The Times - 9November 2023

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 51 Register Kingdom Defence Advisers at the British High Commission.His Royal Highness, President, the Earthshot Prize, this evening attended a Reception for the Earthshot Prize given by Conservation International at Spago, Bayfront Avenue. The Prince of Wales later departed from Singapore Changi Airport for the United Kingdom. The Princess of Wales, Colonel-in-Chief, 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, this morning visited the Regiment at Robertson Barracks, Swanton Morley, Norfolk St James’s Palace 8th November, 2023 The Duke of Edinburgh, Royal Honorary Colonel, Royal Wessex Yeomanry, this morning visited Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land, Hadley Castle Works, Telford, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Shropshire (Mrs Anna Turner). His Royal Highness this afternoon visited cadets at Dawley Reserve Centre, Bridgeman House, Cavan Drive, Dawley Bank, Telford.The Duke of Edinburgh afterwards visited Dawley Town Hall, New Street, Telford, to mark its One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary. His Royal Highness, Colonelin-Chief, The Queen’s Royal Hussars (The Queen’s Own and Royal Irish), this evening attended a Reception at the Cavalry and Guards Club, 127 Piccadilly, London W1. The Duchess of Edinburgh today visited Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, 550 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Her Royal Highness this evening departed having been received by the President of the New Malden Branch of the Royal British Legion (Alderman Ken Smith), met Korean War veterans. Later, Mr Mark Lane was received by The King when His Majesty invested him with the Insignia of a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP (Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury) had an audience of The King.The King and Queen this evening held a Reception at Buckingham Palace to recognise the United Kingdom’s contribution to humanitarian efforts across the world.The Duke of Gloucester was present. By command of The King, Mr Alistair Harrison (Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps) called upon His Excellency Dr Farahanaz Faiza at 22 Nottingham Place, London W1, this afternoon in order to bid farewell to His Excellency upon relinquishing his appointment as High Commissioner for the Republic of Maldives in London. Kensington Palace 8th November, 2023 The Prince of Wales today undertook the following engagements in Singapore:His Royal Highness this morning visited TreeTop Walk, Central Catchment Nature Reserve. The Prince of Wales, President, the Earthshot Prize, later attended the Earthshot+ Summit at Park Royal Pickering, Upper Pickering Street.His Royal Highness, President, United for Wildlife, this afternoon visited the Centre for Wildlife Forensics. The Prince of Wales later attended a Meeting with United Buckingham Palace 8th November, 2023 The King held an Investiture at Buckingham Palace this morning.The King this afternoon visited the Korean community in New Malden in advance of the forthcoming State Visit by The President of the Republic of Korea, and was received at New Malden Methodist Church, 49 High Street, New Malden, by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London (Sir Kenneth Olisa), the Ambassador from the Republic of Korea to the Court of St James’s (His Excellency Mr Yeocheol Yoon) and the Mayor of New Malden (Councillor Diane White). Inside the Church His Majesty, escorted by Councillor Elizabeth Park (Councillor, Kingston Council), viewed an exhibition on the One Hundred and Fortieth Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between the United Kingdom and Korea and met representatives from community, cultural, culinary and faith groups based in New Malden and the surrounding area. The King, escorted by the Founder of the Korean British Cultural Exchange (Mrs Justina Jang) subsequently visited a local Korean-owned cake shop and met local young Korean residents.His Majesty afterwards visited New Malden War Memorial in the High Street and, LEGG Thomas Stuart KCB KC. Died peacefully at home on 8th October 2023, aged 88. Formerly permanent secretary at the Lord Chancellor’s Department. Beloved husband of Lizzie, father of Lucy and Isobel, grandfather of Conrad and Jude. Memorial service to be held at Temple Church, London, on 6th February 2024. For details, please contact [email protected] SCARLETT Carolyn Anne passed away peacefully on 19th October 2023, aged 84. Much-loved wife of the late James Scarlett, mother of the late Elizabeth, Dominic, Christopher and Lucy, and grandmother to Albert, Phoebe, Frederick and Leonora. Funeral service to take place on Friday 17th November at Cheltenham crematorium, Willow Chapel, at 12.30pm. Donations in lieu of flowers please to Kate’s Home Nursing or sent c/o Alexander Burn Funeral Directors, 436 High Street, Cheltenham GL50 3JA. STEVENS JOHN (Lauder) died on 3rd November 2023, aged 74, at Borders General Hospital with his beloved wife Joan beside him. Cremation service at Borders Crematorium on Thursday 16th November at 11am, all welcome. No flowers please. Join us for breakfast Listen to Aasmah Mir and Stig Abell on Times Radio, Monday to Thursday at 6am Forthcoming Marriages MR M. MOSNEANU AND MR D. BASS The engagement is announced between Mihai, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Marian Mosneanu of Ploiesti, Romania, and David, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Paul Carvell of Burlton, Shropshire. MR O. H. W. PEARSON AND MISS C. A. A. COOPER The engagement is announced between Oliver, son of Mr and Mrs John Pearson of Kew, London, and Clio, daughter of Mr and Mrs Julian Cooper of Adbury Holt, Hampshire. Deaths CLOSE-BROOKS Charles Beresford on 27th October 2023 after a long illness. Much-loved husband of Lorna, father of George and William, grandfather to Katie, Isla, Tom, Alice and Freddie. He will be missed by the family and many friends. Funeral service on Thursday 23rd November at 11.30am at Holy Trinity Church, Wonston, Winchester SO21 3PE. Donations if desired to the Alzheimer’s Society. CORNWALLIS Michael Wykeham Lt-Cdr RN (Retd), died peacefully on 29th October 2023, in Ayr, aged 98. Beloved father and grandfather. Funeral private. GEORGE (PREVIOUSLY FISHER) Judith Mary (née Shaw) died suddenly on 18th October 2023, aged 84. She leaves behind her husband Anthony, children Nigel, Robert and Miranda, grandchildren Stephanie, Karl, Anna, Peter, Alex, Ben, Robert, Evie, Brandon, Jarad and Kylie, and great-grandchildren Athena, Noah, Lyra, Liam, Charlotte and Cayde, as well as dearly loved son and daughters-in-law, nieces, nephews and friends. A family doctor, Judith championed life-saving medicine through her pioneering work on immediate care and disaster and emergency medicine. A family service will be held on 10th November followed on December 19th, by a memorial service at 11.30am at St George’s, Edgbaston. Donations are invited to St John Ambulance in lieu of flowers. FLAY Linda Ann passed away on 24th February 2023, aged 75. Much-loved daughter, friend and colleague. Funeral service to take place on Friday 17th November at Greenfields Woodland, Shotts Farm, Malvern Road, Staunton GL19 3NZ, at 1.30pm. All are welcome to attend and pay their respects. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to Brooke | Action for Working Horses and Donkeys, St Mungo’s and Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity or sent c/o Alexander Burn Funeral Directors, 436 High Street, Cheltenham GL50 3JA. HARMAN Timothy died peacefully on 2nd November 2023. Devoted husband of Jane, and adored father of Jonathan and his wife, Rachel. Inquiries to Albany Funerals, Great Chart, 01233 650746. JUKES Janet (née Thackstone) on 4th November 2023 died peacefully at home surrounded by her family. Adored wife of Richard, loving mother of Sam and Dickie and enormously proud grandmother of Archie, Orlando and Humphrey. Private cremation followed by a service of thanksgiving at Church of St Peter, Wherwell SP11 7JJ, on Thursday 16th November at 11.30am. No flowers please. If desired, donations to the Countess of Brecknock Hospice, Andover SP10 3LB. from Toronto Pearson Airport for the United Kingdom. St James’s Palace 8th November, 2023 The Princess Royal, Honorary Fellow, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, this morning presented Royal Medals and subsequently attended a Reception at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the City of Edinburgh (Councillor Robert Aldridge, the Rt Hon the Lord Provost). Her Royal Highness, Patron, Catch22, this afternoon attended the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum, the Studio, 7 Cannon Street, Birmingham, and was received by Mrs Jean Templeton (Deputy Lieutenant of West Midlands). The Princess Royal, Patron, the Wooden Spoon Society, this evening attended a Reception at the House of Lords, London SW1. Her Royal Highness, Court Member, the Fishmongers’ Company, later attended a Livery Dinner, Fishmongers’ Hall, London Bridge, London EC4. Kensington Palace 8th November, 2023 The Duke of Gloucester, Member, St George’s Chapel Advisory Committee, this morning attended the College and Chapel of St George’s Fabric Advisory Committee Meeting at Windsor Castle. The Duchess of Gloucester, Patron, Friends of St Paul’s Cathedral, this evening attended a Reception for “Introducing Girls’ Voices”, at Mansion House, Walbrook, London EC4. LEGAL, PUBLIC, COMPANY & PARLIAMENTARY NOTICES To place notices for these sections please call 020 7481 4000 Notices are subject to confirmation and should be received by 11.30am three days prior to insertion Court Circular AND I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. Isaiah 65.19 (AV) Bible verses are provided by the Bible Society Births, Marriages and Deaths 020 7782 7553 newsukadvertising.co.uk The simple way to place your announcement in The Times. newsukadvertising.co.uk Delve into the lives of the quirky and unorthodox A collection of Times obituaries Now available in paperback from bookshops as well as amazon.co.uk and thetimes.co.uk/bookshop Legal Notices CR-2023-005322 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES COMPANIES COURT (ChD) IN THE MATTER OF SDCL ENERGY EFFICIENCY INCOME TRUST PLC AND IN THE MATTER OF THE COMPANIES ACT 2006 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Claim Form was on 25 October 2023 issued before His Majesty’s High Court of Justice for the confirmation of the reduction of the Company's share capital by the cancellation of £300,000,000 standing to the credit of its share premium account. AND NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that the Claim Form is directed to be heard before the Insolvency and Companies Court Judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, Rolls Building, 7 Rolls Buildings, London EC4A 1NL on 21 November 2023. ANY creditor or shareholder of the said Company desiring to oppose the making of an Order for the confirmation of the said reduction of the Company's share capital, should appear at the time of the hearing in person or by their legal representative for that purpose. A copy of the said application will be furnished to any such person requiring the same by the undermentioned solicitors on payment of the regulated charge for the same. DATED this 9th day of November 2023. Herbert Smith Freehills LLP Exchange House Primrose Street London EC2A 2EG Tel: 020 7374 8000 Fax: 020 7374 0888 Ref: 31048823 Solicitors for the above named Company

52 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Law The public think sentences are too short, even though average jail terms have risen by 50 per cent between 2012 and 2021 Sentencing reforms need investment Community service is one proposal for minor offences to free up prison space. By Frances Gibb Sentencing and criminal justice are firmly at the top of the political agenda in the run-up to the next general election after the King’s Speech this week. A package of measures has been confirmed, including tougher sentences for sadistic rapists or sexual offenders, and replacing jail terms of less than one year with community sentences. The lord chancellor, Alex Chalk, will lead debate on the plans in coming weeks. The aim, he has said, is to “use prison better” at a time when overcrowding is at record levels, with the 88,000-strong prison population in England and Wales double the level it was three decades ago. His reforms come at a time of concern about whether lack of prison space is hampering judges’ ability to jail offenders appropriately — as well as tougher public views about crime. Lord Burnett of Maldon, speaking in December 2020 when he was lord chief justice, said: “To my mind there has been a perceptible hardening of the public and political attitude to crime, particularly sexual and violent offending, which has resulted in a general shift in the balance between culpability and harm when determining sentence.” A report last month by the Commons justice committee concluded, after a poll of more than 2,000 adults in England and Wales, that: “Successive governments have increased the maximum sentences for a number of serious offences, often in response to public campaigns arising from individual cases. The polling we commissioned indicated that there is significant public support for increasing the custodial sentences for murder, rape and domestic burglary.” Strikingly, however, the MPs’ report also found a huge mismatch between the reality of sentencing and public perception. A survey in 2021 found that half those polled thought sentences were now shorter. But average jail terms have risen from 14.5 months in 2012 to 21.9 months in 2021. In all, sentences for crown court offences — the most serious — are 38 per cent longer than 20 years ago. The persisting view that the system is not severe enough has influenced sentencing debate and policy, MPs noted. Since 2000, parliament has significantly increased the maximum sentence for a range of offences, and as Burnett puts it, “the judiciary has been sensitive to that change in legislative mood”. Sir Bob Neill, chairman of the justice committee, said in these pages last week that it was a sign of the “strength of our democracy” that a hardening in public attitudes was swiftly reflected in legislation. But it has also created problems — namely a rise of nearly 20 per cent in the prison population since 2002, and the trend for sentence inflation across the board. Sentencing is at the heart of the constitutional relationship between judges and ministers; judges retain discretion — but only within the framework set by parliament. As Lady Carr, lady chief justice, put it to judges after Chalk’s recent oral statement: “Sentencing is a community sentences as a tough alternative to jail. And above all, provision of resources — both for more prison places but crucially for those community sentences. Without it, public confidence will be undermined. Mark Beattie, the national chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, welcomes the presumption against immediate short-term jail sentences, subject to JPs’ discretion, but says it is critical to expand community order options, and to ensure adequate resources for the probation service to advise JPs and manage offenders in the community. Similarly Richard Miller, the head of justice at the Law Society of England and Wales, approves of the government’s “pragmatic” approach. But the crisis of space in prisons is a “symptom of wider problems”, he says. “Record backlogs of cases leaving victims and defendants waiting to be heard, crumbling courts and a shortage of judges and lawyers all reflect the urgent need to fund justice.” Tana Adkin KC, chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, also echoes the call for more resources. “If we want prison sentences to work, we must have the capacity to punish wrongdoers, deter others and rehabilitate offenders who are imprisoned at great cost to the taxpayer as well as themselves and their families.” Judges will continue to seek to protect the public from harm, she says. But the management of cases is “especially difficult with diminished resources and with prison overcrowding that has reached a critical point”. Sentencing reform is seen therefore as a start — but is only one factor in a system that has suffered years of underfunding. Nick Vineall KC, chairman of the Bar Council, says that it is “right” that the government is rethinking sentencing, but there must be greater investment across the whole system. The sums, in the context of government spending, are modest. “But the consequences of underfunding are extremely serious for society as whole,” Vineall says. “Ultimately, we must have a system that properly supports victims and ensures that the guilty are punished and the innocent walk free. We no longer have such a system.” matter for the judiciary acting impartially and in accordance with the law.” But both judges and politicians want a serious public debate on sentencing. Burnett, in an interview with The Times in September, urged a “serious and measured” debate with a real focus on short sentences. The present discourse, he fears, “is not much more subtle than one group of politicians saying lock them up and another group saying yes and for longer”. Other changes will be needed too: first ensuring public perception is in line with reality, through greater communication of judges’ sentencing remarks and explanations of the sentences imposed. Jailed for life, for instance, MPs found, is a headline that rarely means that. More TV coverage of sentencing will also help. Second, the hard task of promoting ‘Successive governments have increased the maximum sentences’ Times Law Editor Jonathan Ames 020 7782 5405 [email protected] Advertising and marketing For print and online: Jeanine Kiala 020 7782 7518 [email protected] Most university graduates will struggle to sympathise over the working conditions of smug contemporaries who bag solicitor jobs at any of the 50 wealthiest law firms in the City. According to the Institute of Student Employers, the average starting wage for UK graduates is about £33,000 — yet the London offices of US law firms are paying more than five times that figure, with pay packets on the day that trainee solicitors qualify of about £180,000. Even domestic English firms are flashing the cash. It is reported that graduate starting salaries for newly qualified solicitors at the five firms in the City’s so-called magic circle are about £125,000. Those junior lawyers could be forgiven for thinking: what’s not to like? But the short answer is: the hours. And while the answer is short, the hours are Junior lawyers work gruelling hours for top salaries long, as highlighted by the last annual survey of junior lawyers’ working hours at large commercial law firms, conducted by the website Legal Cheek. The London office of Kirkland & Ellis, a Chicago practice that is one of the wealthiest on the planet, had the longest reported working hours for junior lawyers. They told the survey they logged 12-and-a-half-hour days on average, finishing at just after 10pm every night and often working at weekends. Simmons & Simmons was the highest placed domestic English firm. Junior lawyers there told the researchers that they notched up an hour less than their counterparts at Kirkland — but they were not paid as well. Those at the US firm have starting salaries of about £170,000, while their opposites at Simmons are on a miserly £107,500. The issue is, should junior lawyers — in the language they would be likely to invoke themselves — simply suck it up, bank the money and hope to be promoted to the partnership. “Junior lawyers at top US or UK firms accept that long hours are part of the job,” says Christopher Clark, director of Definitum, a headhunting agency. He explains the equation. City firms generally impose annual targets of 1,800-plus chargeable hours, which works out at about eight and a half hours a day without counting nonchargeable time spent on administration, events, client meetings, training and business development. Clark notes that some junior lawyers are working 3,000 hours annually, which translates to more than 14 hours a day over 42 weeks. “In the busy Covid year,” Clark says, referring to the boom that the virus brought to City law firms, “associates were hitting north of 2,000 chargeable hours in some mid-tier UK firms.” He adds that it is “common for junior lawyers at top firms to work weekends, holidays and regularly cancel personal commitments — the demands are very high and constant”. Nathan Peart, the managing director of Major, Lindsey & Africa, another legal profession headhunter, notes that “the work-life balance conversation is currently the loudest it has ever been, and a high priority for the upcoming generation of legal talent. Perhaps there is an opportunity for mid-tier City-based firms to offer lawyers challenging work and high-level clients, but with a greater focus on sustainable work-life balance.” Law firms dive for cover when the subject of long hours is raised. Of those contacted by The Times, only Simmons & Simmons responded, with a spokesman saying that the survey responses “do not reflect the hours expectations of the firm or the average working hours of our junior lawyers”. Colin Passmore, the chairman of the City of London Law Society, and a former senior partner at Simmons & Simmons, says that it is “no secret” that a career as a lawyer in the Square Mile “involves hard work and often hours that might be longer than one might wish for, albeit with commensurate rewards”. Passmore adds that “City law firms are alive to this aspect of our businesses, recognise its importance and therefore work hard to provide systems, structure and support to monitor and manage contributions from our people”. Jonathan Ames

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 53 Headline here xyx Xxy xyx yx yx yx xyx yx yxxyx yx yx xyx yxx yxxy yxyx yx y x yx yx yxy xx thetimes.co.uk In conversation Jonathan Fisher KC on his review of fraud offences and career at the Bar thetimes.co.uk In the traditional act of remembrance, the country will fall silent for two minutes this weekend for the more than one million British military dead in the First and Second World Wars and subsequent conflicts. But for much of the rest of the year many former servicemen and women, who have been injured physically or mentally during their time in the forces, feel that they have been forgotten, especially by their previous employer, the Ministry of Defence. More than 1,500 service personnel were medically discharged from the army, navy and air force last year. The most common reasons involved mental and behavioural issues and musculoskeletal disorders and injuries. Many who have sustained lifechanging injuries struggle to get adequate compensation to enable them to adjust to life on Civvy Street. These include individuals who have suffered blast injuries, lost limbs, an eye or their hearing, sustained shrapnel injuries or burns and other serious injuries. Many suffer from more than one physical condition, which are frequently coupled with mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the pledge made by the government in the armed forces covenant to treat veterans and their families with fairness and respect, Ahmed alNahhas, a partner at the law firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, accuses the Ministry of Defence of approaching compensation claims “with great cynicism”. For many who have left the services, the biggest frustration is how their care and support vanishes, Nahhas says. “If you speak to injured veterans, many feel used and forgotten.” Although the armed forces compensation scheme, which pays out irrespective of fault, is supposed to be designed for lay people to use, lawyers insist that is too complicated. Without legal aid, many are left unadvised as they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer to help secure their entitlement. The compensation scheme, says James Sloane, a solicitor at the firm JMW, is “simply not fit for purpose”. The decision-making process lacks transparency and veterans “can wait for years for their final compensation and often only receive what they deserve when they have exhausted the appeal processes”, Sloane says. His firm recently secured more than £1 million each for two veterans across their lifetimes, after appealing the initial compensation awards made. Former service personnel, especially those with PTSD — some who have been too ill to work since being medically discharged — face particular difficulties obtaining proper compensation because they are judged to have been diagnosed by the “wrong” type of doctor, or are too unwell to cope with the “right” treatment, Sloane says. Even where former service personnel obtain compensation or win increased sums on appeal, they can be left out of pocket because, as Sloane explains, they cannot reclaim the money spent on legal fees or expert medical evidence and there is no process for updating lump sums in line with inflation. Many struggle to bring a claim in the first place owing to their loyalty to the forces and the ministry, says Natasha Orr, a solicitor at Slater and Gordon. That is made worse by the ministry’s approach, which seeks to engage in “costly and time-consuming litigation” even where it has clearly been at fault, Orr says. The lawyer suggests that the money would be better spent on providing service personnel with the necessary equipment and facilities to do their job without getting injured. Orr is concerned about the continued use of unsafe equipment. For example, she claims that the British military still uses armoured vehicles, tanks, aircraft and other hardware that contain asbestos — exposure to airborne asbestos fibres can cause mesothelioma, a type of cancer. The ministry insists that it complies with the relevant regulations on the use of equipment containing asbestos and appropriate health surveillance is arranged for relevant personnel. Former services personnel can also struggle to obtain their full pension entitlements. With no legal aid available, they rely on charitable services from the Royal British Legion and others. To help to meet the need, the law firm Addleshaw Goddard launched a programme dedicated to representing members of the UK armed forces free of charge in war pensions and armed forces compensation tribunals, on behalf of the Royal British Legion. Volunteers from the firm’s offices in London, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow have acted for veterans and serving personnel in appeals for individuals’ entitlement to an award or the level of payments after suffering injury or disablement in service. Over six months, in 65 appeals, the firm has won more than 75 per cent of claims, increasing awards by as much as 40 per cent and securing hundreds of thousands of pounds, says Paul Chaplin, the partner at Addleshaw Goddard who founded the programme. exclusive to subscribers Not guilty A jury’s power to acquit is a safeguard Duel benefits Pro bono work supplements legal aid thetimes.co.uk Veterans battle for compensation Some British armed forces personnel have had to take legal action to receive adequate compensation for their injuries In September the government announced a £2.52 million fund awarded over five years to the charities Help for Heroes and Blesma to provide veterans across the UK with mobility equipment that is not usually available through the NHS, such as specialist wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and different orthotics such as splints and braces. Last month the government started a veterans consultation to better understand the needs of veterans and families and launched Operation Courage, a veteran’s mental health service. In response to the criticism, the Ministry of Defence says: “We take the health and safety of all personnel very seriously. Under both the armed forces compensation scheme and war pension scheme, we ensure that former and serving personnel who have illness or injuries caused by their service receive the compensation they are entitled to. “We carefully consider each claim on its own merit in line with legislation before a final assessment is made.” Catherine Baksi OUT OF COURT The cases, the chatter, the chaos: what’s really going on in the law Brief jail terms can ruin lives The scrapping of short sentences for community orders outlined in the King’s Speech will be welcomed by many judicial figures — not least Lord Neuberger, a former president of the Supreme Court. He condemns short sentences as “a mistake”, and other aspects of the sentencing regime as “utterly unacceptable.” “Having visited prisons, I see people being sentenced for six months, which in some cases ruins their private life, their family life — their wife or husband, normally wife, leaves them … really mucks up their children, mucks up their employment,” he says. “Six months is much too short to achieve any sort of rehabilitation or any assistance. And they clog up the prisons.” Neuberger’s comments come in the second episode, out today, of a new podcast series, The Judges: Power, Politics and the People, hosted by the University of Law. Harder to win a case What are your chances of a win if you go to court? And does it depend on the time of year or the seniority or gender of your lawyer? BeCivil, a blog specialising in crunching legal data, finds that the odds of a court win are one in three — and almost exactly the same on appeal. But appeal judges are getting less sympathetic (or the cases are weaker): dismissal rates have steadily risen, the researchers found, to 66 per cent, compared with well below 60 per cent 25 years ago. As for whether judges — and therefore decisions — are affected by gloomy seasons, there was “no discernible impact on case success rates according to the time of the year”. Hurrah, say the bloggers, for judicial impartiality. 0 Subscribers can register for The Brief, our weekly newsletter. Japanese knotweed, right, has blighted properties across the UK for years — and now its pernicious tentacles are stretching to the Court of Appeal. Thankfully the Royal Courts of Justice in London have not become infested with the herbaceous pest. However, three judges this week will begin hearing what many are seeing as a landmark case over compulsory mediation. In Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, three dispute resolution bodies are aiming to overturn a 2004 Court of Appeal decision that determined that compelling parties to mediate was a breach of provisions in Knotweed case will test compulsory mediation priate cases, to order parties to attend mediation and provide more disputants with access to the benefits that we know mediation can bring them”. Mediation is being encouraged more widely by the government, not least to clear the backlog in family law courts. However, last month the Law Society warned that its research showed that “the government’s ambition of encouraging mediation has been fundamentally undermined by its own decision to cut funding for early legal advice for family matters”. The society says that use of mediation in family cases “collapsed” over the past decade, with 4,700 fewer successful agreements, a drop of 53 per cent. Jonathan Ames the European Convention on Human Rights that guarantee the right to a fair trial. The hearing, which started yesterday, comes two years after the Civil Justice Council — the body that advises the lord chancellor and senior judges on procedure — said that mandatory alternative dispute resolution was compatible with convention rights, a view that stood in opposition to the 2004 decision in Halsey v Milton Keynes General NHS Trust. The groups intervening — the Civil Mediation Council, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) — will argue that the council’s recommendations should be adopted. Lawyers acting for the three bodies say this week’s hearing is crucial as it is the first opportunity for a higher court to consider overturning what they describe as “the widely unpopular” 2004 ruling. “Halsey has proved hugely problematic for the wider adoption of mediation,” says Catherine Dixon, director general of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, adding that the 2004 decision “is generally considered to be bad law and this case offers the Court of Appeal the opportunity to clarify that referring parties to mediation does not breach their human rights”. Rebecca Clark, the chairwoman of the Civil Mediation Council,says that it is important that the appeal court this week “is given evidence as to [alternative dispute resolution’s] efficacy and increasing popularity: mediation saves time, money and court resources”. While James South, the head of CEDR, says it is now “time for the Court of Appeal to adopt a more permissive approach, and to allow judges, in appro-

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 57 Weather The Times weather page is provided by Channel Islands NORTH SEA CHANNEL IRISH SEA ATLANTIC OCEAN Aberdeen Glasgow Edinburgh Carlisle Newcastle York Manchester Liverpool Hull Llandudno Shrewsbury Nottingham Sheffield Norwich Cambridge Oxford Bristol Swansea Cardiff Plymouth Exeter Southampton Brighton London Londonderry Belfast Galway Dublin Cork Birmingham CELTIC SEA Orkney Shetland 31 Sunday 9 6 10 11 Aberdeen Aberporth Anglesey Aviemore Barnstaple Bedford Belfast Birmingham Bournemouth Bridlington Bristol Camborne Cardiff Edinburgh Eskdalemuir Glasgow Hereford Herstmonceux Ipswich Isle of Man Isle of Wight Jersey Keswick Kinloss Leeds Lerwick Leuchars Lincoln Liverpool London Lyneham Manchester Margate Milford Haven Newcastle Nottingham Orkney Oxford Plymouth Portland Scilly, St Mary’s Shoreham Shrewsbury Snowdonia Southend South Uist Stornoway Tiree Whitehaven Wick Yeovilton Around Britain Key: b=bright, c=cloud, d=drizzle, pc=partly cloudy du=dull, f=fair, fg=fog, h=hail, m=mist, r=rain, sh=showers, sl=sleet, sn=snow, s=sun, t=thunder *=previous day **=data not available Temp C Rain mm Sun hr* midday yesterday 24 hrs to 5pm yesterday Noon today 9 R 2.6 2.9 10 PC 2.6 2.7 11 S 8.4 3.8 7 PC 1.8 0.8 12 C 3.4 ** 13 D 2.6 ** 9 S 3.0 3.5 11 D 2.8 ** 14 R 13.0 5.7 10 C 2.0 ** 11 C 5.0 7.9 11 C 14.2 3.4 11 S 8.4 3.1 10 PC 1.6 2.6 8 PC 5.2 2.8 11 PC 12.8 5.1 11 PC 2.6 ** 12 R 14.4 5.0 11 D 4.2 7.0 10 S 9.4 5.8 13 R 13.0 ** 14 R 7.4 4.4 9 C 6.6 ** 9 PC 0.6 0.0 8 D 3.4 ** 8 C 12.8 6.4 10 S 4.4 1.9 11 R 2.0 3.0 11 PC 3.8 ** 13 R 5.4 4.8 11 C 7.6 4.6 10 R 5.0 0.7 11 D 3.0 5.8 10 PC 6.2 ** 9 D 0.4 ** 10 R 3.4 5.2 8 R 5.6 0.7 13 R 3.2 ** 12 PC 7.8 ** 12 C 9.0 ** ** ** 4.0 ** 12 R 10.4 6.4 11 PC 2.0 5.4 9 B 15.0 ** 12 C 1.4 6.7 9 PC 9.8 ** 7 C 6.0 2.8 10 R 5.2 3.8 9 C 11.2 2.0 8 R 6.2 ** 12 C 4.0 4.5 The world All readings local midday yesterday Alicante Amsterdam Athens Auckland Bahrain Bangkok Barbados Barcelona Beijing Beirut Belgrade Berlin Bermuda Bordeaux Brussels Bucharest Budapest Buenos Aires Cairo Calcutta Canberra Cape Town Chicago Copenhagen Corfu Delhi Dubai Dublin Faro Florence Frankfurt Geneva Gibraltar Helsinki Hong Kong Honolulu Istanbul Jerusalem Johannesburg Kuala Lumpur Kyiv Lanzarote Las Palmas Lima Lisbon Los Angeles Luxor Madeira Madrid Malaga Mallorca Malta Melbourne Mexico City Miami Milan Mombasa Montreal Moscow Mumbai Munich Nairobi Naples New Orleans New York Nice Nicosia Oslo Paris Perth Prague Reykjavik Riga Rio de Janeiro Riyadh Rome San Francisco Santiago São Paulo Seoul Seychelles Singapore St Petersburg Stockholm Sydney Tel Aviv Tenerife Tokyo Vancouver Venice Vienna Warsaw Washington Zurich 19 PC 10 R 24 S 17 S 30 PC 33 PC 26 SH 15 S 13 S 26 S 12 PC 10 B 25 B 16 S 10 R 16 PC 11 PC 29 S 27 S 29 ** 24 S 20 S 11 B 10 B 19 B 28 ** 32 PC 9 PC 18 S 17 PC 11 B 10 PC 18 S 4 B 27 PC 28 B 21 S 27 S 20 PC 32 PC ** ** 24 PC 24 PC 20 DU 18 PC 20 PC 34 S 22 PC 10 B 18 S 18 PC 26 B 30 B 27 PC 29 PC 14 S 30 B 11 R 8 B 33 ** 11 S 21 R 18 B 24 PC 16 B 16 PC 27 PC 3 B 11 R 30 S 9 B 8 ** 9 B 26 PC 29 S 19 S 19 PC 20 S 23 S 12 S 28 PC 30 B 8 B 4 R 25 B 27 S 26 PC 20 PC 11 PC 15 S 13 PC 10 B 22 B 10 PC Five days ahead Generally unsettled with patchy cloud and frequent outbreaks of rain and showers Today Bright periods and showery outbreaks of rain, heaviest in western Britain and Ireland. Max 11C (52F), min -2C (28F) Tides Tidal predictions. Heights in metres Today Ht Ht Aberdeen Avonmouth Belfast Cardiff Devonport Dover Dublin Falmouth Greenock Harwich Holyhead Hull Leith Liverpool London Bridge Lowestoft Milford Haven Morecambe Newhaven Newquay Oban Penzance Portsmouth Shoreham Southampton Swansea Tees Weymouth 11:01 3.7 23:04 3.8 04:09 10.4 16:28 11.0 08:40 3.0 20:37 3.3 03:59 9.9 16:15 10.5 02:47 4.5 14:58 4.8 08:21 5.8 20:50 5.8 09:04 3.6 21:11 3.7 02:29 4.2 14:41 4.5 10:01 3.1 21:45 3.2 08:41 3.4 21:22 3.6 07:53 4.8 19:57 5.0 03:13 6.2 15:45 6.3 --:-- -- 12:07 4.7 08:31 7.8 20:41 8.1 10:46 5.7 23:16 6.1 06:02 2.3 19:34 2.3 03:28 5.6 15:44 5.9 08:43 7.7 20:53 8.1 08:25 5.7 20:45 5.6 02:23 5.7 14:39 6.0 03:22 3.2 15:28 3.5 01:57 4.5 14:11 4.8 08:57 4.2 21:08 4.1 08:31 5.3 20:50 5.2 10:38 4.0 22:07 4.0 03:30 7.6 15:46 8.0 00:35 4.7 13:15 4.8 04:08 1.6 15:59 1.6 Synoptic situation An occluded front will bring patchy cloud and showery outbreaks of rain to parts of Ireland and western Britain throughout the day, heaviest and most widespread across western Ireland, Wales and southwest England. Eastern Britain will be slightly drier with sunny periods and a few showers moving into the region through the afternoon. Highs and lows 24hrs to 5pm yesterday Warmest: Yeovilton, 14.1C Coldest: Cairngorm, -2.6C Wettest: Achnagart, Inverness-shire, 20.4mm Sunniest: Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, 7.9hrs* Sun and moon For Greenwich Sun rises: Sun sets: Moon rises: Moon sets: New Moon: November 13 Hours of darkness Aberdeen Belfast Birmingham Cardiff Exeter Glasgow Liverpool London Manchester Newcastle Norwich Penzance Sheffi eld 16:37-07:09 17:03-07:13 16:54-06:49 17:02-06:51 17:06-06:50 16:51-07:12 16:55-06:57 16:50-06:39 16:52-06:54 16:44-06:57 16:41-06:37 17:16-06:56 16:49-06:51 General situation: A day of bright intervals and showery rain, slightly drier in eastern England and Scotland. Republic of Ireland, N Ireland: A day of bright intervals and showery outbreaks of rain, heaviest and most widespread across parts of western Ireland through the afternoon. Light to fresh west to southwesterly winds. Maximum 9C (48F), minimum 2C (36F). Edinburgh and Dundee, Moray Firth, NE Scotland, Aberdeen, N Isles: Patchy mist and low cloud clearing through the morning to leave a mainly dry afternoon with the odd shower at times. Light to moderate southerly winds, variable at times. Maximum 8C (46F), minimum -2C (28F). NW Scotland, Cen Highland, Glasgow, Argyll, SW Scotland, Lake District, IoM: Early mist and hill fog clearing to leave a day of bright periods and showery rain, heaviest through the afternoon. Light to moderate southerly winds, fresh along the coast. Maximum 9C (48F), minimum -1C (30F). NW Eng, Wales, W Mids, Cen S Eng, SW Eng, Channel Is: Bright spells and showery outbreaks of rain, heaviest and perhaps thundery through the afternoon. Moderate to fresh west to southwesterly winds. Maximum 10C (50F), minimum 4C (39F). London, E Anglia, E Mids, Cen N Eng, SE Eng, E Eng, NE Eng, Borders: Sunny intervals and a few showers by the afternoon. Light to moderate south to southwesterly winds. Maximum 11C (52F), minimum 4C (39F). Tomorrow 8 6 9 10 Saturday 9 7 8 10 Monday 11 8 12 13 Tuesday 13 9 13 14 33 the morning to leave a mainly dry 30 29 Hull 22 Liverpoo 23 Edinburgh Newcastle 19 20 21 18 Orkney Shetland 13 8 9 9 8 9 7 8 6 7 7 8 10 11 10 10 8 9 8 9 6 10 eter 10 11 Norwich SEA Llandudno rk Hull F 95 86 77 68 59 50 41 32 23 14 5 C 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 Wind speed (mph) Temperature 28 (degrees C) 34 Sea state Calm Slight Moderate Rough Flood alerts and warnings At 17:00 on Wednesday there were 50 fl ood alerts and 11 warnings in England, one fl ood alert and no warnings in Wales and no fl ood alerts or warnings in Scotland. For further information and updates in England visit fl ood-warninginformation.service.gov.uk, for Wales naturalresources.wales/fl ooding and for Scotland SEPA.org.uk Cold front Warm front Occluded front Trough LOW HIGH LOW LOW HIGH HIGH LOW LOW LOW 1016 1016 1016 1008 1008 1008 1000 992 Turning unsettled with patchy cloud and outbreaks of rain and showers, heaviest across Ireland and central England through the afternoon. Max 11C, min -1C A day of bright spells and scattered showers, heaviest across southwest Britain through the morning. Mainly dry with sunny intervals in Ireland. Max 10C, min -1C A dry day for most with sunny spells, perhaps turning hazy at times. A band of rain will move into southwest Britain and Ireland by the afternoon. Max 10C, min -3C Remaining unsettled with patchy cloud and showery outbreaks of rain, heaviest across western Britain and Ireland through the afternoon. Max 13C, min 2C A day of thick cloud and widespread outbreaks of rain, heaviest across central Britain through the afternoon. Some bright periods in Ireland. Max 14C, min 1C 07.07 16.20 02.25 15.03 8 ‘The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful,” wrote the American poet and author EE Cummings, echoing the magnetic attraction of small children splashing around in muddy puddles and getting covered in dirt. But after weeks of rain, muddy puddles may be losing their appeal. Much of Britain has been reduced to a sludgy, slippery, mucky quagmire and with no end in sight to the wet weather, the national mudbath is bound to grow even worse. But mud also has its benefits. For children, playing in mud is thought to boost their immune systems and fight infections and allergies, possibly thanks to microbes in the earth acting on the skin. This may also explain the health claims of mud face packs, mudbaths and mineral water baths, which cake the skin in beneficial bugs. Building with mud is an ancient skill that has great benefits. Yemen’s remarkable towers in the city of Sana’a were built of mud rammed together with other materials to make strong tall buildings, recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site. Mud buildings were also constructed in Europe using wattle and daub, a technique dating back 6,000 years using wooden strips called wattle coated with mixtures of wet clay, soil, sand, dung and straw. A similar construction was used in Lincolnshire’s unique “mud and stud” cottages, using mud mixed with straw and coated on to ash wood held on a timber frame. Many of these cottages have been lost over the years, but some 500 still survive and can also be found in Jamestown, Virginia, built by early colonists from Britain. These ancient techniques became redundant because they were labour intensive, and brick and concrete became cheaper. But there is now renewed interest in mud buildings — walls made with mud slowly absorb heat and store it, making homes warm in winter and cool in summer. Mud-building does not give off CO2 , which are a big problem when using concrete and bricks. Speak directly to one of our forecasters on 09065 777675 8am to 5pm daily (calls are charged at £1.55 plus network extras) weatherquest.co.uk Weather Eye Paul Simons

The DP World Tour has warned players that they face fines and suspensions for entering a new LIV qualifying event. It has given them 24 hours’ notice to submit applications for releases. LIV Golf Promotions is a three-day qualifier in Abu Dhabi from December 8, clashing with the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Championship, that offers three places on the breakaway tour for its 2024 season, tough for me, though, and I was glad when it finished. People were not talking about the Ryder Cup much any more and I could move on.” He played a stellar back nine to win the Andalucía Masters last month, his fourth DP World Tour victory in 16 months. “Luke texted me after that to congratulate me and so did a couple of [Ryder Cup] guys,” he says. “I spoke to Tommy [Fleetwood] and Bob [MacIntyre] and I congratulated them. I was over it. “It was a very important win for me. I did not have my A game that week and was calling my coach, but maybe the low expectations helped.” The word Meronk used freely after his disappointment was “acceptance” and he praises his psychologist, as well as his girlfriend and parents, for helping him through. “It’s about putting things in perspective,” he says. “I also meditate a lot, which helps with being in the here and now. I sit in a quiet room for ten minutes and repeat Hindu mantras.” Meditation sounds like a good idea for anyone who has been consumed by golf’s bitter power struggle, the lack of progress over the framework agreement that was supposedly going to unite the sport, and all the attendant mud-slinging. Meronk is on the cusp of going to the US but the wider future is swathed in doubt. “These are strange times in golf,” he says. “Nobody knows what to expect and I don’t know what to think because it’s one big mess. For now, I just observe, because it’s a lot of noise and I need a clear mind.” He plans to live in Jacksonville and practise at TPC Sawgrass. The decision to offer cards to Europe’s leading players has led to criticism that it is weakening the DP World Tour. Going in the other direction, PGA Tour players who have lost their cards by the end of November can now become full DP members. Five will be allowed to play in each tournament. This week Meronk will be up against six Ryder Cup players from Rome, with the defending champion Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Nicolai Hojgaard, and MacIntyre from the European side and the Americans Max Homa and Justin Thomas all in the Sun City field. So is Ryan Fox, who is one place behind Meronk in the Race to Dubai rankings. “I’m in a good place,” Meronk says. “Now I have to finish strong.” It is possible to imagine a snub forging a semblance of schadenfreude, albeit every captain’s pick won points and there have since been calls for Donald to serve a second term as leader. “Watching on a course like that, where I’ve had success, was not easy, but no, I don’t wish bad on anybody,” Meronk says. “It wasn’t up to me who was playing. It didn’t matter what I thought or wished. I had good memories and knew what I could have done, but I accepted it. It was I t has been a testing couple of months for Adrian Meronk. Left off the European Ryder Cup team, he went through stages of “shock, sadness and anger”, but rebounded with his third win of the season. Now he is hoping for a grand finale that will bury any lingering ghosts and secure his passage from Europe to the United States. Going into this week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, Meronk, 30, is third in the Race to Dubai rankings, behind the runaway leader Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. That is important because the top ten finishers who are not already PGA Tour members will earn a card for next season. If Meronk is not overtaken by anyone by the end of next week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, he will be fully exempt for the PGA Tour and earn a place in the Players Championship. Stay in the top 50 by the end of the year and the world No 46 will also be back at the Masters. There is, then, a lot to play for. “It’s on my mind,” he says of the PGA Tour carrot. “It’s my goal to move to the US, base myself in Florida and compete there. After next week we will start making some plans for early 2024. If I want to improve my world ranking and keep getting better, then the US is the way to go.” If the Ryder Cup snub opened wounds, the Hamburg-born Pole’s confidence remains unchecked and his ambitions are lofty. “I would love to be the best player in the world and winning majors,” he says of his long-term goals. “I believe I am capable of it. At the start of the year I wanted to finish in the top two in the [Race to Dubai] rankings. Rory is obviously way ahead of everyone, but that’s still the goal and I want to get it done. “This is just the beginning for me. I want to keep growing and see how far I can go.” It says much about the status of the Ryder Cup that more casual watchers may remember Meronk’s omission more than his run of wins. One of them came at the Italian Open, on the same Marco Simone course that brought such rewards for Luke Donald’s team. It made for a difficult week when the biennial clash took place on the outskirts of Rome. “I was home in Poland and I watched a bit in the morning and then went to practice,” he says. “There was nothing I could do and I wanted to get better. I watched the Sunday singles and it was great to see how Europe performed.” ‘Watching the Ryder Cup was tough – I was glad when it was finished’ Meronk has won four times in 16 months but was left off the victorious Ryder Cup team, inset DP Tour threatens to fine players who enter new LIV qualifier along with a $1.5 million (about £1.2 million) purse. LIV has offered exemptions into the second stage of the qualifier to major champions, Ryder and Presidents Cup players, and recent PGA and DP World Tour winners. However, it is the rank-and-file members for whom the temptation to enter is more obvious, with a place on LIV guaranteeing players at least £1.35 million over 14 events. While uncertainty reigns over the negotiations between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV, and the PGA Tour, the latter raised eyebrows when it confirmed the qualifier would not be categorised as an “unauthorised tournament”. The PGA is in effect granting its members permission to enter, even if appearing in a LIV event could incur a one-year ban. The DP World Tour has taken a firmer stance over the four-day Alfred Dunhill Championship, which is being held in South Africa from December 7. A memo sent to players on Tuesday confirmed the qualifier will be classed as a conflicting event and gave them until yesterday to apply for a release. The potential flashpoint has echoes of the first LIV event in London, where several DP World Tour members, including Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, played without being granted a release. The DP World Tour’s right to penalise players for doing so became the subject of a legal battle, which it won, culminating in Westwood and Poulter resigning their memberships. Speaking at a LIV event in Miami last month, Poulter claimed entering the qualifier was a nobrainer for DP World Tour players. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods has claimed TGL, the indoor golf simulator league he has founded with Rory McIlroy, will be “very simple” in comparison with LIV, despite criticism of its format. In TGL, which comprises six teams of four, players will hit shots from real grass into a high-tech screen before moving to a separate area for pitch shots and then virtual greens, all inside a custom-built Florida venue. Tom Kershaw Adrian Meronk sought solace in meditation after being left off Luke Donald’s team in Rome, writes Rick Broadbent Race to Dubai rankings Top five 1, Rory McIlroy (N Ire) 5,164.47pts 2, Jon Rahm (Sp) 3,081.94 3, Adrian Meronk (Pol) 2,775.19 4, Ryan Fox (NZ) 2,773.39 5, Victor Perez (Fr) 2,050.32 Sport 58 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 59 Racing Sport Yesterday’s racing results Chepstow Going: heavy 12.55 (2m 7f 131yd ch) 1, Eceparti (N Fox, 5-4 fav); 2, King Turgeon (7-1); 3, Art Decco (13-2). 8 ran. l, 12l. Miss V Williams. 1.30 (2m 11yd ch) 1, Colonel Harry (G Sheehan, 6-4); 2, Out Of Office (17-2); 3, Tahmuras (4-5 fav). 2 l, 16l. Jamie Snowden. 2.05 (2m 11yd hdle) 1, Jackpot D’athou (H Cobden, 7-4); 2, Party Vibes (14-1); 3, Inion Tiogair (20-1). 12 ran. NR: Flying Fortune, Selkirk Grace. 2l, 8l. P F Nicholls. 2.40 (2m 3f 100yd hdle) 1, Heros De Romay (G Sheehan, 5-2); 2, Livin On Luco (13-2); 3, Minella Blueway (10-1). 9 ran. NR: Another Lord. Nk, 3 l. K C Bailey. 3.15 (2m 7f 131yd hdle) 1, Shesupincourt (S Twiston-Davies, 7-2); 2, Cooleenymore (13-2); 3, Committee Of One (25-1). 8 ran. NR: Lady Wilberry. 3 l, 3 l. R Potter. 3.50 (2m 3f 100yd hdle) 1, Wot You Wearing (B Jones, 9-2); 2, Portentoso (5-1); 3, Richardson (9-1); 4, Jimmy Boum (16-1). 17 ran. NR: Pilgrims King. 2l, 12l. R Stephens. 4.25 (2m 11yd Flat) 1, Rocking Man (S TwistonDavies, 7-5 fav); 2, Jacobin (4-1); 3, The Cypriot (12-1). 6 ran. NR: King Roly. 5 l, 8l. S Thomas. Placepot: £63.50. Quadpot: £19.60 Musselburgh Going: good to soft (good in places) 12.35 (2m 7f 180yd hdle) 1, Call Me Harry (P W Wadge, 8-1); 2, Haveyougotmymoney (7-2); 3, Rickety Gate (8-1). 13 ran. l, 4 l. I Jardine. 1.05 (1m 7f 124yd hdle) 1, Union Flag (B S Hughes, 9-4 fav); 2, Ragosina (3-1); 3, I’m Too Tired (3-1). 9 ran. 6l, 9 l. D McCain Jr. 1.40 (1m 7f 124yd hdle) 1, Belle Of Annandale (Henry Brooke, 8-1); 2, Quaresome (2-1); 3, The Kalooki Kid (9-2). 12 ran. 4 l, 2 l. A Keatley. 2.15 (1m 7f 182yd ch) 1, Friary Rock (Lewis Dobb, 5-1); 2, Magic Mike (4-1 jt-fav); 3, Ingleby Mackenzie (25-1). 8 ran. NR: Edmond Dantes. 1l, 6l. L Morgan. 2.50 (2m 4f 68yd ch) 1, Dr Shirocco (Henry Brooke, 16-1); 2, Impression Chic (11-2); 3, Moore Clouds (18-1). 13 ran. Nk, 1 l. Miss S E Forster. 3.25 (1m 7f 182yd ch) 1, Cracking Destiny (Craig Nichol, 9-1); 2, Fidelio Vallis (5-4 fav); 3, Dreams Of Home (100-30). 5 ran. 4 l, 1l. Ewan Whillans. 4.00 (1m 7f 124yd hdle) 1, Matchless (Sean Quinlan, 11-2); 2, Scots Poet (5-1); 3, Colonial Empire (15-2). 9 ran. 2l, l. J Candlish. Placepot: £83.80. Quadpot: £61.90. Warwick Going: soft (heavy in places) 12.45 (2m 4f ch) 1, Supasunrise (F Lambert, 4-1); 2, Eurkash (9-1); 3, Miltiades (7-2). 10 ran. NR: Kings Justice. Nk, 8 l. N Twiston-Davies. 1.15 (2m hdle) 1, Helnwein (T Cannon, 10-11 fav); 2, Toonagh Warrior (8-1); 3, Kilbarry Hill (25-1). 17 ran. NR: Shuile Warrior. 1 l, nk. A King. 1.50 (3m ch) 1, Rockinastorm (J J Burke, 4-1); 2, Pachacuti (12-1); 3, Betterforeveryone (10-1). 8 ran. 1 l, 12l. H D Daly. 2.25 (3m 1f 100yd ch) 1, Enqarde (C Hammond, 10-1); 2, Docpickedme (6-1); 3, Major Dundee (13-2). 7 ran. NR: Latitude. Hd, 5l. Dr R D P Newland. 3.00 (2m 3f hdle) 1, Annie Day (J J Burke, 7-1); 2, Giulietta (3-1 jt-fav); 3, Bushtucker Park (3-1 jt-fav). 10 ran. NR: Criquette, Pretending. Nk, 14l. B I Case. 3.35 (3m 2f hdle) 1, Woodie Flash (S Bowen, 7-2); 2, Bobo Mac (11-2); 3, My Last Oscar (22-1). 9 ran. NR: Newtonian. 20l, sh hd. O Murphy. 4.10 (2m Flat) 1, Let It Rain (H Skelton, 7-2 fav); 2, The Secret Pearl (22-1); 3, What’s One More (16-1). 16 ran. NR: Dromlac Jury, Karman Line. 8l, 1 l. D Skelton. Placepot: £692.10. Quadpot: £121.20. Kempton Park Going: standard/slow 4.30 (1m) 1, Into Battle (B Loughnane, 7-1); 2, Sant Alessio (5-6 fav); 3, Toromoro (40-1). 14 ran. l, l. E Walker. 5.00 (1m) 1, Timetobenice (H Davies, 9-1); 2, Iffraaj Queen (66-1); 3, Belcamo (100-30). 13 ran. NR: Myna. l, ns. M Botti. 5.30 (1m) 1, Mother Margaret (R Kingscote, 12-1); 2, Outrace (33-1); 3, Francesi (9-2). 13 ran. 1 l, ns. H & R Charlton. 6.00 (1m) 1, Magico (H Davies, 11-2; Rob Wright’s nap); 2, Blown Away (7-4 fav); 3, First Encore (25-1). 9 ran. Nk, l. M Botti. 6.30 (6f) 1, Boann (R Hornby, 33-1); 2, Western (4-1); 3, All Agleam (11-2). 12 ran. Hd, 1l. O Sangster. 7.00 (6f) 1, Admiral D (B Garritty, 17-2); 2, Baldomero (12-1); 3, Aramis Grey (13-2). 12 ran. Sh hd, l. R A Fahey. 7.30 (1m 7f 218yd) 1, Sir Chauvelin (D Egan, 16-1); 2, Sleeping Lion (7-2); 3, Divine Comedy (4-1). 8 ran. Hd, l. J S Goldie. 8.00 (1m 2f 219yd) 1, It’s A Love Thing (J Doyle, 9-2 fav); 2, Page Three (13-2); 3, D Day Arvalenreeva (6-1). 13 ran. NR: Story Horse. Nk, l. S England. 8.30 (6f) 1, The Cola Kid (K Stott, 3-1 fav); 2, Purple Poppy (5-1); 3, Diamondsinthesand (9-2). 12 ran. l, 1 l. G Harris. Jackpot: Not won. Pool of £5,558.84 carried forward to Newbury today. Placepot: £230.50. Quadpot: £59.40. 6.00 Nursery (2-Y-O: £4,004: 6f) (10) 6.30 Nursery (2-Y-O: £4,004: 5f) (12) 7.00 Handicap (£6,621: 1m 5f) (9) 7.30 Handicap (£13,500: 1m 2f) (8) 8.00 Handicap (£4,004: 7f) (10) 8.30 Handicap (£6,621: 5f) (9) Course specialists Chelmsford: Trainers R Beckett, 26 winners from 101 runners, 25.7%; J Tate, 33 from 138, 23.9%. Jockeys H Davies, 11 winners from 56 rides, 19.6%; R Kingscote, 33 from 185, 17.8%. Ludlow: Trainers A Honeyball, 3 from 9, 33.3%; S Thomas, 3 from 9, 33.3%. Jockeys J Tidball, 5 from 16, 31.2%; Miss L Turner, 4 from 14, 28.6%. Newbury: Trainers S Thomas, 3 from 11, 27.3%; P Nicholls, 38 from 155, 24.5%. Jockeys H Cobden, 36 from 147, 24.5%; N De Boinville, 29 from 124, 23.4%. Sedgefield: Trainers O Greenall & J Guerriero, 7 from 21, 33.3%; M Todhunter, 12 from 42, 28.6%. Jockeys D Jacob, 5 from 19, 26.3%; B Hughes, 83 from 323, 25.7%. Blinkered first time: Chelmsford 6.30 Someone Like You. 1.35 Handicap Chase (£4,859: 3m 3f) (6) 2.10 Handicap Chase (£3,406: 2m 3f) (11) 2.45 Novices’ Hurdle (£4,357: 2m 4f) (8) 3.20 Handicap Chase (£4,859: 2m 3f) (8) 3.55 Handicap Hurdle (£3,406: 2m 5f) (14) Chelmsford Rob Wright 5.00 Novice Stakes (2-Y-O: £5,399: 7f) (9) 5.30 Novice Stakes (2-Y-O: £3,725: 6f) (13) 2.00 NH Maiden Hurdle (£4,901: 2m 5f) (14) 2.35 Handicap Chase (£5,281: 2m) (8) 3.10 Hurdle (£16,338: 2m 5f) (6) 3.45 Handicap Chase (£5,809: 3m 2f) (10) 4.20 Open NH Flat Race (3-Y-O: £2,451: 2m) (12) Sedgefield Rob Wright 12.25 Handicap Hurdle (£3,406: 2m 1f) (10) 1.00 Maiden Hurdle (£4,357: 2m 1f) (12) Newbury Rob Wright 12.05 Handicap Hurdle (£7,922: 2m) (11 runners) 12.40 Novices' Hurdle (£5,446: 2m) (13) 1.15 Handicap Chase (£10,034: 2m 7f) (12) 1.50 Novices' Hurdle (£10,892: 2m) (11) 2.25 Handicap Hurdle (£11,981: 3m) (12) 3.00 Handicap Chase (£10,562: 2m 4f) (11) 3.35 Open NH Flat Race (Div I: £3,812: 2m) (14) 4.10 Open NH Flat Race (Div II: £3,812: 2m) (14) Ludlow Rob Wright 12.15 Handicap Hurdle (£4,967: 2m 5f) (12) 12.50 Juvenile Hurdle (3-Y-O: £4,901: 2m) (11) 1.25 Handicap Chase (£6,535: 2m 4f) (7)

60 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Sport Cricket World Cup chance, and then hit in the midriff by Logan van Beek; between the 30th and 40th overs he scored only 17, but with Woakes quickly up and running he seemed to gain fresh momentum. Perhaps his dodgy knee — on which he is set to have surgery next week — started to loosen up a bit. Before the game, Eoin Morgan, the former England white-ball captain, who has had some things to say about the team’s struggles, was critical of the senior players for leaving the eve-ofgame media duties to the fielding coach, but no one could say that Stokes and Woakes did not take responsibility now. For the last 15 overs of their own innings, and the entirety of the Netherlands innings, England played a pretty faultless game, save for Joe Root early on putting down a catch at slip. Woakes and David Willey struck with the new ball and Wesley Barresi ran himself out (the tenth run-out that the Dutch had suffered at this World Cup) and as the required rate climbed so Dutch minds unravelled. The last five wickets fell in as many overs to England’s two spinners. These things need to be kept in perspective of course, because the Dutch are statistically the weakest batting side at the tournament and they have never beaten Test-ranked opposition other than Zimbabwe when chasing more than 210 in an ODI. No one is going to be putting flags out, but this win by 160 runs meant that England gained two points and a healthy net run-rate fillip, so that they moved up three places into seventh spot in the table. A win over Pakistan on Saturday would probably ensure they stay there. The irony is that Stokes and several others in this team will not be around to play in the Champions Trophy in 18 months’ time, but even so it is important for the development of the next generation that England are there. Scoreboard Umpires Ahsan Raza (Pakistan) and R J Tucker (Australia). TV umpire M Erasmus (South Africa). Reserve umpire P Wilson (Australia). Match referee A Pycroft (Zimbabwe). Man of the match B Stokes (England). ENGLAND R B M J M Bairstow c Van Meekeren b Dutt 15 17 29 D J Malan run out 87 74 92 J E Root b Van Beek 28 35 53 B A Stokes c Engelbrecht b Van Beek 108 84 136 H C Brook c Ackermann b De Leede 11 16 19 *@J C Buttler c Nidamanuru b Van Meekeren 5 11 12 M M Ali c De Leede b Dutt 4 15 20 C R Woakes c Edwards b De Leede 51 45 66 D J Willey c Engelbrecht b De Leede 6 2 1 A A P Atkinson not out 2 1 7 A U Rashid not out 1 1 3 Extras (w 20, nb 1) 21 TOTAL (9 wkts, 50 overs) 339 Fall of wickets 1-48, 2-133, 3-139, 4-164, 5-178, 6-192, 7-321, 8-327, 9-334. Bowling Dutt 10-0-67-2; Van Beek 10-0-88-2; Van Meekeren 10-0-57-1; De Leede 10-0-74-3; Van der Merwe 3-0-22-0; Ackermann 7-0-31-0 NETHERLANDS R B M W Barresi run out 37 62 77 M P O’Dowd c Ali b Woakes 5 11 20 C N Ackermann c Buttler b Willey 0 2 4 S A Engelbrecht c Woakes b Willey 33 49 73 *@S A Edwards c Malan b Ali 38 42 67 B F W de Leede b Rashid 10 12 11 A T Nidamanuru not out 41 34 47 L V van Beek c Malan b Rashid 2 2 3 R E Van der Merwe c Rashid b Ali 0 4 3 A Dutt b Rashid 1 3 4 P A van Meekeren st Buttler b Ali 4 3 3 Extras (lb 4, w 4) 8 TOTAL (37.2 overs overs) 179 Fall of wickets 1-12, 2-13, 3-68, 4-90, 5-104, 6-163, 7-166, 8-167, 9-174. Bowling Woakes 7-0-19-1; Willey 7-2-19-2; Atkinson 7-0-41-0; Ali 8.2-0-42-3; Rashid 8-0-54-3. P W L T NR Pts RR India (Q) 8 8 0 0 0 16 2.46 South Africa (Q)8 6 2 0 0 12 1.38 Australia (Q) 8 6 2 0 0 12 0.86 New Zealand 8 4 4 0 0 8 0.40 Pakistan 8 4 4 0 0 8 0.04 Afghanistan 8 4 4 0 0 8 -0.34 England 8 2 6 0 0 4 -0.88 Bangladesh 8 2 6 0 0 4 -1.14 Sri Lanka 8 2 6 0 0 4 -1.16 Netherlands 8 2 6 0 0 4 -1.64 Pune Pune (England won toss): England (2pts) beat the Netherlands (0) by 160 runs England v Netherlands Stokes leaves his mark for the Simon Wilde England v Pakistan Calcutta Saturday, 8.30am TV: Sky Sports Main Event & Cricket When Ben Stokes came out of retirement to play in this World Cup, he did so with the intention of producing the kind of match-winning innings that he did here. The campaign has worked out nothing like he or his team-mates imagined — only the other day he dismissed their efforts as “crap” — but at least he can console himself that it has not entirely been a waste of time. His 108 from 84 balls culminated in some classic Stokes mayhem, with boundaries rained down to all parts. First things first, though. England won for the first time in six matches and 29 tortuous days, hence the broad smile across the captain Jos Buttler’s face at the end, and they needed to if they were to retain realistic hopes of finishing in the top eight and qualifying for the Champions Trophy in 2025. But it needed all of Stokes’s famed risk-management skills to rescue them from a difficult position at 192 for six in the 36th over. Great credit is also due to Chris Woakes, who contributed 51 to a seven-wicket stand of 129 from 80 balls. More specifically though, Stokes finally stayed in long enough to reach something like his peak hitting capacity and pile such pressure on the bowlers that they wilted in a manner we have rarely seen when England have batted at this tournament. In all, Stokes hit six fours and six sixes, most of them during a final ten overs that yielded 124. A final total of 339 effectively settled matters. The Dutch bowlers were so disorientated that they gifted an extra 11 deliveries in wides and no-balls in the last seven overs alone. In his four previous innings after returning from a hip injury, Stokes had laboured over his runs, striking at a rate of only 62. He started in similar vein here, with wickets falling at the other end complicating matters, and for a long time he mainly dealt in singles. His first six was the one that brought up his fifty off 58 balls; in another 20 deliveries he would reach his hundred, the fifth of his ODI career. Not long after Woakes came in, Stokes was dropped in the deep on 41, a difficult Woakes backed up his fifty with an early wicket PLUS LISTEN TO LIVE EUROPA LEAGUE COMMENTARY TOULOUSE v LIVERPOOL LIVERPOOL TONIGHT 17:45 K.O BENTY & GOLDSTEIN ARE JOINED BY THE HOLLYWOOD LEGEND TODAY FROM 4PM KEANU REEVES ON DRIVE TIME

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 61 Sport Before the last six overs leaked 93 runs, the Dutch bowling had looked assured, and certainly good enough to take advantage as England squandered a good start having reached 132 for one after 20 overs. It was then that things went wrong as familiar insecurities returned. Root had been ticking over nicely in the slipstream of Dawid Malan, who struck 87 from 74 balls with ten fours and two sixes, but he threw away a chance for a first decent score in six innings when he was bowled through his legs attempting his favourite scoop shot. The next over, Malan pushed a ball to the right of Van Beek at cover point and set off for a quick single, only to be sent back by Stokes. Malan’s U-turn came just too late to beat Scott Edwards sweeping the bails off from a good low throw. Whether there was a run there was debatable. Harry Brook, returning to the side after three games on the bench, had yet to settle when he spliced a catch high to deep square leg and Buttler’s miserable run of form continued when he cuffed an attempted off drive and was caught at mid-off, a timid shot from a tired man. Buttler’s World Cup has been a shadow of what it might have been and a symbol of his team’s broken dreams: 111 runs at an average of 13.87 from the greatest white-ball batsman England have ever possessed. When Ali limply holed out at long off, England had lost five for 59 in 15 overs and their innings again appeared in danger of dying the tamest of deaths. Fortunately, Stokes, who had watched the collapse from the nonstriker’s end, found in Woakes the man he needed to change a badly worn storyline. such as Ben Stokes or Joe Root. “I was surprised and shocked by it [the decision to put Hopkinson in front of the press],” Morgan said. “When you sit in a meeting as a captain or head coach, you make those decisions in the side and when things are going wrong you need absolute clarity and direction. “When you talk about messaging in an interview process, you naturally turn to senior players or your head coach to front up. In certain instances you could look at it and say, ‘Are they shirking responsibility?’ At the moment, it is a sinking ship and you need people to take responsibility for their actions. It surprised me to see Hopkinson rolled out. “If it was a Ben Stokes, a Joe Root, a senior voice in the changing room, you would say, ‘Right, this is how the messaging is going to work.’ You very rarely would send out an assistant coach to give a strong message when the team ‘Sending out an assistant is not the right message’ needs it.” It is an ICC obligation that all teams have to nominate someone to answer questions the day before every match, but even Hopkinson himself seemed bemused as to why he was facing the world’s media. “I’m not quite sure why I am the man to explain,” Hopkinson said when asked whether he could shed any light on team selection. The 42-year-old former Sussex batsman said that he had not been given any information by those who select the side and the best he could answer a question on whether Stokes would be going home early to have knee surgery was to say: “Probably not.” Rob Key, the managing director of England men’s cricket, is flying out before the final match, against Pakistan on Saturday, to have talks with Buttler and Mott about what went wrong and what the future for the one-day side is. There are no signs that Mott’s job is in danger — his contract runs until the end of next year’s T20 World Cup. ICC considers shot clock to speed up play Elizabeth Ammon The introduction of a shot clock is among the measures being considered by the ICC to speed up the pace of play in international cricket. Chief executives from the national boards will meet in India after the World Cup to discuss concerns about slow play, particularly in Test matches and ODIs. One proposal is for a time limit, with the duration yet to be decided, that ensures players are ready to start play between balls and overs and after the fall of a wicket — or face receiving run penalties on the spot. An increasing number of fines, points deductions and bans have been handed out for slow play. On Monday, Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews became the first batsman in international cricket to be dismissed timed out, although this is not what has prompted a fresh look at the issue of speed of play. continued from back next generation Stokes was occasionally troubled by the Netherlands bowlers Yesterday brought relief for Buttler, but no upturn in form N o England cricketer in modern times, perhaps, has had a closer relationship with India than Jos Buttler. Some England captains — Douglas Jardine, Nasser Hussain — were born here; another — Mike Brearley — married into an Indian family. Buttler’s career, though, has been entwined with the country through his long association with the Indian Premier League. Buttler’s professional career came to full maturity just at the time England’s frozen relationship with the IPL started to thaw. It was to IPL royalty and the Mumbai Indians that he was first sold in the auction of 2016 for a two-year stay, followed by a switch to the more spit-and-sawdust franchise of Rajasthan Royals, which is where he has remained ever since. Seven years and millions of dollars later, Buttler is the most popular and recognisable of England players here in India, the one whose name adorns most shirts, the one whose selfie is most in demand. While it is true that no foreign cricketer can compete with an India player for popularity, Buttler ranks with the elite overseas names who are especially revered. He has never made any secret of his enjoyment of India’s flagship domestic competition, nor indeed of the influence it has had on his career. “You cannot ignore the magnitude of the IPL or the reach that it has,” he once said, adding how valuable the competition had been in helping him to deal with the pressure and expectation of being a cricketer. It helped him grow up. His poor ODI record in the country, then, is an oddity. In 16 matches (15 innings), including yesterday’s win against the Netherlands in Pune, Buttler has never made a halfcentury. His highest score is 43, made in the opening match of this World Cup against New Zealand, when his hopes were still high. His average overall is a tick under 13, a puzzling figure for one of England’s greatest white-ball batsmen. Those matches have been spread over the past decade and reflect the frequency with which modern England teams play in India (compared with previous generations), and all but two of those ODIs have come during his IPL years. The shorter the game, the more dangerous Buttler is, but he remains a superb ODI batsman who, for whatever reason, has never found his best form in 50-over cricket in India. Eight of those matches have come in this World Cup, and the disintegration of Buttler’s batting since the New Zealand game has been disturbing to behold, his confidence wilting visibly with every game. Yesterday Buttler came to the crease just after the halfway mark, on what appeared to be as good a batting track as England had seen. As often in this tournament, he was presented with a dilemma: with his team having declined from 133 for one to 164 for four, he found himself between the rock of the situation — which demanded a little circumspection — and the hard place of his desire to stay true to his instincts and to attack. He had a look, patted around a bit — a single here, a brace there — and then, no doubt, looked down at his bat handle, to the prescribed advice written there, and went for it. The bowler was Paul van Meekeren, a county journeyman just released by Gloucestershire, and Buttler tried to launch the first ball of the 31st over, and his 11th, over mid-off, the kind of stroke he would normally hit effortlessly, without thinking of the consequences. With a touch of tension in the arms, and no doubt a myriad of thoughts in his head, the bat turned in his hands, much as it had done in the Australia game when he tried to hit Adam Zampa for six. The ball spooned gently to mid-off. Buttler spiralled his bat into the air, caught it neatly on the way down and walked off, dolefully. It meant that in this World Cup he has scored 111 runs in eight innings, a paltry return. There is no harder road to travel than that of a captain out of sorts with his own game. You feel the responsibility deeply and the discomfort as you have to tell a teammate — Liam Livingstone on this occasion — that they have been left out on form, when your own form is equally bad. At least victory against the Netherlands provided some respite, the win lifting them three places in the table. But of all the puzzles around England’s performance in this World Cup, the decline in Buttler’s form, in a country he knows so intimately and in conditions he knows so well, is the biggest puzzle of all. Buttler’s Indian misery remains a frustrating puzzle Mike Atherton Chief Cricket Correspondent But he wants to stay captain Jos Buttler wants to continue as England’s white-ball captain when the squad heads to the West Indies next month despite the bitter failure of their World Cup campaign in India (Simon Wilde writes). The squad will fly to Calcutta on Thursday where they will play their final game of the tournament, against Pakistan on Saturday. There, Buttler will meet with Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket. “We can have some good conversations with him and the coach and everyone, and make a plan for that tour [to the Caribbean]. But yes, I’d like to [continue as captain],” Buttler said.

62 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Sport Rugby union Eddie Jones has said that he would “definitely be interested” in a second stint as the Japan head coach having resigned from his post in charge of Australia after a disastrous World Cup. Jones, 63, is taking a holiday in Japan, where a recruitment process is under way to replace Jamie Joseph, the outgoing head coach. “I’ve had no offer, let’s be clear,” Jones told the Kyodo News agency in Yokohama. “If they [Japan] came to me and said, ‘Are you interested in coaching them?’ I’d definitely be interested.” The Sydney Morning Herald reported in September that Jones had attended a secret interview with Japan while he was on World Cup duty with the Wallabies. Jones denied those reports, but then resigned from his post after Australia failed to reach the quarterfinals. He has left two international jobs in the past year, having been sacked by England last December. His previous spell with Japan culminated in their bright showing at the World Cup in England in 2015, when they beat South Africa, although failed to reach the quarter-finals. Under Joseph, Japan reached the quarter-finals on home soil in 2019, but finished third in pool D behind England and Argentina during the recent tournament in France. Frans Ludeke, the much-travelled South African coach of Kubota Spears, who play in Japan’s Top League, is also reportedly a contender to replace Joseph. Japan were recently included in World Rugby’s plans for a 12-team Nations League biennial tournament to begin in 2026, but Jones said that changes will have to be made for them to progress. “Japan can’t stay where they are because if they stay where they are, they’ll actually start to slide,” he said. “So they’ve got to make a big push now. You’re going to have to be courageous, and you’re going to have to do things differently. You can’t just go along and do what you’re doing now. So that’s the reason I would be interested.” Hamish McLennan, the chairman of Rugby Australia, has admitted that he would be “bitterly disappointed” if Jones were revealed to have had contact with Japan, having said during the World Cup, when asked about his reported interest in the role: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really take umbrage at people questioning my commitment as Australia coach.” In an interview with Stan Sport in Australia, McLennan said: “If it’s true, I’d be bitterly disappointed, knowing the faith and the support that we’d been given the entire coaching crew and the Wallabies. He’s claimed that there was absolutely nothing to it. I think in the near future I might be able to learn more about what happened.” McLennan also revealed that Jones had run over Rugby Australia’s budget for the ill-fated World Cup campaign, for which the head coach dropped a number of senior players, including Michael Hooper, Quade Cooper and Bernard Foley, and took a highly inexperienced squad, who were beaten by Fiji and Wales as they failed to get out of their group. a solution ended in failure. “Despite extensive time spent exploring options, our conclusion, supported by the ITF, is that regrettably there are no good options to hold the competition at any other point during the US Open due to court availability, an unacceptable impact on player services and player support standards,” Allaster wrote. “We recognise this is disappointing.” The total and full breakdown of the grants is yet to be confirmed, but it is expected that it will match this year’s prize money pot of £1.1 million. It will be spread among the top 14 players in the Asked whether the tournament budget had been exceeded, McLennan said: “Yeah, it was a little bit.” He was then pressed on whether the excess ran into millions of Australian dollars. “We don’t disclose that but, yeah, it did extend the budget, more than we would like,” McLennan said. “What we were trying to do is to ensure that he had every resource so that the coaches couldn’t come back and say, ‘We didn’t succeed because we weren’t given the resources that we need.’ ” Jones: No offer from Japan but I’m definitely interested John Westerby Jones, who has left two international jobs within a year, had some success when last in charge of Japan eight years ago No Club World Cup before 2028 John Westerby Plans for a Club World Cup have been pushed back and are unlikely to come to fruition until 2028 at the earliest. Last year, European rugby officials and national unions backed plans for the introduction of a tournament in 2025, with a previous start date of last year shelved because of the pandemic. But, although widespread desire for a global competition was restated at a gathering of clubs and unions in Toulouse this week, the plans have been placed on hold amid challenging times for the club game. In England, three Gallagher Premiership clubs — Wasps, Worcester and London Irish — have gone into administration and been ejected from the top flight. Clubs from across Europe met governing bodies at a two-day conference this week. Progress has been made on a global calendar, with the announcement of a new biennial Nations Championship for the international game. A tournament featuring the leading clubs from the northern and southern hemispheres has long been seen as a way to broaden the appeal of the club game. Under the latest proposals, a 16-team knockout tournament would replace the latter stages of the Investec European Champions Cup in June every four years. “We’re looking at doing something, if we can, potentially in 2028 and 2032,” Dominic McKay, the chairman of European Professional Club Rugby, said. “There’s a real warmth to develop a World Club Cup and a number of the clubs from France and the UK were pushing this quite hard. We’d be likely to do that in the last four weekends of the Champions Cup, but group them together during June.” There are no firm plans yet for how or where the competition would be staged. “We know it’s a complicated project and it needs to be done in a way that’s sustainable, we’re not interested in just doing a one-off,” McKay said. 6 Zach Mercer’s chances of an England recall have been hit by an ankle injury sustained in only his third league match since joining Gloucester this season. Mercer, 26, the skilful No 8, will be out of action for two to three months after surgery this week, having damaged ankle ligaments while attempting to score a try against Saracens a fortnight ago. US Open organisers have doubled down on the controversial decision not to host a wheelchair event next year and will instead offer players financial grants to cover lost earnings of more than £1 million. One of the sport’s four grand-slam events for wheelchair players will not take place next year in New York because of a clash of dates with the Paralympic Games. The Paris event will take place from August 28 to September 8 and will run through the second week of action at Flushing Meadows. US Open to pay wheelchair players £1m not to compete Organisers were heavily criticised by Great Britain’s Andy Lapthorne in The Times in late September for failing to arrange alternative US Open dates. The 16-times grand-slam champion hit out at “lazy” officials at the US Open and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for an “unacceptable and incredibly disappointing” decision. His comments were shared by Andy Murray on social media. In a sign that organisers have since realised that they were falling short of their obligations, Stacey Allaster, the US Open tournament director, has written a letter to the players pledging financial support after attempts to find men’s, women’s and quad divisions, which would have been the cut for direct entry into the tournament. “We recognise that players not having an opportunity to compete at the US Open wheelchair championships would have a significant financial impact on players, and so we hope that this effort helps to address your concerns,” Allaster said. Three of the past four Paralympic years, stretching back to 2008, have also not had a US Open wheelchair event. This has resulted in the loss of a valuable earning opportunity for wheelchair players as the Paralympics does not offer prize money. Lapthorne, who is ranked world No 8 in the quad division, had put forward two suggestions: to run the event during the traditional US Open qualifying week from August 19; or to give players the option of playing either the US Open or the Paralympics. Both options have been rejected by the US Open and the ITF. Tennis Stuart Fraser Tennis Correspondent Lapthorne has criticised the US Open for not holding a wheelchair event next year How The Times first reported the US Open organisers’ decision on September 28

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 63 Football Sport colour,” he writes in his book. “I did it. Then people said it would be hard for me to go into the media. I did it. Then people said it would be hard going into mainstream TV. I did it.” He recalls clearly, aged eight, being sent to the local shop in Middlesbrough by his dad to buy cigarettes when a woman demanded to be allowed to jump the queue and be served before him. The shopkeeper said he would continue to serve Kamara and so the woman shouted: “His lot should go back to where they came from.” At Portsmouth, some players would get out of the communal bath as soon as he jumped in. When he went to take a throw-in at Millwall, a banana was thrown at him accompanied by abuse and monkey chants. The back of his shirt was covered in spit delivered by the home fans. During his brief managerial career, first with Bradford City and then Stoke City, he would enter boardrooms at the request of his chairman only to find the atmosphere resentful. He is proud of the fact that he was the first black player to wear the shirt for Swindon Town and Brentford. The racism has dried up, he says, since the world came to know him as “Kammy”. “I’ve not suffered racism at all since the character ‘Kammy’ developed,” he says. “You know, in football’s eyes, I’m just Kammy. I could be white, yellow, pink or blue. They know Kammy, they don’t see the colour.” Is Kammy someone he can switch on and off? “No, there’s no difference. It’s me.” So if I woke him up at four in the morning, shouting “fire, fire”, would he still be Kammy and find a joke in it? “Yeah, of course. The most wonderful thing about the character that I developed, and I didn’t put it in the book, is that people smile when they see me. Which is a gift, you know. I can be anywhere and someone recognises me and they have a smile on their face.” 6 Kammy: My Unbelievable Life by Chris Kamara (Macmillan, £22) Bolton Wanderers midfielder had recovered from the cardiac arrest he suffered on the pitch away to Tottenham Hotspur in 2012. Muamba had been technically dead for 78 minutes. This led Kamara to wonder about the afterlife and so he asked him on air if he had seen Kamara’s beloved Red Setter, which had died ten years previously. Unsurprisingly, Muamba had not met any dogs. “I wanted to know, 78 minutes seems a long time to me,” Kamara says, eyes twinkling. “Did you see anything? It was tongue in cheek.” What if Muamba had indeed seen Sasha the Red Setter? “That would have been brilliant, wouldn’t it?” Kamara says. “You could prove that there’s life after death. And I wouldn’t have minded so much when my time comes.” Kamara is no longer a reporter for Soccer Saturday but we laugh at how on earth he would have coped if providing updates on Monday’s Premier League game between Spurs and Chelsea, which was awash with red cards and disallowed goals. “I’d have been busy,” he says, but he is more concerned by what unfolded last weekend at St James’ Park, where there was confusion over whether the ball had gone out of play in the build-up to Newcastle United’s winning goal against Arsenal. “It should be as it is in tennis, right?” Kamara says. “The ball is only in if a part of it is on the line. Never mind if it is overhanging. We’ve got the goalline technology to sort that.” He admits that he would have had to rein in his physicality had VAR existed when he played. “Everyone got away with stuff back in those days,” he says. “The first tackle was normally free and after a foul the referee would say, ‘Next one, you’ll go in the book.’ ” Kamara says he suffered a good deal of racism in his childhood and early career. “People told me when I was a kid that I would find it hard to play football professionally because of my C hris Kamara shows me an image of his brain. “It’s growing,” he says. And there it is; proof. You can see a pathway that had been blocked has found a way to expand. Four years ago the former midfielder, who carved a niche as the nation’s favourite football pundit and television presenter, developed apraxia, a neurological condition that slows down speech and thought processes. He assumed his broadcast career would be over and at one point contemplated suicide, but since receiving breakthrough treatment at the NeuroCytonix clinic in Monterrey, Mexico, he is on the mend. He still speaks slowly but nowhere as slowly as when viewers took to social media to wonder if he was drunk. His treatment, which involves transmitting radio waves and magnetic fields into his body while in a machine not unlike an MRI scanner, was initially developed for children with cerebral palsy and Kamara, 65, is among the first to receive it for apraxia of speech. The only side effect is that he cannot walk through security scanners — but with his affable charm, he finds a way into most buildings without having to produce his medical letter of exemption. Kamara believes that the man who pioneered the treatment, Dr Roberto Trujillo, will one day receive a Nobel Prize. Asking why he was stuck down with apraxia is “utterly pointless”, Kamara writes in his new autobiography, and he does not know why it happened to him. At first he was worried that he had developed dementia, a reasonable hypothesis given that so many former players have suffered brain degeneration, and he refused to accept he needed help, brushing off concerns about his inability to find the right words as tiredness. At his lowest ebb and before diagnosis, he feared becoming a burden, and in his new book he admits that he thought about ending his life. “It was very hard to admit because I worried about what my family would think,” he says. “Talking about it gets me emotional. My wife was really upset when I told her. But I actually thought I didn’t want to be a burden, you know, that was the thing. “I didn’t want to get Alzheimer’s or dementia, where you don’t recognise your family. And my apologies to anyone who’s looking after someone in those circumstances. It’s probably not fair because it’s a member of their family. And they are probably glad to look after them and that’s what my family have said. “If the worst-case scenario was that I had Alzheimer’s they would have been with me all the way, you know? So it’s bittersweet, if you know what I mean. Thankfully I haven’t got it but I wouldn’t want to put that on them.” Kamara’s hypnotherapist told him to stop thinking that way and to seek help and then to bare all. After a disastrous stint reporting on a game between Rotherham United and Shrewsbury Town in March 2022, Kamara posted a Tweet from his car to explain his condition and a wave of support followed. He was inundated with offers of help. Everyone loves Kammy. Indeed, his book is full of stories of just how much people love him. Men with guns at airports sternly take him to one side, leading him to worry about racism or mistaken identity, only for them to lay down their weapons and ask for a selfie. In March, the Prince of Wales posted on Twitter: “We’re off to Windsor Castle where there’s been an MBE but for who @chris_kammy?” Apparently Prince William was, according to his PA, very excited to be presenting Kamara with his accolade and could not resist a reference to his most famous TV moment when he completely missed the fact there had been a red card at a Portsmouth game in 2010. When Jeff Stelling, the host of Sky’s Soccer Saturday, came to him live for an update on who had been sent off, Kamara was dumbfounded. “I don’t know Jeff,” he said. “The rain must have got in my eyes.” The production staff were not altogether happy, yet the gaffe gave the show one of its most legendary moments and cemented the comedic double act of Stelling and Kamara. The pair have just finished filming a programme for Dave about the world’s most dangerous roads. Kamara describes being at the wheel on the Devil’s Staircase in Sri Lanka with little room for manoeuvre and a steep drop on the passenger side. Did Stelling scream? “Yes,” Kamara smiles. “And he’s still alive. You see, now we’re talking about good stuff, my voice is back again.” It is true. When the conversation is more light-hearted, his speech is less laboured. The book is full of humour and the endless blunders that, rather than landing him trouble, only cemented his reputation as eminently watchable. He recalls interviewing Fabrice Muamba for Goals on Sunday after the ‘Apraxia is hard but talking about good stuff brings my voice back’ Chris Kamara opens up to Alyson Rudd on his illness and the time he asked Fabrice Muamba about the afterlife Kamara, whose speech is now improving after breakthrough treatment, experienced racism as a player, below left, but not as a much-loved reporter, inset thing about my ‘Kammy’ The most wonderful “ character is that people smile when they see me

64 2GM Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Sport Champions League After the Arsenal board’s statement of support in Mikel Arteta, here was a statement by his players. Arteta’s wingers, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, produced some of their best football of the season, albeit against supine opponents. Declan Rice ran midfield. Jorginho similarly impressed and played the pass of the game. When “olé, olé” rang around the Emirates midway through the first half it was not emanating from the Spanish quarter. If Arteta’s main intention in letting rip at St James’ Park on Saturday was to voice his frustration at declining refereeing standards and let off steam it was also partly to create a siege mentality. Regardless of external criticism, there was agreement internally with the manager’s sentiments, and his players duly responded. Sevilla were particularly torn apart out wide where Saka and Martinelli roamed and reigned supreme. Martinelli made marmalade of Sevilla’s right back, Juanlu, even steering the ball past him while falling off-balance off the field. Martinelli ran at and past Juanlu time and again, cutting inside and going on the outside, invariably at pace. Over on the right, Saka was such a threat that Sevilla players rotated the kicking of him: the Serbia centre back Nemanja Gudelj started the flooring of Saka (after seven and ten minutes), then the left back, Kike Salas, joined in the fouling (15), before Fernando became involved and then Salas concluded the first-half clattering (35). Saka climbed to his feet and held up five fingers to the remarkably lenient Romanian referee, Istvan Kovacs. Part of Arteta’s tirade on Tyneside flowed from a longer-running anger within the club over what Arsenal perceive as a lack of protection for Saka. Arsenal’s No 7 is invariably up among the most-fouled players in the Premier League, alongside the likes of Jordan Ayew and Jack Grealish. Here he received little help from Kovacs. Arteta said afterwards that it was a “kick” that eventually forced Saka off, although it appeared more that he simply landed awkwardly when leaping with Tanguy Nianzou after 81 minutes. Saka sat on the ground, soon attended by Arsenal medical staff. He briefly tried to play on but was clearly struggling, and Arteta signalled a substitution. Saka wanted to walk across the pitch, rather than limp around it. Kovacs insisted the English patient should was given another chance to try to justify his substantial transfer fee, playing the Odegaard role, but was, again, unconvincing. Arsenal’s bench looked weak, although it did give Arteta the chance to give some match-day experience to two teenagers Amario CozierDuberry, 18, the midfield prospect nurtured by Jack Wilshere at Hale End, and Charles Sagoe Jr, 19, the attacker who has already featured for the first team in the Carabao Cup. The pair could have started such was the lack of menace offered by Sevilla, who were disappointingly negative in the way they set up. Sevilla’s sole riposte of the first half was a break by Adria Pedrosa nimbly curtailed by William Saliba. Otherwise, the focus was mainly down the other end and the twisting, turning, sinewy threats called Martinelli and Saka. Saka had the goal his performance merited after 64 minutes and Martinelli played the creator. Oleksandr Zinchenko, who had replaced Takehiro Tomiyasu at the break, took a long throw on the left, targeting the run inside from Martinelli, who had darted into space ahead of Loïc Badé. Martinelli turned away with the ball, and timed his release perfectly as Saka made his run behind Sevilla’s defence. Gudelj played him on, allowing Saka to head down the inside-right channel, tracked by Pedrosa. Saka chopped inside Pedrosa, and curled his shot around Dmitrovic and in. Saka hardly celebrated, just stood there with his team-mates, smiling. Sevilla’s coach, Diego Alonso, finally decided to be more positive. He sent Mariano Díaz on and the forward caused a palpitation or two in the Arsenal defence. He eluded Saliba, but David Raya blocked the way. As well as saluting Saka at close range Arsenal fans were able to give similar treatment to Jorginho, who had impressed with his ball-winning and occasional clever pass, not least in helping create Arsenal’s first. There was also applause for Rice for an excellent late clearance, and also for Raya for his commendable concentration and then save in the seventh minute of added time from Díaz, Sevilla’s sole shot on target. All that remained was for Saka to be named man of the match. Arsenal (4-3-3): D Raya 6 — B White 7, W Saliba 7, Gabriel 7, T Tomiyasu 6 (O Zinchenko 46min, 6) — K Havertz 6, Jorginho 7 (M Elneny 90), D Rice 7 — B Saka 8 (J Kiwior 85), L Trossard 7 (F Vieira 81), G Martinelli 8 (R Nelson 81). Booked Zinchenko, Rice. Sevilla (4-2-3-1) M Dmitrovic 6 — J Sanchez 5, L Badé 6, N Gudelj 6, E J Salas 5 (L Ocampos 76) — J Jordán 6 (B Soumaré 65; M Diaz 73), Fernando 6 — E Lamela 6, D Sow 6 (I Rakitic 65, 5), A Pedrosa 6 (T Nianzou 76) — Y En-Nesyri 6. Booked Soumaré, Sánchez, Ocampos. Referee I Kovács (Rom) Saka finishes beyond Dmitrovic to double Arsenal’s advantage, but there was concern later for the England forward as he limped off five minutes from the end, inset How they stand in group B P W D L F A GD Pts Arsenal 4 3 0 1 9 3 6 9 PSV 4 1 2 1 4 7 -3 5 Lens 4 1 2 1 4 4 0 5 Sevilla 4 0 2 2 4 7 -3 2 Other result PSV Eindhoven 1 Lens 0. Arsenal Trossard 29, Saka 64 Sevilla 2 0 Saka shines before joining injury list Henry Winter Chief Football Writer 5 All of Trossard’s goals for Arsenal this season have been assisted by Saka, the most assists by one Premier League player for another this term take the long way round, following the rules, which seemed petty. Rice voiced such dissent and was booked. Having failed to protect Saka properly, the referee then punished somebody for trying to protect Saka properly. At least it afforded the Arsenal fans the chance to applaud Saka as he progressed slowly past them. He has to be a doubt for the fixture here against Burnley on Saturday and also for England’s forthcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers against Malta at Wembley and North Macedonia in Skopje. Saka’s limp to the bench was watched, doubtless ruefully, by Gareth Southgate, the England manager. England have qualified but Southgate wants to win both games to guarantee being among the top seeds at the tournament. It was no surprise that Saka should supply the assist for Trossard; all the Belgian’s other four goals this season have been created by Saka. No wonder their celebration was well-choreographed. They have had enough practice. The goal came after 29 minutes and inevitably Rice was involved. He has become Arsenal’s Mr Consistency, their leader without the armband. He picked up possession deep and passed to Jorginho, who gave it to Ben White, and took it back. Jorginho then threaded a magnificent pass behind Kike Salas, releasing Saka who stroked the ball across for the unmarked Trossard to score from 12 yards past Marko Dmitrovic. Trossard was playing through the middle because of the growing injury list complicating life for Arteta. Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah were absent along with Thomas Partey, Martin Odegaard, Emile Smith Rowe and Jurrien Timber. Kai Havertz ‘Bukayo wasn’t happy to continue – I have to assume he’ll be OK’ has been withdrawn because of injury this season after he suffered a muscular problem trying a back-heel against Lens and had a knock to the same foot in consecutive matches against Tottenham Hotspur and Bournemouth. Mikel Arteta was left to fear losing another attacking player before the Premier League game with Burnley on Saturday as Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah were absent last night with hamstring and ankle injuries respectively. Saka was fouled four times in the first 20 minutes before rolling his ankle. “I was told by the physios on the radio that Bukayo wasn’t happy to continue,” Arteta said. “It was just a kick. So he will have some discomfort but hopefully I am going to assume he will be OK. Hopefully it’s not too much but I’m really pleased with his performance.” For all the punishment routinely dished out, Saka has started all but one of Arsenal’s Premier League and Champions League matches this season. Arteta has often defended not resting Saka by arguing that top players feature in 70 matches each season and he rarely takes him off early. “There’s contact in football and obviously for the wingers who want to take people on this is going to happen,” the Arsenal manager said. “He’s getting used to it. I don’t think that’s going to change, especially the way he plays and the way he attracts players so he better get used to it.” Takehiro Tomiyasu, the full back, went off at the interval with an unstated injury. Arsenal will top group B if they beat Lens, potentially handing them an easier tie in the round of 16. Arteta was pleased that his team responded to successive defeats by West Ham United in the Carabao Cup and Newcastle United in the league. “It’s hard in Europe to control it like we did,” he said. Gary Jacob Arteta said that Saka must get used to rough treatment from defenders Arsenal have an anxious wait to discover the extent of Bukayo Saka’s ankle injury after he was forced off in the 2-0 win over Sevilla last night that put them on brink of qualifying for the Champions League knockout stage. The winger, who scored the second goal, landed awkwardly jumping for a header and asked to be taken off with five minutes remaining in front of the watching Gareth Southgate, who will name his England squad for the final two Euro 2024 qualifiers today. It was the fourth time that Saka, 22,

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 65 Sport Results Football Champions League: Group A Bayern Munich (0) 2 Galatasaray (0) 1 Kane 80, 86 75,000 Bakambu 90+3 Copenhagen (2) 4 Man United (2) 3 Elyounoussi 45 Gonçalves 45+9 (pen) Lerager 83 Bardghji 87 Hojlund 3, 28 Fernandes 69 (pen) Sent off: M Rashford (Man Utd) 42 6 Table on page 66 Group B Arsenal (1) 2 Sevilla (0) 0 Trossard 29, Saka 64 60,024 PSV (1) 1 Lens (0) 0 De Jong 12 34,200 Sent off: M Guilavogui (Lens) 90+2 Group C Napoli (1) 1 Union Berlin (0) 1 Politano 39 42,449 Fofana 52 Real Madrid (1) 3 Sporting Braga (0) 0 Díaz 27, Vinícius 58 Rodrygo 61 68,509 P W D L F A GD Pts Real Madrid 4 4 0 0 9 3 6 12 Napoli 4 2 1 1 6 5 1 7 S Braga 4 1 0 3 5 9 -4 3 Union Berlin 4 0 1 3 3 6 -3 1 Group D Real Sociedad (3) 3 Benfica (0) 1 Merino 6 Oyarzabal 11 Barrenetxea 21 Silva 49 36,815 RB Salzburg (0) 0 Inter Milan (0) 1 30,071 Martínez (85 (pen) P W D L F A GD Pts R Sociedad 4 3 1 0 7 2 5 10 Inter Milan 4 3 1 0 5 2 3 10 RB Salzburg 4 1 0 3 3 5 -2 3 Benfica 4 0 0 4 1 7 -6 0 Bristol Street Motors EFL Trophy: North: Group G Derby 4 Wolverhampton U-21 1. Cinch Scottish Premiership St Mirren (0) 2 Hibernian (1) 2 O’Hara 53 (pen) Jamieson 90+2 5,963 Campbell 12 Newell 69 P W D L F A GDPts Celtic.....................12 10 2 0 28 7 21 32 Rangers.................11 8 0 3 24 6 18 24 St Mirren...............11 5 4 2 18 14 4 19 Kilmarnock.........12 4 4 4 15 14 1 16 Hearts....................11 4 2 5 10 11 -1 14 Dundee.................11 3 5 3 10 15 -5 14 Aberdeen............10 3 3 4 14 14 0 12 Hibernian.............12 2 6 4 17 20 -3 12 Motherwell.........12 3 3 6 14 19 -5 12 Ross County........11 2 4 5 11 20 -9 10 Livingston...........12 2 4 6 9 19 -10 10 St Johnstone.......11 1 5 5 7 18 -11 8 Women’s League Cup: Group A Sheffield United 0 Aston Villa 5; Sunderland 2 Durham 2 (Durham win 3-1 on pens). Group B Liverpool 3 Manchester City 4. Group D Reading 0 Southampton 1. Snooker International Championship Tianjin, China: Fourth round (England unless stated): Ding Junhui (China) bt Pang Junxu (China) 6-2; R O’Sullivan bt A McGill (Scot) 6-2; S Maguire (Scot) bt R Day (Wales) 6-4; Zhang Anda (China) bt Lyu Haotian (China) 6-3; T Ford bt M Selby 6-3; A Carter bt D Wells (Wales) 6-1; J Brown (N Ire) bt J Higgins (Scot) 6-3; B Hawkins bt T Un Nooh (Thai) 6-5. Tennis ATP Open de Moselle Metz: Second round A Shevchenko (Russ) bt M Valkusz (Hun) 7-5, 2-6, 6-2; P-H Herbert (Fr) bt G Brouwer (Neth) 7-5, 6-4; F Fognini (It) bt A Bublik (Kaz) 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 7-6 (7-5); L Van Assche (Fr) bt S Wawrinka (Switz) 3-6, 7-6 (8- 6) ret; L Sonego (It) bt A Shelbayh (Jor) 6-3, 7-5. ATP Sofia Open Second round S Ofner (Austria) bt C O’Connell (Aus) 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 6-2; A Mannarino (Fr) bt A Ramos-Viñolas (Sp) 6-4, 6-4; F Marozsan (Hun) bt R Bautista Agut (Sp) 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4); J Struff (Ger) bt B Harris (GB) 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; C Ilkel (Tur) bt M Purcell (Aus) 6-3, 4-6, 6-4; M Fucsovics (Hun) bt J Rodionov (Austria) 3-6, 6- 4, 6-1; J Draper (GB) bt L Musetti (It) 7-5, 6-2; P Kotov (Russ) bt S Baez (Arg) 3-6, 7-6 (7-4) ret. Billie Jean King Cup finals Sevilla: Group D Italy bt France 2-1. Kick-off 8.0 unless stated Europa League: Group A Freiburg v Backa Topola; West Ham United v Olympiacos. Group B AEK Athens v Marseille; Ajax v Brighton & Hove Albion (5.45). Group C Rangers v Sparta Prague; Real Betis v Aris Limassol. Group D Atalanta v Sturm Graz; Sporting v Rakow Czestochowa. Group E (5.45): LASK Linz v Union Saint Gilloise; Toulouse v Liverpool. Group F (5.45): Maccabi Haifa v Villarreal; Rennes v Panathinaikos. Group G (5.45): Servette v Sheriff Tiraspol; Slavia Prague v Roma. Group H Hacken v Molde; Qarabag v Bayer Leverkusen (5.45). Europa Conference League (selected): Group E Aston Villa v AZ Alkmaar. Group G PAOK Salonika v Aberdeen (5.45). Women’s League Cup (7.0): Group B Manchester United v Everton. Group D Arsenal v Bristol City. Football fixtures great play, or novel, or perhaps a walk in a great wilderness, are almost as important to some of us as friends and family. This is why football had such a distinctive place in the hearts of many. Professional pundits may see the game in terms of tactics, owners in terms of money and players in terms of glory, but most fans measure the game in a different currency. The currency of delight, of letting go, of those moments of pure delirium when time becomes elastic. Shakespeare wrote: “Joy, gentle friends! Joy and fresh days of love. Accompany your hearts!” It is football’s modern tragedy that in the futile pursuit of perfect accuracy, it has inadvertently cast a shadow over its soul. where a goal can be awarded or disallowed in the time it takes for an assistant referee to raise a flag, football isn’t going to be the same. This, I think, is terribly sad. In childhood, spontaneous joy seems to come so easily and naturally. One thinks of Christmas Day, the rush down the stairs to see what Santa has brought, the squeals of delight when presents are opened; or perhaps the first trip to a funfair, where everything seems so fresh and new. Adulthood is, well, different. We feel the layers of responsibility, have a keener sense of the fleeting nature of life. This is why “ways of escape”, as the novelist Graham Greene put it, are essential. To switch off, to marinade in a Oliver checks with VAR before Raheem Sterling has a goal disallowed, one of five ruled out in the Spurs v Chelsea game. Dier’s effort was also ruled out, left, with supporters kept in the dark before the verdict something more akin to a detective drama; admittedly, still interesting (the Spurs v Chelsea game was entertaining fare, despite all the delays) but philosophically different. When a goal is scored, we pause, we ponder, we put a lid on our emotions. We wait for Sherlock Holmes to bring in the magnifying glass, for DCI Tennison to analyse the crime scene (AKA the chaps at Stockley Park). This has its own kind of forensic fascination, but doesn’t equate to joy, to delirium; to a group of strangers instinctively embracing, or spilling beer, or hearing one’s neighbour give a hoot of delight when England score in a knockout match. The lower leagues retain the old form of the game, of course. They don’t have the “blessing” of new technology. And I note that most of my friends who follow such clubs are delighted with this state of affairs. They know that football isn’t a branch of the justice system, a domain that should seek after veridical truth, but a flawed and beautiful form of mass entertainment. To diminish spontaneity in pursuit of pristine accuracy is to miss the point. Football, in this sense, is different to tennis, cricket and other sports where natural breaks in the flow mean that technology works well. This is why the debates over how to improve VAR leave me a little cold. I agree that the implementation of this technology has been shockingly poor, that the protocols needs to be improved, that fans in the stadium — who often haven’t got the foggiest what is going on while the tapes are being rewound — should be better informed. But until technology reaches a place Matthew Syed VAR has crushed spontaneous joy of celebrating a goal I still remember certain moments as if they were yesterday. I was in the Racing Page pub in Richmond when Michael Owen scored for England against Argentina in 1998, spilling my beer as I raised my hands, noticing that my mate Nick (who wasn’t even into football) had done the same. An entire room of mostly strangers were embracing, celebrating, punching the air — a sense of drama and shared excitement of a kind that, for a few moments, elevated life to a new plane. Twenty years later, I was sitting with my son in the living room when Harry Kane scored for England against Colombia as the national team reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Teddy was only four years old at the time and I’ll never forget the way he jumped up and danced, his face evidencing the kind of joy that I’d rarely seen before and which I had so hoped he would come to associate with sport, and perhaps football most of all. It was the day he fell in love with Kane and became a Spurs fan — a relationship that has lasted ever since, much to the chagrin of my father-in-law, a lifelong Brentford man. These moments — in particular those when you are in the stands (my first live game was at Wembley in 1978) — explain part of the greatness of football. The blessing of this singular sport is the rarity of its principal commodity — the goal. Clubs can play for 90, perhaps 180 minutes, without scoring or conceding. We sit and wait, watch the build-up play, admire the tackling and pressing, but what we want, what we yearn for, is that moment when the ball crosses the line and one can spontaneously celebrate, a detonation of emotion unparalleled in other forms of life. And whether you are in favour of VAR or against it, I hope we can all agree that aspect of football has been decimated. You didn’t have to watch the Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea game to realise that any goal is now provisional, subject to checks: for white lines to be drawn on screens; for the action to be rewound and deconstructed; for Michael Oliver (or whoever else) to jog across to the touchline, to look at moving pictures on a TV screen over and again until they can be sure — or nearly sure, or pretty sure — that it was, or wasn’t, a goal. This is no longer spontaneous joy but

66 2GM Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Sport Champions League hagen scored. Garnacho gave Peter Ankersen too much space down the right. He swung the ball to the back post, where Goncalves squared for Mohamed Elyounoussi and he beat André Onana from close range. Things went from bad to worse for United in the seventh minute of first half injury time when Gonçalves flicked the ball on to Maguire’s arm in the box. The referee immediately pointed to the spot and Gonçalves stroked the ball past Onana. Despite their numerical inferiority, United were still playing some good football and picking the gaps in the away defence. Dalot surged forward and collected Garnacho’s through ball but the fullback’s effort struck a post. United’s defenders backed off, giving Gonçalves another opportunity to shoot, but he could only send a weak shot into Onana’s arms. Copenhagen sensed blood and threw men forward, but Maguire threw himself at two goal-bound shots. Roony Bardghji tried to beat Onana from 25 yards shortly after he came off the bench but his shot flew into the United supporters, who were nervously chewing their nails. Maguire appealed for a penalty when he went up for a header. The defender was sure that Lerager had handled the ball and the VAR agreed. Fernandes fired into the top corner and United were ahead again. United should have wrapped up the win with 12 minutes to go when Fernandes squared to McTominay, but the Scotland midfielder, off-balance, shot over. United would live to regret the miss as with seven minutes left when Rasmus Falk lifted the ball to the back post and Lukas Lerarger tapped in. The away fans looked deflated but worse was to come. With the defence creaking, Copenhagen went for the kill. Maguire a cross from the left into Bardghji’s path, he lashed the ball past Onana. Copenhagen (4-3-3): K Grabara 5 — P Ankersen 7 (C Sorensen 70min, 6), D Vavro 6 (N Boilesen 78), K Diks 6, E Jelert 6 — L Lerager 5, R Falk 6, D Gonçalves 7 (O Oskarsson 71) — M Elyounoussi 7 (R Bardghji 63, 6), V Claesson 5, E Achouri 5 (J Larsson 78). Booked Vavro. Man United (4-2-3-1): A Onana 6 — A Wan-Bissaka 7, J Evans 6 (R Varane 16, 6), H Maguire 7, D Dalot 6 — C Eriksen 6 (S Amrabat 46, 6), S McTominay 7 — M Rashford 6, B Fernandes 8, A Garnacho 7 — R Hojlund 8 (M Mount 84). Sent off Rashford. Referee D Rumsas (Lithuania). Attendance 36,099. At the end of this match, as the sound of the final whistle echoed around the Parken Stadium, Erik ten Hag stood solemnly, his head bowed, hands in his pockets, no doubt trying to work out just how his Manchester United team had managed to lose to Copenhagen. He will find the answer today when he looks back at the final 15 minutes of this most punishing of defeats, one that leaves United on the brink of an early and most undignified exit from the Champions League. This match had it all — seven goals, two penalties, one red card for Marcus Rashford, one medical emergency and one pitch invasion. What Ten Hag needed in the final stages was ten cool heads. Sadly for him, that did not happen. Instead his team went into meltdown mode, conceding two goals in the space of four minutes right at the end of the draining encounter in which they played with ten men for 48 minutes. Ten Hag now somehow needs to pick his men up off the canvas and inject self-belief and energy into them because a Champions League groupstage exit will not do his chances of remaining in post any good. He will take encouragement from the fact that United played some of their best attacking football under him in the first half but, again, they wilted. What lies ahead for United is far from simple. They need to beat Galatasaray away — a feat they have never achieved before — and beat Bayern Munich at home. Yes, Bayern will probably field their reserves as they are through, but look at the evidence of some of United’s displays this season and ask yourself if you can really see Ten Hag’s team shackling the likes of Mathys Tel, the France Under-21 striker who scored within three minutes of coming on to the field against United in September. It may not even get that far. Defeat by Galatasaray in three weeks’ time will end United’s hopes of qualifying for the knockout stage. Ten Hag was aggrieved by some of the calls made by Donatas Rumsas, the Lithuanian referee, most notably his decision to send off Rashford for sinking his studs into a Copenhagen player’s ankle. He was also annoyed that Copenhagen were awarded a penalty for the slightest of touches off Harry Maguire’s arm, and that the Danes’ first goal was not ruled out for offside as a Copenhagen player was standing in front of André Onana. During his summary of the match, Ten Hag also needs to take into account the sloppy passing from Raphaël Varane in the dying stages, the shoddy marking from Diogo Dalot for Copenhagen’s third goal, and the defence’s inability to deal with a simple cross for the hosts’ winner. “We have a mountain to climb,” Bruno Fernandes, the United captain, said. He is not wrong. It was all going so well for United too. They took only three minutes to open the scoring. Fernandes switched play to Rashford, who nudged the ball to the advancing Aaron WanBissaka. The full back looked as if he had run into a blind alley, but he checked back, and squared a clever ball inside to Scott McTominay, who had galloped into the area. The Scot crossed to the back post and Rasmus Hojlund tapped in. Play stopped briefly so stewards could tackle a pitch invader with a Palestine flag and then for another couple of minutes because of a medical emergency in the stands. Jonny Evans pulled up with a muscle injury and was replaced by Varane. The disruptions did not rattle United. Fernandes picked up a stray pass and sent Alejandro Garnacho through. Kamil Grabara parried the Argentinian’s shot and Hojlund tapped in to make it 2-0. Hojlund lashed over his next effort and Grabara saved Maguire’s header from close range as United looked for a third. It was all going to plan until just before half-time, when Rumsas sent off Rashford. On the edge of his own area, Rashford, trying to shield the ball, plunged his studs into the ankle of Elias Jelert and the referee was not for the turning as soon as his VAR had told him to check the incident. The dismissal gave Copenhagen a new lease of life. From the resulting free kick, Fernandes inadvertently flicked Diogo Gonçalves’s cross on to the bar. A minute later CopenIt was yet another dispiriting night for Ten Hag the home side level at 2-2 in added time at the end of the first half. In between those two incidents, Mohamed Elyounoussi scored a goal that Ten Hag thought should have been ruled out because a Copenhagen player was in an offside position and blocking the view of the United goalkeeper, André Onana. “It was an unfair result,” the United manager said. “We are very disappointed because we started the game so well, but the red card changed everything and we conceded two goals before half-time which should never have counted. The first is offside, the second is a harsh penalty.” A Bruno Fernandes penalty put United 3-2 up in the second half, but they conceded in the 83rd and 87th minutes to lose and drop to the bottom of group A. It was their ninth defeat in 17 games this season — United’s worst start since the 1973-74 campaign. Ten Hag was particularly aggrieved at the straight red card for Rashford, whose initial challenge went unpunished until the VAR intervened and instructed the referee to view the incident on the screen on the touchline. It came on the night it emerged that one of the United forward’s brothers, Dane Rashford, was arrested in Florida and told to appear in court on a charge of domestic violence. Ten Hag felt the referee was always going to give a penalty after being asked to review Rashford’s tackle, which came as he tried to shield the ball close to a corner under pressure from Jelert. “Marcus went for the ball and the referee needed such a long time to send ‘If you don’t look at the final score we did quite well’ continued from back Kane sends Bayern through Harry Kane scored both goals as Bayern Munich sealed their place in the Champions League round of 16 with a 2-1 win over Galatasaray. The Bundesliga champions made it four wins from four in group A and ensured top spot as Kane’s two goals in the final ten minutes at the Allianz Arena took the England captain’s tally for Bayern to 19 in 15 games this season. Cedric Bakambu pulled a goal back in added time. Rashford smiles in disbelief as he is shown a red card for his challenge on Jelert Paul Hirst Copenhagen United snatch defeat from Copenhagen Elyounoussi 45, Gonçalves 45+9 (pen), Lerager 83, Bardghji 87 Manchester Utd Hojlund 3, 28, Fernandes (pen) 69 4 3 Game turns as Rashford sees red How they stand in group A P W D L F A GD Pts B Munich (Q) 4 4 0 0 11 6 5 12 Copenhagen 4 1 1 2 7 8 -1 4 Galatasaray 4 1 1 2 7 9 -2 4 Man Utd 4 1 0 3 9 11 -2 3 Other result Bayern Munich 2 Galatasaray 1.

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 2GM 67 Sport him off,” Ten Hag said. “When you freeze it, it always looks worse. I’m very disappointed about such decisions. “The game is never meant to be like this, this has nothing to do with football. Decisions have to be made and I accept also wrong decisions are made by some at this level. With three such tough decisions, you control the game and the game is never meant to be for that.” Rasmus Hojlund, who scored both of United’s early goals to put the away side 2-0 up, agreed with his manager regarding the refereeing calls. “We started very well and we controlled the game until the red card,” Hojlund, the former Copenhagen striker, said. “If you don’t look at the result, we did quite well. We switched off a little bit. I know how the crowd can help the team here but we did quite good at the beginning of the second half. “It’s just unfortunate that we are here with zero points again.” United also suffered some more bad luck when Jonny Evans hobbled off in the first half with a muscle injury. Marcus Rashford’s brother, who is an FA-registered intermediary, has been arrested in the United States over domestic violence accusations. Dane Rashford, according to information seen by The Telegraph, was arrested last month after an alleged incident in Miami Beach, Florida. It is reported that Rashford, who is a director of DN May Sports Management — which has the Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford as one of its clients — appeared in court on October 21 and that a charge of domestic violence was registered against him on October 24. The 31-year-old has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a further hearing has been set for this month. Daysi Vega-Mendez, the assistant state prosecutor for Miami-Dade jaws of victory ‘Positive signs’ in Díaz case Jürgen Klopp has said there are some positive signs that the hostage situation involving Luis Díaz’s father may be close to being resolved. The Liverpool forward’s parents were seized in Colombia by left-wing guerrillas on October 28, and while his mother has been found safe, his father remains captive. After scoring a stoppage-time equaliser against Luton Town on Sunday, Díaz revealed an undershirt with the message: “Freedom for papa.” Speaking before his team’s Europa League match against Toulouse tonight, Klopp said there was “no real news” but “positive signs somehow”. Díaz has travelled to Toulouse and could play a part. “He decided last week that he cannot go to Colombia, so he’s here,” Klopp said. “When he trains, it’s a safe place. He’s available.” Three other players have not made the trip, however. Virgil van Dijk is absent through illness and Ryan Gravenberch and Curtis Jones are carrying minor injuries. “Virgil is a little bit ill,” Klopp said. “It will not be a big thing but we did not want to have him on the plane, if some others have it as well. “I have it a little bit but, for me, it is not a problem. He should be absolutely all right for the weekend [Sunday’s game against Brentford].” Of the midfield pair, Gravenberch’s injury is the least serious and he could feature against Brentford too. “Ryan got a little niggle of the knee,” Klopp said. “It is not major, he was running already today, but [there was] no chance for this game.” Ben Doak, the 17-year-old Scottish winger, has shaken off an injury and could start. TV TNT Sports 1 from 5pm. Kick-off 5.45pm Europa League James Gheerbrant Toulouse Players face ban from joining sister clubs for two windows replace Sandro Tonali after he was banned for ten months for breaching betting rules, though Premier League insiders insist the ban is not specifically aimed at stopping the club signing the Portugal and former Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder. However, it is understood that Newcastle have made clear they never intended to seek a loan deal for Neves and have been supportive of the ban on such moves. One idea floated is that no loans or transfers can take place between associated clubs for at least two transfer windows after a player has been signed. There has been growing concern that multi-club ownership is giving some clubs an unfair advantage. The Premier League may also look at front-of-shirt sponsorship deals from associated parties — Newcastle, City and Chelsea are among the clubs to have those. In December 2021, it was agreed that every associated-party transaction involving Premier League clubs worth in excess of £1 million a year would be checked to ensure it was of fair market value. The rules say that if the Premier League’s board has reasonable grounds to suspect that a transfer is an associated-party deal or “otherwise than at arm’s length”, an independent firm will determine whether it has been artificially inflated. Each club have had to provide financial details of all sponsorship deals since 2016 to form a “data bank” that will be used to determine fair market value. continued from back Funding deal ‘widens the gap to top flight’ Clubs relegated from the Premier League will be able to spend a higher proportion of their income on player wages than their Sky Bet Championship rivals under the terms of a proposed financial settlement. There are growing fears among second-tier clubs that teams relegated from the top flight will get extra spending advantages under the “New Deal” agreement between the Premier League and the EFL. The top-flight clubs are due to vote on a six-year New Deal for football on November 21, under which an average of about £150 million extra per year would be given to the 72 clubs in the EFL. It would be worth £915 million over the six years but backloaded so that more is paid in the later years. The settlement is set to include radical new controls that will limit EFL clubs to spending 70 per cent of their revenue on wages, but the figure would be 85 per cent for Premier League clubs and those newly relegated from the top flight. That figure would drop to 80 per cent for the second season after the team’s relegation and then fall in line with the rest of the Championship. Most EFL clubs believe they have little option but to accept the offer. Although the parachute payment system will change — the first year of payments is worth £44 million at present — relegated clubs will receive much more than others in the Championship. One club chief in the second tier told The Times there are concerns the New Deal would hand more advantages to relegated sides.“There is already a massive financial gap with the parachute clubs and allowing them to spend more than the rest of the Championship will only increase that gap — it’s going to be really tough to bridge it,” he said. Premier League insiders deny that relegated clubs will get an extra advantage, saying there will be significant overall increases in funding to the EFL. Research conducted for the Football League in April found that clubs receiving parachute payments were three times more likely to be promoted. The New Deal money would be on top of the existing £110 million solidarity payments and £40 million youth development funding. There is expected to be a merit system for distributing the extra money based on league position. This season each Championship club — apart from those receiving parachute payments — will get £5.19 million in solidarity payments from the Premier League. The new distribution model could mean clubs at the top of the Championship each receive about £4 million extra a year. Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter Bardghji turns away in celebration after scoring the winner Rashford’s brother arrested County, outlined the situation in a statement to The Telegraph. “The case is still active, at the moment I haven’t been able to get hold of the victim,” she said. “Our office is trying to get hold of the UK Embassy because we need permission to speak to the victim. “I am not sure whether they are still in the United States or if they have left the country. “I understand they were on vacation. Technically once you are charged you are not supposed to leave the country. When a person is given a bond if they leave, they surrender that bond. “At the moment the case is still active and listed for an arraignment hearing on November 27.” Mugshots of Dane Rashford were released after his arrest. DN May Sports Management was contacted for comment. Charlotte Duncker

Move to stop Neves loans Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter Morgan takes aim at Buttler Elizabeth Ammon Premier League teams are set to agree a ban on loan transfers from associatedparty clubs during the January transfer window because of concerns over preferential deals. The clubs have been recommended to agree to a temporary ban when they meet on November 21 to give them more time to decide upon a permanent policy. Fourteen of the 20 clubs would need to vote in favour for it to be passed. It would prevent Newcastle United from taking Rúben Neves on loan from the Saudi club Al-Hilal — both teams are owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — or Manchester City doing any loan deals with other clubs owned by the City Football Group, such as Girona in Spain. There has been speculation that Newcastle could move for Neves, 26, to Eoin Morgan has described England as a “sinking ship” and accused the senior players, captain and coach of shirking responsibility by sending out the assistant coach Carl Hopkinson to face the media before yesterday’s World Cup victory over the Netherlands. Having failed to defend their trophy with six defeats in seven games and staring at the embarrassing prospect of failing to finish in the top eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy, England put up their fielding coach to do his first ever press conference on Tuesday. Morgan, who captained England to World Cup glory in 2019, was adamant that the responsibility to answer media questions should have fallen on either the head coach, Matthew Mott, the captain, Jos Buttler, or a senior player 2GM Thursday November 9 2023 | the times Sport Chris Kamara on his illness, new book and the afterlife ‘People always smile at me’ Harry Maguire, who conceded a first-half penalty, cannot hide his anguish at United’s defeat, in which a tackle by Rashford, inset, earned the forward a red card Copenhagen catastrophe 6 United throw away lead twice to lose 6 Rashford red card proves turning point 6 Angry Ten Hag blames the referee for ‘unfair result’ Copenhagen 4 Manchester United 3 Paul Hirst Copenhagen Erik ten Hag blamed Donatas Rumsas, the Lithuanian referee, for Manchester United’s painful defeat by Copenhagen last night that leaves their Champions League hopes hanging by a thread. United threw away 2-0 and 3-2 leads to lose 4-3 in Denmark, meaning they probably need to beat both Galatasaray away and Bayern Munich at home in their final two group A games if they are to reach the last 16. Ten Hag, the United manager, felt his team would not have lost had Rumsas not sent Marcus Rashford off for a lunge on Elias Jelert when United were 2-0 up, or awarded a penalty for a handball by Harry Maguire, which Diogo Gonçalves converted to bring Times Crossword 28,756 across down Yesterday’s solution 28,755 Check today’s answers by ringing 0905 757 0141 by midnight. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s network access charge. SP: Spoke 0333 202 3390. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 A U T O B A H N P R E S T O S H R E A T M S K I O R A N G E J U I C E I N A D I A R L G R A N D T O T A L F R E E N I S V N P U T B R O W S E T R U M P E T I O R T F E M O N A R C H O A F I S H P A D E R P A E R O M E R E S T R A I N E D O E R L O S D I P A T R O N S A I N T F I T E A O S R L E R I G H T O D E W Y E Y E D 1 Talent with performing hip hop a job for the present day? (4,8) 9 Interest rate operating that might have strings attached (5) 10 Getting old, too thin to be fitted with an expensive implant (4,5) 11 Report on News Round up to the minute (8) 12 Fly from area through outskirts of Trieste (6) 13 Wobbly tum bared for a tattoo (8) 15 Whence the Akond taps a sample of fabric? (6) 17 Reluctant states agree finally (6) 18 Beaks stumped by drinks bottles (8) 20 Ordinarily caged bird I would have to move outside (6) 21 Bad ulcer husband contracted out at sea (8) 24 Split personality, one spotted in picture (9) 25 British holiday here in Brittany (5) 26 Somehow deadly for me to ingest hospital chemical solution (12) 1 Snatched Greek cleric in France ransomed at last (7) 2 Realtor dude Alf redesigned coastal development abroad (4,10) 3 Bored by picnics occasionally, you and I flinch (5) 4 No tips for gangly, rich Yank, a member of the church (8) 5 Tear skin (4) 6 A new ITV broadcast on technology intelligence (6,3) 7 My Moroccan diet conjured something light, sweet and amusing (8,6) 8 Triplets mostly quiet toss and turn (6) 14 Italian wine not available during bachelor party as a punishment (9) 16 Copper friend arresting female wearing huge tie? (3,5) 17 A university ordered work for earlier (6) 19 Those coming after Bond Street note muscle on board (7) 22 Fur clearance nets billions (5) 23 Skin flick? (4) Newspapers support recycling The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2020 was 67% y(7HB7E2*OTSNOT( |||+&!\'

November 9 | 2023 ‘There’s been dignity. Freddie’s been given time to heal’ Chris Harris on the Top Gear accident and what happened next The Top Gear presenters Paddy McGuinness, Chris Harris and Freddie Flintoff

2 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times times2 T his week, a plea from the heart: please don’t dismiss the book The Plot: The Assassination of Boris Johnson by (Non-Dame) Nadine Dorries, which is published today, as the spiteful, vengeful, delusional musings of a demented fan girl. You genuinely think there isn’t a “shadowy cabal” controlling everything in our lives? Think again, my friends. Think again. Dorries, who is possibly our most famous non-dame, has, at last, identified this “shadowy cabal”. The main players are Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings and Dougie Smith, so it may not be that shadowy, but there are others unnamed, who are now thought to include a hedgehog, a potato and Noddy. You won’t find any of them signing in or out of No 10 for obvious reasons. Shadowy-ness. Noddy was once photographed entering by the back door — google it — but his people have refused to comment. (“No comment,” Big Ears said.) The hedgehog is elusive, even when you leave out a saucer of milk. The potato has now gone to ground but is still on the payroll. I don’t know how the potato feels about not doing the job it’s paid for. Perfectly fine, probably. It’s only gone on the record once, after attending the Bafta awards in 2019 and being photographed with Benedict Cumberbatch. “Not bad for a working-class potato from Liverpool,” it said. I’ve since been told, on the quiet, that it says that all the time. Now you are wondering: how does this affect me? What role does this “shadowy cabal” that is determined to topple Tory party leaders and prime ministers for no good reason play in my life? Really? You can’t now see it has a nefarious hand in controlling everything? Especially today, while the Jews are preoccupied elsewhere, and have decided to stand back from controlling everything if only until Tuesday? Have you checked for Michael Gove under your bed lately? Left out a saucer of milk? This “shadowy cabal” is, make no mistake, a “dark, powerful and toxic force” that permeates everything. Always shake out your shoes before putting them on as Dominic Cummings may be in there. Or Cummings in one shoe and Smith in the other. Shake them out and give it to them with both barrels. “I won’t have you plotting in my shoes!” you need to tell them. Now, let me give you an example of how this “shadowy cabal” can do for you. The other morning I scraped a neighbour’s car while parking. I saw its hand in that straight away. As I said to my neighbour: “It’s the only explanation that makes sense other than that I am useless and an idiot and should go away and never be heard of again.” I told her that ordinarily I wouldn’t scrape her car, so why now? Think about it. Have you checked under your bed? The insurance company, it wants me to take the blame, which is plainly ridiculous. As I said to the lady at Admiral: “You’re aware, surely, of the ‘dark, powerful, toxic forces’ at work out there?” And as I added: “I think it’s pretty clear who was behind this and that I’m not to be held personally responsible or accountable in any way.” Admiral is not backing down, which is crazy. Has the world gone mad? However, on the other hand, I may well get a book out of it on how I’m not personally responsible or accountable in any way for anything ever. The Daily Mail will bite my hand off for the serialisation rights, I know. What’s more — and this clinches it — on top of the carscraping incident let me also tell you about something else that happened this week. I opened a kitchen cupboard and a cast-iron pan fell on my foot. One big toe has gone quite black. You may say: “It’s your own fault for putting this heavy pan away badly. Didn’t you close the cupboard door on it, knowing it would fall when you opened it again, but you did that anyway? Because you’re a useless idiot who should never be heard of again and could maybe do with taking a good hard look in the mirror?” Oh, please. Can’t you see the bigger picture? You think Gove, Cummings, Smith, a hedgehog, a potato and Noddy had nothing to do with it? That they’re not the puppet masters who made me put the pan away badly in the first place? That I’d have done a superb job otherwise? Give us a break. Honestly. What planet are you on? It’s all them, nothing to do with me. In fact, it’s thanks to them I’m banned from Zara. It was never the shoplifting. Cheers, fellas. Thanks a lot. Carol Vorderman has quit The news is: she has had to leave her weekly BBC Wales radio show over the corporation’s new social media guidelines. Her show isn’t political in any way but the guidelines now apply to “all and any content” posted by BBC employees. The choice was, in effect: stay and shut up or go and don’t. She went for the option with the “go” and the “don’t” in it. I know, I know, some have it in for her, but why? Because she’s someone who will stand up for what she believes in? Because she is someone who will not desist from calling out this government and telling the truth? Because that means more to her than personal advancement? Because she has — wait for it — principles? I don’t know what our most famous non-dame thinks about this — but my best guess? She’s never heard the like. But what she has heard is? The shadowy little toot-toot of Noddy’s shadowy little red car. It brought down Boris Johnson, that did. Nothing to do with him. As we build up to Carol Vorderman Day — November 24, remember; I have my outfit sorted and it’s adorable — there’s been some news. Deborah Ross A lmost a year after he was in a near-fatal crash while filming Top Gear, Freddie Flintoff appears to have made a good recovery from serious facial injuries and broken ribs. During that time the show has been suspended and Flintoff’s co-presenter Chris Harris, who was at the track on the day of the crash, has maintained a discreet silence about the events as his friend recovered. Flintoff was seen in public for the first time in September, when he did some work with the England cricket team, and he has reportedly reached a multimillion-pound settlement with the BBC, but the future of the show is uncertain. “I’m just over the moon that my friend Fred is still with us,” Harris says. “If there is only one good thing that comes out of it, it is that there’s been dignity. Fred’s been given the time to heal. It’s been a tough time. I defy anyone to not care about their friends if they get injured. I do.” We are talking about Harris’s new memoir, Variable Valve Timings, in which he says that, since the accident, “my world has fallen apart a little bit”. Was this because of what happened to his friend and the uncertainty around the suspended show? “I think so, yes,” he says. He likes to work hard and “not working is a really bad thing for someone who’s active and busy. If you haven’t got stuff to go and do, then I think that’s a problem.” With all that is going on in the world, he doesn’t want to sound a “woe is me” note, he says. “I suppose everyone has their demons, don’t they? If you’ve got 15 billion quid and you are on your superyacht, if you wake up with the black dogs, you’re having a shit day. You’re still a human being. So, yeah, it’s been a ropey year. But life goes on. I’ve had an amazing experience. I don’t know what comes next and Fred’s fine and Paddy’s always going to be fine,” he says of Paddy McGuinness, who completes their presenting trio. Harris, a former motoring journalist and self-confessed “car tragic” with a particular love of very fast cars, has a “very complicated” relationship with Top Gear, which he ascribes to his preference for avoiding fame and the “terrifying new reality of bile and Twitter hatred” he experienced when he became a presenter. Harris was one of the new line-up after Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond left the BBC in 2015 following Clarkson’s altercation with a producer about a missing steak dinner. In Variable Valve Timings Harris, 48, says he is “ready for another reboot”, but does that mean he hopes the show returns? And will he be part of it? “I can’t answer that, really. Let’s just wait and see. I’m not going to speculate.” His feelings towards what the BBC claims is the world’s most-watched factual entertainment show include “love, hate, despair, the full panoply of emotions. If it just stops, or someone presses pause, and there’s the suspicion, the threat, that it might not come back — no one knows — you just go, ‘Wow! what have I been doing?’” Harris’s background was in car magazines and he was building a successful profile testing cars for YouTube videos when he was hired by Top Gear, appearing from 2016. “The ambivalence about joining Top Gear was quite straightforward. Who the hell would want to fill those shoes? I’m pretty cautious. I assume that every single tree is going to jump out and hit I count Matt LeBlanc as a friend, which is bloody weird ‘My world has fallen apart a little bit’ His Top Gear co-presenter was badly injured, but Chris Harris is still addicted to fast cars, like his mate Matt LeBlanc and his mum. By Damian Whitworth Don’t dismiss Nadine’s book: a ‘shadowy cabal’ is now ruining my life

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 3 times2 to Clifton College, an independent school where he loved being a boarder. His mother had been an autocross driver and he recalls being in the car when she was stopped for speeding at more than 130mph while taking him to a county hockey trial. One day his father, an accountant, bought his six-year-old son a copy of What Car? magazine, which Harris regards as possibly the most important moment of his life. “But I feel sorry for him as well, because he didn’t really like cars and I think he didn’t like my relationship with cars and where it might lead my life.” His father died when he was 24. “He’s probably sitting on a cloud right now going, ‘I wish I hadn’t bought that bloody magazine for him.’” Surely he’d be very proud of what his son has achieved? “Anybody who has lost a parent quite young probably spends more time than they’d ever want to admit wondering what that deceased parent would be thinking of them. I think he’d be pretty baffled by it all and no doubt think I was a complete lunatic. I can’t dwell on it too much. But I hope so.” Every year he takes a holiday in Cornwall, where his father died, and every day of his stay sits on the same rock his father did. Harris mentions that he has three children but otherwise doesn’t discuss his family life. During the Covid lockdowns he presented a series of short online Q&As from his car, called The Whisky Files. “I did 50 of them. I don’t remember doing one, which isn’t a great thing to admit. That wasn’t a good time.” However, Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian and fellow motoring enthusiast, was among those who sent a message saying they liked the series. “How random is that? That’s my humblebrag for the day.” Speed is “intoxicating”, he says. As a young journalist he would drive cars across Europe at crazy speeds, including trying to keep up with the Eurostar as it cruised at 186mph. Now he’s more cautious. “I can’t endorse super-high-speed driving on the roads. Go and do a track day. Hire a runway and you can wazz it up to 170 miles an hour, feel it, then go home sensibly. The public highway is not the place for that.” To my surprise he doesn’t rage against 20mph speed limits. There’s a spot near a school where he lives in Bristol that he would like to see have a 5mph limit. But he deplores the lack of flexibility. Other areas with ubiquitous 20mph limits should be 30mph. He drives less than he used to, mostly taking the train when he goes to London. When he drives he does so for fun. “I’m a pretty conflicted human being. We’ve got a finite amount of fossil juice left that we’re allowed to use. Let’s use it with style.” It disappoints him, though, to see “every schoolchild told the motor car is evil. It’s sad and a bit onedimensional.” He smiles to himself when he sees a kid ogling a low-slung Italian sports car as their disapproving parent drags them away. “There’s something deeply attractive to certain young people about the shape of motor cars, the way they sound, the way they go. I am one of them.” Variable Valve Timings by Chris Harris (Ebury £22). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members YouTube kid.’ Rarely a month goes by I don’t get a WhatsApp from him. I count him as a friend, which is bloody weird. I used to sit on a sofa as a student watching him do his thing. His car passion is real. He’s authentic.” Since 2019 he has presented with Flintoff, who was his favourite cricketer, and McGuinness, an actor and comedian. Their relationship on and off screen is heavy on banter. Within weeks of starting to work together he was suggesting to Flintoff that he had teeth like Stonehenge and to McGuinness that he had ears like Spock in Star Trek. “Piss-take done well can sometimes seem incredibly harsh, but it comes with love.” Harris is an accomplished driver and was unimpressed to discover when he arrived at Top Gear that professional drivers were used to do some of the driving featured in the programmes. “An unfortunate side-effect of this process was that the presenters were made to look better drivers than they actually were. It’s the only part of my predecessors’ work I ever had any issue with. I didn’t want to inherit those processes, but I did,” he writes. Today, as we talk on a video call, he adds: “I don’t think it’s a trade secret, but a lot of the driving that you saw wasn’t the people that you thought were driving the cars.” Driving “is the only thing I’m good at”, he says, and he wanted to do more of it, rather than allow professionals to come in after he had had a go in the car. But the system had been established and it took him a long time to see that the pros were not a threat. Years ago, when the use of professional drivers was reported, the BBC was adamant that the presenters did the driving seen on the show, while professional drivers provided extra shots for the cameras. “Let me be absolutely clear. My three predecessors are fantastic, they are brilliant motoring journalists,” Harris says. “I don’t think any of them would want to challenge me in any kind of a motor race or any kind of car control test because I don’t think they’d stand up too well. But they’re much better television presenters.” As a small boy Harris, who is mixed race, was adopted by a white, prosperous family in Bristol and went Chris Harris with his former Top Gear co-presenter Matt LeBlanc. Left: Freddie Flintoff, another co-presenter, resurfaced after his accident to work with the England cricket team in September me and everyone hates me. And even as someone on my guard, I still took the job. I couldn’t look the 17-year-old me in the face to say that I didn’t take that job. But I was hugely wary of it. I still don’t know whether I should have done it or not. I’m proud of a lot of the work. But what comes with it? I don’t like being in the public eye, really. I’m not blaming anybody. That was me wanting the bit of doing the television but not the bit of being recognised. It’s been a tough gig. Tougher than I thought it was going to be.” He expected some online criticism of the new version of the show, which had Chris Evans as co-host, but people queued up to knock it. “Queueing up? There was half a country saying it. Whatever we’d done, if we’d made a programme that was 20 times better than the previous Top Gear, it still would have been shit-canned, of course it would. “I think to myself, ‘This is the most puerile subject matter on the planet. We’re not doing anything serious. I’m not a war journalist. I’m just skidding cars about, trying to entertain people. And yet it seems to generate such vitriol from people.’ I won’t beat about the bush, people didn’t and don’t like me because I’m not Jeremy. I’ve got my own little army, but it’s not as big as his. And they’re vociferous. And if you wake up every single day with people telling you that you’re shit ... I’ve got very thick skin. I am not struggling for confidence, but even I, after a while, will go, ‘Should I be doing this or not?’” People will stop him in the street and tell him, “It’s crap, it’s not as good as it was,” he says. “I’ll just go, ‘That’s your opinion.’ But I am not looking for sympathy. I’ll go and cry from the seat of my [Porsche] GT3.” He believes Evans did not like him. “I can understand why he didn’t like me, but it didn’t make our lives any easier, I have to say.” Harris claims he is generally not appealing to people. “I’m not an especially likeable human being. I’ve got a resting scowl and I am a pugnacious small man. That’s not a recipe for being liked. I’ve been used to that all my life. Some people radiate love and people want to talk to them. I’m the opposite.” He had a much better relationship with Matt LeBlanc, the Friends actor who stayed with the show after Evans left. Their friendship survived Harris crunching into the back of LeBlanc’s vehicle during a race in Kazakhstan. “I thought, ‘I’ve killed Joey.’ If he was a weaker man I don’t think he’d be here. He took it very well, but I think he probably thought, ‘If I’m going to expire, I don’t want it to be through the acts of some unknown People didn’t and don’t like me because I’m not Jeremy

4 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times times2 I am looking for a stud: handsome, excellent pedigree with true-blue leanings. Not for me, you understand. For my dog, Pimlico Betts-Derbyshire, the whippet. Pim wants puppies. Well, actually, we want puppies. Or rather, Terence, my partner, wants puppies. There’s a Ukrainian kennels on Instagram called Sunnymoon Place: all Italian greyhound (“iggy”) pups prancing through lush grassland. Tezzer’s ambition is to become south London’s Sunnymoon outpost. I’m less convinced. A friend — whose retriever spawned a litter of 12 — describes the experience as “three months’ bottle-feeding on a sea of piss — plus endless admin”. He went grey. His wife moved out. Their dog has since had two abortions. Whippet litters tend to number five or six. Pim was one of three. Nevertheless, Tezzer imagines we would make thousands, pedigree blue iggies going for £3,000. These, I point out, were lockdown prices. Plus, this would involve giving Pimlico’s offspring away when I know he would never be able to do so. “Isn’t this a tad Handmaid’s Tale?” I bleat. Pim’s reproductive system shouldn’t be a site of capitalist exploitation. Besides, she is an indulged only child — and a career girl like her mistress. Indeed, Pimlico’s career is rather more successful, her having appeared on the covers of three national newspapers and in a fashion shoot for a September issue of Harper’s Bazaar, dragging poor Gemma Chan behind her. Then there’s the complication that Pimlico is posh. Not only is she of the swishiest pedigree, she represents the issue of not one but two stately piles. We once ran into an expert who told us that she could ascertain Pim’s peerless lineage merely by looking at her. Pim is also grey, which dog types refer to as “blue”. It’s not the rarest hue (that prize going to white), but it is unusual. Blue whippets are black ones with a dilute gene that “washes out” the jet into a slate. This means that Pim cost more than her patchier sisters. A clutch of rival buyers endeavoured to gazump us after purchase, one promising “any money”. velvet blankets. She does occasionally bark at Joanna Lumley, our neighbour, but Lummers is such a looker that even I bark. Whippets can be gawky: snaggle-toothed and splayed of limb. Ours is exquisitely elegant, as deft in the arrangement of her legs as a Fifties model, with the glossiest coat. For decades, I yearned for a blue whippet called Pimlico. And, then, there she was: the love of my not-so young life. I worry daily about her departing this world. When I read Hugo Vickers’s biography of Gladys Deacon, the section where his heroine’s beloved dog dies in labour almost finished me. Be happy with what you have! Do not tempt fate! Cherish each precious second! It is at this point that Terence inquires whether I have taken my happy pills, while friends chide that bitches deprived of litters go mad (precisely the scare stories one hears about childless women such as myself). Anyway, she’s turned five, and entered her annual season after Bonfire Night, meaning it’s now or never. Tick tock, tick tock! To appease Tezzer, earlier in the year I agreed to take Pim to canine kind’s greatest singles’ bash. Forget Crufts — I’m talking Goodwoof: Goodwood’s annual dog festival. Here your charges can not only eye each other up, but sally forth on a dog date, featuring fine dining, sporting activities, re-tail therapy, barkitecture, dog yoga, massages and tarot card readings, a Nora Ephron-style bookshop meet-cute or Ministry of Hound rave. Let the pimping of Pimlico commence! Speed date No 1 was with Whisky, a four-year-old blue boy from Derbyshire, owned by Lisa and Steve. A Gemini (Pim is an attention-seeking Leo), Whisky is social, with all the feels — an emotional support hound training as a therapy dog. He describes himself as an “all-round nice guy”. Good parent potential, although I have a feeling Pim prefers bastards. She doesn’t exactly turn on the charm with this, her first prospective partner, moving between indifference — not even an arse sniff — to open hostility when Whisky attempts to share her brekker. She then emits a disconcertingly enormous turd. They head off for a massage, but still lack chemistry. That said, I’m no David Attenborough, but Whisky appears to lack a couple of vital qualities in the fatherhood department. No such problem with blue beau No 2, Stan, Kennel Club moniker Stand by Stanley, aka Stan the Man/ Stanzles, owned by Meryl and James. A Capricorn toy boy at two and a half, Stan has balls that are not merely evident but unmissable: one pink, one grey. Also a south Londoner, Stan has had crushes but no serious relationships. His hobbies include squirrel persecution (Pim’s great joy), rolling in excrement (ditto) and stick-collecting. Things bode well with a spot of horseplay. However, when we enter our two blues into a race on Goodwoof’s official track, Pimlico twice beats her love interest. True, this is inspired by neurosis — we are waiting at the other end. But you can tell Stan feels castrated, tail covering those previously proud nuts. Enter blue bachelor No 3, Rocket, a fellow Leo and sophisticated older man of almost eight, owned by Annabel from Bognor Regis. Clad in a The upshot is that our dog is constantly admired — we’re talking three or four times per stroll. I admit, I rather enjoy this. Terence takes things further. While in all other aspects being your classic Etonian Trot, in the matter of Pimlico’s potential breeding partners he has become positively eugenicist. For a litter to contain blue pups, both black parents require the dilute gene. However, this does not guarantee blues, as a puppy will need to inherit two copies, of which there is a 25 per cent chance. It is at this point that I start experiencing posttraumatic stress regarding the racist limerick with which I was taught genetics. More palatable is my obsession with slebs who own, or have owned, blue whippets, including: Amanda Harlech (Ralph Fiennes was photographed with said hound), Nathaniel Parker, Sebastian Faulks, Jennifer Saunders, Alex James and Lord Palumbo, who boasts a Pim-a-like called Mr Bounce. I wonder whether Mr Bounce is “open”, as Love Island parlance has it? Oh, wait, he appears to have ascended to the rolling-in-fox-pee Valhalla. On top of this, Pim is — quite obviously — special, having a passionately affectionate nature. As I write, I’ve had to move from desk to sofa so she can bask on me beneath Pim on her Goodwoof dates. Above: Pim with Hannah Betts and her partner, Terence Date 1 Whisky Date 2 Stan Date 3 Rocket She’s posh and eligible: want to date my dog? A classy whippet in search of a stud — how difficult could it be, asks Hannah Betts

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 5 times2 bow tie, he bills himself as nonchalant, independent and debonair. With a penchant for female whippets, Rock lives for food, taking Pim for lunch at Goodwoof’s Fortnum’s picnic area. An unseemly scramble ensues, but I wouldn’t say the situation was without promise were Rocket equipped. Alas, as for Whisky, that ship has sailed. Obviously, what we should have done at this point is persuade Stan and Pim to embark on a “situationship”. That and engage in copious research, because, frankly, we have no idea how canine reproduction works. We can barely cope with my periods, let alone Pimlico’s, screaming whenever her behind comes into view. I’m reliably informed that days 10-14 of her threeweek bleed mark optimum fertility. At which point, what’s required is a sleepover, during which she “may not be up for it so you have to help”. (Doubtful — Pimlico doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.) Instead, what I did was change the subject whenever the topic arose, as is my wont. (I’m still yet to transfer Pim’s Kennel Club details from her breeder’s name to ours.) Word reaches us that the woman who owned Pimlico’s father, Roo, now lays claim to a hunk named Twig. I’ve stalked him on Instagram and he is dashing in the extreme. Meanwhile, sundry friends and neighbours are bagsying pups, even though we are yet to decide whether Pim’s actually at home to gentleman callers. At present, we are experiencing an acute case of PMT — Pim and me both. Fireworks season may now be over, but will this autumn still be marked with a bang? Contact me on Instagram @hannahjbetts should you have any contenders. Rocket takes Pim for lunch at the picnic area. An unseemly scramble ensues Goodwoof 2024 is on May 18-19, with early-bird tickets available for £30, goodwood.com ‘What are they doing?” my daughter whispered of the cackling fortysomething women at the table opposite on the train last Saturday, each waving an inflatable flamingo and refreshing paper cups with fizzy liquid of the same lurid hue. “They are,” I didn’t say, “doing what an OECD report this week found British women do best in the entire world: binge drinking.” According to this latest report on alcohol consumption across 38 countries, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, more than a quarter of women in the UK drink more than six drinks in one session (or “sesh” as it is commonly known among anybody fun enough to do exactly that) at least once a month. That makes us top of the partial-to-adrops: on par, reassuringly, with Danish women and just above the gals of Luxembourg — yes, all 15 of them. What I actually said was: “It’s like a playdate for grown-ups.” And it is, isn’t it, in that everybody arrives a little awkward but soon starts giggling and shouting nonsense over each other, often someone cries and, eventually, someone else might need to change their pants. My name is Harriet and I am a binge drinker. I tend to abstain for most of the week, then at the weekend … I drink. Rarely to oblivion, never alone and sometimes only five drinks of an evening (such restraint, I know), but I take the same approach to booze as I do to carbs: intermittent fasting with the occasional blowout. I consider this far healthier than the sort of drinking I did in my twenties, which was quite a lot every night, usually with no dinner. Tut all you want, but almost everyone I know does the same — and we are the reformed ones. I know someone whose cousin had to sleep under her desk because she was too drunk to get home, then set the office alarm off the next morning and had to deal with the police as well as a hangover. My friends and I grew up in the era of ladettes and £1-a-pint student nights. I learnt how to “strawpedo” a Reef during freshers week. My university has now banned many of the “drinking societies” that used to maraud through the streets every night, but old habits die hard. I might no longer be chinning discounted paddles of jelly-flavoured vodka shots on a Wednesday, but I am still part of a cohort of women who often define themselves by their relationship to booze — right down to the names of their WhatsApp groups. The one I was added to when my first child went to school is called “mums who wine”; my friend’s, in a more refined postcode, is “mothers Women my age send up regular thanks that cameraphones didn’t exist during our lairiest years. “I wouldn’t think of myself as a binge-drinker,” my Gen Z snout tells me, then gives me practically the dictionary definition: “I only drink once during the week, so when Friday comes I’m fired up to get pissed and I’ll have about ten drinks.” When people my age read headlines about stories of dry students, as a generation turns its back on booze — and seemingly banter — the usual reaction is not admiration but pity. “Why do they need so many games?” I hiss to my husband in bars full of giant Jenga. “Do they not know how to make conversation?” This was, of course, precisely the reason I started drinking and no doubt the reason I continue: shyness, social anxiety, an acute sense of my own boringness. Drinkers put unnecessary pressure on the NHS — I should know: I broke my leg on a night out — but I wonder how many of them are trying to relieve pressures of a different sort. “The other weekend I threw up,” another young person tells me. “That was a bit of a low point.” Ah, for a twentysomething constitution. When you are nearing 40 with little kids, your enthusiasm for drinking no longer matches up with your tolerance and you regularly end a night shouting into the big white phone. This is both a curse and a blessing — the former because it’s mortifying, but the latter because you are then incapable of continuing, which helps to make the next day survivable if not exactly pleasant. I find myself putting increasingly elaborate rules in place around drinking. No more white wine, because it makes me itchy and argumentative and then black out. Not too much gin, otherwise sadness. German lager (and its purity laws) tends to mess least with my eczema and emotions the next day, but of course all this goes out of the window when I’m three sheets (roughly half a sesh) to the wind. The subsequent angst and panic are a classic feminine response, and the reason some friends are reining things in. My similarly thirsty husband never loses hours wondering whom he offended or whether it’s safe to check his phone. Why do I put myself through it? Because it is still, even after all these years, fun — and, like the best bingers, I don’t do it that often. who drink”. The women in it are witty, kind, hard-working — stressed, perhaps, but hardly sots. Among British women, alcohol isn’t just a way of letting off steam or one’s hair down, it has become a sort of cultural identity. Shorthand, in a flawlessly curated social media age, for having little human failings and the comfort in knowing others do too. A weakness, but also a form of solidarity. I’m not celebrating it, but I do understand it. The women on the train had transported their bottles in a bag that proclaimed (in a cursive font known online as “white wine mom”): “Oops, I appear to have bought prosecco again!” I have a friend with whom I mainly communicate via text in images of similar merch: mirrors, chopping boards, tinkling “ring for ginnington” bells. “Hang on,” says another pal (who once woke up in an unfamiliar child’s bedroom after its father found her asleep on their doorstep, next door to her own). “If a large glass of wine is two units, and six drinks is a session …” She sounds appalled. “But that’s just a Tuesday night in.” It does seem a tad puritanical. After all, among the French women — surely best in show when it comes to drinking because they a) never seem pissed and b) appear to have avoided the beveragino-related spare tyre that is practically national dress over here — only 12 per cent in the OECD study admit to bingeing une fois par mois. Yet the same research found that they drink more overall than British women. “I always knew I had a chic inner Frenchwoman,” says a colleague who prefers the every night approach, rather than hosing herself with it once a week. Is Gallic selfcontrol the reason women younger than me are supposedly drinking less? Tut all you want, but almost everyone I know does it My name is Harriet Walker and I am a binge drinker British women are the world’s worst boozers? Tell me about it

6 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times the table times2 weakness and accidentally twinning with Hols. It’s not worth the risk. Alexa Chung nearly drew me back. I bought a black velvet blazer from her collection but when I showed it to friends they looked aghast and said I was way too young to shop at M&S. I was 28. It went straight back (that’s another thing in M&S’s favour, they have one of the most civilised returns Above, from left: Autograph waterproof twist hoops, £18; sweater vest, £49.50; sequinned fringed jacket, £79; leather ankle strap platform court shoes, £55, all marksandspencer.com processes around — I’m used to having to scramble to meet the 14-day deadline but M&S gives you 35 days to deliberate). But what M&S has done really well at is filling the gap in the middle of the high street. My legs are too short for Zara trousers, shopping at Primark makes me feel guilty and I find H&M exhausting — you have to riffle through piles of cheap-looking clothes in unflattering lighting to find anything that doesn’t make you look like a German exchange student. M&S is everything these places are not — the shops are enticing, it has cracked the website and the clothes don’t make you feel like you are the wrong shape. It has trousers and skirts in different lengths (its linen trousers went viral on TikTok over summer and sold out) and shoes that don’t make you wince in pain but don’t look orthopaedic. I wore some gold M&S heels to a wedding last month and didn’t lie about where I bought them — the shame of revealing that you have been to M&S is receding because everyone’s at it. I recently went to the pub and two of my friends were wearing the same M&S sweater vest (£49.50, and it’s cashmere). And we all have a £79 sequined fringed jacket on our shopping lists. Once you enter the M&S world, temptation is all around — from the earrings to the soap in Aesop-alike bottles. The salads are a lunchtime staple — cheaper than Pret! — I like the little bits of cheese wrapped in ham and have been known to serve them as a canapé, and I’ve been informed that they do three rotisserie chickens for eight quid. That’s my next dinner party sorted. Of course not everything is a winner — M&S is a shop that tries to appeal to a wide age range, so you do have to either rummage or scroll, and occasionally join a waiting list. Yet it has definitely come out of its wilderness years and I hope it continues to thrive — where else will millennials get £35 shoes? U ntil this year, M&S was not really on my radar. I do food shopping at Sainsbury’s and most of my wardrobe is from Arket and Cos. Recently, though, I’ve been spending a lot more time at Marks and Sparks — I’ve even signed up to a waiting list for a pair of £35 black mary-janes. I sent a screengrab of the waiting list to a friend, also a recent convert, telling her how popular our new boutique of choice has become, and she signed up too. M&S used to be for buying gins in tins, Colin the Caterpillar cakes for colleagues’ birthdays and that nice salad with feta and pomegranate seeds. Occasionally I’d find a good Eighties jumper from there in a charity shop and older colleagues reminisce about the gems they picked up in its glory days — one used to spot Princess Diana in the High Street Kensington branch. Yet it was not somewhere I’d go on purpose. Even my mum had stopped buying clothes there, so why would I? In the past few months, though, I’ve been on the website so much that I’m getting targeted ads for it and I have enough points on my Sparks loyalty card for a free loaf of sourdough. I’m not the only one. M&S is thriving, defying expectations with better-than-forecast profits, posting adjusted pre-tax profits of £360.2 million for the six months to the end of September, driven by clothing and food. That’s a lot of £35 mary-janes and a serious turnaround from when shops were closing and the few remaining M&S loyalists (average age 65?) were panicking about where they would buy Percy Pigs and comfortable knickers if it went bust. Admittedly, Marks and Sparks has not become mainstream cool. But it has acquired a certain cachet — “it’s M&S, actually” is the stock answer of a type of fashionable woman when you ask where that dress that looks like it’s Ganni is from, accompanied by a pleased look. They are glad you’ve recognised they are able to cannily root out the gold hiding among the garishly patterned sack dresses. Skills. It’s been a slow redemption. The celebrity collaborations didn’t help — the Rosie Huntington-Whiteley underwear looks cheap and uncomfortable, while the brand ambassador Holly Willoughby is not someone I aspire to dress like, especially not in lurid-coloured jumpers that look like something your aunt would buy to cheer herself up. Imagine buying one in a moment of You’ll never guess the new label I love Its clothes may be out of favour with our mothers, but millennials can’t get enough M&S. By Susannah Butter

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 7 the table Bluefin tuna: it’s back in British waters (and in our restaurants) After an absence of 70 years, the fish can be caught again off Cornwall. By Anne Shooter D own in the bowels of the Groucho Club in Soho Erion Karaj leads me into the kitchen, opens the huge fridge and points to a body bag on the floor. “That’s it,” he says. “I put my back out moving it this morning.” From the sack a hefty-looking fish is removed for me to inspect. I have never seen an Atlantic bluefin tuna before — very few people have — but today I’m going to try it for the first time. “Most people will never have tasted bluefin tuna because it’s been endangered, so decent restaurants wouldn’t touch it,” the club’s executive chef explains. Once fished off Britain’s coast, the native bluefin has largely been absent from our waters for 70 years. In fact, worldwide stocks of the fish — which also includes southern and Pacific species — became so depleted that over a decade ago high-end British restaurants buckled under pressure from conservationists and removed bluefin from their menus. Now it’s back. In recent years, the fish have been spotted leaping from the sea off the coast of Cornwall, perceptible evidence that stocks had been rejuvenated in the eastern Atlantic. In 2021 the International Union for Conservation of Nature downgraded its classification of the fish from “endangered” to “least concern”. Ten boats have now been granted licences to catch the fish, using rod and line only, and limited quantities of Cornish bluefin tuna have started to appear on restaurant menus in London and southwest England. The chef and restaurateur Mark Hix, one of those most excited about its return, has added a Cornish tuna section to the menu at the Groucho, where he is food director. It is also being served at Nathan Outlaw’s Michelin-starred New Road restaurant (try his bluefin tartare starter, £22) in Port Isaac, Cornwall, Erion Karaj, executive chef at the Groucho Club in London, who has put bluefin tuna on its menu, below. Top right: a bluefin caught off Cornwall’s coast and Prawn on the Lawn in Padstow and Islington, as well as Lyle’s and Jolene, also in London. “In the 1930s we were famous in Britain for bluefin tuna — or tunny, as it was called then,” Hix says. “Celebrities like Errol Flynn, John Wayne and Ernest Hemingway would go out on herring boats from Scarborough and Whitby to catch these giant fish. And then they were gone. Nobody really knows why but we probably overfished them or the herrings they ate. None have been caught here since the 1950s but now they are back in their thousands. It is brilliant news.” The first legally line-caught Atlantic bluefish tuna was landed in Britain in August. Weighing more than 190kg, it was sold to a wholesaler for nearly £2,000. It wasn’t a huge specimen — the average size of an Atlantic bluefin is about 250kg; the biggest to be caught, off Nova Scotia, was 679kg (more than the weight of a mark I Mini). By comparison, the Groucho’s bluefin is a tiddler. “This is just a 43kg little one,” Karaj says “It cost us £980 but that’s pretty good. They will get more expensive.” Bluefin tuna is clearly in a different league from the skipjack tuna sold tinned in supermarkets, but it is also valued far more highly than the yellowfin tuna more commonly found on restaurant menus, which, Karaj explains, “has been flown in from Sri Lanka, the Maldives or the Mediterranean and pre-frozen. This is a whole different thing. Normally chefs try to make it taste of something with all-Asian flavours of ginger, chilli and garlic. But this is so fresh.” He cuts me some slivers to try from a separate piece of bluefin that he had delivered a day earlier. It is scarlet, shimmering, almost orange at the edges. I eat some raw — it tastes of the sea and is rich with oil — then he cooks me a steak, seasoned with just salt and pepper. I am amazed how different it tastes from any tuna I’ve had before; it has so much flavour. When I call him later to discuss Cornish bluefin, the restaurateur Rick Toogood, of Barnaby’s in Padstow and Prawn on the Lawn, expresses similar sentiments. “Imagine eating a tomato from a supermarket and then trying a tomato fresh from the vine. That’s what we are talking about. It’s a stunning, deep, dark-red colour and so clean tasting — really delicious. “We can’t take a whole fish, so I bought a loin and a section of the belly and am using it in a tartare with smoked anchovy, tomato and lime zest and as a steak with soy butter. My only concern is that we look after the stocks and don’t overfish them.” Tim Macpherson, director of the UK Bluefin Tuna Association, believes there is no chance of that. “The conservation efforts we have put in over the past 20 years have worked and now the quotas are really strict, so there is no way we are going to make a dent in the stocks,” he says. “I am a sport angler and this is exciting — we used to go as far as the Caribbean to catch huge bluefin tuna. Now we have the biggest bluefins in the world being caught off the coast of Cornwall. It is going to be incredible for the economy of the West Country. People will be flying in from all over the world and chartering a boat to fish them. “It all happened because we managed to persuade Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] to fund a study of them over the past three years, and that research has led to this moment. The idea that you can now have Cornish tuna cooked by top chefs is absolutely amazing — it is brilliant for brand Cornwall.” There is a total quota set of 40 tonnes of tuna, which means about 400 fish can be caught between July and December when they are in British waters. “There is definitely no shortage,” says Hix, who also owns the Oyster & Fish House in Lyme Regis, Dorset. “There are thousands of them in huge shoals. If anything, they might cause a problem because they eat all the smaller fish, like mackerel and sea bass. A friend who catches bass says they’re really hard to find at the moment because they’re hiding in wrecks and awkward places to get away from the tuna.’’ It’s a stunning, deep, dark-red colour and so clean tasting

8 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times arts Olaf Schmid, a British army bomb disposal expert, who died in Helmand province, Afghanistan, aged 30. Left: James McConnel with his son Freddy Tragically, a requiem for two became one for four A cantata by James McConnel began as a tribute to a soldier and his widow and became a piece for his collaborator and his own son, who died of an overdose courage. “Will you read it and see what you think?” It was beautifully written. Powerful and desperately sad. Oz’s story, but told through Christina’s eyes, which was the point Kit wanted to make. For Oz, death had been the end. For Christina it was just the beginning. It was a gift for a composer and I started work on it immediately. I saw Christina as a mezzo-soprano, but we wanted Oz to have a musical presence, so his spirit is represented by a solo cello. I also added a male chorus of “soldiers” for commentary and texture. Back from rehab, Freddy was attending NA meetings and we dared to believe that the years of chaos might be behind us. I was about a third of the way through the music when, one morning in May of 2011, Freddy didn’t answer his mobile. Unusual, because normally he was glued to it and we spoke every day. We live in Norfolk, but he was in London, so when he still hadn’t answered by the following evening, I asked one of his friends to go round and check on him. The phrase “Oh God, he’s dead!”, screamed down the phone by a traumatised teenager confronted horrifically with the corpse of a childhood friend, still haunts me. Freddy had died of a heroin overdose. He was lying on a bed littered with the paraphernalia of that particular evil. Grief is a curious thing. And not what one imagines. It isn’t constant, it attacks in waves. One minute it was tear-soaked hand towels — kitchen roll was never enough — the next I was experiencing sudden and inexplicable euphoria. There’s no sense to it and it’s relentless. As for the cantata, I was struck by the sickening irony of now being fully qualified to write Christina’s music. I tried continuing with it — if only to keep busy — but couldn’t face it. One day I dragged it into the metaphorical bottom drawer of my computer hard drive. And I n 2008 my collaborator, the writer Kit Hesketh-Harvey, fell into conversation with a stranger on a beach in Cornwall: Olaf “Oz” Schmid — English, despite his name. “Can I borrow a light?” Dutiful banter became interesting when they discovered they had both been head choristers: Oz at Truro, Kit at Canterbury. Oz, however, was now a staff sergeant in the army’s bomb disposal unit and Kit was intrigued by the seeming contradiction of chorister and soldier. They continued chatting, then went their separate ways and never met again. A little over a year later, Oz was killed while trying to disarm a roadside IED in Helmand province in Afghanistan. He was 30. Rather than grieving in private, Oz’s widow Christina decided to speak out. She campaigned for troops to be better equipped and less overworked, also criticising the paltry size of military pensions. Having seen the extensive TV coverage, Kit not only recognised Oz as the man he’d met on the beach, but was profoundly moved by Christina’s courage. I knew none of this and Kit didn’t mention it. Not then. At that point, I was consumed with trying to manage my 17-year-old, heroin-addicted son, Freddy. Anything else was background static. In 2010, in recognition of his exceptional bravery, Oz was awarded the George Cross posthumously. At roughly the same time, Freddy went into rehab, allowing his mother and me a respite from the trail of emotional anarchy that addicts leave in their wake. Kit, endlessly patient, had other projects, but there was a tacit understanding that eventually we’d start something new. A couple of weeks after Freddy left, Kit rang me. “Look,” he said, “I’ve written the libretto for a cantata and I think you should do the music.” He described the meeting on the beach, then outlined Oz’s story, but emphasised Christina’s dignity and overstatement, Kit. “When can I hear it?” He was very pleased. Actually, I’ve a vague feeling he cried at one point, which, false modesty aside, I suspect was partly relief at hearing his words actually set to music after so long. We started planning a performance, thinking we’d try it out locally first. By January 2023 we had a date: November 11 — Armistice Day — in a beautiful Norfolk church. In February 2023 we had a gig in London, so I rang Kit to arrange a rehearsal. He didn’t answer, which wasn’t unusual, so I texted him. When he still hadn’t replied the next evening, uneasiness turned to genuine concern and I asked someone in his village to check that he was OK. The voice on the phone was gentler this time, but no less shocking. Kit had been found in the bath, having suffered a fatal heart attack. It’s said that losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to anyone. For me, it was true. I’ve also lost both parents; painful as that was, it was an inevitable rite of passage. Losing Kit, who I’d worked with for 40 years, felt unspeakably cruel. Like Olaf and Freddy, he died far too young and had so much more to give. The Requiem aeternam from the cantata was sung at his funeral. A moving but unintended first hearing. I had begun the cantata in tribute to two people: Olaf and Christina. Sadly, the finished version has become a memorial for two more, both of whom I loved and will for ever miss. But it will at least have its first full performance in that Norfolk church on Armistice Day, as we planned. Olaf Schmid is on Saturday in St Margaret’s church, Cley-next-theSea, Norfolk there it stayed, untouched, for nearly eight years. It was Kit who rescued me. He had been one half of the cabaret duo Kit and the Widow, but they had recently separated so Kit suggested he and I do something together. With the name change to Kit & McConnel, it was life-saving. It was comedy. I could write and perform, as long as it was silly and absurd. We played theatres, cabaret venues and festivals. We toured with Joan Rivers; we entertained prime ministers. It was my medicine for coming to terms with Freddy’s death. About once a year, Kit would tactfully nudge me verbally: “Um ... any news on the cantata?” My reply was always: “Don’t ask.” Then along came lockdown. No gigs. One day, I cautiously dusted off the cantata, playing through what I’d written all those years earlier. I thought it was good and finally felt ready to finish it. But I started at the end. The closing section is a simple Requiem aeternam. A prayer for the dead. Ostensibly I wrote it for Olaf, but really it was as much for Freddy. A final goodbye. The rest practically wrote itself. Many of the words were Christina’s own, taken from interviews, which Kit had skilfully inserted into his text. From an emotional perspective, it was as much my story as it was Christina’s. But with “time served”, I was able to write it with real love and empathy, untainted by trauma. “I’ve finished it and I’ve orchestrated it.” “Oh good,” Kit said, as mildly as if I’d told him I was about to pop over for coffee. Never one for Grief is a curious thing. It isn’t constant, it attacks in waves Writer Kit Hesketh-Harvey

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 9 arts broadcast of the seminal 1960s satire show That Was the Week That Was on which the bumptious young Levin baited pompous authority figures. That was when the husband of an actress whose performance Levin had just savaged in a review jumped out of the studio audience and landed a punch on Levin’s face — something that dozens of sleazy politicians, pompous judges, incompetent bankers and corrupt industrialists must have wanted to do in the succeeding decades, as Levin’s pen lacerated them in article after article. But there are also less traumatic extracts from Levin’s joyous TV travelogues, following in Hannibal’s footsteps over the Alps, for instance. And the documentary also includes some distinguished veterans of British journalism — Simon Jenkins (ruefully noting that Levin “won columnist of the year more times than I did”), Bel Mooney, Matthew Parris, Trevor McDonald and Michael Billington among them — offering their insights into Levin’s character and writing, which were inextricably linked. He was never interested in “objective” reporting, and probably congenitally incapable of doing it. His opinions were everything. As he says in the documentary, what motivated him was the feeling that “I have got to say something about that [subject], or I will burst”. That was also how his best columns Bernard Levin on the set of the BBC satirical television series That Was the Week That Was in London in 1963 He said, ‘Could you remind me what I saw last night? I remember it was wonderful’ Bernard Levin: the inspirational, irascible columnist I revered As a documentary about the Times journalist airs, Richard Morrison remembers his colleague and his later Alzheimer’s I shall never forget my last professional encounter with the journalist who inspired me more than any other. One morning in 1997, when I was this newspaper’s arts editor, I was summoned by the editor. “Bernard can’t manage the big op-ed pieces any more,” he said. I knew that. Everyone did. The most famous byline in postwar British journalism, Bernard Levin, had been appearing less and less often in the pages from which he had thundered for 26 years. “But he says he can still review things,” the editor continued. “Can you send him to cover an opera or something?” I did, that very evening. Early the next morning he bounded towards the arts desk, his eyes shining. “Wonderful show!” he exclaimed, plonking himself at a computer terminal. “How many words do you want? 500? 800?” Then the life seemed to drain from his face. Two or three times I saw the fingers that had typed 17 million words of journalism move towards the keyboard, only to retreat again. “I just need to know ...” he faltered. “Could you, um, just remind me what I saw last night? I remember it was wonderful.” Of course, he never wrote that review. I’m not sure he ever wrote again for The Times. That lightningquick brain, that scathing wit, that colossal memory — once capable of concocting, probably without recourse to a single reference book, a column based entirely on Shakespeare phrases that have entered everyday usage — had been blunted by the onset of Alzheimer’s. He was at the start of an irreversible seven-year degeneration to death, and he knew it. “You must walk away, now,” he told Liz Anderson, the journalist who was by then his closest companion. Heroically, she never did. I mention all this because The Remarkable Journey of Bernard Levin, a new BBC4 documentary, doesn’t mention it at all. There’s no trace of Levin’s final years (he died in 2004 at the age of 75), nor his illness, nor the woman who gave him such love at the end. I understand why. The programme-makers wanted to celebrate Levin in his prime. And there’s plenty to celebrate. Inevitably there’s archive footage of that unforgettable moment on a live read, like one unbroken stream of anger, mockery, whimsicality or (in the case of his grand cultural passions, which included Wagner, Kiri Te Kanawa, the essays of Michel de Montaigne and the world’s most expensive French restaurants) gushing adulation. When he wrote that 1,500-word piece for The Times using just one full-stop, it wasn’t to show off his command of syntax and semi-colons (well, maybe it was a little), but because that’s how his brain worked: marshalling metaphors, highly selective facts, quixotic asides and fearless insults into a single, uninterruptible narrative that rolled on and on rather like his beloved Wagner’s operas, but with considerably more jokes. With that went a boundless confidence in his ability to hold the reader’s attention. That accounts for the celebrated first sentence — “And another thing.” — of his first Times column after a 12-month sabbatical (coinciding, not by chance, with Harold Evans’s brief stint as editor). That confidence also included demanding the highest possible fees for his work — money he needed because (as Billington observes in the documentary) he liked the best of everything: food, wine, literature, travel, theatre and the company of beautiful women, not necessarily in that order. All that is chronicled in the documentary. Arianna Stassinopoulous Huffington, the Greek author with whom Levin had a ten-year romance, is interviewed at length. The only reason she and Levin didn’t marry, she claims, is that she wanted children and he didn’t. But anyone who knew Levin will know it was a lot more complex than that. As a child he had been brought up in the grim backstreets of 1930s Somers Town (between St Pancras and Euston stations) by his mother and her parents — Jewish refugees from Lithuania. His father had walked out on them when Bernard was three. That early betrayal, I always felt, explained a lot about why he stayed a bachelor. It was as if he used his intellect to dazzle because he found it difficult to communicate, or commit, on an emotional level. But his childhood also held the key to the power of his journalism. It instilled a distanced attitude to his surroundings. Winning a scholarship to the staunchly Anglican public school, Christ’s Hospital, he must have felt like a loner: the sparky Jewish boy in a sea of dull Anglo-Saxons. That outsider mentality stayed with him, indeed was the main impetus of his writing. He somehow inhabited the grandest enclaves of the British establishment (apart from the Garrick Club, where his application for membership was shamefully blackballed), yet was never seduced into turning a blind eye to its injustices and absurdities. And whether it was that tough indoctrination into life on the mean streets of Somers Town, or the influence of his Jewish Eastern Europe heritage, he retained throughout his life a distrust, bordering on hatred, of authority figures. It didn’t matter if the villains were the totalitarian dictators of the Soviet empire or the high-handed bosses of Britain’s water and gas companies, he loved nothing better than taking up cudgels on behalf of their victims: the little people. All this inspired me, as I imagine it did a thousand other hacks of my generation. And there was one other thing. “I became a journalist by accident,” Levin wrote. “Just as well; I have no other talent whatever.” In those two honest sentences, he encapsulated the thrill and terror of journalism: the necessity of surviving (or not) entirely on your wits. Which is why I’m sad that the documentary draws a veil over his final years. Levin’s life was indeed “a remarkable journey”, and it’s surely important to record why that journey ended. Not because he got bored with writing, or because he had run out of ideas, but simply because his final illness tragically and ironically robbed him of the one thing that sustained him through his illustrious career: his wits. Thank goodness he banged out those 17 million words before nature imposed its cruel deadline. The Remarkable Journey of Bernard Levin is on BBC4 at 10.30pm on Sunday

10 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times times2 Your weekday brain boost More puzzles Pages 14-16 TRAIN TRACKS CODEWORD FUTOSHIKI SUDOKU yesterday’s solutions SAMURAI KILLER SUKO Solutions in Monday’s Times2 Mini Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x2 box contains the digits 1 to 6 Codeword Every letter in the crossword-style grid, right, is represented by a number from 1 to 26. Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters already provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main grid and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded. Suko Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so that the number in each circle is equal to the sum of the four surrounding spaces, and each colour total is correct Fill each grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Where the puzzles overlap, the rows and columns do not go beyond their usual length. Every day, Monday to Thursday, a page of extra puzzles to give your brain an extended workout Samurai medium Sudoku difficult Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted lines, a digit cannot be repeated. Killer deadly Train Tracks Lay tracks to enable the train to travel from village A to village B. The numbers indicate how many sections of track go in each row and column. There are only straight sections and curved sections. The track cannot cross itself. Futoshiki Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between the squares indicate whether a number is larger (>) or smaller (<) than the number next to it. Solve Times puzzles interactively with same-day solutions at thetimes.co.uk MINI SUDOKU

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 11 television & radio Times Radio Digital, web, smart speaker, app 5.00am Rosie Wright with Early Breakfast 6.00 Aasmah Mir and Stig Abell with Times Radio Breakfast 10.00 Matt Chorley. An insider’s guide to politics 1.00pm Mariella Frostrup. Cultural guests and big thinkers 3.00 Jane Garvey and Fi Glover 5.00 John Pienaar with Times Radio Drive 7.00 Pienaar and Friends. Informed debate with leading figures 8.00 The Evening Edition with Kait Borsay 10.00 Henry Bonsu 1.00am Stories of Our Times 1.30 Red Box 2.00 Highlights from Times Radio Radio 2 FM: 88-90.2 MHz 6.30am The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show 9.30 Vernon Kay. Davina McCall helps Vernon prepare for his Children in Need challenge 12.00 Jeremy Vine 2.00pm Scott Mills 4.00 Sara Cox 6.30 Sara Cox’s Half Wower 7.00 Jo Whiley’s Shiny Happy Playlist 7.30 Jo Whiley 9.00 The Country Show with Bob Harris. Bob Harris introduces the 57th annual Country Music Association Awards — the CMAs — from Nashville. The CMAs are the biggest night of the year in country music 10.00 Trevor Nelson’s Magnificent 7. Seven of Rhythm Nation’s biggest hits, uplifting tunes and essential throwbacks 10.30 Trevor Nelson’s Rhythm Nation. The DJ introduces a mix of R’n’B and soulful tunes 12.00 OJ Borg 3.00am Sounds of the 90s (r) 4.00 Owain Wyn Evans Radio 3 FM: 90.2-92.4 MHz 6.30am Breakfast Kate Molleson presents Radio 3’s classical breakfast show with music that captures the mood of the morning 9.00 Essential Classics Georgia Mann plays the best in classical music with familiar favourites alongside new discoveries and musical surprises 12.00 Composer of the Week: Berlioz and Shakespeare Donald Macleod explores more of Berlioz’s ambitious experiments in musical storytelling, including an opera based on Virgil’s tales of the Trojan War that he had loved as a child. Berlioz (Marche hongroise; La Damnation de Faust: Part 2 (excerpts); L’Enfance du Christ: Part 2, “La fuite en Egypte” — excerpts); Les Troyens, Act 4: “Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase infinie!”; and Roméo et Juliette, Parts 4 & 5) 1.00pm Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert Sarah Walker presents Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich performing Schumann and Debussy in Ravenna plus Antje Weithaas and friends performing Dvorak’s joyous evocative Dumky Trio. Schumann (Fantasiestücke, op. 73); Dvorak (Piano Trio No.4 in E minor, Op.90 “Dumky”); and Debussy (Cello Sonata in D minor, L. 135) (r) 2.00 Afternoon Concert Penny Gore presents great concert performances from the BBC performing groups and from across Europe. Handel (Music for the Royal Fireworks — Overture); Prokofiev (Cinderella Suite No.2); Beethoven (Piano Sonata in F sharp Op.78); Wagner (The Flying Dutchman — Overture); and Pergolesi (Stabat Mater) 4.00 Choral Evensong From St Giles Cripplegate Church, London with the BBC Singers and Girl Choristers of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Introit: Crossing the bar (Parry, arr. Anna Lapwood). Responses: The Girl Choristers of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Psalms 41, 42, 43 (The Girl Choristers of Pembroke College, Cambridge). First Lesson: Proverbs 3 vv.27-35. Canticles: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in C (Wayne Marshall). Second Lesson: Matthew 18 vv.21-35. Anthem: Remember (Owain Park). Hymn: The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended/Sunset (St Clement/Sunset arr. Jonathan Wikeley). Voluntary: Deuxième Fantaisie (Alain). Anna Lapwood (conductor, Artist in Association). Matthew Williams (Trumpet), Francesca Massey (Organist). Recorded 29 June 5.00 In Tune The Polish trio Kroke perform live 7.00 Classical Mixtape 7.30 Live Radio 3 in Concert Nicola Benedetti plays Wynton Marsalis, introduced live from the Royal Festival Hall by Martin Handley. Wynton Marsalis (Violin Concerto); Ellington (Three Black Kings); and Gershwin (arr. Bennett) (Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture) See Radio Choice 10.00 Free Thinking Ultrasound tests in Burnley market hall will help the phonetics lab at Lancaster University. Claire Nance joins John Gallagher to explain more 10.45 The Essay: On Disappointment Rachel Cooke looks at the disappointments that seem to be built into political life (r) 11.00 The Night Tracks Mix Hannah Peel with a magical sonic journey for late-night listening 11.30 Unclassified (r) 12.30am Through the Night Radio 4 FM: 92.4-94.6 MHz LW: 198kHz MW: 720 kHz 5.30am News Briefing 5.43 Prayer for the Day 5.45 Farming Today 5.58 Tweet of the Day (r) 6.00 Today 8.31 (LW) Yesterday in Parliament 9.00 In Our Time The Barbary Corsairs 9.45 (LW) Daily Service 9.45 Prime Ministers’ Props David Cannadine considers Harold Macmillan as Supermac (4/5) 10.00 Woman’s Hour Emma Barnett presents topical conversation offering a female perspective on the world 11.00 From Our Own Correspondent Reports from across the globe (7/8) 11.30 A Good Read Nigel Kennedy and Clare Perkins choose their favourite books (6/9) (r) 12.01pm (LW) Shipping Forecast 12.04 You and Yours 12.32 Sliced Bread The scientific evidence behind a product’s bold claims (7/12) 1.00 The World at One 1.45 Battle Grounds: Culture Wars in the Countryside Anna Jones uncovers a newly emerging culture war around trees (4/5) 2.00 The Archers (r) 2.15 Drama: Broken Colours By Matthew Broughton (4/4) (r) 3.00 Open Country An increase in call-outs to rescue teams in the Lake District (2/15) 3.27 Radio 4 Appeal On behalf of Child Rescue Nepal (r) 3.30 Bookclub Katherine Heiny answers questions about her novel Standard Deviation (r) 4.00 Legend: The Joni Mitchell Story Joni makes it from New York to LA’s Laurel Canyon, before releasing her first song (2/6) 4.30 BBC Inside Science 5.00 PM 5.54 (LW) Shipping Forecast 6.00 Six O’Clock News 6.30 It’s a Fair Cop Tales involving dog thefts (1/6) (r) 7.00 The Archers It is all change at Berrow and George hatches a plan 7.15 Front Row Arts programme 8.00 Law in Action Legal developments (3/4) (r) 8.30 The Bottom Line An overview of the business world (7/8) 9.00 BBC Inside Science The latest scientific research (r) 9.30 In Our Time (r) 10.00 The World Tonight 10.45 The Haunter of the Dark By Julian Simpson (9/10) 11.00 The Today Podcast The biggest news stories of the week (6/24) 11.30 Today in Parliament 12.00 News and Weather 12.30am Prime Ministers’ Props Broadcast earlier (r) 12.48 Shipping Forecast 1.00 As BBC World Service Radio 4 Extra Digital only 8.00am Dad’s Army 8.30 Second Thoughts 9.00 The Unbelievable Truth 9.30 Stockport, So Good They Named It Once 10.00 Late in the Day 11.00 Galbraith and the King of Diamonds 11.45 Dick Barton — Special Agent 12.00 Grandmothers 12.15pm Shakespeare’s Restless World 12.30 The Break 1.00 Dad’s Army 1.30 Second Thoughts 2.00 The Unbelievable Truth 2.30 Stockport, So Good They Named It Once 3.00 Late in the Day 4.00 Galbraith and the King of Diamonds 4.45 Dick Barton — Special Agent 5.00 Grandmothers 5.15 Shakespeare’s Restless World 5.30 The Break 6.00 Dad’s Army 6.30 Second Thoughts 7.00 The Unbelievable Truth. With Lucy Porter, Zoe Lyons, Sean Lock and Jack Dee 7.30 Stockport, So Good They Named It Once. Comedy with Beverley Callard 8.00 The Real Comedy Controllers: The Things That Made Us Laugh. Paul Jackson, Beryl Vertue, John Lloyd and Jimmy Mulville return to the alternative comedy of the 1980s. Last in the series 9.00 Great Lives. Owen Sheers nominates fellow Welsh poet Dylan Thomas for recognition 9.30 Doctor Who: Tenth Doctor Adventures. The Doctor and Donna continue their search for an evil, outlawed weapon 10.00 Comedy Club: Absolutely. Mr Muzak takes on his social media network’s algorithms. Last in the series 10.30 The Lawrence Sweeney Mix. Improvised sketch show 10.55 The Comedy Club Interview. Jon Holmes is in conversation with Tom Walker 11.00 State of the Nations. Comedian Elis James tours the four nations of the UK in search of our distinct identities 11.30 A Look Back at the Future. Comedy starring Kate Robbins Radio 5 Live MW: 693, 909 5.00am Wake Up to Money 6.00 5 Live Breakfast 9.00 Nicky Campbell 11.00 Adrian Chiles 1.00pm Nihal Arthanayake 4.00 5 Live Drive 7.00 5 Live Sport 8.00 5 Live Sport: The Euro Leagues Podcast 10.00 Colin Murray 1.00am Edward Adoo talkSPORT MW: 1053, 1089 kHz 5.00am Early Breakfast 6.00 talkSPORT Breakfast with Alan Brazil 10.00 Jim White and Simon Jordan 1.00pm Hawksbee and Baker 4.00 talkSPORT Drive with Andy Goldstein and Darren Bent 7.00 Kick Off 10.00 Sports Bar 1.00am Extra Time TalkRadio Digital only 5.00am James Max 6.00 Talk Today with Jeremy Kyle and Nicola Thorp 9.00 Kev and Alex 10.00 Julia Hartley-Brewer 1.00pm Kevin O’Sullivan and Alex Phillips 3.00 Peter Cardwell 4.00 Vanessa Feltz 6.00 The Talk 7.00 Prime Time with Rosanna Lockwood 8.00 Piers Morgan Uncensored 9.00 The Independent Republic of Mike Graham 11.00 Andre Walker 1.00am Paul Ross 6 Music Digital only 5.00am Chris Hawkins 7.30 Lauren Laverne 10.30 Mary Anne Hobbs 1.00pm Craig Charles 4.00 Huw Stephens 6.00 Roundtable 7.00 New Music Fix Daily 9.00 6 Music Artist in Residence 10.00 Riley & Coe 12.00 New Music Fix with Huw Stephens 1.00am New Music Fix with Mary Anne Hobbs 2.00 New Music Fix with Jamz Supernova 3.00 New Album Fix 4.00 New Music Fix Playlist Virgin Radio Digital only 6.30am Chris Evans 10.00 Eddy TempleMorris 1.00pm Jayne Middlemiss 4.00 Ricky Wilson 7.00 Bam 10.00 Amy Voce 1.00am Sean Goldsmith 4.00 Steve Denyer Classic FM FM: 100-102 MHz 6.00am More Music Breakfast 9.00 Alexander Armstrong 12.00 Lucy Coward 4.00pm Margherita Taylor 7.00 Smooth Classics at Seven 10.00 Calm Classics 1.00am Bill Overton 4.00 Early Breakfast Radio choice Joe Clay Radio 3 in Concert Radio 3, 730pm Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in an exciting all-American programme. The highlight is the jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto, which as well as the spirituals, blues and gospel of his native America includes Celtic fiddle tunes and ends with an exuberant barn dance stomp, played here by the Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti, above. The programme also includes Duke Ellington’s final composition, Three Black Kings, and a symphonic orchestration of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. Introduced live from London’s Royal Festival Hall by Martin Handley. our tv newsletter ‘Iwish I’d met him,” said Judi Dench, who is getting a lot of TV airtime lately. It’s the second time this week alone that the BBC has treated us to a clip of her wail as Lady Macbeth (it was also in This Cultural Life). She was referring to William Shakespeare, whose ambition, canny opportunism and exceptional understanding of the human condition were celebrated in Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius. But by the end you were reminded of how surprisingly little is really known about the man, the personality himself. As a piece of work charting the historical context of his life (living through two monarchs and the plague) and the political and social hoops he had to jump through to be accepted, it was enjoyable. The playwright Robert Greene had snobbishly lampooned him as an “upstart crow”, a jack of all trades with a Midlands accent and a tendency to tightfistedness. If there is a playwrights’ corner of Heaven, imagine the last laugh that upstart crow is having about that now. He even got a Ben Elton sitcom out of it. However, I would have welcomed a deeper sense of Shakespeare as a person. How might a 16th-century Midlands accent have sounded, for instance? Daniel Boyarsky’s part, alas, was non-speaking. The dramatic reconstructions, although well imagined, were largely mute and didn’t always add much. Maybe no one was willing to put words into the mouth of the world’s greatest wordsmith. This, though, is where the talking heads came in. The contributions of Brian Cox (actor not physicist), Jessie Buckley, Helen Mirren, Lucy Jago, Martin Freeman, Judi Dench, Adrian Lester and the former prime minister Gordon Brown really did enliven and invigorate the series, which isn’t something you can always say (Brown said he has never read Machiavelli’s The Prince as politicians are advised — he would recommend reading Shakespeare instead). Buckley and Cox were possibly the most expressive, Cox explaining that King Lear represents Shakespeare beating himself up for the mistakes he made with his own family. “Family is a kingdom,” he said, adding that he had sometimes allowed his career to take precedence over his personal relationships. The best contributor was Professor Ewan Fernie, chairman of Shakespeare studies at the University of Birmingham, whose analysis I could have listened to all day, especially of Hamlet’s line “the interim is mine”: real life existing in the off-peak spaces between the headline events. There was a tantalising glimpse of Shakespeare’s handwriting, which surprisingly lacked much punctuation. Someone posited that the genius thoughts came out of his head so fast he had to get them down quickly, like a stream of consciousness. In the last of this three-parter, narrated by Juliet Stevenson, we didn’t hear anything about how Shakespeare died or what of. Theories include one that syphilis was a factor and another that he died after a drinking session. I would have welcomed an expert’s two penn’oth anyway. But it’s an absorbing three hours and at a time when Netflix is making profile series about David Beckham, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the like, it’s pretty safe to say Shakespeare has more than earned his own on the BBC. The world’s greatest wordsmith remains a mystery Carol Midgley TV review Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius BBC2 {{{(( Daniel Boyarsky as William Shakespeare in the three-parter

12 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times television & radio natural so could be sold in ordinary shops. Stiff Nights was a sales sensation but, as this documentary reveals, success was short-lived when it was found to contain sildenafil, an ingredient that could cause issues for people on medication for low blood pressure. A sting was launched to catch out Avore and his business partner. The Great Erection Deception: The Stiff Nights Story ITVX In the Noughties a vegan called Erb Avore started selling a sexual enhancement supplement called Stiff Nights. Avore claimed his herbal pill, unlike Viagra, was completely looking to revive his career with his simultaneous election coverage on a rival network. It continues tomorrow night at 9pm, and the second episode follows the team’s response to a mass shooting in Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, where the decision to show a dead body in the News at Six coverage causes uproar. anticipated six hours of unbroken air time. They are put under undue pressure by their brash new chief executive, Charlie Tate (Daniel Gillies), who has made them promise a 7.45pm guarantee on the outcome of the election. They also face a ratings challenge from their former colleague Geoff Walters (Robert Taylor), who is and Dale Jennings (Sam Reid) are now well established as “the golden couple of news”, appearing on a popular chat show two days before the election. However, while they are all smiles and smart quips, the dynamic duo and their colleagues at the ratings-dominant News at Six face the daunting challenge of an TV station in the Eighties. The action picks up a year after the events of series one. It’s 1987 and a pivotal federal election is looming, fought between the incumbent Australian Labor Party, led by prime minister Bob Hawke, and the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led by John Howard. Helen Norville (Anna Torv) Viewing Guide Joe Clay The Newsreader BBC2, 9pm A second series of the Australian take on Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, with six more episodes of accomplished drama set at a busy Melbourne Top pick 7PM Early 8PM 9PM 10PM 11PM Late BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 Channel 4 Channel 5 7.00 The One Show Alex Jones and Roman Kemp present 7.30 EastEnders Reiss drowns his sorrows in The Vic and gets relationship advice from the residents of Walford. Karen makes her feelings known (AD) 8.00 MasterChef: The Professionals The quarter-final sees the chefs asked to prepare and cook a standout tart — a sweet or savoury pastry treat that will blow the competition out of the water (AD) 9.00 Stacey Dooley: Inside the Undertakers Stacey confronts one of society’s last taboos — death — by immersing herself in the world of undertaking at one of the UK’s busiest family-run funeral businesses. See Viewing Guide (AD) 10.00 BBC News at Ten 10.30 BBC Regional News and Weather 10.40 Question Time Fiona Bruce chairs the topical debate, inviting a panel of politicians and other guests in Llandudno, north Wales, to answer questions from an invited audience 11.40 Newscast BBC journalists including Laura Kuenssberg, Adam Fleming and Chris Mason host a weekly round-up from Westminster, delivering the usual mix of serious analysis and light-hearted gossip about the biggest stories in politics 12.15am-6.00 BBC News 7.00 Villages by the Sea Archaeologist Ben Robinson explores Cushendall in Northern Ireland (3/10) 7.30 Mary Makes It Easy Mary Berry offers ideas set to impress DJ Jordan North’s friends (2/6) (AD) 8.00 Saving Lives at Sea In Blackpool, the crew respond to reports of a teenager who has been swept out to sea, within sight of the main beach (7/10) (AD) 9.00 The Newsreader New series. The News at Six team prepares to report on the 1987 general election. Australian drama starring Anna Torv. See Viewing Guide (1/6) (AD) 9.50 The Fast and the Farmer-ish Teams compete to be the best tractor drivers in England (1/7) (r) 10.00 Mock the Week With Maisie Adam, Angela Barnes, Ed Byrne, Milton Jones and Kae Kurd (4/13) (r) 10.30 Newsnight Headline analysis presented by Kirsty Wark 11.15 The Secret Genius of Modern Life Hannah Fry delves into the hidden technology behind everyday objects, starting with the passport, and the top-secret site where technology and staff make it so secure (1/6) (r) (AD) 12.15am Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius Documentary drama telling the story of the writer, beginning with his move from rural Stratford to London to pursue his dream of becoming a playwright (r) (AD) 1.15 Sign Zone: Strictly Come Dancing (r) (AD, SL) 2.45-3.25 Strictly Come Dancing: The Results (r) (AD, SL) 7.30 Emmerdale Nicola gives advice, Jai hears Amit’s reasons, and Bernice continues to treat herself (AD) 8.30 After Lucy Letby: Silence on the Wards? Tonight Investigating the estimated 11,000 avoidable deaths a year due to NHS patient safety failings 9.00 Inside M&S New series. Filmed over a year and with unprecedented access, for the first time, cameras have been invited inside every corner of M&S. See Viewing Guide 10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.30 Regional News 10.45 Man of Steel (12, 2013) An alien living in secret on Earth uses his extraordinary powers to defend the human race from a genocidal invasion. Sci-fi adventure starring Henry Cavill and Amy Adams (AD) 1.00am All Elite Wrestling: Rampage Hard-hitting wrestling action (r) 1.55 Cash Trapped (r) 2.45 Loose Women (r) 3.30 Counting Tigers: A Survival Special. A wildlife survey to take stock of India’s tiger population (r) (AD, SL) 4.20 Unwind with ITV 5.10-6.00 Moneyball. Game show hosted by Ian Wright (r) (AD, SL) 7.00 Channel 4 News 8.00 The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice Jo Brand and guests Prue Leith, Joel Dommett and Ignacio Lopez reflect on Dessert Week. Tom Allen casts his beady eye upon the bakes brought along by the studio audience (7/10) (AD) 9.00 Taskmaster The mystery of the secret task is revealed to the baffled participants, before the answers are gathered to some age-old questions such as who will get to wear the “Special Hat”? (AD) 10.00 Hullraisers New series. Toni continues to distract herself from her pregnancy. Leah Brotherhead stars. See Viewing Guide (1/6) (AD) 10.30 Hullraisers Toni flees the scene, leaving Craig without an answer to his shock proposal. See Viewing Guide (2/6) (AD) 11.05 Banged Up Former MP Neil Parish does not get a warm welcome, pop star HRVY’s gold bracelet causes a great deal of interest among the prisoners and Sid Owen arranges an acting class (2/4) (r) (AD, SL) 12.05am Naked Attraction (r) (AD) 1.00 Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (r) (AD, SL) 1.50 Ramsay’s Hotel Hell (r) (AD, SL) 2.40 Iris Prize Best British Shorts (AD) 3.45 World’s Most Secret Hotels (r) (AD) 4.35 Couples Come Dine with Me (r) 5.30 Strangers on a Plane (r) 5.55-6.05 Escape to the Château (r) 7.00 Secret Life of the Forest Cameras document the start of autumn in Dalby and Cropton Forests. They also focus on fungi, and there is a final visit to the beaver family in Cropton (8/8) 7.55 5 News Update 8.00 Inside the Tower of London It is spring, and the Tower is weeks away from the crowning of a new monarch, so the Beefeaters’ iconic uniforms must be updated to represent King Charles III 9.00 All Creatures Great and Small Helen feels redundant at Skeldale, and buried family secrets threaten to tear their relationship apart as Richard refuses to let her muck in on the farm. Last in the series 10.00 Wife on Strike People who do the majority of household chores down tools for a week, leaving their families to do all the domestic jobs, beginning with two women in London (r) 11.05 999: Critical Condition A man is admitted to Royal Stoke emergency department after falling down a flight of stairs onto concrete and a trauma team leader fears the worst (3/8) (r) 12.05am ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 1.05 Casino Show 3.05 The Yorkshire Steam Railway: All Aboard (r) 3.55 Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun at Christmas (r) 4.45 Friends (r) 5.30 Entertainment News on 5 5.40 Milkshake! Monkey’s Amazing Adventures (r) (SL) 5.45-6.00 Paw Patrol (r) (SL) 6.00am Breakfast 9.15 Morning Live 10.00 Scam Interceptors (r) 10.45 Dr Xand’s Con or Cure. A report on fake medicines being touted as “cures” for autism 11.15 Homes Under the Hammer. Properties in Leicestershire, Somerset and Blackpool are appraised 12.15pm Bargain Hunt. From Brackley in Northamptonshire (r) (AD) 1.00 BBC News at One; Weather 1.30 BBC Regional News; Weather 1.45 Doctors. Suni gets on Scarlett’s nerves and Al has his first therapy session (AD) 2.15 The Bidding Room. Items include a rice warmer, a kingfisher vase and a hop sieve (r) 3.00 Escape to the Country. Ginny Buckley helps three generations of a family to find a new home in the East Midlands, and meets a volunteer group helping to restore the area’s local canals and footpaths (r) (AD) 3.45 The Travelling Auctioneers. Christina Trevanion and Will Kirk visit an East Sussex couple who want to sell their antiques to fund a dream home (r) 4.30 The Repair Shop. Jay Blades and the team restore a rusty tricycle, a wedding photograph album and a Chinese porcelain figurine (r) (AD) 5.15 Pointless. Quiz hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Nish Kumar 6.00 BBC News at Six; Weather 6.30 BBC Regional News; Weather 6.15am Celebrity Antiques Road Trip (r) 7.15 Bargain Hunt (r) 8.00 Sign Zone: Sort Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon (r) (AD, SL) 9.00 BBC News 12.15pm Politics Live 1.00 Impossible (r) 1.45 Lightning (r) 2.15 Eat Well for Less? Two single mothers join forces to help improve each other’s diet, and turn to Gregg Wallace and Chris Bavin for help in finding healthy meals all of their children will enjoy (r) (AD) 3.15 Mountain Vets. Newly qualified vet Patrick tends a cow struggling with a difficult labour (r) (AD) 3.45 The Farmers’ Country Showdown. Two pedigree cattle farmers battle it out at the Royal Welsh Show (r) 4.15 World’s Busiest Railway 2015. Robert Llewellyn visits Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus’s repair facility, where carriages are dispatched for annual MOTs (r) (AD) 5.15 Flog It! At Dover Castle, Kent, James Lewis unearths a silver owl inkwell and Catherine Southon discovers an alabaster bust. Host Paul Martin examines the history of the English Channel (r) 6.00 Richard Osman’s House of Games. Jimi Famurewa, William Hanson, Sinitta and Maisie Smith take part 6.30 Strictly: It Takes Two. Janette Manrara dishes up all the backstage gossip 6.00am Good Morning Britain 9.00 Lorraine. Entertainment, current affairs and fashion news, as well as showbiz stories and interviews 10.00 This Morning. Daily magazine, featuring a mix of interviews, showbusiness news, lifestyle features, topical discussion, health and beauty advice and more. Including Local Weather 12.30pm Loose Women. The panel puts the world to rights once more 1.30 ITV News; Weather 1.55 Regional News; Weather 2.00 James Martin’s American Adventure. James heads to Louisiana and Avery Island, a large salt mound that is the home of the chilli peppers used to make Tabasco sauce (r) (AD) 3.00 Lingo. A married couple from Spalding, a mother and daughter from Banbury, and a Birmingham couple take part. Presented by Adil Ray (r) 4.00 Tipping Point. Ben Shephard hosts the arcade-themed quiz in which contestants drop tokens down a choice of four chutes in the hope of winning a £10,000 jackpot (r) 5.00 The Chase. Bradley Walsh presents as four contestants answer general knowledge questions and work as a team to take on one of the ruthless Chasers and secure a cash prize (r) 6.00 Regional News; Weather 6.30 ITV News; Weather 6.05am Countdown. Tanni Grey-Thompson is in Dictionary Corner (r) 6.45 Cheers (r) 7.35 Everybody Loves Raymond (r) (AD) 8.25 Frasier (r) (AD) 9.55 Find It, Fix It, Flog It (r) (AD) 10.55 Renovation Nation (r) (AD) 11.55 Channel 4 News Summary 12.00 Steph’s Packed Lunch 2.10pm Countdown. Tanni Grey-Thompson is in Dictionary Corner 3.00 A Place in the Sun. Danni Menzies helps a pair of Lincolnshire farmers, who are looking for a holiday home, in and around the town of Coin in Spain’s Málaga Province (r) 4.00 A Place in the Sun. Danni Menzies house-hunts with a couple from Northumberland, who wish to buy a holiday home together in Kefalonia. The pair have a budget of £200,000 5.00 Help! We Bought a Village. A young couple battle with crumbling bridges and Baltic weather at their Italian borgo, while the custodians of a French hamlet uncover some ancient farming equipment 6.00 Four in a Bed. The week’s final visit is to the Cross Inn in Heptonstall, West Yorkshire 6.30 The Simpsons. Three spooky tales for the show’s 30th Hallowe’en special, including a parody of Stranger Things, and a dead Homer’s spirit trying on some new bodies for size (AD) 6.00am Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy Vine. The broadcaster and guests discuss the issues of the day 11.15 Storm Huntley. Debate on the day’s talking points continues with the presenter 12.15pm Alexis Conran. The actor, writer and broadcaster examines the important stories of the day, getting viewers’ opinions and views on them 12.50 Entertainment News on 5 12.55 5 News at Lunchtime 1.00 Home and Away. Roo responds with anger to Marilyn’s ultimatum, and Mali and Rose reconnect after her work trip (r) (AD) 1.30 FILM: An Unforgettable Christmas (PG, TVM, 2020) A woman is in for a surprise when she wakes up and thinks she is late for her own wedding. Romantic comedy starring Ashley Greene and Andrew W Walker 3.15 FILM: The Search for Secret Santa (PG, TVM, 2022) A rookie reporter thinks she has found a story that will save her career when she discovers a long-lost, undelivered Secret Santa gift. Mystery starring Skye Coyne 5.00 5 News at 5 6.00 Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly. Graeme Hall travels to the Peak District to meet an owner in desperate need of his help with her troublesome terrier (r) 6.55 5 News Update

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 13 television & radio Film Hilary and Jackie Film4, 1.25am Emily Watson gives a virtuoso performance as Jacqueline du Pré, the cellist whose life was shattered by multiple sclerosis. The drama explores the tensions of creative genius alongside illness, sibling rivalry and adultery. (15, 1998) Craig (Perry Fitzpatrick), but she is in denial and diverts her energies into unmasking the “East Riding Romeo” she believes has duped Craig’s mum (Felicity Montagu). It nicely blends broad humour, absurdity and poignancy, while tackling weighty subjects such as grief and the menopause. Hullraisers Channel 4, 10pm/10.30pm The sitcom adapted by Lucy Beaumont from the Israeli show Little Mom returns, following the misadventures of the actress Toni (Leah Brotherhead), her older sister Paula (Sinead Matthews) and Paula’s sister-in-law Rana (Taj Atwal). Baby No 2 is on the way for Toni and years in the brand’s 139-year history. For the first time, cameras have been invited inside every corner of the business, from its top-secret development kitchens at HQ to shop floors across the country. Filmed over a year, the series will culminate with the festive season. Will it be another record breaker? Inside M&S ITV1, 9pm Marks & Spencer is a bellwether of UK retail, with its fortunes seen as a barometer for the health of the industry. In 2022 the chain achieved a recordbreaking Christmas as clothing and homeware sales started to rise, but 2023 is shaping up to be one of the most critical Stacey Dooley: Inside the Undertakers BBC1, 9pm Stacey Dooley is terrified of dying, but like many Brits she finds the subject impossible to talk about. To try to come to terms with her mortality, she travels to Nottingham to go behind the scenes at the undertakers AW Lymn — The Family Funeral Service and find out about the business of death. She spends time with funeral arrangers, the florists, the coffin and headstone makers and the embalmers, and also meets bereaved families and discovers the role faith plays in today’s increasingly secular society. BBC1 N Ireland As BBC1 except: 10.40pm The View 11.20 Question Time. In Llandudno, north Wales 12.20am Newscast 12.50-6.00 BBC News BBC1 Scotland As BBC1 except: 11.15am Bargain Hunt (r) 12.00-1.00 First Minister’s Questions 7.00pm-7.30 River City (r) BBC1 Wales As BBC1 except: 12.15am Survivor (r) (AD) 1.10-6.00 BBC News BBC2 N Ireland As BBC2 except: 10.00pm-10.30 Upstart Crow. Comedy series (r) (AD) BBC2 Wales As BBC2 except: 5.15pm Coast (r) 5.30-6.00 Weatherman Walking: Dylan’s Walks — Swansea & Llansteffan (r) 7.00-7.30 Weatherman Walking: Dylan’s Walks — New Quay and Laugharne (r) 11.15-12.15am Welsh Rugby: Keeping the Faith. A look at the future prospects of the national team following a World Cup campaign that saw them reach the quarter-finals (r) STV As ITV1 except: 8.30pm-9.00 Scotland Tonight 10.30 STV News 10.45 After Lucy Letby: Silence on the Wards? Tonight 11.10 Long Lost Family (r) 12.05am-1.00 Unbelievable Moments Caught on Camera (r) 4.20-5.10 Night Vision UTV As ITV1 except: 8.30pm-9.00 Mahon’s Way 10.45 Secrets of the Comedy Circuit 11.15 After Lucy Letby: Silence on the Wards? Tonight 11.40 Long Lost Family 12.40am1.00 Rare Breed: A Farming Year BBC Scotland 7.00pm Scotland’s Home of the Year (r) (AD) 7.30 Born to Be Wild. The centre is plunged into chaos as a severe winter storm hits (r) 8.00 Beechgrove Garden in Winter. Protecting the garden from the worst of the winter still to come 8.30 Landward 9.00 The Nine 10.00 Scot Squad (r) (AD) 10.30 Shetland (r) (AD) 11.30-12.00 Gary: Tank Commander (r) BBC Alba 6.00am Alba Today 5.00pm Sionnach agus Maigheach (Fox & Hare) (r) 5.15 Rita is Crogall (r) 5.20 Oscar & Ealasaid (r) 5.35 Shane an Chef (r) 5.45 Nannag a’ Noo/Huggleboo (r) 5.50 Stòiridh (r) 6.00 An Saoghal Droil aig Pol Ploc/The Rubbish World of Dave Spud (r) 6.15 An Teaghlach Rìoghail an Ath-dhoras (r) 6.35 Stri (r) 6.40 A-null ’s a-nall (r) 7.00 Gaisgich Oga an Darna Cogaidh (r) 7.25 Dàn (r) 7.30 SpeakGaelic (r) 8.00 An Là (News) 8.30 Eòrpa 9.00 Sar-Sgeoil — The Cone-Gatherers (r) 10.00 Seòid a’ Chidsin — The Kitchen Coves (r) 10.30 Sealgairean Mara (r) 11.20 Celtic Connections Shorts (r) 11.30 Transatlantic Sessions: Dlùth an Dàimh (r) 12.00-6.00am Alba Today S4C 6.00am Cyw 12.00 News; Weather 12.05pm Dim Byd i’w Wisgo (r) 12.30 Heno (r) 1.00 Sain Ffagan (r) (AD) 1.30 Pobol y Rhondda (r) 2.00 News; Weather 2.05 Prynhawn Da 3.00 News; Weather 3.05 Gwesty Aduniad (r) 4.00 Awr Fawr: Sali Mali (r) 4.05 Digbi Draig (r) 4.20 Oli Wyn (r) 4.30 Stiw (r) 4.45 Awyr Iach (r) 5.00 Stwnsh: Dennis a Dannedd (r) 5.10 Y Doniolis (r) 5.20 Seligo (r) 5.25 Chwarter Call 5.40 Lego DREAMZzz 6.00 Y Sioe Fwyd (r) 6.30 Sgwrs Dan y Lloer. Elin Fflur is joined by the musician, presenter and archaeologist Rhys Mwyn (r) 6.57 News 7.00 Heno 7.30 News; Weather 8.00 Pobol y Cwm. Cheryl is determined to move on from last night’s events (AD) 8.25 Rownd a Rownd. Elen is put on the spot with a surprise visit from Llyr (AD) 8.55 News; Weather 9.00 Y Byd yn ei Le. Political discussion and debate 9.45 Rygbi Pawb Uchafbwyntiau. Weekly rugby magazine with news, highlights and the latest reports 10.30 Trysorau Cymru: Tir, Tai a Chyfrinachau. Tudur Owen and architect Elinor Gray-Williams visit Erddig Hall. Last in the series (r) (AD) 11.00-11.35 Dan Do (r) Variations 6.00am NCIS: Los Angeles (r) 7.00 DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (r) (AD) 8.00 Supergirl (r) 9.00 Stargate SG-1 (r) 11.00 NCIS: Los Angeles (r) 12.00 Supergirl (r) 1.00pm MacGyver (r) 3.00 Hawaii Five-0 (r) 4.00 S.W.A.T (r) (AD) 5.00 DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (r) (AD) 6.00 Stargate SG-1. Two civilisations try to colonise the same planet (r) 7.00 Stargate SG-1. The team members are brainwashed and given new memories (r) 8.00 An Idiot Abroad 3. Karl Pilkington goes touring again — this time accompanied by Warwick Davis (r) (AD) 9.00 COBRA: Rebellion. The government frantically searches for the stolen weapon (5/6) 10.00 Brassic. Cardi sets out to buy a white fluffy bunny for Lola’s fourth birthday 11.00 A League of Their Own (r) 12.00 Warrior (r) 1.00am The Blacklist (r) 2.00 Stop, Search, Seize (r) (AD) 3.00 Hawaii Five-0 (r) 4.00 S.W.A.T. A lone gunman targets women (r) (AD) 5.00 Highway Patrol (r) 6.00am Fish Town (r) 7.55 True Blood (r) 9.55 Succession (r) (AD) 12.15pm House of the Dragon (r) (AD) 1.25 Sharp Objects (r) (AD) 3.30 True Blood (r) 5.30 Succession (r) (AD) 7.50 House of the Dragon. Rhaenyra continues her search for a suitable match, while Daemon returns to Kings Landing and stirs more trouble for the king (r) (AD) 9.00 The Gilded Age. Peggy gets welcomed back to 61st Street by almost everyone, while George informs Oscar of his decision and sends Clay to meet with union leader Mr Henderson (2/9) (r) 10.05 Billions. Prince encourages his team to find new investments as Wendy prepares for the future, while Rian comes to an unlikely arrangement with Wags (8/12) (r) (AD) 11.10 Billions. Chuck fights to unlock the city for the people (9/12) (r) (AD) 12.15am In Treatment (r) 12.45 House of the Dragon. Rhaenyra continues her search for a suitable match (r) (AD) 2.00 Unwanted 4.10 Fish Town. Double bill (r) 6.00am Allen v. Farrow (r) 7.10 Discovering: Clark Gable (r) (AD) 8.05 The Directors (r) (AD) 9.00 The Seventies (r) (AD) 10.00 Escobar by Escobar (r) 11.00 JFK: Destiny Betrayed (r) 12.00 Nike’s Big Bet (r) 1.40pm My Icon: Darren Campbell (r) (AD) 2.00 Dan Carter: A Perfect 10 (r) (AD) 3.45 My Icon: Martin Offiah (r) (AD) 4.00 The Directors (r) (AD) 5.00 Discovering: Clark Gable (r) (AD) 6.00 The Seventies (r) (AD) 7.00 Escobar by Escobar (4/4) (r) 8.00 JFK: Destiny Betrayed (r) 9.00 Stand Up & Shout: Songs From A Philly High School. Philadelphia high school students channel their thoughts and dreams into music 10.30 Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (r) 1.00am FILM: Who Killed the KLF? (15, 2021) Documenting the rise and fall of the KLF (AD) 2.50 My Icon: Leon Pryce (r) (AD) 3.00 FILM: Inventing Truth — The Relotius Affair (12, TVM, 2023) Documentary 5.00 Discovering: Clark Gable (r) (AD) 6.00am Arts Uncovered (r) 6.15 Cirque du Soleil: Delirium (r) 8.00 The Joy of Painting 9.00 Tales of the Unexpected 10.00 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (r) 11.00 Discovering: Michael Keaton (r) 12.00 The Joy of Painting 1.00pm Tales of the Unexpected 2.00 The Art of Architecture (r) 3.00 Landscape Artist of the Year: Celebrity Special 4.00 Discovering: John Malkovich (r) 5.00 The Joy of Painting 6.00 Tales of the Unexpected 7.00 Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 (r) 8.00 The Art of Film with Ian Nathan 9.00 Olive Kitteridge. Olive visits Christopher in New York. Last in the series 10.10 The Eighties (r) (AD) 11.10 The Directors (r) (AD) 12.10am Hopper: An American Love Story 1.20 Master of Photography (r) (AD) 2.20 Anna X 3.45 Small Town Politics 4.00 Cheltenham Literature Festival (r) 5.00 Inside Art: Derek Jarman at Manchester Art Gallery 5.30 Inside Art: Eileen Agar at Whitechapel Gallery 6.00am Sky Sports News 7.00 Good Morning Sports Fans. Today’s early stories 8.00 Live ICC Cricket World Cup: New Zealand v Sri Lanka. The group match from M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore 4.30pm Live LPGA Tour Golf. Pelican Women’s Championship. Coverage of day one of the tournament at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida 6.00 Live PGA Tour Golf. The Bermuda Championship. Coverage of day one at Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda, which was won by Seamus Power of Ireland last year 9.00 Sky Sports News 10.00 Sky Sports News at Ten 10.30 Back Pages Tonight. A look at the sports headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers 11.00 Sky Sports News 12.00 Live NFL: Chicago Bears v Carolina Panthers (Kick-off 1.15). Coverage of the week 10 match at Soldier Field 4.30am Sky Sports News. Round-up of the sports news 5.00 Sky Sports News. Round-up of the sports news Sky Max Sky Atlantic Sky Documentaries Sky Arts Sky Main Event 6.00am CITV 9.00 Totally Bonkers Guinness World Records 10.00 Secret Crush 11.00 Dress to Impress (AD) 12.00 Dinner Date (AD) 1.00pm Family Fortunes 2.00 Secret Crush 3.05 One Tree Hill 4.00 Dawson’s Creek 5.00 Dinner Date (AD) 6.00 Celebrity Catchphrase (AD) 7.00 Ant & Dec’s Limitless Win. A mother and daughter try to climb the money ladder (AD) 8.00 Bob’s Burgers. Everybody’s Hallowe’en candy bags disappear (AD) 8.30 Bob’s Burgers. The children discover the dangers of revenge (AD) 9.00 Big Brother. A chance to catch up with everything that has happened in the house 10.00 Big Brother: Late & Live. Hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best present the companion show 11.05 Family Guy. Peter and Quagmire form a singer-songwriter partnership (AD) 11.35 Family Guy (AD) 12.05am American Dad! (AD) 1.00 Don’t Hate the Playaz 1.45 Unwind with ITV 3.00 Teleshopping 5.00 Dodo 5.25 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 5.45 Craig of the Creek 6.00am Classic Emmerdale 7.05 Classic Coronation Street (AD) 8.10 Never the Twain 9.15 Wild at Heart 11.25 Heartbeat (AD) 1.35pm Classic Emmerdale 2.35 Classic Coronation Street (AD) 3.45 Midsomer Murders (AD) 5.55 Heartbeat (AD) 6.55 Heartbeat. An Army deserter arrives in the village following a bust-up with his sergeant (AD) 8.00 Vera. The detective must unravel the mystery of a man found beaten to death the day before he was due to testify in court. Return of the crime drama starring Brenda Blethyn and Kenny Doughty (1/6) (AD) 10.00 DCI Banks. Part one of two. Helen leads a firearms team to retrieve a gun from a teenager’s bedroom, but the operation goes wrong, leading to an internal investigation that threatens to break up Banks’s team (5/6) (AD) 11.05 DCI Banks. Part two of two. When Al offers to help Banks get his abducted daughter back, the detective contemplates breaking every rule in the book to meet his demands (6/6) (AD) 12.05am Wild at Heart. Double bill 2.10 Unwind with ITV 2.30 Teleshopping 6.00am World of Sport 6.20 Minder (AD, SL) 7.20 The Professionals (AD, SL) 8.20 The Champions 9.25 Dempsey and Makepeace (AD) 10.30 Magnum, PI (AD) 11.35 BattleBots 12.40pm The Champions 1.45 Dempsey and Makepeace (AD) 2.40 Magnum, PI (AD) 3.45 The Professionals (AD) 4.50 Minder (AD) 5.55 BattleBots. US robot combat series 7.00 The Chase Celebrity Special. Chizzy Akudolu, Andrew Pierce, Sonja McLaughlan and Jack Carroll take on one of the Chasers 8.00 River Monsters. Jeremy Wade sets out to find a predatory creature in the Zambezi River 8.30 River Monsters. A feared marine creature in Central America believed to be 8ft in length 9.00 FILM: Hellboy II — The Golden Army (12, 2008) Action fantasy sequel starring Ron Perlman and Selma Blair (AD) 11.20 FILM: Death Wish V — The Face of Death (18, 1994) Thriller sequel starring Charles Bronson and Robert Joy (AD) 1.25am Dempsey and Makepeace. A drug dealer is murdered (AD) 2.20 The Protectors (SL) 2.45 Unwind with ITV 3.00 Teleshopping 6.00am Teleshopping 7.10 All Creatures Great and Small 8.00 Doctors 9.20 Classic Holby City 10.40 Casualty 11.50 The Bill 12.50pm Classic EastEnders 2.05 Pie in the Sky 3.05 Bergerac 4.15 All Creatures Great and Small 5.35 The Upper Hand. Charlie fears for Caroline’s safety 6.05 ’Allo ’Allo! Colonel Von Strohm, Herr Flick and Von Smallhausen become tied to a bomb 6.40 Last of the Summer Wine (AD) 7.20 Last of the Summer Wine. Compo is jealous when Nora gets a new job (AD) 8.00 The Mallorca Files. Crime drama starring Elen Rhys (1/10) (AD) 9.00 The Mallorca Files. Miranda and Max investigate the disappearance of a champion cyclist (2/10) (AD) 10.00 New Tricks. The team investigates a lookalike agency (6/10) (AD) 11.20 Dalziel & Pascoe. While Dalziel recovers from illness, Pascoe returns to his home town to attend a wedding — but is soon embroiled in a murder case (1/5) (AD) 1.20am Leonardo (AD) 2.30 Classic Holby City (SL) 4.00 Teleshopping 6.10am Steam Train Britain (AD) 8.00 Abandoned Engineering (AD) 10.00 Nazi Hunters 11.00 War Factories 12.00 Great American Railroad Journeys 1.00pm Antiques Roadshow 2.00 Bangers & Cash (AD) 4.00 War Factories 5.00 Nazi Hunters 6.00 Great British Railway Journeys 7.00 Antiques Roadshow. Fiona Bruce presents from Piece Hall in Halifax, where items featured include a Chinese imperial robe 8.00 Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics. The team take Derek’s advice when he sniffs out the last remaining Hillman GT (AD) 9.00 Bangers & Cash. Mathewsons agree to sell a vintage threshing machine and large collection of tractors (5/10) 10.00 Bangers & Cash. Tucked away in the showroom is a WW2-era Willys Jeep (AD) 11.00 Abandoned Engineering. Within a dense Polish woodland is a forgotten complex with an explosive history (3/11) (AD) 12.00 Great British Railway Journeys 1.00am Steam Train Britain (AD) 2.00 Abandoned Engineering (AD) 3.00 Teleshopping ITV2 ITV3 Yesterday 6.00am Talk Today with Ian Collins and Nicola Thorp 9.30 Kevin & Alex. Kevin O’Sullivan and Alex Phillips give their take on the front pages and the latest news 10.00 Julia Hartley-Brewer. The host covers all the stories you need to know 1.00pm CrossTalk with Kevin O’Sullivan and Alex Phillips. Confronting the day’s biggest news with analysis, debate and humour 3.00 Peter Cardwell. Westminster insider Peter Cardwell scours the latest news from parliament 4.00 Vanessa Feltz. The drivetime show, featuring interviews and political debates 6.00 The Talk. A panel of famous faces debate the latest topics everybody is talking about 7.00 Prime Time with Rosanna Lockwood. The journalist examines the stories of the day 8.00 Piers Morgan Uncensored. The host presents his verdict on the day’s global events 9.00 The Independent Republic of Mike Graham. A run through the day’s breaking news 11.00 Piers Morgan Uncensored 12.00 Andre Walker. Today’s top stories 1.00am CrossTalk with Kevin O’Sullivan and Alex Phillips 3.00 Prime Time with Rosanna Lockwood 4.00 The Talk 5.00 James Max 7.00pm Great British Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo visits Crewe (AD) 7.30 Weatherman Walking: Dylan’s Walks — New Quay and Laugharne 8.00 Hidden Wales: Last Chance to Save. Will Millard explores some of Wales’s forgotten historic buildings 9.00 Dylan Thomas: From Grave to Cradle — Arena. Profile of the poet and writer (AD) 10.00 Dame Sian Phillips Remembers — Under Milk Wood. The actress looks back on Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and her own experiences with various adaptations that have brought the poet’s “play for voices” to audiences 10.15 Under Milk Wood. Star-studded performance of Dylan Thomas’s famous “play for voices” featuring Michael Sheen 11.15 FILM: The Edge of Love (15, 2008) Fact-based period drama starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy (AD) 1.00am Dylan Thomas: I Sing to You Stranger 1.50 Great British Railway Journeys (AD) 2.20 Weatherman Walking: Dylan’s Walks — New Quay and Laugharne 2.50-3.50 Dylan Thomas: From Grave to Cradle — Arena (AD) 6.00am The Larkins (b/w) 6.30 FILM: It’s in the Bag (U, 1944) (b/w) 7.45 FILM: Wings Over Africa (PG, 1936) (b/w) 9.00 Law of the Plainsman (b/w) 9.30 FILM: The March Hare (U, 1956) 11.15 FILM: No Trace (PG, 1950) (b/w) 12.50pm FILM: The Flying Scot (U, 1957) Crime drama starring Lee Patterson 2.20 Talking Pictures with Noel 2.30 Crown Court 3.00 Melvyn’s Talking Pictures 3.10 FILM: Rich and Strange (U, 1931) Romantic comedy starring Henry Kendall and Joan Barry (b/w) 4.50 Melvyn’s Talking Pictures 5.00 FILM: The Card (U, 1952) Period comedy starring Alec Guinness (b/w) 6.50 Sherlock Holmes (b/w) 7.25 FILM: The Magnet (U, 1950) Ealing comedy starring Stephen Murray 9.00 Rumpole of the Bailey (5/6) 10.05 FILM: A Child Is Waiting (PG, 1963) Drama with Burt Lancaster (b/w) 12.10am FILM: The Razor’s Edge (15, 1984) 2.45 FILM: Dentist in the Chair (U, 1960) Comedy starring Bob Monkhouse (b/w) 4.20 FILM: A Yank In Ermine (U, 1955) Comedy starring Peter M Thompson 11.00am Red Mountain (PG, 1951) Western starring Alan Ladd 12.45pm The Bedford Incident (PG, 1965) Cold War thriller starring Richard Widmark (b/w) 2.50 Arabian Nights (PG, 1942) Adventure starring Jon Hall 4.35 Buchanan Rides Alone (U, 1958) Western drama starring Randolph Scott 6.20 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (12, 2003) Drama based on Patrick O’Brian’s novels starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany (AD) 9.00 Military Wives (12, 2019) With their partners serving in Afghanistan, a group of women form a choir and find themselves at the centre of a global movement. Comedy drama with Kristin Scott Thomas (AD) 11.15 Hustlers (15, 2019) Strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients. Comedy crime drama starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu (AD) 1.25am-3.50 Hilary and Jackie (15, 1998) Biopic of the cellist Jacqueline du Pre chronicling her tumultuous life, focusing on her relationship with her sister. Starring Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths. See Viewing Guide (AD) 8.55am Kirstie’s House of Craft 9.15 A Place in the Sun 10.05 A New Life in the Sun 11.05 Find It, Fix It, Flog It (AD) 1.10pm Car SOS 2.10 Kirstie and Phil’s Love It or List It (AD) 3.10 Four in a Bed 5.50 The Secret Life of the Zoo. The penguins move into a temporary home (AD) 6.55 The Dog House. A Jack Russell seeks a new home after his owner became unwell. Attempts are made to pair a Staffordshire bull terrier with a woman who has suffered a break-up (AD) 7.55 Grand Designs. A design engineer and a service designer take on the London property market, as they build a home on a small 38-square-metre plot (9/10) (AD) 9.00 Little Trains & Big Names with Pete Waterman. James May shows Pete how to repair toy trains. Last in the series 10.00 Sky Coppers. The Drone Unit follows a passenger fleeing from a hit and run (5/6) (AD) 11.05 24 Hours in A&E. A woman is brought in after being run over by a lorry (6/12) (AD) 12.10am Little Trains & Big Names with Pete Waterman. With James May 1.15 999: On the Front Line 2.15 24 Hours in A&E (AD) 3.20-3.50 Food Unwrapped (AD) TalkTV BBC4 Talking Pictures Film4 More4 ITV4 Drama

14 Thursday November 9 2023 | the times MindGames Fill the grid using the numbers 1 to 9 only. The numbers in each horizontal or vertical run of white squares add up to the total in the triangle to its left or above it. The same number may occur more than once in a row or column, but not within the same run of white squares. Kakuro No 3563 Fill the blank squares so that every row and column contains each of the numbers 1 to 5 once only. The symbols between the squares indicate whether a number is larger (>) or smaller (<) than the number next to it. All the digits 1 to 6 must appear in every row and column. In each thick-line “block”, the target number in the top left-hand corner is calculated from the digits in all the cells in the block, using the operation indicated by the symbol. KenKen Difficult No 6046 Futoshiki No 4604 Slide the letters either horizontally or vertically back into the grid to produce a completed crossword. Letters are allowed to slide over other letters Every letter in this crossword-style grid is represented by a number from 1 to 26. Each letter of the alphabet appears in the grid at least once. Use the letters already provided to work out the identity of further letters. Enter letters in the main grid and the smaller reference grid until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been accounted for. Proper nouns are excluded. Yesterday’s solution, right Cluelines Stuck on Codeword? To receive 4 random clues call 0901 293 6262 or text TIMECODE to 64343. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network access charge. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network charge. For the full solution call 0905 757 0142. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5.30pm). Lay tracks to enable the train to travel from village A to village B. The numbers indicate how many sections of track go in each row and column. There are only straight sections and curved sections. The track cannot cross itself. Train Tracks No 2087 Lexica No 7127 No 7128 G M C I H I O C O Y T Y N A G D I O P M E R M M C T O I M S R G H N L H E A E R T I Codeword No 5054 Winning Move Tetonor White to play. This position is from VaishaliChan, Qatar Masters Open, Doha 2023. There is a familiar chess piece count to enable players to “keep score”. A pawn is one point, a knight and a bishop are three, the rook five and the queen nine. Here White has a small deficit but the e4-bishop is so powerful that an experienced player would value it as being worth a rook. How did White finish? The next Tetonor puzzle will appear on Tuesday When complete, the strip below the grid can be split into eight pairs of numbers. Adding the numbers in a pair gives one of the 16 numbers in the grid. Multiplying them gives a different number in the grid. For example, a 4 and 6 in the strip could be paired to make 10 (4+6) and 24 (4x6) in the grid. Enter each sum below the corresponding number in the grid. The blanks in the strip must be deduced, bearing in mind the numbers are listed in ascending order. 1 2 2 3 10 36 39 270 38 80 108 18 72 51 50 57 22 188 96 33 260 21 1 2 2 3 10 36 39 270 38 80 108 18 72 51 50 57 22 188 96 33 260 21 A A A B C C E E E F H I I L L L L L N N N O O P R R S T T U V W 1 Spill beans in part of hotel lobby (4) 2 Just possessing large ability (5) 3 One departing from borders of Lebanese state (6) 4 Permit contains changes (8) 5 Box to get out, producing serving vessel (9) Solve all five cryptic clues using each letter underneath once only - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Quintagram® Solve all five cryptic clues using each letter underneath once only Challenge your mind with puzzle books from The Times thetimes.co.uk/ bookshop For more puzzles, including Mini Sudoku, extra Codeword, Train Tracks and Futoshiki go to page 10 What are your favourite puzzles in MindGames? Email: [email protected] Fiendish No 412

the times | Thursday November 9 2023 15 MindGames Divide the grid into square or rectangular blocks, each containing one digit only. Every block must contain the number of cells indicated by the digit inside it. Enter each of the numbers from 1 to 9 in the grid, so that the six sums work. We’ve placed two numbers to get you started. Each sum should be calculated left to right or top to bottom. From these letters, make words of four or more letters, always including the central letter. Answers must be in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, excluding capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives and superlatives. How you rate 11 words, average; 15, good; 18, very good; 22, excellent 1 Taylor Swift 2 Irish Sea 3 National Gallery 4 We Will Rock You 5 Iceland 6 Home and Away 7 Sophie’s Choice 8 The Compleat Angler 9 Canal or inland waterway 10 1922 11 Louisiana 12 Pegasus. It is called 51 Pegasi b 13 NSO Group 14 Aitana Bonmati 15 John Carpenter Kakuro 3562 Futoshiki 4603 M E T E O R N O E D O N O R N U T N M O O N Lexica 7126 H I S S G Q L U R N S O F A O R L E E K Cell Blocks 4936 Set Square 3565 Lexica 7125 Suko 3955 Train Tracks 2086 Word watch 1 Bd6! lures the black queen away from the defence of h7 and after 1 ... Qxd6 (otherwise 2 Bxe5+ will be crushing) there follows 2 Qxh7+! Rxh7 3 Rxh7 mate Aubade (b) A musical announcement of the dawn (Chambers) Kaizen (b) Continuous improvement in business (OED) Glyptotheca (b) A place for keeping sculptures (Chambers) Chess — Winning Move 1 Ask 2 Panic 3 Heaven 4 Bigmouth 5 Songsmiths Concise Quintagram Quiz Easy 7 Medium 520 Harder 5,071 Brain Trainer Yesterday’s answers allot, aloft, aloo, aloof, alto, atoll, ball, ballot, blat, bloat, blot, boll, bolo, bolt, fall, flab, flat, float, foal, fool, football, loaf, lobo, lobola, loft, loot, obol, tall, toll, tool times2 Crossword No 9370 Brain Trainer Just follow the instructions from left to right, starting with the number given to reach an answer at the end. ANSWER EASY 24 x 3 ANSWER MEDIUM 44 ANSWER HARDER 241 + 55 50% OF IT – 11 x 6 x 7 15 11/ OF IT 7 5/ OF IT + 903 + 7 x 2 – 56 + 885 ÷ 8 x 2 + 8 3 2/ OF IT 7 5/ OF IT 2 1/ OF IT + 75% OF IT 5 1/ OF IT + 80% OF IT x 2 70% OF IT + 77 +386 x 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Across 1 Board of judges (5) 4 Organic, unprocessed (7) 8 Fault, drawback (7) 9 Vigorous enthusiasm (5) 10 Autonomy, impartiality (12) 12 Paradise Lost poet (6) 13 20th-century economist (6) 16 Taking action to prevent (12) W R A T H F U L O B O U O A C A C I A W A T E R Y C T N O R U N S O L D A N G L I C A N G S M R D N A S C E N T O A N N A R I P T I D E C A N P H E X P L O R E D H U B B U B O I O O A A V I A T E U B O A T S E N G S K E S P R E S S O Solution to Crossword 9369 18 Entrance hall (5) 20 --- oil, liquid derived from flax (7) 22 Pickled herring fillet (7) 23 In a coy or reserved way (5) Down 1 Small cushion (3) 2 Of a token amount (7) 3 Thieving (9) 4 Situated below (6) 5 Label (3) 6 Substance exuded by trees (5) 7 Female member of a pride (7) 11 Houses (9) 12 Warm scarf (7) 14 Convent (7) 15 Thump (6) 17 Insurgent (5) 19 Tropical tuber (3) 21 Lacking moisture (3) Cell Blocks No 4937 Polygon Set Square No 3566 Please note, BODMAS does not apply Killer Gentle No 9156 Solutions Killer Tough No 9157 As with standard Sudoku, fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Each set of cells joined by dotted lines must add up to the target number in its top-left corner. Within each set of cells joined by dotted lines, a digit cannot be repeated. Need help with today’s puzzle? Call 0905 757 0143 to check the answers. Calls cost £1 per minute plus your telephone company’s network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). Cluelines Stuck on Sudoku, Killer or KenKen? Call 0901 293 6263 before midnight to receive four clues for any of today’s puzzles. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network access charge. SP: Spoke, 0333 202 3390 (Mon-Fri 9am-5.30pm). This was the nail in the coffin for team Allfrey in this year’s Gold Cup final. Allfrey-Robson had settled for 6♠ at the other table (Robson playing safely to make Six). The stakes were higher at the table of the two pugnacious Norwegians playing for De Botton. West led the standard trump v a grand slam (on grounds of safety), trick one proceeding ♠3, ♠8, ♠9, ♠J. At trick two, declarer started on hearts, leading his heart to the (queen and) ace and ruffing a heart (with the ten of spades). At trick three, declarer led a second spade to the king, and West (who did not know about declarer’s second suit), discarded a diamond. (In fact, with West guarding absolutely everything, he was bound to get done in soon, even if he’d known to keep all his diamonds.) Declarer now cashed the queen of spades, West discarding a club. At trick five, declarer led dummy’s ten of diamonds (East not covering) and ... ran it. With declarer’s diamonds now good, that was the end of matters for defence. Grand slam made — fortune favouring the bold. My East teammate was troubled that he’d let the grand slam make by failing to cover the ten of diamonds with the queen. Say East does cover. Declarer now wins the king, cashes the ace-jack throwing a heart and a club, ruffs a fourth diamond, ruffs a heart back to hand and cashes the fifth diamond. West is mercilessly squeezed in the ending across. The white flag is soon waved. [email protected] Contract: 7♠, Opening Lead: ♠3 Dealer: North, Vulnerability: Neither N W E S 1♥ Pass 1♠ Pass 3♠ Pass 3NT(1) Pass 4♣(2) Pass 4NT(3) Pass 5♣(4) Pass 5♦(5) Pass 6♠(6) Pass 7♠(7) End (1) Waiting bid, hoping to hear 4♣ ... (2) Control bid from Thomas Charlsen. (3) Roman Key Card Blackwood. (4) Zero or (clearly) three of “five aces” (including ♠K). (5) Asking for ♠Q. (6) Showing ♠Q but no side-king. (7) In truth, a bit of a punt but Thor-Erik Hoftaniska has never been backward in coming forward. If partner has the queen of diamonds, 7♠ will be easy; if he does not, it may require a diamond finesse. S(Hoftaniska) W N(Charlsen) E ♠3 ♥KQ94 ♦98542 ♣KQ4 Teams ♠KQ85 ♥AJ1076 ♦10 ♣AJ8 ♠AJ1064 ♥5 ♦AKJ63 ♣75 ♠972 ♥832 ♦Q7 ♣109632 Advanced N W E S ♠- ♥K ♦- ♣KQ ♠- ♥J ♦- ♣AJ ♠- ♥- ♦6 (led) ♣75 ♠- ♥- ♦- ♣1096 Bridge Andrew Robson Sudoku 14,447 Killer 9154 Sudoku 14,448 Killer 9155 Sudoku 14,449 Quick Cryptic 2522 KenKen 6045 Codeword 5053 1 Tell 2 Flair 3 Leaver 4 Sanction 5 Punchbowl Cryptic Quintagram Today’s solutions

09.11.23 Word watch Sudoku Mild No 14,450 Fiendish No 14,451 Super fiendish No 14,452 David Parfitt Aubade a A French inn or tavern b A musical announcement of the dawn c A shade of dark purple Kaizen a A paradoxical Buddhist riddle b Continuous improvement c An Austro-Hungarian emperor Glyptotheca a A huge prehistoric armadillo b A place for keeping sculptures c A writing tablet Answers on page 15 The Times Quick Cryptic No 2523 by Izetti Across 7 Yours truly’s in the French capital (4) 8 What orchestral leader did at beginning or end of concert? (4,1,3) 9 Magistrate with little hesitation producing vessel (6) 10 Folks work, engaged by famous footballer (6) 11 Preserve Southern Avenue (4) 12 Garment gran ruined with acid (8) 15 Various characters in Leeds are set free (8) 17 Scottish island’s slime? (4) 18 Where pupils may be learning — in brief (6) 21 Arrange again to go to one US city or another (6) 22 Relation up a tree? (8) 23 By the sound of it, wins sporting trophies? (4) Down 1 Dog given fresh air and drink (8) 2 One of those rising in anger? (6) 3 A stretch of land’s said to offer charms (8) 4 First course thus over? (4) 5 Some babysat, originally finding enlightenment (6) 6 Gosh — lake is anything but warm! (4) 13 Severe warning upset the German — later modified (3,5) 14 What can produce mishap? Misdirected edict can (8) 16 Went off to the match unannounced? (6) 17 Girl invited to garden to embrace artist Harry (6) 19 Number at home visiting Durham’s region (4) 20 Coin shows tiny creature (4) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Yesterday’s solution on page 15 15 Fill the grid so that every column, every row and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 to 9. Place the numbers 1 to 9 in the spaces so that the number in each circle is equal to the sum of the four surrounding spaces, and each colour total is correct The Times Daily Quiz Olav Bjortomt Answers on page 15 1 “Swifties” are fans of which American pop star? 2 Which body of water separates Ireland from Great Britain? 3 Opened in 1991, the Sainsbury Wing is part of which London gallery? 4 The London Coliseum production of which rock musical starred its writer Ben Elton as the Rebel Leader? 5 In 1970, which supermarket chain’s first shop opened in Leg Street, Oswestry, selling loose frozen food? 6 In 1989, Dannii Minogue joined the cast of which Australian soap as “bad girl” Emma Jackson? 7 Meryl Streep played a Holocaust survivor with the last name Zawistowski in which 1982 film? 8 Auceps the fowler and Venator the hunter feature in which book by Izaak Walton? 9 Opened in 2002, the Ribble Link is the UK’s newest what? 10 The words “This is 2LO calling” announced the arrival of the BBC in November of which year? 11 Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is a congressman for which state? 12 The first exoplanet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star is in which constellation? 13 Founded in 2010, which Israeli cyberintelligence firm developed Pegasus spyware? 14 Which Barcelona and Spain midfielder won the 2023 Women’s Ballon d’Or? 15 Which American film director and composer is this? Suko No 3955 For interactive puzzles visit thetimes.co.uk For extra puzzles See page 10