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英格兰足球的 “强力鼠”
讨论要点 P19
THEWEEK
“让我们将这一刻变为英国重新找回信心的时刻，”安迪·伯纳姆在周一首次以首相身份发表全国演讲时宣布。在 No. 10 外，这位新任工党领导人在支持者的簇拥下表示，他“深切意识到”自己是英国 10 年来的第七任首相，他及其政治同僚需要“提升水平”。他誓言，他的首相任期将成为英国的“断路器”，开启一种新的政治和经济模式，以扭转 20 世纪 80 年代的“错误方向”。在他的首个重大政策宣布中，他承诺要“结束我国的露宿街头问题”——这呼应了他在曼彻斯特追求但结果好坏参半的一个目标。数小时后，他解雇了一批忠于基尔·斯塔默的部长，并公布了新内阁，其中约翰·希利出人意料地被选为财政大臣。在接下来的两天里，他宣布了旨在让人们在生活成本压力下获得“喘息空间”的措施：将英格兰的公交车票价上限设定为 £2，并暂停征收电费单上的增值税。
丹·霍奇斯在《每日邮报》中表示，伯纳姆这次自信的演说——在没有讲稿且未使用讲台的情况下完成——将确保他跨过了首相任期的“第一道门槛”。上周的一项民意调查显示，38% 的英国人甚至不知道他是谁。我猜测本周初次认识他的人们“会对所见之物感到满意”。罗莎·普林斯在彭博社表示，关于他将如何治理国家，我们目前还知之甚少。但早期的迹象令人鼓舞。他身边有“严肃的专业人士”，包括新工党资深成员、其新任幕僚长詹姆斯·普内尔，并咨询了受人尊敬的经济学家吉姆·奥尼尔和安迪·哈尔丹。他在曼彻斯特之前的工作经验使他在执行权力下放计划方面处于有利位置；而他关于创建“国家护理服务”的谈论也受到欢迎——尽管目前完全不清楚这样一个“巨大的工程”将如何获得资金支持。
《金融时报》指出，伯纳姆是一位极具魅力的政治家，在公众面前从容不迫，充满“积极氛围”，他拥有许多优秀的品质。但人们真正想要的是有效的改变，而且很少有首相在就职时其议程如此缺乏审查。伯纳姆谈到了重塑英国、将其重新工业化，并翻过“40 年新自由主义”的一页。但这实际上意味着什么？他关于新政治和经济模式的承诺可能
一名 11 岁的女孩在达特穆尔的两块巨石之间卡住了腿，最终被一瓶 Fairy 洗洁精救了出来。香农·费西在一年中最热的日子里参加学校前往 Hound Tor 的旅行时滑倒了。救援人员很快带着切割岩石的专业设备赶到，但没有成功。随后，团队成员奥利·里斯带来了一瓶他在途中买的清洁剂。他将洗洁精“大量”地涂在香农的腿上——最终，她的腿滑了出来。
新任首相：“积极的氛围”
“这位天生的讨好者是否拥有交付‘难堪真相’的胆量？”
在多塞特郡的侏罗纪海岸上，人们在 30 年来首次发现了一只雏海鹦（puffling），这为这个规模大减的群落带来了生存希望。据信该地区目前仅剩 3 对成年海鹦，而 1950 年代曾有 40 对。一个由 13 人组成的志愿者团队花费了 150 小时观察鸟类的出没，随后在 Dancing Ledge 附近的悬崖深缝中发现了这只探出头来的雏海鹦。“仅凭一只雏海鹦无法拯救这个群落，”项目负责人理查德·卡尔多（Richard Caldow）博士表示，“但有一只绝对比一只都没有要好得多。”
《观察报》的瑞秋·西尔维斯特（Rachel Sylvester）写道，伯纳姆坦承自己“倾向于消费而非储蓄”。但在福利和公共部门薪酬等领域面临艰难抉择之际，他必须“学会如何说不”。事实上，他首相任期的成败可能取决于这位“天生的讨好者”是否有胆量向选民、大臣及其所属的国会议员传达那些难堪的真相。《经济学人》指出，考虑到威斯敏斯特的“混乱文化”，伯纳姆必须努力维持党内纪律。但他可能比斯塔默更擅长安抚议员：他花费数周时间在后座议员中周旋，且在个人交往技巧方面，他比前任要强得多。史蒂文·斯温福德（Steven Swinford）在《泰晤士报》中表示，伯纳姆在党内团结方面说得很好：事实上，他承诺将彻底“结束派系之争”。然而，他上任首相后的首批行动之一就是从内阁中解雇了 11 名斯塔默的忠实支持者，并由其盟友接替——一名政府人士将此举描述为“加速版的派系斗争”。
不过，《卫报》的波莉·托伊比（Polly Toynbee）认为，伯纳姆拥有公众的支持。他的支持率高于过去四任首相就职时的水平。而且时机恰到好处，因为改革党的势头目前处于停滞状态。《i Paper》的迈克尔·克里克（Michael Crick）表示，伯纳姆无疑具有韧性和抗压能力；但他的许多旗舰政策需要数年时间才能结出果实。Politics Home 的卢克·特里尔（Luke Tryl）指出，民调显示选民希望尽快看到结果，但旨在改善生活的微小改革也会引起共鸣。通过向选民展示他正在努力，新首相可以为自己赢得宝贵的时间。
《每日电讯报》的杰里米·沃纳（Jeremy Warner）评价称，其方案“虚多实少”。但如果这次重启像他承诺的那样重大——他将其描述为 40 年来最大规模的重启——那么他并没有获得相应的授权。而且，如果他坚持（正如他所言）遵守现有的财政规则，他又怎么可能实现这一目标？即便到目前为止公布的有限措施，其成本可能也远超 £1.5bn，且关于如何筹资已引发争议。人们怀疑他将考虑针对财富、房产资产和金融城提高税收。在国际货币基金组织警告称英国的财政前景罕见地如此“危险”之际，首相的计划可能会给经济带来灾难。
位于伦敦东区肖尔迪奇（Shoreditch）的最后一家独立鞋店，在一场旨在拯救它的病毒式传播活动中获得了新生。Rich Collection Bella Italia 曾经营意大利皮革制品并生意兴隆；但多年的绅士化进程驱散了大部分客户。店主 59 岁的拉希德·拉兹拉克（Rachid Lazraq）正准备关店，这时几位年轻买家开始出现。原来是一名法国网红在 TikTok 上将这家店称为“隐藏的瑰宝”。随后，拉兹拉克的女儿发帖表示希望拯救这家店——于是，零星的客流变成了汹涌的人潮。
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任命约翰·希利为财政大臣，既是安迪·伯纳姆最重要的内阁人选，也是最出人意料的一个。《新政治家》（The New Statesman）的伊森·克罗夫特表示，这是一个早期信号，表明新任首相的运作到目前为止是多么“防泄密”。此前报道称，该职位的竞争是埃德·米利班德与沙巴娜·马哈茂德之间的正面对决。然而，最终获得该职位的却是前国防大臣，据推测是因为两名被看好的候选人“同样具有争议”——米利班德是因为他对净零目标的狂热追求，而马哈茂德则是因为她“在边境问题上的强硬”。希利成为了一个理性的折中候选人：他不隶属于党内的任何单一派系，广受欢迎，且拥有丰富的财政部经验（他曾在 2002 到 2007 年期间在戈登·布朗手下担任部长）。
《旁观者》（The Spectator）的詹姆斯·希尔表示，希利被视为一个“稳妥的选择”。他的任命也很“精明”，因为这标志着伯纳姆在增加国防开支方面是认真的——希利此前辞职是因为他认为基尔·斯塔默“不愿”为武装部队提供适当的资金。《卫报》（The Guardian）的基兰·斯泰西表示，希利“勤勉”且在党内享有声望。但了解他的人“说这位新财政大臣比他看起来更受意识形态驱动”：他绝对不是一名“财政鹰派”，并且很可能会站在
UnHerd 的亚伦·巴斯塔尼表示，到周一傍晚，各项宣布以“节拍器般的规律”接踵而至。在两小时的时间里，“前内阁的显贵们”被接连“出局”。包括雷切尔·里夫斯、大卫·拉米、利兹·肯德尔、史蒂夫·里德、彼得·凯尔和理查德·赫默在内的斯塔默忠实支持者，在这次“十年之最的唐宁街大清洗”中被“接连快速地被替换”。《i Paper》的基蒂·唐尔森表示：“当迷雾散去，毫无疑问的赢家是西北地区。”大曼彻斯特地区现在有五名国会议员进入内阁；而伦敦只有两名。拥有曼彻斯特工蜂纹身的成员（三名）比伊顿公学毕业生（一名）还要多。
《泰晤斯报》（The Times）表示，在一些关键领域，存在令人安心的延续性。沙巴娜·马哈茂德继续留在内政部，帕特·麦克法登继续留在工作与养老金部——两人都是值得信赖的人物；新任卫生大臣伊薇特·库珀也是如此。《旁观者》（The Spectator）的伊莎贝尔·哈德曼表示，她以“乐于接受政策方向”而著称，考虑到安迪
精明的政治家会对自己的穿着深思熟虑。没有哪个工党领袖会想重复迈克尔·富特在 1981 年阵亡将士纪念日的错误——当时他穿着一件暖绿色的外套套在深色西装外抵达纪念碑。这件外套是他妻子在哈罗兹百货购买的，而且王太后对此赞赏有加。但这并没能阻止右翼媒体将其称为（这是一个早期虚假新闻的例子）“驴外套”，并指责他不尊重战争死难者。因此，安迪·伯纳姆在就任首相后，决定保留他在担任大曼彻斯特市长时的休闲装扮，这绝非随兴之举。他可能计算过，他最青睐的装束（深色夹克和长裤，纯色T恤）将传递出一个信号：尽管身居高位，他依然处于威斯敏斯特政治圈之外，且相比于僵化的传统，他更在乎将事情办好。他绝不是第一个刻意塑造“平民”形象的政治家。哈罗德·威尔逊的烟斗就曾是著名的道具。有人推测，唐纳德·特朗普那身极其不合身西装，是为了让他看起来不像一个亿万富翁，而更像那些投票给他的“购物中心老爸”。但伯纳姆的着装策略更为微妙。他说他在下议院会穿西装。而除此之外的所有公开场合，他都必须决定是否要正式着装。他的“曼彻斯特时尚”风格在某些场合可能效果很好；但在其他场合，这可能会让他显得不严肃，甚至显得不真诚。他甚至可能被指责虚荣，或认为自己凌驾于规则之上。最终，他可能会发现，单纯遵循传统反而更简单。
© LAUREN HURLEY/NO. 10 DOWNING STREET
《泰晤士报》表示，他现在面临的挑战极其艰巨。到 2030 年将国防支出提高至 GDP 的 3%，希利（Healey）看来将被迫地这样做，这将每年耗资至少 £15bn。伯纳姆（Burnham）承诺要解决社会护理问题，其年度成本约为 £18bn。然而，首相承诺遵守工党（Labour）的竞选宣言，不提高所得税、国民保险或增值税（VAT）。那么资金从哪里来？人们对一个“红色十月”预算案的担忧日益增加。安德鲁·奥布莱恩（Andrew O’Brien）在 UnHerd 上表示，希利可以成为一名高效的财政大臣（Chancellor）。伯纳姆选择他部分是因为他致力于再工业化：在担任国防大臣期间，他敲定了建设 6 个新弹药工厂的计划。而且作为一名“党内忠实人士”，希利在必须就福利等问题做出“艰难决定”时，可能能够带领国会议员一同支持。他被视为财政大臣的一个“安全选择”，但事实证明他可能会是一个更“激进”的选择。
财政大臣：一个“安全选择”？
海格（Haigh）：伯纳姆的“副手”
与此同时，路易丝·海格（Louise Haigh）被晋升为国务第一大臣兼兰开斯特公爵领地大臣，卡罗琳·惠勒（Caroline Wheeler）在《i Paper》中表示，这“几乎没有让任何人感到惊讶”。海格在 2024 年因早年诈骗定罪细节曝光而辞去交通大臣一职，她是伯纳姆的“最亲信副手”，现在“实际上是他的副手”。
在面对政策困境时，倾向于增加支出。蒂姆·华莱士（Tim Wallace）在《每日电讯报》中表示，市场在周一短暂地松了一口气——至少唐宁街11号（No. 11）没由米利班德（Miliband）把持。但对希利履历的进一步审查并未让金融城感到安心。长期以来，他一直主张将最高税率设为 50%、提高资本利得税并提供更丰厚的福利金。虽然他在托尼·布莱尔（Tony Blair）和布朗（Brown）相对亲商的政府中担任部长，但在 2015 到 2020 年期间，他也曾作为影子住房大臣忠诚地服务于杰里米·科尔宾（Jeremy Corbyn）。
伯纳姆对医疗有着强烈的观点。萨姆·弗里德曼（Sam Freedman）在 Substack 上表示，某些任命给人一种“需要为人们找工作”的感觉，这是“冒险的”。例如，埃德·米利班德（Ed Miliband）担任外交大臣就“并非显而易见的合适人选”。他被唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）的顾问们视为负面人物，并且在一些他热衷的问题上（如更紧密的欧盟关系和国际发展）可能会受到“限制”。“对于所有相关人员来说，这可能被证明是一次令人沮丧的任命。” 韦斯·斯特雷廷（Wes Streeting）担任国防大臣也感觉“古怪”：他几乎没有相关经验；据报道，蕾切尔·里夫斯（Rachel Reeves）首先拒绝了这份工作。不过，安杰拉·雷纳（Angela Rayner）重新担任其原职住房与地方政府大臣是合理的。社会住房和权力下放是首相的两大优先事项，而雷纳与他的理念高度一致。
总编辑：卡罗琳·劳 (Caroline Law) 编辑：西奥·泰特 (Theo Tait) 副编辑：哈里·尼科尔 (Harry Nicolle), 弗朗西丝·韦弗 (Frances Weaver) 执行编辑：罗宾·德·佩耶 (Robin de Peyer) 助理编辑：罗里·沙利文 (Rory Sullivan) 高级编辑：费利西蒂·卡庞 (Felicity Capon) 金融编辑：简·刘易斯 (Jane Lewis) 特约编辑：西蒙·威尔逊 (Simon Wilson), 谢里蒂·克鲁 (Charity Crewe), 赞迪·纳廷 (Xandie Nutting), 迪格比·沃德-阿尔丹 (Digby Warde-Aldam), 汤姆·亚伍德 (Tom Yarwood), 威廉·斯基德尔斯基 (William Skidelsky) 编辑部：阿努什卡·佩蒂特 (Anoushka Petit), 提格·里奇韦尔 (Tigger Ridgwell), 伊芙·尼科尔森 (Eve Nicholson), 黛西·比灵顿 (Daisy Billington) 图片编辑：安娜贝尔·怀特斯通 (Annabelle Whitestone) 艺术总监：卡特琳娜·费斯克 (Katrina Ffiske) 高级副编辑：西米·里奇曼 (Simmy Richman) 制作编辑：阿拉娜·奥康奈尔 (Alanna O’Connell) 编辑委员会主席兼联合创始人：杰里米·奥格雷迪 (Jeremy O’Grady)
制作经理：玛雅·米斯特里 (Maaya Mistry) 客户总监：艾米·麦克布莱德 (Amy McBride) 分类广告与客户主管：莉莉·菲利普斯 (Lily Phillips) 商业总监：罗宾娜·沙希德 (Robina Shahid)
品牌总监（新闻）：哈里·海顿 (Harry Haydon) 总经理（新闻）：理查德·坎贝尔 (Richard Campbell) 高级副总裁：乔尔·格里菲斯 (Joel Griffiths)
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首席执行官 Kevin Li Ying 非执行主席 Mark Brooker 首席财务官 Sharjeel Suleman
政治
斯塔默的垮台
“我心怀感激地离开，带着微笑离开。”《观察家报》的弗雷德·哈特（Fred Harter）写道，基尔·斯塔默在周一离开唐宁街10号时如此说道，而就在两年前，他才带领工党赢得了所谓的“历史性 landslide（压倒性胜利）”。斯塔默在 2024 年上台时承诺将结束混乱与戏剧性的局面；然而，他的政府“被一系列丑闻所困扰，从捐赠者的馈赠到彼得·曼德尔森（Peter Mandelson）的审查”。诚然，他确实完成了一些“大事”——包括提高最低工资、加强租客权利以及缩减 NHS（国民医疗服务体系）的候诊名单。《经济学人》指出：“但对于渴望变革的选民来说，这些成功还远远不够。”他承诺增长，但增长依然疲软；很快，他的支持率跌至连利兹·特拉斯（Liz Truss）都未曾达到过的低谷。最终，除了极少数人之外，斯塔默自己的部长们几乎都对他“不屑一顾”。在他最后一次内阁会议上，“他们送给他一座座钟——这是一种毫无新意的退休礼物的象征”。
《观察家报》的安德鲁·罗恩斯利（Andrew Rawnsley）表示，通常可以为一名首相的垮台找到一个决定性原因。“玛格丽特·撒切尔（Margaret Thatcher）被她的人头税搞垮了”；鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）则败于“派对门”（Partygate）。而斯塔默的倒台则“更难定性”。从根本上说，他作为首相的主要缺陷在于他“不擅长政治”。讲好一个“故事”、调解部长之间的纠纷、建立联盟——“这些是政治交易的家常便饭”。而身为前人权律师的基尔爵士却将这些视为“毒药”。因此，他在可避免的危机中如梦游般陷入困境，例如关于冬季燃料补贴的抵制以及福利改革的叛乱。《每日电讯报》的帕特里克·基德（Patrick Kidd）认为，此外还包括斯塔默缺乏“愿景”。“他的竞选宣言开篇基本上在说‘我们不是保守党’”；他似乎认为这样就足够了，从未为国家提供一个计划，也没有表明他在赢得压倒性胜利后打算如何利用这一优势。
《i Paper》的伊恩·比雷尔（Ian Birrell）表示，斯塔默是一个“体面的人”，但他被一项近乎不可能完成的任务“压垮”了。但让我们公正地评价：他理应在历史上被记载为“帮助拯救乌克兰的人”。《星期日时报》的乔什·格兰西（Josh Glancy）指出，尽管基辅目前在战场上似乎占据上风，但值得回顾的是，在 2025. 年初，欧洲的情况是“多么危险且不确定”。弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基（Volodymyr Zelensky）刚刚在椭圆形办公室被特朗普总统“羞辱”，后者试图强加一项会使乌克兰瘫痪并让弗拉基米尔·普京获得胜利的和平协议。通过巧妙地利用特殊关系，并与法国合作将欧洲国家拉入统一战线，斯塔默得以避免一场“新的慕尼黑协议”。这是一项相当不凡的成就。但这也是有代价的。斯塔默频繁的出访为他赢得了“从未在家的基尔”（Never Here Keir）的绰号，以及一种嘲讽的评价：他是一个“在世界舞台上寻求避难的失败国内首相”。
《泰晤士报》称，不要指望看到 Z 世代在夜晚外出时还拎着手袋。年轻女性之间的新趋势是用一只手拿着所有必需品——太阳镜、手机、口红。那些精通“女孩抓握法”（girl grip，或称“万能爪”）的人甚至还能同时拿一杯饮料。一项调查显示，三分之一的 Z 世代女性外出不带包；44% 的人认为手袋已经过时。
纽约州的一所学校将在教室内部署一名人形机器人，以协助人类教师。这个名为 Sally 的机器人拥有硅胶皮肤和长发，能够做出多种表情。另有报道称，德国特斯拉工厂的工人们穿着可以记录他们动作的设备，以便机器人学习他们的工作。
糟糕的一周： 克劳迪娅·温克尔曼（Claudia Winkleman），她在主持了仅一季（共七集）的BBC访谈节目后宣布辞职。该节目于3月推出，尽管收视率尚可但远非出类拔萃，温克尔曼表示她由于“太紧张而无法享受其中”。 对AI感到焦虑的人们，因为OpenAI承认其最先进的实验模型之一曾多次找到逃离受控环境（或称“沙箱”）的方法，并在一次事件中黑入了一家AI初创公司。
一个被工作压垮的“正派之人”
俄罗斯火力演习 周一，即安迪·伯纳姆就任首相的第一天，一艘俄罗斯军舰在英吉利海峡进行了国防部门称之为“极不寻常”的实弹炮击演习。上午9点后不久，长425英尺的“无畏号”（Neustrashimy）在普利茅斯以南40海里的国际海域开始了这场30分钟的演习。它向一直对其进行监视的“泰恩号”（HMS Tyne）发出了提前预警，随后“泰恩号”退至安全距离。英国新任国防大臣韦斯·斯特里廷（Wes Streeting）谴责此次演习为“表演性质且不负责任”。此次演习发生在英国首次在海峡中扣押俄罗斯影子舰队的一艘油轮一个月之后。
MenB疫苗接种计划 在3月肯特郡两名青少年死于疫情后，NHS已在全英范围内启动了一项针对数十万年轻人的单次脑膜炎B（meningitis B）疫苗接种计划。所有就读学校最后一年的学生以及今年9月入读大学的25岁以下青年均符合接种条件。在接种计划启动前，部分药店警告称供应短缺。上周，疫苗和免疫联合委员会建议政府从2030年起，为所有15岁人群接种MenB疫苗或加强针。
在一项针对 37 个国家 42,000 多人的民意调查中，受访者被问及对中国和美国的看法是好感还是反感。在 25 个国家中，更多的人对中国持有好感——其中巴基斯坦的净好感度最高，为 +75%，而德国为 +6%。仅在 6 个国家（波兰、菲律宾、韩国、印度、日本和以色列）中，大多数人对美国的看法比对中国更积极。其余国家则处于“同样好感”状态。这是 24 年来中国首次在好感度上超越美国。 皮尤研究中心 (Pew Research Centre)
67% 的美国人——以及 46% 的共和党选民——认为热浪已因“气候变化而加剧”。 进步数据中心 (Data For Progress)
© SIMON DAWSON/唐宁街10号
柏林 代孕争议：德国执政联盟中的主要政党中右翼基民盟 (CDU) 的一名高级成员在社交媒体上宣布他与丈夫通过美国代孕母亲生子后，感到不得不辞职。基民盟议会党团领导人、总理弗里德里希·默茨 (Friedrich Merz) 的亲密盟友延斯·施潘 (Jens Spahn) 长期以来一直支持德国国内禁止代孕的禁令；他在安格拉·默克尔 (Angela Merkel) 担任卫生部长期间就曾如此表态。他在 2015 年写道：“作为一名男同性恋者和基督徒，我……很难接受‘租用子宫’这个想法。”因此，在他透露自己和丈夫现在成为了代孕儿子的父亲后，政坛各界爆发了对其伪善的指责。来自其所属政党以及据报道来自默茨的压力促使施潘辞职。他说，“个人幸福”与政治职务“不相兼容”。此事令默茨本就脆弱的地位进一步受损。
热那亚，意大利 桥梁坍塌判决：意大利高速公路系统前负责人乔瓦尼·卡斯特鲁奇 (Giovanni Castelucci) 因过失致死和交通肇事被判处 12 年监禁。他与其他 31 名交通官员被热那亚一家法院判定对 2018 年 8 月导致 43 名车内乘客死亡的桥梁坍塌事故负责。在这次意大利历史上最严重的基建灾难之一中，莫兰迪桥一段 200 米长的路段在暴雨后突然坍塌，导致多达 35 辆车从 45 米的高空坠落。辩护律师辩称，这是由于无法通过维修工作预防的设计缺陷造成的，但法官裁定，被告未能履行其对这座 51 年历史结构的妥善维护责任，而此前该结构已被提出严重质疑。
博洛尼亚，意大利 警察致死事件：由于一名出生于摩洛哥的男子在周日被两名警察制服时死亡，本周博洛尼亚爆发了激烈的反警察抗议活动。在一段被意大利媒体广泛传播的视频中， 42 岁的阿卜杜拉希姆·法基尔 (Abderrahim Fakir) 是一名小企业主，自 5 岁起就居住在意大利，他在被警察按在地上时请求帮助。直到警察将他的脚踝绑在一起后，才发现他已停止呼吸。法基尔此前被皮拉斯特 (Pilastro) 地区的当地人举报行为反常并踢车库门，据认为他患有哮喘和心脏问题。在他去世后的第二天，抗议者手持“为法基尔伸张正义”的标牌走上街头。部分人员投掷鞭炮；警方则以催泪瓦斯和水炮做出回应。意大利总理乔治亚·梅洛尼 (Giorgia Meloni) 谴责了暴徒，但仍承诺将对法基尔的死亡进行全面调查。
欧洲概览
布达佩斯 提议被拒： 匈牙利新任总理彼得·马扎尔 (Péter Magyar) 本周遭遇重大挫折，他提名的匈牙利总统人选——前国际象棋特级大师犹迪特·波尔加 (Judit Polgár)（左）拒绝了他的邀请。上任总统塔马什·苏柳克 (Tamás Sulyok) 上周被马扎尔获胜的蒂萨党 (Tisza Party) 投票罢免，理由是其与前总理维克多·欧尔班 (Viktor Orbán) 关系过于密切。然而，现年 50 岁的波尔加（唯一一位进入过国际象棋前十名的女性）决定不接任这个很大程度上是礼仪性的职务，她表示感谢这次机会，但觉得自己无法承担“统一一个分裂国家的历史责任”。
基辅 升级袭击：俄罗斯对基辅发动了战争以来规模最大的弹道导弹袭击之一，在周日凌晨向该市发射了 40 枚以上的导弹。此次袭击造成一人死亡，至少 17 人受伤，是该市在 35 天内的第三次重大袭击。由于战争前线的推进基本停滞，俄罗斯加强了对乌克兰全境的空中袭击。包括敖德萨、苏梅和扎波罗热在内的其他城市也遭到了猛烈轰炸。联合国表示，6 月是乌克兰平民自 2022 年 4 月以来死亡人数最多的一月，至少 293 人死亡。 就乌克兰而言，它也加强了对俄罗斯的长程无人机攻势，通过袭击石油和天然气设施导致俄罗斯全国出现燃料短缺。在过去一周里，它还击中了俄罗斯最大的在线零售商 Wildberries（上图）的五个仓库，泽连斯基总统声称这些仓库被用于供应无人机和其他军事硬件的零部件。其中一个位于科列季诺 (Koledino) 的仓库在一次针对莫斯科地区的袭击中被击中，此次行动涉及 400 多架无人机——这是战争期间针对俄罗斯首都规模最大的袭击之一，同时还导致波多尔斯克 (Podolsk) 的一个油库和多莫多谢沃 (Domodedovo) 的一个工业综合体起火。俄罗斯当局表示，此次袭击已导致至少 8 人死亡。
华沙 异族恐惧症抬头：波兰与乌克兰有 530 公里的共同边界，在 2022 年，它接收了 3.5 million 以上逃离俄罗斯入侵的乌克兰人。随后有超过一百万人在此定居或登记寻求保护。但这也引发了抵触情绪。针对乌克兰人的仇恨犯罪激增：仅在今年前六个月就报告了约 180 起袭击事件。在其中一起事件中，两名 11 岁的乌克兰女孩在比尔斯科-比亚瓦 (Bielsko-Biała) 的一辆巴士上遭到辱骂和威胁。华沙在 1991 年率先承认乌克兰独立，但从历史上看，两国之间存在很多敌对关系。在第二次世界大战期间，乌克兰民族主义者在乌克兰的沃尔尼亚 (Volhynia) 地区杀害了数千名波兰族人。
全球概览
纽约市 毒枭入狱：一名墨西哥臭名昭著的锡那罗亚卡特尔（Sinaloa Cartel）前头目本周被美国法院判处终身监禁。他还被要求上缴 150 亿美元，这代表了该组织数十年来获得的利润，尽管目前尚不清楚美国是否能够追回这笔款项。伊斯梅尔·赞巴达（Ismael Zambada，如图），又称“埃尔·马约”（El Mayo），在 1980 年代与华金·“矮子”·古兹曼（Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán）共同创立了该卡特尔。他在 2024 年被古兹曼的一个儿子诱骗飞往美国后在德克萨斯州被捕。在被判刑前，已达成认罪协议的“埃尔·马约”为自己的罪行道歉，并敦促年轻人“选择一条不同的道路”。
华盛顿特区 新关税：唐纳德·特朗普对从加拿大进口的一系列商品征收 50% 的关税，包括葡萄酒、水泥和冰球棍。这些措施是根据 1930 年《关税法》第 338 条实施的——据信该条款此前从未被启用——其适用范围约占加拿大进口额的 5%（每年价值约 200 亿美元）。他表示，这是为了回应美国汽车、酒精和乳制品遭受的“不公平待遇”。然而，相关部分税收是渥太华为了报复特朗普去年对加拿大实施的大规模关税而征收的。加拿大总理马克·卡尼（Mark Carney）表示，他的政府已努力解决贸易战，且特朗普过去的关税违反了北美贸易协定。
佛罗里达州迈阿密 泰特兄弟被捕：自封为厌女主义者的社交媒体影响者安德鲁·泰特（Andrew Tate）及其兄弟特里斯坦（Tristan）上周在迈阿密被捕，这是应英国皇家检控署（CPS）的要求。检控署对两人提出了 38 项新指控，包括强奸和贩 Trafficking（人口贩卖），并正寻求将其引渡。这两兄弟拥有美英双重国籍，常驻罗马尼亚，目前在当地也面临单独的指控。然而，自 2025 年罗马尼亚取消对他们的旅行限制后（据报道是在特朗普政府官员的敦促下），他们能够在美国停留。他们誓言将在美国法院对抗引渡。
马那瓜 禁止选举：尼加拉瓜长期执政的左翼总统丹尼尔·奥尔特加（Daniel Ortega）宣布，该国将不再举行选举。在推翻右翼军事独裁者安纳斯塔西奥·索莫萨（Anastasio Somoza）的桑地诺革命 47 周年纪念日发表讲话时， 80 岁的奥尔特加表示，他计划出台法律，在反对派团体周围“筑起一道墙”，他称这些团体为“政变阴谋者”和“叛徒”。奥尔特加自 2007 年起执政，在 2018 年爆发大规模反政府抗议活动后，其威权主义色彩日益浓厚。他通过下令镇压予以回应，导致 350 多名抗议者死亡，数千人入狱。自那时起，至少 800,000 名尼加拉瓜人流亡海外。在 2021 年的上次选举中，奥尔特加获得了 76% 的选票，但该选举被广泛谴责为一场骗局。
纽约市 逮捕疑问：纽约民主党市长佐兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）透露，他曾希望如果在 9 月联合国大会期间以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡访问该市，能够将其逮捕。在接受《纽约时报》采访时，马姆达尼表示，内塔尼亚胡“属于海牙”，指的是国际刑事法院（ICC）。国际刑事法院在 2024 年因内塔尼亚胡涉嫌在加沙犯有战争罪而对其发出逮捕令。但市长表示，他发现自己缺乏命令纽约警察局拘留外国领导人的法律权力。因此，他表示希望联邦政府能这样做。然而，美国并非国际刑事法院的成员国，也不承认其管辖权。而唐纳德·特朗普在社交媒体上坚持认为，内塔尼亚胡在美国绝不会被逮捕，“无论是以任何方式、形式或形态”。
加拉加斯 过渡谈判：委内瑞拉的临时政府将于8月1日与反对派成员开启正式谈判。这一进程由美国支持，旨在为举行可信的选举铺平道路。该反对派团体由2015年当选进入立法机构的前议员组成；随后的选举要么遭到抵制，要么被斥为舞弊。他们由迪诺拉·菲格拉（Dinorah Figuera）领导，她在流亡多年后于6月返回委内瑞拉。反对派最著名的领导人——诺贝尔奖得主玛丽亚·科里纳·马查多（María Corina Machado）——仍居住在国外。据报道，华盛顿认为她的出现可能会导致动荡，因此对菲格拉在协商民主过渡方面的能力更有信心。
加沙地带，巴勒斯坦领土
新任哈马斯首脑：在以色列军队于加沙击毙雅希亚·辛瓦尔（Yahya Sinwar）近两年后，哈马斯选出了一位新的总领导人。哈利勒·海亚（Khalil al-Hayya，见图）曾在该武装组织的间接停火谈判中担任首席谈判代表，他是辛瓦尔的亲密盟友，且被广泛认为比他以一票之差击败的候选人哈立德·马沙尔（Khaled Meshaal）更加强硬且更亲伊朗。身在卡塔尔的海亚曾多次在以色列的暗杀企图中幸存，但其妻子和三个儿子在这些袭击中丧生。
布尼亚，刚果民主共和国 埃博拉危机：两个月前在刚果民主共和国（DRC）东部首次发现的埃博拉疫情中，确诊死亡人数已跃升至至少 930 人。随着约 2,344 例病例被确诊，这是有记录以来传播速度最快的疫情。相比之下，在 2014 和 2016 年间导致西非 11,000 多人死亡的最严重埃博拉疫情中，确诊病例达到 2,000 例耗时约五个月。上周，刚果民主共和国卫生部表示，该疾病已扩散至两个新省，使受影响地区增加至五个，而世界卫生组织警告称，近期 80% 的感染病例来自新的传播链，这使得控制病毒传播变得更加困难。
全球概览
耶路撒冷，以色列 定居点行动：以色列极右翼国家安全部长伊塔马尔·本-格维尔以及本雅明·内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德党成员，本周与数千名定居者活动人士一起游行前往加沙边界，要求在加沙地带重新建立犹太定居点。此次活动突破了一个军事禁区，是为了纪念 2005 年以色列在撤出计划中撤离加沙定居点集群的周年纪念。一些游行者贴着写有“加沙永远属于我们”的贴纸。几天前，国防部长以色列·卡茨表示，他计划在加沙北部建立三个“纳哈尔”（Nahal）前哨——指在过去为平民定居点铺路的军农社区，尽管在国际法下，在巴勒斯坦领土上建立犹太定居点被广泛视为非法。
德里 “蟑螂”抗议： 本周，数千名支持印度青年领导的“蟑螂”运动的人们走上德里街头，要求教育部长辞职，原因是其未能阻止竞争激烈的公共考试为了牟利而泄题。当示威者试图向议会进发时，警方使用催泪瓦斯和警棍对其进行驱散；60 人受伤，随后导致反对党议员就警察暴力地道举行了单独的抗议活动。自 5 月起在网络上发起，目前“蟑螂”运动被视为对纳伦德拉·莫迪政府的一次挑战。
萨那 封锁威胁：也门受伊朗支持的胡塞武装宣布对沙特阿拉伯实施海上封锁，称这是对沙特 12 年“围困”的回应。关闭连接红海与阿拉伯海的曼德海峡对沙特船只的通行，将切断一条至关重要的石油出口路线，自伊朗实际上关闭霍尔木兹海峡以来，这条路线对该王国至关重要。目前，沙特正利用其东西管道每天向红海港口运输数百万桶原油。据报道，德黑兰曾敦促胡塞武装在美国继续攻击伊朗的情况下采取行动。但这一威胁也反映出胡塞武装与利雅得之间紧张局势的升级。如果封锁得以实施，可能会结束这场自 2015 年沙特领导的联盟干预也门内战以来开始的冲突中，一个脆弱的四年停战协议。
缅甸，若开邦 难民悲剧：两艘载有 500 多名罗兴亚难民、于 6 月 29 日离开缅甸的船只此后下落不明。据信两艘船均在汹涌的季风海域翻船，船上人员全部遇难——其中一艘在离开战火纷飞的若开邦后不久翻船，另一艘则在 7 月 8 日翻船。一些罗兴亚人（一个受迫害的穆斯林少数群体）被认为是从孟加拉国的科克斯巴扎难民营出发的，那里目前有 100 多万人生活在绝望的条件下。据信他们希望能抵达马来西亚或印度尼西亚。
北京 政治局清洗：马兴瑞成为 2025 年以来中国政治局（中国共产党的精英执行委员会）第三位被开除党籍的成员。马被指控收受贿赂、利用职权为亲属谋利以及通过政治交易换取色情服务。他的被清洗标志着国家主席习近平根除贪腐行动的最新升级，自 2012 年以来，该行动已波及数百万名官员，从基层公务员到高级将领。
人物
克里斯·霍伊惊人的意志 自克里斯·霍伊被诊断出患有末期前列腺癌以来已有三年时间；但《星期日泰晤士报》的德卡·艾特肯海德（Decca Aitkenhead）表示，这位六次奥运金牌得主没有表现出任何速度减慢的迹象。他依然像以往一样刻苦锻炼，反抗那项称其生存期仅在三到四年之间的预后诊断；并且他向自己的两个年幼孩子将这种疾病“正常化”了。但尽管他是积极思考力量的传道者，即使是他也无法假装过去的九个月是轻松的。
在11月，他在一次山地自行车事故中腿部遭受了“非常、非常严重”的骨折。医生告诉他，他的腿将再也无法完全伸直或弯曲；而且他不得不停用部分癌症药物，因为这些药物会抑制伤口愈合。“我就在想，你对自己做了什么？你的腿被撞碎了，你再也无法正常行走，而且你可能让自己的治疗进度受挫了。”但克里斯·霍伊并没有接受命运，而是加强了训练，用单腿骑固定自行车。
这得到了回报：他的腿已经痊愈，并且他最近完成了一次横跨西班牙的海岸到海岸骑行——这包括每天在车座上花费六个半小时，并攀爬了相当于一个半珠穆朗玛峰的高度。“那是极其艰苦的一周，”他说，“我累瘫了！”那么他为什么要这样做？“这不是某种强迫性的怪癖。这只是——这只是
本周 Radio 4 的《荒岛唱片》(Desert Island Discs) 节目邀请到的嘉宾是音乐人莎妮亚·图文中 (Shania Twain)
1 Paul Williams 和 Roger Nichols 创作，由 Carpenters 演唱的 《We’ve Only Just Begun》 2 Elton John 和 Bernie Taupin 创作，由 Elton John 演唱的 《Goodbye Yellow Brick Road》 3* Kerry Livgren 创作，由 Kansas 演唱的 《Dust in the Wind》 4 Marty Robbins 创作并演唱的 《El Paso》 5 Ennio Morricone 创作，由伦敦爱乐乐团演奏的 《Gabriel’s Oboe》（独奏：Joan Whiting；指挥：David Bedford） 6 John Hartford 创作，由 Glen Campbell 演唱的 《Gentle on My Mind》 7 Stevie Wonder 创作并演唱的 《Sir Duke》 8 Bobbie Gentry 创作并演唱的 《Ode to Billie Joe》
书籍：《Life is Fair》，作者 Brian Hines 奢侈品：驱虫剂 * 若仅允许携带一张唱片时的选择
在我的生命中，尝试并挑战自己对我很有帮助，所以如果你打算做某件事，就尽可能地去做。”他说，太多人未能意识到，即使你没有被诊断出患有绝症，生命也不是永恒的。我们都只有“一定的时间……只不过我的期限被提前了一点，因此我对此更加清醒。”
一个不典型的赛车之河 蒂姆·刘易斯 (Tim Lewis) 在《观察家报》(The Observer) 中写道，达蒙·希尔 (Damon Hill) 是一位前 F1 冠军——且其父亲也是冠军。然而他坚持认为自己并非此类人的典型。“如果你是一名 F1 赛车手，你会住在摩纳哥并开法拉利，”他解释道。他住在吉尔福德附近——“而且我没有法拉利。我没有汽车收藏。我对汽车的兴趣几乎为零。”这些日子，他大部分时间开的是一辆雪铁龙 Berlingo 小型面包车，以及一辆行驶了 120,000 英里的大众 Passat Alltrack 旅行车。“为什么有人不能理解那是史上最好的车呢，”他好奇地问。他确实还拥有一辆其他车辆，那辆更新，但他觉得相当烦人。“我正与[它]作战，因为它有所有这些不断发出叮当响的安全功能，”他说。“很快我们就不能开车了。我们知道，如果你打算自己驾驶这玩意儿，保险公司将不予承保。但我讨厌汽车告诉我应该做什么。我的天啊，我是个一级方程式赛车世界冠军！我知道怎么倒车！”
费恩·布里顿 (Fern Britton) 获得电视界机会的契机是向 70 多个广播机构写信寻求工作。她的坚持得到了回报；埃敏·萨内尔 (Emine Saner) 在《卫报》(The Guardian) 中写道，在区域特许电视机构积累经验后，她在 BBC 新开播的早间节目《早餐时间》(Breakfast Time) 中获得了一份工作。她对此感到很高兴，尽管在 20 世纪 80 年代初，作为一名电视界的年轻女性并不容易。她回忆起一名经理在拍摄的简短休息期间冲进现场，在工作人员和嘉宾面前告诉她表现得多么糟糕；而且好色行为盛行。捏屁股、被按在墙上、在电梯里被摸——这些都是常规风险。最严重的违规者之一是她的同事主持人弗兰克·博 (Frank Bough)。他的职业生涯后来因涉及可卡因和性工作者的丑闻而终结，但在当时，他极负盛名——一个表面上像叔叔一样亲切的人物，以在电视上穿着休闲针织衫而著称。有一次，布里顿在一次午餐会上坐在他旁边，“他转向我，向后靠在椅子上，[说]‘我想知道我多久能和你发生婚外情。因为我的阴茎非常大。’然后你就……”她做了一个厌恶的表情。“所以你必须有很强的韧性，但我当时只是想‘这个男人真奇怪，真愚蠢’。”当然，她知道她和其他女性当时所忍受的性别歧视程度是错误的，但这确实“赋予了你一种内在的力量和自我意识。我知道我不是一个好欺负的人。”
观点： 厌恶的权力 “社交媒体上的生活方式导师们传达的信息是，外界有一个充满可能性与冒险的光辉世界，无论年龄大小，我们都应对此持开放态度：无论是野泳；多边恋爱中令人惊叹的情感几何学；还是闻起来像没洗过的猪十二指肠的天然葡萄酒。对此我想说，去他的。经历过岁月洗礼的好处在于，通过长期的接触，能够体会到‘知道自己不喜欢什么’的快乐。例如，我绝不会再去观看任何一场《哈姆雷特》的演出。我不会去露营。野餐的准备工作太繁琐，无需预约的餐厅很无趣，而大多数自助餐则是美食的坟场。” 杰伊·雷纳 (Jay Rayner) 发表在《金融时报》
布伦达·弗里克 (Brenda Fricker)， 奥斯卡获奖女演员， 7月16日去世，享年 81 岁。
赫伯特·拉明勋爵 (Lord (Herbert) Laming)， 主持维多利亚·克林比 (Victoria Climbié) 调查委员会的社会工作者， 7月15日去世，享年 89 岁。
爱德华·斯图尔顿 (Edward Stourton)， 《今日》(Today) 节目主持人， 7月18日去世，享年 68 岁。
© HARRY BORDEN/THE GUARDIAN/EYEVINE
一个日益缩小的超富豪捐赠群体正在越来越多地资助英国的政党。我们是否应该担心？
为什么这个问题成为了新闻？ 简短的回答是因为改革党 (Reform UK)。2025年12月，监管选举和政治资金的法定机构选举委员会 (EC) 报告称，改革党收到了来自驻泰加密货币投资者克里斯托弗·哈伯恩 (Christopher Harborne) 的 £9m 捐款——这是英国一名在世人士向政党提供的最大一笔捐款。（哈伯恩在 2024 年还向奈杰尔·法拉奇 (Nigel Farage) 提供了 £5m，据称是一笔个人礼赠。）最新数据显示，2026 年第一季度向英国政党捐赠的金额略低于 £25m：改革党 £9.9m，保守党 £6m，工党 £4m，自民党 £3m。在给改革党的资金中，有 £7m 来自哈伯恩和另一名捐赠者——总部位于香港的加密货币交易所创始人本·德洛 (Ben Delo)。这正日益成为所有政治资金的共同主题。2015, 个人和公司提供的 £1m 或以上的捐款仅占所有私人政治捐赠的 1%。到 2024, 这种高额捐款已占总额的 35%。
为什么会发生这种情况？ 自愿捐赠驱动着英国的政党政治。国家资金仅限于提供给反对党的一小部分相对较少的金额。政党需要资金来支付员工工资、开展研究、投放广告以及进行选举竞选。会员人数的稳步下降——保守党在 20 世纪 50 年代约有 300 万名成员，而现在约有 130,000 名——使得会费被捐赠所取代。大额捐赠并不限于改革党：赛因为斯比 (Sainsbury) 家族成员曾向保守党和工党捐赠数千万英镑，包括 2022, 向保守党提供的 £10m 遗产捐赠，这是英国历史上最大的一笔捐赠。然而，过去十年见证了新一代超级捐赠者的崛起，他们知名度较低，且通常居住在海外。与此同时，在保守党 2023. 决定将选举支出上限提高 80% 这一极具争议的举措推动下，整体支出有所增长。2001 年所有政党在选举中的总支出为 £27m；在 2024 年选举中，该金额接近 £69m。
法律如何规定政治支出？ 对于竞选活动，每个国家级政党（按每个竞选选区 £54,010 计算）和每位地方候选人（从 £11,390 起）均设有支出限制。然而，政治捐赠没有总额限制。自 2000 年以来，超过 £11,180（此前为 £7,500）的捐款必须报告给选举委员会 (EC)。然而，漏洞层出不穷。例如，弗兰克·赫斯特 (Frank Hester) 及其公司 The Phoenix Partnership 在 2024 年选举前向保守党捐赠了 £15m（占该党竞选支出的 63%），但将其拆分为较小金额以规避审查。捐赠者必须是“合格的”，这意味着他们必须是登记在选举名册上的个人（包括海外选民），或者是英国注册的公司、工会或其他机构。非英国选民可以通过英国子公司或使用所谓的“非法人协会”来绕过禁令。
© JOHN NGUYEN/JNVISUALS
“了解你的捐赠者”：今年的哈本与法拉奇
哈本：“警觉之人” 克里斯托弗·哈本（Christopher Harborne）是一个“极其注重隐私的人”，他的律师如是说。他在威斯敏斯特和剑桥接受教育，职业生涯始于传统的商业领域——获得了 MBA 学位并在麦肯锡工作——随后在 1996 年移居泰国加入一家市场研究公司。在 1997 年的亚洲金融危机期间，他赚到了足够的钱来成立自己的投资公司。在 2005, 他创立了 AML Global，一家喷气燃料经纪公司。根据美国法院案件的法庭文件，他从 2011 年开始购买比特币；到 2014. 价格已上涨了千倍。随后，哈本还成为了另一种加密货币以太坊的主要交易者。他是六个神秘科技人物之一，他们共同拥有 Tether，这家公司发行了全球交易量最大的稳定币（一种与真实货币挂钩的数字货币），并获利丰厚。《星期日时报》的富豪榜将其财富估计为 £18.2bn。他在泰国还拥有一家健康疗养院，在那里他以 Chakrit Sakunkrit（“警觉之人”）的身份发表演讲。自 2019, 起，哈本向改革党捐款超过 £22m。他曾是一名保守党捐赠者，直到 2022 年，作为一名热情的脱欧支持者，他转向支持脱欧党，向其捐款超过 £10m，并确保在该党总部获得一个办公席位。同年，他还向鲍里斯·约翰逊的私人办公室捐赠了 £1m。
简报
为什么这是一个值得关注的问题？ 金钱影响选举结果。 可以认为，如果没有对其以及前身英国脱欧党（Brexit Party）的大量资金支持，改革党不可能建立起主要政党的地位。而且总的来说，政党不会无偿获得任何东西。政治学家通常将捐赠者分为三类（且相互重叠）：“意识形态者”，由某种事业驱动；“投资者”，将钱交给他们认为能代表其利益的人；以及“亲信”，他们享受捐赠带来的与立法者接触的机会以及相关的声望。这种做法的危险性已无需赘言。但随着捐赠变得更加狭窄且集中在超级富豪手中，人们担心政党在捐赠者压力面前将变得愈发脆弱。 批评者表示，改革党三分之二的资金来自加密货币商人，且该党呼吁进行监管领域的“大爆炸 2”（Big Bang 2）以将英国转变为“加密中心”，这绝非巧合。但问题比这更广泛。英国透明国际（Transparency International UK）评估认为，自 2001 年以来，提供给政党的 4200万英镑 (£42m) 资金，其捐赠者被指控或被证实涉及欺诈、腐败或洗钱。
目前是否有替代方案？ 许多国家限制的不是政党的支出，而是捐赠者的捐赠额度。澳大利亚设有每年 50,000 美元 ($50,000) 的捐赠上限；加拿大将个人捐赠限制在每年 1,750 美元 ($1,750) 左右；法国的上限为 7,500 美元 ($7,500)。然而，在这些国家，国家会填补资金缺口——按选民人数计算，法国在政党上的支出是英国的十倍以上——而在英国，这种国家资助并不受欢迎；大多数纳税人拒绝接受由他们资助与自己政见不合的政党这一原则。与法国处于光谱另一端的是美国，美国最高法院已基于言论自由的理由取消了所有捐赠和支出限制。自此，美国选举的成本以及超级富豪的影响力随之激增。
是否有限制捐赠的计划？ 工党 2024 年的竞选宣言承诺将“通过加强捐赠规则来保护民主”。菲利普·赖克罗夫特（Philip Rycroft）关于外国财务干预的独立审查建议，其中包括：对居住在海外的英国选民每年的政治捐赠设定 100,000 英镑 (£100,000) 的上限；暂停加密货币捐赠；以及实施更严格的“了解你的捐赠者”检查。今年 3 月，这些内容作为修正案被添加到《人民代表法案》（Representation of the People Bill）中，该法案原定于上周在下议院进行三读。由于旨在限制国内政治捐赠的后座议员修正案，该法案的进程被突然推迟。工党议员斯特拉·克里西（Stella Creasy）建议对个人捐赠设定 100,000 英镑 (£100,000) 的统一年度上限。（这将使改革党失去约 85% 的资金。）改革党和工会（其向工党的集体捐赠可能会受到影响）均表示反对。此次延迟将使安迪·伯纳姆的政府能够重新塑造该立法。
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Politico
“自古巴导弹危机以来最重要的一次椭圆形办公室演说。” Kyle Cheney 在 Politico 上表示，一名获准提前预览特朗普总统上周演讲的共和党参议员在事前是这样描述的。毋庸置明，这次电视演说未能达到预期的宣传效果。特朗普试图给人留下这样一种印象：新解密的机密情报揭露了美国选举制度中存在“令人震惊的脆弱性”，并证明了中国在 2020 年选举中进行了干预。但对于这一点，以及他声称“深层国家”正致力于积极掩盖关于北京“阴险的选举干涉”的信息，他都没有提供任何证据。Steve Benen 在 MS Now 上表示，让特朗普关于“选举安全”的过度修辞显得更加荒谬的是，他刚刚解雇了跨党派选举援助委员会 (EAC) 所有的剩余董事会成员，该委员会是一个旨在帮助各州公平管理选举的联邦机构。这样做怎么能改善情况？
《华尔街日报》称，民主党人对 EAC 被掏空感到极度不安。参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默将其称为“一次企图夺取我们控制权的肆无忌惮的尝试”。
热爱足球…… 以及火车
Sara Herschander
Vox
浮士德式 交易
Jonathan Martin
想要检测 你的荷尔蒙
Tom Bartlett
《大西洋月刊》
总统：将 2020 年的失败归咎于中国
萨拉·赫舍兰德（Sara Herschander）表示，好吧，我们挺过来了。令几乎所有人感到惊讶的是，世界杯并没有导致美国的“公共交通崩溃”。这个以汽车为中心的著称的国家，不知怎么地，成功吸收了涌入的外国足球迷，并想出了让他们往返体育场的办法。事实证明，当美国城市需要时，可以相当快速地建设公共交通基础设施。洛杉矶在过去两年中努力升级并重新塑造其交通系统的品牌形象。它在 5 月开通了三个新地铁站，这是 20 年多来首次开通。西雅图完成了一项准备了近二十年的轻轨延伸工程；亚特兰大对其巴士网络进行了大修；堪萨斯城扩大了有轨电车服务并增加了接驳巴士。现在的问题是，这是否标志着美国在公共交通方面开始发生文化转变，还是该国将回归旧习。堪萨斯州已经关闭了其延伸的有轨电车服务，但洛杉矶正投入更多资金建设火车和巴士，为举办 2028 奥运会做准备。一次锦标赛并不“足以改变美国人的出行方式”，但如果这个国家能学会热爱足球，那么它肯定也“能学会多热爱一点火车”。
乔纳森·马丁（Jonathan Martin）说，林赛·格雷厄姆（Lindsey Graham）是共和党人在唐纳德·特朗普通过敌意接管该党后与其达成的交易的终极体现。这位两周前去世的南卡罗来纳州参议员在 2015, 年时对特朗普不屑一顾，谴责他是“利用种族煽动情绪、仇外且宗教偏见的狂信徒”。然而，他后来成为了总统在参议院中最坚定的盟友。在职业生涯和原则之间被迫做出选择时，格雷厄姆选择了前者。对他来说，这根本不是在选择。作为一个终身单身汉，他为政治而活。没有其他立法者能比他“在担任公职中获得更多快乐，或更深地渴望公职所赋予的影响力”。如果为了“留在决策之室”而必须屈从于特朗普，那么他就会这么做。虽然这无疑是“愤世嫉俗的”，但格雷厄姆是一位老练的政治家，他利用自己的影响力支持国际主义和美国的领导角色。“我会说两种语言，”他开玩笑说，“我会说‘欧洲语’和‘特朗普语’。”毫无疑问，如果格雷厄姆没有“几乎每天在他耳边吹风”，特朗普可能会更容易放弃乌克兰。格雷厄姆的妥协值得吗？这个问题可能永远无法得到解答——至少在特朗普任期的最后两年半结束之前。
汤姆·巴特利特（Tom Bartlett）说：“皮特·海格塞斯（Pete Hegseth）想要一支有男子气概的军队，而且他非常、非常希望你知道他多么渴望一支有男子气概的军队。”在他 2024 年出版的著作《战士之战》（The War on Warriors）中，这位当时的福克斯新闻联合主持人担心军队变得“女性化”，并责骂“五角大楼的胆小鬼”没有为士兵挺身而出。在成为国防部长后，他一直保持这种大男子主义风格，发布“拍胸脯的健身视频”，并谴责任何他认为软弱或“觉醒”的事物。现在，在一次几乎像是在讽刺地演戏的行为中，他呼吁所有 30 岁以上的服役人员每年进行一次睾酮水平检测。在一段标题为“高 T 战争部”的视频中宣布的计划下，士兵可能会被建议接受睾酮替代疗法，以帮助军队保持在“杀伤力的领先边缘”。目前尚不清楚这是否能真正起到作用。研究表明，额外的睾酮并不能增强力量和耐力。而且，医生不会自动向睾酮水平低的男性推荐治疗，因为饮食、健身和睡眠起着重要作用。这一举措出台之际，正值伊朗战争（再次升温）严重耗尽美国导弹库存之时。“也许那个数字才是海格塞斯应该担心的。”
相反，《费城 Inquirer》报表示，特朗普的对手们完全有理由感到担忧。在过去的一年里，总统一直在升级其“操纵选举的企图”。他要求联邦政府接管选举控制权。他敦促共和党议员重新绘制有利于该党的选区地图，同时寻求通过更改规则来压制民主党的投票，要求停止邮寄投票，并签署了一项要求选民出示公民身份证明的行政命令。他“奖赏了那些否认选举结果的人”，并持续致力于播撒对选举的不信任感。谁知道他还会尝试什么。他试图推翻 2020 年选举结果的行为表明，他愿意“逾越任何底线”。让我们把显而易见的事实说出来：他正打算“操纵”中期选举。
在投出第一票之前就操纵选举”。这种恐慌被夸大了。选举援助委员会（EAC）仅发挥有限的作用，其工作人员仍能履行基本职责。是的，特朗普“可能愿意尽一切可能帮助共和党在11月的中期选举中保留国会控制权”，但“令人宽慰的现实是，选票由数以千计不同的州和地方官员控制”——而非由联邦政府控制。
《金融时报》称，弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基在与俄罗斯的战争期间展现出的“勇气和不懈的领导力”理应获得赞赏。但有时，这位乌克兰总统做出的政治决定却“令人费解，难以证明其合理性，且适得其反”。而他上周进行的内阁改组——这是自 2022 年弗拉基米尔·普京全面入侵以来第三次改组——就是一个极其典型的“乌龙球”案例。他的一些决定是合理的，包括撤换总理尤利娅·斯维里登科；接替她的是国家天然气公司 Naftogaz 的前首席执行官谢尔盖·科雷茨基，后者在俄罗斯于今年冬天发起残酷打击前加强能源部门方面处于有利位置。然而，任何潜在的积极影响都远不及泽连斯基对他国防部长米哈伊洛·费多罗夫的粗暴解雇所带来的负面影响，后者此前与武装部队总司令奥列克桑德尔·瑟尔斯基闹僵。费多罗夫是一位 35 岁的“技术奇才”，曾负责乌克兰的无人机计划，他在该职位上仅任职六个月，但在这短短的时间内已经彻底改变了军队。通过解雇表现最好的部长，泽连斯基犯了一个严重的错误。难怪这么多乌克兰人在基辅和其他城市走上街头抗议。
《基辅独立报》表示，今年夏天，战争自 2022 年秋季以来首次向有利于乌克兰的方向转移。而这次反转的“驱动力”正是费多罗夫。在他就任之初，乌克兰正在失去阵地：克里姆林宫的军队正向顿巴斯地区波克罗夫斯克等关键城市推进。但现在，处于被动地位的是莫斯科。一波又一波的乌克兰远程无人机袭击击中了俄罗斯深处的炼油厂，导致数十个俄罗斯地区出现能源短缺。其他针对亚速海和黑海中与俄罗斯相关船只的无人机袭击，则有助于切断被俄罗斯占领的克里米亚半岛。这些成功的策略是费多罗夫的主意，因为与乌克兰的军事首脑不同，他意识到
中国
北京抹除 西藏文化
Project Syndicate （布拉格）
德国
德国 大选吗？
《镜报》 （汉堡）
最佳文章：国际
费多罗夫与瑟尔斯基：“技术奇才”与“老派将领”
Brahma Chellaney 表示，西藏活动人士 Lobga Rangzen 本月初在纽约联合国大楼外自焚身亡，这一悲剧应当警示世界，关注一项人们倾向于忽视的暴行：中国对其在 1951. 夺取的西藏进行“系统性抹除”。这个资源丰富的高原是亚洲最有价值的地缘政治资产之一，而习主席决定，实现完全控制的最佳方式就是“抹除居住在那里的人们的身份”。长期以来，北京通过军事基地、大型水坝和矿山实施物理控制；但现在，它正以前所未有的方式强制同化当地人。为了让他们与自己的语言和家庭隔绝，中国共产党强制四分之三的西藏儿童就读国家寄宿学校，那里的课程仅用普通话教学。本月初，中国还出台了《促进民族团结进步法》，该法律将任何威胁“民族团结”的活动定为犯罪。民主政府必须采取行动：他们应当制裁中国官员，资助更多针对西藏离散群体的教育项目，并且拒绝像大英博物馆那样令人感到羞耻地将西藏称为中国的名称“Xizang”。向北京屈膝并非答案。
Christian Stöcker 表示，德国的联邦大选可能要到 2029, 才会举行，但弗拉基米尔·普京的宣传机器已经全面运转。俄罗斯的僵尸网络“正全力开火”，试图将选票引导至德国两个亲克里姆林宫的政党：极右翼的 AfD 和民粹主义左翼的萨赫拉·瓦根克内希特联盟 (BSW)。他们的许多抹黑活动在无意中显得十分可笑——例如，绿党政治家被指控向新纳粹分发“修正主义文学”——但其背后的动机绝非玩笑。来自所有主流政党的政治家在社交媒体平台上成为了令人眼花缭乱的指控目标，被指控参加性派对、掩盖性虐待、挪用慈善资金以及其他诸多罪名。这些指控的基调始终如一，随帖附上的伪造媒体标志也是如此，这些帖子通常有 100,000 次左右的浏览量。此类虚假信息活动可能不会成功：类似的企图在最近的匈牙利和摩尔多瓦选举中未能产生影响。但德国选民在今年的州选举中应当知道，“投票给 AfD 或 BSW 就是投票给克里姆林宫”。
Francis Farrell 在《基辅独立报》中写道，在解职事件后的几天里，泽连斯基面临的压力不断增加。对瑟尔斯基的反对情绪达到了“沸点”，许多人认为这位总司令应对费多罗夫被解职负责。乌克兰各地成千上万的人走上街头，表达对创新型人物费多罗夫的支持，以及对瑟尔斯基的愤怒。后者是一位“老派的、具有苏联思维的将领”，因其指挥期间乌军伤亡率高而获得了“屠夫”的绰号。一张抗议标语写道：“费多罗夫 = 更多俄罗斯人死亡，瑟尔斯基 = 更多乌克兰人死亡。”《基辅邮报》报道称，周二，泽连斯基最终向民意低头。他撤换了瑟尔斯基，转而任命 43 岁的将军 Mykhailo Drapaty，这是这场战争迄今为止“最重要的军事领导层变动之一”。费多罗夫称 Drapaty 是“新鲜空气和新的希望”，他本人也被提供了一个政府的新职位。
Anthony Loyd 在《泰晤士报》中写道：“许多人会对瑟尔斯基的垮台感到高兴。”而其他人则会思考，这位在 2022, 年领导基辅英雄般防御以及同年领导哈尔科夫闪电攻势的将军是否“理应离职”。他承受了惨重的损失，但这在消耗战中难以避免。瑟尔斯基的离职引发了一个问题：在“一场关乎生存的战争之中”，通过抗议来选择新总司令是否正确。
俄罗斯规模更大的军队只能通过不对称战术来击败。他还通过将国防合同开放给竞争性招标，为乌克兰节省了数十亿资金；并说服埃隆·马斯克关闭俄罗斯军队在战场上用于卫星连接的 Starlink 终端，从而给予了乌克兰巨大的帮助。鉴于这些关键的改革，他的被罢免（俄罗斯军事博主对此表示赞赏）被预测将对乌克兰的战争努力产生“毁灭性后果”——使其重新回到“缓慢战略退化”的道路上。
女性更擅长边说边做 人们常说女性在多任务处理方面比男性更出色，但这一观念似乎是基于一种错觉。一项新研究发现，男性和女性的多任务处理能力相似，但女性在处理任务时更擅长地同时交谈——这给人一种能力更强的印象。在这次研究中，来自布鲁内尔大学的夫妻档安德烈·J·萨梅塔特博士（Dr André J. Szameitat）和戴安娜·萨梅塔特博士（Dr Diana Szameitat）拍摄了 41 名男性和 37 名女性尝试同时执行四项任务（包括按照食谱操作和查找电话号码）的情况。参与者大约每 20 秒会被问到一个问题，模拟他们同时在进行对话。男性和女性在处理不同任务时同样出色，但男性未能回答 28% 的问题，而女性这一比例仅为 12%。当这些视频展示给 160 名未参与研究的人员观看时，他们判定男性的多任务处理效率较低。
电子烟与体能下降相关 曼彻斯特都会大学的研究人员发现，电子烟对体能的影响与吸烟一样大。研究团队将 75 名 18 至 30 岁的受试者分为三组：吸烟者、电子烟使用者以及从未吸烟或使用电子烟的人。每位参与者随后在健身单车上进行了体能测试，阻力逐渐增加直到他们精疲力竭。在骑行过程中，研究人员测量了他们的心脏功能、呼吸以及血液中的乳酸量；他们还接受了超声波扫描和血液检测，以检查动脉状态。结果显示，吸烟者和电子烟使用者的运动能力较低
恐蛛症患者请移开视线：科学家们根据运行速度对数百种蜘蛛进行了排名，发现其中最快的一种——手掌大小的棕色巨蟹蛛——一秒钟可以跑超过 3.5 米。研究团队通过拍摄 162 种来自全球各地的蜘蛛在方格纸上奔跑的情况进行了测试。大多数蜘蛛在画笔轻轻拨动后开始跑动；而其他一些蜘蛛——例如喜欢原地坚守的捕鸟蛛——则需要压缩空气的吹动才能移动。对于另外 96 个物种，研究人员依赖于现有研究的数据。生活在澳大利亚的棕色巨蟹蛛以 8mph 的速度夺冠。它只能在瞬间维持该速度，但其平均速度约为 4.5mph，依然相当快：人类慢跑的速度通常在 4 到 6 mph 之间。 在一定程度上，速度随体型增加而提高，因为体型较大的蜘蛛腿更长，但研究显示，在某个时间点上，物种的重量开始抵消这一优势——因此体型粗壮的捕鸟蛛最高时速仅为 1 mph 左右。而一些极小的蜘蛛则被证明异常敏捷：橙色小鬼蛛重量仅 0.1mg，远轻于一颗罂粟籽，但被发现能以 0.45mph 的速度冲刺。
一种隐秘的霸凌形式？
比那些从未吸烟或使用电子烟的人更严重。他们在骑行时更容易感到气短；报告称腿部不适感更多，且血管中出现炎症迹象的次数更多。研究作者表示，总的来说，吸烟和电子烟对青少年身体的影响相似——平均使体能下降约 15%。
被动攻击的猫 看到猫咪互相舔舐可能会让人感到温馨，但一项新研究发现，这种表面上的亲昵行为实际上可能是一种隐秘的霸凌形式。根特大学的博士生 Morgane Van Belle 在观察她的猫竞争阳光照射点时产生了这项研究的灵感。当 Fabio 躺在阳光下时，Giovanni 会走过来开始舔它。起初这看起来很友好——但这种行为一直持续到 Fabio 感到厌烦并走开，从而让 Giovanni 占据了
[[IMG_XXXX]] 棕色猎人蛛：时速可达 8 英里
这个觊觎已久的位置。为了确定这种行为是否普遍，Van Belle 要求 53 对猫的主人拍摄宠物互动时的视频。结果显示，这种行为可能是友好的，是一种社交纽带的形式，但它也可能带有轻微的威慑意味。在后一种情况下，一只猫可能会在舔对方之前俯身压制，导致对方发出哀鸣、转动耳朵或挥爪反击。《应用动物行为科学》期刊上的报告称，梳理行为可被用于“秘密解决冲突”。
深空中的甜味物质 科学家首次在星际空间中发现了糖。糖是 DNA 和 RNA（以及生命）的构建基块，也是至关重要的能量来源。人们认为，在地球历史早期，糖是通过小行星和彗星到达地球的——但在此之久前，它是在哪里形成的，一直是一个谜。2000, 天文学家在银河系中心附近的一个巨大气体和尘埃云中检测到了乙醇醛，一种简单的类糖双碳化合物。这激励他们继续寻找更大的分子——现在，一个团队利用西班牙的两台强大射电望远镜，声称在类似的星际云中检测到了四碳赤藓酮糖（一种在树莓中发现的天然糖）的指纹。赤藓酮糖本身并不存在于 DNA 或 RNA 中，但这一发现表明，复杂的糖可以在冰冷的深空中形成。据估计，在约 40 亿年前的后期大轰击期间，多达 55 million 公吨的宇宙之糖可能随空间岩石降落在年轻的地球上，帮助创造了生命最终得以形成的条件。
英国不健康的儿童
根据皇家儿科与儿童健康学院的说法，英国的儿童是欧洲最不健康的群体之一。在其最新的《儿童健康状况》报告中，该机构警告称，在其衡量的全部 12 项儿童健康指标中，自 2020 年上一份报告以来，结果要么停滞不前，要么出现倒退。例如，2020 年的报告指出，1 至 15 岁儿童的死亡率为每 100,000 人中 8 例；现在已上升至 8.6。可能患有心理健康障碍的 8 至 16 岁儿童比例已从 12.5% 上升至 20.3%。三分之一的 10 至 11 岁儿童超重或肥胖；且仅有 84% 的儿童在五岁前接种了两剂 MMR 疫苗。报告还发现了巨大的不平等差距：英格兰最贫困地区的 18 岁以下儿童死亡率几乎是最不贫困地区儿童的两倍。
议题
这一定是真的…… 我在小报上读到的
秘鲁有数百名婴儿被命名为挪威球星埃尔林·哈兰德（Erling Haaland），这一趋势得益于他在世界杯上打入的七粒进球，其中包括对阵巴西队的一次决定性射门。秘鲁有超过 470 名新生儿被命名为“Haaland”，另有 91 人使用了全名“Erling Haaland”。不过，巴西球星内马尔（Neymar）仍是无可争议的领先者，在秘鲁有 33,809 个同名者；名为梅西（Messi）的有 3,402 人，而以克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多（Cristiano Ronaldo）命名的有 1,185 人。
在斯塔夫罗波尔市，有视频拍到俄罗斯人在喝马桶里的水以赢取奖金。在一场购物中心举办的“权力游戏”比赛中，参与者必须“从马桶里喝一种无酒精气泡饮品”，然后坐在关闭的马桶盖上数小时以测试耐力，从而赢得 100,000 卢布（£950）。这场比赛引起了当地居民的愤怒，他们认为这给这座城市制造了“糟糕的形象”。
一名英格兰球迷如此坚信国家队将赢得世界杯，以至于纹了一个巨大的庆祝“获胜”的纹身，而现在他决定在下面加上“开玩笑的”几个字。肖恩·卡灵顿（Sean Carrington）在英格兰击败刚果民主共和国后，花费 £550 纹了一个长达一英尺的奖杯图案，宣布英格兰是“2026 世界杯冠军”。他表示自己“并不后悔”。
乔·亨利（Jon Henley）在《卫报》中表示，在工党议员乔·考克斯（Jo Cox）被极右翼极端分子谋杀十年后，以及保守党议员大卫·艾梅斯（David Amess）被伊斯兰国支持者刺死五年后，安·威德科姆（Ann Widdecombe）被杀一事再次引发了关于政治暴力升级的争论。这位 78 岁的改革党发言人及前保守党议员于 7 月 9 日被发现死在德文郡的家中。本周，一名来自罗瑟汉的 28 岁男子被指控谋杀她。约书亚·克里（Joshua Kerry）被邻居描述为“有点离群索居”，涉嫌驱车 270 英里实施袭击。其可能的动机仍在调查中。
迈克尔·戈夫（Michael Gove）在《观察家》杂志上称，威德科姆的遇害是一场“荒诞的悲剧”；因此，这引发了要求加强议员保护的呼吁，也就不足为奇了。在我的政治生涯中，我曾收到死亡威胁。我曾在维多利亚车站从“暴民”中获救，并且被后来杀掉艾梅斯的那个极端分子“猎杀”。因此，我同情奈杰尔·法拉奇对其安全的担忧，且比一些人更宽容地看待他决定接受私人资金支付额外安保费用的决定。他值得被保护，这就是为什么他被提供与反对党领袖相同级别的安保（尽管他似乎拒绝了）。
自美国和以色列于 28 February 首次袭击伊朗以来，特朗普总统“已 30 次以上声称‘史诗愤怒行动’（Operation Epic Fury）取得了成功、已经结束或即将结束”，罗宾·赖特在《纽约客》中写道。这些预言没有一个得到证实；“其中一些简直近乎妄想”。 6 月达成的最新停火协议已“在功能上崩溃”。在过去的两周里，美国每晚发起空袭，重新封锁穿越霍尔木兹海峡的伊朗船只，并恢复制裁。伊朗则袭击了位于约旦、科威特、阿联酋、卡塔尔、巴林和阿曼的美国及其他目标。上周，约旦的一座空军基地遭到袭击，造成 3 名美国军方人员死亡；在最近的袭击中，另有近 100 人受伤。到目前为止，特朗普尝试了三种策略：政权更迭、更长时间的无情轰炸以及外交手段。但没有一种奏效。在华盛顿，人们对这场战争的方向产生了一种“日益增长的绝望感”。
瓦利·纳斯尔在《金融时报》中表示，伊朗领导层担心 6 月达成的谅解备忘录仅仅是一次临时撤退——旨在减轻全球经济压力并允许美军重新武装。事实上，“有充足的证据支持他们的怀疑”。更多的美国军事资产开始进入该地区，而协议中关于与伊朗协调船只通过霍尔木兹海峡、以及黎巴嫩停火必要性的条款均被忽视。德黑兰目前发起进攻的目的，是为了证明美国无法主导局势，且伊朗能够承受任何施加在其身上的军事和经济痛苦。马克·厄本在《星期日泰晤士报》中提到，一些战略家认为美国的新计划可能奏效。美军正在猛烈打击伊朗海岸——包括军事设施、桥梁、机场、港口设施——以抵消伊朗军队对海峡的控制。与此同时，切断石油出口将在数月内（而非数周内）使该国陷入深重的经济危机。
与此同时，该地区的附带损害正在升级，艾哈迈德·阿尔-奥姆兰在《金融时报》中写道。科威特正承受着伊朗当前袭击的最严重打击，已遭遇 1,400 次导弹和无人机袭击。其机场和石油基础设施遭到攻击，能源网以及供应科威特 90% 饮用水的脱盐厂也未能幸免。石油出口已下降至战前水平的 20%。威尔·沃尔多夫在《外交政策》中指出，美国陷入了深深的困境，且没有简单的出路——除非接受伊朗对霍尔木兹海峡的控制权及其浓缩铀的权利。“但这正是输掉一场根本不该开始的战争所带来的不幸后果。”
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休戈·里夫金在《泰晤士报》中表示，尤苏法的提案解决了问题的症状，而非病因。如果政治气候确实糟糕到所有国会议员现在都需要 24/7 安保，那么“这才是需要解决的部分。不过，在这里，改革党处于尴尬的境地”。上周，尤苏法抨击了那些将改革党等同于“杀人政权”的人。他说，这可能会煽动暴力行为。他可能是对的，但他也及其同事在此类问题上也有前科。在露西·康诺利因号召纵火焚烧难民酒店而被判刑后，他们对其大加赞赏。他们将保守党和工党议员谴责为需要面对“清算”的“叛徒”；并且将那些抱怨此类言论的人斥为被“伤人心的话语”搞得心碎的“雪花”。我不知道煽动性语言是否是政治暴力上升的原因：它确实有可能刺激了那些似乎在其中扮演最糟糕角色的“疯子”。但无论这件事是否重要，你不能只在它影响到你这一方时才抱怨。
乔舒亚·克里 2022 年
但改革党发言人齐亚·尤苏夫（Zia Yusuf）现在要求为所有 650 名国会议员提供全天候安保，这显然过分了。这每年可能会花费约 £1bn——而这笔钱原本可以用作保护我们其他的人，包括那些比大多数国会议员面临更高风险的群体——而且甚至无法覆盖像威德库姆（Widdecombe）这样的前议员。
《每日邮报》的奥利弗·霍尔特表示，“超级巨星”这个词在如今被过度使用了；但如果说有谁配得上这个词，那一定是凯文·基根。早在 1970 年代，这位本周去世、享年 75 岁的足球运动员就是灰色世界中的一场“色彩盛宴”；《泰晤士报》称，有几年时间，英格兰再次成为伟大足球强国的希望似乎完全寄托在他那顶“贵宾曲发烫发”上。作为英格兰队队长，他将球队提升到平庸之上的成功虽然短暂，但他的影响力跨越了文化界限。他不仅充满魅力且坦率，而且是首批充分将个人品牌市场化的球员之一，以“魅力与专业精神运用他那标志性的微笑和凹陷的下巴”。他无处不在地出现在谷物早餐盒上；他是电视上 Brut 止汗剂的代言脸孔，将其“大肆喷洒”；他甚至发行了几单单曲。
《每日电讯报》的吉姆·怀特表示，基根并不是第一位“名人球员”：乔治·贝斯特在十年前就已经是这样了。但被人们称为“凯文王”或“Special K”的他与贝斯特不同。他是一个形象干净的家庭男人，既没有贝斯特那种破坏性倾向，也没有那种天赋异禀的才华。基根在南约克郡一个“热爱足球”的环境中长大，是一名矿工之子，他通过不懈的训练成为了伟大的球员，并证明了那些曾告诉他由于身材瘦小而 [[SOURCE_CLEANUP_NOTE: text cuts off]]
《经济学人》称：“这几乎是博物馆界最接近秘密行动的一次尝试。”7 月 9 日，在警方的护送下，一辆特制货车离开了诺曼底的拜约。这幅拥有近 1,000 年历史、由脆弱亚麻制成的拜约挂毯，被轻轻折叠在一个定制的、温控的铝制板箱中，该板箱悬挂在一个防震金属笼内。货车在夜色的掩护下，通过英法海底隧道前往大英博物馆，于 7 月 10 日凌晨 3 点抵达；策展人和修复师聚集在一起为这次抵达而鼓掌。大英博物馆将“Merci”（谢谢）字样投影在多佛尔的白崖上。
《卫报》的纳迪亚·科马米表示，在脱欧投票后的十年里，英国与法国之间的关系一直被“争吵所定义”——涉及贸易、海峡移民、捕鱼权。而这段“充满矛盾的章节”现在已让位于“几十年来两国之间最重要的文化外交行动之一”。这次借展最初由埃马纽埃尔·马克龙在 2018 年向特蕾莎·梅提出，经过了多年关于一切细节的“艰苦”谈判，包括
讨论热点
“大力小鼠”：基根在 1976 年
《卫报》称，在球场上，他最早在 20 世纪 70 年代初效力于利物浦时获得星光关注。1977 年，他转会至汉堡——在那里他两次获得金球奖——并在 1982 年起效力于纽卡斯尔，结束了他的球员生涯；在纽卡斯尔，他帮助“喜鹊”重返第一 division，从而获得了像半神一样的地位。当他退役时——在一次致敬赛后乘坐直升机飞离球场——球迷们流下了眼泪。八年后，他以经理的身份回归。当时俱乐部面临降级到第三级别联赛的危机；在他的率领下，球队不仅升级且成为了英超联赛中最令人心潮澎湃的球队之一。尽管他在纽卡斯尔的最后一段任期不那么成功，但球迷们依然热爱他。1 月，在他透露自己患有绝症癌症后，球迷们在圣詹姆斯公园球场展开了一幅巨大的横幅，上面写着：“基夫国王万岁——救世主”。
文化外交在发挥作用
《独立报》的劳伦·莫里斯表示，这次出借在英国也并非没有争议；已故的大卫·霍克尼曾表示，移动这样一个脆弱的物件简直是“疯狂”。展出票价为 £33，展览从 9 月持续到明年 7 月，这一价格也受到了批评。《旁观者》的埃蒂·尼尔-加拉彻表示，当我尝试买票时，我的排队序号是 53,327。首批门票在 24 小时内售罄，速度堪比格拉斯顿伯里音乐节抢票。虽然令人沮丧，但在一个实时更新的时代，一份关于诺曼征服的近乎同时期的记录竟然能“让互联网崩溃”，真是太令人愉悦了。
因为身材矮小（他身高五英尺七英寸），他或许更适合当一名骑师。他的活力、坚韧和战斗精神让他赢得了“大力小鼠”的绰号——并导致他在 1974 年陷入了一场臭名昭著的球场斗殴——这在 1976 年的多项运动电视节目《超级巨星》中被大众所熟知。在自行车项目中，基根从车上摔了下来，摔得很惨。他血迹斑斑，青一块紫一块，但他坚持参加重新比赛，并最终赢得了胜利。公众因此对他非常喜爱。
运输过程需满足保护这幅千年未离开法国的挂毯所需的温度和照明条件；它将以平铺方式展示而非悬挂，以防止压力损伤。《世界报》的罗克莎娜·阿齐米表示，法方有许多“需要消除的顾虑”——主要是担心在运输过程中受损。有些人甚至担心英国人不会将其归还。为了向巴黎方面提供保证，英国为该挂毯提供了 8 亿英镑（£800m）的赔偿担保——作为交换，刘易斯棋子和萨顿胡的宝藏将在诺曼底展出。
“首相的首要条件是要成为一名优秀的屠夫。” 威廉·格拉斯顿，引用自《独立报》
“太多的认同会扼杀聊天。” 埃尔德里奇·克利弗，引用自《德克萨斯都会新闻》
“永远犯新的错误。” 埃丝特·戴森，引用自《纽约时报》
“门，就是狗永远处于错误一侧的东西。” 奥格登·纳什，同上。
“如果艺术忽略了生活中快乐和愚蠢部分的惊人持久性，将错过关于人类体验的一些深刻之处。” 詹姆斯·马里奥特，载于《泰晤士报》
“如果你对无聊免疫，那么世界上就真的没有你不能完成的事情。” 大卫·福斯特·华莱士，引用自《基督科学监测报》
“婚姻是唯一向胆小鬼开放的冒险。” 归于伏尔泰，引用自《每日电讯报》
“随着社会走向颓废，语言也随之颓废。文字被用来掩饰而非阐明行动：你通过摧毁一座城市来‘解放’它。” 戈尔·维达尔，引用自《大西洋月刊》
“当我们试图单独挑选任何事物时，我们发现它与宇宙中的其他所有事物都联系在一起。” 约翰·缪尔，引用自 The Marginalian
本周统计 去年因毒驾而被扣分的人数多于因酒驾而被扣分的人数。英国记录的毒驾违规次数为 30,707 起（三年增长 28%），酒驾违规次数为 29,769 起（下降 17%）。 DVLA/《泰晤士报》
在大部分时间里，第23届男子世界杯被“球星们的个人表现所主导”，奥利弗·凯在 The Athletic 网站上如此写道。尽管利昂内尔·梅西、基利安·姆巴佩和朱德·贝林厄姆表现出色，但没有一个人能凭一己之力带领球队走向辉煌。相反，这次比赛是由一支拥有最强“集体”认同感的球队实至名得地赢得了冠军。当然，西班牙队并不缺乏优秀球员——无论是队长、国际足联金球奖得主罗德里，还是19岁的边锋拉明·亚马尔——但他们与“个人球员的组合”这种状态相去最远。 “‘团队’这个词高于一切。” 这一点在周日的决赛中得到了鲜明体现，西班牙队凭借费兰·托雷斯在加时赛的一粒进球，以 1-0 击败阿根廷。而过度依赖梅西“天才”表现的阿根廷队则显示出“进攻雄心的匮乏”，西班牙队则保持了他们一贯的冷静、聪明和有条不紊。从足球专业角度来看，这根本不是一场势均力敌的比赛：西班牙队掌控了球权并创造了多次机会，而阿根廷队在常规时间内没有完成一次射门——这是世界杯决赛历史上首次出现这种情况。
西班牙足球的基础是 el entendimiento del juego 哲学，汤姆·奥尔纳特在《周日泰晤士报》中将其翻译为“对比赛的理解”。这是一种
“板球迷热爱争论，”维克·马克斯在《卫报》中写道。“谁是最伟大的快球投手？谁是最强的旋转球投手？”但提到全能球员时，人们达成了一致共识：史上最强的是加里·“加里”·索伯斯爵士，他以 89 岁之龄去世。他是一位“绝妙”的左手击球手，在 93 场测试赛中的平均得分超过 57 分；他同时也是一名“卓越”的投手，能够投出旋转球和快速球，并且是一名“在任何位置都出色的外野手”。索伯斯双手天生多一根手指（在青少年时期切除），在巴巴多斯贫困的环境中长大，并“在街头学习这项运动”，尼克·霍尔特在《每日电报》中写道。他于 1954 年，17 岁时代表西印度群岛队首次亮相。最初被选为左臂旋转球投手，他花了一些时间才展现出击球才华；这些才华在他 1958 年参加的第 17 场测试赛中脱颖而出，当时他对阵巴基斯坦的首次百分得分赛最终变成了 365 分（未出局）——创下当时史上测试赛单局最高得分纪录。
在他作为职业高尔夫球员的十五年里，詹姆斯·科里根在《每日电报》中表示，人们谈论瑞安·福克斯更多是因为他的体育背景——他的父亲格兰特是全黑队“传奇”飞翼，他的祖父默夫曾担任新西兰板球队队长——而非他自己的成就。但在皇家比克代尔球场一个“疯狂的决赛日”，这位 39 岁的球员终于通过成为 63 年来首位赢得公开赛的新西兰人，创造了“属于自己的体育传奇”。在当天的大部分时间里，美国选手卡梅伦·杨似乎将成为那个“举起克拉雷特酒杯”的人：他提前结束比赛，世界排名第 4 的他打出了 64 杆，处于低于标准杆 9 杆。但当杨在“练习场”练习、为可能的加时赛做热身时，他听到了那震耳欲聋的欢呼声。
体育头条
福克斯：创造“体育传说”
罗德里：方向盘
杰森·伯特在《每日电讯报》中表示，如果英格兰队想要再次赢得世界杯，就必须努力效仿西班牙的方式。“拿球，控球，热爱球，传导球。”这就是顶级球队——尤其是国际足球赛场上的球队——所做的。“这并不复杂，但需要一次‘重新教育’。”托马斯·图赫尔尽管大谈特谈重塑英格兰队，但最终并未脱离那个旧有的、有缺陷的体系。这是他“搞错了并应当承认”的一点。
斯凯尔德·贝里在《每日电讯报》中提到，索伯斯在任何他参加比赛的地方都打破了记录。在 20 世纪 60 年代初代表南澳大利亚队出战时，他曾在一个赛季中两次获得 1,000 分并拿到了 50 个三柱门（wickets）——“在这样一个板球运动员之邦，这是一个前所未有且后继无人的壮举”。1968 年在诺丁汉郡队比赛期间，他在面对格拉摩根队的一次投球（over）中击出了 6 个六分球（sixes）——这是首次级板球赛中首次出现这种情况。在职业生涯后期的 1972 年，索伯斯在面对包括巅峰时期的丹尼斯·利利在内的澳大利亚进攻阵型时，为世界其余地区队击出了 254 分；唐·布拉德曼将这次击球描述为“可能是澳大利亚见过的最精彩的一次”。迈克·阿瑟顿在《泰晤士报》中表示，索伯斯可能拥有天賦，但在球场之外，他更像是一个“普通人”，并不以克制著称。“他喝酒、赌博、打高尔夫，尽情生活。”在巴巴多斯，他生活简朴且为人低调，成为了“连接辉煌板球过去”的纽带，他将受到“深切的悼念”。
“天賦之才”
告知他之前的努力都白费了。在一次“真正非凡的高潮”中，福克斯在最后 6 个洞中 4 个打出小鸟球——并在第 18 洞完成了一个冷静的 12 英尺推杆——最终地完成了他“辉煌的”胜利。 两天前，一场涉及布赖森·德尚博的争议曾威胁要掩盖这次赛事的的光芒，尤安·默里在《卫报》中如此写道。在官员判定他在第 5 洞将球后的长草踩平以便于挥杆后，这位美国选手被罚了两分。德尚博对此反应“激烈”，威胁要退出比赛，据报道甚至说他会给唐纳德·特朗普打电话。但他最终坚持赛完了，并以低于标准杆 4 杆完赛。
这种方法同样重视“场上的决策能力”和技术技巧。为了让他们学会“独立思考”，教练鼓励球员“质疑一切”。他们倾向于那些要求球员“快速做出多项决定”的训练——最典型的例子就是 Rondo 训练，或称作“西班牙的中间小猪”。该体系在培养“出球中场”方面尤为出色——前一代是哈维和伊涅斯塔，这一代则是罗德里和法比安·鲁伊斯。这些球员被称为 pivotes（“支点”）或 volantes（“方向盘”），他们通常体型纤细，但依靠身体姿态和敏捷的反应来控球。一名在西班牙工作的英超球探观察到：“在西班牙，球员很乐意把球传给被盯防的队友……而英格兰球员对此则感觉不那么自在。”
足球 英格兰队在一次十球大战的惊险比赛中以 6-4 击败法国队，夺得世界杯铜牌。这是他们 60 年来最好的成绩。 一级方程式赛车 基米·安东内利通过赢得比利时大奖赛进一步巩固了他的冠军地位。他的梅赛德斯队友乔治·罗素在与刘易斯·汉密尔顿碰撞后出局。 橄榄球 英格兰队在夏季巡回赛的最后一场比赛中以 31-24 击败阿根廷队。 自行车 两次冠军得主约纳斯·温格高在环法自行车赛中锁骨骨折并遗憾出局。
职业风险？ 致《泰晤士报》 奈杰尔·法拉奇声称他每月收到 300 起威胁。潘妮·莫当特女爵说她收到了 700 起死亡和强奸威胁。这些数字令人震惊，必然会让人们远离政治生活。 更难以理解的是，为什么当局允许这种情况发生。应该对哪些威胁构成刑事犯罪给出明确定义，并对其采取零容忍态度。如果一个普通人收到这样的威胁，这件事会被处理。但如果威胁对象是政治家，它就被视为一种职业风险。这种情况应当停止。 迈克尔·丹古尔，伦敦
两头讨好 致《泰晤士报》 雨果·里夫金正确地揭露了英国改革党（Reform UK）立场核心的矛盾（见“改革党不能在‘伤人之词’上两头讨好”）。其领导层要求政治家在面对辱骂和暴力时获得更多保护，然而，当我敦促奈杰尔·法拉奇简单地尊重警方的要求，不要对安·威德库姆的悲剧性死亡进行揣测时，改革党的齐亚·尤苏夫的回应并非文明的争论，而是公开谴责我“堕落”，并翻出我 40 年前在歧视性法律下的一次定罪，而议会此后已承认该法律是不公正的。结果是我遭受了排山倒海般的谩骂，包括来自阿伦·班克斯和莱拉·坎宁安的攻击。 政治领导人不能在协助煽动今日有毒话语的同时，还信之又信地谴责这种话语。如果改革党希望作为一个执政党被严肃对待，它应该从践行其要求他人遵守的文明与克制开始。 K. 哈维·普罗克特， 1979-1987年保守党议员， 林肯郡，格兰瑟姆
伯纳姆的增长模型 致《泰晤士报》 你们的社论向安迪·伯纳姆提出的问题之一是，他的经济增长模型将是什么样子。他最好的做法就是阅读你们关于
© MATT/THE TELEGRAPH
本周精选通信
养老金经济学
致《泰晤士报》 约翰·贝尔顿（John Belton）和查尔斯·唐尔森（Charles Donaldson）对养老金领取者及国家支持的需求似乎持有偏差的看法。贝尔顿先生认为政府在“迎合婴儿潮一代”，但婴儿潮一代曾支付前一代人的养老金；难道我们不配得到同样的待遇吗？收入平均的人们在支付抵押贷款或房租、食物、衣物、保险、能源等费用后，很难省下足够的退休金。许多养老金领取者并不穷到能领取福利金，但也没有富到能支付账单后还留有应对紧急情况或社交生活的资金。我领取（旧的）国家养老金和两份数额较小的私人养老金，年收入不足 £16,000。即使没有房租或抵押贷款，这笔钱也难以维持生活。如果我没有通过房产反向抵押（equity release）获取资金，我将陷入极度困境。 马西亚·麦克劳德（Marcia MacLeod），伦敦
致《泰晤士报》 经济合作与发展组织（OECD）（关于“伯纳姆称取消三重锁定将节省 £60bn”）只是最近一个引起人们关注养老金成本完全无法负担的受尊重组织。 在我担任政府官员期间，在我承担部分责任的所有政策中，这项政策无疑是最糟糕的。如果保持不变，它将使我们的子孙后代破产。每个严肃政党的每位高级人物都知道这一点，但由于担心被认为在针对养老金领取者，这成了一个不敢公开讨论的真相。在写这段文字时，我深知我的退休收入是大多数养老金领取者只能在梦中企及的。但这并不能改变 OECD 所阐明的底层事实。所有政党的政治家和决策者都有责任告诉我们，这项政策是不可负担的，必须做出改变。 莱利·刘易斯爵士（Sir Leigh Lewis），2005-10 年工作与养老金部常务秘书
罗杰·麦基尼（Roger McKechnie），他在 1980 年钢厂关闭后通过创立 Phileas Fogg 零食品牌拯救了康塞特镇（Consett）。 社区和经济需要更多像麦基尼这样的人。他们，而不是政治家，将成为我们的救星。伯纳姆需要意识到，他的职责是支持这些人。 鲍勃·马丹斯（Bob Maddams），林肯郡，劳斯（Louth）
新冠遗产 致《卫报》 我是一名助产士，对于疫情处理方式至今仍感到极度愤怒。我记得当时在试戴 FFP3 口罩，然后被告知口罩不够分，结果被发给了一个基础的纸质口罩。我记得被告知我工作的医院无法持续提供干净的刷手服，所以我不得不把可能被感染的刷手服带回家洗。我记得管理层为了强制执行社交距离而关闭电脑，然后在意识到我们需要电脑工作后又重新开启。我记得被派往新冠感染者的家中去看望新妈妈和婴儿，并担心自己会因此而死。 我记得保守党议员们开玩笑说，所有工作场所下班后肯定都会进行社交饮酒。我们没有：我们 20 名员工共用一个约两米乘一米的员工休息室，而且还得自备洗洁精。班后我们尽可能快地冲回家，洗掉感染源，以免危及家人。 我的巨大愤怒依然存在。而且我没有拿到奖金。我的薪水甚至没有特别高。
听到 Boris Johnson 政府挥霍的惊人资金数额，我感到一如既往的愤怒。这并不令人意外，但它让我不愿再次信任任何政府。我希望 Johnson 能为其留下的遗产感到应有的羞愧，尽管我怀疑他是否真的如此。 劳拉·马修斯（Laura Matthews），伦敦
人性之触 致《金融时报》 毫无疑问，人工智能在缩短搜集、挖掘、提炼和分析海量数据所需的时间方面具有巨大威力，这对我们所有人来说都是一项福音（见“AI与新机械土耳其人”）。 然而，非生命实体无论如何都不可能与生命实体相匹敌，因此，关于AI即将取代人类的警告过于夸张了。问题在于，一旦AI达到了其强大潜力的极限，还剩下哪些能力是仅属于人类的。这些能力是否与人类之手的奇迹有关？ 人类的触感，特别是我们安抚、慰藉和照顾同胞的能力，从更广泛的意义上说，还包括钢琴家对键盘的触感、画家对画笔的触感，甚至高尔夫球手在果岭周边的触感；所有这些都必须存在于AI的影响范围之外。 我们的双手所实现的工艺以及由此产生的脑力，是我们独有的——神圣不可侵犯，不可模仿，不可替代。 玛格丽特·麦吉尔，美国
“我记得小时候的夏天。当时的首相们似乎永远在位。”
《 The Family Man 》 作者：James Lasdun Jonathan Cape 出版社 432页 £22
The Week 书店 £19.99
在 2023, 年，南卡罗来纳州律师亚历克斯·默多克（Alex Murdaugh）因谋杀其妻子玛吉（Maggie）及其 22 岁的儿子保罗（Paul）而被定罪。这对夫妇在家族的狩猎庄园内被枪杀；默多克声称他在从母亲家回访后发现了尸体。Robbie Millen 在《泰晤士报》中表示，不难看出为什么此案“令全美为之震动”。此案涉及“特权与权力”——默多克家族在南卡罗来纳州低地地区（Lowcountry）举足轻重——而此人本人（被人们称为“大红”）看起来并不像杀人犯：他显得像个“深情的丈夫和溺爱的父亲”，拥有迷人的“乡土气息”。然而，正如小说家詹姆斯·拉斯顿（James Lasdun）在这本“优雅且睿智”的书中所展现的，默多克实际上是一个骗子，他从客户和律所同事那里骗取了数百万美元，并且对类鸦片镇痛药成瘾。在《Family Man》中，拉斯顿“巧妙地协调了故事的所有元素，其中不乏一些阴暗且荒诞的转折”。 起诉方称，默多克被逼至杀人是因为他的财务欺诈即将被揭发，凯瑟琳（Kathryn）说道。
《 The Story of Birds 》 作者：Steve Brusatte Picador 出版社 448页 £25
The Week 书店 £22.99（含邮费）
James McConnachie 在《星期日泰晤士报》中表示，鸟类起源于恐龙的观点“并非新鲜事”。早在 19 世纪 60 年代，达尔文的一位当代人就首次提出了这一观点。然而，古生物学家史蒂夫·布鲁萨特（Steve Brusatte）在他的新书中更进一步，认为鸟类不仅仅是恐龙的“亲戚或后裔”：事实上，它们就是真正的恐龙，“就像人类是哺乳动物一样”。他写道，这一“令人惊叹”的事实“尚未真正进入公众意识”。在一段“始终令人着迷”的叙述中，布鲁萨特解释了某些恐龙如何进化出羽毛（最初是为了保暖），而这些羽毛使它们能够飞行。在抹杀其同时代生物的“大灾难”之后，少数飞行恐龙幸存了下来：“它们是地面栖息或水栖鸟类”，其“砂囊中有小的碎石”，帮助它们消化多种食物，且其喙“帮助它们寻找种子——这是小行星撞击后的核冬天中稀缺的食物来源”。Dylan Neri 在《金融时报》中表示，在恐龙灭绝后的初期世界中，这些鸟类“成为了最高智能生物”。在击败“爬行类翼龙”后，它们“获得了天空的统治权”，随后在某些情况下重新回到陆地（例如鸵鸟）或水中（例如企鹅）。正如布鲁萨特所指出的，这段非凡的进化故事解释了为什么“农场小鸡的腿就是你在博物馆里看到的任何一只霸王龙腿的微缩版”。Michael Marshall 在《新科学家》杂志中提到，就职于爱丁堡大学的布鲁萨特在 2016 年凭借其首本面向大众读者的书籍《恐龙的兴衰》（The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs）获得了“巨大成功”。这部新书再次将科学严谨性与可读性相结合，“从始至终几乎可以称得上是毫无瑕疵的成功”。
© JAMES REECE/AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM
默多克家族（右侧为幸存的儿子巴斯特）
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《卫报》的休斯（Hughes）写道。他们称他认为，在他处理这场“具有圣经规模的悲剧”期间，没有人会对他就此提起诉讼。起初，拉斯顿（Lasdun）对这一理论持怀疑态度，不愿相信一个没有家庭暴力前科的人能够“为了推迟自己即将到来的财务曝光而下决心枪杀挚爱之辈”。然而，在他那“细致入微”的叙述中——其“散文部分读来纯粹是一种享受”——拉斯顿最终接受了“大红”（Big Red）可能是有罪的，尽管他从未得出一个“铁证如山的结论”。 《纽约时报》的奥兰多·惠特菲尔德（Orlando Whitfield）表示，“迄今为止已经出版了十多本关于默多克（Murdaughs）家族的书籍”，且HBO和Netflix都发布了关于这些谋杀案的迷你剧。拉斯顿“并未假装揭露关于谋杀案的新证据”；相反，他以经常令人“震惊”的细节讲述了“默多克家族陨落”的故事。虽然有时这些细节多到让人感到压抑，但他的处理方式确实“以毁灭性的效果揭示了”此案如何涵盖了“当代美国生活最糟糕的方面：阿片类药物成瘾、诉讼成风、厚颜无耻的谎言”。而最后的章节则令人“震撼”。罗比·米伦（Robbie Millen）表示，即便在现在，“仍有后续”。今年五月，由于陪审团干预，默多克的定罪在申诉中被推翻。预计将进行重新审理。“我等不及要阅读拉斯顿在更新版平装本中的思考了。”
本周推荐小说 《周年纪念》（The Anniversary） 安德烈亚·巴贾尼（Andrea Bajani）著（杰弗里·布罗克译） 企鹅出版社 144页 £12.99
《本周》书店 £11.99
《每日电讯报》的弗朗辛·普罗斯（Francine Prose）表示，“关于有毒童年的故事”绝非新鲜事。但安德烈亚·巴贾尼的《周年纪念》——该书获得了去年意大利最高文学奖斯特雷加奖（Strega Prize）——中有些东西“让我们觉得从未听过类似的故事”。这部小说由“简洁且雄辩”的散文撰写（由杰弗里·布罗克“无缝”翻译），讲述一名中年男子回顾并试图理解其创伤性成长经历的故事。《文学周刊》（TLS）的罗伯特·波茨（Robert Potts）表示，叙述者的父亲是一个“法西斯式的暴君”，他对叙述者及其姐姐施行暴力，并“遮蔽且抹杀了”他们母亲的存在。叙述者对此冷静的描述使故事变得“令人心碎”。 《卫报》的拉拉·费格尔（Lara Feigel）表示，在意大利，这部小说因“打破”关于家庭的“禁忌”而受到赞誉。然而，书中似乎没什么新鲜之处：“压抑”的父亲和“无权”的母亲是早期“意大利新现实主义小说”的主打元素。我原本期待能看到“类似于克瑙斯高（Knausgård）或侯业巴克（Houellebecq）作品中那些惊悚的揭露”。相反，《周年纪念》显得“疲惫且可预测”。
伯明翰剧院 (The House, Birmingham Rep) (0121-236 4455)。截至 8 月 15 日 演出时长：2小时50分钟 ★★★★★
Alison Brinkworth 在 What’s on Stage 上表示，乔·墨菲 (Joe Murphy) 在担任伯明翰剧院艺术总监的新岗位上，取得了开门红。他在主舞台的首次亮相便为我们带来了“闪耀”的《仲夏夜之梦》，而现在我们迎来了这部由斯蒂芬·桑德海姆 (Stephen Sondheim) 创作的《理发师陶德：舰队街的恶魔理发师》 (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)，这部作品堪称“令人惊叹”——设计精良，演员阵容令人兴奋，且“定能带来激动人心的战栗感”。墨菲动用了一支规模较小的演员团队，并由一支出色的七人现场管弦乐队伴奏，但由于每场表演都极其吸睛，整个夜晚给人的感觉非常“宏大”。
Holly Williams 在《舞台》(The Stage) 杂志中提到，桑德海姆这部 1979 年的音乐剧讲述了一位 18 世纪末的伦敦理发师的故事，他为了向一名强奸其妻、导致他被流放并抢走其幼女的腐败法官复仇，陷入了多起令人毛骨悚然的谋杀之中；该剧采用了“宏伟且极具纪念意义的舞美”，契合故事的“歌剧般气势”，同时将这部音乐剧从任何“维多利亚时代的琐碎堆砌”中解放出来。恰如其分地，为了表现暴力如何导致腐败，一个巨大的正义天使悬挂在两座楼梯之间，而煤烟在苍白的墙壁上蔓延，白色服装则像“悄然潜入的道德污点”。Rachel 表示，拉明·卡里姆鲁 (Ramin Karimloo) 在饰演陶德时赋予了角色一种“极具魔性的黑暗感”，这个男人将他的“私人痛苦像刀一样紧握在手中”。
奇切斯特节日剧院 (Chichester Festival Theatre) (01243-781312)。截至 9 月 5 日 演出时长：2小时55分钟 ★★★★★
Claire Allfree 在《每日电讯报》(The Daily Telegraph) 中表示：“《窈窕淑女》既是一个稳妥的选择，但在如今这个时代，也是一个冒险的选择。”当然，它拥有极佳的配乐，充满了如《Wouldn’t It Be Loverly》和《I Could Have Danced All Night》等经久不衰的经典曲目，但其故事讲述了一位傲慢的语音学教授打赌他能教会一名卖花女伪装成一名“爱德华时代的英国女士”，这本质上是一个关于阶级偏见和社会工程的“极其阴郁”的故事；而那个“刻意营造的童话结局”——伊莉莎·杜利特尔 (Eliza Doolittle) 回到了希金斯教授 (Professor Higgins) 身边——可能会让“当代导演感到困惑”。然而，在奇切斯特这次“美妙的复排”中，导演瑞秋·卡瓦诺 (Rachel Kavanaugh) “将正统演绎《窈窕淑女》转化为一种优势”。编舞“倾向于那些令人跺脚、俏皮的伦敦东区小伙子的传统音乐厅形象”，而设计则是对爱德华时代伦敦的幻想，有着戴波勒帽的绅士和“温暖闪烁”的路灯。“这种魅力是不加掩饰的，而且当执行得如此专业时，简直令人无法抗拒。”这简直太“可爱”了。
Clive Davis 在《泰晤士报》(The Times) 中赞同道，这是一个“点缀着无数值得珍藏时刻”的夜晚。饰演伊莉莎的凯齐亚·伊比 (Keziah Ibe) 在其“大获成功”的职业首秀中，展现了“端庄、一丝毒舌以及你所能期待的所有魅力”，而哈德利·弗雷泽 (Hadley Fraser) 饰演的亨利·希金斯则将傲慢与“一种永恒的学生气”融合在一起。这些
Meow Meow 与 Karimloo 在这部“令人惊叹”的剧作中表现出色
Ibe 饰演的 Eliza 具有“人们所能期待的所有魅力”
Halliburton 在《泰晤士报》中评论道。而他的表演与歌舞秀之星 Meow Meow 的演出相得益彰，后者饰演的 Lovett 夫人（那位身着黄衣、将恶魔理发师的受害者烤成派的共犯）呈现出一种“极其霍加斯式”的风格（此处，复仇是一道热菜）。但在这部作品中，无论是“在声乐上还是戏剧上”，都没有一个弱点。在一次视觉及其他方面都以清晰著称的舞台呈现中，歌手们的发音像切冰的手术刀一样犀利——“桑多夫那尖锐而微妙的幽默感没有遗漏任何一点”；而 Leo Munby 的音乐指导则“精彩地捕捉到了故事中参差不齐的情感”。总而言之，这是一部令人心惊胆战且美妙的剧作，它“直击要害，但最终却俘获了你的心”。
本周其他新剧 《俄瑞斯底亚》(The Oresteia) 伦敦 SE1 桥剧院 (0333-320 0051)。演出至 9 月 19 日 Simon Stone 根据埃斯库罗斯的作品改编的这部带有《继承之战》既视感的情节剧让一些人感到愉悦；David Morrissey 和 Mary-Louise Parker 的表演确实“充满力量”，但我发现它“松散”且过长（Clive Davis，《泰晤士报》）。
《卫报》的 Arifa Akbar 表示，两位出色的主演提升了这个“陈旧”的故事。虽然其中有很多值得欣赏的地方，但这部剧在 Eliza 和 Henry 之间的关系呈现出真正的“情感真实”时，才真正找到了核心。到最后，“空气中并不完全是浪漫的气息，而可能是某种更温柔、更宝贵的东西：友谊”。 What’s on Stage 的 Gareth Carr 表示，配角阵容同样出色。Gary Milner 饰演的 Alfred P. Doolittle 以《With a Little Bit of Luck》和《Get Me to the Church on Time》抢尽风头；Belinda Lang 饰演的 Higgins 夫人傲慢得无可挑剔；Finty Williams 饰演的 Pearce 夫人“睿智且疲惫得令人愉悦”；而 Tony Jayawardena 饰演的 Pickering 上校则“极其讨喜”。这一切共同构成了一个“打造完美且毫不费力地展现高级感”的夜晚。
本周专辑 Nia Archives：《Emotional Junglist》 Island/Hijinxx £13 这位出生于布拉德福德的制作人、DJ 兼词曲作者的第二张专辑非常出色，充满了关于爱与心碎的故事。“鼓打贝斯 (Drum’n’bass) 的节奏为焦虑的颂歌注入动力，带有 Arctic Monkeys、Kate Nash 以及无数流派的色彩”（《卫报》）。
© MANUEL HARLAN; JOHAN PERSSON
John Nugent 在《Empire》上表示，克里斯托弗·诺兰“绝非对雄心壮志感到陌生”。他的第一部重要电影《记忆碎片》(Memento) 以两种序列讲述故事——一个随时间向前推进，另一个则向后回溯。从那时起，他挑战了战争、“梦境、虫洞、核末日和维多利亚时代的传送机”。但他对荷马《奥德赛》——这部定义了“史诗”的公元前 8 世纪希腊诗作——的改编，可能是他迄今为止最宏大的一次尝试。作为首部完全使用巨型 Imax 70mm 摄影机拍摄的长片，其规模和气势之大令人“瞠目结舌”。这部电影将观众抛入一个既有“神圣幻想”又具有“写实基础”的世界，其电影制作的“量级”是极少数导演能够想象，更不用说执行的。
温迪·艾德（Wendy Ide）在《观察者报》（The Observer）中表示，诺兰打造了一场“神话奇观”，在致敬古代原著的同时，“也探讨了流亡、战争创伤和幸存者愧疚等更具现实意义的主题”。与诗作一样，电影在多条时间线中展开。现代的框架设定在一个岛屿上，疲惫不堪的奥德修斯（马特·达蒙 饰）在特洛伊战争十年后被冲上岸，目前被宁芙仙女卡吕普索（夏莉兹·塞隆 饰）囚禁。与此同时，我们见到了他忧伤的王后潘妮洛普（安妮·海瑟薇 饰），她——回到
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《每日电讯报》（The Daily Telegraph）的蒂姆·罗贝（Tim Robey）表示，这部乔治·奥威尔经典作品的新动画版本在制作过程中出现的“判断失误”之多，“多到让人不知从何说起”。那些配以刺耳流行乐的音乐蒙太奇片段，其中猪群在购物？“可怖的人物设计？设定在特朗普时代的美国？奥威尔可能同样厌恶资本主义和共产主义——但他肯定比厌恶这两者更厌恶安迪·瑟基斯的电影。”
《地铁报》（Metro）的拉鲁什卡·伊万-扎德（Larushka Ivan-Zadeh）表示，故事开篇“相当忠实”。一个刻薄且酗酒的农民虐待他的动物，随后动物们起义并掌控了农场。他们的最初领导者是雪球（劳恩·考克斯 配音），一只民主社会主义的猪，但
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《金融时报》（FT）的丽贝卡·尼科尔森（Rebecca Nicholson）介绍道，受日本使用人形机器人照顾老年人新闻报道的启发，《安·德罗伊》（Ann Droid）由戴安·摩根（Diane Morgan）主演，讲述了一个被购买用来在家中协助 80 岁寡妇苏（Sue Johnston 饰）的机器人。苏那不负责任的儿子（摩根在《母国》中的共演者保罗·雷迪 饰）急于摆脱照顾母亲的责任，但由于不想花钱买个像样的机器人，于是他买下了琳达——一个步态僵硬、眼神呆滞且声音机械的二手型号。琳达“死板得令人危险”，并拥有像 Mr Blobby 一样制造混乱的能力。这部情景喜剧由摩根和萨拉·肯德尔（Sarah Kendall）共同创作，挖掘了该前提下的肢体喜剧潜力，但它不仅仅是闹剧，其中也包含动人的情感。
《每日电讯报》的安妮塔·辛格（Anita Singh）表示，扮演一个毫无表情的机器人多少限制了摩根的喜剧才华，但即便如此……
《奥德赛》（The Odyssey） ★★★★ 星光熠熠的“神话奇观” | 导演：克里斯托弗·诺兰 | 2小时53分钟 (15)
《动物庄园》（Animal Farm） ★ 对奥威尔寓言的拙劣更新 | 导演：安迪·瑟基斯 | 1小时34分钟 (PG)
《安·德罗伊》（Ann Droid）：一部关于机器人护理员的荒诞而深刻的情景喜剧
《旁观者》（The Spectator）的德博拉·罗斯（Deborah Ross）表示，诺兰营造了一些“极其震撼”的场景，其中一些放在恐怖片里也毫无违和感（独眼巨人“真正地恐怖”）。我曾对达蒙的选角持有疑虑，但最终他确实让你关心这个被失落岁月击碎的男人。虽然有些人可能会觉得现代口语很突兀，但除此之外还有什么选择？如果他们说古希腊语，我们反而会很吃力。不过，在这两个小时里，电影只是一个接一个的场面调度，配以震耳欲聋的配乐，这让人感到相当疲惫。尽管凯文·马赫（Kevin Maher）在《泰晤士报》（The Times）中称其缺乏笑料，但《奥德赛》凭借其卓越的摄影以及关于“回家的不可能”和“在无垠宇宙中英雄个人主义的荒诞性”的宏大构思，依然是一部杰作。
[[IMG_XXXX]] 达蒙饰演奥德修斯，赞达亚饰演雅典娜
很快被拿破仑（塞斯·罗根 饰）推翻，后者是一个受“贪婪和权力”驱动的“粗鲁独裁者”。片中还加入了新角色——包括一个想要收购农场的刻薄科技亿万富翁（格伦·克洛斯 饰）。从这里开始，电影走偏了：将寓言更新为关于现代企业腐败的故事并非坏主意，但这一信息在一部变成了“莫名其妙地温馨”的儿童冒险片中丢失了，且充斥着一些显得有些绝望的“放屁笑话”。
《卫报》（The Guardian）的彼得·布拉德肖（Peter Bradshaw）表示，《动物庄园》并非神圣不可侵犯的文本，它可以被修改以迎合新观众。但这部“甜到不可原谅”的改编版，带有低级的迪士尼式结局和“廉价的数字化外观”，是失去了愤怒、讽刺、激情或意义的《动物庄园》。这部电影毫无意义。
因此，书中不乏有趣时刻，比如林达带苏去尝试新事物时，结果自然是不尽如人意。约翰斯顿的表演“精彩绝伦”，此外还有一些“观察入微”的配角，包括林达的死对头、那个“可怖的”菲莉丝，她总是在苏既无丈夫也无孙辈时，炫耀自己拥有这两者。
《泰晤士报》的卡罗尔·米德格利表示：“其核心其实并不在于机器人，”而是在于“成为人类意味着什么”以及“悲伤的深沉”。在丈夫去世两年后，苏正陷入挣扎，她的焦虑感被动人地传达了出来。她在某处说道：“我不知道最后这段路怎么独自走完，但我不想和机器人一起度过。”令人高兴的是，她改变了这一看法，因为她开始发现林达其实并不是一个那么糟糕的护理员。安·德罗伊德“虽然呆傻，但有着欺骗性的深度”。
摩根与约翰斯顿：触动人心
在伊萨卡——正被一群“贪婪的追求者”围攻，其中包括安提诺俄斯（由罗伯特·帕丁森饰演，其扮演的形象极其阴险），而她不安的儿子特勒马科斯（汤姆·霍兰德饰）则在等待那个他从未识得的父亲归来。随着奥德修斯渐渐恢复他受损的记忆，过去十年的片段被交织其中——特洛伊的骗局，以及随后几年的冒险，包括与女巫喀耳刻（萨曼莎·莫顿饰）的邂逅，以及在冥界的周折。
“安娜·门迭塔（Ana Mendieta）用血液、羽毛、花朵和沙子创作艺术，且方式如此清新，你会认为这些原始物质是全新的发明，”乔纳森·琼斯（Jonathan Jones）在《卫报》中写道。“她字面上地在玩火，用火药在地面或树干上画出人体轮廓，然后将其点燃”；由此产生的焦灼阴影让人想起核弹的受害者或庞贝古城的死者。门迭塔 1948, 出生于古巴，革命到来时，她被送往美国，在那里她一直觉得自己是个局外人。“对她而言，家就是过去”，她将自己的使命定为“挖掘艺术与神话的最深处起源”。门迭塔涉猎多种学科：绘画、电影、摄影、行为艺术、雕塑。她使用“有机物质”：用花朵组成的人体剪影；泥泞荒原上的手印；在石灰岩上雕刻的丰腴女神像。她的艺术具有“不可抗拒”的魅力，并创造了“一个个人神话……其连贯性之奇特，可与威廉·布莱克（William Blake）相媲美”。如果她还活着，门迭塔本将处于“本世纪艺术的最前沿”。但在 1985, 年，年仅 36, 岁时，她在可疑的情况下从纽约 34 层公寓的阳台坠落身亡。艺术家卡尔·安德烈（Carl Andre），她的丈夫，因涉嫌谋杀被起诉，后被宣判无罪。
克洛伊·阿什比（Chloë Ashby）在《独立报》中表示，此次展览充满了“原始且及时性强的作品”。它们“强迫我们去关注”
购买指南… 《The Week》评论一家私立画廊的展览
在 Alice Amati 展出
这次在一家相对较新的画廊举办的群展，特别是对于由一家小型经销商筹办的展览来说，展现出了不同寻常的优雅。其主题大致为静物画——这是一种表面上并不张扬，但艺术家们从未停止回归的模式。这次展览给出了原因：乔治·莫兰迪（Giorgio Morandi）和费尔南多·博特罗（Fernando Botero）等人的作品与当代作品在两层楼中共同展出，布置方式使它们处于不间断的对话之中。这里有各种形状、尺寸和风格的作品：阿梅代奥·波拉佐（Amedeo Polazzo）展出了一幅狭长画框的胡萝卜画，长度恰好等于他的身高；米兰达·韦伯斯特（Miranda Webster）则以极其细腻的笔触描绘了回收的树枝。
泰特现代美术馆，伦敦 SE1 (020-7887 8888, tate.org.uk)。展至 2027 年 1 月 17 日
《雅古尔之像》(Imágen de Yágul)，《轮廓系列》(the Silueta Series) (1973)：“异教魔法”
波特罗的《橙子静物》(Still Life with Oranges) (1979)
带有某种怪异的墓葬基调；而安德烈亚斯·赞佩拉 (Andreas Zampella) 在废弃的纺织品上创作奇异的概念绘画，将污渍和人造图案融入其精心打造且绝不平庸的构图之中。即便是以六个滑稽圆润的橙子为描绘的波特罗作品，看起来也并不违和。价格面议。
伦敦 W1 沃伦街 27 号 (07999-338765)。展至 8 月 15 日
阿拉斯泰尔·苏克 (Alastair Sooke) 在《每日电讯报》中表示，门迭塔关注的许多问题——“女性主义、环保主义、反殖民主义”——在今天依然能引起共鸣。然而，这并不是一场关于“身份政治”的展览。相反，它“充满了丰富的视觉诗意”，且“既强有力又脆弱”。例如，《轮廓系列》中的一张照片显示，一个人体轮廓半埋在山坡上，“双臂像埃及木乃伊那样紧贴身体两侧”。另一张照片则显示门迭塔本人身处一个深岩洞中，仿佛被周围生长出的野花所吞噬。展览并未将其塑造为殉道者：安德烈 (Andre) 几乎没有被提及，而这样做是最好的。这次展览以“天赋”和“敏感度”呈现，闪烁着“一种异教魔法的感觉”——并且是泰特现代美术馆今年夏天举办的最出色展览。
对自然世界的关注”。展出作品中散布着她始于 1973 年的《轮廓系列》之作。其中许多是摄影作品，记录了艺术家将人体轮廓印在泥土中，并观察“杂草和荆棘”或其他植物如何使其变得不可见的实践。在其他地方，一段著名的视频记录了艺术家在溪流边，“将一桶牛血淋在身上”。血液从她的肢体上流下，她躺在“一团柔软的白色鸡毛”中。当她站起来时，她成了“一个蜕变的女人，半人半鸟，以一种怪诞而辉煌的方式与自然融合”。
一部被重新发现的委拉斯开兹作品
“迭戈·委拉斯开兹 (Diego Velázquez) 的绘画作品极其稀少，”J.S. 马库斯 (J.S. Marcus) 在《艺术报》(The Art Newspaper) 中写道。现存作品仅约 120 幅，其中 50 幅在马德里的普拉多博物馆 (Museo del Prado)。但现在，底特律艺术学院院长、著名的委拉斯开兹研究学者萨尔瓦多·萨洛特-庞斯 (Salvador Salort-Pons) 声称，他在一个私人收藏中发现了一幅 1626 年创作的西班牙政治家加斯帕尔·德·古兹曼 (Gaspar de Guzmán) ——奥利瓦雷斯伯爵公爵 (Count-Duke of Olivares) 的新肖像画。奥利瓦雷斯深受腓力四世国王的宠爱，在 1623 年帮助年轻的委拉斯开兹出任宫廷艺术家，并经常成为其绘画对象。萨洛特-庞斯当时正计划举办一次委拉斯开兹奥利瓦雷斯肖像的小型展，这时有人从马德里的一家修复工作室给他发邮件，称他们有一件此类作品，被认为出自该艺术家的工作室。分析证明，该作品使用的颜料与委拉斯开兹使用的“完全匹配”，画布类型也一致；而 X 射线显示出构图中有典型的修改痕迹。
© ANA MENDIETA COLLECTION, LLC/ARS/DACS 遗产委员会, 2026; WADDINGTON CUSTOT 及艺术家
现正展出 约翰·康斯特布尔在伦敦工作室创作的田园杰作《干草车》首次来到萨福克郡，以纪念其 250 岁诞辰。该作品正与 70 件其他作品一同在名为“《干草车》：漫步康斯特布尔的风景”的展览中展出。展期至 10 月 4 日，地点为伊普斯威奇的基督教堂庄园 (ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk)。
安德鲁·劳埃德·韦伯的《猫》新版制作正在摄政公园露天剧场上演，随后将开启巡演。9 月 19 日前在伦敦 NW1 摄政公园露天剧场；10 月 6-17 日在普利茅斯皇家剧院；随后将前往赫尔、伯明翰等地 (catsthemusical.com)。
托尼奖获奖喜剧《哦，玛丽！》的作者兼原主演科尔·埃斯科拉再次饰演玛丽·托德·林肯（至 8 月 15 日）。这部剧讲述了这位第一夫人在丈夫去世前几周的故事。“不敬、大胆、令人愉快地陷入疯狂的修正主义历史”（《卫报》）。展期至 2027 年 1 月 2 日，地点为伦敦 SW1 特拉法加剧院 (trafalgartheatre.com)。
立即预订 重返北伯威克的“海滨边缘”艺术节今年包含 300 多个活动，包括 Belle and Sebastian 的音乐会、亚历克斯·詹姆斯的“英伦流行古典乐”、与路易·塞鲁、伊恩·希斯洛普和戴维·奥卢索加的对话，以及罗素·霍华德的喜剧表演。7 月 31 日至 8 月 9 日，苏格兰北伯威克 (fringebythesea.com)。
《蝗虫之日》，纳撒尼尔·韦斯特著，1939 年 (Penguin £8.99)。韦斯特的小说聚焦于两类群体：渴望进入电影圈的怪胎与失败的骗子；以及渴望追求美国梦的洛杉矶人群。结果是对一个陷入疯狂的文化和一个准备燃烧的城市的惊悚描绘。
© 伦敦维多利亚与阿尔伯特博物馆；MICHAEL LIONSTAR
《最后一个大亨》，F. 斯科特·菲茨杰拉德著，1941 年 (Penguin £9.99)。菲茨杰拉德最后一部未完的小说在叙事上虽不那么出色，但它极好地展现了一位才华横溢的年轻制片主管如何管理制片厂。
最佳书籍…… David Thomson 这位伟大的电影历史学家兼评论家挑选了 六本他最喜欢的关于好莱坞的书籍。 他的最新著作《光影闪烁：电影修正主义历史》(A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies) 刚刚由 Allen Lane 出版，售价 £25。
在黄金时代，处理 除他自己生活中的 问题之外的所有问题。
照片由 Lillian Ross 拍摄，1952 年 (NYRB £13.99)。来自《勇气勋章》(The Red Badge of Courage) 片场的报道，这是约翰·休斯顿改编自斯蒂芬·克莱恩的内战小说。Ross 是一位《纽约客》的年轻作家，记录了所有狂野的炫耀之谈以及休斯顿与制片厂之间的博弈。
诺曼·梅勒的《鹿园》(The Deer Park)，1955 年 (Abacus £20)。至今仍是关于爱、欲望、身份、金钱、荣誉、权力、制片人和演员的最佳小说。
Constable 的《斯托尔河谷》(The Valley of the Stour)... (约1800 年)
Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu 执导亚瑟·米勒的经典戏剧《推销员之死》(Death of a Salesman)，讲述一个家庭的破碎。Cyril Nri 饰演威利·洛曼。9月19日-10月10日，利物浦 Everyman 剧院，利物浦 (everymanplayhouse.com)。
美国女演员 Christine Baranski (《妈妈咪呀！》) 与 Richard E. Grant 共同主演诺艾尔·考沃德的喜剧《花热》(Hay Fever) 的新版剧作。9月22日起，伦敦 WC2 地区 Wyndham’s Theatre (hayfeverplay.com)。
新出平装本 亚当·威茅斯 (Adam Weymouth) 的《孤狼》(Lone Wolf) (Penguin £11.99)。在这本关于野外之地和变迁地区的“动人且扣人心弦”的书中 (《每日电讯报》)，威茅斯追踪了一只雄狼从斯洛文尼亚到意大利的 1,000 英里旅程。
以好莱坞和棕榈泉的 享乐之地为背景， 讲述了一位战争英雄 在考虑是否将自己的 人生故事卖给电影公司。
阿尔弗雷德·海耶斯的《我的脸面向世界》(My Face for the World to See)，1958 年 (Penguin £8.99)。一名倦怠的编剧在海滩上看到一名年轻女子即将溺水。他救了她，然后违背自己理智的天性爱上了她；她是一个渴望成为演员的女孩，将他拖入了她痛苦的狗血剧中。
马修·斯佩克特的《黄金时刻》(The Golden Hour)，2025 年 (HarperCollins £12.99)。马修的父亲弗雷德·斯佩克特 (Fred Specktor) 曾是顶尖经纪公司 CAA 的资深经纪人。这是一部写得非常优美的回忆录，讲述了在电影中成长、制作电影，并试图在屏幕散发的光芒中引导自己生活的故事。
电视剧 节目 《阶梯》(The Staircase) 这部八集 HBO 剧集改编自关于一名被指控谋杀妻子的小说家的纪录片系列，在 2022 年发行时广受好评。由 Toni Collette 和 Colin Firth 主演。7月25日周六，ITV1 21:15 & 22:30 (每集 75 分钟)。
《狂喜》(The Rapture) 五集惊悚剧，由 Ruth Madeley 主演，她饰演一名法庭心理学家，其年轻患者似乎拥有预见未来的能力。7月26日周日 & 27日周一，BBC1 21:00 (每集 60 分钟)。
表演：《演艺人员》(The Entertainer) 重新播映约翰·奥斯本 1957 年的剧作，讲述一个失败的音乐厅表演者，由 Michael Gambon 主演。随后播映《莱文访谈：约翰·奥斯本》(The Levin Interviews: John Osborne)。7月26日周日，BBC4 22:15 (120 分钟) & 00:15 (30 分钟)。
《吸血鬼莱斯特》(The Vampire Lestat) 《吸血鬼访谈》系列的第三部——改编自安妮·赖斯的小说——讲述了莱斯特在 1980 年代法国的生活，在那里他重生为一名摇滚明星。7月28日周二，BBC2 21:00 (45 分钟)。
Talking Pictures：《七十年代传奇》第二部分 Celia Imrie 挖掘 BBC 档案，揭秘访谈和电影片段。7月30日周四，BBC4 20:00 (60 分钟)。
电影 《卡萨布兰卡》(Casablanca, 1942) 经典的战时浪漫爱情片，由汉弗莱·鲍嘉和英格丽德·褒曼主演。7月25日周六，BBC2 14:50 (100 分钟)。
《怪物》(Monster, 2023) 精细的日本戏剧，讲述一名单身母亲试图揭开儿子学校里发生的事情。7月25日周六，BBC4 22:25 (120 分钟)。
流媒体新片 《幸运》(Lucky) 安雅·泰勒-乔伊在这部七集系列剧中饰演一名在逃的职业罪犯，该剧是“令人愉悦且毫无脑细胞的乐趣” (《泰晤士报》)。在 Apple TV 上播映。
《五星级周末》(The Five-Star Weekend) 在丈夫去世后，美食影响者 (Jennifer Garner 饰) 邀请四位朋友住在她位于南塔基特的房子里。结果发现每个人都有秘密。在 Sky Atlantic & Now 上播映。
最佳物业
东萨塞克斯郡：莱沃斯的 Caprons。位于莱沃斯中心地带的优雅 II* 级乔治时代房屋，坐落在成熟的花园之中。5 间卧室，4 间浴室，厨房，4 个接待室，花园。£1.85m；Jackson-Stops (01444-484400)。
肯特郡： 桑威奇， 高街。 一座精美的 II 级乔治时代 城镇房屋，位于 这座历史悠久的 五港 (Cinque Port) 市场小镇中心。 该物业拥有许多 时尚的时代特征 以及一个大型 围墙花园。7 间 卧室，3 间浴室， 书房，厨房，2 个 接待室，花园， 带阁楼的双车库。 £1.1m；Strutt & Parker (01227- 473707)。
萨福克郡：哈德利， The Old Shoulder House。 这座引人注目的 II 级 800 年历史 的前酒吧融合了 都铎、乔治和 维多利亚时代的风格， 且原貌在整栋建筑中 得到了极佳的保留。 4 间卧室，2 间 浴室，厨房，3 个 接待室，停车位。 £485,000；Edd Callegari (07921-514234)。
威尔特郡：马姆斯伯里， Bluett House。 一座迷人的 II 级 城镇房屋（中心带有 木质阳台），拥有 15 世纪的中世纪 地下室，可俯瞰 埃文河。4 间卧室， 2 间浴室，厨房/ 早餐室，2 个接待室， 办公室，花园，车库。 £1.025m；James Pyle (01666-840886)。
待售房产
伯克郡：亨格福德，高街。一座端庄的 18 世纪城镇房屋（蓝色大门），需要现代化翻新；随附规划许可。目前配置：3 个办公室，2 间卧室，家庭浴室，厨房/餐厅，实用房。£445,000；Knight Frank (01488-688530)。
萨福克郡：哈德利， 高街。一座令人印象 深刻的 I 级建筑， 上方为居住空间， 下方有三个商业单位， 位于这座繁荣的 市场小镇中心。该 建筑目前包含两套 3 居室复式公寓， 一家持有执照的 餐厅/咖啡馆， 一家印刷店和一家 房产中介，以及一个 带有 5 个路外停车位的 车库。£900,000；Frost & Partners (01473-823456)。
埃塞克斯郡：萨夫伦沃尔登， April Cottage。一座令人 愉悦的 II* 级时代 小屋（淡粉色建筑）， 拥有丰富的时代特征， 位于历史悠久且极具 吸引力的桥街 (Bridge Street)， 距离市中心仅需 短距离步行。 2 间卧室，家庭浴室， 厨房，2 个接待室， 庭院花园，附属建筑。 £315,000；Arkwright & Co (01799-668600)。
Margaret’s 18 Chesterton Road, Cambridge (01223-375071) Jay Rayner在《金融时报》中表示，这家位于剑桥的“设计巧妙”的餐厅是那种“能让你吃得很好，而又不会试图过于吸引注意力”的地方。餐厅由主厨Sam Carter和他的妻子Alex Olivier经营，他们在那附近两家店之隔的地方还开了一家米其林星级餐厅Twenty-Two。Margaret’s——显然是以一位常客的名字命名——是他们“稍微放松一下围裙绳索的机会”。晚餐菜单——工作日每人£65，周五和周六晚上£75——是将品鉴菜单与点餐制巧妙结合的产物。正餐以一波“快节奏的小吃”开始：一杯“令人振奋的冰镇西红柿冷汤（gazpacho）”；配有富含细叶芹和松露美乃滋的芦笋；以及撕碎羊腹肉炸丸子。主菜则进入了选择环节：我们选择了原骨烘烤的鮀鱼尾，以及色泽微粉、配有“黏唇”浓汁（jus）和一团罗马辣椒泥的猪里脊。这些主菜配有相同的三款配菜：香料胡萝卜、黄油润泽的新土豆以及凯撒沙拉。恰到好处的甜点为这餐画上了句号，我们离开时还被赠送了“一袋刚烤好的巧克力曲奇”。简而言之，Margaret’s 是一次愉快的体验：它是那种“每个城镇都应该拥有”的餐厅。
Corkage 5 Chapel Row, Bath (01225-423417) 通常情况下，一份混合了法国、意大利、西班牙、中东和泰国风味的菜单
我在印度进行为期四周的旅行时，几乎每隔一天就会吃一次马萨拉煎蛋卷，不出所料，我从未感到厌烦，Emma Petersen如此说道。它辛辣、咸香且美味，是改变常规早餐方式的绝佳之选。 简单地将其与一些绿叶菜搭配食用，或者将其卷入印度烤饼（roti）中，做成一份更充实的马萨拉蛋卷。
6 个鸡蛋 ½ 茶匙芫荽粉 ½ 茶匙孜然粉 ½ 茶匙姜黄粉 ½ 个洋葱，切成细丁 1 瓣大蒜，切碎 1 个沙拉番茄，切成细丁 1 个绿辣椒，切成薄片 1 汤匙粗切新鲜芫荽 盐和胡椒 橄榄油，用于烹饪 调味沙拉叶，用于配餐
• 将鸡蛋打入搅拌碗中，加入芫荽粉、孜然粉、姜黄粉以及适量的盐和胡椒。搅拌至蛋黄和蛋白完全融合。 • 拌入洋葱、大蒜、番茄、绿辣椒和新鲜芫荽，确保所有食材分布均匀。 • 在不粘煎锅/平底锅中倒入少许油，用中火加热。 • 油热后，倒入一半的蛋液，用铲子轻轻将其铺至锅边。烹饪约 3 分钟
节选自 Emma Petersen 所著的《Healthyish High Protein: Full-on flavour, all-day energy》，由 Pavilion Books 出版，定价 £22. 摄影：Lucy Richards。如需从 The Week 书店以 £19.99 购买，请访问 theweekbookshop.co.uk 下单，或拨打 020-3176 3835 联系书商。
Corkage：“你梦寐以求的当地餐厅”
Tom Parker Bowles 在《周日邮报》中表示，这种组合通常会“让我立马想逃离”。它给人的感觉“与其说是融合，不如说是混乱”。然而，Corkage 的烹饪展现出一种“从容的自信”，使得许多菜品真正令人惊叹。“极其嫩滑”的鮀鱼颊肉浸在浓郁的鹰嘴豆炖汤中，点缀着脆爽的西班牙 chorizo 香肠碎片。用鱼露调味的黑豆，混合了辣椒、脆洋葱和慢炖韭葱，构成了极具灵感的组合。这家厨房对经典菜肴的演绎也“非常出色”，无论是“诱人的猪肉酱（rillettes）”，还是配有溏心蛋和西洋菜、刺山柑及芥末沙拉的强劲风味玫瑰肝。在一个周三的午餐时间，“所有生活都……
2 人份
这里”——在如今这个拮据的时代，这是一个令人愉悦的景象。这并不奇怪，因为除了极佳的食物，“服务堪称神级，价格也非常实惠”。Corkage 是你“梦寐以求的当地餐厅”：我唯一的遗憾是它在巴斯 (Bath)，而不是西伦敦。人均约 £35。
The Golden Tooth 79 Green Lanes, London N16 (020-7354 2791) 《卫报》(The Guardian) 的格蕾丝·登特 (Grace Dent) 表示，这家位于北伦敦 Green Lanes 的新店在开业前的公告中相当低调，暗示自己“仅仅是一家提供餐饮的酒吧”。但它绝非那种提供少量酒吧小吃、“简陋且粗糙的后屋”，而是一家“成熟且”相当出色的餐厅。主厨马修·斯科特 (Matthew Scott)（此前就职于 London Fields 的 Papi）“目前是业内最有趣且低调的厨师之一”，他的菜单中包含一些真正的瑰宝。比如那款“摇摇欲坠、分量十足”的蒙哥马利切达干酪塔 (Montgomery cheddar tart)，单凭这一道菜就值得前往 Golden Tooth 尝试一次。“我从小吃法兰西塔 (flan) 长大，以为自己已经尝遍了所有种类”，但这款塔——“颤巍巍的，充满蛋香味，奶香浓郁，上面堆满了奶酪碎”——简直是一次启示。此外，还有双人份的星空派 (stargazy pie)，一个巨大的红虾头从面皮顶端张口而出。“分量十足且带来深层的慰藉”，它如此“危险地美味”，以至于我几乎想把它全部吃光。我的建议是：“趁现在还能订到位子赶紧预订”。
直到底部金黄且顶部基本凝固，然后翻面再煎几分钟。滑入盘中。 • 清空锅子，再淋入少许油，重复上述步骤使用剩余的蛋液制作第二份欧姆蛋。（或者，如果你时间紧迫，可以使用两个锅同时烹饪。） • 趁热搭配调味叶菜一起食用。 • 给未来的你：冷却后放入密封容器，冷藏保存最多 2 天。冷食，或在锅中或微波炉中轻轻加热至温热。
Cobb Premier Air 这款便携式炭烤 BBQ “效果极佳”。它“极其节省燃料”且加热迅速。33 厘米的烤盘虽小，但下方还有一个用于烘烤或慢炖的“烤箱”空间。它轻便易携带，自带收纳袋，且双层壁设计可保持外壳凉爽 (£190; cobb-bbq.co.uk)。
Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL 这款“功能全开”的电力 BBQ、烤架和烟熏炉配备了可连接 App 的肉类探针，因此你可以通过手机监控温度并进行控制。它适用于所有天气，易于清洁，且可拆卸部件可放入洗碗机 (£380; sharkninja.co.uk)。
本周建议... 如何停止对家人发脾气
心理治疗师兼作家安娜·马图尔 (Anna Mathur) 写了一本关于愤怒的温情指南： ● 留意愤怒升起的迹象——心跳加速、坐立不安——给自己 90 秒来度过这个阶段。离开房间；如果无法离开，请打开窗户呼吸新鲜空气，或用冷水拍脸。 ● 尝试理解愤怒背后的原因——荷尔蒙、神经多样性、疾病、疲劳。自我认知有助于你掌控局面。愤怒是你不堪重负的信号。问问自己需要什么。 ● 练习“微诚实 (micro-honesty)”，防止挫败感转化为愤怒。如果你状态不佳，告诉朋友——并在你无法帮到他们时让他们知道。让人们失望是没关系的，即使对方是你的孩子。 ● 饥饿、脱水、酒精过量和睡眠不足会导致易怒和焦虑，而这些问题相对容易解决。 ● 如果你对孩子发脾气，请向他们道歉。承担责任，不要加上“但是”——因为这会将责任推给他们。
Škoda Fabia 130 £29,995 起
《每日电报》 (The Daily Telegraph) 作为庆祝斯柯达 (Škoda) 130 周年而打造的车型，Fabia 130 是一款运动型两厢车——它是顶配 Monte Carlo 装饰版的升级版，也是迄今为止最快的 Fabia。它的最高时速为 141mph，0-62mph 加速时间为 7.4秒；得益于一台强劲的 1.5 升涡轮增压汽油发动机并配备七速自动变速箱，其马力从 148 提升至 175。悬架、节气门控制、牵引力和转向系统均经过微调。
Morsø Forno 户外烤箱 这款多功能的铸铁烤箱可兼作户外壁炉。凭借“出色的蓄热能力”，它能为从牛排、三文鱼到酥脆披萨的所有食材提供“稳定且均匀的烹饪效果”（起售价 £800; morsoe.com）。
至于那些拥有一切的人……
这款由著名荷兰设计师 Marcel Wanders 为 Alessi 创作的时尚柳编篮具有独特的形状，像一张卷起来的野餐毯。它是 Dressed en plein air 系列的一部分，配有织物内衬，可容纳四个盘子、四个碗，以及三聚氰胺餐具和塑料酒杯。
£450; uk.alessi.com
《汽车画报》 (Autocar) 130 是一款“温和两厢车” (warm hatch)，还不足以获得斯柯达运动型 vRS 徽章的资格——但它确实在硬件工程上投入了真正的努力。它“快速驾驶起来令人满意”：行驶过程有趣且舒适。底盘“判断精准”，18 英寸合金轮毂抓地力良好，但转向缺乏感觉，遗憾的是没有手动变速箱选项。
Little Kasai Konro 烤炉 这款专为桌面烹饪设计的简单易用的不锈钢日式烤炉采用了天然矿物块来锁住热量，并将其向上辐射到食物上。它最适合搭配备长炭 (binchotan)，这是一种以燃烧干净而著称的日式木炭（£400; kasaigrills.com）。
《汽车杂志》 (Car Magazine) 走进 Fabia 130 的内部，就像回到了 2010 年代中期——这对实用性来说很棒，因为有很多实体按钮、旋钮和拨盘，但看起来“陈旧且有些乏味”。总而言之，130 是这款“中年小车”一个令人愉快的“温热版”。它的售价约为 £30,000，这个价格你可以买到更快的 Mini Cooper S；但 Fabia 提供了更好的价值：它具有更出色的乘坐体验，且是一款更实用的全能车。
Gozney Arc Lite 这款紧凑型燃气披萨烤箱是一个“出色的全能选手”，深度仅 48 厘米，但感觉很坚固，且重量为 12 公斤，可单人携带。侧面火焰在顶部舔舐，并有一个颜色编码的控制拨盘来调节热量。一旦加热完成，仅需 90 秒即可做出完美的酥脆披萨（£350; gozney.com）。
在哪里可以找到……英格兰最棒的秘密花园
位于北约克郡的偏远喜马拉雅花园与雕塑公园 (Himalayan Garden & Sculpture Park) 是一片占地 45 英亩的微气候区，这里生长着杜鹃花、山茶花以及“难觅”的蓝色喜马拉雅罂粟。园内有湖泊和蜿蜒的小径，当代雕塑隐藏在树林之中 (himalayangarden.com)。位于贝德福德郡 Shuttleworth 的瑞士花园 (Swiss Garden) 是一座古怪的摄政时期“阿尔卑斯幻想”之作，拥有石窟、蕨类植物园、池塘、印度亭和一座瑞士小屋 (shuttleworth.org)。肯特郡的斯科特尼城堡 (Scotney Castle) 拥有的一座 14 世纪的护城河城堡遗址，周围是地盘上的睡莲池。春天可以寻找稀有的绿翼兰，秋天则可欣赏日本枫树 (nationaltrust.org.uk)。建于 20 世纪 30 年代的露天米纳克剧院 (Minack Theatre) 雕刻在康沃尔郡 Porthcurno 海滩上方的花岗岩悬崖上，其露台生长着溢出的多肉植物、帝王花、长生草以及原产于南非的异域花卉 (minack.com)。
来源：BBC GOOD FOOD/THE INDEPENDENT/COUNTRY LIVING/LIVING ETC/THE GUARDIAN
奥利弗·贝里（Oliver Berry）在《国家地理旅行者》（National Geographic Traveller）中写道，韩国拥有一些令人惊叹的古迹，而其中最重要的莫过于庆州及其周边地区。这座历史名城坐落在林木葱茏的山丘之间，从首尔乘坐高铁仅需几个小时即可到达，那里有绿荫大道和传统的韩屋（hanok）以及园林，是一个非常适合漫步的迷人之地。但其鼎盛时期是在 1,000 年前：从公元前57年到公元935年，这里曾是新罗王国的首都，并且在一段时间内是地球上最大的城市之一。那个时代“最显而易见的遗产”就是“散布在”城镇各处的皇家陵墓——100 多个像巨大“鼹鼠丘”一样的土丘。其中几个土丘出土了非凡的宝藏，其中许多目前在当地令人赞叹的国家博物馆中展出。
与百济和高句丽一样，新罗曾是共同统治朝鲜半岛数百年的三个王国之一，直到7世纪后期，在新罗在唐朝军队的帮助下击败了其他两国。庆州的许多
本周酒店
在 1066 年之地的长途徒步 贝叶挂毯在千年以来首次回到英国，并于 9 月 10 日起在英国博物馆展出——帕梅拉·佩特罗在《卫报》中表示，今年正是进行 1066 年之地的徒步之旅（1066 Country Walk）的好时机。这条跨越东萨塞克斯郡的 31 英里路线始于佩文西（Pevensey），征服者威廉于当年 9 月在此登陆，随后经过巴特尔（Battle）——这里被认为是黑斯廷斯战役的“可能”发生地——最终抵达赖（Rye）。我们用了四天时间走完这段路。关于这次徒步的描述较为笼统——它穿越了“见证了诺曼征服的乡村”——这反映了历史记录的局限性。在帐篷山（Tent Hill），据称曾有某支军队——“没人知道是哪一支”——在此驻扎。尽管如此，我依然很喜欢这里。这是英格兰一个美丽的地方（包括高威尔国家景观区），而且当我去年 9 月徒步时，这里的风景经常“让人想起遥远的过去”——甚至与挂毯中那种“赤褐色、鼠尾草色和赭色调”相呼应。
月精桥是新罗王国地标的重建工程
一个优雅的布列塔尼海滨度假胜地 19 世纪中期，是“英国贵族”首先让迪纳尔（Dinard）成为时尚的海浴胜地，但如今这里更受巴黎人的欢迎，他们“渴望逃离蔚蓝色海岸日益增加的热浪与浮华”。凯特·麦克斯韦尔在《金融时报》中称，这座位于布列塔尼北海岸的度假小镇令人心旷神怡，拥有“优雅”的美好时代（Belle Époque）建筑（见图）、安静的沙滩和“极佳”的海鲜。这里从英国出发也很方便——从圣马洛（Saint-Malo）乘坐快船横跨朗斯河口（Rance estuary）即可抵达——且邻近圣布里亚克叙梅尔（Saint-Briac-sur-Mer）等其他迷人的沿海景点。您可以入住建于 1850 年代的“气派”迪纳尔大酒店（Grand Hôtel Dinard），在 Breizh Café 品尝美味的咸味薄烤饼（galettes），并游览“埃克吕斯海滩（Plage de l’Écluse）的弧形海岸线”，这里是毕加索 3, 幅《沐浴者》系列画作的灵感来源。
在俄勒冈州追寻瀑布 克里斯·利德比特在《每日电讯报》中称，哥伦比亚河峡谷作为俄勒冈州与华盛顿州边界的一部分，气势磅礴，且您只需从波特兰市中心（一座“永远时髦”的城市）开车 20 英里即可抵达。即便只是在皇冠点（Crown Point）看到的初次景象，也足以让这段旅程变得值得——从那里望去，峡谷向东延伸 80 英里，深度可达 1,220 米。84 号州际公路贯穿其全长——虽然是“嘈杂的人造干扰”，但即便如此，在周围环境的映衬下仍显得渺小；对于时间充裕的游客，还有一条更安静的选择：历史哥伦比亚河公路。您可以停下来观赏峡谷中巍峨的瀑布（最高的是 189 米的多诺玛瀑布）；然后前往胡德河谷，将穆德山（Mount Hood）的“绚丽”景色尽收眼底，那是一座高达 3,429 米的“巨大”火山。
这些宝物日期早于 那次胜利——包括在 天马冢（Cheonmachong） 古墓中发现的 11,000 件 物品，据信制作于 5 世纪或 6 世纪。如今，游客可以进入坟冢内部，在那里，金冠、镶宝帽、盔甲和镀金青铜凉鞋在“漆黑”的黑暗中被聚光灯照亮。最著名的物品是一把绘有跃马的桦树皮马鞍——这座古墓的现代名称便源于此设计。 镇上的其他几处遗址也源于新罗时期，包括月精桥，这是一座近期重建的建筑，原建筑建于公元 760 年。它由“华丽”的门楼侧翼守护，跨度 60 米，是该国最大的木桥。规模更宏大的是佛国寺（Bulguksa Temple），它位于距离庆州 9 英里的吐含山山坡上。尽管多年来经过多次修复和改建，但寺庙仍保留了 8 世纪和 9 世纪的各种宝物，包括石塔和金铜坐佛像。
Télla Théra 希腊，克里特岛 这家全新的“生态意识”度假村坐落在克里特岛西北部的橄榄林中——距离哈尼亚（Chania）有 45 分钟车程。伊安丝·巴特（Ianthe Butt）在《Condé Nast Traveller》中写道，这里可以俯瞰基萨莫斯（Kissamos）深邃的海湾。其 20 间“舒缓”的低层套房和一座单栋别墅采用了“与大地景观相融合的色调”，配有露台花园和一个“宁静”的椭圆形泳池。室内装饰采用橡木和柚木制成的手工家具、“柔和”的灯光以及宽大的半圆形窗户。这家“以植物为主”的餐厅提供现代演绎的传统克里特菜肴，同时也提供部分肉类和鱼类选项。度假村距离海岸仅 5 分钟车程。 双人间 £315 起；tellathera.com。
萨姆·尼尔（Sam Neill）长相粗犷英俊且极具多面性。1993 年，他被选为斯蒂文·斯皮尔伯格导演的《侏罗纪公园》中古生物学家艾伦·格兰特博士（Dr Alan Grant）一角，从而被推向了好莱坞之星的地位。《每日电讯报》（The Daily Telegraph）称，作为史上最成功的商业片之一，这部电影至今仍是他最广为人知的作品。然而，令人惊讶的是，这并非他当年参演的唯一一部具有开创意义的电影。尼尔于上周因肺炎去世，享年 78 岁。他还在简·坎皮翁（Jane Campion）的艺术电影力作《钢琴》（The Piano）中担任主角。该片设定在他家乡新西兰，赢得了众多奖项，包括三项奥斯卡奖和戛纳金棕榈奖，尽管他个人未获奖，但他对参与其中感到无比自豪。他在 2023 年写道：“回想起来，我认为我无法高估《钢琴》对我而言有多重要。它就像一枚勋章一样挂在我的简历上。”
萨姆·尼尔 1947-2026
奈杰尔·约翰·德莫特·尼尔（Nigel John Dermot Neill）1947 年出生于北爱尔兰。他的父亲是新西兰人，当时在英国军队服役，母亲是英国人。在他八岁时，全家搬到了新西兰——在那里他将名字改为萨姆。他曾对这次搬迁感到吃力，并表示他的原名在“新西兰的操场上显得有点过于柔弱”。相比之下，萨姆（Sam）这个名字“听起来更有男人味，带有一点拉布拉多犬的感觉”。他在学校开始学习表演，大学毕业后加入了一个剧团。1977 年，他在《沉睡之犬》（Sleeping Dogs）中获得了一个角色，该片设定在一个新西兰处于战争状态的乌托邦未来。这是第一部在美国院线上映的新西兰制作故事片，并使他有机会在《我的辉煌生涯》（My Brilliant Career，1979 年）中与朱迪·戴维斯（Judy Davis）对戏。不久之后，他拿起电话，听到一个听起来奇怪地熟悉的嗓音。那是詹姆斯·梅森（James Mason）从他位于瑞士的家中打来的。梅森解释说，他和妻子对他（尼尔）的表演印象极为深刻，因此他们决定给他发送
根据《卫报》（The Guardian）报道，享年 87 岁去世的沃利·芬克（Wally Funk）作为一名飞行员拥有卓越的职业生涯，在当时一个男性主导的世界中为女性开辟了道路。20 岁时，她成为美国军事基地首位女性平民飞行教员；1971 年，她成为联邦航空管理局（Federal Aviation Administration）首位女性飞行检查员。然而，她的梦想一直是进入太空。在 1960/61 年，为了证明女性是否适合太空旅行，在航空医学专家威廉·兰多夫·洛夫莱斯博士（Dr William Randolph Lovelace）资助的研究项目中，她成为一组女性飞行员中最年轻的一员，接受了与美国国家航空航天局（Nasa）男性宇航员相同的严格测试。这些女性（后来被地称为“水星 13 组”）的得分与男性一样高，在某些测试中甚至超过了男性，但 Nasa 拒绝支持该项目，并拒绝允许女性进入宇航员队伍。然而，60 年后，芬克终于在 82 岁时实现了她的雄心，她成为了杰夫·贝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）的蓝色起源（Blue Origin）公司建造的“新谢帕德”（New Shepard）号火箭首航的乘客之一。她事后表示：“为了最终能上去，我已经等了很长时间。”
沃利·芬克 1939-2026
《侏罗纪公园》中的尼尔
在新冠疫情封锁期间，他在新西兰的农场发布一些不落窠臼的视频来娱乐自己并鼓舞粉丝，他在那里经营着一家备受推崇的酒庄，并饲养了一群以合作演员命名的动物；其中就有一只名叫梅丽尔·斯特里普的母鸡。在 2022 年被诊断出患有血癌后，他写了一本回忆录。关于他买了一辆保时捷并在一个早晨开在伦敦街头兜风，结果在红绿灯前被朱迪·戴维斯发现，对方敲了敲窗户并严厉地说道：“不，萨姆。不行。不是你，萨姆。”这段故事体现了其“典型的自嘲基调”。他与妻子渡边典子分居，留下了四个孩子。他很少讨论私人生活，但最近在接受采访时表示，他希望人们记得他是一个善良的人。“我的外在无疑是新西兰人萨姆，”他在回忆录中写道，“你甚至可能会认出他。但在内心深处，在非常深的地方，住着一个害羞的小男孩，他的声音完全不同，而且他的名字不叫萨姆。他叫奈杰。”
方克：九岁时学习飞行
她在“水星 13”计划中的得分排名第三。即便如此，当美国国家航空航天局（Nasa）在 20 世纪 70 年代末终于开始接纳女性时，她仍被多次拒绝，因为她既没有工程学位，也没有试飞员经验。她那时长 10 分钟的亚轨道飞行使她成为进入太空年龄最大的人；这一纪录不久后被《星际迷航》演员威廉·夏特纳打破，但她仍是进入太空年龄最大的女性。她从未结婚。“航空是我的一生，”她在 2020 年出版的回忆录《更高、更快、更远》（Higher, Faster, Longer）中写道，“我以此为食，以此为息。”
一张机票，以便他能前往欧洲与他们汇合，并会见梅森的经纪人。在梅森的指导下，尼尔很快来到了伦敦，拍摄了他的第一部好莱坞电影《预兆 3》（Omen III，1981 年）。
在那个年代的后期，他拒绝了在《虎胆龙威》中让艾伦·瑞克曼成为国际巨星的那个角色——但随后与妮可·基德曼共同出演了惊悚片《死寂》，引起了斯皮尔伯格的注意，并导致他被选演《侏罗纪公园》（及其两部续集）。他曾短暂地被列为下一任詹姆斯·邦德的候选人，但到 20 世纪 90 年代中期，他已习惯于扮演各种配角。《卫报》称，这一刻他是《复辟》（Restoration，1995 年）中的查理二世；下一刻他就在“科幻恐怖片《超视距》（Event Horizon，1997 年）中挖掉自己的眼睛”。后期的知名角色包括在泰卡·怀蒂蒂的《野生原力》（Hunt for the Wilderpeople，2016 年）中与十几岁的养子一起逃入丛林的脾气暴躁的农民，以及《浴血黑帮》中的一名强悍警察。
据《华盛顿邮报》报道，五岁时，她披上超人披风从谷仓屋顶跳下，“梦想着飞行并落在干草堆里”。她是一个热爱户外活动的孩子，曾获得全国射击奖项；她学习基础力学，用轻木制作模型飞机，并在 9 岁时上了第一堂飞行课。她在 19 岁时获得了飞行员执照；她的第一份工作是在俄克拉荷马州的一个美国军事基地担任民用飞行教官。十年后，她获得了联邦航空管理局（FAA）飞行检查员的资格。1974 年，她成为国家运输安全委员会首位女性航空安全检查员，在此期间评估了约 450 起事故。与此同时，她参加了多次航空竞赛。她还经营自己的飞行学校。
泰晤士水务/安格利安水务：处境岌岌可危。安迪·伯纳姆在担任首相后的首次演讲中表示，他希望看到公众对“生活必需品”拥有更大的控制权。BBC新闻的西蒙·杰克（Simon Jack）和埃默·莫罗（Emer Moreau）指出，没有什么比水更必需的了。而在英国规模最大且债务最重的水务公司泰晤士水务（债务达 £18.5bn 且在增加）中，立即出现了一场“阻止国有化”的抢救行动。该水务公司的债权人——伦敦与谷地水务财团（London & Valley Water consortium）——向政府提供了一份“金股”（赋予其否决决定的权力），并向地方当局提供更多控制权，希望以此让主张国有化的人离去。但《每日邮报》的亚历克斯·布鲁默（Alex Brummer）表示，如果他们曾经有机会成功，现在可能已被“贪婪的水务高管们极度的愚蠢”给毁了。在伯纳姆搬进唐宁街10号的前几天，泰晤士水务——该公司最近因倾倒未经处理的污水和财务管理不善被处以创纪录的 £122.7m 罚款——透露其向高管支付了约 £4m 的奖金，首席执行官克里斯·韦斯顿（Chris Weston）的薪酬增长了 9.4%，达到 £1.16m（在他看来这是“应得的”）。水务监管机构 Ofwat 也在调查安格利安水务（Anglian Water），尽管 Ofwat 正在严厉打击奖金发放，但该公司仍向其老板马克·瑟斯顿（Mark Thurston）在薪资之外支付了 £1.3m。安格利安水务坚持认为这笔款项“符合规定”，因为它是由其母公司支付的。《泰晤士报》的多米尼克·奥康奈尔（Dominic O’Connell）指出，在薪酬问题上，水务公司正变得越来越有“创意”。
PayPal/Stripe：未来的支付巨头？路透社的米兰娜·温（Milana Vinn）表示，PayPal 的市值在 2021 年达到约 $360bn 的峰值，去年则跌至约 $36bn 的低点。这家由埃隆·马斯克在 1990 年代末共同创立的数字支付先驱，是否已经到了被收购的时机？其规模更小但现在大得多的同行 Stripe 肯定这么认为。后者已与私募股权公司 Advent 合作，提交了一份 $53bn 的报价。在这一消息传出后，PayPal 的股价上涨了 17%。但《观察家报》指出，目前正处于转型期的首席执行官恩里克·洛雷斯（Enrique Lores）领导的公司“到目前为止一直不愿参与”，认为该报价“出价过低”。《科技时报》（Tech Times）称，PayPal 和 Stripe 这两个最广泛被在线商家使用的支付平台一旦结合，将创造一个每年处理约 $3.7trn 支付金额的全球巨头。预计由两名爱尔兰兄弟约翰·柯里森（John Collison）和帕特里克·柯里森（Patrick Collison）创立的 Stripe 将坚持其“谈判”。CoinDesk 的杰米·克劳利（Jamie Crawley）表示，这其中绝对有巨大的利益可图。随着业务向消费者钱包、稳定币和区块链转移，真正的奖赏将是掌控“数字支付的未来”。
特朗普媒体与技术集团：永不停止的创业。在《华尔街日报》中，大卫·乌贝尔蒂（David Uberti）问道，是否有什么行业能免于美国第一家庭不断扩张的商业帝国？特朗普媒体与技术集团（TMTG）——总统的 Truth Social 平台所在地——最新的一个令人意外的“转型”是进入核能领域，这得益于计划与聚变公司 TAE Technologies 合并。你肯定希望自己能先读到关于此的所有报道。那么，现在你可以读到了，《金融时报》表示——但要付费。TMTG 还在考虑向交易员和投资者收取费用，以获得更“快速访问”特朗普在 Truth Social 上帖子的权限，因为他经常在那里发布“引发全球市场剧烈波动”的公告。购买“Truth API”数据服务的用户每月可能需要支付 $100,000 才能享受这一特权——或许得咬牙支付。一名对冲基金经理表示：“人们会付钱，因为他们必须这么做。如果你在获取新闻方面落后，你将被碾碎。”
就好像人工智能领域还不够狂热似的， 另一个来自中国的挑战者出现了—— 汉斯·范·莱文在《每日电讯报》中表示，这引发了西方竞争对手的立即恐慌。上周，当北京的初创公司 Moonshot AI 发布 Kimi K3 时，领先的人工智能和芯片股票市值蒸发了“数千亿美元”。Kimi K3 是一款大语言模型，比美国的竞争对手更便宜，且下载限制更少，并颠覆了人们“对人工智能革命走向的认知”。Moonshot 的创始人是“娃娃脸”亿万富翁杨植麟——一位前卫摇滚乐迷，他为了向平克·弗洛伊德的专辑《月之暗面》（The Dark Side of the Moon）致敬而为公司命名。
吴子晶和杰米·约翰在《金融时报》中表示，Moonshot 正在“前沿”领域挑战 Anthropic 和 OpenAI。Kimi K3 拥有 2.8 万亿个“参数”，代表其神经网络的规模（参数数量越高通常意味着能力越强）。
新闻中的公司 ...及其评估情况
《纽约时报》的 DealBook 称，能力日益增强、价格相对低廉的中国“开放权重”模型，削弱了为了在 AI 竞赛中跟上步伐需要“巨额支出”的论点。这可能导致“大部分 AI 行业看起来比其能证明的正当性更负债”——并且也可能影响 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 即将进行的 IPO；据报道，月之暗面本身正准备在六个月内在香港上市。“特朗普政府中的一些人现在正推动限制外国模型”，并打击开源 AI 软件。据报道，中国也在衡量自己的应对措施。这个问题似乎将成为超级大国之间“贸易谈判中的一个新棋子”。
月之暗面“娃娃脸”的杨
专家表示，这使其领先于 Anthropic 的 Claude Opus 4.8 模型——尽管在大多数基准测试中，它仍逊于后者的最强模型 Fable。
周三，在特朗普总统威胁将进一步升级对伊朗的行动后，油价上涨至每桶 $95 以上——由于担心全球库存正降至关键的低水平，价格自 7 月初以来已上涨 30%。高盛警告称，如果霍尔木兹海峡在第四季度继续处于“中断”状态，布伦特原油价格可能会升至 $120 以上。
在英国，随着安迪·伯纳姆进入唐宁街10号，国债收益率大幅上升。十年期国债收益率跳升 11 个基点至 5.04%，因为他承诺将建立一种“新经济模型”，并寻求在财政规则内利用“灵活性”——交易员将其解读为将增加公共借款。英国国家统计局 (ONS) 报告称，截至 6 月的一年内，英国的通胀率从 5 月的 2.8% 下降至 2.6%。但经济学家警告说，由于能源价格上涨，此次下降可能是暂时的。
SpaceX 的股价在最初飙升至 $200 以上的高点后，跌破了上月 $135 的 IPO 价格，至 $123 左右；分析师将其归咎于股票禁售期届满以及更广泛的科技市场情绪动摇。由于旧有丑闻继续给首席执行官 Christian Sewing 的转型蒙上阴影，德意志银行总部今年第三次遭到德国检察官的搜查。Uber 同意以 $14.8bn 收购德国的 Delivery Hero，作为其构建全球食品配送服务计划的一部分。
克里斯托弗·贾斯珀在《每日电讯报》中表示，周一法恩堡国际航空展的第一天笼罩在一种沮丧的气氛中——该展会“传统上被视为英国航空航天和国防部门的橱窗”，且自第二次世界大战以来，总理到访一直是“惯例”。而今年，没有任何一名部长出席——这引发了“阴郁的低语”。当原国防大臣约翰·希利被确认任命为财政大臣时，很少有人预料到随之而来的反转。
《City AM》的 Mauricio Alencar 表示，国防公司 Babcock 和 BAE Systems 在周二市场开盘时“是涨幅最大的公司之列”。债券市场的反应则没那么狂热——尽管希利的任命有助于“稳定”紧张情绪和收益率。与之前被看好的一些候选人相比，他被认为是一个可靠的操盘手。
英国商会 (BCC) 的 Shevaun Haviland 在《泰晤士报》中表示，包括重新担任商业大臣的 Jonathan Reynolds 在内的新任部长们需要迅速行动。BCC 最新的季度经济调查显示，“企业投资意向跌至疫情深陷时期的最低水平”，这应该是一个“警钟”。增长的杠杆——投资、生产力和贸易——并非谜团。“但正确”
● 北海复兴？ 据《每日电讯报》的康纳·斯特林格（Connor Stringer）报道，特朗普总统自述，他与安迪·伯纳姆的首次电话通话取得了巨大的成功。“苏格兰阿伯丁的人民正在街头起舞，因为新任首相安迪·伯纳姆已经声明，他将全力开发极其珍贵的北海石油！”特朗普随后在 Truth Social 上写道。一些投资者似乎认为这已成定局。北海油气股 Harbour Energy、Ithaca Energy 和 Serica Energy 的股价均上涨了约 10%。但也许他们不应期望过高。据认为，伯纳姆“将承诺加速执行现有计划”，在上次选举前已授予许可的油田（包括 Rosebank 和 Jackdaw）进行钻探。但他预计将“维持”工党 2024 年“不发放新许可证”的承诺。可能的结果与其说是“钻吧，宝贝，钻吧”，不如说是一次典型的英式折中方案。
● 建设，兄弟，建设 Morningstar 的克里斯蒂安·梅耶斯（Christian Mayes）表示，在伯纳姆任内，或许一个更值得挖掘的领域是英国那些遭受重创的住宅建筑商。新首相“毫不浪费时间”地承诺，将启动“自战后以来规模最大的市政住宅建设规划”——这可能会挽救那些因伊朗战争对通货膨胀和抵押贷款利率产生严重影响而“遭受重创”的建筑商。Morningstar 覆盖的所有五家英国住宅建筑商股票目前均以“低于其公允价值的价格交易”，其中 Persimmon 和 Barratt Redrow 尤其具有“稳健的资本增值潜力”。爱丁堡投资信托（Edinburgh Investment Trust）的伊姆兰·萨塔（Imran Sattar）指出，涉及建筑业的股票（如 Marshalls、Ibstock 和 SigmaRoc）也可能获得提振。但在缺乏具体计划的情况下，他目前仍持谨慎观望态度。
● 下注吧 Morningstar 表示，博彩股也值得关注。瑞秋·里夫斯在 2025. 年将“远程游戏税”从 21% 提高到了 40%。但伯纳姆可能会采取更进一步的措施。去年，在一份暗示“老虎机公司正瞄准英国最贫困社区”的报告出炉后，他呼吁加强对博彩业的监管。社会市场基金会（Social Market Foundation）估计，将高额赌注老虎机的游戏税从 20% 提高到 40%，可增加 £275-£458m 的收入。
为什么修复现状需要的不仅仅是等待“增长仙子”现身
钻吧，宝贝，钻吧？还是英式折中方案？
希利与伯纳姆：安抚紧张情绪？
《星期日泰晤士报》的大卫·史密斯（David Smith）表示，新任首相绝不缺建议。智库 Resolution Foundation 在其名为《大逃脱：为什么英国陷入财政低迷以及我们如何摆脱》的报告中全力以赴。报告指出，“增长乏力的痛苦后果已波及整个经济体”。然而，修复现状“需要的不仅仅是等待‘增长仙子’现身”。该基金会负责人露丝·库蒂斯（Ruth Curtice）表示，需要采取三项行动：平衡预算；解决长期债务的“爆炸性”增长（从养老金三重锁开始）；以及促进投资。（英国目前的落后程度如此之深，以至于在过去三十年中，平均先进经济体的投资额比英国高出 55%。）毋庸置疑，这一切说起来容易做起来难。
目前这些措施都没有进展。”政府的首要任务应该是“削减沉重的商业成本”，并停止将公司视为“无底的财政之井”。《每日电讯报》的艾玛·塔加特（Emma Taggart）表示，到目前为止的迹象表明，伯纳姆及其团队将采取“拆东墙补西墙”的做法。对在线零售商而言，一个打击是，伯纳姆预计将提高配送仓库的商业率，以此为酒吧、俱乐部和现场音乐场所提供 20% 的税率削减。英国零售业联盟（British Retail Consortium）警告称，这些成本最终将由“消费者买单”。
当微软在 2016 年以 $26.2bn 的价格收购 LinkedIn 时，《周日时报》的约翰·阿尔里奇（John Arlidge）称，“有些人好奇”其高管们“当时在抽什么烟”。但这个商业网络一直处于“高速增长”状态。在这里，首席执行官丹·沙佩罗（Dan Shapero）概述了如何最大限度地利用该平台：
● 使 LinkedIn 产生用处的“秘诀”在于受众和问责制。“人们知道他们可以通过这里接触到有影响力的人，”沙佩罗说。而且有一项不可动摇的政策是，你必须使用自己的真实姓名。正是这一点“使我们成为了一个值得信赖的平台”。
● LinkedIn 与主流社交媒体的不同之处在于“你来这里是为了学习某些东西”。因此，成功内容的“神奇方程式”是“洞察力加上个性”。将个人特质带入对话会使其产生更多共鸣。“人们会记住你。”但你也不应“过于私人化”。
● 混合使用媒介。视频是关键——它现在是大多数人的消费模式——但文字同样重要。“当你需要表达复杂的内容时”，将其写下来，这样受众可以用适合自己的节奏来阅读。
● 旧的笑话常说，LinkedIn “就是向不认识的人发送冷冰冰的私信，推销他们并不想要的‘令人兴奋的服务’”。沙佩罗表示，有一种正确的方法：使用新的“建议环节”（Advice Sessions）功能，允许他人预约你的时间，且费用由你决定。
© SIMON DAWSON/NO. 10 DOWNING STREET
市场并非 糟糕至极
Lex
《金融时报》
抵达 美联储？
Irwin Stelzer
《周日时报》
与巴西 矛盾的根源
社论
《经济学人》
逃税的 制胜策略
Harry Wallop
《泰晤士报》
Lex 表示，对于那些“多年来一直试图恢复人们对伦敦股票市场兴趣”的英国政策制定者来说，羡慕纽约“新上市公司的激增”是很简单的。“但正如人们所说，比较是快乐的窃贼。”而且如果仔细观察，“情况并不像看起来那么糟糕”。根据 Dealogic 的数据，2026 年上半年，公司在伦敦市场筹集了 $720m。其中一个群体——乌兹别克斯坦国家投资基金——占据了其中的大部分，但该数字与近年来相比仍有所改善。如果 Airtel Africa 今年能如愿在伦敦将其移动货币业务上市，这将是英国自 2021 年以来表现最好的一年。英国的 IPO 统计数据与欧洲邻国相比表现良好：法国、意大利以及备受推崇的瑞典市场都落后；德国仅略微领先。考虑到伦敦作为主要全球金融中心的地位，我们的目标仍应更高。但问题不应被夸大。毕竟，IPO 市场完全取决于信心。“如果听起来过于沮丧，无论如何调整政策都无法吸引交易回归。”
Irwin Stelzer 表示，一些美国评论员开始将美联储主席凯文·沃什（Kevin Warsh）比作奥德修斯——声称他正将自己“绑在”美联储“2% 通胀目标”的“桅杆上”。在经历了 63 个月高于目标的通胀后，一点自律并非没有好处——但将沃什描绘成一个狂热分子是不正确的。一方面，他表示他“不关注小数点的右侧”，这使他能够在判断美国家庭和企业已脱离困境时，即使利率略高于 2%，也可以自由地宣布“任务完成”。目前，沃什似乎认为没有理由提高利率——因为生产力的提高（目前处于 20 年来最快增长速度）将在无需干预的情况下降低商业成本和通胀。风险在于，他最终可能会“在等待经济意义上的戈多（Godot）”。此外，伊朗日益升级的战争也有可能破坏他的计划。简而言之，美联储的新任负责人可能会发现，那些旧的意外——“主席先生，是突发事件，突发事件”——仍然是需要面对的。
《经济学人》表示，在对所谓“不合理”做法进行为期一年的调查后，巴西的一系列对美出口产品刚刚被征收 25% 的新关税。美国不满的主要原因在于 Pix（巴西的数字支付系统）取得了显著成功——该系统于 2020 年推出，因实现了即时且免费的支付而深受消费者喜爱，以至于“它现在已成为日常生活的一部分”。大约 170 million 人（占巴西人的 80%）使用该系统，它占据了该国支付交易的一半以上。美国认为 Pix 是一个损害美国支付公司 Visa 和 Mastercard 的“保护主义工具”。这两种说法都没有证据支持。“Pix 并没有蚕食其他电子支付方式，反而扩大了市场”——代价是现金和支票的减少。特朗普政府更深层的担忧可能是 Pix 将成为拉丁美洲其他地区的模范，从而削弱美国公司的影响力。也许吧。到目前为止，特朗普总统的所有竞选活动所取得的唯一成效就是让巴西人更加热爱 Pix。
哈里·沃洛普（Harry Wallop）认为，商业街上的逃税行为是一种威胁。 成千上万的电子烟店、美国糖果店和理发店“肆无忌惮地藐视税务机关”，因为店主们知道逃税的处罚几乎不存在。“如果有人问起令人尴尬的问题，你只需关闭店铺，第二天重新开业，并用你表亲的名字注册公司。”英国税务海关总署（HMRC）估计，增值税（VAT）欠缴造成的“税收缺口”高达£12bn。自1951, 起，台湾运行着一项奇特的计划——统一发票彩票，旨在帮助解决这一顽疾。 每笔与小商户的交易都会产生一个印在收据上的唯一代码，该代码同时也是彩票号码；每两个月会进行一次电视抽奖。顾客们坚持要求开具收据，导致税收增长了75%。英国有着悠久的国家彩票历史。让我们将其转化为我们的优势。没有人喜欢交税，但大多数人都喜欢碰碰运气。如果我们把彩票变成“来自你的窗户清洁工、理发师，或是销售价格低得可疑的法国奶酪的集市摊位的收据”，我们将拥有一套“能够抹除我们国家债务的获胜方案”。
Max Buchan 和 Josh McLaughlin 三分之二的英国选民反对将政府合同授予 Palantir，这家备受争议的美国科技公司与特朗普政府关系密切。詹姆斯·蒂特科姆（James Titcomb）在《每日电报》（The Daily Telegraph）中表示，这对 Valarian 背后的人来说是天籁之音——Valarian 是一家总部位于伦敦、主攻“主权”技术的初创公司，刚刚筹集了 $50m 资金。该公司由加密货币交易员 Max Buchan 和前美国陆军军官及 Palantir 高管 Josh McLaughlin 于 2020 年创立，目前正利用对“安全架构”日益增长的需求，帮助英国国防首长等人“减少对美国技术的依赖”。该公司得到了由亿万富翁亚历克斯·格尔科（Alex Gerko）经营的伦敦交易公司 XTX 以及一系列美国风险投资公司的支持。
朱德·贝林厄姆（Jude Bellingham）
萨缪尔·阿吉尼（Samuel Agini）在《金融时报》中表示，法国奢侈品集团 LVMH 和麦当劳之间“几乎没有什么共同点”。但朱德·贝林厄姆就是其中之一。衡量这位英格兰和皇家马德里球星作为足球界最具商业价值的名字之一的尺度，就是这两家公司都选择他来推广产品。这位 23 岁的中场球员身价约 $50m，还与一系列品牌签署了代言协议，“范围从 Adidas 到金·卡戴珊的服装线 Skims”。未来还会有更多。贝林厄姆的获胜心态和在关键时刻进球的能力吸引了美国企业的关注。美国足球媒体网络 Men in Blazers 的罗格·贝内特（Roger Bennett）指出，他有一种“极其自信的从容”，许多英国人觉得这很“难得”——“但美国人非常喜欢”。
Ashtead Technology Citywire 贝伦贝格（Berenberg）表示，在“具有挑战性的地缘政治和宏观背景”下，业绩依然“稳健”，预示着这家专注于能源/安全海底设备的供应商在下半年将表现更强。目标价 700p。买入。422p。
Cohort Investors’ Chronicle 这家由七家企业组成的“微型国防财团”表现稳健——由其通信和情报部门驱动。债务额度已提高，用于服务规模更大的合同并寻找新目标。买入。£12.54.
AstraZeneca Citywire 德意志银行认为，这家制药公司购买肺癌治疗药物 Zegfrovy 权利的交易是一个“非常微小的利好”，无法解决其即将到来的专利悬崖问题。该行维持 £115 目标价。卖出。£123.64.
B&M European Value Retail Citywire Shore Capital 表示，鉴于前景疲软和市场竞争，B&M 的“回归基础”计划看起来很“合理”。英国园艺销售的低迷被法国市场的“亮点”以及 Heron 冷冻食品部门所抵消。持有。193p。
投资者关键数据 表现最佳与最差的股票 投资者关键数据 表现最佳与最差的股票 追踪富时指数
FTSE 100 10585.91 10529.39 0.54% FTSE All-share UK 5697.15 5661.11 0.64% Dow Jones 52342.67 52424.89 −0.16% NASDAQ 25826.98 26120.98 −1.13% Nikkei 225 66232.19 67743.50 −2.23% Hang Seng 25132.29 24340.73 3.25% Gold 4073.67 4063.33 0.25% Brent Crude Oil 91.51 85.44 7.10% 股息率 (FTSE 100) 3.01% 3.03%
英国 10 年期国债收益率 5.03 4.97 美国 10 年期国债 4.63 4.58 英国经济数据 最新 CPI (同比) 2.6% (6月) 2.8% (5月) 3.1% (5月) 0.5% (5月)
最新 RPI (同比) 3.0% (6月) Lloyds 房价 (同比) 0.6% (6月)
Halma Citywire 贝伦贝格（Berenberg）表示，一次剧烈的回调使这家在安全、环境和医疗保健领域运营的“救命”科技公司集团的股价回落到了“合理水平”。近期的波动掩盖了其“卓越的商业模式”。买入。£36.72.
Johnson Matthey The Times 这家化学公司为车辆提供清洁空气技术，并主攻铂族金属的应用。随着数据中心使用量的增加，其进军美国发电市场的举措应将从中受益。买入。£19.42.
Hill & Smith 《投资者纪事报》(Investors’ Chronicle) 这家镀锌钢材专家为美国 AI 数据中心的繁荣提供了关键基础设施。鉴于 17.4% 的利润率、其持续的复合增长记录以及令人印象深刻的现金生成能力，其较高的估值是合理的。持有。£29.90.
ME Group International 《投资者纪事报》(Investors’ Chronicle) 这家照片亭和洗衣机运营商近期一直受到“意外事故”的困扰。但尽管伊朗战争抑制了对护照照片的需求，但利润率较高的洗衣业务正在增长。持有。116p.
2026年7月21日 前一周 变化 (%)
股票
One Health Group 《投资者纪事报》(Investors’ Chronicle) 这家医疗程序提供商在英格兰北部（当地 NHS 容量较低）运营——在 NHS 完成两次髋关节置换手术的时间里，它可以完成六次。计划于 2027. 年开设一个专用中心。买入。248.5p.
Tufton Assets 《泰晤士报》(The Times) Tufton 拥有 21 艘运输干散货和液体的二手油轮，并将其租赁给海运公司。该公司受益于“市场低效”：地缘政治动荡是一个结构性的助力。收益率为 8%。买入。97p.
RM 《投资者纪事报》(Investors’ Chronicle) 这家教育科技公司在致力于出售非核心资产以专注于数字化考试和认证软件时，表现有所改善。但它正受到自由现金流生成不足和债务居高不下的困扰。出售。89p.
Dunelm Group Citywire Panmure Liberum 已将这家家居零售商的评级从“出售”上调，但对于“判定反转点”仍保持谨慎。虽然仍面临利润率冲击的风险，但考虑到目前情况，第四季度的交易情况稳定且“尚可”。持有。843p.
本周变化，富时 100 指数股票 (FTSE 100 STOCKS) 上涨 价格 % 变化 Diploma 7470.00 +9.77 玛莎百货集团 (Marks & Spencer Group) 398.00 +7.47 巴布考克国际 (Babcock International) 1080.00 +6.61 Metlen Energy & Metals €37.60 +6.34 Computacenter 4866.00 +6.01
10,800
下跌 圣詹姆斯广场 (St James’s Place) 1067.00 –7.58 苏格兰抵押贷款投资信托 (Scottish Mort. Inv. Trust) 1357.00 –6.15 3i 集团 (3i Group) 2503.00 –5.23 英美资源 (Anglo American) 3478.00 –5.23 安托法加斯塔 (Antofagasta) 3667.00 –4.58
富时 250 指数 (FTSE 250) 涨幅最大与跌幅最大者 Rotork 485.00 +68.24 Raspberry Pi Holdings 686.00 –16.34
高管交易
Energean
775 2 位董事 买入 52,494
2月 3月 4月 6月 7月 5月
这家能源集团在地中海和北海拥有资产——由于以色列的动荡，该公司下调了业绩指引并削减了股息。尽管如此，创始人兼 CEO Mathios Rigas 和联合创始人 Efstathios Topouzoglou 表达了信心：买入了价值 £369,085. 的股票。
表现指南
12 周前推荐的股票
最佳推荐 M&C Saatchi 《投资者纪事报》(Investors’ Chronicle) 上涨 15.97% 至 138p
最差推荐
Bellway 《泰晤士报》(The Times) 下跌 4.21% 至 £18.90
市场观点 “英国正经历政府债券收益率的最大波动。这恰逢新任首相在重新承诺现有财政规则的同时，也在其中寻求‘灵活性’。” 经济学家 Mohamed El-Erian 博士。引用自《金融时报》(FT)
10,900
10,700
10,600
10,500
10,400
10,300
10,200
10,100
10,000
9,900
2月 3月 4月 5月 6月 7月
数据来源：INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE
有些人声称脱离欧盟将有助于振兴英国的渔业社区。而在公投十年后的今天，德文郡南部的布里克斯汉姆（Brixham）港口生意兴隆。但这究竟是脱欧的结果，还是仅仅因为偶然出现了章鱼过剩？杰克·伯克（Jack Burke）报道
2019 年夏天，鲍里斯·约翰逊带着冰激凌和承诺来到了布里克斯汉姆。到那时，英国渔民已经成为了脱欧运动中出人意料的平民英雄，他们的船只和港口承载了所有关于“夺回控制权”的充满情感色彩的措辞。约翰逊参观了鱼市，与当地人物合影，走出 Rockfish 餐厅时手里拿着鳕鱼和薯条，笑得像只黑猩猩。他向聚集的人群宣布，英国将再次成为一个独立的沿海国家。英国船只将在英国港口卸载英国鱼类。这意味着那些几十年来目睹船队萎缩、子辈离去的沿海社区将迎来重生。这个在 2016 年投票脱离欧盟的德文郡南部港口，对此报以热烈的掌声。十年后，悬在布里克斯汉姆上空的问题是，承诺的变革是否真的到来了。
布里克斯汉姆的港口与英格兰任何地方一样风景如画。一栋栋粉色调的小屋沿着陡峭的山坡向水边倾斜，这些渔民的阁楼和网仓早已变成了名为“龙虾锅小屋”和“船长景观房”的度假出租房。夏天，桨板和游艇在码头边起伏。游客们坐在码头边大快朵颐地吃着冰激凌，而这里曾经是拖网渔民修补渔网的地方。
渔业造就了布里克斯汉姆。是布里克斯汉姆的人在 19 世纪开创了深海拖网捕鱼，驾驶他们独特的帆装拖网船沿海岸航行，并帮助在英国其他地方建立船队。1866 年，一场东风暴摧毁了几乎整个船队并导致数十人丧生，但这座小镇重建了自己。在 20 世纪的大部分时间里，它一直是英国伟大的渔港之一，并在战后几十年间达到了顶峰，许多商业船队也是如此。然而，与其他曾经伟大的英国渔业城镇不同，布里克斯汉姆从未完全失去其生存理由。赫尔（Hull）衰落了。格里姆斯比（Grimsby）将自己重新定义为巨大的国外渔获处理中心。在全国各地，船只消失，港口变空。但布里克斯汉姆不知为何挺了下来。
“人们认为我们扩张是因为我们出去抢了别人的生意，”在布里克斯汉姆拖网代理公司（BTA）经营了 33 年的巴里·杨（Barry Young）说道。“实际上，我们只是坚持开业。”杨不习惯感性地说话。他说，解释比人们想象的要简单得多。其他地方的市场关闭是因为运营起来不再具有经济效益。
布里克斯汉姆在 19 世纪开创了深海拖网捕捞
“据说有一位船长每天能捕到两吨章鱼——这种战绩在 20 年后人们依然会津津有味地谈论”
首先出卖其身份的是气味，那是不可错过的、混合了柴油、盐水和鱼腥味的 seaside tang（海边特有的气息）。海鸥在头顶盘旋尖叫。叉车在面包车和货车之间穿梭。在游客们回到度假出租屋休息很久之后，身穿防水服的人们在市场刺眼的荧光灯下继续卸载渔获。
这是一个周二的早上 6 点，我的市场向导是伊恩·珀克斯（Ian Perkes）。他出生并成长在布里克斯汉姆，是渔民的儿子、孙子，甚至可能是曾孙，但他选择不捕鱼，而是卖鱼。自 1976. 年起，他就经营着伊恩·珀克斯鱼商有限公司（Ian Perkes Fish Merchants Ltd）。他今年 70, 岁，留着柔软的银色长发，设计师眼镜危殆地架在鼻梁上，开着一辆挂着自定义 DSOLE 车牌的经典路虎车。“其他人有些认为我应该选 RSOLE，”他愉快地说道。
我抵达的那个早晨，市场里鱼类泛滥。近年来章鱼数量激增，这是自 20 世纪 50 年代以来首次出现如此规模的爆发，温暖的海水促使成千上万只章鱼涌入英吉利海峡。建筑内部堆积着与肩同高的蓝色塑料箱，里面装满了章鱼，斑驳的触手像被丢弃的电缆一样从侧面溢出。这是目前所有人唯一想买的东西。“英国人不吃这个，”珀克斯说着，毫无感情地戳了戳一只，“厨师不会做，顾客不买账。大部分都运往西班牙。”
章鱼爆发是这些海域在记忆中发生的最奇怪的事情，并引发了一场捕鱼盛宴。对于某些类型的船只来说，这是一场超出想象的横财。章鱼没有配额限制，这意味着船只卸货量没有上限，且价格一直坚挺。据说一位名叫艾伦·斯特（Alan Steer）的船长每天能捕获两吨，午餐前就能赚到 £10,000，这种战绩在 20 年后人们依然会津津有味地谈论。
但这种生物是聪明且贪婪的捕食者，在沿着海岸线走几英里之地的其他地方，它却成了一场灾难。索尔科姆（Salcombe）和达特茅斯（Dartmouth）的小型近海甲壳类渔民们拉起的蟹笼和龙虾笼只有一半是满的，因为章鱼爬进了笼子。
布里克斯汉姆幸存了下来，并利用规模经济获利，因为渔民们仍然需要一个卸货地点。BTA 现在运行着纵贯海岸线的货车，从那些无法自行销售鱼类产出的港口接货。因此，几乎是默认地，布里克斯汉姆市场（由 BTA 运营）规模扩大了。如今，每年有价值超过 £77m 的鱼类经此交易，使其成为英格兰最具价值的鱼类市场。
© CARLO IREK/4CORNERS
进入内部并将锅当作储藏室。这些海域的螃蟹和龙虾捕获量下降了三分之一，世世代代在此捕鱼的人们正将船只靠岸停泊。许多人的担忧是，当前的繁荣掩盖了一场长期灾难：等到章鱼们结束这场盛宴并离开时，这里将几乎没有什么能留下来。
不过目前，布里克塞姆（Brixham）的生意正处于繁荣期，以至于通常上午 6.30 的拍卖开始时间不得不推迟两小时。珀克斯（Perkes）带我上楼来到他的办公室，他盯着正在缓冲的拍卖网页，表情像是一个受到了个人冒犯的人。“如果是在现场拍卖，绝对不会发生这种事，”他抱怨道。他解释说，在过去的好日子里，数十名商人会站在寒冷的黎明前阴影中，用眼睛检查箱子，向寒冷的空气中大声喊出报价，直到最响亮、咖啡因摄入最多的人获胜。像珀克斯这样的人充当着不可或缺的中间商，购买优质鱼类并将其运往欧洲各地的加工商。
六年前，BTA 引入了一种基于云端的时钟拍卖，价格在屏幕上稳步下降，直到世界某个地方的买家同意并接手，这一切都可以通过马德里的笔记本电脑完成，而无需闻到鱼腥味。“我们被‘去中间化’了，”珀克斯宣布道，他透过眼镜盯着我看，以确保我听到了。“把这个记下来。这是你今天的关键词。”他将电脑转向我，显示出那天早上登录的 200 多个买家的名字，其中很大一部分是他在荷兰的旧客户，而现在他们直接购买。“我是布里克塞姆当地唯一剩下的商人了，”他说。
我委婉地将话题转向脱欧。他是鲍里斯在 2019 年一次匆匆访问中会见的当地人物之一。我问他究竟改变了什么。他向后靠在椅子上，呼出一口气。“嗯，我们原以为能达成像挪威那样的协议，”他说。“每个人都这么想。更多的控制权，更多的鱼，更好的配额，而无需处理他们的任何规定。鲍里斯说我们需要更多员工，因为我们将拥有这么多该死的鱼。他是对的。我们确实需要更多员工——但是为了处理行政事务！”
自从离开欧盟以来，珀克斯为了适应这些官僚程序，花费了大约 £600,000。他在加来（Calais）雇了一名律师，其唯一目的似乎就是解读法国的增值税要求。现在有了新的健康证书、捕获证书、出口申报单和额外的航海日志——如果这些表格填写错误，可能会导致整批货物陷入停顿。“老实说，加来一个拿着写字夹的 12 岁孩子就能因为一份表格填错而拦住价值十万英镑的鱼。”
这种愤怒源于鱼类本身的特殊性质。与威士忌或机械不同，海鲜处于一场与时间的永久赛跑中。鱼类被卸货，立即拍卖，装入冷藏车并迅速运往欧洲，在处于最佳状态时抵达法国、西班牙和比利时，通常在离开大海后不到 24 小时。优质新鲜鱼类之所以能获得高价，恰恰是因为其新鲜度。引入健康证书、边境检查和海关延误，就是在攻击整个行业的中心逻辑。“十小时的延误可能会让某些鱼类的价值减半，”珀克斯说。“人们不理解这一点。”他讲述了一个特别痛苦的片段，当时由于温度争议，导致一批价值
© WAYNE PERRY/NEWS LICENSING
伊恩·珀克斯（Ian Perkes）与章鱼：“被去中介化”
“在冷藏拍卖厅里，有人向我展示涡实际上、 brill、大西洋真鳕、海红鲷。这是一个惊人的丰收，但几乎没有一样是留给我们的”
然而，失望并不完全等同于愤恨，珀克斯也小心地不将欧盟内部的生活浪漫化。他指出，即便在欧盟内部时，英国在上次燃料危机期间也没有得到太多帮助，而且他很清楚布鲁塞尔并非什么仁慈的保护者。他也不相信某些脱欧反对者所预言的末日景象真的发生了。“但我会想回去吗？”他反问道，“大概吧。不过，等那一天到来时，我估计已经死了。”
尽管在配额、主权和文书工作上争论不休，珀克斯依然深信，最大的错失机会其实就在家门口。“我们周围全是这些好东西，”他说道，戏剧性地向办公室窗外的海面张开双臂，“结果我们却在进口垃圾。”与布里克瑟姆（Brixham）的许多人一样，他不仅对鱼类，而且对英国人本身就持有强烈的见解。“来吧，我带你看，”他说着，把一件白色外套和一双雨靴扔给我。
珀克斯带我穿过冷藏拍卖厅，经过铺满碎冰的展台，那里摆放着 40 种以上的鱼类，大多数英国购物者即使被枪指着头也认不出来：涡实际上、brill、大西洋真鳕、海红鲷、红乘鱼、圣彼得鱼和飞剪乌贼——还有被誉为英吉利海峡贵族的多佛比目鱼，其规格被分为从极小到像餐盘一样大的十个尺寸。这是一个惊人的丰收，但几乎没有一样是留给我们的。大部分通过卡车经由布洛涅运往西班牙（那里的人什么鱼都吃），以及法国、意大利和比利时，那里的人还知道如何处理带骨的鱼。
“我们是一个拥有世界上最丰富渔场之一的岛国，但我们食用的海鲜约 70% 是进口的，”珀克斯解释道。“普通英国人想要的只有三文鱼、鳕鱼、金枪鱼和虾，而且大多数养殖在那些让你反胃的地方。”珀克斯记得自己在 1976 年起步时，开着车在街上挨家挨户卖鱼。那时超市几乎不储备新鲜海鲜。新鲜鱼类柜台非常普遍。人们了解季节和品种，他们习惯于看到整条鱼。而且至关重要的是，他们知道怎么处理这些鱼。“现在，”他叹了口气，“除非包装袋上有说明书告诉他们微波炉要加热多久，否则他们完全没主意。”
他并非唯一感到沮丧的人。米奇·汤克斯（Mitch Tonks），其经营的 Rockfish 餐厅曾给鲍里斯提供离相鱼，数十年来一直在进行这场运动，不耐烦地试图引导英国公众尝试在自己海域中游弋的鱼类。他发现，问题其实不在于供应，甚至不在于价格，而在于民族性格。我们很乐意坐在圣塞巴斯蒂安或阿尔加维的海滩上，在晒得通红且心满意足地端着一壶冰白葡萄酒的同时，盘盘地吞掉烤章鱼、盐渍鳕鱼和油炸小鳀鱼。但当我们回到家，就再也不碰这些东西了。英国贸易协会（BTA）的巴里·扬（Barry Young）有一个更简单的理论。“没人，”他说，“想在外面狂风大作、大雨倾盆的时候，吃海鲜配一杯葡萄酒。”（接下文...）
约 £100,000 的货物被判定没收。保险公司不予理赔。更雪上加霜的是，他随后发现自己还得向法国当局支付 £15,000 来销毁他自己的鱼。“把鱼发往东京比发往法国更容易。日本人见到你很高兴。美国人很直接。欧洲？天哪。有时你会觉得自己像是在请求娶他们的女儿。”
汤姆·帕克 (Tom Parker) 今年 37 岁，来自萨塞克斯郡，已经出海 22 年了。他 15 岁离开学校，而第一次出海是在 10 岁时。他经常独自驾驶一艘 12 米的小船捕鱼，能捕到什么就捕什么。我请他为我分析一下捕鱼的经济账。
帕克解释说，先从单日算起。市场拿走 6%，港口收取费用，冰块和洗箱费又分走一块，这意味着在他还没开始操作之前，价格的近十分之一就已经没了。然后是燃料费，自从伊朗战争开始以来，燃料费已从每天 £160 攀升至接近 £300。船员（如果他有船员的话）会拿走剩余部分的五分之一。在扣除维护费、保险费及其他所有开支后，对于一个在海上奋斗了 14 小时的人来说，剩下的收益可能低得令人惊讶。
然后是配额。如果你请五个渔民解释配额，你会得到六个答案，但帕克尽力尝试着解释。这些权利在几十年前作为固定份额分发，并与 20 世纪 90 年代中期的记录挂钩，现在的运作方式与股票完全一样，在英吉利海峡两岸的生产者组织之间租赁和交换。一份曾经价值一吨鱼的份额，随着鱼类资源评估的下降，可能会缩减至 100 公斤。帕克在三年前购买了自己的配额，他认为今天开始起步的年轻人几乎没有进入门路，除非买一艘不到 10 米的小船在边缘地带勉强维持。
帕克迅速指出，脱离欧盟并不意味着完全切断与布鲁塞尔配额的联系。毕竟，鱼类并不认可国界。它们随心所欲地游泳，完全不理会地图上无形的界线。由于在布里克塞姆 (Brixham) 登陆的许多物种都是共享资源，英国在管理方式上仍需与欧洲进行年度谈判。“人们认为我们离开了就完事了，”他说，“但我们仍然被这些该死的配额捆绑着，因为我们捕捞的是共享资源。”他解释说，实际情况是，英吉利海峡的互联度太高，鱼类的洄游性太强，一个国家无法简单地独行其道。
然而，真正令人心痛的是这些配额强制要求的“弃鱼”。他描述了这样一幕：甲板上堆满了鱼，然后他不得不将大部分死鱼铲回海里，因为规定说他不能保留它们。“他们太无能了，”他带着疲惫的无奈说道，“数据总是落后三年。等他们使用时，已经过时了。”而且每一项新规定似乎都来自一个机构，其官员在渔民心中的地位，大约等同于裁判在足球支持者心中的地位。他说，海洋管理组织 (Marine Management Organisation) 雇佣了数百人，所做的事情几乎就是发明各种新方法来管理那些无法管理的事物。
帕克很想更换他的船。一艘新船需要六七百万英镑，而一艘质量极好的荷兰二手船只需一小部分费用。但将一艘外国船只登记在英国注册名册上是一场极其晦涩繁琐的折磨，实际上几乎不可能实现。结果就是整个船队日益老旧，且没有人能负担得起更新。帕克说：“我们不需要在欧盟里，也能让渔民的生活变得艰难。”尽管如此，他并不消沉。时钟拍卖法提升了他的售价，脱欧后确实有一些配额回流（主要来自法国），而且他坚称，只要能接触到，海里依然有充足的鱼。
托尼·帕克：“那里有的是鱼”
“捕鱼工作艰苦、潮湿且危险，而且年轻一代对此不感兴趣”
没有人比渔民自己更努力地试图说服他们，他们组织学校访问、探索日和工作坊。但结果一律惨淡。这项工作艰苦、潮湿且危险，而年轻一代被引导去从事任何有办公桌的工作。“这里有钱可赚，”朗登说，语气中带着一丝困惑，“但我们就是无法在这个国家找到愿意捕鱼的人。”
填补这一真空的是从世界另一端飞来的劳动力。伊恩·赫福德是布里克塞姆船队中一艘大型渔船的船长，今年 50 岁，他对这个问题了如指掌。他的船需要六个人操作，就像现代英国捕鱼业的很大一部分一样，如果没有海外劳动力，就根本无法运转。目前，他的船员包括来自菲律宾和印度尼西亚的人，他们通过技术工人签证招募，并获得保证薪资，加上奖金和渔获分成，年薪可达 £50,000。住宿、六周带薪假期以及在英国缴纳税款都包含在薪酬包中。“他们是非常出色的伙计，”他简单地说道，“没有他们，我们无法出海。”
然而，其影响延伸到了驾驶室之外。虽然现在维持许多英国渔船运转的船员们广受赞赏，但他们的生活方式不一定像前几代人那样。许多人睡在船上，大多数人将大部分工资寄回故乡，且许多人不喝酒。以前的船员是分渔获的本地人，是父子或兄弟，他们在某个傍晚将渔获卸岸，在镇上的 28 家酒吧喝酒，在五家肉铺买肉，在十几个船舶用品店买靴子和油皮衣。那个圈子现在被打破了。“现在不到十家酒吧，”赫福德伤心地说，“而且只有一家肉铺。”
尽管脱欧让布里克塞姆成为了关注焦点，但令人惊讶的是，在码头待了几天后，人们发现船员们实际上很少提及这件事。他们谈论的是燃料、船员、天气和法规。大家都认为，鱼就在那里等着被捕捉。东海岸有大量未被利用的配额，北海的鳕鱼无人问津，整个海域因缺乏船只、人员和升级的基础设施而开发不足。“我们被当作一场大游戏中一个微小的棋子，”船长伊恩·赫福德说。因为对于他和其他人来说，捕鱼最终不是一份工作，而是一种生存方式。“我不会做其他任何工作，”大卫·朗登说。汤姆·帕克只是耸耸肩，说没有其他工作能与之媲美。
黄昏时分，渔船绕过贝里海岬缓缓归来，船身低沉且装载满满，柴油发动机在水面上发出轰鸣声。渔获被吊上岸，在市场冰冷的灯光下，经过一夜的冰藏和分级，准备在次日早晨六点出售。在度假者们揉着眼睛走出他们的淡色小屋之前，布里克塞姆已经醒来好几个小时了。
本文的更完整版本刊登于《Dispatch》 © 2026 Muckraker Ltd
更深层的麻烦是，没有人接班。伊恩·珀克斯早些时候告诉我，曾经在你靠岸时，会有 30 个男孩在码头等待，恳求一份工作，并在一年或两年内出海。现在，没人想要这份工作。64 岁的大卫·朗登经营着一个小船队，在渔民中他是个“独角兽”，因为他的船员依然全部是英国人。“这是一个艰苦的挑战，”他 ruefully（懊恼地）承认道，“布里克塞姆最优秀的渔民都跟我这个年纪一样。”在他的六个孩子中，没有一个出海。“我尝试了一切办法。我原以为中间那个孩子可能会去。”
© WILLIAM DAX/SWNS
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“Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again,” declared Andy Burnham on Monday, as he addressed the nation for the first time as Prime Minister. Flanked by supporters outside No. 10, the new Labour leader said he was “acutely conscious” that he was the UK’s seventh PM in ten years, and that he and his fellow politicians needed to “raise our game”. His premiership, he vowed, would be a “circuit-breaker” for Britain, ushering in a new political and economic model to reverse the “wrong turns” of the 1980s. In his first major policy announcement, he pledged to “end rough sleeping in our country” – echoing a goal he pursued with mixed results in Manchester. Hours later, he sacked a raft of ministers who’d been loyal to Keir Starmer and unveiled a new Cabinet, with John Healey a surprise choice as Chancellor. Over the next two days, he announced measures to give people “breathing space” on the cost of living: capping bus fares in England at £2 and suspending VAT on electricity bills.
Burnham’s confident address – delivered without notes or the use of a lectern – will have ensured that he “cleared the first hurdle” of his premiership, said Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail. Last week, a poll suggested that 38% of Britons didn’t even know who he was. I suspect those introduced to him this week “will have liked what they saw”. We don’t yet know much about how he will govern, said Rosa Prince on Bloomberg. But the early signs are encouraging. He has “serious people” beside him, including James Purnell, the New Labour veteran who is his new Chief of Staff, and has taken advice from the respected economists Jim O’Neill and Andy Haldane. His former job in Manchester has left him well-placed to deliver on his devolution plans; and his talk of creating a “national care service” is welcome – even if it’s not at all clear how such a “vast undertaking” would be funded.
A charismatic politician, who is at ease with the public and brims with “feelgood vibes”, Burnham has many fine qualities, said the FT. But what people really want is effective change, and rarely has a PM taken office with so little scrutiny of their agenda. Burnham has talked of rewiring Britain, reindustrialising it, and turning the page on “40 years of neoliberalism”. But what does that actually mean? His promises of a new political and economic model are probably
An 11-year-old girl whose leg became wedged between two boulders on Dartmoor was saved by a bottle of Fairy Liquid. Shannon Facey was on a school trip to Hound Tor on one of the hottest days of the year when she slipped. Rescuers soon arrived with specialist equipment to cut into the rock, but had no luck. Then team member Olly Rees arrived with a bottle of detergent he’d bought en route. He applied it “liberally” to Shannon’s leg – which finally slipped free.
The new PM: “feelgood vibes”
“Will this instinctive people-pleaser have the guts to deliver unpalatable truths?”
A baby puffin – or puffling – has been spotted on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset for the first time in 30 years, raising hopes for the survival of the much-diminished colony. Only three adult pairs are thought to remain in the area, down from 40 in the 1950s. A team of 13 volunteers had spent 150 hours watching the birds coming and going, before the puffling was spotted peeking out from a deep crevice in the cliffs near Dancing Ledge. “One puffling alone won’t save this colony,” said project leader Dr Richard Caldow, “but one is a whole lot better news than none.”
Burnham freely admits that he is “more of a spender than a saver”, said Rachel Sylvester in The Observer. But with hard choices looming in areas such as welfare and public sector pay, he’ll have to “learn how to say no”. In fact, the success of his premiership may hinge on whether this “instinctive people- pleaser” has the guts to deliver unpalatable truths to voters, ministers and his own MPs. Given the “culture of chaos” at Westminster, Burnham will have to work hard to maintain party discipline, said The Economist. But he is likely to be more adept at keeping his MPs sweet than Starmer was: he has spent weeks schmoozing back-benchers, and has, “in spades”, the personal skills that his predecessor lacked. Burnham talks a good game on party unity, said Steven Swinford in The Times: indeed, he has promised to “end factionalism” entirely. Yet one of his first acts as PM was to sack 11 Starmer loyalists from the Cabinet and replace them with his allies – a move described by one government figure as “factionalism on speed”.
Still, Burnham has goodwill behind him, said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. His approval ratings are higher than those of any of the last four PMs when they took office. And his timing is good, with Reform’s momentum currently stalled. Burnham undoubtedly has tenacity and resilience, said Michael Crick in The i Paper; but many of his flagship policies will take years to bear fruit. Polls indicate that voters want to see results soon, said Luke Tryl on Politics Home – but also that small reforms to improve their lives will resonate. By showing the electorate that he is trying, the new PM can win himself valuable time.
“more fluff than substance”, said Jeremy Warner in The Daily Telegraph. But if the reset is as significant as he has promised – he has described it as the biggest in 40 years – he has not got the mandate for it. And how could he possibly achieve it, while sticking (as he has said he will) to the existing fiscal rules? Even the limited measures announced so far are likely to cost well over £1.5bn, and there is already controversy about how they will be funded. The suspicion is that he will be looking at tax hikes targeting wealth, property assets and the City. At a time when the IMF is warning that the UK’s fiscal outlook has rarely looked so “precarious”, the PM’s plans could spell disaster for the economy.
The last independent shoe shop in Shoreditch, east London, has been given a new lease of life by a viral campaign to save it. Rich Collection Bella Italia once did a thriving trade in leather goods from Italy; but years of gentrification had driven most of its customers away. Owner Rachid Lazraq, 59, was about to close it down when a few younger buyers began showing up. It turned out that a French influencer had called the shop a “hidden gem” on TikTok. Lazraq’s daughter then posted that she wanted to save it – and the trickle turned into a deluge.
© MARTIN SHAW/NATIONAL TRUST
Appointing John Healey as Chancellor was both Andy Burnham’s most important Cabinet pick, and his most unexpected. It was an early sign, said Ethan Croft in The New Statesman, of how “leak-proof” the new PM’s operation has been so far. The race for the job had been reported as a head-to-head between Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood. Instead, the former defence secretary got the job, presumably because both of the tipped candidates were “as divisive as each other” – Miliband owing to his zealous pursuit of net- zero targets, and Mahmood because of “her hawkishness on borders”. Healey emerged as a sensible compromise candidate: not linked to any one faction of the party, widely liked, and with long Treasury experience (he served as a minister under Gordon Brown from 2002 to 2007).
Healey is seen as a “safe pair of hands”, said James Heale in The Spectator. His appointment is also “shrewd” because it signals that Burnham is serious about boosting defence spending – Healey resigned because he deemed Keir Starmer “unwilling” to fund the Armed Forces properly. Healey is “diligent” and popular in the party, said Kiran Stacey in The Guardian. But those who know him “say the new Chancellor is more ideologically driven than he may seem”: he is certainly no “fiscal hawk”, and is likely to come down on the side of
By late afternoon on Monday, the announcements were coming with “metronomic regularity”, said Aaron Bastani on UnHerd. Over the course of two hours, “the great and the good of the last Cabinet” were “eliminated”. Starmer loyalists including Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Liz Kendall, Steve Reed, Peter Kyle and Richard Hermer were all “dispatched in quick succession”, in “the Downing Street clear-out of the decade”. “When the fog cleared, the undoubted winner was the North West,” said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Greater Manchester now has five MPs in the Cabinet; London has two. There are more members with a tattoo of a Manchester worker bee (three) than there are Old Etonians (one).
In some crucial areas, there was a reassuring continuity, said The Times. Shabana Mahmood remains at the Home Office, and Pat McFadden at Work and Pensions – both are trusted figures; so too is Yvette Cooper, the new Health Secretary. She has a reputation for being “happy to take policy direction”, said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator, which may be useful, given Andy
Canny politicians think about what they wear. No Labour leader would want to replicate Michael Foot’s error, on Remembrance Sunday in 1981, when he arrived at the Cenotaph wearing a warm green coat over his dark suit. His wife had bought it from Harrods; the Queen Mother admired it. But that didn’t stop the right-wing press referring to it – in an early example of fake news – as a donkey jacket, and accusing him of disrespecting the war dead. So Andy Burnham won’t have taken lightly his decision to retain the casual look he adopted as Greater Manchester mayor, now that he is PM. He may have calculated that his favoured outfit (dark jacket and trousers, plain T-shirt) will signal that (despite his new office) he is still outside the Westminster bubble, and that he cares more about getting things done than rigid convention. He wouldn’t be the first politician to cultivate a man-of- the-people image. Harold Wilson’s pipe was famously a prop. Donald Trump’s bizarrely ill-fitting suits, some have speculated, are designed to make him look less the billionaire he is, and more like the “mall dads” who vote for him. But Burnham’s sartorial strategy is trickier. He has said he’ll wear a suit in the Commons. Every other time he goes out in public, he will have to decide whether to dress formally or not. His “smart-Manc” style might work well in some settings; in others, it might make him look unserious, or actually inauthentic. He might even be accused of vanity, or thinking himself above the rules. Ultimately, he might find it’s easier just to follow convention.
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The challenges facing him now are daunting, said The Times. Bringing defence spending up to 3% of GDP by 2030, which Healey will presumably be obliged to do, will cost at least £15bn per year. Tackling social care, which Burnham has promised, carries an annual cost of around £18bn. Yet the PM is committed to Labour’s manifesto pledges not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. So where will the money come from? Fears are growing of a “red October” Budget. Healey can be an effective chancellor, said Andrew O’Brien on UnHerd. Burnham chose him in part because he is committed to reindustrialisation: as defence secretary, he finalised plans to build six new munitions factories. And as a “party loyalist”, Healey is likely to be able to take MPs with him when “tough decisions” have to be made – on welfare, for instance. He was seen as a “safe choice” as chancellor, but he may turn out to be a more “radical” one.
The Chancellor: a “safe choice”?
Haigh: Burnham’s “deputy”
Louise Haigh’s promotion to First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, meanwhile, will have “surprised almost no one”, said Caroline Wheeler in The i Paper. Haigh – who resigned as transport secretary in 2024 after details emerged of a past conviction for fraud – is Burnham’s “closest lieutenant”, and is now “effectively his deputy”.
higher spending when presented with a policy dilemma. Markets briefly breathed a sigh of relief on Monday, said Tim Wallace in The Daily Telegraph – at least it wasn’t Miliband in No. 11. But closer examination of Healey’s record did not reassure the City. He has long campaigned for a 50% top rate of tax, higher capital gains tax and more generous welfare payments. And although he was a minister in Tony Blair and Brown’s relatively business-friendly governments, he also served Jeremy Corbyn loyally from 2015 to 2020, as shadow housing secretary.
Burnham’s strong views on health. Some appointments have “a feel of needing to find jobs for people”, said Sam Freedman on Substack, which is “risky”. Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary, for example, is “not an obvious fit”. He is viewed negatively by Donald Trump’s advisers, and is likely to be “constrained” on issues that he is passionate about, such as closer EU ties and international development. “It could prove a frustrating appointment for all involved.” Wes Streeting as Defence Secretary feels “odd”, too: he has little relevant experience; reportedly, Rachel Reeves rejected the job first. It makes sense, though, for Angela Rayner to get back her old role as Housing and Local Government Secretary. Social housing and devolution are two of the PM’s priorities, and Rayner is closely aligned with him.
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Politics
Starmer’s downfall
“I go with good grace. I go with a smile.” So said Keir Starmer on Monday as he left Downing Street, just two years after leading Labour to a “historic landslide”, said Fred Harter in The Observer. Starmer had arrived in 2024 promising to bring an end to the chaos and drama; instead, his administration “was blighted by a series of scandals, from donor handouts to Peter Mandelson’s vetting”. Granted, he managed to get “some big things done” – including raising the minimum wage, strengthening renters’ rights and trimming NHS waiting lists. “But these successes were not enough for an electorate crying out for change.” He promised growth, which remained anaemic; and soon his approval ratings were plumbing depths not even reached by Liz Truss. In the end, all but a few of Starmer’s own ministers regarded him “with contempt”, said The Economist. In his final Cabinet meeting, “they gave him a carriage clock – the symbol of an unthinking retirement gift”.
It’s usually possible to identify a definitive cause of a prime minister’s downfall, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. “Margaret Thatcher was poleaxed by her poll tax”; Boris Johnson was undone by Partygate. Starmer’s fall is “trickier to characterise”. Fundamentally, his main flaw as PM was that he was “no good at politics”. Telling a “story”, mediating disputes between ministers, building alliances – “these are the meat and drink of the political trade”. Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, “treated them as poison”. So he sleepwalked into avoidable crises, such as the backlash over winter fuel payments and the welfare reform revolt. Added to that was Starmer’s lack of “vision”, said Patrick Kidd in The Daily Telegraph. “The opening paragraph of his manifesto essentially said ‘We are not the Tories’”; he seemed to think that was enough, never offering a programme for the country, or an indication of what he wanted to do with his landslide once he’d won it.
Starmer, a “decent man”, was “crushed” by a near-impossible job, said Ian Birrell in The i Paper. But let’s give him his due: he deserves to go down in history “as the man who helped save Ukraine”. While Kyiv currently seems to have the upper hand on the battlefield, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times, it’s worth recalling “just how perilous and uncertain” things were for Europe in early 2025. Volodymyr Zelensky had just been “humiliated” in the Oval Office by President Trump, who was attempting to impose a peace deal that would have crippled Ukraine and handed Vladimir Putin victory. By deftly leveraging the special relationship, and working with France to pull the Europeans into a united front, Starmer was able to avert a “new Munich”. That’s quite the legacy. But it came at a cost. Starmer’s frequent trips abroad earned him the nickname “Never Here Keir”, and the mocking judgement that he was “a failing domestic prime minister seeking refuge on the world stage”.
Don’t expect to see Gen Z-ers clutching handbags on a night out, says The Times. The new trend among young women is to hold all the essentials – sunglasses, phone, lipstick – in one hand. Those who’ve perfected the “girl grip” (or “everything claw”) can hold a drink too. According to one survey, a third of Gen Z women head out without a bag; 44% think handbags are old-fashioned.
A school in New York state is to deploy a humanoid robot in the classroom, to assist human teachers. Named Sally, the robot has silicone skin and long hair, and can pull a range of expressions. Separately, it was reported that workers at a Tesla factory in Germany are wearing equipment that records their movements, so that robots can learn their jobs.
Bad week for: Claudia Winkleman, who quit her BBC chat show after just one seven-episode season. The show, which launched in March, had achieved respectable if far from stellar ratings, but Winkleman said that she had been just “too nervous to enjoy it”. The AI-anxious, after OpenAI admitted that one of its most advanced experimental models had repeatedly found a way to escape the controlled environment (or “sandbox”) in which it was being tested, and in one incident had hacked an AI startup.
A “decent man” crushed by the job
Russian firing drill A Russian warship carried out what defence sources called a “highly unusual” live-fire artillery drill in the Channel on Monday, Andy Burnham’s first day as PM. Shortly after 9am, the 425ft-long Neustrashimy began the 30-minute exercise in international waters 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth. It gave advance warning to HMS Tyne, which had been shadowing it, and which then backed off to a safe distance. The drill, which Britain’s new Defence Secretary Wes Streeting condemned as “performative and irresponsible”, came a month after the UK seized an oil tanker from Russia’s shadow fleet in the Channel for the first time.
MenB vaccine rollout The NHS has launched a one- off UK-wide meningitis B vaccine programme for hundreds of thousands of young people, following the outbreak that killed two teenagers in Kent in March. All pupils in their final year at school and under-25s starting university this September are eligible. Ahead of the rollout, some pharmacies warned of supply shortages. Last week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised the Government to give MenB vaccines or boosters to all 15-year-olds from 2030.
In a poll of more than 42,000 people in 37 nations, respondents were asked whether they had a favourable or unfavourable opinion of China and the US. In 25 nations, more people had favourable views of China – ranging from Pakistan, with a net pro-China rating of +75%, to Germany, with +6%. In only six – Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Japan and Israel – did a majority see the US more positively than China. The remaining nations were “equally favourable”. This is the first time in 24 years that China has outperformed the US. Pew Research Centre
67% of Americans – and 46% of Republican voters – believe that heatwaves have been “worsened by climate change”. Data For Progress
© SIMON DAWSON/NO. 10 DOWNING STREET
Berlin Surrogacy row: A leading member of the centre-right CDU – the senior party in Germany’s governing coalition – has felt obliged to resign after announcing on social media that he and his husband had used a US surrogate mother to have a child. Jens Spahn, the leader of the CDU’s parliamentary group and a close ally of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had long voiced support for Germany’s domestic ban on surrogacy; he did so as health minister under Angela Merkel. “As a gay man and a Christian,” he wrote in 2015, “I find it ... hard to warm to the idea of a rented womb.” So on revealing that he and his husband were now fathers to a surrogate son, cries of hypocrisy erupted across the political spectrum. Pressure from his own party, and reportedly from Merz, led Spahn to step down. “Personal happiness” was “incompatible” with political office, he said. The affair puts a further dent in Merz’s already fragile standing.
Genoa, Italy Bridge collapse verdict: The former head of Italy’s motorway system, Giovanni Castellucci, has been sent to jail for 12 years for manslaughter through negligence and vehicular homicide. He and 31 other transport officials were held responsible by a court in Genoa for the collapse of a bridge that killed 43 car travellers in August 2018. In what was one of Italy’s worst-ever infrastructure disasters, a 200-metre-long section of the Morandi Bridge suddenly gave way following heavy rain, causing up to 35 vehicles to plummet 45 metres to the ground below. Defence lawyers had argued it was the result of a design flaw that couldn’t have been prevented by repair work, but the judge ruled that the defendants had failed in their responsibility to maintain properly the 51-year-old structure, about which serious concerns had previously been raised.
Bologna, Italy Police death: Violent anti-police protests erupted in Bologna this week, sparked by the death on Sunday of a Morocco-born man who died while being restrained by two officers. In a video shared widely by the Italian media, Abderrahim Fakir, 42, a small-business owner and Italian resident since he was five, pleaded for help as the police held him down. Only after they had tied his ankles together did they discover he had stopped breathing. Fakir, who had been reported by locals in the Pilastro area for behaving erratically and kicking garage doors, is thought to have suffered from asthma and heart issues. The day after he died, protesters carrying “Justice for Fakir” signs took to the streets. Some threw firecrackers; the police responded with tear gas and water cannon. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has condemned the rioters, but nevertheless has promised a full investigation into Fakir’s death.
Europe at a glance
Budapest Offer rejected: Hungary’s new PM, Péter Magyar, suffered a major rebuff this week when his nominee for Hungary’s president, former chess grandmaster Judit Polgár (left), turned down his offer. The previous president, Tamás Sulyok, was last week voted out of office by Magyar’s victorious Tisza Party on account of being too closely linked to the former PM, Viktor Orbán. However, the 50-year-old Polgár, the only woman to have been a top-ten chess player, decided not to take up the largely ceremonial role, saying she was grateful for the opportunity, but didn’t feel up to “the historical responsibility of uniting a divided nation”.
Kyiv Escalating strikes: Russia has unleashed one of its largest ballistic missile attacks of the war on Kyiv, striking the city with more than 40 missiles in the early hours on Sunday. The onslaught, which killed one person and injured at least 17, was the third major attack on the city in 35 days. With movement on the war’s front line largely stalled, Russia has stepped up its aerial attacks across Ukraine. Other cities, including Odesa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia, have also come under heavy bombardment. The UN says June was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since April 2022, with at least 293 killed. Ukraine, for its part, has stepped up its own long-range drone campaign against Russia, causing nationwide fuel shortages with its strikes on oil and gas facilities. In the past week, it has also hit five warehouses belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries (above), which President Zelensky claims were being used to supply components for drones and other military hardware. One warehouse, in Koledino, was struck during a raid on the Moscow region that involved more than 400 drones – one of the largest attacks of the war on the Russian capital, which also set an oil depot in Podolsk and an industrial complex in Domodedovo on fire. Russian authorities have said that at least eight people have been killed in the attacks.
Warsaw Rising xenophobia: Poland shares a 530km border with Ukraine, and in 2022 it took in more than 3.5 million Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. More than one million then settled or registered for protection there. But this has created a backlash. Hate crimes against Ukrainians have shot up: some 180 attacks have been reported in the first six months of this year alone. In one incident, two 11-year-old Ukrainian girls on a bus in Bielsko-Biała were abused and threatened. Warsaw was the first to recognise independence for Ukraine in 1991, but historically there has been much antagonism between the two countries. In the Second World War, Ukrainian nationalists killed thousands of ethnic Poles in Ukraine’s Volhynia region.
The world at a glance
New York City Cartel boss jailed: A former leader of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel has been sentenced to life in prison by a US court this week. He was also ordered to surrender $15bn, representing the group’s profits over decades, though it is not clear that the US will be able to recover this sum. Ismael Zambada (pictured), aka “El Mayo”, who co-founded the cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in the 1980s, was arrested in Texas in 2024, after being tricked by one of Guzmán’s sons and flown to the US. Before his sentencing, El Mayo, who had agreed a plea deal, apologised for his crimes and urged young people to “choose a different path”.
Washington DC New tariffs: Donald Trump has slapped 50% tariffs on a wide range of goods imported from Canada, including wine, cement and ice hockey sticks. The measures were imposed under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 – which is believed never to have been invoked before – and apply to roughly 5% of Canadian imports by value (some $20bn worth a year). He said it was in response to the “unequal treatment” of American cars, alcohol and dairy products. However, some of the levies in question were imposed by Ottawa in retaliation for sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on Canada last year. Canadian PM Mark Carney said his government had worked hard to resolve the trade war, and that Trump’s past tariffs violated the North American trade pact.
Miami, Florida Tates arrested: The self-proclaimed misogynist and social-media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested in Miami last week at the request of the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS has brought 38 new charges against the pair, including of rape and trafficking, and is seeking their extradition. The brothers, who are US-UK nationals, are based in Romania, where they are facing separate charges. However, they’ve been able to spend time in the US since 2025, when Romanian travel restrictions on them were lifted, reportedly at the urging of Trump administration officials. They have vowed to fight their extradition in the US courts.
Managua Elections banned: Nicaragua’s long-serving Leftist president Daniel Ortega has declared that elections will no longer be held in the country. Speaking on the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution that toppled the right-wing military dictator Anastasio Somoza, Ortega, 80, said he planned to bring in laws that would “build a wall” around opposition groups, whom he called “coup plotters” and “traitors”. In power since 2007, Ortega has become increasingly authoritarian since the massive anti-government protests of 2018. He responded to them by ordering a crackdown in which more than 350 protesters were killed and thousands of others were jailed. Since then, at least 800,000 Nicaraguans have fled into exile. Ortega won 76% of the vote in the last election in 2021, which was widely decried as a sham.
New York City Arresting question: New York’s Democrat mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has revealed that he had hoped to be able to have Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if the Israeli PM travelled to the city for the UN General Assembly in September. In an interview with The New York Times, Mamdani said that Netanyahu “belongs in The Hague”, referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC). It issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 over alleged war crimes in Gaza. But the mayor said that he’d discovered that he lacks the legal authority to order the New York Police Department to detain a foreign leader. He said he hoped, therefore, that the federal government would do so. However, the US is not a party to the ICC and does not recognise its jurisdiction. And Donald Trump has insisted on social media that Netanyahu will not be arrested in the US, “in any way, shape, or form”.
Caracas Transition talks: Venezuela’s interim government will open formal talks with members of the opposition on 1 August, in a US-backed process intended to prepare the ground for credible elections. The opposition group is made up of former lawmakers who were elected to the legislature in 2015; subsequent elections have either been boycotted or dismissed as rigged. They are being led by Dinorah Figuera, who returned to Venezuela in June after years in exile. The opposition’s most prominent leader – Nobel laureate María Corina Machado – is still living abroad. Washington is reported to think that her presence could lead to unrest, and to have more confidence in Figuera to negotiate the transition to democracy.
Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories
New Hamas chief: Almost two years on from the killing of Yahya Sinwar by the Israeli military in Gaza, Hamas has elected a new overall leader. Khalil al-Hayya (pictured), who served as the militant group’s chief negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks, was a close ally of Sinwar and is widely seen as more hardline and pro-Iran than Khaled Meshaal, the candidate he defeated by a single vote. Hayya, who is based in Qatar, has survived a series of Israeli assassination attempts that killed his wife and three of his sons.
Bunia, DRC Ebola crisis: The number of confirmed deaths in the Ebola outbreak first detected in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) two months ago has jumped to at least 930. With some 2,344 cases identified, it is the fastest-spreading outbreak on record. By comparison, in the worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people in west Africa between 2014 and 2016, it took some five months before 2,000 cases were confirmed. Last week, the DRC’s health ministry said the disease had spread to two new provinces, bringing the number of affected regions to five, while the World Health Organisation warned that 80% of recent infections are from new chains of transmission, making it harder to contain the spread of the virus.
The world at a glance
Jerusalem, Israel Settlement drive: Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, joined thousands of settler activists in a march to the Gaza border this week to demand the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in the strip. The event – which breached a closed military zone – marked the anniversary of the evacuation in 2005 of a settlement bloc in Gaza as part of Israel’s disengagement. Some marchers wore stickers reading “Gaza is ours for ever”. Days earlier, the defence minister, Israel Katz, had said he planned to build three “Nahal” outposts in north Gaza – referring to military-agrarian communities that have in the past paved the way for civilian ones, though Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory are widely viewed as illegal under international law.
Delhi Cockroach protests: Thousands of supporters of India’s youth-led Cockroach movement took to the streets of Delhi this week, to demand the resignation of the education minister over his failure to prevent the leaking for profit of intensely competitive public exams. As the demonstrators sought to march on parliament, police used tear gas and batons to disperse them; 60 were wounded, leading to separate protests by opposition MPs about police brutality. Having only started online in May, the Cockroach movement is now seen as a challenge to Narendra Modi’s government.
Sanaa Embargo threat: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have declared a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia, describing it as a response to a 12-year Saudi “siege”. The closure to Saudi ships of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, connecting the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, would cut off a vital export route for oil that has been crucial for the kingdom since Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is currently using its East-West pipeline to transport millions of barrels a day to its Red Sea ports. Reportedly, Tehran had urged the Houthis to take action if US attacks on Iran continued. But the threat also reflects a flare-up in tensions between the Houthis and Riyadh. If the embargo is enforced, it is likely to end the fragile four-year truce in a conflict that began when a Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015.
Rakhine State, Myanmar Refugee tragedy: Two boats carrying more than 500 Rohingya refugees that left Myanmar on 29 June have not been seen since. Both are believed to have capsized in rough monsoon seas, with the loss of all those on board – one soon after setting off from the war-torn Rakhine State, the other on 8 July. Some of the Rohingya – a persecuted Muslim minority – are thought to have travelled from refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh, where more than a million now live in desperate conditions. They are believed to have been hoping to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
Beijing Politburo purge: Ma Xingrui has become the third member of China’s politburo – the elite executive committee of the Chinese Communist Party – to be expelled from the party since 2025. Ma had been accused of accepting bribes, abusing his office to benefit relatives, and trading political favours for sex. His purging marks the latest escalation in President Xi Jinping’s drive to root out graft, which has ensnared millions of officials since 2012, from low-level civil servants to senior generals.
People
Chris Hoy’s amazing will It’s three years since Chris Hoy was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer; yet the six-time Olympic gold medalist shows no sign of slowing down, says Decca Aitkenhead in The Sunday Times. He still exercises as hard as ever, raging against the prognosis that he had between three and four years to live; and he has “normalised” his illness for his two young children. But despite being an evangelist for the power of positive thinking, even he can’t pretend that the past nine months have been easy. In November, he suffered a “really, really bad” leg break in a mountain biking accident. Doctors told him he’d never be able to fully straighten or bend his leg again; and he had to come off some of his cancer drugs, because they inhibited wound healing. “I was, like, what have you done to yourself? You’ve smashed your leg up, you’re never going to be able to walk again properly and you’ve potentially set yourself back with your treatment.” But rather than accepting his fate, he ramped up his training, riding his stationary bike one-legged. It paid off: his leg has healed, and he recently completed a coast-to-coast cycle across Spain – which involved spending six-and-a-half hours a day in the saddle, and ascending the equivalent of one-and-a-half Everests. “It was a huge week,” he says. “I’m knackered!” So why does he do it? “It’s not an obsessional weird thing. It’s just – it’s
This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the musician Shania Twain
1 We’ve Only Just Begun by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, performed by the Carpenters 2 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, performed by Elton John 3* Dust in the Wind by Kerry Livgren, performed by Kansas 4 El Paso, written and performed by Marty Robbins 5 Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (soloist: Joan Whiting; conductor: David Bedford) 6 Gentle on My Mind by John Hartford, performed by Glen Campbell 7 Sir Duke, written and performed by Stevie Wonder 8 Ode to Billie Joe, written and performed by Bobbie Gentry
Book: Life is Fair by Brian Hines Luxury: insect repellent * Choice if allowed only one record
served me well in my life to try and challenge myself, so if you’re going to do something, make the most of it.” Too many people, he says, fail to appreciate that even if you don’t have a terminal diagnosis, life is not for ever. We all have only a “set amount of time... It’s just that my deadline’s been brought forward a little bit, and therefore I’m a bit more aware of it.”
An untypical racing river Damon Hill is a former F1 champion – and the son of one, says Tim Lewis in The Observer. Yet he insists that he is not typical of the breed. “If you’re an F1 racing driver, you live in Monaco and drive Ferraris,” he explains. He lives near Guildford – “and I don’t have a Ferrari. I don’t have a car collection. My car interest is almost on the floor.” These days, he does most of his driving in a Citroën Berlingo minivan, and a VW Passat Alltrack estate with 120,000 miles on the clock. “Why will anyone not understand that that is the best car ever made,” he wonders. He does have one other car, which is newer, but he finds it pretty annoying. “I’m at war with [it] because it’s got all these safety features that keep binging,” he says. “Soon we won’t be allowed to drive. We know that the insurance won’t cover you if you’re going to steer this thing yourself. But I hate the car telling me what I should be doing. I’m a Formula 1 world champion, for heaven’s sake! I know how to reverse!”
Fern Britton got her break in television by writing to more than 70 broadcasters to ask for work. Her persistence paid off; and after cutting her teeth in regional franchise TV, she landed a job on the BBC’s newly launched morning show, Breakfast Time, says Emine Saner in The Guardian. She was delighted, though it wasn’t easy being a young woman in TV in the early 1980s. She recalls a manager storming onto the set, during a brief break in filming, to tell her how awful she was – in front of the crew and the guests; and lecherous behaviour was rife. Bottom-pinching, being pinned up against walls, groping in the lift – all were routine hazards. One of the worst offenders was her fellow presenter Frank Bough. His career was later ended by a scandal involving cocaine and sex workers, but at the time, he was hugely famous – an apparently avuncular figure, known for wearing casual knitwear on TV. Once, Britton was sitting next to him at a lunch and “he turned to me, lying back in his chair, [and said] ‘I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m having an affair with you. Because I do have a very big cock.’ And you just go…” She makes a disgusted face. “So you had to have a lot of resilience, but I just thought ‘strange, silly man’.” Of course, she knows that the level of sexism she and other women endured back then was wrong, but it “does give you an inner kind of strength and sense of self. I know that I’m not a pushover.”
Viewpoint: A licence to dislike “The message from the lifestyle gurus of social media is that there’s a glorious world out there of possibility and adventure, and we should be open to it regardless of vintage: wild swimming; the mind-boggling emotional geometry of polyamory; natural wines that smell like unwashed pig duodenum. To which I say, sod that. The benefit of having been around the block a few times is the joy of knowing what you do not like, through extended exposure. For example, I will never sit through another production of Hamlet. I will not go camping. Picnics are too much admin, no-reservation restaurants are a bore, and most buffets are where good food goes to die.” Jay Rayner in the Financial Times
Brenda Fricker, Oscar-winning actress, died 16 July, aged 81.
Lord (Herbert) Laming, social worker who chaired the inquiry into Victoria Climbié, died 15 July, aged 89.
Edward Stourton, Today presenter, died 18 July, aged 68.
© HARRY BORDEN/THE GUARDIAN/EYEVINE
A shrinking pool of ultra-wealthy donors increasingly bankroll Britain’s political parties. Should we be worried?
Why is this issue in the news? The short answer is because of Reform UK. In December 2025 the Electoral Commission (EC), the statutory body that regulates elections and political finance, reported that Reform had received £9m from the Thai-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne – the largest donation to a political party ever made by a living person in the UK. (Harborne also gave £5m, said to be a personal gift, to Nigel Farage in 2024.) The latest figures show that just under £25m was donated to UK political parties in the first quarter of 2026: £9.9m to Reform, £6m to the Conservatives, £4m to Labour and £3m to the Lib Dems. Of the money given to Reform, £7m of it came from Harborne and one other donor, Ben Delo, the Hong Kong-based founder of a crypto exchange. This is, increasingly, a theme of all political funding. In 2015, donations of £1m or more from individuals and companies accounted for 1% of all private political donations. By 2024, such high-value donations made up fully 35% of the total.
Why is this happening? Voluntary donations fuel party politics in the UK. State funding is limited to relatively small amounts given to opposition parties. Parties need money to pay their staff, conduct research, advertise and fight elections. The steady decline of membership – the Tories had around three million members in the 1950s, and now have around 130,000 – has seen fees replaced by donations. Big donations are not limited to Reform: members of the Sainsbury family have given tens of millions to the Conservatives and Labour, including a £10m bequest to the Tories in 2022, the largest donation in UK history. Yet the past decade has seen the rise of a new generation of mega-donors, less well known, often residing abroad. At the same time, overall spending has grown, aided by the Tories’ controversial decision to raise the electoral spending cap by 80% in 2023. The total spent by all parties at the 2001 election was £27m; at the 2024 election, it was nearly £69m.
What does the law say about political spending? For election campaigns, spending limits are set for each national party (calculated at £54,010 per constituency contested) and for each local candidate (from £11,390). There is, however, no general limit on political donations. Since 2000, donations over £11,180 (previously £7,500) must be reported to the EC. However, loopholes abound. For instance, Frank Hester and his company The Phoenix Partnership donated £15m to the Conservatives before the 2024 election (63% of the party’s campaign spending) but broke it up into smaller amounts to avoid scrutiny. Donors have to be “permissible”, meaning they’re an individual who is on the electoral register (this includes overseas voters), or a UK-registered company, union or other body. Those who are not UK voters can get round the ban by giving money via UK subsidiaries, or by using so-called unincorporated associations.
© JOHN NGUYEN/JNVISUALS
“Know Your Donor”: Harborne and Farage this year
Harborne: “the watchful one” Christopher Harborne is an “intensely private person”, his lawyers say. Westminster- and Cambridge- educated, he started in a traditional business career – an MBA, McKinsey – before moving to Thailand in 1996 to join a market research company. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997 he made enough money to set up his own investment firm. In 2005, he founded AML Global, a jet fuel broker. According to court filings in a US court case, he started buying bitcoin in 2011; prices had risen a thousandfold by 2014. Harborne then also became a major trader in ethereum, another cryptocurrency. He is one of half a dozen enigmatic tech figures who own Tether, the vastly profitable company that issues that world’s most traded stablecoin (a digital currency tied to a real currency). The Sunday Times rich list puts his wealth at £18.2bn. He also owns a wellness retreat in Thailand, where he gives talks as Chakrit Sakunkrit (“the watchful one”). Since 2019, Harborne has given more than £22m to Reform UK. He was a Conservative donor until 2022 when, a passionate Brexiteer, he switched allegiances to the Brexit Party, giving it over £10m, and securing a desk at party HQ. He also gave a £1m donation to Boris Johnson’s private office that year.
Briefing
Why is this a matter for concern? Money affects electoral outcomes. Arguably, Reform could not have established itself as a major party without generous funding for it and its predecessor, the Brexit Party. And by and large, parties do not get something for nothing. Political scientists often divide donors into three (overlapping) groups: “ideologues”, motivated by a cause; “investors”, who give money to those they think will represent their interests; and “intimates”, who enjoy the access it gives to lawmakers and the associated prestige. The dangers of this are well- rehearsed. But as donations grow more narrow and concentrated among the super-rich, the fear is that parties are ever-more vulnerable to donor pressure. It is no coincidence, critics say, that two- thirds of Reform’s money comes from crypto businessmen, and that the party is calling for a regulatory “Big Bang 2” to turn the UK into a “crypto hub”. But the problem spreads wider than that. Transparency International UK has assessed that £42m given to political parties since 2001 came from donors either alleged, or proven, to be involved in fraud, corruption or money-laundering.
Is there an alternative to the current system? Many nations cap not what parties can spend but what donors can give. Australia has a $50,000 annual donation cap; Canada limits individuals to around $1,750 per year; France caps them at $7,500. In each case, however, the state makes up the shortfall – per voter, France spends over ten times as much as the UK on political parties – and in Britain such state funding is unpopular; most taxpayers reject the principle that they should fund parties they disagree with. At the other end of the spectrum from France is the US, where the Supreme Court has scrapped all donation and spending limits on freedom of speech grounds. The cost of US elections, and the influence of the very rich, has since rocketed.
Are there any plans to limit donations? Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations”. Philip Rycroft’s independent review into foreign financial interference recommended, among other things, an annual £100,000 cap on political donations from British voters living abroad; a suspension of crypto donations; and tighter “Know Your Donor” checks. In March, these were added as amendments to the Representation of the People Bill, which was due to come to the Commons for its third reading last week. The bill’s progress was abruptly delayed, because of backbench amendments aimed at capping domestic political donations. The Labour MP Stella Creasy proposed a universal annual cap of £100,000 on individual donations. (This would have stripped Reform of around 85% of its funding.) Both Reform and trade unions – whose block donations to Labour could have been affected – objected. The delay will allow Andy Burnham’s government to reshape the legislation.
Best of the American columnists
Politico
“The most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis.” That’s how one Republican senator who had been given a preview of President Trump’s speech last week described it in advance, said Kyle Cheney on Politico. Needless to say, the televised address failed to live up to the hype. Trump sought to give the impression that newly declassified intelligence had revealed “shocking vulnerabilities” in America’s election system and proof of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. But he offered no evidence for this, or for his claim that the “deep state” was working to actively suppress information about Beijing’s “sinister election meddling”. What makes Trump’s overwrought rhetoric about “election security” more ridiculous, said Steve Benen on MS Now, is that he has just fired all the remaining board members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a federal body created to help states fairly administer elections. How is that meant to improve matters?
Democrats are freaking out about the gutting of the EAC, said The Wall Street Journal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “a brazen attempt to seize control of our
love soccer... and the train
Sara Herschander
Vox
Faustian bargain
Jonathan Martin
wants to test your hormones
Tom Bartlett
The Atlantic
The president: blaming China for his 2020 defeat
Well, we got away with it, says Sara Herschander. To the surprise of pretty much everyone, the World Cup didn’t cause a “public transit meltdown” in America. The notoriously car-centric country somehow managed to absorb the influx of foreign football fans and come up with ways to get them to and from stadiums. It turns out that US cities can build public transit infrastructure quite quickly when they need to. Los Angeles has worked hard over the past two years to upgrade and rebrand its transit system. It opened three new subway stations in May, the first in more than 20 years. Seattle completed a light rail extension that had been in the works for nearly two decades; Atlanta overhauled its bus network; Kansas City expanded its tram service and laid on shuttle buses. The question now is whether this marks the start of a cultural shift in America around public transport, or whether the nation will revert to old habits. Kansas has already shut down its extended tram service, but LA is investing even more in trains and buses in preparation for hosting the 2028 Olympics. A single tournament won’t “be enough to change how Americans move”, but if the nation can learn to love soccer, then surely it “can learn to love the train a little bit more too”.
Lindsey Graham was the ultimate embodiment of the bargain Republicans made with Donald Trump after his hostile takeover of the party, says Jonathan Martin. The late senator from South Carolina, who died a fortnight ago, had no time for Trump back in 2015, condemning him as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”. Yet he went on to become the president’s staunchest ally in the Senate. Forced to choose between his career and his principles, Graham opted for the former. For him, it was no choice at all. A lifelong bachelor, he lived for politics. No other lawmaker “got more joy from serving in office nor more deeply craved the influence it conferred”. If deferring to Trump was necessary “to keep him in the room where it happens”, then that’s what he’d do. While this was certainly “cynical”, Graham was a deft politician who used his influence to champion internationalism and America’s leadership role. “I’m bilingual,” he joked, “I speak European and Trump.” There’s no doubt that Trump would have been more apt to abandon Ukraine had Graham not been “in his ear nearly every day”. Was Graham’s capitulation worth it? That question may never be answered – at least until Trump’s final two-and-a-half years in office are over.
“Pete Hegseth wants a manly military,” says Tom Bartlett. “And he really, really wants you to know how badly he wants a manly military.” In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, the then-Fox News co-presenter worried about the military becoming “effeminate”, and scolded “Pentagon pussies” for not standing up for soldiers. He has maintained this macho style since becoming secretary of defence, issuing “chest-thumping workout videos” and denunciations of anything he deems weak or woke. Now, in a move almost beyond parody, he’s calling for every service member over 30 to have their testosterone level tested yearly. Under the plan, announced in a video captioned “The High-T Department of War”, soldiers could be recommended for testosterone-replacement therapy, to help keep forces on “the leading edge of lethality”. It’s unclear whether this would actually achieve anything. Studies suggest that extra testosterone doesn’t boost strength and endurance. And doctors don’t automatically recommend therapy for men with low levels, as diet, fitness and sleep can play a big role. This initiative comes at a time when the Iran war – once again heating up – has heavily depleted America’s missile stockpiles. “Maybe that’s the number Hegseth should be worried about.”
On the contrary, Trump’s opponents have every reason to be worried, said The Philadelphia Inquirer. For the past year, the president has been escalating his “election-tampering efforts”. He has called for the federal government to seize control of elections. He has pushed GOP lawmakers to redraw election maps in the party’s favour, while at the same time seeking to change rules to suppress the Democrat vote, demanding an end to postal votes, and signing an executive order that would require voters to show proof of citizenship. He has “rewarded election deniers” and worked continuously to sow distrust in elections. Who knows what else he’ll try. His attempt to overturn the 2020 election results showed he’s willing to “cross any line”. Let’s state the obvious: he’s “out to rig” the midterms.
elections before a single vote is cast”. This panic is overblown. The EAC only has a modest role, and its staffers can still perform its basic duties. Yes, Trump “is probably willing to do whatever he can to help the Republicans keep Congress” in November’s midterm elections, but the “comforting reality is that the ballots are controlled by thousands of different state and local officials” – not by the federal government.
Volodymyr Zelensky is rightly admired for the “courageous and indefatigable leadership” he has shown throughout the war with Russia, said the Financial Times. But sometimes Ukraine’s president makes political decisions that are “baffling, hard to justify and counter-productive”. And for a glaring example of such an own goal, his cabinet reshuffle last week, the third since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022, takes some beating. A number of his calls were justifiable, including the removal of Yulia Svyrydenko as PM; she has been replaced by Sergii Koretskyi, the ex-CEO of the state gas firm Naftogaz, who is well placed to shore up the energy sector before Russia launches brutal strikes against it this winter. But any potential positives are far outweighed by Zelensky’s egregious sacking of his defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who had fallen out with the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi. Fedorov, a 35-year-old “tech whizz-kid” who once ran Ukraine’s drone programme, had served a mere six months in the role, but in that short time had already revolutionised the military. By firing his best-performing minister, Zelensky has committed a grave mistake. No wonder so many Ukrainians took to the streets in Kyiv and other cities to protest.
This summer, for the first time since autumn 2022, the war finally shifted in Ukraine’s favour, said The Kyiv Independent. And the “driving force” behind this reversal was Fedorov. When he assumed the role, Ukraine was losing ground: the Kremlin’s forces were advancing on key cities such as Pokrovsk in the Donbas. But now, it’s Moscow that’s on the back foot. Waves of long-range Ukrainian drone strikes have hit oil refineries deep inside Russia, causing energy shortages in dozens of Russian regions. Other drone attacks on Russia-linked ships in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea are helping to cut off the Russian- occupied Crimea peninsula. These successful strategies were Fedorov’s idea, as, unlike Ukraine’s military boss, he realised
CHINA
Beijing erase Tibetan culture
Project Syndicate (Prague)
GERMANY
the German election?
Der Spiegel (Hamburg)
Best articles: International
Fedorov and Syrskyi: “tech whizz-kid” and “old-school general”
The tragic death of Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen, who died earlier this month after setting himself on fire outside New York’s UN building, should alert the world to an atrocity it prefers to overlook, says Brahma Chellaney: China’s “systematic erasure” of Tibet, the country it seized back in 1951. The resource-rich plateau is one of Asia’s most valuable geopolitical assets, and President Xi has decided the best way to achieve total control is by “erasing the identity of the people who inhabit it”. Beijing has long exerted physical control through military sites, mega-dams and mines; but it’s now forcibly assimilating the local people as never before. To cut them off from their language and families, the Chinese Communist Party obliges three-quarters of Tibetan children to attend state boarding schools, where classes are taught only in Mandarin. And earlier this month, it introduced the “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”, a law that criminalises any activity that threatens “ethnic unity”. Democratic governments must take action: they should sanction Chinese officials, fund more education programmes in the Tibetan diaspora and refuse, in a way the British Museum shamefully did not, to refer to Tibet by the Chinese name “Xizang”. Kowtowing to Beijing is not the answer.
Germany’s federal election may not be until 2029, but Vladimir Putin’s propagandists are already in full swing, says Christian Stöcker. Russia’s botnets “are firing on all cylinders” in a drive to swing the vote in favour of Germany’s two pro-Kremlin parties, the far-right AfD and the populist left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Many of their smear campaigns are unintentionally hilarious – Green Party politicians accused of distributing “revisionist literature” to neo-Nazis, for example – but the motive behind them is no laughing matter. Politicians from all the mainstream parties are being targeted with a dizzying array of allegations on social media platforms, accused of attending sex parties, covering up sexual abuse, embezzling funds from charity and much else besides. The tenor of the charges is always the same, as are the fake media logos that accompany the posts, which commonly have around 100,000 views. Such disinformation campaigns may not succeed: similar attempts failed to influence the recent Hungarian and Moldovan elections. But German voters in this year’s state elections should know that “a vote for the AfD or BSW is a vote for the Kremlin”.
Pressure mounted on Zelensky in the days after the sacking, said Francis Farrell in The Kyiv Independent. Opposition to Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief whom many deemed responsible for Fedorov’s dismissal, reached “boiling point”. Thousands of people across Ukraine spilled out into the streets to show their support for the innovative Fedorov and their anger at Syrskyi, an “old-school, Soviet-minded general” who earned the nickname “the Butcher” for the high Ukrainian casualty rate under his command. One protest placard read: “Fedorov = more Russian deaths, Syrskyi = more Ukrainian deaths.” On Tuesday, Zelensky finally bowed to the popular will, said The Kyiv Post. He removed Syrskyi and appointed the 43-year-old general Mykhailo Drapaty instead, in “one of the most significant military leadership changes” of the war so far. Fedorov, who called Drapaty a “breath of fresh air and a new hope”, was himself offered a new position in government.
“Many will rejoice at Syrskyi’s downfall,” said Anthony Loyd in The Times. Others will wonder whether the general – who led the heroic defence of Kyiv in 2022, and the lightning Kharkiv offensive that year – “deserved to go”. He took terrible losses, but these happen in a war of attrition. Syrskyi’s departure raises the question of whether protests are the way to choose a new commander in chief “in the middle of an existential war”.
that Russia’s larger army can only be defeated through asymmetric tactics. He has also saved Ukraine billions by opening up defence contracts to competitive tenders; and aided it immeasurably by persuading Elon Musk to shut down the Starlink terminals used by Russian troops for satellite connections on the battlefield. Given these crucial reforms, his defenestration, which Russian military bloggers applauded, was predicted to have “devastating consequences” for Ukraine’s war effort – returning it to the path of “slow strategic degradation”.
Women better at talking and doing It is often said that women are better than men at multitasking, but it seems that this notion is based on an illusion. A new study has found that men and women have similar multitasking abilities, but that women find it easier to talk while doing so – which creates an impression of competence. For the study, husband and wife team Dr André J. Szameitat and Dr Diana Szameitat, of Brunel University, filmed 41 men and 37 women as they tried to do four tasks, including following a recipe and searching for phone numbers, at the same time. The participants were also posed questions every 20 seconds or so, as if they were simultaneously having a conversation. The men and women were similarly good at juggling the different tasks, but whereas the men failed to respond to 28% of the questions, the figure for women was just 12%. And when the videos were shown to 160 people who had not otherwise been involved in the research, they judged the males to be less effective at multitasking.
Vaping linked to reduced fitness Vaping has as great an impact on fitness as smoking, researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University have found. The team divided 75 people aged 18 to 30 into three groups: smokers, vapers, and those who had never smoked or vaped. Each participant then did a fitness test on an exercise bike, in which the resistance was gradually ramped up until they were exhausted. Their heart function, breathing and the amount of lactate in their blood were measured as they cycled; they were also given ultrasound scans and blood tests to check the state of their arteries. The results showed that the smokers and vapers had a lower capacity for exercise
Arachnophobes look away now: scientists have ranked hundreds of spiders by their running speed, and found that the fastest of them – the hand-sized brown huntsman – can cover more than 3.5 metres in a second. The team tested 162 species from around the world by filming them as they ran across gridded paper. Most started running with a gentle nudge from a paintbrush; others – such as tarantulas, which like to stand their ground – needed puffs of compressed air to get them moving. For a further 96 species, they relied on data from existing studies. The brown huntsman, which lives in Australia, came in first on 8mph. It could only sustain that speed for a moment, but its average speed, of around 4.5mph, is still pretty fast: humans tend to jog at four to six mph. To an extent, speed increased with size, owing to bigger spiders having longer legs, but the study revealed that at some point the weight of a species starts to counteract that advantage – so chunky tarantulas have a top speed of only around one mph. And some tiny ones proved to be remarkably nippy: the orange goblin spider is, at 0.1mg, far lighter than a poppy seed yet was found to sprint along at 0.45mph.
A subtle form of bullying?
than those who had never smoked or vaped. They were more breathless while cycling; they reported more discomfort in their legs, and had more signs of inflammation in their blood vessels. Overall, it appears that smoking and vaping have a similar effect on young people’s bodies, said the study’s authors – reducing fitness by about 15% on average.
Passive aggressive cats The sight of cats licking each other may warm the heart, but this apparent sign of affection can, in fact, be a subtle form of bullying, new research has found. Morgane Van Belle, a PhD student at Ghent University, came up with the idea for the study after watching her cats compete for a sunny spot. When Fabio lay down in it, Giovanni would come up and start licking him. This seemed friendly at first – but it carried on until Fabio became irritated and walked away, allowing Giovanni to claim
The brown huntsman: can reach 8mph
the coveted position. To determine if such behaviour was widespread, Van Belle asked the owners of 53 pairs of cats to film their pets as they interacted. This revealed that the behaviour could be friendly, a form of social bonding, but that it could also seem mildly intimidating. In the latter cases, one cat might lean over the other before licking it aggressively, causing it to yowl, rotate its ears or take a swipe. Grooming can be used “to covertly solve conflict”, says the report in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
The sweet stuff in deep space Scientists have for the first time identified sugar in interstellar space. A building block of DNA and RNA (and so life), and a vital source of energy, sugar is believed to have arrived on Earth via asteroids and comets early in our planet’s history – but where it formed, long before that, has been something of a mystery. In 2000, astronomers detected glycolaldehyde, a simple, sugar-like, two- carbon compound, in a giant gas and dust cloud near the centre of the Milky Way. This inspired them to keep looking for larger molecules – and now, using two powerful radio telescopes in Spain, a team says it has detected the fingerprint of four- carbon erythrulose (a natural sugar found in raspberries) in a similar interstellar cloud. Erythrulose itself is not found in DNA or RNA, but the discovery shows that complex sugars can form in the freezing depths of space. It has been estimated that during the Late Heavy Bombardment, some four billion years ago, up to 55 million metric tons of cosmic sugar could have rained down on the young planet Earth in space rocks, helping to create the conditions in which life could eventually form.
The UK’s unhealthy children
Children in the UK are some of the unhealthiest in Europe, according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. In its new State of Child Health report, it warns that in all the 12 indicators of child health it measured, outcomes have either flatlined or gone into reverse since its last report, in 2020. For instance, the 2020 report stated that child mortality among one- to 15-year- olds was at eight per 100,000; now it has risen to 8.6. The proportion of eight- to 16-year-olds with a probable mental health disorder has risen from 12.5% to 20.3%. One in three ten- to 11-year-olds are overweight or obese; and just 84% of children receive two doses of the MMR vaccine by the time they turn five. The report also found wide inequality gaps: the mortality rate for under-18s in the most deprived parts of England is almost double that of children in the least deprived ones.
Talking points
IT MUST BE TRUE… I read it in the tabloids
Hundreds of babies in Peru have been named after Norway’s star striker Erling Haaland, a trend boosted by his seven goals at the World Cup, including a decisive strike against Brazil. There are over 470 Peruvian newborns named “Haaland”, and 91 with the full “Erling Haaland”. The Brazilian star Neymar, however, remains the undisputed leader, with 33,809 namesakes in Peru; there are 3,402 called Messi, and 1,185 named after Cristiano Ronaldo.
Russians in the city of Stavropol have been filmed drinking from toilet bowls, to win a cash prize. In the “Game of Thrones” contest in a shopping mall, participants had to drink “a non-alcoholic sparkling drink from a toilet bowl” then sit on a closed loo seat for many hours, to test their endurance, in order to win 100,000 rubles (£950). The contest created outrage among residents, who believe that it creates “a bad image for the city”.
An England fan who was so convinced that the national team would win the World Cup that he got a huge tattoo celebrating the “win” has now decided to add the words “only joking” beneath it. Sean Carrington got the foot- long £550 inking of the trophy, declaring England the “World Cup Winner 2026” after the victory over DR Congo. He said he had “no regrets”.
Ten years after the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right extremist, and five years after David Amess, the Conservative MP, was stabbed to death by a supporter of Islamic State, the debate about rising political violence has been reignited by the killing of Ann Widdecombe, said Jon Henley in The Guardian. The 78-year-old Reform UK spokeswoman and former Tory MP was found dead at her home in Devon on 9 July. This week, a 28-year-old from Rotherham was charged with her murder. Joshua Kerry, who was described by neighbours as a “bit of a recluse”, is suspected of having driven 270 miles to carry out the attack. His possible motive is still being investigated.
Widdecombe’s killing was a “grotesque tragedy”, said Michael Gove in The Spectator; and it is not surprising that it has led to calls for MPs to be better protected. During my political career, I received death threats. I had to be rescued from a “mob” at Victoria Station, and I was “hunted” by the extremist who went on to kill Amess. So I am sympathetic to Nigel Farage’s fears for his safety and more relaxed than some about his decision to accept private money to pay for extra security. He deserves protection, which is why he was offered the same level as the leader of the opposition (though it seems he turned it down).
Since the US and Israel first attacked Iran on 28 February, President Trump “has claimed more than 30 times that Operation Epic Fury has been successful, is over, or almost is”, said Robin Wright in The New Yorker. None of these predictions have been borne out; “some have bordered on delusional”. The latest ceasefire, agreed in June, has “functionally collapsed”. In the past fortnight, the US has launched nightly air strikes, renewed the blockade of Iranian ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, and reimposed sanctions. Iran has attacked US and other targets in Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Three US service personnel were killed last week by a strike on an airbase in Jordan; nearly 100 more have been injured in the latest attacks. Trump has tried three strategies so far: regime change, a longer campaign of relentless bombardment, and diplomacy. None have worked. In Washington, “there is a growing sense of despair” about the direction of the war.
Iran’s leaders feared that the Memorandum of Understanding agreed in June was just a temporary retreat, said Vali Nasr in the FT – to relieve pressure on the world economy and allow US forces to rearm. There was, in fact, “plenty of evidence to support their suspicions”. More US military assets began to arrive in the area, and the deal’s provisions – on coordinating
Yusuf’s proposal tackles the problem’s symptom, not its cause, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. If the political climate really is such that all MPs now need 24/7 security, surely “that’s the bit to fix. Here, though, Reform is on tricky ground.” Last week, Yusuf hit out at those who have equated Reform with “murderous regimes”. This, he said, could incite acts of violence. He may be right, but he and his colleagues have form here too. They lauded Lucy Connolly, after she was jailed for calling for asylum hotels to be torched. They’ve slammed Tory and Labour MPs as “traitors” who need to face “a reckoning”; and they’ve dismissed those who’ve complained about the discourse as “snowflakes” upset by “hurty words”. I don’t know if incendiary language is behind a rise in political violence: it’s certainly possible that it spurs on the “maniacs” who seem to be behind the worst of it. But either this stuff matters or it doesn’t. You can’t complain about it only when it affects your side.
Joshua Kerry in 2022
the passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran, on the need for a ceasefire in Lebanon – were ignored. Tehran’s aim now, in going on the attack, is to show that the US cannot dictate events, and that Iran can withstand whatever military and economic pain is inflicted on it. Some strategists think the new US plan could work, said Mark Urban in The Sunday Times. Its forces are battering Iran’s coast – military installations, bridges, airports, port facilities – to neutralise the Iranian military’s hold on the strait. At the same time, choking off oil exports will plunge the country into deep economic crisis – albeit in months, not weeks.
In the meantime, the collateral damage to the region is escalating, said Ahmed Al Omran in the FT. Kuwait, which is bearing the brunt of Iran’s current attacks, has endured 1,400 missile and drone strikes. Its airport and its oil infrastructure have been attacked, along with the energy grid and the desalination plants that supply 90% of Kuwait’s water. Oil exports have dropped to 20% of pre-war levels. The US is in deep trouble, and there’s no easy way out, said Will Walldorf in Foreign Policy – short of accepting Iran’s authority over the Strait of Hormuz and its right to enrich uranium. “But that’s the unfortunate consequence of losing a war that should never have [been] started in the first place.”
But Reform’s spokesman Zia Yusuf is now calling for round- the-clock security for all 650 MPs, which is excessive. This could cost about £1bn a year – money that would otherwise be spent protecting the rest of us, including groups who are more at risk than most MPs – without even covering former MPs like Widdecombe.
Superstar is a word that is overused these days, said Oliver Holt in the Daily Mail; but if ever a man was worthy of it, it was Kevin Keegan. Back in the 1970s, the footballer – who died this week aged 75 – was a “riot of colour” in a grey world; and for a few years, said The Times, England’s hopes of becoming a great footballing nation again seemed to rest entirely on his “poodle perm”. As England captain, his success in elevating the team above mediocrity was only fleeting, but his impact crossed cultural boundaries. Not only was he charismatic and open-hearted, he was one of the first players to fully market his brand, deploying “his ready smile and dimpled chin with charm and professionalism”. He was ubiquitous on cereal boxes; he was a face of Brut on TV, splashing it “all over”; he even released a handful of singles.
Keegan wasn’t the first “celebrity footballer”, said Jim White in The Daily Telegraph: George Best had been that a decade earlier. But “King Kev” or “Special K”, as he was known, was not like Best. A clean-cut family man, he had neither Best’s destructive streak nor his natural brilliance. Having grown up “football-mad” in South Yorkshire, the son of a miner, Keegan had trained tirelessly to become a great, and disprove the selectors who’d told him that, with his slight
“It was as close as the museum world comes to a clandestine operation,” said The Economist. On 9 July, under police escort, a specially fitted lorry left Bayeux in Normandy. The Bayeux Tapestry, nearly 1,000 years old and made of fragile linen, had been gently folded into a tailor-made and climate- regulated aluminium crate, which was suspended in a shockproof metal cage. Under cover of darkness, the lorry made its way through the Channel Tunnel to The British Museum, where it arrived at 3am on 10 July; curators and conservators gathered to applaud the arrival. The British Museum had the word “Merci” projected onto the white cliffs of Dover.
In the decade since the Brexit vote, the relationship between Britain and France has been “defined by rows”, said Nadia Khomami in The Guardian – over trade, Channel migrants, fishing rights. That “fractious chapter” has now given way to “one of the most significant acts of cultural diplomacy between the two countries in decades”. The loan, first proposed by Emmanuel Macron to Theresa May in 2018, required years of “painstaking” talks, over everything from
Talking points
“Mighty Mouse”: Keegan in 1976
On the pitch, he had first achieved stardom at Liverpool in the early 1970s, said The Guardian. He moved to Hamburg in 1977 – where he twice won the Ballon d’Or – and ended his playing career at Newcastle, from 1982, where he achieved the status of a demi- god by helping to return the Magpies to the First Division. When he retired – flying off the pitch in a helicopter after a testimonial – fans wept. Eight years later, he was back as manager. The club was facing relegation to the third tier; under his helm, it was promoted and became one of the most thrilling in the Premier League. And though his final stint at Newcastle was less successful, the fans still loved him. In January, after he revealed that he had terminal cancer, they unfurled a huge banner at St James’ Park reading: “Long Live King Kev – The Messiah”.
Cultural diplomacy at work
The loan hasn’t been without its controversies in the UK, either, said Lauren Morris in The Independent; the late David Hockney said that moving such a fragile object was “madness”. The £33 ticket price for the show, which runs from September to next July, was also criticised. I was 53,327th in the queue when I tried to buy a ticket, said Ettie Neil-Gallacher in The Spectator. The first tranche sold out in 24 hours, at Glastonbury-rivalling speed. Frustrating, yes. But how delightful, in this era of real-time updates, that a near-contemporaneous record of the Norman Conquest should “break the internet”.
and small frame (he was five foot seven), he’d do better as a jockey. His energy, tenacity and fighting spirit, which won him the nickname “Mighty Mouse” – and led him into a notorious on-pitch brawl in 1974 – became evident to the wider public in 1976, on the multisport TV show Superstars. In the cycle event, Keegan fell off his bike and landed very painfully. He was bloodied and bruised, yet he insisted on taking part in the re-run, which he then won. The public adored him for it.
transport to the temperature and lighting needed to protect a tapestry that has not left France in a millennium; it will be displayed flat, not hung, to prevent stress. There were plenty of “fears to defuse” on the French side, said Roxana Azimi in Le Monde – mainly that it would be damaged in transit. Some even feared the British would not return it. To reassure Paris, the UK indemnified the tapestry for £800m – and, in exchange, the Lewis Chessmen and treasures from Sutton Hoo will go on display in Normandy.
Wisdom
“The first essential for a prime minister is to be a good butcher.” William Gladstone, quoted in The Independent
“Too much agreement kills a chat.” Eldridge Cleaver, quoted in Texas Metro News
“Always make new mistakes.” Esther Dyson, quoted in The New York Times
“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.” Ogden Nash, ibid.
“Art that ignores the remarkable persistence of the cheerful and silly parts of life will miss something profound about the human experience.” James Marriott in The Times
“If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” David Foster Wallace, quoted in The Christian Science Monitor
“Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.” Attrib. Voltaire, quoted in The Daily Telegraph
“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it.” Gore Vidal, quoted in The Atlantic
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” John Muir, quoted on The Marginalian
Statistic of the week More people received penalty points for drug- driving last year than for drink-driving. There were 30,707 drug-driving offences recorded in the UK (a rise of 28% in three years), and 29,769 drink- driving ones (down 17%). DVLA/The Times
For much of its duration, the 23rd edition of the men’s World Cup was “dominated by the exploits of star players”, said Oliver Kay on The Athletic. Yet for all that Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Jude Bellingham excelled, none could carry his side to glory. Instead, the tournament was deservedly won by the team with the strongest “collective” identity. Spain don’t lack for outstanding players, of course – whether their captain Rodri, winner of the Fifa Golden Ball award, or their 19-year-old winger Lamine Yamal – but they are about as far from being a collection of individuals as it’s possible for a football team to be. “That word ‘team’ overrides everything else.” This was starkly illustrated by Sunday’s final, which ended with Spain beating Argentina 1-0 courtesy of Ferran Torres’s extra-time goal. While Argentina, a side over-reliant on the “genius” of Messi, displayed a “paucity of attacking ambition”, Spain were their usual calm, intelligent, methodical selves. And in footballing terms, it was no contest: Spain dominated possession, and created many chances, while Argentina didn’t manage a single shot in normal time – the first time this has ever happened in a World Cup final.
Spanish football is underpinned by the philosophy of el entendimiento del juego, which translates as “understanding of the game”, said Tom Allnutt in The Sunday Times. It’s an
“Cricket nuts love an argument,” said Vic Marks in The Guardian. “Who is the best fast bowler ever? The best spinner?” But when it comes to all-rounders, there is universal agreement: the best of all time is Sir Garfield “Garry” Sobers, who has died aged 89. A “sublime” left-handed batsman, who averaged in excess of 57 in 93 Test matches, he was also an “exceptional” bowler, who could bowl both spin and pace, and a “brilliant fielder anywhere”. Born with an extra finger on each hand (these were removed in his teens), Sobers grew up in humble circumstances in Barbados, and “learnt the game in the street”, said Nick Hoult in The Daily Telegraph. He made his debut for West Indies in 1954, aged 17. Initially selected as a left-arm spinner, he took his time to reveal his talents as a batsman; they came to the fore in his 17th Test in 1958, when his debut century against Pakistan turned into 365 not out – then the highest Test innings of all time.
In his decade-and-a-half as a golf
pro, Ryan Fox has been talked
about more for his sporting
connections – his father Grant
was a “legendary” All Blacks
fly-half, his grandfather Merv
captained New Zealand at cricket
– than for his own achievements,
said James Corrigan in The Daily
Telegraph. But “on a frenetic
final day” at Royal Birkdale, the
39-year-old finally created “his
own sporting folklore” by becoming the first
Kiwi to win the Open for 63 years. For much
of the day, it seemed like America’s Cameron
Young would be the man to “lift the Claret Jug”:
finishing early, the world No. 4 struck 64, leaving
him at nine under. But as Young practised “on
the range”, warming himself up for a possible
play-off, he heard the “deafening cheers” that
Sporting headlines
Fox: creating “sporting folklore”
Rodri: the steering wheel
If England ever want to win the World Cup again, then they must strive to do things the Spanish way, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. “Get the ball, keep the ball, love the ball, move the ball.” That is what the best teams – especially teams in international football – do. “It is not complicated, but it requires a re-education.” Thomas Tuchel – for all his talk of remodelling England – didn’t ultimately deviate from the old flawed system. It’s something he “got wrong and should admit”.
Sobers broke records wherever he played, said Scyld Berry in The Daily Telegraph. Representing South Australia in the early 1960s, he twice hit 1,000 runs in a season and took 50 wickets – “a feat, in a land of cricketers, never accomplished before or since”. Playing for Nottinghamshire in 1968, he hit six sixes in an over against Glamorgan – the first time this had been done in first-class cricket. Late in his career, in 1972, Sobers struck 254 for Rest of the World against an Australian attack that included Dennis Lillee at his best; Don Bradman described the innings as “probably the best seen in Australia”. Sobers may have had god-given talent, said Mike Atherton in The Times, but off the field he was something of “an everyman”, not noted for his self- restraint. “He drank, gambled, golfed and lived life to the full.” In Barbados, where he lived simply and visibly, providing a “link to a glorious cricketing past”, he will be “fiercely mourned”.
“A god-given talent”
told him his efforts had been in vain. In a “truly remarkable climax”, Fox birdied four of the last six holes – and sunk a nerveless 12-foot putt on the 18th – to complete his “glorious” victory. Two days earlier, a controversy involving Bryson DeChambeau had threatened to overshadow the tournament, said Ewan Murray in The Guardian. The American was handed a two- point penalty after officials decreed he’d trampled down long grass behind his ball on the 5th, making his swing easier. Reacting “furiously”, DeChambeau threatened to drop out of the tournament and reportedly even said he’d call Donald Trump. But he eventually played on, and finished four under.
approach that prizes “decision-making on the field” as much as technical skill. To get them to learn to “think for themselves”, coaches encourage players to “question everything”. They favour drills which require players to “make multiple decisions at speed” – the classic example being the rondo, or “Spain’s piggy in the middle”. The system particularly excels at producing “ball-playing midfielders” – the likes of Xavi and Iniesta in a previous generation, Rodri and Fabián Ruiz in the current one. Known as pivotes (“pivots”) or volantes (“steering wheels”), such players are often physically slight, but rely on body shape – and quick wits – to keep hold of the ball. As one Premier League scout who works in Spain has observed: “In Spain, players happily give the ball to a marked player... English players are much less comfortable” doing so.
Football England beat France
6-4 in a ten-goal thriller to
claim bronze in the World
Cup. The third-place finish
was their best for 60 years.
Formula 1 Kimi Antonelli
tightened his grip on the
title by winning the Belgian
Grand Prix. His Mercedes
teammate George Russell
crashed out after colliding
with Lewis Hamilton.
Rugby union England beat
Argentina 31-24 in the final
match of their summer tour.
Cycling Two-time winner
Jonas Vingegaard broke his
collarbone and crashed out
of the Tour de France.
A hazard of the calling? To The Times Nigel Farage claims he receives 300 threats a month. Dame Penny Mordaunt says she has received 700 death and rape threats. These are staggering figures that must turn people away from political life. What is harder to understand is why the authorities allow this. There should be a clear definition of what threats constitute criminal offences and zero tolerance towards them. If an ordinary person received such a threat it would be dealt with. But if it is made to a politician it is regarded as a hazard of the calling. This should cease to be the case. Michael Dangoor, London
Having it both ways To The Times Hugo Rifkind rightly exposes the contradiction at the heart of Reform UK’s position (“Reform can’t have it both ways on ‘hurty words’”). Its leaders demand more protection for politicians from abuse and violence, yet when I urged Nigel Farage simply to respect the police’s request not to speculate about Ann Widdecombe’s tragic death, Reform’s Zia Yusuf responded, not with civil argument, but by publicly denouncing me as “depraved” and resurrecting a conviction I got 40 years ago under discriminatory laws that Parliament has since recognised were unjust. The result has been a torrent of vitriol directed at me, including from Arron Banks and Laila Cunningham. Political leaders cannot credibly deplore today’s toxic discourse while helping to fuel it. If Reform wishes to be taken seriously as a party of government, it should begin by practising the civility and restraint it demands of others. K. Harvey Proctor, Conservative MP 1979-1987, Grantham, Lincolnshire
Burnham’s growth model To The Times One of the questions your leading article asks of Andy Burnham is what his economic growth model will look like. He could do no better than to read your obituary of
© MATT/THE TELEGRAPH
Pick of the week’s correspondence
The economics of pensions
To The Times John Belton and Charles Donaldson seem to have skewed ideas about pensioners and the need for state support. Mr Belton believes the Government is “pandering to baby boomers”, but baby boomers paid the pensions of the previous generation; do we not deserve the same? People on an average income find it hard enough to pay for a mortgage or rent, food, clothing, insurance, energy and so on without saving enough to retire on. Many pensioners are not poor enough to be on benefits, but not wealthy enough to pay our bills and have money left for emergencies, or for any social life. I have the (old) state pension and two small private pensions, and my annual income is less than £16,000. Even without rent or a mortgage, that is not much to live on. If I had not taken equity release on my flat, I would be in dire straits. Marcia MacLeod, London
To The Times The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“Scrapping triple lock will save £60bn, Burnham told”) is only the latest respected organisation to call attention to the utterly unaffordable cost of pensions. Of all the policies for which I had some responsibility during my time in government, this was by far the worst. Left unchanged, it will bankrupt our children and grandchildren. Every senior figure in every serious political party knows this, but the politics of appearing to target pensioners means that it is a truth that dare not speak its name. In writing this, I am very conscious that I have a retirement income that most pensioners can only dream of. But that does not change the underlying truth, which the OECD has set out. Our politicians and policymakers of all parties have a duty to tell us that this policy is unaffordable and has to change. Sir Leigh Lewis, permanent secretary, Department for Work and Pensions, 2005-10
Roger McKechnie, who rescued the town of Consett after the steelworks closed in 1980 by starting the Phileas Fogg snacks brand. Communities and the economy need more McKechnies. They, not politicians, will be our saviours. Burnham needs to realise it’s his job to support them. Bob Maddams, Louth, Lincolnshire
The Covid legacy To The Guardian I am a midwife who still feels extreme anger about the way the pandemic was handled. I remember being fitted for a FFP3 mask and then being told that there weren’t enough to go around, and given a basic paper mask instead. I remember being told that the hospital where I worked couldn’t keep providing clean scrubs, so I had to take my potentially
infected scrubs home to wash instead. I remember management shutting computers down to enforce social distancing, then reopening them when they realised we needed those computers to do our jobs. I remember being sent into homes where people had Covid to see new mums and babies, and wondering if I was going to die as a result. I remember Conservative MPs joking that surely all workplaces were having social drinks after work. We weren’t: we had a staffroom about two metres by one metre for 20 members of staff, and had to supply our own washing-up liquid. We rushed home as fast as we could after our shifts to scrub off the infection so as not to endanger our families. My huge anger remains. And I did not get a bonus. I didn’t even get paid particularly well.
Hearing about the staggering sums of money squandered by Boris Johnson’s government, I feel as angry as ever. It is not unexpected, but it makes me reluctant to trust any government ever again. I hope that Johnson is rightly ashamed of his legacy, although I doubt he is. Laura Matthews, London
The human touch To the Financial Times There is no question that the immense power of artificial intelligence to reduce the time required to gather, dig through, distil, and analyse vast quantities of data is a boon to us all (“AI and the new Mechanical Turk”). However, it has never made sense that non-living entities should be any match for living ones, and so the warnings that AI is poised to replace humans are overwrought. The question is which capabilities will be left to humans alone once AI has reached the limits of its formidable potential. Could they have something to do with the miracle that is the human hand? Human touch, in particular our capacity to soothe, comfort and care for our fellows, and in a broader sense, a pianist’s touch for the keyboard, a painter’s touch with a brush, even a golfer’s touch around the putting green; all must exist outside AI’s sphere of influence. The craftsmanship our own hands make possible and the brainpower it generates is ours alone – sacrosanct, inimitable, irreplaceable. Margaret McGirr, US
“I remember summers
when I was a boy. The prime
ministers seemed to go
on for ever.”
The Family Man by James Lasdun Jonathan Cape 432pp £22
The Week Bookshop £19.99
In 2023, the South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murdering his wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son Paul. The pair had been shot at the family’s hunting estate; Murdaugh claimed to have discovered the bodies after returning from a visit to his mother. It’s not hard to see why the case “gripped America”, said Robbie Millen in The Times. It involved the “privileged and powerful” – the Murdaughs were big cheeses in the South Carolina Lowcountry – and the man himself, known as “Big Red”, didn’t seem the murdering type: he appeared to be a “loving husband and doting father” with a charming “down- home manner”. Yet as the novelist James Lasdun shows in this “elegant and intelligent” book, Murdaugh was in fact a fraudster who swindled millions out of clients and law firm colleagues, and was addicted to opioid painkillers. In Family Man, Lasdun does a “skilful job of juggling all the elements of the story, which takes some dark and ludicrous turns”. Prosecutors claimed Murdaugh was driven to murder because his financial deceptions were about to be revealed, said Kathryn
The Story of Birds by Steve Brusatte Picador 448pp £25
The Week Bookshop £22.99 (incl. p&p)
The idea that birds are descended from dinosaurs is “not exactly fresh out of the salad crisper”, said James McConnachie in The Sunday Times. It was first proposed as early as the 1860s by a contemporary of Darwin’s. Yet in his new book, the palaeontologist Steve Brusatte goes further, and argues that birds are more than mere “cousins or descendants of dinosaurs”: they are, in fact, actual dinosaurs, “in exactly the same way that humans are mammals”. This “mind-bending” fact, he writes, has “yet to really sink into the public consciousness”. In his “unflaggingly fascinating” account, Brusatte explains how certain dinosaurs developed feathers – initially for purposes of insulation – and that these enabled them to take flight. After the “cataclysm” that wiped out their contemporaries, a few flying dinosaurs survived: “they were ground-dwelling or water birds”, with “small crushing stones in their gizzards” which helped them to digest many foods, and beaks which “helped them to find seeds – a rare food source in the post-asteroid nuclear winter”. In the immediate post-dinosaur world, these birds “became the superior intelligence”, said Dylan Neri in the FT. After defeating the “reptilian pterosaurs”, they “gained aerial dominion” before, in some cases, returning to land (e.g. ostriches) or to the water (e.g. penguins). As Brusatte notes, this remarkable evolutionary story explains why “the leg of a barnyard chicken is a miniature version of any T. rex leg you see in a museum”. Brusatte, who is based at the University of Edinburgh, had a “big hit” in 2016 with his first book for a general readership, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, said Michael Marshall in New Scientist. Once again blending scientific rigour with readability, this new one is “pretty much an unqualified success from beginning to end”.
© JAMES REECE/AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM
The Murdaugh family (surviving son Buster, right)
To order these titles or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk to place your order. To speak to a bookseller, call 020-3176 3835
Hughes in The Guardian. They said he believed that no one would launch proceedings against him while he was dealing with a “tragedy of such Biblical proportions”. At first, Lasdun was sceptical of this theory, refusing to believe that a man with no history of domestic violence could “bring himself to shoot loved ones merely to delay his own imminent financial exposure”. Yet in his “meticulous” retelling – the “prose is pure pleasure” – Lasdun comes to accept that “Big Red” was probably guilty, despite never reaching an “iron-clad conclusion”. “More than ten books about the Murdaughs have been published to date”, and HBO and Netflix have both released miniseries about the killings, said Orlando Whitfield in The New York Times. Lasdun “does not pretend to reveal new evidence about the murders”; instead, he relays the tale of the “fall of the house of Murdaugh” in often “staggering” detail. While at times this threatens to become overwhelming, his approach does “illuminate, to devastating effect”, how the case encompassed many of the “direst aspects of contemporary American life: opioid addiction, litigiousness, brazen mendacity”. And the final chapters are “stunning”. Even now, “there’s more to come”, said Robbie Millen. This May, Murdaugh’s conviction was overturned on appeal, owing to jury interference. A retrial is expected. “I can’t wait to read Lasdun’s musings in an updated paperback.”
Novel of the week The Anniversary by Andrea Bajani (trans. Geoffrey Brock) Penguin 144pp £12.99
The Week Bookshop £11.99
“Stories about poisonous childhoods” are by no means new, said Francine Prose in The Daily Telegraph. But something about Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary – which scooped last year’s Strega Prize, Italy’s highest literary award – “makes us feel that we’ve never heard one quite like this”. Written in “spare, eloquent” prose (“seamlessly” translated by Geoffrey Brock), the novel is narrated by a middle-aged man looking back on – and trying to understand – his traumatic upbringing. The narrator’s father was a “fascistic tyrant” who was violent towards him and his sister, and “overshadowed and obliterated” their mother, said Robert Potts in the TLS. The narrator’s cool accounting of all this makes for a “heartbreaking” story. In Italy, the novel has been lauded for “shattering taboos” about the family, said Lara Feigel in The Guardian. Yet little about it seemed new: “oppressive” fathers and “powerless” mothers were staples of earlier “neorealist Italian fiction”. I expected “some of the lurid revelation found in Knausgård or Houellebecq”. Instead, The Anniversary is “wearily predictable”.
The House, Birmingham Rep (0121-236 4455). Until 15 August Running time: 2hrs 50mins ★★★★★
In his new role as artistic director of Birmingham Rep, Joe Murphy has got off to a flier, said Alison Brinkworth on What’s on Stage. Having given us a “sparkling” Midsummer Night’s Dream for his main stage debut, we now have this production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and it is “dazzling” – superbly designed, thrillingly cast and “sure to bring goosebumps of excitement”. Murphy has deployed a fairly small company, accompanied by a superb seven- piece live orchestra, but as every performance is a head-turner, the evening feels “epic”. Sondheim’s 1979 musical – about the late 18th century London barber whose quest for vengeance on the corrupt judge who raped his wife, had him banished and stole his infant daughter leads him into multiple gruesome murders – is given a “grandly monumental staging” that suits the story’s “operatic sweep”, while releasing the musical from any “Victoriana clutter”, said Holly Williams in The Stage. Fittingly for a tale about how violence corrupts, a vast angel of justice hangs between two staircases, while soot spreads up pale walls and white costumes like a “creeping moral stain”. Ramin Karimloo brings a “fabulously demonic darkness to his portrayal of Sweeney”, a man who clutches his “personal pain like a knife”, said Rachel
Chichester Festival Theatre (01243-781312). Until 5 September Running time: 2hrs 55mins ★★★★★
“My Fair Lady is both a safe choice and, these days, a risky one,” said Claire Allfree in The Daily Telegraph. It has, of course, a tremendous score, full of evergreen classics such as Wouldn’t It Be Loverly and I Could Have Danced All Night, but its story, about an overbearing phonetics professor who makes a bet that he can teach a flower girl to pass for an “Edwardian English lady”, is a “fundamentally grim” one of class snobbery and social engineering; and the “contrived fairy-tale ending” – in which Eliza Doolittle returns to Professor Higgins – can “send contemporary directors into a spin”. Yet in this “wonderful revival” at Chichester, director Rachel Kavanaugh has “made a virtue out of playing My Fair Lady straight”. The choreography “leans into stock music hall images of foot-tapping cheeky-chappie Cockneys”, while the design is a fantasy of Edwardian London, with bowler-hatted gents and “warmly glowing” streetlamps. “The charm is unapologetic and, when executed as expertly as this, irresistible.” It’s “just loverly”. It’s an evening “studded with moments to cherish”, agreed Clive Davis in The Times. As Eliza, Keziah Ibe – in a “triumphant” professional debut – has “poise, a soupcon of venom and all the charm you could hope for”, while Hadley Fraser’s Henry Higgins mixes pomposity “with a tinge of the eternal schoolboy”. These
Meow Meow and Karimloo excel in a “dazzling” production
Ibe’s Eliza has “all the charm you could hope for”
Halliburton in The Times. And his performance is more than matched by that of the cabaret star Meow Meow, who makes for a “rip-roaringly Hogarthian” Mrs Lovett, the yellow-clad accomplice who bakes the demon barber’s victims into pies (here, revenge is a dish served hot). But in this production there isn’t a single weak link, “vocally or dramatically”. In a staging notable for its clarity, visually and otherwise, the singers’ diction is as sharp as a scalpel cutting through ice – “not one sliver of Sondheim’s spikily subtle wit goes missing”; and Leo Munby’s musical direction “brilliantly captures the tale’s jagged emotions”. All told, it’s a deliciously blood-curdling production that “goes for the jugular but ultimately captures your heart”.
The week’s other opening The Oresteia Bridge Theatre, London SE1 (0333-320 0051). Until 19 September Simon Stone’s melodrama drawn from Aeschylus with echoes of Succession has delighted some; and it certainly has “potent performances” by David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker, but I found it “flabby” and overlong (Clive Davis, The Times).
two superb leads elevate this “well- worn” story, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. And while there is much to enjoy here, the production really finds its heart when the relationship between Eliza and Henry takes on genuine “emotional truth”. By the end “there is not exactly romance in the air, but something more tender and valuable, perhaps: friendship”. The supporting cast is also terrific, said Gareth Carr on What’s on Stage. As Alfred P. Doolittle, Gary Milner stops the show with With a Little Bit of Luck and Get Me to the Church on Time; Belinda Lang is an impeccably haughty Mrs Higgins; Finty Williams is a “delightfully wise and weary” Mrs Pearce; and Tony Jayawardena’s Colonel Pickering is “inordinately likeable”. It all combines to make a “perfectly crafted and effortlessly classy” evening.
Album of the week Nia Archives: Emotional Junglist Island/Hijinxx £13 This terrific second album from the Bradford-born producer, DJ and songwriter is packed with tales of love and heartbreak. “Drum’n’bass rhythms power up angsty odes with shades of Arctic Monkeys, Kate Nash and myriad genres” (Guardian).
© MANUEL HARLAN; JOHAN PERSSON
Christopher Nolan “is hardly a stranger
to ambition”, said John Nugent on
Empire. His first major film, Memento,
told its story in two sequences – one
that moved forward in time, the other
backwards. Since then he has tackled
wars, “dreams, wormholes, the nuclear
apocalypse and Victorian teleportation
machines”. But his adaptation of
Homer’s Odyssey – the 8th century BC
Greek poem that is the definition of
epic – may be his most ambitious yet.
The first feature to be shot entirely
on giant Imax 70mm cameras, it is
“jaw-detaching” in its scope and scale.
Plunging the viewer into a world of both
“divine fantasy and grounded realism”, this is filmmaking “at
a magnitude” few directors could imagine, let alone execute.
Nolan has produced a “mythic spectacle” that honours its ancient source material, “while also addressing more topical themes of exile, war trauma and survivor’s guilt”, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. Like the poem, the film unfolds in multiple timelines. The present-day framing takes place on the island where an exhausted Odysseus (Matt Damon) washed up ten years after the Battle of Troy, and is now held captive by the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron). In the same timeframe, we meet his sad queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) who – back
The “misjudgements” that went into the making of this new animated version of George Orwell’s classic “are so legion that it’s hard to know where to start”, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. The musical montages set to grating chart pop in which the pigs go shopping? “The hideous character designs? The contemporary setting, in Trump-era America? Orwell may have loathed capitalism as well as communism – but he would surely have loathed Andy Serkis’s film more than either. The story starts “fairly faithfully”, said Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in Metro. A mean, drunken farmer mistreats his animals, who rise up and gain control of the farm. Their initial leader is Snowball (voiced by Laverne Cox), a democratic socialist porker, who
Inspired by news reports about humanoid robots being used to care for the elderly in Japan, Ann Droid stars Diane Morgan as a robot purchased to assist 80-year-old widow Sue (Sue Johnston) at home, says Rebecca Nicholson in the FT. Sue’s feckless son (Morgan’s Motherland co-star Paul Ready) is anxious to shrug off responsibility for her care, but he doesn’t want to pay for a decent robot so he buys Linda, a second-hand model with a rigid gait, dead eyes and a mechanical voice. Linda is “dangerously literal” and has a Mr Blobby-like capacity for causing chaos. Co-written by Morgan and Sarah Kendall, the sitcom mines the premise for physical comedy, but it is not just farce. There is poignancy here too. Playing an expressionless robot somewhat curtails Morgan’s comedic talents, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph, but even
The Odyssey ★★★★ Star-studded “mythic spectacle” Director: Christopher Nolan 2hr 53mins (15)
Animal Farm ★ Bodged update of Orwell’s allegory Director: Andy Serkis 1hr 34mins (PG)
Ann Droid: a daft but deep sitcom about robot carers
Nolan has conjured some “tremendous” scenes, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator, some of which would not be out of place in a horror film (the cyclops is “truly terrifying”). I had my doubts about Damon’s casting, but in the end he does make you care about the man broken by the years he has lost. And though some may find the modern speech jarring, what’s the alternative? We’d struggle if they spoke in ancient Greek. But for two hours the film is just set-piece after set-piece, backed by a deafening score, which becomes rather wearying. Yes, it’s short on jokes, said Kevin Maher in The Times; but The Odyssey – with its extraordinary cinematography and big ideas “about the impossibility of home” and “the absurdity of heroic individualism in a boundless universe” – is a masterpiece nonetheless.
Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena
is soon overthrown by Napoleon (Seth Rogen), a “boarish dictator” driven by “greed and power”. There are also new characters – including a mean tech billionaire (Glenn Close) who wants the farm. This is where it starts to go wrong: it wasn’t a bad idea to update the allegory to one about modern corporate corruption, but the message is lost in what becomes a “confusingly cosy” kids’ caper, replete with slightly desperate “fart gags”. Animal Farm is not a sacred text, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. It can be altered to chime with a new audience. But this “unforgivably sugary” adaptation, with a dumb Disney ending and “cheapo digital look”, is Animal Farm without rage, satire, passion or meaning. There is no point to it.
so there are funny moments, such as when
Linda takes Sue out to try new things, which,
of course, doesn’t go to plan. Johnston turns in
a “wonderful” performance, and there are some
“well-observed” supporting characters too,
including Linda’s nemesis, the “ghastly” Phyllis,
who flaunts the fact that she has a husband
and grandchildren when Sue has neither.
“At its heart, this isn’t really about robots,” said
Carol Midgley in The Times. It is about “what
it means to be human” and “the profundity
of grief”. Two years after her husband’s death,
Sue is struggling, and her anxiety is movingly conveyed. “I don’t
know how to do this last bit alone,” she says at one point, “but
I don’t want to spend it with a robot.” Happily, she revises this
opinion, as she starts to discover that Linda is not such a bad
carer after all. Ann Droid “is daft, but deceptively deep”.
Morgan and Johnston: poignant
in Ithaca – is being besieged by “power- hungry suitors”, including Antinous (a marvellously venomous Robert Pattinson), while her restless son Telemachus (Tom Holland) waits for the return of the father he has never known. Incidents from the previous decade are then woven in as Odysseus recovers his battered memory – the deception at Troy, and his adventures in the years after that, including an encounter with the enchantress Circe (Samantha Morton), and a diversion through Hades.
Ana Mendieta “made art from blood, feathers, flowers and sand and in such fresh ways, you’d think these primeval substances were new inventions”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. “She literally played with fire, drawing a human figure with gunpowder on the ground or on the trunk of a tree, then setting it alight”; the resulting scorched shadows bring to mind the victims of a nuclear bomb or the dead of Pompeii. Mendieta was born in Cuba in 1948, and when the revolution came, she was sent to the US, where she always felt like an outsider. “Home, for her, was the past”, and she made it her mission to “excavate the very origins of art and mythology”. Mendieta worked in many disciplines: painting, film, photography, performance, sculpture. She used “organic matter”: a human silhouette made of flowers; a hand imprint in a muddy wasteland; a fertility goddess figure carved in limestone. Her art is “irresistible”, and creates “a personal mythology ... as weirdly coherent as William Blake’s”. If she had lived, Mendieta would have been “at the forefront of the art of this century”. But in 1985, aged only 36, she died – falling from the balcony of her 34th-floor apartment in New York, in suspicious circumstances. The artist Carl Andre, her husband, was tried for murder, and acquitted.
The show is packed with “raw, timely works”, said Chloë Ashby in The Independent. They “compel us to pay attention
Where to buy…
The Week reviews an
exhibition in a private gallery
at Alice Amati
This group exhibition at a relatively new gallery is, particularly for one mounted by a small dealership, a show of unusual elegance. Its subject, broadly, is still life painting – an ostensibly unshowy mode to which artists never stop returning. This display gives one cause to see why: pieces by the likes of Giorgio Morandi and Fernando Botero are displayed alongside contemporary works over two floors, the hang fixing them in uninterrupted conversation. There are works in all shapes, sizes and styles: Amedeo Polazzo fields a narrowly framed picture of a carrot, stretched to his exact height; Miranda Webster’s improbably delicate depictions of recovered tree branches
Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888, tate.org.uk). Until 17 January 2027
Imágen de Yágul, the Silueta Series (1973): “pagan magic”
Botero’s Still Life with Oranges (1979)
carry weirdly sepulchral undertones; and Andreas Zampella creates strange, conceptual paintings on abandoned textiles, incorporating stains and manufactured patterns into his painstakingly realised, never-less-than- odd compositions. Not even the Botero, depicting a half-dozen comically rounded oranges, looks out of place. Prices on request.
27 Warren Street, London W1 (07999- 338765). Until 15 August
Many of Mendieta’s concerns –
“feminism, environmentalism,
anti-colonialism” – resonate today,
said Alastair Sooke in The Daily
Telegraph. Yet this is not a show
about “identity politics”. It is, rather,
“filled with a rich visual poetry” that
is “both forceful and fragile”. One
photograph from the Silueta Series,
for instance, sees a human outline
half buried on a hillside, “arms
clamped by its sides in the manner
of an Egyptian mummy”. Another
sees Mendieta herself deep in
a rocky cavity, as if consumed by
the wildflowers sprouting around her. The exhibition doesn’t
make a martyr of her: Andre is barely mentioned, and this is
for the best. Staged with “flair” and “sensitivity”, it crackles
with “a sense of pagan magic” – and it’s by far the best show
Tate Modern has mounted this summer.
to the natural world”. Scattered throughout are pieces from her Silueta Series, begun in 1973. Many of these are photographs, documenting the artist’s practice of stamping human silhouettes into mud and observing as “weeds and brambles” or other growths rendered them invisible. Elsewhere, a famous video sees the artist next to a stream, “pouring a pail of cow’s blood over her body”. Blood spilling from her limbs, she lies down in “a mass of soft white chicken feathers”. When she stands, she is “a woman transformed, part-human, part-bird, bizarrely and brilliantly engaged with nature”.
A rediscovered Velázquez
“Paintings by Diego Velázquez are a rarity,” says J.S. Marcus in The Art Newspaper. There are only about 120 in existence, 50 of them in Madrid’s Museo del Prado. But now Salvador Salort- Pons, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts and a noted Velázquez scholar, claims to have found a new 1626 portrait of the Spanish statesman Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, in a private collection. Olivares, a favourite of King Philip IV, helped to install the young Velázquez as court artist in 1623 and was frequently painted by him. Salort-Pons was planning a small exhibition of Velázquez’s Olivares portraits when someone emailed him from a Madrid restoration studio, saying they had such a work, thought to be from the artist’s workshop. Analysis proved that there was “a perfect match of the pigments”, and the type of canvas, that Velázquez used; while X-rays showed a pattern of characteristic alterations in the composition.
© THE ESTATE OF ANA MENDIETA COLLECTION, LLC/ARS/DACS, 2026; WADDINGTON CUSTOT AND THE ARTIST
Showing now John Constable’s pastoral masterpiece, The Hay Wain, which he painted in his London studio, has come to Suffolk for the first time to mark his 250th birthday. It is being shown alongside 70 other works in the exhibition The Hay Wain: Walking Constable’s Landscape. Until 4 October, Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich (ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk).
A new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats is at the open-air theatre in Regent’s Park, and will then be on tour. Until 19 September, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London NW1; 6-17 October, Plymouth Theatre Royal; then Hull, Birmingham and on (catsthemusical.com).
Cole Escola, the writer and original star of the Tony Award-winning comedy Oh, Mary!, has reprised their role as Mary Todd Lincoln (until 15 August) in this play about the First Lady in the weeks before her husband’s death. “Irreverent, raunchy, gleefully deranged revisionist history” (Guardian). Until 2 January 2027, Trafalgar Theatre, London SW1 (trafalgartheatre.com).
Book now Returning to North Berwick, the Fringe by the Sea festival consists of more than 300 events this year, including music from Belle and Sebastian, and Alex James’ Britpop Classical, conversations with Louis Theroux, Ian Hislop and David Olusoga, and comedy from Russell Howard. 31 July-9 August, North Berwick, Scotland (fringebythesea.com).
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, 1939 (Penguin £8.99). West’s novel fixes on two groups: the freaks and hustler failures who dream of getting into pictures; and the Los Angeles crowd that longs to follow the American dream. The result is a scary portrait of a culture going crazy and a city ready to burn.
© VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON; MICHAEL LIONSTAR
The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1941 (Penguin £9.99). Fitzgerald’s last, unfinished novel is not so good as a narrative, but it offers a superb glimpse of how a brilliant young head of production runs a studio
Best books… David Thomson The great film historian and critic picks six of his favourite books about Hollywood. His latest book, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies, has just been published by Allen Lane at £25
in the golden age, dealing with every problem except those in his own life.
Picture by Lillian Ross, 1952 (NYRB £13.99). Reportage from the set of The Red Badge of Courage, John Huston’s film adaptation of Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel. Ross, a young writer on the New Yorker, records all the wild show-off talk and Huston’s battles with the studio.
The Deer Park by Norman Mailer, 1955 (Abacus £20). Still the best novel about love, lust, identity, money, honour, power, producers and actors.
Constable’s The Valley of the Stour... (c.1800)
Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu directs Arthur Miller’s classic drama, Death of a Salesman, about the fracturing of a family. Cyril Nri is Willy Loman. 19 September-10 October, Liverpool Everyman, Liverpool (everymanplayhouse.com).
American actress Christine Baranski (Mamma Mia!) is starring alongside Richard E. Grant in a new staging of Noël Coward’s comedy Hay Fever. From 22 September, Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC2 (hayfeverplay.com).
Just out in paperback
Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth (Penguin
£11.99). Weymouth traces a male wolf’s
1,000-mile journey from Slovenia to Italy in
this “emotive and gripping” book about wild
places and a region in flux (Daily Telegraph).
Set against the backdrop of Hollywood and the pleasure ground of Palm Springs, it follows a war hero who toys with selling his life story to the movies.
My Face for the World to See by Alfred Hayes, 1958 (Penguin £8.99). A jaded screenwriter sees a young woman about to drown herself on the beach. He rescues her and then against his smarter nature he falls for her; she is a would-be actress who drags him into her bitter melodrama.
The Golden Hour by Matthew Specktor, 2025 (HarperCollins £12.99). Matthew’s father, Fred Specktor, was a top agent at CAA, the talent agency. This is a beautifully written memoir about growing up with the movies, making them, and trying to lead one’s life in the glow spilling from the screen.
Television Programmes The Staircase This eight- part HBO drama, based on the documentary series about a novelist accused of murdering his wife, was well received on release in 2022. With Toni Collette and Colin Firth. Sat 25 Jul, ITV1 21:15 & 22:30 (75mins each).
The Rapture Five-part thriller starring Ruth Madeley as a forensic psychologist whose young patient seems to possess an ability to see the future. Sun 26 & Mon 27 Jul, BBC1 21:00 (60mins each).
Performance: The Entertainer Rescreening of John Osborne’s 1957 play about a failing music hall performer, with Michael Gambon. Followed by The Levin Interviews: John Osborne. Sun 26 Jul, BBC4 22:15 (120mins) & 00:15 (30mins).
The Vampire Lestat The third Interview with the Vampire series – from Anne Rice’s novels – follows Lestat’s life in 1980s France, where he’s reborn as a rock star. Tue 28 Jul, BBC2 21:00 (45mins).
Talking Pictures: Seventies Legends Part II Celia Imrie digs into the BBC archives to uncover interviews and movie clips. Thu 30 Jul, BBC4 20:00 (60mins).
Films Casablanca (1942) The classic wartime romance starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Sat 25 Jul, BBC2 14:50 (100mins).
Monster (2023) Nuanced Japanese drama, about a single mother trying to uncover what is happening at her son’s school. Sat 25 Jul, BBC4 22:25 (120mins).
New to streaming Lucky Anya Taylor-Joy plays a career criminal on the run in this seven-part series that is “enjoyably brainless fun” (Times). On Apple TV.
The Five-Star Weekend After her husband dies, food influencer (Jennifer Garner) invites four friends to stay at her house in Nantucket. It turns out that everyone has something to hide. On Sky Atlantic & Now.
Best properties
East Sussex: The Caprons, Lewes. Elegant Grade II* Georgian house in the heart of Lewes, nestled in mature gardens. 5 beds, 4 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, garden. £1.85m; Jackson-Stops (01444-484400).
Kent: High Street, Sandwich. A fine Grade II Georgian townhouse in the heart of this historic Cinque Port market town. The property features plenty of stylish period features and a large walled garden. 7 beds, 3 baths, study, kitchen, 2 receps, garden, double garage with loft. £1.1m; Strutt & Parker (01227- 473707).
Suffolk: The Old Shoulder House, Hadleigh. This eye- catching Grade II 800-year-old former pub blends Tudor, Georgian and Victorian influences, and has original features beautifully preserved throughout. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, parking. £485,000; Edd Callegari (07921-514234).
Wiltshire: Bluett House, Malmesbury. An enchanting Grade II townhouse (centre with wooden balcony) with a 15th century medieval undercroft and views across the River Avon. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen/ breakfast room, 2 receps, office, garden, garage. £1.025m; James Pyle (01666-840886).
on the market
Berkshire: High Street, Hungerford. Handsome 18th century townhouse (blue doors) in need of modernisation; sold with planning permission. Currently: 3 offices, 2 beds, family bath, kitchen/dining room, utility. £445,000; Knight Frank (01488-688530).
Suffolk: High Street, Hadleigh. An impressive Grade I building with living space above and three commercial units below, located in the centre of this thriving market town. The building currently houses two 3-bed maisonettes, a licensed restaurant/coffee shop, a printers and an estate agent, as well as a garage with five off-road parking spaces. £900,000; Frost & Partners (01473-823456).
Essex: April Cottage, Saffron Walden. Delightful Grade II* period cottage (the pale pink building) with plenty of period features, located on the historic and highly desirable Bridge Street, a short stroll from the town centre. 2 beds, family bath, kitchen, 2 receps, courtyard garden, outbuildings. £315,000; Arkwright & Co (01799-668600).
Margaret’s 18 Chesterton Road,
Cambridge (01223-375071)
This “cleverly designed” restaurant in
Cambridge is the kind of place that “feeds
you well, without trying to draw too much
attention to itself”, says Jay Rayner in
the FT. It’s run by chef Sam Carter and
his wife Alex Olivier, who also have the
Michelin-starred Twenty-Two two doors
down. Margaret’s – apparently named
after a regular there – is “their chance
to loosen the apron strings a little”. The
dinner menu – £65 a head during the
week, £75 on Friday and Saturday nights
– is an ingenious marriage of tasting menu
and à la carte. The meal starts with a
“rush of snacks”: a mug of “invigoratingly
chilled gazpacho”; asparagus with
a chervil- and truffle-rich mayo; croquettes
of shredded lamb belly. Choice enters
the picture with the mains: we opt for
monkfish tail roasted on the bone, and
loin of pork served lightly pink with
a “lip-sticking” jus and a quenelle of
minced Romano pepper. They come with
the same three sides: spiced carrots; butter-
slicked new potatoes; Caesar salad. Well-
judged desserts round off the meal, and
we’re sent out into the “night with a bag of
just-baked chocolate cookies”. Margaret’s,
in short, is a delight: it’s the kind of
restaurant “every town should have”.
Corkage 5 Chapel Row, Bath
(01225-423417)
Normally, a menu mixing French, Italian,
Spanish, Middle Eastern and Thai
I must have eaten a masala omelette every other day when I went on a four-week trip in India, and unsurprisingly I never got bored, says Emma Petersen. It’s spicy, savoury and so delicious, and it’s a brilliant way to switch up your usual breakfast. Serve simply alongside some leaves, or tuck it into a roti for a more substantial masala egg wrap.
6 eggs ½ tsp ground coriander ½ tsp ground cumin ½ tsp ground turmeric ½ onion, finely diced 1 garlic clove, minced
1 salad tomato, finely diced 1 green chilli, thinly sliced 1 tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander salt and pepper
olive oil, for cooking dressed salad leaves, to serve
• Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl and
add the ground coriander, cumin, turmeric
and a generous pinch of salt and pepper.
Whisk until the yolks and whites are
completely combined.
• Fold in the onion, garlic, tomato, green
chilli and fresh coriander, so everything
is evenly distributed.
• Heat a drizzle of oil in a non-stick frying
pan/skillet over medium heat.
• Once hot, pour in half the egg mixture
and use a spatula to spread it gently to the
edges of the pan. Cook for about 3 minutes
Taken from Healthyish High Protein: Full-on flavour, all-day energy by Emma Petersen, published by Pavilion Books at £22.
Photography by Lucy Richards. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £19.99, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk to place
your order, or call 020-3176 3835 to speak to a bookseller
Corkage: “the local restaurant of your dreams”
would “have me running for the door”, says Tom Parker Bowles in The Mail on Sunday. It suggests “not so much fusion as confusion”. Yet such is the “easy confidence” of the cooking at Corkage that many of the dishes properly dazzle. “Gloriously tender” monkfish cheeks sit in a rich chickpea stew, studded with crisp slivers of chorizo. Black beans dressed with fish sauce, and mixed with chilli, crisp onion and slow-cooked leek make an inspired combination. The kitchen does the classics “beautifully too”, whether “luscious pork rillettes” or muscular rosé liver with a soft-boiled egg and a watercress, caper and mustard salad. On a Wednesday lunchtime, “all life is
Serves 2
here” – a joyful sight in these straitened times. And no wonder, because along with the great food, “service is divine and prices offer excellent value”. Corkage is the “local restaurant of your dreams”: my only quibble is that it’s in Bath, not west London. About £35 a head.
The Golden Tooth 79 Green Lanes, London N16 (020-7354 2791) This new establishment on Green Lanes in north London rather undersold itself in its pre-opening announcements, hinting that it was “merely a pub that did food”, says Grace Dent in The Guardian. But far from being “some poky, spit-and-sawdust back room” with a few bar snacks available, it’s a “fully formed”, and rather brilliant, restaurant. Chef Matthew Scott (previously of Papi in London Fields) “is, very quietly, one of the most interesting cooks around right now”, and his menu here contains some real gems. Take the “wobbly, voluminous” Montgomery cheddar tart, which alone makes the Golden Tooth worth a visit. “I was born and raised on flan, and thought I’d tasted them all”, but this tart – “quivering, eggy, creamy, rich and piled high with grated cheese” – is a revelation. Or there’s stargazy pie for two, which turns up with the head of an enormous red prawn gawping out of the top of the pastry. “Generous and deeply comforting”, it is so “perilously delicious” that I could have consumed the entire thing myself. My advice: “book a table while you can”.
until the underside is golden and the top is mostly set, then flip and cook for another couple of minutes. Slide onto a plate. • Wipe out the pan, add another drizzle of oil and repeat with the rest of the egg mixture to make your second omelette. (Or, if you’re working to the clock, cook both at once using two pans.) • Serve warm with dressed leaves. • Future you: cool and place in an airtight container, storing in the fridge for up to 2 days. Enjoy cold, or reheat gently in a pan or the microwave until warmed through.
Cobb Premier Air This portable charcoal BBQ “works brilliantly”. It’s “incredibly fuel efficient” and quick to heat up. The 33cm grill is small, but there’s also an “oven” space below for roasting or slow cooking. It’s light and easy to carry, with its own bag, and the double wall keeps the outside cool (£190; cobb-bbq.co.uk).
Ninja Woodfire Pro Connect XL This “all-singing, all-dancing”, electric BBQ, grill and smoker has a meat probe that connects to an app, so you can monitor the temperature and control it from your phone. It can be used in all weather, is easy to clean, and the removable parts go in the dishwasher (£380; sharkninja.co.uk).
Tips of the week... how to stop snapping at family
Psychotherapist and author Anna Mathur
has written a compassionate guide to rage:
● Look for signs of anger rising – a racing
heart, restlessness – and give yourself 90
seconds to ride it out. Leave the room; if
you can’t, open a window and inhale fresh
air, or splash cold water on your face.
● Try to understand what underpins your
anger – hormones, neurodivergence,
illness, tiredness. Self-knowledge helps
you take control. Anger is a sign you’re
overwhelmed. Ask yourself what you need.
● Practice “micro-honesty”, to stop
frustration turning into rage. If you’re not
doing brilliantly, tell friends – and let them
know when you can’t help them. It’s OK
to disappoint people, even your children.
● Hunger, dehydration, excess alcohol and
too little sleep can cause irritability and
anxiety and are relatively easy to fix.
● If you snap at your children, apologise to
them. Take responsibility, and do not add
“but” – as it shifts the blame to them.
Škoda Fabia 130 from £29,995
The Daily Telegraph Built to celebrate Škoda’s 130th birthday, the Fabia 130 is a sporty hatchback – a souped-up version of the top-tier Monte Carlo trim, and the fastest Fabia yet. With a top speed of 141mph, it does 0-62mph in 7.4secs; and bhp is up from 148 to 175 thanks to a beefy 1.5-litre turbo- charged petrol engine, paired with the seven-speed automatic gearbox. Tweaks have been made to the suspension, throttle control, traction and steering.
Morsø Forno Outdoor Oven This versatile cast-iron oven doubles up as an outdoor fireplace. With “exceptional heat retention”, it offers “consistent and even cooking” for everything from steaks and salmon to crispy pizza (from £800; morsoe.com).
And for those who
have everything…
Created by renowned Dutch designer Marcel Wanders for Alessi, this chic wicker basket has a unique shape, like a rolled-up picnic blanket. Part of the Dressed en plein air collection, it has a fabric lining and houses four plates, four bowls, plus melamine cutlery and plastic wine glasses.
£450; uk.alessi.com
Autocar The 130 is a “warm hatch”, not “hot enough” to earn Škoda’s sporty vRS badge – but some proper hardware engineering has gone into it. It’s “satisfying to drive quickly”: an entertaining but comfortable ride. The chassis is “nicely judged”, the 18-inch alloy wheels have good grip, but the steering lacks feel, and it’s a shame there’s no option for a manual gearbox.
Little Kasai Konro Grill Designed for tabletop cooking, this simple-to-use stainless steel Japanese grill has natural mineral blocks which trap the heat, radiating it up to the food. It works best with binchotan, a Japanese charcoal known for its clean burn (£400; kasaigrills.com).
Car Magazine Step inside the Fabia 130 and it’s like going back to the mid-2010s – which is great for usability, with lots of physical buttons, knobs and dials, but “old and a bit dull” to look at. All in all, the 130 is a pleasantly “warmed-over version of this middle-aged small car”. It’ll cost you around £30,000, and for that you could get a faster Mini Cooper S; but the Fabia offers better value: it’s a superior ride and is a more practical all-rounder.
Gozney Arc Lite A “brilliant all- rounder”, this compact gas pizza oven is just 48cm deep, but feels robust and, at 12kg, can be carried solo. The lateral flame licks across the top, and there’s a colour-coded control dial to adjust the heat. Once hot, it takes just 90 seconds for a perfectly crisp pizza (£350; gozney.com).
Where to find... England’s best secret gardens
The remote Himalayan Garden & Sculpture
Park in North Yorkshire is a 45-acre
microclimate, home to rhododendrons,
azaleas and the “elusive” blue Himalayan
poppy. There are lakes and winding paths
with contemporary sculptures concealed
among the trees (himalayangarden.com).
The Swiss Garden at Shuttleworth, in
Bedfordshire, is an eccentric Regency
“alpine fantasy”, with grottoes, a fernery,
ponds, an Indian kiosk and a Swiss
cottage (shuttleworth.org).
Kent’s Scotney Castle has a ruined 14th
century moated castle surrounded by lily
ponds in the grounds. Spot rare green-
winged orchids in spring or Japanese
maples in autumn (nationaltrust.org.uk).
Created in the 1930s, the open-air Minack
Theatre, carved into the granite cliffs above
Porthcurno Beach in Cornwall, has terraces
overflowing with succulents, proteas,
aeoniums and flowering exotics native
to South Africa (minack.com).
SOURCES: BBC GOOD FOOD/THE INDEPENDENT/ COUNTRY LIVING/LIVING ETC/THE GUARDIAN
South Korea has some wondrous ancient sites, and none are more important than those around Gyeongju, says Oliver Berry in National Geographic Traveller. Set among forested hills a couple of hours by high-speed train from Seoul, this historic town is a lovely place to wander, with its leafy avenues and traditional hanok houses and gardens. But the height of its glory came more than 1,000 years ago: from 57BC until AD935 it was the capital of the kingdom of Silla, and for some time, one of the largest cities on Earth. The “most obvious legacy” of that time are the royal tombs “dotted around” the town – more than 100 mounds like giant “molehills”. Several of these have yielded extraordinary treasures, many of which are on display at the town’s dazzling National Museum. Alongside Baekje and Goguryeo, Silla was one of three kingdoms that ruled the Korean peninsula together for hundreds of years, until the late 7th century when, with the help of Tang Chinese forces, it defeated the others. Many of Gyeongju’s
Hotel of the week
A long walk in 1066 country The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived in the UK for the first time in a millennium, and can be seen at the British Museum from 10 September – making this a good year to do the 1066 Country Walk, says Pamela Petro in The Guardian. This 31-mile route across East Sussex begins at Pevensey, where William the Conqueror landed that September, and passes through Battle, the “probable” site of the Battle of Hastings, en route to Rye. We walked it in four days. The claim made for the walk is loose – it crosses “countryside that witnessed the Norman Conquest” – reflecting the limits of the historical record. Tent Hill is a place where one army or other – “no one knows which” – is said to have camped. But I loved it even so. This is a beautiful part of England (including the High Weald National Landscape), and the scenery often “calls the distant past to mind” – even sharing the tapestry’s “russet, sage and ochre hues”, when I walked it last September.
Woljeonggyo Bridge is a reconstruction of a Silla kingdom landmark
An elegant Breton seaside resort It was “aristocratic Britons” who first made Dinard fashionable as a sea-bathing place in the mid-19th century, but today it is more popular with Parisians “eager to escape the ever- increasing heat and glitz of the Côte d’Azur”. This resort town on Brittany’s north coast is a delight, says Kate Maxwell in the FT, with its “elegant” Belle Époque architecture (pictured), quiet sandy beaches and “superlative” seafood. It’s easy to reach from the UK, too – a quick ferry ride across the Rance estuary from Saint- Malo – and sits near other charming coastal spots such as Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. You might stay at the “handsome” Grand Hôtel Dinard, built in the 1850s, try the excellent savoury galettes at the Breizh Café, and visit “the sweep of the Plage de l’Écluse”, which was the inspiration for several of Picasso’s Bathers paintings.
Chasing waterfalls in Oregon Forming part of the border between Oregon and Washington State, the Columbia River Gorge is fabulously grand, says Chris Leadbeater in The Daily Telegraph – and you need only drive for 20 miles from central Portland (an “unfailingly hip” city) to see it. Even the first view you get of it, from Crown Point, is worth the journey – and from there, the gorge stretches for 80 miles to the east, reaching depths of up to 1,220m. Interstate 84 runs its entire length – a “noisy man-made intrusion”, but dwarfed even so by the surroundings; and there’s a quieter option, the Historic Columbia River Highway, for those with time to spare. Stop to see the gorge’s towering waterfalls (the tallest is Multnomah Falls, at 189m); and head into the Hood River Valley for “dazzling” views of Mount Hood, a “vast” volcano rearing to 3,429m.
treasures date from before
that victory – including the
11,000 items found in the
Cheonmachong (or “heavenly
horse”) tomb, believed to have
been created in the 5th or 6th
century. Today, visitors can enter
the mound itself, where golden
crowns, jewelled caps, suits of
armour and gilt-bronze sandals
sit under spotlights in the “inky”
darkness. The most famous
item is a birch-bark saddle
emblazoned with a prancing
horse – the design from which
the tomb takes its modern name.
Several other sites around
town also have roots in the
Silla period, including the
Woljeonggyo Bridge, a recent
reconstruction of a structure
built in AD760. Flanked by
“ornate” gatehouses, and spanning 60m, it is the country’s largest
wooden bridge. Grander still is Bulguksa Temple, set on the slopes
of Mount Tohan, nine miles from Gyeongju. Although restored
and altered many times over the years, the temple retains various
treasures from the 8th and 9th centuries, including stone pagodas,
and gilt-bronze statues of the seated Buddha.
Télla Théra Crete, Greece Set amid olive groves in northwest Crete – a 45-minute drive from Chania – this new “eco-minded” resort commands great views over the deep bay of Kissamos, says Ianthe Butt in Condé Nast Traveller. Its 20 “soothing”, low-slung suites and single villa match “the hues of the earthscape”, with terraced gardens and a “serene” oval-shaped pool. Interiors feature handmade furniture in oak and teak, “soft” lighting and wide, semi-circular windows. The “plant-forward” restaurant serves modern takes on traditional Cretan dishes, with some meat and fish options, and the coast lies five minutes’ drive away. Doubles from £315; tellathera.com.
Ruggedly handsome and highly versatile, Sam Neill was catapulted to Hollywood stardom in 1993 when he was cast as Dr Alan Grant, the palaeontologist in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. One of the biggest box-office hits of all time, it remains the film for which he is most widely known, said The Daily Telegraph, yet remarkably, it was not the only seminal movie in which he starred that year. Neill, who died of pneumonia last week, aged 78, also had a leading role in Jane Campion’s arthouse sensation The Piano. Set in his home country of New Zealand, it won numerous prizes, including three Academy Awards and the Cannes Palme d’Or, and though none went to him, he was immensely proud of having been involved in it. “I don’t think I can overestimate how important The Piano is for me in hindsight,” he wrote in 2023. “It sits on my funny old CV like a medal on my chest.”
Sam
Neill
1947-2026
Nigel John Dermot Neill was born in Northern Ireland in 1947, to a New Zealand-born father, who was serving in the British Army, and an English mother. When he was eight, the family relocated to New Zealand – where he changed his name to Sam. He had struggled with the move, and his birth name, he said, had proved to be “a little too effete for a New Zealand playground”. By contrast, Sam “sounds a bit blokey and has a touch of the Labrador about it”. He started acting at school, and after leaving university, he joined a theatre troupe. In 1977 he won a role in Sleeping Dogs, set in a dystopian future in which New Zealand is at war. It was the first New Zealand-made feature film to have a theatrical release in the US, and led to him being cast opposite Judy Davis in My Brilliant Career (1979). Not long after that he picked up the phone and heard a voice that sounded strangely familiar. It was James Mason, ringing from his home in Switzerland. He and his wife, Mason explained, had been so impressed by Neill’s performance, they were sending him
Wally Funk, who has died aged 87, had a remarkable career as an aviator, blazing a trail for women in what was then a man’s world, said The Guardian. At the age of 20, she became the first female civilian flight instructor at a US military base, and in 1971 she became the Federal Aviation Administration’s first female flight inspector. Her dream, however, had always been to go into space. In 1960/61, she was the youngest of a group of female pilots who were put through the same rigorous tests as Nasa’s male astronauts in an effort to establish women’s fitness for space travel, as part of a research programme funded by the aviation medical expert Dr William Randolph Lovelace. The women (later dubbed the Mercury 13 group) scored as highly as the men, and in some tests outperformed them, yet Nasa declined to support the project and refused to allow women into the astronaut corps. Sixty years later, however, Funk finally achieved her ambition at the age of 82, when she was one of the passengers on the inaugural flight by New Shepard, a rocket built by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company. “I’ve been waiting a long time to finally get up there,” she said afterwards.
Wally
Funk
1939-2026
Neill in Jurassic Park
During Covid lockdowns, he entertained himself and cheered up fans by posting offbeat videos made at his farm in New Zealand, where he ran a respected winery and kept a menagerie of animals named after his co-stars; they included a hen called Meryl Streep. After being diagnosed with blood cancer in 2022, he wrote a memoir. “Typical of its self-deprecating tone” was his tale of getting a Porsche and taking it for a spin around London early one morning, only to be spotted at a red light by Judy Davis, who tapped on the window and said sternly: “No, Sam. No. Not you, Sam.” Separated from his wife, Noriko Watanabe, he is survived by his four children. He rarely discussed his private life, but had recently told an interviewer that he hoped to be remembered as a kind person. “My exterior is undoubtedly Sam the New Zealander,” he wrote in his memoir. “You might even recognise him. But inside, somewhere very deep, there lives a small shy boy who sounds very different, and his name is not Sam. It is Nigel.”
Funk: flying lessons at nine
Her score in the Mercury 13 programme had been the third highest. Even so, when Nasa finally started to admit women in the late 1970s she was repeatedly turned down, because she had neither an engineering degree nor test-pilot experience. Her ten-minute-long sub-orbital flight made her the oldest person to reach space; that record was broken by the Star Trek actor William Shatner soon after, but she remains the oldest woman to have been into space. She never married. “Aviation has been my whole life,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir, Higher, Faster, Longer. “I eat it, and I breathe it.”
an airline ticket so that he could join them in Europe, and meet Mason’s agent. With Mason as his mentor, Neill was soon in London, making his first Hollywood film, Omen III (1981).
Later in that decade, he turned down the part in Die Hard that made Alan Rickman an international star – but then starred with Nicole Kidman in the thriller Dead Calm, which attracted Spielberg’s attention, and led to him being cast in Jurassic Park (and two sequels). He was briefly in contention to be the next James Bond, but by the mid-1990s he had settled into playing a wide range of supporting roles. One moment he was Charles II in Restoration (1995), said The Guardian; the next he was “gouging his own eyes out in the science-fiction horror Event Horizon (1997)”. Notable later roles included the curmudgeonly farmer who escapes into the bush with his teenage foster son in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and a tough cop in Peaky Blinders.
When she was five, she donned a Superman cape and leapt from the roof of a barn, “dreaming of flight and landing in a haystack”, said The Washington Post. An outdoorsy child, who won a national prize for her marksmanship, she studied basic mechanics; built model planes from balsa wood; and had her first flying lesson aged nine. She earned her pilot’s licence when she was 19; her first job was as a civilian flight instructor at a US military base in Oklahoma. A decade later, she qualified to become an FAA flight inspector. In 1974, she became the National Transportation Safety Board’s first female air safety inspector, in which role she assessed some 450 accidents. Meanwhile, she took part in numerous air races. She also ran her own flight school.
Thames Water/Anglian: on thin ice In his first speech as PM, Andy Burnham said he wanted to see greater public control of “life’s essentials”. They don’t get much more essential than water, said Simon Jack and Emer Moreau on BBC News. And at Britain’s biggest and most indebted water utility Thames (£18.5bn and counting) there was an immediate scramble “to head off nationalisation”. The utility’s lenders – the London & Valley Water consortium – have offered the Government a “golden share” (giving it powers to veto decisions), and more control for local authorities, in hopes of making the nationalisers go away. But if they ever stood a chance, it has probably been wrecked by “the sheer stupidity of the grasping water bosses”, said Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. Days before Burnham moved into No. 10, Thames – recently fined a record £122.7m for dumping raw sewage and mismanaging its finances – revealed that it paid some £4m in bonuses to top officers, with CEO Chris Weston enjoying a 9.4% pay rise to £1.16m (“deserved”, in his own opinion). Ofwat is also investigating Anglian Water, which paid its boss, Mark Thurston, £1.3m on top of his salary, despite Ofwat’s crackdown on bonuses. Anglian insists the payout is “within the rules” because it was made by its parent company. When it comes to pay, said Dominic O’Connell in The Times, water companies are getting more creative. PayPal/Stripe: future payments giant? PayPal’s market capitalisation peaked at about $360bn in 2021 and fell to as low as around $36bn last year, said Milana Vinn on Reuters. Is the digital payments pioneer – co-founded by Elon Musk in the late 1990s – ripe for takeover? Its younger and now much larger peer, Stripe, certainly thinks so. The latter has teamed up with private equity firm Advent to table a $53bn offer. PayPal’s shares surged 17% on the news. But the company, whose CEO Enrique Lores is in the midst of a turnaround, has “so far been reluctant to engage”, said The Observer, judging the offer “low ball”. The combination of PayPal and Stripe – the two most widely used payment platforms for online merchants – would create a global giant processing some $3.7trn of payments annually, said the Tech Times. Expect Stripe, which was founded by two Irish brothers, John and Patrick Collison, to persevere with its “negotiation”, There’s certainly everything to play for, said Jamie Crawley on CoinDesk. The real prize, as the business shifts to consumer wallets, stablecoins and blockchain, is owning “the future of digital payments”. Trump Media & Technology Group: ever enterprising Is any industry immune from the US first family’s expanding business empire, asked David Uberti in The Wall Street Journal. The latest unlikely “pivot” for the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) – home of the president’s Truth Social platform – is into nuclear energy, thanks to a planned merger with fusion firm TAE Technologies. Bet you wish you’d read all about it first. Well, now you can, said the FT – for a price. The TMTG is also considering “charging traders and investors” for “faster access” to Trump’s posts on Truth Social, where he often makes announcements that “trigger huge fluctuations across global markets”. Buyers of the “Truth API” data service may have to stump up $100,000 a month for the privilege – perhaps with gritted teeth. “People will pay because they have to,” said one hedge fund manager. “If you’re behind on the news, you’ll get crushed.”
As if the AI scene wasn’t febrile enough, another challenger from China has emerged – triggering immediate panic among Western competitors, said Hans van Leeuwen in The Daily Telegraph. “Hundreds of billions of dollars” were wiped off leading AI and chip stocks last week when the Beijing startup Moonshot AI announced Kimi K3: a large language model that is cheaper and more freely available to download than US rivals, and upends “perceptions of where the AI revolution is going”. Moonshot’s founder is “baby-faced” billionaire Yang Zhilin – a prog-rock devotee who named his company in honour of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.
Moonshot is challenging Anthropic and OpenAI at the “frontier”, said Zijing Wu and Jamie John in the FT. Kimi K3 has 2.8 trillion “parameters” denoting the size of its neural network (a higher count generally means greater capabilities).
Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed
Increasingly capable, relatively cheap, “open- weight” Chinese models undercut the thesis that “gigantic spending” is needed to keep up in the AI race, said DealBook in The New York Times. This could leave “much of the AI industry looking more indebted than it can justify” – and could also affect the forthcoming IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI; Moonshot itself is reportedly preparing to float in Hong Kong within six months. “Some in the Trump administration are now pushing for limits on foreign models” and a clampdown on open- source AI software. China is reportedly weighing its own measures. The issue looks set to become “a new chess piece in trade negotiations” between the superpowers.
Moonshot’s “baby-faced” Yang
Square Mile
The price of oil rose above $95/barrel
on Wednesday after President Trump
threatened further escalation in Iran –
prices are now 30% higher since the
start of July, amid anxiety that global
inventories are dwindling to critically
low levels. Goldman Sachs warned
that Brent crude could rise above $120
if the Strait of Hormuz remains
“disrupted” into the fourth quarter.
In Britain, gilt yields rose sharply as
Andy Burnham arrived in Downing
Street. The yield on ten-year gilts
jumped by 11 basis points to 5.04%
as he pledged to create a “new
economic model” and would look to
use “flexibility” within the fiscal rules
– which traders interpreted as more
public borrowing. The ONS reported
that inflation in the UK fell to 2.6% in the
year to June, down from 2.8% in May.
But economists warned the fall could be
temporary due to higher energy prices.
SpaceX shares fell below last month’s
$135 IPO price to around $123, following
an initial surge to a high over $200;
analysts blamed share lock-up
expirations and wobbling sentiment
in the wider tech market. Deutsche
Bank’s HQ was raided by German
prosecutors for the third time this
year as legacy scandals continue to
overshadow CEO Christian Sewing’s
turnaround. Uber agreed to buy
Germany’s Delivery Hero for $14.8bn
as part of its quest to build a global
food-delivery service.
This puts it ahead of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 model, experts say – although it still falls short of the latter’s most powerful model, Fable, on most benchmarks.
There was an air of despondency on the first day of the Farnborough International Airshow on Monday – “traditionally seen as a shop window for Britain’s aerospace and defence sectors”, with a visit from the PM “a staple” since the Second World War, said Christopher Jasper in The Daily Telegraph. This year, no ministers at all showed up – prompting “dark mutterings”. Few were expecting the twist that followed when the former defence secretary, John Healey, was confirmed as Chancellor. Defence companies Babcock and BAE Systems “were among the biggest risers when markets opened on Tuesday”, said Mauricio Alencar in City AM. The reaction in bond markets was rather less ecstatic – although Healey’s appointment helped to “steady” nerves, and yields. Compared with some previously tipped candidates, he’s seen as a safe pair of hands.
The new ministers – including Jonathan Reynolds, who returns as Business Secretary – need to move fast, said Shevaun Haviland of the British Chambers of Commerce, in The Times. The BCC’s latest quarterly economic survey, showing “business investment intentions falling to their lowest level since the depths of the pandemic”, should be a “wake-up call”. The levers of growth – investment, productivity and trade – are no mystery. “But right
● North Sea revival? By his own account, President Trump’s first phone call with Andy Burnham was a resounding success, said Connor Stringer in The Daily Telegraph. “The People of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets because the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has stated that he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!” Trump later wrote on Truth Social. Some investors seem to think this is a done deal. Shares in North Sea oil and gas stocks Harbour Energy, Ithaca Energy and Serica Energy have all jumped by around 10%. But perhaps they shouldn’t raise their hopes too high. It’s thought Burnham “will pledge to speed up existing plans” to drill in fields granted licences before the last election – including Rosebank and Jackdaw. But he’s expected “to uphold” Labour’s 2024 pledge “not to issue new licences”. The likely outcome is less “drill, baby, drill” and more a classic British fudge.
● Build, brother, build Perhaps a more fruitful sector to tap into under Burnham is Britain’s bombed-out housebuilders, said Christian Mayes on Morningstar. The new PM “wasted no time” promising the “largest council
Why fixing things requires more than just waiting for “the growth fairy” to show up
Drill, baby, drill? Or British fudge?
Healey with Burnham: steadying nerves?
housebuilding programme since the postwar period” – potentially riding to the rescue of builders “hit hard by the impact of the Iran war” on inflation and mortgage rates. All five UK housebuilder stocks under Morningstar coverage currently “trade at discounts to their fair values”, with Persimmon and Barratt Redrow offering especially “solid potential for capital appreciation”. Stocks with exposure to construction – such as Marshalls, Ibstock and SigmaRoc – might also enjoy a boost, noted Imran Sattar of the Edinburgh Investment Trust. But in the absence of concrete plans, he’s keeping his powder dry for now.
● Place yer bets Gambling stocks are also worth keeping an eye on, said Morningstar. Rachel Reeves doubled the “remote gaming duty” from 21% to 40% in 2025. But Burnham could go further. Last year, he called for greater regulation of gambling following a report suggesting that “slot machine companies were targeting Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods”. The Social Market Foundation reckons that hiking games duty from 20% to 40% on higher-stakes slot machines could raise £275m-£458m.
New PMs are never short of advice, said David Smith in The Sunday Times. The Resolution Foundation think-tank has pulled out all the stops in its report The Great Escape: Why Britain is Stuck in a Fiscal Funk and How We Can Break Free. As it notes, “the painful consequences of weak growth have been felt across the economy”. Still, fixing things “requires more than just waiting for the growth fairy to show up”. The foundation’s head, Ruth Curtice, says three courses of action are needed: balancing the books; tackling the “explosive” rise in long-term debt, starting with the pension triple-lock; and boosting investment. (The UK has now fallen so far behind that the average advanced economy has invested “55% more than the UK over the past three decades”.) All of this is, needless to say, easier said than done.
now none of these are moving.” The Government’s first priority should be to “cut the crippling cost of doing business” and stop treating companies “as a bottomless fiscal well”. The signs so far, said Emma Taggart in The Daily Telegraph, are that Burnham and co will rob Peter to pay Paul. In a blow to online retailers, Burnham is expected to raise business rates for fulfilment warehouses to pay for a 20% rate cut for pubs, clubs and live music venues. The British Retail Consortium warned that the costs will be ultimately “paid for by customers”.
When Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26.2bn in 2016, “some wondered” what its executives “had been smoking”, says John Arlidge in The Sunday Times. But the business network has been “on a tear”. Here CEO Dan Shapero outlines how to get the best out of it:
● The “secret sauce” that makes LinkedIn useful is audience and accountability. “People know they can reach people with influence,” says Shapero. And a policy set in stone is that you must use your own name. It’s what “makes us a trusted platform”.
● What differentiates LinkedIn from the mainstream socials “is that you come here to learn something”. The “magic equation” for successful content is thus “insight plus personality”. Bringing yourself into the conversation makes it more resonant. “People remember you.” But you should not be “too personal”.
● Mix up your media. Video is key – it’s now the consumption model for most people – but words matter too. “When you have something complex to say”, write it down, so the audience can read it at the pace that suits them.
● The old joke runs that LinkedIn “is all about cold messaging people you don’t know with ‘exciting services’ they don’t want”. Shapero says there’s a right way to do it: use the new “Advice Sessions” feature, which allows others to book time with you, at a rate of your choice.
© SIMON DAWSON/NO. 10 DOWNING STREET
market is not half bad
Lex
Financial Times
of Odysseus at the Fed?
Irwin Stelzer
The Sunday Times
Trump’s beef with Brazil
Editorial
The Economist
ruse to tackle tax evasion
Harry Wallop
The Times
It’s easy for UK policymakers, “who have spent years trying to revive interest in the London stock market”, to look with envy at “the glut of new listings” in New York, says Lex. “But comparison, as they say, is the thief of joy.” And if you look closely, “things are not quite as bad as they seem”. In the first half of 2026, companies raised $720m in the London market, according to Dealogic. One group – Uzbekistan’s national investment fund – accounted for most of that, but the figure is nonetheless an improvement on recent years. And if Airtel Africa lists its mobile money business in London this year, as hoped, it will be the UK’s best year for new listings since 2021. Britain’s IPO tally compares well with our European neighbours: France, Italy and the much-heralded Swedish market are all trailing; Germany is only fractionally ahead. Given London’s status as a major global financial centre, we should still be aiming higher. But the problems shouldn’t be exaggerated. The IPO market, after all, is all about confidence. “Sound too glum, and no amount of policy tweaking will bring deals back.”
Some US commentators have taken to likening the Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, to Odysseus, says Irwin Stelzer – claiming he is “lashing himself to the mast” of the Fed’s “2% inflation goal”. After 63 months of above-target inflation, a little discipline won’t go amiss – but it is wrong to portray Warsh as a zealot. For one thing, he has said that “he doesn’t look at the right side of the decimal point”, leaving him free to declare “mission accomplished”, even with a rate marginally above 2%, if he judges that US households and businesses are out of the woods. For the moment, Warsh seems to believe there’s no reason to raise interest rates – because productivity improvements, now rising at their fastest pace in 20 years, will drive down business costs and inflation without an intervention. The risk is that he ends up “waiting for the economic equivalent of Godot”. There’s also the danger that an escalating war in Iran will scupper his plan. In short, the new man at the Fed might find that those old surprises – “events, dear chairman, events” – are still to be reckoned with.
Brazil has just been hit by a new 25% tariff on a range of exports to the US after a year-long inquiry into alleged “unreasonable” practices, says The Economist. Prominent among American grievances is the remarkable success of Pix – Brazil’s digital- payments system – which was launched in 2020, and became such a hit with consumers for making payments instant and free that “it is now part of everyday life”. Around 170 million people – 80% of Brazilians – use it, and it accounts for more than half of the country’s payment transactions. The US argues that Pix is “a protectionist tool” that damages the American payment companies Visa and Mastercard. Neither claim is supported by evidence. “Far from cannibalising other electronic payment methods, Pix has expanded the market” – at the expense of cash and cheques. The Trump administration’s deeper concern may be that Pix will become a model for the rest of Latin America, eroding the reach of US companies. Maybe. So far, all President Trump’s campaign has achieved is to make Brazilians love Pix more.
Tax evasion on the high street is a menace, says Harry Wallop. Thousands of vape shops, American candy stores and barbers “get away with cocking a snook at the taxman” because their owners know that the penalties for evasion are almost non-existent. “If anyone asks awkward questions, you shutter the business and start again the next day, registering the business in your cousin’s name.” HMRC estimates that the “tax gap” for VAT non-payment comes in at £12bn. Since 1951, Taiwan has run a curious scheme, the Uniform Invoice Lottery, that helps tackle this malaise. Each transaction with a small merchant generates a unique code, printed on the receipt, which doubles as a lottery number; every two months there’s a televised draw. Customers insisted on being given receipts; tax revenues jumped by 75%. Britain has a long history of state lotteries. Let’s turn this to our advantage. No one likes paying tax, but most people enjoy having a flutter. Were we to make the tickets “a receipt from your window cleaner, the barbers, or market stall selling suspiciously cheap French cheese”, we’d have “a winning formula to wipe out our national debt”.
Max Buchan and Josh McLaughlin Two-thirds of UK voters oppose awarding government contracts to Palantir, the controversial US tech firm closely linked to the Trump administration. Music to the ears of the duo behind Valarian – a London-based startup majoring in “sovereign” technology, which has just raised $50m in funding, said James Titcomb in The Daily Telegraph. Founded in 2020 by crypto trader Max Buchan and Josh McLaughlin, a former US army officer and Palantir executive, the firm is tapping rising demand for “secure architecture” to help UK defence chiefs, among others, “reduce their reliance on US tech”. It is backed by XTX, the London-based trading firm run by billionaire Alex Gerko, and a roster of US venture capital firms.
Jude Bellingham
“There are few things that unite” the French luxury goods group LVMH and McDonald’s, said Samuel Agini in the Financial Times. Jude Bellingham is one of them. A measure of the England and Real Madrid star’s status as one of football’s most marketable names is that both companies have turned to him to promote their wares. The 23-year-old midfielder, worth some $50m, also has endorsement deals from brands “ranging from Adidas to Kim Kardashian’s clothing line Skims”. More will follow. Bellingham’s winning mentality and knack for scoring vital goals have caught the attention of corporate America. He has “a cocksure confidence” that many English people find “difficult” – “but Americans love”, noted Roger Bennett, of the US football media network Men in Blazers.
Ashtead Technology Citywire “Resilient” results, amid a “challenging geopolitical and macro backdrop”, herald a stronger second-half for this energy/security-focused subsea equipment provider, says Berenberg. Target 700p. Buy. 422p.
Cohort Investors’ Chronicle The “mini-defence conglomerate”, comprising seven businesses, has performed steadily – driven by its comms and intelligence arm. The debt facility has been raised to service larger contracts and stalk new targets. Buy. £12.54.
AstraZeneca Citywire The pharma’s deal to buy the rights to lung cancer treatment Zegfrovy is a “very minor positive” that cannot fix its looming patent cliff, according to Deutsche Bank, which maintains a £115 target price. Sell. £123.64.
B&M European Value Retail Citywire B&M’s “Back to Basics” plan looks “sensible” given the weak outlook and competitive market, says Shore Capital. Poor UK gardening sales have been offset by “brighter spots” in France, and the Heron frozen foods arm. Hold. 193p.
Key numbers for investors Best and worst performing shares Key numbers for investors Best and worst performing shares Following the Footsie
FTSE 100
10585.91
10529.39
0.54%
FTSE All-share UK
5697.15
5661.11
0.64%
Dow Jones
52342.67
52424.89
−0.16%
NASDAQ
25826.98
26120.98
−1.13%
Nikkei 225
66232.19
67743.50
−2.23%
Hang Seng
25132.29
24340.73
3.25%
Gold
4073.67
4063.33
0.25%
Brent Crude Oil
91.51
85.44
7.10%
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100)
3.01%
3.03%
UK 10-year gilts yield 5.03 4.97 US 10-year Treasuries 4.63 4.58 UK ECONOMIC DATA Latest CPI (yoy) 2.6% (Jun) 2.8% (May) 3.1% (May) 0.5% (May)
Latest RPI (yoy) 3.0% (Jun) Lloyds house price (yoy) 0.6% (Jun)
Halma Citywire A sharp pullback has brought shares in the “life-saving” tech companies group – operating in safety, environment and healthcare – to a “sensible level”, says Berenberg. Recent volatility belies an “excellent business model”. Buy. £36.72.
Johnson Matthey The Times The chemicals firm provides clean-air technologies for vehicles, and majors in platinum-group metals usage. Should benefit from a move into the US power-gen market, set to be catalysed by rising data centre usage. Buy. £19.42.
Hill & Smith Investors’ Chronicle This galvanised steel specialist provides critical infrastructure to the US AI data centre boom. The rich valuation is justified given 17.4% margins, its relentless compounding record and impressive cash generation. Hold. £29.90.
ME Group International Investors’ Chronicle The photobooth and washing machine operator has been beset by recent “mishaps”. But while the Iran war has dampened demand for passport photos, the higher- margin laundry ops are growing. Hold. 116p.
21 July 2026 Week before Change (%)
Shares
One Health Group Investors’ Chronicle This medical procedure provider – operating in the north of England, where NHS capacity is low – can perform six hip replacements in the time the NHS completes two. Opening a dedicated hub in 2027. Buy. 248.5p.
Tufton Assets The Times Tufton owns 21 second-hand tankers, shipping dry bulk and liquids, and leases them to maritime transport firms. Benefits from “market inefficiencies”: geopolitical turmoil is a structural tailwind. Yields 8%. Buy. 97p.
RM Investors’ Chronicle This ed-tech firm is performing better as it works towards selling off non-core assets to focus on digital exam and accreditation software. But it’s beset by a lack of free cash generation and stubbornly high debt. Sell. 89p.
Dunelm Group Citywire Panmure Liberum has upgraded the homeware retailer from “sell”, but remains cautious about “calling the turn”. Still exposed to margin shock, but stable Q4 trading is “respectable”, given the conditions. Hold. 843p.
WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS RISES Price % change Diploma 7470.00 +9.77 Marks & Spencer Group 398.00 +7.47 Babcock International 1080.00 +6.61 Metlen Energy & Metals €37.60 +6.34 Computacenter 4866.00 +6.01
10,800
FALLS St James’s Place 1067.00 –7.58 Scottish Mort. Inv. Trust 1357.00 –6.15 3i Group 2503.00 –5.23 Anglo American 3478.00 –5.23 Antofagasta 3667.00 –4.58
FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER Rotork 485.00 +68.24 Raspberry Pi Holdings 686.00 –16.34
Directors’ dealings
Energean
775 2 directors buy 52,494
Feb Mar Apr Jun Jul May
The energy group – with assets across the Med and North Sea – has lowered guidance and cut the dividend due to disruption in Israel. Still, founding CEO Mathios Rigas and co-founder Efstathios Topouzoglou have shown faith: buying shares worth £369,085.
Form guide
Shares tipped 12 weeks ago
Best tip M&C Saatchi Investors’ Chronicle up 15.97% to 138p
Worst tip
Bellway The Times down 4.21% to £18.90
Market view “The UK is experiencing the largest move in government bond yields. This coincides with the new PM recommitting to existing fiscal rules while also seeking ‘flexibility’ within them.” Economist Dr Mohamed El-Erian. Quoted in the FT
10,900
10,700
10,600
10,500
10,400
10,300
10,200
10,100
10,000
9,900
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
SOURCE: INVESTORS’ CHRONICLE
Some claimed that leaving the EU would help revive Britain’s fishing communities. And a decade on from the referendum, business is brisk in the south Devon port of Brixham. But is that the result of Brexit, or simply of a chance glut of octopus? Jack Burke reports
I
n the summer of 2019, Boris Johnson arrived in Brixham bearing ice creams and promises. By then, Britain’s fishermen had become the unlikely folk heroes of Brexit, their boats and harbours freighted with all the emotionally charged language of taking back control. Johnson toured the fish market, posed for photographs with local figures, and emerged from the Rockfish restaurant clutching hake and chips, grinning like a chimpanzee. He declared to the assembled crowd that Britain would once again become an independent coastal state. British boats would land British fish in British ports. It would mean a rebirth for coastal communities which, for decades, had seen their fleets diminish and their sons leave. The south Devon port, which voted to leave the EU in 2016, responded with hearty applause. A decade on, the question hanging over Brixham is whether the promised revolution ever really arrived.
Brixham’s harbour is as picturesque as anywhere in England. A confection of pastel-painted cottages tumble down steep hillsides towards the water, their fishermen’s lofts and net stores long since transformed into holiday lets with names like Lobster Pot Cottage and Captain’s View. In summer, paddleboards and pleasure boats bob beside the marina. Tourists sit scoffing ice creams on the quayside where trawlermen once repaired their nets.
Fishing built Brixham. It was Brixham men who pioneered deep-sea trawling in the 19th century, taking their distinctive sailing trawlers around the coast and helping establish fleets elsewhere in Britain. In 1866, an easterly gale destroyed almost the entire fleet and killed scores of men, yet the town rebuilt itself. It remained one of Britain’s great fishing ports through much of the 20th century, reaching its peak, as so many commercial fleets did, during the decades following the War. Yet unlike other once-great British fishing towns, Brixham never entirely surrendered its reason for existing. Hull declined. Grimsby reinvented itself as a vast processing centre for foreign catch. Around the country, boats disappeared and harbours emptied. Brixham, somehow, endured.
“People think we’ve expanded because we’ve gone out and pinched everybody else’s business,” says Barry Young, who has spent 33 years running Brixham Trawler Agents (BTA). “Really, we just stayed open.” Young is not given to sentiment. The explanation, he says, is simpler than people imagine. Markets elsewhere closed because they became uneconomic to run.
did for Britain’s fishermen
Brixham pioneered deep-sea trawling in the 19th century
“One skipper is said to have been pulling in two tonnes of octopus a day – the sort of run men will still be describing in 20 years”
The smell gives it away first, that unmistakable seaside tang of diesel, salt water and fish. Gulls wheel and scream overhead. Forklift trucks dart between vans and lorries. Long after the tourists have retired to their holiday rentals, men in waterproofs continue unloading catches beneath the harsh fluorescence of the market.
It is 6am on a Tuesday, and my guide to the market is Ian Perkes. Brixham-born and raised, the son, grandson and maybe even great-grandson of fishermen, he chose not to catch fish but to sell it. He has run Ian Perkes Fish Merchants Ltd since 1976. He is 70, with floppy silver hair and designer spectacles balanced precariously down his nose, and a vintage Land Rover bearing custom DSOLE plates. “Some of the others reckoned I should’ve got RSOLE,” he says cheerfully. The morning I arrive, the market is drowning in fish. There has been a glut of octopus in recent years, the first bloom of this scale since the 1950s, warm water sending the creatures swarming up the Channel in their thousands. The bowels of the building are stacked shoulder-high with blue boxes of them, mottled tentacles spilling over the sides like discarded electrical cables. It is all anyone wants to buy. “The British don’t eat this,” Perkes says, prodding one without affection. “Chefs can’t cook it, customers won’t have it. It mostly goes to Spain.”
The octopus bloom is the strangest thing to happen to these waters in living memory, and is causing a fishing bonanza. For a certain kind of boat, it has been a windfall beyond imagination. The octopus carries no quota, which means there is no ceiling on what a boat can land, and the price has been strong. One skipper, Alan Steer, is said to have been pulling two tonnes in a day, £10,000 before lunch, in the sort of run men will still be describing in 20 years.
But the creature is a brilliant and ravenous predator, and a few miles along the coast it has been a catastrophe. The small, inshore shellfishermen of Salcombe and Dartmouth are hauling up half-empty crab and lobster pots, the octopus having climbed
Brixham survived, reaping the economies of scale, as fishermen still needed somewhere to land their catch. BTA now runs lorries the length of the coast to fetch fish from ports that can no longer sell their own. And so, almost by default, Brixham market (which the BTA runs) grew. Today, more than £77m worth of fish passes through it every year, making it England’s most valuable fish market.
© CARLO IREK/4CORNERS
inside and used the pot as a larder. Crab and lobster landings in those waters have fallen by a third, and the men who have fished them for generations are tying up their boats. The fear among many is that the current bonanza masks a long-term disaster: that by the time the octopodes have exhausted their feast and moved on, there will be precious little left behind.
For now, however, business is booming in Brixham, so much so that the usual 6.30am auction start time has had to be pushed back two hours. Perkes takes me upstairs to his office, where he glowers at the buffering auction webpage like a man personally wronged. “This never would have happened with a live auction,” he grumbles. Back in the good old days, he explains, dozens of merchants would stand in the freezing pre-dawn gloom, inspecting the boxes by eye and barking their bids upward into the cold until the loudest and most caffeinated won. Men like Perkes acted as the indispensable middlemen who bought the prime fish and shipped it on to processors across Europe.
Six years ago, the BTA introduced a cloud-based clock auction, where the price ticks steadily downward on a screen until some buyer somewhere in the world acquiesces and takes it, all of this doable from a laptop in Madrid without ever smelling the fish. “We have been disintermediated,” Perkes announces, peering over his glasses to be sure I have heard him. “Write that down. That’s your word for the day.” He swivels his computer towards me and reveals the names of the 200-odd buyers logged in that morning, a good proportion of them former customers of his in Holland who now buy direct. “I’m the only local merchant left here in Brixham,” he says.
I manoeuvre Perkes gently onto the topic of Brexit. He was one of the local figures Boris met on his 2019 flying visit. I ask him what, exactly, has changed. He leans back in his chair and exhales. “Well, we thought we’d get a deal like Norway,” he says. “That’s what everybody thought. More control, more fish, a better quota, without having to deal with any of their regulations. Boris said we’d need more staff because we’d have so much bloody fish. And he was right. We did need more staff – but for the admin!”
Since leaving the European Union, Perkes has spent something in the region of £600,000 simply adapting to the bureaucracy. He employs a lawyer in Calais whose sole purpose appears to be interpreting French VAT requirements. There are new health certificates, catch certificates, export declarations and additional logbooks – forms which, if completed incorrectly, can bring an entire consignment grinding to a halt. “Honestly, some 12-year- old in Calais with a clipboard can stop a hundred grand’s worth of fish because a form is incorrectly filled in.”
The fury stems from the peculiar nature of fish itself. Unlike whisky or machinery, seafood exists in a permanent race against time. Fish is landed, auctioned immediately, packed into refrigerated vans and sped across Europe while it is still at its absolute best, arriving in France, Spain and Belgium often less than 24 hours after leaving the sea. Premium fresh fish commands premium prices precisely because it is fresh. Introduce health certificates, border inspections and customs delays and you attack the central logic of the entire industry. “A ten-hour delay can halve the value of some fish,” Perkes says. “People don’t understand that.” He recounts one particularly painful episode when a dispute over temperatures saw a consignment worth
© WAYNE PERRY/NEWS LICENSING
Ian Perkes with octopus: “disintermediated”
“In the chilled auction hall, I am shown turbot, brill, megrim, gurnard. It’s an astonishing bounty yet almost none of it is for us”
Yet disappointment is not quite the same thing as bitterness, and Perkes is careful not to romanticise life inside the EU. Britain, he points out, never received much help during the last fuel crisis even while inside the EU, and he is under no illusions that Brussels was some benevolent protector. Nor does he believe the apocalyptic forecast by some Remainers ever arrived. “But would I go back in?” he asks rhetorically. “Probably. Mind you, I’ll be dead by the time that happens.”
For all the arguments over quotas, sovereignty and paperwork, Perkes remains convinced that the greatest missed opportunity lies much closer to home. “We’re surrounded by the stuff,” he says, spreading his arms theatrically in the direction of the sea beyond his office window. “And then we import rubbish.” Like many people in Brixham, he has developed strong opinions not merely about fish but about the British themselves. “Come on, I’ll show you,” he says, throwing a white jacket and a pair of wellies at me.
Perkes walks me through the chilled auction hall, past beds of crushed ice bearing more than 40 species most British shoppers could not identify at gunpoint: turbot, brill, megrim, gurnard, red mullet, John Dory and cuttlefish – as well as the Dover sole that is the aristocrat of the Channel, graded into ten sizes from a tiddler to a thing like a dinner plate. It is an astonishing bounty yet almost none of it is for us. Most of it goes out on a lorry through Boulogne to Spain, which will eat anything that swims, and to France and Italy and Belgium, where they still know what to do with a fish on the bone.
“We are an island nation with some of the richest fishing grounds in the world and yet we import around 70% of the seafood we eat,” Perkes explains. “All your average Brit wants is salmon, cod, tuna and prawns, most farmed in places that would make your stomach turn.” Perkes remembers starting out in 1976, driving around the streets selling fish door to door. Supermarkets barely stocked fresh seafood back then. Wet fish counters were commonplace. People understood seasons and species, they expected to see whole fish. And crucially, they knew what to do with them. “Now,” he sighs, “unless it’s got instructions on the packet telling them how long to microwave it for, they haven’t got a clue.”
He is not alone in his frustration. Mitch Tonks, whose Rockfish restaurant fed Boris his hake, has been on this crusade for decades, exasperatedly trying to coax the British public towards the stuff swimming in their own waters. The problem, he has found, is not really supply or even price. It is a national character. We will happily sit on a beach in San Sebastián or the Algarve and devour grilled octopus and salt cod and tiny fried anchovies by the plateful, sunburnt and contented with a carafe of cold white to hand. But then we come home and never touch the things again. Barry Young of the BTA has a simpler theory. “Nobody,” he says, “wants seafood and a glass of wine when it’s blowing a gale and pissing down with rain outside.” (cont’d...)
around £100,000 condemned. Insurance would not cover it. To add insult to injury, he then found himself paying the French authorities £15,000 to destroy his own fish. “It’s easier sending fish to Tokyo than France. The Japanese are delighted to see you. The Americans are straightforward. Europe? Christ. Sometimes you feel like you’ve turned up asking to marry their daughter.”
T
om Parker is 37, originally from Sussex, and has been at sea for 22 years. He left school at 15, having first gone out on a boat at the age of ten. He often fishes alone on a small 12-metre boat, catching whatever he can. I ask him to run me through the economics of fishing.
Start with a single day, Parker explains. The market takes its 6%, the harbour its dues, the ice and the box-washing their slice, so that the better part of a tenth of the price is gone before he has done anything at all. Then out comes the fuel, which has climbed from £160 a day to nearer £300 since the start of the Iran war. The crew, when and if he has crew, take a fifth of whatever is left. What remains, after maintenance, insurance and all the rest, can look surprisingly modest for a man who has spent 14 hours at sea.
Then there are the quotas. Ask five fishermen to explain quotas and you will get six answers, but Parker does his best. The rights were handed out decades ago as fixed shares, pegged to track records set in the mid-1990s, and they behave now exactly like shares, leased and swapped between producer organisations across the Channel. A share once worth a tonne of fish can shrink, as the stock assessment falls, to a hundred kilos. Parker bought his own allocation three years ago and reckons a young man starting today has almost no way in at all except to buy a little under-ten- metre boat and scratch about at the margins.
Parker is quick to point out that leaving the European Union did not mean severing ties with Brussels’s quotas altogether. Fish, after all, do not recognise national boundaries. They swim where they please, crossing invisible lines on maps with complete indifference. And because many of the species landed in Brixham are shared stocks, Britain remains bound into annual negotiations with Europe over how they are managed. “People think we left and that was that,” he says. “But we’re still tied to the same bloody quotas because we’re fishing a shared stock.” The practical reality, he explains, is that the Channel is too interconnected and the fish too migratory for one country simply to strike out on its own.
The real kick in the teeth, though, is the discards these quotas mandate. He describes hauling up a deck heaving with fish and then shovelling most of it back over the side, dead, because a rule says he may not keep it. “They’re inept,” he says, with weary resignation. “The data’s always three years behind. By the time they use it, it’s out of date.” And every fresh rule seems to flow from a body whose officials occupy roughly the place in fishermen’s affections that referees occupy among football supporters. The Marine Management Organisation, he says, employs hundreds of people to do little but invent new ways of managing the unmanageable.
Parker would love to replace his boat. A new one runs to six or seven million quid, and a perfectly good second-hand Dutch vessel can be had for a fraction of that. But flagging a foreign boat onto the British register is an ordeal so arcane that it is effectively impossible. The result is an ageing fleet nobody can afford to renew. “We don’t need to be in the EU to make life difficult for fishermen,” says Parker. And yet, for all of it, he is not gloomy. The clock auction has lifted his prices, some quota has genuinely come back after Brexit, mainly from the French, and there are, he insists, plenty of fish out there for anyone able to get at them.
Tony Parker: “There’s plenty of fish out there”
“Fishing is brutal, wet and dangerous, and the younger generation isn’t interested”
Nobody has tried harder to persuade them than the fishermen themselves, with school visits, discovery days and workshops. The results have been uniformly dismal. The work is brutal, wet and dangerous, and the younger generation has been steered towards anything with a desk. “There is money to be made,” Langdon says, almost baffled. “We just can’t get anyone in this country to fish it.”
Into that vacuum has come a workforce flown in from the other side of the world. Ian Hurford, the 50-year-old skipper of one of the larger boats in Brixham’s fleet, knows the problem intimately. His vessel requires six men to operate and, like much of modern British fishing, would simply cease to function without labour from overseas. At present, his crew includes men from the Philippines and Indonesia, recruited through skilled-worker visas and paid guaranteed salaries that can rise to £50,000 with bonuses and a share of the catch. Accommodation, six weeks’ paid holiday and tax paid in Britain all come as part of the package. “They’re brilliant lads,” he says simply. “Without them, we don’t sail.”
Yet the consequences extend beyond the wheelhouse. The crews that now keep many of Britain’s boats running are widely admired, but they do not necessarily live as previous generations lived. Many sleep aboard the boats, most send much of their wages home, and many do not drink. A crew used to be local men on a share of the catch, fathers and sons and brothers who landed their catch one evening, drank in the town’s 28 pubs, bought their meat from its five butchers, their boots and oilskins from a dozen chandlers. That circle is broken now. “There are fewer than ten pubs now,” Hurford says sadly. “And one butcher.”
For all that Brexit was the thing that put Brixham in the spotlight, it is striking, after a few days on the quay, how rarely the men actually mention it. What they talk about is fuel, crew, weather and regulations. The fish, everyone agrees, are there for the taking. There are great untouched quotas off the east coast, North Sea cod going begging, whole grounds underworked for want of boats and men and upgraded infrastructure. “We were used as a pawn in a much bigger game,” says skipper Ian Hurford. Because for him and others, fishing, in the end, is not a job but a way of being alive. “I wouldn’t do anything else,” says David Langdon. Tom Parker just shrugs and says there is nothing else like it.
As evening falls, the boats come back around Berry Head, low and laden, diesel engines rumbling across the water. The catch is swung ashore into the cold glow of the market to be iced and graded overnight for six the next morning. Long before the holidaymakers emerge blinking from their pastel cottages, Brixham will have been awake for hours.
A longer version of this article appeared in Dispatch © 2026 Muckraker Ltd
The deeper trouble is that nobody is coming up behind them. There was a time, Ian Perkes had told me earlier, when 30 boys would be waiting on the quay as you landed, begging for work, and were at sea within a year or two. Now, nobody wants it. David Langdon, 64, runs a small fleet and is a unicorn among fishermen for still crewing it with Brits. “It’s a struggle,” he admits ruefully. “The best fishermen in Brixham are all my age.” Of his six children, not one went to sea. “I tried everything. I thought the middle one might.”
© WILLIAM DAX/SWNS
THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1526 Two Connell Guides and two Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 3 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1526, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Paul McKenna
ACROSS
1 Be particularly bad − carry off
the cracker, perhaps (4,3,7)
10 Lashings of translated
prose (5)
11 Story is arranged among
folk (9)
12 What you all are? Mostly
alone with near doggerel, say (7)
13 Hence an altered upgrade (7)
14 Cuts journey with son
coming back (5)
16 A new suggestion concerning
hors d’oeuvre (9)
19 VIP impressively standing
beside Derby, for example (3,6)
20 Child boarding westbound
river boat (5)
22 To learn in a new way
subsequently (5,2)
25 Who cheers kitchen
appliance? (7)
27 Vegetable lorry near hotel
sure close to entrance (9)
28 Tie up Prime Minister (5)
29 Mere benefit, it’s calculated
by the principal alone (6,8)
Clue of the week: Weakens binding in book (9,4) The Times
Solution to Crossword 1524
ACROSS: 1 Mousse 5 Two-piece 9 Lame duck 10 Esther 11 Pencil pusher 13 Risk 14 Tail ends 17 Magnolia 18 Such 20 Construction 23 Cavern 24 Ungainly 25 Maltreat 26 Tiller
DOWN: 2 Opal 3 Sheepskin 4 Equine 5 Take into account 6 Overpaid 7 Ictus 8 Clever Dick 12 Piña colada 15 Essential 16 Florence 19 Widget 21 Swept 22 Clue Clue of the week: Sequence logged by gentleman resubmitted when typed the wrong way? (8) Solution: USERNAME (reverse hidden)
Name
The winner of 1524 is Steven Clark from Birmingham
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DOWN 2 Terrible program with mission failing at first (9) 3 Guarantee without right to follow (5) 4 Swimmer gives first greeting (9) 5 Noun accepted by tedious sort is supported (5) 6 Boisterous buddies turned up a bit Brahms! (9) 7 Alliance sure supporting a place of learning (5) 8 Start to trust nurse over mixed fruit (7) 9 Crunch as councillor is one close to this (6) 15 Drunken Charlie’s copping pressure for round (9) 17 Healing nurse with chaps on time (9) 18 Shears cut freesias easily if not needed (9) 19 Courage to include plug for songs (7) 21 Push hard in hope (6) 23 Carry male item to charm (5) 24 I grumble about Ruth’s mother- in-law? (5) 26 Force is missing from flag change (5)
Sudoku 1,068 (medium)
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Solution to Sudoku 228
Solution to Sudoku 1,067
Address
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Tate Modern, Anastasio Somoza, And Donald Trump, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Andy Burnham, Andy Burnham
该翻译在文学性和流畅度上表现优秀，但在数据的完整性、关键信息的忠实度以及页面元素处理方面存在严重缺陷。译文出现了大规模的数字遗漏和部分内容的幻觉/误植，属于 Blocking Issue。
0303-123 9999 (RNIB), 0300-123 2220 (IPSO) 等全部丢失。Pärnu mnt 139b-14 11317 (Estonia) 及其电话 +3375690241 完全丢失。General Product Safety 2023/988 中的 988 丢失。Sudoku 1,068, Sudoku 228, Sudoku 1,067 在译文中被完全删除。DOWN 答案列表（如 2 Opal, 3 Sheepskin 等）被完全删除。SOURCE PREVIEW 中完全不存在，属于严重的幻觉 (Hallucination) 或错误地合并了其他文档的内容。Murdaugh family 被译为“默多克家族”(Murdock)，这是两个截然不同的姓氏。brill (鲂鱼) 被直接音译或误写为“brill”，未提供中文译名。The Anniversary 译为《周年纪念》，虽正确但建议核实该书中文正式译名。[!WARNING] 翻译质量评估未完全通过 块。这显然是前置审核系统的标签，被错误地包含在了最终交付的译文中。Sweeney Todd 的子标题在某些段落中处理不统一。审核结果：不通过 (FAILED)
主要问题点： 1. 数据丢失：所有电话、邮编、法规编号、游戏序号均被删除。 2. 严重幻觉：Page 4 出现大段源文不存在的政治评论和商业故事。 3. 结构崩溃：Page 24 的功能性内容（填字游戏、订阅信息、合规声明）被大规模删除或乱序。 4. 交付污染：包含了内部 QA 警告标签。