  

Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 0 c a aGe ta e o b a

How Annie Hall’s Great ‘dad pants’ became the look stride of the summer

Tuesday 15/06/21 Peony envy Instagram has changed our taste in flowers – and everything else page 3

Anyone for monkey tennis? Peter Baynham on helping create Alan Partridge, Brass Eye and Borat page 8

49 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 : c a aGe ta e o b a

50 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:3 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 7: 9 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 Pass notes 3 Emma Beddington Do I really like I’m trying plant milk: it is peonies – or am I in stomach- thrall to Instagram? churning

n an enforced mid-walk pause as the elderly dog licks Following my b leating about the a lamp-post, my husband’s eyes alight on the nearest ethical complexities of milk, I garden. “Ugh,” he says. “That’s ugly.” A thrill of have been experimenting with № 4,295 delicious horror runs through me: he is pointing at a plant-based options, prompted O peony. A bubblegum-pink one, sure, but a peony: it’s by many helpful suggestions from like saying you hate puppies, or your mum. “You hate non-dairy evangelists. This has Virtual intimacy those?” I ask him, scandalised. “But … they’re peonies!” He shrugs. involved numerous sacrifices The thing is, I don’t think I could have picked a peony out to the dark lord Tetra Pak, and Age: As old as the telephone, or possibly even of a lineup five years ago. The reason I can now is not (just) my the kind of side-effects you see the postage stamp. advancing age: it’s Instagram. on medicine packaging: nausea, Appearance: irtual, digital, n ot safe for The peony is the main event of the botanical Insta-year, dwarfing dysphagia a nd vomiting. I’m ultra- work. even big hitters such as #wisteria – cascading purple catnip for sensitive to tannin, but addicted Are we talking about sex? It’s sex-based, yes. influencers (728k posts) – or the 2021 lacey upstart cow parsley, layer to tea, and plant milks do not seem But it’s not sex. Well, no, but only in the upon layer of blowsy, extravagantly aspirational petals gracing the to neutralise its nausea-inducing sense that you’re not actually there. grid. Peonies are peak Instagram, the mascot of this rose, gold and effect the way cow’s milk does. Not actually where? In the same room as the pink place where nothing bad seems to happen. A coconut-based contender, other person, or persons. Don’t get me wrong: I like Instagram. Some find the r elentless which got rave reviews for its Doesn’t that make sex difficult? Are you positivity mentally draining, feeding into their insecurities, but I “neutral taste” (if you’ve tried pea kidding? It makes it much easier. enjoy pretty micro-treats for my tired eyes. milk, you’ll understand), seemed I suppose it cuts down on transport costs. I do worry, however, about what it is doing to my taste, and taste perfect for the first few mouthfuls, It’s more than that. According to a survey more widely. I have no knack for the beautiful and unusual . My but by halfway through my cup, I conducted by OnePoll for the dating site home is a bland time capsule of what was vaguely fashionable fi ve was rushing to throw up: not the Plenty of Fish, nearly half of young single to 10 years ago (knockoff Farrow & Ball Scullerymaid’s Impetigo optimum start to the day. Americans haven’t been physically intimate crossed with that episode of US sitcom Portlandia where they put Rice milk w as oddly reminiscent with anyone since the pandemic started. birds on everything) . Previously, I copied more stylish friends; now of those soya desserts my mum’s I bet they can’t wait to be out there, and I just copy Instagram. hippy friends used to pretend were at it, again. About 42% feel that way, but It is not a deliberate thought process, more a gradual bleeding “just like chocolate mousse” when I two-thirds of respondents said they would of all those variegated house plants and maximalist wallpapers was little: a lie then and a lie now. continue to rely on virtual intimacy after the into my consciousness. The Instagram algorithm sees that I like Oat, of course, is the plant milk pandemic, including sexting, phone sex and looking at hens, cakes and videos of porcupines du jour: a market predicted to be video sex. I am condemned eating, and kindly gives me more of them. Then, worth $6.8bn (£4.6bn) by 2026. Doesn’t all this virtual sex make them like a subtly patronising friend, it suggests what I went for doorstep-delivery anxious? On the contrary: 45% of singles h ad to alifeof ogling else I might like, nudging me in towards the glass bottles. Unfortunately, the more confidence in their virtual intimacy age appropriate and inoffensively pretty until sight of this in my morning brew skills than in their in-person techniques, rattan chairs and I find myself thinking that maybe I do need – a chilling, perpetual-motion including 54% of men. Murano glass tumblers, o r a reclaimed Irish snowstorm of oat scum, seemingly And what exactly counts as a virtual Berber patio rugs linen dress. This week, it showed me a 1930s alive – is stomach-churning. intimacy skill? I don’t know – good spelling, French greenhouse, a cake stand shaped like Now Alpro has launched the I suppose. Some experience with lighting a cabbage leaf and a “refreshing Japanese soya-based My Cuppa, t argeting the couldn’t hurt, and knowing when to shut up snacking experience”: give it a week and I will doubtless be longing tea problem. I managed one mug of probably comes in handy. for all three. it without even really noticing. The I don’t have the bandwidth for this at the Does it matter? It’s just nice pictures, no obligation to buy. And I second attempt was less successful. moment. I know – it’s hard to process, and don’t buy (immediately – though I fear it shapes what I might buy It’s close, but slightly spooky: the we’ve all been under a lot of stress lately. later). There are, of course, serious questions around selling us stuff uncanny valley of milk substitutes. No, I mean I literally don’t have the based on our data, but surely that ship has sailed: we have accepted I’m not giving up. Science has bandwidth. I’m never going to be virtually it as the price we pay for our social media dopamine buzz. given us s ome highly effective intimate with upload speeds like these. But what about what it is doing to aesthetics, and, by association, vaccines against Covid in a matter There’s probably a lot of it in your area. creativity? Because it is so easy when you are insecure about your of months. S urely a non-dairy Is there no future for the old-fashioned one- taste, or simply overwhelmed by the infinity of possible influences liquid that does not turn tea into night stand? Not if the young people of today out there to fall back on default curation by algorithm. a curdled, nightmarish broth is have anything to say about it. According to When that happens, taste – what excites us, what we like – within our grasp? the survey, 57% of millennials think one- becomes flattened and homogenised. The algorithm commoditises night stands have been consigned to a pre- aesthetics: it isn’t in the business of showing us anything shocking, Covid past. challenging or even particularly interesting, just what is saleable. It Are we saying that no one is ever going to is as though we’re consuming Huel, the meal replacement powder , have meaningless, non-virtual sex again? for the eyes – blandly sustaining, the online equivalent of identikit It’s still happening, through a process called high streets that are so dull there is no reason to go there. “r oom-mate-ing”. I am probably condemned to a life of ogling rattan chairs and Does that mean mating, but in an actual Berber-style patio rugs. Do I even, intrinsically, like peonies? I room? No, it means having sex with your have no idea. But living with someone as resolutely offline as my roommate, or housemate, out of sheer husband offers a bracing corrective. He might not understand expediency. E

V hashtags, but for good or bad, his taste is entirely his own. Needs must – I won’t judge. Thanks, just  

 “So what flowers do you like?” I ask him cautiously. “Dandelions,” don’t tell my virtual boyfriend or he’ll   he answers, firmly (he feeds them to his tortoises). Looking at them unsubscribe.  

 afresh, I realise, e xcitedly, how beautiful they are. Then I check Do say: “I can’t tell you what I’d do to you if 

 the app: 2.1m #dandelion posts. Turns out, Instagram got there I was there, because if I was there I wouldn’t  E 

before me. do it.” : 

E Don’t say: “Get dressed, Frank – this is the V

 Wednesday planning meeting.” 

51 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8:0 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian 4 Tuesday 15 June 2021

‘You can’t consent when you’re asleep’

longer wearing her pyjama bottoms t was 3am,  had nowhere to go,  for example, they had ever been and had semen on her body. didn’t know what to do. spat at, or strangled, kicked or agnus was sleeping beside her. “ left as soon as  knew there’d bitten. t also asked respondents if A shocking number of women say that “ asked him: ‘Did you have sex be a cafe open and my friend came they had ever woken to their male they have been raped by their partners with me while  was asleep?’ and to meet me.  told her that agnus partner having sex with them or he said, ‘es.’  was so shocked and had been having sex with me in my performing sex acts on them whil e while they were sleeping. This is not just really confused. ow could  not sleep and she said: ‘hat’s not ‘sex’. they slept. o this question, 51% have known?  felt really ill, too, hat’s rape.’ t that point,  couldn’t answered yes. a betrayal of trust – it is a violent crime.  was trying to figure it all out.  go there.  couldn’t use that word.” his was not randomised said: ‘ can’t give consent when ’m t’s impossible to know how sampling – the survey was widely Anna Moore reports asleep. Don’t ever do that again.’” many women have been raped or shared online and participants But two weeks later, í sexually assaulted by their partners were self-selected. For this reason, agnus eyer ustveit, was Dhomhnaill awoke at 3am just while they slept, although a recent it’s hard to extrapolate from the orwegian. he couple had moved knowing he had. “ said, ‘ou’ve piece of research has suggested findings. he results sparked in together within a few months of done it again –  felt it,’ and then  the number might be far, far higher a predictably polarised online meeting, but t hings were tense. t asked : ‘ave you been doing this than we’d like to think. response. “his was extremely wasn’t a happy relationship. regularly?’” “he whole time,” was n pril, Dr Jessica aylor, validating for me after years of n that particular night, í ustveit’s devastating reply. “e the founder of ictimFocus, an thinking, ‘m  being raped?’ ’m Dhomhnaill had been out with told me he’d been doing this on independent consultancy and not alone”, tweeted one woman. ustveit and other friends, but average three times a week ever research firm working in forensic “t’s why  now jerk awake if N iamh í left early, alone, because she felt since we’d been together.” psychology, feminism and mental someone even gently brushes Dhomhnaill had been with her unwell. “’d only drunk water er first response was to vomit. health, released a report on a study against me while ’m sleeping, 13 partner for almost a year when she but ’d gone to bed and was out “ sat there heaving into a bucket,” that had set out to gauge the extent years later,” wrote another. ther discovered that he’d been raping for the count,” she says. “ didn’t says í Dhomhnaill. “ now know of violence against women. aming comments included: “nly chance her while she slept. hear agnus come back, which is the physical reasons for that specific acts, rather than using  get!” and: “he other half was K t the time, she was 25, and unusual because ’d always been a response, but at the time, ’d never broad – and loaded – terms s uch with it!” a language teacher in a Dublin light sleeper.” experienced anything like that. t as “abuse” or “rape”, her s urvey Katie ussell, spokesperson secondary school. er partner, When she did wake, she was no was a clear indication of the shock. asked m ore than 22,000 women if, for ape risis, says she was

52 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:5 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8:05 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 5

commonly in a busive, coercively “He actually rang a few times but controlle d relationships. In these I didn’t want to talk about it,” says cases, the psychology isn’t hard to Lisa. “They’d lost my trust.” understand. M artha*, 21, a s tudent Ní Dhomhnaill never doubted at the University of Oxford who that she wanted to prosecute experienced such rape with her first He told me he’d been doing this on Hustveit. “It was really clear boyfriend, believes it was all about to me that his behaviour was power, his right to do whatever he average three times aweek ever dangerous, it was a pattern,” she wanted when he wanted. says, “but I had no evidence. The “I was 16, I didn’t know what was since we’d been together only action available was to get him normal in a relationship,” she says . to admit it.” “He was in the year above me and She sent him an email asking at the start it was really nice, but he such as “sleeping sex”, as well as For Ní Dhomhnaill, the fact that exactly what he had done and why became very abusive. He tried to other forms of sex that are based on she’d been sleeping, and for some – and to her shock, he responded control everything I did in all sorts unresponsiveness, on only meeting inexplicable reason hadn’t woken, almost immediately with a great of ways that I didn’t realise were your own needs. (“Flexi dolls” is was terrifying. (She asked Hustveit deal of detail. “It was clinical, wrong – where I went, what I could another example – where women if he had drugged her, especially procedural, there was no sense of wear. I wasn’t allowed to smoke or pretend to be sex dolls.) since by the end of the relationship atoning. He seemed completely chew gum. He’d log on to my social These preferences overlap with she felt ill and permanently detached from his words. The media to check on me.” porn itself, says Overland. “With exhausted, but he has denied this.) reason he gave was just his own Twice, he slapped her and threw one-way sex, with porn, with “Because the memories I have are gratification. At the end, he said: her against a wall, whacked the masturbation, there’s no dance, no so vague, it leaves you with this ‘You could have me prosecuted and back of her head, and kicked her seduction, no interaction and no sense of uncertainty and guilt and I really hope you don’t.’” because h e had seen her smoking pressure to perform,” he says. “The shame,” she says. “When we only She did. In July 2015 , Hustveit on someone’s Instagram Story. (At more I looked at this area, the more have bits of information, our brains pleaded guilty in Ireland’s central the time, he was being unfaithful, you see that a lot of men are afraid tend to fill in the gaps. criminal court to one c harge of rape but according to him, smoking was of having sex. Society is becoming “When I first left him, I wouldn’t and one c harge of sexual assault. worse than cheating.) more pornified but, at the same sleep. I’d lie awake all night and He received a seven-year wholly “All of that, I’m over,” says time, many studies show that have hallucinations – him raping suspended sentence, but the n ext Martha. “But to this day, probably people are becoming less sexually me. Those flashbacks, that trauma year the court of appeal in Dublin the one thing that still a ffects me is active. We have young men buying response, was the mind and body found this “ unduly lenie nt” and the time he had sex with me when Viagra, unable to keep an erection.” trying to piece things together. Hustveit was jailed for 1 5 months . I slept.” A sleeping woman is no Even now, nine years on, I still wake Ní Dhomhnaill also launched high This happened in her single bed threat – she’s absent, an object, a at two every morning. I don’t even court civil proceedings seeking in her family home. They were receptacle. When Overland asked need to check the clock. We know damages for multiple acts of rape spooning with Martha sandwiched sex workers in Oslo if somnophilia that the body stores memories of and sexual assault while she slept. between him and the wall. “I woke was something they encountered trauma – and I think 2am is when it In February 2020, she told up suddenly and realised what he with clients, several had. “It wasn’t used to happen.” the jury: “There has never been was doing and just froze. It was common, but it wasn’t uncommon, How hard is it to successfully a part of me that has not been towards summer and I fixated on a either,” he says. “One told me that prosecute these cases? Given that profoundly impacted,” and that spot of morning light on the wall. she had customers that she really recent Home Office figures showed in the immediate aftermath, she “I said nothing, never moved, trusts so she has let them drug her that, in England and Wales, f ewer suffered PTSD and had tried to take never raised it with him, which is so they can go ahead.” than one in 60 recorded rapes her own life. She said she had felt why I’m angry with myself to this As a kink between two resulted in a charge , the answer, “unsafe everywhere”, frightened day. I felt sick afterwards and in consenting adults, somnophilia says Russell, is very hard. “I don’t to trust anyone, even her parents. the morning, when he’d left, my comes with rules and (problematic) want to discourage people from Hustveit offered no defence and 16-year-old self Googled it. I read terms s uch as “blanket consent” reporting,” she says. “If it happens, the jury awarded damages of € 1m that it was rape. Even now, if I’m and “consensually non- it’s a crime and cases have been (£863,000). sleeping with someone, I’ll never consensual”. It requires deep trust prosecuted. But when there’s no The last nine years have been a sleep against a wall where I can’t and constant communication. physical evidence, no witnesses, slow but solid process of recovery. get out of bed easily and I always However, it’s hard to believe that sometimes no recollection … there Ní Dhomhnaill, now 34, retrained stay awake until I know they’re the 51% who responded to Dr are added challenges.” as a psychologist, and is currently asleep – I haven’t had a proper Taylor’s survey come from this Lisa*, 40, did report her former in clinical training. She believes relationship since.” community and for most women, partner for r aping her while she was her past makes her better at her In Martha’s case, the rape the impact can be devastating, asleep. It had happened at the start job. “I think the beautiful and happened once, but for some says Russell. of 2019 after they had separated important thing I can bring when men, seeking sex with a sleeping “There seems to be a perception and Lisa was treading a difficult I’m in the room with someone who woman is a n active preference, that something like this is a ‘lesser line, trying to remain amicable is hurting, who is suicidal, is that a fetish known as somnophilia. crime’ because it might not be at to avoid what she knew could be sense of hope,” she says. “Even “not massively surprised” by Svein Overland, a Norwegian the hands of a stranger but y our a bitter custody battle over t he if they don’t believe it, I know the findings. “There isn’t a lot of psychologist, is one of the few partner. But what would feel couple’s daughter. “He’d always myself that something can change, research into the multiple ways to have studied it – his interest worse? Being pickpocketed by a been extremely domineering, something can shift, and so I can women experience violence from sparked partly by his work in stranger or robbed by someone whether it was over what I wore, hold that hope for them.” known men, but we do know the prisons, trying to understand the you love and trust?” she asks. what I bought, where I put things Yet despite everything, she numbers are so much higher than motivations of sex offenders, and “The idea that you’re asleep so it in a room, where we went,” says still catches herself doubting any official statistics,” she says. also by his work with victims of didn’t require violence is also very Lisa, “and he never respected everything that happened to “Rape myths are still incredibly what Norwegians call “after-party dangerous. Penetrating someone’s boundaries. He’d choked me her and her own response. “At pervasive. It’s commonly believed rapes” – attacks on vulnerable body without their permission is an during sex before, he always did times, I still have thoughts that that if it’s your boyfriend or your women who were either sleeping inherently violent act. what he wanted. maybe I just made a big deal out spouse, if you’re sharing a bed, or drugged. “Imagine being asleep and “On that night, I’d made of nothing – I still think that to this if you’re naked, if you consented Overland believes somnophilia is waking to find someone going dinner. He’d drunk too much so I let day,” she admits. “I think that’s an earlier, then it can’t be rape. There part of the wider growth of what he through your personal things,” him stay in the spare room – but indictment of the world we live in.”

 is a really big difference between calls “one-way sex”. His research she continues. “Now imagine it’s I woke up to find him in with me, Starred names have been changed.   . gently waking your partner and into online porn showed a steep rise your actual body that has been having sex.” In the UK, the Rape Crisis national  

 initiating sexual activity and doing over the past decade in categories intruded into.” The next morning, she went to freephone helpline is on 0808 802  

 something sexual or penetrating her local police station. “I wasn’t 9999 (12-2.30pm and 7-9.30pm  

 someone while they’re still asleep. sure i f I was overreacting,” she every day of the year). Rape Crisis  /

 “The 2 003 Sexual Offences Act says. “Two officers asked if he had also operates a live chat helpline, go  

 is crystal clear,” she continues. forced himself on me? No, I’d been to rapecrisis.org.uk, f or details. In 

 “Consent can only be agreed when asleep. He didn’t pin me down, the UK, Samaritans can be contacted 

  you have the capacity to make This is not the same thing as there was no struggle. They said on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.  

 that choice – and if you’re asleep they weren’t sure there’d been any org . You can contact the mental   

: or unconscious you don’t. We’re gently waking your partner and crime here.” health charity Mind by calling 0300 

 talking about rape – one hundred The next day, a sergeant rang 123 3393 or visiting m ind.org.uk .  

 per cent.” initiating sexual activity Lisa to say he’d read the officers’ The 24-hour f reephone National  

 In Russell’s experience, rape report and was concerned that this Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by  

 while sleeping happens more hadn’t been recognised as rape. Refuge, is on 0808 2000 247. 

53 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:6 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 9 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian 6 Tuesday 15 June 2021

Diane Keaton Jennifer as Annie Hall; Lawrence (left); (right) the Este, Danielle Duchess of and Alana Haim Cambridge at the Brits in May How Annie Hall trouse conquered fashion

in Annie Hall, one part Katharine search term on Zara, so the game fort, baked into Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story, is up. And the name does capture our war ver the p ast year, one part Kennedy weekending at something about the mood of meets for real life. Making After a year of Martha’s Vineyard. this look. Dad p ants are sensible, your bot alf the focus of your leisurewear and Two weeks later, Danielle Haim reliable, a little bit nostalgic. outfi als wore an identical pair of pale, full, Despite their illustrious fashion that y g for real life elegantly tailored trousers on the pedigree – the line of succession ra om, while a loose dressing from the  

red carpet at the Brits, j ust a few connects Hepburn and Keaton s is near enough to   

waist up for Zoom, days after model and entrepreneur with an Armani-clad R ichard Gere trackpan tory not to push   Rosie Huntington-Whiteley p osed in American Gigolo – d ad pants any e their lockdown  

;

it’s time to add on her Instagram in the same. are egalitarian and a little bit comfort ing zone. Add to   

(Fashion sleuths point to the Igor goofy. Their trusty sidekick is an that the fact t they are gender  

some style into our O

Pant by The Row, for sale at a anonymous two-inch-wide leather neutral, c  @ cool £860, as being the originator belt – not the fancy double-G Gucci second t with / outfits. Bring on the  of this trend.) In the last week kind, but the kind you can pick a cr your thing,   

of May, Jennifer Lawrence was up on the menswear floor of any and you have perfect fashion  dad pants, says Jess 

 Katharine

photographed in N ew York wearing department store in the world. 21.  

; Hepburn in The creamy front-pleat trousers with a The dad pant is where the In Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies,  Cartner-Morley 

 Philadelphia cropped white T-shirt on the same published in 19 0, Agatha Runcible  U

 Story; Kendall 

day that the Duchess of Cambridge, is turned awa from a country hotel ;

 Jenner (right) more usually a dress-wearer, wore on accoun wearing trousers.   

a slightly darker pair to attend (“ uncible stay  

the opening of a new hospital in rought her cold   ;

Kirkwall, Scotland. International les in the car.”) In   O

travel m ight be virtually grounded, 1951, Ka e Hepburn used the   

but there is no stopping the global staff en during her stay at   

spread of this l ook. Claridge’s bec he London U  

S / crolling through The first new look since we rmit women to X

the Instagram page of m odel and started to emerge from lockdown wear “ in the lobby. It is a  

;

Kardashian scion Kendall Jenner, has landed, and it is not what backstory tha gs, still, a certain  

one photo, posted on 28 April , anyone predicted. In what the swagger to a woman in a pair of   

stands out. In this one, she’s not fashion industry assumed was a  

;

on a Vogue cover or the deck of two-horse race – either another “There’ assertiveness to it,”   

a yacht, but crossing a New York term in office for the sweatpants we says Jo Syk the c reative director    street. And instead of a bikini have grown comfortable with, or all- of Jigsaw, had an image of Rosie  

or cycling shorts and a crop top, change to sequins and a r oaring 20s ngton in loose ; Huntington-  

she’s wearing a pair of tailored revival – there has been an upset. cr and a white vest on  Whiteley on  

beige trousers, cinched with a Summer 2021 belongs to dad pants. her moodboard while designing : Instagram  

black leather belt, pleated and full If it was up to me, they’d be her la ction. (Jigsaw i s  

in the hip, loose of leg, teamed called Annie Hall trousers, but backing h igh- pleated   O

with a white T and an oversized the internet has embraced dad ykes  O

shirt. It’s one part D iane Keaton pants to the extent that it is now a perfect trousers  

54 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:7 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 9 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 7

working in the design studio of control for a year, and we want Getting the fit to change that, but at the same right is rotch,” she time we want something quite says. “The rise at the front has to soft and easy. This isn’t about t length, and the back rigid, boxy tailoring.” rom the What’s more, a summer t hat our bum rather than many of us will spend in our home umpi g underneath it.” towns and cities rather than on a perfected a waistband sunlounger calls for a different kind tha risply buttoned at the of warm-weather dressing, not the fron ated at the Richard Gere usual flimsy holiday wardrobe. back. “The super-tailored waist in American “I t’s nice to wear something that’s is great ou’ve got Hailey Gigolo; Bianca airy but not too revealing,” adds Ba wi ’s abs, but the core Jigsaw Jaer in 1979 Fraser. At Joseph, another British 5-60 and she wants (below) label with a bluechip trouser to be ” she says. pedigree, joint creative directors A curre t Jigsaw bestseller is a pale Anna Lundback Dyhr and Frederik herringbone Irish linen suit that Dyhr believe that a great pair of toned loose blazer trousers should have “a sense and fl uid trousers. “I think right of drama”. They are backing no t to look tailored “elongated and elevated” fluid ted, but the overall trousers, with high waistbands te is looser.” and deep pleats, for their two Davi raser i s the senior forthcoming collections. t Aligne, a new brand You don’t have to buy new to get aiming to deliver sustainable this look. Daisy Marlow and Laura t an accessible price. Johnson are the co-founders of “The l ratching that Make Nu , a new kind of chic fashion itch to t more put together, business, which brings taste and a bit more in control,” he says knowhow to repurposing and geoning appetite reviving your prel oved clothes in for Aligne’s tailored trousers. order to help you fall in love with e’ve all felt quite out of them a gain. “If you’ve got a baggy pair of trousers with allowance at the waistband we can turn them into pleats. We can add belt loops. We can taper the legs,” says Marlow. For a sustainable and affordable route, she suggests going to secondhand stores for a roomy pair of men’s trousers in a nice fabric and having them adapted. “I love this look – it makes me think of late- 1970s Bianca Jagger, ” says Johnson. “It’s timeless, and we’re all about longevity at Make Nu.” Onloan is a fashion rental service that works a little like an old-school library card. Pay a subscription, and you can have two or four items on The look is loan at any time. You get newness and sustainability on a Zara Jejia wide- about feeling budget. “ We keep hearing from our leed trousers customers that rental is a great way from Onloan a bit more put to try out a new silhouette,” say co-founders Tamsin Chislett and together, a bit Natalie Hasseck. “Right now we’ve got two incredible pairs of d ad- more in control silhouette trousers that are tenfold our most successful trousers of the moment. It’s taken us completely by surprise, because they are by a brilliant but under-the-radar Italian label, Jejia – no one knows the name, so it’s the shape that people are going for. They are perfectly cut at the waist, so that you can tuck in a white T and it sits perfectly.” In her 2011 memoir, Then Again, Diane Keaton writes that Woody Allen told her to “wear what you want to wear … move around like a real person” when he directed her in Annie Hall. What she wanted to wear was “what the cool-looking women on the streets of SoHo were wearing … Annie’s khaki pants, Christy vest and tie came from them.” Turlington Ralph Lauren provided most of the in the 90s clothes, but the styling concept came from Keaton’s fascination with downtown urban style. In 2021, after a year of dressing for the sofa or the park bench, the impulse to dress up for the city streets – to look cool – is back. And so are Annie Hall’s trousers.

55 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:8 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 :53 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian 8 Arts Tuesday 15 June 2021

Straight-faced surrealism … The Sun said: Baynham ‘Theymust never work in TV again’. I was quaking in my boots

one advantage of Baynham’s new podcast B rain Cigar is that he and Simmonds could recruit a few friends (including J ulia Davis of Nighty Night) and get it made lickety-split without external interference. The show invites listeners into the skew- whiff comedy universe that Baynham and Simmonds have been cultivating together since they first met at an improv workshop in the late 1980s. The show features the friends reminiscing about pop-culture memories that have only the faintest ring of truth. Did David Bowie really market a line of frozen meals called Bowie Dinners? Did Jack Nicholson really appear on Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, the Saturday morning children’s TV show, to promote his erotic thriller The Postman Always Rings Twice? And did the actor really lose his temper live on air and dismiss ‘We did our bit to Action Man as “a little bitch”? Baynham believes so – and he wants us to believe it, too. “It’s lovely to think it might have get Biden elected’ happened,” he says. “I’ve always enjoyed investing properly in these things, rather than saying, ‘Here’s a wacky idea.’” He searches for what he calls “the broken logic” in DJ more human and sympathetic. Baynham was in Los Angeles the strange notions, such as when He also served as Morris’s partner- working on Borat: Cultural he tells Simmonds that he has in-crime on the Channel 4 series Learnings of America for Make asked Bono to babysit his children. As the writer Brass Eye, with its savagely funny Benefit Glorious Nation of Simmonds sounds incredulous: “Paedogeddon” special, a send-up Kazakhstan, a combination of has Bono ever expressed a desire to of Borat, Brass of tabloid hysteria that caused its densely scripted comedy and branch out into that line of work? own media outcry. seat-of-the-pants improvisation No, Baynham replies. Then why ask Eye and Alan F Now here he was at 41, pondering starring Cohen as the blundering, him? “Because we haven’t got our or a quarter of a what to do next. “I was in a bit of a antisemitic Kazakh correspondent. usual babysitter.” Partridge, Peter century now, Peter Baynham has trough,” he recalls. “Things hadn’t The film grossed $262m, and It’s the same tradition of straight- been one of the writers behind been going so great.” His animated brought Baynham his first Oscar faced surrealism in which Baynham Baynham Britain’s sharpest comedians and comedy I Am Not an Animal, about nomination. He received another and Chris Morris operated when satirists, including Sacha Baron a group of urbane talking critters this year for the daring sequel, they worked together on Morris’s pushes comedy’s Cohen, C hris Morris and S teve liberated from a vivisectionist’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Radio 1 show in the 1990s. He has Coogan. In 2005, however, he began laboratory, had been disparaged Shot secretly during lockdown, fond memories of the time he limits. Will his to wonder if he had forgotten how by BBC brass. “One executive said, it hijacked the pre-election news to be funny. “I thought, ‘Whatever ‘I won’t be paying a return visit to cycle thanks to a scene i n which bizarre showbiz I had, I’ve lost it,’” says the 57-year- this.’ It crushed my soul.” Rudy Giuliani gets distinctly old. “It was gone.” Baynham was sitting in a service overfamiliar with Maria Bakalova, podcast cause Around a decade earlier, he had station cafe contemplating his future who plays Borat’s daughter. joined the most original comedy when the phone rang. It was B aron Baynham has lived in LA since more trouble? team since Monty Python when Cohen, asking if he could fly to the making the first Borat picture the producer Armando Iannucci US to help salvage his new movie, – it’s where he is speaking from He tells Ryan brought him in to co-write the which was in the process of falling today – and has become a sought- television news spoof T he Day apart. Baynham explained that he after screenwriter specialising in Gilbey about Today, with a cast that included was toying with a sitcom idea of his animated entertainment: Hotel Coogan, Morris, Rebecca Front own . Later that day, he recounted Transylvania, Arthur Christmas, and Patrick Marber. He teamed up the exchange to his friend Jez and the forthcoming Disney the Giuliani sting ‘The boys are again with Coogan and Iannucci for Simmonds, a writer on Never Mind adventure Ron’s Gone Wrong, back in the the gloriously excruciating sitcom the Buzzcocks. “Jez said, ‘Are you about a lonely teenager and his barracks!’ … – and Bowie’s I’m Alan Partridge; Coogan later out of your mind?’ I suddenly malfunctioning AI friend. Partridge credited him directly with making thought, ‘Oh God, he’s right! ’” Animated movies take many frozen dinners the grotesque, washed-up Norfolk One grovelling phone call later, years to reach the screen, whereas and Borat

56 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe:9 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 :53 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 How we made 9

‘He was the posh bully’… Chris Morris in Brass Eye Embarrassing Bodies

‘We were a lifesaver for people with things – such as wonky boobs – that the NHS might see as cosmetic’

claimed to have found Johnnie Morris had initially resisted Walker dead under a cloud of the idea of hiring more writers flies in an adjacent studio. Morris for The Day Today, which was the persuaded him that the kindest TV version of adio ’s O n the thing would be to allow the Hour, but Baynham impressed deceased DJ to say a final farewell to him with a sketch about an his fans. “He got me to punch a hole infestation of horses on the London in the back of dead Johnnie’s neck, Underground. In fact, he briefly ‘We didn’t hold and blow through it while operating cornered the market in equine back’ … (l-r) his jaw to make him talk. Our humour by coming up with the Dawn Harper dynamic was always that Chris was names of thoroughbreds for the Christian Jessen the posh bully and I was the idiot programme’s racing commentary, and Pixie McKenna who did whatever he said.” among them Trust Me I’m a Killing off public figures became Stomach and Massive Bereavement. something of a hobby for the “I absolutely hooked that stuff,” he D r Christian Jessen of us: we want to see behind the c urtain. duo. Another item, in which they says. “I loved it.” It’s also partly to feel better about yourself announced the death of Michael Though he calls his experience Presenter and think: “I’m glad I don’t have that.” I’m Heseltine, earned them a fortnight’s on The Day Today “incredibly I had done some TV before and a friend told permanently bemused by t he fact it was so suspension. “We didn’t actually say exciting”, he also felt like the odd me about a fly on the wall series t hat needed successful, because it’s just my job and it’s he was dead,” Baynham points out. one out. “I didn’t come from a a male doctor. I thought: “What have I got not that interesting. But people love medical “Chris said, ‘If there is any news of university background, and I didn’t to lose?” Originally, though, the show was stuff. And we certainly didn’t hold back on Michael Heseltine’s death in the have confidence in my bones. It was called Embarrassing Illnesses, but after what we showed. next hour, we’ll let you know …’” this combination of chip-on-the- pressure from us doctors, the producers It seems reasonable to assume shoulder and complete terror. I was changed it. We shouldn’t be calling illnesses that controversy was priced into like the script urchin: ‘Can I give embarrassing. Sarah Trigg their work. Wasn’t part of the joke you this, sir? I’ve got more jokes Myself, Dawn Harper and Pixie McKenna Director, executive producer of Brass Eye that it enraged the about horses!’” had meetings with the producers to talk very people it was lampooning His happiest time professionally through the cases each week. If we thought I’d made quite a lot of shows involving – censorious tabloid hacks, came when he, Coogan and Iannucci something was inappropriate, or a patient surgery, so I wasn’t squeamish. The show witless celebrities, opportunistic were improvising scenes for I’m was particularly vulnerable, we wouldn’t was all about dispelling myths. We were politicians? Baynham insists not. Alan Partridge. It was Baynham, use them. We drove the producers mad creating this really definitive, strong visual “We weren’t looking for trouble. for instance, who coined “Monkey with our constant back and forth, but people identity. It felt groundb reaking. We filmed For better or worse, we were just Tennis” – Alan’s last, desperate came on the show because they felt they series one in a penthouse in Birmingham. presenting things that had come pitch when he is stonewalled by the knew us – there’s a lot to be said for seeing a It had this amazing central living space out of our brain. W hen we did BBC’s commissioning editor – as doctor you trust. that we turned into the reception area and Paedogeddon , the S un ran this well as the unforgettable phrase Some people felt let down by the health made look really glamorous. The rooms huge spread that said, ‘The y must “t he boys are back in the barracks” service, particularly with things such as in the apartment became the consultation never work in television again.’ to describe the moment when Alan wonky boobs, which the NHS might consider rooms. I remember being in my flat and restores himself after an accidental just cosmetic. I think we were a l ifesaver The format w as to follow four main stories quaking in my boots at that. Chris indecent exposure. for some people who were told by their GP from the clinic throughout their treatment. wasn’t looking for controversy “If someone shares your sense of that there was nothing that could be done . We put ads in GP surgeries to find patients: either, but it’s more like water off a humour, it makes you funnier,” he We also got people who w anted to be the they weren’t paid. We also got the doctors to duck’s back for him.” says. “In my merchant navy days, person t o portray the disease they had and do immersive stunts. Christian swallowed Baynham’s route into comedy I’d do six-month trips with these raise awareness, knowing others with it were a pill camera so you could see a digestive

4 sounds l ike one of his own scary, racist men who just thought hiding away, just as they had done for system. Dawn had a smear test and Pixie had 

;

 deranged sketches. Born and raised I was weird, and so I wouldn’t be many years. a polyp checked.  

; in Cardiff, he spent five years from funny the entire time. Then I get in We didn’t meet the patients until the There were mixed reactions when it X

 the age of 16 in the merchant navy: that room with Steve and he’s crying cameras were rolling. Our Live from the came out. It certainly felt new and some of  Y

R “I wanted to see the world but no with laughter because I’ve said ‘the Clinic show, first introduced in May 2011, was the content was probably quite shocking, 

 one had told me about Interrailing.” boys are back in the barracks’, and I genuinely live. We used Skype to diagnose although we were never gratuitous. I think   

He came to London in his 20s with think: ‘I’m so happy!’” patients, which at the time was quite people liked it because it was brave and 

 vague ideas about being creative Ask him for his proudest revolutionary. There was a lot of criticism honest. It really grew a following and some of  

 before drifting into standup and moment, and the Giuliani incident from medics who said we should examine the campaigns we did, such as for testicular  

 improv. For one workshop at the is high on the list. Did it swing the patients face to face, but a lot of people fi nd it and breast cancer, were life-changing. 

; Comedy Store in London, his US election? “I wouldn’t like to easier to talk over camera. I don’t want to say The show made me f eel a huge amount of  

 classmates included M ike Myers, claim that,” he says. “But the week I told you so, but look where we are now. humility and compassion for people whose 

Y Paul Merton and J ulian Clary. that it leaked was when the Hunter The best moments were my personal lives are devastated by ill health. Ultimately,  

R “They were like the sixth-formers Biden laptop story was growing, diagnostic triumphs: spotting rare conditions it was about the contributors, and making 

 and I was the new boy.” and you just never know what will and knowing exactly what they were. There them feel comfortable and relaxed. We had   : Spells writing sketches for the turn the tide unexpectedly in an was a little girl called Charlotte who came a really high-level duty of care. It g ave me Y   topical radio show Week Ending election. So while I don’t think to me with bad verrucas. This was actually a lot of respect for the medical community  R

 and gags for Terry Wogan preceded Borat won it, I do believe we did the sign of a new, unseen immunodeficiency – and a s a series we relied on them. It was  

: a meeting with Iannucci, who our bit.” Baynham is writing largely (weakened immune system). I am proud of real, factual information wrapped up in a  

 was a script editor and producer for children these days, but that’s spotting that. She went on to have a bone fun format, so it needed to feel entertaining 

R at the BBC. “I bumped into him surely one to tell the grandkids. marrow transplant. – not in terms of laughing at people, but just  

 when I was s tealing photocopier Brain Cigar is streaming now; Ron’s It’s amazing the show is still being upbeat and positive. 

 paper,” Baynham says. watched. There’s a natural voyeur in all

 Gone Wrong opens later this year. Embarrassing Bodies is on All 4 .

57 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe: 0 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 6:53 c a aGe ta e o b

• The Guardian 10 TV and radio Tuesday 15 June 2021

The Return: Life After Isis 9pm, Sky Documentaries

Peter Taylor at home

A remarkable documentary from Alba Sotorra Clua, interviewing a group of women who reflect on their decisions to join Islamic State and exploring the role of propaganda and grooming

“When I go home, it’ll be the last time I’ll see them,” in their radicalisation. Clua focuses Review Peter Taylor: Ireland Joe said of his new friends. Back in Belfast, he was on the much-publicised stories of After Partition, BBC Two filmed kicking a ball against the bombed-out ruins British recruit Shamima Begum and of a terrace street. Breeze blocks filled in broken windows. The city beyond Joe’s Catholic ghetto felt US national Hoda Muthana (pictured), unremittingly hostile to the little boy. This was the who give candid, nuanced testimony 70s Belfast, with its rules and tribal identification, A timely described by Anna Burns in her novel Milkman. There on their upbringings and time in the was “the right butter. The wrong butter. The tea of terror organisation, as well as their allegiance. The tea of betrayal. There were ‘our shops’ examination and ‘their shops’.” Joe’s Belfast may have l ooked like fights to return home. every other city on these islands, but had m ore in Ammar Kalia common with Soweto , Beirut or J erusalem . of a century of Taylor’s film serves as a primer on Northern Ireland’s history since partition, although i t omits Between the Covers scrutiny. Anna, who lost sectarianism some major incidents (Bloody Sunday; the Brighton 7.30pm, BBC Two her scalp and right ear bombing that nearly killed Margaret Thatcher and In the final episode of this in an industrial accident her cabinet) . Nevertheless, it pack s in an impressive series, Sara Cox leads her has had to wait for over ★★★★☆ amount of historical analysis, interviews with central book clubbers – Ranvir a year to receive plastic players, from politicians to priests and g unmen. Singh, Micky Flanagan, surgery at University Taylor’s film comes at a poignant moment, in Reginald D Hunter and Hospitals Coventry Stuart Jeff which Northern Ireland has a new border to contend Sophie Willan – in literary & Warwickshire. with. Not the one between it and the I rish Republic discussion. There’s the Ali Catterall that outrages republicans, but rather the one that heart-rending Shuggie runs down the Irish sea – the one that the British Bain and the time travel- 999: What’s Your government signed up to after Brexit that outrages themed new release Emergency? loyalists who feel betrayed by Westminster. It is a The Frequency of Us, 9pm, Channel 4 t was like an Irish version of Martin Luther border that J oe Biden is not alone in worrying may plus all t heir personal An intense night shift King’s dream. Instead of little black boys and destabilise the fragile peace. recommendations. in South Yorkshire black girls joining hands with little white boys But B ritish betrayal of r epublicans and loyalists Ellen E Jones begins with the usual and white girls, six Catholic and six Protestant is hardly new. Consider the fascinating story Taylor drunken fights, before I kids from Belfast s plashe d each other as they relates , of how, in the 7 0s, MI6 repeatedly lured the Bake Off: The becoming darker and played in a lake in Wales. IRA into secret talks with the British government by Professionals stranger. Among the The ve teran BBC reporter Peter Taylor filmed this suggesting Westminster was committed to unifying 8pm, Channel 4 small-hours emergencies rare initiative to counter sectarian division nearly half Ireland. The IRA soon realised the British had made no The challenging are somebody who And a century ago. He reprise s the footage here for Peter such commitment , while loyalists were furious that another professional version presents a potential Taylor: Ireland A fter Partition, a film made to mark a these talks were going on in secret. British intelligence, thing of the baking battle suicide risk, a paranoid century since the partition of the island of Ireland and that oxymoron, unwittingly united both sides of the continues. More new resident of sheltered his h alf-century as an Englishman trying to understand sectarian divide in grievance against Westminster. teams are arriving accommodation and a sectarian divisions caused by his c ountrymen, by that Towards the end of this film, Taylor g oes back to I am sick of tonight, and they will serial offender called still-thriving beast, perfidious Albion. Belfast. He interviews some loyalist men who feel people being be expected to produce Diesel Dick. Jack Seale Taylor asked one of them, 11-year-old Joe, if he menaced by Catholics. “They breed like rabbits,” one sick on TV. perfect miniature had Protestant friends back home. “It would be too interviewee tells him – just the kind of s lur I used to Swanee Capps lemon meringue pie Intelligence dangerous,” he replied, sweeping his hair from his face. hear w hite people say of south Asian immigrants in in Fargo and tiramisu. Benoit 10pm, Sky One Taylor filmed these Belfast boys and girls on the Birmingham in the 70s. (Kelsey Asbille, Blin and Cherish Finden The cybercrime-fighting ferry across the Irish Sea to Wales. The Catholics Taylor reckon s that, in a few years, the Protestant pictured) is will then pass withering sitcom starring David sang their songs about fighting and dying for a united loyalist population will be in a minority. Loyalists fear just the latest judgment on their efforts. Schwimmer continues. Ireland and the Protestants sang their songs about being outvoted in a referendum to reunite Ireland. example. Phil Harrison In the first of tonight’s fighting and dying for the union jack. Once in Wales, “But if the majority wants it to change, that’s OK, isn’t Yes, I know episodes, it is harassment they set aside, albeit briefly, the burdens of sectarian it?” Taylor asked. “No,” one of the men replied curtly. vomiting is Hospital and discrimination division, the weight of history – from the Battle of the I wish Taylor had caught up with Joe, now a man a go-to move 9pm, BBC Two training day. In the Boyne to the decades of murder and mayhem given in his 60s, or any of those little boys and girls who to indicate Covid hit the NHS second part of the double that understated name: the Troubles. enjoyed that Welsh idyll a lifetime ago. What would a character hard; despite promised bill, an alarming new “It’s like the garden of Eden,” said Joe. The dozen they have made of the Troubles and the fragile peace in dramatic “restoration funding” Russian weapon leads had time-travelled back before the fall, to a paradise that has shadowed their lives? Did they ever meet extremis. But, from the government, to a disagreement over before the original sin of England’s colonisation of again? Could they live together happily in a united come on, I’m some individual shared intel that seems Ireland. Wales has never seemed so prelapsarian. Ireland? It is possible, but I doubt it. eating here. departments are under rather personal. PH

58 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 6: 0 c a aGe ta e o b

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 11

BBC One BBC Two ITV Channel 4 Channel 5 BBC Four

6.0 Breakfast (T) 9.15 Morning 6.0 Bargain Hunt: Childhood 6.0 Good Morning Britain (T) 6.0 Countdown (T) (R) 6.40 6.0 Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy Vine Live (T) 10.0 Homes Under Special (T) (R) 6.45 9.0 Lorraine (T) 10.0 This Cheers (T) (R) Double bill. (T) 11.15 Room to Improve (T) the Hammer (T) 11.0 Rip Off Unbeatable (T) (R) 7.30 Morning (T) 12.30 Loose 7.35 Everybody Loves 12.20 News (T) 12.25 Build Britain: Holidays (T) (R) 11.45 Gardeners’ World (T) (R) Women (T) 1.0 News (T) Raymond (T) (R) Triple a New Life in the Country The Moment of Proof (T) (R) 8.30 The Super League 1.20 Local News (T) 1.30 ITV bill. 8.55 Frasier (T) (R) (T) (R) 1.15 Home and Away 12.15 Bargain Hunt (T) (R) Show (T) (R) 9.0 News at Racing Live: Royal Ascot (T) Triple bill. 10.25 Escape (T) (R) 1.45 Neighbours (T) 1.0 News (T) 1.30 Regional 9 (T) 10.0 News (T) 12.15 Ed Chamberlin and Francesca to the Chateau: DIY (T) 2.15 House of Terror News (T) 1.45 Doctors (T) Politics Live (T) 1.0 Tennis: Cumani present coverage (R) 11.25 News (T) 11.30 (Paul Shapiro, 2017) (T) 2.15 Money for Nothing (T) Queen’s (T) 6.0 Richard of the opening three races Posh Pawnbrokers (T) 4.0 Gino’s Win Your Wish 7.0 Return to Pembrokeshire (R) 3.0 Escape to the Country Osman’s House of Games (T) of the festival, which take (R) 12.30 Steph’s Packed List: The Big Win (T) 5.0 Farm (T) (R) (3/5) The (T) (R) 3.45 Garden Rescue (R) 6.30 Great Continental place at 2.30, 3.05 and 3.40. Lunch (T) 2.10 Countdown News (T) 5.30 Neighbours planning authorities (T) (R) 4.30 The Bidding Railway Journeys (T) (R) Continues on ITV4. 4.0 Uefa (T) 3.0 The Answer Trap (T) (R) 6.0 Home and Away investigate local objections Room (T) (R) 5.15 Pointless 7.0 Nigellissima (T) (R) Euro 2020 Live (T) Hungary (T) 4.0 A Place in the Sun (T) (R) 6.30 News (T) 7.0 to Griff Rhys Jones’s plans, (T) (R) 6.0 News (T) 6.30 7.30 Between the Covers v Portugal (kickoff 5pm) (T) (R) 5.0 Couples Come The Dog Rescuers With and the comedian makes Regional News and Weather (T) With Ranvir Singh, Coverage of the opening Dine With Me (T) (R) 6.0 Alan Davies (T) A saluki plans for a music festival. (T) 7.0 The One Show (T) Micky Flanagan, Sophie match in Group F from the The Simpsons (T) (R) 6.30 is found with a fractured 7.30 The Joy of Painting 7.35 EastEnders (T) 7.55 Willan and Reginald D Puskás Aréna in Budapest. Hollyoaks (T) (R) The search leg so badly damaged it (T) Bob Ross paints a cabin EastEnders (T) Hunter. Last in the series. Seema Jaswal presents. is on for Liberty. 7.0 News (T) has to be amputated. in serene, rolling pasture.

8.20 Holby City (T) Kian 8.0 Saving Lives at Sea (T) (R) 7.10 Uefa Euro 2020 Live (T) 8.0 Bake Off: The Professionals 8.0 Live: Summer on the Farm 8.0 Yes Minister (T) (R) Jim struggles to keep his cool Millions of people flock to France v Germany (kickoff (T) Six new teams of pastry (T) Brothers Rob and Dave promises to ensure a city when Fletch blames him the UK’s coastline during 8pm) All the action from chefs produce miniature Nicholson head to Perth to farm project stays open. for Evie’s disappearance. the busy summer months. the Group F fixture, which lemon meringue pies. view a new billy goat. 8.30 To the Manor Born (T) (R) 9.0 The Repair Shop (T) (R) 9.0 Hospital (T) With the takes place at the Fußball 9.0 999: What’s Your 9.0 Hoarder Homes: No Room 9.0 Reporting History: The team take on a bicycle plastic surgery depart- Arena München. Presented Emergency? (T) The South to Move (T) Richard in Mandela and a New South sidecar, a Victorian sewing ment finally able to start by Mark Pougatch, with Yorkshire police and call Dorking, who is 71, finally Africa (T) (R) Fergal Keane table broken into many elective operations again, Ian Wright, Roy Keane handlers work the night shift, decides to seek expert help re-examines his reports o n pieces, an art deco clock and difficult decisions must be and Patrick Vieira, and dealing with an aggressive after filling his home with Nelson Mandela’s election a military drum that saw made over investment in commentary by Clive drunk, a man stealing fuel and more than four decades’ as president of South Africa action in both world wars. robotic surgery. Tyldesley and Ally McCoist. an apparent suicide attempt. worth of newspapers. in 1994.

10.0 News (T) 10.0 I’ll Get This (T) (R) (1/5) With 10.20 News (T) 10.0 Naked Attraction’s 10.0 Casualty 24/7: Every Second 10.0 BBC Cardiff Singer of the 10.30 Regional News (T) Weather Jonathan Ross, Gabby Logan, 10.50 Local News (T) Best Naughty Bits (T) Counts (T) (R) Return of the World 2021 (T) (3/6) Hosted 10.45 Uefa Euro 2020 Highlights Mark Wright, Anita Rani and 11.10 Heathrow: Britain’s 11.05 Ramsay’s 24 Hours documentary about life in by Petroc Trelawny, with (T) Action from the opening Rachel Parris. Busiest Airport (T) (R) to Hell and Back (T) A&E at Barnsley hospital. Iestyn Davies. matches in Group F. 10.45 Newsnight (T) Weather 11.40 Bancroft (T) (R) (3/3) 12.05 Kitchen Nightmares 11.05 999: Criminals Caught 11.30 South Africa in Pictures (R) 11.30 Match of the Day Top 10 11.30 The Statue Wars… (T) (R) Elizabeth is determined to USA (R) 12.55 SAS: Who on Camera (T) (R) 12.30 Storyville: The Queen of 12.0 Bates Motel Til Death Do You 12.30 Paralympics: The Unfair bring the murderer to justice. Dares… (R) 1.50 Pompeii 1.0 Live Casino (T) 3.0 Secrets Africa – The Miriam Makeba Part & Lights of Winter (T) Games? (T) (R) 1.30 Joey 12.40 Shop: Ideal World 3.15 2.0 Bombay (Mani of Your Supermarket Food Story (T) (R) 1.45 The Joy of (3 & 4/10) 1.25 MOTD: Uefa Essex: Grief and Me (T) (R) Winning Combination (T) Ratnam, 1995) Drama. 4.20 (T) (R) 3.50 House Doctor Painting (T) (R) 2.15 Return Euro 2020 Replay (T) 3.05 2.30 Dom Digs In (T) (R) 3.15 (R) 4.05 ITV Nightscreen Undercover Boss USA (R) (T) (R) 4.15 Get Your Tatts to Pembrokeshire Farm (T) Weather (T) 3.10 News (T) Springwatch 2021 (T) (R) 5.05 Tipping Point (T) (R) 5.10 Celeb Craft Masters (R) Out: Kavos Ink (T) (R) (R) 2.45 Motherland (T) (R)

Other channels Radio

Dave Bill 7.0 Hollyoaks 7.30 9.0 Family Guy. NCIS: Los Angeles Double 11.0 The Adventurers Radio 3 encompassing classical, Drama: Baselines, by (1/8) 7.0 Ayres on the Air 6.0am Teleshopping Come Dine With Me Five episodes. 11.25 Bill 1.0 Hawaii Five-0 of Modern Art 12.0 6.30am Breakfast. neo-classical and Mark Lawson. (R) 3.0 (3/4) 7.30 Ed Reardon’s 7.10 Aussie Pickers 8.0 Ramsay’s Kitchen American Dad! D ouble Double Bill 3.0 SW AT 4.0 Instant Dreams Hannah French presents. Hardanger iddle music. Short Cuts: Land (5/6) Week (1/6) 8.0 The 8.0 American Pickers Nightmares USA 9.0 Bill 12.25 Iain Stirling’s Modern Family D ouble (2017) 2.0 What She 9.0 Essential Classics. 3.30 Made of Stronger Goon Show (8/17) 8.30 9.0 Storage Hunters The Great Celebrity CelebAbility 1.10 Bill 5.0 The Simpsons Said: The Art of Pauline With Georgia Mann. Radio 4 Stuff: The Spine (3/4) Winston Comes to Town 9.30 Storage Hunters Bake Off for Stand Up to Bob’s Burgers D ouble 5.30 Futurama D ouble Kael 4.0 Tales of the 12.0 Composer of the 6.0am Today 8.31 (LW) 4.0 Law in Action (3/4) (3/6) 9.0 Dead Ringers UK 10.0 American Cancer 10.0 Gogglebox Bill 2.0 Superstore Bill 6.30 The Simpsons Unexpected D ouble Week: Pauline Viardot Yesterday in Parliament 4.30 A Good Read: (1/6) 9.30 Millport Pickers Double Bill 12.0 11.05 The Big Bang Double Bill 2.50 Totally Triple Bill 8 .0 Flintoff: Bill 5.0 Landscape and Her Circle (2/5) 9.0 The Long View. With Jason Watkins & Yasmin (1/6) 10.0 Uncle Silas Scrapyard Supercar 1.0 Theory Double Bill 12.0 Bonkers Guinness World Lord of the Fries 9.0 Artist of the Year 2018 1.0 L unchtime Concert: Jonathan Freedland Alibhai-Brown (2/8) 5.0 (2/3) 11.0 Father’s Day QI XL 2.0 Top Gear 3.0 Gogglebox 1.05 Naked Records 3.15 FYI Extra The Blacklist 10.0 Cardiff Singer Song Prize. and guests. (2/4) 9.30 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping 12.0 The Goon s 12.30 Rick Stein’s Secret France Attraction 2.05 First 3.30 Teleshopping Intelligence D ouble Bill Sky Atlantic Highlights from the irst A Show of Hands: Forecast 6.0 N ews 6.30 Winston Comes to Town 4.0 Scrapyard Supercar Dates 3.0 The Great 11.0 An Idiot Abroad 2 6.0am The Guest Wing and second concerts of Creativity. The w ay Ed Reardon’s Week: (3/6) 1.0 Murder Is Easy 5.0 Top Gear 6.0 Whose Celebrity Bake Off for More4 12.0 Prodigal Son 1.0 7.0 CSI: Crime Scene this year’s event. ( 1/3) people use their hands to You’re Cancelled (2/6) (2/3) 1.30 Paul Temple Line Is It Anyway? USA Stand Up to Cancer 3.55 8.55am Kirstie’s Bloods 1.30 MacGyver Investigation D ouble 2.30 Afternoon Concert: craft and create. ( 2/5) 7.0 The Archers 7.15 2.0 The Dry (7/10) 2.15 Double Bill 7.0 Richard Baby Daddy Double Bill Handmade Treasures 2.30 Intergalactic 3.30 Bill 9.0 Oz D ouble Bill BBC Philharmonic. Music 9.45 (LW) Daily Service Front Row 7.45 The Art Blood and Milk (2/5) Osman’s House of Games 4.45 Scrubs Double Bill 9.15 A Place in the Sun Road Wars 4.0 Sun, 11.15 Deadwood D ouble by Beethoven, Bartók, 9.45 (FM) Book of the of Innovation: Humans 2.30 Ella in Berlin 3.0 7.40 Would I Lie to You? 10.05 Find It, Fix It, Sea and A &E 5.0 SWA T Bill 1.30 CSI: Crime Stravinsky, A ntheil, Week: The Devil You in the Industrial Machine Uncle Silas (2/3) 4.0 Double Bill 9.0 QI XL Film4 Flog It D ouble Bill 12.05 Scene Investigation Bowen and Casella. Know, by Gwen Adshead (R) (12/20) 8.0 File The Museum of Curiosity 10.0 Ladhood 10.35 11.0am  The Heir Hunters 1.05 A New Sky Arts Double Bill 3.30 Dexter 5.0 In Tune 7.0 In Tune and Eileen Horne. ( 2/5) on 4: Above the Law? (1/6) 4.30 Millport (1/6) Mock the Week 11.15 Stranger (1946) 12.55 Life in the Sun 2.15 Four 6.0am Anoushka 4.40 Boardwalk Empire Mixtape: 80s Night 10.0 Woman’s Hour 11.0 Anna Adams looks at 5.0 Ayres on the Air Would I Lie to You? Blanche Fury in a Bed. Five episodes. Shankar in Concert 5.50 The Sopranos (R) 7.30 I n Concert. A The Blind Astronomer. what happens when the (3/4) 5.30 Ed Reardon Double Bill 12.35 QI XL (1948) 2.45  How 4.55 Grand Designs New 7.15 Berg: Wozzeck 9.0 Double Bill 8.0 Game concert by Ensemble The story of the Puerto person you’re reporting 6.0 Earthsearch I (2/10) 1.35 Hypothetical D ouble Green Was My Valley Zealand 5.55 The Secret Tales of the Unexpected of Thrones 9.0 City Marsyas, directed from Rican scientist Wanda to the police is a police 6.30 Soul Music (4/5) Bill 2.55 Have I Got a Bit (1941) 5.05  Life of the Zoo 6.55 Double Bill 10.0 on a Hill 10.05 Totti: the harpsichord by Diaz Merced, who is oficer. ( 6/10) 8.40 In 7.0 The Goon s 7.30 More Old News for You 12 Angry Men (1957) Escape to the Chateau: Discovering: Robert One Captain 11.05 Peter Whelan, recorded revolutionising astronomy Touch 9.0 All in the Mind Winston Comes to Town 4.0 Teleshopping 7.0 Fantastic Four DIY 7.55 Grand Designs: Redford 11.0 Landscape Six Feet Under D ouble at the Wigmore Hall in by turning data from (8/10) 9.30 The Long (3/6) 8.0 Murder Is (2015) 9.0 Jack Living in the City 9.0 Artist of the Year 2018 Bill 1.35 True Blood London in an all-Handel space into audio. K ate View ( R) 10.0 The World Easy (2/3) 8.30 Paul E4 Reacher: Never Go Back Queen Elizabeth and the 12.0 Picasso Live from 2.45 Californication programme featuring Molleson presents. 11.30 Tonight 10.45 Book at Temple 9 .0 Father’s Day 6.0am Hollyoaks Double (2016) 11.15  The Spy in the Palace 10.0 Tate Modern 1.0 Tales of Double Bill 4.0 Fish the soprano Louise Alder Guide Books: The Body Bedtime: The Startup 10.0 Ed Reardon 10.30 Bill 7.0 Ramsay’s Kitchen Festival (2018) 1.15 Spying on the Royals the Unexpected D ouble Town Double Bill and the countertenor With Sinéad Gleeson and Wife (R) 11.0 Fortunately Listen Against (1/4) 11.0 Nightmares USA 8.0 Brick Lane (2007) 11.05 24 Hours in A &E Bill 2.0 Discovering: Christopher Lowrey. Sarah Perry. D amian Barr (23/32) 11.30 Today in Liam Williams: Ladhood Baby Daddy Double 12.10 8 Out of 10 Cats Leslie Caron 3.0 10.0 Free Thinking . explores how books might Parliament 12.0 News (1/4) 11.30 Mark Bill 9.0 Melissa & Joey ITV2 Does Countdown 1.10 Palmyra: Rising from Rana Mitter is joined help people navigate 1 2.30 Book of the Week Watson Makes the World Double Bill 10.0 The 7.0am E llen DeGeneres Queen Elizabeth and the the Ashes 4.0 Ray in conversation by everyday life. ( 1/3) (R) 12.48 Shipping Substantially Better (6/6) Big Bang Theory Double 8.0 Emmerdale 10.0 Spy in the Palace 2.15 Charles: Music Icons Nadifa Mohamed. 10.45 12.0 News 12.01 (LW) Forecast 1.0 As W orld 12.0 Earthsearch I (2/10) Bill 11.0 The Goldbergs Dress to Impress 11.0 Spying on the Royals 4.30 Video Killed the The Essay: My Deaf Shipping Forecast 12.04 Service 5.20 Shipping 12.30 Soul Music (4/5) Double Bill 12.0 Brooklyn Secret Crush 12.0 3.20 Food Unwrapped Radio Star 5.0 Tales of World – The Deaf Club. The Startup Wife. By Forecast 5.30 News 1.0 Murder Is Easy (2/3) Nine-Nine Double Bill Emmerdale 2.0 E llen the Unexpected D ouble The Australian-born Tahmima Anam. ( 7/10) 5.43 Prayer for the Day 1.30 Paul Temple 2 .0 The 1.0 The Big Bang Theory. DeGeneres 3.0 Dress Sky One Bill 6.0 Discovering: Alec academic Robert Adam 12.18 Call You and Yours 5.45 Farming Today 5.58 Dry (7/10) 2.15 Blood Four episodes. 3 .0 The to Impress 4.0 The 6.0am Wild Vets D ouble Guinness 7.0 National relects on his fond 1.0 The World at One Tweet of the Day (R) and Milk (2/5) 2.30 Ella Goldbergs Double Bill Masked Singer US 6.0 Bill 7.0 Futurama D ouble Treasures: The Art of memories of “Deaf Club”. 1.45 A History of the in Berlin 3.0 Uncle Silas 4.0 Black-ish Double Bill Catchphrase Celebrity Bill 8.0 Monkey Life Collecting 8.0 Master (2/5) 11.0 Night Tracks World in 100 Objects: Radio 4 Extra (2/3) 4.0 The Museum 5.0 Brooklyn Nine-Nine Special 7.0 Superstore Double Bill 9.0 Sun, of Photography 9.0 12 Angry Men, 12.30 Through the Harem Wall Painting 6.0am Murder Is Easy of… 4.30 Millport (1/6) Double Bill 6.0 The Big Double Bill 8.0 Bob’s Sea and A&E 10.0 The Raphael: In Search of Night: Norwegian Radio Fragments (R) (52/100) (2/3) 6.30 Paul Temple 5.0 Ayres on the Air Bang Theory Double Burgers D ouble Bill Force: Manchester 11.0 Beauty 10.0 Hepworth Film4 Orchestra. A programme 2.0 The Archers ( R) 2.15 and the Gilbert Case (3/4) 5.30 Ed Reardon

59 / 73    

Sect o :G N aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 6:5 c a aGe ta e o b

•  

The Guardian D 

12 Tuesday 15 June 2021 Y   

Puzzles  

  R   R

   W  R

P U  H

Yesterday’s I Quick crossword no 15,945 N K solutions  1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Wordsearch Across Down 8 1 Teach (8) 1 Graven image (4) 5 Only — fair (4) 2 Leaf vegetable (7) 9 10 9 State of disgrace (5) 3 Moneymaking (12) 10 Hermit (7) 4 Blood-red (6) 11 Inventor of the ‘dambuster’ 6 Common (5) bouncing bomb (6,6) 7 Government department dealing 13 Urge on (6) with fi nance and the economy (8) 11 14 Looking glass (6) 8 Now and then (12) 17 Braggadocio (12) 12 Three-headed dog guarding the 12 20 Brought back to life (7) entrance to Hades (8) 21 France’s longest river (5) 15 Italian composer of 39 operas, 13 14 15 22 UK sea area west of Plymouth (4) d. 1868 (7) 23 Small bright coloured beetle (8) 16 Arctic plain (6) 16 18 Heavy block on which hot metal is shaped by hammering (5) Solution no 15,944 19 Lifeless (4) 17 18 P A S T M A S T E R U U H E Y S 19 P E R T A I N C A S E S I S G T A E C N E E D C O M M O N E R 20 21 T S R O C E H O N S H U B R E E Z E E O A B E N A U T O C R A T F L A P I A K R S I L 22 23 R E B E L B O L O G N A L E E O H Y S E A S E R P E N T Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge. Service supplied by ATS. Call 0330 333 6946 for customer service (charged at standard rate). To buy puzzle books, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Sudoku no 5266 Sudoku no 5267 Suguru Wordsearch

Medium. Fill the grid so that each row, column and Fill the grid so that each square Can you find 15 words associated 3x3 box contains the numbers 1-9. Printable version at in an outlined block contains a with perfume in the grid? Words can theguardian.com/sudoku digit. A block of 2 squares contains run forwards, backwards, vertically the digits 1 and 2, a block of three or diagonally, but always in a squares contains the digits 1, 2 straight, unbroken line. and 3, and so on. No same digit appears in neighbouring squares, not even diagonally. Word wheel ELECTABLE

Suguru

Word wheel Pet corner

Find as many words as What was the name of the possible using the letters dog ikita hrushchev gave in the wheel. Each must to John F ennedy in 1961? use the central letter a. Katya and at least two others. b. Irina Letters may be used only c. Sacha once. You may not use d. Pushinka plurals, foreign words or Answer top right proper nouns. There is at least one nine-letter word to be found. TARGET: Excellent-29. Good-24. Average-18.

60 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: c a aGe ta e o b a

• G2 The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost Thea Riofrancos, page 3 Daily pullout life & A new step on the road to fairer taxes? Polly Toynbee, page 4 arts section The art and science of a perfect football pitch The long read, page 5 Inside

The Guardian Tuesday 15June 2021

Opinion and ideas

wenty years ago , a series of riots broke electoral success . Those first riots in Oldham came Unrest in How the 2001 out in parts of northern England that after several weeks of agitation by far-right activists, Bradford, would have a profound effect on who were hoping to capitalise on recent local tensions 7 July 2001 British politics. They began in Oldham between white and Asian residents. In the aftermath, HRH: in late May 2001, spreading to Burnley the B ritish National party leader, Nick Griffin, RRS northern in June, and Bradford in July. All had positioned himself as a voice for the white community, their own specific local triggers, but advocating Belfast-style “peace walls”; he was invited T all involved clashes between men of on to the BBC’s Today programme to have his say. The white and of s outh Asian background. This racialised following year, BNP candidates won a string of council riots warped dimension ensured that they became a matter of seats in Burnley, heralding a series of victories in national concern, prompting warnings that some of the English local government. country’s diverse communities were, in the words of an This might seem like ancient history today, but for official report, living “parallel lives”. Mike Makin-Waite, a former Burnley council officer Britain’s politics In national debate, this quickly became a who s aw up close a fascist party’s first serious incursion narrative that “multiculturalism” had failed, and into UK politics, it was the forerunner to a much helped to cement two powerful stereotypes that bigger shift. As h e recounts in a new book, this was  continue to dominate our politics. One is of the just a precursor to the ultimately successful effort by Daniel Trilling Daniel immigrant community – frequently Muslim – that the right to “link people’s sense of abandonment to is the author of fails to integrate, and stands repeatedly accused of the idea that a strong and exclusivist sense of national Bloody Nasty Trilling creating “no-go zones” in parts of o ur towns and identity is the answer”. People, and of cities. The other stereotype is of the disaffected, The BNP’s explicitly racist politics only ever had Lights in the “left behind” white working class, rarely treated as limited appeal, but other more adept politicians – first Distance: Exile more than a caricature. Nigel Farage, then Boris Johnson – took the and Refuge The most immediate effect of the riots was to problems the BNP had exploited and went at the Borders help Britain’s far right to an unprecedented wave of much further. In 2019, Burnley – a former  of Europe

61 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 9: 0 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 2 How the 001 northern riots warped Britain’s politics Daniel Trilling Founded 82 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 54,371 ‘Comment is free… butfacts are sacred’CP Scott  Continued from front

mill town with a strong Labour and trade Covid-19 restrictions protection against the Delta variant. It will also union history – e lected a Conservative MP allow time to focus on reaching the 2 million or so  for the first time in m ore than 100 years. over-50s who have still not been fully vaccinated, Makin-Waite, a long-time anti-racist activist who and to speed up second doses for the under-40s. was appointed council officer in the wake of the riots The spread of the Delta This will save lives. By late July, schools will be to lead Burnley’s efforts at “community cohesion” (the breaking up for the summer, further reducing official jargon of the time), has an instructive account variantmeans Mr Johnson transmission risk. Even so, it seems likely that for anyone who wants to understand today’s politics. there will be another fraught review of data next He w rites with frustration about the distance between is rightto press pause month, in order to assess whether the link between the reality on the ground and the way places such as infection and hospitalisation has been sufficiently Burnley were talked about nationally. This was an era Since F ebruary, when Boris Johnson unveiled a broken to fully unlock. when the New Labour government was losing support four-step roadm ap to ending all Covid restrictions The delay is, of course, another b itter blow for among working-class voters, but the attitude of some in England, progress has been steady and at times the hospitality industry and the arts. Theatres, of its leading figures was “they’ve got nowhere to go”. relatively serene compared w ith the periods of abject restaurants, pubs, concert venues and nightc lubs, While the causes of racial division were complex confusion and chaos that went before. The successful after haemorrhaging cash for m ore than a year, – mutual distrust between communities that had roll out of the vaccination programme allowed targets have spent money that they haven’t got preparing little daily interaction, the legacy of racist housing to be met, including the substantial “ step three ” easing for a full reo pening next week. Many businesses policies, persistent deprivation and an effectively of restrictions on 1 7 May. are teetering on the edge of the abyss and some segregated school system, for instance – people But as Boris Johnson recognised in his press will now go under. The level of the government’s on either side of the divide were caricatured as conference y esterday , the spread of the new Delta support should reflect the extent of the restrictions “problem” communities. T hose of Asian heritage were variant – which now accounts for 96% of Covid cases it continues to impose. Instead, the Treasury is accused of being backward – in July 2001, one Labour in the United Kingdom – has upended calculations. sticking to its plan to scale down the furlough MP a ppeared to blame arranged marriages and a Latest data suggests it is 40-80% more transmissible scheme and business rate relief, ramping failure to learn English for the riots. M eanwhile, white than the Alpha variant, which originated in Kent. The the financial pressure up still further. This is voters susceptible to the BNP’s messages were either variant partl y evades vaccines and appears to increase shortsighted and unfair. Far more needs to be done dismissed out of hand, or patronised by New Labour the risk of hospitalisation. Hospital admission rates to address the dire predicament of much-loved politicians who promised tough action on immigrants are increasing by 50% a week and 61% in the north- institutions, many of them independently owned in an attempt at triangulation . west. A significant third wave is thus under way and and part of the fabric of their communities. the government’s scientific advisers do not know There was at least some limited good news akin-Waite is clear that the the extent to which current rates of vaccination and for those who planned summer nuptials on the BNP’s offer to voters was acquired immunity will keep it in check. A summer presumption that all restrictions would be lifted. Mr profoundly racist a nd that surge in hospitalisations could overwhelm an already Johnson announced the current cap on 30 guests many of its voters accepted overs tretched NHS. will still be lifted for weddings and for funerals, that premise. But he sees The prime minister is therefore right to opt for though other restrictions and social distancing will its brief success as raising caution by delaying the lifting of all Covid restrictions remain in place. The Delta variant has cast a shadow a wider and potentially more until 19 July, reviewing the data in two weeks’ time. over the summer. But given the greater risks it has M unsettling question about The roadmap has encountered a significant new hazard unleashed, and its virulence, Mr Johnson was right the state of democracy in the UK. Imagine a political and, as Mr Johnson put it: “now is the time to e ase off to heed the scientific advice and press the pause movement that had made some local residents, the accelerator.” Given that significant unlocking has button for the time being. As Sir Patrick Vallance young and old, feel like they had a voice for the first already taken place, it must be hoped this pause is suggested today, the vaccination programme is time. After years of low turnout, elections seemed to enough to put the brakes on the new wave. It will allow now in a race with a faster-spreading variant. The matter again. There was only one problem, he used to vital progress to be made in administering millions four-week delay is necessary to help it win that say: “The movement is the BNP.” of s econd vaccine doses , which greatly increase crucial contest. Ho w badly must mainstream politics have decayed to produce this outcome? Why would so many people come to feel that they had lost any voice in decisions about their lives and communities, and that Lobbying judicious. While some ministers clearly relish the voting for the BNP was the best o ption? As one former opportunity to bring in allies and experts whom they BNP voter told me a decade ago, “Once you vote for know, the pitfalls of systems that rely on p atronage them, people listen.” and cronyism are well e stablished. They include a While explicitly far-right parties are at a historically Tough newrules are the tendency towards groupthink and sycophancy, and low ebb – turning in a dismal performance a t last a lack of diversity. Releasing lobbying details every month’s local elections, for instance – that’s mainly way torebuild confidence four weeks, instead of quarterly, also seems fair. because the mainstream right has been so successful The public, and parliamentarians, should know as in claiming their territory. Whatever J ohnson’s after the Greensill scandal much as possible about who is seeking to influence commitment to “levelling up” might turn out to be their representatives. in reality, its appeal rests on a promise that it will Ministers will wait until the final version of a r eport on Lobbying is part of how liberal democracy works. restore power and dignity to parts of the UK where lobbying is published before announcing which of its Civil society organisations and charities do it when people feel economically and socially neglected. As recommendations they plan to accept. Given the damage they sign politicians up to campaigns and pledges. a recent analysis of the levelling-up agenda notes, caused by the close involvement of a former prime Members of the public do it when they approach the right’s version of this is heavily symbolic, offering minister, David Cameron, in the Greensill lobbying MPs and others about issues that matter to them. the prospect of national revival through Brexit, scandal , and the fact that ministers have now been But such contacts need to be conducted in a way that coupled with targeted investment doled out from defeated twice in court over the improper award of is open, transparent and accountable. Westminster. The government, though, remains contracts, the delay is an unwise as it is unsurprising. This is even more important where corporate hostile to the forms of devolved and local democracy By far the best course for the prime minister would be lobbyists wielding significant economic power are that would put actual decision-making power into the to indicate now that he will do as L ord Evans, chair o f the concerned. It is wrong for relationships to develop hands of communities around the UK. committee on standards in public life (and a former head between politicians and businesses that could lead If we think the right’s promise is false, then the of MI5) , advises. The measures are hardly revolutionary. to private interests being placed before the public challenge is to think about what a genuine form of A ban on ministers and senior civil servants lobbying one. It fosters cynicism and undermines public trust empowerment might look like, a comprehensive for five years after leaving office makes sense. So does when a former Tory prime minister is revealed to redistribution of economic resources and political the suggestion that the public appointments watchdog have bombarded ministers with messages on behalf power that rejects both the racist division on which should get new powers, including the right to prevent of a company in which he was closely involved. It the far right insists, and the nationalist culture-war ministers t aking certain jobs. Given the pace of change is extremely concerning that one of the UK’s most politics of our current government. in institutions, the current two-year prohibition on successful civil servants, Jeremy Heywood, was also As Makin-Waite puts it, recalling a meeting with lobbying is too short, making it likely that ministers will a key figure in the Greensill drama . Gone for now at Whitehall civil servants in which council officials end up trying to influence former colleagues. There least are the days when the civil service was thought were essentially asked what the point of Burnley clearly are circumstances in which a rapid move from to be above such goings-on. was now that its industries had largely died: “ Towns government to a particular private-sector role would not Inevitably, the pandemic has overshadowed a and communities do not vanish simply because the be appropriate. The proposal for new penalties for rule- great deal. But with two cabinet ministers found system’s ‘justification’ for them has been taken away. breakers is logical too: if rules are to be treated seriously, to have broken the law, and the r eputations of a People have the bad manners to carry on living, and infractions must be punished. former PM and cabinet secretary badly damaged, having families, and holding proper hopes for a decent Lord Evans’s comments on the appointment of non- introducing tough new rules is the least that Boris life, even after capital no longer has a use for them.” executive directors to government departments are also Johnson ought to do.

62 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:3 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 0 c a aGe ta e o b a

Tuesday 15 June 2021 The Guardian • Opinion 3

Lithium batteries play a key role in the transition to renewable energy. We are on the verge of a boom in mining

Agency s tates that meeting the aris a greement’s climate targets w ould send demand skyrocketing for the “critical minerals” used to produce clean energy technologies. By 2040, the IEA forecasts that d emand for lithium will have increased 42 times . In the US and Europe, policymakers increasingly talk about a “race” to secure the minerals linked to energy transition and shore up domestic supplies; the idea of a “new cold war” with China is frequently invoked. Across the global lithium frontier, from Chile to the western US and ortugal, environmental activists, i ndigenous communities and t hose with agricultural livelihoods are protesting over what they see as the greenwashing of destructive mining. Indeed, the e xtraction and primary processing of metals and other minerals are responsible for 9 0% o f biodiversity loss and 26% of global carbon emissions. ne r eport estimates that the mining sector produces 100bn t ons of waste every year. Extraction and processing are typically water- and energy-intensive, and contaminate waterways and soil. Alongside these dramatic changes to the natural environment, mining is linked to h uman rights abuses, respiratory he Atacama s alt fl at is a majestic Workers take ailments, dispossession of indigenous territory The rush to ‘go high-altitude expanse of gradations samples from and labour exploitation. of white and grey, peppered with a brine pool on Battles between competing visions of a l ow- red lagoons and ringed by towering the Atacama carbon world are intensifying – and they will become volcanoes. It took me a moment to salt flat, Chile increasingly central to politics across the world. T he get my bearings on my first visit, PHOOGRPH: question is not whether to decarbonise, but how. electric’ comes VÁN VRDO/ standing on this windswept plateau RR T of 3,000 sq km (1 ,200 sq miles). The transportation system based Atacama d esert boasts the E arth’s highest levels of on individual electric vehicles, with a hidden solar radiation , a nd only p arts of Antarctica are drier. for example, with landscapes I had come to the salt flat to research an emerging dominated by highways and environmental dilemma. In order to stave off the suburban sprawl, is much m ore worst of the accelerating climate crisis, e nergy resource- and energy-intensive destructive cost systems around the world must transition from than one that favours mass transit fossil fuels to renewable energy. Lithium batteries A and alternatives such as walking play a key role in this: th ey power electric vehicles and cycling. Likewise, lowering overall energy and store energy on renewable grids, helping to cut demand would reduce the material footprint of Thea emissions from transportation and energy sectors. technologies and infrastructure that connect homes Underneath the Atacama salt flat lies most of the and workplaces to the electricity grid. And not all Riofrancos world’s lithium reserves. But extracting lithium comes demand for battery minerals must be sated with new at a grave environmental and social cost. mining: r ecycling and recovering metals from spent In the mining installations, which occupy m ore batteries is a p romising replacement. than 78 sq km (30 sq miles) and are operated by Moreover, mining operations should be required multinationals SQM and A lbemarle, brine is pumped to to respect international laws protecting indigenous the surface and arrayed in evaporation ponds resulting rights to consent, and governments ought to in a lithium-rich concentrate. The entire process uses consider outright moratoria on mines in sensitive enormous quantities of water in an already parched ecosystems. Movements on the ground in Chile are environment. As a result, f reshwater is less accessible articulating this vision. The  lurinational bservatory to the 18 indigenous Atacameño communities who of Andean Salt Flats ( psal, of which I’m a member) live on the flat’s perimeter, and the habitats of species links environmental and i ndigenous activists such as A ndean flamingoes have been d isrupted . across the so-called “ lithium triangle” of Chile, This situation is exacerbated by climate b reakdown- Bolivia and Argentina. induced drought and the effects of extracting and In May, progressives s wept elections for an processing copper, of which Chile is the world’s top assembly tasked with rew riting Chile’s dictatorship- producer. Compounding these environmental harms, era constitution. psal is now working with members the C hilean state has not always enforced indigenous  of Congress to draft a law that would preserve the salt people’s right to prior consent. Thea flats and wetlands currently threatened by lithium These facts raise an uncomfortable question that Riofrancos and copper mining, and hydroelectric plants. reverberates around the world: does fighting the is an assistant There is no zero-sum conflict between climate crisis mean sacrificing communities and professor fighting climate b reakdown and preserving local ecosystems? The supply chains that produce green of political environments and livelihoods. ather than an excuse technologies begin in extractive frontiers like the science at to intensify mining, the accelerating climate crisis Atacama d esert. And we are on the verge of a global Providence should be an impetus to transform the harmful boom in mining linked to the energy transition. College, patterns of production and consumption that caused A recent report published by the I nternational Energy Rhode Island this crisis in the first place.

63 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 7 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 4 Opinion

people in Britain p ay less tax (in 2019 figures), at 3 3% of chancellors blench. Merging income tax and NI A newstep on GDP, than the EU average of 3 9%, while in Denmark it’s would reveal the top tax rate to be 53%. No chancellor 46%. Put in your pay and TaxLab shows exactly where had dared raise income tax after 1975, until Gordon you stand in the i ncome pecking order: people wildly Brown’s 2010 last gasp lifted the t op rate to 50% . miscalculate, both rich and poor, placing themselves Chancellors opt for stealth, afraid of any reforms the road to too near the middle. Young people are generous to old that create even a few noisy losers. T he US president, people, b ut if they understood t he tax biases benefiting Joe Biden, leads the world – gradually – to cut global the retired they might be more likely to vote. corporate tax-avoiding, but without individual losers. Avoiders and evaders rouse the wrath of obedient C hancellors choose irrational but the least fairer taxes? taxpayers, but people should see the inbuilt injustices unpopular taxes, instead of the wisest or fairest. and myriad tax reliefs, forever stuck like barnacles People hate inheritance tax most, so the Tories to the Treasury, devised as ill-conceived incentives promised to r aise the threshold to £1m despite soaring by successive chancellors. David Cameron’s Daily unearned wealth inequality – but an Englishman’s Polly Mail-pleasing marriage bonus is among the daftest. untaxed home is his castle. Helen Miller, the IFS’s deputy director, burns with Voters are unreasonable, demanding Scandinavian Toynbee indignation about bad taxes, failing taxes, unjust taxes, services on US-style low tax rates. Miller thinks deceitful taxes and, above all, people’s ignorance of logic and reason can prevail if only voters have good them. Let the north not be deceived by “levelling up” information. Take VAT : poverty campaigners plead while council tax h its northerners far harder than for more exemptions, o n food, children’s clothes, Londoners. Top-band Londoners pay only three times tampons etc. But exemptions benefit the high- more than bottom-band n ortherners, despite property spending rich most, when Miller says the £50bn cost ax is the social contract that binds values more than eight times higher. Revaluation could could be better spent directly on poorer people. citizens together. Tax is not a see n orthern bills f all by 20% and London bills rise. Paul Johnson, t he director of the IFS, says there’s “burden”, but the price we pay for Miller strongly advocates merging income tax and a stalemate with our “knock about politics”. Take civilis ation. Vaccines are just the national insurance (NI), equali sing their rates . Why do the urgent need for social care: “Any tax proposed to latest reminder of the good that taxes low earners start paying N I before income tax, while pay for it gets condemned as a ‘death tax’ or ‘tax on do. But what if most people – even high earners don’t pay it at the top tax rate? W hy don’t homes’. Losers make most noise.” those who think themselves well- even high-earning pensioners p ay NI ? Why do self- Margaret T hatcher said you will always spend the T informed – know little of the tax they employed people pay less, costing the Treasury £ 5.9bn ? pound in your pocket better than the state will. This pay, where it goes or how fairly it falls? Democracy No, it’s not to save white van ma n, as the Sun claimed, remains the key political divide: the left believes depends on citizens understanding what they vote but it’s for very rich “self-employed” partners, such as tax es buy everything we value beyond price – health, for: ignorance breeds dangerous misconceptions. dentists and City lawyers. The whole farrago is, M iller security, education, l eisure centres and museums . TaxLab, an information service unveiled by the says, “a deceit”: people think there’s a link between In a country to be proud of, burdens are fairly shared Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), is a wonder of paying in and benefits they get out, but that’s now and no one falls below civilised living standards: that elegant clarity, its impartial explainers revealing “vanishingly weak”. NI is unfair income tax in disguise. requires fair taxes, fairly raised. The right relies on what everyone should know: and it’s guaranteed But here’s where logic and honesty meet politics. fiscal ignorance. The IFS is impeccably neutral, but its to surprise most people. A mouse-click shows that Rationality demands radical tax reforms, but TaxLab will be a great asset for progressives.

64 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:5 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 7 c a aGe ta e o b a

Tuesday 15 June 2021 The Guardian •

Pitch p erfect

The long read They used to used to look like quagmires, ice rinks or dustbowls, depending on the time of year. But as big money entered football, pristine pitches became crucial to the sport’s image – and began to transform the way the game is played. By William Ralston 

65 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:6 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 7 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 6 The long read

valued at more than £ 1bn and employs 2 7,000 people, stadium, the host of the semi-finals and final, the pitch with specialists in every area, from seed enthusiasts expert is Dale Frith and the groundsman Karl Standley, to scientists who develop chemicals to make grass a 36-year-old Englishman with a razor-sharp haircut greener. In West Yorkshire, the S ports Turf Research and greying stubble, whose accolades include the Institute is an R&D powerhouse, studying everything Top Turf Influencer award. from how quickly water passes through s and to how Speaking four weeks before the opening match at the fineness of a stem of grass influences the roll Wembley, S tandley sounded focused but relaxed, like of a golf ball. In hardware, too, the UK has no rival. a formidably prepared star student on the eve of an Bernhard and Company in Warwickshire make the exam. Yes, his work on the Euros would be viewed world’s best sharpening systems for mower blades; by around more than a billion viewers across the Allett, in Staffordshire, provides elite mowing and world, but he wasn’t fazed. “We’ve planned for this maintenance equipment, as does Dennis, based in tournament for years,” Standley told me recently. “We Derbyshire. Dennis mowers are used across the world’s plan to the point that we try to be unbreakable.” top sports arenas, from Wimbledon to Barcelona’s Camp Nou and Manchester United’s Old Trafford. For a long time, English pitches were abominable. Calderwood uses them at PSG, too. When it rained, they would become quagmires. In the It was a big moment for English The turf-care techniques developed in the UK have colder winter months, the quagmires would turn to ice. football talent when Real Madrid poached Paul been applied in tennis, golf, rugby and just about any Then, a few months later, warm weather would t urn Burgess from Arsenal in 2009. After starting his career professional sport that takes place on grass. But it is them into dry and dusty plains. “People loved coming at Blackpool FC, Burgess had arrived at the north football, with its vast wealth and global fanbase, that to Wembley because it was probably the only pitch in London club in 1999, rising to prominence at the age has powered the revolution. No groundsk eeper would England that had grass on it,” sai d Calderwood. of just 21. He excelled on the European stage during claim their work was the main reason for any team’s Bad pitches meant cancelled matches, which meant Arsenal’s Champions League campaigns in the early success, but, j ust as Olympic swimmers don ’t compete lost revenue, which led some clubs towards synthetic 2000s, and shone at Euro 2004 in Portugal. Four years in beach shorts and professional cyclists shave their alternatives. In 1981, Q ueens Park Rangers installed later, he put in another commanding performance legs, top football teams obsess over tiny details that can OmniTurf . A thin layer of sand-covered carpet set upon at the European Championships. Not long after that, be the difference between winning or losing. tarmac, the new surface was so hard that the former Real Madrid, the most prestigious club in world When Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City in Oldham Athletic manager Joe Royle recalled once football, made their sensational transfer swoop. 2016, he asked for the grass to be cut to just 19mm, in seeing a goal kick bounce so high that it went right over If you don’t remember any of this, it’s not because line with the ultra-fast pitches he had demanded at his the opposite crossbar. But QPR started winning on their Burgess was a flop at Madrid. It’s because he was previous clubs, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. (In the synthetic turf, and a handful of other clubs followed Arsenal’s head groundsman. Burgess’s transfer was end he had to settle with 23mm, because short grass is suit. Amid unrest that so-called “plastic pitches” were the beginning of a Europe-wide spending spree on more vulnerable to wear and Manchester’s cold climate giving home teams an unfair advantage, in 1995 the British turf talent. Real’s rivals Atlético s napped up means it can’t recover quickly.) Similarly, after the FA banned them. But by this time, groundsk eeping’s Dan Gonzalez, who had impressed with his work 2016/17 season, Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp told new chapter had already begun. for Bournemouth FC. Tony Stones, who got his start the groundsk eepers that the pitch at Anfield was too As with most stories about modern football, the looking after bowling greens in Barnsley before slow. Staff reconstructed the pitch over the summer, rise of elite turfcare is a story about money and eventually becoming head groundsman at Wembley, and Liverpool went the entire next season unbeaten television. In the 1990s, as TV revenue poured into the was signed to oversee the French national stadium, at home in the league. new Premier League, clubs started spending more on the Stade de France. Fifa, meanwhile, signed Alan Across Europe’s richest leagues, i mprovements transfer fees and w ages. The more valuable the players Ferguson, a Scot who won seven Groundsman of the in playing surfaces since the early 1990s hav e became, the more essential it w as to protect them from Year awards across 12 seasons at Ipswich Town, as transformed t he game. “At Arsenal, we always had injury. One way to reduce injuries is to e nsure a high- their first in-house senior pitch manager. top pitches, but away from home it became better and quality playing surface . And so groundsk eepers, long The highest-profile acquisition of all was Jonathan better,” former manager Arsène Wenger told me via overlooked, acquired a new importance. Calderwood, who joined Paris Saint-Germain from email. “It helped a lot with the quality of the game, and More than just protecting players, there were TV Aston Villa in 2013. A two-time G roundsman of especially the speed of the game.” viewers to think about. If the Premier League was to the Year, the Northern Irishman had been called Pitch quality is especially important for the top market itself as a slick global brand, it needed a product the world’s best by Gérard Houllier, who managed clubs, who want to maximise the talent of their gifted that looked good on television. Muddy, bobbly, patchy Liverpool, Lyon and Villa. The move came at a time players. By contrast, a bad pitch is seen as a leveller, pitches would not do. Broadcasters began to demand when PSG’s new Qatari owners were investing because it hampers the high-tempo passing of the best “snooker table-like pitches,” sai d Calderwood. hundreds of millions to attract the world’s top players teams; in football, an uneven playing field tends to As pitches i mproved, the game itself began to to Paris, including Zlatan Ibrahimović and David level the playing field, so to speak. Jonathan evolve. “From where we were with the pitch at Old Beckham. When we spoke recently, Calderwood s aid This summer’s European Championship is taking Calderwood Trafford to the way it became was night and day,” the timing of his move was no coincidence. place in 11 cities across the continent, but the pitches checking the Sir Alex Ferguson, who managed Manchester United “They had an injury list the length of your arm,” are largely in British hands. Uefa has assigned each pitch at Parc des from 1986 to 2013, told me via email. “Knowing he recalled. A more stable pitch would start to solve stadium a “pitch expert”, w orking alongside the Princes stadium you have a consistent, high-quality surface, that problem. But there was a more tactical reason for resident groundskeeper to deliver tournament-quality in Paris in 2016 particularly when you need to move the ball at pace, signing Calderwood: before his arrival, the pitch was surfaces. Apart from Richard Hayden, who is Irish,  / makes a huge difference.” too slow, too bobbly, too unpredictable for the kind of all the pitch experts are from the UK. For Wembley / At the centre of this turfcare revolution was S teve high-tempo passing game played by most of Europe’s Braddock. Since he joined Arsenal in 1987, Braddock elite teams. “The owners realised that it wasn’t about has done more than a nyone to bring about a world in buying 11 world-class players,” said Calderwood. which perfect pitches are t he norm. W enger described “They needed t hings behind them to allow them to meeting Braddock as one of his greatest pieces of luck. work. One of the main things was the pitch.” “Finally I found someone who had a similar passion for Since his arrival, Paris Saint-Germain has won Ligue the perfect pitch,” Wenger told me. Braddock was key 1 six out of eight seasons, and just as importantly, to raising standards across the Premier League, he sa id . from Calderwood’s point of view, the Ligue de On a blustery spring morning, Braddock picked Football Professionnel’s best p itch award s ix times me up from Radlett train station i n Hertfordshire and too. After winning the league in 2014, then-manager we followed the winding country lanes to Arsenal’s Laurent Blanc credited Calderwood with 16 of the Colney training base, where he oversees 11 pitches. He club’s points, because this pitch had made the team’s showed me around, stopping at one point to phone his attack so much more potent. The club has put him on trusted projects engineer to tell him that the fan belt of billboards and he is featured in national TV adverts. one of his tractors needed tightening – he could hear it Ibrahimović, once the club’s star striker, jokingly squeaking from about 50 metres away – and at another complained t hat Calderwood was receiving more to complain about an assistant groundsk eeper who media attention than h e was. was moving a goalpost without lifting the wheels up. When it comes to sports-turf management, the “It’ll leave a mark,” he explained. Braddock’s attention UK is a talent factory like no other. “W e’re 10 years to detail is legendary: one former assistant told me h e more advanced than anywhere else in the world,” would cut the grass with scissors if he c ould. Richard Hayden, author of Fifa’s official handbook When Braddock joined Arsenal as head groundsman, on pitch maintenance, told me. “If you want to work he was just 23. In the early days, faced with limited in technology, you go to Silicon Valley. Well, the U K budgets and what he saw as a culture of low standards, is the Silicon Valley of turf!” he was forced to come up with his own methods. The English grounds-management sector alone is The most significant was his introduction of annual

66 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:7 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 7 c a aGe ta e o b a

Tuesday 15 June 2021 The Guardian • 7

to Ghana. There was Andy Cole, the longest-serving pitch expert in the room, who had worked on three European Championships and three World Cups. These men are k nown as turf consultants, specialists in agronomy who supervise multiple ongoing projects. Uefa’s representatives laid out the schedule for the coming months, and their expectations for each pitch. According to Uefa guidelines, surface traction should be above 30 Newton metres (NM), a unit of torque that measures a player’s interaction with the surface. Too much traction puts strain on ligaments and risks injury; too little and players will lose their footing. Surface hardness should be between 70 and 90 gravities – a measurement of how quickly a hammer decelerates on impact. If it’s too soft, players will t ire too quickly; if it’s too hard, the risk of injury increases, and the ball will bounce too high. The grass, which should be between 24mm and 28mm, must be cut in straight lines, across the pitch, perpendicular to the touchline. Even the dimensions of the penalty spot and the centre circle spot are specified (200mm and 240mm in diameter respectively). As a consultant, Frith would be Uefa’s eyes on the ground, monitoring data from Standley, the groundsman, about the p itch, and occasionally conducting independent tests. The groundskeeper- consultant relationship is a delicate one. Whereas groundsk eepers are responsible for the daily upkeep of a specific site, consultants flutter between projects, ranging from World Cups to grassroots sport. Standley likens his work to flying a plane. He hopes thorough preparation will allow for a “soft landing” on match day, but when there are back-to-back matches, he will sleep in a hotel nearby in case of u nexpected developments. “ It’s not a job for me; it’s a passion,” he s ays. He calls the Wembley pitch his second child because it “lives and breathes just like one”. Elite groundsk eeping depends on achieving near- total control over every component of the p itch. When I visited Dave Roberts, Liverpool’s senior manager of grounds, a t Anfield in May, he showed me how he uses heat and moisture sensors in the soil to create the best environment to grow grass, and applies zeolite, a volcanic ash that acts as a magnet to hold moisture in renovations – pulling up the pitch at the end of each the root zone. Anfield’s “permavoid” irrigation system season to remove weed grasses, which, because of speeds up drainage and allows him to water the entire their shallow roots, do not anchor the turf, making it surface in less than three minutes. more likely to fall apart. Until the arrival of improved With its plentiful rainfall and mild temperatures, technology in 2000, t his required weeks of walking up He stopped to complain about Britain is a good place to grow grass. But even in and down the pitch with a machine called a scarifier. this green and pleasant land, weather remains the In time, Braddock’s methods, including his liberal a juniorgroundskeeper moving groundsman’s greatest enemy. They live in fear of the use of sand to encourage pitches to drain quicker, unexpected. The week after my first visit, Wembley were adopted by other British groundsmen. “Steve a goalpost without lifting it. hosted the Non-League Finals Day. The night before, changed the industry,” Paul Ashcroft, Arsenal’s current 6mm of rain, rather than the forecasted 2mm, had head g roundsman, told me. Braddock’s renovation ‘It’ll leave a mark,’ he said fallen, inciting panic among Standley’s team. techniques “had never been considered or thought When I asked Standley what scares him, he recalled possible” . B raddock was also happy to share his tips how a snowstorm had hit hours before Tottenham’s with other clubs. Several grounds keepers I spoke to 2018 FA Cup replay at Wembley against Rochdale, recalle d contacting Braddock for t ips on renovations. making it almost impossible to see the pitch markings. Gradually, the role of the groundsk eeper began Wembley When he arrived at PSG, Calderwood was shocked by (Late in the match, ground staff had to come on to the to change. From the late 1990s, when the Premier stadium what he found. The grounds team didn’t even own the pitch with shovels to try to make the penalty boxes League made it a requirement for t hem to be educated  V  rotary mowers needed to vacuum up d ead grass after a clearer.) “Mother Nature is the biggest challenge in plant science, the job became increasingly data- match. “Even something as simple as that, they didn’t you’re up against,” Standley told me. Although Frith driven. Groundsk eepers put aside sporting rivalry to know,” he told me, with all the shock of a man who began his career as a groundsman, he switched to share their discoveries. New technology helped, too. had just discovered his neighbours didn’t realise they consultancy in 2008, partly because the “lack of A mower at a stadium like Wembley might be working had to mow their lawn. When I spoke to Calderwood’s control” was causing him anxiety. 25- 30 hours a week for 50 weeks a year. To go over the deputy, a Frenchman called Arnaud Meline, he told me The job can take its toll. Like goalkeepers, Wembley pitch just once, the mower needs to cover that in his native country there simply isn’t the same groundskeepers tend not to receive much credit 10 miles, Standley told me. These machines begin at “vision” for the grass. To the French, it’s still “just a when things go well, but are the first to be blamed £11,000. When I took a tour of the Dennis factory in place you go to BBQ with friends”. if anything goes wrong. T o Stones, it is a way of life Derbyshire in April, they were assembling 12 mowers rather than a job. “You don’t become a groundsman, to be shipped to Qatar, ordered by Fifa for next year’s Preparations for the Euro 2020 pitches b egan more you’re born a groundsman,” he said. World Cup. than two years ago. In the early hours of 25 April 2019, To British turfcare experts, European standards Dale Frith s et off down the M6 t o Wembley, where If you were looking for somewhere to place a world- remain pitiful. “They just don’t understand what it Uefa was gathering together its team of pitch experts class sports pitch, inside Wembley stadium would be takes to make it to play professional football,” said for a “kick off” meeting. a bad choice. Standley s aid it is like cultivating grass Stones, reflecting on his time as head groundsman at By 1 0am, many of the giants of turfcare were s itting in a shoebox. Between September and March, the the Stade de France. Calderwood believes it comes around t he conference table. Besides Frith, there 50-metre-high stands cast a shadow across the turf. In down to education. Like many of the leading lights was Richard Hayden, who claims to be the only turf these months, light levels within the stadium rarely of turfcare, he studied t urf s cience at Myerscough expert to have successfully replaced a pitch mid- exceed 12 micromoles, well below the 20 micromoles College in Preston. “Even doing something like a tournament – in Lille during Euro 2016. There was Dean that grass typically needs to grow. Airflow at Wembley diploma or a Higher National Diploma, that’s not Gilasbey, who has worked with Fifa to train aspiring is also poor, said Standley. Without a possible in France; there’s no such thing,” he told me. groundsk eepers across the world, from Macedonia breeze passing over it, grass becomes 

67 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:8 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 8: 7 c a aGe ta e o b a

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 8 The long read



constant mowing makes the patterns on the pitch more pronounced, making it look like a green chequerboard. Later that morning, I joined Frith as he tested the pitch. Armed with an assortment of equipment, a lot of which looked like futuristic torture devices, Frith dotted around the Wembley turf, careful not to get cut down by one of the eerily silent electric mowers. A s expected, the pitch was in excellent condition. Later that week, he uploaded the scores to a portal for the bosses at Uefa to read. It wasn’t until I returned two weeks later, on the day of the Championship playoff final, that I felt a sense of the magnitude of Standley’s job. When I arrived around an hour before kick-off, Standley was visibly agitated. With the winners moving up to the Premier League, this is the most lucrative match in English football, and it marked the start of the trickiest weekend in Standley’s calendar, with three matches back-to-back from Saturday t o Monday. After that, he would have two weeks to make the final adjustments for England’s opening Euros game. At 2pm, Standley held a meeting with ground staff before heading pitchside to watch the game. “Despite all the data that we’re reading, I now need to see proof,” he told me. Standley watches football m uch as a set designer might watch a movie: the stuff that is just background to everyone else is the real focus of his attention. “I am not watching the players; I am watching their boots touching the surface,” he said. He watches for slips like a normal fan might dread seeing their defenders give away a penalty. The equivalent of his team scoring is the sight of a player pivoting or turning or twisting in a way that could only be done on a “lazy”, as turf experts put it, and eventually it will perfectly maintained pitch. When Phil Foden executed keel over and die. an a stonishing flick, pirouetting down the south side Standley has some pretty fancy tools to overcome sideline in the late stages of a match against Iceland at these challenges. He uses a subsurface aeration Wembley in November, Standley knew that he couldn’t system to increase moisture and oxygen levels in Wembley stadium is notan easy have done it on a lesser pitch. “He depended on that the sand and composites that run 30cm below the pitch being stable,” Standley said, grinning. surface, known as the “rootzone”. To encourage place tocreate a world-class It is only after a match that Standley can breathe a the grass seedlings to grow, he also runs hot water little. After the Championship play-off final, he headed through underground pipes to bring the temperature sports pitch. It’s like cultivating to his office to unwind with some music; he likes in the upper “rootzone” up to 17°C. Once the seeds listening to artists he’s seen at Wembley: Coldplay, have put out shoots, he rolls out lighting rigs and grass inside a shoebox Adele, Springsteen. In 24 hours, he would need to do six gargantuan fans to simulate summer conditions. it all again, and then again the day after that. As he What looks like a normal patch of grass is in reality a headed to h is hotel, he allowed himself to think about “giant chemistry set,” he told me. the Euros; on Tuesday 1 June, the entire stadium would For the Wembley surface to be in peak condition be revamped, with Euro 2020 branding introduced for the summer, major works have to be completed in Neil Stubley, head of courts and horticulture at the All Raheem across the stands. “It has taken three years to get here,” winter. On 20 November 2019, in preparation for the England Lawn Tennis Club, was preparing the courts Sterling (in Standley said. “We’ve been preparing for this and we Euros, it was time to begin reconstructing the pitch for the W imbledon tennis championships. When the white) scoring want that soft landing.” – replacing the top 6,000 tonnes of rootzone. Pitch first ball is hit at the end of June, the c ourts will be for England reconstruction is an immense task, which only needs twice as hard as Wembley when the NFL is in town. against Croatia It was 6am when Standley arrived on site for to be carried out about once every eight years. A team Like Calderwood, Stubley studied at Myerscough at Wembley England’s first match, on Sunday 13 June, but it was of 15 w orked in shifts 24 hours a day for three weeks. College, where he was taught that plants must always on Sunday already warm. He followed the same routine as usual, Once the new turf was laid, the grass took around be healthy, well watered and well fed. “Then you come  G/ beginning by walking over the playing surface. It calms 11 weeks to mature. T hen, in March 2020, U efa into tennis and you roll the bejeezus out of it, you stop G his nerves and allows him to feel the surface. The postponed the Euros to the following summer. It was feeding it and y ou stop watering it,” he told me. To forecast had anticipated the heat, so Standley knew a disappointment to Standley, but not a disaster. In produce the best grass court, Stubley must find the that watering the pitch was paramount, especially on November 2020, he renovated the pitch and began balance between life and death. “By the time you start the north side, which was fully exposed to the sun. to test it, sending the results to Frith to interpret the championships, the plant is on a slow keel to dying When Standley had finished his inspection, his team on behalf of Uefa. From February 2021, Frith began because you’re starving it,” he said. But the surface mowed it twice horizontally, to sharpen the patterns travelling to London to conduct his own tests. can’t be too dry at the start, “because otherwise the that appear on the pitch, and repainted the white Standley is expert at adjusting the Wembley plant will be dead before you get to the second week”. lines twice. At midday, two hours before kick-off, pitch to make it work for other sports, such as rugby The courts end the fortnight closer to 300 gravities, they watered the pitch for a second time. and American football. The latter is played in short which has no more give than a tarmac road. “The At 2pm, a year after initially planned, England’s Euro bursts and requires “ultimate traction”, he sai d. To players are not only battling the player at the other end, 2020 campaign finally got underway. During England’s allow players to change direction quickly, the NFL they are adapting to the evolving surface each time national anthem, Standley felt his eyes filling with demands a hard pitch, somewhere between 90 and they step on to court,” Stubley said. tears, but after kick-off, as he watched the ball fizz 100 gravities. To increase the hardness of the pitch, around the pitch, he could begin to relax. In the 33rd Standley’s team will add around 30kg of extra weight When I first visited Standley a t Wembley on 12 May minute, Foden performed another dazzling move, to their m owers. With each cut, Standley can add – four weeks before the Euros, three days before the leaping up to take the ball out of the air and landing, roughly one gravity. To bring the pressure back down FA Cup Final – the stadium was empty, apart from a turning and passing it back. The pitch held up perfectly. again, he’ll turn to the Verti-Drain, a tool made of handful of broadcasters and Standley’s team of five Towards the end , Standley joined Frith in the six s pikes that poke into the ground, relieving the ground staff. With the Cup final approaching, the pitch tunnel, where they watched some of the final minutes pressure by breaking up the soil. To give the American was already at match length: 24mm. Between games, together. They chatted about Raheem Sterling’s goal, football players extra padding when they fall, Standley Standley allows the grass to grow out as much as proud of the role they had both played in it. “ I grew lets the grass grow slightly longer, to around 32mm. possible. His team then trims it down by approximately  up watching Euro 96, so to be standing on the turf Still, you couldn’t turn Wembley into a cricket 2mm each day for a week. (More severe cuts can William Ralston at Wembley for Euro 2020 is something I could have pitch or a g rass tennis court. The soil is too sandy, s o shock the plant, turning it yellow.) When kick-off is is a freelance only dreamed of,” Standley told me. “You work for the surface will never be quite hard enough. O n an four days away, they mow to maintain it at the same writer based days like these. But I wasn’t at work, I was living out overcast afternoon, I headed to south London, where length, taking off just a tiny amount each day. This in London a childhood dream.” •

68 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe:9 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 7: c a aGe ta e o b a

Tuesday 15 June 2021 The Guardian •  [email protected] Letters  @guardianletters 9

Established 1906 constituencies with big conservative Corrections and Should Labour policy majorities. Labour will never gain clarifications Country diary power without swinging a sufficient Goyt Valley, number of those constituencies to go big on radical change? its cause, however intellectually • An editorial said there were Derbyshire right its arguments may be. Labour “no safe alternatives” to Channel politicians need to focus on power crossings for a sylum seekers and how to attain it. Radical left because the UK government’s last If you want a lesson in how little Ed Miliband clearly understands Labour’s propaganda machine policies will never achieve this. legal resettlement scheme had been you notice about the world, I how the Conservative party, despite might also be required. Labour needs to think smart, not closed and not replaced. A new recommend an hour watching claiming to have “changed”, is Bernie Evans think ideologically. “UK resettlement scheme” was parent long-eared owls gather a “long way from grasping the Liverpool Malcolm Rivers launched in the spring ( The terrible food for their chicks. political direction or scale” of the Isleworth, London end to Artin’s story shows how Recently I saw the adults changes needed ( If Labour is to cut • Ed Miliband rightly argues urgently safe routes are needed, detect, pinpoint, catch and return through, it must think big, Journal, that Labour needs an ambitious • Ed Miliband is right to propose 9 June, Journal, page 2). to their brood with five voles in 11 June). Up against a government and radical programme for jobs, that a future Labour government one 20-minute period. Seeing that sees “levelling-up” only in investment, public services and will need to be radical, but simply • A review wrongly referred to the the feat, you could assume that terms of regional investment, and a green new deal. But he does not presenting a set of untried solutions Herald newspaper as the Glasgow the place was h ooching with vole education of the disadvantaged attach any numbers to these policies, to the people, however laudable, Herald (G B News crashes into the flesh. Not at all. I walked through simply as a vote-winning ploy so they appear rhetorical. Neither will not get it into power. The media landscape, 14 June, page 17). that vegetation where they were rather than a commitment to does he mention how increased current politics of slogans and hunting. It was a dense, entangled, provide equality of opportunity, public spending will be funded. soundbites means the lowest Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to [email protected] or The readers’ knee-high world of heather, Labour has not only to prioritise This is crucial – Labour continues common denominator gets elected – editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU bilberry and grass thickets. Had I “big change”, but ensure all to be dogged by the perception hence the current set of clowns and spent a month on my hands and policies are based on fairness and that it wants to tax ordinary people charlatans in government. knees, I m ay conceivably have justice. Promising a government more heavily. Labour needs to set The party needs to engage with found some old sign of where voles that would never run down out how it would increase taxes on the public, understand what is being No classroom is for had once camped, but I doubt NHS infrastructure, underfund corporations and the super-rich. If asked for around the environment, the faint-hearted I’d ever have clapped eyes on the state schools, allow 21st-century Miliband wants a guide, he could industry and public services, mammals themselves. universities to be dominated by look at the party’s 2019 manifesto, as and respond in a way that those The owls do it by having laser- privately educated students, cut well as Joe Biden’s current proposals. demands are being met. Policies As a school teacher for more than like acuity of hearing and a flight overseas aid needlessly, or require Jamie Gough grounded in what the public want, 25 years, I can certainly say that mode softer than the warm breeze. a well-minded football star to Sheffi eld rather than an assumptions around I have never found children and But it is watching them watch that persuade it to feed hungry children, what they need, will connect better education to be a “soft” option I find most incredible. Long-eared would do for starters. • Forget incremental change: the with the people. Tweaking won’t do ( Letters , 14 June). Oh for a nice owls have flame-coloured eyes on Clarity in the message, especially left shouldn’t be afraid of thinking it. They must be big and radical, and peaceful manufacturing facility or a neck that can rotate through 270 in view of it always being distorted big, argues Ed Miliband. He makes we need to see them soon so that we scientific research establishment... degrees. The mechanism swivels by the right wing press, is vital, the classic mistake of those who might digest, understand and own Clare Addison sweetly like a telescope on its as Miliband knows to his cost, want to retain Labour as a protest them on our own terms. Oxford mount. Yet none of this conveys so a principled version of a movement. Britain is a fairly Warren Brown the intensity of the sight beam, the “Dominic Cummings” to revamp conservative place, with many Ilkley, West Yorkshire • With reference to “Guardian- way the bird, perched on a wall, reading over-70s” staying active scans and probes the realm of light (L etters , 14 June), I tend to follow photons, recoils the head to flame- liberal blue-collar Democrat values the sound advice of the American throw its vision deeper into a spot. Two leaders of – pro big government and labour The unbeatable joy cartoonist Paul Terry: “Whenever I If an organism could physically unions. How these two Catholic of bagging a Munro feel the urge to exercise, I lie down manipulate the world by sight, owls very different leaders and the influences of their until it goes away.” would evolve it first. You realise common faith play out over the Adrian Brodkin that once the search image has next few years may be of enormous I wish there were 227 Munros in London been fixed – once those twitching Catholic values importance to their respective Scotland ( Take the plunge, Travel, vole whiskers are tied together, countries, and the rest of the world. 12 June). Then there would only • My husband is 74 and together so to speak – the capture is mere Paul Dolan be 31 left for me to do and I might with our neighbour, 75, and a formality. Clamping eight razor I suspect that many left-leaning Northwich, Cheshire have a chance of finishing them. friend who will be 81 this year, talons into vole fur is just dotting Roman Catholics regard the fact But where’s the fun in that? I would they cycle every week, weather the owl’s contractual Is. that Boris Johnson is Britain’s • It is symbolic of the progress miss out on 5 5 lovely mountains permitting. They average a ride As we come out of lockdown , first Catholic p rime m inister as made in religious tolerance that (Visit Scotland says there are 282 of 44 miles throughout the New environmentalists are falling over more a matter of regret than pride, we have a Catholic prime minister. Munros ). These numbers may be Forest, at an average speed of themselves to tell one another and and certainly not “a watershed The US is ahead of us since Joe wrong. Whoever in the Scottish approximately 15mph. I am s o anyone who’ll listen how good moment” for the nation’s Catholics, Biden is the second Catholic to hold Mountaineering Club decides to grateful that I am only 67 and not nature is for us. I want to rebel and as Catherine Pepinster suggests the office of US president, after demote particular ones has a warped yet old enough to join in. to ask, paraphrasing President (A Catholic prime minister in John F Kennedy 6 0 years ago. sense of humour. Inevitably, they Fran Turner Kennedy, not what nature can No 10 is a watershed moment, During the presidential campaign are ones you have done already. Milford on Sea, Hampshire do for us, but what the hell we theguardian.com, 11 June). of 1960, Kennedy asserted that But Munros are a wonderful can do for nature? If I must add Nor was this moment entirely his Catholic background would way of getting to know Scotland. • Gordon Dalziel reports snow to the eco-chorus on wildlife’s unpredictable. Some of the influence but not dictate the way Instead of being nameless lumps, still present on the Cheviot in June instrumental purposes for us, I’d most prominent Tory Brexiter s he discharged his public duties. each has its own identity. You can (L etters, 14 June). I was in Buxton say this: owls help me see that I – Bill Cash , Iain Duncan Smith In a seminal speech, he said: remember the names and their on 2 June 1975 when snow stopped see so little, that we are party to and Jacob R ees-Mogg – are also “Whatever issue may come before meanings, gaining a short course in play in a cricket match between something vaster than we know. fellow Catholics, while the days me as president – on birth control, beginners’ Gaelic. You remember Derbyshire and Lancashire. Saved Owls make the world richer, wider of the Church of England being divorce, censorship, gambling the experiences shared with friends my team from defeat. and deeper for us all. effectively the Conservative party or any other subject – I will make and relations; the fun; the weather Dennis Ruston Mark Cocker at prayer, while Labour was seen my decision in accordance with – good, bad and positively ugly; the Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire as the preference of Irish Catholic these views, in accordance with epics; the near-death occasions; working-class communities, ha ve what my conscience tells me to be the embarrassment of calling out • In reply to Tim Dowling We do not publish letters where long passed. In terms of electoral the national interest, and without the mountain rescue (which I (Weekend, 12 June), my only an email address is supplied; allegiance, Catholics have been regard to outside religious pressures never have); the satisfaction of solo 22-month-old grandson and I often please include a full postal steadily deserting the Labour party, or dictates.” We should follow ascents, perhaps turning back for walk in the lanes around where he address, a reference to the article as they advance in educational Kennedy’s example: faith should good reason, be it weather, fitness, lives. So far he recognises vetch, and a daytime phone number. attainment, employment income inspire and influence politicians, time or danger. The mountains nettles, dandelions, bluebells, We may edit letters. Submission and influence among the right. but not dictate their policy agenda. are always there. At least in my “prickles”, ivy, buttercups and cow and publication of letters is subject By contrast, America’s second Zaki Cooper lifetime they will be. parsley. Eat your heart out, Tim! to our terms and conditions: see Catholic president, Joe Biden, Trustee, Council of Christians Barbara Gray Maggy Holland theguardian.com/letters-terms continues to embody traditional and Jews Coldstream, Scottish Borders Ulverston, Cumbria

69 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: 0 d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 7:57 c a aGe ta e o b

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 10 Obituaries

which gave him his Broadway debut when it transferred in 1968. Following Deliverance, film came to dominate Beatty’s career. “I’m not one of your actors who bemoans the fact that he has left the theatre,” he said. “For me, film is the more poetic medium, and theatre the more literal.” John Huston directed him in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and an electrifying adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood (1979). Beatty re-teamed with B urt Reynolds, his friend and Deliverance co-star, for White Lightning (1973), WW and the Dixie Dancekings (1975), Gator (1976), Stroker Ace (1983), Switching Channels (1988) and Physical Evidence (1989). The disaster movie spoof The Big Bus and the jaunty thriller Silver Streak gave him a chance to be straightforwardly funny. He featured in two widely maligned films by major directors, Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and Steven Spielberg’s wartime comedy 1941 (1979). But he sparkled as an FBI agent opposite W alter door, I’ve got to know.” He was, he Matthau and Glenda Jackson in the Ned Beatty later admitted, “lying like a snake”. spy caper Hopscotch (1980); as a His only Oscar nomination came corrupt police captain in the smart, for Network, a nd he lost out to his For me, sultry thriller The Big Easy (1986); Actor best known for his All the President’s Men co-star film is and as the Irish tenor Josef Locke Jason Robards. But he reached his in the whimsical British comedy- widest audience as Otis, the dim- the more drama Hear My Song (1991). bulb sidekick to the arch-villain poetic He worked frequently in film roles in Superman, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) in television, with appearances as Superman t he Movie (1978) and medium, the father of Dan Conner (John Superman II (1980 ). and theatre Goodman) on the sitcom Roseanne Deliverance and Network Born in Louisville, Kentucky, the more between 1989 and 1994, as well as Ned was the son of M argaret (nee a recurring role in three series of Fortney) and Charles Beatty. As a literal Homicide: Life on the Street (1993- child, he sang in the church choir 95). Recent films included M ike merican cinema a tip-off about the link between Beatty, right, and planned to become a priest Nichols’ s political comedy Charlie of the 1970s the Watergate burglars and the with Jon Voight until he developed a taste for acting Wilson’s War, Paul Schrader’s provided an campaign to re-elect Richard Nixon. in Deliverance, after being cast in a school play. He brooding thriller The Walker (both embarrassment Network (also 1976) gave Beatty 1972. He is one attended Transylvania University 2007) and the British director of riches for his showiest role, as the boss who of four friends in Lexington, without graduating, Michael Winterbottom’s harrowing character actors holds forth on the topic of corporate who go canoeing then went into regional theatre. adaptation of Jim Thompson’s specialising in supremacy: “There is no America. in the Georgia One of his earliest roles, at the pulp novel The Killer Inside Me A the eccentric, There is no democracy. There is only wilderness, age of 21, was in summer stock as (2010). Younger audiences would flawed, vulnerable or monstrous. IBM and ITT and AT&T…” only to find Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. know him from Toy Story 3 (also Each of those qualities was well Most of the three-minute that the locals He returned to t he part in London 2010), where he is at first genial, within the range of Ned Beatty, the speech is delivered from the are even more in 2003, when he had reached the then menacing, as Lotso, the pink, self-described “macho-fat-actor- bottom right-hand corner of the hostile than character’s exact age, o f 65. He won strawberry-scented teddy bear who man”, who has died aged 83. frame, where Beatty is picked out the landscape. acclaim for that production, as well rules the nursery with an iron fist. Beatty made his screen debut in by a theatrical spotlight in the Below, left, with as for the Broadway transfer, which Beatty was happy to stay under John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), darkened conference room. Part Gene Hackman, brought him a Drama Desk a ward. the radar. “Stars never want to where he is one of four friends fire-and-brimstone preacher, part in Superman, For eight years, he was a resident throw the audience a curve ball, who go canoeing in the Georgia circus ringmaster, he rages and 1978; and as Jo player at the Arena Stage in but my great joy is throwing curve wilderness, only to find that the gesticulates wildly before making Locke in Hear Washington. It was there that he balls,” he said in 1977. “I love it locals are even more hostile than a sudden handbrake turn into the My Song, 1991 appeared in The Great White Hope, when audiences don’t recognise me the landscape. Beatty’s formerly realm of the conciliatory. /; from movie to movie, when they carefree character is raped by a The character is a former    see Network and don’t realise I’m woodsman, who compounds the salesman, a line of work that Beatty in it until the final credits. It means ordeal by forcing him to squeal knew well: it was his father’s job I’ve done my job well.” like a pig. He always defended that and, briefly, his own, back when He is survived by his fourth disturbing scene: “I’m really proud he earned a living selling baby wife, Sandra Johnson, whom he of it. I think it scared the hell out of furniture. At the audition for married in 1999, and eight children. people.” For that reason, he did not Network, he daringly adopted Three earlier marriages – to Walta take kindly to being squealed at in high-pressure sales tactics, telling Chandler, the mother of Douglas, the street by strangers. the director S idney Lumet and the Charles, Lennis and Wally, in 1959; In R obert Altman’s three-hour, screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky that Belinda Rowley, mother of John multicharacter drama Nashville he had another offer waiting for and Blossom, in 1971; and Dorothy (1975), Beatty is a lawyer and him. “I’m going to walk out of here Lindsay, mother of Thomas and wheeler-dealer unable to connect and I’m going to call to my agent,” Dorothy, in 1979 – ended in divorce. emotionally with his children, who he informed them. “I’m going to Ryan Gilbey are deaf. In All the President’s Men, say, ‘Hold on just a little while. I’ll he is Martin Dardis, the Dade County let you know if I want to do that’ Ne d Thomas Beatty, actor, born chief investigator who receives and when I come back through the 6 July 1937; died 13 June 2021

70 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 7:57 c a aGe ta e o b

Tuesday 15 June 2021 The Guardian •  [email protected]  @guardianobits 11

fondly remembered for supporting Paul Harker a decade later. He pioneered who was on leave from the Royal Other new volunteers and making local programmes to reduce smoking, Navy, at a dance in Rochdale town friends. Returning from Zambia, Paediatrician and later director of tackle obesity and prevent suicides hall, and they married in 1945. Jan worked in a small team to public health in Dorset determined among young men, and was Settling down in Heywood to lives create Returned Volunteer Action’s to reduce health inequalities seconded to several roles, including raise their two sons, Harry and training resource on antiracism. My father, Paul Harker, who has director of HealthWorks, Dorset’s me, she and Bill, who became a She was employed by Oxfam as died aged 77 of pancreatic cancer, health promotions agency (1998- bus driver and then an insurance a gender and development trainer devoted his career to working 2002) . He retired in 2006. agent, would go dancing twice in the Gender and Development for the National Health Service Paul w as often the best listener weekly. Phyllis also joined the Unit. The Unit addressed the – championing community- in the room and always knew the Heywood Townswomen’s Guild disproportionate impoverishment based services to reduce health right question to ask. He had a deep drama section, becoming its local and powerlessness of women in inequalities, first as a paediatrician, appreciation of the sea, n ature, chair and, subsequently, president. society and the importance of then as a director of public health. music and literature, and cherished Rehearsals took place alongside making women equal partners Paul was born in London, the spending time with his family. family life in the front-room. in development initiatives while son of Kenneth Harker, a solicitor, He is survived by Jackie, their Great animal lovers, she and Jan Seed addressing the many challenges of and his wife, Dorothy (nee Beacall). three daughters, Nicola, Katie and Bill bred and showed rabbits, and making this a reality. The Oxfam He attended Dulwich prep school me, and six grandchildren. when times were tough they even Feminist and campaigner for social Gender Training Manual that Jan and St John’s school, Leatherhead. Lisa Harker put them into the odd stew. Later and climate justice who worked on worked on has been translated into After studying medicine at St they moved to nearby Preesall gender and development for Oxfam more than a dozen languages since Bartholomew’s hospital he t rained Phyllis Mitton and her local church, St Oswald’s, My friend Jan Seed, who has died its publication in 1994. in Exeter, Farnborough, Kent, and became a big part of her life. She of cancer aged 69, was an activist, Jan’s profound commitment Queen Mary’s hospital for children Archetypal make-do and mender was a member of the Mothers’ environmentalist and feminist. to social and climate justice was in Carshalton, Surrey. In 1967 he dedicated to raising her family Union for more than 75 years. Based in Oxford for the last 30 longstanding; she had an organic married Jackie Addison. in a creative home in Manchester In her 50s, she and her friend years of her life, she developed allotment in the 1970s. In recent He took up a post in community As a Manchester homemaker during Ida Davies ran a bric-a-brac stall training materials on gender years, she developed Leaf, a paediatrics in Oxford, and became the 1940s, 50s and 60s, my mother, in Tommy field market in Oldham and development that were the neighbourhood low carbon group a consultant at the age of 30. In the Phyllis Mitton, who has died aged so they could raise money to backbone of Oxfam’s bestselling for Florence Park in east Oxford. late 1970s he sought out a role in a 97, was the archetypal make-do and travel with their husbands to visit Gender Training Manual, founded Jan was diagnosed with ME/ mender – sewing, tailoring, knitting, Leaf, an environmental action CFS in her early 40s, and thereafter toymaking, crocheting, baking and group, and played a key role in used much of her carefully cooking to the highest standards. the ME/chronic fatigue syndrome nurtured energy with Omega, She was always creative in the support group Omega. the Oxfordshire ME Group for home, and ensured that laughter Jan was born in Luton, the Action. She supported activities was heard throughout the house, second child of Stephen Seed, a including campaigning for a where hobbies were popular and GP, and June (nee Barker), a nurse. specialist community clinic, pets featured heavily. Jan’s intelligence, creativity, running meditation sessions, a Phyllis was born in Birch, near organisational skills and warmth newsletter, art exhibition and Heywood, in Lancashire (now were evident throughout her life. As poetry collection. less affluent part of the country, and part of Greater Manchester), to European cities. That was typical a teenager she became a committed She coped with her ME/CFS took a paediatrics post at Alder Hey Ada Carney, who helped on the of Phyllis’s attitude – if you could vegetarian and feminist. for 30 years with good humour, children’s hospital in Liverpool and family farm near Birch, and Robert not do something, you should Following a degree in psychology prioritising friends, including as a lecturer at Liverpool University. Pearson, a tannery worker. Her work out how to achieve your goal at Manchester University she Joanna Breheny, for whose early It was a period of turmoil , with mother died when she was 18, and get on with it. stayed in the city to study children’s years she had been a co-parent. rioting in Toxteth in 1981 following and her father three years later, She loved cycling and would play as a postgraduate. She later In 1994, she met the love of her longstanding tensions between the after an accident at the tannery. go shopping with a Corgi in her joined the radical bookshop Grass life, Sue Taylor, a nd they entered police and the black community. Thereafter Phyllis and her maternal basket. She continued to do so into Roots Books and then the Scottish into a civil partnership in 2008. Sue Seeing the impact of poverty on grandfather, Michael Carney, looked her 80s, but lost mobility in her and Northern Book Distribution likened Jan to “a meteorite blazing the health of young people made a after her four younger siblings. mid-90s, after which she moved to worker’s co-op. She lived in a across the night sky, hot and bright, lasting impression on Paul; he later After leaving Regent Street girls’ live with me in Garstang. housing co-operative and helped too soon extinguished, but leaving wrote a book on the subject. school in Heywood, Phyllis worked Bill died in 2000. She is to bring up two children. an after-image on our souls”. In 1982, Paul switched to as a telephone operator at Oldham survived by Harry and me, three Jan used her experience in a Jan is survived by Sue, Joanna, working in public health. He was fire station during the second grandchildren, Marcia, Richard Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and her three brothers, David, Paul appointed district medical officer world war, and also at the RAF and Tony, four great-grandchildren placement supporting farming in and Rick. for West Dorset and became base in Heywood, disentangling and by her sister, Alice. Zambia from 1984 until 1988. She is Maggie Walker Dorset’s director of public health parachutes. S he met Bill Mitton, Ian Mitton

tradition, and Richard showed an RAM, including the Mendelssohn said: “His soft voice and lilting Birthdays early aptitude, intrigued by the scholarship in 1962, which enabled Yorkshire accent are reflected in his piano keyboard as soon as he was him to study in Paris with Nadia music, which, while modern, is full tall enough to reach it. He had piano Boulanger. Returning to London of rich, melodic invention without Samira Ahmed, broadcaster, lessons with an uncle and started to in 1963, he was offered a teaching any harsh dissonances.” 53; A lan Brazil, footballer and compose at the age of seven. post at the RAM, and was professor Richard edited Composer broadcaster, 62; Stephen Burke, On leaving school at 15, Richard of composition there for more magazine from 1969 to 1980. He director, United for All Ages, 61; went to Huddersfield Technical than two decades. Several of his wrote entries on eight musicians for Simon Callow, actor and writer, Richard Stoker College, where he studied music former students have spoken with the Oxford Dictionary of National 72; K atie Chapman, footballer, with the composer Harold Truscott appreciation of his sensitive and Biography, published poetry and 39; Gavin Greenaway, composer Composer, teacher and actor who and the organist Winifred Smith. generous guidance. prose fiction, and an autobiography, and conductor, 57; Noddy Holder, dispensed generous guidance at the The Yorkshire-based composer He wrote many works, including Open Window – Open Door (1985). singer, 75; Alan Huckle, former Royal Academy of Music in London Eric Fenby encouraged him to go to an opera, Johnson Preserv’d, a In later years he enjoyed taking governor of the Falkland Islands, My husband, Richard Stoker, who London, and he entered the Royal piano concerto, string quartets, part in more than 100 films, 73; Xi Jinping, president of China, has died aged 82, was a composer, Academy of Music (RAM) in 1958 piano trios, song cycles, choral including Hercules (as body 68; Justin Leonard, golfer, 49; teacher and actor, and a colourful to study with Lennox Berkeley. works, orchestral works and organ double for John Hurt), Maleficent, Gary Lightbody, musician, 45; figure in British musical life for the Richard said that Berkeley taught music; works available online Pirates of the Caribbean: On Henry McLeish, former MSP and past 60 years. him to be himself, to develop his include his Piano Sonata No 1, Stranger Tides, Dark Shadows first minister, Scottish assembly, Richard was born in Castleford, ideas, to write economically and Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano and and Last Christmas, and, on TV, 73; Chris Morris, comedian and Yorkshire, to Bower Morrell Stoker, to analyse the masters. Michael Chorale for Strings. He also wrote MotherFatherSon. writer, 59; Tony Oxley, jazz an engineer and inventor, and Berkeley said that his father was for films, television and theatre Richard’s marriage to Jacqueline drummer, 83; Paul Patterson, Winifred (nee Harling). He went to enormously fond of Richard, and of productions. (nee Trelfer) in 1962 ended in composer, 74; S ir John Redwood, Breadalbane House school and then “the mix of innocence and curiosity The style of his music is modern divorce in 1985. He and I met in Conservative MP, 70; Tom Taaff e, Castleford boys’ modern school. that made both him and his music but accessible, full of his cheerful, 1984 through our shared interest jockey and trainer, 58; Raphael His family, especially on the so idiosyncratic”. joie de vivre outlook. As his in music and married in 1986. Wallfisch, cellist, 68; Lord (Larry) Stoker side, had a strong musical Richard won several prizes at the organist friend Richard Townend Gill Stoker Whitty, former Labour minister, 78.

71 / 73    

Sect o :G N J aGe: d t o ate: 06 5 d t o :0 o e: Se t at /6/ 0 : c a aGe ta e o b

• The Guardian Tuesday 15 June 2021 12 Puzzles

Yesterday’s Killer sudoku Codeword solutions Easy Each letter of the alphabet makes at least one appearance in the grid, and is represented by the same number wherever it appears. The letters Killer sudoku The normal rules of decoded should help you to identify other letters and words in the grid. Easy Sudoku apply: fill each row, column and 3x3 box with all the numbers from 1 to 9. In addition, the digits in each inner shape (marked by dots) must add up to the number in the top corner of that box. No digit can be repeated within an inner shape.

Medium

Medium

Codeword

Cryptic crossword Guardian cryptic crossword No 8,47 set by Qaos Solution No. 28,471 F A S B T C T T R E N C H E R R E H A S H 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Across Down A O A I E A E 1 Events with food, involving skill 1 Forwards? King’s better going S C A N M A G I S T R A T E T A A P L S (7) backwards (4) P I P P I N D I A B E T E S 5 Channel 50: see Doctor Who 2 Marciano to lose his footing and O E E S S 9 10 E N T R O P Y A S H T R A Y outside (6) sway from side to side (4) I R I O T 9 Around freezing, I talk nonsense 3 Computer system at home man- S H O W D O W N T U N D R A 11 to snowball? (8) aged to be overloaded with O I P S R O P O I N S E T T I A J A P E 10 Island the French shed tears over tweets, oddly (8) K K R O G A I 12 (6) 4 Half of nuclear power plant B A L L O T C H I P M U N K H E Y K C B E 12 Play a trick on, as a chauffeur includes electron capture (5) 13 14 might do (4,3,1,4) 6 Conclusions of ball games being 15 Halt! Sacred ground where many played (6) 15 16 17 worship (10) 7 Oils (and even parts of flour) can 17 Turkish commander’s in range (3) fill us in the UK (10) 18 19 Relative travels around globe (3) 8 Temperature was rising for 20 Taught in primary school to recall antelopes in desolate areas (10) 19 20 short father on the box (10) 11 WC Grace finally caught by child 22 Readers of stories? (3,9) — outstanding 150! (6) 21 26 Old ship builder bites tip of 13 Pod fell over, perhaps set here? tongue, having sworn (2,4) (10) 22 23 27 Solve cryptic by working with 14 Fit into Dot’s building, otherwise Guardian’s first serenade (4,4) it can stop the horses bolting (6,4) 24 25 28 Put half your money to begin 16 Tolkien’s half-elven lord cycles in with on red, returning to make verse (6) 26 27 a killing (6) 18 Groups of 4 or 2 pints best drunk 29 Makes certain to blame son if without bottle-opener (8) cocaine goes missing (7) 21 One being advised when workers gain support (6) 28 29 23 Somewhat controversial treasure Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your (5) phone company’s access charge. 24 4 in favour of stealing uranium Service supplied by ATS. (4) Call 0330 333 6946 for customer service (charged at standard rate). 25 For a long time, salaries drop 20% Want more? Get access to more than (4) 4,000 puzzles at theguardian.com/ crossword. To buy puzzle books, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.

72 / 73 