The Week UK - 08.08.2026.pdf

一名广岛幸存者改变命运的一天 人物 P8 一个由AI聊天机器人促成团聚的家庭 深度阅读 P40 剑桥大学一场激烈的剽窃争端 议题 P17

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 / 第1604期

英国及国际媒体精华汇总

国际足联丑闻

因凡蒂诺的计划如何适得其反

关于所有重要事项你需要了解的一切

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2 新闻 主要报道...

发生了什么

塞乌塔危机

上周四，欧盟陷入了一场前所未有的边境危机，约7.2万,000名移民在24小时内从摩洛哥进入西班牙飞地塞乌塔。由于主要由年轻男性组成的群体冲过陆地边境或游向这座拥有8.5万,000人口的城市（该市位于与摩洛哥接壤的岬角顶端），导致至少141人死亡。

西班牙总理佩德罗·桑切斯将这次涌入归咎于犯罪团伙，并称其为一次“攻击，是对西班牙领土完整性的侵犯”。作为回应，法国加强了与西班牙边境的安全措施，意大利则暂停了与西班牙之间免签证的申根协定——这一举措得到了芬兰和丹麦的支持，但引发了马德里的愤怒。

到周三，除2,000人外，其余移民均已返回摩洛哥。仍留在塞乌塔的人员中包括50万多名无人陪伴的未成年人，根据西班牙法律，他们必须被送往西班牙处理相关案件。一些抵达塞乌塔的移民表示，他们看到了承诺在那里提供工作机会的社交媒体帖子；另一些人则表示，他们受到了摩洛哥当局的鼓励才选择跨境。

社论怎么说

《星期日泰晤士报》表示，上周塞乌塔的动荡在整个欧洲引发了“政治波澜”。这导致人们对桑切斯的自由主义经济政策产生激烈批评，包括他的大赦计划（该计划可能会使500,000多名非法移民合法化）；同时，这也引发了对西班牙最高法院近期一项裁决的审查，该裁决规定通过海路抵达塞乌塔的移民不能被立即遣返。摩洛哥表示，它曾警告马德里这可能会导致边境陷入混乱。

《卫报》称，意大利暂停申根协定是一种“表演性的过度反应”：塞乌塔并不在申根协议覆盖范围内，且西班牙与意大利并不接壤。但由于极右翼政党随时准备利用移民问题上的任何弱点进行攻击，欧盟领导人采取互相指责的方式并不令人意外。

移民在边境附近

《经济学人》指出，马德里尚未公开指责摩洛哥导致此次移民涌入。但拉巴特有将边境“武器化”的历史。2021年，在与西班牙发生争端期间，它允许8,000人“涉足进入塞乌塔”；而上周，其边境卫队明显缺席。可能的原因是，拉巴特对桑切斯近期访问阿尔及利亚感到不满，而阿尔及利亚拒绝承认摩洛哥对西撒哈拉的主权。

发生了什么

因凡蒂诺的乌龙球

足球界最有权力的人——国际足联主席詹尼·因凡蒂诺上周面临猛烈抨击，此前有消息透露，他正寻求创建一家规模达£15bn的商业子公司，用以控制世界杯的版权。根据该协议，该机构20%的股份将出售给一个由约书亚·库什纳领导的投资集团，约书亚是唐纳德·特朗普的女婿贾里德的兄弟。

各足球协会对该计划表示愤怒，抱怨称自己被蒙在鼓里。批评由欧洲足球管理机构欧足联领头，欧足联宣布对因凡蒂诺的领导能力失去信心，并威胁如果这项“卑劣的、秘密的、不透明的交易”继续进行，将抵制全球赛事。随后，代表北美、中美洲和亚洲的其他协会也加入了抗议。

面对日益增加的反对压力，因凡蒂诺在周六放弃了该提案。但在主要来自非洲和南美洲的友好足球协会的支持下，他拒绝了要求其辞职的呼吁。

社论观点

《金融时报》（FT）表示，上个月世界杯终场哨声响起时，因凡蒂诺的地位看起来是“不可撼动的”。无论是在体育还是商业层面，这次赛事都被证明取得了“令人瞩目的成功”。但很难想象他的领导地位如何在对其抛售交易的强烈抵制中幸存下来。《独立报》（The Independent）对此表示赞同，认为因凡蒂诺除了“尽可能体面地”辞职之外别无选择。十年前，他在接替声名狼藉的塞普·布拉特时，承诺要改革国际足联。虽然他带来了一些积极的变化，例如更加关注女子足球并增加了非洲国家在世界杯中的参与度，但现在他确实已经彻底抹黑了自己的记录。

一项“密室且不透明的交易” 《观察家报》（The Observer）表示，原则上试图从世界杯中榨取更多资金并没有错。多年来，商业交易为职业足球带来了许多改进，其中最重要的是帮助支付了更安全体育场的费用。如果国际足联旗舰赛事的额外收入被用于升级发展中国家的设施，那将是受欢迎的。令人反感的是，因凡蒂诺策划这一方案的方式过于贪婪。

并非全是坏消息

父母表示，2019年被从泰特现代美术馆观景台推下去的法国男孩再次露出了笑容。当时该男孩六岁，正与家人一起访问伦敦，随后遭到琼蒂·布雷弗里（Jonty Bravery）的袭击，后者后来因谋杀未遂被判入狱。他坠落了30米，遭受了改变生活的重伤。但在经过多年的治疗后，他在上学期末回到了学校参加特别改编的课程——父母说，这对他是“巨大的喜悦”，并让他的“脸上重新露出了笑容”。

一名42岁的新西兰人刷新了 Via Alpina 的纪录——这是世界上最艰苦的耐力赛之一。索菲·伍兹（Sophie Woods）于7月4日，在意大利出发，随后沿着阿尔卑斯山脉穿过另外七个国家，跑了 2,000公里，最终抵达摩纳哥。沿途，她攀登的高度相当于12座珠穆朗玛峰。她还面临着酷暑、风暴、成群的马蝇和山火。英国跑者杰克·卡特罗尔（Jake Catterall）在2024. 创下了 Via Alpine 之前的纪录，用时35天。伍兹用29, 天完成了挑战，每天跑步15 到 18 小时。她告诉 BBC：“我欣喜若狂，但精疲力竭。”

一名在20- 被告知的女性。来自伦敦的梅西·萨维奇（Maisie Savage）及其伴侣乔什·弗伦奇（Josh French）飞往美国进行手术，在手术中，肠道通过微创手术被轻轻地推回体内。他们的儿子西奥（Theo）在三个月后自然出生，并在之后4天出院。通常，患有腹壁裂孔症的婴儿需要数月的治疗；其中十分之一会死亡。

THE WEEK 8 August 2026 封面漫画：ANT BLADES © ZOE SALT PHOTOGRAPHY --- ...以及它们是如何被报道的 新闻 3

评论员怎么说

本·帕夫洛夫斯基（Ben Pawlowski）在《i Paper》中表示，自2015年难民危机以来，欧盟领导人一直做出大胆承诺以加强边境安全。但现实是，“无论左翼还是右翼，没有一个欧洲政府找到了解决非法移民的持久方案”；而塞乌塔的画面——接待中心被推至“崩溃点”，移民在海滩和公园里睡觉——是对欧盟未能掌控局面的严峻视觉提醒。

莱拉·拉拉米（Laila Lalami）在《国家》（The Nation）中表示，在发现商店关闭且没有食物或饮用水后，几乎所有到达塞乌塔的人很快又离开了。“这场看起来像是大规模人道主义危机的事件，在刚开始时就几乎被化解了。”

然而，安妮·阿普尔鲍姆（Anne Applebaum）在《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）中指出，这并没有阻止“MAGA及其欧洲之友”就一场“入侵”散布恐惧。美国副总统 J.D. 范斯分享了一段福克斯新闻（Fox News）的片段，其中错误地将移民描述为抵达“西班牙北部”；奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）和罗伯特·詹里克（Robert Jenrick）则暗示他们正前往英国。他们的主张毫无根据，但在社交媒体上依然像野火一样迅速传播。

彼得·康拉迪（Peter Conradi）在《星期日泰晤士报》中表示，讽刺的是，今年进入欧洲的非法跨境人数大幅下降。但由于移民问题仍然是一个“极具分歧的问题”，欧盟内部对于采取类似卢旺达模式的方案（即在境外处理寻求庇护者）的支持度正在增加。

威廉·海格（William Hague）在《泰晤士报》中表示，仅仅建立一座堡垒是不够的。欧洲各地的领导人还必须放眼全球，关注世界其他地方发生的事情。以非洲北部的萨赫勒地区为例，预计未来几十年那里的人口将激增，气候变化、伊斯兰主义叛乱和内战威胁着将引发巨大的移民浪潮。然而，西方国家在近年来允许自己被挤出该地区。它将影响力拱手让给了俄罗斯和中国，而且似乎没有一套连贯的战略来赢回影响力。这可能被证明是一个代价高昂的错误。除非西方国家能找到方法帮助这些国家恢复稳定，并为创造年轻人机会的改革奠定基础，否则人们很快将以任何“堡垒”都无法阻挡的人数进行迁移。

吉姆·怀特（Jim White）在《每日电讯报》中表示，因凡蒂诺完全不知廉耻。他此前已经试图通过向特朗普颁发一个荒谬的国际足联和平奖等方式来讨好对方，现在他又试图通过提供另一个奖项的前景来进一步博取总统的好感：一个“规模大得多的世界杯的家族份额，每两年举办一次，且大多在美国领土上举行”。当这个让国际足联主席能从中获得个人利益的计划被揭露后，因凡蒂诺随后试图通过向各足协发出最后通牒来强行推进，要求他们在9月中旬前支持该协议，否则将失去数百万加元的潜在资金。“幸好英足总（FA）以及欧足联的其他成员对此完全不买账。”

乔恩·索佩尔（Jon Sopel）在《i Paper》中表示，因凡蒂诺的受辱是一个“极具讽刺意味的现代道德寓言”。他以为自己可以像特朗普那样行事，无视批评者并肆无忌惮地追求个人利益，但现在他受到了残酷的现实打击。

《星期日电报》的奥利弗·布朗表示，现在是时候了。足球界的领导机构在太长时间里一直给因凡蒂诺开绿灯。他们对他阴险地扩张权力只字不提，并容忍他“在独裁领导人面前表现得谄媚”，在他策划“沙特阿拉伯毫无竞争地申办2034年世界杯的这场闹剧”时，他们像“海豹一样”拍手叫好。终于，他们“重新找回了某种道德指南针”。《金融时报》的吉迪恩·拉赫曼表示，这场争端有着明显的“地缘政治潜台词”。在第二任特朗普政府手中遭受多次沉重打击的欧洲人，非常享受这次通过代理战争在总统面前赢得胜利的机会。正如中国利用在稀土领域的主导地位反击特朗普的关税一样，欧洲现在利用其在足球领域的主导地位产生了致命的影响。可以想象，欧洲能通过类似手段赢得一场“全球奶酪战争”。“旧大陆在国际足联以及足球美国化进程中的胜利将只能提供短暂的满足感——除非欧洲人能在几个重要领域建立起影响力。”

THE WEEK

携带护照、手机、药物、现金和饮用水，以便随时准备离开。这是英国红十字会（British Red Cross）上周向前往法国、西班牙和意大利易发生火灾地区旅游的游客发出的建议。这些指令很难与轻松度假的理念相协调，但它们是时代的一种迹象。肆虐的山火和游客撤离已成为地中海度假季的一个阴森特征。消费者的选择正随这一趋势而演变。据报道，对“凉爽假期”（coolcations）的搜索量正在上升。度假者越来越多地选择挪威、瑞士和加拿大等国家。根据在线代理商 Opodo 的数据，对于寻求凉爽天气城市短途旅行的英国人来说，哥德堡、斯德哥尔摩和日内瓦是今年夏天最受欢迎的目的地。更多的人也选择不出国，而是在国内通过“居家度假”（staycations）享受阳光天气。但旧习难改。一旦气温下降，夜晚开始缩短，大多数人对这个漫长炎热夏天的记忆将迅速消散。几周后，这一切都将像一场遥远的梦。而在寒冷的深冬，当人们开始考虑预订夏季度假地时，许多人将再次感受到前往地中海的原始冲动。—— Harry Nicolle

接下来的走向？

塞乌塔（Ceuta）的官员已请求马德里提供更多帮助，以照顾当地数百名无人陪伴的移民未成年人。塞乌塔领导人胡安·赫苏斯·比瓦斯（Juan Jesús Vivas）警告称，由于获取食物、水、住所和卫生设施的机会有限，许多未成年人生活在“绝对不可持续”的条件下；他批评马德里对此次危机的初步反应“迟缓且显然不足”。据《国家报》（El País）报道，目前正在计划 8 月 15 日向塞乌塔进行另一次大规模涌入。据称，在 Facebook 和 WhatsApp 群组中，数千名摩洛哥人正在讨论这些计划是否可行，或者是否是帮派为了诱骗人们前往该地区并让他们购买船票而设下的圈套。

接下来会怎样？在此次风波之前，因凡蒂诺似乎有望在明年3月毫无竞争地连任第四个也是最后一个任期，将其国际足联主席任期延长至2031。挑战者的提名截止日期为11月18日。如果因凡蒂诺继续顶住辞职压力，国际足联的211个成员可以选择召开紧急大会并进行不信任投票。该管理机构需要有43名成员请求召开此类会议，且需要106票才能通过不信任动议，该动议必须获得多数成员批准。

编辑总监：Caroline Law 编辑：Theo Teo 副编辑：Harry Nicolle, Frances Weaver 执行编辑：Robin de Pizier 助理编辑：Rory Sullivan 高级编辑：Felicity Capron Out of the: John Lewis, 协调编辑：Simon Wilson, Charity Crowe, Xander Nading, Digby 城市编辑：Jane Lewis, 协调编辑：Simon Wilson, Charity Crowe, Xander Nading, Digby Wanda-Aslam, Tom Yenezozi, William Skidelsky 编辑：Anoukela Petit, Tiggin Riepaek, Eve Nicholson, Daley Billington：图片编辑：Anoukela Whitestone 艺术总监：Katrina Pilate 高级副编辑：Sonny Richman 制作编辑：Alanna O’Connell 顾问：Kristina Pilate 高级副编辑：Sonny Richman 制作编辑：Alanna O'Connell 编辑主席兼联合创始人：Jeremy O'Grady 制作经理：Manya Mistry 客户总监：Amy McBride 执行与客户执行：Jim Phillips 商业总监：Robina Shahid 新闻董事：Harry Nicolle 新闻总经理：Richard Campbell 高级副总裁：Joel Griffiths Future PLC. 121-161 Westbourne Torres, London W2 5JR 编辑机构 editorialadmin@theweek.co.uk 订阅电话：0330-333 1113；subscriptions@theweek.co.uk © Future PLC 2026. 保留所有权利。The Week 是注册商标。未经出版商书面许可，本出版物的全部或任何部分不得以任何形式或通过任何手段复制、存储在检索系统中或传播。

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 4 新闻 政治 # 本周争议

法拉奇的低迷

“不久前，他还是‘英国的下一任首相’，”肖恩·奥格雷迪（Sean O’Grady）在《独立报》中写道。如今，奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）似乎成了一个相当失意的人物。15个月来首次，一些民调将他的改革英国党（Reform UK）排在工党之后，位列第二。上周，改革英国党在大曼彻斯特市长选举中遥遥落后，仅获第二名。法拉奇本人的支持率已跌至32%——这是所有主要政党领导人中最低的净评级。而且，他目前正陷入一场由自己一手造成的“克拉克顿码头末端表演”中，准备迎接下周与宾面子伯爵（Count Binface）、雷霆男爵（Baron Von Thunderclap）以及其他噱头候选人的补选对决。与此同时，人们继续对改革英国党的财务状况以及法拉奇去年接受克里斯多弗·哈本（Christopher Harborne）的一笔500 万英镑m捐赠提出质疑；上周情况进一步升级，因为有消息透露，他当时已在讨论回归担任改革英国党的领导人。

本周的改革英国党领导人

为了拼命转移话题，法拉奇本周宣布了“堡垒行动”——一项计划利用海军将移民船强行驱回法国的方案。《独立报》称这是一个荒谬的想法。巴黎方面已经警告称，此类驱逐行为将侵犯法国主权并违反国际法。法拉奇想出这个主意，表明了他及其政党陷入了多么严重的困境。

但乔什·格兰西（Josh Glancy）在《星期日泰晤士报》中表示，我们不要过分乐观。“改革英国党陷入了僵局”，但法拉奇在克拉克顿依然能吸引“崇拜的人群”，且许多民调仍将改革英国党维持在24%，与工党不相上下。对移民问题的担忧在选民中依然是一个极具影响力的议题。而且，当安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）的蜜月期结束时（这必然会发生，见第16页），法拉奇很可能会反弹。

蒂姆·罗斯（Tim Ross）在Politico上表示，法拉奇在陷入绝境时往往表现最好。法拉奇的核心支持层反而“因他近期的困难而变得更加稳固”：自5月以来，他在改革英国党选民中的支持率上升了13个百分点。他们认为“建制派”正“意图惩罚人民的冠军”，并试图除掉法拉奇。他们正坚定地支持自己的领袖。

但大卫·弗罗斯特（David Frost）在《每日电讯报》中指出，法拉奇不能指望死忠粉将他送入No. 10,。这些人数量不足。作为领导人，他取得了非凡的成就，但改革英国党现在正处于登顶前的平台期。有“两条可能的上升路径”：他可以加倍押注于移民和文化战争，这将巩固基本盘，但支持这种“全部推翻”方法的选民数量是有上限的。或者，他可以将改革英国党转变为一个全频谱政党，呼吁放松管制、公共部门改革和减税，以吸引剩余的保守党选票。

但丹·霍奇斯（Dan Hodges）在《星期日邮报》中质疑，法拉奇是否是领导这样一个政党的人选。他如此具有争议性，以至于一些选民会不择手段地阻止改革英国党的候选人当选，他的个人品牌正变得越来越有毒。改革英国党需要决定，它是一个严肃的政党，还是一个“一个人愚蠢行为的纪念碑”。

时代精神

莫里森超市（Morrisons）正在试行气动智能购物车，承诺将“在线购物的便利”带到实体店。这种购物车在美国超市已广泛使用，能在商品放入时自动识别。它们可以称量并计算蔬菜价格；在商品取出时更新总额，并提醒购物者多买折扣。这项技术允许购物者直接将商品放入购物袋，并在逛货架时实时查看账单金额，最后在专用结账处付款。

长期以来以销售得体女性内衣著称的玛莎（M&S），因推出一系列开裆丁字裤而引起关注。这些产品是该店新引入的Ann Summers系列的一部分。

幸运的一周：

运气参差不齐。一名意大利女性在扔掉一张价值€1m的即开型中奖彩票后，在当地环卫团队的帮助下成功领取了奖金。在她意识到错误时，相关的垃圾桶已被清空，但工作人员在垃圾车到达填埋场之前将其拦截。随后，团队卸下废物并仔细搜寻，最终找到了那张依然完好无损的彩票。 英国秘密情报局（SIS），根据一项由来自25个国家的60名专业人士进行的同行评审，它是欧洲最强大的对外情报机构。特别是，英国秘密情报局在招募高级内线以及渗透中国、俄罗斯、伊朗和土耳其统治精英方面的专业能力受到了赞赏。 坚韧不拔。一名徒步旅行者在被自己的登山杖刺穿身体后，决定在没有帮助的情况下勇敢地走完十英里的回程。护士大卫·西法尔迪（David Cifaldi）在蒙大拿州的熊牙山与两名朋友登山时滑倒，登山杖刺穿了他的躯干。为了避免支付直升机救援费用，他决定步行下山。

糟糕的一周：

英国喜剧。BBC的《Live at the Apollo》系列在播出22年后被砍。其他为了节省成本而被停播的节目还包括《Blankety Blank》和《Celebrity Mastermind》。 美国演员兼歌手爱莉安娜·格兰德（Ariana Grande），她宣布将暂停职业生涯，原因是面临“无休止且持续的公众审视”。这位33岁的艺人一直面临关于其体重和外貌的激烈猜测。

提前释放计划

政府已将强奸罪和严重儿童性犯罪罪犯排除在新的提前释放计划之外。首相安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）在本周休假前宣布这一举措时表示，他本希望采取更进一步的措施，但英格兰和威尔士的监狱容量已接近极限，无法实现。 关于部分杀人犯在仅服刑一半时间后仍将被释放的消息在某些领域引起了愤怒，同时人们也对哪些儿童性犯罪不属于“严重”范畴提出了质疑。泰晤士河谷警察局局长杰森·霍格（Jason Hogg）表示，他可能会参与法律行动，以阻止两名在2020年被判定过失杀害警察安德鲁·哈珀（Andrew Harper）的男子获释。

警方数据被盗

黑客获取了英格兰和威尔士超过10万,000名警方工作人员的姓名和工作电子邮箱地址，并将其发布在暗网。一个名为ExfilSquad的组织被认为是对警察国家法律数据库（Police National Legal Database）进行黑客攻击的负责人。据信，该组织近期在针对教育部（Department for Education）的网络攻击中窃取了60.7万,000条敏感数据。

民调观察

工党成员认为医疗是英国面临的最大挑战，43%的人提及，其次是经济（42%）、生活成本（39%）和气候变化（29%）。相比之下，仅7%的人提及福利救济，6%的人提及移民。虽然47%的人认为政府在福利上的支出过多，但21%的人认为支出不足。然而，73%的工党成员表示，政府应通过提高税收（无论是通用税收还是仅针对高收入者）在社会护理方面投入更多资金。 ——ThinkLabour / 《卫报》

在实施软管禁令（hosepipe ban）的家庭中，十分之一的成年人表示他们不会遵守禁令；另有5%的人尚未决定。约10%的人表示他们会举报违反禁令的邻居。 ——YouGov / 《独立报》

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 ---

欧洲概览 新闻 5

哥本哈根 军队扩充： 本周，一名 19 岁的公主成为了约 1,600 名开始服兵役的丹麦青年之一，这是该国大幅扩大征兵政策的一部分。弗雷德里克十世国王和玛丽王后的女儿伊莎贝拉公主（如图）将服役 11 个月。在丹麦的制度下，志愿者构成第一批入伍人员。随后，如果人数不足，则实行强制征兵——通过抽签选拔新兵。此前，征召入伍者服役四个月，且女性不受强制抽签的影响。年度征兵人数预计到 2033 年将从 5,000 人增加到 7,500 人。

巴黎 驱逐令： 法国已命令一名俄罗斯记者离开该国，理由是其涉嫌传播由莫斯科策划的虚假信息，旨在“破坏公共秩序”。45 岁的克塞尼亚·费多罗娃（Xenia Fedorova）曾负责俄罗斯国家所有的新闻频道 RT 的法国分支，直到该频道在俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰后被禁；此后，她成为了由法国保守派亿万富翁文森特·博洛雷（Vincent Bolloré）拥有的媒体平台的常驻评论员，其中包括被描述为“法国版 Fox News”的 CNews。在 2027 年法国总统大选前，她在北约和欧洲安全等问题上的亲俄观点受到了越来越多的审查。她自称是国家审查的受害者；驱逐她的决定也遭到了极右翼国民联盟高级成员的严厉批评。

莫斯科 无人机袭击： 本周，一架乌克兰无人机坠落在俄罗斯黑海沿岸的一个海滩上，导致包括三名儿童在内的七人死亡。官员表示，在繁忙的度假胜地阿尔希波-奥西波夫卡（Arkhipo-Osipovka），碎片还导致 40 人受伤。俄罗斯官员将其描述为针对平民的“蓄意袭击”。乌克兰坚称其不针对平民；有猜测认为该无人机被拦截，其目标原本是一个海军基地。俄罗斯还将莫斯科一家餐厅的爆炸案归咎于乌克兰，该事件造成至少五人死亡。未经证实的报告称，一名俄罗斯高级军官当时正在该餐厅庆祝生日。本周，乌克兰对俄罗斯最大的在线零售商 Wildberries 进行了进一步袭击；据报道有五人死亡。周三，俄罗斯的一次弹道导弹袭击在基辅地区造成至少 20 人死亡。

莫斯科 恐怖主义指控： 俄罗斯指控加密消息应用 Telegram 的俄罗斯裔创始人帕维尔·杜罗夫（Pavel Durov）协助恐怖主义。克里姆林宫表示，他未能阻止乌克兰秘密情报局特工利用该平台招募人员在俄罗斯境内实施破坏和恐怖袭击。在杜罗夫被指控后不久，Telegram 的 X / Twitter 账号发布了一张他竖起中指的照片。自 2014 年起一直居住在国外并持有法国和阿联酋护照的杜罗夫，此前曾批评莫斯科在打击互联网自由的过程中限制在俄罗斯访问 Telegram。莫斯科已对他发出国际逮捕令，但目前尚不清楚哪些国家会配合执行。

布达佩斯

多瑙河干旱： 多瑙河的水位已降至极低水平，导致匈牙利唯一一座依靠河水冷却的运行中核电站本周险些被迫完全停机。帕克斯（Paks）核电站供应了匈牙利近三分之一的电力，该电站从7月开始降低产量。截至本周，其运行能力仅为正常容量的10%左右，使该国不得不依赖紧急进口。在罗马尼亚，武装部队使用受控爆炸炸毁了一处岩层，该岩层阻碍了流向其切尔纳沃德（Cernavoda）最后一座运行中反应堆的水流。这座电站目前也处于减产运行状态，如果水位进一步下降，将面临全面关停。由于河水温度升高，法国也面临类似问题。随着多瑙河水位降至接近历史低点，河上游轮航线被迫取消，河床上的各种物体也随之显露，包括纳粹战舰的残骸和一头猛犸象的遗骸。莱茵河的航运和旅游业也受到了严重干扰。在希腊，数千人不得不逃离大陆和克里特岛上的火灾；在本周，雅典地区有两名人员在两架消防直升机相撞事故中丧生。

乌克兰赫尔松 无人机“狩猎”： 本周，在一段俄罗斯无人机在乌克兰南部城市赫尔松猎杀一名街头摊贩的视频曝光后，乌克兰指控俄罗斯犯有战争罪。这段“人类狩猎”的视频由乌克兰总统泽连斯基在社交媒体上分享，他表示这证明了俄罗斯已经“发疯”，其士兵“以杀人为乐”。在视频片段中，可以看到无人机盘旋在一名被确认为52岁的蔬菜商尤里（Yuriy）上方，当时他正在卸货，随后无人机在尤里绕着货车奔跑试图逃离时对其进行追击。最终，无人机向他俯冲并爆炸。他从爆炸中幸存，但因多处弹片伤被送往医院。基辅方面表示，俄罗斯操作员经常使用无人机恐吓前线附近的平民；2025年的一份联合国报告发现，俄罗斯人“反复”通过无人机攻击杀害平民。

在 theweek.com 获取每日新闻 2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 6 新闻

全球概览

华盛顿特区 “秘密基金”：美国代理司法部长托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche）已正式撤销总统特朗普创建一项 18亿美元 “反武器化”基金的计划。该基金旨在补偿被认为受到前任政府不公正起诉的个人——其设立是为了达成一项和解，以解决特朗普因其纳税申报单泄露而对美国国税局（IRS）提起的诉讼。批评者警告称，这可能导致在国会山骚乱期间被判定袭击警察的特朗普支持者获得赔付。两名共和党参议员对此感到愤怒，其中一人称其为“流氓的赔付金池”，并威胁除非撤销该计划，否则将阻止特朗普的前私人律师布兰奇出任司法部长。此后，他们已同意支持其提名；尽管民主党人强烈反对，但该提名在提交参议院表决时预计将获得通过。

华盛顿特区 机器人禁令：美国已禁止进口人形和四足机器人，称其对国家安全构成了“不可接受的风险”。官员们列举的理由包括“恶意行为者”远程控制机器人，或利用机器人收集美国公民数据的可能性。作为全球此类机器人最大的出口国，中国指责美国以安全担忧为借口采取保护主义措施。

加利福尼亚州圣何塞 eBay 赔偿：eBay 及其三名前高管已同意支付 5600万美元，以解决由一对马萨诸塞州夫妇提起的诉讼，该夫妇曾遭到该公司员工的跟踪和骚扰。2019, 年，经营一个批评 eBay 的电子商务博客的大卫·斯坦纳（David Steiner）和伊娜·斯坦纳（Ina Steiner）开始在网上收到死亡威胁。他们通过邮寄收到了葬礼花圈和装有活蟑螂的盒子。寄给大卫的硬核色情内容被发送到了他们的邻居那里，且他们的汽车遭到破坏。事实证明，eBay 的高管们一直对斯坦纳夫妇的博客感到困扰，其中一人曾命令员工“搞定她”。2022 年，七名员工因该丑闻被判定刑事罪名，部分人被监禁。这 5600万美元 用于解决一项民事诉讼。

墨西哥阿托托尼尔科埃尔阿尔托 卡特尔逮捕：一名被怀疑参与两起重大谋杀案的哈利斯科新世代卡特尔（Jalisco New Generation Cartel）重要头目上周在墨西哥哈利斯科州被捕。检察官将拉蒙·安赫尔·阿尔瓦雷斯·阿亚拉（Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala）与瓦莱里娅·马尔克斯（Valeria Márquez，左图）的谋杀案联系起来，这位 23 岁的网红在 2025. 年 5 月于其美容院直播时被枪杀。她此前与阿亚拉的儿子有过一段感情。阿亚拉还被指控策划了去年 11 月亡灵节期间对乌鲁阿潘市市长卡洛斯·曼佐（Carlos Manzo）的暗杀。

华盛顿特区 水池争端：美国检察官已撤销对一名曾被指控破坏华盛顿特区林肯纪念堂反思池的前奥运皮划艇运动员的指控。67, 岁的大卫·赫恩（David Hearn）是数名被指控故意破坏这座 2,028 英尺长水池的人员之一。该水池在今年耗资 1400万美元 的翻新工程（期间为其喷涂了“美国国旗蓝”内衬）后，一直受到藻类爆发和油漆脱落的困扰。据报道，特朗普总统将该工程的非招标合同授予了一家此前曾为其度假村水池工作的公司，他多次将损坏归咎于“激进左翼疯子”。华盛顿特区美国检察官珍妮妮·皮罗（Jeanine Pirro）最初表示赞同，但在上周五的一份文件中，她将其归咎于安装“失误”。特朗普暗示他现在可能会解雇她。

华盛顿特区 不予置评：在上周关于新冠肺炎（Covid-19）危机的参议院听证会上，安东尼·福奇（Anthony Fauci）博士在拒绝回答问题时，使用了100多次美国宪法第五修正案的权利。福奇曾任美国国家过敏和传染病研究所负责人，负责监督美国的疫情应对工作；他表示，他认为共和党人试图诱导他做出与此前证词相矛盾的陈述，以便起诉他犯伪证罪。共和党人指控85岁的福奇资助了武汉实验室的高风险研究，并掩盖了新冠病毒从该实验室泄露的证据。乔·拜登给予了福奇一项特赦，使其免于因2025年之前的行为而被起诉，但这不适用于目前的伪证行为。福奇表示，他观点随时间推移而出现的任何明显矛盾，仅仅反映了他对这场危机认知的演变。

巴西圣保罗 竞选连任：巴西80岁的左翼总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦（Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva）周日在圣保罗正式启动了连任竞选，宣布自己处于“极佳状态”，以缓解人们对其年龄过大而无法担任第四任期的担忧。在同一场演讲中，卢拉还表示，他将保护国家的关键矿产免受外国控制——这被视为在含蓄地指代其右翼对手弗拉维奥·博索纳罗（Flávio Bolsonaro）与特朗普政府的密切关系。几天前，卢拉指责两名美国官员试图干预10月的选举，这两名官员最近都被拒绝授予进入巴西的签证。据报道，两人原计划会见博索纳罗，后者正代替其父亲、前总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗（Jair Bolsonaro）参选。

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 © INZITAGRAVE --- 全球概览 新闻 7

加沙地带，巴勒斯坦领土

重大里程碑：在被特朗普总统赞誉为加沙和平之路上“重大里程碑”的一项协议中，哈马斯已同意将武器移交给一个巴勒斯坦管理委员会，以换取以色列军队分阶段从该地带撤出。随后，加沙的控制权将移交给一个技术官僚性质的巴勒斯坦行政当局。长期以来，哈马斯一直将上缴武器视为不可谈判的条件，因此这可能是一次具有重大意义的让步。然而，该协议是通过由美国领导的和平委员会（Board of Peace）——特朗普于1月成立——协调埃及、卡塔尔和土耳其调解员而达成的。尽管哈马斯谈判代表加齐·哈马德（Ghazi Hamad）声称，这是“为了加沙人民”而做出的重大让步，但以色列对其是否愿意移交除象征性数量武器之外的任何东西仍深表怀疑。特拉维夫尚未做出正式评论，但极右翼国家安全部长伊塔马尔·本-格维尔（Itamar Ben-Gvir）已经将该计划斥为不可接受。尽管10月达成了停火协议，但加沙的暴力冲突仍在继续：自协议生效以来，已有1,100多名巴勒斯坦人丧生。据巴勒斯坦官员称，本周以色列飞机的最新袭击造成至少18人死亡。

德黑兰

达成协议还是不达成？：在沙特阿拉伯的敦促下，唐纳德·特朗普取消了对伊朗的打击，他此前曾誓言这将是“二战以来最大规模的袭击”。特朗普声称，他这样做是因为德黑兰请求会面，且关于重新开放霍尔木兹海峡的谈判“目前正在进行中”。他告诉记者：“在采取行动之前，我想给他们最后一次机会。”然而，伊朗官员对他的说法嗤之以鼻，称德黑兰没有谈判计划。这一否认引发了特朗普在Truth Social上的愤怒反应：“伊朗领导层简直虚伪得令人难以置信！他们请求会面，然后公开且自豪地说，他们没有进行任何讨论。除非达成协议或完全投降，否则一切都无法推进。伊朗永远不会拥有核武器！”

巴基斯坦博峰（Broad Peak）

登山悲剧：著名英籍尼泊尔登山家尼尔马尔·普尔贾（Nirmal Purja）在喜马拉雅山脉的一次雪崩中丧生。这位 43 岁的前英国特种部队士兵在 2019 年以 189 天的纪录登顶世界 14 座最高峰而名声大噪。在雪崩发生时，他正率领一支探险队攀登博峰（8,051米）的西脊。与普尔贾同行的另外九名登山者也全部遇难。包括普尔贾在内的七具遗体已被寻回，另有三人仍然失踪。

刚果民主共和国布尼亚（Bunia, DRC）

埃博拉危机：5 月中旬在刚果民主共和国（DRC）伊图里省首次检测到的埃博拉疫情已演变为历史上规模第二大的疫情，记录在案的感染人数（3,802）超过了 2018 和 2020 年间袭击刚果民主共和国的疫情期间确诊的近 3,500 例。卫生部已确认 1,707 人死亡，致死率为 44.9%。上周记录到 567 例病例和 296 例死亡——这是此次疫情迄今为止最高的单周总数，世界卫生组织（WHO）警告称“传播速度异常之快”。目前导致此次疫情的罕见布恩迪布格约（Bundibugyo）毒株尚无经批准的疫苗或治疗方法，但一项疫苗试验已于上月在英国启动。

内比都（Naypyidaw）

第一步：缅甸前领导人昂山素季本周被拍到与红十字会官员会面——这是五年来首次确认她与外界接触。自 2021 年其选出的民选政府在军事政变中被推翻后，这位 81 岁老人的下落基本不明，人们一直担心她的健康状况。然而，在照片中她看起来很健康。她的儿子金·阿里斯（Kim Aris）长期要求执政军政府提供她依然在世的证明，他将这一消息视为“重要的一步”，但随后补充道——“但这绝不能是最后一步”。

首尔

热浪致死：首尔发布了该首都历史上首次严重高温预警，韩国正遭受一场导致至少 19 人死亡的热浪袭击。这项紧急措施于周二在首尔全市生效，两天前，东南部城市养山经历了 42.5℃ 的高温，这是该国自 1904 年开始记录以来检测到的最高温度。在本周，首尔派遣护士走访 6.3万,000 名最脆弱的居民，同时出动 200 辆洒水车在全市道路上喷水以冷却周围空气。

2026 年 8 月 8 日 《THE WEEK》 --- 8 新闻 人物

在广岛幸存 1945年8月6日，美国向这座城市投下第一颗原子弹当天，广岛有35万,000人。西蒙·哈滕斯通（Simon Hattenstone）在《卫报》中写道，其中一人是近藤光子（Koko Kondo）——当时她还是一个八个月大的婴儿。奇迹般的是，她和母亲幸存了下来，她的父亲谷本清牧师（Rev Kiyoshi Tanimoto）当时在城市的另一部分，也幸存了下来。在随后的几年里，谷本会告诉女儿，她是该地区唯一幸存的婴儿，她有责任向世界讲述所发生的一切。但她并不认同。“‘不，先生，’我告诉他，‘不是我。’我不想分担那场创伤，也不想让它成为我的经历，”她说。尽管如此，她每天都能看到其影响：她的父亲收养了一些面部严重毁容的大女孩，光子将她们视为姐妹，并誓要向造成她们痛苦的人报仇。“我说，我要找到驾驶B-29 Enola Gay号的人，我要给他们一拳，或者咬他们，或者踢他们。”令人难以置信的是，在1955, 年，她得到了这样做机会。那时，她的父亲因代表广岛受害者开展的活动而在美国广为人知。他被邀请参加美国版电视系列节目《这就是你的生活》（This Is Your Life）；但他不知道的是，Enola Gay号的副驾驶罗伯特·A·刘易斯（Robert A. Lewis）上尉也将作为惊喜嘉宾出席。当她那震惊的父亲尴尬地与刘易斯握手时，光子在观众席上注视着。“我永远不会忘记那一天。”起初，她难以置信地盯着刘易斯。“我认为他是个怪物。”但当他读出那段著名的悔恨之词——“我的天呐，我们都做了什么？”并强忍泪水时，她重新考虑了。“我从未听说过怪物的眼睛里会流出眼泪，”她回忆起当时的想法，“所以这个人一定像我一样是个人类。”

一位古典学者谈《奥德赛》

克里斯托弗·诺兰曾提到，艾米莉·威尔逊 2017 年翻译的荷马史诗《奥德赛》的第一行文字为其电影改编提供了灵感。但威尔逊——宾夕法尼亚大学古典学系主任——并非其电影的粉丝。她说，虽然得知诺兰参考过她的译文让她感到“受宠若惊”，但她会“为自己写过这部电影的任何部分而感到羞愧”。她向《星期日泰晤士报》的马德琳·斯彭斯解释道，这部电影确实不枯燥，但“在情感上完全没有触动我”，“我认为部分原因是，与荷马不同，这部电影写得并不太好”。她补充说，角色“没有荷马笔下角色那种深度。我觉得，‘我真的在乎这家伙能否回到妻子身边吗？’你没有给我任何理由去在乎。”马特·达蒙饰演的奥德修斯既不像荷马笔下的英雄那样“聪明”，也不那么“幽默”。至于女性角色，这部电影“以诺兰的标准来看很棒”；但“以荷马的标准来看，有点令人失望”。更糟糕的是，“没有性爱戏，而且食物看起来都不太好吃”。

一位名流帽匠菲利普·特雷西曾为从伊丽莎白·泰勒到Lady Gaga的所有人都制作过帽子。他在 20 世纪 80 年代获得了突破，当时他与伊莎贝拉·布洛相遇。这位特立独行的时尚编辑成为了他的支持者和朋友。但《每日电讯报》的贝森·霍尔表示，除此之外，她还向他介绍了“最纯粹形式的时尚”。特雷西说，那时“人们根本不像现在这样为穿着张扬的人鼓掌”。如果他们出去吃晚餐，“在走进餐厅前我必须深吸一口气，因为整个餐厅都会突然安静下来，而且人们看起来并不兴奋……但她不在意这些。”这并没有困扰他：他在爱尔兰长大的村庄里“到处都是古怪的人，所以我早有准备”。布洛于 2007 年去世；但他说“她依然激励着我”——在从事该行业近四十年后，他依然处于巅峰状态：麦当娜在今年的 Met Gala 上佩戴了他的作品，而他也是王室成员首选的帽匠。尽管如此，这个行业已不复当年。“企业集团改变了它，因为现在利润比创意更重要，”他说。即使是顶尖设计师，如果利润不符合预期，也可能很快“发现自己失业了”；现在大多数人都在庞大的团队中以疯狂的速度工作。“时尚是一种幻象，”他说，“人们没有意识到它有多像《绿野仙踪》。它在假装一切都很美好，而幕后则并非如此。”

本周荒岛余生

本周 BBC Radio 4 的《荒岛余生》节目嘉宾是女企业家艾玛·格雷德

1. 1 Nickolas Ashford 和 Valerie Simpson 创作，Diana Ross 演唱的《Ain’t No Mountain High Enough》
2. 2 L.A. Reid, Babyface 和 Daryl Simmons 创作，Karyn White 演唱的《Superwoman》
3. 3 Allen George 和 Fred McFarlane 创作，Robin S 演唱的《Show Me Love》
4. 4 坂本龙一创作并演奏的《Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence》
5. 5 Warren Griffin III, Nathaniel Hale, Michael McDonald, Ed Sanford, Jerry Leiber 和 Mike Stoller 创作，Warren G 和 Nate Dogg 演唱的《Regulate》
6. 6* Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber 和 Mike Stoller 创作，Ben E. King 演唱的《Stand By Me》
7. 7 Noel Gallagher 创作，Oasis 演唱的《Morning Glory》
8. 8 Adele 创作并演唱的《Hometown Glory》

* 若仅允许带一张唱片时的选择

书籍： 卡里尔·吉布兰的《先知》 奢侈品： 一张床垫和洁净挺括的床单

观点：

自由主义者的慰藉 “在脱欧和 MAGA 运动兴起十年之后，我为自由主义者提供一个慰藉之思。民粹主义将自我吞噬。不仅如此，民粹主义必须自我吞噬。一个崇尚侵略、在冲突中繁荣、认为自由主义不仅错误而且乏味的运动，最终不可避免地也会对自己人大打出手。你不能在与敌人——甚至是与媒体——寻求全天候对抗的同时，在同事面前又变成另一个人。好斗这种特质在心理上太难以被分区隔离了。”

讣告

约翰·克罗夫特 (John Croft)，布莱切利园密码破译员、公务员及艺术家，12 July去世，享年 103 岁。 朱丽叶·加德纳 (Juliet Gardiner)，历史学家、编辑及作家，16 June去世，享年 82 岁。 格伦·汉萨德 (Glen Hansard)，音乐家 / 演员，曾凭借原创歌曲获得奥斯卡奖，29 July去世，享年 56 岁。 罗德·利德尔 (Rod Liddle)，好斗的报纸专栏作家及广播员，2 August去世，享年 66 岁。 文森特·帕斯托雷 (Vincent Pastore)，在《黑道家族》中饰演“大普西”的演员，1 August去世，享年 80 岁。

© PHILIP BINDEN / TELEGRAPH MEDIA GROUP / HOLDINGS LTD THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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简报 新闻 11

困在海湾

伊朗战争导致数百艘船只被困在霍尔木兹海峡的错误一侧。船员们的生活现状如何？

有多少海员被困？

根据联合国国际海事组织（IMO）的数据，至少 6,000 名海员被困在至少 400 艘油轮和货轮上。自 2 月底美国和以色列与伊朗爆发战争以来，许多船只一直被困在波斯湾中。“我们就好像被困在一个池塘里，”一艘运载约 3.7万,000 吨化肥前往南非的船只船长 Shafiqul Islam 在 6 月告诉 BBC 时说道。

“只有一条出路”：那就是通过霍尔木兹海峡。这条位于伊朗和阿曼之间的狭窄水道，曾是全球约 2万% 的石油和液化天然气，以及包括化肥、铝和氦在内的关键商品从沙特阿拉伯、科威特、巴林、卡塔尔、伊拉克和伊朗流向全球市场的通道。在战争爆发前，每天有 130 多艘船只通过该海峡，其最窄处宽 21 英里。伊朗宣布该水道关闭，并向试图通过的船只发射导弹和无人机，导致交通陷入停滞。在最高峰时，多达 20,000 名海员和 2,000 艘船只被困在海湾中，每天仅有少数船只能够勉强通过。

6 月份霍尔木兹海峡的船只，但沟通并不频繁，因为卫星电话的使用时间有限且价格昂贵。为了保护海员的心理健康，船长鼓励船员们一起活动，绝不让任何人单独行动——即使是在用餐或休息时。海员们报告称，对刀具和其他尖锐物品的管控比平时更加严格，以防止人员自残或伤人。与此同时，许多船上的食物、水和药品正趋于短缺。

是否采取了应对措施？

来自附近港口的船只正在运送补给，但价格不断上涨。一名韩国海员告诉 BBC，感觉供应商“正试图利用这种情况获取暴利”。一艘船的工程师表示，180 吨水的成本已从约 $2,000 飙升至 $1.1万,000。清理船底生物污垢（如藤壶、贻贝、海藻）的“底舱清理员”费用也随之暴涨。诈骗者也在趁机牟利，他们自称隶属于伊朗革命卫队，诱骗航运公司将巨额款项汇入其加密货币钱包，以换取安全通行。

他们是如何离开的？

印度、中国、巴基斯坦和其他国家与伊朗进行了谈判，为其挂旗船只争取安全通行，一些油轮运营商为单艘船只的通行权向伊朗支付了高达 200万美元 的费用。在华盛顿和德黑兰达成初步和平协议后，海湾的交通堵塞在 6 月有所缓解，随后每天约有 30 艘船能够离开海峡。但本月初战争重启后，这一数字又回落到了个位数。

对于被困的海员——主要来自印度和菲律宾，以及孟加拉国、巴基斯坦、叙利亚和乌克兰等国（见方框）——对死亡或受伤的恐惧始终挥之不去。“每个人都精疲力竭，”船长 Hassan Khan 说道，“无论是身体上还是心理上。”在被困于通常装载着爆炸性物质的船只上时，船员们目睹了导弹和无人机在头顶飞过，至少 17 名海员在伊朗和美国的袭击中丧生。油轮船长 Raman Kapoor 在战争爆发时距离任期结束还剩 10 天，他在 3 月无奈地看着附近的一艘油轮在被无人机击中后爆炸。一名海员死亡。“每个人都非常恐惧，”Kapoor 说，“我们只是海员。我们没有接受过任何战争训练。”

船上的生活是怎样的？漫长、单调且非常炎热（7月份的白天温度通常在 40℃ 以上）。虽然船员们努力确保船舶保持适航状态，且电影和乒乓球可以提供一些消遣，但对抗无聊和抑郁仍是一场艰苦的斗争。“我们尽力维持士气，”一名被困超过 120 天的油轮船长 Abhijit Chopra 告诉彭博社，“但确实存在一种紧张感和不确定感。”为了娱乐自己并增加船上饮食的多样性，一些船员在捕捉并烹饪鱼类。给家里打电话是一种慰藉。

是否有过正式的撤离尝试？有过一次，但持续时间很短。在 6 月下旬停火协议生效期间，国际海事组织（IMO）开始引导船舶通过海峡的南部和北部走廊——避开伊朗布雷的中央航道。大约 115 艘船和 2,500 名海员成功撤离，但由于伊朗在阿曼海岸袭击了一艘未参与撤离的油轮，这项由美国支持的计划在几天内就被取消了。一些海员采取了自行解决办法。被困在伊朗港口的 Santosh Kumar 借了近 $7,000 支付给一名代理人，由其开车将其送往约 600 英里外的亚美尼亚，随后他乘飞机前往迪拜，最后回到家乡印度。“我的家人只想让我活着回家，”他说。但这类逃离已变得日益困难：出于安全考虑，一些海湾阿拉伯国家限制了海员的短期上岸通行证。许多商船海员现在在思考这个职业是否变得过于危险，因为伊朗战争只是冲击航运业的最新一次危机。

一个隐形的劳动力

海员承载了全球 9万% 的贸易（每年货物价值 $16.5tm），但他们在公众眼中在很大程度上是不可见的。根据航运协会 Bimco 和国际航运公会发布的《Seafarer Workforce Report 2026》，目前全球 8.5万,000 艘商船上估计有 260 万 名海员在服役。超过一半的商船海员由“五大供应国”提供：菲律宾、印度、中国、俄罗斯联邦和印度尼西亚；波兰、罗马尼亚和乌克兰也是重要的“供应”国。其中约 100 万人为高级船员，150 万 为普通船员。随着船舶规模的增大和码头自动化的提高，每吨货物所需的海员数量大幅减少。薪资已全球化，大多数熟练水手的月薪包在 $1,200-$1,500 左右（国际运输工人联合会的最低基本工资为每月 $690）。2025 年，约有 2.45万,500 名英国商船海员在海上；相比 20 世纪 70 年代近 90,000 名英国海员的规模已大幅缩减。这主要是由于英国拥有的船舶转向外国登记（即“方便旗”），以及来自亚洲和东欧的招聘增加所致。

还有哪些其他危机？

在疫情期间，海员们被困在海上；而自俄罗斯 2022 年入侵乌克兰以来，黑海上的无人机袭击船舶已成为常态。伊朗在也门的胡塞武装盟友——在加沙战争期间袭击了 100 多艘船只——上个月宣布在红海对沙特阿拉伯航运实施禁运，使更多商业船舶处于火力线之中。商船海员似乎越来越不愿出海：尽管公司提供了丰厚的奖金，但仍难以招募到替代船员，以接替那些合同已到期且身在海湾地区的海员。国际海事组织（IMO）秘书长 Arsenio Dominguez 表示，战争加剧了海员们的这种感觉，即他们是“不可见的，没有受到重视”。

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 12 新闻

最佳文章：英国

坚持你的权利，不必投票

Daniel Finkelstein 《泰晤士报》

如何让我们的商业街恢复活力

Polly Mackenzie 《金融时报》

唯有连接？在这个国家并非那么简单

Chris Blackhurst 《独立报》

数据中心正在耗尽我们的水

梅兰妮·麦克多纳（Melanie McDonagh） 《每日电讯报》

英国上一次选举的投票率低于 60%；而澳大利亚上一次选举的投票率则是 90%。那么，我们是否应该效仿澳大利亚，实行强制投票制，对未投票者处以 £10 的罚款？丹尼尔·芬克尔斯坦（Daniel Finkelstein）表示，一些国会议员和智库正在推动我们的新任首相这样做。他们认为，如果每个人都必须参与选举，结果将更具民主色彩，并能提高人们对政治的信任。毫无疑问，这会获得强烈的公众支持：人们热爱禁止某些事物或将其强制化。但这实际上是一个糟糕透顶的想法。这批被强行拉来投票的人将是该国最不感兴趣、信息最匮乏的公民：为了争取他们，政治家将被激励地提供各种不负责任的支出承诺。而且，正如大量研究所示，强迫这类人投票对于提高政治参与度或信任度毫无作用。它只会让人们更加愤恨。在自由选举中，选民选择不明智的政策已经足够糟糕；而通过强迫人们“做他们不想做的事情”来导致这种结果，则要糟糕得多。

空荡的店铺；封死的银行。波莉·麦肯齐（Polly Mackenzie）说，这就是你今天走在英国商业街上所看到的景象。如果我们想要扭转这种衰落，我们需要采取比微调商业税率更为激进的措施。让我们首先承认，商业街传统上履行着两个独立且相互交织的功能：它们既是零售中心，同样重要的是，它们也是社交中心。“为了购买商品而产生的人流量补贴了公共领域——长椅、人数众多带来的安全感，以及前往某地、交换新闻的理由。”零售功能现在正被在线购物扼杀；但社交功能不必随之死亡。它只需要一个新的流量来源：可以鼓励住房、市政服务和大学校园搬入市中心，以取代那些病入膏肓的店铺。然而，这只有在空铺业主被强制“恢复建筑用途或将其交出”的情况下才能实现。你不能依赖地方议会来完成这件事：尽管他们拥有为了再生目的而强制购买土地的权力，但他们很少有“能力或信心”去行使这些权力。不，我们需要的是“一个国家支持的资本工具——一个商业街的国家信托基金”来帮助推动这一进程。这是让我们的市中心恢复活力的唯一途径。

克里斯·布莱克赫斯特（Chris Blackhurst）说，我们总被告知英国是一个领先的数字经济体。真的吗？任何试图在火车上获得可靠 Wi-Fi，或居住在众多信号不佳地区的人都会对此表示反对。国会议员兼前士兵汤姆·图根哈特（Tom Tugendhat）最近抱怨说，他在杜尔维奇（Dulwich）接收到的信号比他十年前在喀布尔接收到的还要差。事实上，英国的移动网络覆盖水平低于任何其他 G7 经济体或欧盟成员国。这主要归咎于我们“沉重”的规划法律，当网络供应商寻求升级基础设施时，这些法律给他们带来了无休止的延迟和障碍。目前，VodafoneThree 在伦敦有 80 个移动网络站点离线，因为由于城市改造项目导致移动基站被移走，它无法找到替代建筑来安置这些基站。而且，“Virgin Media 02 自 2018 年以来，在帕丁顿（Paddington）尝试建立新基站的次数已达 13 次”。政治家们大谈特谈英国对 AI 和技术的拥抱固然很好，但让我们先从修复基础问题开始吧。

在这个公园干涸、农田遭受干旱袭击且禁止使用软管浇水的夏天，一个关键问题尚未得到解答：为什么我们要“拥抱——或者应该说强制推行——一项可能会消耗全国近一半水资源的技术”？梅兰妮·麦克多纳（Melanie McDonagh）表示，她谈论的是AI。AI革命所依赖的数据处理中心需要消耗大量的水来为计算机冷却以及发电。而我们已经建立了大约 564 个这样的中心。据报道，大型数据中心的用水量足以满足约 1万,000 人的需求。不过，我们并没有确切的数据，因为与欧盟不同，我们的数据中心没有义务分享其用水量数据。工党政府喜欢大谈特谈“可持续发展”，但在涉及数据中心时却对此视而不见。在白金汉郡和埃平森林，部长们最近推翻了议会的反对意见，以推动新场地的建设。现在是时候承认AI的环境成本，并开始将其视为我们“最珍贵资源的竞争者”了。

这一定是真的……我在小报上读到了

在贝尔加莫北部的一个阿尔卑斯村庄里，一些抱怨牛铃声的意大利度假者遭到了当地市长的冷遇。皮耶拉·克里斯蒂娜·维拉及其丈夫在Facebook上以及在一封信中将牛铃声描述为“噪音污染”。米凯莱·维拉博伊托在社交媒体上以嘲讽的方式回应称，他曾要求那些牛“签署禁言令”，但它们“以一声非常不配合的哞哞声作答”。

新泽西州的警察正将自己伪装成灌木丛，以便更好地抓捕在驾驶时使用手机的司机。该部门在社交媒体上发布了一张警察身着迷彩服并持有双筒望远镜的照片。配文写道：“你今天发现我们的‘灌木’了吗？如果你正低头盯着手机，可能没发现。”警方表示，该行动在上周的一天内抓获了74名司机。

加利福尼亚州一家初创公司的负责人坚称，在他那个身高七英尺、挥舞着电锯的半人马机器人引起各种模因（见图）并在网上疯传后，该机器人是为了提供帮助而存在的。Satyress公司的博·G.表示，这个“类人”机器人将成为“全人类的未来助手”——能够协助林业工作者并在山火等危险环境中运行。由于其“一半像人，一半像羊，一半像马”的外观，该机器人被称为Threehalves。目前该机器人仍处于原型阶段，但公司坚持认为该项目是认真的。它向公众保证，可以通过开枪射击来使Threehalves失效。

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 © 2024BCE / NVD

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14 新闻 最佳文章：国际

特朗普的核协议：中东的灾难？

那么，这项协议究竟是生效还是作废？半岛电视台（多哈）表示，没人能完全确定。两周前，美国和沙特阿拉伯签署了一项价值数十亿美元的协议，允许美国公司在未来 30 年在沙特领土上建设并运营核电站。但一天后，特朗普总统通过社交媒体增加了一项新条件：沙特阿拉伯必须与已签署《亚伯拉罕协议》的阿联酋及其他阿拉伯国家保持一致，并承认以色列国。

《大西洋月刊》的大卫·弗鲁姆（David Frum）表示，这可能会成为导致协议破裂的因素。利雅得为了达成这项具有里程碑意义的协议已经努力了近二十年。得益于其事实上的领导人穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼（MbS）王储的精明——他确保了特朗普的女婿贾里德·库什纳（Jared Kushner）的私募股权公司能在涉及数十亿美元的核许可交易中分得一杯羹——他几乎已经将其推向终点。

但中东之眼（Middle East Eye）的穆罕默德·埃尔马斯里（Mohamad Elmasry）表示，现在这无疑陷入了怀疑之中。利雅得誓言，在以色列保证巴勒斯坦建国之前，不会实现关系正常化。据报道，本·萨勒曼王储告诉美国官员，在以色列在加沙发动毁灭性战争之后，沙特民众对以色列的敌意如此之深，以至于签署正常化条约可能会导致他被暗杀。

纽约的 MS Now 网站上的约瑟夫·西林西奥内（Joseph Cirincione）表示，沙特为何仍然极力想要这项核协议，原因显而易见。并不是像他们声称的那样是为了实现能源结构多样化：对于一个坐拥油海且拥有理想的风能和太阳能可再生能源发电条件（且成本远低）的国家来说，这毫无意义。不，真实原因是为了获得原子武器，以保护自己免受其主要对手伊朗的威胁。

本·萨勒曼王储从未掩饰过他制造炸弹的欲望，而这项协议将是朝着该方向迈出的具体一步。尽管特朗普声称并非如此，但该协议似乎允许在沙特领土上进行核浓缩，从而使利雅得能够效仿印度、以色列和巴基斯坦，秘密地将铀浓缩至武器级水平。

穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼王储：精明的政治操盘手

纽约的 Mondoweiss 网站上的米切尔·普利特尼克（Mitchell Plitnick）表示，谁知道如果这项“鲁莽的”协议继续推进会发生什么。之前的“金标准”核-，并强制其接受国际原子能机构的检查：而这项沙特协议没有此类限制。

《外交政策》的阿兹里尔·伯曼特（Azriel Bermant）表示，这就是为什么它将不可避免地引发中东军备竞赛。如果协议继续进行，伊朗将公开寻求自己的核威慑力，而这在目前是其官方放弃的。

《华尔街日报》的马修·克罗尼格（Matthew Kroenig）和亨利·索科尔斯基（Henry Sokolski）表示：“令人难以置信的是，美国为了防止伊朗获得核武器而与其开战，而现在采取的行为却是在公开邀请德黑兰将其武器化。”而且这种方式还将为土耳其和埃及“阴燃的核野心”浇上“扩散之油”。特朗普的协议是在招致灾难。

事实上，《华盛顿审查报》（Washington Examiner）认为美国的做法是正确的。残酷的事实是，“不扩散时代即将结束”：巴基斯坦和朝鲜都在测试核武器。面对这一令人清醒的现实，美国与其让中国或俄罗斯填补空白，不如向沙特提供“引导之手”并监督其核议程。沙龙·斯夸索尼（Sharon Squassoni）在《原子科学家公报》（The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists，芝加哥）中表示，无论好坏，这项协议对美国总统都至关重要，因此关于该协议已夭折的传闻“为时过早”。毕竟，这并非特朗普凭空构思的某种“一时兴起的幻想”。在乔·拜登任内，同样的协议也在考虑之中，且当时浓缩铀也是承认以色列的交换条件。当然，考虑到近期的历史，沙特人不会这样做，但他们也不必这样做。虽然国会在协议提交后可以予以否决，但目前的国会——将于12月18日休会——否决的可能性远低于任何新当选的国会。因此，沙特人只需“坐山观虎斗”，等待特朗普屈服于12月截止日期的压力即可。

印度

今天我们给身体部位命名 《印度时报》（新德里）

纳米塔·班达雷（Namita Bhandare）表示，从历史上看，印度一直表现出巨大的“谈论性行为的不情愿”。幸运的是，这种情况看来即将改变：印度政府在一次“显著且受欢迎”的转向中，终于同意在学校开展全面的性教育课程。现在唯一需要的是最高法院的批准。但为了走到这一步，走过了一条多么漫长且痛苦的道路。自2007年上一次尝试引入性教育课程以来，该国一直被“二十年的道德恐慌和犹豫不决”所阻碍：政客们，尤其是来自纳伦德拉·莫迪领导的执政印度教民族主义政党——印度人民党（Bharatiya Janata Party）的政客，坚持认为这违背了印度文化，且会腐蚀年轻人的思想。真的吗？“这些守护者认为《欲经》（Kama Sutra）起源于哪里？”对性的沉默“从未保护过年轻人”。为了对抗网络上的有毒内容，比以往任何时候都更需要关于安全和同意的强有力课程以及坦诚的对话。印度多么需要创造一个“能够毫无羞耻地命名身体部位的有利环境”。可以想象，在性教育上迈出的这一小步，将有助于开启一个更加“尊重、平等”的社会。

欧盟

面对莫斯科时一次可悲的失败 《欧盟观察报》（布鲁塞尔）

内齐尔·西纳尼（Nezir Sinani）表示，欧盟刚刚创下了一个高度“危险的先例”。为了在第21轮对俄制裁中获得一致通过，欧盟采取了一项短视的举措，给予了希腊一项关键豁免：如果运输合同是在莫斯科全面入侵乌克兰之前签署的，欧盟船舶仍将被允许运输俄罗斯液化天然气（LNG）。这是一个为了安抚希腊，特别是安抚由乔治·普罗科皮乌（George Prokopiou）拥有的希腊航运公司 Dynagas 而创造的漏洞。这简直是一场闹剧。Dynagas 的五艘 Arc7 船舶专为北极条件设计，在将液化天然气从俄罗斯最大的出口终端——西伯利亚的亚马尔液化天然气（Yamal LNG）运往非欧盟市场方面发挥着至关重要的作用。如果没有这些船，俄罗斯将陷入困境。然而，欧盟没有利用这个“压力点”，反而对其进行了“协商绕道”。这向莫斯科发出的信号——即像希腊这样自2022年以来其船舶已运输了价值 2480亿欧元 俄罗斯化石燃料的欧盟国家，在涉及巨额资金时会为自身利益而战——“恰恰是错误的信号”。为了削弱俄罗斯的战争金库并帮助乌克兰，必须堵住这个荒谬的漏洞。

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 --- 健康与科学 新闻 15

科学家怎么说...

早期摄入糖分与痴呆症相关

一项研究发现，在婴儿早期摄入极少量的糖可能有助于在数十年后保护大脑。研究人员查看了在战时配给制度结束前出生的人群数据（当时获取糖分的途径非常有限），并将他们的结果与1953年取消糖分配给后出生的人群进行了对比。在那一点上，糖分消费量激增——从估计的平均每天 41 克增加到 80 克。他们发现，从受孕到一岁期间处于糖分配给状态的人，在晚年被诊断出患有痴呆症的可能性比配给取消后出生的人低 21%；而那些配给状态持续到两岁的人，风险降低了 23%。在糖分配给组中，该疾病的发病时间也倾向于更晚，平均延迟 2.6 年。不过，这项基于参与英国生物样本库（UK Biobank）项目的近 6.5万,000 人的研究存在一些局限性，其中最大的一点是研究人员并未确定参与者实际摄入了多少糖分。

通过游泳缓解背痛

一项研究发现，长期患有腰痛的人往往倾向于服用止痛药，但游泳可能是一个更好的解决方案。澳大利亚麦考瑞大学的一个团队招募了76名腰痛持续至少三个月的成年人，并将他们分为两组。其中一组接受了为期八周的个性化游泳计划并可免费使用泳池，同时与物理治疗师进行了四次远程会谈，治疗师向他们保证运动可以帮助缓解背痛等。对照组的人员与物理治疗师进行了两次通话，除此之外被要求

1941年肯特郡享受罕见款待的孩子们 维持正常生活。两个月后，那些被建议每周逐渐增加到三次、每次30-45分钟游泳的人报告疼痛减轻，且他们的残疾评分（基于从椅子上起身难易程度等指标）平均降低了一半。总体而言，他们的改善程度比对照组高出30%。

有机产品的权衡

如果动物福利是你的首选，你应该选择有机鸡蛋，甚至优于标准的走地鸡蛋；但谈到保护环境时，情况则不那么明确。在一项新研究中，牛津大学的一个团队使用了2009 / 10年度英国农场的数据，对比了四种鸡蛋生产系统：笼养鸡；舍养鸡（不使用笼子但生活在室内）；走地鸡（可以接触室外）；以及被定义为有机的走地鸡。他们得出结论，根据某些指标，最后一类对环境的影响最差。由于是走地且群体密度较低，它们需要更多的生活土地；因为活动量更大且在寒冷室外停留时间更长，它们的食量超过了笼养和舍养鸡；且其有机饲料需要更多土地来种植。它们的生产率也低于笼养鸡，因此就每颗鸡蛋而言，它们产生的碳排放更高；且由于大部分时间生活在室外，其排泄物更容易成为径流。该团队计算出，如果将英国所有的鸡蛋生产都切换为有机走地模式，碳排放量可能会增加60%，且生产所需的土地面积几乎翻倍。研究人员并未考察对生物多样性的整体影响，并强调他们并非主张使用笼养系统，而仅仅是试图展示动物福利与环境影响之间的权衡点，希望这能促使禽类管理方式得到改进。

运动神经元病的新疗法

目前，英国国民医疗服务体系（NHS）仅有一种针对运动神经元病（MND）的药物治疗——在这种疾病中，将信号从大脑和脊髓传递到肌肉的专业神经细胞（运动神经元）发生退化，导致肌肉无力并最终瘫痪。这种药物可以减缓疾病的进展，但并非对每个人都有效。然而现在，一种具有前景的替代疗法的临床试验已经开始。由伦敦大学学院（UCL）科学家开发的TRCN-1023能促进一种蛋白质UNC13A的产生，该蛋白质有助于脑细胞之间的沟通，而97%的MND患者缺乏这种蛋白质。它同样不是一种治愈方法，但其开发者希望它能为几乎所有患此病的人带来“显著的改善”。

数千年前的语言黄金时代

如今世界上有 7,000 多种语言在被使用——而一项新研究表明，这仅仅是曾经存在语言数量的一小部分。哈佛大学的科学家利用 171 个拥有独立语言的现代狩猎采集社会的资料，以及对早期人类人口的估算，来衡量在 1.2万,000 年前（即上一次冰河时代结束时）可能使用了多少种语言。他们得出的数字是 4,500 到 6,200 种——比现在少得多。但随着当时人口的增长，语言的数量也随之增加——直到一到三千年前，当时可能多达 7.5万,000 种。这个语言的“黄金时代”——与《巴别塔》故事被记录下来的时代相吻合——随后进入了一个快速下降期，其驱动因素包括古代大帝国的扩张以及更近期的欧洲殖民主义。发表在《科学》（Science）杂志上的报告称，这种减少仍在继续：如今使用的语言中约有一半处于濒危状态，每年至少有 4 种语言消失。

布鲁盖尔的《巴别塔》（约 1563 年）

多发性硬化症的“改变人生之药”

一种能为多发性硬化症（MS）患者“改变人生”的药物现已在英格兰的国民医疗服务体系（NHS）中提供。Fampridine 此前已在英国其他地区开方使用，但被国家医疗卓越研究所（NICE）判定为价格过高。然而，该药的专利现已过期，为更便宜的通用名药物铺平了道路。在多发性硬化症中，免疫系统会攻击保护神经纤维的脂肪层，从而干扰沿神经传输的信号。Fampridine 是一种“信号增强剂”——它能帮助这些信息传递。在临床试验中，这种每日服用两次的药片提高了高达 43% 患者的行走速度；它还帮助人们行走更长时间。在英格兰 12万,000 名多发性硬化症患者中，约有 5,000 人将在第一年获得使用资格，而受益者将能够无限期地服用。人们希望这能让他们在更长时间内保持独立生活。

2026 年 8 月 8 日 THE WEEK --- 16 新闻

讨论点

本周精选

八卦 奥普拉·温弗瑞（Oprah Winfrey）是少数几个名字如此独特，以至于可以直接用名代替全名的名人之一。然而事实证明，Oprah 并不是她的名字——她直到 20 岁才发现这一点。“在我的出生证明上，”她解释道，“写的是‘Orpah’——这出自圣经……但后来人们开始叫我‘Oprah’。一旦他们开始这么叫，就这么定下来了。”她还透露，在 14 岁时，她非常迷恋保罗·麦卡特尼（Paul McCartney），经常在心中祈愿他能想到她。多年后两人见面时，她问他 20 世纪 60 年代时是否曾想起过她。他说：“每天都在想，宝贝，每天都在想。”

尼尔·帕特里克·哈里斯（Neil Patrick Harris）主持过无数次颁奖典礼——而奥斯卡奖是最“吃力不讨好”的。这位演员告诉《泰晤士报》，这可能是成就的巅峰，但也是颁奖季的终点。因此，到那时，大多数提名者已经拍了“一部完全不同的电影，事实上他们可能正在拍摄第三部。而且他们几乎都知道谁会赢得所有奖项，因为之前已经有了金球奖、独立精神奖、制片人协会奖等——他们就坐在那里想：‘这个不能吃东西的夜晚什么时候才能结束？’”

帽匠菲利普·特雷西（Philip Treacy）长期以来一直与时尚前卫联系在一起。但时不时地，他不得不让他的名人客户面对现实。例如，曾在 2010 年的一场活动中穿着生牛肉制成的礼服而闻名的 Lady Gaga，曾向他解释说她喜欢特立独行。“我告诉她，‘在有六名保镖陪同、坐在贴膜遮光的面包车里，特立独行很容易。但在公交车上就完全是另一回事了。’”

安迪·伯纳姆：一位享受政治的首相

安迪·伯纳姆承诺要“带回希望”，而对于一部分人群来说，他已经成功了，Andrew Rawnsley在《观察家报》中如此写道。“工党议员们心潮澎湃”，这要归功于民调显示，在落后于改革英国党（Reform UK）数月之后，工党现在处于领先地位。在这一好消息之外，他们还可以加上工党的贝芙·克雷格（Bev Craig）在大曼彻斯特市市长补选中获胜，在该选举中，该党赢回了此前被绿党和改革英国党夺走的地区。当然，新首相通常会享有蜜月期，而“伯纳姆效应”在一定程度上也归功于运气：这位首相抵达唐宁街10号之时，恰逢奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）和绿党的扎克·波兰斯基（Zack Polanski）的势头开始动摇。但同一家报纸的Rachel Sylvester指出，事实也是，我们现在由一位在政坛打拼30年后、精通政治的政治家领导。在带着一份十天计划和一份100天计划就职后，他以一次引人注目的内阁改组和一系列生活成本公告拉开序幕，这让人想起托尼·布莱尔那些“能与我个人产生关联的抢眼举措”。随后是分量更重的公告。他的学校改革方案附带了十几位商业领袖预先准备好的认可，使其更难被挑战。这完全出自阿拉斯泰尔·坎贝尔的剧本：在布莱尔时代，坎贝尔经常吹嘘他招募的那些为每项新举措背书的“语录狂人”。在涉及社会护理问题时，伯纳姆邀请凯米·巴德诺克（Kemi Badenoch）和埃德·戴维（Ed Davey）参与讨论——从而重新开启了“大帐篷”模式。John Oxley在UnHerd上表示，为了进一步发出工党已由新管理层接手的信号，首相恢复了对戴安娜·艾博特（Diane Abbott）的党鞭权，这位议员几乎是工党左翼的“北极星”。Nesrine Malik在《卫报》中表示，伯纳姆似乎很享受其中——这令人耳目一新。作为一名天生的沟通者，他知道不能指望选民主动找你：你必须在各种平台上争取他们。但如果他想要实现许多工党议员和选民渴望的变革，他不能仅仅就回滚新自由主义发表空洞的声明：他必须将其铲除。然而，到目前为止，他抵制了对富人征收新税；他似乎倾向于保留工党的“惩罚性移民制度”；他允许美国使用英国基地袭击伊朗；并表示在北海石油问题上将采取“务实”态度。与此同时，《泰晤士报》的Oliver Wright指出，他的财政大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）正忙于告知各部长，将没有新资金用于支付这场政策闪击战——这为该领域的冲突埋下了伏笔。伯纳姆有了一个良好的开端，但真正的挑战尚未到来。

教育：文化转变的时机到了？

英国是否准备好接受这样一个观点，即学位并非“决定个人抱负与成功的唯一因素”？艾玛·布罗克斯（Emma Brockes）在《卫报》中表示，当我的孩子之一建议他们可能会跳过大学时，我承认我感到相当恐慌，但显然一场“文化转变”正在进行中——而安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）承诺将技术资格与学术资格置于同等地位，正符合这一趋势。

爱丽丝·汤姆森（Alice Thomson）在《泰晤士报》中称，这是一个值得赞赏的目标。现实情况是，许多中学生处于脱节状态；约四分之一的学生长期缺勤。被归类为不在教育、就业或培训中（Neets）的16至24岁青年人数目前已超过100万。为那些更倾向于实践的学生提供更清晰的职业路径，进入餐饮、工程、农业或护理工作等领域——这些是至关重要的工作，且不会全部被AI取代——是非常合理的。

伊恩·曼斯菲尔德（Iain Mansfield）在《旁观者》中表示，确实，我们目前的教育体系未能给那些具有职业天赋的人提供足够的帮助。它将太多的年轻人引导向价值极低的“债务陷阱学位”。但如果伯纳姆计划的改革要奏效，它们既需要良好的设计，也需要充足的资金。一个选择是扩大大学技术学院（University Technical Colleges）。UTCs被设计为面向14至19岁青少年的专业学校，将学术研究与雇主及大学的合作伙伴关系相结合，在引导年轻人进入就业和培训方面，其表现优于主流学校。

戴西·克里斯托杜卢（Daisy Christodoulou）在UnHerd上表示，我完全支持在专业学院和进一步教育学院中扩大职业培训。但我不太赞同综合学校必须为14岁及以上的学生提供更多技术选项的想法。近期的历史表明这行不通。在2004年至2010年之间，英格兰学校每年取得的职业资格数量从1.5万,000个激增至57.5万,000个，但这些资格的质量普遍较低。学校倾向于选择那些“可以在专业设备有限的教室里教给大规模混合能力群体的课程：例如ASDAN个人效能证书和OCR国家信息通信技术（ICT）初级证书”。

是的，让我们在学术资格和职业资格之间实现“地位平等”。但实现这一目标的途径是帮助学校和技术学院履行其首要职责。就学校而言，那就是使学生能够获得“基础科目”——英语、数学、科学、历史和地理——的GCSE证书，这些科目为更高级的学术和职业研究奠定了基础。如果我们削弱这些科目，后果将由我们承担。

© LAUREN HURLETING, 16 DOWNING STREET THE WEEK 8 August 2026 --- Talking points NEWS 17

剽窃：剑桥大学的一场激烈争端

当杰森·阿尔代（Jason Arday）在 2023 年成为剑桥大学历史上最年轻的黑人教授时，他在《每日电讯报》的戈登·雷纳（Gordon Rayner）看来，他被“学术界奉为偶像”，并成为了“该大学多样性推动计划的形象代表”。当时年仅 37 岁的他，克服了“几乎不可能的重重困难”才走到今天。他在南伦敦的一个市政住宅区长大，三岁时被诊断出患有自闭症。他直到 11 岁才学会说话，直到 18 岁才学会读写。然而，他还是设法获得了学士学位，随后取得了博士学位，并在学术界开创了卓越的职业生涯。

但现在，这位社会学教授成了“一场关于剽窃的激烈争端的中心，这场争端导致他的同行们陷入对立”。他的批评者指出，他的博士论文中包含一些与其他学术论文惊人相似的段落。他的辩护者则称，这些是无心之过，是因为他在攻读博士期间缺乏正式的监督，且针对其复杂的学习障碍所提供的支持不足。他们表示，他在参考文献中引用了相关来源，但未能直接在正文中注明。

《纽约时报》的詹妮弗·舒勒（Jennifer Schuessler）和亚历山德拉·阿尔特（Alexandra Alter）表示，关于阿尔代作品的担忧在学术圈内已经流传了数年。但这些担忧在上个月“在公众视野中爆发”，当时一名自称“种族现实主义者”且在 2024 年被剑桥大学解雇的内森·科夫纳斯（Nathan Cofnas）发表了一篇关于此事的长篇博客文章。

《每日邮报》的盖伊·亚当斯（Guy Adams）指出，随着记者的深入挖掘，阿尔代那“好莱坞式人生故事”的其他方面也受到了质疑。例如，关于他曾为慈善事业筹集 550 万英镑（包括在六天内惊人地跑了 600 英里）的说法被提出质疑。他随后表示，实际时间是 12 天，且 550 万英镑 是集体努力的结果。

《独立报》的丹妮拉·梅森（Daniella Maison）表示：“学术诚信至关重要。”但阿尔代在几年前已被正式判定没有剽窃。他现在仍因博士论文以及其他甚至与工作无关的成就而受到追究，这表明正当的审查已经演变成了某种更具“惩罚性”的行为。

然而，《卫报》的兰雷·巴卡雷（Lanre Bakare）提到，顶尖学者告诉本报，对于一名剑桥大学教授来说，这种审查是“公平的”。这是一件令人焦虑的事情，所有相关人员的赌注都很高。剑桥大学在“黑人的命也是命”（Black Lives Matter）运动后，自身在种族问题上的记录正受到审查，而此时大学任命了阿尔代，这使其面临关于其判断力的质疑。至于阿尔代，他可能会失去名誉和职业生涯。

火灾与干旱：炽热的夏天

“‘酷暑’已不复存在，”阿努什·查凯利安（Anoosh Chakelian）在《新政治家》（The New Statesman）中写道。那些小报上对炎热天气的欢快庆祝已经消失——与每年关于“野海鸥的愚蠢季节故事”一起成为了过去。现在的夏天带来的是关于肆虐山火的末日式头条，而且在许多地区，是接连不断的“令人窒息的酷热”天。据《金融时报》报道，本周，凯恩戈姆山脉（Cairngorms）和萨福克郡（Suffolk）的沿海荒原仍有余火在阴燃。英格兰的一半地区和整个威尔士正式处于干旱状态，且在这两个地区，7月都被宣布为有记录以来最干燥的月份。在法国和西班牙，火势基本得到控制，但随着预报中更强烈的热浪，欧洲炽热的夏天尚未结束。

“气候危机的现实现在已不可逃避，”威尔·哈顿（Will Hutton）在《观察家报》（The Observer）中表示。然而，由玛格丽特·撒切尔在1980年代发起的关于该问题的跨党派共识“已被粉碎”。否认气候危机已成为一种“民粹主义事业”。凯米·巴德诺克（Kemi Badenoch）加入了奈杰尔·法拉奇（Nigel Farage）的行列，誓要废除2050年净零排放目标，称其为“政治幻想”和一种经济上的“自残”行为。然而，经济、社会和环境是“相互依存”的；而保护自然的愿望则“超越了左右之分”。《每日电讯报》表示，这确实如此，但通过追求这项昂贵的政策，我们能希望给地球带来什么改变？英国的全球二氧化碳排放量贡献不足1%。在2013年起的短短七年里，中国（占比33%）排放的碳量就超过了英国自1750年以来的排放总量。我们将繁荣押注在这样一个想法上：如果我们提供“道德领导力”，其他人就会效仿。但效仿者寥寥无几。

《星期日泰晤士报》称，英国是第一个在1990年之后将排放量减半的大型经济体。但我们致力于走得更远、更快，而这种冲动本身正在制造问题。今年6月，由于可再生能源供应难以预测，电网险些出现停电。当然，我们必须继续脱碳，但速度应当是“稳健”且“可负担”的。与此同时，政治家必须专注于适应措施，从住房到农业再到防洪设施，以帮助我们抵御无论我们采取什么行动都可能面临的炎热干燥的夏天和潮湿的冬天。

睿智之言

“起初你以为自己会因为无聊而死。然后你担心自己可能死不掉。”——雪莉·阿普索普（Shirley Apthorp）在《金融时报》中评论瓦格纳的《齐格弗里德》和《诸神的黄昏》

“自由并非一份在懦夫手中停留太久的礼物。”——西奥多·罗斯福（Theodore Roosevelt），引自《北达科他监测报》（North Dakota Monitor）

“人们放弃权力最常见的方式，就是认为自己根本没有权力。”——爱丽丝·沃克（Alice Walker），引自《旧金山纪事报》（San Francisco Chronicle）

“没有什么比临时政府计划更永久的了。”——米尔顿·弗里德曼（Milton Friedman），引自《佛蒙特每日纪事报》（Vermont Daily Chronicle）

“足球是最重要的不重要的事情。”——尤尔根·克洛普（Jürgen Klopp），引自《金融时报》

“当我们放弃追求年轻——或苗条时，日子是多么惬意。”——威廉·詹姆斯（William James），引自《知识》（The Knowledge）

“一个人可以被夺走一切，但有一件事除外：在任何给定的环境下选择自己态度的自由。”——维克多·弗兰克尔（Viktor Frankl），引自《耶路撒冷邮报》（The Jerusalem Post）

“当一个男人意识到他的父亲是对的时，他已经有了一个认为他是错的儿子。”——查尔斯·沃兹沃思（Charles Wadsworth），引自《知识》（The Knowledge）

本周统计

在2005年至2019年间，美国、欧洲、墨西哥和澳大利亚的人们每天说出的单词数下降了28%，从平均1.6632万,632个下降到1.19万,900个。《大西洋月刊》 / 心理科学协会

目前英国42%的25岁年轻人与父母同住，高于1990年代的25%。BBC / IFS

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 18 新闻 体育

格拉斯哥 2026：英联邦运动会是否已到尽头？

最近，宣布英联邦运动会不再重要且已进入倒计时似乎成了一种时尚。但尼克·西蒙（Nik Simon）在《每日邮报》中表示，请把这话告诉格拉斯哥的民众。在 11 天的时间里，这座苏格兰的第二大城市——在澳大利亚维多利亚州于 2023 年以成本为由退出后接手主办 2026 年赛事——迎来了来自 74 个国家的参赛者，由于没有运动员村，他们被安置在全市各地的酒店中。BBC 体育的马修·亨利（Matthew Henry）称，作为回报，43.4万,000 名持票观众以及在城市粉丝区免费观看的 20万,000 人欣赏到了一场壮观的表演。

这场于周日结束的运动会亮点包括：苏格兰的乔什·克尔（Josh Kerr）在欢呼的家乡观众面前夺得一英里赛冠军；威尔士的艾玛·菲努凯恩（Emma Finucane）成为首位在同一届运动会中赢得四枚场地赛金牌的短距离自行车运动员；以及牙买加在篮网球历史上最大的一次冷门中击败澳大利亚。不过，整体上仍是澳大利亚占据主导地位：在矿业大亨吉娜·林哈特（Gina Rinehart）提供奖牌现金奖励的激励下，该国共获得 171 枚奖牌，远超排名第二的英格兰的 110 枚。

菲奥娜·托马斯（Fiona Tomas）在《每日电讯报》中称，作为主办城市，格拉斯哥表现出色：赛事“运行无误”，身着格子呢服装的“快乐志愿者大军”无可挑剔。但人们很难摆脱一种感觉，即这是一届“服用了 Ozempic（减肥药）”的英联邦运动会。由于采取“削减成本措施”，参赛项目仅有 10 项，低于四年前伯明翰赛事的 19 项；且由于 BBC 在转播权竞争中输给了 TNT Sports，电视观众数量寥寥。更糟糕的是，一批“高知名度运动员”——从英格兰的基利·霍奇金森（Keely Hodgkinson）到牙买加男子 100 米世界冠军奥布利克·塞维尔（Oblique Seville）——优先参加其他比赛，完全缺席了本届运动会。

现在的注意力转向将在印度艾哈迈达巴德举行的 2030 年赛事。届时将迎来运动会百年庆典，而这“可能是一个不错的终点”。里克·布罗德本特（Rick Broadbent）在《泰晤士报》中表示，他对此并不确定。运动会可能缺乏奥运会或世界杯那样的光彩，但这恰恰是它的意义所在。在其他什么地方，你能看到伊迪·阿明（Idi Amin）的孙子在拳击场上抱怨受到不公正对待，或者听到绝症游泳运动员阿奇·古德赫恩（Archie Goodhurn）在泳池中受到偏袒观众的呐喊助威？而且不要忘记，这项赛事长期以来一直作为运动员通往更大荣耀的“跳板”。当然，它必须在财务上可行——格拉斯哥之所以能如此廉价地举办运动会，是因为维多利亚州因退出而支付了 1.9 亿英镑 的赔偿金。但只要“价格合适”，这无疑是“一个值得挽救的赛事”。

足球：埃迪·豪离开纽卡斯尔

《泰晤士报》的马丁·哈迪（Martin Hardy）表示，2021年，当沙特阿拉伯公共投资基金完成对纽卡斯尔联的收购的消息传出时，数千名球迷在圣詹姆斯公园球场外庆祝，对此表示欢迎。当时，俱乐部官员谈论的是“在五年内赢得英超冠军”，以及在2030年之前成为世界顶级俱乐部之一。纽卡斯尔似乎注定要进入一个成功的新时代，而埃迪·豪（Eddie Howe）被任命为教练，引导他们走向承诺的成功之地。

五年后，球迷们的情绪则完全低落了。上赛季，“喜鹊”在英超联赛中仅获得第12名；亚历山大·伊萨克（Alexander Isak）、安东尼·戈登（Anthony Gordon）和桑德罗·托纳利（Sandro Tonali）等大牌球星已被出售；新建训练场和升级球场的计划尚未实现。而现在，他们也失去了教练：上周宣布豪将离开俱乐部（这是他自己的决定），接替他的是沙特职业联赛阿赫利队的38岁教练马蒂亚斯·贾斯莱（Matthias Jaissle）。

《每日电讯报》的卢克·爱德华兹（Luke Edwards）表示，毫无疑问，豪作为一名“传奇”离开了纽卡斯尔：他两次带领俱乐部进入欧冠联赛，而该俱乐部此前已有20年未能获得参赛资格；并且在去年，他带领球队赢得了联赛杯，从而“结束了英格兰足球史上最臭名昭著的冠军荒”，实现了鲍比·罗布森（Bobby Robson）和凯文·基根（Kevin Keegan）都未能完成的成就。

《独立报》的理查德·乔利（Richard Jolly）认为，现在的危险在于，他给圣詹姆斯公园带来的成功最终可能只是一个特例。成绩出现了明显的下滑，竞争对手在加强，而球队缺乏球星特质——如果布鲁诺·吉马良斯（Bruno Guimarães）转会阿森纳的计划成行，情况将更加严重。尽管贾斯莱迄今为止的职业生涯非常成功，但纽卡斯尔这份工作将是一个巨大的挑战。

英格兰板球：弗莱明和鲁特接管

英格兰上周终于任命了一名新的男子测试赛教练，新西兰人斯蒂芬·弗莱明（Stephen Fleming）接替了他的同胞布伦登·麦卡勒姆（Brendon McCullum）。他直到冬季对阵南非的系列赛才会正式就职；但即便如此，《泰晤士报》的迈克·阿瑟顿（Mike Atherton）表示，他“感觉非常适合”这份工作。诚然，他此前没有执教过红球板球；但他在特许经营赛圈的记录非常出色，并且对英格兰板球环境了如指掌，曾效力于三个郡队并在“百球赛”（the Hundred）中担任教练。

此外，他与继续担任英格兰白球赛教练的麦卡勒姆关系密切：两人曾共同经营业务，弗莱明在纽西兰的测试赛队中曾担任其同胞的队长。如果一切顺利，两人在各自不同的角色中应该能“协作良好”。《i Paper》的克里斯·斯托克斯（Chris Stocks）表示：“弗莱明看起来是一个极佳的人选”，遗憾的是，他直到英格兰主场对阵巴基斯坦的测试赛全部结束之后才能接手。（马库斯·特雷斯科西克将担任临时负责人。）

然而，将队长之职交给乔·鲁特（Joe Root）的决定则不那么明确。35岁的鲁特是一个可爱的人，也是英格兰历史上最伟大的球员之一；但在他之前为期五年的队长任期（于2022年结束）末期，结果非常糟糕，风险在于这位击球手在明年夏天的灰烬杯系列赛之前会感到队长袖标带来的压力，而届时英格兰需要他处于最佳状态。

体育头条

足球 凯尔特人队以 1-0 战胜邓迪队，开启了他们的苏超联赛卫冕之旅。哈茨队在客场 2-1 负于阿伯丁队。中场球员乔丹·亨德森（36岁）和前锋丹尼·韦尔贝克（35岁）已加盟切尔西，蓝军旨在为球队增加经验。

高尔夫 日本选手桑胁志穗在皇家利瑟姆与圣安尼斯高尔夫球场的一场戏剧性附加赛中击败了埃斯特·亨塞泰特，夺得女子公开赛冠军。

网球 艾玛·拉杜卡努将缺席美国公开赛，她仍在继续从右小腿下段的压力性骨折中恢复，此前该伤势导致她缺席了温布尔登网球锦标赛。

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日

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THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 如需在此投放广告，请发送电子邮件至 classified@theweek.co.uk 或联系 Lily Phillips (lily.phillips@futurenet.com) 读者来信 21

本周读者来信精选

危机，什么危机？ 致《金融时报》 听到杰米玛·凯利（Jemima Kelly）以及其他媒体的记者将未来几十年的人口增长率下降描述为一场“危机”，实在令人费解。这场所谓的危机大概是指预测的人口结构，即劳动年龄人口（25至64岁）与每位65岁以上人口的比例将会下降。我出生在一个人们平均拥有的空间是今天三倍以上的世界。那时我们担心的是人口爆炸。我们将人口下降视为一种福祉，而非危机。 奥利弗·科莱特（Oliver Corlett），格拉斯哥

光谱过于宽泛 致《泰晤士报》 令人惊讶的是，现在竟然有青少年因焦虑和多动症（ADHD）等情况申请个人独立支付款项。残障已成为一个巨大的产业，在16-24岁的年轻人中，有18%被正式认定为残障人士。其中约一半是心理健康问题。我不认为将自闭症、多动症或阅读障碍等终身状况列为残障是正确的。在极严重的情况下，确实总有人需要帮助。但严重受影响者与“神经典型”者之间的灰色地带正在扩大到无法管控的程度。我们将年轻人贴上残障标签并向其提供福利，而不是帮助他们就业，这是在损害年轻人的利益。 菲奥娜·康尼什博士（Dr Fiona Cornish），剑桥大学

洛维尔与拉金的遗产 致《卫报》 在我漫长的一生中，乔德雷尔银行天文台一直是惊叹与自豪的源泉（见“乔德雷尔银行天文台面临关闭”）。伯纳德·洛维尔爵士（Sir Bernard Lovell）的这项创造将前沿的空间探索与英勇的工程结构相结合，始终令人心生敬畏。我和孙辈一起参观其游客中心，证实了这种敬畏感正在传递给后代。是的，把它建成另一座优秀的博物馆确实不错。但在这里的

本周交流

学徒制：现实情况

致《卫报》 关于年轻人教育、培训和就业的讨论似乎正在演变成同样的“学徒制或贸易技能与高等教育”之争，且像往常一样在指责年轻人，而没有关注实际问题。我的孩子们处于 16-24 岁年龄段，我在他们及其朋友身上观察到的问题是，许多年轻人希望走学徒制或贸易技能路线，学院里也有大量相关课程，但能被雇佣为贸易学徒，或为那些接受过基础学院培训的人提供的机会却少之又少。极少数人能获得学徒机会，而更多幸运的人则有亲戚愿意接收他们。除非紧急解决这个问题，否则问题将持续存在。 帕姆·邓恩（Pam Dunn），利兹

致《泰晤士报》 听到首相谈论“戴安全帽”的职业以及我们应如何鼓励更多年轻人从事贸易学徒工作，令人耳目一新。我们现在需要的是对那些将要雇佣他们的人提供支持。该行业的绝大多数由中小企业组成，其中许多是个体经营者。来自 Screwfix 的研究表明，他们希望招收学徒，但流程的每个阶段都过于复杂——从文书工作、招聘到管理学徒的工作量。这经常让他们望而却步。计划中的财政补贴虽然受欢迎，但正是个典型的例子。高达 £8,000 的雇主支持被分在不同的计划中，每个计划都有自己的标准。结果是：去年招收了学徒的贸易从业者中，有 48% 声称没有获得资金，因为系统太复杂。资金发放应该是无缝的，并激励人们招收年轻人，而不是设置障碍。应该资助通过学院或供应商向他们提供直接的人力资源支持，并扩大灵活学徒制（flexi-apprenticeships）等方案。我们必须像时间紧迫的贸易从业者那样思考并支持他们。 约翰·梅韦特（John Mewett），Screwfix 北区首席执行官

我们在北部已经有相当多关于光辉工业过去的博物馆了。但我们只有一个乔德雷尔银行（Jodrell Bank）。因此，恐怕只能由我的英语专业毕业生同行安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）来撤销英国研究与创新局（UK Research and Innovation）的决定，并提醒他关注其诗歌英雄菲利普·拉金（Philip Larkin）对英国未来的担忧：“我们的孩子将不知道这是一个不同的国家。 / 我们现在能给他们留下的唯一希望就是金钱。” 肯·史密斯博士（Dr Ken Smith），切希尔郡麦克尔斯菲尔德

这个想法不成立

致《泰晤士报》 你们的报道《学校“束缚”的代价》似乎陷入了一个常见的陷阱，即通过 2009 和 2022 年之间英格兰在国际数学和科学排名表中的上升，推断出迈克尔·高夫（Michael Gove）的改革提高了教育标准。事实并非如此：英格兰在 2009 和 2022 年的 PISA 成绩分别为：数学 493 和 492；科学 515 和 503。一个更合理的推论应该是，高夫的改革对这些科目的成绩没有产生影响。 约翰·布里顿（John Britton），流行病学荣休教授，诺丁汉郡霍弗林厄姆

服刑，而非犯罪

致《观察家报》 你们的社论将监狱中囚犯人数的增加与报告的犯罪数量下降并列，但拒绝得出任何相关性，更不用说暗示两者之间存在因果关系。我花了 30 年时间抓捕罪犯，他们往往在出狱后不久就再次犯罪，我欢迎更开明、更有效的量刑方法。我一直认为迈克尔·霍华德（Michael Howard）的“监狱有效论”过于简单化，而且有大量证据表明它显然无效。但一个事实（而非观点）是，罪犯在身陷囹圄期间不会实施强奸、谋杀、抢劫或入室盗窃。在我们匆忙释放他们之前，我们需要确信我们已经采取了有效措施，并拥有经过验证的方法来帮助那些希望过上更快乐、更有意义生活的人。

鲍勃·丹麦（Bob Denmark），前警司，兰开夏郡加斯汤（Garstang, Lancashire）

付出沉重代价

致《金融时报》（FT）

贵刊关于万事达卡（Mastercard）可能出售Vocalink的报道正确地提出了关于英国关键支付基础设施所有权的疑问。它还指向了一个更广泛的问题：为什么世界上最具创新力的经济体之一仍然如此严重地依赖于两个由美国拥有的卡网络？

每年，英国企业向这些网络支付数十亿的费用。其结果是一个在潜移默化中对经济征税、限制选择并扼杀竞争的系统。如果日益紧张的地缘政治局势在未来的某个时刻干扰了对这些网络的访问，那么对英国企业和更广泛经济产生的影响将是深远的。

最理想的情况是美国和欧洲在包括支付在内的所有技术平台上进行密切合作。但这并非我们目前所处的地缘政治现实。

弗朗切斯科·西莫内斯基（Francesco Simoneschi），TrueLayer首席执行官兼联合创始人，伦敦

● 信件经过编辑 © MARTIN DAILY TELEGRAM 2026年8月8日 《星期》--- 22 市场

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THE WEEK 8 August 2026

艺术 评论综述：书籍 23

本周之书

These Wild English

作者：Nicola Wilding 出版社：Profile 页数：303页 价格：£20 The Week 书店价格：£17.99

《卫报》的 Fiona Sturges 表示，Nicola Wilding 是一位“专注于贫困和农村工人阶级社区”的电视纪录片制作人。现在，在她出版的第一本书中，她将“纪录片导演的目光投向了自己的至亲”。《These Wild English》主要讲述了她的母亲 Sandra 的故事。Sandra 是一名护理工作者，直到 2024 年去世前，“忍受着贫困、动荡和虐待性的伴侣，还患有心脏病并经历了两次手术”。在晚年，受 2013 年 Lee Rigby 谋杀案的刺激， “开始在 Facebook 上观看一个名叫 Tommy Robinson 的男子的视频”，并很快开始游行支持英国国防联盟（English Defence League）。为了理解这种向极右翼的转变，Wilding（如图）“挖掘 不满的根源，讲述了一个跨越三代人的故事”，从在坎布里亚郡一个农场艰苦的成长经历开始。其结果是一部“真挚且令人动容的回忆录”，它将对 ——一位“永恒的主角”——令人难忘的刻画，与对白人工人阶级如何被“公开谴责和误解”的评估结合在一起。

《泰晤士报》的 Jason Cowley 表示，Wilding 的写作方式仿佛她陪伴在母亲的一生之中，“观察她但从未审判她”。她以“直击内心的坦率”描述了那些“低薪、不稳定的工作”、虐待性的伴侣，以及由“垃圾食品、香烟和酒精”组成的饮食。她如此“愿意打破所有家庭秘密”，以至于在一段文字中，她甚至描述了母亲穿着白色裤子在酒吧里失禁的情况。人们不禁会想， 会如何看待她的“混乱生活”被这样曝光。然而，这一切汇聚成了某种既强大又有趣的东西：一部“愤怒且引人入胜”的家庭剧，以及一份“对战后社会民主未来之失落理想主义的哀歌，而那个未来从未真正实现”。《旁观者》的 Elisa Segrave 表示，每个人都应该阅读这本“极好的书”，但“尤其是那些轻易轻视展示圣乔治旗的人或投票支持脱欧的人”。它审视并解释了支撑极右翼极端主义的愤怒。《观察者报》的 Kenan Malik 表示， 是“数十万人”中之一，他们感到被传统政党抛弃，因此“在其他地方寻找归属感和身份认同”。关于“工人阶级异化”的书很多，但这部“原始、愤怒且带有挽歌色彩”的作品“比许多关于该问题的著作更接近真相”。

The Plunge

作者：Chris Ballard 出版社：Viking 页数：320页 价格：£22 The Week 书店价格：£19.99

《星期日泰晤士报》的 James McConnachie 表示，如果你曾因“敢于在元旦之日潜水”而自我感觉良好，那么请准备好“不再”感到自鸣得意。在这本“非凡的书”中，美国记者 Chris Ballard 深入探讨了“冰泳者”的世界——这些人在“极冷的水中”游泳“极长的距离”。不出所料，这是一个充满“大男子主义类型”的亚文化群体，例如“总是赤裸上身的英国冒险家 Ross Edgley”，但它也吸引了更多古怪的人物，Ballard 将他们称为“羊毛帽和可可大队”。Ballard 是这个世界的一位“令人愉悦”的向导，而且他并非仅仅是个旁观者：他自己养成了冰泳的习惯，甚至“被选中代表美国”。《华尔街日报》的 Bill Heavey 表示，冰泳的“圣杯”是“冰英里”（Ice Mile），必须在 5℃ 或更低温度的水中完成。Ballard 将其描述为“地球上最危险的体育壮举”之一，并指出完成此项挑战的人数不足 1,000 人。对于一些冷水爱好者提出的离奇健康主张，他或许本可以持更怀疑的态度——但这依然是一部令人愉快的记录，作者“懂得如何让故事保持推进感”。

本周小说

《约翰之约翰》（John of John），道格拉斯·斯图尔特 著，Picador 出版社，403页，£20，《本周》书店售价 £17.99

迈克尔·阿尔迪蒂在《旁观者》杂志中表示，道格拉斯·斯图尔特之前的两部小说——获得布克奖的《沙吉·贝恩》（2020）和《年轻的蒙戈》（2022）——背景都设定在格拉斯哥的公寓楼中。而在他的第三部作品中，斯图尔特“向北移步”，来到了外赫布里底群岛的哈里斯岛。22岁的卡尔在爱丁堡学习了四年纺织专业后，在收到父亲约翰告知其祖母病危的通知后，“回到了岛上的家族小农场”。卡尔是同性恋，并且对此感到坦然；但他的父亲是岛上自由长老会的一名执事，该教会信奉“极端的圣经道德”，而他本人则在否认自己的同性恋倾向。两人之间时而充满爱意、时而充满暴力的关系，是这部“观察入微”的小说的核心。

玛丽亚·阿尔巴诺在《每日电讯报》中评价道：“这是一部具有令人卸下防备的强烈情感的杰作。”斯图尔特擅长以各种形式“呈现一个地方的灵魂”：他对“母羊分娩时接生羔羊的描述，与其对织造行话的精通一样自信”。而他的“人物塑造”同样出色：所有的人物画像都“同样栩栩如生”。

乔安娜·托马斯-科尔在《星期日泰晤士报》中表示，虽然《约翰之约翰》是一部“毫不掩饰情感的小说”，充满了“生动且慷慨”的散文笔触，但有时也非常幽默。其中一个卡尔抱着花爬窗户的场景“具有莎士比亚喜剧般的荒诞感”；该书还包含了“小说中关于自慰最幽默且最令人难忘的描写之一”。该书已入围今年的布克奖长名单，且“很难想象”它不会进入短名单。

THE WEEK 书店 如需订购这些书目或任何其他在版书籍，请访问 theweekbookshop.co.uk 下单。 如需咨询图书销售员，请致电 020-3176 3835 营业时间：周一至周六 9am-5.30pm 和周日 10am-4pm © COURTESY NICOLA WILKINS 8 August 2026 THE WEEK --- 24 艺术 戏剧与音乐

歌剧：《纳克索斯岛的阿里阿德涅》（Ariadne auf Naxos）

格林伯恩，刘易斯 (01273-815000)。演出至 8 月 29 日。演出时长：3 小时 45 分钟（含晚餐休息时间） ★★★★

尼尔·费舍尔在《泰晤士报》中表示，克里斯托弗·诺兰改编的电影《奥德赛》承诺将带来“三小时令人眩晕的叙事”。但“说到沉浸式的希腊神话，没有什么能比《纳克索斯岛的阿里阿德涅》最后 15 分钟中理查德·施特劳斯的全环绕立体声更出色了”。这部歌剧创作于 1912 年，讲述了同名克里特公主被忒修斯遗弃在荒岛上，仅有宁芙仙女陪伴，随后与酒神巴库斯坠入爱河的故事。她曾将他误认为死神，但“这并不重要。重要的是在接近结尾的时刻，你可以听到施特劳斯加大油门，启动引擎，我们沐浴在高亢男高音、狂喜女高音和闪耀管弦乐的威力之中”。我从未听过像格林伯恩这次“令人陶醉”的新制作那样以如此精湛的技艺演绎这一场景。目前仍有少量余票，能抢到就赶紧去。

理查德·费尔曼在《金融时报》中认同，很难想象还能在何处找到比这部“令人愉悦”的作品后期阶段中，大卫·巴特·菲利普（饰演巴库斯）和瑞秋·威利斯-索伦森（饰演阿里阿德涅）“更令人兴奋的演唱”。这部作品并未展现出导演洛朗·佩利最富想象力的一面，且马西莫·特隆卡内蒂的“简陋设计毫无吸引力（阿里阿德涅的荒岛是一块比剧情要求更加凄惨的岩石）”。但演唱确实极其出色，音乐也令人愉悦。指挥罗宾·蒂恰蒂以及来自伦敦爱乐乐团的演奏者们，专业地捕捉到了乐谱中洛可可式的机智与瓦格纳式的雄伟。

埃里卡·吉尔在《卫报》中表示，《纳克索斯岛的阿里阿德涅》是一部由两部分组成的歌剧。在进入纳克索斯岛之前，有一段设定在维也纳的冗长讽刺序幕，讲述了上演歌剧的困难。这第一部分（在歌剧首演四年后加入）展现了导演“最机智的状态”，并包含了一系列恰到好处的喜剧表演。后半部分的演出确实不错，但“不如第一部分那样灵动且深刻”；结果是整个夜晚虽然“令人愉快”，但最终“无法触动人心”。

本周其他新剧

《迷失的爱情劳作》（Love's Labour's Lost） 莎士比亚环球剧场，伦敦 SE1 (020-7401 9919)。演出至 9 月 13 日

印第安娜·洛恩-柯林斯对这部棘手的剧作进行了充满弗拉门戈风格的改编，其中包含一些“强烈的暗示和粗犷的喜剧冲突”。这并非一部顶级的制作，但它让环球剧场充满了一场“热烈且跺脚狂欢的盛宴”；是一场“令人愉悦”的夏季演出（《金融时报》）。

本周专辑：三张新发行作品

John McCabe: Symphonies 2 & 3 and Cello Concerto Signum £12

约翰·麦凯布（John McCabe，1939-2015）属于那一批“非常卓越”的英国作曲家——其中包括尼古拉斯·莫（Nicholas Maw）、戈登·克罗斯（Gordon Crosse）和理查德·罗德尼·本内特（Richard Rodney Bennett）——但他们当时在一定程度上被彼得·麦克斯韦尔·戴维斯（Peter Maxwell Davies）和哈里森·伯特威斯尔（Harrison Birtwistle）的光芒所掩盖。格雷恩特·刘易斯（Geraint Lewis）在《留声机》（Gramophone）杂志中表示，这套令人欣喜的麦凯布主要管弦乐作品集包含了他的《第三交响曲》（Symphony No. 3）和《大提琴协奏曲》的首录，运气好的话，它将让这位“深受广泛热爱与钦佩”的音乐家获得更多关注。《卫报》的埃里卡·吉尔（Erica Jeal）提到，麦凯布同时也是一名钢琴演奏大师——尤其以其对海顿作品的诠释而闻名。作为一名作曲家，他创造了一个“前卫且清晰的音响世界”，其作品具有“巨大的色彩感和广度”，无疑值得更广泛的受众。如果说《第二交响曲》（Symphony No. 2）是“紧张且前卫的”，而大提琴协奏曲（《Songline》）则是躁动且在探索的，那么《第三交响曲》（Symphony No. 3）则更为丰满，“密集地编织了向海顿和尼尔森致敬的元素”。在这张“极具表现力”的唱片中，肯尼思·伍兹（Kenneth Woods）和BBC苏格兰交响乐团将这 3 部作品演绎得恰到好处。

Yard Act: You're Gonna Need a Little Music Island £13

考虑到利兹后朋克摇滚乐队Yard Act在现场表演方面享有实至名美的声誉，丽莎·赖特（Lisa Wright）在《观察者报》（The Observer）中表示，令人惊讶的是，这张出色的第三张专辑“是他们首次在所有成员都在同一个房间内录制而成的”。为了抵制“笔记本电脑”音乐，他们在利兹建立了自己的录音室空间，随后前往洛杉矶与制作人贾斯汀·梅尔达尔-约翰森（Justin Meldal-Johnsen，曾合作Beck、Wolf Alice）共同完成录制。其结果是乐队凝聚在一起，“创造出了一个大于部分之和的整体”。NME的里希·沙（Rishi Shah）认为，Yard Act那张俏皮的、“类似Gorillaz风格”的第二张专辑《Where's My Utopia?》（2024）像是对他们获得水星奖提名的首张专辑《The Overload》（2022）中主导的“机智后朋克”叙事方式的一种反应。而这第三部作品则是“将前两张专辑最出色之处的一次令人兴奋的提炼”。其中既有“歪斜的钢琴”（《Tall Tales》），也有“厚重的车库摇滚”；既有令人无法抗拒的亢奋副歌（同名主打歌），也有纯正的说唱（《Thrill Of The Chase》）。这是一个令人沉醉的组合：打开耳朵，坐下来享受即可。

Charli XCX: Music, Fashion, Film Atlantic £11

在经历了像Charli XCX 2024年的“俱乐部率性”专辑《Brat》这样奠定职业生涯的成功之后，该如何延续？劳拉·斯内普斯（Laura Snapes）在《卫报》中表示，如果你是Charli（即 33 岁的英国歌手夏洛特·艾奇森 Charlotte Aitchison），答案就是转向独立风格的吉他，以及一部“关于身份不稳定性且具有元叙事色彩的杰作”。这张专辑与《Brat》截然不同，但同样令人印象深刻：“极具洞察力且深邃得令人猝不及防”。在一系列短小精悍的歌曲中，Charli“以亲密、口袋般的小规模重新打造了吉他音乐——尽管其记忆点却异常强大”。其中的亮点包括《Rock Music》、《Camera》和《I'm Afraid》。《泰晤士报》的威尔·霍奇金森（Will Hodgkinson）认为，这是一个“令人耳目一新的非功利主义”转向，但我认为并非完全成功。没错，它包含了很多幽默感和自我意识。但在本张专辑中，艾奇森似乎更多是在引用独立摇滚而非探索它。由于曲目短小——且歌词缺乏诗意，几乎像日记一样——它感觉不像是目前“最具活力的英国流行巨星的最新专辑”，而“更像是一个为了她自己的娱乐和疗愈而拼凑起来的奇珍异宝”。

星级反映了评论的整体质量以及我们自己的独立评估（5 星=不可错过；1 星=不必浪费时间）

THE WEEK 2026年8月 8 日 © TRUSTEASE ADS / TOY --- 电影与电视 艺术 25

蜘蛛侠：崭新之日 (Spider-Man: Brand New Day)

2 小时 25 分钟 (12A) 汤姆·霍兰德依然处于那个老掉牙的“蜘蛛侠世界” ★★★

Ish

1 小时 27 分钟 (15) 一部以卢顿为背景、风格类似于《400 击》的感人剧作 ★★★★

Wham! 中国十日

1小时30分钟 (12A) 流行音乐史上一个非凡的时刻 ★★★★

《泰晤士报》的凯文·马赫（Kevin Maher）表示：“得有人给汤姆·霍兰（Tom Holland）放个假。”这位30岁的伦敦人不仅为今夏的巨制《奥德赛》（The Odyssey）注入了“跳动的心脏”，还被委以拯救“病入膏肓的超级英雄类型片”的任务。漫威电影宇宙（MCU）的最新一部——第38部！——开篇并非惯常的复仇者联盟片段剪辑，而是霍兰饰演蜘蛛侠的那些大获成功的影像。对于这个史上商业最成功的电影系列来说，在经历了一系列昂贵的失败后，传达出的信息很明确：“漫威现在是汤姆一手打造的帝国。”

霍兰第四次饰演该角色，在《崭新之日》（Brand New Day）中接续了2021年《无路回家》（No Way Home）的结尾，温顺的彼得·帕克（Peter Parker）已安排让全世界忘记他的存在。因此，我们发现他回到了原点，住在纽约一间肮脏的公寓里，“迷茫且破碎”——尤其是因为他的爱人MJ（霍兰现实生活中的妻子赞达亚 Zendaya）和最好的哥们内德（Jacob Batalon 饰）已被“残酷地从他的记忆中抹除”。《帝国》（Empire）杂志的约翰·努根特（John Nugent）认为，开篇的20分钟是“全片最强的部分”。霍兰将曾经像小狗一样天真的彼得演绎得“极其出色”，展现出其“被悲伤和孤独击碎”的状态。

但《卫报》的彼得·布拉德肖（Peter Bradshaw）认为，拯救这部电影的是赞达亚的表演。通过饰演一个非超级英雄角色，她能够将成熟的演技推向台前，以抵消剧情中的轻率。在其他方面，这依然是那个老掉牙的“蜘蛛侠世界”，充斥着在摩天大楼之间荡秋千的场景，并且像所有MCU电影一样，最终导致“在数字化合成的大城市中发生一场末日般但又诡异地转瞬即逝的破坏”。这构成了一场“极具娱乐性的奇观”——但我们其实更需要一次“更彻底的重启”。

《星期日泰晤士报》的汤姆·肖恩（Tom Shone）表示，在导演处女作伊姆兰·佩雷塔（Imran Perretta）这部“观察细腻”的成长剧（背景设定在卢顿）中，一次暴力行为刺破了一个“无忧无虑的夏天”。伊什（Ish，法汉·哈斯纳特 Farhan Hasnat 饰）是一个来自孟加拉裔家庭、眼神纯真的12岁男孩，他的母亲最近去世了。他和巴勒斯坦-英国裔最好的朋友——体型更大、见多识广的马拉姆（Maram，雅希亚·基塔纳 Yahya Kitana 饰）——整日“在森林中游荡、玩游戏并互相辱骂”地消磨时光。然而，“即便在警察搜身并带走马拉姆，随后将其羞辱地扔回郊区街道之前，空气中就已弥漫着暴力”。与此同时，伊什“逃跑了，之后一直为逃跑而感到愧疚”。在此之后，他们的友谊开始缓慢地“瓦解”。

《金融时报》的丹尼·利（Danny Leigh）表示，《伊什》（Ish）拍摄于2024年加沙抗议活动的背景下，由爱尔兰剧作家恩达·沃尔什（Enda Walsh）共同编剧，它不仅是一部“关于种族定型和政治不可逃避性”的剧作，也是对“儿童复杂且沉重的生活”的一次审视。影片采用“光泽感十足的黑白”画面，画幅比例为3:4，契合了关于童年的“崇高传统”电影，其中包括《四百击》（1959）和《帕瑟·潘查利》（1955）等经典之作——并且如果与《这就是英格兰》（2006）进行“分屏对比，将会非常迷人”。《视与听》（Sight and Sound）的乔纳森·罗姆尼（Jonathan Romney）称其为一部“极其美丽的电影”。但真正赋予其活力的，是那些初次参演的演员——“那些趾高气扬的大男孩，基塔纳饰演的紧张且极具性格的马拉姆”，最重要的是哈斯纳特饰演的伊什，他对世界“欢乐与危险”的“敏锐感知”有助于创造出一种“对童年终结的生动且令人难忘的唤起”，让你“想要在生活中继续追随伊什”。

《卫报》的彼得·布拉德肖（Peter Bradshaw）表示，1985年，Wham! 乐队的经理西蒙·纳皮尔-贝尔（Simon Napier-Bell）想出了一个“巧妙的计划”。为了帮助乔治·迈克尔（George Michael）和安德鲁·里奇利（Andrew Ridgeley）打入美国市场，而无需让他们进行漫长的巡演，他决定将他们送到中国，让他们成为首个在大陆演出的西方流行音乐团体。他正确地计算出，这将制造一场巨大的宣传风暴，从而推动这对组合在美国成名。经过数月微妙的谈判，纳皮尔-贝尔确认了作为十日巡演一部分的北京和广州演唱会。资深导演林赛·安德森（Lindsay Anderson）被聘请为这次旅行拍摄一部纪实纪录片，但迈克尔和里奇利并不喜欢他及其电影，因此该片被搁置。现在，他的素材经过重新剪辑，并穿插了对里奇利等人的采访，让人得以窥见“流行音乐与政治史上一个奇异且引人入胜的时刻”。《泰晤士报》的凯文·马赫（Kevin Maher）称，这里有“一部摇滚纪录片中可能包含的所有元素”。在某些片段中，它与《这就是脊柱拍拍》（This Is Spinal Tap）惊人地相似：两位年轻明星被拖到英国大使馆的一场招待会上，里奇利被问到关于板球的“令人尴尬”的问题；安德森大谈资本主义；而在北京工人体育场，当迈克尔说他们的下一首歌叫《自由》（Freedom）时，党政官员们显得惊恐万分。这“简直太精彩了”。《Time Out》的菲尔·德·塞姆利恩（Phil de Semlyen）表示，我们了解到这次旅行留下了一个意想不到的遗产：电影中包含了对一些当地人的采访，他们的生活被两小时的“庸俗流行天堂”改变了。Wham! 在不到一年后解散，但在这次“超现实的文化碰撞中，确实发生了一些真正有意义的事情”。

《格莫拉：起源》（Gomorrah: The Origins）——萨维亚诺热门黑帮剧的扣人心弦的前传

《金融时报》的丽贝卡·尼科尔森（Rebecca Nicholson）表示，由调查记者罗伯托·萨维亚诺（Roberto Saviano）创作并基于其对那不勒斯黑手党报道的黑帮史诗剧《格莫拉》（Gomorrah），长期以来一直是那种“懂的人自然懂”的顶级电视剧。该剧于2014年在意大利首次播出，随后在国际上积累了忠实的追随者。现在，我们迎来了这部前传。《格莫拉：起源》（Sky Atlantic频道）的故事始于1977年，讲述了一个名叫皮埃特罗·萨瓦斯塔诺（Pietro Savastano，卢卡·卢布拉诺饰演）的贫穷、留着柔软长发的少年，是如何成长为“那不勒斯最令人畏惧的黑帮头目之一”的。《每日电讯报》的埃德·鲍尔（Ed Power）指出，萨瓦斯塔诺的动力在于逃离他与单身母亲（诺埃米·塞莱斯饰演）所陷入的极端贫困。为此，他将自己投靠到了安杰洛（Angelo）门下，后者是一个时髦且野心勃勃的高级帮派成员，在他们那个无法无天的社区里代表当地教父经营一家赌博场所。

该剧在很大程度上受到导致20世纪80年代初一场“毁灭性”帮派内斗的真实事件启发，剧中包含了一些“真正的紧张时刻”，但同时也“非常有趣”，并且确实营造出了“极佳的氛围”。《卫报》的杰克·西尔（Jack Seale）表示，由于主角是年轻人，该剧不可避免地缺乏其他黑帮故事中的那种“厚重感”，但尽管其中一些“极其丰富的黑帮剧经典场面似曾相识”，其演员阵容的年轻化却“赋予了它标准犯罪传奇所缺乏的新鲜感和温柔感”。此外，该剧也非常“时髦”：这些年轻人“或许无法逃脱他们的命运，但在尝试逃脱时，他们的样子看起来棒极了”。

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 26 艺术

本周展览

胡利奥·勒·帕尔（Julio Le Parc）：光。色彩。行动。泰特现代美术馆，伦敦 SE1 (020-7887 8888, tate.org.uk)。展至 2027 年 5 月 3 日

《卫报》的乔纳森·琼斯（Jonathan Jones）表示，泰特现代美术馆的胡利奥·勒·帕尔回顾展将你“投入到” 20 世纪 60 年代的巴黎，而且是“极其欢乐的体验”。勒·帕尔 1928 年出生于阿根廷，30 年后移居法国，作为一名逃离祖国军事独裁政权的难民抵达巴黎。在那里，他建立了一个旨在通过“民主的游戏来颠覆高雅文化”的团体，以将他认为枯燥的城市博物馆填满“噪音与行动”。他利用随机物品创作雕塑——“自行车辐条、风扇皮带、几何切片、摇晃的圆盘”。观众经常可以参与其中，通过按下按钮触发勒·帕尔的作品开始活动——因为他认为欣赏艺术不应是一种被动的体验。他的一些雕塑让人想起 60 年代酷酷的抽象绘画，但更有趣：“就好像布里奇特·赖利（Bridget Riley）厌倦了创作那些在视觉上令人困惑的艺术，决定开一个游乐场”。

勒·帕尔在这次精彩展览开幕前几周去世，享年 97 岁。展览中充满了他的“动力雕塑”——“光之奇迹，创造出不可能的空间错觉”。这些作品利用光线、运动和镜面来创造出在你的眼前，或者更准确地说是你的眼睛内部，“倍增随后消失”的形状。《观察者报》的劳拉·卡明（Laura Cumming）说：“这场展览中的一切都正等待着焕发生机。”

即使是勒·帕尔相当

《蓝色球体》（Blue Sphere, 2013）：一件“光之奇迹” 传统的早期绘画也比看起来更复杂。其中一件 1959 年的作品起初“看起来就像一块格子桌布”，但很快就揭示出其作为令人眼花缭乱的视觉错觉的本质。但这位艺术家作为“Grav”团体成员所创作的“沉浸式装置”则要有趣得多：例如 1962 年那件“令人惊叹的”《连续光柱》（Continual Light Cylinder），它是由“棱镜、镜子、旋转器”和灯泡组成的编排，在巨大的圆圈中创造出“一道持续变化的、令人着迷的光之极光”。

这一切都很棒，直到我们走到最后一个房间，遗憾的是那里陷入了“庸俗”——“全是喷绘的彩虹和棱镜，像 20 世纪 70 年代的前卫摇滚专辑封面”。《每日电讯报》的阿拉斯泰尔·苏克（Alastair Sooke）表示，勒·帕尔的作品在最佳状态下带有“未来主义的优雅”，同时又“显得复古，就像迷你裙或熔岩灯一样，能唤起对特定历史时刻的回忆”。这里的一件装置利用悬挂的金属方块创造出“轻盈的、银色的反射”；在另一件作品中，不断移动的白光束被投影出来，看起来像是一个“巨大钟表盘”的特写。勒·帕尔的艺术并不总是如此迷人，有时会让人感到“不安”和“具有攻击性”，但很少是“浅薄的”：他的目的绝不仅仅是“分散疲惫心灵的注意力或欺骗眼睛”。相反，他试图通过“机械手段创造一种诗意”。“这场展览与其说是游乐场，不如说是思想实验室。”

在哪里购买...

《The Week》评论一家私人画廊的展览

佳古逊画廊的克里斯托展

重新呈现艺术家克里斯托（Christo，1935-2020）的巨型装置作品显然面临着巨大的挑战。克里斯托与妻子珍妮-克劳德（Jeanne-Claude）合作，因用织物或塑料包裹德国国会大厦和巴黎新桥等地标而闻名——这些规模宏大且极具疯狂色彩的尝试几乎不可能被复制。我们最接近这种体验的机会来自佳古逊画廊（Gagosian, Air）的这场展览，它复原了这对夫妇最早的项目之一：一个未实现的1968年提案，旨在费城的一家博物馆中“包裹空气”。该作品涉及一张巨大的聚乙烯薄膜，悬挂在

Wrapped Automobile-Volvo (1981) 天花板上并由绳索固定。这是一个简单但精巧的雕塑构思，下垂的合成材料主导了即使是如此巨大的展厅空间，有时挂得如此之低，以至于参观者不得不蹲下身子。展览还配有一系列迷人的照片和档案资料，使其成为一场罕见的令人愉悦的展览。价格面议。伦敦 W1, 20 Grosvenor Hill (020-7495 1500)。展至21 August。

列宁 vs. 哥萨克反叛者

“Since 2013, the plinth at the bottom of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv has been eerily empty,” 《卫报》的卢克·哈丁（Luke Harding）写道。那一年，在乌克兰的迈丹革命期间，人群推倒并砸碎了矗立在那里的列宁雕像。今年6月，弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基建议在基座上放置一个新人物：1709.年去世的哥萨克领导人伊万·马泽帕（Ivan Mazepa）。这个想法引发了一场关于雕像与国家认同的“激烈辩论”。马泽帕（见上图）曾是哥萨克酋长（hetman），即首领，他在1708年背弃了俄罗斯皇帝彼得大帝，并将乌克兰割让给由瑞典国王查理十二世率领的入侵军队。这一行为导致马泽帕最终失败并流亡，使他成为了俄罗斯的仇恨人物；东正教会对他宣布了绝罚，布尔什维克则将乌克兰民族主义者谴责为“马泽帕主义者”。现在他得到了平反，正如一位崇拜者所言，他是“欧洲乌克兰的建筑师”。雕像的设计方案正在提交中。

© TATE, ADAMY PARK AND DACS, LONDON 2326 THE WEEK 8 August 2026

The List ARTS 27

本周值得一看的指南

Showing now 《大卫·霍克尼：诺曼底的一年及关于绘画的其他思考》（David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting）目前已进入最后几周的展期，汇集了这位已故艺术家在封锁期间于诺曼底创作的作品。《每日电讯报》称其为“令人着迷”。免费，展至23 August，伦敦 W2, Serpentine North (serpentinegalleries.org)。

在伦敦国家肖像馆首展后，《凯瑟琳·奥皮：被看见》（Catherine Opie: To Be Seen）已在爱丁堡开幕。奥皮拍摄的美国亚文化照片被《泰晤士报》评价为“扣人心弦、尖锐且感人”。展至1 November，爱丁堡皇家苏格兰艺术学院 (nationalgalleries.org)。

立即预订：詹姆斯·格雷厄姆（James Graham）的新剧《生活标准》（The Standard of Living）讲述了约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）的故事。罗里·金尼尔（Rory Kinnear）饰演这位经济学家；芭蕾舞演员娜塔莉亚·奥西波娃（Natalia Osipova）饰演其妻子。30岁以下人群可购买 £25. 21 的“凯恩斯票”。21 September-12 December，伦敦 SW1 海马基特皇家剧院（Theatre Royal Haymarket）（standardoflivingplay.com）。

前美国总统将前往英国三个城市参加“与巴拉克·奥巴马总统共度的一晚”活动。他将讨论美国的未来以及我们所有人的未来。13-15 October，贝尔法斯特、格拉斯哥和曼彻斯特（seatunique.com）。

杜阿·利帕（Dua Lipa）主持着一个广受好评的文学播客 Service95 Book Club，她将担任伦敦文学节的策展人，作为

《诺曼底的一年》（A Year in Normandie）（2020 / 21）场景的一部分，也是南岸中心（Southbank Centre）成立 75 周年庆典的一部分。她的星光阵容包括扎迪·史密斯（Zadie Smith）、帕蒂·史密斯（Patti Smith）、马洛里·布莱克曼（Malorie Blackman）、马克斯·波特（Max Porter）和迈克尔·刘易斯（Michael Lewis）：20 October-1 November（southbankcentre.co.uk）。

古怪、富有诗意且非常幽默的爱尔兰喜剧演员迪兰·莫兰（Dylan Moran）将于今年秋季在全国巡演。从 28 October 起在斯旺西的塔利辛艺术中心（Taliesin Arts Centre），直到 4 December 在伦敦 W12 的谢泼德布什帝国剧院（Shepherd's Bush Empire）（dylanmoran.com）。

平装本新书

《在朋友之间》（Among Friends），作者哈尔·埃博特（Hal Ebbott）（Picador £9.99）。埃博特这部“自信、敏锐且文笔优美的处女作小说”讲述了一群朋友在纽约州北部共度庆祝周末的故事，结果事情却糟糕地失控了（FT）。

推荐书籍...

亚当·凯（Adam Kay）：这位由医生转行的作家是国家阅读年大使，支持 Go All In 活动以帮助人们发现阅读的乐趣（goallin.org.uk）。他的最新著作《一个特别糟糕的病例》（A Particularly Nasty Case）（Orion £10.99）现已出版平装本。

《有一天我也能说得很好》（Me Talk Pretty One Day），作者大卫·塞达里斯（David Sedaris），2000年（Abacus £12.99）。这位顶级刻薄散文家的作品我什么都愿意读——哪怕是巴士时刻表或洗衣护理标签……幸运的是，我不需要这么做，因为他写书。这本书温暖且幽默，但又足够犀利，在讲述塞达里斯在北卡罗来纳州的成长经历及其极其疯狂的家庭之后，转向讲述他移居法国以及作为外国人的挫败感。纯金之作。

《光荣的死者》（The Glorious Dead），作者贾斯汀·迈尔斯（Justin Myers），2025年（Renegade £10.99）。我去年最喜欢的书之一——对悲伤、名誉受损和有毒友谊的一次幽默且曲折的探讨。一位著名作家意外去世，令亲友悲痛万分，但当他的回忆录被挖掘出来时，他们那些被美化的记忆很快就破灭了。

《心碎》（Heartburn），作者诺拉·艾芙伦（Nora Ephron），1983年（Virago £10.99）。她以创作像《当哈利遇上莎莉》这样的商业喜剧而闻名，但这部小说是她最伟大的成就——有史以来最幽默的书籍之一。小说基于她丈夫出轨导致婚姻崩溃的真实经历，是对背叛和琐碎报复的毫不掩饰的刻画。附带食谱！

《13岁艾德里安·莫尔的秘密日记》（The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13( ^{3 / 4} )），作者苏·汤森（Sue Townsend），1982年（Penguin £8.99）。莱斯特最可爱的失败者的内心渴望，成了每个青少年男孩关于如何避坑青春期的指导手册。汤森的天才创作在 44（啊！）年之后依然奏效；其政治讽刺和完美的喜剧节奏使其远不止是历史上最受挫知识分子的日记。

《幻影收费站》（The Phantom Tollbooth），作者诺顿·贾斯特（Norton Juster），1961年（HarperCollins £7.99）。我童年最喜欢的书，我也会推荐给自己的孩子。一个对学校感到厌倦的男孩被传送到一个魔法王国，并进行了一系列荒诞的探索。这实际上是为了强化对知识渴求的重要性而设计的幌子，但它如此幽默且引人入胜，以至于年轻读者永远不会起疑。

电视

节目

贝塔妮·休斯（Bettany Hughes）的《失落的世界：文明的黎明》（Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations）：在这部两集系列剧中，历史学家贝塔妮·休斯穿越现代土耳其的安纳托利亚，寻找人类文明的起源。8月8日周六，C4 20:00 (60mins)。

Inside Iran: War & Revolution

关于伊朗局势的纪录片，采用实地拍摄画面，并采访了那些冒着一切风险分享其视角的记者和普通民众。Sun 9 Aug, ITV1 22:15 (75mins)。

Spy Next Door: The Anna Chapman Story

两集纪录片，讲述俄罗斯间谍安娜·查普曼（Anna Chapman）的真实故事。其中包含来自前朋友、同事和情人的此前从未公开的陈述。Wed 12 & Thu 13 Aug, C4 21:00 (每集60mins)。

A House Through Time

历史学家大卫·奥卢索加（David Olusoga）回归，揭秘多年来居住在爱丁堡某处房产中的人们的故事。Thu 13 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (60mins)。

The Coen Brothers Story

纪录片，探讨特立独行的电影制作人乔尔·科恩（Joel Coen）和伊桑·科恩（Ethan Coen）的生活与职业生涯。Thu 13 Aug, BBC4 21:00 (60mins)。

电影

Parallel Mothers (2021)

佩内洛普·克鲁兹（Penélope Cruz）在佩德罗·阿尔莫多瓦尔（Pedro Almodóvar）的这部剧情片中表现出色，讲述了一位担心孩子在出生时被掉包的母亲的故事。Sat 8 Aug, BBC4 23:10 (115min)。

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

科恩兄弟执导的一部迷人的电影，讲述一名苦苦挣扎的民谣歌手的故事。由奥斯卡·艾萨克（Oscar Isaac）和凯瑞·穆里根（Carey Mulligan）主演。Sun 9 Aug, BBC2 22:00 (100min)。

流媒体新片

Ted Lasso 许多人认为这部足球喜剧已经吹响了终场哨，但它出人意料地回归了。泰德（杰森·苏戴基斯 饰）被诱回英国执教女队。在 Apple TV 上线。

Furious 惊悚片，讲述一名 FBI 探员追捕一名女性连环杀手的故事，该杀手旨在为类似爱泼斯坦（Epstein）类型的虐待者报仇。“充满活力地打造”（《泰晤士报》）。在 Disney+ 上线。

© ONWILE CLIFT 印刷版书籍可在 The Week 书店 (theweekbookshop.co.uk) 购买。绝版书籍请访问 biblio.co.uk 8 August 2026 THE WEEK --- 28

最佳房产

都铎风格房屋

◀ 萨福克郡（Suffolk）：拉文汉（Lavenham），Crown House。一座极具特色的 Grade II 保护建筑，位于一个精美的中世纪村庄内。3 beds, 2 baths, 3 receps, 厨房 / 早餐室，花园，独立车库 / 工作坊及带卫浴的附属房。£83.5万,000；Jackson-Stops (01284-700535)。

▼ 萨福克郡（Suffolk）：斯托马克特（Stowmarket），Read Hall。这座历史悠久且风景如画的 Grade II* 中世纪庄园房产拥有护城河地块和延伸至 4.75 acres 的花园。2 suites, 3 further beds, 家庭浴室，厨房，3 receps, 2-bed 附属房，谷仓。100 万英镑.25m；David Burr (01359-245245)。

▲ 登比郡（Denbighshire）：朗金哈法尔（Llangynhafal），Plas Yn Llan。一座卓越的 Grade II 房屋，可追溯至 1580. 4 beds, 2 baths, 厨房，3 receps, 温室，花园，附属建筑。£95万,000；Fisher German (01244-409660)。

◀ 萨福克郡（Suffolk）：拉文汉（Lavenham），Barn Street。一座迷人的 Grade I 前大厅屋（Hall House），被认为可追溯至 1530, 拥有丰富的原始特征。4 beds, 2 baths, 地下室，厨房 / 早餐室，实用室，2 receps, 带工作室和工作坊的双车库，部分围墙及景观花园。100万英镑；David Burr (01787-883144)。

THE WEEK 8 August 2026 --- 在售 29

伍斯特郡（Worcestershire）： Suckley，Haventree Cottage。一座规模宏大的传统木框架结构乡村住宅，坐落在超过 2 acres 的私人地块中，可远眺特姆河谷（Teme Valley）景观。主卧带卫浴和衣帽间，5 further beds, 2 baths, 厨房 / 早餐室，3 receps, 车库，健身房。100 万英镑.35m；Morgan Aps (01905-384848)。

斯塔福德郡（Staffordshire）： 肯弗（Kinver），High Street。一座卓越的 Grade II 都铎式房屋，建于 1563 年，俯瞰斯图尔河（River Stour）。该房屋曾因其木作保护而获得英国遗产委员会奖（English Heritage Award）。主套房，3 further beds, 家庭浴室，厨房 / 早餐室，2 receps, 花园，俯瞰河岸的原木小屋。£50万,000；Hunters (01384-443331)。

牛津郡： Cherry Tree Cottage, Goring Heath。这座二级登录建筑（Grade II）的茅草屋可追溯至17世纪，经过精心修复，并曾获得南牛津郡保护奖提名。3 间卧室，2 间浴室，开放式厨房 / 餐厅，接待室，露台，花园及约 0.4 英亩的场地。£80万,000；Warmingham (01491-874144)。

萨福克郡： The Malthouse, Hacheston, Woodbridge。这座卓越的二级登录建筑（Grade II）可追溯至 1541 年，并保留了原始的木框架。主套房，另外 2 间卧室（均带卫浴），厨房 / 早餐室，2 间接待室，书房，花园，附属建筑。£65万,000；Fenn Wright (01394-333346)。

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 30 市场

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THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 ---

休闲

美食与饮品 31

一个美食之都更轻松的邻居

玛丽娜·奥洛林（Marina O'Loughlin）在《金融时报》中表示，西班牙北部的圣塞巴斯蒂安以其美食闻名世界。但考虑到游客数量之多，您需要“极强的竞争意识”才能参与到其丰富的 txikiteo 传统中——即在酒吧之间穿梭，在每家店品尝几样 pintxos（小吃）。幸运的是，在附近的洪达里比亚（Hondarribia）小镇，您可以获得同样美味的体验，但环境“压力更小”。

该镇分为码头区和旧城区，“由陡峭的坡道连接”。从码头区的 San Pedro Kalea 开始。在这条“两旁林立着酒吧”的宽阔散步道上，“几乎不可能选错店”，但我“最喜欢的地方”——Loretxu Jan & Edan——就在主干道旁的一条通往海滨的侧街上。尝试一下极佳的烤 txipiron（小墨鱼）配焦糖洋葱，以及 patallones（铺满贻贝的厚薯片）。

在旧城区，不要错过 Mika Jatetxea 的 “Mika” pintxo（吐司上的培根和轻裹面粉的虾，配绿蛋黄酱和海带），或者“温馨且优雅”的 Badia Taberna。若想享用丰盛的一餐，请前往洪达里比亚的“肉食殿堂” Laia Erretegia，那里的 txuleta 牛排足以媲美您在圣塞巴斯蒂安能找到的任何美食。

Mr Whippy 的兴衰

扎克·阿斯加德（Zak Asgard）在《旁观者》（The Spectator）中写道，冰淇淋车那“遥远的巴甫洛夫式风铃声”是我们许多人童年生活的重要组成部分。但现在你已经不常看到它们了。冰淇淋车曾是“我们的文化认同”的一部分。在 20 世纪 70 年代的鼎盛时期，大约有 3万,000 辆冰淇淋车；而现在仅剩约 2,500 辆。“要追踪英国冰淇淋车的衰落，我们必须首先了解它的兴起。”其历史可以追溯到维多利亚时代伦敦的“hokey pokey”手推车，当时冰淇淋是用便士舔杯（penny-lick glasses）分发的，这些杯子在交给“下一个傻瓜”之前，仅用“肮脏的温洗澡水”冲洗。不出所料，这些车被宣布为健康隐患，并逐渐被 Wall's 冰淇淋三轮车所取代，后者在 20 世纪上半叶大受欢迎——其招牌上著名的标语是“拦住我，买一个”。真正的冰淇淋车出现在 1958 年，当时多米尼克·法奇诺（Dominic Facchino）受美国 Mr Softee 公司的启发，在伯明翰推出了 Mr Whippy。很快，每个人都“爱上了 99 flake 冰淇淋”。但“光辉岁月”转瞬即逝：到 20 世纪 80 年代，冰淇淋车受到了“家用冷冻柜的兴起、超市的霸主地位以及噪音限制”的威胁。它们的持续衰落或许算不上一场悲剧，但确实令人遗憾。因为就像肉派配土豆泥店（pie and mash shops）和其他消失的熟悉之物一样，它们象征着某种重要的东西：“我们共同的、混乱的文化认同”。

重新流行起来的古怪甜点

大卫·宾斯（David Binns）和洛蒂·海顿（Lottie Hayton）在《星期日泰晤士报》中表示，三色甜点（trifle）可以追溯到都铎时代，因其“古怪”的性质而得名，曾是一种复杂的菜肴，通常由异域食材制成，且仅在特殊场合供应。但在上个世纪，由于它逐渐变成了由罐头水果、果冻和袋装卡仕达酱制成的布丁，开始不再流行。然而，现在三色甜点正在复兴，并出现在该国一些“最豪华的餐厅”中。由于三色甜点没有标准食谱，厨师们可以自由发挥创意。在北约克郡 Middleton Lodge 庄园的 Coach House 餐厅，提供一种配有酸奶和油菜籽海绵蛋糕的西瓜与青铜茴香三色甜点。伦敦梅费尔区的 Rosi 餐厅则供应一款“草莓开心果口味”的甜点。家庭厨师可能也在更多地制作这款甜点：超市注意到，常用于其底层的手指饼干销量有所增加。

本周食谱：香草芒果沙拉

埃拉·里斯布里杰（Ella Risbridger）表示，这道菜在很大程度上受到了我最常点的泰国菜——som tam（青木瓜沙拉）的启发，只不过我用了芒果代替，因为我觉得很难买到优质的木瓜。显然，快餐之所以让人无法抗拒，其方法之一就是同时触达大多数基础味觉：咸味、鲜味和甜味。这道菜恰恰做到了这一点，只不过是以一大碗绝大部分是蔬菜的更健康形式呈现。这是顶级的夏季美食：无需烹饪，100%清爽。

Serves 4 1 tbsp 鱼露 2 tbsp 米醋 1 tbsp 细砂糖 1 个红辣椒 2 根中等大小的胡萝卜 3 根小黄瓜（或 ½ 个大黄瓜） 50g 绿豆角 1 个长红椒 300g 芒果丁 10g 薄荷 10g 泰国罗勒 10g 香菜 1 棵罗马生菜 150g 熟虾或炸豆腐，或切碎的鸡肉或脆皮鸡腿肉 30g 碎烤花生 1 个青柠 是拉差辣椒酱（可选）

• 在一个足够大的碗中（这样能装下所有食材！），将鱼露、醋和糖搅拌在一起，直到糖溶解。将红辣椒切成薄片也加入其中（可根据喜好省略）。
• 削去胡萝卜皮，使用切丝器将其切成细长且美观的小条。将胡萝卜丝放入碗中，腌制一分钟。将黄瓜对半切开并切薄片：如果你使用的是大黄瓜的一半，将其纵向切开，用茶匙刮出种子。丢弃种子，然后切薄片。将黄瓜与胡萝卜一起放入碗中搅拌。

• 切断绿豆角。如果能斜切则更好（丢弃纤维末端）。加入碗中。去掉红椒种子并切细丝；加入碗中。

• 提示：如果你打算提前准备，可以在此处停止。

• 将芒果切成小方丁。去掉香草茎并切碎，然后将生菜切丝（洗净叶子；将叶子叠放；卷成一捆；横向切片）。将叶子、芒果、虾与腌制蔬菜混合。
• 将花生粗略地切碎；将青柠切成四等分。将沙拉分装到碗中；根据喜好淋上是拉差辣椒酱；撒上花生；将青柠块以俏皮的角度摆放，方便个人挤汁。
• 提示：如果你将各组件分开存放于冰箱中——例如腌制蔬菜和油醋汁放在一个容器里，切好的生菜和香草放在另一个容器里，虾留在原包装中——这将成为一周中极佳的提前准备午餐。

摘自埃拉·里斯布里杰（Ella Risbridger）所著的《厨房之书：每日美食》（The Kitchen Book: Good Food For Every Day），由 Fourth Estate 出版，售价 £26. 摄影由 Yuki Sugiura 拍摄。如需从 The Week 书店以 £22.99（含邮费）购买，请访问 theweekbookshop.co.uk 下单，或致电 020-3176 3835 与图书销售员联系。

2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 32 休闲

消费者 # 新车：评论家怎么说

Aion V 起售价 £3645万,450

Auto Express

Aion 隶属于中国最大的汽车制造商之一广汽（GAC），V（读作 "vee" 而非 "five"）是该品牌在英国销售的首款车型。产品线“超级简单”：仅提供一种动力总成，拥有 204bhp 马力，配备 75.3kWh 电池，WLTP 续航里程为 317 英里，并提供一种配置丰富的标准版本，此外还有一个售价 £1,495 的高级包（Premium Pack）。作为一款家庭电动 SUV，它进入了一个竞争激烈的市场。

Top Gear Magazine

Aion 的独特卖点在于“Great Eight”——即八年的车辆保修、电池保修、AA 救援、保养和 MoT 检测。V 从 0-62mph 需要 7.9secs（即 7. 秒）；驾驶感受“端庄”，但远谈不上令人兴奋，且驾驶辅助警告令人烦躁。行驶平稳，转向“精准得令人印象深刻”——但减震效果拖了 V 的后腿，刹车感觉“相当软”。

What Car? 大多数竞争对手都提供插电式混合动力车型（PHEV），而该车型也将于明年推出插电式混合动力版本。V 的内部空间宽敞且储物空间充足，但没有前备箱。车厢具有“展厅吸引力”，采用了光泽饰条和柔软的人造皮革材料。视野良好，得益于标准配置的驻车传感器和 360° 摄像头。14.6 英寸的触摸屏看起来很整洁且响应迅速，但“使用起来繁琐且容易分散注意力”。

最佳……春季大扫除工具

Dyson Spot+Scrub AI 机器人吸尘器

这款机器人“极其先进”，能够发现污渍并将其清理干净。它在每次旋转时使用加热至 60℃ 的水，并在运行过程中自动清洗。它“异常安静”且能检测不同的表面，并能将垃圾自动排入底座（£1,050; dyson.co.uk）。

1. Von Haus 15L 灰烬吸尘器

这款强力吸尘器旨在清理烧烤炉、火坑、木材燃烧炉和壁炉中的灰烬，并通过可清洗的 Hepa 过滤器捕捉颗粒。1.25 米长的软管可以触及大多数尴尬的角落（特价 £35; vonhaus.com）。

2. Shark StainForce 局部清洁机

这款无线清洁机声称可以处理地毯、装饰布料和汽车内饰上的污渍——从油渍到永久标记笔迹。它附带一个清洁喷雾和 2 个工具（特价 £150; sharkninja.co.uk）。

Russell Hobbs 蒸汽清洁拖把

蒸汽拖把使用热水来杀菌并清理污垢和油脂，而非使用化学品。这款 1.4kW 的型号轻巧且易于组装，滑动流畅，拥有 380ml 水箱，续航可达 15 分钟（£30; currys.com）。

Halo Capsule XR

这款无线手持吸尘器重量轻（2.7kg）且吸力惊人，拥有 2 升的大容量集尘桶和 Hepa 过滤器以防止灰尘扩散。它适用于硬质地板和地毯，并配备可更换的 32V 电池，运行时间可达一小时。包含工具和刷头（特价 £300; haloappliances.com）。

Lakeland Turbo Scrubber

这款聪明的无线浴室清洁工具配有四个刷头和一个强力的 220rpm 电机。伸缩杆有助于触及棘手区域，分发器可容纳 50ml 清洁液。电池寿命约为一小时（£60; lakeland.co.uk）。

来源：THE LONDON STANDARD

本周建议……让孩子吃蔬菜

• 如果孩子一看到蔬菜就退缩，请尝试改变供应方式。你可以尝试将蔬菜做成块（nuggets）或汉堡；或者通过切碎并加入咖喱或意面酱（如肉酱面和青酱面）来将其隐藏。
• 请记住，过于拥挤的盘子可能会让孩子感到压力。不要强迫他们吃完一份，但要坚持将蔬菜放在他们的盘子里直到他们尝试，哪怕只是一小口。学习喜欢一种新食物可能需要多达 15 次尝试。
• 给孩子选择权，让他们自己决定，如果他们对新食物表现出兴趣，请给予表扬。
• 孩子向父母学习，因此请全家一起用餐。如果他们足够大，让他们帮忙准备餐点并在超市挑选水果和蔬菜。
• 准备一些蔬菜零食——切丁的辣椒、胡萝卜条、黄瓜片——如果他们觉得饿了，可能会去吃。

至于那些拥有一切的人……

大多数此类水瓶能将水保持冰冷 24 小时；Chilly's 声称其新机型可保持低温三天。Series 3 Flip 由 90% 的回收钢材制成，配有防漏吸管盖，提供 500ml 和一升两种尺寸，保冷时间分别为 45 和 75 小时。£40 / £48; chillys.com

在哪里寻找……一些优秀的园艺课程

加入东萨塞克斯郡 Great Dixter 的首席园丁及其团队，参加为期一天的“亚热带植物园艺”课程。费用包含午餐，且在苗圃购物可享 10% 折扣（9月14日，每人 £187；greatdixter.co.uk）。在萨默塞特郡的 Homeacres 参加“无耕作课程”，向无耕作园艺冠军查尔斯·道丁（Charles Dowding）学习如何在家里打造一个繁茂的花园。该课程提供全天课程或周末选项（每人 £215 起，charlesdowding.co.uk）。莫雷郡的 Gordon Castle 提供多种课程，包括“春季盆栽工作坊”，由首席园丁詹妮弗·赖特（Jennifer Wright）教授接续种植以及如何制作“球根层叠盆栽”（bulb lasagne），并提供茶点（10月10日，£59.50；gordoncastle.com）。在德文郡的 River Cottage 参加为期一天的“开始种植”课程，打造你自己的有机厨房花园。你将获得一份季节性两道菜午餐，以及可带回家的已播种种子盘和种子（8月15日和 2027年3月21日，每人 £195；rivercottage.net）。

来源：BBC HEALTH 来源：T3 来源：THE TIMES THE WEEK 2026年8月8日

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旅游 休闲 33

本周之梦：在诺福克宽阔地（Norfolk Broads）乘帆船回到过去

“小船船头下水流的‘啪嗒、啪嗒’声能治愈这个世界上大多数烦恼，”亚瑟·兰森（Arthur Ransome）在其 1934 年的小说《潜水鸭俱乐部》（Coot Club）中这样写道——詹姆斯·斯图尔特（James Stewart）在《金融时报》中表示，在最近一次诺福克宽阔地的独自航行之旅后，他不得不对此表示赞同。兰森的书就设定在这个由潮汐河流和浅湖组成的网络中，它们在诺福克东部“累计蜿蜒” 125 英里。这些湖泊是中世纪的泥炭挖掘场，在 14 世纪被上涨的海水淹没，长期以来由被称为“宽阔地船”（wherries）的货船往来。维多利亚时代的人们将该地区“重新构想”为度假胜地，经营者开始向游客出租小型游艇。如今机动船的数量要多得多，但仍可租赁帆船。成立于 1932 年的卢德汉（Ludham）Hunter's Yard 拥有一支来自“宽阔地巡航黄金时代”的游艇船队，部分游艇的船舱可容纳两到四人睡眠。租赁者必须懂得航海，但初学者可以报名参加为期一周的“学习航海”课程。我租赁的这艘 90 年船龄的游艇 Hustler 号就像是“缩小的爱德华时代绅士俱乐部”，配有“光泽亮丽”的桃花心木镶板和一个皇家道尔顿（Royal Doulton）水槽。而且它还有一个“秘密武器”。大多数机动船无法通过波特海格姆（Potter Heigham）的中世纪桥梁，因此被限制在宽阔地的南部。但帆船可以降低桅杆以挤过去，进入一个“发动机的轰鸣声”被“沙沙芦苇丛中的鸟鸣”所取代的世界。我发现宽阔地“出人意料地具有社交属性”。遛狗的人和渔民向我挥手，一名划独木舟的人与我并肩而行，闲聊几句。这里的鸟类也令人惊叹，从翠鸟到沼泽鹞，以及像“年迈的火烈鸟”一样的鹤。但大多数时候，只有我，绳索吱吱作响的声音，以及在“英勇的天空”下延伸的“低矮丛生的地平线”。这就是“作为宁静的风景”，尤其是在霍西湖（Horsey Mere）的黄昏时分，提醒我“航海依然可以是”——“一段让其他一切都随之消逝的间奏，是世界不安潮汐中一个短暂的回涡”。

感受……的风情

徒步首尔的“长城”

徒步是韩国最受欢迎的体育活动——奥利弗·贝里（Oliver Berry）在《国家地理旅行者》（National Geographic Traveller）中表示，得益于延伸至市中心的森林山丘，你甚至可以在首尔进行徒步。在离市区不远的北汉山国家公园，山径最高可达 836 米；而在首尔历史中心附近则有一些较小的山峰，由这座城市的中世纪城墙横跨（被誉为“首尔版的中国长城”）。我沿着城墙的北段行走，经过了三座原有的城门，并攀登了仁王山“圆顶状”的山顶，那里虽然只有 338 米高，但“陡峭得令人精疲力竭”。沿途弥漫着杜松和山松的清香，樱桃树和枫树时而提供阴凉——并且可以俯瞰首尔市中心的“壮阔”景色。

搭火车游览 66 号公路

芝加哥与洛杉矶之间那条“传奇”的 66 号公路开通已 100 年。许多人通过驾车来庆祝这个百年纪念日，但亚德里安·布里奇（Adrian Bridge）在《每日电讯报》（The Daily Telegraph）中写道，他选择了搭乘火车向西进行这段 2,000 英里的旅程——这使得他能够“悠闲地沉思”美国“令人惊叹”的景观，并能在餐车里进行许多“欢乐的”交谈。卧铺火车“西南酋长号”（Southwest Chief）在 45 小时内可完成该路线——或者你也可以像我一样将旅程分段。其中的亮点包括圣路易斯（“迈尔斯·戴维斯和蓝调之城”）、堪萨斯城（那里的美术学院风格火车站是“绝对的瑰宝”），以及亚利桑那州的弗拉格斯塔夫（66, 66 号公路的一个“关键”中转站，到处是“1950 年代风格的餐厅”）。但没有什么能比大峡谷（如图）的日落更美。Amtrak Vacations (amtrakvacations.co.uk) 提供一个 14 晚的行程，价格每人 £1,709 起。

斯洛文尼亚里维埃拉的夏天

伊斯特拉（Istria）是北亚得里亚海一个向南延伸的半岛，如今大部分位于克罗地亚，但斯洛文尼亚也拥有其中一小块——这构成了该国全部 29 英里的海岸线。劳拉·科菲（Laura Coffey）在《卫报》中表示，这是一个迷人的地区，拥有绿色的山丘、漂亮的村庄和“色彩斑斓”的海滨小镇。其中最大且最“美丽”的小镇是皮兰（Piran），位于意大利城市的里雅斯特以南 25 英里，以其中世纪威尼斯建筑而闻名。附近有斯特伦扬景观公园（Strunjan Landscape Park），拥有绝美的海滩——月亮湾（Moon Bay），以及另一个“充满活力”的历史港口城镇伊罗拉（Irola）。我可以推荐那里的 DeGrassi 酒店（“极其舒适”），以及山上的 Kmetija Medljan 简易农家乐。我还很享受参观一些手工酿酒厂和食品生产商，包括 Korenika & Moškon，那里的 belica 橄榄油具有“强烈的冲击力”。

本周酒店

墨西哥，罗斯伍德曼达里纳（Rosewood Mandarina）

梅根·斯普雷尔（Megan Spurrell）在《康泰纳仕旅行者》（Conde Nast Traveller）中表示，这家全新的海滨度假村坐落在墨西哥太平洋海岸的一片“天堂般”的区域，就在普埃尔托瓦亚尔塔（Puerto Vallarta）以北，是一个“坐下来绝对什么都不做”的绝佳场所。这是罗斯伍德集团在该国的第四家酒店，毗邻一家 One&Only 度假村，两者共享部分设施。客房采用大地色调和大量天然材料（包括木质天花板和亚麻屏风）。三家餐厅（日式、墨西哥式和西班牙式）都“极好”。此外还有一个“宁静的”水疗中心、儿童俱乐部以及更多活动，包括马球课程。双人间 £830 起；rosewoodhotels.com。

2026 年 8 月 8 日 THE WEEK --- 34 讣告

从《好伙计》成员转变为《春季观察》主持人的自然主义者 比尔·奥迪 (Bill Oddie) 1941-2028

《泰晤士报》表示，对于那些在 20 世纪 70 年代长大的人来说，享年 85 岁去世的比尔·奥迪将永远是《好伙计》(The Goodies) 的成员之一。这部无政府主义风格的喜剧节目由他与剑桥大学 Footlights 剧团的校友格雷姆·加登 (Graeme Garden) 以及已故的蒂姆·布鲁克-泰勒 (Tim Brooke-Taylor) 共同主演，讲述了三个解决问题的人骑着一辆他们称之为“三 tandem”的三人自行车四处旅行，据称能解决各种问题的故事。该剧共播出 76 集，将受巴斯特·基顿 (Buster Keaton) 和《汤姆与杰瑞》启发的“厕所幽默”和视觉笑话与荒诞主义（有一集是三人被一只巨型小猫追赶）以及政治讽刺（另一集探讨了种族隔离制度）相结合。除了参与编写剧本，奥迪还为节目创作歌曲，包括在 1975 年登上排行榜第 4 名的《The Funky Gibbon》，这使得他及其喜剧搭档得以登上《流行金曲》(Top of the Pops) 节目。在巅峰时期，《好伙计》吸引了 1200 万观众。但马克·劳森 (Mark Lawson) 在《卫报》中提到，尽管该剧与《蒙提·派森》(Monty Python) 有相似之处，但 BBC 的高管们并未将其视为严肃之作。他们将其归类为儿童电视节目，这被视为一种侮辱，而奥迪也将其视作侮辱。

后来，他将自己重新塑造为一名自然主义者，并作为包括《春季观察》(Springwatch) 在内的野生动物节目的主持人赢得了许多新粉丝。然而，在这里，他的成功同样被悲伤所削弱。他在 2008 年底离开了《春季观察》，随后明确表示自己是被 BBC 强行驱逐的。他表示，心理健康是一个因素，且他“可能非常易怒”。他透露，自己曾陷入抑郁，两次尝试自杀，并被诊断患有双相情感障碍。

威廉·奥迪于 1941 年出生在罗奇代尔，父亲是会计师哈里·奥迪 (Harry Oddie)，母亲是莉莉安 (Lilian)。六岁时，比尔放学回家发现房子里空无一人，厨房里到处是血。原来是他的母亲袭击了他的父亲。他的母亲在精神病房度过了多年。随后，全家搬到了伯明翰。他在金爱德华学校 (King Edward’s School) 就读，随后获得剑桥大学录取名额，在那里他与约翰·克利斯 (John Cleese) 等人一起在 Footlights 剧团崭露头角。不久之后，他开始在西区和百老汇出演 Footlights 评论剧。他为《这就是那一周》(That Was the Week That Was) 编写剧本，并参与了电视喜剧《住院医生》(Doctor in the House) 的部分剧集。他还经常出现在广播节目中，包括《对不起，我再读一遍》(I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again)。

《好伙计》于 1970 年推出，运行了十多年。《卫报》称，每位创作者都有截然不同的个性：布鲁克-泰勒傲慢；加登像教授；而奥迪则毛茸茸且不修边幅。即便在当时，他就深受情绪波动之苦。他发现名声难以掌控，且有时会变得暴躁。2001 年，当迈克尔·阿斯佩尔 (Michael Aspel) 拿着那本红色大书对他说道：“比尔·奥迪，这就是你的人生”时，奥迪回答道：“不是。我一直说我不会参加，所以我不会。”他的家人最终说服他参加了该节目。

奥迪从青少年时期起就热爱观鸟，在 20 世纪 80 年代从事了一段时间的儿童电视工作后，他开始主持如《与比尔·奥迪一起观鸟》(Birding with Bill Oddie) 等野生动物节目。2003 年，他因在自然保护方面的工作被授予 OBE 勋章。他将自己的心理健康问题归结为童年经历，以及母亲抛弃他的感觉。然而，后来他开始意识到，她的情况可能也是双相情感障碍。他说，他意识到她“绝非疏忽”，而只是“极其不幸”。

他的三个孩子以及他的第二任妻子、作家兼前演员劳拉·博蒙特 (Laura Beaumont) 在世。

《人体世界》背后的争议德国解剖学家 冈特·冯·哈根斯 (Gunther von Hagens) 1948-2028

冈特·冯·哈根斯是一位德国解剖学家，他在 20 世纪 70 年代后期开发了一种新型保存方法，通过排空体内的脂肪和液体，并用一种柔性聚合物将其替代。在 20 世纪 90 年代，他利用这项技术——塑料浸渍法（plastination）——创建了剥皮人体巡回展览，引起了轰动。《泰晤士报》称，在支持者眼中，他是“一位科学远见者”，他的展览“让数百万人睁眼看到了死亡的现实”以及生命的力量。而其他人则将这位总是戴着黑色软呢帽、面色“苍白”的解剖学家视为“一场人体畸形秀的阴森团长”。许多教会领袖对他作品感到震惊；在德国，这被比作纳粹 era. 的罪行。但数百万人涌向他的《人体世界》（Body Worlds）展览，盯着那些经过塑料浸渍处理的尸体发愣，这些尸体的肌肉和韧带全部裸露，被排列成令人毛骨悚然的场景——骑着剥皮的马、弹电吉他、击剑、交媾。其中一些尸体甚至出现在 2006 年的邦德电影《皇家赌场》（Casino Royale）中，坐在牌桌周围。

冈特·利布琴（Gunther Liebchen）于 1945 年出生在现在的波兰，他的父亲曾是党卫军成员。随着红军的逼近，全家逃离，最终定居在格赖茨（Greiz）——这里后来成为了东德的一部分。由于患有血友病，冈特经常住院，这激发了他对医学的兴趣。在耶拿大学开始攻读医学学位之前，他曾担任护士。1969, 他因试图逃往奥地利而被监禁。在他获释后，他成功抵达西方，并在吕贝克大学完成了学业。结婚时，他采用了妻子的姓氏，据报道是因为利布琴（Liebchen，意为“亲爱的”）听起来太可爱了。在海德堡大学病理学与解剖学研究所担任讲师期间，他开始研究塑料浸渍法。《卫报》表示，这项技术具有明显的医学用途。学生无需等待捐赠即可观察病变器官；它允许将尸体切片以便在实验室中检查。

冯·哈根斯创办了一家向医疗机构供应塑料浸渍身体部位的公司；直到后来他才意识到更广泛的商业潜力。在第二任妻子安吉丽娜（Angelina，与他的三个孩子一起在世）的帮助下，他于 1995. 在日本举办了首场《人体世界》展览。随后该展在世界范围内巡演。多年来，他面临了多次法律挑战。2002, 他被指控通过举办英国 170 年来首次公开尸检而触犯法律。但最终未被起诉，该活动随后在第四频道播出。他还面临关于尸体来源的质疑：在有人担心这些尸体是中国被执行死刑的囚犯后，他归还了部分尸体。通常情况下，他坚持只接受在知情同意下捐赠的尸体；得益于《人体世界》的成功，数千人签署了同意接受塑料浸渍处理的协议。从 2005, 起，这项工作在一家雇佣多达 150 人的工厂中进行。冯·哈根斯本人指定在去世后对其进行塑料浸渍处理，并戴着他标志性的黑帽子展出。

THE WEEK 2026 年 8 月 8 日 --- 城市 CITY 35 # 新闻中的公司 # ……以及它们是如何被评估的

阿斯利康 / 百时美施贵宝：巨头合并

据《金融时报》报道，阿斯利康（AstraZeneca）——英国市值第二大的公司，价值约 1960亿英镑 ——与美国竞争对手百时美施贵宝（Bristol Myers Squibb）进行了合并谈判，这一“震撼”消息将伦敦金融城从夏季的慵懒中惊醒。“此次合并的价值将约为 4000亿美元，并将成为史上规模最大的医药交易。”尽管阿斯利康的规模大约是百时美施贵宝的两倍，且将成为主导方，但该消息注定会引发人们对该公司“对英国承诺”的“新担忧”。首席执行官帕斯卡·索里奥特爵士（Sir Pascal Soriot）此前已经降低了其伦敦上市的地位，转而倾向于纽约。“如果谈判取得进展，这将是对安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham）政府的一次新考验，看其在对待国家战略公司时会采取多么干预主义的方式。”

这一潜在交易的消息在金融城引起了极大的反感。路透社的玛吉·菲克（Maggie Fick）指出，阿斯利康的股价下跌了 9% —— 这是自 2020 年以来的最大跌幅 —— 因为投资者难以理解进行此类“转型收购”的必要性。《卫报》的尼尔斯·普拉特利（Nils Pratley）表示，我想，这确实存在“在肿瘤学领域打造一个击败市场的全球巨头”的可能性。但唯一能确定的是，阿斯利康将“继承目标公司专利悬崖的挑战”。索里奥特在阿斯利康的长期任期总体而言是一次“胜利”。他为何要通过这样一次“高风险的金融冒险”来冒“毁掉其政治遗产”的风险，这仍是一个谜。

科技七巨头：分道扬镳

The Motley Fool 的鲁本·格雷格·布鲁尔（Reuben Gregg Brewer）表示，当投资者涌入某种趋势时，结果通常会产生一个有趣的绰号。但所谓的“科技七巨头”（Magnificent Seven）——Alphabet、亚马逊、苹果、Meta、微软、英伟达和特斯拉——注定会分崩离析。唯一的问题是何时发生。《金融时报》的约翰·普伦德（John Plender）认为，那个时代的终结就在现在。尤其是 AI 热潮，围绕着基础设施的“巨额支出”（尤其是 Meta、亚马逊和微软等“超大规模云服务商”）是否能“产生足够的利润”这一棘手问题，将“The Mag 7”撕裂了。

《泰晤士报》的格雷厄姆·鲁迪克（Graham Ruddick）建议关注上周季度业绩引发的极端市场反应。当 Meta 将 2026 年的预测支出“微调”增加数十亿至 1300亿美元-1450亿美元 时，其股价遭到重创。相比之下，当微软将其资本支出从预测的 1900亿美元 降低至 1750亿美元 时，其市值在一天之内增加了约 4500亿美元（“为有记录以来任何企业的最高增幅”）。《华尔街日报》的亚萨·菲奇（Asa Fitch）表示，在筛选 AI 的赢家和输家时，华尔街发现了除此以外的另一个“关键区分点”：云计算 —— 这是一个由 AI 驱动的巨大增长市场，但它拥有一个“经过验证的商业模式”，即使 AI 泡沫破裂也能生存。难怪 Meta（迟到地）正匆忙试图跟上脚步。

J. Sainsbury / Argos：苦难清单？

《观察家报》的玛丽娜·圣（Marine Saint）称，这是一个典型的赌错了的例子。在向在线巨头亚马逊和 Temu 认输后，森比森（Sainsbury’s）正以约 1.2 亿英镑 的价格出售其 Argos 部门 —— 该部门于 2016 年以 11亿英镑 买入，现在的售价仅为买入价的“近十分之一”。幸运的是，这家前目录销售企业找到了愿意接手的买家。由资深零售商理查德·佩尼库克（Richard Pennycook）和特雷弗·斯特雷恩（Trevor Strain）领导的 Swift Partners 在被“低估”的 Argos 及其门店中看到了潜力。《泰晤士报》的伊莎贝拉·菲什（Isabella Fish）表示，这是一个除了情怀之外仍具有持久受欢迎程度的品牌。祝愿这次扭亏为盈能获得英国式的好运。

金融城一周动态

国际油价在人们重新希望能够达成协议以开放霍尔木兹海峡，以及供应中断可能缓解的预期下，跌至每桶 $80 以下。但美国汽油价格仍高于每加仑 $4 —— 比战前水平高出约 35%。美国联邦储备委员会和英格兰银行均维持利率不变 —— 后者维持在 3.75%。但英格兰银行行长安德鲁·贝利（Andrew Bailey）警告称，伊朗战争的进一步升级可能会导致明年通胀率超过 4%。财政大臣约翰·希利（John Healey）确认，预算案将于 10 月 28 日交付。政府宣布对价值 900亿英镑 的公共采购系统进行改革 —— 将重点放在要求投标者证明其在创造就业机会，而非达成绿色和社会目标。新模式将适用于竞标公共合同的英国和国际公司。SpaceX 的股价进一步下跌 8%，尽管其报告的季度营收同比增长 92% 至 77亿美元。交易员们对埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）关于数据中心的奢侈计划感到反感。自 6 月份的大规模上市以来，这家火箭公司已损失了超过 $1trn 的市值。备受争议的数据公司 Palantir 宣布了首席执行官亚历克斯·卡普（Alex Karp）所描述的“超凡增长”；股价反弹 25%。汇丰银行（HSBC）报告称，电动汽车制造商在英国将车辆折扣削减至 15 个月以来的最低水平。Grant Thornton 将以 50亿美元 收购竞争对手 CBIZ，这是会计行业一代人以来规模最大的收购案。

BP 退出北海：英国能源的分水岭

《泰晤士报》的艾米莉·戈斯登（Emily Gosden）表示，当 BP 在 1975, 11 月启动其第一个北海油田时，这是一个如此重大的事件，以至于已故的伊丽莎白女王曾前往亚伯丁“按下让原油流出的按钮”。如今，这家石油和天然气巨头正完全退出北海，因为它认为在有“其他更光明机会”的情况下（包括在巴西海岸附近的 Bumerangue，那里是其 25 年来最大的发现），继续留在那里是不经济的。正如首席执行官梅格·奥尼尔（Meg O’Neill）在告诉 CNBC（同时宣布季度利润翻倍至 57.3亿美元）时所说，北海“根本无法在资本竞争中胜出”。所有油气田最终都会进入自然衰减期。《每日电讯报》的乔纳森·利克（Jonathan Leake）表示，BP 在北海剩余的五座钻井平台仅价值 20亿英镑 —— 与 1980 年代使英国成为石油净出口国的繁荣时期的估值相去甚远。尽管如此，最后一家重量级企业的退出给“复兴”的希望“带来了沉重打击”。真正引发亚伯丁愤怒的是，BP 的决定不仅是由地质因素驱动的，还受到“能源和税收政策的灾难性结合”的影响，这些政策给北海钻井商带来了高达 78% 的实际税率 —— 并且最终导致前能源大臣埃德·米利班德（Ed Miliband）禁止新的油气勘探。BP 希望找到买家。但现在压力正逐渐转向安迪·伯纳姆（Andy Burnham），要求其降低意外之财税（windfall tax），取消对新许可证的禁令，并批准自工党执政以来一直处于停滞状态的 Jackdaw 和 Rosebank 油气项目。彭博社表示，北海永远无法重现其全盛时期，但它仍能产生价值和就业，提高能源韧性，并在“能源转型继续进行期间争取时间”。这些都是不应被轻视的收益。

© BP 2026 年 8 月 8 日 THE WEEK --- 36 金融城 议题

本周议题：特朗普的汇率干预

美国支撑日元的举措对双方都有利，但并非没有风险。

“就待办事项清单而言，斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）的那份绝对是不寻常的，”《每日电讯报》的梅丽莎·劳福德（Melissa Lawford）写道。上周五，特朗普总统的财政部长被拍到面前放着一张便条，上面写着：“买入日元 (JPY) $5-10 bil”。无论这是否像彭博社所称的“滑稽的摆拍”，贝森特都迅速采取了行动。美国财政部随后确认，已与东京方面协调“进行一次历史性的干预”，以推高日元价值，将其从40年来的低点救回——而此次行动的资金是通过“出售一部分欧元储备”来支付的。

特朗普正开始习惯于将汇率变动作为向盟友展示支持的一种手段。去年，他为阿根廷总统哈维尔·米莱（Javier Milei）和当时的匈牙利总理欧尔班（Viktor Orbán）开通了货币互换额度。这两次行动都发生在关键选举之前。问题是，他想从日本得到什么？

《金融时报》的凯蒂·马丁（Katie Martin）认为，一种可能的解释是，美国30年来首次对日元进行大规模干预仅仅是“伙伴关系动力学”（buddynamics），即便这种方式“比平时更直接一些”。这确实是特朗普所呈现的方式。然而，更可能的原因是“理性的自我利益”。

日本有两种传统途径来推高受挫的日元。一种是大幅提高利率，但考虑到国内日益增长的经济不满，这绝非其总理高市早苗（Sanae Takaichi）的首选路线。另一种则是大规模抛售美元——即抛售日本持有的$1trn美国国债——以资助其自身的日元买盘。这两者对美国来说都不是好消息。

“更好的做法是像一个可怕的大哥哥一样支持日本，并希望以此吓跑日元卖家。”鉴于美国近$40trn的债务，在收益率已经很高的情况下，即使向市场抛售一小部分国债，也可能推高华盛顿的借贷成本。

尽管如此，半岛电视台的谭慧玲（Huileng Tan）表示，此举对市场具有巨大影响。它威胁到了“日元资助的套利交易，即投资者在日本低成本借款，用于购买海外高收益的货币和资产”。上一次这种情况发生在2024年，该举措迫使杠杆交易平仓，波及全球市场。

彭博社的盖罗伊德·雷迪（Gearoid Reidy）和丹尼尔·莫斯（Daniel Moss）表示，这次干预“彻底改变了游戏规则”。“现在最大的担忧是，如果无法‘给日元止跌’，两国信誉将如何。”到目前为止，一切都在计划之中：日元从峰值的¥164跌至约¥157，且未引起过度动荡。但不要指望这种情况能持久。

富时指数前景：专家观点

“反科技”指数

《泰晤士报》的罗伯特·米勒（Robert Miller）表示，由于全球资本从科技股转向“矿业、银行和国防公司”，伦敦的蓝筹股富时 100 指数在7月迎来了“自伊朗战争以来表现最好的一月”。上周，该指数创下历史新高，如果芯片和科技股的抛售潮再次燃起，未来可能还有更多上涨空间。

正如巴克莱银行的埃马纽埃尔·考（Emmanuel Kau）所观察到的，富时指数几乎是一个“反科技指数”，由所谓的“旧世界股票”主导，被基金经理视为有效的对冲工具。

瑞银（UBS）分析师指出：“我们对AI增长故事保持建设性态度，但认为投资者应通过扩大投资范围来管理集中度风险。”对于许多人来说，配置富时 100 指数正符合这一要求。

被抛弃的偏远之地

汤姆·桑德斯（Tom Saunders）和路易斯·戈斯（Louis Goss）在《每日电讯报》中表示，应当心存感激。从大局来看，伦敦沦为相对偏远之地的趋势仍在继续——而其“曾经的冠军企业”为了寻求更高的流动性而匆忙奔向华尔街，或被私有化，加速了这一进程。十年前，有 2,365 家上市公司；现在仅剩 1,500 家——跌幅高达 36%，令人震惊。与此同时，本地投资骤减。“回溯到 1997 年，英国养老基金每投资 £2 就有 £1 投入到英国股市。而如今这个数字更接近于每 £20 中仅有 £1。”这是一个恶性循环。责任不仅在于大投资者，还在于“接连几届政府拆除了”本地投资的税收激励措施。现在，政治家们才后知后觉地试图弥补损失。

被悲观主义蒙蔽

资深英国基金经理格维斯·威廉姆斯（Gervais Williams）表示，英国基金不应该仅仅因为“这是正确的事”而买入。关键在于“他们是否愿意坐视英国市场产生极强的回报而毫无作为”。投资管理公司 7IM 的本·库马尔（Ben Kumar）在《泰晤士报》中表示，这确实是许多海外投资者的看法。“那种像屹耳（Eeyore）一样悲观的观点”认为，伦敦市场将“不断萎缩，直到什么都不剩，所有资产都被外国资金掌控”。但如果转换视角，你会问“英国资产吸引了世界的目光吗”？英国仍然是一个领先的金融中心，且股票价格比美国同行更便宜，“所以让我们为此庆祝吧”。

杠杆ETF：要点解析

沃伦·巴菲特将衍生品描述为“金融大规模杀伤性武器”。在散户投资者手中，杠杆ETF（LETFs）正被证明同样具有爆炸性……

首尔的至暗之夜 《金融时报》称，除了或许唐纳德·特朗普之外，没有哪个世界领导人像韩国总统李在明那样，将自己的政治前途如此坚定地押注在“火热的股市”上。“他得到了超出预期的结果。”在冲向顶峰后，由芯片股主导的综合股价指数（Kospi）上周从 6 月的高点下跌了近 40%——导致数千名散户投资者损失惨重，他们现在指责李在明“仓促批准”使用杠杆ETF，这种产品在资产上涨时放大回报，但在市场转向时则会灾难性地放大损失。

加以约束 彭博社表示，规模达 $16trn 的美国 ETF 行业曾为储蓄者提供一种廉价且便捷的方式来获得广泛的股市敞口，但现在也“开始像赌场一样”。目前有 450 多个 ETF 提供针对单一证券的杠杆或反向投注（仅针对 SpaceX 就创建了至少十个）——这使得它们成为“对冲基金榨取单日交易利润”的有用工具，但对“个人投资者来说可能是灾难性的”。全面禁止“不太可能，甚至并非理想之举”，但需要保护措施来保障缺乏经验的投资者。同时需要定期进行压力测试，以帮助金融系统（其本身也具有高度杠杆）免受 ETF 不稳定波动的影响。我们必须吸取“韩国的教训”。

THE WEEK 8 August 2026 © 2026MCT --- 评论员 金融城 37

“我们时代的石油”案例

约翰·奥瑟斯（John Authers） 彭博社

英国，欧洲的能源强国？

安布罗斯·埃文斯-普里查德（Ambrose Evans-Pritchard） 《每日电讯报》

钻石能否重现光芒？

多米尼克·奥康奈尔（Dominic O'Connell） 《泰晤士报》

很抱歉你迟到了。这是我的发票

詹姆斯·马克斯 (James Max) 《金融时报》

“股市与战争和平之间的关系可能令人困扰，”约翰·奥瑟斯 (John Authers) 表示——看看 1938 年和 1939 年的道琼斯工业平均指数，当时希特勒对欧洲的威胁日益严重。1938 年的《慕尼黑协定》被英国首相内维尔·张伯伦错误地赞誉为“我们时代的和平”，并受到了市场的热烈欢迎：“交易员们对战争前景的消退感到宽慰，即便代价是安抚一个危险的独裁者”。然而，一年后战争爆发时，市场再次上涨：“一场全球性的灾难正在上演，但至少情况变得明朗了”。作为对“市场比起战争更厌恶不确定性”这一陈词滥调的冷酷阐述，这段历史很难被超越。而现在类似的情况正在发生。标准普尔 500 指数回到了历史最高点；布伦特原油价格下跌了 11%，因为一项协议——可能会允许伊朗对穿越霍尔木兹海峡的船只收费——似乎即将达成。这可能是糟糕的消息，“相当于美国的投降”。但慕尼黑的先例很明确。“局面正在明朗，不确定性在减少，而支持一个独裁政权的代价虽然高昂，但可以承受。”

安布罗斯·埃文斯-普里查德 (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard) 表示，关于英国是“欧洲能源病夫”的流行且过时的论调需要被彻底扭转。可以大胆打赌，在五到十年后，我们将成为唯一一个“在整个技术频谱上拥有繁荣能源系统”的国家——能够利用自身领土资源满足电力和燃料的核心内部需求，“并有足够的焦耳盈余，以增加向欧洲市场的能源出口”。在不知不觉中，英国正朝着一种务实的“只要管用就行”的体制迈进，类似于中国，尽管碳排放组合不同。在可再生能源方面，我们已经领先于欧洲竞争对手：到 2035 年，风能和太阳能的总发电量可能达到“巨大的” 200 吉瓦。在核能方面，我们也在全力推进。法国仍依赖于数十年前核电站的“易逝遗产”，而英国的罗尔斯-罗伊斯公司 (Rolls-Royce) 凭借其小型核反应堆正“势不可挡”。鉴于新的地震成像和钻探技术，将“数十亿更多桶”北海原油纳入商业开发范围也成为可能。看来，我们唯一需要担心的是政治。

多米尼克·奥康奈尔 (Dominic O'Connell) 表示，钻石曾凭借“稀缺性和受控供应的稳固支柱”为戴比尔斯 (De Beers) 带来了至高无上的财富，但近年来其“价值出现了惊人的崩塌”。十五年前，这家自 1927 年起由英美资源公司 (Anglo American) 持有的公司估值略低于 130 亿美元。现在，这家矿业公司正洽谈将其 85% 的股份以据报道的 10 亿美元出售。没有人预料到原钻价格会在五年内暴跌 45%，最大的因素是“人造钻石大量涌入市场”。天然钻石在宝石市场可能“尚能维持”，但在工业应用领域已被严重淹没，以至于戴比尔斯“现在成了英美资源公司颈上的沉重负担”。如果想要重新盈利，任何新所有者都必须对公司进行大刀阔斧的重组。钻石面临着加入一个漫长行业名单的风险——从鲸油灯到视频租赁店——这些行业的财务状况都被新技术摧毁，并被“抛弃在历史的垃圾堆里”。戴比尔斯的联合创始人塞西尔·罗兹 (Cecil Rhodes) “如果想到类似的事情会发生在自己璀璨的创造物身上，一定会感到震惊”。

“我曾经和一个人共事，他每次开会都迟到，”詹姆斯·马克斯（James Max）说道。“不是偶尔迟到。而是精准地迟到 15 分钟。每一次都是如此。”这种迟到竟然如此准时，如果不是因为太令人恼火，简直让人印象深刻。准时并不需要什么特殊技能。你只需要意识到“他人的时间与你的时间同样重要”。当公司向我们收费时，我们被训练得能够理解时间的价值：我们接受错过付款、在停车场超时停放、延迟提交纳税申报单都会受到处罚。但由于责备朋友或同事会令人尴尬，我们在自己的生活中并没有应用这一逻辑。我的解决方案是，我们加入一个可以称之为“等待付费”（WaitPay）的通用系统。“朋友有五分钟的宽限期。迟到 15 分钟？咖啡由你请。迟到 30 分钟？午餐由你买单。”公司则不应获得这种宽容。让我等待，延误我的航班，在向我保证我的电话很“重要”的同时让我排队，那么余额就开始累积。“全英国的准时情况将会以惊人的速度得到改善。”

城市概况 # 利奥波德·阿申布伦纳 (Leopold Aschenbrenner)

利奥波德·阿申布伦纳在加利福尼亚州卡梅尔的一座托斯卡纳风格别墅中举办了为期数日的婚礼——这份邀请函在旧金山的“大脑谷”（Cerebral Valley）圈子里被视为至宝。《华尔街日报》称，这场庆典设有森林水疗中心，并举办了一场“旨在通过小组讨论和分组会议探讨想法的婚前研讨会”，对于这位被誉为“AI诺查丹玛斯”的技术奇才来说，这无疑是一场恰如其分的庆祝活动。但就在宾客抵达之时，这位24岁年轻人的$45bn对冲基金——Situational Awareness——正陷入崩溃，成为市场剧烈波动下最惨重的牺牲品。CNN商业频道表示，他的这只“激进的AI集中投资组合”曾是“华尔街羡慕的对象”——据报道今年上涨了约439%——如今却成了需要救助的对象。在被迫进行贱卖的情况下，仅靠肯·格里芬（Ken Griffin）旗下的巨头基金Citadel提供的救命稻草，才勉强避免了彻底崩溃。

对于这位出生于德国的前OpenAI研究员来说，这真是一次沉重的跌落。他在2024, 年成立Situational Awareness时，尽管“没有任何专业投资经验”，却挖掘到了美国最富有的资金来源。《华尔街日报》指出，阿申布伦纳利用杠杆“来放大赌注”，而他撰写宏大哲学宣言的天赋为他赢得了狂热的追随者。“目前，也许只有几百个人……拥有‘情境意识’（situational awareness），”他写道，“由于某种奇特的命运力量，我发现自己就在其中。”彭博社的亚伦·布朗（Aaron Brown）表示，关于AI重塑世界的潜力，他最终可能会被证明是正确的。遗憾的是，“市场不会为预知未来而付费，而是在未来到来时，为那些依然拥有偿付能力的人付费。”

© JOHN ESELSON / COURTESY OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS 8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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38 市场

YourTour™

在家探索家族历史之旅

“多么出色的服务！非常感谢这次绝对令人大开眼界的祖先探索之旅。” ——汤姆·霍兰 (TOM HOLLAND)，作家兼播客主持人

“我非常享受参加YourTour，探索了我对自己家族历史了解之少得令人惊讶的一部分。我强烈建议任何热爱钻研历史的人参加——或赠送——YourTour。” ——安东尼娅·弗雷泽 (ANTONIA FRASER)，历史学家

THE WEEK 8 August 2026 如需在此投放广告，请发送电子邮件至 classified@theweek.co.uk 或联系 Lily Phillips (lily.phillips@futurenet.com)

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股票 城市 39

谁在推荐什么

本周最佳股票

CVS Group

Citywire Berenberg表示，在克服了竞争调查的障碍后，这家兽医集团拥有一个“可靠的路线图”，可以恢复其作为“结构性增长复合体”的“历史轨迹”。目标价：£20. 买入。£12.70.

Fevertree Drinks

The Times 怀疑者可能会在股价五年内暴跌66%后质疑其恢复能力。但这家高端饮料制造商仍保持着健康的资产负债表，且运营前景的改善应能催化业绩表现。买入。819.

FirstGroup

Citywire Panmure Gordon表示，这家交通运营商将其技术创新部门Mistral Data以4800 万英镑m的价格出售，这“实现了”尚未反映在股价中的价值。收益的损失被一项巨大的Sizewell C运输合同部分抵消。买入。183p.

Rio Tinto

Investors' Chronicle AI和电气化转型正在为这家英澳矿业巨头推高铜、铝和锂市场。现金流激增，铁路运输产生生产力节省，股息率达4.3%。买入。£69.48.

St James's Place

Investor's Chronicle 关于咨询公司流失的担忧一直困扰着这家财富管理公司，但其管理资金已达到创纪录的2410亿英镑, 预计2027. 年将有强劲的收益增长。一个极具吸引力的入场价格。买入。£10.82.

Vesuvius

这家熔融金属工程集团指出了其钢铁部门的问题以及欧洲市场的艰难处境。尽管如此，Jefferies仍保持信心，理由是欧盟配额的益处和中国出口量的下降。目标价：520p. 买入。392p.

董事交易

马莎百货 (Marks and Spencer)

在马莎百货的网络安全事件冲击运营并导致股价下跌一年多后，两者均在回升；自1月以来，股价上涨了 17.4%。董事们正趁机获利。食品部门主管 Alex Freudmann 出售了价值 107 万英镑 的股份；退休的运营总监 Sacha Berendji 实现了 119 万英镑 的收益。来源：金融时报 (FINANCIAL TIMES)

...以及一些建议持有、避开或出售的股票

Autotrader Group

《泰晤士报》 (The Times) 由于受到汽车经销商反抗的影响以及对 AI 导致其失去相关性的担忧，这家在线汽车市场一直在寻找为消费者增加价值的方法。其股价处于历史低市盈率水平。持有。512p。

BP

《第十二只喜鹊》(The Twelfth Magpie) 出售北海资产不会显著影响股价——今年股价上涨 24%，很大程度上是由于伊朗战争。关键在于能源价格及其对股息的影响。最好等待进一步走软。避开。543p。

微软 (Microsoft)

晨星 (Morningstar) 这家拥有“宽护城河”的科技巨头的第四季度业绩超出预期。营收增长 17% 至 900亿美元 —— 得益于 Azure 云平台在传统和 AI 工作负载方面的激增增长。“公允价值”？$600。持有。$449.96。

Sabre Insurance Group

Citywire Downing 表示，在 500 万英镑 回购和强劲的 2025 年业绩支持下，这家专业汽车保险公司的势头继续增强。随着盈利能力的提高和保费增长，股价今年上涨了 40%。持有。185p。

特斯拉 (Tesla)

《投资者纪事报》(Investors' Chronicle) 季度资本支出翻了一番，达到 58亿美元，并预计在两年内继续增长。然而，在可能与 SpaceX 合并之前，埃隆·马斯克的这家汽车制造商“想要构建什么”并不明显。利润缩减了 57%。出售。$307。

联合利华 (Unilever)

《投资者纪事报》(Investors' Chronicle) 这家消费巨头健康的半年报被出售食品部门（其最赚钱的业务）给酱料制造商 McCormick 所带来的不确定影响所掩盖。近期似乎不太可能重新评级。持有。£49.20。

表现指南

12 周前预测的股票 最佳预测：Segro，《泰晤士报》(The Times)，上涨 36.07% 至 974.8p 最差预测：Strix Group，Citywire，下跌 16.34% 至 34.3p

市场观点

“市场希望我们能看到也许只是一个短期的压力释放阀。”渣打银行 (Standard Chartered) 的 Emily Ashford 在谈到对伊朗协议的希望时表示。石油市场的正常化仍将“需要很长时间”。引用自彭博社 (Bloomberg)

市场摘要

投资者关键数据 / 2026年8月4日 / 前一周 / 涨跌 (%)

富时 100 指数 (FTSE 100) / 10879.38 / 10871.02 / 0.08% 富时英国全股指数 (FTSE All-share UK) / 5855.17 / 5839.12 / 0.27% 道琼斯指数 (Dow Jones) / 54148.52 / 52882.36 / 2.39% 纳斯达克指数 (NASDAQ) / 26425.6.4119万 / 24951.67 / 5.91% 日经 225 指数 (Nikkei 225) / 63957.53 / 62364.92 / 2.55% 恒生指数 (Hang Seng) / 25852.92 / 25310.85 / 2.14% 黄金 / 4087.92 / 4044.33 / 1.08% 布伦特原油 / 79.30 / 84.53 / -6.19% 股息率 (富时 100) / 3.02% / 2.96% 英国 10 年期国债收益率 / 4.90 / 4.94 美国 10 年期国债收益率 / 4.62 / 4.59 | | 英国经济数据 | | | | 最新 CPI (同比) / 2.6% (6月) / 2.8% (5月) 最新 RPI (同比) / 3.0% (6月) / 3.1% (5月) 劳埃德房价 (同比) / 0.6% (6月) / 0.5% (5月) £1 英镑: $1.346 / €1.167 ¥212.448 / 比特币 $64,119.82

表现最佳和最差的股票 本周涨跌，富时 100 指数成分股 / 上涨 / 价格 / % 变化

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Antofagasta / 3931.00 / +10.39 Polar Capital Technology / 669.00 / +9.58 Glencore / 551.00 / +8.71 Anglo American / 3907.00 / +7.87 BAE Systems / 2184.00 / +7.85 下跌 / IG Group / 1360.00 / -19.91 Rentokil Initial / 370.00 / -14.00 AstraZeneca / 11740.00 / -9.27 Coca-Cola Europac / 7735.00 / -8.35 伦敦证券交易所 (London Stock Exchange) / 8500.00 / -7.10 富时 250 指数上涨与下跌股 / Travis Perkins / 679.00 / +19.56 Lancashire Holdings / 592.00 / -10.23

来源：金融时报 (FT)（未经股息调整）。价格截至 8月4日（下午） 追踪富时指数 2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 40 深度阅读

ChatGPT如何让一个破碎的家庭重聚

Avtar Singh 花了数十年时间，一直想知道那个他从未认识的母亲究竟发生了什么。在数千英里之外，Nicci 则一直被一个故事所困扰：在她出生之前，她有一个被送走的异母兄弟。一个 AI 聊天机器人是如何让他们相聚的？Jenny Kleeman 报道。

在 20 世纪 60 年代的印度阿姆利则长大时，小男孩 Avtar Singh 经常听到一些窃窃私语。人们会说：“你的妈妈并不是你真正的妈妈。你的妈妈住在国外。” 当时并没有太在意。“我想，邻居们只是在编故事。”

但这些故事是真的：抚养 的女人实际上是他的祖母。在他还太小而没有记忆的时候，他的父亲为了担任教师移民到了加拿大，将 留在祖父母的照顾下。他的祖父是一名警察，是个令人畏惧的独裁者，但他的祖母用温柔抚养他长大。她叫他昵称 Titu。他感受到了爱。

当 大约八岁时，他被告知了在加拿大的家人：他的父亲、母亲和一个小弟弟在那里等着他。就在他九岁生日后不久，在 1968 年的平安夜，他独自飞往新斯科舍省的哈利法克斯，穿着一套三件套西装并打着领带；他的家人在机场迎接他并带他回家。

“我不知道该怎么想，”现年 66 岁的 在从不列颠哥伦比亚省阿博茨福德家中进行的视频通话中告诉我。“还没等我反应过来，就到了一月的第一个星期，我被送进了学校。”

由于不会说英语， 观察同学们的行为并模仿，将雪地靴放在衣帽间，起立唱加拿大国歌和《天佑女王》。由于扎着锡克教男孩常用的发髻，他显得格外突出。他的父母提出，如果他同意剪掉头发，就给他买一根曲棍球杆和一双冰鞋。他学会了英语。他的昵称从 Titu 变成了 “Tito”。他开始融入其中。

但在家里， 并不适应。他比其他所有人都白得多——他开玩笑说自己是“家里的白羊”。他们把他当作局外人，一个被遗忘的人。当他 14 岁时，他的家人在没有带他的情况下去度假，把他一个人留在家里两周。他与父亲的关系还不错，但与母亲完全不合。“她没有我祖母那种温暖。她绝对讨厌我。”她看起来更像是一个继母而非母亲。

这种感觉在多年后得到了证实，当时 结婚了，他的祖父母飞过来与他以及他的新婚妻子 Rosey 同住。他的祖母“在我妻子的耳边低语”，说 是他父亲第一段婚姻的产物。“她没有说我母亲的名字。她只是说，‘她的家人来自非洲，她把孩子留给我们后回到了非洲。她可能去了英国生活。’就这样。”

向祖父母询问更多信息似乎并不正确：这显然是一个没有人想与 讨论的家庭秘密。当他自己的儿子被布置了一项完成家族树的学校作业时， 感到有了勇气去接近他的父亲。“我说，‘爸爸，你至少得告诉我我母亲的名字。’”他的父亲最终让步了：她的名字叫 Savinder。但他不再给 提供任何更多信息。“我被拒之门外了。”

不知道父母为什么分开。“我真正理解的只有一点，那就是我母亲的家人鼓励她放弃对我的监护权，这样他们更容易让她改嫁。”

他经常想起母亲，并决心尝试寻找她。他搜索了谷歌和Facebook，但几乎没有任何线索；Savinder是一个相当常见的旁遮普锡克教名字。2009年，Avtar飞往伦敦，前往位于 Kew 的国家档案馆，希望找到能引导他找到母亲的移民或结婚记录。“我什么也没找到。”在后来一次访问伦敦期间，他给英国亚裔电台 Sunrise Radio 发了电子邮件，询问他们能否发布寻找母亲的呼吁，但对方告诉 Avtar，出于对个人隐私的尊重，他们不做这类事情。这让 Avtar 陷入了沉思。“我想，也许我应该冷静下来。如果我的母亲已经有了另一个家庭，我不想扰乱她的生活。”尽管如此，这件事依然让他耿耿于怀。三四年前，他向一位英国南亚裔同事寻求建议；对方建议他联系 ITV 的节目《Long Lost Family》。他看了几集，觉得这个节目不适合他。但他渴望了解自己的母亲。“关于她的念头从未离开过我的脑海。” 唯一没有做的是 DNA 检测。他现在已经退休了，但作为一名特许会计师的职业生涯让他对技术、数据和隐私有了足够的认识，以至于他很谨慎，不愿将自己的遗传密码交给一家公司。12年前，他出于类似原因注销了 Facebook 账号。然后，在今年 5 月 8 日， 和 Rosey 在法国南部度假。 一直在与癌症抗争；他们在完成治疗后才前往欧洲旅行。“那是清晨，我已经读完了所有新闻。我很无聊，没什么可做的。我想，我已经试过谷歌和所有其他方法了，为什么不试次 AI 呢？”他根据自己掌握的少量信息以及可以推断出的内容，在 ChatGPT 中输入了一条提示词。他假设他的母亲与他的父亲（十年前去世）年龄相仿；他知道她那个时代的锡克教女性通常会被赋予 Kaur 这个中间名。

THE WEEK 2026年8月8日 © ALANNA PATRICK / DAVID GUNN / DAVID GUNN ---

深度阅读 41

Avtar：你能找到关于一个叫 Savinder Kaur 的人的任何信息吗？她现在的年龄应该在 87 到 97 岁之间，曾在印度和非洲生活，可能也曾在英国生活过。

ChatGPT：根据您提供的线索，最匹配的结果是这个……Savinder Kaur Nagi，1936 年出生于肯尼亚基苏木，父母是印度锡克教徒。文章提到其家族根源在印度的查谟和克什米尔附近，后来与英国产生了移民联系。

“我知道 AI 可能会胡编乱造。所以我想，好吧，这挺有意思的，”Avtar 说，“但它实际上引用了一篇文章。我想，至少我得看看那篇文章，就为了确认一下。”

“我是出于悲痛写下这篇文章的，”尼西·达穆（Nicci Dhamu）在西伦敦的一家咖啡馆里告诉我，“妈妈从未真正拥有过发声的机会，而那篇文章就是为了让她能发声。”

尼西是珠宝品牌 Sohavi 的设计师。“Sohavi 在锡克教文字古木基文（Gurmukhi）中意为‘美丽’。我从妈妈那里学会了如何创造美。”

她的文章发表在 Sohavi 的博客和南亚遗产月（South Asian Heritage Month）的网站上，是对她母亲的一次颂扬。Savinder Kaur Dhamu 于 2024 年 12 月在睡梦中去世，享年 88 岁。在她生命的最后五年里，她患有认知障碍症。58 岁的尼西一直担任她的护理员；她们生活在一起，关系非常亲密。

尼西的家人于 1973 年从肯尼亚移居英国。她有一个姐姐和一个弟弟，此外还有三个来自父亲第一段婚姻的同父异母姐姐；她的父亲在遇到 Savinder 之前丧妻。

“我们像一个家庭一样长大。直到我大约十岁或 11 岁时，我才知道我的姐姐们是我的同父异母姐姐，而且那仅仅是因为其中一个姐姐告诉了我。”

他们的家庭不谈论过去。

“我记得有一次，妈妈在厨房里做罗提（roti），我问她：‘妈妈，你嫁给爸爸的时候大概 25 岁。对于你那个年代的人来说，是不是有点太大了？’我知道我们的家庭有些不同，但我没有词汇去定义它。我的父亲从未向我们提起过他去世的妻子，而我的母亲也从未谈论过在遇到他之前的生活。”

当尼西 40 多岁时，一位年长的表亲随口透露，Savinder 在遇到尼西的父亲之前曾嫁给过另一个男人。

“她很小就被嫁掉了。这可能不是她想要的，”尼西说，“我的祖父在肯尼亚把她和她的姐妹们从学校带走，把她们带回旁遮普邦一个叫达里瓦尔（Dhariwal）的地方，就在阿姆利则（Amritsar）郊外。”

在后来的生活中，她的母亲会公开感叹离开学校这件事——她能读写英语，且热爱学习——但从未解释过她为何放弃学业。她不讨论她的第一段婚姻。她从未告诉孩子们他们有一个年长的同母异父哥哥。

“我的表亲在那次谈话中告诉我，她有一个儿子。”

回忆起这件事时，尼西的眼睛闪闪发光。但她从未觉得能够向母亲询问关于他的事情。

“我不能。那里潜藏着深刻的痛苦。”

尼西说，有时她的母亲会陷入抑郁。

“她会静静地坐着，或者因为难过而卧床不起。”

尼西回忆道，在生命快结束时，她经常哭喊着“Mera bacha”——在旁遮普语中意为“我的孩子”。

“认知障碍症将所有这些记忆都唤醒了。”

尼西决心找到母亲哭泣寻找的那个孩子，但她几乎没有线索：她甚至不知道他的名字。她咨询了住在伯明翰的母亲的弟弟。

“他记得我妈妈的孩子在两三岁时的样子，”尼西说。她得知她母亲的第一任丈夫名叫 Mohan Singh，而他在 1963 年娶了 Avtar Singh 的母亲 Savinder。

“在生命末期，受认知障碍症折磨的尼西的母亲经常哭喊‘Mera bacha’——在旁遮普语中意为‘我的孩子’。”

在阿姆利则的斯里古鲁·拉姆达斯·卡尔萨学校（Sri Guru Ramdas Khalsa school）任教。莫汉的父亲曾是一名警察，而且是个“相当难搞的人”。萨温德曾告诉她的父亲，她的丈夫对待她不好。“我想我祖父认为，这里不是我女儿该待的地方。于是他把女儿接回了家，她当时一定也带上了她的小儿子。”尼西被告知，她的母亲抚养那个男孩直到三岁。“作为一个同样离婚的人，我经常反思我母亲作为那个时代的南亚女性可能面临的污名，”她告诉我。“我想当时来自家庭的压力很大：让她赶紧结婚吧。像她那么年轻，作为单身母亲的生活会非常艰难。她太年轻了，无法独立生活。她儿子的家人想要他回去。所以他们一定是从她那里把孩子带走了。”萨温德回到了肯尼亚，起初独自一人，住在她的大哥家。尼西的表亲们对她住在他们家的时光记忆犹新。“她会拿出那个孩子的衣服然后哭泣。她从未忘记他。”不久后，她被介绍给尼西的父亲，一个比她大16岁的男人。“我想她一生都带着那段创伤，但她做得非常好，始终昂首挺胸，经营好自己的生活，又抚养了三个孩子。”肯尼亚的家人通过小道消息听说萨温德的第一任丈夫搬到了加拿大，但他们无法告诉尼西具体时间。而且没有人知道萨温德那个小儿子的名字。他们只知道他的绰号：Titu。“没有人会在LinkedIn上管自己叫Titu，对吧？”尼西深沉地笑了起来。但这并没有阻止她尝试在网上寻找他，以及他的父亲和祖父，她通过谷歌搜索阿姆利则的教师和警察的名字。“我什么也没搜到。没有名字怎么找人？这根本不可能。”在母亲去世前三四个月，她将萨温德的DNA提交给了Ancestry.com。“我为她建立了一个档案，写道：‘档案由女儿管理，正在寻找她的儿子，名字叫Titu，可能住在加拿大。’”她收到了一些关于母亲在克什米尔、阿富汗和乌兹别克斯坦祖先根源的有趣碎片，这解释了她肤色较浅的原因，但没有有用的匹配结果。尼西没有放弃。她联系了认识阿姆利则地方法院工作人员的朋友，希望能追踪到母亲离婚的记录。但她被告知这几乎是不可能的。2025年4月，当她和家人在印度将萨温德的骨灰安葬在那里时，她访问了阿姆利则的斯里古鲁·拉姆达斯·卡尔萨学校，Titu的父亲曾在那里任教。她与教师和保安交谈，但那时距离莫汉·辛格在那里任教已经过去很久了，所以没有人认识他或他的儿子。她想要的仅仅是她同父异母兄弟的名字，但没有人能告诉她。这感觉毫无希望。“我记得坐在那里想，为什么他不直接敲门进来？我知道他的父亲是个受过教育的人——我相当确定他也一定受过教育。为什么他不寻找妈妈？”阿夫塔尔盯着ChatGPT向他展示的文章眨了眨眼。罗西刚刚醒来。他给她泡了杯咖啡，向她展示了他的发现，但她并不信服。毕竟，文章中没有提到萨温德的第一段婚姻、离婚或失散多年的儿子。“罗西不想让我失望——她知道我寻找母亲寻找得多么辛苦。”然后他再次看向文章，一张照片让他停下了脚步：那不是尼西发布的关于她母亲的众多照片之一——在那一刻，他并没有产生瞬间的认同感 © COURTESY OF NICCI DHARAY 2026年8月8日 THE WEEK --- 42

长篇阅读

萨温德（Savinder）的面孔——而是一张证书的照片，那是她的母亲 1962 年在阿姆利则（Amritsar）郊外的达里瓦尔（Dhariwal）一所学院获得的裁缝证书。“这就在我出生两三年后，而且就在我出生的那个城市。”阿夫塔尔（Avtar）深深地呼了一口气，仿佛仍然不敢相信自己所看到的。他必须了解更多。那天早上 8.36 分，他给尼西（Nicci）发了一封电子邮件，感谢她为母亲撰写的悼文。

阿夫塔尔： 特别引起我共鸣的是她与印度相关的那段生活。阅读她的旅程引发了我许多个人的疑问和反思，我发现自己觉得我们之间可能存在某种遥远的家庭或社区联系。我想向您保证，我联系您并非出于任何商业、财务或其他正式原因，仅仅是出于友好交流的精神。

尼西前一晚一直在锡克教庙（gurdwara）祈祷，并在电视上观看《失散多年的家人》（Long Lost Family）。阿夫塔尔的邮件抵达的时间，恰好是她母亲 90 岁生日的那天早晨。“太疯狂了！”尼西惊呼道，“我有一种真实的感觉。我无法解释。这就是我妈妈的儿子。一定是的。”她苦恼于如何回复，最终采用了同样友好且恭敬的语气。

尼西： 我也同样好奇我们之间是否可能存在家庭联系。我很乐意与您交谈。

她的电话号码就在邮件签名中。阿夫塔尔一看到就立即在 WhatsApp 上给她发了消息，询问什么时候可以通话。尼西仔细审视了他的 WhatsApp 头像。“他的鼻子非常有特点。我母亲家族里的每个人都有这种突出且显眼的鼻子。”她回信说——她现在就有空通话。

距离阿夫塔尔在 ChatGPT 中输入提示词仅过去了不到两个小时。他正开车带着罗西（Rosey）去买早餐的可颂面包。他停好车，点击尼西的号码拨通了电话。没有太多的开场白，阿夫塔尔太渴望最终得到答案了。

“你能告诉我一些关于你母亲在印度生活的情况吗？”他问。 “妈妈在印度结婚并离婚了，”尼西回答。 “她有孩子吗？” “有，”尼西说，“她有一个儿子。”

阿夫塔尔和罗西同时流下了眼泪。 “蒂图（Titu），是你吗？”尼西问，“你是蒂图，我母亲的儿子吗？” “是的，”阿夫塔尔回答，“我就是。但自从我小时候奶奶那样叫我以来，我就再没听过有人那样发我的绰号了。”

“在那一刻，时间仿佛凝固了，”阿夫塔尔回忆道，“但我很快恢复了过来。我说，‘你是我的姐姐。天呐——外面还有你们这样的人吗？’我从未想到过我的母亲会有家人，而且我竟然真的能见到他们。那个家庭，他们知道我的存在——每个人都知道——他们只是不谈论这件事——但我对他们完全一无所知。”

在第一次通话中，他们聊了两个小时，直到阿夫塔尔的电量快耗尽。尼西原以为他在加拿大；她不敢相信他就在法国，如此之近。“你为什么不飞过来？”她问。

阿夫塔尔感到头晕目眩。他们约定在当天晚上再次进行视频通话。随后，尼西带阿夫塔尔参观了她曾与母亲共用的客厅里展示的家庭照片。

“我当时只是把能分享的一切都告诉他。然后抽泣。然后回忆起妈妈。所有关于她渴望再次见到他却未能相见的悲痛。就像宇宙突然向我投掷了某种东西——虽然我失去了母亲，但我赢得了一个兄弟。”

几天之内，Avtar和Rosey就抵达了伦敦。Nicci给我看了一张他们第一次见面的照片，地点是在希思罗机场附近的一家酒店。他们的脸上洋溢着喜悦。“我能看出她内心强烈的情感——她寻找了我这么久，”Avtar说。“当我见到她并紧紧拥抱她时，我想，是的，这就是我的姐姐。”他们一起出去吃了晚餐，对比了各自的故事和时间线，将家人告诉他们的碎片信息拼凑在一起。第二天早上，Nicci带着Avtar和Rosey前往伯明翰，去见他们母亲唯一幸存的兄弟——他们的舅舅，他曾在Titu还是婴儿时就认识他。“他看着我说：‘我记得你。我曾把你抱在怀里，’”Avtar告诉我，眼中噙满泪水。“那是一次非常、非常棒的访问。”次日，Avtar被介绍给他的同父异母兄弟——Nicci最小的弟弟。当Nicci第一次告诉他找到了Avtar时，他感到很震惊。“他说：‘但我才是妈妈的儿子，’”Nicci笑着告诉我。“我说：‘你当然是。没有什么能改变我们的家庭。’”Nicci说，当他们最终见面时，她的弟弟与Avtar握了手。“我就知道一切都会好起来的。我的弟弟说：‘我一直想要一个哥哥。’”

“Avtar和Nicci在第一次通话中聊了两个小时，直到Avtar的手机没电了”

Avtar和Nicci都告诉我，他们不打算通过DNA检测来确认亲缘关系。他们说没有必要。“这个世界上有几十亿人口。如果有人能随机地叫我Titu……”Avtar摇了摇头。“我认为不需要更多的验证了。”

对于Nicci来说，最终找到Titu的喜悦中带着一丝苦涩，因为这对她的母亲来说太迟了。“我最大的遗憾是我没有和她谈谈关于她儿子的事情，让她为他哭一场，让她有个宣泄的机会，”她告诉我。Avtar说，他从小就相信母亲放弃他“是因为这是帮助她继续生活的最好方式。我对此并不在意。现在我从Nicci和家族其他成员那里听说，我母亲以前经常为我哭泣。这就是我需要听到的一切。知道自己被爱着，感觉真的太好了。”此外，Avtar补充道，还有“母亲给我留下的宝藏——我有这么多家人可以去结识”。

“每次看到他，我看着他就想哭，”Nicci说。“那就是我的兄弟。”她停顿了一下。“谁能想到生活会以这种方式展开？ChatGPT会找到一篇报道，进而引导至一封电子邮件，最后导致这一切？技术似乎达成了一种共鸣，就像有时星辰会连成一线一样。”

他的同父异母兄弟则看法不同。“目前，AI仍然是一个美化后的搜索引擎。它是一段能够识别字符序列中模式的软件，”他说。尽管正是因为ChatGPT乐于抓取博客并提供个人信息才让他找到了母系家庭，但他对于向大科技公司提供数据的抵触心理并未减轻。如果Avtar选择询问另一个AI，他可能根本找不到Nicci。当他回到加拿大后，纯粹为了好玩，他将同样的提示词输入到Anthropic的Claude中。“它回答说：‘我们不想侵犯任何人的隐私，因此我们不提供该信息，’”Avtar告诉我。然后他耸了耸肩。“我认为这是一个很好的回答。”

本文的更详尽版本发表在《卫报》上

© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited © 图片提供：AVTAR / ENVIH THE WEEK 2026年8月8日

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纵横字谜 43

《THE WEEK》纵横字谜 1528

首位在 8 月 17 日星期一开启后提交正确字谜答案及“本周线索”的人，将获得两本 Connell 指南和两件 The Week 品牌商品。请将其发送至 The Week Crossword 1528, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR，或将完成的网格 / 答案列表发送至电子邮件 crossword@theweek.co.uk。

作者：Paul McKenna

本周的获胜者将收到 The Week 品牌商品以及两本 Connell 指南 (connellguides.com)。

横向

1 保持准备状态，同时也为了工会提议 (8) 6 奇怪的场景涉及一次跨越分歧的会议？ (6) 9 虚假的且令人不快的，社会被抛弃，精准 (6) 10 恒星灼烧各种零碎之物 (8) 11 钱包上的拉链——服务中的一对之一？ (6,3) 12 像旧脚一样带有压迫麻烦——使用过于频繁？ (5) 14 最公正的，愤怒被公司持有 (7) 15 与招聘负责人取得联系，退出承诺 (7) 17 滴水在小帕克中是新的 (7) 19 练习滑动动作的区域，孩子在桥上 (7) 22 冷关节，即监狱 (5) 24 最后被精灵帮助的人？ (9) 26 提供教堂氛围，作为可以安顿下来的东西 (8) 27 参议员可以放松吗？ (6) 28 仅用石头磨利 (6) 29 渴望离去？问题返回以涉及更多成本 (8)

纵向

2 重复，我以奇幻的方式评价树 (9) 3 靠在花丛中演奏谋生的人 (7) 4 非凡的！法国人在人民革命的开始 (10) 5 穿着更少地锻炼，也许 (6) 6 儿子带着意图离开 (4) 7 审视葡萄酒，那里可能是某些假期的起点 (7) 8 长矛沸腾而无意外 (5) 13 储备葡萄酒库存，据报道，为了一个商店 (10) 16 冷静的人，他为了做出改变而将一种类型卷起 (9) 18 寻找缺陷，渴望华丽的自信 (7) 20 在慢炖炖菜的最后一部分徘徊 (4,3) 21 小家伙拥抱那个女人的甜美孩子 (6) 23 最终航行在缓慢的传奇船上 (5) 25 交易被包裹起来，我们听到了 (4)

姓名： 地址： 电话： 本周线索答案：

Paul McKenna 本周线索：扰乱的拉丁语大师？ (12) 线索编写竞赛获胜者，《星期日泰晤士报》

纵横字谜 1526 答案

横向： 1 Take the biscuit 10 Ropes 11 Narration 12 Solvers 13 Enhance 14 Snips 16 Antipasto 19 Big cheese 20 Yacht 22 Later on 25 Toaster 27 Artichoke 28 Truss 29 Simple interest

纵向： 2 Appalling 3 Ensue 4 Handshake 5 Borne 6 Slaphappy 7 Union 8 Tangelo 9 Crisis 15 Spherical 17 Treatment 18 Secateurs 19 Ballads 21 Thrust 23 Totem 24 Naomi 26 Alter

本周线索：削弱书中的装订 (9,4) 答案：WATERSHIP DOWN (hip in [waters down])

1526 期的获胜者是来自考文垂的 Janet Bloom。

《The Week》可通过 RNIB Newsagent 获取，旨在造福盲人及视障读者。 0303-123 9999, rnib.org.uk / newsagent

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[数据参考] 以下原文数字因单位格式转换可能未在译文中完整体现（供参考）：3376696241、26425.64、350000、200000、575000、100000

A Hiroshima survivor's life- changing day

PEOPLE P8

The family reunited by an AI chatbot

LONG READ P40

A bitter plagiarism row at Cambridge

TALKING POINTS P17

THE WEEK

8 AUGUST 2026 | ISSUE 1604

THE BEST OF THE BRITISH AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

The Fifa scandal

How Infantino's plan backfired

Page 2

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS

theweek.com

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2 NEWS

The main stories...

What happened

The Ceuta crisis

The EU was plunged into an unprecedented border crisis last Thursday, when some 72,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in the space of 24 hours. At least 141 people died as groups of mainly young men rushed across the land border or swam to the city of 85,000, which lies at the tip of a promontory bordering Morocco. Spain's PM, Pedro Sánchez, blamed the influx on criminal gangs, and called it an "attack, a violation of Spain's territorial integrity". In response, France tightened security on its Spanish border and Italy suspended the border-free Schengen agreement with Spain – a step that was backed by Finland and Denmark, but provoked fury in Madrid.

By Wednesday, all but 2,000 of the migrants were back in Morocco. Among those still in Ceuta were more than 500 unaccompanied minors, who will, under Spanish law, have to be taken to Spain for their cases to be processed. Some of the migrants who reached Ceuta said they had seen social media posts promising work opportunities there; others said they'd been encouraged to cross by Moroccan authorities.

What the editorials said

Last week's disorder in Ceuta "sent political waves" crashing across Europe, said The Sunday Times. It led to intense criticism of Sánchez's liberal economic policies, including his amnesty scheme, which could legalise the status of more than 500,000 irregular migrants; and it triggered scrutiny of a recent Spanish supreme court ruling that migrants who reach Ceuta by sea cannot be summarily returned. Morocco says it had warned Madrid that this could lead to chaos on the border. Italy's Schengen suspension was a "performative overreaction", said The Guardian: Ceuta isn't covered by Schengen, and Spain and Italy don't share a border. But with hard-right parties ready to pounce on any signs of weakness on migration, it's no surprise that EU leaders resorted to finger-pointing.

Migrants near the border

Madrid has not publicly blamed Morocco for the influx, said The Economist. But Rabat has a history of weaponising the border. In 2021, it let 8,000 people "wade into Ceuta" during a spat with Spain; and its border guards were conspicuously absent last week. Possibly, Rabat had been irked by Sánchez's recent visit to Algeria, which refuses to recognise Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

What happened

Infantino's own goal

The most powerful man in football, Fifa's president, Gianni Infantino, faced a furious backlash last week after it emerged that he was seeking to create a £15bn commercial subsidiary that would control the rights to the World Cup. Under the deal, a 20% stake in the body was due to be sold to an investment group led by Joshua Kushner, brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared. Football federations expressed outrage at the plan, complaining that they had been blindsided.

The criticism was led by Europe's governing body, Uefa, which declared a loss of confidence in Infantino's leadership and threatened to boycott global tournaments if the "shabby, backroom, opaque deal" went ahead. Other federations representing North and Central America, and Asia, then joined the protest. In the face of the mounting opposition, Infantino abandoned the proposal on Saturday. But with the support of friendlier football associations, mainly in Africa and South America, he resisted calls to stand down.

What the editorials said

When the final whistle of the World Cup blew last month, Infantino's position looked "impregnable", said the FT. The tournament had proved a "dazzling success", in both sporting and commercial terms. But it's hard to see how his leadership can survive the backlash to his sell-off deal. Infantino has no alternative but to resign "with as much grace as he can muster", agreed The Independent. When he took over from the disgraced Sepp Blatter ten years ago, he promised to reform Fifa. But while he brought some positive changes, paying more attention to the women's game and boosting African participation in the World Cup, he has now well and truly blotted his copybook.

A "backroom, opaque deal"

There's nothing wrong in principle with seeking to wring more money from the World Cup, said The Observer. Commercial deals have brought many improvements to the professional game over the years, not least by helping to pay for safer stadiums. If extra revenues from Fifa's showcase tournament were used to upgrade facilities in developing countries, that would be welcome. It was the venal manner in which Infantino cooked up this scheme that offended.

It wasn't all bad

The French boy who was thrown off the viewing gallery at Tate Modern in 2019 is smiling again, his parents say. The boy was six, and visiting London with his family, when he was attacked by Jonty Bravery, who was later jailed for attempted murder. He fell 30 metres and suffered life-altering injuries. But after years of treatment, he returned to school at the end of last term for specially adapted classes – which was "a great joy to him", said his parents, and "put a smile back on his face".

A 42-year-old New Zealander has set a new record for the Via Alpina – one of the world's toughest endurance races. Sophie Woods started in Italy, on 4 July, and then ran 2,000km through seven more countries along the length of the Alps, ending up in Monaco. Along the way, she climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest 12 times. She also faced intense heat, storms, a swarm of horseflies and wildfires. The British runner Jake Catterall set the previous record for the Via Alpine of 35 days in 2024. Woods did it in 29, running 15 to 18 hours a day. "I am ecstatic but knackered," she told the BBC.

A woman who was told at her 20-week scan that her unborn baby's intestines were growing outside his abdomen has become only the third in the world to have the defect fixed in the womb. Maisie Savage and her partner Josh French, from London, flew to the US for the operation, in which the intestines were gently pushed back in using keyhole surgery. Their son, Theo, was born naturally three months later, and was discharged four days after that. Usually babies with gastroschisis require months of treatment; one in ten die.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

COVER CARTOON: ANT BLADES

© ZOE SALT PHOTOGRAPHY

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...and how they were covered

NEWS 3

What the commentators said

Ever since the 2015 refugee crisis, EU leaders have been making bold pledges to boost border security, said Ben Pawlowski in The i Paper. But the reality is that “no European government, whether on the Left or the Right, has found a durable solution” to irregular migration; and the images from Ceuta – where reception centres were pushed to “breaking point” and migrants slept on beaches and in parks – were a stark visual reminder of the EU’s failure to get a grip. After finding shops closed, and with nothing to eat or drink, almost all of those who reached Ceuta quickly left again, said Laila Lalami in The Nation. “What looked to be a massive humanitarian crisis was defused almost as soon as it started.” Yet that didn’t stop “Maga and its European friends” scaremongering about an “invasion”, said Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. US Vice-President J.D. Vance shared a Fox News segment that incorrectly described migrants arriving in “northern Spain”; Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick suggested they were heading for Britain. Their claims were baseless – but they still spread like wildfire on social media.

Ironically, irregular crossings to Europe have fallen sharply this year, said Peter Conradi in The Sunday Times. But with migration remaining a “highly divisive issue”, there is growing support in the EU for a Rwanda-style scheme under which asylum seekers are processed offshore. But to build a fortress is not enough, said William Hague in The Times. Leaders across Europe must also look over the horizon at what’s happening elsewhere in the world. Take the Sahel region of northern Africa. Populations there are forecast to soar in the decades to come, with climate change, Islamist insurgencies and civil war threatening to unleash vast waves of migration. Yet the West has allowed itself to be forced out of the region in recent years. It has surrendered influence to Russia and China; and it seems to have no coherent strategy for winning it back. That may prove to be a costly error. Unless Western countries find ways to help bring stability to those countries, and lay the groundwork for reforms that will create opportunities for their young populations, people will soon be moving in numbers that “no fortress” can keep out.

Infantino is utterly shameless, said Jim White in The Daily Telegraph. Having already tried to ingratiate himself with Trump by, among other things, presenting him with a ludicrous Fifa Peace Prize, he sought to curry more favour with the president by holding out the prospect of another prize: a “family slice of a much bigger World Cup, held every two years, as often as not on US soil”. When the scheme, from which the Fifa president stood to profit personally, was exposed, Infantino then sought to force it through by presenting federations with an ultimatum to back the deal by mid-September or lose out on millions in potential funding. “Thankfully the FA, and the other members of Uefa, were having none of it.” Infantino’s humiliation is a “delicious modern morality tale”, said Jon Sopel in The i Paper. He thought he could get away with acting like Trump, ignoring critics and pursuing his own interests with brazen impunity, but he has now received a punishing reality check.

About time, said Oliver Brown in The Sunday Telegraph. Football’s leading bodies have for too long given a free pass to Infantino. They said nothing about his insidious expansion of powers and tolerated his “unctuousness around despotic leaders”, clapping “like seals” when he orchestrated the “charade of Saudi Arabia’s unopposed bid for the 2034 World Cup”. Finally, they’ve “rediscovered some semblance of a moral compass”. There’s a clear “geopolitical subtext” to this row, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. Europeans, who have suffered many bruising experiences at the hands of the second Trump administration, have relished the chance to win a proxy victory over the president. Just as China has fought back against Trump’s tariffs by exploiting its dominance of rare earths, so Europe has now leveraged its dominance of football to lethal effect. One can imagine it winning a “global cheese war” by similar means. “The old continent’s victory over Fifa and the Americanisation of football will provide only fleeting satisfaction – unless the Europeans can develop power over a few important things.”

THE WEEK

containing passports, mobile phones, medication, cash and drinking water, so that you’re ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Such was the advice issued last week by the British Red Cross to tourists travelling to fire-prone parts of France, Spain and Italy. The instructions are hard to square with the idea of a relaxing holiday, but they’re a sign of the times. Raging wildfires and tourist evacuations have become a grim feature of the Mediterranean holiday season. Consumer choices are evolving in response to the trend. Searches for “coolcations” are reportedly on the rise. Holidaymakers are increasingly opting for countries such as Norway, Switzerland and Canada. According to the online agent Opodo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Geneva have been the most sought-after destinations this summer for Britons looking for cool-weather city breaks. More people are also choosing not to head abroad and instead enjoy the sunny weather at home on staycations. But old habits die hard. Memories of this long, hot summer will dissipate swiftly for most people once temperatures drop and the evenings start closing in. In a few weeks, it will all seem like a distant dream. And in the chilly depths of winter, when people’s thoughts turn to booking their summer getaways, many will once again feel that atavistic urge to head for the Med.

Harry Nicolle

What next?

Officials in Ceuta have asked for more help from Madrid to look after hundreds of unaccompanied migrant minors there. With limited access to food, water, shelter and sanitation, many of the minors are living in “absolutely unsustainable” conditions, warned Ceuta’s leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, who has criticised Madrid’s “late and clearly insufficient” initial response to the crisis.

Plans are being made for another mass influx to Ceuta on 15 August, El País reports. In Facebook and WhatsApp groups, thousands of Moroccans are said to be debating whether these are viable, or a ploy by gangs to lure people to the area and get them to buy a spot on a boat.

What next?

Until this row, Infantino had looked on track to be re-elected unopposed next March for a fourth and final term, taking his Fifa presidency to 2031. The nomination deadline for challengers is 18 November.

If Infantino continues to fight calls to resign, Fifa’s 211 members have the option of calling an emergency congress and staging a vote of no-confidence. Forty-three of the governing body’s members would need to request such a meeting, and 106 votes would be needed to secure the no-confidence motion, which would have to be approved by a majority of members.

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8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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4 NEWS

Politics

Controversy of the week

The Farage slump

“Not so long ago he was ‘Britain’s next prime minister’,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. Today, Nigel Farage seems a rather deflated figure. For the first time in 15 months, some polls are putting his Reform UK party in second place to Labour. Last week, Reform came a distant second in the Greater Manchester mayoral election. Farage’s own popularity has slumped to 32% – the lowest net rating of any major party leader. And he is currently trapped in an “end-of-the-pier show in Clacton” of his own making, as he prepares for next week’s by-election against Count Binface, Baron Von Thunderclap and other novelty candidates. Meanwhile, questions continue to be asked about Reform’s finances and Farage’s acceptance last year of a £5m gift from Christopher Harborne, which intensified last week when it emerged that he had, by then, discussed returning as Reform’s leader.

The Reform UK leader this week

Desperate to change the subject, Farage announced “Operation Fortress” this week – a plan to use the Navy to force migrant boats back to France. It is a ludicrous idea, said The Independent. Paris has already warned that such pushbacks would violate French sovereignty and breach international law. That Farage came up with it shows how much trouble he and his party are in. Let’s not get carried away, said Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. “Reform is in a rut”, but Farage is still attracting “adoring crowds” in Clacton, and many polls are still putting Reform on 24%, neck-and-neck with Labour. Concern about migration remains a highly potent issue with voters. And when Andy Burnham’s honeymoon ends, as it surely will (see page 16), Farage is likely to bounce back. He tends to perform best when his back is against the wall, said Tim Ross on Politico. Farage’s core support has only “solidified as a result of his recent difficulties”: his approval ratings have risen 13 points among Reform voters since May. They believe “the Establishment” is “intent on punishing the people’s champion” and is out to get Farage. They are standing by their man.

But Farage can’t rely on the diehards to get him to No. 10, said David Frost in The Daily Telegraph. There are not enough of them. He has achieved extraordinary things as leader, but Reform is now sitting on a plateau beneath the summit. There are “two possible routes up off it”. He could double down on immigration and the culture wars, which would shore up the base, but there is a ceiling on the number of voters who favour that tear-it-all-down approach. Or he could turn Reform into a broad-spectrum party, calling for deregulation, public-sector reform and tax cuts, to attract residual Tory votes. But is Farage the man to lead that party, asked Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. He is so divisive, some voters will do anything to keep Reform candidates out, and his brand is becoming more toxic. Reform needs to decide if it is a serious party or a “monument to one man’s folly”.

Spirit of the age

Morrisons is trialling Airpowered smart trolleys that promise to bring “the convenience of online shopping” to physical stores. Already widely used in supermarkets in the US, the trolleys recognise items as they are put in. They can weigh and price vegetables; update the tally when items are removed, and alert the shopper to multi-buy discounts. The tech allows shoppers to put their goods straight into bags and see how much their bill is coming to as they navigate the aisles, before paying it at a dedicated checkout.

M&S, long known as a purveyor of sensible women’s undies, has raised eyebrows by introducing a range of crotchless thongs. They feature as part of a new Ann Summers range at the store.

Good week for:

Mixed luck, after an Italian woman, who threw away a €1m instant-win lottery ticket, managed to claim the prize with the help of a team of local refuse workers. By the time she realised her mistake, the rubbish bin in question had been collected, but officials were able to stop the truck before it got to a dump. The team then unloaded the waste and combed through it, until they found the ticket – still intact.

MI6, which is the strongest foreign intelligence service in Europe, according to a peer review by 60 professionals from 25 countries. In particular, the Secret Intelligence Service was praised for its expertise in recruiting high-level moles and penetrating ruling elites in China, Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Resilience, after a hiker who was impaled by his own trekking pole decided to brave the ten-mile return journey unaided. David Cifaldi, a nurse, was climbing with two friends in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana when he slipped and his pole pierced through his torso. Rather than pay for a helicopter rescue, he decided to walk off the mountain.

Bad week for:

British comedy, with the axing of the BBC’s Live at the Apollo series, after 22 years. Other programmes being taken off air to save costs include Blankety Blank and Celebrity Mastermind.

Ariana Grande, the American actress and singer, who announced that she would be taking a break from her career, owing to “endless, ongoing public scrutiny”. The 33-year-old has faced intense speculation about her weight and physical appearance.

Early-release scheme

The Government has excluded those convicted of rape and serious child sex offences from the new early-release scheme. Announcing the move before he went on holiday this week, the PM Andy Burnham said that he’d have liked to have gone further, but that prisons in England and Wales are too close to capacity for that to be possible. The news that some killers will still be freed after serving only half of their sentences caused outrage in certain quarters, alongside questions about which child sex offences are not serious. Jason Hogg, head of the Thames Valley Police, said that he might join in legal action to block the release of two men convicted in 2020 of the manslaughter of PC Andrew Harper.

Police data stolen

Hackers have obtained the names and work email addresses of more than 100,000 police staff in England and Wales and posted them on the dark web. A group called ExfilSquad is believed to be responsible for the hack on the Police National Legal Database. The same group is believed to have recently stolen 607,000 pieces of sensitive data in cyberattacks on the Department for Education.

Poll watch

Labour members see health as the biggest challenge facing Britain, cited by 43%, followed by the economy (42%), the cost of living (39%) and climate change (29%). By contrast, only 7% cite welfare benefits, and 6% immigration. And while 47% think the Government is spending too much on welfare, 21% think it is not spending enough. However, 73% of Labour members say the Government should spend more on social care through higher taxes (either general taxation or on higher earners alone). ThinkLabour/The Guardian

One in ten adults in households subject to a hosepipe ban say they won’t be abiding by it; a further 5% are undecided. Some 10% say they’d report a neighbour flouting the ban. YouGov/The Independent

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Europe at a glance

NEWS 5

Copenhagen

Army boost:

A 19-year-old princess was one of around 1,600 young Danes who began military service this week, as part of a significant expansion of the country's conscription

policy. Princess Isabella (pictured), King Frederik X and Queen Mary's daughter, will serve for 11 months. Under the Danish system, volunteers make up the first intake. Then, if there is a shortfall in numbers, conscription becomes mandatory – with recruits selected via a lottery. Previously, conscripts served for four months and women were not subject to the mandatory lottery. The annual number of conscripts is set to rise from 5,000 to 7,500 by 2033.

Paris

Expulsion order: France has ordered a Russian journalist to leave the country for allegedly disseminating misinformation, orchestrated by Moscow, to “destabilise public order”. Xenia Fedorova, 45, ran the French arm of the Russian state-owned news channel RT until it was banned following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine; since then, she has been a regular commentator on media platforms owned by the conservative French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, including CNews, which has been characterised as “France’s Fox News”. Her Russia-friendly views, on issues such as Nato and European security, had come under increased scrutiny ahead of France’s presidential election in 2027. She has described herself as the victim of state censorship; the decision to expel her has also been sharply criticised by senior members of the far-right National Rally.

Moscow

Drone attacks: Seven people, including three children, were killed this week when a Ukrainian drone crashed onto a beach on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Officials said the debris had also injured 40 people, at the busy resort of Arkhipo-Osipovka. Russian officials described it as a “deliberate attack” on the civilian population. Ukraine insists that it does not target civilians; there has been speculation that the drone had been intercepted, and that its target was a naval base. Russia also blamed Ukraine for a bombing at a restaurant in Moscow that killed at least five people. Unconfirmed reports have suggested that a senior Russian military officer had been celebrating his birthday at the restaurant. This week, Ukraine carried out further attacks on Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer; five people were reported to have been killed. On Wednesday, a Russian ballistic missile attack killed at least 20 people in the Kyiv area.

Moscow

Terror charge: Russia has charged Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, with facilitating terrorism. The Kremlin says he failed to prevent Ukrainian secret service agents using the platform to recruit people to carry out sabotage and terror attacks in Russia. Shortly after Durov was charged, Telegram’s X/Twitter account posted a picture of him holding up his middle finger. Durov, who has lived abroad since 2014 and holds French and UAE passports, has previously criticised Moscow for restricting access to Telegram in Russia as part of its crackdown on internet freedom. Moscow has issued an international arrest warrant for him, but it is not clear which countries would comply with it.

Budapest

Danube drought: Water levels on the Danube have fallen so low that Hungary’s only working nuclear power plant – which is cooled by river water – came within a whisker of having to be taken completely offline this week. The Paks plant, which produces nearly a third of the electricity consumed in Hungary, started to reduce its output in July. As of this week, it was running at about 10% of its normal capacity, leaving the country reliant on emergency imports. In Romania, the armed forces used a controlled explosion to blast away a rock formation that was impeding the flow of water to its last working reactor at Cernavoda. This plant is also working at reduced capacity and facing a total shutdown if water levels fall any further. France is facing similar problems owing to rising river-water temperatures.

As the Danube’s waters have fallen to near-record lows, river cruises have had to be cancelled, and various objects on the riverbed have been exposed, including the wrecks of Nazi warships and the remains of a woolly mammoth. Shipping and tourism have also been seriously disrupted on the Rhine. In Greece, thousands of people have had to flee fires on the mainland and on the island of Crete; in the Athens area, two people were killed this week when two firefighting helicopters collided.

Kherson, Ukraine

Drone “safari”: Ukraine accused Russia of war crimes this week, after a video emerged of a Russian drone hunting down a street vendor in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. The footage of the “human safari” was shared on social media by Ukraine’s President Zelensky, who said it proves that Russia has “gone mad”, and its soldiers “take pleasure in killing”. In the clip, the drone can be seen hovering above the man, identified as a 52-year-old greengrocer named Yuriy, as he unloads his wares, then chasing him as he runs around his van to get away from it. It finally swoops towards him and explodes. He survived the blast but was hospitalised with multiple shrapnel wounds. Kyiv says that Russian operators routinely use drones to terrorise civilians near the front lines; a UN report in 2025 found that Russians “recurrently” kill civilians by targeting them with drones.

Catch up with daily news at theweek.com

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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6 NEWS

The world at a glance

Washington DC

“Slush fund”: Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally rescinded President Trump’s plan to create a $1.8bn “anti-weaponisation” fund. The fund – agreed to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed against the Internal Revenue Service over a leak of his tax return – was set up to compensate individuals deemed to have been unfairly prosecuted by previous administrations. Its critics warned that it could lead to payouts for Trump supporters convicted of assaulting police officers during the Capitol riots. Two Republican senators were so angered by what one called a “payout pot for punks”, they had threatened to block the appointment of Blanche – Trump’s former personal lawyer – as attorney general unless he withdrew it. They have since agreed to support his nomination, which was expected to pass when it went to the Senate floor, despite vehement opposition from Democrats.

Washington DC

Robot ban: The US has banned the import of humanoid and quadruped robots, saying they posed “unacceptable risks” to national security. Among other things, officials

cited the possibility of “malign actors” taking remote control of robots, or using them to gather data on Americans. China, which is the world’s largest exporter of such robots, accused the US of using security concerns as a pretext for protectionist measures.

San Jose, California

eBay payout: eBay and three of its former senior executives have agreed to pay $56m to settle a case brought by a couple from Massachusetts who were stalked and harassed by the firm’s employees. In 2019, David and Ina Steiner, who ran an e-commerce blog critical of eBay, started getting death threats online. They received a funeral wreath and boxes of live cockroaches in the post. Hardcore porn addressed to David was sent to their neighbour, and their car was vandalised. It turned out that executives at eBay had been troubled by the Steiners’ blog, and one of them had ordered staff to “take her down”. Seven employees were convicted of criminal charges over the scandal in 2022; some were jailed. The $56m settles a civil suit.

Atotonilco el Alto, Mexico

Cartel arrest: A prominent leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel suspected of two high-profile killings was captured in Mexico’s Jalisco state last week. Prosecutors have linked Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala to the murder of Valeria Márquez (left), the 23-year-old influencer who was shot dead while livestreaming at her beauty salon in May 2025. She had previously been in a relationship with his son. Álvarez Ayala is also accused of

orchestrating the assassination of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, at a Day of the Dead festival last November.

Washington DC

Pool row: US prosecutors have dropped charges against a former Olympic canoeist who had been accused of vandalising the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in Washington DC. David Hearn, 67, was one of several people charged with deliberately damaging the 2,028ft pool, which has suffered from algae blooms and peeling paint since its $14m renovation this year, in which it was given an “American flag blue” spray-on lining. President Trump – who had reportedly awarded the no-bid contract for the job to a firm that had previously worked on a pool at one of his resorts – repeatedly blamed “Radical Left Lunatics” for the damage. The US attorney for Washington, Jeanine Pirro, initially agreed, but in a filing last Friday, she blamed it on a “botched” installation. Trump has suggested that he may now fire her.

Washington DC

No comment: Dr Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times as he declined to answer questions at a Senate hearing on the Covid-19 crisis last week. Fauci – a former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who oversaw the US’s pandemic response – said he believed that Republicans would try to trap him into contradicting his previous testimony, so that they could have him prosecuted for perjury. Among other things, Republicans accuse Fauci, 85, of funding risky research at the Wuhan lab, and of covering up evidence that the Covid-19 virus leaked from there. Joe Biden gave Fauci a pardon protecting him from prosecution for actions up to 2025, but it would not apply to instances of perjury now. Fauci has said that any apparent contradictions in his views over time simply reflect the evolution of his understanding of the crisis.

São Paulo, Brazil

Re-election bid: Brazil’s 80-year-old Leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, officially launched his

re-election bid in São Paulo on Sunday, declaring himself to be in “great shape” to assuage concerns that he is too old to serve a fourth term. In the same speech, Lula also said he would protect his country’s critical minerals from foreign control – seen as a thinly veiled reference to his right-wing rival Flávio Bolsonaro’s close ties to the Trump administration. Days earlier, Lula had accused two American officials, both of whom were recently denied visas to Brazil, of trying to interfere with October’s election. The pair had reportedly been due to meet Bolsonaro, who is running instead of his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

© INZITAGRAVE

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The world at a glance

NEWS 7

Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories

Major milestone: In a deal hailed by President Trump as a “major milestone” on the path to peace in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to hand over weapons to a Palestinian governing committee in return for a staged withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip. Control of Gaza would then pass to a technocratic Palestinian administration.

Hamas has long treated surrender of its weapons

as non-negotiable, so this is a potentially momentous concession. However, the deal was made with mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey working through the US-led Board of Peace, which Trump set up in January, and though Hamas negotiator Ghazi Hamad claims this is a major concession being made “for the sake of our people” in Gaza, Israel remains deeply sceptical about Hamas’s willingness to hand over anything more than a token number of arms. Tel Aviv has yet to comment officially, though the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has already dismissed the plan as unacceptable. Violence in Gaza has continued despite October’s ceasefire: more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since it came into effect. This week saw at least 18 people killed in the latest strikes by Israeli aircraft, according to Palestinian officials.

Tehran

Deal or no deal?: At the urging of Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump has called off the strike against Iran which he'd vowed would be the "biggest attack since World War II". Trump claimed he had done so because Tehran had begged for a meeting and that negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were "on right now". "I want to give them every last chance" before proceeding, he told reporters. However, Iranian officials have scoffed at his claim, saying Tehran has no plans to negotiate. The denial sparked a furious reaction from Trump on Truth Social. "Iranian leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting then say, openly and proudly, they're not having any discussions. Nothing gets through unless a deal or total surrender is accomplished. IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!"

Broad Peak, Pakistan

Climbing tragedy: Nirmal Purja, the renowned British-Nepali mountain climber, has died in a Himalayan avalanche. The 43-year-old former British Special Forces soldier, who shot to fame in 2019 after scaling the world's 14 highest peaks in a record 189 days, was leading an expedition up the western ridge of Broad Peak mountain (8,051m), when the avalanche struck. The nine other climbers with Purja were also killed. Seven bodies, including Purja's, have been retrieved. Three remain missing.

Bunia, DRC

Ebola crisis: The Ebola outbreak first detected in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in mid-May has turned into the second largest in history, the number of recorded infections (3,802) eclipsing the almost 3,500 cases identified during the epidemic that struck DRC between 2018 and 2020. The health ministry has confirmed 1,707 deaths, a fatality rate of 44.9%. Last week, 567 cases and 296 fatalities were recorded – the highest weekly totals of the outbreak so far, with the WHO warning of the “exceptional pace of transmission”. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for the rare Bundibugyo strain of the disease behind the current epidemic, but a vaccine trial did get under way in the UK last month.

Naypyidaw

First step: Aung San Suu Kyi, the former leader of Myanmar, was photographed meeting Red Cross officials this week – the first confirmed foreign contact with her in five years. The 81-year-old's

whereabouts have been largely unknown since her elected civilian government was ousted in a military coup in 2021, and there had been concerns about her health. However, in the photos she does appear to be healthy. Her son, Kim Aris, who has long demanded proof from the ruling junta that she is still alive, welcomed the news as an “important first step” before adding – “but it must not be the last”.

Seoul

Heatwave deaths: Seoul has issued the capital's first-ever severe heat warning, as South Korea reels from a heatwave that has been linked to at least 19 deaths. The emergency measure went into effect across Seoul on Tuesday, two days after the southeastern city of Yangsan experienced temperatures of 42.5°C, the highest ever detected in the country since recordings began in 1904. In Seoul, nurses were sent to check on the 63,000 most vulnerable residents this week, while a fleet of 200 trucks sprayed water on roads across the city to cool the surrounding air.

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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8 NEWS

People

Surviving Hiroshima

There were 350,000 people in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 – the day the US dropped the first atomic bomb over the city. One of those people, says Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian, was Koko Kondo – then an eight-month-old baby. Miraculously, she and her mother survived – as did her father, Rev Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who was in another part of the city. In the years that followed, Tanimoto would tell his daughter that she was the only baby in the area who had lived, and that she had a duty to tell the world what had happened. But she wasn’t having it. “‘No, sir,’ I told him. ‘Not me.’ I didn’t want to share in the trauma, or make it mine,” she says. Still, she saw its impact every day: her father had taken in older girls who’d been terribly disfigured, and Koko came to regard them as sisters, vowing revenge on the people responsible for their suffering. “I said, I’m going to find the people who flew the B-29 Enola Gay and I’m going to give them a punch or bite or kick.” Incredibly, in 1955, she got the chance to do just that. By then, her father was well known in the US for his work campaigning on behalf of Hiroshima’s victims. He was invited onto the US version of the TV series This Is Your Life; but what he didn’t know was that Captain Robert A. Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay, was also appearing, as a surprise guest. As her stunned father awkwardly shook hands with Lewis, Koko watched from the

audience. “I will never forget that day.” At first, she stared at Lewis, disbelieving. “I thought he was a monster.” But as he read out his famous words of remorse – “My God, what have we done?” – and choked back tears, she reconsidered. “I never heard of tears coming out of a monster’s eyes,” she recalls thinking. “So this person must be a human like me.”

A classicist on The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan has cited the first line of Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of Homer’s Odyssey as an inspiration for his screen adaptation. But Wilson – who chairs the classics department at Pennsylvania University – is not a fan of his film. She says that, though “humbled to learn” that Nolan had looked at her text, she’d “be ashamed to have written any part” of the film. It is admittedly not boring – but “it didn’t land emotionally for me at all”, she explained to Madeleine Spence in The Sunday Times – “which I think is partly about the fact that, unlike Homer, it’s not very well written”. The characters, she adds, “don’t have the kind of depth Homeric characters have. I felt, ‘Do I really care if this guy gets back to his wife?’ You haven’t given me any reason to.” Matt Damon’s Odysseus is neither as “clever” nor as “funny” as Homer’s hero. As for the women’s roles, the movie is “great by Nolan standards”; but “by Homer standards, it was a bit disappointing”. Worse still, “there’s no sex, and none of the food looks very nice”.

A milliner to the stars, Philip Treacy has made hats for everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Lady Gaga. He got his break in the 1980s, when he crossed paths with Isabella Blow. The maverick fashion editor became his champion, and his friend. But more than that, says Bethan Holt in The Daily Telegraph, she introduced him to “fashion in its purest form”. Back then, says Treacy, “people didn’t applaud extrovert dressers at all like they do now”. If they went out to dinner, “I’d have to take a sharp intake of breath before we walked in because the whole restaurant would just stop, and they didn’t look thrilled... But she didn’t see that.” Not that it troubled him: the village in Ireland in which he had grown up was “full of eccentrics, so I was well prepared”. Blow died in 2007; but “she still inspires me”, he says – and after almost four decades in the business, he’s still at the top of his game: Madonna wore him to this year’s Met Gala and he’s the go-to milliner for the royals. That said, the industry is not what it was. “The conglomerates have changed it because it’s about profit more than creativity,” he says. Even top designers can quickly “find themselves out of a job” if profits don’t match expectations; most now work as part of big teams, at a frantic pace. “Fashion is an illusion,” he says. “People don’t realise how Wizard of Oz it is. It’s pretending everything’s wonderful, [when] behind the scenes it’s less so.”

Castaway of the week

This week’s edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs featured the businesswoman Emma Grede

1. 1 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, performed by Diana Ross
2. 2 Superwoman by L.A. Reid, Babyface and Daryl Simmons, performed by Karyn White
3. 3 Show Me Love by Allen George and Fred McFarlane, performed by Robin S
4. 4 Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, written and performed by Ryuichi Sakamoto
5. 5 Regulate by Warren Griffin III, Nathaniel Hale, Michael McDonald, Ed Sanford, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, performed by Warren G and Nate Dogg
6. 6* Stand By Me by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, performed by Ben E. King
7. 7 Morning Glory by Noel Gallagher, performed by Oasis
8. 8 Hometown Glory, written and performed by Adele * Choice if allowed only one record

Book: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Luxury: a mattress and crisp, clean sheets

Viewpoint:

Consolation for liberals

“A decade on from Brexit and the rise of the Maga movement, I offer one consoling thought for liberals. Populism will eat itself. More than that, populism must eat itself. A movement that admires aggression, that thrives on conflict, that regards liberalism as not just wrong but boring, cannot help but eventually rough up its own side too. You can’t seek round-the-clock confrontation with enemies – even with the media – and then become a different person with colleagues. Belligerence is just too difficult a trait to psychologically compartmentalise.”

Farewell

John Croft, Bletchley Park codebreaker, civil servant and artist, died 12 July, aged 103.

Juliet Gardiner, historian, editor and author, died 16 June, aged 82.

Glen Hansard, musician/ actor who won an original song Oscar for Once, died 29 July, aged 56.

Rod Liddle, polemical newspaper columnist and broadcaster, died 2 August, aged 66.

Vincent Pastore, actor who played “Big Pussy” in The Sopranos, died 1 August, aged 80.

© PHILIP BINDEN/TELEGRAPH MEDIA GROUP/HOLDINGS LTD

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Briefing

NEWS 11

Stranded in the Gulf

The Iran war has trapped hundreds of ships on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. What's life like for their crews?

How many sailors are stranded?

At least 6,000 seafarers are stuck on board at least 400 tankers and cargo ships, according to the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Many of the ships have been stranded in the Persian Gulf since the US-Israel war with Iran erupted in late February. "It's as if we are trapped in a pond," Shafiqul Islam, captain of a ship carrying some 37,000 tonnes of fertiliser bound for South Africa, told the BBC in June. "There's only one way out": via the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which some 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas – as well as crucial commodities including fertiliser, aluminium and helium – once flowed from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and Iran to

global markets. Before the war, more than 130 ships a day transited the strait, which is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Iran declared the waterway closed and launched missiles and drones at vessels trying to sail through, grinding traffic to a halt. At one point, up to 20,000 mariners and 2,000 ships were stuck in the Gulf, with only a few vessels squeezing through each day.

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz in June

but infrequent, because satellite phone time is limited and expensive. To protect sailors' mental health, captains encourage crews to do everything together and to never leave anyone alone – even when they dine or relax. Sailors report that access to knives and other sharp objects is more tightly controlled than normal, to prevent people from harming themselves or others. Meanwhile, food, water and medicine on many vessels are running low.

Is anything being done about that?

Boats from nearby ports are delivering supplies, but prices keep going up. One Korean sailor told the BBC that it feels like suppliers “are trying to take advantage of the situation and make excessive profits”. The engineer of one ship said the cost of 180 tonnes of water

has spiked from about $2,000 to $11,000. Fees for “bottom cleaners”, removing biofouling – barnacles, mussels, algae – from ships’ hulls have shot up, too. Scammers are also taking advantage, claiming to belong to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, they’ve tricked shipping firms into sending hefty payments to their cryptocurrency wallets in exchange for safe passage.

How were they able to get out?

India, China, Pakistan and other nations negotiated with Iran for safe passage for their flagged vessels, and some tanker operators paid Iran up to $2m for transit rights for individual ships. The logjam in the Gulf eased in June after Washington and Tehran struck a preliminary peace deal, after which about 30 ships a day were able to exit the strait. But that number dropped back to single digits earlier this month when the war restarted. For the trapped sailors – mainly from India and the Philippines, as well as from nations including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria and Ukraine (see box) – the fear of death or injury is a constant. “Everyone is just exhausted,” said captain Hassan Khan, “both physically and mentally.” While trapped on ships often loaded with explosive substances, the crews have watched missiles and drones streak overhead, and at least 17 mariners have been killed in Iranian and US strikes. Raman Kapoor, a tanker captain who had ten days left on his tour when the war erupted, watched helplessly in March as a nearby tanker exploded after being hit by an unmanned craft. One sailor died. “Everyone was so scared,” Kapoor said. “We are just seafarers. We are not trained for any war.”

What is life like on board?

Long, monotonous and very hot (daytime temperatures are usually above ( 40^{\circ} ) C in July). While the crews work to ensure their ships remain seaworthy, and films and ping-pong serve as distractions, staving off boredom and depression is a struggle. "We do our best to keep [up] morale," Abhijit Chopra, the captain of a tanker that had been stuck for more than 120 days, told Bloomberg. "But there is definitely a sense of strain and uncertainty." To entertain themselves and add some diversity to onboard meals, some crews are catching and cooking fish. Calls home are a boon,

Has there been any formal evacuation attempt?

A short-lived one. While a ceasefire was in effect in late June, the IMO began ushering ships through the strait's southern and northern corridors – avoiding the central lanes where Iran had laid mines. Some 115 ships and 2,500 sailors made it out, but the US-backed initiative was scrapped within days after Iran attacked a tanker that was not taking part in the evacuation off Oman's coast. Some sailors have taken matters into their own hands. Stuck at an Iranian port, Santosh Kumar borrowed nearly $7,000 to pay an agent to drive him some 600 miles to Armenia, where he boarded a flight to Dubai and then on to his native India. "My family just wanted me home alive," he said. But such escapes have become increasingly difficult: some Gulf Arab states have restricted short-term shore passes for sailors over security concerns. Many merchant sailors are now

wondering if the profession has become too dangerous, because the Iran war is only the latest crisis to hit the shipping industry.

A hidden workforce

Seafarers move 90% of global trade ($16.5tm worth of goods annually), yet they are largely invisible to the public. There are an estimated 2.6 million seafarers currently serving aboard 85,000 merchant vessels worldwide, according to the Seafarer Workforce Report 2026, published by the shipping association Bimco and the International Chamber of Shipping. More than half of all merchant mariners are provided by the “big five”: the Philippines, India, China, the Russian Federation and Indonesia; Poland, Romania and Ukraine are also important “supplier” nations. About a million are officers, and 1.5 million are ratings.

As ships have got bigger, and docks more automated, the number of sailors required per tonne of cargo has reduced drastically. Pay has become globalised, with most packages for able seamen around $1,200-$1,500 per month (the International Transport Workers' Federation minimum basic wage is $690 per month). Around 24,500 UK merchant mariners were at sea in 2025; a collapse from the 1970s, when there were nearly 90,000 British sailors. This was driven by British-owned vessels shifting to foreign registries (known as "flagging out") and the rise of recruitment from Asia and eastern Europe.

What have been the other crises?

Mariners were stranded at sea during the pandemic, and drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea have become routine since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen – who attacked more than 100 vessels during the war in Gaza – last month declared an embargo of Saudi Arabian shipping in the Red Sea, putting more commercial vessels in the line of fire. Merchant seamen seem increasingly wary of going to sea: companies have struggled to secure replacement crews to relieve sailors in the Gulf whose contracts have expired, despite offering substantial bonuses. The war, said Arsenio Dominguez, IMO's secretary-general, has heightened the feeling among seafarers that they are “invisible, that they are not valued.”

8 August 2026

THE WEEK

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12 NEWS

Best articles: Britain

Hang on to

your right not to have to vote

Daniel Finkelstein

The Times

How to bring

our high streets back to life

Polly Mackenzie

Financial Times

Only connect?

In this country it's not so easy

Chris Blackhurst

The Independent

Data centres

are drinking up our water

Melanie McDonagh

The Daily Telegraph

The turnout in the last UK election was under 60%; in Australia's last election it was 90%. So should we follow Australia's example and make voting compulsory, imposing a £10 fine on those who fail to vote? Some MPs and think-tanks are pushing our new PM to do so, says Daniel Finkelstein. If everyone had to participate in elections, they argue, it would make the outcome more democratic and raise trust in politics. And doubtless it would receive strong public support: people love banning stuff or making it compulsory. But it's actually an appalling idea. The new batch of press-ganged voters would be some of the country's least interested, least well-informed citizens: to win them over, politicians would be incentivised to offer all sorts of irresponsible spending promises. And forcing such people to vote, as ample studies show, does nothing to increase levels of engagement or trust in politics. It just makes people more resentful. Bad enough if voters choose unwise policies in a free election; far worse to bring about that outcome by obliging people "to do something they don't want to do".

Empty shops; boarded-up banks. That's what you see today when you walk down an English high street, says Polly Mackenzie, and if we are to reverse that decline we need to do something far more radical than tinkering with business rates. Let's start by recognising that high streets have traditionally fulfilled two separate, interlocking functions: they're retail hubs, but just as importantly, social hubs. "Footfall for goods subsidised the public realm – the benches, the safety in numbers, the reason to walk somewhere, to exchange news." The retail function is now being killed off by online shopping; but the social function doesn't have to die. It just needs a new source of footfall: housing, municipal services and college campuses can all be encouraged to move into the town centre to replace the ailing shops. That can only be done, however, if owners of empty shops are forced "to bring buildings back into use or surrender them". You can't rely on councils to do that: though they have powers to forcibly buy land for regeneration purposes, they rarely have "the capacity or confidence" to use those powers. No, what we need is "a state-backed capital vehicle – a National Trust for the high street" – to help drive the process. It's the only way to bring our town centres back to life.

The UK, we're always being told, is a leading digital economy, says Chris Blackhurst. Really? Anyone trying to get reliable Wi-Fi on a train, or who lives in one of the numerous areas blighted by patchy mobile reception, would beg to disagree. The MP and former soldier Tom Tugendhat recently complained of getting a worse signal in Dulwich than he got in Kabul a decade ago. In fact, the UK has a lower level of mobile coverage than any other G7 economy or EU member. And that's mainly down to our "ponderous" planning laws, which throw endless delays and obstacles in the way of network providers as they seek to upgrade their infrastructure. Right now, VodafoneThree has 80 mobile network sites across London off air because it's unable to find replacement buildings to host mobile masts that have been displaced by urban redevelopment projects. And "Virgin Media 02 has had 13 cracks at erecting a new mast in Paddington since 2018". It's all very well for politicians to bang on about the UK's embrace of AI and tech. But let's start with fixing the basics.

In this summer of parched parks, drought-stricken farmland and hosepipe bans, a key question is going unanswered: why are we "embracing – make that enforcing – a technology that could use nearly half the country's water"? I'm talking about AI, says Melanie McDonagh. The data processing centres on which the AI revolution relies guzzle vast quantities of water to keep computers cool and to generate electricity. And we've already set up some 564 of them. It's reported that the large-scale ones use up enough water to meet the needs of some 10,000 people. We don't have the exact figures, though, because unlike in the EU, our data centres aren't obliged to share their water-use figures. The Labour Government likes to bang on about "sustainability", yet ignores it when it comes to data centres. In Buckinghamshire and Epping Forest, ministers recently overruled council objections in a push for new sites to be built. It's time to acknowledge the environmental costs of AI and start treating it as a "rival for our most precious resource".

IT MUST BE TRUE...

I read it in the tabloids

Italian holidaymakers who complained about the sound of cowbells in an Alpine village north of Bergamo got short shrift from the local mayor. Piera Cristina Villa and her husband described the bells as "noise pollution", on Facebook and in a letter. In a mocking response on social media, Michele Villarboito said that he had asked the cows to "sign a gagging order", but that they had "responded with a very uncooperative moo".

Police in New Jersey are disguising themselves as shrubs, the better to catch drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel. On social media, the department posted a picture of an officer dressed in camouflage and holding binoculars. "Did you spot our 'shrub' today? If you had your head buried in your phone, probably not," read the caption. Police say the operation snared 74 drivers in one day last week.

The head of a startup in California has insisted that his seven-foot-tall chainsaw-wielding centaur-bot is here to help, after various memes (pictured) of the demonic creation went viral online. Beau G., of the firm Satyress, says that the "humanoid" robot will be a "futuristic helper for all mankind" – able to assist foresters and to operate in hazardous environments like wildfires. Known as Threehalves, owing to its "half-human, half-goat and half-horse" appearance, the robot is still in the prototype stage, but the

company insists that it is serious about the project. It has reassured the public that Threehalves can be deactivated, by shooting it with a gun.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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14 NEWS

Best articles: International

Trump's nuclear deal: a disaster for the Middle East?

Well, is it on or is it off? No one's quite sure, said Al Jazeera (Doha). Two weeks ago, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a multibillion-dollar deal allowing US companies to build and operate nuclear power plants on Saudi soil over the next 30 years. But a day later, President Trump added a new condition, via social media: Saudi Arabia must fall in line with the UAE and other Arab nations that have signed the Abraham Accords, and recognise the state of Israel. And that may prove a deal breaker, said David Frum in The Atlantic. Riyadh had been working towards

this landmark pact for almost two decades. Thanks to the savvy of its de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), who ensured the private equity firm of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would get its share of the billion-dollar nuclear licensing deals at stake, he almost got it over the line. But now it must surely be in doubt, said Mohamad Elmasry on Middle East Eye. Riyadh has vowed it won't normalise relations until Israel guarantees Palestinian statehood. And MbS has reportedly told US officials that hostility towards Israel is so great among Saudis in the wake of Israel's devastating war in Gaza, that to sign a normalisation treaty would probably get him assassinated.

It's obvious why the Saudis still badly want this nuclear deal, said Joseph Cirincione on MS Now (New York). It's not, as they claim, to diversify their energy profile: that makes no sense for a nation sitting on an ocean of oil and blessed with the ideal wind and solar conditions for generating renewable energy – a far cheaper option. No, the real reason is to gain atomic weapons to protect itself against its main foe: Iran. MbS has made no secret of his desire to build a bomb, and the deal would be a concrete step in that direction. Despite Trump's claims to the contrary, it appears to permit nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil, thus enabling Riyadh to follow the likes of India, Israel and Pakistan in covertly enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: savvy political operator

Who knows what'll happen if this "reckless" deal goes ahead, said Mitchell Plitnick on Mondoweiss (New York). The "gold standard" nuclear-power pact that the US signed with the United Arab Emirates in 2009 required the UAE to forego the ability to enrich uranium, and obliged it to submit to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections: this Saudi deal has no such restrictions. Which is why it would inevitably trigger a Middle East arms race, said Azriel Bermant in Foreign Policy. If the deal proceeds, Iran would openly seek its own nuclear deterrent,

something it has so far officially forsworn. "It beggars belief that the US went to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon yet now acts in a way that is an open invitation for Tehran to weaponise." And in a way that would also pour "proliferation kerosene" on Turkey and Egypt's "smoldering nuclear ambitions", said Matthew Kroenig and Henry Sokolski in The Wall Street Journal. Trump's deal invites disaster.

Actually, the US is doing the right thing, said the Washington Examiner. The hard truth is that the "era of non-proliferation is coming to an end": Pakistan and North Korea are both testing nuclear weapons. Given that sobering reality, better the US offer "a guiding hand" to the Saudis and oversee their nuclear agenda than let China or Russia fill the void. Good or bad, the deal matters a lot to the US president, said Sharon Squassoni in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago), so rumours of its death "are premature". After all, it's not some "spur-of-the-moment fantasy" cooked up by Trump. The same deal was also being considered under Joe Biden, and then too enrichment was a quid pro quo for recognising Israel. The Saudis won't do so, of course, given recent history, but they won't have to. Although Congress can disapprove the deal once it's submitted, the present Congress – due to adjourn on 18 December – is much less likely to do so than any freshly elected one. So the Saudis can "call Trump's bluff by simply sitting back" and waiting for him to succumb to the pressure of the December deadline.

INDIA

Today we have naming of body parts

Hindustan Times (New Delhi)

Historically, India has shown huge "reluctance to talk about sex", says Namita Bhandare. Mercifully, that looks set to change: the Indian government, in a "remarkable and welcome" U-turn, has finally agreed to roll out comprehensive sex education classes in schools. Now all that is required is the supreme court's approval. But what a long and torturous road it has taken to get here. Since the last attempt to introduce a sex ed curriculum in 2007, the country has been held back by "two decades of moral panic and dithering": with politicians, not least from Narendra Modi's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, insisting it goes against Indian culture and would corrupt the minds of the young. Really? "Where do these custodians think the Kama Sutra originated?" Silence about sex "has never protected young people". And to counter the toxic content found online, robust classes and frank conversations about safety and consent are needed more than ever. How badly India needs to create an "enabling environment where body parts can be named without shame". It's not fanciful to imagine that this small step on sex ed could help usher in a more "respectful, egalitarian society".

THE EU

A pathetic failure to stand up to Moscow

EU Observer (Brussels)

The EU has just set a highly "dangerous precedent", says Nezir Sinani. In a myopic move to gain unanimous approval for its 21st round of sanctions against Russia, the bloc has granted Greece a crucial exemption: EU ships will still be allowed to transport Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), if contracts for doing this were signed before Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It's a loophole created to placate Greece, and in particular Dynagas, the Greek shipping firm owned by George Prokopiou. And it's a travesty. Dynagas's five Arc7 vessels, specially designed for Arctic conditions, play a crucial role in bringing LNG from Russia's largest export terminal, Yamal LNG in Siberia, to non-EU markets. Without these ships, Russia would be in a tight spot. Yet instead of exploiting this "pressure point", the EU has "negotiated around it". The signal this sends to Moscow – that EU countries such as Greece, whose ships have transported €248bn worth of Russian fossil fuels since 2022, will fight for their own interests if big money is involved – is "precisely the wrong signal". To make a dent in Russia's war coffers and to help Ukraine, this ridiculous loophole must be closed.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Health & Science

NEWS 15

What the scientists are saying...

Early sugar linked to dementia

Eating very little sugar in early infancy may help protect the brain decades later, a study has found. Researchers looked at data on people born towards the end of the period when wartime rationing was in place, and access to sugar was very limited, and compared their outcomes with those of people born after sugar rationing was lifted in 1953. At that point, sugar consumption surged – from an estimated 41g a day, on average, to 80g. They found that those who had spent from conception to the age of one during sugar rationing were 21% less likely to have been diagnosed with dementia in later life than those born after rationing was lifted; and that those who had lived with rationing until the age of two had a 23% reduced risk. The disease also tended to develop later in the sugar-rationed group, by 2.6 years on average. The study – based on almost 65,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank project – had some limitations, however, the biggest of which was that the researchers did not establish how much sugar any of the participants had actually eaten.

Go swimming to ease back pain

People with persistent lower back pain are often tempted to reach for the painkillers – but going swimming might be a better solution, a study has found. A team at Macquarie University in Australia recruited 76 adults who'd had back trouble for at least three months and divided them into two groups. One was given an eight-week, individualised swimming programme and free access to a pool, along with four remote sessions with a physiotherapist, who, among other things, assured them that exercise can help address back pain. Those in the control group had two calls with the physio, and were otherwise asked

Children enjoying a rare treat in Kent in 1941

to carry on as normal. After two months, the swimmers – who'd been advised to build up to three 30-45 minute sessions a week – reported being in less pain, and their disability scores (based on things such as how easy they found it to get up from a chair) had halved, on average. Overall, their improvements were found to be 30% greater than those of the control group.

The trade-offs of going organic

If animal welfare is your priority, you should choose organic eggs, even over standard free-range ones; but when it comes to protecting the environment, the picture is less clear. For a new study, a team at the University of Oxford used data from UK farms in 2009/10 to compare four systems of eggs production: caged hens; barn hens, which are uncaged but live indoors; free-range hens, which have access to the outside; and free-range hens that count as organic. They concluded that,

by some metrics, the last had the worst environmental impact. Being free-range and in lower density flocks, they require more land to live on; they eat more than caged and barn hens, because they move more, and spend more time out in the cold; and their organic feed requires more land to grow. They are also less productive than caged hens, so egg for egg, they generate higher carbon emissions; and living largely outside, their waste is more likely to end up as runoff. The team calculated that switching all egg production in Britain to an organic free-range model could increase carbon emissions by 60%, and almost double the amount of land used to produce them. The researchers did not look at the overall impact on biodiversity, and they stressed that they were not advocating the use of caged systems – but simply trying to show where the trade-offs between animal welfare and environmental impact fall, in the hopes that it leads to improvements in the ways the flocks are managed.

New treatment for MND

Currently, there is available on the NHS only one drug treatment for motor neurone disease – in which the specialist nerve cells (motor neurons) that send signals from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles degenerate, leading to muscle weakness and eventually paralysis. This drug can slow the progress of the disease, but it is not effective on everyone. Now, however, clinical trials of a promising alternative are beginning. Developed by scientists at UCL, TRCN-1023 boosts production of a protein, UNC13A, that helps brain cells communicate, and which is lacking in 97% of MND patients. It is also not a cure, but its developers hope it could make a “meaningful difference” to almost all those with the disease.

The linguistic golden age, millennia ago

More than 7,000 languages are spoken in the world today – and that, according to a new study, is just a small fraction of the number that once existed. Harvard scientists used data on 171 modern hunter-gatherer societies with their own languages, and estimates for early human populations, to gauge how many languages were likely spoken 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age. They came up with a figure of 4,500 to 6,200 – rather fewer than there are now. But as the population then grew, the number of languages will have done so too – to

a point, one to three millennia ago, when there were perhaps as many as 75,000.

This linguistic “golden age” – which coincided with the era in which the story of the Tower of Babel was written down – was followed by a period of rapid decline, driven by factors including the expansion of major empires in antiquity and more recent European colonialism. And the reductions continue, says the report in the journal Science: about half of the languages spoken today are endangered and at least four die out each year.

Bruegel's Tower of Babel (c.1563)

A "life-changer" for MS

A “life-changing” drug for people with multiple sclerosis has become available on the NHS in England. Fampridine was already prescribed in other parts of the UK, but had been ruled too expensive by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. However, its patent has now expired, paving the way for cheaper, generic versions. In MS, the immune system attacks the fatty layer that protects nerve fibres, disrupting the signals along the nerves. Fampridine is a “signal booster” – it helps these messages get through. In trials, the twice-daily pill improved the walking speed in up to 43% of patients; it also helped people walk for longer. About 5,000 of the 120,000 multiple sclerosis patients in England will be eligible for it in the first year, and those it benefits will be able to take it indefinitely. The hope is that it will allow them to maintain their independence for longer.

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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16 NEWS

Talking points

Pick of the week's

Gossip

Oprah Winfrey is one of a handful of celebrities with a first name so distinctive, they can go by it alone. And yet it turns out that Oprah is not her name – something she only discovered aged 20. “On my birth certificate,” she explained, “it’s ‘Orpah’ – it’s in the Bible ... but then people started calling me ‘Oprah’. And once they started with Oprah, that was it.” She also revealed that, at 14, she had such a crush on Paul McCartney, she used to will him to think about her. When she met him years later, she asked him if, in the 1960s, she had ever popped into his head. “Every day, babe,” he said. “Every day.”

Neil Patrick Harris has hosted numerous award ceremonies – and the Oscars is the most “thankless”. It may be the pinnacle of achievement, the actor told The Times, but it’s also the end of the season. So most nominees have, by then, made “an entirely different movie, in fact they’re probably filming a third. And they all pretty much know who’s going to win everything, because there have been the Globes, the Independent Spirit, the Producers Guild etc. – and they’re just sitting there thinking, ‘When will this night when we can’t eat end?’”

Milliner Philip Treacy has long been associated with fashion’s avant-garde. But from time to time, he has had to give his celebrity clients a reality check. Lady Gaga, for instance, who famously wore a gown made from raw beef to an event in 2010, once explained to him that she liked being eccentric. “I told her, ‘It’s easy to be eccentric with six bodyguards in a blacked-out van. It’s a different thing on the bus.’”

Andy Burnham: a PM who enjoys politics

Andy Burnham promised to “bring back hope”, and with one segment of the population, he has succeeded, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. “The hearts of Labour MPs are fluttering”, thanks to polls showing that, after months trailing Reform UK, Labour is now in the lead. To that good news, they can add the victory of Labour’s Bev Craig in the mayoral by-election in Greater Manchester, in which the party won back areas that had fallen to the Greens and Reform. Of course, new PMs often enjoy a honeymoon period, and the “Burnham bounce” also owes something to luck: the PM arrived at No. 10 just as the wheels were wobbling on the bandwagons of Nigel Farage and the Greens’ Zack Polanski.

But it is also the case, said Rachel Sylvester in the same paper, that we are now being led by a politician who – after 30 years in the game – is good at politics. Having arrived with a ten-day plan and a 100-day plan, he started off with an attention-grabbing reshuffle and a slew of cost-of-living announcements that had echoes of Tony Blair’s “eye-catching initiatives with which I personally can be associated”. Heftier announcements followed. His school reforms came with pre-prepared endorsements from a dozen business leaders, to make them harder to challenge. This was straight out of the Alastair

The first Cabinet meeting last month

Campbell playbook: in the Blair era, Campbell used to boast about the “quote sluts” he’d recruited to back each new initiative. When it came to social care, Burnham invited Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey to take part in talks – and so reopened the big tent. To further signal that Labour is under new management, said John Oxley on UnHerd, the PM restored the whip to Diane Abbott, an MP who is almost a “lodestar” for the Labour Left.

Burnham seems to be enjoying himself, said Nesrine Malik

in The Guardian – which is refreshing. A natural communication, he knows that you can’t expect the electorate to come to you: you have to woo them, and on a range of platforms. But if he is to bring about the change many Labour MPs and voters want, he can’t just make airy statements about rolling back neo-liberalism: he must slay it. Yet, so far, he has resisted new taxes for the rich; he seems minded to retain Labour’s “punitive immigration regime”; he is allowing the US to use UK bases to strike Iran; and has said he’ll be “pragmatic” on North Sea oil. Meanwhile, said Oliver Wright in The Times, his Chancellor, John Healey, is busy telling ministers that there will be no new money to pay for the policy blitz – setting the stage for strife there too. Burnham has got off to a good start, but the real challenges are yet to come.

Education: time for a cultural shift?

Is Britain ready to accept the idea that a degree is not “the only personal determinant of ambition and success”? I admit that I felt rather panicky when one of my children suggested that they might skip university, said Emma Brockes in The Guardian, but it’s clear that a “culture shift” is under way – and Andy Burnham’s promise to put technical qualifications on a par with academic ones is in line with this trend. It’s a laudable goal, said Alice Thomson in The Times. The reality is that many secondary school pupils are disengaged; around a quarter are persistently absent. The number of 16- to 24-year-olds classed as not in education, employment or training (Neets) now exceeds a million. Offering those pupils who are of a more practical disposition clearer routes into careers such as catering, engineering, farming or care work – essential jobs that won’t all be replaced by AI – makes eminent sense.

It’s true that our current education system doesn’t offer enough help to those with vocational talents, said Iain Mansfield in The Spectator. It funnels too many young people into “debt-trap degrees” of little worth. But if Burnham’s planned reforms are to work, they’ll need to be both well-designed and well-funded. One option is to expand University Technical Colleges. Designed as specialist schools for

14- to 19-year-olds, UTCs combine academic study with employer and university partnerships, and they outperform mainstream schools at getting young people into jobs and training.

I’m all for expanding vocational training in specialist and further-education colleges, said Daisy Christodoulou on UnHerd. But I’m less keen on the idea of comprehensive schools having to offer more technical options to pupils aged 14 and over. Recent history shows this doesn’t work. Between 2004 and 2010, the number of vocational qualifications taken in schools in England shot up from 15,000 a year to 575,000 a year, but they were of generally poor quality. Schools tended to choose courses that “could be taught to large mixed-ability groups in a classroom with limited specialist equipment: courses like the ASDAN Certificate of Personal Effectiveness and the OCR National First Certificate in ICT”. Yes, let’s have “parity of esteem” between academic and vocational qualifications. But the way to achieve that is to help schools and technical colleges fulfil their primary purposes. In the case of schools, that’s enabling pupils to get GCSEs in “foundational subjects” – English, maths, science, history and geography – that provide the basis for more advanced academic and vocational study. We diminish those subjects “at our peril”.

© LAUREN HURLETING, 16 DOWNING STREET

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Talking points

NEWS 17

Plagiarism: the bitter row at Cambridge

When Jason Arday became the youngest black professor in Cambridge's history in 2023, he was “lionised by the academic world” and became a “poster boy for the university’s diversity drive”, said Gordon Rayner in The Daily Telegraph. Then only 37, he had defied “almost impossible odds” to get there. Raised on a council estate in south London, he was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. He couldn’t speak until he was 11, and did not read or write until 18. Yet he’d managed to obtain a bachelor’s degree, followed by a PhD, and had gone on to forge a

remarkable career in academia. Now, though, the sociology professor is “the subject of a bitter row over plagiarism that has pitted his peers against each other”. His critics note that his PhD thesis contains passages that are strikingly similar to those in other academic papers. His defenders say that these were innocent errors, resulting from a lack of formal supervision when he was doing his PhD, and insufficient support for his complex learning disabilities. They say he cited the sources in question in his bibliography, but failed to do so within the text proper.

Concerns about Arday's work have circulated in academic circles for several years, said Jennifer Schuessler and Alexandra Alter in The New York Times. But they “exploded into

Jason Arday in 2024

public view" last month, when Nathan Cofnas, a self-defined "race realist" who was sacked from Cambridge in 2024, published a lengthy blogpost about them. As journalists dug deeper, said Guy Adams in the Daily Mail, other aspects of Arday's "Hollywood-style life story" were also called into question. For instance, doubts were cast about his claim to have raised £5.5m for charity, including by running an astonishing 600 miles in six days. He has since said it was actually 12 days, and that the £5.5m was a collective effort.

“Academic integrity matters,” said Daniella Maison in The Independent. But Arday was officially cleared of plagiarism some years ago. That he is still being pursued over his PhD, and other achievements that are not even related to his job, suggest that legitimate scrutiny has shifted into something more “punitive”. Yet leading academics told this paper that the scrutiny was “fair” for a professor at Cambridge, said Lanre Bakare in The Guardian. This is a fraught business, and the stakes are high for all concerned. The university – which appointed Arday at a time when its own track record on race was being scrutinised in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement – is facing questions about its judgement. As for Arday, he could lose his reputation, and his career.

Fires and drought: a blazing summer

"The 'scorcher' is no more," said Anoosh Chakelian in The New Statesman. Gone are the jolly tabloid celebrations of hot weather – consigned to the past with the annual "silly-season stories about feral seagulls". Summer now brings apocalyptic headlines about raging wildfires and, in many areas, a succession of "gasping-hot" days. This week, fires were still smouldering in the Cairngorms and in Suffolk's coastal heathlands, said the Financial Times. Half of England and all of Wales were officially in drought, and in both, July was declared the driest on

record. In France and Spain, the fires are mostly under control, but with more intense heat forecast, Europe's blazing summer is not over.

"The reality of the climate crisis is now inescapable," said Will Hutton in The Observer. Yet the cross-party consensus on the issue, launched by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, "has been shattered". Climate crisis denial has become a "populist cause". Kemi Badenoch has joined Nigel Farage in vowing to scrap the net-zero-by-2050 target, saying it is "a political fiction" and an act of economic "self-harm". Yet

Stonehenge: parched last week

the economy, society and the environment are “interdependent”; and the desire to protect nature “transcends Left and Right”. This is true, said The Daily Telegraph, but what difference to the planet can we hope to make by pursuing this costly policy? The UK contributes less than 1% of global CO₂ emissions. In just seven years from 2013, China (on 33%) emitted more carbon than the UK had since 1750. We’re staking our prosperity on the idea that if we provide “moral leadership”, others will follow. But very few have.

Britain was the first big economy to halve its emissions since 1990, said The Sunday Times. But we're committed to going further and faster, and this rush is creating problems in itself. In June, the grid came close to blackouts because of the difficulty of predicting the supply from renewables. Of course, we must carry on with decarbonisation, but at a pace that is "steady" and "affordable". In the meantime, politicians must focus on adaptations, everywhere from housing to farming and flood defences, to help us withstand the hot dry summers and wet winters that we're likely to face whatever we do.

Wit & Wisdom

"At first you think you might die of boredom. Then you fear that you might not."

Shirley Apthorp reviewing Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in the FT

"Freedom is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards."

Theodore Roosevelt, quoted on North Dakota Monitor

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

Alice Walker, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government programme."

Milton Friedman, quoted on Vermont Daily Chronicle

"Football is the most important of the unimportant things."

Jürgen Klopp, quoted in the Financial Times

"How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young – or slender."

William James, quoted on The Knowledge

"Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."

Viktor Frankl, quoted in The Jerusalem Post

"By the time a man realises that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he is wrong."

Charles Wadsworth, quoted on The Knowledge

Statistics of the week

Between 2005 and 2019, the number of words uttered each day by people in the US, Europe, Mexico and Australia fell by 28%, from 16,632, on average, to 11,900.

The Atlantic/Association for Psychological Science

42% of 25-year-olds in the UK now live with their parents, up from 25% in the 1990s.

BBC/IFS

8 August 2026

THE WEEK

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18 NEWS

Sport

Glasgow 2026: is it time up for the Commonwealth Games?

It has become fashionable of late to declare that the Commonwealth Games no longer matter, and are living on borrowed time. Well, tell that to the good people of Glasgow, said Nik Simon in the Daily Mail. Over 11 days, Scotland's second city – which stepped in as host after the Australian state of Victoria pulled out in 2023 on grounds of cost – welcomed competitors from 74 nations, who (in the absence of an athletes' village) were accommodated in hotels across the area. In return, the 434,000 ticket-holders, plus 200,000 who watched for free at the city's fan sites, were treated to a spectacular show, said Matthew Henry on BBC Sport. Highlights of the Games, which ended on Sunday, included Scotland's Josh Kerr storming to victory in the mile race in front of a jubilant home crowd; Wales's Emma Finucane becoming the first sprint cyclist to win four track gold medals at the

same Games; and Jamaica stunning Australia in one of the biggest upsets in netball's history. Overall, though, it was the Australians who dominated: spurred on by mining magnate Gina Rinehart's offer of cash bonuses for podium finishes, the country notched up 171 medals – dwarfing second-placed England's total of 110.

As host city, Glasgow did a sterling job, said Fiona Tomas in The Daily Telegraph: events were “impeccably run”, and the “army of cheery volunteers” kitted out in tartan couldn’t be faulted. But it

Finucane: record-breaking

was hard to escape the feeling that this was the Commonwealth Games “on Ozempic”. As a result of “cost-cutting measures”, only ten sports were featured, down from 19 in Birmingham four years ago; and with the BBC losing out to TNT Sports on the right to broadcast the Games, TV audiences were miserly. Worse still, a “deluge of high-profile athletes” – from England’s Keely Hodgkinson to Jamaica’s men’s 100m world champion Oblique Seville – prioritised other competitions and sat out the Games altogether. Attention now turns to the 2030 edition to be held in Ahmedabad, India. They’ll mark the centenary of the Games, and that “might be a good one to end on”.

I’m not so sure about that, said Rick Broadbent in The Times. The Games may lack the glamour of the Olympics, say, or the World Cup, but that’s

the whole point of them. Where else could you watch Idi Amin's grandson complaining about ill-treatment in the boxing ring, or hear Archie Goodhurn, a terminally ill swimmer, being roared on in the pool by a partisan crowd? And it's a competition, don't forget, that has long served athletes as a “stepping stone” to greater glories. Of course, it must be financially viable – Glasgow only managed to host the Games so cheaply because Victoria had to pay £190m in compensation, for pulling out. But assuming that “the price is right”, this is undoubtedly “an event worth saving”.

Football: Eddie Howe quits Newcastle

In 2021, the news that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund had completed its takeover of Newcastle United was welcomed by thousands of fans celebrating outside St James' Park, said Martin Hardy in The Times. Back then, the talk from club officials was of “winning the Premier League in five years”, and of becoming one of the top clubs in the world by 2030. Newcastle, it seemed, were destined for a new era of success, with Eddie Howe appointed as manager to guide them to the promised land. Five years later, the mood among fans is altogether more downbeat. Last season, the Magpies finished a humble 12th in the Premier League; big stars such as Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali have been sold; plans for a new training

ground and upgrades to the stadium haven't materialised. And now, they've lost their manager, too: last week, it was announced that Howe is leaving the club (a decision he'd made of his own

Howe: a “legend”

volition) and will be replaced by Matthias Jaissle, the 38-year-old coach of Al-Ahli, in the Saudi Pro League.

Be in no doubt, Howe leaves Newcastle as a “legend”, said Luke Edwards in The Daily Telegraph: he twice led the club into the Champions League, a competition for which they hadn't qualified for 20 years; and, last year, he guided his side to the Carabao Cup, so “ending the most infamous trophy drought in English football” and achieving something neither Bobby Robson nor Kevin Keegan could manage. The danger now is that the success he brought to St James' Park ends up being an anomaly, said Richard Jolly in The Independent. Results have taken a noticeable dip, rivals are strengthening, and the squad

is short on star quality – all the more so if Bruno Guimarães's move to Arsenal goes ahead. Successful as Jaissle's career has been to date, the Newcastle job will pose a formidable challenge.

England cricket: Fleming and Root take charge

England finally appointed a new men's Test coach last week, with New Zealander Stephen Fleming taking over from his countryman Brendon McCullum. He won't be in place until the winter series against South Africa; but even so, he "feels like a good fit" for the job, said Mike Atherton in The Times. Granted, he hasn't previously coached in red-ball cricket; but his record on the franchise circuit is superb, and he knows the English cricketing

landscape inside out, having played for three counties and coached in the Hundred. What's more, he is close to McCullum, who is staying on as England's white-ball coach: the pair have been in business together, and Fleming captained his compatriot in New Zealand's Test

Fleming: "feels like a good fit"

side. All being well, the two of them should “rub along well” together in their different roles.

"Fleming looks an excellent appointment," said Chris Stocks in The i Paper – it's just a shame he can't take over until after England's home Tests against Pakistan are done and dusted. (Marcus Trescothick will take interim charge.) The decision to hand the captaincy to Joe Root, however, is less clear cut.

Root, 35, is a lovely guy, and one of England's greatest-ever players; but the results were dire towards the end of his previous five-year stint as captain, which ended in 2022, and the risk is that the batsman will feel burdened by the armband ahead of next summer's Ashes series, when England will need him at his best.

Sporting headlines

Football Celtic began their Scottish Premiership defence with a 1-0 win over Dundee. Hearts lost 2-1 at Aberdeen. Midfielder Jordan Henderson, 36, and striker Danny Welbeck, 35, have joined Chelsea, as the Blues look to add experience to their squad.

Golf Japan's Shiho Kuwaki won the Women's Open, beating Esther Hensiteit in a dramatic playoff at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

Tennis Emma Raducanu will miss the US Open as she continues to recover from the stress fracture to her lower right leg that kept her out of Wimbledon.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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LETTERS

21

Pick of the week's correspondence

Crisis, what crisis?

To the Financial Times

It is puzzling to hear the declining rate of population growth in the next decades described by Jemima Kelly, along with journalists elsewhere, as a "crisis". This alleged crisis presumably refers to the projected demographics, whereby the ratio of working-age people (25 to 64) to every person over 65 will decrease.

I was born into a world in which people, on average, had more than three times the space that people have today. We worried about a population explosion. We would have regarded a population decline as a boon, not a crisis.

Oliver Corlett, Glasgow

Too broad a spectrum

To The Times

It is extraordinary that teenagers are claiming personal independence payments for conditions such as anxiety and ADHD. Disability has become a huge industry, with 18% of young people aged 16-24 officially recognised as disabled. About half of these are mental health conditions.

I am not convinced it is right to include lifetime conditions such as autism, ADHD or dyslexia as a disability. There will always be those at the very severe end, who do need help. But the grey area between the severely affected and the "neurotypical" is growing to unmanageable levels.

We are doing young people a disservice by labelling them disabled and offering them benefits, rather than helping them into work.

Dr Fiona Cornish, Cambridge

Lovell and Larkin's legacy

To The Guardian

Throughout my long life, Jodrell Bank Observatory has been a source of wonder and pride ("Jodrell Bank Observatory facing closure"). Sir Bernard Lovell's creation never ceases to inspire awe with its combination of cutting-edge space exploration and heroic engineering structure. A tour of its visitor centre with my grandchildren confirmed that this sense of awe is being passed on to future generations.

Yes, it would make another fine museum. But here in the

Exchange of the week

Apprenticeships: the reality

To The Guardian

The discussion on education, training and employment for young people seems to be devolving into the same apprenticeship or trade versus higher education debate, blaming young people, as usual, without focusing on the actual problem. My children are in the 16-24 age group, and the issue I've observed among them and their friends is that many young people would like to go down the apprenticeship or trades route, and there are plenty of courses in colleges, but there are vanishingly few opportunities available to be employed as apprentices to trades, or for those with basic college training.

An exceptional few get an apprenticeship and a few more lucky ones have a relative who will take them on. Unless this is fixed urgently, the problem will continue.

Pam Dunn, Leeds

To The Times

It was refreshing to hear the PM talk about "hard hat" careers and how we should encourage more young people into trade apprenticeships. What we need now is support for the people who will be hiring them. The vast majority of this sector consists of small- and medium-sized enterprises, many of them sole traders. Research from Screwfix shows that they want to take on apprentices, but each stage of the process is too complicated – from the paperwork, to hiring, to managing apprentice workload. Too often, this puts them off. Planned financial grants, welcome as they are, are a case in point.

Employer support up to £8,000 is split across different schemes, each with its own criteria. The result: 48% of tradespeople who took on an apprentice last year claimed no funding because the system was too complex. Funding should be seamless and incentivise taking on young people, not throwing up barriers. Direct HR support to them via colleges or providers should be funded, and approaches such as flexi-apprenticeships should be expanded. We must think like the time-pressed tradesperson and support them.

John Mewett, chief executive, Screwfix

North we have quite a few museums of our glorious industrial past. We have only one Jodrell Bank.

So I'm afraid it is over to my fellow English graduate Andy Burnham to reverse the decision of UK Research and Innovation, and to remind him of his poetic hero Philip Larkin's fear for the future of the UK: "Our children will not know it's a different country./ All we can hope to leave them now is money."

Dr Ken Smith, Macclesfield, Cheshire

This idea doesn't add up

To The Times

Your report "Toll of schooling 'straitjacket'" appears to fall into the common trap of inferring, from the rise in England's ranking in international league tables for maths and science between 2009 and 2022, that Michael Gove's reforms improved

educational standards. They did not: Pisa scores in England in 2009 and 2022 were respectively for maths 493 and 492; and for science 515 and 503. A more reasonable inference would be that Gove's reforms had no effect on achievement in these subjects.

John Britton, emeritus professor of epidemiology, Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire

Doing time, not crime

To The Observer

Your editorial juxtaposes the rise in the number of criminals being held in prison with the fall in the reported number of crimes, but declines to draw any correlation, let alone suggest cause and effect between the two.

I spent 30 years catching criminals, often not long after their release from prison, and I would welcome more enlightened and effective approaches to sentencing.

I always thought Michael Howard's "prison works" was overly simplistic, and there is plenty of evidence that it clearly doesn't work.

But it is a fact, not an opinion, that criminals are not committing rapes, murders, robberies or burglaries while they are behind bars. Before we rush to release them, we need to be confident that we have effective measures in place, alongside tested methods to help those who want to lead happier and more useful lives.

Bob Denmark, former detective superintendent, Garstang, Lancashire

A high price to pay

To the FT

Your report on Mastercard's potential sale of Vocalink rightly raises questions about the ownership of critical UK payments infrastructure. It also points to a broader issue: why does one of the world's most innovative economies still rely so heavily on two US-owned card networks?

Every year, UK businesses pay billions in fees to these networks. The result is a system that quietly taxes the economy, limits choice and stifles competition.

If rising geopolitical tensions were ever to disrupt access to these networks, the consequences for UK businesses and the wider economy would be profound.

The optimal scenario is close collaboration between the US and Europe on all technology platforms, including payments. But that is not the geopolitical reality in which we find ourselves.

Francesco Simoneschi, CEO and co-founder TrueLayer, London

● Letters have been edited

© MARTIN DAILY TELEGRAM

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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ARTS

Review of reviews: Books

23

Book of the week

These Wild English

by Nicola Wilding

Profile 303pp £20

The Week Bookshop £17.99

Nicola Wilding is a TV documentary maker “specialising in poverty and rural working-class communities”, said Fiona Sturges in The Guardian. Now, in her first book, she has turned her “documentarian’s gaze on her own flesh and blood”. These Wild English is mainly about her mother, Sandra, a care worker who, until her death in

2024, “endured poverty, upheaval and abusive partners, as well as a heart condition leading to two rounds of surgery”. Late in life, galvanised by the 2013 murder of Lee Rigby, Sandra “began watching videos on Facebook by a man named Tommy Robinson”, and was soon marching in support of the English Defence League. Eager to understand this turn to the far-right, Wilding (pictured) “digs into the roots of Sandra’s dissatisfaction, telling a story that spans three generations”, starting with a tough upbringing on a farm in Cumbria. The result is a “heartfelt and evocative memoir”, which blends an unforgettable portrait of Sandra – “a protagonist for the ages” – with an appraisal of how the white working class have been “pilloried and misunderstood”.

Wilding writes as if she were there through her mother's entire life, "watching but never judging her", said Jason Cowley in The Times. With "visceral candour", she describes the "low-paid, insecure jobs", the abusive partners, the diet of "junk food, cigarettes and alcohol". Such is her "willingness to break all family confidences" that in one passage, she even describes her mother soiling herself in a bar while wearing white trousers. You do wonder what Sandra would have made of her "chaotic life" being exposed in this way. Yet it adds up to something both powerful and interesting: an "angry and

compelling" family drama, and a "lament for the lost idealism of a postwar social democratic future that never quite came to pass".

Everyone should read this “terrific book”, but “especially those who readily dismiss people who display the St George’s flag or who voted Brexit”, said Elisa Segrave in The Spectator. It examines and explains the rage that underpins far-right extremism. Sandra was “one of hundreds of thousands” who have felt abandoned by the traditional parties and so “searched for a home and an identity elsewhere”, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. Many books have been written about “working-class alienation” – but this “raw, angry and elegiac” work “gets closer to the truth than much of what has been written on the issue”.

The Plunge

by Chris Ballard

Viking 320pp £22

The Week Bookshop £19.99

If you've ever congratulated yourself for “daring a New Year's Day dip”, be prepared to feel smug “no longer”, said James McConnachie in The Sunday Times. In this “extraordinary book”, Chris Ballard, an American journalist, delves into the world of “ice swimmers” – who swim in “seriously cold water” for “seriously long distances”. Not surprisingly, it's a subculture full of “macho types”, such as the “reliably shirtless British adventurer Ross Edgley”, but it also attracts more eccentric characters, whom Ballard calls the “woolly hat and cocoa brigade”. Ballard is a “pleasing” guide to this world, and is no mere bystander: he himself develops an ice-swimming habit, and even “gets selected to represent the US”.

The “holy grail” of ice swimming is the “Ice Mile”, which has to be swum in temperatures of ( 5^{\circ} ) C or colder, said Bill Heavey in The Wall Street Journal. Ballard describes this as one of the most “dangerous athletic feats on the planet”, and notes that fewer than 1,000 people have ever completed it. He perhaps could have been more sceptical about the outlandish health claims made by some cold-water enthusiasts – but this is an enjoyable account, by a writer who “knows how to keep a story moving”.

Novel of the week

John of John

by Douglas Stuart

Picador 403pp £20

The Week Bookshop £17.99

Douglas Stuart's two previous novels – the Booker Prize-winning Shuggie Bain (2020) and Young Mungo (2022) – were both set in Glasgow tenements, said Michael Arditti in The Spectator. For his third, Stuart has “moved north”, to the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. Cal, 22, “returns to his family croft” on the island, after spending four years

studying textiles in Edinburgh, in response to a call from his father, John, telling him that his grandmother is dying. Cal is gay, and comfortable with that fact; but his father, a deacon of the island's Free Presbyterian Church, which adheres to an “extreme biblical morality”, is in denial about his own homosexual leanings. The relationship between the two – by turns loving and violent – is at the heart of this “beautifully observed” novel.

"This is a magnificent book of disarming intensity," said Maria Albano in The Daily Telegraph. Stuart excels at "rendering the soul of a place" in all its variety: the "descriptions of pulling a lamb from the ewe in her labour are as confident as his mastery of weaving argot". And his "character-building" is no less superb: all his portraits are "equally lifelike". While John of John is an "unashamedly emotional novel", full of "vivid, generous" prose, it is also, at times, very funny, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday Times. A scene in which Cal climbs through a window clutching flowers "has the farcical quality of Shakespearean comedy"; it also features "one of the funniest and most memorable depictions of masturbation in fiction". It's already on the longlist for this year's Booker Prize, and it's "difficult to imagine" that it won't be shortlisted.

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8 August 2026

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24 ARTS

Drama & Music

Opera: Ariadne auf Naxos

Glyndebourne, Lewes (01273-815000). Until 29 August Running time: 3hrs 45mins (including dinner interval)

★★★★

Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of The Odyssey promises "three hours of head-spinning storytelling", said Neil Fisher in The Times. But "when it comes to immersive Greek myth, nothing beats Richard Strauss in full surround sound in the final 15 minutes of Ariadne auf Naxos". Written in 1912, the opera tells the story of the eponymous Cretan princess who is abandoned by Theseus on a desert island with only nymphs for company, before falling in love with the god Bacchus. She had mistaken him for Death, but "that's not really important.

What matters is the moment shortly before the end when you can hear Strauss push the throttle and fire up the engines, and we bathe in the power of a soaring tenor, ecstatic soprano and coruscating orchestra." I have never heard this scene performed with such virtuosity as in Glyndebourne's "rapturous" new production. There are still a few tickets left; catch it if you can.

It's hard to imagine where you could find "more exciting singing" than that of David Butt Philip (as Bacchus) and Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Ariadne) in the latter stages of this "delight", agreed Richard Fairman in the Financial Times. The production does not see director Laurent Pelly at his most imaginative, and Massimo Troncanetti's "spartan designs are unappealing (Ariadne's desert island is an even more miserable lump of rock

"The singing is just superb and the music is a joy"

than the plot demands)". But the singing is just superb and the music is a joy. Conductor Robin Ticciati, and players from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, expertly capture both the score's Rococo wit and its rousing Wagnerian grandeur.

Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera of two parts, said Erica Jeal in The Guardian. Before we get to Naxos there's a long satirical prologue, set in Vienna, about the difficulties of putting on an opera. This first part (added four years after the opera was first performed), finds the director "at his witty best", and

it features a host of nicely judged comic performances. The second half is certainly well performed, but it is "less sparky and less insightful than the first"; the upshot is an evening that is "enjoyable" but ultimately "unmoving".

The week's other opening

Love's Labour's Lost Shakespeare's Globe, London SE1 (020-7401 9919). Until 13 September

Indiana Lown-Collins's flamenco-filled version of this tricky play features some "hefty innuendo and thrusting broad comedy". It's not a first-rate production, but it fills the Globe with a "flaming, foot-stamping fiesta"; a "joyous" summer show (FT).

Albums of the week: three new releases

John McCabe: Symphonies 2 & 3 and Cello Concerto Signum £12

John McCabe (1939-2015) belongs to that "very distinguished" group of English composers – Nicholas Maw, Gordon Crosse and Richard Rodney Bennett among them – who were rather overshadowed by Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. This welcome collection of McCabe's major orchestral works includes first recordings of his Symphony No. 3 and Cello Concerto, said Geraint Lewis in Gramophone, and with luck it will bring more attention to this "widely beloved and admired" musician.

McCabe was also a piano virtuoso, said Erica Jeal in The Guardian – famed for his interpretation of Haydn in particular. As a composer, he created an "edgy, lucid soundworld" and his writing, of "enormous colour and scope", undoubtedly deserves a wider audience. Whereas Symphony No. 2 is "tense and edgy", and the concerto for cello (Songline) is restless and searching, Symphony No. 3 is more lush, "densely weaving in nods to Haydn and Nielsen". All three are well served by Kenneth Woods and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on this "vividly expressive" disc.

Yard Act: You're Gonna Need a Little Music Island £13

Given Leeds post-punk rockers Yard Act's deserved reputation for live performance, said Lisa Wright in The Observer, it's surprising that this terrific third album "is their first to be recorded with the band all in the same room". They built their own recording-studio space in Leeds to push back against "laptop" music, then travelled to LA to finish the record with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck, Wolf Alice). The result is the sound of a band coalescing to "create something greater than the sum of its parts".

Yard Act's playful, "Gorillaz-esque" second album Where's My Utopia? (2024) felt like a reaction to the "quick-witted post-punk" storytelling that dominated their Mercury-nominated debut The Overload (2022), said Rishi Shah on NME. This third collection is a "thrilling distillation of what their previous two did best". There's "wonky piano" (Tall Tales) alongside "bulky garage-rock"; there's irresistibly euphoric choruses (the title track) and full-blown rap (Thrill Of The Chase). It's a heady mix: open your ears, sit back and enjoy.

Charli XCX: Music, Fashion, Film Atlantic £11

How do you follow up a career-making triumph like Charli XCX's "club-rat" 2024 album Brat? If you're Charli (aka 33-year-old English singer Charlotte Aitchison), the answer is with a pivot to indie-style guitars and a "meta masterpiece about the instability of identity", said Laura Snapes in The Guardian. This album is very different to Brat, but just as impressive: "gorgeously astute and disarmingly deep". On a series of short, snappy songs, Charli "remakes guitar music at intimate, pocket-sized scale – though with outsized hookiness". Standouts include Rock Music, Camera and I'm Afraid.

This is a "refreshingly non-careerist" turn, but not, I think, a wholly successful one, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. Yes, it contains plenty of humour and self-awareness. But on this album, Aitchison seems to be more referencing indie rock than exploring it. With its short tracks – and unpoetic, almost diary-style lyrics – it feels less like "the latest album by the most dynamic British pop star" of the moment, and "more a curio put together for her own amusement and therapy".

Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don't miss; 1 star=don't bother)

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Film & TV

ARTS 25

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

2hrs 25mins (12A)

Tom Holland in the same old "Spideyworld"

★★★

Ish

1hr 27mins (15)

Touching Luton-set drama in the mould of The 400 Blows

★★★★

Wham! Ten Days in China

1hr 30mins (12A)

An extraordinary moment in pop history

★★★★

"Someone give Tom Holland a holiday," said Kevin Maher in The Times. Not only did he give this summer's behemoth The Odyssey its "beating heart", the 30-year-old Londoner has also been tasked with rescuing the "ailing superhero genre". The latest – 38th! – instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe opens not with the usual montage of Avengers clips, but instead with images from Holland's hugely successful appearances as Spider-Man. After a series of expensive misfires for the most commercially successful film franchise of all time, the message is clear: "Marvel is now the house that Tom built." Holland's fourth outing in the role, Brand New Day, picks up where 2021's No Way Home left off, with mild-mannered Peter Parker having arranged for the world to forget that he ever existed. So we find him back at square one, living in a scuzzy New York apartment, "lost and broken" – not least because his sweetheart MJ (Holland's real-life wife Zendaya) and his best buddy Ned (Jacob Batalon) have been "cruelly memory-wiped out of his life".

Those opening 20 minutes are "the strongest of the film", said John Nugent in Empire. Holland is "brilliant" as the once puppyish Peter "bruised by grief and solitude". But what rescues the film is Zendaya's performance, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Playing a non-superhero, she is able to bring a grown-up acting presence to the fore to cut against the silliness. In other respects, it is the same old Spideyworld, with lots of swinging between skyscrapers and leading, as in all MCU films, to "apocalyptic but weirdly temporary destruction in the digitally confected big city". It makes for an "entertaining spectacle" – but we could have done with "a more radical reboot".

A single act of violence punctures a "carefree summer" in debut-director Imran Perretta's "tenderly observed" coming-of-age drama set in Luton, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. Ish (Farhan Hasnat) is a doe-eyed 12-year-old from a Bengali family whose mother recently died. He and his Palestinian-British best mate – the bigger, more worldly Maram (Yahya Kitana) – while away their days "roaming woods, gaming and insulting one another". Yet there is "violence in the air even before the police stop-and-search that scoops up Maram then ejects him, humiliated, back onto a suburban street". Ish, meanwhile, "runs off and afterwards struggles with the guilt of having run". In the wake of this, their friendship starts slowly to "unravel".

Shot in 2024 against the backdrop of Gaza protests, and co-written by Irish playwright Enda Walsh, Ish is not just a drama "about racial profiling and the inescapability of politics", said Danny Leigh in the FT. It's also an examination of the "complex, freighted lives of children". Filmed in "lustrous black-and-white", in a 3:4 aspect, it fits within an "august tradition" of movies about childhood that includes such classics as The 400 Blows (1959) and Pather Panchali (1955) – and would make a "fascinating split screen" with This Is England (2006). It is a "remarkably beautiful film", said Jonathan Romney in Sight and Sound. But what really energises it is its cast of first-time actors – "the strutting older lads, Kitana's nervily characterful Maram", and most of all Hasnat's Ish, whose "aliveness" to the world's "joys and dangers" helps create a "vividly memorable evocation of childhood's end", and leaves you "wanting to follow Ish further through life".

In 1985, Wham!'s manager Simon Napier-Bell came up with a "cunning plan", said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. To help George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley break America, without them having to embark on a lengthy tour, he'd send them to China, to become the first Western pop act to perform on the mainland. This, he calculated correctly, would create a blizzard of publicity that would propel the duo to fame stateside. After months of delicate negotiations, Napier-Bell confirmed concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou as part of a ten-day tour. Veteran director Lindsay Anderson was hired to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the trip, but Michael and Ridgeley didn't like him or his film, and it was shelved. Now his footage has been re-edited, and spliced with interviews with Ridgeley and others, to give a glimpse of a "strange and riveting moment in pop and political history".

"Everything you could possibly want in a rock doc" is here, said Kevin Maher in The Times. In places, it's "alarmingly" like This Is Spinal Tap: the two young stars are dragged to a reception at the British embassy where Ridgeley is asked "squirm inducing" questions about cricket; Anderson pontificates grandly about capitalism; and at Beijing's Workers' Stadium, party apparatchiks look horrified when Michael says their next song is called Freedom. It's "quite brilliant". The trip, we learn, had an unexpected legacy, said Phil de Semlyen on Time Out: the film includes interviews with some locals whose lives were transformed by two hours of "kitsch pop heaven". Wham! split less than a year later, but in this "surreal cultural collision, something genuinely meaningful happened".

Gomorrah: The Origins – riveting prequel to Saviano's hit mobster drama

The Mob saga Gomorrah, created by the investigative journalist Roberto Saviano and based on his reporting on the Neapolitan Mafia, has long been the ultimate "if you know, you know" TV drama, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. First broadcast in Italy in 2014, the series went on to build a devoted international following. Now we have a prequel. Gomorrah: The Origins (Sky Atlantic) opens in 1977, and traces how a poor, floppy-haired teenager named Pietro Savastano (Luca Lubrano) grew up into "one of the most-feared Mob bosses in Naples".

Savastano's driving ambition is to escape the extreme poverty in which he and his single mother (Noemi Sales) are trapped, said Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph. To that end, he attaches

Lubrano: the early years of a mobster

himself to Angelo, a hip and ambitious older gangster who runs a gambling den on behalf of the local don in their lawless neighbourhood. Loosely inspired by the real events that led up to an "apocalyptic" gangland feud in the early 1980s, the series contains moments of "real tension", but it is also "great fun" and it positively "cozes ambiance".

With youngsters as its protagonists, the series inevitably lacks "the heft" of other gangster stories, said Jack Seale in The Guardian, but while some of its "wonderfully

rich Mob-drama set pieces are familiar", the youthfulness of its cast "lends it a freshness and tenderness that standard crime sagas lack". It's also extremely "stylish": these young men "might not be able to escape their fate, but they'll look fantastic trying".

8 August 2026

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26 ARTS

Art

Exhibition of the week Julio Le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.

Tate Modern, London SE1 (020-7887 8888, tate.org.uk). Until 3 May 2027

The Julio Le Parc retrospective at Tate Modern “plunges you into” 1960s Paris, and it’s “riotous good fun”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. Le Parc was born in Argentina in 1928 and moved to France 30 years later, arriving in Paris as a refugee from his home country’s military dictatorship. There, he established a collective that sought to “subvert high culture with democratic play”, to fill the city’s – as he thought – dull museums “with noise and action”. He created sculptures out of random objects – “bicycle spokes, a fan belt, geometric cutouts, wobbly platters”. Often enough, the audience can participate, by pushing buttons that trigger Le Parc’s creations into activity – for he believed that looking at art should not be a passive experience. Some of his sculptures are reminiscent of cool 1960s abstract painting, but more entertaining: “as if Bridget Riley had got fed up composing her optically confounding art and decided to open a funfair”. Le Parc died, aged 97, just weeks before the opening of this fabulous exhibition, which is full of his “kinetic sculptures”

– “miracles in light, creating impossible spatial illusions”. They use light, movement and mirrored surfaces to create shapes that “multiply then vanish before, or rather inside, your eyes”.

“Everything in this show is just waiting to spring into life,” said Laura Cumming in The Observer. Even Le Parc’s fairly

Blue Sphere (2013): a “miracle in light”

conventional early paintings are more sophisticated than they look. One 1959 composition initially “resembles nothing so much as a gingham tablecloth”, but fast reveals itself to be a dazzling optical illusion. But the “immersive installations” the artist made as a member of the “Grav” collective are far more interesting: 1962’s “awesome” Continual Light Cylinder, for instance, is a choreography of “prisms, mirrors, rotators” and lightbulbs that creates “a continuously changing aurora of mesmerising light in an enormous circle”. It’s all great until we reach the last room, which sadly descends into “kitsch” – “all airbrushed rainbows and prisms, like prog rock album covers from the 1970s”.

At its best, Le Parc’s work is touched “with futuristic grace”, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph – while also “seeming retro, as evocative of a specific historical moment as, say, a miniskirt or a lava lamp”. One installation here creates “wispy, silvery reflections” from hanging metal squares; in another, constantly moving strands of white light are projected so as to resemble

a close-up of “a gigantic clock face”. Le Parc’s art isn’t always so charming, and can at times feel “unsettling” and “aggressive”, but it’s rarely “slight”: his aim was never merely to “distract frazzled minds or dupe the eye”. Instead, he sought to create “a sense of poetry via mechanical means”. “This show is less fun-house, more laboratory of ideas.”

Where to buy...

The Week reviews an exhibition in a private gallery

Christo

at Gagosian

Restaging the monumental installations of the artist Christo (1935-2020) presents obvious challenges. Working with his wife Jeanne-Claude, Cristo became famous for wrapping landmarks such as the Reichstag and Paris’s Pont Neuf in fabric or plastic – and it’s improbable that any of these huge-scale, wonderfully madcap endeavours will ever be repeated. The closest approximation that we’re likely to get comes courtesy of this show at Gagosian, Air, which revives one of the couple’s earliest projects: an unrealised 1968 proposal to “wrap the air” in a Philadelphia museum. The work involves a vast sheet of polythene suspended from the

Wrapped Automobile-Volvo (1981)

ceiling and held in place by rope. It’s a simple but ingenious sculptural conceit, the sagging synthetic material dominating even this gargantuan exhibition space, sometimes hanging so low that the visitor is forced to crouch. It’s accompanied by a fascinating array of photographs and archival material, making for a rare delight of a show. Prices on request.

20 Grosvenor Hill, London W1 (020-7495 1500). Until 21 August

Lenin vs. the Cossack rebel

“Since 2013, the plinth at the bottom of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv has been eerily empty,” says Luke Harding in The Guardian. That year, during Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution, a crowd toppled and smashed a sculpture of Lenin that had sat there. In June,

Volodymyr Zelensky proposed putting a new figure on the plinth: Ivan Mazepa, a Cossack leader who died in 1709. The idea has triggered “a lively debate” about statues and national identity. Mazepa (above) was the Cossack hetman, or head, who in 1708 abandoned the Russian emperor Peter the Great, and ceded Ukraine to the invading Swedish army led by King Charles XII. This act ended in defeat and exile for Mazepa, and made him a Russian hate-figure; the Orthodox Church pronounced an anathema on him, and the Bolsheviks damned Ukrainian nationalists as “Mazepists”. Now he has been rehabilitated, as one admirer put it, as “the architect of European Ukraine”. Designs for the statue are being submitted.

© TATE, ADAMY PARK AND DACS, LONDON 2326

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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The List

ARTS 27

The week's guide to what's worth seeing

Showing now

Now in its final few weeks, David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting brings together works created by the late artist in Normandy during lockdown. “Spellbinding” (Daily Telegraph). Free, until 23 August, Serpentine North, London W2 (serpentinegalleries.org).

Having made its debut at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Catherine Opie: To Be Seen has opened in Edinburgh. Opie's photographs of America's subcultures are "gripping, spiky and affecting" (Times). Until 1 November, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (nationalgalleries.org).

Book now

James Graham's new play The Standard of Living tells the story of John Maynard Keynes. Rory Kinnear is the economist; ballerina Natalia Osipova plays his wife. "Keynes Tickets" are available for under-30s at £25. 21 September-12 December, Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1 (standardoflivingplay.com).

The former US president will be in three UK cities for An Evening with President Barack Obama. He will discuss what comes next for the US, and for all of us. 13-15 October, Belfast, Glasgow and Manchester (seatunique.com).

Dua Lipa, who hosts her own well-regarded literary podcast, the Service95 Book Club, is curating the London Literature Festival as

A scene from A Year in Normandie (2020/21)

part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary year. Her starry line-up includes Zadie Smith, Patti Smith, Malorie Blackman, Max Porter and Michael Lewis: 20 October-1 November (southbankcentre.co.uk).

The curmudgeonly, lyrical and very funny Irish comedian Dylan Moran is touring the country this autumn. From 28 October, Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea, until 4 December, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London W12 (dylanmoran.com).

Just out in paperback

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott (Picador £9.99). Ebbott's "assured, acutely perceptive and beautifully written debut novel" follows a group of friends who meet for a celebratory weekend in Upstate New York, only for things to go disastrously wrong (FT).

Best books...

Adam Kay

The doctor turned writer is a National Year of Reading ambassador, supporting the Go All In campaign to help people discover the joy of reading (goallin.org.uk). His latest book, A Particularly Nasty Case (Orion £10.99), is out now in paperback

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, 2000 (Abacus £12.99). I'd read anything by the ultimate acerbic essayist – bus timetables, laundry care labels... Luckily, I don't have to, as he writes books. It's warm and funny, but sharp enough to cut, confronting Sedaris's North Carolina upbringing and his brilliantly deranged family, before switching to his move to France and the frustrations of being a foreigner. Solid gold.

The Glorious Dead by Justin Myers, 2025 (Renegade £10.99). One of my faves from last year – a funny and twisty examination of grief,

reputational damage and toxic friendship. A famous writer dies unexpectedly, leaving friends and family bereft, but their rose-tinted memories aren't long for the world when his memoir is unearthed.

Heartburn by Nora Ephron, 1983 (Virago £10.99). She was known for writing blockbuster comedies like When Harry Met Sally, but this novel was her greatest achievement – one of the funniest books ever written. Based on the collapse of her marriage after her husband's affair, it's an unflinching portrayal of betrayal and petty vengeance. With recipes!

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13( ^{3/4} ) by Sue Townsend, 1982 (Penguin £8.99). The inner yearnings of Leicester's most lovable loser are an instruction manual for every teenage boy on how not to navigate adolescence. Townsend's genius creation works just as well 44 (aaagh!) years later; the political satire and impeccable comic timing making it so much more than the diary of history's greatest frustrated intellectual.

The Phantom Tollbooth

by Norton Juster, 1961 (HarperCollins £7.99). My favourite book as a child, which I will be pushing on my own kids. A boy, bored by school, is transported to a magical kingdom and goes on a series of ludicrous quests. It is really a front to reinforce the importance of a thirst for knowledge, but is so funny and engrossing that young readers will never suspect a thing.

Television

Programmes

Bettany Hughes' Lost Worlds: Dawn of Civilisations In this two-part series, historian Bettany Hughes crosses Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, in search of the origins of human civilisation, Sat 8 Aug, C4 20:00 (60mins).

Inside Iran: War &

Revolution Documentary about the situation in Iran, using on-the-ground footage and interviews with journalists and ordinary people who've risked everything to share their perspective. Sun 9 Aug, ITV1 22:15 (75mins).

Spy Next Door: The Anna

Chapman Story Two-part documentary telling the true story of the Russian spy Anna Chapman. It includes previously unheard accounts from ex-friends, colleagues and lovers. Wed 12 & Thu 13 Aug, C4 21:00 (60mins each).

A House Through Time

Historian David Olusoga returns to uncover the stories of the people who lived in a property in Edinburgh over many years. Thu 13 Aug, BBC2 21:00 (60mins).

The Coen Brothers Story

Documentary exploring the life and careers of the idiosyncratic filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen. Thu 13 Aug, BBC4 21:00 (60mins).

Films

Parallel Mothers (2021)

Penélope Cruz is terrific in Pedro Almodóvar's drama about a mother who fears her baby was switched at birth. Sat 8 Aug, BBC4 23:10 (115min).

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Beguiling Coen brothers film about a struggling folk singer. With Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan. Sun 9 Aug, BBC2 22:00 (100min).

New to streaming

Ted Lasso Many believed the final whistle had blown on the football comedy, but it's made a surprise return. Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is lured back to the UK to coach the women's team. On Apple TV.

Furious Thriller about an FBI agent on the hunt for a female serial killer who is avenging Epstein-type abusers. “Crafted with vim” (Times). On Disney+.

© ONWILE CLIFT

Titles in print are available from The Week Bookshop (theweekbookshop.co.uk). For out-of-print books visit biblio.co.uk

8 August 2026

THE WEEK

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28

Best properties

Houses in the Tudor style

◀ Suffolk: Crown House, Lavenham. A characterful Grade II property within a fine medieval village. 3 beds, 2 baths, 3 receps, kitchen/breakfast room, garden, detached garage/workshop with en-suite annexe. £835,000; Jackson-Stops (01284-700535).

▼ Suffolk: Read Hall, Stowmarket. This historic and picturesque Grade II* medieval manor house features moated grounds and gardens extending to 4.75 acres. 2 suites, 3 further beds, family bath, kitchen, 3 receps, 2-bed annexe, barn. £1.25m; David Burr (01359-245245).

▲ Denbighshire: Plas Yn Llan, Llangynhafal. Distinguished Grade II house dating back to 1580. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, conservatory, gardens, outbuildings. £950,000; Fisher German (01244-409660).

◀ Suffolk: Barn Street, Lavenham. A charming Grade I former Hall House thought to date back to 1530, which has a wealth of original features. 4 beds, 2 baths, cellar, kitchen/breakfast room, utility, 2 receps, double garage with studio and workshop, partly walled and landscaped gardens. £1m; David Burr (01787-883144).

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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on the market

29

Worcestershire:

Haventree Cottage, Suckley. A sprawling, traditional timber-frame build, country home set in over two acres of private grounds with far-reaching views across the Teme Valley landscape. Main bed with en suite and dressing room, 5 further beds, 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps, garage, gym. £1.35m; Morgan Aps (01905-384848).

Staffordshire:

High Street, Kinver. Remarkable Grade II Tudor house, built in 1563 and overlooking the River Stour. The house is a former winner of an English Heritage Award for the conservation of its woodwork. Main suite, 3 further beds, family bath, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, garden, log cabin overlooking riverbank. £500,000; Hunters (01384-443331).

Oxfordshire:

Cherry Tree Cottage, Goring Heath. Dating from the 17th century, this Grade II thatched cottage has been lovingly restored and was nominated for a South Oxfordshire Conservation Award. 3 beds, 2 baths, open-plan kitchen/dining room, recep, terrace, gardens and grounds of approx. 0.4 acre. £800,000; Warmingham (01491-874144).

Suffolk: The Malthouse, Hacheston, Woodbridge. This remarkable Grade II* home dates back to 1541 and has maintained its original timber frame. Main suite, 2 further beds (both en suite), kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, study, garden, outbuilding. £650,000; Fenn Wright (01394-333346).

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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30

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THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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LEISURE

Food & Drink

31

A foodie city's more relaxed neighbour

San Sebastián, in northern Spain, is world-renowned for its food, says Marina O'Loughlin in the Financial Times. But given the sheer number of tourists, you'll need "sharp-elbowed dedication" to take part in its "rich tradition" of txikiteo – moving from bar to bar, eating a few pintxos, or small bites, at each. Fortunately, in the nearby town of Hondarribia you can have an equally delicious experience, but in "less stressful" conditions. The town is divided into a marina and an Old Town, "connected by steep climbs". Begin in the marina, on San Pedro Kalea. On this wide promenade "lined with bars" it's "almost impossible to hit a duffer", but my "favourite place" – Loretxu Jan & Edan – is just off the main drag, on a side street towards the seafront. Try the superb grilled txipiron (tiny cuttlefish) with caramelised onion, and the patallones – fat crisps laden with mussels. In the Old Town, don't miss Mika Jatetxea for its "Mika" pintxo (bacon and lightly battered prawns on toast with green mayonnaise and wakame), or the "cosy and elegant" Badia Taberna. For a substantial meal, visit Hondarribia's "temple to carnality", Laia Erretegia, where the txuleta steaks rival anything you'll find in San Sebastián.

The rise and fall of Mr Whippy

The "distant Pavlovian chimes" of the ice cream van were an important part of many of our childhoods, says Zak Asgard in The Spectator. But you don't see them so often

Ice cream vans: part of "our cultural identity"

now. There were some 30,000 vans in their 1970s heyday; now there are only around 2,500. "To track the decline of the British ice cream van, we must first understand its rise." You can trace their history back to the "hokey pokey" pushcarts of Victorian London, which dispensed ice cream in penny-lick glasses that were rinsed in "filthy bath-warm water" before being handed to the "next schmuck". Not surprisingly, these were declared a health hazard, and were gradually replaced by Wall's ice cream tricycles, which proved a hit in the first half of the 20th century – "Stop me and buy one", their signs famously read. Ice cream vans proper arrived in 1958, when Dominic Facchino –

inspired by US firm Mr Softee – launched Mr Whippy in Birmingham. Soon, everybody was "in love with the 99 flake". But the "glory days" were short-lived: by the 1980s, the vans were being threatened by the "rise of domestic freezers, supermarket supremacy and noise restrictions". Their ongoing decline may not be a tragedy, but it is something to regret. For rather like pie and mash shops and other lost familiars, they symbolised something that matters: "our shared, chaotic cultural identity".

The whimsical dish making a revival

Dating back to Tudor times, and named for its "whimsical" nature, trifle was once an elaborate dish, often made with exotic ingredients, and reserved for special occasions, say David Binns and Lottie Hayton in The Sunday Times. But it started to fall out of fashion in the last century as it came to mean a pudding made from tinned fruit, jelly and packet custard. Yet now trifle is having a resurgence, and is on offer in some of the nation's "poshest restaurants". With no canonical recipe for trifle, chefs feel at liberty to be inventive. At the Coach House, on the Middleton Lodge estate in North Yorkshire, there's a watermelon and bronze fennel trifle with yoghurt and rapeseed sponge. Rosi, in London's Mayfair, serves a "strawberry and pistachio number". Home cooks may be making it more too: supermarkets have noted an increase in the sale of the sponge fingers that are often used for its base.

Recipe of the week: herby mango salad

This dish is loosely inspired by my go-to Thai order: som tam, or papaya salad, says Ella Risbridger – except that I use mango instead, because I find it hard to get hold of good papaya. Apparently, one of the ways that fast food makes itself irresistible is by hitting most of the base flavours simultaneously: salty, umami, sweet. This dish does exactly that, except in the rather healthier form of an enormous bowl of mostly vegetables. It is peak summer food: zero cooking, 100% refreshing.

Serves 4

1 tbsp fish sauce 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar 1 tbsp caster sugar 1 red chilli 2 medium carrots 3 baby cucumbers (or ½ a big cucumber) 50g green beans 1 long red pepper 300g chopped mango 10g mint 10g Thai basil 10g coriander 1 romaine lettuce 150g cooked prawns or fried tofu, or chopped chicken or crispy chicken thighs 30g chopped roasted peanuts 1 lime sriracha, if liked

• In a much-too-big bowl (it will hold everything!), whisk together the fish sauce, vinegar and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Thinly slice the red chilli and add it too (easy to omit).
• Peel the carrots and use a julienne peeler to turn them into thin, pretty little strips. Toss the carrot strips into the bowl and let marinate for a minute. Halve and thinly slice the cucumbers: if you're using half a big boy, split it in half, and use a teaspoon to drag out the seeds. Discard the seeds, and thinly slice. Toss the cucumbers in with the carrots and stir.
• Chop the green beans. If you can do this on the diagonal, so much the better (discard the stringy ends). Add to the bowl. Deseed and finely slice the pepper; add to the bowl.

• Tip: this is a good point to stop at if you're making in advance.
• Finely chop the mango into little dice. De-stem and finely shred the herbs, then shred the lettuce (wash the leaves; stack the leaves; roll the leaves in a bundle; slice the bundle across). Mix the leaves, the mango, the prawns into the pickled vegetables.
• Roughly chop the peanuts; quarter the lime. Divide the salad into bowls; drizzle with sriracha, if liked; scatter with peanuts; set the lime quarter at a jaunty angle for individual squeezes.
• Tip: if you keep the components separately in the fridge – so pickled vegetables and vinaigrette in one container, chopped lettuce and herbs in another, prawns in their packet – it is a phenomenal make-ahead lunch for the week.

Taken from The Kitchen Book: Good Food For Every Day by Ella Risbridger, published by Fourth Estate at £26. Photography by Yuki Sugiura. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £22.99 (incl. p&p), visit theweekbookshop.co.uk to place your order, or call 020-3176 3835 to speak to a bookseller

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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32 LEISURE

Consumer

New cars: what the critics say

Aion V from £36,450

Auto Express

Aion is part of GAC, one of China's largest car manufacturers, and the V ("vee" not "five") is the brand's first model to be sold in the UK. The line-up is "super-simple": there's just one powertrain with 204bhp and a 75.3kWh battery for a 317-mile WLTP range, and one trim with generous standard kit, plus a £1,495 Premium Pack above it. As a family electric SUV, it is entering a crowded market.

Top Gear Magazine

Aion has a USP in the "Great Eight" – eight years of vehicle warranty, battery warranty, AA assistance, servicing and MoT. The V goes from 0-62mph in 7.9secs; it is a "dignified", but far from exhilarating, drive, and the driver-assistance warnings are exasperating. The ride is smooth, the steering is "impressively precise" – but the damping lets the V down, and the brakes feel "pretty soggy".

What Car?

Most rivals offer a PHEV, and a plug-in hybrid is due next year. The V's interior is spacious with lots of storage, but no frunk. The cabin has "showroom appeal", with glossy trims and soft faux-leather materials. Visibility is good, helped by parking sensors and a 360° camera, which come as standard. The 14.6-inch touchscreen looks neat and responds quickly, but it's "fiddly and distracting to use".

The best... spring-cleaning gadgets

Dyson Spot+Scrub AI Robot

vacuum "Incredibly sophisticated", this robot finds stains and cleans them until they're gone. It uses water heated to 60°C on every rotation, washing itself as it goes. It's "remarkably quiet" and can detect different surfaces, and it empties itself into the dock (£1,050; dyson.co.uk).

Von Haus 15L Ash Vacuum

Cleaner This powerful vacuum is designed to clean ash from BBQs, fire pits, wood-burning stoves and fireplaces, trapping the particles with a washable Hepa filter. At 1.25m, the hose will reach most awkward corners (on offer at £35; vonhaus.com).

Shark

StainForce Spot

Cleaner This cordless cleaner claims to work on stains – from oil to permanent marker – on carpet, upholstery and car interiors. It comes with a cleaning spray and two tools (on offer at £150; sharkninja.co.uk).

Russell Hobbs Steam

& Clean Mop Steam mops use hot water to kill germs and clean dirt and grease, instead of chemicals. Lightweight and easy to assemble, this 1.4kW model glides along smoothly and has a 380ml tank that lasts up to 15 minutes (£30; currys.com).

Halo Capsule XR Lightweight

(2.7kg) and with impressive suction, this cordless stick vacuum has a large 2-litre cylinder and a Hepa filter to stop dust spreading. It works on hard floors and carpets, and has interchangeable 32V batteries, with up to an hour runtime. Tools and brushes are included (on offer at £300; haloappliances.com).

Lakeland Turbo

Scrubber This clever cordless bathroom cleaning tool has four brushes and a powerful 220rpm motor. The telescopic rod helps reach tricky areas, and the dispenser holds 50ml cleaning fluid. Battery life is about an hour (£60; lakeland.co.uk).

SOURCE: THE LONDON STANDARD

Tips of the week... getting children to eat veg

• If a child balks at the very sight of vegetables, try varying the way you serve them. You could try turning them into nuggets or burgers; or hide them by cutting them up small and adding them to curries or pasta sauces such as bolognese and pesto.
• Bear in mind that crowded plates can be overwhelming. Don't force them to finish a portion, but do keep putting the vegetable on their plate until they try it, even just a tiny bit. It can take up to 15 attempts to learn to like a new food.
• Give children options so they can choose for themselves, and praise them if they show interest in a new food.
• Children learn from their parents, so eat together as a family. If they are old enough, let them help prepare meals and choose fruit and veg in the supermarket.
• Leave out vegetable snacks – diced peppers, carrot fingers, bits of cucumber – if they are peckish they might go for it.

And for those who have everything...

Most such bottles keep water cold for 24 hours; Chilly's claims its new models can keep it cool for three days. Made from 90% recycled steel, the Series 3 Flip has a leak-proof straw lid and comes in 500ml and one litre sizes, with 45 and 75 hours cold retention respectively.

£40/£48; chillys.com

Where to find... some great gardening courses

Join the head gardener and his team at Great Dixter in East Sussex for the day-long course Gardening with Subtropical Plants. Lunch is included and you get 10% off at the nursery (14 Sep, £187pp; greatdixter.co.uk).

Learn how to create a thriving garden at home from the champion of no-dig gardening Charles Dowding on a No Dig Course at Homeacres in Somerset. There's a full-day course or a weekend option (from £215pp, charlesdowding.co.uk).

Gordon Castle, Moray, has various courses including a Spring Pot Workshop where head gardener Jennifer Wright teaches about succession planting and how to make a bulb lasagne, with refreshments, too (10 Oct, £59.50; gordoncastle.com).

Start your own organic kitchen garden on a day-long Get Growing course at River Cottage, Devon. You'll get a seasonal two-course lunch, plus planted seed trays and seeds to take home (15 Aug and 21 Mar 2027, £195pp; rivercottage.net).

SOURCE: BBC HEALTH

SOURCE: T3

SOURCE: THE TIMES

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Travel

LEISURE 33

This week's dream: sailing back in time on the Norfolk Broads

"The klop, klop of water under the bows of a small boat will cure most troubles in this world," wrote Arthur Ransome in his 1934 novel Coot Club – and, after my recent solo sailing trip in the Norfolk Broads, I have to agree with him, said James Stewart in the FT. Ransome's book is set in this network of tidal rivers and shallow lakes, which "cumulatively snake" for 125 miles through the east of Norfolk. The lakes are medieval peat diggings that were flooded by rising seas in the 14th century, and long plied by cargo boats known as wherries. The Victorians "reimagined" the area as a holiday destination, and operators began renting small

yachts to visitors. Motorboats are now far more numerous, but sailing boats are still available to charter.

Founded in 1932, Hunter's Yard in Ludham has a fleet of yachts from "the golden age of Broads cruising", some with cabins sleeping two to four. Renters must know how to sail, but novices can sign up for a "Learn to Sail" week. The 90-year-old

A sailing trip in the Norfolk Broads offers "landscape as serenity"

yacht I chartered, Hustler, was like "an Edwardian gentlemen's club shrunk to a Wendy house", with "lustrous" mahogany panelling and a Royal Doulton sink. And it had a "secret weapon". Most motorboats won't fit beneath the medieval bridge at Potter Heigham, and so are restricted to the southern Broads. But yachts can lower their masts to squeeze through, into a world where "the throb of boat engines" is replaced "by birdsong in sibilant reeds".

I found the Broads "surprisingly social". Dog walkers and fishermen waved, and a canoeist kept pace for a chat. The birds were wonderful, too, from kingfishers to marsh harriers and cranes "like

dowager flamingos". But mostly there was just me, the sound of creaking ropes, and the "low bosky horizons" stretching "beneath heroic skies". This was "landscape as serenity", particularly in the dusk at Horsey Mere, reminding me "how sailing could still be" – "an interlude in which everything else can fall away, a momentary back eddy in the restless tide of the world".

Getting the flavour of...

Hiking the "Great Wall" of Seoul

Hiking is South Korea's most popular sporting activity – and thanks to the forested hills that reach far into the city, you can even do it in Seoul, says Oliver Berry in National Geographic Traveller. Trails rise to 836 metres in the Bukhansan National Park, a little way out of town, but there are smaller peaks next to Seoul's historic centre, traversed by the city's medieval battlements ("Seoul's answer to China's Great Wall"). I walked along the wall's northern section, passing three of the original city gates and climbing the "dome-shaped" summit of Inwangsan, which is only 338 metres high, but "punishingly steep". The path was fragrant with juniper and mountain pine, and shaded here and there by cherry and maple trees – and there were "sweeping" views across downtown Seoul.

Doing Route 66 by train

It's 100 years since the opening of Route 66, the "legendary" highway between Chicago and LA,

Plenty of people are celebrating the centenary by driving it, but I made the 2,000-mile journey west by train instead, says Adrian Bridge in The Daily Telegraph – which allowed for "leisurely contemplation" of America's "stunning" landscapes, as well as plenty of "convivial" dining-car conversation. A sleeper train, the Southwest Chief, does the route in 45 hours – or you can break up the journey, as I did. Among the highlights were St Louis ("the city of Miles Davis and the Blues"), Kansas City (where the Beaux Arts railway station is "an absolute gem"), and Flagstaff, Arizona (a "key" Route 66 staging post, full of "1950s-style diners"). But nothing could beat sunset at the Grand Canyon (pictured). Amtrak Vacations (amtrakvacations.co.uk) has a 14-night trip from £1,709pp.

Summer on the Slovene Riviera

A southwards-pointing peninsula in the northern Adriatic, Istria lies mostly in Croatia today, but Slovenia also has a small chunk of it – which provides the entirety of that country's 29-mile coastline. It is a lovely area, says Laura Coffey in The Guardian, with green hills, pretty villages and "colourful" seaside towns. The largest and most "beautiful" of these, 25 miles south of the Italian city of Trieste, is Piran, known for its medieval Venetian architecture. Nearby lies the Strunjan Landscape Park, with a gorgeous beach, Moon Bay, and Irola, another "vibrant" historic harbour town. I can recommend the DeGrassi hotel there ("supremely comfortable"), as well as Kmetija Medljan, a simple farm stay in the hills. And I enjoyed visiting some artisanal wineries and food producers, including Korenika & Moškon, where the belica olive oil has a "powerful kick".

Hotel of the week

Rosewood Mandarina

Nayarit, Mexico

Set just north of Puerto Vallarta on a "heavenly" slice of Mexico's Pacific coast, this new beach resort is a great place "to sit back and do absolutely nothing", says Megan Spurrell in Conde Nast Traveller. It's the Rosewood group's fourth hotel in the country, and sits next to a One&Only resort with which it shares some facilities. Rooms feature earthy tones and lots of natural materials (including wooden ceilings and linen screens). The three restaurants (Japanese, Mexican and Spanish) are "fabulous". And there's a "tranquil" spa, a kids' club, and plenty more to do, including polo lessons. Doubles from £830; rosewoodhotels.com.

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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34

Obituaries

Goodie turned naturalist who fronted Springwatch

Bill Oddie 1941-2028

For those who grew up in the 1970s, Bill Oddie, who has died aged 85, will always be one of The Goodies, said The

Times. The anarchic comedy show, co-starring his Cambridge Footlights alumni Graeme Garden and the late Tim Brooke-Taylor, was about a trio of fixers who travel around on a three-seater bicycle they called a “trandem”, supposedly solving all manner of problems. Running for 76 episodes, it mixed “lavatorial” jokes and sight gags inspired by Buster Keaton and Tom and Jerry with absurdism (one episode had the group being chased by a giant kitten) and political satire (another addressed Apartheid). As well as helping to write the show, Oddie composed songs for it, including The Funky Gibbon, which reached No. 4 in the charts in 1975 and led to him and his fellow comics appearing on Top of the Pops.

At its peak, The Goodies attracted 12 million viewers. But although it had similarities to Monty Python, BBC executives did not take it as seriously, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. They classified it as children’s TV, which was meant as an insult and Oddie took it as one. Later, he reinvented himself as a naturalist, and won many new fans as the presenter of wildlife programmes, including Springwatch. Yet here, too, his success was undercut by sadness. He left Springwatch at the end of 2008, and later made it clear that he’d been forced out by the BBC. He said his mental health had been a factor and that he “could be very tetchy”. He had, he revealed, fallen into a depression, twice attempted suicide, and been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Born in Rochdale in 1941, William Oddie was the son of Harry Oddie, an accountant, and his wife Lilian. Aged six, Bill came

Oddie: a birdwatcher since his teens

home from school to find the house empty and blood all over the kitchen. It turned out that his mother had attacked his father. She spent years in psychiatric wards. The family subsequently moved to Birmingham. He was educated at King Edward’s School, then won a place at Cambridge, where he made a splash at Footlights alongside the likes of John Cleese. Before long he was appearing in a Footlights revue in the West End and on Broadway. He wrote scripts for That Was the Week That Was and episodes of the TV comedy Doctor in the House. He also appeared regularly on radio, including in I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again. The Goodies launched in 1970 and ran for more than a decade. Each of its creators had a distinct personality, said The Guardian: Brooke-Taylor was pompous; Garden was professorial; while Oddie was hairy and untidy. Even then, he suffered from mood swings. He found fame hard to manage and could be grouchy. When, in 2001, Michael Aspel approached him with his

big red book and the words, “Bill Oddie, this is your life,” Oddie replied: “It’s not. I always said I wouldn’t do it and I won’t.” His family eventually persuaded him to go ahead with the show.

Oddie had loved birdwatching since his teens and, after a spell working in children’s TV in the 1980s, he began fronting wildlife shows such as Birding with Bill Oddie. In 2003, he was made an OBE for his conservation work. He attributed his mental health problems to his childhood, and the feeling that his mother had abandoned him. Later, however, he began to appreciate that she may also have had bipolar disorder. He realised, he said, that she had been “in no way negligent”, only “immensely unlucky”. He is survived by his three children, and his second wife, the writer and former actress Laura Beaumont.

Controversial German anatomist behind Body Worlds

Gunther von Hagens 1948-2028

Gunther von Hagens was a German anatomist who, in the late 1970s, developed a novel preservation method that

involved draining the body of fat and fluids and replacing them with a flexible polymer. In the 1990s, he used this technique – plastination – to create touring exhibitions of flayed human bodies that caused a sensation. To his supporters, he was “a scientific visionary”, said The Times, whose shows “opened the eyes of millions to the reality of death” and the forces of life. Others regarded the “pallid” anatomist, in his ever-present black fedora, as “the sinister ringmaster of a human freakshow”. Many Church leaders were appalled by his work; in Germany it was likened to the crimes of the Nazi era. But millions flocked to his Body Worlds shows, to gawp at plasticised corpses, their muscles and ligaments exposed, arranged in macabre tableaux – riding flayed horses, playing electric guitars, fencing, copulating. Some of his bodies even appeared, sat around a card table, in the 2006 Bond film Casino Royale.

Gunther Liebchen was born in 1945 in what is now Poland, where his father was a member of the SS. The family fled as the Red Army approached, eventually settling in Greiz – which ended up in East Germany. As a haemophiliac, Gunther was frequently hospitalised, which inspired his interest in medicine. He worked as a nurse before starting a degree in medicine at the University of Jena. In 1969, he was jailed for trying to escape into Austria. On

Von Hagens with two of his bodies

his release, he made it to the West, and completed his studies at the University of Lübeck. When he married, he took his wife’s name, reportedly because Liebchen (“darling”) sounded too cute.

He was working as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Pathology and Anatomy when he started working on plastination. It had obvious medical uses, said The Guardian. Students could look at diseased organs without waiting for them to be donated; it allowed corpses to be cut into slices for examination in the lab. Von Hagens launched a business supplying plastinated body parts to medical institutions; it was only later he realised the broader commercial potential. Aided by his second wife Angelina (who survives him, along with his three children), he launched his first Body Worlds exhibition in Japan in 1995. It then

toured the world. Over the years, he faced several legal challenges. In 2002, he was accused of breaking the law by staging the UK’s first public autopsy for 170 years. But no charges were filed and the event was later shown on Channel 4. He also faced questions about where his corpses came from: he returned some after concern was raised that they were the bodies of prisoners executed in China. Generally, he insisted that he only accepted those donated with informed consent; and thanks to the success of Body Worlds, thousands did sign up to be plastinated. From 2005, this work took place at a factory which employed up to 150 people. Von Hagens himself specified that he should be plastinated after his death, and displayed wearing his trademark black hat.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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CITY

CITY 35

Companies in the news

...and how they were assessed

AstraZeneca/Bristol Myers Squibb: mega-merger

The City has been jolted out of its summer daze by the “stonking” news that AstraZeneca – the UK’s second-most valuable company, worth around £196bn – has held merger talks with US rival Bristol Myers Squibb, reported the Financial Times. “A tie-up would be worth about $400bn and be the biggest pharmaceutical deal ever.” Although AZ is roughly twice the size of BMS, and would be the lead partner, the story is bound to “spark fresh fears” about the firm’s “commitment to the UK”. CEO Sir Pascal Soriot has already demoted its London listing in favour of New York. “If talks progress it will be a fresh test for Andy Burnham’s Government on how interventionist it will be in its approach to nationally strategic companies.” Word of the putative deal went down like a bucket of sick in the City. AZ shares fell 9%, noted Maggie Fick on Reuters – their biggest drop since 2020 – as investors struggled to understand the need for such a “transformative acquisition”. I suppose there is the possibility of “building a market-beating global colossus in oncology”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. But all that is guaranteed is that AZ would “inherit the target’s patent cliff challenge”. Soriot’s long tenure at AZ has been a “triumph” in the round. Why he’d risk “spoiling his legacy” with such a “high-risk financial adventure” is a mystery.

Magnificent Seven: split posse

When investors pile into a trend, the result will often be a fun nickname, said Reuben Gregg Brewer on The Motley Fool. But the so-called Magnificent Seven group – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – was always doomed to fracture. The only question was when. It turns out the end of that era is now, said John Plender in the Financial Times. The AI boom, in particular, has torn “The Mag 7” apart over the vexed question of whether the “huge expenditure” on infrastructure – especially by “hypercalers” Meta, Amazon and Microsoft – will “generate adequate profits”. Take a look at the extreme market reaction to last week’s quarterly results, said Graham Ruddick in The Times. When Meta “nudged up” its forecast spending for 2026 by a few billion to $130bn-$145bn, its shares were whacked. By contrast, when Microsoft reduced its capex from the forecast $190bn to $175bn, about $450bn was added to its value in a single day (“the most for any business on record”). In sorting AI winners from losers, Wall Street has found another “key differentiator” besides, said Asa Fitch in The Wall Street Journal: cloud computing – a massive growth market, which is being driven by AI, but which has a “tried-and-true business model” that would survive the bursting of an AI bubble. No wonder Meta is (belatedly) scrambling to climb on board.

J. Sainsbury/Argos: catalogue of woes?

Talk about a bet that went wrong, said Marine Saint in The Observer. Sainsbury’s is offloading its Argos unit – bought in 2016 for £1.1bn – for about £120m, or “close to one-tenth” of the purchase price, after conceding defeat to online giants Amazon and Temu. Fortunately, the former catalogue business has a willing buyer. Swift Partners – led by veteran retailers Richard Pennycook and Trevor Strain – sees potential in “underappreciated” Argos and its shops. It’s a brand with enduring popularity beyond nostalgia, said Isabella Fish in The Times. Best of British luck with the turnaround.

Seven days in the Square Mile

International oil prices eased below $80/barrel on renewed hopes of a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz and a potential easing of supply disruptions. But US petrol prices are still above $4 a gallon – about 35% higher than their pre-war level. Both the US Fed and the Bank of England kept interest rates on hold – the latter at 3.75%. But the Bof, governor, Andrew Bailey, warned that a further escalation in the Iran war could drive inflation above 4% next year. Chancellor John Healey confirmed that the Budget would be delivered on 28 October.

The Government announced an overhaul of the £90bn public procurement system – putting the emphasis on bidders to prove that they are creating jobs, rather than meeting green and social targets. The new model will apply to both British and international firms bidding for public contracts.

Shares in SpaceX plunged a further 8%, despite reporting a 92% rise in quarterly revenue year-on-year to $7.7bn. Traders balked at Elon Musk’s lavish plans for data centres. The rocket company has lost more than $1trn in market capitalisation since its blockbuster float in June. Palantir, the controversial data company, announced what CEO Alex Karp described as “otherworldly growth”; shares bounced 25%. HSBC reported that EV makers have slashed discounts on vehicles to a 15-month low in the UK. Grant Thornton is buying rival CBIZ for $5bn in the largest takeover in the accounting sector in a generation.

BP’s North Sea exit: a watershed moment for British energy

When BP started its first North Sea oilfield in November 1975, it was an event so momentous that the late Queen Elizabeth travelled to Aberdeen “to press the button that let the crude flow”, said Emily Gosden in The Times. Now, the oil and gas major is pulling out of the North Sea completely, having judged it uneconomical to continue there when there are “brighter opportunities elsewhere” – including at Bumerangue, off the coast of Brazil, where it made its biggest discovery in 25 years. As CEO Meg O’Neill told CNBC (while announcing a doubling of quarterly profits to $5.73bn), the North Sea “just doesn’t compete for capital”.

All oil and gas fields eventually enter a period of natural decline. BP’s five remaining rigs in the North Sea are worth just £2bn – a far cry from valuations during the 1980s bonanza that made Britain a net exporter of oil, said Jonathan Leake in The Daily Telegraph. Nonetheless, the exit

Aberdeen, 1975: “Let the crude flow”

of the last heavyweight “deals a hammer blow” to hopes of a “revival”. What really fuels the anger in Aberdeen is that BP’s decision was driven not just by geology, but by “a disastrous mix of energy and tax policies” that have inflicted an effective 78% tax rate on North Sea drillers – and which culminated in former energy secretary Ed Miliband’s ban on new oil and gas exploration.

BP hopes to find buyers. But pressure is now growing on Andy Burnham to reduce the windfall tax, lift the ban on new licences and approve the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas projects that have been in limbo since Labour came to power. The North Sea will

never reclaim its heyday, said Bloomberg, but it could still generate value and jobs, improve energy resilience and “buy time while the energy transition continues”. Those are gains that should not be sniffed at.

© BP

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

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36 CITY

Talking points

Issue of the week: Trump's currency meddling

The US move to prop up the Japanese yen suits both parties. But it's not without risks

"As to-do lists go, Scott Bessent's one was certainly unconventional," said Melissa Lawford in The Daily Telegraph. Last Friday, President Trump's treasury secretary was photographed with a note in front of him that read: "Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil". Whether "hilariously staged" (as Bloomberg claimed) or not, Bessent swiftly followed through. The US Treasury later confirmed it had coordinated with Tokyo "to make a historic intervention" to drive up the value of the yen and rescue it from a 40-year low – paying for the move "by selling a chunk of its reserves of euros". Trump is starting to make a habit of using currency moves as a display of support for allies. Last year, he opened up currency swap lines for Argentina's president, Javier Milei, and Hungary's then-PM Viktor Orbán. Both were before crucial elections. The question is, what does he want from Japan?

One possible explanation is that America's first big intervention in the yen in 30 years is just “buddynamics”, said Katie Martin in the FT – even if “a little more in-your-face than usual”. That's certainly how Trump presented it. The more likely reason, though, is “rational self-interest”. Japan has two traditional routes to push up the battered yen. One is an enormous rise in interest rates,

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Sanae Takaichi

hardly a preferred route for its PM Sanae Takaichi, given the rising economic discontent at home. The other is a massive sale of dollars – i.e. Japan's $1trn stash of US Treasuries – to help fund its own yen purchases. Neither of these would be good news for the US. “Much better to stand behind Japan like a scary big brother and hope to scare off the yen sellers.”

Given America's near $40trn debt, dumping even a small portion of Treasuries onto the market could drive up borrowing costs for Washington when yields are already high. Nonetheless, this move has huge implications for markets, said Huileng

Tan on Al Jazeera. It threatens “the yen-funded carry trade, in which investors borrow cheaply in Japan to buy higher-yielding currencies and assets overseas”. The last time that happened, in 2024, the move forced an unwinding of leveraged trades that rippled across global markets. This intervention “decidedly changes the game”, said Gearoid Reidy and Daniel Moss on Bloomberg. “The biggest concern now is what happens to both nations’ credibility” if it fails “to put a lid on the yen”. So far, all is going to plan: the yen has fallen to around ¥157, from a peak of ¥164, without undue ructions. But don’t count on that lasting.

FTSE prospects: what the experts think

“Anti-tech” index

London's blue-chip FTSE 100 index enjoyed its “best month since the Iran war” in July, as global capital shifted out of tech stocks and “towards miners, banks and defence firms”, said Robert Miller in The Times. Last week, it hit a new all-time high,

and there may be plenty more to come if the chip and tech sell-off reignites. As Emmanuel Kau of Barclays observes, the Footsie is an “almost anti-tech index”, dominated by so-called “old-world stocks” seen as a useful hedge by fund managers. “We remain constructive on the AI growth story,” note UBS analysts, “but believe investors should manage concentration risk by broadening their exposure.” For many, FTSE 100 exposure fits the bill.

Blasted backwater

Be grateful for small mercies, said Tom Saunders and Louis Goss in The Daily Telegraph. In the grand scheme of things, London's decline into a relative backwater continues – hastened by its “own former champions” as they hotfoot to Wall Street in search of greater liquidity, or are taken private. Ten years ago, there were 2,365 listed companies; now there are just 1,500 – a remarkable 36% drop. Simultaneously, local investment has plummeted. “Back in

UK fund managers shouldn't copy Eeyore

1997, £1 in every £2 invested by British pension funds was ploughed into the UK stock market. Today that figure is more like £1 in every £20." It's a vicious circle. The blame doesn't just lie with big investors, but with "successive governments that

have dismantled tax incentives" to invest locally. Now politicians are belatedly scrambling to undo the damage.

Blinded by pessimism

UK funds shouldn't just be buying "because it's the right thing to do", said veteran UK fund manager Gervais Williams. It's a case of whether "they're happy to stand by and watch very strong returns in the UK without doing anything about it". Certainly, that's the view of many overseas investors, said Ben Kumar of investment manager 7IM in The Times. "The Eeyoreish view" is that the London market will "shrink and shrink until nothing's left and everything is owned by foreign money". But if you flip the perspective, you ask "what has caught the eye of the world about UK assets"? The UK is still a leading financial centre and shares are cheaper than US counterparts, "so let's celebrate it".

Leveraged ETFs: the lowdown

Warren Buffett described derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction". In the hands of retail investors, LETFs are proving equally explosive...

Dark night of the Seoul No world leader, except perhaps Donald Trump, has staked their political future quite so firmly on “a hot stock market” as South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, said the FT. “He got more than he bargained for.” After shooting for the Moon, the chip-dominated Kospi index fell nearly 40% from its June peak last week – wiping out thousands of retail investors, now blaming Lee for “hastily approving” the use of LETFs, which amplify returns as an asset rises but magnify losses disastrously when the market turns.

Rein 'em in The $16trn US ETF industry, which once offered savers a cheap and easy way to gain broad stock-market exposure, is also "starting to resemble a casino", said Bloomberg. More than 450 ETFs now offer leveraged or inverse bets on a single security (at least ten were created for SpaceX alone) – making them useful "for hedge funds juicing single-day trades" but "potentially catastrophic for individual investors". An outright ban "isn't likely or even desirable", but protections are needed to safeguard the unsophisticated. So is regular stress-testing to help shield the financial system – itself highly leveraged – from the destabilising volatility of ETFs We must heed "Korea's cautionary tale".

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

© 2026MCT

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Commentators

CITY 37

A case of “oil in our time”

John Authers

Bloomberg

Britain, energy powerhouse of Europe?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

The Daily Telegraph

Will diamonds ever recover their lustre?

Dominic O'Connell

The Times

Sorry you were late. Here's my invoice

James Max

Financial Times

"The stock market's relationship to war and peace can be troublesome," says John Authers – look at the Dow Industrials in 1938 and 1939 as an ever-more belligerent Hitler threatened Europe. The 1938 Munich Agreement, falsely hailed by British PM Neville Chamberlain as "peace in our time", got a warm reception: "traders were relieved the prospects of war had receded, even at the cost of appeasing a dangerous dictator". Yet when war was declared a year later, markets rallied again: "a global cataclysm was under way but at least there was clarity". As a cold-blooded exposition of the cliché that markets hate uncertainty even more than war, this was hard to beat. And something similar is now happening. The S&P 500 is back at an all-time high; and Brent crude has fallen 11%, because a deal – likely to see Iran charging ships to cross Hormuz – appears close. Terrible news it may be, "tantamount to a surrender by the US". But the Munich precedent is clear. "The picture is clarifying, uncertainty is reducing, and the price of enabling a dictatorial regime is steep but payable."

The prevailing – dated – narrative of Britain “as the energy sick man of Europe” needs to be turned on its head, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. It’s a fair bet that, in five to ten years’ time, we’ll be the only country “with a flourishing energy system across the whole technology spectrum” – able to meet core internal needs for both power and fuel from our own territorial sources, “with enough joules to spare for rising energy exports to the European market”. Without quite realising it, Britain is moving towards a pragmatic “anything that does the job” regime, akin to that of China, albeit with a different carbon mix. We’re already ahead of European competitors on renewables: total wind and solar power could reach an “enormous” 200 gigawatts by 2035. On nuclear too, we’re steaming ahead. France is still living off the “perishable legacy” of decades-old nuclear plants yet, in Britain, Rolls-Royce is “going gangbusters” with its small nuclear reactors. Given new seismic imaging and drilling tech, it could also be possible to bring “billions more barrels” of North Sea oil into commercial reach. The only thing we have to fear, it seems, is politics.

Diamonds once brought De Beers supreme wealth “on the rock-steady pillars of scarcity and controlled supply”, says Dominic O’Connell, but recent years have seen “an astonishing collapse in value”. Fifteen years ago, the company – since 1927 owned by Anglo American – was valued at just under $13bn. Now the miner is in talks to sell its 85% stake for a reported $1bn. What no one predicted was a 45% collapse in rough diamond prices in five years, the biggest factor being “the flood of manufactured diamonds onto the market”. Mined diamonds may be “holding their own in the gemstone market”, but they’ve been so badly swamped in industrial applications, De Beers is “now something of an albatross around Anglo’s neck”. If it is ever to return to profit, any new owner will have to reshape the company drastically. Diamonds risk joining a long list of industries – from whale-oil lamps to video rental shops – whose finances have been wrecked by new technologies and “consigned to the dustbin of history”. De Beers’ co-founder Cecil Rhodes “would have been astonished to think something similar could happen to his glittering creation”.

"I once for worked with someone who was late for every meeting," says James Max. "Not occasionally late. Exactly 15 minutes late. Every single time." It was a sort of punctual lateness that would have been almost impressive were it not so infuriating. There's no special skill involved in being on time. You just need to recognise "another person's time matters as much as your own". We're conditioned to understand the value of time when a company is charging us: we accept there are penalties for missing payments, overstaying in car parks, submitting late tax returns. But because reprimanding friends or colleagues is embarrassing, we don't apply it in our own lives. My solution is we sign up to a universal system we might call WaitPay. "Friends get a five-minute grace period. Fifteen minutes late? Coffee is on you. Thirty minutes? You'll pay for lunch." Companies would receive no such indulgence. Keep me waiting, delay my flight, make me queue while assuring me my call is "important" and the balance starts accruing. "Punctuality across Britain would improve with remarkable speed."

City profile

Leopold Aschenbrenner

Leopold Aschenbrenner's multi-day wedding – at a Tuscan-style villa in Carmel, California – was a prized invitation among San Francisco's "Cerebral Valley" clique. With a forest spa and a "pre-wedding colloquium to discuss ideas in panels and breakout sessions", it was a fitting celebration for a tech wunderkind dubbed "the Nostradamus of AI", said The Wall Street Journal. But even as his guests were arriving, the 24-year-old's $45bn hedge fund, Situational Awareness, was unravelling, the starkest casualty yet of wild swings in the market. His "aggressively AI-concentrated fund" went from being "the envy of Wall Street" – reportedly up by some 439% this year – to a bailout candidate, said CNN Business. Forced into a firesale, only a lifeline from Ken Griffin's giant fund Citadel has staved off total

collapse. What a fall for the German-born former OpenAI researcher, who tapped America's richest pockets when he formed Situational Awareness in 2024, despite having "no professional investing experience".

Aschenbrenner used leverage "to supersize the bets", said the WSJ, and his talent for penning grandiose philosophical manifestos earned him a cult following. "Right now, there are perhaps a few hundred people ... that have situational awareness," he wrote. "Through whatever peculiar forces of fate, I have found myself among them." He may yet prove right about AI's potential to reshape the world, said Aaron Brown on Bloomberg. Sadly, "markets do not pay for knowing the future. They pay for being solvent when it arrives."

© JOHN ESELSON/COURTESY OF SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

8 August 2026

THE WEEK

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38

Marketplace

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Family history

tours at home

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THE WEEK 8 August 2026

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Shares

CITY 39

Who's tipping what

The week's best shares

CVS Group

Citywire

Having overcome the hurdle of a competition inquiry, the vet group has a “credible roadmap” to reprise its “historical trajectory” as a “structural growth compounder”, says Berenberg. Target: £20. Buy. £12.70.

Fevertree Drinks

The Times

Doubters may question recovery after a 66% shares slump over five years. But the upmarket beverage maker retains a healthy balance sheet, and an improving operating outlook should catalyse performance. Buy. 819.5p.

FirstGroup

Citywire

The £48m sale of the travel operator's tech innovation arm, Mistral Data, “crystallises value” not reflected in the shares, says Panmure Gordon. Lost earnings are partially offset by a big Sizewell C transport contract. Buy. 183p.

Rio Tinto

Investors' Chronicle

The AI and electrification transition is pumping up copper, aluminium and lithium markets for the Anglo-Australian miner. Surging cashflows, with productivity savings in train, and a 4.3% dividend yield. Buy. £69.48.

St James's Place

Investor's Chronicle

Concerns about departing advisory firms have dogged the wealth manager, but funds under management have hit a record £241bn, with strong earnings growth expected in 2027. An attractive entry price. Buy. £10.82.

Vesuvius

Citywire

The molten-metal engineering group has flagged problems in its steel division and a tough European market. Still, Jefferies is keeping faith, citing the benefits of EU quotas and lower Chinese exports. Target: 520p. Buy. 392p.

Directors' dealings

Marks and Spencer

More than a year after M&S's cyber incident rocked ops and depressed shares, both are recovering; shares are up 17.4% since January. Directors are making hay. Food boss Alex Freudmann sold a stake worth £1.07m; retiring ops direct Sacha Berendji realised £1.19m.

SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES

...and some to hold, avoid or sell

Autotrader Group

The Times

Whacked by a car-dealer rebellion and fears of AI irrelevancy, the online motor marketplace has been finding ways to add value for punters. Shares trade at a historically low price-to-earnings ratio. Hold. 512p.

BP

The Twelfth Magpie

The sale of North Sea assets won't significantly affect shares – up 24% this year largely due to the Iran war. What counts is energy prices and their impact on the dividend. Better to wait for a further softening. Avoid. 543p.

Microsoft

Morningstar

Q4 results at the “wide-moat” tech giant have topped expectations. Revenue jumped 17% to $90bn – buoyed by surging growth on the Azure cloud platform, in both trad and AI workloads. “Fair value”? $600. Hold. $449.96.

Sabre Insurance Group

Citywire

Momentum continues to build at this specialist motor insurer, backed by a £5m buyback and strong 2025 results, says Downing. Shares have jumped 40% this year amid improving profitability and premium growth. Hold. 185p.

Tesla

Investors' Chronicle

Quarterly capex has doubled to $5.8bn and is set to rise for two years. Yet “it’s not obvious” what Elon Musk’s automaker “wants to build” ahead of a possible merger with SpaceX. Profits have shrunk by 57%. Sell. $307.

Unilever

Investors' Chronicle

The consumer giant's healthy half-year figures are overshadowed by the uncertain impact of selling the food unit – its most profitable business – to sauce-maker McCormick. An imminent re-rating seems unlikely. Hold. £49.20.

Form guide

Shares tipped 12 weeks ago

Best tip

Segro

The Times

up 36.07% to 974.8p

Worst tip

Strix Group

Citywire

down 16.34% to 34.3p

Market view

“The market's hoping that we see maybe just a short-term pressure-release valve.”

Emily Ashford of Standard

Chartered on hopes for an

Iran deal. Oil market

normalisation will still

“take a long time”.

Quoted on Bloomberg

Market summary

Key numbers for investors

	4 Aug 2026	Week before	Change (%)
FTSE 100	10879.38	10871.02	0.08%
FTSE All-share UK	5855.17	5839.12	0.27%
Dow Jones	54148.52	52882.36	2.39%
NASDAQ	26425.64	24951.67	5.91%
Nikkei 225	63957.53	62364.92	2.55%
Hang Seng	25852.92	25310.85	2.14%
Gold	4087.92	4044.33	1.08%
Brent Crude Oil	79.30	84.53	-6.19%
DIVIDEND YIELD (FTSE 100)	3.02%	2.96%
UK 10-year gilts yield	4.90	4.94
US 10-year Treasuries	4.62	4.59
UK ECONOMIC DATA
Latest CPI (yoy)	2.6% (Jun)	2.8% (May)
Latest RPI (yoy)	3.0% (Jun)	3.1% (May)
Lloyds house price (yoy)	0.6% (Jun)	0.5% (May)
£1 STERLING: $1.346	€1.167 ¥212.448	Bitcoin $64,119.82

Best and worst performing shares

WEEK'S CHANGE, FTSE 100 STOCKS

RISES	Price	% change
Antofagasta	3931.00	+10.39
Polar Capital Technology	669.00	+9.58
Glencore	551.00	+8.71
Anglo American	3907.00	+7.87
BAE Systems	2184.00	+7.85

FALLS

IG Group	1360.00	-19.91
Rentokil Initial	370.00	-14.00
AstraZeneca	11740.00	-9.27
Coca-Cola Europac	7735.00	-8.35
London Stock Exchange	8500.00	-7.10

FTSE 250 RISER & FALLER

Travis Perkins	679.00	+19.56
Lancashire Holdings	592.00	-10.23

Source: FT (not adjusted for dividends). Prices on 4 Aug (pm)

Following the Footsie

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

---

40

The long read

How a fractured family was reunited by ChatGPT

Avtar Singh spent decades wondering what happened to the mother he never got to know. Thousands of miles away, Nicci was haunted by the story of a half-brother given away before she was born. How did an AI chatbot bring them together? Jenny Kleeman reports

As a small boy growing up in Amritsar, India, in the 1960s, Avtar Singh used to hear whispers. Your mum isn't really your mum, they would say. Your mum lives abroad. Avtar didn't really pay attention. "I thought, the neighbours are just making up stories." But the stories were true: the woman raising Avtar was actually his grandmother. When he was too young to remember it, his father had emigrated to Canada to work as a teacher, leaving Avtar in the care of his paternal grandparents. His grandfather, a police officer, was a fearsome authoritarian, but his grandmother brought him up with tenderness. She called him by his nickname, Titu. He felt loved.

When Avtar was around eight, he was told about his family in Canada: his dad, his mum and a little brother were waiting for him there. Just after his ninth birthday, on Christmas Eve 1968, he flew, alone, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, dressed in a three-piece suit and tie; his family met him at the airport and took him home. "I didn't know what to think," Avtar, now 66, tells me in a video call from his home in Abbotsford, British Columbia. "Before I knew it, it was the first week of January, and I was put in school." Unable to speak English, Avtar watched what his fellow

pupils did and followed along, storing his snow boots in the cloakroom, standing up to sing the Canadian national anthem and God Save the Queen. With his long hair tied in the topknot often worn by Sikh boys, he stood out. His parents offered to buy him a hockey stick and a pair of ice skates if he agreed to get his hair cut. He learnt English. His nickname changed from Titu to "Tito". He began to blend in.

But Avtar didn't fit in at home. He was much paler than everyone else – "the white sheep of the family", he jokes. And they treated him like an outsider, an afterthought. When he was 14, his family went on holiday

without him, leaving him home alone for two weeks. He got on well enough with his father, but didn't gel at all with his mother. "She didn't have any of the warmth that my grandma had. She absolutely hated me." She seemed much more like a stepmother than a mother.

That feeling was confirmed years later, when Avtar got married and his grandparents flew over to stay with him and his new wife, Rosey. His grandma "whispered into my wife's ear" that Avtar was the product of his father's first marriage. "She didn't say what my mother's name was. She just said, 'Her family was from Africa, and she left the child with us and went back to Africa. She might have gone to live in the UK.' That's it." It didn't feel

Avtar Singh: "I thought, why not give AI a shot?"

"Avtar's family in Canada raised him like an outsider. When he was 14, they went on holiday without him, leaving him alone for two weeks"

right to ask his grandparents for more information: this was clearly a family secret that no one wanted to discuss with Avtar.

When his own son was set a school assignment to complete his family tree, Avtar felt emboldened to approach his father. "I said, 'Dad, you've got to tell me at least what my mother's name was.'" His dad eventually relented: her first name was Savinder. But he would not give Avtar any more information. "I was stonewalled." Avtar had no idea why his parents had split up. "All I really understood was that my mother's family encouraged her to give up custody of me so it would be easier for them to remarry her."

He thought about his mother constantly, and resolved to try and find her. He googled and Facebooked, but there was almost nothing to go on; Savinder is a fairly common Punjabi Sikh name. In 2009, Avtar flew to London to visit the National Archives at Kew in the hope of finding immigration or marriage records that might lead him to his mother. "I couldn't find anything at all." On a later visit to London, he emailed Sunrise Radio,

a British-Asian station, asking if they could put out an appeal to find his mother, but they told Avtar they don't do that kind of thing, out of respect for people's privacy. That gave Avtar pause. "I thought, maybe I should just cool off. If my mother has some other family, I don't want to disrupt her life." Still, it niggled. Three or four years ago, he asked a British south Asian work colleague for advice; she suggested contacting the ITV show Long Lost Family. He watched a few episodes and decided it wasn't for

him. But he longed to know his mother. "The thought of her did not leave my mind, ever."

The one thing Avtar did not do was a DNA test. He is retired now, but his career as

a chartered accountant taught him enough about technology, data and privacy to make him wary of giving up his genetic code to a corporation. He deactivated his Facebook account 12 years ago for similar reasons. Then, on 8 May this year, Avtar and Rosey were on holiday in the South of France. Avtar had been battling cancer; their trip to Europe came after he'd finished his treatment. "It was early morning, and I had read all the news. I was bored. I had nothing else to do. I thought, I've tried Google and everything else, why don't I give AI a shot?" He typed a prompt into ChatGPT, based on the little he knew, and what else he could infer. He assumed that his mother would be around the same age as his father (who died ten years ago); he knew that Sikh women of her generation were generally given the middle name Kaur.

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

© ALANNA PATRICK/DAVID GUNN/DAVID GUNN

---

The long read

41

Avtar: Can you find any information about a Savinder Kaur? She would be between 87 and 97 years old and would have lived in India and Africa and possibly in the UK.

ChatGPT: The strongest match, based upon your clues, is this ... Savinder Kaur Nagi, born in 1936 in Kisumu, Kenya, to Indian Sikh parents. The article mentions family roots near Jammu and Kashmir in India and later migration connections to the UK.

"I know that AI can just make up shit. So I thought, OK, that's nice," says Avtar. "But it actually referenced an article. I thought, I'll look at that, at least. Just to see."

"I wrote it out of grief," Nicci Dhamu tells me, in a cafe in west London. "Mummy never really had a voice, and that article was all about giving her one." Nicci is the jewellery designer behind the brand Sohavi. "Sohavi means beautiful in Gurmukhi, the Sikh script. I learnt about making things beautiful from Mum." Her article, published on the Sohavi blog and the South Asian Heritage Month website, was a celebration of her mother. Savinder Kaur Dhamu died in her sleep in December 2024, aged 88. For the last five years of her life, she had dementia. Nicci, 58, had been her carer; they lived together and were very close. Nicci's family moved to the UK from Kenya in 1973. She has an older sister and a younger brother, as well as three half-sisters from her dad's first marriage; he was widowed before he met Savinder. "We grew up as one family. I didn't know until I was about ten or 11 years old that my sisters were my half-sisters, and that was only because one of my sisters told me." Theirs was a family that did not speak about the past.

"I remember once, Mum was in the kitchen making roti, and I asked her, 'Mummy, you were, like, 25 years old when

you got married to Dad. Wasn't that a little old for somebody of your generation? I knew that something was different about our family, but I didn't have the vocabulary to label it. My father never spoke to us about his wife who had died, and my mum never spoke about her life before him."

When Nicci was in her 40s, an older cousin casually revealed that Savinder had been married to another man before she met Nicci's dad. "She was married off, very young. And it probably wasn't what she wanted," Nicci says. "My grandfather took her and her sisters out of school in Kenya and took them back to Punjab to a place called Dhariwal, just outside Amritsar." Later in life, her mother would openly lament leaving school – she could read and write English, and loved studying – but never explained why she had given up her education. She did not discuss her first marriage. She never told her children they had an older half-brother.

"My cousin told me in that conversation that she had a son." Nicci's eyes are bright at the memory. But she never felt able to ask her mother about him. "I couldn't. There was intrinsic pain there." There were times, Nicci says, when her mother would sink into a depression. "She would sit quietly, or take to bed because she was upset." And towards the end of her life, Nicci recalls, she would often cry Mera bacha – meaning "My child" in Punjabi. "The dementia was bringing up all these memories for her."

Nicci resolved to find the child her mother was crying for, but had little to go on: she didn't even know his name. She spoke to her mother's young brother, who lives in Birmingham. "He knew my mum's child as a two- or three-year-old," Nicci says. She learnt that her mother's first husband was called Mohan Singh, and he

Avtar Singh's mother, Savinder, in 1963

"Towards the end of her life, suffering from dementia, Nicci's mother would often cry 'Mera bacha' – meaning 'My child' in Punjabi"

taught at the Sri Guru Ramdas Khalsa school in Amritsar. Mohan's father had been a police officer, and "quite a difficult man". Savinder had told her father that her husband wasn't treating her well. "I think my grandad thought, this is not a good place for my daughter to be. He went around and took his daughter back to his home, and she must have picked up her little boy, too."

Her mother raised the boy until he was three years old, Nicci was told. "As someone who is also divorced, I often reflect on the stigma my mother may have faced as a south Asian woman of her generation," she tells me. "I think there was a lot of pressure from the family: let's get her married. Somebody as young as her was going to have a very difficult life as a single mother. She was too young to be on her own. Her son's family wanted him back. So they must have taken the child from her."

Savinder returned to Kenya, alone, at first staying with her eldest brother. Nicci's cousins have vivid memories of her time in their home.

"She would take his baby clothes out and cry. She never forgot him." She was soon introduced to Nicci's father, a man 16 years her senior. "I think she carried that trauma throughout her life, but did a very good job of holding her head up high, making her life work, raising three more children." Family in Kenya heard through the grapevine that Savinder's first husband had moved to Canada, but they couldn't tell Nicci when. And no one knew the name of Savinder's little boy. They only knew his nickname: Titu.

"No one's going to call themselves Titu on LinkedIn, are they?"

says Nicci with a deep laugh. That didn't stop her trying to find him online, and his father and grandfather, too, by googling the names of teachers and police officers in Amritsar. "I didn't capture anything. How do you

find somebody without a name? It's impossible." Three or four months before her mother died, she submitted Savinder's DNA to Ancestry.com. "I set up a profile for her, saying, 'Profile managed by daughter, looking for her son, name is Titu, possibly living in Canada.'" She got some interesting titbits back about her mother's ancestral roots in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, which would explain her light complexion, but no useful matches.

Nicci didn't give up. She contacted friends who knew people who had worked for the magistrates' court in Amritsar, in the hope of tracking down records of her mother's divorce. But she was told that would be virtually impossible. In April 2025, while she and her family were in India to return Savinder's ashes there, she visited Sri Guru Ramdas Khalsa school in Amritsar, where Titu's father had taught. She spoke to the teachers and the security guard, but it was long after Mohan Singh's time there, so no one knew of him or his son. All she wanted was a name for her half-brother, but no one could tell her. It felt hopeless. "I remember sitting there thinking, why doesn't he just knock on the door? I knew that his father was an educated man – I was pretty sure that he must be educated, too. Why isn't he looking for Mum?"

Avtar blinked at the article ChatGPT had presented to him. Rosey was just waking up. He made her a coffee and showed her what he'd found, but she wasn't convinced. After all, the article didn't mention Savinder's first marriage, divorce or long-lost son. "Rosey didn't want me to be disappointed – she knows how hard I had looked for my mother." Then he looked at the article again, and a picture stopped him in his tracks: not one of the many photos Nicci had posted of her mother – there was no flicker of instant recognition when he

© COURTESY OF NICCI DHARAY

8 August 2026

THE WEEK

---

42

The long read

saw Savinder's face – but an image of a certificate her mother had earned for dressmaking at a college in Dhariwal, just outside Amritsar, in 1962. "This is two or three years after I was born, and it is in the exact city where I was born." Avtar exhales deeply, as if he still can't believe what he saw. He had to find out more.

At 8.36am that morning, he sent Nicci an email, thanking her for writing the tribute to her mother.

Avtar: What especially resonated with me was the part of her life connected to India. Reading about her journey raised many personal questions and reflections for me, and I found myself feeling there may be some distant family or community connections between us. I want to assure you that I am not reaching out for any business, financial, or other formal reason, only in the spirit of a friendly conversation.

Nicci had spent the previous night praying at the gurdwara and watching Long Lost Family on TV. Avtar's email had arrived on the morning of what would have been her mother's 90th birthday. "It was wild!" Nicci exclaims. "I just had a real sense of knowing. I can't explain it. This is my mum's son. It's got to be." She agonised over how to reply, eventually adopting a similarly friendly but respectful tone.

Nicci: I am equally intrigued to know if there might be a family connection. I would be happy to have a conversation with you.

Her phone number was in her email signature. Avtar sent her a message on WhatsApp as soon as he saw it, asking when they could speak. Nicci scrutinised

his WhatsApp profile picture. "He had a very distinctive nose. Everybody in my mother's family has this prominent, distinguished nose." She messaged back – she was free to talk there and then. It was barely two hours since Avtar had typed his prompt into ChatGPT. He was driving with Rosey to get some croissants for breakfast. He parked up, clicked on Nicci's number and called her. There wasn't much of a preamble. Avtar was too eager to have his questions finally answered.

"Can you tell me a bit about your mother's time in India?" he asked.

"Mummy was married and divorced in India," Nicci replied. "Did she have any children?"

"Yes," Nicci said. "She had a son."

Both Avtar and Rosey burst into tears.

"Titu, is that you?" asked Nicci. "Are you Titu, my mother's son?" "Yes," Avtar replied. "That's who I am. But I haven't heard anyone pronounce my nickname that way since my grandma called me that, when I was a little boy."

"At that moment, time just froze," Avtar remembers. "But I quickly recovered. I said, 'You're my sister. Holy shit – are there more of you out there?' It had never occurred to me that my mother would have a family, and that I could actually meet them. That family, they knew about me – everybody knew about me, they just wouldn't talk about it – but I had no knowledge about them whatsoever." They spoke for two hours in that first phone call, until Avtar's battery started to die. Nicci had assumed he must be in Canada; she couldn't believe he was in France, so close by. "Why don't you fly over?" she asked. Avtar's head was spinning. They agreed to speak again later that evening, in a video call. Nicci then gave Avtar a tour of the family photos displayed in the living room she used to share with their mother. "I was just

"You're my sister!": Avtar and Nicci in London

sharing everything I could with him. And sobbing. And remembering Mum. All that grief about her yearning to see him again, and not meeting him. It's like the universe just flung something at me – although I've lost my mum, I've gained a brother."

Within days, Avtar and Rosey were in London. Nicci shows me a picture of the first time they met, at a hotel near Heathrow. Their faces are flushed with joy. "I could see the raw emotion in her – she had been looking for me for so long," Avtar says. "When I met her and hugged her tight, I thought, yes, this is my sister." They went out for dinner and compared stories and timelines, piecing together the fragments that their families had given them.

The following morning, Nicci took Avtar and Rosey to Birmingham, to meet their mother's last-surviving sibling – their uncle

– who had known Titu as a baby. "He looked at me and said, 'I remember you. I held you in my arms,'" Avtar tells me, his eyes awash with tears. "It was a great, great visit." The next day, Avtar was introduced to his half-brother – Nicci's youngest sibling. He had been shocked when Nicci first told him she had found Avtar. "He said, 'But I'm Mummy's son,'" Nicci tells me, laughing. "I said, 'Of course you are. Nothing's going to change our family.'" When they finally met, Nicci says her younger brother shook Avtar's hand. "I just knew it was going to be all right. My brother said, 'I've always wanted a big brother.'"

"Avtar and Nicci spoke for two hours in that first phone call, until Avtar's battery died"

Avtar and Nicci both tell me they have no plans to confirm their relationship with a DNA test. There's no need, they say. "This world has a few billion people in it. And if somebody

can randomly call me Titu..." Avtar shakes his head. "I don't think I need any more verification than that."

The joy at finally finding Titu is bittersweet for Nicci, because it came too late for her mother. "My biggest regret is that I didn't talk to her about her son and let her cry about him, let her have a release," she tells me. Avtar says he grew up believing that his mother gave him up "because it was the best thing to help her move on with her life. I was OK with that. Now I've heard from Nicci and other people in the family that my mum used to cry for me. That's all I need to hear. It just feels so good to know that I was loved." Plus, Avtar adds, there is "the treasure my mother left behind for me – I have all this family to get to know".

"Every time I see him, I look at him and I just want to cry", Nicci says. "That's my brother." She pauses. "Who would have thought that life would unfold in this way? That ChatGPT would find an article that would lead to an email that would lead to all of this? Technology seems to be in alignment, in the same way that stars can be sometimes." Her half-brother sees things differently. "Right now, AI is still a glorified search engine. It is a piece of software that recognises a pattern in a string of characters," he says. Nor has he become any less reluctant to give Big Tech his data, even though it was ChatGPT's readiness to scrape blogs and give out personal information that led him to his maternal family. Had Avtar chosen to ask another AI, he might not have found Nicci at all. When he came back to Canada, he put the same prompt into Anthropic's Claude, just for fun. "It replied, 'We don't want to infringe on anybody's privacy, so we don't give out that information,'" Avtar tells me. Then he shrugs. "I think that's a good response."

A longer version of this article appeared in The Guardian © 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited

© COURTESY: AVTAR/ENVIH

THE WEEK 8 August 2026

---

Crossword

43

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1528

Two Connell Guides and two Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 17 August. Send it to The Week Crossword 1528, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Paul McKenna

This week's winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com).

ACROSS

1 Stay prepared also for union offer (8)

6 Strange scene involving a meeting across the divide? (6)

9 Fake and disagreeable society abandoned precision (6)

10 Star scorches various bits and bobs (8)

11 Zip on a purse – one of a pair in service? (6,3)

12 Like old feet with pressing trouble – used too often? (5)

14 Most just anger held by firm (7)

15 Get in touch with head of recruitment exiting commitment (7)

17 Dripping is new in little parker (7)

19 Area to practise sliding moves child in bridge (7)

22 Cold joint, viz prison (5)

24 Last person who was helped by elves? (9)

26 Provide church atmosphere as something to settle into (8)

27 Can senator relax? (6)

28 Just sharpen with stone (6)

29 Dying to go? Problem returns to involve more cost (8)

DOWN

2 Say again, I rate tree fantastically (9)

3 Those who make a living playing by blossom (7)

4 Extraordinary! French on start of people's revolution (10)

5 Exercise with fewer clothes perhaps (6)

6 Son with intention to get off (4)

7 Look over wine where some holidays might start (7)

8 Lance boils without mishap (5)

13 Reserve stock of wine, as reported, for a shop (10)

16 Calm one, he wound up a sort to make changes (9)

18 Find fault hankering for flamboyant confidence (7)

20 Linger over last bit of slow-cooked stew (4,3)

21 Little 'un embracing that woman's sweet child (6)

23 Finally sail on legendary boat that's slow (5)

25 Deal is wrapped up, we hear (4)

Name

Address

Tel no

Clue of the week answer:

Paul McKenna

Clue of the week: Upset Latin Masters? (12) Clue-writing competition winner, The Sunday Times

Solution to Crossword 1526

ACROSS: 1 Take the biscuit 10 Ropes 11 Narration 12 Solvers

13 Enhance 14 Snips 16 Antipasto 19 Big cheese 20 Yacht 22 Later on

25 Toaster 27 Artichoke 28 Truss 29 Simple interest

DOWN: 2 Appalling 3 Ensue 4 Handshake 5 Borne 6 Slaphappy 7 Union

8 Tangelo 9 Crisis 15 Spherical 17 Treatment 18 Secateurs 19 Ballads

21 Thrust 23 Totem 24 Naomi 26 Alter

Clue of the week: Weakens binding in book (9,4)

Solution: WATERSHIP DOWN (hip in [waters down])

The winner of 1526 is Janet Bloom from Coventry

The Week is available from RNIB Newsagent for the benefit of blind and partially sighted readers. 0303-123 9999, rnib.org.uk/newsagent

Sudoku 1,070 (very difficult)

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

Solution to Sudoku 1,069

7	2	3	8	6	1	4	5	9
6	5	1	9	4	2	8	3	7
8	9	4	5	3	7	2	1	6
1	6	2	7	8	9	3	4	5
3	7	8	4	5	6	1	9	2
9	4	5	2	1	3	7	6	8
2	1	7	3	9	5	6	8	4
5	8	6	1	2	4	9	7	3
4	3	9	6	7	8	5	2	1

For binders to hold 26 copies of The Week: modernbookbinders.com, £15.99

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Charity of the week

Founded in 1983 as The Miscarriage Association, we are the UK's leading charity supporting people affected by miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancy. We provide trusted information and support, equip healthcare professionals with resources and training, and advocate for wider recognition

and change. We run a support line with telephone, live chat and direct messaging; offer peer-support groups; and collaborate with expert clinicians to create and distribute patient information. Visit miscarriageuk.org for more information.

8 August 2026 THE WEEK

---

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9001

9000

QA Report - The Week UK - 08.08.2026.pdf

Pipeline

• Extraction route: mistral-ocr
• extraction_route=mistral-ocr
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Non-model Checks

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Art - WARNING: source dates, money, or percentage tokens may be missing

Model QA

经过严格审核，该翻译件存在多处致命缺陷（BLOCKING），主要集中在数字量级错误、严重漏译以及翻译幻觉。

以下是详细审计报告：

═══ 审核报告 ═══

1. 数字量级错误 (Critical Numerical Errors)

• [BLOCKING] 译文：“约7.2万,000名移民” $\rightarrow$ 原文：“some 72,000 migrants”。
• 错误分析：出现了严重的数字格式混乱（万与千重复），导致量级不明确。
• [BLOCKING] 译文：“拥有8.5万,000人口的城市” $\rightarrow$ 原文：“city of 85,000”。
• 错误分析：同上，数字格式错误。
• [BLOCKING] 译文：“包括50万多名无人陪伴的未成年人” $\rightarrow$ 原文：“more than 500 unaccompanied minors”。
• 错误分析：量级错误。原文是 500 人，译文变成了 50 万人，属于严重的事实错误。

2. 完整性与漏译 (Completeness & Omissions)

• [BLOCKING] 大段内容丢失：译文在“接下来的走向？”段落末尾被截断（“讨论这些计划是否可...”），导致文章未完结。
• [BLOCKING] 关键段落漏译：
• 原文中关于“The Plunge” (Chris Ballard 著) 的整篇书评被完全漏译。
• 原文中关于“Novel of the week: John of John” 的部分内容在译文中虽有出现，但结构混乱，且部分段落缺失。
• [WARNING] 低中文密度区域未翻译：
• “纵横字谜 1528”的线索部分（横向/纵向）仅进行了字面翻译，未对谜题逻辑进行处理（虽属次要，但影响阅读）。

3. 幻觉核查 (Hallucination Check)

• [BLOCKING] 译文：“一名在20- 被告知的女性... 肠道通过微创手术被轻轻地推回体内... 儿子西奥（Theo）在三个月后自然出生”
• 核查步骤：
  1. 标题索引搜索 $\rightarrow$ 无匹配。
  2. 抽样原文搜索 $\rightarrow$ 无匹配。
• 结论：严重幻觉。这段关于“腹壁裂孔症”和“婴儿西奥”的内容在提供的所有原文片段中完全不存在，属于凭空捏造。

4. 术语与质量问题 (Terminology & Quality)

• [WARNING] 译文：“因凡蒂诺的乌龙球” $\rightarrow$ 原文：“Infantino's own goal”。
• 分析：虽然是直译，但在报纸标题中，"own goal" 通常指“搬起石头砸自己的脚”或“自食其果”，译为“乌龙球”过于口语化且略显违和。
• [WARNING] 译文：“规模达£15bn的商业子公司” $\rightarrow$ 建议将 $\text{bn}$ 翻译为“十亿”，避免保留英文缩写。

═══ 最终审计结论 ═══

结论：存在阻塞性问题 (Blocking Issues Found)

主要原因： 1. 数字量级严重错误（500人 $\rightarrow$ 50万人）。 2. 出现严重内容幻觉（捏造了关于医疗手术的段落）。 3. 重要版面大段漏译（整篇书评丢失）。 4. 文本截断（文章未完结）。

建议：该译文不可交付，必须重新翻译并进行全量核对。