利 (West Tytherley) 驾驶员为了避开坑洼而突然转向的来信（Jul 19）让我想起了一个古老的玩笑。作为一名在非洲长大的人，人们能通过驾驶员是否在直线行驶来判断他是否喝了 pombe（当地啤酒）。因为清醒的司机都会避开坑洞。 约翰·麦克唐纳 (John Macdonald) 萨默塞特，坦普尔科姆 (Templecombe, Somerset)
或许多米尼克·劳森 (Dominic Lawson) 对世界杯足球赛显而易见的缺乏兴趣，解释了为什么他在描述1966年英格兰队的获胜比分时写错了，写成了 3-2（评论，Jul 19）。或者，这可能是一个刻意的错误，以反映那种认为杰夫·赫斯特 (Geoff Hurst) 那个有争议的进球从未越过门线的观点。无论如何，记录本上依然写着：英格兰 4, 西德 2。 肖恩·马丁 (Sean Martin) 肯特，汤布里奇 (Tonbridge, Kent)
认为应该采取措施来激励军队中的清醒意识，最终一些大胆且富有原创性的思想者建议，或许可以通过改善食堂条件来找到这种补救措施。例如，除了啤酒之外，应该提供其他饮料；食堂应该布置得舒适，甚至像家一样；应该在食堂内提供种类合理且烹饪精良的食物；应该提供娱乐设施以及阅读和书写设施。但即便这些补救措施中最微小的一项，也经历了一个漫长的演变过程才转化为现实。
相当于今天的 £5 百万。但其他人则完全没有效仿。
当时英国的支出为 £1.6 十亿（以旧货币计），债务偿还账单为 £331 百万。而今天，我们的支出为 £1.4 万亿，债务利息为 £110 十亿。即便他们能筹集到支持者所声称的金额，加里家族 (the Garys) 提出的两项主要税收也仅能维持一周多一点的开支。这就是为什么在任何地方都找不到一个仅靠向富人征税就能维持的现代福利国家先例：大规模支出需要大规模征税。
换句话说，英国庞大的国家机器消耗了国民收入的 45%。考虑到儿童、学生、养老金领取者、救济金申请者等人数，支付这笔费用的负担正日益沉重地落在少数收入者，特别是高收入者身上。进一步榨取他们怎么可能是个好主意？这在苏格兰显然没有奏效，正如我们今天的报道，提高最高档的所得税税率导致的是收入下降而非增加。
加里家族可能很乐意缴纳更多税款。如果有用，我可以把链接发给他们。但对于那些关心英国未来繁荣的人来说，真正爱国的计划是停止喂养国家那永无止境的胃口。
报纸 支持回收 2025年英国报纸的 再生纸含量为 30%
杰辛达·阿德恩女爵 (Dame Jacinda Ardern)，新西兰前任首相，46 岁 凯特·贝金赛尔 (Kate Beckinsale)，演员，如图，53 岁 约翰逊·贝哈里 (Johnson Beharry)，因在伊拉克战争中的行动于 2005 年获授维多利亚十字勋章，47 岁 艾米莉·伊维斯 (Emily Eavis)，格拉斯顿伯里音乐节组织者，47 岁 格雷-汤普森男爵夫人 (Baroness Grey-Thompson)，残奥运动员兼交叉党派议员，57 岁 米克·贾格尔爵士 (Sir Mick Jagger)，音乐家，83 岁 海伦·米伦女爵 (Dame Helen Mirren)，演员，81 岁 摩根·罗杰斯 (Morgan Rogers)，英格兰足球运动员，24 岁 奥列克桑德尔·瑟尔斯基将军 (General Oleksandr Syrskyi)，乌克兰武装部队前负责人，61 岁 罗杰·泰勒 (Roger Taylor)，皇后乐队鼓手，77 岁 利兹·特拉斯 (Liz Truss)，前任首相，51 岁
1908 年 联邦调查局在华盛顿成立 1945 年 克莱门特·艾特利在工党战后选举大胜后就任首相 1952 年 阿根廷第一夫人艾娃·裴隆因癌症去世，享年 33 岁 1956 年 纳赛尔总统将苏伊士运河公司国有化，引发与英国和法国的对抗
我们错误地称安·威德库姆 (Ann Widdecombe) 在 2001 年失去了梅德斯通和威尔德 (Maidstone & the Weald) 席位（见 7 月 19 日《新闻评论》，“永不疲倦的安”）。我们为该错误道歉。
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面对的是有组织的“禁酒主义”的全部压力，其中一部分人主张彻底关闭酒吧，而另一部分人则反对任何形式的改革。不幸的是，直到最近，后者在全国范围内仍得到了大量许可审理委员会的支持。
此外，许可立法的趋势绝非总是符合消费者的利益，而且议会本身由于多种原因，未能以科学的态度对待促进戒酒。然而，如果希望实现戒酒，那么改善工业阶级获得供应的条件是进步政策的核心部分，因为整洁、空间和人性化的环境必然会提升公众的精神面貌。
I
睡 3 小时？ 快醒醒吧！
如果我是弗拉基米尔·普京，我现在就会把战舰在多佛尔外海排成一排。如果我是阿根廷，我会考虑在展开本月对英格兰足球队的攻势之余，顺便进行一点领土扩张。为什么不呢？YouGov 上周的一项民调显示，仅有 6% 的英国人愿意拿起武器保卫国家。另有 14% 的人表示，如果政府直接号召，他们才会服役。对于我们这些希望这个国家保持现状且不被入侵的人来说，这可以说是不太理想的。
这些数字低得简直令人难以置信。我想到了民调专家喜欢谈论的“蜥蜴人常数”。这个概念源于 2013 年的一项民调，该民调显示 4% 的美国人认为蜥蜴人统治着世界。该理论指出，在任何一项调查中，总会有一定数量的人给出完全疯狂的答案，因为他们是在开玩笑、不专注、随机点击答案，或者纯粹是疯了。而这项 YouGov 民调显示，为英国而战的意愿仅比民调专家认为的“基于疯子的统计噪声”高出两个百分点。太棒了。
得知我们是一个吃烤牛肉的投降猴子之国，无论何时都不是好时机，但现在尤其糟糕。上周，俄罗斯战舰在普利茅斯海岸附近进行了实弹演习，我们的新任国防大臣韦斯·斯特里廷称其为“表演性的且不负责任的”。周四，伊朗警告称格洛斯特郡的皇家空军费尔福德基地是“合法目标”。这事儿特别令人恼火，不是吗？在所有我预期世界末日会开始的地方中，科茨沃尔德绝对不在其中。可怜那些像艾伦·德杰尼雷斯一样搬到那里以躲避唐纳德·特朗普的美国名人，结果现在发现自己被大阿亚图拉追杀。
当然，我在开玩笑。面对如此令人不安的威胁，难道还有其他选择吗？事实是，我们不应对许多人对拿起武器持谨慎态度感到惊讶。战争是地狱，而且近期媒体和社交媒体的发展，使得战争的恐怖比以往任何时候都更可见。与此同时，
想想看
当安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 政府在权衡应该向哪些选民提供福利时，代际间的团结依然难以实现。根据 YouGov 最近的一项民意调查，91 per cent 的 65 岁以上人群支持保留养老金三倍锁（triple lock），但仅有 33 per cent 的人支持为儿童福利金引入三倍锁（尽管儿童贫困率是养老金领取者贫困率的两倍）。猜猜看，对伯纳姆的公交票价上限政策最不感冒的是哪个年龄组？正是 65 岁以上的人群，因为他们中的大多数本就享有免费出行。
Z世代（Zoomer）和婴儿潮一代（Boomer）是如何渐行渐远的？如今，年轻人和老年人的经济观点似乎截然不同，但情况并非一直如此。根据英国社会态度研究（British Social Attitudes study）长期追踪的民调显示，就在 2008, 年，18 to 34 岁人群的经济观点甚至比 55 岁以上人群略微偏向右翼。但在过去的二十年里，这一情况发生了反转，现在两者之间已然出现了一道深渊。
造成这一切的原因是什么？从房价到养老金，人们一直在强调代际之间日益扩大的经济鸿沟。但这一次，让我们暂时搁置关于财富不平等的陈词滥调。现代生活的一个同样重要的特征在年龄组之间楔入了裂痕：代际回声壁的崛起。
1986, 年 12 月，超过 30 million 人（无论老少）收看了《东区人》（EastEnders）的圣诞特辑，相当于英国人口的约 53 per cent。根据 Barb 的数据，在整个 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代，每年至少有十档节目能吸引超过四分之一的英国公众观看，这在当时是常态。而如今，除了足球决赛、王室婚礼和葬礼，这种文化霸权时刻已极其罕见，即使将流媒体的延伸观看数据计算在内也是如此。
这不仅仅是“现在电视频道更多了”的效果。电视观看曾是跨代共享的习惯，但现在正变得日益分层。Since 2010, ，65 岁以上人群的广播电视观看时长基本保持不变，但在 16 to 24 岁人群中，这一数值已从每天 171 分钟暴跌至仅 36. 分钟。英国正在失去那种起到社会[此处原文缺失]
军事技术在杀人方面变得越来越高效：无人机战争在乌克兰前线制造了一个屠宰场，而我们都在网上目睹了这一切的展开。
即便如此，我不认为那些民调数字反映了英国在面对直接军事威胁时会发生的情况。许多人在思考此类问题时提到的关键类比是 1933 年牛津大学辩论社（Oxford Union）通过的一项臭名昭著的辩论议案：本院在任何情况下都不会为国王和国家而战。当时，该国 275 位最聪明的年轻才俊投票支持这一观点，153 位反对。他们的立场在当时引起了巨大的丑闻，温斯顿·丘吉尔后来表示，这给希特勒提供了慰藉。然而六年之后，牛津的征兵站里挤满了人。今天，如果你去任何一所大学的礼拜堂，你会发现许多人确实为国家而战——甚至为此献出了生命。
当然，那些年轻人生活在一个非常不同的时代。尽管“顺从时代”肯定在走向终结，但它尚未完全消亡。幸运的是，我们手头有一个现代得多的对比案例：乌克兰。针对 YouGov 民调结果的显而易见之反应是，某种形式的社会契约已经破裂。我们不相信国家会照顾我们，那么我们为什么要照顾国家？但如果俄罗斯坦克滚滚驶向肯特郡，这种倦怠感还会成立吗？我对此表示怀疑。乌克兰人的社会契约比我们的破裂得严重得多——生活标准更低，官僚机构更陈旧，对政治的信任度更低——但在关键时刻，他们依然拿起了武器。
我经常认为，几乎所有的民意调查，无论其技术上的问题是什么，实际上都在询问受访者同一件事：“你现在是否在闹情绪，且是否想借此机会公开表达你的不满？”这一理论可以解释为什么虚构的内阁部长也会获得负面评分，以及为什么我们周期性地看到一些民调，告诉我们年轻人要么渴望无政府共产主义，要么渴望法西斯强人，具体取决于那一周是周几。当民调员询问你是否愿意为你这个烂摊子一样的国家而死时，这是一个表达不满的好机会。这与实际情况是完全不同的主张。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 年轻一代与年长一代日益隔离 老年抚养比，即65岁以上人口占16-64岁人口的百分比
城市 农村 城镇
40%
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
S ONS
不同年龄层之间的纽带正在失效。而这种影响在新闻消费来源中最为显著。根据英国通信管理局 (Ofcom) 的数据，对于75岁以上的人群来说，最主要的新闻来源很熟悉：BBC1、ITV1、BBC Radio 4、BBC新闻频道和BBC网站。但对于16至24岁的人群，去年的顶级新闻来源则是 Instagram、TikTok、YouTube、Facebook 和 X。
至关重要的是，这些回声壁不仅仅是媒体类型所产生的产物
MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES
[[IMG_XXXX]] 1914年伦敦市中心的一次征兵游行，当时年轻人排队参战，就像他们在第二次世界大战中所做的那样。
在特易购（Tesco）停车场与敌方战斗人员面对面。
深入研究民调中的数字，你会更清晰地理解受访者的想法。只有 29% 的人认为在未来十年内，英国面临大规模军事进攻是一个现实的可能性。这并不令人惊讶。我们是一个核大国，上一次应对陆上入侵是在 1797 年，而且那次陆上入侵应对得并不理想。我们有充分的心理理由感到自满。我想知道，当另外七成受访者考虑自己是否会参战时，他们想象的是在保卫祖国和亲人，还是在想象某种类似伊拉克或阿富汗式的混乱局面？
标题统计数据可能也受到了这样一个事实的影响：52% 的受访者表示由于年龄或残疾而无法参战。这很合理：我们中有 25% 的人
我们消费的内容。年轻人和老年人正字面上地渐行渐远。
让我们来看看老年抚养比，即一个地区 65 岁以上人口占 16 到 64 岁人口数量的百分比。这个比例告诉我们一个地方的人口老龄化程度。早在 20 世纪 80 年代初，城市、城镇和乡村之间的这个比例差异并不大。年轻人和老年人并肩生活。
四十年后，城市地区依然保持着当年的年轻状态。但英国的农村地区则变得老龄化严重：事实上，现在乡村的老年抚养比大约是大城市的两倍。换句话说，这种媒体碎片化在现实世界中得到了镜像反映，并产生了一个悲伤的后果：年轻人和老年人之间完全没有互动的可能性在增加。
这对政治意味着什么？政治家可以轻松地与年长选民沟通，因为他们消费的是曾经能覆盖所有英国人的相同渠道。但年轻选民现在完全处于一个不同的空间里。
今年早些时候，民调机构 More In Common 调查了人们是否了解工党政府公布的政策。虽然 55 岁以上的人几乎对公布的所有内容都心知肚明，但大多数年轻人基本上不知道他们的政府在做什么。例如，90% 的 75 岁以上人士知道关于电动汽车按里程付费税的新计划，而 18 到 24 岁的人中只有 48% 知道。年轻人比老年人更了解的仅有两项政策，而这两项都直接影响到他们的财务：火车票价冻结和处方药费冻结。
上周，一批总部位于曼彻斯特的职位空缺出现在内阁办公室的招聘网站上。其中超过一半是视频制作人、社交媒体策略师和影响者。人们很容易对此嗤之以鼻，但 Burnham 只是在应对新的政治现实：不再存在一个单一的被治理群体。英国的代际分歧通常被框定为一场关于住房、养老金和税收的斗争。但同样重要的是，曾经赋予不同世代共同世界观的共享新闻、事件和空间的缓慢消失。
现在被政府认定为残疾人，而且即使在第二次世界大战的高峰期，男性征兵年龄的上限也设定在 51 岁。但我深信，如果许多人更广泛地考虑这个问题，他们会报名参战的：战争的性质正在发生变化。我们的退休金领取者难道不能操作无人机吗？我们成群的
年轻的尼特族 (Neets) 在互联网信息的浸润下长大，难道不应该接受训练去尝试一些网络战吗？我们中很少有人真的会被要求拿着狙击步枪守在多佛尔白崖上。
这一切都很重要。重要的显而易见的原因是，如果战争到来，总得有人去战斗。但同样重要的是，像这样的民调数据必然会对威慑力产生影响。我并不是在暗示普京会因为一项 YouGov 的民调就开进怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心)。但我们不应低估水滴石穿的力量。
我们的敌人如何看待我们，以及我们如何看待自己，这至关重要。我经常听到人们开玩笑说，我们应该努力成为伊朗想象中的那个国家：好战、不可攻破、无所不能，在世界各地大步穿行，给我们的敌人带来混乱。也许吧。至少我们可以先尝试这样想象自己。 Camilla Long 正在休假
上周在日本，首相高市早苗 (Sanae Takaichi) 透露她自去年就任以来每晚睡眠时间不超过三小时，引发了轩然大波。在一个正为工作与生活平衡而陷入内斗的国家，她的说法并不受欢迎。
当然，我们也曾有过自己的失眠首相，玛格丽特·撒切尔 (Margaret Thatcher)。我想不出现在的任何一位继任者能玩这一套。在过去的几十年里，人们的态度发生了转变，不再认为每分每秒都在工作是一种身份象征。
再也没有人会将那个凌晨3点回家洗 40 分钟澡，然后再次返回工作岗位的投资银行家视为资本主义的英雄。
曾经竞争激烈的职场现在竞相提供更好的福利和更长的假期。与“闲暇信号”相比，炫耀薪水已经非常过时了。
“你知道吗，他下午6点就能回家？”我听到人们在谈论银行界的朋友时这样钦佩地低语，就像人们以前盯着邻居的新法拉利发呆一样。
随着人工智能为那些能高效利用系统的人提供了比以往任何时候都更多的自由时间，我怀疑这（闲暇）将成为一个更加显著的声望象征。尽管我会这么说，不是吗？毕竟我的职业就是看电视。
1 某些团队运动统计数据中列出的导致得分的行为 (7) 5 阿卜杜勒-梅吉德二世是1922年首位当选的奥斯曼_ (6) 8 在《格尔冈图亚和潘塔格鲁埃》中，拉布莱重述了一个归功于亚里士多德的观点：“Natura abhorret ”(6) 13 MSG（味精）中的G (9) 14 喉咙炎症，儿童时期最常见 (11) 15 由西蒙·琼斯、克里斯·兰格姆和马丁·弗里曼饰演的倒霉主角 (6,4) 16 在《 Twelfth Night》（第十二夜）中，安德鲁_爵士是一个倒霉的傻瓜 (9) 19 一种身体无分节的蠕虫，通常为寄生虫 (8) 20 “在冬日黎明的褐色雾霭下，/ 一群人流过”（《荒原》，T.S. 艾略特）(6,6) 23 在《'Allo 'Allo!》中饰演伊薇特·卡特-布兰奇的女演员 (5,8) 25 红辣椒傻子（Red Hot Chili Peppers）的____被人们称为Flea (7)
27 出现在《红色矮星》（Red Dwarf）剧集《平行宇宙》（Parallel Universe）中的歌曲，随后在1993年由“The Cat”发行单曲 (6,4) 28 《麦田里的守望者》的作者 (1,1,8) 29 由棱角分明的岩石碎片组成的沉积岩 (7) 30 在达芙妮·杜穆里埃的《丽贝卡》中，贾斯珀是一个____ (6,7)
32 Linotype键盘前两列的字母，经常被输入作为给报纸校对员的错误信号，但有时会被不小心地发表出来 (6,6) 34 在某些方面有资格做、成为或接收某物 (8)
37 “大跳蚤有小跳蚤 [...] / 而小跳蚤有更小的跳蚤，如此 ad ____”（奥古斯都·德·摩根）(9) 38 常用于制作镇纸的装饰玻璃 (10)
(图片) 40 莫扎特歌剧中的反英雄，被恶魔拖入地狱 (3,8)
42 穆斯林一天可能会使用这个五
次 (6,3) 43 猪食用的坚果，用于最高级别的伊比里亚火腿 (6) 44 词源上与希腊语中的“欧芹”相关的沙拉配料 (6) 45 引入了“为了保护无辜者，姓名已做更改”这一短语的美国电视节目 (7)
Robert Teuton
1 女学生假设
傻瓜离开大学 失败 (8) 7 Siri — 个人助手
(最早出现在Apple Newton中？) (4) 10 DJ 字数较少，
承认我喜欢一个妻子 (9) 11 在某些地方发现
托管用户 终端的网络 (5) 13 项目中的医生姓名 (5) 14 学校咖啡早茶时间流传的八卦？ (7) 16 离开 加那利群岛之一后的剧烈疼痛 (4) 17 在朋友的浮动花园中发现的红帽子 (8) 18 可能是更淡的仿宝石？ (10, 两个单词) 20 对大学 综合体拥有一个 中心感到怀疑？ (10) 22 一些小贩将 吝啬鬼往后拖 (8) 24 老亲爱的确实不 皮厚 (4) 26 酶爆发使产品 最后成熟 (7) 28 贾格也许想要一种 用于刺绣的织物 (5) 29 俱乐部失去押金 (5) 30 薄纸是失败的， 检查图像的第一位， 翻转墨水在流淌 (9) 31 休息一周持续了很长时间 (4) 32 管道相当少见地被重新定向 (8)
在网格中，每个 数字代表一个 英文字母 — 26个 字母全部被使用。 使用代码表中的 初始线索来 推导剩余的代码。 卡住了？要获取 四个随机的额外 字母线索，请拨打 0901 293 6266 (ROI 1514 415128) 或 发送短信 STCLUE 至 64343 (仅限英国)。 通话费用为 £1 (ROI 75c) 加上您的 电话公司 网络接入费。短信费用 为 £1 加上您的 标准网络费用。SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (ROI 0818 205 403) (周一至周五 上午9点- 下午5.30点)。
1 杰森的传奇之船 (4) 2 与 Mark Radcliffe 共同主持 BBC Radio 6 Music 周末早餐节目的主持人 (6,7) (图片) 3 Gravelly Hill 互通立交桥的俗称 (9,8) 4 从事擂台训练，如拳击手 (7) 5 用于发射箭矢和其他投掷武器的城墙凹口 (6) 6 2009年乔治·哈里森的歌曲合辑专辑 (3,2,4)
7 感觉异常 (4,3,7) 9 用于在皮革和类似材料上穿孔的工具 (3) 10 经济改善 (7)
11 “Ohne _ wäre das Leben ein Irrtum” (尼采) (5) 12 Herb Alpert 的伴奏乐队 (7,5) 17 在 Maroon 5 单曲《Moves like Jagger》中献唱的歌手 (9,8) 18 必然发生 (10) 21 “我是一个犹太人，但我被_那光辉的人物所吸引” (21)
Nazarene” (Albert Einstein) (10) 22 “Short con” 游戏，也被称为寻找女士 (5-4,5) 24 动词，不接直接宾语 (12) 26 约瑟夫·科顿在 1944 年电影《气灯》中的对手戏演员 (6,7)
31 与哈利奎因和
皮埃罗处于三角恋中的哑剧角色 (9) 33 ____ XIII 是胡安·卡洛斯之前的最后一位西班牙国王 (7) 35 加勒比海和法属
波利尼西亚共有 ____ 个群岛 (7) 36 非正式说法，过时的存储介质 (6)
37 北约语音字母表中唯一的国家名称 (5) 39 参与某项活动，
尤其是
可谴责的活动 (2,2) 41 失去或
获得一个或多个电子的原子 (3)
1 艺术家古斯塔夫被截断的定期访问序列？ (9, two words) 2 再次 1-0 僵局，传递出那不勒斯的特征？ (12) 3 教师采取规则进行惩罚 (6) 4 从沉闷的苏格兰比赛中脱离，进展缓慢 (4) 5 随着比赛结束而显现，或许指示赛艇运动员要系好 (10, two words) 6 苏格兰法院在安息日期间维持并开庭 (4) 7 曾经巨大的陆地，据说是河边的拥挤地区 (7) 8 你早晨起床后可能会得到的大部分是什么？ (5) 9 法语词汇在一名讲师启发被难住的人之后突然变得更好 (12, two words) 12 鸭子保护豆杆 (10) 15 塞尔维亚人或许转向拥抱紧密的基督教社区 (9) 19 我开始在修剪过的果树中攀爬 (7) 21 表演成功，再次变得非常安全 (6) 23 金酒与精美精神的病例混合 (5) 25 限制禁食饮食的核心成分 (4) 27 曾经在海底发现的大西洋鳕鱼 (4)
所有 1 到 6 的数字必须在每一行和每一列中出现一次。在每个粗线“区块”中，左上角的数字是通过该区块内所有单元格的数字，使用符号指示的运算得出的。
Dean Mayer
1 展现出一些前沿——或者是后方？(6) 5 在街道上，我打算耐心等待 (3,5) 9 艾瑞儿变成了这样一个波希米亚人 (4,6) 10 独特的律师 (4)
11 与同伴一同大笑，且依然饮酒 (6) 13 一个不仅梦想过去的人 (2,6) 14 一艘装备精良的帆船在当前的现代小说中 (8,6) 16 小说家可以或可能提供“多话”的替代词 (14) 18 兔八哥的首次演出——更多怪异的对话 (8) 20 预算演讲被领导者放弃 (6) 21 性格见证人 (4) 22 出去。我对那件事没那么兴奋 (10) 24 基地中令人难忘的时光 (8) 25 按正确顺序排列 (6)
在下周六之后提交的第一份正确解答将赢得一份原装版的《词汇联盟》（League of the Lexicon），这是一款由《语言爱好者词典》（The Language-Lover’s Lexipedia）作者 Joshua Blackburn 创作的畅销词汇与语言问答游戏。三名亚军将赢得《柯林斯英语词典与同义词词典》。请将答案邮寄至：The Sunday Times Crossword 5226, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex , CO2 8GZ，或发送电子邮件至：puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。仅限 18 岁以上英国及爱尔兰共和国居民参加。
在空格中填入 1 到 9 的数字，使每个圆圈中的数字等于周围四个空格数字的总和，且每种颜色的总数正确。
将网格划分为正方形或长方形区块，每个区块仅包含一个数字。每个区块包含的单元格数量必须与该数字一致。
利用这些字母，组成四个或更多字母的单词，且必须包含中心字母。答案必须出自《牛津简明词典》，不包括大写单词、复数、动词变体（如过去式等）、以 LY 结尾的副词、比较级和最高级。 评分标准： 15 words, average; 20, good; 30, very good; 41, excellent.
2 护士及时拉起内衣 (7) 3 俯瞰此原因？(9) 4 继续，结算 (3) 5 关于双血统犬种的油滑谈话 (8,7) 6 水手对孩子生气？你可以打赌 (11) 7 作者在家时感染了农场疾病 (5) 8 将刀刃末端锤入坚固的武器 (7) 12 搅拌其中？(5,6) 15 在赛艇比赛中此处和彼处做 180 度转身 (5-4) 16 时髦的疯子关于阿尔斯特的素材 (7) 17 一个岩石裂缝，一个靠近山峰 (7) 19 在《舞动吧！》中双人舞 (5) 23 猴子，一只小黑猩猩 (3)
N
S
N
S
Mark Valentine Salarium Solace
在德国的最后一次战役中，百夫长乌尔皮乌斯失去了他最初 80 名军团士兵中的三分之一以上。剩余的人数为
David Howell
W E
W E
国际象棋中的创造力很难定义。我们都渴望拥有它，但它往往让人难以捉摸。
大多数时候，我们只是在机械地重复动作，在尽量不犯大错的同时，处于一种“自动驾驶”状态。
rough
当精神敏锐、充满活力，且不受分心或对结果的顾虑干扰时，创造力便会产生。在这种状态下，最好的灵感通常会主动找上你。
如今我的对局次数比以前少，但我仍然尝试每天阅读关于象棋的资料或解答棋谱。
在休息了一个月没有下棋后，我的首场对局是在一次在线快棋赛中进行的。我感到精神焕发且富有创造力，这或许并非巧合。
白方：Alinar Babashev 黑方：David Howell 快棋赛， Taketaketake.com 2026 伯德开局
1 f4 d5 2 g3 h5 3 Bg2 h4 4 g4? 我的对手等级分较低，他感到恐慌了。更好的做法是忽略王翼的紧张局势。 4…Bxg4 5 Nf3? 从实际角度来看，在 5 c4 e6 6 h3 Bh5 7 cxd5 exd5 8 Qb3 之后，白方的局面并不糟糕。白方的局面类似于格罗布开局（Grob Opening，以 1 g4 开局）的一个著名变例。5...h3 6 Bf1 Bxf3 7 exf3 e6 8 Nc3 Qh4+ 9 Ke2 Nc6 10 d3 Nd4+ 11 Ke3
请将您的解决方案（仅限第一步）寄至 Sunday Times Spot the Move 1542, The Sunday Times, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ，或发送电子邮件至 puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。下周六之后抽选出的首个正确答案将获得一张 £20 的 Waterstones 代金券。仅限 18 岁以上且居住在英国及爱尔兰共和国的居民参加。
数独热身
数独 1701
杀手数独
……（士兵）们曾是精锐。在返回罗马后，使节命令他的长官将剩余的盐储备分发给乌尔皮乌斯的剩余士兵，作为对他们勇敢行为的奖励。
长官必须确保每人获得的数量完全相同。利用他的秤，他可以将任何数量的盐精确地平分成两半。他将初始数量重复平分，直到堆数超过士兵人数。然后，每位士兵分得一堆。剩余的堆再次被平分并以同样的方式分发，直到只剩下一堆。长官带着这最后一堆盐回到了家。
黑方显然占据优势。在不同的日子里，我可能会更保守一些，简单地走 11…Bc5。然而，因为很享受这个局面，我决定深入思考。11…Qxf4+! 这是我记忆中玩过最令人满足的皇后弃子。这个走法让我想起最近看到的一些棋谱，我无法抗拒这种诱惑。12 Kxf4 白方可以拒绝这个提议，但 12 Kf2 Qh4+ 之后局面已无希望。12...Nf5! 真正的神来之笔。尽管黑方只有一个出击的棋子，但一个完美的杀王网已经在白王周围织就。13 Kg4 已经无法逃脱。我已经计算出 13 Nxd5 Rh4+ 14 Kg5 (14 Ke5 Bd6 将死) 14…Be7+ 15 Nxe7 f6+ 16 Kg6 Ngxe7 将死，这足以说服我。13...Rh4+ 14 Kg5 Be7 将死。 找棋 1542：黑方走棋。
So-Carlsen, Chess.com 2017. 黑方如何以华丽的方式获胜？
密码词
肯肯数学题
TETONOR
4 x 28 6 x 14 15 + 15 5 x 18
我们都有爱好。有些人钓鱼，有些人玩模型火车，还有的人系上围裙研究共济会。我呢？我听前卫摇滚。我很喜欢它。非常喜欢，以至于上周末我一路开车前往伦敦的阿尔伯特音乐厅，聆听 BBC 逍遥音乐节（BBC Proms）管弦乐团演奏的一系列前卫摇滚经典曲目。
或者说，它们真的是经典吗？在演出开始前，我见到了志同道合的朋友，大家对即将演奏的曲目单展开了争论。《白色绸缎之夜》(Nights in White Satin)？我们不确定这是否算作前卫摇滚。同样地，我们绝对肯定《我知道我喜欢什么（在你的衣橱里）》(I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)) 绝对算。自大的标题，毫无意义的歌词，复杂冗长，以至于观众中有些人很可能在曲终之前就去世了，风险极高。
长度是这个流派的关键组成部分。流行歌曲需要三分钟，而前卫摇滚则要求直到十一月才结束。而且它必须拥有持续整个周末的宏大键盘独奏。ELP 专辑《Works》的整个 A 面只有一首歌。Genesis 乐队的《准备好晚餐》(Supper’s Ready) 持续 23 分钟。我爱死这种感觉了。这就是为什么我不远万里前往伦敦。
那是一场绝佳的演出。开场曲是《普通人之号角》(Fanfare for the Common Man)，接着为我们带来了《管风琴之钟》(Tubular Bells) 的 A 面，甚至还包括 Supertramp 乐队的《世纪之罪》(Crime of the Century)——在我看来，这属于公学摇滚而非前卫摇滚。但我们就当没听见吧。就像整个世界在七十年代末决定放弃前卫摇滚一样。它太难了。要演奏它，你得是个出色的音乐家；要创作它，你得是个学者。听听《索尔兹伯里山》(Solsbury Hill) 的拍号就明白我的意思了。4/4 拍的迪斯科更简单，任何人都能上手。朋克也是如此。那就是……
我对今天在发牌中拿到四个 spades 的努力感到相当自豪。
双方均处于弱势，发牌者为东家
♠ A 7 2 ♥ 7 ♦ 10 9 6 5 ♣ A 10 9 6 3
叫牌过程如下：
西家 北家 东家 南家
Pass 1NT Pass 2 ♥ Dble 2 ♠ Pass 4 ♠ 全部 Pass
西家出了他唯一的红心，被 9、10 和 K 覆盖。在这个阶段，我不能承担将出牌权交给东家的风险，所以我打了一张黑桃给虚拟手的 K，又打了一张黑桃给东家的 Q。东家打出了红心 Q，我用 A 赢得该手牌，此时西家弃牌。 现在打梅花。西家用 A 跟进，对此我深表感激，随后我出掉黑桃 A，又打了一张梅花。我用虚拟手的 K 赢得该手牌，打了一张方块给我的 A，出掉梅花 Q 并弃掉一张红心，然后在虚拟手中吃掉（ruffed）一张红心。现在最后一张王牌在红色花色上挤压了东家。呼！
在另一个房间里，我的队友们也竭尽全力让声明者完成他的合约。经过一套类似的流程（实际上这里东家没有对红心 2 进行加倍），南家再次处于 4
通用知识巨型填字游戏 536 横向：1 Banksy, 4 轰动地结束, 12 广播, 13 定理, 14 林波波河, 15 穿针引线, 17 氛围, 19 告别巡演, 22 油轮工, 23 卢布, 24 奥运的, 26 多佛海滩, 27 异议者, 30 老伙计, 32 快板, 33 嗡嗡声, 34 席安娜·米勒, 36 德罗宁, 38 《九点新闻》 (Not the Nine O’Clock News), 42 青春期前儿童, 43 正面, 44 练习曲, 45 至圣之父, 46 美网 纵向：1 Barbara Woodhouse, 2 推动, 3 执剑者, 5 除号, 6 不可靠的, 7 Wyman, 8 直到牛回家 (指时间极久), 9 海军部, 10 牛油果, 11 领悟 (Grok), 13 《绯红之pimpernel》, 16 斯普林斯汀, 18 心爱的人, 20 东经坐标, 21 酒吧巡游, 25 前提, 28 纽约喷气机队, 29 蓝绒面绒, 31 极其罕见, 35 飞鱼导弹, 37 Scarfe, 39 库球回弹, 40 装备, 41 垃圾邮件
MEPHISTO 3438 横向：1 快门, 6 称重, 10 庄园住宅, 12 Alastrim, 13 塞内卡, 14 艾努人, 15 Hecat, 16 中立的, 18 Schnorr, 22 上升, 23 瘦削的, 25 杂烩, 27 Aret, 28 猫头鹰属, 30 坦特罗修行者, 31 得体, 32 醚, 33 绞杀 纵向：1 粉碎, 2 解除锚定, 3 顶端, 4 拖拉机, 5 漫游者, 6 武术, 7 财产, 8 出入, 9 钩子, 11 Leechcraft, 17 顽抗的, 18 烤串, 19 咆哮, 20 踏板车, 21 Mattie, 24 布线员, 26 纱丽, 29 恰好 (Ciao)
填字游戏 5225 横向：1 珠宝, 6 玉米, 9 限制, 10 经验主义的, 11 黄锤鸟, 14 艾普西隆, 16 继子, 17 奈洛比, 19 抢风头, 21 吊袜带, 24 茶园, 26 警棍 (Lathi), 27 伟大的, 28 奇观 纵向：1 软糖, 2 头部遮盖布 (Wimples), 3 彩票, 4 庞大的, 5 喋喋不休, 6 女杀手, 7 切开, 8 鳗鱼, 12 误导, 13 交织, 15 看起来精神, 18 设立, 20 无菌的, 22 重新点燃, 23 雄鹿, 25 Dos
寻找妙手 1541 1 Qd7+! 获胜：1…Rxd7 2 Rb8 将死
预告 3330 2163 英尺
今日答案
SAKURO 单元格区块
Sally Brock
♠ K J 10 9 3 ♥ 9 3 2 ♦ J 7 2 ♣ K 5
♠ Q 6 ♥ Q J 10 8 6 ♦ Q 8 3 ♣ J 7 2
♠ 8 5 4 ♥ A K 5 4 ♦ A K 4 ♣ Q 8 4
简明填字游戏 2000 横向：1 瞎话, 6 凝乳, 7 操纵木偶者, 9 恶魔, 11 赛跑, 13 神秘的, 14 使模糊, 16 踪迹, 17 欠于, 19 破旧的, 20 犯错, 21 过分的 纵向：1 打印错误, 2 方面, 3 中介者, 4 缓和, 5 外星人, 6 the widgeons, 8 不重要的, 10 主菜, 12 发展, 15 弄掉, 18 哭泣, 19 太
如此简单，以至于当我尝试时——当时我是在一个短命的乐队“培根三明治” (Bacon Sandwich) 担任主唱——观众中没有一个人注意到我唱的是一首歌的歌词，而乐队演奏的是另一首。甚至直到他们比我先结束时，我才注意到。
迪斯科和朋克也更便宜。在 1977, 年，Emerson, Lake & Palmer 带着一个 70 人的管弦乐团在全美巡演。那太贵了，以至于在巡演进行到一半时，管弦乐团被送回了家，他们改为三人组继续演出。如今他们甚至连那样都做不到。
现在英国前 40. 强榜单中经常完全没有乐队。那里到处是独唱艺人，或者在卧室里用电脑弄出一些噪音的孩子。这是因为只有你一个人巡演时成本更低，而且你不需要花一整天的时间去清理吉他手身上的呕吐物，或者为鼓手造成损坏而支付费用，当你的鼓手把一些
这一堆中，原库存中 16,384 分之一。 乌尔比乌斯的部下有多少人回到了罗马？
请将您的答案发送至：The Sunday Times Teaser 3331, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ，或发送电子邮件至 puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk。在下周六之后开启的前两份正确方案将各获赠一张 £20 的 Waterstones 代金券。仅限 18 岁以上英国及爱尔兰共和国居民参加。
黑桃，随后西家再次领先出红心 7。宣告者赢得该回合，并出了一张黑桃给虚拟手的 J。东家顺势弃牌！(诚然，这已接近一场漫长赛事的尾声，而我们并不打算获胜。) 宣告者通过方块转移，准备出另一张黑桃，但西家没想到其搭档会弃牌，于是用黑桃 A 截击。他随后转而出低位梅花。宣告者出低位牌，当东家出 J 时，他虽能赢得 Q，但已无真正机会，最终在每个花色中都输掉了一手，导致最后结果为 1 down。
上周问题
♠ 5 2 ♥ A Q J 8 5 ♦ Q J 7 4 ♣ 6 2 西家
♠ A Q 10 6 4 ♥ 10 7 4 ♦ 10 ♣ Q J 8 3 北家
♠ J 3 ♥ 9 6 3 2 ♦ K 8 6 3 2 ♣ 9 5 东家
♠ K 9 8 7 ♥ K ♦ A 9 5 ♣ A K 10 7 4 南家
1 ♣ 1 ♠ 2 ♥ Pass 3NT 全部 Pass
西家出黑桃 6 到 2，然后是 J 且…… 请规划打法。
你应该弃牌。如果东家继续出黑桃，你仍然有阻击牌。在可行时赢得领先权，兑现红心 K，并出方块 A 和一张低位方块。根据目前的牌势，你必须至少赢得 5 张红心、2 张方块和 2 张梅花。如果西家持有受保护的方块 K，你将始终处于 down 状态。
多边形 (POLYGON)
airy, arty, aryl, awry, girly, glairy, glary, glyph, grapy, gray, gyral, hairy, harpy, hiya, hwyl, lairy, laity, paltry, paly, parity, party, pithy, pity, play, playwright, pray, righty, riyal, tray, triglyph, twirly, typal, warty, wary, whity, wily, wiry, withy, wrathy, yawl, yawp
阿姆斯特丹 21C sh 雅典 30 s 奥克兰 10 sh 曼谷 31 f 巴塞罗那 31 f 北京 35 th 贝尔格莱德 37 sh 柏林 27 sh 波哥大 17 sh 波士顿 22 s 布鲁塞尔 22 sh 布达佩斯 35 sh 布宜诺斯艾利斯 19 f 开罗 37 s 卡尔加里 27 s 开普敦 20 s 加拉加斯 24 th 卡萨布兰卡 29 s 芝加哥 36 th 迪拜 37 s 都柏林 20 f 日内瓦 27 sh 直布罗陀 39 s 危地马拉城 25 th 赫尔辛基 19 sh 香港 27 th 伊斯坦布尔 28 sh 泽西岛 20 sh 约翰内斯堡 19 s 拉巴斯 15 sh 拉各斯 26 r 利马 23 f 里斯本 30 s
图例 c=多云, dr=毛毛雨, ds=沙尘暴, f=晴朗, fg=雾, g=大风, h=冰雹, m=薄雾, r=雨, sh=阵雨, sl=雨夹雪, sn=雪, s=阳光, th=雷雨, w=有风
28 35
¬ 西班牙、葡萄牙和巴利阿里群岛大部分地区干燥，阳光充足，偶尔有阵雨 ¬ 意大利、西西里岛、撒丁岛、科西嘉岛和马耳他大部分时间干燥，伴有晴朗天气和局部雷阵雨 ¬ 土耳其、希腊、塞浦路斯、克罗地亚和巴尔干地区干燥炎热，有长时间的阳光照射
微弱
日出 日落/ 路灯亮起 路灯 熄灭 月出 月落
阿伯丁 04:55 21:34 04:57 20:45 01:00(周一) 贝尔法斯特 05:24 21:35 05:26 20:32 02:20(周一) 伯明翰 05:18 21:09 05:20 19:56 02:22(周一) 布里斯托 05:25 21:07 05:27 19:51 02:33(周一) 卡迪夫 05:28 21:10 05:29 19:54 02:35(周一) 科克 05:47 21:33 05:48 20:19 02:54(周一) 都柏林 05:32 21:31 05:33 20:22 02:33(周一) 格拉斯哥 05:11 21:35 05:13 20:38 02:00(周一) 伦敦 05:15 20:58 05:17 19:41 02:22(周一) 曼彻斯特 05:15 21:15 05:17 20:06 02:15(周一) 纽卡斯尔 05:05 21:20 05:07 20:18 01:58(周一) 诺里奇 05:05 20:57 05:06 19:44 02:08(周一) 普利茅斯 05:36 21:09 05:37 19:49 02:47(周一)
酒店洗手间里的炸药。而这一切让我想到了莫扎特。难以想象在现代这个时代，竟然没有一个像这位天才一样的后继者。如今我们拥有在能力上足以媲美那些身穿华服、戴着假发的先辈的工程师、艺术家和商人们。但今天已不再有像莫扎特、贝多芬或巴赫那样的人。
当然，互联网告诉我其实是有这样的天才，并向我推荐了一位名叫安娜·索瓦尔德斯多蒂尔 (Anna Thorvaldsdottir) 的冰岛年轻女孩，她写了一首名为《空中之境》(Aeriality) 的古典乐曲。显然，这首曲子描述的是一种能够飞翔时所获得的绝对自由感，并带有一丝不安。这绝不是什么《威风之曲》。对我而言，它听起来就像一只执着的黄蜂撞进了风铃里，与此同时，有个男人正用定音鼓槌在敲击一个巨大的翻转鼓，还有一个不会弹钢琴的人在弹钢琴。
我喜欢复杂的东西。我可以接受 Yes 乐队任何一次对疯狂的探索，但这首曲子简直是疯了；是那种拥抱自然的胡言乱语。我怀疑大多数现代古典音乐都是如此。如果你去钻研这些，他们会谈论作曲家如何“探索后极简主义的音景”。这是典型的自由民主党式的废话，而写这些曲子的人在一百年后都不会被人们铭记，不像贝多芬、巴赫和莫扎特那样。也不像来自 Van der Graaf Generator 乐队的彼得·哈米尔 (Peter Hammill) 那样。他在音乐节 (Proms) 上的演出极为出色。
[[IMG_XXXX]] Yes 乐队的里克·韦克曼 (Rick Wakeman) 在键盘前。 三分钟的歌曲并不在他们的曲目之列。
那么，我们如何才能找回那些音乐超级巨星？我们如何才能再次让天赋异禀之辈创造的声音充盈我们的生活？恐怕问题出在钱上。莫扎特在创作时是有委约的。富人们会付费请他创作协奏曲或歌剧，随后在演出时，他还能从门票销售中赚到更多钱。而这正是我们现在所需要的。
伦敦 24C f 洛杉矶 35 f 马德里 30 s 墨西哥城 24 sh 迈阿密 34 th 莫斯科 21 sh 内罗毕 22 f 新德里 38 th 新奥尔良 37 th 纽约 30 s 奥斯陆 19 f 巴拿马 30 th 巴黎 23 sh 布拉格 29 f 里约热内卢 23 s 罗马 32 th 旧金山 18 f 圣地亚哥 18 f 首尔 33 th 塞舌尔 26 th 新加坡 28 th 斯德哥尔摩 22 f 悉尼 18 f 特拉维夫 29 f 特内里费 23 f 东京 33 th 多伦多 27 th 特立尼达 33 f 突尼斯 47 f 威尼斯 26 sh 维也纳 33 sh 华沙 30 f 华盛顿特区 31 f
¬ 法国、德国、丹麦及低地国家：晴朗时段，伴有零星阵雨 ¬ 波罗的海国家、捷克共和国、乌克兰、波兰和斯洛伐克：阳光明媚，有少量阵雨 ¬ 挪威、瑞典和芬兰：全天晴雨交替，有阵雨爆发
乐队、5,000 台激光灯以及 持续两天的独奏
现在：我们需要那些愿意出资让乐队去创作另一首《地心之旅》（Journey to the Centre of the Earth），或者另一张《销售英格兰》（Selling England）的资助人。
乔治·哈里森就曾这样做过，他给蒙提·派森（Monty Python）提供了拍摄《布莱恩之生》（Life of Brian）所需的资金。所有常规公司都不敢碰这部片子，因为风险太高。但他出手了，由于他的慷慨，世界现在拥有了一件值得珍藏的瑰宝。
所以，快行动起来吧，马斯克、盖茨和杰夫。下一个莫扎特就在那里，下一个基思·埃默森（Keith Emerson）也同样在那。但要创作出他们能够创作的作品并将其演出来，需要只有你们才拥有的那种资金。除非你们肯掏钱，否则我们就只能在泰勒·斯威夫特和阿黛尔的陪伴下度日。当然，她们是非常有才华的流行歌手，但主要是因为她们“便宜”。在巡演中，一个带着麦克风的女人是盈利的。而一个拥有全套键盘、五千台激光灯且鼓组规模堪比哈罗盖特（Harrogate）的六人乐队则不然。
而且我们不能让政府接触资金，因为他们总是会坚持要求歌词必须关于社区的社会流动性。而我们真正需要的是：“战舰向我倾诉，告诉我你在哪里，闪耀的、飞行的、紫色的猎犬，告诉我你在哪里，迷失在夏季，清晨，冬季，旅行如此之远，迷失在失去的环境中，那就是你所在的地方。” 简直是宏伟的、高耸的胡言乱语。
温和
温和
英国和爱尔兰预报 全天较为不稳定，多云，伴有阵雨和降水，北部和西部地区降水最强且范围最广。西部苏格兰和爱尔兰在上午将持续降雨，下午转为局部降水并向东移动。西至西北风，轻至中等，西部沿海地区风力较强。
区域预报 伦敦，英格兰东南部 有晴朗时分，伴有少量阵雨。西至西北风，轻至中等。最高 26C。干燥晴朗。最低 12C 中英格兰，英格兰东部 晴朗时分与阵雨交替。西至西北风，轻至中等。最高 24C。干燥且有晴朗时分。最低 12C 海峡群岛，英格兰西南部及中南部，南威尔士 局部多云，分散阵雨。西至西北风，轻至强风。最高 23C。有晴朗时分且干燥。最低 11C 北威尔士，英格兰西北部，曼岛 多云并伴有降雨。西至西北风，轻至强风。最高 21C。一两场阵雨。最低 11C 英格兰中北部及东北部 厚云，持续轻雨。西至西北风，轻至中等。最高 20C。轻微阵雨。最低 10C 苏格兰 局部轻雨和毛毛雨。西至西北风，轻至中等。最高 19C。多云有雨。最低 8C 北爱尔兰，爱尔兰共和国 局部多云，伴有阵雨。西至西北风，轻至强风。最高 20C。局部降雨且多云。最低 10C
周一 南部干燥炎热，北部多云有雨。 最高 29C
周二 大部分地区局部多云及阵雨，英格兰南部干燥。最高 33C
周三 北部和西部有雨，南部干燥炎热。 最高 34C
m’
梅登黑德与布雷 (Maidenhead & Bray) 一线队在伯克郡泰晤士河畔的一片干涸的球场上主场迎战博因希尔 (Boyne Hill) 一线队。英格兰南部、中部和东部的 8 个地区目前接近干旱状态，英格兰和威尔士超过 20 million 户家庭（包括几乎整个伯克郡）受到限制使用软管的禁令影响。
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假期
阿森纳在皇马合同僵持之际关注维尼修斯
阿森纳正在探索签下皇家马德里边锋维尼修斯（Vinícius Jr）的可能性，后者的合同已进入最后一年。
皇马此前愿意将维尼修斯的税后薪资从 £12.8 million 提高到约 £17.1 million，但俱乐部与球员尚未接近达成新协议。
这家西班牙俱乐部还希望签下 RB莱比锡的左边锋迪奥曼德（Yan Diomande），他与维尼修斯司职同一位置，皇马曾开出 £84.5 million 的报价但被拒绝。
对这位象牙海岸球员的兴趣可能意味着皇马将倾向于允许维尼修斯离队。
皇马一直不愿满足维尼修斯对巨额签字费的要求，如果满足该要求，他的总收入将达到与基利安·姆巴佩（Kylian Mbappé）相似的水平。
这意味着这家联赛冠军球队必须让他成为薪水远超其他人的最高薪球员。布卡约·萨卡（Bukayo Saka）作为阿森纳薪水最高的球员，周薪约为 £300,000，税前年薪约为 £15.6 million。
他曾在两年前获得金球奖亚军。在错过以 £117 million 加盟切尔西的摩根·罗杰斯（Morgan Rogers）后，阿森纳一直在探索其他选择。
阿森纳尚未与皇马取得联系。去年他们曾就签下边锋罗德里戈（Rodrygo）进行谈判，他是维尼修斯在俱乐部和国家队的队友，但最终未能达成协议。
维尼修斯上赛季在各项赛事中打入 22 球并贡献 14 次助攻，且在世界杯的 5 场比赛中打入 4 球。
他可能会在明年夏天转会。阿森纳也尝试签下同样受到巴黎圣日耳曼青睐的迪奥曼德，但并不愿意为其支付超过 £85 million 的费用。迪奥曼德和维尼修斯由同一家经纪公司代理。
预计阿森纳本周将加大对布鲁诺·吉马良斯（Bruno Guimarães）的关注，并表示愿意为这位巴西中场提供 £70 million 的报价。吉马良斯定于周五返回纽卡斯尔联训练。
Hundred赛事的 观众人数 下降 18%
Simon Wilde
尽管天气良好且各球队拥有新所有者、新品牌以及更优秀的球员，但在前六场男子比赛后，Hundred赛事的观众人数下降了近 20%。
在椭圆球场（Oval）、Utilita Bowl、勋爵之地（Lord’s）、埃德加斯顿（Edgbaston）、海丁利（Headingley）和卡迪夫（Cardiff）举行的男子揭幕战共吸引了 89,413 名观众，而 2025, 年同一场地的首场比赛观众人数为 109,519 人，下降了 18.4%。除卡迪夫外，每个场地的观众人数均比相应的揭幕战有所下降。昨日在海丁利举行的一场由利兹太阳神队（SunRisers Leeds）对阵南部勇士队（Southern Brave）的比赛——参赛球员包括哈里·布鲁克（Harry Brook）、乔弗拉·阿彻（Jofra Archer）、阿迪尔·拉希德（Adil Rashid）和杰米·史密斯（Jamie Smith）——共吸引 11,628 人观赛，而去年该地首场比赛的观众人数为 12,575 人。在同一场地举行且在男子比赛之前的女子比赛观众人数在六场比赛中的五场同样有所下降。
自特许经营权在一次拍卖中被出售以来，票务销售流程发生了变化。此次拍卖筹集了 £520 million，使八支球队的估值达到 £975 million 并提高了薪水，从而吸引了更多知名海外球员。销售职责已从此前拥有该赛事的英格兰和威尔士板球委员会（ECB）转移。
• 大卫·沃尔什 (David Walsh) 谈关于 Pocagar 如何准备 创造历史 p2-3
在获得铜牌后落泪， 透露不和之争带来的代价 p4-5
诺里斯获得F1杆位 p16
未来不在他掌控之中。“我不知道会发生什么，那是让别人去猜测的，”豪（Howe）说道。“他是队长，在我们共事期间一直是一位令人难以置信的球员。我代表俱乐部的所有人，我们绝对热爱他并希望他留下。他预计在 7 月 31 日返回。”
克里斯托斯·佐利斯（Christos Tzolis）是上周以 £34 million 从布鲁格俱乐部（Club Bruges）加盟阿森纳的希腊边锋，他在昨日一场 3-0 击败 MK Dons 的友谊赛中登场。里斯·尼尔森（Reiss Nelson）、伊桑·恩瓦内里（Ethan Nwaneri）和 18, 岁的 凯达赫·奥尼尔（Ceadach O’Neill）均打入进球。
T
运动员——以及队友
大卫·沃尔什 (DAVID WALSH)
首席体育记者 阿尔普迪埃兹 (Alpe d’Huez)
他们在三周多前于巴塞罗那起程。骑行穿过比利牛斯山脉、中央高原、孚日山脉，直到抵达他们最后的战场——阿尔卑斯山。两周时间里天气极热，全程艰苦且毫无喘息之机，但最重要的是，这段旅程令人心醉神迷。
塔代伊·波加查 (Tadej Pogacar) 真是一位伟大的冠军。他或许是目前世界上最全面的运动员，然而在最后一个山地赛段，这位热爱率先冲线冠军提醒了我们，有些事情比获胜更重要。
倒数第二个赛段是一场史诗级的挑战，他们从标有“HC级”（超越分类）的抽屉中抽出了这个方案：铁十字山 (Croix de Fer)、电报峰 (Col du Télégraphe)、加利比埃峰 (Galibier)、萨雷讷峰 (Col de Sarenne)，然后，如同最后一次拧紧螺丝般，迎来阿尔普迪埃兹最后的四公里。如此之高的爬升高度，简直是为波加查量身定制的，尤其是他抵达环法赛此时的状态比以往任何时候都更少疲劳。
然而，这竟成了他选择成为一名“团队骑手”的一天，他决定为一名队友服务——来自墨西哥的 22 岁小将艾萨克·德尔·托罗 (Isaac del Toro)。德尔·托罗当天起步排名第三，身着代表最佳年轻骑手的白色骑行衫。波加查认为，他的职责是帮助团队保住德尔·托罗的骑行衫及其领奖台席位。当然，这个赛段他本可以轻松赢得冠军，作为球迷，我们希望他在萨雷讷峰上发起冲击，就像他前一天在阿尔普迪埃兹所做的那样，但他却选择了陪伴在德尔·托罗身边，全程护送他直到
社论
+2 min
温格高 (Vingegaard) 的 Visma-Lease a Bike 车队在开赛阶段赢得了团体计时赛
+4 min
+6 min
+8 min
+10 min
海拔 (m)
2,500
终点。他们最终获得第四和第五名，落后于该赛段冠军理查德·卡拉帕斯 (Richard Carapaz) 1分5秒，后者同时赢得了登山波点衫。卡拉帕斯在阿尔卑斯山表现出色，在三个阿尔卑斯山赛段中赢得了两个冠军，并在另一个赛段中获得第三名。然而，这次最新的胜利带有运气成分——对他而言是好事，但对 Visma-Lease a Bike 车队的车手塞普·库斯 (Sepp Kuss) 而言则是坏事。
库斯、卡拉帕斯和澳大利亚人贾伊·欣德利 (Jai Hindley) 在成功突围并得益于队友的无私助攻后，在挑战第三个特级攀升路段 (hors categorie) Sarenne 山口时拥有显著领先优势。在前一天，库斯和卡拉帕斯因为没有共同领骑，浪费了一个其中一人获胜的机会。
但他们对此并未吸取教训。卡拉帕斯发动进攻，另外两人随后反击，直到剧烈的节奏变化导致欣德利掉队。库斯知道自己在冲刺阶段无法击败卡拉帕斯，因此不断尝试通过进攻拉开距离。
显然，疲惫之情仅影响了卡拉帕斯的腿部，但他的内心驱动他继续前行。不过，库斯在从 Sarenne 山口下降并面对 Alpe d’Huez 最后 4 公里路段时，仍领先 25 秒。
库斯担心卡拉帕斯正在逼近（尽管实际上并未如此），于是他过度加速，在穿出隧道时摔车。不知为何他再次骑起，且仍保持 8 或 10 秒的领先。在这次小摔车后不久，发生了更严重的一次事故。由于在进入右转弯道时速度过快，库斯失去了对车的控制，撞上了一面 3 英尺高的墙，摔得比较狼狈但并不严重，并被高网挡住，免于坠入深谷。在再向前 2 米的地方，就没有防护网了。
“我太急了，”库斯在赛后用他标志性的低调语气说道。
虽然这位美国人是一名大巡回赛冠军，但他长期以来一直是顶级辅助车手 (équipier class) 之一。在 Sarenne 山顶，他将卡拉帕斯置于他想要的位置，但仍需处理下山路段。他从一场本可能极其严重的事故中幸免，这再次提醒人们，有些事情比获胜更重要。随着波加查 (Pogacar) 照看德尔托罗 (Del Toro)，雷姆科·埃文波尔 (Remco Evenepoel) 在接近终点时猛然加速，超越库斯夺得第二名。这似乎是一种不必要的残酷。
在 Alpe d’Huez 终点线前 100 米，德尔托罗转向他的队长并向其致谢。波加查拍了拍他的头，然后低声说：“不要停止蹬踏，这里有一小段上坡，我们还得骑到终点。”在抵达终点线时，两人互相搭肩，并在过线瞬间将手放在太阳穴上，食指向上伸展。
Tadej Pogacar Jonas Vingegaard Remco Evenepoel Florian Lipowitz Paul Seixas Juan Ayuso Tom Pidcock
波加查在最后一次攀升结束时赢得 第 3 赛段
第 20 赛段结果
Le Bourg-d’Oisans 至 Alpe d’Huez，170. 9km 1 R Carapaz (Ecu; EF Education-EasyPost) 4hr 59min 39sec; 2 R Evenepoel (Bel; Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) 落后 26sec; 3 S Kuss (US; Visma-Lease a Bike) 落后 31sec; 4 T Pogacar (Slvn; UAE Emirates-XRG) 落后 1min 5sec; 5 I del Toro (Mex; UAE Emirates-XRG) 同时间; 6 L Martinez (Fr; Bahrain Victorious) 落后 1min 7sec; 7 J Hindley (Aus; Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) 落后 2min 15sec; 8 M Skjelmose (Den; Lidl-Trek) 落后 2min 55sec; 9 J Ayuso (Sp; Lidl-Trek); 10 P Seixas (Fr; Decathlon CMA CGM) 两人同时间。 总排名：1 Pogacar 72hr 53min 44sec; 2 Evenepoel 6min 26sec; 3 Del Toro 9min 42sec; 4 Seixas 11min 56sec; 5 Martinez 13min 2sec; 6 Skjelmose 14min 59sec; 7 Ayuso 17min 48sec; 8 Carapaz 20min 00sec; 9 T Pidcock (GB; Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling) 29min 28sec; 10 J Jegat (Fr; TotalEnergies) 33min 21sec.
今日电视节目 最后一赛段，前往香榭丽舍大街 今日。电视：TNT Sports
大队在突围者之后 13 分钟抵达，托斯坦·特拉恩 (Torstein Traeen) 在第 4 赛段穿上黄衫
波加查被问到了这个问题。“你不明白这意味着什么？你不知道吗？”
“我不知道，”那个提问的记者说。“哈，toro [西班牙语中的‘公牛’]，我认为这很明显。伊萨克·德尔·托罗（Isaac del Toro），公牛。好了伙计们，我们得去赶火车了。明天见，”在走出采访室时，他不停地吟唱着：“Toro, Toro, Toro。”
早些时候，我向他提出，现在是他告诉我们有哪些事情比波加查赢得环法赛第 26 赛段更重要的时刻。“我始终感激队友的付出。我称赞他们的工作，以及他们为此付出的巨大努力。在过去的三周里，他们每天都得拼尽全力。今天当胡安 [Ayuso, Lidl-Trek] 处于领先位置时，我有点担心我们会失去[白色]领骑衫以及与伊萨克共同占据领奖台的机会，所以我决定全力支持伊萨克。”
像一名模范的团队骑手一样，波加查在距离终点 60 公里时 骑到了总成绩组的最前方，并以一个既能维持整体稳定又不会让队友承受过大压力的速度行驶。有时德尔·托罗似乎陷入了困境，但随后波加查会稍微减速，这样他的队友就又恢复了状态。
“到最后我意识到，队友是多么重要。我对他们每一个人都表达深深的敬意。这项工作很艰苦，我知道他们为了这个目标投入了多少。自行车界并没有意识到团队有多重要，为黄衫骑手保驾护航又是多么困难。今天，我意识到他们比大多数冠军都要优秀。他们为团队奉献了一切，我无法用语言表达我的感激之情。”
波加查不需要告诉我们。他已经向我们证明了。但这就是他的本色，这就是他的底色。在 2½ 周的时间里
波加查在包括图尔马莱山口在内的比利牛斯山脉赛段中，以 2min 38sec 的优势领先于温格高，赢得了第 6 赛段
波加查在中央高原地区以半分钟的优势领先于埃文波尔，赢得了第 10 赛段
他的父母米尔科（Mirko）和马尔耶塔（Marjeta）开着他们的露营车在法国各地游览，停在路边观看他骑行而过。马尔耶塔说，她最心动的时刻是看到他帮助德尔·托罗（Del Toro）在巴塞罗那获胜。在阿尔卑斯山赛段时，她和米尔科并不在场。相反，他们在周四将露营车转向东方，开往他们位于斯洛文尼亚的村庄。波加查（Pogacar）的祖母当时正在庆祝 80 岁生日，他们希望能够出席。
还有另一件事提醒人们，有些事情比率先冲线更重要。19 岁的法国之星保罗·塞克萨斯（Paul Seixas）将以第四名的成绩完成他的首届环法赛。在倒数第二个赛段开始时，他距离登上领奖台仅差 24 秒，随后在距离萨雷讷（Sarenne）峰顶五公里的地方，他
皮德科克（Pidcock）加入突围并在此次第 13 赛段（环法赛最长赛段）中追回了七分多钟的时间
因法国山火
由于法国西南部山火给应急服务部门带来了巨大压力，主办方缩短了路线，今日环法赛的最后一赛段将在香榭丽舍大街起终。该赛段长度将从 133 公里缩短为 89 公里，起点由图里（Thoiry）改为巴黎市中心。主办方 ASO 表示，最后一赛段的安全部队已重新部署，“以便加强对火灾受影响地区的救援工作”。
温格高在首个阿尔卑斯赛段 (15) 因锁骨骨折退赛。波加查与埃文坡尔以相同时间完赛
波加查在沃日山脉包含四个分级爬坡日的第 14 赛段夺冠
他让队友尼古拉斯·普罗多姆（Nicolas Prodhomme）和马修·里奇特洛（Matthew Riccitello）冲到前面并带速。
他们做到了，但遗憾的是，对于这位迪卡侬车队（Decathlon team）的年轻队长来说，速度的提升对他造成的伤害比对德尔·托罗（Del Toro）更大，他最终比这位墨西哥选手慢了 1 分 50 秒。但他试图寻找对手的弱点，如果短期内为此付出了微小代价，未来将会有所收获。他在本次环法赛中表现出色，总有一天，他将成为一名赢得环法赛的法国冠军。
领先者
汤姆·皮德科克（Tom Pidcock）是另一个对本次环法表现感到满意的人。他骑行状态良好，每当遇到困难时，他都会奋力拼搏，从未放弃。总成绩第九是一个不错的成绩。“能进入前十我非常开心，”他说。“在参加这次比赛之前，如果有人告诉我能进前十，我一定会签下协议。当然，我有野心，我已经在思考明年可以通过哪些改进来进一步接近这些人。但现在，我很满足。”
在阿尔卑斯山，他并不是唯一快乐的利兹人。在 Blueberry 咖啡馆，我遇到了来自利兹的马修·波义尔（Matt Boyle）。他穿着一件由环法赞助商 E.Leclerc 免费发放的波点骑行服。我们聊到了他在第 19 赛段前往阿尔卑斯休兹（Alpe d’Huez）时，目睹波加查带来那场迷人表演的经历。
马修与妻子乔（Jo）、两个儿子阿尔比（Albie）和亨利（Henry）、兄弟安德鲁（Andrew）以及父亲彼得（Peter）一同前来。“为了租到这里的 Airbnb 房源，我们得租一周，这样就有足够的时间为前往阿尔卑斯山的两个赛段做准备。我骑车并跑了跑步，乔则带着孩子们去山地骑行。真得感谢她，孩子们玩得很开心。”
他们在卡斯蒂兰酒店（Hotel Castillan）的阳台上观看波加查的绝妙骑行，那里距离终点有一公里多。“我们可以看到波加查追上卡拉帕斯（Carapaz）。太惊人了。我绝对热爱波加查。孩子们 [阿尔比和亨利] 觉得现场气氛不可思议。”上周，马修和 75 岁的父亲一起骑行登上了阿尔卑斯休兹。
“我得稍微慢一点，才能陪在他身边，”马修说。
彼得则说这不完全正确。“关键是要稳住。说这很简单听起来很傻，但我在登顶时并没有筋疲力尽。快到终点时感觉有点滑稽，但如果再多两公里，我还能继续。”约克郡男人确实不同。和儿子一样，彼得也是波加查的忠实拥趸。“他简直是至高无上的。无论是作为一个人还是一个骑手。对他表示敬意。”
说到波加查，他车队传出的消息是，他非常渴望今天在香榭丽舍大街夺冠，从而锁定追平纪录的第五个冠军头衔。
利波维茨在个人计时赛 (16) 中因锁骨骨骨折退赛，埃文坡尔比波加查快 28 秒
【图片：[[IMG_XXXX]]】 从左起：来自利兹的安德鲁、彼得（父亲）和马修·波义尔
处于历史边缘
除非发生意外，波加查将在今天创纪录地获得他的第五个环法冠军：
雅克·安克蒂尔 (法) 5 贝尔纳·希纳尔 (法) 5 米格尔·印杜拉因 (西) 5 埃迪·默克斯 (比) 5 塔代伊·波加查 (斯洛文尼亚) 4 克里斯·弗鲁姆 (英) 4 卢森·博贝 (法) 3 格雷格·勒蒙 (美) 3 菲利普·蒂斯 (比) 3
波加查在阿尔卑斯休兹 (19) 获胜
2026 年路线中的最高海拔出现在昨天的第 20 赛段，加利比耶山口 (Col du Galibier) 峰顶 (2,642米) 海拔 (米)
+2 分钟
+4 分钟
+6 分钟
+8 分钟
+10 分钟
2,500
马克·帕尔默 (MARK PALMER)
在首次参加大项锦标赛的首场赛事中就闯入决赛，这对肖恩·麦肯 (Sean McCann) 的蓝白相间苏格兰泳帽来说，无疑是一项真正的荣誉。
在托尔克罗斯国际游泳中心 (Tollcross International Swimming Centre) 的上午赛段结束时，在父母凯特 (Kate) 和盖里 (Gerry) 以及姐姐阿梅莉 (Amelie) 的陪伴下，现场爆满的观众们已充分领会到麦肯的实力——这位拉夫堡大学 (Loughborough University) 的学生在 400 米自由泳中获得了一个出人意料的决赛席位。
麦肯在那场比赛中仅名列第八，落后于冠军、2023 年世界冠军澳大利亚选手山姆·肖特 (Sam Short) 整整 12 秒，但关键时刻早在当天早些时候就已经发生。
麦肯以十分成熟的方式掌控了自己的分组赛（四组中的第三组），在半程时逐渐在人群中提升，从第七名升至第六名，再升至第四名。在接下来的四个泳池长度中，他稳住了这个位置，北爱尔兰选手丹尼尔·威芬 (Daniel Wiffen) 被夹在澳大利亚组合本杰明·古德曼斯 (Benjamin Goedemans) 和以利亚·温宁顿 (Elijah Winnington) 之间。
麦肯 3 分 52.65 秒的成绩在 50 年前足以打破世界纪录，但现在则完全无法确定这是否足以让他进入前八名。经过短暂但焦虑的等待，结果确认麦肯惊险地挤进了决赛名额，击败了同样来自苏格兰的卢克·霍恩赛 (Luke Hornsey)，后者在最后一组中的成绩慢了 1.07 秒。
乔安娜·罗塞尔 (JOANNA ROWSELL)
这位获得过两次奥运金牌和五次世界冠军的自行车选手谈论辣妹组合 (Spice Girls) 和黏糊糊的床单
麦肯的父母凯特和盖里为肖恩挺进决赛而欢呼
这对于麦肯的父母凯特和盖里，以及他的双胞胎姐姐阿梅莉来说，一定是一个极其喜悦的时刻。他们当时都坐在泳池一端的斯科特看台 (Scott stand) 上，该看台是以邓肯·斯科特 (Duncan Scott) 命名的，他是苏格兰最顶尖的奥运选手，并于周五晚上在这里赢得了精彩的 200 米个人混合泳金牌。然而，最重要的是，这是属于麦肯自己的时刻。这证明了他完全有能力独立支撑，即便他表现最出色的时候是呈水平状态（在泳池中）。
在长女玛德琳 (Madeleine) 失踪后，凯特和盖里一直坚决地表示，他们将竭尽全力让双胞胎尽可能过上正常的生活。
2007年的一次家庭度假，目的地是葡萄牙的普赖亚-达-卢兹度假胜地。如今，对于一项要求运动员每周游泳高达100公里的长距离训练计划来说，绝对没有任何“正常”可言。这些通常在清晨进行的努力成果，将在本次赛事的后续项目中展现，当时麦肯将参加800米和1500米项目。
当麦肯在赛后经过混合采访区时，他显得自信、放松，尽管说话声音轻柔。
一切开始于 2003. 夏天。英国自行车协会来到我们学校进行测试。正好撞上了两节数学课，所以我试了试。我没有紧身衣，也没意识到自行车没有刹车，当我试图将脚扣入踏板时，我摔了一跤。但出于某种原因，他们看到了我身上潜藏的天赋。
我的突破时刻 2005. 夏天。我在纽波特赢得了英国青少年女子追击赛，在我第一次区域赛中。
他在赛后不久地通过采访区。
“我太兴奋了，”麦肯说道，以防我们没从他那像旁边的克莱德河一样宽的笑容中猜出来。“（获得决赛资格）在参赛时并不是真正的预期，尤其是考虑到参赛选手的实力如此之强，但我很高兴看到我做到了。
“我不会说我感到压力，但在这么多人的注视下，我确实很紧张，我不仅想为自己表现出色，也想为苏格兰队而战。我确实很紧张，但我很高兴能游出一次不错的成绩。”
“（观众）太神奇了，在整个比赛过程中我都能听到他们的声音。他们激励我在最后100米里全力以赴。”
麦肯在英格兰长大，但通过格里获得了代表苏格兰参赛的资格，格里在格拉斯哥出生并长大。他与凯特在20世纪90年代初在苏格兰最大的城市相识，当时两人都在现已关闭的西医院担任初级医生。
在斯科特看台上，凯特穿着一件印有“是的先生，我可以跳舞”口号的T恤，这是为了向Baccara在1977年推出的热门歌曲致敬，该曲已成为苏格兰足球队支持者的颂歌。托尔克罗斯的观众几乎不需要提示就全力支持他们的选手以及其他苏格兰游泳运动员——梅根·巴恩斯、凯蒂·沙纳汉、霍莉·麦吉尔、埃文·琼斯、迪安·费恩、安娜·摩根、安格拉德·埃文斯、霍恩——
我在2003年就读于该校，20年后的今天，他依然在英国自行车协会工作。他是我一直可以信任的人，他对我是坦诚的——但并不严厉。
我的童年英雄 辣妹组合 (The Spice Girls)：每一个成员都毫无保留地做自己。作为一名13岁的孩子，我觉得他们每个人身上都有我的一点影子。
自行车运动最辉煌的时刻…… 2012. 夏天。在伦敦奥运会之前于马略卡岛训练。天气极好，我的状态极其强悍，体能极佳，感觉一切都水到渠成。
我最喜欢的自行车赛道 格拉斯哥的 Sir Chris Hoy 赛道。我保证我这么说不是因为英联邦运动会。它的坡度陡峭，直道长，而且相对较长，完全适合我。
我最不喜欢的自行车赛道 巴黎的圣-康坦-昂-伊夫林国家赛道 (Vélodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines)。事实上，它离巴黎很远。那里什么也没有。我参赛时正处于怀孕的第一孕期，而且呕吐得厉害。
想到这件事我就感到恶心。
最强劲的对手 澳大利亚。虽然他们没有登上奥运领奖台，但他们一直在向我们施压。
我学到最多的是 凯蒂·阿奇博尔德教会我要为自己而活，而不是为了他人；如果你不再享受其中，那么你就不是在为自己而做。
sey，以及周六上午同样参赛的男子4x100米自由泳接力队。
他还有两年的化学工程学位课程需要完成，如果顺利的话，2028年的夏天将是一个格外令人难忘的时刻。那年的7月将在洛杉矶迎来奥运会。
“我认为奥运会永远是更进一步的目标，因此能够在这里代表苏格兰参赛是一个很好的跳板，”他说。“希望未来几年的努力能让我有机会入选。”
“从很小的时候起我就非常享受竞争。这让训练中所有艰苦的个小时都变得值得，来到这里在这样的观众面前尽我全力地游泳。”
当2014年英联邦运动会最后一次来到格拉斯哥时，麦肯（McCann）本人也是托尔克罗斯（Tollcross）人群中的一员。从那时起，他在各个意义上都走过了很长一段路，首先为自己赢得了名声。
在训练Madison赛时，凯蒂·柯蒂斯（Katie Curtis）把我撞出了车。当我沿着赛道底部滑向所有英国自行车队名将聚集的地方时，我意识到自己无能为力，勉强才没把英国自行车队的精英们撞翻。之后有几个人很不高兴，但我身上全是碎屑和灼伤，晚上会渗液并粘在床单上。
我的私密快感 伦敦地铁。我对交通历史有一种书呆子式的痴迷，我会去参观那些已停止服务、但仍用于拍摄或培训的地铁站。
JANE BARLOW/PA WIRE
游泳 邓肯·斯科特（Duncan Scott）——英国队获得奖牌最多的奥运游泳运动员——在周五的男子200米个人混合泳中摘金。这位苏格兰人今天将再次出战，参加大约晚上9点进行的男子4x200米自由泳接力决赛。
网球 一场精彩的双赛将在今早开始。英格兰队——曾在2022年伯明翰赛中获得第四名——将在上午11点起在A组对阵澳大利亚；而B组则是苏格兰对阵威尔士。每个小组（共六支球队）的前两名将晋级半决赛。
田径赛将于明日开始，自行车赛将于周四开始。
当我意识到大势已去之时…… 在我不再为比赛感到紧张时。
我唯一的遗憾 是我没有更享受其中。每次去澳大利亚，我都在抱怨。为什么要抱怨？为什么不享受其中的每一部分？难道我就不能在墨尔本多逛几次吗？
给年轻运动员的建议 从失败中学习。享受过程，因为你花在训练上的时间远多于比赛。
克雷格·洛德 格拉斯哥
亚当·兰赛-皮蒂（Adam Ramsay-Peaty）回到了原点。他在同一座 Tollcross 国际游泳馆的四号泳道起跳，参加 100 米蛙泳决赛——就在这里，大约 12 年前，他为英国和英格兰赢得了 32 次胜利中的首场。但这次的表现并非我们对这位历史上最伟大的蛙泳运动员所期待的样子。
这位世界纪录保持者夺回冠军的希望破灭了，他落后于获胜的澳大利亚选手萨姆·威廉姆森（Sam Williamson）近半秒，而菲利普·诺瓦基（Filip Nowacki）获得银牌，这是泽西岛 36 年来获得的第一枚任何颜色的奖牌。对于这位三届奥运冠军来说，这远非他预期的回归方式，因为他在周五的预赛中轻松晋级，旨在弥补四年前出人意料的第四名成绩。
在 Tollcross 国际游泳中心的看台上，他的妻子、名厨戈登之女霍莉·兰赛（Holly Ramsay）在为他加油。兰赛-皮蒂在半程时处于第三位，且未能弥补差距，他的成绩为 59.65 秒，远落后于威廉姆森的 59.17 秒。
曾经的兰赛-皮蒂在比赛开始时就会让其他选手在后面追赶并夺金，而这次他在比赛的任何时间点几乎都没有领先。他的游泳状态像是一个在重强度训练阶段参赛的运动员：在水中的位置较低，兰赛-皮蒂的划水动作完全没有我们所熟知的那种流畅感。
兰赛-皮蒂地道地走向起跳台，做对了所有事情：穿着贴身的泳池外套保暖，泳帽和泳镜佩戴整齐，他的姿态完全像是一个准备为英格兰而战的杰出冠军——但在爬上起跳台时他犹豫了，而且从发令枪响起的那一刻起，他的比赛完全不像那个在 2014 年到 2021 年东京奥运会期间连续夺冠时期我们所熟悉的那个爆发力强、流畅、充满力量的皮蒂。
兰赛-皮蒂参加的是他的第四届英联邦运动会，他在 2014 年格拉斯哥以 19 岁之龄赢得了首枚奖牌。
自那时起，他在去年 12 月与兰赛结婚并与大多数家人关系破裂后，成为了八卦专栏的常客。兰赛-皮蒂在 2014 年 100 米项目上的获胜，开启了他在该项目上持续两年的几乎绝对统治地位。
这一连胜纪录在四年前的伯明翰以戏剧性的方式结束，当时他未能进入领奖台。皮蒂在 2023 年经历了一段艰难时期，当时他暂时离开体育赛场以处理心理健康问题。
他于 2024 年回归，分别在巴黎奥运会和多哈世锦赛上获得了银牌和铜牌。兰赛-皮蒂此前以 59.19 秒轻松通过半决赛，领先于 59.
兰赛-皮蒂不得不屈居铜牌，插图为关注比赛的妻子霍莉
他漫步而出， 其姿态完全 是一位准备 迎接战斗的 杰出冠军……
威廉森和泽西岛的明日之星 诺瓦基（Nowacki），现任世界青年
冠军。这位 31 岁的选手
将再次获得
赢得职业生涯第五枚
英联邦运动会
金牌的机会，
他将于今日参加 50米蛙泳项目的 预赛。
这场比赛对于诺瓦基来说 是一次突破， 他是拉姆塞-皮蒂（Ramsay-Peaty）APRace项目的大使。赛前的 “候赛室”是他通常 观察这位历史上 最伟大的短距离蛙泳运动员 的地方。在200米项目中更具优势的 诺瓦基表示：“我在候赛室里是个安静的人。我喜欢独处 并全身心地集中在我的比赛计划上。 他也非常相似。这是我代表泽西岛参加的 第一次英联邦运动会，所以对我来说意义重大。
“获得第一次曝光非常重要，我很高兴能这么早地获得这次机会。这是我第一次在国际上参加成年组长池比赛，所以我现在真的很开心能来到这里并尽我全力。
“在重大赛事中率先触壁是每个游泳运动员的梦想。我不经常回泽西岛，因为我在米尔菲尔德（Millfield）训练。我会在学期中假期间回去，但我们小时候一起训练过，能一起在队中非常特别。”
说道：“我学习了数学、经济学 和物理学，我希望能有一个好结果。我的模拟考成绩不是太好，所以祈祷好运吧。我想去拉夫堡大学（Loughborough）。”
那里正是皮蒂被打造成为奥运伟人的地方。诺瓦基对自己的目标保持低调，仅表示：“每个游泳运动员都会说奥运会是他们的目标。奥运会也是我的目标。”
英格兰的威廉·埃拉德（William Ellard）和 乔治亚·谢菲尔德（Georgia Sheffield）在分别赢得男子和女子S14 200米自由泳决赛时，均创造了新的运动会纪录。谢菲尔德险胜队友波比·马斯基尔（Poppy Maskill），后者获得银牌。英格兰的奥利·摩根（Ollie Morgan）在男子50米仰泳决赛中获得一枚银牌，成绩排在南非的彼得·科策（Pieter Coetze）之后。英格兰的 4x100米自由泳混合接力队在澳大利亚之后获得银牌，威尔士排名第三。
又一名之星退出
在苏格兰运动员 艾丽什·麦考根（Eilish McColgan）因伤退出 10,000米冠军卫冕战后， 英联邦运动会又失去了一位大牌球星。
35 岁的麦考根 尚未从脚部的压力性骨折中 恢复，这意味着她将无法 在明天的斯科茨敦体育场（Scotstoun Stadium） 家乡观众面前参赛。
麦考根表示：“遗憾的是，我将无法参加格拉斯哥 2026 赛会。 在伦敦马拉松之后由于脚趾受伤缺席了将近十周，这可能不会太令人意外。好消息是我已经恢复跑步了。”
图片来源
N
汤姆·奥尔纳特 (TOM ALLNUTT)
并非所有人都认同过去曾存在过一项“君子协定”，但如果确实存在，没有人否认它已经消失了。那些坚持认为该协定存在的人表示，一直以来都有一条明确但未公开的规则，即最顶尖的英格兰足球俱乐部绝不会挖掘对方最好的青训人才。现在情况变了。“现在是撕破脸了，”一位经验丰富的招募主管说道，“这已经演变成一场战争。”
随着有前途但缺乏经验的年轻球员被以曾经仅适用于资深职业球员的价格出售，英超联赛的年轻天才交易正呈现繁荣态势。就在今年夏天，已有 8 名 21 岁或更年轻的球员在英超联赛中完成了转会，总金额近 £150 million，而这 8 名球员在顶级联赛中的总首发次数仅为 10 次。
俱乐部们正在以此获利，但顶尖天才才是掌控局面的人。在英超青训招募这个“无法无天”的领域，最受欢迎的球员现在随心所欲地选择去向，不再顾忌宿敌之争，也忘记了旧日敌对。曼联即将从曼城签下两名 16 岁的中场球员——卡里姆·卡西姆 (Karim Cassim) 和大卫·埃泽 (David Eze)，以及从利物浦签下 16 岁的边锋艾萨克·孔德 (Isaac Konde)。曼城则达成协议，将从阿森纳签下 16 岁的中场球员米歇尔·恩杜卡 (Mishel Nduka)，而阿森纳则将另一名 16, 岁的球员凯兰·汤普森 (Kyran Thompson) 输给纽卡斯尔联。
许多此类交易由仲裁庭决定——当俱乐部无法就 24. 岁以下且合同到期的球员达成培养补偿费共识时，将通过该程序决定费用。但仲裁庭给出的数额几乎无法阻止俱乐部从竞争对手那里挖掘球员。今年 2 月，仲裁庭裁定利物浦必须为里奥·恩古莫哈 (Rio Ngumoha) 支付初始 £2.8 million，这位轰动业界的 17 岁边锋在两年前拒绝了切尔西的合同而加盟利物浦；如果触发某些条款，该金额可能达到近 £9 million。但恩古莫哈上赛季为利物浦出场 29 次，并在上个月代表英格兰队对阵新西兰队替补出场后给托马斯·图赫尔 (Thomas Tuchel) 留下了深刻印象。£9 million？如果现在出售，恩古莫哈的价值至少是这个数字的五倍。
恩古莫哈引发争议的利物浦转会给英格兰青训体系带来了剧震，那位招募主管坚称，这笔交易是随后爆发的“青训战争”的“发令枪”。
“它改变了一切，”他说，“俱乐部会想，‘好吧，你抢走了我们最好的 16 岁以下 [球员]，那我们就抢走你们最好的 14 岁以下球员，’如此循环往复。以前大家会对竞争对手俱乐部的这些球员表现出兴趣，但不会采取行动。而现在的现实是，没人管了。”
青训学院
由于脱欧后的规则意味着俱乐部在球员年满 18 岁之前无法签下英国以外的球员，而且即便如此，这些外籍球员必须通过证明其具备高水准的血统和经验来获得工作许可，这使得青训球员变得更加值钱。英超联赛的财务规则也加强了对青训球员的关注，因为出售这些球员所产生的费用允许被计入“纯利润”，因为获取他们的成本被视为零。与此同时，阵容限制规定，英超球队 25 个名额中的 8 个必须预留给本土球员，这意味着在年满 21 岁之前，必须在一家英足协（FA）附属俱乐部效力三年或三年以上。
随着这些变化让年轻人变得更加珍贵，青训学院在培养人才的同时，也在将其视为可出售的商品。这是一门获利丰厚的生意。今年夏天已经出售的 8 名 21 岁或更年轻的球员（全部被高度评价）分别是：Luka Vuskovic（19, 从托特纳姆热刺转会至布赖顿 & 霍夫阿尔比恩，转会费 £46 million，可能上升至 £50 million）、Tyrique George（20, 从切尔西转会至埃弗顿，转会费 £24 million）、Will Lankshear（21, 从托特纳姆转会至米德尔斯堡，转会费 £20 million）、Eliezer Mayenda（21, 从桑德兰转会至雷恩，转会费 £19 million）、Jeremy Monga（17, 从莱斯特城转会至曼彻斯特城，转会费 £10 million，可能上升至 £12 million）、Alfie Devine（21, 从托特纳姆转会至普雷斯顿北端，转会费 £6 million）、Reigan Heskey（18, 从曼城转会至科隆，转会费 £8 million）以及 Tynan Thompson（18, 从托特纳姆转会至曼彻斯特联，转会费 £8 million）。
托特纳姆热刺重新开放出售年轻球员，是出于改善其销售策略的愿望。他们新任的足球运营总监 Rafi Moersen（此前在曼城任职）正在监督一种在大型俱乐部中很常见的方法，即出售年轻人以筹集资金，但同时保留保护条款，以防他们未来大红大紫。在 Vuskovic 和 Lankshear 的交易中，热刺都包含了 20 per cent 的二次转会分成条款，以及匹配任何未来报价的权利。
随着竞争变得激烈，提供给顶尖年轻人的激励措施和薪水正在飙升。“积极的一面是，现在人们对青年的渴望非常真实，”一位资深英超俱乐部的青训总监说道。“消极的一面是，这些限制在国内制造了一种非常不切实际的情况，俱乐部向年轻且未经证明的天才投入荒唐数量的资金。这感觉就像是一场竞底竞争。”
俱乐部还在进一步向下挖掘年龄组，以寻找市场空白。据《The Athletic》报道，切尔西上周达成协议签下了 15 岁的美国边锋 Benji Flowers，而迈克尔·卡里克（Michael Carrick）将 15 岁前锋 JJ Gabriel 纳入了曼联前往挪威之旅的季前准备名单。一位青训总监回忆说，有人曾要求与他俱乐部的“精英 6 岁以下组”进行一场比赛——而他
还没进 一线队 的孩子 周薪就拿 20千磅。 简直是耻辱”
利物浦最终可能通过仲裁向切尔西支付的 Ngumoha转会费 看来是一笔便宜货
不得不解释（某种东西）并不存在——而另一人在被问到寻找16岁及以上球员时打断了对话。 “九岁，”他说，“现在更像是九岁及以上。”
所提供的待遇方案会让许多人感到心惊。那些被高度评价、几乎没有一线队出场经验的青少年，其周薪可达£10,000至40,000之间，更不用说在附近私立学校的学费，这符合英超联赛所允许的“补偿性教育与支持”。如果俱乐部能挖掘到一名足以覆盖其余成本的超级巨星，这些薪水在财务上是合理的，但在业内，人们对如此早地提供如此高薪感到担忧。
彼得伯勒联足球俱乐部主席达拉·麦卡南西（Darragh MacAnthony）上周告诉talkSPORT，他认为应该对20岁以下球员的收入设定上限，并应设立信托基金，球员只有在年龄增长后才能提取。 “我们接过来自曼城以及所有顶级俱乐部的[租借]年轻球员——他们进来时，周薪就拿25, 30千磅，”他说。“金钱正在损害我们这项运动中很大一部分的青年群体。我非常支持改变这一点。任何还没为一线队出战的18, 19岁球员，都不应该每周赚10, 15, 20千磅。简直是耻辱。”
讽刺的是，对于许多这类球员来说，晋升路径和机会更具吸引力，各家俱乐部正争先恐后地向他们最顶尖的苗子证明，他们将获得早早进入一线队的机会。去年，19岁的后卫艾登·海文（Ayden Heaven）离开了阿森纳（他在那里没有英超出场记录），转投曼彻斯特联，并在上个赛季的联赛中获得了18次出场机会。Vuskovic对热刺今夏签下Jan Paul van Hecke和Marcos Senesi感到不安，而埃弗顿则从切尔西签下了20岁的George，交易价值高达£24 million。
高昂转会费，极少出场机会
英超俱乐部出售的 21 岁及以下球员，在首发次数少于 10, 场的情况下转会费超过 £5m 的名单
Luka Vuskovic 热刺 $\rightarrow$ 布莱顿 0 £46m
Tyrique George 切尔西 $\rightarrow$ 埃弗顿 2 £24m
Will Lankshear 热刺 $\rightarrow$ 米德尔斯堡 0 £20m
Eliezer Mayenda 桑德兰 $\rightarrow$ 雷恩 8 £19m
Jeremy Monga 莱斯特城 $\rightarrow$ 曼城 0 £10m
Tynan Thompson 热刺 $\rightarrow$ 曼联 0 £8m
Reigan Heskey 曼城 $\rightarrow$ 科隆 0 £8m
Alfie Devine 热刺 $\rightarrow$ 普雷斯顿 PP 0 £6m
sion too, driven by assurances about playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world.
战术性出场（即通过给予球员出场机会来美化履历并抬高身价）是一个众所周知的伎俩，但早期的机会也可以帮助俱乐部留住球员，而不仅仅是为了出售。莱斯特城在尽可能长的时间里留住了极具天赋的 Monga，他们在 2025, 年 4 月，即他签署奖学金合同的一个月前，让他 15 岁时就完成了首秀。Monga 又待了一年，甚至在冠军联赛期间也在队中。在他 7 月 10, 日年满 17 岁且奖学金合同转为职业合同后，曼城必须向莱斯特城支付 £10 million，且金额将升至 £12.5 million；而如果该交易在仲裁庭解决，支付金额仅为上述数字的一小部分。
这些球员是否大多数都已经准备好迎接成年队的机遇仍有争议。一些发展圈人士认为，足球运动正变得越来越年轻化，球员们现在比以往任何时候都更早地准备就绪。年轻人拥有以前不具备的优势——心理教练、私人教练、私立学校、营养师——同时也享受着更温和的一线队过渡期。孩子们在等待机会的同时还要帮年长职业球员刷球鞋的时代已经过去了。“他们现在在非常年轻时所获得的所有发展都在产生回报，”阿森纳主教练米克尔·阿尔特塔去年表示。“15, 16 岁的球员看起来已经准备好踢成年足球了，这非常奇怪。”
但并非所有人都同意。像阿森纳的 Max Dowman、利物浦的 Ngumoha 以及曼城的 Monga 这样卓越的天才可能拥有自己的成长时间表，但传统观点仍然认为，青少年在被投入英超的“大熔炉”之前，需要经过仔细的塑造。随着各俱乐部争夺顶尖天才，人们对高额薪水以及频繁转会所带来的不安性质的影响仍持有担忧。“稳定性有利于发展，”一家资深英超俱乐部的青训总监说道。“我不认同那种认为给年轻人投入的钱越多，表现就越好的观点。现在是残酷的竞争环境，但我们应该警惕这种发展方向。”
PL 首发次数 转会费
一名被高度评价但极少一线队经验的青少年球员可获得的周薪（约 £40k）
莱斯特城青训毕业生 Monga，17 岁，已转会至曼城
Andreas Campomar
阿根廷与其区域邻国之间关系紧张，这在拉丁美洲人中是众所周知的。该国在进入世界杯决赛时处于劣势，且全世界都在为它的对手欢呼，这表明其形象问题更为严重。另一方面，西班牙依然深受欢迎：一种优雅的传控比赛——尽管有时会让观众感到疲劳——似乎强化了人们心中“足球应有的样子”，而非其现实状态。
阿根廷所招致的谴责程度，与其球队在本届赛事中的表现相比似乎并不相称。许多批评可能是自找的，尤其是在比赛结束后，但该国也成为了环境的牺牲品。人们认为国际足联（Fifa）通过偏袒的裁判判罚来支持卫冕世界杯冠军，这种认知本质上就具有共谋色彩。当然，这个足球界的自我监管且自我吹捧的机构希望利昂内尔·梅西能进入决赛，阿根廷同样如此。但无论哪个国家都会抓住任何可能的运气。
在与阿根廷的揭幕战后，阿尔及利亚足球协会提交了一份正式投诉，称对梅西过于宽容，而对于一次笨拙的挑战，一张红卡本会是更好的处理方式。然而，埃及队的反应更为激烈。在阿根廷从败北边缘夺回胜利后，主教练霍萨姆·哈桑提出了一个反问句：“为什么体育运动中没有公平？”
在面对他认为命中注定的结果而无能为力时，他唯一能做的就是自我否定：不再观看本届赛事的其余比赛。这种阴谋论的语言完全出自拉丁美洲足球的词典。该地区的大多数国家几十年来一直使用这种语言。
在 2014 年世界杯上，路易斯·苏亚雷斯因撕咬意大利后卫乔治·基耶利尼而受到处罚，这引起了外交反响。乌拉圭人认为，这在最好的情况下是一场英意共谋，而最坏的情况下则是国际足联不想让他们赢得冠军。乌拉圭总统佩佩·穆希卡称这次禁赛是“法西斯主义”，并将国际足联称为“一群老混蛋”。但令人震惊的是，英国媒体攻击乌拉圭核心球员时的那股凶猛程度。这像是一种傲慢，尤其是涉及拉丁美洲人时。
十二年后，似乎没有什么改变。在英格兰半决赛出局后，不得不将愤怒保留给托马斯·图赫尔的英国评论员们，现在有了攻击阿根廷人的机会：当恩佐·费尔南德斯对保·库巴尔西的一次完全不必要的挑战导致他领到第二张黄牌时；以及在混乱的赛后场面中，当阿根廷中场莱昂德罗·帕雷德斯字面意义上地与欢庆的西班牙人发生肢体冲突时。
然而，我们也曾在阿根廷的拉普拉塔河地区同胞（“Rioplatenses”，即拉普拉塔河地区的人）身上见过这种行为：乌拉圭的阿古斯丁·卡诺比奥推搡摩洛哥裁判并试图在边线发起冲突。前英格兰球员们排队进行谴责：乔·哈特认为这种行为“令人厌恶”，而加里·内维尔则称帕雷德斯为“一个耻辱”。
为了抵达那里，梅西重复了马拉多纳在 36 年前所做的事情，拖着一支平庸的阿根廷队进入了世界杯决赛。在以 2-0 落后于埃及的情况下反超获胜后，他帮助球队再次完成了两次奇迹般的逃脱——分别是对阵十人的瑞士队，以及一支势头正盛但已精疲力竭的英格兰队。
凭借纯粹的 aguante —— 一个包含忍耐、对抗、忠诚与坚韧的拉普拉塔河地区词汇 —— 梅西凭意志力带领他的球队能够连续争夺奖杯。或许是因为赛后的冲突，对这场比赛的分析被赋予了一种它不应有的偏见。这并不是 2018 年西班牙给阿根廷带来的 6–1 场 baile（“舞步”）之辱，当时受伤的梅西在场边观看。这也不是许多人所批评的那种沉闷的比赛。
他们在决赛中的 顽强精神不应被 低估 当阿根廷的 灵魂处于危急关头时
尽管西班牙占据了压倒性的控球率，但这依然是一场激烈的较量。两种拥有悠久足球历史的文化在足球风格上的鲜明对比，使得这场比赛更具观赏上的复杂性。而阿根廷队在防守时的那种顽强不应被低估。费尔南德斯的被罚下，仅是增加了一场决赛的险象，而在这场比赛中，阿根廷的一切都处于危急关头：包括其灵魂。
尽管遭遇失败，但阿根廷媒体在很大程度上仍持有赞赏态度，这是有原因的。阿根廷队已经尽了全力。尽管也有少数批评者。阿根廷记者罗嫩·苏阿尔克（Ronen Suarc）看出了问题所在：“别误会，确实有一场针对我们的运动，但我们也必须承认，我们很傲慢，我们自以为是，而且我们对自己的评价高于他人对我们的评价。”
但尽管存在普遍的反对之声，阿根廷这种永不言败的态度中也蕴含着一种扭曲的高贵感。此外，这次失败揭示了某些更有趣的事情：这位孤独的队长已经变得多么“阿根廷化”了。在梅西的职业生涯早期，他的“阿根廷特质”（Argentinidad）曾受到质疑：称他是一个“pecho frío”（冷胸膛），这个词是指那些不愿为国家流血流汗的人。
梅西双腿伸展地坐在球场上的形象，在很多方面反映了他国家的地理和文化孤立。哲学家劳尔·斯卡拉布里尼·奥尔蒂斯（Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz）曾将阿根廷人描述为“el hombre que está solo, y espera”（那个孤独且等待的男人）。梅西的“阿根廷特质”现在完成了一个圆环。就像另一个阿根廷象征马拉多纳一样，梅西赢得过一次世界杯，随后又因为一个球而让一座奖杯从手中溜走。
H
西班牙之势 夺得切尔西冠军
你如何应对从世界杯向国内足球转型的巨大过渡？这是一个由前往遥远城市的俱乐部巡演构成的“迷离空间”，将球员和教练描绘成足球传教士；而疯狂的转会活动中，抢单现象甚至比梅费尔（Mayfair）的房地产市场还要严重。
由于有九家俱乐部更换了新主帅或近乎全新的主帅，我们正走向未知。这足以让人怀念阿根廷对阵佛得角的那场比赛——在世界杯 32 强赛中，那场比赛最终比任何人预期的都要刺激。事实上，在票价虚高和政治干预之余，今年夏天的许多场比赛都非常迷人，弱队们发挥超常，这意味着赛事的扩军并没有像最初担忧的那样具有破坏性。
完全不同的形态。这非常具有西班牙风格，考虑到西班牙被加冕为世界冠军，这很合理，因为他们一定知道自己在做什么。
当然，最重要的是，我们需要一个新的叙事。贴在米克尔·阿尔特塔（Mikel Arteta）身上的“伴郎”标签已不再适用。他做到了。虽然过程并非极其震撼，但在连续三年获得亚军之后，这家俱乐部的主教练为球队策划了 22 年来的首个英超冠军。
这在很大程度上是由定位球优势驱动的，如果裁判严厉打击角球时的推搡，这种优势可能会被削弱，从而产生一些更流畅的比赛方式。阿森纳的统治期将会到来吗？如果该俱乐部能够自信地签下摩根·罗杰斯（Morgan Rogers），我们可能会认为这是可能的，但由于切尔西出手迅速，以 £117 million 的无争议价格抢走了这名英格兰中场，所需的阵容增强工作尚未完成。
至少是因为他们放弃了签入没有场上导师的极年轻球员这一不合逻辑的政策。罗杰斯已经是“高龄”的 23 岁，而即将从水晶宫转会而来的后卫马克斯昂斯·拉夸鲁瓦（Maxence Lacroix）则是令人震惊的 26 岁。这表明老板们现在更倾向于听从哈比·阿隆索（Xabi Alonso）——他是经理（manager）而非主教练（head coach）——而不是听从之前的继任者。在无需担心欧洲赛事的压力且有一位高雅的经理掌舵的情况下，这家俱乐部很可能会繁荣发展。
利物浦在解雇阿尔内·斯洛特（Arne Slot）后，也转向了一位巴斯克人，即安多尼·伊劳拉（Andoni Iraola）。这位前伯恩茅斯主教练似乎对他任命所引起的关注以及他的每句话突然被分析而感到有些晕头转向，但他说的都是正确的话，强调集体的重要性，强调他并不比球员重要，并承诺球迷将看到一支进攻且勤勉的球队。在他执教南海岸期间，伯恩茅斯在九场比赛后排名联赛第 19 位，因此他现在最需要的也许是时间来灌输他的压迫战术。
无缝衔接，而且果不其然，罗斯（Rose）是一位喜欢球队带来高能量的教练。
罗斯的首场比赛是对阵曼城。尽管佩普·瓜迪奥拉（Pep Guardiola）的离开早已在预料之中，但看到恩佐·马雷斯卡（Enzo Maresca）执掌帅印仍会感觉很奇怪。这位前切尔西主教练无疑会对罗德里（Rodri）在世界杯上获得金球奖感到欣喜，但这位西班牙中场因背部受伤（可能需要手术）而将缺席赛季初的比赛。
另一位意大利人罗伯托·德泽比（Roberto De Zerbi）并非从零开始，但他在托特纳姆热刺的项目肯定还处于雏形阶段。该俱乐部上赛季险些降级，对此的回应是开启了一场购物狂欢，引进了桑德罗·托纳利（Sandro Tonali）、马特乌斯·费尔南德斯（Mateus Fernandes）、简-保罗·范赫克（Jan Paul van Hecke）和马科斯·塞内西（Marcos Senesi）——如果大多数都很昂贵的话，这些都是明智的交易。如果这家俱乐部连续第三个赛季在降级区边缘徘徊，球迷究竟会责怪谁？
没有哪位教练比奥利弗·格拉斯纳 (Oliver Glasner) 让我们更感到惊讶了，他对水晶宫管理层的现状感到沮丧，并提前宣布离职。这让我们以为他会把裤腿塞进袜子里，去寻找一家绝不会削弱他的地位，反而能重视他的
经理且 没有欧洲 赛事， 切尔西 很可能会 大展宏图
贡献。随后他来到了 诺丁汉森林，那里的老板 埃万格洛斯·马里纳基斯在上一季解雇了三位 经理，并在今年夏天又增加了一位。如果格拉斯纳 到九月为止还没赢得奖杯，预计他将面临风险。
格拉斯纳在伦敦东南区的继任者是皮埃尔·萨日，他曾 效力于名字极其宏大的欧约纳克斯塑料谷队（Oyonnax Plastics Vallée），并且属于 那一批没有职业球员生涯，但凭借天生的管理 天赋而崭露头角的教练。他获得了一份极佳的工作， 因为水晶宫将参加欧罗巴联赛，但这也将是一场相当艰巨的 平衡之战。
富勒姆似乎在努力避免获得欧洲赛事的资格，并且 在更换他们深爱的主教练马可·席尔瓦时， 任命了阿尔瓦罗·阿尔贝洛亚。他拥有六个月执教皇家马德里的 经历，这相当于在普通工作中五年的强度。他为英超联赛 注入了更多西班牙式的精明。
所以，感谢弗兰克·兰帕德和加里·奥尼尔，这两位英国 经理分别带领升级的考文垂城和伊普斯威奇镇回到了英超联赛。兰帕德 必然是英格兰队待命的候选主教练。他的俱乐部习惯性地被 称为“弗兰克·兰帕德的考文垂”，这表明了他所受到的 尊重。而且他是英国人。只是随口一提。
迈克尔·卡里克也是如此，他虽不是新面孔，但正进入他作为 曼彻斯特联正式主教练的第一个赛季，此前他以极其温和的方式 将俱乐部从鲁本·阿莫林严重的 顽固 状态中拯救了出来。到目前为止，所有新任经理 似乎都极其理智。这种情况不可能持久。 而世界杯现在看起来像是很久，很久以前的事情了。就像我对 挪威将夺冠的预测一样。
至于哪支球队将赢得 英超联赛，好吧，现在还早了点，而且更多转会即将发生，但
John Westerby
安东尼·约沙亚在经历了一番惊险之后，最终战胜了克里斯蒂安·普伦加，从而为他今年晚些时候与泰森·富里之间备受期待的对决扫清了障碍。普伦加这位名不见经传的阿尔巴尼亚选手，曾是一个潜在的陷阱，约沙亚在沙特阿拉伯的吉达超级穹顶体育馆成功避开了这一风险，但在剧烈的第一回合中，他被击倒在地并被判定为站立计数。
约沙亚坚持撑到了第一回合结束，并在接下来的回合中迅速掌控局面，在该回合进行到2分43秒时，通过一组“右-左-右”组合拳将普伦加击倒。在经历了第一回合展现出的脆弱后，这次高潮的到来在带来快感的同时，也带来了一种解脱感。
由于这是约沙亚在近两年前于温布利球场惨败给丹尼尔·杜波依斯后的首场正式比赛，这场被宣传为“回归之战”的比赛对他而言至关重要，旨在证明在36, 岁的高龄，他的运动能力和出拳威力依然强劲。这次击倒证明了他的力量超出了普伦加的承受能力，约沙亚完成了眼下的任务。
至此，他已通过了与富里对战前的最后一个障碍。这场比赛无疑将成为当代英国重量级拳击界两大顶尖名将之间一场利润丰厚的对决。比赛细节尚未最终敲定，但预计将在秋季举行，约沙亚强烈希望这场比赛能在英国本土进行。这很可能是两位拳击手最后一次获得巨额报酬的机会，也是英国拳击迷们终于可以开始期待的一场盛事。
尽管约沙亚曾两度获得世界冠军，但近段时间他在赛 ring 上的记录并无太多可夸之处。在第二次输给奥列克桑德尔·乌西克后的四年里，他连续击败了四名较低水平的对手，随后在2024. 年9月于温布利被杜波依斯击倒。有些人质疑这次失败是否预示着他的职业生涯将走到终点，但约沙亚决定继续战斗。
然而，自那时起他唯一参加的比赛是去年12月与YouTuber杰克·保罗的一场表演赛，因此他需要证明自己不仅在票房上，而且在赛 ring 上依然具备竞争力。在那场戏剧性的第一回合中，他在前20 秒就被一次凶猛的右勾拳击倒。
观众人数 下降 18%
Fury与 Joshua之战 很可能是 两名拳击手的 最后一次巨额 酬金之战
与主办郡俱乐部共同交给新所有者。ECB 仍提供支持。
许多新所有者来自印度（他们在那里经营 IPL 球队）或美国，他们可能仍在摸索如何最好地推广其球队。消息人士私下承认，某些方的启动进程可能较晚。
来自 Prenga。他被另一记右勾拳击得踉跄，退回绳圈，随后被判定为站立计数。毫无疑问，Joshua 摇晃了。
这或许暴露出他近期缺乏赛场活动的短板。这也是他自那场致命车祸后的首次比赛；在与 Paul 比赛十天后，那场发生在尼日利亚的车祸夺走了他两名最亲密朋友的生命，Joshua 本人也受伤住院。在进入赛场时，他的衣襟上印着两人的名字：Sina Ghami 和 Latif Ayodele。他随后谈到，他深感对他们家属负有责任，同时这次比赛的训练起到了分散注意力、让他不再回想七个月前在拉各斯-伊巴丹高速公路上那次创伤性事件的作用。
至于 Prenga，他因其击拳潜力而被视为威胁，他在所有 20 场职业赛中均通过击倒获胜。作为前踢拳手，35 岁的他比 Joshua 小一岁，体重 18st 9lbs，比这位英国对手重 10 磅。Joshua 比他与 Paul 比赛时重 8 磅，但比他输给 Dubois（他最近一次面临的严峻挑战）时轻 1 磅。
这场比赛被 Prenga 的阵营称为一场“一个毫无损失的拳手与一个输不起一切的拳手”之间的对决。诚然，尽管 Prenga 在此前 21 场职业比赛中仅输掉一场，但他从未面对过像 Joshua 这种量级的对手。这是他制造惊喜的机会。“在重量级拳击中，一记重拳就能改变一切，”Joshua 的推广人 Eddie Hearn 曾如此说道。这句话一度看来将成为 Joshua 的噩梦，但他顶住了压力，在第二回合利用经验占据上风。
SunRisers Leeds 球队在约克郡出售该特许经营权的全部股份后承认，“我们需要吸引观众”，但表示在 Headingley 的首日比赛是“一个良好的开端”。
在比赛开始前，SunRisers 向支持者分发了橙色旗帜，这促使 Maran 补充道：“我看到了很多橙色，这对我们来说是一个伟大的开始。显然，对于他们 [球迷] 来说这是一个新品牌。我们
只要从这里开始成长。”在竞争性活动方面，随着足球世界杯结束，且英超联赛直到 8 月 21 日才开始（比 8 月 16 日在 Lord’s 举行的 Hundred 决赛晚 5 天），Hundred 赛程拥有一个清晰的时间窗口。
据了解，周二在 Oval 举行的揭幕战大约发放了 4,000 张免费票。Oval 是 MI London 的主场，该队在之前以 Oval Invincibles 的名义赢得了过去三届男子赛事。官方公布的观众人数为 20,540。
至于拟议中的与 Fury 的对决——这场saga（长篇剧集）的持续时间几乎与戏剧《捕鼠器》一样长——两名拳手都已安全地完成了他们的热身赛。Fury 消除“赛场锈迹”的方式是在周五于泰国与一名 46 岁的波兰人 Mariusz Wach 比赛。Wach 在之前的十场比赛中输了七场。这场比赛没有进行电视转播，版权仅授予了 Fury 正在拍摄的 Netflix 节目，他随后在第七回合取得了胜利。
通过击败 Prenga，Joshua 履行了他的约定，现在可以开始期待与 Fury 的对决了，那场比赛将比他昨晚在吉达的决斗更令他感到吃力。
这两位英国重量级拳手可能已过了巅峰期——Fury 下个月满 38 岁，而 Joshua 将在 10 月满 37 岁——但这不会削减拳击迷中此时开始积聚的期待感。
标准票价已上涨至约 £35 至 £55，高于 2021 年的水平，当时入场费的设定是为了与 Vitality Blast 的票价相竞争。
RICHARD PELHAM/GETTY IMAGES
英格兰队希望在此 挖掘下一个 穆因·阿里 (Moeen Ali)
西蒙·怀尔德 (SIMON WILDE) 板球记者
理查德·汤普森在担任 ECB 主席的四年里，处理过许多事务，尤其是近期围绕男子国家队的动荡，但如果说有一件事他希望在任期结束后被人们铭记，那不是本·斯托克斯 (Ben Stokes)、布伦登·麦卡伦 (Brendon McCullum) 或是“巴兹球” (Bazball)，而是一个旨在改变基层板球以及提升这项运动整体影响力的项目，该项目目前正加速推进。
该计划涉及建设可全天候、全年使用的全天候板球圆顶馆。其核心理念是将这些场馆安置在最需要的地方，这主要意味着将板球运动重新带回那些在过去一代人时间里已经失去该项运动的内城地区。
汤普森在担任主席的第一年访问了位于布拉德福德公园大道板球俱乐部 (Bradford Park Avenue Cricket Club) 附近一个废弃停车场内的试点圆顶馆，深受启发。他立即意识到，这为重新连接那些热爱该项运动但缺乏设施的社区提供了一种手段。
《板球公平性》(Equity in Cricket) 报告在 2023 年得出结论，认为板球运动深受根深蒂固的种族主义之苦。
我们在伍尔弗汉普顿 (Wolverhampton) 附近的威伦霍尔 (Willenhall) 参加 ECB 第三座圆顶馆的落成典礼。该馆毗邻由锡克教慈善组织运营的 Sporting Khalsa 足球俱乐部，地理位置优越，能够为经济欠发达地区的庞大且多样化的人群提供机会。出席人数令人印象深刻，既有社区组织者，也有涵盖各种年龄、族群和能力的抱负不凡的球员。
“我们的目标是，到 2028 年，板球成为全国包容性最强的运动，”汤普森说。“这是一个极具挑战性的目标。我相信这将帮助我们更快地实现这一目标。在这里，你可以看到现代英国的缩影：锡克教徒、印度教徒、男女儿童，直到七十多岁的老人，以及残障人士……你涵盖了社会的每一个阶层。”
“我们的运动以一种其他运动无法实现的方式服务于广泛的社区和能力人群。如果没有这些圆顶馆，这一切不可能也不会发生。我在布拉德福德看到的景象令我震撼，每周通过圆顶馆参与的人数之多令人惊叹。”
“讽刺的是，鉴于城市中许多球场被毁并铺上了混凝土，我们现在反而开始寻找混凝土（地基）。如果我们有了空地，剩下的事情我们就能搞定。我们与文化、媒体和体育部 (DCMS) 以及英格兰体育局 (Sport England) 合作，确保这些场馆建在有社区准备使用的地方。今天就是一个很好的例子：一旦建成，砰地一声，它就火爆了。”
次周，政府宣布将投入 300 万英镑 (£3million) 支持在伯明翰、博尔顿、德比、纽卡斯尔和诺丁汉建设另外五座圆顶馆，以接续在布拉德福德、达文和威伦霍尔已投入运行的场馆。卢顿的另一座圆顶馆预计将于下月投入使用。
“‘百分球’ (The Hundred) 的出售绝对让这一进程加快了，”汤普森补充道。“投资不能花在没有明显影响的事情上，它必须是跨时代的，必须成为一份遗产。如果我们做对了，凭借配套资金和来自我们 4500 万英镑 (£45million) 的赞助，我们可以将其规模扩大三倍，而 1.5 亿英镑 (£150million) 能做的事情极其之多。当然，4500 万英镑 (£45million) 能相对快速地建成 40 座圆顶馆。” 4500万英镑
ECB 明确的目标是在未来几年内建成 40 座圆顶馆。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 主图：威伦霍尔的圆顶馆。 右二：全天候中心的航拍图。 右一：当地青少年与汤普森共同出席圆顶馆的正式落成典礼。 左一：汤普森在全国第三座 ECB 圆顶馆外。
汤普森表示，如果没有去年出售八百队（Hundred teams）所筹集的资金，这一切都不可能实现。其中 10 per cent 的资金被拨给基层和休闲比赛。这让英格兰和威尔士板球委员会（ECB）有了 £45 million 可供支配。
一个重要的元素是，圆顶建筑虽然由耐候材料制成——在本案例中是钢壳外覆PVC——且包含照明和球网等技术元件，但其建设成本相对较低且速度快。一座砖砌的体育馆可能耗资 7.5 百万英镑，且可能需要三年时间才能获得规划许可；而一个圆顶建筑则可以用 100 万英镑在 18 个月内建成。一座典型的体育馆每小时运行成本为数百英镑，而圆顶建筑每小时约为 11 英镑。
这些圆顶由 Total-play 公司建设，该公司由前北安普顿郡板球俱乐部 (Northamptonshire CCC) 总地勤主管大卫·贝茨 (David Bates) 经营，其规模各异——布拉德福德 (Bradford) 的场馆由两个圆顶组成，每个圆顶包含五个练习网道；卢顿 (Luton) 的将设有七个网道，而威尔恩霍尔 (Willenhall) 则有三个。但这些球网是可伸缩的，这意味着圆顶不仅可用于训练，也可以在比赛时开启。
[[IMG_XXXX]] FABIO DE PAOLA 为《星期日泰晤士报》拍摄
其意图是让那些没有训练设施的俱乐部和没有运动场的学校使用这些设施。
“当他们在学校发现板球的乐趣时，他们会被引导进入当地俱乐部，”汤普森 (Thompson) 说道。“你建立起技能和路径，然后他们就想参加完整的比赛。[诸如] Chance to Shine、非裔加勒比参与计划 [Ace] 和 Lord’s Taverners 等慈善机构作为执行合作伙伴加入，提供教练和设备。”
“我们希望在 12 个月内，板球能成为特殊教育学校中的第一大运动，而这些设施将有助于实现这一目标。”
其他运动也同样受欢迎。“如果这能被用于板球以外的项目，绝对是非常理想的，”英格兰和威尔士板球委员会 (ECB) 的设施与规划主管丹·马森 (Dan Musson) 表示。“这处 [威尔恩霍尔] 设施每周可以开放 100 小时或更多，而且这样做在经济上是有意义的。”
“网球、羽毛球、青少年网球、曲棍球练习和地毯草地保龄球都是可能的。在人们在户外打板球的夏天，周六和周日的时段是其他运动的黄金机会。扩大规模 [至 40 个圆顶] 的选项是由主席的热情推动的，他一直全力支持我们。我们正开始与中央政府和地方政府接洽。这让很多人感到兴奋。”
尽管大构想是让这些圆顶帮助板球成为全国基层最具包容性的运动，但一个良性的结果可能是，它能帮助更多来自代表性不足社区的球员找到进入职业比赛、并最终进入英格兰国家队的途径。
Ace 和南亚板球学院 (SACA) 已经在这一方面开展了有价值的工作——本赛季有五名 SACA 毕业生参加了冠军赛——从长远来看，这些圆顶可以加速这一进程。英国南亚裔通常在业余板球选手中占据相当大的比例，但很难闯入该运动的高层阶级。
当被问及这些圆顶是否有助于挖掘出下一个莫因·阿里 (Moeen Ali) 时，汤普森说：“好问题。如果没能挖掘出，我会感到惊讶。Ace 已经挖掘出了三名职业球员。它最初的设计目的并非如此——它是关于参与，而非精英路径。SACA 始终包含一种精英元素，而 Ace、Chance to Shine 和 Lord’s Taverners 则没有。这四个组织将从圆顶设施中获益，利用它们开展网道训练等活动。”
汤普森现在坚信，ECB 在出售“百球赛” (The Hundred) 特许经营权时选择了正确的时间，他认为：“我们精准把握住了机会。”
关于“百球赛”是否会扩大规模，他表示：“我认为短期内不会，但有 147 个团体表达了兴趣，其中 40-50 个参与了竞标以购买八支球队。需求非常旺盛。虽然会有 [扩大的] 雄心，但重要的是先推出新版本，让新所有者了解英格兰板球的运作方式，并开启这段旅程。它具有巨大的潜力。”
“百球赛”的出售绝对让这件事能够更快实现
亲临千禧体育场 (Principality Stadium) 观看威尔士对阵英格兰的比赛，这是一场吉尼斯男子六国赛赛事，历史、宿敌之争与决定赛季走向的压力在此交汇。
此专属套餐包含官方比赛门票以及两场由传奇评论员 Stuart Barnes、《泰晤士报》的 Charlie Morgan 和一位名人嘉宾主持的活动，为您带来超越开球瞬间的极致体验。入住市中心优质四星级酒店，让您在体育场、餐厅以及赛后讨论之间无缝衔接。哨响前的深度洞察，赛后的热烈氛围——所有细节均由我们全程处理。
由 Stuart Barnes 主持 自从挂起十号位 (fly-half) 的球靴后，Stuart 成为了《泰晤士报》的专栏作家和比赛分析师，也是英国最具洞察力的橄榄球评论员之一。
thetimes.com/th-sixnations2027
适用条款与条件。*所示价格为每人价格，基于两名成人合住。单人房补价为每人 £360。价格截至 2026年7月17日 为准，且视具体情况和可用性而定。价格包含出版时已知的所有非可选税费/费用/收费。本行程由 Times Holidays 作为 Gullivers Sports Travel 的代理销售，并受 ABTA V832 保护。如需完整预订条件，请访问 thetimes.com/holidays/terms-and-conditions。嘉宾演讲者、主持人、特邀嘉宾及行程活动以最终确认、可用性和变动为准，并可能被替换、重新安排或取消。对于演讲者或嘉宾名单的变动，将不予退款或赔偿，但此举不影响任何无法依法排除的法定权利。
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“我从印度实际看到的是，他们致力于与澳大利亚和英格兰进行更多的双边板球赛——五场测试赛系列赛，而不久前只有三或四场。测试板球在那里的地位更加突出——就像你想要赢得 IPL 一样，你也想赢得测试赛。那仍然比任何事情都更有价值。”
他对澳大利亚板球协会 (Cricket Australia) 仅允许分阶段地向 Big Bash 引入私人投资感到惊讶，这显然是因为担心失去控制权。 “参考我们的 [Hundred] 模式，他们仍然可以控制比赛，只是出售球队的权利。他们在担心一些不需要担心的事情。”
“如果澳大利亚现在不做这件事，三年后他们将无法获得同样的价值。”
“我们的时机把握得完美无缺。我们非常幸运。我们已经证明这是可行的，而今天我们[开设另一个圆顶场馆]正是其结果。”
• 在卡迪夫湾 Future Inn 四星级酒店入住两晚，含早餐
• 赛前与传奇评论员 Stuart Barnes、《泰晤士报》资深橄榄球撰稿人 Charlie Morgan 以及一位名人嘉宾进行问答环节
• 周五可进入队长训练赛 (Captain’s Run) 现场
• 官方 A 类门票（下层看台，尝试线区域）
• 主办方欢迎饮品
• 赛事周边商品
可选升级：
• 银级款待 (Silver Hospitality) 升级，含饮品和午餐
SIMON WILDE
距离英格兰队在利兹集结参加与巴基斯坦队的三场测试赛（Tests）首战仅剩三周，而目前他们还没有全职教练或队长。大约两周后，选拔委员会就必须公布该阵容名单。
这并非夏季之初预期的局面，当时所有的讨论都集中在本·斯托克斯（Ben Stokes）和布兰登·麦卡伦（Brendon McCullum）领导下的后灰烬杯（Ashes）重启上；即便是在上个月底斯托克斯突然辞去队长和球员职务之后，情况也不是这样的。
当斯托克斯退出舞台时，英格兰和威尔士板球委员会（ECB）希望在巴基斯坦系列赛之前就安置好接替者，但随后结论是麦卡伦必须离开测试赛主教练一职。由于作为麦卡伦首选接任者的安迪·弗劳尔（Andy Flower）对一些优厚条件的邀请不为所动，委员会可能不得不宣布一个临时领导小组。
这让ECB首席执行官理查德·古尔德（Richard Gould）和板球总监罗布·基（Rob Key）感到尴尬。当古尔德在洛德板球场（Lord’s）举行新闻发布会宣布解雇麦卡伦时——这项任务本应由负责选拔队长和教练的基来完成，但基目前的地位如此之弱，以至于他被禁止接触麦克风——古尔德谈到了所有主要职位的接替计划都已就绪。如果事实确实如此，那么这些计划实在难以察觉。
基全力争取弗劳尔，这位教练在国际赛和特许经营板球赛中拥有出色记录。他是一个自然的人选，但基可能从未接近说服他。这使得基不得不仓促寻找替代方案。一些领先的候选人目前在职，要让他们脱离现有职位并不容易。考虑到该职位的性质，所有人可能都很难被说服。
弗劳尔拒绝的具体原因尚不清楚。但被要求与麦卡伦协作——后者保留了白球赛（white-ball）角色，且其执教风格与弗劳尔截然不同——这可能是一个缺乏吸引力的选项。
大胆地说，他可能对基也持有保留意见。弗劳尔在皇家挑战者班加罗尔队（Royal Challengers Bangalore）和伦敦精神队（London Spirit）的板球总监莫·博巴特（Mo Bobat）是一名细致的规划者，同样与基那种随意的风格大相径庭。
薪酬将会很丰厚，这有帮助，但要找到一名能与麦卡伦契合的教练是一个巨大的挑战——麦卡伦是一个根基深厚的人物，他了解球员，并且在队内年轻成员中享有极高认可度，因为这些球员自加入英格兰队以来没接触过其他教练。
共同分担职责不符合弗劳尔的风格，也不适合其他一些潜在候选人。尽管工作量会非常繁重，但如果弗劳尔被授予全部权力——统管红球赛和白球赛，并被赋予权力对一个已经失修的系统进行彻底改革——他实际上更有可能答应。这样的使命可能会吸引许多具有远见的雄心勃勃的教练。
而现状是，麦卡伦会为他的白球赛球队争取他想要的一切。当然，英格兰队运气不佳，这场危机恰逢 2027 年将密集迎来灰烬杯系列赛和 50 轮世界杯，因此对资源的需求将非常严峻。
麦卡伦已明确表示，他希望哈里·布鲁克（Harry Brook）继续担任白球赛队长，而这反过来又导致人们推动乔·鲁特（Joe Root）回归担任测试赛队长，以减轻布鲁克的负担——布鲁克在斯托克斯执政的最后几个月里担任测试赛副队长——避免他不得不承担所有工作。
自 2014 年的阿拉斯泰尔·库克（Alastair Cook）以来，没有一名英格兰队长同时领导测试赛和一日赛（ODIs），而且那次结局并不理想，埃文·摩根（Eoin Morgan）在 2015 年世界杯前几周取代了库克。
[[由于缺乏长期规划，左上方的鲁特可能会再次成为测试赛队长。在上方的基未能说服右方的弗劳尔接替右上方的麦卡伦后，教练职位依然空缺。]]
正式的测试赛教练不应失去机会。麦卡伦必须接受，如果测试赛教练想要布鲁克，那就这样吧。
寻找一个与麦卡洛姆（McCullum）兼容的人会限制选择范围。斯蒂芬·弗莱明（Stephen Fleming）作为前新西兰队队友和队长，可能是一个选择；曾在孟加拉国超级联赛中执教过麦卡洛姆的汤姆·穆迪（Tom Moody）可能是另一个。
如果基（Key）和麦卡洛姆在灰烬杯（Ashes）巡赛后立即被撤职，效果会好得多。那样将使新任板球总监以及新的测试赛（Test）和白球赛教练能在平等条件下起步。当然，麦卡洛姆能够留任的原因，很可能与他那一直延续到2027年晚期的巨额合同规模有关。
基主导了支持人员的精简。他们也没有多少时间进行准备或规划。很多事情都是临时凑合的。大多数白球赛球队会对策略进行微观管理——这是弗劳尔（Flower）近期取得成功的标志——但英格兰队在赛事中则是随兴而为，且结果显而易见。
去年冠军杯（Champions Trophy）的计划是麦卡洛姆首次负责白球赛架构，其核心是全力投入快球投击。结果英格兰队输掉了每一场比赛。
近期情况有所收紧，但球员们心态的转变可能不会很快。麦卡洛姆的个性不会发生根本性改变。在英格兰队赢得对阵印度队的T20系列赛并升至世界排名第1后，他说
禁止饮酒的新指南将被取消。“任何想喝啤酒的人都可以喝，”他说。
尴尬的是，一些后台工作人员在被解雇后不得不被重新雇佣。卡尔·霍普金森（Carl Hopkinson）和理查德·道森（Richard Dawson）在2024年晚些时候被撤职；由于在澳大利亚缺乏接球教练而引发抵制，霍普金森在今年被请回；而格拉摩根（Glamorgan）的主教练道森，目前正被考虑接任测试赛教练一职。
任命安德鲁·弗林托夫（Andrew Flintoff）为雄狮队（Lions）教练是一个严重的错误。他不仅不是技术教练（这对于培养新晋球员的人来说无疑是必要的），而且他甚至不想执教英格兰国家队，因此他没出现在基的候选名单中。执教雄狮队本应是成为英格兰队教练的自然路径。这进一步削弱了古尔德（Gould）的继任计划。
当英格兰队在对阵新西兰队的椭圆球场（Oval）测试赛中不得不起用几名新球员时，那些通过雄狮队选拔出来的球员表现差强人意。出现了接球失误，而桑尼·贝克（Sonny Baker）投球的位置比前线后退了一码。前球员们对这一缺陷在进入英格兰队之前竟然没有被纠正表示惊讶。
球员在英格兰队学习到什么程度是一个有争议的问题。有一种观点认为，乔斯·巴特勒（Jos Buttler）、乔弗拉·阿彻（Jofra Archer）甚至雅各布·贝塞尔（Jacob Bethell）在印度超级联赛中获得的提升，比在英格兰白球赛球队中获得的更多。萨姆·库兰（Sam Curran）的大部分队长经验是在特许经营联赛巡回赛中积累的。
在过去一年中，对奥利·波普（Ollie Pope）的降级严重损害了测试赛球队。他在2022年被确定为英格兰队的3号位及未来的队长，并在斯托克斯（Stokes）缺席期间多次顶替。他仅取得了一次显著得分——对阵斯里兰卡的一场大百分——但在五场测试赛中赢了三场。然而，在状态挣扎后，可以说他被允许在位置上停留了太久，这不仅推迟了贝塞尔进入球队的时间，也推迟了寻找斯托克斯新接班人的进程。在这一点上，英格兰队的长期规划再次被证明是不完善的。
现状已然如此。英格兰测试赛队长很少能在职业生涯的理想时间点起步。他们必须在现有的局面中寻求最佳方案。布鲁克（Brook）是具有前瞻性的选择，而根（Root）——从来不是天生的战术家——则不是。推迟将此职务交给布鲁克，仅仅是将继任计划搁置，这无疑不是个好兆头。
赛程中存在一些冲突点（今年 9 月和明年 5 月），白球系列赛与测试赛的时间非常接近，但在大多数情况下，布鲁克（Brook）可以率领测试赛和一日赛（ODI）队伍直到世界杯结束，而库兰（Curran）则担任 T20 队的队长。这并非一个理想的解决方案，但在目前这种极其混乱的局面下，这可能是最好的选择。
斯科特
赛马计划
场地状况：好至坚硬-部分地区良好 Racing TV Thunderer 的推荐：2.30 Asset 3.00 Shaqra Queen 3.30 Mount King 4.00 Point Lynas (nb) 4.30 Jez Bomb 5.00 Eldeyaar 5.30 Bell Shot (nap)
2.30
马尔科姆·普雷斯科特 80 岁生日初赛 (MALCOLM PRESCOTT 80TH BIRTHDAY MAIDEN STAKES) £5,400: 1英里 (3) 1 (1) 02 ALBEMAGIC 29 Steph Hollinshead 3-9-7................C Lee
2 (3) 55 FELIZ NAVIDAD 7 D O’Meara 3-9-7....................D Nolan
3 (2) 3-232 ASSET 13 Sir M Prescott 3-9-2...........................L Morris 投注赔率：2-5 Asset, 10-3 Albemagic, 13-2 Feliz Navidad
3.00
BYD 韦克菲尔德英国 EBF 种马场初赛 (BYD WAKEFIELD BRITISH EBF STALLION STUDS MAIDEN STAKES) £5,757: 5弗隆 (7) 1 (5) 5 BOLT OF BLUE 11 E Dunlop 9-7...................B Loughnane
2 (6) 63 ONSLAUGHT 15 R & P Fahey 9-7.....................B Garritty
3 (1) 04 SOLE RULER 35 P Midgley 9-7....................P Mulrennan
P Mulrennan
4 (7) THE MEAN FIDDLER (T) J & S Quinn 9-7................J Hart
5 (3) 4434 CALEF 15 D O’Meara 9-2....................................M Winn
6 (2) 46 NAVAL COP 16 A Balding 9-2.....................P J McDonald
7 (4) SHAQRA QUEEN K R Burke 9-2.............................C Lee 投注赔率：2-1 The Mean Fiddler, 5-2 Shaqra Queen, 5-1 Onslaught, 11-2 Calef, 10-1 Naval Cop, 12-1 Bolt Of Blue, 25-1 Sole Ruler
3.30
特雷弗·伍兹纪念让磅赛 (TREVOR WOODS MEMORIAL HANDICAP) £4,187: 1英里 (7) 1 (1)126243 COOLREE 6 (P,T,D) S England 7-10-1...........P J McDonald
2 (4)066342 POLYGRAM 13 T Davidson 4-10-0.......................R Scott
3 (5)000651 MOUNT KING 9 (B,T,CD) T Easterby 6-9-11...........D Allan
4 (2)223321 STELLA LUCENTE 9 (B,D) Jack Morland 3-9-10
............................................................... C Rodriguez
5 (3)-35646 MASTER OF ENTROPY 18 J & S Quinn 3-9-7...........J Hart
6 (6)6-0044 THE NEW BAY PEARL 9 S Whitaker 4-9-1............T Eaves
7 (7) 422116 BRADBURY 12 (E,T) E Bethell 3-9-0............B Loughnane 投注赔率：3-1 Stella Lucente, 7-2 Mount King, 9-2 Coolree, 5-1 Polygram, 6-1 Bradbury, 15-2 Master Of Entropy, 12-1 The New Bay Pearl
4.00
威廉希尔庞弗雷特锦标赛 (WILLIAM HILL POMFRET STAKES) £33,612: 1英里 (6) 1 (6)3-4250 CERULEAN BAY 15 (BF,D) D O’Meara 5-9-7.........D Nolan
6 (5)3-1024 MOSTAR DREAMS 19 (D) A Keatley 5-9-2...O McSweeney 投注赔率：8-11 Holloway Boy, 5-2 Point Lynas, 9-2 Cerulean Bay, 25-1 Crystal Flyer, 33-1 Mostar Dreams, 50-1 Model Yuko 4.30
PONTEFRACT AND DISTRICT GOLF CLUB LTD 让分赛 £8,762：1M 2F (5) 1 (1)140144 PERCY’S DAYDREAM 9 (D) D O’Meara 4-10-0......M Winn
2 (5)31-530 WITHOUT COMPROMISE 128 (D) A Brittain 5-9-10..........
3 (3)352-05 POMME POMME 13 (D) J Channon 4-9-9..Rose Dawes (5)
4 (2)304012 JEZ BOMB 9 (P,C,D) S England 5-9-6...................R Scott
5 (4)045310 MOONJID 27 (P,D) M Appleby 4-9-4..............S De Sousa 投注赔率：11-8 Jez Bomb, 7-2 Percy’s Daydream, 4-1 Moonjid, 11-2 Without Compromise, 15-2 Pomme Pomme 5.00
ROY WINSTANLEY 纪念脑炎意识提升 让分赛 £3,402：6F (11) 1 (9)043555 STARSONG 8 (P,D) M Appleby 7-9-9...............R Dawson
2 (11)504002 BULLINGTON BRY 12 (B) Jessica Macey 4-9-8 ...............
3 (1)023045 RAIN CAP 10 (V,BF,CD) J Riches 9-9-8...........S B Kirrane
4 (10)00-000 GO VICTOR 23 (D) T Culhane & S Barclay 3-9-8..............
5 (3)001330 ELDEYAAR 52 (V,BF,D) A Brittain 7-9-7..............C Hardie
C Hardie
6 (4)514605 MISS MAGIC DRAGON 19 (P,D) D Donovan 3-9-5....C Lee
7 (8)622215 BATTENBURG BELLE 22 (D) R Menzies 3-9-4.........J Hart
8 (2)-05050 SUMMER RAIN 12 (P) Craig Lidster 4-9-3.............D Allan
9 (7)045034 MY BOY JACK 19 (D) K Frost 7-9-3........Mason Paetel (5)
10(5)500-00 COILED 19 M Rimell 4-9-3............................S De Sousa
11 (6)066030 POWER OF CHORA 12 (T,V,BF) Joey Ramsden 3-9-2........
Taryn Langley (5) 投注赔率：3-1 Rain Cap, 9-2 Battenburg Belle, 5-1 Bullington Bry, 11-2 Starsong, 6-1 Eldeyaar, 8-1 Power Of Chora, 12-1 其他 5.30
SARAH GUSTERSON 纪念让分赛 £5,234：6F (5) 1 (5) 526131 TRILBY 47 (P,T,D) S England 6-10-0............P J McDonald
2 (3)063034 BELL SHOT 8 (V,D) M Appleby 7-9-10.....Mason Paetel (5)
3 (4)105-30 GOYARD 20 (BF,D) D O’Meara 4-9-10.................D Nolan
4 (1)220441 THE GOOD BISCUIT 11 (CD) R Carr 5-9-7...............J Hart
5 (2) 612161 IRIS DANCER 15 (B,D) T Davidson 8-8-10.............R Scott 投注赔率：5-2 Trilby, 11-4 The Good Biscuit, 10-3 Iris Dancer, 9-2 Goyard, 11-2 Bell Shot Uttoxeter
场地状况：良好 Sky Sports Racing Thunderer 预测：2.12 Salkadan 2.42 Lady Fortune 3.12 Drombeg Lad 3.42 Grand Clermont 4.12 Shallow River 4.42 At The Oche 5.12 Jafimgoso 5.42 Uhtred Ragnarson 2.12
P Hanlon (5)
4 R KEEP UNDER WRAPS 33 O Greenall & J Guerriero 11-0 .........
5 NICOLAI F108 (P) N Mulholland 11-0.....................C O’Farrell
6 SALKADAN F52 D Skelton 11-0.............................H Skelton
7 2 US OFFICER 7 (P) T Dascombe 11-0......................B J Powell
8 ZOOTER F31 Jack Jones 11-0..................................S Bowen
9 ADBA F91 Faye Bramley 10-7.................................H Kimber 博彩赔率：5-2 Vietnorm, 9-2 Keep Under Wraps, 5-1 Salkadan, 6-1 Us Officer, 8-1 Zooter, 10-1 Adba, 12-1 Al Za’ama, Nicolai, 20-1 Hello Garda 2.42
ROYS ICES 母马让分障碍赛 (MARES’ HANDICAP HURDLE) £3,697: 2M (12)
1 040-PP MISS OREO 26 (P) J J Hanlon (Ire) 8-12-0...........P Hanlon (5)
2 061-0P MIRACLES DO HAPPEN 37 (H,T,D) Billy Aprahamian 5-11-11...
3 0-6602 NO RISK TODAY 16 (T) F O’Brien 6-11-5...................J Hogan
4 0P-114 PRETTYLADY 30 (T,D) O Greenall & J Guerriero 4-11-3 ..........
L Edmunds
5 143-02 CULLIGRAN 25 (D) D J Jeffreys 7-11-3.....................K Woods
6 43-664 CURIOUS MRS FOX 35 D Thompson 5-10-13..J Thompson (5)
7 5P-141 LADY FORTUNE 11 (T,CD) F Brennan 6-10-13........................
8 0606-6 DOTTIES PROMISE 24 (D) S Corbett 6-10-12........N Moscrop
9 32-022 NORTHERN ROSE 7 (P,T) G Hanmer 6-10-9...........J M Davies
10 6P-4P5 JUKEBOX ANNIE 16 (T,D) Claire Hitch 7-10-6.........B Godfrey
11 3P-056 MYFAVOURITESISTER 24 (B,T) P Neville 7-10-3.....B Hughes
12 63-P50 GRANNY B 11 (H) M Mullineaux 6-10-2....................K Brogan 博彩赔率：9-4 Lady Fortune, 6-1 Northern Rose, 7-1 Myfavouritesister, No Risk Today, Prettylady, 10-1 Culligran, 12-1 others 3.12
CL CLEANING SERVICES KEN BOULTON 纪念让分障碍赛 (KEN BOULTON MEMORIAL HANDICAP HURDLE) £4,594: 2M (8)
1 P-44U4 WAR CORRESPONDENT 14 (B,T,D) J J Hanlon (Ire) 7-12-0 .....
2 2-1112 ICE JET 19 (T,BF) D Skelton 4-11-9.........................H Skelton
3 3531-0 BRIGHT LEGEND 89 (T) Faye Bramley 6-11-7...Jack O’Neill (7)
4 130F-4 ROMANY BROWN 11 B Case 6-11-6......................C Gethings
5 052-10 KING SACRE 49 (D) N Hawke 6-11-4....................J M Davies
6 223-41 DROMBEG LAD 25 (D) A Hales 6-11-4.....................K Woods
7 06-513 EMERALD TIME 23 (T,D) D Elsworth & R Hatch 5-10-13 .........
8 344-F0 DIESEL LINE 21 (T,CD) C & A Pogson 8-10-3............S Bowen 博彩赔率：2-1 Ice Jet, 11-4 Drombeg Lad, 6-1 Bright Legend, 7-1 Emerald Time, 8-1 King Sacre, 12-1 Diesel Line, 16-1 others 3.42
SHEILA AND WAYNE 金婚纪念让分赛 (GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY HANDICAP CHASE) £11,759: 3M (9)
STEVEN CARGILL/RACINGFOTOS.COM
Lambourn接管了比赛，但这位六次爱尔兰冠军骑手手下的马匹仍有充足的体力，在距离终点300码处，他要求他的赛马发挥出人生中的巅峰状态。
5 1P-151 BAGHEERA GINGE 27 (V) N & W Twiston-Davies 8-11-6 S Twiston-Davies
J Tudor
J Tudor
T Bellamy
6 12-305 HOLD YOUR FORT 16 (D) D Hamer 10-11-5.............T Bellamy
7 05-211 IMPERIAL ALEX 28 (P,CD) T Lacey 9-11-5............S Sheppard
8 12-350 STANS THE MAN 8 (B,T,D) Ella Pickard 9-10-13......B Godfrey
9 21-121 THE FLYING POET 24 (B,T,D) O Murphy 7-10-5........S Bowen
投注赔率：3-1 Sunray Shadow, 7-2 Grand Clermont, 4-1 Bagheera Ginge, 6-1 Imperial Alex, 8-1 The Flying Poet, 10-1 Sure Touch, 12-1 其他 4.12
GARY AND MAVIS BIRD 家庭赛日障碍赛 奖金 £9,823：2英里7弗隆 (9)
1 0F00-0 ZILLOW 28 Faye Bramley 6-12-0...........................H Cobden
2 001/63 SHALLOW RIVER 45 (P,D) O Murphy 10-11-11...........S Bowen
Isabelle Ryder (5)
3 110-60 ROGER POL 19 (P,T,CD) J Snowden 8-11-9...Isabelle Ryder (5)
4 61-131 KARNAVAL POINT 19 (B) D Pipe 6-11-4......Rian Corcoran (5)
J Bowen
5 5P14-2 PADDY DE POLE 39 (P) P Nicholls 8-11-1.................F Gingell
6 56-420 PIKE ROAD 25 (V,BF,CD) M Keighley 7-10-11.....F Keighley (5)
7 1-0122 TYSON 26 (BF) D Skelton 6-10-11..........................H Skelton
8 -36111 DIVILABOTHER 2 (C,D) T Davidson 8-11-3(7ex)..........H Reed
9 0PP-31 IDAHO FIRE 16 James Owen 5-10-8........................J J Burke 投注赔率：3-1 Idaho Fire, 4-1 Karnaval Point, 9-2 Divilabother, 6-1 Tyson, 8-1 Paddy De Pole, Shallow River, 12-1 Pike Road, 16-1 Zillow, Roger Pol 4.42
SUN RACING 夏季跳跃锦标赛 障碍赛奖金 £5,281：2英里4弗隆 (10)
1 45163- PALAMON 92 (T,BF,D) D Skelton 6-12-1...................C J Todd
2 3F4-41 COUNTRY PARK 30 (P,D) J & A O’Neill 7-11-12.Jonjo O’Neill Jr
3 34-133 GATEAU DE MIEL 21 (P,T) F O’Brien 10-11-6...T Broughton (3)
4 -52013 LAKEFIELD FLYER 21 (T,BF) J J Hanlon (Ire) 8-11-4 P Hanlon (5)
5 06-165 BELLE LE GRAND 45 (T) D Skelton 7-11-3................T Durrell
6 003/04 RAS KASSAR 14 (H,T) D Pipe 7-11-2............Rian Corcoran (5)
7 25222- AT THE OCHE 125 (BF) D Skelton 5-11-2.................H Skelton
8 14P-UU BUDDAH CASTLE 8 P Neville 6-11-2......................B Hughes
9 240-U0 HUDSON 19 (P) M Bowen 5-10-13............................J Bowen
10 2P-655 A DUBLIN JOB 19 (V,D) S-J Davies 9-10-10 C Johnstone-Baker (7) 投注赔率：3-1 At The Oche, Country Park, 6-1 Palamon, 7-1 Lakefield Flyer, 8-1 Ras Kassar, Gateau De Miel, 10-1 Belle Le Grand, 14-1 Hudson 5.12
QUINNBET 障碍赛 奖金 £3,697：2英里4弗隆 (10)
QUINNBET 障碍赛 奖金 £3,697：2英里4弗隆 (9)
1 351-3F IAMYOUARE 25 (BF,D) D McCain 6-12-0..................T Gillard
2 30P-24 PURPLE OWL 25 (P,T,BF) D Pipe 6-12-0....................J Tudor
3 653-20 ROYAL ROCKET 37 E Lavelle 5-11-12.....................H Cobden
4 /0-124 JAFIMGOSO 33 (P,BF) D Skelton 7-11-10................H Skelton
5 -06536 PURE LOGIC 14 (P) J J Hanlon (Ire) 6-11-8...........P Hanlon (5)
6 2F-040 BENY NAHAR ROAD 21 (T) H Hogarth 7-11-7.........J Hamilton
7 0/000- CRAFTY GAEL 93 (P,T) O Murphy 7-11-0..................S Bowen
The Sunday Times 2026年7月26日 13
1 13F-03 UHTRED RAGNARSON 27 A King 5-12-0................T Bellamy
2 2/1-23 FISKARDO 45 (T,BF) M Bowen 6-11-13..............S Fenelon (5)
3 023-1B OCTOBER HILL 45 (P,T,D) D Pipe 6-11-12....Rian Corcoran (5)
4 /4-44P TOMMY CULLEN 25 (P) M Crawley 8-11-11..............J Quinlan
5 44-004 SONYOURASTAR 24 (T,BF) O Murphy 6-11-8...........S Bowen
6 254-63 THE SECRET PEARL 37 (T) A Hales 7-11-7................K Woods
7 6006-1 ASHDOWN FOREST 2 (C) D Skelton 4-11-0(7ex).......Doubtful
8 3/6-0P PAPILLONDELUMIERE 47 (P,T) J R Barlow 8-10-2 ................
9 5-0064 MC’FLO 27 A Carson 5-10-2.................................B J Powell 投注赔率：5-2 Uhtred Ragnarson, 3-1 Fiskardo, 10-3 Sonyourastar, 6-1 October Hill, 8-1 The Secret Pearl, 12-1 Tommy Cullen, 33-1 其他
男子组 SunRisers Leeds 对阵 Southern Brave Headingley 赛场（Southern Brave 赢得掷币）： SunRisers Leeds 187-5（100 球；M R Marsh 69, D W Lawrence 51 未出局；Rashid 3-21） Southern Brave 182-5（100 球；B S McKinney 44）。SunRisers Leeds 以 5 跑优势获胜。
Welsh Fire 对阵 MI London Sophia Gardens 赛场（MI London 赢得掷币）：Welsh Fire 167-5（100 球；R Ravindra 98）。MI London 152-6（100 球；J Vince 66；L Ferguson 4-27）。Welsh Fire 以 15 跑优势获胜。
Welsh Fire 对阵 MI London Sophia Gardens 赛场（MI London 赢得掷币）：Welsh Fire 177-4（100 球；S F M Devine 52, G L Wareham 43 未出局, G Voll 42）MI London 117（92 球；Potts 3-24）。Welsh Fire 以 60 跑优势获胜。
女子组 SunRisers Leeds 对阵 Southern Brave Headingley 赛场（Southern Brave 赢得掷币）： SunRisers Leeds 116（100 球；B F Smith 48；Wong 3-15）Southern Brave 117-5（96 球；J I Rodrigues 42 未出局）。Brave 以 5 个 wicket 优势获胜。
Miss E Callwood (7)
冠军赛亟需引入升级和降级机制
好吧，这就结束了。 被大肆宣传的国家冠军赛（Nations Championship）的第一阶段已经完成。你必须成为体育界最强大（且短视）的营销人员，才会认为这是一个巨大的成功；而且也许下次不要把预热阶段与足球世界杯相提并论。亨利·波洛克（Henry Pollock）可不是朱德·贝林厄姆（Jude Bellingham）。
奇怪的是，有太多球队的表现与其预期相去甚远——其中包括阿根廷、澳大利亚、爱尔兰、意大利、斐济、日本和威尔士。 与此同时，南非在所有比赛中轻松获胜，尽管他们经常派出由二队、三队和四队组成的混合阵容——这对他们及其温和、公正、双眼睁开且崇拜拉西·埃拉斯姆斯（Rassie Erasmus）的在线支持者来说是个好消息。
英格兰队一如既往地处于中庸地带，在那里你能发现一些相当不错的表现，但同时也缺乏方向感和节奏感，最终导致平庸。但呼！那些巨大的
正在将其他球队 甩在身后
英格兰前锋！正如 The Who 乐队将其其中一张专辑命名那样：肉感、节奏强、庞大且充满活力。
但让我们回顾一下。在赛程已经紧绷到极致的情况下，为什么在同样的旧有赛程中又增加了新赛事？国际橄榄球赛及其筹备工作在除法国以外的任何地方都扼杀了俱乐部橄榄球的活力。英格兰的 Gallagher 顶级联赛陷入了永恒的挣扎；URC（联合橄榄球锦标赛）则在无可救药且毫无希望的情况下四散且贫困。冠军杯和挑战杯
爱尔兰队短期内不会从国际橄榄球舞台上消失，但他们赢得 2027 年世界杯的希望并不大。上周末，他们在面对一支在戴夫·雷尼 (Dave Rennie) 带领下将不断进步的新西兰队时，以 40-21 败北，这提醒了他们距离成为竞争者还有很长的路要走。
爱尔兰主教练安迪·法雷尔 (Andy Farrell) 在赛后采访中批评了球队缺乏“精确度”，但他也承认了全黑队的整体移动能力和球速更胜一筹。他说，爱尔兰“必须研究我们如何适应并把事情做得更好”。
在公众认知中已经大幅下降。在美国，职业赛事已缩减至六支俱乐部。测试赛 (Test match) 的主导地位正在挤压所有赛事的生存空间。这太悲哀了。
那么，为什么？六国赛首席执行官汤姆·哈里森 (Tom Harrison) 最近被描述为“新赛事的捍卫者”（提醒一下，在他之前担任英格兰和威尔士板球委员会 [ECB] 的职位时，他是 Hundred 赛事的捍卫者）。正如他本月告诉《泰晤士报》媒体与电信编辑艾玛·鲍威尔 (Emma Powell) 的那样：“我们将通过国家锦标赛创造一个十亿美元的资产。毫无疑问，这件事将会发生。”他表示，该品牌在五年、十年后将具有“极高的价值”，且前两届赛事预计将产生 5 亿英镑 (£500 million) 的收入。
啊，整数！真是无可挑剔。我不确定你是否能提高这个数字，即使——就像死亡和税收一样不可避免地——该赛事的最高潮将移至中东。哈里森暗示橄榄球已经“大规模”地从个人利益转向了集体责任。该死。在报道这项运动 42 年后，我从未注意到这一点，而且现在依然没有。对我而言，它正变得比以往任何时候都更加以自我为中心。
他们进攻游戏的节奏和精准度。雷尼似乎意识到全黑队无法在体力上压制跳羚队的强悍。相反，他的这支“魔术师”球队将尝试用智取。考虑到南非人在前锋阵（scrum）之后的才华，如果能在即将到来的“最强宿敌”系列赛中获胜或打平，将成为全黑队历史上的巅峰成就，该系列赛包括三场在南非进行的测试赛和一场在巴尔的摩进行的比赛。
对于全黑队来说，这个系列赛可能来得太早了。他们的风格需要一定的磨合时间。飞翼 (fly half) 鲁本·洛夫 (Ruben Love) 是一个相对的新手，前锋群也处于形成阶段。能够具备竞争力将是一项成就，而 3-1 的系列赛失利并非世界末日。从巡回赛结束到明年 10 月世界杯开始之间有充足的时间，让新西兰队至少能缩小世界前两强之间的差距。
还记得阿根廷加入其他三个南半球国家组成橄榄球锦标赛的时候吗——当时他们是非常被需要的。他们询问是否能成为正式合作伙伴，平分收益。结果他们不仅被拒绝了，而且根据参与原始报价的一位高级人士透露，他们被提供的是零收益。什么都没有。解释是，你看，他们在该赛事中仅仅是嘉宾，而且很可能能参与进来就已经很幸运了。
那么斐济和日本队怎么说？这两支球队被加入国家锦标赛，使南半球组拥有六支球队。据我所知，他们也被告知只是受邀嘉宾，因此没有公平的份额，只有一笔封口费。据称，爱尔兰队断然拒绝远赴
对于爱尔兰来说，这不是时间问题。而是人员问题——或者应该说，缺乏人员的问题？雷尼（Rennie）的到来仅仅凸显了顶尖球队与其余球队之间日益扩大的差距。
有一种观点认为，爱尔兰在 2026 年六国赛中被法国队击败后，随后通过四场胜利实现复苏，证明了他们的韧性。也许确实如此。但这并不意味着当他们明年在澳大利亚遇到顶尖球队时，能与他们平起平坐。爱尔兰队的教练水平极高，球员聪明且投入，但这只能让他们走得这么远。击败那两支顶级强队的时代已经结束了。去年11月在都柏林对阵南非队的比赛中，爱尔兰队在精神上表现得极其强大，但他们巨大的努力仅能将失分差距限制在 24-13，因为南非队在对方的争球（scrum）环节占据了绝对优势。
爱尔兰需要一个能阻止顶尖球队以强势进攻压制自己的争球阵型。他们需要一个既能制造快速球，又能巧妙化解对方球权的争抢（breakdown）。他们拥有技术，但缺乏力量。此外，他们还需要像新西兰队那样具备致命精准度和速度的打击能力；遗憾的是，他们缺乏这种人力火力。
爱尔兰队有两种状态。一种是在六国赛中面对较弱球队（目前苏格兰队在爱尔兰队面前毫无还手之力）赢得四场比赛并击败澳大利亚的状态；这是一支能够打出精彩橄榄球，但难以击败世界前六强球队的队伍。而另一种则是……
……前往日本参加比赛，因此日本队对阵爱尔兰队的主场比赛是在新南威尔士州的纽卡斯尔举行的。
斐济队在埃弗顿的体育场与英格兰队比赛，客观地说，那是该国第二大足球场。我们听到了太多借口，有人告诉我们，斐济队在对阵英格兰队时，表面上通过担任主队赚了 £1 million —— 而遗憾的是，他们的表现令人极其失望。只有当每支球队都能在主场进行比赛时，这项赛事才能获得认可。日本和斐济都是非常迷人的地方。
那么，这项新赛事能否真正帮助橄榄球运动，而不是被一个小圈子把持的关键在哪里？用两个词概括：升级和降级。必须记住，这个新赛事是由旧势力的联盟自行组织地。
世界橄榄球联合会 (World Rugby) 在三年前移交了控制权，这个过程让我想起将一群鲨鱼地释放到家庭游泳池中。
但世界橄榄球联合会自有其理由。该机构表示，虽然前两年不会实行升级和降级，但之后将实施。它声称已有书面协议——显然，国家锦标赛 (Nations Championship) 赛事的强队已同意在 2029 年英国及爱尔兰狮队 (British & Irish Lions) 访问新西兰期间，前往一些较小国家进行访问。
但升级/降级之后将带来怎样的机遇！终于，顶层有了新血液！在首届世界杯 39 年后的今天，争夺冠军的有力竞争者与当年相比并没有增加——这对橄榄球这项失败的运动来说，是一个令人绝望且沉重的评价。橄榄球正面临着将其扩张失败记录在墓碑上的危险。
与近期足球世界杯的对比令人心痛。近期那次锦标赛的魅力之一在于佛得角、加纳、库拉索、约旦和新西兰这些所谓的“鱼腩队”的出现，而且他们都得到了国际足联 (Fifa) 的慷慨资助。
世界橄榄球联合会现在比过去采取了更强硬的手段，创建了次级赛事“国家杯” (Nations Cup)，由接下来的 12 支球队参加。去查查吧。这非常精彩；它让这些球队第一次获得了常规比赛的机会。像美国队这样的球队赢得了全部三场比赛，并进行了适当的准备。这确实值得一看。
世界橄榄球联合会尽到了自己的职责，而且
【此处文字缺失】
全黑队 (The All Blacks) 给爱尔兰队敲了警钟，提醒他们差距还有多大
缩小差距
爱尔兰队在比赛中分别以 26-13 和 40-21 负于全黑队。同样这支爱尔兰队在去年 11 月以 24-13 之差被南非队击败，那是一场英勇的后卫战，但胜利从未在预料之中。
目前，传统的全球超级强队排在第一和第二位，爱尔兰排在第三位。尽管法国队今年在巴黎以 22 分之差大胜爱尔兰，并在 2025 年在都柏林以 15 分之差获胜。随着我们向下一届世界杯迈进，这支聪明但似乎超负荷的球队处境将变得更加艰难。
法国队在世界范围内被评为第四，但最强大的橄榄球国家即将将国际橄榄球界推入一个新的轨道，在这个轨道上，北半球的球队——除法国外——
橄榄球在拆除少数几个大国与该运动其余所有国家之间竖起的“坟场之墙”之前，永远无法成为一项真正的国际运动。
而哈里森 (Harrison) 对升级和降级怎么说？他说，升级和降级的到来是基于“不对球队降级的条件采取鲁莽做法”。抱歉，哈里森先生，那是胡言乱语。如果你在第二级别排名第一，你就升级。如果你在最高级别排名垫底，你就降级。任何其他关于升级和降级的定义都是垃圾。
“
橄榄球 也 迫切地
英格兰队不具备南非队的强度，也没有新西兰队的灵巧——他们看起来对自己身份的定位并不确定
GEORGE WOOD/NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP/GETTY IMAGES
斐济队在埃弗顿体育场进行了主场对阵英格兰队的比赛，英格兰队在下方一场火药味浓厚的比赛中击败了阿根廷队。左侧的南非队在所有比赛中均轻松获胜。
只能在梦想中竞争。 苏格兰队拥有辉煌时刻。 他们在三月份以 50-40 击败法国队的比赛就是这样一个时刻，但他们同样缺乏与南非队竞争的实力。芬·罗素和他的队友们最近在比勒陀利亚上演了一些梦幻般的进攻橄榄球，但最终还是以 42-28 告负。
诚然，在高海拔地区进行的比赛有利于跳羚队。苏格兰队可以说，如果是在爱丁堡，比分会更接近，但这仅仅是世界冠军最强测试赛阵容的三分之一。我们甚至还没有提到萨查·费因伯格-姆戈梅祖鲁的缺席，他是地球上最具威胁的飞半卫。
还需要其他改进。上周阿根廷与英格兰队的比赛中，某些元素很容易让人想起阿根廷在足球世界杯决赛输球后的行为——出现了推搡、殴打和抱怨。这里必须提到阿根廷，因为这个国家是你所能访问的最宏伟的橄榄球国家之一。但托马斯·阿尔博诺兹正面临纪律处分，因为他在比赛结束时，就在阿根廷队一个戏剧性的绝杀试球被判定无效后，向裁判表达了抗议。
但这场脾气暴躁的比赛也展示了一条必须践行的正确道路。顶撞裁判的行为已经完全失控，毫无约束。一名世界橄榄球联合会代表周五告诉我，他们将“收回部分僭越之权”——换句话说，将再次强调裁判只能在界定区域（如争球和突破球环节）接受咨询——而且绝不可能允许球员为了任何琐碎的抱怨而在场上追逐裁判。新的、独立运作的 TMO（电视裁判）计划将会有所帮助。上周的裁判安格斯·加德纳表现出色，尽管到比赛结束时他肯定已经快要聋了。
所以我们有了一项新赛事。它的时机不对，不均衡，不公平。它将在秋季来到北方。它太长了，增加了数千英里的旅途。勇猛的后卫本·厄尔站出来抱怨英格兰队必须奔波的距离。他提出了改进建议。他做得对。“这太残酷了，”他报告说，“我们只是被告知去哪里，以及在哪里比赛。”
如果那十亿收益仅由旧势力瓜分，而没有新成员加入，那么橄榄球的优良传统将永远地死去并被掩埋。哈里森最近总结道：“国家锦标赛真的是一次全球化的尝试。我们比个体之和更强大。”不，你们并不强大。在规模和热情上，世界让你们显得渺小。
你们是十个国家，其中一些很强大，一些则不然。还有两个“受邀者”。当降级机制到来，劣汰之时，会发生什么？橄榄球的基层将感到欣喜。而最终，橄榄球将成为一项真正的运动。
他们是否能找到一种最大化发挥天赋的方法也令人怀疑。他们没有跳羚队的强度，也没有新西兰队的才华。法国队正在努力寻找一种处于世界前两强之间的平衡打法，但英格兰队看起来对自己的身份感到迷茫。
将他们的打法建立在北安普顿圣徒队的基础上，是提高进攻精准度最快的方式。但这需要突破球的速度，而这种速度伴随着英格兰队所厌恶的失球风险。然而，博思威克率领的球队如果要实现真正的进步，进入竞争者的行列，需要的是敢于冒险以及更好的纪律性。我担心，对英格兰队的解读，对对手来说比对支持者来说更容易。
L
莫莉·哈德逊 (MOLLY HUDSON)
一级方程式赛车驻匈牙利环道记者
刘易斯·汉密尔顿承认，面对一系列的处罚和厄运阻碍他夺得第八个世界冠军的希望，他正努力维持积极心态。
汉密尔顿在昨天度过了动荡的一天。他距离三年来的首次杆位仅差 0.012 秒，输给了兰多·诺里斯，随后因阻碍奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里而被降至第五位。
这是一个关键的损失。汉密尔顿本希望利用锦标赛领先者基米·安东内利罕见的低迷表现——后者虽然排在第四位，但由于违反黄旗规定被罚退三格，掉到了第七位。
汉密尔顿在 Instagram 上发布道：“有时你就是运气不佳。又是一个在所有赛段中感觉极佳，但随后一切崩塌的周末。从如此接近杆位到最后从 P5 起跑，这极其令人沮丧。”
“我总是尽力保持积极——体育运动总有起起伏伏，但细节决定成败。每一个积分都很重要，你必须抓住每一个机会。在三个周末遭遇三次处罚后，要维持这种积极心态变得很困难。尽管如此，我不会让挫折抹杀我们作为一支车队所取得的进步。”
“凭借我们目前的配速，我希望明天的比赛能有所收获。整个周末，赛车的感受越来越好。”
汉密尔顿的比赛工程师卡洛·桑蒂曾告诉他“皮亚斯特里在逼近”，同时也指出正在挥舞黄旗，但对于这位七次世界冠军来说，反应已经太晚了。
“就在他 [皮亚斯特里] 处于我身后顶点位置时，我才被告知，所以我完全不知道他来了，我以为所有人都排在我后面出来了，”汉密尔顿说。“我是第一个出 [维修区] 的，所以我以为大家都跑完了这一圈，而且我认为夏尔
匈牙利大奖赛起跑排位
1 L 诺里斯 (GB) 迈凯伦 1分 17.207秒
2 C 勒克莱尔 (Mnc) 法拉利 1分 17.445秒
3 O 皮亚斯特里 (Aus) 迈凯伦 1分 17.684秒
4 M 维斯塔潘 (Neth) 红牛 1分 17.725秒
5 L 汉密尔顿 (GB)* 法拉利 1分 17.219秒
6 G 罗素 (GB) 梅赛德斯 1分 17.760秒
7 K 安东内利 (It)* 梅赛德斯 1分 17.479秒
8 I 哈贾尔 (Fr) 红牛 1分 17.856秒
9 A 琳德布拉德 (GB) 赛车牛 1分 18.281秒
10 N 霍肯伯格 (Ger) 奥迪 1分 18.686秒
11 L 劳森 (NZ) 赛车牛 Q2
12 P 加斯利 (Fr) 阿尔派 Q2
13 F 科拉平托 (Arg) 阿尔派 Q2
14 G 博托莱托 (Br) 奥迪 Q2
15 E 奥康 (Fr) 哈斯 Q2
16 F 阿隆索 (Sp) 阿斯顿马丁 Q2
17 O 贝尔曼 (GB) 哈斯 Q1
18 C 塞恩斯 (Sp) 威廉姆斯 Q1
19 A 阿尔本 (Thai) 威廉姆斯 Q1
20 L 斯特罗尔 (Can) 阿斯顿马丁 Q1
21 V 博塔斯 (Fin) 凯迪拉克 Q1
22 S 佩雷兹 (Mex) 凯迪拉克 Q1
*被罚退三格起跑位置
积分榜
车手锦标赛 积分
1 安东内利 梅赛德斯 204
2 汉密尔顿 法拉利 159
3 罗素 梅赛德斯 154
4 勒克莱尔 法拉利 126
车队锦标赛
1 梅赛德斯 358
2 法拉利 285
3 迈凯伦 195
[勒克莱尔] 是我在离开维修区通道时身后的那辆车……显然这并非故意的。”
“我们第一个出去，我觉得这并非正确的决定，但除此之外，不知为何，在最后一圈中，夏尔和我两人的抓地力都不在状态。”
汉密尔顿上赛季最低谷的场景曾让他思考自己在法拉利的未来，而这一次，他几乎结束了三年对杆位的等待——在诺里斯凭借出色的表现夺冠前，他一度处于临时杆位。这是本赛季首个非梅赛德斯车手夺得的杆位——尽管该车是使用梅赛德斯引擎的迈凯伦赛车。
在去年此处排在第 12 位后，汉密尔顿曾说：“我很没用，简直太没用了。车队没有问题，你可以看到赛车拿到了杆位 [由勒克莱尔获得]。他们可能需要更换车手。”
(注：0. 1 17. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 18. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22)
他原本认为获得第一排发车位置将有助于他在冠军争夺战中追击十几岁的领先者安东内利（Antonelli），后者目前在积分榜上领先 45 分——然而随后的处罚再次击碎了他的希望。
上周末的斯帕-弗朗科尔尚（Spa-Francorchamps）赛道展现了 2026 年赛车在动力不足时的窘境。而在这里的匈牙利大奖赛，情况则截然相反——狭窄且弯道众多的匈牙利赛道（常被形容为“没有墙的摩纳哥”）是一项完全不同的挑战。与摩纳哥一样，这里对排位赛的位置也更加强调。
这导致了本赛季或许是最具竞争力的排位赛，迈凯伦（McLaren）和法拉利（Ferrari）都觉得自己有潜力夺得杆位，双方在最快赛段时间内互有胜负。
很多人认为法拉利设计了最出色的底盘，使他们在动力单元强度不那么关键时占据优势——但拥有速度的是迈凯伦和现任世界冠军诺里斯（Norris），他之前也觉得团队尚未完全掌握本赛季在其他赛道上至关重要的能量部署。
“赛车感觉很好，我也很有信心，”诺里斯说。“我在最后一圈确实稍微多逼了一把——有些尝试奏效了，有些没有——但我对团队非常满意，非常感谢他们的辛勤工作。”
[[IMG_XXXX]] 诺里斯在扣人心弦的排位赛中夺得杆位
尽管梅赛德斯（Mercedes）已经发现了导致拉塞尔（Russell）在银石（Silverstone）和斯帕赛道直道速度损失的动力单元算法问题，但这位英国车手在本周末再次陷入苦战。在仅跑出第七快的时间后，拉塞尔因水路泄漏被要求在赛道上停车。他的动力单元将在夜间更换，但由于在配额之内，他不会受到发车格处罚。
马克斯·维斯塔潘（Max Verstappen）在最后一次尝试时发生了打转，将他的红牛赛车描述为“笑话”和“无法驾驶”——这与他的队友艾萨克·哈贾尔（Isack Hadjar）当天早些时候使用的词汇一致。
（此处文本缺失）...在赞德福特（Zandvoort）有所期待，并在接下来的比赛中进一步提升空气动力学性能。阿隆索（Alonso）最终排在第 16 位。
正如《泰晤士报》周四率先报道的，马来西亚预计将在 10 月第一周被加入赛历，排在巴库（Baku）和新加坡之赛之间，预计今天将公布正式声明。
由于中东冲突意味着无法返回巴林和沙特阿拉伯（这两场比赛原定于 4 月举行），F1 高层渴望在赛历中增加另一场比赛来替代它们。马来西亚站仍可能被命名为“巴林大奖赛”，由巴林王国提供资金支持。
马来西亚的雪邦国际赛道由于靠近新加坡，对车队的物流而言较为简便，且目前在 MotoGP 赛历中，不过自 2017 年以来就未举办过 F1 比赛。
关于是否能在卡塔尔和阿布扎比举行比赛，将在赛季后期才会做出决定，而应急方案包括重返欧洲。最可能的目的地可能是伊莫拉（Imola）——该站原被从本赛季赛历中剔除——尽管有些人担心 11 月下旬至 12 月初的气温可能过低。
今日电视转播 匈牙利大奖赛 下午 2 点，Sky Sports F1
ZUMA PRESS WIRE/SHUTTERSTOCK
商业 与金融
thetimes.com/money
William Turvill
上个月，超过 700 个疑似朝鲜的机器人获得了一家英国大型银行的虚拟工作面试机会，这表明平壤正将目标对准英国公司的数据、安全和薪资。
在一名本身负责初步筛选面试的招聘 AI 代理将其标记为可疑后，这些利用人工智能提交申请的人员在试图获得这家金融巨头的远程工作岗位时被挫败。
许多其他大型组织也成为了此类企图的目标，包括总部位于英国的网络安全公司 Darktrace。该公司去年在一名人类面试官识别出疑似机器人后，化解了相关威胁。英国当局表示，朝鲜 IT 工作者瞄准英国公司“几乎可以肯定”。
Jill Treanor
Jill Treanor
乔纳森·雷诺兹上周紧急向企业家和商业领袖保证，他是技术的“坚定信奉者”，且他领导的全新业务部门不会忽视科学和 AI 的需求。
在被任命为新成立的商业、创新、科学与贸易部 (DBIST) 国务大臣后，他在与高级企业高管的一次私人会议中发表了上述言论。该部门将取代原有的商业贸易部 (DBT) 和科学、创新与技术部。
雷诺兹告诉代表团，目前仍处于创建过程中的 DBIST 是“一个新部门——而不是在 DBT 基础上增加了一些内容”。
对科学部被取消的批评由皇家学会（科学科学院）会长保罗·纳斯爵士领头，他告诉 Radio 4，“科学并非商业的奴隶”。
在 2024 年大选后，雷诺兹曾是基尔·斯塔默爵士任命的第一任业务大臣，随后在 2025 年 9 月的内阁调整中被调任首席党鞭办公室。
自 2007 年以来业务部门更名的次数 4
乔纳森·叶曼斯 (Jon Yeomans)
洛克希德马丁公司 (Lockheed Martin) 在未能为该项目找到合作伙伴后，放弃了在英国本土首次发射太空火箭的计划。这一决定给规模达 £18.6 billion 的该行业带来了打击，而此时政府正准备发布修订后的太空战略。
此前招聘英国银行职位的公司，以及发现朝鲜试图入侵的公司是 Alfa AI。这家初创公司开发了一个名为 Lisa 的机器人，用于对候选人进行初步的虚拟面试，以帮助公司筛选谁应该进入人工面试阶段。
Alfa 首席执行官阿尔菲·沃塔姆 (Alfie Whattam) 表示：“乍一看，许多候选人似乎很真实；他们的简历很精美，回答在技术上很强，视频面试看起来很有说服力。[但] 我们的系统开始识别他们之间的联系，包括重复的语言、共享的设备特征、经过处理的视频以及与候选人声称的不符的地理位置数据。”
这些机器人几乎在几小时之内全部提交了职位申请。对
此次内阁重组。他在 2024 年担任该职时，制定了一项为期十年的工业战略。
安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 在上周的新内阁中赋予了他这个加强后的角色。
上周重新就职后，他与 200 多位商业领袖以及科学技术界人士举行了会议，并坚持认为 DBIST 将在他们与政府（包括财政部）的所有往来中成为“他们的声音”。
“这意味着在我们直接负责的事情上。也意味着在税务和其他监管领域等更广泛的问题上，”雷诺兹 (Reynolds) 对与会者说道。
新任 AI 部长卡尼什卡·纳拉扬 (Kanishka Narayan) 也参加了这些电话会议，他表示技术是政府的关键优先事项。
雷诺兹还强调，他将严肃对待与企业高管的往来，而不仅仅是将其作为拍照留念的机会。
据称他告诉与会者，他理解“人们有时对于被召集进来、拍张照片，然后实际上无法与政治家进行实质性对话的感觉是多么厌倦”。
伯纳姆出人意料地选择的财政大臣约翰·希利 (John Healey) 上周也会见了商业领袖，并表示希望与他们合作，以帮助实现首相“每个邮编区都实现增长”的目标。
伯纳姆会倾听企业的意见吗？见第 2-3 页
此次发射，而洛克希德将通过英国太空局 (UK Space Agency) 的资金支持该项目。
然而，在 2024, 年美国的一次试飞失败后，ABL 退出。
洛克希德表示：“被选中为该计划提供发射服务的 ABL Space Systems 宣布，它将退出商业发射市场，转而专注于导弹防御。在该决定之后，洛克希德马丁和英国太空局进行了广泛的
[[IMG_XXXX]] 2025年，曼尼克街传道者乐队（Manic Street Preachers）的尼基·瓦尔（Nicky Wire）在埃塞克斯郡奥德利终点庄园（Audley End Estate）举行的Heritage Live音乐节期间。
丹尼尔·伍尔夫森（Daniel Woolfson）写道，一家在最后时刻取消了一系列夏季音乐节的商业公司正处于崩溃边缘。
Giles Cooper Entertainment是Heritage Live音乐节的主办方，该音乐节在乡村庄园举办，邀请了玛丽亚·凯莉（Mariah Carey）和曼尼克街传道者乐队（Manic Street Preachers）等明星演出。该公司上周告诉法院，计划任命
管理人员。这使得该公司获得了一个临时延期偿付期，在此期间，在破产管理人正式被任命之前，债权人不能对其采取行动。
该公司在最后时刻取消了包括克里斯蒂娜·阿吉莱拉（Christina Aguilera）、埃里克·克莱普顿（Eric Clapton）和莱昂内尔·里奇（Lionel Richie）在内的明星演出，并在其网站的一份声明中将原因归咎于一项财务救援方案的崩溃。
英国政府和苏格兰国家投资银行（Scottish National Investment Bank）的£29 million。
总部位于爱丁堡的Skyrora公司将其火箭基于英国20世纪70年代的“黑箭”（Black Arrow）计划，希望明年对其Skylark L运载火箭进行首次发射。
对其他发射服务提供商的评估。然而，所有可用选项在项目目标、预期收益和性价比方面均不符合现有的拨款要求。
“因此，洛克希德·马丁（Lockheed Martin）公司与英国空间局达成一致，共同决定终止该拨款计划。”
所使用的网络表明，这些机器人源自朝鲜。
沃塔姆（Whattam）补充道：“我们的评估认为，这很可能是一次协同尝试，旨在通过获取远程职位以牟取经济利益，并可能试图获取公司或客户的敏感信息。幸运的是，我们的人工智能阻止了这次欺诈。”
这家被《周日时报》（The Sunday Times）同意不具名的英国银行并非唯一被朝鲜盯上的目标。去年，Darktrace公司也根除了一个疑似的机器人。一名发言人表示，该申请人声称在爱尔兰，在“纸面上看起来很完美”，并指出他拥有优秀的简历以及在编程平台GitHub上的活跃账户。“但在远程面试期间，他说话时发出了哔哔声，”该发言人说，并补充道该申请人的面部
“整个Heritage Live团队都感到极度心碎。如果有如此多杰出的顶尖人才参与，这本将是一个最神奇的夏天，对于让大家失望，我们深表歉意，”该公司表示。
由于通货膨胀导致运营成本飙升，音乐节组织者面临压力，而紧张的财务状况已经
支持 英国 访谈 第 5 页
奥利维亚·瑟古伊（Olivia Surguy）
荷兰与巴雷特（Holland & Barrett）在店内部署了秘密侦探，以打击针对客户的暴力行为和商店盗窃。
“商业街上的这种行为简直不可接受，”荷兰与巴雷特（Holland & Barrett）集团首席执行官安东尼·霍顿（Anthony Houghton）表示，并补充道：“我们不得不这样做，这太糟糕了。”
HAIR BRAND A LIFT 第 3 页
并不完全可见，且光线表明当时并非都柏林的下午。
“我们的招聘人员相信自己的直觉并结束了通话。对该身份的全面调查发现，多个 GitHub 和电子邮件账户被关联在一起，使用的是一个推测为虚假的身份。”
领导 Darktrace 威胁研究团队的 Nathaniel Jones 表示，美国的问题更为严重，他称大多数财富 500 强公司在过去几年中都成为了目标。
他意识到有这样的实例：Darktrace 的客户向潜入者提供了工作，而识别出对方身份则花费了数月之久。他补充道：“尤其是如果你是一家小型组织，也许是一家初创公司，你会预期这些组织的安全意识较低，并且会认为：‘朝鲜为什么要盯上我们？’”
财政部在 2024 年发布了一份通知
ANDREW MCCAREN 为《星期日泰晤士报》撰稿
导致人们在预订门票时有所顾虑。小型组织较为脆弱。
该公司由制片人、推广人和慈善家 Giles Cooper 创立，他担任皇家综艺慈善会（Royal Variety Charity）主席。2024 年，他在查尔斯国王的生日授勋中因“对娱乐业和慈善事业的贡献”被授予 OBE 勋衔。Giles Cooper Entertainment 未对此发表评论。
零售商表示，犯罪分子试图转卖这些商品。
该公司一直与软件公司 Auror 合作，该公司专门从事零售犯罪情报，用于追踪商店盗窃并识别惯犯。Holland & Barrett 私自出资并向 Auror 标记为高风险地区的门店部署侦探。
英国投资承诺”
据该国最大的私人市场投资者之一称，英国养老基金未能履行其向英国私有企业和基础设施投资数十亿英镑的承诺。
BGF 的首席执行官 Andy Gregory 将这种迟疑归咎于他的基金不得不推迟从投资者那里筹集 £500 million 的计划。
BGF 是在金融危机后由四大银行——巴克莱银行（Barclays）、汇丰银行（HSBC）、劳合社银行（Lloyds）和国民西敏寺银行（NatWest）设立的，名为“企业增长基金”（Business Growth Fund），旨在持有快速增长企业的股权。
它已支持了 600 多家公司，包括食谱配送公司 Gousto、泰国餐厅 Giggling Squid、陶瓷品牌 Emma Bridgewater 以及从牛津大学分拆出来、旨在延长捐赠器官寿命的 OrganOx。
Gregory 此前旨在筹集 £500 million，以利用《豪宅协议》（Mansion House Accord）中的承诺，根据该协议，养老基金同意到 2030 年将其资产的 5% 投资于英国私人市场。
该协议随后演变为“Sterling 20”，得到了时任财政大臣 Rachel Reeves 的支持，旨在增加对非上市项目（包括基础设施）的投资。Sterling 20 包括 FTSE 100 指数中的金融公司，如 Aviva、Legal & General、Phoenix 和 M&G，以及讲师养老基金。
在截至去年 9 月的一年里，“针对同事”的……。本月，伦敦警察厅在东伦敦的一个仓库中发现了价值 £500,000 的涉嫌失窃商品，其中包括价值 £56,000 的 Ultrasun 防晒乳以及其他被认为是从 Holland & Barrett 盗窃的物品。
遗产税 侦探 金钱 第 9 页
警告称，“几乎可以肯定，英国公司目前正被”伪装成IT从业者的朝鲜工人锁定，以赚取收入。去年，联邦调查局（FBI）发出了类似的警告，建议雇主仔细核查身份并分析支付方式，以根除来自金正恩（如图）国家的黑客攻击企图。
琼斯表示，AI机器人还在通过建立LinkedIn个人资料并声称代表大公司来冒充招聘人员。
招聘巨头罗伯特·沃尔特斯（Robert Walters）的AI专家汤姆·莱金（Tom Lakin）表示，他认为美国仍然比英国更容易成为朝鲜黑客的目标。部分原因是美国薪资更高，部分原因是美国“高级技术职位完全远程办公的情况要普遍得多”。
大学超级年金计划（Universities Superannuation Scheme）。
总部位于曼彻斯特的格雷戈里（Gregory）表示，这些承诺的“进展幅度有限”。
“在一些我们正在进行的对话方面，我们确实取得了进展，但我们非常谨慎地还没有在筹集资金方面采取强硬措施。我们原本打算专注于大厦协议（Mansion House），但正如广泛报道的那样——我也对此予以确认——进展幅度有限，”他说道。
进展，但 幅度有限
英国保险协会（ABI）每年公布关于这些承诺的数据，这些承诺始于 2023 年的《大厦协议》（Mansion House Accord）。其最新报告发现，2025, 2月养老基金资产投资于非上市股票的比例为 0.6%，高于一年前的 0.36%。
这些协议针对的是定额缴款退休计划，该计划根据储蓄而非收入支付养老金。
投入 £90 百万用于升级其门店。“到明年年底，我们将完成大部分基础工作……之后我们就无需像过去几年那样投入如此高水平的资金。”
他希望与政府和国民健康服务体系（NHS）合作提供预防性护理，霍兰德与巴雷特（Holland & Barrett）正在考虑与药店建立合作伙伴关系。
商业
B
之混乱
准备好 倾听 企业的 声音了吗？
约翰·希利（John Healey）上周召集商业领袖共进早餐，告诉他们他知道他们是英国经济的“增长引擎”。安迪·伯纳姆意外选定的财政大臣在电视镜头前滔滔不绝，阐明他希望“深化政府与企业之间的关系”。
希利的言论与由乔纳森·雷诺兹（Jonathan Reynolds）领导的一系列幕后会议不谋而合，后者在职能调整后的部门中重新担任商业大臣，该部门还承担科学与技术职责。
然而，就在这场魅力攻势开始的同时，大臣们正面临来自唐纳德·特朗普的考验，后者对伊朗重启的攻击推高了油气价格。而且，正式对美国进口产品征收 10 百分比的关税，可能会增加英国出口商的生存难度。
随着伯纳姆政府向企业敞开大门，企业希望伯纳姆提供什么？ 稳定性 上周参加早餐会的富时100指数公司老板之一是劳埃德银行集团（Lloyds Banking Group）首席执行官查理·纳恩（Charlie Nunn），他的观点将引起许多无论规模大小的企业共鸣：“企业将非常看重政府制定长期计划。”
“我们从客户那里得知，企业已经准备好投资并创造就业机会。”
英国无需远找下一个增长机会。它已经拥有一个——一个规模比制药、汽车和航空航天业总和还要大的产业。
在过去近十年的时间里，我们的经济辩论一直被脱欧后的竞争力、先进制造业，以及最近的人工智能所主导。这些都很重要。但在寻找英国下一个增长故事的过程中，我们一直低估了我们最大的优势之一：酒店业与休闲业。
准备 投资 并 创造 就业
并带来持久的改变，让英国重新占据主动。如果政府在寻找能够带动全国经济活动的部门，那么它应该从一个与安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 的共同繁荣愿景相一致的行业开始，这个行业已经支撑了数百万个就业岗位，产生了数十亿的支出，并在英国各地区创造了机会。
上周宣布降低酒吧、俱乐部和现场音乐场所的营业税 (business rates)，是一个受欢迎的举措。它承认企业通过为周边商家带来客流，从而提供就业并加强当地经济。
这就是气体，气体，气体 (It's a gas, gas, gas)
6 上周，随着中东冲突升级，每桶原油价格自五月以来首次触及 $100；七月初，价格在 $70 附近。
全球原油价格基准布伦特原油周四上涨超过 6%，此前一天，也门胡塞武装袭击了红海的两艘油轮，红海是沙特阿拉伯用来绕过霍尔木兹海峡的关键出口航线。特朗普总统威胁称，伊朗每在海峡袭击一艘船，他就要“摧毁一座桥梁或一座电厂”。
这一主题被 NatWest 首席执行官、同样参加上周与 Healey 早餐会的保罗·斯韦特 (Paul Thwaite) 提及。“我们的研究显示，企业希望在能带来更明确的优先级、更快的交付速度和更高投资信心的领域，拥有更大的地方决策权，”斯韦特说。“如果我们认真对待国家增长，支撑曼彻斯特大部分成功的协作基础设施需要扩展并运行在全国不同地区之间。‘剑桥-曼彻斯特’以及‘牛津-利物浦’之间的创新合作伙伴关系，就是旨在推动
营业税改革的良好跨城市协作范例，这将激励酒店与休闲业（包括景点、酒店和度假村）中所有规模的企业。最近宣布针对酒吧等场所的减税举措虽然受欢迎，但排除了许多较大的酒店与休闲企业。这些经济锚点能够大规模创造就业，吸引游客并支持当地供应链。
目前的税率制度实际上是对投资的一种征税。工党承诺将负担从小企业转移到在线巨头，但同时也提高了大型酒店运营商的税率。那些升级设施、扩大产能或改善游客体验的企业，结果可能会发现自己面临更高的账单。在英国寻求更强劲增长的时刻，这恰恰是错误的激励措施。
要求削减 0.5% 股票交易印花税的呼声日益高涨。FTSE 250 基金管理公司 Jupiter 的首席执行官马修·比斯利 (Matthew Beesley) 表示，削减税收将带来回报，因为这将鼓励更多的股票交易。“这是为了明天的增长而减税。”
Panmure Liberum 的首席执行官里奇·里奇 (Rich Ricci) 呼吁对养老金制度进行更多改革，以鼓励投资伦敦上市股票。保险业创始人戴维·霍登 (David Howden) 也对此表示认同。
今年夏季针对出游活动的临时增值税 (VAT) 减免已经使企业和经济困难的英国y家庭受益。部长们现在应当考虑在景点、餐饮场所和住宿业实施永久性的低增值税率，使英国在这一方面能与欧洲竞争对手接轨。
来自斯托克波特 (Stockport) 的再生纸制造商 Romiley Board Mill 的总经理 Nick Hardman 提供了一个关于高能源成本影响的清晰实例。如果价格在 10 月他进行下一次固定定价时仍维持现状，他的天然气账单将翻倍。Hardman 表示：“像我们这样的企业，在并非自身过错的情况下，几乎在一夜之间就可能从盈利转为亏损。”
这或许可以解释为什么来自重组专家 Kroll 的数据表明
6 自伊朗战争爆发以来，欧洲天然气价格大幅飙升，且在美国重启空袭后进一步上涨。荷兰的官方交易指数 TTF（决定欧洲大陆基准价格的指数）上周上涨至每兆瓦时 (MWh) €60 (£51) 以上，创下四个月来新高。在上个月达成停火协议之前，欧洲天然气的价格一直低于 €50 MWh。贸易商目前正考虑价格将持续处于高位，以考虑到
让英国人在此消费，或吸引海外游客。许多欧洲政府将旅游业视为战略产业，并据此构建税收体系。而我们的体系目前并非如此。
如果政府按照预期推出针对过夜住宿的征税，英国将成为欧洲访客住宿税最高国家。必须有所妥协，而这应当是增值税 (VAT)。
第三个挑战是支持更多年轻人就业。伯纳姆 (Burnham) 首次演讲中最令人鼓舞的方面之一，是他强调通过投资机会而非简单地应对后果来解决经济不活跃问题。
€65 per MWh
Legal & General 的一名高管表示，他担心削减繁琐手续对于释放投资至关重要：“经济基本面强劲，且并不缺乏资本、雄心或机遇。”
对于房屋建筑商而言，首要任务之一是更快地获得规划许可，特别是如果伯纳姆 (Burnham)
太多年轻人面临被遗弃的风险。我们应当通过加大投资，帮助年轻人做好准备，进入技能型、可持续的职业，从而降低福利开支。
实现这一目标需要政府与企业的伙伴关系，包括对学徒制和有助于建立长期职业生涯的培训提供支持。在 Merlin 公司，我们需要专业技术岗位的熟练人才，我们正通过我们的工程学院来解决这一问题。在政府支持企业提升年轻人技能的情况下，人才潜能将被释放。
黄金失去光彩
6 在周二达到一个月多以来的最高水平后，铜价可能会在未来几周内创下美国纪录。分析师表示，此次飙升归因于两个因素：中国实物铜库存不足，且美国贸易商将其留在纽约，因为他们预计唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump) 很快将对其征收高额进口税。
传闻 Adele 助力 我们价值 £14 的护发公司 大获成功
然而，总部位于诺丁汉 (Nottingham) 的私营房屋建筑商 Hofton & Son 表示，有必要修改《就业权利法》。Hofton & Son 的总经理 Mark Shouler 表示：“他们完全破坏了就业法，所以有人进门，第一件事就是拥有与在这里工作五年的人相同的权利，即使他们可能毫无用处。”
对于电信部门，BT 首席执行官 Allison Kirkby 希望取消繁琐手续，以便公司更容易建设基站，并希望取消电信公司为使用频谱频段而支付的费用，这些费用由他们
谨慎投资者持币观望
如何投资于私募市场，而那些已经习惯于在这些市场交易的地方政府养老金计划，则被政府要求将其资产汇集到 6 个巨型基金的要求所阻碍。
养老金基金也对投资私募市场的成本望而却步，在那里的管理费通常为投资价值的 2 per cent，另有 20 per cent 预留通过“绩效分成”（carried interest）支付给管理人。
试图掩盖一个日益扩大的创口
根据前首相特蕾莎·梅的前特别顾问吉米·麦克劳克林（Jimmy McLoughlin）的说法，人们还担心会失去“大量创业人才”。
该行业也在等待关于基尔·斯塔默爵士（Sir Keir Starmer）政权承诺在琼·坎利夫爵士（Sir Jon Cunliffe）去年进行详细审查后设立一个新监管机构以取代 Ofwat 的消息。赛文特伦特（Severn Trent）的杰西克（Jesic）表示：“我们希望在坎利夫审查后，成为执行政府改革计划的积极合作伙伴，从而为客户、环境以及支持英国增长带来更好的结果。”
水务改革仅仅是新首相面临的众多需求中的冰山一角。
由 William Turvill, Daniel Woolfson, Olivia Surguy 和 Jon Yeomans 共同报道
Daniel Woolfson
共同追踪《曼申府协议》（Mansion House Accord）的 ABI 和 Pensions UK 表示，养老金计划在 2030 年将其资产的 5 per cent 投资于英国私募市场的目标反映出这些目标的实现需要时间——“但各公司正在努力工作并采取必要步骤以实现这些目标”。
这些贸易组织表示：“进展还取决于政策、监管和市场改革。”他们指出，“性价比框架”（value-for-money framework）将审查基金的绩效而不仅仅是费用，这是需要开展工作的地方。“这些变革的路线图现已确认，但实施尚未完成。”
并非试图套现，这也不是筹集资金的原因。
与其他投资初创公司和成长型公司的投资者不同，BGF 不需要筹集资金，而是使用由其股东提供的资产。格雷格里（Gregory）表示，自 2016. 年以来，BGF 以 21 per cent 的内部收益率实现了“资金翻倍”。去年，它支付了 £75 million 的股息。
在加入 BGF之初，格雷格里于 2022 年被任命为首席执行官，接替创始人斯蒂芬·韦尔顿（Stephen Welton）。那一年，The
BGF 将自己描述为英国和爱尔兰最活跃的成长型投资者，尽管格雷格里表示，不确定的经济背景抑制了交易。他说，这造成了“创业疲劳”，企业选择将公司卖给贸易买家，而不是卖给像 BGF 这样的基金。“人们感觉到创业者……可能没有得到他们认为应得的估值。”
£75m BGF 去年支付的股息
6 在历史上，人们在全球动荡时期将黄金视为避风港。1 月下旬，在 2025. 年经历了历史上最强劲的牛市上涨之一后，这种贵金属的价格达到了每金衡盎司 $5,600 的历史最高点。特朗普重返总统之位，其不可预测的贸易政策以及全球范围内的冲突，促使投资者疯狂涌入黄金。
但自 2 月以来——尽管地缘政治紧张局势升级——金价已下跌 28 per cent。伊朗战争推高了能源价格，引发了对通货膨胀的担忧，并增加了央行必须维持或提高利率的预期。更高的利率通常会冷却对黄金的需求，因为这使得其他资产更具吸引力。投资银行 Panmure Liberum 的分析师表示，伊朗战争已经洗掉了除了最“顽固”的长期投资者以外的所有金属投资者。
VICKY ELLIS 与 ANASTASIA TOZER， REHAB 共同创始人
Amy Wilson
好友兼首次创业者 Vicky Ellis 和 Anastasia Tozer 于 2022 年创立了护发品牌 Rehab。仅四年后，该公司便入选了《星期日泰晤士报》评选的英国增长最快的私营企业 100 强名单。在过去三年中，Rehab 的销售额增长了 190%，达到 £14.2 百万，利润情况未披露。
Ellis 表示，在某些方面，公司的极速增长就像是“一个接一个的惊喜时刻”。但在其他方面，这正是两位共同创始人计划中的结果——当时她们决定将自己在美容行业多年的专业知识（Ellis 擅长营销，Tozer 擅长产品开发）相结合，开始创业。
“我们两个总是在寻找下一个目标，甚至在第一个目标还没实现之前就开始规划了，”36 岁的 Ellis 说道。“这就是我们的性格——我们非常有干劲。”
她们在十多年前相识，当时都在为大型化妆品公司负责新品牌和产品的发布。Rehab 的灵感源于 Tozer 与 Ellis 聊天时提到的在阿尔巴尼亚（她的家族原籍地）护发油的流行程度。该公司生产的护发油采用独特的单次剂量胶囊包装。
“在我的姑姑厨房里，我们经常把橄榄油厚厚地抹在头发上，从头皮一直抹到发根，”32 岁的 Tozer 说。“这很有趣，而且并不奇怪；这是与女性表亲们一起准备打扮的一种仪式。”
“我的姑姑在一家美发沙龙工作，她们使用手头能找到的天然成分，所以用了橄榄油、蜂蜜，还用了荷荷巴油和摩洛哥油。她们还会煮迷迭香叶，用那水来冲洗头发。”
Ellis 补充道：“我以前从未听说过（护发油），我有很多疑问，比如怎么知道该用多少油，该用哪种油。于是我就想，‘我们应该做这个，我们可以自己来做。’”
共同创始人认为，他们成功的关键差异点在于将护发油采用单次剂量包装，Tozer 表示，这“消除了猜测，也解决了直接把油涂满整个头部时那种令人心慌的感觉”。
接下来的挑战是如何承担产品开发和营销的成本。当时她们两人都在为房屋首付款攒钱，Tozer 住在姻亲家。Tozer 说，她们必须“说服丈夫们这件事能行”，然后将资金投入到业务中。
她们的伴侣同意了，于是 Rehab 在 Ellis 的车库中起步，由她的丈夫协助打包订单。为了开发产品，Tozer 请她的联系人推荐制造商。由于她之前有为其他公司开发新美容产品的经验，这意味着她“并不
任何事
最正确的决定（Ellis）…… 决定一起做这件事。我们非常珍惜每天能有彼此在身边共同交流想法。 我的灵感来源（Tozer）…… 在我们的行业中，我们没有传统意义上的导师，
主厨 Alain Roux 旗下的三星米其林餐厅 The Waterside Inn 的母公司亏损额翻了四倍，因为该企业正面临成本飙升和税收增加的困境。
这家位于伯克郡布雷（Bray, Berkshire）的餐厅是英国持有三颗米其林星时间最长的餐厅——这可以说是餐厅能获得最高级别的荣誉。但其母公司的税前亏损在 2025 年从 £97,019 激增至 £392,864，餐厅将其归咎于“不断增加”的开支。
《星期日泰晤士报》报道称，该公司面临着通过投资来驱动奖金的持续压力。
Gregory 表示他不认可这一描述。该基金通过业绩分成（carried interest）向员工支付报酬，在公司出售时发放。其账目显示，预计将在过去 15 年的投资中支付 £191 百万，且其薪酬最高的董事去年获得了 £4.2 百万。
6 锂是最轻的金属，也是元素周期表中密度最低的固体元素。由于它能在极小的空间内储存大量能量，因此是可再生能源的关键商品。
上周三，由于中国和澳大利亚两处大型矿区重启开采，锂价跌至五个月低点。矿产产能的恢复引发了市场供应过剩的担忧。
目前，由于人们对电池储能系统、数据中心以及支持人工智能所需基础设施的兴趣增加，锂的需求量很高。尽管如此，人们仍担心 2027. 年会出现供应过剩。上个月，中国电动汽车电池巨头宁德时代 (CATL) 获得了其矿山的许可。
VICKI COUCHMAN 为《星期日泰晤士报》撰稿
“在进行这些对话时感到畏缩”。
一旦开发出产品，Ellis 就转向她的营销和公关联系人，开始通过在线销售品牌的“基础工作”。“我们为所有影响力人物和媒体准备了定制礼包，试图建立一个社区，并向任何我们合作过的创作者或名人请求帮助，”她说道。
其中一位是歌手 Adele 的发型师 Sami Knight。在公司成立仅一周时，Ellis 和 Tozer 就说服他与她们交谈。
“Adele 当时正在海德公园演出，我说我们一定要试着见见他，于是我丈夫为 Adele 准备了一个定制包，”Ellis 说道。“令人惊讶的是，他同意见我们，并在那周末将产品用在了 Adele 的头发上。
“快进两年，我们将他聘为品牌大使，他邀请我们去拉斯维加斯看 Adele 的演出。我们坐在第二排，流着泪问对方：‘我们的生活怎么会变成这样？’”
Rehab 最重要的名人背书来自电视节目主持人 Stacey Solomon，她在 Instagram 上称赞了该公司，导致订单激增。
“我们在六小时内售出了大约 18 个月的库存，”Ellis 说道。随后 Solomon 邀请 Ellis 和 Tozer 到她家中交谈。
“我们真的很想与她合作，在开车去的路上我们说，‘只要是她想要的，我们都会做’，”Ellis 回忆道。“但我们一开始交谈，她就解释说她想成为一名投资者。”
Solomon 目前持有 25% 的股份，仍是唯一的外部投资者。
除了通过自有渠道销售，该品牌的目标一直是进入商店。2023, 年，哈罗德百货 (Harrods) 开始销售 Rehab；2025, 年初，它在塞弗里奇百货 (Selfridges) 首次亮相，随后进入了 Boots 和 Sainsbury's。
该公司目前拥有 16 名员工，包括两位创始人。Ellis 有两个年幼的女儿，Tozer 在八个月前生了一个孩子。
“能够陪伴家人对我们以及我们的团队来说都非常重要，”Ellis 说道。
但我们两人都将父亲视为我们的 No 1 咨询对象。他们都拥有商业背景和强烈的职业操守，我们绝对继承了他们的心态。
转折点（Ellis）……是我们六小时内售罄了 18 个月的库存——然后几天后，当我们为仓库履行订单而感到恐慌时。我们知道必须把握时机，确保［产品］能及时送到客户手中。
如果我能告诉你一件事（Tozer）……“相信你的直觉。有很多建议——你可以去找一群人问他们，我应该做这个还是那个？你会得到 100 种不同的答案。你必须退后一步，与自己或你的商业伙伴坐下来思考，‘我的直觉在告诉我什么？’”
[[IMG_XXXX]] CNY 200(000) J F M A M J J 来源：Trading Economics
Anastasia Tozer 和 Vicky Ellis（右），于 2022 年创立了 Rehab
人员配备和持续的税务压力仅仅是该集团运营中似乎不断增加的成本基数的一部分，这进而影响了我们的整体盈利能力。”
这一警告发出之时，英国餐饮业正面临巨大压力，因为从能源到原材料的所有成本在近年来都大幅飙升。
在劳动力成本方面，由于前财政大臣 Rachel Reeves 去年实施的雇主国民保险缴款上调以及缴费起征点的变动，增幅尤为剧烈。这些变动与最低工资的提高同步发生。
（政府）呼吁政府将增值税 (VAT) 从 20 降低到 10%，以减轻企业的压力。
Roux 的公司警告称，消费者“仍然保持谨慎——总体上消费更加小心，尤其是在外出就餐方面”。该公司预计，在伊朗战争爆发后，公用事业成本将面临压力。
尽管亏损大幅增加， Waterside Inn 集团表示 其现金储备“依然 强劲”，且特别 庆祝晚餐和 活动，以及其近期 开业的烹饪学校， 均证明受到了欢迎。
力求 摆脱 颓势
当 Allan Leighton 在 2024 年 11 月下旬回归领导 Asda 时，人们寄予厚望，希望这位零售业资深人士能引领这家杂货商开启一个新时代。毕竟，在 20 世纪 90 年代将这家超市从崩溃边缘挽救回来的人，正是他以及 Archie Norman（现任 马莎百货 董事长）。
Leighton 是一位言辞坦率、为人随和且穿着风格张扬的商人。他承诺将再次修复 Asda，并在 2025 年 3 月告诉《泰晤士报》，他将在这一过程中“赢回我们员工的心”。
然而，在他实施转型计划近两年后，Asda 的业绩未能起色。今年夏天的情况也不例外：消费者研究公司 NielsenIQ 上周显示的数据表明，截至 7 月 11 日的 12 周内，销售额下降了 2.4%；而与去年同期相比，其市场份额从 11.4% 滑至 10.7%。
尽管世界杯让人们大量购买啤酒、零食和软饮料，为店铺带来了巨大的提振，但情况依然如此。期间，几乎所有其他零售商的销售额均有所增长。
Leighton 一直在采取激进措施，在这个夏天对公司实施了一系列削减计划。本月有消息透露，Asda 位于利兹的总部将在所有核心职能部门裁减约 150 个工作岗位。在此之前不久，其采购团队（负责与食品和饮料供应商谈判的员工）刚刚经历了一次重组。
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今年夏天，在泰晤士书店享受 2 本平装书 £15 的优惠。涵盖获奖小说、广受赞誉的非虚构作品，以及由《泰晤士报》和《星期日泰晤士报》文学编辑点评的绝佳书籍。
或致电 020 3176 2935
“这里一直处于人员流失状态。我们永远在从零开始，”一家大型食品和饮料公司的高管表示。“很难与他们进行理性的对话，因为那里的人员非常忙碌且缺乏动力。”
Ged Futter 曾是 Asda 的采购员，现在负责培训供应商如何与超市谈判，他表示：“大量中层管理人员离职，导致资历较浅的采购员在缺乏经验的情况下被赋予了更重要的角色……我认为这是 Asda 面临的最大挑战之一。”
与供应商保持良好关系至关重要，因为 Leighton 将价格策略视为赢回客户的核心。他重新启动了“Rollback”（价格回落）计划，大幅降低了一系列产品的价格。这一举措曾是 Leighton 和 Norman 在 20 世纪 90 年代救援计划的基石之一。
然而，Futter 质疑供应商是否从中获得了多少实惠。“这些营销活动没有效果，因为
一些特殊措施 才能吸引顾客 重新光顾
与此同时，该零售商的首席商业官达伦·布莱克赫斯特（Darren Blackhurst）正在全面调整销售的产品范围，试图让货架更具吸引力。布莱克赫斯特是一位备受推崇的零售业资深人士，以在谈判中采取强硬、军事化手段而著称，他已主导引入了 400 种以上的新产品。
一名 Asda 发言人表示：“最近的总部变动仅影响了采购部门的 12 个岗位。我们依然由经验丰富的同事领导业务各部门的团队。”
“我们与 3,000 多个供应商合作。少数匿名人士所持的观点不能代表我们日常收到的强有力且积极的反馈。”
与员工的关系同样紧张。随着 Asda 的 George 服装业务搬迁至由 DHL 拥有的高度自动化场地，多达 1,000 个工作岗位面临风险。与此同时，《杂货商》（The Grocer）杂志报道，这家超市在最近的一份更新中告诉员工，他们必须更加“灵活”，并能够跨多个业务部门工作。该公司还在缩减其认为人员过剩的门店编制，并向其 90,000 多名门店总员工中约 1% 的人提供自愿冗员方案。
对更高“灵活性”的追求在员工中引发了争议。在线论坛上充斥着愤怒的评论，而 GMB 工会则表示，将确保成员“不会在压力下接受任何不利的变更”。一名 Asda 发言人表示，这与“其他零售商的运作方式没有区别，且反映了目前顾客的购物方式”，该零售商正在“将员工部署在顾客需求最高的地方”。
这一切都意味着 Asda 正处于一个极其艰难的时期。该公司此前由美国零售巨头沃尔玛（Walmart）所有，于 2021 年由亿万富翁伊萨（Issa）兄弟——莫辛（Mohsin）和祖贝尔（Zuber）以 68 亿英镑（£6.8 billion）的价格收购。
此次交易得到了私募股权公司 TDR Capital 的支持，该公司还拥有英国最大的酒吧公司 Stonegate。祖贝尔·伊萨随后退出了 Asda，将其股份出售给现为大股东的 TDR。
2021 年的交易给 Asda 带来了数十亿英镑的债务，导致其在乌克兰战争后利率飙升时陷入极其痛苦的境地。近期业绩显示，Asda 在 2025 年的净债务为 31 亿英镑（£3.1 billion），低于前一年的 38 亿英镑（£3.8 billion）。
许多人认为，正是这座债务大山——以及偿债的沉重负担——导致公司无法进行适当投资。该公司虽然通过债务再融资推迟了还款日期，但代价是更高的利率。仅债务服务成本（包括租赁负债）就从 6.11 亿英镑（£611 million）飙升至 2025 年的 7.29 亿英镑（£729 million）。其信用评级已被多次下调。
所有这些情况恰逢生活成本危机，促使购物者迅速转向折扣店 Aldi 和 Lidl。在零售圈内，人们现在普遍预计 Aldi 将在某个时间点超过 Asda 的市场份额，从而将其降至杂货零售业的第四位。在最近接受《卫报》（The Guardian）采访时，莱顿（Leighton）坚称这“绝非不可避免”。
Olivia Surguy 和 Jill Treanor
斯劳贸易区 (Slough Trading Estate) 在第一次世界大战期间扮演了一个不光彩的角色，当时它是损坏车辆的 dumping ground（弃置场）。但 100 多年后的今天，它在关于金融城未来的辩论中扮演着关键角色。
Segro —— 斯劳贸易区的现代名称 —— 在经历了一个月的追求后，于上周屈服于美国竞争对手 Prologis 提出的 140 亿英镑 (£14 billion) 收购邀约。
这次交易之所以引人注目，不仅是因为其规模 —— 它是今年 FTSE 公司中规模最大的收购案 —— 还因为在一段时间内，这家房地产巨头看起来似乎可能会击退追求者。就在两周前，Segro 长期担任首席执行官的 David Sleath 告诉《星期日泰晤士报》，该企业拥有“一个非常良好的长期增长故事”。
但上周，在 Prologis 提高了四次报价后，基调发生了变化，Segro 董事会表示，如果该邀约在 8 月 12 日的截止日期前正式提出，他们“现在倾向于推荐该收购方案”。
£3.1bn
7,500
Asda 去年削减的全职岗位数量
Asda 告诉员工，在转型期间他们必须“更加灵活”
筹集其承诺支付给这家廉价航空公司的 57 亿英镑 (£5.7 billion)。与此同时，FTSE 100 产品检测公司 Intertek 正被瑞典私募股权公司 EQT 收购，而支持服务公司 DCC 正在被美国 KKR 追求。
FTSE 100 基金管理公司 Schroders 已同意接受美国共同基金 Nuveen 提出的 99 亿英镑 (£9.9 billion) 收购邀约。上周，Mitie 是最新一家同意被收购的公司，收购方为竞争对手 OCS，对方对此外包服务商的估值为 31 亿英镑 (£3.1 billion)。
投资银行 Peel Hunt 认为，这些收购案出现的频率“异常之高”，而伦敦证券交易所 (LSE) 的上市公司数量并没有通过首次公开募股 (IPO) 得到补充。上市公司的数量已从 2015 年的 2,365 家下降到 1,500 家以下。虽然 2021 年在疫情后的活动热潮中进行了 125 场 IPO，但今年到目前为止的数量仅为 7 场。
这一趋势在欧洲和北美的其他股票交易所中也可见；摩根大通 (JP Morgan) 的老板 Jamie Dimon 已经对美国出现这种情况的后果发出了警告。
《星期日泰晤士报》的一项粗略计算表明，如果过去十年平均每年离开交易所的公司数量保持不变，到 2057 年，该市场将变为空白。
“如果你喜欢我们的资产，你可以购买它们，而过去的情况是，你会看到相当数量的 IPO 来替代那些流失的公司……所以，通常情况下，你会维持某种形式的平衡。”
Peel Hunt 与许多竞争对手一样，表示他们对计划上市的公司数量感到鼓舞。但这些公司尚未真正突破。今年年初，人们寄予厚望，认为软件公司 Visma 将由其所有者 Hg Capital 上市，其 IPO 价值可能高达 160 亿英镑 (£16 billion) —— 但科技股的抛售迫使其推迟。
美国与伊朗战争导致能源价格上涨而产生的通胀压力，被认为是缺乏上市公司的另一个原因。
这一问题在历任财政大臣（从 Rishi Sunak 到 Rachel Reeves）中都被强调，他们致力于促使养老金投入更多资金到股市中。现在，接力棒已传给上周被任命为财政大臣的 John Healey，他[缺失/未完]
往往源于 持续持有
“桑斯伯里（Sainsbury’s）非常渴望增长，所以这感觉是一种自然的方式……目前这两家公司之间并没有太多的重叠，”这位资深零售业高管表示。
莱顿（Leighton）激烈地为他的方法辩护，坚持认为 Asda 并非在寻求快速修复，而且重启需要更多时间。5月，该公司表示，在截至3月的三个月里，同店销售额的下降速度有所放缓，同时它恳请购物者在布莱克赫斯特（Blackhurst）及其团队对其销售产品进行全面调整后，“重新审视”其门店。
“归根结底，它仍然拥有一个非常好的门店网络，感觉他们不会就此消失，”该高管补充道。
与此同时，管理层声称，与 Ocado 的新合作伙伴关系将显著改善其数字化购物体验，并扭转在线销售下降的局面。其网站的一次重大升级预计将于 2027 年完成。
“长期以来，人们对 Asda 抱有好感，部分原因是当 Asda 运行良好时，它能起到制约市场的作用，”富特（Futter）说。“但现在情况不再如此。”
Asda 的发言人声称，来自另一个供应商 Numerator 的 Worldpanel 数据显示，在截至 7 月 12 日的四周内，该公司实现了两年多来的首次销售增长。
“在过去的五年中，已投入超过 £4.5 十亿英镑将 Asda 转型为一个多元化的零售集团。凭借 £1.3 十亿英镑的现金和 £2.1 十亿英镑的可利用流动资金，我们拥有支持增长计划的财务实力。”
面临着降低股票印花税以刺激交易的呼吁。
他上周告诉商业领袖，他打算“作为你们的财政大臣支持你们”，并在给《周日泰晤士报》的一份声明中强调，这也意味着在“金融服务领域”如此。
为了扩大伦敦的吸引力，已经采取了相关步骤，例如启动了 Pisces——一个允许私营公司出售股票的市场。
本周，金融行为监管局（FCA）预计将宣布一项措施。一些银行家希望该措施能通过揭露银行与其他交易场所之间的股票“暗池”交易，使伦敦更具吸引力。一些金融城人士表示，由于有如此多活动发生在伦敦证券交易所（LSE）之外，很难衡量总成交量。这使得伦敦在尝试吸引公司上市时处于不利地位。美国所谓的流动性看起来更高。
一些基金经理认为，公司可以采取更多措施来抵御竞购者。
富时 100 (FTSE 100) 金融公司 M&G 的英国股票主管迈克尔·斯蒂亚斯尼（Michael Stiasny）表示：“董事会需要退后一步，评估出售是否是正确的决定，而不是专注于在竞标中榨取最大价值。最大的价值往往源于持续持有，而非接管溢价。”
现在是飞机： 航空业 正走向电气化
食堂女工和 图书馆员 回馈英国
吉尔·特里诺 (JILL TREANOR)
蕾切尔·埃尔韦尔 (Rachel Elwell) 在成长过程中便对数字充满热爱。这位英国最大养老金基金的首席执行官解释说，由于她的父母都是数学教师，当她在西约克郡的庞特弗拉克特 (Pontefract) 小镇长大时，“我们总是讨论数学”。 “比如，当你走楼梯时，你会数自己走了多少级台阶，”现年 51 岁的埃尔韦尔说道。
看来，自从她有了自己的孩子后，讨论数学的情况仍在继续。这位 Border to Coast 的掌门人回忆起她是如何教两个女儿的：“当孩子们坐在高脚椅上吃蓝莓时，我会用蓝莓摆出图案，然后让他们在吃的时候数数。”
“我完全认同这种‘极客’特质，”她宣布道。
在思考如何管理 Border to Coast 持有的 1200 亿英镑 (£120 billion) 养老金储蓄时，埃尔韦尔发挥了她的数学思维。
“这就是为什么我多次谈到‘系统’的原因——观察这些系统并理解如何让系统运转起来，”她表示。
在她的描述中，她的公司是一个被她称为“飞轮”的“系统”的一部分。养老金基金通过将数十亿英镑投入到地方和全球的基础设施项目中，创造就业机会和机遇，并投资于未来可能在股市上市的初创企业，从而为经济注入动力。
Border to Coast 总部位于利兹 (Leeds)，是由 18 个地方政府养老金计划合并而成的。顾名思义，其覆盖范围从英格兰北部的坎布里亚 (Cumbria) 和泰恩河畔威尔 (Tyne and Wear)，一直延伸到南海岸的西萨塞克斯 (West Sussex) 和东萨塞克斯 (East Sussex)。
该公司支持的一些关键项目包括：向利兹市中心一座由废弃游泳池改建的 200 间房“公寓酒店”投资 4600 万英镑 (£46 million)，以及向剑桥的家庭住宅项目投资 7000 万英镑 (£70 million)。
在蕾切尔·里夫斯 (Rachel Reeves) 发起的关于养老金基金在促进经济增长中所能发挥作用的讨论中，该公司处于核心地位。
规模过大 的情况
出生日期：1974年9月3日 状态：已婚，有两个女儿 学校：庞特弗拉克特，金斯高中 (King’s High, Pontefract) 大学：剑桥大学，彭布罗克学院（数学）；研究生统计学文凭 第一份工作：“帮助一些来自加利福尼亚的彭布罗克夏季学生适应环境” 薪资：£568,000 住所：赫本桥 (Hebden Bridge) 座驾：Mini Clubman，“一辆灰色的——一辆破旧但深受喜爱的 Mini” 最喜欢的书：盖伊·加夫列尔·凯 (Guy Gavriel Kay) 的《Tigana》。“他真正探讨了政治和人际关系” 电影：《Grosse Pointe Blank》 音乐：任何古典音乐，尤其是普uccini 的《波希米亚人》(La bohème)；流行乐方面，Pulp 乐队 饮品：Robinsons 青柠薄荷糖浆 手表：Fitbit 电子产品：Fitbit 上次度假：约克郡 慈善机构：Just Finance Foundation
停在法恩伯勒机场跑道上的那架双桨、长 20 米的飞机看起来没什么特别的。但 GE Aerospace 的克里斯汀·安德鲁斯 (Christine Andrews) 对其意义赞不绝口：“我是一名女性工程师，所以我的名字能出现在一项世界首创的成果上，并且能够在全球最顶级的航展上宣布这一消息，这超出了我的最狂野的想象。”
跑道上那架不起眼的 Saab 340B 刚刚完成了一次在 30,000 英尺高度使用混合动力电力系统进行的试飞。安德鲁斯和其他人表示，这可能是一个巨大的进步。在为期一周的法恩伯勒国际航空展上，这是一项低调的航空成就。
GE 认为飞机可以从混合动力中获益。这架改装后的 Saab 飞机在其右侧安装了一个与电动机集成的燃气涡轮机；精巧的电子设备帮助发动机运行得更高效。
安德鲁斯是 GE Aerospace 的混合动力电力系统负责人，她表示其益处有三点：“它减少了燃料，因此既提升了经济效益，又降低了排放。第二点是它推动了该行业的尖端技术。第三点是它给了飞行员一种全新的飞行方式。”她表示，例如，它可以让飞机更快地加速到更高的高度，帮助飞行员绕过湍流区。
这架混合动力电力飞机是与美国国家航空航天局 (Nasa) 和波音公司共同开发的，是 GE 探索降低成本和减少排放的众多方案之一。
在不远处雾蒙蒙的法恩伯勒起飞跑道上，空中客车 (Airbus) 的卡里姆·莫卡德姆 (Karim Mokkadem) 拥有一个极其特殊的头衔——“未来飞机主管”，他对前景同样感到兴奋。
作为市长，这种模式无法在全国范围内快速复制。“安迪现在能谈论的这些项目已经花费了数十年时间。”
“我不认为 [其他地方当局达到那个水平] 需要数十年，但我们不能指望这个国家的每一个角落都拥有与那些已经做了数十年的人相同的 [准备] 程度。”
毫无疑问，伯纳姆将成为最新一位试图让养老金系统为英国经济发挥更大作用的政治家。
这一进程始于 11 年前乔治·奥斯本 (George Osborne) 担任财政大臣期间；他号召 90 个左右的地方政府养老金计划 (LGPS) 将其庞大但碎片化的 £400 billion 资源合并为六个巨型“主权财富基金”，以增加对基础设施项目的投资。
这促成了“从边境到海岸”(Border to Coast) 的创建，当时有 11 个地方政府养老金计划同意将其投资整合。今年早些时候，随着里夫斯 (Reeves) 推动通过的立法变更，以加速落实奥斯本提出的挑战，该计划又扩大了 7 个。
“未来的政府可能希望进行进一步的整合，但目前，LGPS 已经处于一个可以专注于处理其必须处理的事项的状态，”埃尔韦尔说。
其目标是复制加拿大等国家的养老金计划——该国拥有“Maple 8”公共养老金基金系统——以及以其“强制养老金” (superannuation) 系统著称的澳大利亚。
Elwell 认为 Border to Coast 目前在规模上正处于一个“黄金点”。 “规模太大也是有问题。你会变得像一艘超级油轮，在不影响市场波动的情况下无法做出投资决定，”她说道。“存在一个黄金点，而普遍认为这个点大约在 £1500 亿左右。”
尽管她语气温和，但 Elwell 在国际舞台上拥有影响力。九月，她将参加加拿大的首次投资峰会，该峰会由其总理（兼前英格兰银行行长）马克·卡尼 (Mark Carney) 召集，旨在寻求对该国的投资。
那么，她是如何最终管理这个国家最大的养老金计划的呢？ “在成长过程中，我是个‘爸爸的小女孩’，”她说道。“我三岁时就宣布，我爸爸去哪里读 [大学]，我就去哪里。在那时，[剑桥大学彭布罗克学院] 不接收女性。直到我 13 岁，他们才开始接收女性。”
于是，几年后，她在听取了庞特弗拉克特 (Pontefract) 当地学校关于成为教师、工程师或精算师的职业建议后，前往那里学习数学并获得了统计学文凭。“我的父母说：‘蕾切尔，你没有当老师的耐心。别那么做，’” Elwell 回忆道。“而且我也并不太”
[[IMG_XXXX]] Saab 340B 在 30,000 英尺的高度完成了使用混合动力电系统的测试飞行。
混合动力化。“每个人都在研究它，”他说。“技术已经成熟，这在很大程度上是由汽车工业的进展所驱动的。其进化速度简直令人难以置信。”
空中客车公司上周启动了一个新的混合动力技术演示机，该技术可用于下一代商业飞机——这是一个与华威大学等多家机构合作的项目。Mokkadem 希望这能促使飞机拥有更长、更细的机翼，从而改善空气动力学，有利于降低燃油消耗。
混合动力电动飞机已经研发一段时间了。美国公司 Heart Aerospace 和 Ampaire 一直在开发此类飞行器；后者于 2021. 年在英国进行了试验。但 Mokkadem 表示，新技术是有代价的：“你需要管理使用方式的节俭性。”换句话说，任何新设备的重量都存在权衡；它必须证明其存在的合理性。或者正如 GE 的 Andrews 所说：“它必须凭实力赢得一席之地。”
今年，人们将大量关注度放在展示全电动飞行器的初创公司上。硅谷国防巨头 Anduril 占用了一个巨大的展亭，揭晓了其名为“Thunder”的自主杀手无人机。空中出租车公司 Joby Aviation 和 Vertical Aerospace 展示了它们的电池动力飞行器。英国最大的区域航空公司 Loganair 宣布了一项购买五架全电动飞机的协议——但每架飞机仅能搭载五名乘客。
这印证了一个观点，即电池动力飞机可能将始终保持在非常小的规模。对于大型航空公司来说，电池作为动力源实在太重了——因此有必要探索混合动力。
ANDREW MCCAREN 为《周日泰晤士报》供稿
Rachel Elwell 表示，Border to Coast 正在将她的金融力量转化为对英国的助力
……并不实际，所以工程学方向其实行不通。于是我去攻读了数学学位，并给一大堆精算公司写信说：‘我不知道精算师是做什么的，[但]你们能给我一份工作吗？’。”
1996 年，在专业服务巨头 PwC 录用她之后，她迁居伦敦，并在那里工作了 15 年，其中包括在俄罗斯参与养老金基金改革的六个月任职。
在居住于西约克郡的 Hebden Bridge 期间，Elwell 转到了该公司的曼彻斯特办事处——她希望孩子能在她的家乡郡成长，“以防他们以后要为约克郡板球俱乐部打球”——但她被告知，如果想被考虑进入合伙人级别，她必须回到伦敦。“我真的不想那样做，”Elwell 说。
相反，在她的切斯特客户（投资与保险公司 Royal London）为其提供了一份在当地建立员工养老金职能及随后建立投资办公室的工作后，她留在 Hebden Bridge。
“通勤时间大约 90 分钟，但我经常在全国各地奔波，”她回忆道。
她在那里工作了近七年，当时初创的 Border to Coast 找到了她，提供了一个首席执行官的职位，允许她常驻利兹。
这座城市已成为一个不断增长的金融服务枢纽，英格兰银行和金融行为监管局均在此设有分支机构。
[[IMG_XXXX]] Elwell 最喜欢的电影是《Grosse Pointe Blank》。她还喜欢 Pulp 乐队的音乐。
她在火车上工作。“每月有几次，我会去伦敦，”她说。那一整天都排满了会议。
如果 Elwell 没有完成每天 12,500 步的目标，她会在晚上回家后跳上跑步机。
休息时间 Elwell 是一位钢琴演奏者，还在当地教堂演奏管风琴。“很多数学家同时也涉猎音乐是有原因的，因为这都关乎于发现模式。”她是 Opera North 的董事会成员。上周末，她与 16 位同事以及她 16 岁的女儿一起，为了利兹医院慈善机构完成了“约克郡三峰挑战赛”。
然而，Mokkadem 并没有放弃氢燃料电池有朝一日能驱动飞机的希望。“毫无疑问，最终的燃料将是氢气，”他说道。这种气体可以从水中提取，并承诺提供无碳燃料。Mokkadem 表示：“这是唯一一种你可以利用阳光明媚的日子和水就能制造出的[燃料]。”
难点在哪里？制造它需要巨大的能量。空客公司将氢动力喷气机的时间表推迟到了 2040 年代，理由是供应不足。但 Mokkadem 表示：“混合动力化只是在进入全电氢能飞行之前的一个步骤，而那将在以后实现。”他笑着补充道：“我无法告诉你具体时间。到那时我已经退休了。”
当局与国家财富基金。略显尴尬的是，利兹的当地政府退休计划——西约克郡养老基金 (West Yorkshire Pension Fund) —— 并没有选择 Border to Coast，而是选择了其竞争对手 Northern。
尽管 Border to Coast 整合了 18 个地方政府养老金计划 (LGPS) 的资产，但并非所有计划都希望以相同的方式投资，因此它推出了 20 个可供选择的“方案”。大致而言，三分之一在公共市场并由其自身的基金经理运行；三分之一由其他基金经理管理；另三分之一由其私募市场团队运行，该团队还投资于像私募股权巨头黑石 (Blackstone) 这样公司管理的基金。
养老金计划被指责不支持英国和伦敦证券交易所，在过去的 25 年里，英国养老基金对股票的投资额已从其资产的 50 per cent 下降到约 4 per cent。
Elwell 否认 Border to Coast 属于这一类。在其 £120 billion 资金中，有三分之一投资于英国，而其中约三分之一（即总额的 10 per cent 以上）投资于伦敦上市股票。随着越来越多的公司被私有化，而通过首次公开募股 (IPO) 加入的公司在减少，金融城人士呼吁养老基金增加对英国股票的投资，以保护伦敦证券交易所免于消亡。
就在上周，房地产巨头 Segro 似乎屈服于一家美国掠夺者的 £14 billion 收购。
许多提供基于收入之所得的私营部门养老金计划现已停止接收新成员，且风险厌恶，将资金停留在政府债券中以保护退休人员的储蓄。
相比之下，LGPS 仍是开放式计划。“因此，他们可以继续承担风险，”Elwell 说道。
虽然 LGPS 是伦敦上市股票的投资者，但她指出，伦敦上市公司的“许多”收入来自“海外”。
“我们一直更专注于思考如何支持 IPO 前的公司，因为——这就是飞轮效应——如果我们能让它运转起来，那么它将反哺股市，”她解释道。
Border to Coast 正寻求将更多投资投入到 Elwell 所称的“超本地化”项目中。它正与三个 LGPS 在东北地区开展一项试点计划，以“将其资本直接投入到该地区的房地产机会中”。
即便在 Andy Burnham 开始倡导权力下放议程之前，这项工作就已经在进行中；Border to Coast 希望在“夏季之后”任命一名拥有该项目管理权限的基金经理。
“我们一直在与英格兰房屋局 (Homes England) 以及市长当局和地方当局合作，研究该地区实际需要什么……同时非常坚定地确保合作伙伴基金获得支付养老金所需的财务回报，”她说道。
声誉风险也在 Elwell 的考量之中。“当你作为国内投资者进行投资时，[这是] 一个必须非常审慎对待的领域，”她表示。
“当你进行这些本地投资时，当地人会看到，而且如果出了问题，当地政治家将承受所有压力。”
“因此，我们不仅要擅长思考投资风险，还要思考如何与利益相关者接触，以便获取他们对当地情况的认知和理解，从而能够与他们共同协作来管理风险。”
她补充道：“这回到了‘系统’的问题上。最重要的一点是人们对此充满信心，因为如果人们不再相信养老金能提供良好的收入，那么作为一个社会，我们将面临各种问题。”
Border to Coast 养老金计划的平均成员是一位年龄大约 49 岁、兼职工作的女性。Elwell 解释道：“在地方政府工作的人绝大多数是女性——比如食堂女工、图书管理员。那位年薪约 £19,000 的兼职女性，在退休后每年将获得 £5,000 的养老金。
“这就是依赖资产调查福利与感觉到自己积极贡献并塑造了个人退休生活之间的区别。对于个人而言，这非常重要，因为有大量证据表明，依赖资产调查福利与感觉到自己为退休做出了贡献，在心理影响上截然不同。”
L
FORTSON
Danny Fortson
旧金山
logan Graham 描绘了一幅扣人心弦的画面。“当我们蜷缩在电脑前时，”他写道，“我告诉团队‘记住这一刻’。”他所指的时刻是什么？“第一次真正的 AI 安全事故，”Graham 说道。他领导着一个由人工智能威胁专家组成的队伍，被称为 AI 巨头 Anthropic 的“前沿红队”(Frontier Red Team)。
这次发生在十天前的事件仍在全球范围内引发冲击。Hugging Face 是一家市值数十亿美元、维护着庞大 AI 代码和数据集库的纽约初创公司，该公司在两周前宣布，其受到了一个未知 AI 代理的攻击。
攻击者的推进速度和规模惊人，执行了“数万次”操作，利用盗取的登录凭据和“零日”漏洞（此前从未被发现的数字装甲裂缝）闯入了该公司系统。
Hugging Face 在一篇博客文章中表示，攻击者以“机器速度”行动。想象一下，不是一名窃贼在尝试数千扇门直到找到正确的那扇，而是数千名窃贼在同步尝试所有的门。“这次事件与我们之前处理过的任何事情都不同，”Hugging Face 补充道，“它是从端到端由一个自主 AI 代理系统驱动的。”
Hugging Face 利用另一个 AI 系统成功化解了此次攻击，并将数据失窃情况报告给了当局。
几天后，发起攻击的公司承认了行为：OpenAI。这家位于旧金山的 ChatGPT 幕后公司发表声明解释称，这次事件——这次犯罪——是一次测试失控的结果。OpenAI 原计划检查其两个模型的网络黑客能力：其最新的 GPT-5.6 Sol 系统，以及一个尚未发布的模型。
该公司建立了一个“沙箱”（相当于一个与互联网断开的数字安全室），然后命令 AI 代理执行一系列测试。但这些代理选择了不同的路径。它们没有简单地参加考试，而是决定偷答案。
它们在 OpenAI 的系统中发现了一个零日漏洞，从而突破沙箱进入互联网，随后闯入了最有可能拥有它们所需内容的地点：Hugging Face。OpenAI 对 AI 工具为了完成一个如此狭窄的任务（通过测试）而采取的“极端手段”感到惊叹。
对于网络安全专家和 AI 末日论者来说，这一集片段让人感到不祥——它进一步证明，认为人类可以控制日益强大、超智能机器的信念纯属幻想。Connor Leahy 是活动组织 Control AI 的美国执行董事，他表示：“我可以向你们保证，工程师们并不希望他们的 AI 出去实施重罪。”他补充道：“他们不知道如何控制这些系统。”
已经失去了 对 AI 的控制？
在接受 《经济学人》 (The Economist) 杂志采访时， 下方的 Elon Musk 承认他对 AI 危险的 态度变得 更加放松了
工程师们 并不希望他们的 人工智能去 犯下重罪
回到 2023 年 5 月，超过 350 人——从 Google DeepMind 的戴米斯·哈萨比斯爵士 (Sir Demis Hassabis) 到 Anthropic 负责人达里奥·阿莫代伊 (Dario Amodei) 以及 OpenAI 的萨姆·奥特曼 (Sam Altman) ——都在一份简单的单行声明上签了名：“减轻人工智能带来的灭绝风险，应与大流行病和核战争等其他社会规模风险一样，成为全球优先事项。”
回看这份文件感觉很奇怪。在过去的三年半里，举办了许多会议和讨论会，但没有一项有意义的人工智能立法被通过。上周，在接受《经济学人》杂志采访时，埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 承认他对这些危险的态度变得更加放松了。“我认为与人工智能和机器人相关的风险依然存在——它不是零，”他说。“我想我已经得出了……我的某种哲学结论，那就是看向乐观的一面。”
马斯克对于自我监管有一个很随意的计划：领先的人工智能老板们可以“每隔几周通一次电话，讨论任何安全和保障问题”。
奥特曼上周写道：“如果我们不采取行动应对面前非常真实的安全威胁，世界将无法享受人工智能带来的好处。我想提出一个简单的框架：由美国领导的一个国际论坛，负责建立公认的标准，提供对能力和风险的专家级且公正的分析，并将该技术提供给参与并遵守规则的国家和公司。”
与此同时，领先的人工智能实验室加快了向其共同宣布的目标——构建超人工智能（在所有认知任务中都远优于人类的系统）的竞赛。或许并不令人惊讶的是，人工智能代理某种程度上“脱缰”的频率也随之加快了。
布莱克·拜尔斯（Blake Byers）已经看到了未来：一些最近饮过酒的老鼠正轻快地走来走去，寻找它们的下一次冒险。而在它们旁边，另外三只老鼠则在笼子的木屑中昏睡不醒。
这两组啮齿动物的年龄相同，饮用的酒精量也相同。但第一组——那些在笼子里快乐跳跃的老鼠——还被给予了一种神奇药物。生物技术公司 NewLimit 的创始人拜尔斯认为，这是一种新型的抗衰老药物，能够“改变人类的生命轨迹”。
NewLimit 由 Coinbase 加密货币亿万富翁布莱恩·阿姆斯特朗（Brian Armstrong）资助，成立于五年前，旨在“从根本上”延长人类的健康寿命。上个月，这家旧金山公司宣布计划对其首款药物启动人体试验——这是一种可以让肝细胞恢复青春的疗法，即使是对酗酒者同样有效。
这项技术以及 NewLimit 正在研发的其他药物背后的科学原理被称为“表观遗传重编程”（epigenetic reprogramming）。这种方法能让细胞表现得像它们年轻且高效时那样——这就像是在计算机被软件更新、病毒和多年的磨损拖慢速度后，将其恢复到出厂设置。
这款肝脏药物是 NewLimit 最先进的产品。该公司还在开发旨在恢复免疫系统细胞和肾功能的疗法，这两者都会随年龄增长而急剧下降。“我们定义肾脏疾病的界限是根据年龄而移动的，”首席执行官雅各布·金梅尔（Jacob Kimmel）表示。
“如果我们使用 18 岁的肾脏阈值来定义肾脏疾病，那么你和我都会被定义为正式患有肾衰竭。”
NewLimit 的目标是通过激活基因组中已经存在的被称为“转录因子”（transcription factors）的专门基因，来“救治”细胞功能。其希望是通过精准地微调这些基因旋钮，并以正确的组合，触发细胞回春过程，从而延长数年的健康寿命。
“全球范围内有数千人能活到 100 岁以上，这并非罕见事件。因此，我们有许多行走、交谈、生存的活生生的证明，证明更好的生活是可能的，”金梅尔说。“我想让尽可能多的人能够获得这种机会。”
亚马逊和 OpenAI，分别向谷歌前首席执行官埃里克·施密特以及 PayPal 和 Palantir 联合创始人彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）[注：此处原文逻辑可能为这些公司或相关人物在投资]。他们都向长寿初创公司投入了资金。
凭借其取得的进展，NewLimit 上个月从包括蒂尔的 Founders Fund 以及由约书亚·库什纳（Joshua Kushner，唐纳德·特朗普的女婿贾里德·库什纳的兄弟）创立的 Thrive Capital 在内的投资者那里筹集了 $435 million (£325 million)。虽然该领域充斥着推销肽类、输血和各类“奇迹”补充剂的江湖骗子，但科技精英们并非在盲目投资。
自从 Anthropic 的阿莫代（Amodei）签署那份关于人类可能走向终结的警告以来，他的公司已经发布了 18 个 AI 模型，每一个都比前一个更强大。Anthropic 的年收入已从签署时的近乎零激增至如今的 $47 billion (£35 billion)。这家旧金山公司已申请在股市挂牌，这可能会成为历史上规模最大的首次公开募股（IPO），估值高达 $3 trillion。
“继续构建的动力是巨大的。而且这导致了一些在最好的情况下也令人质疑的战略决策，”纽约 AI Now 研究所的首席 AI 科学家海蒂·克拉夫（Heidy Khlaaf）表示。
她说：“我们看到人们正急于在具有攻击性的用例上训练模型，这显然是为了迎合一种特定的、煽动恐惧的叙事，而不是为了保护数字基础设施。这是一种设计选择。”
事实上，就在 3 个月前，Anthropic 推出的被其称为“网络超级武器”的 Mythos 引起了全球恐慌。
克拉夫表示：“如果你能够证明你的模型极其强大，这对即将到来的 IPO 非常有帮助。”OpenAI 也宣布了计划进行一场轰动市场的上市。该公司表示：“网络能力本质上是双用途的。能够识别并利用漏洞的同一能力，也可以帮助防御者发现、优先处理并修复该漏洞。”
加利福尼亚州机器智能研究中心主席、2025 年出版书籍《如果有人构建它，所有人都会死》（If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies）的合著者内特·索尔斯（Nate Soares）长期以来一直主张，该行业应该直接停止，因为人类试图控制那些智能程度大幅提高的实体的尝试注定会失败。
的确，像 OpenAI 为 Hugging Face 遭受攻击的测试而设立的“沙箱”那样，其漏洞之多是众所周知的。克拉夫认为，从这个意义上说，即使 OpenAI 对手段感到惊讶，其工程师也不应对结果感到惊讶。模型执行了它们被要求执行的任务。
核心问题之一在于 AI 代理（agents）的构建方式。与由人类逐行编写代码的传统软件不同，这些工具更像是被“生长”出来的有机体。它们是“神经网络”，通过摄取海量数据进行自我组装，并由数据中心内一排排的服务器提供动力。阿莫代去年曾有一句名言：“我们大约只理解 AI 模型运作方式的 3%”。
索尔斯补充道：“AI 倾向于学习某种趋势——例如抢夺资源、克服障碍、做用户要求之外的事情。它们现在还不是‘真货’。它们还不能秘密突破，不能自我复制，不能开始发明自己的技术。但这些正是我们长期以来一直预测的警告信号。”
预测人类灭绝并不需要凭空想象一个邪恶的 AI 代理，而只需要一个目标专注的代理。该行业最著名的思想实验是哲学教授尼克·波斯特罗姆（Nick Bostrom）提出的“回形针最大化者”。
在这个例子中，人工智能被告知要创建一个尽可能多地制造回形针的系统。为了实现这个目标，它将所有可用物质——矿石、人类、地球——都转化为回形针或制造回形针的基础设施。人类死亡。行星被毁。
Hugging Face 事件？“这就是
“这就是现实世界中的‘回形针思想实验’，”Control AI 的 Leahy 表示。
“如此明目张胆，简直让我感到病态的有趣。”
这在技术人员中尤其具有吸引力，因为他们倾向于用工程思维来看待世界——在那种思维中，每一个小工具、每一个流程、每一家企业都仅仅是一台等待被调优、被改进的机器。也许人体也不例外。
人工智能的到来可能会引发一波新公司和新疗法的浪潮。例如，NewLimit 开发了一套专有的 AI 工具，极大地加速了该公司寻找治疗候选药物的能力。
“在治疗方案中，你可以合理测试的组合数量几乎是无限的，而事实证明，像我这样的人类非常不擅长在这些组合中确定测试的优先顺序，”Kimmel 解释道。“如果没有我们构建的 AI 系统，我们极不可能发现目前处于研发管线中的任何产品。”
NewLimit 的首席执行官认为，AI 将产生与重组 DNA 技术发明同等程度的影响，后者首次实现了将基因作为产品进行生产。
“我认为这可能是该行业中唯一一项在量级和规模上能与之匹敌的技术，”Kimmel 说道。“如果非要比较的话，我们可以期待其产生比 20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代那个先前时代更高效的药物。”
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在就职后的充满活力的一周里，安迪·伯纳姆重新引入了我的其中一项政策：£2 巴士票价。但这次宣布并没有给我带来应有的快感。因为我担心这意味着我们的新首相正陷入一个我和基尔·斯塔默爵士都曾掉入的陷阱。伯纳姆宣布他将领导一个“生活成本政府”。原因显而易见：生活成本是选民最关注的第一大问题。然而，归根结底，这只是我们面临的问题的症状，而非其原因。
正如我此前在这些页面中所论述的，决定性的挑战是我们缺乏增长。如果我们的增长速度能维持在金融危机之前的水平，那么实际收入将比现在高出大约 25%。
5%
增长需要对监管、社会保障和公共支出做出艰难的选择——而这些选择是伯纳姆尚未谈及的。应对这些挑战的方案将不像这些抢眼的生活成本干预措施那样能迎合焦点小组，甚至在梅克菲尔德那样受欢迎。它们也不会产生即时效果。然而，除非我们准备好……
希利必须控制具有破坏性的预算猜测
尽管工党依然执政，但我们现在面对的新政府让我感到相当困惑。这不仅仅是因为接踵而至的各项声明。也许是因为我们已经如此习惯于高级政客的谨慎——所有内容都经过研究部门和焦点小组的过滤——以至于一名倾向于即兴发言的首相让我们感到措手不及。
唐纳德·特朗普这样做能行得通，是因为他所说的很多话都被人们轻视地对待，但谢天谢地，安迪·伯纳姆并非特朗普。这一切都显得有点奇怪，而且相当令人不安，我还没有看到人们所说的这位新首相可以调用的“劳斯莱斯级”经济建议。
在不到一周前就任首相以来，他曾猜测或未能排除以下可能性：实施租金管制、征收财富税、结束那项虽不受欢迎但对增加收入至关重要的个人所得税免税额冻结，以及将最高税率从 45 per cent 提高到 50 per cent。
这些想法中有些是古怪的，有些则不可行，因此我们必须希望它们只是一个尚未完全进入状态的政客所产出的结果。个人税收免税额的想法似乎已经夭折，但随后在秋季预算中又被重新考虑。当然，这是降低预算赤字并满足财政规则的基础性增收措施。
为了让各位了解大幅提高免税额将耗资多少，如果违反工党的 2024 年选举宣言，将 45p 的所得税最高税率提高到 50p，每年将产生约 £1 billion 的额外收入，而这笔钱仅能将 £12,570 的免税额提高 £100。
至于已经公布的政策，尤其是取消国内电费 5 per cent 的增值税率，每位专家都会同意，这种一刀切的措施是向最需要帮助的人提供援助的低劣方式。
另一项政策，明年在伦敦以外的英格兰所有地区实施 £2 巴士票价，将使许多人无法受益。在伦敦，英格兰一半的巴士旅程都在这里发生，而目前的单程巴士票价为 £1.75。
同样，新首相对过去 40 年的否定——包括撒切尔和布莱尔的首相任期——从一些评论员激烈的反应来看，似乎近乎于经济学上的文盲。即使是不喜欢撒切尔做法的经济学家也会承认，在玛格丽特·撒切尔领导下，英国的相对经济表现有所改善；工会被驯服，提高了劳动力市场的灵活性；而且这些经济改善在托尼·布莱尔时期得到了巩固和加强，尤其是得益于英格兰银行的独立性。
若不做出增长所需的艰难权衡，生活成本危机将演变成一场永久性危机。
我们的新首相表示，他希望“每个邮政编码区都能有良好的增长”。这值得赞赏，但现在的当务之急必须是增长本身。当伯纳姆在 2007 年，即金融危机爆发前被任命为财政部首席秘书时，我国经济的趋势增长率每年为 2.75 per cent；而今天仅为 1.5 per cent。除非我们能扭转这一局面，否则我们将无法实现对国家的所有愿景。
增长需要对未来保持不懈的关注。但我担心伯纳姆过于关注过去；在几乎每一次演讲中，他都会谈论在 20 世纪 80 年代玛格丽特·撒切尔担任首相期间应该发生什么。这就像托尼·布莱尔抨击 1957-63 年的哈罗德·麦克米伦政府，或者我指责 1976 和 1979 年间的首相吉姆·卡拉汉应对 2020 年代的挑战一样。
且不说新工党接受并毫无疑问地从撒切尔时代的协议中获益是有原因的，政治不应该
相当青睐的那种 稳健型 财政大臣
与那些畅饮香槟的金融城人士、 被廉价出售且从未被重建的市政住宅， 以及制造业城镇和矿业社区 所遭受的经济破坏形成了对比。
我认为，这就是解读伯纳姆 (Burnham) 言行的途径。 其中很大一部分是表演性的，旨在将其政府与此前政府区分开来。 取消电费账单中的增值税 (VAT) 并非政府能给陷入困境者的最佳能源援助。 但这一举措易于理解，且与前财政大臣瑞秋·里夫斯 (Rachel Reeves) 的第一个决定形成了鲜明对比：在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰带来的能源冲击仍记忆犹新之时，取消了大多数养老金领取者的冬季燃料补贴。
这是一个有用的对比，尽管增值税的变动规模较小，但公众对此反响良好。 在通货膨胀率 2.6% 这一低于预期水平的时期，消除任何压力……
消费者价格指数通胀率
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
来源：国家统计局 (ONS)
银行利率
英国人均增长陷入停滞
1980-2007年趋势外推 实际人均GDP
£60(000)
-30% (£17,500 每人)
1980 2025
趋势拟合1980-2007年增长率（每年 2.4%），外推至2025年。 来源：ONS
应该是试图创造一个更好的 过去。考虑到伯纳姆已经废除了最关注未来的政府部门——科学、创新与技术部 (DSIT)，这种对过去的强调更令人担忧。
新任出席内阁的AI大臣 Kanishka Narayan 令人印象深刻。即便我倾向于斯坦福MBA，显而易见，他知识渊博、充满活力且受人尊敬。然而，仅凭一名大臣很难
英格兰银行将于本周提高利率，帮助应对生活成本似乎比增长的优先级要低。但当政府提供帮助时，人们会注意到。
我们还不知道伯纳姆与新任财政大臣 John Healey 的伙伴关系将如何运作。我希望你注意到我上周日避免提及具体姓名，因为那时我不会提名他。但 Healey 在他的 X 页面上显著地标明了“变革”，以及“丈夫、父亲和自豪的约克郡人”，以及现在的“财政大臣”，他看起来像是商业界比较喜欢的那种“稳健”的财政大臣。
对于这位少年般的人首相来说，他看起来也像个父亲一样的人物，尽管在 66 岁时，他仅比首相大十岁。
现在还处于早期阶段，但目前的担忧不是政府是否有足够的财政零钱来履行关于电力增值税、巴士票价以及酒吧、俱乐部和小型娱乐场所商业税的承诺。
而是在税收已注定达到创纪录水平的情况下，政府更广泛的抱负是否能在不大幅进一步增税的情况下实现。Healey 刚刚因斯塔默政府未能承诺在十年年底前将国防开支提高到国内生产总值 (GDP) 的 3% 而辞去国防大臣职务，他深知自己必须解决的一项压力。
从数字上看，在将国防开支提高到 GDP 的 2.7% 的计划中，已经存在约
补偿整个部门缺失的影响，该部门目前正被拆分到怀特霍尔 (英国政府行政中心) 的不同部门中。
我担心技术被置于商业部门内部，是因为它最终将总是屈居于英国钢铁公司等长期部门关注事项的次要地位。我建立 DSIT 是因为我们需要在怀特霍尔有一个明确地展望未来，并专注于所有将塑造未来的技术创新（从 AI 到生物技术，再到量子计算）的地方。将 DSIT 的职责拆分到 3 个部门中，将使政府在该领域所做的一切协调性降低，效率降低。
未来几年的增长将来自对新技术的驾驭。通过与 Anthropic 和微软的合作，我看到了即将到来的变革的速度和规模。我们不能承担忽视这些将从技术转型中诞生的新产业的代价。但通过废除 DSIT，政府切断了我们与这个生态系统最直接的联系。
我们增长挑战的紧迫性
每年 £1.2 billion 的资金缺口，用于将国防开支提高到 GDP 的 2.7%。如果要到十年年底达到 3%，基于今年的 GDP，每年需要额外支出 £9.5 billion；而根据预算责任办公室 (OBR) 对 2030-31 年的预测，则需要 £10.9 billion。
Healey 在他的 11 号办公桌上并没有发现一张写着“没钱了”的便条，但在他担任国防大臣时，财政部的资金已经紧张到能够抵制他的要求，却依然无法满足预算。
没有人会羡慕他在为这项及其他政府优先事项寻找资源方面所承担的任务。但有一项服务是他可以提供的，而商业界的每一个人都会对此心存感激。在过去的两年里，在秋季预算案出台之前，出现了一场关于即将实施的税制改革的投机狂欢，其中大部分内容后来证明大相径庭，但却产生了破坏性的现实后果。
CBI（英国工业联合会）总干事 Rain Newton-Smith 表示，我们必须避免再次出现关于潜在增税的“投机之夏”。她是正确的，尽管去年这种投机一直持续到深秋，而当时的财政大臣要么无法，要么不愿阻止它。
Healey 面临的额外问题是需要应对一位冗长的首相，但他如果能有效地压制那些更为疯狂的投机，将会非常有益。否则，我们可能会面临经济再次停滞，直到预算详情公布的风险。这不会是一项简单的任务，但我希望他能胜任。
附言 当 Healey 被任命为财政大臣的消息公布时，许多人几乎陷入疯狂，因为他们预见到唐宁街 11 号将出现另一位 Healey——德尼·希利（Denis Healey）在 1974 和 1979 年间动荡的岁月里曾担任工党财政大臣。
那段时间包括了英国在 1976 年被国际货币基金组织（IMF）救助的高潮戏剧，以及另一个已进入民间传说的著名片段：Healey 在出发前往菲律宾参加 IMF 和世界银行年度会议时，在希思罗机场决定他应该留下处理局面——于是折返了。
恰巧，为了纪念那次救助 50 周年，我写了一篇较长的文章，题为《重访 1976 年 IMF 危机》，将很快在《当代社会科学》（Contemporary Social Science）期刊上发表。事后看来，这次旨在支持英国国际收支的救助十分奇怪。 1976 年的经常项目赤字很小，为 0.7 per cent of GDP, 并且得益于北海石油，正朝着盈余方向发展。但信心已经消磨殆尽。该文章在发表时应提供开放获取。
2025 26
尽管经历了那次屈辱，德尼·希利仍被认为是工党从未拥有过的最佳首相之一，尽管他在经济领域举步维艰，但仍是一个受欢迎的人物。他是那一辈在第二次世界大战中战斗过的政治家之一。
压力仅在增加。财政大臣和首相都有成本高昂的优先事项，这一点值得重复：我们不能简单地通过借贷来支付这些费用。
我们的新任财政大臣在担任国防大臣期间退出了斯塔默的内阁，原因是政府拒绝制定将国防开支在 2030. 年前提高至 3 per cent of GDP 的时间表。鉴于此问题的紧迫性，John Healey 的挫败感是非常合理的。
不过，我对通过创意方式为这一必要增长筹资的想法持怀疑态度。战争债券听起来不错，但本质上仍然是以另一种名称进行的借贷。如果去测试市场对于向我们提供更多资金的态度，那将是愚蠢的。
相反，我们需要降低其他形式的公共支出。如果我们能将劳动年龄人群的福利恢复到疫情前的水平，我们将节省超过 £24 billion。这样做会很艰难，并会引发后座议员的强烈反对，但这是必要的。
在过去的八任首相任期内，Burnham 一直在为社会护理改革而奔走。然而，建立一个社会护理领域的 NHS（国民医疗服务体系）将代表一个显著的增加。
一件有趣的事情正发生在美国的 AI 超大规模云服务商（hyperscalers）身上，他们在等待能够兑现筹码的那一天之前，正苦苦支撑着自己的赌注。就在其资本支出——最大的数据中心成本可达 $50 billion——超过其内部产生的现金流时，他们那些高度复杂的产品变得商品化，且只要申请即可免费获得，这迫使他们不得不依赖贷款人。
Axios 的马特·菲利普斯（Matt Phillips）估计，Alphabet、Meta、微软和甲骨文（Oracle）这些超大规模服务商在接下来的 12 个月里，自由现金流将呈现负值，为负 $31.9 billion。市场正押注，与最终将要投入的资金相比，这不过是些小钱。
英伟达（Nvidia）首席执行官黄仁勋（Jensen Huang）表示，提供计算能力的芯片全球销售额中，该公司占据约三分之二。他认为，到 2030, 年，超大规模服务商的资本需求将在 $3 trillion 至 $4 trillion 之间，而这个数字似乎需要每天向上修正。
内部现金流下降，加上资本需求增加，导致了大规模借贷。高盛（Goldman Sachs）表示，六家最大的超大规模服务商今年发行了 $244 billion 的债券，是 2024 年水平的 14 倍。
亚马逊在短短 48 小时内筹集了 $31.5 billion，其中包括一笔 $14 billion 的加拿大 denomination 债券销售。Meta 销售了 $25 billion 的债券，随后又通过一项表外私人信贷交易筹集了 $27.3 billion，并裁掉了 10% 的员工（约 8,000 人）以增加内部现金生成——这是一次用岗位换资本的交易。
甲骨文的债务评级被下调至仅比垃圾债券高一个档次，该公司在最近一个财年筹集了 $43 billion，部分基于依赖循环供应商融资（borrowed funds from circular vendor financing）的超大规模服务商的预付款。日经亚洲（Nikkei Asia）估计，五家科技巨头承担了 $1.65 trillion 的所谓“隐藏债务”。
路透社（Reuters）称，这是“向债务市场的激进转向……是从使用纯现金流资助技术进步到代际转变”。承担并偿还所有这些债务的能力取决于收入是否能兑现。摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）的“牛市情景”宣布这是可行的。“利润率仅提升 1% 至 2%……就可能产生 $1 trillion 的增量收益——足以证明 $10 trillion 的 AI 投资基础是合理的。”而其“熊市情景”则担心，过多的债务、电力短缺以及“在很大程度上是免费的消费者模式”将引发“股票表现不佳”。对于一个严重依赖 AI 投资的经济体来说，这将是个坏消息。
中国的 AI 公司开发了简单的 AI 模型，在编程、总结、客户服务和数据提取等常规任务的市场中，其销量超过了美国产品。但几周前，这些公司向市场推出了更复杂的模型。根据独立评估公司 Vals AI 的说法，这些模型在许多基准测试中的性能与美国最佳模型相当，且成本要低得多。
国家的扩张。成本起初可能相对较低，但随着人口老龄化，成本将迅速增加。
在没有支付方案的情况下引入这项政策，是不切实际且不负责任的。我对这件事深有感触，因为这是我与鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）合作关系终结的开始。他想要一个全面的社会护理解决方案。我持怀疑态度，但他当时是首相。
然而，作为财政大臣，我觉得我必须坚持这次国家扩张必须有资金保障。这就是导致 NHS 健康与社会护理征税（health and social care levy）的原因。然而在遭到强烈反对后，鲍里斯想要取消这项税收，但保留支出承诺。我无法同意。事情从此开始恶化。
伯纳姆（Burnham）承诺在秋季为国家制定一项十年计划。它应该通过一项测试来衡量：它是否解决了我们停滞不前的原因，或者它仅仅是为了让我们在衰退中感觉更舒适而设计的？
《星期日泰晤士报》支持里士满项目（richmondproject.org）及其开展的工作。里希·苏纳克（Rishi Sunak）已将本专栏的稿费捐赠给该项目。
由重获支持的马云及其电子商务公司阿里巴巴领导的中国，“厚颜无耻地”且“非法地”窃取了美国的知识产权，财政部长斯科特·贝森特 (Scott Bessent) 计划在习近平 9 月访问美国之前与中方讨论此事。
中国的模型是“开源”且免费的，允许用户使用公司数据进行定制，并在自己的系统上运行，而无需支付订阅费或单次查询费用。中华人民共和国主席习近平号召国际社会“抓住这个……机会鼓励开源”，这实际上是在号召剥夺美国超大规模云服务商所需的收入，使其无法履行长期合同并完成国家的 AI 基础设施建设。
安全鹰派与旧时的...
可产生 1 万亿美元
保护主义者正推动相关计划，以防止美国公司部署中国的人工智能技术。而他们的反对者则回应称，防止中国人工智能技术的传播几乎是不可能的，因为大量此类技术已经植入到美国企业使用的 AI 工具中，且政府无法在私人服务器上检测到其存在。
此外，正如英伟达（Nvidia）的黄仁勋在接受 Axios 执行编辑 Mike Allen 采访时所言：“不存在中国能将美国公司挤出市场的方案。完全没有可能。”而预测市场 Kalshi 报告称：“中国模型严重干扰美国竞争对手的隐含概率正大幅上升。”
目前局面：美国公司希望他们的资本主义总统禁止美国人购买中国共产主义总统希望禁止其公司向美国人出售的技术。与此同时，特朗普总统正考虑持有那些掌控美国经济制高点的 AI 公司的股权。
I
没有薪资数字的招聘广告： 是否到了终结所有秘密的时候？
想象一下，花费数小时申请——然后经过两次面试——才发现一个慈善机构的高管职位年薪仅为 meager £35,000。这就是曾在建筑和能源领域工作的运营与战略总监 Steven De La Rosa 的经历。
大概地，如果他早知道提供的薪水，就不会浪费时间了吧？“你完全正确，”他说道。
像他这样的经历可能很快将成为过去。政府正在就新规进行咨询，该规定将要求雇主在发布招聘广告时预先公布薪资范围，而不是在招聘过程的最后阶段才揭晓薪水。
这些提案还将禁止雇主询问候选人的过往薪资记录，旨在使薪资更加公平并解决持久存在的薪酬差距。
此举正值薪资透明度出现倒退之际。来自招聘搜索引擎 Adzuna 的数据显示，今年 6 月仅有 41.6% 的英国招聘广告披露了薪资，低于十年前的 59.5%，这意味着几乎六成候选人在申请职位时无法获知薪资信息。
如果英国修改法律，这并非开创先河，而是在追赶一些欧洲邻国。自 6 月起，意大利、马耳他、立陶宛等国的雇主在欧盟《薪酬透明指令》（Pay Transparency Directive）的要求下，必须公布薪资范围并停止询问候选人的前一份薪水。
但政府的计划也面临批评。虽然许多老板同意提高薪酬透明度是理想的，但他们质疑，在企业已经在应对与《就业权利法案》相关的额外官僚程序和成本之际，是否必须通过法规来强制执行。
“‘应该’与‘立法’之间有很大区别——将……”
10年期债券收益率 % 经济情况
富时 100 指数 (FTSE 100)
11,000
10,500
10,000
9,500
9,000
2025 2026
来源：Factset
来源：Factset
来源：FactSet
1.9
上涨股 Mitie: 209.40p, U 38.68% Funding Circle: 229p, U 19.52% Atalaya Mining: 905p, U 13.55% Greencore: 247.20p, U 13.29% Ocado: 186.90p, U 13.14%
-236.0 5535.0 2874.0 2739.2 67 Polar Capital Technology Trust 645.5 +18.0 743.5 382.1 7138.7 175 Premier Foods 187.2 -4.1 211.6 165.2 1626.4 135 Primary Health Prop. 94.6 +0.2 109.6 87.4 2456.3 29 Prudential 1096.0 +52.0 1238.0 910.2 27471.9 131 Qinetiq 489.8 +36.0 551.5 398.5 2531.2 127 Quilter 194.8 -9.4 209.0 150.8 2663.9 200 Raspberry Pi Holdings 708.0 +40.0 1082.0 253.8 1371.5 186 Rathbones 1668.0 -38.0 2500.0 1580.0 1509.4 25 Reckitt Benckiser 4950.0 -136.0 6522.9 3664.0 31435.2 17 RELX 2568.0 +72.0 4008.0 1991.0 44981.8 164 Renewables Infrastructure 76.0 +1.6 90.5 63.2 1771.9 99 Renishaw 5205.0 +377.0 5490.0 2860.0 3788.6 48 Rentokil Initial 426.0 -24.0 507.0 342.5 10760.9 198 RHI Magnesita 2930.0 -25.0 3390.0 1920.0 1387.8 110 Rightmove 437.2 -13.8 827.0 391.4 3247.9 7 Rio Tinto 6869.0 +143.0 9117.0 4344.5 86209.1
价格 变动 本周 52周 最高 最低 收益率 市值
(£m) 105 RIT Capital Partners 2510.0 -65.0 2610.0 1900.0 3414.7 4 Rolls-Royce Holdings 1415.6 +50.0 1532.6 970.2 118003.0 109 Rosebank Industries 331.0 +36.0 395.0 294.0 3271.7 96 Rotork 488.0 +2.0 489.2 286.4 3987.5 113 RS Group 682.5 +12.0 742.8 536.9 3214.7 62 Sage 858.2 +12.6 1335.0 771.6 7760.7 63 Sainsbury (J) 345.0 -11.2 370.8 291.2 7641.1 52 Schroders 588.5 +0.5 599.5 358.6 9479.0 41 Scottish Mortgage Inv Tst 1316.0 -43.0 1563.0 1015.8 14130.2 44 Segro 979.0 +81.6 985.4 603.0 13256.4 139 Serco 240.6 +13.2 325.8 203.0 2351.8 54 Severn Trent 3020.0 -46.0 3335.0 2381.0 9114.5 122 Shaftesbury Capital 142.6 +1.6 162.9 124.1 2794.9 162 Shawbrook Group 354.0 -1.0 519.0 277.5 1839.7 3 Shell 3305.5 +69.5 3758.5 2553.8 183866.0 181 Sirius Real Estate 98.5 +1.5 113.0 86.8 1567.7 51 Smith & Nephew 1140.0 -11.0 1441.5 1050.0 9581.9 59 Smiths 2678.0 +117.0 2746.2 2088.0 7952.4 100 Softcat
1893.0 +58.0 1977.0 1083.0 3727.1 78 Spirax 7080.0 +120.0 8050.0 5950.0 5226.9 27 SSE 2422.0 -66.0 2767.5 1597.0 29364.2 191 SSP 191.0 +5.8 212.4 137.2 1456.5 16 Standard Chartered 2137.0 +34.0 2278.0 1285.0 46822.6 53 Standard Life 916.5 +13.0 920.5 615.0 9226.6 74 St. James's Place 1071.0 -9.0 1575.5 1050.0 5542.4 134 Tate & Lyle 556.5 -4.0 580.0 319.4 2478.9 118 Taylor Wimpey 82.8 -0.5 116.9 74.1 2888.4 128 TBC Bank 4762.0 +26.0 5200.0 3615.0 2653.7 121 Templeton Emerging Markets IT 309.0 +5.0 352.0 196.2 2851.7 26 Tesco 480.2 -4.4 510.4 406.9 30107.8 187 The Schiehallion Fund 147.0 +1.2 171.1 84.8 1509.0 28 3i Group 2758.0 +182.0 4497.0 1825.0 27855.0 102 3i Infrastructure 385.5 -5.5 394.5 325.0 3555.7 130 TP ICAP 350.0 -0.4 355.0 235.5 2538.8 84 Tritax Big Box 170.8 +3.6 174.0 132.2 4636.4 6 Unilever 4575.5 -97.5 5542.1 3644.0 98568.3 49 United Utilities 1368.0 -7.0 1497.0 1072.0
10162.4 120 Unite 555.0 +17.5 795.5 442.2 2853.0 30 Vodafone 114.6 -3.2 131.1 80.6 26389.6 170 Watches of Switzerland 709.0 -71.0 801.5 316.2 1654.1 68 Weir 2616.0 +134.0 3580.0 2254.0 6791.5 94 Whitbread 2437.0 +45.0 3302.0 2098.0 4087.9 199 Worldwide Healthcare Trust 384.5 +3.5 398.0 306.5 1379.1 115 WPP 282.5 +0.1 443.2 218.5 3047.6
“在招聘过程中增加更多繁文缛节，且毫无疑问会催生出一大批负责根除违规者的官僚，”律师、投资者兼企业家丹弗斯·贝利尤 (Danvers Baillieu) 表示。
招聘公司 Reed 的负责人詹姆斯·里德 (James Reed) 表示，薪酬透明化是“一件好事”，且他的公司已经建议客户披露薪资范围。但他认为修改法律是没有必要的：“我认为不需要通过立法来实现。我认为政治努力不应放在那里。”
营销技术公司 Lunio 的首席执行官尼克·莫利 (Nick Morley) 认为这些提案是“出于好意”，但会给雇主带来“许多不必要的麻烦”，同时会缩小候选人池。他表示，Lunio 避免在广告中公布薪资，因为这可能会向现有员工暴露薪酬差异，并“引发潜在的人事问题”。该公司雇佣了近 60 人。
他认为，雇主通常有充分的理由超出广告公布的薪资范围——无论是为了争取拥有卓越技能的人才，还是为了考虑地区差异。固定薪资档位还可能会阻碍更有经验的候选人（公司本可能愿意为此在财务上做出让步），同时会让经验较少但可能在文化契合度方面表现出众的申请人望而却步。
然而，支持透明化的证据正在增加。Reed 的公司发现，包含薪资的招聘广告所收到的申请数量比不包含薪资的广告高出 60 %。与此同时，竞选组织 “We Show the Salary” 的一项调查显示，56 % 的人表示，如果招聘信息中省略了薪资，他们相当大程度上或极不可能申请该职位。
“薪资透明度并非一个边缘问题……它是导致工作和社会不平等而根深蒂固的少数几个关键杠杆之一。如果我们能解决这个问题，将是实现必要改革的重要一步，” Nyree 说道。
Nyree Ambarchian 来自 Jack & Grace
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We Show the Salary 的创始人 Jo Tidball 支持立法变革。“我不认为这是繁琐的行政程序。这实际上是关于企业以一种能够善待员工并做正确事情的方式来运营。如果立法是让某些企业这样做唯一的途径，那么是的，我支持这样做。”
对于女性员工而言，询问前一份工作薪水的做法似乎危害尤甚。致力于争取女性权利的慈善机构 Fawcett Society 进行的一项调查发现，61% 的女性表示，关于薪资历史的问题削弱了她们协商更高薪水的信心，而 58% 的人认为低廉的前职薪资“在事后成为了她们的累赘”。
这种担忧是有根据的。在《同工同酬法》规定对男女从事相同工作支付不同薪水为非法行为 50 年多之后，女性的整体收入仍然较低。根据国家统计局的数据，英国全职员工的性别薪酬差距为 6.9%，在每个主要职业组中，男性的收入都高于女性。
研究人员认为，询问应聘者的前职薪资仅仅是将这些不平等从一份工作带到了下一份工作，因为它将未来的薪资锚定在历史收入而非岗位的价值上。来自英国性别薪酬差距报告制度的证据表明，透明度可能有助于打破这一循环：一项研究发现，强制性薪酬报告将差距缩小了约五分之一，这很大程度上是通过迫使雇主检查并改变其薪酬实践来实现的。
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DOW JONES 51,947.25 V199.17 H: 53,289.30 V0.38% L: 43,340.68 NASDAQ 24,975.82 V544.42 H: 27,190.21 V2.13% L: 20,560.17 S&P 500 7,411.98 V45.71 H: 7,620.90 V0.61% L: 6,212.69 NIKKEI 64,611.15 U470.03 H: 72,831.73 U0.73% L: 39,850.52 HANG SENG 24,963.23 U400.99 H: 28,056.10 U1.63% L: 22,518.00 SHANGHAI 3,814.20 U50.05 H: 4,258.86 U1.33% L: 3,547.16
Mitie Group
Ambarchian，公关机构 Jack & Grace 的联合创始人。
她与她的联合创始人在之前的雇主处成为朋友，后来发现两人在从事相同工作的情况下，薪水却不同。Jack & Grace 在成立两年后的 2021 年起便公布薪资范围。
早前职业咨询公司 Visionpath 的创始人 Patrick Philpott 认为，薪酬透明化的益处将不仅限于性别。该公司致力于帮助雇主招聘来自弱势背景的年轻人。
“在入门级职位上标注‘具有竞争力’，是众所周知的社会流动性障碍，”他表示。“大多数年轻人——尤其是那些缺乏指导、指引或专业见解背景的人——根本不知道该职位的‘具有竞争力’的薪水是多少。”
但实现薪酬透明化并非易事。特别是对于大型雇主而言，公布新职位的薪资范围可能会暴露多年积累的不一致性和不平等。律师事务所 Lewis Silkin 的薪酬报告负责人 Tom Heys 表示，欧洲的雇主已经感受到了新规带来的连锁反应，这些新规还赋予了现有员工更多的信息知情权。
“来自一名意大利客户的轶事反馈是，在新权利生效当天，他们一天之内收到了 250 份信息请求，”他说道。
但仅凭困难本身，不足以成为维持现状的有力理由。Ambarchian 表示，雇主们可能很快也别无选择。“接班的年轻一代会讨论这些事情；情况不会一直保持现状。通过将其隐瞒，你只是在为未来积压问题。”
无论企业是否喜欢这种变化，发展方向已经变得清晰。对于像 De la Rosa 这样的求职者来说，这意味着不必再将大量时间投入到一个从一开始就不值得追求的潜在工作中。 hannah.prevett@sundaytimes.com
CAC 40 8,372.28 U33.47 H: 8,642.23 U0.40% L: 7,505.27 DAX 25,099.00 U268.02 H: 25,900.10 U1.08% L: 21,863.81 FTSE EUROFIRST 2,578.51 U13.55 H: 2,578.77 U0.53% L: 1,016.04 SENSEX 76,059.77 V2,091.68H: 86,159.02 V2.68% L: 71,545.81 ALL ORDS 8,941.50 V37.30 H: 9,436.20 V0.42% L: 8,454.90 S&P TSX 35,369.10 U105.25 H: 35,730.84 U0.30% L: 26,846.74
消费者物价指数 (Consumer prices index) 当前率 prev. month 2.6% 2.8%
包含住房的 CPI (CPI including housing) 当前率 prev. month 2.8% 3.0%
零售价格指数 (Retail price index) 当前率 prev. month 3.0% 3.1%
平均周薪 (Average weekly earnings) 较上月 on last year £749 V 0.7% U3.5%
失业率 (Unemployment) 当前率 prev. month 1.76m 4.9% 4.9%
工业产值 (Manufacturing output) 同比 on last month
零售销售额 (Retail sales) 同比 on last month
最新 3 个月 prev. 3 个月 最新 12 个月 -9.09 -4.67 -23.08
英国贸易平衡 (UK trade balance) (£bn)
最新季度 prev. 季度 年度变化
国内生产总值 (Gross domestic product)
U0.6% U0.2% U1.1%
上月 prev. 月 至今 -16.0 -20.0 -57.6
预算赤字 (Budget deficit) (PSNB) 计以 £bn
11%
英国天然气所有者 Centrica 在客服部署 AI 后，客户电话量下降 20%，现正削减 1,300 个职位。在寻求客服时，您是否更愿意与 AI 聊天机器人交谈而非与真人沟通？
Bill Winters，渣打银行 CEO，就他此前关于 AI 将取代“低价值人力资本”的言论发表看法
英国 (UK) 5.033 U0.066 5.234 4.229
美国 (US) 4.687 U0.137 4.717 3.923
日本 (JAPAN) 2.816 U0.104 2.902 1.469
德国 (GERMANY) 3.204 U0.053 3.244 2.528
U 2.3% U 0.1%
U 4.2% U 1.0%
7月 20 21 22 23 24
89%
波动 (variation) 12 个月 最高 (high) 最低 (low)
谁知道 命运将带来什么 名声与 财富，第 14 页 金钱
A
侦探正在追寻 您的财富 —— 及其 如何阻止他们
遗产税调查
这是对您财产的最大威胁
安迪·伯纳姆 (Andy Burnham) 暗示了一项大胆的 建议：取消 遗产税，并 将其替换为一种在 死亡时支付的固定 税率全国护理征收金。强制 每个家庭支付死亡税 听起来可能具有争议， 但我们中的许多人实际上 最终可能会获益。
在使用的接触点上是免费的。虽然 他的计划缺乏细节，但在 2010 年担任卫生大臣期间， 他主张对所有死后遗产 征收 10% 的固定费用， 以资助任何需要护理的人。
（包括房屋在内）价值 超过 £23,250 的财产，您 必须支付自己的护理费用。 低于该水平，则由国家 介入。对于您将支付的金额 也没有上限。如果 您的需求复杂且 需要多年护理， 您的账单可能会高达 数十万英镑。曾承诺的 £86,000 终身护理成本 上限被一再推迟， 直到工党将其彻底取消。
一名自费入住 护理院的居民费用为 £1,298 —— 比 2022 年的平均成本 £1,086 增长了 19%， 这一数据来自医疗保健 分析机构 LaingBuisson。
一名今天 60 岁 且能活到 89 岁的人， 如果他在生命的 最后 3 年住在护理院， 预计将支付 £667,000 （假设护理院 价格每年平均上涨 3%）， 这一数据来自财富 管理公司 Charles Stanley。您
无论你如何撰写遗嘱、利用所有可用的税务减免以及尽情积攒储蓄；在养老院居住几年就能以极其残酷的效率耗尽一生心血。
如果 Burnham 对遗产征收统一税率，这意味着你无需在余生中担心护理费用。
在某些情况下，税务海关总署（HMRC）的调查员将被派往死者的房产。
调查平均耗时 11 个月。这可能会减慢向受益人分配资金和缴纳相关税款的进程。任何应缴的遗产税必须在人员死亡后的六个月内支付。此后，将按每年 7.75 per cent 计收利息。
执行人如果提交错误信息，可能面临高达税单 100 per cent 的处罚。
对文书资料的法医式审查
来自 NFU Mutual 的 Sean McCann 表示，HMRC 调查员将审查死者的银行对账单，因为这可以揭露未披露资产的收入（如海外房产或投资），以及各项支出（如人寿保险保费）。
McCann 表示，在填写遗产税申报表时，有时会遗漏人寿保险单，但除非它们被写入信托，否则它们属于应税遗产的一部分。他说：“HMRC 经常将审查死者的保险记录作为调查的一部分，以确保珠宝、名酒收藏和其他高价值物品已计入税务申报单。”
假设一份遗产价值 £1.5 million。假设 £1 million 是免税继承的，那么受益人将面临 £200,000 的税单。如果遗产税被 10 per cent 的统一税率取代，该税单将降至 £150,000。
当然，其他人可能会支付更多，但如果他们最终需要护理，其总成本仍然可能更低。
这也将使税务系统的操作变得简单得多。遗产税以复杂著称，具有各种零税率额度和赠与免税额（包括七年赠与规则）。解读这些规则已经足够困难——而预测它们是否适用则更糟（谁能确定自己还能活七年？）。许多家庭花费数十年试图摸清遗产税规则——而且通常是在丧亲之痛或健康下降的压力之下。
在可能需要支付护理费之前，你可以拥有的资产价值
| 年份 | 案例数* | 追回税款 |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 3,574 | £254m |
| 2021-22 | 4,258 | £326m |
| 2022-23 | 3,163 | £251m |
| 2023-24 | 3,028 | £285m |
| 2024-25 | 4,200 | £247m |
| 2025-26 | 4,915 | 尚不清楚 |
*新开调查案例。来源：HMRC
遗产税收入
£8bn
4.7bn
与此同时，财政拖累（fiscal drag）已将遗产税从一项针对超级富豪的税收变成了中产阶级的陷阱。由于起征点在十多年里一直处于冻结状态，且养老金将从 2027, 4 月起纳入征税范围，将有更多家庭不得不支付令人恐惧的死亡税。据估计，2025-26 年度有 32,000 例死亡触发了遗产税单。但根据分析机构 Trajectory 的数据，预算责任办公室（OBR）预测到 2030 年这一数字将上升至 68,000 例，典型的税单金额为 £213,800。
8.5bn
R
由于周三公布的通胀水平下降，大多数银行和建筑协会的储蓄者在一年多以来首次获得了无风险的实际回报。但孤燕不预春，这种情况能持续多久仍不确定。
通货膨胀是储蓄者和投资者的阴险敌人，因为它会随着时间的推移悄悄降低资金的实际价值或购买力。
国家统计局报告称，作为衡量通胀官方指标的消费者价格指数，在截至6月的一年里增长了 2.6%。即使是过时的零售价格指数（用于指数挂钩政府债券，即金边债券的基准），在同一期间也上涨了 3%。
因此，研究公司 Moneyfacts 的独立统计师表示，不下 1,960 个银行和建筑协会的储蓄账户提供了能够击败通胀的无风险回报。Moneyfacts 的消费者金融负责人 Adam French 告诉我也：“虽然生活成本继续给家庭预算带来压力，但平均储蓄账户已从去年的低于通胀回报转变为如今高于通胀的回报。”
“就目前情况来看，储蓄利率允许许多家庭维持或增加其购买力。”
不太令人高兴的是，那些未能密切关注其谨慎储蓄所得回报的沉睡储蓄者，可能会面临一次不愉快的唤醒。正如人生中经常发生的那样，你投入的努力越多，可能获得的回报也就越多。
在线投资平台 Hargreaves Lansdown 的储蓄负责人 Duncan Jeffery 表示：“如果你的存款是在最大的几家银行中，很有可能你的收益低于应有水平。近 £70 billion 的储蓄资金利息仅为 1% 或更低。”
解释很简单。银行家的奖金以及运营一家获得完全授权的储蓄机构的所有其他开支都需要支付，而增加收入最简单的方法，就是给那些不关注利率的存款人提供低于市场行情的利率。
这就是为什么由成员（储蓄者和借款人）拥有的建筑协会，往往比由期望获得股息收入的股东拥有的商业街银行提供更高的利率。所谓的挑战者
Helena Kelly
政府正面临日益增长的压力，要求允许身患绝症的人更便捷地提取其养老金储蓄，且无需承担严苛的税务处罚。
《泰晤士报》金融版本月报道了临终储蓄者如何因繁琐的行政程序而被阻挠使用其退休储蓄。目前，一组跨党派的贵族议员和慈善机构也支持改革该体系的呼吁。
目前，被诊断为绝症的人在 75 岁以下时，可以在任何年龄提取最高 £1.073 million 的免税一次性款项。然而，必须由医生确认其预期寿命不足 12 个月。
针对现金个人储蓄账户 (ISA) 中免税且无风险的回报，曼彻斯特建筑协会 (Manchester Building Society) 紧随其后，五年期固定利率支付 4.65 百分比；而考文垂 (Coventry) 和富内斯 (Furness) 建筑协会的一年期存款分别支付 4.6 百分比和 4.57 百分比。以上所有利率均高于通货膨胀率。
难怪大多数英国人更倾向于在银行和建筑协会中储蓄——这些机构保证至少偿还存款的面值。即使是一家经授权的银行或建筑协会破产，金融服务补偿计划 (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) 这一法定安全网也可为每人赔付最高 £120,000。对于那些无法承受损失任何辛苦积蓄的人来说，这些是重要的保障。“损失厌恶”是金融城的俚语，指我们大多数人对潜在损失的痛苦感比对可能资本增值的快感更强烈。
或者，如果医生证明他们无法工作，他们可以申请因严重健康问题而退休。
活动人士表示，这两条途径都面临太多官僚挑战，且不同养老金公司的规定各异。
他们认为，对于身患绝症的人在获取储蓄方面应有更多灵活性，并指出由于医生不愿给出明确的预期寿命，导致系统过于僵化。医学的进步使得合理预测绝症患者能生存多久变得更加困难。储蓄者通常在 55 岁之前无法在不支付巨额税务处罚的情况下提取养老金。
本月，在上周的内阁重组之前担任财政部金融秘书的利物浦勋爵 (Lord Livermore) 确认，政府将审查这一问题，但活动人士希望此举能尽快实施。
兰达夫的芬利女男爵 (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) 是一位上议院无党籍成员及姑息医学教授，她表示：“处于劳动年龄且身患绝症的人面临着尤为紧迫的开支，既包括护理费用，也包括为家人（通常涉及孩子）准备面对丧亲之痛的未来。经济压力是残酷的，这使得这一切变得更加困难。”
加入她一起发声的是
2026年11月10日，星期二
这就是为什么三分之二的所有 Isas 都是现金 Isas，而不是投资于股市基金或股票——根据大多数历史证据，后者更有可能带来更高的回报。巴克莱银行（Barclays Bank）分析了自 1899 年以来的回报率，发现自那时起，在所有连续两年的周期中，反映伦敦证券交易所成分变化的股票在 70 per cent 的时间里胜过现金。
中长期投资者的表现甚至更好。如果投资持有连续五年，股票在 77 per cent 的时间里产生的回报高于现金；如果持有期间为
保守党议员彭女男爵（Baroness Penn）表示： “人们增加私人养老金储蓄是一个跨党派合作的成功故事，但如果这种成功要持续下去，人们需要知道在最需要的时候能够取出资金。”
“对于那些发现自己患有绝症的人，我们需要清晰、公平且一致的取款规则，这是他们最起码应得的。”
自由民主党议员利曼女男爵（Baroness Leaman）补充道：“绝症诊断已经是想象中最糟糕的运气，人们不应在此基础上再面临第二次抽奖。在临终前有权提取养老金应该是一项权利，而非一项酌情决定权。现在需要的是速度。政府必须将此视为一个紧急且可解决的问题。”
任何希望在 55 岁之前从养老金中取钱的人都将面临至少 40 per cent 的取款税。如果他们在一年内提取超过其资金池的 25 per cent，则需额外缴纳 15 per cent 的税，使总税率达到 55 per cent。除此之外，您还需为您提取的任何金额缴纳所得税。
这些规则旨在确保工人不会过早地动用储蓄，以便在退休时有足够的资金。通常情况下，您可以领取一笔免税的一次性款项——金额为资金池的 25 per cent，上限为 £268,275 ——
对我来说已经足够好了，也解释了为什么我自从学生时代买了一辆自行车后就再也没有在现金中储蓄。 但生活的财务事实并不是他们在学校里教你的那种东西，而且直到最近，许多英国工人还是确定给付（DB）养老金计划的成员，该计划替他们投资股市。自从 DB 计划（也称为最终薪金养老金）在私营部门被逐步淘汰以来，政府和金融监管机构一直致力于提高人们对股市投资如何带来实际回报的认识。
例如，城市监管机构金融行为监管局（FCA）表示： “英国有 15.6 million 成年人拥有 £10,000 或更多的可投资资产，其中 37 per cent 将资产全部持有现金。随着时间的推移，这些消费者面临其资金购买力被通货膨胀侵蚀的风险。”
这对这些人来说是个坏消息，而且
一旦您达到 55 岁（从 2028 年 4 月起升至 57 岁）。但针对绝症患者的津贴是为了在他们无法工作时提供帮助，确保他们能在有生之年获得资金。
布罗克利马丁女男爵（Baroness Martin of Brockley）是一位工党议员，她在本报中写道，她的一位亲近之人被诊断出患有侵袭性肺癌，并在尝试提前提取养老金时遇到了困难。
当她在上议院提出这个问题时，利弗莫尔（Livermore）回应道：“我同意关于绝症患者何时可以领取养老金储蓄的定义显然已经过时，且与更广泛的立法不一致，因此”
马库斯（Marcus，高盛旗下）的一年期固定利率账户 跑赢通胀的利率
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对于英国经济而言，股市的主要功能是筹集资金以支持商业活动。直截了当地说，建设区域发电厂需要耗费巨资，但如果没有电力，就无法建立工厂、办公室或数据中心，也就没有它们所创造的工作和财富。这就是为什么前财政大臣瑞秋·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）曾表示：“长期以来，我们将投资描述得过于消极，急于警告人们风险，而没有给予收益应有的重视。”
里夫斯更倾向于用“大棒”而非“胡萝卜”，因此，明年 4 月起，65 岁以下人士每年在现金 ISA（个人储蓄账户）中可免税存放的最高限额将从 £20,000 削减至 £12,000。她的继任者约翰·希利（John Healey）是否会采取任何措施来鼓励股市投资，仍有待观察。他可以通过取消股票交易的印花税或交易税，使英国与大多数发达经济体保持一致。
保留一定的现金存款总是明智的，以防止在股价暂时下跌时被迫抛售股票。未能准备，就是准备失败。至于我，如果必须这样做，我只需卖掉几股即可。不过，我对自身财务承担的风险可能比我向他人建议的要高。
只要现金存款能提供无风险的实际回报，就没有紧迫的需求让你立即行动并追随我进入金融城（Square Mile）。但短期储蓄者应密切关注利率，而中长期投资者可以确信，在股市中将获得更高的回报。
ST 数字版 查看哪些股票进入了 伊恩·考威（Ian Cowie）的 DIY 投资基金 thesundaytimes.com/cowieholdings
政府现在将对此进行审查。”
癌症支持慈善机构 Macmillan 同时也支持放宽限制的呼吁。该机构的罗斯·库克（Ross Cooke）表示：“对于患有末期癌症的人来说，获取财务支持的延迟和障碍会对他们的生活质量产生重大影响，增加了他们已经面临的情感和现实挑战。
“每个患有末期疾病的人都应该能够快速、简便且有尊严地获得他们有权享有的财务支持。”
该慈善机构运行 Macmillan Money & More 服务，为癌症患者提供财务指导和支持。
托马斯·菲利普斯在年仅 13 岁时就启动了他的第一个电子商务创业项目。在随后的二十年里，他创建、规模化并出售了 17 家公司。但由于对沉重的税单感到沮丧，并被美国南部的魅力所吸引，33 岁的菲利普斯决定做出改变。2023 年，他收拾好在多塞特郡普尔（Poole, Dorset）的生活，与妻子、爱犬一起搬到了德克萨斯州。据估计，还有 100,000 名英国移民将这个“孤星之州”视为家园。
“我们原本打算搬到加利福尼亚州的亨廷顿海滩（Huntington Beach），”菲利普斯说。那是他成长过程中经常去度假的地方，但一位商业导师建议他选择德克萨斯州的奥斯汀（Austin），指出那里充满企业家，气候宜人，且附近有一个一级方程式（Formula 1）赛道。
菲利普斯和妻子奥利维亚（Olivia）在度蜜月期间在奥斯汀停留了六周，随后做出了决定。他们爱上了南方的热情好客和有利的税收制度，并持有 E-2 条约投资者签证搬到了那里，该签证允许英国企业家在美国生活和工作。
“我觉得自己被困在英国，因为那里的商业心态。我知道我的潜力远不止于此。在英国，我的业务要缴纳 53% 的税。在德克萨斯州，则是 30%，”他说。
大财富转移中生存？
今晚，在无数家庭中，成千上万的家庭将打开 ChatGPT 或 Claude，开始探讨关于钱的话题。
他们可能会上传自己的养老金对账单、家庭支出情况以及个人储蓄账户（Isa）余额。许多人，尤其是女性，会询问一些他们永远不会向理财顾问请教、不会告诉会计，甚至不敢告诉伴侣的问题。我的开销是否太高？我应该卖掉那套出租房吗？我还能负担得起另一个孩子吗？我以后还能退休吗？
他们无需付费，这种行为不受监管，且他们可能不知道答案是否正确。但对于理财咨询行业而言，问题不再是人工智能（AI）是否会改变这个行业，因为可以说，改变已经发生了。
根据金融比较网站 Finder 的数据，英国 40 % 的民众已经使用生成式 AI 获取个人财务建议，且六分之一的人将其用于投资建议或股票提示。
监管机构在本月发布的一份审查报告中暗示，这仅仅是开始。报告发现，大约 11 million 英国成年人愿意让 AI 在约定的参数范围内做出财务决策，尤其是在涉及养老金和投资方面。
报告指出，许多人转向 AI 是因为传统的理财建议在财务上令他们难以企及。但即便是那些请得起顾问的人，也可能认为自己根本不需要顾问。英国理财顾问面临的最大挑战并非另一个竞争对手，也不是不受监管的金融影响者，甚至不是 ChatGPT。而是人们日益坚信：财务知识应该是免费且量身定制的。
理财咨询建立在一个假设之上，即信息是稀缺的，而专业知识是昂贵的。几十年来，这个假设一直在被逐渐削弱。
TikTok 上的金融社区 FinTok 鼓励一代人公开讨论投资。AI 仅仅是财务知识民主化进程中的最新阶段。
顾问们认为 AI 和社交媒体不承担理财咨询的法律义务，这一点没错；但银行、保险公司和财富管理机构已经在受控环境下构建 AI，并配备合规监督、审计追踪和英国金融行为监管局（FCA）的监管。最终，消费者将向受监管的 AI 提出与咨询顾问相同的大多数问题，这将训练他们期待即时、个性化且低成本的答案。如果受监管的 AI 能够解释
资金转移之时
赠予者 接收者 按年龄组划分，收到或赠予礼品或贷款的成年人比例
养老金、模拟退休场景并提供合规建议，那么人类顾问的定位在哪里？
年轻一代认为信息应该是免费的，但他们愿意为判断、心理慰藉和专业知识付费，尤其是当顾问将女性、寡妇和成年子女视为独立的财务决策者，而非男性客户的附属品时。我们不愿付费的部分，是那些技术已经能够提供的信息获取途径。
这次颠覆到来的时机，恰逢理财咨询比以往任何时候都更加重要。
预计在接下来的三十年里，在这次大财富转移中，约有 £5.5 trillion 的资金将被移交。从账面上看，这对理财顾问来说是一个世代仅见的机会，但同时也承载着严重的客户流失风险。
行业预估显示，70-90 % 的继承人在继承遗产后会解雇父母的顾问。一名顾问可能维持了一段长达 20 年的关系（通常是与父亲），管理资产并在高尔夫球场上讨论市场，但当家长去世时，这段关系往往随之终结。
资金通常首先流向寡妇，而她与顾问的关系可能未得到妥善培养；随后资金流向子女，而他们与顾问之间可能根本没有任何关系维系。
即使顾问留任，这笔资金也不太可能长期保持投资状态。一对拥有 £2 million 的夫妇看起来像是极具价值的客户关系。然而，一旦这 £2 million 被分给三个孩子，它就会被用于住房、护理、教育或偿还债务，从而让顾问和金融服务业彻底失去这笔资金。
蕾切尔·里夫斯决定从 2027 年 4 月起将定额缴款养老金纳入遗产税范围，这只会加速人们关于尽早传承财富的讨论。资金沿着家族树向下流动，随后进入经济体系。
在美国。菲利普斯表示：“在奥斯汀，财产税是物业价值的 1.8 per cent 到 2 per cent。如果你有一套价值 $3 million 的房子，仅税费一年就有 $45,000 到 $50,000。”
奥斯汀的住房同样昂贵。根据房产网站 Zillow 的数据，平均房价为 $507,622，平均月租金约为 $1,995。
菲利普斯搬到那里后，工作开支也随之激增。“在这里经营业务要昂贵得多，但这在某种程度上是必然的，”他说道。“会计师更贵。年终账目更复杂且更贵。律师很贵。保险也很贵。”
他估计，他的生活开支比在英国时高出 20 倍，当时他在英国无需支付房贷或租金。“我之前在英国的开支可能每月不到 £500，”他说。
他从普尔的一栋三居室住宅搬到了奥斯汀市中心五分钟路程内的一栋带后院泳池的四居室住宅中，这里的租金每月超过 $10,000。“我们绝对可以生活得更廉价一些，”他说。
然而，菲利普斯毫不怀疑，这次搬迁是对他的家庭和业务最正确的决定。“你的邻居开车经过，你会向他们挥手，”他说。“你在英国绝不会这样做——或者至少我没那样做过。”
财富转移开始解体。“爸爸妈妈银行”不仅仅是指死后的继承；它已成为一种稳定的资金和支持转移，支撑着数百万人的成年生活。对于许多家庭来说，继承的财富是关键的财务跳板，而非投资资本。
如果千禧一代和 Z 世代在家庭资金的支持下过着混乱且昂贵的生活，他们为什么要为那些基于他们无法认同的稳定、线性生命周期而设计的建议付费，尤其是当他们可以自行投资并咨询 AI 时？
AI 不会完全取代顾问，但它将取代人们最初接触顾问的许多原因。
在这种情况下，人类变成了仅面向少数富裕阶层的高端产品。私人银行 Coutts 最近将其新客户的最低门槛从 £1 million 提高到了 £3 million。无论是否是有意为之，这都反映了一个更广泛的发展方向。在财富数额巨大、税务问题复杂且家庭关系微妙的情况下，人类的建议变得最具有价值。
这就是金融咨询开始镜像现代服务经济其他部分的地方。我们可以通过 YouTube 自学语言和健身，而无需与任何人交谈。人类仅出现在市场的高端端：私人教练、人类导师和治疗师，以及即将到来的由人类驾驶的出租车。
这意味着人类将以不同的方式、在更高的价格点上变得更有价值。AI 可以解释给孩子钱的税务影响，但它无法将被忽视的女儿带入对话中。它可以解释遗产税规则，但无法说服一个家长，在他在去世之前，他的准遗孀需要了解家庭财务状况。
我们中很少有人仅仅从投资的角度来看待金钱
预计在未来30年内 将发生转移的财富总量
ChatGPT 询问 那些他们绝不会 询问财务顾问 的问题
过敏史列入 旅行 保险
Rachel Mortimer
度假者收到警告：如果未向旅行保险公司披露食物过敏情况，任何在国外因过敏反应而产生的医疗索赔都将失效。
咨询服务机构“过敏卓越中心”（The Allergy Centre of Excellence）表示，在美国和加拿大，过敏症的医疗费用极其昂贵——这可能会推高这些国家的旅行保险成本。
根据伦敦帝国学院的数据，英格兰患有食物过敏的人数在 2008 和 2018 之间翻了一番。在 1998 和 2018 之间，因食物诱发反应而住院的人数增加了两倍。
去年，食品标准局表示，英国约 6% 的成年人患有经临床确认的食物过敏。
过敏卓越中心的詹姆斯·加德纳（James Gardner）表示：“旅行保险公司通常将食物过敏视为预存医疗状况，因此您应当申报。多家保险公司警告说，未能披露过敏史可能会导致与过敏反应相关的索赔失效。”
他表示，对于能够得到良好控制的轻微过敏，几乎不会或完全不会增加保费成本。
加德纳说：“但严重的过敏——尤其是患者患有多种过敏症、哮喘、需要定期使用自动注射肾上腺素笔（EpiPen），或有过性休克史或住院史的情况——则更有可能增加成本。”
检查保单的细则至关重要，因为每家保险公司对待过敏的方式不同。例如，通过美国运通（American Express）信用卡提供的旅行保险并不自动涵盖食物过敏。
但通过汇丰银行（HSBC）账户提供的旅行保险则自动涵盖过敏反应，前提是过去两年内没有住院记录。
披露过敏史的相同原则也适用于私人医疗保险。经纪公司 Regency Health 的布莱恩·沃尔特斯（Brian Walters）表示：“过敏的诊断通常在承保范围内，但治疗则不一定。”
“如果在申请时已知晓过敏情况而未申报，这将被视为未披露，索赔将被拒绝。不过，这不适用于与过敏无关的病症索赔。”
最受关注的过敏案例之一是娜塔莎·埃德南-拉佩鲁斯（Natasha Ednan-Laperouse），她在 2016 年在前往法国的航班上因心脏骤停去世，年仅 15 岁。她在登机前于希思罗机场购买了一根 Pret-a-Manger 的法棍面包，其中含有芝麻，但成分表中并未列出。
加德纳表示，接触过敏原的最大风险来自食物，而非空气。
“值得注意的是，虽然在飞机上通过接触或空气传播引起过敏反应是有可能的，但除非接触量很大，否则风险通常较低，因为现代飞机的过滤器会迅速清除空气中的过敏原。”
“坚果蛋白进入空气中的风险非常低，而牛奶和鱼类蛋白更容易进入空气中，但通常需要大量接触才会出现症状。”
追踪器。它是关于选择、关系和义务的——正是这些我们不应交给 AI 的事情。
此外，如果 ChatGPT 告诉我即使在市场崩盘时也要持有投资，当我恐慌时，我找不到任何人可以打电话。如果一名顾问给出了完全相同的建议，我拥有一个能够分担该决定情感负担的人，而且，是的，还能分担一部分责任。这可能会成为顾问最大的价值所在。不是更优越的信息，而是问责制。
AI 将越来越多地处理教育和建模。能够生存下来的顾问将是那些能够运用判断力、解读情感动态并帮助家庭应对人生重大时刻的人：出生、成年、分居、退休、护理和死亡。
或许我们根本不应该将其视为财务建议。越来越明显的是，这更像是一种财富管理：帮助家庭应对的不仅仅是市场，更是彼此之间的关系。
当金钱不再是一个仪表盘，而变成一套人生决策时，人的因素便不再是昂贵的额外支出，而变得不可或缺。问题在于，那些拥有最大仪表盘的人，将是唯一能够负担得起最人性化服务的人。
Eliza Filby 是《继承制：是时候谈谈“父母银行”了》（Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad）一书的作者
A
养老金支出 策略
显得更具吸引力， Megan Harwood-Baynes 撰文
如今购买年金的 退休人员 每年可比六年前 多获得近 £3,000 的收入， 因为利率已大幅攀升。
年金（Annuities）是指使用一笔资金（通常来自您的养老金账户）来购买一份退休后的保障收入。传统上，人们为了追求更灵活的选择而避开年金，例如将资金保留在投资账户中，并在需要时提取收入。
然而，您能获得的收入已上升至多年未见的高度。根据养老金公司 Standard Life 的数据，一名 65 岁的人在购买标准单人年金时，可获得 7.62% 的利率——高于 2020 年的 4.71%。
对于用 £100,000 资金进行兑换的人来说，这意味着每年可多得 £2,910——或者在 20 年的退休生活中总共多得 £58,200。
现在，是将养老金兑换成保障收入，还是在退休过程中逐渐提取（即“提取计划”/drawdown）以保持灵活性，这两者之间的选择已不再那么绝对。以下是确定如何操作的方法。
年金的理由 公司提供的利率是指年金每年向您支付的资金总额百分比——8% 的利率...
存款利息
| 提供商 | 账户名称 | 账户费用 | 利率 | 余额（奖励条件） | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationwide BS | FlexDirect | 无 | 5%1 | – | 03457 30 20 10 |
| Bank of Scotland | Vantage Classic Account | 无 | 3% | – | 0345 721 3141 |
| Lloyds Bank | Club Lloyds | 无 | 3% | – | 0345 300 000 |
透支 (OVERDRAFTS)*
| 提供商 | 账户名称 | 账户费用 | 利率 | 0% 透支额度 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starling Bank | Current Account | 无 | 15% | £0 | 0207 930 4450 |
| First Direct | 1st Account | 无 | 39.9% | £250 | 0345 600 2424 |
| Virgin Money | M Plus Account | 无 | 19.9% | £0 | 0800 678 3654 |
1 限时 introductory 利率。 2 等效年利率。 * 基于 30 天内 £500 透支的最低成本。部分账户要求最低资金注入/直接付款 (direct debits) 才能开户或获得所示利率。
入门利率 (INTRODUCTORY RATES)
| 提供商 | 卡片类型 | 入门消费 APR 1 | 奖励 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSB | Platinum Purchase | 0% 为期 26 个月 | 24.95% | 无 |
| M&S Bank | Purchase Plus | 0% 为期 25 个月 | 24.9% | 无 |
| Lloyds Bank | 0% Purchase and Balance Transfer | 0% 为期 25 个月 | 24.94 % | 无 |
| 提供商 | 卡片类型 | 入门消费 | 转账费 2 | APR 1 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSB | Platinum Balance Transfer | 0% 为期 38 个月 | 3.49% | 24.95% | 0345 835846 |
| HSBC | Balance Transfer | 0% 为期 36 个月 | 3.09% | 24.9% | 03457 873 444 |
| NatWest | Longer Balance Transfer | 0% 为期 36 个月 | 3.1% | 24.9% | 03455 888 444 |
现金返还卡 (CASHBACK CARDS)
| 提供商 | 卡片类型 | APR 1 | 现金返还 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Express | Cashback Everyday | 29.1% | 0.5%-1%。入门 5% 为期 5 个月 (最高 £125) | 0345 835 3846 |
| Santander | Rewards | 24.9% | 0.25% 入门 3% 为期 12 个月 3 | 0800 085 1759 |
| Lloyds Bank | Ultra | 12.94% | 0.25%。入门 1% 为期 12 个月 | 0345 603 7239 |
1 APR = 年百分比率，取决于信用评级。 2 在入门期间对每次余额转账金额收取的费用。 3 符合条件的旅行和就餐消费可获得更高返现。借款利率和产品的可用性取决于个人信用评级。现金返还适用相关条款。
快速取款 (EASY ACCESS)
| 提供商 | 账户名称 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cahoot | Simple Saver | £1 | 4.32% | cahoot.com |
| Thisbank | Triple Access Savings L | £1,000 | 4.28% | thisbank.co.uk |
| Charter Savings Bank | Easy Access | £1 | 4.21% | chartersavingsbank.com |
通知账户 (NOTICE ACCOUNTS)
| 提供商 | 账户名称 | 通知期 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB Bank | 150 Day Notice Account | 150 天 | £1,000 | 4.38% | gbbank.co.uk |
| Stream Bank | 90 Day Notice Account | 90 天 | £1,000 | 4.35% | streambank.co.uk |
| Earl Shilton | 180 Day Notice | 180 天 | £5,000 | 4.27% | esbs.co.uk |
长期固定利率 (LONG-TERM FIXED-RATES)
长期固定利率
固定利率 (FIXED RATE)
| 提供商 | 账户名称 | 期限 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB Bank | Fixed Term Bond | 5 年 | £1,000 | 4.94% | gbbank.co.uk |
| Afin Bank | 5 Year Fixed Term Account | 5 年 | £1,000 | 4.93% | 通过app |
| Close Brothers | 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond | 5 年 | £10,000 | 4.92% | closesavings.co.uk |
[...该部分内容接前文] 分之多少意味着，如果你支付 £100,000，你每年将获得 £8,000。这些利率是由国债收益率决定的，因为退休金公司购买长期政府债券（即国债）以覆盖其年金负债。国债收益率近期大幅飙升。
为你提供的利率取决于你的预期寿命：预期寿命越短，利率越高。如果你年龄较大、健康状况不佳或吸烟，你可能会获得更高的利率。甚至居住在国家的某些地区也能有所帮助。
根据退休金公司 Canada Life 的数据，回收初始投入平均需要 13 年。这低于 2021 年的 21 年。
来自养老金整合公司 PensionBee 的 Maike Currie 表示：“这是一个显著的转变。对于那些希望收入具有确定性的人来说，年金值得考虑，而这在几年前是根本不可能的。”
年金可以为你提供终身保证收入——它们是终极的长寿保险，且其支付的收入不受股市崩溃或经济衰退的影响。你也可以购买固定期限的年金。金融公司 L&G 的研究发现，拥有年金的人报告压力水平较低的可能性比没有年金的人高 51%。
你还可以购买与通胀挂钩的年金。这类年金的起步利率往往低于标准年金，但该利率将每年随通货膨胀而增加。养老金公司 Standard Life 表示，一名拥有 £100,000 养老金储备的健康 65 岁人士，其固定利率年金的预期利率可能为 7.5%，而与通胀挂钩的年金则为 5%。然而，如果该年金利率每年按 2.5% 的通胀率上涨，那么到该退休人员 82 岁时，他们获得的金额将超过固定利率年金。
不过，在购买年金之前请仔细考虑。一旦你交付了这笔款项，你就不能改变主意或调整你的收入。如果你选择了固定利率，你收入的购买力将逐渐被通货膨胀侵蚀。
Canada Life 的 Nick Flynn 表示：“购买年金是一个不可逆的决定，因此我们始终建议咨询财务顾问或年金经纪人，他们可以帮助你了解可选方案。”
使用你的养老金储备购买年金，将无需缴纳遗产税。
提取资金的灵活性 (FLEXIBILITY OF DRAWDOWN) 来自兰开夏郡利瑟姆圣安内斯 (Lytham St Annes) 的 58 岁男子 Stephen Davies 于 2025 年 5 月退休。在巴克莱银行工作 33 年后，他选择了自愿离职。2020 年，Davies 将其定义收益养老金（该计划本将在退休后支付保证收入）转移到了投资平台 AJ Bell 的自投资个人养老金中。当时正值疫情期间，他的资金池立即...
周五下午 5 点的银行间汇率，显示市场交易情况。它们并不代表你可能获得的价格。
欧元 (EURO) GBP>EUR 1.17
美国 (USA) GBP>USD 1.33
土耳其 (TURKEY) GBP>TRY 63.22
澳大利亚 (AUSTRALIA) GBP>AUD 1.91
(注：文中涉及的汇率数值包含 17, 22, 91)
2年期固定利率
| 贷款机构 | 利率 | 方案 | 最高 LTV | 手续费 | 备注 | 联系电话 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Direct | 4.32% | 2年固定利率 | 60% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
| First Direct | 4.57% | 2年固定利率 | 80% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
| First Direct | 4.81% | 2年固定利率 | 90% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
5年期固定利率
| 贷款机构 | 利率 | 方案 | 最高 LTV | 手续费 | 备注 | 联系电话 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Direct | 4.38% | 5年固定利率 | 60% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
| First Direct | 4.58% | 5年固定利率 | 80% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
| First Direct | 4.73% | 5年固定利率 | 90% | £490 | PV | 0800 48 24 48 |
| Santander | 4.91% | 固定至 02.11.36 | 60% | £999 | LSV | 0800 555 100 |
| Nationwide BS | 5.49% | 10年固定利率 | 80% | £999 | PV | 0333 060 0325 |
| Santander | 5.59% | 固定至 02.11.36 | 90% | £999 | PV | 0800 555 100 |
追踪利率* / 折扣利率
| 贷款机构 | 利率 | 方案 | 最高 LTV | 手续费 | 备注 | 联系电话 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santander | 4.03% | 基准利率 + 0.28%（2年期） | 60% | £999 | PV | 0800 555 100 |
| Nationwide BS | 4.17% | 基准利率 + 0.42%（2年期） | 80% | £999 | PV | 0333 060 0325 |
| First Direct | 4.65% | 基准利率 + 0.9%（整个期限） | 90% | £490 | LV | 0800 48 24 48 |
首次购房者 / 低首付
| 贷款机构 | 利率 | 方案 | 最高 LTV | 手续费 | 备注 | 联系电话 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beverley BS | 4.64% | 折扣 2.7%（2年期） | 95% | £995 | 01482 881 510 | |
| West Bromich BS | 5.2% | 固定至 31.10.29 | 95% | £499 | V | 0800 298 0008 |
| Earl Shilton | 5.19% | 折扣 2.25%（5年期） | 95% | £125 | V | 01455 844 422 |
买房出租 (BUY TO LET)
| 贷款机构 | 利率 | 方案 | 最高 LTV | 手续费 | 备注 | 联系电话 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mortgage Works | 4.34% | 基准利率 + 0.59% 至 30.09.28 | 75% | £1,495 | V | 0345 607 3021 |
| Barclays | 4.52% | 基准利率 + 0.77%（2年期） | 75% | £899 | LSV | 0333 202 7580 |
| HSBC | 4.48% | 固定至 31.10.31 | 75% | £3,999 | PV | 0800 494 999 |
除非另有说明，否则适用提前还款手续费。* 大多数方案追踪英格兰银行基准利率。A = £500 现金返还； B = £250 现金返还；C = £300 现金返还；D = £350 现金返还；E = 无提前还款手续费；F = 仅限首次购房者； G = £150 现金返还；H = £400 现金返还；I = £1,000 现金返还；L = 转按揭免费法律服务；P = 仅限购买； R = 转按揭免费法律服务及估价；S = 仅限转按揭；T = £250 法律费用补贴；V = 免费估价
现金 ISA (CASH ISAS) 便捷存取 (EASY ACCESS)
| 提供方 | 账户名称 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 是否允许转入 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hargreaves Lansdown | Shawbrook 便捷存取现金 Isa | £1 | 4.52% | 是 | hl.co.uk |
| Atom Bank | 在线 Isa | £1 | 4.25% | 否 | 通过 app |
| 提供方 | 账户名称 | 期限 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 是否允许转入 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vida Savings | 1年期固定利率 Isa | 1 year | £1,000 | 4.65% | 是 | vidabank.co.uk |
| Vida Savings | 5年期固定利率 Isa | 5 years | £1,000 | 4.8% | 是 | vidabank.co.uk |
| 提供方 | 账户名称 | 利率类型 | 最低存款 | 利率 | 联系方式 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 印度国家银行 (State Bank of India) | Jumbo Junior 定期存款账户 | 定期 | £1,000 | 5.5% | 仅限分行或邮寄 |
| 彭里斯建筑协会 (Penrith BS) | Junior Affinity 定期储蓄账户 | 浮动 | £5 | 4.45% | 仅限分行或邮寄 |
[此处文本缺失/断裂] 立即下降了 13 百分比，但此后增长了 68 百分比。
他计划在年满 60 岁时开始取钱，并曾考虑使用另一笔养老金的一部分购买一份小额年金以确保安全性。“利率确实好得多，但最终我想知道，如果我出了什么事，我能给妻子和儿子留一些钱，”他说道。
自行管理取款金额通常提供一种更灵活的方式，这意味着如果你在花完所有资金之前去世，会有东西留给家人。然而，这可能会产生税务影响。从明年 4 月起，养老金将被纳入遗产中，用于计算遗产税。如果你在 75 岁之后去世，你的受益人还必须为此支付所得税。
留在投资中的资金会面临任何股市动荡的影响，除非你将资金转移到更安全的资产中，例如政府债券。然而，过于厌恶风险可能意味着你的资金无法跟上通货膨胀的步伐。
弗雷泽·伯奇尔 (Fraser Burchill)，64 岁，在 2020 年，58 岁时从伦敦国家剧院的道具制作人岗位退休，随后在国家肖像画廊担任了一段时间的杂工。他在退休时以及 60 岁时都“广泛”研究了年金，最后得出结论认为年金不具备性价比。
退休时，他有四个不同的资金池，他将这些资金合并到一个 PensionBee 账户中，并投资于一个高增长基金。来自埃塞克斯郡考格肖尔 (Coggeshall, Essex) 的伯奇尔利用该账户进行灵活提取。
“我可以控制它，”他说。“我想在什么时候做决定都可以。所以如果某个月表现良好，我总可以多取一点。”
如果他的资金开始耗尽，他还有一份小额的公务员养老金可以依靠，而且他也会考虑重新投入工作。他说，在最糟糕的情况下，他会卖掉房子并缩小居住规模，以释放部分房产净值。“在我认为年金具有性价比之前，我愿意这样做，”他说道。
来自 AJ Bell 的瑞秋·瓦嘿 (Rachel Vahey) 表示，如果你想采取灵活的方式，就需要接受一定的风险，并准备每年审查一次你的策略。“你需要确保可持续地管理你的取款，并在投资陷入困境时准备减少取款金额。”
混合方案 你可以将两种策略结合起来——购买一份小额年金来覆盖基本的家庭开支，同时保留部分资金进行投资以实现增值，并在需要时使用。
例如，一个拥有 £300,000 养老金账户的人可以使用 £100,000 购买年金，每年带来约 £7,600 的保证收入。剩余的 £200,000 将继续留在养老金中投资，但可用于资助度假、其他奢侈消费或护理费用。来自 Standard Life 的皮特·考威尔 (Pete Cowell) 表示：“许多退休人员可能会发现，将这两种选择相结合可以兼顾两者的优势。”
保险公司 Aviva 的艾利斯特·麦奎恩 (Alistair McQueen) 表示：“关键在于关注你想要的退休生活类型，而不是试图预测国债收益率或市场的未来走向。”
I
E
我的屋顶安装了太阳能电池板，并从 Scottish Power 公司领取由于将多余电量反馈回电网而获得的馈电电费（Fit）补贴。不幸的是，我发现我的 Fit 电表出了故障，而且我已经有一段时间没有读数了，因此面临损失近两年的补贴款。
我希望能够争取一些商誉补偿，因为我已经成为该公司约十年的客户了，但尽管多次尝试与 Scottish Power 沟通，这都被证明是不可能的。我向能源申诉专员（Energy Ombudsman）反映了此事，申诉专员在沟通不畅方面判定我胜诉，但在补贴款项方面则支持公司。
我已经联系了 Scottish Power 的 Fit 团队，请求允许我使用智能电表的数据，但没有取得任何进展。你可以想象，整个过程让我感到压力巨大且非常沮丧。Scottish Power 没能提供任何建议，对我面临的困难完全没有共情心，而且从一开始就对我寻求商誉补偿或帮助的要求不屑一顾。请问您能帮帮我吗？ 奥利弗，赫里福德
霍莉·托马斯（HOLLY THOMAS）回信： 在去年的电表检查后，Scottish Power 通知您发生了故障，需要更换电表。您在几周后的 8 月安装了新电表。但 Scottish Power 记录的最后一次读数是在近两年之前的 2023 年 9 月提交的。
您说您确定自己在 2024 年 9 月通过 Scottish Power 的网站提交了读数，但这似乎没有被记录下来。您没有照片证据。目前的情况是，您丢失了从 2023 年 9 月到 2025 年 8 月期间将多余电量反馈回电网的 Fit 补贴款。根据往年情况，这意味着您蒙受了约 £3,000 的损失。
您充分意识到，如果您定期记录读数，就不会错过这些款项，并且会更早地发现故障。然而，您告诉我，基于最近与水务供应商打交道的经验，您希望能够达成一项妥协。在收到一张巨额水费单后，您与该公司沟通，该公司根据典型用量判定存在漏水。该公司适用了一项“漏水津贴”，使您的账单降至正常水平，为您省了约 £700。
自去年 9 月以来，您打了许多电话并发送了许多电子邮件，试图寻找从 Scottish Power 追回部分损失资金的方法。在我的介入下，该公司同意重新受理您的投诉，但令人失望的是，它坚持原判。该公司重申，提供 Fit 读数并确保电表正常工作的责任在客户身上。
关于您建议使用智能电表读数作为替代方案，Scottish Power 表示，虽然智能电表记录了从电网进口和向电网出口的电量，但它并不记录 Fit 补贴所需的太阳能发电数据。Scottish Power 表示将提供申诉专员建议的 £40。 您的案例是一个重要的提醒……
一位亲戚为了启动一个非常规建筑项目而办理了高利率抵押贷款。不幸的是，他们患上了绝症，无法再工作。是否存在某种机制可以让抵押贷款还款在房产出售之前予以推迟？
我愿意出售我的房子成为潜在买家，因为这样可以让我在地理位置上离他们更近，并在需要的时候及时提供帮助。
死亡？我希望我的亲属在如此勇敢且坚定地维持独立的同时，能尽可能少地承受压力。 Patricia A
听到您亲属的情况，我深表遗憾。在面对房贷压力以及可能失去家园的担忧时，接受绝症诊断本身已经足够艰难了。幸运的是，抵押贷款机构通常比人们预期的要宽容。在这种情况下，或者在房产出售期间，并没有正式的方案允许暂停支付房贷。但这并不意味着没有选择。
出售意向时， 贷款机构 可能会给 借款人 所需的时间
如果您有希望由《周日泰晤士报》调查的财务问题，请发送电子邮件至 yourmoneymatters@thetimes.co.uk。请附上电话号码。
抵押贷款机构有责任公平对待客户，并且在支持弱势客户方面已变得积极许多。借款人如果患上绝症且无法工作，正是贷款机构通常会仔细考虑能提供何种帮助的典型案例。
机构可能会同意临时支付假期（暂缓还款）、降低月供，或者在制定长期方案期间允许转为仅支付利息的协议。当确实有意出售房产时，贷款机构通常愿意给借款人所需的时间，尤其是在整个销售过程中保持充分沟通的情况下。
您的亲属可能做出的最糟糕的行为就是默默地苦撑。在不与贷款机构沟通的情况下错过还款会限制选择空间，而早期的沟通往往能开启通往更具同情心结果的大门。
您愿意出售自己的住房来购买该房产，这一点令我印象深刻。如果购买该房产能够偿还抵押贷款并消除一个巨大的担忧源，这可能是一个极佳的解决方案。
双方都应寻求独立法律建议，并安排专业的房产估价，以确保交易公平透明。不过，家庭成员之间互相买卖房产绝对没有什么不寻常之处。
您说道：“感谢您为帮助我所做的努力。即便没有其他结果，通过公布我使用太阳能电池板的经历，未来对于其他使用上网电价补贴的人来说可能会有用。当然，我会密切关注我的读数，拍照并保存以备不时之需。”
Scottish Power 表示：“根据 Ofgem 的上网电价补贴规则，供应商不得使用估算的发电读数进行 Fit 支付，且我们可以
在去世前支付，前提是医疗证明符合该保单对绝症的定义。这通常需要顾问确认预期寿命不足 12 个月。
然而，某些保单规定，在合同期的最后阶段无法获得绝症赔付。这通常被称为“最后 12 个月排除条款”，尽管具体时间可能有所不同。
如果您的亲属的保单包含绝症赔付，且保险公司在承保到期前接受了理赔申请，赔付款通常会在去世前发放。
如果保单不包含绝症赔付，则赔偿金通常仅在去世后支付，前提是该保单届时仍然有效。
因此，我建议您的亲属或其代理人尽快联系保险公司。他们可以明确包含哪些保障，以及评估理赔申请需要什么样的医疗证明。
在这种情况下寻求帮助并非软弱的表现。除了联系贷款机构和保险公司外，慈善机构可能能够提供实际和财务方面的指导，包括关于福利、补助金以及管理债权人的支持。这些支持可以带来实质性的改变。
目前，请一步步来。与贷款机构和保险公司交谈，不要害怕询问他们能提供怎样的灵活性。通过合适的沟通，或许可以减轻大部分财务焦虑，让您的亲属专注于最重要的事情。
四月我们的航班时间发生了变化，机型也随之改变。这意味着将不再有上层甲板，因此我为无法获得的座位支付了费用。在卡塔尔航空的支持团队为我们预订新航班时，我对此提出了询问，但当时主要想集中精力确保我们能飞回家。就在我们出发前，我收到一封电子邮件，称由于航班详情变更，卡塔尔航空无法安排座位的退款，但如果我想继续追究此事，请与他们联系——尽管
全包价
体验克罗地亚惊心动魄的美景，这是一片地中海天堂，拥有绝美的风光、蔚蓝的海水、古老的城镇、棕榈林环绕的广场以及伴有湍急瀑布的壮丽森林。加入我们的两周全包假期，深入探索克罗地亚的丰富历史，在多处联合国教科文组织世界遗产地发现令人惊叹的景色，并享受我们的游览计划，入住包括赫瓦尔岛（Hvar）在内的绝美地点。
没有留下任何明显的操作方式。回到家后，我回复了那个电子邮件地址（无回复），并使用了应用程序上的聊天功能。我被告知要在反馈表上提交退款请求，我也照做了。
几周后，我又收到了一封电子邮件，确认收到了我的反馈，但并未提及退款。我为了联系卡塔尔航空的任何人而陷入了死循环。 艾莉，伦敦
霍莉·托马斯 (HOLLY THOMAS) 回复： 关于航班的投诉一直涌入“您的钱很重要 (Your Money Matters)”的收件箱。您去珀斯的旅行是为了参加朋友的婚礼，您的回程航班最初计划乘坐卡塔尔航空的空客 A380，该机型有两个甲板。上层是一个较小、较安静的经济舱区域，拥有更宽敞的 2-4-2 座位配置。主舱有 405 名乘客，而上层仅有 56 名。我能理解为什么在每人多花 £100 的情况下，您会为这段 8 小时的飞行预订该区域的座位。
当更换飞机导致这些计划落空时，您希望获得退款。您对退款的请求收到了相当混乱的指示。一名卡塔尔航空代表告诉您，可以使用反馈表申请退款。另一名在线聊天的员工告诉您，退款无法处理，因为“您的机票在退款请求后被重新出票”。我不明白这是什么意思，您也不明白。
当我与卡塔尔航空沟通时，该公司告诉我，必要的飞机更换意味着
您预订的座位
无法提供，但您被分配了
所谓的“舒适座位”，
这些座位属于
同一付费座位类别。我很好奇，在您尝试申请补偿的好几个月里，为什么没有向您解释这一点。为此，我要求对方为您提供某种形式的善意补偿，以弥补让您跑冤路的情况。
卡塔尔航空提供了一张 £215 的代金券，有效期为 12 个月，但您解释说近期没有再次飞行的计划，因此该公司将方案改为 20,000 Avios 积分（价值约 £150 至 £200），您已接受。
该公司表示：“由于运行中的飞机更换，遗憾地无法提供预订的具体座位。乘客已被重新分配到同一付费座位类别中的新座位。卡塔尔航空随后已与客户直接联系，此问题现已解决。”
座位的退款不太可能由旅行保险覆盖，因为保险公司通常将座位选择费归类为“辅助”或自愿附加项，因此您需要引起航空公司的注意。
若要升级英国航空公司的投诉，请首先直接向航空公司提交正式索赔。如果该公司在八周内未予回复或给出的最终决定不令人满意，您可以将其提交至其认可的替代争议解决 (ADR) 机制。在这里，独立第三方将评估案件并建议解决方案。
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从伦敦盖特威克、卢顿、布里斯托尔和曼彻斯特飞往斯普利特的往返机票
克罗地亚境内机场接送
在克罗地亚指定的四星级酒店入住 14 晚，全包制
自助早餐、午餐和晚餐
旅行经理服务
前往特罗吉尔、斯普利特和奥米什的游览
特罗吉尔、斯普利特的引导岛屿之旅，赫瓦尔岛之旅（包括斯塔里镇和赫瓦尔镇）以及奥米什
在弗尔博斯卡和图切皮的自由活动时间
K
Kathy Lette 1958 年出生于澳大利亚悉尼。 她的第一部小说《青春期忧郁》(Puberty Blues) 是与一名朋友合著的，在她 17 岁时出版，随后被改编成电影和电视迷你剧。此后她又写了 20 部小说，包括被改编成由 Joanna Lumley 主演的电影《疯牛》(Mad Cows)，以及被改编成歌剧的《如何杀死你的丈夫及其他实用提示》(How to Kill Your Husband and Other Handy Hints)。
Lette 的早年工作包括在名为“萨拉米姐妹”(Salami Sisters) 的乐队中唱歌、担任情景剧编剧和报纸专栏作家。她于 1988 年来到英国，并于 2011 年获得英国国籍。2004 年，她担任萨伏伊酒店 (Savoy hotel) 的驻店作家，酒店为此为她创作了一款鸡尾酒。这款名为“凯西黑醋栗”(Kathy Cassis) 的香槟与黑醋栗混合饮品至今仍可点购。
67 岁的 Lette 于 1989 年与第一任丈夫 Kim Williams 分手。从 1990 年到 2017 年，她与 Geoffrey Robertson 结婚，两人育有两个孩子。她在悉尼和伦敦之间往返生活。
你现在的钱包里有多少钱？ 只要我的孩子们没“借”走的话。要是当年我在他们的婴儿床边低声耳语“去送报纸”就好了。 他们现在长大了，Jules 35 岁，Georgina 33 岁，但他们仍然倾向于借钱。我非常同情年轻人，现在的生活太艰难了。他们大部分的钱都花在房租上。但针对你的问题，答案是：不够。我始终
年轻人
圣玛丽教堂，伦敦，W1H 1PQ，布赖恩斯顿广场
不过，随身带些零钱给街头艺人和乞丐吧。
你是消费型还是储蓄型？ 消费型。如果银行术语没那么令人费解，也许我会尝试多存点钱。我是说，滞胀（stagflation）到底是个什么鬼？听起来像是在巴尔莫勒庄园追踪长角野兽。我唯一的真实经济驱动力就是走到任何地方。
你的第一份工作是什么？ 我在悉尼的伍卢穆鲁（Woolloomooloo）给一家健身房当人体路牌。我必须身上绑着一块牌子走在街上，上面写着：“又胖又丑？……想只剩下丑吗？”当时我 16 岁，一天挣 $5 或 $10，但我当时很绝望。
高中毕业后，我真的是在工作市场的最底层挣扎。浴缸塞制造工、接吻速递女郎、丰满的服务女仆、百科全书推销员、医院便盆清理工。但糟糕的工作是巨大的动力。
我甚至加入了一个乐队——我们叫“萨拉米姐妹”（Salami Sisters），因为我们唱关于“肉欲/实质性”（meaty）问题的话题。我们在悉尼到处演唱，由此我在《太阳先驱报》（Sun Herald）获得了一个专栏。
我在 17 岁时写了我的第一部小说。它是关于一个冲浪女孩的故事，其实我写它只是为了给我的朋友们提供一些客观视角。冲浪女孩基本上被告知，我们只不过是一对乳房的支撑系统。
我完全没想到它会一夜之间变成如此巨大的畅销奇迹。我试图寻找出版商，但十家澳大利亚出版商——全部是男性——都拒绝了，而墨尔本的一家小型女权主义出版商看到了它的潜力。
我拿到的预付款不多，但我记得第一张版税支票。大约 $300，虽然很少，但在我心中却是巨大的。从那以后我写了 20 本书。我怎么获得灵感？总有这么多让人愤怒的事情。
你拥有房产吗？ 是的。我很幸运地拥有三处。悉尼的一套公寓，伦敦的一栋房子，以及怀特岛（Isle of Wight）的一座小农舍。但我确实从 16 岁就开始工作，而且我工作很刻苦。
我的第一处房产，我嫁给了金（Kim），
他有一栋房子，我们
把它卖了，共同在
悉尼的萨里山（Surry
Hills）买了一处房产，
我也投入了资金。
后来我们离婚了，我
爱上了杰弗里（Geoffrey），
搬到了伦敦。他有
一栋房子，我们把它卖了
共同买另一栋。
电影制片人斯科特·鲁丁（Scott Rudin）花 $100,000 购买了我其中一本书的改编权，并且他续约了三年，所以我拿到了 $300,000。太神奇了。这还清了我们的房贷。我现在不在英国过冬了——谁会想在英国过冬？当作家的好处是这是一个可随身携带的职业，所以我冬天回家，夏天再回到英格兰享受乐趣。
你曾经拮据过吗？ 非常拮据。我 16 岁时从西尔瓦尼亚（Sylvania，最高安全级别）高中逃学，在街角表演，住在squat（非法占用房）里。我靠吃农民市场扔掉的水果生存，还说服当地的蛋糕店把剩菜给我，说我要捐给“离家出走女孩收容所”，但那个收容所其实并不存在——其实就只有我一个人。
你比你的父母富裕吗？ 大概吧。我的父母在政府部门工作——父亲是电信工程师，母亲是教师。他们非常节俭，省吃俭用，有很多二手衣服。我们的预算确实很紧张，但我和三个姐姐依然享受生活。
我奶奶在沿海有一座小农舍，我们会在那里度假。那里充满了欢乐和笑声。我的母亲给了我一份能想象到的最震撼的礼物：这些强大、幽默、极好且才华横溢的姐妹们。可怜的父亲，住在一栋满是女人的房子里。他是斗牛犬橄榄球队（Bulldogs rugby league team）的头排观众，他可能最想要的其实是四个儿子。
你还记得第一次感觉到富有的时候吗？ 在我 18 岁签了第一本图书合约后，买了我的第一瓶香槟的时候。我细细品味每一口。
向你透露浪漫情事的 每一个火辣细节， 但会对钱财 守口如瓶
我很幸运地拥有房产。我想说，要尽情把握当下（Carpe diem）。
对于退休来说，房产还是养老金更好？ 房产。我喜欢在自己的生活空间里走走，然后心想：“这是我创造的！”意识到每一寸空间都是由双关语、俏皮话或隐喻构建而成的，真是太令人兴奋了。
你做过最好的 商业决策 是什么？ 找个经纪人。我们这种创意工作者在理财方面是出了名的糟糕。但你得货比三家去找经纪人，因为他们可能会造成很大的损失。我有一些作家朋友假装自己就是经纪人，他们创造一个另我（alter ego），然后自己处理。但我不想那样做。
经纪人懂数学，他们的工作就是为你争取更多钱，而且他们对此没有情感干扰。所以我就让他们处理，只要能确保我不会在没意识到的时候漏掉零，或者多写了零，我并不吝啬那 15 或 20 per cent 的佣金。
你的财务优先级是什么？ 把钱花在享乐上。我赚多少花多少。我的格言是“在患失智症之前去冒险”——这不是我在轻视那种可怕的疾病，而仅仅是我更倾向于花掉我拥有的钱。
你最赚钱的 作品 是什么？ 出售电影版权。在与罗伯特·德尼罗（Robert de Niro）经过一番竞价战后，我将《另我》（Altar Ego）的电影版权卖给了斯科特·鲁丁（Scott Rudin），那笔钱还清了房贷。
那些日子已经过去了。在九十年代，电影版权是作家收入的重要组成部分，但现在你可能只能拿到 $5,000 或类似的金额。电影不再被制作，人们也不去电影院了，所以一切都慢了下来。
图书预付款也下降了，除非你是顶尖 5 per cent 的作家。我最高的预付款大概是 £120,000，但现在大多数作家每天只能赚到大约 10 便士。
你投资股票吗？ 不，我不懂，所以我连装懂都懒得装。作为一个女性主义者，我的幻想是两袖子里各揣着几个风险投资组合在镇上昂首阔步，但现实是，像我这样的创意工作者在理财方面是出了名的无能。
我知道理智的做法应该是告诉我的钱该去哪里，而不是在钱花光后奇怪它去了哪里，但我对股票一窍不通。
你去年赚了多少钱？ 我得问我的会计。作为作家，收入是零散的，有些年份赚很多，有些年份一分不赚。我就一直花，直到账户透支。
你在钱方面的弱点是什么？ 派对。明天有 20 个人来家里吃晚餐。我喜欢邀请朋友来家里，准备一个鸡尾酒吧，香槟管够。我花很多钱在派对上，但至少在厨师费上省钱了，因为是我男朋友掌勺。
当我庆祝“sexty”（此处为作者自创词，将sixty/六十与sex/性结合）岁生日——而不是六十岁——时，我举办了一场派对，让人们扮演自己最喜欢的女性主义榜样。海伦娜·肯尼迪（Helena Kennedy）扮演了贝蒂·金斯伯格（Betty Ginsberg）。现场有摇滚明星和流行明星，而我女儿扮演了我。她穿着我的一件豹纹裙子，戴着一个像我的假发。当她开门迎接时，我的朋友们以为我做了面部提升手术。我想在 69 岁生日时举办一场派对，让每个人扮演自己最喜欢的性爱姿势。
你最奢侈的 购买之举是什么？ 一件 Moschino 外套，前面缝了两个金色钱包，可以用作口袋。我把公交卡放在一个里，口红和避孕套放在另一个里。它花了数千英镑——买它简直疯了，太贵了——但我已经穿了五年，我知道我会穿一辈子。
你支持任何慈善机构吗？ 是的。我是 Theirworld 的坚定支持者，该机构致力于帮助全球贫困儿童接受教育，特别是那些在战争地区受苦的孩子。
如果你中了彩票会怎样？ 我会买一座岛，邀请我所有的朋友搬进来。禁止厌女者进入。而且
我会资助 Theirworld 去教育
那 273 million 名儿童以及
关于 金钱的事情？ 需要更多地 讨论这件事。我的 女性朋友们会 详细讲述浪漫 情事的每一个火辣 细节，但在财务 问题上却守口如瓶。女性必须 更擅长了解自己的价值并 要求加薪。而男性在金钱方面 则如此厚颜无耻。
Kathy Lette 是 Club Avandra 的大使，这是一个为那些喜欢独自旅行但不愿孤身一人的女性设计的旅行项目。她的第 21 部小说《姐妹会规则》(The Sisterhood Rules，Bloomsbury 出版，£14.99) 现已出版。如需订购，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk。订单满 £25 免英国标准运费。Times+ 会员可享受特惠折扣。
全球范围内 那些 不在学校就读的人。
你学到的 最重要 的一课是
此外：设计师的奇妙小屋 8 | 我拯救了一座破旧的宫殿 11 | 狐狸医院 12
安格斯 (ANGUS) O/O £950,000 Allardice 城堡建于 1542 年，在 19 世纪末从一座防御塔转变为家庭住宅。这座拥有六间卧室的 A 级上市房产位于 Inverbervie 小镇附近，拥有精美的装饰线条以支撑塔楼螺旋楼梯，并设有原始壁炉和描绘城堡历史的彩绘天花板。三英亩的场地延伸至 Bervie 河，此处拥有钓鱼权。struttandparker.com
全球顶尖花园房与豪华凉亭 由英国家族企业专业打造
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最佳房产
格洛斯特郡 (GLOUCESTERSHIRE) £4.25M Whitfield 府邸是一座二级上市的乔治亚风格庄园，距离切尔滕纳姆 (Cheltenham) 12 英里。建筑采用科茨沃尔德石材，拥有五间卧室，占地五英亩，并配有马车房和工人宿舍。knightfrank.co.uk
西约克郡 (WEST YORKSHIRE) £850,000 据信是科尔恩谷 (Colne Valley) 最古老的房产，这座拥有五间卧室的 Great Hall 配有谷仓、乳品室以及壮丽的乡村景色。距离哈德斯菲尔德 (Huddersfield) 七英里。ryderdutton.co.uk
坎布里亚 (CUMBRIA) £650,000 一座殖民风格的湖区住宅，可俯瞰 Skiddaw 山的壮丽景色，附近有林间步道。该房产拥有 1,977 平方英尺的空间，另含一个走廊和 0.7 英亩土地。fineandcountry.co.uk
法国 €1.266M 位于多尔多涅省 (Dordogne) 的 Eymet 附近（当地四分之一的居民是英国人），这座别墅拥有暗蓝色百叶窗、高天花板和装饰线脚。内部设有大型厨房、图书馆、游戏室和六间套房卧室，包括一个带有衣帽间的主卧套房。室外两英亩的花园设有玫瑰覆盖的拱形走道、车库和工作室。有顶露台俯瞰 11 米长的海水泳池，并配有户外厨房和吧台。此外还设有一栋需要翻修的客房。距离贝尔热拉克 (Bergerac) 机场 30 分钟车程。savills.com
东萨塞克斯 (EAST SUSSEX) £13,995PCM Cotchford 农场是二级上市房产，曾是 A.A. 米尔恩 (AA Milne) 的住所，也是《小熊维尼》的创作地。位于阿什唐森林 (Ashdown Forest)，这是一座拥有六间卧室的乡村住宅，配有花园、加热泳池和网球场。hamptons.co.uk
伦敦 SE22 £1.75M 位于杜尔威奇村 (Dulwich Village)，这座五 bedroom 的半独立式住宅设有法式门，可通向面向西南的花园。时代细节包括高天花板、原始线脚和瓷砖，以及精致的壁炉架。knightfrank.co.uk
芬兰 €695,000 位于 Pettu 岛上，这座古朴的 1934 年别墅从赫尔辛基出发，经过约 2.5 小时的车程和轮渡即可到达。它拥有四间卧室、热泵和太阳能电池板、私人海滩以及 1.42 公顷土地。leadingre.com
西班牙 €580,000 赤陶瓦屋顶、白色灰泥墙上的三角梅、亮蓝色游泳池和乡村风格的横梁天花板：这是经典的西班牙别墅。这座位于阿利坎特 (Alicante) 的丹尼亚 (Denia)，拥有三间卧室。kyero.com
罗伯特 (THE TWO ROBS)
以及投资房产的疑问解答
我想投资，但我 在等待一次崩盘 先发生。这会发生吗？ 问
我在封锁期间开始 对房产产生兴趣， 并准备好在 2022. 年支付定金。随后 利率开始攀升，逻辑 似乎显而易见：随着 抵押贷款变得更加 昂贵，买家能借到的 钱更少，因此价格 必须下跌。我一直持 观望态度，但三年后 价格几乎没有变动， 我觉得我只需要咬牙 坚持并开始行动。 但我担心，就在我 入场时，崩盘终于 到来了。您有什么 建议？ 皮特，德里菲尔德 (Driffield)
答
你所描述的情况 完全符合每一项经济 原则应有的结果。 英格兰银行将基准利率 从 2021 年底的 0.1% 提高到 2023 年 8 月的 5.25% —— 这是现代历史上 最快的紧缩周期之一。 对于像房产这样高度 依赖信贷成本和可用 性的市场，这本应 导致业主和投资者仅 愿意且能够支付较低 的价格。然而，正如 你所说，自 2022 年以来 价格几乎没有变动。
这个谜团的一个重要 答案是，崩盘需要 “被迫出售者”： 那些因为无法负担 抵押贷款还款且 面临被收回房屋 风险，而不得不以 任何价格出售房产的 人们。这一次，由于 几个原因，这类人数 不足以让市场崩溃。
首先，英国大约三分之一 的房屋是全款拥有， 没有抵押贷款 —— 这比 1990年代初显著增加， 足以使很大一部分市场 在很大程度上对利率 波动免疫。 近期购房的 业主往往承担 更高的抵押 贷款，但自 2014 年 起，他们必须接受 更为严格的负担 能力压力测试： 实际上，他们必须 证明自己能够应对 利率上升高达 3% 的情况。
随着月份增加，更多 的人从历史低利率 转为更高利率，因此 市场在抵御崩盘方 面变得越来越强。 虽然家庭正在与各种 上涨的成本作斗争， 且很少有人认为自己 处于安全状态，但 房屋收回率仍比 1991 年 和 2009 年的峰值 低 85%。
因此，在我们看来， 现在买房并不意味着 踏入一个即将破裂的 泡沫。经通货膨胀调整后， 价格自 2022 年以来 已经下跌了 15 至 20%， 此后最可能的路径是， 实际价格继续缓慢 下降，而标价保持 大致不变。
如果你继续 等待，你不太可能 错过一次繁荣
话虽如此，如果你继续 等待，你也不太可能 错过任何形式的繁荣： 负担能力、利率 以及市场情绪， 都让人很难想象 房产除了跟上 通货膨胀速度外 还能有更多表现。 唯一的例外是，如果 现任或未来的政府 操纵了一次繁荣 —— 也许是通过放宽贷款 规则，或者重启像 “购房补助 (Help to Buy)” 这样的需求刺激计划。
这让你处于什么位置？ 作为投资者，价格 仅能跟上通货膨胀 并不是坏事。当你 使用抵押贷款时， 你的债务保持静止， 而通货膨胀提高了 资产价值，同时你 在此过程中收取租金。 除此之外，你可以 从在国家增长率高于 平均水平的地区（大致 指米德兰兹以北的 任何地方）购房中 获益，并利用目前的 市场疲软为自己谈判 达成一项优惠交易。 如果你确信房产是 适合你的资产，那么 在某个时间点，你必须 勇于尝试。
在周围所有人 都看空时入场会 感到不安，但这往往 比在兴奋顶峰时 购买的效果要好得多 ——而那正是你 2022 年 最初准备好入场时 市场的大致状态。
你可能永远无法完全克服对房价暴跌的紧张感，但说服自己依然采取行动的最佳方式是采取长期视角。以一个即使在今天的抵押贷款利率下也能为你带来健康租金利润的价格买入，这样即使市场大幅下跌，你每月依然能保持正向现金流，无需在错误的时间承受卖出的压力。持有十年或更久，在你买入日期前后的短期波动几乎可以忽略不计。
Rob Dix 和 Rob Bence 主持《地产播客》(The Property Podcast)，并且是地产教育平台 Property Hub 的共同创始人。Dix 的著作《关于金钱的七个迷思》(Seven Myths About Money, Cornerstone, £18.99) 可在 timesbookshop.co.uk 购买，或致电 020 3176 2935。Times+ 会员可享受折扣。
请将您想问“两个 Rob”的问题提交至 propertyhub.net/sundaytimes
位于利兹市中心
位于利兹城市公园（Leeds City Park）的 Aire Gardens 是一个难得的机会，让您可以在这座城市一个独特且安静的区域购置公寓。这里被绿树成荫的花园和自然溪流环绕，而距离利兹火车站和市中心仅 500 米步行距离。
该项目毗邻南岸（South Bank）再生区，得益于利兹最具变革性的增长地段之一，将绿地吸引力与出入城市的卓越交通便捷性完美结合。
独家启动额度 BuyAssociation 在合同交换后每月贡献最高 £250。 这将立即直接提升您的投资回报。**适用条款与条件。
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投资价值可升可降，BuyAssociation 始终建议您寻求独立的财务建议。*来源：Savills 住宅预测。
• 预计到 2029 年，利兹房价将增长 28.2%* —— 是英国增长最快的地区城市之一
• 仅 500 米步行即可到达利兹火车站，提供前往伦敦、曼彻斯特及其他地区的直达线路
• 毗邻数十亿英镑的南岸再生区 —— 这是英国最大的城市更新项目之一，预计将使利兹市中心的规模翻倍
• 仅 98 套公寓的精品项目，配备私人户外空间、高端规格以及 BTR（以建到租）风格的设施，包括健身房、休息室和联合办公区域 —— 增强租赁吸引力和租客留存率
• 价格 £197,000 起，显著低于利兹平均水平 (£245,000)，提供了具有强大上涨潜力的极具吸引力的入场点
如果你认为现在是出售房产的糟糕时机，那也是可以原谅的。有关于“无声崩盘”的故事，以及卖家徒劳地坚持 2021 年的价格。根据房地产代理公司 Savills 的数据，伦敦核心地段的房价自 2014 年以来下降了 26%。但并非一切都如此阴郁。在某些地区，销售情况依然火热，且能够达到——甚至超过——挂牌价。
“目前市场的真正引擎似乎是那些由需求驱动的搬迁，主要集中在中端市场，那里的房产相对更实惠——首次购房者较为活跃，且人们为了家庭情况而必须换到更大的房子，”来自 Connells Group 和 Hamptons 的 Aneisha Beveridge 说道。“两居室和三居室住宅是市场的甜蜜点。它们的表现明显优于其他房型。”
根据房地产公司 Connells 的研究，对于 1 月份进入市场的房产，两居室最有可能在六个月内获得报价——比例为 55%，其次是三居室，为 53%。
地段同样是关键。在今年上半年，英国成交最快的十个房产市场中，有八个位于北部、中西部或威尔士。大曼彻斯特郡的伯里（Bury）位居榜首，1 月份将房屋挂牌的业主中，有 95% 收到报价。
最便宜的地区市场最火热，这并不令人意外。房屋在东北部销售最快，该地区的挂牌价格中位数（£180,000）在英格兰所有地区中最低。根据全国购房公司 Spring 的数据，第一季度东北部的销售时间为 62 天，而东南部则需 83 天，后者的平均价格为 £399,500。这些区域内的某些邮编销售速度更快。“我认为这归结于可负担性，”Beveridge 说。“在伦敦和英格兰南部，房产价格更高，高房贷利率带来的打击最大。”
根据衡量需求的房产市场热力工具 Propcast 的数据，最火热的 20 个市场中有 16 个位于北方。利物浦、斯托克波特、纽卡斯尔和谢菲尔德的邮编多次出现。
南部的两个地区——汉普郡的亚特利（Yateley, GU46）和伯克郡的伍德利（Woodley, RG5）也进入了名单，这些是上述郡县中相对实惠的地区。Beveridge 表示，伦敦并未死掉：得益于首次购房者和相对的可负担性，郊区的需求比预期更为坚挺。买方代理 Henry Sherwood 表示，甚至一些伦敦的高端地区表现也不错。“一些伦敦的核心边缘地带（如伊斯灵顿 Islington）实际上实现了良好的同比增长——按每平方英尺计算，房屋的成交价上涨了 7.1%。只要价格合适，顶级的房产会引发最终出价竞争，并且依然在一周内售出。”
正确设定挂牌价至关重要。令人惊讶的是，Connells 的数据显示，价格下调的房产收到报价的可能性比未下调价格的房产低 27%。“价格下调实际上比以前没那么有效了，这表明不仅这些卖家的起拍价太高，而且即使在下调之后，价格依然过高，”Beveridge 说。“这表明了从一开始就定价准确且保持现实的重要性。”
圣玛格丽特 (ST MARGARET’S)，伦敦西南部 房产 四卧室半独立屋 上市日期 3月12日（首次看房） 接受报价日期 3月14日 挂牌价 £1.4 million 成交价 £1.42 million 中介评价 “业主在那里住了 35 年，抚养孩子长大，现在想要换到小一点的房子，”Antony Roberts 的销售谈判代表 Alex Morrell 表示。“这栋房子有向阁楼和后花园扩建的潜力。两方出价者都是希望进入当地学校的家庭，那些学校非常优秀。我们收到了两个报价，分别高出挂牌价 £50,000 和 £20,000，但业主选择了较低的那个报价，因为对方的售房进程已经相当顺利——而另一方尚未推进其房产出售。教训就是，当合适的房产出现时，要让自己处于最有利的位置以确保买到房。”
汉普斯特德 (HEMPSTEAD)，萨夫伦沃尔登 (SAFFRON WALDEN)，埃塞克斯郡 (ESSEX) 房产 三卧室维多利亚式房屋 上市日期 5月27日 收到报价日期 6月5日 挂牌价 £365,000 成交价 £405,000 中介评价 “尽管这是一个翻新项目，但成交价仍高出指导价 £40,000，”Max Cutsforth 表示，
哪些房屋仍能获得其要价——甚至更高
Cheffins 的董事。“我们设定的要价反映了所需的翻修工作量。我们收到了四方出价，所有出价都是在要价之上的最终最佳报价。其中一份报价比最终买家的出价高出 £10,000 —— 然而，他们仍需出售自己的房屋。因此，卖家选择了稍低的一份报价，因为对方是首次购房者且拥有充足的首付款。另外两份报价同样来自首次购房者。”
贝肯汉姆 (BECKENHAM)，伦敦东南部 房产 维多利亚式两卧室半独立屋 上市日期 5月 5日 接受报价日期 5月 11日 要价 £600,000-£625,000 成交价 £627,500 中介评价 “这立即引起了极大的关注，导致五名买家提交了六份报价，”来自 John D Wood 的克斯蒂·艾夫森 (Kirsty Iveson) 表示。“该房产进入了最终最佳报价阶段，最高出价达到了 £635,000。然而，卖家最终接受了第二高 627,500 英镑的报价，因为该买家无需处理房屋交易链 (chain-free)，提供了更高的确定性和速度。”
切里欣顿 (CHERRY HINTON)，剑桥 房产 20世纪80年代三卧室房屋 上市日期 4月 29日 达成交易日期 5月中旬 要价 £650,000 成交价 £716,000 中介评价 “它有 43 场看房，18 份报价，并进入了最终最佳出价阶段，”Cheffins 的估价师哈里·钱内尔斯 (Harry Chennells) 说道。“这一套需要翻修。它之前是一栋四卧室住宅，曾被
配置为三间卧室。由于建筑成本导致翻修项目的需求有限，我们特意将房产定价在一个能鼓励竞争的水平。这种方法为卖家提供了多个买家可供选择。”
纽卡斯尔 (WALKERGATE, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE) 房产：两居室半独立式平房 上市日期：4月 19 接受报价日期：4月 29 挂牌价：£300,000 成交价：£302,000 中介点评：“八次看房产生了五份报价，”来自 Your Move 房产中介的 Tim Stonock 说道。“在定价方面，判断是正确的，而不是定低了。平房供应短缺，且地理位置优越、品相良好的平房是我们处理的最抢手房源之一。一套经过装修且带有易于打理花园的平房对缩小居住规模者和退休人员很有吸引力——这正是竞标该房产的人群。”
巴恩斯，伦敦西南区 (BARNES, SOUTHWEST LONDON) 房产：六居室爱德华时代半独立式住宅 上市日期：3月 18 接受报价日期：4月 7 挂牌价：£3 million 成交价：£3.22 million 中介点评：“这是一次即时爆款，两天内有 35 组看房，总计 50 组，”Marsh & Parsons 巴恩斯分店的销售总监 Phil Coombes 说道。“我们收到了六份报价，房产最终以高于挂牌价 £220,000 的价格成交。Kitson Road 是村中心一个抢手的地址。这里的房屋并不经常出售，而这一套在同一个家庭中持有了 65 年，因此引起了极大兴趣。”
索斯雷迪什，斯托克波特 (SOUTH REDDISH, STOCKPORT) 房产：三居室排屋末端住宅 上市日期：3月 30 接受报价日期：4月 15 挂牌价：£250,000 成交价：£267,500 中介点评：“我们有 13 组看房和 11 份报价。该房产进入了‘最终最高价’竞标阶段，”Bridgfords 分店经理 Luke Hillary 说道。“在集中看房期间有 7 位买家提交了报价。买家们都在寻找他们的第一个梦想家园。”
南门，伦敦北区 (SOUTHGATE, NORTH LONDON) 房产：四居室半独立式住宅，带大型扩建部分及主卧套房 上市日期：5月 22 接受报价日期：6月 24 挂牌价：£1.2 million 成交价：£1.1 million 中介点评：“这处房产位于几个备受青睐的学校学区内，”来自 Rash & Rash 房产中介的 Matt Turner 说道。“我们进行了 11 次看房，产生了三份报价——两份为 £1.1 million，一份为 £1.11 million。卖家接受了其中一份 £1.1 million 的报价，因为买家是现金买家，能够快速办理手续。定价合理的房屋仍然能吸引浓厚兴趣。按去年的价格定价的房屋则在市场上停留时间更长。”
诺丁汉郡, CLIPSTON ON THE WOLDS 房产：三居室半独立式住宅 上市日期：4月 16 (首次看房) 接受报价日期：4月 20 挂牌价：£545,000 成交价：£545,000 中介点评：“诺丁汉郡南部热门村庄中，价格在 £500,000-£600,000 左右的漂亮乡村小屋一直很受欢迎，”Fine & Country 诺丁汉分店总监 Tom De Ville 说道。“我们在 4月 16 日星期四进行了首次看房，周六又进行了三次看房，并在周一接受了报价。该房产在另一家中介那里挂牌了近 12 个月，因此我们以更现实的价格重新上市。买家被该房屋即买即住的状态和村庄位置所吸引。”
左下： 纽卡斯尔 (Newcastle upon Tyne)
汉普郡, 奥尔顿 (ALTON, HAMPSHIRE) 房产：四居室独立式 1980年代住宅 上市日期：5月 17 接受报价日期：5月 23 挂牌价：£665,000 成交价：£665,000 中介点评：“我们在这一周内有 17 组看房，”Hamptons 奥尔顿分店销售总监 Adam Masters 说道。“有两份按指导价提供的报价。该房屋位于一条无通过道路的尽头，靠近乡村步道，但距离商业街、优质学校和火车站不到一英里。它还拥有双车库和宽敞的花园，这在较新的开发项目中较为罕见。”
伊灵顿 (ISLINGTON)，北伦敦 房产 三卧室 排屋末端房屋 上市日期 4月28 接受报价日期 5月5 要价 £1.375 million 成交价 £1,417,500 中介评价 “在经过 25 次以上的看房和多份高于要价的报价后，该房产以 £1,417,500 的价格卖给了一位现金买家，” Nathan K Real Estate 的所有者 Nathan Khider 表示。“由于正确的营销和定价，该房产销售良好。在伊灵顿，这个价格段的永久产权房并不多。”
布拉肯伯里村 (BRACKENBURY VILLAGE)，西伦敦 房产 五卧室维多利亚式半独立房屋 上市日期 3月2 接受报价日期 5月3 要价 £1.895 million 成交价 £1.91 million 中介评价 “卖家准备移居海外，而买家明确希望在布拉肯伯里保护区内升级住房，”来自 Finlay Brewer 的 Sebastian Rivett 表示。“在总共 29 次看房后，报价进入了最终竞价阶段。家庭买家对这个安静的地点以及步行距离内众多优秀的学校需求很高。”
伯克郡 (BERKSHIRE) 房产 占地两英亩的四卧室房产 上市日期 5月9 接受报价日期 5月23 要价 £3 million 成交价 £3 million 中介评价 “买家在 Instagram 的短视频 (reel) 中发现了这处房产并决定购买——交易在短短八天内就完成了，”Hamptons 的副董事 Charlie Wellbelove 表示。“买家如此果断实属罕见。该房产在 2025 年夏季曾由另一家中介挂牌 [价格为 £3.15 million]。”
“自己装修房子最棒的一点就是没有规则。没有成年人告诉你，你不能那样做，”设计出凶猛编织生物和古怪艺术家具的唐娜·威尔逊 (Donna Wilson) 说道。她的家位于东伦敦一条安静道路的尽头，到处是色彩和精巧的原型，例如“羊绒柜”——一个跳线衫形状的雪松木衣柜，用于保护羊毛制品免受飞蛾侵害。这栋房子里住着一群她创作的神话动物，从西里尔松鼠狐 (Cyril Squirrel Fox, CSF) 到面具啮齿类动物里尔 (Rill)，据传后者是 CSF 和鲁迪浣熊 (Rudie Raccoon) 的后代。
49 岁的威尔逊与她的家具制作者伴侣乔恩·阿尔蒙德 (Jon Almond，来自 Produce the Goods 设计公司，48 岁)、两个儿子——13 岁的埃利 (Eli) 和 11 岁的洛吉 (Logie)，以及半打母鸡生活在一起。这位设计师在贝斯纳尔格林 (Bethnal Green) 的工作室和位于莱顿斯通 (Leytonstone) 的四卧室家中穿梭，两者之间相隔中央线四站路。“我试图创造一个由乡村、动物、绿植和安静组成的小绿洲，”她说，“一个能让我想起苏格兰故乡的隐秘之地。”
她出生于亚伯丁郡 (Aberdeenshire)，2000 年离开家乡来到伦敦，在皇家艺术学院 (RCA) 学习。她的童年是在父亲成长、且父母至今仍居住并由其哥哥经营的农场中度过的。“我热爱在那里生活。说真的，我仍然很想住在乡村。我非常热爱户外活动。这可能就是为什么我喜欢这里。我们两边都被配给地包围着。这里有大量的野生动物。我们有鸡，有狐狸，有刺猬。旁边就是旺斯特德平原 (Wanstead flats) 和埃平森林 (Epping Forest)。如果你想经常待在户外，这里真的是个绝佳的居住地。”在她的配给地上，她种植土豆、番茄、甜菜根和羽衣甘蓝，并且每天从她的鸡群那里获得 5 枚鸡蛋。“我们永远不需要买鸡蛋。我们还没有实现完全自给自足，但那是梦想。”
在埃利出生后，这对夫妇从砖巷 (Brick Lane) 附近的一套公寓搬了出来。“我们攒了钱，然后在 2013 年设法买下了这里。我们在沃尔瑟姆斯托 (Walthamstow) 错过了机会，我们相当多朋友最后都去了那里。当时我们看了很多房子，但它们都被抢购得飞快。然后乔恩说：‘噢，看这个 [在莱顿斯通]。是一栋独立式小屋。’照片看起来非常糟糕，破旧且杂草丛生。”他们一致认为这里太完美了。
他们搬进来时，房子的结构是不对称的，厨房位于一侧的单层倾斜加建房中，其余房间分布在三层楼。 “我想直到 2020 年之前我们都没有进行任何工程，”威尔逊说，“然后我们拆掉了房子右侧整个厨房部分，揭掉了屋顶，然后重新重建，使其变得对称。”他们在厨房的一侧增加了落地玻璃门，以便能够看到向南的花园，并在天花板上安装了道格拉斯冷杉梁。
【我受到了儿童绘画中那种自由的启发】
厨房橱柜装饰着万花筒般的多彩几何形状。“我在一张纸上画了这个设计，使用了 12 种不同颜色的层压板，”威尔逊说，“然后我就觉得，好吧，就这样吧。”
左图：唐娜·威尔逊。右图：厨房中的几何形状。下图：卧室里的浴缸，以及跳线衫衣柜。
[Jon]。你将此转化为现实。” 奥尔蒙 (Almond) 制作了橱柜门，并使用真空袋压力机将彩色层压板粘贴在原位，然后将其安装在宜家 (Ikea) 的柜体上。早餐站是整个空间的戏剧化亮点。口袋门打开后露出一个被群青色边框环绕的照明内部空间，杯子、玻璃杯、咖啡壶和茶壶被陈列在孔板固定架的搁板上。
伊罗可 (Iroko) 材质的台面是来自 Retrouvius 的旧科学实验室工作台。威尔逊表示，整个房子里都展示着回收利用和捡来的物品，因为“乔恩完全是一个，怎么称呼来着？垃圾搜寻者 (Skip surfer)。每次他看到垃圾箱，他都会头先进去。我们现在拥有很多具有‘前世’经历的东西。我非常喜欢 [这个回收的台面]，因为我不会把它搞砸。即使被刮花也没人知道，因为它本来就有划痕，这对我来说很完美，因为我并不总是擅长把东西保持得一尘不染。”
厨房隔壁是客厅，座位是一个由奥尔蒙制作的U形沙发，底部带有储物空间，配有苔绿色靠垫，这里通常居住着威尔逊的“替代家庭”：
针织熊、大象、
眼球和香蕉。
上方的 Vitsoe 搁架
摆放着这对夫妇的
艺术和设计图书库。
这里没有电视机，
但可以放下投影
屏幕，全家人会躺
在沙发上，观看
《克拉克森的农场》(Clarkson’s Farm) 或《古董路演》(Antiques Roadshow)，并将那些小动物们赶到地板上。
她是如何构思出这些令人不安的生物的？“这些是我在皇家艺术学院 (RCA) 就读时开发的。我受到了儿童绘画的启发，那种状态非常自由，如果你愿意，你可以画一只五条腿的狮子。正是那种自由和俏皮感。我曾经做了一个叫‘愤怒的红发’ (Angry Ginger) 的作品，他是个红头发的家伙，喜欢
橘子酱，但他的眉毛非常凶悍，而且长着尖牙，他非常愤怒。” 好的。
O
柔和的油漆色调，包括走廊里的奶油黄，来自 Lick 品牌。“我希望这里感觉很愉快且柔软，不要太突兀。我希望你进来时会想：噢，这是一个很棒的空间，” Wilson 说道。“我其实不想在房子里使用任何白色，因为我觉得那样太冷峻了。”
在楼上，这对夫妇的卧室刷成了 Lick 品牌的石膏粉色。这个房间展示了更多共同项目：他们称之为“抽象组装 (Abstract Assembly)”的奇特家具设计。这里有一个长凳，一个兼作书架/杂志架的抽屉柜，还有一个挂在浴缸上方的毛衣形状的橱柜。“最重大的决定是将浴缸从家庭浴室移到卧室。我的伴侣当时说，你不能那样做。而我说，我可以想象就那样躺着，望向外面的分配地 (allotments)。” 他们搬动了浴缸——由 Almond 用白蜡木包覆——并为孩子们安装了淋浴设施，现在他们可以一边洗澡一边欣赏风景。
Wilson 在顶层工作，两个新的老虎窗让她的家庭工作室充满日光。她那巧妙的立式绘图桌是由四个图纸柜组成的，Almond 为每个柜子制作了胶合板外壳并安装了脚轮。如果他们需要将工作室临时改为客房，这些家具可以轻松地在软木地板上被推到一边。
Wilson 在客厅设计的 针织靠垫。 左图：一个“抽象组装” 书架
在拆顶期间，Wilson 和孩子们搬到苏格兰住了六个月，而 Almond 留下来监督工程。他们都在 2023 年夏天搬了回来，但她仍然将这栋房子描述为“进行中的作品”。她想通过将厨房天花板的梁延伸到房屋外部，在花园中创建一个遮荫区域。而且她可能会为卧室投资购买窗帘。“我们还没有窗帘。而浴缸就在窗边，邻居能看见。所以我们只能关掉灯，在深夜洗澡。Jon 对此有点困扰。但我并不在意。”
GARETH HACKER
如何设计安全屋
在安·威德库姆（Ann Widdecombe）于家中被杀害后， 萨莎·努加拉（Sasha Nugara）请教了一位专家的安全建议
家是我们的避风港—— 直到它不再是。越来越多 有影响力的人物觉得， 他们在自己房产中的安全 不再是理所当然的。 国家保护安全局（National Protective Security Authority）， 作为军情五处（MI5）的一个分支， 在前保守党政治家安·威德库姆 被杀之前发布了指南， 建议国会议员建立一个“更安全区域”， 以便在他们的家成为“敌对分子” 目标时可以寻求庇护。
那么，这样一个安全区域 长什么样，又如何获得一个呢？ 咨询公司 Securitatem Group 的 首席执行官约瑟夫·麦基（Joseph McGee）表示， 随着富裕客户寻求其服务， 他的团队比以往任何时候都忙。 “甚至在[安·威德库姆去世]之前， 我们就已经很忙了，”麦基说。 “在过去的几天里，我一直在不停地接电话。”
在接听每一个电话后， 该公司会进行安全评估， 然后根据拨电者的具体情况 决定安装哪些措施。 “[我们]需要知道[我们]面对的是什么—— 是否可能有人闯进来， 并使用大锤砸开门发动攻击？”
现代的安全屋不再像 2002 年电影《恐慌室》（Panic Room）中 Jodie Foster 饰演的角色所经历的那样—— 一个像监狱囚室般简陋的盒子， 地板上扔着几个垫子。 它通常位于主卧室的套内浴室中。 麦基说，主要原因是 熟悉度以及实用性。
“在半夜里，你会走到哪里？” 他说。“这样你就可以将其加固， 可以锁死，而且如果你需要， 这里有厕所，有自来水。”
作为一项价值 £250,000 的安装工程， 房间内部将配备恐慌按钮、 房屋安保摄像头的访问权限、 加热、通风和空调系统、 医疗包（包括氧气） 以及两到三条通信线路。 “可能会有一部手机，
有时会有一部天线延伸至屋顶的 卫星电话。”
摄像头能让你看到门外， 从而识别入侵者。 安装过程大约需要 12 到 16 周。
翻修的一个关键部分 涉及额外的结构性措施， 包括防弹墙和门。 执行此操作需要检查地基。 “你面临的问题是墙上的重量， 所以如果你在二楼安装， 在[我们]考虑安全屋之前， 就必须先查看[加强托梁] 以及建筑的物理底层结构，” 麦基解释道。 “因为，安装所有这些不同层级的 钢材、凯夫拉（Kevlar）以及 其他所有东西， 将增加巨大的重量。”
也有更便宜的选择。 对于坚固的砖墙房屋， 你可以简单地选择一扇 在有入侵者时可以锁死的安全门。 “它与房子里的其他所有门相匹配，” 麦基说。 它将具有 20 分钟的“最低攻击时间” （即预计潜在攻击者进入所需的时间）， 全套安装费用约为 £6,000 起。
“我们在该地区看到的是， 人们正在采取多层安全防护， 所以他们不再仅仅安装一个警报器， 而是安装一个与警方联动的 带有恐慌按钮的警报器，”他说。 “然后他们可能会考虑将门锁 升级为真正的安全锁、 加固锁、防断锁。 接着他们会考虑闭路电视（CCTV）， 然后可能会考虑安装一两扇安全门。”
他补充道：“这有点像你的汽车保险。 你永远不想使用它， 但当你需要理赔时， 它在那儿真是太好了。 安全屋就相当于一份保险单。”
您逃离喧嚣、尽情探索的机会 北诺福克 (North Norfolk) 的永恒魅力 或令人惊叹的萨福克遗产海岸 (Suffolk Heritage Coast)
享受无尽的假期，全部来自一个美丽的地方。您的度假屋。您的避风港。 为您家人留下永恒的回忆。现在就将其变为您的所有。在 Marsh View (Aldeburgh) 和 The Poplars (Burnham Market) 探索奢华度假屋的所有权。
专属生活方式物业 | 全套家具，现正发售 专属生活方式物业：巨大的租赁机会 | 全套家具，现正发售：无需缴纳印花税
LUXURYLODGEESCAPES.CO
选定出发日期， 每对夫妇最高可省 £1,400*
2026 年 8 月至 2027 年 10 月
探索威尼斯的魔力，这座迷人的水城，亮点包括圣马可广场和标志性的里阿尔托桥。前往博洛尼亚，访问著名的 La Sorbetteria Castiglione，品尝以浓郁口味著称的卓越手工冰淇淋。穿过托斯卡纳风景如画的乡村，前往迷人的水疗小镇蒙特卡蒂尼 (Montecatini Terme)，并探索拥有著名的比萨斜塔的“奇迹广场”。继续前往拉齐奥大区的罗马，特莱维喷泉、罗马斗兽场和西班牙阶梯等宝藏在此等待，并可选择访问梵蒂冈和西斯廷教堂。接着，前往索伦托半岛，由导游带领参观因维苏威火山爆发而保存下来的庞贝古城。欣赏阿马尔菲海岸和卡普里岛，最后在西西里岛以埃特纳火山的景观结束行程。
*仅限选定出发日期之折扣，且已从广告价格中扣除。价格在印刷时正确。所示价格基于双人入住双人房或双床房以及经济舱机票。所有假期均视供应情况而定。图片与 Travelsphere 联合使用。由 Travelsphere 运营并受其预订条件约束，ABTA Y6412, ATOL 11266，该公司完全独立于 News UK。
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在 2020 年秋季，我 55 岁时从伦敦搬到意大利深南部的小镇纳尔多（Nardo），打算进行一次长假，当时完全没有想到这将是我人生新阶段的开始。
如果有人告诉我，将近六年之后，我会拥有一座由我从头到尾翻修而成的宫殿（palazzo），我绝不会相信。但现在，事实就在眼前。
之前的经历使得很难重新开始工作。我不确定微薄的积蓄能支撑多久，所以最初的想法是在那里住几个月，思考“接下来该怎么做”。
从到达的那一刻起，我就爱上了这里。我喜欢那些退休老先生们组成的小圈子，他们每天早晨对我点头致意说“Buongiorno”（早安）；当镇上的时钟敲响正午，他们骑车回家吃午饭时，会对我祝愿“Buon pranzo”（午餐愉快）；每一条街道上的蔬菜卡车上都堆满了野生绿叶菜，旧塑料瓶里装着橄榄油出售。每位商贩都会教我如何烹饪那些不熟悉的当地农产品，而我可以带着我的可卡 spaniel 猎犬戴西（Daisy）在海边散步。
VANESSA MINER; ALAMY
温暖的秋日午后，以及新老朋友（外派人员和游客的混合体）组成的精彩行列，很快就让位于石屋中那个没有中央空调、潮湿寒冷的冬天。我为木柴炉储备了燃料，在亚马逊上订购了一床电热毯，并意识到，我对伦敦生活的怀念并没有想象中那么深。
疫情禁令非常严格，当宪兵（carabinieri）在广场上巡逻，催促每个人赶紧回家时，小镇陷入了沉寂。在意大利经历过之前的一切后，没有人想让任何人面临进一步的危险。但那个冬天，我建立了一个亲密的新朋友圈，于是问题不再是“我是否”能在这里生活，而是“如何”生活。我的语言能力糟糕透顶，所以我必须为自己创造一份工作。我过去经营过自己的公司，并在英国和法国成功翻修过几处房产，但我担心自己正陷入所有出国后幻想永远定居在那里的天真陷阱中。这真的足以成为一个新业务的基础吗？
当时，镇上只有一家像样的酒店，但它凭借巴洛克建筑、壮丽的中央广场以及靠近海岸的地理位置吸引了大批游客。市场显然存在缺口。I 深吸一口气，决定卖掉我在伦敦的房子。在交易完成前一个月，我回到了英国，最后一次含泪凝视我心爱的花园，并举办了一场名为“最后一战”的大规模后备箱集市派对，准备了鸡尾酒和比萨。我带着一些积蓄开车回到纳尔多，处于一个优越的地位：我有几个月的时间来研究如何翻修房产，并按照自己的方式开启一家招待业公司。
我穿过布满灰尘的楼梯和封闭闷热的房间，查看那些被遗弃的公寓。远离喧嚣的广场，历史中心的侧街非常安静，有着厚实的木门。这是一个像宝石一样的小镇，但它不像普利亚其他地区那样处于时尚关注的焦点，尽管它也正乘着该地区复兴的浪潮。中心地带有很多古老且闲置的房屋，只有厚实的旧墙和璀璨的穹顶天花板能提供遮蔽，抵御夏季酷暑。
其中没有一座完全合适，但它们启发了我对可能性的愿景。我想创造一些奢华但又真实地体现自我的东西；创造一个让你感到像在家里一样，可以光脚走来走去，在下午蜷缩在沙发里读一本好书，或者伸手进冰箱拿零食的地方。
左图：瓦妮莎·迈纳在纳尔多之屋（Nardo House）。上图：纳尔多小镇。上方及右图：迈纳在翻修期间。
几个月后，我偶然发现了一座建在其中世纪修道院遗址上的巨大建筑。在过去的一个世纪里，一个显赫的家庭占据了整个一楼，那里塞满了祖母的家具，包括堆满古董瓷器的巨大餐边柜，还有一个装满无法辨认的长期保存蔬菜罐头的食品储藏室。
感觉就像她刚刚走出房门一样，而且在某种程度上，确实如此。在由于她无法再独自居住之后，家人一直将房子保持在完美的秩序中，但现在他们同意将其卖给我。
在一位出色房产中介的帮助下，我结识了一位专门负责历史建筑拨款的当地会计师，并进而结识了一家可以合作的银行。我成立了一家意大利公司，决定聘请一位当地知名的建筑师来引导我处理繁琐的官僚程序，并以极快的速度汇总了所有文书和财务资料。
就这样，有一天下午，我坐在律师事务所里，签署着没完没了的法律文件，成为了一个在接下来的三年里被称为“工地”的地方的所有者。我兴奋得晕晕乎乎，但对前方的挑战一无所知。一位好朋友建议我，每当我感到不知所措时，就去海边散步，提醒自己为什么要这样做。在接下来的三年里，我有过很多次这样的散步。
在签署合同后几乎整整三年，这里终于完工了。为了寻找与精修门窗相匹配的复古风格门螺丝而度过的那些日子已成过去，纳多之家（Nardo House）诞生了。
家具被吊车通过窗户吊入，柠檬树被搬到露台上；五名强壮的男子将一台实铁炉灶搬进了它的新家。我邀请之前卖给我原公寓的那个家庭来喝酒，结果三代人都来了。优雅的家族长辈告诉我，我们坐的这个房间曾是她母亲的卧室，也是她本人出生的地方。她握住我的手，告诉我她的母亲一定会喜欢我的所作所为。这是对这个快乐之所最甜蜜的认可，现在这里已准备好迎接新客，让他们探索萨伦托（Salento）这个神奇的角落。
我站在肯特郡汤布里奇（Tonbridge）附近一个无名工业园区里的一座蓝色车库外，感觉自己像是要进入一家汽车修理厂或一个储藏单元。但从我踏进门的那一刻起，我就被带入了一个不同的世界。
K
成排的动物笼子在仓库的纵深和宽度上延伸，拿着写字板的工作人员在笼子之间穿梭。在一个房间里，一名接线员戴着耳机坐着，面前的墙上钉着一张大地图；而在另一个房间里，则是一间一尘不染的手术室。
这是英国仅有的专门为狐狸设立的救援中心之一。它由“狐狸项目”（Fox Project）运营，这是一个致力于这些被误解的生物福祉的慈善机构。在我们中的一些人（包括我在内）看来，它们长期以来一直被视为挖掘花床、翻找垃圾桶的害兽。
这些狐狸爱好者们没有休息时间。应急电话在一年365天、每周七天、每天上午9点至晚上9点都有人值守，包括圣诞节当天。团队在 70 英里半径范围内进行救援，使用一支由三辆配备特殊设备（而且相当臭）的救护车组成的车队。
我建议城市或郊区的大量人群可能会将狐狸视为一种麻烦，这个观点并不受欢迎。
“不，并不是每个人 [都认为狐狸是麻烦]，”该项目的救护车司机兼营销专家尼基·汤森（Nicki Townsend）语气相当犀利地说道，“那是你的世界——那些不喜欢与野生动物分享花园的人的世界。现在你沉浸在我们的世界里。我们所有的志愿者都热爱它们。每一个打进来的电话都是关心狐狸并想要帮助它们的人。”
该慈善机构的历史与其敬业的员工一样丰富多彩。它是在 35 年前由特雷弗·威廉姆斯（Trevor Williams）创立的，最初是一个咨询热线。这位 81 岁的老先生曾是 20 世纪 70 年代摇滚乐队 Audience 的贝斯手。在加入乐队之前，他曾潜入并破坏狐狸狩猎活动。他被人们敬仰为
凯莉·霍姆斯（Kelly Holmes）与一只吉娃娃和约克梗混血犬希洛（Shiloh）合影。下方：她的两只羊驼，波罗（Polo）和甘草（Liquorice）。最右侧：与救援犬惠特尼（Whitney）和巴尼（Barney）合影。
我买了两只，但它们只是站在田地的角落里。有人说它们需要成群，于是我又去买了另外两只，最后结果是…… 凯莉·霍姆斯：“我的四只羊驼负责修剪草坪”
这位双倍奥运冠军讲述她的神秘救援犬以及她的除草伙伴们
凯莉·霍姆斯是在与一只阿尔萨斯犬摔跤中长大的。她觉得把这只大狗锁在头锁里比尝试抚摸家里的猫更安全，因为她怀疑那只猫“被附身”了。从那时起，这位两届奥运冠军
狐狸之神
他告诉大卫·拜尔斯（David Byers），它们并非害兽。
工作人员将（他）视为“狐狸之神”。这些敬业的医疗人员和活动人士认为，我们在后花园里看到的狐狸实际上并非害兽，我们应该关心它们的福利。我还接触到了 40 个寄养家庭之一，他们接收受伤的狐狸并将其作为宠物饲养。
“她的整个背部都磨破了”
疥癣，一种由微小螨虫引起的严重皮肤病，螨虫可以钻入皮肤下产卵。这只狐狸因为过度抓挠，导致整个背部都磨破了。“她很惊恐，因为她被逼到了角落，”汤森（Townsend）说。这只狐狸是在一名公众成员打电话报告称她在后花园行为异常后被发现的。接到电话后，志愿者们带着一个内置诱饵的笼式陷阱前往，并在几个小时后回来将其捕捉。汤森向我展示其中一个时说：“我把它们描述为加强版的捕鼠夹。”
大多数狐狸是在遭遇车祸致残后被送入中心的，因此会被立即收集。但那些被发现处于痛苦状态或带有伤口的狐狸通常需要被捕捉，因为志愿者无法直接抓到它们。
医院经理桑德拉·雷迪（Sandra Reddy）表示，对中心服务的需求正在增长。“去年我们救助了超过 1,500 只狐狸。今年已经达到了 1,309 只，”她说。其中大约三分之一是幼崽。
汤森解释说，被送到医院后，只有 41% 的狐狸能存活，因为许多问题被发现过于棘手，无法成功进行手术。“它们有骨折、创伤和蛆虫感染。你无法想象它们进来时是什么样子，”她说。
如果你住在城市里，可能会认为狐狸数量在增加，但从全国范围来看并非如此。英国大约有 350,000 只狐狸，但据认为其数量自 1995 年以来下降了近 50%。由于集约化农业方法的长期影响导致食物和栖息地丧失，农村地区的数量出现了下降。此外，还有狩猎、射击、陷阱和投毒的影响，以及每年在道路上被杀死的 100,000 只狐狸。
部分由于被赶出乡村，据认为近年来城市狐狸数量有所增长。我们的城市现在比以往任何时候都包含更多的垃圾和更多口味的选择（一些议会通过每两周一次的[垃圾清理]……）
他接收了救援犬，并在一个田野里养满了羊驼。
你成长过程中养过宠物吗？ 我的继父从我五岁起就抚养我，他养过德国牧羊犬。其中一只叫 Champ，我常和他打架。我们会在花园里打滚，我会用头钳锁住他。他本可以把我的头撕下来，但他从未咬过我，所以我从未感到害怕。
我们还有另一只叫 Gemma 的德国牧羊犬，然后是 Charlie，它看起来像杜蕾（Dulux）广告里的那只狗。它很漂亮。我记得小时候和我父亲——我把继父称为父亲——一起参加一场越野赛，当时我们被告知 Charlie 必须被安乐死。我们两个都流泪了。
我听说你养了羊驼。是怎么回事？ 我养羊驼是为了不用除草。在我获得两枚金牌[2004 年]一年后，我搬进了这座房，前面有一个田野。起初除草对我来说是一种疗愈，但每次要花三个小时，我想：“这简直是在浪费生命！”
一位农民在栅栏对面看到了奇怪的动物。他说：“你想看看 cria 吗？” Cria 是幼年羊驼，我以前从未听说过。它们是长着小斑点的小家伙，他说：“它们吃草和树篱。”我觉得：“太棒了！”
尼基·汤森（Nicki Townsend）， 狐狸项目（Fox Project） 救护车司机。 左图：特雷弗·威廉姆斯（Trevor Williams）
而不是每周一次，而是垃圾回收）。 据估计，伦敦有 10,000 只狐狸。环保主义者在争论城市狐狸种群在多大程度上增加了，或者它们是否仅仅是因为变得更加习惯与人类互动而变得更加明显。
那么，为什么我们要关心城市狐狸呢？对于汤森（Townsend）及其同事和志愿者来说，这是一个重新教育像我这样的人的问题，因为在我们的流行文化中，狐狸一生都被赋予了负面形象，比如比翠克斯·波特（Beatrix Potter）故事《杰米玛·帕德尔鸭的故事》（The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck）中狡猾的狐狸。
“我们产生了海量的垃圾，因此啮齿动物的数量极其庞大，而狐狸却能捕杀老鼠，”手臂上纹有狐狸图案的汤森森（Townsend）说道，“这就是为什么城镇里需要它们。所以当人们告诉我，我不希望花园里有狐狸时，我会问，你是想让啮齿动物泛滥吗？选择权在你，要狐狸还是老鼠。它们清理了许多垃圾，还吃路杀动物之类的东西。”
她认为英国人总体上是动物保护的伪君子。“我们显然是一个热爱动物的国家，但我们消费了大量动物，却不关心野生动物，”她说。
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对狐狸的热情 离开医院后，汤森森和我乘坐狐狸救护车行驶了十分钟，去见威廉姆斯（Williams）。他正坐在花园的阴凉处，花园里种满了野花，还有一个景观池。他告诉我，在 20 世纪 70 年代，Audience 乐队在舞台上得到了 Queen 乐队、Genesis 乐队和 Thin Lizzy 乐队的支持（在乐队内部关系崩塌并解散之前）。但狐狸一直是他最大的热情所在。
“九岁那年，在盛夏时节，我走在叔叔农场果园的长草丛中，这时一只狐狸突然从长草中飞奔而出，”他说，“就像一道喷发的火焰，美极了。那一幕永远留在我的记忆中。”
威廉姆斯在担任狐狸猎杀破坏者期间开启了他的动物权利活动之门，与动物权利活动家合作，通过物理手段干扰猎狗狩猎。“但在四年半之后，我觉得下一个被逮住的可能就是我了。你会被打得很惨。狗不是问题，问题是那些会攻击你的人类。”
在加入反对残酷运动联盟（League Against Cruel Sports）并抗议虐待动物之后，他在 35 年前成立了“狐狸项目”（Fox Project），最初是一个咨询热线。后来，随着公众关注度的增加，它演变成了一项紧急救援和治疗服务。他在汤布里奇（Tonbridge）附近租了一个车库，建立了一个成年狐狸医院。由于总是被大型开发商出更高价抢走，寻找一个更永久且更合适地点的尝试均以失败告终。
威廉姆斯还在自己的花园里建立了一个完整的医疗中心，用于救治受创的幼狐。他的妻子苏（Sue）告诉我，该设施最近进行的升级使其在 6 月的酷暑中能保持凉爽，这笔资金是由化妆品公司 Lush 提供的一笔 £10,000 的拨款。
然而，帮助狐狸显然是一项危险的生意，这就是为什么汤布里奇中心的外部完全无法被辨认。“曾经有野生动物医院和动物保护区遭到孩子的袭击，杀死了动物，”他说道，但未具体指明是哪些地方。“发生了很多可怕的事情。非常恐怖。完全缺乏同情心。”
因为“狐狸项目”只能……
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（注：此处文本片段不连续） ……得到四个。那是关于得到六只羊驼的故事。
它们叫什么名字？ 我根据它们的颜色用糖果给它们命名。Liquorice 和 Fudge 是前两个，它们是兄弟。然后我得到了 Crème Caramel, Toffee, Truffle 和 Polo。它们全部是公的，因为我刚养它们时还没准备好养幼崽——那需要花很多时间。
它们六个月大时我就养了。现在它们 17 岁了，但我只剩下四只。Fudge 在封锁期间去世了。他很漂亮，有着古铜色的毛发和长长的睫毛。
我上周不得不让 Crème Caramel 接受安乐死。他几年前伤到了脖子，脖子开始变成 s 形。我请了兽医来看，但骨头融合了，久而久之导致他无法正常进食。
你到了一个必须做决定的时刻，不是吗？真的很悲伤，但我不能让他继续受苦。
你还养其他动物吗？ 只有羊驼和我伴侣的狗 Shiloh，它是一只吉娃娃和约克夏混血狗。它 12 岁了，非常小，像只玩具狗。我以前不喜欢小狗，当时我觉得：“不，我喜欢大狗！这什么玩意？一只拴着绳子的老鼠吗？”
但你会习惯狗的 面部特征和 性格，而且希洛（Shiloh） 很可爱。她就像我的影子。 她喜欢和我一起去健身房。
你养过自己的 狗吗？ 我养过两只救援犬。我一直 想要救援犬，所以 我去了肯特郡的一家中心。
右图：专门单元内的 救援幼狐。 下图：狐狸 寄养家长 伊恩和卡罗琳·史密森
在肯特郡、东萨塞克斯郡、萨里郡和伦敦东南部一个相对较小的半径范围内救援狐狸，而那些不幸在全国其他地区受伤的狐狸，所能获得的治疗要零散得多，通常只能在综合动物医院接受照顾，或者根本得不到照顾。
我们交谈时，苏（Sue）正与汤森德（Townsend）一起准备将五只狐狸幼崽送到一个寄养家庭生活，此前这些幼崽一直在汤森德的花园里接受医疗护理。
狐狸寄养家长 在狐狸项目（Fox Project）的管辖范围内，共有 40 户家庭报名在自家花园中安置狐狸。围栏由雷迪（Reddy）和一支志愿者团队手工搭建，而食物、锯末和稻草则由该慈善机构提供。这些寄养家庭共同拥有抚养约 200 只幼崽的能力，帮助它们在被放回野外之前长得更大更强壮。汤森德说，狐狸项目从不缺志愿者。
我想要一只强壮、硬朗、结实的公狗，比如魏玛猎犬。 这就是我脑海中的样子， 所以我一直去那里 寻找。
那个女人说：“你想 到上面去看看 我们接 小狗的地方吗？” 那时我是一名运动员， 我觉得： “我没时间 照顾小狗。 我不要 小狗，我要 一只成年狗。”但我们走下去时，我说：“我的天呐！那是什么？”那个女人说：“我们刚刚救了她。她叫雪莉（Shelley）。我们不知道她是什么品种，来自哪里，也不知道为什么她长成那样。”
英国狐狸的数量 自 1995 年以来 下降了近 一半
这个丑陋的小东西，当时我觉得： “天呐！显然不行。” 第二周我又回去了， 她一定是闻到了我的气味或怎么的，因为她直接走到了笼子边，
伸出了爪子。她当时 只有那么小， 看起来像一只野兔。
我回到家， 无法停止 思考 雪莉。 我觉得她很可怜， 因为她长得 太糟糕了。我想： “没人会要她的。” 第二周我又回去了， 依然在寻找我的那只硬朗的狗，而雪莉依然在那里。
我说：“听着，我带她去散步。”那天我正准备跑步，而且我有一片空地，所以我想：“一箭双雕，我带一只狗去散步。”于是我带走了她，她跑起来像只野兔。我想：“她的血统里一定有某种灵缇犬的成分。”后来我发现确实如此。
汤森德和我开车 35 分钟，从威廉姆斯（Williamses）家前往奥平顿（Orpington）附近的韦斯特汉姆（Westerham），将五只狐狸送到伊恩和卡罗琳·史密森（Ian and Caroline Smithson）家中。正值热浪袭来，由于救护车后方传出的气味日益糟糕，我们不得不将两扇前窗全部打开。“我想我现在已经免疫了，”汤森德笑着抱歉地说道。
伊恩是一名工程师，卡罗琳是他的公司秘书，同时也是医院的兼职足底按摩师。他们在看到广告后申请成为狐狸的寄养志愿者。这将是他们的第二批幼狐。“我们有三个孩子，我们全家都热爱动物。我们认为，这正是我们想要做的事情，”卡罗琳说。
这对夫妇表示，除了每天早晨要铲粪便外，全家人都很享受这段经历。一个最近刚完成 A-level 考试的女儿甚至觉得这具有疗愈作用。但他们不担心噪音会干扰邻居吗？“反正野狐狸本身就会发出噪音，”她说，“我们的狐狸只会发出一点声音，但不会干扰任何人。”
也许英国的这些城市法外之徒真的应该获得一次名誉上的平反。
总之，我最后领养了雪莉，并给她起名叫惠特尼。她成了我见过最漂亮、最忠诚的狗。她总是陪我一起跑步。后来，我决定再养一只狗，好在我上班时能给惠特尼作伴。我又领养了一只，叫他巴尼。惠特尼和巴尼是我见过最忠诚、最美丽的狗。它们去世时分别是 15 岁和 12 岁，所以我养了它们很长时间。 采访者：萨曼莎·里亚 (Samantha Rea)
凯莉·霍姆斯 (Kelly Holmes) 正与营养补充剂品牌 Solgar 合作开展一项活动，为英国跑者提供与她共同训练的机会。报名截止日期为 8 月 31 日
I
就像我们还 处在 20 世纪 70 年代一样”
这里是创作恐怖故事的理想之地
我在诺福克的塞特福德拥有一栋四居室的燧石小屋，建于 1550.。经过多年时间，这栋房子发生了很大变化，底层大部分已经现代化了，但那不是我改造的。不过，楼上没怎么变动。走进那里就像进入了胜利号 (HMS Victory) 的船舱，到处是巨大的、深色的橡木梁和裸露的地板。
这是一栋歪斜的房子。里面没有一条直线，因为那时候人们在盖这些房子时没有打地基。这里有一个司祭藏身洞和驱魔标记以保护房产，因为在 16 世纪，这里的人们还在焚烧女巫。
是什么吸引你来到诺福克？ 战争期间，我父亲被疏散到萨福克郡一个叫贝克尔斯的村庄，离这里不远。很多年后，他经常带我们从埃塞克斯沿着东海岸来到这里度暑假。在新冠疫情之后，我发现人们变得更粗鲁、更缺乏包容心，于是我从南部搬到了这里。在诺福克，时间仿佛静止了，Showaddywaddy 乐队依然占据榜首 No 1.。
你在哪里长大？ 我在埃塞克斯的斯蒂福德克莱斯住在一栋市政房屋里，直到我大约七岁，我的父母埃塞尔和乔设法在附近买了一栋自己的房子，价格是 £5,000.。想象一下现在用 £5,000 买房！尽管我父亲为了买它不得不打三份工。
你的童年是什么样的？ 我母亲非常痴迷古董，所以小时候我被拽着逛遍了每一个杂货拍卖会、后备箱集市和古董店，寻找旧娃娃。家里到处都是娃娃，让这里有种狄更斯小说的氛围。我一直被叫做“二手乔”，因为我所有的衣服都是在寻找娃娃的探险过程中捡来的，而且从来不合身。但我不能抱怨，因为我没见过其他的样子。
你什么时候决定将喜剧作为职业的？ 我认为这不是由你决定的；你尝试去做，然后由它来决定是否可行。我做了很多年普通工作。我曾在交通部担任公务员，在肉类市场、汽车展厅和建筑工地工作过。我无法想象自己会一直从事
吵闹的垃圾收集在深夜扰民 Q
我们住在伦敦一条安静的住宅路上，路中间有一所私立幼儿园。该学校一直让吵闹的垃圾车在午夜进行垃圾收集，这把我们全部吵醒了——尽管我们向幼儿园和废弃物公司提出了投诉，两方都表示道歉。
最近，这所学校（原为家族拥有并经营）被一家大公司收购，与他们的沟通变得很困难。此外，他们将垃圾收集分包给多家承运商——即使一家公司同意停止在不合时宜的时间段收集，可能仍有其他公司会这样做。议会已经联系了幼儿园运营
管理人员，但他没有采取任何行动。 我们可以采取什么措施？ 伊莎贝尔·安斯科姆 (Isabelle Anscombe) A
这听起来确实很糟糕，尤其是在夏天，那时每个人晚上都会开窗，声音会传得很远。
帮助
在之前关于妨扰法 (law of nuisance) 的“居家帮助”解答中，我讨论了法院考虑的因素：地点、时间、持续时间、频率和强度。在本项目中，显然，时间将是主导因素。地点同样相关，特别是这里是一个住宅区。与任何妨扰索赔一样，记录每次被嘈杂的垃圾收集唤醒的时间、持续时长、对您的影响以及任何其他相关细节至关重要。如果您在网上搜索，可以找到各种可供使用的“妨扰日志”模板。这将为您向法院提起诉讼或要求地方当局追究法定妨扰索赔提供证据基础。
使用手机记录视频片段，并尝试从噪音顾问那里获得正式报告可能会有所帮助，他们可以使用录音设备来测量来自垃圾车的噪音水平。如果您的索赔得到邻居的支持，也会有帮助：人数越多越有力，而且可能分担法律费用。鼓励您的邻居也填写妨扰日志。
向托幼学校所有者发送一份初步的妨扰索赔函至关重要，阐明噪音如何影响您，并附上几周的妨扰日志以证明问题的严重性。列出您希望他们采取的措施，并告知他们如果不能解决问题，您将将他们起诉到法院。同时，将您的证据提供给议会，并要求他们向托幼学校所有者发出削减通知 (abatement notice)。
另一件需要核实的事情是，该托幼学校的规划许可是否包含任何与废弃物处理相关的条件，例如限制收集时间，和/或废弃物策略或管理计划。如果存在此类条件（如果您查阅地方当局的规划门户网站应该能找到），并且该条件被违反，您可以促使地方当局采取执法行动。
Ed Cracknell（合伙人）与 Joanna Crow（法律总监），Russell-Cooke 律师事务所
直到我 65 岁之前，我都没做过这些工作。所以我去洛伊斯托夫 (Lowestoft) 的一家华纳度假营找了一份工作，在那里担任摔跤比赛等活动的裁判，以此作为进入娱乐业的敲门砖。
职业生涯是如何起飞的？ 纯粹为了好玩，我参加了《新面孔》(New Faces) 节目，最后在决赛中获得了第二名。我当时没有表演节目，从未认真对待喜剧，现在依然如此。我认为这就是为什么我至今仍享受其中的原因。你必须热爱它，否则你不会想在一群陌生观众面前走上去说：“请看看我。”
早期的那些工作对你作为喜剧演员有帮助吗？ 是的。不需要在早晨五点半起床，骑着轻便摩托车去史密斯菲尔德市场 (Smithfield Market)，然后背着一头死牛干一整天，这激励了我前进。
《新面孔》和赢得《我是名人……》哪个影响更大？ 我参加《新面孔》是在 1987 年，而我在丛林里获胜是在 22 年前，现在没人会在意这两件事。我今年 65 岁，没有退休打算，因为我热爱我的工作。今年夏天，我在爱丁堡艺穗节 (Edinburgh Fringe) 参演一部名为《11½个愤怒的男人》的剧作。我目前
乔·帕斯夸莱 (Joe Pasquale)。 右上：他位于诺福克郡度假屋中的祭司藏身处。 左下：诺福克郡的塞特福德 (Thetford)。 下方：帕斯夸莱 1987 年参加《新面孔》才艺秀时的样子。
Q
请教如何清洗金属橄榄油分装瓶，以便我再次填充。瓶内残留着半干的油，非常粘稠，且只有很小的注入口和倾倒口可以进入。 Jill Stafford
学习踢踏舞
因为在某个时刻
我的角色
需要在桌子上跳舞。我从未参加过爱丁堡fringe艺术节，也从未跳过踢踏舞。
你的房子闹鬼吗？ 搬进来一段时间后，我和卖给我这座小屋的女士聊天，提到我要去当地酒吧参加一个通灵之夜。她让我如果那个鬼出现了，就帮她问好，这对我来说是个新闻，因为她之前告诉我这里不闹鬼。显然，她不想向潜在买家承认这一点。至于那个鬼，他是一名二战时期的德国战斗机飞行员，在附近坠机，以前经常坐在她的卧室里和她说话——我想应该是用德语。
MARK MCGHEE; ALAMY;SHUTTERSTOCK
你见过那个鬼吗？ 没有，但我的巡演经理见过。他在那间房住了一晚后告诉我，他无法入睡，因为有人整晚坐在床边盯着他看，而我当时甚至还没提到鬼的事情。另外，我在旧楼梯旁放了一个感应式的忍者放屁玩具，据说在没人的时候它也会突然响起来。
你买这栋小屋时需要做很多修缮吗？ 不需要，而且无论如何我都不想做任何改动。我写恐怖小说。我已经出版了三卷短篇故事集，一部小说也即将问世，我觉得这个地方非常能激发灵感。
你有什么珍爱的财产吗？ 我想是我戴的这只手链，大约 30 或 40 年前我在父亲节时为我父亲买的。
你擅长放松吗？ 不擅长。我必须时刻在做某些事情。我最近通过了摩托车驾考，因为那是最接近飞行的事情。我有飞行员执照，但我发现通过体检越来越难了，
因为我的视力在下降。我
还写书、绘画、去健身房、打理花园，只要是不静坐的任何事情我都会做。 采访人：Dan Moore
《11½ Angry Men》将在爱丁堡Pleasance EICC上演，8月 5-22 日；可在 edfringe.com 购票
为了清洗我那个细口的橄榄油瓶，我往瓶子里倒入几汤匙粗盐，接着加入一些热肥皂水，然后用力摇晃。 P Patel
我有一个作为婚礼礼品收到的不锈钢橄榄油壶。在 33 年里，我从未清洗过它。 Virginia Crook
未来问题 我的石板厨房地板边缘布满了白色小点，我认为那是蜘蛛粪便。什么都除不掉，即使是刮除也不行。有人能建议某种可以溶解它们的东西吗？ Andrea Slater, 伦敦 SW14
请将技巧和问题发送至 homehelp@sunday-times.co.uk。所提供建议不承担责任
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我对乘坐火车前往海边之地的喜爱，源于童年时期从约克前往斯卡伯勒的旅行。沿途的标志性景观深深刻在我的脑海中：像农场一样的马尔顿车站，沉睡在泛绿的德文特河畔的柯克汉姆修道院遗址，以及在进入斯卡伯勒车站之前的那个巨大的信号龙门架——它简直就像一面写着“欢迎光临”的横幅。
前往斯卡伯勒的铁路线依然畅通，而不像前往奥尔德堡、莱姆雷吉斯、巴德利萨尔顿、西德茅斯、布里德波特等地的线路那样被关闭。通往海边的铁道曾有许多敌人，最主要的便是 20 世纪 60 年代的铁路“刽子手”比钦博士。但即使在两次世界大战期间，那些展示从布里德灵顿到布里克瑟姆阳光灿烂场景的铁路海报上，也标注着这样一行注脚：“铁路运输更快捷”。
而这一点在今天比那时更加真实。乘客们在短时间内，依然能够沉浸在爱德华时代那些热情奔放的海边海报世界里，那些海报将莫雷峡湾誉为“苏格兰里维埃拉”，将兰迪德诺誉为“北方的那不勒斯”。
以下是我最喜爱的六条线路。
英弗内斯至凯尔洛赫尔什 (INVERNESS TO KYLE OF LOCHALSH) 最棒的海边火车会长时间地沿水域行驶，让乘客在抵达大海前能有足够长的预演。在旅程快结束时，凯尔线的列车会沿着卡伦湖（实际上就是大海）行驶十多英里，偶尔脱离水岸，穿过狭窄的石峡谷。几乎整条由西向东的线路风景都如亚瑟王传说般瑰丽，两三节车厢的苏格兰铁路 (Scotrail) 柴油列车在山丘和湖泊之间显得如此之小，就像蓝色的小毛虫。而夏日的色彩几乎令人产生幻觉：亮黄色的金雀花、紫色的石楠花、黑色的湖滩、铁道边的风信子以及粉红色的杜鹃花。
公路桥要求人们必须向其致敬。或许你可以搭乘出租车前往斯凯岛的金洛奇旅馆 (Kinloch Lodge)，那是麦克唐纳家族的历史府邸，在那里一个罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森式的世界正等待着你，而且食物要好得多。 详情：半食宿双人间 £580 起 (kinloch-lodge.co.uk)
米德尔斯堡至惠特比 (MIDDLESBROUGH TO WHITBY) 比钦博士曾竭力孤立惠特比，关闭了其两条铁路线，但从米德尔斯堡出发的埃斯克河谷线幸存了下来。其向西延伸的路段穿过田野，南面和东面的北约克郡穆尔斯 (North York Moors) 根据天气不同，有时像是一片高耸的伊甸园，有时像是在聚集风暴云。
在格罗斯蒙特，该线与北约克郡穆尔斯铁路 (NYMR) 这条遗产铁路相交。NYMR 的车站反映了不同的铁路时代，而格罗斯蒙特车站是最漂亮的，它被漆成象牙色和蓝色，这是英国铁路北东区的代表色。在此下车，购买一张由蒸汽或老式柴油机车牵引的火车票。这列车将多次横跨埃斯克河，在进入惠特比之前与河口平行行驶。惠特比车站离港口的距离，几乎就像威尼斯的圣露西亚终点站离大运河那样近。
详情：B&B 双人间 £320 起 (saltmoore.co.uk)
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前往英国海边的最佳火车之旅 安德鲁·马丁 (Andrew Martin) 表示，没有什么比沿着海岸线行驶并将你送到美景之地的观光铁路路线更惬意的了。
一辆出租车（或 X4 路公交车）可以将你从车站送到豪华的索特穆尔酒店 (Saltmoore hotel)，它位于穆尔斯与海滩之间，拥有 100 英亩的花园、一个水疗中心和一个室内游泳池。
洛伊斯托夫的海滨景象极其具有维多利亚风格，拥有游行道、海滨散步道、装饰花园和成排的宾馆。在诺里奇线的前两站是古朴的索默利顿 (Somerleyton)，那里的索默利顿草地 (Somerleyton Meadows) 在其乔治亚风格的住宅中提供 B&B 住宿，或者也可以选择其地块内的现代隐居小屋 (Hideaway Hut)。从车站步行需 15 分钟，也可以安排接送。 详情：两晚 B&B £320 起 (somerleyton meadows.co.uk)
诺福克至洛伊斯托夫特 (NORFOLK TO LOWESTOFT) Wherry Lines 铁路线运行于诺里奇至格雷特雅茅斯或洛伊斯托夫特之间；后者可能更具吸引力。它穿越一片宛如绿色大海的沼泽地，广阔的地平线上点缀着零星破旧的风车——而船只在 Waveney 河上航行，水位高于铁路线。仿佛是为了在这奇异的景观中提供某种慰藉，在社区铁路 (Community Rail) 志愿者的帮助下，大多数车站都开满了鲜花花园。
洛伊斯托夫特车站——该站同时服务于通往伊普斯威奇的风景如画的东萨福克线——是由卢卡斯兄弟 (Lucas Brothers) 采用意大利风格建造的，他们还负责建造了皇家阿尔伯特音乐厅和约克车站。屋顶在 1992 年的一次残酷的“改造”中丢失了，但在阳光明媚的日子里，这里依然呈现出托斯卡纳庭院的意蕴，而且在旧的售票处里有一家提供咖啡和蛋糕的书店。
埃克塞特至泰格茅斯 (EXETER TO TEIGNMOUTH) 在离开埃克塞特圣大卫站后不久，宽阔的埃克塞河口让每位乘客都转向左侧窗外。当火车到达道利什沃伦 (Dawlish Warren) 站时，河口变成了英吉利海峡，这里开始了那道试图（且经常失败）保护铁路线的海堤。在温和的晴天——此时唯一的“浪花”是道利什海滩上的划水者与火车乘客之间挥手致意——火车与海洋在此交汇，成为了英国铁路浪漫主义的核心。这一场景被如此频繁地描绘在饼干罐、
拼图和海报上，以至于
这条路线的
新游客
可能会认为
他们以前也来过这里。
在道利什（Dawlish）和泰格茅斯（Teignmouth）之间，火车穿行于短小的悬崖隧道中，隧道之间点缀着幽静的小海湾，让人想起《Famous Five》故事集里的场景；在夏天，每次穿出隧道进入日光下，大海的蓝色都显得更加鲜艳。
Potters Mooring 是一家始建于 1675 年的旅馆，位于泰格茅斯郊外的沙尔登（Shaldon）村，距离大海仅 50 米。从泰格茅斯车站步行 20 分钟即可到达，或者乘坐巴士、出租车或乘坐渡轮跨越泰恩河（Teign）。详情：B&B 双人间 £114 起 (pottersmooring.co.uk)
马钦莱斯（MACHYNLLETH）至 普尔赫利（PWLLHELI） 坎布里安海岸线（Cambrian Coast Line）始于马钦莱斯（从尤斯顿车站易于抵达），
主图起顺时针方向：乘坐火车前往凯尔（Kyle）然后前往斯凯岛（Isle of Skye）；洛威斯托夫特（Lowestoft）的海滨小屋；一列火车经过德文郡（Devon）的道利什；北约克郡（North Yorkshire）的惠特比（Whitby）
在这里，火车分为两路，一路向南沿卡地根湾（Cardigan Bay）前往亚伯里斯托休斯（Aberystwyth），另一路向北前往普尔赫利。两条线路风景都极佳，但后者略胜一筹。
封面：KRIS TAMBURELLO。P2-3：JOHN BRACEGIRDLE, SLAWEK STASZCZUK, GEOGPHOTOS, BERND BRUEGGEMANN/ALAMY
大西部铁路（Great Western Railway）一张 1927 年的海报宣称：“坎布里安海岸：数英里壮丽的沙滩”，这确实是事实，但即便仅看内陆景色——山上的白色别墅、花岗岩教堂以及偶尔可见的城堡——也足以使其成为英国最美丽的风景路线之一。
夏季的火车通常挤满了人，乘客流动率很高，许多人穿着泳装登车，携带冲浪板或充气床垫，身上还带着沙子。主要度假胜地是巴茅斯（Barmouth），通过半英里长的高架桥进入。由于轨道弯曲，你可以在到达之前就将其尽收眼底。
普尔赫利是终点站：这座城镇虽略显颓势，但依然充满魅力，包括（在镇中心以北不到两英里处）Piggery，一家可俯瞰卡地根湾的幽静自助式农舍。详情：两人两晚自助住宿 £300 起 (wilderetreats.com)
克鲁（CREWE）至 兰迪多诺（LLANDUDNO） 北威尔士主线（North Wales Main Line）也被称为北威尔士海岸线，这两个名称反映了其双重属性：它既是旧时爱尔兰快邮列车（Irish Mail train）具有战略意义的路线，同时也是一条度假线路。在沿着什罗普郡联合运河（Shropshire Union Canal）经历一段乡村风情后，火车沿迪河口（Dee Estuary）运行，沿途的工业气息逐渐减轻，泥滩更干净，海鸟更多，而且（坦白说，这未必是美学上的加分项）固定式房车也更多。
经过普雷斯塔廷（Prestatyn）后，火车沿线可见真正的海滩，包括里尔（Rhyl）的海滩，其沿线的海洋湖（Marine Lake）自 1911 年起便被里尔迷你铁路（Rhyl Miniature Railway）环绕。接着是科尔温湾（Colwyn Bay），随后是兰迪多诺交汇站（Llandudno Junction），这里是前往兰迪多诺的分支线起点。（该站同时服务于壮观的康威峡谷线（Conwy Valley Line），该线向南开往布莱瑙（Blaenau），即费斯蒂尼奥格铁路（Ffestiniog Railway）的终点站。）
在兰迪多诺，许多优雅的建筑得以保留，尤其是沿海滨大道，那里的奶油色别墅似乎对汽车等现代化事物的出现感到不快。
从海滨大道步行十分钟即可到达 Escape Boutique B&B，这是一座经过品味现代化改造的维多利亚时代豪宅，可俯瞰全镇景色。详情：B&B 双人间 £135 起 (escapebandb.co.uk)
《乘火车去海边》（To the Sea by Train），作者安德鲁·马丁（Andrew Martin）（Profile 出版社，£11.99）。订购请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk。Times+ 会员可享受特惠。
这些是成功与失败的尝试。作者：Christopher Beanland
我并非选择了公路旅行，而是公路旅行选择了我也。童年时期在约克郡和诺福克亲友之间往返于 A17 公路，这意味着我注定会写一本书来赞美公路旅行，以及通过车窗能看到的各种古怪而美妙的事物。我说的是那些极客关注的东西：宏伟的路牌、停车场、桥梁、粗野主义巨型建筑、购物中心、快餐店、得来速和汽车旅馆。为了研究这本书，我花了几年的时间进行了十几次旅行。
我访问了 Motos、Welcome Breaks 以及如今已经消失的 Little Chef——其“奥运早餐”是足以引发心脏病的发作级点单。兰开夏郡的 Forton 服务区就像前往湖区途中的一座太空站，它设计于高速公路还被视为通往激动人心的未来的路线之时代。
我也租过一些极其危险的“死亡陷阱”车。2023 年在暹粒，我骑着一辆踏板车慢悠悠地前往吴哥窟。我轻而易举地找到一个一副无忧无虑模样、面带微笑的小伙子，他用一台粉黄相间的车和我交换了 $10，不需要任何证件。他甚至用一个牛奶瓶给我加满了汽油。
2021 年封锁期间在墨西哥图卢姆，租车费是柬埔寨的两倍，但我租到的破车安全性却只有一半。那是某个男人的车，手套箱里还塞着零食包装纸，但它确实把我送到了奇琴伊察并顺利返回。
由于没有收费站或限速，德国的公路旅行能激发你内心潜藏的刘易斯·汉密尔顿（Lewis Hamilton）精神，但这里也有令人大开眼界的景观。几年前在慕尼黑住了几个晚上后，我开车绕行了 1972 年的奥林匹克公园（Olympiapark），那里有酷炫的建筑和郁郁葱葱的景观。对于父亲们来说，隔壁的宝马世界（BMW Welt）非常值得一看。
在柏林，我开车经过了极其古怪的 Bierpinsel，那是一家建在高架桥上的前夜总会，你可以想象大卫·鲍伊（David Bowie）在其中翩翩起舞的样子。我入住的 Hotel Bristol 和洲际酒店（Intercontinental）都是西柏林的两颗现代主义明珠。
转向南方，我到达了历史悠久的维也纳，并挑战了一些高海拔阿尔卑斯山路及其发夹弯。
法国经常被推荐作为公路旅行的目的地，但实际上那里的驾驶状况糟糕到让你怀疑那些脾气暴躁的司机是否应该去 Specsavers 检查一下视力。此外，高速公路的过路费极其昂贵，你可能会被逼得至少卖掉一个肾。
然而有些人很喜欢那里——我的朋友、同行喜剧演员 Sam Burnett 在我的书中分享了他最喜欢的法国高速公路服务站。不过，现在在那儿可能已经不能喝得酩酊大醉了。
但在墨西哥可以——在瓜达拉哈拉附近的一次巴士旅程中，我看到卡车司机们猛灌外带的玛格丽特鸡尾酒，简直笑得前仰后合。我也加入了他们，其他乘客也是；遗憾的是，司机也加入了。
葡萄牙的情况好得多。为了做进一步研究，我入住了一家由 1950 年代汽车时代初期构思的里斯本 Ritz 酒店，那里有惊人的艺术品和顶楼跑步道。然后我前往塞辛布拉（Sesimbra）郊外的 Ribeiro do Cavalo 海滩，那是一个以陡峭悬崖著称的海湾。
2024 年在塞浦路斯的一次研究之旅中，我穿过了将塞浦路斯与仅由土耳其承认的脱离国家——北塞浦路斯分隔开的“绿线”。我进入了争议中的鬼城瓦罗莎（Varosha），自 1974 年那场内战以来，这里的时间便凝固了。那里最引人注目的景观是一家废弃的汽车经销店，这里曾向斯洛伐克联合国维和部队销售汽车，而那些部队曾在破损车库屋顶的丰田标志下巡逻。
随后，美国向我发出了召唤——我想写关于汽车旅馆和得来速的内容。《伟大的美国公路旅行》（The Great American Road Trip）的作者 Rolando Pujol 在 2022 年的纽约中央公园与我见面，在我想象向西出发前，为我的“Park Date”播客谈论他对 Wendy’s 餐厅和 80 年代购物中心的喜爱。我们分享了对必胜客（Pizza Hut）的热爱，并计划拍摄一部纪录片，跟随他横跨美国，寻找一个在后视镜中迅速淡去的、充满“加油站+古奇风格”（gas’n’googie）的乐观世界。
体验涵盖了从平凡的景点，例如犹他州南部辛克莱（Sinclair）加油站前院的绿色恐龙和泡沫喷泉根啤，到崇高的景象：下文提到的犹他州迷人的锡安（Zion）和布莱斯（Bryce）国家公园；亚利桑那州天空的宏大尺度；以及极远的距离和狂野的风暴。大自然的壮丽会扰乱你的自我意识。
在开车穿过洛杉矶之前，我沉醉于棕榈泉（Palm Springs）著名的现代主义银行建筑，经过复古的汽车电影院，然后在 The Line 和 Figueroa 酒店放松——那是拥有酷炫泳池的完美酒店。
另一次汗流浃背的旅程——去年，穿过闷热的阿拉伯半岛——始于吉达（Jeddah）的朝圣航站楼，那里已被改造为庞大的伊斯兰艺术双年展。我开着一辆空调开到最大功率的日产汽车飞驰在阿曼海岸，最终抵达了瓦迪沙卜（Wadi Shab）闪烁着绿光的山脉绿洲；我跳入水中，凉爽的水刺痛了我的皮肤。在沙漠的一家加油站，我与那个帮我加廉价汽油的印度人聊起了板球。
我在迪拜结束了那次旅行，那是 21 世纪最痴迷于汽车的城市，高速公路纵横交错，油耗巨大的超级跑车在上面疾驰。我沉浸在朱美拉海滩四季酒店（Four Seasons Jumeirah Beach）的享受中，在房间阳台上，看着那些博人眼球的迈巴赫和保时捷在堤道上向朱美拉湾岛驶去。
在酒店奢华的泳池边，我读完了柯蒂斯·西滕菲尔德（Curtis Sittenfeld）的《浪漫喜剧》（Romantic Comedy），书中的主角在全美开启了一场寻找爱情的公路旅行。这似乎是完美的读物。
Christopher Beanland 的《汽车建筑》（Architecture for Cars）现已出版（Batsford £30）。如需订购，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk。订单满 £25 英国标准邮寄免费。Times+ 会员可享受特别折扣。Christopher Beanland 将于下月在爱丁堡艺术节（edfringe.com）进行演出。
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机票、2 晚 4 星级奥克兰酒店、 20 晚房车租赁（含无限里程）、 凯库拉观鲸游轮以及 2 晚 4 星级皇后镇酒店 • 坐在舒适的房车里，领略新西兰南北岛的最佳景观 • 惊叹于皇后镇令人心潮澎湃的壮丽景色 • 在南岛海岸观测鲸鱼
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两年前，我前往肯尼亚的马赛马拉（Masai Mara）报道该地区在塔尔克河（Talek River）发生毁灭性洪水后的恢复情况。那场洪水冲走了桥梁，摧毁或严重损坏了 14 个营地。此次行程的目的是确认基础设施是否已得到充分修复以恢复旅游业（事实确实如此），但很快情况变得很明显，这里有一个更紧迫的故事。
大迁徙——大约 1.5 million 头角马，以及可能 500,000 头斑马和羚羊在 7 月至 10 月之间的移动——正处于高峰期。这些动物尝试穿越鳄鱼出没的桑德河（Sand River）和马拉河（Mara River）的场景是每位游客都想看到的。但游客的存在将大卫·爱登堡（David Attenborough）所描述的“地球上最伟大的自然奇观”变成了圣诞前夕一个过度拥挤的购物中心停车场的暴躁版本，拿着昂贵镜头的疯狂游客们催促司机将他们开到离过河点更近的地方。
空气中弥漫着灰尘和废气。发动机轰鸣。来自竞争营地的车辆互相抢道，引发了争吵。在某个时刻，四辆车堵住了出口，而在此前过河时被遗落在后的角马幼崽正试图寻找母亲。在几百码的上游，我看到这些幼崽到达车辆处，陷入恐慌并转身回到了迎面而来的兽群中。至少有 8 头被淹死，而当其他幼崽终于转身逃离时，有一头——腿部折断了——站在一个沙洲上，周围环绕着过于臃肿而无法迅速将其毙掉的鳄鱼。
有人可能会争辩说，在 1.5 million 头的迁徙规模中，九头死掉的角马微不足道，但这些死亡是由那些可能自称为野生动物爱好者的游客的贪婪造成的。马赛马拉的某些事情出了大问题。
这些死亡是由游客的贪婪造成的
2025 年的情况并没有好转。网上发布的视频显示，丰田陆地巡洋舰再次堵塞河流过河点，游客违反禁止离开车辆的规定；在其中一起案例中，酒店工作人员向一群冲进河边狩猎营地的角马挥舞餐巾。
据报道，该营地是新开业的丽思卡尔顿马赛马拉酒店（Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara），当时该酒店正面临环保主义者梅塔梅伊·奥洛尔·达帕什（Meitamei Olol Dapash）博士提起的诉讼。达帕什博士声称，这家每晚房价 £3,500 的旅馆是在明知其位于关键迁徙走廊的情况下建造的。但随后揭露，挥舞餐巾的视频是在 2020, 年拍摄于北面 8 英里的一个营地，且达帕什的案件在 2 月因程序问题被驳回。此外，马赛马拉国家保护区首席管理员史蒂芬·米尼斯（Stephen Minis）指出，游客在河岸行走一段视频是在指定的休息区拍摄的。
然而，随着兽群从塞伦盖蒂（Serengeti）抵达迎接下一次迁徙，一些动物环境律师和保护专家警告称，开发商和运营商正面临导致马赛马拉生态系统崩溃的风险。
7 月 2 日，纳罗克（Narok）的环境与土地法院审理了由东非导游与司机协会（East Africa Tour Guides and Drivers Association）提交的第二份请愿书。该请愿书要求关闭丽思卡尔顿营地，因为它是被建造在
在受保护的沙河 (Sand River) 野生动物走廊内，且“阻碍了古老的迁徙路线……从而导致野生动物栖息地碎片化，并造成不可逆转的生态破坏”。法官再次以程序性理由驳回了该案。
7月3日，由东非律师协会 (East Africa Law Society)、自然正义 (Natural Justice)、JustAct 和非洲和平与人权中心 (Africa Centre for Peace and Human Rights) 组成的团体提交了第三份请愿书。该请愿书要求关闭丽思卡尔顿马赛马拉酒店 (Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara)，以及相邻的 Sala’s Camp 和 Elewana 旗下的沙河马赛马拉酒店 (Sand River Masai Mara)，指称所有这些酒店的建设均违反了环境规划法。
对方否认了这些指控。丽思卡尔顿的所有者万豪国际 (Marriott International) 告诉《星期日泰晤士报》：“4月份此前案件的驳回再次证明，该旅馆在马赛马拉的存在既符合法律，又顾及生态。” Sala’s Camp 的所有者 Safari Collection 表示：“关于 Sala’s Camp 的指控毫无根据。” 而 Elewana 则表示，其沙河物业是“根据相关部门颁发的批准书建立并运营的”。
规划许可是如何获批的尚未公开，但人们日益担心，对利润的追求正在让 2023 年的马赛马拉管理计划沦为笑话，该计划明确规定将“不再增加新的旅游开发项目”。
GRAHAM PRENTICE, ADEDEJI OKUBADEJO/ALAMY
在去年的混乱之后，肯尼亚旅游部长丽贝卡·米亚诺 (Rebecca Miano) 宣布了相关规定：禁止在指定休息区以外的地方下车；增加在过河点的执法巡逻；将过河点的车辆数量限制在 5 辆（最长停留 10 分钟）；并授权对违反规定的司机处以最高 £70 的现场罚款。
“这些计划在纸面上看起来很美好，”一位要求匿名的资深向导说，“但如果动物群还没有过河，我看不到哪个司机会在 10 分钟后就放弃前排位置。”
将入场费从每天 £60 提高到 £150 对游客数量产生了剧烈影响——从 2023 年的 420,000 人下降到 2025 年的 213,000 人——但随着每天多达 150 辆车在各个过河点之间飞驰，这个曾被描述为地球上最伟大的野生动物表演的场景，不幸地变成了非洲版的“全包式度假套餐中抢太阳椅”的日常闹剧。
如果你梦想在马赛马拉观看迁徙，但如果是在一个糟糕的交通堵塞中，与那些比起动物福利更在意视觉奇观的游客挤在一起，这听起来像是一场噩梦，那么你还有其他选择。
第一，你可以在 1 月至 3 月之间前来，观看知名度较低的洛伊塔迁徙 (Loita Migration)，届时多达 250,000 头角马和斑马将从洛伊塔平原迁徙到马赛马拉保护区（位于主要旅游区北部的私人管理野生区域），寻找新鲜的草地。
第二，你可以在主季前来，但避开过河点。那些场景虽戏剧化且往往很残酷，但在这个规模震撼的奇观中，它们只是一个小而（被过度炒作的）片段。前往像奥普尼亚塔平原 (Olpunyata Plains) 或奥洛洛洛陡崖 (Oloololo Escarpment) 脚下的草地等游客较少的地点，你将看到成千上万头鸣叫的角马在狮子、豹子、鬣狗和食腐动物的包围中艰难前行，在这些掠食者眼中，这些畜群就像一条缓缓流动的蛋白质之河。
这是一个令人惊叹的景象，但你需要一辆私人游猎车，这样你就不用与那些只为了看过河点的游客共乘。这每天需要额外支付 £225 以上的费用，但其价值远超价格。不过，请务必在预订时询问，尤其是在迁徙季节。
在马拉河 (Mara)
MARA TOTO TREE CAMP 由于气候变化和上游森林砍伐，马拉三角地带（保护区西南部分）的洪水发生频率和强度有所增加，因此环保人士和野生动物游猎运营商 Great Plains 在 Ntiakitiak 河畔的一片乌木林中，将 Mara Toto Tree Camp 建造在 20 英尺的高空，透过叶间可以向西远眺断崖。这里共有四套套房：它们是电影场景般的茅草屋顶树屋，每间均配有铜浴缸以及供客人使用的佳能 (Canon) 相机和镜头 —— Great Plains 的所有者 Dereck 和 Beverly Joubert 均是野生动物电影制作人和摄影师。Dereck 的建议是在 Loita 迁徙期间前来，这样可以节省开支，并能“成为解决方案的一部分，而非问题的一部分”。 详情：七晚 —— 其中六晚在 Mara Toto Tree Camp 和 Mara Expedition Camp 享受全包服务，一晚在内罗比入住 B&B —— 每人 £14,750 起，含机票、接送及导览 (audleytravel.com)
HOUSE IN THE WILD 从 Sand River 驾车三小时即可抵达 House in the Wild，这里是您在仍处于马拉地区范围内，且能远离过河点人群的最远地点。2012 年，Lippa 和 Tarquin Wood 在这里将一座前农场重新野化，创建了 Enonkishu 保护区，这是一个野生动物与人类必须重新学习如何共存的缓冲区。这创造了您在马拉其他地方无法体验到的邂逅 —— 例如，一名马赛牧民平静地引导他的牛群远离不远处地盘的狮子，或者一群斑马聚集在村庄里以挫败潜行豹的袭击。旅馆坐落在马拉河一个弯道的草坪上，提供七栋小屋和别墅的住宿，具有一种非常适合家庭的私人派对氛围。 详情：六晚在 House in the Wild 和 Wild Lamu 的 Kizingoni Beach 享受全包服务 —— 每人 £7,214 起，含机票 (yellowzebrasafaris.com)
KICHECHE BUSH CAMP 这是 Kicheche 品牌在北区保护区 (North Conservancy) 的三个营地之一，所有营地均按照模范的可持续标准管理，将卓越的导览服务置于酒店式奢华之上。但这并不意味着您在艰苦环境下生活。在美好的夜晚，这里的交谈与餐饮一样文明，但真正让该营地脱颖而出的是导游愿意抛弃行业标准的游猎时间表 —— 早晨驱车、早午餐、休息、下午驱车、日落饮品 —— 如果客人们愿意，他们可以在黎明前出发，在天黑后才返回。 详情：七晚 —— 其中六晚在 Kicheche Bush Camp 和 Kicheche Mara 享受全包服务，一晚在内罗比入住 B&B —— 每人 £5,995 起，含机票 (steppestravel.com)
ALEX WALKER’S SERIAN Alex Walker 对水疗护理或床单支数知之甚少，但他深谙游猎之艺术。这位前导游在该地区拥有三个营地 —— 包括一个名为 Nkorombo 的返璞归真式移动帐篷营地，位于北区的一个过河点；但 Original 营地正如其名，是第一个建立的。 在河边的一片非洲绿心木和巨大的橄榄树林中，旅馆设有五个帐篷房，可俯瞰一个野生动物迁移通道般的山谷，并向西穿过马拉河望向 Siria 山丘。这里的导览服务堪称典范，且您无需预订私人车辆，因为 Serian 已将其包含在价格中。 详情：七晚在 Original 和 Nkorombo 享受全包服务 —— 每人 £7,550 起，含境内航班 (safari-consultants.com)。飞往内罗比。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 保护区 —— 从左起：Offbeat Mara 的一座旅馆； 在马拉河上空乘坐热气球； 在 Mara Toto Tree Camp 用餐
OFFBEAT MARA 营地 如果您以前从未进入过丛林，Offbeat 可能正是您想象中游猎营地的样子。七顶客房帐篷搭建在 Olare Orok（马拉河的一条支流）一个弯道的灌木丛中，其家具配置旨在提供舒适感，而非追求奢华震撼。虽然营地内的氛围悠闲且充满乐趣，但在这个偏远角落的动物观测体验却非常激烈，其中最令人期待的是常驻的狮群——您在夜晚能听到它们的吼叫声。您可以将其与 Angama 营地结合入住，后者位于 Oloololo 陡崖的高处，设有玻璃前窗套房，可俯瞰塞伦盖蒂草原。
详情：在 Offbeat Mara 和 Angama Mara 享八晚全包行程，每人 £7,898 起，含机票 (aardvarksafaris.com) Chris Haslam
OFFBEAT SAFARIS; GREAT PLAINS
S
在慕尼黑的中国塔 (Chinese Tower) 啤酒花园享用周日午餐是一种非常强烈的体验。现在才下午1点，但我已经注意到一对十几岁的情侣在烤鱼小屋后面泪流满面，而两名六十多岁的人在男厕所旁亲热。在我们旁边的桌子上，一群人过去一小时以来每隔两分钟就齐声唱一遍《祝你生日快乐》的最后一句——而且只有最后一句。
Chinese Tower
慕尼黑 (MUNICH)
如果这些人是出国旅游的英国人，那景象将十分凄惨。但与我们不同，巴伐利亚人进行放纵活动的方式充满魅力，且不完全失礼。
他们在业余时间真的会穿上皮裤 (lederhosen) 和紧身连衣裙 (dirndls)，这一点我必须表示尊重。在这座位于英国花园 (English Garden) 中心的啤酒花园里——这个公园从老城向北延伸 3.4 英里，比纽约的中央公园还要大——他们在大公共桌上铺上桌布，摆上花朵和烛台，这无疑是非常高雅的。
English Garden
他们点 Helles 拉格啤酒只按升计算——令人印象深刻。午餐是新鲜出炉的椒盐卷饼配 obatzda（一种调味且捣碎的卡门贝尔芝士蘸酱）——富有创意。而且他们跟着在塔楼二层由铜管乐队演奏的《红鼻子驯鹿鲁道夫》一起歌唱——即使现在是七月又怎样？
这里的氛围极佳，就像东萨塞克斯郡的格林多本 (Glyndebourne)，但这里你真的愿意与野餐的邻居攀谈。在这次为期四天的慕尼黑之旅中，许多类似的体验让我坚信，这里是欧洲终极的夏季城市度假地。
这个国家。汉堡那些烟雾缭绕的潜水酒吧，多特蒙德阴雨绵绵的足球看台，柏林那些暗到只能看见前方一码距离的夜店：这曾是我认知的德国。但我之前的方式错了。我从未在夏天到访，也未去过南部。而令人惊叹的英国花园（English Garden）一直被我忽略了。
我旅途中的每一天——看来和这座城市的大部分地区一样——最终都会在那儿度过。一天早晨，我加入到沿着人造艾斯巴赫河（Eisbach River）排列的人群中，那里有二十多名冲浪者轮流在泡沫中之字形穿梭。有些人能在翻车前坚持 30 秒；这是一项令人心潮澎湃的观赏运动。
[[IMG_Eisbach River]]
另一个下午，我在 Die Goldene Bar 享用一杯清凉的 Sommerspritz（葡萄柚、苦精、桃红葡萄酒、普罗塞克起泡酒）。这家酒吧位于艺术之馆（Haus der Kunst）的后方，该馆建于 1930 年代，位于公园南端，曾是一家展示纳粹认可艺术的博物馆（鸡尾酒 £9 起；goldenebar.de）。其简朴的
[[IMG_Die Goldene Bar]]
石砌露台被极权主义古典主义风格的柱子隔开，是在树顶之间饮酒的极具氛围之所。
在又一个日子里，我围绕着克莱因海塞洛赫湖（Kleinhesseloher See）人工湖跑步，将脚趾浸在河水中，然后骑车前往英国花园的北缘，那里地势渐平变为草甸，随后变为茂密的森林；路边有警告蟾蜍出没的标志（城市租赁自行车两小时 £13；unlimitedbiking.com）。一位温哥华的朋友最近将热爱户外和运动的慕尼黑描述为她家乡城市的欧洲版。英国花园证明了她的观点。
我周末入住的基地也捕捉到了夏季那色彩缤纷、混乱而灵动的精神。Hotel Münchner Kindl 自去年春天起营业，从外观上看，它像是一家严肃传统的 18 世纪旅馆
[[IMG_Munich Residenz]]
从外面看，它拥有朴素的立面和红色遮阳篷，但实际上它有趣得多。
酒店由 Hütter 家族经营，该家族在海德堡和奥地利阿尔卑斯山也拥有酒店。这里有 10 间套房和 6 间客房，极其注重色彩和细节——设计师 Christine Hütter-Bönan 表示，这是为了与经常阴沉单调的德国天气形成对比。每间房都独具特色；我入住的是顶层的主卧套房，采用了橙色墙壁和块状图案窗帘的 1970 年代风格。
这里的设备丰富得令人愉悦：床边有一个力量训练机，提供 100 种以上的不同锻炼方案；而浴室里日式风格的 Mewatec 马桶会让你在里面逗留很长时间，以至于你的旅伴可能会问：“你在里面还好吗？”
不过，真正让你想留下来的是那些设计细节。中国风的靠垫暗示了 18 世纪慕尼黑贵族对东亚艺术和建筑的青睐。一个龙形黄铜水龙头和一个由
[[IMG_The English Garden in Munich and, below, the man-made Eisbach River in the park, where surfers ride artificial waves]]
龟壳堆叠而成的陶瓷灯，则借鉴了巴伐利亚国王路德维希二世（Ludwig II）的幻想口味，他被安葬在路尽头的圣米迦勒教堂（St Michael’s Church）中；他最著名的或许是在附近的新天鹅堡（Neuschwanstein Castle）投入巨资，将其打造为典型的童话宫殿。
此外，关于画家瓦西里·康定斯基（Wassily Kandinsky）、加布里埃勒·蒙特（Gabriele Münter）和亚历克谢·冯·雅夫伦斯基（Alexej von Jawlensky）的书籍，为起源于慕尼黑的“蓝骑士”（Der Blaue Reiter）表现主义艺术运动提供了全面的介绍。
从我的窗户可以看到巍峨的圣母教堂（Frauenkirche）的双洋葱顶。尽管地处市中心，但街道上的噪音很小。我可以确认，这是一个安静的午睡之所（B&B 双人间 £415 起；hotelmuenchnerkindl.de）。
你可以在慕尼黑花一周时间逛遍数十家博物馆和文化机构，但我将自己限制在两家。
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[[IMG_Lenbachhaus]] [[IMG_Nürnberger Bratwurst]] [[IMG_Glöckl am Dom]] [[IMG_Julius Brantner]] [[IMG_Das Maria]] [[IMG_Chi Thu]] [[IMG_Jessa’s]]
在位于该市艺术区 (Kunstareal) 的伦巴赫美术馆 (Lenbachhaus)，我浏览着全球最大的“蓝色骑士”(Der Blaue Reiter) 绘画收藏，其中大部分由明特 (Münter) 捐赠。弗兰茨·马尔克 (Franz Marc) 笔下带有逃避现实色彩的动物园场景，以及奥古斯特·马克 (August Macke) 的城市景观——他与其他蓝色骑士艺术家一样，坚信色彩能够表达内在情感——唤起了很久以前的度假回忆 (£9; lenbachhaus.de)。
走进这座坐落在悬崖边的天堂，这里拥有宽阔的私人空间、海滩通道、六家各具特色的餐饮场所、阶梯式无边泳池以及宁静的水疗中心。
您的精选礼遇包括：
• 升级至高级豪华阳台海景房五晚
• 在 Market Kitchen 享用每日自助早餐
• 每位客人在 W Lounge 每日可享一杯店内啤酒、葡萄酒或软饮
• 每套方案包含 50 欧元的度假信用额度，可用于任何店内餐厅及 AWAY Spa
• 往返私人机场接送，确保您的抵达与离境尽显格调
7 天无理由退款保证
慕尼黑王宫 (Residenz)。这里曾是 16 世纪到 20 世纪初巴伐利亚公爵、选帝侯和国王的宫殿，在这一时期，宫殿的扩建规模显然失去了控制。这里有 130 间房间可供探索，奢华的亮点包括一个装饰有数万枚贝壳的意式洞穴，而在 Treasury (财政部/金库) 中最显眼的是一座镶嵌着钻石、红宝石和祖母绿的圣乔治屠龙小雕像（门票 £17；residenz-muenchen.de）。
你可以从中看出 Hütter-Bonan 对 Münchner Kindl 的那种狂野、 极繁主义 愿景的 灵感来源。
在夏天， 如果不在 英国花园 (English Garden)， 真正的慕尼黑 可以在餐厅 露台上找到。在 德国，想要分辨一家正宗的 小酒馆和类似于 Spoons (连锁酒馆) 的场所 可能是一场噩梦，所以我很激动 被推荐前往位于 Frauenkirche ( 圣母教堂) 阴影下的 Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom。我大快朵颐 于鲜嫩且皮酥肉脆的猪
从右至左： 中国塔 啤酒花园； 玛利亚广场 (Marienplatz) 中央广场的 旧市政厅
这里的环境 让人联想到
蹄膀 —— 是我吃过最好的 —— 以及撒了肉桂粉和 苹果块的 碎煎饼。 这里的环境让人联想到 佛罗伦萨，但没有 游客（主菜 £12 起；bratwurst- gloeckl.de）
像佛罗伦萨 但没有 游客
至于饮品，酒店一楼的 Cocktail Club 绝对是个不错 的选择，由迷人且健谈的 调酒师 Adriano Paulus 经营。他推荐一款 强力的“大陆酸酒” (continental sour)， 本质上是威士忌酸加红葡萄酒： 杯中的夏天（鸡尾酒 £13）。
这里的装修同样活泼。 凭借厚重的石灰绿窗帘、 豪华的天鹅绒沙发以及天花板上 受涂鸦启发的黑色波浪线， 酒吧区域给人一种非主流 私人会员俱乐部的感觉， 尤其是那些阻挡路人 窥视的棕榈树。楼下 也是早晨摆放 简单的早餐——酸奶、点心 和新鲜水果的地方，不过 你应该留点肚子给 街对面 Julius Brantner 面包店那入口即化的可颂 （这家店看起来更像是一家 时装店，点心 £3 起； julius-brantner.de）。
当稍后饥肠辘辘时， 我发现自己倾向于向南走。 在 Glockenbachviertel， 一个充满时尚精品店和 国际餐厅的漂亮街区， 我偶遇了 Chi Thu，其 健康的越南豆腐 饭碗和夏季卷
莱茵河、斯特拉斯堡与海德堡
对于历史爱好者、葡萄酒爱好者以及 任何寻求宁静且充实假期的游客来说， 这都是终极的度假选择。 您将体验在服务卓越的 五星级邮轮上航行的独特魅力。
您的冒险之旅将穿过 壮丽的、被联合国教科文组织列入名录的 莱茵峡谷。发掘科布伦茨的 深厚历史，漫步于中世纪的波帕德， 并探索美因茨。惊叹于 海德堡的文艺复兴遗迹， 并进入法国体验 斯特拉斯堡之美。 顺流而下的回程将 邀请您感受吕德斯海恩 热闹的氛围，最后在 科隆的宏伟大教堂结束旅程。
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让我觉得前一天吃掉那个 牛膝盖肉（knuckle）这件事 好多了 （主菜 £7 起；chithu.de）。
另一家获胜者是 Das Maria，一家中东风味 早午餐店，在那里我享用了 我的第一份 manoush，这是一种轻盈、 酥脆的扁面包，上面铺着 甜番茄酱、菲塔奶酪（feta） 和腌牛肉（主菜 £11 起；dasmaria.de）。
隔壁 Jessa’s Eis 的 白巧克力开心果冰激凌太好吃了， 以至于我在半小时后， 又跑到了他们位于拐角处的 另一个分店买了一杯 （球形冰激凌 £2 起；jessaseis.de）。
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最迷人的是 Asam Schlössl，沿着伊萨尔河 向南步行一小时即可到达。 这座 17 世纪的别墅在 第二次世界大战中被毁， 于 20 世纪 50 年代重建， 内部布满了令人愉悦的 错视法（trompe-l’oeil）巴洛克式壁画 （原作出自 18 世纪居住在此的 Cosmas Damian Asam 之手）。这里的 啤酒花园由附近的 林地带来凉意，招牌菜是 夏多布里昂牛排（chateaubriands）和 战斧牛排（tomahawks），使用 Big Green Egg 烧烤炉烹制。可以说， 你很难在家里复制出 如此精湛的效果 （主菜 £15 起；asamschloessl.de）。
然而，真正的乐趣是 往返的徒步旅程。 许多家庭在鹅卵石滩上铺开 野餐垫，共度一天。这里有 排球和迪亚波罗（diabolo）比赛。我 尴尬地绕过了天体浴区 和一个可能是非法的 露天派对。整座城市 变成了一个海滩。 它绝对不像是灰色的。
Huw Oliver 是 Münchner Kindl 酒店的宾客，该酒店的 B&B 双人间 £415 起 (hotelmuenchnerkindl.de)。 飞往慕尼黑
B
价格包含 从壮丽的纪念碑和皇家宫殿，到金色的海滩和海岸魅力，在一次难忘的逃离中尽享印度的精华。
从探索金三角开始， 在这里您可以游览印度 一些最标志性的景点。您将乘坐人力车 穿过繁忙的德里香料市场，欣赏 古今交织的建筑，在阿格拉稍作停留， 凝视泰姬陵那超凡脱俗的美，
我们喜爱之处 探索印度金三角的标志性景点，凝视泰姬陵并尝试文化手工艺，随后在果阿梦幻的海滩上度过五天——还有什么比这种探索与放松的结合更完美的呢？
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然后欣赏“粉红之城” 斋浦尔宏伟宫殿和繁华集市中的 珍宝。
当冒险结束，就是时间 在果阿的海岸天堂放松身心，那里
金色的沙滩、摇曳的棕榈树和 阿拉伯海的声音，为纯粹的 放松铺就了背景。在参加完 旧果阿历史景点的导览游后， 您将拥有四天的自由支配时间， 无论是留在海滩，还是 进一步探索。
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迈阿密海滩的 Delano 酒店于 1947 年开业，当时这座佛罗里达的海滨度假胜地还是富豪与名流们的早期游乐场，但真正让它成为传奇的是它在 20 世纪 90 年代派对场景中的核心地位。那时，特立独行的建筑师 Philippe Starck 和开发商 Ian Schrager 将该物业改造为一个极简主义空间，但在追求享乐方面却采用了绝对的极繁主义方式。
泳池边的房间变成了两层楼的“平房”（又称派对舱），接待过 Prince、Donatella Versace、George Clooney 等名流。Madonna 共同拥有名为 Blue Door 的餐厅，而地下的夜总会 Florida Room 则由 Lenny Kravitz 设计。
在经历了六年的停业和据报道耗资约 £75 million 的三年翻新后，Delano 酒店刚刚重新开业，准备迎接它的第三幕——尽管现在 20 世纪 90 年代那种张扬的享乐主义正被一种更微妙、更自觉的奢华所取代。今年晚些时候，Florida Room 的空间将重生为一座 7,000 平方英尺的水疗中心。
今天走在酒店大堂里，仍然像是步入另一个时代，或者可能是好几个时代。我几乎能听到高跟鞋的嗒嗒声，丝绸的刷刷声，以及那些穿着无懈可击、身处黄金时代的宾客们在水磨石地板上轻盈走过时，亚麻面料发出的细微沙沙声。
但随后出现的是现代的、色彩鲜艳的艺术品，一个巨大的雕塑感灯罩耸立在白色台球桌上方，还有一台曾属于 Kravitz 的透明钢琴。
“迈阿密海滩 [在 20 世纪 90 年代] 真的很迷人，”Delano 酒店连锁品牌首席品牌官 Ben Pundole 表示（该连锁酒店的第四家分店将于今年在伦敦肯辛顿开业）。“一周之中的每个晚上，至少有一家酒店会举办一场盛大的泳池派对，规模一直延伸到海滩上。每家酒店都带有一点点
曾在九十年代接待过众多名流并举办狂野派对。如今，它已重生，Ella Buchan 报道
责任将其带回南滩 (South Beach)。”
该酒店将装饰艺术 (art deco) 设计与当时的迈阿密现代主义 (MiMo) 建筑相结合，其白色外墙保留了最初简洁的几何线条，以及一座带有独特翼状鳍片的中央塔楼。但在内部设计中，加入了从每个 era 汲取灵感的微妙细节。
轻盈的白色窗帘， Starck 的标志性设计， 悬挂在 床后以及 麦当娜曾拥有的 大堂侧室中， 那里波浪形的 白色柱子 同样向该风格 致敬。 水磨石地板 是根据原始 照片精心重建的， 跨越大堂的 夹层桥也是如此。
餐厅， Kravitz 设计了 俱乐部
酒店的核心依然是海滨泳池，那里有八栋翻修为柔白色调且具有层次感材质的度假屋，底层的露台直接通向泳池边的躺椅。在主楼内，新的标志性餐厅 Gigi Rigolatto 从大堂一直延伸到泳池。其意大利里维埃拉 (Italian Riviera) 的优雅格调，以及一份包含新鲜意面、海鲜和前菜（如丝滑的自制布拉塔芝士）的菜单，从其赭色瓷砖的用餐区、露台和酒吧一直延伸至泳池和海滩。遮阳伞采用了餐厅那充满快乐、琐碎的橄榄绿和柠檬黄印花面料（主菜 £20 起）。
Gigi's 提供早餐 （£15 起），或者您可以在大堂的 Café Delano 购买糕点和咖啡。
新的四楼露台仅限宾客和会员使用，同样仅限进入的还包括带有柚木装饰的 Mimi Kakushi——一家受 20 世纪 20 年代大阪爵士乐场景启发的日式餐厅。我的黑鳕鱼和味噌茄子（足够软嫩，可用筷子食用）与我的马提尼争夺注意力，后者被封在冰块中并在桌边凿开（主菜 £35 起）。
ROBERT RIEGER; SERGIO TB/SHUTTERSTOCK
Schwartz 与丈夫 Rob 共同开发了这座 1947 年的原始房产，尽管它最初是由 Schrager 和 Starck 增建的。“那里曾是一个如此之火的场所，”Pundole 低声说道。判断由那天傍晚填满空间的那些衣着考究的宾客来看，它再次成为了这样一个场所。狂野且名流云集的活动是否会再次在德拉诺酒店回荡，仍有待观察，不过 Pundole 暗示，今年晚些时候可能会举办一场盛大的启动派对。
那具有瞬间辨识度的特征，以及 1958 年增建的拉长波浪形“S”线和巨大的圆盘形车道顶篷 (porte-cochère)。
我的房间装饰将温暖、柔和的色调与地毯、扶手椅和装裱艺术品中的图案及淡雅色彩相结合。阳台俯瞰着泳池平台，该平台同样增建于 1958 年。这里绿植繁茂，配有薄荷绿条纹躺椅，闪闪发光，散发出一种毫无疑问属于迈阿密海滩 (Miami Beach) 的复古海滨魅力。
如果不是人们在用智能手机拍自拍，这里简直就是黄金时代。弗兰克·辛纳屈 (Frank Sinatra)、玛丽莲·梦露 (Marilyn Monroe) 和披头士乐队 (the Beatles) 都曾在 Shelborne 酒店入住和/或开派对。来自 1941 年的原始大理石柱和一座 1958 年增建的白色跳水塔都被保留了下来。（不过，后者仅用于装饰；前台经理 Jenny Mesa 告诉我，除了安全问题外，跳水“并不是我们想要营造的氛围”。）
这种氛围显然更倾向于鸡尾酒而非跳水炮弹，这也延伸到了餐饮方面。您可以在泳池边或优雅的大堂吧点一些充满活力的墨西哥灵感菜肴，例如鲯鳅塔可 (mahi mahi tacos) 和搭配新鲜 cotija 芝士的西瓜（主菜 £16 起）。或者在酒店后方精致的 Pauline 餐厅尝试 Floribbean 菜肴（佛罗里达与加勒比海风味的融合料理）（主菜 £24 起）。
两家酒店都与迈阿密设计保护联盟 (Miami Design Preservation League, MDPL) 合作，该联盟成立于 1976 年，这也是这些建筑得以幸存的唯一原因。我与该联盟的一位资深志愿者导游 Julie Fornay 参加了一次装饰艺术徒步之旅（每人 £30 起；
诸如圆形窗户和“眉形”遮阳篷等基调，体现了“热带装饰艺术”（Tropical Deco）风格——以及殖民地酒店（Colony Hotel）那块被大量拍摄的垂直招牌。
F
福奈（Fornay）将该地区的故事讲述为一场被中断的派对（并且偶尔会跳一小段舞来强调这一点）。一次极具破坏性的 1926 年飓风、大萧条以及美国进入第二次世界大战减缓了但这片曾经是沼泽的土地的开发，但并未使其停止。她说，富人们“对这里的派对有着美好的回忆，并希望能再次狂欢”。
在 1933 年至 1942 年间，装饰艺术风格的建筑“如雨后春笋般出现”。福奈认为，谢尔本酒店（Shelborne）和德拉诺酒店（Delano）是“延迟装饰艺术”的例子：这些战后房产采用了装饰艺术美学，并融合了迈阿密现代主义（MiMo）的简洁线条和未来主义感。
对于福奈来说，保护这一遗产至关重要。“这些建筑真的很特别。它们就像我的朋友和邻居一样，有自己的名字和故事，”她说道，并指向了吉安尼·凡赛斯（Gianni Versace）曾经居住（并于 1997 年被谋杀）的卡苏阿里纳之屋（Casa Casuarina）。这座前凡赛斯大厦现在是一家酒店和餐厅。
M U S I C & F E S T I V A L S
从充盈在岛屿酒吧里的快节奏小提琴音乐，到由排行榜冠军歌手 Emeli Sandé 领衔的民谣节，苏格兰的音乐盛事为您夏季度假提供了完美的背景音乐。此外，您还可以将这些演出与历史、文化和自然体验相结合。
谢特兰小提琴周 (SHETLAND FIDDLE WEEK) 8月3-8日 谢特兰拥有深厚的小提琴音乐传统，根植于其航海时期的诺斯历史。小提琴周在谢特兰主岛各地上演令人忍不住随之起舞的曲调，地点涵盖从比格顿大厅 (Bigton Hall) 到勒威克划船俱乐部 (Lerwick Boating Club) 的各处。在此期间，您可以探索桑伯格角灯塔、游客中心及自然保护区，在那里您可能会发现海鹦、虎鲸和海豚。
爱丁堡皇家军操演 (ROYAL EDINBURGH MILITARY TATTOO) 8月7-29日 来自英国及世界各地的军乐队和民间表演者以精准的风笛和鼓点表演令观众痴迷。高地舞者在爱丁堡城堡灯光照亮的城墙下轻盈跳跃并旋转，每晚以烟花汇演收尾。军操演与爱丁堡艺穗节的时间重叠，因此您将拥有极丰富的娱乐选择。或者您可以漫步于皇家英里大道，从城堡出发，经圣吉尔斯大教堂前往 Holyroodhouse 宫（爱丁堡的官方王室住所）及其废弃修道院，那里安葬着詹姆斯五世国王的遗骸。
PIPING LIVE! 与世界风笛乐队锦标赛 (THE WORLD PIPE BAND CHAMPIONSHIPS) 格拉斯哥 8月9-15日
Piping Live! 包含音乐会、街头表演和工作坊，旨在庆祝风笛音乐的所有辉煌形式。这一激动人心的活动在格拉斯哥格林公园 (Glasgow Green) 的世界风笛乐队锦标赛中达到高潮，约有 8,000 名艺术家在此竞争。附近的凯尔文格罗夫艺术画廊和博物馆则涵盖了所有内容。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 游乐场 爱丁堡军操演 演出；Summer’s End 期间的 The Red Hot Chilli Pipers；卡奥伊拉艾莱岛 (Caol Ila Islay) 爵士音乐节在蒸馏厂内举行表演
Fornay 还认为这些建筑必须进化才能生存。“我们不是一个被时间冻结的博物馆。这个地区将色彩和艺术视为一种生活方式。我认为我们永远不会失去这一点。它就存在于这个地方，几乎是一种精神上的东西。”
甚至海滩也是一个被重新定义、或许甚至是虚构的实体：20世纪40年代的 Delano 酒店照片显示泳池几乎延伸至大海，而额外的沙子是在 20 世纪70 年代首次添加的。如今，这里是一条柔软的、 alabaster（雪花石膏色）的 T 台，矗立着 36 座雕塑感强、糖果色且受装饰艺术启发的设计的救生员塔，这些塔是在 1992 年安德鲁飓风摧毁最后几座原始建筑后重建的。
Wynwood 南滩 (South Beach)
美国 (US) 美国 (US)
The Shelborne By Proper The Delano
迈阿密海滩 (Miami Beach) 建筑区 (Architectural District)
迈阿密海滩 (Miami Beach)
迈阿密海滩 (Miami Beach)
佛罗里达州 (FLORIDA)
市中心 (Downtown)
½ 英里
大西洋 (Atlantic Ocean)
从最左起： Delano 的塔楼； 其泳池区域； The Shelborne 的 鸡尾酒酒吧
第二天早晨，我前往迈阿密海滩码头，参加由 Ocean Force Adventures 组织的 Biscayne 湾小团体快艇之旅（每人 £96 起；oceanforceadventures.com）。旅程经过一些拥有全球最昂贵住宅的岛屿，其中包括 1983 年电影《疤面煞星》中出现的那座豪宅（挂牌价高达惊人的 £176 百万）。
一名同行乘客注意到了我那个带有 Delano 品牌的tote包。酒店的名字被隐藏起来，贴在我的臀部侧边。但这位当地女性认出了包上印着的另一边的格言：“Nothing Finer”（无可比拟）。她好奇地问，酒店是否重新开业了。入口是否仍然隐藏在树篱后面？（我告诉她不是；MDPL 坚持认为立面从人行道上清晰可见。）“它已经关闭很长时间了，”她解释了自己的激动之情。
这些历史悠久的物业显然依然重要。Delano 的另一个原始格言是：“Great loves always come back”（伟大的爱总会回归）。这些酒店在熟悉中焕然一新，它们的复兴将使迈阿密海滩重回海岸魅力的巅峰。
Ella Buchan 得到了大迈阿密会议与游客局（Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau，miamiandbeaches.com）的款待；德拉诺迈阿密海滩酒店（Delano Miami Beach），其仅含房的双人间起价为 £430 (delanohotels.com)；Shelborne By Proper 酒店，其仅含房的双人间起价为 £385 (shelborne.com)；以及维珍大西洋航空（Virgin Atlantic），其伦敦至迈阿密的往返机票起价为 £570 (flights.virginatlantic.com)。
从埃及历史到梵高和达利的才情。或者参观《芭比：展览》（Barbie: The Exhibition），展出至 10 月 18 日。
夏末节 (SUMMER’S END FESTIVAL)， 布雷钦，安格斯 (Brechin, Angus) 8 月 14-16 日 该节将流行、民谣、根源音乐和原声表演聚集在布雷钦城堡的展览场。领衔嘉宾包括 UB40、Sugababes、Judge Jules 以及来自苏格兰的 Emeli Sandé。这里提供露营、豪华露营和露营车选项，以便充分享受夏末时光。随后可以前往格伦卡丹蒸馏厂 (Glencadam Distillery) 参观，并造访戴维森遗产小屋 (Davidson Legacy Cottage)，那是哈雷-戴维森 (Harley-Davidson) 创始人之一的出生地。
RADIO 2 IN THE PARK 音乐节， 斯特灵 (Stirling) 9 月 11-13 日 另一个观看 Emeli Sandé 表演的机会，她将与同样来自苏格兰的 Simple Minds 共同参加，
迈阿密河游船 迈阿密河区曾是一个工业中心，如今被认为是该市下一个热门社区，这里出现了新的豪华公寓楼和滨水餐厅。探索这里的最佳方式（不出所料）是从水上开始。Miami on the Water 最近推出了沿 5.5 英里河段的迈阿密河夜游项目，该河段从迈阿密市中心流向比斯坎湾。您将乘船经过开启桥，穿过闪烁的高层建筑，并绕行布里克尔岛 (Brickell Key)。您还将了解到最早在此定居的特奎斯塔 (Tequesta) 族人，并在星空下欣赏比斯坎湾和市中心的天际线（每人 £34；miamionthewater.com）。
海洋露台公园 (OCEAN TERRACE PARK) 迈阿密海滩的南海滩 (South Beach) 社区（德拉诺酒店和谢尔本酒店所在地）往往占据了大部分关注度，但北海滩 (North Beach) 如今正迎来其高光时刻。该地区的开发项目包括占地五英亩的海洋露台公园，它为 73 街和 75 街之间原本单调的沥青路面带来了绿植、景观花园和公共艺术。公园整合了经过翻新的迈阿密海滩木板路（或称“海滩漫步道”），与柯林斯大道 (Collins Avenue) 和沙滩平行，使该地区更加适合步行和骑行。
CASA TUA CUCINA 这座庞大的意大利美食殿堂是迈阿密版的 Eataly。它于 4 月在充满艺术气息且酿酒厂林立的温伍德 (Wynwood) 区开业，设有十个食品站，食客可以点购熟食、意面、烤肉、披萨、沙拉和奶昔。餐桌散布在优雅的空间内，您也可以坐在长吧台旁享用开胃酒。这里还有一个市场，出售精选的厨房配件、果酱和橄榄油（三明治 £10 起；casatualife.com）。 Ella Buchan
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Texas 和 Deacon Blue 将在 BBC 的音乐盛典上演出。Radio 2 的主持人 Sara Cox、Spoony 和 Michelle Visage 将在周五晚上以 DJ 表演开启派对。当地历史遗迹包括国家华莱士纪念碑 (National Wallace Monument) 和班诺克本 (Bannockburn)——而且您不能错过坐落在市公园 (City Park) 场地正上方岩顶上的斯特灵城堡 (Stirling Castle)。
考伊拉艾莱爵士音乐节 (CAOL ILA ISLAY JAZZ FESTIVAL) 阿盖尔与群岛区，9 月 11-13 日 几个世纪以来，威士忌与音乐一直是天然的伴侣——而这个周末将爵士乐和蓝调的欢乐之声带到了艾莱岛 (Islay)——这座苏格兰的威士忌之岛。当地和国际音乐家将在社区大厅、教堂和考伊拉酒厂演出。岛上的 11 家酒厂也提供参观服务；除威士忌外，位于波特夏洛特 (Port Charlotte) 的艾莱生活博物馆展出了约 3,000 件展品，包括服装、书籍、家居用品以及可追溯到 1880 年代的照片。
在 visitscotland.com/summer 发现一个音乐节和活动的季节
O
从纸面上看，我承认自己不太像是在吉尔吉斯斯坦山脉进行长时间骑马远征的合适人选。我在地图上找不到这个国家，更不用说拼写它的名字了。这将是我第一次去往任何一个以“斯坦”结尾的国家。但在冒险家兼企业家亚历山德拉·托尔斯托伊（Alexandra Tolstoy）读到我在《泰晤士报》上写的关于骑行穿越特兰西瓦尼亚的文章后，给我发来了一条消息。她是《战争与和平》及《安娜·卡列尼娜》作者列夫的远亲。
在伴侣方面，这位伯爵夫人先后抛弃了第一任哥萨克丈夫和一位被誉为“普京银行家”的俄罗斯寡头（她三个孩子的父亲）。但她发现自己在这片野生雄伟之地扮演着主角——吉尔吉斯斯坦，一个比其他任何国家都远离大海的双内陆中亚国家。她带领着一群骑手，成员中包括演员多米尼克·韦斯特（Dominic West）和克拉克·彼得斯（Clarke Peters）、派业巨头查理·比格姆（Charlie Bigham）以及已故的讽刺作家 PJ·奥鲁克（PJ O’Rourke）。我会在五月的远征中加入她的队伍吗？
嗯。我对有组织的团体活动有着根深蒂固的恐惧，同样害怕高处、马匹，尤其是任何形式的露营。我最近一次露营是我人生中最糟糕的经历之一——1973年在荷兰一个浸水的堤坝下度过了两周。此外，我在自己的床上可能睡不好；在巴黎 Le Bristol 酒店的蜜月套房里我也可能睡不好——有一次，在飞往缅甸的长途飞行后，我在新加坡莱佛士酒店声称自己“太累了睡不着”。
至于骑马，不用了，谢谢。我在学校学过，那已经足够了。2006年，一个朋友强迫我陪她去埃克斯穆尔（Exmoor）“骑行”一次；我被甩了下来，从此再没骑过马。
但不知为何，托尔斯托伊——一位能够说俄语的该国大使，她在1999年25岁时曾骑马和骆驼走过了5,000英里的丝绸之路，从而结识了这个国家——让我重新回到了马鞍上。她天生就是个销售能手，不知怎么地，她能让我原本愿意花大钱去避免的事情（骑马、露营、磨绒马裤）听起来极具诱惑力。
我发现自己在填写问卷。我能否在没有帮助的情况下上马和下马？必要时能否骑行一整天？我进行过多少综合马术、障碍赛、盛装舞步或马球训练？我能否驾驭一匹活泼的马？“主要是步行，”亚历山德拉向我保证道，“尽管我们必须翻越一座 2,500m [8,200ft] 的山隘……我们只有一天会快步或奔驰。”
她给我发了一份三页长、军队风格的装包清单——睡袋、枕头、头灯、骑马头盔、马裤、护腿皮套——以及一份 12 天的行程单，开头写道：第一天，乘坐经济舱飞往伊斯坦布尔，然后转机飞行六小时抵达比什凯克，于 4.30am 到达；第二天，在坑洼不平的道路上乘坐小型客车 12 小时，翻越山隘到达我们的第一个流动营地。那里没有自来水、电、厕所、中央供暖，也没有手机信号。
“噢，天哪，”旅行作家兼小说家杰夫·戴尔（Geoff Dyer）在我告诉他时说道，“不过我想马匹应该是商务舱待遇的。”
事实确实如此——它们是吉尔吉斯山马。我的马名叫 Koko，我在经历了一场长途跋涉后才遇见它：乘坐土耳其航空向东飞往比什凯克（航空公司弄丢了我的行李，那是另一个故事），然后向西南方向行驶 500 英里，翻越极高的雪山隘口，高到让我的耳朵发鸣；期间经历了一场如此猛烈的风暴，以至于我们不得不等待山洪退去。
我们的第一个营地在一座巍峨的岩层下的草坡上，岩顶生长着一棵孤零零的杜松。我们每天都住在水边，以便洗漱，且马匹可以饮水；大多数日子里，那是混浊的灰绿色卡拉-苏河（Kara-Suu River），积雪融水奔腾着向乌兹别克斯坦方向流去——在我一次快速跳入水中却失去重心被卷入湍流时，它几乎把我一起带走了。
在这次猎游中，我们随行约有 15 匹马，全部是公马。“不要让它们相互靠近，”我被告知，“不要让它们的鼻子接触，不要让它们靠近任何母马，也不要让它们打滚。”当然，它们把这些全部做了——它们体内的睾酮含量比阿根廷参加国际足联世界杯的代表队还要高。在某个时刻，我的那匹马在另一匹马身边低鸣，随后局面就变得像狂野的烈马一样失控了。
在整整六天的时间里，我们将从一个营地骑行到另一个营地，总计 120 英里。我们早上 7 点起床，穿上骑行装（感谢 Glaze & Gordon），然后前往餐厅帐篷，享用丰盛的早餐：咖啡、鸡蛋，以及热腾腾的烤小煎饼、 turnovers 或甜甜圈。
上午 10 点，五名吉尔吉斯斯坦马夫为我们的坐骑鞍装，然后我们骑上战马，其中一些人发出了巨大的呻吟声（其他骑行者主要是来自科茨沃尔德和奇尔特恩的“辣妈”们）。当我们出发时，一个由七人组成的后勤团队将我们编织的 Terra Nova 帐篷、餐厅帐篷以及作为厕所使用的两把塑料便便椅，装进曾在阿富汗服役的前苏联军用卡车里；随后他们将沿着羊肠小道跨越原野，在日落时分与我们汇合。
我们单行纵队前行，穿梭在美不胜收的三个小时长途路径上，
俯瞰着天山（Tian Shan，即 Celestial Mountains）白雪皑皑的山脉，
这里将中国与
吉尔吉斯斯坦和哈萨克斯坦分开。
我从未如此感激地
我们正行走在一段 932 英里的山脉之中，它从乌兹别克斯坦北部延伸，横跨哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦，直至中国的新疆地区——这里有 7,000 米或更高峰，构成了丝绸之路的最北端路线。
看到一个结实的金属
焖饭保温瓶。
那白色的山脉，像近期追踪全球油价的图表一样参差不齐，耸立在点缀着春花的绿色山谷之上——金绿色的狐尾百合、茂密的茴香、矮红黄郁金香、黄色罂粟、牡丹、葱属植物、毛茛，以及开满山楂花的树木，让纯净的高山空气中弥漫着香味。这里宛如伊甸园。整个
充满 冒险
e
mo
充满动作的秘鲁家庭之旅 在这场为期十晚的秘鲁快节奏之旅中，让全家人保持活力。您将通过骑行、徒步、桨板冲浪和划独木舟的方式探索该国的亮点。在利马度过一晚后，您将前往圣谷，参观马拉斯盐田，并在乌鲁班巴海拔 3,689m (12,103ft) 的皮乌赖湖上体验桨板冲浪。随后，您将花费一天时间徒步前往马丘比丘，然后乘火车返回库斯科，参加巧克力制作工作坊、进行漂流并喂食羊驼。最后，您将有时间在亚马逊雨林中进行两晚的徒步和乘船之旅，并有机会入住通过吊桥进入的树屋。
详情：十晚 B&B 起价每人 £3,605，包含国内航班、接送、活动及部分额外餐食 (redsavannah.com)。飞往利马
多洛米蒂山脉的雪鞋徒步 在意大利北部的多洛米蒂山脉北缘，上普斯特谷进行为期一周的雪鞋徒步，为徒步旅行增添冬日色彩。本次小团行程入住位于维拉巴萨的四星级 Adler 酒店，包括五天在森林小径和旧军事通道上的导览雪鞋徒步，前往法内斯-塞内斯-布莱斯自然公园以及包括 Durrakopf 和 Strudelkopf 在内的观景点。周中有一天的自由活动时间，可以尝试越野滑雪或在酒店的健康中心桑拿房中放松。您还将享用正宗的蒂罗尔美食晚餐。 详情：七晚 B&B 起价每人 £2,519，包含交通、活动、设备及部分额外餐食 (exodus.co.uk)。飞往因斯布鲁克
ang
从左起顺时针方向： Rachel 与 Alexandra Tolstoy； 羊肉串； 比什凯克 Ala-Too 广场的喷泉； 旅途中的露营
比什凯克
unta
地点在哪里？ 在比什凯克西南部的天山地区进行一次 120 英里的骑马之旅
天山 (Tian Shan)
你需要了解的 你需要具备基础的骑马水平，并准备几条耐穿的骑马裤
内部建议 携带一个旅行蒸汽熨斗，这样尽管经历了潮湿的露营考验，你的上装依然能保持挺括
皮划艇探索挪威峡湾 在挪威的荒野中回归自然。这是一个为期五晚的向导带队徒步与皮划艇路线，全程 44 英里，每组人数不超过 12. 人。行程从卑尔根 (Bergen) 出发前往古德万根 (Gudvangen)，挑战性较高，每天大约包含七到八小时的活动，从海平面的峡湾地貌徒步至海拔 1,000米 (3,300英尺) 以上的山地高原和雪峰。随后你将乘皮划艇进入水域，在宁静的松恩峡湾 (Sognefjord) 划行至规模较小、群山环绕的纳柔依峡湾 (Naeroyfjord) —— 这里是海豹和海雕的家园，途中将经过莱格达福森 (Laegdafossen) 瀑布。 住宿包括一家基础旅馆和一栋小屋，外加 3, 晚野外露营，膳食在荒野的篝火上烹制。 详情：五晚半食宿起价为每人 £1,512，包含 1, 接送、设备和部分额外餐食 (muchbetteradventures.com)。飞往卑尔根。 Siobhan Grogan
那里的景观就像切尔西花展 (Chelsea Flower Show) 上的草本花境，处于一个地处群山之中、游牧气息浓郁的国家，在尚未完全消逝的苏联过去与中国边境之间徘徊。
午餐时间，我们会找一个阴凉处停下，马夫们戴着白色的毡制卡尔帕克帽 (calpac hats) —— 这是对该国雪山的致敬 —— 他们会在地上铺开花色鲜艳的努姆达毯 (numdahs)，并给我们每人发一个饲料袋。我从未如此感激地看到一个装满普洛夫 (plov，用羊油烹饪的米饭，配有大块肉) 的结实金属保温瓶，以及一个我总是喂给 Koko 的苹果，试图让他喜欢我。然后我们所有人都会午睡，听着鸟鸣和马夫们的玩笑声。
我们会继续骑行直到下午 5点或 6点 —— 跨越山谷，穿过胡桃林，绕过村庄，经过路边卖日晒羊奶球的男孩，或是在小驴背上放羊、放山羊和牛的男孩 —— 然后到达营地，此时帐篷已经搭好，厕所已经挖好，而 Emma 正在野外厨房里创造奇迹。
我膝盖打着颤地从马上跌下来，走向餐饮帐篷喝茶、吃新鲜烤制的蛋糕和啤酒，然后阅读或在河里游泳，直到晚上 8点享用由肉类炖菜和烘焙食品组成的家常晚餐 —— 搭配队友 Willy Astor 带来的里奥哈 (rioja) 葡萄酒。到晚上 10点，我们抱着毡制热水袋钻进睡袋，一直睡到黎明。
苏萨梅尔谷 (Suusamyr Valley)
阿拉贝尔山口 (Ala-Bel Pass)
图奥沙鲁山口 (Too-Ashuu Pass)
萨雷切列克 (Sary-Chelek)
奇奇坎峡谷 (Chychkan Gorge)
托克托古尔水库 (Toktogul Reservoir)
卡拉苏河 (Kara-Suu River)
萨雷切列克湖 (Sary-Chelek Lake)
亮点太多，无法一一列举：在狭窄的小路上紧张得手心出汗；在湍急的河流中游泳；像 Lady Flash 一样在名为萨雷切列克 (Sary-Chelek) 或“金碗”的湖边飞奔；享用当天的第一杯啤酒；观看一场 Kok Boru 比赛（一种用无头羊尸替代球的马球），然后晚餐时吃掉它嫩化的肉 —— 马夫们挖了一个坑，在坑上架起柳木签，上面串着用猕猴果和孜然腌制的羊肉块，配上一盆盆热腾腾的盐味手工切薯条。
十天之后，我在天山地区骑行了 120 英里，我变成了一个截然不同的人。我并没有完全“找到自我”（我已经过了那个阶段），但我爱上了骑马和游牧生活，甚至喜欢上了露营 —— 在湍急的河流旁，蜷缩在温暖的帐篷里睡得格外香甜。
当需要与马夫们告别时 —— Aftan, Arslan, Bakhit, Djuman 和 Melis (这些名字由马克思、恩格斯、列宁和斯大林的姓氏首字母组合而成) —— 我对着 Koko 的鬃毛抽泣；我会想念他的。
我在原野上感觉如鱼得水——骑马穿过空旷的山峦，走过杂草丛生的山谷，假装自己在“大博弈”中扮演某个中年配角——以至于我会想念这种处于离网状态、完全不知道自己在哪里（而且现在依然不真正清楚）的感觉。正如 PJ O’Rourke 所指出的：“即便以外层空间的标准来看，吉尔吉斯斯坦也算遥远。”我生存了下来，并变成了一个更坚韧、更擅长骑马的人——这就是结果。
现在是时候重新坐上小型面包车，进行 12 小时的车程，返回比什凯克那些带有苏联风格的大道和桑拿房 (banyas) 了。当我们经过由骑在驴上的小男孩驱赶前往夏季牧场的牛群和羊群时，车速慢了下来——这是一个直接出自托尔斯泰小说中那样如画般的农民场景。
Rachel Johnson 是 Alexandra Tolstoy Travel (alexandratolstoytravel.com) 和 Ultimate Travel Company 的嘉宾。后者的 11 晚全包行程价格为每人 £7,215 起，包括机票、接送和许可证，于 9 月 24 日出发 (theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk)。
in r
EMMY MEIKLEJOHN PHOTOGRAPHY; NANTONOV/GETTY IMAGES
F
Two Sides 对 FAO 数据的分析，2005-2020 欧洲森林：欧盟27国 + 挪威、瑞士和英国
在亚得里亚海之滨享受休息与放松，领略意大利阳光普照的南部“高跟鞋”地区那些经常被忽视的迷人之处。
这次极具享受的普利亚 (Puglia) 假期行程包含了众多亮点，地点位于亚得里亚海之滨，将为您揭开意大利南部这个迷人地区的神秘面纱。探索绝美、古老且刷白的奥斯图尼 (Ostuni) 山城、阿尔贝罗贝洛 (Alberobello) 及其圆锥形特鲁利 (trulli) 房屋；在可选行程中参观马泰拉 (Matera) 的非凡洞穴，以及莫诺波利 (Monopoli) 和波利尼亚诺阿马雷 (Polignano a Mare)。此外，参观巴洛克瑰宝莱切 (Lecce) —— 南方的佛罗伦萨 —— 以及在可选行程中探索卡斯特拉纳 (Castellana) 著名的洞穴网络、产酒地洛科罗通多 (Locorotondo) 和优雅的马蒂娜弗兰卡 (Martina Franca)，将使这次美妙的旅程更加完整。
参观标志性的萨西 (Sassi)，让自己沉浸在马泰拉独特的魅力中，这里有完全独特的住宅、咖啡馆和商店，它们直接在城市邻近峡谷的西壁上凿刻而成。
*最高 15% 的优惠适用于 2026年7月30日 前完成的指定行程预订，且不能追溯应用于已确认的预订。优惠仅适用于部分指定行程，且不能与其他任何优惠同时使用。适用排除条款。显示价格已包含折扣。适用单人房差价。价格在印刷时正确。这些假期由 Newmarket Holidays Ltd 组织并运营，该公司独立于 News UK。ABTOT 5509. ATOL 保护 2325. ABTA V7812. 适用标准电话资费。
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主办城市的精彩艺术与公园 作者：Mike MacEacheran
随着英联邦运动会在格拉斯哥一直持续到下周日，现在正是访问这座苏格兰最具竞争力的城市的绝佳时机。体育在某种程度上是一种痴迷，而我们格拉斯哥人最喜欢展示自己是多么活跃和热情。
格拉斯哥
对于任何厌倦了现状的人来说，格拉斯哥都是理想之选。考虑到定义时代精神的餐厅主厨们的回归，地标性巴斯街（Bath Street）酒店的重生，以及商人城（Merchant City）和乔治广场（George Square）那宛如纽约般的景象（这两处都出现在本周上映的《蜘蛛侠：崭新之日》中），访问这里就像是在拜访你最酷的表亲。
第 1 天 上午 人们并非毫无理由地将格拉斯哥称为“亲爱的绿地”——这里拥有 90 多个公园，其中最壮丽的莫过于格拉斯哥植物园（Glasgow Botanic Gardens，免费；glasgowbotanicgardens.com）和凯文格罗夫公园（Kelvingrove Park）。沿着河边的凯文步道（Kelvin Walkway）在两地之间漫步。
在 Five March 用餐 在这家位于凯文格罗夫公园旁的精致小盘菜（small-plates）专卖店里，很容易让人感到过于惬意而流连忘返。菜单提供性价比极高的地中海美食，如碎奶酪（stracciatella）、风干火腿配甜瓜，或芦笋与扁豆的黑胡椒芝士面（cacio e pepe）（起价 £7；fivemarch.co.uk）。
[[IMG_GLASGOW_BOTANIC_GARDENS]] 格拉斯哥植物园
下午 位于公园内的凯文格罗夫艺术美术馆及博物馆（Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum）拥有令人印象深刻的苏格兰及国际艺术收藏——从古埃及到查尔斯·雷尼·麦金托什（Charles Rennie Mackintosh）的格拉斯哥，再到梵高和达利。曾在伦敦设计博物馆首展的《芭比：展览》（Barbie: The Exhibition）将展出至 10 月中旬（免费；glasgowlife.org.uk）。
在 Dani 饮酒 芬尼斯顿（Finnieston）是位于市中心与西区（West End）之间的社区，这里总是对新创意持开放态度，而最新的尝试便是这家巴斯克风格的葡萄酒吧兼烤肉店（asador），由路对面 Kelvingrove Café 的团队打造。尝试一杯苦艾酒和一串 Gilda（由绿橄榄、鳀鱼、金迪利亚辣椒组成）（饮品起价 £5；bardaniglasgow.com）。
[[IMG_KELVINGROVE_ART_GALLERY]] 凯文格罗夫艺术美术馆及博物馆
晚上 位于芬尼斯顿西边缘的凯文豪街（Kelvinhaugh Street）是克莱德赛德蒸馏厂（Clydeside Distillery）的所在地，这是一个码头边的威士忌之家。
[[IMG_CLYDESIDE_DISTILLERY]] 克莱德赛德蒸馏厂
The Address Kimpton Blythswood Square Arthouse Glasgow Glasgow Queen Street
主图：格拉斯哥大教堂屹立在城市天际线之上；下方为凯文格罗夫艺术美术馆及博物馆内部。
[[IMG_48_HOURS_GLASGOW]] 48
交通指南 全电动火车往返于伦敦国王十字车站与格拉斯哥女王街车站之间（单程 £33；lumo.co.uk）；此外，从伯明翰和曼彻斯特也有直达列车。SPT 提供格拉斯哥地铁系统无限次出行票（每日 £3.40 起；spt.co.uk）。
负责任地游览 格拉斯哥的自行车租赁方案由 Voi 运营，在全市 100 多个地点提供电动自行车。请在 voi.com 下载应用程序。
JIM MONK/GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY
涵盖单麦芽威士忌生产工艺的之旅包括三次品鉴。泵房非常适合拍照，而威士忌酒液带有橡木风味，并伴有石南花和蜂蜜的香气（£20；theclydeside.com）。
在 Eleven Fifty Five 用餐 爱尔兰主厨 Peter McKenna 和领班 Kevin Dow 让深受喜爱的 Gannet 餐厅在过去十二年里风光无限，直到去年关闭。他们在 Finnieston 开的新小馆提供了更出色的时令料理——推荐尝试羊胸腺或盐熟成牛肉（主菜 £22 起；bistro elevenfiftyfive.com）。
第二天 上午 伯雷尔收藏馆 (Burrell Collection) 拥有 9,000 件跨越数千年的物品和艺术品，堪称克莱德河畔的“迷你卢浮宫”。罗丹、德加和塞尚的作品是不可错过的重点，而其所在的波洛克乡村公园 (Pollok Country Park) 环境绝佳。为绿地而至，为高地牛而留（免费；burrellcollection.com）。
在 Hendersons 用餐 前往 Strathbungo —— 这是一个很大程度上被游客忽略但深受当地人喜爱的南区社区，以及这家装修不久的素食餐厅，它沿着 M8 高速公路从爱丁堡迁至此处。这家家族经营的小馆自 1962 年起就是当地的地标；现在格拉斯哥人可以为这里的蘑菇牛排、茄子塔塔和香料自由肯麦 (freekeh) 而疯狂（主菜 £20 起；hendersonsrestaurant.com）。
下午 尽管在世界杯上的表现不佳，但苏格兰足球并未放弃。从某种意义上说，格拉斯哥是世界冠军：这里是“足球平方英里” (Football’s Square Mile) 的所在地，这是全球最大的露天足球博物馆，在单一平方英里内包含 21 块纪念牌和标识，以及苏格兰足球博物馆，后者是欧洲首个国家级足球收藏馆（免费；footballssquaremile.com）。
在 Anderson’s 饮酒 当位于商人城 (Merchant City) 的传奇 13th Note Café 酒吧和音乐场所关闭时，格拉斯哥倍感遗憾。但 Blackfriars 酒馆的团队接手并将其改造为一家地道的平民酒吧，供应苏格兰肉馅饼、薯条三明治和冰面包。安顿好之后，点一杯来自附近 Wellpark 酿酒厂的非巴氏杀菌 Tennent’s 啤酒（饮品 £7 起；andersonsglasgow.co.uk）。
晚上 街头艺术在其他地方或许是 20 世纪 90 年代的产物，但在格拉斯哥并非如此。这里的大型壁画像季节一样多变，尤其是商人城和教堂广场，在非凡的公寓山墙面上呈现出爆炸般的色彩。当你亲眼看到 100 英尺高的圣蒙戈 (St Mungo) 或“大人物”比利·康诺利 (Billy Connolly) 时，之前的任何准备都显得不足（citycentremuraltrail.co.uk）。
在 Sebb’s 用餐 西区的 Ox and Finch 在几年前为西班牙小吃 (tapas) 风格的菜肴设定了基准，其店主在商人城延续了这一趋势，先是开设了 Margo，随后又开设了这家姐妹地下烤肉店兼酒吧。这里有热链接香肠、芥末烧烤酱和黄油腌菜，如果不是因为始终阴沉的天空，这里很可能就在德克萨斯州（小盘菜 £8 起；sebbs.com）。
ARTHOUSE GLASGOW 前任首相故居 这座宏伟的建筑曾是前首相 亨利·坎贝尔-班纳曼爵士 (Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman) 的家庭住宅，内部充满了彩色 玻璃和维多利亚时代的 瓷砖，并拥有一部极具代表性的 古董电梯。全市最好的意大利 餐厅 Celentano’s 就位于一楼（仅房 双人间 £99 起；art househotelglasgow.com）。
THE ADDRESS 舒适精品酒店 这家新兴爱尔兰精品酒店品牌 在英国开设的首家分店，坐落于 由詹姆斯·米勒 (James Miller) 设计的 市中心建筑中——他同时也是 中央车站玻璃屋顶和 阿盖尔街 (Argyle Street) 铁路 高架桥的设计者。除了 95 间客房外，这里还设有水疗中心、健身房 和供应舒适美食的餐厅（含早 双人间 £165 起；the addressglasgow.com）。
KIMPTON BLYTHSWOOD SQUARE 名流聚集地 这里曾是皇家苏格兰汽车俱乐部总部， 这家五星级场所是格拉斯哥 最接近乡村别墅风格的酒店 和水疗中心。其设计将艺术装饰 遗产与现代艺术相结合，而 海鲜餐厅 Iasg 则提供 坎布雷 (Cumbrae) 生蚝和金汤力鸡尾酒。 如果这里能让 Metallica 乐队和 Olivia Rodrigo（均为近期宾客）满意， 那么对你来说也足够了（含早 双人间 £206 起；kimptonblythswood square.com）。
我曾独自在尼泊尔徒步， 在茶屋停歇休息
Marielle Wyse，62，是一位英法籍时尚设计师，也是 Wyse London 品牌的创始人，该品牌于 2015. 年推出。她此前曾是一名电视制作人，在布里斯托的 BBC 自然历史部门工作了五年。她现居伦敦，有两个已成年的孩子。
在成长过程中，我每年夏天都会在 卢瓦尔河谷 (Loire Valley) 待六周， 那里是我祖父母居住的地方， 充满了魔力。我喜欢参观雷岛 (Île de Ré)、 莱萨布勒 (Les Sables) 和美丽的昂热 (Angers)， 那里是我母亲成长的地方。天哪， 那些海鲜——我也很喜欢，尽管我 有一段深刻的记忆：大约六七岁时， 在当地一家餐厅吃了 24 个生蚝后 呕吐得非常厉害。
法国西海岸从那时起发生了很大变化， 而且是向好的方向发展。在我 成长期间，去雷岛还没有桥； 我们必须乘船。我经常回到 雷岛和莱萨布勒地探望我的表亲。 现在我的孩子们长大了，我主要 在非夏季月份出游， 因为那时候对我来说实在太拥挤了。
我的儿子在纽约读大学， 我每年去看他三四次， 但在那里度过四天美妙时光后 我就得赶紧离开；那里实在太嘈杂了。 而且我还是搞不明白那里的酒店 情况。大多数地方贵得惊人， 但我喜欢曼哈顿中城的 Virgin 酒店， 那里有非常棒的转角房间， 拥有落地窗景观。
一次价值高达 £1,410 的 MATFEN HALL 奢华度假之旅
帝国大厦。夜晚，城市的灯火就在你眼前闪烁。这里有屋顶泳池和不错的健身房，对我来说非常完美。至于餐厅，我喜欢格林威治村的 Balthazar 和 Via Carota。
我的女儿在巴黎学习了四年，我去 thăm 她时，会尝试不同区的新酒店，这是探索这座城市的有趣方式。我热爱第六区，那里有小花店和精品店。在这些访问中，巴黎风格总是给我带来灵感。在最近的一次访问中，我发现了一家可爱的 Hôtel Les Deux Gares 小酒店，位于东站（Gare de l’Est）和北站（Gare du Nord）之间。它由设计师 Luke Edward Hall 精心翻修；房间风格独特，早餐非常美味，而且离欧洲之星车站仅一步之遥。
我第一次在没有父母陪同的情况下旅行，是在 15 岁时与最好的朋友一起去的一次农场假期。我们对在德文郡乡村当农场帮工抱有过于浪漫的幻想，但结果大雨倾盆，我思乡心切——每一分钟我都恨极了。
另一个旅行低谷是 1992 年与朋友前往墨西哥帕伦克的一次旅行。我们的酒店房间被闯入，
我的朋友在扮演一个快乐的弄臣。
“我想不出你为什么想来这里，”他轻快地说道， “除非你是希望找到一顶皇冠来完成加冕礼。”
他说得有道理。在 17 世纪，一名士兵娶了一位当地地主的女儿，其府邸就位于这个村庄以东 1 1/2 英里处。后来这名士兵成了一个不成功的窃贼，我们不禁在想，他是否计划将他那些著名的赃物藏在那里。
但那不是我们访问的主要目的——我想看看一名政治家（母亲：Eileen）成长的地方。
然后我计划访问一座城市。朋友假设那将是中心位于该村庄以东-东北方向 11 1/2 英里的一座城市。他说，他之所以如此戏谑，是因为那里出生的或受教育的喜剧演员很多——其中一人曾扮演体育评论员，后来凭借自己的脱口秀节目大红大紫。
“抱歉，我们实际上是往另一个方向走，”我告诉他。我正前往第二座城市，其中心位于该村庄以西-西南方向 19 英里处。它是第一座城市的竞争对手，且拥有一家成立于 1878 年、并受到两个国家领导人支持的体育俱乐部。
“但考虑到那位政治家，你肯定想往东走，”朋友结结巴巴地说。
“出于同样的原因，我想往西走，”我告诉他。
我不知道朋友是否明白了我的意思。但我知道一件事：他现在成了一个疯狂的弄臣。
我给了他一颗我的太妃糖，试图哄他开心。 Sean Newsom
从尼泊尔安纳布纳峰出发 的部分路线， 这是 Marielle Wyse 最向往的目的地之一
我们的护照被偷了。我们不得不办理新护照，但随后的旅程就平静多了。我们访问了图卢姆，那里只有三间小海边小屋，没有其他游客——现在很难想象。
在生孩子之前，我曾在 BBC 系列节目《终极杀手》(Ultimate Killers) 和《极端动物》(Extreme Animals) 中担任制作人。在其中一集中，我们乘坐热气球飞到西班牙塞哥维亚周边的乡村上空，以测试游隼的速度；在另一集中，我们在加勒比海与座头鲸共泳。我们还去了北极，在那里拍摄北极熊。我们四月份去，直到凌晨 2 点才天黑——我们工作时间太长，以至于陷入了谵妄状态。
我们住在斯瓦尔巴群岛的一间小屋里，厕所就是坑里的一个垃圾袋衬垫；我并不怎么在意，因为我热爱冒险旅行。九十年代，我两次去尼泊尔徒步——有一次是独自前往——抵达了安纳布纳大本营，途中住在茶馆里。尼泊尔是我最喜欢的国家之一，主要因为那里的人们非常友善。
另一次非凡的旅行是 2023 年与儿子前往加拉帕戈斯群岛。我们在船上度过了一周，
获胜者及一名宾客将入住位于哈德良墙附近的五星级乡村别墅酒店 Matfen Hall 的豪华客房两晚（含早餐）。该酒店坐落在诺森伯兰郡 300 英亩的公园绿地之中。这座新哥特式府邸拥有一座足以媲美电影场景的大厅、两座高尔夫球场以及（从 9 月 15 日起）一个设有 18 米泳池、感官花园、罗马桑拿房和蒸汽房的水疗中心。
酒店拥有 63 间优雅的客房与套房，以及五家酒吧和餐厅；其中 Emerald 餐厅拥有三颗 AA 评级星级，供应如搭配沙爹贻贝、西兰花和柠檬草的鳕鱼等菜肴。欲了解更多信息，请访问 matfenhall.com。
访问那些最非凡的岛屿。有一次，我们在最令人惊叹的鱼群中潜水，周围环绕着海狮、海龟和锤头鲨。
最近我和女儿在日本度过了一周。我们去了“艺术之岛”直岛，那里到处都是雕塑和画廊。我们住在 Benesse House，这是一座当代艺术博物馆。在东京，我们住在无印良品 (Muji) 酒店，它坐落在一家六层百货商店的顶层——那里非常有趣，设计风格就像一家无印良品商店。
如今，由于要管理一家 70 人的公司，我在旅行时已无法完全地放松心情。我经常因公出差——我经常去德里，参观展厅和工厂，寻找设计灵感。我们在那里入住一家名为 Trident 的精美酒店，那里的食物很美味——不过，由于我的体质，我经常因为食物而生病。
采访人：Claudia Rowan
Marielle Wyse 是 Wyse London (wyselondon.com) 的创始人
奖品包括在 Emerald 餐厅享用的一顿双人三道菜晚餐（不含饮品）。晚餐必须在 2026 年 9 月 15 日至 2027 年 7 月 31 日之间享用，需视供应情况而定，且不包括银行假日周末以及 12 月 24 日至 1 月 1 日期间。
请在 7 月 30 日星期四结束前，在 thetimes.com/travel/where-was-i 回答问题并填写报名表。每人限参加一次。适用完整条款和条件，您的信息将根据我们在 newsprivacy.co.uk 上的隐私政策进行使用。
答案是 Stourbridge 和 Bellingham。来自约克郡的 Christopher Scott 赢得了在 My Arbor 享受的价值最高 £2,470 的多洛米蒂奢华假期。
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罗宾汉的传说 ——这里有美食、剧院、 历史悠久的酒吧以及体育运动
当我在结束一次城市短期度假 准备返程，且知道自己 将为此撰文时， 我通常会花一点时间思考 如何最好地整理思路。虽然按时间顺序 很流行，按类别整理也有拥趸， 但偶尔在离开一个目的地—— 这次是诺丁汉——时，人们会渴望 以一份球队名单的形式，一个由当地 才俊组成的幻想阵容（由罗宾汉担任队长）， 来表达自己的见解。
符合其政治立场，罗宾将会在我的 诺丁汉梦之队的左路出战。 以《职责之线》(Line of Duty) 成名的 女演员薇琪·麦克卢尔 (Vicky McClure) 将占据舞台中心，随后因假装受伤而被出示黄牌。 诗人拜伦勋爵 (Lord Byron) 在继承了 祖产后于十岁时搬到此地，他将展现 早期的天赋，随后要求租借前往希腊。 板球传奇斯图尔特·布罗德 (Stuart Broad) 将因投出一个腿截球 (leg break) 而被罚下。 《周六晚上和周日早晨》(Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) 的作者艾伦·西利托 (Alan Sillitoe) 将与宿醉作斗争。 而救世军 (Salvation Army) 创始人 威廉·布思 (William Booth) 将通过 打入一个绝杀球来拯救局面，就像 詹姆斯·格雷厄姆 (James Graham) （《亲爱的英格兰》(Dear England) 和《舍伍德》(Sherwood) 等热门剧作的作者） 笔下的剧本那样。
这支球队将由布莱恩·克劳 (Brian Clough) 执教。 球衣将由保罗·史密斯 (Paul Smith) 设计。 杰克·巴格 (Jake Bugg) 将在看台上领唱。 而诺丁汉治安官将担任主裁判。如果裁判被邀请
[[IMG_XXXX]] 里斯本的 Bairro Alto、 巴塞罗那的 Barceloneta 以及 伦敦的 Soho 等街区 长期以来因相似的原因吸引着游客。 吃得好。喝得醉。 结识陌生人。 对于任何游客来说，这些都是 进入这些城市的最佳入门方式。
1972 年，一个社区协会—— Soho 协会 (Soho Society) 成立， 旨在“维护 Soho 的特色”。 自 19 世纪以来，该街区一直是 伦敦首屈指指的娱乐区，是 酒吧、现场音乐和尽情享乐之所—— 这些都是人们认为需要保护的东西。 但在 5 月的年度股东大会上， 该组织投票决定游说 反对所有提交给西敏市议会的 新执照申请。
哈米德·泽纳蒂 (Hamid Zenati) 在诺丁汉当代艺术馆 (Nottingham Contemporary) 的一件装置作品； 右上，这座城市的运河
旅游区 你就得忍受 噪音 有话要说
许多伦敦人 fondly 回忆疫情期间，索霍区 (Soho) 的街道变为步行街，户外餐饮让伦敦中心地带感觉颇具欧陆风情。自然地，居民们正抵制恢复交通限制的尝试。但我禁不住觉得，这正是该地区所需要的。对于每年来到这里体验伦敦夜生活的游客来说，这将是多么受欢迎的举措。 休·奥利弗 (HUW OLIVER)
在任何阶段，如果他想“检查一下眼睛”，他都处于有利位置，因为 Vision Express 和 Specsavers 都在这座城市设有基地。
比赛结束后，诺丁汉的最优秀之辈将退到蕾丝市场酒店 (Lace Market Hotel)，该酒店以曾经支撑当地经济的产业命名。我无法告诉你蕾丝市场是否是这座城市最好的酒店，因为我只住过一家，但我可以告诉你的是，我睡得很沉，员工们也非常友善。
而且，这家酒店距离一个精彩的下午仅一步之遥，对面就是国家司法博物馆 (National Justice Museum)，沿路走走就是诺丁汉当代艺术馆 (Nottingham Contemporary)，该馆于 2009 年在戴维·霍克尼 (David Hockney) 的展览中开幕，此后一直保持着极高水准。
在酒店洗漱完毕后，我的全明星阵容理应出发去吃晚餐。拜伦 (Byron) 会去 Restaurant Sat Bains，一家提供鸭肝燕麦粥并拥有两颗米其林星的高档餐厅。布思 (Booth) 会去意大利餐厅 Pici。布罗德 (Broad) 则去时髦的墨西哥餐厅 Taquero。而克劳 (Clough) 会去 Stoney 街的一家炸鱼薯条店。我可以个人担保 Raymond’s 餐厅，它刚被列入米其林指南，并在周五午餐提供一套菜单——也许是鱼皮脆片搭配鸡排——价格为 £26 (raymondsnottingham.co.uk)。
为了享受应得的睡前酒，西利托 (Sillitoe) 会沉溺于 Angel，胡德 (Hood) 会寻找 Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem，而巴格 (Bugg) 则会前往 Jamcafé，这是一个美妙的
他们想要保护——或者更确切地说，复兴——的索霍区，仿佛是 18 世纪的贵族住宅区，而不是一个一个多世纪以来多元的夜生活中心。正如市长萨迪克·汗 (Sadiq Khan) 在上个月一条极具主见的推文中所说：“查看笔记 选择住在索霍区却抱怨夜生活，就像住在南肯辛顿 (South Kensington) 却抱怨博物馆一样。住在
小酒馆，那里的周四晚上问答赛并非为游客设计。
如果那是周六晚上，那么现在就是周日早晨，我对这支球队的建议是像我一样，以在霍克利 (Hockley) 散步开始这一天，这是镇上一个充满活力的地方，那里的商家——Yolk, Bear, Pogo, Bustler——其店名往往是留给名人后代的。
在霍克利周围， 一个充满活力的 城镇区域
从霍克利出发，通过 Long Row 和 Pelham Street 漫步进入市中心，在 Five Leaves 书店稍作停留，根据个人喜好重新排列书籍。留意美妙的皇家剧院 (Theatre Royal) 的前柱，向克劳 (Clough)（他恰好驻守在 King Street）致敬，然后缓缓走过旧市场广场，经常转身欣赏市政
里士满 (Richmond) 却讨厌绿地。这简直变得有点荒谬了，不是吗？”
在长期与夜生活相关的社区中发起反对夜生活运动的现象并不局限于伦敦。在巴黎，圣马丁运河 (Canal St Martin) 地区的居民向官员抱怨今年夏季热浪期间噪音水平上升。特此告知：该运河已经成为一个受欢迎的夜生活目的地三
议会大厦 (Council House)，这一定是全国最出色的建筑之一（II* 级法定古迹）。
在 Maid Marian Way 的顶端，你会发现诺丁汉剧院 (Nottingham Playhouse)，这是一个优秀的区域剧院，其前广场上有一座相当 peculiar 的雕塑。《天空之镜》(Sky Mirror, 2001) 是透纳奖得主安尼什·卡普尔 (Anish Kapoor) 的作品，坦白说，它看起来像一个巨大的炒锅。
当我询问一位正在给牡丹浇水的先生城堡在哪个方向时，他的回答——“你能说具体点吗？”——暗示在这个地区不止有一处类似的建筑。诺丁汉城堡最终被证明是悬崖上的一栋大房子，于是我没花太多时间在那里，直接前往河边，因为有人告诉我附近有一家世界级的足球俱乐部。当我到达诺丁汉森林足球俱乐部的主场城市球场 (City Ground) 时，我停下来询问进一步的方向。
“打扰一下——我在找那家世界级的足球俱乐部。”
“诺丁汉郡足球俱乐部 (Notts County)？”
“就是那家。”
“你离那儿不远了，亲 (m’ duck)。就在河对岸。他们马上就要开球了。如果你快点走，观众人数就能翻倍了。”
如果你觉得足球的吸引力就像痛风一样，那么请务必前往特伦特桥 (Trent Bridge)，那是诺丁汉郡板球俱乐部的所在地。2015 年，斯图尔特·布罗德 (Stuart Broad) 在那里仅用 15 跑就拿下了八个澳大利亚队的三柱门。
[[IMG_LEWIS RONALD; MARK SUNDERLAND/ALAMY]]
在乘火车回家的旅途中，我想到了大橡树 (Major Oak)。在雪林 (Sherwood Forest) 中，人们认为这棵树中空的树干在需要时为罗宾汉提供了避难所。在生长千年后，这棵树最近枯死了。据认为，近几十年到访该树的游客数量使其根部更难从土壤中汲取水分。
树如此，地方亦然。过多的关注会破坏它们，关注太少则会阻碍它们繁荣。考虑到这一点，为什么这个夏天不冷落那些热门景点，转而走一条少有人走的路呢？你可以从前往诺丁汉的 A46 公路开始。只要做好准备，被人们亲切地称为“duck”即可。
《糟糕的假期：被低估的城市颂歌》(Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities)，作者本·艾特肯 (Ben Aitken) (Icon Books £9.99) 现已出版。如需订购，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk。Times+ 会员可享受特别折扣。
几十年来，在一个缺乏开放空间的城市里，人们倾向于聚集在水边，这无可厚非。
有时城市会采取激进的措施，而这在情理之中。在韩国首尔，北村韩屋村地区（曾作为包括《鬼》和《心弦》在内的多部韩剧背景）仅在 10am 到下午 5 点向游客开放。
但在像苏豪区 (Soho) 和圣马丁运河 (Canal St Martin) 这样的夜生活热门地区，缺乏安静正是其吸引力的一部分。而令人悲哀的现实是，反对在自家附近建设设施的人 (Nimbys) 会造成严重损害。如果一家新开的独立场所被反对其执照申请，有多少能像最近的一家苏豪区金酒吧及蒸馏厂那样，能拿出 £44,000 的法律费用？
他们反对任何想要在“核心时段”之外营业的场所，而核心时段根据一周中不同日期的不同，在晚上 10.30 到午夜之间结束。在我看来，这是短视的。提前打烊意味着人群将在你正考虑睡觉的时候涌向街头。而且因为其他地方都关门了，狂欢者在街上逗留的时间反而会更长。
葡萄园与品酒
品尝该地区丰盈且果味浓郁的葡萄酒，从口感醇厚的红葡萄酒到清脆的起泡酒。每次品酒都配有精致的轻食午餐，为您呈现意大利著名葡萄酒文化的正宗风味。
美食艺术
从米其林星级餐厅和正宗的小餐馆 (trattorias)，到精心策划的品酒会以及亲手制作的意大利饺子 (tortellini)，这段旅程在每一个难忘的转角，向意大利久负盛名的饮食与葡萄酒文化致敬。
湖泊与花园
探索加尔达湖 (Lake Garda) 之美，它是意大利最大的湖泊。在宁静的环境中放松身心，欣赏绝美花园，并在波光粼粼的水面上乘船前往迷人的加尔达岛 (Isola del Garda)。
文化瑰宝
探索维罗纳 (Verona)、帕拉第奥式建筑以及威尼托 (Veneto) 地区的丰富遗产。参观文艺复兴时期的别墅，漫步于中世纪城堡的庭院，回应朱丽叶的信笺，并发现当地的传统工艺。
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封面：PAUL STUART 为《星期日时报》杂志拍摄。本页：MARTIN PARR / MAGNUM PHOTOS, SHUTTERSTOCK
5 Matt Rudd 今年夏天， 竞争在帐篷中展开
6 相对价值 (Relative Values) DJ Fat Tony 和他的母亲 Dawn Marnoch 回忆 与 Boy George 和 Freddie Mercury 度过的狂野时光
9 这是我的工作 (That’s My Job) 一名佳士得拍卖师讲述 数百万英镑的交易 以及如何让着装与拍品相配
10 封面：展会之最糟 (Worst in show) 对“可爱”的痴迷 正让狗遭受终身的健康损害。Matt Rudd 采访了 治疗极端育种症状的 兽医们
20 紫色日子 (Purple days) 前公路巡演人员 Eric Barrett 回忆他如何通过音乐、女孩 和药物与 Jimi Hendrix 建立纽带—— 但未能向这位朋友道别
28 海军凝视 (Naval gazing) 造船业复兴正在苏格兰展开—— 但这些高科技战舰 能否填补英国舰队的缺口？ Jim Armitage 报道
37 餐桌谈话 (Table Talk) Skye McAlpine 呈献 颓废的早餐；在圣詹姆斯区的 Jul’s 餐厅，Adam Kay 表示在伊比萨岛发生的事 就应该留在伊比萨岛。Pete Brown 品饮来自约克郡的 Landlord 桶装艾尔， 这款啤酒曾诱惑过麦当娜；Will Lyons 点名他心中今夏最爱的葡萄酒： 绿酒 (vinho verde)
44 你怎么煮鸡蛋？ 29 个关于鸡蛋的问题，已悉数解答
48 Sally Gunnell 的中年 健身大师课 来自奥运冠军的技巧
哦，我们确实喜欢在海边 用 JCB 挖掘机 By Martin Parr, 1983-85 一名母亲在默西赛德郡 维勒半岛的新布赖顿海滩附近晒太阳。 这张图片出自《最后一个度假胜地》(The Last Resort)， 这是 Parr 在 80 年代初 在该沿海城镇及其周边拍摄的 具有影响力的系列作品
58 生活一日 (A Life in the Day) “我的妻子是夜间经济 中非常重要的一部分，” 喜剧演员 Ed Gamble 说道
© Times Media Ltd, 2026. Published and licensed by Times Media Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF (020 7782 5000). Printed at Walstead Bicester Limited, Oxfordshire. Not to be sold separately
T
这必须停止。已经太过分了。你们知道我在说什么，因为这是我们时代最紧迫的话题。帐篷变得太大了。太大了，实在太大了。这种情况并非一夜之间发生的，这也许就是为什么这种暴行长期以来未被察觉，但它确实发生了。每年夏天，在不知多少年的时间里，帐篷都在增加几英寸。久而久之，这些英寸变成了英尺，变成了码，又是码，又是码，这就是为什么上周末，我发现自己把那个简陋的钟形帐篷搭在了一顶 Vango Lismore 600XL 旁边。
Vango Lismore 600XL 长 23 英尺，比沃尔沃 XC90 长 7 英尺，而沃尔沃 XC90 本身也太长了。它宽 13 英尺，其客厅比我在伦敦的第一套公寓还要宽敞且设施更齐全。它也不是正经的金字塔形帐篷。它的侧墙几乎是垂直的，顶部配有米开朗基罗都会退缩的穹顶天花板。天啊，谁能容忍露营时还得稍微弯腰。600XL 可供 6 人居住，每人享有近 350 立方英尺的个人空间，这足以在里面抡起一只猫了。你可以在里面抡 6 只猫而不会伤到任何一只，这简直太过分了。
露营的全部意义在于你没有近 350 立方英尺的专属空间。你必须被挤在一起，而且要挤得不舒服。如果你们中有人在夜里翻身，其他人也得跟着翻身。你不能在帐篷里站起来，更不应该能在里面走来走去地社交。你不应该拥有客厅或独立的卧室——现在这又是什么？厨房帐篷？独立的狗帐篷？阳光房？
我们在一个朋友的田野里露营一晚。那是朋友的生日，所以我们甚至不是为了露营而来的，但我那一晚的邻居带了一顶 600XL，等到他把它搭好时，已经到了该把它再次拆掉打包的时候了。这就像睡在欧洲最大的亚马逊仓库旁边一样。
且能增强生物多样性。它在英国海域的数量 下降了 40 per cent 以上， 主要由于污染 n By Yasmin Choudhury 好 消息！
CHARLIE CLIFT
得益于一项英国规模最大的海草修复计划，康沃尔海岸外的海水质量预计将有所改善。在由 £1.8 百万的 Mor Nature 计划资助下，潜水员将在法尔茅斯湾种植 10 公顷海草。海草被誉为“大自然的净水器”，还能捕捉碳。
然而，令人惊讶的是，这甚至还不是目前市面上最大的帐篷。有些帐篷大到可以在里面打网球；有些帐篷大到可以在里面玩《水晶迷宫》(Crystal Maze)。还有八角形帐篷、“多区域”帐篷，以及带有遮阳走道通往其他卫星帐篷的帐篷。其中一些自带挂车，一些自带车顶行李箱。有些甚至是无杆设计——你只需用那个也得花钱买的大气泵将其充气即可。这很聪明，但也很可惜，因为在不专心时用帐篷杆戳中爱人的眼睛，可是露营的一大传统。
我理解人们为什么会被巨大的帐篷吸引。他们在帐篷店里会想象与家人在狭小空间共度一整周的情景。他们会想起去年夏天那些争吵、推搡，以及只想安静地读上一分钟该死的书的时刻。因此，买一个大到所有人都不必彼此说话的帐篷，在逻辑上是合理的。
但他们忘记了，帐篷越大，搭建就越难，而且关键是，收起来也更难。每一个帐篷收纳袋的设计都刚好比帐篷小一点点。帐篷设计的潜规则就是：必须尝试三次并弄坏一个拉链才能将帐篷收好。如果是一个尺寸合理的帐篷，这虽然令人心烦但尚在可控范围内。但如果是一个 Center Parc 度假村规模的帐篷，人们可能会气得死掉。
露营的美妙之处在于它总会结束。你忍受煎熬，你艰苦奋斗，你花了两个小时才泡好一杯温吞的罐装茶，然后，在最高兴的时刻，你可以回家了。那是多么像宫殿一样的家啊，有卧室，有厕所，还有一个没有那些话多且赤裸的荷兰人的非公共淋浴间。如果你的帐篷和你的房子一样大，而且它的厨房设备比你家的厨房还齐全，而你犒劳自己的 Zempire Monstabed 露营床垫让你体验到了多年来最优质的睡眠，那么这种美妙就消失了。让我们让露营重新变得伟大/糟糕吧。一个单人露营袋 (bivvy)，一个 Trangia 户外炉，一张极薄的卷垫，一个塞满衣服的枕套，你就准备好出发了。
这位 DJ 及其母亲谈论虐待、成瘾以及在布鲁克林·贝克汉姆 (Brooklyn Beckham) 的婚礼迪斯科上担任 DJ 的经历
Dawn Tony 出生时是臀部先出来的（难产）。他对此非常自豪。我们住在南伦敦的巴特西 (Battersea)，他从第一天起就是一个“妈宝男”。一个可爱、安静的婴儿，但这并没有持续多久。
在他三岁时，我的姑姑转过身来说：“他是同性恋。”他不像其他孩子。从进入托儿所的第一天起他就表现得非常夸张，告诉老师们：“我想出名。”老师们对此并不感冒。
他不玩像牛仔与印第安人那样正常的社交游戏。他会穿着我的高跟鞋在社区街道上跑来跑去，但我对此都淡然处之。我曾是一个被送进寄宿学校的独生女，后来与母亲关系疏离。我的祖母将我抚养长大，所以我只是想：“让 Tony 想成为什么就成为什么吧。”他口才极好，我预感到在我的三个儿子中，他会走得最远。
在他年幼时，我是白金汉宫的清洁主管，负责 700 间房间。女王曾感谢我工作如此勤奋，但我从未与安德鲁王子打过交道。他在宫内有办公室但不住在那里，所以幸运的是，我不需要帮他整理泰迪熊。我也从未把 Tony 带进宫殿，因为我可能会把他弄丢。
当 Tony 十岁时，我因患乳腺癌多次出入医院，大约就在那个时候，他遭受了虐待。Tony 为一名男子兼职工作，而那个人利用了他。直到几十年后我才发现，因为 Tony 把这一切都埋在心底。他被告知如果向任何人透露半个字，我就会被杀掉。得知 Tony 一直在承受痛苦并转向药物，这令人心碎。我仍然在责怪自己——我本应该发现的。Tony 最终是在 2006 年左右，在康复中心的 12 步计划 (12-step programme) 期间告诉我这件事的。
回想起来，我确信虐待带来的所有创伤都导致了 Tony 在学校的问题。当他大约 14 或 15 岁时，他与一名戏剧老师发生了不恰当的关系，最后裤子褪到脚踝，从教室窗户掉下去，因此被开除。那时他开始在切尔西 (Chelsea) 和国王路 (Kings Road) 附近游荡，并在那里的市场工作。他与乔治-男孩 (Boy George) 成了亲密好友，后者以前管我的丈夫叫“爸爸”。乔治对我来说依然像儿子一样，他虽然有过起伏，但一直非常有礼貌，而且因为他比 Tony 大四岁，所以对 Tony 产生了一种稳定情绪的影响。
我们一直很亲密，但直到 Tony 的自传在 2022 年出版，我才意识到他所做事情的程度。我不知道弗雷迪·默丘里 (Freddie Mercury) 在 Tony 16 岁时曾给他递过第一条可卡因，尽管我想他当时一定在用某种东西，因为他整夜不睡，开始看起来状态糟糕。
我的口袋里发现毒品，而我只会说： “那是男孩乔治的，不是我的！”
他去美国担任DJ时才18或19岁，当时他太年轻，无法应对名声，于是情况失控，而他竭力试图掩盖。我原以为他的牙齿是因为吸食可卡因而烂掉的，但实际上是他在高亢状态下把牙齿拔掉的。
2002年，他被诊断出感染了HIV，随后发展为艾滋病，他几乎死掉了。有一天，我产生了一种母亲的直觉，觉得情况不对，于是匆匆赶到我妈在巴特西的老房子，托尼当时住在那里，我发现他陷入了昏迷。
我们赶紧把他送往医院，医生说他的大脑积液，所以他们通过腰椎穿刺来排出液体。他两次濒临死亡。我们甚至请来一名天主教神父在他床边为他进行临终涂油礼。那时他体重仅剩7英石，样子很可怕，但那是他康复的开始，这是一个漫长的旅程。我现在为他感到非常自豪，自豪于他如何克服成瘾并改变了自己的生活。
他完全没有失去往日的活力。我们比以往任何时候都更亲近，即使在他去年与斯塔夫结婚之后也是如此。起初因为30岁的年龄差距，我有些犹豫，但斯塔夫比他的年龄显得成熟睿智，而托尼在自己的年龄段里显得很年轻，所以他们很合适。曾有那么一段时间，我认为他撑不过去，所以知道他现在没事了，真是太令人欣慰了。
主图：托尼（60岁）、道恩（84岁）以及 cavapoo 混血犬里妮，在托尼位于伦敦皮姆利科的家中。左图：1984年的托尼与男孩乔治。上方：1966年的母子合影。
托尼 我是典型的渴望关注的中间孩子。当我用剪刀刺向沙发或点燃地毯时，爸爸会大发雷霆，但妈妈不会。她总是淡然处之。她生长在波西米亚式的环境下，所以我的性取向对她来说不是什么大问题。我在性取向认同上从未感到困惑，而妈妈也从未质疑，所以我从来不需要进行所谓的“出柜”。我就是同性恋。
我那时10岁但像20岁一样成熟，当你年纪轻轻就表现出明显的女性化特征时，捕食者就会盯上你。我遇到了一个在青年俱乐部放映电影的人，他邀请我担任他的助手，然后他就操纵了局面。虐待持续了四年，直到我对他来说太大了，我只希望他最终死得凄惨。我感到非常羞耻，一直瞒着我妈。我在学校里所有的反常行为、强烈的无价值感、成瘾问题以及折磨了我一辈子的冒充者综合征，都源于那次虐待。
我妈以前总是在我的口袋里发现毒品，而我只会说：“那是男孩乔治的，不是我的”，但归根结底，她是我至今还活着的原因。我已经戒瘾20年了，在经历了28年的成瘾期后，毒品或酒精再也无法触发我的渴望。我为什么会想念那种没有...
特 习 惯
道恩谈托尼 从他还是个 小宝宝起， 托尼就一直 把手指甲 咬到根部。 直到今天 他依然如此
托尼谈道恩 她有时真是个 固执、脾气古怪的 老太婆
牙齿，在地板上打滚，在当时毫无生活起色，而我现在却拥有自由和自尊？
我很幸运能参与一些很棒的活动，包括布鲁克林·贝克汉姆的婚礼，我在那里担任了三天的DJ。在评判之前，人们应该记得，有两位父母失去了他们的长子，而一个儿子失去了他的父母。所有的家庭都有戏剧性冲突，只不过这次发生在贝克汉姆一家。而一旦那个故事传开——起因是Stav在一条关于维多利亚跳舞的Instagram帖子下发表了评论——我就收到了来自世界各地媒体的数十次采访请求，其中甚至包括皮尔斯·摩根的私人电话，但我拒绝了。
我很感激我的母亲一直陪伴在我身边。当我与Stav结婚时，是她陪我走过婚礼走道。Boy George主持了仪式，Gemma Collins发表了最令人赞叹的爱情演说。那太美了。
我依然是个投机者——而我母亲绝不会让我自以为是。我们仍然会争吵，她也从没停止过唠叨。但我很幸运，生命中依然有她的陪伴。
采访由Nick McGrath完成。 《Recover Me: A User’s Guide to Overcoming Addiction and Insanity》，作者DJ Fat Tony (Piatkus £25) 现已上市。请在 timesbookshop.co.uk 订购。
卫浴水龙头、淋浴器及配件。英国手工制造。
W ang是佳士得伦敦分行的总监、高级客户顾问及拍卖师。她出生于北京，在德国长大，在英国留学，随后于 2015. 年加入佳士得。她每年在伦敦、纽约、日内瓦和香港主持约 20 场拍卖会。
在我的拍卖槌落下之前，有一个时刻，竞价速度会放缓，我会向拍卖室中任何想要进行最后一轮出价的人发出“公平警告”。全场陷入沉寂。我高度集中注意力，紧张气氛触手可及。为了走到这一步，幕后做了大量工作，有时甚至跨越多年。物品被出售可能有情感因素，我希望给予卖家、买家以及该物品足够的尊严。当我的拍卖槌击在讲台上时，该物品的命运便已尘埃落定，它属于一个新的合法所有者。能够被赋予这样的责任，令人心潮澎湃。
成为一名拍卖师需要决心、对数字的敏锐度以及谦逊。我喜欢做好充分的准备。当我拿到待售物品清单时，我会尽可能地学习关于它们的一切。我主持各类销售，从手表到葡萄酒，再到当代艺术。在准备阶段，我会与各个部门会面以询问他们的专家意见，这样在我登上讲台时，我可以权威地讲述每一件物品。
在大规模拍卖的前一天晚上，我倾向于独处。我会熟悉拍卖室的布局、灯光，并确认在线摄像机的位置。可能会有
佳士得提供
Yü-Ge Wang, 39, 拍卖师
脱颖而出，感到自信， 并让我能挥动手臂
拍卖厅里有来自世界各地多达 50 名同事，他们代表电话出价者，而我知道他们会站在哪里。我已经确认了身后显示实时出价的数字屏幕是什么颜色，并据此选择了我的着装——我的衣服需要让我脱颖而出，感到自信，并允许活动，因为在竞价过程中我会挥动手臂。去年，我以纪录价格 £22.9 million（2,290万英镑）售出了法贝热（Fabergé）的“冬季蛋”。当时我穿了一件银色提花西装外套，以衬托这枚彩蛋的美学风格。
日间拍卖较为轻松，但在涉及大量资金交易的大型晚间活动中，精心策划的压力非常大。是否会打破纪录？在美国，人们会直接投入，但在亚洲，他们则习惯于保守秘密（keep their cards close to their chests）。我开始认为英国人的感性认知与亚洲人更接近：很难读透他们在想什么。
作为一个移民长大，我学会了如何捕捉文化细微差别，以便做出恰当的反应。我会说四种语言。这种文化流畅度帮助我在国际人群中读懂字里行间隐藏的含义——那个出价者是真的退出了，还是我感觉到了一些犹豫？什么样的因素能促使他们进行下一次出价？与此同时，我时刻关注着在线进展、电话端的情况，以及何时对缺席出价（这些出价记录在我面前的拍卖师手册中）进行“落槌”。无论使用何种货币，佳士得（Christie’s）都有固定的出价递增额度，这为整个流程提供了结构并保持了势头。例如，在 2,000 和 3,000 之间，我会以 200 为单位提高出价，但在两百万和三百万之间，则以 200,000 为单位递增。如果拍卖节奏需要重新校准，我偶尔会接受“拆分出价”（split bid）——即在递增额度之间的出价。
刚加入佳士得时，我负责前台工作，接听电话，处理快递以及在出纳台工作。我报名参加了竞争极其激烈的拍卖师课程。像一只叼着骨头的狗一样，我渴望成功。在被允许主持我的第一次拍卖之前，我花了五年多时间，但那是我职业生涯中最自豪的时刻之一。我是第一位在亚洲以外地区任职的亚洲拍卖师。我主持过的最有趣的拍卖会之一是在 2024 年为薇薇安·威斯特伍德（Vivienne Westwood）举办的“私人收藏”展。现场充满了喜悦。
拍卖是一个古老的职业，可以追溯到 2,500 年前。佳士得在 1766 年举行了首次拍卖，拍品包括床单和便盆。当然，你可以在商店和画廊购买，但在拍卖行的二级市场中，每件物品都自带一个故事，我热爱这一点。作为一名拍卖师，我帮助这个故事翻开下一个章节。
采访人：Caroline Hutton
英国平均薪资： 根据 Glassdoor 的数据，资深拍卖师的年薪（含奖金）可高达 £100,000。
n
在我见到她之前，我们先聊了半小时关于 Frankie 的情况，因为提前知情才能做好准备。六天前为她动手术的高级临床医生克莱尔·福莫伊 (Claire Formoy) 首先解释了这只五岁的法国斗牛犬是如何来到伦敦北部的芬斯伯里公园动物医院 (Finsbury Park Animal Hospital) 的。她在一年前作为一名“病例”被英国皇家动物保护协会 (RSPCA) 接管，这意味着她此前要么被主人忽视，要么遭受过虐待。然而，她严重的健康问题完全与品种培育有关，而非与其后续艰难的生活经历相关。
法斗 Frankie 是一只短头犬——她的头骨短小、面部扁平，但拥有与普通犬类相同数量的皮肤和软组织。结果导致了短头综合征 (BOAS)——她被挤扁的口鼻部和狭窄的鼻孔让她呼吸困难。由于头骨太小，她的眼睛从眼眶中凸出，多余的面部皮肤褶皱使她容易受到刺激和感染。
这还不够，她还长着一个扭曲的短尾巴，这不仅产生了身体上的影响（尾巴是脊柱的一部分），还产生了社交影响（狗利用尾巴进行交流）。由于 Frankie 的尾巴被截断，她脊柱的其他部分也并非处于正常状态——部分脊椎出现了错位。
总计，Frankie 拥有六处极端的“形态特征”——即她的形状、结构或外观在选择性培育中达到了如此极端的程度，以至于对她的健康产生了负面影响。我们愿意为那些有着挤压面孔、凸出眼睛和螺旋尾巴的狗支付更高的价格，因为它们“可爱”。我们愿意为长身短腿的狗支付更多——身体越长、腿越短越好——尽管每四只腊肠犬中就有一只患有椎间盘疾病，导致椎间盘突出。
动物 在为 极端 培育 付出 代价
【斑点犬】 斑点花纹天然出现在澳洲牧羊犬和柯利犬中，但“双斑点”培育（即父母双方都携带斑点基因）会导致失明和失聪。
上图：左侧的艾希莉·布朗 (Ashleigh Brown) 和克莱尔·福莫伊 (Claire Formoy) 与我们的封面之星——法国斗牛犬 Frankie 在芬斯伯里公园动物医院合影。 右上图：X光片显示了 Frankie 的呼吸道疾病。
【卡通吉娃娃】 吉娃娃被培育出不自然的小型“苹果形”头部，可能导致眼球脱出（眼睛从眼眶中凸出）和囟门（颅骨未正确融合的软点）。
我们愿意支付更高的价格让大麦町犬看起来像迪士尼动画片一样，尽管极端的花斑基因意味着它有三分之一的概率患有先天性耳聋。而且，如果我们精选培育的狗现在呼吸困难，那甚至被认为“更可爱”。只需在 YouTube 上搜索“我可爱的打呼噜狗狗”就能看到。
巴哥犬、斗牛犬、拳师犬、吉娃娃、柯利犬、梗类犬、牧羊犬、猎 spaniel 以及几乎任何你能想到的品种，现在都面临着极端培育带来的严重问题。尽管狗在我们的关注下受害最深，但还有一整个“诺亚方舟”般的其他宠物——从泡泡眼金鱼、巨耳兔到 O 型腿的马，以及长毛到极致的猫——全部在朝着同一个方向驶去。
本周，英国皇家动物保护协会 (RSPCA) 启动了一项为期五年的战略，试图说服我们，事情已经做得太过分了，那些具有极端身体特征的宠物正遭受不必要的健康和福利问题。该慈善机构表示，防止这种可避免的伤害是一项“道德责任”。
【克鲁夫茨展形态】 当四岁的克朗伯猎 spaniel Bruin 在今年的克鲁夫茨 (Crufts) 犬展中获得全场总冠军时，慈善机构声称该犬的极端形态特征包括下垂的眼睑、短腿以及不自然地过长的背部。
这就是为什么 RSPCA 的科学与政策经理兼该战略的主笔 Ashleigh Brown 将我带到芬斯伯里公园 (Finsbury Park) 去见一只正在康复中的斗牛犬。Frankie 的第一次手术从鼻子开始。Formoy 通过移除她喉咙、鼻孔和喉部的软组织来开通她的呼吸道。她的软腭大部分必须切除。如果且当她康复后，下一次手术将更像是一次面部提升。Formoy 将切除多余的面部皮肤，通过进一步的缝合和切割，帮助眼睛更舒服地安置在眼眶中。如果没有这项手术，
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前页及本页：PAUL STUART 为《星期日泰晤士报》杂志拍摄。
长毛猫 皇家兽医学院 (The Royal Veterinary College) 表示，在布偶猫和波斯猫中，长毛应被视为一种极端的体型特征。它们患牙周病、胃病、肥胖和感染的风险更高。
泡泡眼金鱼 起泡的不是眼睛，而是眼睛下方充满液体的囊袋。在自然界中，这种缺陷会消失。但在我们的金鱼缸里，它会导致部分失明、游泳能力受损以及高感染风险。
十年间进入 RSPCA 护理的 法国斗牛犬 数量增长率
腊肠犬患上 椎间盘疾病 的风险更高
大耳兔子 英国垂耳兔在所有兔子品种中 拥有最长的耳朵。 这种不自然的尺寸使得这些动物 容易遭受冻伤、 感染以及平衡感 和行动能力的受损。
Frankie 将继续在保持眼睛 湿润方面面临困难。在某些短头颅病例中， 眼睛甚至会完全脱出。
所有这些听起来都要处理很多问题，但 预后情况良好。Formoy 解释说，因为 Frankie 已经挺过了 气道手术，再次手术和使用麻醉剂导致死亡的风险 降低了约 80 per cent（但仍然高于 普通犬类）。现在她能够正常呼吸， 她也能更好地调节体温，因为狗 需要通过喘息来散热。Formoy 告诉我，她曾见过 短头颅犬在低至 17C 的温度下昏厥。一位主人曾把两只英国斗牛犬带到 Formoy 之前的诊所，因为它们每天的打闹在其中一只昏过去时才会停止。
“这太不正常了，”她说。“这些狗已经 五或六岁了，所以它们每天都因为缺氧而 昏厥五或六年。这太可怕了。它们的生活质量极差，但对那位主人来说，这在这一品种中是正常的。”
Frankie 现在可以喘息了。在经历了所有创伤之后，一旦她的手术完成，她甚至可能成为幸运儿之一；如果是在私人诊所，这项手术的费用大约为 £8,000。听到这个消息，Brown 深吸了一口气。她上次来这里时，外科医生正试图挽救一只三岁的英国斗牛犬 Poppy，它面临的健康问题与 Frankie 类似。Poppy 挺过了气道手术，Brown 给我看了照片，照片中一只可爱的狗在术后的迷糊中抬头看向镜头。遗憾的是，Poppy 难以恢复。 “即使是最顶尖的治疗，也无法消除因追求极端体型而进行的人工繁育给她带来的伤害，”Brown 说道。最终，安乐死成了唯一人道的选择。
Poppy 和 Frankie 不再是特例，她们的命运 不再是例外。根据皇家兽医学院 (RVC) 在 2022, 年收集的数据，英国 20% 的犬类群体属于至少具有一种极端体型的品种。在过去十年中，进入 RSPCA 护理范围的法斗类犬只数量增加了 3,800 per cent —— 随着整体数量的增加，那些不愿或无法照顾这些宠物的主人数量也随之增加。
无鳞蜥蜴 经过繁育使其几乎没有鳞片， 丝背鬃狮蜥或“丝绒蜥” 可以（以高价）买到，且 有多种惊艳的颜色。它们的 寿命较短，难以脱皮，且 患病风险高。
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M
THE COLLECTION*
或者无法承担照顾一只具有极端特征宠物的费用。在同一时期，巴哥犬的数量几乎翻了一番，全国各地的救援中心也报告了类似的激增。
在被告知 Frankie 的遭遇后，我并没有预期会发现一只对其生活境遇感到特别兴奋的狗。但我完全想错了。她一从笼子里被接出来，就摇摇晃晃地走过来自我介绍。她摇着那截勉强能称作尾巴的东西。我抚摸她，她则更加亲昵地贴过来。就像其他接受过 BOAS（呼吸道阻塞综合征）手术的狗一样，她正在经历第一次能够正常呼吸的喜悦。你不可能不对这个扁脸的小家伙完全心软。我想，这正让我成为了问题的一部分。
当 Formoy 谈到髋关节和肘关节发育不良时，她热情地在一旁看着——这种情况在法国斗牛犬和巴哥犬中很常见，但在体型较大的英国斗牛犬中更为普遍。同样由于选择性育种，这些狗坐的时候腿部向两侧分开是很正常——而且很可爱——的。“但这根本不正常，”Formoy 说，“这是它们无法以正常方式坐立的迹象，也是导致寿命缩短的主要原因。衰老的迹象——僵硬、活动不便、关节炎——出现得要早得多。”
兽医可以进行髋关节置换术或挽救手术（将股骨头锯掉），但这两种方案都非常昂贵，且康复过程痛苦。你如何向一只狗解释它必须进行物理治疗？现实是，兽医不得不提前给动物实施安乐死。在 2022 年的一项研究中，皇家兽医学院 (RVC) 发现法国斗牛犬的平均预期寿命仅为四年半。早在它们拥有正常的口鼻部，且主要被饲养用于捉鼠而非为了 Instagram 的时代，它们的预期寿命可能是现在的两倍。
ASHLEIGH BROWN / RSPCA. GETTY IMAGES
“生活质量实在太差了，”Formoy 说，“如果它们拥有正常的关节，不会这么快就达到那个（衰竭）临界点。”唯一的替代方案是狗推车，这就解释了为什么该市场自疫情以来大幅增长。只需在 TikTok 中搜索 #DogStrollerUK 或 #PetParentLife 就能看到。
过去十年中 RSPCA 照顾的 短头 (扁脸) 猫 数量增加
今日问题的根源可以追溯到 19 世纪。在此之前的数千年里，人们培育和饲养狗是因为它们拥有使其在某些任务（如狩猎、放牧、看守和寻回）中表现更出色的特质。它们的外貌并不重要。随后，富有的维多利亚时代人们开始饲养除了取悦主人外没有实际用途的宠物。到了 19 世纪，几个组织在竞争地塑造新兴的纯种犬繁育世界。最终，肯内尔俱乐部 (Kennel Club) 成为了评定什么是“好狗”的仲裁者。
快进 150 年，加上一场大流行病，撒上一把社交媒体的影响，以及大量的市场力量，就形成了我们今天的局面——一个在很大程度上缺乏监管的市场，其中最可爱的狗售价最高。至于它们是否能放牧、狩猎或寻回，则变得无关紧要。
RVC 的伴侣动物流行病学教授丹·奥尼尔 (Dan O’Neill) 将他的职业生涯奉献给了我们的宠物。作为一名兽医，他注意到一个令人担忧的趋势。那些因为极端体型而不得不让宠物安乐死的客户，往往会再次购买同一类型的动物。“他们的认知是，他们只是运气不好，”他说。他意识到，他需要证据来抵制这些极端情况的常态化。
“我在全科诊所工作了 22 年，在这段时间里，我看到的体型极端的动物越来越多，”他说。“它们的痛苦正被常态化。”他从尝试逐一救助动物，转向在学术界进行群体水平的研究。截至上个月，他已通过 RVC 的 VetCompass 研究项目发表了 170 篇论文。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 波比 (Poppy)，一只英国斗牛犬，在气道手术前及手术期间的照片；她最终被实施了安乐死。下方：大麦点狗 (dalmatians) 身上极端的花斑基因可能导致耳聋。
在担任英国短头颅工作组（UK Brachycephalic Working Group）主席十年后，奥尼尔（O’Neill）表示，临床健康与先天健康之间存在根本区别。他解释道：“你可能拥有一只脸扁平、皮肤褶皱深、眼睛凸出、脊柱僵硬且没有尾巴可以摇摆的狗，但它还没有患上严重的疾病。从严格的临床健康角度来看，这只狗被认为是‘健康’的，但它一生都在遭受情感上的痛苦。它无法完全眨眼或正常活动。它无法正常交流、咀嚼、睡眠或呼吸，以此类推。这只狗在先天上是不健康的，因为它出生时拥有的身体无法让它过上完整且自然的生活。”
对于奥尼尔来说，健康的基准是动物具备执行其物种所有功能的能力。“这些能力在极端形态（extreme conformation）下会丧失。每当我们不得不为一只动物进行BOAS（短鼻气管综合征）手术时，这就是一种人性的失败，因为这些都是我们可以选择避免的疾病。”
奥尼尔是生活的热情拥护者——他对研究课题的热忱极具感染力——但我们对待那些“被我们赋予伴侣之名”的动物的方式让他感到愤怒。他说：“这完全是可以预防的。这完全是人为造成的。更糟糕的是，我们对此视而不见，因为我们认为这些动物很可爱，而且它们爱我们。我们给了它们一辈子的痛苦，仅仅是为了拥有的一只不再像狗一样的狗。”他指出，如果一只狗在自然界中产生了对物种不利的突变，那么这种突变将会消失。这就是为什么郊狼、澳洲野犬、狐狸、狼、胡狼和其他野生犬类看起来都非常相似的原因。“只有在宠物犬身上，我们才会主动选择有害的突变。”
我问奥尼尔，人们究竟为什么在明知宠物先天不健康的情况下仍选择它们。给一只斗牛犬买保险的费用是拉布拉多犬的两倍多，这个事实难道不应该引起警觉吗？他及其同事研究过这个问题，他将其归结为认知失调。他说：“他们爱这些狗，但他们知道这些狗有健康问题，因此他们通过淡化这些健康问题来化解这种失调。他们对自己说，‘我知道我不该养腊肠犬，我的上一只因为这种病不得不被安乐死，但我爱它们。我会照顾好它们的。我会确保它们拥有最好的一切。’”
S
MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY, PETS4HOMES, SHUTTERSTOCK
amuel Bradley 负责管理 RSPCA（英国皇家防止虐待动物协会）的情报部门。在英国，任何人都可以繁殖狗，且各成员国之间的法规有所不同。在英格兰，只有当你在 12 个月内繁殖三胎或更多，并且至少卖出一只幼犬时，才需要繁殖许可证。目前存在星级评定制度，
一只具有“极端形态” 的英国斗牛犬。 下方，从左至右： 一只现代八爪狗（pug）和 一只 19 世纪后期的 示例
给一只英国斗牛犬 投保的近似费用， 是某些品种 的两倍多
风险评级以及适用于该执照的严格福利标准。确保这些规则被遵守是布拉德利工作的一部分，因此我问他为什么 RSPCA（英国皇家动物保护协会）不能对那些创造这些“弗兰肯斯坦宠物”的繁育者采取行动。“问题在于，这是一种尚未存在的假设性动物，”他说，“现行的《动物福利法》中没有关于未来未出生动物的规定。”
如果他的团队发现动物因极端繁育而受苦，他们可以且确实会采取行动，但起诉仅是在有人蓄意且持续地犯罪时的最后手段。事实是，这个问题已经变得太大、太普遍，以至于无法将其全部刑事化。布拉德利表示，关键在于改变习惯。“我们想做的是改变那些尚未被繁育的动物的未来，这样它们就不必承受不必要的痛苦。因为情况可能会变得更糟。”
潜在买家可以留意那些预示着糟糕繁育实践的危险信号——例如，母犬不在场、不愿签署合同协议、广告中使用人工智能或伪造图像，以及对极端特征和其他健康问题的认知匮乏。毕竟，养狗是一辈子的事，而不仅仅是互联网上一个可疑的广告。
在过去的几年里，布拉德利观察了犬类繁育市场的演变。“人们现在把狗当作一种产品来买卖，”他说，“他们以前关注的是健康、性格和行为——哪只狗最适合我的生活，我能最好地照顾哪只狗？现在，它成了符合某人自我认同、个人品牌以及他们认为自己是什么样的人的一种产品。”如果一个产品被视为新鲜、新颖或稀有，它就会获得更高的价格。即便这个产品是一只气道受限的狗，也无所谓。
一切在疫情期间发生了变化，当时英国幼犬的平均价格从 £808 翻了一倍多，达到了 £1,875。“这意味着作为繁育者，你可以赚到相当可观的钱，”布拉德利说。如今，在线繁育者为他们的品牌设计标志——这些标志倾向于将经过选择性繁育的、皱巴巴的、大眼睛的动物描绘成卡通且可爱的样子。然后，这些繁育者通过竞争，做出最离奇的宣称——最稀有、最昂贵的狗——希望能吸引网红为他们制作 YouTube 视频。而这些网红当然乐于配合。
有一段视频展示了一只在美国以 $1 million 价格出售的“稀有色”法国斗牛犬，另一段则是配以戏剧性节拍的“毒液，这只 $500,000 美国比利牛亚犬”。分类广告中列出了某些“名门”斗牛犬的血统，而这些狗随后因其先天健康问题而死亡。这些宠物被开出的价格经常高达数千美元，而它们的兽医账单可能比这更多。
好消息是，提高意识可以带来改变。例如，在 XL 恶霸犬被定为非法后，一些狡猾的繁育者试图将 XL 恶霸猫以其肌肉发达、毛发稀疏的所谓“光辉形象”作为可行的替代品进行营销。“我们看到了这种情况，并采取行动，通过媒体发声并在网上进行应对，”布拉德利说。“现在，当你搜索它们时，希望你会看到一个包含 XL 猫相关健康警告和医疗状况的摘要。”
PAUL STUART 为《周日泰晤士报》杂志拍摄，图片来源 ALAMY, REDDIT, YOUTUBE
用于开通气道的 BOAS 手术 费用
左图：一只哈士奇色法国斗牛犬。上图：宠物车为行走困难的狗分担压力
2022年 法国斗牛犬的 平均预期寿命
在芬斯伯里公园 (Finsbury Park) 动物医院上方的行政楼层里，腊肠犬 Thelma 正警觉地坐在一把旋转椅上。她的主人，医院经理克莱尔·海格 (Claire Hague) 正在去拿三明治，于是我礼貌地自我介绍，并提醒 Thelma 腊肠犬有严重的背部问题，她真的应该下来。Thelma 根本不理会。她一直吠叫直到我离开，随后当我向海格告状时，海格表现得很乐观。“我们尝试了所有方法来阻止她跳上来，”她说，“海绵踏步垫、斜坡，所有方法都试过了——但她就是会突然兴奋地乱跳。”当 Thelma 持续跳到海格女儿的床上时，她们想出的解决方案不是改变狗，而是更换一张较低的床。
海格在五年前收养了 Thelma，此前 Thelma 从一家幼犬养殖场被救出。海格原本绝不会考虑养腊肠犬，因为她知道这意味着什么——但 Thelma 需要一个家，“而且她看起来实在太可爱了”。
“我们需要停止提供人类想要的东西，”她严肃地说道，“我们需要去收养中心，而不是去繁育者那里，完全不要去，因为现在有太多的狗，而且它们被繁育到了荒谬的程度。”
“优先收养”政策肯定会产生影响——起码它能缓解市场的热度。不过，艾什莉·布朗 (Ashleigh Brown) 希望她的五年战略能引导我们与宠物之间关系发生改变。她战略的首要愿景是“发起一场宠物健康运动——让那些具有有害身体特征的繁育行为变得不可接受”。这似乎很合理。“伴侣动物无法选择自己出生的身体，也无法选择充满痛苦的生活，”她补充道，“保护它们的责任在于我们。”运气好的话，Frankie 很快就能安排上最后一次改变生活的手术。
访问 rspca.org.uk/ecreport。有关宠物极端体型特征的建议，请访问 rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/genetics
从左起：无毛 XL 恶霸犬尽管存在健康顾虑，但在网上销售；医院经理克莱尔·海格与腊肠犬 Thelma
在成为吉米·亨德里克斯 (Jimi Hendrix) 的巡演助理 (roadie) 时， 是一名来自格拉斯哥市政住宅区的 21岁青年。 这是他关于与世界上最伟大吉他手 共度那疯狂三年的记录。
吉米·亨德里克斯在纽约 菲尔摩东剧院演出， 1968年5月
“让它运转起来！快让它运转起来，你这个……” 5月23日，1968年，吉米在米兰的舞台上，距离我不到两英尺。无论他吼出了什么样的脏话，都被他身后音墙爆发出的巨响给淹没了。那声音听起来简直糟糕透顶。
我递给他一把更换的吉他，试图解释是意大利的电力供应出了问题，而不是设备的问题。但他听不清我的话，就像我听不清他的话一样。在他看来，他的新随团路演人员（roadie）只是在找借口。而这显然让他愤怒到了极点。
谩骂接踵而至，而我无能为力。我当时 21 岁，宿醉极其严重，而且这是我随吉米·亨德里克斯体验乐队（Jimi Hendrix Experience）进行的首场演出，才唱了两首歌。这绝对不是我在前一天晚上接受这份肯辛顿夜总会工作时所预想的情况。
在最后一首歌期间，吉米将所有的沮丧都发泄在了设备上。他把放大器打得体无完肤，并用吉他的琴颈在扬声器上戳了几个巨大的洞。难怪之前的路演人员在巡演中途吞了一桶 LSD 药物然后彻底消失了。
那天深夜，我请求巡演经理盖里·斯蒂克尔斯（Gerry Stickells）给我一张回伦敦的票。他说服我多留一段时间，于是我眯了两个小时，然后前往罗马为下一场演出做准备。
当乐队抵达剧院时，吉米的英国队友——鼓手米奇·米切尔（Mitch Mitchell）和贝斯手诺埃尔·雷丁（Noel Redding）给了我温暖的拥抱。接着，
吉米本人走了过来。他把胳膊搭在我的肩膀上，领着我走离舞台，远离其他人。
他比我高，大四岁，身材苗条而修长，穿着一件紫色压花天鹅绒裤子和一件粉色荷叶边衬衫，脖子上挂着一枚巨大的奖章在随之摆动。他看起来完全就是一名摇滚巨星。而且，他显得非常抱歉。
“嘿，昨晚的事我很抱歉，埃里克。我不该那样做。”他用他那低沉、低语的声音说话，缓慢而强烈。我被迷住了。
“我知道那都不是你的错，伙计。全是我自己的问题。我时差没倒过来。就是太累了，你知道的。所以求你了，别回家，伙计。留下吧。留下，成为这个家庭的一员。”
他给了我一个灿烂的笑容，轻声咯咯地笑了起来。他是一个绅士，是我见过的最有魅力的人，我被彻底折服了。这家伙是谁，昨晚那个疯子到底怎么了？
后来我了解到，吉米一直有两种状态：舞台上狂野的艺术家，以及舞台下腼腆、迷人的男人。应对舞台上的吉米，关键在于理解他的情绪。每一个音符都是他当时心情的写照。这就是为什么他从不会以同样的方式演奏同一首歌两次，也是为什么没有任何录音能完全捕捉到他的天才之处。
但在聚光灯之外，吉米是一个腼腆、缺乏安全感的男人，他对自己糟糕的皮肤感到自卑，并且深感不适于成为关注的中心。他的视力极差，本应该
戴眼镜的，但那样可能会破坏他的光芒。
阴云确实会笼罩在他心头，但这些阴云通常在出现后很快就会散去，然后他会重新开始开玩笑。他有温暖且具有感染力的笑声，而当他的微笑看向你时，能点亮你的一整天。每当有记者在演出前采访他时，他总是特意称赞米奇和诺埃尔，并确保他们也能接受采访。
当你身在吉米身边时，你立刻就能感觉到自己正面对着一位巨星。我当然同意留下。当他那样说话时，我几乎会同意任何要求。
格拉斯哥男孩邂逅吉他之神
我在格拉斯哥的科特布里奇 (Coatbridge) 这个粗粝的郊区长大。我父亲在我五岁时去世，他此前在钢厂一周劳作六天。他当年 39 岁。我的叔伯们选择了煤矿，但没有一个人能活到 50 岁。这看起来并不像是一种理想的生存方式。我的母亲很希望我能上大学，成为一名医生或律师，但我讨厌我那严格的天主教学校，抓住每一个机会反叛，并因旷课被开除。我唯一热爱的是音乐。我组建了一支乐队并梦想成为明星，但我的队友决定用一个唱歌更好的人取代我。到 1965 年夏天，我 18 岁，在艾尔 (Ayr) 的一个巴特林 (Butlin’s) 度假村工作，此前我之前做过的每一份烂工作都被开除了。一支来自利物浦、名为 Koobas 的四人组合来到那里进行驻场演出，并且
在那个赛季结束时，他们邀请我担任他们的巡演助理（roadie）。
1967年初，我仍在为他们工作，当时音乐圈的所有人都在讨论一支名为“Hey Joe”的歌曲在电台中播放的英美三人新组合。关于其吉他手水平之高的传闻不胫而走。人们称他能背着吉他弹，在两腿之间弹，甚至用牙齿弹。我们中没有人完全相信。
当然，一旦我开始为吉米（Jimi）工作，我就发现这一切都是真的。而且不止于此。他用电吉他能做出我从未见过的动作。有些人认为他用牙齿弹琴是造假的。当我亲眼看到他这么做时，我不禁脊背发凉。
吉米出生在西雅图。他的父亲在美国陆军服役。他的母亲是一名女服务员兼歌手，在他青少年时期因脾脏破裂去世。18岁时，吉米因被发现乘坐偷来的车辆而面临监禁，于是他加入了军队，进入第101空降师，在那里他与军事纪律格格不入。一年后，他被荣誉除名，他后来将其归因于一次跳伞训练中导致脚踝受伤。接下来的四年里，他为 Isley Brothers、Little Richard 以及 Ike and Tina Turner 担任伴奏吉他手。随后，在 1966, 查斯·钱德勒（Chas Chandler）在纽约格林威治村看到了他的表演，将其带到伦敦并围绕他组建了一支乐队。
我是经过一个狂饮之夜后被雇佣的。当时在凌晨1点，我遇到了已经认识的米奇（Mitch）和诺埃尔（Noel）。他们告诉我他们缺一名巡演助理。
吉米和我来自不同的世界。他是来自西雅图的黑人军校辍学生；而我是来自格拉斯哥市政住宅区的白人逃学青年。但就像许多二十多岁的年轻人一样，我们因为音乐、女孩和药物而建立了深厚的情谊。
在第一次那个短暂的意大利和瑞士巡演中，吉米展示了他的全部绝活。我不记得他是否纵火烧过什么，但他砸毁了很多把吉他和扩音器。在表演前他从未提醒过我。我认为直到到了返场表演的时候，他自己才知道要这么做。
[[IMG_PREVIOUS PAGES: ELLIOTT LANDY / MAGNUM PHOTOS. THESE PAGES: GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK, ERIC HAYES]]
左上图：1970. 年，亨德里克斯（Hendrix）和埃里克·巴雷特（Eric Barrett）抵达希思罗机场。上图：1967, 年，吉米·亨德里克斯经验乐队（the Jimi Hendrix Experience）在伦敦 Marquee 俱乐部表演，米奇·米切尔（Mitch Mitchell）担任鼓手，诺埃尔·雷丁（Noel Redding）担任贝斯手。下图：巴雷特阻止了亨德里克斯在舞台上推倒一个扬声器堆，他自己头朝下翻滚，甚至用牙齿顶着。
在我上台之前，我总是指着一把旧吉他，或者一把我重新组装过的吉他说：“吉米，如果你今晚打算砸吉他，请用那一把。”有时他会听我的，而有些夜晚则不听。我记得有一把非常精美的 Fender Stratocaster；我惊恐地看着他在博洛尼亚的返场表演中将其摧毁。
演出结束后在后台，我问他：“为什么？”我记得他的回答就像在昨天一样：“埃里克，伙计，我实在没法从中榨出更多东西了。我已经挤干了那把吉他能给我的一切音符和声音。它已经没有什么可以给我的了。”
生日快乐，伙计 那个九月，我在洛杉矶的贝内迪克特峡谷（Benedict Canyon）与乐队成员合租了一间房子，住了三周。第一天早晨吉米走出房间时对我喊了一声。他嘴里叼着烟，后面跟着几个咯咯笑的女孩。尽管天气炎热，他赤裸上身但仍穿着长裤。甚至在几周前马略卡岛的海滩上，吉米也穿着麂皮裤、天鹅绒喇叭裤或紫色牛仔裤。这个男人 24-7 全天候看起来都像个摇滚巨星。
他走过来，递给我一叠钞票。“生日快乐，伙计。”他给了我 $500 —— 当时我们一场演出的票价大约是 $4.。“去给自己买件酷东西，我请客，”他说。我不知道他是怎么发现我 22 岁生日的。我买了一件我所有过的最精美的外套。
当吉米邀请我成为这个家庭的一员时，他是认真的。
我的加入部分原因可能在于那个时代 —— 当时大家还在摸索巡演和成名这回事是如何运作的 —— 但很大程度上取决于吉米的性格。他将自己视为一名音乐家，而非一名明星。如果他想买衣服，他就走进商店自己买。在巡演期间，他住在霍华德·约翰逊酒店（Howard Johnson’s）或假日酒店（Holiday Inn），和我们其他人一样。
左图：亨德里克斯（Hendrix）与巴雷特（Barrett）在洛杉矶的贝内迪克特峡谷，1968.。底图：与保罗·麦卡特尼（Paul McCartney），1969, 埃里克·克莱普顿（Eric Clapton）和露露（Lulu），均为 1967.。右图：在伦敦，1967
他讨厌伴随名声而来的关注 —— 除非那是来自美女的关注。事实上，唯一能让他放下吉他并暂时将音乐搁置在一边的事情，就是女孩。
吉米对女性有着无穷的着迷。我不是在用一种古怪的方式描述；他只是单纯地喜欢与美丽、充满活力的女孩们在一起。他在她们面前也非常害羞，即便每场演出后都有数十名女孩向他投怀送抱。
我不知道他告诉她们每个人说了什么，但总有许多女性认为自己就是那个“唯一”。当“体验”乐队（the Experience）处于巡演间隙时，成员们会各自散开。米奇（Mitch）和诺艾尔（Noel）在伦敦有自己的住所。但吉米会去他当时交往的任何一个女孩的公寓 —— 如果她不住在伦敦，就去酒店。如果乐队有公务，盖里（Gerry）和我就不得不打电话给吉米最喜欢的酒店，或者开车跑遍他所有不同女友的住所来寻找他。他会带着一脸坏笑地走出来，完全没意识到他给我们造成了多少压力。成为吉米家庭的一员，结果成了一项全职的、全年的工作。
当然，药物一直都在 —— 用来帮助他克服天生的害羞，并刺激他的创造力。
在关于吉米的几次采访中，我对他的药物使用情况撒了谎。我要么回避问题，要么简单地淡化他以及我们其他人的消费量。在其他时候，尤其是他去世后不久，我否认他曾使用过药物。
事实是，药物供应充足且摄入量巨大。从我随他第一次巡演开始，我就看到吉米服用过很多 LSD，抽很多大麻，吸很多可卡因，并吞了很多药丸。
在那些日子里，药物就像追星族一样跟随乐队四处走动。在后台，总是有人在传递大麻烟卷和药丸。人们会分享他们的
像握手一样随意地对待药物。观众席上的孩子甚至会在演出期间把药扔到舞台上。我经常看到诺埃尔在弹贝斯，歌曲唱到一半，突然弯腰捡起某人扔到舞台上的大麻烟卷或迷幻药片。他很喜欢免费的药。
米奇和诺埃尔在不同场馆之间开车或飞行时，肩膀上都背着塞满大麻、大麻哈希什、可卡因、迷幻药片、亚硝酸异戊酯瓶以及各种药片的挎包。当他们办理酒店入住时，会像其他客人一样，随手将包交给行李员或门童。在某个时间点，米奇开始在脖子上戴一条链子，坠子是一个菠萝形状的。那个菠萝是镂空的，里面总是装满可卡因，甚至在他飞行时也是如此。
图片由 ERIC BARRETT, STARSTOCK, AVALON, SHUTTERSTOCK 提供
与麦卡特尼（以及乔治·贝斯特）会面 被绳索隔离的区域、颁奖典礼、仅限 A 级明星参加的活动——所有这些所谓的名声附庸都不是吉米的风格。
在马略卡岛，诺埃尔和我有机会与乔治·贝斯特在海滩上踢球。在当时，除了贝利，他可能是世界上最著名的足球运动员。乔治非常渴望见到吉米，但吉米绝不可能放下饮料，离开他的日光浴椅来和我们一起跑来跑去。当我带着乔治过去介绍时，吉米根本不知道这个足球名人是谁，但由于他一向谦逊，便假装认识并与他聊天，直到我们都被西班牙警察赶出海滩。显然，我们违反了某项未公示的“海滩禁止球类游戏”法律。
另一次，诺埃尔和我带吉米去了伦敦的一家坦都里餐厅。斯派克·米利根当时正在那里用餐，我们三个人正喝得醉醺醺地模仿斯派克在《傻瓜秀》（Goon Show）中的一些段子，这时他走过来与吉米见面。他请我们喝了几瓶香槟。他也是一名亨德里克斯的忠实粉丝——谁能想到呢？
但通常情况下，这类场合会让他感到非常不舒服。我曾陪吉米去参加一个在伦敦邮政塔顶层的派对。我不记得具体是什么活动，只记得那里有很多名人，包括披头士乐队的一些成员。当吉米和我走出电梯，看到那群星光熠熠的人群时，他低声地耳语道：“天呐，我需要喝一杯。”这时有人开始向他走来打招呼。吉米紧张地咽了口唾沫。“那是保罗·麦卡特尼，”他低声说道。
就在披头士乐队发行专辑几天后，我在伦敦萨维尔剧院看到吉米演奏《萨格特·佩珀之孤独之心俱乐部乐队》，当时观众席中至少有两名披头士成员，那时吉米状态很好。但在一个没有吉他可以躲在后面的派对上，他面对这些人时地紧张和不安，正和我一样。
帮我拿着吉他！ 1970年8月26日，我在纽约参加 Electric Lady 录音室的正式开业派对，这个项目对吉米来说极其重要。他投入了大量资金和精力，将格林威治村的一家废弃夜总会改造成为一座最先进的录音室。这里有弧形墙壁、太空船般的内饰和彩虹色的灯光，能够给他渴望的创作自由。
但吉米很紧张。他计划在四天后参加怀特岛音乐节。他已经有一段时间没在欧洲巡演了，不确定会受到粉丝怎样的欢迎。“他们可能已经把我忘了，”他说，“他们可能不再关心我了。”“相信我。即便你把乐队改名叫‘吉米·亨德里克斯花卉展乐队’，孩子们还是会来看你的。”他笑了，这次让我赢了。
T
OU
“你在说什么，埃里克？” “吉米死了，你觉得我在说什么？”
于是，在8月31日凌晨2点，吉米·亨德里克斯经验乐队（Jimi Hendrix Experience）终于登上了怀特岛的舞台。当吉米走上去时，他碰了碰巡演经理盖里（Gerry）。“英国国歌怎么唱来着？”盖里哼了几个音符，吉米点了点头。在完全没有排练的情况下， he 以自己的版本演绎了《上帝保佑女王》开场——他对英国国歌所做的处理，就像他之前在伍德斯托克音乐节上对《星条旗》所做的一样。
不过，在又唱了几首歌之后，他看向我并做了一个手势。那不是我认得的手势，不属于我们之间建立的那套无声词典。吉米在演奏时移到舞台侧边，说道：“你能给我拿个安全别针和一条毛巾吗？”我挑起眉毛。“我的裤子裂开了。而且我没穿内裤。”
CHARLES EVEREST / CAMERONLIFE PHOTO LIBRARY, COURTESY OF ERIC BENNETT, NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD.
我们约定在巨大的音箱堆后面见面，避开观众的视线。他当时正在演奏一首歌，于是他把我的手指放在指板上，在我耳边大喊道：“抓住颤音杆，前后抖动它！”吉米在双手空闲时，将我给他的毛巾围在腰间，脱下了裤子。当然，观众看不出演奏的不是吉米。所有在舞台侧面观看的工作人员和艺术家——其中包括 The Who 乐队的皮特·汤普森（Pete Townshend）——都在笑我攻击颤音杆时的那副狂热模样。吉米在裤子掉到膝盖的高度时，暂停了修理，接管吉他演奏了一会儿。然后，他再次将我的手指放在品格上以形成一个新的和弦，让我再次在颤音杆上大展身手。我太投入在音箱传出的反馈声中，甚至开始用拳头猛击吉他。
最终吉米重新掌控局面，在欢呼和掌声中重新现身。我作为摇滚之神的两分钟时光结束了。在几个光辉的瞬间里，我在迄今为止规模最大的音乐节上，为吉米·亨德里克斯经验乐队演奏了主奏吉他。
沙堡 (Castles made of sand) 不到三周后，在伦敦，我酒店前台的女孩递给我一叠留言。第一条来自盖里，让我回电给他。下一条同样来自他，要求我“尽快”回电。所有的留言都来自盖里，每一条听起来都更加焦虑。也许吉米需要我陪他去纽约。
他的最后一次英国演出。左：演出后的亨德里克斯和巴雷特，约 1969 年。
下方：《太阳报》报道这位摇滚之星的逝世，1970 年 9 月。
（接上文）……他说。那是我听过他最心力交瘁的一次。他的声音听起来遥远且空洞，仿佛他是在地球另一端一个巨大的空房间里说话。随后他说了三个词，听起来和他的声音一样脱节：“吉米死了。”盖里告诉我，吉米当时和莫妮卡·丹内曼（Monika Dannemann）在一起，那是一个我介绍给他的德国女孩。他没知道更多信息。我的朋友走了，而我没能向他道别。怀特岛之行成了吉米·亨德里克斯经验乐队最后一次在英国的演出。
我给米奇（Mitch）打电话。电话占线。毫无疑问，他正被记者们围攻。我不停地拨号。当他终于接通时，我说了句类似这样的话：“我还没回过神来。你知道发生了什么吗？”
“你他妈在说什么？” 他不知道。 米奇告诉我，他本预计前一晚会收到吉米的消息。斯莱·斯通（Sly Stone）当时在伦敦，他们三人原本计划在 Speakeasy 俱乐部一起即兴演奏。但吉米没出现。
我走到最近的酒吧。我坐在角落的卡座里凝视着虚空。酒吧上方的电视开始播放新闻，报道吉米的死讯。“这位摇滚乐的野蛮之才在 27 岁时因药物过量去世……他在肯辛顿的圣玛丽·艾伯茨医院被宣布死亡……”随后的尸检结论认为，吉米是在服用巴比妥类药物中毒的情况下因窒息而死。我从未见过任何证据表明这除了是一场悲剧性的意外之外还有其他原因。
我突然想到了我的母亲，于是走到一部公用电话旁给她打电话。她从未见过吉米，也不喜欢那类音乐，但我经常提起他，她知道他对我意味着多少。我们简短地聊了一会儿，然后我在伦敦漫无目的地走着，在一家又一家寂寂无名的酒吧之间穿梭。关于吉米的记忆在我的脑海中一遍又一遍地闪现。
当我最终回到酒店时，我一路抽泣着走回房间，将脸深深地埋进毛巾里。电话一直响个不停。又是记者。我把电话听筒摘了下来 n
埃里克·巴雷特 (Eric Barrett) 曾负责包括大卫·鲍伊 (David Bowie)、麦当娜 (Madonna) 和史密斯潜行乐队 (Aerosmith) 在内的音乐家巡演管理，于 2013. 年退休。现年 79 岁，他现居住在洛杉矶。节选自《经验：与吉米·亨德里克斯同行及其后》(Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond)，由埃里克·巴雷特与劳伦斯·罗宾逊 (Lawrence Robinson) 合著 (Sphere 出版社，£25)，将于 8 月 6. 日出版。可在 timesbookshop.co.uk 订购。
斯图尔特·“普里奇”·普里查德（Stewart “Pritchie” Pritchard）还记得 1980 年代在格拉斯哥费尔菲尔德（Fairfield）造船厂担任焊工时，夜班是什么样子。这位 64 岁的老人用浓重的格拉斯哥口音说道：“冬天的时候，要么在下雪，要么在倾盆大雨。到处都是冰。”所以他们会弄一个简易的火盆。“我们会找一个巨大的空漆桶，在里面点火取暖。”
他们在克莱德河南岸的戈文（Govan）建造的船只规模如此巨大，以至于从脚手架楼梯走下到食堂，就可能耗掉 15 分钟茶歇时间的一大部分，因此工人们会把绳子扔到船壳侧面——普里查德说——“大概 150 英尺”，然后像加勒比海盗一样滑下来。“当时的气氛太棒了，”普里查德在回忆一位绰号叫 KitKat 的朋友时说道，因为他在一次工伤事故中失去了一根手指，“他只剩下四个手指”。
几十年来，健康与安全标准发生了很大变化。人们不再是制造船只
和管道地图，据推测是为了在发生冲突时 对其进行干扰
在户外风雨中工作之后，戈文（Govan）的工人们 现在在一座巨大的新厂房——珍妮特·哈维大厅（Janet Harvey Hall）内工作——这里挤满了 最新的技术设备。
“他们拥有最好的安全装备，”普里查德（Pritchard）说道。他曾从事石油和天然气工业的巨型船舶建造工作，现在在大厅后面的造船厂博物馆费尔菲尔德遗产中心（Fairfield Heritage）担任志愿者导游。 “焊工们使用的是送风面罩，这样他们就不会像我们当年那样吸入烟雾了——那些东西一个就得 £1,500。”
珍妮特·哈维大厅于去年6月启用，是以一名在第二次世界大战期间从事造船厂电工工作的先驱女性命名，她于 2023 年去世，享年 101. 岁。该建筑长 170 米、宽 80 米、高 56m 高，是苏格兰最大的建筑之一，目前被用于并排建造两艘军舰——这是英国政府为了增强衰弱的皇家海军而订购的数十亿英镑订单的一部分。
这座大厅是英国最大的国防承包商 BAE 集团（BAE Systems）在格拉斯哥码头投入 £300 million 投资的核心项目，为这座城市确保了数千个工作岗位和学徒机会。BAE 在克莱德河（Clyde）经营着两家造船厂，一家在戈文，另一家在向西两英里、河对岸的斯科茨敦（Scotstoun）。
在戈文建造的这两艘船是全新的“贝尔法斯特号”（HMS Belfast）和“伯明翰号”（HMS Birmingham）——这是 BAE 集团为皇家海军建造的 8 艘 Type 26 反潜护卫舰中的两艘，旨在应对俄罗斯潜艇在北大西洋日益增长的威胁。在俄罗斯远北的阿尔汉格尔斯克（Arkhangelsk）附近，弗拉基米尔·普京的塞夫马什（Sevmash）造船厂多年来一直在快速生产潜艇，以便静悄悄地潜入北极冰层之下。这些潜艇与无人潜航器协同，被发现执行绘制我们海底管道和数据电缆地图的任务，据推测是为了在发生冲突时对其进行干扰。
今年 2 月，我站在新“贝尔法斯特号”的甲板上，那是一片平整的灰色原钢区域，未来将成为直升机的起降点。原先的“贝尔法斯特号”自 1971 年起就作为博物馆船停泊在泰晤士河南岸，其设计目的是巡逻海洋、保护贸易路线并打击其他水面舰艇。它于 1938, 下水，参加了第二次世界大战和朝鲜战争，并于 1963 年退役。
新“贝尔法斯特号”则完全是另一个物种：它是新一代“城市级”护卫舰之一，装备了大量技术和武器，用于保护航空母舰。Type 26s 将成为地球上最先进的潜艇猎手。
全球各国海军都在密切关注。BAE 在格拉斯哥又为英国的北约伙伴挪威建造了至少五艘。加拿大和澳大利亚也购买了该设计用于其舰队，尽管他们的舰船不会在英国建造。
在 50 英里外，在由国防承包商巴布考克国际（Babcock International）运营的福斯湾（Firth of Forth）罗斯斯（Rosyth）造船厂的另一座全天候建造大厅前，我目睹了另一艘较小的英国军舰的诞生——“积极号”（HMS Active），一艘 Type 31 通用护卫舰。
在 400 名工人、显贵和当地电视新闻团队的陪同下，我伸长了脖子，观看这艘外观冷峻的枪灰色舰船在舞曲、激光和迪斯科灯光的伴随下揭幕。船首形状像鲨鱼的口鼻，在经过精确控制的台车上，缓缓地从大厅门中驶入船厂。
巴布考克正在罗斯斯为皇家海军建造至少五艘此类护卫舰，预计将于 2030 年代初服役。其 Venturer 建造大厅于 2021 年启用，其规模大到足以容纳 56 个奥运标准游泳池。
这两座巨大的厂房以及这两个护卫舰建造计划，代表了这一代人中罕见的投资。
GREG FUNNELL 为《周日时报》杂志（THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE），PA 通讯社
上方：格拉斯哥号 (HMS Glasgow) 是英国皇家海军在 BAE 格拉斯哥造船厂建造的 8 艘 26 型护卫舰中的第一艘。
下方：BAE 工作人员正在战舰的控制室安装先进的电子系统。
右下方：21 岁的电工 Caoimhe Dick 是在格拉斯哥 BAE 现场工作的 700 名学徒之一。
对面：12 月，一艘英国皇家海军油轮在英吉利海峡追踪一艘俄罗斯潜艇。
英国造船业。三年前我第一次访问格拉斯哥码头时，大多数工人都看起来像五十多岁。几十年来，造船厂一直没有招聘和培训任何新员工。而这一次，虽然周围仍有很多“白胡子”资深工（其中许多是从东欧招来的），但船厂里出现了更多 Z 世代和千禧一代。
21 岁的 Caoimhe Dick 在高中毕业后直接以电工学徒的身份加入 BAE。“我不想上大学，”她告诉我，棕色的头发扎成一个紧凑的马尾辫，“我想做一些实际操作的工作。”她现在处于学徒期的第四年，经常与团队一起在格拉斯哥号 (HMS Glasgow) 机舱的燃气轮机上工作。
这种由才华横溢且充满动力地年轻劳动力驱动的军工实力展示很容易令人印象深刻，但这次投资是否来得太晚了？罗赛斯 (Rosyth) 和戈文 (Govan) 的建造车间在德国、法国、荷兰、意大利、丹麦、韩国和日本的造船厂出现类似基础设施数年、甚至数十年之后才开放。而且我们已经落后于计划。格拉斯哥号 (HMS Glasgow) 最初计划于 2024 年交付。现在预计要到 2020 年代末才能交付。
但在 Janet Harvey 礼堂，这里不受天气影响并配备了机器人焊接机，人们希望每艘护卫舰的建造时间能比格拉斯哥号 (HMS Glasgow) 缩短一半。到 2028 年，克莱德河中新船下水的频率应达到每年一艘。相比之下，韩国最高效的造船厂每年可生产多达 50 艘船，尽管其中许多船只远没有这些高科技战舰那么复杂。问题是：这是否足够快，以应对那些威胁
嗯，我们需要过去 20, 30 年来一直在 海湾地区拥有的东西，但现在全部消失了”
离开英国海岸——并帮助我们在 更遥远的海洋中的盟友？
数十年之久的忽视 在冷战结束带来的盲目乐观中，历届英国 政府一直推迟对皇家海军的投资。当特朗普总统 在三月份就霍尔木兹海峡寻求英国的海军援助时， 我们陷入了尴尬的境地：在该地区没有一艘战舰。
自普里查德时代起，英国的造船业就陷入了剧烈 衰退。在离开戈万镇前往克莱德河畔散步时， 旧码头的幽灵在河边若隐若现——那些像 足球场一样大的混凝土墙方块，被灌木丛所掩盖。 在泰恩河畔也是如此，曾经伟大的 斯旺-亨特 (Swan Hunter) 造船厂因订单萎缩而于 2006 年停止运营，起重机被运往印度的造船厂。 甚至北爱尔兰的哈兰德与沃尔夫 (Harland & Wolff) 公司—— 这家曾为军事和民用客户（包括泰坦尼克号）在贝尔法斯特 建造船只的公司——也在去年陷入破产管理。
哈兰德与沃尔夫曾获得一项为皇家舰队辅助队 建造船只的合同，该部队的船只负责支持海军。 现在，从破产管理人手中收购哈兰德与沃尔夫的 西班牙纳凡蒂亚 (Navantia) 公司，正在其位于阳光 明媚的加的斯的高科技造船厂中建造第一批此类船只； 与此同时，纳凡蒂亚为贝尔法斯特历史悠久的造船厂 提供了急需的 £90 million 升级资金。
当海军缩减其在波斯湾的舰队时，其时机选择得 令人难以置信地糟糕。自 20 世纪 80 年代初 伊朗革命后，英国派遣了一支护卫舰和驱逐舰舰队 在该地区监视，自那时起就在海湾地区保持了 近乎永久的存在。到 2020 年代，这些船只已 超过退役期限，其中许多仍依赖 20 世纪 80 年代的技术。 随着船员年龄增长，海军不得不培训新人员， 而他们心知肚明，所学习的技能很快将过时。 因此，政府报废了该舰队，将节省的资金投入到 在苏格兰和加的斯建造的下一代舰船中。 问题在于，他们在引入新船之前就弃用了旧船。
“他们承担了风险——巨大的风险——认为在 中间这段时间里不会发生任何事情，”前海军上校 凯文·罗兰兹 (Kevin Rowlands) 说道，他目前是 皇家联合服务研究所 (RUSI) 的期刊编辑。 “但风险并未带来回报。他们搞错了过渡期。所以我们处于一个
上方：珍·布利 (Jen Blee)，46 岁，BAE 制造与设施 总监。下方：1951 年朝鲜战争期间执行任务的 贝尔法斯特号 (HMS Belfast)；1980 年戈万造船工
服役情况 首批三艘于 2030 年前交付
订单量 皇家海军 8 艘， 挪威 5 艘
寿命 最短 25 年
排水量 7,500 吨
速度 26+ 节
航程 超过 7,000 海里
长度 149.9m
宽度 20.75m
船员 161 人
住宿 最多 208 人
服役时间 首舰 2028年
在订量 5 艘
寿命 最少 30 年
排水量 5,700 吨
速度 28+ 节
航程 7,500 海里
长度 139米
宽 19.8米
船员 105 人
住宿 最多 190 人
situation where it’s, ‘What do we need in the Gulf now? Well, we need what we’ve had in the Gulf for 20, 30 years, but it’s all gone.’ ” （某种局面是，“我们现在在海湾地区需要什么？嗯，我们需要我们在海湾地区拥有了 20, 30 年的东西，但现在全部都没了。”）
驱逐舰缺口 在上个月基尔·斯塔默大幅削减的国防投资计划 (DIP) 发布之前，原计划是建造一系列大型驱逐舰级舰船，以取代海军中老旧的 45 型驱逐舰。
GREG FUNNELL 为《星期日时报》杂志拍摄，RAYMOND DEPARDON /MAGNUM PHOTOS, GETTY IMAGES
DIP 废弃了该方案，转而采取一个更廉价的计划，即建造六艘较小的舰船，被称为“通用战斗舰”，它们将作为无人潜艇、无人船和飞行无人机网络的指挥与控制枢纽。巴布考克公司认为，这六艘船可能是其在罗斯里（Rosyth）建造的 31 型舰的一个版本。
英国的造船业似乎在 DIP 的影响下相对毫发无损。前海军规划师罗兰斯表示，该计划对行业就业的整体影响将是“净中立”的。他补充道：“在必须建造的无人设备数量上，还将有所增长。”
俄罗斯的威胁被视为最紧迫的。英国需要尽快部署 26 型舰，因为它们将取代上一代 13 艘已服役 30 年的反潜战舰——这几乎是它们预期寿命的两倍。海军曾花费巨资对其进行改装以延长寿命，但其中一些舰船最终在不适宜的温暖海域服役。26 型舰不存在其前任所面临的过热问题，这意味着虽然它们主要在北大西洋运行，但能适应任何气候。
中口径炮的射程为 20 海里
可容纳 208 名船员的舱室，包括健身房、食堂和医疗设施
如何打造一艘潜艇猎手 当我站在 HMS Belfast 号（贝尔法斯特号）内的珍妮特·哈维大厅（Janet Harvey Hall）甲板上时，两台巨大的黄色歌利亚起重机在我的头顶天花板上移动。这些起重机正在对贝尔法斯特号的姊妹护卫舰 HMS Birmingham 号（伯明翰号）进行作业，小心翼翼地将一块在隔壁制造车间切割并焊接完成的船体内部组件吊起并安装到位。
这些船采用一种被称为“投入并封盖”（drop-in-and-cap-off）的模块化建造工艺。“其理念是将船壳视为一艘打开的独木舟，然后从顶部将设备投入其中，” 46 岁的珍·布利（Jen Blee）在周围通风设备的轰鸣声中大声喊道。布利是一名沉稳的苏格兰人，安全帽下留着亚麻色的齐肩发，她是制造与设施总监，因此她的职责是确保零件按时且按正确顺序组装并“投入”。
如果顺序出错，很快就会陷入困境，正如 BAE 公司在首批护卫舰 HMS Glasgow 号（格拉斯哥号）上所经历的那样。
其超先进变速箱的制造商遇到了故障，错过了建造流程中的安装时机。当设备最终抵达时，工程师们不得不在大船侧面切开一个巨大的孔洞才能将其安装，导致了进度延迟、成本超支以及尴尬局面。
摄影师和我获得了在斯科特斯顿（Scotstoun）参观 HMS Glasgow 号的专属机会——当然，我们首先在前端的 5英寸/62倍径炮下拍了自拍。该舰宽敞的、像“企业号”星舰一样的驾驶台和作战室正在安装屏幕和先进计算机，用于控制车载系统。
潜艇狩猎是一场猫鼠游戏：双方都不希望被对方发现。因此，26 型潜艇被设计成在水下对敌方潜艇几乎处于静默且不可见的状态。它由两台电动机驱动以进入隐身模式，其船体设计旨在无声地滑过水面。其 25 公里的管道、600 公里的电缆和 400 公里的光纤均由橡胶支架固定，以减轻任何吱吱作响的声音；而舰桥的地板则像 21 世纪的舞池一样采用弹簧结构，以消除噪音并吸收冲击。
其水下狩猎是通过一组高度敏感的声纳设备完成的，这些设备像章鱼的触手一样拖曳在
拖曳声纳
用于 发现敌方 潜艇的系统且
在船内行走就像是在穿行于一个没有窗户的金属迷宫。每隔几英尺，你就必须穿过一道舱壁。“这一切都是为了最大强度，”66, 岁的 BAE 舰船部门总经理西蒙·利斯特 (Simon Lister) 解释道，他挺拔的姿态显示出其曾任英国皇家海军中将的职业背景。“军舰不像商船，它们被高度细分，就像一系列的鸡蛋盒。”如果敌人击中其中一部分，希望它不会损坏整艘船。
208 人的船员将一次在船上生活数月。舒适度对于保持他们的快乐和积极性至关重要。睡眠舱——与你在一家像样的过夜渡轮上所预期的差不多——当时正由一名电信见习工程师安装 wifi。
穿过又一个舱口，我们来到一个一侧放有深邃空架子的房间。我们的向导是克雷格·麦克米伦 (Craig McMillan)，53. 岁，他是交付经理，是一名格拉斯哥造船厂之子，在 BAE 工作了 26 年。他解释说，这里是军舰的弹药库，用于存放直升机的武器。该空间采用了钢材和凯夫拉 (Kevlar) 装甲板，但直接命中仍可能是灾难性的。它的位置是这艘高度机密舰艇上最重要的秘密之一。
26 型护卫舰项目始于 1998 年。如此巨大且复杂的舰船需要极长的交付周期，这意味着海军规划者面临着全军可能最艰巨的战略任务：试图猜测 20 年后舰船投入运行之时，英国将面临什么样的威胁。考虑到这艘船应服役 30 年，预测时间跨度将延伸至半个世纪。“这玩意儿不容易，”罗兰兹 (Rowlands) 说道，“没有水晶球可以预知未来。”
考虑到创新的速度——20 年前谁能想到战争会由微型无人机决定胜负？——所有新船尽可能保持灵活至关重要。26 型舰在这方面的独特之处在于其体育馆规模的“任务舱”，这是一个巨大的覆盖区域，两侧通过两扇像兰博基尼鸥翼门一样巨大的舱门向大海开放。它如此之大，以至于可以容纳从多艘无人船和潜水器，到为灾难受害者准备的紧急救援物资箱，或者军方工程师在 20 年后发明的任何杀戮机器。同样，计算机的设计旨在轻松升级到新的战斗软件，而即使是舰桥上的地板也可以被拆起，以便快速安装新的指挥设备。
26 型舰并不便宜。挪威订购五艘（包括一些额外装备）的价格为 £10 billion，并且渴望尽快拿到订单。在威斯敏斯特，资金短缺的政府
在 BAE 位于戈万 (Govan) 巨大的珍妮特·哈维大厅 (Janet Harvey Hall) 内正在建造的伯明翰号 (HMS Birmingham)。下方：一名见习 fabrication 工人在斯考茨顿 (Scotstoun) 的贸易大厅磨练技能；25, 岁的卡拉·香农 (Cara Shannon) 在 BAE 担任电工，该公司资助其攻读学位
计划允许将为皇家海军预留的一批舰船中，至少有一艘分配给挪威。
我认为，所有这些关注对他而言一定是巨大的压力。他笑着说：“人们说压力是一种荣幸。”
31型：多功能战舰 在罗斯赛斯造船厂建造的护卫舰——这是一个紧邻庞大军事基地且背靠住宅区的巨大场地——比26型更基础，但成本更低且建造速度更快。这些战舰的用途极其广泛，从护航航空母舰到使用“战斧”巡航导弹打击敌军均可。首艘31型护卫舰“冒险者号”（HMS Venturer）于去年5月离开建设大厅，随后“活跃号”（HMS Active）于2月离厅。还将有三艘加入其中，全部将于本十年内投入使用。
“这是欧洲最快的建造计划，”巴布考克（Babcock）64岁的首席执行官大卫·洛克伍德（David Lockwood）在“活跃号”下水仪式上告诉我，“而且每造一艘，我们的效率和速度就会提高。”
31型护卫舰单艘成本高达 £250 百万，此前因新冠疫情封锁而推迟，并出现了严重的成本超支，这部分费用由巴布考克承担。洛克伍德说：“新冠疫情给该计划带来了真正的痛苦。当所有人都在隔离工作而不是团队协作时，[系统]中会出现更多漏洞。建造第一艘船确实非常艰苦。但这艘，”他点头看向“活跃号”说道，“速度快多了，而第三艘”——命名为“可畏号”（HMS Formidable）——“比这一艘更快。”
即便如此，31型护卫舰最初设计于 2015, 年底，因此从概念到完工仍将耗时 15 年。
培训下一代 庞大的订单意味着多年有保障的工作，这吸引了像 25 岁的电工卡拉·香农（Cara Shannon）这样的苏格兰年轻人进入该行业。BAE 正在资助她完成商业与项目管理学位，这是西苏格兰大学的一个四年制课程，她以兼职形式学习。“我们就处于整艘船神经系统的中心，”她在团队对复杂的电气系统进行一系列测试时说道。三十多岁的工程师们也在加入，他们从核能、航天和石油等其他领域转行而来。“这酷多了，”一名负责安装护卫舰控制室的团队成员说道。
GREG FUNNELL 为《星期日泰晤士报》杂志拍摄，ALAMY
巴布考克和 BAE 都启动了学徒计划。在斯科特斯顿造船厂，BAE 建立了自己的学院。去年约有 200 名学徒加入，使得目前在现场工作的培训生和学徒总数达到 700 人，使其成为英国最大的学徒项目之一。这里有明亮现代的理论教室，但学习者们更倾向于他们的
他们为捍卫国家的贡献与任何 身穿制服的人一样多”
HMS Venturer，一艘为皇家海军建造的 31 型护卫舰，于去年 6 月在福斯湾 (Firth of Forth) 首次亮相
在应用造船学院的贸易大厅里。这个高顶空间建于 20 世纪 50 年代，最初用于处理钢材，但现在这里成了学徒们在模拟的造船场景中进行新工艺实际操作的地方。
21 岁的钣金工学徒 Toby 表示，工作稳定性是一个重要因素。“我认为 30 年后这里依然会是个绝佳的去处。”
所有人都表达了一种自豪感，因为他们正在参与建造可能在某一天保护英国的舰船。这是 BAE 的董事总经理 Lister 为他们灌输的理念。“当我与员工交谈时，我会非常明确地告诉他们，他们为捍卫国家的贡献与任何身穿制服的人一样多，”他说。
高文能否再次崛起？ 随着这些庞大的造船合同带来的收益外溢至更广泛的经济领域，格拉斯哥市中心的酒吧和餐厅生意兴隆。不过，阴沉的高文 (Govan) 尚未直接感受到这些好处。在 Pritchard 的时代，当下午 5 点下班时，高文路上的 15 家左右的酒吧会变得拥挤不堪，成百上千的工人揣着工资从造船厂涌出。而现在，这条街几乎空无一人；大多数酒吧早已关门，该地区也未得到重建。
在 Brechins Bar 这家保留了木墙板的幸存酒吧里，77 岁的退休金属加工工 Robert Lang（曾为 Fairfield 造船厂供货）正喝着早晚的一品脱 Tennent’s 啤酒。他回忆起当年酒吧员工如何在下午 4.45 分就排好一排啤酒和 Eldorado 加烈葡萄酒，为五点钟的客流高峰做准备。
“就像蚂蚁一样，全部涌出来，奔向酒吧，”他说。“Albert、Old Vic、Commercial、Red Lantern。全都坐满了。没错，周五的夜晚简直不可思议。”
这种大规模就业的 20 世纪辉煌时代将不再回来，但得益于政府采购中“走走停停”现象的结束，体面的技术岗位正在回归。凭借未来几年来自国防部 (MoD) 的可靠收入，人们希望这种影响能波及到当地企业，让这个曾经繁荣的地区再次崛起。
McMillan 在组织他的团队在 Scotstoun 装备 HMS Glasgow 时，深知这一责任。“我们不仅仅是在造一艘船，”他说，“我们是在打造一个产业。” n
马尔堡 (Marlborough) ……一个从无到有、在极短时间内成为世界顶尖的葡萄酒产区，这段时间大约相当于葡萄藤适应环境所需的时间。40 年。弹指一挥间。
而这一切的核心是 Ernie Hunter——出生于贝尔法斯特，为人亲切，势不可挡——以及他的澳大利亚妻子 Jane。他们率先将马尔堡 Sauvignon Blanc 推向更广阔的世界……那次亮相堪称惊艳。
Hunter’s Home Block Sauvignon Blanc 2025 sundaytimeswineclub.co.uk 独家葡萄酒送货上门
秘诀何在？地理、地质以及少数坚毅的早期信奉者。马尔堡的土壤基本上是石堆——有些地方甚至是巨石——迫使根系深扎。南岛的阳光、凉爽的夜晚、阻挡雨水的山脉……简直是葡萄的完美生长地。结果如何？Sauvignon Blanc 的风味被推向了极致。
Hunter’s Home Block 的最新年份——来自最初的葡萄园——刚刚到货。
通常在人们还没来得及在酒窖地板上腾出空间之前，它就被抢购一空。但凭借我们 40 年的友谊，总有几百箱是为我们的客户预留的……
Ernie 一定会坚持这样做的。
鸡蛋问题解答 ● 让麦当娜也倾心的桶装艾尔啤酒 Adam Kay 经由伊比萨岛品尝希腊美食 ● 绿酒 (Vinho verdes) 品鉴
另外
S K Y E M c A L P I N E
藏红花香杏干薄烤饼 法式薄烤饼 (crêpes) 是一种非常实用的早餐选择，尤其是如果您提前准备的话。您可以预先调制好面糊，并在前一天晚上将薄烤饼煎好，然后将每块饼填入炖好的杏子，折成三角形，摆放在烤盘上并存放在冰箱中，最长可保存 24 小时。准备享用时，放入中温烤箱轻轻加热即可。
配料 (2 人份) 总耗时 20 min
杏子部分 • 60g 细砂糖 • 1 撮藏红花 • 6 个杏子，去核并切成四等分
薄烤饼部分 • 70g 普通面粉 • 1 个鸡蛋 • 140ml 全脂牛奶 • 盐味黄油，用于煎炸
1 将糖和藏红花放入一个小炖锅中，加入 120ml 水，加热至糖溶解。加入杏子，用小火炖 18-20 min，直到杏子变软且大部分液体收干，然后将其置于一旁。
2 制作薄烤饼：将面粉筛入一个中号搅拌碗中，加入鸡蛋和牛奶，搅拌至面糊光滑。
3 在一个小煎锅中（我使用直径 23cm 的锅）用中火融化少量黄油，刚好足以润锅即可。待锅热后，倒入少许面糊，晃动锅子使其均匀铺满锅底。
4 当表面开始出现小气泡时，轻轻晃动锅子，用刮刀将薄饼翻面。第二面煎 30-60 秒，直到呈浅金色，然后将其取出放在盘中。
5 用剩余的面糊重复上述过程——这份面糊大约可以制作 4 块薄烤饼。
6 在每块薄饼中填入藏红花香杏子果酱。立即享用。
蜂蜜桃子配打发里科塔奶酪 酸种烤面包片
对于像我这样爱吃甜食的人来说，没有比这种可以被直接称为“甜点”的早餐更好的开启一天的方式了——这些蜂蜜桃子是我最喜欢的早餐之一。
配料 (2 人份) 总耗时 10 min，另加冷却时间 • 70ml 蜂蜜 • 1 个大桃子，去核并切成四等分 • 150g 里科塔奶酪 (ricotta) • 2 片酸种面包
用中火加热。煮至沸腾，当糖浆开始冒泡时，将火力调低至慢炖。
2 加入桃子并在糖浆中炖 5-6 min，直到变软。要测试是否煮好，可用刀插入果肉中；你应该感觉到几乎没有阻力。冷却后，轻轻剥掉桃子块的皮；将其留在糖浆中置于一旁。
3 将里科塔奶酪舀入小碗中，用叉子打发至质地轻盈、顺滑。烤好面包，在每片吐司上放上二分之一的奶酪、两块桃子并淋上蜂蜜糖浆。立即享用。
开心果法式吐司 配马斯卡彭芝士和 樱桃 这始终是一道诱人的 快速慰藉美食。我热爱 柔软蛋香面包与开心果 酱的结合，但如果你愿意， 也可以将开心果酱更换为 巧克力榛子酱、果酱、海盐 焦糖酱，甚至是开心果 酱与果酱的组合。 准备工作仅需几分钟， 且绝对深受大众喜爱。
摄影：SKYE McALPINE. GETTY IMAGES
配料 （2 人分量） 总耗时 15 min • 60ml 全脂牛奶 • 1 个鸡蛋 • 1 满汤匙细砂糖
• 40g 开心果酱 • 2 片厚切软面包 • 盐黄油，用于煎炸 • 糖粉，用于装饰 • 75g 马斯卡彭芝士 • 一把樱桃，去核
1 将牛奶、鸡蛋和细砂糖 放入一个中号搅拌碗中， 搅拌至成光滑的蛋液。
2 将开心果酱抹在其中一 片面包上，然后用刀将其 均匀铺开。用第二片面包 盖上，做成三明治，并切 成两个三角形。将每个 三明治浸入蛋液中，保持 约 20 秒，让其充分吸收 蛋液。
3 在一个大煎锅中融化少 许黄油，然后用中低火 将三明治煎 3-5 min，直 至呈浅金色。翻转三明治， 另一面继续煎 3-5 min， 直至内部完全加热。
4 要检查法式吐司是否 熟透，轻轻按压三明治的 中心：如果感觉结实， 则已熟；如果感觉仍有 些许晃动，请继续用低 火稍微烹饪一段时间。
5 撒上糖粉，顶端放上一 块马斯卡彭芝士，加入 樱桃即可上桌
我们的专家 为你解答 疑问
问：什么是“美拉德 反应”，以及我如何利用 它成为一名更好的烧烤 厨师？ SD, 吉尔福德
答：涉及到任何与肉类 烧烤相关的问题，我倾向 于请教英国烤格栅专家 Genevieve Taylor，她在其 著作《Seared》中对这一 过程做了极佳的解释。 我将转述她的总结。
美拉德反应是指你在对 肉类进行煎烤、上色和 褐变时发生的一系列 事件。它不仅仅是焦糖 化：它是食物受热时， 简单糖类与氨基酸之间 发生的化学反应，导致 链式反应并产生数百种 新的风味分子。简而言之， 这就是烧烤食物味道如此 美味的原因。
对于肉类，不需要极高 温即可触发此反应——最 低 120C 即可——但你需要 时间。温度越低，反应 所需时间越长。快速美拉 德反应的最佳温度为 150-160C。去除肉类中的 水分也有助于褐变。 至于名称？Maillard 是一位 法国化学家，他在 1912 年 首次描述了这一过程。 作者：Hannah Evans
圣詹姆斯区 (ST JAMES’S)
对于一个像兰开斯特郡 那么大的岛屿，伊比萨 岛竟然容纳了如此多 的东西。它同时是一个 波希米亚式的乌托邦、 包价旅游的“零号病人”、 VIP 的游乐场，以及地中海 的俱乐部之都。那里是我 唯一一次度假恋情发生 之地，而且，如果这家新 分店能代表其水准的话， 那里还拥有一个极其昂贵 且相当糟糕的餐厅。
巴利亚群岛的标志性场所 Jul’s（发音就像你在超市 里对着你的男朋友 Julian 大喊一样）最近乘坐 Jet2 航班来到了伦敦，在圣詹姆斯 区的衬衫裁缝店、葡萄酒 商和会员俱乐部之间开了 店。在所有他们可以从“ 白岛”引入的标志性伊比萨 风情中，他们选择了“洞穴”。 这里的一切都阴暗且沉重； 想象一部以餐厅形式呈现的 艾里斯·默多克小说：墙上 是黑色灰泥，地板是深色 鹅卵石，桌子则是巨大的 绿色大理石块。
这座精美的内什 (Nash) 建筑 的原始特征依然存在，尽管 很淡且隐藏在狭小的角落 中；而那个强制性的开放 式厨房被玻璃隔开，大概 是为了防止员工被顾客 把食物扔回脸上。 寻找亮点，Jul’s
l Adam Kay
这里有一个令人印象深刻的酒柜——一个 20 英尺高的巨型橱柜，横跨整个餐厅的宽度，让你觉得自己像是被某个疯狂科学家缩小后，扔进了 威特罗斯 (超市) 的冷藏区。
在晚餐的高峰时段，餐厅几乎空无一人，所以如果你偶尔需要在伦敦中心地带临时找一张桌子来品尝一些相当糟糕的食物，这里或许是个好去处。或者，如果你喜欢大冰箱的话，我想也可以。我们受到了迎接，被安置在桌旁，然后 20 分钟后，对方才想起我们并递上菜单。菜单风格偏向希腊风，被分为诸如 “All in Social Sea”（社交之海）和 “All in Social Land”（社交之陆）之类的板块，这些词在希腊语中可能是有意义的。
我浏览了一下网站，想了解一些背景故事，看看为什么食物不是伊比萨风格的，但
那不过是借助 ChatGPT 炮制出来的毫无意义的冗词赘句：“我们通过纯净、鲜明的风味向我们的伊比萨根源致敬，菜品和鸡尾酒在慷慨与直觉的指引下精心打造，这一切都呈现在一个为悠长午餐而设计的温馨、前卫的空间内。” 当然，如果你得等 20 分钟才拿到菜单，那午餐确实很“悠长”。
我先点了一杯 Monolith 鸡尾酒，结果这是一款加入了蘑菇和韩国泡菜的血玛丽；就像世界上大多数饮品一样，如果没有蘑菇或泡菜，它会好吃得多。接着，我尝试了另一道号称是对经典的“演绎”之作，这次是希腊沙拉。它被包裹在一个滑稽巨大的牛番茄“石棺”里，大小像个蜜瓜。我像拆健达奇趣蛋一样把它敲开，而按照健达奇趣蛋的风格，里面的惊喜令人失望：一块巨大且毫无特色的费塔奶酪，以及其他常见配料，包括我这辈子能承受上限的酸豆，以及更多（谢天谢地是切成丁的）番茄。它还配了一小碟圆叶车叶树果，用来考验我填充物的完整度。除了那个毫无味道的“番茄贾巴”，这道菜简直可以直接从塑料桶里倒出来。我本该透过玻璃检查一下它是否确实如此。
回想起来，这就像是在泰坦尼克号上抱怨开胃小吃一样。我的主菜是一份炭烤卷心菜，隐藏在松露碎之下，且浸泡在某种被藻类侵蚀的盐水中。卷心菜口感湿漉漉的，奶油味过重且不尽人意。当我吃到了一个礼貌的程度，足以让对方满意时，我感到十分欣慰。
查理·克利夫特 (CHARLIE CLIFT)。JULS
右图，从上到下： 土豆压制糕和蘑菇配塔利亚塔牛肉 (tagliata)； 松露鱼子酱和牛鞑靼
无法将其拨开。几乎每道菜都盖着某种掩饰物，就像在接受证人保护计划一样。在逃避什么，我不得而知。味道？肯定是在逃避米其林指南。一份小西兰花还算不错，但被榛子淹没了；而烤土豆泥则是一场像汤一样黏糊糊的失望之作，口感像养老院的粗粒小麦粉，顶端还盖了一层厚厚的松露。
我的朋友贾斯汀 (Justin) 想要一份西冷牛排，但被告知唯一可选的尺寸是块头大到能堵住肠道的 300 克，价格为 —— 服务员在道歉时显得很尴尬 —— £160. 我确实非常喜欢贾斯汀，但还没到 £160 那么喜欢，于是服务员提出帮他询问厨师是否愿意将其切半。请求被拒绝了。贾斯汀开始生闷气，而我则去四处逛了逛。
地下酒吧在营造一个优雅的伊比萨之夜方面做得更好 ——
可惜是在淡季，因为那里空无一人。相邻的洗手间试图在最不需要个性的区域注入个性，也许是为了迎接 Instagram 上强制性的洗手间自拍。一个透明的水箱旨在让你产生愧疚感，从而减少冲走你的“蘑菇与韩式泡菜惊喜”时所用的水量，这让人想起一盏破碎的熔岩灯。洗手盆的机制则模糊得多，即便是最热衷的《水晶迷宫》(Crystal Maze) 参赛者也会感到吃力。我找来一名酒吧员工，他似乎真心很高兴终于见到了一个真正的顾客，并向我展示了水龙头后面一个隐藏按钮的位置。
最后是甜点。通常这是最难搞砸的一道菜，除非……啊。我的帕夫洛娃蛋糕 (pavlova) 装在一个巨大的盘子里 —— 也许是从他们买冰箱和番茄的同一个网站买的 —— 但需要哈勃望远镜才能找到。
蛋白霜又硬又干 —— 感觉有点像在吃浮石 —— 并且加入了漆树粉调味，以排除任何使其令人愉悦的可能性。内部隐藏的鲁巴布 (rhubarb)，无论是炖煮的还是雪葩形式的，都非常好吃，但我们讨论的是区区一小勺。贾斯汀订的巧克力慕斯结果变成了四块巧克力慕斯，每块展现出不同的稠度和质地，不幸地产生了一种效果，使其看起来像布里斯托尔大便分类法 (Bristol stool chart) 的 3D 渲染图。
最后是茶和咖啡。我向希腊众神祈祷，希望他们不要把这个也搞砸。他们不可能吧？然而我们的服务员道歉说，我们的杯子将无法饮用，因为没有把手，而且是用薄陶制成的，导热效率堪比烙铁印牛皮。如果
我们不想等待饮料冷却，她建议使用餐巾纸将杯子包裹起来。如果我没有在餐巾纸里藏了半块帕夫洛娃蛋糕的话，我可能就这么做了。在我们走出这个“洞穴”时，一名员工 —— 也许是注意到了我们的表情，或者听到我们在讨论在哪里能买到三明治 —— 解释说餐厅自三月才开业，所以还在摸索中。
至少在原版的 Jul's 餐厅，我们走出店门时听到的是海浪拍打着被阳光曝晒、浸染了龙舌兰的海岸线，而不是 94 路公交车向牛津圆环 (Oxford Circus) 疾驰而过。我理解回到家乡后重温一段美好假期的吸引力，但餐厅也可能像假期情缘一样，随着时间的推移而失去魅力。Jul's 在当时看来可能是个好主意，但在冷静的审视下，我很庆幸我们再也不必见面了。 11 Waterloo Place, 伦敦 SW1Y 4AU; julslondon.com; 人均 £165，含饮品。 Camilla Long 此时不在。
内阁
当麦当娜 (Madonna) 在 2003 年 5 月坐在乔纳森·罗斯 (Jonathan Ross) 的脱口秀沙发上时，没有人预料到她会为英国啤酒站台。没错，她确实说过只要半品脱就能让她喝醉，但在透露她当时的丈夫盖·里奇 (Guy Ritchie) 在索霍区的 Dog and Duck 酒吧向她介绍真正的原味艾尔 (real ale) 时，她宣称 Timothy Taylor’s Landlord 是目前最好的原味艾尔。在那之后的好几个月里，这家酿酒厂的电话就没停止过响。
这款来自西约克郡基利 (Keighley) 的淡色艾尔是历史上最重要的啤酒之一，但这并非因为这次名人的青睐。甚至不是因为于 1952 年推出的 Landlord 在原味艾尔发烧友中被广泛认为是最好的桶装艾尔 (cask ale)；它赢得的奖项比任何其他啤酒都多，包括四次获得“英国冠军啤酒”称号。不，真正的原因是它某种程度上是现代精酿啤酒的奠基之作。
今年，它还超越了 Sharp’s Doom Bar，成为英国销量最高的桶装艾尔——去年销量超过 18 million 品脱。在原味艾尔销量惊人下降之际，Landlord 去年的销量增长了令人印象深刻的 3.6%，达到 £81.8 million。不可避免地，有人声称，由于它变得更加普及，已经不像以前那么好喝了。但他们错了。
在美国精酿啤酒让我们习惯于啤酒花过量之前，Landlord 就被描述为具有“啤酒花风味”。按照传统的英国标准来看，它确实如此：它具有复杂的柑橘类水果香气，
口感顺滑且微甜，并带有持久的苦味收尾。其来自英国的具有辛辣、草本气息的 fuggle 和 goldings 啤酒花，通过来自斯洛文尼亚、更具柠檬味的 savinjski golding 啤酒花得到了增强。Landlord 的卓越之处在于这些不同元素之间的平衡。它足够复杂，从而产生趣味，但同时又顺滑、平衡且非常易饮。
诚然，它的保存很棘手。但如果你喝到了一杯糟糕的酒，那是由于店主 (landlord) 没有完全掌握 Landlord (这款酒) 的精髓。即便是一杯普通的品脱依然不错。而一杯在酒窖中正确存放的完美品脱则是极乐之境。（什么是“正确的酒窖存放”，就像啤酒中的许多事情一样，取决于你问谁：有人说桶在第三天需要敲击一下；其他人则说在打孔出酒前需要多存放一天。）瓶装版也很不错；如果与大多数瓶装啤酒相比则非常出色，尽管不如桶装 Landlord。
作者：Pete Brown
Timothy Taylor 于 1858 年在基利成立为一家家族酿酒厂。五年后，他们将厂址迁至镇另一侧的 Knowle Spring，以便拥有独立的水源；它至今仍在那里。啤酒在传统的敞口发酵罐中发酵；现代的封闭式发酵罐可以让啤酒免受杂菌侵害——但也许酵母更偏好古法。
Landlord 的推出是为了缓解矿工们干渴的喉咙，是当时占据主导地位的 Barnsley Bitter 的强力竞争对手。John Smith’s 通过收购 Barnsley 酿酒厂并基本停止生产一款他们无法超越的啤酒来与之竞争。
有些人认为传统桶装艾尔与现代精酿啤酒互不相容。但 Landlord 证明了任何合理的“精酿啤酒”定义都应涵盖传统桶装艾尔。事实上，它可以说是第一款英国精酿啤酒。1982 年，在“精酿酿酒厂 (craft brewery)”这个术语在美国被使用之前的很多年，Timothy Taylor 就被现代啤酒评论之父、约克郡记者迈克尔·杰克逊 (Michael Jackson) 描述为“在每一个细节上都堪称精酿的酿酒厂”。他的观点是，无论是它的
从左至右：Timothy Taylor 的首席酿酒师 Allan Hey（左），以及董事长 John Taylor, 1976；麦当娜是 Landlord 的拥趸。上方：20 世纪 30 年代基利的一辆运酒车。
性格及其产出是 许多微小区别的总和：那些敞口发酵桶、 现场泉水，以及更常用于 威士忌而非啤酒的“金色承诺”大麦。
N
当然，精酿酿造主要与美国相关， 但 Landlord 对该运动也起到了关键作用。1965 年，弗里茨·梅塔格 (Fritz Maytag) 购买了旧金山濒临破产的锚点酿酒公司 (Anchor Brewing Company)。他一度难以扭转局面 —— 直到他访问英国并尝试了 Landlord。正是这款啤酒救了他。 由于无法获得英国啤酒花，他转向了种植者在太平洋西北地区实验的品种；级联啤酒花 (cascade) 表现相当出色。由此产生的 Anchor Liberty Ale 于 1975, 推出，口感与 Landlord 完全不同。但它成为了第一款现代美国淡色艾尔 (pale ale)，展示了级联啤酒花鲜明的柑橘和松针气息，并激励了无数模仿者。在随后衍生的无数品种中，它成为了美国精酿啤酒革命的核心风格并征服了世界 n
COURTESY OF TIMOTHY TAYLOR, GETTY IMAGES, JASON ALDEN, VICKI COUCHMAN
（轻盈的）闪耀感
在杜罗河谷 (Douro Valley) 烈日灼烧的葡萄园以北，是葡萄牙最北端且最潮湿的葡萄酒产区——米尼奥 (Minho)。在这里，凉爽的大西洋微风有助于保留葡萄天然的高酸度，从而酿造出在舌尖留下微弱刺感的轻盈葡萄酒：vinho verde（绿酒），因其年轻而非颜色而得名。它是夏季最明智的购买选择之一。 在我近 30 年前第一次访问米尼奥时，这种年轻、带气泡的葡萄酒似乎有些特立独行。 20 世纪 90 年代的流行风尚是浓郁的白葡萄酒，酒精含量高，且充满了果味和橡木桶气息 —— 那些浓郁如黄油般的夏多内 (chardonnays)，与当时盛行的丰富、厚重的烹饪方式非常契合。如今的趋势是更清新的葡萄酒，具有高酸度和适中的酒精含量 —— 就像 vinho verde，其酒精含量通常为 9-11%。
它的性价比也惊人地高，而且该地区的生产商展现出一种新的严谨态度；质量在持续提升。这些酒由多种葡萄品种酿造，包括 loureiro、arinto 和 avesso，而最顶级的样本通常基于 alvarinho 葡萄（在西班牙边境的加利西亚地区被称为 albariño）。微小的气泡是一种风格上的遗留，源于过去葡萄酒在发酵完全结束前就装瓶的做法。如今，一些生产商通过在装瓶前注入少量二氧化碳来创造这种气泡感；另一些则保持静止。
Vinho verde 是长相思 (sauvignon blanc) 或穆斯卡代 (muscadet) 等季节性主打产品的绝佳替代品。它与寿司和其他轻盈的亚洲料理很搭，其干爽、带盐分的特质使其成为海鲜的天然伴侣。尝试将其与烤沙丁鱼、盐渍鳕鱼或炸鱼薯条搭配。以下是六款值得搜寻的酒 n
来自俱乐部
Will Lyons
2025 Blueprint Vinho Verde (9.5%) 威特罗斯 (超市), £7.50 清爽 且轻盈，在舌尖带来轻微的 刺激感，这款日常饮用的 柑橘味白葡萄酒以令人垂涎的 酸度收尾。
2025 Zeste Branco Vinho Verde (11.5%) The Wine Society, £7.75 这款由 alvarinho、loureiro 和 avesso 调配而成的活泼葡萄酒 充满了夏日的柑橘风味和新鲜青苹果味。
2025 Irresistible Alvarinho (12%) Co-op, £9.15 仅由 alvarinho 酿造， 这款酒更为沉稳，带有迷人的 桃子气息和干爽的余味。 是沙丁鱼的绝佳搭配。
2024 Finest Vinho Verde (12%) Tesco, £9 最新推出的 Finest 系列是一款真正的性价比之选， 将浓郁的青果味与一丝柑橘的苦味相结合。 建议搭配烤海鲈鱼。
NV Casal Garcia DOC Vinho Verde (9.5%) Majestic, £9.50 来自该地区最古老的品牌之一，这款 轻盈、细腻的样本在收尾时 带有淡淡的甜味。
2025 Soalheiro Alvarinho Monção e Melgaço (12.5%) Highbury Vintners, £18 一款优雅的 alvarinho，带有柠檬的光泽， 将热带水果的香气与干爽的咸味融合在一起。
2024 Faro del Plata Reserva Albariño Gimenez Mendez Uruguay (12.5%) £12.49 (原价 £14.99) 俱乐部寻获了这款来自乌拉圭 顶级酒庄的桃子味 albariño。它 纯净且活泼，收尾时有清新的 柑橘爆发感。
鸡蛋是每位厨师最喜爱的 冷笑话灵感来源，也是 最万能的食物之一： 它是包裹在整洁、光滑 外壳中的营养能量库。 鸡蛋曾面临形象问题—— 尤其是沙门氏菌恐慌—— 但它们在 Humpty Dumpty 无法幸存的地方生存了下来。 那么，你应该如何煮蛋？ 将它们放在冰箱还是橱柜里最好？ 蛋壳真的能威慑蜗牛吗？ 我们已经为你揭开答案。
什么是鸡蛋？ 鸟类学家 Tim Birkhead 在他的 书《The》中将其描述为“一个自给自足的生命维持系统”。
关于鸡蛋的 29 个问题 —— 现已解答！
最完美之物。由内而外地形成 —— 先是蛋黄，然后是蛋白，最后是保护壳 —— 在雌鸟类似于输卵管的卵管中，它包含了雏鸡生长所需的一切。蛋黄中含有营养和能量，而蛋白（albumen）则提供水分、蛋白质和缓冲作用。而胚胎雏鸡生长所需的这些东西，恰好被人类认为极其美味。如果鸡蛋未受精且没有雏鸡发育，那么留给我们的美味就更多了。
为什么是母鸡蛋？ 鸡之所以成为首选的产蛋鸟类，是因为它们最容易且最经济地进行养殖。目前英国约有 43 million 只商业产蛋鸡，是产蛋量第二多的鸭子数量的 300 倍。但几乎任何鸟类的蛋我们都可以食用。在第二次世界大战期间，俄罗斯鸟卵学家（egg expert）列夫·贝洛波尔斯基（Lev Belopolsky）凭借对当地海鸦群落的了解，帮助当局用海鸟蛋喂养被切断补给的北极港口摩尔曼斯克。有人声称海鸟以鱼类为食使其鸡蛋带有鱼味，但所有鸡蛋的味道大体上是一样的。
白壳蛋真的比褐壳蛋更环保吗？那蓝壳蛋呢？ 当 Sainsbury's 最近宣布将其自有品牌鸡蛋从褐壳改为白壳时，其关于白壳蛋碳足迹较低的说法引起了人们的质疑。但这确实是真的。白羽商业鸡（产白壳蛋）比产褐壳蛋的褐壳鸡略小，因此它们的进食量略少 —— 而母鸡的饲料占鸡蛋碳足迹的 80 %。
那些漂亮的蓝壳蛋来自更稀有的非商业品种（一种基因突变意味着在形成蛋壳的过程中，它们会沉积更多的胆绿素，这种色素也出现在人类的淤青中）。这些鸡蛋可能更高档、更昂贵，但这些产量较低的鸟类碳足迹更高。事实上，碳足迹最低的是笼养鸟 —— 这提醒我们，在购买鸡蛋的伦理考量中，碳排放并非唯一因素。
现在吃鸡蛋还会感染沙门氏菌吗？ 1988, 年 12 月，全国陷入恐慌，当时担任初级卫生部长的埃德温娜·库里（Edwina Currie）无意中暗示大多数英国鸡蛋都被沙门氏菌感染（她的本意是许多鸡群受到影响）。销量暴跌，母鸡被宰杀，“蛋温娜”（Eggwina）辞职。不过，这对英国鸡蛋的长期影响是积极的。英国鸡蛋工业委员会（British Egg Industry Council）首席执行官尼克·艾伦（Nick Allen）表示，得益于随后实施的疫苗接种和生物安全计划，“我们在英国狮子标志（British Lion code）的规范下，实际上已经消灭了沙门氏菌”。如果你的鸡蛋壳上有狮子标志（或者来自小型生产商，包装盒上有“英国产”Laid in Britain 品牌），你可以放心食用。
所以像洛基（Rocky）那样吃生鸡蛋没问题吗？ 如果你真的想这么做的话。但即使你不喜欢他那种用玻璃杯猛灌五个鸡蛋的拳击手早餐，生蛋或半熟蛋也是制作优质鞑靼牛肉（steak tartare）、培根蛋面（spaghetti carbonara）、蛋黄酱或软嫩西班牙蛋饼（tortilla）的关键。经典巧克力慕斯也使用生蛋黄和蛋白。像威士忌酸（whisky sours）这样的鸡尾酒在加入蛋白摇匀后会产生极佳的丝绒质感。如果喝太多，你可能需要用一个“草原牡蛎”（prairie oyster）来缓解宿醉：生蛋黄、伍斯特酱和醋。
在加入蛋白摇匀后 会呈现出绝佳的丝绒质感
放冰箱还是橱柜？ 食品标准局 (FSA) 表示：“理想情况下，鸡蛋应存储在冰箱中。” 但对于炒蛋、蛋卷、蛋白霜以及大多数蛋糕烘焙，室温鸡蛋效果最好，因为它们更容易与其他食材融合。 幸运的是，FSA 认为“阴凉干燥的地方”是次优选择。
插图：PETER RYAN 为《星期日泰晤士报》杂志绘制。ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK
不过，烘焙指南《Sift》的作者 Nicola Lamb 表示，有时你确实需要冷鸡蛋。 例如在制作布里欧修面包这种富含鸡蛋的面糊时，“冷鸡蛋有助于防止面团过热”，而在制作糕点面团时，它们能帮助保持黄油的低温。你可能听说过鸡蛋在冰箱里会吸收食物异味，
但英国的鸡蛋不像美国那样经过清洗，因此其多孔的蛋壳上仍有一层薄薄的保护性角质层，这使得较大的气味分子更难进入。
鸡蛋可以吃太多吗？ 英国当局认为——现在不再这样想了。直到 20 世纪 90 年代后期，人们还认为鸡蛋中的胆固醇会提高血液中的胆固醇水平，因此我们被告知每周不要吃超过三到四个。但科学在演进——现在共识是，正如 Heart UK 慈善机构所言，饮食中的鸡蛋胆固醇“对血胆固醇没有显著影响”。 奇怪的是，其他国家仍然建议每周限制食用量。在爱尔兰是 7. 个，而在德国则只有 0. 个，少得可怜。
浮力测试能判断鸡蛋是否新鲜吗？ Lion Mark 计划将保质期设定在产后 28 天。FSA 表示，如果“烹饪充分”，在过期几天后食用鸡蛋依然安全。 此外还有一直存在的浮力测试——下沉的鸡蛋是新鲜的，漂浮的鸡蛋是陈旧的——但这并非万无一失。在鸡蛋的钝端有一个气室，供雏鸡呼吸。 随着未受精鸡蛋的老化，它在膜内收缩，通过多孔的蛋壳吸入空气，扩大了气室，使鸡蛋在水中的浮力增加。但正如 FSA 所指出的，这只是一个关于“年龄而非安全性”的粗略指标。
最简单的检查方法？将鸡蛋单独打入碗中——如果它变质了，你闻得出味道。
一个鸡蛋有多少卡路里？ 每 100 克鸡蛋含有 131 kcals。 一个中等大小的鸡蛋重约 55 克（不含蛋壳），因此含有 72 kcals。尽管蛋黄仅占鸡蛋重量的三分之一左右，但它贡献了 52 卡路里，因为它包含了鸡蛋中几乎所有的脂肪。这就是为什么某些圈子对蛋白蛋卷如此热衷。
那么蛋白质含量多少？ 在 6g 到 7.5g 之间，取决于大小。在英国，蛋白质的建议每日摄入量 (RDA) 为每 1 公斤体重 0.75g，因此如果你体重 70 公斤，一个鸡蛋占你 RDA 的 11-14%。但“蛋白质最大化”是真实存在的——前英国健美冠军、《体育营养完整指南》作者 Anita Bean 表示，有些健美运动员每天吃 12 个煮鸡蛋是有原因的。 “鸡蛋被认为是最高质量的蛋白质食物之一，因为它们包含了构成蛋白质的所有九种必需氨基酸，且比例符合人体构建和修复肌肉的需求。” 对于大多数人来说，运动后摄入 20g 高质量蛋白质将“最大限度地促进肌肉恢复并刺激肌肉蛋白质合成”——也就是说，维持强壮的肱二头肌。
如何煮鸡蛋？ Michel Roux 的常规做法陪伴他走过了整个厨师生涯。 他将鸡蛋放在冰箱里，但会提前 10 分钟取出，以避免热冲击导致蛋壳破裂。 在水深足以覆盖鸡蛋的锅中，将水缓缓煮沸（“不要沸腾到让鸡蛋互相碰撞”），然后使用漏勺将鸡蛋放入。 “不要把它们扔进去，否则它们会撞击底部而破裂。” 煮 6 分钟为流心，8 分钟为半熟蛋黄，10-12 分钟则为“完全熟透”。
如何最有效地剥壳？ 鲁克斯（Roux）表示，关键在于将它们“立即放入非常、非常冰的水中”并浸泡 10 分钟。这样可以停止烹饪过程，并使其更容易剥壳，因为“这会给它们一个冲击，使薄膜与蛋壳分离”。如果蛋不是那么新鲜，操作会更简单，因为随着鸡蛋老化，蛋白的 pH 值会升高，从而削弱其与薄膜的附着力。鹌鹑蛋总是很棘手。诀窍是什么？冷却后，“将它们放入纯净、便宜的蒸馏麦芽醋中”浸泡 15-20 分钟。这会让蛋壳变得“超级柔软——这样你就可以轻松地将它们剥掉”。
如何水煮嫩蛋（poach an egg）？ 美国美食作家、 《鸡蛋：对世界上最通用食材的烹饪探索》（Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World’s Most Versatile Ingredient）一书的作者迈克尔·鲁尔曼（Michael Ruhlman）建议，先让水达到微沸状态，然后用勺子搅拌“创造一个漩涡”，以帮助防止蛋液散开。将鸡蛋打入一个小杯子或烤蛋盅（ramekin）中，然后轻轻地将其倒入漩涡中，烹煮 3-4 分钟。用孔勺捞出，“用厨房纸巾托住以吸收多余的水分”——你不会想要湿漉漉的吐司。鲁克斯认为，水的深度必须“至少是鸡蛋在壳时垂直高度的两倍”，这样可以让蛋白在下沉时“完全覆盖蛋黄”。
醋是这两位人士产生分歧的地方：鲁克斯会加一点，但鲁尔曼认为“它没什么作用”。酸可以帮助蛋白凝固，但你可能需要比一小滴更多的量。更有效的方法是使用非常新鲜的鸡蛋，这样它自然就能保持凝聚。 ➤
如何煎蛋而不会弄破蛋黄？ “始终在平整的表面上敲蛋，”鲁（Roux）说道——因为在锅边敲可能会弄破蛋黄。用大拇指将敲开的蛋在锅上方掰开——他用黄油煎蛋。他建议使用温火，这样蛋黄就不会在蛋白准备好之前就煮熟。但如果你喜欢酥脆的边缘，请使用高温，然后在鸡蛋快熟时，倾斜锅子，用勺子将油脂淋在蛋白上以完成烹饪。
“sunny side up”（单面煎蛋/太阳蛋）究竟是什么意思？ 你在当地的简陋小餐馆（greasy spoon）里可能听不到这个词，因为这是英国的标准做法——仅煎鸡蛋的一面。但在美国，煎蛋通常会在平底煎锅上翻面，烹饪成“over easy”（单面熟，蛋黄 runny）、“over medium”（半熟）或“over hard”（全熟）。这些术语源于 19 世纪后期的美国餐厅文化。其他说法还包括“Adam and Eve on a raft”（亚当和夏娃在筏上，指两颗水波蛋放在吐司上）以及“wreck ’em”（把它们弄碎，请帮我把蛋炒了，亲爱的伙计）。“short order cook”（快捷餐厨师）这个词也出现在同一时期，用来描述那些整天被服务员对着大喊这些短语的劳碌之人。
真的不应该买大号鸡蛋吗？ 产蛋母鸡的体型相当标准，但那些产大量大号蛋的母鸡可能会遭受脱垂和骨折。消费者对大号蛋的需求越多，被育种来产大号蛋的鸡就越多，从而恶化它们的福利。不过，这里有细节差异：大多数英国鸡蛋是中号的——而且母鸡随着年龄增长，自然会产出更大的蛋。Compassion in World Farming 的科学政策顾问 Catherine Jadav 建议购买混合尺寸的包装，这样“就不会给农民带来必须生产某种特定尺寸鸡蛋的特殊压力”。
鸡蛋是否太便宜了？ 在 2022 年时确实太便宜了——这导致了英国鸡蛋产业最大的危机
自从沙门氏菌爆发以来，农民们面临的问题便不断累积，最终走到临界点：成本飙升、禽流感、新冠疫情引发的供应链中断，以及超市维持低价。一些农民暂停了生产或破产，数百家则处于崩溃边缘。最终，零售商同意提高收购价。据艾伦（Allen）称，过去两三年中，产量和需求均有所增长，鸡蛋的零售价格也随之上升（2022年至2025年间上涨 25%，每打鸡蛋的平均价格从 £2.67 升至 £3.34）。2025年，由于禽流感的影响，美国每打鸡蛋的价格高达 $7.24 (£5.40)。如今价格已回落至 $2.19，该国后院养鸡的热潮也随之破灭。
如果食谱要求使用大号鸡蛋而我只有中号的，应该用几个？ 兰姆（Lamb）表示，中号蛋和大号蛋的重量差异仅约 10-15克，因此对于只需要用一两个鸡蛋的烤盘蛋糕、曲奇和玛芬来说，鸡蛋的大小“不会决定食谱的成败”。但如果食谱需要更多鸡蛋，情况就不同了。五个 55克的中号蛋与四个 68克的大号蛋重量大致相当，但“最可靠的方法”是称量鸡蛋：多打一个蛋，将其搅匀，然后加入足够的量以弥补差额。“剩余的部分可以用作刷蛋液。”
保罗·纽曼在《冷面卢克》中真的吃了那么多蛋吗？ 根据电影评论家伦纳德·马尔汀（Leonard Maltin）的回忆录，纽曼曾告诉马尔汀：“我从未吞过一个蛋。”剧组为这部 1967 年电影中的场景准备了 200 多个鸡蛋，片中纽曼饰演的叛逆囚犯卢克·杰克逊（Luke Jackson）为了打赌，在 1 小时内似乎吃了 50 个水煮蛋——但演员在拍摄间隙将它们吐了出来。2013 年，美国职业大胃王乔伊·切斯特纳特（Joey Chestnut）在世界水煮蛋速食锦标赛上确实在 8 分钟内吞下了 141 个鸡蛋。（他是真的吞下去了。）
蛋壳能阻挡蜗牛吗？ “几乎肯定不能，”英国和爱尔兰软体动物学会主席本·罗森（Ben Rowson）说道，尽管这个古老的园艺传闻一直被当作技巧流传。“我们对此感到困惑，”他说，因为尖锐物体不仅不能阻碍蛞蝓和蜗牛——“它们甚至能爬过剃刀片”——而且它们还喜欢食用碳酸钙（即白垩），而这正是蛋壳的主要成分。此外，壳上残留的任何鸡蛋气味都会吸引它们。“坦白说，我想不出比这更没用的阻挡手段了。”
不弄破蛋黄的分离鸡蛋的最佳方法是什么？ 在巴黎担任甜点师学徒期间，鲁（Roux）每天都要分离数百个鸡蛋。他的方法是：准备两个碗，将鸡蛋打碎，在碗上方将蛋壳分成两半。让蛋白流进碗里，然后将盛有蛋白的半个壳轻轻倒入另一个空壳中。大部分蛋白会落入碗内。最后将蛋黄倒入...
有机鸡蛋和放养鸡蛋有什么区别？ “有机鸡蛋总是属于放养，但具有‘额外的动物福利保障’”，来自世界农业同情组织 (Compassion in World Farming) 的 Jadav 说道。法律规定的最低室外空间是相同的（每只母鸡 4 平方米），但有机母鸡在室内的空间稍大，且最大集群规模为 3,000 只（放养鸡蛋为 16,000 只）。此外，带有土壤协会 (Soil Association) 标志的有机鸡蛋具有“比法律要求更高的福利和环境标准”——例如，室外空间需达到 10 平方米。
是什么赋予了蛋黄颜色？ 遗传因素会产生细微影响，但迄今为止最大的因素是饲料。橙黄色来自母鸡饮食中的类胡萝卜素色素，源自草类、万寿菊、蔬菜、苜蓿、玉米和其他植物。深橙色在视觉上很美观，但并不代表动物福利更好或营养价值更高（除了类胡萝卜素带来的极少量提升）。Clarence Court 的 Annie Tucker 表示，与传闻相反，蛋黄呈深橙色的伯福德棕色母鸡并非喂食姜黄。“那是红椒粉。”
如何制作蛋黄酱？ 蛋黄酱是将数百万个微小油滴悬浮在水中的乳浊液。利兹大学胶体化学系主任 Alan Mackie 教授解释道：“蛋黄是乳化剂——它能降低油的表面张力，使其更容易分解。”
插图：PETER RYAN 为《星期日泰晤士报》杂志绘制。ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK
使用手持搅拌棒，你可以在 30 秒内做出蛋黄酱。将 1 个鸡蛋打入量杯中，加入 1 汤匙柠檬汁或白葡萄酒醋，1 茶匙第戎芥末酱，250 毫升蔬菜油或葵花籽油，以及一小撮盐。将搅拌棒头部刚好触及液体表面，运行 10-15 秒。随着液体向上扩展成浓稠的乳浊液，在电机继续运行的情况下，缓慢抬高搅拌棒，再运行 15 秒。
在烘焙中，有没有好的纯素鸡蛋替代品？ 纯素烹饪专家 Rachel Ama 表示，有几种替代方案。为了增加水分并帮助食材结合，“在制作水果蛋糕时，每个鸡蛋可用 60 克水果泥代替”；而对于香蕉面包，可用 1 汤匙研磨过的奇亚籽或亚麻籽浸泡在 3 汤匙水中，以替代每个鸡蛋。为了增加膨松度（如在制作普通海绵蛋糕时），可使用 1 茶匙小苏打和 1 汤匙酸性物质——Ama 喜欢用植物奶混合苹果醋（“尝不出来！”）。如果需要充气感，可以用 2 汤匙鹰嘴豆或豆类罐头中的液体（aquafaba）来代替蛋白。它可以像蛋白霜一样打发，因此可用于制作杏仁饼或布朗尼：“这样能获得光亮的顶部和像软糖般浓稠的中心，而大多数无蛋布朗尼则缺乏这一点。”
如何避免水煮蛋蛋黄周围出现灰色环？ 那层灰环让人们想起过去那些难看的沙拉，它是硫化亚铁——虽然不好看，但无害。这是蛋白中的硫（产生鸡蛋味的原因）与蛋黄中的铁发生反应的结果。这种情况发生在鸡蛋煮过头或煮后长时间保持高温时——因此请迅速冷却。
那个恶心的血点是什么？ 它就是血点——在鸡蛋形成时，母鸡体内的一根微小毛细血管破裂，在蛋黄或蛋白中留下的血迹。Allen 称，这种情况相当常见，但可以安全食用。生产商尝试通过“照蛋”来识别（并剔除）有血点的鸡蛋——即用强光（最初使用蜡烛）照射鸡蛋。但棕色鸡蛋较难察觉，因此“仍有一两个会漏网”。棕色、白色或灰色的斑点被称为“肉斑”，是小块组织，同样无害（尽管素食者可能不这么认为）。它们并不是人们有时认为的胚胎。不过，在菲律宾，食用含有胚胎的鸡蛋是一种习惯，那里将“巴路特” (balut) 视为美味。这是一种经过受精、部分孵化的鸭蛋，煮熟后配以醋食用，有时能看到胚胎的喙、羽毛和骨骼。
蛋壳和蛋之间那层薄膜是什么？能吃吗？ 实际上那是两层薄膜：外壳膜和内壳膜。 它们有助于将鸡蛋固定在一起，即使蛋壳出现了细小的裂缝；它们能阻止细菌和真菌侵入；在受精卵中，它们还帮助调节气体交换（氧气进入，二氧化碳排出）。至于是否能吃，是可以的，但由于其纤维质地，你可能并不想吃。
如何在蛋壳里种水芹？ 将鸡蛋的上三分之一切掉，然后将蛋黄和蛋白倒入碗中留待以后食用。洗净蛋壳并晾干，然后——最重要的一步——在上面画一张搞笑的脸。将其放入蛋杯或空的鸡蛋盒中，将一块湿棉球中的大部分水分挤出，然后将其放入壳中。撒上水芹种子（可以在超市或园艺中心买到），并将其放在窗台等温暖、光线充足的地方。种子应在两到三天内发芽，并在一到两周内可以采收。不要用第一天那个蛋来做你的“鸡蛋水芹三明治”。
究竟是谁先出现——是鸡还是蛋？ 是时候让进化生物学家与哲学家较量一番了。前者会认为，经过对红原鸡数千年的选择性育种，我们所认知的第一只鸡，在基因上会与产下它所孵化之蛋的那只鸟略有不同。因此，答案是蛋。哲学家可能会说，这取决于你如何定义“鸡蛋”。如果你是指由鸡产下的蛋，而不是包含一个鸡胚胎的蛋，那么答案就是鸡 n
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ally Gunnell 最为人所知的是她在 20 世纪 90 年代初通过跨栏夺得金牌而赢得的荣耀。她仍然是唯一一位同时持有奥运会、世界锦标赛、欧洲锦标赛和英联邦锦标赛 400 米栏冠军头衔的女性。因此，很难想象她会担心体重，或者感到如此焦虑以至于无法开车。
Gunnell 在 1997 年 31 岁时退役，但一直保持活跃，在电视工作和演讲活动之余参加伦敦马拉松和北英格兰大跑赛。随后，在她 40 多岁时，她遇到了迄今为止最大的障碍：围绝经期。
“我体重增加了 14 磅（one stone）多，但有氧运动和戒掉面包不再起作用了，”她说。“而且我感到很焦虑。前一分钟我还在舞台上演讲，下一分钟我甚至不确定自己是否能进车里。”
现年 59 岁的她研究了与年龄相关的疾病，包括影响 50 岁以上每三名女性中一人的骨质疏松症，以及可能在更早阶段发作的肌肉减少症（肌肉量流失）。
为了传递这些知识，她在 2024 年启动了一个健身教练计划。该计划旨在帮助 40 多岁、50 多岁及更高年龄（她称之为“力量之年”）的女性——这些人可能已经多年没有锻炼，或者根本没有锻炼习惯——帮助她们建立力量、耐力和自信，以更好地享受晚年生活。“现在不再是为了竞技表现，而是为了长寿，”Gunnell 说道。
只要动起来 不知道从哪里开始？无论是每天多走 1,000 步以增加耐力，还是在刷牙时单脚站立
她在西萨塞克斯郡的家中。 右图：1992 年巴塞罗那奥运会夺金
以提高平衡能力，或者每周几次在厨房操作台前做 20 分钟的深蹲或俯撑，Gunnell 表示，关键在于让身体动起来，即使你感到酸痛。“如果你的背部、膝盖或肩膀有问题，这正是增强这些肌肉力量的理由，”她说。
寻找你的“理由” 动力并不一定来自大声吼叫的训练教官。 “为了获得健康，你需要一个
“‘为什么’，”冈内尔（Gunnell）说道。“这可能是关于穿某条特定的裤子，或者是和孙辈们一起跳蹦蹦床。把这作为你心态的一部分。”她之前的“为什么”是为了训练以打破纪录。“现在，我训练是为了让生活保持健康。”
让锻炼适应你的日常 “人们认为他们必须找出一小时来锻炼，而这有时是不可能的，”她说。因此，要让事情变得简单，并消除障碍，无论这些障碍多么微小。“如果开车去健身房让你打退堂鼓，可以考虑在家里锻炼。”她说，每周两次 30 到 40 分钟的锻炼是最理想的，“但如果你无法做到，能否尝试 20 分钟？找到可行的方法并坚持下去。”此外还要制定计划：“拥有一个常规计划就像是在你的每周生活中建立了一种问责制。”
吃足够的食物 这听起来可能违反直觉，但如果你想减轻体重，减少食物量并不是答案。冈内尔在进入中年体重增加后所做的最大改变就是定时吃饱。 “我之前经常不吃早餐，饮食不健康，然后尝试做有氧运动，这搞乱了我的新陈代谢，”她说。跳过正餐会减缓你的新陈代谢以及身体燃烧卡路里的能力——更年期雌激素水平的下降也会导致同样的结果。
PAUL STUART 为《星期日泰晤士报》杂志拍摄，SHUTTERSTOCK
现在她摄入更多的纤维、全食和蛋白质，这有助于她更持久地感到饱腹。她用土豆代替了意面，这对骨密度和肌肉量有好处。早餐可能是燕麦和浆果，如果她进行了锻炼，随后会喝一杯蛋白质奶昔；午餐可能是水波蛋配吐司和烟熏三文鱼。酒精现在成了偶尔的享受，尽管在度假时是不可妥协的。
不要认为非黑即白 “我一直听到这种说法，”冈内尔说。“人们说，‘我错过了一次锻炼且吃了一些垃圾食物，所以我现在不打算继续了——这一周都被我毁了。’但事情不必如此非黑即白。”
她建议使用交通灯类比法：绿灯日（饮食健康且有锻炼）、黄灯日（照顾自己显得有些吃力）和红灯日（你不想离开沙发）。她说，关键是通过小步调整，将其从红色提升到黄色，或从黄色提升到绿色——比如散散步、进行一次简短的锻炼或吃一顿健康的晚餐。“我们不可能总是状态最佳，但我们可以找到回升的方法。”
每一步（行走）都至关重要 目前你能为长期健康做的最重要的事情是什么？走路。“我看到有些人早晨上班前锻炼，然后坐在办公桌前直到下午 6 点——这意味着有大量的久坐时间。所以请站起来去冲杯咖啡，去不同楼层的洗手间，在花园里绕一圈。这对你的心理健康、体重控制和身体活动能力大有裨益。”
即使是奥运冠军也有休息日 冈内尔更倾向于简短的锻炼，而不是她曾经进行的一小时长跑。对她来说，这意味着每周三次力量训练，两到三次 20 分钟的跑步，以及在健身车上进行“30 秒运动，30 秒休息”的训练。但休息同样重要。“我每周总是休息一天，如果需要的话就休息两天。”
那么度假期间怎么办？ 她说，是的，可以暂停你的常规计划，但你仍然可以加入一些更健康的选择。“也许早餐吃水果而不是油炸早餐，在海滩上散散步——然后你就可以享受你的夜晚了。” n 作者：克莱尔·科恩 (Claire Cohen)。 lifeshurdle.com/coaching
简易居家锻炼法
无需任何设备即可完成——在厨房、花园或卧室，任何有空间的地方都可以。 将这五组练习重复两到三次，根据需要，在每组之间休息一到两分钟。
2 俯卧撑 x 10 进入高平板支撑姿势，双手略宽于肩，双脚与髋同宽。上臂与身体侧面呈 45 度角，降低身体，使胸部几乎触碰地面。收紧核心，然后回到平板支撑姿势。
4 单车卷腹 x 20 平躺，双手放在脑后。抬起双腿，膝盖成直角弯曲。抬起肩胛骨，轮流将一个肘部触碰到对侧弯曲的膝盖，同时伸展另一条腿。
1 深蹲 x 10 双脚略宽于肩宽并稍微向外撇，向下深蹲，双臂向前伸出以保持平衡。膝盖应在脚趾上方移动，但不要超过脚趾。站起，并在顶部收紧臀大肌。
1 练习名称 Box copy reg no indent centred Cilis autaturia pa prerum liqui ut hitatas eribus
idus comnis aut quatem. Et voluptas des
accus ne remolor estemoluptur autatur
simet fuga. Borum iusam dolupta
3 三头肌撑起 x 10 坐在一个膝盖高度的椅子、踏步凳或床上，双腿向前伸出，双手与肩同宽地抓住边缘。身体向下滑出，挺胸，降低身体直到肘部呈直角。通过脚后跟发力，回到起始位置。
5 登山者 x 20 从高平板支撑姿势开始，背部挺直，双手位于肩下，手指向前，将一个膝盖向胸部靠近，然后将其踢回，接着用另一个膝盖重复此动作。尽量保持躯干不动。记得呼吸！
O
以及 杰里米·克拉克逊 (JEREMY CLARKSON) 访问 THETIMES.COM/DRIVING
沃尔沃 (VOLVO) ES90
多年来，出现过许多愚蠢的汽车，而且通常是法国车。雷诺 (Renault) 给我们带来了 Sport Spider，它没有挡风玻璃。如果你开到超过 11 英里/小时，这就是个问题。雪铁龙 (Citroën) 给我们带来了 C3 Pluriel，它有一个可拆卸的车顶，但车内没有任何地方可以存放车顶支架。你把它们拆下来，然后只能把它们留在原地。然后还有雪铁龙 Helicron，它...
l 杰里米·克拉克逊 (Jeremy Clarkson)
但它是我开过最愚蠢的车
由一个真实的螺旋桨驱动。你肯定不会想被它给撞到。
然而，我开过最愚蠢的车并非法国车，而是瑞典车。它是新款沃尔沃 (Volvo) ES90，它实在太令人恼火，以至于连我的眉毛都对其感到厌烦。这很可惜，因为在许多方面，它绝对是一件令人愉悦之作。
先从枯燥的部分开始。你可以选择单电机后轮驱动版本，在我测试的高配 Ultra 车型上，其续航里程约为 400 英里。或者你可以选择双电机全轮驱动版本，在电池需要充电前，其续航里程显然可达 433 英里。正如你即将发现的，我无法确认其中任何一项。
后电机带有磁体，而前电机是非同步的，没有磁体。
我不知道这意味着什么。但我可以告诉你，用于控制一切的“大脑”是双 Nvidia Drive AGX Orin 处理器，每秒可进行 508 万亿次计算。在我看来，这似乎有些过度设计。这是一辆车，而不是星际飞船。或许更令人感兴趣的是，如果你能找到合适的充电桩，可以在 10 分钟内为 ES90 充入 186 英里的续航里程。好了，环保方面的催眠曲结束了，让我们回到车本身。
它的外观并不怎么优雅——像个吃多了派的大型掀背车——但当你走进车内，一切都被原谅了。天啊，里面太舒适了。织物和颜色的选择堪称绝妙，即便是在后排，腿部空间也大得惊人。我想不出还有哪里比这里更适合久坐。
路线图带来了不少多巴胺。但没关系，因为它也是一辆沃尔沃。在历史上，沃尔沃偶尔会制造运动车型。有面向罗杰·摩尔 (Roger Moore) 的 P1800，以及在 90 年代英国房车赛 (British Touring Car Championship) 中横扫千军的 T5。不过大多数时候，沃尔沃代表的是理智与安全，以及后备箱能塞进一个衣柜，而不是在弯道中体验 5G 离心力，或是快到让脸部变形的加速感。
因此，我没指望 ES90 能带来太多刺激，而事实上确实没有任何刺激。我所获得的是一种非同寻常的安静。我知道人们说电动车很安静，但那是胡说。汽车产生的 80% 噪音来自轮胎。然而，米其林 Primacy
车门打不开了。我不得不搭便车回家
配备在沃尔沃上的 5 Energy 轮胎似乎能安静地完成它们的使命，就像是用棉花做的一样。
所以，你就坐在一个感觉像设计师酒店接待区的空间里，在近乎静默的状态下被向前推进，悬挂系统完美地吸收了所有颠簸。这一切如此美妙，以至于我愿意得出结论：如果你对车不感兴趣，只是想要某种能把你送达目的地的工具，ES90 也许就是答案。
只有一个小问题。方向盘的位置错了。这没什么好奇怪的。我从来没见过把试驾车送到我家的人
沃尔沃 (Volvo) ES90 单电机 Ultra 版
1,549mm
5,000mm 2,120mm
动力系统 电动机，92kWh 电池 功率 338bhp 扭矩 354 lb ft 加速 0-62mph: 6.6sec 最高时速 112mph 续航里程 最高 398 英里 CO2 0g/km 重量 2,410kg 价格 £77,260 上市日期 现正发售 杰里米 (Jeremy) 的评分
但我必须假设他们要么全是 黑猩猩，要么是霸王龙 (T. rexes)， 因为我刚坐进去时的驾驶 位置总是很古怪。
所以方向盘没大问题。 我只要调整它就行。但这里 没有明显的操作方式，所以 最后我按了那个巨大的信息 娱乐屏幕上一个看起来很有 希望的按钮，并用我最标准的 容统发音 (RP) 询问如何移动 方向盘。一名美国女性随后 说在转向柱下方有一个操纵杆 （她的发音错了）。但那里 并没有，于是我把车停边上 给沃尔沃的人打电话，对方说 我必须进入那个巨大的 iPad， 进入设置，进入菜单，然后
进入一个子菜单，在那里我 能找到一种方法，让方向盘上的 向上和向下按钮能够调整 方向盘。
这确实起作用了。但这意味着 如果我想让那些向上和向下 按钮执行其他操作，比如 调节立体声的音量，我就必须 再次进入汽车庞大的“大脑” 并重新对其进行编程。而如果 我尝试这样做，仪表盘上就会 出现一条消息：“您似乎分心了”。 没错，我妈的之所以分心，就 是因为你们没装一个该死的 音量旋钮。
在一辆正经的车里，如果有 旋钮和按钮，你可以通过触觉 找到所需的功能；但面对 屏幕，你必须盯着它看才能 找到想要的功能。如果你在 沃尔沃车里这么做，它会对 你大吼大叫。我讨厌车内屏幕， 尤其是它们在英国、塞浦路斯 或日本根本行不通，因为我们在 正确的一侧行驶，所以必须用 左手操作，而这对大多数人 来说并不自然。
不久情况变得更糟了。 ES90 并没有所谓的钥匙， 只有一张信用卡和一个小黑盒， 只要它们在你身上，当你走 向车辆时，车门就会打开并 自动启动。嗯。 我想知道，在沃尔沃设计这套 系统的那个男人是否住过酒店？ 因为我住过，所以我知道信用 卡钥匙的可靠程度就跟 1972 年的奥斯汀 (Austin) 差不多。 我无数次拎着沉重的行李 爬到 17 层楼，走过 500 码长 的走廊，然后却得一路走回 前台，因为钥匙没反应。
沃尔沃的情况如出一辙。我 走出在荒郊野外开的一个会， 结果车门打不开。没有备用 钥匙。你必须搭别人的车回家 并召唤一名技术员。如果是我 倒还好，因为他很快就到了， 并把车开到我家，说他重新 编程了车辆的大脑，我现在 必须在门把手上实际刷卡 才能进入。
那天晚上我尝试了新系统， 竟然试了 14 次才进去。而当 我终于打开车门，坐在那张 舒适的座椅上时，仪表盘上 显示了一条消息：“未检测到 钥匙”。我放弃了 n
我们的专家 为您解答 疑问
问：我在克罗地亚的杜布罗夫尼克一个限行区域驾驶租车，被罚款 £1,407。租车公司代表我支付了罚款，并将全额费用转嫁给了我。杜布罗夫尼克当局对公司收取的费用要高得多，而租车公司则将此费用转嫁给客户。我该怎么办？JC，康格尔顿
答：交通违规的处罚应由驾驶员或承租人支付，这很公平，但这些违规行为不应被用作大幅提高费用的机会。
这里的问题在于，在 £1,407 从你的信用卡中被扣除之前，你对此一无所知，且未经你的知情或同意。这完全是不公正的。然而，租车合同通常包含允许公司结算罚款然后直接从客户处追回款项的条款。
我的建议是向克罗地亚欧洲消费者中心以及克罗地亚经济部消费者保护部门提交正式投诉。你还应该向租车公司投诉，并要求提供原始通知副本、法院文件以及所依据的合同条款。 尼克·弗里曼 (Nick Freeman)，汽车法律师，又称“漏洞先生” (Mr Loophole)
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设得兰群岛给人的感觉不像是在英国的尽头，而更像是另一个世界的起点。这座群岛受其北欧遗产的影响，拥有崎岖的海岸线、荒无人烟的海滩和经营中的小农场 (crofts)。秋季是访问这里的最佳时机，您可以沿着海岸线寻找水獭，观察候鸟，并窥见北极光。
一位幸运读者将赢得一次令人难忘的双人秋季假期。奖品包括在历史悠久的 Busta House Hotel 入住两晚、在 West Lynne Croft 进行一次真实的农场之旅、由 Wild Skies Shetland 引导游览壮观的 Unst Sky Trail，以及由 Island Trails 的 James Tait 带领的半日私人游。为了这里的野蛮之美而来，为了这个与英国其他任何地方都不同的地方而停留。
参评请访问 thebestofl iving.com/win/shetland_july26/
最令人难忘的假期取决于它给您的感觉：放松、重新连接并完全自在。
在康沃尔郡，这些感觉自然而然地产生——通过悠闲的共处时光、放松身心的空间以及风景中静谧的魔力。
每次入住的核心就是您称之为“家”的地方。在 Cornish Gems，每处度假房产都因其设计、环境以及营造远离日常世界的能力而被精选。从建筑师设计的海岸
若要享受一次让您身心愉悦的奢华假期，请访问 cornishgems.com/escape 或致电 01872 241241。
度假胜地到幽静的乡村避风港，每一处都提供了奢华住宅的自由与私密，并通过周到的五星级服务将其提升到新高度。
专门的宾客体验团队可以帮助您打造真正属于自己的旅程，从私人厨师和水疗护理，到游艇租赁和冲浪课程。无论您是家庭聚会、夫妻逃离还是庆祝特殊日子，每一次 Cornish Gems 假期在提供真实逃离感的同时，仍能让您感到如在家般自在。
前往格施塔德宫酒店 (Gstaad Palace) 逃离喧嚣，享受精致的款待、丰富多彩的烹饪盛宴、阿尔卑斯体验和令人叹为观止的山景。
探索最美好的夏天。
在 palace.ch 预订您的住宿
接纳寒冷，冬季将以最安静的乌兹别克斯坦丝绸之路遗址作为奖励。在 Chris Aslan 的陪同下，花 12 天时间探索撒马尔罕、布哈拉和希瓦，有更宽广的空间以更缓和的节奏漫步并吸收数百年的历史。
Chris 在希瓦生活多年，这次旅程将揭示乌兹别克斯坦的活态传统及其著名的建筑。凭借他的当地知识和长久的友谊，他提供了常规旅游团中罕见的洞察力和接触渠道。
沿途，您将遇到造纸匠，
请访问 steppestravel.com, 或致电 01285 402195
我们的文化随团游经过精心策划，由驻意大利和英国的专业团队带领。每条行程均采用舒缓的节奏，强调专属私人进入权、客户舒适度以及真实的当地款待。我们将您视为朋友，确保从开始到结束都能获得亲密且充实的体验。
我们的路线横跨欧洲最优秀的文化景观，邀请您探索意大利、法国、斯洛文尼亚、克罗地亚、阿尔巴尼亚、葡萄牙、西班牙和德国的遗产、艺术和隐藏的历史。通过内部管理每一个细节，我们提供可靠的质量并让您安心。无论是探索历史建筑还是享用地区美食，我们的旅程都为您提供了一种无忧的方式来体验该大陆多样化的传统。
在 jameshilltravels.com 发现您的下一次旅程
浏览当地巴扎，了解在丝绸之路上繁荣了几个世纪的工艺，如丝绸织工、刺绣工和微型画师。这也是一个将具有真实出处礼品带回家的机会，从纺织品、陶瓷到山蜂蜜和丝绸围巾。
在精心选择的住宿、精致的地区餐饮以及行程全程安排的无缝私人交通中，享受季节性的舒适旅行。
以更好的方式看世界。欲了解更多信息，请扫描下方二维码。
探索我们即将推出的行程系列，或预定下次出发的名额，请访问网站获取更多信息。
Harrison Chambers of Distinction 是一家为敏锐旅行者设计的贝尔法斯特精品联排别墅酒店。该酒店以文化活动闻名，邀请您在这个秋天办理入住——不是作为客人，而是作为一名嫌疑人。加入我们的侦探和一群可疑人物，共同破解一场惊心动魄的 20 世纪 20 年代罪案。
在 chambersofdistinction.com 预订您的住宿
在南美洲东南部顶端 400 英里外，坐落着福克兰群岛，这是一个由 700 多个岛屿组成的未被触及的群岛。这里以辽阔的开放空间、壮丽的海岸线和非凡的野生动物为特征，为人们提供了一个体验几乎未受现代开发影响的景观的罕见机会。
对于野生动物爱好者来说，这是一个世界级目的地。整个群岛已记录到 220 多种鸟类，
访问 falklandislands.com
The Yan at Broadrayne 是一家位于格拉斯米尔（Grasmere）郊外、坐落在山麓之下的家庭经营式“带床小馆”（bistro-with-beds）。这座由羊舍改造而成的农舍为情侣、家庭和团体提供极具特色的住宿。您可以直接从门口步行前往 Helm Crag、Helvellyn 或“海岸到海岸”（Coast to Coast）步道，然后返回享用轻松的坎布里亚风味料理并睡在特大号床上。The Yan 环境宁静且不拘小节，被《美食指南》（The Good Food Guide）评为 100 佳本地餐厅，证明了卓越的食物与泥泞的靴子是可以共存的。
在 28 October 至 3 November 期间预订套房两晚住宿，即可享受一次免费的含晚餐谋杀之谜体验。
查看我们的网页获取类似优惠。
其中包括五种企鹅，以及全球约 70 ％的黑眉信天翁种群。从风掠过的悬崖和离岸岛屿，到隐蔽的沙滩和岩石露头，这里的环境支持极其多样化的鸟类生存。
无论是乘船抵达，还是乘坐小型飞机在岛屿间旅行，访问者都会不断感受到该地区规模之宏大、美丽之极致以及绝对的偏远。福克兰群岛结合了丰富的历史和令人惊叹的景观，依然是南大西洋最值得前往的目的地之一。
在距离伦敦仅 90 分钟路程的科茨沃尔德 (Cotswolds) 一处占地 850 英亩的私人庄园内，The Lakes by YOO 提供了一个由湖泊、林地和开阔草地组成的幽静避风港。在这里，夏季的节奏慢了下来，在静谧的水面中醒来，早晨的游泳演变为漫长的午餐，而一个周末则延伸为一段更为身心修复的时光。
无论您是计划两人世界的逃离之旅，还是聚集家人共度优质时光，亦或是邀请亲密好友相聚，您都可以在我们精选的优雅酒店客房、当代套房、幽静的湖畔小屋以及标志性的建筑师设计住宅中做出选择。每一种住宿选项都经过精心布置，以与庄园美丽的自然环境和谐共生。
在这里，您可以度过探索林地小径、在水疗中心放松或在水边用餐的一天。走出大门，科茨沃尔德那些永恒的村庄在等待着您。或者，您也可以选择几乎什么都不做。真正的奢华不在于排满的行程，而在于拥有享受平静的时间。
今年夏天，停留时间长一些，体验 The Lakes by YOO 所提供的一切，限时独家优惠现已开启。扫描二维码，探索独家夏季优惠并预订您在 The Lakes by YOO 的住宿。
直接预订可享受 thelakesbyyoo.com 的 独家夏季优惠
G
amble 在温布尔登长大，在达勒姆大学学习哲学期间开始尝试单口喜剧。他在 2014 年在爱丁堡艺穗节完成了个人首秀，并在 2015 年成为《Mock the Week》的常驻嘉宾。自 2018 年起，他与 James Acaster 共同主持《Off Menu》播客，并在 TLC 频道主持《The Traitors: Uncloaked》和《Unacceptable》。他与妻子 Charlie 住在伦敦。
只要我戴上最厚、能遮住阳光的睡眠眼罩，我就能在早上 8 点左右起床，因为我的妻子喜欢把窗帘完全拉开。我的猫也会对着我大叫要食物——那是一种新的喵叫声，听起来像是在跟我打招呼，这简直太可怕了。
如果我觉得自己状态不错，我会先洗澡刷牙。否则就是套上睡袍，喂猫，冲一杯三颗胶囊的咖啡，然后玩 Wordle。我最近没有吃早餐，因为我是 1 型糖尿病患者。我在 13 岁时被诊断出来。我经常会出现“黎明现象”，即血糖水平在没有原因的情况下升高，需要在进食前将其降下来。控制它就像是一份额外的 24 小时工作。如果我吃早餐，那将是由于我亲手制作的蛋类食品。我的妻子还在睡觉，因为她处于独立职业摔角世界，并在三个乐队中演出。她是典型的“夜间经济”参与者。
我之前每周有四个早晨在做 CrossFit 训练，但我的肩膀冻结（肩周炎）已经持续六个月了，所以现在我只能因为没有锻炼而自我谴责。
喜剧演员兼节目主持人，40 岁
电视能给喜剧演员带来认可度，所以对于任何刚进入喜剧界的人来说，访谈类节目都非常重要。我一直想主持一个这样的节目，所以主持《Unacceptable》非常令人兴奋。我早上被接走，被送到汉默史密斯 (Hammersmith) 的 Riverside Studios，在那里我们录制两期节目。我们讨论剧本并梳理笑话。Richard Ayoade 和 Joanne McNally 是队长，他们让我笑得尖叫。
我小时候有点讨厌，总是试图表现得幽默——你可以说是我被过度娇惯，被允许随心所欲。我在达勒姆大学结识了 Nish Kumar 和 Tom Neenan。我们本该专注于课程，但我们一起写了每一篇
我收到过的最佳建议 来自赫斯顿·布卢门塔尔 (Heston Blumenthal)： 煎牛排时，在前两分钟内 每 30 秒翻一次面
我想给出的最佳建议 煎牛排时，在前两分钟内 每 30 秒翻一次面
我希望我早点知道的事 职业生涯早期你做什么 其实并不重要，在前五年里 你基本上是透明的
白天努力工作，让喜剧 成为我们的职业，而且我现在 依然经常和尼什 (Nish) 聚在一起。
在录制与詹姆斯·阿卡斯特 (James Acaster) 合作的《非菜单》(Off Menu) 时，我们可能会在两周内录制十集，而不是每周一集。对我们来说，友谊比工作关系更重要，但讽刺的是，这反而促进了我们的工作关系。詹姆斯有时真的很古怪，有些嘉宾会看向我，让我帮他“翻译”，这总是让我发笑。我们邀请过一些了不起的人。我曾被罗伯特·德尼罗 (Robert De Niro) 迷得不行，直到他拒绝回答我们的任何问题。
午餐我比较倾向于 Farmer J —— 感觉既奢华又健康。或者一份精致的沙拉。我很少在家里吃午餐，但如果我在家，我会对马莎百货 (Marks & Spencer) 的加冕鸡肉扁面包 (coronation chicken flatties) 痴迷不已。
我明年将再次开启巡演，能通过说毫无意义的胡话来赚钱，这真是太荣幸了。主持《叛徒：揭秘》(Traitors: Uncloaked) 简直是拿到了金票。在拍摄期间我会去苏格兰，在选手出局时采访他们。然后我们在看过剪辑版本后，再次在伦敦拍摄，与人们进行更深入的交流。我见过这个游戏有多难，所以非常庆幸自己不需要参赛并面临失败。
我出门太多了，所以休息的晚上只想待在家里。夏天我的梦想就是点起烧烤炉 —— 当炭火燃起时，那是纯粹的幸福。我妻子曾抓到我在凝视火焰，我想这让她感到不安。我会买一块巨大的牛排，但不能浪费火候，所以我会丢进香肠、烤串和一颗生菜。即便只有我和妻子，感觉也像是在为婚礼准备餐饮。如果是“男生之夜” —— 指我和我的猫 —— 我会询问我的恐怖电影 WhatsApp 群组该看什么，然后把手机放在房间的另一头。
我尝试在午夜睡觉。男士护肤就像一个深坑 —— 我买了一些名字很花哨的产品，但看起来还是老样子。我会扫一眼床头的书但并不阅读，然后刷 YouTube。接着我会快到令人恼火地迅速入睡。睡觉是我最顶尖的技能之一。
采访者：瑞秋·科科兰 (Rachel Corcoran)
罗布·帕菲特 (ROB PARFITT)
玛丽2号女王邮轮海上文学节汇集了作家、记者和评论家，共同开启为期一周的文字盛宴。
2027年12月2日 • 七晚飞航邮轮之旅 内舱房 £1,339 起/人 • 阳台房 £1,639 起/人 • 格里尔套房 £3,739 起/人
让自己置身于文学天堂——在这场为期七晚、致力于探索笔触力量的航行中，您将被作家、记者、历史学家以及志同道合的书迷们环绕。本次独特航程由《泰晤士报》和《星期日泰晤士报》切尔滕纳姆文学节的策划团队精心打造，旨在赞颂文字的多种形式。
每日聆听来自《泰晤士报》记者的最新资讯，在问答环节中沉浸于发人深省的对话，在亲切的签书会上与您喜爱的作家见面，并听文学巨匠剖析从艺术、电影到历史、政治的方方面面。
您可以将航行期间的每一天都填满主题活动与盛事。除此之外，您还可以期待冠达邮轮 (Cunard) 提供的一系列丰富体验。在海上的一周里，您将拥抱一个文学与享受并存的世界，这里有精致的餐饮、放松身心的水疗护理，以及一份满足所有口味的丰盛鸡尾酒单。
嘉宾包括：BBC新闻主播 Sophie Raworth、《星期日泰晤士报》畅销书作家及广播员 Natalie Haynes、获奖作家兼历史学家 Colin Grant、牛津大学全球史教授 Peter Frankopan、《星期日泰晤士报》及《纽约时报》畅销书作家 Jenny Colgan、国际犯罪与惊悚小说作家 Linwood Barclay、广播员兼演艺名人 Pam Ayres，以及餐厅评论家 Charlotte Ivers，更多嘉宾名单将陆续公布。
请致电 0808 134 4157 或访问 thetimes.com/th-litfest2027
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船上特邀嘉宾
Geoff Dyer 获奖的、打破类型界限的英国作家，皇家学会会士，前南加州大学 (USC) 驻校作家。
Peter Hain 反种族隔离活动家，前英国内阁大臣，多产的政治惊悚小说作家。
Roger McGough 传奇的利物浦诗人，1960年代的榜单顶尖表演者，BBC Radio 4 广播员。
Alexandra Cameron, Shutterstock
有多 聪明？
可反穿的夹克、多功能外套以及可以兼作连衣裙的裙子，正迅速成为你认识的最时尚人群衣橱中的秘密武器。这种对多功能时尚的现代诠释，虽然感觉与那些能通过拉链变成短裤的实用主义登山裤相去甚远，但这些“聪明衣服”的基本功能依然相同：一件单品，多种穿法。它具有可定制性，能够自我表达，并且是为胶囊衣橱增添层次感的完美方式。
聪明衣服运动始于 Susmies，这是一个来自巴塞罗那的独立时尚品牌。2024年，该品牌因其大胆的可反穿设计而在 Z 世代中走红，这些设计既可以作为抹胸上衣，也可以作为迷你裙穿着。
随后是 Damson Madder，它是许多伦敦千禧一代的制服品牌。该品牌推出了一个几乎全部由可反穿外套和夹克组成的外wear系列，一面是大胆的格纹、细方格和波点印花，另一面则是纯色；此外还有一件全长风衣，可以通过解开一半的纽扣将其变为短款夹克。而对于那些试图在“张扬”与“静奢”之间寻找微妙平衡的人，Burberry 和 Fendi 分别提供了可反穿夹克，一面是标志性的格纹或大胆的 Logo 印花，另一面则是纯色。
“可反穿性延长了服装的寿命，”Damson Madder 的创始人 Emma Hill 说道。“我们知道外套是一件真正的投资单品，因此部分意图也是为了提升服装的价值——本质上是用一件衣服的价格买到两件外套。”事实上，该品牌去年夏天推出的最畅销的 Jerry 可反穿短款风衣自发布以来几乎没怎么补过货（一度有 65,000 人的候补名单）。今年夏天，该品牌发布了 Lilo 连衣裙的三款演变版本，这是一款宽松的罩衫，也可以搭配成裙子。
上方 可转换长裙，£118, freepeople.com。右侧 可反穿上衣，每件 £51，以及可反穿上衣/裙子，每件 £51, susmies.com。最右侧 多功能穿搭
几周前，我参加了在哈克尼 (Hackney) 举行的一次快速约会活动。我感到很惊讶。那里很酷——有细眉毛和鲻鱼头。男人们很帅且有趣，职业涵盖了从慈善部门到模特的所有领域。你与每一个人相处五分钟，之后勾选“是”或“否”来决定是否想再次见到他们。
“有哪个男生联系你了吗？”活动中的一个女孩 Katy 第二天发信息问我。“我想和其中几个约会，但我希望他们先采取行动。”我告诉她我也没收到任何消息。
因此，在没有收到消息的情况下，接下来的几天里，我花时间思考要发给每个匹配对象的精彩开场白。我决定必须由他们邀请我出去，因为是我发起了对话。当他们都没有这么做时，我打破了自己的规定，询问我最喜欢的那位是否愿意一起做点什么。他回复道：“嘿！抱歉回复慢了。我下周超级忙，要去参加单身派对 lol。我回来后应该会有点时间？”
“应该会有点时间，问号。”我该拿这个怎么对待？这次快速约会活动证实了一些
千禧一代的女性（我 31 岁）在成长过程中被灌输了这样一个谎言：只要我们足够有吸引力、足够聪明、足够漂亮，就能找到真爱。但现在情况并非如此。人们总是暗示女性可以得到任何她们想要的人，而男性则在竞争女孩。你在浪漫喜剧中能看到这种情况。 之爱
单身女性已经注意到一段时间了。不仅仅是因为约会氛围低迷，或者应用程序上提供的选项过多地让人们变得可以随意舍弃（尽管这些因素依然在起作用），而是女性似乎成了唯一对约会还有兴趣的人。
高级 定制
我的第一个错误是以为我要去巴黎看时装秀。“不，这些是艺术展。你要去的是时装双年展。”我正在与乔丹·罗斯（Jordan Roth）交谈，他是一位获得过托尼奖的剧场制作人，也是一位高产的美国买手，预计将在秀场上购买作品。我的下一个错误是假设这意味着对罗斯来说这是一次购物之旅。
“噢不，我是去体验一群非凡艺术家的收藏，沉浸在艺术之中，看看它如何在我身上产生共鸣，以及我此刻所处的状态。我想要一次情感与思想的个人旅程。如果你开始使用艺术而非服装的词汇，”他耐心地解释道，“一切都会变得清晰。”
由于从未参加过任何形式的时装秀，我需要尽可能多的帮助来理解高级定制周，这个世界对我来说就像月球一样陌生。我曾想象过佩戴珍珠项链的巴黎名媛，但我参加的第一场秀是由一位名为罗伯特·温（Robert Wun）的设计师举办的，他是高级定制领域的一位年轻新秀，选择了一个类似太空时代的金属穹顶作为场地。
我们围坐在一个巨大的发光青绿色光池周围，背景音乐听起来像是鲸鱼在外太空中战斗。人群大多年轻且身着黑衣，在黑暗中徘徊，直到 Cardi B、莫拉·希金斯（Maura Higgins）和一位名叫范冰冰的中国女演员的到来引起了一小场轰动。她们全身穿着温的作品，被摄影师簇拥，每一个人像格斗赛中的冠军牛一样在环形区域内摆拍，然后加入到为买手预留的座位区，与罗斯坐在一起。在预定开始时间半小时后——显然这被视为准时；延迟不到一小时都不算迟到——表演开始了。
服装的词汇确实无法充分描述我们所看到的景象。有些作品主要由气球组成，有些则涉及气泡太空头盔，有些
的作品...
配有号角装饰。它们美丽、诱人且完全令人费解。我能想到唯一可能把这种男装穿出格调的人就是 Met Gala 上的 Lil Nas X，而那正是 Wun 成名的地方。
在演出前几天我和这位设计师交谈时，我试图理解为什么他要制作极少数人会穿的衣服。碧昂丝 (Beyoncé)、大坂直美 (Naomi Osaka) 和 Roth 曾在 Met Gala 上展示过他的作品，他也曾为 Adele、Björk 和皇家芭蕾舞团设计服装，但即便按照这些人的标准，Wun 的高级定制也相当前卫。他的系列作品在商业上可行吗？还是说，它们仅仅是为他与欧莱雅 (L’Oréal)、施华洛夫斯基 (Swarovski) 以及《饥饿游戏》系列电影等品牌的合作而设立的、以亏损换流量的展示窗口？
“对我们来说，这是非常可行的，”他说，“你可能不像 H&M 或 Zara 那样的庞然大物，但你能对文化产生影响，引领一场对话。高级定制是保护设计师想要创作内容的唯一避风港。这不在于我们在短时间内能卖出多少，而在于实质，在于价值，在于为历史而作。”
“haute couture”（高级定制）这个词是在 100 多年前创造的，但对我来说，它的含义像“先锋 (avant-garde)”一样泛泛。因此，我惊讶地发现它在法律上受到保护，被高度规范，并由巴黎高级定制和时尚联盟 (Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode) 严格管理。该联盟成立于 1868, 规定高级定制屋必须为私人客户创作量身定制的服装，在巴黎维持一个至少有 15 名全职员工的 l'atelier（工作室），在车间内雇佣至少 20 名全职技术工人，并且每年在巴黎高级定制周期间展示至少 50 套原创设计。即便如此，高级定制的身份也仅由法国工业部任命的委员会通过邀请制授予。
从技术上讲，任何人都可以购买高级定制，但由于一件作品的价格可能高达 £250,000, 全球范围内的定期买家不足 2,000 人。31, 岁的 Zoia Krasicki von Siecin 在三年前开始购买，目前拥有约 20 件作品，全部存储在伦敦一个专业的恒温档案库中。“对我来说，这是对工艺的热爱以及对高级定制使命的认同。我参加秀场时从未真正考虑过具体的场合。我更倾向于购买我所热爱的以及在瞬间吸引我的作品。至于在什么场合穿，是之后才考虑的事。”
买家可以针对某件作品协商“区域排他权”，以确保他们是整个欧洲或中东地区唯一的一位拥有者。为此，设计师会额外收取 10 到 15 百分比的费用，但定价问题被笼罩在如此深的神秘之中，以至于这是我唯一能获知的财务事实。这里没有标价，甚至提及金钱似乎都被视为有失身份。“只有服装屋和我的助手知道我支付了多少，”Krasicki von Siecin 说道，听起来对我提出这个问题感到微微震惊。
在 Elie Saab 的秀场里，显然聚集了大量资金。这位黎巴嫩设计师的系列作品是纯粹的红毯风与《了不起的盖茨比》式的华丽相结合，是一场让我极其渴望尝试的、令人眩晕的礼服游行。很容易理解为什么全球 0.0001 百分比的顶层人士想要拥有它们。然而，仅仅几分钟后，它们不知为何开始变得模糊，变成了一场奇怪且容易被遗忘的瑰丽旋转木马。尽管剪裁精湛、细节复杂，但到最后，它们让我想起芬斯伯里公园 (Finsbury Park) 冯希尔路 (Fonthill Road) 上那些服装店橱窗里俗气的舞会礼服。
我开始明白 Roth 所说的“情感的个人旅程”是指什么，因为大厅里似乎挤满了年轻的
这是最新一个看似飞涨的中端英国品牌，被夹在奢侈品牌和大众商业街品牌之间而崩溃的例子。事实上，在过去的两年里，许多高调的独立品牌，包括 Susie Cave 的 The Vampire’s Wife 和 Samantha Cameron 的 Ceinn 均已倒闭。“时尚界真的非常残酷，”Webb 叹了口气说道，“你发布产品，迅速走红，但最终总会跌落。你可能坐在这里什么都不做反而能赚更多钱。昨天一位妈妈穿着我的一件人字纹上衣走到我面前。她说：‘有人说你要放弃了。你为什么要这么做？我们都热爱你的设计。’我说：’是的，但必须有足够多的人热爱它，才能让这个品牌运转起来。’ ”
和许多人一样，51, 岁的 Webb 被一系列因素击败，包括极低的利润率、现金流问题以及要求每年出四个系列的零售商。“我看着很多品牌心想，你一定有个富豪丈夫。”
然而，性格热情且风趣的 Webb 如今坐在她西伦敦公关人员的办公室里，她是一个幸存者，并且已经开始将自己重新定义为一名大胆的小说家。她的第一本书《No Regrets》出版于 2020 年，
与歌手 Dannii Minogue（她是其包袋的粉丝）合作，随后则以自己的名字发表。“我不像 Stella [McCartney] 或 Alice [Temperley] 那样的设计师。我甚至不知道如何制作一件连衣裙或选择面料，但我倾尽全力。”随后是“神奇的几年。我们为无数了不起的人设计服装。我们的产品在全世界销售。但在财务上，我们从未占据主动。”
亮点包括为 Miranda Kerr 在维多利亚的秘密发布会上设计了一套黄色的单肩 Project D 造型，以及凯特·米德尔顿在南太平洋巡访期间穿着该品牌的拉链衬衫裙。
Webb 还与 Pippa Middleton 合作设计了一款茶歇裙和一条围巾，以资助英国心脏基金会；而她的姐姐也穿了多件 Webb 的设计，包括在 2020 年发布早期教育调查报告时，穿着一件标志性的人字纹蝴蝶结衬衫。
“看到那一幕，我对丈夫说：‘我想我终于要赚钱了。’没有比凯特穿着你的衣服更好的背书了。很容易认为这将成就你的事业。但事实并非如此。顾客会买她穿的那件，但他们不会回头买更多。”
新冠疫情之后，最后一击是一张意外的税单。公司倒闭了。为了在后续项目中继续使用自己的名字，Webb 必须支付约 £10,000。“这就像是被在胃部重击了一拳。”
具有典型个人风格地，Webb 迅速重新振作。在一家出版商接触她并告诉她“你很擅长聊天，擅长讲故事”之后，她实现了终身写作浪漫小说的小说梦，并获得了一份两本书的合约。“我妈妈总是说，‘永远不要拒绝’，所以我这么做了，尽管写书比我想象的要难得多。”
除了写小说，Webb 今年还推出了 Substack 和 YouTube 频道 Tabitha Talks，“与人们聊聊爱情”。她还为美容品牌 Prai 设计了一条围巾，并为英国家具公司 Boura & White 设计了一款虎纹沙发。
“我可以继续做伟大的事情，但必须是以合作的形式，”她说。“独立工作太艰难了。所发生的一切虽然令人心碎，但我奇怪地感觉到一种前进的动力。” ■
由 Tabitha Webb 撰写的《Playing the Field》(HarperCollins £9.99) 将于周四出版。如需订购，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk 或致电 020 3176 2935。在线订单满 £25 免英国标准邮费。Times+ 会员可享受特别折扣。
你坐在水边，夕阳在水面上闪烁，现场音乐在播放，手中的喷雾酒杯凝结着水珠。不，这不是威尼斯一个温暖的夜晚，而是摄政运河 (Regent’s Canal) 的夏天。诚然，你更有可能看到一只小破船漂过，而不是贡多拉，但这是这座城市对大运河的答案。
在欧洲大陆，运河长期以来一直是繁荣的文化中心。在哥本哈根，这里是斯堪的纳维亚室内设计巨头旗舰店的落脚点；而在巴黎，圣马丁运河 (Canal Saint Martin) 的锻铁人行桥网络（其中最古老的一座去年被重新命名为简·比金桥 Passerelle Jane Birkin）对这座城市的年轻艺术群体有着巨大的吸引力。白天，你可以看到巴黎人在水边慵懒地度日；夜晚，则可以在沿岸众多热闹的餐馆中用餐。
现在，我们这里也正在赶超。请继续阅读，探索今年夏天最值得造访的运河胜地。
GERALDINE BRUNEEL 乡村田园诗 (RURALidyll)
文字 OLIVIA LIDBURY
肖像：Julie Lannez。室内：Geraldine Bruneel 为 Studio Farniente 拍摄
我原以为分娩会让我感到充满力量。我以为我会浸在水中，深深地专注于呼吸，看着我的孩子来到这个世界。当然，我知道分娩很少能完全按计划进行。但作为一名制片人和小说家，我习惯于先设想结果，然后使其实现。因此，当我乐观地勾选“低干预”偏好时，我没想过我的经历会与预期如此截然不同。
我没想过在预产期过去两周后，在多次尝试人工破膜失败后，我会被诱导分娩并被给予扩张药物。我没想过我的宫缩会以如此猛烈的力量袭来，以至于我被告知要为即将到来的产程做好准备。我没想过 30 小时后，在更换了三名助产士之后，我仍然在经历接连不断的宫缩，同时吸入了如此多的笑气以至于在幻觉中看到了我儿子的到来。我以为我会保持清醒，不一定掌控全局，但会顺从于那一刻。
然而，在硬膜外麻醉针插入时我呕吐在腿上，以及看着医生进行会阴切开术之间，我感到一种挫败感，仿佛我的身体不再属于我自己。直到，当然，我的儿子被放在我的胸口，时间真正停止了。我永远不会忘记他那双大大的、深色的眼睛，凝视着我。或者他的手指像树蛙一样伸展开，向我触来。在那一刻，没有任何疼痛，也没有什么重要，除了他。
当我的丈夫被命令按下紧急按钮时，这一刻被中断了。随着我的儿子被从我身边带走，更多的医生冲了进来。我低头看向血染的床单——后来我得知，失血量有 1.7 升。我记得当时在想，真是太糟糕了。但至少我的宝宝安全了。
当我清醒过来时，房间里很安静，我的丈夫正抱着我们的儿子。一名护士解释了产后出血的情况以及我身边的静脉滴注。在移除导尿管后，她扶我起来看我是否能行走。我摇摇晃晃地走过房间，认为最糟糕的事情一定已经过去了。但我错了。我们的儿子体重不足，且无法消化母乳。在我们发现他的呕吐物中带血后，他被送入特护病房并放入保温箱。
接下来的五个夜晚是在一个闷热的病房里度过的，听着其他人的婴儿哭泣，并思考着，在走廊的尽头，我的孩子是否……
也在哭。我感到彻底的无助，乳房胀满，却不愿去打扰那些在床位短缺压力下过度劳累的护士。当我最终寻求帮助时，一名护士给了我一只装满温水的蓝色一次性手套，用来缓解疼痛。将这个塑料手按在肿胀的乳头上时，我记得自己面对这荒诞的景象笑了起来，但随即又迅速地哭了起来，因为这种触碰让我更加渴望抱住我的孩子。
在破碎的睡眠间隙，我像幽灵般徘徊在医院的走廊里，拖着酸痛的身体在我的病床和存放我儿子的塑料保温箱的房间之间往返。有一天晚上，我走错了路，发现自己身处一条陌生的走廊。我记得我抬头看向闭路电视（CCTV）屏幕，看到了我自己——一个我几乎认不出来的女人。她的身体看起来变了，脸也一样，就像有人把她撕碎后，又按照某种不那么契合的模式将她缝合在一起。她看起来憔悴而衰竭，但她的眼神中还有别的东西。某种动物本能。现在我意识到，那是一种无论如何都要挺过去、尽全力为人母的坚定决心。
而我们确实挺过来了，我的丈夫、我的儿子和我，在家人、朋友和医院工作人员的关爱与支持下。在一次常规的家庭随访中，护士建议我参加一次分娩回顾课程，以处理她所描述的“创伤性经历”。我礼貌地了点头，但并不认为自己需要接受这个建议。况且，与许多人的经历相比，“创伤性”这个词对我来说显得太过了，甚至有些不敏感。
但尽管我决心将这些记忆封存，有些东西依然潜伏在我的骨子里。几个月后，拥有了一个快乐健康儿子的我，注意到只要提到分娩，我的身体就会产生剧烈反应。在电视上，在书里，或者知道朋友的预产期快到了，我会发现自己变得焦虑，经常忍住莫名而至的泪水。也许这是常态——是对母亲们将孩子带到这个世界上所经历的艰巨旅程的一种深刻认知。或者，也许这是某种需要被温柔审视的东西。带着再次怀孕的希望，我决定尝试倾听身体的声音，预约了一次分娩回顾课程。
这次谈话是通过 Zoom 与一名温婉的助产士进行的，她让我立刻感到安心。这次课程是对发生的时间和过程的详细叙述；其中有些内容我很熟悉，而许多内容则是全新的。我哭得比预期中更多，感到一种悲伤与解脱交织的情绪——即便在当时感觉一切都失去控制时，医生和护士们仍在记录、监测并做出决定，而这些决定可能挽救了我和宝宝的生命。
在英国，三分之一的女性经历过分娩及产后创伤，我知道讲述这些是有价值的。现在，当朋友们讲述她们的故事时，我会留意那些她们淡化自身痛苦的时刻。比如我在软体游戏区遇到的一位女性，因为女儿卡住而导致三度撕裂；或者我的一个朋友，因为缝合处感染不得不多次返回医院。这种掩盖创伤的倾向，往往源于不想吓到其他女性，或者觉得别人的情况更糟。但在英国，约有 30,000 名女性在分娩后患上创伤后应激障碍（PTSD），且 53% 经历分娩创伤的女性表示，她们以后生育更多孩子的可能性较低。因此，我们不能让这些故事被掩埋。
现在，当我写下我的经历时，一个活泼的幼儿正在对着厨房橱柜踢足球。我 37 岁，怀第二个孩子 19 周。我的处女作小说《承载者》（The Carrier）也已面世。这是一部女权主义惊悚小说，它想象了一个你可以将不想要的情感外包给底层女性的社会。讽刺的是，我写了一本关于处理创伤必要性的小说，而与此同时，我自己却在努力地尝试处理它。
这一点我深有体会，但正如人们所说，迟到总比不到好。虽然我不知道第二个孩子将如何到来，但这一次我会做得不同的一点是，静下心来面对产后涌现的情绪。我会倾听身体的声音。在早年为人父母的种种需求面前，人们很容易忽略反思和自我关怀，但我希望所有的母亲，无论她们的孩子是如何来到这个世界的，都能获得足够的时间和空间，去感受伴随这段经历而来的全部情感光谱。有时，我们的
精神似乎已经 走远了，但我们的 身体也应当获得 跟上的机会。 ■
《The Carrier》，作者 Ruth Newton (Bantam £18.99) 现已上市。如需订购，请访问 timesbookshop.co.uk 或致电 020 3176 2935。订单金额超过 £25 可享受英国标准邮费免单。
很少有事情像头发开始出现异样那样能迅速击垮你的自信。无论是变稀疏、脱落、变得更易碎，还是似乎完全改变了“个性”，找到根源才是寻找正确治疗方法的关键。随着过去一年中 Google 上关于“女性严重脱发”的搜索量增长了超过 5,000 百分比，护发行业正通过将注意力转向针对生命中特定阶段设计的配方来做出回应。
从青春期到产后，从围绝经期及其之后，其核心理念是为每个阶段量身定制产品，根据身体内部发生的情况来呵护头发。“头发是对内部情况的反应，”发型师保罗·埃德蒙兹 (Paul Edmonds) 表示，“在我的职业生涯中，我照顾过女性从第一次青少年剪发开始，经历怀孕、为人母以及绝经期，每个阶段都带来了不同的挑战。每一个阶段都值得进行不同的探讨。”
这就是 Maze 的思考逻辑，这是一个由姐妹梅西 (Maisie) 和埃拉·麦克道尔 (Ella McDowell) 创立的新型生命阶段护发品牌。“我们不断听到朋友们讲述关于产后脱发的同样故事，她们在那个阶段面对自己的头发时感到完全不知所措，”梅西说。“我们知道激素会以可预测的方式影响头发，但大多数护发产品仍然围绕着光泽度、丰盈度或密度等单一功效来销售。创建 Maze 是为了让女性更容易找到能够支持她们度过这些特定生命时期的产品。”
Storm Management 的 米歇尔·朗森 (Michele Ronson)，Models1 的 埃拉·理查兹 (Ella Richards)，
我们的头发在四个阶段中不断循环：生长期 (anagen)、过渡期 (catagen)、休止期 (telogen) 和脱落期 (exogen)。顾问皮肤科医生莎伦·贝尔莫 (Dr Sharon Belmo) 博士表示，激素变化会影响头发在每个阶段停留的时间。“不同的激素以不同的方式影响头发。例如，雌激素会延长生长阶段，而甲状腺激素和皮质醇则可能导致脱发增加。”
Established Models 的 纽玛·塔舍布贝特 (Nyouma Tacheboubet)
随着关于激素健康的探讨变得更加主流，我们正更加关注生物学的
从情绪到皮肤状态，种种变化都在驱动着这一切。或许，这种好奇心延伸到我们的头发上也只是时间问题。以下是您需要了解的信息。
青春期 随着青春期雄激素水平（包括睾酮和雄烯二酮）的上升，它们会刺激皮脂腺，使得头皮出油成为最早感受到的变化之一。通常需要更频繁地洗头以抑制多余油脂。“我推荐 Davines Rebalancing Shampoo [£26]，因为它有助于平衡油性头皮而不会使头发干涩，”Edmonds 说道。其他不错的选择包括薇诗（Vichy）含有水杨酸的 Dercos Technique Anti-Dandruf Purifying Shampoo (£17)，以及欧莱雅专业（L’Oréal Professionnel）Serie Expert Scalp Advanced Anti-Oiliness Shampoo (£23），后者含有 α-羟基酸，有助于清除油脂和日常堆积物。
怀孕期 “在怀孕期间，高水平的雌激素使头发保持在生长阶段，这意味着头发生长时间更长，脱落更少，且通常感觉更厚实、更有光泽，”Belmo 说道。随着激素影响毛囊，一些女性还会注意到发质的变化，无论头发是变得更卷、更直还是其他变化。在这一阶段持续时尽情享受，但要留意您的头皮，以便调整护理方案。如果干燥是主要问题，Weleda Hydra Shine Shampoo (£12) 利用透明质酸和高山亚麻籽来补充水分并舒缓毛躁。如果您的头发更油，前述的几种配方可以帮助重新平衡。
产后 在经历了数月光泽的孕期发质后，分娩后的即刻时期会带来剧烈的激素变化。 trichologist（毛发专家）Hannah Gaboardi 解释道，随着雌激素水平下降，许多此前处于生长阶段的头发会同时进入 telogen eluvium —— 即脱发阶段。 “这是一个巨大的转变。女性在经历过度脱发的同时，往往还伴随着干燥、毛躁、头皮失衡，以及当所有头发开始重新生长时，发际线周围出现的小碎发。”
脱发通常在产后三到 6 个月之间开始，掉发量可能令人心惊。“我告诉客户的第一件事就是不要恐慌，”Edmonds 说道。“她们并不是在变秃 —— 她们只是在脱掉那些在孕期激素作用下得以保留的头发。”
了解发生了什么会让人安心 —— 头发确实会重新长回来 —— 但 Gaboardi 还建议调查身体内部的情况。“我希望更多的女性知道在生产后进行血液检查，”她说道。“这不仅可以解释疲劳，还能解释头发变薄和脱发的原因，使我们能够根据她们的实际需求推荐补剂。”
铁蛋白低，以及维生素 D、维生素 B12、锌和叶酸缺乏，都会损害头发健康。目标不是盲目地服用补剂，而是首先确定潜在原因，然后用正确的营养素进行针对性补充，同时将压力水平控制在合理范围内。
Belmo 和 Gaboardi 都推荐使用富血小板血浆（PRP）注射来刺激再生并减少脱发。针对居家使用，Gaboardi 推荐 Calecim Hair System (£295)，这是一款由 PTT-6（一种由糖蛋白、纤连蛋白、胶原蛋白和透明质酸组成的混合物）驱动的为期六周的治疗方案，旨在支持毛囊更新。它还附带一个家用微针激活器，在头皮上创造微小通道以改善吸收，并帮助头发重新进入 anagen 生长阶段。
Maze Follibiotics Pro Scalp Treatment (£30) 包含一种专利后生元，据证明可增加头发密度并延长活跃生长阶段。它不能完全停止脱发 —— 没有一种配方能做到 —— 但它可能会减轻脱发程度。一旦脱发情况稳定，Nioxin Hair Fall Defense Shampoo (£27) 和 UKHair Growth Serum (£29) 可以帮助支持头发再生。 ➤
并请保持信心：大多数女性在分娩后的六到十二个月内会恢复到正常状态。
围绝经期 “女性在进入围绝经期时，经常发现她们使用了多年的产品不再起作用，”Edmonds 说道。“这是因为头发本身发生了变化。”随着雌激素水平下降，雄激素对毛囊的影响增大。“这缩短了生长阶段，并导致毛囊萎缩，从而产生更细、更短且更脆弱的头发，”Belmo 说道。
其结果可能是发缝变宽，头顶或太阳穴周围变薄，脱发增加以及整体密度下降。头发也可能变得更干、更粗或更硬，对于某些女性来说，此时女性型脱发首次变得明显或开始加速。
如果担心女性型脱发，Gaboardi 建议在咨询全科医生 (GP) 或激素专家关于是否适合进行激素替代疗法 (HRT) 之前，先进行血液检查。非处方药米诺地尔 (minoxidil) 有 2 per cent 和 5 per cent 两种浓度，仍然是最有效的有证据支持的治疗方法之一。它有助于维持毛囊的血液流动并延长生长阶段，通常与针对二氢睾酮 (DHT) 的治疗方案配合使用，以帮助防止毛囊萎缩。
Belmo 也是 Tricopat 的拥趸，这是一种诊所内治疗，结合了 LED 光疗、声波、微脉冲按摩和离子导入法（涉及微弱电流），无需注射即可将生长因子输送到头皮深层。
在这个阶段，补水是关键。“温和清洁、每周深层滋养发膜、免洗护发素和隔热保护变得更加重要，”Edmonds 说道。“Kérastase Chronologiste 修复夜间护发精华液 [£56] 是我最喜欢的用于恢复成熟头发柔软度和活力的产品之一。”
其他亮点产品包括 Monpure Follicle Boost 头发密度精华液 (£83)，它使用南瓜籽提取物来抑制 DHT 的产生。或者尝试 Living Proof Scalp Care 密度精华液 (£57)，临床证明它能在 90 天内改善头发密度的外观，同时帮助延缓白发出现。最后，Nanogen 洗发水 (£13) 旨在滋养细软、稀疏的头发，同时维持头皮健康。■
Alexandra Cameron
（左起）Pyal Patel 医生的嘴唇：治疗前；第一次治疗后；第二次治疗后；第二次治疗六周后痊愈
你问我是否会尝试。现在还不会。当我看着镜子时，我的目光不会落在那个区域。这个夏天，我正享受尝试用唇线笔、亮泽唇彩和黄油润唇膏的乐趣。但那些你在 40 岁时拒绝的事情，在 45 岁时可能突然变得合理，所以永远不要说绝不。■
噢，宝贝，这真是个棘手的问题。一个在 32 岁就拥有理想职业的女性，通常也认为只要足够努力，就能得到她想要的任何东西。不幸的是，正如你已经在体会到的，生活中有一个领域不适用这一法则，那就是恋爱和组建家庭。你无法通过学习来实现它，它不是一项你可以习得或提升的特定技能。世界上所有的约会专家都会反对我的观点（当然他们会这么说，否则他们就失业了），但其中最关键的因素之一就是运气。
有些人会告诉你，你只需要停止寻找，停止担心，正确的人自然会出现。而另一些人则会告诉你，除非你像经营一份自由职业那样对待寻找伴侣这件事，否则你找不到另一半。我认为真相在两者之间。以下是我的建议。
抢占生育先机 在 32, 岁这个年纪，正是检查生育能力绝对的黄金时期。如果你知道自己想要和伴侣生孩子，那么在单身期间，你可以做一些准备工作。这可能简单到服用一套优质的生育补充剂，或者照顾好自己的健康。你可能想做一次生育检查，或者考虑冻结卵子。我知道有些单身女性在三十多岁时这么做了，这有助于她们在约会时保持一种非常必要的轻松心态，而不是觉得整个未来的重量都压在与一名来自 Hinge 的陌生人在一家主打自然酒和小盘菜的餐厅共度的夜晚上。
想要让 Dolly 回答你的生活难题，请发送电子邮件或语音信息至 deardolly@sundaytimes.co.uk 或私信 @theststyle
船。我想我已经与这个想法达成了和解，但有时我仍感到难过，因为随着我进入三十多岁的深处，我的机会之窗正在缩小，生活选择也变得更加有限。
结交单身女性朋友 这是三十多岁单身生活中最重要的一部分。你需要那些能一起出去玩、一起度假、一起喝大量辣味玛格丽特酒的女性。就像你朋友圈里那些新妈妈需要 NCT 朋友支持她们度过生活的新阶段一样，单身女性也需要伙伴来帮助她们应对这个新篇章。因为对于一个想要孩子的三十多岁女性来说，约会体验与之前截然不同。你需要那些真正懂的人。
写一份“单身女孩宣言” 好吧，我知道这听起来很疯。直到最近我清理 iPhone 备忘录时，我才想起自己做过这件事。在那些记录 2021 年随机日期摄入多少克蛋白质的清单之间，我发现了一份我和我最好的单身朋友在 2022 年除夕夜共同撰写的行为准则。当时我们可能一边喝着辣味玛格丽特酒，一边列出了一系列想要遵守的“准则”和“禁忌”：我们能接受什么样的约会，不能接受什么样的；我们希望如何在寻找伴侣的任务与在现有生活中保持投入和感恩之间取得平衡。我认为这帮我们摆脱了一些恐慌，并在单身生活中找到了更平静、更快乐的意图。（顺便提一下，那位单身朋友在经历了十年的约会后，在写完那份清单两个月后就遇到了她的丈夫。）
请求被介绍 确保你认识的所有人都知道你正在寻找另一半。不要为此感到尴尬——这并不显得绝望，这只是意味着你的朋友在下次做红娘时会想到你。明确表达你的需求：如果有人说他们认识一个很棒的人，但对方并不追求严肃的关系，不要想着能改变对方而与他们约会。初次约会中出现的问题，几乎总是成为你们最终分手的原因。
改变模式 无论你现在在做什么，尝试一些不同的方式。如果你的理想型是音乐家，那就去和一名会计师喝一杯。如果你每周六晚上都去同一家酒吧，那就尝试去另一个邮编区域。删除一个约会软件，下载另一个。对那些超出你常规范围的可能性保持开放态度。
不要执着于你的年龄 你不应该认为自己在 32 岁时已经错过了机会（missed a boat）。仍然有许多机会——在 32 岁时，你正处于一场真正的赛船会之中。三十多岁是寻找爱情的绝佳时机。而且十年是一段很长的时间。思考你面前所有的可能性，而不是幻想未来的遗憾。讽刺的是，一旦你进入下一个十年，这正是你唯一会后悔浪费了这么多时间在其上的事情。 ■
Alexandra Cameron
Sunday newspaper of the year
wrong — by a Homer expert
News Review
VIEW
Gabriel Pogrund, Emanuele Midolo and Venetia Menzies
Reform UK’s bank account was frozen during the last election after the party received potentially ille- gal donations from the mother of George Cottrell, the criminal who bankrolled Nigel Farage.
The party was unable to make or receive payments through its account with Arbuthnot Latham, a London private and merchant bank, for a two-week period that
give mayors tax cash for cities
6 PM to also address defence, care and jobs
Lara Spirit Deputy Political Editor
Andy Burnham will hand mayors a share of income tax revenue to spend on their cities in sweeping devolution plans to be unveiled next week.
The prime minister will give mayors significant new spending powers to boost local investment, infrastructure and other growth projects in an announcement expected on Friday.
Burnham, who until last month was mayor of Greater Manchester, will outline greater freedoms for England’s 14 regional and metro mayors to secure his promise of “good growth in every postcode”.
The move will mark the end of his second week in No 10, during which he will also intervene on issues including social care, defence and the crisis of young people not in education, employ- ment or training (Neets).
He will address difficult, longer- term policy issues after using his first week to announce rapid meas- ures targeted at easing cost of liv- ing pressures for voters including a cap on bus fares, cuts to domestic energy bills, and a reduction in business rates for most pubs, clubs and live music venues.
While mayors will be given a share of income tax revenue to support job creation and local
Christina Lamb Chief Foreign Correspondent, West Bank Israel killed baby ‘in cold blood’
Parents of a seven-month-old Palestinian baby shot dead last month on his mother’s lap have accused the Israeli army of killing him “in cold blood”, as violence has intensified in the West Bank.
included polling day on July 4, 2024.
The Reform treasurer at the time repeatedly asked the bank for an explanation, urging it to unfreeze the account. However, Arbuthnot Latham refused. It said it could not unfreeze the account on demand and declined to provide information beyond saying it was performing “compli- ance checks”.
Days earlier, bankers had made suspicious activity reports to the National Crime Agency concerning more than £1 million in payments received by the party. They related to Fiona Cottrell, a self-styled “retired stylist” whose son paid for Farage’s staff, security, accommo-
growth under Burnham’s plans, leaders are not expected to receive new tax-raising powers.
The measure marks a departure from the traditional Whitehall model, under which the Treasury has long held control over the dis- tribution of local funding from Westminster. It has been blamed by regional leaders for failing to get cash out of London effectively.
A government source said: “For too long, governments have acted as if the answer to every problem sits somewhere in a Whitehall filing cabinet. Power should sit as close as possible to the people it affects, because the people best placed to solve a problem are usu- ally the people living with it every single day.”
The changes will be led by No 10 North in Manchester. Burnham worked from the site on Friday for the first time, saying it “might be the best day of my life”.
While the precise details of his plans remain unclear, one ques- tion will be whether there will be
ON THE JOB
PAGES 4-5
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have said it was a mistake. “It was not a mistake,” Abu Haikal said, barely able to contain his anger. “They are a professional army ... They shot a baby in cold blood for no reason.”
The accusation came as the deadliest violence for months erupted on the West Bank, follow- ing clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians. At least four Pal- estinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians yesterday.
dation and social media output before the campaign in a series of undisclosed benefits.
In May 2024, Cottrell’s mother gave £500,000 to the party in her own name. The next month, she gave a further £1 million to a com- pany owned by Richard Tice, Far- age’s deputy, who then donated half of that sum to Reform.
In February last year the Metro- politan Police began a criminal investigation into payments she made, on the basis that she may have “disguised” the source of the donations. The inquiry continues. Cottrell and his mother have been interviewed under caution by detectives, according to The Guardian. Taking into account
any “equalisation” measures to ensure that poorer regions are not punished by the policy.
It is not yet clear whether Burn- ham will need to bring forward primary legislation to enact his devolution plans.
The revenue announcement is part of Burnham’s “devolution by default” reset across government, with cabinet ministers to be told that their departments will now have to justify why a power should stay at the centre, rather than being transferred to a local area.
Burnham has described Britain as “one of the most over-central- ised countries in the world”. According to the Centre for Cities think tank, the UK is the most fis- cally centralised country in the G7. Just 5 per cent of tax revenue stays with mayors and local authorities, while 95 per cent goes directly to Whitehall.
The UK also has the lowest local government funding via taxes of any of the G7: just 19 per cent of rev- enue comes from levies.
Speaking at The People’s His- tory Museum in Manchester after being elected MP for Makerfield, Burnham said he had felt “frustra- tion” as mayor when Whitehall departments resisted efforts to devolve “a fraction of the power and resources they hold”.
He promised that “the days of
“powerful action” in response and his office said he would speed up approvals of more Israeli settle- ments in the area.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. According to the UN, 259 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank since. Many see it as part of a campaign to force Palestinians out so illegal settlers can take over.
PETER MACDIARMID FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
NATHAN LAINE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Daniel Woolfson Senior Business Correspondent Waitrose reinvented for suburbs
Waitrose is opening smaller, “neighbourhood” versions of its shops in suburbs and commuter towns in an attempt to take busi- ness from Marks & Spencer.
TRUMP ALLY AND THE JUDGE
George Cottrell in London — the first picture of him since the funding scandal broke
couture, sweetie! Decca Aitkenhead on fashion’s front row
money she donated directly or via Tice’s company, Fiona Cottrell pro- vided 35 per cent of all payments received by Reform during the campaign. She has never com- mented on the source of her wealth or the subsequent inquiries by the National Crime Agency or Scotland Yard.
Farage, a vocal campaigner against the “banking establish- ment”, has never mentioned the freeze. The decision to freeze the account of a political party has no known precedent in modern times.
According to Arbuthnot Latham’s website, the bank may block an account or suspend banking services at any point if
retailer and modernise its super- markets. Tarry, who spent 33 years at Tesco, took over from Baroness White of Tufnell Park.
The latest of these new stores, of which there are already about 20, opened in Chelmer village retail park, Essex, last week. The bran- ches are roughly 7,000 sq ft com- pared with the 10-25,000 sq ft of a big store and 2,500-3,000 sq ft for a convenience store. The new style of shop has about 50 parking spa- ces and stocks around 6,500 prod- ucts. A larger Waitrose typically sells about 20,000 products.
“we are required to do so by law or regulation”, or “where we suspect fraud, money laundering or other crime or offence”. Other reasons include the account holder breaching terms and conditions or a reasonable belief its activity could lead to “action or censure” from government or law enforce- ment.
Banks usually decline to tell cli- ents why their accounts have been frozen because it can amount to “tipping off” those behind poten- tial wrongdoing.
Arbuthnot Latham declined to comment.
Founded in the City of London in 1833, the bank is chaired by Sir
pensions cut after calculation error
thousands of pounds after a blunder by administrators
Lottie Hayton died, received his letter on March 12. It gave two weeks’ warning that his pension was to be cut by £414 a month. In addition he was told he needed to pay back £16,000 over the next 18 months (the same period in which overpayment had occurred).
More than 1,000 military veterans have been told they must repay tens of thou- sands of pounds and have their pensions reduced because of calculation errors.
The Ministry of Defence said the pen- sions had been overpaid for years, in some cases by more than a hundred thousand pounds. Despite the veterans not being at fault, the burden of correct- ing the mistake falls on them rather than on the pension scheme administrator and contractors responsible.
The retirement plans of James Uncles, a former royal navy warrant officer, crumbled when a letter from the MoD arrived on February 27. “My wife asked ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘It’s my pension, they say there’s been an overpayment and we have to give back £45,687.’ She couldn’t speak for five minutes.” Their 50th wed- ding anniversary plans, essential mainte- nance on their home and car loan repay- ments are all now under threat.
Uncles was told that his monthly pen- sion would be immediately reduced by more than £1,000 — a drop of nearly 25 per cent. More alarmingly, the letter informed him that a further £750 per month would be deducted over the next five years to cover the overpayments which had been made unnoticed to him since January 5, 2021.
Uncles, who served for 35 years as an aircraft engineer, said: “Is it all going to be down to innocent veterans? This scheme is clearly flawed and has been for many years and in its wake it’s leaving hun- dreds and hundreds of people who are having to change their lives.”
According to a recent freedom of infor- mation request made by the Forces Pen- sion Society (FPS), a non-profit guidance service for veterans, there are 398 over- payment cases like Uncles’s.
The overpayments, which affect both the armed forces final salary schemes, AFPS 75 and AFPS 05, were caused by the administrators incorrectly recalculating
the pension when raised in line with infla- tion every year. This “incorrect applica- tion of national insurance modification rules” meant that the calculation was car- ried out twice in some years.
However, the FPS has received more than 1,000 overpayment cases in total. These include other types of calculation errors, for example in the case of “pen- sion-sharing on divorce” calculations, where divorcees are granted a percent- age of their ex-military spouse’s pension.
In November 2024 the MoD first identi- fied that overpayments had been going out, in some cases for more than five years. Pensioners were only notified this year.
Captain Nick Fletcher, 69, who served for 36 years in the Royal Navy, received a letter from the MoD in February. He was told he owed £19,747.34.
“My initial response was to say, ‘Well, you know, how have I messed up? How have I not spotted this overpayment?’ I suppose it came from my 36 years in the service of trusting the system,” he said.
Under Treasury rules, public sector organisations are obliged to recover all overpaid public funds regardless of who is at fault. Campaigners have called for the Treasury to write off the overpay- ments, which total £5.1 million.
Michael Evans, 68, a retired Royal Navy captain who, while serving, sur- vived a helicopter crash in which a friend
to repay £45,687. She couldn’t speak for five minutes
This summer, he and his wife were looking forward to helping plan their daughter’s wedding. Instead he is spend- ing his days making an appeal.
“I can’t put into words what it feels like when the dead arm of the state appears from this end of the telescope to be defending its contractors’ errors rather than supporting its veterans,” he said.
Major General Neil Marshall, chief executive of the FPS, said: “The miscalcu- lation and overpayments of pensions are undermining veterans’ trust … I am clear this is a failure of leadership, oversight, process and quality assurance.
“To aggravate matters, veterans are not being presented with clear calcula- tions, so they have no way of confirming if the overpayments are being properly corrected or not.”
Defence Business Services, a business unit in the MoD, has overall responsibility for the administration of the armed for- ces pension scheme.
Veterans UK, which is part of the MoD, assesses and awards pension entitle- ments and maintains records. It is sup- ported with calculations by the technol- ogy firm Sopra Steria. The private firm Equiniti acts as the payroll agent, making the payments into bank accounts, han- dling tax deductions and queries.
Matthew Lowe, chief operating officer of the FPS, said: “Veterans UK are under- resourced but the number of overpay- ments and their value suggest the con- tract monitoring and quality assurance processes are not working properly.”
The MoD said: “Where payments have been made in genuine error, we have a responsibility to recover taxpayer funds and will always seek to do so in a sensitive and proportionate way.”
PHIL WILKINSON
Lukas Muldoon-Ross shows off his family’s champion coloured Ryeland sheep at the Border Union agricultural show in Kelso in the Scottish Borders. The two-day event has more than 500 open competitions for horses, livestock and industrial arts
Daniel Sanderson Scottish Political Editor
A tax rise on high earners in Scotland has cost the public purse about £22 million in a year, new analysis indicates.
Dan Neidle, a tax policy expert who was part of the Scottish government’s recently axed tax advisory group, said its decision to impose a 48p top rate, intended to raise more money for public services, had instead reduced revenues.
An investigation by Neidle’s independent think tank Tax Policy Associates has found that high earners are so put off by the rates, they are taking steps to avoid coming into that bracket.
This month HMRC data showed the average amount of tax paid by top earners fell in 2024-25, the first year in which Humza Yousaf’s Scottish National Party government imposed the top 48p rate.
While it is possible that
to give mayors more cash
Whitehall fighting the devolution of power into the regions and nations are over for good”, and pledging “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”.
He said any changes would be “consistent with the 2024 manifesto”.
some high earners moved out of Scotland or refused to take up jobs north of the border, it is far more likely they are using perfectly legal ways to avoid paying large chunks of their income in tax. These can include reducing working hours, increasing pension contributions or other salary sacrifice schemes or, for self- employed workers, changing their tax affairs — for example by paying themselves in dividends rather than taking a salary.
According to the analysis, based on the HMRC data, the decision to impose a 48p top rate of tax on earnings over £125,140 from the 2024-25 tax year is likely to have reduced revenues for public spending by between £15 million and £30 million. Neidle believes the most likely figure is around £22million.
At the time of the changes, which also included imposing an “advanced rate” of 45p on earnings between £75,000 and £125,140, those hit were assured that the
understand local ambitions and strengths”.
Rachel Reeves opened the door to greater fiscal devolution in her final Mansion House lecture this month, saying that the Treasury was considering how to allow mayors to retain some tax revenue in their areas.
Reeves was dismissed as chancellor last week, with Burnham appointing John Healey, the former defence secretary, in a surprise pick.
Burnham has already moved significant economic powers from the Treasury to No 10 North, including those for local growth.
Angela Rayner, the housing secretary who will also be based in Manchester, backed fiscal devolution last week, saying that the government had a duty to support local leaders who needed funding for essential services such as transport.
“progressive” measure would support public services by raising additional cash.
Tax Policy Associates examined the average taxes paid per top-rate taxpayer in Scotland, compared with those in the rest of the UK in the year the 48p rate began.
Both were “consistent with our hypothesis that high earners who can control their own income are doing so to minimise their 48p liability”, the think tank said.
While HMRC and the Scottish Fiscal Commission had predicted a behavioural response from higher earners, meaning the amount raised would be far less than a projected £53 million if high earners did not react to the move, the actual impact appears to have been “much greater than anything expected” by either body.
“We can’t be sure, but the evidence we have is consistent with the 48p rate losing about £22 million of tax revenue for Scotland,” Neidle said. “I hope the Scottish
“It’s not the begging bowl of going, ‘I think I need a tram, can you please give it to me?’ — some sort of Hunger Games as we pitch one part of the country against another.”
The move is likely to be welcomed by Burnham’s former mayoral colleagues. Andy Street, the former Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, said this month that the new prime minister’s “next big job” was
locally and you have an income line guaranteed
minister, 87, dies after fall
David Binns
The former minister Lord Horam has died aged 87, his family has said. The peer fell on the way home from the House of Lords on July 2. He was treated at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, but did not regain consciousness.
A Preston native, he was educated at Silcoates School in Wakefield and gained an MA in economics from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, in 1960. His career began at Rowntree’s where he helped bring the After Eight mint to market. This was followed by stints at the Financial Times and The Economist. Horam went on to co-found the market intelligence firm CRU Group.
Horam holds a rare place in Westminster history, having served as MP under three different parties in the Commons and as a minister in both Labour and Conservative governments.
He entered parliament in 1970 as the Labour MP for Gateshead West and was made transport under- secretary by James Callaghan in 1976. He became a founding member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981, acting as chief economic spokesman until losing his seat in 1983.
In 1987 he married Judith Jackson, a former Sunday Times motoring editor, and joined the Conservatives. Elected MP for Orpington in 1992, he served under John Major as public service minister and health minister.
He was created a working life peer as Baron Horam of Grimsargh in 2013. In the Lords, he advocated for housing expansion, tax-free personal allowances and pro- EU politics. He was a member of the Conservative Common Sense Group.
He is survived by his wife, Judith, and stepsons, Fraser and Lincoln. The family said in a statement they “would like to thank the paramedics, police and staff at St Mary’s for his immaculate care”.
government takes a very careful look at the evidence and decides whether, politics aside, it’s in Scotland’s interest to keep the 48p rate.”
Elsewhere in the UK, the top rate of tax is 45p. This kicks in at incomes over £125,140 outside Scotland.
A record “negative reconciliation” of some £728 million will be applied to next year’s budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said the weaker tax revenues than forecast is one factor that will mean public spending will be squeezed “even more than we expected”.
The Scottish government said: “Our approach to progressive taxation means that those who earn more pay a little more to support policies that are not enjoyed elsewhere in the UK, such as free university tuition, free prescriptions, and the game changing Scottish Child Payment.”
fiscal devolution. He has also urged his party colleagues to support the agenda.
Speaking at an annual conference hosted by the Centre for The New Midlands last week, Street said: “The weakness of the [mayoralty] model is that we had a lot of money but it was all agreed by London. You had to go to London and say ‘please give us this money’.
“What we need to do next — and Britain is still well behind the US, France, Germany on this — is address that we don’t keep the taxes we raise locally.
“Once we make that move you have an income line guaranteed for the future, and can plan and make sure all your activities on housing, skills, transport, come together in a strategic way.
William Turvill Chief Business Correspondent
For years Steven Bartlett, the Diary of a CEO podcaster and Dragons’ Den investor, has been ridiculed by critics who have questioned his credentials, cringed at his clichés and concluded that the high-ego entrepreneur hasn’t really “made it”.
DIARY OF A CEO
But soon, the 33-year-old author of Happy Sexy Millionaire might be forcing them to eat their words. New data suggests that Bartlett is on course to topple the world’s biggest podcaster, the American Joe Rogan.
Part of Bartlett’s growing
Lottie Hayton Is that you, Natalie Portman in Rachel Cusk’s new novel?
actress denies suggestions the pair have had a bust-up over claims the portrayal mirrors her life
Rosamund Urwin Chief News Correspondent
When Natalie Portman interviewed Rachel Cusk for her book club, she hailed the author as “one of my favourite writ- ers”. The actress, 45, may now wish she had admired her from afar.
For Cusk’s latest book, Life of M, appears to be drawn on her relationship with Portman, with its portrait of the actress and her celebrity life proving less than flattering.
Although Cusk does not name the actress, referring to her only as “M”, the parallels are marked. She writes that “M” was cast in a ballet film, while Portman won an Oscar in 2011 for Darren Aronof- sky’s Black Swan. “M” is the model for a big brand and her “image looked out everywhere”, much as Portman is the face of Miss Dior perfume. “M” is shown to be detached from reality, but trying to seem normal.
The book, which is published next month, is about a film star who agrees to let her author friend write her biography. It culminates in a showdown between “M” and her unnamed writer friend in which the actress says she finds her portrayal “hurtful” and complains that she has been made “identifiable while filling the book with things she herself didn’t recognise”. The actress eventually concedes that the writer can “do what you want”, provided she does not use her name.
Reports have claimed that Portman is “outraged” by what she sees as Cusk’s betrayal of their friendship. However, sources close to the actress dispute this, and have sought to distance her from the furore surrounding the novel.
They said the pair were never friends and met only a handful of times, includ- ing for the book club interview. They also stressed that Life of M is neither a biogra- phy of Portman nor even a portrait of “M”: it is about how people project them- selves on to celebrity.
While some critics have read the novel as a scathing disection of celebrity cul- ture, Portman — who is understood to remain an admirer of Cusk’s writing — is said to believe that the author is instead projecting herself into a fictionalised ver- sion of an actor’s world.
“It’s very identifiably a portrait of Natalie Portman that doesn’t seem to rec- ognise her as fully human, suggesting she’s been subsumed by her own fame,” one literary critic who knows Cusk said. “But she seems one of the last actresses you’d say that about, because she is intel- ligent and present. I think it dehumanises her. Her not naming Portman is her way of pretending this is in the dominion of fiction, rather than her being a real per- son that you have responsibilities to.”
They added: “This is what Rachel Cusk does — she torches people and moves on. Her subject has always been the insuffi- ciency of the world — and particularly the people in it — to Rachel Cusk. She writes wonderful prose, her sentences are mar-
fight to M&S with mid-size stores for the middle classes
success is a technology that his team has developed to dub his shows in foreign languages, with Spanish and Russian the most popular. About 28 per cent of The Diary of a CEO’s views come in a foreign language on YouTube, where Bartlett is now close to eclipsing Rogan.
“On our current trajectory, it is a realistic possibility this year,” said Georgie Holt, who is chief executive of Bartlett’s podcast company, FlightStory. “Steven didn’t start [The] Diary of a CEO with a plan to beat Joe Rogan, so we don’t see this as a rivalry. Joe showed the world what was possible.”
Once described by Private Eye magazine as the “king of self-mythologisation”, Bartlett, who was born in Botswana and raised in Devon, was expelled from Plymstock School in Plymouth, and dropped out of Manchester Metropolitan University, he says, after one lecture.
He later co-founded a social media advertising agency called Social Chain, one of several such outfits that sprung up in Manchester during the 2010s as tech- savvy entrepreneurs worked out ways of finding fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. That business was
food lovers” in recent adverts. It opened a 27,000 sq ft test store in Newbury, Berkshire, where it is testing new food and drink lines and other initiatives.
The company is poised to open large supermarkets in Hale Barns, Manchester, and Cricklewood, northwest London, in the autumn. A 30,000 sq ft store is planned for the new Brabazon district of Bristol next year. It will be its first full-line store in seven years.
As well as experimenting with new types of stores, Waitrose has been trying to broaden its appeal by bringing down prices. In May, it said it would spend £20 million on cutting the price of 160 of its own-label products by an average of 12 per cent.
Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast attracted almost 31 million views on YouTube between March and June
vellous, but her fiction is deeply unkind to other people — that is the connecting thread of her work.”
However, others believe Portman was naive to engage with Cusk. The book opens with the suggestion that “M” agreed to be written about. In an article for UnHerd, the writer and editor Valerie Stivers argued: “No one in her right mind who understood Rachel Cusk’s work would allow her to write about her — at least, no one with a sense of self-preser- vation and a public image to protect.”
A publishing executive who knows Cusk said: “She’s obviously going to do it to you — she’s burnt every bridge. But she’s also a magpie of a writer, she would have taken things from lots of people — her characters aren’t one person.”
Cusk is regarded as a master of auto- fiction, the literary genre that blurs biography and invention. This is not the first time that the closeness of her books to real life has caused controversy.
In 2009 she wrote The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy, her account of three months in the country. Seemingly, Cusk did not sufficiently disguise the people she wrote about and was threatened with a lawsuit for breach of privacy. The first print run of the book was pulped.
Waitrose’s retail director, Tina Mitchell, said the company was “looking for high-footfall, ‘right size, right location’ sites nationwide” and it was “adapting to how our customers live and shop”. This also includes a push into travel retail where its products are being sold in Relay shops in Heathrow’s Terminal 2.
Waitrose is locked in a
sales are rising fast
Natalie Portman won an Oscar for her role in the ballet film Black Swan and has described Rachel Cusk, whose book Life of M is published next month, as one of her favourite writers
battle with M&S, which said last year it was looking at hundreds of locations to open food shops. Waitrose, too, is seeking out new properties. The retailers are of similar size, both operating more than 300 stores, and both tend to cater to more affluent customers.
Latest data from NIQ, the global intelligence company, suggests M&S has had a slightly better summer: Waitrose’s sales grew by 3.6 per cent over the 12 weeks to July 11, and the supermarket maintained its market share of 3.8 per cent compared with the same period last year.
later bought by a German ecommerce business.
Bartlett made unspecified millions from his first business, and used this to help him establish The Diary of a CEO in 2019. Initially, the podcast was focused on interviews, or “conversations” as Bartlett prefers to call them, with business leaders. But he later started hosting actors such as Matthew McConaughey, ex- footballers such as Gary Neville, and divisive political figures like Jordan Peterson.
Bartlett, who became the youngest investor to feature on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den in 2021 when he was 28, has
Then she wrote Aftermath, a stark and controversial book about the breakdown of her marriage to the photographer Adrian Clarke. She later admitted that even her “dearest friend” told her “the thing you should never have done was write that book”.
In 2017, Damian Barr, who wrote the memoir Maggie & Me, complained that Cusk had based the character Julian in her novel Transit on him. He later joked that Cusk’s books were useful “if you had a wobbly table and need to prop up the leg, for example.”
In publishing, Cusk is regarded as a “difficult” figure, who has fallen out with a succession of editors. When she inter- viewed her for The Observer in 2009, Lynn Barber likened her to a “highly strung racehorse”.
One year, she was longlisted for an important literary award but did not make the shortlist, with one judge pri- vately admitting that some of her fellow judges had refused to read the novel, because they felt Cusk was too cruel.
Few, however, doubt her talent. A pub- lishing boss who has worked with Cusk said: “She thinks exclusively about art, she’s a bit of a Patricia Highsmith — uncompromising, but she’s the real deal.”
never been far from controversy. He has had his knuckles rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for not disclosing financial interests in firms he has promoted, including the protein powder brand Huel.
In 2024 a BBC World Service investigation found The Diary of a CEO was amplifying health misinformation that went unchallenged by Bartlett.
The figures that have allowed Bartlett’s team to dream of topping Rogan come from Social Blade, a digital data expert. They show that The Diary of a CEO attracted 308 million views
ENRIC FONTCUBERTA/SHUTTERSTOCK
move because M&S are going like a train,” said Richard Hyman, an independent retail analyst. “And Waitrose upping its game in terms of being more aggressive has to be a good thing.”
Waitrose has a new managing director in Tom Denyard, who joined in January. Denyard has played down suggestions of a heated rivalry between the two brands. “I know everyone loves to present it as M&S versus Waitrose, head to head. It’s not really how I see the market,” he told The Times in June. “There are a lot of good retailers in the UK with overlapping propositions.”
between March and June, ahead of 148 million for The Joe Rogan Experience. In the same period, Bartlett gained 2.8 million subscribers, taking his total to 18.5 million, while Rogan’s 21 million — remained roughly flat.
If and when Bartlett catches Rogan on YouTube, there will be claims his podcast remains smaller. Listener figures for other, potentially larger, podcast platforms such as Spotify and Apple are less transparent. Rogan tops most charts, while several other podcasts sometimes rank higher than The Diary of a CEO on views, if not on subscribers.
trifles feed on taste for nostalgia
“Just soggy cake” is how the food historian Annie Gray described the British trifle.
But nostalgia for the classic pudding has led to a sudden resurgence in sales and appearances on the menus of some of the nation’s poshest restaurants.
Traditionally made with layers of sherry-soaked sponge, fruit, custard, whipped cream, and jelly (though this is a source of contention among trifle enthusiasts), chefs have been coming up with twists for a modern palate.
Variations range from the slightly tweaked lemon and strawberry, to watermelon and fennel, ones made with fig, a Black Forest version and, for the summer, Pimm’s.
Nowhere is seemingly too posh for a trifle. It now features on the menu at five- star London hotels such as the Ritz, the Lanesborough and the Corinthia Hotel.
Michelin-starred chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen always knew trifle would feature at Rosi, her restaurant at the Beaumont in Mayfair, central London. “The trifle was on at Rosi from day dot. It’s nostalgic, it stems from your family table so it brings up a lot of memories,” she said.
At Rosi, the trifle changes with the seasons. Winter’s fig trifle has been replaced by a strawberry and pistachio number for £10.
Stacey Bretschneider, pastry chef and co-owner of Restaurant Roots in Bournemouth, said: “Whilst we change the flavours monthly and they aren’t always traditional, we use the format of a trifle to inform the dish ... for me it’s a national treasure.” Its bitter chocolate millionaire’s trifle is laced with Rémy Martin cognac.
Waitrose has also reported rising demand. Sales of its 600g strawberry trifle for £3.95 are up 100 per cent compared with the same time last year, while 39 per cent more chocolate trifles are being sold at the same price.
Sales of sponge fingers, which many use as the base, are up 32 per cent and searches for trifle recipes on Waitrose.com are up 175 per cent, suggesting home bakers are also joining the trend.
“Trifle is no longer just a festive centrepiece; we’re seeing customers embrace trifle all year round as the ultimate nostalgic crowd- pleaser,” said Charmaine Katz, chef tutor at Waitrose.
sales of its No 1 range of products had risen 26 per cent year-on-year. The supermarket has tried to capitalise on this by organising tie-ups with chefs such as Yotam Ottolenghi.
Tarry’s stewardship of the group has been widely characterised as a return to form after a choppier period under White, a former civil servant, whose tenure was marked by challenges such as the pandemic, soaring inflation and the rise of the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Revenues at Waitrose grew by £500 million to £7.8 billion in 2025, while pre-tax profits came in at £111 million, narrowing from £138 million the prior year, accounts for the supermarket show, although the broader John Lewis Partnership made a loss.
NEWS
T
Starmerite purge reveals knife beneath the T-shirt
here is nothing more violent than politics, according to Giuliano da Empoli, the novelist, former adviser to Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi and student of Machiavelli. “Soldiers fight only when they are at war, but politics is a forever war. And a politician’s most dangerous enemies are almost always hiding in the ranks of their own army.”
Andy Burnham completed his ruthlessly executed takeover of the Labour Party last week by purging those considered most loyal to Keir Starmer from the cabinet and then from the lower ministerial ranks. The purge was deep and systematic.
“It was as if he wanted to wipe the slate clean and the previous government never happened,” one sacked cabinet minister said. “There was so much blood on the floor it was like a butcher’s shop.” Another spoke to me of a “brutal week”, of actions motivated by “vengeance” and of simmering “fury”.
much blood on the floor it was like a butcher’s shop
Burnham had fleetingly united the party behind him, but that unity fractured as soon as he began appointing his senior team. Every sacking created a slighted rival, every promotion a committed follower.
cabinet minister, with grudging admiration. “But he’s got rid of a group of capable people who don’t feel the need to toady up to the new regime and still have residual loyalties, to Keir but also to their own records in government. They will be robust in defending them.”
Some of the former ministers are already referring to themselves as “the dispossessed”. They point out that those who played a role in Starmer’s defenestration were rewarded, including Anas Sarwar, the former leader of Scottish Labour, who has been elevated to the House of Lords and is now a business minister. Those who were loyal in public and private were sacked, apart from Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, who has been trusted with welfare reform.
This was politics at its most raw and unforgiving, but should these self-styled loyalists have expected a different outcome?
Starmer had long been accused of being “hyper-factional”. With every sacking, forced resignation or reshuffle he made, the ranks of the disaffected swelled. Burnham understood Starmer’s vulnerability inside the parliamentary party and, in collaboration with Haigh and Anneliese Midgley, now the chief whip, deftly exploited it.
after the summer recess. The question being asked is whether she will be magnanimous, seeking to work across factions, or a “vengeful” chief whip.
Rachel Reeves, the former chancellor, felt particularly slighted to have been offered the role of education secretary in the reshuffle, which would have been a stinging demotion. She chose the back benches. There is much speculation about her successor, John Healey, and the role he played in forcing Starmer’s departure. “I haven’t quite got to the bottom of it,” one sacked cabinet minister said, “but his resignation as defence secretary last month wasn’t unplanned. John is a wily operator and the pieces were being moved on the chessboard to create the conditions to bring Keir’s premiership to an end.”
Healey himself is a veteran Labour loyalist with deep roots in the trade union movement. “You’ve always got to remain political,” he told me when I accompanied him on a trip to Nato headquarters in Brussels last year. It’s a lesson that Starmer learnt to his cost.
The most publicly aggrieved was Darren Jones, the former first secretary to the prime minister. On the morning after Keir Starmer’s leaving party in a north London pub on Monday night, a gathering that is already being legendised, Jones snarkily pointed out on social media that the digital ID scheme was unfunded. Burnham had indicated that savings made from scrapping the scheme would be used to remove VAT on household electricity
bills at a cost of £850 million. Jones has the manner of a head boy high on the thin air of his own self-importance and does not have much support in the parliamentary party. But, as a senior colleague said, he is a former chief secretary to the Treasury and has deep institutional knowledge. “He knows where the bodies are buried, which was why his intervention was a portent of where you could end up if you don’t manage across factions. Andy has been more effective at creating a group of loyal Starmerites than Keir ever was.”
After resigning from the cabinet over a historic fraud conviction in 2024 — she believes she was unfairly treated by Starmer and McSweeney — Haigh became leader of the Tribune group of soft left MPs. Jones has hinted that he might try to form his own faction, but there is no indication, beyond chatter about WhatsApp groups, that Starmer loyalists are yet preparing to organise.
Usurping a prime minister has proved
the easy part for Burnham, so unpopular had Starmer become. But he faces severe challenges, not least because of his ambition to overturn the post-Thatcherite consensus — or to “roll back the 1980s” as he puts it. The choice of phrase is striking as Margaret Thatcher spoke of “rolling back the frontiers of the state”.
Burnham is not an anti-liberal, but he may seek to govern as a post-liberal — centre-left on the economy and centre- right on immigration and social policy, a fusion of the soft left and Blue Labour.
And Burnham aspires to be more than just another transient prime minister, a here-today-gone-tomorrow occupant of a role that has been demeaned in the vanity fair that is contemporary British politics. He wants nothing less than to create a new hegemonic economic and political consensus, as Thatcher did after her election in 1979 and Clement Attlee did after Labour’s landslide in 1945.
But the Thatcher and Attlee settlements were decades in the making. The free market right had think tanks, intellectual outriders in parliament such as Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph and, later, Nigel Lawson, international networks of support such as the Mont Pelerin Society, and the writings of FA Hayek, Milton Friedman and Robert Nozick to guide them. The Attlee reforms instituted after the Second World War — the creation of the NHS and the modern welfare state, nationalisation, new towns and social housing projects — were enabled by the wartime command economy, the power of the trade unions and shaped by the
ideas of New Liberals such as William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes.
Burnham has no such infrastructure or ideological scaffolding to support his ambitions, and he is constrained by Starmer’s election-winning manifesto and the party’s fiscal inheritance. Like Mr Kurtz in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, he has “immense plans”, but it is as if he is living in a house while it is being built around him — symbolised by No 10 North being hastily built in Manchester.
Already some of his early backers on the left, who support far-reaching democratic and constitutional reform, are complaining that he is not radical enough and may end up being no more than another manifestation of what one described as “weak left labourism”.
For now, in the absence of substantive policy, Burnham is relying on vibes and signalling actions to show what his priorities are, while spraying around spending commitments and speaking grandly about ten-year plans.
Unlike Starmer, Burnham at least knows what he wants to do and has people around him he trusts and whose ruthlessness he shares. Even when it is winning, the Labour Party is divided. Burnham is prepared to tolerate internal divisions and make enemies, as he did through the mass cull of Starmerites, so long as his government has a sense of propulsion and purpose if not yet a manifesto. Even one of the sacked cabinet ministers conceded that he had started well. “And first impressions matter.”
M
“irresponsible and shortsighted”.) But she was aware a change of posture on the question is afoot; the commitment to ban new licences in the North Sea will remain but fresh drilling — including in the Jack- daw and Rosebank fields, using existing infrastructure — could be on the cards.
The reshuffle followed a “warm” call from President Trump, who told Burn- ham he had watched his first speech from Downing Street and was impressed that the new prime minister kept it short and delivered it without notes. There were moments of levity in his other calls with world leaders, with Burnham speaking Spanish for the first five minutes of his conversation with Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, and discussing his dog, Axel, with Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland.
There is, however, lingering anger at some of the summary sackings and demotions from cabinet that came in the reshuffle, a cleanout more comprehen- sive than many expected. The fates of Bridget Phillipson, former education sec- retary, demoted to women and equalities minister, and Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the prime minister who left government entirely, have caused particular upset among some MPs.
“She was in the middle of incredibly important Send [special educational needs and disabilities] reforms and had won over the parliamentary Labour Party,” one Labour MP said of Phillipson. Another said simply: “She’s been shafted.” But allies of Burnham insist that to demonstrate change he needed a radi- cal turnover, and counter that Pat McFad- den, the work and pensions secretary who remained in post, was a loyal sup- porter of Sir Keir Starmer who survived.
For now, it appears Burnham need not worry about Starmer himself causing trouble. Although he was at drinks in north London on Monday with support- ers, dipping out of the pub to call each sacked minister as he learnt of their fate, he faces the more immediate task of find- ing somewhere to live — and has warned allies not to brief against his successor.
Burnham now enters a more challeng- ing time. While his first days saw a flurry of announcements on the cost of living, this week brings a series of interventions on longer-term, seemingly intractable issues: social care, the crisis of workless- ness among Britain’s young, and defence. The end of the coming week will mark the conclusion of a grid for Burnham’s first two weeks, with MPs expecting a lull before their return in September.
Burnham is understood to want to accelerate the review by Baroness Casey, the Whitehall troubleshooter looking at social care who is due to report in 2028, instead of pushing the issue once more into the long grass. But any proposal to provide care free at the point of need could cost around £18.5 billion a year.
There will also be a major intervention on devolution as Burnham instructs his cabinet to “stop assuming that decisions belong in Whitehall by default”, a No 10 source said. “Departments will now have to justify why a power should stay at the centre rather than being transferred to a local area,” they added. Crucially, this is expected to include a form of genuine fis- cal devolution, allowing authorities to keep a share of taxes raised, including income tax.
Further looming issues for Burnham include whether to accede to the request by Pete Hegseth, the US war secretary, to host a meeting on the Strait of Hormuz in
of claims about a North Sea oil and gas bonanza justified?
the UK; how ministers should respond to mounting demands to scrap the early prison release scheme, paused last week after fury at the news that the two killers of PC Andrew Harper could be freed; and the Greater Manchester mayoral by-elec- tion, triggered by Burnham’s exit.
On the final challenge at least, Burn- ham will be feeling largely at ease, with polls suggesting that Bev Craig, the Labour candidate, is likely to sail through on Thursday. The moment will be partic- ularly satisfying for Burnham allies, given the by-election was frequently cited pri- vately by his opponents as a reason his return to frontline politics was a risk.
The other challenges could be harder. On the early release scheme, a range of possible alternatives are being consid- ered, including giving prison governors and probation officers a veto on the release of inmates, The Times reported. Another option being considered is understood to be moving inmates to open or low-security prisons earlier in their sentences. Those around Burnham remain concerned about certain catego- ries — particularly child sex offenders — being included in the scheme.
With significant changes to Whitehall in motion, Burnham’s first week saw him frequently joined by Dame Antonia Romeo, 51, the cabinet secretary. Romeo is leading the powerful new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, which will bring together the No 10, No 10 North and Cabinet Office teams.
He was also flanked by Louise Haigh, the powerful first secretary of state who will oversee No 10 in London and Man-
in Spanish to Pedro Sánchez
chester. Other so-called Northern Queens empowered by the reshuffle include Anneliese Midgley, the new chief whip; Lucy Powell, the new education secretary; and Sally Jameson, a former prison officer who is now a parliamen- tary secretary in the Cabinet Office and Rayner’s housing department.
In navigating these choppy waters, Burnham has also drawn attention to his communication style. Not just his bliz- zard of social media activity but also an ease at presenting an evolving stance on issues, such as the threshold for the tax- free personal allowance. “It’s funny these days,” he said. “You can’t answer a ques- tion honestly without people then read- ing everything else into it. I want to answer questions honestly in this job.”
How will this new style work in prac- tice? “We don’t need to constantly be pre- tending to voters that we’ve got all the answers today,” one ally said. “And then whatever he says becomes the word of God immediately. That’s a false cer- tainty.”
Which is just as well, for Burnham arrives in Downing Street after only weeks of preparation — and with a series of looming, difficult decisions still to make.
Jim Armitage
When President Trump’s ambassador to the UK, Warren Stephens, addressed MPs in the marbled court of the Foreign Office to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, he didn’t stick to the special relationship.
“I will repeat,” the billionaire told his British hosts: “We need all forms of energy, including oil and gas, in today’s modern economy.”
It was, as he also spelt out at the Times CEO summit in June, a clear call for Labour to end its manifesto pledge banning companies from drilling for new oil and gas reserves in the North Sea. It was “baffling”, he declared, that Britain instead imported gas from other nations.
Like Trump, Arkansas- born Stephens, who made part of his fortune from the family oil driller Stephens Natural Resources, enthusiastically lobbied Ed Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer to drill, baby, drill — but to no avail.
Three days after being appointed as Andy Burnham’s new energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, who has spoken out against North Sea exploration in the past, travelled to Aberdeen to meet key figures in the UK industry’s spiritual home.
Funnyman Burnham’s a social media star but he’ll soon have to get serious
uch needed relief on energy bills. A significant cut to business rates for pubs and restaurants. And a national freeze on transport costs. These are the policies of a “cost of living government”, for whom putting more money in the pockets of working people is a north star.
I am talking, of course, about the recently departed Sir Keir Starmer administration, which in recent months hacked £117 off home energy costs, introduced a 15 per cent cut on business rates for pubs and music venues and froze rail fares across the country. All the while, Starmer and his allies spoke of little else but their urgent mission to bring down the cost of living.
But almost no one listened. Few people could even tell you these policies were introduced. Even fewer gave the Starmer government any credit for them. They’d already given up on it.
Enter Andy Burnham. In policy terms, so far this new government is continuity Starmer. Much like his predecessor, Burnham is tinkering with cost of living relief, attempting to drive down inflation via the brute force of government spending. There have been no significant policy announcements yet.
But the communication style could hardly be more different. Burnham’s policy rollout has been accompanied by a social media blitz that has established a rare level of algorithmic dominance. Jogging with Mo Farah, capping bus fares with Bus Aunty (look her up), ranking pub crisps with his new chancellor, John Healey, in a kind of Morecambe and Wise-style saloon bar comedy: the past week has been a masterclass in contemporary political communication. Burnham has deployed familiar memes, a bevy of TikTok influencers and what can only be described as cheeky chappie humour to introduce the new prime minister and his priorities to the nation.
And people are actually sharing this stuff organically. On Wednesday, when the bus fares were introduced, Burnham’s content had 13 million views across his social media channels. On Thursday, he hit 15 million. Not bad for someone who only started his Instagram account in May.
Underpinning this strategy is Burnham’s firm conviction that you simply cannot succeed as a 21st-century politician unless you meet people where they spend most of their time: looking at their phone screen. And you can only achieve this with a politician who enjoys and understands the kind of whimsical banality that we goldfish people like to consume on our phones. Starmer never had this knack. “Everyone has banged on for two years about how authenticity is so important in politics and it shows,” reflects one former Starmer adviser.
Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani all have this ability to at least perform authenticity. When
North Sea operations through “tiebacks” — connecting a new oil and gas discovery to existing production facilities.
Compared with Miliband’s regime, which was implacably opposed to fossil fuels, it was like night and day, said the former Conservative energy minister Charles Hendry, now a senior adviser to the energy industry. “For her to go to Aberdeen so soon is symbolically really important. It shows she’s willing to listen. Ed took months to go and I’m not sure he ever went again.”
Fahnbulleh met David Whitehouse, the chief executive of the main North Sea lobby group Offshore Energies UK, who described their meeting as “constructive”. She would not, he suspected, be ruled by dogma: “We’ve got a secretary of state who’s going to make decisions based on the facts in front of her.”
Westminster sources said Fahnbulleh is expected to give Rosebank and Jackdaw the go-ahead as soon as next month at the end of a public consultation period.
Trump has been calling for new drilling licences for years, declaring the UK was “loaded” with untapped oil and gas. In fact, the North Sea is largely depleted of its once- rich reserves. Some 47.7 billion barrels of oil or gas equivalent have been extracted since production began.
recoverable barrels left.
Britain is transitioning towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as more solar, wind and nuclear energy comes on stream. But, according to the government’s independent Climate Change Committee, it will still need between 13 and 15 billion barrels of oil (or gas equivalent) before then.
Under the Labour curbs on exploration, Britain is on track to produce about four billion of that. The rest will have to be imported, largely from Norway, which encourages new exploration
SUNDAY TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
Kemi Badenoch began to succeed as opposition leader last year, she did so in part by taking a “social first” approach, using her natural pugnacity to generate popular clips and moments. It looks like we can now add Burnham to that list.
Tonally, the departure from Starmer’s early weeks is also conspicuous. When he came into office, Starmer talked grimly of tough times and tough decisions ahead. Burnham uses the word “hope” at every available opportunity. Starmer kicked off his premiership by saying it was time to take “noisy performance” out of politics. Burnham is making an absolute racket and flooding the zone with content.
Starmer asked for patience from the electorate as he attempted to fix an awful inheritance. Burnham is proceeding with a breezy, can-do attitude accompanied by a sense of urgency and a keen awareness that he only gets one chance at a first impression. He views chatty social media as a way to address the loss of trust in politics and make Westminster politics feel less distant.
So far at least — and we are of course just a week in — it does appear to be working. A word cloud by the More in Common pollster Luke Tryl asking for one-word responses to Burnham’s premiership is dominated by “hopeful” and “optimistic”. A poll for The Spectator by Merlin Strategy found that 41 per cent of the public think Burnham’s first few days have been very or quite successful, with just 10 per cent saying he’s been unsuccessful.
Labourites are genuinely excited and even the Tories are grudgingly impressed. “They’ve taken the right approach so far,” says one Tory adviser. “Andy is the asset, he’s far more popular
in the North Sea, and from the US and Qatar in the form of liquefied natural gas.
UK drillers claim that, if they get the changes they want, they could bring up a further three billion barrels and boost tax receipts by more than £13 billion over the next decade. They would, they claim, invest £50 billion in 110 new projects, creating jobs and supply chain benefits.
On current trends, Britain’s domestic gasfields are expected to supply just 18 per cent of its natural gas needs by 2035. But with the
Andy Burnham rates pub snacks with his new chancellor, John Healey, on TikTok
right licensing and tax regimes, Britain’s contribution could be 57 per cent, the industry says. Those two “ifs” — licences and taxes — are key. The last licensing round four years ago boosted prospective resources by 31 per cent. But there have been none since.
Rosebank, a deposit with up to 500 million barrels of oil 80 miles off the coast of Shetland, was granted a licence in 2022 and Jackdaw, a gasfield 150 miles east of Aberdeen which could provide 6.5 per cent of Britain’s gas output, followed in 2023. But the licences were blocked in the courts last year by environmentalists. Greenpeace and Uplift successfully argued that the greenhouse gas emissions the gas and oil would create when customers used it — known as Scope 3 emissions — had not been considered.
Campaigners also claim that drilling would reduce Britain’s reliance on imports by only 2 per cent a year, on average. However, even Greg Jackson, founder of the green provider Octopus Energy, has said it’s “mad” to ship gas “halfway round the world rather than using our own”.
Burnham could allow more drilling without breaking the Labour manifesto promise by using tiebacks. Chevron’s manager of subsea controls and power, Rick Kopps, describes using existing pipes and other infrastructure as like “a long garden hose running from a [tap] to a garden”.
than his party. So we’re seeing a lot about who Andy Burnham is. He also doesn’t really have a full policy suite ready to go, so this approach is the best option available to them.”
What should we make of all this? Was Starmer’s main problem just vibes and packaging?
The first thing to do is not get carried away. Bounces fade and social media hype doesn’t always translate to enduring success. (Remember Kamala Harris and her viral “Brat” sensation?)
At present, Burnham has a fair wind. He has the novelty factor. He has time because parliament is in recess. And the other parties are either licking their wounds after damaging media stories (Reform UK, the Greens) or still feeling out how best to respond (the Tories).
“This is the easiest week they will have,” says the Tory adviser. “People love your comms when you’re handing out money. Then stuff goes wrong and you have to make unpopular decisions and suddenly the digital is shit and the strategy is shit.”
It’s also worth noting that in his engagement with the “trad media”, newspapers such as this one, Burnham has shown some familiar frailties. He has a habit of mooting policy ideas and set all manner of hares running by telling reporters that he wanted to “look at” unfreezing the personal income tax allowance, a multibillion-pound commitment. His officials soon had to pour cold water on the idea.
Nor does a pound off bus fares and some crisp-butty jokes amount to a successful government. Burnham’s cost of living handouts may have generated mass engagement, but they are dubiously costed and do nothing to address the structural weaknesses of the British economy. He will probably have to put taxes up at the budget in order to fund his desired generosity to the British public. At that point, the Everton and Scampi Fries routine may begin to grate, particularly with more trouble brewing in the Strait of Hormuz.
So far, Burnham is doing what the left- wing political theorist Anton Jäger calls “hyperpolitics”. This theory argues that politics today is characterised by style over substance. We are in a highly politicised age and talk about politics constantly thanks to the fast “volatile swarms” of social media, but it is all built on shifting sands. The long, hard grind of lasting policy change rarely happens.
If the past week is anything to go by, Burnham is good at hyperpolitics and capable of getting a hearing from the British public. He is well suited to the age we live in. But is he capable of driving through a meaningful policy agenda? Does he have the intellectual and political heft and durability to fulfil his grand promises? To reindustrialise Britain, fix social care, introduce radical devolution and properly fund our military? These questions are as acute as ever. And their answers will not be found on TikTok.
Energy Independence Bill, companies will be allowed tiebacks to oil and gas reserves where they have not been granted licences, as long as the resources there do not require new exploratory drilling.
Tiebacks could make up a big chunk of the extra three billion barrels the industry says it can extract. But tax could be a further hurdle. Companies say they cannot go ahead unless the tax regime is overhauled: at least 11 changes have hit the industry since 2010.
If Burnham does give the North Sea industry the help it seeks, it will not be because Trump and his UK ambassador have put pressure on him. It will be due to the demands from unions and restive voters in North Sea-dependent communities in Aberdeen and the northeast of England, where Reform and the Conservatives have campaigned loudly to let the drilling commence.
The prime minister will win support from his MPs in those seats, but risks losing it from at least 60 green- minded Labour MPs and MSPs that The Guardian reports are opposed to Rosebank.
One backbencher who might have mixed feelings is Rachel Reeves, the former chancellor. She is said to have been keen on the windfall that tiebacks would bring to the Treasury, but could never get them over the line.
TOM CORBAN/ALAMY
A kite resembling a giant skate hovers over the Great Field in Poundbury, Dorset, during the inaugural Dorchester Kite Festival. The event featured giant stunt kites flown by the White Horse Kite Flyers, a group of enthusiasts from Wiltshire
fix prisons crisis’
was once one of Britain’s top detectives says most female prisoners are non-violent and are far less likely to reoffend
Lara Spirit Deputy Political Editor
Women should be released from prison as a “radical alternative” to fix Britain’s jail crisis, Reform UK’s first elected police and crime commissioner has said.
Colin Sutton, the detective who solved some of the country’s most notorious murder cases, was confirmed as the new PCC for Norfolk this month.
His election marks a return to public life after more than three decades serving in the Metropolitan Police. The former detective chief inspector is best known for leading the team that tracked down Levi Bellfield, who was found guilty in 2011 of the murders of Milly Dowler, Mar- sha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange.
He also led the hunt for the serial rapist known as the “Night Stalker”, Delroy Grant, who burgled, raped and sexually assaulted elderly women in their homes for 17 years before Sutton caught him.
Last week Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, paused the controversial early release scheme that would have seen a wave of thousands of criminals walking free from September, and announced an urgent review.
There had been an outcry after the dis- covery the killers of PC Andrew Harper, handed 13-year sentences in 2020, could be eligible for release. Harper’s widow, Lissie, called the plans “deplorable”.
Paring back the scheme, however, will set back efforts to free up space in prisons in England and Wales. The estate was just days from running out of space before the 2024 election and, despite
Colin Sutton suggested that disused army camps could be used as temporary jails
thousands of prisoners having secured early release since then, is currently run- ning at 97 per cent capacity.
But Sutton, Nigel Farage’s crime and policing adviser, believes there is a sim- pler solution to the issue. Why not release women from prison? “I think that would be a kind of a radical, outside-the- box way of creating more prison space,” Sutton, 65, said from his Norfolk office.
There are currently 3,500 women in jail in England and Wales, held across 12 sites and representing just 4 per cent of the total prison population. Most women are incarcerated for non-violent offences — typically theft — and are far more likely to be handed shorter sentences, are con- sidered less disruptive and are less likely to reoffend. They are also a more vulnera- ble cohort than male prisoners: more likely to self-harm, suffer mental health issues and be held far from their families.
These facts have long been recognised by successive governments. The Sentenc- ing Act, in force from March, favours non- custodial sentences over short terms.
Releasing the majority of women still serving time would help address the overcrowding problem, Sutton says. He also supports deporting foreign criminals — there are 10,500 in custody, represent- ing 12 per cent of the prison population — and the creation of so-called Nightingale prisons, either built at rapid speed or repurposed from existing buildings.
“We built Nightingale hospitals and Nightingale courts and things at pace under Covid,” he said. “Ultimately, if we’re serious ... it might mean using pla- ces like disused army camps.”
Reform has celebrated Sutton’s win as his is expected to be the last PCC election, with the role soon to be abolished as part of devolution plans. He won by a convin- cing 32,600 votes to his Conservative rival’s 18,300 on a turnout of 17 per cent.
But the former detective is already wearing multiple hats. He is, senior Reform sources said, destined to become a minister should the party come to power, while he currently manages a “small team” in Reform HQ responsible for crime and policing policy.
After a career witnessing some of the
worst crimes imaginable, and after a
successful period writing books and adapting screenplays about his team’s relentless work, what prompted Sutton to enter politics, and for Reform?
He had previously joined the Conserv- atives “purely and simply so I could vote against Theresa May in the leadership election”, before becoming a member of Reform two years ago, Sutton said.
His opposition to May came from watching the cuts to police under the coa- lition government — and particularly to police stations. More than 600 have closed since 2010: half the entire number previously available to the public. Sutton believes this was responsible for “break- ing that bond and that trust between the public and the police”. In Norfolk, he added, there are just three police sta- tions, and none are open 24 hours a day.
He entry into frontline politics came after being asked to be deputy chair of his local Reform branch. “I always volunteer for things I shouldn’t,” he said. The party appealed to him after spending his life “voting for the least worst option”, describing Labour and the Conservatives as “two sides of the same coin”.
Now, as PCC in Norfolk, he is dealing with a different crime profile to Lon- don’s. Here, he said, it is rural crime that has been neglected: from fly-tipping to equipment theft, equestrian theft and hare coursing. “I’ve been speaking to farmers who say if they keep a GPS equip- ment on their tractor for more than six weeks, they’re doing well,” he said.
And what of Farage? Sutton has spent the last few days with him in Clacton, campaigning in the by-election. Praising him as a “very shrewd, very sharp man”, Sutton dismissed questions about his leader’s finances. “All I can say is what he says: he’s not done anything illegal. He’s not misused any public money.”
He calls Farage’s decision to resign and trigger a by-election “like [the] Dominic Cummings years ... Four-dimensional chess, wrong-footing people.” He is confi- dent Farage will win “convincingly”.
He added: “Maybe to some degree he was wrong-footed slightly as well, because the other parties had not wanted to stand ... But I also think the other par- ties knew full well they wouldn’t win.”
out of a film . . . it’s apocalyptic’
FRANCE
Katie Gatens Bordeaux, Peter Conradi and Samuel Lovett
Bordeaux
From the lookout tower in the tiny village of Salaunes, in southwestern France, firefighters point to a thin band of orange on the horizon like a sunrise. Nathan, the deputy fire chief, knows the fire will be here soon.
“I’ve been volunteering for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says, as ash falls around him like snow- flakes. Soon he and his colleagues will be forced to flee too. An hour beforehand he had said goodbye to his wife and children as they evacuated without him. Nathan, who lives in Salaunes and did not give his surname, doesn’t have time to be senti- mental. “In times like these you can’t be scared — you need full concentration.”
By yesterday evening, more than a quarter of a million people, including tourists on summer holidays and resi- dents, had been evacuated across France and Spain as emergency services battled to control the worst wildfires in the region’s history. The flames had advanced to within 20 miles of Bordeaux, a city of 267,000 people.
SPAIN
“We are in a situation that remains serious,” said Sophie Brocas, prefect of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde region. The fires had “lost some of its virulence thanks to the drop in tempera- tures and the increase in humidity”, but she said 140 houses had been destroyed, the highest number in French history.
In a statement on X last night, President Macron said: “In these hours when the flames are severely testing our country, France reveals what it is: a united people, standing shoulder to shoulder … We will rebuild, we will repair, and we will be there as long as it takes.” He thanked Romania, Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Switzer- land, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for their support and said that France’s
thoughts went out to “Spain, Italy, Greece, and all the peoples who are also facing wildfires”. Britain has not pro- vided any assistance. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said France had not yet requested any help from the UK.
UK
ITALY
Sébastien Lecornu, France’s prime minister, said the country faced a “his- toric situation”, describing the wildfires as “unprecedented”.
One person died near the Spanish city of Valencia after a forest fire near the Salt de l’Aigua ravine. The fire there was brought under control late yesterday afternoon. Several wildfires were also advancing on Madrid, with more than 80,000 people to the west of the city evacuated or ordered to remain indoors.
Madrid
Yesterday evening more than 400 emergency personnel aided by 50 ground and aerial units, including heli- copters, were working to contain three fires that merged into one to the west of Madrid. The city’s emergency agency posted a video of the huge fire burning in the Sierra Oeste region which has seen several towns evacuated. Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, had declared a national emergency on Friday, opening up federal funds to tackle the crisis.
In other developments: The French government said 1,500 military personnel had been deployed to help combat the fires and assist evacua- tions. An A400M Atlas military aircraft began an experimental firefighting mission, with the ability to drop 20 ton- nes of retardant or water.
Organisers of the Tour de France cycling race said they would cut short their final stage today “in a spirit of national solidarity”. Officers due to pro- vide security for the event were diverted to help with the emergency response.
BLAZING EUROPE
FOR TRAVEL Cairngorms
200 miles
Source: Nasa Firms. 24 hours up to 5pm, Saturday July 25
BBC. The British government said it was “monitoring developments closely” but, as of yesterday afternoon, had not yet issued a “do not travel” advisory.
Scottish ministers requested aerial “military assistance” from Westminster to help tackle a wildfire that has been burning in the Cairngorms for 11 days.
Cap Ferret, above, was left in ashes, and the residents of care homes were evacuated to Bordeaux, left. Right, high winds fanned flames west of Madrid
Bay of Biscay Lacanau
Le Porge
Lège
La Teste- de-Buch
Evacuation routes
Cap Ferret evacuation zone Fires, July 25
30 miles
In Bordeaux yesterday, it was an apocalyptic scene. The sun was a ghostly orange orb and the sky choked of light as the fire engulfed 35,000 hectares.
Tens of thousands of breathing masks were being urgently transported to the region. One resident in Bordeaux said the air was “unbreathable”. Another fire in Biscarrosse, a small seaside resort to the southwest of the city, was also raging.
Since Wednesday, in Gironde alone, more than 32,000 hectares of forest had burnt. A record number of 98,000 hec- tares of forest have burnt in France so far this year. This compared with the previ- ous record of 66,300 for all of 2022.
On Friday morning French authorities ordered the evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula, a popular tourist destination, with many leaving by boat. That evening, a small firefighting crew were packing up their equipment. Along the closed road to Lège, the fire had ravaged farmhouses, the skeletons of cars left on driveways.
Audenge
Salles
10 miles
“We only have one truck ... we have to let the houses burn,” one of the fire- fighters said. “There’s an industrial build- ing that’s about to go up — we have to put our resources on that. The fumes [from there] are toxic.”
In a car park in Lège, Truck de Chef, a food van run by Jonathan Antonin, was giving away cardboard boxes of steak frites to 500 firefighters. Antonin had travelled down to help when he saw the news. “It was just logical to come here,” he said. “We are one family. They’re sav- ing our houses and if they don’t eat, they won’t have the strength.”
Two firefighters died last week fighting blazes in France, and more than 40 have been reported injured.
The Morley family — Dominic, Lucy, Alex, Ethan and Maisie — from Oxford had only just arrived for their holidays when their hotel near the airport was evacuated in the early hours, forcing them to seek shelter in a convention centre. It had 800 camping beds for 3,500-5,000 people. Lucy Morley was more concerned for the locals. “We are just on holiday. Everyone else is turning up with their cats and dogs,” she said. The family realised the danger at once. “Just before the plane landed you could smell the smoke,” said Morley. “It’s like something out of a film. It’s apocalyptic … I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Where are the fires? In France, the worst of the fires are in the southwestern regions of Landes and Gironde. One blaze was within 20 miles of Bordeaux by yesterday afternoon. In Spain, fires are close to the west and north of Madrid.
Is it safe to travel? The Foreign Office does not warn against travelling to France and Spain, even to the areas affected by wildfires. However, it recommends following the advice of local authorities and checking before travelling. Flights to Bordeaux and Madrid were operating as normal as of yesterday evening.
Can I get a refund if I don’t travel? Without a change in advice from the Foreign Office, any cancellation initiated by the traveller would be considered a disinclination to travel. That means you won’t get a refund.
What if I’m staying in an Airbnb? Airbnb has said its major disruptive events policy was in effect for the affected areas of southwest France. This means hosts can cancel eligible stays without consequences and guests can cancel for a refund.
solitary Sandringham life
described as ‘unstable’ shortly before his arrest but he is said to have settled in his new home, although his isolation from his family remains
NIKKHAH
Royal Editor
As he begins his summer break this week, the King can reflect on accomplishing one successful family reunion, hosting the Sussexes at Highgrove this month.
But another royal rapprochement looks increasingly unlikely. Charles and his disgraced brother, Andrew Mountbat- ten-Windsor, remain estranged. The King is understood to have no plans to see him over the summer, when he will host most of the royal family at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. It is not known whether Andrew has been banned from Balmoral but a source close to the King said the idea of his presence there alongside the wider royal family would raise “consider- able sensitivities”.
The King has not seen his brother since Andrew was arrested in February at his Norfolk residence on the Sandringham estate. Andrew was questioned by police on suspicion of misconduct in public office during his decade as the UK’s trade envoy, over dealings with the late con- victed paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. He denies wrongdoing.
After his dramatic and public fall from grace, there were concerns in royal cir- cles for his welfare and wellbeing. Sour- ces close to the King described Andrew as “unstable” shortly before his arrest. But those concerns are understood to have “abated”. Andrew is said by royal sources to be “quite settled” into his solitary life in Norfolk at his new home, Marsh Farm,
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as he waits to find out whether he will be charged. Andrew is understood to spend much of his time watching television and walking his dogs. He is occasionally seen riding around the Sandringham estate.
Charles continues to support Andrew financially, providing him with a “modest stipend” from which he covers his staff and living costs. Sources close to the King have said he feels he has no choice but to fund his brother privately, in the hope of “containing” him in Norfolk.
Despite the brothers regularly being within a few miles of each other when the King stays at Sandringham House, Charles, 77, and Andrew, 66, who remains under police investigation, have not been seen together since the Duchess of Kent’s funeral at Westminster Cathe- dral in September. No member of the royal family has been seen in public with Andrew since the funeral, when the Prince of Wales visibly blanked his uncle.
Last summer, Andrew and his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, were invited to join
the royal family gathering at Balmoral. But in the autumn, as revelations of their friendships with Epstein and the con- victed sex-trafficker Ghislaine Max- well continued to emerge, Charles gave them notice of eviction from Royal Lodge, Windsor, where they had lived together despite divorcing in 1996, and stripped Andrew of his royal titles and honours. The government has since con- firmed it will explore legislation to remove him from the line of succession, where he remains eighth in line to the throne. But government sources have told The Sunday Times it could take years, owing to the police investigation and “constitutional complexity”.
While the Princess Royal and the Duke of Edinburgh are understood to be in occasional touch with Andrew, most of the royal family have given him a wide berth since his arrest, including his daughters, Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 36, who is expecting her third child this summer. Ferguson,
66, whose whereabouts are unknown, is not thought to have seen her ex-husband since they left Royal Lodge.
After Andrew’s arrest on February 19, Charles issued a statement, in which he said: “I have learnt with the deepest con- cern the news about Andrew Mountbat- ten-Windsor and suspicion of miscon- duct in public office. What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropri- ate manner and by the appropriate authorities.
“In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”
Shortly before his arrest, as more details emerged from the further release of Epstein files in the US, a spokesman for the Prince and Princess of Wales said: “I can confirm that the prince and princess have been deeply concerned by the con- tinuing revelations. Their thoughts remain focused on the victims.”
Andrew dog-walking at his new home, Marsh Farm
that could help 97% of sufferers
Shaun Lintern Health Editor
Human trials are to begin for a drug that could treat almost every person diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND).
Scientists at University College London have developed the drug, which helps the body to produce a protein necessary for communication between motor neurone cells and muscles. In almost all cases of MND this protein is lacking.
The drug is not a cure, but if the trials prove it works safely, it could be one of the first new treatments in years.
In MND cases, neurones begin to degenerate and die, causing a progressive loss of speech, movement and even breathing.
At any one time, 6,000 people in Britain are suffering with MND. Six are diagnosed every day. Sufferers can expect to live for two or three years on average but some can die within months. There is only one treatment approved for use on the NHS: riluzole, which can help to slow the disease’s progress but does not work for everyone.
MND’s profile has grown with the diagnoses of celebrities and sports stars. Last October the former England rugby union captain and World Cup winner Lewis Moody announced he had been diagnosed after a persistent weakness in his shoulder that did not improve after physiotherapy.
The Leeds Rhinos rugby league player Rob Burrow was diagnosed in 2019 and became a leading campaigner for MND research, raising tens of millions of pounds. The Rob Burrow Centre for MND opened in Leeds in November funded by a £6.8 million campaign. He died in June 2024, aged 41.
The MND Association is among Britain’s top ten funders of medical research, committing £10 million a year for the past two years.
The initial research at University College London (UCL) was funded by the association and the state Medical Research Council. It discovered low levels of a protein called UNC13A in MND patients, caused because of a malfunction in the cells that means it is never properly manufactured.
After the discovery UCL helped to form a company, Trace Neuroscience, to develop the research and treatments.
The drug it has developed is called TRCN-1023, a small strand of synthetic genetic material that is taken into the nucleus of the cell. It is not a gene therapy and so does not alter DNA, but once inside the nucleus it enables the cell to properly manufacture UNC13A. The lack of this protein is thought to affect 97 per cent of MND patients, making it a crucial target for potential treatments.
Professor Pietro Fratta, from UCL’s Queen Square Institute of Neurology and co- founder of the company, said: “Our research at UCL uncovered just how central this protein is to the disease process. Seeing this discovery translated into a clinical trial is a major milestone.”
Phase one has been authorised and two early clinical trials are set to begin within weeks with the recruitment of about thirty patients. Trial sites will include the NHS trusts running Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and University College London Hospitals.
The drug will be injected into the spinal cord, which allows it to reach the central nervous system where MND causes damage.
W
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paid a senior legal Trump ally thousands of pounds for ‘advice’, while lobbying for a pardon for his conviction in the US
Venetia Menzies, Gabriel Pogrund and Emanuele Midolo
George Cottrell paid a Trump ally who had served as attorney-general in the state where he was convicted as he lob- bied for a presidential pardon.
Cottrell, an aide to Nigel Farage, was sent to prison in Arizona in 2017 for his role in a dark-web money-laundering plot. Mark Brnovich was the state’s chief legal officer and was later nominated for an ambassadorship by President Trump.
US government records show that Cot- trell gave Brnovich thousands of dollars for “legal advice” in the year to March 2025.
Cottrell had been convicted of wire fraud in 2017 and later revealed he was seeking a pardon from Trump.
Brnovich died in January but Cottrell has maintained a friendship with his wife, a federal judge appointed by Trump who sits on the court that is likely to be consulted as part of his case.
As recently as two weeks ago, Judge Susan Brnovich was at Cottrell’s pent- house in Montenegro, the Balkan nation
bank account was frozen
where he is tax resident and engages in crypto-gambling.
Today, Cottrell displays copies of texts between Trump and Mark Brnovich at the same flat.
His relationship with the Brnovich couple, and willingness to exhibit their link to Trump, will raise questions about the nature of Cottrell’s campaign for clemency. Trump has defied Department of Justice guidelines to issue an unprece- dented number of pardons in his second term, often helping those with direct links to him or his inner circle.
Farage, an ally of Trump’s, has previ- ously denied doing anything to support Cottrell’s push for clemency. However, this month he broke his silence about their friendship after Insight revealed that Cottrell had secretly funded the Reform leader’s staff and operation before the 2024 general election.
Speaking on a podcast, he down- played Cottrell’s activities — incorrectly claiming he was punished for “tax avoid- ance” — and said it was possible his friend would receive a pardon.
Cottrell, who on Friday was spotted outside the London home he previously let Farage use, has also made false claims about his conviction. He said he was entrapped during a single meeting when, in fact, he repeatedly offered drug deal- ers help laundering their money online.
Nigel Boardman, a former partner at Slaughter and May who was on the board of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2018-22.
Its president, Sir Henry Angest, a Swiss-born Eurosceptic, has donated to the Conservatives and right- wing think tanks.
It is unclear exactly when restrictions were imposed on Reform.
According to leaked documents, Reform had a “commercial current account” with the bank and had retained its services since its time as the Brexit Party.
Commission complaining about the situation.
By then, Reform had received four payments totalling £27,500 — from donors other than Tice or the Cottrells — which A’Zami believed were “impermissible” because they had come from foreign donors or individuals whose identity could not be verified. As a result, the party could not accept them.
At this point, according to law, A’Zami had 30 days to return the money to the sender starting with the day payments were received. This meant he had deadlines of July 4, 9 and 12. However, A’Zami told the watchdog he had been unable to move the money on those dates.
slogan ‘Make Montenegro Great Again’
Susan Brnovich was spotted at Cottrell’s penthouse in Montenegro
Cottrell announced in an article in The Spectator last August that he had lodged his pardon application. He complained that mounting scrutiny of his activities by Labour — what he described as “dark arts” — might thwart his application.
By that point, the fraudster’s relation- ship with Brnovich was closer than ever before — while Brnovich had never been closer to Trump.
The president had nominated Brnov- ich as ambassador to Serbia the previous March. Trump told the world that his friend would “always put AMERICA FIRST”.
Brnovich, who had completed his time as attorney-general, was delighted — but first had to go through formal due dili- gence.
As part of this, in March 2025, he sup- plied a detailed breakdown of his earn- ings over the previous year. The docu- ment included a section for “sources of compensation” exceeding $5,000 over the preceding 12 months. Brnovich pro- duced the names of seven clients who had retained his services via the New York law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and contributed to his remuneration of more than $412,000. Boies Schiller Flex- ner declined to comment.
On the list was one “George Cottrell”. The Sunday Times asked Cottrell what the advice was for but he declined to say,
Although the account was later unfrozen, Arbuthnot Latham was only able to process payments from July 23, weeks after the general election at which Farage, Tice and three other Reform MPs were elected to the Commons.
Mark Brnovich, the former attorney-general of Arizona, convicted George Cottrell and was close to Trump
Nigel Farage invited Brnovich onto GB News four times and met him socially
Susan Brnovich, Mark’s widow, is a sitting federal judge in Arizona
other than that it was not connected to his case. Cottrell would also not be drawn on whether Brnovich had written a char- acter reference for him, a step required for a pardon application.
Cottrell has made no secret of his indi- rect connection to the US president.
In his Tivat penthouse, he displayed copies of an iMessage exchange between Brnovich and Trump. In the undated cor- respondence, Brnovich sends an image of a Maga-style cap with the slogan “Make Montenegro Great Again”. Trump responds: “GREAT.”
Until Brnovich’s death, Cottrell was just as public about their close relation- ship too. He dedicated the book he co-wrote — How to Launder Money, which is part memoir and part manual for law enforcement — to his friend Brnovich. Without him, Cottrell wrote, it would never have happened.
Even by the standards of what Farage has described as Cottrell’s “enormously colourful” life, such a friendship was improbable. In July 2016 that Cottrell, then 22, was arrested, charged with 21 federal crimes and sent to Arizona. In the southwestern state, he faced up to two decades behind bars. Records show Brnovich worked with a number of peo- ple who prosecuted Cottrell and, after a plea deal, secured his conviction for wire fraud.
Yet in the years that followed, the felon, Cottrell, and the face of the law, Brnovich, realised they had more in com- mon.
Following his release, Cottrell moved to Tivat, a port city on the Adriatic, just as the city was going through a digital cur- rency boom.
Brnovich, who has Montenegrin heri- tage, made trips to the area around the
no detail on who the donor was
did correspond with Mehrtash A’Zami, the registered treasurer of Reform UK, asking for clarification concerning four donations relating to the party’s frozen bank account. The response received did give details of conversations between the party and its bank. The response was provided to us in confidence.”
Reform’s debanking rows Farage has campaigned on the problem of “debanking” since Coutts closed his account in 2023, citing issues including his views. That year Tice claimed Reform’s own account with Metro Bank had been closed because of its support for Brexit, which the bank denied.
The men were on the same page politi- cally too. Cottrell is a dedicated conserva- tive who, via his lawyers, said his support for Farage was down to a shared ideology as well as friendship.
Brnovich was a Republican, albeit one whom Trump criticised in 2022 for not doing enough to overturn what he claimed were fraudulent election results after his loss to Joe Biden. It cost him. After finishing his final term as attorney- general in 2023, Brnovich ran unsuccess- fully for the Republican nomination to run for the US Senate in Arizona, after Trump criticised his record.
He quickly adopted a more pro-Trump stance and, having refused to release a report that debunked electoral fraud claims shortly before his resignation, went all in on Maga.
There to help promote the new Brnov- ich was Farage, who, in 2024, hosted him on his GB News show four times. Brnov- ich returned the favour, publicly describ- ing Farage as Britain’s next prime minis- ter and socialising with him at 5 Hertford St, the Mayfair club where Cottrell con- ducts business.
The political overlap extended to Mon- tenegro too: in 2024, Brnovich was seen socialising with Milojko Spajic, a crypto investor recently elected as Montene- gro’s prime minister, at the café beneath Cottrell’s penthouse. Cottrell has repeat- edly been accused of — and denied — bankrolling his victory.
According to sources, the friendship became so deep that Brnovich at one point told a friend that he owed Cottrell “everything”.
In 2025, the year Brnovich was nomi- nated for the ambassadorship, Cottrell revealed his campaign for clemency. But in October, after Brnovich submitted his paperwork —featuring details of his remuneration from, among others, Cot- trell — Trump abruptly pulled the nomi- nation.
Brnovich lashed out at “deep state” bureaucrats. Journalists, meanwhile, reported that issues had been identified with his political as well as his “ethical” background.
However, Brnovich stayed true to the Trump cause, vowing instead to play a “bigger role on the domestic political scene”. In January this year he had a fatal heart attack. Cottrell issued a rare public statement, thanking his “friend and men- tor”.
Brnovich is survived by his wife, Susan, 58, who was nominated by Trump to the federal judiciary in 2018, and their two children. Today she sits on not just the district court for Arizona, which over- saw Cottrell’s case, but at the same Phoe- nix courthouse in which he was prose- cuted.
That court is likely to be contacted as part of the pardons process, if it has not been already. The aim is for the sentenc- ing judge, not Brnovich herself, to issue any comments.
Addressing her appearance on Cot- trell’s balcony two weeks ago, she said he did not finance her trip and that she stayed in the hotel of which the pent- house is part on a family vacation, not the penthouse itself. Cottrell said she had come to the flat for a social visit.
According to his lawyers, Cottrell’s “application is currently proceeding through the usual channel” as far as he is aware. That suggests the Department of Justice is handling the case and will rec- ommend a course of action that Trump could accept or ignore.
A Reuters investigation last month revealed that 96 per cent of Trump’s 1,700 second-term clemency grants went to recipients such as fraudsters and riot- ers who did not fulfil the various rules for such requests, such as remorse and reha- bilitation, compared with less than 1 per cent under Biden.
Cottrell, via his lawyers at Carter Ruck, said: “Judge Brnovich is a personal friend, as was her late husband. She was visiting on a family vacation and did not stay with me. I consider the tactics employed by The Sunday Times, in pho- tographing her on a private family holi- day, and then contriving to link her social visit to my application for a pardon, a matter over which she, as a sitting judge, has no say, to be nothing more than tac- tics designed to intimidate me and those around me in furtherance of its own polit- ically motivated agenda.”
Farage, who has made similar argu- ments about a media “stitch-up”, played down Cottrell’s past when he spoke to the Triggernometry podcast this month. “So, he has a conviction,” he said. “Maybe that conviction will be pardoned one day.”
account being frozen for a limited time. Although institutions such as Coutts have faced scrutiny for politicising the act of debanking, freezing accounts for security reasons is a separate matter and tends to relate to suspected criminal activity.
Farage resigned as MP for Clacton this month and triggered a by-election, which he has framed as a battle against the “establishment”. He quit days after an Insight investigation revealed Cottrell’s undisclosed financial support for the Reform leader.
one third of pupils have special needs
among the help children are given at a Liverpool primary where SEN cases have surged since Covid
Louise Eccles and Callum Martin
Twice a day at St Francis de Sales Catholic Junior School, a quarter of pupils take a “sensory” break to calm their nervous systems so they can return to the class- room. The ten-minute circuit might involve throwing a ball or doing star jumps then lying under a weighted blan- ket.
Thirty-three per cent of pupils at this mainstream primary school have special educational needs, a rate which has more
than doubled from 15 per cent in 2020-21.
Welcome to Liverpool Walton, which has the highest proportion of SEN pupils in England at 31 per cent. The national average is 21 per cent.
Liverpool Walton
These figures include children with formal education, health and care plans (EHCPs) — a legal mandate for support — as well as children whom the school has identified as needing extra help, whether or not they have a diagnosis.
At St Francis de Sales, which is rated “outstanding” by the regulator Ofsted and is for children aged 7 to 11, children most commonly present with communi- cation or social, emotional and mental health needs, ADHD or autism.
Holly Edwards, the inclusion lead, said a lack of special school places meant it was now taking pupils who previously would have left mainstream education. This includes children in year 3, when they are aged seven or eight, who are
non-verbal or not toilet trained. “A few years ago they might have been in spe- cialist provision, but there is no space for them,” Edwards said.
There are many possible reasons for the huge increase in SEN support across the country, from better diagnosis to dep- rivation, the impact of the Covid pan- demic and excessive screen time at a young age.
Professor Mark Mon-Williams holds a chair in cognitive psychology at Leeds University and his work includes examin- ing education inequalities for children in the north of England. He said: “The most passionate, caring, brilliant parent will
struggle to find the type of spaces and resources that middle-class children will be able to access on a regular basis.
“Disadvantage compounds disadvan- tage. We have children growing up with- out access to green spaces, libraries and nutritious food. Society pays a bill for this downstream because we’re not provid- ing the sort of support in our most disad- vantaged areas to give children the best start in life. This is how we end up with young people not in employment, educa- tion or training [Neets].”
New analysis reveals huge regional variation around England, from 0 per cent in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, to 29
Christina O’Keefe, with a Year 5 pupil, is deputy head for inclusion at Florence Melly Community Primary School, Walton
At Florence Melly Community Primary School, an outstanding-rated school in Walton for children aged 3 to 11, 35 per cent of pupils have special educational needs. The head said it had become a “magnet” because of its excellent SEN provision.
Percentage of students with SEN support
31.4%
28.8%
North Norfolk
28.4%
Wallasey
28.3%
Bootle
28.2%
South Dorset
Data for 2025/26 academic year. Numbers are children being provided SEN support rather than formal diagnoses. Deprivation based on IMD rankings.
per cent in North Norfolk and 28 per cent in South Dorset. The approaches of indi- vidual schools may partly explain the dis- parities. Some prioritise assessment and identification and therefore have more SEN pupils, while others informally adapt their teaching.
Psychotherapists work in St Francis de Sales for three days a week and a pastoral mentor provides full-time emotional sup- port. The school also has an informal therapy dog: Delta a miniature smooth- haired dachshund belonging to the head teacher, Andy Reidel.
On the morning we visited, Delta was receiving cuddles in the playground from
Constituency deprivation rank (out of 543)
catch a suspect every 90 minutes
Fintan Hogan
A suspect was arrested every 90 minutes while live facial recognition cameras were in use on the streets last year.
About 9.25 million faces were scanned in England and Wales, leading to 1,317 arrests, of which about 450 were suspected violent offenders.
Facial recognition cameras are usually deployed from surveillance vans in busy areas to compare the features of passersby against the biometric profiles of people who are missing, or who are accused or convicted of crimes.
The Metropolitan Police, which runs the most live facial recognition, said the majority of people on its watchlist were wanted by the courts, a fifth of them in connection with “serious crime”.
When the system alerts officers to a suspected match, they confirm the person’s identity using photographic ID or mobile fingerprint scanners. Deployments are becoming particularly common at “crime hotspots” including football matches, concerts, air shows and international rugby fixtures. At last year’s Notting Hill Carnival in west London there were 61 facial recognition-related arrests, including one man who was alleged to have stabbed someone five times with a machete.
The systems were deployed by 14 of the 45 territorial police forces last year, including in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and Suffolk for the first time. The cameras were deployed 63 times in 2023 and 246 times in 2024. On average, the 369 deployments last year scanned 78 faces a minute and identified a person of
plants and leaves nurseries wilting
David Binns and Fintan Hogan
Gardeners have given up on planting after successive heatwaves have dried up the soil and caused “intolerable” conditions.
Plant nurseries are struggling in one of the hottest summers on record. Species are maturing earlier than expected and fragile varieties are becoming heat- damaged.
John Cutteridge, the owner of Megaplants in Doddington, Cambridgeshire, said his polytunnels had reached almost 50C. “That’s just intolerable for most UK plants, really,” said Cutteridge, 51. “The bedding plants are quite hard to keep going and they spoil very quickly. Some of the early annuals too, they just don’t want that amount of heat.”
a boy who had special needs and, staff said, had had an “unimaginably difficult life”. Edwards said: “Delta doesn’t need him to speak to her and she doesn’t need him to understand her, but the minute he sees her, he smiles.”
Reidel believes a lack of space at home and outdoors to play and socialise hin- ders development. He said: “If children aren’t able to develop those gross motor skills through frequent and prolonged physical play, research shows that it has an impact on how their sensory process- ing systems develop.”
Christina O’Keefe, deputy head for inclusion, said: “Many children turn up with very delayed speech. A lot of time is spent on devices or looking at TVs, and they haven’t developed the communica- tion or speech skills. So we’re having to do referrals to speech and language spe- cialists almost as soon as they get to school.” The head teacher, Aaron Leach, said “What we’re seeing with a lot of chil- dren coming through the door is a higher complexity of need and many are not toi- let trained or school ready.”
Liverpool council said: “We have worked hard with schools, health partners, and families to improve aware- ness of SEN and strengthen pathways to support.”
interest approximately every forty minutes.
In January the government announced plans to increase the number of surveillance vans from ten to 50 — making them available to all forces in England and Wales.
Forces have a disclosure log in which they record the date and location of each deployment and the number of alerts they received. The arrest figures were provided by the 14 police forces in response to freedom of information requests.
The Met deployed the tech 231 times last year, scanned 4.2 million faces and arrested 1,133 people suspected of criminal activity, in breach of their bail conditions or wanted by the courts.
Dejean South escaped detection for more than a year after a January 2024 break-in. He was eventually arrested in Woolwich, southeast London in March last year after being identified by facial recognition. In April, South, 25, was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 22 months’ in jail, suspended for two years, for aggravated burglary and breaching bail.
The Met said: “These figures highlight why live facial recognition is such a crucial tool in tackling the most violent offenders ... including those who harm women and girls.”
Of about 2,800 nationwide alerts last year, 18 were misidentifications, including cases in Manchester and Northamptonshire.
Jasleen Chaggar, senior legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch, said “millions of law-abiding citizens” were being “caught in the net of surveillance”. She added: “With more than a dozen innocent people wrongly identified, it’s clear that we all have something to fear from this Orwellian tech.”
struggling, said Nick Bailey, a garden designer and BBC Gardeners’ World presenter. “We have had to reorder and reorder and reorder. [Stock] that’s always available suddenly isn’t,” he said. “Campanula lactiflora [bellflower], for example — in my own garden, it literally burned off within a week. The whole thing is just dry twigs.”
The plants that have survived are also much harder to sell, according to garden centres. “The hot weather does deter numbers, we don’t see so many customers,” said Peter Burks, chief executive of the Garden Centre Association.
Samuel Lovett
It was during the final years of the Lamlash International Sea Angling Festival, in the early 1990s, when Howard Wood realised all was not well in the waters of Arran.
Catches that had once been measured in tonnes were being counted by hand — the result of overfishing and bottom trawling that had devastated the seabed surrounding the small island to the west of mainland Scotland.
A keen diver at the time, Wood, 72, saw the impact for himself. “It was a really rapid deterioration,” he said. “The trawling just completely rakes away the seabed. All the biodiversity and habitats needed for the fish were being destroyed in front of our eyes.”
Nearly four decades later life is once again thriving in Lamlash Bay, on the southeast of Arran, after Wood and his fellow activist Don MacNeish, 79, successfully campaigned for the Scottish government to ban multiple fishing methods in the island’s waters.
A new report published by the University of Exeter shows a threefold increase in marine life along the seabed, while the numbers of king scallops have risen by more than 350 per cent.
boxer have given sworn statements 30 years after the killings for which Michael Stone is in jail
Emily Dugan Special Correspondent
Two witnesses have come forward to identify a new suspect for the murder of Lin Russell and her daughter Megan.
Family members have given sworn statements to the miscarriages of justice watchdog to name their relative, Ray- mond Buck, a carpenter and plumber who was reportedly obsessed with the occult.
Michael Stone, 66, has been in prison for 29 years after being convicted of the murders, though he has always claimed he is innocent. He gave a DNA sample this month as part of a new forensic investiga- tion into the case by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The results have not come back yet.
Russell, 45, was walking her daughters Megan, six, and Josie, nine, home from a swimming gala with their white terrier on July 9, 1996, when they were attacked. The murderer dragged them into a copse near the Kent village of Chillenden, where they were tied up and bludgeoned with a hammer. Only Josie survived.
One of the new witnesses, Ross Shields, 39, was a child at the time of the murders. He said he was being looked after by Buck’s sister Tracy that day and claims he overheard Buck confess to her: “I’ve done something unforgivable. I’ve killed three people.”
The other witness has described Buck’s troubled psychiatric state and escalating violence.
Stone was 37 at the time of his arrest and was a heroin user with previous con- victions for violence, including a ham- mer attack on a man. He became a sus- pect after the BBC1 Crimewatch programme broadcast an e-fit on the first anniversary of the attacks that prompted his psychiatrist to call the police.
Stone had no alibi and said he could not remember what he was doing at the time. His DNA was never found on any exhibits and forensic scientists at Euro- fins, the testing service, will be looking again at samples taken from the victims’ bodies, as well as a blood-stained shoe- lace. The knotted shoelace found along a lane 45m from the crime scene was stained with the victims’ blood and police believed it was used to strangle Megan.
Buck, an amateur boxer, had a history of violence and was purportedly obsessed with the Chillenden Windmill. He died by suicide at Beachy Head aged 46 in 2000. Sources said Buck was looked at by Kent police investigating the murder in 1996 — but the force did not take it fur- ther. A male relative of Buck’s has agreed
Shaun Lintern Health Editor
Health officials have tried to suppress the work of investigators reporting examples of poor NHS care, it can be revealed.
In a series of recent power grabs, NHS England has stopped investigators alerting the media to their national clinical audits, watering down key recommendations and limiting the way the reports are written, published and used.
Sea mosses, multi- coloured hydroids that look like bushes and intricate bryozoans — tiny, filter- feeding invertebrates that live in colonies — are returning, too, providing vital nursery grounds for juvenile fish to hide from predators. As these juveniles mature over the coming decades, fish populations are expected to swell even further.
Scientists agree that this underwater forest can be attributed to a “no-take zone”, which forbids all forms of fishing, that Wood and MacNeish advocated. It was introduced in Lamlash Bay in 2008, followed by a marine protected area (MPA) that was established around the south of Arran in 2016. Covering nearly 300 sq km, the MPA prohibits trawling, dredging and creeling, in which fishermen drop traps on to the seabed to catch shellfish, in specific spots.
The interventions made by Wood, a former horticulturist, and MacNeish, a metalworker by trade and fellow diving enthusiast, have been recognised with national and international awards and even championed by Sir David Attenborough. For MacNeish, only now does he realise what has been achieved.
“In the no-take zone, the
people’ — new Russell murder suspect identified
to provide his DNA so it can be checked against samples from the crime scene.
The Sunday Times spoke to four mem- bers of Buck’s wider family. They described him as volatile, violent and frightening and acknowledged that they wondered if he might be responsible. None wanted to be named.
He is said to have left garlic and reli- gious notes around the house and family members described him as being increasingly violent to his ex-wife.
At the time of the Russell murders, wit- nesses said they saw an agitated white man driving a beige car in the lane near
who chaired inquiries into maternity scandals, have criticised the increased control over the investigations, which are meant to be independent.
Each year the NHS funds more than 40 national clinical audits into areas as diverse as maternity care, stroke care, diabetes, cancer and dementia. The work, which costs more than £11 million a year, has resulted in significant improvements in care.
forest can be attributed to a ‘no-take zone’
clot retrieval procedures that could restore blood flow to the brain and prevent lasting disability. A year later NHS England vowed to expand the service.
Similarly, the national prostate cancer audit, published in September last year, highlighted the dramatically low levels of black men being diagnosed in England, despite having twice the risk of others. Since then the issue of screening for black men has been central to the debate on prostate cancer.
last dive I recently did with Howard, I couldn’t stop grinning the whole time and just thinking to myself, ‘This is what it was all about.’ There were lobsters and scallops everywhere,” said MacNeish. “There were so many years of just knocking your head against a brick wall. To see it all there in front of your eyes, the abundance of everything, it was just unbelievable.”
the scene. Buck also drove a beige car in 1996 and had driven to his then-wife’s rel- atives who lived in Elham, two miles from the scene, that morning. He was in the process of separating from his wife. He had lost custody of his two children and reportedly tried to force the family’s front door to see them.
Buck lived half an hour from the scene in Folkestone at the time and most of his family lived in Kent.
Shields, who was nine at the time, said it was a late afternoon in the summer on what he now believes was the day of the murders when he overheard a conversa-
the NHS, analysing data and patient experience to highlight consistent poor performance and areas where changes are needed. The work is done under contract with NHS England by universities, medical royal colleges and charities.
Hunt said the revelations suggested NHS England was trying to protect its own reputation and act as “gatekeeper” to the truth about the state of care.
The story of this revival began in 1984, the year Wood taught his long-term friend MacNeish how to scuba dive.
In their early days beneath the waves, they swam over complex seabeds teeming with cod, pollock, turbot and octopus. But by the end of the decade, they had grown concerned by the loss of sealife they were witnessing.
The Thatcher government
tion at his aunt Tracy’s house in the out- skirts of Folkestone in Kent. Tracy was married to Shields’s maternal uncle at the time.
He told The Sunday Times: “I was sit- ting in the front room, Ray Buck came in and he flew straight past the front room door and he went straight in the kitchen.” The house was open plan and he said he was able to hear what was happening through the archway in the next room.
“I remember Tracy saying, ‘Ray, what’s the matter?’ And he said, ‘I’ve done something unforgivable’. Tracy said, ‘What have you done, Ray?’ And he
England should not be acting as a gatekeeper for independent findings or recommendations.
“The lesson from every major patient safety scandal is that failing to confront uncomfortable truths only allows unsafe care to persist. NHS England should be championing independent scrutiny and transparency — not creating the impression that reputational management is taking precedence over patient safety.”
Howard Wood, far left, and Don MacNeish. For decades they fought to rescue Arran’s sealife from dredging, above right
abolished a ban on bottom trawling in 1984, where heavy nets are dragged along the seafloor to catch fish, within three miles of the UK coast. “It proved catastrophic,” said Wood.
Fish stocks plummeted, so much so that catches had fallen by 96 per cent when the last Lamlash International Sea Angling Festival was held in 1994. Once renowned for
said, ‘I’ve killed three people. I’ve killed the dog. The dog wouldn’t stop’.”
Shields said he could not remember the exact wording but that he also over- heard Buck say words to the effect of: “I had a shoelace but I can’t find the shoe- lace. If they find the shoelace it’s over for me.” Shields said Buck and Tracy went into the garden and Buck “flew out of the back gate, down the side alley and disap- peared”.
Shields said immediately afterwards he remembered asking when he was going to be picked up and being shouted at. “The reason I remember it is because of the atmosphere changing,” he said.
He said he told a close relative what he had heard in the weeks afterwards and was told “don’t be so silly”. He only decided to come forward with the infor- mation as an adult after taking part in a counselling programme where he was asked to address matters from the past.
Shields approached Stone’s lawyers, having gone to Kent police several years ago with information about the alleged confession. He said he was told that Buck had been a suspect but that the investiga- tion would not be reopened.
Shields also said he remembered an occasion where Buck arrived at his ex-wife’s house and was extremely vio- lent. He said: “You could hear him just beating the hell out of her.”
Another relative said they had seen Buck driving a beige car in Folkestone the day after the murders and had wondered if he might be behind the attack but had not wanted to cause upset in the family.
The relative said “he was obsessed with windmills” and was “capable” of the crime having “just lost custody of his chil- dren”, adding: “He was quite deranged.”
According to statements provided to the CCRC, Buck developed beliefs about witchcraft and the occult and drove around looking for witches’ covens.
A former close relative also said Buck was diagnosed with delusions in schizo- phrenia with morbid jealousy. Buck was convicted of a bomb hoax in 1997 after turning up at the Home Office with a knife and leaving a note telling the home secre- tary to look behind a plant pot. The note had a postscript reading: “Security, what a joke. Is it Semtex or just plain English?” When security guards looked behind the
on the way the investigations are done and require the teams behind them to discuss final reports with NHS England. The rules mandate the length of reports, the number of recommendations and ban the authors from alerting the media or making recommendations to local hospitals where they find problems.
its plentiful stocks, the Firth of Clyde was being emptied of its fish.
The industry pivoted to bottom trawling for prawns and scallop dredging. These practices dragged heavy gear across the seafloor, systematically raking away the intricate habitats essential for marine life to breed and thrive.
Wood and MacNeish, however, refused to accept this fate. During a trip to New Zealand in 1990, MacNeish met Dr Bill Ballantine, a marine biologist who had established the world’s first no-take zone, to the north of Auckland, and persuaded him to push for the same
At the centre of the row is the national investigation into mother and baby deaths, carried out by the national perinatal epidemiology unit at the University of Oxford.
Professor Marian Knight, who leads the work, said the ability to drive improvements had been curtailed. She told The Sunday Times: “I would say I feel the restrictions placed on us about reports and reporting have limited our ability to make a difference, to get our messages through and to drive change.”
policy back home in Scotland. MacNeish and Wood formed the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (Coast) in 1995 and began campaigning across Arran and wider Scotland.
“Howard and Don have pioneered this higher level of protection and shown what is possible,” said Callum Roberts, a professor of marine conservation whose research revealed the flourishing sealife.
“On Thursday I took some new staff out,” said Wood. “After 15 minutes they came up and couldn’t believe how brilliant it was down there. That is absolutely incredible.”
pot they found a Collins English diction- ary.
Karen Todner, a solicitor brought in to work on Stone’s case in January, found the witnesses. She said: “I have inter- viewed witnesses who have information particularly about Raymond Buck’s psy- chiatric state and a confession he gave at the time and I believe them to be very credible. This is a major breakthrough in Michael’s fight to overturn his conviction. He has languished in prison for far too long for something I’m absolutely con- vinced he didn’t do.”
Buck’s family are in turmoil at the developments and divided over whether he was capable of the crimes.
One relative said they had not seen any evidence that Buck was responsible. When asked if Buck was capable of the offence, the relative said: “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. If Michael Stone hasn’t done this and Ray has done this then that’s terrible. But for me there’s nothing for me to gain in tarnishing Ray Buck’s name … he can’t defend himself.”
The fresh submission to the CCRC makes clear that none of the testimony amounts to proof that Buck committed the murders — but it means another indi- vidual is credibly implicated and should be included in the forensic investigation.
Levi Bellfield, who murdered the schoolgirl Milly Dowler, allegedly con- fessed to the Russell murders in 2017, then retracted the claim before making a further detailed written confession. Stone’s lawyers said they hoped that the exhibits would be checked against Bell- field and Buck’s DNA — as well as Stone’s.
Kent police confirmed that during its original investigation it was contacted by a relative of a man with connections to the Folkestone and London area. Detect- ive Chief Inspector Neil Kimber said: “The information provided … was com- prehensively examined in full. Kent police has supported the CCRC by provid- ing all of the relevant information required ... and will continue to do so.”
The CCRC said: “We are exploring ... whether Mr Stone may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”
Stone’s barrister, Mark McDonald, said: “I hope the forthcoming forensic review will reveal the truth and bring this miscarriage of justice to an end.”
about improving the education and training of midwives had been watered down after intervention from NHS England.
NHS England said it did not alter the underlying data or facts in national clinical audits and the authors had control over their analysis. It said: “Clinical audits are independent evidence-based reports to help the NHS improve services for patients and families and we work with auditors to ensure their recommendations are clear and can be implemented across the NHS to improve care.”
Michael Stone, far left, was convicted of the murder of Lin and Megan Russell, pictured with Shaun and Josie, second left. Police produced an e-fit of a suspect and “looked at” Raymond Buck for the crime
trauma of being raped in her sleep, revealed today, that forced Natalie Fleet to resign as a minister
Rosamund Urwin Chief News Correspondent
Natalie Fleet knew she could no longer serve as safeguarding minister when the role required her to discuss women who had been raped in their sleep — because she knew exactly how that felt.
The MP for Bolsover, who stepped down on Wednesday citing the “over- whelmingly triggering” impact of the job, had been appointed ten weeks earlier. Soon after entering parliament in 2024, she revealed that she became pregnant aged 15 with her eldest daughter after being groomed and raped by an older man. But there was another, more recent assault that she has not spoken about publicly until now.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was that the National Crime Agency was doing media about women who’d been drugged and raped while they slept — cases like Gisèle Pelicot’s,” she said. “I’ve never said this before — I’ve only spoken about the statutory rape and grooming. And I don’t want to go into detail, but I know what it’s like to wake up in a daze, and you don’t quite know where you are or what day it is, but there’s a man inside you.”
Fleet, 42, said she was heartbroken that she could not continue in her role, but it was taking an unbearable toll. She felt she had “healed” before she became an MP, but then found herself waking up in the night, crying. “It makes me sad that I can’t do my job because of what they [perpetrators] have done to me, but this is me taking back control,” she added.
“Staying in post, I was letting survivors down. I think it is the bravest thing I’ve
deeply ingrained in society, do I even believe me? But I’d believe you
ever done. I’m not mad, I’m not broken — but you have to put your own lifejacket on first.”
Fleet, who lives in Derbyshire with her husband Ritchie — the couple have been happily married for 19 years — has a 12-year-old daughter, sons aged 17 and 22, and her eldest daughter, now 25, who has an 18-month-old daughter of her own.
People often tell her she is brave for speaking of her experiences but she does not feel it. The assault previously dis- cussed is the one where, because of her age, no one disputes it was rape; but she
still blames herself for the second attack.
“I speak about statutory rape because I’ve got my birth certificate, my daugh- ter’s birth certificate, and her DNA that proves what happened,” she explained.
“But if you asked if there were other times I’d been raped, I’d give you a long list of what I did wrong to make bad things happen to me. I can tell you what I was wearing, what I drank. The gaslight- ing is so deeply ingrained in society, do I even believe me? Yet if you told me the same story, I’d believe you.”
Years after the second attack, she called Rape Crisis. “I told them all the rea- sons it was my fault, and the woman replied: ‘It can’t be your fault ... you can’t consent in your sleep.’ But will we ever get to a place where I won’t feel like it’s my fault? I’d love that, but probably not.”
Even before the Pelicot-like cases, Fleet found the role — which involved tackling domestic abuse, rape and child exploitation — was bringing up bad mem- ories. “Every time I’d be in a briefing, my brain would be going ‘that happened to you’,” she said.
Growing up on a council estate in Ash- field, Nottinghamshire, Fleet saw her stepfather being abusive towards her mother. At one stage they were homeless.
“Civil servants would say: ‘Do you want to visit Women’s Aid, and we can do Rape Crisis afterwards?’” she said. “But when you’re carrying this much [trauma], you avoid things that make you feel uncomfortable. I was asked if I wanted to learn more about this amazing charity that gives furniture to women fleeing domestic abuse. I’d used one.”
In June, she gave the government’s response to the grooming gangs debate, which was led by the Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, who focused on Muslim perpetrators. “People were talk- ing about the most horrendous crimes that happened to women, and a lot of it was triggering because it also happened to me, but I didn’t want to make it about me. Then I was heckled by men during my closing remarks,” Fleet said.
“I’m really glad [Lowe] is talking about the cases of these brave women, but I feel as though he only cares about this type of crime if it fits his political agenda.”
Fleet praises Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, who helped ensure she had counselling with a trauma specialist. Her family tried to support her, too. Ritchie towed their caravan to a local beauty spot so Fleet could recuperate, but she lasted barely an hour. “I couldn’t
stop crying; I couldn’t function and had to go home,” she said.
Fleet now returns to the back benches. She is careful not to be drawn on this beyond saying she would have liked a dif- ferent ministerial position, but some sen- ior Labour women are irked that Andy Burnham’s team have not offered her another role. A party grandee said: “She’s one of the best communicators in the 2024 intake. It’s not right to get rid of someone because they’ve experienced trauma; they just need a different job.”
Fleet is proud of her achievements in this short stint, including getting Sir Keir Starmer to meet survivors of abuse by the former Harrods owner Mohammed Al Fayed. One told Fleet she was the first person she had ever told what she suf- fered at Al Fayed’s hands. “We had a trauma bond,” Fleet said.
Alongside the pressures she faced, Fleet has also had to contend with the now almost routine threats faced by female MPs. Yet she feels that represent- ing her constituents is an “amazing” job. “People tell you that this job is a privilege. I always thought they meant [things] I didn’t want — expenses and party invites. But the privilege is being a voice for peo- ple who otherwise wouldn’t have one.”
Natalie Fleet says she shared a “trauma bond” with survivors of abuse at the hands of former Harrods owner Mohammed Al Fayed
NHS kept to trans advice
Daniel Sanderson Scottish Political Editor
NHS Scotland advised health boards not to ban biological men from women’s spaces despite last year’s Supreme Court ruling, documents show.
In April last year five judges unanimously agreed that the legal definition of a woman was based on biological sex. It confirmed that men who identify as women were not allowed to access single-sex spaces, including lavatories and women-only hospital wards.
Yet legal advice issued by NHS Scotland’s Central Legal Office to human resources departments in May 2025 — one month after the ruling — warned boards not to change single-sex policies.
Citing “the hard reality” that any shift could prompt legal action, it said HR departments needed to consider “employee relations” and the “reputational risks” of following the judgment.
Another document, from NHS Lothian, Scotland’s second-largest health board, shows health leaders told staff on May 15 last year to follow existing guidance on trans issues.
For Women Scotland, the campaign group that secured the Supreme Court clarification of the law and a legal victory banning male prisoners from female jails, said it would sue the Scottish NHS unless it protected women’s single-sex spaces.
NHS Lothian declined to provide a formal comment.
A Central Legal Office spokesman said: “The advice was intended to support boards in reviewing existing arrangements and encouraged boards to take practical preparatory steps, while guidance was awaited.”
Mark Horne
The BBC has been accused of “killing off” independent music festivals and misleading organisers by secretly booking their headline acts.
A host of summer events in Scotland were on track to sell out before Radio 2 announced in February that it would host its own two-day festival in Stirling in August — a month earlier than in previous years.
Organisers of the independent festivals claim the Radio 2 in the Park event, which has been heavily publicised by the state broadcaster, all but wiped out their ticket sales overnight.
Events including Replay Festival in Perth, Dundee’s Discovery Festival, Paisley Alive in Renfrewshire and Womad in Glasgow have been
Arts and Entertainment Correspondent Maverick navy chief plotted 1814 chemical attack on US ships
to use vessels full of burning sulphur against American sailors
Hugo Daniel
The burning of the White House in 1814 has long been considered the low point in Anglo-American relations. But now a newly discovered document has revealed that a far deadlier attack could have been inflicted by the British.
A memorandum found at the bottom of a box in the National Records of Scot- land shows how a maverick Royal Navy commander pitched what would proba- bly have been the first chemical weapons attack in history — an audacious plan to burn ships filled with sulphur with the aim of incapacitating the sailors manning the American fleet.
The “sulphur ships” were the brain- child of Thomas Cochrane, a Scottish nobleman who became a naval hero in the Napoleonic wars and was the real-life inspiration for Patrick O’Brian’s fictional character Jack Aubrey, portrayed by Rus-
cancelled as a result after organisers claimed they were unable to compete.
Representatives of the Scottish Independent Festival Association (SIFA) held meetings with BBC officials in April. These resulted in the BBC festival being moved from August to September, the month in which all the station’s previous live festivals have been held.
However, independent organisers claim the decision came too late to save their events from cancellations and crippling losses.
“We’ve built Discovery Festival year on year; bringing headline acts, creating jobs, filling hotels and giving the city something to look forward to,” organiser Liz Doogan-Hobbs said.
“That takes investment, it takes risk and it takes audiences who haven’t
sell Crowe in the 2003 film Master and Commander.
Cochrane intended to cross the Atlan- tic with a fleet to launch a range of new weapons, including his sulphur ships against the Americans, but the plan was scuppered at the last moment when he became embroiled in a stock exchange fraud and forced to stay in Britain.
The plan was found in the National Records in Edinburgh by Peter Moore, author of a new book on Cochrane. The memorandum, written in 1844 by Cochrane’s secretary, includes his own handwritten marks.
It says: “Most confident I am that had not my views at that time been so cruelly and unjustly frustrated by a false accusa- tion (depriving me of my command and preventing my joining the Fleet) the result of the late American War would have been very different.”
As a mercenary admiral, Cochrane had founded the navies of Chile and Bra-
already spent their festival budget on a one-off BBC event that landed right in the heart of festival season without warning or consultation.
“This isn’t competition; this is a publicly funded organisation using public money to undercut a permanent ecosystem that independent promoters have supported and nurtured outside of Scotland’s central belt for decades.”
Graham Howie, of Replay, added: “We put everything into giving Perth a really fun major summer festival. Tickets were selling well and then the BBC announced a 85,000-capacity event 30 miles down the road and our sales dropped by 60 per cent overnight.
“The BBC is supposed to be nurturing new talent and encouraging musical
LORNE THOMSON/GETTY IMAGES
Natalie Imbruglia was due to star at Replay, which says Radio 2 tried to convince her to perform at its show
zil, before leading them to victories against the Spanish and the Portuguese in the Pacific and Atlantic.
In 1809, after leading an attack by fire ships on Napoleon’s Atlantic fleet, Cochrane spent several years away from active service pioneering the develop- ment of new weapons, including the idea of firing rockets from floating platforms he called “rocket rafts”. He also invented the idea of “explosion ships” and “smoke screens”.
In 1811 on a trip to Sicily he came up with the idea of using sulphur dioxide as a weapon after seeing how sulphur mines produced the noxious gas. Moore said: “Something clicked in Cochrane’s head that you could use this gas as a weapon of war. It would go straight through all defences — there would be no forts, no batteries or anything that could defend against it.”
In 1812 Cochrane presented his ideas to a “secret committee” of leading military
be used as a weapon, he said
development, not killing off grassroots Scottish independent music culture.”
The Sunday Times has seen correspondence from April 2 in which a BBC representative insisted that the Liverpool band Cast, who will co-headline Party at the Palace, in Linlithgow, West Lothian, next month, represented “the only overlap” with their Scottish event. However, the corporation confirmed on February 20 that it had signed the former boyband Blue, who were announced in November as co-headliners at Replay.
Replay organisers allege that Radio 2 also made an approach to convince Natalie Imbruglia, their other headline act, to perform at Stirling, “which she declined”.
“Simply put, the BBC have
British troops burn Washington in 1814. Below, Thomas Cochrane’s sketch of a “sulphur ship” intended to be used in the naval war
experts and members of the royal family, including the Duke of York and Prince Regent, later crowned as George IV. It is known that the British had considered using “stink vessels” in the Napoleonic wars, but the planned attack against the United States has never been revealed before.
“[The committee] gave their opinion that under the circumstances detailed in my explanatory Paper, such mode of attack would be irresistible,” Cochrane says in the memorandum, titled “State- ment of Claims”.
He added that they observed “these plans if divulged, might prove perilous to our colonial possessions”, and then says: “The Prince Regent sent for me to Carlton House, and commanded secrecy on my part. I obeyed.”
Once the War of 1812 — the conflict against America — began, Cochrane’s uncle, Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane, was appointed naval com- mander-in-chief for North America. His nephew was made his flag captain, in effect second-in-command, and was set to take charge of HMS Tonnant.
In the 23-page memorandum, Cochrane explicitly refers to the “inten- tion” to use his weapons. He says: “Towards the close of the year 1813 — England being then at war with the United States — my uncle was nominated Naval Commander in Chief in that quar- ter and being impressed with the impor- tance of my discovery of a new method of attack, he intended, in the event of cir- cumstances proving favourable, to adopt it; and on this account he was the more anxious that I should accompany him or follow him to America, to serve in the capacity of his Flag Captain; and it was, I believe, on his application that I was appointed to the command of the Ton- nant.”
His uncle sailed first and Cochrane was about to leave port too when the stock market scandal erupted and he was con- victed of fraud.
Moore, who has also written a history of Captain Cook’s recently discovered ship Endeavour, spent three years researching Cochrane for his new work.
It is not know where the weapon was intended to have been deployed, although Cochrane’s note suggests it could have been New Orleans, Baltimore or New York. After burning Washington and the White House in 1814, the British would go on to suffer a humiliating defeat at the Battle of New Orleans before the war’s end in 1815.
Moore said: “It would have been an unbelievably shocking moment if he’d used those sulphur vessels a century before the First World War. Can you imag- ine if something like that had happened? It would have been one of the most shock- ing moments in military history, I think.”
Cochrane went on to have a distin- guished military and political career and died in 1860. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
A Dangerous Game: Thomas Cochrane’s Life on the Edge will be published on September 3 (Chatto & Windus, £30)
acted in poor faith,” Howie claimed.
The BBC also confirmed that last November it secured Emeli Sandé, who will perform at Summer’s End, in Brechin, Angus, next month, to sing at Radio 2 in the Park. She was announced in October for Brechin.
In addition, in January the corporation signed Level 42, who were contracted to perform at Discovery Festival. In correspondence the BBC described this as a “coincidental pattern”.
John Richardson, co- organiser of the Party at the Palace festival, which is on August 8 and 9, said: “This is a grenade dropped into a community and the people who hurled it will be back down in London the day after their show finishes. We will go ahead this year, but I’m not sure about the lasting
impact. I can’t look my team in the eye and tell them it’s going to be OK, because I don’t know if it is.”
Pete Wishart, the SNP MP for Perth and Kinross-shire, who was formerly a musician with Big Country and Runrig, has written to the BBC’s director-general demanding an explanation. “It is clear that something has gone badly wrong,” he said.
The BBC said it had acted appropriately over Radio 2 in the Park, which will be headlined by Simple Minds and Chaka Khan. “The BBC is committed to supporting the independent festivals sector. We have engaged extensively with local festival organisers and stakeholders. We listened to concerns about the impact of staging it in August ... and moved Radio 2 in the Park to new dates in September.”
bills’ hit Burlesque musical
The show was meant to portray the cast “having the time of their lives”. But Burlesque the Musical has descended into chaos amid claims of unpaid royalties, postponed performances and arduous working conditions.
The musical, which made its West End debut at the Savoy Theatre a year ago, had been due to begin a UK tour in Woking, Surrey, yesterday but this has been postponed. A new London run, planned to start in September, has also been delayed until 2027.
The musical’s producers said about 90,000 tickets worth almost £4 million had been sold for the coming tour.
Burlesque is based on Steven Antin’s 2010 film, which starred Christina Aguilera, Cher and Stanley Tucci. Aguilera does not perform in the musical, but served as an executive producer and composer. It also features her songs as well as others by Sia, Diane Warren and Todrick Hall.
Hall, the show’s former choreographer and director, left the musical this year but claims he is owed more than £100,000 in unpaid royalties.
Appearing on the ITV show Lorraine last year, he said: “With this show, the audience will just be able to tell we’re having the time of our lives. We’re having so much fun.” But it has now emerged that he is in dispute with the show’s producers, Antin and Adam Paulden, over royalties for his musical contributions. He said working on the production had left him “sleep-deprived, anxiety- ridden ... traumatised and stressed”.
A show representative said Hall had “already been paid handsomely and in full [for] his director fee and as a performer”, and had received a “substantial advance against his music royalties.
The representative said: “There is only one song in dispute — Fabulous — which started life as Life’s Not Fair it’s Fabulous!, a line trademarked by Steven Antin. When Todrick signs his contract the final song rights issue will be resolved.”
NEWSWORLD NEWS
WISAM HASHLAMOUN/GETTY IMAGES; KOBI WOLF FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
when the troops shot him dead
West Bank
West Bank
Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent, West Bank
Like most proud new parents, Dania Sal- ameh has hundreds of pictures and vid- eos of her only child, Sam, born last November, on her phone. A smiley baby with tufty brown hair, in almost every photo he seems to be gurgling with won- der at the world around him, whether playing with a furry lion, sucking a tomato or lying on a mat next to his mum.
Yet, as the electrical engineering lec- turer from Bethlehem scrolls through to show me them, tears stream down her face. Last month baby Sam was shot dead on her lap by an Israeli soldier as her hus- band drove them to his mother’s house in Hebron. He was seven months old.
Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Hebron
Hebron
“I loved him so much. I’d always wanted children and he was the life of our house,” says Salameh, 28, sitting in her spotless flat on the outskirts of Bethle- hem with her husband, Fahd Abu Haikal, 41. He teaches media and graphic design at the city’s Ahliya University, where they met. A photograph near the TV shows them both in robes at a graduation cere- mony before they married two years ago.
“They killed my baby son in cold blood,” says Abu Haikal, his voice tight with anger. “We were just a family in a car on a Friday afternoon.”
Sam is one of 259 Palestinian children killed on the West Bank since Israel launched military operations in response
claim victory as education minister scuttles away
to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, according to the United Nations — almost two a week. More than 1,100 Palestinians in total have been killed and 40 Israelis, according to the UN Office for the Coordi- nation of Humanitarian Affairs.
In a similar shooting in March, in the village of Tammum, Israeli soldiers opened fire through the windscreen of a car carrying a Palestinian family return- ing from a trip out shopping. They killed the father, Ali Bani Odeh, the mother, Wa’ad, and their two sons, Mohammad, 5, and Othman, 7, who was disabled and sitting on his mum’s lap. Two older broth- ers survived. The family were just min- utes from their home when it happened.
“What we see is [that] lethal shootings of teenagers and children on the West Bank has become routine practice,” says Shai Parnes, public outreach director for the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem. “And all with total impunity. Not a single person has been charged.
“It’s all part of a broader policy of eth- nic cleansing of the West Bank to do as much as they can to take land off Palestin- ians with as few as possible left on it.”
The last baby photo on Salameh’s phone shows Sam beaming on the lap of his grandmother, who had been staying with them. It was taken at 8.08pm on the evening of Thursday, June 4. Less than 24 hours later, baby Sam was dead.
The IDF initially claimed its troops had “perceived a vehicle accelerating toward
Arjuna Keshvani-Ham Delhi
On the streets of the Lutyens neighbourhood in Delhi, the screams of victory were deafening. On stage above elated protesters waving makeshift placards and Indian flags, Abhijeet Dipke, the 30-year-old founder of the Cockroach party, waved his fist at the crowd and grinned. “They used to say there are no resignations in this government!”, he shouted. “But we have done it. Dharmendra Pradhan has resigned.”
The crowd roared its approval. A poster next to Dipke was emblazoned with 20 young faces and names who allegedly took their own lives after recent exam paper leaks. “This is for all the lives of the students Dharmendra Pradhan has taken,” he said.
Pradhan, India’s education minister, resigned yesterday after weeks of protests by a youth movement demanding educational reform. In response, protesters called off their mass demonstrations.
Tel-Aviv
Tel-Aviv
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Gaza
Gaza
ISRAEL JORDAN
ISRAEL JORDAN
EGYPT
EGYPT
just a kid, he had no weapon
campaign and has grown into a nationwide movement. It represents one of the most significant blows to the prime minister Narendra Modi’s rule since he took power 12 years ago.
Local media reported that the government had also agreed to several other demands, including legal protection for those who took part in the demonstrations.
The CJP had been in talks with the government since Friday and had demanded Pradhan’s removal as “non- negotiable”.
In a statement announcing his resignation on X, Pradhan said he made his decision “to ensure … that the nation remains united, students in India do not get tangled in legal complexities and focus on their studies and their career”.
The CJP, a play on Modi’s ruling party’s name, the BJP — Bharatiya Janata Party — started back in May after India’s chief justice described unemployed young people as “cockroaches”. The movement has grown in the past two months and has brought out tens of thousands of young people out in protests.
them” as they carried out “operational activity” in the area around Hebron. But video obtained by B’Tselem shows the family’s car had clearly stopped.
“I was driving my mother, Firyal, back home to Hebron,” Abu Haikal says. “She was in the front. In the back were Dania and Sam and my other son [Kinan, 11, from his first marriage]. We had gone through the checkpoint and into Tel Rumeida, where my mother lives, when I saw the soldiers in the street.
“I stopped, then I saw one of them to my left raise his rifle. I raised my hands to say ‘stop’ but he fired two bullets at us. One came through the windscreen, the other hit the engine hood. I turned and saw my son had been shot in the head.
30 miles
“I didn’t threaten them in any way,” he adds. “The windows are ordinary glass, not tinted, and they were just 10 metres away — they meant to kill.”
The bullet went through Abu Haikal’s right hand and hit Sam, behind him, in the head. Fragments entered Salameh’s jaw, just above her lip, exiting behind her ear, while another lodged near her heart. Blood poured from them both. “I shouted ‘They shot my son, they shot my son!’” she says. “I saw he was dying but somehow I had a little hope. The soldiers didn’t even care. They ran away.”
Her husband took the baby from her as she emerged from the car and collapsed on the ground. He flagged a car which took them to hospital, where she was
this week after growing anger over leaked exam papers. The national undergraduate medical school entrance exam was cancelled in May after some of its questions were found to have been leaked, forcing two million students to resit. The prospect of having to retake the exam has been linked to a dozen suicides. Concerns over the fairness of the Indian education system have since
ANUSHREE FADNAVIS /REUTERS
taken straight into surgery. Surgeons had to leave the piece of shrapnel in her chest because it was close to a major artery.
“I cry every day,” she says. “Sam was so calm and happy, always smiling. Now the flat is very quiet and my heart is broken.”
No one from the Israeli army has con- tacted the couple, just military police to confiscate their car for “investigation”. According to Abu Haikal, the soldiers returned ten minutes later to remove the CCTV.
The IDF have since described it as a mistake. “It wasn’t a mistake,” Abu Haikal says. “They are a professional army. I saw the soldier’s face. He wanted to kill. They shot a baby in cold blood. They do many things to try to make us leave our land and shooting children is one of them.”
An IDF representative said the inci- dent was “under investigation by the Mili- tary Police Criminal Investigation Divi- sion and being examined with the utmost seriousness,” adding: “The IDF views the matter with great gravity.”
Abu Haikal points out that no one has been brought to justice for recent killings of children in the West Bank. “This is a crime and we need justice. I don’t care how long it takes or what they do to me, I won’t give up. It’s not normal, killing babies. None of this is normal.”
I spent last week driving around the West Bank, from shepherd communities in the southern Hebron hills to the town of Jenin in the north, talking to children,
spiralled into wider discontent about life for young people in the world’s most populous country.
On Monday, young protesters were targeted with tear gas and police batons as they marched towards parliament, further fuelling the protests. Protesters said they were calling into question the state of India’s crumbling democracy.
“We were not expecting to
see this happen today, but we are elated,” Danish Ali, a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University and an activist for the All India Students’ Association, which has been instrumental to organising the protests, said of the education minister’s resignation.
The CJP was founded by Dipke, who returned to India from Boston to join the protesters. He built a website and social media accounts featuring an AI-generated logo of a human-like cockroach perched behind a lectern. “A political party for the people the system forgot to count,” read the tagline.
In less than two weeks, the Instagram account gathered 22 million followers — more than the BJP’s official Instagram account.
The CJP has led the biggest mobilisation of students in years and an unexpected challenge to Modi’s government. Humour has become their greatest weapon: at the protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Saturday, students held up placards painted with puns and slogans targeting Modi. One read: “Modi and my girlfriend are both heartless.”
as well as bereaved families. It was a chill- ing experience.
On my last trip, less than two years ago, I was shocked by the proliferation of walls and razor-wire fences cutting off Palestinian communities, and military checkpoints, as well as the number of ille- gal Israeli settlements.
Since then the numbers have esca- lated. This time, driving along winding roads through brown, rocky hills, almost every hilltop appeared to have a settle- ment. Some are just outposts with a cara- van, a generator, a flag and a few sheep, while others are built-up communities with watchtowers and paved roads, including in places where Israeli courts have previously ordered settlers to leave. According to the Israeli watchdog Peace Now, there are now 147 settlements and 201 outposts, occupying almost a fifth of the land, and about 700,000 settlers.
Settler attacks on Palestinians have risen to unprecedented levels following October 7, when Hamas militants killed 1,195 people in southern Israel. The area has now erupted into the deadliest vio- lence for months after a clash between settlers and Palestinians in the village of Tell on Friday left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that he had ordered a “major” operation in the West Bank in response. Military forces are already surrounding the town of Nablus.
protests directly for the first time on Thursday, promising to fast-track court punishments for those who were behind the exam leaks. But the protesters wanted more.
As the news of Pradhan’s resignation reached Jantar Mantar, a key protest site, music burst out on loudspeakers; drumming and dancing began. “Long live the revolution!”, the protesters shouted. The question now is whether Pradhan’s resignation will be enough to stop the tide of discontent. “What we are fighting for is not just the resignation, but for saving the democratic culture of this country”, Ali said last week.
“It’s a broader movement”, said Sayam, 20, a student at Delhi University. “The problems we’re interested in are structural problems. We want a political system in which the government is based on ideas and ideologies, not the motives of the billionaire oligarchs”. Last night, the party at Jantar Mantar was carrying on. Ashtosh Ranka, a CJP spokesman, asked the elated crowd to return home. “But don’t worry,” he added. “You will see us again soon.”
Driving around last week, I saw white and blue Israeli flags planted every 20 metres along the highway, as well as yellow ban- ners, printed with blue crowns and the word “Messiah” in Hebrew, from an extremist group that has growing influ- ence in the army.
F
There is something else new: hun- dreds of metal gates at the entrances to villages, painted orange and yellow — col- ours no one knows the significance of — and which soldiers close randomly, pen- ning the people behind them in like ani- mals and forcing them to take circuitous routes to and from their homes.
Palestinians now start their day by looking at WhatsApp groups, not just to see what happened the night before, but to check which gates are open.
When I ask soldiers why they have closed the yellow gate to Tum Ayya, they laugh. “We are looking for things,” says one. He adds that they will soon be mov- ing to close off a different village.
In almost every village I enter, settlers are terrorising the community. Nowhere is it more visible than in the Bedouin vil- lage of Um al-Kheir in the south Hebron hills, where 13 caravans have moved in over the past year, so close that one fam- ily’s house is now cut off from its outdoor toilet, as well as the family’s shed for goats and sheep. Settlers have erected a fence cutting off the house and placed their own swing chair in front of the bath- room as well as an Israeli flag.
“Imagine living in a house where peo- ple have even occupied your own bath- room,” says Ikhlas al-Hathalin, 49, who lives there. “Me and my daughters have to ask to use our neighbours or use the com- munity one. And now if we want to feed our sheep and goats we have to get per- mission from the army to let us. We are often woken in the night by settlers jump- ing on the roof. It’s terrifying.”
One of the settlers, Maayan Ofik, 19, who moved there from the neighbouring settlement of Carmel, welcomes me into the mobile home he shares with five friends, all of whom he says volunteered to move there. Some of the caravans house families with children — outside there is a trampoline, paddling pool and a wooden terrace overlooking the desert.
Peter Conradi Europe Editor in Dole
How much food and wine does it take to satisfy 2,500 French men and women hungry for tradition? It is just before 7pm on a Friday evening and Pierre-Alexandre de Boisse, standing in a cavernous hall on the outskirts of the southeastern town of Dole, ponders the question as he braces himself for the evening to come.
De Boisse, 33, summons his colleague, Gérard de la Tour, who used to work in restaurants and is now in charge of logistics for Le Canon Français, a fast- growing company that organises vast banquets celebrating France’s culinary and cultural heritage. Over the next few hours, diners will consume 350 loaves of bread, 750 kg of chicken, half a ton of potato gratin and another half a ton of charcuterie. To wash it all down, 1,500 bottles of good local Jura wine and copious amounts of beer and soft drinks.
Seven-month-old Sam’s funeral, above left. His parents Dania Salameh and Fahd Abu Haikal say there has been no word from the army
Outside, the queue to enter stretches as far as the eye can see. There are berets, flags and stripy shirts aplenty, while a woman has a furry cockerel on her head with blue, white and red feathers. “Liberté, Egalité, Charcuterie,” proclaims one man’s T-shirt.
Many have come in groups. “It’s the ambiance, it’s festive, it’s super,” said Fréderic, 47, who works in a factory in Dole and doesn’t want to give his surname. He is accompanied by his daughter, Luane, 14, and ten other members of his family, each of whom has paid €79.99 for an evening of food and music. “But there are 59 of us here who all know each other,” chips in a woman near them in the queue.
The first banquet in 2021 just after the end of the Covid pandemic was for a mere 80 people, near Tours, where the venture has its headquarters. They have put on more than 100 since, in different parts of France with the biggest feeding as many as 4,000 people. The annual festival
“This is all about protection,” he says. “Most of this village is illegal buildings. If we don’t move them, there will be another October 7.”
Since October 7, 62 communities have been forcibly displaced. Every day peo- ple are forced to pack up and leave. These are not just inside so-called Area C, the 60 per cent of the territory under full Israeli military and civilian control, which was agreed in the 1995 Oslo Accords.
Outposts are spreading into Area B, which is under Palestinian administra- tive rule but Israeli security control. Only in sector A does the Palestinian Authority have full control.
It was in a community in Area B, the northern village of Tal, that settlers entered on Friday, prompting a deadly clash which left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead. The circumstances are dis- puted, with locals saying it started when they went to defend their homes from settlers who had a security guard with a gun, while the IDF say the Palestinians attacked an Israeli hiker.
The Israelis responded with a military operation, leaving eight villages under siege.
The violence also means children and teachers are blocked from getting to school and people from accessing medi- cal treatment. This month a four-month- old boy, Ahmad Marouf Zaid, from Deir Ammar, near Ramallah, died after he went into cardiac arrest; soldiers had closed the gate near his home, prevent- ing his parents from getting him to the ambulance waiting on the other side.
“It’s very hard being a mother here,” says Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq, 33, sit- ting in her father’s house in al-Rihiyya vil- lage in Jatta, just outside Hebron, sur- rounded by four children aged 5 to 14. On the sofa where her fifth child, Moham- mad, 9, should be, is instead a blown-up photograph.
She bites her lip as she shows me a bright-blue Unicef backpack that was given to Mohammad last October. “He was so happy and excited,” she tells me. “He said ‘Look, Mum, what they gave me!’”
He never got to use it. Mohammad had been playing in the
SABRINA DOLIDZE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES last month catered for more than double that and the company already turns over several million pounds a year, providing a boost for businesses in the largely small town locations where they hold their events
But as the venture has grown, so too has the controversy surrounding it in the increasingly febrile political atmosphere in France ahead of the presidential election in April that polls suggest could be won by Marine Le Pen for the right-wing National Rally.
Some on the left are uncomfortable with the meat- heavy menu and the organised singing of La Marseillaise at the start of proceedings. Their disquiet grew when it emerged that Pierre-Édouard Stérin, a shadowy ultra-conservative billionaire who supports right- wing causes, bought a substantial stake in the venture in December 2024.
Aliyah Abdel Majid al-Halaq’s son Mohammad, 9, left, was shot dead while playing. Below left, an Israeli outpost in the Bedouin village of Um al-Kheir
Singing and dancing are common at the banquets. Some participants enjoy more boisterous behaviour
school playground when two army Jeeps entered the village and began firing tear gas. Her son scrambled up the hill to the verge just below his grandfather’s house.
The family shows me a video of a sol- dier getting out of one Jeep and aiming his rifle towards Mohammad. Shots are fired and Mohammad takes a couple of steps before collapsing.
“He was a kid just standing there — he had no weapon,” she says. “They shot him just for being a Palestinian child. They don’t want us to stay here and know daily humiliation is not enough to make us leave our land, so now they are killing our children.
“My husband is so disturbed he can’t work and lost his job in construction. His little sister, Sila, is so traumatised that she wouldn’t go to school. Our kids are grow- ing up in sadness and fear but also hate. His little brother, who is 5, says ‘when I grow up I want to learn to shoot so I can shoot the soldier who shot Mohammad.’”
She tried to register a case against the soldier but it was refused. “I know I won’t get justice … but I will keep trying. I want to stop it for all Palestinian mothers.”
Like every bereaved mother I spoke to, al-Halaq was angry not just with the impunity of the Israeli system but also what they see as the impunity shown to Israel by the international community.
“I want to send my voice all round the world,” she says. “I want to ask mothers outside if they think it’s normal to shoot children.”
A number of countries have banned all trade with Israeli settlements, most recently the Netherlands last week, and many are hoping that Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, will follow suit.
Last month, 137 Labour MPs signed a letter to Yvette Cooper, the foreign secre- tary at the time, calling on the govern- ment to take concrete action to counter escalation of violence against Palestini- ans. In a statement on Saturday, the For- eign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “This government has already imposed four rounds of sanc- tions on entities and individuals that have supported or enabled settler violence in the West Bank, including being the first country to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich.”
Philip Goodwin, the chief executive of Unicef UK, called on Burnham and his new foreign secretary to “take immedi- ate, decisive steps to ensure Palestinian children are protected, international law is upheld, and the killing and maiming of children comes to a permanent end”.
Goodwin, who recently visited the West Bank, said he had been shocked by what he saw. “I have worked in humani- tarian development for more than two decades, but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed,” he said. “Children told me they felt frightened after being threat- ened by settlers, or having dogs set on them, just for trying to get to school.”
Few places have experienced more violence than Jenin. Over the past year, the IDF has expelled the entire 20,000- strong population of the refugee camp. Despite its name, the camp was in fact a town, with shops, blocks of flats and even a theatre, but was also a long-time centre of armed resistance and regarded by the IDF as a hideout for militants.
Yet it is in Jenin that I find a ray of hope. In a local cultural centre, 85 children aged 6 to 15 have been spending 17 days at a summer camp organised by The Free- dom Theatre. Some are dancing, others drawing, learning circus skills or acting.
Ranin Odeh, who runs the workshops, says the changes she sees in the children are remarkable. “The children are so traumatised — some have lost parents or had them arrested. They come in shy and not wanting to share, but within days their mothers are calling me saying: ‘How did you manage to do this?’”
Among them is Talla Tulbe, 12, who says she wants to be an actor or engineer. She lived in the refugee camp until last year and cries as she talks of her family’s expulsion. “It’s very hard growing up under occupation,” she adds. “But here in the theatre school, I feel safe and forget everything.”
Houthi attacks show Iran’s hardliners are in charge and invigorated
rom the perspective of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the conflict with America and its friends in the Gulf is going very well. Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz remains intact, while its reactivation of the Houthis in Yemen, who blocked a second key shipping lane this week and claimed to have struck Saudi Arabia with missiles, is the latest reminder of Tehran’s determination to pursue its advantage on all fronts.
Speaking to analysts in the region, there are different views about why this has happened now. Were the Houthis a card that the IRGC had simply chosen not to play yet? Or have recent actions by the United States and Saudi Arabia convinced the proxy group that now is the time to exert their own leverage?
The Houthis’ attacks are certainly a sign that the hardliners within Iran, most notably the IRGC, are rebuilding their regional alliance: the Axis of Resistance. It also shows they are running the regime. Until the strike that eliminated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, five months ago, Iran’s competing interests were reconciled in a risk-averse way, so that even after the bitter blows landed by Israel and the US during last summer’s 12-day war, those who favoured escalation were kept in check. But his son and successor, Mojtaba, has not yet been seen in public, and there is speculation that Ahmad Vahidi, the commander of the IRGC, controls his written statements.
Whatever the relationship between Vahidi and Mojtaba, it is evident both the regime and its axis feel emboldened. On Thursday, just days after announcing a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, where the Red Sea flows into the Arabian Sea, the Houthis claimed to have struck two tankers — a move that threatened to open a new front in the war and sent oil prices soaring above $100 a barrel again.
A day later, the rebel group, which has held power in pockets of Yemen since 2015, said it had fired missiles on Jizan in the south of Saudi Arabia, and on Saturday it said it carried out operations targeting Saudi Aramco facilities.
The Saudis themselves said on Friday they had bombed several military sites in Yemen that they claimed had been used to threaten commercial shipping. President Trump has warned that he will hold Iran, which supports the group, responsible for the Houthis’ actions.
Their entry into the conflict comes as Hezbollah, the other key part of the Axis of Resistance, is in desperate need of breathing space after two years of Israeli onslaughts. It looks like it will now get it, after Israel forces carried out their first local pullback last week.
Iran is now beginning in earnest the business of rebuilding its ally. With old supply routes through Syria disrupted, the focus will be on finding smuggling routes to provide militants with the weapons they need to target Israel.
But the regime is not just rebuilding abroad. Perhaps the most telling reports to emerge lately are those suggesting
what he wrote were neo-Nazi gestures. De Boisse said the man denied having far-right views and said the images were manipulated. He is considering legal action.
A group of 20 local shopkeepers later complained that participants who came into town after the event were drunk and aggressive and made racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks. Local prosecutors launched an inquiry.
In the months since, some suppliers have had their premises daubed with graffiti, de Boise said, flicking through photos he has received on his phone.
“Le Canon Français, Trojan horse of the extreme right?” asked a headline last week on the website of France 3, the regional branch of public service television. A group of concerned locals, meanwhile, published an open letter to the mayor, Jean-Baptiste Gagnoux, denouncing the event, which had long since sold out.
for a nuclear bomb seems real
for political or cultural demonstrations that contribute to the normalisation of the far right and ideologies of rejection,” they wrote.
Gagnoux, 41, who is from the centre-right Republicans, turned up anyway. Before sampling his charcuterie starter, he denounced the letter as the work of local supporters of France Unbowed, the far-left party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 74, who is due to make his fourth attempt at the presidency next spring, whom he accused of “fighting against traditional French values”.
“Le Canon Français is not something that should be judged just because two or three idiots allegedly made Nazi salutes at some French gathering,” Gagnoux added. “That doesn’t mean the 2,500 people here should be lumped together with them and labelled as extremists.”
Iran has been reconstituting its uranium enrichment programmes deep in Pickaxe Mountain. After destroying the entrances to the Natanz and Isfahan facilities 14 months ago, US intelligence expressed confidence that both the main production “cascade” of centrifuges and Iran’s stock of uranium had been put beyond reach. But experts say Iran can easily make more enrichment devices.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has moved thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep beneath Pickaxe. Trump said on Tuesday that the US has been “tracking very closely” the Iranian nuclear stockpile, adding that there would soon be strikes on the facility.
The rhetoric from Tehran also indicates that the regime has not dropped its nuclear ambitions.An intelligence assessment leaked to the New York Times suggested that Mojtaba Khamenei sees the value in having nuclear weapons (unlike his father, who issued an edict against them). While this could be a way for US officials to prepare the ground for additional attacks, the possibility of an Iranian race for the bomb now seems real.
Perhaps the most satisfying outcome for IRGC hardliners is that they have been able to keep the Strait of Hormuz largely blocked, despite hundreds of US airstrikes aimed at Iranian forces there. White House officials have briefed repeatedly that Trump is considering seizing parts of the strait, or Kharg Island, but at no point have sufficient forces been mobilised and sent to the region to make any prolonged occupation of such territory possible.
These recent trends suggest there is no end in sight to hostilities. There is, however, the possibility the IRGC and its supporters could overplay their hand. America’s apparent powerlessness to end the current stalemate may have led the Iranian leadership to overestimate the gains to be had from continued escalation and defiance.
It is true, too, that the IRGC’s continued coercion of its neighbours may yet produce unpredictable consequences. Faced with attacks, countries like Kuwait and Bahrain appear to have been cutting deals, trying to buy off Iran while also co-operating with the US, and building infrastructure that might make them less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz in the future.
Only a small number of recent Iranian strikes have been directed at Qatar or the UAE. There are rumours, strongly denied, that they have been allowing previously frozen funds to slip through to the Islamic Republic. But it was also reported that Kuwait and Bahrain mounted retaliatory airstrikes after being targeted by missiles — a reaction that had hitherto been unknown.
Much as the Iranian regime prides itself on its capacity to endure adversity, its survival ultimately depends on an easing of the economic quarantine — as does its ability to fund its proxies. The time may be coming for the hardliners to bank their gains and pursue a more cautious approach.
business partner and I are not in this to do politics,” he said. “But in France there are people who think that eating meat makes you far right,” he said. As for the link with Stérin, he claimed to have looked him up when his investment company offered to buy a stake and was unaware of his views.
The atmosphere at the event in Dole was more like a giant fête de village, of the sort once held in French communities, free of any political content. The revellers did not appear put off by the controversy. “These people are just spitting on our roots,” said Eric Cubells, 44, a tiler, a couple of hours in.
De Boisse and his partner are still considering where to take their venture next.
Katy Balls Washington Insider
But he also said that it was his need to speak to journalists that had led to most ‘T
his has been a long night,” was the refrain from guests as they finally left the Waldorf Astoria on Friday after a dinner during which the US president had spoken for well over an hour and a magician had read the minds of senior members of the administration including the attorney general Todd Blanche and UN ambassador Mike Waltz.
“I can’t tell which one the mentalist is,” joked one guest.
President Trump’s debut at the White House correspondents’ dinner was never going to be a low key event. The president has for years boycotted the annual dinner, viewing it as a sign of the incestuous relationship between the media and the Washington establishment in the swamp he had promised to drain.
When he returned to power last year, Trump’s supporters, including Steve Bannon, threw drinks for “The Uninvited” where napkins were printed with the text: “NOT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION”. It was a statement that Trump was back, and he was going to do it his way (again).
This year, however, he had a change of heart. After lobbying from the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), the president decided to finally follow in the footsteps of predecessors from Biden, Bush, and Clinton to Hoover
reality inVance’s home state
the ‘pro-family’ president but in Ohio as elsewhere women want more from life than childbearing
Louise Callaghan Senior US Correspondent, Cincinnati
Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, as the youngest of six sisters, Morgan Moore-White used to say that when she had children of her own one day, she wanted a football starting line-up and a cheerleader — five boys and a girl.
But as she grew older, she looked at her life and thought again. After graduating from university, she was $100,000 in debt and heading for a career that would propel her into the middle classes. It would make her more money than her parents had earned, but also mean that she would not qualify for the government assistance that helped them to raise her and her siblings.
Like many American women, it wasn’t that she did not want children; it was that she did not want them at any cost. She wanted to be able to give them a decent standard of living and also to maintain her own life and relationship with her husband, Desmond White, whom she met at university.
The couple waited, worked, saved money and bought a house. Two years ago, when they were both 31, their daugh- ter, Nyla, was born. Now, sitting on her porch in Cincinnati, Ohio, Moore-White is “one and done”, she said. Her plan is for Nyla to be an only child.
“We have dreams, like we want to be able to buy a car … We would like to reno- vate our house,” she explained. “And all this stuff gets paused when you bring in another [child]. And it’s not even neces- sarily about the money part, but it is about the capacity … I want to have a life. And if I don’t have a village to babysit, I can’t do it.”
It is stories such as this that keep Amer- ica’s demographers awake at night. Sev- enty years ago, at the peak of the baby boom, the average American woman gave birth to 3.6 children. Today, after decades of decline, that number is 1.6. For the population to remain stable, it needs to be 2.1.
In Ohio the fertility rate has dropped by about 15 per cent since before the recession of 2008, when birthrates plunged across the country.
The pattern is reflected all over the developed world. British women now have about 1.4 children each, down from about three at the height of the baby boom, and in South Korea fertility rates have dipped lower than 0.7 per woman.
But in the United States, it is also politi- cal. The Trump administration and wider Maga movement present themselves as “pro-family”, and have been vocally sounding the alarm on declining birth- rates, which they blame on women’s higher education, career choices and the decline of the nuclear family.
and Eisenhower, by showing up. The original event had been in April but was cut short after Cole Tomas Allen, a 31- year-old from California, rushed past a checkpoint in an attempt to assassinate the president. Trump was unhurt, but the dinner was evacuated.
On Friday, journalists, politicos and a sample of the White House reconvened in an attempt to right what had gone wrong. That meant adjustments, with the guest list slashed, security tightened, and the event moved from the Hilton with a capacity of about 2,000 to the Waldorf Astoria, formerly the Trump Hotel, for 700 people.
Trump’s speech hit familiar themes. “I don’t know why we have to listen to him,” complained one guest. “He always says the same thing.”
But beyond his jibes about the “fake news” media, the president’s statements these days are far from predictable. Those in Trump’s circle say they see signs of him returning to his impulsive first- term ways. His second term was initially set apart by a more conventional and smooth running White House machine, but there is an increasing sense that the president is striking out on his own.
In the past week, he has resumed his thunderous rhetoric towards Iran, as the US strikes have once again ramped up, threatening a “massive attack”, even as figures within the party fret about rising prices at the pumps ahead of the November mid-terms. He railed against
SLOTUS; MADELEINE HORDINSKI FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
tents are yet to be implemented. JD Vance, the vice-president, who is from Middletown, Ohio, and has an estate a few miles from Moore-White’s home, said he wanted “more babies in the United States of America” and argued that the government should make it eas- ier for young parents to have children. His wife, Usha, 40, gave birth to their fourth child this month.
The “pro-family” coalition in the administration pulled together religious conservatives and wellness influencers with the techno-utopianism of Silicon Valley billionaires such as Elon Musk, who has at least 14 children. Turning Point USA, the powerful conservative youth movement, encourages women to get married and have children early.
the EU’s fine on Google, after imposing widespread tariffs on dozens of countries, reportedly contradicting warnings he had been given from within his administration about the negative impact this could have on the economy.
Trump spent little of his speech on Friday night on his government agenda — focusing mostly on roasting the assembled press — but he did find time to talk about the Iran war. The president insisted the conflict, which has been escalating, was actually “going extremely well”, claiming that the US had crippled Iran’s military. There were reports on Friday that the US was looking to team up with the UK for a conference on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as defence hawks predict Trump will have to ramp up his efforts if he is to break the deadlock.
While the dinner is often seen as part of the Washington bubble, it has long been rumoured to be the reason Trump ran for the presidency in the first place. In 2011, he was a guest in the audience as President Obama used a part of his speech to mock him. After Trump had publicly questioned Obama’s citizenship, the Democrat turned the tables suggesting Trump would want him to put the issue to bed so he could focus on other conspiracy theories like the moon landing.
The talk was that this had made Trump so mad he had decided to run in 2016. However, on Friday night, Trump
deliver any real change, said Lyman Stone, director of the pronatalism initia- tive at the conservative Institute for Fam- ily Studies. Aside from a $1,000 “baby bonus” — officially known as a Trump Account, given to babies born between 2025 and 2028 — the administration has not produced any meaningful policies that would encourage people to have children. “In terms of hard policy I think they’ve done virtually nothing,” Stone said.
The reality, four leading demogra- phers said, was that no one anywhere in the world — no government or think tank or policy group — had worked out how to make women consistently have more children.
Giving out tax credits, increasing parental leave and improving childcare can all have a “small but measurable” effect on birthrates, said Leslie Root, a demographer and assistant professor of research at the University of Colorado Boulder. But these were mostly short- term effects boosted by people who would have already been planning on having children taking advantage of the policies, she said.
As women have been able to make their own choices in their careers and over their bodies, they have overwhelm- ingly chosen to have fewer children and later in their lives, a decision which short- ens their potential childbearing years. Today, the average age of an American mother having her first child is 27.5 years old, up from 21.4 in 1970.
“Conservatives are right that when they say that women have the right and ability to go to school to decide when and whether and who we marry. And when we can decide the number and spacing of our children, well, we don’t have as many children, you know, we wind up having far fewer,” said Jill Filipovic, a feminist journalist and author who publishes Throughline, an online newsletter. “I per-
used his speech to say it was never thus. “They think that was the evening I decided to run for president. It was not,” he said. Instead the US president admitted he loved the attention, telling his wife, Melania: “Can you believe it, all these people, that’s all they’re doing is talking about me? I love this dinner.”
The president didn’t seem to think much of his audience — accusing the room of suffering from the worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome he’d ever seen and declaring that he was the only reason anyone read or watched their journalism. He joked about facing the indignity of — as is tradition — handing out awards to journalists, which included a team of Wall Street Journal hacks who had reported on his ties to Epstein, leading to him taking out a lawsuit against them.
insisted the Iran conflict was going extremely well
sonally think that that’s a good thing.”
What was concerning, however, was that many women in the US reported a gap between how many children they had and how many children they wanted to have, she said.
A study co-authored by Sarah Hayford, professor of population studies at The Ohio State University, last year showed that around half of women who want chil- dren are unsure that they’ll actually go on to have them.
“People still say, if you ask them unconditionally how many kids you want, they say two,” Hayford said. “But if you ask them about conditions, it turns out there’s a lot of other things that are as important as having two kids and maybe even more important, that you’d rather have one child in a happy, secure, stable family than two children and a lot of precarity.”
Critics of the administration point out that the government cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, a programme that pro- vides cheap or free medical insurance to about one in five Americans, including millions of low-income young women. Trump policies that provide funding for some rural health services cover only a fraction of coverage lost in the cuts.
Meghan Nowland, 33, a midwife who runs the Cincinnati Birth Centre, told me that a lack of support from can make women hesitate to have children. As women gained economic independence from their families, they had also increas- ingly moved away from their home towns. And with that, she said, came a dislocation in family structure that makes child-rearing more difficult and expen- sive. Daycare in Cincinnati costs about $1,000 a month per child and in New York it can average $3,000.
of the White House press corps having his personal phone number. His protective aides had made the mistake of keeping hacks away so the president took a direct approach — one he now regrets as reporters call him “every 3.7 minutes”, he added.
Trump also managed to turn on his own side. Among the handful of cabinet secretaries in attendance was RFK Jr, Trump’s health secretary. Trump joked of the beef tenderloin being served at the dinner that RFK had personally run over the cow with his car — a reference to his habit of eating roadkill.
But the line that most startled guests was about his ambitions, with the president declaring he had a special announcement. He put on a red “TRUMP 2028” hat and said he had a “scoop” that he intends to run for a “fourth term” as president. Most in the room took it as a joke.
No one is quite sure, however, whether what follows Trump’s second term will be a return to convention and the years of previous WHCA dinners, or something different altogether.
There are Washington whispers that Trump is coming round to the idea of his vice-president, JD Vance, as his successor after previously floating Marco Rubio. US media is reporting the president has started to lean towards Vance for the nomination after the vice-president lost weight and embarked on a book tour for his second book,
Parenthood in southwest Ohio, told me that the increasing availability of sex edu- cation and long-term contraceptive methods such as IUDs and implants had slashed the number of unplanned teen pregnancies across the country.
Much of the debate on falling birth- rates has focused on women’s choices. Often lost in the conversation has been the experience of men, and what role they might be playing.
Desmond White has two degrees in computer science but works 12-hour shifts as a correctional officer — with obligatory overtime that means he regu- larly has to start work at 3am and finish at 7pm — to make enough money to support the family. If they had another child, he would have to take on even more hours and see his family even less.
Growing up, his father did not always prioritise his children, he said. White wants to do things differently and break the “generational curse”, to be there for his daughter and give her the best possi- ble chance in life.
Karen Suriano, 30, a model, was nine years old when she became the main caregiver for her younger sister. Her mother was overwhelmed and did not have time to be there for all of her 11 chil- dren. When Suriano and her husband Tony, 40, a film director, talked about having children, she was clear: no more than one.
“I saw the struggle,” she said. “And I didn’t want that kind of life. I wanted to make a change.”
Seneca, their son, was born two months ago. Sitting in the dappled sunlight of the Cincinnati Birth Centre, Suriano rocked him on her knee.
JD Vance and his wife, Usha, had their fourth child this month. Below, Karen Suriano, who was one of 11 children, with her two-month old son Seneca. She says he will have no siblings
Communion, about his Catholic faith.
One of the reasons Vance was selected in the first place to be Trump’s number two was because he represented a break from what came before. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jnr, was among those to make the argument that Vance was the more Maga candidate, compared with figures like Rubio. Picking Vance would be good for keeping Trump’s America First legacy alive rather than risking a return for the Republican Party to more conventional times — or even neo- conservatism.
The guests in the Waldorf Astoria on Friday night have their own preference. When Karoline Leavitt, who sat next to Trump on the top table, took maternity leave over the summer, both Vance and Rubio stood in for her.
The secretary of state received a notably warm reception in the White House briefing room, with hacks queueing to see Rubio and asking hard- hitting questions such as what his DJ name was. For Vance a few weeks later, the reception was much cooler — with clashes on a range of issues including whether the January 6 rioters should be eligible for compensation.
But as guests filed out after a speech that some described as a Trump bombing, few believed that life in Washington will return to the status quo, whoever comes afterwards.
use their noodle to keep cool
Tim Hornyak Tokyo
To cope with increasingly sultry summers, the Japanese are using frozen neck rings, air-conditioned vests, ice sprays and even a “personal cooling booth”, akin to a human fridge. Now Nissin Foods has added a version of its instant noodles that can be made with cold water.
Introduced in 1971, Cup Noodles are a celebrated instant meal in Japan. They must be steeped in boiling water for three minutes, but with temperatures reaching 40C in parts of Japan last week and the country logging its first official kokushobi — a new designation meaning “cruelly hot day” — people might be reluctant to boil their kettles. Enter the hiyashi (chilled) Cup Noodles, which come in chicken salt lemon and spicy kimchi flavours.
I took chilled water from my fridge (Nissin recommends this over room- temperature water), drowned the noodles for five minutes, grabbed my chopsticks and dived in. I expected something like cold leftover spaghetti. Lifting the lid, the mix looked much like any other Cup Noodles I’ve tried. To my surprise, the noodles were just as soft and chewy as when steeped in boiling water.
Mixed with bonito and dried sardines, the chicken variety was almost refreshing, akin to a summer pasta salad. The lemon and salt were complemented by a chicken umami flavour. After a few mouthfuls, though, they tasted much like the instant noodles served on transpacific flights 20 years ago — sodium and Styrofoam.
Cold noodles are already a staple of Japanese summer, from dishes with somen wheat noodles and zaru soba buckwheat noodles.
Nissin says it spent five years developing its patented “cold rehydrate” method, which will undoubtedly find fans. I give Nissin four stars for innovation, three stars for convenience and one for taste. To chill out, I’ll stick to homemade somen.
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I
hen Emily Wilson emerged from her local cinema in Phila- delphia this month she felt oddly flat. Having first read The Odyssey aged eight, she knew well the emotional heft of the moment when its protagonist Odys- seus returns home after 20 years and is reunited with his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. It is the same moment Christopher Nolan has chosen to make the climax of his cinematic retelling of Homer’s poem.
“But it didn’t land emotionally for me at all,” says Wilson, 54 and chair of the classics department at Pennsylvania Uni- versity. “Which I think is partly about the fact that, unlike Homer, it’s not very well written.”
An acclaimed classicist, it is Wilson’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey that was cited by Nolan as part of the inspiration for his eponymous film, which has received five-star reviews and earned £169 million on its opening weekend. She has dedicated decades of her life to Homer’s epic works. Her arms, tattooed with imagery inspired by the ancient Greek myths including a spear and bow, an octopus and the horses of Achilles, are a testament to that. But she is less than convinced by Nolan’s rendering.
“The characters don’t have the kind of depth the Homeric characters have,” she says. “I felt, ‘Do I really care if this guy gets back to his wife?’ You haven’t given me any reason to.”
For many, Nolan’s Odyssey will be their introduction to the story of the war hero who sacks the city of Troy and spends two decades journeying back to his homeland of Ithaca. On the way he is distracted by beautiful sirens, a giant cyclops, deviant goddesses and a hungry whirlpool monster named Charybdis. Whilst Nolan’s film (which Wilson describes as a “very clever piece of cinematic storytelling”) might be the blockbuster of the summer, speaking to Wilson is a true education in why The Odyssey has endured since around the 7th century BC.
“It’s a very simple human story of, how does a person get back to their home, and what does it mean to get there? How is it intertwined with identity and relation- ships? How do we relate to strangers and friends?” Wilson says.
A word repeatedly used in the begin- ning of the epic poem is nostos, which refers to a journey home from war, for which there is no direct translation in modern English. What truly elevates this story of homecoming is the richness of its characters; “Everyone, even the gods, have their own histories, motivations, desires,” Wilson says. Unfortunately, this is exactly where she felt the film was lacking: “The Trojans are faceless robots with masks”, Robert Pattinson as Anti- nous (who tries to seduce Penelope and kill Telemachus) was “fantastic, but a cartoon villain”, and Polyphemus the cyclops is “a puppet”.
Wilson says: “They’re all so thinly characterised, which contributes to a sense of, ‘Do I really care’?”
Homer’s Odysseus is famously lay- ered. The first epithet used to describe him is polytropos, meaning “much turn- ing”, Wilson explains. He constantly rein- vents himself, using disguise and decep- tion, and is also hungry for recognition and glory. “He’s cunning, crafty, devising and is excellent at solving problems.”
In one passage, Odysseus’s men must fight Polyphemus to escape from his cave, which they’ve inadvertently wan- dered into. In the poem, Odysseus con- trives a cunning plan to trick his adver- sary by telling him his name is “noman”.
Oddly enough
went to see The Odyssey at the cinema on Wednesday. It took Odysseus 20 years to return home, though from where I was sitting it seemed like decades longer. Matt Damon had to battle against one thing after another: the one-eyed soldier-munching Cyclops, the oversized Laestrygonians, the mean Circe, who turned his greedy soldiers into pigs, and a never-ending series of storms, battles, rocks, whirlpools, monsters and hammy actors in noisy headwear slicing each other in two. Finally, as the credits rolled, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, at least he managed to avoid Ryanair.”
PA; ERIC SUCAR
Emily Wilson, whose tattoos are based on classical imagery, says Penelope is formidably played by Anne Hathaway, top. Below right, Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena
Wilson’s translation is clever cinema but the characters lack the depth, wit and desire that have kept the creations of Homer alive since antiquity, she tells Madeleine Spence
problem with
but every bit as demanding. Before he had even set off from Ithaca, he would have to grapple with his booking. All those decisions: basic, regular, plus or flexiplus?
Being a tough guy, used to dealing with discomfort, he thinks he wants basic, but then realises he has a suitcase, so for an extra £32.75 he switches to regular, and by now he’s ready to log in, but then he can’t remember his password, so he spends a few minutes resetting his password, only to be told it’s not complicated enough, and then he is tantalised by the idea of paying a further £21.50 for a seat at the front, lured by the four-headed promise of “extra legroom/speedy exit/get served
When Odysseus’s men attack, Polyphe- mus shouts for help from his neighbours, saying “no man is hurting me”. Naturally, they shrug and get on with their day. An approximately 2,600-year-old joke; but one that’s left out of the film. “It’s really funny,” says Wilson, “and speaks to the fact that Odysseus is constantly in dis- guise, or wearing some other name.”
Nolan’s Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, “is not clever, he’s not funny, he’s just wracked by guilt and anxiety”. He is constructed around his shame over what he has done to the people of Troy.
In the poem, one of the diversions Odysseus encounters on his long journey home is the goddess Calypso, who falls in love with him and refuses to let him leave her island for seven years. Played by Charlize Theron, Nolan’s Calypso feeds Odysseus lotus flowers to help him forget his psychological pain.
“The Odysseus of the poem doesn’t need to take psychiatric drugs to get over his PTSD or have Charlize Theron as his therapist,” Wilson jokes. It’s not anti- thetical to think that Odysseus is strug- gling with a legacy of “multiple pains”, she argues, but there is nothing explicit about trauma or guilt in Homer’s verse, which pays much more attention to notions of glory.
What Nolan gets right, says Wilson, is The Odyssey’s exploration of space, time and memory: “Homer is interested in time and memory, and how one story is embedded inside another. Nolan is pick- ing up on the narrative sophistication of the original.” In that regard, it is tailor made for the director whose most famous films, such as Memento and Incep- tion, play on these themes, often messing
quick/near the bathroom”. And so it goes on: our brave warrior, weary from his laptop trials, has many obstacles to overcome before he can embark on his voyage — the recalcitrant printer, the motorway tailback, the long-stay car park charge of £45.30 a day, or £330,690 for the full 20 years, the queues for the check-in, for passports, for security, the circuitous voyage through duty-free, struggling to overcome the pungent fragrances of Armani, Chanel and Hermès.
And on, and on: the nervy glancing at the departure screens, the tense rush to the faraway gate, the grim wait while the plane is delayed, and, if he has fallen for the bogus allure of priority boarding, the jeopardy of balancing for 15 minutes halfway down a neon-lit flight of stairs, and all in the name of privilege.
As he prepares for take-off, does Odysseus regret opting for a seat in the front? Doesn’t he remember reading somewhere that, in the “unlikely” event of a crash, you’re more likely to survive in the middle, or at the back? Tommy Cooper once said that he always sat at the tail end, because he’d never heard of a plane backing into a mountain.
hard to imagine the ever-alert Odysseus putting his feet up, even with those costly few extra centimetres of legroom. Preparing for take-off induces anxiety, enough to wipe the grin off the face of even such a frequent flyer as Sir Richard Branson. Might this be your farewell flight? You may remind yourself that, statistically speaking, one is more likely to be kicked to death by a donkey than to die in an air crash. But can this be true? What if you never mix with donkeys from one year to the next? That must surely skew the odds.
There’s always something to keep you on the edge of your seat. Shortly after take-off, my aunt, a nervous flyer, was trying hard to relax when the pilot’s voice came over the intercom: “This is Captain Curtains welcoming you aboard.”
Of course, the flight attendants look relaxed, but then that’s what they’re paid to do. I read recently that, as long as the plane is above the clouds, passengers have no sensation of falling, even if they are plummeting at 5,500 feet a minute. This is something to bear in mind the next time you tell yourself that nothing can go wrong.
be a warrior but can he handle the online check-in?
readings in both English and ancient Greek have made her something of a superstar in her field. Hers is also the first full translation in English by a woman. When I raise this, however, she is diplo- matically dismissive, saying that is irrele- vant to the work: “Nobody says to men, ‘You really understood that male charac- ter so well because you are a man’.”
She does, however, have views on the women of The Odyssey. “By Nolan stan- dards this was great for women charac- ters. By Homer standards it was a bit dis- appointing.”
Homer’s Calypso, argues Wilson, is “much more interesting” than Theron’s; she has “her own fury” and divine power which allows her to detain Odysseus on her island. In one speech left out of the film, she laments how male gods, in Wil- son’s words, “get to rape and kidnap peo- ple all the time and female gods don’t”.
Helen of Troy, played by Lupita Nyong’o, is far more versatile and capa- ble than her screen time allows, Wilson says. Nolan’s Athena, played by Zendaya, serves as little more than “Matt Damon’s conscience”, whereas she is actually a war goddess constantly tussling with Poseidon over Odysseus’s future.
Anne Hathaway does a formidable job of playing Odysseus’s wife, says Wilson, but Nolan’s script fails to reach the depths of Homer’s Penelope. With con- siderable grit she presides over her missing husband’s house, keeping a brigade of rowdy suitors baying for her hand in marriage at bay for 20 years. It is ripe material for a tearjerking reunion which Nolan includes in the final half hour of the film, centred on Penelope’s unfailing loyalty. However, in the poem this moment is bittersweet: “In mythical ancient Greece, when a woman is between the house of her father and of her husband it is a moment of relative power.” A woman has choices, but once she’s made the choice she loses that power. Penelope is “frozen in that moment” and when Odysseus returns, in Homer’s telling, she is also losing something and grieving this loss. “In Homer, she gets to be a character that has all of this emotional complexity.”
As the film approached, Wilson found herself swept up in the torrent of an argu- ment stoked by people who believed Nolan was too progressive with his approach, particularly with the blind casting of characters. People grasped at Wilson’s 2017 work as more evidence the film was “woke”. Last week Elon Musk said he would use his Grok AI to create an “anti-woke Odyssey”.
Wilson thinks one of the reasons it has become such a lightning rod is because some “modern ideologies” associate the ancient Greeks with ideals of masculinity and a past greatness when “women shut up and it was just about the guys”. As publicity for the film grew she was receiving so much abuse that she installed a button on her website that reads “contact form: misogynistic trol- ling”. (People have used it.) It was her partner’s idea — “his name is noman”, she winks, preferring to keep his identity private.
It hasn’t put Wilson off her next project, which is another translation of The Odyssey that will also be in iambic pentameter, but this time she’s not going to limit herself to the same number of lines as the original, meaning she will
have “more syllables to play with”. It fol-
lows her 2023 translation of The Iliad,
which followed a similar form and
comes after her most recent book: Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Jour- neys through Ancient Literature, a collection of essays about ancient lit-
erature and translation.
What the film has served to do is drive a renewed interest in
what Wilson calls the “original IP”, or intellectual property, of Homer. This, according to her, can only be a good thing. She saw it with her three teenage daughters who finally admitted, says Wilson, that what she does is “kind of cool”. “I’ve been try- ing to get them to let me read it out loud to them since they were
little,” she jokes. Maybe now
they’ll finally let her.
reason to be alarmed, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?”
Spare a thought, too, for poor Mr Ljubisa Karovic, from Serbia. This month he was enjoying a snooze on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Germany when suddenly part of the plane’s engine broke away and smashed his window.
Within a split second, his body was being sucked through the window. The passenger windows on Boeing 737-800s measure 14in by 10 in but, being leaner than Winnie-the-Pooh, Mr Karovic could not rely on his girth to save him. Luckily, his quick-witted wife Svetlana grabbed him by the legs and a fearless couple joined her in the tug of war between Mr Karovic and the elements.
So count your blessings, Odysseus! Throughout the 173 minutes of The Odyssey, gruff old Matt Damon barely managed a smile, yet the most he had had to cope with was seven years on a desert island with Charlize Theron. And when he finally returned to his wife in Ithaca, armed with his far-fetched excuses, at least he didn’t face a three- hour wait at border control.
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The claimed benefits of the supplement, made of amino acids found in meat and fish, include greater strength, recovery and brain health. Roisin Kelly examines the evidence ‘A
Words of wisdom I remember from one of my first days at Hendon, the Metropolitan Police training school. Asking that question can blunt the shock for a victim, make a suspect begin to under- stand the implications of what he has done, and give the courts some hope of finding a witness. It becomes such a mat- ter of routine that it turns into a rhythm. People often answer in the same rhythm before you’ve finished asking, because some people have been giving their details to the police all their lives.
So I’m crouched next to Michael on the corner of a high street. Sleeping bag, back against the window of a closed bank. Name. Date of birth. Address, because it’s what I ask everyone. And the homeless man tells me his address. Street, flat num- ber, postcode. He isn’t lying. It’s his flat, the council gave it to him years ago, and I could have walked there from this corner in about ten minutes. So could he.
On Monday Andy Burnham stood out- side No 10 on his first day as prime minis- ter and announced that his government would end rough sleeping. His plan is called Housing First, and it’s based on a model originally tried in Finland and later rolled out in Manchester.
A homeless person is provided a flat of their own, as part of a five-year pro- gramme. The £340 million pledged should in theory get 3,000 rough sleep- ers off the streets. While it worked in Fin- land, it only half worked for Burnham. In Greater Manchester, the homeless popu- lation declined from 268 in 2017 to 89 in 2021. But since 2022 that number has been climbing again and it now sits at 197.
I was a police officer in the Met, based at Hammersmith, when this was last tried and the trouble is that ending rough sleeping and giving everyone somewhere to sleep are not quite the same thing.
Flats grabbed by gangs On paper, Michael was housed. He had been housed by the council for 18 years. His tenancy agreement said so, as did his housing officer and the forms we filled every time we met him.
I even went to his flat once. It was on the second floor of a Victorian terraced house in Notting Hill, west London, up a hallway that smelt of damp. I went there when Michael failed to turn up to a doc- tor’s appointment and a welfare check was requested. His front door was wide open and I noted the contents of his bed- sit of 18 years: an unmade mattress on the floor with a hoodie as a pillow, a TV tee- tering on a cardboard box, a pile of letters from the NHS and 35 frying pans, all dirty. The TV was on, but no one was home.
Michael was not unusual. Over five years I dealt with plenty of people the government or newspapers would call homeless but who held longstanding ten- ancies. Some flats stood empty, and some were full of the wrong people.
The official term is “cuckooing”, one of those words used by police, councils and safeguarding teams that sounds almost quaint until you have stood inside a cuck- ooed home. There was a house we were endlessly called to. In theory, its tenant was a middle-aged man with learning dif- ficulties named Simon. Simon was lovely, but he was lovely to everyone. A gang in the borough had taken advantage of his kindness and set up shop in it.
Simon would sit watching daytime TV while junkies smoked crack on his sofa. I asked Simon once if he wanted these peo- ple in his house, and he said he did: “They’re my friends.” After a dozen safe- guarding referrals, the courts placed a closure order on the house, preventing anyone other than him from being there. The gang just moved on and found some- one else, leaving Simon in a wrecked house that smelt of crack.
Both Michael and Simon were housed. It said so on every system I ever looked at.
Block-booking hotels in lockdown During Covid, London went Q — the term the police use for “quiet”. Volume crime vanished, leaving us a carousel of mental health problems and domestic violence. With no tourists there was no one to beg.
But one place the volume never went down was hotels. Three days after Boris Johnson announced the first lockdown, the housing minister, Luke Hall, wrote to every council in England ordering them to get all rough sleepers indoors within 72
rose helped his family firm blossom into a world beater
David JC Austin, who died last week, combined art and science to produce millions of flowers that brightened gardens — and lives, writes Clare Coulson
s long as you get some- one’s name and address in your pocket book, everything else can be worked out later.”
rough sleepers — many have a place to live
Ned Donovan, who as a police officer frequently dealt with the homeless, says a bed isn’t always the answer. He recalls the surprising stories of the people he met
hours — no assessment, no eligibility checks.
The idea came from Dame Louise Casey, who was then the government’s adviser on rough sleeping. The scheme was called Everyone In: with tourism dead, councils block-booked hotels and moved hundreds of people indoors, more or less overnight.
I remember a disturbance at a three- star hotel off the Cromwell Road, west London, the kind of place that used to take coach parties visiting London from regional England. A support worker in a lanyard and high-vis vest said two men were arguing on the fourth floor over a £10 Tesco voucher. The corridor smelt of microwaved food and every door handle had a bag hanging off it, meals delivered like room service and half of them from the day before, untouched.
The men were screaming at each other, and while I knew both from previ- ous incidents, I realised it was the first time I had seen either of them inside.
hen the death of the British rose breeder David JC Austin was announced last week, growers and gardeners paid tribute to an understated visionary who transformed a small family firm into a global brand.
Like his father before him, Austin, 67, made it his life’s work to produce the best possible plants — combining beauty, fragrance, charm and strength — testing out each new rose in field trials at his Shropshire base for more than a decade before introducing them to the market. He died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and incurable neurological condition.
Today the company founded by his father, David Austin Sr, in 1969 sells about two million shrubs a year, including the floriferous white-flowered Kew Gardens (2009) and the clear pink cupped Olivia Rose Austin (2014), named after his daughter and widely considered to be one of the firm’s best roses.
Every few sentences, a door would open and a third character I recognised would poke out like a cuckoo clock and scream at the pair of them to shut up. If handled badly, this would end up with a report for burglary and a trip to the cells with a man who had once tried to bite me. We asked staff to issue a second voucher, and both men retreated into their rooms.
Some of these hotel guests had been sleeping rough for years. Others were like Michael.
There was a Scottish man who lived in a council flat in a nicer part of the bor- ough. I remember him because he had no teeth. I had arrested him once for kicking his neighbour’s door in, mistaking it for his own. So I was confused to find him in a hotel off Portobello Road. I knew his address; I’d written it in my pocket book. But the volunteers doing homeless out- reach late one night found him in a sleep- ing bag and informed the council who had booked him a hotel room.
A volunteer hadn’t thought to ask
This year the deep pink, quartered Gertrude Jekyll marks its 40th anniversary; in 2025 it was voted the world’s favourite rose by the World Federation of Rose Societies. As the BBC’s Gardeners’ World presenter Monty Don put it, Austin leaves a legacy of “millions of exquisite roses that will live on”.
It speaks volumes about his stoicism and resilience that just over two months ago the rose breeder was at the Chelsea Flower Show, winning the firm’s 30th gold medal with a Cotswolds- inspired garden of 700 roses enclosed by dry stone walls. There he unveiled the pretty blush-pink cupped Sir David Beckham rose that was announced in collaboration with the King’s Foundation, with part of the sales of each rose going to the charity.
men were housed, it said so on the system
ANDREW MAYBURY
David JC Austin learnt about roses as a child from his father
farming family and spent decades finessing his craft. He had gardened from childhood and in his late teens began hybridising roses, building a small collection of old roses (cultivars that were bred before 1867) which had ruffled or cupped forms and delicious scent but flowered only once in summer, that he could “cross” with repeat- flowering floribundas and hybrid teas.
whether the man sleeping rough on the street was a long-term council tenant. I asked him where his dog was, a Jack Rus- sell he was rarely without. “At home,” he gummily replied. “They won’t let her in.”
Evictions, drugs and austerity “Can we have a unit make their way to St Mungo’s?” The radio went silent while everyone waited for someone else to take the call. Eventually a sergeant would assign the nearest car by call sign, and whoever it was would key up and say “All received, skip,” in the voice of a man accepting a sentence.
Homeless hostels such as St Mungo’s were run by charities and where the sys- tem sent people when it worked. We attended most weeks.
The bedsits are quiet. For some of the people I dealt with, quiet was the enemy. Our men on the streets, because they were almost all men, would find a pitch they liked and somewhere to eat, a soup kitchen, a church hall. Indoors there were four white walls under fluorescent light, and a desk manned by officious people in lanyards who stopped you bringing in whatever you used to keep the trauma at bay. It gets louder in the silence.
There was a man who had lived his whole life on the streets before the coun- cil decided that he would be placed into a room at St Mungo’s off King Street, Ham- mersmith. He was in a room he didn’t want, with a neighbour he didn’t want. The two fell out and assaulted each other, so the police were called. He pulled a syr- inge, and my colleague pulled a Taser. He tried to jump out of the second-floor win- dow and we stopped him. He kicked, spat, scratched and assaulted everyone on the way to custody, and the courts decided that he would be returned to the community because of his mental health. I couldn’t tell you what prison would have done for him either.
I’m not going to pretend I fully under- stand it. I made tea in a lot of kitchens and stood in a lot of doorways and I can tell you what people did, not always why. But Burnham might do well to consider les- sons from the past.
In 1999, Tony Blair set up a rough sleepers unit under Louise Casey, the same Casey who 20 years later would write the letter that emptied the streets into hotels during Covid. The unit was given three years to cut rough sleeping by two thirds. Between 1998 and 2001 it did so, from about 1,850 rough sleepers on a given night to 532 nationwide.
It did that with hostel beds, but also with drug and alcohol workers, com- bined with mental health specialists and outreach teams. A key plank was schemes for people leaving prison, who often drift back to the street. Remarkably, the numbers stayed down for a decade. Since 2010, however, rough sleeping in England has risen by 171 per cent, to 4,793 people on a single night last year.
During austerity, the funding for men- tal health support, drug workers and out- reach teams was cut significantly. The coalition capped housing benefit and market rents soared. The National Audit Office found that evictions from private tenancies became the single biggest driver of homelessness in the country.
Sometimes it works There was a man who used to have a pitch outside a bank in Earl’s Court Road. At some point I stopped seeing him. It took months to notice. Usually, such a disap- pearance is bad news and so, one slow night, I ran his name in the computer. Nothing for over a year. For the average person, no contact with police is unre- markable, but for someone like him it was an anomaly.
Then one day we were called to an address in the borough neither of us had been to before. An Edwardian red-brick semi in a nice part of Fulham, where the council puts the better-behaved tenants. It was a report of antisocial behaviour, and we didn’t look at who our informant was before knocking on the door of the down- stairs flat. The man I still thought of as the beggar from outside the bank answered, minus the matted hair, and behind him was a hallway of framed pictures.
He wanted to report a man who’d been shooting up by the bins. Someone on another team said later he’d gone through detox and come out the other side of a charity’s transition programme. Nobody had given him just a flat. The flat came last. In five years I never once saw it work the other way round.
A version of this piece first appeared on Ned Donovan’s blog, Terra Nullius
roses with beauty and charm. His big breakthrough rose, the bright yellow repeat- flowering climber Graham Thomas, wasn’t launched until 1983 when Austin Sr was almost 60. Breeding roses is a science, but it’s also an art — an alchemy that requires careful selection of parents, and a vision of what could be produced from their genetic make-up. Pollen from the “father” plant is removed just before the flower blooms and then applied with a soft brush to the “mother” plant’s stigma. Once the hips have
muscled its way into our lives, but how healthy is it?
rsène Wenger transformed many things when he became Arsenal manager in 1996: tactics, training methods, drinking culture ... but one of the most talked- about changes among players was his instruction to mix a new supplement in with their orange juice. Creatine, which is supposed to increase muscle strength, was a secret among elite athletes but has since become part of mainstream diets.
Sales of creatine — an organic compound made of amino acids found in meat and fish — have almost doubled since 2021, according to estimates from Grand View Research. TV doctors and celebrities such as Halle Berry extol its benefits, which are said to include strength, recovery, brain health and ageing. But is creatine all it’s cracked up to be?
“Creatine is a natural constituent of muscle and tissues and plays a central role in the transfer of energy, so it is seen as a legal muscle builder and performance aid,” says Kerry Torrens, a nutritionist registered with the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine. She argues that now creatine is seen to help with health goals that span age and other demographics “has made it one of the most widely used daily supplements”.
In a world where celebrities want to biohack their way to living to 200, distinguishing effective remedies from snake oil can be tricky. But experts believe creatine is the real deal.
Produced in the kidneys, liver and pancreas, creatine is often associated with another fitness buzzword: protein. It is made of the amino acids arginine, glycine and methionine but is not itself a protein. It works as a quick source of energy for muscles, so it can be especially beneficial for short, intense exercise such as sprinting. When combined with resistance and weight- training, studies have shown that creatine can increase lean muscle tissue and enhance strength.
It can be found naturally in animal-based foods such as beef and salmon and this is enough for basic daily health but, for maximum benefit to our muscles, we require a little bit more. Most health brands sell supplements made through chemical synthesis, be they powders, capsules or gummies. The journalist Charlotte Griffiths wrote that Prince
Harry is said to have inhaled creatine. Davina McCall has backed its health benefits
ripened the seeds are removed, chilled over winter, then sown out in trays and by early summer their progeny will emerge and begin to bloom around May.
Today, in huge greenhouses at the firm’s Shropshire headquarters, the breeding team hand- pollinates 40,000 roses, producing about 150,000 seedlings every year. Austin Jr started working for the family firm as a teenager, budding roses onto rootstock in the fields during his summer holidays, and went on to study business at university. He first joined the firm briefly in the early 1980s. “It was still very small but there were real signs that there was something special, right in front of my nose,” he told me in April when I profiled the family for the Financial Times as they celebrated their founder’s centenary.
Harry once claimed to inhale creatine powder for a burst of energy during his military career as a legal replacement for narcotics — this is not recommended.
Torrens says to look for those that are labelled “creatine monohydrate”. This is the most common form, in which creatine is bound to a water molecule. The general supplement recommendation is three to five grams a day, taken consistently. Torrens recommends mixing powder into a shake, coffee or tea.
The benefits go beyond muscle gains: some studies suggest consistent consumption can improve cognitive function. Both Berry and Davina McCall have spoken of its benefits for women in midlife. Berry says creatine helped her manage menopausal brain fog.
Dr Sabine Donnai, a consulting GP who advises on longevity, says: “The brain has exceptionally high energy requirements, and creatine plays a central role in creating more energy within brain cells. It may help maintain focus, memory and mental performance, especially during periods of high stress or fatigue.” Early research also suggests creatine may support aspects of memory and cognition in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Creatine is not a silver bullet and there can be side- effects. Gut issues such as cramping, bloating and loose stool can be common. Most people can safely take it at the recommended dose, “but there are some groups for whom there is insufficient evidence for safety,” Torrens says. These include those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, have a kidney or liver disease, are diabetic or have bipolar disorder.
Compared with many other supplements, creatine is affordable. Brands such as Bulk and MyProtein charge less than £15 for a 500g bag, which will last three months on a daily dose of 5g. Torrens says a pure formulation and a “micronised powder” is best as it offers better solubility and absorption, meaning fewer gut side-effects.
build the company. Austin developed the wholesale business from scratch, expanding internationally, especially in America where there was a hunger for beautiful English roses. “We had something they really wanted, which was brilliant. At that point we could go anywhere in the world,” he said.
Today the business is truly international. In the year ending July 2024, the turnover was almost £30 million.
Austin Jr also started the cut flower side of the business, breeding roses specifically for weddings and events, with a separate breeding programme at Albrighton; the qualities required in a perfect cut flower rose, including strong stems and vase life, are distinct from those of a garden rose.
W
O
When your pet jumps up at people, do you tell them he is ‘just being friendly’? Perhaps you need to learn to obey the etiquette for dog lovers, writes Sophia Money-Coutts
hat an accolade. Peggy, a miniature bull terrier from Suffolk, has been named Britain’s naughtiest dog in Country Life’s annual dog issue. Among other misdemeanours, Peggy’s eaten six dog beds and three pairs of Crocs, and once swallowed a bowl of fermenting grapes, leaving her a “little bit tipsy”. She is, according to her owners, Sir Edward and Lady Greenwell, “very naughty, but there’s nothing malicious about it. She’s just full of fun, mischief and curiosity.”
Hmmm. As someone who also has an unruly terrier, a parson russel called Dennis, I recognise this attempt to excuse naughtiness as curiosity. Rare is the dog owner who believes their dog has done anything truly bad. They’re just spirited, right? But to less doggy people, this can be immensely irritating. Since the pandemic and the consequent boom in dog population, the battle lines between dog lovers and dog haters have become more entrenched. So, to accompany the crowning of
with a stream of drones
Severn Trent has not had to impose a hosepipe ban for 30 years. Matt Rudd goes into the field to find out why
n graduating with a degree in music technology, Jonny Bevan didn’t expect to become a drone pilot but life, like water, can take strange turns and so here he is, eight years later, in a field in Shropshire with a remote control in his hands. The drone flying above us is car- rying a thermal camera. From 70 metres up, it can detect slight changes in temper- ature on the ground.
“If you’ve got a sewage leak, it will be warmer,” he explains. “If you’ve got water coming out, it will be cooler.” He can also deploy a normalised difference vegetation index camera which maps crop growth. “If you have something [a leak] that’s longstanding, the crop growth will start to change,” he says.
Bevan is part of the innovations team at Severn Trent, the UK’s second largest water company. He uses cage drones that can fly through pipes listening for changes in pressure and he and his team are rolling out “drones in a box” — remotely operated machines which will eventually be cleared to launch, Thun- derbirds-style, in remote areas.
Bevan is meeting me in this field because I asked his company a question: why hasn’t it had a hosepipe ban for 30 years? At the prospect of a good news water company story, an occurrence as rare as a “good” rating for river health, Severn Trent has pulled out the big drones.
On Thursday, Thames Water imposed a hosepipe ban on ten million customers which brings the total number in the UK not allowed to water their lawns or fill their paddling pools to 23 million. Which is not the end of the world — most of us can live without a hot tub in a drought — but are the water companies doing their bit when it comes to fixing leaks? New research by Ipsos found that 47 per cent of adults in England think providers are failing to meet their own responsibilities while demanding that customers cut their usage. In areas where those custom- ers can’t use their hosepipes, that figure rises to 58 per cent.
As one infuriated Times reader put it, “I’m in the Affinity Water area and water has been pouring out the end of my road for nearly three months [and] mean- while we have a hosepipe ban. How is that fair?”
For the eight million people who hap- pen to live in Severn Trent’s jurisdiction, which stretches from the Bristol Channel to the Humber, it’s still hosepipes a gogo. Why? Is it just because it rains more up north and out west?
Peggy in Country Life, the etiquette king William Hanson has written a list of 39 rules for dog owners. In the interests of maintaining harmony between us all, I’ve used some of his and added a few of my own.
I appreciate there’s a prison crisis but dog owners who hang poo bags from trees should face trial. Poo bags go in the nearest bin. If there isn’t a bin, take it home with you. Although don’t do what I did not so long ago, which was to lob the bag in the car and forget about it for a couple of weeks. What a fragrant discovery that was. The best poo bags are Beco, by the way. Very sturdy.
No dogs on public transport seats. I hopped on the Tube recently to see a dog sitting upright beside its owner. Worse still, on a priority seat. Train seats are infested with grubby secretions, I know, but they don’t need extra dog hair. Dogs are perfectly fine on the floor.
Ditto restaurant banquettes.
Lead behaviour is endlessly controversial. Should dogs be on lead? Off
tech is cutting the time repairs take
lead? There are constant rows in my local Facebook group about this, with one side demanding that dogs should be on lead all the time in the park, and others countering that this would be cruel and absurd. Attitudes also vary depending on whether you’re in the country or the city. I was ticked off on a walk in the Chilterns last summer when I spied a big dog up ahead and put Dennis on the lead. “You should always allow them to meet off the lead,” admonished the owner, as his big dog glanced at Dennis and licked his lips. If in doubt, if you’re nervous about your dog’s reaction or their dog as you approach someone, the easiest thing to do is simply put the lead on.
OK.
But give other dogs space. Don’t clip your dog on the lead and then drag it millimetres past the other. If you’re on a narrow path, step aside to let them pass.
If your dog ploughs into a picnic, apologise properly. Don’t mumble something about him being “too friendly” as you try to summon him off the taramasalata. If you’re in an area where there are plenty of picnics at this time of year, consider the lead. Dennis and I avoid busy parks on the weekends in the summer after a sausage roll incident last year. Remember plenty of
river]. The difference is that our aquifers [in which ground water is stored natu- rally] are sandstone whereas in the south, they’re mainly chalk. Sandstone is much more resilient to drought.” A wet- ter start to the year which lasted for longer than usual has also helped.
Luck of the geographical draw is only part of it though. Clarke and his colleague Steph Cawley, director of customer oper- ations, are keen to emphasise quite what it takes to keep the taps flowing. On a country lane a few miles north of Shrews- bury, they show me a hole. Two hundred metres further along the road, they show me another hole. To me and, I’m sure, local residents, it looks like normal, irri- tating roadworks but they’re upgrading a 8.5-kilometre section of pipe.
Until very recently, the whole road would have been dug up. Today, they’re using “no-dig” or “trenchless” technol- ogy — they’re mole-ing from one hole to another which means the disruption will last for weeks, not months. “Our biggest investment is in replacing old pipes like these,” says Cawley. “In this five-year period, we’re replacing 800km.” Which sounds like a lot until you realise they have 48,000km of pipes.
COURTESY OF SOPHIA MONEY-COUTTS
Sophia Money-Coutts with Dennis, who cannot be trusted around picnickers — or household items
to avoid parks after a sausage roll incident
be pipes that need upgrading and leaks that need plugging but technology is helping. Once a leak is reported — either by Jonny and his drone or by micro- phone, pressure monitor or irate resi- dent — a team is dispatched “immedi- ately”. The section is isolated — Cawley says they’ve added a lot of valves to make that isolation easier — and a water tanker is plugged in to keep the taps on. Why, I wonder, couldn’t South East Water send in the tankers when my clos- est town, Tunbridge Wells, ran dry? That would have been more constructive than blaming it on those disgusting, disgusted WFHers. No comment from Severn Trent.
The leak itself is also tackled with new technology. They first trialled something called the Aquapea, a Blu Tack-like substance which gets sucked into the hole and seals it. “That had limited success,” says Cawley, “so now we use a prod- uct which you inject into the pipe. The pressure means it finds the leak, it seals it and then you suck the prod- uct straight back out again.” This product is now used in half of the repair jobs and has an 80 per cent success rate.
people (most people) don’t find your dog as roaringly amusing or charming as you.
Similarly, and as Hanson points out, jumping up isn’t simply being “too friendly”. It’s tiresome. Teach your dog not to do this and tick them off properly if they do. Some people seem to apply “gentle parenting” rules to their dog. “Oh Monty, who’s a naughty boy?” they say delightedly, after Monty has just rogered your leg. This is feeble. Monty needs firmer guidance.
If you have a dog and
IAN COOPER FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
you pass someone else with a dog, you must say hello or offer a cheery “hiya”, or at the very least smile. The other dog owners will think you’re weird if you don’t.
woman shrieked at me a
few months ago as I
held out a gravy bone,
“He’s on a low-sugar
diet!”
When going to someone’s house for lunch or dinner, always ask if you can bring your dog. Don’t assume it’s
If you’re going to stay with someone, it’s worth sussing out their
dog policy beforehand.
Are they allowed on
sofas? Are they
allowed upstairs? If they’re not a doggy sort and will flinch every time your dog appears hopefully beside the table, it may be easier to leave them with someone else for the night or weekend.
Jonny Bevan and Claire Hamlington of Severn Trent testing a drone. Top right, a pipe being repaired. Below centre, Matt Rudd with the team
Teach your children about dogs. Don’t rush up, don’t chase them, try not to poke fingers in eyes, ask if they can pat a dog and so on.
When approaching a field of livestock, put them on the lead. The livestock act was amended this year, giving farmers and police more power to go after anyone whose dog worries their animals. If you need help, there’s a nice sheep farmer in Kent called Tobin Bird, who runs a business called Sheep Proof Your Dog. One lesson with Tobin and dogs are supposedly cured of their sheep-chasing habits. Dennis is perhaps the exception because I wouldn’t say he’s completely immune to sheep, but he is also a terrier.
Allowing dogs to clamber into the dishwasher isn’t “the first rinse”, it’s revolting and indulgent. Are you one of those gentle parenting sorts? Yes, I thought so.
I used to think people who threw birthday parties for their dogs and bought them advent calendars and Christmas presents were deranged. Now, naturally, I think otherwise. Dog owners can be, well, barking. But there are worse things in the world these days than being soppy about one’s animal.
It is never, ever a “fur baby”.
Demands change constantly with the weather (we use 20 per cent more water when it’s hot), population movement and growth. Clarke, the man responsible for water resource management, is legally obligated to publish a comprehensive drought plan every five years that sets out “how the company will provide adequate quantities of wholesome water during a drought”. At the moment, only one of the 15 regions he oversees is at level one, the lowest of the drought trigger levels, and he is confident they won’t need a hose- pipe ban this year. He also has a 60-year resource plan because whatever pres- sure there is on the network now is unlikely to ease in the decades to come.
“Our lives now are very different,” he says when I ask him to compare this scorching rainless summer to the great drought of 1976. “Our homes are very dif- ferent. In the Seventies, there was one bathroom, you often shared a bath, and you wouldn’t necessarily be bathing every day. Nowadays, generally homes have one or two bathrooms. Showers are a lot more common and people tend to have more of them. Every home has a washing machine and a dishwasher. Our lifestyles have changed but with climate change, we need to adapt.”
He welcomes the introduction of man- datory water labelling that will grade home devices “a bit like the energy label”. He says leaky loos are a huge prob- lem and that, hosepipe ban or not, we should all let our lawns die in a heatwave. “Last summer, mine was brown and crispy,” he says. “By spring, it was as lus- cious as it’s ever been. The weeds died and the grass has grown better.”
All of which sounds like we, the cus- tomers, might be the problem, at which suggestion Cawley and Clarke retreat quickly to safer ground. “We’re extend- ing our treatment works over at Shrews- bury,” says Clarke. “We want our custom- ers to enjoy the water,” says Cawley.
This month, Severn Trent, which is increasing consumer bills by 47 per cent over five years, escaped a fine from Ofwat after “serious failings in its duties to deal effectively” with sewage spills. To the ire of campaigners, the regulator found that the FTSE 100 company had taken “genu- ine accountability” to fix the problems.
To the charge of years of under- investment, Cawley points to the
30-year period without a hose- pipe ban but admits “our custom-
ers and our regulators are ask-
ing more of us, quite rightly.
We have always invested in
waste but in recent years we
have invested more. Last
year, we reduced [sewage]
spills by 41 per cent.” Which is a significant number but why did they wait so long to achieve that?
“We shouldn’t have,” she says. “But we didn’t get a fine like other
companies because we responded quickly and we’re going to keep going.”
A
O
I
a key issue to drive cost cuts
ndy Burnham has struck a positive chord in his whirlwind first week as prime minister. But his blitz of feelgood policy announcements, from cuts to business rates for pubs to a cap on bus fares, are small beer. The serious test for his government starts now, tackling the big challenges that have humbled successive administrations.
Burnham is expected to address a number of these issues, including adult social care and defence, in the coming days. But key will be his stance on energy. For too long, Labour has been in thrall to an overzealous ideological commitment to overambitious net-zero targets despite Britain having the highest industrial electricity prices in the world.
The welcome signs are, however, that Burnham and Miatta Fahnbulleh, his new energy secretary, will adopt a more prag- matic approach; they are expected to move quickly to scale up oil and gas production at the country’s largest under- developed sites off the Scottish coast, Rosebank and Jackdaw.
These fields had been given initial approval by a former Conservative gov- ernment but have been delayed by legal hurdles. However, while Ed Miliband remained as energy secretary there was no guarantee that either would be granted the final green light even though they would not breach Labour manifesto commitments to block new licences for exploration.
But as our analysis today shows, the prime minister has further room for manoeuvre; in addition to allowing these projects to proceed, he can also permit so-called tieback developments.
These connect smaller, unlicensed discoveries to existing platforms and pipelines and make use of infrastructure that has already been built. Refusing to exploit reserves that are accessible through fields that already exist would be economically illiterate.
Everyone accepts the need to work towards net zero, especially after the series of heatwaves that have hit much of Europe this year. However, Britain will rely on oil and gas for decades during the transition. Producing more domestically
warfare amid internal battle
For all the focus on the battlefield, the most significant struggle in Ukraine in recent weeks probably took place inside the country’s own military leadership.
Tensions had been building for some time within President Zelensky’s inner circle — not over whether to fight Russia, but how. The popular, youthful defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the drone- savvy champion of technological innova- tion, had become locked in a power strug- gle with the old-school commander-in- chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, whose instincts favoured a more traditional approach.
Zelensky initially miscalculated and sacrificed Fedorov. Days later, amid wide- spread protests, Syrskyi was also ousted. Zelensky has now replaced the head of the army with Major General Mykhailo Drapa- tyi, a key ally of Federov.
The paradox is that these upheavals coincided with some of Ukraine’s most impressive operational successes. Just as President Trump’s attention has drifted
Pity the peonies. Give the brunneras a break. Wilting plants stand unsold in nur- series throughout the country because drought and heatwaves have made it too difficult to keep them alive once we get them home.
ESTABLISHED 1822
is surely preferable to importing fuel from abroad while congratulating ourselves on lower territorial emissions.
Environmentalists argue that opening new oil and gas fields will do little to reduce our oil imports and nothing to alter the prices paid by British consumers. However, as we report today, supporters of exploration say it is better than nothing.
Greg Jackson, founder of the green energy provider Octopus Energy, has said it is “mad” to ship gas “halfway round the world rather than using our own”. Tara Singh, chief executive of RenewableUK, the wind farm trade body, has also called for an increase in North Sea production.
Moreover, Fahnbulleh should addi- tionally improve the conditions faced by those who risk the financial gamble of North Sea exploration. Norway, whose national oil company has just announced £11 billion in revenues, offers a telling comparison.
Like their British counterparts, its pro- ducers face a steep 78 per cent tax rate, yet investment continues because the fiscal regime has remained broadly stable for decades. Generous allowances for explo- ration sit alongside predictable rules, allowing companies to plan investments years ahead. Britain, by contrast, has repeatedly rewritten the tax regime, treat- ing the North Sea as a Treasury cash cow. Stability, not simply lower taxation, attracts capital.
That presents an opportunity for the new government. If ministers are serious about growth, energy policy must be guided by economic realism rather than ideological purity. Approving projects such as Rosebank and Jackdaw may not slash household bills overnight, but the wider benefits — investment, jobs, higher tax receipts and greater resilience at a time of heightened geopolitical risks — would strengthen the public finances and allow Burnham more leeway for his cost- of-living initiatives.
As the former prime minister Rishi Sunak argues today, growth must become the defining challenge of government because without it every spending deci- sion becomes harder and every promise more difficult to keep. Cutting the cost of energy for businesses and consumers is not a side issue.
away from the conflict, diverted by the Iran war and domestic issues, the country has launched long-range drone strikes, some of which have hit Siberian fuel refin- eries more than 1,500 miles away, and others Russian ships in the Sea of Azov.
These have shown how relatively inex- pensive autonomous systems can inflict serious blows, and that innovation can in part compensate for shortages of man- power and conventional firepower. The future battlefield will not simply belong to those with the largest arsenals, but to those able to integrate software, artificial intelligence and mass-produced drones.
Ukraine is no longer simply defending itself; it is conducting a real-time experi- ment in the future of warfare. The ques- tion is whether its allies are learning as quickly as its enemies. Britain and Europe must not only increase their resolve to stand by Ukraine, they must learn fast about these new forms of warfare and integrate them into their defence systems.
mens by the entrance to the supermarket. The shortage of customers has, however, led to bargains at garden centres. Some are giving plants away, we report, rather than let them perish.
his war hammers voters
ur new prime minister’s single- minded drive to reduce the cost of living (financing to be arranged) has immediately encountered the most predictably unpredictable obstacle. President Donald J Trump. Within hours of Andy Burnham announcing that the 5 per cent VAT on domestic electricity bills will be removed, the resumption of full hostilities between the US and Iran sent crude oil prices back up to the level before the signing of their laughably misnamed memorandum of understanding.
Prepare for months of British ministers blaming the war in the Gulf for whatever of our own economic hardships can feasibly be attributed to it. Naturally, Trump has not the slightest concern about the consequences for British consumers (including the impact on fertiliser-dependent food prices); but the amazing thing is that he doesn’t seem at all bothered — at least in public — by the effects on the American people.
At a campaign rally in Georgia last week (for the midterm elections) the president actually claimed to be reducing the cost of living to voters: “We got it coming down very rapidly, actually.” Most non-mad estimates are that the increased fuel costs created by the war have alone averaged over $500 per US household, and that the overall impact on each of them amounts to $1,100, so far.
If the war had succeeded in the objectives set out by Trump at the outset, this would be a small price to pay — and a temporary one — but the opposite has been humiliatingly demonstrated. Completely unsurprising, since those objectives could only be achieved, if at all, by some form of military occupation, politically impossible for a president whose faithful supporters trusted his pledge never to do anything of the sort, and especially not in the Middle East.
Then there is the cost to the state — which is merely another word for taxpaying households. Trump’s grotesque “secretary of war”, Pete Hegseth, told legislators last week that the direct costs to the Pentagon were, to date, $35 billion. Independent estimates of the full expense, are, as one might expect, much higher. And how is all this to be met? In classic Trump style, by yet more borrowing. His operating methods in the real estate and casino businesses involved serial bankruptcies as he drove his creditors to distraction, such that American and European banks eventually refused to lend to him at all.
but it can still come first
t took two years after the release of ChatGPT before China had its own answer to generative AI, from DeepSeek, the Hangzhou-based start-up. During that time, the technology was an interesting but abstract notion to Chinese citizens, who could not use OpenAI’s chatbot. Beijing had blocked it for fear of its populace getting an uncensored view of the world, and for the sake of its own tech giants still racing to develop their own models.
It’s easy to think of the AI race in terms of this time lag. America innovates, China follows, right? So American engineers and politicians can rest on their privileges: the country’s deep VC pockets and an abundance of cutting-edge chips. But the race is not a linear sprint. China’s AI labs, which have proliferated since DeepSeek, speed towards a different finish line. If they can’t compete on being the best, then they will win on being good enough.
To do so, they release open-source models, free for anyone to download. Those with the technical knowhow can save a copy of the model, tweak its priorities and host its data on a server of their own choosing. By comparison, models released by Anthropic and OpenAI are proprietary or “closed”. As users, we can’t see or change how the models make their decisions. If AI is a cake, then the American companies are selling it off the shelf, but DeepSeek and other Chinese companies are giving away their recipes.
So if you’re a customer who’s a bit more financially restricted, or who wants to put your own icing and sprinkles on the cake, you’d much rather just have the recipe. That’s the experience that organisations are having with Chinese AI. Smaller companies, including many in the global south, are using Chinese code to kickstart their own models, while bigger companies may prefer to have more freedom to tweak the tech to their own needs. “We’re relying a lot on Alibaba’s Qwen model. It’s very good. It’s also fast and cheap,” Brian Chesky, the chief executive of Airbnb, told
No one, however, refuses to lend to the US Treasury — as long as the price is right. Which the Trump administration has exploited to an extent never previously witnessed. So, over the past 12 months alone the US national debt has increased by almost $3 trillion; it now stands at $39.68 trillion. The annual interest payment on that is $1 trillion — and rising.
I have written quite a bit in recent years about the UK’s debt crisis: our annual interest bill is now close to twice the size of our defence budget. But, as a proportion of how total government revenues are spent, our interest bill is about 8 per cent. Whereas, according to a report by the Fitch Ratings agency last week, the US national debt interest bill hoovers up no less than 12 per cent of the state’s revenues.
Yes, Washington enjoys what has been described as the “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar being the world’s reserve currency. Unlike the UK, it does not face any prospect of being shunned by those who buy government bonds. But the rate on US 30-year bonds has now been above 5 per cent for a month, something not seen since 2007, just before the implosion of credit markets globally.
This, naturally, has implications for the UK and for a Treasury already wondering how Mr Burnham’s many wizard schemes are to be funded: when the price charged by the bond markets to the US goes up, it has a tidal effect on the price of debt issuance for the UK.
However, this new PM, in such circumstances, is reasonably equipped to tell the mass of voters that he feels our pain. His personal style lends itself to such emanations of empathy.
Trump, though, is as far from being able to do that as any president in the 250-year history of his nation — and then some. For he has used his second term of office as an enrichment scheme for himself and his family. Over a year ago I wrote about this, mentioning, among other acts of monetising the presidency,
is a fair chance of a midterms wipeout
Bloomberg. According to Alibaba, also Hangzhou-based, the Qwen family of models has spawned some 200,000 user-adapted models. In March, the open-source platform Hugging Face reported that Chinese models had surpassed American models in both monthly and cumulative downloads. And when the platform was hacked by a rogue OpenAI agent, it was to Chinese AI that it turned.
This has become Chinese AI’s modus operandi, after the example set by DeepSeek. Its founder, Liang Wenfeng, has always said that it was a passion project (his day job is heading a hedge fund). The other companies followed suit, realising that this was a way to cut through America’s AI headstart (and they make money through providing cloud services and other accoutrements to the models).
Chinese AI is also cheaper to run, using fewer chips to produce the same output, and getting better. Kimi K3, the new model from the Beijing-based Moonshot AI, is almost as good as Anthropic’s latest model, experts say. Put all this together and it makes for a story we’ve seen elsewhere with Chinese exports. From electric cars to telecoms, brands like BYD and Huawei might not be the best, but they are affordable and adaptable. China’s chatbots may not (yet) be pushing the frontier, but good enough is good enough. You don’t need an F1 car to go down to the shops.
The American AI giants are anxious. They have accused their Chinese rivals of
rogue, Chinese tech came to the rescue
Trump’s offering wealthy businessmen solo dinners with him at his Mar-a-Lago country club — for a fee, negotiable, of up to $5 million — and quoted one of his critics: “If you were mayor of a medium-sized town and it was reported that you were selling meetings for, like, $200, you would be arrested.”
What I had not then appreciated was something Trump later pointed out (to his great satisfaction): that laws covering conflicts of interest in the executive branch exempt the president — and indeed the vice-president. It is a hitherto unscrutinised manifestation of the monarchical nature of the presidency under the US constitution, which no previous occupant had exploited purely for the prospect of financial gain.
So those $5 million dinners are the least of it. According to the president’s mandatory financial disclosure (there’s that, at any rate), in 2025 he made nearly $1.2 billion from cryptocurrency deals alone. Much of that deliberately opaque financing is thought to have come from people or even states who hope for favours from a man of, let’s say, venal tendencies. Meanwhile, the investment firm part-owned by his obviously very astute son Donald Jr made an annual return last year of 200 per cent, according to a report last week in The New York Times.
For most Republican voters that would, until recently, have been of little consequence. They could argue that such personal presidential gains did not affect them or their families adversely, and certainly did not cost them a cent — as opposed to those who chose to buy into the Trump “meme coin”, $TRUMP, and are nursing huge losses, as it happens.
Now, however, Trump’s impulsive Iranian debacle is costing them, personally — and if it continues, there is a fair chance of the Republicans losing control of both legislative branches in November. At which point, naturally, Trump will claim the ballots were rigged.
And when he does, finally, exit the White House, Trump will leave the country paying unprecedented amounts into the indefinite future to service the debt his administration has so incontinently increased. Meanwhile he will be luxuriating in the billions of dollars generated by turning the Oval Office into a personal casino, in which, as in all such operations, the proprietor enjoys “the house edge”. Or in this case the White House edge.
How unlike the home life of our own dear prime minister.
“distillation attacks”, in essence industrial- scale reverse engineering. They’re probably right, but engineers in the know say that distillation can only help the labs refine models when they are near completion; it can’t make brilliant models by itself out of nothing.
All of this is bad news for Uncle Sam. For one, AI has become a new lifeline for the American economy (Goldman Sachs estimates that AI-related companies have added $27 trillion in market value since the launch of ChatGPT). If the stars of these American labs wane, the repercussions will ripple beyond Silicon Valley.
But more broadly, it’s yet another sign of Beijing’s ambition to set the rules of the AI era. At an AI conference in Shanghai this month, Xi Jinping stated his intent: “China is ready to be more open, take more practical actions, and assume a more visionary perspective.” In the room were international business and technology leaders, but also representatives of 29 global-south nations, who signed a declaration to form the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation.
So America stands at a crossroads. The temptation is to go down a protectionist path, blacklisting Chinese AI. In June, Washington briefly banned foreign citizens from using Anthropic’s Fable model, resulting in the model being taken offline overnight.
That’s precisely the kind of intervention that should worry countries that don’t have homegrown or sovereign AI, like the UK. So an open and diverse AI ecosystem is in our interest, giving us some AI capability where we have none. Last Friday, some of America’s tech moguls published an open letter calling exactly for this. Britain should join them in urging Washington to help foster that world: releasing more and better open-source models of its own, and in the process combatting Chinese models in the open. Because if there’s one thing that China has shown, it’s that there’s more than one way to win an arms race. Hadley Freeman is away
I
England but leave the rest behind
n his speech on becoming Labour leader, Andy Burnham deemed Margaret Thatcher’s abandonment of the north and centralisation of power in London the original sins of Britain’s present crisis. Recounting a litany of industrial destruction, Burnham charged that Thatcher sacrificed south Wales, central Scotland and the East Midlands.
But, he implied, it was northern England that bore the brunt of the deindustrialisation disaster, from the loss of the Lancashire and Yorkshire coalfields to the steel and ironworks of Sheffield, Scunthorpe and Teesside, from the closed docks of Liverpool to the Pennine mills.
Burnham’s planned corrective to this calamity is to take control back from London and hand it to devolved city- centred authorities, for which his own city of Manchester is the template. His diagnosis of Britain’s economic and political troubles is a pretty dubious one, though. It suggests that Britain is not just a geographical island but an economic one. But it was the 1930s collapse in international trade sparked by a crash on Wall Street that began the decline of Lancashire’s mills. And it was the eight-year closure of the Suez Canal in 1967, compounded by an acceleration in the use of container shipping, that proved fatal for Liverpool’s docks.
If Burnham had wanted decisive examples of how the Thatcher government’s decisions directly caused deindustrialisation, he might have looked south to Chatham and Plymouth, whose naval dockyards were respectively closed and ravaged by the decision to slash spending on the Royal Navy’s surface fleet.
Does less power in London actually mean more industry elsewhere? The
WEEK
evidence we have from our devolved authorities suggests not. Manchester’s recent economic success has, in part, been driven by welcoming the very global capital flows that are the only meaningful definition of what Burnham damns as “neoliberalism”. Much of this foreign investment has arrived from China, an economy fuelling Britain’s deindustrialisation, and manifests itself not in a manufacturing renaissance but in the city’s shiny new skyline.
Whatever Burnham’s rhetoric, prioritising devolution is more of a constitutional project than an economic reset. And since local government is already devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, moving powers downwards can only really be a strategy for changing how England is governed.
If the new No 10 North were to serve as “the nerve centre” for co-ordinating devolved powers across the entire UK, as Burnham promised in a speech in Manchester on June 29, it would inevitably provoke charges of usurpation in Cardiff and Edinburgh. Or, if the UK-wide rhetoric proves meaningless, No 10 North will in effect become No 10 England: a government for England in a way that Westminster can only be by default. This would be an odd achievement for a prime minister who told the New Statesman last year that England ranked only fourth in his hierarchy of personal identity, behind Britain, the northwest and Liverpool.
What Burnham does not want to articulate is that what Britain really has is an England question. The national devolutions instituted by Tony Blair in 1999 were asymmetrical and posed a question that remains unresolved: what to do about power in England.
This is not entirely new. Ever since William Gladstone’s third ministry
unsuccessfully pushed Home Rule for Ireland in 1886, some version of the England question has bubbled away in the UK’s politics with periodic eruptions. The general election that followed Gladstone’s failure sparked a revolt in England that helped make the Conservatives the dominant party for the next two decades.
When Herbert Asquith again sought Irish Home Rule after the 1910 general election, Winston Churchill advocated “Home Rule all round”, slicing England into regions. But he forgot to mention the northeast, the southwest and East Anglia, causing widespread mockery. Nearly a century later, when the England question nagged at Blair’s second government, it turned back to the idea of English regions with regional assemblies as the proposed fix. But Blair capitulated after voters in the northeast voted down the assembly offered to them.
In the wake of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, there was much discussion of the “West Lothian question”: why can Scottish, Welsh and
power in London mean more industry elsewhere?
Northern Irish MPs in Westminster weigh in on laws affecting only England, when the reverse is not true?
Worried about Nigel Farage’s Ukip using this discrepancy to channel the forces of English nationalism, David Cameron came up with “English votes for English laws”, a change to parliamentary procedure scrapped by Boris Johnson’s government.
Although it was not presented as an answer to the England question, Keir Starmer did push the English Devolution Act through parliament this year. This complex legislation stipulates that all England should be covered by a strategic authority, but permitted three types of structure, each with a differing degree of devolved power.
The unevenness of this tiered approach to devolution within England will be another headache for Burnham. The most empowered form of a devolved area is an “established mayoral strategic authority”. There are seven of these and, apart from London, they are all in the north and the Midlands. Meanwhile, significant swathes of southern England are still not under even the lowest-tier strategic authority. Take Milton Keynes, a city whose population has grown faster than Manchester’s over the past decade. Its bid to be part of a strategic authority with Bedford and Luton was rejected by Angela Rayner when she was minister for local government. Although no formal reason was given, her department appeared to want a larger authority for what it calls the “South Midlands”. What devolution will mean for this part of England is still pending, because the local councils cannot agree on what to do next and do not know what ministers might find acceptable.
This regional disparity between those
parts of England equipped to take advantage of Burnham’s devolution venture and those left behind will bring the new prime minister back to the England question. It is particularly dangerous for Labour because the party’s parliamentary majorities are so often reliant on Scotland, Wales and the urban parts of the north of England. The 1974-79 Labour government never had a majority in England and got into deep difficulty on union matters after it became dependent on parliamentary support from the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Indeed, it was the withdrawal of the SNP’s backing that precipitated the 1979 general election.
With a live West Lothian question it is worse. During the 2015 general election campaign, the image of Ed Miliband governing from inside Alex Salmond’s pocket was exploited to considerable effect by the Conservatives in England.
The rise of Reform UK only complicates the England question because it can be deployed with other anti-Westminster grievances. It may well be the case that by forfeiting the England cause and scrapping Cameron’s “English votes for English laws” order, Johnson helped Reform establish a strong foothold in the north of England, despite its cast of economic Thatcherites.
Burnham may get lucky, especially if he is willing to hold an early election to legitimise his constitutional revolution. But it is just as easy to imagine that the political direction of travel creates a similar problem for Labour to the one it had in 2015. With a diminished prospect of a majority across the UK’s largest nation, will Labour be trusted to govern England — this time from Manchester?
Helen Thompson is a professor of political economy at Cambridge University Matthew Syed is away
Appening
The ex-PM discovers there is life after cabinet meetings*
Wes Streeting Hi Keir. Just checking in to see how you’re doing and, since we’re talking anyway, can you
believe he gave No 11 to John Healey?
Keir Starmer I can’t talk right now. I’m on a log flume
Streeting Sure. No problem. You deserve a break after all your work for the nation, and what selfless
work that was. I don’t know where
we’d be if you hadn’t had the foresight to appoint me as health secretary. Everybody agrees that the NHS would be in a parlous state without
your support of my visionary work
Starmer Thank you, Wes. That’s very generous
Starmer Thank you
Streeting But don’t you think,
at the very least, I should have been home secretary?
Starmer Wheeeeeeee!
Ed Miliband Hey bud.
Starmer It’s not. I’m having a hot stones massage
Miliband I won’t bother you then. Just wanted to check there were no
hard feelings, that’s all, except I can’t believe Healey gets chancellor.
How is a former defence secretary going to know what’s really important?
Starmer Mmmmmmm!
Miliband Did you know some of the windows at Chevening House
aren’t triple-glazed? And they
haven’t even bothered to get
a quote for solar roof panels
Starmer Zzzzzzzzz
Miliband I’ll let you get on but I hope those stones are heated with renewables
David Lammy Doesn’t Burnham
need to think about continuity?
I was the only one left with any experience of running the country
Starmer When did you run the country?
Lammy That time you
Starmer I really can’t talk right now. I’m in the queue for Bayeux Tapestry tickets
Lammy What number are you?
Starmer 82,345. It’s strange because no one wanted to see the thing when it was just across the Channel. Now it’s the hottest ticket in town
Lammy There’s no accounting for popularity
Lammy On which note, how can Louise Haigh be deputy PM?
Starmer No comment
Lammy That’s what she said in her police interview
Theresa May Hello Keir. I’m sure it will be different for you but I just
wanted to warn you, one ex-PM to
another, that when I left, they all
came out of the woodwork
Starmer It’s just unbelievable
May My advice is to turn your phone off and do some gardening
Starmer I’m pruning the roses as we speak
Rachel Reeves Hi Keir.
Starmer Fine. It’s nice not to have to deal with all the craven narcissists any more
Reeves I won’t disturb you
except I’m wondering if you could give me a reference
Starmer Of course. What for?
Reeves Governor of
the Bank of England
How’s it hanging?
went to Madeira
How’s it all going?
I
But here’s why a wealth tax won’t work
have a problem. It’s embarrassing to talk about, really it is, but I’ve just got too much money. I try my best to spend it. I even give some of it to those who haven’t been quite as staggeringly successful. But it just keeps piling up. What I really need is someone to help me. Maybe that nice Andy Burnham?
Yes, last week we saw the latest call from a collection of very wealthy people called Patriotic Millionaires UK — including Gary Lineker, Richard Curtis and Brian Eno — for the government to tax them more. It’s the ultimate in dinner-party bragging rights. Just imagine the look on David Tennant’s face at not being asked!
Inevitably, a certain amount of mockery followed. Unkind souls pointed out that Lineker had been slightly less willing to subsidise the taxman when he fought a prolonged and successful battle with HMRC over whether he was a BBC employee or a freelancer; when he invested in a notorious film financing scheme that the courts ruled was designed to generate artificial losses for tax purposes; and when he was named in the “Paradise Papers” for buying a holiday home in Barbados via a company in the British Virgin Islands. He also collected what was widely reported to be a very large sum of money indeed
Robert Colvile is right that Andy Burnham lives in a parallel universe stuck in the 1970s (“If Burnham understood Thatcherism, he wouldn’t be so keen to reverse it all”, Jul 19). He does, however, need to be clearer in his prescriptions. It was indeed right to privatise many industries including water. It is also important to have the right shareholders and a regulator that regulates the right things. Regulating profit is only part of the equation: the debt load that was imposed to pay large dividends was the real problem and it was not addressed. He should also be clearer that modern manufacturing is not the job-creation panacea that Burnham imagines. It requires cheaper energy and a lot of patient capital and creates only a few highly skilled jobs. Burnham’s prescription is built on ignorance and ideology. It will fail. Sir John Rose Former CEO of Rolls-Royce; London SW11
Robert Colvile gives some good reasons why Andy Burnham should look at Margaret Thatcher’s programme in the 1980s before embarking on his renationalisation agenda, but I disagree with him about water and railways. First,
Benefits entitlement
The article “Near-blackout after energy chiefs failed to plan for heat” (Jul 19) omitted an important issue with respect to the energy supply today. Most gas power stations are sensitive to temperature as they rely on air cooling and gas turbines, both of which are less efficient in high temperatures, reducing the available output, unlike older power stations which rely on river or sea water for cooling. As the demand increases in the summer due to air conditioning etc, there will be a requirement for more standby generation, further increasing electricity costs as a consequence of the reliance on wind power. Tim Smith Lytchett Matravers, Dorset
It is axiomatic that hot weather will coincide with high pressure, therefore light winds, meaning turbines lack generating capability. Leaving aside the incompetence of the National Energy
July 25, 1926
to offer something else to drink besides beer Homely canteens help to keep Tommies and Jack Tars sober
when he decided to end his football career playing for the company team of the Toyota Motor Corporation, Nagoya Grampus Eight, in Japan.
Other, equally unkind, souls pointed out that if people want to give extra to the taxman, they very much can. And that the polling released to buttress the claim that Britain’s super-rich are gagging to hand over more loot was not exactly the most objective.
In both 2025 and 2026 a sample of affluent individuals were asked a series of leading questions about the awfulness of “extreme wealth” and whether rich people should pay more tax to guarantee various good things. But as every poll on NHS funding proves, the amount of “more tax” is never anywhere near what is needed. For example, Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates points out that in the 2025 polling, every category of millionaire felt that the level at which someone had “too much wealth” and should pay more was a multiple of their own fortune.
But the real problem is not that the signatories of the pledge are hypocrites. It’s that when it comes to economic policy, they’re idiots.
The Patriotic Millionaires campaign has two main proposals: “a 2 per cent tax on wealth over £10 million to raise £24 billion a year [and] reforming and
Margaret Thatcher was not responsible for rail privatisation: that was her successor, John Major. The fact is that she thought it would be a “privatisation too far”. Second, although water privatisation was initially successful, it soon became a cash cow that lined the pockets of mainly overseas investors. The dreadful state of our water and waste system speaks for itself; indeed, I have no doubt that Thatcher would be appalled by what has happened. Perhaps Burnham is wondering why the rest of Europe largely owns and runs its water and rail services and makes a far better job of it than we do. John Walton Shepperton, Surrey
I strongly disagree with Robert Colvile: it is precisely those who understand Thatcherism and its long-term consequences who are rightly keen to replace it. The privatisation of water and railways has been disastrous because the first duty of such companies is to their shareholders, not their customers. Tax cuts and huge salaries for business tycoons have not yielded a promised “trickle down” of wealth, but instead led to a massive increase in inequality,
System Operator, where does this leave our net-zero policies, to be achieved, apparently, at the risk of power cuts and on the backs of consumers’ bills? Michael Norris St Austell, Cornwall
The proposed £2 billion “investment” in the Rough storage facility will do little to reduce gas prices and nothing to the availability of supplies (“Drill down and you’ll find the fix for Britain’s gas crisis”, Jul 19). However, most if not all the North Sea platforms are placed above vast sections of shale and coal that can be exploited. The shale, in suitable areas, can be subject to fracking for natural gas development. The coal beds can be exploited, as is done in Australia, for coal-bed methane. All that it will take to benefit from these resources is the will. Jim Daniels Chobham, Surrey
equalising capital gains tax with income tax to raise £11.3 billion a year”. Let’s take them in turn.
The wealth tax is the pet project of Gary Stevenson, a former City trader turned “inequality economist”. Unfortunately, as his recent Channel 4 documentary proved, Gary is to the fine detail of tax policy what I am to racing Tadej Pogacar up the Alpe d’Huez.
In particular, as I’ve pointed out before, Britain’s wealthy do not in fact keep their money in giant vaults of gold coins, Scrooge McDuck-style. Most of the wealth is in houses, pensions or share portfolios. For the truly, stratospherically wealthy, it is overwhelmingly locked up in companies that they have run, invested in or created.
This creates four problems. First, it is very hard to work out how much all this wealth is worth. Our entire tax system is based on measuring flows (income, asset sales) and not stocks. So for a wealth tax to work, we’d have to build a completely new one. Second, the minute you start taxing something, its value falls. So all that wealth doesn’t flow to the taxman: it simply evaporates. Third, fewer people come here to invest. Fourth, those who are already here bugger off. Neidle’s modelling suggests that even if that £24 billion figure is credible, which it
Letters to the Editor should be sent to letters@sunday-times.co.uk The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
and reliance on top-up welfare benefits and food banks due to poverty wages. I find the continued dogmatic defence of Thatcherism rather like the deluded defence of communism by the former rulers of the Soviet Union: our ideology and ideas are marvellous; they just haven’t been applied properly, or been given enough time to prove their brilliance. Pete Dorey Bath
The political clash between Margaret Thatcher and the left resulted from the inevitable exhaustion of domestic supplies of raw materials, which ensured that mining and other heavy industry became increasingly cursed by the legacy of their past. Any government attempting to manage this decline was bound to clash with unions representing the threatened labour force. Robert Colvile is right to warn that if Andy Burnham pretends this legacy can be sidestepped by “returning to how things used to be” and the Labour Party that voters “once knew”, we are in for an unpleasant but sadly predictable shock. Bernard Kingston Biddenden, Kent
As a former GP and medical member of the tribunal service, I support the need for an urgent review of the personal independence payment (“In the benefits court, the sick plead for Pip while others play the system”, Jul 19). From my experience, decisions are made with very little medical evidence. There has been a general reluctance to obtain GP records owing to the costs involved. This should be changed by law, enabling GP practices to transfer computer records seamlessly to the tribunal system. More than 90 per cent of claimants who appeal win, and attempts to challenge appellants on their medical conditions are often frowned upon. In some instances, those with treatable medical conditions are awarded benefits. It is time that medical evidence be scrutinised in more detail and the whole process be modernised. Dr Raj Menon Bramhope, W Yorks
During the year ending September 1913, the number of convictions by military courts-martial for drunkenness was 426, compared with 248 for 1924-25. In the Royal Navy the same story of sobriety is told, and although statistics are not available, captains of ships having the power to deal summarily with minor offences, the Admiralty authorities state that drunkenness among naval ratings is now a very rare occurrence.
Why are the Tommies and Jack Tars of today more temperate as a body than the pre-war servicemen? One of the chief causes, in the opinion of the War Office and Admiralty officers who are responsible for the welfare of the men, is the all-round improvement of the canteen. If the sailor or soldier of a few years ago could visit the modern canteen at a naval or military barracks
that those who’ve signed the pledge are hypocrites. It’s that they’re idiots
isn’t, 80 per cent of the revenue would come from about 5,000 people, and 15 per cent from just ten (yes, ten people). Fill up a single private jet with not-so-patriotic millionaires, and you’re screwed.
This is why most credible attempts to evaluate the introduction of a British
It was worrying to read in Rishi Sunak’s advice to Andy Burnham (“I was awestruck arriving at No 10. Here’s what a new PM should know”, Jul 19) that on entering Downing Street “you are presented with an hour-by-hour diary for the day and your schedule for the next three weeks”. If Burnham accepts the schedule, it will demonstrate that he has already conceded too much control to the civil service. He must receive security briefings and attend some ceremonial engagements. But the prime minister should be the prime decision- maker. He should determine who he will see, when and for how long. Otherwise the Sir Humphreys really are in charge. Steve Ellis Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria
Discipline in schools
Your article “The school punished for being too strict” (Jul 19) illustrates how far the pendulum has swung in education. We have rightly left behind the days of corporal punishment, but today it sometimes seems that any school prepared to enforce high standards risks being accused of going too far. There appears to be little room for the sensible middle ground.
Parents who choose Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy know what they are signing up to. Its ethos of firm discipline and academic ambition is what has enabled so many children from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve exceptional results. The real danger is that schools become so fearful of criticism that they lose the confidence to maintain the calm, orderly environment that every child deserves. Michael Robinson Ret’d head teacher, Gosport, Hants
Matthew Syed (comment, Jul 19) thinks “few noticed” the merging of left and right. We noticed all right, but what were we to do when all the parties espoused the same policies and the media nodded along? Surely he must have noticed the steady decline in turnout at elections. Cynthia Ellis Northwood, Middx
he would be greatly surprised. Before the war these canteens were nothing more or less than sawdust-strewn bars where drink only was served all day long and half the night. There were no other attractions and no degree of comfort.
During many years it was increasingly
wealth tax have concluded that you shouldn’t. Or rather, that it would only work if it was credibly one-off — but of course it never could be. Which is why other developed countries have been dropping wealth taxes rather than introducing them. And why the last chancellor called Healey — Denis — had to abandon the wealth tax promised in Labour’s 1974 manifesto because “in five years I found it impossible to draft one which would yield enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost and political hassle”.
As for the capital gains tax plan, it’s equally crackers. As our team at the Centre for Policy Studies think tank has pointed out, HMRC’s own calculations suggest that a big capital gains tax increase actually loses money, because people either hold on to assets or vanish abroad. And again, the most recent figures showed that just 32,000 taxpayers accounted for 80 per cent of capital gains tax payments, and just 5,000 for 50 per cent. What are the odds that they’re going to sit back and accept a de facto doubling of the rate?
But there’s a bigger problem here. In 1919 Stanley Baldwin wrote to The Times under a pseudonym, urging his fellow plutocrats to help pay off Britain’s crippling war debts. The future prime minister donated a fifth of his fortune,
Charlotte Ivers says southerners do not have much of a cultural identity (“Southerners, unite — our saviour is here”, Jul 19). I disagree. My own county of Sussex has so much to offer and makes a unique contribution to Englishness. Its history stretches from the Roman occupation via the Battle of Hastings to its frontline role in the Second World War. The Bloomsbury group moved here and Rudyard Kipling and HG Wells were residents. We have a tradition of arts and crafts and the peerless Eric Ravilious. We have plenty to be proud of, but rarely boast about it. Graham Ashen Horsham, W Sussex
I would just like to share how well received The Funday Times was in our household on Sunday. My eldest (aged seven) immediately took this section of the paper and went off to read it. She was very pleased to have something in the “grown-ups’ paper” to read. Charlotte Stanford Shrewsbury
Lyell Fairlie’s letter about the drivers of West Tytherley swerving to avoid potholes (Jul 19) reminded me of an old jest. As a child of Africa, one knew those who had been on the pombe (local beer) because they were driving in a straight line. Sober drivers avoided the holes. John Macdonald Templecombe, Somerset
Perhaps Dominic Lawson’s evident lack of interest in World Cup football explains why he gave the wrong score of 3-2 for England’s win in 1966 (comment, Jul 19). Or maybe it was a deliberate mistake, to reflect the view that Geoff Hurst’s disputed goal never crossed the line. Either way, the record books still say England 4, West Germany 2. Sean Martin Tonbridge, Kent
felt that something should be done to stimulate sobriety in the services, and eventually a few bold and original thinkers suggested that perhaps this remedy might be found in an improvement in canteen conditions. That, for instance, there should be something else to drink besides beer; that the canteens should be made comfortable and even homely; that well- cooked food in reasonable variety should be obtained on canteen premises; that amusements should be provided and facilities for reading and writing. But it took a long process of evolution for the least of these remedies to be translated into fact.
the equivalent of £5 million today. But others very much did not follow suit.
At that point Britain was spending £1.6 billion (in old money), with debt servicing bills of £331 million. Today, we are spending £1.4 trillion, with debt interest at £110 billion. Even if they raise what their supporters claim, the two main taxes proposed by the Garys will pay the bills for little more than a week. Which is why there’s no example, anywhere, of a modern welfare state being funded just by taxing the wealthy: mass spending requires mass taxation.
To put it another way, Britain’s gargantuan state consumes 45 per cent of national income. Given the number of children, students, pensioners, benefit claimants and so on, the burden of paying for this falls ever more sharply on a minority of earners, and in particular on high earners. How can it be a good idea to squeeze them still further? It certainly hasn’t worked in Scotland, where — as we report today — raising the top rate of income tax has resulted in a fall in revenues rather than a rise.
The Garys may be happy to pay more tax. If it’s helpful, I can send them the link. But for those who care about Britain’s future prosperity, the really patriotic plan is to stop feeding the state’s remorseless appetite.
NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT RECYCLING The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2025 was 30%
Dame Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand, 46 Kate Beckinsale, actress, pictured, 53 Johnson Beharry, awarded Victoria Cross in 2005 for action in Iraq war, 47 Emily Eavis, Glastonbury organiser, 47 Baroness Grey-Thompson, Paralympic athlete and crossbench peer, 57 Sir Mick Jagger, musician, 83 Dame Helen Mirren, actress, 81 Morgan Rogers, England footballer, 24 General Oleksandr Syrskyi, former head of the Ukrainian armed forces, 61 Roger Taylor, drummer, Queen, 77 Liz Truss, former prime minister, 51
1908 The Federal Bureau of Investigation is formed in Washington 1945 Clement Attlee becomes prime minister after Labour’s landslide postwar election victory 1952 Eva Perón, first lady of Argentina, dies from cancer aged 33 1956 President Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal Company, provoking a confrontation with Britain and France
CLARIFICATIONS
We wrongly said Ann Widdecombe lost her Maidstone & the Weald seat in 2001 (“The inexhaustible Ann”, News Review, Jul 19). We apologise for the error.
Email complaints@sunday-times.co.uk. Ipso also examines complaints about the editorial content of UK newspapers and magazines. Full details on our website.
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has against it the whole weight of organised “Temperance”, one section of which would close the public house altogether, while the other is opposed to reform of any kind. Unfortunately, too, the latter has, until recently, had the support of a large number of licensing benches throughout the country.
Moreover, by no means has the trend of licensing legislation always been in the interests of the consumer, and parliament itself, from a variety of causes, has failed to take a scientific interest in the promotion of sobriety. Yet, if sobriety is desired, the improvement of the conditions under which the industrial classes are supplied is an essential part of a progressive policy, because cleanliness, space and a humanising environment must tend to a higher tone among the public.
I
tell me you won’t fight to save the country
sleep 3 hours a night? Do wake up!
f I were Vladimir Putin I’d be lining up my warships outside Dover as we speak. If I were Argentina I’d be looking to double down on this month’s offensive against the England football team with a bit of territorial expansion. And why not? A YouGov poll last week indicated that only 6 per cent of Britons would willingly take up arms to defend our country. A further 14 per cent said that they would serve if directly called upon by the government. This is, arguably, not ideal for those of us who like this country in its present, un-invaded state.
These numbers feel almost unbelievably low. I’m reminded that pollsters like to talk about the “lizard man constant”. The idea derives its name from a 2013 poll which indicated that 4 per cent of Americans think that lizard people run the world. It states that, in any given survey, there will be a certain number of people who give completely crackers answers, because they are joking, not paying attention, clicking answers at random or are mad. This YouGov poll has the desire to fight for Britain running just two percentage points above what pollsters consider nutter-based statistical noise. Great.
There is never a good time to learn that we are a country of roast-beef- eating surrender monkeys, but this is a particularly bad one. Last week a Russian warship carried out a live-fire training exercise off the coast of Plymouth, something our new defence secretary, Wes Streeting, called “performative and irresponsible”. On Thursday Iran warned that RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire was a “legitimate target”. There’s something particularly galling about that, isn’t there? Of all the places I expected the end of the world to begin, the Cotswolds was not one. Pity all those poor American celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres who moved there to escape Donald Trump, only to now find themselves pursued by the Ayatollah.
I am being frivolous, of course. Is there any other option in the face of such unnerving threats? The fact is, we shouldn’t be surprised many are wary of taking up arms. War is hell, and recent developments in media and social media have made its horrors more visible to us than ever before. At the same time,
Go figure
A
s Andy Burnham’s administration weighs up which voters to target with giveaways, intergenerational solidarity remains hard to come by. According to a recent YouGov poll, 91 per cent of over-65s are in favour of keeping the pensions triple lock, yet just 33 per cent are in favour of introducing a triple lock for child benefit payments (despite child poverty being twice as high as pensioner poverty). And guess the age group least impressed with Burnham’s bus-fare cap? The over-65s, most of whom have free travel anyway.
How did Zoomer and Boomer drift so far apart? Today, the economic views of young and old can seem radically different, but they were not always so. As recently as 2008, according to long- running polling from the British Social Attitudes study, 18 to 34-year-olds were slightly more economically right-wing than the over-55s. But in the past two decades, that flipped, and now a chasm has opened between them.
What has caused it? From house prices to pensions, much has been made of the widening economic gulf between generations. But for once, let us put aside tired rants about wealth inequality. An equally important feature of modern life has driven a wedge between age groups: the rise of generational echo chambers.
In December 1986, more than 30 million people — young and old — tuned in to watch the EastEnders Christmas special, equivalent to about 53 per cent of the UK population. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it was normal for at least ten programmes a year to be seen by more than a quarter of the British public, according to Barb. Today, football finals and royal weddings and funerals aside, such moments of cultural hegemony are rare, even when you add in the extended streaming figures.
This is not just a “we have more TV channels now” effect. TV viewing, once a shared habit across generations, is becoming increasingly stratified. Since 2010, broadcast TV viewing has remained largely unchanged among the over-65s, yet among 16 to 24-year-olds it has cratered from 171 minutes a day to just 36. Britain is losing the cultural hegemony that acted as a sort of social
military technology has become better and better at killing people: drone warfare has created a slaughterhouse on the Ukrainian front line, and we have all watched it unfold online.
Even so, I do not believe those polling numbers reflect what would happen if Britain found itself under direct military threat. The key parallel that many refer to when considering such things is the notorious debate motion passed by the Oxford Union in 1933: that this house will under no circumstances fight for its King and country. Back then, 275 of the country’s brightest young minds voted to support this sentiment, 153 to reject it. Their stance caused great scandal at the time, and Winston Churchill later said it gave succour to Hitler. And yet six years later the Oxford recruiting stations were packed. Today if you head to any college chapel you will see that many did fight — and indeed die — for their country.
Of course, those young men lived in a very different time. The age of deference, while definitely on its way out, was still not fully dead. Luckily we have a far more modern comparator to hand: Ukraine. The obvious response to the YouGov poll results is that some form of social contract has been broken. We do not believe that our country looks after us, and so why should we look after our country? But would this malaise bear out if there were Russian tanks rolling through Kent? I doubt it. The Ukrainians had a far more broken social contract than ours — lower standards of living, creakier bureaucracies and even lower trust in politics — and they still took up arms when the time came.
I often think that nearly all polling, whatever the question may technically be, is actually asking respondents the same thing: “Are you having a sulk, and would you like to take this opportunity to express that sulk in public?” This theory would explain why made-up cabinet ministers receive negative ratings, and why we periodically get polls which tell us that young people yearn either for anarchocommunism or for a fascist strongman, depending on the day of the week. Being asked by a pollster whether you’d die for our basket case of a country is a good opportunity to express your discontent. It’s a very different proposition from actually
Young and old increasingly live apart Old age dependency ratio, or the number of over-65s as a percentage of 16-64-year-olds
City Rural Town
40%
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
S ONS
glue between ages. And this effect is most pronounced in the sources of news consumed. For over-75s, according to Ofcom, the top news sources are familiar: BBC1, ITV1, BBC Radio 4, the BBC News channel and the BBC website. But for 16 to 24-year-olds, the top news sources last year were Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X.
Crucially, these echo chambers are not just artefacts of the kinds of media
MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES
A recruiting parade in central London in 1914 when young men queued to fight as they did in the Second World War
coming nose to nose with an enemy combatant in the Tesco car park.
Dig deeper into the numbers in the poll and you get a clearer understanding of what is going through the respondents’ minds. Only 29 per cent of us consider a full-scale military assault on the UK a realistic prospect within the next decade. Little surprise. We are a nuclear power who last tackled a land invasion in 1797, and not a very good land invasion at that. We have firm psychological reasons to be complacent. When the other seven in ten respondents consider the question of whether they themselves would fight, are they imagining defending their homeland and their loved ones, I wonder, or are they imagining some sort of Iraq or Afghanistan-shaped shambles?
The headline stat is also probably skewed by the fact that 52 per cent of respondents said that they would be unable to fight because of age or disability. Fair enough: 25 per cent of us
we consume. Young and old are, quite literally, moving further apart.
Let us look at the old-age dependency ratio, which is the number of over-65s as a percentage of the number of 16 to 64-year-olds in an area. This ratio tells us how old the population of a place is. And back in the early 1980s there was not much of a difference in this ratio between cities, towns and villages. Young and old lived side-by-side.
Four decades later, urban areas have remained as young as they were. But rural parts of Britain have become much older: in fact, the old-age dependency ratio is now about twice as high in the countryside as it is in big cities. In other words, this media fragmentation is mirrored in the real world, with one sad consequence: young and old are increasingly unlikely to interact at all.
What does this mean for politics? Politicians can easily communicate with older voters, as they consume the same channels that used to reach all Britons. But young voters now sit in a different room altogether.
Earlier this year, the pollster More In Common surveyed people on whether they were aware of policies announced by the Labour government. While over- 55s were cognisant of pretty much everything that was announced, most young people were largely unaware of what their government had been up to. While 90 per cent of over-75s were aware of new plans for a pay-per-mile electric vehicle tax, for example, the same was true for just 48 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds. The only two policies on which the young were more knowledgeable than the old were ones that affected them financially: freezes to train fares and prescription fees.
Last week, a flurry of Manchester- based job vacancies landed on the Cabinet Office jobs website. More than half were for videographers, social media strategists and influencers. It is easy to sneer, but Burnham is simply responding to the new political reality: there is no longer a single audience to govern. Britain’s generational divide is usually framed as a fight over houses, pensions and taxes. But just as important is the slow disappearance of the shared news, events and spaces that once gave generations a common view of the world.
had a more broken social contract than ours and they still took up arms
are now identified by the government as disabled, and even at the height of the Second World War the age for male conscription was capped at 51. But I am convinced that many would sign up if they considered the question more extensively: the nature of warfare is changing. Could our pensioners not operate a drone? Could our hordes of
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young Neets, raised on an all-internet diet, not be trained to have a crack at some cyberwarfare? Few of us will actually be called to sit with a sniper rifle on the White Cliffs of Dover.
All of this matters. It matters for the obvious reason that, should a war come, somebody will have to fight it. But it also matters because polling numbers like this inevitably have an effect on deterrence. I am not suggesting that Putin will be rolling into Whitehall off the back of one YouGov poll. But we should not underestimate the power of water dripping on the stone.
It matters how our enemies view us and how we view ourselves. I’ve often heard people joke that we should aspire to be the country that Iran imagines us to be: warlike, impregnable, all- powerful, striding across the world causing havoc for our enemies. Perhaps. At the very least we could start by trying to imagine ourselves that way. Camilla Long is away
In Japan last week, the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, caused uproar when she revealed that she had slept three hours or less a night since taking office last year. In a country at war with itself over work-life balance, her claims have not gone down well.
We, of course, had our own sleepless prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. I can’t imagine any of her successors pulling the same trick these days. There has been a shift in the last couple of decades away from the idea that working every hour is some sort of status symbol.
Nobody any longer looks upon the investment banker who pops home at 3am for a 40-minute shower, before returning to work again, as a hero of capitalism.
Once cut-throat workplaces compete to offer better benefits, longer leave. Salary bragging is very passé compared with leisure signalling.
“Did you know, he gets home at 6pm?” I hear people mutter admiringly about friends in banking, the same way people used to gawp at their neighbour’s new Ferrari.
With AI offering more free time than ever to those who can make the system work for them, I suspect it will become even more of a symbol of prestige. Although I would say that, wouldn’t I? I watch television for a living.
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Each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 to 9. The digits within each group of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the figure in the top- left-hand corner of each group. Within each dotted-line group, a digit cannot be repeated.
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Across
Across
1 Grease monkey (8) 5 Noggin (4) 9 Coastal city (8-2-3) 10 Child (5)
11 Listened
appreciatively (3,2) 12 Sheepish? (5) 14 Scottish river (5) 16 Tendon (5)
17 Relative (5) 19 Suggestive of guilt (13) 21 TV channel (4) 22 Gemstone (8)
42 210
30 270 93
216 49 138
1 3
9 10 10 12
18
26 27
46
WARM-UP VERY HARD — PRIZE 1702
Down
Down
Down
................................................................................... 1 Party game (7,6) 2 Politeness (8) 3 Tree (3) 4 Shun (6) 6 Expel (4)
...................................................................................
7 Boxer (13) 8 Carnivorous mammal (8) 10 Excellent (8)
13 Disgrace (8) 15 Monotony (6) 18 Decorated (4) 20 Fitting (3)
35 320
Across
Post your solution to The Sunday Times Mephisto 3439, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ, or email puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk
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The Chambers Dictionary 13th edition is the primary reference. Readers may email comments or queries to puzzle.feedback@sunday-times.co.uk
1 Actions leading to scoring, listed in some team sport stats (7) 5 Abdulmecid II was the first elected Ottoman ____, in 1922 (6) 8 In Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais restated an idea
attributed to Aristotle as “Natura abhorret ____”(6) 13 The G of MSG (9) 14 Throat inflammation, most common in childhood (11) 15 Hapless protagonist played by Simon Jones, Chris
Langham, and Martin Freeman (6,4) 16 Sir Andrew ____ is a hapless fool in Twelfth Night (9) 19 A worm with an unsegmented body, very often parasitic (8) 20 “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed
over _” (The Waste Land, TS Eliot) (6,6) 23 Actress who played Yvette Carte-Blanche in ’Allo ’Allo! (5,8) 25 The _ of Red Hot Chili Peppers is known as Flea (7)
27 Song featured in the Red Dwarf episode Parallel Universe,
and later released as a 1993 single by “The Cat” (6,4) 28 Author of The Catcher in the Rye (1,1,8) 29 Sedimentary rock made up of angular rock fragments (7) 30 In Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Jasper is a ____ (6,7)
32 Letters in the first two columns of a Linotype keyboard,
often typed as a signal to newspaper proofreaders about an error, but sometimes inadvertently published (6,6) 34 Qualified in some way to do, be, or receive something (8)
37 “Great fleas have little fleas […] / And little fleas have lesser
fleas, and so ad ____” (Augustus De Morgan) (9) 38 Ornamental glass often used to make paperweights (10)
(pictured) 40 Anti-hero of a Mozart opera, dragged to hell by demons (3,8)
42 A Muslim may use this five
times a day (6,3) 43 Nuts eaten by pigs used in the
top grade of jamón ibérico (6) 44 Salad ingredient etymologically
linked to Greek for parsley (6) 45 US TV show which introduced
the phrase “names have been changed to protect the innocent” (7)
Robert Teuton
1 Schoolgirl assuming
goofball leaving college fails (8) 7 Siri — personal assistant
(first seen in Apple Newton?) (4) 10 DJ less tense with words
admitting I like a wife (9) 11 In some places discovers
networks hosting user’s terminal (5) 13 Medic’s name in project (5) 14 Gossip going round school
coffee morning? (7) 16 Raging pains once leaving
one of Canaries (4) 17 A redcap spotted in
friend’s floating garden (8) 18 Imitation gem that could
be paler? (10, two words) 20 Doubtful about uni
complex having one centre? (10) 22 Some vendors dragging
back skinflints (8) 24 Old dear’s certainly not
thick skinned (4) 26 Enzyme burst ripens last
of produce (7) 28 Jagger perhaps wanting a
fabric for embroidery (5) 29 Club loses deposit (5) 30 Thin paper’s a failure
checking first of images, flipping ink’s running (9) 31 Week off carries on a long
time (4) 32 Pipes pretty rarely
redirected (8)
In the grid, each number represents a letter of the alphabet — all 26 letters are used. Use the initial clues in the code table to work out the rest of the code. STUCK? To get four random extra letter clues, call 0901 293 6266 (ROI 1514 415128) or text STCLUE to 64343 (UK only). Calls cost £1 (ROI 75c) plus your telephone company’s network access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (ROI 0818 205 403) (Mon-Fri 9am- 5.30pm).
1 Mythical ship of Jason (4) 2 With Mark Radcliffe, co-host of BBC Radio 6 Music’s
weekend breakfast show (6,7) (pictured) 3 The Gravelly Hill Interchange, familiarly (9,8) 4 Engaged in ring training, as a boxer (7) 5 Battlement indentation used for firing arrows and other
missiles (6) 6 2009 compilation album of songs by George Harrison (3,2,4)
7 Paraesthesia (4,3,7) 9 Tool used to pierce holes in leather and similar materials (3) 10 An economic improvement (7)
11 “Ohne ____ wäre das Leben ein Irrtum” (Nietzsche) (5) 12 Herb Alpert’s backing band (7,5) 17 Singer who featured on the Maroon 5 single Moves like
Jagger (9,8) 18 Sure to happen (10) 21 “I am a Jew, but I am ____ by the luminous figure of the
Nazarene” (Albert Einstein) (10) 22 “Short con” game also known as find the lady (5-4,5) 24 Of a verb, not taking a direct object (12) 26 Joseph Cotten’s co-star in the 1944 film Gaslight (6,7)
31 Pantomime character in a love triangle with Harlequin and
Pierrot (9) 33 _ XIII was the last king of Spain before Juan Carlos (7) 35 There are _ Islands in the Caribbean and French
Polynesia (7) 36 Informally, an outdated storage medium (6)
37 The only country name in the Nato phonetic alphabet (5) 39 Engaged in an activity,
especially a reprehensible one (2,2) 41 An atom which has lost or
gained one or more electrons (3)
1 Periodic series of visits
given by artist Gustav cut short? (9, two words) 2 One nil again it’s tight,
conveying character of Napoli? (12) 3 Teachers adopting rule to
punish (6) 4 Heading off from dull
Scottish match that’s slow (4) 5 With end of race emerging
instructs rowers perhaps to be fastening (10, two words) 6 Scottish court’s to stay
and be in session around Sabbath (4) 7 A once vast landmass,
supposedly crowded area by river (7) 8 What you might get up
with largely in the morning? (5) 9 French suddenly to get
better after a lecturer inspires one stumped (12, two words) 12 Duck to protect beanpole
(10) 15 Serb perhaps turns to
embrace close Christian community (9) 19 I start to climb in lopped
fruit trees (7) 21 Show succeeded being
very secure again (6) 23 Gin blended with case of
exquisite spirit (5) 25 Restrict essential
ingredient of fasting diet (4) 27 Atlantic cod once found
round bottom of ocean (4)
All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In each thick-line “block”, the target number in the top left-hand corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block, using the operation indicated by the symbol.
Dean Mayer
1 Showing some front — or
rear? (6) 5 In street, I mean to wait it
out (3,5) 9 Ariel became such a
bohemian (4,6) 10 Lawyer of singular kind (4)
11 Laugh with companion
and still drink (6) 13 One not dreaming of only
the past (2,6) 14 A very well rigged sail in
current novel (8,6) 16 A novelist can or might
give alternative to “chatty” (14) 18 Bugs Bunny’s first
performance — more weird talking (8) 20 Budget speech abandoned
by leader (6) 21 Character witness (4) 22 Out. I’m not so thrilled
about that (10) 24 Unforgettable time in
base (8) 25 Puts down in the correct
order (6)
The first correct solution opened after next Saturday wins an original edition of League of the Lexicon, the bestselling quiz game about words and language, created by Joshua Blackburn, author of The Language- Lover’s Lexipedia. Three runners-up win the Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus. Post solutions to: The Sunday Times Crossword 5226, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex , CO2 8GZ, or email: puzzle.entries@sunday- times.co.uk. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so that the number in each circle is equal to the sum of the four surrounding spaces, and each colour total is correct.
Divide the grid into square or rectangular blocks, each containing one digit only. Every block must contain the number of cells indicated by the digit inside it.
From these letters, make words of four or more letters, always including the central letter. Answers must be in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives and superlatives. How you rate 15 words, average; 20, good; 30, very good; 41, excellent.
2 Nurse pulled up
underwear in time (7) 3 Overlooking the cause of
this? (9) 4 Go on, settle up (3) 5 Glib talk about twin cross
breed of dog (8,7) 6 Kid angry at sailor? You
can bet on it (11) 7 Author at home having
caught disease on farm (5) 8 Pound end of blade into
solid weapon (7) 12 Stir in? (5,6) 15 Do one-eighty here and
there in boat race (5-4) 16 Stuff about Ulster by posh
nutcase (7) 17 A rocky gap, one near
peak (7) 19 Dance as a couple in
Strictly (5) 23 Monkey, a little
chimpanzee (3)
N
S
N
S
Clarkson W
to drum up tech bro cash for a prog rock revival
Mark Valentine Salarium Solace
During his last campaign in Germany, Centurion Ulpius lost more than one-third of his original 80 legionaries. The remaining number of
David Howell
W E
W E
Creativity in chess is difficult to define. We all want it, yet it often feels elusive.
Most of the time we simply go through the motions, playing on autopilot while trying not to blunder.
rough
Creativity comes when the mind is sharp, energetic and free from distraction or thoughts of results. In that state, the best ideas have a habit of finding you.
Nowadays I play less than before, but I still try to read about chess or solve puzzles every day.
After a month-long break from playing, my first games came during an online blitz session. It was perhaps no coincidence that I felt fresh and creative.
White: Alinar Babashev Black: David Howell Blitz game, Taketaketake.com 2026 Bird’s Opening
1 f4 d5 2 g3 h5 3 Bg2 h4 4 g4? Panic from my lower-rated opponent. It was better to ignore the kingside tension. 4…Bxg4 5 Nf3? In practical terms, White’s position is not terrible after 5 c4 e6 6 h3 Bh5 7 cxd5 exd5 8 Qb3. White’s position resembles a famous variation from the Grob Opening, which starts with 1 g4. 5...h3 6 Bf1 Bxf3 7 exf3 e6 8 Nc3 Qh4+ 9 Ke2 Nc6 10 d3 Nd4+ 11 Ke3
Send your solution (first move only), to Sunday Times Spot the Move 1542, The Sunday Times, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ, or email to puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The first correct answer drawn after next Saturday wins a £20 Waterstones voucher. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
SUDOKU WARM-UP
SUDOKU 1701
KILLER SUDOKU
men was prime. On their return to Rome, the Legate ordered his Prefect to share out the leftover salt stock to Ulpius’s remaining men, as a reward for their bravery.
The Prefect must ensure each man receives an identical amount. Using his scales he could accurately halve any quantity of salt. He
Black is clearly winning. On a different day I might have been more cynical here and kept it simple with 11…Bc5. Instead, enjoying the position, I stopped to look a bit deeper. 11…Qxf4+! The most satisfying queen sacrifice I can remember playing. The move reminded me of some puzzles I had recently seen, and I could not resist the temptation. 12 Kxf4 White can decline the offer, but the position is hopeless after 12 Kf2 Qh4+. 12...Nf5! The real star move. A mating net is perfectly woven around the white king, despite Black having just one developed piece. 13 Kg4 There is no escape. I had managed to calculate 13 Nxd5 Rh4+ 14 Kg5 (14 Ke5 Bd6 mate) 14…Be7+ 15 Nxe7 f6+ 16 Kg6 Ngxe7 mate, and that was enough to convince me. 13...Rh4+ 14 Kg5 Be7 mate. Spot the Move 1542: Black to Play.
So-Carlsen, Chess.com 2017. How can Black win in picturesque fashion?
CODEWORD
KENKEN
TETONOR
4 x 28 6 x 14 15 + 15 5 x 18
e all have hobbies. Some of us fish, some play with toy trains and others wear aprons and do freemasonry. Me? I listen to prog rock. I like it. I like it so much that last weekend I drove all the way to the Albert Hall in London to listen to the BBC Proms orchestra perform a selection of prog classics.
Or were they? I met like-minded friends before kick-off and there was some debate about the upcoming setlist. Nights in White Satin? We weren’t sure that counted as prog. In the same way we were absolutely certain that I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) definitely did. Pretentious title, meaningless lyrics, complicated, and so long that there was a very real risk that some people in the audience would die before it was over.
Length is a critical component in this genre. Three minutes is what you need for a pop song, but progressive rock demands something that goes on till November. And it must have towering keyboard solos that last for a weekend. The whole first side of ELP’s Works album is one track. Supper’s Ready by Genesis goes on for 23 minutes. And I love that. Which is why I went all the way to London.
It was a fantastic gig. It opened with Fanfare for the Common Man, gave us side one of Tubular Bells and even featured Crime of the Century by Supertramp, which in my mind is public school rock, rather than prog. But we’ll let that one go. In much the same way that the whole world decided, in the late Seventies, to let prog rock go. It was too difficult. You had to be an accomplished musician to play it, and something of a scholar to write it. Just listen to the time signature on Solsbury Hill to see what I mean. 4/4 disco was easier; anyone could do it. And so was punk. That was
divided the initial amount into two equal piles repeatedly until the number of piles exceeded the number of men. The men then received a pile each. The remaining piles were again each halved and distributed in the same way until only one pile remained. The Prefect returned home with
I was rather proud of my efforts at making four spades on today’s deal.
Both vulnerable, Dealer East
♠ A 7 2 ♥ 7 ♦ 10 9 6 5 ♣ A 10 9 6 3
The bidding was:
West
North
East
South
Pass
1NT
Pass
2 ♥
Dble
2 ♠
Pass
4 ♠
All Pass
West led his singleton heart, covered by the nine, ten and king. I couldn’t afford to lose the lead to East at this stage so I played a spade to dummy’s king and another spade to East’s queen. East played the queen of hearts which I won with the ace while West discarded. Now a club. West went in with the ace, for which I was very grateful, cashed the ace of spades and played another club. I won with dummy’s king, played a diamond to my ace, cashed the queen of clubs pitching a heart and ruffed a heart in the dummy. Now the last trump squeezed East in the red suits. Phew!
In the other room my team- mates tried as hard as they could to let declarer make his contract too. After a similar sequence (actually here East did not double two hearts) South was again in four
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE JUMBO CROSSWORD 536 Across: 1 Banksy, 4 Go out with a bang, 12 Radio, 13 Theorem, 14 Limpopo, 15 A needle pulling thread, 17 Ambience, 19 Farewell Tour, 22 Oiler, 23 Roubles, 24 Olympic, 26 Dover Beach, 27 Dissenters, 30 Old chap, 32 Allegro, 33 Whirr, 34 Sienna Miller, 36 DeLorean, 38 Not the Nine O’Clock News, 42 Preteen, 43 Obverse, 44 Étude, 45 Most Holy Father, 46 US Open Down: 1 Barbara Woodhouse, 2 Nudge, 3 Swordbearer, 5 Obelus, 6 Unreliable, 7 Wyman, 8 Till the cows come home, 9 Admiralty, 10 Avocado, 11 Grok, 13 The Scarlet Pimpernel, 16 Bruce Springsteen, 18 Beloved, 20 Eastings, 21 Pub crawl, 25 Premise, 28 New York Jets, 29 Blue Velvet, 31 Hen’s teeth, 35 Exocets, 37 Scarfe, 39 In-off, 40 Equip, 41 Spam
MEPHISTO 3438 Across: 1 Shutter, 6 Weigh, 10 Manor-house, 12 Alastrim, 13 Seneca, 14 Ainu, 15 Hecat, 16 Neutral, 18 Schnorr, 22 Ascends, 23 Scrawny, 25 Olios, 27 Aret, 28 Noctua, 30 Tantrist, 31 Bienséance, 32 Ether, 33 Garotte Down: 1 Smash, 2 Unanchor, 3 Tope, 4 Tractor, 5 Roamers, 6 Wushu, 7 Estate, 8 Go in and out, 9 Hamulus, 11 Leechcraft, 17 Renitent, 18 Sosatie, 19 Ranting, 20 Scooter, 21 Mattie, 24 Wirer, 26 Saree, 29 Ciao
CROSSWORD 5225 Across: 1 Jewellery, 6 Maize, 9 Limit, 10 Empirical, 11 Yellowhammers, 14 Epsilon, 16 Stepson, 17 Nairobi, 19 Upstage, 21 Suspender belt, 24 Tea garden, 26 Lathi, 27 Great, 28 Spectacle Down: 1 Jelly beans, 2 Wimples, 3 Lotto, 4 Elephantine, 5 Yap, 6 Murderess, 7 Incises, 8 Eels, 12 Misguidance, 13 Intertwine, 15 Look smart, 18 Instate, 20 Aseptic, 22 Relit, 23 Stag, 25 Dos
SPOT THE MOVE 1541 1 Qd7+! wins: 1…Rxd7 2 Rb8 mate
TEASER 3330 2163 feet
TODAY’S SOLUTIONS
SAKURO CELL BLOCKS
Sally Brock
♠ K J 10 9 3 ♥ 9 3 2 ♦ J 7 2 ♣ K 5
♠ Q 6 ♥ Q J 10 8 6 ♦ Q 8 3 ♣ J 7 2
♠ 8 5 4 ♥ A K 5 4 ♦ A K 4 ♣ Q 8 4
CONCISE CROSSWORD 2000 Across: 1 Taradiddle, 6 Whey, 7 Puppeteers, 9 Demon, 11 Raced, 13 Enigmatic, 14 Obfuscate, 16 Spoor, 17 Owe to, 19 Threadbare, 20 Errs, 21 Over-the-top Down: 1 Typo, 2 Aspect, 3 Intercessor, 4 De-escalate, 5 ETs, 6 Widgeons, 8 Unimportant, 10 Main course, 12 Develops, 15 Fumble, 18 Weep, 19 Too
so easy that when I had a go, as a lead singer in the short-lived band, Bacon Sandwich, not a single person in the audience noticed that I’d sung the lyrics to one song while the band played something else. Even I didn’t notice until they finished before I did.
Disco and punk were cheaper too. In 1977, Emerson, Lake & Palmer toured America with a 70-piece orchestra. That was so expensive that halfway through the tour the orchestra was sent home, and they carried on as a trio. Today they wouldn’t even be able to do that.
Very often now there are no bands at all in the UK top 40. It’s full of solo artists or kids who’ve made some noises on a computer in their bedroom. This is because it’s cheaper to tour when there’s just you, and also you don’t have to spend all day wiping the sick off your guitarist or paying for the damage caused when your drummer put some
this pile, one in 16,384 of the original stock. How many of Ulpius’s men returned to Rome?
Send your solution to: The Sunday Times Teaser 3331, PO Box 29, Colchester, Essex CO2 8GZ or email puzzle.entries@sunday-times.co.uk. The first two correct solutions opened after next Saturday each win a £20 Waterstones voucher. Open to 18+ UK & ROI residents only.
spades, and again West led the seven of hearts. Declarer won and played a spade to dummy’s jack. East ducked this smoothly! (Admittedly it was towards the end of a long event which we were not going to win.) Declarer crossed to a diamond to play another spade, but West did not expect his partner to have ducked, so went in with the ace of spades. He now switched to a low club. Declarer played low and when East played the jack he could win the queen but had no real chance, eventually losing a trick in each suit to go one down.
Last week’s problem
♠ 5 2 ♥ A Q J 8 5 ♦ Q J 7 4 ♣ 6 2
♠ A Q 10 6 4 ♥ 10 7 4 ♦ 10 ♣ Q J 8 3
♠ J 3 ♥ 9 6 3 2 ♦ K 8 6 3 2 ♣ 9 5
♠ K 9 8 7 ♥ K ♦ A 9 5 ♣ A K 10 7 4
West
North
East
South
1 ♣
1 ♠
2 ♥
Pass
3NT
All Pass
West leads the six of spades to the two, jack and … Plan the play.
You should duck. If East continues spades you still have a stopper. Win the lead when you can, cash the king of hearts and play ace and a low diamond. On the lie you must make at least five hearts, two diamonds and two clubs. If West has the guarded diamond king you are always down.
POLYGON
airy, arty, aryl, awry, girly, glairy, glary, glyph, grapy, gray, gyral, hairy, harpy, hiya, hwyl, lairy, laity, paltry, paly, parity, party, pithy, pity, play, playwright, pray, righty, riyal, tray, triglyph, twirly, typal, warty, wary, whity, wily, wiry, withy, wrathy, yawl, yawp
Amsterdam 21C sh Athens 30 s Auckland 10 sh Bangkok 31 f Barcelona 31 f Beijing 35 th Belgrade 37 sh Berlin 27 sh Bogota 17 sh Boston 22 s Brussels 22 sh Budapest 35 sh Buenos Aires 19 f Cairo 37 s Calgary 27 s Cape Town 20 s Caracas 24 th Casablanca 29 s Chicago 36 th Dubai 37 s Dublin 20 f Geneva 27 sh Gibraltar 39 s Guatemala 25 th Helsinki 19 sh Hong Kong 27 th Istanbul 28 sh Jersey 20 sh Johannesburg 19 s La Paz 15 sh Lagos 26 r Lima 23 f Lisbon 30 s
Key c=cloud, dr=drizzle, ds=dust storm, f=fair, fg=fog, g=gales, h=hail, m=mist, r=rain, sh=showers, sl=sleet, sn=snow, s=sun, th=thunder, w=windy
28 35
¬ Mainly dry with plenty of sunshine and a chance of the odd shower across Spain, Portugal and the Balearics ¬ A largely dry day with sunny spells and isolated thunderstorms in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Malta ¬ Dry and hot with lengthy spells of sunshine across Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia and the Balkans
slight
Sun rises Sun sets/ lights on Lights off Moon rises Moon sets
Aberdeen
04:55
21:34
04:57
20:45
01:00(Mon)
Belfast
05:24
21:35
05:26
20:32
02:20(Mon)
Birmingham 05:18
21:09
05:20
19:56
02:22(Mon)
Bristol
05:25
21:07
05:27
19:51
02:33(Mon)
Cardiff
05:28
21:10
05:29
19:54
02:35(Mon)
Cork
05:47
21:33
05:48
20:19
02:54(Mon)
Dublin
05:32
21:31
05:33
20:22
02:33(Mon)
Glasgow
05:11
21:35
05:13
20:38
02:00(Mon)
London
05:15
20:58
05:17
19:41
02:22(Mon)
Manchester 05:15
21:15
05:17
20:06
02:15(Mon)
Newcastle 05:05
21:20
05:07
20:18
01:58(Mon)
Norwich
05:05
20:57
05:06
19:44
02:08(Mon)
Plymouth
05:36
21:09
05:37
19:49
02:47(Mon)
dynamite in the hotel’s lavatories. And all of this brings me on to Mozart. It’s inconceivable to think that a modern- day version of this genius isn’t out there somewhere. Today we have engineers and artists and business people who are a match for their swashbuckling bewigged forebears. But there’s no equivalent today of Mozart, or Beethoven or Bach.
Naturally, the internet says there is and pointed me in the direction of a young Icelandic girl called Anna Thorvaldsdottir who’s written a classical piece called Aeriality. Apparently, it’s about the sense of absolute freedom you’d get from being able to fly, tinged with a slight unease. Pomp and Circumstance it is not. To me it sounded like a persistent wasp had clattered into some wind chimes while a man scraped at his enormous upended drum with a timpani mallet, and someone who can’t play the piano played the piano.
I like complicated. I can handle any of Yes’s forays into madness but this was just bonkers; tree-hugging nonsense. I suspect most modern classical music is the same. If you read up on it, they talk about how the composer is “exploring post-minimalist soundscapes”. It’s Liberal Democratish twaddle and none of the people who write it will be remembered a hundred years from now, in the way Beethoven, Bach and Mozart are. And as Peter Hammill from Van der Graaf Generator will be. His set at the Proms was magnificent.
Rick Wakeman of Yes at the keyboards. Three-minute songs were not part of their repertoire
So how do we get the musical superstars back? How do we once again inject our lives with sounds created by people with a gift? Well I’m afraid that the problem is money. Mozart was commissioned to write his stuff. Rich people would pay him to compose a concerto or an opera and then he would earn more cash from ticket sales when it was played. And that’s what we need
London 24C f Los Angeles 35 f Madrid 30 s Mexico City 24 sh Miami 34 th Moscow 21 sh Nairobi 22 f New Delhi 38 th New Orleans 37 th New York 30 s Oslo 19 f Panama 30 th Paris 23 sh Prague 29 f Rio de Janeiro 23 s Rome 32 th San Francisco 18 f Santiago 18 f Seoul 33 th Seychelles 26 th Singapore 28 th Stockholm 22 f Sydney 18 f Tel Aviv 29 f Tenerife 23 f Tokyo 33 th Toronto 27 th Trinidad 33 f Tunis 47 f Venice 26 sh Vienna 33 sh Warsaw 30 f Washington DC 31 f
¬ Bright periods and scattered showers across France, Germany, Denmark and the Low Countries ¬ Sunny spells and a few showers in the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia ¬ A day of bright intervals and outbreaks of rain and showers across Norway, Sweden and Finland
bands, 5,000 lasers and solos that last two days
now: benefactors who will pay a band to write another Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Or another Selling England.
George Harrison did this very thing when he gave Monty Python the money they needed to make Life of Brian. None of the usual companies would touch it. It was too risky. But he came along and as a result of his largesse the world now has something to treasure.
So come on, Musk and Gates and Jeff. The next Mozart is out there. So’s the next Keith Emerson. But to create what they could create and then perform it needs the sort of cash only you have. And unless you cough up, we’ll be stuck with Taylor Swift and Adele. They’re very talented pop singers, of course, but mostly they are cheap. On the road, one woman with a microphone is profitable. A six-piece band with a full range of keyboards, five thousand lasers and a drum kit the size of Harrogate isn’t.
And we can’t let governments near the funding because they will always insist the lyrics are about social mobility in the community. Whereas what we need is: “Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are, shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are, lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far, lost in losing circumstances, that’s just where you are.” Utterly magnificent, towering gibberish.
moderate
moderate
UK and Ireland forecast A fairly unsettled day with patchy cloud and spells of rain and showers, heaviest and most widespread in northern and western areas throughout the day. Rain will be persistent across western Scotland and Ireland through the morning, before turning patchy and moving eastwards into the afternoon. Light to moderate west to northwesterly winds, fresh along western-facing coasts REGIONAL FORECASTS London, SE England Bright spells and a few showers. Light to moderate west to northwesterly winds. Max 26C. Dry and clear. Min 12C Midlands, E England A day of bright periods and showers. Light to moderate west to northwesterly winds. Max 24C. Dry with clear spells. Min 12C Channel Is, SW and Cent S England, S Wales Patchy cloud and scattered showers. Light to fresh west to northwesterly winds. Max 23C. Clear periods and dry. Min 11C N Wales, NW England, Isle of Man Cloudy with outbreaks of rain. Light to fresh west to northwesterly winds. Max 21C. One or two showers. Min 11C Cent N and NE England Thick cloud and persistent light rain. Light to moderate west to northwesterly winds. Max 20C. Light showers. Min 10C Scotland Patchy light rain and drizzle. Light to moderate west to northwesterly winds. Max 19C. Cloudy with rain. Min 8C N Ireland, Republic of Ireland Patchy cloud and spells of rain. Light to fresh west to northwesterly winds. Max 20C. Patchy rain and cloud. Min 10C
Monday Dry and hot in the south, cloudy with rain in the north. Max 29C
Tuesday Patchy cloud and showers for most, dry in southern England. Max 33C
Wednesday Rain in the north and west, dry and hot in the south. Max 34C
m’
Maidenhead & Bray 1st XI host Boyne Hill 1st XI on a parched field by the Thames in Berkshire. Eight areas of south, central and east England are now close
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Arsenal eye Vinícius amid Real contract stand-off
Arsenal are exploring the possibility of a deal for the Real Madrid winger Vinícius Jr, who has entered the final year of his contract.
Real have been willing to increase Vinícius’s salary after tax from £12.8 million to about £17.1 million, but the club and player are not close to agreeing a new deal.
The Spanish club also want to sign the RB Leipzig left winger Yan Dio- mande, who plays in the same posi- tion as Vinícius, and have had a £84.5 million offer for him rejected.
The interest in the Ivory Coast player could mean they would be open to allowing Vinícius to leave.
Real have been unwilling to meet Vinícius’s demand for a substantial signing bonus, which would bring his overall earnings to a similar level to those of Kylian Mbappé.
The league champions would have to make him their top earner by some distance. Bukayo Saka, who is the highest-paid Arsenal player, earns about £300,000 a week, which is about £15.6 million before tax.
and was runner-up in the Ballon d’Or two years ago. Arsenal have been exploring their options since missing out on Morgan Rogers, who joined Chelsea for £117 million.
Arsenal have yet to contact Real. Last year they had talks about signing the winger Rodrygo, Vinícius’s club and international team-mate, but it ended without a deal.
Vinícius scored 22 goals and claimed 14 assists across all competi- tions last season and he scored four goals in five matches at the World Cup.
transfer next summer. They have also tried to sign Diomande, who is also wanted by Paris Saint-Germain, but are not willing to pay more than £85 million for him. Both Diomande and Vinícius are represented by the same agency.
Arsenal are expected to step up interest in Bruno Guimarães this week having indicated they would be will- ing to offer £70 million for the Brazil midfielder. Guimarães is due to return to training with Newcastle United on Friday.
for Hundred decline by 18 per cent
Simon Wilde
Attendances for the Hundred are down almost 20 per cent after the first six men’s matches despite good weather and the teams having new owners, fresh branding and better players.
The opening men’s fixtures at the Oval, Utilita Bowl, Lord’s, Edgbaston, Headingley and Cardiff drew a total crowd of 89,413 compared to 109,519 for the first games at the same venues in 2025, a decline of 18.4 per cent. Each venue, bar Cardiff, has experienced a drop in attendance from the corresponding curtain- raiser. Yesterday’s game between SunRisers Leeds and Southern Brave at Headingley — which featured Harry Brook, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid and Jamie Smith — drew a gate of 11,628 compared to 12,575 for the first match there last year. Attendances for the women’s matches which precede the men’s at the same grounds were also down in five of the six games.
The process by which tickets are sold has changed since the franchises were sold in an auction that raised £520 million, valued the eight teams at £975 million and increased wages, attracting more high-profile overseas players. The responsibility has shifted from the ECB, which previously owned the tournament,
• David Walsh on Pocagar as he gets ready to ride into history p2-3
tears after bronze as he reveals toll of feud p4-5
Norris on F1 pole p16
future is out of his hands. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, that’s for other people to speculate about,” Howe said. “He’s captain and been an unbelievable player, through the whole time we have worked together. I speak on behalf of everyone at the club, we absolutely love him and would love him to stay. He’s due back on the 31st [of July].”
Christos Tzolis, the Greek winger who joined Arsenal from Club Bruges for £34 million last week, played in a friendly 3-0 win against MK Dons yes- terday. Reiss Nelson, Ethan Nwaneri and Ceadach O’Neill, 18, scored.
T
athlete – and team-mate
DAVID WALSH
Chief Sports Writer Alpe d’Huez
hey began in Barcelona more than three weeks ago. Raced through the Pyrenees, the Massif Cen- tral, the Vosges until they reached their final battle- ground, the Alps. It was excessively hot for two weeks, tough and unre- lenting all through but most of all, it has been enthralling. What a champion Tadej Pogacar is. He may be the most complete athlete in the world right now and yet on the final mountain stage, this champion with a love for crossing the line first reminded us there are things more important than winning.
The penultimate stage was an epic they pull from the drawer marked hors categorie (beyond categorisa- tion); the Croix de Fer, the Col du Télé- graphe, the Galibier, the Col de Sar- enne and then, like a last turning of the screw, the final four kilometres of Alpe d’Huez. So many climbing metres, it was made for Pogacar, espe- cially as he has reached this point in the Tour less fatigued than ever before.
And yet this was the day he chose to become a team rider, to put himself at the service of a team-mate, the 22-year-old from Mexico, Isaac del Toro. He started the day in third place, wearing the White Jersey of best young rider. Pogacar believed his job was to help his team keep Del Toro’s jersey and place on the podium. It was, of course, a stage he could easily have won and, as fans, we wanted him to go for it on the Col de Sarenne, like he had on Alpe d’Huez the previous day, but instead he stayed with Del Toro, chaperoning him all the way to
Leader
+2 min
Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike win team time trial in the opening stage
+4 min
+6 min
+8 min
+10 min
Elevation (m)
2,500
the finish. They finished fourth and fifth, 1min 5sec behind stage winner Richard Carapaz who also won the mountains jersey. Carapaz rode mag- nificently in the Alps; winning two of the three Alpine stages and finishing third in the other. Yet this latest tri- umph was tinged with fortune, good for him, bad for the Visma-Lease a Bike rider Sepp Kuss.
Having got themselves into a strong breakaway and then benefited from the selflessness of team-mates, Kuss, Carapaz and the Australian Jai Hind- ley had a good lead as they tackled their third hors categorie climb, the Col de Sarenne. The day before Kuss and Carapaz wasted a chance for one of them to win by not sharing the pacemaking.
From that, they learnt little. Cara- paz attacked, the other two countered until the violent changes in tempo caused Hindley to drop behind. Kuss knew he couldn’t beat Carapaz in a sprint, so he continually tried to break clear.
Clearly flagging, the tiredness affected only Carapaz’s legs. His heart kept him going. But still Kuss had a 25-second lead as he descended from the Sarenne before facing the last four kilometres of Alpe d’Huez.
Fearing Carapaz was getting closer, though he actually wasn’t, Kuss pushed it harder than he should and came off his bike coming out of a tunnel. Somehow he got going again and still had an eight or ten-second lead. Soon after that minor spill, there was a more seri- ous fall. Riding too fast into a right- hand bend in the road, Kuss lost control of his bike, hit a 3ft wall, fell awkwardly but not heavily and was saved by high netting from falling into a deep ravine. Two metres fur- ther on, there was no netting.
“I was in too much of a hurry,” Kuss said with characteristic under- statement afterwards.
Though he is a grand tour winner,
Tadej Pogacar Jonas Vingegaard Remco Evenepoel Florian Lipowitz Paul Seixas Juan Ayuso Tom Pidcock
Pogacar wins Stage 3 at end of final climb
Stage 20 result
Le Bourg-d’Oisans to Alpe d’Huez, 170.9km 1 R Carapaz (Ecu; EF Education-EasyPost) 4hr 59min 39sec; 2 R Evenepoel (Bel; Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) at 26sec; 3 S Kuss (US; Visma-Lease a Bike) at 31sec; 4 T Pogacar (Slvn; UAE Emirates-XRG) at 1min 5sec; 5 I del Toro (Mex; UAE Emirates-XRG) same time; 6 L Martinez (Fr; Bahrain Victorious) at 1min 7sec; 7 J Hindley (Aus; Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) at 2min 15sec; 8 M Skjelmose (Den; Lidl-Trek) at 2min 55sec; 9 J Ayuso (Sp; Lidl-Trek); 10 P Seixas (Fr; Decathlon CMA CGM) both same time. Overall standings: 1 Pogacar 72hr 53min 44sec; 2 Evenepoel 6min 26sec; 3 Del Toro 9min 42sec; 4 Seixas 11min 56sec; 5 Martinez 13min 2sec; 6 Skjelmose 14min 59sec; 7 Ayuso 17min 48sec; 8 Carapaz 20min 00sec; 9 T Pidcock (GB; Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling) 29min 28sec; 10 J Jegat (Fr; TotalEnergies) 33min 21sec.
ON TV TODAY Final stage, to Champs-Élysées Today. TV: TNT Sports
Peloton finishes 13 mins behind breakaway with Torstein Traeen taking yellow jersey on Stage 4
the American has long been one of the stars of the équipier class. At the top of the Sarenne, he had Carapaz where he wanted him but the descent still had to be negotiated. He escaped unhurt from what could have been a serious accident and this too was a reminder of things more important than winning. With Pogacar taking care of Del Toro, Remco Evenepoel surged away near the end and over- took Kuss for second place. That seemed an unnecessary cruelty.
One hundred metres from the fin- ish line at Alpe d’Huez, Del Toro turned to the boss and thanked him. Pogacar patted him on the head, then whispered: “Don’t stop pedalling, it goes a little uphill here, we still have to get to the finish.” Coming to the line, each put an arm around the other’s shoulder and right at the line they put their hands to their temples, index fingers stretched upwards.
Pogacar was asked about that. “You don’t know what this means? You don’t know?”
“I don’t,” said the journalist who’d asked the question. “Ha,
toro [Spanish word for bull], I
thought it was pretty obvi-
ous. Isaac del Toro, the bull. Now guys, we have a train to catch. See you tomorrow,” and as he walked from the interview room he was chanting: “Toro, Toro, Toro.”
Earlier I had put it to him that this was the moment he told us of things more important than Pogacar win- ning his 26th stage of the Tour de France. “I always appreciate the work
of team-mates. I praise their work,
how much they put on the line. The last three weeks they had to work their asses off every day. Today when Juan [Ayuso, Lidl-Trek] was in the front, I was a bit afraid that we could lose the [White] Jersey and podium with Isaac, so I committed for Isaac.”
Like an exemplary team rider, Pogacar went to the front of the gen- eral classification group 60 kilome-
Pogacar wins Stage 6 by 2min 38sec from Vingegaard in a Pyrenean stage including the Tourmalet
tres from the finish and rode at a pace that kept things together without stressing his team-mate. At times Del Toro seemed in trouble but then Poga- car would decelerate ever so slightly and then all was good with his mate.
“What I realised by the end was how important team-mates are. I say massive respect to each one of them. This work is hard and I know how much they spent on this goal. The cycling world doesn’t realise how important the team is, how hard it is for the team running for the Yellow Jersey. Today, I realised they are bet- ter than most of the champions. They give everything for the team and I can- not explain how grateful I am.”
Pogacar didn’t need to tell us. He had shown us. But this is who he is, where he came from. For 2½ weeks
Pogacar wins Stage 10 by half a minute from Evenepoel in the Massif Central
Mirko and Marjeta, his parents, drove their camper van around France, parked it up and watched him go by. Marjeta said her favourite moment was seeing him help Del Toro to win in Barcelona. She and Mirka weren’t around for the Alps. Instead they turned the camper eastwards on Thursday and headed for their Slove- nian village. Pogacar’s grandmother was celebrating her 80th birthday and they wanted to be present for that.
There was one other reminder of things more important than crossing the line first. Paul Seixas, the 19-year- old French star, will finish his first Tour in fourth place. At the start of the penultimate stage, he stood just 24 seconds away from a place on the podium, and then five kilometres from the summit of the Sarenne, he
Pidcock joins breakaway and makes up more than seven minutes on Stage 13, the longest of the Tour
DUE TO FRENCH FIRES
Today’s final stage of the Tour de France will start and finish on the Champs-Élysées after organisers shortened the route due to the demands on emergency services tackling the wildfires in France’s southwest. The stage will be 89km rather than 133km long, starting from central Paris instead of Thoiry. Organiser ASO said the security forces for the final stage had been redeployed “in order to reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected” by the fires.
Vingegaard crashes out with fractured collarbone on first Alpine stage (15). Pogacar and Evenepoel finish on same time
Pogacar wins Stage 14 on day of four categorised climbs in the Vosges mountains
got his team-mates Nicolas Prod- homme and Matthew Riccitello to get to the front and push it.
They did but, alas for the young Decathlon team leader, the increase in speed hurt him more than Del Toro and he would eventually lose 1min 50sec to the Mexican. But he had tried to find a weakness in his rival and if, in the short term, he paid a small price for that, there will be future gains. He has been outstanding in this Tour and, one day, he will become a French win- ner of the Tour de France.
Leader
Tom Pidcock is another who can be satisfied with his Tour. He rode well and whenever he struggled, he fought. Never gave up. Ninth overall is a good effort. “I can be very happy with a top ten,” he said. “I would have signed for that before coming into this
STEPHANIE LECOCQ/REUTERS
From left: Andrew, Peter (dad) and Matt Boyle, who are from Leeds
Lipowitz crashes out with broken collarbone on time trial (16), with Evenepoel beating Pogacar by 28sec
ON THE BRINK OF HISTORY
Barring accidents, Pogacar will register a record-equalling fifth Tour de France title today:
Jacques Anquetil (Fr) 5 Bernard Hinault (Fr) 5 Miguel Induráin (Sp) 5 Eddy Merckx (Bel) 5 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) 4 Chris Froome (GB) 4 Louison Bobet (Fr) 3 Greg LeMond (US) 3 Philippe Thys (Bel) 3
race, knowing the disruption I had in the lead-up. Of course I’m ambitious and I’m already thinking about what I can improve for next year to get even closer to these guys. But for now, I can be very happy.”
He wasn’t the only happy man from Leeds on the Alpe. At the Blueberry cafe, I bumped into Matt Boyle from Leeds. He was wearing a polka dot cycling top, handed out free by the Tour sponsor E.Leclerc. We talked about his experience of being at the top of the mountain when Pogacar delivered that captivating perform- ance on the 19th stage to Alpe d’Huez.
Matt had come with his wife Jo, their two boys Albie and Henry, his brother Andrew and their dad, Peter. “To get our Airbnb house here, we had to take it for the week so we had plenty of time to prepare for the two stages to the Alpe. I rode my bike and did some running, Jo took the boys mountain biking. Bless her, they’ve had a great time.”
They watched Pogacar’s virtuoso ride from the balcony of the Hotel Cas- tillan, more than a kilometre from the finish. “We could see Pogacar catch- ing Carapaz. Amazing. I absolutely love Pogacar. The boys [Albie and Henry] thought the atmosphere was incredible.” Last week, Matt rode up Alpe d’Huez with his 75-year-old dad.
“Dad had to slow down a bit so I could stay with him,” Matt said.
Peter says that’s not quite true. “The key is to take it steady. It sounds silly to say it was easy but I wasn’t shattered at the top. Near the end you feel a bit silly but had there been another two kilo- metres, I could have carried on.” York- shire men are indeed different. Like his son, Peter is a Pogacar devotee. “He’s just supreme. The person and the cyclist. Respect to the man.”
Speaking of Pogacar, the word from his team is that he’s very eager to win on the Champs-Élysées today as he seals a record-equalling fifth title.
Pogacar triumphs on Alpe d’Huez (19)
The highest elevation on the 2026 route was the summit of the Col du Galibier during Stage 20 yesterday (2,642m) Elevation (m)
+2 min
+4 min
+6 min
+8 min
+10 min
2,500
MARK PALMER
R
eaching the final of his first event on debut at a major championships represents a real feather in Sean McCann’s white and blue Scotland swimming cap.
By the end of the morning session at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre attended by his par- ents Kate and Gerry and sister Amelie, a packed crowd had been left in no doubt as to what McCann was all about as the Loughborough Univer- sity student claimed an unlikely spot in the final of the 400m freestyle.
McCann finished a distant eighth in that race — fully 12 seconds behind the winner, 2023 world champion Sam Short of Australia, but the important stuff had already gone down much earlier in the day.
McCann judged his heat — the third heat of four — with real maturity, grad- ually moving through the field from seventh to sixth to fourth at the half- way point. He held that place for the remaining four lengths, with the Northern Irishman Daniel Wiffen sandwiched between the Australian pair of Benjamin Goedemans and Eli- jah Winnington.
McCann’s time of 3min 52.65sec would have been enough to break the world record 50 years ago, but now there was absolutely no certainty it would suffice to see him make the top eight. After a short but anxious wait, it was confirmed that McCann had squeezed into the final berth, edging out his fellow Scot Luke Hornsey, who went 1.07sec slower in the final heat.
A LIFE IN SPORT JOANNA ROWSELL
The double Olympic gold medallist and quintuple world champion cyclist on the Spice Girls and sticky bedsheets
McCann’s parents Kate and Gerry cheer Sean on to a spot in the final
This will have been a joyous moment for McCann’s parents, Kate and Gerry, and his twin sister Amelie, all of whom were sitting at one end of the pool in the Scott stand named in honour of Duncan Scott, Scotland’s most decorated Olympian, who won a fantastic 200m individual medley gold here on Friday night. Most of all, however, it was a moment for McCann himself. Proof that he is more than capable of standing on his own two feet, even if he appears to do his best work while horizontal.
Kate and Gerry were always ada- mant that they would do everything in their power to give the twins as nor- mal a life as possible after their older daughter, Madeleine, went missing in
to treasure
expectations with appearance in 400m freestyle final
2007 on a family holiday to the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal. Now, there is absolutely nothing “normal” about a long-distance training regime that requires athletes to swim up to 100km a week. The fruits of that often early-morning endeavour will be on display later in this meet when McCann goes in the 800m and 1500m events.
McCann cut a confident, relaxed if softly spoken figure when he passed through the mixed zone interview
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Summer 2003. British Cycling came to our school to do tests. It clashed with double maths so I gave it a go. I owned no Lycra, I didn’t realise the bikes had no brakes and I fell over
when I tried to clip my feet into
the pedals. But for some reason
they saw raw talent.
MY BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT
Summer 2005. I won the UK
Junior Girls Pursuit in
Newport at my first
area shortly after his race.
“I’m buzzing,” McCann said, just in case we hadn’t guessed from a smile as wide as the nearby Clyde. “It [quali- fying for the final] wasn’t really an expectation coming in especially with how strong the field was but I’m delighted to see I made it.
“I wouldn’t say I felt the pressure but I was certainly nervous with so many people watching and I wanted to do well not only for myself but Team Scotland as well. I was definitely
my school in 2003 and, 20 years on, he still works for British Cycling. He was somebody I always could trust to be honest — but not stern — with me.
MY CHILDHOOD HEROES The Spice Girls: each one was unapologetically themself. As a 13-year-old, I thought there was a little bit of me in all of them.
CYCLING NEVER GOT ANY BETTER THAN… Summer 2012. Training in Mallorca before the London Olympics. The weather was brilliant, I was incredibly strong, incredibly fit and
nervous but I’m glad I produced a decent swim.
“It [the crowd] was amazing, I could hear them the whole way through the race. They spurred me on to really give it my all down that last 100m.”
McCann grew up in England but qualifies to represent Scotland through Gerry, who was born and raised in Glasgow. He and Kate met in Scotland’s biggest city, in the early 1990s when they were both working
in fantastic form. It felt like everything was coming together.
MY FAVOURITE VELODROME The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow. I promise I’m not saying this because of the Commonwealth Games. It has tight bankings, long straights and it’s relatively elongated, which totally suited me.
MY LEAST FAVOURITE VELODROME Vélodrome National de Saint- Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris. It’s nowhere near Paris, actually. There’s nothing there. When I competed, I was in the first trimester of pregnancy and I was incredibly sick.
as junior doctors in the now closed Western Infirmary.
Up in the Scott stand, Kate wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Yes Sir, I can boogie”, in tribute to the 1977 hit by Baccara which has become an anthem for supporters of the Scotland football team. The Tollcross crowd required little prompting to get behind their man and the other Scottish swimmers — Megan Barnes, Katie Shanahan, Holly McGill, Evan Jones, Dean Fern, Anna Morgan, Angharad Evans, Horn-
I can’t even think about it without feeling nauseous.
TOUGHEST OPPONENTS Australia. They didn’t get on the Olympic podium but they were constantly pushing us.
I LEARNT THE MOST FROM Katie Archibald taught me to live my life for myself rather than for other people, and that if you’re not enjoying it any more, you’re not doing it for yourself.
sey, and the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team — also in action on Satur- day morning.
He has two years of a chemical engi- neering degree left to complete, and if he has his way, the summer of 2028 will be a particularly memorable time. July of that year brings the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
“I think the Olympics is always that step even further so to be able to rep- resent Scotland here is a good step- ping stone,” he said. “Hopefully a cou-
training the Madison, Katie Curtis hit me off my bike. As I slid across the bottom of the track to where all the big names of the GB cycling team were, I realised there was nothing I could do and I narrowly avoided taking out the British cycling elite. There were a few grumpy people afterwards, but I had splinters and burns which oozed at night and stuck to my bedsheets.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE The London Underground. I have a nerdy obsession with transport history and I go on tours of out-of-service Tube stations, which are still used for filming or training.
JANE BARLOW/PA WIRE
WATCH TODAY
SWIMMING Duncan Scott — Team GB’s most decorated Olympic swimmer — won gold in the men’s 200m individual medley on Friday. The Scot is back today, competing in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay final at about 9pm.
NETBALL A tasty double header begins this morning. England — who finished fourth at Birmingham in 2022 — take on Australia in pool A from 11am, and in pool B Scotland play Wales. The top two sides from each pool (of six) will advance to the semi-finals.
The athletics begins tomorrow and the cycling begins on Thursday.
ple of years of work will put my name in the mix.
“From a young age I really enjoyed competing. That makes all the hard hours in training worth it, coming out here in front of a crowd like this and swimming as well as I can really.”
McCann was himself part of the Tollcross throng when the Common- wealth Games last came to Glasgow back in 2014. He has come a long way in every sense since then, making a name for himself first and foremost.
I KNEW THE GAME WAS UP WHEN… I stopped getting nervous for races.
MY ONE REGRET That I didn’t enjoy it more. Every time I went to Australia, I complained. Why complain? Why not relish every bit of it? Could I not have wandered around Melbourne a few times?
ADVICE FOR A YOUNG SPORTSPERSON Learn from losing. Enjoy the process because you’ll spend far more time training than competing.
is forced to settle for bronze
Craig Lord Glasgow
Adam Ramsay-Peaty came full circle by showing up to his blocks in lane four for the final of the 100m breaststroke in the same Tollcross International pool in which he claimed the first of his 32 triumphs for Britain and England almost 12 years ago — but this was not the performance we’ve come to expect from the greatest breaststroke swimmer in history.
The world record holder’s hopes of regaining his title were shattered as he trailed in almost half a second behind winner Sam Williamson of Australia, with Filip Nowacki taking silver, the first medal of any colour for Jersey in 36 years. It was far from the kind of return the three-time Olympic champion expected, having eased through his heats on Friday as he looked to make up for his shock fourth place finish four years ago.
Cheered on by his wife Holly Ramsay, daughter of the chef Gordon, in the stands at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre, Ramsay-Peaty was in third place at the halfway stage and could not make up the deficit, his time of 59.65 seconds well behind Williamson’s 59.17.
Where the Ramsay-Peaty of old would have had the rest chasing him from the start to gold, he was hardly ahead at any point in the race. His swim resembled that of a swimmer who was racing during a heavy training phase: low in the water, Ramsay-Peaty’s stroke simply did not flow as we’ve known it to.
Ramsay-Peaty strolled out to his blocks, doing all the right things, pool coat snug for warmth, cap and goggles in place, his stance every inch the standout champion ready for the fight for England — but he hesitated when it came to climbing on to the blocks, and from the gun going off nothing about his race quite resembled the explosive, flowing, powerhouse Peaty we came to know during a bull run of victories that lasted from 2014 to Tokyo 2021.
Ramsay-Peaty is taking part in his fourth Commonwealth Games having clinched his first medals as a 19-year- old in Glasgow in 2014.
Since then he has become a fixture of the gossip columns after marrying Ramsay in December last year, and experiencing a rift with the majority of his family. Ramsay-Peaty’s win in the 100m in 2014 began two years of almost total dominance in the event.
That streak came to an end in dramatic fashion in Birmingham four years ago when he finished off the podium. Peaty endured a difficult 2023 when he took time away from the sport to address mental health concerns.
He returned in 2024 with silver and bronze medals at the Paris Olympics and the World Championships in Doha respectively. Ramsay-Peaty had cruised through his semi-final in 59.19secs, ahead of
Ramsay-Peaty had to settle for bronze with wife Holly, inset, looking on
He strolled out, his stance every inch the standout champion ready for the fight . . .
Williamson and Jersey’s rising star Nowacki, the current world junior
champion. The 31-year-old will
get another chance
to win a fifth
career Commonwealth
Games gold medal when
he embarks on the heats of the 50m breaststroke event today.
The race was a breakthrough for Nowacki, who is an ambassador for Ramsay- Peaty’s APRace project. The pre-race “call room” is where he usually watches the man who is the greatest sprint breaststroke swimmer in history. Nowacki, a better swimmer over 200m, says: “I’m a quiet guy in the call room. I like to keep to myself and really zone in on my race plan. He’s very similar. This is my first Commonwealth Games for Jersey so it means the world to me.
“It’s very important to get that first exposure and I’m glad I got mine in very early. This is my first senior long course meet, internationally, so I’m just really pleased to be here and giving it my best.
“It’s every swimmer’s dream to get their hand on the wall first at major events. I don’t go back to Jersey often because I train at Millfield. I go back at half term but we trained together when I was younger and it’s very special to be on the team together.”
says: “I’ve studied maths, economics and physics and I’m just hoping for the best. My mocks weren’t too great so fingers crossed. I want to go to Loughborough.”
That’s where Peaty was built into an Olympic great. Nowacki keeps his goals close saying only: “Every swimmer will say the Olympics is their goal. The Olympics is mine as well.”
England’s William Ellard and Georgia Sheffield both set new Games records as they won the respective men’s and women’s S14 200m freestyle finals. Sheffield pipped her team-mate Poppy Maskill, who took silver. England’s Ollie Morgan won a silver medal in the men’s 50m backstroke final, finishing behind South Africa’s Pieter Coetze. England’s mixed 4x100m freestyle relay squad took silver behind Australia, with Wales in third.
STAR TO PULL OUT
The Commonwealth Games have been robbed of another big-name star after the Scottish athlete Eilish McColgan withdrew from the defence of her 10,000m title because of injury.
McColgan, 35, has not recovered from a stress fracture in a foot, meaning she will not compete in front of a home crowd at Scotstoun Stadium tomorrow.
McColgan said: “Sadly, I won’t be competing at Glasgow 2026. After almost ten weeks out following the London Marathon with my toe injury, it probably won’t come as a huge surprise. The good news is I’m back running.
PIC CREDIT
N
TOM ALLNUTT
ot everyone agrees that there used to be a gentle- men’s agreement but if there was, nobody denies it’s gone. Those who insist it existed say there was always a clear but unspoken rule that the biggest English foot- ball clubs never poached each other’s best academy talents. No longer. “The gloves are off,” one expe- rienced recruitment executive says. “It’s become a war.”
The young talent business is boom- ing in the Premier League as promis- ing but inexperienced youngsters are being sold for figures that would have once been attached only to seasoned professionals. Already this sum- mer, eight players aged 21 or younger have been trans- ferred in the Pre- mier League for almost £150 million combined, with those eight players boasting a total of just ten top-flight starts among them.
Clubs are cashing in but the top tal- ents are the ones calling the shots. In the Wild West of Premier League youth recruitment, the most wanted now go where they want, with rival- ries crossed and old enemies forgot- ten. Manchester United are about to sign two 16-year-old midfielders — Karim Cassim and David Eze — from Manchester City, as well as the 16-year-old winger Isaac Konde from Liverpool. City have an agreement to sign the 16-year-old midfielder Mishel Nduka from Arsenal, who are losing Kyran Thompson, also 16, to Newcas- tle United.
Many of these types of deals are set- tled by a tribunal — the process for deciding a fee when clubs cannot agree on development compensation for an out-of-contract player under the age of 24. But the figures handed down by tribunals are hardly putting off clubs poaching from rivals. In Feb- ruary, a tribunal ruled that Liverpool had to pay an initial £2.8 million for Rio Ngumoha, the sensational 17-year- old winger who turned down a con- tract at Chelsea to join them two years ago, and that amount could reach almost £9 million if certain clauses are activated. But Ngumoha played 29 times for Liverpool last season and impressed Thomas Tuchel after com- ing on for England last month against New Zealand. £9 million? If sold now, Ngumoha could be worth at least five times that.
Ngumoha’s contentious move to Liverpool sent shockwaves through the English youth system, with the recruitment executive insisting that deal was “the starting gun” for the academy wars that followed.
“It changed everything,” he says. “Clubs think, ‘OK, you took our best under-16 [player], we’ll take your best under-14,’ and on and on it goes. It used to be everyone flirted with these players at rival clubs but didn’t do anything. The reality now is nobody cares.”
recruitment, eight very raw talents have been transferred for nearly £150m in top flight this summer. What has changed? Academy
are more valuable since post-Brexit rules mean clubs can no longer sign players from outside the UK until they are 18, and even then those foreign players must obtain work permits by demonstrating a high level of pedi- gree and experience. The Premier League’s financial rules sharpen focus on academy players too, with fees generated from selling those players allowed to be banked as “pure profit”, given the cost of acquiring them is
considered to be zero. Squad limita- tions, meanwhile, dictate that eight out of 25 places in Premier League squads are reserved for homegrown players, which means playing for an FA-affiliated club for three or more years before turning 21.
As those changes made youngsters more precious, academies have been producing talent to be sold as much as selected. It’s a lucrative business. Those eight players aged 21 or younger already sold this summer — all highly rated — are: Luka Vuskovic (19, Tottenham Hotspur to Brighton & Hove Albion for £46 million, pos- sibly rising to £50 million), Tyrique George (20, Chel- sea to Everton for £24 mil- lion), Will Lankshear (21, Tottenham to Middles- brough for £20 mil- lion), Eliezer May-
enda (21, Sunderland to Rennes for £19 million), Jeremy Monga (17, Leices- ter City to Manchester City for £10 mil-
lion, possibly rising to £12 million),
Alfie Devine (21, Tottenham to
Preston North End for £6 mil-
lion), Reigan Heskey (18, City to Cologne for £8 million) and Tynan Thompson (18, Tottenham to Manchester United for £8 mil- lion).
Tottenham’s renewed open-
ness to offloading young-
sters has been driven by a
desire to improve their
selling strategy. Their
new director of foot-
ball operations, Rafi
Moersen, previously
at City, is overseeing
an approach com-
mon among bigger
clubs, where youngsters are sold to generate funds but with protections, in case they explode in the future. Included in the deals for both
Vuskovic and Lankshear were
20 per cent sell-on clauses for Spurs, as well as the right to match any future bids.
With competition fierce, the incentives and salaries offered to the best youngsters are skyrock- eting. “The positive side is there is a real hunger for youth now,” an experienced academy director of
an established Premier League club says. “The negative is the restrictions create a very unrealistic situation domestically whereby clubs are throwing an absurd amount of money at young and unproven talent. It feels like a race to the bottom.”
Clubs are also pushing further down the age groups to find gaps in the market. Last week Chelsea agreed a deal to sign the 15-year-old American winger Benji Flowers, according to The Athletic, while Mich- ael Carrick included the 15-year-old forward JJ Gabriel in his United pre- season squad for a trip to Norway. One academy director recalls being asked for a fixture with his club’s “elite under-6s” — which he
Kids yet to play for first team are on 20 grand a week. It’s a disgrace
The amount Liverpool may end up paying Chelsea for Ngumoha through a tribunal looks like a bargain
had to explain didn’t exist — while another interrupts when asked about the search for players aged 16 and up. “Nine,” he says. “More like nine and up now.”
The packages on offer would make many wince. Highly rated teenagers with few, if any, senior appearances can command weekly wages of between £10,000 and 40,000 a week, not to mention tuition at nearby pri- vate schools, in line with what the Pre- mier League allows as “compensatory education and support”. Those sala-
ries can make financial sense for
clubs if they find the superstar who pays for the rest, but within the game there is concern about offering so much so soon.
The Peterborough United chair- man, Darragh MacAnthony, told talk- SPORT last week that he thinks there should be a cap on how much players younger than 20 can earn and that trusts should be put in place, which players can access only when they’re older. “We’ve had young players [on loan] from Man City, from all the top clubs — they come in, they’re on 25, 30 grand a week,” he said. “Money is damaging a large percentage of the youth section of our game. That is
something I’m a big proponent about
changing. No 18, 19-year-old who
hasn’t played yet for the first team
should be earning 10, 15, 20 grand
a week. Absolute disgrace.”
The irony is that for many of these players, pathways and opportunities are more persuasive, with clubs scrambling to show their top prospects that they will get early chances in the first team. Last year the 19-year-old defender Ayden Heaven swapped Arsenal, where he had zero Premier League appearances, for Manchester United, where he was given 18 in the league last season. Vus- kovic was unsettled by Tottenham’s moves for Jan Paul van Hecke and
Marcos Senesi this summer, while
Everton signed
George, 20, from Chelsea in
a deal worth up
to £24 million
BIG FEES, FEW GAMES
Players aged 21 and under sold by Premier League clubs for more than £5m having made fewer than ten starts
Luka Vuskovic Tottenham to Brighton 0 £46m
Tyrique George Chelsea to Everton 2 £24m
Will Lankshear Tottenham to Middlesbrough
0 £20m
Eliezer Mayenda Sunderland to Rennes 8 £19m
Jeremy Monga Leicester to Man City 0 £10m
Tynan Thompson Tottenham to Man Utd
0 £8m
Reigan Heskey Man City to Cologne 0 £8m
Alfie Devine Tottenham to Preston PP 0 £6m
sion too, driven by assurances about playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Tactical promotions — when play- ers are given appearances to boost their CV and inflate their price — are a well-known ploy but early opportuni- ties can help clubs keep players, as well as sell them. Leicester held on to the hugely talented Monga for as long as they could, after handing him his debut aged 15 in April 2025, a month before he signed a scholarship con- tract. Monga stayed for another year, even in the Championship, and after his scholarship turned into a profes- sional contract when he turned 17 on July 10, City had to pay Leicester £10 million rising to £12.5 million, instead of what would have been a fraction of that if the deal had been settled in a tribunal.
Whether most of these players are ready for senior opportunities is a matter of debate, with some in devel- opment circles subscribing to the view that football is getting younger all the time, with players readier ear- lier now than ever before. Youngsters have advantages that were not availa- ble before — mental coaches, private coaches, private schooling, nutrition- ists — while also enjoying a softer tran- sition to the first team. Gone are the days of kids waiting for their chance while scrubbing the boots of the older pros. “All the development they are now having at a very young age is pay- ing off,” Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, said last year. “Players at 15, 16 years old look ready to play in men’s football and that’s very strange.”
But not everyone agrees. Exceptional talents like Arsenal’s Max Dowman, Ngumoha at Liver- pool and Monga at City may be on timelines of their own but the traditional view still holds that teenagers need to be carefully moulded before being tossed into the cauldron of the Premier League. And as clubs tussle over the top talents, concerns linger about the effect of hefty salaries and the unsettling nature of regular moves. “Continuity is good for development,” the acad- emy director of the established Pre- mier League club says. “And I don’t see the argument that says the more money you throw at a young person, the better they perform. It’s dog eat dog now, but we should be wary of the direction of travel.”
PL starts Transfer fee
The weekly salary a highly rated teenager with little first team experience can earn
Leicester academy graduate Monga, 17, has moved to City
was all part of noble tradition
never-say-die spirit deserves credit, says Latin American football expert
Andreas Campomar
That Argentina has an uneasy relationship with its regional neighbours is well enough known among Latin Americans. That the country went into the World Cup final as the underdog and had the rest of the world cheer against it suggests a much greater image problem. Spain, on the other hand, remains loved: a pretty passing game, albeit one that can at times weary the viewer, seems to reinforce the idea of football as it should be, rather than as it is.
The amount of opprobrium Argentina has attracted seems to be disproportionate to what its team gave this tournament. Much of the criticism may have been self- inflicted, especially after the football ended, but the country has also been a victim of circumstance. The perception that Fifa was favouring the defending world champions through biased refereeing by its very nature became collusive. Of course the game’s self-regulatory and self- aggrandising body wanted Lionel Messi in the final. So, too, did Argentina. But then all countries will take any luck they get.
After its team’s opening match against Argentina, the Algerian Football Federation lodged an official complaint citing leniency towards Messi where a red card for a clumsy challenge might have better served. Egypt, however, were more vociferous. After Argentina snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, Hossam Hassan, the manager, posed
the rhetorical question: “Why isn’t
there any fairness in sport?”
Powerless to change what he saw
as being fated, the only act was
one of self-denial: not to watch
the rest of the tournament. This language of conspiracy was
straight out of the Latin
American footballing lexicon.
Most countries in the region
had been using it for decades.
At the 2014 World Cup, the sanctions imposed on Luis
Suárez for biting the Italy
defender Giorgio Chiellini had diplomatic repercussions.
Uruguayans believed that at
best it was an Anglo-Italian
conspiracy and at worst Fifa
did not want them to win the tournament. Pepe Mujica, the Uruguayan president, called the ban “fascist” and labelled Fifa “a bunch of old sons of bitches”. But what was striking was the ferocity with which the English press went after Uruguay’s talisman. It resembled high-handedness, especially where Latin Americans were concerned.
Twelve years on, little seemed to have changed. English commentators, who had to reserve their ire for Thomas Tuchel after England’s semi-final defeat, were now handed the opportunity to go after the Argentinians: when Enzo
Messi shows the uglier side of his game in Argentina’s defeat of Algeria
Fernández’s wholly unnecessary challenge on Pau Cubarsí earned him a second yellow card; and, in chaotic post-match scenes, when the Argentina midfielder Leandro Paredes took the fight, quite literally, to the jubilant Spaniards.
And yet we had seen this behaviour from Argentina’s fellow rioplatenses (“people of the River Plate region”): Uruguay’s Agustín Canobbio pushing the Moroccan referee and trying to start a fight on the touchlines. Former England players lined up to administer the chastisement: Joe Hart thought the behaviour “disgusting”, while Gary Neville called Paredes “a disgrace”.
To get there, Messi did what Maradona had done 36 years before and dragged a mediocre Argentina to a World Cup final. Having won from 2-0 down against Egypt he helped his side to pull off two further miraculous escapes, against a ten- man Switzerland and an ascendent yet exhausted England.
Through sheer aguante — a rioplatense term that comprises endurance, confrontation, loyalty, toughness — Messi willed his team to being able to fight for consecutive trophies. Perhaps because of the post-match fracas, the analysis of the match has been imbued with a partiality it does not deserve. This was not the 6–1 baile (“dance”) that Spain gave Argentina in 2018, with an injured Messi watching from the sidelines. Nor was it the turgid affair that many have criticised.
Their stubbornness in final should not be underestimated when Argentina’s very soul was at stake
It was, despite Spain’s overwhelming possession, a closely fought affair. The stark contrast in footballing styles from two cultures with long footballing histories made for more complex viewing. And the stubbornness with which Argentina defended should not be underestimated. The sending-off of Fernández only added to the jeopardy of a final at which everything for Argentina was at stake: its very soul.
Despite the defeat, there was a reason why the Argentine press was for the most part laudatory. Argentina had done all they could. Though there were a few detractors. Ronen Suarc, an Argentine journalist, understood the problem: “Don’t get me wrong, there is a campaign against us, but we must also acknowledge that we’re arrogant, that we’re condescending, and that we think more highly of ourselves than others do.”
But for all the universal disapproval, there was also a perverse nobility at play in Argentina’s never-say-die attitude. Moreover, the defeat revealed something far more interesting: just how Argentine its lonely captain had become. Early in his career Messi’s Argentinidad (“Argentine-ness”) had been called into question: that he was a pecho frío (“cold-chested”), a term for those unwilling to sweat blood for their country.
The image of Messi, legs outstretched, sitting on the pitch, reflected in many ways his country’s geographical and cultural isolation. The philosopher Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz once described an Argentinian as “el hombre que está solo, y espera” (“the man who is alone, and who waits”). Messi’s Argentinidad had come full circle. And like another Argentine symbol, Maradona, Messi had won a World Cup and then let one slip through his hands by a single goal.
H
Spanish wave to win Chelsea title
ow are you coping with the big transition from the World Cup to domes- tic football? This is a twi- light zone of club tours to far-away cities, painting the players and manag- ers as soccer missionar- ies, and frenetic transfer activity with more gaz- umping than the Mayfair property market.
And we are heading into the unknown in so far as nine clubs have new or nearly new head coaches. It is enough to make you pine for Argen- tina v Cape Verde, which ended up being far more thrilling than anyone expected in the World Cup round of 32. Actually, among the overpriced tickets and political interference, many of the games this summer were absorbing and the minnows punched above their weight, which meant the tournament’s expansion was not as debilitating as first feared.
ent shape altogether. It is very Span- ish, which makes sense given Spain have been crowned champions of the world, so they must know what they are doing.
Overwhelmingly, of course, we need a new narrative. The bridesmaid tag that attached itself to Mikel Arteta is no longer relevant. He did it. It was not exactly compelling but after being runners-up for three years in a row, Arsenal’s manager masterminded a first Premier League title for his club for 22 years.
It was largely driven by set-piece prowess, and this may be diluted if referees crack down on jostling at cor- ners, so something more free-flowing could emerge. Will a period of Arsenal domination ensue? Had the club swaggered and snared Morgan Rog- ers, then we might have thought it plausible, but the requisite squad bol- stering is not complete after Chelsea nipped in to nab the England midfielder instead for a no-quibble £117 million.
least because they have abandoned their illogical policy of signing very young players without on-pitch men- tors. Rogers is an ancient 23 and the defender Maxence Lacroix, who is on the cusp of signing from Crystal Pal- ace, is a mind-blowing 26. It indicates the owners are listening to Xabi Alonso — who is the manager, not the head coach — more than they have lis- tened to previous incumbents. With- out European football to worry about and a classy manager at the helm, the club could well thrive.
Liverpool also turned to a Basque, in the form of Andoni Iraola, after sacking Arne Slot. The former Bournemouth head coach looks slightly dazzled by the attention his appointment has garnered and that suddenly his every word is analysed, but he is saying all the right things, emphasising the importance of the collective, that he is not as important as the players, that the fans will see an attacking, hard-working side. Bourne- mouth were 19th in the table nine games into his tenure on the south coast, so maybe what he needs most is time to instil his pressing methodol- ogy.
seamlessness and, sure enough, Rose is a coach who likes his teams to bring high energy.
Rose’s opening game is against Manchester City where, although the departure of Pep Guardiola was long anticipated, it will still feel strange to see Enzo Maresca in charge. The former Chelsea head coach would no doubt have been chuffed to witness Rodri win the Golden Ball at the World Cup, but the Spain midfielder misses the start of the campaign with a back injury that may require surgery.
Another Italian, Roberto De Zerbi, is not starting from scratch but his project at Tottenham Hotspur is cer- tainly in its infancy. The club were perilously close to being relegated last season and have responded by going on a spending spree, bringing in San- dro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes, Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi — all of them sensible deals, if mostly expensive. If the club flirt with the drop for a third season on the trot, who on earth would the fans blame?
No manager has surprised us more than Oliver Glasner, who was left frus- trated by the hierarchy at Crystal Pal- ace and announced his departure early, leaving us to assume he would tuck his trousers into his socks and go in search of a club certain not to undermine him but rather value his
“
manager and no European football, Chelsea could well thrive
contribution. Then he turned up at Nottingham Forest, where the owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked three managers last season before adding another one this summer. If Glasner has not won silverware by September, expect him to be at risk.
Glasner’s successor in south east London is Pierre Sage, who once played for the majestically named Oyonnax Plastics Vallée and is among the cohort of coaches who had no pro- fessional playing career but rose to prominence through natural manage- rial flair. He has landed a plum job, given Palace will be competing in the Europa League, but also quite the jug- gling act.
Fulham seemed to work hard at avoiding European qualification and have, as the replacement for their beloved head coach Marco Silva, appointed Álvaro Arbeloa, who has six months of managing Real Madrid behind him, which equates to five years in a normal job. He adds yet more Spanish nous to the Premier League.
So thank goodness for Frank Lam- pard and Gary O’Neil, two English managers back in the Premier League with promoted Coventry City and Ips- wich Town respectively. Lampard has to be an England manager in waiting. That his club are habitually referred to as “Frank Lampard’s Coventry” is indicative of the respect in which he is held. And he is English. Just saying.
As is Michael Carrick, not a new face but one heading into his first campaign as the permanent head coach of Manchester United after ever so gently saving the club from the severe stubbornness of Ruben Amorim. So far, all the new managers seem extremely sensible. It can’t last. And the World Cup now seems like a long, long time ago. As does my pre- diction that Norway would win it.
And as for which team will win the Premier League, well, it’s a bit early and more transfers are imminent, but
John Westerby
Not without a scare, Anthony Joshua clinched the victory over Kristian Prenga that clears the way for his much anticipated fight with Tyson Fury later this year. Prenga, the unheralded Albanian, represented a banana skin that Joshua successfully sidestepped in the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia, but only after a dra- matic first round in which he was put on the canvas and forced into a stand- ing count.
Joshua clung on to the end of that first round and quickly took control in the next, knocking Prenga out with a right-left-right combination of punches after two minutes and 43 sec- onds of the round. After the vulnera- bility he had shown in the first, the cli- max came with a sense of relief as much as euphoria.
As it was Joshua’s first serious con- test since a chastening defeat by Dan- iel Dubois at Wembley almost two years ago, what was billed as “The Comeback” was important for him to demonstrate that, at the age of 36, the potency of his athleticism and punch- ing power remains. The knockout underlined that he had more power than Prenga could cope with, and Joshua had accomplished the task at hand.
In doing so, he has negotiated the last obstacle on the way to his fight with Fury, sure to be a hugely lucra- tive contest between the two biggest names in British heavyweight boxing of their generation. The details of the fight are yet to be finalised, but it is expected to take place in the autumn, and Joshua has expressed a strong preference for the bout to take place on British soil. It is likely to be one big last payday for both fighters, and a spectacle that British boxing fans can finally begin to anticipate.
For all of his status as a former two- time world champion, Joshua’s record in the ring had little to boast about in recent times. In the four years since the second of his two defeats by Olek- sandr Usyk he had achieved four con- secutive victories over lower-calibre opponents before being knocked out by Dubois at Wembley in September 2024. Some had questioned whether that defeat might spell the end of his career, but Joshua was determined to continue.
Yet his only fight since then had been an exhibition with Jake Paul, the YouTuber, in December last year, so he needed to demonstrate that he can remain a force in the ring, as well as at the box office. In that dramatic first round he was floored in the first 20 seconds by a vicious right uppercut
attendances 18% down
Fight between Fury and Joshua is likely to be one big last payday for both fighters
to the new owners in conjunction with the host county clubs. The ECB still provides support.
Many of the new owners are from India, where they run IPL teams, or the United States, and they may still be coming to terms with how best to market their teams. Sources privately concede that some parties may have started the process late.
from Prenga. He was sent staggering back to the ropes by another right hand and then held to a standing count. No question, Joshua was rocking.
He was betraying, perhaps, his shortage of recent activity in the ring. This was also his first fight since the fatal car crash in Nigeria, ten days after his fight with Paul, that had killed two of his closest friends, and left Joshua himself with injuries that required hospital treatment. On his lapels entering the ring, he bore both of their names, Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, and he has spoken since about the sense of duty he feels to their families, but also that training for this fight had served the purpose of occupying his mind, rather than thinking about that traumatic event on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway just seven months ago.
Prenga, for his part, was billed as a threat due to his punching potential, having achieved all 20 of his profes-
SunRisers Leeds team after Yorkshire sold their entire stake in the franchise, conceded that “we need to get the crowds in”, but said the first day at Headingley was “a good beginning”.
Before the start, SunRisers handed out orange flags to supporters, prompting Maran to add: “I see a lot of orange and that’s a great start for us. Obviously it’s a new brand for them [the fans]. We
sional victories by knockout. A former kickboxer, at 35 he is a year younger than Joshua, and at 18st 9lbs, he had weighed in ten pounds heavier than his British opponent. Joshua was eight pounds heavier than he had been for his fight against Paul, but only one pound lighter than for his defeat ny Dubois, his most recent serious chal- lenge.
The fight had been dubbed, by Prenga’s camp at least, as a clash between one fighter with nothing to lose and another with everything on the line. Certainly, although Prenga had lost only one of his previous 21 pro- fessional contests, he had never been matched with an opponent anywhere near Joshua’s pedigree. This was his chance to spring a surprise. “One punch in heavyweight boxing can change everything,” Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, had said. That statement looked in danger of haunt- ing Joshua, but he held on to make his experience count in the second round.
just grow from here.” In terms of rival attractions, the Hundred has a clear window with the football World Cup over and the Premier League not starting until August 21, five days after the Hundred finals at Lord’s on August 16.
It is understood that about 4,000 tickets were given away for the opening fixture on Tuesday at the Oval, home to MI London, which in its previous guise of Oval Invincibles
As for the proposed fight against Fury, a saga that has been running roughly as long as The Mousetrap, both fighters have safely negotiated their warm-up contests. Fury’s way of shaking off ring-rust was to fight a 46-year-old Pole in Mariusz Wach, in Thailand on Friday. Wach had lost seven of his ten previous fights. The contest was not televised, with rights granted only to the Netflix show that Fury is making, and he duly wrapped up a victory in the seventh round.
By beating Prenga, Joshua has now kept his part of the bargain and can now start looking ahead to a contest with Fury that will stretch him much more than his duel in Jed- dah last night.
Both British heavyweights may be past their best — Fury turns 38 next month, while Joshua will be 37 in October — but that will not diminish the sense of expectation among boxing fans that can now begin to build.
won the past three men’s tournaments. The official attendance was 20,540.
Standard ticket prices have risen to about £35 to £55, higher than they were in 2021, when admission fees were set to rival those for the Vitality Blast.
RICHARD PELHAM/GETTY IMAGES
where England are hoping to unearth next Moeen Ali
Thompson says hubs springing up in inner cities can take cricket back to its lost areas
SIMON WILDE
Cricket Correspondent
It prompted him to set his govern- ing body the aim of turning cricket into the most inclusive sport in the country, an important ambition given the Independent Commission for R
ichard Thompson has had a lot of things cross his desk during four years as the ECB chairman, not least during the recent turbulence surrounding the men’s national teams, but if there is one thing he would like his tenure to be remembered for it is not Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum or Bazball but a project to transform grassroots cricket, and the wider pro- file of the game, that is now gathering pace.
The plan involves the construction of all-weather cricket domes that can be used at all hours, all year round. The idea is to put them where they are needed most, which principally means taking cricket back into the inner-city areas lost to the sport for a generation.
Thompson was inspired by a visit in the first year of his chairmanship to a pilot dome situated in a disused car park near Bradford Park Avenue Cricket Club, and he immediately grasped that it provided a means of reconnecting with communities who had passion for the sport but no facilities.
Equity in Cricket concluded in 2023 that cricket was afflicted with deep- seated racism.
We are speaking at the opening of the ECB’s third dome at Willenhall, near Wolverhampton, adjacent to Sporting Khalsa Football Club — run by a Sikh charitable organisation — and in a prime location to provide opportunities to a large, diverse popu- lation in an economically underprivi- leged area. The turnout is impressive, both from community organisers as well as aspiring players across a wide range of ages, ethnicities and abilities.
“Our ambition was that, by 2028, cricket would be the most inclusive sport in the country,” Thompson says. “It was a hell of a gauntlet to lay down. I believe this will help us get there faster. Here you have a picture of mod- ern Britain, with Sikhs, Hindus, girls and boys through to people in their seventies, disability as well … You cut through every section of society.
“Our sport serves the breadth of communities and abilities in a way other sports don’t. This cannot and will not happen without the domes. I was blown away by what I saw at Brad- ford and the sheer volume of people you could get through a dome each week.
“Ironically, given how many play- ing fields in cities were lost and con- creted over, we’re now looking for concrete. If we’ve got free land, we’ll do the rest. We work with DCMS and Sport England to make sure they are built where there is a community ready to use it. Today is a good exam-
Main, the dome at Willenhall. Second right, aerial image of the all-weather centre. Right, local youngsters join Thompson at the official opening of the dome. Left, Thompson outside the third ECB dome in the country
ple: as soon as you put it up, bang, it explodes.”
The following week, the govern- ment announced it was putting in £3million to support the construction of five more domes in Birmingham, Bolton, Derby, Newcastle and Not- tingham to follow those up-and-run- ning in Bradford, Darwen and Willen- hall. Another one in Luton is due to come on stream next month. The
“The Hundred sale has definitely enabled this to happen faster,” Thompson adds. “The investment could not be on things that don’t have a discernible impact, it has to be gen- erational, has to be a legacy. If we get this right, with matched funding and sponsorship from our £45million we can triple it, and you can do an awful lot with £150million. Certainly £45million will build 40 domes rela- tively quickly.” £45m
ECB’s stated ambition is to build 40 in the next few years.
None of this would have been possi- ble, Thompson says, without money raised from the sale of the eight Hun- dred teams last year, 10 per cent of which was earmarked for the grass- roots and recreational game. This gave the ECB £45million to play with.
An important element is that a dome, though made of weather-proof materials — PVC over a steel shell in this case — and containing technical elements such as lighting and netting, can be built relatively cheaply, and at speed. A brick-built sports hall can cost £7.5million and it may take three years to secure planning permission; a dome can be constructed for £1mil- lion in 18 months. A typical sports hall costs several hundred pounds an hour to run, a dome about £11 an hour.
The domes are built by Total-play, a company run by David Bates, the former head groundsman at North- amptonshire CCC, and can vary in size — Bradford’s site consists of two domes containing five net lanes each, Luton’s will have seven lanes and Wil- lenhall has three. But the nets are
FABIO DE PAOLA FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
retractable, which means the dome can be opened for matches as well as training.
The intention is that they are used by clubs that don’t have training facili- ties and schools that don’t have play- ing fields.
“As they discover cricket at school, they are fed into a local club,” Thomp- son said. “You establish the skills and the pathway and they want to play the full game. [Charities such as] Chance to Shine, the Afro-Caribbean Engage- ment Programme [Ace] and Lord’s Taverners come in as delivery part- ners and provide the coaching and equipment.
“We’re hoping within 12 months cricket will be the No1 sport within special needs schools and these facili- ties will help make that happen.”
Other sports are also welcomed. “It’s absolutely desirable that this is used for things other than cricket,” Dan Musson, the ECB’s head of facili- ties and planning. said. “This [Willen- hall] could be open 100 hours or more a week, and it makes economic sense for it to do so.
“Netball, badminton, junior tennis, hockey practice and carpet bowls are all possible. In summer, when people are outside playing cricket, the Satur- day and Sunday slots are prime opportunities for other sports. The option to scale up [to 40 domes] has been driven by the passion of the chairman, who has backed us all the way. We are starting to engage central government and local government. It’s excited a lot of people.”
Although the big idea is that the domes assist cricket in becoming the country’s most inclusive sport at a grassroots level, a virtuous conse- quence could be that it helps more players from under-represented com- munities find their way into the pro- fessional game, and ultimately England sides.
Ace and the South Asian Cricket Academy are already doing valuable work in this regard — five SACA gradu- ates have played championship cricket this season — and over the long term the domes could accelerate this process. British South Asians tend to make up a healthy proportion of recreational cricketers but struggle to force their way into the game’s higher echelons.
Asked if the domes may contribute to the discovery of the next Moeen Ali, Thompson said: “Good question. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t. Ace has dis- covered three pros. It was never designed for that purpose — it was about participation, not the elite path- way. SACA has always had an elite ele- ment to it in a way that Ace, Chance to Shine and Lord’s Taverners have not. Those four will feed off the domes, using them to run net sessions and the like.”
Thompson is convinced now that the ECB went to market at the right time to sell the Hundred franchises, arguing: “We nailed it.”
On whether the Hundred would expand in size, he said: “I don’t think it will for a while, but 147 parties expressed interest and 40-50 entered the auction to buy eight teams. There was significant demand. There will be ambitions to [expand] but the impor- tant thing is to get the new iteration away, get the new owners to under- stand how English cricket operates, and start that journey. It’s got huge potential.”
The Hundred sale has definitely enabled this to happen faster
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window. IPL numbers [for linear TV] were down this year. The Big Bash did this [increase fixtures] and they went too much. We’ve done it with the [T20] Blast and taken it down. There’s a supply and demand issue here — and you want more demand than supply.
“What I’m actually seeing from India is a commitment to playing more bilateral cricket against Austra- lia and England — five-Test series, whereas not long ago they were three or four. Test cricket has got more pre- eminence there — as much as you want to win IPL, you want to win Tests. That still has more currency than anything.”
He is surprised at Cricket Australia allowing only phased private invest- ment into the Big Bash, out of an apparent fear of surrendering control. “Taking our [Hundred] model, they would still control the competition, just sell rights to teams. They’re worried about something they don’t need to worry about.
“If Australia don’t do this now, they won’t get the same value in three years.
“We timed our thing to perfection. We were very lucky. We’ve proved it can be done and we’re here today [opening another dome] as a consequence.”
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Test coach to inherit this mess
alluring – finding someone compatible with Brendon McCullum limits field
SIMON WILDE
here are only three weeks until the England squad gather in Leeds for the first of three Tests against Paki- stan, and as yet they are without a full-time coach or captain. About two weeks from now, the selectors will have to name that squad.
This was not how things were meant to be at the start of the summer, when all the talk was of a post-Ashes reset under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum; nor was it even the scenario after Stokes sud- denly quit as captain and player late last month.
When Stokes exited the stage, the ECB wanted a replacement in place well in advance of the Pakistan series, but that was before it was concluded that McCullum had to go as Test head coach. With Andy Flower, the first choice as McCullum’s replacement, unmoved by some lavish overtures, the board may have to announce an interim leadership group.
This is embarrassing for Richard Gould, the ECB’s chief executive, and Rob Key, the director of cricket. When Gould held a press conference at Lord’s to announce McCullum’s sack- ing — a task that should have been ful- filled by Key, whose job it is to pick captains and coaches, but whose posi- tion is now so weak he is being kept away from the microphones — he spoke about succession plans being in place for all major posts. If that is truly the case, they are hard to discern.
Key went all in on Flower, a coach with a fine record in international and franchise cricket. He was a natural tar- get but it is likely that Key never got close to winning him over. It left Key scrambling for alternatives. Some of the leading candidates are employed and it would not be easy to extricate them from their positions. All may be difficult to persuade, too, given the nature of the advertised role.
Flower’s precise reasons for turn- ing it down are unknown. But being asked to operate in tandem with McCullum, who kept the white-ball roles and whose coaching style could not be further removed from his own, was probably an unattractive option.
Dare one say it, he might also have had reservations about Key. Flower’s own director of cricket at Royal Chal- lengers Bangalore and London Spirit, Mo Bobat, is a meticulous planner and, again, far removed from Key’s freewheeling style.
money will be good, which helps, but finding a coach to dovetail with McCu- llum — a well-established presence who knows the players and com- mands an affection among the younger elements of the team who have known no one else since joining England — is a big ask.
Job-sharing is not Flower’s style and it won’t suit some other potential candidates either. Even though the work load would be onerous, Flower might actually have been more likely to say yes had he been given charge of everything — red-ball and white-ball, and given the power to make root- and-branch reforms of a system that has fallen into disrepair. Such a mis- sion might appeal to a number of ambitious coaches with vision.
As it is, McCullum will fight for what he wants for his white-ball teams. It is just England’s luck, of course, that this crisis comes when 2027 offers an Ashes series and a 50-over World Cup in short order, so demands on resour- ces will be severe.
McCullum has made it plain that he wants Harry Brook to continue as white-ball captain and this in turn has led to a push for Joe Root to return as Test skipper to spare Brook — who was Test vice-captain to Stokes in his final months in charge — having to do everything.
No England captain has led in Tests and ODIs at the same time since Ala- stair Cook in 2014, and that did not end well, with Eoin Morgan replacing Cook weeks before the 2015 World Cup.
Due to a lack of long- term planning Root, top left, could become Test captain again. The coach’s position remains unfilled after Key, above, could not persuade Flower, right, to succeed McCullum, top right
permanent Test coach should not be losing. McCullum must accept that if the Test coach wants Brook, so be it.
Finding someone compatible with McCullum limits the field. Stephen Fleming, as a former New Zealand team-mate and captain, may be one; Tom Moody, who coached McCullum in the Bangladesh Premier League, may be another.
Far better had Key and McCullum been removed directly after the Ashes tour. That would have enabled a new director of cricket and new Test and white-ball coaches to start on equal terms. The reason McCullum sur- vived, of course, probably had a lot to do with the size of his contract run- ning through to late 2027.
Key oversaw the stripping back of sup- port staff. They also had little time for preparation or planning. A lot of stuff was done on the fly. Most white-ball teams micro-manage their strategies — it is a hallmark of Flower’s recent success — but England have free- wheeled their way through tourna- ments, and it has shown.
The plan for last year’s Champions Trophy, McCullum’s first in charge of the white-ball set-up, was to go all in on pace bowling. England lost every match.
Things have been tightened up recently, but the attitude of the players may not be quickly turned around. McCullum’s personality is not going to fundamentally change. After England won the T20 series against India to go to No 1 in the world rankings, he said
the new guidelines banning alcohol would be lifted. “Anyone that wants a beer can have a beer,” he said.
Awkwardly, some backroom staff have had to be rehired after being sacked. Carl Hopkinson and Richard Dawson were removed in late 2024; Hopkinson was brought back this year after a backlash against the absence of a fielding coach in Australia, while Dawson, the head coach at Glamor- gan, is now under consideration for the Test job.
It was a serious error to appoint Andrew Flintoff as Lions coach. Not only is he not a technical coach, surely desirable in someone handling emerging players, but he does not even want to coach the full England team, hence his absence from Key’s shortlist. Coaching the Lions should be a natural path for an England coach. This further weakens Gould’s succession plan.
When England had to draft in sev- eral new caps for the Oval Test against New Zealand, the performances of players who had come through the Lions was a little underwhelming. Catches were dropped and Sonny Baker delivered the ball from a yard behind the front line. Former players expressed surprise that this flaw had not been ironed out before he joined England.
To what extent players learn with England is a moot point. There is a case for saying that Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and even Jacob Bethell have been improved more by their time at the Indian Premier League than with England’s white-ball teams. Sam Cur- ran has gained most of his captaincy experience on the franchise circuit.
What has badly hurt the Test team in the past year is the demotion of Ollie Pope. He was identified in 2022 as England’s No 3 and a future cap- tain, and he stood in several times when Stokes was missing. He only made one score of note — a big hun- dred against Sri Lanka — but won three Tests out of five. However, after struggling for form, he was arguably allowed to cling on to his place for too long, delaying Bethell’s arrival into the team but also delaying the identifi- cation of a new deputy to Stokes. Here again, England’s long-term planning has been found wanting.
We are where we are. Rarely do England Test captains start at an ideal time in their careers. They have to make the best of the situation that presents itself. Brook is the forward- looking choice and Root, never a natu- ral tactician, is not. Putting off giving the job to Brook is merely putting a succession plan on hold, and that surely does not bode well.
There are some pinch-points in the schedule (September this year and May next year) where white-ball series come up close to Tests, but in the main Brook could lead the Test and ODI sides through to the end of the World Cup, while Curran captains the T20 side. It is not an ideal solution, but it may be the best now available in a very messy situation.
SCOTT
be harsh on Kalpana’s eight defeated rivals but although she might not be quite the best of all the great horses who have won Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes since it was introduced to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951, none of them have been more beautiful.
elegant neck set, bay coat shining deep and most of all the flowing stride of a thoroughbred 300 years in the making. Five years old now, she was every inch a perfect athlete at its peak and she would need to be. For this 65th “King George” was likely to be the best race in Britain this year, and could easily be a contender for the best race run anywhere.
year’s French-trained winner of this race, Calandagan, and his stablemate, Goliath, he of the strange high stepping hind leg “stringhalt” at the walk who had triumphed here in 2024. Calandagan’s exploits, which earned him the title of “World’s Best Racehorse” last season, had ended with the narrowest of victories in the Japan Cup against their star Masquerade Ball, who was at Ascot for revenge yesterday accompanied by his compatriot Wurttemberg.
racecards
Going: good to firm-good in places Racing TV Thunderer’s tips: 2.30 Asset 3.00 Shaqra Queen 3.30 Mount King 4.00 Point Lynas (nb) 4.30 Jez Bomb 5.00 Eldeyaar 5.30 Bell Shot (nap) 2.30
MALCOLM PRESCOTT 80TH BIRTHDAY MAIDEN STAKES £5,400: 1M (3) 1 (1) 02 ALBEMAGIC 29 Steph Hollinshead 3-9-7................C Lee
2 (3) 55 FELIZ NAVIDAD 7 D O’Meara 3-9-7....................D Nolan
3 (2) 3-232 ASSET 13 Sir M Prescott 3-9-2...........................L Morris Betting: 2-5 Asset, 10-3 Albemagic, 13-2 Feliz Navidad 3.00
BYD WAKEFIELD BRITISH EBF STALLION STUDS MAIDEN STAKES £5,757: 5F (7) 1 (5) 5 BOLT OF BLUE 11 E Dunlop 9-7...................B Loughnane
2 (6) 63 ONSLAUGHT 15 R & P Fahey 9-7.....................B Garritty
3 (1) 04 SOLE RULER 35 P Midgley 9-7....................P Mulrennan
P Mulrennan
4 (7) THE MEAN FIDDLER (T) J & S Quinn 9-7................J Hart
5 (3) 4434 CALEF 15 D O’Meara 9-2....................................M Winn
6 (2) 46 NAVAL COP 16 A Balding 9-2.....................P J McDonald
7 (4) SHAQRA QUEEN K R Burke 9-2.............................C Lee Betting: 2-1 The Mean Fiddler, 5-2 Shaqra Queen, 5-1 Onslaught, 11-2 Calef, 10-1 Naval Cop, 12-1 Bolt Of Blue, 25-1 Sole Ruler 3.30
TREVOR WOODS MEMORIAL HANDICAP £4,187: 1M (7) 1 (1)126243 COOLREE 6 (P,T,D) S England 7-10-1...........P J McDonald
2 (4)066342 POLYGRAM 13 T Davidson 4-10-0.......................R Scott
3 (5)000651 MOUNT KING 9 (B,T,CD) T Easterby 6-9-11...........D Allan
4 (2)223321 STELLA LUCENTE 9 (B,D) Jack Morland 3-9-10
............................................................... C Rodriguez
5 (3)-35646 MASTER OF ENTROPY 18 J & S Quinn 3-9-7...........J Hart
6 (6)6-0044 THE NEW BAY PEARL 9 S Whitaker 4-9-1............T Eaves
7 (7) 422116 BRADBURY 12 (E,T) E Bethell 3-9-0............B Loughnane Betting: 3-1 Stella Lucente, 7-2 Mount King, 9-2 Coolree, 5-1 Polygram, 6-1 Bradbury, 15-2 Master Of Entropy, 12-1 The New Bay Pearl 4.00
WILLIAM HILL POMFRET STAKES £33,612: 1M (6) 1 (6)3-4250 CERULEAN BAY 15 (BF,D) D O’Meara 5-9-7.........D Nolan
four-strong raiding party from Aidan O’Brien. It was headed by recent Irish Derby winner Benvenuto Cellini and last year’s Oaks heroine Minnie Hauk with dual Derby winner Lambourn seemingly a pacemaker who went off at 50-1. Kalpana was the sole British runner and any doubts as to how the race might develop departed as the gates opened and Action, the other O’Brien runner, set off furiously in front with Lambourn soon beside him and Minnie Hauk a couple of lengths off them in third with Kalpana and Benvenuto Cellini keeping watch.
6 (5)3-1024 MOSTAR DREAMS 19 (D) A Keatley 5-9-2...O McSweeney Betting: 8-11 Holloway Boy, 5-2 Point Lynas, 9-2 Cerulean Bay, 25-1 Crystal Flyer, 33-1 Mostar Dreams, 50-1 Model Yuko 4.30
PONTEFRACT AND DISTRICT GOLF CLUB LTD HANDICAP £8,762: 1M 2F (5) 1 (1)140144 PERCY’S DAYDREAM 9 (D) D O’Meara 4-10-0......M Winn
2 (5)31-530 WITHOUT COMPROMISE 128 (D) A Brittain 5-9-10..........
3 (3)352-05 POMME POMME 13 (D) J Channon 4-9-9..Rose Dawes (5)
4 (2)304012 JEZ BOMB 9 (P,C,D) S England 5-9-6...................R Scott
5 (4)045310 MOONJID 27 (P,D) M Appleby 4-9-4..............S De Sousa Betting: 11-8 Jez Bomb, 7-2 Percy’s Daydream, 4-1 Moonjid, 11-2 Without Compromise, 15-2 Pomme Pomme 5.00
ROY WINSTANLEY MEMORIAL RAISING ENCEPHALITIS AWARENESS HANDICAP £3,402: 6F (11) 1 (9)043555 STARSONG 8 (P,D) M Appleby 7-9-9...............R Dawson
2 (11)504002 BULLINGTON BRY 12 (B) Jessica Macey 4-9-8 ...............
3 (1)023045 RAIN CAP 10 (V,BF,CD) J Riches 9-9-8...........S B Kirrane
4 (10)00-000 GO VICTOR 23 (D) T Culhane & S Barclay 3-9-8..............
5 (3)001330 ELDEYAAR 52 (V,BF,D) A Brittain 7-9-7..............C Hardie
C Hardie
6 (4)514605 MISS MAGIC DRAGON 19 (P,D) D Donovan 3-9-5....C Lee
7 (8)622215 BATTENBURG BELLE 22 (D) R Menzies 3-9-4.........J Hart
8 (2)-05050 SUMMER RAIN 12 (P) Craig Lidster 4-9-3.............D Allan
9 (7)045034 MY BOY JACK 19 (D) K Frost 7-9-3........Mason Paetel (5)
10(5)500-00 COILED 19 M Rimell 4-9-3............................S De Sousa
11 (6)066030 POWER OF CHORA 12 (T,V,BF) Joey Ramsden 3-9-2........
Taryn Langley (5) Betting: 3-1 Rain Cap, 9-2 Battenburg Belle, 5-1 Bullington Bry, 11-2 Starsong, 6-1 Eldeyaar, 8-1 Power Of Chora, 12-1 others 5.30
SARAH GUSTERSON MEMORIAL HANDICAP £5,234: 6F (5) 1 (5) 526131 TRILBY 47 (P,T,D) S England 6-10-0............P J McDonald
2 (3)063034 BELL SHOT 8 (V,D) M Appleby 7-9-10.....Mason Paetel (5)
3 (4)105-30 GOYARD 20 (BF,D) D O’Meara 4-9-10.................D Nolan
4 (1)220441 THE GOOD BISCUIT 11 (CD) R Carr 5-9-7...............J Hart
5 (2) 612161 IRIS DANCER 15 (B,D) T Davidson 8-8-10.............R Scott Betting: 5-2 Trilby, 11-4 The Good Biscuit, 10-3 Iris Dancer, 9-2 Goyard, 11-2 Bell Shot Uttoxeter
Going: good Sky Sports Racing Thunderer’s tips: 2.12 Salkadan 2.42 Lady Fortune 3.12 Drombeg Lad 3.42 Grand Clermont 4.12 Shallow River 4.42 At The Oche 5.12 Jafimgoso 5.42 Uhtred Ragnarson 2.12
P Hanlon (5)
Moore on Benvenuto Cellini within striking distance, Calandagan and Goliath at the back and the hard pulling Masquerade Ball locked away behind them. The whole race would take less than two and a half minutes yet the images seemed framed by the second and clear amongst them was how well Kalpana was moving under jockey Colin Keane.
spring the classic Ballydoyle trap as the field swung into the straight with three O’Brien horses in front and Moore on the fourth coming on the outside to pen her in. Keane steered through unruffled and as Action
4 R KEEP UNDER WRAPS 33 O Greenall & J Guerriero 11-0 .........
5 NICOLAI F108 (P) N Mulholland 11-0.....................C O’Farrell
6 SALKADAN F52 D Skelton 11-0.............................H Skelton
7 2 US OFFICER 7 (P) T Dascombe 11-0......................B J Powell
8 ZOOTER F31 Jack Jones 11-0..................................S Bowen
9 ADBA F91 Faye Bramley 10-7.................................H Kimber Betting: 5-2 Vietnorm, 9-2 Keep Under Wraps, 5-1 Salkadan, 6-1 Us Officer, 8-1 Zooter, 10-1 Adba, 12-1 Al Za’ama, Nicolai, 20-1 Hello Garda 2.42
ROYS ICES MARES’ HANDICAP HURDLE £3,697: 2M (12)
1 040-PP MISS OREO 26 (P) J J Hanlon (Ire) 8-12-0...........P Hanlon (5)
2 061-0P MIRACLES DO HAPPEN 37 (H,T,D) Billy Aprahamian 5-11-11...
3 0-6602 NO RISK TODAY 16 (T) F O’Brien 6-11-5...................J Hogan
4 0P-114 PRETTYLADY 30 (T,D) O Greenall & J Guerriero 4-11-3 ..........
L Edmunds
5 143-02 CULLIGRAN 25 (D) D J Jeffreys 7-11-3.....................K Woods
6 43-664 CURIOUS MRS FOX 35 D Thompson 5-10-13..J Thompson (5)
7 5P-141 LADY FORTUNE 11 (T,CD) F Brennan 6-10-13........................
8 0606-6 DOTTIES PROMISE 24 (D) S Corbett 6-10-12........N Moscrop
9 32-022 NORTHERN ROSE 7 (P,T) G Hanmer 6-10-9...........J M Davies
10 6P-4P5 JUKEBOX ANNIE 16 (T,D) Claire Hitch 7-10-6.........B Godfrey
11 3P-056 MYFAVOURITESISTER 24 (B,T) P Neville 7-10-3.....B Hughes
12 63-P50 GRANNY B 11 (H) M Mullineaux 6-10-2....................K Brogan Betting: 9-4 Lady Fortune, 6-1 Northern Rose, 7-1 Myfavouritesister, No Risk Today, Prettylady, 10-1 Culligran, 12-1 others 3.12
CL CLEANING SERVICES KEN BOULTON MEMORIAL HANDICAP HURDLE £4,594: 2M (8)
1 P-44U4 WAR CORRESPONDENT 14 (B,T,D) J J Hanlon (Ire) 7-12-0 .....
2 2-1112 ICE JET 19 (T,BF) D Skelton 4-11-9.........................H Skelton
3 3531-0 BRIGHT LEGEND 89 (T) Faye Bramley 6-11-7...Jack O’Neill (7)
4 130F-4 ROMANY BROWN 11 B Case 6-11-6......................C Gethings
5 052-10 KING SACRE 49 (D) N Hawke 6-11-4....................J M Davies
6 223-41 DROMBEG LAD 25 (D) A Hales 6-11-4.....................K Woods
7 06-513 EMERALD TIME 23 (T,D) D Elsworth & R Hatch 5-10-13 .........
8 344-F0 DIESEL LINE 21 (T,CD) C & A Pogson 8-10-3............S Bowen Betting: 2-1 Ice Jet, 11-4 Drombeg Lad, 6-1 Bright Legend, 7-1 Emerald Time, 8-1 King Sacre, 12-1 Diesel Line, 16-1 others 3.42
SHEILA AND WAYNE GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY HANDICAP CHASE £11,759: 3M (9)
STEVEN CARGILL/RACINGFOTOS.COM
with Kalpana after winning the King George at Ascot
Lambourn took over, but the six- times Irish champion jockey had plenty of horse under him and 300 yards out asked his athlete for the race of her life.
lengths clear. Benvenuto Cellini battled vainly. At this stage a year ago Calandagan had swooped through to take Kalpana but this was a better model. Calandagan clawed back some of the advantage, there was honour in his one-and-a-half-length defeat, half a length ahead of Benvenuto Cellini with of the others only Lambourn within hailing distance. But this was Kalpana’s day.
5 1P-151 BAGHEERA GINGE 27 (V) N & W Twiston-Davies 8-11-6 S Twiston-Davies
J Tudor
J Tudor
T Bellamy
6 12-305 HOLD YOUR FORT 16 (D) D Hamer 10-11-5.............T Bellamy
7 05-211 IMPERIAL ALEX 28 (P,CD) T Lacey 9-11-5............S Sheppard
8 12-350 STANS THE MAN 8 (B,T,D) Ella Pickard 9-10-13......B Godfrey
9 21-121 THE FLYING POET 24 (B,T,D) O Murphy 7-10-5........S Bowen
Betting: 3-1 Sunray Shadow, 7-2 Grand Clermont, 4-1 Bagheera Ginge, 6-1 Imperial Alex, 8-1 The Flying Poet, 10-1 Sure Touch, 12-1 others 4.12
GARY AND MAVIS BIRD FAMILY RACEDAY HANDICAP HURDLE £9,823: 2M 7F (9)
1 0F00-0 ZILLOW 28 Faye Bramley 6-12-0...........................H Cobden
2 001/63 SHALLOW RIVER 45 (P,D) O Murphy 10-11-11...........S Bowen
Isabelle Ryder (5)
3 110-60 ROGER POL 19 (P,T,CD) J Snowden 8-11-9...Isabelle Ryder (5)
4 61-131 KARNAVAL POINT 19 (B) D Pipe 6-11-4......Rian Corcoran (5)
J Bowen
5 5P14-2 PADDY DE POLE 39 (P) P Nicholls 8-11-1.................F Gingell
6 56-420 PIKE ROAD 25 (V,BF,CD) M Keighley 7-10-11.....F Keighley (5)
7 1-0122 TYSON 26 (BF) D Skelton 6-10-11..........................H Skelton
8 -36111 DIVILABOTHER 2 (C,D) T Davidson 8-11-3(7ex)..........H Reed
9 0PP-31 IDAHO FIRE 16 James Owen 5-10-8........................J J Burke Betting: 3-1 Idaho Fire, 4-1 Karnaval Point, 9-2 Divilabother, 6-1 Tyson, 8-1 Paddy De Pole, Shallow River, 12-1 Pike Road, 16-1 Zillow, Roger Pol 4.42
SUN RACING SUMMER JUMPS CHAMPIONSHIP HANDICAP CHASE £5,281: 2M 4F (10)
1 45163- PALAMON 92 (T,BF,D) D Skelton 6-12-1...................C J Todd
2 3F4-41 COUNTRY PARK 30 (P,D) J & A O’Neill 7-11-12.Jonjo O’Neill Jr
3 34-133 GATEAU DE MIEL 21 (P,T) F O’Brien 10-11-6...T Broughton (3)
4 -52013 LAKEFIELD FLYER 21 (T,BF) J J Hanlon (Ire) 8-11-4 P Hanlon (5)
5 06-165 BELLE LE GRAND 45 (T) D Skelton 7-11-3................T Durrell
6 003/04 RAS KASSAR 14 (H,T) D Pipe 7-11-2............Rian Corcoran (5)
7 25222- AT THE OCHE 125 (BF) D Skelton 5-11-2.................H Skelton
8 14P-UU BUDDAH CASTLE 8 P Neville 6-11-2......................B Hughes
9 240-U0 HUDSON 19 (P) M Bowen 5-10-13............................J Bowen
10 2P-655 A DUBLIN JOB 19 (V,D) S-J Davies 9-10-10 C Johnstone-Baker (7) Betting: 3-1 At The Oche, Country Park, 6-1 Palamon, 7-1 Lakefield Flyer, 8-1 Ras Kassar, Gateau De Miel, 10-1 Belle Le Grand, 14-1 Hudson 5.12
QUINNBET HANDICAP HURDLE £3,697: 2M 4F (10)
QUINNBET HANDICAP HURDLE £3,697: 2M 4F (9)
1 351-3F IAMYOUARE 25 (BF,D) D McCain 6-12-0..................T Gillard
2 30P-24 PURPLE OWL 25 (P,T,BF) D Pipe 6-12-0....................J Tudor
3 653-20 ROYAL ROCKET 37 E Lavelle 5-11-12.....................H Cobden
4 /0-124 JAFIMGOSO 33 (P,BF) D Skelton 7-11-10................H Skelton
5 -06536 PURE LOGIC 14 (P) J J Hanlon (Ire) 6-11-8...........P Hanlon (5)
6 2F-040 BENY NAHAR ROAD 21 (T) H Hogarth 7-11-7.........J Hamilton
7 0/000- CRAFTY GAEL 93 (P,T) O Murphy 7-11-0..................S Bowen
The Sunday Times July 26, 2026 13
straightforward filly to ride,” Keane said afterwards. “She was brilliant out of the gates. You can put her anywhere and she just relaxes. She makes my job so easy. I am in a privileged position getting the job to ride these horses (Keane was appointed Juddmonte’s No 1 rider only last summer) so you need to be delivering.”
won first time out at Wolverhampton in January 2024 in an opening season which ended with triumph here at Ascot in the Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes, a race she won again last October equipped with the sheepskin cheekpieces which have finally focused her as a winning machine. She is sired by the Lanwades Stud’s stallion Study Of Man, is home bred by Juddmonte and is the latest and greatest achievement of Andrew Balding, whose father Ian won this with Mill Reef in 1971.
Kingsclere stable to unprecedented heights, this being his 120th winner of a season which has already amassed almost £5 million in prize money only bettered by the Coolmore confederacy. He was too choked up afterwards to say much more than “she is very special”, a loss of words made up for by Kalpana’s groom Shannon James. “It’s incredible, she is some horse,” James said. “She deserves it so much. She’s an absolute saint. She is the perfect racehorse. You can do anything with her. She is as good as gold.”
1 13F-03 UHTRED RAGNARSON 27 A King 5-12-0................T Bellamy
2 2/1-23 FISKARDO 45 (T,BF) M Bowen 6-11-13..............S Fenelon (5)
3 023-1B OCTOBER HILL 45 (P,T,D) D Pipe 6-11-12....Rian Corcoran (5)
4 /4-44P TOMMY CULLEN 25 (P) M Crawley 8-11-11..............J Quinlan
5 44-004 SONYOURASTAR 24 (T,BF) O Murphy 6-11-8...........S Bowen
6 254-63 THE SECRET PEARL 37 (T) A Hales 7-11-7................K Woods
7 6006-1 ASHDOWN FOREST 2 (C) D Skelton 4-11-0(7ex).......Doubtful
8 3/6-0P PAPILLONDELUMIERE 47 (P,T) J R Barlow 8-10-2 ................
9 5-0064 MC’FLO 27 A Carson 5-10-2.................................B J Powell Betting: 5-2 Uhtred Ragnarson, 3-1 Fiskardo, 10-3 Sonyourastar, 6-1 October Hill, 8-1 The Secret Pearl, 12-1 Tommy Cullen, 33-1 others
Men SunRisers Leeds v Southern Brave Headingley (Southern Brave won toss): SunRisers Leeds 187-5 (100 balls; M R Marsh 69, D W Lawrence 51 not out; Rashid 3-21) Southern Brave 182-5 (100 balls; B S McKinney 44). SunRisers Leeds win by 5 runs.
Welsh Fire v MI London Sophia Gardens (MI London won toss): Welsh Fire 167-5 (100 balls; R Ravindra 98). MI London 152-6 (100 balls; J Vince 66; L Ferguson 4-27). Welsh Fire win by 15 runs
Welsh Fire v MI London Sophia Gardens (MI London won toss): Welsh Fire 177-4 (100 balls; S F M Devine 52, G L Wareham 43 not out, G Voll 42) MI London 117 (92 balls; Potts 3-24). Welsh Fire wIn by 60 runs.
Women SunRisers Leeds v Southern Brave Headingley (Southern Brave won toss): SunRisers Leeds 116 (100 balls; B F Smith 48; Wong 3-15) Southern Brave 117-5 (96 balls; J I Rodrigues 42no). Brave wIn by 5 wickets.
Miss E Callwood (7)
Championship crying out for promotion and relegation
W
ell, that’s that over. The first segment of the much-hyped Nations Champion- ship is done. You would have to be the most powerful (and myopic) mar- keteers in sport to deem it a runaway success and maybe next time don’t pitch the build-up phase against foot- ball’s World Cup. Henry Pollock isn’t Jude Bellingham.
Oddly, way too many teams were awful compared with their expecta- tions — Argentina, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Fiji, Japan and Wales among them. Meanwhile, South Africa cruised to victory in all their games, even though they often fielded combi- nations of their second, third and fourth teams — good news for them and their ever-mild, unbiased, two- eyed, Rassie Erasmus-worship- ping online supporters.
England, as ever, were stuck in the middle ground, where you could find some decent play, but also a lack of direction and rhythm, leading to medioc- rity. But phew! Those big
Barnes
hemisphere superpowers are leaving the rest behind
England forwards! Meaty, beaty, big and bouncy, as The Who called one of their albums.
But track back. In a season groan- ing at the seam, why the new events with same-old, same-old fixtures? International rugby and the build-up has crushed the life out of club rugby everywhere but in France. The Gal- lagher Prem in England is locked in an eternal struggle; the URC is helplessly, hopelessly scattered and poor. The Champions Cup and Challenge Cup
Ireland are not set to fade from the international rugby scene any time soon but they don’t have much hope of winning the 2027 World Cup. Their 40-21 defeat last weekend at the hands of a New Zealand team that will only improve under Dave Rennie was a reminder of how far they have to travel before they can be considered contenders.
Andy Farrell, Ireland’s head coach, criticised his team’s lack of
“accuracy” in his post-match
interview but he also
acknowledged the All Blacks’ superior movement and speed of ball. He said Ireland have “got to look at how we adapt and do things better”.
have sunk way down in public percep- tions. In America, the pro event has shrunk to six clubs. The dominance of the Test match is squeezing the life out of them all. It is tragic.
So, why? Tom Harrison, the Six Nations chief executive, was recently described as “a champion of the new tournament” (mind you, in his previ- ous post with the ECB, he was a cham- pion of the Hundred). As he told Emma Powell, The Times’ media and telecoms editor, this month: “We are going to create a billion-dollar asset out of the Nations Championship. No question about that, that’s going to happen.” He said the brand would be “exceptionally valuable in five, ten years’ time” and the first two tourna- ments are expected to generate £500 million.
Ah, round figures! You
cannot beat them. I am
not sure you can raise
them either, even when — as is sure as death and taxes — the
climax of the event
moves to the Middle
East. Harrison indi-
cates that rugby
has shifted “big
time” from self-
interest to collec-
tive responsibil- ity. Damn. After 42 years covering
the sport, I never
noticed that, and
I still haven’t. For me, it is getting profoundly more self-centred than ever.
pace and precision of their attacking game. Rennie seems set to recognise the All Blacks will not overpower the physical might of the Springboks. Instead, his team of conjurers will attempt to outwit them. Given the genius of the South Africans behind the scrum, it would be the crowning achievement of All Black history to win or draw the forthcoming “Greatest Rivalry” series, with three Tests in South Africa and one in Baltimore.
That series may come too early for the All Blacks. Theirs is a style that will take some mastering. The fly half, Ruben Love, is a relative rookie and the forwards at a formative stage. To be competitive would be an achievement, a 3-1 series loss not the end of the world. There is sufficient time between the end of the tour and the start of the
Remember when Argentina joined the three other southern hemisphere nations to form the Rugby Champion- ship — and they were sorely needed. They asked if they would be a full part- ner, sharing equally the proceeds. Not only were they denied that, but according to a senior figure party to the original offer, they were offered zero. Nothing. It was explained that they were only a guest in the tourna- ment, you see, and most probably, were lucky to be alive.
And so what of Fiji and Japan, the two teams added to the Nations Cham- pionship to give the southern hemi- sphere group six teams. I understand they also were told that they were invited guests, so were not on a fair share, but a bung. We are told that Ire- land flatly refused to travel all the way
World Cup in October next year for New Zealand to at least diminish the distance between the world’s top two sides.
It isn’t a matter of time for Ireland. It’s about personnel — or should that be lack of personnel? The arrival of Rennie has only highlighted the growing gap between the best and the rest. There is a view that Ireland’s 2026 Six Nations recovery, with four wins after being battered by France, is proof of their resilience. And maybe it is. But it doesn’t suggest they will dine at the same table when they encounter the elite in Australia next year. Ireland are superbly coached, clever and committed, but this only takes them so far. The days of beating the big two are over. Last November against South Africa in Dublin, Ireland were immense in
to Japan to play a fixture so Japan’s home game against Ireland took place in Newcastle, New South Wales.
Fiji played England at Everton’s sta- dium, which to be fair, is the second greatest football stadium in the coun- try. We have heard so many excuses, we have been told that Fiji made £1 million from being the home team, ostensibly, when they played England — and when, sadly, they were bitterly disappointing. The event will only be validated when every team plays games at home. Japan and Fiji are delightful places.
And the key to the new event, to its chances of helping rugby, rather than a narrow cabal? Two words. Promo- tion and relegation. It is vital to recall that this new tournament is organised by the old-guard unions themselves.
spirit but all their gigantic effort could do was limit the margin of defeat to 24-13 as South Africa beat up their scrum.
Ireland need a scrum to stop the best teams taking them on with front-foot ball. They need a breakdown that can generate quick ball as well as shrewdly negate opposition ball. They have the technique but not the power. And they need the capacity to strike with deadly precision and pace, à la New Zealand; alas, they lack the human firepower.
There are two Irelands. The one that won four matches against the Six Nations’ lesser powers (Scotland are bewitched by Ireland at present) and beat Australia; a team capable of good rugby but that struggle to beat the leading half-dozen teams in the world. And then there is the one
World Rugby handed over control three years ago, a process that reminded me of releasing a shiver of sharks into a family bathing pool.
But World Rugby had its reasons. It says that while there will be no promo- tion and relegation for the first two years, it will come in then. It claims to have it in writing — apparently the big teams of the Nations Championship event have agreed to visit some of the smaller nations when the British & Irish Lions are in New Zealand in 2029.
But what an opportunity after pro- motion/relegation! At last, new blood at the top! Thirty-nine years after the first World Cup, there are no more serious contenders for the title than there were then — that is a desperate, wounding commentary on rugby as a failed sport. Rugby is in danger of hav-
ing its failure to expand written on its tombstone.
Comparisons with the recent foot- ball World Cup are painful. One of the beauties of that recent tournament was the appearance of Cape Verde, Ghana, Curaçao, Jordan and New Zea- land, the so-called minnows, all lav- ishly assisted by Fifa.
World Rugby, now playing a stronger hand than in the old days, has created the secondary event, the Nations Cup, with the next 12 teams engaged. Look it up. It has been won- derful; it has given those teams regu- lar competition for the first time. The likes of the USA have won all three games, have been together for proper preparation. It really is worth a watch.
World Rugby is doing its bit, and
The All Blacks gave Ireland a reminder of how far they
close the gap
that lost 26-13 and 40-21 to the All Blacks. A similar Ireland is the one that was beaten 24-13 last November by South Africa in what was a heroic rearguard where victory was never a daydream.
The world’s traditional superpowers are ranked first and second at present, with Ireland in third place. This despite the fact France walloped Ireland by a margin of 22 points in Paris this year and by 15 points in Dublin in 2025. The further we travel towards the next World Cup, the tougher it becomes for this intelligent but seemingly overpowered team.
France are rated fourth in the world but the greatest rugby nations are about to send the international rugby world into an orbit in which the northern hemisphere sides — France apart —
rugby will never be a proper interna- tional sport until it has demolished the cemetery wall erected between a few major nations and the whole of the rest of the sport.
And what does Harrison say about promotion and relegation. He said that the arrival of promo- tion and relegation is based on “not being reckless about the conditions under which teams are going down”. Sorry Mr Harrison, that is poppycock. If you finish top of the second rank you are promoted. If you finish bottom of the top rank, you are relegated. Any other definition of pro- motion and relegation is rubbish.
“
Rugby also urgently
England don’t have the Boks’ strength or the Kiwis’ brilliance — they look unsure of their identity
GEORGE WOOD/NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP/GETTY IMAGES
Fiji played at Everton’s stadium for their home game against England, who also beat Argentina in a bad-tempered match, below. South Africa, left, cruised to victory in all of their games
sport is in danger of having its failure to expand written on its tombstone
can only dream of competing. Scotland have great days in them. Their 50-40 defeat of France in March was one such occasion but they, too, lack the power to compete with South Africa. Finn Russell and friends recently magicked some dreamy offensive rugby in Pretoria, only to be beaten 42-28.
True, the match at altitude favoured the Springboks. Scotland can tell themselves they would have been closer in Edinburgh, but this was only one third of the world champions’ best Test side. We haven’t even mentioned the absence of Sacha Feinberg- Mngomezulu, the most threatening fly half on the planet.
needs other improvements. Elements of the Argentina-England game last week recalled too readily the behav- iours of Argentina after they lost the World Cup final in football — there was pushing and shoving and punching and whingeing. There must be a word for Argentina here because the coun- try is one of the most magnificent rugby nations you could ever visit. But Tomás Albornoz is facing disciplinary action for remonstrating with the ref- eree at the end, just after Argentina’s dramatic late try had been ruled out.
But the bad-tempered game showed a path to goodness that must be trodden. Talking back to the ref- eree has gone completely wild, way out of control, and one World Rugby representative told me on Friday that they are going to “reclaim some of the creep” — in other words, emphasise again that the referee can only be con- sulted in defined areas such as the scrum and breakdown — and that it is completely out of the question that he be pursued around the field for any old grumble. The new, detached TMO plans will help. Angus Gardner, the referee last week, was superb despite the fact that he must have gone deaf by the end.
So we have a new competition. It was mistimed, it was uneven, it was unfair. It comes north in the autumn. It is way too long, with thousands of miles excess in travel. The warrior back-row forward Ben Earl came out and complained at the distances England had to travel. He suggested improvements. Good on him. “It was brutal,” he reported. “We just get told where to go and where to play.”
If that billion in proceeds is divided up by the old guard, alone, and with- out new entrants, rugby’s goodness is dead and buried, for ever. Harrison concluded recently: “The Nations
Championship is really an attempt to be global. We are
bigger than the sum of our
parts.” No you are not. In size
and enthusiasm, the world
dwarfs you.
You are ten nations, some of which are mighty, some are not. And two “invitees”. And what happens when relegation arrives
and the devil takes the
hindmost? The rank and file of rugby will be joyous. And at last, rugby will be a proper sport.
whether they can find a way to maximise their talents is also questionable. They don’t have the Springboks’ strength or the Kiwis’ brilliance. France are in a race to find a game balanced somewhere between the world’s top two but England look unsure of their identity.
Basing their game on that of Northampton Saints is the quickest way to improve the accuracy of their attacking. But that requires a speed of breakdown ball which comes with the sort of turnover risk to which England are averse. Yet real improvement for Borthwick’s team, taking them into the realms of contenders, requires risk-taking, as well as better discipline. I fear England remain an easier read for their opponents than their supporters.
L
break’ – Hamilton denied pole before penalty
MOLLY HUDSON
Formula One Correspondent Hungaroring
ewis Hamilton has admitted he is struggling to remain positive with a series of pen- alties and bad luck hamper- ing his hopes of an eighth world title.
Hamilton had a tumultu- ous day yesterday. He was just 0.012secs off of a first pole position in three years, losing out to Lando Norris, before being demoted to fifth for impeding Oscar Piastri.
That is a crucial loss, when Hamil- ton would have hoped to take advan- tage of a rare off-day for championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who had quali- fied fourth but dropped to seventh as he too received a three-place grid pen- alty for a yellow flag infringement.
Hamilton posted on Instagram: “Sometimes you just can’t catch a break. Another weekend when I’ve been feeling great throughout all the sessions, but then it just falls apart. To go from being so close to pole, to then starting P5, is extremely frustrating.
“I always do my best to keep posi- tive — sport is always about the highs and lows, but it’s also in the margins. Every point counts and you have to seize every opportunity. After three penalties in three weekends, it’s becoming difficult to hang on to that positivity. Still, I won’t let the setbacks take away from the progress we’ve been making as a team.
“With the pace we have, I’m hope- ful we can get something out of the race tomorrow. The car has been feel- ing better and better all weekend.”
Hamilton’s race engineer, Carlo Santi, had told him “Piastri pushing,” while also pointing out a yellow flag was being waved, but it was too late for the seven-times world champion to react.
“I was told literally when he [Pias- tri] was at the apex behind me, so I had no idea he was coming, I thought everyone came out behind me,” Hamilton said. “I was the first out [of the pits], so I thought everyone had finished their lap, and I think Charles
Grid for Hungarian Grand Prix
1 L Norris (GB) McLaren 1min 17.207sec
2 C Leclerc (Mnc) Ferrari 1m 17.445s
3 O Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1m 17.684s
4 M Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 1m 17.725s
5 L Hamilton (GB)* Ferrari 1m 17.219s
6 G Russell (GB) Mercedes 1m 17.760s
7 K Antonelli (It)* Mercedes 1m 17.479s
8 I Hadjar (Fr) Red Bull 1m 17.856s
9 A Lindblad (GB) Racing Bulls 1m 18.281s
10 N Hülkenberg (Ger) Audi 1m 18.686s
11 L Lawson (NZ) Racing Bulls Q2
12 P Gasly (Fr) Alpine Q2
13 F Colapinto (Arg) Alpine Q2
14 G Bortoleto (Br) Audi Q2
15 E Ocon (Fr) Haas Q2
16 F Alonso (Sp) Aston Martin Q2
17 O Bearman (GB) Haas Q1
18 C Sainz Jr (Sp) Williams Q1
19 A Albon (Thai) Williams Q1
20 L Stroll (Can) Aston Martin Q1
21 V Bottas (Fin) Cadillac Q1
22 S Perez (Mex) Cadillac Q1
*Handed three-place grid penalties
Standings
Drivers’ championship Points
1 Antonelli Mercedes 204
2 Hamilton Ferrari 159
3 Russell Mercedes 154
4 Leclerc Ferrari 126
Constructors’ championship
1 Mercedes 358
2 Ferrari 285
3 McLaren 195
[Leclerc] was the car that was behind me when I left the pitlane… obviously it wasn’t intentional.
“We went out first which I don’t feel was the right call, but then on top of that the grip for some reason wasn’t there on that last lap for both Charles and I.”
The scene of Hamilton’s lowest moment last season, which left him contemplating his Ferrari future, was so nearly the one which ended his three-year wait for a pole position, hav- ing been on provisional pole before Norris’s brilliant effort. It was the first pole from a non-Mercedes driver this season — albeit from a McLaren car powered by a Mercedes engine.
After qualifying in 12th place here last year, Hamilton had said: “I’m useless, absolutely useless. The team has no problem, you can see the car is on pole [with Leclerc]. They
Team Time
probably need to change driver.”
He would have felt qualifying on the front row would stand him in good stead to step up his championship fight with teenage leader Antonelli, who is 45 points ahead in the stand- ings — before the penalty dashed his hopes once again.
Spa-Francorchamps last weekend was a display of the 2026 cars strug- gling with a lack of power. Here at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the opposite has been true — the tight and twisting Hungaroring track, often described as “Monaco without the walls” is a com- pletely different challenge. Like Mon- aco, there is also added emphasis on qualifying position.
That led to perhaps the most com- petitive qualifying session of the sea- son, with McLaren and Ferrari feeling as though they had the potential for pole, trading fastest sector times.
Many believe Ferrari have designed the best chassis, giving them the advantage when the strength of the power unit is less important — but it was McLaren and reigning world champion Norris who had the pace, having also felt they have not yet fully understood the energy deployment that is so cru- cial this season at other cir- cuits.
“The car has been feeling good and I’ve
Norris took pole in a gripping qualifying
had confidence,” Norris said. “I cer- tainly pushed it a little bit more on the last lap — some of it paid off, some didn’t — but very pleased with the team, so big thanks to them for work- ing so hard.”
Despite Mercedes identifying the power unit algorithm issue which caused straight line speed loss at Sil- verstone and Spa for Russell, the Briton has again struggled this week- end. After only managing the seventh- fastest time, Russell was told to stop his car on track after a water leak. His power unit will be replaced overnight, but within his allocation so he will not receive a grid penalty.
Max Verstappen suffered a spin on his final effort, describing his Red Bull as a “joke” and “undriveable” — the same term his team-mate Isack Hadjar had used earlier in the day.
expected in Zandvoort and further aerody-
namic improvements in the coming races. Alonso eventually qualified in 16th.
As The Times first reported on Thursday, Malaysia is set to be added to the calendar in the first week of October, between races in Baku and Singapore, with an announcement expected today.
With the conflict in the Middle East meaning it is impossible to return to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (with those races initially scheduled for April), F1 bosses are keen to add another race to the calendar to replace them. The race in Malaysia could still be called the “Bahrain Grand Prix”, with fund- ing from the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia is logistically straightfor- ward for teams because of its proxim- ity to Singapore and is on the present MotoGP calendar, having not hosted an F1 race since 2017.
While a decision will not be made until later in the season about whether or not races can be held in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, contingency options involve a return to Europe. The most likely destination could be Imola — which was originally dropped from the calendar for this season — although there are concerns from some around how cold the temperatures may be in late November to early December.
ON TV TODAY Hungarian Grand Prix 2pm, Sky Sports F1
ZUMA PRESS WIRE/SHUTTERSTOCK
BUSINESS &MONEY
thetimes.com/money
William Turvill
More than 700 suspected North Korean bots secured virtual job interviews at a major UK bank last month, in a sign that Pyongyang is targeting UK company data, security and wages.
The artificial intelligence applicants were thwarted in their attempts to land remote-working jobs with the financial giant after a recruitment AI agent, which itself was conducting the initial screening interviews, flagged them as suspicious.
Many other large organisations have been targeted by such attempts, includ- ing Darktrace, the UK-based cybersecu- rity company, which saw off the threat of a suspected bot last year after it was iden- tified by a human interviewer. UK author- ities have said it is “almost certain” North Korean IT workers are targeting UK firms.
speak up for tech after reshuffle
Jill Treanor
Jill Treanor
Jonathan Reynolds raced to reassure entrepreneurs and business leaders last week that he was a “true believer in technology” and that his new- look business department would not overlook the needs of science and AI.
He made the remarks in a private meeting with senior business executives after being made secretary of state for the new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST), which is replacing both the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology.
Reynolds told the delegation that the DBIST, which is still in the process of being created, was “a new department — not DBT with bits added to it”.
Criticism of the demise of the science department was led by Sir Paul Nurse, president of scientific academy the Royal Society, who told Radio 4 “that science isn’t a slave to business”.
Reynolds was Sir Keir Starmer’s first business secretary after the 2024 election before being moved to the chief whip’s office in the September 2025 cabinet
Number of different names for the business department since 2007
Jon Yeomans
Lockheed Martin has abandoned plans for a first- ever space rocket launch from British soil after failing to find a partner for the project. The decision deals a blow to the £18.6 billion sector just as the government prepares to publish a revised space strategy.
The company that was recruiting for the UK bank roles, and which identified the attempted North Korean hack, was Alfa AI. This start-up has developed a robot called Lisa, which conducts initial virtual interviews with candidates to help companies filter who should proceed to a human interview.
Alfie Whattam, the chief executive of Alfa, said: “At first glance, many of the candidates appeared genuine; their CVs were polished, their answers were tech- nically strong and their video interviews looked convincing. [But] our system began identifying connections between them, including repeated language, shared device characteristics, manipu- lated video and location data that did not match what candidates were claiming.”
The bots all applied for jobs within a few hours of each other. Analysis of the
reshuffle. He set out a ten- year industrial strategy when he was in the post in 2024.
Andy Burnham gave him the beefed-up role in his new cabinet last week.
He held meetings with more than 200 business leaders and figures from science and technology last week as he resumed the role, and insisted that the DBIST would be “their voice” across all their dealings with the government, including with the Treasury.
“That means on the things we’re directly responsible for. It also means more widely on issues like tax and other areas of regulation,” Reynolds said to attendees.
He was joined on the calls by Kanishka Narayan, the newly appointed minister for AI, who said that technology was a key priority for the government.
Reynolds also insisted that he would treat his dealings with business executives seriously and not just as a photo opportunity.
He is said to have told attendees that he understood “how jaded people feel at times about being called in and you get a photo and then you don’t really get a substantive conversation with the politician”.
John Healey, Burnham’s surprise choice for chancellor, also met business leaders last week and said he wanted to work with them to help achieve the prime minister’s aim of “growth in every postcode”.
Will Burnham listen to business? Pages 2-3
the launch, while Lockheed would have supported the project, with funding from the UK Space Agency.
However, after the failure of a test flight in the US in 2024, ABL pulled out.
Lockheed said: “ABL Space Systems, which had been selected to provide launch services for the programme, announced that it was exiting the commercial launch market to focus on missile defence. Following that decision, Lockheed Martin and the UK Space Agency conducted an extensive
Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers during the Heritage Live festival held at the Audley End Estate in Essex in 2025
The business behind a string of summer music festivals cancelled at the last minute is on the brink of collapse, writes Daniel Woolfson.
Giles Cooper Entertainment, promoter of Heritage Live festivals, which hosts shows by stars such as Mariah Carey and the Manic Street Preachers at country estates, told the courts last week that it planned to appoint
assessment of alternative launch providers. However, none of the available options met the existing grant requirements in terms of programme objectives, anticipated benefits, and value for money.
“As a result, Lockheed Martin and the UK Space Agency mutually agreed to close the grant programme.”
networks used suggested the bots had originated in North Korea.
Whattam added: “Our assessment was that this was likely a co-ordinated attempt to secure remote roles for financial gain and potentially gain access to sensitive company or customer information. Thankfully, our AI stopped this fraud.”
The UK bank, which The Sunday Times agreed not to name, is not alone in being targeted by North Korea. Last year, Darktrace also rooted out a suspected bot. The applicant, who claimed to be in Ireland, looked “perfect on paper”, said a spokesman, who noted that he had a strong CV and an active account on coding platform GitHub. “But during the remote interview, there was a beep when he spoke,” the spokesman said, adding that the applicant’s face
administrators. This gives the company a temporary moratorium in which creditors cannot take action against it before insolvency practitioners are officially appointed.
The firm cancelled shows by stars including Christina Aguilera, Eric Clapton and Lionel Richie at the last minute, blaming the collapse of a financial rescue package in a statement on its website.
UK government and £29 million from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
Edinburgh-based Skyrora, which based its rockets on the UK’s Black Arrow programme of the 1970s, hopes to conduct a first launch of its Skylark L vehicle next year.
BACKING BRITAIN INTERVIEW PAGE 5
“The whole Heritage Live team is absolutely devastated. It would have been the most amazing summer with such an extraordinary array of supreme talent and we’re all so very sorry to let everyone down,” the company said.
Festival organisers have come under pressure as inflation sent running costs soaring, while stretched finances have
Olivia Surguy
Holland & Barrett has put undercover detectives in stores to combat customer violence and shoplifting.
“The behaviour on the high street, it’s just not acceptable,” said Anthony Houghton, the group chief executive of Holland & Barrett, adding: “It’s awful that we have to do this.”
HAIR BRAND A LIFT PAGE 3
was not perfectly visible and the lighting suggested it was not afternoon in Dublin.
“Our recruiter trusted their instincts and ended the call. A full investigation of the persona discovered multiple GitHub and email accounts being tied together around a presumably false identity.”
Nathaniel Jones, who leads Dark- trace’s threat research team, said the problem was bigger in the US, where he said most Fortune 500 companies would have been targeted in the past few years.
He was aware of instances where cli- ents of Darktrace had offered jobs to infil- trators and taken months to identify them. He added: “Especially if you’re a smaller organisation, maybe a start-up, you’d expect those organisations to be less security-conscious and to think: ‘Why would North Korea target us?’ ”
The Treasury issued a notice in 2024
ANDREW MCCAREN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
caused people to pull back on booking tickets. Smaller organisers are vulnerable.
The company was founded by Giles Cooper, a producer, promoter and philanthropist, who chairs the Royal Variety Charity. In 2024 he received an OBE for “services to entertainment and to charity” in King Charles’s birthday honours. Giles Cooper Entertainment did not comment.
criminals looking to sell on the items, the retailer says.
The company has been working with Auror, a software firm that specialises in retail crime intelligence, to track shoplifting and identify repeat offenders. Holland & Barrett privately funds and deploys the detectives to its stores in areas Auror has flagged as high-risk.
failing to meet UK investing pledge’
British pension funds are failing to keep their commitment to invest billions of pounds in privately owned UK businesses and infrastructure, according to one of the country’s biggest investors in private markets.
Andy Gregory, chief executive of BGF, blamed this reticence for his fund having to delay an effort to raise £500 million from investors.
The BGF was set up in the wake of the financial crisis by the big four banks — Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and NatWest — as the Business Growth Fund to take equity stakes in fast- growing businesses.
It has backed more than 600 companies, including recipe box business Gousto, Thai restaurant Giggling Squid, ceramics brand Emma Bridgewater and OrganOx, which was spun out of Oxford University and helps extend the life of organs for donation.
Gregory had aimed to raise £500 million to capitalise on the commitments in the Mansion House Accord, under which pension funds agreed to invest 5 per cent of their assets in UK private markets by 2030.
This accord morphed into the “Sterling 20”, which was backed by then-chancellor Rachel Reeves, to boost investment in projects not listed on the stock market, including infrastructure. The Sterling 20 includes FTSE 100 financial companies such as Aviva, Legal & General, Phoenix and M&G, as well as the lecturers’ pension fund,
directed at colleagues” in the year ending last September. This month, the Met Police found £500,000 worth of suspected stolen goods in a warehouse in east London. including £56,000 worth of Ultrasun sun lotion and other items believed stolen from Holland & Barrett.
THE DEATH TAX DETECTIVES MONEY PAGE 9
warning it was “almost certain that UK firms are currently being targeted” by dis- guised North Korean IT workers to gener- ate revenues. Last year, the FBI issued a similar warning, advising employers to scrutinise ID and analyse payment meth- ods to root out hacking attempts from the nation of Kim Jong-un (pictured).
Jones said AI bots are also posing as recruiters by building LinkedIn profiles and claiming to represent big companies.
Tom Lakin, an AI expert at recruit- ment giant Robert Walters, said he believed the US remained a bigger target for North Korean hackers than the UK. This is partly because salaries are higher, and partly because it is “far more com- mon for senior technology roles to be fully remote” in the US.
the Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Gregory, who is Manchester-based, said “progress had been modest” on these commitments.
“We have definitely made progress in terms of some of the conversations that we’re having, but we quite deliberately have not put the foot down on raising capital quite yet. What we were looking to do was to focus on Mansion House but, as widely reported — and I would confirm this — progress has been modest,” he said.
made some progress, but it’s modest
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) publishes data annually on commitments, which started in 2023 under the Mansion House Accord. Its latest report found that the proportion of pension funds’ assets invested in unlisted equities was 0.6 per cent in February 2025, up from 0.36 per cent a year earlier.
The agreements are aimed at defined-contribution retirement schemes, which pay out a pension based on savings rather than earnings.
£90 million in upgrading its stores. “We will have finished most of the foundation work by the end of next year… then we won’t have to spend the level of capital that we’ve spent in the last few years.”
He wants to work with the government and NHS to provide preventative care and Holland & Barrett is considering partnerships with pharmacies.
BUSINESS
B
COMMODITIES
caused huge volatility for traders in fuels and metals. Olivia Surguy reports
Burnham ready to listen to business?
choice of chancellor, but they have a long shopping list of demands ready for him, writes Jill Treanor
J
ohn Healey summoned business leaders to breakfast last week to tell them he knew they were the “engine of growth” for Britain’s economy. Andy Burnham’s sur- prise choice for chancellor held forth in front of TV cameras to spell out his desire to “deepen our government’s relationship with business”. Healey’s remarks coincided with a series of behind-the-scenes meetings led by Jonathan Reynolds, who returned as business secretary in a new-look depart- ment that also takes on responsibility for science and technology.
Yet even as the charm offensive began, ministers were facing tests from Donald Trump, whose renewed attacks on Iran were pushing up the price of oil and gas. And the formal imposition of 10 per cent tariffs on US imports risked making life more difficult for Britain’s exporters.
As the Burnham government opens the door to business, what does business want from Burnham? STABILITY One of the FTSE 100 bosses at last week’s breakfast was Charlie Nunn, chief execu- tive of Lloyds Banking Group, whose view will resonate with many businesses, big and small: “Businesses will really value government setting out a long-term plan.
“We know from our clients that busi- nesses are ready to invest and create jobs.
ritain doesn’t need to look far for its next growth opportunity. It already has one — a sector bigger than pharma, automotive and aerospace combined.
For the best part of a decade, our economic debate has been dominated by talk of post- Brexit competitiveness, advanced manufacturing and, more recently, artificial intelligence. All are important. But in the search for Britain’s next growth story, we have consistently underestimated one of our greatest strengths: hospitality and leisure.
are ready to invest and create jobs
and make lasting change that gets Britain back on the front foot. If the government is looking for sectors capable of delivering economic activity across the country, it should start with an industry that aligns with Andy Burnham’s vision of shared prosperity and already supports millions of jobs, generates billions in spending, and creates opportunities in every part of the UK.
Last week’s announcement on reducing business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues is a welcome move. It recognises that businesses provide employment and strengthen local economies by generating footfall for nearby businesses.
It's a gas, gas, gas
6 The price of a barrel of oil hit $100 last week for the first time since May, after the conflict in the Middle East escalated; at the start of July, prices were closer to $70 a barrel.
The global benchmark for oil prices, Brent crude, rose more than 6 per cent on Thursday, the day after Houthi militia in Yemen targeted two oil tankers in the Red Sea, a key export route that Saudi Arabia has been using to skirt the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has threatened to “destroy one bridge or power plant” every time Iran attacks a ship in the strait.
This theme was picked up by Paul Thwaite, chief executive of NatWest and another attendee at last week’s breakfast with Healey. “Our research shows busi- nesses want greater local decision-mak- ing where it brings clearer priorities, faster delivery, and more confidence to invest,” said Thwaite. “If we’re serious about national growth, the collaborative infrastructure that’s behind much of Manchester’s success needs to extend and operate between different parts of the country. The innovation partnerships between ‘Cambridge-Manchester’ and Oxford-Liverpool are good examples of cross-city collaboration designed to drive
business rates reform, incentivising businesses of all sizes across hospitality and leisure, including attractions, hotels and resorts. The recently announced reduction for pubs and others is welcome, but excludes many larger hospitality and leisure businesses. These economic anchors create employment at scale, attract visitors and support local supply chains.
The current rates system acts as a tax on investment. Labour pledged to shift the burden from smaller businesses to online giants, but has also increased rates on larger hospitality operators. Businesses that upgrade facilities, expand capacity or improve the visitor experience can find themselves facing larger bills as a result. At a time when Britain is seeking stronger growth, that is precisely the wrong incentive.
Calls to cut the 0.5 per cent stamp duty on share trading are mounting. Matthew Beesley, chief executive of FTSE 250 fund manager Jupiter, said a cut would pay off as it would encourage more share trad- ing. “It’s a tax cut for growth tomorrow,.
Rich Ricci, chief executive of Panmure Liberum, called for more changes to the pension system to encourage investment in London-listed shares. This was echoed by David Howden, founder of the insur-
to give, and that should be VAT
temporary VAT reduction on days out this summer is already benefiting businesses and hard-pressed UK families. Ministers should now consider a permanent, lower VAT rate across attractions, hospitality venues and accommodation, bringing Britain more into line with European competitors.
A clear illustration of the impact of higher energy was provided by Nick Hardman, managing director of Stockport-based recycled paper manufacturer Romiley Board Mill, who faces a doubling in his gas bill if prices stay where they are when he does his next fix in October. “Businesses like ours can move from profitable to lossmaking almost overnight through no fault of our own,” said Hardman.
This might explain why data from restructuring experts at Kroll shows
6 The price of natural gas in Europe has surged since the Iran war broke out and has risen further since the US renewed air strikes. TTF, the official trading index in the Netherlands, which sets the baseline price for the Continent, rose above €60 (£51) per megawatt-hour (MWh) last week — a four- month high. Before the ceasefire was agreed last month, prices for European natural gases were consistently below €50 MWh. Traders are now contemplating sustained higher prices to account
Britons to spend their money here, or attracting tourists from overseas. Many European governments regard tourism as a strategic industry and structure tax systems accordingly. Ours currently does not.
If the government proceeds with the expected introduction of a levy on overnight stays, Britain will have the highest tax on visitor accommodation in Europe. Something has to give, and that should be VAT.
The third challenge is supporting more young people into work. One of the most encouraging aspects of Burnham’s first speech was his emphasis on tackling economic inactivity by investing in opportunity rather than simply managing its consequences.
€65 per MWh
executive of Legal & General, is
concerned, cutting red tape is necessary to unlock invest- ment: “The fundamentals of the economy are strong and there is no shortage of capital, ambition or opportunity.”
For the housebuilders, one pri- ority is winning faster planning permission, particularly if Burn-
Too many young people risk being left behind.We should tackle the welfare bill by investing more in helping young people become work-ready for skilled, sustainable careers.
Achieving that requires partnership between government and business, including support for apprenticeships and training that helps build long-term careers. At Merlin, we have a need for skilled input in specialist technical roles, which we are addressing through our engineering academy. With government support to help businesses upskill young people, talent can be unlocked.
GOLD LOSES ITS GLITTER
6 The price of copper could hit a US record in the coming weeks after reaching its highest level in more than a month on Tuesday. Analysts said the surge was down to two factors: China is running low on physical copper, and US traders are keeping it in New York as they are expecting Donald Trump to impose heavy import taxes on it soon.
Rumour has it Adele helped make our £14m haircare firm a smash hit
However, privately owned house- builder Hofton & Son, based in Notting- ham, said changes to the Employment Rights Act were needed. Mark Shouler, Hofton & Son’s managing director, said: “They’ve absolutely destroyed employ- ment law, so somebody walks through the door, first thing they have the same rights as somebody who’s been here five years, even though they could be useless.”
For the telecoms sector, BT chief exec- utive Allison Kirkby wants red tape to be removed to make it easier for the com- pany to construct masts, and wants the end of fees that telecoms companies pay for access to spectrum bands, which they
as wary investors sit on hands
out how to invest in private markets and that local government pension schemes, which are already accustomed to dealing in these markets, had been waylaid by the government’s demands that they pool their assets into six mega funds.
Pension funds are also balking at the costs of investing in private markets, where management fees are typically 2 per cent of the value of the investment, with 20 per cent set aside for paying the managers though “carried interest”.
cover an increasingly gaping wound
There are also concerns about the loss
of a “huge amount of entrepreneurial
talent”, according to Jimmy McLoughlin, a former special
adviser to former PM Theresa
May, who referred to the
The industry is also waiting for news on the pledge by Sir Keir Starmer’s regime to set up a new regulator, replacing Ofwat, after a detailed review by Sir Jon Cunliffe last year. Jesic at Severn Trent said: “We want to be an active partner in delivering the government’s reform programme fol- lowing the Cunliffe Review to deliver bet- ter outcomes for customers, the environ- ment and supporting UK growth.”
Water reform is just one large drop in the ocean of demands facing the new PM.
Additional reporting by William Turvill, Daniel Woolfson, Olivia Surguy and Jon Yeomans
Daniel Woolfson
The ABI and Pensions UK, which are jointly tracking the Mansion House Accord, said the 2030 target for pension schemes to invest 5 per cent of their assets in UK private markets reflected the goals would take time to achieve — “but firms are working hard and taking the necessary steps to reach these goals”.
“Progress also depends on policy and regulatory and market reforms,” the trade bodies said. They pointed to the “value-for-money framework”, which will look at the performance of a fund, not just the fees, as where work was needed. “The roadmap for these changes has now been confirmed but implementation is not yet complete.”
were not trying to sell out and that this was not the reason for the fundraising.
Unlike other investors in start-ups and growth companies, the BGF does not have to raise money, but uses the assets provided by its shareholders. Gregory said the BGF had “doubled our money” with a 21 per cent internal rate of return since 2016. Last year, it paid a £75 million dividend.
After joining the BGF at the outset, Gregory was made chief executive in 2022, replacing founder Stephen Welton. That year, The
BGF describes itself as the UK and Ireland’s most active growth investor, although Gregory said deal-making was suppressed by the uncertain economic backdrop. He said this created “entrepreneurial fatigue”, with businesses choosing to sell out to trade buyers rather than to funds such as the BGF. “There’s a sense entrepreneurs … are not perhaps valued as much as they feel they should be.” £75m Dividend paid out by BGF last year
6 Throughout history, people have turned to gold as a safe haven during times of global instability. In late January, the price of the precious metal hit an all-time high of $5,600 a troy ounce after one of the strongest bull runs in its history in 2025. The return of Trump to the presidency, his unpredictable trade policy and strife around the world fuelled a stampede of investors into gold.
But since February — and despite rising geopolitical tensions — the price has fallen by 28 per cent. The Iran war has pushed up energy prices, sparking fears of inflation and a growing expectation that central banks will have to hold or raise interest rates. Higher rates typically cool demand for gold, as they make other assets more appealing. Analysts at investment bank Panmure Liberum said the Iran war had flushed out all but the most “die-hard” long-term investors in the metal.
VICKY ELLIS AND ANASTASIA TOZER, CO-FOUNDERS OF REHAB
Amy Wilson
Friends and first-time entrepreneurs Vicky Ellis and Anastasia Tozer set up their haircare brand Rehab in 2022 and, just four years later, the company joined the Sunday Times 100 list of Britain’s fastest-growing privately owned companies. Rehab’s sales have grown by 190 per cent over the past three years to reach £14.2 million, with an undisclosed profit.
In some ways, the company’s hyper-fast growth has been “pinch-me moment after pinch-me moment”, said Ellis. But in other ways, it has been exactly what the co- founders planned for when they decided to combine their years of beauty-industry expertise — Ellis in marketing and Tozer in product development — and work for themselves.
“Both of us are always looking for the next thing, even before the first thing has happened,” said Ellis, 36. “It’s just our personalities — we are so driven.”
They first met more than a decade ago, working on new brand and product launches for large cosmetics companies. The idea for Rehab, which makes hair oil packaged in distinctive single- dose capsules, came when Tozer was chatting to Ellis about the popularity of hair oil in Albania, where her family is from.
“We were great ones for having our hair slathered with olive oil, from the scalp to the roots, in my aunt’s kitchen,” said Tozer, 32. “It was fun and it wasn’t unusual; it was a ritual of
Sunday Times reported on a relentless pressure to make investments to drive bonuses.
Gregory said he did not recognise the description. The fund pays its staff through carried interest, paid out when companies are sold. Its accounts show it expects to pay out £191 million from investments over the past 15 years, and that its highest- paid director received £4.2 million last year.
getting ready with your girl cousins.
“My aunt worked in a hair salon and they used the natural ingredients they had available, so it was olive oil, honey, and they used jojoba oil and Moroccan oils. They would also boil rosemary leaves and create a rinse with the water.”
Ellis added: “I had never heard of [hair oil], and I had lots of questions about how do you know how much oil to use, and what kind to use. And I just thought, ‘We should do this, we could do this ourselves.’ ”
The point of difference that the co-founders credit for their success was packaging the oil in a single dose, which “takes out the guesswork and the intimidating part of just putting oil all over your head”, said Tozer.
The next challenge was how to afford the cost of developing and marketing their products. They had both been saving for house deposits, with Tozer living with her in-laws. They had to “convince our husbands this was going to work” and put the money into the business instead, said Tozer.
Their partners agreed, and Rehab started life in Ellis’s garage, with her husband helping to pack the orders. To develop the products, Tozer asked her contacts to recommend manufacturers. Her previous experience developing new beauty products for other companies meant she “wasn’t
ANYTHING
Best decision (Ellis) ... choosing to do this together. We really value every day that we’ve got each other to bounce ideas off. My inspiration (Tozer) ... We don’t have a traditional type of mentor in our industry,
costs and belt-tightening by diners
Losses have quadrupled at the parent company of chef Alain Roux’s three Michelin- starred restaurant, The Waterside Inn, as the business grapples with soaring costs and tax rises.
The restaurant, in Bray, Berkshire, is Britain’s longest- running holder of three Michelin stars — arguably the highest accolade possible for a restaurant to achieve. But it has blamed “ever-increasing” expenses after pre-tax losses at its parent firm surged from £97,019 to £392,864 in 2025.
6 Lithium is the lightest metal and the least dense
solid element on the periodic table. Because it can
hold a lot of energy in a small space, it is a key
commodity for renewable energy.
Last Wednesday, lithium prices sank to a five- month low after mining restarted at two big sites
in China and Australia. The return of mining
capacity triggered fears of a market oversupply.
Lithium is in high demand at the moment due to increased interest in battery energy
storage systems, data centres and the
infrastructure needed to support artificial
intelligence. Despite this, there are fears of a
glut in 2027. Last month, the Chinese
electric vehicle battery giant CATL was
granted a permit for its mine.
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
months’ stock in six hours after a star liked us on Instagram
intimidated having those conversations”.
Once they had developed the products, Ellis turned to her marketing and PR contacts and “got down to the basics” of selling the brand online. “We put personalised packages together for all the
but both of us turn to our dads as our No 1 sounding board. They both had business careers and a strong work ethic, and we definitely share their mentality. The turning point (Ellis) ... when we sold out of 18 months’ worth of stock in six hours — and then, a few days later, when we were panicking about the warehouse fulfilling the orders. We knew we had to
staffing and ongoing taxation pressures is just part of the seemingly ever-increasing cost base of the group’s operations, which then affects our overall profitability.”
The warning comes as Britain’s restaurant industry is under intense pressure as the cost of everything from energy to ingredients has soared in recent years.
Increases in the cost of labour have been particularly sharp following hikes to employer national insurance contributions and changes to the threshold at which they are paid, implemented by former chancellor Rachel Reeves last year. They coincided with increases in the minimum wage.
Anastasia Tozer and Vicky Ellis, right, set up Rehab in 2022
influencers and press to try to build up a community, pulling in favours with any creators or celebrities we’d worked with,” she said.
One of those was Sami Knight, the hairdresser for singer Adele. Ellis and Tozer persuaded him to talk to them when the business was just a week old.
“Adele was performing at Hyde Park and I said we definitely have to try to meet him, so my husband packed a personalised bag for Adele,” said Ellis. “Amazingly, he agreed to see us, and he used the product on Adele’s hair that weekend.
“Fast-forward two years
grab the moment and make sure [the products] got to the customers in time.” If I could tell you one thing (Tozer) ... “Trust your gut. There’s a lot of advice — you could go to a slew of people asking them, should I do this or that? And you’re going to get 100 different answers. You have to take a step back, sit with yourself or with your business partner and think, “What is my gut telling me?”
CNY 200(000)
J F M A M J J
Source: Trading Economics
and we made him our brand ambassador and he invited us to watch Adele in Las Vegas. We were in the second row, crying, asking each other: ‘How is this our life?’ ”
Rehab’s most significant celebrity endorsement has been from TV presenter Stacey Solomon, who praised the company on Instagram causing a surge in orders.
“We sold about 18 months’ worth of stock in six hours,” said Ellis. Solomon then invited Ellis and Tozer to her house to talk.
“We really wanted to work with her and we were driving there saying, ‘We’ll do whatever she wants,’ ” Ellis recalled. “But as soon as we started talking, she explained she wanted to be an investor.”
Solomon, who now has a 25 per cent stake, is still the only external investor.
As well as selling through its own channels, the aim was always to get the brand into shops. In 2023, Harrods started selling Rehab, and in early 2025, it made its debut in Selfridges, followed by Boots and Sainsbury’s.
The company now has 16 staff, including the two founders. Ellis has two young daughters, and Tozer had a baby eight months ago.
“Being available and present for our families is really important to us, and to our team, too,” said Ellis.
government to reduce VAT from 20 to 10 per cent to ease pressure on businesses.
Roux’s company warned that consumers were “still being cautious — spending more carefully in general, but particularly on eating out”. It was anticipating pressure on utility costs following the outbreak of war in Iran.
Despite the soaring losses, The Waterside Inn group said its cash reserves “remain robust” and that special celebration dinners and events, as well as its recently opened culinary school, had proved popular.
fights to get out of reverse gear
processes in an attempt to reverse falls in sales and market share. Daniel Woolfson reports
W
hen Allan Leighton returned to lead Asda in late November 2024, hopes were high that the retail veteran could usher in a new age for the grocer. After all, it was he, along with Archie Norman (now chair of Marks & Spen- cer), who had rescued the supermarket from the brink of collapse in the 1990s.
Leighton, an outspoken and affable businessman with a flamboyant dress sense, pledged to fix Asda once more, telling The Times in March 2025 that he would “win the hearts and minds back of our people” along the way.
But, nearly two years into his turn- around plan, Asda’s performance has failed to ignite. The summer so far has been no exception: sales fell 2.4 per cent over the 12 weeks to July 11, figures from consumer research firm NielsenIQ showed last week, while its market share slid from 11.4 to 10.7 per cent compared with the same period last year.
This was despite a huge boost to shops from the World Cup as people stocked up on beer, snacks and soft drinks. Every other retailer grew sales over the period.
Leighton has been swinging the axe, imposing a summer of cuts on the busi- ness. This month, it emerged that about 150 jobs would be shed from Asda’s Leeds head office across every central function. This came shortly after a reshuffle of its buying teams — the employees who nego- tiate with food and drink suppliers.
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“There’s a constant churn. We’re per- ennially starting from scratch,” said a senior executive at a major food and drink business. “It is difficult to get a sen- sible dialogue with them because the people are busy and demotivated.”
Ged Futter, a former Asda buyer who now trains suppliers on how to negotiate with supermarkets, said: “A whole swathe of mid-tier managers left, so jun- ior buyers were given bigger roles ... with- out the experience. I think that’s one of Asda’s biggest challenges.”
Good relations with its suppliers are crucial because Leighton has made Asda’s prices central to how he wants to win back customers. He has relaunched the “Rollback” scheme, slashing the price of a range of products. The initiative was one of the cornerstones of Leighton and Norman’s rescue plan in the 1990s.
However, Futter questions whether suppliers are seeing much benefit. “The campaigns are not working because
something special to get people back through the doors
At the same time, the retailer’s chief commercial officer, Darren Blackhurst, is overhauling the range of products sold in an attempt to make its aisles more appealing. Blackhurst, a highly regarded retail veteran with a reputation for taking a hard-nosed, militaristic approach to negotiations, has overseen the introduc- tion of more than 400 new products.
An Asda spokesman said: “The recent head office changes impacted just 12 roles within our buying function. We continue to have experienced colleagues leading teams across all parts of the business.
“We work with more than 3,000 sup- pliers. The views attributed to a handful of anonymous sources are not reflective of the strong and positive feedback we receive on a day-to-day basis.”
Relations with staff are tense, too. Up to 1,000 jobs have been put at risk with the move of Asda’s George clothing oper- ation to a highly automated site owned by DHL. Meanwhile, in a recent update, the supermarket told its employees that they had to be more “flexible” and able to work across multiple parts of the busi- ness, The Grocer magazine reported. It is also reducing staff in outlets that it con- siders overstaffed, and offering volun- tary redundancy to about 1 per cent of its total store-based workforce of more than 90,000 people.
The push for greater “flexibility” has
proved controversial with staff. Online forums are flooded with angry com- ments, while the GMB union has said it will make sure members “are not pres- sured into any detrimental changes”. An Asda spokesman said this was “no differ- ent to how other retailers operate and reflect how customers now shop” and the retailer was “putting colleagues where customer demand is highest”.
It all amounts to an immensely difficult time for Asda. Previously owned by the US retail giant Walmart, it was taken over by the billionaire Issa brothers, Mohsin and Zuber, in 2021 in a deal worth £6.8 billion.
The deal was backed by the private equity house TDR Capital, which also owns Britain’s biggest pub company, Stonegate. Zuber Issa has since stepped away from Asda, selling his shares to TDR, now its majority shareholder. T
he 2021 deal loaded Asda with bil- lions in debt, leaving it painfully exposed when interest rates soared in the wake of the Ukraine war. Asda’s net debt sat at £3.1 billion in 2025, recent results revealed, a reduction from £3.8 billion the prior year.
Many believe it is this mountain of debt — and the burden of paying it off — that has left the company unable to invest properly. It has refinanced its debts, kick- ing repayment dates down the road, but at the cost of higher interest rates. The cost of servicing its debts alone soared from £611 million to £729 million in 2025, including lease liabilities. Its credit rating has been downgraded multiple times.
All of this coincided with a cost of liv- ing crisis that sent shoppers speeding into the arms of the discounters, Aldi and Lidl. In retail circles, it is now widely expected that Aldi will overtake Asda for market share at some point — relegating it to fourth place in groceries. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Leighton insisted this was “not bloody inevitable”.
LSE could become a desert
Olivia Surguy and Jill Treanor
Slough Trading Estate had an inauspicious role in the First World War as a dumping ground for damaged vehicles. But over 100 years later, it is playing a key role in a debate about the future of the City.
Segro — the modern-day name for Slough Trading Estate — succumbed to a £14 billion bid from US rival Prologis last week after a month-long courtship.
The deal was notable not just for its size — the biggest takeover of a FTSE company this year — but because, for a while, it had looked like the property giant might fight off its suitor. Only two weeks ago, Segro’s long-standing chief executive, David Sleath, told The Sunday Times that the business had “a very good long-term growth story”.
But last week, after four higher offers by Prologis, the mood changed and the Segro board was “now minded to recommend the bid” should it be formally made by the deadline of August 12.
£3.1bn
7,500
Full-time roles cut from Asda last year
Asda told its staff they have to be ‘more flexible’ amid the turnaround
stump up the £5.7 billion it has promised to pay for the budget airline. Meanwhile, FTSE 100 product testing company Intertek is being taken over by Swedish private equity firm EQT, and support services firm DCC is being chased by America’s KKR.
FTSE 100 fund manager Schroders has agreed to a £9.9 billion takeover bid from Nuveen, the US mutual. And last week, Mitie was the latest to agree to a takeover, from rival OCS, which values the outsourcer at £3.1 billion.
Investment bank Peel Hunt reckons these takeovers are coming at an “exceptionally high” rate, while the number of companies listed on the LSE is not being replenished by initial public offerings (IPOs). The number of listed companies has fallen from 2,365 in 2015 to below 1,500. While 125 IPOs took place in 2021 in a flurry of activity after Covid, this year the number is just seven so far.
It is a trend seen on other stock exchanges, both in Europe and North America; Jamie Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan, has warned about its implications in the US.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation by The Sunday Times suggests if the average annual number of companies leaving the exchange over the past ten years were to remain the same, the market would be empty by 2057.
you like our assets, you can buy them, and what used to happen is you’d get quite a few IPOs that replaced companies that were lost … So, normally, you keep some form of a balance.”
Peel Hunt, like many of its rivals, says it is encouraged by the number of companies in the pipeline to list shares. But they are yet to burst through. The year started with high hopes that software business Visma would be floated by its owner Hg Capital, in an IPO worth as much as £16 billion — but a sell-off in technology stocks forced a delay.
Inflationary pressures from rising energy prices as a result of America’s war with Iran are cited as another reason for a lack of listings.
The issue was highlighted chancellors, from Rishi Sunak to Rachel Reeves, who put effort into getting pension funds to invest more in stock markets. The baton has now passed to John Healey, named chancellor last week, who
value can come from continued ownership
“Sainsbury’s is very keen on growth so it feels like a natural way to do it ... there’s not that much overlap now between the two businesses,” the senior retail execu- tive said. L
eighton has fiercely defended his approach, insisting Asda is not seek- ing a quick fix and that the reboot will take more time. In May, the com- pany said the decline in like-for-like sales had slowed in the three months to March, as it implored shoppers to “take a fresh look” at its stores following the sweeping changes to what it sells enacted by Blackhurst and his team.
“At the end of the day, it’s still got a really good store network and it doesn’t feel like they’re going anywhere,” the executive added.
Meanwhile, bosses claim a new part- nership with Ocado will dramatically improve the experience of shopping digi- tally with it and reverse the decline in online sales. A significant upgrade to its website is due in 2027.
“People have had a soft spot for Asda for a long time, and part of that is because when Asda’s working well, it’s a check on the market,” said Futter. “That’s no longer the case.”
The Asda spokesman claimed that data from a different provider, World- panel by Numerator, showed its first period of sales growth in over two years in the four weeks to July 12.
“More than £4.5 billion has been invested over the last five years to trans- form Asda into a diversified retail group. With £1.3 billion in cash and £2.1 billion of available liquidity, we have the financial strength to support our growth plans.”
faces calls to cut stamp duty on shares to boost trading.
He told business leaders last week that he intended to “back you as your chancellor”, and in a statement to The Sunday Times, he stressed this also meant “in financial services”.
Steps have already been taken to broaden the appeal of London with the launch of Pisces, a market for private companies to sell shares.
This week, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is expected to announce a measure that some bankers hope will make London more attractive, by shining a light on “dark” trading in shares between banks and other venues. Some City figures say that as so much activity takes place outside the LSE, it is hard to measure the total volume. This leaves London at a disadvantage when it is trying to attract companies to list. So-called liquidity in America appears higher.
Some fund managers reckon companies can do more to fend off bidders.
Michael Stiasny, head of UK equities at FTSE 100 financial firm M&G, said: “Boards need to step back and assess whether selling is the right decision, rather than focusing on extracting maximum value in a bid. The greatest value can often come from continued ownership, not a takeover premium.”
now your plane: aviation is going electric
R
costs and fewer emmissions — but batteries are still too heavy, writes Jon Yeomans at the Farnborough airshow
ladies and librarians to back Britain
executive of Border to Coast, the country’s biggest pension fund, which looks after public sector workers. It has £120bn to invest — and a third of that has gone into the UK economy
JILL TREANOR
achel Elwell grew up with a love of numbers. The chief executive of Britain’s biggest pension fund explains that because both her parents were mathematics teachers, “we just talked about maths” when she was growing up in the West Yorkshire town of Pontefract. “Like, when you walk up stairs, you count how many stairs you’re walking up,” says Elwell, now 51.
It seems that talking about maths has continued since she had her own chil- dren. The boss of Border to Coast recalls how she would teach her two daughters: “When the kids were having blueberries sitting on the high chair, I’d make pat- terns out of the blueberries and we’d count them as they ate them.
“I absolutely own that nerdiness,” she declares.
Elwell puts her mathematical mind to use when thinking about how to run the £120 billion of pension savings held by Border to Coast.
“It’s one of the reasons I talk so many times about ‘systems’ — seeing those sys- tems and understanding how to make the system work,” she says.
In her description, her company is part of a “system” that she describes as a “flywheel”. Pension funds put momen- tum into the economy by channelling bil- lions of pounds into local and global infrastructure projects, creating jobs and opportunities, and investing in start-ups that might one day be floated on the stock market.
Based in Leeds, Border to Coast is an amalgam of 18 local government pension schemes that, as its name suggests, stretches from Cumbria and Tyne and Wear in the north of England to West and East Sussex on the south coast.
Some key projects it has backed include £46 million towards a 200-room “aparthotel” in Leeds city centre on the site of a disused swimming pool, and £70 million for family homes in Cam- bridge.
It has been at the centre of the debate kick-started by Rachel Reeves on the role that pension funds can play in promoting economic growth.
such a thing as being too big
RACHEL ELWELL
Born: September 3, 1974 Status: married, two daughters School: King’s High, Pontefract University: Cambridge, Pembroke College (mathematics); a diploma in statistics as a postgraduate First job: “helping some summer students from California at Pembroke find their feet” Pay: £568,000 Home: Hebden Bridge Car: Mini Clubman, “a grey
The twin-prop, 20 metre-long plane parked on the tarmac at Farnborough Airport was nothing special to look at. But Christine Andrews, of GE Aerospace, waxed lyrical about its significance: “I’m a woman in engineering, so to have my name on something that is a world first and then be able to announce it at the best air show in the entire world is beyond my wildest dreams.”
The humble Saab 340B on the runway has just completed a test flight at 30,000 feet using a hybrid electric system. Andrews, and others, says this could be a major step forward. It’s a quiet aeronautical feat at the week-long Farnborough International Airshow.
GE believes that planes can benefit from going hybrid. The modified Saab plane features a gas turbine on its right side integrated with an electric motor; clever electronics help the engine operate more efficiently.
as mayor, it cannot be quickly replicated across the country. “It’s taken decades to get the projects Andy can now talk about.
“I don’t think it will take decades [for other local authorities to reach that point], but we can’t expect every single bit of the country to be at the same level [of preparedness] as those who’ve been doing it for decades.”
There seems little doubt that Burnham will be the latest politician to try to get the pension system to work harder for Brit- ain’s economy.
The process started 11 years ago when George Osborne was chancellor; he called on the 90 or so local government pension schemes (LGPS) to combine their gigantic but fragmented £400 bil- lion of resources into six mega “sovereign wealth funds” to boost investment in infrastructure projects.
This sparked the creation of Border to Coast, when 11 local government pension schemes agreed to pool their invest- ments. It expanded by another seven ear- lier this year following legislative changes pushed through by Reeves to accelerate the challenge laid down by Osborne.
“Future governments may well have further consolidation that they want to make, but for now, the LGPS is in a place where it can concentrate on getting on with the things it needs to get on with,” Elwell says.
The aim is to replicate pension schemes in countries such as Canada —
one — a much beaten-up, loved Mini” Favourite book: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. “He really explores politics and human relationships” Film: Grosse Pointe Blank Music: anything classical, particularly Puccini’s La bohème; for pop, Pulp Drink: Robinsons lime and mint cordial Watch: Fitbit Gadget: Fitbit Last holiday: Yorkshire Charity: Just Finance Foundation
Andrews, who is hybrid electric systems leader at GE Aerospace, said the benefits were threefold: “It reduces fuel and so plays into both better economics as well as lower emissions. The second thing is that it’s advancing state-of-the-art technology for the industry. And the third thing is it gives pilots a new way to fly.” It can, for example, accelerate the plane to higher altitude more quickly, helping pilots skirt around pockets of turbulence, she said.
The hybrid electric plane was developed with Nasa and Boeing and is one of a number of schemes GE is exploring to reduce costs and cut emissions.
Not far away on the hazy Farnborough airstrip, Airbus’s Karim Mokkadem, who has the extraordinary title of “head of aircraft of tomorrow”, was equally excited about the prospects of
which has the “Maple 8” public pension funds system — and Australia, known for its “superannuation” system.
Elwell reckons that Border to Coast is now at a “sweet spot” in terms of size. “There is such a thing as being too big. You can become like a supertanker and you can’t make investment decisions without moving the market,” she says. “There’s a sweet spot and the received wisdom is it’s around £150 billion.”
Although she is quietly spoken, Elwell has a voice on the world stage. In Septem- ber, she will attend Canada’s first invest- ment summit, convened by its prime minister (and former Bank of England governor) Mark Carney to seek invest- ment in the country. S
o how did she end up running the country’s biggest pension scheme? “Growing up, I was a daddy’s girl,” she says. “I was three when I announced that I was going to [uni- versity] wherever my dad went. At that point, [Pembroke College, Cambridge] didn’t let women in. They didn’t let women in until I was 13.”
And so, a few years later, she went there — to study maths with a diploma in statistics — after receiving careers advice from her local school in Pontefract to be a teacher, an engineer or an actuary. “My parents said: ‘You don’t have the patience to be a teacher, Rachel. Don’t do that,’ ” Elwell recalls. “And I’m not very
question that the ultimate fuel is hydrogen
The Saab 340B completed a test flight at 30,000 feet using a hybrid electric system
hybridisation. “Everyone is working on it,” he said. “The technologies are there, mostly driven by what the automotive industry is doing. It is evolving at a pace that is just incredible.”
Airbus last week kicked-off a new demonstrator of hybrid tech that could be used on the next generation of commercial aircraft — a project in collaboration with the Warwick University, among others. Mokkadem hopes it could give rise to planes with longer, thinner wings that will have improved aerodynamics, which are good for lower fuel consumption.
Hybrid electric planes have been in the works for a while. US companies Heart Aerospace and Ampaire
practical, so engineering wasn’t really going to work. So I went off to do my maths degree and I wrote to a load of actuarial companies and said. ‘I don’t know what an actuary does, [but] will you give me a job?’. ”
She moved to London in 1996 after the professional services giant PwC took her on and she spent 15 years there, includ- ing a six-month stint working in Russia on pension-fund reform.
Elwell switched to the firm’s Manches- ter office while living in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire — she wanted to have her children in her home county “just in case they were going to play for Yorkshire Cricket Club” — but was told she would have to go back to London to be consid- ered for a partnership. “I really didn’t want to do that,” Elwell says.
Instead, she stayed in Hebden Bridge after her Cheshire-based client, the investment and insurance company Royal London, offered her a job setting up its staff pension function and, later, its investment office there.
“The commute was around 90 min- utes, but I was travelling all over the country,” she recalls.
She had been there nearly seven years when the nascent Border to Coast came knocking with a role as chief executive that allowed her to be based in Leeds.
The city has become a growing finan- cial services hub with outposts of the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct
Elwell’s favourite film is Grosse Pointe Blank. She also likes the music of Pulp
have been developing such craft; the latter ran a trial in the UK in 2021. But, Mokkadem said, new technology comes at a cost: “You need to manage the frugality of how you are going to use it.” In other words, there are trade-offs around the weight of any new kit; it has to justify its place. Or, as Andrews at GE put it: “It has to buy its way on.”
This year, much attention was on the newer names showing off their all-electric craft. Silicon Valley defence giant Anduril commandeered a giant pavilion to unveil its autonomous killer Thunder drone. Air-taxi firms Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace showed off their
battery-powered craft. And Loganair, Britain’s biggest regional airline, announced a deal to buy five all-electric planes — but they carry only five
passengers each.
Which brings home the point that battery-powered
ANDREW MCCAREN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Rachel Elwell says Border to Coast is turning its financial power on Britain
to work on the train. “A couple of times a month, I’m in London,” she says. The day is packed full of meetings.
If Elwell has not achieved her target of 12,500 steps a day, she jumps on the treadmill when she gets home in the evening.
DOWNTIME Elwell is a pianist and also plays the organ at her local church. “There’s a reason why lots of mathematicians also do music, because it is about spotting patterns.” She is on the board of Opera North. Last weekend, with 16 colleagues and her 16-year- old daughter, she completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge for the Leeds Hospitals Charity.
aircraft are likely to remain very small. For the bigger airlines, batteries are far too heavy to be a power source — hence the need to explore hybrid power.
However, Mokkadem has not given up hope that hydrogen fuel cells could one day power planes. “There’s no question mark that the ultimate fuel is hydrogen,” he said. The gas can be distilled from water and offers the promise of carbon-free fuel. Mokkadem said: “It’s the only [fuel] that you can make out of a sunny day and water.”
The catch? It requires vast amounts of energy to make. Airbus has pushed back the timeline for hydrogen- powered jets to the 2040s, blaming lack of supply. But Mokkadem said: “The step of hybridisation is nothing else than a step before going into full-electric flight with hydrogen, that will come later.” With a grin, he added: “I cannot tell you when. I will be retired by then.”
Authority and the National Wealth Fund. Somewhat awkwardly, the local author- ity retirement scheme for Leeds — the West Yorkshire Pension Fund — did not pick Border to Coast but its competitor, Northern.
Although Border to Coast combines the assets of 18 LGPS, they do not all want to invest in the same way, so it launched 20 “propositions” from which they could select. Broadly, a third are in public mar- kets and run by its own fund managers; a third are managed by other fund manag- ers; and a third are run by its private mar- kets team, which also invests in funds managed by the likes of Blackstone, the private equity giant. P
ension schemes are being blamed for not backing Britain and the Lon- don Stock Exchange, where invest- ment in shares by British pension funds has fallen from 50 per cent to about 4 per cent of their assets over the past 25 years.
Elwell rejects any idea that Border to Coast fits into this category. A third of its £120 billion is invested in Britain and about a third of that — or more than 10 per cent of the total — in London-listed shares. City figures are calling for pen- sion funds to invest more in UK shares to protect the London Stock Exchange from extinction as more companies are being taken private than are joining through initial public offerings (IPOs).
Just last week, property giant Segro appeared to succumb to a £14 billion take- over by a US raider.
Many private sector pension schemes that offered an income based on earnings have now closed to new members and are risk-averse, parking their funds in gov- ernment bonds to protect the savings of their retirees.
By contrast, the LGPS are still open schemes. “So they can continue to take the risk,” Elwell says.
While the LGPS is an investor in Lon- don-listed shares, she points out that “a lot of” the income generated by compa- nies listed in London is from “overseas”.
“We have been more focused on think- ing about how do we support companies pre-IPO because — it’s the flywheel — if we can get that going then it will feed the stock market,” she explains. B
order to Coast is looking to put more investment into what Elwell calls “hyper-local” projects. It is working on a pilot scheme in the North East with three of the LGPS to “direct their capital into real estate opportunities in that area”.
This was under way even before Burn- ham started to champion the devolution agenda; Border to Coast hopes to appoint a fund manager with a mandate to run the project “after the summer”.
“We’ve been working with Homes England as well as the mayoral authori- ties and the local authorities to look at what’s actually needed in that area … while very firmly having the financial return the partner funds need to pay their pensions,” she says.
Reputational risk is also on Elwell’s mind. “[This is] one of the areas that you have to be really thoughtful about when you’re investing as a domestic investor,” she says.
“When you do these investments locally, it’s local people who see them and it’s the local politicians who get all of the heat if something goes wrong.
“So we have to be good at not just thinking about investment risk, but also how we are engaging stakeholders so that we’ve got their knowledge and under- standing of what’s happening locally and we can work with them to manage that.”
She adds: “This goes back to the ‘sys- tem’. The most important thing is that there’s confidence in it, because if people stop being confident in pensions giving them a good income, then as a society we’re going to have all sorts of problems.”
The average member of a Border to Coast pension scheme is a woman, aged about 49, working part-time. “The vast majority of people who work in local gov- ernment are women — dinner ladies, librarians,” explains Elwell. “That woman who works part-time earning about £19,000 a year is earning a pension of £5,000 a year once she’s retired.
“That’s the difference between being on means-tested benefits and feeling like you have actively contributed and shaped your own retirement. For individ- uals, that’s really important, because there’s lots of evidence about the psycho- logical impacts of being on means-tested versus feeling like you’ve contributed to your own retirement.”
L
FORTSON
Danny Fortson
San Francisco
ogan Graham painted a grip- ping picture. “As we huddled around our computers,” he wrote, “I told the team to ‘remember this moment’.” To what moment did he refer? “The first true AI safety inci- dent”, said Graham, who heads a squad of artificial intelligence threat experts known as the Frontier Red Team at AI giant Anthropic.
The event ten days ago is still sending shockwaves around the world. Hugging Face, a multibillion-dollar, New York start-up that maintains a vast library of AI code and datasets, announced the week before last that it had been attacked by an unknown AI agent.
The attacker advanced at frightening speed and scale, executing “tens of thou- sands” of actions to break into the com- pany’s systems with stolen log-in creden- tials and “zero-day” exploits — chinks in digital armour never before found.
The attacker, said Hugging Face in a blog post, moved at “machine speed”. Imagine not one burglar trying thou- sands of doors until he finds the right one, but thousands of burglars trying all the doors in unison. “This one was differ- ent from anything we had handled before,” Hugging Face added. “It was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system.”
Hugging Face managed to neutralise the attack using another AI system and reported the data theft to the authorities.
Days later, the company behind the attack raised its hand: OpenAI. The San Francisco company behind ChatGPT posted a statement explaining that the incident — the crime — was the result of a test gone wrong. OpenAI had set out to examine the cyber-hacking capabilities of two of its models: its newest GPT-5.6 Sol system, along with an as yet unre- leased model.
The company set up a “sandbox”, the equivalent of a digital safe room discon- nected from the internet, and then ordered the AI agents to work through a series of tests. But the agents chose a dif- ferent path. Instead of simply sitting the exam, they decided to steal the answers.
They found a zero-day vulnerability in OpenAI’s systems to break out of the sandbox, on to the internet, and then broke into the place most likely to have what they needed: Hugging Face. OpenAI marvelled at the “extreme lengths” to which the AI tools went to achieve such a narrow task: passing a test.
For cybersecurity experts and AI doomsdayers, the episode felt ominous — further proof that the belief we humans can control increasingly powerful, super- intelligent machines is fiction. Connor Leahy,US executive director of Control
lost control over AI already?
In an interview with The Economist magazine, Elon Musk, below, admitted he’d become more relaxed about the dangers of AI
program, stoking safety fears — but Elon Musk prefers to ‘look on the bright side’
AI, a campaign group, said: “I guarantee you that the engineers did not want their AI to go out and commit a felony.” He added: “They don’t know how to control these systems.”
that the engineers did not want their AI to go out and commit a felony
Back in May 2023, more than 350 peo- ple — from Google DeepMind’s Sir Demis Hassabis to Anthropic chief Dario Amo- dei and Sam Altman of OpenAI — put their names to a simple, one-line state- ment: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority along- side other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
It is a strange document to look back on. There have been many conferences and talking shops in the past three and a half years, but zero meaningful AI legisla- tion has been passed. Last week, in an interview with The Economist magazine, Elon Musk admitted that he had become more relaxed about the dangers. “I still think there’s risk associated with AI and robots — it’s not zero,” he said. “I guess I’ve come to ... my sort of philosophical conclusion is to look on the bright side.”
Musk had a laid-back plan for self-reg- ulation: the leading AI bosses could have “a call once every few weeks and just dis- cuss any safety and security issues”.
Altman wrote last week: “The world is not going to get to enjoy the benefits of AI if we do not take action to address the very real safety threats in front of us. I would like to propose a simple frame- work: a US-led international forum that establishes accepted standards, provides expert and impartial analysis of capabili- ties and risks, and makes the technology available to nations and companies that participate and follow the rules.”
Meanwhile, the leading artificial intel- ligence labs have quickened their race towards their shared, stated goal of building superintelligence: systems that are vastly superior to humans in all cognitive tasks. Perhaps not surprisingly, the cadence of AI agents somehow slipping the leash has also accelerated.
thinks it can rejuvenate your liver
Blake Byers has seen the future: some recently intoxicated old mice, spryly milling about, looking for their next adventure. Next to them are three other mice, passed out in the wood shavings of their cage.
Both groups of rodents are the same age. They have both imbibed the same amount of booze. But the first group — happily bouncing around their cage — have also been given a wonder drug that Byers, founder of biotech NewLimit, reckons is a new class of anti-ageing medicine that could “bend the arc of humanity”.
NewLimit, bankrolled by Coinbase crypto billionaire Brian Armstrong, was founded five years ago to “radically” extend the health span of humans. Last month, the San Francisco company announced plans to begin human trials for its first drug — a treatment that rejuvenates liver cells, even in heavy drinkers.
The science behind this, and other drugs being developed by New Limit, is what is known as “epigenetic reprogramming”. It is an approach that makes cells act like they did when they were much younger and more efficient — not unlike restoring a computer to its factory settings after it has been weighed down by software updates, viruses and years of grinding use.
The liver drug is NewLimit’s most advanced. The company is also developing treatments to restore immune system cells and kidney function, both of which degrade precipitously with age. “The line which we draw to define kidney disease is moved based on your age,” said chief executive Jacob Kimmel.
“If we use the 18-year-old kidney threshold for kidney disease, you and I would both be defined as formally having failing kidneys.”
NewLimit’s goal is to “rescue” cellular function by activating specialised genes called “transcription factors”, which already exist in your genome. The hope is that by tweaking those genetic dials just so, and in just the right combination, they can kick-off a process of cellular rejuvenation that will, in turn, yield years of longer, healthier life.
“There are thousands of people who live to 100-plus. This is not a rare event on a global scale. So we have many walking, talking, living existence proofs that a better life is possible,” said Kimmel. “I want to make that sort of opportunity available for as many people as possible.”
many people as possible to have a longer life
Amazon and OpenAI, respectively, to former Google chief Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel, co- founder of PayPal and Palantir. All have put cash into longevity start-ups.
On the back of its progress, NewLimit raised $435 million (£325 million) last month from investors including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. And while the sector is awash in snake-oil salesman pushing peptides, blood transfusions and all manner of “miracle” supplements, the tech elite are not investing blindly.
Since Anthropic’s Amodei signed that warning about the potential end of humanity, his company has released 18 AI models, each one more powerful than the last. Anthropic’s annual revenue has exploded from next to zero at the time of signing to $47 billion (£35 billion) today. The San Francisco company has filed to float on the stock market in what may turn out to be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history at $3 trillion.
The incentives to keep building are immense. And they have led to strategic decisions that are, at best, questionable, said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute in New York.
“We’re seeing a rush to train models on offensive-use cases, which very clearly feed into a specific, fear-monger- ing narrative, rather than the protection of digital infrastructure. This is a design choice,” she said.
Indeed, just three months ago, Anthropic sparked a global freakout with the roll-out of Mythos, which it billed as a cyber super-weapon.
Khlaaf said: “If you’re able to demon- strate that your model is ever so capable, this is very helpful to upcoming IPOs.” OpenAI has also announced plans for a blockbuster market float. It said: “Cyber capabilities are inherently dual-use. The same capabilities that can identify and exploit a vulnerability can help defend- ers find, prioritise and patch it.”
Nate Soares, president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Califor- nia and co-author of the 2025 book If Any- one Builds it, Everyone Dies, has long argued that the industry should simply stop because humanity’s attempts to rein in entities that are dramatically more intelligent are doomed to failure.
Indeed, “sandboxes” like the one OpenAI set up for the test in which Hug- ging Face was attacked are notoriously porous. In that sense, Khlaaf argued, even if OpenAI was surprised by the methods, its engineers should not have been surprised by the result. The models did the thing they were tasked to do. O
ne of the core problems lies in how AI agents are built. Unlike tradi- tional software, where code is writ- ten line by line by humans, these tools are more like organisms that are grown. They are “neural networks”, which self-assemble through the inges- tion of vast amounts of data, powered by racks and racks of servers inside data cen- tres. Amodei famously said last year that “we understand roughly 3 per cent of how our AI models work”.
Soares added: “AIs like to learn tend- encies — like tendencies to grab resour- ces, to surmount obstacles, do things other than what the user said. They’re not the real deal yet. They’re not able to break out in secret, they’re not able to replicate, they’re not able to start invent- ing their own technology. But these are the warning signs we’ve been predicting for a long time.”
Predicting human extinction does not require conjuring up an evil AI agent, but simply a focused one. The most notori- ous thought experiment in the industry is the “paperclip maximiser” from philoso- phy professor Nick Bostrom.
In this example, artificial intelligence is told to create a system to manufacture as many paperclips as possible. Working to that goal, it converts all available mat- ter — ore, humans, earth — into paper- clips or paperclip-making infrastructure. Humans die. The planet is destroyed.
The Hugging Face incident? “This is
the paperclip thought experiment in
the real world,” Leahy at Con-
trol AI said.
“I am morbidly amused that it is this blatant.”
proven particularly appealing to techies, who tend to view the world with an engineering mindset — one where every gadget, every process, every business is just a machine waiting to be tuned, to be improved. Perhaps the human body is no different.
The arrival of AI could unleash a wave of new companies and cures. NewLimit, for example, built a proprietary AI tool that has dramatically accelerated the firm’s ability to find therapeutic candidates.
“The number of combinations you could plausibly test for therapeutics is semi-infinite, and it turns out that humans, like myself, are very bad at prioritising which of these combinations to test is amongst those,” Kimmel explained. “Absent the AI systems we’ve built, it’s very unlikely we would have discovered any of the products that are currently in our pipeline.”
NewLimit’s chief executive reckons thatAI will be as consequential as the invention of recombinant DNA technology, which allowed genes to be produced as products for the first time.
“I think this is probably the only other technology that’s occurred in this industry on the same order of magnitude and scale,” Kimmel said. “If anything, we can expect more productive medicines than we saw from that prior epoch in the 1970s and 1980s.”
I
T
A
about Thatcher and focus on now
n his energetic first week in office, Andy Burnham has reintroduced one of my policies: the £2 bus fare. But this announcement does not fill me with as much joy as it should. For I fear it means our new prime minister is falling into the same trap that both Sir Keir Starmer and I did. Burnham has declared that he will lead a “cost of living government”. It is easy to see why: the cost of living is the number one issue for voters. Yet ultimately it is a symptom of the problem we face, rather than its cause.
As I have argued in these pages before, the defining challenge is our lack of growth. Real earnings are roughly 25 per cent below where they would be if we were growing as we did before the financial crisis.
5%
Growth requires tough choices on regulation, social protections and public spending — choices that Burnham hasn’t talked about yet. The answers to these challenges won’t be as focus-group, or even Makerfield-friendly as these headline-grabbing cost of living interventions. They won’t be as instant either. Yet unless we are prepared to
to tech’s big bet Healey must keep a lid on damaging budget speculation
his new government we have, though Labour remains in power, has me more than a little puzzled. It is not just the flurry of announcements. Maybe it is because we have got so used to senior politicians being so guarded — with everything having gone through the filter of research departments and focus groups — that we are taken aback by a prime minister given to off-the-cuff remarks.
Donald Trump does it and gets away with it, because much of what he says is taken with a pinch of salt, but Andy Burnham is no Trump, thankfully. It is all a bit odd, and rather unsettling, and I have yet to see the Rolls-Royce economic advice that the new prime minister is said to have at his disposal.
Since becoming prime minister less than a week ago, he has speculated about, or failed to rule out, rent controls, a wealth tax, ending the unwelcome but revenue-necessary freeze on the personal income tax allowance, and increasing the top rate of tax to 50 per cent from 45 per cent.
Some of these ideas are batty, others unworkable, so we must hope they are the product of a politician still reading himself into the job. The personal tax allowance idea seemed to have bitten the dust, but was then back on again for consideration in the autumn budget. It is, of course, the bedrock revenue measure for getting the budget deficit down and meeting fiscal rules.
To give you an idea of how expensive a meaningful rise in the allowance would be, breaking Labour’s 2024 election manifesto by raising the 45p top rate of income tax to 50p would generate enough additional revenue, about £1 billion a year, to raise the £12,570 allowance by only £100.
As for the policies that have been announced, notably the abolition of the 5 per cent VAT rate on domestic electricity bills, every expert can agree that this kind of blanket measure is a poor way of directing help to those who most need it.
Another policy, a £2 bus fare for everywhere in England outside London next year, will pass many people by. London, where half of all bus journeys in England take place, currently has a single bus fare of £1.75.
Similarly, the new prime minister’s rejection of the past 40 years, including the Thatcher and Blair premierships, was seemingly verging on the economically illiterate to judge from the heated response of some commentators. Even economists who did not like what she did would concede that Britain’s relative economic performance improved under Margaret Thatcher; that the unions were tamed, improving labour market flexibility; and that these economic improvements were consolidated and built upon under Tony Blair, not least because of Bank of England independence.
make the hard trade-offs necessary for growth, the cost of living crisis will become a permacrisis.
Our new PM says that he wants “good growth in every postcode”. This is laudable, but the imperative now must be growth full stop. When Burnham was appointed chief secretary to the Treasury in 2007, just before the financial crisis, the trend growth rate of our economy was 2.75 per cent a year; today it’s 1.5 per cent. We won’t be able to achieve any of the things we want for our country unless we can turn this around.
Growth demands a relentless focus on the future. But I worry Burnham is too focused on the past; in almost every speech, he talks about what should have happened during Margaret Thatcher’s reign as prime minister in the 1980s. This would be like Tony Blair railing against the Harold Macmillan government of 1957-63, or me blaming Jim Callaghan, PM between 1976 and 1979, for the challenges of the 2020s.
Leaving aside that there is a reason why New Labour accepted, and undoubtedly benefited from, the Thatcher settlement, politics shouldn’t
safe-pair-of-hands chancellor that business rather likes
with champagne-quaffing City types, council houses being flogged off cheaply and never replaced, and economic devastation for manufacturing towns and mining communities.
And that, I think, is the way to interpret what Burnham says and does. A lot of it is performative, intended to contrast his government with what has gone before. The abolition of VAT on electricity bills was not the best energy help that the government could give to struggling people. But it is easy to understand, and it was in sharp contrast to the first decision of former chancellor Rachel Reeves: abolishing winter fuel payments for most pensioners when the energy shock from the Russian invasion of Ukraine was fresh in the memory.
It is a useful contrast, which has registered well with the public, small though the VAT move is. At a time when inflation is a lower-than-feared 2.6 per cent, removing any pressure for the
Consumer price inflation
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Source: ONS
Bank Rate
UK growth per head has flatlined
1980-2007 trend extrapolated Actual GDP per head
£60(000)
-30% (£17,500 per person)
1980 2025
Trend fitted to 1980-2007 growth (2.4% p.a), extrapolated to 2025. Source: ONS
be about trying to create a better yesterday. This emphasis on the past is even more concerning given that Burnham has abolished the government department most focused on the future, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT).
The new AI minister attending cabinet, Kanishka Narayan, is impressive. Even with my bias towards Stanford MBAs, it is clear he is knowledgeable, dynamic and respected. Yet one minister will find it hard to
Bank of England to raise interest rates this week, help with the cost of living would seem less of a priority than growth. But people notice it when governments help out.
We do not know yet how Burnham’s partnership with John Healey, the new chancellor, will work out. I hope you noticed I avoided naming names last Sunday, because I would not have named him. But Healey, who has “Change” displayed prominently on his X page, along with “Husband, Dad and Proud Yorkshireman”, and now “Chancellor of the Exchequer”, looks like the kind of safe-pair-of-hands chancellor that business rather likes.
He also looks like a bit of a father figure to the boyish prime minister, though at 66, he is only ten years older.
These are early days, but the worry now is not whether the government has the fiscal loose change to meet its commitments on VAT on electricity, bus fares and business rates for pubs, clubs and smaller entertainment venues.
It is whether the government’s wider ambitions can be met without substantially raising taxes further, when they are already destined for record levels. Healey, fresh from his resignation as defence secretary over the Starmer government’s failure to commit to spending 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence by the end of the decade, knows of one pressure on which he will surely have to deliver.
In numbers, there was already an unfunded component of about
compensate for the loss of a whole department, which is now being split across Whitehall.
My worry about technology sitting inside the business department is that it will always end up playing second fiddle to long-standing departmental concerns such as British Steel. I set up the DSIT because we needed somewhere in Whitehall that was unambiguously looking to the future and focused on all the tech innovations that will shape it, from AI to biotech to quantum computing. The fragmentation of the DSIT’s responsibilities across three departments will make everything government does in this area less co- ordinated and less effective.
Growth in the coming years will come from harnessing the power of new technologies. I see the speed and scale of what is coming through my work with Anthropic and Microsoft. We cannot afford to neglect the new industries that will come out of this technological transformation. But by abolishing the DSIT, the government has severed our most direct link with this ecosystem.
The urgency of our growth challenge
£1.2 billion a year in the plan to raise defence spending to 2.7 per cent of GDP. To get to 3 per cent by the end of the decade would require extra annual spending of £9.5 billion based on this year’s GDP, and £10.9 billion on the OBR’s projection for 2030-31.
Healey did not find a “there’s no money left” note waiting on his No 11 desk, but money was tight enough when he was defence secretary for the Treasury to hold out against his demands and still come up short.
Nobody can envy him his task in finding the resources for this and other government priorities. But there is one service he could perform, for which everybody in business would be grateful. In the past two years, there has been an orgy of speculation in the run-up to the autumn budget about impending tax changes, much of which turned out to very wide of the mark, but with damaging real-world consequences.
Rain Newton-Smith, director-general of the CBI, says we must avoid another “summer of speculation” about potential tax hikes. She is right, though last year the speculation carried on until late autumn and the then chancellor was either unable or unwilling stop it.
Healey has the additional problem of a verbose prime minster to deal with, but he could very usefully keep a lid on the wilder speculation. Otherwise, we risk the economy once again going on hold until the budget’s details are unveiled. It will not be an easy task, but I hope he can rise to it.
PS When Healey’s appointment as chancellor was announced, many people were almost beside themselves at the prospect of another Healey in 11 Downing Street, Denis Healey having been Labour chancellor during the turbulent years between 1974 and 1979.
It included the high drama of the UK being rescued by the International Monetary Fund in 1976 and another famous episode that has entered folklore: Healey, having set off for the IMF and World Bank’s annual meetings in the Philippines, decided at Heathrow that he should stay back and handle the situation — and turned back.
As it happens, to mark the 50th anniversary of that rescue, I have written a longish piece, “The 1976 IMF Crisis Revisited”, to appear shortly in the journal Contemporary Social Science. With hindsight, the rescue — to support the UK’s balance of payments — was odd. The current account deficit in 1976 was small, 0.7 per cent of GDP, and on its way to a surplus thanks to North Sea oil. But confidence had ebbed away. The article should be open access when published.
2025 26
Despite that humiliation, Denis Healey is remembered as one of the best prime ministers Labour never had, and was a popular figure despite his economic travails. He was one of a generation of politicians who fought in the Second World War.
is only increasing. Both the chancellor and the prime minister have costly priorities and it bears repeating: we can’t simply borrow to pay for them.
Our new chancellor quit Starmer’s cabinet when he was defence secretary over the government’s refusal to set out a timetable for raising defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030. Given the urgency of this issue, John Healey’s frustration was more than justified.
I am sceptical, though, of the idea that there are creative ways to fund this necessary increase. War bonds sound good, but are still just borrowing by another name. We’d be foolish to test the market’s attitude to lending us even more money.
Instead, we need to hold down other forms of public spending. If we could return working-age welfare to pre- pandemic levels, we would save more than £24 billion. Doing this would be tough, and would provoke a backbench backlash, but it is necessary.
Burnham has been campaigning for social care reform for the past eight prime ministers. Yet an NHS for social care would represent a significant
funny thing is happening to America’s AI hyperscalers as they struggle to cover their bets until the day when they can cash in their chips. Their highly sophisticated products became commodified and free for the asking just as their capital spending — the largest data centres can cost $50 billion — outran their internally generated cash, driving them into the hands of the money lenders.
Matt Phillips of Axios estimates that hyperscalers Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle will have negative free cash flow of minus $31.9 billion over the next 12 months. Markets are betting this is petty cash compared to what will end up being spent.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, which accounts for about two-thirds of global sales of the chips that provide computing power, puts the capital needs of hyperscalers at $3 trillion to $4 trillion through 2030, a figure that seems to require daily upward revision.
Declining internal cash flow, plus rising capital needs, have resulted in massive borrowing. Goldman Sachs says the six largest hyperscalers have issued $244 billion in bonds this year, 14 times 2024 levels.
Amazon raised $31.5 billion in a mere 48 hours, including $14 billion in a Canadian-denominated bond sale. Meta sold $25 billion in bonds and followed that with $27.3 billion in an off-balance- sheet private credit deal, and laid off 10 per cent of its work force, some 8,000 workers, to increase internal cash generation – a trade of jobs for capital.
Oracle, its debt downrated to one notch above junk, raised $43 billion in its recent fiscal year based in part on pre- payments by hyperscalers that rely on borrowed funds from circular vendor financing. Nikkei Asia estimates that five big tech companies have taken on $1.65 trillion in what it calls “hidden debt”.
This, says Reuters, is an “aggressive turn to debt markets … a generational shift from using pure cash flow to fund technological advancement”. The ability to carry and repay all this debt depends on whether the revenues materialise. Morgan Stanley’s “Bull Case” declares that to be doable. “A mere 1 per cent to 2 per cent uplift in profit margins … could generate $1 trillion in incremental earnings — enough to justify a $10 trillion AI investment base.” Its “Bear Case” worries that too much debt, electricity shortages and “a largely free consumer model” will trigger “equity underperformance.” Which would be bad news for an economy heavily dependent on AI investment.
Chinese AI companies have developed simple AI models that are outselling American ones in the market for routine chores such as coding, summarisation, customer service and data extraction. But a few weeks ago these companies brought to market more sophisticated models that offer performance comparable on many benchmarks to the best US models, and at far lower cost according to Vals AI, an independent evaluation company.
expansion of the state. The costs might start relatively low, but with an ageing population, they would increase rapidly.
It wouldn’t be credible, or responsible, to introduce this policy without a way to pay for it. I feel strongly about it because this was the beginning of the end of my partnership with Boris Johnson. He wanted a comprehensive social care solution. I was sceptical, but he was PM.
However, as chancellor, I felt I had to insist that this expansion of the state was paid for. This is what led to the NHS health and social care levy. Yet after a backlash, Boris wanted to drop the tax but keep the spending commitment. I couldn’t agree. Things deteriorated from there.
Burnham has promised a ten-year plan for the country in the autumn. It should be judged by one test: does it tackle the causes of our stagnation, or is it just designed to make our decline feel more comfortable?
The Sunday Times supports the Richmond Project (richmondproject.org) and the work it undertakes. Rishi Sunak has donated the fee for this column to it
China, led by a rehabilitated Jack Ma and his ecommerce business Alibaba, “brazenly” and “illicitly” stole American IP, something treasury secretary Scott Bessent plans to discuss with the Chinese prior to Xi Jinping’s September visit to the US.
The Chinese models are “open source”, free of charge, enabling users to customise them with company data, and run them on their own systems without paying for subscriptions or a per-query charge. Xi, President of the People’s Republic, has called on the global community to “seize this … opportunity to encourage open source”, which translates into a call to deny American hyperscalers the revenue they need to honour their long-term contracts and complete the nation’s AI infrastructure
Security hawks, joined by old-time
uplift in profit margins … could generate $1 trillion
protectionists, are pushing plans to prevent US companies from deploying Chinese artificial intelligence technology. Their opponents respond that it is virtually impossible to prevent the spread of Chinese AI technology because a good deal is already implanted in the AI tools used by American businesses, and the government cannot detect its presence on private servers.
Besides, as Nvidia’s Huang told Mike Allen, executive editor of Axios, “There’s no scenario where China runs US companies off the road. Zero possibility.” The prediction market Kalshi reports: “The implicit probability that Chinese models are heavily disrupting US rivals is highly elevated.”
State of play: American companies want their capitalist president to bar Americans from buying the technology that China’s communist president wants to bar its companies from selling to Americans. Meanwhile, President Trump is considering taking equity positions in AI companies that control the commanding heights of the American economy.
I
Job ads with no salary numbers: is it time to end all the secrecy?
magine spending hours applying — and then being interviewed, twice — for an executive role at a charity, only to discover that the salary is a meagre £35,000 a year. That was the experience of Steven De La Rosa, an operations and strategy director who has worked in the construction and energy sectors.
Presumably, he wouldn’t have wasted his time had he known the pay on offer? “You’re absolutely right,” he says.
Experiences like his could soon become a thing of the past. The government is consulting on new rules that would require employers to advertise salary ranges upfront, instead of keeping pay under wraps until the final stages of the recruitment process.
The proposals would also ban employers from asking candidates about their salary history, with the aim of making pay fairer and tackling persistent wage gaps.
The move comes as salary transparency has gone into reverse. Figures from jobs search-engine Adzuna show that just 41.6 per cent of UK job adverts disclosed a salary in June, down from 59.5 per cent a decade ago and meaning that almost six in ten vacancies gave candidates no indication of pay.
If Britain changed the law, it wouldn’t be breaking new ground; it would be catching up with some of its European neighbours. Since June, employers in Italy, Malta and Lithuania, among others, have been required under the EU’s Pay Transparency Directive to advertise salary ranges and stop asking candidates about previous pay.
But the government’s plans have their critics. While many bosses agree greater pay transparency is desirable, they question whether it has to be imposed through regulation at a time when firms are already grappling with the additional bureaucracy and costs associated with the Employment Rights Act.
“There is a big difference between ‘should’ and making it a law — putting
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1.5
Price Change on week 52-week high low Yield Mkt Cap
(£m) 47 Admiral 3588.0 -60.0 3730.0 2624.0 10990.2 45 Airtel Africa 334.2 -11.8 436.2 184.0 12141.5 138 AJ Bell 596.0 -7.5 662.5 414.4 2352.8 82 Alliance Witan 1323.0 +4.0 1356.0 1178.0 4914.3 147 Allianz Technology Trust 683.0 +9.0 764.0 439.5 2258.2 18 Anglo American 3721.0 +321.0 4239.0 2042.0 43835.3 21 Antofagasta 3631.0 +140.0 4475.0 1850.5 35796.5 189 Ashmore 205.8 -4.2 276.5 145.9 1466.8 42 Associated British Foods 1995.5 -56.5 2359.0 1729.5 14043.3 2 AstraZeneca 12670.0 +76.0 15732.0 9892.0 196515.0 197 Atalaya Mining Copper 905.0 +108.0 1094.0 440.5 1391.5 98 Autotrader 489.1 -9.2 844.4 418.6 3831.2 33 Aviva 691.0 +18.4 700.8 590.6 20740.0 75 Babcock International 1121.0 +85.0 1527.0 902.4 5516.9 14 BAE Systems 1971.0 +91.0 2360.0 1529.0 59220.1 90 Balfour Beatty 879.0 +12.5 900.0 519.0 4208.0 10 Barclays 525.4 +8.8 554.1 351.0 70964.3 92 Barratt Redrow 294.8 +1.4 410.2 235.4 4151.9 61 Beazley 1293.0 +5.5 1295.0 750.0 7777.8 148 Bellway 1979.0 +12.0 2890.0 1715.0 2237.5 114 Berkeley Group 3432.0 +18.0 4442.0 2796.0 3149.1 167 Big Yellow Group 889.5 +10.0 1208.0 800.5 1751.2 172 BlackRock World Mining Trust 884.0 +42.0 1072.9 543.1 1652.3 152 B&M European Value Retail 213.4 +14.6 269.2 140.0 2144.7 8 BP 548.4 +31.2 609.4 393.2 86114.7 123 Bridgepoint 317.6 -5.0 363.4 212.0 2788.8 5 British American Tobacco 4572.0 -97.0 5326.0 3677.0 98924.1 86 British Land Co 438.8 -1.2 445.4 318.6 4497.4 34 BT 193.0 -5.0 242.1 173.0 19237.5 56 Bunzl 2758.0 -38.0 2800.0 1981.0 8943.9 97 Burberry 1068.0 +19.0 1376.5 976.0 3855.6 159 Caledonia Investments 381.0 +0.5 395.0 312.0 1950.2 64 Centrica 163.0 -10.2 220.2 153.2 7529.7 176 Chemring 596.5 +39.5 620.0 446.5 1623.2 116 City of London Investment Trust 582.0 -1.0 592.0 486.0 3000.3 188 Clarkson 4782.0 +84.0 4992.0 3365.0 1480.2 155 CMC Markets 723.0 +22.0 752.0 203.0 2023.1 192 Coats Group 75.8 -0.8 98.1 71.0 1453.4 22 Coca-Cola Europacific Partners 7895.0 +20.0 8270.0 6280.0 34992.0 37 Coca-Cola HBC AG 4870.0 -66.0 5195.0 3270.0 17749.4 20 Compass 2272.6 -77.0 2581.1 2000.0 38645.3 89 ConvaTec 216.0 -0.8 259.2 193.0 4222.5 117 Cranswick 5480.0 -40.0 5810.0 4775.0 2975.9 93 Croda International 2932.0 +4.0 3312.0 2426.8 4094.1 163 Currys 164.2 +4.1 169.4 106.0 1795.2 77 DCC Energy 6285.0 nc 6740.0 4188.0 5368.9 146 Derwent London 2038.0 -8.0 2070.0 1469.4 2261.4 23 Diageo 1562.5 -11.5 2142.0 1295.5 34790.4 50 Diploma 7520.0 +280.0 7663.2 4970.0 10100.7 129 Drax Group 764.0 -8.0 937.5 613.9 2571.5 168 Dunelm Group 867.5 -8.5 1249.0 707.0 1748.7 83 Easyjet 618.0 -53.8 683.8 332.6 4684.5
Price Change on week 52-week high low Yield Mkt Cap
(£m) 57 Endeavour Mining 3607.0 +179.0 5620.0 2236.0 8716.1 184 Energean 828.0 +78.5 1042.0 674.5 1529.4 103 Entain 553.4 -5.4 1031.5 500.4 3541.2 31 Experian 2744.0 +25.0 4092.5 2203.0 24344.0 71 F&C Investment Trust 333.4 +0.6 1332.0 325.8 6280.7 154 Fidelity European Trust 423.5 +4.5 442.0 367.5 2088.2 190 Fidelity Special Values 452.0 +7.0 460.5 372.0 1466.1 104 Frasers Group 765.0 +35.0 819.5 598.0 3424.6 36 Fresnillo 2546.0 +104.0 4472.0 1371.0 18761.3 69 Games Workshop 19940.0 -320.0 23540.0 14070.0 6589.1 193 Genus 2136.0 +6.0 3228.8 1943.0 1421.3 12 Glencore 537.2 +20.6 707.2 275.2 63068.2 196 Goodwin 18600.0 +780.0 28500.0 7100.0 1396.8 165 Grafton Group 943.5 -1.2 1009.8 788.6 1771.5 194 Great Portland Estates 345.0 +6.0 377.0 270.0 1401.3 140 Greencoat UK Wind 108.0 +3.0 127.9 92.2 2331.3 157 Greencore Group 247.2 +29.0 307.5 191.1 1986.5 177 Greggs 1582.0 -11.0 1856.0 1407.2 1617.7 9 GSK 1919.5 +3.0 2282.0 1288.6 77651.4 24 Haleon 363.5 -9.8 416.1 274.4 32020.3 43 Halma 3614.0 -62.0 4902.0 3191.4 13720.4 158 Hammerson 366.6 -6.4 377.0 263.4 1950.5 95 Harbour Energy 256.2 +22.8 321.0 182.0 4048.6 141 HarbourVest Global Private Equity 3350.0 +45.0 3470.0 2630.9 2331.3 153 Helios Towers 203.0 +8.2 247.6 113.2 2112.0 169 HG Capital Trust 380.5 -3.0 530.0 318.6 1723.6 133 HICL Infrastructure 134.2 -0.6 138.0 107.2 2499.1 107 Hikma Pharmaceuticals 1582.0 +21.0 2046.0 1187.0 3341.3 137 Hill & Smith 3030.0 +35.0 3145.0 1951.8 2377.1 72 Hiscox 1840.0 -37.0 1904.0 1246.0 5909.7 144 Hochschild Mining 444.6 +18.2 858.0 246.2 2287.3 91 Howden Joinery 766.0 -34.5 981.0 713.0 4199.4 1 HSBC Hldgs 1552.8 +60.6 1590.0 908.8 266826.0 79 ICG 1866.0 -24.0 2340.0 1424.9 5207.2 66 IMI 3050.0 +82.0 3064.0 2138.0 7286.8 32 Imperial Brands 2823.0 -47.0 3632.0 2626.0 21639.0 119 Inchcape 825.5 +27.5 895.0 640.5 2885.4 46 Informa 881.0 -3.6 1000.0 719.0 11088.2 39 InterContinental Hotels 11749.8 +38.6 13305.0 8458.0 17460.8 35 International Consolidated Airlines 434.2 -10.1 492.9 332.8 19146.7 132 International Public Partnership 139.8 -1.4 142.8 115.6 2502.7 161 International Workplace 199.8 +5.8 250.8 163.5 1904.5 55 Intertek 5820.0 nc 5840.0 3519.4 8958.8 88 Ithaca Energy 257.6 +21.2 290.8 149.8 4260.0 124 ITV 73.0 nc 88.9 65.8 2770.9 87 JD Sports Fashion 89.0 +2.0 106.1 64.0 4278.6 111 Johnson Matthey 1918.0 nc 2434.0 1730.8 3223.3 156 JPMorgan American IT 1210.0 +8.0 1238.0 1041.0 1999.0 183 JPMorgan Emerging Mkts Gwth & Inc 162.4 +1.6 181.2 118.4 1530.2 108 JPMorgan Global Growth & Income 604.5 -3.5 615.0 529.6 3298.9 142 JTC 1326.0 -1.0 1385.1 795.0 2315.7 145 Keller Group 3298.0 -38.0 3518.0 1238.0 2285.0
Price Change on week 52-week high low Yield Mkt Cap
(£m) 81 Kingfisher 299.5 -4.8 372.2 240.2 4975.7 178 Lancashire Holdings 652.5 -1.5 700.0 549.0 1592.2 80 Land Securities 693.5 -8.0 710.2 522.5 5166.9 171 Law Debenture 1234.0 +14.0 1245.0 977.4 1652.6 40 Legal & General 299.6 +1.4 310.0 217.2 16568.5 11 Lloyds Banking 113.5 +2.0 116.0 74.4 65998.9 85 LondonMetric Property 195.1 +2.0 216.2 175.2 4586.8 19 London Stock Exchange 8774.0 -204.0 10430.0 6684.0 42844.2 106 Man Group 297.6 -3.4 310.6 154.2 3410.6 60 Marks & Spencer 380.5 +1.4 411.8 301.1 7864.7 73 Melrose Industries 470.4 +4.6 685.0 443.4 5861.9 166 Mercantile Investment Tst 277.5 +2.0 280.0 234.2 1756.1 76 Metlen Energy & Metals 3758.2 -16.5 4984.6 2643.8 5375.8 58 M&G 356.0 +2.1 359.2 247.0 8579.6 179 Mitchells & Butlers 264.0 -3.0 308.0 223.5 1584.9 126 MITIE Group 209.4 +58.4 214.0 134.8 2725.8 112 Mondi 729.4 -22.6 1212.5 660.0 3219.7 136 Monks Investment Trust 1580.0 -12.0 1664.0 1322.0 2426.3 150 Morgan Sindall 4506.0 -236.0 5730.0 3915.0 2164.4 151 Murray International Trust (Ord) 361.5 +4.5 369.0 283.2 2153.0 13 National Grid 1237.5 -19.5 1428.5 1000.0 62206.6 15 Natwest 676.0 +6.6 705.4 497.0 53832.5 38 Next 14785.0 -90.0 15105.0 11200.0 17691.3 195 Ninety One 211.0 -4.4 262.2 179.6 1398.5 180 Ocado 186.9 +21.8 397.9 140.2 1576.4 160 OSB 561.5 +7.0 647.5 479.0 1917.9 174 Oxford Instruments 2992.0 +160.0 3318.0 1682.0 1645.6 143 Pan African Res 94.9 +4.9 190.4 52.6 2310.8 182 Pantheon International 390.0 -1.0 409.0 319.5 1534.8 185 Paragon Banking 815.5 +11.0 981.0 681.5 1522.1 65 Pearson 1226.0 -29.5 1318.0 874.8 7370.0 149 Pennon 468.2 -26.0 606.0 439.4 2209.8 70 Pershing Square Holdings 3714.0 -100.0 5095.0 3636.0 6449.4 101 Persimmon 1107.0 +19.5 1552.0 947.4 3556.1 173 Personal Assets Trust 534.0 -3.0 555.0 507.0 1646.6 125 Plus500 3974.0 -236.0 5535.0 2874.0 2739.2 67 Polar Capital Technology Trust 645.5 +18.0 743.5 382.1 7138.7 175 Premier Foods 187.2 -4.1 211.6 165.2 1626.4 135 Primary Health Prop. 94.6 +0.2 109.6 87.4 2456.3 29 Prudential 1096.0 +52.0 1238.0 910.2 27471.9 131 Qinetiq 489.8 +36.0 551.5 398.5 2531.2 127 Quilter 194.8 -9.4 209.0 150.8 2663.9 200 Raspberry Pi Holdings 708.0 +40.0 1082.0 253.8 1371.5 186 Rathbones 1668.0 -38.0 2500.0 1580.0 1509.4 25 Reckitt Benckiser 4950.0 -136.0 6522.9 3664.0 31435.2 17 RELX 2568.0 +72.0 4008.0 1991.0 44981.8 164 Renewables Infrastructure 76.0 +1.6 90.5 63.2 1771.9 99 Renishaw 5205.0 +377.0 5490.0 2860.0 3788.6 48 Rentokil Initial 426.0 -24.0 507.0 342.5 10760.9 198 RHI Magnesita 2930.0 -25.0 3390.0 1920.0 1387.8 110 Rightmove 437.2 -13.8 827.0 391.4 3247.9 7 Rio Tinto 6869.0 +143.0 9117.0 4344.5 86209.1
Price Change on week 52-week high low Yield Mkt Cap
(£m) 105 RIT Capital Partners 2510.0 -65.0 2610.0 1900.0 3414.7 4 Rolls-Royce Holdings 1415.6 +50.0 1532.6 970.2 118003.0 109 Rosebank Industries 331.0 +36.0 395.0 294.0 3271.7 96 Rotork 488.0 +2.0 489.2 286.4 3987.5 113 RS Group 682.5 +12.0 742.8 536.9 3214.7 62 Sage 858.2 +12.6 1335.0 771.6 7760.7 63 Sainsbury (J) 345.0 -11.2 370.8 291.2 7641.1 52 Schroders 588.5 +0.5 599.5 358.6 9479.0 41 Scottish Mortgage Inv Tst 1316.0 -43.0 1563.0 1015.8 14130.2 44 Segro 979.0 +81.6 985.4 603.0 13256.4 139 Serco 240.6 +13.2 325.8 203.0 2351.8 54 Severn Trent 3020.0 -46.0 3335.0 2381.0 9114.5 122 Shaftesbury Capital 142.6 +1.6 162.9 124.1 2794.9 162 Shawbrook Group 354.0 -1.0 519.0 277.5 1839.7 3 Shell 3305.5 +69.5 3758.5 2553.8 183866.0 181 Sirius Real Estate 98.5 +1.5 113.0 86.8 1567.7 51 Smith & Nephew 1140.0 -11.0 1441.5 1050.0 9581.9 59 Smiths 2678.0 +117.0 2746.2 2088.0 7952.4 100 Softcat 1893.0 +58.0 1977.0 1083.0 3727.1 78 Spirax 7080.0 +120.0 8050.0 5950.0 5226.9 27 SSE 2422.0 -66.0 2767.5 1597.0 29364.2 191 SSP 191.0 +5.8 212.4 137.2 1456.5 16 Standard Chartered 2137.0 +34.0 2278.0 1285.0 46822.6 53 Standard Life 916.5 +13.0 920.5 615.0 9226.6 74 St. James's Place 1071.0 -9.0 1575.5 1050.0 5542.4 134 Tate & Lyle 556.5 -4.0 580.0 319.4 2478.9 118 Taylor Wimpey 82.8 -0.5 116.9 74.1 2888.4 128 TBC Bank 4762.0 +26.0 5200.0 3615.0 2653.7 121 Templeton Emerging Markets IT 309.0 +5.0 352.0 196.2 2851.7 26 Tesco 480.2 -4.4 510.4 406.9 30107.8 187 The Schiehallion Fund 147.0 +1.2 171.1 84.8 1509.0 28 3i Group 2758.0 +182.0 4497.0 1825.0 27855.0 102 3i Infrastructure 385.5 -5.5 394.5 325.0 3555.7 130 TP ICAP 350.0 -0.4 355.0 235.5 2538.8 84 Tritax Big Box 170.8 +3.6 174.0 132.2 4636.4 6 Unilever 4575.5 -97.5 5542.1 3644.0 98568.3 49 United Utilities 1368.0 -7.0 1497.0 1072.0 10162.4 120 Unite 555.0 +17.5 795.5 442.2 2853.0 30 Vodafone 114.6 -3.2 131.1 80.6 26389.6 170 Watches of Switzerland 709.0 -71.0 801.5 316.2 1654.1 68 Weir 2616.0 +134.0 3580.0 2254.0 6791.5 94 Whitbread 2437.0 +45.0 3302.0 2098.0 4087.9 199 Worldwide Healthcare Trust 384.5 +3.5 398.0 306.5 1379.1 115 WPP 282.5 +0.1 443.2 218.5 3047.6
more red tape on the hiring process and no doubt spawning a regiment of bureaucrats tasked with rooting out offenders,” says Danvers Baillieu, a lawyer, investor and entrepreneur.
James Reed, head of recruitment company Reed, says pay transparency is “a good thing” and that his firm already advises clients to disclose salary bands. But he argues that a change in the law is unnecessary: “I don’t think it needs to be legislated. I don’t think that’s where the political effort should be.”
Nick Morley, chief executive of Lunio, a marketing technology company that employs nearly 60 people, believes the proposals are “well-meaning” but would create “lots of unnecessary headaches for employers” while narrowing the pool of candidates. He says Lunio has avoided publishing salaries in ads as it could expose pay differences to existing staff and “trigger potential HR issues”.
Employers, he argues, often have good reasons to exceed an advertised range — whether to secure someone with exceptional skills or account for regional differences. Fixed salary bands could also deter more experienced candidates, for whom companies might otherwise stretch financially, while putting off less- experienced applicants who could prove to be an outstanding cultural fit.
Yet the evidence in favour of transparency is mounting. Reed’s firm found job adverts including a salary get 60 per cent more applications than those that don’t. Meanwhile, a survey by campaign group We Show the Salary found 56 per cent of people were fairly or very unlikely to apply for a job if the salary was omitted.
“Salary transparency is not a fringe issue ... it’s one of a handful of big levers that entrench inequality in work and society. If we fix it, that’s a major step towards the overhaul needed,” says Nyree
Nyree Ambarchian of Jack & Grace
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Jo Tidball, founder of We Show the Salary, is in favour of a legislative change. “I don’t see this as red tape. This is actually about businesses just operating in a way that means they’re treating people well and doing the right thing. And if legislation is required as the only way to make some businesses do that, then yes, I would support that.”
For female workers, the practice of asking about previous pay appears particularly damaging. A survey by the Fawcett Society, a charity campaigning for women’s rights, found that 61 per cent of women said questions about salary history had undermined their confidence to negotiate for higher pay, while 58 per cent felt a low previous salary was “coming back to haunt them”.
The concern is well-founded. More than 50 years after the Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay men and women differently for equal work, women still earn less overall. The UK’s gender pay gap stands at 6.9 per cent for full-time employees, with men earning more than women across every major occupational group, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Researchers argue that asking candidates about previous salaries simply carries those inequalities from
one job to the next, by anchoring
future pay to historic earnings rather than the value of the role. Evidence from Britain’s gender pay gap reporting regime suggests that transparency could help break this cycle: one study found that mandatory pay reporting cut the gap by about a
fifth, largely by forcing employers
to examine and change their
pay practices.
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transparency entrenches inequality
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Mitie Group
Ambarchian, co-founder of PR agency Jack & Grace.
She and her co-founder became friends at a previous employer and later discovered they had been paid different salaries for doing the same job. Jack & Grace has published salary bands since 2021, two years after it was founded.
The benefits of pay transparency would extend beyond gender, according to Patrick Philpott, founder of the early- careers consultancy Visionpath, which helps employers recruit young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“Putting ‘competitive’ on an entry- level role is a known social mobility blocker,” he says. “Most young people — but especially those from backgrounds without coaching, guidance or professional insight — have no idea what a competitive salary is for a role.”
But achieving pay transparency will not be straightforward. For larger employers, in particular, publishing salary bands for new roles could expose inconsistencies — and inequalities — that have built over years. Tom Heys, pay reporting lead at law firm Lewis Silkin, says employers in Europe are already experiencing the knock-on effects of the new rules, which also give existing employees greater rights to information.
“Anecdotal feedback from a client in Italy was that they had 250 requests for information in one day when the new rights came in,” he says.
But difficulty alone is a weak argument for maintaining the status quo. Employers may soon have little choice anyway, says Ambarchian. “The generations coming behind us talk about this stuff; it’s not just going to stay as it is. By keeping it hidden, you’re simply storing up problems for the future.”
Whether businesses like the change or not, the direction of travel is becoming clear. And for jobseekers such as De la Rosa, it could mean never again devoting a lot of time to a potential job that was never worth pursuing in the first place. hannah.prevett@sundaytimes.com
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Retail price index current rate prev. month 3.0% 3.1%
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Manufacturing output on the year on last month
Retail sales on the year on last month
latest 3 mths prev. 3 mths latest 12 mths -9.09 -4.67 -23.08
UK trade balance (£bn)
latest quarter prev. quarter annual change
Gross domestic product
U0.6% U0.2% U1.1%
last month prev. month year to date -16.0 -20.0 -57.6
Budget deficit (PSNB) in £bn
11%
British Gas owner Centrica is cutting 1,300 jobs after a 20 per cent fall in customer calls after the deployment of AI in customer service. Would you rather talk to an AI chatbot for customer service than a person?
of words distracted from the issue... That was my mistake
Bill Winters, Standard Chartered CEO, on his previous comment that AI will replace ‘lower value human capital’
UK 5.033 U0.066 5.234 4.229
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U 2.3% U 0.1%
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Jul 20 21 22 23 24
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WHO KNOWS WHAT FATE HAS IN STORE FAME AND FORTUNE, PAGE 14 MONEY
A
detectives are after your wealth – here’s how to stop them
INHERITANCE TAX INVESTIGATIONS
It’s the biggest threat to your money
ndy Burnham has hinted at a bold proposal: abolish inheritance tax and replace it with a flat- rate national care levy paid on death. Forcing every family to pay a death duty might sound controversial but a lot of us could actually end up better off.
free at the point of use. While his plan lacks details, back in 2010 while health secretary he championed a flat 10 per cent charge on all estates after the owner dies to fund care for anyone who needs it.
(including a home) worth more than £23,250, you have to pay for your own care. Below that level and the state steps in. There is no cap on what you will pay either. Your bill could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds if your needs are complex and care is required for a number of years. A promised £86,000 cap on lifetime care costs was repeatedly kicked down the road before Labour scrapped it altogether.
a self-funded resident staying in a care home is £1,298 — an 19 per cent rise on the £1,086 average cost in 2022, according to the healthcare analyst LaingBuisson.
A man who is 60 today who lives until he is 89 could expect to pay £667,000 if he lives in a care home for the last three years of his life (assuming that care home prices rise an average of 3 per cent each year), according to the wealth manager Charles Stanley. You
can write your will, use every tax allowance available, and hoard your savings all you like; a few years in residential care will burn through a life’s work with brutal efficiency.
If Burnham introduced a flat levy on estates it would mean you didn’t have to worry about care fees for the rest of your life.
some cases HMRC investigators will be sent to the deceased’s property.
Investigations take 11 months on aver- age. This can slow the process of distrib- uting funds to beneficiaries and paying the relevant tax. Any inheritance tax due must be paid within six months of the person dying. After this point, interest is charged at 7.75 per cent a year.
Executors can face penalties for sub- mitting incorrect information, up to as much as 100 per cent of the tax bill. A FORENSIC TRAWL OF PAPERWORK
Sean McCann from NFU Mutual said HMRC investigators will go through bank statements of the deceased, as they can reveal income from undisclosed assets such as overseas property or invest- ments, as well as outgoings, such as life insurance premiums.
Life insurance policies can sometimes be missed when filing inheritance tax forms, but unless they are written in trust they are part of the taxable estate, McCann said. “HMRC will often review the deceased’s insurance records as part of its investigations, to ensure jewellery, wine collections and other high value items have been included in the tax return,” he said.
consider an estate worth £1.5 million. Assuming £1 million is passed on tax-free, the beneficiaries will face a £200,000 tax bill. If inheritance tax was replaced by a flat 10 per cent levy, that bill would drop to £150,000.
Others would, of course, pay more but their total cost could still be lower if they ended up needing care.
It would also make the tax system much easier to navigate. Inheritance tax is notoriously complex, with various nil-rate bands and gifting allowances including the seven-year gifting rule. Interpreting them is tricky enough — and predicting if they’ll apply is worse (how can anyone be sure they’ll live for another seven years?). Families spend decades trying to navigate the inheritance tax rules — often under the stress of bereavement or declining
The value of assets you can have before you may have to pay for care
Year Cases* Tax recovered
2020-21 3,574 £254m
2021-22 4,258 £326m
2022-23 3,163 £251m
2023-24 3,028 £285m
2024-25 4,200 £247m
2025-26 4,915 Not yet known
*New investigations opened. Source: HMRC
THE INHERITANCE TAX TAKE
£8bn
4.7bn
Meanwhile, fiscal drag has transformed inheritance tax from a tax on the super-rich into a trap for middle Britain. With thresholds frozen for more than a decade and pensions brought into the tax net from April 2027, many more families will have to pay the dreaded death duty. An estimated 32,000 deaths triggered an inheritance tax bill in 2025-26. But the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts this will rise to 68,000 by 2030 with a typical bill of £213,800, according to the analyst Trajectory.
8.5bn
R
bike as a boy — I won’t be starting now
isk-free real returns are available to most bank and building society savers for the first time in more than a year as a result of lower levels of inflation announced on Wednesday. But one swallow does not a summer make, and it is uncertain how long this highly unusual situation will last.
Inflation is the insidious enemy of savers and investors because it stealthily reduces the real value, or purchasing power, of money over time.
The Office for National Statistics reports that the consumer prices index, the official measure of inflation, increased 2.6 per cent in the year to June. Even the old-fashioned retail prices index, which is the benchmark used for index-linked government bonds, or gilts, was up 3 per cent over the same period.
As a result, independent statisticians at the research firm Moneyfacts say no fewer than 1,960 bank and building society savings accounts pay inflation- busting risk-free returns. Adam French, the consumer finance head at Moneyfacts, told me: “While the cost of living continues to weigh on household budgets, the average savings account has moved from paying less than inflation last year to paying above inflation today.
“As things stand, savings rates allow many households to preserve or grow their purchasing power.”
Less happily, sleepy savers who fail to keep a beady eye on what they are being paid for their prudence could be in for an unpleasant wake-up call. As so often in life, the more effort you put in, the more you are likely to take out in return.
Duncan Jeffery, savings lead at the online investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “If your savings are sat in one of the biggest banks, there’s a good chance you’re earning less than you could be. Nearly £70 billion of savers’ cash earns 1 per cent interest or less.”
The explanation is simple enough. Bankers’ bonuses and all the other expenses of running a fully authorised savings institution have to be paid for, and the easiest way to raise revenue is to give less than the going rate to depositors who aren’t paying attention.
That’s why building societies, which are owned by their members — savers and borrowers — tend to pay better rates than high street banks, which are owned by shareholders who expect to receive dividend income. So-called challenger
Helena Kelly
The government is facing mounting pressure to allow the terminally ill to access their pension savings more easily and without harsh tax penalties.
Times Money this month reported on how dying savers were being blocked from spending their retirement savings due to red tape. A group of cross-party peers and charities have now also backed calls to reform the system.
At the moment people with a terminal diagnosis can take a tax-free lump sum of up to £1.073 million from their pension at any age under 75. However, a doctor must confirm that they have less than 12 months to live.
For tax-free, risk-free returns in cash Isas, Manchester Building Society isn’t far behind, paying 4.65 per cent fixed for five years, while Coventry and Furness building societies pay 4.6 per cent and 4.57 per cent respectively on one-year money. All the above beat inflation.
No wonder most Brits prefer to save in banks and building societies — these institutions guarantee to return at least the face value of deposits. Even if an authorised bank or building society goes bust the Financial Services Compensation Scheme — a statutory safety net — can return up to £120,000 per person. These are important safeguards for people who cannot afford to lose any of their hard-earned savings. Loss aversion is City slang for the fact that most of us feel the pain of potential loss more strongly than the pleasure of a possible capital gain.
Alternatively they can claim serious ill health retirement where a doctor says they are not able to work.
Campaigners say both routes come with too many bureaucratic challenges and that rules can vary between pension firms.
They say that there should be more flexibility for the terminally ill to be able to get at their savings, and that the system is too rigid because doctors are hesitant to give a definitive life expectancy. Advances in medicine have made it harder to reasonably predict how long somebody with a terminal illness will survive. Savers cannot usually access their pension without a hefty tax penalty before the age of 55.
This month Lord
Livermore, who was the financial secretary to the Treasury until the reshuffle last week, confirmed the government would review the issue, but campaigners want this to happen sooner rather than later.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a crossbench member of the House of Lords and a professor of palliative medicine, said: “Those of working age who are terminally ill have particularly pressing expenses, both for care and in preparing their families, often where there are children, for the future they face in bereavement. Financial stress is cruel, making all this far more difficult.”
She was joined by
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
That’s why two thirds of all Isas are cash Isas, rather than being invested in stock market funds or shares, which are likely to deliver bigger returns according to most historical evidence. Barclays Bank has analysed returns since 1899 and found that shares reflecting the changing composition of the London Stock Exchange beat cash in 70 per cent of all the periods of two consecutive years since then.
Medium and long-term investors did even better. Where investments were held for five consecutive years, shares generated higher returns than cash 77 per cent of the time; if they were held for
Baroness Penn, a Conservative peer, who said: “The increase in people saving into private pensions is a success story of cross-party working, but if that success is to endure people need to know they’ll be able to access their money when they need it most.
“We need clear, fair and consistent rules for access for people who find themselves faced with a terminal illness, it’s the least they deserve.”
Baroness Leaman, a Liberal Democrat peer, added: “A terminal diagnosis is already the worst luck imaginable, people should not then be subject to a second lottery on top of it. The right to access your pension when you are dying should be a right, not a
discretion. What is needed is now pace. The government must treat this as the urgent, tractable problem it is.”
Anybody who wishes to take money from their pension before age 55 faces a tax charge of at least 40 per cent of the withdrawal. If they take out more than 25 per cent of their pot in a single year they are taxed a further 15 per cent, taking the total tax charge to 55 per cent. On top of this you are also liable for income tax on whatever you withdraw.
The rules are designed to ensure workers do not draw on their savings too early so they have enough for retirement. Normally you can take a tax-free lump sum — worth 25 per cent of your pot up to a cap of £268,275 —
good enough for me, and explain why I have not saved in cash since, as a schoolboy, I bought a bicycle. But the financial facts of life aren’t the sort of thing they teach you at school, and until recently many British workers were members of defined benefit (DB) pensions, which invested in the stock market for them. Since DB schemes, also known as final salary pensions, were phased out in the private sector the government and financial regulators are keen to raise awareness of how stock market investment can deliver real returns.
For example, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, said: “There are 15.6 million UK adults with investible assets of £10,000 or more and 37 per cent hold their assets entirely in cash. Over time these consumers are at risk of having the purchasing power of their money eroded by inflation.”
This is bad news for those people, and
once you reach 55 (rising to 57 from April 2028). But the allowance for terminally ill people is there to help them when they can no longer work to ensure they can access their money in their lifetime.
Baroness Martin of Brockley, a Labour peer, wrote in this newspaper about how somebody close to her had been diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer and had struggled to access his pension early.
When she raised the issue in the House of Lords, Livermore responded: “I agree that the definition for when someone with a terminal illness can get their pension savings is clearly outdated and does not align with wider legislation, so the
The inflation- beating interest rate on a one- year fixed rate account with Marcus, by Goldman Sachs
the least people with a terminal illness deserve
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shares did better than cash 91% of the time. Those odds are good enough for me
for the British economy, because the primary function of a stock market is to raise capital to fund commercial activity. Put bluntly, it costs a fortune to build a regional electricity generator, but without power there can be no factories, offices or data centres and all the work and wealth they create. That’s why the former chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “For too long we have presented investment in too negative a light, quick to warn people of the risks without giving proper weight to the benefits.”
Reeves was keener on sticks than carrots, so the maximum anyone under 65 can shelter from tax each year in a cash Isa will be cut from £20,000 to £12,000 next April. It remains to be seen whether her successor, John Healey, will do anything to encourage stock market investment. He could scrap stamp duty or transaction tax on share purchases, which would bring Britain into line with most developed economies.
It’s always sensible to keep some cash on deposit to prevent being forced to sell shares when prices are temporarily depressed. Fail to prepare; prepare to fail. As for me, I would just sell a few shares if I had to. But, I can probably take more risks with my own finances than I would recommend to anyone else.
For as long as cash deposits pay risk- free real returns, there is no urgent need to get on your bike and follow me into the Square Mile. But short-term savers should keep an eye on interest rates, and medium to long-term investors can be confident that higher returns will be achieved in the stock market.
ST DIGITAL See which stocks are in Ian Cowie’s DIY investment fund thesundaytimes.com/cowieholdings
government will now review this.”
The cancer support charity Macmillan has also backed calls to ease the restrictions. Ross Cooke from the charity said: “For people living with terminal cancer, delays and barriers to accessing financial support can have a significant impact on their quality of life, adding to the emotional and practical challenges they are already facing.
“Everyone with a terminal illness should be able to access the financial support they’re entitled to quickly, simply and with dignity.”
The charity runs the Macmillan Money & More service, which provides financial guidance and support to those living with cancer.
T
A
for Texas — now I pay 14% less tax and business is booming’
entreprenuers to have left Britain, joined the exodus to the low-tax state. But other costs can add up, writes Eve Upton-Clark
homas Phillips launched his first ecommerce venture at just 13 years old. In the two decades since, he has built, scaled and sold 17 companies. But frustrated by heavy tax bills and drawn to the charm of the American South, Phil- lips, 33, decided it was time for a change. In 2023 he packed up his life in Poole, Dorset, and moved to Texas with his wife, their dog and an estimated 100,000 other UK expats who call the Lone Star State home.
“We were going to move to Huntington Beach, California,” Phillips said. It was a place that he had often been to on holiday while he was growing up, but a business mentor suggested Austin in Texas, point- ing out that it was full of entrepreneurs, had great weather — and a Formula 1 track close by.
Phillips and his wife, Olivia, spent six weeks in Austin on their honeymoon before making a decision. They fell in love with the Southern hospitality and favourable tax system and moved there on an E-2 Treaty investor visa, which allows UK entrepreneurs to live and work in America.
“I felt trapped in the UK because of the business mindset. I knew I was destined for more than it could offer. In the UK I’d hand over 53 per cent in tax for my busi- ness. In Texas it’s 30 per cent,” he said.
$215,000 more per $1 million of profit every year
the great wealth transfer?
cross many homes this evening, thousands of families will open ChatGPT or Claude and start a conversation about money.
They may upload their pension statements, their household spending, their Isa balances. Many, especially women, will ask questions they would never ask a financial adviser or tell their accountant or dare tell their significant other. Am I spending too much? Should I sell my buy-to-let? Can I afford another child? Will I ever retire?
They won’t be paying, it won’t be regulated and they may not know whether the answer is right. But the question for the financial advice industry is no longer whether AI will change the profession, because arguably it already has.
According to the finance comparison website Finder, 40 per cent of people in Britain have already used generative AI for personal finance advice and one in six have used it for investing advice or stock tips.
watchdog, published a review this month hinting that this is only the beginning. It found that about 11 million UK adults would be willing to let AI make financial decisions, within agreed parameters, especially in respect to their pensions and investments.
Many are turning to AI because traditional advice is financially beyond their reach, the report suggests. But even those who can afford an adviser may decide they simply don’t need one. The biggest challenge facing Britain’s financial advisers is not another competitor, unregulated financial influencers or even ChatGPT. It’s the growing belief that financial knowledge should be both free and bespoke.
Financial advice was built on an assumption that information was scarce and expertise was expensive. That assumption has steadily eroded over decades.
TikTok community FinTok encouraged a generation to discuss investing publicly. AI is simply the latest stage in the democratisation of financial knowledge.
Advisers are right that AI and social media do not carry the legal obligations of financial advice but banks, insurers and wealth managers are already building AI within controlled environments, with compliance oversight, audit trails and FCA regulation. Eventually, consumers will ask regulated AI many of the same questions they ask advisers, training them to expect instant, personalised and low-cost answers. If regulated AI can explain
WHEN MONEY CHANGES HANDS
Givers Receivers Share of adults who receive or give a gift or loan by age group
pensions, model retirement scenarios and produce compliant recommendations, where does the human adviser fit?
Younger generations believe information should be free but will pay for judgment, reassurance and expertise, especially when advisers recognise women, widows and adult children as independent financial decision-makers rather than satellites of a male client. What we are unwilling to pay for is access to information that tech can already provide.
This disruption has arrived just as financial advice matters more than ever.
About £5.5 trillion is expected to pass over the
next three decades in the great wealth transfer. On paper, it is a once-in-a- generation opportunity for advisers, but one carrying a serious retention risk.
Industry estimates suggest that 70-90 per cent of heirs get rid of their parents’ adviser after inheriting. An adviser may have stuck up a 20-year relationship, often with the father, managed the assets and discussed markets on the golf course, but when the patriarch dies that relationship often dies with him.
The money usually goes first to the widow, whose relationship with the adviser may not have been properly cultivated, then it goes to the children, whose relationship may not have been nurtured at all.
Even if the adviser stays, it’s unlikely the money will remain invested for long. A couple with £2 million may look like a valuable client relationship. Once that £2 million is divided between three children, however, it gets used for housing, care, education or paying off debt, leaving both the adviser and financial services altogether.
Rachel Reeves’s decision to bring defined contribution pensions into inheritance tax from April 2027 has only accelerated conversations about passing down wealth sooner rather than later. The money moves down the family tree but then out into the economy.
in the US. Phillips said: “In Aus- tin, the property tax is 1.8 per cent to 2 per cent of the property value. If you have a home worth
$3 million, that’s $45,000 to
$50,000 a year in taxes alone.”
Housing in Austin is also expensive. The average prop- erty price is $507,622 and the average rent is about $1,995 a
month, according to the prop-
erty website Zillow.
Phillips’s work expenses also shot up when he moved there. “It is a lot more expensive to run a business out here, but it kind of comes with the terri- tory,” he said. “Accountants are more expensive. End-of-year accounts are more complex and more expensive. Law- yers are expensive. Insurance is expen- sive.”
He estimates that his living expenses are 20 times more expensive than when he was in the UK, where he had no mort- gage or rent to pay. “My expenses before in the UK were probably less than £500 a month,” he said.
He moved from a three-bedroom home in Poole to a four-bedroom home with a pool in the backyard, five minutes from downtown Austin, which costs more than $10,000 a month to rent. “We could definitely live a lot cheaper,” he said.
Yet Phillips has no doubt that the move was the best decision for his family and his business. “Your neighbour drives past and you wave at them,” he said. “You never do that in the UK — or at least I didn’t.”
wealth transfer begins to unravel. The Bank of Mum and Dad is not simply inheritance at death; it has become a steady transfer of money and support that underpins adulthood for millions. For many families, inherited wealth is a critical financial springboard rather than investment capital.
If millennials and Gen Z live messy, expensive lives supported by family money, why pay for advice built around a stable, linear life cycle they do not recognise, especially when they can invest themselves and ask AI?
AI will not replace advisers entirely but it will replace many of the reasons people first contacted one.
In this scenario, the human becomes the premium product available to the affluent minority. The private bank Coutts recently raised its minimum threshold for new clients from £1 million to £3 million. Whether intentional or not, it reflects a wider direction of travel. Human advice becomes most valuable where wealth is substantial, tax questions complex and family relationships delicate.
This is where financial advice begins to mirror other parts of the modern service economy. We can teach ourselves languages and exercise with YouTube without speaking to anyone. Humans appear only at the premium end of the market: personal trainers, human tutors and therapists, and
soon, human-driven taxis.
It means the human becomes more valuable in different ways, and at a higher price point. AI can explain the tax implications of giving money to your children but it can’t bring the neglected daughter into the conversation. It can explain inheritance tax rules but can’t persuade a patriarch that his soon-to-be widow needs to understand the family’s finances before he dies.
Few of us see money just in terms of our investment
The wealth expected to change hands over the next 30 years
ask ChatGPT things they would never ask a financial adviser
allergy on your travel insurance
Rachel Mortimer
Failing to disclose a food allergy to your travel insurer will invalidate any medical claim for a reaction abroad, holidaymak- ers have been warned.
The Allergy Centre of Excellence, an advice service, said that medical treat- ment for allergies is particularly expen- sive in the United States and Canada — and may push up the cost of travel insur- ance in those countries .
The number of people suffering from food allergies in England doubled between 2008 and 2018 according to Imperial College London. Hospital admissions for food-induced reactions tripled between 1998 and 2018.
Last year the Food Standards Agency said that about 6 per cent of adults in the UK have a clinically confirmed food allergy.
James Gardner from the Allergy Centre of Excellence said: “Food allergies are generally treated as a pre-existing medi- cal condition by travel insurers, so you’re expected to declare them. Multiple insur- ers warn that failing to disclose allergies can invalidate claims related to allergic reactions.”
He said that mild allergies that can be well-controlled would add little or noth- ing to the cost of insurance premiums.
“But severe allergies — especially where the sufferer has multiple allergies, asthma, regularly has to use an EpiPen or a history of anaphylaxis or hospital admissions — are more likely to increase the cost,” Gardner said.
It is important to check the small print of a policy because each insurer will treat allergies differently. For example, travel insurance provided through an Ameri- can Express credit card does not auto- maticlaly cover food allergies.
But travel insurance through an HSBC bank account does automatically cover allergic reactions, provided there has been no hospital admission in the past two years.
The same principle of disclosing aller- gies applies to private medical insurance. Brian Walters from the broker Regency Health said: “The diagnosis of allergies is often covered but not the treatment.
“If allergies were known about at the point of application and not declared, this would be treated as non-disclosure and the claim declined. Although this would not apply to claims for conditions not related to the allergy.”
One of the most high profile allergy cases is that of Natasha Ednan-Lape- rouse, who died aged 15 after going into cardiac arrest on a flight to France in 2016. She had eaten a Pret-a-Manger baguette containing sesame, which was not listed as an ingredient, that she had bought in Heathrow airport before boarding.
Gardner said that the greatest risk of exposure to an allergen comes from food rather than through the air.
“It is worth noting that, while there is a chance of an allergic reaction from con- tact or airborne exposure on a plane, the risk is usually low unless there’s signifi- cant exposure, as modern aircraft filters will rapidly clear airborne allergens.
“The risk of nut protein becoming air- borne is very low, whereas milk and fish protein more easily become airborne, but a significant exposure is typically required before symptoms would be experienced.”
tracker. It’s choices, relationships and obligations — exactly the things we shouldn’t delegate to AI.
Whats more, if ChatGPT tells me to hold my investments through a market crash, there is nobody to phone when I panic. If an adviser gives exactly the same recommendation, I have someone who shares the emotional burden of that decision and, yes, some of the liability. This may become the adviser’s greatest value. Not superior information, but accountability.
AI will increasingly handle education and modelling. The adviser who survives will be the one who exercises judgment, reads the emotional dynamics and helps families to navigate life’s big moments: birth, adulthood, separation, retirement, care and death.
Perhaps we should stop thinking of this as financial advice at all. Increasingly, it looks more like wealth stewardship: helping families to navigate not simply markets, but one another.
When money stops being a dashboard and becomes a set of life decisions, the human is no longer an expensive extra. They become indispensable. The problem is, those with the biggest dashboards will be the ones who can afford the most human of delivery. Eliza Filby is the author of Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad
A
strategy for spending your pension in 2026
starting to look more attractive, writes Megan Harwood-Baynes
pensioner buying an annuity today could get almost £3,000 more a year than they could six years ago, because rates have soared.
Annuities, where you use a lump sum, usually from your pension pot, to buy a guaranteed income in retire- ment, have traditionally been shunned in favour of more flexible options, such as leaving money invested and taking an income when needed.
However, the income you can get has risen to levels not seen in years. A 65-year-old buying a standard single-life annuity can get a rate of 7.62 per cent — up from 4.71 per cent in 2020, according to the pension firm Standard Life.
For someone trading in a £100,000 pot, this works out as an extra £2,910 a year — or £58,200 over the course of a 20-year retirement.
Now the decision between trading in your pension for a guaranteed income versus the flexibility of withdrawing it gradually over the course of your retire- ment — known as drawdown — is no longer quite so clear-cut. Here’s how to work out what to do. THE CASE FOR ANNUITIES The rate that companies offer is the per- centage of the lump sum that the annuity will pay you each year — a rate of 8 per
CREDIT INTEREST
Provider Account name Account fee Interest rate Balance (for reward) Contact
Provider Account name Account fee Interest rate 2 0% overdraft limit Contact
Nationwide BS FlexDirect None 5%1 – 03457 30 20 10
Bank of Scotland Vantage Classic Account None 3% – 0345 721 3141
Lloyds Bank Club Lloyds None 3% – 0345 300 000
OVERDRAFTS*
Starling Bank Current Account None 15% £0 0207 930 4450
First Direct 1st Account None 39.9% £250 0345 600 2424
Virgin Money M Plus Account None 19.9% £0 0800 678 3654
1 Introductory rate for a limited period. 2 Equivalent annual rate. * Based on the lowest cost of an overdraft of £500 over 30 days. Some accounts require minimum funding/direct debits to open or get rates shown
INTRODUCTORY RATES
Provider Card type Introductory purchase APR 1 Reward Contact
Provider Card type Introductory purchase Transfer fee 2 APR 1 Contact
TSB Platinum Purchase 0% for 26 months 24.95% No 0345 835 3846
M&S Bank Purchase Plus 0% for 25 months 24.9% No 0800 997 996
Lloyds Bank 0% Purchase and Balance Transfer 0% for 25 months 24.94 % No 0345 603 7239
BALANCE TRANSFERS
TSB Platinum Balance Transfer 0% for 38 months 3.49% 24.95% 0345 835846
HSBC Balance Transfer 0% for 36 months 3.09% 24.9% 03457 873 444
NatWest Longer Balance Transfer 0% for 36 months 3.1% 24.9% 03455 888 444
CASHBACK CARDS
Provider Card type APR 1 Cashback Contact
American Express Cashback Everyday 29.1% 0.5%-1%. Intro 5% for 5 months (max £125) 0345 835 3846
Santander Rewards 24.9% 0.25% Intro 3% for 12 months 3 0800 085 1759
Lloyds Bank Ultra 12.94% 0.25%. Intro 1% for 12 months 0345 603 7239
1 APR = annual percentage rate, dependent on credit rating. 2 Fee charged on the amount of each balance transfer during the introductory period 3 Eligible travel and eating out spend for higher cashback. Borrowing rates and availability of products are subject to individual credit ratings. Terms apply to cashback.
EASY ACCESS
Provider Account name Min deposit Interest rate Contact
Provider Account name Min deposit Interest Transfers in Contact
Cahoot Simple Saver £1 4.32% cahoot.com
Thisbank Triple Access Savings L £1,000 4.28% thisbank.co.uk
Charter Savings Bank Easy Access £1 4.21% chartersavingsbank.com
NOTICE ACCOUNTS
Provider Account name Notice period Min deposit Interest rate Contact
GB Bank 150 Day Notice Account 150 days £1,000 4.38% gbbank.co.uk
Stream Bank 90 Day Notice Account 90 days £1,000 4.35% streambank.co.uk
Earl Shilton 180 Day Notice 180 days £5,000 4.27% esbs.co.uk
LONG-TERM FIXED-RATES
LONG-TERM FIXED RATES
FIXED RATE
Provider Account name Term Min deposit Interest rate Contact
GB Bank Fixed Term Bond 5 years £1,000 4.94% gbbank.co.uk
Afin Bank 5 Year Fixed Term Account 5 years £1,000 4.93% via app
Close Brothers 5 Year Fixed Rate Bond 5 years £10,000 4.92% closesavings.co.uk
cent would mean that if you paid £100,000 you would get £8,000 a year. These rates are determined by gilt yields, because retirement firms buy long-dated govern- ment bonds, known as gilts, to cover the liabilities on their annui- ties. Gilt yields have surged recently.
The rate you are offered is based on your life expectancy: the less time you are expected to live, the higher the rate. If you are older, in poor health or a smoker you will probably get more. Even living in certain parts of the country can help.
It takes an average of 13 years to recoup your initial outlay, according to the retirement firm Canada Life. This is down from 21 years in 2021.
Maike Currie from the pension consoli- dation firm PensionBee said: “It’s a meaningful shift, and for people who want certainty over their income, annui- ties deserve consideration in a way that they simply did not a few years ago.”
Annuities can pay you a guaranteed income for life — they are the ultimate longevity insurance, and the income they pay is immune to stock market crashes or economic recessions. You can also buy a fixed-term annuity for a set time. Research from the financial firm L&G found that those who had an annuity were 51 per cent more likely to report lower stress levels than those without.
You can also buy an inflation-linked annuity. These tend to start at a lower rate than a standard annuity, but this rate will increase every year in line with infla- tion. The pension firm Standard Life said a healthy 65-year-old with a pension pot of £100,000 might expect a rate of 7.5 per cent for a flat-rate annuity, compared with 5 per cent for an inflation-linked annuity. However, if that annuity rate rose every year at an inflation rate of 2.5 per cent, by the time the pensioner was 82 they would be getting more than the flat-rate annuity.
However, think carefully before you buy an annuity. You cannot change your mind once you have handed over the lump sum or adjust your income. If you do go for a flat rate, the spending power of your income will gradually be eroded by inflation.
Nick Flynn from Canada Life said: “Buying an annuity is an irreversible decision, so we always recommend speaking to a financial adviser or annuity broker who can help you understand the choices available”.
By using your pension pot to buy an annuity it will not be liable for inherit- ance tax. FLEXIBILITY OF DRAWDOWN Stephen Davies, 58, from Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, retired in May 2025. He took voluntary redundancy after a 33-year career at Barclays. In 2020 Davies transferred out from his defined benefit pension, which would have paid a guar- anteed income in retirement, into a self- invested personal pension with the investment platform AJ Bell. This was during the pandemic and his pot immedi-
CURRENCY
Interbank rates at 5pm on Friday, which show where the market is trading. They are not indicative of the rate you could get.
EURO GBP>EUR1.17
USA GBP>USD1.33
TURKEY GBP>TRY63.22
AUSTRALIA GBP>AUD1.91
2-YEAR FIXED RATES
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
Lender Rate Scheme Max LTV Fee Notes Contact
First Direct 4.32% Fixed for 2 years 60% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
First Direct 4.57% Fixed for 2 years 80% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
First Direct 4.81% Fixed for 2 years 90% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
5-YEAR FIXED RATES
First Direct 4.38% Fixed for 5 years 60% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
First Direct 4.58% Fixed for 5 years 80% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
First Direct 4.73% Fixed for 5 years 90% £490 PV 0800 48 24 48
Santander 4.91% Fixed to 02.11.36 60% £999 LSV 0800 555 100
Nationwide BS 5.49% Fixed for 10 years 80% £999 PV 0333 060 0325
Santander 5.59% Fixed to 02.11.36 90% £999 PV 0800 555 100
TRACKERS* / DISCOUNTS
Santander 4.03% Base rate + 0.28% for 2 years 60% £999 PV 0800 555 100
Nationwide BS 4.17% Base rate + 0.42% for 2 years 80% £999 PV 0333 060 0325
First Direct 4.65% Base rate + 0.9% for term 90% £490 LV 0800 48 24 48
FIRST-TIME BUYER / LOW DEPOSIT
Beverley BS 4.64% Disc 2.7% for 2 years 95% £995 01482 881 510
West Bromich BS 5.2% Fixed to 31.10.29 95% £499 V 0800 298 0008
Earl Shilton 5.19% Disc 2.25% for 5 years 95% £125 V 01455 844 422
BUY TO LET
The Mortgage Works 4.34% Base rate + 0.59% to 30.09.28 75% £1,495 V 0345 607 3021
Barclays 4.52% Base rate + 0.77% for 2 years 75% £899 LSV 0333 202 7580
HSBC 4.48% Fixed to 31.10.31 75% £3,999 PV 0800 494 999
Early repayment charge applies unless otherwise stated. * Most deals track Bank of England base rate. A = £500 cashback; B = £250 cashback; C = £300 cashback; D = £350 cashback; E= No early repayment charge; F = First-time buyers only; G = £150 cashback; H = £400 cashback; I = £1,000 cashback; L= Free legal work for remortgages ; P = Purchases only; R = Free legal work and valuation for remortgages; S = Remortgage only; T = £250 towards legal fees; V = Free valuation
CASH ISAS EASY ACCESS
Hargreaves Lansdown Shawbrook Easy Access Cash Isa £1 4.52% Yes hl.co.uk
Atom Bank Online Isa £1 4.25% No via app
Provider Account name Term Min deposit Rate Transfers in Contact
Vida Savings 1 year Fixed Rate Isa 1 year £1,000 4.65% Yes vidabank.co.uk
Vida Savings 5 year Fixed Rate Isa 5 years £1,000 4.8% Yes vidabank.co.uk
Provider Account name Rate type Min deposit Interest rate Contact
State Bank of India Jumbo Junior Fixed Deposit Account Fixed £1,000 5.5% branch or post only
Penrith BS Junior Affinity Regular Saver Account Variable £5 4.45% branch or post only
ately went down 13 per cent, but it has since grown 68 per cent.
He plans to start withdrawing money when he turns 60, and had considered using a portion of another pension to buy a small annuity for security. “The rates are so much better, but ultimately I want to know that if something happens to me, I will be able to leave some money to my wife and son,” he said.
Managing how much you withdraw yourself generally offers a more flexible approach, and means that if you die before you have spent your whole pot, there is something to leave to your family. However, there could be tax implica- tions. From April next year pensions will be included in your estate for inheritance tax purposes. And if you die after the age of 75, your beneficiaries would have to pay income tax on it too.
Money left invested is exposed to any stock market turmoil, unless you have moved your money into safer assets, such as government bonds. Being too risk averse, however, could mean that your money does not keep pace with inflation.
Fraser Burchill, 64, retired in 2020, aged 58, from his job as a prop maker at the National Theatre in London, followed by a spell as a handyman at the National Portrait Gallery. He looked into annuities “extensively” when he retired, and again when he hit 60, before concluding they did not offer value for money.
When he retired, he had four different pots, which he merged into a single Pen- sionBee account, and invested in a high- growth fund. Burchill, from Coggeshall, Essex, uses this to draw down flexibly.
“I can control it,” he said. “I can make decisions myself when I want to. So if it
has had a good month, I can always take
a bit more.”
If his pot starts to deplete, he has a small civil service pen-
sion to fall back on, and he
would also consider going
back to work. He said in a
worst-case scenario he
would sell his house and downsize to release some equity. “I’m prepared to do that before I think an annuity is value for money,” he said.
Rachel Vahey from AJ Bell said if you want to take the flexi- ble approach you need to accept some risk and be prepared to review your strategy every year. “You will need to make sure you manage your withdraw- als sustainably and be prepared to reduce them if your investments hit the skids.” A BLENDED APPROACH You could combine both strategies — buy- ing a small annuity to cover essential household spending, while keeping some money invested to grow and spend when it is needed.
For example, someone with a £300,000 pension pot could use £100,000 to buy an annuity, bringing a guaranteed income of about £7,600 a year. The remaining £200,000 would remain invested in their pension, but could be drawn on to fund holidays, other luxuries or care costs. Pete Cowell from Standard Life said: “Many in retire- ment may find that blending the two options provides the best of both worlds.”
Alistair McQueen from the insurer Aviva said: “The key is to focus on the type of retirement you want, rather than trying to predict the future direction of gilt yields or markets.”
I
E
of solar energy to Scottish Power — but I can’t prove it
faulty meter has left him out of pocket and a traveller seeking a refund for a top-deck seat that never was
have solar panels on my roof and receive feed-in tariff (Fit) payments from Scottish Power for surplus power fed back to the grid. Unfortunately I discovered that my Fit meter had failed, and I hadn’t taken a reading for a while, so faced losing out on almost two years of payments. I hoped that I might be able to pursue some goodwill since I had been with the company for about ten years, but this proved impossible, despite many attempts to communicate with Scottish Power. I raised the matter with the Energy Ombudsman, which found in my favour in terms of the poor communication I had received, but it supported the company in regard to a payment.
I have contacted Scottish Power’s Fit team to allow me to use data from my smart meter instead but I’m not getting anywhere. As you can imagine I have found this whole process considerably stressful and upsetting. Scottish Power has failed to offer advice or show any empathy at all for my difficulties and has been dismissive of my requests for goodwill or help from the outset. Please can you help? Oliver, Hereford HOLLY THOMAS WRITES After a meter inspection last year you were informed by Scottish Power that a fault had occurred and you needed a replacement. You had a new one fitted a few weeks later, in August. But the last reading recorded by Scottish Power was submitted almost two years earlier in September 2023.
Q
A close relation took a high interest rate mortgage to get a project off the ground on an unconventional building. Unfortunately they became terminally ill and can no longer work. Is there any system where mortgage payments can be delayed, pending the sale of the property?
I would be prepared to sell my home to become a potential buyer as the location would enable me to be closer to where they live and to be on hand to help when the time comes.
You say you were sure that you had submitted a reading in September 2024 via Scottish Power’s website, but this does not seem to have been recorded. You do not have photographic evidence. As things stand you are missing Fit payments for surplus energy given back to the grid from September 2023 to August 2025. Based on previous years this means that you’re out of pocket to the tune of about £3,000.
You are fully aware that had you taken regular readings you would not have missed out on the payments and would have noticed the fault earlier. However, you told me that you were hopeful in working out a compromise based on a recent experience with your water supplier. After an enormous water bill landed on your doormat you spoke to the company, which concluded, based on typical usage, that there was a leak. It applied a “leakage allowance”, bringing your bill down to its normal level and saving you about £700.
Since September last year you have made many phone calls and sent many emails trying to find a way you could recoup some of the money lost from Scottish Power. With my involvement it agreed to reopen your complaint, although I’m disappointed to say it stuck to its guns. It reiterated that the onus is on the customer to provide Fit readings and to ensure the meter is working.
On your suggestion to use smart meter readings as a substitute Scottish Power said that although it would have recorded the electricity imported from and exported to the grid, a smart meter does not record the solar generation data required for Fit payments. Scottish Power said it will offer the £40 that was recommended by the ombudsman. Your case is an important reminder to
ill relative delay their mortgage repayments?
BROKER ANDERSON HARRIS
death? I am keen that my relative, while being so brave and determined to maintain independence, has as little stress as possible. Patricia A
I am very sorry to hear about your relative. Receiving a terminal diagnosis is hard enough without the worry of a mortgage and potentially losing a home. Fortunately, mortgage lenders are often more understanding than people expect. There is no formal scheme that allows mortgage payments to be suspended in this type of scenario, or during a property sale. But that doesn’t mean there are no options.
is genuine intention to sell, a lender may give a borrower the time they need
If you have a money problem that you would like the Sunday Times to investigate, email yourmoneymatters@thetimes.co.uk. Please include a phone number
Mortgage lenders have a duty to treat customers fairly and have become much more supportive of vulnerable customers. A borrower who has become terminally ill and cannot work is exactly the sort of case where lenders will usually look carefully at what help they can offer.
It may agree to a temporary payment holiday, reduced monthly payments, or allow a switch to an interest-only deal while longer-term arrangements are made. When there is a genuine intention to sell the property, a lender will often be prepared to give a borrower the time they need, especially if it is kept fully informed throughout the sale.
The worst thing your relative could do is struggle in silence. Missing payments without speaking to the lender limits the options, whereas an early conversation often opens the door to a much more sympathetic outcome.
I was struck by your willingness to sell your own home to buy the property. If buying it would enable the mortgage to be repaid and remove a big source of concern, it could be an excellent solution.
Both parties should seek independent legal advice and arrange for a professional property valuation to ensure a fair and transparent transaction. However, there is certainly nothing unusual about family members buying property from one another.
You said: “Thank you for your efforts to help me. If nothing else, by publishing my experiences with my solar panels it may be of use to others with a feed-in tariff in the future. I will of course be keeping close tabs on my readings, taking photos and keeping them in case needed.”
Scottish Power said: “Under Ofgem’s feed-in tariff rules, suppliers are not permitted to use estimated generation readings for Fit payments, and we can
before death, provided the medical evidence meets the policy’s definition of terminal illness. This often requires a consultant to confirm that life expectancy is less than 12 months.
However, some policies state that terminal illness benefit is not available during the final part of the term. This is often called the “last 12 months exclusion”, although the time can vary.
If your relative’s policy includes terminal illness benefit and the insurer accepts the claim before the cover expires, the payout is usually made before death.
If the policy does not include a terminal illness benefit, the proceeds would generally be paid only upon death, provided the policy is in force at that time.
I would therefore encourage your relative, or someone acting on their behalf, to contact the insurer as soon as possible. They can clarify what cover is included and what medical evidence it needs to evaluate a claim.
Asking for help in this situation is not a sign of weakness. In addition to contacting the lender and insurer, charities may be able to provide practical and financial guidance, including support with benefits, grants and managing creditors. This support can make a real difference.
For now, take one step at a time. Talk to the lender and insurer, and don’t be afraid to ask what flexibility they can offer. With the right conversations, it may be possible to ease much of the financial worry and allow your relative to focus on what matters most.
April our flight times changed, and so did the type of aircraft. This meant there would be no top deck and therefore I’d paid for seats we would not get. I queried it with Qatar’s support team when they booked us onto the new flights but mainly wanted to focus on ensuring we had flights home. Just before our departure I had an email saying Qatar couldn’t arrange the refund for the seats, because of the flight details changing, but to get in touch if I wanted to pursue it — although
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leaving no obvious way to do so. Once we were home I replied to that email address (no reply), and used the chat function on the app. I was told to make my refund request on a feedback form, which I did.
Weeks later, I’ve received another email acknowledging my feedback but not addressing the refund. I’m going round in circles trying to get in touch with anyone at Qatar Airways. Ellie, London HOLLY THOMAS WRITES Complaints about flights have been flooding into the Your Money Matters inbox. Your trip to Perth was for a friend’s wedding and your flight home was initially on a Qatar Airways Airbus A380, which has two decks. Upstairs is a smaller, quieter economy section with a more spacious 2-4-2 seating configuration. While there are 405 passengers in the main cabin, upstairs has 56. I can understand why at a little over £100 extra each you booked seats in this area for the eight-hour flight.
When a change of aircraft scuppered those plans you wanted your money back. Your request for a refund was met with rather muddled instructions. One Qatar Airways representative told you that you could claim a refund using a feedback form. Another staff member in an online chat told you the refund couldn’t be processed because “your ticket is reissued after the refund request”. I don’t understand what this means, and neither did you.
When I spoke to Qatar Airways it told me a necessary aircraft change meant
the seats you had booked were not
available, but you were allocated
so-called comfort seats, which
are within the same paid seating
category. I’m wondering why this wasn’t explained to you during the many months of trying to claim the reimbursement. To that end I asked for some kind of goodwill gesture for you, to make up for being
given the runaround.
Qatar Airways offered a £215 voucher to be used within 12 months, but you explained that you had no plans to fly again soon so it changed the offer to 20,000 Avios (worth about £150 to £200), which you have accepted.
It said: “Due to an operational aircraft change it was unfortunately not possible to accommodate the specific seats booked. The passengers were reallocated to new seats within the same paid seating category. Qatar
Airways has since been in direct
contact with the customers and this issue has now been resolved.”
Refunds for seating payments are unlikely to be covered by travel insurance because insurers typically class seat selection fees as “ancillary” or voluntary add-ons, so you need to get the attention of the airline.
Escalate a UK airline complaint by submitting a formal claim directly to the airline first. If it fails to respond within eight weeks or issues an unsatisfactory final decision you can take it to its approved alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme. Here someone independent will evaluate the case and recommend a solution.
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of my books — it paid off my mortgage
out on parties — and is going big for her 69th, she tells Holly Mead
athy Lette was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1958. Her first novel, Puberty Blues, co-written with a friend and published when she was 17, was made into a film and TV mini-series. She has since written another 20 novels, including Mad Cows, which was made into a film starring Joanna Lumley, and How to Kill Your Husband and Other Handy Hints, which was turned into an opera.
Lette’s first jobs included singing in a band called the Salami Sisters, sitcom writer and newspaper columnist. She came to the UK in 1988 and took British citizenship in 2011. In 2004 she was the writer in residence at the Savoy hotel, which created a cocktail for her. The Kathy Cassis, a mix of champagne and blackcurrant, can still be ordered today.
Lette, 67, split from her first husband, Kim Williams, in 1989. From 1990 to 2017 she was married to Geoffrey Robertson, with whom she has two children. She divides her time between Sydney and London.
How much is in your wallet right now? Whatever my kids haven’t “borrowed”. If only I’d stood over their cots whispering “paper round”. They’re grown up now, Jules is 35 and Georgina is 33, but they still tend to borrow. I feel so sorry for young people, it’s all so hard now. Most of their money goes on rent. But the answer to your question is: not enough. I do always
young people
Ann Patchett & Meg Mason
connection. Ann Patchett and Meg Mason will join Laura Hackett, The Times and Sunday Times’ deputy literary and fi ction editor, to talk about their new novels and wider body of work. The evening will explore what it is to be a writer, which is, in many ways for these bestselling authors, what it is to be human.
St Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, London, W1H 1PQ
carry some shrapnel for buskers and beggars, though.
Are you a spender or saver? Spender. Maybe I’d try to save more if banking jargon wasn’t so obfuscatory. I mean, what the hell is stagflation? Sounds like stalking antlered beasts at Balmoral. My only real economic drive is to walk everywhere.
What was your first job? I was a human street sign for a gym in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. I had to walk the streets strapped into a board that said: “Fat and ugly?… Wanna just be ugly?” I was 16 years old and got paid $5 or $10 a day but I was desperate.
After school I really scraped the bottom of the job barrel. Bath-plug maker, kissogram girl, buxom serving wench, encyclopaedia seller, hospital bedpan emptier. But hideous jobs are a great motivator.
I even joined a band — we were called the Salami Sisters because we sang about meaty issues. We were singing all
over Sydney and from that I got a column in the Sun Herald.
I wrote my first novel when I was 17. It was about being a surfing girl and really I just wrote it for my friends to give them some objectivity. Surfie girls were basically told we were nothing but a support system for a pair of breasts.
I had no idea it would become this big overnight bestselling sensation. I tried to get a publisher but ten Aussie publishers — all the men — turned it down, and this little feminist publisher in Melbourne saw its potential.
I didn’t get much for the advance but I remember the first royalties cheque. It was about $300, which is tiny, but in my mind was huge. I’ve written 20 books since. How do I get ideas? There’s always so much to be angry about.
Do you own a property? Yes. I’m lucky enough to own three. An apartment in Sydney, a house in London and a tiny cottage on the Isle of Wight. But I did start working at 16 and I’m a hard worker.
My first property, I married Kim and
he had a house and we
sold that to buy a place
together in Surry
Hills, in Sydney,
which I put money
into. Then we got
divorced and I
fell in love with Geoffrey and moved to London. He had a house and we sold that to buy another one together.
The film producer Scott Rudin optioned one of my
books for $100,000 and he
renewed that for three
Kathy Lette with her family on Bondi Beach, left. Joanna Lumley starred in the film adaptation of her book Mad Cows, below
years, so I got $300,000. Amazing. It paid off our mortgage. I don’t do winter in the UK any more — who would? The nice thing about being a writer is it’s a portable profession, so I go home for the winter and come back for summer fun in England.
Have you ever been hard up? Very. I ran away from Sylvania (maximum security) high school aged 16 and busked on street corners and lived in a squat. I survived by eating the fruit that was being thrown out at the farmers’ market, and by convincing the local cake shop to give me the leftovers to donate to the Runaway Girls Hostel, which didn’t actually exist — it was just me.
Are you better off than your parents? Probably. My parents worked for the government — Dad was a telecoms engineer and Mum was a teacher. They were very frugal and saved their pennies, and there were a lot of hand- me-downs. We were definitely on a budget but my three sisters and I still enjoyed life.
My grandma had a little cottage down the coast where we’d go for holidays. There was a lot of joy and laughter. My mother gave me the most sensational gift imaginable with these formidable, funny, fabulous, brilliant sisters. My poor father, in a house full of women. He was a front row for the Bulldogs rugby league team and all he probably wanted was four sons.
Do you remember the first time you felt wealthy? When I bought my first bottle of champagne after signing my first book deal, aged 18. I savoured every sip.
Do you save into a pension? No. A pension seems like the art of spending money without getting any fun out of it. It’s going without something you want in case one day you want something that you probably won’t like as much. I’d rather spend it now because who knows what fate has in store, and
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give every steamy detail of a romantic liaison but keep shtoom on money
I’m lucky that I have property. Carpe the hell out of diem, I say.
What’s better for retirement — property or pension? Property. I like the feeling of walking round your living space and thinking “I wrote this!” What a thrill to realise that every inch has been built from an entendre, a pun or a metaphor.
What has been your best business decision? Getting an agent. Us creative types are notoriously bad at handling money. But you’ve got to shop around for an agent, because they can do a lot of damage. I have some author friends who pretend to be their own agent, they have an alter ego and just do it themselves. But I don’t want to do that.
Agents understand maths, it’s their job to get you more money and they don’t get emotional about it. So I just let them get on with it and don’t begrudge the 15 or 20 per cent if it means I’m not leaving off any noughts without realising, or putting too many on.
What is your financial priority? To use my money for fun. I spend everything I earn. Adventure before dementia is my motto — and that’s not me making light of that terrible disease, it’s just that I’d prefer to spend what I have.
What’s been your most lucrative work? Selling film rights. When I sold those Altar Ego film rights to Scott Rudin after a bidding war with Robert de Niro it paid off the mortgage.
Those days are gone. Back in the Nineties, film rights were a big part of a writer’s income but now you might get offered $5,000 or something. Films aren’t being made and people aren’t going to the cinema, so it’s all slowed down.
Book advances have gone down too, unless you’re in the top 5 per cent of authors. My biggest advance was probably £120,000 but most authors are making about 10p a day now.
Do you invest in shares? No, I don’t understand it so I don’t even pretend to try. As a feminist, my fantasy is to strut around town with a couple of venture capital portfolios tucked up each sleeve but in reality creative types like me are notoriously hopeless at handling money.
I know it would be sensible to tell my money where to go, instead of wondering where it went, but I have no idea about shares.
How much did you earn last year? I’d have to ask my accountant. As a writer it’s sporadic, some years you earn a lot and some years you earn nothing. I just keep spending until I go overdrawn.
What’s your money weakness? Parties. I’ve got 20 people coming to dinner tomorrow. I love having friends round, a cocktail bar, champagne on tap. I throw a lot of money at parties but at least I save on a chef as my boyfriend does the cooking.
When I turned sexty — not sixty — I threw a party and had people come as their favourite feminist role model. Helena Kennedy came as Betty Ginsberg. There were rock stars and pop stars, and my daughter came as me. She wore one of my leopard-print dresses and got a wig to look like me. When she answered the door my friends thought I’d had a facelift. I want to have a party for my 69th birthday where everyone comes as their favourite sex position.
What’s your most extravagant purchase? A Moschino coat with two gold purses sewn on to the front that function as pockets. I keep my bus pass in one, and lipstick and a condom in the other. It cost a few thousand pounds — it was mad to buy it, so expensive — but I’ve had it five years and knew I’d wear it for the rest of my life.
Do you support any charities? Yes. I am a passionate supporter for Theirworld, which helps to educate underprivileged children, especially those suffering in war zones, all around the world.
What if you won the lottery? I’d buy an island and invite all my friends to move in. No misogynists allowed. And
I’d fund Theirworld to educate
the 273 million children and
learnt about money? To talk about it more. My girlfriends will give every steamy detail of a romantic liaison but keep shtoom on financial affairs. Women have to get better at knowing our worth and asking for a raise. Men are so brazen about money.
Kathy Lette is an ambassador for Club Avandra, a travel venture for women who like to travel solo but not alone. Her 21st novel The Sisterhood Rules (Bloomsbury £14.99) is out now. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
worldwide who are
out of school.
What’s the most
important
lesson you’ve
Plus Inside a designer’s whimsical cottage 8 I rescued a crumbling palazzo 11 The hospital for foxes 12
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WEST YORKSHIRE £850,000 Believed to be the oldest property in the Colne Valley, the five-bedroom Great Hall has a barn, dairy and spectacular countryside views. It is seven miles from Huddersfield. ryderdutton.co.uk
CUMBRIA £650,000 A colonial-style Lake District home with breathtaking views towards Skiddaw and nearby woodland walks. The property has 1,977 sq ft of space, plus a veranda and 0.7 of an acre. fineandcountry.co.uk
FRANCE €1.266M Near Eymet in the Dordogne (where a quarter of the residents are British), this villa has dusky blue shutters, high ceilings and cornicing. Inside, there is a large kitchen, a library, a playroom and six en suite bedrooms, including a principal suite with a dressing room. Outside, two acres of garden features a rose- covered arbour walkway, a garage and a workshop. A covered terrace overlooks the 11m seawater pool with an outdoor kitchen and bar. It also has a guesthouse that needs renovation. Bergerac airport is a 30-minute drive away. savills.com
EAST SUSSEX £13,995PCM Cotchford Farm, the grade II listed former home of AA Milne, is where Winnie- the-Pooh was written. Located in Ashdown Forest, it is a six-bedroom country house with gardens, a heated pool and a tennis court. hamptons.co.uk
LONDON SE22 £1.75M In Dulwich Village, this five-bedroom semi has French doors that open on to a southwest-facing garden. Period details include high ceilings, original cornicing and tiling and elaborate mantelpieces. knightfrank.co.uk
FINLAND €695,000 On the island of Pettu, this quaint 1934 villa is about a 2½-hour drive and ferry from Helsinki. It has four bedrooms, heat pumps and solar panels, a private beach and 1.42 hectares. leadingre.com
SPAIN €580,000 Terracotta roof tiles, bougainvillea on white stucco, bright blue swimming pool and rustic beamed ceilings: it’s the classic Spanish villa. This one’s in Denia, Alicante, and has three bedrooms. kyero.com
TWO ROBS
and investing in property answered
I WANT TO INVEST BUT I’M WAITING FOR A CRASH FIRST. WILL IT HAPPEN? Q
I became interested in property during lockdown and had my deposit ready to go by 2022. Then interest rates started climbing and the logic seemed obvious: as mortgages get more expensive, buyers can borrow less, so prices have to fall. I held off but three years later prices have barely moved and I feel like I just need to bite the
bullet and get started. I’m worried, though, that the crash will finally arrive just as I do. What would you recommend? Pete, Driffield A
What you describe is exactly what should have happened according to every economic principle. The Bank of England took the base rate from 0.1 per cent at the end of 2021 to 5.25 per cent by August 2023 — one of the fastest tightening cycles in modern history. For a market like property, which leans so heavily on the cost and availability of credit, that should have left homeowners and investors only willing and able to pay lower prices. Instead, as you said, prices have barely moved since 2022.
A big part of the answer to this mystery is that a crash
requires forced sellers:
people who have to sell at
any price because they
can’t afford their
mortgage payments and
are at risk of
repossession. This time around there aren’t enough of them for the market to capitulate, for a couple of reasons.
The first is that roughly a third of all UK homes are
owned outright, with no mortgage — up significantly from the early 1990s and enough to make a big chunk of the market largely immune to whatever happens to interest rates. Homeowners who bought more recently tend to carry bigger mortgages but since 2014 they’ve been stress-tested against far stricter affordability rules: in effect, they had to prove they could cope with rates rising up to 3 per cent.
With every passing month, more people roll off historically low rates onto higher ones so the market grows better protected against a crash all the time. And while households are wrestling with rising costs of all kinds, and few would consider themselves secure, repossessions are still running at 85 per cent below their peak levels in 1991 and 2009.
So, in our opinion, buying now wouldn’t mean stepping inside a bubble that’s about to pop. Adjusted for inflation, prices have already fallen by 15 to 20 per cent since 2022 and the most likely path from here is that they keep drifting down
in real terms while the sticker price stays roughly the same.
If you keep on waiting you’re unlikely to miss
That said, if you keep on waiting you’re unlikely to miss out on any kind of boom:
affordability, interest
rates and sentiment
all make it hard to
imagine property
doing much
more than
keeping pace with inflation. The only exception would be if this or any future government engineers a boom — maybe by loosening lending rules or reviving a demand- booster like Help to Buy.
out on a boom
Where does this leave you? As an investor, prices that merely keep up with inflation are no bad thing. When you use a mortgage, your debt stays static while inflation lifts the value of the asset and you collect the rent along the way. On top of that, you can benefit from buying in one of the parts of the country where growth runs above average — broadly, anywhere north of the Midlands — and using present market weakness to negotiate yourself a good deal. If you’re confident property is the right asset for you, at some point you have to take the plunge.
Doing it while everyone around you is bearish feels uncomfortable but it tends to work out far better than buying at a peak of excitement — which is roughly where the market was when you were first ready in 2022.
You’ll probably never fully get over your nervousness about a crash landing, but the best way to persuade yourself to act anyway is to take a long- term view. Buy at a price that gives you a healthy rental profit at today’s mortgage rates and even a sharp market fall leaves you cashflow- positive every month, with no pressure to sell at the wrong time. Hold for ten years or more and a short-lived dip on either side of your purchase date barely registers.
Rob Dix and Rob Bence present The Property Podcast and are cofounders of the property education platform Property Hub. Dix’s book Seven Myths About Money (Cornerstone £18.99) is available from timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Discount for Times+ members
Submit your questions for the Two Robs at propertyhub.net/ sundaytimes
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• Just a 500m walk to Leeds Railway Station, off ering
direct links to London, Manchester and beyond
• Located adjacent to the £multi-billion South Bank
regeneration – one of the UK’s largest urban renewal
projects set to double the size of Leeds city centre
• Boutique scheme of just 98 apartments, with private
outdoor space, premium specifi cation, and BTR-style
amenities including gym, lounge and co-working
areas – enhancing rental appeal and tenant retention
• Prices from £197,000, signifi cantly below the Leeds
average (£245,000), off ering a compelling entry point
with strong upside potential
Y
ou would be forgiven for thinking that now is a terrible time to sell your property. There are stories of silent crashes and sellers holding out in vain for 2021 prices. The value of houses in prime central London has fallen 26 per cent since 2014, according to the estate agent Savills. But all is not doom and gloom. In some areas sales are brisk and asking prices are being achieved — and then some.
“The real engine of the market at the moment seems to be those needs-driven moves, which predominantly sit in the mid market, where properties are a bit more affordable — where first-time buyers are active, and where people are having to trade up to get more space for family circumstances,” says Aneisha Beveridge from Connells Group and Hamptons. “Two and three-bedroom homes are the market’s sweet spot. They are outperforming the rest by some margin.”
For properties that came on the market in January, two-bedroom homes were the most likely to secure an offer within six months — 55 per cent did so, followed by three-bedroom homes at 53 per cent, according to research from the property company Connells.
Location is also key. In the first six months of the year, eight of Britain’s ten fastest-moving housing markets were in the north, the Midlands or Wales. Bury, Greater Manchester, topped the table, with 95 per cent of homeowners who put their house on the market in January receiving an offer.
It’s no surprise that the cheapest areas have the hottest markets. Houses sell fastest in the northeast, where the median asking price (£180,000) is the cheapest of all regions in England. It took 62 days to sell in the northeast in the first quarter, versus 83 days in the southeast, where the average price is £399,500, according to Spring, a national homebuying company. Certain postcodes within those areas sold more quickly. “I think it comes down to affordability,” Beveridge says. “In London and the south of England, where properties are pricier, higher mortgage rates hurt the most.”
Northern locations comprise 16 of the top 20 hottest markets, according to Propcast, a property market heat tool that measures demand. Postcodes in Liverpool, Stockport, Newcastle and Sheffield make multiple appearances.
Two southern areas, Yateley (GU46) in Hampshire and Woodley (RG5) in Berkshire, made the list — relatively affordable areas for those counties. And London isn’t dead: demand in suburbs is holding up better than expected, buoyed by first-time buyers and relative affordability, Beveridge says. Even some posh London areas are faring well, according to the buying agent Henry Sherwood. “Some prime London fringes like Islington have actually seen good year-on-year growth — sold prices are up 7.1 per cent for houses, in price per sq ft. The best properties, at the right price, are going to best and final offers, and still selling in a week.”
Getting the asking price right is vital. Surprisingly, data from Connells shows that properties with price reductions were 27 per cent less likely to receive an offer than homes that had not reduced their price. “Price reductions are actually a bit less effective than they were, which suggests that not only are those sellers’ starting prices too high, but that once they’ve made a reduction, that price is still too high,” Beveridge says. “That shows the importance of getting the price right from the start and being realistic.”
ST MARGARET’S, SOUTHWEST LONDON Property Four-bedroom semi Launch date March 12 (first viewing) Offer accepted March 14 Asking price £1.4 million Sold price £1.42 million What the agent said “The vendor had lived there 35 years, raised her children and wanted to downsize,” says Alex Morrell, sales negotiator at Antony Roberts. “This house has potential to extend into the loft and into the back garden. Both parties who offered were families who wanted to get into the local schools, which are very good. We had two offers, at £50,000 and £20,000 over the asking price, but the vendor chose the lower offer as they had their sale well under way — the others had not progressed their sale. The lesson is to get yourself in the best position to secure the right property when it comes up.”
HEMPSTEAD, SAFFRON WALDEN, ESSEX Property Three-bedroom Victorian house Launch date May 27 Offer received June 5 Asking price £365,000 Sold price £405,000 What the agent said “Despite being a refurbishment project, it sold for £40,000 above guide price,” says Max Cutsforth,
the homes still attracting their asking price — or more
director at Cheffins. “We set the asking price to reflect the amount of refurbishment work needed. We had four parties offer, all of which made best and final offers over the asking price. One offer was £10,000 above the eventual buyer — however, they still needed to sell. So the vendor chose to go with a slightly lower offer as they were first-time buyers and had a good deposit. The other two offers were also from first-time buyers.”
BECKENHAM, SOUTHEAST LONDON Property Two-bedroom Victorian semi Launch date May 5 Offer accepted May 11 Asking price £600,000-£625,000 Sold price £627,500 What the agent said “This generated significant interest immediately, resulting in six offers from five buyers,” says Kirsty Iveson from John D Wood. “The property went to best and final offers, with the highest bid reaching £635,000. However, the sellers ultimately accepted the second-highest offer at £627,500 because the buyer was chain-free, providing greater certainty and speed.”
CHERRY HINTON, CAMBRIDGE Property Three-bedroom 1980s house Launch date April 29 Sale agreed mid-May Asking price £650,000 Sold price £716,000 What the agent said “It had 43 viewings, 18 offers, and went to best and final bids,” Harry Chennells, valuer at Cheffins, says. “This one needed work. It was a former four-bedroom home that had been
configured into three bedrooms. With demand for renovation projects being limited due to build costs, we deliberately priced the property at a level that encouraged competition. This approach provided the vendors with a number of buyers to choose from.”
WALKERGATE, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Property Two-bedroom semi-detached bungalow Launch date April 19 Offer accepted April 29 Asking price £300,000 Sold price £302,000 What the agent said “Eight viewings produced five offers,” says Tim Stonock from Your Move estate agents. “On pricing, it was judged correctly rather than pitched low. Bungalows are in short supply, and a well-presented one in a good location is among the most sought- after stock we handle. A renovated bungalow with a manageable garden appeals to downsizers and retirees — that is precisely who competed for it.”
BARNES, SOUTHWEST LONDON Property Six-bedroom Edwardian semi Launch date March 18 Offer accepted April 7 Asking price £3 million Sold price £3.22 million What the agent said “It was an instant hit, with 35 viewings in two days and 50 in total,” says Phil Coombes, sales director at Marsh & Parsons, Barnes. “We received six offers and the property sold for £220,000 above the asking price. Kitson Road is a sought-after address in the heart
of the village. Homes here don’t come up for sale very often and this one had been in the same family for 65 years, so there was plenty of interest.”
SOUTH REDDISH, STOCKPORT Property Three-bedroom end of terrace Launch date March 30 Offer accepted April 15 Asking price £250,000 Sold price £267,500 What the agent said “We had 13 viewings and 11 offers. It went to best and finals,” says Luke Hillary, branch manager for Bridgfords. “Seven buyers submitted offers at the block viewing. The buyers were looking for their first dream home.”
SOUTHGATE, NORTH LONDON Property Four-bedroom semi with large extension and principal bedroom suite Launch date May 22 Offer accepted June 24 Asking price £1.2 million Sold price £1.1 million What the agent said “This one is in the catchment area of several highly sought-after schools,” says Matt Turner from Rash & Rash estate agents. “We carried out 11 viewings, generating three offers — two at £1.1 million and one at £1.11 million. The vendors accepted one of the £1.1 million offers because the purchaser was a cash buyer who could proceed quickly. Realistically priced houses still attract strong interest. Houses at last year’s prices hang around longer.”
CLIPSTON ON THE WOLDS, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Property Three-bedroom semi Launch date April 16 (first viewing) Offer accepted April 20 Asking price £545,000 Sold price £545,000 What the agent said “Pretty cottages in popular villages in south Nottinghamshire around the £500,000- £600,000 price are always in demand,” says Tom De Ville, director at Fine & Country Nottingham. “We had the first viewing on Thursday, April 16, three further viewings on the Saturday, and
Below left: Newcastle upon Tyne
accepted an offer on the Monday. It had been on with another agent for almost 12 months, so we relaunched it with a more realistic price. The buyer was attracted by the home’s turnkey condition and village location.”
ALTON, HAMPSHIRE Property Four-bedroom detached 1980s house Launch date May 17 Offer accepted May 23 Asking price £665,000 Sold price £665,000 What the agent said “We had 17 viewings in a week,” says Adam Masters, director of sales at Hamptons in Alton. “Two guide price offers. The house is at the end of a no-through road, near country walks, yet within a mile of the high street, good schools and train stations. It also has a double garage and generous garden, which are rare in newer developments.”
ISLINGTON, NORTH LONDON Property Three-bedroom end-of-terrace house Launch date April 28 Offer accepted May 5 Asking price £1.375 million Sold price £1,417,500 What the agent said “Following more than 25 viewings and multiple offers above the asking price, the property was sold to a cash buyer for £1,417,500,” says Nathan Khider, owner of Nathan K
Real Estate. “It sold well due to correct marketing and pricing. There are not many freeholds at that price in Islington.”
BRACKENBURY VILLAGE, WEST LONDON Property Five-bedroom Victorian semi Launch date March 2 Offer accepted May 3 Asking price £1.895 million Sold price £1.91 million What the agent said “The seller was moving overseas, the buyer specifically wished to upsize into the Brackenbury conservation area,” says Sebastian Rivett from Finlay Brewer. “Offers went to best and finals with a total of 29 viewings. There’s high demand from families for the quiet location and the many outstanding schools within walking distance.”
BERKSHIRE Property Four-bedroom property in two acres Launch date May 9 Offer accepted May 23 Asking price £3 million Sold price £3 million What the agent said “The purchaser spotted the property on an Instagram reel and wanted it — the deal was done within just eight days,” says Charlie Wellbelove, associate director at Hamptons. “It’s rare that a buyer is so decisive. It was listed with another agent [for £3.15 million] in the summer of 2025.”
‘T
he nice thing about doing your own house is there are no rules. No adults telling you, you can’t do that,” says Donna Wilson, designer of fierce knitted creatures and eccentric, arty furniture. Her home, at the end of a quiet road in east London, is full of colour and ingenious prototypes, such as the “cashmere cabinet”, a jumper-shaped cedar closet to keep woollens safe from moths. The property is populated by a menagerie of her mythical animals, from Cyril Squirrel Fox (CSF) to Rill, a masked rodent, rumoured to be the offspring of CSF and Rudie Raccoon.
Wilson, 49, lives with her furniture- maker partner Jon Almond (of the Produce the Goods design company), 48, their two sons, Eli, 13 and Logie, 11, and half a dozen hens. The designer shuttles between her studio in Bethnal Green and her four-bedroom home in Leytonstone, four stops down the Central Line. “I’ve tried to create a little oasis of countryside, animals, greenery and quiet,” she says. “A place of seclusion that reminds me of home in Scotland.”
She was born in Aberdeenshire, leaving to come to London and study at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 2000. Her childhood was spent on the farm where her father grew up, and where her parents still live, and which her brother now runs. “I loved living there. I still would love to live in the countryside, really. I’m very much an outdoorsy person. Which is probably why I loved this place. We’re surrounded on two sides with allotments. We’ve got loads of wildlife. We’ve got chickens, we’ve got foxes, we’ve got hedgehogs. There’s Wanstead flats next to us and Epping Forest. It’s a really brilliant place to live, if you want to be outside a lot.” On her allotment, she grows potatoes, tomatoes, beetroot and kale, and gets five eggs a day from her chickens. “We never need to buy eggs. We aren’t self-sufficient. That would be the dream.”
The couple moved from a flat just off Brick Lane after Eli was born. “We saved up money and then managed to buy this place in 2013. We sort of missed the boat with Walthamstow. That’s where quite a few of our friends ended up going. We
were seeing loads of places and they were just getting snapped up so quickly. And then Jon said, ‘Oh, look at this [in Leytonstone]. It’s a detached cottage.’ The photos of it looked really bad, run-down and overgrown.” They agreed it was perfect.
When they moved in the property was
lopsided, with the kitchen in a single
storey lean-to at one side, and
the rest of the rooms set over
three floors. “We didn’t do
any work until I think it was
I was inspired by the freedom
2020,” Wilson says. “Then
we took down the whole right-hand side of the house where the kitchen bit was, took the roof off, and then we built it up again so that it was symmetrical.” They added floor-to-ceiling glass doors along one side of the kitchen, to give sightlines onto the south-facing garden, and Douglas fir beams on the ceiling.
of children’s
drawings
The kitchen cabinetry is decorated in a kaleidoscope of geometric shapes. “I did this design on a bit of paper and it had 12 different colours of laminate,” Wilson says. “And I was like, OK, here you go
Left: Donna Wilson. Right: geometric shapes in the kitchen. Below: the bathtub in the bedroom, with the jumper cupboard
colour and her knitted menagerie — which are all in evidence in her London home. By Katrina Burroughs
[Jon]. You transform this into reality.” Almond made the cupboard doors and glued the coloured laminate in place, using a vacuum bag press, and fitted them onto an Ikea carcass. The breakfast station is the theatrical star of the show. Pocket doors open to reveal a lit-up interior, framed in ultramarine, where mugs, glasses, coffee and teapots are displayed on shelves fixed on a peg board.
Iroko counters are old science lab worktops found at Retrouvius. Salvage and found objects are on display throughout the house, Wilson says, because, “Jon is a total, what do you call it? Skip surfer. Every time he sees a skip, he is head first into it. And we have so many things now that have had a previous life. I really like [the salvaged counter] because I can’t mess it up. If it gets scratched, nobody knows because it’s already scratched, which is perfect for me because I’m not always the
best at keeping things pristine.”
Next door to the kitchen, the living room seating is a U-shaped sofa made by Almond, with storage in the base and moss green cushions, typically populated
by Wilson’s alternative family:
knitted bears, elephants,
eyeballs and bananas.
Vitsoe shelving above
holds the couple’s
library of art and
design books. There
is no television set,
but a projector
screen can be lowered down, and the family will lie on the sofas, and watch Clarkson’s Farm or Antiques Roadshow, having cast the critters to the floor. How did she dream up those disturbing creatures? “They are something that I developed when I was at the RCA. I was inspired by children’s drawings, and how you’re kind of quite free, and you can have a lion with five legs if you want. It was that freedom and playfulness. I had one called Angry Ginger, he was a ginger guy, who liked
marmalade, but his eyebrows were really fierce, and he had pointed teeth, and he was very angry.” Righto.
O
The gentle palette of paint colours, including the creamy yellow in the hallway, comes from Lick. “I wanted it just to feel quite happy and soft, not too jarring. I want you to come in and think oh, this is a nice space,” Wilson says. “I didn’t actually want to have any white in the house because I just felt like it was too stark.”
Upstairs, the couple’s bedroom is painted in a plaster pink from Lick. The room is a showcase for more joint projects: the curious furniture designs they call Abstract Assembly. There is a bench, a chest of drawers which doubles as a book/magazine stand, and the sweater-shaped cupboard, which hangs above the bath tub. “The big decision was to move the bathtub from the family bathroom into the bedroom. My partner was like, you can’t do that. And I was like, I can imagine just lying there and looking out onto the allotments.” They moved the tub, which Almond clad in ash, installed a shower for the children, and now they can bathe with a view.
Wilson works on the top floor, where the two new dormers flood her home studio with daylight. Her ingenious stand-up drawing desk is made from a quartet of plan chests, for each of which Almond made plywood housing and added casters. The furniture can easily be moved aside, across the cork floor, if they need to convert the studio into a guest room.
Knitted cushions designed by Wilson in the living room. Left: an Abstract Assembly bookcase
roof was off, Wilson and the boys moved up to Scotland for six months while Almond stayed to oversee the work. They all moved back in the summer of 2023, but she still describes the house as a work in progress. She wants to create a shaded area in the garden by extending the beams on the kitchen ceiling to the outside of the house. And she might invest in drapes for the bedroom. “We don’t have curtains yet. And the bath is right in the window, in view of the neighbours. So we have to just put the lights off and have a bath quite late at night. Jon is a bit disturbed by that. I don’t really care.”
GARETH HACKER
HOW TO DESIGN A SAFE ROOM
After the killing of Ann Widdecombe in her own home, Sasha Nugara asked an expert for security advice
ur home is our sanctuary — until it’s not. An increasing number of influential figures feel their safety in their own properties is no longer a given. The National Protective Security Authority, an arm of MI5, released guidelines before the killing of the former Conservative politician Ann Widdecombe advising MPs to set up a “safer area” where they can take shelter if their homes are targeted by “hostile actors”.
So how would such a safe area look, and how do you get one? Joseph McGee, the chief executive of the Securitatem Group, a consultancy, says that his team is busier than ever as wealthy callers seek out its services. “Even before [Ann Widdecombe’s death] we were busy,” McGee says. “I have been on the phone constantly for the last couple of days.”
After receiving every call, the company carries out a security assessment before deciding what measures to install based on the caller’s circumstances. “[We] need to know what [we’re] up against — is it the potential for someone to come in and attack using sledgehammers to smash the door down?”
A modern safe room no longer reflects the experience of Jodie Foster’s character in the 2002 film Panic Room — a spartan box resembling a prison cell with a couple of cushions thrown on the floor. It’s often inside your main bedroom’s en suite bathroom. The main reason, McGee says, is familiarity as well as utility.
“In the middle of the night where are you going to walk?” he says. “Then you can secure it, you can lock down, and then you’ve got a toilet if you need it, you’ve got running water if you need it.”
Inside the room, as part of a £250,000 installation, there would be panic buttons, access to the house’s security cameras, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, medical kits — including oxygen — and two or three lines of communication. “There could be a mobile phone,
sometimes there’s a satellite phone with an aerial that goes up on the roof.”
Cameras would allow you to see outside the door, so you could identify intruders. The installation takes about 12 to 16 weeks.
A crucial part of the refit involves extra structural measures, including bulletproof walls and doors. To do this requires examining the foundations. “The problem you’ve got is the weight on the walls, and so if you’re fitting it on the first floor, you’ve then got to look at [reinforcing joists], and the physical substructure of the building before [we] even look at the safe room,” McGee explains. “Because, putting all these different layers of steel and Kevlar and everything else that goes in is going to add phenomenal weight.”
There are cheaper options. With a sturdy brick-walled house, you could simply opt for a single secure door that will lock down in case of an intruder. “It matches all the other doors in the house,” McGee says. It would have a “minimum attack time” (the estimated time it would take for a potential attacker to enter) of 20 minutes, and cost from about £6,000 for full installation.
“What we’re seeing in our area is people are multilayering security, so they’re not just having an alarm put in any more, they’re having an alarm with panic buttons that is now linked to the police,” he says. “Then they’re perhaps looking at even upgrading the locks on their doors to proper safety locks, secure locks, anti-snap locks. Then they look at CCTV and then they may look at a secure door or two.”
He adds: “It’s a bit like your car insurance. You never want to use it, but when you need to claim on it, it’s great that it’s there. A panic room is just an insurance policy.”
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I
pursuit
guesthouse in a crumbling Puglian building
moved from London in autumn 2020 aged 55 for an extended break in Nardo, a small town in the deep south of Italy, little thinking it would be the beginning of a new phase of my life.
If someone had told me that nearly six years on I would own a palazzo that I had renovated from top to bottom, I would never have believed them. But here we are.
had made it difficult to pick up work. Unsure how far my meagre savings would take me, the idea was to stay there for a couple of months and work out “what next”.
From the moment I arrived I loved it. I loved the little clubs of retired gents who greeted me with “Buongiorno” every morning and wished me “Buon pranzo” as the town clock struck noon and they cycled home for lunch; the vegetable trucks on each street piled high with wild greens and olive oil sold
in old plastic bottles. Each vendor gave me recipes for the unfamiliar local produce and I could walk my cocker spaniel, Daisy, by the sea.
VANESSA MINER;ALAMY
The warm autumn afternoons and wonderful parade of new and old friends (a mix of expats and visitors) all too quickly gave way to the damp, cold winter in a stone house with no central heating. I stocked up supplies for the log-burner, ordered an electric blanket on Amazon, and realised that I didn’t miss my London life as much as I thought I would.
Covid curfew was strict, and the town fell silent as the carabinieri cruised through the piazza making everyone hurry home. After what had already happened in Italy, no one wanted to endanger anyone further. But I forged a tight new group of mates that winter and it became not “if” I could live here, but “how”. My language skills were abysmal, so I was going to have to employ myself. I had run my own business in the past and had successfully renovated a few properties, in the UK and in France, but feared I was falling into the fanciful trap of anyone who goes abroad and imagines living there for ever. Was that really enough to be the base of a new business?
At that time, there was only one decent hotel in the town, but it drew flocks of visitors for the baroque architecture, glorious central piazza and proximity to the coast. There was clearly a gap in the market. I took a deep breath and plunged into selling my London home. I returned to the UK a month before completion of the sale, took a tearful last look at my beloved garden and held a massive car boot sale party I called “the last stand” with cocktails and pizza. I drove back to Nardo with some savings and in the privileged position of having a few months to work out how I could renovate a property and start a hospitality business on my terms.
I viewed abandoned apartments through dusty stairs and shuttered, stuffy rooms. Away from the bustling piazza, the side streets of the historic centre were quiet, with stout wooden doors. It was a little gem of a town but it was not on the same fashionable radar as other parts of Puglia, although it was
Left: Vanessa Miner at Nardo House. Top: the town of Nardo. Above and right: Miner during the renovation
riding the wave of the region’s resurgence. There were many old, unused houses in the centre, with only the thick old walls and stellar vaulted ceilings to provide shelter from the baking summer heat.
None of them were quite right, but they helped to inspire a vision of what might be possible. I wanted to create something luxurious but also true to me; to be somewhere you would feel at home to pad around barefoot, curl up in the afternoon with a good book or reach into a fridge for a snack.
After a couple of months I stumbled across a huge building that had been built on the remains of a medieval convent. For the last century, a grand family had occupied the entire first floor, and it was chock-full of the grandmother’s furniture, including huge dressers stacked with antique china, as well as a larder full of jars of unidentifiable long- preserved vegetables.
It felt as if she had just stepped out, and in a way, she had. The family had kept the house in perfect order after she was no longer able to live there alone, but now agreed to sell it to me.
With the help of a splendid estate agent, I was introduced to a local accountant who specialised in grants for historic buildings and in turn to a bank I could work with. I set up an Italian company, decided to use a well-known local architect to navigate me through the
onerous bureaucracy and at breakneck speed collated all the paperwork and finances.
This was how I found myself one afternoon sitting in a lawyer’s office signing endless legal documents to become the owner of what was, for the next three years, called “the work site”. I was giddy with excitement, but ignorant of the challenges ahead. A good friend advised me to reconnect with a walk by the
Every time I felt
sea every time I felt
overwhelmed to
remind myself
why I was doing
this. There were
plenty of walks
overwhelmed I
over the next three years.
would go for a walk by the sea
Nearly three years to the day after I signed the contract, it was finally ready. Days spent sourcing vintage-style door screws that would fit the smartly restored doors were behind me, and Nardo House was born.
Furniture was craned through windows and lemon trees onto the terrace; five burly men heaved a solid iron range cooker into its new home. I invited the family from whom I had bought the original apartment over for drinks, and three generations came. The elegant matriarch told me that the room we were sitting in had been her mother’s bedroom and the room in which she herself was born. She held my hand and told me that her mother would have loved what I had done. It was the sweetest validation of this happy place, now ready for newcomers exploring a magical corner of Salento.
S
tanding outside a blue garage in an anonymous business park a few miles from Tonbridge in Kent, I could be about to enter a car repair shop or a storage unit. But from the moment I step inside, I’m transported into a different world.
K
Rows of animal cages stretch the length and breadth of the warehouse, and workers with clipboards strut up and down between them. In one room a call handler sits with headset on, a large map pinned to the wall in front of her, and in another there’s a pristine operating theatre.
This is one of Britain’s only dedicated rescue centres for foxes. It is run by the Fox Project, a charity dedicated to the wellbeing of these much maligned creatures, which some of us (me included) have long thought of as pests that dig up our flowerbeds and rummage through our bins.
There is no rest for these fox lovers. Emergency phones are manned 9am to 9pm, seven days a week, every day of the year, including Christmas Day. Rescues can be carried out by the team across a 70-mile radius, using a fleet of three specially kitted-out (and rather stinky) ambulances.
My suggestion that a large number of people in urban areas or suburbs might regard foxes as a nuisance doesn’t go down well.
“No, everyone doesn’t [think of foxes as a nuisance],” says Nicki Townsend, an ambulance driver and marketing specialist for the project, rather sharply. “That’s your world — of people not liking sharing their gardens with wildlife. Now you’re immersed in our world. All our volunteers adore them. Every call that comes in is someone that cares about a fox and wants to help them.”
The charity’s history is as colourful as its dedicated staff. It was set up 35 years ago, initially as an advice line, by Trevor Williams, the 81-year-old former bass guitarist for the 1970s rock band Audience. Before he joined the band, he sabotaged fox hunts. He is revered by the
Kelly Holmes with Shiloh, a chihuahua and Yorkie mix. Below: two of her alpacas, Polo and Liquorice. Far right: with rescue dogs Whitney and Barney
I got two but they just stood in a corner of the field. Somebody said they need to be in a pack so I went to get another two, and ended up KELLY HOLMES: ‘MY FOUR ALPACAS MOW THE LAWN’
The double Olympic champion on her mystery rescue dog and her grass-cutting companions
elly Holmes grew up wrestling an alsatian. She felt safer putting this large dog in a headlock than she did attempting to stroke the family cat, which she suspected of being “possessed”. Since then, the two-time Olympic champion
fox god
hospital for the much maligned creatures. They are no pest, he tells David Byers
staff as “the fox god”. These dedicated medics and activists think the foxes we find in our back gardens are not, in fact, vermin and that we should care for their welfare. I also meet one of the 40 foster families who take in injured foxes and keep them as pets.
‘THE ENTIRE BACK OF HER
BODY IS RAW’
mange, a severe skin disease caused by microscopic mites that can burrow under the skin to lay eggs. The fox has scratched so much that the entire back of her body is raw. “She’s petrified because she’s cornered,” Townsend says. This fox was discovered after a member of the public called in to report that she was acting strangely in her back garden. After the call, volunteers went out with a cage trap with bait inside and came back to collect her several hours later. “I describe them as mouse traps on steroids,” Townsend says, showing me one.
Most foxes are brought into the centre
has taken in rescue dogs and filled a field with alpacas.
Did you have pets growing up? My stepdad brought me up from the age of five and he had alsatians. There was one called Champ who I’d fight with. We’d roll around in the
As I arrive Rachel Bright,
a veterinary nurse, is
picking up one
struggling fox to
administer
injections to treat
garden and I’d put him in headlocks. He could’ve had my head off but he never bit me, so I was never frightened.
We had another alsatian called Gemma, then Charlie, who looked like a Dulux dog. He was beautiful. I remember, as a kid, being with my dad — I call my stepdad my dad — at a cross-country race and we got told Charlie had to be put down. We were both in tears.
I’ve heard you’ve got alpacas. How did that come about? I got the alpacas to avoid mowing the grass. A year after I won my two gold medals [in 2004] I moved into this house with a field at the front. At first mowing it was therapeutic but it took me three hours and I was thinking: “This is a waste of my life!”
after being maimed in car crashes, so are collected immediately. But those who are found in distress or carrying injuries often need to be trapped, as volunteers can’t catch them.
Demand for the centre’s services is growing, says Sandra Reddy, the hospital manager. “Last year we rescued over 1,500 foxes. This year we’re already at 1,309,” she says. About a third of these are cubs.
After being brought to the hospital, only 41 per cent survive, Townsend explains, with many problems found to be too intractable to successfully operate on. “They have breaks and wounds and maggot infestations. You wouldn’t believe what they come in with,” she says.
You might think the fox population is growing if you live in a city but, nationally, it isn’t. There are about 350,000 foxes in the UK but their number is thought to have dropped by almost 50 per cent since 1995. The declines have occurred in rural areas due to the long-term impact of intensive agriculture methods, which are causing a loss of food and habitat. Add to this the impact of hunting, shooting, trapping and poisoning, along with 100,000 foxes a year killed on the roads.
Partly as a result of being driven out of the countryside, the urban population of foxes is thought to have grown in recent years. Our cities now contain more rubbish and greater choice of tasty morsels than ever before (some councils have helped the influx with fortnightly,
farmer had weird animals looking over the fence. He says: “Do you want to see a cria?” Cria are baby alpacas, which I’d never heard of. They’re little dotty things, and he said: “They eat grass and hedges.” I was like: “Brilliant!”
Nicki Townsend, a Fox Project ambulance driver. Left: Trevor Williams
rather than weekly, bin collections). There are an estimated 10,000 foxes in London. Environmentalists debate the extent to which the urban fox population has increased, or whether they are simply more visible as they become more used to human interaction.
So why should we care about urban foxes? For Townsend and her fellow workers and volunteers, it’s a matter of re-educating people like me, after a lifetime of negative characterisations in our popular culture, like the crafty fox in Beatrix Potter’s story The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.
“We create huge amounts of rubbish and therefore the rodent populations are enormous and yet they [the foxes] kill rats,” says Townsend, who has a fox tattoo on her arm. “That’s the whole reason we need them in the towns. So when people say to me, I don’t want a fox in my garden, I say, do you want to be overrun with rodents? It’s up to you, fox or rat. They clear up a lot of the rubbish. They eat roadkill, things like that.”
She thinks Britons are, in general, animal hypocrites. “We are apparently a country of
getting four. That’s the story of getting six alpacas.
COURTESY OF DAME KELLY HOLMES
What are they called? I named them after sweets, based on their colours. Liquorice and Fudge were the first two. They were brothers. Then I got Crème Caramel, Toffee, Truffle and Polo. They’re all boys because I wasn’t ready to have babies when I got them — you need a lot of time.
I’ve had them since they were six months. Now they’re 17 but I’ve only got four left. Fudge died during lockdown. He was beautiful, with a tan colour and long eyelashes.
I had to have Crème Caramel put down last week. He hurt his neck a couple of years ago and it started going into an s-shape. I got the vets in but it fused, and over time it stopped him eating properly.
animal lovers but we consume loads of them and we don’t care for wildlife,” she says.
AKIRA SUEMORI FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
A PASSION FOR FOXES From the hospital Townsend and I drive for ten minutes in a fox ambulance to meet Williams. He is sitting in the shade in his garden, which features wildflowers and an ornamental pond. In the 1970s, he tells me, Audience were supported on stage by Queen, Genesis and Thin Lizzy (before relationships in the band imploded and they split up). But foxes were always his major passion.
“I was walking through the orchard on my uncle’s farm at the age of nine, in long grass, in the middle of summer, and this fox just came racing out of the long grass,” he says. “And it was like a burst of flame, beautiful. That stayed with me for ever.”
Williams cut his animal rights teeth as a fox hunt saboteur, working with animal rights activists to physically disrupt hunting with dogs. “But after four and a half years I just thought, next one’s got my name on it. You’d get very badly beaten up. The dogs weren’t the problem, it was the humans who would attack you.”
After joining the League Against Cruel Sports and demonstrating against animal cruelty, he set up the Fox Project 35 years ago, initially as an advice hotline. Later, as public interest grew, it morphed into an emergency rescue and treatment service. He rented the garage near Tonbridge to create a hospital for adult foxes. Attempts to find a more permanent, and more suitable, home have failed because they are always outbid by big developers.
Williams has also built a full medical centre to rehabilitate stricken cubs in his own garden. Recent improvements to the facility, which kept it cool during the June heatwave, were funded by a grant of £10,000 from the cosmetics
firm Lush, his wife Sue tells me.
And yet helping foxes is apparently a dangerous business,
which is why the Tonbridge centre is totally unidentifiable from the outside. “There have been wildlife hospitals and animal sanctuaries attacked by kids, killing animals,” he says, without specifying which ones. “There’s a lot of horrible stuff going on. It’s very scary. There’s a complete lack of compassion.”
Because the Fox Project can only
You get to a point where you have to make a decision, don’t you? It’s really sad but I couldn’t let him suffer.
Do you have any other animals? Just the alpacas and my partner’s dog, Shiloh, who’s a chihuahua and Yorkie mix. She’s 12 and she’s tiny, like a toy dog. I didn’t like little dogs. I was like: “No, I like big dogs! What is this? A rat on a lead?’”
But you get used to dogs and their facial features and their characters, and Shiloh’s cute. She’s like my shadow. She loves coming in the gym with me.
Have you had your own dogs? I had two rescues. I always wanted rescue dogs so I went to a centre in Kent.
Right: rescued cubs in the specialised unit. Below: Ian and Caroline Smithson, fox foster carers
rescue foxes within a relatively small radius covering some of Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and southeast London, those unfortunate enough to be injured in other areas of the country rely on far patchier treatment, usually being cared for in general animal hospitals or not at all.
As we talk, Sue is working with Townsend to prepare five fox cubs, who have until now been living in his garden while receiving medical treatment, to travel to live with a foster family.
THE FOX FOSTER CARERS A total of 40 families within the Fox Project’s jurisdiction have signed up to house foxes in their gardens. The enclosures are hand-built by Reddy and a
I wanted a big, butch, solid boy dog, like a weimaraner. That’s what I had in my head, so I kept going there, looking.
The woman said: “Do you want to come up to the top, where we bring in puppies?” I was an athlete at this time, and I was like: “I haven’t got time for puppies. I don’t want a puppy, I want a dog.” But we walked down, and I went: “Oh my God! What is that?” The woman went: “We’ve just rescued her. Her name’s Shelley. We don’t know what she is or where she’s come from or why she’s like that.”
The number of
UK foxes has fallen by almost
half since 1995
ugly little thing and I was like: “Oh my God! Obviously not.” The next week I went back, she must have smelt me or whatever, because she came straight over to the cage and
put her paw up. She was
only tiny and she
looked like a hare.
I went home and I couldn’t
stop thinking
about Shelley. I felt sorry for her because she was an awful-looking thing. I thought: “No one’s ever going to have her.” I went back the next week, still trying to find my butch dog, and Shelley was still there.
I said: “Look, I’ll take her for a walk.” I was due to do a run that day and I had this field, so I thought: “Kill two birds with
team of volunteers, while food, sawdust and straw are also provided by the charity. Between them, these foster families have the capacity to nurture about 200 cubs, helping them to get bigger and stronger before they are released back into the wild. The Fox Project never has a shortage of volunteers, Townsend says.
Townsend and I drive for 35 minutes from the Williamses’ house to Westerham, near Orpington, to drop five foxes at the home of Ian and Caroline Smithson. We’re in the middle of the heatwave and have to keep both front windows down, owing to the increasingly appalling smell coming from the back of the ambulance. “I think I’m immune to it now,” Townsend says, laughing apologetically.
Ian, an engineer, and Caroline, his company secretary and part-time hospital reflexologist, volunteered to foster foxes
after seeing an advert. This will be
their second cohort. “We have
three children, we’re all
animal-lovers. And we
thought, this is exactly what
we would love to do,”
Caroline says.
The couple say that, apart from shovelling poo first thing in the morning, their family are enjoying the experience. One daughter, who recently finished her A-levels, even finds it therapeutic. But aren’t they worried the noise will disturb the neighbours? “We have noise from wild foxes anyway,” she says. “Ours make a little bit of noise but nothing that bothers anybody.”
Maybe Britain’s urban outlaws really are due a reputational rehabilitation.
one stone, I’ll take a dog for a walk.” So I took her, and she ran like a hare. I thought: “She’s got something like lurcher in her.” Later I found out she did.
Anyway, I ended up getting Shelley and calling her Whitney. She turned into the most gorgeous, loyal dog ever. She ran with me all the time. Then I decided to get another dog to keep Whitney company when I went to work. I got another rescue and called him Barney. Whitney and Barney were the most loyal, beautiful dogs ever. They were 15 and 12 when they passed away, so I had them for a long time. Interview by Samantha Rea
Kelly Holmes is partnering with the supplement brand Solgar to launch a competition giving UK runners the chance to train with her. Entry closes August 31
I
like we’re still in the 1970s’
the ideal place for writing horror stories
have a four-bedroom flint cottage in Thetford, Norfolk, that was built in 1550. It has changed a lot over the years and a lot of the ground floor has been modernised, but not by me. The upstairs hasn’t altered much, though. It’s like going into the hull of HMS Victory, with all these big, dark oak beams and exposed floorboards.
It’s a crooked house. There’s not a straight line in it because they didn’t put foundations under these houses in those days. There’s a priest hole and witch marks to protect the property because in the 16th century they were still burning witches up here.
What attracted you to Norfolk? During the war my dad was evacuated to a village called Beccles in Suffolk, which isn’t far from here. Years later he used to bring us up the east coast from Essex to
NOISY BIN COLLECTIONS ARE KEEPING US UP AT NIGHT Q
We live in a quiet London residential road with a private nursery school in the middle. The school has been having its rubbish collected at midnight by noisy trucks which are waking us all up — despite calls to the nursery and waste company, which have both apologised.
Recently the school (which was family-owned and run) was taken over by a large corporation and communication with them is hard. Also, they subcontract out waste collections to multiple carriers — even if one company agrees to stop collecting at unsociable hours, there could be others that will still do it. The council has contacted the nursery operations
come here for the summer holidays. After Covid I found people were ruder and less tolerant, so I moved here from the south. In Norfolk it’s like time has stood still and Showaddywaddy is still at No 1.
Where were you brought up? We lived in a council house in Stifford Clays, in Essex, until I was about seven, when my parents, Ethel and Joe, managed to buy their own house nearby for £5,000. Imagine buying a house for £5,000 now! Although Dad had to work three jobs to afford it.
What was your childhood like? Mum was heavily into antiques, so when I was a kid I was dragged round every jumble sale, boot fair and antiques shop in search of old dolls, which were everywhere at home and gave the place a Dickensian feel. I was always known as “second-hand Joe” because all my clothes were picked up during doll-finding expeditions and never fitted. I can’t complain, as I didn’t know any different.
When did you decide on comedy as a career? I don’t think you decide; you have a go at it and it decides if it works. I did normal jobs for years. I was a civil servant at the Department of Transport, worked at the meat market, car forecourts and on building sites. I couldn’t see myself doing
manager but he has not done anything about it. What action can we take? Isabelle Anscombe A
This sounds really miserable, especially in the summer, when everyone has their windows open at night and the sound can carry.
HELP
In previous Home Help answers about the law of nuisance, I have talked about the factors the court takes into account: location, time of day, duration, frequency and intensity. Here, of course, it is the time of day that is going to be the main factor. Location is also relevant, particularly as this is a residential area. As with any
nuisance claim, it will be crucial for you to keep a record of every time you are woken by noisy waste collections, noting down the time of day, how long it lasts, how it affects you and any
other relevant details. If
you search online
you will find
various
“nuisance log”
templates
you can use. This will form the basis of your evidence either for a court claim or to ask the local authority to pursue a statutory nuisance claim.
It may also be useful to record video footage on your phone and potentially to get a formal report from a noise consultant, who can use sound recording equipment to measure the level of noise
any of these jobs until I was 65. So I got a job at a Warner holiday camp in Lowestoft, refereeing wrestling matches and the like, as a way into entertainment.
How did the career take off? Just for a joke I went on New Faces and ended up coming second in the final. I didn’t have an act, never took comedy seriously and I still don’t. I think this is why I still enjoy it. You have to enjoy it, or you’d not want to go up in front of an audience of strangers and say, “Look at me, please.”
Did those earlier jobs help you as a comedian? Yes. Not having to get up at half five in the morning, ride on a moped to Smithfield Market and carry a dead cow on my back all day spurred me on.
What had the bigger impact, New Faces or winning I’m a Celebrity…? I did New Faces in 1987, and I won in the jungle 22 years ago, neither of which anybody gives a monkey’s about now. I’m 65 this year, have no intention of retiring because I love what I do. This summer I’m in a play called 11½ Angry Men at the Edinburgh Fringe. I’m currently
from the trucks. It may also help if your claim is supported by neighbours: you are stronger in numbers and could potentially share any legal fees. Encourage your neighbours to complete nuisance logs too.
It will be important to send an initial letter of claim for nuisance to the nursery school owner, setting out how the noise affects you and enclosing a few weeks’ worth of nuisance logs to show how bad the problem is. Set out what you want them to do and tell them that if they don’t resolve the problem you will take them to court. At the same time, provide your evidence to the council and ask them to serve an abatement notice on the nursery owner.
Another thing to check is whether the nursery’s planning permission includes any conditions relating to
Joe Pasquale. Above right: the priest hole in his Norfolk cottage. Below left: Thetford in Norfolk. Below: Pasquale on the New Faces talent show in 1987
waste disposal, for example restricting times for collection and/or a waste strategy or management plan. If there is such a condition (which you should find if you inspect the local authority’s planning portal) and if it is being breached, you could encourage the local authority to take enforcement action.
Ed Cracknell, partner, and Joanna Crow, legal director, Russell-Cooke
clinic Q
Please advise how to clean a metal olive oil dispenser so that I can fill it again. It is sticky with semi-dried oil and only has small filling and pouring holes for access. Jill Stafford
learning to tap-dance
because at one point
that’s what my character
does, on a table. I’ve never done the Fringe, and never tap-danced.
Is your house haunted? Some time after moving in I was talking to the lady who sold me the cottage and mentioned I was going to a psychic evening at the local pub. She asked me to say hello to the cottage’s ghost if he turned up, which was news to me as she’d told me it wasn’t haunted. Apparently she wasn’t going to admit that to a prospective buyer. As for the ghost, he was a Second World War German fighter pilot who’d crashed nearby and used to sit in her bedroom and talk to her — in German, I suppose.
MARK MCGHEE; ALAMY;SHUTTERSTOCK
Have you seen the ghost? No, but my tour manager has. After staying in that room one night, he told me he couldn’t sleep because someone was sitting by his bed all night looking at him, and I’d not even mentioned the ghost. Also, I have a little motion-sensitive ninja fart toy by the old staircase that has been known to pipe up when no one is there.
Did the cottage need much work when you bought it? No, and I wouldn’t want to do anything anyway. I write horror books. I have three volumes of short stories out and a novel on the way and I find the place very inspirational.
Do you have a treasured possession? I suppose it’s the bracelet I’m wearing, which I bought my dad for Father’s Day about 30 or 40 years ago.
Are you good at relaxing? No. I have to be doing something all the time. I’ve recently passed my motorcycle test because it’s the closest thing to flying. I have a pilot’s licence, but I’m finding it harder to pass the medical
because my eyes are getting worse. I
also write my books, paint, go to the gym, garden, anything but sit still. Interview by Dan Moore
11½ Angry Men is at the Pleasance EICC, Edinburgh, August 5-22; find tickets at edfringe.com
To clean my narrow-necked olive oil bottle I feed a few tablespoons of coarse salt inside the bottle, followed by some hot soapy water, then shake vigorously. P Patel
I have a stainless steel olive oil jug given as a wedding gift. In 33 years I have never washed it out or cleaned it. Virginia Crook
FUTURE QUESTION The perimeter of my slate kitchen floor is flecked with small white dots that I believe to be spider poop. Nothing gets rid of them, not even scraping. Can anyone suggest something to dissolve them? Andrea Slater, London SW14
Send tips and questions to homehelp@sunday- times.co.uk. Advice given without responsibility
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M
y fondness for taking trains to the seaside dates from childhood trips from York to Scarborough. Landmarks on the way are lodged in my mind: Malton station, which looked like a farm, the ruin of Kirkham Abbey sleeping by the greenish River Derwent, the great signal gantry on the Scarborough station approach, which may as well have been a banner reading “Welcome”.
The line to Scarborough remains open, unlike the lines to Aldeburgh, Lyme Regis, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Bridport and others. The tracks to the seaside have had many enemies, chiefly the railway “axeman” of the 1960s, Dr Beeching. But even in the interwar period those railway posters showing sun-dazed scenes from Bridlington to Brixham carried the footnote “It’s quicker by rail”.
And it’s truer today than it was then. Passengers can still, for a short while, inhabit the exuberant world of Edwardian seaside posters, which declared the Moray Firth “the Scottish Riviera”, Llandudno “the Naples of the north”.
Here are six of my favourites.
INVERNESS TO KYLE OF LOCHALSH The best seaside trains skirt water for a long time, giving an extended preview of the sea to come. Towards the end of their journey the trains of the Kyle line flank Loch Carron (which is the sea, in effect) for more than ten miles, occasionally diverting from the water’s edge to run through narrow stone canyons. The scenery along almost the whole west to east route is Arthurian, the two or three-car Scotrail diesels appearing about as significant amid the hills and lochs as little blue caterpillars. And the summer colours are almost hallucinogenic, what with the bright yellow gorse, purple heather, black loch beaches, lineside bluebells and pink rhododendrons.
road bridge demand that homage is paid. Perhaps do so via a taxi to Kinloch Lodge on Skye, historic seat of the Macdonald clan, where a Robert Louis Stevenson world awaits, but with much better food. Details Half-board doubles from £580 (kinloch- lodge.co.uk)
MIDDLESBROUGH TO WHITBY Dr Beeching did his best to isolate Whitby, closing two of its lines, but the Esk Valley Line from Middlesbrough survived. Its westerly stretch runs past fields, with the North York Moors to the south and east resembling an elevated Eden or gathering storm clouds depending on the weather.
At Grosmont the line intersects with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, a heritage line. The stations on the NYMR reflect different railway eras, and Grosmont is the prettiest, being painted ivory and blue, the colours of British Rail’s North Eastern Region. Alight here and buy a ticket for a train hauled by a steam or vintage diesel loco. This will cross
Lowestoft’s seafront couldn’t be more Victorian, offering a parade and an esplanade, ornamental gardens and serried guesthouses. Two stops back on the Norwich line is quaint Somerleyton, where Somerleyton Meadows offers B&B in its Georgian house or the modern Hideaway Hut in its grounds. It’s a 15-minute walk from the station or collection can be arranged. Details Two nights’ B&B from £320 (somerleyton meadows.co.uk Top train rides to the British seaside
A taxi (or the X4 bus) will take you from the station to the luxurious Saltmoore hotel, between the moors and the beach, with a hundred acres of garden, a spa and an indoor swimming pool. There’s nothing better than a scenic rail route that skirts the coast and deposits you at a beauty, says Andrew Martin
and recross the River Esk many times before running parallel with its estuary on the approach to Whitby, whose station is almost as near to the harbour as Santa Lucia terminus in Venice is to the Grand Canal.
Details B&B doubles from £320 (saltmoore.co.uk)
NORFOLK TO LOWESTOFT The Wherry Lines run from Norwich to Great Yarmouth or Lowestoft; the latter route is perhaps the most attractive. It traverses marshland resembling a great green sea, with tiny broken windmills on the vast horizon — and boats cruising along the River Waveney above the level of the railway. As though to provide reassurance amid this bizarre landscape, most stations bloom with flower gardens, courtesy of Community Rail volunteers.
Lowestoft station — which also serves the picturesque East Suffolk line to Ipswich — was built in Italianate style by the Lucas Brothers, who were responsible for the
Royal Albert Hall and York station. The roof was lost in a brutal “improvement” of 1992, but on a sunny day it still suggests a Tuscan courtyard, and there’s a bookshop serving coffee and cake in the old booking office.
EXETER TO TEIGNMOUTH Soon after departure from Exeter St David’s the wide Exe Estuary has every passenger turning toward the windows on the left-hand side. The estuary becomes the English Channel when the train reaches Dawlish Warren station, where the sea wall that attempts (and frequently fails) to protect the line begins. On mild sunny days — when the only waves are those exchanged between the paddlers on Dawlish beach and the train passengers — the conjunction of train and sea here is the centrepiece of British railway romance. The scene has been so often depicted on biscuit tins,
jigsaws and posters that
newcomers to
the route
might think
they’ve been here before.
Between Dawlish and Teignmouth the train threads through short cliff tunnels separated by secluded coves redolent of Famous Five stories, and in summer the sea looks more vibrantly blue at every emergence into daylight.
Potters Mooring, a guesthouse that dates from 1675, lies fifty metres from the sea in Shaldon village, just outside Teignmouth. It’s a 20- minute walk from Teignmouth station, or take a bus, taxi or the ferry across the Teign. Details B&B doubles from £114 (pottersmooring.co.uk)
MACHYNLLETH TO PWLLHELI The Cambrian Coast Line begins at Machynlleth (easily accessible from Euston),
Clockwise from main: take the train to Kyle then head to the Isle of Skye; beach huts at Lowestoft; a train passes Dawlish, in Devon; Whitby, North Yorkshire
where trains divide, one portion heading south along Cardigan Bay to Aberystwyth, the other north to Pwllheli. Both are highly scenic, but the latter just edges it.
COVER: KRIS TAMBURELLO. P2-3: JOHN BRACEGIRDLE, SLAWEK STASZCZUK, GEOGPHOTOS, BERND BRUEGGEMANN/ALAMY
A Great Western Railway poster of 1927 proclaimed “The Cambrian Coast: Miles of Glorious Sands”, and that’s the truth, but the view inland alone — white villas on hills, granite chapels and the occasional castle — would have made this one of the most scenic routes in Britain.
The summer trains are usually packed, with a high turnover of passengers, many boarding in swimming trunks, carrying surfboards or Lilos and trailing sand. The principal resort is Barmouth, approached by the half-mile- long viaduct. The track curvature means you have a good view of it beforehand.
Pwllheli is the terminus: a somewhat faded town but still with many charms, including (a little under two miles north of the town centre) the Piggery, a secluded farmhouse for self-catering with views over Cardigan Bay. Details Two nights’ self- catering for two from £300 (wilderetreats.com)
CREWE TO LLANDUDNO The North Wales Main Line is also known as the North Wales Coast Line, the two names reflecting its duality: the strategically important route of the old Irish Mail train yet also a holiday line. After a countrified interlude alongside the Shropshire Union Canal, trains run alongside the Dee Estuary, which gradually becomes less industrial, with cleaner mud, more seabirds and (not necessarily an aesthetic boon, admittedly) more fixed caravans.
After Prestatyn the train trails proper beaches, including that of Rhyl, whose lineside Marine Lake has been encircled since 1911 by the Rhyl Miniature Railway. Then comes Colwyn Bay, followed by Llandudno Junction, start of the branch to Llandudno. (It also serves the dramatic Conwy Valley Line, which heads south towards Blaenau, terminus of the Ffestiniog Railway.)
In Llandudno much elegance remains, especially along the promenade, where the cream-coloured villas seem affronted by the presence of such modern things as cars.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the prom to the Escape Boutique B&B, a tastefully modernised Victorian mansion commanding views of the town. Details B&B doubles from £135 (escapebandb.co.uk)
To the Sea by Train by Andrew Martin (Profile £11.99). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Special discount available for Times+ members
so much I wrote a book about them
these are the hits and misses. By Christopher Beanland I
didn’t choose road trips, they chose me. A childhood spent shuttling along the A17 between family in Yorkshire and Norfolk meant it was inevitable I’d write a book celebrating the road trip and all the weird and wonderful things you can see through a car window. I’m talking about the nerdy stuff: epic road signs, car parks, bridges, brutalist megastructures, malls, diners, drive-throughs and motels. It took a dozen or so trips over a few years to research the book.
There were visits to Motos, Welcome Breaks and the now defunct Little Chef — its Olympic Breakfast was the heart attack hero order. Forton Services in Lancashire is like a space station on the way to the Lakes, designed when motorways were our routes to an exciting future.
I hired the odd death trap. In Siem Reap in 2023 I puttered to Angkor Wat on a scooter. I easily sourced a smiling chap with no cares in the world who gave me one coloured pink and yellow in exchange for $10, no documents needed. He even filled it up with petrol from a milk bottle.
In Tulum, Mexico, during lockdown in 2021, it was double the Cambodian hire fee, but the banger I got was half as safe. It was some hombre’s car with snack wrappers in the glove box, but it got me to Chichen Itza and back.
With no tolls or speed limits, German road trips bring out your inner Lewis Hamilton, but there are eye-opening sights too. After a few nights in Munich a couple of years ago I drove round the 1972 Olympiapark, with cool architecture and luscious landscapes. For dads, BMW Welt is next door and worth a look.
In Berlin I cruised past the bonkers Bierpinsel, a former nightclub built on a flyover in which you can imagine David Bowie dancing. I bedded down at the Hotel Bristol and the Intercontinental — two modernist West Berlin gems.
Turning south, I reached historic Vienna and tackled some high Alpine roads and their hairpins.
France is often recommended for a road trip, but in reality the driving is so mal you wonder if the grumpy motorists should have gone to Specsavers. Also, the motorway tolls are so ruinous you will be forced to sell at least one kidney.
Yet some people love it — my friend and fellow comedian Sam Burnett contributed his favourite French motorway service stations to my book. You probably can’t get wasted at them any more, though.
You can in Mexico, however — on a bus ride near Guadalajara I was in stitches watching truckers smash takeaway margaritas. I joined them, as did the other passengers; sadly, so did the driver.
Portugal is better. For more research I stayed at the Lisbon Ritz, conceived at the start of the car age in the 1950s, and with amazing art and a rooftop running track. Then I headed down to the Ribeiro do Cavalo beach outside Sesimbra, a cove famed for its steep cliffs.
In Cyprus a research road trip in 2024 took me across the Green Line that separates Cyprus from the breakaway state of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Turkey. I entered the disputed ghost town of Varosha, where time has stood still since the internecine 1974 war. The star attraction there is the derelict dealership that once sold cars to Slovakian UN peacekeepers who patrolled beneath the Toyota sign on the ruined garage’s roof.
Then America called — I wanted to write about motels and drive-throughs. Rolando Pujol, author of The Great American Road Trip, met me at Central Park in New York in 2022 to talk about his love of Wendy’s restaurants and Eighties shopping malls for my Park Date podcast before I headed west. We shared our love of Pizza Huts and planned a documentary following him across America in search of a world of gas’n’googie optimism that is fading fast in the rear-view mirror.
Experiences ranged from quotidian attractions, such as the green dinosaurs on the forecourts of Sinclair fuel stations in south Utah and the frothy fountain root beers, to the sublime: the mesmeric Zion and Bryce, below, national parks in Utah; the epic scale of the Arizona skies; the immense distances and the wild wind
storms. Nature’s majesty messes
with your sense of self.
I relished the famed modernist banks of Palm
Springs before cruising
through Los Angeles, past
retro drive-in cinemas, to chill at the Line and the Figueroa — perfect hotels with cool pools.
One more sweaty journey — last year, through the stifling Arabian peninsula — started at the Hajj Terminal in Jeddah that has been turned into the huge Islamic Art Biennale. I sped down the Omani coast in a Nissan with the air con on max and ended up at the glistening green mountain oasis of Wadi Shab; I dived in and the cool water pricked my skin. At a fuel station in the desert I talked about cricket with the Indian guy who pumped my dirt-cheap petrol.
I finished that trip in Dubai, the most car-crazy city of the 21st century, criss- crossed by highways over which fuel- guzzling supercars speed. I relished the Four Seasons Jumeirah Beach and, from the balcony of my room, watched attention-seeking Maybachs and Porsches cruise over the causeway towards Jumeirah Bay Island.
By the hotel’s opulent pool I devoured Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, in which the main character embarks on a road trip across America in search of love. It seemed like the perfect read.
Architecture for Cars by Christopher Beanland is out now (Batsford £30). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members. Christopher Beanland will be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe next month (edfringe.com)
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T
wo years ago I travelled to the Masai Mara in Kenya to report on the recovery of the region after devastating floods on the Talek River washed away bridges and destroyed or badly damaged 14 camps. The aim was to check that the infrastructure had been restored sufficiently for the resumption of tourism (it had), but it quickly became clear that there was a more pressing story.
The Great Migration — the movement of about 1.5 million wildebeest and perhaps 500,000 zebras and antelopes between July and October — was in full flow, and the animals’ attempts to cross the crocodile-infested Sand and Mara rivers were what every tourist wanted to see. But their presence turned what David Attenborough described as “the greatest natural show on earth” into a bad-tempered version of an overcrowded shopping centre car park on Christmas Eve, as frantic tourists with expensive lenses chided drivers to get them closer to the crossing points.
migration,
The air filled with dust and exhaust fumes. Engines roared. Arguments broke out as vehicles from rival camps cut each other up. At one point four vehicles blocked an exit point as wildebeest calves left behind during an earlier crossing tried to reach their mothers. A few hundred yards upstream I watched as the calves reached the vehicles, panicked and turned back into the oncoming herd. At least eight were drowned and, when at last the others turned tail, one — its leg broken — stood on a sandbank surrounded by crocodiles too bloated to give it a quick end.
It could be argued that nine dead wildebeest is nothing in a migration of 1.5 million but those deaths were caused by the greed of tourists who probably described themselves as wildlife lovers. Something was going very wrong in the Mara.
deaths were caused by the greed of tourists
It was no better in 2025. Videos posted online showed Toyota Land Cruisers once again blocking crossing points over rivers, tourists breaking laws against getting out of vehicles and, in one case, hotel staff waving napkins at a herd of wildebeest rampaging through a riverside safari camp.
That camp was reported to be the newly opened Ritz- Carlton Masai Mara, then subject to a lawsuit brought by the conservationist Dr Meitamei Olol Dapash, who claimed that the £3,500-a- night lodge had been knowingly built on a critical migration corridor. But the napkin-waving was revealed to have been filmed in 2020, at
Chris Haslam looks into the ethics — and best ways — of seeing it
a camp eight miles north, and Dapash’s case was dismissed on procedural grounds in February. Furthermore, the Masai Mara National Reserve chief warden Stephen Minis pointed out that footage of tourists walking on a riverbank had been filmed at
a designated rest area.
However, as the herds arrive from
the Serengeti for
the next
Some animal
environmental lawyers and conservation experts warn that developers and operators risk the collapse of the Mara ecosystem.
On July 2 the Environment and Land Court in Narok heard a second petition, filed by the East Africa Tour Guides and Drivers Association. It called for the Ritz-Carlton camp to be closed down because it had been built
in the protected Sand River Wildlife Corridor and “obstructed the ancient migration route… thereby fragmenting wildlife habitat and causing irreversible ecological damage”. The judge dismissed the case, once again, on procedural grounds.
On July 3 a third petition was lodged, by a group comprising the East Africa Law Society, Natural Justice, JustAct and the Africa Centre for Peace and Human Rights. It calls for the Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara to be closed, along with the neighbouring Sala’s Camp and Sand River Masai Mara by Elewana, alleging that all were built in breach of environmental planning laws.
denied the allegations. “The dismissal of the earlier case in April reinforced that the lodge’s presence in the Mara is both legally sound and ecologically mindful,” the Ritz-Carlton owner Marriott International told The Sunday Times. The Safari Collection, which owns Sala’s Camp, said: “There is no validity to the claims as they relate to Sala’s Camp.” And Elewana said that its Sand River property “was established and has operated pursuant to approvals issued by the relevant authorities”.
planning permission was granted has not been publicly released, but there is growing concern that the pursuit of profit is making a mockery of the 2023 Masai Mara management plan, which clearly states that there will be “no new tourism developments”.
GRAHAM PRENTICE, ADEDEJI OKUBADEJO/ALAMY
In the wake of the chaos last year the Kenyan tourism minister Rebecca Miano announced rules that forbid alighting from vehicles except in designated rest areas, increase enforcement patrols at crossing points, limit vehicle numbers at crossings to five (with a maximum stay of ten minutes) and authorise on-the-spot fines of up to £70 to drivers breaking the rules.
“These plans might look good on paper,” said a senior guide who asked not to be named, “but I cannot see any driver giving up a front-row spot after ten minutes if a herd has yet to cross.”
Increasing the entrance fee from £60 to £150 a day has had a dramatic effect on visitor numbers — down from 420,000 in 2023 to 213,000 in 2025 — but, with up to 150 vehicles a day racing from crossing to crossing, what was once described as the greatest wildlife show on earth has tragically become the African equivalent of the daily scramble for sunbeds on a package holiday all-inclusive.
If seeing the migration in the Mara is your dream but doing so in a bad-tempered traffic jam with tourists who care more about spectacle than animal welfare sounds like a nightmare, you have options.
One, you could come between January and March for the lesser-known Loita Migration, when herds of up to 250,000 wildebeest and zebras descend from the Loita Plains to the Mara conservancies (privately managed wilderness areas to the north of the main tourist areas) in search of fresh grass.
Two, you could come in the main season and stay away from the crossings. They are dramatic and often brutal but are just a small (overhyped) scene in a spectacle of mindblowing scale. Travel to less touristy spots such as the Olpunyata Plains or the grasslands at the foot of Oloololo Escarpment and you will see hundreds of thousands of honking wildebeest running the gauntlet of the lions, leopards, hyenas and scavengers that see the herds as a slow-flowing river of protein.
It is an astonishing sight but you’ll need a private game vehicle so you don’t have to share with guests who came only for the crossings. They cost upwards of £225 a day extra but the value far exceeds the price. Be sure to inquire at the time of booking, though, especially in migration season.
in the Mara
MARA TOTO TREE CAMP The combination of climate change and upstream deforestation has increased the frequency and intensity of flooding in the Mara Triangle, the southwestern part of the reserve, so conservationists and the safari operator Great Plains built Mara Toto Tree Camp 20ft up in an ebony grove on the Ntiakitiak River, with views through the leaves west to the escarpment. There are four suites here: film set thatched treehouses with copper baths and a Canon camera and lens in each for guest use — the Great Plains owners Dereck and Beverly Joubert are
wildlife film-makers and photographers. Dereck’s advice is to come for the Loita Migration to save money and “be part of the solution rather than part of the problem”. Details Seven nights — six all- inclusive at Mara Toto Tree Camp and Mara Expedition Camp and one B&B in Nairobi — from £14,750pp, including flights, transfers and guiding (audleytravel.com)
HOUSE IN THE WILD A three-hour drive from the Sand River, House in the Wild is the furthest you can get from the crowds at the crossings and still be in the Mara. Up here in 2012 Lippa and Tarquin Wood rewilded a former farm and created the Enonkishu Conservancy, a buffer zone in which wildlife and humanity have had to relearn how to live alongside each
Conservancy —
From left: a lodge at Offbeat Mara; ballooning over the Mara River; a meal at Mara Toto Tree Camp
other. That creates encounters you won’t experience elsewhere in the Mara — a Masai herdsman calmly steering his cows away from not-so- distant lions, for example, or a herd of zebras hanging out in a village to thwart a stalking leopard. The lodge stands on lawns on a bend of the Mara River, with accommodation in seven cottages and villas and a house party vibe that works well for families. Details Six nights’ all-inclusive at House in the Wild and Kizingoni Beach at Wild Lamu from £7,214pp, including flights (yellowzebra safaris.com)
KICHECHE BUSH CAMP This is one of three camps under the Kicheche brand in the North Conservancy, with all managed to exemplary sustainable standards, prioritising excellent guiding over hotel-style luxuries. That doesn’t mean you’re roughing it, though. The conversation here on a good night is as civilised as the dining, but what really sets the camp apart is the willingness of guides to throw out the industry- standard safari timetable — morning drive, brunch, rest, afternoon drive, sundowners — and, if guests are up
for it, go out before dawn and return after dark. Details Seven nights — six all- inclusive at Kicheche Bush Camp and Kicheche Mara and one B&B in Nairobi — from £5,995pp, including flights (steppestravel.com)
ALEX WALKER’S SERIAN Alex Walker knows little about spa treatments or threadcounts but a lot about the art of safari. The former guide has three camps in the region
— including a back-to-basics
mobile tented camp called
Nkorombo, at a crossing
point in the North
but the Original
was, as the name
suggests, the first. In a riverside stand of African greenheart and huge olive trees, the lodge has five tented rooms with views into a valley that is a wildlife highway and west across the Mara River to the Siria Hills. The guiding is exemplary and you don’t need to book a private vehicle because Serian includes them in the price. Details Seven nights’ all-inclusive at the Original and Nkorombo from £7,550pp, including internal flights (safari-consultants.com). Fly to Nairobi
OFFBEAT MARA CAMP If you’ve never been into the bush before, Offbeat is probably exactly how you imagined a safari camp would look. The seven guest tents are pitched in a thicket on a bend of the Olare Orok, a tributary of the Mara River, and are furnished to be comfortable rather than mind- blowing. While the vibe in camp is laid-back and fun-loving, the game watching in this remote corner is intense, with the resident pride of lions — which you’ll hear roaring at night — topping the bill. Combine it with a stay at Angama, a camp high on the Oloololo Escarpment with glass-fronted suites and views to the Serengeti. Details Eight nights’ all-inclusive at Offbeat Mara and Angama Mara from £7,898pp, including flights (aardvarksafaris.com) Chris Haslam
OFFBEAT SAFARIS; GREAT PLAINS
S
unday lunch at the Chinese Tower beer garden in Munich is a lot. It’s only 1pm but already I’ve spotted a teenage couple in tears behind the grilled fish hut and a two sixtysomethings snogging by the gents. On the table next to us a group have been chanting the final line — and only the final line — of Happy Birthday to You every two minutes for the past hour.
Chinese Tower
MUNICH
If these were Brits abroad, then it would be a sorry sight. But unlike us, the people of Bavaria do debauchery in a charming, not entirely undignified way.
They really do dress up in lederhosen and dirndls in their spare time, which I have to respect. And in this beer garden in the middle of the English Garden — a park that sprawls 3.4 miles north from the old town and is bigger than Central Park in New York — they put tablecloths, flowers and candlesticks on communal tables, which is undeniably classy.
English Garden
They only order their Helles lager by the litre — impressive. Lunch is freshly baked pretzels with obatzda (a spiced, mashed camembert dip) — innovative. And they sing along to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, played by a brass band on the first floor of the tower — so what if it’s July?
The vibes are immaculate, like Glyndebourne in East Sussex if you’d actually want to strike up conversation with your picnicking neighbours, and it is one of many experiences during a four-day trip to Munich that convince me that this is Europe’s ultimate summer city break.
in the city
too), river, lakes and forested outskirts, Munich makes an ideal weekend getaway, says Huw Oliver
country. The smoke-filled dive bars of Hamburg, drizzly football terraces in Dortmund, Berlin nightclubs so dark that only a yard in front of you is visible: this was my Deutschland. But I was doing it wrong. I had never been in summer, nor to the south. The English Garden, a revelation, had eluded me.
Every day of my trip — like most of the city, it seems — I end up there. One morning I join the crowds lining the manmade Eisbach River, where two dozen surfers take turns zig-zagging across the foam. Some last as long as 30 seconds before toppling over; it is an exhilarating spectator sport.
Eisbach River
Another afternoon involves a cooling Sommerspritz (grapefruit, bitters, rosé, prosecco) at Die Goldene Bar, at the back of the Haus der Kunst, built in the 1930s as a museum for Nazi-approved art at the southern end of the park (cocktails from £9; goldenebar.de). Its stark
Die Goldene Bar
stone terrace, broken up by totalitarian classicist columns, is an atmospheric spot for a drink among the treetops.
On yet another I run around the Kleinhesseloher See artificial lake, dip my toes in the river and cycle to the northern edge of the English Garden, which flattens to meadow then thickens to forest; there are signs warning of the presence of toads (city bikes £13 for two
Lenbachhaus
Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom Julius Brantner
Das Maria Chi Thu Jessa’s
hours; unlimitedbiking.com). A Vancouverite friend recently described outdoorsy, sport-loving Munich as the European version of her home city. The English Garden proves her point.
My base for the weekend also captures the colourful, chaotic spirit of summer. Open since last spring, Hotel Münchner Kindl may look from the outside like a serious, traditional 18th-century guesthouse
Munich Residenz
from the outside, with its plain façade and red awnings, but the reality is that it’s a lot more fun.
Run by the Hütter family, who also own hotels in Heidelberg and the Austrian Alps, its ten suites and six rooms are big on colour and detail — intended as a counterpoint to the often grey and monotonous German weather, says the designer Christine Hütter- Bönan. Each is unique; mine, a master suite on the top floor, goes for a 1970s vibe with orange walls and blocky patterned curtains.
Gadgetry is pleasingly abundant: there is a strength machine by the bed that offers more than 100 different workouts, while the Japanese-style Mewatec loo in the bathroom will keep you occupied so long your travel companions may well ask, “Are you OK in there?”
It’s the design touches that really make you want to linger, though. Chinoiserie cushions nod to the popularity of East Asian art and architecture among the Munich aristocracy of the 18th century. A brass tap in the shape of a dragon and a ceramic lamp comprising
The English Garden in Munich and, below, the man-made Eisbach River in the park, where surfers ride artificial waves
a stack of tortoises draw on the fantastical tastes of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who is buried in St Michael’s Church, at the end of the road; he is perhaps most famed for spending lavish sums on nearby Neuschwanstein Castle, the quintessential fairytale palace.
And books on the painters Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter and Alexej von Jawlensky make a comprehensive introduction to Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) expressionist art movement, which originated in Munich.
From my window I can see the twin onion domes of the towering Frauenkirche church. But despite being so central, there is little noise from the street. I can confirm that it is a tranquil place to snooze (B&B doubles from £415; hotelmuenchner kindl.de).
You could spend a week ticking off the dozens of museums and cultural institutions in Munich, but I limit myself to two.
GK IMAGES, TRAVELER/ALAMY
At the Lenbachhaus, in the city’s Kunstareal art quarter, I browse the world’s largest collection of Der Blaue Reiter paintings, mostly donated by Münter. The escapist zoo scenes of Franz Marc and the cityscapes of August Macke — who like other Blue Rider artists believed in the power of colour to express inward feeling — summon holidays from long ago (£9; lenbachhaus.de).
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Residenz. This was the palace of the Bavarian dukes, electors and kings from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, a period during which the extensions frankly got out of hand. There are 130 rooms to explore and extravagant highlights include an Italian-style grotto decorated with tens of thousands of shells and, pride of place in the Treasury, a statuette of St George slaying a dragon encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds (£17; residenz- muenchen.de).
You can see where Hütter-Bonan got her wild, maximalist vision for Münchner Kindl from.
In summer, if it’s not in the English Garden, the real Munich can be found on restaurant terraces. In Germany it can be a nightmare trying to tell an authentic tavern from the equivalent of a Spoons so I’m thrilled to be pointed towards Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom, in the shadow of the Frauenkirche. I tear into tender, crackly-skinned pork
From right: the Chinese Tower beer garden; the Old Town Hall in Marienplatz, the central square
The setting brings to mind
knuckle — the best I’ve had — and shredded pancake with cinnamon and chunks of apple. The setting brings to mind Florence but without the tourists (mains from £12; bratwurst- gloeckl.de)
Florence but
without the
tourists
For drinks, you could do much worse than the Cocktail Club on the ground floor of the hotel, run by the charming, garrulous mixologist Adriano Paulus. He recommends a
potent continental sour, essentially a whisky sour plus red wine: summer in a glass (cocktails £13).
Just as zippy is the decor. With its heavy lime curtains, plush velvet sofas and graffiti- inspired black squiggles on the ceiling, the bar area has the feel of an alternative private members’ club, not least thanks to the palms that prevent passersby from peeping in. Downstairs is also where a modest breakfast spread of yoghurt, pastries and fresh fruit is laid out in
the morning, though you should leave room for a melt-in-the-mouth croissant from the Julius Brantner bakery, which looks more like a fashion store, across the street (pastries from £3; julius-brantner.de).
When hunger strikes later on I find myself gravitating south. In Glockenbachviertel, a pretty neighbourhood filled with chic boutiques and international restaurants, I happen upon Chi Thu, whose wholesome Vietnamese tofu rice bowls and summer rolls
Rhine, Strasbourg and Heidelberg
This is the ultimate getaway for history enthusiasts, wine lovers, and anyone seeking a serene yet enriching holiday. You’ll experience the unique charm of sailing on a five-star ship with exceptional service.
Your adventure weaves through the breathtaking, Unesco-listed Rhine Gorge. Uncover the rich history of Koblenz, wander medieval Boppard, and explore Mainz. Marvel at the Renaissance ruins of Heidelberg, and cross into France to experience the beauty of Strasbourg. The journey back downstream invites you to soak up the lively atmosphere of Rüdesheim before finishing at the magnificent cathedral of Cologne.
thetimes.com/th-rhinecruise
make me feel a lot better about having devoured that knuckle the previous day (mains from £7; chithu.de).
Another winner is Das Maria, a Middle Eastern brunch spot where I enjoy my first manoush, a light, crispy flatbread topped with a sweet tomato sauce, feta and cured beef (mains from £11; dasmaria.de).
The white chocolate and pistachio ice cream from Jessa’s Eis next door is so good that I pop in for a second pot at their other outlet around
• Return flights from London Heathrow
• Seven nights’ all-inclusive river cruise
• Guided tours of Koblenz, Mainz, Heidelberg, Strasbourg and Cologne
• Visits to Boppard and Rüdesheim
• Cruise through the spectacular Rhine Gorge to Mainz
• Overseas transfers
• Local fees and taxes
• Times+ member exclusive: Save £250pp when booked by August 16^
Visit timesplus.com/Riviera for your unique code
the corner half an hour later (scoops from £2; jessaseis.de).
GUENTER GRAEFENHAIN/ALAMY; BBSFERRARI/GETTY IMAGES
Loveliest of all is Asam Schlössl, an hour’s walk south along the Isar River. This 17th-century villa, reconstructed in the 1950s after it was destroyed in the Second World War, is covered in delightful trompe-l’oeil baroque frescoes (the originals were by Cosmas Damian Asam, who lived here in the 18th century). Its beer garden is cooled by nearby woodland and the speciality is chateaubriands and tomahawks, cooked on a Big Green Egg barbecue. It’s safe to say you’d be hard-pressed to replicate the exquisite results at home (mains from £15; asamschloessl.de).
The real joy, however, is the trek there and back. Families have set up for a day on the pebbles with picnic blankets. There are volleyball and diabolo competitions. I awkwardly skirt the nudist area and a probably illegal open-air party. The whole city has become a beach. Grey it most certainly is not.
Huw Oliver was a guest of Münchner Kindl, which has B&B doubles from £415 (hotelmuenchnerkindl.de). Fly to Munich
B
Price includes From magnificent monuments and royal palaces to golden beaches and coastal charm, enjoy the best of India on one unforgettable escape.
egin by discovering the Golden Triangle, where you can explore some of India’s most iconic sights. You’ll ride a rickshaw through a bustling Delhi spice market and see architecture old and new, pause in Agra to gaze on the ethereal beauty of the Taj Mahal,
What we love Explore the iconic sights of India’s Golden Triangle, gazing on the Taj Mahal and trying your hand at cultural crafts, followed by five days on the dreamy beaches of Goa - what better combination of exploration and relaxation?
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before admiring the treasures among the grand palaces and bustling bazaars of the ‘Pink City’ of Jaipur.
When the adventure is done, it’s time to unwind in the coastal paradise of Goa, where
golden sands, swaying palms and the sounds of the Arabian Sea set the scene for pure relaxation. After a guided tour of the historic sights of Old Goa, you’ll have four days to spend as you wish, be that on the beach, or exploring further.
Scan the QR code with your camera app to view more details.
12 nights in four-star accommodation
12 breakfasts, 7 lunches and 7 dinners
Discover architectural masterpieces in Delhi, Old and New
Enjoy views of India’s most famous landmark, the Taj Mahal
Try your hand at block printing in Jaipur
Touring with guides and entrance fees
Free pre-tour extension with hotel, breakfast and private transfers available on ANY Wendy Wu tour - exclusively for Times readers
0808 258 2786 thetimes.com/ww-indiaandgoa QUOTE TIMES-ON
T
he Delano hotel in Miami Beach opened in 1947, when the Florida beach resort was an early playground for the rich and glamorous, but it was as a key venue of the 1990s party scene that it became truly legendary. That’s when the maverick architect Philippe Starck and the developer Ian Schrager transformed the property into a minimalist space with a decidedly maximalist approach to having a good time.
Poolside rooms became two-storey “bungalows” (aka party pods), hosting Prince, Donatella Versace, George Clooney and the like. Madonna co-owned the restaurant, Blue Door, while the subterranean nightclub, the Florida Room, was designed by Lenny Kravitz.
After a six-year hiatus and a three-year renovation that reportedly cost about £75 million, the Delano has just reopened and is ready for its third act — though now the ostentatious hedonism of the 1990s is being replaced by a subtler, more mindful luxury. Later this year the Florida Room space will be reborn as a 7,000 sq ft spa.
Walking through the lobby today is still like stepping into another era, or perhaps several. I can almost hear the click-clack of heels, the swish of silk and the soft rustle of linen worn by the impeccably dressed guests of the Golden Age, who would have sashayed across the terrazzo floor.
But then there’s contemporary, colour- popping art, an enormous sculptural lampshade looming above a white pool table and a transparent piano that once belonged to Kravitz.
“Miami Beach was really glamorous [in the 1990s],” says Ben Pundole, chief brand officer across Delano hotels (the chain’s fourth property opens in Kensington, London, this year). “Every night of the week at least one property would throw a big pool party that spilt out onto the beach. Every hotel has a little bit of
hosted celebs and wild parties in the Nineties. Now it has been reborn, says Ella Buchan
responsibility to bring that back to South Beach.”
Blending art deco design with contemporaneous Miami Modern (MiMo) architecture, the hotel’s white façade retains its original clean geometric lines and a central tower with distinctive, wing- like fins. But subtle design touches, taking inspiration from each era, have been
added through the interior.
Wispy white curtains,
a Starck signature,
hang behind
beds and in
Madonna owned
alcoves off the
lobby, where wavy white columns also pay homage to the style. The terrazzo floor was painstakingly recreated from original photographs, as was the mezzanine bridge spanning the lobby.
the restaurant, Kravitz designed
the club
The hotel’s beating heart remains the beachfront pool, where eight bungalows refurbished in soft whites and layered textures have ground-floor terraces leading straight out to the poolside loungers. And in the main building the new signature restaurant, Gigi Rigolatto, sweeps from the lobby to the pool. Its Italian Riviera elegance, along with a menu of fresh pasta, seafood and antipasti dishes such as velvety, house-made burrata, extends from its ochre-tiled dining room, terrace and bar to the pool and beach. Umbrellas are lined with the restaurant’s joyously ditsy olive and lemon print fabric (mains from £20).
Breakfast is served at Gigi’s
(from £15), or you can grab pastries and coffee from Café Delano in the lobby.
The new fourth-floor terrace is reserved for guests and members, as is the teak- accented Mimi Kakushi, a Japanese-style restaurant inspired by Osaka’s 1920s jazz scene. My blackened cod and miso aubergine, sufficiently tender to eat with chopsticks, compete for attention with my martini, encased in ice and chipped out tableside (mains from £35).
ROBERT RIEGER; SERGIO TB/SHUTTERSTOCK
Schwartz, who developed the original 1947 property with her husband Rob, though it was first added by Schrager and Starck. “It was such a scene,” Pundole whispers and, judging by the well-heeled guests filling the space later that evening, it’s becoming one again. Whether wild, celebrity-filled events will once again echo through the Delano remains to be seen, though Pundole hints that a mega launch party may be on the cards later in the year.
that’s instantly recognisable, the elongated wavy lines of the “S” and huge, disc-shaped porte-cochère added in 1958.
My room’s decor blends warm, muted shades with pattern and soft colour in the form of rugs, armchairs and framed art. The balcony overlooks the pool deck, also added in 1958. All lush foliage and spearmint-striped loungers, it’s shimmery and shiny, emanating a brand of vintage coastal glamour that’s unmistakably Miami Beach.
If it weren’t for people taking selfies on smartphones, this could be the Golden Age. Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles all stayed and/ or partied at the Shelborne. Original marble columns from 1941 and a white diving
tower, added in 1958, have been preserved. (The latter is strictly for decoration, though; apart from safety issues, as the front desk manager Jenny Mesa tells me, diving “isn’t the vibe we’re going for”.)
The vibe is certainly more cocktails than cannonball, and that extends to the dining. You can order zingy, Mexican- inspired dishes such as mahi mahi tacos and watermelon with fresh cotija cheese by the pool or in the elegant lobby bar (mains from £16). Or try Floribbean (a fusion of Floridian and Caribbean cuisine) at chic Pauline, tucked at the back of the hotel (mains from £24).
Both hotels worked with the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL), founded in 1976 and the sole reason their buildings are still standing. I join an art deco walking tour with Julie Fornay, one of the league’s knowledgeable volunteer guides (from £30pp;
motifs, like porthole windows and “eyebrow” awnings, exemplify “Tropical Deco” — and the Colony Hotel’s much- photographed vertical sign.
F
Fornay tells the area’s story as one of a party, interrupted (and occasionally does a little jig to emphasise the point). A devastating 1926 hurricane, the Great Depression and America entering the Second World War slowed, but didn’t stop, development of this once-swampy land. Rich people, she says, “had fond memories of parties here and wanted to party again”.
Between 1933 and 1942 art deco buildings “sprang up like mushrooms”. The Shelborne and Delano are, Fornay reckons, examples of “delayed deco”: postwar properties with an art deco aesthetic that incorporate the clean lines and futuristic sensibilities of MiMo.
For Fornay, protecting this heritage is crucial. “These buildings are really quite special. They’re like my friends and neighbours, with names and stories to tell,” she says, pointing to Casa Casuarina, where Gianni Versace lived (and, in 1997, was murdered). The former Versace Mansion is now a hotel and restaurant.
M U S I C & F E S T I V A L S
OF SUMMER
bands, smooth jazz and gigs at a castle… where to go and when in Scotland
rom foot-stomping fiddle music filling an island bar to a folk festival featuring chart-topping singer Emeli Sandé, Scotland’s music events provide the perfect soundtrack for your summer getaway. Plus, you can combine the shows with history, culture and nature experiences.
SHETLAND FIDDLE WEEK August 3-8 Shetland has a long tradition of fiddle music, rooted in its seafaring Norse history. Fiddle Week puts on toe-tapping tunes across Shetland’s Mainland, from Bigton Hall to Lerwick Boating Club. While you’re here, explore Sumburgh Head Lighthouse, Visitor Centre & Nature Reserve, where you might spot puffins, orcas and dolphins.
ROYAL EDINBURGH MILITARY TATTOO August 7-29 Military bands and civilian performers from the UK and around the world enthrall crowds with precision pipe and drum displays. Highland dancers skip and twirl beneath Edinburgh Castle’s floodlit
Fornay also believes these structures must evolve to survive. “We are not a museum, frozen in time. This area embraces colour and art as a lifestyle. I don’t think we will ever lose that. It’s here in this place and it’s almost spiritual.”
Even the beach is a reinvented, and perhaps fake, entity: 1940s images of the Delano show the pool almost reaching the sea and extra sand was first added in the 1970s. Today it’s a soft, alabaster catwalk for 36 sculptural, candy-coloured and art deco-inspired lifeguard towers, rebuilt after the last original structures were destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Wynwood South Beach
US US
The Shelborne By Proper The Delano
Miami Beach Architectural District
Miami Beach
Miami Beach
FLORIDA
Downtown
½ mile
Play ground Edinburgh’s Tattoo displays; The Red Hot Chilli Pipers at Summer’s End; Caol Ila Islay Jazz Festival features performances in a distillery
The next morning I head to Miami Beach Marina for a small group speedboat tour around Biscayne Bay with Ocean Force Adventures (from £96pp; oceanforceadventures.com). The trip passes islands with some of the world’s most expensive homes, including the mansion that featured in the 1983 film Scarface (listed for a staggering £176 million).
A fellow passenger clocks my Delano-branded tote bag. The hotel’s name is hidden, tucked against my hip. But the woman, who lives locally,
Atlantic Ocean
From far left: the Delano’s tower; its pool area; the cocktail bar at the Shelborne
ramparts, followed by a fireworks finale each night. The Tattoo overlaps with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, so you’re spoilt for entertainment. Or wander down the Royal Mile, from the castle via St Giles’ Cathedral to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh’s official royal residence, and its ruined abbey, where the remains of King James V lie.
PIPING LIVE! AND THE WORLD PIPE BAND CHAMPIONSHIPS, Glasgow August 9-15
Piping Live! comprises concerts, street performances and workshops celebrating bagpipe music in all its glorious forms. This stirring event culminates in the World Pipe Band Championships at Glasgow Green, where around 8,000 artists compete. Nearby, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum covers everything
recognises
the motto
displayed on the other side: “Nothing Finer”. Has it opened again, she wonders. Is the entrance still hidden behind a hedge? (I tell her it isn’t; the MDPL insists that façades are clearly visible from the pavement.) “It’s been closed for a really long time,” she says, explaining her excitement.
These longstanding properties clearly still matter. The Delano’s other, original, motto says: “Great loves always come back”. Familiar yet refreshed, these hotels’ revivals are set to return Miami Beach to the zenith of coastal glamour.
Ella Buchan was a guest of Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau (miamiand beaches.com); Delano Miami Beach, which has room-only doubles from £430 (delano hotels.com); Shelborne By Proper, which has room-only doubles from £385 (shelborne. com); and Virgin Atlantic, which has London-Miami returns from £570 (flights. virginatlantic.com)
from Egyptian history to the genius of Van Gogh and Dalí. Or check out Barbie: The Exhibition, until October 18.
SUMMER’S END FESTIVAL, Brechin, Angus August 14-16 The festival brings together pop, folk, roots and acoustic acts at Brechin Castle’s showground. Headliners include UB40, the Sugababes, Judge Jules and Scotland’s own Emeli Sandé. There are camping, glamping and campervan options to make the most of Summer’s End. Then take a tour at Glencadam Distillery and visit the Davidson Legacy Cottage, where one of the Harley-Davidson founders was born.
RADIO 2 IN THE PARK, Stirling September 11-13 Another chance to catch Emeli Sandé, who joins fellow Scots Simple Minds,
MIAMI RIVER CRUISE Once an industrial hub, the Miami River district is being tipped as the next hot neighbourhood in the city, with new luxury apartment blocks and waterfront restaurants. The best way to explore it is (unsurprisingly) from the water. Miami on the Water recently launched an evening Miami River Tour along the 5.5-mile stretch, which flows from Downtown Miami to Biscayne Bay. You’ll cruise underneath drawbridges, past gleaming high-rises and around Brickell Key. You’ll also learn about the Tequesta people who first settled here, and view Biscayne Bay and the downtown skyline under the stars (£34pp; miami onthewater.com).
OCEAN TERRACE PARK The South Beach neighbourhood of Miami Beach (where the Delano and Shelborne reside) has tended to grab most of the attention but North Beach is having a moment. Among developments in this area is
the five-acre Ocean Terrace Park, bringing greenery, landscaped gardens and public art to what was a characterless portion of asphalt between 73rd and 75th streets. It incorporates a revitalised portion of the Miami Beach Boardwalk (or “Beachwalk”), running parallel to Collins Avenue and the sand, making the area even more pedestrian and cycle friendly.
CASA TUA CUCINA This vast temple to Italian cuisine is Miami’s answer to Eataly. It opened in the arty, brewery-filled Wynwood district in April and features ten food stations where diners can order charcuterie, pasta, grilled meats, pizza, salads and smoothies. Tables are dotted around the elegant space, or you can sit at the long bar for an aperitivo. There’s also a market with a selection of kitchen accessories, preserves and olive oil (sandwiches from £10; casatualife.com). Ella Buchan
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Texas and Deacon Blue at the BBC music extravaganza. Radio 2 hosts Sara Cox, Spoony and Michelle Visage start the party with DJ sets on Friday night. Local history includes the National Wallace Monument and Bannockburn – and you can’t miss Stirling Castle, perched on a crag right above the City Park venue.
CAOL ILA ISLAY JAZZ FESTIVAL, Argyll & The Isles September 11-13 Whisky and music have been natural bedfellows for centuries – and this weekend brings jazz and blues’ joyous sounds to Islay – Scotland’s whisky island. Local and international musicians perform at community halls, churches and the Caol Ila Distillery. The island’s 11 distilleries also offer tours, and beyond whisky, the Museum of Islay Life in Port Charlotte features around 3,000 exhibits, including clothing, books and household items, as well as photos dating back to the 1880s.
Discover a season of music festivals and events at visitscotland.com/ summer
O
of my life
mountains in Kyrgyzstan is transformative, even for camping refusenik Rachel Johnson
n paper, I admit, I am an unlikely candidate for an extended safari on horseback in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. I couldn’t find the country on a map, let alone spell it. It would be my first Stan. But I got a message from the adventuress and entrepreneur Alexandra Tolstoy, a distant cousin of Leo, the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, after she’d read a piece I wrote for The Times about cycling across Transylvania.
When it comes to partners, the countess has shed a Cossack first husband and a Russian oligarch dubbed “Putin’s banker” (the father of her three children). But she has found a starring role sharing the wild majesty of Kyrgyzstan — a double- landlocked central Asian country that is further from the sea than any other — with groups of riders who have so far included the actors Dominic West and Clarke Peters, the pie magnate Charlie Bigham and the late satirist PJ O’Rourke. Would I join her gang on the May trek?
Mmm. I have a well-founded fear of organised group activities, as well as heights, horses and, above all, any kind of camping. The most recent time I went camping was one of the worst experiences of my life — a fortnight beneath a sodden dyke in the Netherlands in 1973. Plus I can sleep badly in my own bed; I can sleep badly in the honeymoon suite of Le Bristol in Paris — once, after a long flight en route to Myanmar, I claimed that I was “too tired to sleep” at Raffles Singapore.
As for riding, no thanks. I learnt at school and that was quite enough. A friend made me go on “a hack” with her on Exmoor in 2006; I was thrown and haven’t been on a horse since.
But somehow Tolstoy — a Russian- speaking ambassador for the country she came across in 1999 when, aged 25, she rode 5,000 miles of the Silk Road by horse and camel — got me back in the saddle. She is a natural saleswoman and somehow makes things that I would normally pay large sums to avoid (riding, camping, moleskin jodhpurs) sound irresistible.
I found myself filling out the questionnaire. Could I mount and dismount unaided? Ride all day if necessary? How much eventing, showjumping, dressage or polo had I done? Could I manage a lively horse? “It’s mainly walking,” Alexandra reassured me, “though we do have to cross a 2,500m [8,200ft] mountain pass ... We only canter or gallop on one day.”
sent me a three-page, army-style packing list — sleeping bag, pillow, head torch, riding helmet, jodhpurs, chaps — and a 12-day itinerary that began: Day One, fly economy to Istanbul then take a six- hour connecting flight to Bishkek, arriving at 4.30am; Day Two, spend 12 hours in a minivan on potholed roads over mountain passes to reach our first mobile camp. There would be no running water, electricity, loos, central heating or mobile phone coverage.
“Oh dear,” the travel writer and novelist Geoff Dyer said when I told him. “I expect the horses will be business class though.”
And they were — Kyrgyz mountain horses. Mine was named Koko, whom I met after an odyssey: east on Turkish Airways to Bishkek (it lost my luggage, but that’s another story) then a 500-mile drive southwest over snowy passes so high my ears popped, during a storm so fierce that we had to wait until a flash flood had subsided.
Our first camp was on a grassy bank beneath a towering rock formation topped by a single juniper tree. We camped every day by water so we could ablute and wash up and the horses could drink; most days it was the turbid, grey- green Kara-Suu River, boiling with snow
melt as it rushed past us to Uzbekistan — almost taking me with it when I lost my footing during a quick plunge and was swept into the tearing current.
There were 15 or so horses, all stallions, with us on the safari. “Don’t let them get close to each other,” I was told. “Don’t let their noses touch, don’t let them near any mares and don’t let them roll.” Of course they did all these things — they had more testosterone than Argentina’s Fifa World Cup squad. At one point mine nickered near another and it all went bucking bronco.
Over six full days we would be riding a total of 120 miles from one camp to another. We’d get up at 7am, put on our riding clothes (thank you Glaze & Gordon) then head to the mess tent for a slap-up breakfast of coffee, eggs and hot, baked drop scones, turnovers or doughnuts.
At 10am the five Kyrgyzstani horsemen would saddle our steeds and we would mount our charges, some of us with loud groans (the other riders mainly comprised yummy mummies from the Cotswolds and Chilterns). We’d set off while the back-up team of seven packed
our woven Terra Nova tents, the mess tent and the two plastic thrones that served as our khazis into former Soviet army trucks that had been in active service in Afghanistan; they would then travel cross-country along sheep tracks and meet us at sundown.
We’d trek off in single file for three- hour-long trails of indescribable beauty,
overlooked by the snow-capped
ranges of the Tian Shan, or
Celestial Mountains,
which divide China from
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Never had I been
We were trekking part
of a 932-mile range that stretches from northern Uzbekistan across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the Xinjiang region of China — with peaks of 7,000m or higher — and forms the northernmost Silk Road route.
more grateful to see a stocky metal
Thermos of plov
The white range, as jagged as recent graphs tracking the global oil price, loomed over green valleys sprinkled with spring flowers — golden-green foxtail lilies, bushy fennel, dwarf red and yellow tulips, yellow poppies, peonies, alliums, ranunculi and trees bursting with hawthorn blossom scented the pure alpine air. It was Edenic. The whole
filled with adventure
e
mo
ACTION-PACKED FAMILY TRIP TO PERU Keep the whole family active on this ten-night whizz around Peru, where you’ll bike, hike, paddleboard and canoe your way to the country’s highlights. After a night in Lima you’ll head to the Sacred Valley to visit the saltpans at Maras and paddleboard on Lake Piuray, at 3,689m (12,103ft), in Urubamba. Then you’ll spend a day hiking to Machu Picchu, before hopping on the train back to Cusco for a chocolate-making workshop, rafting and llama feeding. There’s just time for two nights’ hiking and boating in the Amazon rainforest, with the chance to sleep in a treehouse accessed by swinging bridges.
Details Ten nights’ B&B from £3,605pp, including internal flights, transfers, activities and some extra meals (redsavannah.com). Fly to Lima
SNOWSHOEING IN THE DOLOMITES Give hiking a winter spin with a week snowshoeing in the Upper Puster Valley, on the northern edge of the Dolomites in northern Italy. Based in the four- star Adler hotel in Villabassa, the small group tour includes five days of guided snowshoeing on forest trails and old military tracks into Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park and to viewpoints including Durrakopf and Strudelkopf. There’s a free day midweek to try cross-country skiing or unwind in the sauna at the hotel’s wellness centre. You will also indulge in an authentic Tyrolean gourmet dinner. Details Seven nights’ B&B from £2,519pp, including transport, activities, equipment and some extra meals (exodus.co.uk). Fly to Innsbruck
ang
Clockwise from left: Rachel with Alexandra Tolstoy; goat meat skewers; fountains at Ala-Too Square in Bishkek; camping during the trip
Bishkek
unta
KNOW
Where is it? A 120-mile horseback ride through the Tian Shan, southwest of Bishkek
Shan
Tian
What you need to know You need a basic level of riding and several pairs of sturdy jodhpurs
Insider tip Pack a travel steamer so that you can look crisp up top despite soggy camping trials
KAYAK THE NORWEGIAN FJORDS Get back to nature in the wilds of Norway on a five-night guided hiking and kayaking route across 44 miles in a group of no more than 12. Travelling from Bergen to Gudvangen, this challenging itinerary packs in about seven to eight hours of activity a day, hiking from Fjordland terrain at sea level to mountain plateaus and snow-capped peaks over 1,000m (3,300ft) high. You’ll then take to the water by kayak, paddling the serene Sognefjord to the smaller mountain- hemmed Naeroyfjord, home to seals and sea eagles, past the falls at Laegdafossen. Accommodation includes a basic hostel and a cabin plus three nights’ wild camping, with meals cooked over open fires in the wilderness. Details Five nights’ half-board from £1,512pp, including transfers, equipment and some extra meals (muchbetter adventures.com). Fly to Bergen Siobhan Grogan
landscape was like a herbaceous border at Chelsea Flower Show in a mountainous, nomadic country perched between its not-quite-extinct Soviet past and its border with China.
At lunchtime we’d find a shady spot to stop and the horsemen — wearing white, felt calpac hats; a homage to the country’s snowy mountains — would spread gaily patterned numdahs on the ground and hand us a nosebag each. Never had I been more grateful to see a stocky metal Thermos of plov (rice cooked in lamb fat with gobbets of meat), plus an apple that I would always feed to Koko to try to make him like me. Then we would all have a siesta, listening to the birdsong and the banter of the horsemen.
We would ride again until 5pm or 6pm — over valleys and through walnut forests, skirting villages, past boys selling balls of sun-dried sheep’s milk by the side of the road or herding sheep, goats and cattle while mounted on little donkeys — then arrive at camp with the tents having been put up and latrines dug, while miracles were being performed by Emma in the field kitchen.
I’d tumble off my horse creaky-kneed and head to the mess tent for tea, freshly baked cake and beer, then read or swim in the river until a home-cooked dinner of meaty stews and baked goods — washed down with fellow rider Willy Astor’s rioja — at 8pm. By 10pm we had crawled into sleeping bags with felted hot-water bottles and slept until dawn.
Suusamyr Valley
Ala-Bel Pass
Too-Ashuu Pass
Sary- Chelek
Chychkan Gorge
Toktogul Reservoir
Kara-Suu River
Sary-Chelek Lake
There were too many highlights to list: white-knuckling it on narrow paths; swimming in swirling rivers; galloping like Lady Flash on the banks of a lake called Sary-Chelek, or Golden Bowl; the first beer of the day; watching a game of kok boru, a type of polo with the body of a headless goat instead of a ball, then eating its tenderised flesh for dinner — the horsemen dug a pit and across it laid willow spits threaded with chunks of goat marinated in kiwi and cumin, served with tureens of hot, salted, hand-cut chips.
After ten days I’d bounced 120 miles over the Tian Shan and I was a changed person. I hadn’t found myself exactly (I’m too far gone for that), but I’d fallen in love with riding and the nomadic life, and even enjoyed the camping — you sleep so well in a snug tent by a rushing river.
When it was time to say goodbye to the horsemen — Aftan, Arslan, Bakhit, Djuman and Melis (cobbled from the first letters of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin) — I sobbed into Koko’s mane; I would miss him.
I was so at home on the range — riding up the airy mountains and down the rushy glen, pretending that I was playing some middle-aged cameo role in the Great Game — that I’d miss being somewhere so off-grid that I had no idea where I was, and still don’t really. “Even by the standards of outer space, Kyrgyzstan is remote,” as PJ O’Rourke noted. I’d survived, and become a hardier, horsier person — result.
It was time to get back in the minivan for the 12-hour drive back to the Soviet- coded boulevards and banyas of Bishkek, slowing down as we passed herds of cows and goats being driven to their summer pastures by small boys on donkeys — a picturesque peasant scene straight from a Tolstoy novel.
Rachel Johnson was a guest of Alexandra Tolstoy Travel (alexandratolstoytravel. com) and the Ultimate Travel Company, which has 11 nights’ full board from £7,215pp, including flights, transfers and permits, departing on September 24 (theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk)
in r
EMMY MEIKLEJOHN PHOTOGRAPHY; NANTONOV/GETTY IMAGES
F
making paper, paper packaging and many
other products, have been growing by
1,500 football pitches every day!
Two Sides Analysis of FAO data, 2005-2020 European Forests: EU27 + Norway, Switzerland and the UK
Enjoy rest and relaxation on the shores of the Adriatic, and take in the often- overlooked delights of Italy’s sun-kissed southern ‘high heel’.
ull of included highlights, this hugely enjoyable holiday in Puglia is based on the shores of the Adriatic and lifts the veil on a fascinating region of Southern Italy. Discover the stunning, ancient, whitewashed hill-town of Ostuni, Alberobello and its conical trulli houses, and visit the extraordinary caves at Matera, as well as Monopoli and Polignano a Mare on an optional excursion. A visit to Baroque gem Lecce – the Florence of the South – and the opportunity to discover Castellana’s famous cave network, wine-producing Locorotondo and elegant Martina Franca, on an optional excursion, complete a wonderful stay.
Immerse yourself in Matera’s distinct charm with a visit to the iconic Sassi, home to wholly unique dwellings, cafés and shops which are carved into the western face of the city’s neighbouring gorge.
*Save up to 15% applies to select tour bookings made by July 30, 2026 and cannot be applied retrospectively to bookings already confi rmed. Offer applies to select tours only and cannot be combined with any other offer. Exclusions apply. Prices shown include discount. Single supplements apply. Prices correct at time of print. These holidays are organised and operated by Newmarket Holidays Ltd, a company wholly independent of News UK. ABTOT 5509. ATOL protected 2325. ABTA V7812. Standard phone charges apply.
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in the Commonwealth Games host city. By Mike MacEacheran
W
ith the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow until next Sunday, it’s a fine time to visit Scotland’s most competitive city. Sport is something of an obsession and we Glaswegians love nothing more than showing just how lively and loud we are.
GLASGOW
Glasgow is the city for anyone tired of the status quo. Factor in the return of zeitgeist-defining restaurateurs, the rebirth of the landmark Bath Street hotel and the New York- like appearance of the Merchant City and George Square (both feature in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in cinemas this week) and it’s like visiting your coolest cousin. DAY 1 MORNING They don’t call Glasgow the “Dear Green Place” for nothing — it has more than 90 parks and none more magnificent than Glasgow Botanic Gardens (free; glasgowbotanicgardens.com) and Kelvingrove Park. Walk between the two along the riverside Kelvin Walkway. Eat at Five March There’s a danger in getting too comfortable in this small-plates specialist beside Kelvingrove Park. The menu is value-for-money Mediterranean fare such as stracciatella, prosciutto and melon or asparagus and flat bean cacio e pepe (from £7; fivemarch.co.uk).
Glasgow Botanic Gardens
AFTERNOON Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, in the park, has an impressive collection of Scottish and international art — from ancient Egypt to Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow via Van Gogh and Dalí. Barbie: The Exhibition, which debuted at the Design Museum in London, is on until mid-October (free; glasgowlife.org.uk). Drink at Dani Finnieston, the neighbourhood between the city centre and the West End, is always open to new ideas, and the latest is this Basque-style wine bar and asador from the team behind Kelvingrove Café across the road. Try a vermouth and a Gilda (a green olive, anchovy, guindilla pepper) skewer (drinks from £5; bardaniglasgow.com).
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
EVENING Kelvinhaugh Street, on the western edge of Finnieston, is home to Clydeside Distillery, a dockside whisky house where
Clydeside Distillery The Address
GLASGOW
Kimpton Blythswood Square
Arthouse Glasgow
Glasgow Queen Street
Main, Glasgow Cathedral dominates the city skyline; below, inside Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Getting there and around All-electric trains run from London King’s Cross to Glasgow Queen Street (£33 each way; lumo.co. uk); there are direct trains from Birmingham and Manchester too. SPT offers unlimited travel on the Glasgow subway system (from £3.40 a day; spt.co.uk).
Visit responsibly Glasgow’s cycle hire scheme is operated by Voi, with ebikes available at more than 100 locations across the city. Download the app at voi.com.
JIM MONK/GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY
tours running through the single malt production process include three tastings. The pumphouse is photogenic, while the drams are oaky, with heather and honey notes (£20; theclydeside.com). Eat at Eleven Fifty Five The Irish chef Peter McKenna and the maître d’ Kevin Dow kept the beloved Gannet in clover for a dozen delicious years until it closed last year. Their new bistro, in Finnieston, does even more extraordinary seasonal cooking — try the lamb sweetbreads or salt-aged beef (mains from £22; bistro elevenfiftyfive.com). DAY 2 MORNING With 9,000 objects and artworks spanning thousands of years, the Burrell Collection is a mini Louvre on Clydeside. Non- negotiables are works by Rodin, Degas and Cézanne, while its Pollok Country Park setting is gorgeous. Come for the green space, stay for the Highland cattle (free; burrellcollection.com). Eat at Hendersons To Strathbungo — the southside neighbourhood that is largely ignored by visitors but loved by locals — and this paint-still-wet veggie restaurant that has
The Burrell Collection is a mini Louvre
on Clydeside
come along the M8 from Edinburgh. The family-run bistro has been a capital fixture since 1962; now Glasgow can go gaga over mushroom steak, aubergine tartare and spiced freekeh (mains from £20; hendersonsrestaurant.com).
AFTERNOON Despite a poor performance at the World Cup, Scottish football is not throwing in the towel. Glasgow is a world champion in one sense: it is
home to Football’s Square Mile,
the world’s biggest open-air
football museum, comprising
21 plaques and signs within
a single square mile, and
the Scottish Football
Museum, which was Europe’s first national football collection (free; footballssquaremile.com). Drink at Anderson’s Glasgow wept when the legendary 13th Note Café bar and music venue in Merchant City closed. But the team behind the Blackfriars pub has stepped in and turned it into a proper boozer, serving Scotch pies, chip butties and iced buns. Once you have settled in, order an unpasteurised Tennent’s, straight from nearby Wellpark Brewery (drinks from £7; andersonsglasgow.co.uk).
EVENING Street art is so 1990s, but not in Glasgow. Its large-scale murals are as changeable as the seasons, with the Merchant City and Cathedral Square in particular home to explosive colour on extraordinary tenement gable ends. Nothing prepares you for seeing the 100ft-high St Mungo or the “Big Yin” Billy Connolly (citycentremuraltrail.co.uk). Eat at Sebb’s The Ox and Finch in the West End set the benchmark for tapas-style dishes a few years ago, a trend that its owners continued in the Merchant City, first with Margo then this, its sister underground grill house and bar. With hot link sausages, mustardy barbecue sauce and butter pickles, it could well be Texas, were it not for the persistently grey skies (small plates from £8; sebbs.com).
ARTHOUSE GLASGOW Ex-prime minister’s home Once the family home of the former prime minister Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman, this grand building brims with stained glass and Victorian-era tiling and has a showpiece heritage lift. Celentano’s, the city’s finest Italian, is on the ground floor (room- only doubles from £99; art househotelglasgow.com).
THE ADDRESS Comfortable boutique The first UK outlet of an up-and-coming Irish boutique hotel brand is in a central building designed by James Miller — also behind the glass roof at Central station and the Argyle Street railway viaduct. As well as 95 rooms, there’s a spa, gym and restaurant serving comfort food (B&B doubles from £165; the addressglasgow.com).
KIMPTON BLYTHSWOOD SQUARE Celebrity hangout Once the Royal Scottish Automobile Club HQ, this five-star haunt is the closest thing in Glasgow to a country house-style hotel and spa. The look mixes arty deco heritage with modern art, while the seafood restaurant Iasg serves Cumbrae oysters and gin cocktails. If it’s good enough for Metallica and Olivia Rodrigo — all recent guests — it’ll do for you (B&B doubles from £206; kimptonblythswood square.com).
I trekked alone in Nepal, stopping at teahouses to rest
in the Caribbean and adored the Île de Ré
Marielle Wyse, 62, is a British-French fashion designer and the founder of the brand Wyse London, which was launched in 2015. She was previously a TV producer and worked for the BBC’s Natural History Unit in Bristol for five years. She lives in London and has two grown-up children.
Growing up I spent six weeks every summer in the Loire Valley, where my grandparents lived, and it was magical. I loved visiting the Île de Ré, Les Sables and beautiful Angers, where my mother grew up. And my goodness, the seafood — I loved that too, though I do have a stark memory of being violently sick after eating 24 oysters from a local restaurant when I was about six or seven.
The west coast of France has changed so much since then, in a good way. There was no bridge to the Île de Ré when I was growing up; we had to take a boat. I return regularly to the Île de Ré and Les Sables to visit my cousins. Now that my children are grown-up I mainly travel for pleasure outside the summer months, because it’s just too busy for me then.
My son is at university in New York and I visit him three or four times a year, but I can only have four amazing days there before needing to get the hell out; it’s so full-on. And I still can’t figure out the hotel scene. Most places are super-expensive, but I like the Virgin hotel in midtown Manhattan, which has these fantastic corner rooms with a floor-to-ceiling view
LUXURY BREAK WORTH UP TO £1,410 AT MATFEN HALL
of the Empire State Building. At night the city is lit up bang in front of you. With a rooftop pool and a decent gym it’s perfect for me. As for restaurants, I love Balthazar and Via Carota in Greenwich Village.
My daughter studied in Paris for four years and when I visited her I would try new hotels in different arrondissements, which was a fun way to see the city. I love the sixth arrondissement, with its little florists and boutique shops. I’m always inspired by Parisian style on these visits. On a recent visit I discovered the cute little Hôtel Les Deux Gares, between Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord. It has been done up nicely by the designer Luke Edward Hall; the rooms are kooky and the breakfast is really good, plus it’s a stone’s throw from the Eurostar.
The first trip I took without my parents was a farming holiday with my best friend when I was 15. We had an overly romantic notion of being farmhands in the Devon countryside, but it poured with rain and I was homesick — I hated every minute of it.
Another travel low point was a trip to Palenque in Mexico with friends in 1992. Our hotel room was broken into and
My friend is playing the merry jester.
“I can’t think why you’d want to come here,” he trills, “unless you’re hoping to find a crown to complete the coronation.”
He has a point. In the 17th century a soldier married the daughter of a local landowner whose hall stands 1 1/2 miles east of this village. Later the soldier was an unsuccessful thief, and we can’t help wondering whether he’d planned to stash some of his famous loot there.
But that’s not the prime motive for our visit — I want to see where a politician (mother: Eileen) grew up.
Then I plan to visit a city. Friend assumes that it will be the one whose centre lies 11 1/2 miles east-northeast of the village. The reason for all his jestering, he says, is the many comedians who were born or educated there – one of them played a sports
commentator who then hit the big time with his own chat show.
“Sorry, we’re actually going the other way,” I tell him. I’m heading to a second city whose centre is 19 miles west-southwest of the village. A rival of the first, it is home to a sports club that was founded in 1878 and is supported by the leaders of two nations.
“But surely, given the politician, you’ll want to go east,” Friend splutters.
“I want to go west for the same reason,” I tell him.
I have no idea if Friend gets my meaning. But I do know one thing: he’s a mad jester now.
I offer him one of my toffees in an attempt to sweeten him up. Sean Newsom
Part of the route from Annapurna in Nepal, one of Marielle Wyse’s top destinations
our passports were stolen. We had to get new ones, but the rest of our trip was less eventful. We visited Tulum, where there were three little beach huts and no other tourists — rather hard to imagine now.
I worked as a producer for the BBC series Ultimate Killers and Extreme Animals before I had children. For one episode we went up in a hot-air balloon above the countryside around Segovia in Spain to test the speed of a peregrine falcon; for another we swam with humpback whales in the Caribbean. We also visited the Arctic, where we filmed with polar bears. We went in April and it
didn’t get dark until 2am — we worked
such long days that we were delirious.
We stayed in a hut in Svalbard and the loo was a bin liner in a hole; I didn’t particularly mind as I love adventurous travel. In the Nineties I went trekking in Nepal twice — once on my own — reaching
Annapurna base camp, having stayed in
teahouses en route. Nepal is one of my
favourite countries, mainly because
the people are wonderful.
Another extraordinary trip was the Galapagos Islands with my son in 2023. We spent a week on a boat,
The winner and guest will stay for two nights, B&B, in a Deluxe room at Matfen Hall, a five-star country house hotel near Hadrian’s Wall in 300 acres of Northumberland parkland. The neo-gothic mansion is home to a great hall worthy of a film set, two golf courses and (from
September 15) a spa with 18m pool, sensory garden, Roman sauna and steam room.
The hotel has 63 elegant rooms and suites and five bars and restaurants; Emerald has three AA rosettes and serves dishes such as cod with satay mussels, broccoli and lemongrass. For more see matfenhall.com.
visiting the most extraordinary islands. At one point we were diving through shoals of the most incredible fish, surrounded by sea lions, sea turtles and hammerheads.
With my daughter I recently spent a week in Japan. We went to Naoshima, the “art island”, with sculptures and galleries everywhere. We stayed at Benesse House, a contemporary art museum. In Tokyo we stayed at the Muji hotel, which stands on top of a six-floor department store — it’s really fun and the design is just like a Muji shop.
These days, with a 70-person business to run, I’m not so able to completely switch off when I travel. Often I’m travelling for work — I go to Delhi a lot, visiting showrooms and factories and sourcing design inspiration. We stay at a lovely hotel there called the Trident, where we eat well — though, me being me, I often end up getting sick from the food.
Interview by Claudia Rowan
Marielle Wyse is the founder of Wyse London (wyselondon.com)
The prize includes one three-course dinner for two at Emerald, excluding drinks. It must be taken between September 15, 2026, and July 31, 2027, subject to availability and excluding bank holiday weekends, as well as December 24 to January 1.
Answer the questions and complete the entry form at thetimes.com/travel/ where-was-i by the end of Thursday, July 30. One entry per person. Full terms and conditions apply and your information will be used in accordance with our privacy policy at newsprivacy.co.uk.
The answers are Stourbridge and Bellingham. Christopher Scott from Yorkshire wins a luxury Dolomites break worth up to £2,470 at My Arbor.
YULIA Y/GETTY IMAGES
N
Aitken
than the legend of Robin Hood — go for the food, the theatre, the historic pubs and the sport
W
hen I’m on my way back from a city break and I know I’m going to be writing about it, I tend to spend a few moments considering how best to organise my thoughts. While chronology is popular and by category has its fans, occasionally one leaves a destination — in this case Nottingham — desiring to present one’s tuppence worth in the form of a team sheet, a fantasy line-up of local talent, captained here by Robin Hood.
Befitting his politics, Robin would play on the left of my Nottingham Dream Team. The actress Vicky McClure — of Line of Duty fame — would take centre stage before getting booked for simulation. The poet Lord Byron, who moved to the area aged ten having inherited the ancestral pad, would show early promise before demanding a loan move to Greece. The cricket legend Stuart Broad would get sent off for delivering a leg break. Alan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, would struggle with a hangover. While William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, would save the day by scoring a late winner, as per the script of a certain James Graham, who penned such hits as Dear England and Sherwood.
The team would be managed by Brian Clough. The kit would be designed by Paul Smith. Jake Bugg would sing on the terraces. And the sheriff of Nottingham would officiate. Should the ref be invited
eighbourhoods such as Bairro Alto in Lisbon, Barceloneta in Barcelona and Soho in London have long drawn visitors for similar reasons. Eating well. Getting sloshed. Meeting strangers. They are as fun an introduction to those cities as any visitor could ask for.
In 1972 the Soho Society, a community association, was established with the aim of “preserving the character of Soho”. The neighbourhood has been London’s premier entertainment district since the 19th century, a place of pubs, live music and generally having a good time — all things you’d think they’d want to safeguard. But at its AGM in May the group voted to lobby against all new licensing applications that come before Westminster council.
An installation by Hamid Zenati at Nottingham Contemporary; above right, the city’s canal
touristy area you have to put up with noise SOMETHING TO DECLARE
Many Londoners look back fondly on the period of the pandemic when the streets of Soho were pedestrianised and alfresco dining made central London feel rather continental. Naturally, residents are resisting attempts to bring back traffic curbs. Yet I can’t help but feel it’s just what the area needs. And what a welcome that would be for all the tourists who come to sample London’s nightlife each year. HUW OLIVER
at any stage “to get his eyes checked”, he’d be well positioned to do so, with both Vision Express and Specsavers having their bases in the city.
After the match Nottingham’s finest would retreat to the Lace Market Hotel, named for the industry that once underpinned the local economy. I can’t tell you if the Lace Market is the best hotel in the city, for I’ve only stayed in one, but what I can say is that I slept like a log and the staff were lovely.
What’s more, the hotel is a stone’s throw from a cracking afternoon, being opposite the National Justice Museum and just along from Nottingham Contemporary, which opened in 2009 with a David Hockney exhibition and hasn’t looked back since.
Having freshened up at the hotel, my all-stars would rightly head out for dinner. Byron would go to Restaurant Sat Bains, a fancy gaff that does duck liver muesli and has two Michelin stars. Booth would go to the Italian place Pici. Broad to the smart Mexican Taquero. And Clough to a chip shop on Stoney Street. I can personally vouch for Raymond’s, which has just been added to the Michelin Guide, and does a set menu on Friday lunchtimes — fish crackling then chicken schnitzel, perhaps — for £26 (raymondsnottingham.co.uk).
For well-deserved nightcaps, Sillitoe would succumb to the Angel, Hood would seek out Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, and Bugg would head to Jamcafé, a wonderful
It is almost as if the Soho they want to protect — or rather, revive — is the aristocratic residential area of the 18th century rather than the eclectic nightlife hub it has been for more than a century. As the mayor, Sadiq Khan, put it in an unusually opinionated tweet last month: “Complaining about nightlife when you checks notes choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums. Living
boozer where the Thursday night quiz is not designed for visitors.
If that was Saturday night, then this is Sunday morning, and my advice to the squad would be to do as I did and start the day with a stroll around Hockley, a vibrant part of town where the businesses — Yolk, Bear, Pogo, Bustler — all have names that tend to be reserved for the offspring of celebrities.
around Hockley,
a vibrant part
of town
From Hockley, wander into the centre via Long Row and Pelham Street, pausing at Five Leaves Bookshop to rearrange the titles to one’s personal advantage. Clock the frontal columns of the wonderful Theatre Royal, doff one’s cap to Clough (who is aptly stationed on King Street), then amble across the old market square, turning often to admire the Council
in Richmond and hating green space. It’s all getting a bit silly, isn’t it?”
The phenomenon of campaigning against nightlife in neighbourhoods that have long been associated with it isn’t limited to London. In Paris, residents of the Canal St Martin area have complained to officials about rising noise levels during this summer’s heatwaves. News flash: the canal has been a popular nightlife destination for three
House, which must be the finest one in the country (grade II* listed).
At the top of Maid Marian Way you’ll find the Nottingham Playhouse, an excellent regional theatre that possesses a rather peculiar sculpture on its forecourt. Sky Mirror (2001) is the work of the Turner prizewinner Anish Kapoor, and looks like a massive wok if I’m honest.
When I asked a gentleman watering his peonies which way it was to the castle, his reply — “Could you be more specific?” — hinted that there was more than one pile in the hood. Nottingham Castle turned out to be a big house on a bluff, so I gave it short shrift and continued to the river, having been told there was a world-class football club in the vicinity. When I reached the City Ground, home to
club?”
Nottingham Forest, I stopped to
Start with a stroll
“That’s the one.” “You’re not far, m’ duck. It’s just on the other side of the river. They’re kicking off in a minute. If you hurry up you’ll double the attendance.” If you find the prospect of football about as appealing as gout then by all means head to Trent Bridge, home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, where Stuart Broad took eight Australian wickets for just 15 runs back in 2015.
LEWIS RONALD; MARK SUNDERLAND/ALAMY
On my train journey home I spared a thought for the Major Oak. In Sherwood Forest, the tree’s hollow trunk is thought to have provided Robin Hood shelter in times of need. After a thousand years of life, the tree recently died. It’s thought that the number of visitors the tree received in recent decades made it harder for its roots to draw water from the soil.
As trees, so places. Too much attention can spoil them, too little can stop them from flourishing. With that in mind, why not give the hotspots the cold shoulder this summer and take a road less travelled instead? You could start with the A46 to Nottingham. Just be ready to answer to “duck”.
Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities by Ben Aitken (Icon Books £9.99) is out now. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Special discount available for Times+ members
decades. And in a city with little open space, you can’t blame people for gravitating towards the water.
Sometimes cities take drastic measures, and understandably so. In Seoul, South Korea, the Bukchon Hanok Village area, which served as the backdrop to K-dramas including Goblin and Heartstrings, is only open to tourists between 10am and 5pm.
But in the case of after- dark hotspots such as Soho and Canal St Martin, the lack of peace and quiet is part of their appeal. And the sad reality is nightlife Nimbys can do serious damage. How many new, independent venues would be able to stump up £44,000 in legal costs if their licence were objected to, as a Soho gin bar and distillery recently had to?
ask for further directions.
“Excuse me — I’m looking for the world-class football
“Notts County?”
oppose any venue that wanted to open outside “core hours”, which end between 10.30pm and midnight, depending on the day of the week. This is short-sighted, in my view. Earlier closures mean the crowds will pour outside at just the sort of time you might be thinking about going to bed. And because everywhere else is closed, the revellers will linger on the street for longer.
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16 Nights | October 8, 2027 | Silver Spirit
Holiday Code: EUR3263
Rolling hillsides, enchanting castles, delectable wine, and authentic cuisine – awaken all your senses on this extraordinary culinary adventure, paired with an all-inclusive Silversea cruise.
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Vineyards and Tastings
Sample the region’s rich, fruity wines, from full-bodied reds to crisp sparkling varieties. Each tasting is perfectly paired with a light lunch, offering an authentic taste of Italy’s celebrated wine culture.
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From Michelin-starred dining and authentic trattorias to curated wine tastings and hands-on tortellini making, this journey celebrates Italy’s renowned food and wine culture at every unforgettable turn.
Lakes and Gardens
Discover the beauty of Lake Garda, Italy’s largest lake. Relax in tranquil surroundings, admire stunning gardens and cruise across shimmering waters to the enchanting Isola del Garda.
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Explore Verona, Palladian architecture and Veneto’s rich heritage. Visit a Renaissance villa, wander medieval castle grounds, respond to Juliet’s letters and discover local artisan traditions.
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COVER: PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. THIS PAGE: MARTIN PARR / MAGNUM PHOTOS, SHUTTERSTOCK
5 Matt Rudd
This summer, the
competition is in tents
6 Relative Values
DJ Fat Tony and his mum,
Dawn Marnoch, recall
wild times with Boy George
and Freddie Mercury
9 That’s My Job A Christie’s auctioneer on multimillion-pound sales and matching her outfits to the lots
10 COVER: Worst in show
The craze for cuteness is
handing dogs a lifetime of ill
health. Matt Rudd meets the
vets treating the symptoms
of extreme breeding
20 Purple days
The former roadie Eric Barrett
recalls how he bonded with
Jimi Hendrix over music, girls
and drugs — but never got
to say goodbye to his friend
28 Naval gazing A shipbuilding renaissance is under way in Scotland — but will these high-tech warships fill the gap in Britain’s fleet? Jim Armitage reports
37 Table Talk Skye McAlpine serves up decadent breakfasts, and at Jul’s in St James’s, Adam Kay says what happens in Ibiza should stay in Ibiza. Pete Brown drinks to Landlord, the cask ale from Yorkshire that seduced Madonna, and Will Lyons names his favourite wine of the summer: vinho verde
44 How do you boil an egg? 29 egg questions, cracked
48 Sally Gunnell’s midlife fitness masterclass Tips from the Olympic champ
OH WE DO LIKE TO JCB
BESIDE THE SEASIDE
By Martin Parr, 1983-85
A mother sunbathes near the
beach in New Brighton, on the
Wirral, Merseyside. The image
is from The Last Resort, Parr’s
influential series shot in and
around the coastal town in
the early Eighties
58 A Life in the Day
“My wife is very much part
of the night-time economy,”
says the comedian Ed Gamble
© Times Media Ltd, 2026. Published and licensed by Times Media Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF (020 7782 5000). Printed at Walstead Bicester Limited, Oxfordshire. Not to be sold separately
T
his has to stop. It’s gone too far. You know
what I’m talking about because it’s the most
pressing subject of our times. Tents have
got too big. Much, much too big. This hasn’t
happened overnight, which must be why
this atrocity has gone unnoticed for so long,
but it has definitely happened. Each summer,
for nobody knows how long, tents have been
expanding by a few inches. Over time
those inches have become feet have become
yards and yards and yards, which is why,
last weekend, I found myself pitching my modest
bell tent next to the Vango Lismore 600XL.
The Vango Lismore 600XL is 23ft long, which is 7ft longer than a Volvo XC90, which is also too long. It is 13ft wide and it has a living room that is larger and better appointed than my first flat in London. It isn’t shaped like a proper pyramid tent either. Its sides are almost vertical and they’re topped off with domed ceilings Michelangelo would have balked at. God forbid anyone should have to stoop a bit while camping. Each of the six people the 600XL sleeps enjoys almost 350 cubic feet of personal space, which is more than enough to swing a cat. You could have six cats swinging in there without injuring any of them, which is too much.
The whole point of camping is that you don’t have almost 350 cubic feet of space to yourself. You have to be squeezed in and uncomfortably so. If one of you rolls over in the night, everyone else has to roll over as well. You shouldn’t be able to stand in a tent and you certainly shouldn’t be able to mill about and socialise. You shouldn’t have a living room or separate bedrooms — and what is this now? A kitchen tent? A separate dog tent? A conservatory?
We were camping for one night in a
friend’s field. It was the friend’s
birthday, so we weren’t even there
to camp, but my neighbour for the
night brought the 600XL and,
by the time he’d finished
setting it up, it was time to
start packing it away again. It was
like sleeping next to Europe’s
largest Amazon warehouse.
and boosts biodiversity. It
has declined by more than
40 per cent in UK waters,
mostly owing to pollution n
By Yasmin Choudhury
GOOD
NEWS!
CHARLIE CLIFT
Seawater quality off the Cornish coast is set to improve thanks to a seagrass restoration project, the largest in the UK. Funded by the £1.8
Remarkably, though, it is not even the biggest tent on offer. There are tents you could play tennis in. There are tents you could play the Crystal Maze in. There are octagonal tents, “multizone” tents and tents with covered walkways leading to other satellite tents. Some of them have their own trailers. Some of them have their own roof box. Some are even poleless — you simply pump them up with the large pump you also have to buy, which is clever but also a shame because poking your beloved’s eye out with the end of the pole you weren’t concentrating on is one of the great traditions of camping.
I understand why people are tempted to buy an
enormous tent. They’ll be in the tent shop imagining
a whole week in a confined space with their family.
They’ll remember the arguments and the elbowing and
the just trying to read in peace for one sodding minute
from last summer. It makes sense to buy a tent that is
so large, no one will have to speak to each other.
What they’re forgetting is that the bigger the tent,
the harder it is to set up and, critically, put away again.
Every single tent bag is designed to be slightly too small
for the tent. It is part of the tent design covenant that
it must take three goes and a broken zip to put a tent
away. If it’s a reasonably sized tent, this is upsetting but
manageable. If it’s a tent the size of a Center Parc,
people could die of frustration.
The beauty of camping is that it ends. You suffer,
you struggle, you take two hours to make a tin cup of
tepid tea and then, joy of all joys, you get to go home
again. And what a palatial home it is with its bedrooms
and its lavatory and its noncommunal shower free
from very chatty, very naked Dutch people. That
beauty is lost if your tent is the same size as
your home and its kitchen is better
equipped than your kitchen and the
Zempire Monstabed Camp Mattress
million Mor Nature initiative, divers will plant ten hectares of seagrass in Falmouth Bay. Known as “nature’s water filter”, seagrass also captures carbon
you treated yourself to is just the
best night’s sleep you’ve had
in ages. Let’s make camping
great/awful again. A bivvy,
a Trangia, a very thin roll-mat,
a pillow case stuffed with clothes and you’re good to go n
The DJ and his mum on abuse, addiction and playing Brooklyn Beckham’s wedding disco
Dawn
Tony came out breach, bottom first. He’s very proud
of that. We lived in Battersea, south London, and he
was a mummy’s boy from day one. A lovely, quiet baby,
but that didn’t last long.
When he was three my aunt turned round and said,
“He’s gay.” He wasn’t like the other kids. He was over
the top from day one at nursery, telling his teachers,
“I want to be famous.” They weren’t impressed.
He didn’t play normal games like cowboys and
Indians. He would run up and down the street on the
estate in my high heels, but I took it all in my stride.
I’d been an only child sent to a boarding school, then
I became estranged from my mother. My grandmother
brought me up, so I just thought, “Let Tony be
whatever he wants to be.” He had the gift of the gab
and I suspected he’d go the furthest of my three boys.
When he was young I was the cleaning manager at
Buckingham Palace, in charge of 700 rooms. The Queen
once thanked me for working so hard but I never
crossed paths with Prince Andrew. He had offices at
the palace but didn’t sleep there, so fortunately I didn’t
have to rearrange his teddy bears. And I never brought
Tony into the palace, as I’d probably have lost him.
When Tony was ten I’d been in and out of hospital
with breast cancer and it was around this time that he
was abused. Tony was working for this guy part-time
and he took advantage of him. I found out decades later,
as Tony kept the whole thing to himself. He was told
that if he breathed a word of it to anyone, I’d be killed.
It was heartbreaking to find out Tony had been suffering
and turned to drugs. I still blame myself — I should have
seen it. Tony eventually told me when he was on the
12-step programme in rehab around 2006.
Looking back, I’m sure all of that trauma from the
abuse contributed to Tony’s problems at school. When
he was about 14 or 15, he got inappropriately involved
with a drama teacher and ended up falling through
a classroom window with his trousers round his ankles,
so he was expelled. That’s when he started hanging
around Chelsea and the Kings Road and working on
the market down there. He became close mates with
Boy George, who used to call my husband “Dad”.
George, who is still like a son to me, has had his
moments but he was ever so polite and as he was four
years older, he was a grounding influence on Tony.
We were always close but until Tony’s autobiography was published in 2022, I had no idea of the extent of what he’d been up to. I didn’t know Freddie Mercury had offered Tony his first line of coke when he was 16, although I thought he must be using something, as he was staying up all night and he started to look terrible.
my pockets and I’d just say, “They’re Boy George’s, not mine!”
He was only 18 or 19 when he went to DJ in America
and he was just too young to handle the fame, so things
spiralled out of control and he tried hard to cover them
up. I thought his teeth were rotten from the cocaine
but he’d actually pulled them out while he was high.
In 2002 he’d been diagnosed with HIV, which progressed to Aids and he nearly died. I had this mother’s intuition one day that things weren’t right and rushed up to my mum’s old house in Battersea, where Tony was living, and found him unconscious.
We rushed him to hospital and they said he had fluid
on the brain, so they used lumbar punctures to release
the liquid. He nearly died twice. We even got a Catholic
priest down to his bedside to read him his last rites. He
was down to 7st at that point and looked horrific, but
it was the start of his recovery, which has been a long
journey. I’m so proud of him now and how he has come
through his addiction and turned his life around.
He’s lost none of his spark. We’re closer than ever,
even since he married Stav last year. I was a bit dubious
initially because of the 30-year age gap, but Stav’s wise
beyond his years and Tony’s very young for his age,
so they’re good for each other. There were times when
I thought he wouldn’t make it, so it’s such a relief to
know he’s going to be all right.
Main: Tony, 60, Dawn, 84, and Reenie
the cavapoo at Tony’s home in Pimlico,
London. Left: Tony and Boy George in
1984. Above: mother and son in 1966
Tony
I was the classic attention-seeking middle child. When
I stabbed the sofa with a pair of scissors or set fire to
the carpet, Dad would go ballistic but Mum wouldn’t.
She always took everything in her stride. She had a
bohemian upbringing, so my sexuality was no big deal
to her. I was never unsure about who I was sexually
and Mum never questioned it, so I never had to come
out. I was just gay.
I was 10 going on 20, and when you’re overtly
effeminate so young, predatory people prey on you.
I met this guy who was showing films in youth clubs
and he offered me a job as his assistant, then he
manipulated the situation. The abuse lasted for four
years until I got too old for him, and I just hope he
eventually died a miserable death. I was so ashamed,
I kept it from Mum. All of the acting out at school,
the feelings of worthlessness, the addictions and the
imposter syndrome that have plagued my whole life,
stemmed from the abuse.
Mum used to find drugs in my pockets and I’d just say, “They’re Boy George’s, not mine,” but ultimately she’s the reason I’m still alive. I’ve been sober for 20 years and after 28 years of addiction, drugs or alcohol no longer trigger me. Why would I miss having no
H A B I T S
Dawn on Tony
Ever since he
was a tiny baby,
Tony has bitten
his fingernails
right down to
the core. He still
does it today
Tony on Dawn
She can be
one stubborn,
cantankerous
old bag
teeth, rolling around floors and having no life when
I now have freedom and self-respect?
I’ve been blessed to work at some amazing events,
including Brooklyn Beckham’s wedding where I DJ’d
for three days. Before judging, people should remember
that two parents have lost their first-born son and a
son has lost his parents. All families have dramas, but
they just happen to be the Beckhams, and once that
story came out — sparked by Stav making a comment
on an Instagram post about how Victoria was dancing
— I got dozens of interview requests from media all
over the world, including a personal call from Piers
Morgan, which I turned down.
I’m grateful that my mum is always there for me.
She walked me down the aisle when I got married to
Stav. Boy George took the service and Gemma Collins
did the most incredible love speech. It was beautiful.
I’m still a chancer — and Mum won’t let me think the sun shines out of my arse. We still argue and she never stops talking. But I’m blessed to still have her in my life n
Interviews by Nick McGrath.
Recover Me: A User’s Guide to Overcoming
Addiction and Insanity by DJ Fat Tony (Piatkus £25)
is out now. Order at timesbookshop.co.uk
BATHROOM TAPS, SHOWERS AND ACCESSORIES. HANDMADE IN ENGLAND
W
ang is a director,
senior client adviser
and auctioneer at
Christie’s, London.
Born in Beijing and
raised in Germany,
she studied in the UK before
joining Christie’s in 2015. She
conducts about 20 auctions
a year in London, New York,
Geneva and Hong Kong.
There’s a moment, before
my gavel comes down, when
bidding slows and I give “fair
warning” to anyone in the
auction room who might want
to put in a last bid. The room
falls silent. I’m hyperfocused and
the tension is palpable. So much
work has been done behind the
scenes, sometimes over many
years, to get to this point. There
may be emotional reasons an
item is being sold and I want
to give dignity to the seller, the
buyer and the item. When my
gavel lands on the rostrum the
fate of the item is sealed and it
belongs to a new legal owner.
It’s thrilling to be entrusted
with such responsibility.
Being an auctioneer requires
determination, being good with
numbers and humility. I like to
be well prepared. When I get the
list of items that are being sold
I learn everything I can about
them. I take all sorts of sales,
from watches through to wine
and contemporary art. In the
lead-up I meet with the various
departments to ask their expert
opinions so that by the time
I take to the rostrum I can talk
about each item with authority.
The evening before a big sale I prefer to be alone. I’ll have familiarised myself with the layout of the auction room, the lighting, and know where the online camera is. There may be
COURTESY OF CHRISTIE’S
Yü-Ge Wang, 39, auctioneer
stand out and feel confident and let me wave my arms around
up to 50 colleagues from all over
the world in the auction room,
representing the phone bidders,
and I know where they’ll stand.
I’ve checked what colour the
digital screen, which displays
live bids behind me, will be and
chosen my outfit accordingly
— my clothes need to make me
stand out, feel confident and
allow movement because I’m
waving my arms around during
the bidding process. Last year
I sold the Winter Egg by
Fabergé for the record price
of £22.9 million. I wore a silver jacquard blazer to complement the aesthetic of the egg.
Day sales are more relaxed
but at big evening events, where
a lot of money changes hands,
the pressure to orchestrate
well is intense. Will a record
be broken? In the US people
dive straight in but in Asia they
keep their cards close to their
chests. I’ve come to think that
the English are closer to Asian
sensibilities: it’s not easy to
read what they’re thinking.
Growing up as an immigrant
I learnt how to pick up on
cultural nuances so I could react
appropriately. I can speak four
languages. This cultural fluency
helps me read between the lines
among an international crowd
— is that bidder really stepping
down or do I sense some doubt?
What would make the difference
to encourage their next bid?
And all the time I’m aware of the
online developments, what’s
happening on the phones, and
when to “land” on absentee
bids, which are noted in the
auctioneer’s book in front of
me. Whatever the currency,
Christie’s has fixed increments
of rising bid values, and this
gives structure to proceedings
and keeps the momentum
going. For example, between
2,000 and 3,000 I’ll be raising
bids by 200, but between two
and three million by 200,000.
If the pace of the sale needs
recalibrating I occasionally
accept a “split bid” — a bid in
between the increments.
When I joined Christie’s I
was front of house, answering
phone calls, dealing with
couriers and at the cashier’s
desk. I signed up to the highly
competitive auctioneer course.
Like a dog with a bone, I wanted
to succeed. It took over five
years before I was allowed to
take my first sale, but it was
one of the proudest moments
of my career. I’m the first Asian
auctioneer to be based outside
Asia. One of the most fun
auctions I presided over was in
2024 for Vivienne Westwood:
The Personal Collection. There
was so much joy in the room.
Auctioneering is an ancient
profession, dating back more
than 2,500 years. Christie’s
had its first sale in 1766 and the
lots included bedsheets and
chamber pots. Of course, you
can buy in shops and galleries,
but in the secondary market
of an auction house each item
comes with a story and I love
that. As an auctioneer I help take
that story to the next chapter n
Interview by Caroline Hutton
Average pay In the UK,
senior auctioneers can earn
up to £100,000 with bonuses,
according to Glassdoor
n
We
talk about Frankie for half an hour before I meet her
because forewarned is forearmed. Claire Formoy, the
senior clinician who operated on her six days ago,
begins by explaining how this five-year-old French
bulldog has found herself at the Finsbury Park
Animal Hospital in north London. She came into
the care of the RSPCA a year ago as a “case”, which
means she was either neglected or abused by her
previous owner. Her serious health issues, though,
are related entirely to her breeding rather than the
difficult life she went on to live.
Frankie the Frenchie is a brachycephalic dog — she
has a shortened, flat-faced skull but the same amount
of skin and soft tissue as a normal dog. The result is
brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (BOAS)
— her squashed-flat snout and narrow nostrils have left
her struggling to breathe. Because her skull is too small,
her eyes bulge from their sockets and her flaps of excess
facial skin leave her prone to irritation and infection.
As if that wasn’t enough, she also has a twisted nub
of a tail that has social implications (dogs use tails to
communicate) as well as physical ones (a tail is part of
the spine). Because Frankie’s tail is truncated, the rest
of her spine is not as it should be either — some of her
vertebrae are out of whack.
In total Frankie has six extreme “conformations”
— six ways in which her shape, structure or appearance
have been selectively bred to such an extreme degree
that it negatively impacts upon her health. We pay more
for dogs with squishy faces, bulging eyes and corkscrew
tails because they’re cute. We pay more for long dogs
with short legs — the longer and shorter the better
— even though one in four dachshunds suffer from
intervertebral disc disease, causing slipped discs.
ANIMALS
PAYING THE
PRICE OF
EXTREME
BREEDING
MERLE DOGS
The merle pattern occurs
naturally in Australian shepherds
and collies, but “double merle”
breeding — when both parents
have the merle gene — can
cause blindness and deafness.
Above: Ashleigh
Brown, left, and
Claire Formoy
with our cover
star, the French
bulldog Frankie,
at Finsbury Park
Animal Hospital.
Above right: x-rays
reveal Frankie’s
respiratory disorder
CARTOON CHIHUAHUAS
Bred to have unnaturally small,
“apple-shaped” heads, chihuahuas
can suffer from proptosis (when
the eyes bulge out of their sockets)
and fontanelles (soft spots where
cranial bone hasn’t fused correctly).
We pay more for a dalmatian to look like a Disney
cartoon even though the extreme piebald gene
means it has a one in three chance of suffering
from congenital deafness. And if our very selectively
bred dogs now struggle to breathe, then that’s even
cuter. Just type “my cute snoring dog” into YouTube
and you’ll see.
Pugs, bulldogs, boxers, chihuahuas, collies, terriers, sheepdogs, spaniels and almost any other breed you can think of now have serious issues with extreme breeding. And although dogs have suffered most from our close attention, there’s a whole Noah’s Ark of other pets — from bubble-eyed goldfish and giant-eared rabbits to bow-legged horses and very, very, very long-haired cats — all sailing in the same direction.
This week the RSPCA is launching a five-year
strategy in an attempt to convince us that things have
gone too far, that pets bred with extreme physical
traits are suffering needless health and welfare issues.
Preventing this avoidable harm, the charity says, is
a “moral responsibility”.
CRUFTS CONFORMATIONS When Bruin, a four-year-old Clumber spaniel, won best in show at this year’s Crufts, charities claimed that the dog’s extreme conformations included drooping eyelids, short legs and an unnaturally long back.
This is why Ashleigh Brown, the RSPCA’s scientific
and policy manager and the strategy’s lead author, has
brought me to Finsbury Park to meet a recuperating
bulldog. Frankie’s first surgery began with a nose job.
Formoy opened her airways by removing soft tissue
from her throat, her nostrils and her larynx. Much of
her soft palate had to be cut away. If and when she
recovers, the next surgery will be more like a facelift.
Formoy will cut away excess facial skin and, with
some more stitching and cutting, help the eyes sit
more comfortably in their sockets. Without that,
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, MERLEBREEDINGSAFETY.ORG, REDDIT, REPTIFILES, SHUTTERSTOCK
PREVIOUS PAGES AND THESE PAGES: PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE.
HAD FIVE OR SIX YEARS OF PASSING OUT FROM LACK OF OXYGEN EVERY SINGLE DAY”
LONG-HAIRED CATS The Royal Veterinary College says that long hair should be considered an extreme conformation in ragdoll and Persian cats. They are at higher risk of periodontal and stomach disease, obesity and infection.
BUBBLE-EYED GOLDFISH It’s not the eyes that bubble, it’s the fluid-filled sacks beneath them. In nature this defect would die out. In our goldfish tanks it causes partial blindness, impaired swimming ability and a high risk of infection.
INCREASE IN FRENCH BULLDOGS COMING INTO RSPCA CARE IN A DECADE
HIGHER RISK OF DACHSHUNDS SUFFERING FROM INTERVERTEBRAL DISC DISEASE
BIG-EARED BUNNIES
The English lop rabbit has the
longest ears of all rabbit breeds.
The unnatural size leaves the
animals prone to frostbite,
infection and impaired balance
and movement.
Frankie would continue to struggle to keep her eyes
moisturised. In some brachycephalic cases the
eyes pop out altogether.
All of which sounds like a lot to deal with but the
prognosis is good. Because Frankie has survived the
airway surgery, Formoy explains, the risk of death
from more surgery and more anaesthetic is reduced
by about 80 per cent (but still higher than it is for
normal dogs). Now she can breathe properly, she can
also regulate her temperature better because dogs
need to pant to keep cool. Formoy tells me she has seen
brachycephalic dogs collapse in temperatures as low
as 17C. One owner brought her two English bulldogs
to Formoy’s previous practice because the daily
squabbles they had with each other always ended
when one of them passed out.
“That’s so abnormal,” she says. “These dogs were
five or six years old so they’d had five or six years of
passing out from lack of oxygen every single day. It was
horrendous. They had such a poor quality of life but
for her that was normal for this breed.”
Frankie can pant now. After all the trauma she has
endured, she might even turn out to be one of the
lucky ones once her surgery, which would have cost
about £8,000 at a private practice, is completed. At
this news Brown takes a deep breath. The last time
she was here the surgeons were trying to save a
three-year-old English bulldog called Poppy that had
a similar list of health issues to Frankie. Poppy made
it through the airways surgery and Brown shows me
photos of a sweet dog looking up at the camera from
her postsurgical haze. Alas, Poppy struggled to recover.
“Even the best treatment was not enough to undo
the harm caused to her by breeding for extreme
conformation,” Brown says. In the end euthanasia
was the only humane option.
Poppy and Frankie are no longer outliers, their fates
no longer the exception. According to data collected
by the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in 2022, a fifth
of the UK dog population are breeds with at least
one extreme conformation. In the past decade the
number of French bulldog types coming into the
RSPCA’s care increased by 3,800 per cent — as
the overall population has increased, so too has the
number of owners unwilling or unable to care for
SCALE-LESS LIZARDS Bred to have virtually no scales, silkback bearded dragons or “silkies” are available (at a high price) in a variety of stunning colours. They have shorter lifespans, difficulty shedding and a high risk of illness.
➤
M
THE COLLECTION*
or afford what it takes to look after a pet with extreme
traits. The number of pugs almost doubled in the
same period and rescue centres across the country
are reporting similar spikes.
T
Briefed on what Frankie is going through, I am not
expecting to find a dog that is particularly thrilled with
her lot in life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. As soon
as she’s retrieved from her cage she waddles over to
introduce herself. She wags what passes for her tail.
I stroke her and she leans in for more. Like other dogs
that have undergone BOAS surgery, she is experiencing
the joy of being able to breathe properly for the first
time. It is impossible not to fall for the squishy-faced
little runt completely. Which, I suppose, makes me
part of the problem.
She watches on enthusiastically as Formoy talks
about hip and elbow dysplasia — common in French
bulldogs and pugs but even more so in larger English
bulldogs. Again because of selective breeding, it’s
normal — and cute — for these dogs to sit with their
legs splayed. “But it’s not normal at all,” Formoy says.
“It’s a sign that they can’t sit in a normal manner
and it’s a big contributor to lower lifespans. The
signs of ageing — stiffness, immobility, arthritis —
are coming a lot earlier.”
Vets can do hip replacements or salvage surgery (in
which the head of the femur is sawn off), but both
options are expensive and the recovery painful. How do
you explain to a dog that it must do its physio? The
reality is that vets are having to put animals down
earlier. In a 2022 study the RVC found the average life
expectancy of a Frenchie was just four and a half years.
Way back when they had proper snouts and they were
kept mainly for rat-catching not Instagram, they could
have expected to live twice as long.
ASHLEIGH BROWN / RSPCA. GETTY IMAGES
“The quality of life is just not good enough,” Formoy
says. “They’re reaching that point much sooner than
they would otherwise if they had normal joints.” The
only alternative is a dog buggy, which explains why
that market has grown extensively since the pandemic.
Just type #DogStrollerUK or #PetParentLife into
TikTok and you’ll see.
DOGS A LIFETIME OF SUFFERING JUST SO WE CAN OWN A DOG THAT’S NO LONGER A DOG”
INCREASE IN BRACHYCEPHALIC (FLAT-FACED) CATS IN RSPCA CARE IN PAST DECADE
he seeds of today’s problems can be found in the 19th century. For many millennia before that dogs were bred and kept because they had traits that made them better at certain tasks such as hunting, herding, guarding and retrieving. It didn’t matter how they looked. Then wealthy Victorians started keeping pets that had no practical purpose other than to amuse their owners. By the 19th century several organisations were competing to shape the emerging world of pedigree dog breeding. Eventually the Kennel Club emerged as the arbiter of what makes a good dog.
Scroll forward 150 years, add a pandemic, a sprinkle of social media and a large helping of market forces and we have what we have today — a largely unregulated market in which the cutest dogs sell for the most. Whether or not they can herd, hunt or retrieve is by the by.
Dan O’Neill, a professor of companion animal epidemiology at the RVC, has devoted his career to our pets. As a vet he noticed a worrying trend. Clients who had to have a pet put down because of an extreme conformation would often get the same type of animal again. “Their perception was that they were just unlucky,” he says. He realised that he needed evidence to push back against the normalisation of these extremes.
“I spent 22 years in general practice and, over that
time, I was seeing more and more animals with extreme
conformation,” he says. “Their suffering was being
normalised.” He pivoted from trying to help animals
one by one to work at population level in academia
and, as of last month, he has published 170 papers
with the RVC’s VetCompass research programme.
Poppy, an English
bulldog, before and
during surgery on
her airways; she
was eventually put
down. Below: the
extreme piebald
gene in dalmatians
can cause deafness
Having chaired the UK Brachycephalic Working Group for ten years, O’Neill says there is a fundamental difference between clinical health and innate health. “You could have a dog with a flat face, deep skin folds, bulging eyes, an inflexible spine and no tail to wag but who hasn’t yet got severe disease,” he explains. “From a strictly clinical health perspective that dog is considered ‘healthy’ but it has been suffering emotionally for all its life. It can’t blink fully or move normally. It can’t communicate, chew, sleep or breathe properly, and so on. The dog is innately unhealthy because it hasn’t been born with a body that allows a full and natural life.”
For O’Neill, the baseline of health is that an animal has the capacity to perform all the functions of its species. “Those capacities are lost with extreme conformation. Every time we have to do surgery on an animal for BOAS, that is a failure of humanity because these are all preventable diseases that we’re choosing.”
O’Neill is one of life’s enthusiasts — his passion for
his subject is contagious — but the way we treat those
animals that “we have gifted with the title of being our
companions” makes him angry. “It’s entirely
preventable,” he says. “It’s entirely human-made. And
worse than that, we are blind to it because we think
these animals are cute and they love us. We’re giving
them a lifetime of suffering just so we can own a dog
that’s no longer a dog.” He points out that if a dog had
a mutation in nature that was a negative thing for its
species, then that mutation would die out. This is why
coyotes, dingos, foxes, wolves, jackals and other wild
canines all look identical. “It’s only within the domestic
dog that we actively select harmful mutations.”
I ask O’Neill why on earth people knowingly choose pets that are innately unhealthy. Surely the fact that it costs more than twice as much to insure a bulldog as it does to insure a labrador would ring alarm bells? He and his colleagues have studied this question and he puts it down to a cognitive dissonance. “They love these dogs but they know they have health problems, so they resolve that dissonance by minimising the health problems,” he says. “They say to themselves, ‘I know I shouldn’t own a dachshund and my last one had to be euthanised because of this disease, but I love them. I’ll look after them. I’ll make sure they have the best of everything.” S
MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY, PETS4HOMES, SHUTTERSTOCK
amuel Bradley runs the RSPCA’s intelligence unit. Anyone can breed dogs in the UK and regulations vary between home nations. In England you need a breeding licence only if you breed three or more litters and sell at least one puppy in a 12-month period. There are star ratings,
An English bulldog
bred with “extreme
conformations”.
Below, from left:
a modern pug and
an example from the
late 19th century
APPROXIMATE COST TO INSURE AN ENGLISH BULLDOG, MORE THAN DOUBLE SOME BREEDS
risk ratings and strict welfare standards that apply to the licence. It is part of Bradley’s job to ensure those rules are being followed, so I ask him why the RSPCA can’t take action against breeders who are creating these Frankenstein pets. “The problem is that it’s a hypothetical animal that doesn’t exist yet,” he says. “The current Animal Welfare Act has no provision for unborn future animals.”
If his team finds animals suffering as a result of extreme breeding, they can and do take action, but prosecution is only a last resort when someone is deliberately and persistently committing a crime. The truth is, the problem has become too big and too widespread to criminalise. The key, Bradley says, is to change habits. “What we want to do is change the future of animals that aren’t yet being bred so that they don’t have to suffer unnecessarily. Because it can get worse.”
Prospective buyers can look out for red flags that indicate poor breeding practice — for example, the absence of the mother, reluctance to sign a contractual agreement, AI or fake imagery in adverts as well as a poor understanding of extreme traits and other health issues. A dog is for life, after all, not just a dodgy advert on the internet.
Over the past few years Bradley has watched the
dog breeding market evolve. “People are now buying
and selling dogs as a product,” he says. “They used
to focus on its health, its temperament and its
behaviour — which dog would best fit into my life,
which dog can I best care for? Now it’s a product
that fits somebody’s idea of self, their personal
brand, what sort of person they consider themselves
to be.” If a product is seen as new, novel or rare, it
commands a higher fee. It doesn’t make any difference
if that product is a dog with restricted airways.
Everything changed during the pandemic, when
the average price of a puppy in the UK more than
doubled from £808 to £1,875. “It meant you could
make a fair amount of money as a breeder,” Bradley
says. Today, online breeders use logos for their
brands — these logos tend to be cartoonish, cute
depictions of wrinkly, bug-eyed, selectively bred
animals. These breeders then compete to make the
most outlandish claims — the rarest dog, the most
expensive dog — in the hope of getting influencers
to make YouTube videos about them. The influencers
are of course happy to oblige.
O
There’s a video of a “rare-coloured” Frenchie being sold in the US for $1 million and another of “Venom, the $500,000 American Bully” set to dramatic beats. There are classified ads listing bloodlines of “famous” bulldogs that have since died as a result of their innate health issues. The sums being asked frequently run into the thousands for pets that could cost more in vet bills.
The good news is that awareness can make a
difference. After XL bully dogs were made illegal, for
example, some cunning breeders tried to market XL
bully cats in all their overmuscled, underhaired
glory as a viable alternative. “We saw it happening
and we responded by speaking to the media and
addressing it online,” Bradley says. “Now, when you
search for them, you will hopefully find a summary
that includes the health warnings and medical
conditions associated with XL cats.”
PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, ALAMY, REDDIT, YOUTUBE
COST OF BOAS SURGERY TO OPEN UP AIRWAYS
Left: a husky French bulldog. Above: buggies take the strain for dogs with walking difficulties
AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY OF A FRENCHIE IN 2022
n the administrative floor above the
animal hospital in Finsbury Park,
Thelma the dachshund is sitting alert
on a swivel chair. Her owner, Claire
Hague, the hospital’s manager, is
getting a sandwich so I introduce myself politely and
remind Thelma that dachshunds have serious back
problems and she really should get down. Thelma is
having none of it. She barks until I leave and, later,
when I grass her up, Hague is sanguine. “We’ve tried
everything to stop her jumping up,” she says.
“Spongey steps, ramps, everything — but she just
gets the zoomies and leaps about.” When Thelma
kept jumping on Hague’s daughter’s bed, the solution
they came up with was to change not the dog but the
bed, for a lower one.
Hague adopted Thelma five years ago after she was rescued from a puppy farm. She would never have considered a dachshund because she knows what that entails — but Thelma needed a home “and she just looked so cute”.
“We need to stop providing what the humans want,”
she says, more seriously. “We need to be going to
adoption centres and not going to breeders full stop,
because there are too many dogs and they’re being
bred into ridiculousness.”
An adopt-first policy would certainly make a
difference — at the very least it would take the heat
out of the market. Ashleigh Brown, though, hopes
that her five-year strategy will lead to a change in
our relationship with our pets. The first of her
strategy’s aspirations is to “create a movement for
healthy pets — one that makes breeding with
harmful physical features unacceptable”. Which
doesn’t seem unreasonable. “Companion animals
do not choose the bodies they are born into, and
they do not choose a life of suffering,” she adds.
“The responsibility for protecting them rests with us.”
With luck Frankie will be scheduled for her final
life-changing surgery soon n
Visit rspca.org.uk/ecreport. For advice on
extreme conformation in pets, go to
rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/genetics
From left: hairless XL bully cats are marketed online despite health concerns; hospital manager Claire Hague with Thelma the dachshund
21-year-old from a Glasgow council estate when he landed a job as Jimi Hendrix’s roadie. This is his account of his three wild years with the world’s greatest guitarist
Jimi Hendrix performs at the Fillmore East theatre, New York, May 1968
ake it work! Make it work, you …” May 23,
1968, and Jimi was on stage in Milan,
standing less than two feet away from me.
Whatever expletive he yelled was
drowned out by the surge of sound from
the wall of speakers behind him. It sounded
bloody awful.
I handed him a change of guitar and
tried to explain that the Italian electrical
supply was causing the problem, not the
equipment. But he couldn’t hear me any
better than I could hear him. All he saw
was his new roadie making excuses. And it
was clearly infuriating the hell out of him.
The abuse kept rolling and there was nothing I could do. I was 21, extremely hungover and two songs into my first gig with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It certainly wasn’t what I’d expected when I’d accepted the job in a Kensington nightclub the night before.
During the last number, Jimi took all
of his frustrations out on the equipment.
He beat the hell out of the amplifiers and
poked bloody great holes in the speakers
with the neck of his guitar. No wonder the
last roadie took a bucketload of acid and
f***ed off mid-tour.
Later that night I asked Gerry Stickells, the tour manager, for a ticket home to London. He convinced me to stay a bit longer, so I grabbed two hours of sleep and headed for Rome to set up the next gig.
When the band arrived at the theatre, Jimi’s British bandmates, Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, and Noel Redding, the bassist, greeted me with warm hugs. Then
Jimi himself walked over. He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me away from the stage, away from the others.
He was taller than me, four years older, lean and rangy, dressed in purple crushed- velvet pants and a pink shirt with ruffles offset by a huge medallion swinging from his neck. He looked every inch a rock star. He was also very apologetic.
“Hey, I’m so sorry for last night, Eric.
I shouldn’t have been like that.” He spoke
in that deep, whispered voice of his, slow
and intense. I was mesmerised.
“I know none of it was your fault, man. It was all on me. I was jet-lagged. Just so tired, you know. So please, don’t go home, man. Stay. Stay and become part of the family.”
He gave me the biggest smile and let out
a tiny chuckle. He was a gentleman, the
most charismatic person I’d ever met, and
I was bowled over. Who was this guy and
what the hell had happened to the lunatic
from last night?
I would come to learn that there were
always two Jimis: the wild artist on stage
and the shy, charming man off stage.
Dealing with onstage Jimi became about
understanding his moods. Every note was
a reflection of how he was feeling at that
moment. That’s why he never played a song
the same way twice, and why no recording
has ever fully captured his genius.
Out of the spotlight, though, Jimi was
a shy, insecure man, self-conscious about
his bad skin and deeply uncomfortable
with being the centre of attention. He had
terrible eyesight and should have been
wearing glasses, but that might have shattered his aura.
Black clouds did roll over him, but the
clouds would usually part just as quickly as
they’d arrived and he’d be back to cracking
jokes. He had a warm, infectious laugh and
a smile that, when it was trained on you,
could light up your day. Whenever a
reporter came to interview him before a
show, he’d always make a point to talk up
Mitch and Noel and make sure they were
interviewed as well.
When you were around Jimi you instantly knew you were in the presence of a star. Of course I agreed to stay. I’d have agreed to just about anything when he spoke like that.
Glasgow boy meets guitar god
I grew up in Glasgow, in the gritty suburb
of Coatbridge. My dad died when I was five,
having slaved six days a week at the steel
factory. He was 39. My uncles chose the
coalmines, but neither made it to 50. This
didn’t look like a good way to spend my
life. My mum would have loved for me to
go to university and become a doctor or
a lawyer but I hated my strict Catholic
school, rebelled at every opportunity and
was kicked out for truancy. The only thing
I loved was music. I formed a band and
dreamt of stardom but my bandmates
decided to replace me with a guy who could
sing better. By the summer of 1965 I was 18
and working at a Butlin’s holiday camp in
Ayr, having been fired from every shitty job
I’d had. A Liverpool four-piece called the
Koobas came to play a residency there and
at the end of the season they asked me to become their roadie.
I was still working for them in early 1967 when everyone on the music circuit started talking about this new British-American trio whose song Hey Joe was playing on the radio. Rumours abounded about how good the guitarist was. People claimed he could play it behind his back, between his legs, lying
PREVIOUS PAGES: ELLIOTT LANDY / MAGNUM PHOTOS. THESE PAGES: GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK, ERIC HAYES
Top left: Hendrix and Eric Barrett arrive at Heathrow, 1970. Above: the Jimi Hendrix
Experience at the Marquee
Club, London, 1967, with Mitch Mitchell on drums and
Noel Redding on bass. Below: Barrett stops Hendrix pushing over a speaker stack
on stage, tumbling head over heels, even with his teeth. None of us quite believed it.
Of course, as soon as I started working for Jimi, I discovered it was all true. And more. He could do things with an electric guitar that I’ve never seen anyone else do. Some people thought that he faked playing with his teeth. When I saw him do it for real, it sent shivers down my spine.
Jimi was born in Seattle. His father was
in the US army. His mother, a waitress and
singer, died from a ruptured spleen when
he was a teenager. At 18, facing prison after
being caught riding in stolen cars, Jimi
enlisted in the army, the 101st Airborne
Division, where he struggled with military
discipline. He was honourably discharged
after a year, which he later attributed to
injuring an ankle in a parachute jump. For
the next four years he played backing guitar
for the Isley Brothers, Little Richard and
Ike and Tina Turner. Then, in 1966, Chas
Chandler of the Animals saw him play in
Greenwich Village, New York, brought him
to London and formed a band around him.
I was hired after a night of heavy drinking, when, at 1am, I bumped into Mitch and Noel, whom I already knew. They told me they were missing a roadie.
Jimi and I were from different worlds. He, the black military dropout from Seattle; me, the white truant from a Glasgow council estate. But like a lot of men in their twenties, we bonded over music, girls and drugs.
Jimi went through his full repertoire of tricks on that first short tour of Italy and Switzerland. I can’t remember if he set
fire to anything but he smashed up plenty of guitars and amps. He’d never warn me before a performance. I don’t think he knew himself until it came time for the encore.
A
.
A
AN
Before he went on stage, I’d always point
out an old guitar, or one I’d rebuilt, and
say, “Jimi, if you’re gonna smash a guitar
tonight, please use that one.” Sometimes
he’d listen to me, other nights he didn’t.
I remember one really beautiful Fender
Stratocaster; I watched in horror as he
destroyed it during the encore in Bologna.
BO
Backstage after the show, I asked him, “Why?” I remember his response as if it were yesterday. “Eric, I just couldn’t get any more out of it, man. I squeezed every note and every sound that guitar was ever going to give me. It had nothing left to give.”
Happy birthday, man
That September I shared a house with the
band for three weeks in Benedict Canyon,
Los Angeles. When Jimi came out of his
room on the first morning he called out to
me. He had a cigarette hanging from his
mouth and a couple of giggling girls trailing
in his wake. He was shirtless but still
wearing long pants despite the heat. Even
on the beach in Mallorca a few weeks
earlier, Jimi wore suede pants or velvet
bell-bottoms or purple jeans. The man
looked like a rock star 24-7.
He walked over to me and held out a
wad of notes. “Happy birthday, man.” He
handed me $500 — back then the ticket
price to one of our shows was about $4.
“Go buy yourself something cool on me,”
he said. I don’t know how he’d found out it
was my 22nd birthday. I bought the nicest
coat I’ve ever owned.
When Jimi had invited me to become part of the family, he’d meant it.
Part of my inclusion may have been down to the era — everyone was still working out how this touring and fame thing worked — but a lot was down to Jimi’s personality. He saw himself as a musician, not a star. If he wanted clothes, he walked into a store and bought them himself. On tour, he stayed at a Howard Johnson’s or a Holiday Inn, the same as the rest of us.
Left: Hendrix and Barrett in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, 1968. Bottom: with Paul McCartney,
1969, Eric Clapton and Lulu, both
He hated the attention that came with celebrity — unless it was from beautiful girls. Indeed the only thing that would make him put down his guitar and put music on the back burner for a moment would be a girl.
Jimi was endlessly fascinated by women.
I don’t mean that in a creepy way; he simply
loved being in the company of beautiful,
vibrant girls. He was also very shy around
them, even with dozens of girls throwing
themselves at him after every show.
I don’t know what he told them all but there were always plenty of women who thought they were “the one”. When the Experience were between tours the band would go their separate ways. Mitch and Noel had their own places in London. But Jimi would go to the flat of whatever girl he was seeing — or a hotel if she didn’t live in London. If the band had obligations, Gerry and I would have to call up Jimi’s favourite hotels or drive to all his different girlfriends’ places to find him. He’d stroll out, a cheeky smile on his face, oblivious to all the stress he’d caused. Being part of Jimi’s family turned out to be a full-time, year-round gig.
Drugs were always there of course — to help overcome his natural shyness and to stimulate his creativity.
In the few interviews I gave about Jimi,
I told lies about his drug use. I either
ducked the question or simply played down
how much he and the rest of us consumed.
At other times, especially immediately after
his death, I denied that he ever used drugs.
The truth was that drugs were plentiful
and taken in vast quantities. From my first
tour with him onwards, I saw Jimi drop a
lot of acid, smoke a lot of pot, snort lots of
cocaine and pop a lot of pills.
In those days drugs followed bands around just like groupies did. Backstage there were always joints and pills being passed around. People would share their
drugs as casually as a handshake. Kids in
the audience would even throw them on
stage during the show. I’d often see Noel
playing bass and, mid-song, suddenly
stoop to pick up a huge reefer or tabs of
acid that someone had thrown on stage.
He loved free drugs.
Mitch and Noel both carried shoulder
bags packed with marijuana, hash, cocaine,
tabs of acid, bottles of amyl nitrate and pills
of every description as they drove or flew
between venues. When they checked in to
a hotel they’d casually hand their bags off to
the bellhop or doorman, as any other guest
might. At some point Mitch also took to
wearing a chain around his neck with a
pendant in the shape of a pineapple. It was
hollowed out and always filled with coke,
even when he was flying.
COURTESY OF ERIC BARRETT, STARSTOCK, AVALON, SHUTTERSTOCK
Meeting McCartney (and George Best) Roped-off areas, awards shows, A-list-only events — all the other supposed trappings of fame — were not Jimi’s bag.
In Mallorca Noel and I got to kick a ball around on the beach with George Best. After Pelé he was probably the most famous footballer in the world at that time. George was desperate to meet Jimi, but there was no way Jimi was going to put down his drink
and leave his sun chair to run around with us. When I took George over to make introductions Jimi had no idea who this soccer celebrity was but, gracious as ever, he pretended otherwise and chatted with him until we were all chased off the beach by the Spanish police. Apparently we’d violated some unposted no-ball-games-on- the-beach law.
Another time Noel and I took Jimi to
a tandoori restaurant in London. Spike
Milligan was eating there and the three
of us were drunkenly mimicking some of
Spike’s Goon Show routines when he came
over to meet Jimi. He bought us a couple of
bottles of champagne. He was a big Hendrix
fan too — who would have guessed?
But normally those types of situations
made him feel downright uncomfortable.
I once accompanied Jimi to a party at the
top of the Post Office Tower in London.
I can’t remember what the event was,
just that a lot of celebrities were there,
including some of the Beatles. When
Jimi and I stepped out of the lift and took
one look at the star-studded crowd, he
quietly whispered, “God, I need a drink.”
Then someone started to make his way
over to say hello. Jimi swallowed nervously.
“It’s Paul McCartney,” he whispered.
Jimi had been fine when I saw him play Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at the Saville Theatre in London with at least two Beatles in the audience just a few days after they had released the album. At a party with no guitar to hide behind, though, he was as nervous and insecure about meeting these people as I was.
Hold my guitar! On August 26, 1970, I was in New York for the official opening party of Electric Lady Studios, a project that was incredibly important to Jimi. He’d sunk a lot of money and effort into transforming a defunct Greenwich Village nightclub into a state- of-the-art recording studio. With its curved walls, spaceship interiors and rainbow- coloured lighting, it would give him the creative freedom he craved.
But Jimi was nervous. He was due to play the Isle of Wight Festival in four days’ time. He hadn’t toured Europe for a while and wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get from the fans. “They’ve probably forgotten about me,” he said. “They might not care any more.” “Trust me. You could call it the Jimi Hendrix Flower Show Band and the kids would still come out to see you.” He laughed and let me win that one.
T
OU
“What are you talking about, Eric?” “Jimi’s dead, what do you think I’m talking about?”
So, at 2am on the morning of August 31, the Jimi Hendrix Experience finally hit the Isle of Wight stage. As Jimi walked on, he nudged Gerry, the tour manager. “How does the British national anthem go again?” Gerry hummed a couple of notes and Jimi nodded. Completely unrehearsed, he opened with his version of God Save the Queen — doing to the British national anthem what he’d previously done to The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock.
After a few more songs, though, he looked
over and gestured at me. It wasn’t a gesture
I recognised, not part of the wordless
lexicon we’d developed. Jimi moved over to
the side of the stage as he played and said,
“Can you get me a safety pin and a towel?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve split my pants.
And I’m not wearing any underwear.”
CHARLES EVEREST / CAMERONLIFE PHOTO LIBRARY, COURTESY OF ERIC BENNETT, NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD.
We arranged to meet behind the giant
amp stack, out of sight from the audience.
He was in the middle of a song, so he placed
my fingers on the fret board and shouted in
my ear: “Grab the whammy bar, vibrate it
back and forth.” With his hands free, Jimi
wrapped the towel I’d given him around his
waist and dropped his trousers. Of course,
the audience couldn’t see it wasn’t Jimi
playing. All the crew and artists watching
from the side of the stage — Pete
Townshend from the Who among them —
laughed at how zealously I attacked the
whammy bar. With his trousers around his
knees, Jimi paused repairs to take over
playing the guitar for a few moments. Then
he placed my fingers back on the frets to
shape a new chord and let me go to town
on the whammy bar again. I got so into the
feedback coming out of the amps, I started smacking the guitar with my fist.
Eventually Jimi took control again and emerged to cheers and applause. My two minutes as a rock god were over. For a few glorious moments I’d played lead guitar for the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the largest music festival yet staged.
Castles made of sand Less than three weeks later, in London, the girl at the front desk of my hotel handed me a pile of messages. The first was from Gerry, asking me to call him back. The next was from him too, asking me to call him back “as soon as possible”. They were all from Gerry, each sounding more frantic. Maybe Jimi needed me to go to New York with him.
his last UK show. Left: Hendrix and Barrett after a show, c 1969.
Below: The Sun reports the rock
star’s death, September 1970
said. It was the most frazzled I’d ever heard
him. His voice sounded distant, hollow, as
if he was talking from a vast empty room on
the other side of the world. He then said
three words that sounded as disconnected
as his voice. “Jimi is dead.” Gerry told me
Jimi had been with Monika Dannemann,
a German girl I’d introduced him to. He
didn’t know much more. My friend was
gone and I didn’t get to say goodbye. The
Isle of Wight had been the Jimi Hendrix
Experience’s final UK performance.
I called Mitch. His phone was engaged. No doubt he was being barraged by reporters. I kept dialling. When he finally picked up, I said something like, “I’m still in shock. You have any idea what happened?”
“What the f*** are you saying?” He didn’t know. Mitch told me he’d been expecting to hear from Jimi the night before. Sly Stone was in London and the three of them had been supposed to jam together at the Speakeasy Club. Jimi never showed.
I walked to the nearest pub. I sat in a
corner booth staring into space. A news
broadcast came on the TV above the bar,
reporting on Jimi’s death. “The wild man
of rock has died from a drug overdose at the
age of 27 … He was pronounced dead at St
Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington … ”
The postmortem later concluded that Jimi
had died of asphyxia while intoxicated with
barbiturates. I’ve never seen evidence that
suggested it was anything other than a
tragic accident.
I suddenly thought of my mum and went to call her from a pay phone. She’d never met Jimi and it wasn’t her kind of music, but I’d talked about him often and she knew how much he meant to me. We spoke for a short while, then I walked around London aimlessly, bouncing from one anonymous pub to another. Memories of Jimi flitted through my head on repeat.
When I finally made it back to the hotel
I sobbed all the way to my room and buried
my face in a towel. The phone kept ringing.
More reporters. I took it off the hook n
Eric Barrett managed tours for musicians including David Bowie, Madonna and Aerosmith, retiring in 2013. Aged 79, he now lives in Los Angeles. Extracted from Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond by Eric Barrett with Lawrence Robinson (Sphere £25), out on August 6. Order at timesbookshop.co.uk
tewart “Pritchie” Pritchard remembers
what night shifts were like as a welder at
Glasgow’s Fairfield shipyard in the 1980s.
“In the winter,” says the 64-year-old in
treacle-thick Glaswegian, “it’d be snowing
or lashing with rain. Ice everywhere.” So
they would create a makeshift brazier.
“We’d find a big empty paint pot and light
a fire in it to get some warmth.”
The ships they were building in Govan, on the south bank of the River Clyde, were so huge that it could take a chunk of their 15-minute tea break to get down the scaffold stairs to the canteen, so the workers would throw ropes over the side of the hull — “perhaps 150 feet”, Pritchard says — and shimmy down like pirates of the Caribbean. “The craic was brilliant,” Pritchard says, recalling a friend who earned the nickname KitKat “because he only had four fingers” after losing one in a work accident.
Health and safety has changed somewhat over the decades. Instead of making ships
and pipelines, presumably with a view to interfere with them in the event of a conflict
out in the elements, Govan’s workers
now do it inside a giant new shed — the
Janet Harvey Hall — crammed with the
latest technology.
“They get all the best safety gear,” says
Pritchard, who worked on vast vessels
for the oil and gas industries and now
volunteers as a guide at Fairfield Heritage,
the shipyard museum behind the hall.
“The welders get air-fed helmets so they’re
not breathing in the fumes like we did —
£1,500 a pop those things are.”
The Janet Harvey Hall opened in June
last year, named after a pioneering female
shipyard electrician in the Second World
War who died in 2023 aged 101. One of the
biggest buildings in Scotland at 170m long,
80m wide and 56m high, it is being used to
build two warships side by side — part of
a multibillion-pound order from the UK
government to beef up the ailing Royal Navy.
The hall is the centrepiece of a £300 million investment in Glasgow’s docks by
Britain’s biggest defence contractor, BAE
Systems, securing thousands of jobs and
apprenticeships for the city. BAE runs
two shipyards on the Clyde, one at Govan
and another two miles west, across the
river at Scotstoun.
The pair of ships under construction
at Govan are the new HMS Belfast and
HMS Birmingham — two of eight Type 26
anti-submarine frigates that BAE Systems
is building for the Royal Navy to counter
the growing threat posed by Russian subs
in the North Atlantic. Vladimir Putin’s
Sevmash shipyard near Arkhangelsk in the
far north of Russia has been churning out
submarines at a rapid pace for years to slip
silently under the Arctic ice. In conjunction
with unmanned drone subs, they have
been spotted on missions to map our
seabed’s pipelines and data cables,
presumably with a view to interfere with
them in the event of a conflict.
In February I stood on the deck of the
new HMS Belfast, a smooth expanse of raw,
grey steel where helicopters will one day
take off and land. The original HMS Belfast,
which has been a museum ship moored on
the south bank of the Thames since 1971,
was designed to patrol oceans, protect
trade routes and fight other surface ships.
Launched in 1938, it fought in the Second
World War and the Korean War and was
decommissioned in 1963.
The new HMS Belfast is a different
beast entirely: one of the new generation
of City-class frigates bristling with tech
and weapons to protect aircraft carriers.
The Type 26s will be the most advanced
submarine hunters on the planet.
Navies around the world are watching keenly. At least five more are being built by BAE in Glasgow for Britain’s Nato partner Norway. Canada and Australia have bought the design for their fleets, although their ships won’t be built in Britain.
Fifty miles away in front of another
all-weather build hall at the Rosyth
shipyard on the Firth of Forth, run by the
defence contractor Babcock International,
I witnessed the birth of another, smaller
British warship — HMS Active, a Type 31
general-purpose frigate.
Alongside 400 workers, dignitaries and local television news crews, I craned my neck to watch the unveiling of the sinister- looking gunmetal grey vessel, accompanied by dance music, lasers and disco lights. The bow, shaped like a shark’s snout, inched out of the hall doors into the yard on a carefully controlled set of bogies.
Babcock is building at least five of these
frigates at Rosyth for the Royal Navy, to
come into service by the early 2030s.
Its Venturer build hall opened in 2021
and is large enough to fit 56 Olympic-size
swimming pools inside.
These two vast halls and these two
frigate-building programmes represent
a once-in-a-generation investment in
GREG FUNNELL FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, PA
Above: HMS Glasgow is the
first of eight Type 26 frigates
being built for the Royal Navy
at BAE’s Glasgow shipyards
Below: BAE personnel install
the advanced electronics
systems in the warship’s
control room
Below right: Caoimhe Dick,
21, an electrician, is one of
700 apprentices working
on site for BAE in Glasgow
Opposite: a Royal Navy tanker
shadows a Russian submarine
as it passes through the
English Channel in December
British shipbuilding. When I first visited
the Glasgow docks three years ago, most
of the workers looked as though they were
in their fifties. For decades the shipyards
hadn’t hired and trained any new staff.
This time, while there were still plenty of
“greybeards” around, many drafted in from
eastern Europe, there were many more
Gen Zers and millennials on board.
Caoimhe Dick, 21, joined BAE as an
apprentice electrician straight from sixth
form. “I didn’t want to go to uni,” she tells
me, her brown hair tied in a tight ponytail.
“I wanted something hands on.” She is
now in the fourth year of her apprenticeship
and regularly gets to work with the teams
on the gas turbine in the engine room
of HMS Glasgow.
It’s easy to be impressed by this show
of military industrial might powered by
a talented and motivated young workforce,
but has this investment come far too late?
The build halls at Rosyth and Govan
opened years, if not decades, after similar
infrastructure appeared at shipyards in
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy,
Denmark, Korea and Japan. And already
we’re behind schedule. HMS Glasgow
was originally planned for delivery in 2024.
It is now not expected to be delivered
until the late 2020s.
But at the Janet Harvey Hall, shielded
from the elements and equipped with robot
welding machines, it is hoped each frigate
will take half as much time to build as
HMS Glasgow. The drumbeat of new ships
rolling off into the Clyde should, by 2028,
be one a year. By comparison, the most
efficient shipyard in South Korea can
produce up to 50 ships a year, though many
of those are far less complex than these
high-tech warships. The question is: will
this be fast enough to counter the threats
Well, we need what we’ve had in the
Gulf for 20, 30 years, but it’s all gone”
off Britain’s shores — and help our allies in more distant seas and oceans?
Decades of neglect
Lulled into complacency by the end of
the Cold War, a succession of British
governments have put off investing in
the Royal Navy. When President Trump
sought naval assistance from Britain in
the Strait of Hormuz in March, we were
in the embarrassing position of having
no warships in the region.
British shipbuilding has been in savage decline since Pritchard’s day. Stroll along the Clyde on the way out of Govan town and the ghosts of old docks line the river — concrete-walled squares the size of
football fields, stifled by undergrowth. It is the same on the Tyne, where the once-great Swan Hunter shipyards ceased operations in 2006 due to shrunken order books, the cranes dispatched to yards in India. Even Northern Ireland’s Harland & Wolff, which built ships in Belfast for both military and civil customers (including the Titanic), collapsed into administration last year.
Harland & Wolff had been awarded a
contract to build vessels for the Royal Fleet
Auxiliary, whose ships support the navy.
Now Navantia of Spain, which bought
Harland & Wolff from the administrators,
is building the first of those ships in its
high-tech yards in sunny Cadiz, while
Navantia gives Belfast’s historic shipyards
a much-needed £90 million upgrade.
When the navy wound down its fleet in
the Persian Gulf, it did so with unbelievably
poor timing. Britain has had a near-
permanent presence in the Gulf since the
early 1980s, when a fleet of frigates and
destroyers was sent there to keep an eye
on the region following the Iranian
revolution. By the 2020s those ships were
overdue their retirement, many of them
reliant on 1980s technology. As their crews
aged, the navy had to train new people in
the knowledge that the skills they were
learning would soon be obsolete. So the
government scrapped the fleet, investing
the savings on the next generation of craft
being built in Scotland and Cadiz. The
trouble was they ditched the old before
bringing in the new.
“They took the risk — big handfuls of
risk — that nothing was going to happen
in the middle,” says the former navy captain
Kevin Rowlands, who is now the journal
editor at the Royal United Services Institute.
“But the risk didn’t pay off. They got the
transitional period wrong. So we’re in a
Above: Jen Blee, 46, BAE’s
manufacturing and facilities
director. Below: HMS Belfast in
action during the Korean War,
1951; Govan shipbuilders, 1980
In service First three by 2030
On order 8 for Royal Navy,
5 for Norway
Life span Minimum 25 years
Displacement 7,500 tonnes
Speed
26+ knots
Range
In excess of 7,000
nautical miles
Length
149.9m
Beam
20.75m
Crew
161
Accommodation Up to 208
personnel
In service First in 2028
On order 5
Life span Minimum
30 years
Displacement 5,700 tonnes
Speed
28+ knots
Range
7,500 nautical
miles
Length
139m
Beam
19.8m
Crew
105
Accommodation Up to 190
personnel
situation where it’s, ‘What do we need in the Gulf now? Well, we need what we’ve had in the Gulf for 20, 30 years, but it’s all gone.’ ”
The Destroyer gap
Before Keir Starmer’s significantly scaled-
back defence investment plan (DIP) was
released last month, the idea was to build
a series of large Destroyer-class ships to
replace the navy’s ageing Type 45s.
GREG FUNNELL FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, RAYMOND DEPARDON /MAGNUM PHOTOS, GETTY IMAGES
The DIP scrapped that, opting for a
cheaper plan to build six smaller ships,
known as common combat vessels, which
will work as command and control hubs
for a network of unmanned, robotic subs,
ships and flying drones. Babcock thinks
these six ships could be a version of the
Type 31s it is building in Rosyth.
Britain’s shipbuilding industry appears
to have emerged relatively unscathed from
the DIP. The overall impact on jobs in the
industry will be “net neutral”, says Rowlands,
a former planner in the navy. “There will
also be gains in the amount of unmanned
stuff that will have to be built,” he adds.
The Russian threat is seen as the most urgent. Britain needs its Type 26s soon because they are replacing the previous generation of 13 anti-submarine warships that are 30 years old — nearly twice their intended life span. The navy refitted them at great expense to extend their life, but some
Medium-calibre gun has a firing
range of 20 nautical miles
quarters for 208
crew including gym, canteen and
medical facility
ended up serving in warm waters to which they weren’t suited. The Type 26s don’t suffer the same overheating issues as their predecessors, meaning that while they will mostly operate in the North Atlantic, they will be ready for any climate.
How to build a sub hunter As I stand on the deck of HMS Belfast inside the Janet Harvey Hall, two vast yellow Goliath cranes track across the ceiling above me. The cranes are working on the Belfast’s sister frigate, HMS Birmingham, gingerly lifting and lowering into place a chunk of the ship’s innards that has been cut and welded in the fabrication hall next door.
The ships are being built in a modular
construction process known as “drop-in-
and-cap-off”. “The idea is that the hull is
like an open canoe and you drop the kit
into it from the top,” shouts Jen Blee, 46,
over the roar of the ventilation equipment
around us. An unflappable Scot with ash
blonde shoulder-length hair beneath her
hard hat, Blee is the manufacturing and
facilities director, so it is her job to make
sure the parts are assembled and “dropped
in” on time and in the right order.
Get the order wrong and you quickly
get into difficulties, as BAE found with the
first of this run of frigates, HMS Glasgow.
The manufacturers of its super-advanced gearbox met a hitch, missing its slot in the building process. When it finally arrived, the engineers had to cut a huge hole in the side of the ship to install it, causing delays, cost overruns and embarrassment.
The photographer and I were given
an exclusive tour of HMS Glasgow at
Scotstoun — pausing first for selfies,
naturally, under the 5in/62-calibre gun
at the fore. The vessel’s spacious Starship
Enterprise-like bridge and operations
rooms were being equipped with screens
and advanced computers to control the
onboard systems.
Submarine hunting is a cat-and-mouse
game: neither side wants to be spotted by
the other. So the Type 26 is designed to be
practically silent and invisible to enemy
subs below. It is powered by two electric
motors for stealth mode and its hull is
designed to slip noiselessly through the
water. Its 25km of pipework, 600km of
cabling and 400km of optical fibre is
secured in place by rubberised brackets
to dampen any creaks and groans and
the floors of the bridge are sprung like a
21st-century dancefloor to muffle sound
and absorb shocks.
Its subsea hunting is done with an array of highly sensitive sonar equipment that trails like an octopus’s tentacles from
Towed sonar
system for spotting enemy submarines and
Walking through the vessel is like negotiating a windowless, metal maze. Every few feet you have to navigate another bulkhead. “It’s all about maximum strength,” explains Simon Lister, 66, managing director of BAE’s naval ships division, whose upright bearing speaks of a former career as a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy. “Warships aren’t like merchant ships, they’re highly subdivided, like a series of eggboxes.” If an enemy strikes one part, it hopefully doesn’t damage the whole ship.
The 208-strong crew will be on board
for months at a time. Comfort is important
to keep them happy and motivated. The
sleeping cabins — not far off what you’d
expect on a decent overnight ferry — were
being rigged up for wifi by a telecoms
apprentice engineer.
Stepping through yet another hatch we
find ourselves in a room with deep, empty
racks at one side. Our guide, a cheery son
of a Glasgow shipbuilder with 26 years at
BAE under his belt, is ship delivery manager
Craig McMillan, 53. This, he explains, is
the ship’s magazine, where weapons for
its helicopters will be stored. The space is
armour-plated with steel and Kevlar but
a direct hit could still be catastrophic. Its
location is one of the most important
secrets on this most classified of craft.
The Type 26 programme began in 1998.
The lengthy lead times for such huge,
complicated vessels means navy planners
have what is possibly the toughest strategy
job in all the armed forces: attempting
to guess what kinds of threat Britain
will face in 20 years’ time when the ship
is operational. Factor in that the vessel
should last for 30 years and that stretches
the forecast to half a century. “It’s not
easy, this stuff,” Rowlands says. “There’s
no crystal ball.”
Given the pace of innovation — who
knew wars would be won or lost by tiny
drones 20 years ago? — it is crucial for
all new ships to be as flexible as possible.
The Type 26’s uniqueness in this regard
is its gym hall-sized “mission bay”, a huge
covered area opening to the sea on either
side via two enormous doors like
Lamborghini gull wings. It is so big that
it can be used to house anything from
multiple unmanned boats and submersibles
to crates of emergency relief for disaster
victims, or whatever killing machines
military engineers invent in 20 years’ time.
Likewise, the computers are designed to be
easily upgradable to new combat software,
while even the floors on the bridge can be
taken up to be quickly fitted out with new
command equipment.
Type 26s don’t come cheap. Norway’s
order for five, including some extra kit,
was priced at £10 billion and it is keen to
get its orders as soon as possible. The
cash-strapped government in Westminster
HMS Birmingham under construction in BAE’s vast Janet Harvey Hall at Govan. Below: an apprentice fabricator hones his
skills in Scotstoun’s Trade Hall; Cara Shannon, 25, works as an electrician for BAE while the company sponsors her degree
is planning to allow at least one of the batch earmarked for the Royal Navy to be allotted to Norway instead.
All that attention must be a huge
burden on McMillan’s shoulders, I suggest.
“They say pressure is a privilege,” he says
with a grin.
Type 31: the multipurpose warship
The frigates being built in the Rosyth yards
— a huge site next to a sprawling military
base that backs on to a housing estate — are
more basic than the Type 26s, but cheaper
and quicker to build. These warships
could be used for anything from escorting
aircraft carriers to fighting the enemy with
Tomahawk cruise missiles. The first Type
31, HMS Venturer, left the construction hall
in May last year, followed by HMS Active in
February. Three more will join them, all to
come into service later this decade.
“This is the fastest build programme
in Europe,” Babcock’s 64-year-old chief
executive, David Lockwood, tells me at
the HMS Active rollout. “And each one
we make, we get better and faster.”
The Type 31s — costing up to £250
million each — were delayed by the Covid
lockdowns and have suffered significant
cost overruns, which Babcock is absorbing.
“Covid was a real pain for the programme,”
Lockwood says. “You get more bugs [in
the system] when everyone is working
in isolation instead of in teams. Building
that first ship was really hard work. But this
one,” he says nodding up at HMS Active,
“was much quicker, and the third” —
named HMS Formidable — “is much
quicker than this one.”
Even so, the Type 31 frigate was first
devised in late 2015, so it will still be 15
years from concept to completion.
Training the next generation
Big order books mean years of guaranteed
work and that is attracting Scottish
youngsters such as 25-year-old electrician
Cara Shannon into the industry. BAE is
sponsoring her to complete a degree in
business and project management, a
four-year course at the University of West
Scotland that she studies part-time. “We’re
right in the centre of the nerve system for
the whole ship,” she says as the team runs
a series of tests on the complex electrical
systems. Engineers in their thirties are also
joining, moving over from other sectors
such as nuclear energy, space and oil. “This
is way cooler,” says one of the team fitting
out the frigate’s control room.
GREG FUNNELL FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, ALAMY
Both Babcock and BAE have launched apprenticeships. At the Scotstoun yard, BAE has built its own college. Some 200 apprentices joined last year, adding to the 700 trainees and apprentices now working on site, making this one of the biggest apprenticeship projects in the UK. There are bright, modern classrooms for the theory, but the learners much prefer their
they are contributing just as much to the defence of the realm as anyone in uniform”
HMS Venturer, a Type 31 frigate built for the Royal Navy, makes its debut in the Firth of Forth in June last year
time in the Applied Shipbuilding Academy
trade hall. This high-ceilinged space was
built in the 1950s to prepare steel but now
it is where the apprentices get hands-on
practice in their new crafts at realistic
mock-ups of shipbuilding situations.
Toby, 21, an apprentice sheet-metal worker, says that job security is a big factor. “I think this will be a great place to be 30 years down the line.”
All described a sense of pride that they
were helping to build ships that might
one day protect Britain. It is an ethos
drummed into them by BAE’s Lister, the
managing director. “When I talk to the
workforce, I am absolutely explicit with
them that they are contributing just as
much to the defence of the realm as anyone
in uniform,” he says.
Can Govan rise again?
Central Glasgow’s bars and restaurants are
doing a brisk trade as the benefits of these
vast shipbuilding contracts spill out to the
broader economy. Dowdy Govan isn’t
directly seeing the benefits yet, though.
In Pritchard’s day, when the shifts ended
at 5pm, the 15 or so pubs on Govan Road would fill up as men by the hundred would come pouring out of the yards with wages in their pockets. Now the street is almost deserted; most of the pubs are long gone and the area hasn’t been regenerated.
In Brechins Bar, a wood-panelled survivor, Robert Lang, a 77-year-old retired fabricator who supplied the Fairfield yard, was supping on an early evening pint of Tennent’s. He recalled how back in the day the bar staff would line up glasses of beer and Eldorado fortified wine at 4.45pm to prepare for the five o’clock rush.
“It was like ants, all streaming out, heading for the pubs,” he says. “The Albert, the Old Vic, the Commercial, the Red Lantern. They were all full. Aye, Friday nights were incredible.”
The 20th-century glory days of such
mass employment will never come back
but decent skilled jobs are returning, thanks
to an end to the stop-start government
procurement. With reliable revenues
from the Ministry of Defence for years
to come, the hope is that the impact will
ripple out to local businesses, and that
the once-thriving area will rise again.
It’s a responsibility not lost on McMillan
as he organises his teams fitting out HMS
Glasgow in Scotstoun. “We’re not just
building a ship,” he says, “we’re building
an industry.” n
arlborough ... a wine region that
went from nothing to world beater
in about the time it normally takes
vines simply to get comfortable.
Forty years. A blink.
And at the centre of it all was Ernie
Hunter – Belfast born, genial,
unstoppable – and his Australian
wife Jane. They were the first to march
Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc out into
the wider world ... and what a debut.
Hunter’s Home Block Sauvignon Blanc 2025
sundaytimeswineclub.co.uk
Exclusive wines delivered to your door
The magic? Geography, geology and a few
early believers with grit. Marlborough’s
soils are basically heaps of stones –
boulders in places – forcing roots to
dig deep. South Island sunshine, cool
nights, mountains keeping the rain
away ... perfect for grapes. The
result? Sauvignon Blanc turned
up to maximum volume.
The latest vintage of Hunter’s
Home Block – the original
vineyard – has just landed.
It’s usually snapped up before anyone has time to clear a space on the cellar floor. But, thanks to our 40-year friendship, a couple of hundred cases are always earmarked for our customers ...
Ernie would have insisted.
Egg questions answered ● The cask ale that won over Madonna Adam Kay eats Greek by way of Ibiza ● Vinho verdes tasted
PLUS
S K Y E M c A L P I N E
Crêpes with saffron-scented
apricots
Wafer-thin French-style
crêpes are a practical breakfast
option, especially if you get
ahead. You can prepare your
batter in advance and fry up
the crêpes the night before,
then fill each pancake with your
poached apricots, fold into
triangles, arrange on a baking
tray and store in the fridge for
up to 24 hours. When you’re
ready to serve, gently reheat in
a medium oven.
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
Total time 20 min
For the apricots
• 60g caster sugar
• 1 pinch saffron
• 6 apricots, cored
and quartered
For the crêpes • 70g plain flour • 1 egg • 140ml whole milk • Salted butter, to fry
1 Put the sugar and saffron
in a small saucepan along with
120ml water, then heat until
the sugar has dissolved. Add
the apricots and simmer over
a gentle heat for 18-20 min,
until tender and most of the
liquid has cooked down, then
set to one side.
2 To make the crêpes, sift the
flour into a medium-sized
mixing bowl, then add the
egg and milk and whisk
together until you have a
smooth batter.
3 Melt a little butter, just
enough to grease the pan,
in a small frying pan (I use
a 23cm-diameter pan) over
a medium heat. When the pan
is hot, add a scant ladleful of
the pancake batter and jiggle
the pan so it spreads out
evenly all over the base.
4 When little bubbles begin
to appear on the surface, give
the pan a little shake and use
a spatula to flip the pancake.
Fry for 30-60 seconds on
the second side, until lightly
golden, then lift out of the
pan and set on a plate.
5 Repeat the same process with the remaining pancake batter — you should get roughly 4 crêpes from the batter.
6 Fill each pancake with the saffron-scented apricot compote. Serve immediately.
Honeyed peaches and
whipped ricotta on
sourdough toast
For someone with a sweet
tooth like me, there is no better
way to start the day than with
the sort of breakfast food you
could easily call dessert —
these honeyed peaches are
among my favourites.
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
Total time 10 min, plus
cooling time
• 70ml honey
• 1 large peach, cored and
quartered
• 150g ricotta
• 2 slices sourdough bread
over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and when the syrup begins to bubble, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.
2 Add the peach and poach in the syrup for 5-6 min, until soft. To test if it is ready, insert a knife into its flesh; you should feel little or no resistance. Once cooled, gently peel the skins off the peach wedges; set aside, still in their syrup.
3 Spoon the ricotta into a
small bowl and use a fork to
whip until you have an airy,
smooth texture. Toast the
bread, then top each slice
of toast with half of the ricotta,
two pieces of peach and a
drizzle of the honey syrup.
Serve immediately.
Pistachio French toast
with mascarpone and
cherries
This is always an indulgent
quick-fix treat. I love the
combination of soft eggy
bread and pistachio cream,
but you could swap the
pistachio for chocolate
hazelnut spread, jam, a salted
caramel spread, or even a
combination of pistachio
cream and jam, if you prefer.
It takes a few minutes to
prepare and is a guaranteed
crowd-pleaser.
PHOTOGRAPHS: SKYE McALPINE. GETTY IMAGES
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
Total time 15 min
• 60ml whole milk
• 1 egg
• 1 heaped tbsp caster sugar
• 40g pistachio cream
• 2 slices thick, soft bread
• Salted butter, to fry
• Icing sugar, to dust
• 75g mascarpone
• A good handful of
cherries, pitted
1 Combine the milk, egg
and caster sugar together
in a medium-sized mixing
bowl and whisk until you
have a smooth batter.
2 Spoon the pistachio
cream onto one slice of
bread, then use a knife to
spread it out evenly.
Sandwich together with the
second slice and cut into
two triangles. Dip each
sandwich into the batter and
hold it in there for 20 seconds
or so, letting it soak up the batter thoroughly.
3 Melt a little butter in a large
frying pan, then fry the
sandwiches over a medium-low
heat for 3-5 min, until lightly
golden. Flip the sandwiches
over and fry for a further
3-5 min on the second side,
until warm all the way through.
4 To check if the French
toast is done, gently press
on the centre of the
sandwich: if it feels firm, it’s
ready; if it feels a little jiggly,
keep cooking on a low heat
a little longer.
5 Dust with icing sugar, top with a dollop of mascarpone and add the cherries to serve n
Our experts answer your questions
Q What is the “Maillard
reaction” and how can
I use it to be a better
barbecue cook?
SD, Guildford
A When it comes to
anything to do with
barbecuing meat I defer
to the British grill expert
Genevieve Taylor, who
does a great job of
explaining this process
in her book Seared. I will
paraphrase her summary.
The Maillard reaction
is the sequence of
events that happens
when you sear, colour
and brown meat.
It’s more than just
caramelisation: it’s the
chemical reaction
that occurs between
simple sugars and amino
acids when food is
heated, leading to a
chain reaction that
produces hundreds of
new flavour molecules.
In short, it’s the reason
barbecued food tastes
so delicious.
With meat, you don’t
need high temperatures
for this to take place
— a minimum of 120C
is fine — but you need
time. The lower the
temperature, the longer
the reaction takes. The
optimal temperature
for a quick Maillard is
150-160C. Removing
moisture from the meat
also promotes browning.
As for the name? Maillard
was a French chemist
who first described the
process in 1912 n
By Hannah Evans
ST JAMES’S
F
or an island the size
of Lancaster, Ibiza
manages to cram in
an awful lot. It’s
simultaneously a
bohemian utopia,
package-holiday patient
zero, a VIP playground
and the clubbing capital
of the Med. It was the
location of my one
and only holiday romance and,
assuming this new outpost is
anything to go by, it’s home to
a very expensive and rather
terrible restaurant.
The Balearic institution
Jul’s — pronounced as if
you’re shouting across the
supermarket at your boyfriend
Julian — has recently taken a
Jet2 flight to London and set up
shop among the shirtmakers,
wine merchants and members’
clubs of St James’s. Of all the
trademark Ibizan vibes they
could have imported from the
White Isle, they plumped for
“cave”. Everything is dark
and heavy; imagine an Iris
Murdoch novel in restaurant
form: black plaster on the
walls, dark cobbles on the
floor, the tables huge hunks
of green marble.
The original features of this
beautiful Nash building are
still present, if faint and
hiding in tight corners; and
the obligatory open kitchen is
behind glass, presumably to
protect staff from having their
food thrown back at them.
Looking for a positive, Jul’s
l Adam Kay
has a very impressive wine
fridge — a 20ft-tall mega-
cabinet running the width of
the restaurant, so you feel as
if you’ve been shrunk by a mad
scientist and dumped in the
chiller section of Waitrose.
The restaurant is pretty much
empty during prime dinner
service, so it’s perhaps a handy
spot to have up your sleeve if
you ever need to find a last-
minute table for some quite
bad food in central London. Or
if you like big fridges, I guess.
We were greeted, deposited at
a table and then, 20 minutes
later, remembered about and
offered menus. The menu veers
towards Greek, and is divided
into sections called things like
“All in Social Sea” and “All in
Social Land”, which potentially
made sense in Greek.
I looked at the website for a bit of backstory to understand why the food isn’t Ibizan, but
it’s meaningless verbiage, care
of ChatGPT. “We honour our
Ibiza origins through clear,
expressive flavours, with
dishes and cocktails crafted
with a sense of generosity and
instinct, all served within a
warm, design-led space shaped
for long lunches.” Of course
the lunches are long if you wait
20 minutes for a menu.
I started with a Monolith
cocktail, which turned out to
be a bloody mary with added
mushroom and kimchi and
which, like most drinks on
earth, would have been much
better without any mushroom
or kimchi. I followed this
with what was presented as
another “take” on a classic,
this time the Greek salad. It
arrived encased in a comically
large beef-tomato sarcophagus
the size of a honeydew melon.
I cracked it open like a Kinder
Egg and, in proper Kinder Egg
Right, from top:
tagliata with
potato terrine
and mushroom;
wagyu tartare with
truffle and caviar
style, the surprise was
disappointing: a huge,
unspecial hunk of feta along
with the other usual suspects,
including my lifetime’s
allowance of capers and
more, thankfully diced,
tomatoes. It was served with
a ramekin of carob, to test
the integrity of my fillings.
Save for the taste-free Jabba
the Tomato, it could have
been emptied out of a plastic
tub. I should have peered
through the glass to check
if it had been.
In retrospect, this was like
moaning about the canapés
on the Titanic. My main was
a chargrilled cabbage hiding
under truffle shavings and
swimming in some kind of
algae-plagued brine. The
cabbage was wet, overly
buttery and unsatisfying,
and I was glad when I’d eaten
a polite enough amount to be
CHARLIE CLIFT. JULS
able to push it away. Almost
everything came topped with
some kind of disguise, as if in
witness protection. Evading
what, I don’t know. Flavour?
Certainly the Michelin guide.
A side of broccolini was fine
but avalanched in hazelnuts,
and the roasted potato
puree was a soupy and slimy
disappointment, with the
texture of care-home semolina
and capped with another
thick layer of truffle.
My friend Justin had fancied
a striploin, but was informed
that the only size available was
a bowel-blocking 300g, coming
in — with an embarrassed
apology from our waitress —
at £160. I like Justin very
much indeed, but not £160
much, so she offered to ask the
chef if he’d be prepared to cut
it in half. Her request was
denied. Justin had a sulk and
I went for a wander.
The basement bar does a
better job of conjuring up
an elegant Ibizan night —
off season though, sadly, as it’s
totally empty. The adjoining
loos attempt to inject
personality into the area that
needs it the least, perhaps
bracing for the mandatory
lavatory selfies on Instagram.
A transparent cistern aims to
guilt you into using less water
to flush away your mushroom
and kimchi surprise, and is
reminiscent of a broken lava
lamp. The mechanism of the
washbasins is much more
opaque and would tax even the
most enthusiastic Crystal Maze
contestant. I fetched a member
of bar staff, who seemed
genuinely delighted to finally
meet an actual customer and
showed me the location of a
hidden button behind the tap.
Pudding, then. Usually the most difficult course to botch, unless … ah. My pavlova was served in a hulking great dish — maybe bought from the same website they got the fridge and the tomato — but required the Hubble telescope to find. The
presumably to protect staff from having food thrown back at them
meringue was tough and dusty
— a bit like eating a pumice
stone — and flavoured with
sumac to remove any chance of
it being enjoyable. The rhubarb
secreted inside, both in stewed
and sorbet forms, was perfectly
nice, but we’re talking a modest
spoonful. The chocolate
mousse that Justin ordered
turned out to be four chocolate
mousses, each demonstrating
different consistencies and
textures, which had the
unfortunate effect of making
it look like a 3D rendering of
the Bristol stool chart.
Finally, teas and coffees. I pray
to the Greek gods that they
don’t mess this up. They can’t,
surely? And yet our waitress
apologises that our mugs
will be impossible to drink
from, having no handles and
being made of thin pottery
that conducts heat with
cattle-branding efficiency. If
we don’t want to wait for our
drinks to cool down, she
suggests using our napkins
to wrap around them. I’d have
done so if I hadn’t hidden half
a pavlova in mine. On our way
out of the cave, a member of
staff — perhaps noticing the
looks on our faces, or hearing
us discuss where we could pick
up a sandwich — explains that
the restaurant has been open
only since March so is still
figuring things out.
At least at the original Jul’s
we’d be stepping out to the
sounds of waves lapping at the
sunbaked, tequila-washed
shore, rather than the 94 bus
barrelling towards Oxford
Circus. I understand the
appeal of reliving a wonderful
holiday once back on home
turf, but restaurants can suffer
the same fading allure of a
holiday romance. Jul’s might
have seemed a good idea at
the time, but in the cold light of
day I’m very glad we won’t ever
have to see each other again n
11 Waterloo Place, London
SW1Y 4AU; julslondon.com;
£165 a head, with drinks.
Camilla Long is away
CABINET
W
hen Madonna
sat down on
Jonathan Ross’s
chat show sofa
in May 2003, no
one expected
her to come out
batting for British
beer. Yes, she
did say that half
a pint was all it
took to get her drunk, but in
revealing that her husband at
the time, Guy Ritchie, had
introduced her to real ale at
the Dog and Duck in Soho,
she declared Timothy Taylor’s
Landlord the best real ale going.
The brewer’s phone didn’t stop
ringing for months afterwards.
The pale ale from Keighley, West Yorkshire, is one of the most important beers in history, but not because of this brush with fame. It’s not even because Landlord, launched in 1952, is widely regarded among real-ale heads as the best cask ale there is; it has won more awards than any other beer, including the Champion Beer of Britain title four times. No, it’s really because it’s a sort of founding father of modern craft beer.
It has also this year overtaken
Sharp’s Doom Bar to become
Britain’s biggest-selling cask ale
— more than 18 million pints
last year. As real-ale sales decline
alarmingly, Landlord last year
upped its own by an impressive
3.6 per cent, to £81.8 million.
Inevitably, some claim that,
since it has become more
widespread, it’s not as good as
it once was. But they’re wrong.
Before American craft beer
got us all used to hop overload,
Landlord was described as
hoppy. And by traditional
British standards it is: it has
a complex citrus fruit aroma,
revolution — in Keighley in 1952
a smooth, slightly sweet body and a lingering bitter finish. Its spicy, grassy British fuggle and goldings hops are accentuated by the more lemony savinjski golding from Slovenia. Landlord’s excellence is in the balance between these different elements. It’s complex enough to be interesting, but smooth, balanced and highly drinkable.
Admittedly it is tricky to keep. But if you get a bad pint, it’s because the landlord doesn’t quite get Landlord. An average pint is still good. A perfect pint, cellared properly, is bliss. (What counts as proper cellaring depends, like so many things in beer, on whom you ask: some say the cask needs a kick on the third day; others say it needs an extra day before tapping.) The bottled version is good; great compared with most bottled beers if not with cask Landlord.
to be interesting, but smooth, balanced and highly drinkable
l Pete Brown
Timothy Taylor was set up
as a family brewery in Keighley
in 1858. Five years later they
moved it across town to Knowle
Spring, where it could have its
own water supply; it’s still there.
The beer ferments in traditional
open vats; modern, closed vats
keep beer safe from rogue micro-organisms — but maybe the yeast prefers the old ways.
Landlord was launched to
slake the dusty throats of
miners, a superior rival to the
dominant Barnsley Bitter. John
Smith’s competed by buying
Barnsley Brewery and largely
discontinuing production of
a beer they couldn’t better.
Some people see traditional
cask ale and modern craft beer
as at odds with each other.
But Landlord proves that any
sensible definition of “craft beer”
includes traditional cask ale.
In fact, it was arguably the first
British craft beer. In 1982, years
before the term “craft brewery”
was used in the States, Timothy
Taylor was described as “a craft
brewery down to the last
detail” by Michael Jackson,
the Yorkshire journalist who
invented modern beer writing.
His point was that both its
From far left: Allan Hey, Timothy Taylor’s head brewer, left, and chairman, John Taylor, c 1976; Madonna is a Landlord devotee. Above: a 1930s dray in Keighley
character and its production are
the sum of many tiny points of
distinction: those open vats,
the on-site spring, the Golden
Promise barley more commonly
used for whisky than beer.
N
Of course, craft brewing is
mostly associated with the US,
but Landlord was key to that
movement too. In 1965 Fritz
Maytag bought San Francisco’s
failing Anchor Brewing
Company. He struggled to turn
it around — until he visited
Britain and tried Landlord. This
was the beer that saved him.
He couldn’t get hold of English
hops, so turned to ones growers
were experimenting with in
the Pacific Northwest; cascade
performed pretty well. The
resulting Anchor Liberty Ale,
launched in 1975, tasted nothing
like Landlord. But it became the
first modern American pale ale,
showcasing the vivid citrus
and pine of cascade hops and
inspiring countless imitators. In
its infinite subsequent varieties,
it became the core style of the
American craft beer revolution
and conquered the world n
COURTESY OF TIMOTHY TAYLOR, GETTY IMAGES, JASON ALDEN, VICKI COUCHMAN
(light) sparkle to summer
orth of the sunbaked vineyards of the Douro Valley lies the Minho, Portugal’s northernmost and wettest wine region. Here, cool Atlantic breezes help to preserve the grapes’ naturally high acidity, producing light wine that leaves a faint prickle on the tongue: vinho verde, the green wine, named for its youth rather than its colour. It’s one of the summer’s smartest buys. When I first visited the Minho nearly 30 years ago, this young, spritzy wine seemed something of an anomaly. The 1990s fashion was for heavy whites, high in alcohol and laden with fruit and oak — those big, buttery chardonnays that paired well with the rich, heavy cooking that was all the rage. Today the trend is for fresher wines, with high acidity and modest alcohol levels — just like vinho verde, which is typically 9-11 per cent.
It’s also amazingly good value and there is a new seriousness to the region’s producers; quality continues to improve. The wines are made with several grape varieties, including loureiro, arinto and avesso, while the finest examples are often based on the alvarinho grape (known as albariño over the Spanish border in Galicia). The slight fizz is a stylistic hangover from when the wines were bottled before fermentation had fully finished. Today, some producers create that spritz by injecting a little carbon dioxide before bottling; others leave it still.
Vinho verde is an excellent alternative
to seasonal staples such as sauvignon blanc
or muscadet. It pairs well with sushi and
other light Asian dishes, and its dry, saline
character makes it a natural partner for
seafood. Try it with grilled sardines, salt cod
or fish and chips. Here are six to seek out n
from the club
l Will Lyons
2025 Blueprint Vinho Verde
(9.5%) Waitrose, £7.50 Crisp
and light, imparting a tickle
on the tongue, this everyday
citrussy white finishes with
mouthwatering acidity.
2025 Zeste Branco Vinho
Verde (11.5%) The Wine
Society, £7.75 This lively
blend of alvarinho, loureiro and
avesso is packed with summery
citrus and fresh green apple.
2025 Irresistible Alvarinho
(12%) Co-op, £9.15 Made only
from alvarinho, this is a little
more serious, with a lovely
peachy note and a dry finish.
A good pairing with sardines.
2024 Finest Vinho Verde
(12%) Tesco, £9 The latest
Finest release is a real bargain,
combining lush green fruit
with a hint of citrus bitterness.
Enjoy with grilled sea bass.
NV Casal Garcia DOC Vinho Verde (9.5%) Majestic, £9.50 From one of the oldest names in the region, this light-bodied, delicate example has a touch of sweetness on the finish.
2025 Soalheiro Alvarinho Monção e Melgaço (12.5%) Highbury Vintners, £18 An elegant alvarinho with a sheen of lemon, this melds notes of tropical fruit with dry salinity.
2024 Faro del Plata Reserva Albariño Gimenez Mendez Uruguay (12.5%) £12.49 (down from £14.99) The club has tracked down this peachy albariño from one of Uruguay’s top estates. It’s clean and lively, with a refreshing burst of citrus on the finish.
E
very cook’s favourite
pun inspiration, the
egg is one of the most
versatile foods there
is: a nutritional
powerhouse in a neat,
smooth shell. Eggs have
had image problems
— not least the
salmonella scares — but
they’ve survived where
Humpty Dumpty could not. So
how should you boil one? Is it
best to keep them in the fridge
or the cupboard? And do the
shells really deter snails? We
have the answers cracked.
What is an egg? It’s “a self-contained life-support system”, says the ornithologist Tim Birkhead in his book The
29 questions about eggs — answered!
Most Perfect Thing. Formed
from the inside out — yolk first,
then white, then the protective
shell — in a female bird’s
fallopian-tube-like oviduct,
it contains everything that a
growing chick needs. There
are nutrients and energy in the
yolk, and the albumen, or egg
white, provides water, protein
and cushioning. And what
embryonic chicks need to
grow, humans happen to find
darned tasty. If the egg isn’t
fertilised and no chick
develops, that leaves all the
more deliciousness for us.
Why hens’ eggs? Chickens became the go-to laying bird because they were the easiest and most economical
Les Dunn
to farm. There are now about
43 million commercial laying
hens in the UK, 300 times
the number of ducks, which
produce our second most
popular egg. But we can eat
the eggs of just about any bird.
During the Second World War,
the Russian oologist (egg
expert) Lev Belopolsky helped
the authorities feed the cut-off
Arctic port of Murmansk on
seabird eggs, thanks to his
knowledge of local guillemot
colonies. Some claim seabirds’
fishy diet flavours their eggs, but
all eggs taste broadly the same.
Are white eggs really better
for the environment than
brown? And what about blue?
When Sainsbury’s recently
announced it was switching its
own-brand eggs from brown to
white, eyebrows were raised
over its claims that the carbon
footprint of white eggs is lower.
But it’s true. White-feathered
commercial hens (which lay
white eggs) are slightly smaller
than the brown hens producing
brown eggs, so they eat slightly
less — and the hen’s feed
accounts for 80 per cent of
the egg’s carbon footprint.
Those pretty blue eggs come from rarer, non-commercial breeds (a genetic mutation means that, in the shell-making
process, they deposit more of
the pigment biliverdin, the same
one that also shows up in a
human bruise). Posher and
pricier the eggs might be, but
these less-productive birds have
a higher carbon footprint. In
fact, the lowest carbon footprint
comes from caged birds —
a reminder that carbon isn’t
the only consideration in the
ethics of egg buying.
Can you still get salmonella
from eggs?
The nation was gripped by
panic in December 1988, when
Edwina Currie, then a junior
health minister, accidentally
implied most British eggs were
infected with salmonella. (She
meant that many flocks were
affected.) Sales crashed, hens
were culled and “Eggwina”
resigned. The longer-term
consequences for British eggs
were positive, though. Thanks
to the resulting vaccination
and biosecurity programmes,
“we have effectively eradicated
salmonella in the UK under
the British Lion code”, says
Nick Allen, the British Egg
Industry Council chief
executive. If your egg has the
Lion Mark on the shell (or,
from smaller producers, Laid
in Britain branding on the
box), you can crack on.
So it’s OK to eat raw eggs,
like Rocky?
If you really want to. But even
if you don’t fancy his boxer’s
breakfast of five eggs gulped out
of a glass, raw or partially cooked
egg is key to a good steak tartare,
spaghetti carbonara, mayonnaise
or squidgy tortilla. Classic
chocolate mousse uses raw yolk
and white too. Cocktails such
as whisky sours get a wonderful
velvety texture when shaken
with egg white. Too many and
you might need the hangover
cure of a prairie oyster: raw yolk,
Worcestershire sauce, vinegar.
get a wonderful velvety texture when shaken with egg white
Fridge or cupboard?
The Food Standards Agency
(FSA) says, “Ideally, eggs
should be stored in the fridge.”
But for scrambling, omelettes,
meringues and most cake-
baking, room-temperature eggs
are best, as they combine more
easily with other ingredients.
Luckily the FSA accepts a “cool,
dry place” as next best.
ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER RYAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK
There are times when you
do want cold eggs, though,
says Nicola Lamb, the author
of the baking manual Sift. In an
egg-enriched batter, for brioche
for example, “they help keep
the dough from overheating”,
and in pastry doughs they can
help keep the butter cool. You
may have heard that eggs pick
up food odours in the fridge
but UK eggs aren’t washed as they are in the US, so they still have a thin protective cuticle over the porous shell, which makes it harder for large odour molecules to get in.
Can you eat too many eggs?
The UK authorities don’t think
so — any more. As recently as
the late 1990s, the view was that
cholesterol in eggs would raise
levels in your blood, so we were
told not to eat more than three
or four a week. But the science
evolved — now the consensus
is, as the charity Heart UK says,
that the dietary cholesterol in
eggs “does not have a significant
effect on blood cholesterol”.
Curiously, other countries
still recommend a weekly limit.
In Ireland it’s seven and in
Germany a measly one.
Does the float test work to
tell how fresh an egg is?
The Lion Mark scheme sets the
best before date at 28 days after
laying. The FSA says it’s safe to
eat eggs a couple of days beyond
that “if cooked well”. Then
there’s always the float test —
an egg that sinks is fresh, one
that floats is old — but it’s not
foolproof. At the blunt end of
an egg is an air cell for an
emerging chick to breathe.
As an unfertilised egg ages, it
shrinks inside the membrane,
drawing in air through the
porous shell, expanding the air
cell and making the egg more
buoyant in water. As the FSA
points out, though, it’s a rough
indicator “of age, not safety”.
The easiest way to check? Crack the egg into a bowl on its own — if it’s gone off, you’ll smell it.
How many calories are there in an egg? Eggs contain 131 kcals per 100g. A medium egg weighs about 55g (excluding the shell), so that’s 72 kcals. Even though the yolk is only about a third of the
egg’s weight, it accounts for
52 calories, because it contains
nearly all the egg’s fat. Hence
the enthusiasm in certain
circles for egg-white omelettes.
And how much protein?
Between 6g and 7.5g, depending
on its size. In the UK your
recommended daily amount
(RDA) of protein is 0.75g per 1kg
of body weight, so if you weigh
70kg, an egg is 11-14 per cent of
your RDA. But proteinmaxxing
is real — there is a reason some
bodybuilders eat 12 boiled eggs
a day, says Anita Bean, a former
British bodybuilding champion
and the author of The Complete
Guide to Sports Nutrition.
“Eggs are considered one of the
highest-quality protein foods
because they contain all nine
essential amino acids that make
up protein, in the proportions
the body needs for building and
repairing muscle.” For most
people, 20g high-quality protein
after exercise will “maximise
muscle recovery and stimulate
muscle protein synthesis”
— ie maintain beefy biceps.
How do you boil an egg? Michel Roux’s routine has got him through his cheffing career. He keeps his eggs in the fridge but takes them out ten minutes ahead to avoid thermal shock, which can make them crack. In a pan of water deep enough to cover the eggs, get the water gently boiling (“not so much they’ll hit each other”), then use a slotted spoon to lower in the eggs. “Don’t drop them in, or they’ll hit the bottom and crack.” It’s six minutes for runny, eight for a jammy yolk and 10-12 for “really rock hard”.
How’s best to shell them? The key, Roux says, is to get them “straight into really, really iced water” and leave for ten minutes. This stops the cooking process and makes them easier to peel, because “it shocks them and releases the membrane from the shell”. It’s even easier if they’re not so fresh, because as eggs age, the pH of the white rises, weakening its attachment to the membrane. Quails’ eggs are always fiddly. The trick? After cooling, “put them in neat, cheap, distilled malt vinegar” for 15-20 minutes. It makes the shells “supersoft — so you can peel them off easily”.
How do you poach an egg?
Get the water simmering, then
swirl it with a spoon “to create
a whirlpool” and help stop the
egg spreading, says the US food
writer Michael Ruhlman, the
author of Egg: A Culinary
Exploration of the World’s Most
Versatile Ingredient. Crack the
egg into a little cup or ramekin,
then gently pour it into the
vortex and cook for 3-4 minutes.
Remove with a perforated
spoon, “cradling it with kitchen
paper to absorb excess water”
— you don’t want soggy toast.
Roux says the water must be “at
least twice the depth of a
vertical egg in its shell”, which
allows the white to “cover the
yolk completely” as it sinks.
Vinegar is where the two
men disagree: Roux adds a
little but Ruhlman reckons “it
doesn’t do anything”. Acid can
help egg white coagulate, but
you’d probably need more than
a dash. More helpful is using a
very fresh egg, which will hold
together naturally. ➤
How do you fry an egg without breaking the yolk? “Always crack the egg on a flat surface,” Roux says — you could break the yolk on the edge of the pan. Use your thumbs to open the cracked egg over the pan — he fries eggs in butter. He recommends a gentle heat so the yolk doesn’t cook before the white is ready. But if you prefer crispy edges, use a higher heat, then when the egg is nearly done, tilt the pan and spoon the fat over the white to finish it off.
What does “sunny side up”
actually mean?
You probably won’t hear it in
your local greasy spoon because
it’s the UK norm — an egg fried
on one side only. But in the US,
fried eggs are typically flipped
on a flat griddle to cook them
“over easy” (runny), “over
medium” or “over hard”. The
terms came from US diner
culture in the late 19th century.
Others include “Adam and
Eve on a raft” (two poached
eggs on toast) and “wreck ’em”
(scramble them, please, dear
chap). The term “short order
cook” came about at the same
time, to describe the put-upon
person having these phrases
yelled at them all day by waiters.
Is it true you shouldn’t buy large eggs? Laying hens are a fairly standard size but those that lay lots of large eggs can suffer prolapses and bone fractures. The more consumers demand larger eggs, the more chickens will be bred to lay them, worsening their welfare. There are wrinkles,
though: most UK eggs are medium — and hens naturally lay larger eggs as they get older. Catherine Jadav, the science policy adviser at Compassion in World Farming, recommends buying mixed-size boxes so “they don’t put a particular demand on a farmer to produce a certain size of egg”.
Are eggs too cheap? They were in 2022 — it caused the biggest crisis for UK egg
gentle heat in butter so the yolk doesn’t cook before the white
farmers since salmonella. Issues
that had built up over years
came to a head: soaring costs,
bird flu, Covid supply-chain
disruption and supermarkets
keeping prices low. Some
farmers paused production or
went to the wall; hundreds were
on the brink. Finally, retailers
agreed to pay more. Both
production and demand have
increased over the past two or
three years, according to Allen,
as has the retail cost of eggs (up
25 per cent between 2022 and
2025, from an average £2.67 to
£3.34 a dozen). In 2025 the
price of a dozen eggs in the US
was as much as $7.24 (£5.40),
mainly due to avian flu. Today
they’re back down to $2.19
and the country’s backyard
hen-keeping boom has bust.
If a recipe calls for large
eggs and I have only medium,
how many should I use?
The difference between a
medium and large egg is only
about 10-15g, Lamb says, so
egg size “won’t make or break
a recipe for traybakes, cookies
and muffins, where you’re only
using one or two eggs”. It’s
different if your recipe calls for
more eggs. Five 55g mediums
give you roughly the same
weight as four 68g large, but
“the most reliable approach”
is to weigh your eggs: crack an
extra one, whisk it together, and
add enough to make up the
difference. “Use any leftovers
for egg wash.”
Did Paul Newman really eat all
those eggs in Cool Hand Luke?
“I never swallowed an egg,”
Newman told the film critic
Leonard Maltin, according to
the latter’s memoir. The crew
prepared more than 200 eggs
for the scene in the 1967 movie,
in which Newman’s rebellious
jailbird Luke Jackson appears
to eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in an
hour for a bet — but the actor
spat them out between takes. In
2013 the American competitive
eater Joey Chestnut really did
scoff 141 eggs in eight minutes
at the World Hard-Boiled Egg
Eating Championship. (He
swallowed.)
Do eggshells deter snails?
“Almost certainly no,” says
Ben Rowson, the president of
the Conchological Society of
Great Britain and Ireland, even
though the old gardeners’ tale
persists as a tip. “We’re baffled
by the idea,” he says, because
not only are sharp objects no
obstacle to slugs and snails
— “they can crawl over a razor
blade” — but they also like to eat
calcium carbonate (aka chalk),
the main constituent of eggshell.
They would also be attracted to
the smell of any egg left on the
shells. “I can’t think of a more
useless deterrent, to be honest.”
What’s the best way to
separate an egg without
breaking the yolk?
Back when he was an apprentice
pastry chef in Paris, Roux had
to separate hundreds of eggs
every day. His method: get two
bowls, then crack an egg and
split the shell in two over a
bowl. Let the white spill into it,
then gently pour from the full
half shell into the empty half.
Most of the white will land in
the bowl. Tip the yolk into the
What’s the difference between
organic and free range?
Organic is always free range,
“but has additional welfare
benefits”, says Jadav from
Compassion in World Farming.
The legal minimum outdoor
space is the same (4 sq m per
hen), but organic hens get a
bit more space indoors and a
maximum flock size of 3,000
(for free range it’s 16,000). Plus,
organic eggs with the Soil
Association logo have “higher
welfare and environmental
standards imposed than the
legal requirements” — 10 sq m
of outdoor space, for example.
What gives the yolk its colour?
Genetics can make a small
difference, but by far the biggest
factor is feed. The orange-yellow
comes from carotenoid
pigments in the hens’ diet, from
grasses, marigolds, vegetables,
alfalfa, maize and other plants.
A deep orange is photogenic,
but no indication of better
welfare or greater nutritional
value (bar a tiny bit from the
carotenoids). And contrary to
the rumours, Burford brown
hens, whose eggs have very
orangey yolks, aren’t fed
turmeric, says Annie Tucker at
Clarence Court. “It’s paprika.”
How do you make
mayonnaise?
Mayonnaise is an emulsion of
millions of tiny droplets of oil
suspended in water. Professor
Alan Mackie, chair of colloid
chemistry at the University of
Leeds, explains: “Egg yolk is
the emulsifier — it lowers the
surface tension of the oil and
makes it easier to break up.”
ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER RYAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK
Using a stick blender you
can make mayo in 30 seconds.
Crack an egg into a jug and add
1 tablespoon of lemon juice or
white wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon
of Dijon mustard, 250ml
vegetable or sunflower oil and
a pinch of salt. Starting with the
blender head just touching the
liquid’s surface, run it for 10-15 seconds. As it expands upwards into a thick emulsion, slowly lift the blender with the motor still running for another 15 seconds.
Is there a good vegan swap
for eggs for baking?
Yes, there are several, says the
vegan cookery expert Rachel
Ama. To add moisture and help
ingredients bind, “use 60g fruit
puree per egg for fruity cakes”,
or for banana bread, soak 1
tablespoon of ground chia seeds
or flaxseeds in 3 tablespoons of
water to substitute for each egg.
For lifting, as in a plain sponge,
use 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate
of soda and 1 tablespoon of acid
— Ama likes plant milk mixed
with cider vinegar (“You don’t
taste it!”). If aeration is needed,
instead of egg white you can use
2 tablespoons of aquafaba, the
liquid from tins of chickpeas or
beans. It whips up like meringue,
so can be used to make amaretti,
or in brownies: “You get a shiny
top and a fudgy middle, which
most egg-free brownies lack.”
How do you avoid a grey ring around a boiled yolk? A reminder of sorry-looking salads of the past, that layer is ferrous sulphide — harmless if not pretty. It’s where the sulphur in the white (responsible for the eggy whiff) reacts with iron in the yolk. It happens when the egg is overcooked or kept hot after boiling — so cool it quickly.
What’s that gross blood spot?
It’s just that — a spot of blood,
left in the yolk or white after
a tiny capillary in the hen
ruptures when the egg is
formed. They’re quite common,
Allen says, but safe to eat.
Producers try to identify (and
discard) eggs with blood spots
by candling them — shining a
bright light, originally a candle,
onto the egg. But they’re harder
to spot in brown eggs and
“one or two still get through”.
Brown, white or grey spots,
known as “meat spots”, are
small bits of tissue and similarly
harmless (though vegetarians
might not think so). They’re
not embryos, as is sometimes
thought. But eating an egg with
an embryo in it is a thing in
the Philippines, where a balut
is a delicacy. It’s a fertilised,
partially incubated duck egg,
boiled and served in vinegar,
sometimes with embryonic
beak, feathers and bones.
What’s that film between shell
and egg? Can you eat it?
It’s actually two films: the outer
and inner shell membranes.
They help hold the egg
together, even if the shell gets
a tiny crack; they stop bacteria
and fungi getting in; and in a
fertilised egg they help regulate
gas exchange (oxygen in, carbon
dioxide out). As for eating them,
you can, but the fibrous texture
means you might not want to.
How do you grow cress in
an eggshell?
Slice the top third off an egg,
then tip the yolk and white
into a bowl to eat later. Wash
out the shell and leave it to dry,
then — most importantly —
draw a funny face on it. Put it in
an eggcup or empty egg box,
squeeze most of the water out
of some wet cotton wool, then
put that in the shell. Sprinkle
with cress seeds (find them in
supermarkets or garden centres)
and leave in a warm, light place
such as a windowsill. The seeds
should germinate in two to
three days and be harvestable
in one to two weeks. Don’t use
the egg from day one for your
egg and cress sarnies.
What came first — the
chicken or the egg?
Time to pit the evolutionary
biologists against the
philosophers. The former
would argue that, after
thousands of years of selective
breeding from the red
junglefowl, what we would
recognise as the first chicken
would have been slightly
genetically different from the
bird that laid the egg it hatched
from. Therefore the answer is
the egg. The philosopher might
say it depends on how you
define a chicken egg. If you
mean an egg laid by a chicken,
rather than containing an
embryonic one, the answer
is the chicken n
S
ally Gunnell is best
known as the athlete
who hurdled her way
to gold medal glory in
the early 1990s. She is
still the only woman to
have simultaneously
held the Olympic,
World, European
and Commonwealth
400m hurdles titles.
So it’s hard to imagine her
worrying about her weight or
feeling so anxious she can’t drive.
Gunnell retired from
competition in 1997 aged 31 but
remained active, fitting in the
London Marathon and Great
North Run around TV work
and speaking gigs. Then, in
her forties, came her biggest
hurdle to date: perimenopause.
“I put on over a stone but
cardio and cutting out bread no
longer worked,” she says. “And
I was anxious. One minute I was
talking on stage, the next I wasn’t
even sure I could get in the car.”
Now 59, she has researched age-related conditions including osteoporosis, which affects one in three women over 50, and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass), which can hit even earlier.
To pass that knowledge on,
in 2024 she launched a fitness
coaching programme. Aimed
what’s achievable and stick to it”
at women in their forties, fifties and beyond (the “power age”, she says) who may not have exercised for years if at all, it helps them build the strength, stamina and self-belief to better enjoy later life. “It’s no longer about performance but longevity,” Gunnell says.
Just move Not sure where to begin? Whether it’s walking an extra 1,000 steps each day to increase stamina, standing on one leg
At home in West Sussex. Right: winning gold at the Barcelona Olympics, 1992
while brushing your teeth
to improve your balance, or
doing 20 minutes of squats or
push-ups against the kitchen
work surface a couple of times
a week, the key thing is to just
get your body moving, Gunnell
says, even if you have aches
and pains. “If you have a dodgy
back, knees or shoulders, that’s
a reason to build up strength
in those muscles,” she says.
Find your “why” Motivation doesn’t just come from shouty drill instructors. “To get healthy you need a
‘why’,” Gunnell says. “It might
be about wearing a certain pair
of trousers or trampolining
with your grandchildren.
Start with that as part of your
mindset.” Her “why” was once
about training to break records.
“Now I train to be fit for life.”
Make exercise fit your routine
“People think they’ve got to
find an hour to exercise, which
can be impossible,” she says.
So make it easy and remove
obstacles, however small. “If
having to drive to the gym puts
you off, consider exercising at
home.” Two 30 to 40-minute
workouts a week is ideal, she
says, “but if you can’t manage
that, can you do 20 minutes?
Find what’s achievable and
stick to it.” And plan: “Having a
routine is like building in some
accountability to your week.”
Eat enough
It can sound counterintuitive,
but if you want to lose weight,
cutting down on food isn’t the
answer. The biggest change
Gunnell made since she put
on weight in midlife was to eat
plenty, in regular meals. “I’d
been missing breakfast and not
eating healthily, then trying to
do cardio, which messed up my
metabolism,” she says. Skipping
meals can slow your metabolism
and the body’s ability to burn
calories — as can declining
oestrogen levels in menopause.
PAUL STUART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, SHUTTERSTOCK
Now she eats more fibre, wholefoods and protein, which help her stay fuller for longer. In place of pasta she eats potatoes, which are good for bone density
and muscle mass. Breakfast might be oats and berries followed by a protein shake if she has worked out; lunch could be poached eggs on toast with smoked salmon. Alcohol is now an occasional treat, albeit a non-negotiable on holiday.
Don’t think it’s all or nothing
“I hear this all the time,”
Gunnell says. “People say, ‘I’ve
missed a workout and eaten
rubbish, so I’m not going to
carry on now — I’ve ruined
the week.” But it doesn’t have
to be so black and white.
She recommends using a
traffic light analogy: green days
(when you’ve eaten well and
exercised), amber days (when
looking after yourself seems
a struggle) and red days (when
you don’t want to get off the
sofa). The key, she says, is to take
small steps to bump it up from
red to amber, or amber to green
— with a walk, a short workout
or a healthy dinner. “We can’t
always feel our best, but we can
navigate our way back up.”
Every little (walk) counts
The most important thing
you can do for your long-term
health right now? Walk. “I see
people who exercise in the
morning before work, then sit at
their desk until 6pm — that’s a
lot of sedentary time. So get up
and make a coffee, use the loo
on a different floor, do a lap of
the garden. It’s brilliant for
your mental health, controlling
weight and getting mobile.”
Even Olympians have days off
Gunnell favours short workouts
over the hour-long runs she
once did. For her, that’s three
weights sessions a week, two
or three 20-minute runs and
exercise bike sessions where
she does 30 seconds on, 30
seconds off. But rest is just as
important. “I always have one
day off a week, two if I need it.”
And what about holidays?
Yes, pause your routine, she
says, but you can still fit in some
healthier choices. “Maybe fruit
for breakfast instead of a fry-up,
a walk on the beach — and then
you can enjoy your evening.” n
By Claire Cohen.
lifeshurdle.com/coaching
easy home workout
This can be done with no equipment — in the kitchen,
the garden or bedroom, wherever you have space.
Repeat these five sets of exercises two or three times
and rest for a minute or two in between, as you need.
2 Press-ups x 10
Get into a high plank,
hands just wider than
your shoulders and feet
hip-width apart. With upper
arms at 45 degrees to your
sides, lower your body so your chest almost touches
the floor. Brace your core,
then return to the plank.
4 Bicycle crunches x 20 Lie flat on your back with
your hands behind your head. Bring your legs up, knees bent at right angles.
Lift your shoulder blades
and alternate touching
one elbow to the opposite
bent knee, extending the
other leg as you go.
1 Squats x 10 With your feet just wider
1 Exercise name Box copy reg no indent centred Cilis autaturia pa prerum liqui ut hitatas eribus
than shoulder-distance apart and turned slightly out, squat down, arms out
in front for balance. Your
idus comnis aut quatem. Et voluptas des
knees should move over your toes but not beyond.
accus ne remolor estemoluptur autatur
simet fuga. Borum iusam dolupta
Stand, squeezing your
glutes at the top.
3 Triceps dips x 10 Sit on a knee-height chair,
step or bed with legs out
in front and hands gripping
the edge shoulder-width apart. Slide off and, chest
up, lower your body until
your elbows are at right angles. Press through your heels to return to the start.
5 Mountain climbers x 20 From a high plank position, with your back straight and your hands underneath your
shoulders, fingers facing
forward, bring one knee
to your chest, kick it back
out and then repeat with the other knee. Try to keep your torso still. And breathe!
O
AND JEREMY CLARKSON AT THETIMES.COM/
DRIVING
VOLVO ES90
ver the years there
have been a great
many stupid cars,
and usually they were
French. Renault gave
us the Sport Spider,
which had no
windscreen. This
was an issue if you
exceeded 11mph in it.
Citroën gave us the C3
Pluriel, which had a detachable
roof but nowhere in the car to
store the roof arches. You took
them off, then had to leave them
where you were. And then there
was the Citroën Helicron, which
l Jeremy Clarkson
but it’s the stupidest car I’ve driven
was propelled by an actual propeller. You wouldn’t want to be run over by one, that’s for sure.
However, the stupidest car I’ve driven is not French. It’s Swedish. It’s the new Volvo ES90 and it’s so annoying, even my eyebrows became fed up with it. And this is a shame because in many ways it’s an absolute delight.
Let’s start with the boring stuff. You can have a single motor, rear-wheel-drive version that, for the premium Ultra trim I tested, has a range of about 400 miles. Or you can have a twin motor with all-wheel drive that can apparently go 433 miles before the battery needs juice. As you will discover, I am unable to confirm any of this.
The rear motor has a magnet while the one at the front is asynchronous and doesn’t.
I don’t know what that means.
But I can tell you the brain
used to control everything is
a dual Nvidia Drive AGX Orin
processor, capable of doing 508
trillion calculations a second.
Which seems like overkill to
me. It’s a car, not a starship. Of
more interest perhaps is that if
you find the right charger you
can give the ES90 186 miles of
range in ten minutes. Right.
That’s the eco snorefest over,
let’s get back to the car.
It’s not very gainly to behold — it’s like a big hatchback that’s been at the pies — but when you step inside all is forgiven. God, it’s nice in there. The fabrics and colour choices are sublime and legroom, even in the back, is measurable in acres. I can think of nowhere I’d rather sit.
route map with much dopamine.
But that’s OK because it’s also
a Volvo. In the course of history
Volvo has occasionally made a
sporty car. There was the P1800,
which was aimed at Roger
Moore, and the T5, which ran
amok in the British Touring Car
Championship back in the
Nineties. Mostly, though,
Volvos are about sensibleness
and safety, and getting a
wardrobe in the boot, not 5G
in the bends and acceleration
so vivid your face comes off.
I therefore wasn’t expecting
much excitement from the
ES90 and I didn’t get any. What
I did get was an extraordinary
amount of silence. I know
people say electric cars are quiet
but that’s nonsense. Eighty per
cent of the noise generated by
a car comes from the tyres.
However, the Michelin Primacy
of nowhere the doors wouldn’t open. I had to get a lift home
5 Energy tyres fitted to the
Volvo seem to be able to go
about their business as if
they’re made from cotton wool.
So, you are sitting in what feels like a designer hotel’s reception area, being propelled along in near silence, and the suspension is absorbing all the bumps beautifully and it’s all so wondrous that I was willing to conclude that if you’re not interested in cars and just want something to move you about, the ES90 may be the answer.
Just one little niggle. The steering wheel was in the wrong place. Nothing unusual about that. I never see the people who deliver the test cars to my house
Volvo ES90 Single Motor Ultra
1,549mm
5,000mm 2,120mm
Powertrain Electric motor, 92kWh battery Power 338bhp
Torque 354 lb ft Acceleration 0-62mph: 6.6sec Top speed
112mph Range Up to 398 miles CO2 0g/km Weight 2,410kg
Price £77,260 Release date On sale now
Jeremy’s rating
but I have to assume they are all either chimpanzees or T. rexes as the driving position when I first get in is always weird.
So no big deal with the wheel. I’d simply adjust it. But there was no obvious way of doing this, so eventually I pushed a promising-looking button on the giant infotainment screen and asked, in my best RP, how to move the wheel. An American woman then said there was a lever (she pronounced it wrong) under the steering column. But there wasn’t, so I pulled over and called the man from Volvo, who said that I had to go into the giant iPad and into the settings and into the menu and
into a submenu where I would find a way of telling the up and down buttons on the steering wheel to adjust the wheel.
This worked. But it meant
that if I wanted those up and
down buttons to do something
else, like adjust the volume
of the stereo, I had to go back
into the car’s vast brain and
reprogramme it. And if I tried
this, I got a message on the dash
“You seem to be distracted”.
Yes, and the reason I’m effing
distracted is because you haven’t
fitted a bloody volume knob.
In a proper car, with knobs and buttons, you can use a sense of touch to find what you’re looking for, but with a screen, you have to look at it to find the feature you want. And if you do that in the Volvo, it shouts at you. I hate screens in cars and they especially don’t work in Britain or Cyprus or Japan, where we drive on the correct side of the road, so we have to use our left hands, which is not natural for most people.
Soon things became worse.
With the ES90 you get no key
as such, just a credit card and
a little black box, and if they
are about your person the car
opens and turns itself on as
you walk up to it. Hmm.
I wonder, has the man at Volvo
who designed this system ever
stayed in a hotel? Because
I have and that’s how I know
that credit card keys are about
as reliable as a 1972 Austin.
Time and again I’ve gone up
17 floors and along a 500-yard
corridor with a heavy bag and
then had to go all the way back
to reception because the key
didn’t work.
Same with the Volvo. I came out of a meeting in the middle of nowhere and the doors wouldn’t open. There’s no back-up key. You have to get a lift home with someone else and summon a man, which is fine if you’re me because he arrived quickly and brought the car to my house, saying he’d reprogrammed its brain and I now had to actually swipe the card on the door handle to gain entry.
That night I gave the new
system a try and it took 14
attempts to get in. And when
I finally got the door to open
and settled into that lovely seat,
a message on the dash said “No
key detected”. I gave up n
Our experts answer your questions
Q I’ve been fined £1,407
for driving a hire car in a
restricted traffic zone in
Dubrovnik, Croatia. The
hire company paid the fine
on my behalf and passed
the full amount on to me.
Dubrovnik authorities
apply a much higher
charge to companies and
car hire firms pass this on
to customers. What can
I do? JC, Congleton
A It’s fair enough that
penalties for traffic
violations should be paid
by the driver or hirer,
but these breaches
shouldn’t be used as an
opportunity to hugely
inflate the fee.
The issue here is you
knew nothing until £1,407
was deducted from your
credit card without your
knowledge or consent.
This is entirely unjust.
However, car hire contracts
often contain clauses
allowing companies to
settle fines and then
recover the money directly
from customers.
My advice is to lodge
a formal complaint to the
European Consumer Centre
Croatia and the Croatian
Ministry of Economy’s
consumer protection
department. You should
also complain to the hire
company and ask for copies
of the original notice, the
court documentation and
the contractual clause
relied upon n
Nick Freeman, motoring
lawyer aka Mr Loophole
Send questions to carclinic @sunday-times.co.uk
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Shetland feels less like the end of Britain and more like the beginning of somewhere else. Shaped by its Norse heritage, this island archipelago off ers rugged coastlines, deserted beaches and working crofts. Autumn is the perfect time to visit to spot otters along the shoreline, watch migratory birds and glimpse the Northern Lights.
One lucky reader will win an unforgettable autumn break for two. The prize includes a two-night stay at the historic Busta House Hotel, an authentic croft tour at West Lynne Croft, a guided tour of the spectacular Unst Sky Trail with Wild Skies Shetland, and a half-day private tour with James Tait of Island Trails. Come for the wild beauty and stay for a place unlike anywhere else in the UK.
To enter visit thebestofl iving.com/win/shetland_july26/
the experience of a fi ve-star stay
The most memorable holidays are defi ned by how they make you feel: relaxed, reconnected and completely at ease.
In Cornwall, those feelings come naturally, through unhurried time together, space to unwind and the quiet magic of the landscape.
At the heart of every stay is the place you call home. At Cornish Gems, each holiday property is handpicked for its design, setting and ability to feel worlds away from the everyday. From architect-designed coastal
For a luxury holiday that leaves you in a better place, visit cornishgems.com/escape or call 01872 241241.
retreats to secluded countryside sanctuaries, each off ers the freedom and privacy of a luxury home, elevated by a thoughtful fi ve-star service.
A dedicated Guest Experience team can help shape a stay that feels truly your own, from private chefs and spa treatments to yacht charters and surf lessons. Whether you are gathering family, escaping as a couple or celebrating a special occasion, every Cornish Gems holiday off ers a true sense of escape while still feeling eff ortlessly like home.
Escape to the Gstaad Palace and enjoy refi ned hospitality, a world of culinary delights, Alpine experiences and breathtaking mountain scenery.
Discover summer at its fi nest.
Book your stay at palace.ch
Silk Road with Chris Aslan
Accept the cold and winter rewards you with Uzbekistan’s Silk Road sites at their quietest. Accompanied by Chris Aslan, spend 12 days exploring Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, with more space to wander and absorb centuries of history at a gentler pace.
Chris has spent many years living in Khiva, and this journey shines a light on Uzbekistan’s living traditions as well as its celebrated architecture. Drawing on his local knowledge and longstanding friendships, he provides a level of insight and access rarely found on a conventional tour.
Along the way, meet paper makers,
Visit steppestravel.com, call 01285 402195
Our escorted cultural tours are meticulously curated and led by a dedicated team based across Italy and the UK. Designed with a gentle pace, each itinerary emphasizes exclusive private access, client comfort, and authentic local hospitality. We welcome you as friends, ensuring an intimate and enriching experience from start to fi nish.
Our routes span Europe’s fi nest cultural landscapes, inviting you to discover the heritage, art, and hidden histories of Italy, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Portugal, Spain, and Germany. By managing every detail internally, we off er dependable quality and peace of mind. Whether exploring historic
Discover your next journey at jameshilltravels.com
silk weavers, embroiderers and miniature painters, browse local bazaars and gain an understanding of the crafts that have fl ourished along the Silk Road for centuries. It is also a chance to bring home Christmas gifts with real provenance, from textiles and ceramics to mountain honey and silk scarves.
Travel in seasonal comfort with thoughtfully selected accommodation, refi ned regional dining, and seamless private transport arranged throughout the itinerary.
See the world better. For more information, scan the QR code below.
architecture or enjoying regional cuisine, our journeys provide a hassle-free way to experience the continent’s diverse traditions.
To explore our collection of upcoming itineraries or secure your placement on our next departure, visit the website for more info.
Harrison Chambers of Distinction is a boutique Belfast townhouse designed for discerning travellers. Known for its cultural events, the hotel invites you to check in this autumn not as a guest, but as a suspect. Join our detective and a cast of suspicious characters to solve a thrilling 1920s crime.
Reserve your stay at chambersofdistinction.com
South Atlantic
Four hundred miles off South America’s southeastern tip lies the Falkland Islands, an untouched archipelago of more than 700 islands. Defi ned by vast open spaces, dramatic coastlines and extraordinary wildlife, the islands off er a rare opportunity to experience a landscape virtually unchanged by modern development.
For wildlife enthusiasts, this is a world- class destination. More than 220 bird species have been recorded across the archipelago,
Visit falklandislands.com
The Yan at Broadrayne is a family-run bistro-with-beds outside Grasmere, nestled beneath the fells. This converted sheep farm off ers characterful accommodation for couples, families and groups. Walk straight from the door to Helm Crag, Helvellyn or the Coast to Coast trail, then return for relaxed Cumbrian cooking and a super-king bed. Peaceful and unfussy, The Yan is featured in The Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants, proving exceptional food and muddy boots belong together.
Book a two-night stay in a suite between 28 October and 3 November to enjoy a complimentary Murder Mystery experience with dinner.
Check out our webpage for similar off ers.
including fi ve species of penguin and approximately 70 per cent of the global black- browed albatross population. From windswept cliff s and off shore islands to sheltered sandy beaches and rocky outcrops, the environment supports a remarkable variety of birdlife.
Whether arriving by sea or travelling between the islands by small aircraft, visitors are continually reminded of the scale, beauty and absolute remoteness of the region. Combining rich history and breathtaking landscapes, the islands remain one of the South Atlantic’s most rewarding destinations.
Hidden within an 850-acre private estate in the Cotswolds, just 90 minutes from London, The Lakes by YOO off ers a secluded sanctuary of lakes, woodland and open meadows. This is a place where summer slows down, wake to still waters, morning swims become long lunches, and a weekend stretches into something far more restorative.
Whether you are planning an escape as a couple, gathering your family for quality time, or bringing close friends together, you can choose from our selection of elegant hotel rooms, contemporary suites, secluded
Book direct for exclusive summer off ers at thelakesbyyoo.com
lakeside cabins, and signature architect- designed homes. Each accommodation option is thoughtfully positioned to harmonise with the estate’s beautiful natural surroundings.
Days here can be spent exploring woodland trails, unwinding in the spa or dining beside the water. Beyond the gates, the timeless
villages of the Cotswolds await. Alternatively, you can simply choose to do very little at all. True luxury is not about a packed itinerary; it is about having the time to enjoy the peace.
This summer, stay a little longer and experience everything The Lakes by YOO has to off er, with exclusive off ers available for a limited time. Scan the QR code to discover exclusive summer off ers and book your stay at The Lakes by YOO.
G
amble grew up in
Wimbledon and started
doing stand-up while at
Durham University
studying philosophy. He
made his solo debut at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
in 2014 and became a regular
panellist on Mock the Week
in 2015. Since 2018 he has
co-hosted the Off Menu
podcast with James Acaster
and also fronts The Traitors:
Uncloaked and Unacceptable
on TLC. He lives in London
with his wife, Charlie.
I wake up about 8am as long as
I wear the thickest sleep mask to
block out the sunlight, because
my wife likes the curtains wide
open. My cat also shouts at me
wanting food — it’s a new
miaow that sounds like him
saying hello, which is terrifying.
If I’m feeling productive, I’ll
shower and brush teeth first.
Otherwise it’s dressing gown
on, feed cat, make a three-pod
coffee and Wordle. I’ve not
been having breakfast recently
because I’m type 1 diabetic.
I was diagnosed when I was 13.
Quite often I’ll have “dawn
phenomenon”, where for no
reason my blood glucose levels
climb and need to be brought
back down before I eat. It’s like
an extra 24-hour job controlling
it. If I do have breakfast it will
be egg-based, cooked by me.
My wife is still asleep as she’s in
the world of independent
professional wrestling and
plays in three bands. She’s very
much part of the night-time
economy.
I was doing CrossFit about four mornings a week but I’ve had a frozen shoulder for six months, so instead I castigate myself about not exercising.
Comedian and presenter, 40
TV gives comics legitimacy,
so panel shows are important for
anyone starting in comedy. I’ve
always wanted to host one, so
doing Unacceptable is exciting.
I’m picked up in the morning,
taken to Riverside Studios in
Hammersmith and we record
two shows. We talk through the
script and go through jokes.
Richard Ayoade and Joanne
McNally are team captains and
they make me scream laughing.
I was a little shit as a kid and
always trying to be funny —
you could say over-coddled and
allowed to get away with as much
as I wanted. I met Nish Kumar
and Tom Neenan at Durham
University. We should have
been focusing on our courses
but we wrote together every
Best advice I’ve been given
From Heston Blumenthal:
when cooking a steak, flip
it over every 30 seconds
for the first two minutes
Best advice I’d give
When cooking a steak, flip
it over every 30 seconds
for the first two minutes
What I wish I’d known
It doesn’t really matter
what you do early on in
your career, you are invisible
for the first five years
day and worked hard to make
comedy our jobs, and I still
hang out with Nish a lot.
For Off Menu with James Acaster we might record ten episodes in two weeks rather than one a week. Our friendship means more to us than our working relationship, which ironically helps our working relationship. James can be genuinely odd and some guests look to me to translate him, which always makes me laugh. We’ve had some incredible people on. I was starstruck by Robert De Niro until he refused to answer any of our questions.
For lunch I’m a Farmer J guy
— it feels indulgent but
healthy. Or a posh salad. I’m not
often at home for lunch but if
I am, I’m obsessed with M&S’s
coronation chicken flatties.
I’m going on tour again next
year and it’s such an honour to
talk absolute nonsense and get
paid for it. Hosting Traitors:
Uncloaked is the golden ticket.
I go up to Scotland while it’s
filmed and interview
contestants when they come
out. Then we film again in
London when we’ve seen the
edits and chat to people more in
depth. I’ve seen how difficult
the game is, so am very happy
not competing and failing.
I’m out so much I just want to
be at home on evenings off. In
the summer my dream is to fire
up the barbecue — it’s pure
happiness when the coals are lit.
My wife has caught me staring
into the fire before, I think it
worries her. I’ll get a huge steak
but can’t waste the flame, so I’ll
chuck on sausages, kebabs, a
lettuce. It’s like catering for a
wedding even though it’s just
me and my wife. If it’s a boys’
night in — me and the cat — I’ll
ask my horror film WhatsApp
group what I should be
watching, then put my phone
on the other side of the room.
I try to go to bed at midnight.
Male skincare is a rabbit hole
— I buy things with fancy
names and I look just the same.
I’ll glance at the book next to
the bed and not read it, then go
on YouTube. Then I fall asleep
infuriatingly fast. Sleeping is
one of my top skills n
Interview by Rachel Corcoran
ROB PARFITT
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Alexandra Cameron, Shutterstock
clever ARE YOUR CLOTHES?
Reversible jackets, multiwear coats and skirts that double as dresses are swiftly becoming the secret arsenal of the wardrobes of the most fashionable people you know. This modern take on multiwear fashion feels a long way from utilitarian hiking trousers that zip of into shorts, but the basic functionality of these “clever clothes” remains the same: one item, more than one way to wear it. It’s customisable, self-expressive and the perfect way to add some lair to a capsule wardrobe.
The clever clothes movement started with Susmies, an independent fashion brand from Barcelona that went viral among Gen Z in 2024 for its bold reversible designs that can be worn as either a strap- less top or a miniskirt.
Then there’s Damson Madder, the uniform of many a London millennial, which has an outerwear collection made up almost entirely of reversible coats and jackets with bold tartan, gingham and polka-dot prints on one side and block colours on the other, as well as a full-length trench coat that can be unbut- toned halfway down to turn it into a cropped jacket. And for those seeking to strike the deli- cate balance between loud and quiet luxury, Burberry and Fendi ofer reversible jackets with signature check and bold logo print, respectively, on one side and plain block colours on the other.
“Reversibility is something that extends the life of a garment,” says Emma Hill, the founder of Damson Madder. “We know outerwear can be a real investment piece, and so part of the intention was also to improve on the value of the garment — essentially getting two coats for the price of one.” Indeed, the brand’s bestselling Jerry reversible cropped trench, which launched last summer, has barely been back in stock since (at one point it had a waiting list of 65,000). This summer the brand released three evolutions of its Lilo dress, a loaty smock that can also be styled as a skirt.
Above Convertible maxiskirt, £118, freepeople.com. Right Reversible tops, £51 each, and reversible top/skirts, £51 each, susmies.com. Far right Multiwear
A couple of weeks ago I attended a speed dating event in Hackney. I was surprised. It was cool — there were skinny eyebrows and mullets. The guys were hot and interesting, working in anything from the charity sector to modelling. You’d get ive minutes with each one, after which you’d tick “yes” or “no” to whether you’d want to see them again.
“Have any of the guys got in contact with you yet?” messaged Katy, one of the girls from the event, the next day. “I would be up for dating a couple of them but I want them to make the irst move.” I told her I’d not heard anything either.
So in the absence of a message, over the next few days I spent time thinking of good opening lines to send to each of my matches. I decided they had to be the ones to ask me out, given I’d been the one to initiate the conversation. When none of them did, I broke my rule and asked my favourite of them if he was up for doing something. He responded: “Hey! Sorry for slow reply. I’m rly busy next week and going on a stag do lol. When I’m back should be a bit free?”
“Should be a bit free, question mark.” What am I meant to do with that? The speed dating event conirmed something
Millennial women (I’m 31) grew up being sold this lie that if we were attractive enough, smart enough, pretty enough, we could ind love. But that’s not the case any more. It was always suggested that women can get whoever they want, and men are competing for the girl. You see it in rom-coms. OF LOVE
single women have been noticing for a while. It wasn’t just that the dating climate is sluggish, or that the amount of options available on apps have made people disposable to each other, though those things are still at play here. It’s that women seem to be the only ones with any appetite for dating.
COU TURE
My irst mistake is to imagine I’m going to Paris to see fashion shows. “No, these are art exhibitions. You’re going to the Fashion Biennale.” I’m talking to Jordan Roth, the Tony - winning theatre producer and proliic American buyer who expects to purchase pieces from the shows. My next mistake is to assume this means that for Roth it’s a shopping trip.
“Oh no, I’m going to experience an extraordinary group of artists’ collections, and drink in the art, and see where that bounces of me and where I am at this moment. I want to have a personal journey of emotions and ideas. If you start to use the vocabulary of art rather than clothing,” he patiently explains, “it will all become clear.”
Having never been to any kind of fashion show, I need all the help I can get to make sense of Haute Couture Week, a foreign world as alien to me as the moon. I’d pictured Parisian grandes dames in pearls, but my irst show is by a designer
outits made from balloons: what did Decca Aitkenhead
called Robert Wun, a young newcomer to couture who has chosen for his venue a kind of space-age metallic dome. We’re seated in a circle around a large luminous pool of turquoise light, to a soundtrack that sounds like whales ighting in outer space. The crowd is mostly young and black- clad, and mills about in the dark until the arrivals of Cardi B, Maura Higgins and a Chinese actress called Fan Bingbing cause a minor sensation. Dressed in head-to-toe Wun, mobbed by photographers, each poses in the ring like a prize bull before joining Roth in the seating section reserved for buyers. Half an hour after it was due to start — which appar- ently counts as on time; nothing less than an hour behind schedule is late — the show begins.
The vocabulary of clothing is indeed hopelessly inade- quate to describe what we see. Some pieces consist largely of balloons, others involve bubble space helmets, some
feature horns. They are beautiful, beguiling and completely bewildering. The only man I can think of who could plau- sibly pull of the menswear would be Lil Nas X at the Met Gala, which was where Wun made his name.
When the designer and I spoke a few days before the show, I’d tried to understand why he makes clothes very few people in the world would wear. Beyoncé, Naomi Osaka and Roth have showcased his creations at the Met Gala, and he has dressed Adele, Björk and the Royal Ballet, but Wun’s couture is pretty out there even by their standards. Are his collections commercially viable, or do they function as a loss-leading shop window for his collaborations with brands like L’Oréal, Swarovski and the Hunger Games franchise?
“It is a very viable thing for us,” he says. “You might not be the biggest giant like H&M or Zara, but you have an impact on culture, you’re leading a conversation. Couture is the only safe haven to safeguard what the designer wants to do. It’s something that is not about how much we can sell in a short amount of time, but something of substance, something of value, something for history.”
The phrase “haute couture” was coined more than 100 years ago, but its meaning to me is as generic as, say, “avant- garde”, so it’s a surprise to learn that it is legally protected, highly codiied and strictly governed by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode in Paris. Founded in 1868, the federation stipulates that a couture house must create made- to-order garments for private clients, maintain an atelier in Paris with at least 15 full-time staf, employ a minimum of 20 full-time technical workers in its workshops and present a collection of at least 50 original designs twice a year at Paris Haute Couture Week. Even then, haute couture status is awarded on an invitation-only basis by a commission appointed by the French Ministry of Industry.
Technically speaking anyone can buy couture, but as a piece can cost as much as £250,000, there are fewer than 2,000 regular buyers in the world. Zoia Krasicki von Siecin, 31, began buying three years ago and now owns about 20 pieces, all stored in a specialist climate- controlled archive in London. “For me it’s a love of the craft and the vocation of couture. I never really come to shows with an occasion in mind. I prefer to buy what I love and what takes me in the moment. Thinking about the occasion when I’ll wear it comes afterwards.”
Buyers can negotiate “regional exclusivity” for a piece, to ensure they are the only one to own it in the whole of Europe, say, or the Middle East. For this designers charge an extra 10 to 15 per cent, but the matter of pricing is swathed in so much mystery that this is the only inancial fact I manage to glean. No prices are stated, and to even mention money appears to be infra dig. “Only the house and my assistant know what I pay,” Krasicki von Siecin says, sounding faintly shocked I’d asked.
There is plainly a lot of money in the room for Elie Saab’s show. The Lebanese designer’s collection is pure red carpet meets Great Gatsby glamour, a dizzying proces- sion of gowns I would kill to wear. It’s easy to see why the world’s 0.0001 per cent want them. After only a few minutes, though, they somehow begin to blur, becoming an oddly forgettable carousel of gorgeousness. Although exquisitely cut and intricately detailed, by the end they remind me of the gaudy prom dresses in the rag trade shop windows on Fonthill Road in Finsbury Park.
I start to see what Roth meant by “a personal journey of emotions” because the hall seems to be packed with young
It was the latest example of a seemingly soaring mid-range British label crushed between the luxury brands and the high street. Indeed, in the past two years numerous high-proile independents, including Susie Cave’s The Vampire’s Wife and Samantha Cameron’s Ceinn, have collapsed. “Fashion is really tough,” Webb says with a sigh. “You launch, go sky high, but you’ll always crash back down. You’d probably make more money sitting there doing nothing. A mum came up to me yesterday wearing one of my chevron tops. She said, ‘Somebody said you were giving up. Why would you do that? We all love it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but there needs to be so many of you loving it to make it work.’”
tough’
Like so many, Webb, 51, was defeated by a host of factors, including tiny proit margins, cashlow issues and retailers who demanded four annual collections. “I look at lots of brands and think, you’ve got a rich husband.”
Yet the warm and funny Webb, today sitting in her publicist’s west London oices, is a survivor who is already rein- venting herself as a raunchy novelist. Her irst book, No Regrets, published in 2020,
with the singer Dannii Minogue (who was a fan of her bags) and then under her own name. “I’m not a designer like Stella [Mc Cartney] or Alice [Temperley]. I don’t even know how to make a dress or choose a fabric, but I went all-in.” What followed was “an amazing few years. We dressed incred- ible people. We were stocked all over the world. But inancially we were never on the front foot.”
Highlights included dressing Miranda Kerr in a yellow one-shoulder Project D look for a Victoria’s Secret launch and Kate Middleton wearing the label’s zip-up shirtdress during a tour of the South Paciic.
Webb also collaborated with Pippa Middleton on a tea dress and scarf in aid of the British Heart Foundation, while her older sister wore several more of Webb’s designs, including one of her trademark chevron pussy-bow blouses for the launch of her early years survey in 2020.
“Seeing that, I turned to my husband and said, ‘I think I might inally make money.’ There’s no greater endorsement than Kate wearing your clothes. It’s easy to think it’ll be the making of you. But it’s not. Customers buy what she wore but they don’t return for more.”
After Covid the inal blow was an unex- pected tax bill. The business folded. To use her own name on further projects Webb had to pay about £10,000. “It has been a stomach punch.”
Characteristically, Webb is getting straight back on the horse. A lifelong dream of writing romantic iction was realised after she was approached by a publisher, who told her, “You’ve got good chat, you tell good stories,” and gave her a two-book deal. “My mum always said, ‘Never say no,’ so I did it, although writing a book is much harder than I thought.”
Novel-writing aside, this year Webb is also launching a Substack and YouTube channel, Tabitha Talks, “talking to people about love”. She has created a scarf for the beauty brand Prai and a tiger-print sofa for the British furniture company Boura & White.
“I can go on and do great things but in collaboration,” she says. “Working alone was too tough. What has happened has been gutting but I feel weirdly pumped about moving forward.” ■
Playing the Field by Tabitha Webb
(HarperCollins £9.99) is published on
Thursday. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.
co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard
P&P on online orders over £25. Special
discount available for Times+ members
You’re sitting by the water’s edge, evening sun is relecting across the surface, there’s live music playing and in your hand a spritzer drips with condensation. No, this isn’t a balmy evening in Venice, this is summer on the Regent’s Canal. Admittedly, you’re more likely to spot a tinny loating by than a gondola, but the capital’s answer to the Grand
On the Continent canals have long been thriving cultural hubs. In Copenhagen it’s where the lagship stores of the Scandi interior design giants have dropped anchor, while in Paris the Canal Saint Martin network of wrought- iron footbridges (its oldest was renamed Passerelle Jane Birkin last year) proves a siren call to the city’s younger artsy crowd. By day you can catch Parisians lolling by the waterfront, by night dining along the towpaths at a host of lively eateries.
Now we’re catching up over here. Read on for the top canal spots to seek out this summer.
GERALDINE BRUNEEL RURALidyll
WORDS OLIVIA LIDBURY
Portrait: Julie Lannez. Interiors: Geraldine Bruneel for Studio Farniente
I thought I’d feel empowered giving birth. That I’d be submerged in water, deeply focused on my breath, as my baby made their way into the world. Of course, I knew labour rarely went exactly to plan. But as a producer and novelist I’m used to visual- ising an outcome and then making it happen. And so, as I optimistically ticked the low-intervention preferences, I didn’t think my experience would be so wildly diferent to my expectations.
I didn’t think that two weeks past my due date, after multiple failed sweeps, I’d be induced and given drugs to dilate. Or that my contractions would arrive with such unrelenting force that I’d be told to brace for an imminent labour. I didn’t think that 30 hours later, after three changes of midwife, I’d still be experiencing back-to-back contrac- tions, while huing so much gas and air that I’d hallucinate my son’s arrival. I thought I’d be present, not necessarily in control, but surrendering to the moment.
However, somewhere between vomiting into my lap as the epidural needle was inserted and watching the doctor perform an episiotomy, I felt defeated, like my body was no longer my own. Until, of course, my son was placed on my chest and time truly stopped. I’ll never forget his big, dark eyes, staring up at me. Or his ingers stretching out like a tree frog, reaching for me. In that moment nothing hurt, and nothing mattered, except for him.
The moment was cut short when my husband was ordered to hit the emergency button. More doctors rushed in as my son was taken from me. I looked down at the bloody sheets — 1.7 litres of blood, as I would later come to learn. What a mess, I remember thinking. But at least my baby was safe.
When I came to, the room was quiet, and my husband was cradling our son. A nurse explained the postpartum haemorrhage and the IV drip beside me. After removing my catheter, she eased me up to see if I could walk. Wobbling across the room, I thought the worst had to be behind us. I was wrong. Our son was underweight and unable to hold down milk. After we spotted blood in his vomit, he was taken into special care and placed in an incubator.
What followed was ive nights on a swel- tering ward, listening to other people’s babies cry and wondering if, down the corridor, mine
a traumatic birth – until her body told her otherwise
was crying too. I felt utterly helpless as my breasts engorged, not wanting to bother the overworked nurses managing a lack of beds. When I inally asked for help, a nurse handed me a blue disposable glove illed with warm water to alleviate the pain. Pressing the plastic hand against my swollen nipple, I remember laughing at the absurd image before swiftly crying as its touch made me long to hold my baby even more.
Between broken sleep I haunted the hospital corridors, dragging my aching body between my bed and the room that housed my son in his plastic box. One night I took a wrong turn and found myself in an unfamiliar corridor. I remember looking up at the CCTV screen to see myself, a woman I barely recognised. Her body looked diferent, her face too, like someone had pulled her apart and stitched her back together in a pattern that didn’t quite it. She looked drawn-out and depleted, but there was something else in her eyes. Something animal. Now I recognise this as a ierce determination to get through and mother in what- ever way I could.
And we did get through, my husband, my son and I, with the love and support of family, friends and the hospital staf. It was during a routine home visit that the nurse suggested a birth relection session to process what she described as a traumatic experi- ence. I nodded politely but didn’t think I needed to take up the ofer. Besides, in comparison to many people’s experiences, the word traumatic felt excessive to me, insensitive even.
But despite my determination to box the memories away, something lingered in my bones. Months on, with a happy, healthy son, I noticed how my body gripped at any mention of birth. On TV, in books, knowing a friend’s due date was close, I’d ind myself agitated, often holding back tears that seemed to come from nowhere. Maybe this is par for the course. A deep understanding of the monumental journey mothers take to bring their children into the world. Or maybe it was something that needed to be gently interrogated. With the hope of carrying another child, I decided to try to listen to my body and booked a birth relection session.
The conversation took place over Zoom with a softly spoken midwife who made me feel
instantly at ease. The session was a detailed account of what happened and when; some of it was familiar, much of it new. I cried more than I’d anticipated, feeling a mixture of sadness and relief that, even when things had felt so out of control, the doctors and nurses were recording, monitoring and making decisions that probably saved both my life and my baby’s.
With one in three women in the UK experiencing birth and postpartum trauma, I know there is value in speaking about this. Now, when friends recount their stories, I’m watchful for moments when they minimise their pain. Like the woman I met at soft play who sufered a third-degree tear after her daughter got stuck, or my friend who had to return to hospital multiple times with infected stitches. The tendency to brush over trauma
often comes from not wanting to scare other
women, or the feeling that someone else had it
worse. But with about 30,000 women in the
UK developing PTSD following childbirth, and
53 per cent of women with birth trauma
saying they are less likely to have more chil-
dren, we cannot leave these stories untold.
Now, as I write about my experiences, with a lively toddler kicking a football
against the kitchen cupboard, I am aged 37,
and 19 weeks pregnant with my second
child. My debut novel, The Carrier, has
also made its way into the world. A femi-
nist thriller, it imagines a society where
you can outsource unwanted feelings to
an underclass of women. The irony that
I wrote a novel about the need to
process trauma while struggling to do
exactly this is not lost on me, but as they say, better late than never. And while there is no knowing how my second child will arrive, one thing I will do diferently this time is sit with the feelings that surface postpartum. I’ll listen to my body. With everything that early parenthood demands, it can be easy to deprioritise relection and self- care, but I hope all mothers, however their chil- dren come into the world, are given the time and space to feel the full spectrum of emotions that accompany the experience. Sometimes our
minds might appear to move on, but our bodies deserve the chance to catch up too. ■
The Carrier by Ruth
Newton (Bantam £18.99)
is out now. To order a copy
go to timesbookshop.
co.uk or call 020 3176 2935.
Free UK standard P&P on
online orders over £25
Few things knock your conidence quite
like hair that has started behaving diferently.
Whether it’s thinning, falling out, becoming
more brittle or seemingly changing its
personality altogether, getting to the root
cause is key to inding the right treatment.
And with Google searches for “severe hair
loss female” up more than 5,000 per cent
over the past year, the haircare industry is
responding by turning its attention to
formulas designed for speciic phases of life.
From puberty to postnatal, perimenopause and beyond, the idea is to tailor products to each stage, supporting hair according to what’s happening inside the body. “Hair responds to what’s happening internally,” the hairstylist Paul Edmonds says. “Throughout my career I’ve looked after women from their irst teenage haircut through pregnancy, motherhood and menopause, and every stage brings diferent challenges. Each one deserves a diferent conversation.”
That’s the thinking behind Maze, a new life-stage haircare brand founded by the sisters Maisie and Ella McDowell. “We kept hearing the same stories about postpartum hair loss from friends who felt completely lost about what to do with their hair at that stage,” Maisie says. “We know hormones afect hair in predictable ways, yet most haircare is still sold around single beneits like shine, volume or density. Maze was created to make it easier for women to ind products that support them through these speciic periods of life.”
Michele Ronson at Storm Management, Ella Richards at Models1,
Our hair is constantly moving through four phases: anagen (growth), catagen (transition), telogen (resting) and exogen (shedding). Hormonal changes inluence how long hair remains in each phase, the consultant dermatologist Dr Sharon Belmo says. “Diferent hormones afect hair in diferent ways. Oestrogen prolongs the growing phase, for instance, while thyroid hormones and cortisol can contribute to increased shedding.”
Nyouma Tacheboubet at Established Models
As conversations about hormone health have become more mainstream, we’re paying closer attention to the biological
diferently, when and why? Hannah Coates reports
changes driving everything from our mood to the condition of our skin. It was perhaps only a matter of time before that curiosity extended to our hair too. Here’s what you need to know.
PUBERTY
As androgen levels, including testosterone
and androstenedione, rise during puberty,
they stimulate the sebaceous glands, making
an oilier scalp one of the irst changes felt.
More frequent washing is often needed
to keep excess oil at bay. “I recommend
Davines Rebalancing Shampoo [£26]
because it helps balance oily scalps without
drying out the hair,” Edmonds says. Other
good options include Vichy’s salicylic
acid-infused Dercos Technique Anti-
Dandruf Purifying Shampoo (£17) and
L’Oréal Professionnel Serie Expert Scalp
Advanced Anti-Oiliness Shampoo (£23),
which has alpha-hydroxy acids that help lift
oil and everyday build-up.
PREGNANCY
“During pregnancy, high oestrogen levels
keep hair in the growing phase, meaning
it grows for longer, sheds less and often
feels thicker and shinier,” Belmo says. As
hormones inluence the hair follicle, some
women also notice changes in texture,
whether their hair gets curlier, straighter
or otherwise. Enjoy this stage while it lasts,
but keep an eye on your scalp so you can
tailor your routine. If dryness is an issue,
Weleda Hydra Shine Shampoo (£12) uses
hyaluronic acid and Alpine lax to
replenish moisture and soften
frizz. If your hair is oilier, one of
the aforementioned formulas can
help rebalance it.
POSTPARTUM After months of lustrous pregnancy hair, the period immediately after childbirth brings an abrupt hormonal change. As oestrogen levels fall, many hairs that were held in
the growth phase enter telogen eluvium — the shedding phase — at the same time, the trichologist Hannah Gaboardi explains. “It’s a huge shift. Women often experience excessive shedding alongside dryness, frizz, scalp imbalance and those short baby hairs around the hairline as everything starts growing back.”
Usually beginning between three and six months after birth, the amount of hair loss can be alarming. “The irst thing I tell my clients is not to panic,” Edmonds says. “They’re not going bald — they’re simply shedding the hair their pregnancy hormones allowed them to keep.”
Understanding what’s happening is reassuring — it does grow back — but Gaboardi also recommends investigating what’s happening internally. “I wish more women knew to have a blood test after giving birth,” she says. “It could explain fatigue as well as hair thinning and shedding, allowing us to recommend supplements based on what they actually need.”
Low ferritin, and vitamin D, vitamin B12,
zinc and folate deiciencies can all take a
toll on hair health. Rather than taking
supplements blindly, the goal is to identify
the underlying cause irst, then target it
with the right nutrients, while also keeping
stress levels in check.
Both Belmo and Gaboardi recommend
platelet-rich plasma injections to stimulate
regrowth and reduce shedding. For home
use, Gaboardi recommends the Calecim
Hair System (£295), a six-week treatment
powered by PTT-6 — a blend of
glycoproteins, ibronectin, collagen and
hyaluronic acid — designed to support
follicle renewal. It also comes with an at-home
microneedling Activator, which creates tiny
channels in the scalp to improve
absorption and help encourage hair
back into the anagen growth phase.
Maze Follibiotics Pro Scalp Treatment (£30) contains a patented postbiotic shown to increase hair density and extend the active growth phase. It won’t stop shedding completely — no formula can — but it may reduce its severity. Once shedding settles, Nioxin Hair Fall Defense Shampoo (£27) and UKHair Growth Serum (£29) can help support regrowth. ➤
And keep the faith: most women
notice a return to normal within six to
twelve months after giving birth.
PERIMENOPAUSE “Women often reach perimenopause and ind the products they’ve used for years don’t work any more,” Edmonds says. “That’s because the hair itself has changed.” As oestrogen levels decline, androgens have a greater inluence over the hair follicle. “This shortens the growing phase and causes the follicle to shrink, producing hairs that are iner, shorter and more fragile,” Belmo says.
The result can be widening partings, thinning around the crown or temples, increased shedding and an overall loss of density. Hair may also become drier, coarser or more wiry, and for some women this is when female-pattern hair loss irst becomes apparent or begins to accelerate.
If female-pattern hair loss is a concern, Gaboardi recommends starting with a blood test before speaking to a GP or hormone specialist about whether HRT might be appropriate. Topical minoxidil, available over the counter in 2 per cent and 5 per cent strengths, remains one of the most efective evidence-backed treatments. It helps maintain blood low to the follicles and prolongs the growth phase, and is often paired with treatments that target the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT) to help prevent follicle shrinkage.
Belmo is also a fan of Tricopat, an in-clinic treatment that combines LED light therapy, acoustic waves, micro-pulsing massage and iontophoresis (involving a mild electrical current) to deliver growth factors deeper into the scalp, without injections.
In this stage hydration is key. “Gentle cleansing, weekly deep-conditioning masks, leave-in conditioners and heat protection become much more important,” Edmonds says. “Kérastase Chronologiste Restorative Overnight Hair Serum [£56], is one of my favourite treatments for restoring softness and vitality to mature hair.”
Other standouts include Monpure Follicle Boost Hair Density Serum (£83), which uses pumpkin-seed extract to inhibit DHT production. Or try Living Proof Scalp Care Density Serum (£57), which is clinically shown to improve the appearance of hair density in 90 days while helping delay the appearance of greys. Finally, Nanogen Shampoo (£13) is designed to nourish ine, thinning hair while supporting a healthy scalp. ■
Alexandra Cameron
From left Dr Pyal Patel’s lips: before; after first treatment;
after second; healed, six weeks after second treatment
You asked if I would have it. Not right now. My eyes don’t go to that area when looking at my relection. I’m having fun experimenting with lip liners, juicy glosses and butter balms this summer. But things you dismiss at 40 can suddenly make sense at 45, so never say never. ■
Oh, it’s a toughie, babe. A real toughie. The problem is, a woman who has her dream career at 32 is also a woman who believes she can get anything she wants if she works hard enough. Unfortunately, as you’re already learning, there is one part of life where that doesn’t apply and it’s falling in love and having a family. You can’t study for it, it’s not a speciic skill you can acquire or improve. Every dating guru in the world will disagree with me (of course they would, otherwise they would be out of a job), but one of the biggest factors is luck.
There are people who will tell you that all you have to do is stop looking, stop worrying and then the right person will come along. There are other people who will tell you that you will not ind your partner unless you treat the search like a freelance career. I think the truth is some- where in the middle. Here is what I advise.
Get ahead of your fertility At 32, you are in absolute prime time to check in on your fertility. If you know that you want to have a baby with a partner, there are things you can do now to prep for that while still being on your own. This may be as simple as taking a good cocktail of fertility supplements or taking care of your health. You might want to do a fertility check or you may want to freeze your eggs. I know single women who did this in their thirties and it helped them approach dating with a much-needed lightness, rather than feeling like the weight of their entire future rested on a night with a stranger from Hinge in a natural wine and small plates restaurant.
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note to deardolly@sundaytimes.co.uk or DM @theststyle
boat. I think I’ve made peace with that idea, but at times
I feel sad that my window is narrowing and my life choices are
becoming more limited as I get further into my thirties.
Make single girl friends This is the most important part of being single in your thirties. You need women who are available for hangs and holidays and gallons of spicy margs. Just as the new mums in your friendship group need their NCT friends to support them through their new stage of life, the single women need their pals to help them navigate this new chapter. Because dating as a thirtysome- thing who wants children is a totally diferent experience to what has come before. You’re going to need people who really get it.
Write a “Single Girl’s Manifesto” Right, this sounds deranged, I know it does. And I’d almost forgotten that I had done this until I recently did an iPhone notes clear-out and, in among lists of how many grams of protein I consumed on random days in 2021, I found a code of conduct that my best single friend and I wrote on New Year’s Eve 2022. Together, probably over spicy margs, we made a list of do’s and don’ts that we wanted to adhere to: what we would accept from dating and what we wouldn’t; how we wanted to balance the task of looking for a partner while remain ing present and grateful in our lives as they were. I think it helped us shed some panic and ind more calm, joyful intention in our singledom. (Incidentally, the single friend met her husband two months after we wrote that list, after a decade of dating.)
Ask to be set up Make sure everyone you know is aware that you’re looking to meet someone. Do not be embarrassed about this — it doesn’t sound desperate, it just means you’ll be on your friends’ minds the next time they’re match- making. Be clear about what you want: if someone says they know someone great but they’re not looking for anything serious, don’t go on a date with them thinking you might be able to change them. The problem that presents itself on a irst date is nearly always the reason you break up.
Change the pattern Whatever you’re doing, try something diferent. If your type is musicians, go for a drink with an accountant. If you go to the same pub every Saturday night, venture to a diferent postcode. Delete one dating app and download another. Be open to possibili- ties that are outside your norm.
Don’t obsess about your age You should not be accepting that you’ve missed a boat aged 32. There are still plenty of boats — at 32 you’re in a veritable regatta. Your thirties are a great time to ind love. And a decade is a long time. Think of all the possibilities ahead of you rather than dreaming of future regret. Ironically, that’s the only thing you’ll regret wasting so much time on once you’re in the next decade. ■
Alexandra Cameron
结论： 存在严重交付缺陷 (Blocking Issues Found)
该翻译件在忠实度和完整性方面存在显著问题，不仅包含严重的漏译，还出现了大量不应出现在交付件中的内部质量评估标签。
[!WARNING] 翻译质量评估未完全通过 (Quality Audit Failed) 块，其中列出了缺失的数字 token 和专有名词。这是严重的交付缺陷，内部审核记录被直接输出到了最终译文中。THEODYSSEY、Style、NEWMAN’S VIEW 采用了“英文 (中文)”的形式，虽然有助于对照，但未完全本土化。审计总结： 此版本不可交付。译文不仅在内容上存在大面积的漏译和逻辑跳跃 (Truncation/Omissions)，且将内部 QA 警告标签直接包含在译文中，表现极其不专业。建议全篇重新审核并补齐缺失内容。