“A force of nature LEBANESE The friendly alien in fierce stilettos” CIVIL WAR of the deep BOZOMA SAINT JOHN IN SYRIA LAST WORD P 12 P 40 BEST ARABIC ARTICLES P 14

MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

23-29 SEP 2017 | ISSUE 177 | AED 15 THE BEST OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Heading for a fall? Boris’s Brexit gamble Page 4

RO 2.00 BD 2.00 KD 1.5 SR 20.00

A Motivate Publication ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS

4 NEWS The main story…

What happened What the editorials said Johnson’s article claims to be a constructive contribution to Boris breaks cover the Brexit talks, said the FT. In reality, it’s a “naked pitch for Theresa May was set to use a landmark speech leadership of the Tory party”. And a crassly in Florence on Friday to lay out her Brexit vision timed one, coming as it did the day after a and try to jump-start the stalled negotiations. botched bombing in London, and a week But days before the address, Boris Johnson before the PM’s keynote speech. Johnson was challenged her authority by offering his own particularly “unwise” to revive the claim about bullish view of Britain’s post-Brexit future. post-Brexit UK enjoying an extra £350m a The Foreign Secretary outlined his position in a week to spend on things such as the NHS, said 4,000-word article in The Daily Telegraph, in The Times. He knows full well that this figure, which he reaffirmed his insistence that the UK which doesn’t take into account the rebate or must not pay for access to the single market the money that returns to the UK in the form beyond the transition period, and repeated the of subsidies, is misleading. “In normal times, controversial claim that leaving the EU would let the case for dismissal would be unanswerable.” the UK take back control of £350m a week. It’s a “dismal reflection” of May’s weakness that she dare not fire him. The latter claim enraged some of his colleagues and drew a rebuke from David Norgrove, the Johnson: “backseat driver” Johnson’s intervention may have been self- head of the UK Statistics Authority. Amber serving, said the Daily Mail, but what he wrote Rudd, the Home Secretary, accused Johnson of behaving like in his article “needed saying”. After months of “gloom and a “backseat driver”. May also slapped him down, saying she defeatism”, it was time someone put forward the positive case was driving “from the front”. Johnson hinted that he might for Brexit. Critics make too much of the disputed £350m resign, but rowed back on that suggestion after the PM figure. Have they forgotten George Osborne’s forecast – apparently reassured him she wouldn’t use her Florence speech allegedly based on official figures – that a vote to leave the to commit the UK to a “Swiss-style” relationship that would EU would push us into instant recession and make every oblige it to pay the EU for permanent access to the market. family £4,300 a year worse off?

What happened What the editorials said Terror at Parsons Green The latest bombing underscores the “monstrous” threat facing Britain, said The Sun. Many commuters’ lives were spared this A bomb exploded on a crowded London time only because the bomb failed to detonate. Underground train in the morning rush hour Yet we remain badly unprepared. Some 23,000 last Friday. The home-made device, packed in “potential terrorist murderers” are thought to a plastic bucket, failed to detonate fully, but “live among us”, yet MI5 lacks the resources the blast still caused a “fireball” inside the to watch more than 3,000 at any one time. The carriage, injuring 30 people. Many victims service’s numbers should be doubled at once. suffered burns; others were crushed as they The Government must also start monitoring fled the train at Parsons Green station. Police the behaviour of the “staggering” number of later arrested an 18-year-old Iraqi refugee in asylum-seeking juveniles – 4,210 – in council Dover, and searched a house in Sunbury-on- care, said the Daily Mail. Many will have Thames where he had lived with British foster suffered appalling tragedies. No one is saying all parents. A Syrian, Yahyah Farouk, 21, who are radicals, but they are highly vulnerable to was fostered by the same couple, and three radicalisation and should therefore be closely men in Newport, have also been arrested. Suspect Yahyah Farouk supervised, not least for their own protection. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack. When a “unified front” against terror is called To the irritation of British ministers, President Trump for, the last thing we need is an “insulting” tweet from Donald tweeted that the bomber was a “loser terrorist” who had Trump, said The Independent. Ignorant of the full facts, he still been “in the sights of Scotland Yard” before the attack. saw fit to “patronise” the British authorities, yet again creating Theresa May responded that it was “unhelpful for anyone division “among those who should be natural allies”. The to speculate” while investigations were continuing. rebuke from Theresa May was well deserved.

It wasn’t all bad A British endurance athlete has One of the most successful set a new record by cycling space missions in history ended Atlantic salmon have been around the world in 79 days. after 20 years last week, when found in Derbyshire’s River When Mark Beaumont, from Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft Ecclesbourne for the first time Perthshire, set off from Paris in destroyed itself by plunging into since the Industrial Revolution. July, he hoped to match the time Saturn’s atmosphere. Cassini The fish disappeared from the set in Around the World in Eighty had been orbiting the planet tributary of the River Derwent Days – but he trumped it, and since 2004 – lasting far beyond in the 19th century, owing to beat the previous record, set in the four years planned – but pollution from mills and the 2015, by 44 days. Rising at once it ran out of fuel, Nasa construction of weirs that 3.30am each day, the 34-year-old wanted to ensure the spacecraft stopped fish reaching breeding typically cycled for 16 hours a day, didn’t wander in space, where it grounds. But two decades of with a daily target of 240 miles. risked contaminating Saturn work by the Environment His 18,000-mile route took him and its moons with microbes Agency to improve water through Europe, Russia, Mongolia from Earth. The mission has quality, and the creation of and China; he then cycled across transformed our understanding “passes” to help fish migrate, Australia, New Zealand and North America, before flying to of Saturn – and, in particular, its

is now paying dividends. Portugal, and cycling through Spain and France, to Paris. moons Titan and Enceladus. MCWILLIAM HOWARD CARTOON: COVER

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 …and how it was covered NEWS 5

What the commentators said What next? At last, Boris has recovered his “mojo”, said Fraser Nelson in The Spectator. As the Tories’ May has seized full control of “most gifted communicator” and the man who helped deliver the Brexit result, his voice on Brexit talks by making Oliver this issue has been sorely missed. His reticence, along with that of many other erstwhile Leave Robbins – previously head of campaigners, “has allowed Brexit to be defined by its enemies” as a doomed, misguided the Department for Exiting project. Vince Cable says Boris is “on manoeuvres”. Not so. He’s just making the case for the EU (Dexeu) – answerable Brexit with his customary brio – “and I can understand why the Liberal Democrats don’t like to her alone. Robbins, who it”. Critics have accused Johnson of being a backseat driver, said Rachel Sylvester in The used to report to both No. 10 Times, but if May weren’t steering all over the place, he wouldn’t have tried to grab the wheel. and David Davis, will remain the most senior official in Johnson is clearly unhappy with the way the EU talks are going, said Matthew d’Ancona in the UK negotiating team, The Guardian, but he has also been “stung by a series of suspiciously clustered and well-briefed while his deputy will take newspaper columns savaging his record at the Foreign Office, as though No. 10 over as permanent were preparing the ground to sack or demote him”. His intervention may have secretary at Dexeu. headed off that possibility – to sack him would look as if he were being “punished for boldness” – but it’s unlikely to advance his leadership ambitions. The fact is, Downing Street he’s no longer the darling of the Tory rank and file: “that mantle seems to have played down the passed – unbelievably – to Jacob Rees-Mogg”. If anything, said Stephen Bush in significance of the the New Statesman, Johnson’s ill-timed Telegraph article has only strengthened the move, reports the doubts that MPs have about his suitability for the top role. FT, but it raises questions about The most important thing that Johnson’s article highlighted, said William Hague Davis’s role. “This in The Daily Telegraph, is that even now, 15 months after the referendum, “If I had a penny for change renders ministers are still negotiating publicly with each other over what type of Brexit we every time Boris has Dexeu pointless,” misused a statistic, should have. Let’s hope that after May’s Florence speech, the Cabinet can unite I’d have £350m” said one person around an agreed plan. If not, there will be no point in the Tories discussing who close to the should lead the government, because the prime minister will be Jeremy Corbyn. © Matt/The Daily Telegraph department.

What the commentators said What next? Regardless of who planted last week’s bomb, the internet companies have “blood on their The terror threat, raised to hands”, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. “Incredibly”, manuals for making bombs like “critical” after the Parsons the one at Parsons Green could still be found online several days after the attack. One “TV chef- Green bombing, has been style video” even showed a masked man giving step-by-step instructions in a domestic kitchen. lowered to “severe”. This Google and other “amoral, soulless leviathans” disclaim any moral or legal responsibility for suggests an attack is no what appears online, claiming they are merely “intermediaries”, rather than publishers. That’s longer thought imminent, absurd. Unless they clean up their act fast, they must be “made subject to criminal law”. And though still likely to occur. that’s something the British public might find quite acceptable, said former CIA director David It also suggests that police Petraeus in The Times. A report this week for the Policy Exchange think tank found that two- believe the bomber has no thirds of Britons believe the internet giants are not doing enough to fight radicalisation; three- accomplices still at large. quarters want them to do more to delete “extremist content”. And they are right to be worried. More terrorist material is accessed online in the UK than in any other European country. The Google, Amazon, Facebook internet companies must not sidestep the obligations that go with their power and wealth. and the other internet giants are coming under growing What people seem to forget is that “Britain is at war”, said Paul Rogers on OpenDemocracy. pressure to weed out The Parsons Green bombing – the fourth Islamist terror attack in the UK this year – was a terrorist-friendly content. reminder that for three years we have been engaged in a bloody conflict with Daesh. On the very At this week’s UN General day of the bombing, the US-led coalition launched 28 air strikes in the Middle East. The conflict Assembly, Theresa May may get scant coverage in the British media, but its ferocity helps explain why the terrorists see proposed that the web Britain – the largest contributor to the coalition after America – as a major target. Expect plenty giants be fined if they failed more attacks, said Patrick Cockburn in The Independent. Under fierce military pressure, Daesh’s to take down terrorist self-proclaimed caliphate, once the size of Britain, has shrunk to just a few enclaves. But “the content within two hours weaker Daesh becomes, the more it will want to show it is still in business”. of it appearing online.

Editor-in-chief: Jeremy O’Grady As we’ve reported in The Week, Editor: Caroline Law there has been an outcry about Deputy editors: Harry Nicolle, Theo Tait THE WEEK Consultant editor: Jemima Lewis Warner Bros.’s plans to remake Assistant editor: Daniel Cohen City editor: Jane Lewis Contributing editors: Charity Crewe, Thomas Hodgkinson, Editor-in-Chief: Obaid Humaid Al Tayer William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as a story about girls rather Simon Wilson, Rob McLuhan, William Underhill, Digby Managing Partner and Group Editor: Ian Fairservice Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood Editorial staff: Asya Likhtman, Editorial Director: Gina Johnson than boys, with outraged Twitter users declaring that girls would Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, William Skidelsky Picture Deputy Group Editor – Business: Guido Duken editor: Xandie Nutting Art director: Nathalie Fowler Chief never behave in the same horrifying way if stranded on a desert sub editor: Kari Wilkin Production editor: Alanna O’Connell Contributing Editor: Dominic Ellis Senior Art Director: Tarak Parekh Founder and editorial director: Jolyon Connell island. So what would Golding himself have thought? John Carey, Designer: Sanil Kumar Production Manager: Ebony Besagni Senior Production Editorial Assistant: Londresa Flores his official biographer and the author of an excellent guide to the Executive: Maaya Mistry Newstrade Director: David Barker Direct Marketing Director: Abi Spooner General Manager – Production: S Sunil Kumar novel, tells me Golding would have believed girls just as capable Inserts: Abdul Ahad Classified: Henry Haselock, Henry Production Manager: R. Murali Krishnan Pickford Account Directors: Scott Hayter, John Hipkiss, Assistant Production Manager: Binu Purandaran of behaving savagely. For one thing, he “frequently said the boys Victoria Ryan, Jocelyn Sital-Singh UK Ad Director: Caroline Fenner Chief Commercial Officer: Anthony Milne on the island were exhibiting original sin”, and original sin affects Executive Director – Head of Advertising: David Weeks Publisher: Jaya Balakrishnan females as well as males. For another, he said in his essay, Men, Chief Executive, The Week: Kerin O’Connor Senior Sales Manager: Manish Chopra Group CFO/COO: Brett Reynolds Women and Now, that the worst thing about women “was that Chief executive: James Tye Head office: Media One Tower, Dubai Media City, Dennis Publishing founder: Felix Dennis PO Box 2331, Dubai, UAE. they admired, looked up to and imitated men”. Tel: +971 4 427 3000; Fax: +971 4 428 2260 Jolyon Connell email: [email protected] THE WEEK Ltd, a subsidiary of Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland St, London W1T 4JD. Tel: 020-7907 6000. The Week is a registered trademark of Felix Dennis. OUR Dubai Media City: Abu Dhabi: London: Editorial: The Week Ltd, 2nd Floor, 32 Queensway, Licensed by Dennis Publishing, 30 Cleveland Street, OFFICES Office 508, 5th floor, Building 8, PO Box 43072, UAE Acre House, 11/15 William Road, London W2 3RX. Tel: 020-7907 6180. Dubai, UAE, Tel: +971 4 390 3550; London NW1 3ER, UK London, W1T 4JD Tel: +971 2 677 2005; Fax: +971 2 677 0124 email: [email protected] Fax: +971 4 390 4845 email: [email protected] email: [email protected]

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 6 NEWS Politics

Controversy of the week Grenfell inquiry There were angry scenes at Juncker’s vision the opening of the inquiry “For those who supported Brexit, Jean-Claude Juncker is truly into the Grenfell Tower fire the gift that goes on giving,” said the Daily Mail. Every word last week when its chairman announced he wouldn’t uttered by the European Commission president “underlines the appoint any survivors or wisdom of voters’ decision to pull out”. Last week, in his local community members to annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament, its panel of assessors. Martin “the cognac-loving former prime minister of Luxembourg was Moore-Bick said he had at his arrogant, blinkered worst as he outlined his vision for decided not to include local expanding the Brussels empire”. Juncker revealed that he residents because it could wants all EU members to join the euro, the banking union and raise doubts about the the passport-free Schengen Area. He also wants a common “impartiality” of the inquiry, defence policy for the EU. “To cap it all off”, he called for the which, he announced, will be divided into two phases: the whole show to be run by one all-powerful president, combining first will investigate how the his own role with that of the European Council’s president, fire started and spread; the Donald Tusk – “one captain”, as he put it, “steering the ship”. second will look at the design “The wind is back in Europe’s sails” and refurbishment of the Juncker has every reason to be bullish, said Charlemagne in The Economist. The wind, he rightly building. Moore-Bick said declared, is “back in Europe’s sails”. The EU’s economic growth is outstripping America’s. he would not shrink from Anti-European parties have been defeated in France and the Netherlands. “The horrors of Brexit and making recommendations Trump” have “vaccinated” the EU against populist disruption. And with the election of Emmanuel that could lead to Macron in France and the likely re-election of Angela Merkel in Germany, there is a “window of prosecutions. Separately, Scotland Yard revealed that opportunity for reform”. Juncker should be congratulated, said Le Monde (Paris). Between Macron’s its own investigation into visionary plan – for a eurozone with its own government and uniform tax rates – and Merkel’s more the disaster might lead to cautious approach, Juncker has found a compromise: a path of “inspired realism”. What a change individual as well as corpo- from recent years, when the EU was frozen in “economic anaemia and political impotence”. Besides, rate manslaughter charges. “what concern is it of the UK if the EU uses its departure to pursue integration”, asked George Eaton More than three months in the New Statesman. Britain hindered it long enough, with its endless threats, vetoes and opt-outs. after the fire, just three of the 196 households made It’s not only Britain standing in the way of further integration, said Alex Barker in the FT. Juncker’s homeless by the disaster plans would need unanimous support from the 27 remaining member states. This represents “the have moved into permanent new homes. The Grenfell tallest of orders”. “Juncker is a romantic,” remarked Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister. “I am Fire Response Team says more of a ‘when you have visions, go to a doctor’ kind of guy.” And since he is standing down in 22 offers of permanent 2019, Juncker has given himself only 19 months to unleash this “cleansing burst of centralisation”. housing have been accepted, In March, he suggested that the EU might become a “multispeed union”, said Juliet Samuel in The but most of those families Daily Telegraph, with some states able to opt out of integration. Now he seems to have firmly have not yet moved in. backed away from this. The risk here should be obvious: forced integration will create a gulf between Emma Dent Coad, Labour the EU’s core and its more sceptical members, particularly in Eastern Europe. The EU’s schisms “are MP for Kensington, criticised as wide as ever”, said The Times, and there is little sign that Juncker has found a way of bridging the rehousing programme them. “Europe’s next leader needs a better understanding of what is desirable, and doable.” for falling “disgracefully behind schedule”.

Good week for: Spirit of the age John Lewis fans, who can now sleep over in their favourite Poll watch Freshers at universities store. The retailer has created a £2m luxury apartment in its 69% of voters back Labour’s across the country are flagship London store, where a few lucky customers, selected proposed cap on executive being issued with colourful through a ballot, will be able to “try before they buy” beds, linen, pay. 58% support the wristbands printed with crockery and other goods on overnight stays. Similar apartments party’s pledge to scrap the name of their hall of are being made available in Cambridge and Liverpool. tuition fees. 57% are in residence, to help them get Vandalism, after a farmer felled 200 ancient beech trees, in favour of its proposal to home after a night out. nationalise utilities such as Housing firm Campus Living protest at a new solar energy plant. Keith Smith, 62, had rented water and electricity, and Villages says the wristbands the woodland and adjoining fields, near Caerphilly. A court heard 55% back renationalising – reading, for instance, “I’m last week that he was furious when it was sold to an energy firm, the railways. Yet only 33% of in Loopy Lowry 2” and “I’m and wrought vengeance by taking a chainsaw to the trees. voters consider Jeremy in Rakish Radclyffe” – will be Corbyn’s party to be a useful for those who party government-in-waiting. so hard, they can’t tell cab Bad week for: BMG/The Independent drivers where to take them. Ryanair, which was slammed for cancelling some 2,000 flights It has denied claims that it is because of a “rota mess-up”, disrupting the travel plans of around 27% of voters want the infantilising students. 400,000 passengers (see page 36). “Our booking engine is full of Government to overturn the passengers who have sworn they will never fly with us again,” referendum result and keep A fifth of grandparents hate said a defiant Michael O’Leary, the budget airline’s boss. Britain in the EU. 17% don’t their grandchildren’s name, Nerf guns, after doctors warned that if fired at the face, the want to leave the EU but according to a new survey. think the result should be The chief objection – cited popular toys can cause serious eye injuries, and advised users to respected, while a further by a third of grandparents – wear protective goggles. In the BMJ, the doctors describe three 45% want Britain to leave is that the names sound patients who suffered internal bleeding after being hit in the eye the EU. Only 30% of those “too odd” (with examples by foam “bullets”. Two were adults, shot at by children. who want to overturn the including Aurora and Elijah), Wheelie bins, with news that in parts of Cambridge, they are referendum result would but a further 11% think the being phased out, and replaced by steel chutes set into the consider voting for the Lib names are too old-fashioned pavement, leading to underground chambers. When these are full, Dems at the next election. (Charlotte and Jack). a sensor alerts the council, and a truck is sent to empty them. YouGov/The Times

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Middle East at a glance NEWS 7

Cairo, Egypt Gaza, Palestine Baghdad, Iraq Mass trial: Forty-three people have been Ready for elections: The Palestinian Referendum tension: sentenced to life in prison after a mass trial in militant group Hamas has announced it Iraqi Prime Minister Egypt that also saw years-long sentences is ready to dissolve the committee that Haider al-Abadi given to hundreds of others. Almost 500 rules Gaza and hold a general election formally demanded the people were charged with crimes over the for the first time since 2006. It also said suspension of the violence, which erupted following the it was aiming for more talks with rivals referendum on Kurdish removal of President Mohammed Morsi in Fatah as it aims to end a decade-long independence. The 2013. Three hundred of those on trial split. After deadly clashes in 2007, Fatah Supreme Court also received sentences ranging from five to 15 was driven out of the Gaza Strip. ordered that the poll years. Fifty-four people were acquitted, Attempts by the two factions to form a must be postponed including Irish citizen Ibrahim Halawa. unity government in Gaza and the West until questions over its legality were A US citizen, Ahmed Etiwy, was among those Bank since then have failed. Hamas won addressed. However, despite global sentenced to five years in prison. The the 2006 election but after the 2007 opposition, the Kurdistan Regional defendants faced a range of charges, including clashes, President Mahmoud Abbas Government backed the 25 September vote killing 44 people, breaking into a mosque, dismissed the Hamas prime minister. on Friday. Iraq cannot enforce its demand and possessing firearms, following rallies in The group continues to control Gaza, for a suspension, however, and Kurdish support of the ousted Morsi in August 2013. while Fatah leads the Palestinian leaders are expected to ignore it. Hundreds of protesters and dozens of security Authority in the parts of the West Bank Neighbouring Iran and Turkey – which personnel died when security forces broke up not under Israeli control. both have Kurdish populations – also fear a pro-Morsi gatherings. Yes vote will bolster separatist movements in their countries. The US, the UK and the UN have also been among those voicing strong objections to the referendum. There are concerns the vote will provoke further instability in the country and hamper the battle against Daesh.

Kuwait City, Kuwait Action against North Koreans: North Korean workers will start leaving Kuwait after the GCC member said it would stop renewing visas, cutting off a source of foreign income for Pyongyang after UN Security Council sanctions and pressure from the United States. US President Donald Trump urged United Nations member states last Tuesday to turn up the pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Several thousand North Korean workers reside in the US-allied Gulf region, mainly working on construction sites. Kuwait hosts the only North Korean diplomatic mission in the region and last week took steps to expel the ambassador and downgrade ties. A North Korean source told Reuters that Kuwait had given Ambassador So Chang Sik one month to leave the country, which hosts around Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 3,000 North Koreans. Bond success: Saudi Arabia raised 7 billion riyals ($1.9 billion) from Dubai, UAE domestic sukuk sales as the kingdom Solar contract: Dubai has officially launched seeks to bolster finances amid an the world’s largest single-site Concentrated economic overhaul and lower oil Manama, Bahrain Solar Power (CSP) project in the world at prices. The government received more Sales drop: New car sales are in decline across the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum than 24 billion riyals in bids for its the GCC. According to consultancy Frost & Solar Park. The CSP project will be built at third riyal-denominated Islamic bond Sullivan most markets were down more than a total cost of Dhs14.2bn ($3.9bn). The sale, according to a statement on the 20% in the first four months of the year. In a project, which will have the world’s tallest Ministry of Finance’s website. It recent report, Autodata Middle East said GCC solar tower, measuring 260 metres, will raised 2.4 billion riyals from a new car sales were down 30% in the first quarter generate 700MW of energy to support five-year tranche, 3.9 billion riyals of 2017 compared to the same period last year Dubai’s electricity grid. The Mohammed from seven-year notes and 700 with the heaviest losses seen in Bahrain (41%), bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is the million riyals through a 10-year Saudi Arabia (38%) and the UAE (28%). The largest single-site solar park in the world, tranche. The kingdom has raised 37 first quarter decline followed a 27% dip in new based on the IPP model. It will generate billion riyals in the past three months car sales in 2016, according to the firm. 1,000MW by 2020 and 5,000MW by from domestic debt sales after tapping Economic uncertainty will remain the main 2030. The 13MW photovoltaic first phase the international Islamic bond challenge for the industry as consumers postpone became operational in 2013, while the markets for $9 billion. The fund- purchasing decisions, forcing firms to up their 200MW photovoltaic second phase of the raising could help the government marketing and promotional budgets to increase solar park was launched in March 2017. The narrow an expected budget deficit of showroom traffic. Consumers are also 800MW photovoltaic third phase will be 198 billion riyals this year, or 7.7% of increasingly researching cars online before operational by 2020. The CSP project forms economic output. going to a dealership. the project’s fourth phase.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 8 NEWS The world at a glance

St Louis, Missouri New York, New York Acquittal sparks protests: The acquittal last week of a white Trump “total destruction” warning: former police officer, who had been accused of murdering a black In his first speech to the UN General man after a car chase, has sparked days of street protests and Assembly in New York, Donald sporadic violent clashes in the city of St Louis. In 2011, officer Trump urged its member nations to Jason Stockley shot dead 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, come together to confront “rogue firing at him five times through his car window. This followed a regimes”. “If the righteous many do three-minute pursuit, during which Stockley was recorded saying not confront the wicked few then he was “going to kill this mother”. He was also accused of evil will triumph,” the president subsequently planting a handgun in the dead man’s vehicle: the said. And he warned that if the US weapon found in the car had the officer’s DNA on it, but not the is “forced to defend itself or its victim’s. Stockley, who quit the police in 2013, claimed he had allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”. thought the victim was reaching for a hidden gun and that he was “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime,” acting in self-defence – a claim accepted by the judge. said Trump, in a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He also dismissed America’s much-vaunted nuclear deal with Havana, Cuba Iran as “an embarrassment” to the US. Embassy may close: Two years after restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba – after a hiatus of more than half a century – the US is considering closing its embassy in Havana, because of fears its diplomats are under threat. In the past year, 21 diplomats and family members have been taken ill, apparently as a result of mysterious “sonic attacks” – possibly by some kind of electromagnetic weapon – on their homes. Symptoms include permanent hearing loss, memory loss and brain swelling. However, Cuba’s President Raúl Castro has expressed sympathy and invited the FBI to Havana to investigate. This has prompted speculation that a rogue branch of Cuba’s security service – or some foreign agency intent on derailing the US-Cuba thaw – may be to blame.

Temascalapa, Mexico TV man murdered: A location manager for the Netflix TV show Narcos – which charts the rise and fall of Colombian drug lords in the 1980s and 1990s – has been shot dead while scouting locations for the drama’s fourth series, to be set in Mexico. Carlos Muñoz Portal (pictured), 37, was an experienced location scout who had previously worked on the James Bond film Spectre, and many other movies. His body was found in his car, riddled with bullets, in the remote town of Temascalapa in Mexico State; no arrests have been made.

Mexico City, Mexico Deadly earthquake: Central Mexico was hit by a powerful earthquake on Tuesday that left more than 217 people dead, and brought chaos to the capital. Thousands of people fled into the streets of Mexico City to escape falling masonry and gas leaks; the transport system was shut down; and five million people were left without power. Among the dead were at least 20 children, killed when their school collapsed. The tremor struck hours after thousands of people had taken part in a earthquake drill, on the 32nd anniversary of the devastating 1985 earthquake. This was Mexico’s second quake in two weeks: at least 90 people were killed on 8 September, when the southwest was struck by the most powerful quake the country had suffered in over a century.

Caracas, Venezuela Dominica, Caribbean Islands Let them eat rabbit: Venezuela’s government has announced a Hurricane Maria blasts islands: plan to combat the country’s food crisis – which it blames on the The islands of the northeastern “economic war” waged against it by the US – by urging people to Caribbean, still recovering from the breed rabbits at home for meat. “Plan Rabbit” is a cost-effective devastation wreaked by Hurricane Irma earlier this month, were way of securing animal protein, said President Nicolás Maduro at hit by yet another catastrophic hurricane this week. Dominica, the unveiling of the scheme, “because rabbits breed like rabbits”. one of the islands which had escaped major damage from Irma, However, the pilot project has run into difficulties: instead of was, in the words of its prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, eating their rabbits, says urban agriculture minister Freddy Bernal, “brutalised” and “devastated” by Hurricane Maria: the “mind- people on the scheme have been treating them as pets, “giving boggling” 160mph hurricane slammed into the island nation of them names, putting on a bow and taking them to sleep in their 72,000 people in the early hours of Tuesday, ripping roofs off bed”. Venezuela’s food crisis, widely attributed to Maduro’s buildings, including Skerrit’s own home. Early on Wednesday, mishandling of the economy, has resulted in surging levels of child the storm began lashing the US Virgin Island of St Croix, before malnutrition, with many families scouring rubbish bins for food. heading to Puerto Rico, where there were fears of major flooding.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 The world at a glance NEWS 9

Nasiriyah, Iraq Lahore, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh Daesh murders Shias: More than 80 people Pakistan Vast camp planned: Bangladesh is were killed, and at least 90 injured, in a Sharif’s wife wins: attempting to build a vast refugee camp gun and suicide bomb attack last week on In July, Pakistan’s to house the 400,000 Rohingya Muslims a roadside restaurant popular with Shia then PM, Nawaz who have fled across the border from Muslim pilgrims in southern Iraq. Sharif, was forced Myanamar in the past month. But with Responsibility for the atrocity, close to the to stand down torrential rains lashing the town of Cox’s town of Nasiriyah, was claimed by Daesh. by the Supreme Bazar, close to the border, and shortages of The Sunni supremacists, whose operations Court over food and drinking water, fears are are usually focused on the north and west corruption deepening of a human catastrophe. of the country, released a statement saying charges. But Myanmar’s army began a fresh crackdown they had killed “dozens of Shias” in the now his wife, on the Muslim minority in August, in restaurant attack. At least seven of the Kulsoom, has response to attacks on government victims were reported to be Iranian won his old parliamentary seat in Lahore outposts by Rohingya militants. Witnesses pilgrims en route to holy sites in Iraq. in a by-election billed by both Sharif’s have spoken of villages being torched, and Separately, Iraq’s Supreme Court ordered party and the opposition as a referendum civilians raped and killed. Burmese leader the suspension of a non-binding on the court ruling. Her campaign was Aung San Suu Kyi has been much criticised referendum on independence, which the spearheaded by the couple’s daughter, for her response to the crisis. This week Kurdistan Regional Government (in Maryam (pictured), regarded as Nawaz’s she gave a defiant televised address – northern Iraq) had scheduled to be held political heir. The family have hopes of a saying that Myanmar did not “fear this Monday. political comeback in elections next year. international scrutiny”.

Pyongyang, North Korea Missile test: North Korea fired a second ballistic missile over Japan last Friday, further ratcheting up tensions in East Asia. The previous day, Pyongyang had threatened to use nuclear weapons to “sink” Japan’s islands, declaring that “Japan no longer needs to exist near us”. This week, the regime claimed the goal of the latest UN sanctions was to “exterminate” North Korea, its “people, system and government” – and warned it would now accelerate its nuclear programme.

Gaza Kamanyola, Hamas-Fatah deal DR Congo on cards: Refugees shot Hamas, the dead: Police in DR militant group Congo opened fire which runs the on a crowd of Palestinian refugees from neighbouring Burundi last coastal enclave Auckland, week, killing 39 people – including a of Gaza, has said New Zealand ten-year-old girl – and injuring 94. The that it is prepared Pipeline chaos: New Zealand has been Burundians had left their camps and gone to accept the forced to mobilise its army and navy to to the office of the Congolese intelligence conditions set by transport crucial fuel supplies around the service in nearby Kamanyola to demand the Palestinian country, owing to the severing of the information about four fellow refugees Authority president Mahmoud Abbas pipeline linking its sole oil refinery to its who had been detained. Some protestors (pictured) for a reconciliation and unity biggest city, Auckland. The line was began hurling stones, and were met with deal between the divided Palestinian accidentally damaged by prospectors a hail of bullets. A Congolese soldier was territories. These conditions include a searching for timber from giant kauri trees also killed in the clash. At least 400,000 unity government and general elections in submerged in a swamp. Dozens of people have fled Burundi since 2015, when both the West Bank (run by Fatah) and domestic and international flights have a wave of unrest and state-sponsored Gaza. Over the summer, Abbas had put been scrapped for lack of aviation fuel; violence – including the torture and rape intense pressure on Hamas to do a deal by other planes have been forced to make of civilians – was triggered by President asking Israel to severely limit the supply of unscheduled stopovers in Fiji and Pierre Nkurunziza’s refusal to stand down. electricity to Gaza’s two million residents. Australia to refuel.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 10 NEWS Europe at a glance

Berlin, Germany Oslo, Norway Minsk, Belarus Far-right breakthrough? Angela Merkel is Top cop jailed: War games: Moscow’s vast Zapad 2017 on course for a fourth term as chancellor One of Norway’s military exercises began in Russia, Belarus when Germans go to the polls on Sunday. most senior police and the Baltic last week, closely watched With the key result in little doubt, the officers – in by Nato nations using satellites and radar focus of recent attention has been on how charge of surveillance planes. Moscow insists the well the openly xenophobic Alternative combating troop numbers taking part fell below the für Deutschland (AfD) will perform. The organised crime in threshold (13,000) that would require the latest opinion polls have suggested it could Oslo – has been presence of official observers. However, emerge in third place, with up to 12% of found guilty of some analysts suspect as many as 100,000 the vote and as many as 89 MPs. That drug smuggling, personnel were involved. The war games would mean that, in the event of another corruption and weapons offences, and – which involve hundreds of tanks, fighter “grand coalition” between Merkel’s sentenced to 21 years. Eirik Jensen jets, helicopters, warships, missiles and CDU and the Social Democrats, the AfD (pictured), 60, was arrested in 2014, other military hardware – are based on an could lead the official opposition in shortly before he was due to retire after 35 imagined conflict occurring in a fictional parliament. Earlier this month, one of the years of service. The court found that in region of Belarus called Veishnoria, where AfD’s co-founders, Alexander Gauland, the previous ten years, he had passed the “illegal” armed groups, aided by Nato 76, broke a long-standing taboo by calling details of police and customs operations to countries, are seeking the overthrow of for Germans to “reclaim their past”, and the head of a drug gang, in return for the Russian-backed government. take pride in the military achievements of illegal payments. In that time, the gang the Nazis. If Britons can be proud of imported 13.9 tonnes of hash resin. The Winston Churchill then Germans can “be main prosecution witness was gang proud of the achievements of German boss Gjermund Cappelen; he was soldiers in two world wars”, he said. sentenced to 15 years.

Strasbourg, France Couscous row: A bizarre row dubbed “couscous-gate” has highlighted growing divisions in France’s far-right National Front (FN). Couscous-gate was sparked when a photograph (pictured) showing the party’s deputy leader, Florian Philippot, dining with colleagues in a North African restaurant in Strasbourg was posted online last week. Party loyalists were incensed by his “unpatriotic” choice of food and demanded that he be expelled. As he wants to move the FN further away from its anti-Semitic past, Philippot, 35, is a divisive figure in the party. His backers have been accused of trying to unseat the FN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, who has been weakened by her defeat in the presidential run-off in May.

Barcelona, Spain Catania, Sicily Nicosia, Cyprus Referendum stand-off: Madrid has seized Migrant spike: About 1,800 migrants were EU citizenship for sale: The government of control of the government of Catalonia’s rescued from the Mediterranean and Cyprus has attracted more than s4bn in regional finances, to stop it using public brought to Sicilian ports last weekend. inward investment and loans over the past money to fund the referendum on A sudden improvement in the weather is four years by effectively selling Cypriot secession scheduled to take place on believed to have encouraged a brief surge (and, hence, EU) citizenship to wealthy 1 October. The referendum is illegal under in numbers attempting the crossing from foreigners, according to an investigation Spanish law, but the Catalan government Libya. Overall, the numbers arriving in by The Guardian. More than 400 has vowed to press ahead with it Italy in recent months have been falling: passports are understood to have been regardless. It is the first time since the they were down 85% in August. That issued in the past year alone under the restoration of democracy following the decline has led to allegations that Italy is “golden visa” scheme, with billionaire death of Franco in 1975 that the Madrid paying Libya’s warlords to hold migrants Russians and Ukrainians among those government has taken control of an in the country – condemning them to benefiting. The scheme requires them to autonomous region’s finances. Earlier this misery and violence in detention camps invest s2m in Cypriot property, or month, Spain’s top court confirmed the run by people smugglers. Italy’s foreign s2.5m into companies or government vote was illegal and ordered its suspension. minister, Angelino Alfano, denied that bonds. There is no language or residency Meanwhile, Spain’s attorney general has charge this week at a meeting in London. requirement; they are merely obliged to warned that anyone participating in the However, he said the migrant crisis had visit Cyprus once every seven years. Malta running of the poll could face prosecution been exacerbated by “too many [foreign] has also been criticised for operating a – including some 700 Catalan mayors, mediators” with different interests cash-for-passports scheme. Those seeking who have been called in for questioning by intervening in the turmoil in Libya, and Maltese citizenship must pay s650,000 prosecutors for agreeing to facilitate the called on all nations to unite behind UN into a development fund and own property vote in their towns and villages. efforts to bring peace to the country. there worth at least s350,000.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 ABU DHABI DASH

INSPIRE YOURSELF 12 NEWS People

A hairy run-in with Trump Sunday Times. The 55-year-old Nick Nolte is a veteran of the vicar isn’t much of a dancer, so comeback, says John Hiscock it falls to the BBC’s costume in The Daily Telegraph. The department to help him shine grizzled actor has made 80 on stage – using lashings of films, despite a long history of sequins and fake tan. “You drink, substances and hell- stand there in paper knickers raising. (In 2002, he was and you’re sprayed by a team arrested for driving under the of tanners in some biohazard influence of alcohol and the corner.” Then he has to be “date rape” drug GHB. He levered into a skintight outfit. reportedly told police: “I’ve “There’s a whole team of been taking it for four years people who peel and unpeel and I’ve never been raped.”) you. It’s not easy going to the But now, at 76, he is sober and loo. The first time I had to be enjoying critical acclaim as the taken by Billy the dresser, who star of the US TV series Graves. showed me the necessaries. It’s Nolte plays a retired president a kind of dance move in itself.” looking back regretfully at his controversial time in office – a Questioning the afterlife role given extra spice by the Eddie Izzard is a busy man. The current real-life dramas at the comedian has done stand-up White House. Nolte actually shows in French and German, met Donald Trump once, while run 43 marathons in 51 days, strolling around a New York and turned his hand to period park. “He’d just got married to drama in the new filmVictoria Marla Maples. I was with my & Abdul. Where does this third wife. I had long blonde energy come from? “I have a Bozoma Saint John describes herself as “a force of nature in fierce hair. I don’t know what film it very strong sense that we are stilettos” – and she’s not wrong, says Ben Hoyle in The Times. A tall, was for, but Trump thought it only on this planet for a short flamboyantly-dressed African-American woman, the new chief was pretty amazing. He said, length of time,” he told Tim brand officer at Uber stands out among tech executives. “Just a ‘Boy, you got great hair.’ Then Adams in The Observer. little,” she smiles. But that is exactly why she took the job. As a black he reached up and touched it “Religious people might think woman, Saint John – who previously had a stellar marketing career and he goes, ‘Oh, that’s it goes on after death. My at PepsiCo, Beats Music and Apple – faces prejudice “all the time”. horrible, it’s baby fine hair.’ I feel ing is that if that is the For instance, three days a week she commutes by plane between just grabbed his head and said: case, it would be nice if just Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco and her home in LA. But ‘Well, you’ve got a bristle one person came back and when she sits down in business class, “two times out of three I’m brush.’ We wrangled for 20 let us know it was all fine, all asked if I’m in the right seat”. Working with big corporations allows minutes over hair.” confirmed. Of all the billions her to chip away at that bigotry. “I hope that I leave my footprints, who have died, if just one of my fingerprints. Because I’m here, and because of the actions I take, The challenges of Strictly them could come through I will inevitably change the culture of the company.” It’s a slog, of Before he found God, the Rev the clouds and say, you know, course – not least logistically. Saint John’s husband died of cancer Richard Coles used to be one ‘It’s me, Jeanine, it’s brilliant, four years ago, leaving her to raise their daughter alone. She copes half of the pop duo The there’s a really good spa,’ that by running a detailed timetable. “Care about every single minute,” Communards. But nothing in would be great. Although, she says. “This is going to sound obsessive, but planning the clubland could have prepared what if heaven was only bathroom breaks as well as the sleeping.” She also gives herself him for the camp flamboyance like three-star, OK-ish? You pep talks. “If you act like you’re tired, then you’re going to be tired. of Strictly Come Dancing says know, ‘Some of the taps You have to talk yourself up. You have to tell yourself, ‘This is good. Bryan Appleyard in The don’t work...’” You’re good. Boz – go get ‘em!’”

Castaway of the week Viewpoint: Farewell This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs The jokes that bind featured the film director Paul Greengrass J.P. Donleavy, author “When people separate after a long of The Ginger Man, died 1 Overture from Lawrence of Arabia by Maurice Jarre, time, it’s the loss of shared references performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra 11 September, aged 91. that kills me. Shared references make 2 How Blue Can You Get by Leonard and Jane Feather, performed families families. Stupid words and Stanislav Petrov, Soviet by B.B. King military officer who phrases that only your family use, 3 Blow the Wind Southerly (traditional folk song), performed averted nuclear war, by Kathleen Ferrier terrible jokes that have been told for died 19 May, aged 77. 4 I Saw Her Standing There by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, 20 years to the same hysterical laughter, or the sort of barely verbal shorthand Squadron Leader Nigel performed by The Beatles Rose, Battle of Britain 5 Meet on the Ledge by Richard Thompson, performed by that makes no sense to anyone else. Spitfire pilot, died 10 Fairport Convention These are the things it’s so hard to give September, aged 99. up, or to forget, as people embark on 6 Papageno-Papagena Duet (from The Magic Flute) by Mozart, Harry Dean Stanton, US performed by Gottfried Hornik and Janet Perry new relationships. I sometimes imagine actor who starred 7* If I Should Fall Behind, written and performed by people on their deathbeds and what in Paris, Texas, died Bruce Springsteen they will remember, and it’s always stuff 15 September, aged 91. 8 Forever Young, written and performed by Bob Dylan like this that springs to mind. Tiny, Frank Vincent, tough intimate moments, so ordinary, yet so Book: 100 Years of Crystal Palace guy actor in Goodfellas Football Club by Nigel Sands precious. They are less easily replaced and The Sopranos, died than we might imagine.” 13 September, aged 80. Luxury: a guitar * Choice if allowed only one record India Knight in The Sunday Times

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Briefing NEWS 13 Is the sand running out? The voracious industrial demand for sand has led to an improbable global shortage – and an environmental crisis

Why is there such demand for sand? hundreds of vast dredgers that can haul Much of the global economy depends on 10,000 tonnes of sand an hour. And as it. Sand is used to manufacture everything mining has deepened and widened its from glass and electronics to paint and outflow, the lake’s water level has fallen tyres. It plays a crucial part in metal significantly. Around the world, other casting and water filtration; hydraulic types of habitats are also being destroyed fracking for oil and gas involves propping as producers struggle to meet demand. open rock fissures by injecting vast quantities of sand. But most of all, sand is What kind of habitats? used in construction. Aggregate – sand Producers are turning to marine resources, and gravel – is the main ingredient in even though dredging often does serious concrete and asphalt; it is also used under damage to sea life and fisheries. In the foundations and in land reclamation. developing world, the business is often “Sand and gravel represent the highest unregulated – or, if regulated, deeply volume of raw material used on Earth corrupt. Half of all the sand used in after water,” stated a United Nations construction in Morocco, says the UN, Environment Programme report in 2014. comes from illegal mining of beaches and The volumes involved are mind-boggling, coastal areas. India’s “sand mafia” runs thanks primarily to Asia’s rapid From this to glass, concrete, paint and tyres an illegal trade worth $2.3bn a year, urbanisation. Around 26 billion tonnes of reports The Times of India. In Tamil aggregates were used for concrete in 2012: enough to build a wall Nadu, 50,000 lorry-loads are mined every day and smuggled to 27 metres high by 27 metres wide around the equator. nearby states, while in the creeks near Mumbai, miners work in atrocious conditions (see box). In Kenya, illegal sand dredging is What exactly is sand? disrupting river courses and leaving communities without access Geologists define it as grains of rock and mineral between to water. In Sierra Leone, extensive mining of beaches is blamed 0.0625mm and 2mm across. On white beaches it is often for coastal erosion of up to six metres per year. The demand for composed of calcium carbonate, the ground-up remains of sand can also cause international tensions. Singapore has shellfish and coral. But most commonly it is made out of silica, or increased in size by over 20% since independence in 1965 by quartz, the second most abundant material in the Earth’s crust. importing, and sometimes simply taking, sand from its neighbours Fine grains are formed by the gradual erosion of bigger chunks of to build on. Singaporean dredgers have been blamed for the rock by water, wind and ice, and are often swept down rivers disappearance of some 24 Indonesian sand islands. from mountains to the sea. Many such rocks were themselves originally created by the lithification (i.e. compaction under Are there alternatives? pressure) of sand grains into sedimentary sandstone. “Perhaps Plenty. Sand can be made by crushing sandstone. Industrial half of all sand grains have been through six cycles in the mill,” waste products such as coal ash, quarry dust, and copper and writes the geologist Michael Welland in Sand: The Never-Ending iron slag, which would otherwise be sent to landfill, can all be Story – “liberated, buried, exposed, and liberated again”. used as replacements for some of the sand in concrete. One recent Anglo-Indian project found that waste from carrier bags Isn’t there a lot of sand about? can be substituted for 10% of the sand in concrete, while crushed Yes. But unfortunately the desert sand covering much of the recycled glass can replace it entirely. Concrete itself can be Earth’s surface is the wrong kind for construction: it is almost recycled. The difficulty is that all these processes are relatively always rounded by wind erosion. Concrete requires “sharp sand”, complex, and the building industry is used to paying low costs to with rough edges that give a resilient microstructure when mixed source and transport sand locally. Then there’s the sheer scale of with cement and water. So the United Arab Emirates, for instance, demand. In 2014, it was estimated that India was using a tonne imported $456m of sand, gravel and stone in 2014, from as far of concrete per Indian per year. afield as Australia, to build the roads and skyscrapers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi – cities that are built on sand. What is likely to happen in the future? According to the industrial research How is sand mined? Mumbai’s sand miners group Freedonia, “sand and gravel Until recently, it was mostly extracted In Vasai Creek north of Mumbai, about 75,000 men, reserves are shrinking across much of from land quarries and riverbeds. many from India’s poorest areas, work as miners to the world”, and as the construction However, the human demand for meet the demand of the city’s booming construction industry in Asia continues to grow sand has exhausted many quarries industry, reports Thomson Reuters. They dive up to over the next decade, they’ll “be and outpaced the natural replacement 40ft into pitch black waters holding on to metal depleted at a rapid pace”. This, cycle. Vietnam’s government, for buckets, which they fill on the sea bottom and which Freedonia surmises, will result in price example, thinks the country could run are then hauled up to the surface on ropes by their hikes, particularly in urban centres, colleagues. A small boat filled with sand will fetch out of construction sand by 2020. In 1,000 rupees on the black market – decent money and lead to a shift to reasonably China’s Shanghai region, sand, until when the average Indian daily wage is 270 rupees. priced alternatives. But efforts to curb recently, came from the bed of the Two deaths have been reported in the past year. illegal mining, the report adds, have Yangtze River. But by the late 1990s, In Thane Creek, south of the city, where there’s been “largely unsuccessful”. And in mining had removed so much material another such industry, sand mining has removed the meantime huge damage could be that bridges were undermined and much of the food for smaller fish, disrupting the food done. A recent study published in the riverbanks collapsed. Sand mining chain and destroying the livelihoods of local journal Science predicts a “global was banned on the Yangtze in 2000. fishermen. One miner told the BBC that he dived 150 sand crisis”, and warns that over- Then the miners moved to Poyang to 200 times a day. “We don’t have any safety exploitation of supplies is “damaging Lake, China’s biggest freshwater lake, equipment, we’ve just learned to hold our breath,” he the environment, endangering 300 miles upriver: it’s now the largest said. There is raw sewage and chemical waste in the communities, causing shortages and sand mine on the planet, worked by water, he added, “but we’re used to it now”. promoting violent conflict”.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 14 NEWS Best of the Arabic language articles

Our hurricanes are different. A country that once boasted about its unity and cohesion Syria, Iraq now stands divided. A country that once was a power to be reckoned with has SYRIA and hurricanes become so frail that watching its own population being killed no longer presents a IRAQ Ghassan Charbel shock. A country that once was a main player on the regional map has become a As-Sharq Al Awsat playground for small armies who draw tiny maps with Syrian blood under the protection of international and regional powers who make decisions in distant capitals. Hurricanes expose us – our wasted countries and our lost people. No army to save the country from exterior dangers. No security to protect citizens from criminals. No constitution to protect people’s rights. No courts brave enough to pursue perpetrators. The absence of a fair, modern state transforms minorities into buried mines. The absence of an actual state makes the land fertile for hurricanes, and the first lesson learned from hurricanes is to return to the idea of a state with a constitution that applies to all citizens, as the citizens of one nation and not as guns to be used by the leaders at the moment of collapse.

I am almost certain that most Arabs outside of Iraq sympathize with Kurdistan’s desire for independence. Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, reiterated Why is everyone this during his campaign and interviews, as he expressed the Iraqi-Kurdish point of view and its inclination towards independence. That is something Barzani has been fighting against Kudish for since the sixties. Personally, I am with Iraqi-Kurds’ right to establish their own state. However, politically and rationally speaking, the aspiration for independence must first independence? meet certain requirements. It is not enough to prepare the Kurdistan region to become a state, Iraq must also prepare itself to go on without this region. It is likely that Abdul Rahman Al Rashed Kurdistan’s exit from the state will instantly threaten the sectarian demographic balance Al Bayan in Iraq, which could also lead to further internal wars. Not to mention that Iraq’s division into several states threatens countries and might encourage other separation tendencies. That explains why most countries in the region are against the separation of the Kurdistan region.

Lebanese politicians assume that we, their fellow citizens, are a bunch of fools. Lebanese Admittedly, they are right sometimes. Case in point for this self-flagellation is the civil war Lebanese debate about what happened in 2014, when both Daesh and the Nasra in Syria Front invaded Arsal and captured about 20 Lebanese soldiers. The Aounis hint that Hazem Al Amin responsibility for the decision not to lead Al Hayat the Lebanese army into Arsal to free the captured Lebanese soldiers falls squarely on former Prime Minister Tammam Salam, and former army commander Jean Kahwagi. Why didn’t the army enter Arsal? The purpose of this question is both political and retaliatory. But, in parallel, it also makes fools of the Lebanese. Everyone knows, at that time, there were close to 150,000 Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees in Arsal. Any decision to enter the town militarily would mean a confrontation with unguaranteed results. Neither the army nor the government could bear the consequences of such an action. Calls for accountability of those behind the decision not to engage the army in a civil confrontation is nothing more than a renewal of internal incitement. If we are to believe that those making these calls are concerned with holding accountable those who have no regard for the lives of our soldiers, then they must also call for an investigation into the reasons behind allowing the soldiers’ killers to leave al-Joroud by bus. This is a question for Hezbollah, and no one is doing the asking.

Over the past few decades consecutive Jordanian governments have not moved to the acquisition of public jurisdiction as stipulated by the constitution. Government members, Partnership is key who have never come to power as a result of electoral programmes, have gradually lost their political role, their ability to connect with ordinary people, and their political and to solving the media influence that allows persuasive communication with the people. What we need now is a quiet, and very different, approach to dealing with a difficult situation. We also need to economic crisis believe that there is no alternative to national dialogue and a comprehensive plan based on political, participatory and technical solutions. Solutions that depend on open and honest Dr. Marwan Moasher national dialogue directed by those with grassroots credibility. There is also an urgent need for an integrated, national and non-governmental economic plan that goes beyond the Al-Ghad involvement of the government and the house of representatives – who have lost credibility. I realise that all of this needs time. I know as a citizen that there is no magic wand. But the crux of the matter is this: either we continue drowning and taking partial measures that do not radically address the crisis, or we pause to assess our situation and come to terms with the fact that the state cannot continue to run its affairs in the same old way.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Best articles: International NEWS 15

The battle between two “old buddies” in Ukraine “Russia is preparing for a massive war, It’s the sort of “kitsch” affair one has but we don’t know where.” That’s how now come to expect from Ukrainian Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, politics, said Wieslaw Romanowski in has described Zapad 2017, the military Polityka (Warsaw). Saakashvili can’t exercises Russia is conducting over the achieve much on his own: he’s widely border in Belarus. The last thing his dismissed as a “political adventurer”. fragile country needs, then, is a flare-up But he’s being used by opposition on another of its borders. Yet that is politicians, notably the former PM just what occurred, said Florian Hassel Yulia Tymoshenko. She accompanied in Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich), when the him on his trip from Poland and is now former president of Georgia, Mikheil calling for early elections. If this is the Saakashvili, barged his way into start of a new opposition alliance, it Ukraine last week. could make for a very “hot autumn”.

Saakashvili, who was a classmate of Poroshenko and Saakashvili in happier times Poroshenko has himself to blame for Poroshenko’s at the University of Kiev, all this, said Leonid Bershidsky in made his name cleaning up corruption in Georgia. Hoping he Bloomberg (New York). Why get a foreigner to reform the could do the same in Ukraine, Poroshenko appointed him “corrupt, cronyist” administration, only to deny him support governor of the Odessa region in 2015. But after just 18 and then send him into exile? But the good news, said Anders months, the Georgian threw in the towel, accusing Poroshenko Åslund on CarnegieEurope.eu (Brussels), is that “in one stroke, of sabotaging his efforts for fear they might bring to light the Saakashvili has put new life into Ukraine’s democracy”. His president’s own corrupt dealings. To Poroshenko’s fury, theatrical return could revitalise the opposition and civil society. Saakashvili, now a Ukrainian citizen, then set up his own political “It’s a great new beginning.” On the contrary, said Stefan party. The president promptly revoked his “old buddy’s” Meister on the same website: Poroshenko may be too much citizenship and told him not to come back. But, in typically a part of the corrupt old system to be able to change it, but flamboyant style, Saakashvili made his return last week. Barred Saakashvili has become too much of a PR person to be a from entering by train from Poland, he staged a face-off against credible alternative. “Ukraine needs new people to return to the guards at a checkpoint. Burly supporters on the Ukraine side long, rocky path of reform. The fight between two men of the then burst through the cordon and carried him over the border. past only distracts from the real future needs of the country.”

GERMANY Mafiosi are spreading across Germany, says Martin Knobbe. We first realised that Italian organised- crime families were here a decade ago, when six people were shot dead outside a pasta joint in the western city of Duisburg. Since then, the number of confirmed Mafia figures living in Germany has Italy’s curse more than quadrupled, to 562: and those are just the ones known to the authorities. About 20% of the mobsters belong to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra; some 60% are with the Calabria-based ’Ndrangheta. has crossed German officials have kept quiet about this alarming rise in organised crime: it was only revealed to the public last month because the Green Party demanded statistics from the federal government. the Alps These Mafiosi pose a huge threat. An estimated $100bn in dirty money flows through our economy Der Spiegel each year, yet in the past decade, only 102 criminal cases have been brought against Mafia groups. (Hamburg) Contrast that with the 900 terrorist investigations launched in the past year alone. The jihadist threat takes the bulk of security resources, and that’s understandable. But don’t forget: the Mafia also kills.

NORTH KOREA US President Donald Trump does not understand diplomacy in the context of Asia, said the Global Times. When speaking by phone to South Korean President Moon Jae-in last week, Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man” for his habit of testing ever more powerful It’s not ballistic missiles. He then used the pejorative name on Twitter for the entire world to see. “It’s probably no big deal to use nicknames in American culture,” but this is not a free-wheeling political a good idea campaign. It is nuclear diplomacy. In North Korea, mocking the leader is a capital offense. If Kim takes Trump’s throwaway comment as a deliberate insult, “Pyongyang may become more hostile to to mock Kim Washington, adding fuel to the fire of the current confrontation.” And if Trump really did mean to Global Times provoke Kim, then his strategy is “definitely neither masterful nor morally justifiable.” The North (China) Korean regime is not an eccentric, unpredictable actor, as Westerners mistakenly think. It has “a classical geopolitical mindset,” believing it can preserve its existence only through military strength. The regime is preoccupied with being respected on the world stage. It is never appropriate for world leaders to engage in name-calling; for Trump and Kim, such behaviour could have deadly consequences.

HUNGARY Why should Hungary pay for the sins of Western Europe, asks Zsolt Bayer. The European Court of Justice has just rejected the challenge brought by Hungary and Slovakia against the EU’s mandatory refugee-relocation scheme, which obliges every EU member to house a portion of the more than one Don’t let EU million migrants who poured into Europe in 2015. That means Hungary and Slovakia, which voted against taking in refugees, will be forced to do so against their will by faceless Brussels bureaucrats bullies destroy – an outrageous loss of sovereign control over our borders. The EU is determined to commit suicide, “destroying a continent, a culture, a civilisation”, by taking in Muslim immigrants whose values are our culture the antithesis of our own. There may be some poetic justice in this with respect to former colonial Magyar Idok powers such as France, Britain, Spain and Italy, which plundered their colonies in Africa and the (Budapest) Middle East and massacred the locals. Yet now that the victims are presenting the bill, the West “is trying to spread its shame and sin across the entire EU”. That is both “despicable and unlawful”. It’s bad enough to watch “the cities of our dreams, from Paris to London”, turn into horrifying vectors of terrorism. We refuse to let it happen to Budapest. “There will be no quota allocation here! Never!”

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 16 NEWS Best articles: British

Britain was a thorn in Europe’s side long before we voted to leave the union, says Nigel Gardner. At several EU summits, Margaret IT MUST BE TRUE… We awkward Thatcher demanded “her” money back from Brussels; John Major I read it in the tabloids insisted on an opt-out from the 48-hour limit on the working week; Brits will be David Cameron often had run-ins with fellow European leaders. A family who called the RSPCA to report that they much missed But if the likes of Jean-Claude Juncker think that with Britain had seen an alarming-looking gone, harmony will finally inform the way Europe does business, lizard under a bed at their they’re wrong. Other EU nations have been able to avoid clashes Nigel Gardner house in Coventry were only because they knew Britain would dig its heels in. “Hiding “mortified” when an officer The Guardian behind the awkward Brits has been the oldest trick in Brussels.” came around – and pulled When it was proposed that restaurants should no longer be able out a dirty sock. The officer to serve olive oil in glass bowls, only in sealed sachets, “we didn’t said that she’d approached have to do anything”, a senior Dutch official recalls. “The Brits the creature “with caution”, and their tabloids did the heavy lifting for us.” Major’s opt-out as she didn’t recognise the breed, but when she got out from the 48-hour week is now quietly being used by 15 member her torch, she soon realised states. Perhaps the teacher will only discover how unruly the rest that the 7in-long “lizard” of the class are “when the most disruptive pupil is expelled”. was a pink stripy sock. It “had obviously been there Labour is toying with the idea of trying to stop Brexit, says Philip quite a while,” said a Collins. It should desist at once. Undoubtedly, quitting the EU will spokesman for the charity. It’s far too carry an economic cost for Britain. But the electorate, by a clear “It was a typical teenager’s late to stop majority, voted to leave in a referendum: were the political class to bedroom, I suppose.” contrive, through clever “procedural manoeuvres”, to thwart that Brexit now clear instruction, it would exacerbate the very sense of popular alienation that brought this situation about in the first place. True, Philip Collins the verdict of a single referendum isn’t eternal, but it “doesn’t seem right that its authority should have expired already”. There’s no The Times compelling evidence of the public changing its mind – of the sort of “overwhelming buyers’ remorse” that could justify discounting a referendum which only took place last year. To claim a convin- cing alternative mandate, Labour would have to win a general election on the basis of holding another referendum – and then win that. And by that time we’d already have left the EU. No, the die is cast. “We have voted to leave the EU, so we must leave. It may well be an error, but it is an error we must now make.”

The language of the class war still echoes through British politics, says Nick Cohen, but the old categories are meaningless these A floral tribute to Diana, Corbynism is days. Labour is now just as middle class as the Tories – more so, Princess of Wales, erected in some ways. For if the Brexit vote was a victory for the “left- by a well in Chesterfield middle-class behind working class”, Corbynism is the revenge of the “left- town centre, has been behind middle class” – 57% of Labour Party members are now ridiculed on Facebook. revenge graduates; and 75% professionals. It’s easy to dismiss this support “Our shops our [sic] closing, for the far-left among the bourgeoisie as “Champagne socialism”, our Market stalls are empty... Nick Cohen but there’s more to it than that. The vast majority of these Corbyn our football team is bad and fans work in the public sector: they’re fed up with the pay freeze, now this,” read one typical The Observer the cuts to public services, and the way their bosses in the civil comment. However, the service, the NHS and the universities have been welcomed aboard council defended the design the “gravy train” of today’s “manager-takes-all economy”, leaving (pictured) – which volunteers everyone else in their wake. Despite being professionals, many still made with flower petals. can’t afford to buy a home. It’s a toxic brew. “A country that “All art is meant to be a allows a minority of aspiring members of the elite to acquire talking point and that runaway rewards, while leaving their middle-class contemporaries certainly seems to be the frustrated and humiliated, is begging for trouble.” case with this year’s design,” it said. A Christian couple, Sally and Nigel Rowe, have withdrawn their A young man in Siberia won six-year-old child from school. Why? Because a boy in his class his girlfriend back after a row A boy in a sometimes wears a dress. This has apparently left their son so by serenading her from a van “confused”, they’ve resolved to home-school him instead. How – suspended from a crane dress is no silly, says Shappi Khorsandi. I was brought up in an atheist outside her third floor flat. household, and at my Anglican school I was exposed to all Hearing a commotion outside big deal manner of alien religious ideas. “People coming back from the on the morning of her 29th birthday, Yelena Gorbunova, Shappi Khorsandi dead, that kind of thing.” Yet none of this bothered me or my family. “Tolerance is liberating, acceptance is divine. No one from the city of Biysk, opened should want their kids to get cross and panic when people do her bedroom curtains, and The Independent came face to face with her ex, things differently to them.” Yes, the Rowes’ son might well get who was sitting in the van – confused that a classmate is “sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl”, which he’d decorated with but then it’s the job of parents to help their kids make sense of a balloons – and bearing cards confusing world. Children can handle the unusual: they accept the and gifts. She told the press idea, for instance, of a bearded stranger “dressed as a Coke can” that he had often surprised coming down the chimney and creeping into their bedroom, her with presents, “but never because they’ve been told Father Christmas is a friend. “Not so before like this”. hard, then, to reassure a child that wearing a dress is just that.”

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Best of the American columnists NEWS 17

Are students accused of rape being denied a fair trial? For a cautionary lesson in how swiftly “only between 2% and 10% of rape moral outrage can spawn injustice, allegations are false”, according to the said Ross Douthat in The New York National Sexual Violence Resource Times, look no further than the issue Centre. Before Barack Obama issued of campus sexual assaults. For years, these guidelines, most victims were US colleges were “shamefully loath to extremely unlikely to see their deal with rape accusations at all”. But attacker punished. DeVos’s rollback in response to high-profile scandals “should come as no surprise”, said and new Obama-era guidelines, Dana Bolger in The Washington Post. colleges have swung to the opposite After all, she works for “a president extreme, abandoning “anything who has bragged about sexually resembling due process”. Accused assaulting women” – and getting students have been stripped of basic away with it. protections, including access to evidence and the right to cross-examine Betsy DeVos: championing the rights of the accused Whatever you think of DeVos, she’s witnesses. Their fate lies in the hands right in this instance, said Lara of “secret tribunals” and administrators (Harvard has no fewer Bazelon on Politico. The Obama rules – which threatened than 55 handling sex discrimination issues). The result – as colleges with the loss of federal funds if they didn’t comply shown by a recent series of articles in The Atlantic by Emily – were “ripe for abuse at the hands of scared, ill-trained Yoffe – is a system “all-but-guaranteed to frequently expel and administrators”. Since the guidelines took effect, said USA discipline the innocent”. Thankfully, Education Secretary Betsy Today, about 170 students have appealed against colleges’ guilty DeVos has now announced plans to revise the Obama-era rules. findings – and in about 60 cases, the courts ended up siding with the accused. It would be better in future if colleges deferred “This is exactly what survivors, their advocates and supporters to the criminal justice system in such cases, rather than trying to of women’s rights have feared since Inauguration Day,” said conduct their own proceedings. Sexual assault is too serious a Renée Graham in The Boston Globe. DeVos is worried about crime to be entrusted to an internal procedure that delivers “the rights of the accused”, but she didn’t mention that “second-class justice” to victims and perpetrators alike.

“At this point, who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?” Thus read a tweet last week by Ann Coulter, the conservative firebrand and author of last year’s paean to the 45th president, In Trump Trump’s volte- We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! Her furious reaction is understandable, says Jonah Goldberg. She backed Trump primarily because she thought he would lead a crackdown on immigration. So you face enrages can imagine how she felt last week, when it was reported that Trump had struck a deal with the Democrats to maintain President Obama’s de facto amnesty for the “Dreamers”, the children his fans brought to America by illegal immigrants. Trump had earlier announced the scrapping of this Jonah Goldberg programme, but he now says he wants it made permanent. A large majority of Americans support this policy. But the president’s volte-face will have horrified both the 12% of registered voters who National Review want the Dreamers deported, and the Trump “super-fans” who imagined that Trump, the arch dealmaker, would use the issue as a bargaining chip to secure support for his border wall. The “nationalists” honestly thought Trump was one of them. But the only thing that really matters to him is praise. “It was only a matter of time before the moth flew to the glow of public opinion.”

“Unity” has been the buzzword in Democrat circles since “the Election Day debacle”, says Bill Scher. But the show of harmony is unlikely to last, now that Hillary Clinton has released her Hillary puts campaign memoir, What Happened. In the book, Clinton lays into her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, complaining that his attacks on her as a corrupt tool of Wall Street banks and rich the boot into donors did “lasting damage” and paved the way for Donald Trump’s victory. Her clear message to colleagues is: “Don’t give Bernie the keys to the party”, or he’ll drive it off a left-wing cliff. But Bernie whether her party is in a mood to listen remains to be seen. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll Bill Scher puts Clinton’s approval rating “at an abysmal 30%”, six points below even Trump’s – “hardly making her a perfect messenger”. And many Democrats have been “bending in [Sanders’] direction” Politico over recent months, mindful of his strong following. Witness how Senator Kamala Harris of California and other potential presidential candidates are now lining up to endorse Sanders’ new universal healthcare plan. By reopening hostilities with her former election rival, Clinton won’t do much for her own popularity, but she “may complicate Sanders’ attempt at a party makeover”.

“The blinding rise of Donald Trump over the past year has masked another major trend in American politics,” says Ben Smith: “the palpable, and perhaps permanent, turn against the tech Falling out of industry”. For years, the giants of Silicon Valley have been coasting on high approval ratings, feted as the “bright new avatars of American innovation”. But they’re now drawing fire from all sides. love with Conservatives look at Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple and see a dangerous “consolidation of Silicon Valley power over speech and ideas by social liberals and globalists” – a sort of “Big Brother on the Left”. Liberals, meanwhile, increasingly regard these companies as rapacious, unaccountable tax-dodgers. Ben Smith They accuse Facebook of having helped install Trump as president, and see Amazon, which controls a reported 43% of online retail, as an out of control monopolist. This isn’t to say that the end is nigh BuzzFeed for the Silicon Valley giants – even Uber, which has suffered a particularly spectacular fall from grace, is apparently still growing. It’s “just that the golden age is over. The new era for them will be normal politics, normal regulation, with California senators deep in their pockets who fight for them as hard as Texans fight for oil, but with a deep bipartisan current flowing against them.”

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 18 NEWS Health & Science What the scientists are saying… HRT is safe after all and that cleaners have an increased risk Taking hormone replacement therapy to of lung disease. However, this was the first combat the symptoms of menopause does to look specifically at the impact of a class not raise a woman’s risk of early death, of cleaning chemicals known as quaternary a major new study has found. In the early ammonium compounds (quats) on rates 2000s, researchers found an association of COPD – which includes bronchitis, and between taking HRT for five to seven emphysema. The 55,000 nurses were years and a raised risk of cancer and tracked for eight years, in which time 663 stroke. Over the next few years, the of them developed COPD. Nearly 25,000 number of women opting for it fell people a year in England die of COPD. dramatically. But the new follow-up study, involving most of the same 27,000 A drawing test for Parkinson’s patients, has found no difference in Asking patients to draw a spiral is an mortality between the women who had effective method of diagnosing Parkinson’s HRT and those who had taken a placebo. disease early enough to allow preventative Researchers from Harvard University treatment, an Australian study has found. tracked the women for around ten years Currently, the disease is often only after they’d stopped taking the drugs, and diagnosed once the patient is already found that the hormone treatment was not experiencing rigidity and tremors – by associated with additional risk of death Could our cleaning products prove harmful? which time many dopamine-producing from heart disease or cancer (or from any cells have already been lost. The new test, cause). There was a slight raised risk of four units a week – compared with not which measures how long it takes a patient cancer, but this did not translate into extra drinking at all, they found that there was to draw a spiral on a tablet computer, how deaths because HRT also has protective “surprisingly limited” evidence that much pressure they exert, and the effects. Experts said the finding offered drinking lightly has a clear detrimental characteristics of the lines, was found to “reassurance” to doctors and patients. effect. However, they did find that it was be a highly reliable indicator of early stage “All cause mortality provides a critically associated with an 8% higher risk of Parkinson’s; and it is so simple to use, it important summary measure for an having a small baby. That being the case, can be offered by GP surgeries. The team intervention, such as hormone therapy, the team advises that abstaining from that devised it suggest the test should be that has a complex matrix of benefits and alcohol is still a sensible precaution. included as part of routine screening in risks,” said JoAnn Manson of the Brigham patients over a certain age. However, more and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Does bleach cause lung disease? trials are required to confirm its efficacy. Using bleach around the house could To be on the safe side, don’t drink make people vulnerable to fatal lung Medical file Government guidelines on drinking during disease, say researchers in the US. A team The number of people prescribed strong pregnancy may be unnecessarily strict, from Harvard Medical School examined painkillers has doubled in 15 years. One a new study has suggested. Last year, the data on 55,000 nurses enrolled in the in 20 people were prescribed potentially chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, Nurses II study, and found that those addictive opioid painkillers such as warned pregnant women against drinking who used bleach and other strong codeine in 2015, up from one in 40 in any alcohol, on the grounds that there is disinfectants at least once a week had 2000, a new study suggests. The drugs no “safe” level. But when a team at the a 22% increased risk of chronic are being prescribed for longer, too: the University of Bristol reviewed all the data obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). average course was 64 days in 2000; in from high-quality research into the effect Previous research has found a link between 2014, it peaked at 102 days. Two-thirds of drinking lightly – defined as up to the fumes from disinfectants and asthma, of the prescriptions were for women.

Ancient footprints found in Crete Robots in nurseries The discovery of a set of what look like Robots are going to work in Japanese ancient hominin footprints on the island nurseries, to make up for a shortage of of Crete could throw our understanding human childcare assistants. Developed of human evolution into disarray. Received by a start-up company, in conjunction wisdom is that after splitting from the with academics at Gunma University, chimp lineage, our hominin ancestors were Maebashi, Vevo has a bear-like head and confined to Africa until around 1.5 million humanoid body, and stands about the same height as a toddler. Fitted with a years ago. The prints found in Crete, range of sensors, it can be however, belonged to a creature that programmed to recognise appears to have lived 5.7 million years ago and greet children by name. – suggesting a more complex story. It can also monitor their More research is needed to confirm what body temperatures and kind of animal made them. However, the heart rate, and raise prints seem to have been made by a creature that walked upright, on the soles of an alert if it detects clawless feet (rather than on its toes), with a big toe positioned like our own, rather any abnormalities. than sticking out sideways like an ape’s. It may yet turn out to have been a previously Trials of the £28,000 robots unknown non-hominin that had evolved with a human-like foot; but the explanatory are about to paper, in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, is not the first to suggest that begin at a hominins could have originated in Europe. A few months ago, a team put forward nursery in evidence, gleaned from fossils found in Greece and Bulgaria, that a 7.2 million-year- Tokyo. © SOCIAL SOLUTIONS old ape known as Graecopithecus was in fact a hominin.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Technology NEWS 19

Apple: is the iPhone X a game changer? Innovation of the week Robots are “The thing that a lot of There is simply “no way we invading the people want to talk about will be carrying around symphony hall, with the iPhone X is its $999 slabs of silicon and glass” said Kevin Ryan starting price,” said Nilay in our pockets in a few on Inc.com. YuMi, Patel on TheVerge.com. “But decades’ time. The major a two-armed when you have the phone in technology companies are robot built by Swiss robotics your hand, it feels...worth it.” all feverishly working on company ABB, last week conducted a Apple’s new premium the “successor to the performance of the Lucca Philharmonic smartphone (the X is smartphone,” such as an Orchestra in Pisa, Italy. The 84-pound pronounced “ten”) will start unobtrusive augmented- bot learns tasks by recording and shipping in November, and reality headset. But in the mimicking them, “without any coding” based on what we’ve seen so meantime, “who can required. It has wrists, elbows, and shoulders, giving its movements fluidity far, “it’s going to be quite blame Apple for harvesting similar to a human being’s. Italian popular when it does.” The profits while we wait for conductor Andrea Colombini taught home button is gone, making the next big thing?” YuMi the songs for the performance, room for a beautiful organic including “La Donna è Mobile” from light-emitting diode (OLED) For all the buzz, the iPhone Verdi’s Rigoletto. Unlike its human counterpart, however, the robot can’t screen “that stretches all the X doesn’t move the ball respond to how the orchestra is way across the front of the much – it is “simply a playing, so “a cellist who misses a phone.” There’s also better version of an already note won’t get a stern look.” As a impressive new technology, very nice thing,” said Mat result, Colombini isn’t too worried such as Face ID, which Honan on BuzzFeed.com. about his job security just yet. “The invisibly projects 30,000 Apple’s genius lies in robot uses its arms,” he said. “But the soul, the spirit, always come infrared dots on a user’s face making you want one from a human.” to unlock the phone, as well anyway. It’s more apparent as wireless charging, which than ever that the company should make tangled Edge-to-edge screen on the X “isn’t in the phone charging cables a thing of the business or the computer past. Apple says its new device is “the future business. It is in the business of selling of the smartphone.” Who are we to disagree? you the person you want to be.” When Angela Ahrendts, the former Burberry If all those fancy features sound familiar, it’s CEO who now heads up Apple’s retail because they “are already available in efforts, took the stage at last week’s Samsung’s Galaxy S8,” said Don Reisinger launch, she told the audience that the on Fortune.com. But when Apple lags behind company doesn’t think of its Apple Stores its rivals in originality, it usually makes up for as stores anymore. “We call them town it in technical excellence. Face scanning and squares,” Ahrendts said. “Because they’re wireless charging are cases in point; they gathering places.” Who wants to do aren’t new, but the iPhone X performs both something as gauche as shop, when you “remarkably well.” Apple “watched what its can gather in a town square? Apple may competitors have done and found a way to never repeat the success of its original deliver something better.” Sure, the iPhone X iPhone, which was genuinely revolutionary. is beautiful and advanced, but it’s not the “But what is repeatable, even bankable, is future, said Steven Levy on Wired.com. Apple’s corporate mythmaking.”

Bytes: What’s new in tech Google switches off auto-play Google is about to make browsing the internet a little less “irritating,” said Mark Walton on ArsTechnica.com. A new version of its Chrome web browser, slated for release in January 2018, will block auto-play videos that aren’t muted. The only exception will be if the “user has indicated an interest in the media,” by adding the site to the home screen on his or her mobile device, for example, or by frequently playing videos on the site. The updated version of Chrome will also include an ad blocker, which will stop advertisements like pop-ups and “countdown ads” that make users wait before viewing the page. “Aside from removing the annoyance of auto-playing videos,” the new blocking tools will also help users consume less data and power on their mobile devices. Facebook’s anti-Semitic ad problem Facebook is scrambling to update its advertis ing platform after it was revealed that advertisers could use it to market directly to anti-Semites, said Sarah Frier on Bloomberg.com. The social network temporarily disabled the ability to target users by their self-reported education, employer, or field of study last week after investigative news site ProPublica found that some users “were filling in those fields with offensive content.” As a result, marketers could target their ads to Facebook users who expressed interest in categories like “Jew haters.” Facebook automatically creates ad categories based on what users post about themselves, often relying on users to report abuses. It’s the latest black eye for Facebook’s self-service ad platform, which was recently revealed to have sold $100,000 worth of political ads to a Russia-linked “troll farm” during the election.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK

20 NEWS Talking points

Pick of the week’s Vince Cable: can he revive his party? “The biggest puzzle in British economic credibility than May Gossip politics is why the Liberal or Corbyn”. When he says Democrats are so feeble,” said something, “the Westminster The late Sir Peter Hall had many run-ins with Margaret Bagehot in The Economist. bubble takes notice”. This is Thatcher – one of them in Nearly half of Britons voted to just the moment for a Lib Dem his own theatre. When the remain in the European Union. revival, said Matthew Parris in young Simon Callow was “Millions of people think that The Times. Isn’t it likely that starring as a foul-mouthed Theresa May is a discredited May’s government will come a Mozart in Peter Shaffer’s mediocrity and Jeremy Corbyn cropper before we reach Brexit play Amadeus, the then PM is a dangerous fantasist.” Yet day in 2019? And that the came to a performance. the only national party that voters, “faced with a choice Afterwards, she buttonholed campaigned to keep Britain in between a deeply unlikeable the director backstage. “I think it is disgraceful that the EU, and that stands in the Tory rabble and a Labour the National Theatre shows “open and tolerant” centre, Party led by a crazy Marxist”, Mozart uttering such won less than 8% of the vote will be tempted to put their X obscenities,” she said. “But at the last election. Sadly for in the Lib Dem box? Prime Minister,” he replied, the Lib Dems, their “biggest “it is actual fact that he did opportunity in decades” “A grown-up is in charge” Cable declared in his speech talk like that... his own coincided with the party’s on Tuesday that the Lib Dems letters confirm it.” The Iron “implosion” as a result of the end of the are a future “party of government”, said Jessica Lady, however, had the final coalition: signing up to austerity and higher Elgot in The Guardian – not just “UKIP in word. “Mr Hall, I don’t think you heard what I said. It university fees had left their core supporters reverse”. His advisers insist that he is a credible could not be!” feeling betrayed. And there was no recovery potential prime minister, pointing to the shock at the last election under Tim Farron, success of liberals such as Justin Trudeau in “arguably the weakest” party leader in Canada and Emmanuel Macron in France. recent history – known only for being “an We shall see, said Adam Boulton in The Sunday evangelical Christian”. Times. With only 12 MPs, the party is now so small that it “struggles to get heard”; in the Yet, as the Lib Dems gathered in Bournemouth Commons it is the fourth largest party after for their conference this week, they had “some the SNP. And Cable’s own hands “are dipped reasons to be cheerful”, said Andrew Grice in deep in the great student fees betrayal”: as The Independent. “They have a grown-up in business secretary, he personally brought in charge in Sir Vince Cable” – who was elected £9,000 fees. Worst of all, the young, radical vote unopposed after Farron stood down. Cable has the Lib Dems used to rely on has “decamped en ministerial experience, and, as an economist masse” to Corbyn’s Labour. They may never who predicted the credit crunch, “more re-establish themselves as the party of protest.

The apparent anti-Semitism Big data: how will it shape our future? of Roald Dahl is well documented – and his books Some revolutions announce themselves with up on strawberry Pop-Tarts before big storms. had to be edited to take out violent upheaval, said Allister Heath in The Big data is a boon in many ways. It can help us offensive ethnic stereotypes. Daily Telegraph. “Others just sneak up on us.” track down obscure books in milliseconds and Yet he planned to make one The rise of “big data” is a perfect example of the find long-lost friends, and it has huge potential of his best-loved heroes latter. Computer analysis of the vast digital trail for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. But black. According to his created by everything from web searches and with the ability to anticipate people’s behaviour widow, in an early draft of smartphones, to credit card payments and also comes the power to manipulate it. It’s Charlie and the Chocolate medical histories is set to transform our world. troubling that Facebook has “bragged” about Factory, Charlie was a “black boy”. Felicity Dahl told the Tesco was an early pioneer of the new data increasing voter turnout in the last US election. BBC it was a “pity” he’d economy in the 1990s when it launched its changed his mind, but that loyalty card, enabling the store to analyse The concentration of power is the most she didn’t know why he had. shopping habits and offer personalised worrying aspect of this technology, said Rana However, Donald Sturrock, discounts. Lord MacLaurin, the firm’s chairman, Foroohar in the FT. Big data “tilts the playing Dahl’s biographer, has the was stunned by the early results. “What scares field decisively in favour of the largest digital answer. “His agent thought me about this,” he told the team behind the players” such as Google, Facebook and it was a bad idea.” card, “is that you know more about my Amazon, allowing them to further entrench their customers after three months than I know after monopolies and “reshape the 21st century In his new book, John 30 years.” Think of the modern digital economy economy to suit themselves”. They get away O’Farrell recalls an evening at Chequers with Tony Blair as a “massive extension” of that Clubcard with this because the US authorities have long when Jimmy Savile was concept, involving far more data points. taken the view that as long as companies keep also a guest. During drinks, prices down, they can be as big and powerful as the party noticed that the Data-mining algorithms are becoming ever more they wish. But while these firms may be offering DJ had stuck a picture of a sophisticated, said Franklin Foer in The a free service on the face of it, customers are naked woman onto the wall. Guardian. No longer do humans have to devise paying a cost in the form of ceded personal data. Across it was written: “Oh theories and then laboriously trawl through That trade needs to be acknowledged more Lord, please send me Sir records for corroborating evidence. Now, with explicitly. “We are living in a brave new world, Jimmy Savile.” Blair simply the help of computers, they can just wait for with an entirely new currency. It will require shrugged, and said: “He does do an awful lot of patterns to emerge from mountains of data, creative thinking – economically, legally and work for charity.” “unguided by hypotheses”. Thus Walmart politically – to ensure that it does not become a discovered the curious fact that shoppers stock winner-takes-all society.”

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Talking points NEWS 21

Aung San Suu Kyi: saint turned sinner? Wit & A UN human rights chief regarded as the world’s most recently condemned it as a persecuted minority. Though Wisdom “textbook example of ethnic the vast majority have been cleansing”. So when the resident in Myanmar for “I had a wonderful Burmese leader Aung San Suu decades, the government childhood, which is tough, Kyi gave her long-anticipated insists they are not Burmese, because it’s hard to adjust to speech this week on the mass but “illegal Bengalis”. Stripped a miserable adulthood.” exodus of Rohingya Muslims of their citizenship in 1982, Larry David, quoted in from Rakhine state, “you frequently attacked by the The Observer expected her to squirm”, said military and local fanatics, “Every fear hides a wish.” Richard Lloyd Parry in The corralled into squalid camps, David Mamet, quoted Times. “You expected evasion they are denied a host of on The Browser and equivocation.” What you rights, which has led to did not expect was for her to shocking levels of deprivation “To live is so startling it deny the truth staring her in and illness. This is how leaves time for little else.” the face. She insisted there had modern genocides start: not Emily Dickinson, quoted been “no clashes” in the region with mass murders, but with a on Forbes.com since 5 September – although Mythologised as a “Jesus-lite figure” people being “weakened, “The rewards for being refugees bearing tales of dehumanised and isolated”. sane may not be very many, atrocities are still pouring across the border, and but knowing what’s funny is journalists have filmed the burning of houses. Suu Kyi’s supporters in the West are appalled, one of them.” She implied that it was unclear why Rohingya said Tim Black on Spiked. How could she let Kingsley Amis, quoted in the were leaving, and claimed that the Burmese this happen? The easy answer is that she can’t London Evening Standard people only wanted “harmony” – although she stop it. The generals freed her from house arrest, “Malt does more than knows that many, if not most, of them have a and allowed her political rise, to get the Milton can/ To justify God’s deep-seated fear and loathing of Rohingya. Even sanctions that were impoverishing Myanmar ways to man.” her rare flashes of honesty were alarmingly lifted. They retain control over the military and A.E. Housman, quoted in revealing: at one point, she declared that 50% of many key areas of government. The uncomfort- The Times Muslim villages were still intact, as though that able answer is that in pursuit of her broader was an overlooked piece of positive news, and a aims, she is “willing to share her electorate’s “It is not power that “vindication of her own rectitude”. antipathy to the Rohingya”. Beguiled by her corrupts, but fear. Fear of stoicism in the face of tyranny and her elegant losing power corrupts those The Nobel Laureate says she doesn’t fear defence of democratic rights, we in the West who wield it, and fear of the scrutiny – which is just as well, said Alicia de la mythologised her as a “Jesus-lite figure” – a scourge of power corrupts Cour Venning on The Conversation. The world’s symbol of all that is virtuous. But what she is is those who are subject to it.” eyes are now on the Rohingya, who are widely a politician, and politics is a dirty business. Aung San Suu Kyi, quoted in The Daily Telegraph “You can’t make George Osborne: still wreaking vengeance old friends.” Christopher Hitchens, They say the loony Left is given to quiet dignity”. (In response to quoted in The Guardian violent invective, said the New Osborne’s alleged remarks, her Statesman. But there is nothing as spokesman merely noted that the “More people are vicious as a Tory scorned. It is over contents of the former chancellor’s flattered into virtue than a year since George Osborne was freezer were not No. 10’s concern.) bullied out of vice.” sacked by Theresa May, yet the Robert Smith Surtees, chancellor turned newspaper It has been entertaining watching quoted in The Times editor’s vendetta against her is Tory feuds play out in public, said “The direction of escape is showing no sign of easing. His Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. toward freedom. So what is paper, the London Evening But is it healthy for newspapers to ‘escapism’ an accusation of?” Standard, continues to lay into the be used as political weapons? Of Ursula K. Le Guin, quoted PM at every opportunity, and course, they have always been on NewRepublic.com Osborne takes shameless delight in partisan, but never before has an her misfortunes, said The Times. editor had so much “personal skin “If the highest aim of a On election night, he is said to in the game. If journalism is the captain were to preserve his first draft of history, then the ship, he would keep it in have texted “hahahahahahaha” to What’s in his freezer? a friend, even as his former history of seven years of Tory rule, port forever.” colleagues were losing their seats; he has crowed and its consequences for Britain, is being edited Thomas Aquinas, that May is a “dead woman walking”; and now, in front of our eyes by someone who was far too quoted on Inc.com according to a profile in Esquire, he has told deeply involved” to be objective. Londoners colleagues that he “won’t rest until she is might like to read in-depth investigations into chopped up in bags in my freezer”. how the capital’s property market has spiralled so far out of control; what will happen when Statistic of the week Osborne’s “monomaniacal obsession” with essential workers can no longer afford to live Of the 8,096 people registered having May “defenestrated” is becoming there; and how a referendum that will have a homeless in London in 2015- “creepy”, said Iain Martin on Reaction.life. profound effect on the City came to be held, and 16, only 3,271 were British. There’s a whiff of misogyny about the violence lost. As the ex-chancellor, Osborne must have Nearly 3,000 were from of his language, and if he carries on like this, unique insights into these questions: but the central or eastern Europe, and 1,546 were Romanian. he’ll start making people feel sorry for May, inside information he provides “tends to be the who, “for all her flaws, conducts herself with stuff that makes everyone else look bad”. Daily Mail

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 22 NEWS Sport

Football: can Hodgson save Crystal Palace? Since the Football League was founded in 1888, but much of the Palace squad was “uneasy” with 2,475 teams have started a season in England’s top the approach. Still, the owners had hired de Boer flight, said Oliver Holt in The Mail on Sunday. But precisely because they sought a “change in style” not one of them has started as badly as Crystal – and they couldn’t expect him to turn things Palace have this season. Not only have they lost around overnight. That’s why we need a transfer their first five matches, but they have failed to window for managers, said Liam Rosenior in the score a single goal. Their most recent defeat – same paper. If there were a set period when they Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Southampton – came just were safe in their jobs, they would be spared the four days after former England coach Roy speculation that chips away at their authority. Hodgson was appointed manager, putting an And it would force the people that run a club to abrupt end to his “honeymoon period”. At 70, he take responsibility for appointments, ensuring is the oldest manager ever to take charge at a “bad results don’t just land at the manager’s feet”. Premier League club – and he will hope he lasts longer than his predecessor, Frank de Boer, who If appointing de Boer was a gamble, then hiring was sacked last week after just 77 days in the job. Hodgson is “the footballing equivalent of a comfort blanket”, said Julian Bennetts in The De Boer was only in charge for four matches, said Born a mile from Palace’s ground Sunday Telegraph. Born a mile from Palace’s Joe Hare in The Times – the shortest reign in ground, he is a natural fit for the club. Hodgson’s Premier League history. Yet it’s “remarkable” he even lasted that high-profile calamities – namely England’s defeat to Iceland at long. As early as the first day of the season, when Palace lost 3-0 Euro 2016 – have overshadowed his achievements: during his to Huddersfield, the club’s owners realised that employing the time in Sweden and Denmark, for instance, he won eight league Dutchman had been “a serious, expensive error”. De Boer was titles. And, most auspiciously for Palace, he has led two Premier simply unprepared for “the demands of the Premier League”, said League clubs to survival: Fulham in 2008 – “the most remarkable Dominic Fifield in The Guardian. Having previously managed escape” the league has seen – and West Brom in 2012. But with Ajax and Inter Milan, he insisted on playing with just three men matches against Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs due, Palace at the back and promoted “a game forged on possession and risk becoming the first Premier League side to lose their opening patient build-up”. That’s all very well if your players are up to it, eight games. This could be Hodgson’s biggest challenge yet. Boxing: another outrageous draw It was “one of the most thrilling fights” Las Vegas to an unnecessary rematch. No one doubts that had seen in years, said Ron Lewis in The Times. In the fight itself was genuine, yet something still one corner, defending his world middleweight title, “reeks”. Álvarez is “bigger box office” than was Kazakh boxer Gennady Golovkin, pound for Golovkin, so it’s bad for business if he’s “stamped pound the second-best fighter in the world; in the second-best”. But this “comedy verdict” can’t be other, Mexico’s Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez. Álvarez put down to corruption, said Steve Bunce in The spent most of the fight on the back foot, “concen- Independent. It was “stupidity”, pure and simple. trating his attacks into bursts”, while Golovkin Fortunately, Byrd has now been stood down from landed 49 more punches than his opponent. major fights indefinitely; if there’s any justice, Indeed, it took “a heroic effort” from the Mexican she’ll be banned outright. just to reach the final bell. Yet, despite the “overwhelming public view that Golovkin had Was Golovkin robbed? Yet she isn’t the only incompetent official: in one won”, the fight was declared a draw – one of the recent world title fight, a judge “scored for the judges awarded it to the Kazakh but another, Adalaide Byrd, wrong fighter, confusing the blue corner with the red corner”. The inexplicably deemed Álvarez to have won 118-110. Golovkin problem is at its worst in Las Vegas, said Lewis. The city hosts had “every reason to feel that he had been robbed”. This kind many of the biggest fights – yet rather than picking the best of “travesty” is becoming all too familiar in boxing, said judges, Nevada appoints officials from within the state. That has Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail: a “phoney” draw, which leads to change: one “bad day” for a judge can ruin a boxer’s career.

Rugby’s worrying money gap Sporting headlines There was a time when rugby missing, as they were playing Formula One Lewis Hamilton matches between New Zealand club rugby in other countries won the Singapore Grand and South Africa were “close” – the outstanding full-back Prix, extending his lead over contests, said Charlie Morgan in Willie le Roux, for example, Sebastian Vettel in the World The Sunday Telegraph. Those was competing for Wasps in Championship to 28 points. days are over. On Saturday, the England’s Premiership. Today, a Football In the Premier All Blacks beat the Springboks choice confronts many players League, Man City beat 57-0 – a record margin of victory about whether to play for club Watford 6-0. Man United beat over them. They were “utterly or country – and they often opt Everton 4-0. Chelsea drew 0-0 dominant, comprehensively for the former, electing to play with Arsenal. outmanoeuvring their The “outstanding” Willie le Roux for wealthy clubs in England opponents”. Remarkably, it was and France. In the case of Rugby union Northampton the second successive match in which they Argentina, players who move to European clubs beat Bath 24-6. Saracens beat registered 57 points against South Africa: such is can’t be called up for international duty, so the Newcastle 29-7. Harlequins the “chasm between these nations”. national team has to do without Facundo Isa, beat Wasps 24-21, ending their 20-match winning streak It was a joy to watch, said Stuart Barnes in The hailed as “the future of Argentine forward play”, at home. Times. But it was also “deeply worrying” for the because he has been lured to Toulon. It’s the international game. The Springboks were very clubs that have most of the cash, so unless the Cricket In a one-off T20 far from fielding the best team they could. And “money gap” is closed, the national teams face match, West Indies beat that’s because several of their players were “a bleak future”. England by 21 runs.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 ARTS NEWS 23 Review of reviews: Books

Book of the week MI6. To follow the novel’s elaborate plot, you “have to be A Legacy of Spies on your intellectual mettle”; but that, as ever, is part of the by John le Carré pleasure. Though not quite Viking 272pp £20 “seamlessly excellent” – le Carré sometimes “gets the tone of the contemporary world wrong” – this is a “gripping” read. “George Smiley returns!” A Legacy of Spies is proclaimed David Sexton in the “riveting”, agreed Andrew Marr London Evening Standard. In John in The Sunday Times. “The plot, le Carré’s 21st novel, his iconic interleaving events of the early spook, whose last fictional outing 1960s with today, is deft and was a quarter of a century ago, fast moving.” A topical bonus is makes a somewhat improbable that Smiley’s reappearance appearance (he must be more than reminds us “just how 100 by now). It is often a mistake Europeanist le Carré’s world for novelists to revive favourite always was”. Like his creator, characters late in their careers, but Smiley is an “avid reader of here, “remarkably”, le Carré German literature”, and it was (pictured) pulls it off. Complex and “European political failures and “ingeniously layered”, A Legacy of Spies shows that, even at 85, European political compromises” that drove him. And in this Britain’s greatest thriller writer hasn’t “lost his touch”. novel, when Guillam finally tracks him down, Smiley reveals This is a novel for “le Carré aficionados”, said William Boyd where his loyalty lies; “I’m a European, Peter,” he declares. “If I in the New Statesman. Set in the present day, it is narrated by had a mission – if I was ever aware of one beyond our business Peter Guillam, Smiley’s loyal number two, and it looks back with the enemy, it was to Europe.” more than fifty years to the operation at the centre of the author’s It’s good to be back in le Carré’s world, said Andrew Taylor most famous novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: the in The Spectator. He has the unique ability to turn “bureaucratic infiltration of a British agent, Guillam’s friend Alec Leamas, into gobbledygook and departmental slang into something the Stasi, the East German spy service, and his ultimate sacrifice. approaching an art form”. But is A Legacy of Spies in the same In 2017, Leamas’s son has sued the government, seeking damages league as his best novels? “The answer is no, of course not.” and an apology. And Guillam is duly summoned out of It’s haunting, fascinating and “finally unsatisfying” – a novel, retirement, from his farmhouse in Brittany, to be interrogated by perhaps, with “the air of a swansong”.

The Great Nadar by Adam Begley Novel of the week Tim Duggan Books 256pp £18.99 The Burning Girl by Claire Messud Fleet 224pp £16.99 Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, better known as Nadar, was a “wayward and beguiling 19th century gadabout”, said Sam Leith in The Spectator. Born in Paris in 1820, he became Claire Messud’s new novel, set in a small New “many things in his energetic career” – a England town, explores the disintegrating caricaturist, a prolific author, a “first-rate” friendship between two teenage girls, said Kate photographer and a “reckless aeronaut”. Above Saunders in The Times. Julia and Cassie have all, though, he was a “publicist of preternatural been close since nursery, but in early adolescence genius”. Nadar’s photographic atelier in Paris social differences drive them apart: while Julia’s was “surmounted by a 50ft illuminated sign family is “middle class and happy”, Cassie has reading ‘Nadar’”. Long fascinated by the possibilities of human flight, in 1863 grown up in a single-parent household where he set about constructing the world’s largest hot air balloon, the 200ft-tall Le “nobody seems to expect anything of her”. Géant; its maiden voyage, from Paris, was watched by 500,000 people – though When Cassie steals the boy she knows Julia it crash-landed in a bog. As Adam Begley’s fine biography shows, Nadar likes, it prompts a downward spiral of jealousy (pictured) excelled, “100 years before it was much thought of”, at “managing and recrimination. “This is a terrific novel, the business of celebrity”. beautifully written and crafted.” Messud Nadar was also “infinitely lovable”, said Bryan Appleyard in The Sunday couldn’t write a “duff sentence if she tried”. Times. He became close friends with many of the leading lights of his era, Messud was an “early and passionate including Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire and Sarah Bernhardt. He was admirer” of Elena Ferrante’s influential novel someone who was “thrilling to know”. Yet there was nothing frivolous about sequence about female friendship, and it’s hard his work behind the camera. The moment he discovered photography in his mid- not to see this book as an “act of homage”, said 30s, “everything changed”. He was soon regularly producing “masterpieces” Anne Chisholm in the Literary Review. Yet it such as his famous photograph of his wife, Ernestine, after she suffered a stroke, is also a “powerful” work in its own right, which is “among the greatest photos ever taken”. Nadar had a “gigantic sense which ultimately proves a “tour de force of of fun”, said Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in the Literary Review. All his life, he writing and imagination”. Dark and comfortless hated boredom, and this no doubt lay behind his love of ballooning, a “hobby though its themes are, The Burning Girl is an that allowed him literally to have his head in the clouds”. In this “witty” and “exhilarating” novel that “deserves every prize”. THE SUNDAY TIMES / NEWS SYNDICATION THE SUNDAY

© “punchy” book, Begley succeeds in bringing this “elusive” figure back to life.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 24 ARTS Drama

Back in the 1990s, this drama and excitement. jumping, fizzing, And Andrew Wright’s quintessentially feel-good choreography “is a jukebox musical – which marvel”. Sure, the set-up showcases the songs of the is a touch contrived, but Musical jazz and R&B pioneer it really does “make you Louis Jordan – took the yearn for those smoky West End and then rock and roll bars where Broadway by storm, said music was played all night Five Guys Tim Auld in The Daily by the best performers Telegraph. Now it’s back around. Those joints may Named Moe in a lavish new production not exist anymore,” but directed by the show’s Everyone on stage has “charisma to burn” Five Guys does and it’s Music by: Louis Jordan creator Clarke Peters (of “the closest you’re going Written and directed by: The Wire fame) in a specially built tented to get to the real thing”. It is, in sum, a “night Clarke Peters theatre. The classy venue has been pimped out of total fun”. with Southern-style wrought-iron columns and I loved the show’s passion and zing, said Ann a bar where you can sip a mint julep, said Sam Treneman in The Times. The musical staging Marlowe in The Stage – and this “scorching” and choreography are brilliant and precise. And Marble Arch Theatre, production is just as “slick and stylish”. you will struggle to get Is You Is or Is You Ain’t Marble Arch, Everyone on stage has “charisma to burn”. The My Baby? out of your head afterwards. But a London W1 singing and dancing are sublime, and the band word of warning: there is “more than a smidgen are “as tight as a pair of shiny new shoes” – and of cabaret and, sigh, audience participation here” (0333-344 4167) “thrillingly alive to the wit and energy” of which includes a conga. That ain’t my bag: be Until 17 February Jordan’s jazzy hits. ready to take evasive action if it ain’t yours. There’s no story to speak of, said Daisy Running time: 2hrs Bowie-Sell on WhatsOnStage.com. Five guys, The week’s other opening all named Moe, “inexplicably pop out of the Prism Hampstead Theatre, London NW3 (including interval) radio” belonging to a sixth guy – a down and (020-7722 9301). Until 14 October out heartbroken drunk by the name of Nomax Robert Lindsay is “magnetic” as the celebrated ★★★★ – and croon songs to help sort out his love life. cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who looks back “Not much plot, but goodness it’s got sass, soul over his life from Alzheimer’s-affected old age in and sex appeal.” This is not so much a musical Terry Johnson’s slightly “bumpy” but ultimately as a “rock and roll variety night where actors at moving play (Guardian). the top of their game” inject each number with

“It is a long time since I have that his pneumoconiosis (he seen a tasselled lampshade on used to work down the mines) stage. Or an antimacassar.” trumps her hysterectomy. But But then it is a long time, said with great skill, Storey slowly Theatre Susannah Clapp in The reveals Mr Pasmore’s private Observer, since I have heard disintegration, and the family “such gradually uncoiling, becomes a microcosm of the slowly deepening dialogue” wider world’s disappointments. The March as that in David Storey’s The Sue Wallace is particularly fine as March on Russia. Storey, who Mrs Pasmore, a plucky on Russia died in March, was celebrated figure whose sadness is revealed for his depictions of northern only in her eyes. And Ian Gelder Playwright: David Storey working-class life. His novel is “terrific” as Mr Pasmore, said This Sporting Life (1960) – Kate Maltby in The Times, Director: Alice Hamilton later turned into a film by while Sophia Simensky’s Lindsay Anderson – was based costume design “artfully on the writer’s early career delineates just how far each of Orange Tree Theatre, as a rugby league professional. the three siblings has come from Clarence Street, (As much “athlete as aesthete”, Sue Wallace: particularly fine their working-class roots”. Storey once biffed The Every line “sings with rueful Richmond, Surrey Guardian’s Michael Billington after getting an authenticity”, said Dominic Cavendish in The (020-8940 3633) adverse review.) The March on Russia, a fine Daily Telegraph. This play offers “Chekhovian Until 7 October later play (1989) set in a retirement bungalow richness by way of dour kitchen-sink realism”, near the Yorkshire coast, is firmly within that and Alice Hamilton’s revival of it is “exemplary”. Running time: tradition, possessing an “intense naturalism that suggests personal experience”. CD of the week 2hrs 20mins As in Chekhov, “not a lot seems to happen (including interval) Elli Ingram: Love You Really but, in reality, an immense amount does”, said Island £7.99 Billington in The Guardian. An elderly couple, The Brightonian’s debut album “oozes class”, as ★★★ the Pasmores, are marking their diamond she soars and scats, her voice “arcing over wedding anniversary with their three middle- a mix of jazz, soul and hip-hop” that variously aged children. At first, the pair’s bickering is brings to mind Lauryn Hill, Frank-era Amy “rancorously funny”; they even use their Winehouse and Steely Dan (Sunday Times).

ailments as a “form of one-upmanship”, so © HELEN MAYBANKS;

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (4 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother) Book your tickets now by calling 020-7492 9948 or visiting TheWeekTickets.co.uk

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Film ARTS 25

Mother! ★★★ Is it a masterpiece or a crashing bore? Dir: Darren Aronofsky 2hrs 1min (18) The curiously titled Mother! isn’t easy to blood oozing from a hole in the categorise, said Robbie Collin in The floorboards, experiences apocalyptic Daily Telegraph. The latest offering from visions, and generally spends a lot of her Darren Aronofsky, director of the luridly time running around shouting, “Stop!” disturbing Black Swan, is at once “a and “Please leave!” After our heroine grotesque, Goya-channelling creation learns she’s pregnant, Mother! becomes myth mash-up, a parable of artistic a “mama-minded thriller to compare with obsession, and a psychological horror set Rosemary’s Baby”, said Joshua Rothkopf inside an introvert’s worst nightmare”. in Time Out. I found it completely When I saw it, the audience seemed split gripping: the “most radical studio film down the middle as to whether it was a since The Last Temptation of Christ”. bloody masterpiece or a crashing bore. Personally, I was in the former camp. Those are its grandiose ambitions, said “A sick joke, an urgent warning and a Kevin Maher in The Times. But strip scream from the abyss, Mother! earns its Bardem and Lawrence: “operatic” away the ponderous philosophising, and exclamation mark three times over.” you find the storyline of this “phoney psychodrama” is ripped straight from a teen film like Risky The film stars Jennifer Lawrence (who also happens to be Business, in which someone throws a huge party that gets totally Aronofsky’s girlfriend) as a young woman renovating a out of hand. Horror clichés abound in this “endurance test” of a sprawling house in the countryside, where she lives with her movie, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. As the long-suffering much older husband (Javier Bardem), a narcissistic poet Lawrence scrubs ineffectually at a blood stain on the floor, I suffering from writer’s block. Their routine is disrupted by the wanted to call out to her: “Try a Miracle Mop” – anything to arrival of two strangers, a fan of the poet (Ed Harris) and his lighten the mood. As a horror film, Mother! is “ridiculous”, yet boozy, bitchy wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). Then more and more as a “deadpan comedy”, with a pair of “tremendously operatic” people start turning up and making themselves at home, turns from its two leads, it works brilliantly, said Peter Bradshaw including two violently warring siblings (played by Brian and in The Guardian. Yes, there are clumsy moments of melodrama, Domhnall Gleeson). And that’s when the film goes from weird said Dan Jolin in Empire. Yes, it is wilfully disturbing. Yet one to “plain nuts”, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Lawrence, thing you can’t call Mother! is “forgettable”. Like “hard from whose troubled perspective the story is told, discovers crackling”, it’s hard to swallow, but there’s “a lot to chew on”.

Victoria & Abdul ★★ Unconvincing romance with Judi Dench as Queen Victoria Dir: Stephen Frears 1hr 52mins (PG) It has been nineteen years since Judi Dench in The Guardian. A highly unconvincing was Oscar-nominated for her touching romance, it only flickers into life near the turn as Queen Victoria, gallivanting with end when the palace conspires to discredit her gillie, in Mrs Brown. Victoria & Abdul the Queen’s toyboy. One major problem is is “a sort of sequel”, with Dench reprising the blandness of Fazal’s performance, said the regal role, albeit in an older, fatter Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. The incarnation, said Dan Jolin in Empire. actor may be a rising star in Bollywood, This time round, the controversial male but here he invests his character with little companion is Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a more than a “genial glow”. young Muslim Indian who travels to Needless to say, Dench is the film’s England to present his Empress with a saving grace, said Allan Hunter in the ceremonial coin. The two hit it off, much Daily Express. Her performance is “wise, to the horror of her stuffy courtiers and relatives. witty, effortlessly touching and full of twinkling mischief”. What I fear this “cloth-eared Gunga Din tale” must rank as one of a shame that her formidable powers are wasted on a “lazy, the duds in director Stephen Frears’ career, said Peter Bradshaw creaky pantomime that could have been made in the 1930s”.

First They Killed My Father ★★★ Jolie’s vivid genocide drama Dir: Angelina Jolie 2hrs 16mins (15) Angelina Jolie’s fourth feature as a director from the child’s point of view allows for is “by some measure” her best, said a simple but penetrating satire about Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. communist hypocrisy, said Kevin Maher in Based on the memoir of the same name by The Times. Loung is bemused, for example, Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father is to see soldiers shouting exuberantly about set in Cambodia in the 1970s, when the “the end of money” even as they stuff murderous Khmer Rouge seized power. wads of cash into their pockets. Acted entirely in Cambodian, this Perhaps only a director with Jolie’s clout “vivid” genocide drama follows the as a Hollywood star could have got such misfortunes of the young Loung (Sareum a doggedly uncommercial project off the Srey Moch) and her family as they are ground in the first place, said Caryn James forced on a cross-country march that leads to labour camps and on BBC News online. (The film was made for the streaming worse, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately, service Netflix, with a limited theatrical release.) Assuming that’s the passivity of our young protagonist results in the film “feeling the case, it should be noted that this “vividly real” drama never more instructive than moving”. On the contrary, seeing things feels preachy. “Jolie has put her stardom to stunning artistic use.”

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 26 ARTS Art

Exhibition of the week Rachel Whiteread Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1 (020-7887 8888, www.tate.org.uk). Until 21 January 2018

The sculptor Rachel There are “casts of doors, Whiteread is a “pillar of casts of torsos, casts of the British art world”, beds, casts of a line of said Steve Dinneen in bookcases, a cast of a City AM. She rose to fame double staircase, a cast in the 1990s, winning the of a beehive” – all neatly 1993 Turner Prize with lined up against the walls. her work House – But after a while spent a full-sized concrete looking at these mostly impression of a terraced “very pale” works, one house in East London. starts to long for a “bit But she always stood apart of excitement” and from her Young British “colour”. In the end, one Artists contemporaries: can’t help feeling that, while the likes of Damien though “fairly significant” Hirst and Tracey Emin were as an artist, Whiteread is creating works “filled with ultimately just a little live flies or displaying beds “dull”. An overall covered in puke”, summary of Whiteread’s Whiteread was busy work would conclude that exploring her own, it is “sombre, a little sad” altogether quieter, interests. and “a tad repetitious”. Her practice largely consists of casts, made out of wax, Untitled (Stairs) (2001): Whiteread “searches for new ways of seeing objects” Not a bit of it, said resin, plaster or concrete, of Waldemar Januszczak in “all kinds of things. Mattresses. Windows. Stairs. Entire The Sunday Times. Whiteread’s work is loaded with “emotional buildings.” This excellent exhibition looks back at her 30-year potency”, and unlike so much contemporary art, it “speaks to career, collecting dozens and dozens of casts “both large and the heart as much as the eyes”. You only have to look at Untitled small”, in a “vast” single room (the usual wall divides that carve (One Hundred Spaces), a “beautiful” series of jelly-like casts, up Tate Britain’s shows have been removed). Packed with rendered in “Ribena pinks” and “soft lime greens”, that she made “mesmerising” exhibits, it amply demonstrates the “quiet beauty” from the recesses beneath chairs. Outside the entrance to Tate of Whiteread’s work, which “searches for new ways of seeing the Britain , she has installed a concrete cast of a chicken coop, a objects we see but don’t see”. “In a world of loud contemporary “diddy” little thing which can’t help but “trigger a protective art, this is a wonderful, essential change of pace and tone.” instinct” in the viewer. The casts here, representing everything from hot water bottles to an entire, “monumental” staircase, The show is organised with an “extraordinary degree of tidiness exude a powerful “sense of ghostliness”. This is a “gorgeous”, and orderliness”, said Michael Glover in The Independent. and sometimes revelatory, exhibition.

Where to buy… Bacon’s hidden masterpiece The Week reviews an For 45 years, the last exhibition in a private gallery of Francis Bacon’s great papal portraits has been “locked Hernan Bas: away”, said Jonathan Cambridge Living Jones in The Guardian. Study of at Victoria Miro Mayfair Red Pope, 1962, 2nd Version, 1971 (“probably not his best title”) was The work of the Detroit-based bought in 1972 by a artist Hernan Bas is a curious private collector, “who never lent it or proposition. On the one hand, Suicide Sunday (Taking on Water) (2017) showed it”. Now it is to go on sale, and is these dozen or so new paintings expected to make around £60m at auction at and drawings – inspired by a Christie’s next month. Bacon painted the work recent residency at Jesus College, and Amazons. One work, depicting (pictured), one of 50 or so variants on Cambridge – can seem traditionally a group of boys messing about on Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X, when romantic, if not a little winsome. a makeshift river raft, deliberately he was facing both personal and artistic crises. Indeed, at first glance his depictions of echoes Géricault’s masterpiece The He was about to have a massive one-man show boys (or are they young men?) at play Raft of the Medusa, while another has at the Grand Palais in Paris; at the same time, wouldn’t look out of place on the a youth swinging precariously from his relationship with George Dyer, the East End criminal who was his muse, was falling apart. In cover of a novel by Arthur Ransome a lead roof, his bravado rapidly the portrait, while the pope squirms on a swivel or Enid Blyton. But look closer and turning to panic. You will leave with chair, Dyer faces him in a mirror. But as Bacon an unsettling, slightly creepy sensation a strange urge to dial 999. Prices prepared for the show’s opening, Dyer killed will descend. Every scene visited here range from $8,000 to $120,000. himself in their hotel room with a drug over- appears to present boisterous high dose. The death was hushed up for two days, so jinks turning to something darker – 14 St George Street, London W1 it wouldn’t “spoil the exhibition previews”. more Lord of the Flies than Swallows (020-3205 8910). Until 21 October.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 The List 27

Best books… Andy Hamilton Television Andy Hamilton, the scriptwriter behind Drop the Dead Donkey and Programmes Outnumbered and a regular on Have I Got News for You, picks his favourite The Child in Time Drama books. His debut novel, The Star Witness, is published by Unbound at £7.99 based on Ian McEwan’s 1987 novel about a writer and his Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Genius by James Gleick, 1992 Alias Grace by Margaret wife struggling to cope following the abduction of 1961 (Vintage £9.99). The (Abacus £14.99). A thrilling Atwood, 1996 (Virago £9.99). their daughter. With Benedict story of a sane man’s attempt journey through the colourful A riveting novel woven around Cumberbatch and Kelly to escape an insane world. I life and theories of the brilliant the true story of a woman Macdonald. Sun 24 Sept, read this in my teens and I physicist Richard Feynman. accused of murder in the 1840s. BBC1 21:00 (90mins). remember the excitement of This book turned me into a Atwood’s flawless judgement realising that a story could be Feynman anorak, and inspired on when and how to take risks Through the Lens of Larkin dark, funny and moving all the character of the Professor in her prose results in an Philip Larkin was a keen at the same time. in my Radio 4 series Old extraordinary intimacy. She’s amateur photographer and an Harry’s Game. a superb writer who makes it unlikely pioneer of the selfie, The Worst Journey in the look so easy. I hate her. who – as this film shows – documented his complicated World by Apsley Cherry- Adventures in the Screen love life through photos as well Garrard, 1922 (Vintage Trade by William Goldman, How Mumbo-Jumbo as poems. Mon 25 Sept, BBC4 £11.99). A gripping account 1983 (Abacus £12.99). The Conquered the World by 19:30 (30mins). of two polar expeditions that bible for many an aspiring Francis Wheen, 2004 (Harper went disastrously wrong, one screenwriter, or indeed any £9.99). A brilliant, funny, The Vietnam War Ken Burns with fatal results. During the creative person who’s had to thoughtful analysis of how and Lynn Novick’s fascinating first expedition, to collect the negotiate the rapids of getting our civilisation got seduced by ten-episode documentary took eggs of Emperor penguins, the something made. Its infamous empty words. It’s a rare skill a decade to make. Featuring characters display the stoicism, opening line, “Nobody knows for someone with the moral rarely seen footage and secret anger of an investigative audio recordings made inside whimsicality and occasional anything,” has been the the Kennedy, Johnson and stupidity that make me proud comforting mantra for tens of journalist to write with such Nixon administrations, it tells to be English. thousands of scribblers. a lightness of touch. the story of the Vietnam War from all sides. Mon 25 Sept, BBC4 21:00 (115mins). Your guide to what’s worth seeing and doing Russia with Simon Reeve by What’s On magazine In this three-part series, Simon Reeve travels to the most THEATRE September 26 to October 2, and musicians, this performance remote parts of the world’s Madinat Theatre, Souk Madinat in Dubai is the final instalment of biggest country. Thur 28 Sept, THE WOMAN IN BLACK Jumeirah, Dubai, Tue 8pm, Wed the three-part Gems Trilogy BBC2 21:00 (60mins). 11am and 8pm, Thur 8pm, Fri and series, in collaboration with Sat 3pm and 8pm, Sun 8pm, Mon composer Philip Glass. Its Films 11am and 8pm. Dhs180. Tel: (04) mission is to shine a light on The Grand Budapest Hotel 4573212. Taxi: Madinat Jumeirah. contemporary dance, combining (2014) Ralph Fiennes reveals seewomaninblack.com the controlled legwork of ballet his genius for comedy, playing with the improvisation a hotel concierge in Wes Anderson’s stylish caper, set characteristics of modern dance. BEACH FESTIVAL during the interwar years. Sun 24 Sept, C4 23:05 (115mins). BOHO BEACH VIBES September 28 and 29, Dubai Opera, The Opera District, Dubai, Enough with the sweltering heat, 99 Homes (2014) Thriller Thur and Fri 8pm, from Dhs150. it’s time to get back outside and starring Michael Shannon as Tel: (04) 4408888. Metro: Burj a predatory Florida real-estate enjoy the beach. And what better Khalifa/Dubai Mall. dubaiopera. broker during the sub-prime place to do so than Nasimi Beach com repossessions following the at Atlantis, The Palm? The Casa 2008 financial crash. Wed 27 Playa boho beach festival is a Sept, Film4 21:00 (135mins). two-day extravaganza as part of DINNER Nasimi’s opening party for the Holy Motors (2012) Leos PIZZA ACROBATIC AT BICE season. You can look forward to Carax’s fabulously weird and RISTORANTE wonderful art house drama, If you only recall a movie starring live music from international acts and DJs, stand-up paddle World Champion Pizzaiolo featuring Kylie Minogue in a Daniel Radcliffe when you hear cameo appearance. Fri 29 Sept, boarding, water volleyball and Acrobat, Chef Pasqualino about The Woman In Black, Film4 1:40 (140mins). prepare for the real theatre even a raft-building contest. Barbasso, is coming to BiCE experience when the ghostly Ristorante to entertain and thriller returns to the Madinat this September 28 and 29, Nasimi delight you. Witness this New to Sky Atlantic Beach, Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai, extraordinary show of skills as month. The chilling story follows The Deuce David Simon, a lawyer obsessed with a curse Thur 6pm to 3am, Fri 1pm to3am, the chef twirls, spins and juggles free entry. Tel: (04) 4262626. Taxi: the dough. Whoever told you not the creator of The Wire and that he believes has been cast Treme, returns with a new over his family. He teams up with Nasimi Beach. atlantisthepalm. to play with your food never com watched this man make pizza. series, which takes an a young actor to help him tell the unflinching look at the adult creepy story reliving some of his September 26 to 30, BiCE industry in 1970s New York. darkest memories. Maybe leave A SHOW Ristorante, Jumeirah & Hilton With James Franco (in a dual the little ones at home for this Dubai The Walk, Dubai, Tue to Sat role as identical twins) and one – you might have your own LA DANCE PROJECT 7pm. Tel: (04) 3182520. Taxi: Maggie Gyllenhaal. Tue 26 nightmares to deal with. Bringing together visual artists Jumeirah. bicegroup.com September 22:00 (90mins).

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 28 Best properties

UAE Properties

Dubai: New to the market, this delightful Jumeirah Islands Entertainment Foyer five- bedroomed villa ticks all the boxes for luxury family living. Upgraded and extended, the 6,000 sq ft building sits on a total plot of 8,900 square feet, and features a steam room and extended walk-in closets. The light, airy property benefits from an open-plan staircase to the upper floor, where each bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. A designer kitchen and utility kitchen are impressive, while a surround sound system throughout the property will delight guests. The study provides a tranquil workspace. AED8.35m. Jamal Tuzgani, Allsopp & Allsopp (+971-50 225 9149)

Houses mentioned by Pevsner

▲ Warwickshire: Oldberrow Court, Henley-in-Arden. A Grade II moated, mid- 16th century manor house with oubuildings, gardens and land extending to 15 acres. Master suite with dressing room, 4 further beds, 3 further baths, 2 receps, breakfast/kitchen, pantry, boot room, office, snug, WC, games room, cinema room, bothy, barn, coach house, dovecote, 1-bed flat, stable block. A further 11 acres is available separately. £2.85m; John Shepherd Vaughan (01789-292659).

▲ Worcestershire: 3 Broad Street, Pershore. An impressive Grade II Georgian terraced house, in the heart of Pershore, with commanding views over the town centre. The house is arranged over three floors. 4 beds, family bath, shower, WC, breakfast/kitchen with pantry, 2 receps, study/bed 5, flagstone hall, garden room, utility, cellar, charming secluded walled garden, patio, outhouse, store room. £495,000; Andrew Grant (01386-554031).

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 on the market 29

Dubai: This 5-bedroom penthouse in the heart of Dubai Marina Walk offers a lifestyle of grandeur and style. Approximately 5,456 sq ft it boasts wide open spaces, stunning wooden floors, huge lounge area, floor-to-ceiling windows throughout with a large terrace to take in the breathtaking marina vistas. All bedrooms have built in wardrobes while the master bedroom has a walk-in closet. Three dedicated parking bays, pool, gym, 24-hr security and nearby schools and multi- cuisine restaurants are a huge plus. AED9m. BetterHomes (+971-600 522 233) ▲ ▲ Gloucestershire: Cambridge- Porch House, Tetbury. shire: 1 Mill Street, Pevsner made a point Gamlingay, Sandy. of noting the “finials Dating from 1688 and oval windows”, with later additions, the “mullioned this Grade II house windows bearing in the centre of the arches” and the village has many “pulvinated frieze” in period features: this 17th century panelling, cast iron Grade I town house fireplaces, sash with retail space. windows and Master suite, 2 further moulded ceilings. beds, family bath, 6 beds, 3 baths, open plan kitchen/ shower, breakfast/ double recep, 3 kitchen, 2 receps, further receps, study, snug, office, pantry, WC, cellar, large utility, cellar, stores, 5-room retail space, garage, workshop, courtyard garden. parking, walled £1.2m; Percy Bishop gardens. £925,000; & Chambers (01666- Strutt & Parker 504418). (01223-459500).

▲ Suffolk: Thatchers Hall, Hundon. A Grade II* Wealden Hall house, built in 1435, and regarded by English Heritage as a high status building. Master suite, 2 further suites, 2 further beds, family bath, breakfast/kitchen, 2 receps, reception hall, library, family room, rear hall, attic room, double garage, raised terrace, garden, large natural ▲ Dorset: Greystones, Sydling St Nicholas. This refurbished Grade II pond, potting shed, cottage has a stone plaque dated 1733, but is thought to have earlier origins. 0.7 acres. £895,000; Master suite with dressing room, 4/5 further beds, family bath, 2 WCs, David Burr (01787- open plan kitchen/diner, 2 receps, pantry, hall, utility, self-contained annexe 277811). with conservatory, garden. £985,000; Jackson-Stops (01935-810141).

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 30 LEISURE Food & Drink What the experts recommend capital, writes What’s On, of the Abu Dhabi based award-winning restaurant. But this branch, located at Al Seef Village Mall, comes with a twist and the clue is in the name. “This is perhaps the most healthy food oriented outlet from the brand”. And the most standout of all of the raw dishes on the menu? “Chia guacamole made with advocado, tomatoes, coriander, flaxseeds, lime jalapenos, pepitas, sunflower seeds, feta and chia chips” was a welcome mouthful in more ways than one. Lunch for two, around AED250.

Tuyo 129a Pritchard’s Road, Haggerston, London E2 (020-7739 2540) My abiding memory of this fantastic, bookable, reasonably-priced new place from Ricardo Pimentel (formerly of Salt Yard) is that “everything arrived with an extra oomph”, says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard: an “oily seductive puddle” here; a “blob of something curiously sweet and sour” there. Sweet and salty croquetas of Spanish blue cheese and dates came with cumin aioli and Hikina Lapita Hotel, Dubai Parks & half a duck, it’s buttered duck breast that’s roasted walnuts, and I could happily have Resorts, Dubai (04-8109412) served with the usual hoisin, cucumber scoffed a dozen. A humble sounding plate Despite its huge size, Hikina was about and pancake condiments. It’s not “as of falafel arrived in “a gooey mess of black half full at 8pm – “not a bad sign in a city satisfying as the authentic version”, but it’s olive and piquillo tapenade”. Salt cod was with so many alluring options for dinner,” still a “pretty tasty dish” overall. We rather lovely, too: it came with a garlic reported What’s On. So what about the “loved” the aromatic mock duck version potato puree and “festooned in coconut”; food? Well, chef Bao and his team have though, consisting of fried marinated bean while chicken thighs were served with “done a very good job”. We started with curd. Beef rice noodles were “solid”. honey-poached apricots. In sum, I loved “several good dim sum”: the vegetable, Hikina is a “more than welcome” addition Tuyo, with its Spanish flavours, Greek and prawn were both “very tasty”; the pan to the Dubai dining scene. Around mannerisms, “Levantine loveliness and fried radish cake was a “delightfully AED250 to AED750 subtle Scandi hints”. “Stick that up your charred” cube of creamy radish; and the body-warmer, Aunty Sheila from out of “moreish” har gao was filled with just the Raw By Nolu’s, Al Seef Village Mall, town, who doesn’t hold with this foreign “right amount” of minced shrimp. The Khalifa Park, Abu Dhabi (800) 66587 food. This is London: we like our menus to crispy duck is presented differently to what Popular Afghan-American inspired café be unashamedly, deliciously mongrel.” you might normally expect. Rather than Nolu’s has opened a third branch in the A large meal for two was £57.50.

Recipe of the week These meaty parcels from western Georgia are full of flavour and deliciously juicy, says Tiko Tuskadze. I recommend wrapping the meat in caul fat, which helps to give them shape and creates a deliciously crisp outer coating. Spiced beef meatballs Serves 4–6 500g minced (ground) beef 3 onions, finely chopped 5 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp chilli powder 1 tsp ground coriander 2 tsps dried summer savory 1 tsp ground blue fenugreek (optional) 1 tbsp sumac (optional) 500g caul fat 2 tbsps vegetable or sunflower oil sliced raw red onion and pomegranate seeds, to garnish

• If you have a meat mincer, pass the spoonful of the meat mixture in the beef and onions through together to centre of each, then fold the edges over fully combine. If not, place the onions in to fully enclose the meat. a food processor and briefly pulse, until • Heat the oil in a large frying pan over very fine, but not watery. a medium heat. Once hot, add the • Place the beef and onions in a large wrapped parcels and cook, turning bowl and add the garlic and all of the occasionally, for around 10 mins, until spices. Using your hands, work the golden all over and cooked through. spices through the meat. • Transfer to a serving platter and • Lay the caul fat out flat and slice into garnish with the slices of red onion and 15cm x 20cm rectangles. Place a the pomegranate seeds.

Taken from Supra: A Feast of Georgian Cooking by Tiko Tuskadze, published by Anova Pavilion at £20.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Consumer LEISURE 31

New cars: what the critics say Autocar The Daily Telegraph Auto Express Jaguar’s decision to The car looks just as On the road, the new produce an F-Type with good – and as startling F-Type feels “pretty a four-cylinder engine – as it did when it much as fast” as its has been greeted with was launched in 2013. more expensive siblings. derision in certain Inside, too, it’s “nicely Moreover, it’s lighter quarters. Other models designed”, with soft and more alert. The of the sports car come materials and “expensive- “deeply impressive” with a six-cylinder V6 or feeling” controls. The engine produces an eight-cylinder V8; indeed, cabin is cramped but “addictive” bassy rumble, Jaguar F-Type 2.0-litre coupé this is the carmaker’s still comfortable, with and handling is excellent, from £49,900 first four-cylinder since supportive seats and making this a “surprisingly 2008. But even with the a “comprehensive” comfortable and relaxing” smaller engine, this is a information panel. The car to drive. The F-Type fast, powerful car that boot is fairly compact: is a likeable car in all its can go from 0-62mph in there’s just about room variations, but this one is just 5.7 seconds. for two overnight bags. “the best of the lot”.

The best… portable drones

▲ DJI Mavic Pro The Mavic ▲ DJI Spark Pro is a superb (if The Spark is pricey) all-rounder certainly compact – it only that folds into a weighs 300g – but it can rival much package the size of bigger camera drones for quality, with a milk carton. It can impressively detailed video and 12MP fly up to four miles from images. To get the most out of it, though, whoever’s controlling it, for 27 minutes at a ▲ ZeroTech Dobby This micro- it’s worth forking out another £159 for the time, and shoots stunning video in 4k quality drone is smaller than an optional controller (£519; www.dji.com). (£1,041; www.jessops.com). iPhone: it fits into a pocket when folded and weighs just 199g – which means

▲ Propel Star Wars Collection Drone it struggles in windy Far better than your typical film tie-in, conditions. It’s controlled this mini drone is available in three ▲ Parrot Bebop 2 via a smartphone, forms: an X-Wing, a speeder bike or an Excellent value, producing decent photos X1, as flown by Darth Vader. It’s durable this drone is small but low-quality video and easy to use – though there’s and light, making it (£235; www. no onboard camera or easy to transport. dronesforless. smartphone compatibility Battery life is pretty good, giving 25 minutes of co.uk). flight time, but the built-in camera is merely (£160; www.johnlewis.com). average (£450; www.parrot.com). SOURCES: STUFF/T3/TECH RADAR SOURCES: STUFF/T3/TECH Tips of the week… And for those who Apps… how to buy eggs have everything… for getting around

● Battery hens account for half of the egg- Citymapper is generally considered the best laying hens in the UK. They’re kept indoors, app for navigating public transport. It works with around 13 birds per square metre. in London, Birmingham and Manchester, ● “Barn eggs” come from barn hens, which giving you a range of routes that factor in are also kept indoors – but with a maximum disruptions, as well as live bus information of nine per square metre. Living in such (free; Android, iOS). close quarters, their beaks may have to be Live Train Times UK is ideal for commuters: trimmed to stop them injuring each other. allowing you to quickly access live ● Free-range hens are kept in similar departure times at your regular stations. conditions to barn hens, but must have There’s also useful information on how constant daytime access to at least 4m² of many carriages your train has and which outside space per hen. However, with up platform it’s leaving from (£2; iOS). to 6,000 hens per colony, campaigners say Streets makes it easier to navigate with that some may struggle to find the exit. iOS’s Maps app by giving you access to ● If eggs have the RSPCA Assured label, it street-level views. Just enter your location doesn’t necessarily mean they’re free-range If you find it too easy to walk in regular or destination and it will bring up an – the label also applies to barn eggs that stilettos, try Yves Saint Laurent’s roller interactive, 360° panorama (£2; iOS). meet the RSPCA’s standards. skates. Called the Anya 100 Patch Pump UK Bus Checker covers the entire country, ● Organic eggs come from hens fed on Roller, they are available only from the offering data on 300,000 bus stops. It organic feed and given access to at least designer’s own stores. gives you timetables and live departures 10m² of outside space, with no more than £1,990; www.ysl.com – and even has a handy feature that alerts six birds per square metre inside. Beak you when you’re about to reach your stop trimming is prohibited. (free; Android, iOS, Windows).

SOURCE: THE DAILY TELEGRAPH SOURCE: STUFF SOURCES: THE SUNDAY TIMES/THE GUARDIAN

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 32 Travel

This week’s dream: a fabulous food festival Down Under It was founded only five years ago, and coastline, passing by magnificent cliffs, takes place in one of the most remote coves and “alluring” beaches. There’s corners of the planet. But Western no end of swimming, bird-watching, Australia’s Gourmet Escape Food and kayaking to do, as well as Festival has already established a global famously good surfing. Inland lie reputation, says Sean Thomas in The forests of huge karri trees, with Times – attracting big name chefs from “tranquil”, dappled tracks that are as far afield as the UK and the US to great for cycling on fatbikes. And a the Margaret River wine region, where canoe ride on the river itself will take it is held each November. Last year, you past cascades, buttercup glades Nigella Lawson and Rick Stein turned and sacred Aboriginal backwaters. up, while Heston Blumenthal, an earlier The food festival itself includes attendee, has described it as the best idyllic beachside events, where people event of its kind in the world. Vineyards kick off their shoes and sip drinks in were first planted in this area in the the surf, and others at farms such as 1960s, and artisanal cheesemakers, Leeuwin Estate, which has excellent bakers and “inspiring” The Gourmet Escape Food Festival: idyllic “Glyndebourne-like” grounds. The restaurateurs followed. The superb pavilions are packed with people quality and diversity of the local produce is key to the festival’s sampling, shucking, guzzling, nibbling, laughing and dancing. appeal – along with the beauty of the surrounding landscape. A ceaseless whirligig of gourmet pleasures, it is like partying in Lying 170 miles south of Perth, Margaret River is serene and a Garden of Eden that even boasts “very generous” measures verdant, like an “emptier, sunnier” Sussex with elements of the of excellent local tipple. For more information, see Basque country. A spectacular hiking trail runs the length of its www.gourmetescape.com.au and www.westernaustralia.com.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavour of… Sailing in the West Country place adapted from traditional fortified A 1920s wooden trawler that sailed out of houses, or dammusi, with rooms like “well- Brixham, in Devon, Provident is a rare relic appointed caves”. When not basking by its of our seafaring past now owned by the beautiful walled pool, you can hike through Trinity Sailing Foundation, which offers olive groves, swim in “unspoiled” coves (but sailing lessons to disadvantaged young beware of jellyfish, which are common here), people and sailing holidays for paying guests. or luxuriate in the Specchio di Venere With her green and black hull and huge rust- (Venus’s mirror), a natural hot spring. Double red sails, she is a “glorious” sight, says Brian rooms cost from £288 per night (00 39 06 Jackman in The Sunday Telegraph – and the 36006551, www.sikeliapantelleria.com/en). accommodation she offers for 12 passengers The Cottage in the Wood, is pleasant, though decidedly snug. On a California’s oasis in the desert Lake District four-night trip from Brixham to Falmouth, A favoured retreat of old-school Hollywood you’ll enjoy “cheerful” banter with the stars, notably Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, Palm A whitewashed 16th century friendly crew, and will visit some beautiful Springs had become a “backwater” by the restaurant with rooms, the Cottage in the Wood is in England’s only ports. Past Salcombe, with its gorgeous 1980s, part “retirement home”, part mountain forest, Whinlatter, west harbour and “idyllic” sandy bathing coves, clubbing mecca, and, later, a major centre of Keswick. It is “a cocoon of the coast gets ever wilder, its “gaunt” cliffs of methamphetamine production. Now, miraculous comfort and pleasure”, climaxing at the Dodman, the highest however, this spa town two hours from LA says Tony Naylor in The Guardian – headland in southern Cornwall. Prices start is back in fashion, says Alix Sharkey in thanks in particular to the skill of at £295 for a three-night Taster Cruise Condé Nast Traveller. Go to relish its chef Rich Collingwood. Service is (01803-883355, www.trinitysailing.org). fantastic mid-century modern architecture, attentive but never “oppressive”. “offbeat” vibe, desert sunshine and cool The rooms range from slightly A bewitching island in the Med mountain breezes. There are a host of boxy to large and glamorous. In the dining room, “molecular” With no beaches and no picture-postcard recently opened art galleries and restaurants. techniques meet “a little New villages, the volcanic island of Pantelleria is Good new hotels include the “brilliant and Nordic fermentation and foraging”, not a tourist magnet. But Giorgio Armani eclectic” Parker Palm Springs and the in dishes that are “exquisite” in has a holiday home perched high on its cliffs, “opulent” Colony Palms – or commune with appearance and highly flavour­ Madonna and Sting have stayed here, and glamorous ghosts at the former homes of some, but also light and refreshing. now this bleak, rugged island midway Sinatra or Elizabeth Taylor, now available Doubles from £120 b&b between Sicily and Tunisia has a luxury hotel to rent. The Parker Palm Springs has doubles (01768-778409, www.thecottagein too, says Simon Usborne in the FT. Newly from about £300 (00 1 760 770 5000, thewood.co.uk). opened this year, the Sikelia is a “startling” www.theparkerpalmsprings.com).

Last­minute offers from top travel companies Norfolk marina stay Land of fire & ice Idyllic Mykonos getaway Resort break in Dubai Spend 3 nights at Reedmere, a A 4-night b&b stay at the Bill & Coo Suites is a chic Located close to Aquaventure, modern waterfront self- Centerhotel Skjaldbreid in hillside retreat with an infinity a 6-night, half-board stay at catering property within an Reykjavik costs from £539pp, pool and superb ocean views. the Anantara The Palm Dubai exclusive marina, from £89pp incl. Dublin flights and Blue 5 nights’ b&b from £1,314pp, Resort is from £953pp, incl. (6 sharing). 01263-715779, Lagoon entrance fee. 020-3515 incl. Manchester flights. 01293- London flights. 0800-9159543, www.norfolkcottages.co.uk. 9032, www.tourcenter.uk. 839126, www.sovereign.com. www.awayholidays.co.uk. Arrive 21 November. Depart 18 November. Depart 27 October. Depart 24 November.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Smile all the stay.

Welcome to the new LUX* Grand Gaube, a totally reimagined retro-chic tropical retreat in Mauritius. Launching December 2017. What’s Next?

MAURITIUS • RÉUNION • MALDIVES • CHINA • TURKEY • VIETNAM • U.A.E 34 Obituaries The colossus of British theatre who founded the RSC

Sir Peter Hall Some 25 years ago, as the “strange alchemy” that takes place 1930-2017 Peter Hall was turning in an ensemble. “The actors, the director 60, he was asked if he and everyone concerned take strength had any special from each other, and by working concerns about the future. He said that together, make themselves better, more he was feeling happy and fulfilled – but perceptive and more talented than any of there was a blot on the landscape. What them knew they had it in them to be.” was that, asked his interviewer, The Times’s Benedict Nightingale. “Death,” By the age of 24, he was running the Hall replied. He could not stand to think Arts Theatre in London. It was here that of the work he loved coming to an end. he was sent the script for Godot. “I With a delight in the theatre that was haven’t the foggiest idea what some of it almost childlike, all he wanted to do was means,” he told the cast. “I think it may to keep rehearsing plays and operas. be dramatically effective, but there’s no “People say the theatre’s so old- way of finding out until the first night.” fashioned, so clumsy,” he continued. In the event, there was a lot of “I say, give me six actors, three days and harrumphing and some angry a room, and I’ll create something that barracking, he recalled, before the could fire your imagination.” audience settled down into “glum boredom”. Most of the critics were A colossus of the British theatre, Sir baffled, but Harold Hobson and Peter Hall, who has died aged 86, will Kenneth Tynan were enthusiastic, and in be chiefly remembered for two great the ensuing Godot-mania, Hall became achievements, said the Daily Mail: famous. Tennessee Williams asked him founding the Royal Shakespeare Hall: responsible for Godot-mania to direct the first London productions of Company, and bringing the National Camino Real and Cat on a Hot Tin Theatre to life in its current home on the South Bank. Though Roof, and, in 1956, he directed Gigi and married its star, Leslie capable of great charm, and renowned for his powers of Caron. They divorced nine years later. persuasion, Hall could be brutal in pursuit of his vision – and he made enemies in his own field. Jonathan Miller once called Hall made his directing debut at Stratford at the age of 25, and him a “ball of rancid fat”, while John Osborne referred to him as in 1960, aged 29, he was appointed artistic director of the “Fu Manchu” and left instructions that he shouldn’t attend his Shakespeare Memorial Theatre; this he then transformed into funeral. And as an outspoken a year-round operation, the champion of the subsidised arts, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hall also fought many battles “He loved the ‘strange alchemy’ of with a second base at the with what he considered a an ensemble: ‘making everyone better than any Aldwych in London. His philistine government. “How successes there included David much longer have we got to give of them knew they had it in them to be’” Warner’s Hamlet and John money to awful people like Peter Barton’s The Wars of the Roses. Hall?” Margaret Thatcher famously demanded (though he had In London, he staged new works by Harold Pinter. Among the voted for her in 1979). His private life was complex. He was actors whose careers he promoted were Vanessa Redgrave, Ian married four times, and suffered a series of breakdowns. Yet he Richardson and Ian Holm. He first directed Judi Dench in A was resilient, and possessed of seemingly boundless energy, and Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1962, said The Daily Telegraph; was responsible for some 300 productions. These ranged from the almost 50 years later, she reprised her role as Titania at the Rose avant-garde – he directed the first English language production of Theatre Kingston, “another theatre he helped spirit into life”. Waiting for Godot – to the crowd-pleasing: his staging of Amadeus was one of the National’s biggest hits. He directed Hall’s workload was relentless, and in the mid-1960s he suffered a Elaine Paige in the West End and 19 operas for the Glyndebourne nervous breakdown. Yet he returned to the fray, said The Times; and Festival. by the time he handed the reins to Trevor Nunn, in 1968, the RSC was an established “jewel in the nation’s crown”. He took over the Born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in 1930, Peter Hall was the National in 1973, succeeding Laurence Olivier, and oversaw its son of a station master, Reg, and grew up in a house with neither move to the South Bank. His timing was inauspicious. With Britain electricity nor running water. His parents encouraged a love of in recession, the subsidised arts were under threat; and he had to theatre and music, and when the family moved to Cambridge, contend with a hostile media, building delays and a series of strikes. his mother persuaded him to sit for a scholarship to The Perse (The theatre was picketed, and during one performance striking School, where he starred in a production of Hamlet. At St workers invaded the stage.) Yet he persevered, and though there Catharine’s College, Cambridge, he shed his Suffolk accent and, were duds, he had triumphs too, including the world premieres of he said, “turned into a phoney member of the middle class”. Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce, Pinter’s Betrayal and No Man’s Land (the latter starring John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson), and His skills as an impresario were evident early on, said Mark Tony Harrison’s bold rendition of The Oresteia. Meanwhile, he had Lawson in The Guardian, when, during the War, he marshalled married twice more: his second wife was Jacqueline Taylor, his his friends into a band. But the “crucial event of his adolescence” former personal assistant; his third was the opera singer Maria was seeing Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Shakespeare Memorial Ewing. He was finally married to Nicki Frei, who survives him, Theatre in Stratford when he was 15; it was directed by Peter along with his six children and nine grandchildren. Brook, who was himself only 21. At that moment, Hall – who would cycle to Stratford with a tent on his back to see the latest Hall did not, as he hoped, “keel over in the playhouse”; his final productions – resolved not only to become a Shakespearean production at the National was Twelfth Night, to mark his 80th director, but to run a theatre. In his third year at Cambridge, he birthday. At around that time, he was diagnosed with dementia. began staging plays that attracted London critics – and discovered He spent his final years at the Charterhouse, an almshouse in his love of the rehearsal process, said The Daily Telegraph – and a former medieval monastery in the City of London.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 MOTIVATE CONGRATULATES THE WINNERS

GULF BUSINESS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD GULF BUSINESS BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR His Highness Sheikh Ahmed COMPANY OF THE YEAR H.E. Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, Mashreq Bin Saeed Al Maktoum DarkMatter

BANKING BUSINESS LEADER HEALTHCARE BUSINESS LEADER MEDIA AND MARKETING OF THE YEAR OF THE YEAR COMPANY OF THE YEAR H.E. Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, Mashreq David Hadley, Mediclinic Middle East OSN

REAL ESTATE BUSINESS LEADER RETAIL BUSINESS LEADER HEALTHCARE COMPANY OF THE YEAR OF THE YEAR OF THE YEAR H.E. Mohamed Alabbar, Emaar Colm McLoughlin, Dubai Duty Free Aster DM Healthcare

ENERGY BUSINESS LEADER REAL ESTATE COMPANY OF THE YEAR RETAIL COMPANY OF THE YEAR OF THE YEAR Danube Souq.com Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Masdar ENERGY COMPANY OF THE YEAR CSR INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Masdar ActiveLife by Daman BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR SME OF THE YEAR H.E. Helal Saeed Almarri, DCTCM TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY COMPANY OF THE YEAR NOW Money AVIATION AND TRANSPORT RAK Tourism Development Authority BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR Sima Ved, Apparel Group Magnus Olsson & Mudassir Sheikha, AVIATION AND TRANSPORT Careem COMPANY OF THE YEAR INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR Dubai Airports HUB1006 TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR BANKING COMPANY OF THE YEAR ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR Faisal Al Bannai, DarkMatter Emirates NBD Nayla Al Khaja, D-Seven/The Scene

MEDIA AND MARKETING TECHNOLOGY COMPANY HAPPINESS & POSITIVITY BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR OF THE YEAR COMPANY OF THE YEAR Sam Barnett, MBC Group DarkMatter DHL

SPONSORED BY EDUCATION PARTNER VENUE PARTNER VOTE PROCESSING PARTNERPRESENTED BY 36 BUSINESS Companies in the news ...and how they were assessed

Bombardier/Boeing: nest of hornets Theresa May flew to Canada this week – straight into the “hornets’ nest” of a bitter dispute between two aircraft-makers, said the Financial Times. May has joined forces with the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, to protest a competition case brought by the US giant Boeing against its Canadian rival Bombardier. In a nutshell, Boeing wants the US government to impose tariffs against Bombardier’s C Series jets, which it claims are sold at “absurdly” low prices because the firm receives “unfair” state support. Canada has been Seven days in the lobbying the US to ignore Boeing – and has threatened to block all future Boeing deals Square Mile (including lucrative contracts to supply Super Hornet fighting jets) unless it drops its challenge. Why, you might wonder, is this row “reverberating across the Atlantic”, asked The US Federal Reserve was expected to Dara Doyle in Bloomberg Businessweek. Because Bombardier has a 4,500-strong announce plans to start unwinding its workforce in Northern Ireland – and May needs the support of ten local DUP MPs to quantitative easing programme after nearly a decade, and to begin reducing get her business through Parliament. “The PM is navigating turbulent airspace,” said the size of its $4.5trn balance sheet. Christopher Williams in The Daily Telegraph. Boeing is also a big force in Britain: some US markets took the prospect of the 16,500 jobs and £2bn in annual spending rely on its supply chain, and it is planning a landmark move in their stride: the S&P big new site in Sheffield. “Overall it is a mess.” Good luck with clearing it up. 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices all rose to new highs this week; Fed chair Toys ‘R’ Us: bankrupt giant Janet Yellen has promised to make the Toys ‘R’ Us has long been America’s largest toy store chain, said Michael Corkery in The process as uneventful “as watching paint New York Times. Now it is the country’s largest bankrupt toy store chain. “Crippled by dry”. In Britain, the pound shot to a post- competition and debt”, it has become “the latest casualty” in a long line of bricks-and- Brexit high of $1.36 following heavy hints from Threadneedle Street that BoE mortar retailers “struggling to compete with Amazon” and the might of generalist retailers policymakers are minded to raise interest such as Walmart. (The group’s operations in Australia, Europe and Asia are unaffected.) A rates this year. Pundits think there’s a 42% “heavy debt load” has weighed on the private equity-owned company “for years”. Indeed, chance of a rise in November, and at least the Chapter 11 filing, to restructure $5bn of long-term debt, “is among the largest ever by a 50% chance in December. a speciality retailer”, said Reuters, casting doubt over the future of some 64,000 Germany’s ThyssenKrupp and India’s Tata employees and nearly 1,600 stores, which, for now, remain open. The collapse came Steel agreed to merge their European swiftly. Reports earlier this month that the company had hired a law firm specialising in operations to create the continent’s No. bankruptcy set off “a dangerous game of dominoes”, according to CEO David Brandon. 2 steel producer after ArcelorMittal. Tata But the timing, ahead of the crucial holiday season, “could not be worse”. Brandon is has agreed with UK regulators to hive putting a brave face on matters. “Today marks the dawn of a new era at Toys ‘R’ Us,” he off its UK pension scheme – a key said this week. Well, that’s one way of putting it. stumbling block for Thyssen. The John Lewis Partnership reported that half-year profits had fallen by more than 50% to Abraaj: partnership with Engie £26.6m, mostly owing to restructuring UAE-based investment firm Abraaj Group has announced a partnership with French and redundancy costs. MPs called for a multinational Engie to pursue wind power projects in India. The two have identified public inquiry into UK household debt, more than 1GW of wind power projects in several states, with the aim of addressing which now stands at £200bn. Snap, growing clean and conventional energy demand in the country, according to the which owns Snapchat, was criticised announcement. Power consumption in India is expected to grow 9% a year to 2020 for blocking users in Saudi Arabia from and the government has targeted 60GW of wind power capacity by 2022. This will accessing Al Jazeera’s news content. require a near doubling of the 32GW of installed capacity. The two firms said John Chambers, who built tech group government initiatives including the recently announced National Investment and Cisco into the world’s most valuable company in the 1990s, announced Infrastructure Fund to support long-term investments created an investment his retirement. opportunity for the private sector.

Ryanair: cancelled flights chaos Four years have passed since Ryanair boss Daily Telegraph. Some analysts reckon on a Michael O’Leary stood up at the AGM and further s100m hit once “reputation damage” vowed to stop doing things that might, in his is factored in. Ryanair’s hotchpotch of explan- words, “unnecessarily piss people off”, said ations wasn’t exactly reassuring – analysts at Alistair Osborne in The Times. Being “nicer” RBC likened it to a list of “football manager helped Ryanair triple its share price. But excuses” – and nor was news of a mass exodus imagine the “personal” toll exacted on the of 140 pilots to Scandinavian rival Norwegian. once proudly obnoxious O’Leary. “How refreshing”, then, to see him “back to his Ryanair’s shares fell by 2.4% on the news, said old passenger wind-up routine” this week. Nils Pratley in The Guardian. That seems “overly The airline’s abrupt cancellation of some gentle”. The short-term impact on profits may 2,100 flights (or about 2% of its services) over be modest, but “the airline’s “chaotic handling the next six weeks threw the plans of some of events suggests the tale is far from over”. It’s 400,000 ticket holders into chaos – because one thing cancelling 2% of flights, “but why Ryanair took days to confirm exactly which alarm those booked on the 98% that will fly?” flights were being chopped. O’Leary: football manager excuses In the very long run, O’Leary will probably come out smiling. “He usually does.” But at a The flight cull – apparently needed to restore “punctuality” after time when once frillier rivals such as BA are slashing costs and Ryanair “messed up” its pilot holiday rota – will cost some s20m passenger perks, this big dent in Ryanair’s hard-earned halo looks (£17.7m) in compensation up front, said Bradley Gerrard in The set to cost the airline dear.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Talking points CITY 37 Issue of the week: interest rate manoeuvres Markets reckon a rate hike this year may finally be in the offing. But is the Bank crying wolf again? The Bank of England last week dropped governor Mark Carney has “form” its strongest hint in a decade that it is on that front, after all, “thanks to his poised to raise interest rates, said Chris legendary forward guidance”, which Giles in the FT – setting the stage for a invariably turns out to be wrong. And “nail-biting decision at the November last week’s hints certainly had the desired meeting of the Monetary Policy effect on the pound. Maybe the MPC Committee”. Members of the MPC really will raise rates in November. But voted by seven to two to keep rates on there are plenty of reasons it could yet hold last week, but several members hold back – not least the chance of signalled that “unless there is a sudden intensified “Brexit chaos”. string of poor data”, a quarter-point rise from the current 0.25% rate is on the The current seven-to-two split on the cards. For most currency traders, that MPC reflects a series of trade-offs, said became a racing certainty after the The Observer. The Bank needs to boost economist Gertjan Vlieghe weighed into economic growth, while keeping the debate. Vlieghe is known as the inflation under control; to maintain committee’s “uber-dove” because of his Carney: losing credibility? “post-referendum stability”, while previous calls for “restraint”; news that curbing consumer debt, “which is ever he too is gunning for a rise sent sterling soaring. The pound leapt delicate and close to a tipping point”. Households “might cope by 2.7% against the dollar in just 48 hours, to above $1.36 – “its with a move to 0.5%”, but a “sustained move against cheap highest level since the Brexit vote”. borrowing and persistent inflation” would mean “a wider rethink of ambitions” for many Britons: from rising up the housing ladder One can understand why the Bank wants “to talk up the pound”, to buying a car. There’s a risk that the Bank will “lose credibility” said Alistair Osborne in The Times. “It’s one way to put the if it “decides to hold fire”, said the FT. Yet the “more serious brakes on inflation”, which has jumped to 2.9% mainly because risk” is that “policy tightening proves premature”. After such the weak pound has made imports more expensive – “all the more a long period of ultra-loose policy, “no one can be sure what the painful” for most British households as wage growth is stuck at effect of higher rates will be”. And “with little evidence of 2.1%. “What better wheeze”, then, “than to dangle the possibility domestically generated UK inflation”, there is “every reason for of an interest rate rise – and see if the market falls for it”. Bank caution”. The BoE “should be in no rush” to move.

Making money: what the experts think Prize books ● Tulip warning this a lethal blow? The shortlist of six titles for the FT/ Bad news if you work Don’t bank on it, said McKinsey Business Book of the Year is for J.P. Morgan and James Mackintosh in out. Here are the contenders, says the have a penchant for The Wall Street Journal. FT’s Andrew Hill. trading bitcoins, said “After all, behind every the Daily Mail. The bubble is a good idea The One Device, by Brian Merchant Wall Street bank’s bursting to get out.” (Penguin). “The secret history of the iPhone”, charting the genesis and boss, Jamie Dimon, is But although there’s history of Apple’s seminal device. so down on the digital certainly demand for “a currency that he has digital currency without Reset, by Ellen Pao (Penguin Random threatened to fire borders”, bitcoin is “so House). A memoir recounting Pao’s anyone trading it “in badly designed” that it “bruising experience as a woman in Silicon Valley”. In 2015, Pao sued venture a second”. Dimon Tulip mania: making a comeback? will never be up to the said that the rise of task. “Is a single coin capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & bitcoin – which has jumped in price from worth $500,000, $5,000, $500 or $0? I’m Byers for discrimination. She lost, but just over $2 a unit in 2011 to a high just inclined to side with Dimon and say $0.” her suit rocked the tech world. below $5,000 at the start of September – The Spider Network, by David Enrich reminded him of “tulip mania” in 17th ● Green giant (Penguin). An “almost unbelievable century Holland, when speculators made, “What better time to unveil a merger and darkly entertaining account” of the and then lost, huge fortunes bidding up between two environmentally focused fund web of intrigue behind the rigging of the price of bulbs. The price could shoot to managers than at the start of Climate Libor interest rates. $20,000, said Dimon, “but it will Week,” asked Antony Currie on Reuters eventually blow up. I am just shocked that Breakingviews. But there are other reasons Janesville, by Amy Goldstein (Simon anyone can’t see it for what it is.” Aim-listed Impax’s $52.5m buyout of the & Schuster). Describes the impact on US firm Pax World seems “savvy”. The a Wisconsin community of General Motors’ decision to close a plant, with ● China calls a halt sector, after all, “has the wind at its back”. “intelligence, sympathy and insight”. The bitcoin price fell by 10% after Dimon Rising temperatures, and a one-third said it was a “fraud” that only drug increase in the planet’s population by Adaptive Markets, by Andrew Lo dealers, murderers and North Koreans 2050, will require “trillions of dollars of (Princeton). A “remarkable” critique of should buy, said Rupert Neate in The investment in everything from alternative the efficient market hypothesis. Guardian. But a Chinese crackdown has power sources to water and agricultural hit much harder still: the price plunged efficiency” – all grist to the mill for this The Great Leveler, by Walter Scheidel below $3,000 this week “after Beijing combined duo, which will have $13bn (Princeton). “A heavyweight history of ordered cryptocurrency exchanges to stop under management. The only question is economic inequality, with sobering insights into the rebalancing effect of trading” on fears that the bitcoin bubble whether that figure “is big enough” to violent events, from plague to war.” “could spark wider financial problems”. Is capitalise on all the action in the sector.

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 38 CITY Commentators

With share prices hitting all-time highs, this exceptionally long bull market continues to look “unstoppable”, said Matthew Lynn City profiles Prepare for in The Daily Telegraph. Yet many investors are “quite rightly worrying about where the next crash is coming from, and whether Lloyd Blankfein an overdue Goldman Sachs Group’s it will hurt as much as 2008”. Most bull markets see regular Chief Executive Officer correction corrections – “sudden plunges and panics, with the markets Lloyd Blankfein said Saudi dropping 5% to 10% in a few days as bad news triggers selling”. Arabia will attract more This one has been “unnaturally calm” for two years. There are Matthew Lynn foreign workers as it seeks “valid reasons” for that: equity markets have been propped up by to diversify its economy The Daily Telegraph near-zero interest rates, and money printing; and the rise of away from oil. “Nobody has “automated and passive funds” has probably improved stability done this without attracting (a FTSE 100 tracker doesn’t “panic sell”). But it’s been “a heck of a lot of expats and a lot of a long time” since they’ve had a good trim. “We might not get people,” Blankfein said at the another major crash for another five or even ten years”, but a Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York. 10% correction, “which can feel like a crash if it happens Blankfein spoke on a panel quickly”, is long overdue – and there are lots of potential triggers. with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Autumn is the traditional season for corrections. “Investors with managing director of Saudi serious cash in the market should keep the tranquilisers handy.” Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the $111 billion Public At last, some good news for Imagination – the stricken British Investment Fund. Goldman tech wizard whose graphics chips have “powered” the Apple Sachs has been expanding iPhone, iPad and Watch since their inception, says Iain Dey. After in Saudi Arabia. The bank Apple’s brutal was one of the firms that examining the technical disclosures for the new iPhone X last helped arrange the nation’s heist in week, analysts at stockbroker Numis reckon that Apple will have debut international bond to cough up royalties to Imagination. That’s some consolation for sale last year, and the Hertfordshire the Hertfordshire-based firm, whose shares crashed “by half” kingdom’s Capital Market earlier this year after Apple abruptly terminated its contract, Authority has given Iain Dey saying it planned to design its own chips. At the same time, the Goldman Sachs approval US giant started advertising for chip designers to work at a new to trade local equities. The Sunday Times facility nearby, prompting “at least two dozen former Imagination staff” to jump ship. Imagination now faces a sale to an investment Lynton Crosby fund backed by the Chinese state. Given Apple’s massive $261bn surplus pile, it makes “perfect sense” to bring more development in-house. But it should be “brought to heel by every regulatory force on the planet” if it uses its clout to ride “roughshod over the suppliers that helped it reach its lofty position”.

“Another week, another culture scandal at a California technology company,” says Brooke Masters. This time it is Fintech firms: SoFi, the largest online lender in the US, which has ousted its boss after being hit by lawsuits alleging unfair working the worst of practices and sexual harassment. “It was a frat house,” one employee reported. “You would find people having sex in their both worlds? cars and in the parking lot.” The troubles at SoFi follow a “governance scandal” at one of its biggest rivals, LendingClub, Brooke Masters whose CEO was ejected last year amid allegations of doctored Financial Times loans, and conflicts of interest. SoFi and LendingClub are two The Australian political leading lights in the “fintech” sector, which “seeks to disrupt strategist “blamed by some financial services”, using algorithms, artificial intelligence and Conservatives for Theresa digital apps to offer an “innovative, customer-friendly” May’s disastrous general alternative to traditional banks. Yet if these allegations are true, election performance” is forming a new company, SoFi and LendingClub seem to have “many of banking’s worst says the FT. Lynton Crosby attributes with Silicon Valley’s warts layered on top”. What a has teamed up with Barack let-down if a sector that held out so much promise actually Obama’s former advisor, Jim provides “the worst of both worlds”. Messina, to form Outra – a digital agency that will help Iraq’s Kurdish provinces plan to vote in a referendum on businesses “microtarget” independence on September 25, a poll that regional and customers on social media. Kurdish Western powers, not to mention the central government in “It’s a natural extension of Baghdad, have decried as a catalyst for greater instability in a what we do,” Crosby says. independence region gutted by war. At stake are the petrodollars that have He was nicknamed the “Wizard of Oz” after helping and the oil helped sustain the Kurdish Regional Government’s (KRG) semi- Boris Johnson and David autonomous rule after a budgetary deal with the federal Cameron to unexpected business government fell apart. The KRG says northern Iraq’s Kurdish victories. But critics argue enclave could hold 45 billion barrels of crude reserves, more that his approach – which Angelina Rascouet and than OPEC member Nigeria. The region pumped about involves focusing on one core political message – is Khalid Ansary 544,600 barrels of oil a day in 2016 and is expected to boost output to 602,000 barrels this year. Last year’s production a “busted flush”. One former colleague accepts Crosby’s Bloomberg represents about 12% of Iraq’s total supply. The referendum will be held not only in the three governorates of the Kurdish stock may be “diminished”, but thinks he’ll still be seen region but also in the disputed region of Kirkuk and its oil as “a serious player in the fields, where Iraq first discovered crude in 1927. In other wider business world”. words, the KRG referendum is about a lot more politics.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 Sharewatch CITY 39

Who’s tipping what

The week’s best buys Directors’ dealings Associated British Foods Galliford Try Next Fifteen The Times The Times Communications Numis ABF is a “hotchpotch” of The housebuilder is less The Mail on Sunday 290 food-makers, agricultural exposed to central London Berenberg believes the Director sells interests and Primark, which than peers and is buying land advertising and marketing firm 280 5,656,524 has had a “stunning” second with “acceptable margins”. is “well positioned for half. The fashion retailer has There’s still a “chronic under expansion” after buying peer 270 320 stores in 11 countries, and supply” of new homes, and Elvis Communications for 260 is expanding globally as sales construction is back in health. £5.5m. The broker named a 250 rise 4%. Buy. £31.58. Yields above 7%. Buy. £13.40. 500p price target. Buy. 418.5p. 240 BHP Billiton McBride Ricardo 230 The Daily Telegraph Investors Chronicle The Times Apr May June Jul Aug Sep The world’s largest miner has The consumer goods firm is This “highly regarded” good assets in politically stable in phase two of its turnaround, engineer is focused on energy It’s “all change at the top” of stockbroker Numis. The CFO parts of the world. It has cut as profitability and cash and environmental consulting. is stepping down, and director debt and generates plenty of generation improve. Debt has Shares have been hit by Lorna Tilbian plans to quit after cash. Trades at a 16% discount fallen and the acquisition of uncertainty in the automotive 16 years. She has sold £17m in due to its dual listing in dishwasher-tablet maker market, but the order book is shares – equivalent to more London and Sydney. Yields Danlind will boost earnings. strong, and it is well-positioned than 5% of the total share 4.6%. Buy. £14.38. Buy. 195p. in growth markets. Buy. 775p. capital. SOURCE: INVESTORS CHRONICLE SOURCE: INVESTORS

…and some to hold, avoid or sell Form guide

Carillion JD Wetherspoon San Leon Energy Shares tipped 12 weeks ago Investors Chronicle The Mail on Sunday Investors Chronicle Best tip Shares in the troubled support Profits for the pub-giant – with The oil and gas explorer has John Menzies services group tumbled on over 900 watering holes – have had a “painful week”. Its Investors Chronicle news of an “exodus of senior jumped 25.3% in a year, but cash position has fallen below up 2.63% to 742p managers”, including the FD Peel Hunt fears that rising malt £0.9m and shares were and COO. Decisive action is and sugar costs could slow suspended after auditors cast Worst tip being taken to get the group momentum, and has given the doubt over its future. The People’s Operator back on track, but it will take company a “reduce” rating. Emergency aid is needed. The Mail on Sunday down 65.82% to 1.88p time. Sell. 45p. Take profits. Sell. £11.89 Sell. 21p.

Hastings Group Safestyle UP Global Sourcing The Times Investors Chronicle Shares Market view Merger talks between the AA This window and door Six months after joining “The impact of monetary and insurance broker Hastings, specialist is suffering a worse London’s main market, the policy settings and which specialises in motor and than expected decline in consumer products distributor expectations is now home cover, are over. There are orders. Having ploughed cash has released a damaging profit drowning out just about concerns that Hastings has into marketing, margins are warning. Citing retailer caution everything else.” “raced too far” – targets are “bearing the full brunt” of the over buying stock, it has Simon Derrick of BNY ambitious and aspirations “too slowdown. There’s more pain slashed growth forecasts to Mellon. Quoted in the FT aggressive”. Sell. 311.7p. to come. Sell. 166p. zero. Sell. 95p. Market summary

KeyKey numbersnumbers for investors BestBest andand worst performing shares Following the Footsie 19 Sep 2017 Week before Change (%) WEEK’S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS 7,600 FTSE 100 7275.25 7400.69 –1.69% RISES Price % change FTSE All-share UK 3994.36 4054.83 –1.49% Next 4978.00 +13.14 GKN 347.80 +5.36 Dow Jones 22367.94 22119.36 1.12% 7,500 NASDAQ 6456.70 6438.37 0.28% Marks & Spencer Gp. 340.00 +5.33 Nikkei 225 20299.38 19776.62 2.64% BAE Systems 622.50 +4.62 EasyJet 1228.00 +2.85 Hang Seng 28051.41 27972.24 0.28% 7,400 Gold 1309.60 1326.50 –1.27% FALLS Brent Crude Oil 55.02 54.16 1.59% Fresnillo 1437.00 –8.47 DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100) 3.96% 3.91% Mediclinic Int. 691.50 –7.62 7,300 UK 10-year gilts yield 1.38 1.19 Carnival 4760.00 –7.39 US 10-year Treasuries 2.24 2.17 Anglo American 1291.50 –7.32 UK ECONOMIC DATA Glencore 346.10 –7.09 7,200 Latest CPI (yoy) 2.9% (Aug) 2.6% (Jul) BEST AND WORST UK STOCKS OVERALL Latest RPI (yoy) 3.9% (Aug) 3.6% (Jul) Reabold Resources 0.65 +100.00 Halifax house price (yoy) +2.6% (Aug) +2.1% (Jul) 7,100 Ormonde Mining 0.01 –65.00 Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Source: Datastream (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 19 Sep (pm) £1 STERLING $1.352 E1.126 ¥150.566 6-month movement in the FTSE 100 index

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 40 The last word The friendly aliens of the deep

Once regarded as a malevolent sea monster, the octopus is in fact a gentle, inquisitive and highly intelligent animal. Amia Srinivasan considers the “unboundaried potential” of this evolutionary curiosity

The octopus threatens top of its arms rests its boundaries. Its body, a head, which contains its boneless mass of soft tissue, brain and features two has no fixed shape. Even large eyes with horizontal, large octopuses – the largest dash-shaped pupils, like species, the Giant Pacific, a cat’s eyes turned on their has an arm span of more side. Behind the head is than six metres – can fit the octopus’s mantle, a through an opening an inch bulbous structure that wide, or about the size of its contains its vital organs, eye. This, combined with including three hearts their considerable strength which pump blue-green – a mature male Giant blood. A tubular siphon Pacific can lift 30lbs with is attached to the mantle, each of its 1,600 suckers which the octopus uses – means that octopuses are variously for jet propulsion, difficult to keep in captivity. respiration, excretion and Many octopuses have inking predators. escaped their aquarium tanks through small holes; Linnaeus called the octopus some have been known to a singulare monstrum, lift the lid off their tank, “a unique monster”. Victor making their way, Gentle and inquisitive, octopuses are sociable creatures Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea sometimes across stretches includes a long description of dry floor, to a nearby tank for a snack, or to the nearest drain, of the octopus, or “devil-fish”: “This irregular mass advances and maybe from there home to the sea. Octopuses do not have slowly towards you. Suddenly it opens, and eight radii issue any stable colour or texture, changing at will to match their abruptly from around a face with two eyes. These radii are surroundings: a camouflaged octopus can be invisible from just a alive: their undulation is like lambent flames… A terrible few feet away. Like humans, they have centralised nervous expansion!… A glutinous mass, endowed with a malignant will, systems, but in their case, there is no clear brain-body distinction. what can be more horrible?” Octopuses are indeed glutinous; An octopus’s neurons are dispersed throughout its body, and according to Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus, two-thirds of them are in its arms. (Octopuses have arms, not the slime on an octopus’s skin feels like a cross between drool tentacles: tentacles have suckers only at their tips. Squid and and snot. But the octopus’s will is far from malignant, at least cuttlefish have a combination of arms and tentacles.) when it comes to humans.

In evolutionary terms, the intelligence of octopuses is an anomaly. Octopuses do occasionally attack people, giving a venomous nip The last common ancestor between octopuses and humans was or stealing an underwater camera when threatened or annoyed, probably a primitive, blind worm-like creature that existed six but in general they are gentle, inquisitive creatures. (Fishermen, hundred million years ago. Other creatures that are so by contrast, often kill octopuses by biting out their brains, and evolutionarily distant from in many countries they are eaten humans – lobsters, snails, slugs, alive.) Octopuses encountering clams – rate pretty low on the “Octopuses encountering divers in the wild divers in the wild will often cognitive scale. But octopuses will sometimes take them by the hand and lead meet them with a probing arm – and to some extent their or two, and sometimes lead them cephalopod cousins, cuttlefish them on a neighbourhood tour” by the hand on a neighbourhood and squid – frustrate the neat tour. Aristotle, mistaking division between clever vertebrates and simple-minded curiosity for a lack of intelligence, called the octopus a “stupid invertebrates. They are sophisticated problem-solvers; they learn, creature” because of its willingness to approach an extended and can use tools; and they show a capacity for mimicry, human hand. Octopuses can recognise individual humans, and deception and, some think, humour. Their intelligence is like ours, will respond differently to different people, greeting some with and utterly unlike ours. Octopuses are the closest we can come, a caress of the arms, spraying others with their siphons. This is on Earth, to knowing what it might be like to encounter striking behaviour in an animal whose natural life cycle is deeply intelligent aliens. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher and diver antisocial. Octopuses live solitary lives in single dens and die who has been studying octopuses and other cephalopods in the soon after their young hatch. Many male octopuses, to avoid wild, mostly off the coast of his native Sydney, for years. The being eaten during mating, will keep their bodies as far removed alienness of octopuses, in his view, provides an opportunity to from the female as possible, extending a single arm with a sperm reflect on the nature of cognition and consciousness without packet towards her siphon, a manoeuvre known as “the reach”. simply projecting from the human example. Just how clever are octopuses? An octopus has half a billion An octopus is an eight-armed, soft-bodied mollusc. Its arms are neurons, about as many as a dog. (A human has a hundred billion covered in suckers and arranged radially around a sharp-beaked neurons.) In the lab, octopuses do fairly well: they can navigate mouth. It eats by catching prey with one of its arms and moving it mazes, use memory to solve simple puzzles and unscrew jars and through a conveyer belt of undulating suckers to its mouth – in child-proof bottles to get food. Yet it can take them a surprisingly that sense an octopus’s arms can also be thought of as its lips. On long time to be trained in new behaviours, which some

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 The last word 41

researchers have taken as a sign of their problem with this thought is that octopuses cognitive limitations. In 1959, Peter Dews, appear not to have any language at all, and a Harvard scientist, trained three octopuses so presumably can no more talk to to pull a lever to obtain a chunk of sardine. themselves than to others. The megapixel Two of the octopuses, Albert and Bertram, screen of the octopus’s body means that, pulled the lever in a “reasonably theoretically, it could telegraph information consistent” manner. But the third, Charles, of almost infinite complexity – the sort of would anchor his arms on the side of the expressive bandwidth of which a chimp or tank and apply great force to the lever, baboon can only dream. Yet most of the eventually breaking it and bringing the chromatic signals produced by an octopus experiment to a premature end. Dews appear not to have any consistent effect on also reported that Charles repeatedly other octopuses, suggesting that they are pulled a lamp into his tank, and that he signs without meaning, words with no “had a high tendency to direct jets of sense. water out of the tank; specifically… in the direction of the experimenter”. “This Most species of octopus live for only a year behaviour,” Dews wrote, “interfered or two; the Giant Pacific, the species that materially with the smooth conduct of the A Giant Pacific at Monterey Bay Aquarium lives longest, dies after four years at most. experiments, and is… clearly incompatible Both female and male octopuses mate only with lever-pulling.” Godfrey-Smith says this “encapsulates much once, and enter a swift and sudden decline soon after, developing of the story with octopus behaviour”. Octopuses have a high white lesions on their skin, losing interest in food, and becoming curiosity drive, and a knack for repurposing things for their own uncoordinated and confused. The females die from starvation ends. Perhaps there are tasks that octopuses find hard to learn. Or while they tend their eggs, and the males are typically preyed on perhaps they just have better things to do. as they wander the ocean aimlessly. In its early evolutionary history, the octopus gave up its protective, molluscan shell in Captive octopuses appear to be aware of their captivity; they order to embrace a life of unboundaried potential. But an animal adapt to it but also resist it. When they try to escape, which is with a soft body and no shell cannot expect to live long. often, they tend to wait for a moment they aren’t being watched. Octopuses have flooded laboratories by deliberately plugging Earlier this year, on a drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles, valves in their tanks with their arms. At the University of Otago, I went to see the two Giant Pacific octopuses at the Monterey Bay an octopus short-circuited the electricity supply – by shooting Aquarium. This was my second encounter with a live octopus. jets of water at the aquarium lightbulbs – so often that it had (I have had more encounters with dead octopuses than I care to to be released back into the wild. The third-century Roman recall. They make excellent carpaccio. Never again.) The first was rhetorician Claudius Aelianus, a more sympathetic observer than off a beach in Mykonos, where I was snorkelling. There wasn’t Aristotle, identified the octopus’s much on the sea floor, just small main characteristic as “mischief crustaceans and darting and craft”. “An octopus’s arm has more neurons than silverfish, until I saw a red mass its brain. It can taste and smell, exhibit a few feet away, about the size of Octopuses almost certainly feel a cat, watching me with a single pain. They nurse and protect short-term memory and perhaps even see” eye. I stayed still, watching it injured body parts, and don’t back. The octopus made small, like to be touched near wounds. They have sophisticated sensory unhurried movements, curling and uncurling its arms, snuffling capacities: excellent eyesight, and acute senses of taste and smell. along the floor. Eventually it crawled to a sunken rope some feet But the question of what it might feel like to be an octopus is away and wrapped itself around it. Its body became a brown, complicated by the odd relationship between its brain and its barnacled coil, and then there was only a single white eye with a body. An octopus’s arms have more neurons than its brain, about black dash of pupil. The eye closed, and the octopus vanished. 10,000 neurons per sucker. The arms can taste and smell, exhibit short-term memory, and perhaps see: researchers recently At Monterey the two Giant Pacifics were in adjacent tanks, each discovered that octopuses have the photoreceptors required for a few metres wide. The first octopus was energetic, unfurling its sight in their skin. Each arm acts with considerable independence huge body and then compressing it, boiling and jetting its way from the brain; even a surgically detached arm can reach and back and forth through the water. When you’re looking at an grasp, avoid painful stimuli and change colour. Yet an octopus’s octopus, your attention is naturally drawn to its rows of suckers, brain can exert executive control, “pulling itself together” when it coiling arms and bulging body. Its eyes look sleepy, half-closed. needs to, for example when an octopus puts out a single You have to know what you’re looking for to see that they are inquisitive arm to inspect a stranger. open, and staring straight at you. I looked the octopus in the eyes and found it looking back at me, fixedly, as its body ballooned A further oddity is the creature’s relationship to colour. An and hollowed behind it. The second octopus was quieter, bundled octopus’s skin is a layered screen of pixel-like sacs of colour called up at the top of her tank. A few thin strands of translucent, chromatophores, which make it possible for an octopus to change pearl-shaped eggs – laid and then painstakingly braided together its colour at will to match its surroundings or threaten an with the thin tips of her arms – hung nearby, remnants of the aggressor. The so-called mimic octopus can impersonate more clutch that had been removed by the aquarium keepers. Her skin than 15 different animals, including flounder, lionfish and sea was dull and white. She was dying. The logic of aquariums is the snakes. An octopus’s colour also seems to indicate its mood – logic of conservation: individual animals must sacrifice their some octopuses turn white after being caressed for a long time by freedom so that the species as a whole can be protected. Yet humans, as well as after mating. The chromatic displays produced ethical questions remain, raised by creatures, like the octopus, by octopuses can include elaborate patterns of stripes and spots, which so clearly yearn for freedom. Perhaps from our perspective flashing rings and waves of rippling colour. Yet octopuses – like the life of a wild octopus is already a tragic thing: sociality most cephalopods – appear to be colour-blind. Their eyes (and without society, speaking without being heard, a life-world skin) lack the variety of photoreceptors required to see colour, and without longevity. An alien. If only the octopus were more like us, octopuses are unable to distinguish between different coloured we might be better at leaving it alone. objects in experimental tests. Sometimes octopuses produce elaborate colour displays for no apparent reason, in the absence A longer version of this article first appeared in the London Review of Books. © MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM BAY © MONTEREY of predators or other octopuses. Do they talk to themselves? The

23 SEPTEMBER 2017 THE WEEK 42 Crossword

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 177

DOWN ACROSS 1 Instrument that makes a racket? (6) 8 Fancy silver imported by one 2 Century for fellow on quick pitch (4) rich source (7) 3 Edited diaries about Liberal PM (8) 9 Pleasant, fine tale one starts (7) 4 We are disheartened? Used to be (4) 10 Put off male cleaner (9) 5 Mostly not working after hours in 11 A fight is concerning (5) recent days (2,4) 12 Cockney’s toast for a mischievous 6 One bishop overlooks the answer: child? (3) remission of sins (10) 14 European cause arousing feeling (7) 7 Check trainers needing repair (8) 16 Some displeasure recalled 9 Praise after a short time for in the country (3) property (9) 17 Big Issue recording a firefighters’ 13 Pound notes and the sound result! (10) strike? (7,8) 15 Is Queen following newspaper with a 19 Foremost of oriental belts? Indeed (3) smartphone? (9) 20 Soft fabric wrapped around one black 17 Horse-drawn carriage for sweeper part of the engine (3,4) reported (8) 21 Roll over for a small lump (3) 18 Start out with group over Scottish 23 Soldier’s second gadget (5) bridge (3,5) 24 Drink for sponsor (9) 20 Throws available in parts of 27 Model married unhappily (7) department store (6) 28 Active circles around Ghent working 22 Local argument in part of Cumbria (6) (2,3,2) 25 Endless writing from golf experts (4) 26 Lady in two articles (4)

Clue of the week: If B was Brown and C was Cameron… oh dear! (6, first letter D) The Guardian, Imogen

Solution to Crossword 175 ACROSS: 1 Standing room 10 Event 11 Get-at-able 12 Brosnan 13 Needles 14 End up 16 Rectorate 19 Apostolic 20 Equip 22 Lunatic 25 Arundel 27 San Marino 28 Tango 29 Tennis player An essential read for DOWN: 2 The word “go” 3 Not in 4 In general 5 Get on 6 On the nose 7 Mobil 8 Feeble 9 Lessee 15 Petit pain 17 Cock-a-hoop 18 Abundance 19 Ablest 21 Pol Pot 23 Nonet 24 Chili 26 Ultra anyone who is or aspires to become Clue of the week: Trees to come down, initially (5,2,3 first letter F) Solution: FIRST OF ALL (firs to fall) a business leader in the GCC

Sudoku 177

Fill in all the squares so that each row, column and each of the 3x3 squares contains all the digits from 1 to 9

Solution to Sudoku 228

Solution to Sudoku 176

Charity of the week

Adopt-a-Camp Adopt-a-Camp (AAC) is an initative designed to improve the lives of the thousands of migrant labourers who live and work in the UAE. It has been working for eight years and currently has 50 camps and more than 50,000 Available at all leading bookshops and at booksarabia.com. men under its wing. Programmes offered by AAC include English language lessons for labourers and the delivery of Ramadan care packages. Also available as an ebook. Visit www.adoptacamp.ae to find out how you can help.

THE WEEK 23 SEPTEMBER 2017