Final countdown Could fewer people watch the 2022 World Cup final in the flesh than watched the inaugural 1930 contest? The first World Cup final, won 4-2 by Uruguay, was held in the Estadio Centario in Montevideo on 30 July 1930. The stadium officially held 93,000 people. That is more than the present Wembley stadium
When the wind blows Sir: Matt Ridley’s article ‘Blown apart’ (3 December) highlighting the wind-farm delusion touches only lightly on the planning process. Where he does focus on planning in England, he states that there is no ‘ban’ on onshore wind farms, only the standard planning requirements that they are confined to areas designated for
When asked about their religion in a census, many British people have the same response: that it’s none of the government’s business. For a while, as a joke, tens of thousands stated their faith as ‘Jedi’, a fictional order of knights from Star Wars. Nevertheless, this year’s figure marks an important trend: just 46 per
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, proposed in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet to treat China with ‘robust pragmatism’. The Chinese ambassador to Britain was summoned to the Foreign Office following the arrest and beating of a BBC journalist, Ed Lawrence, in Shanghai. Net migration reached 504,000 in the year to June –
The theme word is scales: 1D, 14 and 40 are creatures with scales; 5, 9 and 17 are musical scales; 13, 34 and 39 all gave their names of scientific scales. 33 was to be highlighted. First prize Mrs D. Selvidge, Vale, Guernsey Runners-up G. Snailham, Windsor; H.A. Hyman, London W1
Not Wellcome The Wellcome Collection closed its own Medicine Man exhibition on the history of medicine, complaining that it was racist. Some of the treasures it displayed: – Wax and cloth head of Elizabeth I, half of which shows a face and the other half a decomposing skull being consumed by insects. – Pair of bellows used
In bulb-beds in the public park, daffodils lie headlong, scythed by Spring storms. The rate of attrition is high: one in ten felled beyond saving, fodder for slugs. I triage the casualties, their snapped stems, bruised blooms spattered with mud. These I bring home, and a vase of water will be their hospice: a tattered
Write and wrong Sir: As a former member of the Society of Authors I read with interest Julie Bindel’s article about its failure to defend J.K. Rowling when she received death threats (‘Write-off’, 26 November). I asked on the society’s ‘Children’s Writers and Illustrators’ Facebook page why they had not spoken out in support of
The five perimeter solutions and 4/30, 17/33, 21/37 and 28/12 are all businesses in Coronation Street. First prize Brian Taylor, Horwich, Bolton Runners-up Sean Smith, Southport; Grizil Hettiarachchi, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Opponents of Brexit have been given plenty of ammunition in recent weeks. Trade with the European Union has taken a big knock. Many British exporters say that owing to the excessive bureaucracy they can no longer sell to the Continent. The United Kingdom’s new trade deals have promised a lot but delivered little. There is
Cornish pasting Malcolm Bell, the chief executive of VisitCornwall, complained in an online interview about ‘emmets’ – an emmet being a derogatory word for an outsider, derived from a local dialect word for ‘ants’. Some more insults in Cornish dialect: Bimper, a peeping Tom; Dobeck, a fool; Gocki, stupid; Piggy-whidden, a weakling; Squallyass, a crybaby;
More turmoil Sir: The comparisons made by Kate Andrews between the post-2008 settlement and the ‘Austerity 2.0’ Budget last week seem accurate and this is likely to have wider consequences (‘The squeeze’, 19 November). The failure of growth and perceived lack of care for many in society post-2008 undoubtedly contributed to Brexit and the increased bifurcation
Had it not been for the Tory leadership contest over the summer, a new censorship law would have been passed in Britain by now. The Online Safety Bill included a clause banning content regarded as ‘legal but harmful’ – a dangerously vague phrase that could mean anything that ministers wanted. It would, in effect, have
Home Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, ‘We’re all going to be paying a bit more tax’ as he polished up his Autumn Statement. ‘The number one challenge we face is inflation,’ said Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister. The annual rate of inflation rose to 11.1 per cent from 10.1 per cent the
The theme was MURDER SHE WROTE, the long-running TV series starring ANGELA LANSBURY as JESSICA FLETCHER in the corpse-strewn CABOT COVE. The theme could also describe AGATHA CHRISTIE and DOROTHY L. SAYERS. First prize R.A. Towle, Ilkeston, Derbyshire Runners-up M.F. O’Brien, London N12; John M. Brown, Rolleston-on-Dove, Staffordshire
Billion-dollar losers Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, saw his wealth plummet from $16 bn to zero when the company collapsed. Other big fortunes lost: – Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, lost paper wealth of around $70 bn (in today’s money) during the dotcom crash of 2000-2. The company later floated and now he
Zero sense Sir: Ross Clark’s article (‘Hot air’, 12 November) neatly sums up some of the fallacies of the net zero target. Electricity generation currently fulfils about 20 per cent of the UK’s total energy demand – of which at best 40 per cent is covered by wind, solar, and hydro: i.e. 8 per cent
The word is ‘rack’. In the order of the headwords in Chambers, their meanings are indicated by: FRAMEWORK (41), VENGEANCE (4A), DECANT (15D), BONES (1A), GAIT (25), MIST (17), DRINK (42) and SKIN (24). RACK in CRACKED (13) was to be shaded, Title: a further meaning of rack1. First prize Paul Elliott, London W12 Runners-up
The first, essential task: repudiate your parents. Reject their values and advice. Make clear they have no right to legislate. There will be rows, of course, but that’s the price. The later task: reject the youthful you. Remove the smirk from that conceited face. It may take tens of years to see this through.
It’s the Chancellor who will deliver next week’s Autumn Statement, but every-one knows it will have been ghost-written by Rishi Sunak. When Jeremy Hunt ran for party leader, his own proposal was to take corporation tax from 19 per cent to 15 per cent. Now, he wishes to raise it to 25 per cent. When