The Guardian UK_1805

•

The Guardian 7
Wednesday 18 May 2022

PHOTOGRAPHS: MIKAEL SCHULZ/PROD DB ALAMY/ I understood, a job, if you didn’t flirt with the Charmed … It was walk down the streets, and the
WARMER BROS/GETTY right off manager, the producer, the record Perez with Kaley difficult for guys don’t look at your tits any
the bat, the company person, or didn’t sleep Cuoco in The me in the more,” she says. “And you just
racism and with them, it would be very difficult Flight Attendant industry, feel invisible.”
stuff like that for you to secure employment.” because I
Perez refused to play that game, Oscar nominated was so seen Personally, she feels the
and later becoming the in-house she says, “but people still thought: … as a plane opposite. “When I started noticing
choreographer on the seminal 90s ‘You probably slept with them.’ crash survivor that I wasn’t getting the same
show In Living Color, drilling the Or they would label you a bitch.” in Fearless attention as when I was younger,
show’s famous Fly Girls (including She singles out a few good guys it made me laugh, it didn’t
Jennifer Lopez). – LL Cool J, Heavy D, De La Soul, Perez with Diva depress me.” Now 57, she is self-
Tupac Shakur – “but there wasn’t Osorio in Do the deprecatingly frank about getting
“It was exciting, it was hard, it a lot of them.” Right Thing older. When she learned she was
was depressing,” Perez remembers. going to be playing both her older
She also had her share Dancing on and younger selves in Now and
Why depressing? of unwanted advances and Soul Train Then, she says, “I said, ‘Darling,
“Because being a female in the uncomfortable casting meetings do you see these jowls around
music business then was very in hotel rooms. “I let the feeling be my face?’ I have no fillers going
difficult. The misogyny was very, present in the room, like, ‘Don’t on. Maybe a little Botox. I know,
very high. All these men were fucking try it on me. It’s not gonna actresses don’t want to admit it
just – excuse my French – fucking happen.’” but they all do it, you know?” She
everything that walked. And they is giggling like a child now. “Oh my
were patted on the back. God Perez chronicled her early life God, my publicist probably won’t
forbid if you were caught kissing in honest detail in her memoir. want me to say this, but I’m gonna
a guy; your career was done. But A stunt had gone wrong during say it. I said, ‘What are you going
then every guy was hitting on you. filming of a Law & Order: Special to do about my neck?’ And they go,
It was non-stop. Even if you got Victims Unit episode, which put ‘We got the secret.’” The makeup
her out of action for more than a department had a special neck-
year. People had long been urging rejuvenating “device”, she says. “A
her to write her life story, she says, lot of the Spanish actresses do it.”
“but I was still not ready. I was still
hiding – and when I broke my neck, Perez enjoys her success but she
I was presented with the truth, has never really enjoyed celebrity:
every single freaking day, sitting “It was difficult for me being in the
in bed and not being able to move, entertainment industry because I
and having a nurse having to take was so seen, I am so seen.”
me to the bathroom, and being
so exposed. I just opened up my She still suffers from anxiety
laptop and I started writing.” and depression, although therapy
has helped: “Now it’s manageable.
Perez is now more in demand I’m able to get out of my way
than ever, fuelled perhaps in part and enjoy the work. It better be
by her ever-growing status as a after $400 an hour!” She is happy
Latina trailblazer. Where once being at home. “I still kind of live
she had to fight to get into the a simple life. Just my friends, my
room, people are now fighting family, my husband, my cats. I
to get her into the room. have a beautiful house and I have
a humungous back yard, which is
Her new Apple+ show, Now unheard of in New York. I am fine
and Then, for example, is a twisty not leaving my house for maybe
mystery thriller focused on a like a week.” If the promised
group of Hispanic-Americans in Taylor-Serrano rematch happens
Miami, who share a dark secret in Dublin, though, she’ll be there.
from their student days. The
story switches between Spanish “That’s another reason why
and English, and timelines 20 I like boxing so much,” she
years apart; the cast is a Who’s adds, “because it takes so much
Who of Spanish and Hispanic tenacity and discipline to become
stars. The show only came about, a champion. You have to train
says Perez, because Apple hired a every single day of your life.
female Cuban executive. “That’s Even when you’re not training,
why representation matters.” you’re training. You have to watch
what you eat, you have to watch
It was a similar story with The your sleep, you have to watch
Flight Attendant, currently in everything. And that’s who I was as
its second season. When Perez a child. I always felt like I was doing
was offered the part of Megan, time. And I wanted to make the
the co-worker and best friend of time work for me.”
Kaley Cuoco’s hot-mess heroine,
she turned it down, she says. Against impossible odds, Perez
“I really liked it a lot but I hate has won the title fight of her own
flying, and travelling. I hate it all.” life, and much of it seems to come
down to determination and self-
What changed her mind? discipline. “You know, people
“Kaley,” she says. “She’s so freakin’ think that just because you’re born
charming I can’t stand it, and I fell into a certain circumstance, that
for her charms immediately.” But you are that, and I was never that,
Perez made it a condition that even as a child,” she says. “I was
the writers take into account her always thinking, ‘I don’t belong
character’s situation as a middle- here.’ That’s part of it. The other
aged, menopausal woman. “I part is, ‘There but for the grace of
wanted her to have the feeling God go I’. I just really got lucky.”
like when you get older and you

• The Guardian
Wednesday 18 May 2022
8 Arts

I had to walk
in on my mother
in bed with
another man.
Suddenly, that
became like
a real memory

A convict in the he uses to loosen up his screen
family … Garrel presence – Byronic of brow and
with Roschdy imposing elsewhere – into comic
Zem in new film stooge territory. Ranging from
The Innocent the bachelor flirtations of his 2015
debut Two Friends to follow-ups
‘Right now I’ve got the jitters!’ A Faithful Man and The Crusade
(in which Abel is married), the
He is French F But even if he understands “the Was there a similar tension to director, working with real-life PHOTOGRAPHS: COLLECTION LES FILMS DES TOURNELLES; AFP/GETTY IMAGES; CHRISTOPHEL/ALAMY
cinema royalty, or Louis Garrel, the way the game is played” at Cannes, their relationship as he depicts intimates such as his former
making his debut centre of the universe is located he still doesn’t feel like an insider: in the film? He sidesteps. “It’s partner Golshifteh Farahani and
aged five and at the Cannes film festival. “It’s “I get the jitters before going every always interesting to meet people his current wife Laetitia Casta,
later starring in like a particle accelerator, like that time. So right now I’ve got the from another world. Generally, seems to use his films to playfully
one of the sexiest place in Switzerland,” he says. jitters.” Today, he’s fretting over within the structures of family or explore alternative life pathways
movies ever. “Your disappointments there are how the sound mix will play in the friendship, society is made in such for himself. But he prefers to give
Phil Hoad meets bigger, and your joy is bigger.” He giant auditorium. “It’s a good kind a manner you don’t often have the this Garrel Cinematic Universe an
actor and director is calling from Paris, where he is of pressure,” he says, then hoots chance to get to know people from autonomy of its own: “Rather than
Louis Garrel as tinkering with the edit of his latest with sharp laughter. another walk of life.” saying as an actor, I’m going to live
he scrambles to film The Innocent; his fourth several lives through this character,
get his latest film feature as a director but the first to The Innocent is a delicate The protagonist Garrel has I prefer to say, no, it’s the character
ready for Cannes get an airing in Cannes’s galactic- blend of fraught family comedy, played in his four directorial efforts that has several lives.”
sized Louis Lumière auditorium. parodic heist flick and meta thesp to date is always called Abel, who
At the time of our conversation commentary, all tethered down seems to be a kind of alter ego This braiding of autobiography
he’s got 10 days to nail down the with the dry irony that is fast and fiction is what he grew up
finer details: “It’s like being back at becoming Garrel’s directorial ‘Fun and games’ with, the limber method his father
school. I used to leave everything trademark – or “banter à la … Garrel persisted with well into the 21st
to the last minute.” française”, as he puts it. He plays century, like a soldier still fighting
Abel, a widower in Lyon who is the Nouvelle Vague fight. Garrel’s
Garrel – still best known outside rattled when his loose-cannon first acting role was as a five-year-
France for being one corner of a mum marries a convict being old in Garrel Sr’s 1989 film Les
preposterously sexy love triangle released from prison. Suspicious Baisers de Secours; his father,
in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The about where the latter is getting grandfather and mother all acted
Dreamers – is an aquiline-nosed, the cash to set her up as a florist, in it too, and in his first scene he
tousle-haired French film blue Abel turns amateur gumshoe had to walk in on his mother in
blood; the son of Nouvelle Vague and starts lurking outside the bed with another man. “I hadn’t
stalwart Philippe Garrel and actor homeware store his new father-in- chosen to be in the film,” he says
Brigitte Sy, and the godson of The law supposedly works at. now. “Suddenly, they became like
400 Blows star Jean-Pierre Léaud. real memories, and I even forgot
The story is based on an episode about the cameras. It was like a
from the 38-year-old’s own life, strange game with reality, one
when his mother (his parents had that determined my relationship
divorced) had a prison wedding with cinema. As a cinemagoer,
with “a guy called Michel I liked when I watched films that weren’t
a lot”. What was he inside for? autobiographically tied to the life
“I can’t really remember,” he says of the director, I had the impression
coyly. “You know: fun and games.” they were fake.”

It would have been easy for
Garrel to be enveloped by this
protean milieu, to fail to emerge
with an identity of his own. But
his recalcitrant glower helped his
breakout film The Dreamers to
take an askew glance at his father’s
soixante-huitard cohort. Setting his,
Eva Green and Michael Pitt’s lovers
beside clips of the trio in Jean-Luc
Godard’s Bande à Part, it’s a rueful
reflection on the time that suggests
there was something decadent
and incestuous going on behind
the revolution – that perhaps the
younger generation’s ultimate

•

The Guardian 9
Wednesday 18 May 2022

attachment is to the image rather #MeToo movement in full voice, A cathartic
than the deed. But at the start of the it quickly became swamped release …
noughties, his dad was delighted at in controversy because of its Sanctuary by
the unlikely event of a film about director: Roman Polanski. Garrel David Best
the Nouvelle Vague distributed by signed a 2009 petition protesting
a Hollywood studio: “It’s as if, in 40 against the extradition of Polanski A temple of flames
years’ time, the gilets jaunes would to the US to face his 1977 statutory
get to see a film produced by MGM rape charge. But now he insists it’s David Best’s memorial to Britain’s Covid dead will be
called the Yellow Vest.” not his place to express a position
in public. His primary interest in filled with mementoes and notes from their relatives.
Where Garrel is fundamentally doing the film was Dreyfus’s story,
different is that his dad hated he says, because of his own Jewish Then, finds Kat Lister, the whole thing will be torched’m asking David Best about the
acting. “I don’t know why,” the roots, and he was dismayed to
son shrugs. “It’s just like some see the story yanked into an significance of objects and there’s a
children hate spinach or grapes.” alien context. But he felt torn: stunned silence on the line. “When
Garrel is a natural, commanding “It’s very painful to talk about it you ask me that, I’m still thinking
performer, as is apparent from the again. There were reasons why
versatile gallery of roles he has the debate was so violent. The I about your husband dying in 2018,”
amassed that range far beyond the direction society is moving in is panels of birch plywood, it is a structure that
ennui-filled Parisian mopers of his benefitting the world. I belong to Artichoke’s Helen Marriage describes as “the
early career, though not – apart that world – one that is happy to most incredible giant jigsaw puzzle”.
from his performance for Woody see progress for women.”
Allen in Rifkin’s Festival (2020) and Best’s pyramidal structures don’t just
a smallish role in Greta Gerwig’s Is art more important than the acknowledge the transience of life, they
Little Women – anything in English- artist? Cannes loves those kind of
language cinema. Notably, over the philosophical atom-smashings. he finally replies before pausing welcome it in – and Sanctuary is no different.
last decade, there have been quite Garrel may be hoping The
a few historical showstoppers: Innocent gets a boost from the again – overwhelmed by my very personal Over the course of a week, the public will
the rakish fashionista Jacques de particle accelerator, but he insists
Bascher in 2014’s Saint Laurent, he is happy if his film-making cue. “Just the fact that someone is willing to be encouraged to donate words, objects
Robespierre in 2018’s One Nation, operates at a more humble level.
One King, and soon director Patrice Rather than the likes of Godard, it tell me that their husband died. That’s a really or mementos to adorn the walls. Grievers
Chéreau in another Cannes entrant, is the dedicated actor-directors he
Forever Young (where Garrel will looks up to; the player-managers generous gift that you’re sharing. My god, it’s will bring their memories, and leave them
be directed by his ex-wife Valeria of cinema such as Jacques Tati,
Bruni-Tedeschi). John Cassavetes and Nanni just such a privilege to be in this position.” behind; not to forget, but perhaps to make
Moretti. “It’s always interesting
What is impressive is how to see how they put themselves in Best spends about a third of his time their peace with the past.
forcefully he imbues these known their films. How they shoot scenes
quantities with an independent life. they are a part of,” he says. “After I talking to people like me, who have lost Best isn’t making a temple for 10,000
His portrayal of Jean-Luc Godard started directing and acting at the
benefits from this discernment in same time, I no longer looked at something irreplaceable. Whereas my people, he says. He’s making it for you.
the otherwise rather facetious 2017 Keaton and Chaplin in the same
biopic Redoubtable. Even though way. How did they succeed at exploration of grief reluctantly began at Objects can be tough to let go of, he tells me,
playing the godhead of French executing such complex shots
arthouse was a “total taboo”, Garrel when they didn’t even have video a hospice in London, Best’s was initiated, and he’s conscious of this responsibility.
realised he couldn’t just give fealty: playback?”
“Of course he was someone with an over 20 years ago, among the arid crests of “I have to be trustworthy. If you bring
extraordinary force. An artist with Judging by his fumbling alter
the capacity to do exactly what he ego Abel, Garrel regards himself Nevada’s Black Rock desert. The sculptor was something, I promise we’ll protect it,”
wants, and what he didn’t want from a healthy distance – and
was to become bourgeoisified. But that ethic is starting to produce a working with a young artist called Michael he says. On Saturday 28 May, his living
you mustn’t play him as only this body of work with a discreet but
force … there was doubt there, for promising idiosyncrasy. “When Hefflin at the time, making a contribution for sculpture, bejewelled with thousands of
example.” Portraying Godard as he I start shooting a film, I always
was denouncing Nouvelle Vague tell the team that we have to the Burning Man festival, when Hefflin took keepsakes and scraps of handwritten paper,
frippery and moving towards avoid doing the usual thing.
Maoism, Garrel superbly fleshes Making films is difficult, so you’re off on his motorbike will be ceremonially set alight in what Best
out his self-flagellation and inertia. always quickly drawn towards
doing what everybody else is No building is one night, “racing at and Artichoke hope will be a cathartic release.
He has also played Alfred doing. But what’s most difficult the moon at 140mph”, At the time of writing, the total UK
Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer is succeeding in inventing a little
whose false conviction of treason gesture, whether it’s technical more important and was killed. At the mortality figure from Covid-19 stands
rocked the French establishment or narrative. That’s what you’re cemetery, his friends at 177,000 deaths. Part of the nation’s
at the end of the 19th century. He always looking for.”
is rivetingly stoic in the role, and The Innocent premieres at the than the people said that Michael would grief involves recovering our sight of the
the film, 2019’s An Officer and a Cannes film festival on 24 May. who walk into it want them to go to the individual: parents and partners, siblings
Spy, is engrossing. But with the festival. So they did. and friends. “The anger that I’m feeling,
Best brought some permeating your country right now with

scrap wood from a toy Boris Johnson,” Best says. “I’m hearing from

factory, “and we built this thing – nothing to people walking around saying, ‘Look what’s

do with spiritual bullshit, just a thing. But happened, you let my people die.’”

as we started building, it became obvious to Collective grief and memory will be offered

these kids that we were making something up to the flames. Either a person can burn

for the friend who they had lost.” They lit it something and it’s gone, or they can burn it

“unceremoniously” and it went up in flames. and it’s saved – the decision, Best tells me, is

The next year, Burning Man asked him to unique to every one of us. He recalls a man

build a temple. who came up to him during the construction

Preposterously “I thought, what would I dedicate a temple of one of his temples. “My son died by suicide,”
sexy … with
Eva Green and to if I was building one?” He imagined a the father told him, “and you set him free.”
Michael Pitt
in The Dreamers person who had taken their life. He imagined There may be those who call this all

the guilt or confusion that might be left theatrics. But there is a purpose to these

behind. “I wanted the person who had structures that goes beyond the visible act

experienced that loss to celebrate their son of dropping a match and setting something

or their mother,” he says. That year, 10,000 alight. Best isn’t blind to the naysayers. It

people wrote down the names of their could be “hocus pocus bullshit” for some

departed loved ones and placed them inside people, he says. “But if you need someone to

the structure before it was set on fire. say, ‘You’re OK,’ then you don’t doubt it.”

PHOTOGRAPH: ANDREW MOORE Since Best built that first Burning Man Towards the end of our conversation, we

temple in 2000, the Californian artist has inevitably return to my late husband. We circle

made many more. This afternoon, he is back to objects and things. “What do you have

talking to me from a production cabin on left from your husband?” he asks me, as we

a hill in Bedworth, Warwickshire, where discuss what I might bring. “I’ve made these

he is constructing Sanctuary, a work little windows, so I could give you a niche.

commissioned by the Artichoke Trust to Kat, without pressuring you, will you come?”

commemorate Britain’s loss during the Sanctuary: A Covid Memorial to the Nation is

Covid-19 pandemic. Made out of intricate in Bedworth, Warks, from Saturday to 28 May.

• The Guardian
Wednesday 18 May 2022
10 TV and radio
Spreadsheet
10.05pm, Channel 4

Gerard Kearns “All those apps, competing with girls
as Andy half your age, and they’ve got the face
Woodward …” Lauren (Katherine Parkinson) is told
by her boss. “It must be so hard – all that
Review Floodlights, weekly pay cheques, Man U contracts and England caps. rejection.” But she doesn’t understand
BBC Two In another bitterly resonant scene in a post-match that – as a divorced mother of two
with one hell of a hectic life – Lauren
A harrowing changing room, Bennell tells his pre-pubescent just wants to have a lot of sex without
tale of innocence charges about the glorious triumphs that will be theirs commitment. Starting with a double bill
and depravity if they follow his regimen, all the while taking his tonight, this Australia-based comedy
clothes off. His nakedness becomes an emblem of his captures the chaos of trying to have it all.
★★★★☆ power over the boys, and, as they exchange worried
looks, suggestive that something, though they can Hollie Richardson
Stuart Jeffries scarcely explain what, is terribly wrong.
And Between the Covers Lawrence MacEwan,
‘B y the way, Woody,” says Barry All the child actors are terrific, but none more so another 7.30pm, BBC Two the patriarch of the
Bennell, “do you think you’re good than Max Fletcher as Woody, a gangly shy boy with thing “Trevor McDonald is Inner Hebridean Isle of
enough to be one of my boys?” big, angelic eyes. “It was the softer, weaker boys he wise and clever” may not Muck, as he faces change
The football coach is visiting Andy targeted,” Woodward said of Bennell in his Guardian It’s always a be the biggest revelation and old age. The island
Woodward’s parents’ house to recruit interview and, while the self-recrimination that may bad idea to kill of the TV week, but holds almost sacred
their son for Crewe Alexandra’s be behind those words makes me queasy, Fletcher’s off a character nevertheless he elevates properties for him, so
youth team, but, for us viewers, the line, like so many portrayal of the young Woody as gentle and gauche played by Jim this episode of Sara it’s a poignant reckoning
others in Floodlights, has a darker resonance. bears out the remark. Broadbent early Cox’s slightly flip book with memory and loss.
in a TV series. review show. Cariad Phil Harrison
Bennell is on the hunt for new talent. He can’t stay When we meet grown-up Woodward, it’s a shock. Ninety per cent Lloyd, Peter Davison and
long, he tells Jean and Terry Woodward, adding: “I’m The angel has gone, leaving, in former Shameless star of Ten Percent, Sarah Hadland hold their Inside No 9
scouting under-10s in Buxton at six o’clock.” Gerard Kearns’s affecting performance, a broken and unacceptably, ends up too, as they 10pm, BBC Two
sad-eyed man. The drama accelerates rather too quickly has a Jim- discuss books by Philip Daisy Haggard is a posh,
Matt Greenhalgh’s terse, harrowing script tells through Woodward’s post-football career. In 2003, shaped hole in Gray and Sam Selvon. Pilates-loving housewife
Woodward’s story, in particular how what Bennell did he retired from the game early after being hobbled the middle of it Jack Seale who is taken hostage by
to the boy cast its long shadow over the man. by the trauma Bennell visited on him. He became a Daniel Mays as a grubby,
police officer specialising in child protection, but was The Great British gun-toting kidnapper.
In 2018, Bennell was jailed for child sexual abuse dismissed from the force for having an inappropriate Sewing Bee Or is she? As always
offences against 22 boys. The number of his victims relationship with a relative of a witness. Greenhalgh’s 9pm, BBC One with Reece Shearsmith
is widely believed to have run into three figures, the script spends too little time on this part of Woodward’s Sara Pascoe assigns the and Steve Pemberton’s
youngest of them eight years old. Bennell had served story and too much depicting one of his football team remaining contestants impeccably acted,
earlier sentences for similar crimes but this time managers, Neil Warnock, as a bully needing anger three more tasks for ingeniously plotted
was jailed for 34 years. This conviction was made management training. reduce, reuse and series, nothing is quite
possible by Woodward, who waived anonymity in recycle week. First up, as it seems – except for
Daniel Taylor’s 2016 Guardian interview, detailing We then see Woodward move back in with his mum a lesson in quilting the promise of a gripping
how he was raped by Bennell during his three years and dad. His marriage seems to be over; his life is in before creating a half-hour of TV.
in Crewe’s youth team. His testimony, as a former tatters. One night, while he is scrolling Facebook, a patchwork jacket, Alexi Duggins
professional footballer for Sheffield United and Bury friend request pops up from someone called Richard followed by
FC, encouraged other victims to come forward. Jones. He is being cyber-stalked by his abuser. “Jones” deconstructing and Hypothetical
is really Bennell, who is out of jail after one of his reconstructing a coat. 10pm, Dave
Jonas Armstrong as Bennell plays this scene with shorter prison terms and, the photos show, sunning Then valiant attempts to Josh Widdicombe
extreme oiliness, leaning casually on the door jamb himself somewhere nice. “He’s out and about enjoying make dresses from used and his “arbiter of
of the Woodwards’ living room as he grooms both life,” Woodward tells a friend just before he makes a duvet covers. HR hypotheticals”, co-host
parents and son. The Woodwards are sunk deep in suicide attempt. “I’m not. Not one bit. Not for ages.” James Acaster, return
their three-piece suite as he commands the room, Prince of Muck with another run of
dangling before them possibilities of four-figure Greenhalgh repeatedly focuses on Woodward’s 9pm, BBC Four the comedy panel
self-abasement. “Why was I his favourite?” he keeps Not many people have show about completely
asking, as if there was some fact about him that made an island in the family. made-up scenarios.
him deserve to be, as his police statement said, raped If you do, you take the Tonight’s lineup is a
and molested, forced to watch and read hardcore responsibility of looking goodie: Richard Ayoade,
pornography, forced to give and receive oral sex. after it seriously. This Guz Khan, Maisie Adam
melancholy film follows and Chloe Petts. HR
“I have five sons who love me, and I love them,” he
tells the Guardian. “They think I’m a real man.” “Why
aren’t you a real man?” asks the reporter with gentle
incredulity. “Because real men don’t get raped.” I
yearned for the scene to close with the reporter telling
him the truth. Real men do get raped. Silent suffering
only keeps such myths alive. And that’s the reason why
this drama is so valuable: it breaks the silence and shame
around male rape, and puts the blame where it belongs.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116
123 or email [email protected] or [email protected].

•

The Guardian 11
Wednesday 18 May 2022

BBC One BBC Two ITV Channel 4 Channel 5 BBC Four

6.0 Breakfast (T) 9.15 Morning 6.30 Escape to the Country (T) (R) 6.0 Good Morning Britain (T) 6.05 Countdown (T) (R) 6.45 6.0 Milkshake! 9.15 Jeremy Vine 7.0 Great British Railway
Live (T) 10.0 Rip Off Britain: 7.15 Garden Rescue (T) (R) 9.0 Lorraine (T) 10.0 This Cheers (T) (R) 7.35 The King (T) 12.15 Litter Louts: At War Journeys (T) (R) Michael
Live (T) 10.45 Dom Delivers 8.0 Sign Zone: Gloria – My Morning (T) 12.30 Loose of Queens (T) (R) 9.0 Frasier With the Law (T) 1.10 News Portillo travels from
(T) 11.15 Homes Under the Life on TV (T) (R) 9.0 News Women (T) 1.30 News (T) (T) (R) 10.30 Undercover (T) 1.15 Home and Away (T) Hassocks to Benenden. 7.30
Hammer (T) (R) 12.15 Bargain (T) 11.15 Politics Live (T) 1.55 Local News (T) 2.0 Boss USA (T) (R) 11.25 News 1.45 Neighbours (T) 2.15 The Pennine Way (T) (R)
Hunt (T) (R) 1.0 News (T) 1.0 Ready Steady Cook (T) Dickinson’s Real Deal (T) (T) 11.30 Couples Come Dine Aurora Teagarden Paul Rose goes white-water
1.30 Regional News and (R) 1.45 Eggheads (T) (R) (R) 3.0 Tenable (T) (R) 3.59 With Me (T) (R) 12.30 Steph’s Mysteries: Til Death Do Us rafting down the River Tees.
Weather (T) 1.45 Doctors 2.15 James Martin: Home Local News and Weather Packed Lunch (T) 2.10 Part (Martin Wood, 2021)
(T) 2.15 Money for Nothing Comforts (T) (R) 3.0 Britain (T) 4.0 Tipping Point (T) Countdown (T) 3.0 A Place in (T) 4.0 Bargain-Loving Brits
(T) (R) 3.0 Escape to the in Bloom (T) (R) 3.30 Murder, 5.0 Lingo (T) (R) 6.0 Local the Sun (T) (R) 4.0 The Great in the Sun (T) 5.0 News (T)
Country (T) (R) 3.45 Garden Mystery and My Family News (T) 6.30 News (T) 7.30 House Giveaway (T) 5.0 Sun, 6.0 Neighbours (T) (R) 6.30
Rescue (T) 4.30 The Bidding (T) (R) 4.15 Interior Design Emmerdale (T) Sea and Selling Houses (T) Eggheads (T) (R) 7.0 Secrets
Room (T) (R) 5.15 Pointless Masters With Alan Carr (T) (R) 6.0 The Simpsons (T) (R) of the Fast Food Giants (T)
(T) (R) 6.0 News(T) 6.30 (R) 5.15 Flog It! (T) (R) 6.0 6.30 Hollyoaks (T) (R) 7.0 7.55 News (T)
Regional News and Weather Richard Osman’s House of News (T)
(T) 7.0 The One Show (T) 7.30 Games (T) (R) 6.30 Animal
EastEnders (T) Park 7.0 Nadiya’s Time to Eat
(R) 7.30 Between the Covers

8.0 The Repair Shop (T) The 8.0 Britain’s Top Takeaways (T) 8.0 Coronation Street (T) Tim’s 8.0 Location, Location, Location 8.0 Police Interceptors (T) The 8.0 The Story of Scottish Art (T)
experts work on a Jewish Five of the nation’s top-rated reckless decision puts his (T) New series. Helping officers are on the tail of a (R) Lachlan Goudie looks at
prayer book, which provides kebab shops take part in the life in danger, Toyah allows buyers moving from the fast-moving Astra that has art looks at art from 1880
an account of survival in the fast-food competition. Abi to take Alfie for a walk south to the north-east. been reported stolen. to the outbreak of the first
face of adversity. by herself, and Tracy enlists world war.
9.0 DNA Family Secrets A David’s support to sabotage 9.0 Derry Girls (T) Erin and 9.0 HMP Belmarsh: Maximum
9.0 The Great British Sewing woman who grew up in a Daniel’s career. Orla throw a joint 18th – Security (T) A look inside 9.0 Prince of Muck The Laird
Bee (T) The sewers take part Nazi concentration camp but festivities threaten to HMP Belmarsh prison, from of the Isle of Muck wants
in reduce, reuse and recycle as a Jewish orphan longs to 9.0 Beat the Chasers (T) Bradley be overshadowed by the the gangs that dominate its to preserve the society on
week, breathing new life into know more about her family, Walsh hosts as contestants Good Friday Agreement corridors to the officers who the island and pass it on to
old coats and making a dress and whether any relatives from across the UK take on a referendum. Last ever serve there, and some of the future generations, but he is
out of a duvet cover. escaped the Holocaust. team of Chasers. episode of the comedy. prison’s infamous inmates. battling to accept change.

10.0 News (T) 10.0 Inside No 9 (T) Shane and 10.0 News (T) 10.05 Spreadsheet (T) A double bill 11.05 Porn Stars: Our Secret World 10.15 Natural World: A Highland
10.30 Regional News (T) Weather Clifford plan a kidnapping. 10.30 Local News (T) Weather of the new comedy series, (R) The industry in the UK. Haven (R) Fergus Beeley
10.40 Peacock (R) A man finds 10.45 Peston (T) with Katherine Parkinson. films Highland wildlife.
10.30 Newsnight (T) Weather 11.40 Hollington Drive (T) (R) The 12.05 Adults Only: Paid to Be
himself in crisis as he begins 11.15 Unspun World With John 11.15 Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Naked (R) 1.0 The Live Casino 11.15 Coast Great Guides:
to realise his playboy persona pressure is getting to Theresa 12.10 The World’s Most Extreme Show (T) 3.10 Litter Louts: Scotland’s Western Isles (R)
and job as a personal trainer Simpson (T) as the police make their first At War With the Law (T) (R)
are starting to wear thin. 11.45 The Chris & Rosie Ramsey arrest, and Helen puts things (T) (R) 1.05 SAS: Who Dares 4.0 The Railways That Built 12.15 Secrets of Size: Atoms
11.05 Freeze the Fear With Wim on hold with Gareth. Wins (T) (R) 2.0 Force Britain (T) (R) 4.45 Wildlife to Supergalaxies (T) (R)
Hof (T) (R) Last in the series. Show 12.35 Shop: Ideal World 3.0 Bling Majeure (2014) 4.05 SOS (T) (R) 5.10 House 1.15 Great British Railway
12.05 Weather for the Week Ahead 12.30 Sign Zone Idris Elba’s Fight (T) (R) 3.50 Unwind With ITV Unreported World (T) (R) Doctor (T) (R) 5.35 Peppa Pig Journeys (T) (R) 1.45 The
(T) 12.10 BBC News (T) (T) 5.05 Tipping Point (T) (R) 4.30 Location, Location, (T) (R) 5.40 Paw Patrol (R) Pennine Way (T) (R) 2.15 The
School (T) (R) 1.30 Kicking Location (T) (R) Story of Scottish Art (T) (R)
Off (T) (R) 2.30 This Is BBC
Two (T)

Other channels Radio

BBC Three E4 Christian Bale. 9.0 Sky Max Artist of the Year 2015 Radio 3 Radio 4 (R) 9.59 Weather 10.0 Savile’s Crime (1/3)
7.0pm Race Across the 6.0am Hollyoaks 7.0 Disappearance 6.0am Stargate SG-1 8.0 The Prince’s Master 6.30am Breakfast 6.0am Today 8.31 (LW) The World Tonight 10.45 1.30 The House (8/8)
World 7.0 The Catch Up Black-ish 8.0 Melissa & 8.0 The Flash 9.0 DC’s Crafters: The Next 9.0 Essential Classics Yesterday in Parliament Book at Bedtime: Love 2.0 Clock Dance (3/10)
8.0 Glow Up: Britain’s Joey 9.0 How I Met Your at Clifton Hill (2019) Legends of Tomorrow Generation 9.0 Oil 12.0 Composer of 9.0 Life Changing (7/7) 2.15 Vanity Fair (13/20)
Next Make-Up Star 9.0 Mother 10.0 The Big 10.0 Supergirl 11.0 City Confidential: The Dr the Week: Vaughan 9.30 Just One Thing Marriage – Reckless 2.30 Mr Capra Goes
Noughts + Crosses 9.50 Bang Theory 11.0 The Premiere. Thriller, NCIS: Los Angeles 1.0 Feelgood Story (2009) Williams (13/20) 1.0 With Michael Mosley: to Hollywood 3.0 The
Window Shopping for Goldbergs 12.0 Brooklyn Hawaii Five-0 2.0 11.10 Guy Garvey: From Lunchtime Concert. Dance (4/10) 9.45 (LW) Decisions. By Monica Raj Quartet (3/9) 4.0
Love 10.0 FBoy Island Nine-Nine 12.30 starring Tuppence S.W.A.T 3.0 DC’s Legends the Vaults 12.10 Blitzed: Chamber music by Bruch Daily Service 9.45 (FM) Ali. (3/10) 11.0 Sunil Booked (1/6) 4.30 1834
10.50 Bump 11.15 Bump Brooklyn Nine-Nine 1.0 Middleton. 11.05 of Tomorrow 4.0 The The 80s Blitz Kids’ Story and Vaughan Williams Book of the Week: Empire Patel: An Idiot’s Guide (4/6) 5.0 Mrs Sidhu
11.50 Glow Up: Britain’s The Big Bang Theory 3.0 Murder on the Flash 5.0 Supergirl 2.10 Icon: Music Through from LSO St Luke’s in Investigates: Murder
Next Make-Up Star 12.50 The Neighborhood 4.0 6.0 Stargate SG-1 7.0 the Lens 3.25 The South London, performed of Pain – The Secret to Cryptocurrency With Masala (2/4) 5.30
Conversations With Brooklyn Nine-Nine 5.0 Orient Express (2017) Stargate SG-1 8.0 DC’s Bank Show 4.25 Arts by the Nash Ensemble (1/4) 11.15 The Skewer The Confessional (5/6)
Friends 2.20 Gavin & The Big Bang Theory 7.0 Legends of Tomorrow Uncovered 4.45 National chamber group. (R) History of the Sackler (7/8) 11.30 Today in 6.0 Mort (2/4) 6.30
Stacey 3.20 Hot Cakes Hollyoaks 7.30 The Big Mystery, starring 9.0 The Blacklist 10.0 Trust: Garden Treasures 2.0 Afternoon Concert. Parliament 12.0 News How Tickled Am I? (3/6)
3.50 Press X to Continue Bang Theory 8.0 Below Kenneth Branagh.1.20 Agatha Raisin 12.0 NCIS: Liszt’s Piano Concerto Dynasty. By Patrick and Weather 12.30 Book 7.0 Hancock’s Half Hour
Deck: Mediterranean 9.0 Daphne (2017) Los Angeles 1.0 A League Sky Atlantic No 1, performed by Yuja of the Week: Empire of (15/20) 7.30 If You’re
Dave Brooklyn Nine-Nine 9.30 of Their Own Road Trip: 6.0am Richard E Grant’s Wang with the Bavarian Radden Keefe. (3/10) Pain (R) 12.48 Shipping So Clever, Why Aren’t
6.0am Teleshopping Brooklyn Nine-Nine 10.0 Drama, starring Emily Dingle to Dover 2.0 Sun, Hotel Secrets 7.55 Big Radio Symphony 10.0 Woman’s Hour 11.0 Forecast 1.0 As BBC You Rich? (1/4) 8.0 Lord
7.35 Modern Wheels Temptation Island 11.0 Sea and A&E 3.0 Hawaii Love 9.0 American Rust Orchestra and conducted London on the Line (R) World Service 5.20 Arthur Savile’s Crime
Or Classic Steals 8.0 Gogglebox 12.05 Naked Beecham. Five-0 4.0 S.W.A.T 5.0 10.05 The Affair 12.15 by Antonio Pappano. 11.30 Lady Killers With Shipping Forecast 5.30 (1/3) 8.30 The House
Top Gear 9.0 Storage Attraction 1.10 First Bondi Rescue 5.30 Bondi Game of Thrones 1.20 Plus the Nevermind Lucy Worsley: Grace News Briefing 5.43 (8/8) 9.0 The Real
Hunters UK 10.0 Sin Dates 2.15 Below Deck: ITV2 Rescue Six Feet Under 2.25 Ensemble play a Marks (4/8) 12.0 News Prayer for the Day 5.45 Comedy Controllers: The
City Motors 11.0 World’s Mediterranean 3.05 6.0am Totally Bonkers The Sopranos 3.30 quartet by CPE Bach. 12.01 (LW) Shipping Farming Today 5.58
Most Dangerous Roads Brooklyn Nine-Nine 3.30 Guinness World Sky Arts Boardwalk Empire 5.45 4.0 Choral Evensong: Forecast 12.04 You and Tweet of the Day Things That Made Us
12.0 Bangers and Cash Brooklyn Nine-Nine 3.55 Records 6.30 Dress to 6.0am Hollywood in The Affair 7.55 Game of Durham Cathedral 5.0 Yours 12.57 Weather Laugh (3/3) 10.0 The
1.0 Cops on the Rock The Goldbergs 4.20 The Impress 7.30 The Ellen Vienna: The Sound Thrones 9.0 Raised By In Tune. Cellist Mats 1.0 The World at One Radio 4 Extra Confessional (5/6) 10.30
2.0 Top Gear 3.0 Rick Goldbergs 4.45 Black-ish DeGeneres Show 8.25 Wolves 10.0 Devils 12.10 Lidström performs live 1.45 The Future Will Be 6.0am Lord Arthur That Mitchell and Webb
Stein’s Long Weekends 5.10 Black-ish You’ve Been Framed! of Space & Alexandre Six Feet Under 3.30 In in the studio for Katie Synthesised: Threat to Savile’s Crime (1/3) Sound (3/5) 11.0 All the
4.0 Bangers and Gold 9.20 Hart of Dixie Desplat 8.0 Force of Treatment 4.0 Richard E Derham. 7.0 In Tune Democracy? (3/5) 2.0 6.30 The House World’s a Globe (1/8)
Cash 5.0 Rick Stein’s Film4 10.15 One Tree Hill 11.10 Nature Natalia 9.0 Tales Grant’s Hotel Secrets Mixtape 7.30 Radio 3 The Archers 2.15 Red (8/8) 7.0 Mrs Sidhu 11.15 The Goldfish Bowl
Long Weekends 6.0 11.0am To Hell The O.C 12.0 Secret of the Unexpected 9.30 in Concert. Baritone Lines Drama, by Craig Investigates: Murder (1/8) 11.30 King Cutler
Taskmaster 7.0 Whose and Back (1955) Crush 1.05 Dress to Tales of the Unexpected Daphne, Roderick Williams sings Oliver and Anthony With Masala (2/4) 7.30 (2/6) 12.0 Mort (2/4)
Line Is It Anyway? USA Impress 2.05 The Ellen 10.0 Discovering: Ian Film4 and directs a self-curated Seldon. 3.0 Money Box The Confessional (5/6) 12.30 How Tickled Am
8.0 Travel Man: 48 Second World War DeGeneres Show 3.0 McKellen 11.0 The Kinks: programme that moves Live 3.30 All in the 8.0 Hancock’s Half I? (3/6) 1.0 Lord Arthur
Hours in Copenhagen Hart of Dixie 4.0 One Music Icons 11.30 Video from light to darkness Mind (R) 4.0 Thinking Hour (15/20) 8.30 If Savile’s Crime (1/3)
8.30 Travel Man: 48 biopic, starring Audie Tree Hill 5.0 The O.C 6.0 Killed the Radio Star 12.0 by way of Purcell, Allowed (7/11) 4.30 You’re So Clever, Why 1.30 The House (8/8)
Hours in Moscow 9.0 QI Murphy. 1.10 El Catchphrase: Catchiest Turner at Tate 1.0 Tales Judith Weir, Schoenberg The Media Show 5.0 2.0 Clock Dance (3/10)
10.0 Hypothetical 11.0 Dorado (1966) Western, Moments 7.0 Superstore of the Unexpected 2.0 and Mahler. 10.0 Free PM: 5.54 (LW) Shipping Aren’t You Rich? (1/4) 2.15 Vanity Fair (13/20)
Have I Got a Bit More 7.30 Superstore 8.0 Rudyard Kipling: A Secret Thinking: Goddesses Forecast 5.57 Weather 9.0 Booked (1/6) 2.30 Mr Capra Goes
News for You 12.0 Big starring John Wayne Bob’s Burgers 8.30 Bob’s Life 3.0 The Summer 10.45 The Essay: Poetic 6.0 Six O’Clock News 9.30 1834 (4/6) 10.0 to Hollywood 3.0 The
Zuu’s Christmas Eats 1.0 Burgers 9.0 Family Guy of Love 4.0 Tales of the Provocations (3/5) 11.0 6.30 The Confessional: The Raj Quartet (3/9) Raj Quartet (3/9) 4.0
Have I Got a Bit More and Robert Mitchum. 9.30 Family Guy 10.0 Unexpected 4.30 Tales Night Tracks: Around Alastair Campbell (R) 7.0 11.0 The Real Comedy Booked (1/6) 4.30 1834
News for You 2.0 Whose 3.50 Shenandoah Family Guy 10.30 Family of the Unexpected 5.0 Midnight. 12.30 Through The Archers 7.15 Front Controllers: The Things (4/6) 5.0 Mrs Sidhu
Line Is It Anyway? USA (1965) American Civil Guy 11.0 Family Guy Discovering: Ed Harris the Night: Baroque Row 8.0 Generation Investigates: Murder
3.0 QI 4.0 Teleshopping 11.25 American Dad! 6.0 Portrait Artist of the Cantatas (R) Change (3/3) 8.45 Just That Made Us Laugh With Masala (2/4) 5.30
War Western, starring 11.55 American Dad! Year 2018 7.0 Landscape One Thing With Michael (3/3) 12.0 Hancock’s The Confessional (5/6)
James Stewart. 6.0 12.25 Bob’s Burgers Mosley: Dance (R) 9.0 Half Hour (15/20) 12.30
Exodus: Gods 12.50 Bob’s Burgers Costing the Earth (R) If You’re So Clever,
1.20 Superstore 1.45 9.30 The Media Show
and Kings (2014) Superstore 2.15 Celebrity Why Aren’t You Rich?
Juice 2.55 Unwind With (1/4) 1.0 Lord Arthur
Biblical epic, starring ITV 3.0 Teleshopping

• The Guardian TODAY’S PET CORNER ANSWER HANK
Wednesday 18 May 2022
12 Puzzles

Yesterday’s Quick crossword no 16,233
solutions
12 3 4 56 7
Wordsearch 8
Across Down 9
1 Cathedral city on the River Wye — 1 Petty fit (4) 10
2 Pasta parcels (7) 11
cattle breed (8) 3 Over-the-shoulder carrying 12 14 15
5 Not evens (4) 13 16
9 Half a tenner (5) technique (8,4)
10 US state — Nato man (anag) (7) 4 Low dull noise (coming from the 17 18
11 Colourless poison gas — do half
stomach?) (6)
remedy (anag) (12) 6 Book of daily entries (5)
13 Make a gentle neigh (6) 7 Yuri Gagarin? (8)
14 Gala — celebration (6) 8 Very antiquated — invalidate UN
17 Swearing (4,8)
20 Delighted (informal) (7) (anag) (12)
21 Bungling (5) 12 Duplicitous (3-5)
22 Inside information (informal) (4) 15 Orange part (7)
23 Newborn (8) 16 Tense and nervous (2,4)
18 Take control by force (5)
Solution no 16,232 19 And others (2,2)

UP FORGRAB S 19
21
WT L I EO

R U T L A ND G ROOM

I EXE I T I 20

SOR E T RAMP L E S

T BSEET

WOMB L E E N I GMA

AAEBT K

THR E SHE R TWE E

C I S LBAN 22 23

HONE Y UNRAVE L Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your phone company’s access charge.
Service supplied by ATS. Call 0330 333 6946 for customer service (charged at standard rate).
EOG I EY To buy puzzle books, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.

T ROU B ADOUR

Sudoku no 5648

Sudoku no 5649 Suguru Wordsearch

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

Word wheel
ENDEAVOUR

Suguru

Word wheel Pet corner

Find as many words as What was the name of the
possible using the letters maine coon cat that was put
in the wheel. Each must up as a joke candidate in the
use the central letter 2012 United States Senate
and at least two others. election in Virginia?
Letters may be used only a. Stewie
once. You may not use b. Sebastian
plurals, foreign words or c. Cruise
proper nouns. There is at d. Hank
least one nine-letter word Answer top right
to be found. TARGET:
Excellent-31. Good-26.
Average-19.

• G2
Daily
Who needs Martin Lewis, with Tory MPs like these? Marina Hyde, page 3 pullout
Nazanin spoke truth to power. It didn’t reply Tulip Siddiq, page 4 life &
Kay Mellor, screenwriter for TV series Band of Gold Obituaries, page 6 arts
section
The Guardian Wednesday 18 May 2022 Inside

Opinion
and ideas

Reality check: T he Conservative party was happy Truss’s account of the Northern Ireland problem Boris Johnson
Brexit is the with Brexit, but not for long. A deal in London
problem, not that was great in 2019 is now not elides frustration with border checks and a wider yesterday
the protocol great. What could fix it? What change
would bring enduring satisfaction? complaint about the residue of EU jurisdiction that PHOTOGRAPH: TOBY
Rafael The answer is obvious to anyone MELVILLE/REUTERS
Behr familiar with the patterns of English Brexit hardliners see as a stain on UK sovereignty. She
Euroscepticism – nothing. There is
no concession big enough, no deal good enough, just is egged on by Tory backbenchers who are convinced
as no single fix can end the cravings of a drug addict.
The long-term solution is to get sober. that the protocol was foisted on Britain, that it amounts

That is not on Liz Truss’s agenda. The foreign to a regulatory land grab and that its provisions are
secretary yesterday informed parliament of a
government plan to assert its own version of the applied with spite as punishment by Brussels of an
Northern Ireland protocol. That is a threat designed
to prod the EU into renegotiating the 2019 withdrawal ex-colony that had the temerity to break free.
agreement, which was itself the outcome of a
renegotiation made necessary because Theresa May Believing that version of events requires two
had done a deal that Conservative MPs also didn’t like.
psychological traits that come easily to the fervent
One reason European leaders don’t want to talk
about changes amounting to a new treaty is their Eurosceptic. One is a capacity to forget that every
certain knowledge that the Tories would be dissatisfied
again soon enough. Another reason is that a revised problem currently associated with Brexit, including
deal would involve trusting Boris Johnson, which EU
governments have done before and no one does twice. the specific danger in Northern Ireland, was signalled

by remainers and dismissed with contempt as

scaremongering by leavers. The other is a need to

still feel victimised by Brussels even after leaving

the EU, since ending that ordeal removes any excuse

for Brexit not delivering its promised bounties. That

is the addiction – the sadomasochistic compulsion

to be oppressed by foreigners for fear of taking

responsibility for the consequences of liberation.

It is true that customs checks in the
Irish Sea are a symbolic injury to unionist
feeling in Northern Ireland. But it is also

• The Guardian Wednesday 18 May 2022

2 Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 54,660
‘Comment is free… but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
Reality check: Brexit is the
problem, not the protocol Politics as evidence that the Good Friday agreement is being
Rafael Behr imperilled by unionist discontent. This situation
The Northern Ireland is, of course, directly the result of commitments
Continued from front protocol bill is a needless made by Mr Johnson in 2019, when his priority
and untimely provocation was to force a hard Brexit. To avoid a north-south
true that Johnson knowingly inflicted hard border on the island of Ireland, Mr Johnson
that injury, denied he had done it, then At the recent Stormont elections, a majority of voters agreed to an effective one in the Irish Sea – betraying
whipped the grievance up when he supported parties that broadly back the Northern a previous promise to the DUP in the process.
should have been hosing it down. A constitutional Ireland protocol. Local business leaders have urged The Brexiters’ maximalist determination to exit
crisis at Stormont was not prefigured in the letter Boris Johnson to abandon the threat to unilaterally the EU single market meant that there had to
of the protocol, but it was made likely by the prime tear parts of it up, which would risk a trade war with be border checks somewhere.
minister’s irresponsible and negligent handling of the the European Union when inflation rates are soaring
politics of the protocol from the day he signed it. and recession is looming. Sadly, what is truly best for That was then, for a government that burns
Northern Ireland has rarely been allowed to disrupt relationships and trust at its own convenience.
Meanwhile, if Tory backbenchers had not found this government’s choreographed games of Brexit By now declaring a readiness to abrogate an
all the resentment they needed in Northern Ireland, brinkmanship with Brussels. international agreement, Ms Truss has sent a
they would have gone hunting for reasons to be damaging message to the world that Britain’s
dissatisfied with Brexit in England instead. Yesterday’s Commons statement on the protocol word cannot be trusted. She has also needlessly
by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, was more antagonised our main trading partners, risking
One of Johnson’s complaints about an Irish Sea measured in tone than some of the confrontational a downward spiral in relations with the EU at a
border, as expressed in an interview this week, briefings around last week. But the tabling of a bill time of economic crisis. There is an acceptance in
was that regulatory checks create “extra barriers to to abandon aspects of a treaty signed less than three Brussels that more flexible implementation of the
trade and burdens on business”. That generates “a years ago – when it was described as “oven-ready” – is protocol would be desirable, and a willingness to
great deal of faff and botheration”, which increases irresponsible and recklessly destabilising. Ms Truss negotiate. Easements have already been offered,
living costs. Those barriers are uniquely upsetting to airily stated that the proposed legislation would not for example in relation to food-related checks and
Northern Ireland unionists on the level of national be in breach of international law, but failed to offer any medicines. So why the escalation?
identity, but the faff and botheration incur costs evidence for that assertion. The EU was swift to warn
also at Dover, Grimsby, Felixstowe; any place where that whatever legal casuistry may be forthcoming, it The posturing, the grandstanding and the slide
goods move between Britain and the EU. could respond to such a move with “all measures at to confrontation suggest that familiar Johnsonian
its disposal”, which could mean shelving the entire dynamics are at play. The DUP remains sceptical
In other words, the prime minister’s economic post-Brexit free trade deal. that the “nuclear option” of legislation will ever
rationale for wanting to fix the Northern Ireland come to pass. But the reopening of the forever
The government’s disingenuous case is that Brexit wars constitutes some useful red meat to
Tprotocol contains a complaint about conditions that relations between the British mainland and Northern toss towards backbenchers, as Mr Johnson seeks
Ireland have been excessively undermined by the to ride out Partygate. Ms Truss, who would seek
are intrinsic to the Brexit model he chose. checks, tariffs and regulations insisted upon by the EU. to succeed the prime minister if he falls, may also
It cites the refusal of the Democratic Unionist party consider it a good day’s work. Downing Street
hat is yet another reason why no one to take up a power-sharing role alongside Sinn Féin sources have suggested that Mr Johnson does not,
in Brussels wants to reopen the 2019 in fact, relish the prospect of a trade war on top
deal. The negotiation would founder of a cost of living crisis. Hopefully – despite this
on first principles. Brussels says that latest episode of Brussels-bashing for the gallery
if Britain is no longer automatically – that assessment will prove to be correct.
applying EU rules, it must prove that
its exports comply. The Brexit ultras South-east Asia new generations the full story of his rule. The
think that Brussels is only imposing political advance was not matched by social and
that requirement out of petty vindictiveness and The Marcos family’s return economic progress; the political dynasties and big
that the very Britishness of British standards should is bad for the Philippines. conglomerates have ensured that the Philippines
be sufficient guarantee of quality. That has been the Others should take heed remains one of the most unequal societies in Asia.
impasse in every chilly phone call and deadlocked
meeting between the two sides since 2016. Thirty-six years after the people of the Philippines The outgoing president, Rodrigo Duterte, has also
The Tories cannot budge on that point because swept the Marcos family from power in a peaceful contributed. His brutal and erratic authoritarianism
doing so would involve accepting two indisputable popular uprising, they have returned it to the – notably a “war on drugs” which has killed
facts about Brexit. First, exiting the single market was presidency via the ballot box. Last week’s electoral thousands, including children – proved popular. He
bad for UK businesses. Second, Britain had the levers landslide for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, son has strengthened the police and army, creating a
to steer EU policy as a member state and surrendered of the late dictator, was a shocking and frightening culture of impunity, while undermining democratic
that power when it left. No minister in the current moment for those who survived the violence of his institutions including independent media. He
cabinet can admit those truths. Until that changes, father’s regime and witnessed the plunder of as much allowed the late dictator to be buried in a cemetery
UK policy towards the EU will amount to little more as $10bn from the country. The incoming president for war heroes, helping to rehabilitate his image.
than rattling the cage of delusion that Brexit imposes claimed more than double the votes of his closest Critically, his daughter Sara Duterte decided not
on its believers. Some Eurosceptics find perverse opponent, Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer and to stand for president, running (successfully) as
pleasure in captivity, but that is their fetish and not the incumbent vice-president. Mr Marcos Jr’s vice-president.
something anyone else needs to indulge.
When policies fail on such a Titanic scale, it is Disinformation (extensive, heavily organised and The Philippines must contend with the aftermath
usual to have some debate about a change of direction. lucrative for those behind it) has played a crucial role. of the pandemic: almost a quarter of the nation
That isn’t happening, because the opposition has Across social media, the true history of Ferdinand now live below the poverty line. The country is
no alternative destination in mind, or none that it Marcos Sr’s rule – of torture, executions, debt and balancing uneasily between the US and China, with
advertises in public. Keir Starmer is mindful that his economic crisis – has been erased by the lie of a “golden repercussions for the wider region. Mr Marcos Jr has
support for a second referendum back in the day is age” of stability and prosperity. At the same time, its nothing to offer, though some insist that he will not
still a vulnerability in constituencies where the Tories members were “celebritised”, with TikTok videos be as ruthless as his father. He has already painted
want to drive Brexit ever deeper as a wedge between presenting them as an aspirational, influencer-style himself as a victim of the press.
Labour and its estranged core voters. One function figures while Mr Marcos Jr sidestepped major debates
of Truss’s bill overriding the protocol is that anyone and tough interviews. Simultaneously came relentless Other countries should also take heed. As
opposing it can be cast as an unrepentant remainer. and often misogynistic attacks on Ms Robredo. one leading expert on disinformation notes,
Labour’s absence from the conversation is not only this success reflects problems seen in many
metaphorical. Two opposition seats on the European It is not just that the population is highly advanced democracies, not just in the global
scrutiny committee, which notionally holds the technologically literate but often less media literate. south; Facebook’s public policy director for global
government to account on EU matters, are effectively There are deeper issues. The People Power revolution elections previously described the Philippines as
vacant because the Labour MPs who sat there have of 1986 was unfinished. The political elites remained “patient zero”. Reiterating the truth is not enough.
moved to frontbench jobs and haven’t been replaced. in place; influential families hold up to 90% of elected Reaching out to excluded communities and crafting
Labour strategists take the view that sanity in EU positions. Most of the money amassed by Mr Marcos Sr compelling narratives is essential. Ms Robredo’s
policy only becomes available by winning an election was never recovered, and schools failed to teach the campaign created real passion at the grassroots,
fought on other issues – things voters actually care but the efforts came too late. The Marcos family’s
about – and not by dancing to a drum that Johnson return to the top is a triumph of determination
beats to distract from all his other failures. That and has been a long time in the making. In that
is probably true. But it means the terms of Brexit respect alone, their opponents – and progressives
debate are set in the sweaty realm where maniacs elsewhere – could learn something from them.
lobby hardliners to flee reality even faster.
It is a formula for perpetual crisis. The
constitutional mess that Johnson has made of
Northern Ireland is so far the gravest episode but
unlikely to be the last. The problem isn’t that the
protocol cannot be made to work as written, but that
it was written to enact a Brexit that doesn’t work.

Wednesday 18 May 2022 The Guardian •

Opinion 3

The Tories
have two plans
to make things worse.
The first is a possible
trade war with the EU.
The second is to lay off
91,000 civil servants

Who needs G iven the employee calibre and George Eustice, right now … That is simply not tenable in our society.
Martin Lewis, attrition rate of this government, secretary of state There is absolutely panic, and it has not started yet.”
with geniuses it’s always a heart-in-mouth for environment, Has Martin thought of pointing out ways people
like these? moment when they unleash a food and rural could retrain in investment banking?
previously unheard-of minister affairs, in
Marina on the airwaves. Much like the bit London earlier Also in the meantime, with the Bank of England
Hyde in the Simpsons where Mr Burns this year governor appearing before the Treasury select
releases the winged monkeys committee on Monday to forecast “apocalyptic” food
from his window with a hopeful “Fly, my pretties – PHOTOGRAPH: prices, do you get the sense that the government
fly!”. When thuds and bloodcurdling shrieks follow, TAYFUN SALCI/ZUMA/ has anything in the same postcode as a plan to make
he turns to his retainer, Smithers, with the curt REX/SHUTTERSTOCK things even mildly better? Hand on heart, no. Quite
instruction: “Continue the research.” the opposite. In fact, it has two plans to make them
Perhaps No 10’s comms geniuses felt this way worse. The first is a possible trade war with the
when they debuted the hitherto deservedly European Union, which smelled-it-dealt-it treaty
obscure safeguarding minister, Rachel Maclean, on critic David Frost seems to be suggesting is one of the
Monday’s breakfast shows to discuss the cost of living good kinds of wars. And the second is Boris Johnson’s
crisis. Who knows why the random nitwit generator triumphant announcement, via the pages of the Daily
machine had made it her turn? In many ways I refuse Mail as opposed to their line managers, that he is
to believe Rachel even is the safeguarding minister – a going to lay off 91,000 civil servants.
huge part of me assumes she is just a character hastily
assembled from discarded awayday ideas and then Let’s park the fact that the prime minister surely
given a pretend job title that it would feel rude to arrived at this number by the ancient clue-free
argue with. “Just say she’s the ‘safeguarding minister’. technique for making cuts – thinking of the total
Sounds like a thing.” As for Rachel’s thoughts, let’s see number, then dividing it by five. Instead, we’ll
them fly. “We need to have a plan to grow the economy,” focus on the main event, which is suggesting that
she hazarded (no shit), “and to make sure that people the best idea for how to enter a recession is to make
are able to protect themselves better, whether that is cuts in frontline service provision. Of course, No 10
by taking on more hours or moving to a better paid job.” doesn’t tell you about the frontline service provision,
Continue the research. preferring instead to intimate that this will merely be
In the meantime, if you’re keeping a tally of a just-deserts response to civil servants working from
government suggestions for how to deal with acute home. This is the chief bugbear of that incorrigible
real-world financial distress, please add “Had you desk-sniffer Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man whose own work
thought of being paid more?” to the pile. Said pile desk does not even feature a computer but who has
also features similar advice from Thérèse Coffey to recently been slithering round Whitehall like the Child
work more hours, while George Eustice let shoppers Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and leaving
in on the little secret of supermarket value ranges. sub-Yodel “sorry I missed you” notes for civil servants.
“Generally speaking,” he generalised unspeakably, I’m told that Rupert Murdoch is obsessed with people
“what people find is by going for some of the value
brands rather than own-branded products, they can Ereturning to the office wherever they may work, so
actually contain and manage their household budget.”
Amazing, isn’t it, that George still has all this good stuff perhaps that puts lead in the Rees-Mogg pencil.
in the tank, when money-saving expert Martin Lewis
recently admitted, “I am out of tools to help people ven so, for a government that has
now … I’ve been through the financial crash, I’ve achieved absolutely nothing in
been through Covid. This is the worst, where we are office bar a Brexit deal it is currently
threatening to torch, it does feel
genuinely extraordinary to watch
the Johnson administration work
so committedly against this organic
form of levelling up. As has become
increasingly clear ever since the phrase was first
farted out, they haven’t the first clue how to “level up”
anything. Yet in one swift and elegant way, remote
working is the market actually beginning to deliver
their policy for them – by allowing people to draw
metropolis salaries but physically locate themselves
in less affluent regions for at least some of the
working week. What’s not to embrace?
Over to Boris Johnson, a man who famously
works from home. Indeed, his officials have spent
much of the year explaining that is why certain rules
don’t apply to Downing Street. “My experience of
working from home,” Johnson explained at the
weekend, “is you spend an awful lot of time making
another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up,
walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small
piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your
laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.”
Oh, you forgot what you were doing? Let us help you
out. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BEING THE EFFING
PRIME MINISTER. Ah well, perhaps another time.
Sorry to have missed you.

• The Guardian Wednesday 18 May 2022

4 Opinion

Nazanin spoke raise: Morad Tahbaz’s case; the issue of hostage-taking;  did it because she has nothing to lose. She has already
truth to power. and the forthcoming parliamentary select committee lost six years of her life for a crime she didn’t commit.
It didn’t reply inquiry into her case. Nazanin also reiterated that Tulip Siddiq
she wanted Johnson to know how his blunder in is the Labour MP Nazanin asked the prime minister whether he
Tulip 2017, where he incorrectly stated that she had been for Hampstead would give evidence to the inquiry. He said he would
Siddiq “training journalists” in Iran, had affected her. and Kilburn “look into the options” for doing so. He sounded
positive, so I will push for this. I hope the inquiry
A re you sure you want to see Finally the day came, and the family and I were will get to the bottom of why it took six years to pay a
him?” I asked Nazanin Zaghari- ushered into No 10. Niceties were exchanged and legitimate debt. I want to know why ministers failed
Ratcliffe in March, after we Johnson gave Nazanin’s seven-year-old daughter, to resolve this in 2016 and tried to hide the reasons
received an invitation to meet Gabriella, a puzzle. There was little time for small talk. for doing so from parliament and the public.
the prime minister, Boris Johnson. After thanking him for paying the historic £400m debt
Anoosheh Ashoori, who was also that Britain owed Iran, Nazanin asked why it had taken The inquiry must also shed light on why the
detained in Iran as a result of his six long years to do so, adding that her interrogators government still refuses to acknowledge Iran’s
case in 2017 and was released had made clear from her second week in prison that hostage-taking and why British citizens like Morad
along with Nazanin in March, has so far turned this was the price of her freedom. Johnson looked Tahbaz are still imprisoned in Iran, despite the deal
down his own invitation, calling it opportunistic, decidedly uncomfortable, saying that making the to get him released on furlough. Our government is
and I wondered if Nazanin felt similarly. actual payment had been “complicated”. clearly getting this profoundly wrong; Nazanin and
others who are suffering deserve to know why.
I’ll admit I was surprised to be included in the Nazanin kept going. She said his words in 2017 were
invitation to No 10 – I hadn’t exactly minced my constantly used against her; that her interrogators As we left No 10, Nazanin revealed that she felt
words about the government’s handling of Nazanin’s tormented her, insisting that her own foreign secretary guilty “every day” that detainees like Morad Tahbaz
case. “Yes, I want to tell him what happened to me,” knew she was guilty; and that she was reminded of this were still incarcerated while she was free. She
Nazanin said. We later discussed what we wanted to every day. “I lived in the shadow of your words for four said she wouldn’t rest until they were released. I
and a half years, prime minister.” There was pin-drop marvelled at this incredible woman’s tenacity.
silence in the room. I watched Johnson intently and
waited for an apology. And waited. While I am grateful for the time the prime minister
gave us, we have been asked many times since
After a pause, Nazanin courageously shared some whether he apologised in the end. No. He didn’t say
of what she had been subjected to – that the guards sorry to Nazanin. He actually didn’t say anything at all
told her they would kill her and bury her; that she in that regard. His silence made me wonder whether
would never see her daughter again; of the solitary he has ever been held accountable so directly. Was he
confinement room that set off her claustrophobia; of completely caught off guard? While Nazanin didn’t ask
being driven to hunger strikes. “If you ripped my skin for an apology, I struggle to understand why Johnson
off, you would see the deep scars on my soul,” she said. didn’t take the opportunity to apologise for a mistake
he had definitely made. Anyone else I know would
What struck me most was how eloquent and calm have. Did he think that Nazanin, who paid the price
she was. She was speaking with brutal honesty, but for Britain’s historic debt, was going to come into his
from the heart. Having been in politics for a long time, house, thank him profusely, drink tea and leave?
I know how difficult it can be to speak truth to power,
especially in an imposing setting like No 10. Nazanin Perhaps a simple sorry could have brought Nazanin
some closure in her unimaginable ordeal.

Wednesday 18 May 2022 The Guardian •

Letters  [email protected] 5
 @guardianletters

Established 1906 Why Britain’s housing both an even spread of population Corrections and
market is crumbling and, more importantly, wealth. If clarifications
Country diary London wishes to retain its position
Egglestone, Teesdale Simon Jenkins largely misses never address the shortage, since as a leading financial centre, then • An article quoted Prof Vernon
the point in analysing Britain’s they benefit from the inflated prices it must lose everything else. Thus Bogdanor as to the requirements
Every year at bluebell time, the housing situation (Housing is not and margins that it produces. parliament, which is crumbling for certification of a regency and
same thought recurs: spring is ‘in crisis.’ It’s just desperately Steve Smart anyway, must move to Birmingham. suggested that the Prince of Wales
slipping away. In less than two inefficient, 13 May). Yes, it is Malvern, Worcestershire Manchester, already a media hub, might play a role. In fact, as heir to
weeks it will officially segue into true that many owners are would gain further investment. the throne, Prince Charles could
summer and, like the last sand underoccupying their homes, but • In his largely sensible article, not be part of the decision process.
grains flowing through an egg timer, he devotes one cursory sentence Simon Jenkins fails to mention Other areas of the economy Also, for a regency to occur the
these final glorious days seem to to our desperately inadequate the physical inefficiency of would be established in different sovereign’s incapacity does not
gather pace. But this is an idyllic social housing provision, and much of London’s housing. We parts of the country. This represents have to be permanent, but it must
place to while away one of them. none at all to the large and live in a lovely Georgian terrace a true version of levelling up, be total (‘She’s in charge’: Charles
growing private rented sector. with ideal proportions but thin, which of course will not even delivers speech but monarch calls
Downstream from Abbey Bridge, jerry-built Victorian walls – start under this government. the shots, 11 May, p7).
the Tees Valley Way passes through For 40-plus years, our hopeless conservers of heat. The Alan Gent
deciduous woodland, which clings governments have persisted in conservation area and listed- Cheadle, Cheshire Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
to a steep bank high above the the absurd notion that the market, building status prevent us from [email protected] or The readers’
River Tees. The rocky gorge below with a little help from housing adding the type of stoneware • Simon Jenkins is right to point editor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.
is filled with birdsong; blackcaps, associations, would supply our cladding that can retain the out that the housing crisis is linked You can also leave a voicemail on 020 3353 4736
willow warblers, a song thrush, housing needs. The result is that attractiveness of the area while to the failure of levelling up, but
almost drowning the sound of the there is a chronic shortage of making it possible to install heat does not explore how both are Discredit where due
river. Overhead, newly expanded affordable housing everywhere, pumps, for example. Joined-up related to wider policy failures. for ‘hepeat’ offenders
oak leaves are as translucent as particularly for rent. And the private thinking is lacking, as usual.
stained glass. Along the footpath, rented sector in the UK, unlike Ken Baldry One important factor is the shift As a victim of “hepeating” on
an aroma of garlic rises from starry elsewhere, suffers from tenant London away from secure employment. occasion, I was delighted to read
constellations of ramson flowers insecurity, unregulated rents and In the past, people taking up a about this practice (Pass notes,
when I brush against them. Florist poor conditions – while receiving • Simon Jenkins makes some job somewhere other than their 17 May). It reminded me of a
shop fragrance saturates the air huge benefit subsidies that add good points about housing current home might expect to stay great Jacky Fleming cartoon and
where it passes through drifts of nothing to physical provision. taxation, but it’s not enough to for long enough to put down roots. postcard: “That’s an excellent
bluebells. Tens of thousands of suggest that the countryside of Now that most jobs are temporary, idea, Miss Brown. Would one of
flowers, all waiting for a pollinator. In contrast to our widespread the north is sufficiently alluring people increasingly do not move the men like to make it?”
owner underoccupation, many UK to promote social mobility. The to where they work but commute, Liz Bavidge
Spring perfection. Well, not households, especially renters, best economies, such as Germany, an arrangement that reduces their Halifax, West Yorkshire
quite. Among this tranquil sea of suffer overcrowding, and our have many city “hubs” to ensure ability to contribute to social and
blue and white there are yellow modern housing has woeful space cultural life either where they • Ed Davey “can’t remember a
riots of goldilocks Ranunculus standards. Market developers will work or where they live. This time when the Liberal Democrats
auricomus, that most imperfect of phenomenon particularly affects were more important to getting the
buttercups. The Japanese aesthetic Here’s the kind even though we are one of the small or medium-sized towns Tories out of power” (Campaign
of wabi-sabi finds beauty in wealthiest countries in the world. with limited job opportunities. off the blocks early to win Devon
imperfection – a philosophy usually of PM we need Margaret Dickinson seat long held by Tories, 16 May).
linked to art forms such as ceramics, My kind of prime minister would London Is that because they spent half of
but if applied to plants this to heal divisions make two promises. First, they the last decade keeping them in it?
oft-overlooked woodland spring would ask us to identify today’s Daniels’ bravery sets Alan Gray
flower should surely be celebrated. I totally agree with Max Hastings five giants (add climate change, example for football Brighton
(Who should be prime minister? racism and sexism). Experts in
It’s hard to find a perfect Anyone but Boris Johnson, 14 May), those fields would then be asked to As a man who has just come • According to the economic
goldilocks inflorescence whose but I don’t just want a change of develop concrete policies. Second, out in his 60s, I am so happy anthropologist Jason Hickel, no
flowers have a full complement prime minister. Our country is they would consult us on these for Jake Daniels (Blackpool political party supports a global
of petals. Unfettered by rules of very divided – between leavers policies using citizens’ assemblies, footballer Daniels becomes first minimum wage (Conversations
organised floral development and and remainers, north and south, where people who are broadly male UK player in decades to with Coco, 14 May). Does the Green
symmetry, some flowers may have school leavers and graduates, representative of the electorate come out as gay, 17 May). At 17, party not count? A global living
none, others any number between city and rural dwellers. It needs a across gender, ethnicity and social and in a profession known for its wage and global minimum labour
one and five, often malformed. In prime minister who has vision and class engage in serious, informed entrenched homophobia, he has standards are settled elements
the uniformity of a bluebell wood, energy, who can speak in simple, debate on policy matters with bravely embraced the reality of of Green party policy.
this is the uncouth attender at a heartfelt language about wanting to people they may never normally who he is. No more hiding in the John Gray
formal occasion who ignores the heal this divided country. meet and make a recommendation. shadows. How I wish that I had York
dress code and turns up in T-shirt Diana Basterfield had the courage to come out in my
and ripped jeans. I don’t expect this prime minister Stroud, Gloucestershire professional life, especially when • Einstein? I put my money on
to have all the answers. I expect a headteacher. How I wish I had my outsized T-shirt with a huge
The reason? Goldilocks has them to understand that we feel • I doubt very much whether any come out to my family and friends print – on the back and the front
forsaken sex. It no longer relies on ignored, angry and divided among woman, let alone a competent one, years ago. I chose the shadows – of Mahatma Gandhi and the
showy flowers to compete with ourselves, and that we don’t trust would succeed in flopping over the and have to live with that regret. words “Non-violence is more
bluebells for insect pollinators. politicians. They should know new low bar set by the Conservative Martyn Taylor powerful than an atomic bomb”
Instead, its seeds are clonal that what we desperately need is a party when selecting its leader Newark, Nottinghamshire (Who owns Einstein?, 17 May).
propagules, reliably produced process that will involve all of us. before inflicting them on the rest of Val Mainwood
without union between pollen and us. Imagine: sacked from two jobs • Encouraging as it is to read Wivenhoe, Essex
ovules, so all offspring are identical The last comprehensive vision for lying; a known serial adulterer; of the support for Jake Daniels
to the parent plant. for Britain was put forward was by a shocking record of racist, sexist (A new dawn for football, 17 May), • When I opened my back door
the prime minister Clement Attlee in and homophobic comments. isn’t it a disgrace that it’s taken to let my dogs out on Monday
But sometimes mutation 1945, based on William Beveridge’s a 17-year-old, 32 years after the morning, I heard a cuckoo sing – the
intervenes and then a new and 1942 report. This called for a shared Had Boris been Borisina, there appalling treatment of Justin first after years of silence. What joy!
subtly different local, clonal duty of care between government is no way that she would have Fashanu by the footballing I have also had two hedgehogs in
goldilocks microspecies proliferates. and citizens to conquer the five got anywhere near elected office community, to have the courage to the garden after years of absence.
Botanists believe there may be “giants”: want, disease, ignorance, of any sort. My dilemma is that speak out? The football authorities All I need now is for the multitude
more than one hundred of these squalor and idleness. Today, I can’t decide whether to be over all those years only managed of grasshoppers that once inhabited
in our flora, yet to be described Beveridge’s giants have returned, relieved or disheartened by the a few token rainbow-laces-wearing my field to come back.
and named. Exquisite complexity, obvious double standard. gestures. Let’s hope this young Jan Cook
arising from imperfection. Helen Swann man shames them into real action. South Nutfield, Surrey
Phil Gates Glasgow Richard Warren and Phil Revels
West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
We may edit letters. Submission
and publication of letters is subject
to our terms and conditions: see
theguardian.com/letters-terms

• The Guardian Wednesday 18 May 2022

6 Obituaries

Kay Mellor hit with four series of Fat Friends Johnston portrayed the mother,
(2000-05), about members of a at different stages of her life, who
Screenwriter hailed for Leeds slimming group, with James Mellor’s in the 1950s has an affair with a
TV series such as Band Corden and Ruth Jones in the cast. upbringing married neighbour who is then
of Gold and Fat Friends A stage musical version written by on a Leeds killed in a fairground brawl.
K ayMellor, Mellor with Nicholas Lloyd Webber council
who has died Her big break as a writer came Mellor in her first toured in 2017. estate Like much of Mellor’s work, it
aged 71, was with Band of Gold (1995-96), about garden, 1997. informed was based in Leeds, where she was
one of British a group of sex workers on the Right, Band Ensemble casts were also integral her work; born. Her father, George Daniel,
TV’s leading streets of Bradford. While doing of Gold, 1995, to The Syndicate (2012-21), an she also sold vacuum cleaners. In the 2017
dramatists, voluntary work at the National with, from left: inventive idea featuring a different had the Guardian interview, she described
with series that Children’s Home care line office in Barbara Dickson, group of six lottery winners – and ability her mother, Dinah (nee Vates), as
reflected the lives Leeds, taking calls from distressed Geraldine James, the consequences, positive and to bring a “tailoress” who, following her
and thinking of groups of women, children, she was picked up one Ruth Gemmell negative, of winning – in each of authentic father’s departure, “did everything
from Band of Gold and Fat Friends day by her husband to be driven and Cathy four series, and In the Club (2014- dialogue – making carpet for our rooms,
to The Syndicate and In the Club. to a party in Bradford. They took Tyson. Below, 16), following half a dozen women to the wallpapering, cooking, sewing –
a wrong turning. “By mistake, we James Corden who meet at antenatal classes screen and had time to read us stories and
Her own upbringing on a Leeds drove up Lumb Lane, which was and Lisa Riley through pregnancy and beyond. be affectionate”. When Kay was
council estate informed her work, a notorious red-light area,” Mellor in Fat Friends, nine, her mother married again, to
and she had an ability to bring told me while filming the drama’s 2002 In a rare foray away from the Abe Harris, an upholsterer.
authentic dialogue, humour and sequel, Gold, in 1997. “I could see series format, Mellor’s stage play
humanity to the screen. Recalling a young girl and thought, ‘she’s JOHN SHERBOURNE/ A Passionate Woman, inspired Kay attended West Park school,
that her father physically abused a prostitute.’ The girl stepped DAILY MAIL/ by a secret harboured by her own Leeds, and later took an A-level
her mother, Mellor told the forward to look into the car to see SHUTTERSTOCK mother for 30 years, was turned in drama at the city’s Park Lane
Guardian in 2017: “My earliest if there was a potential punter. into a two-part TV drama in 2010. College, where her reading for the
memory is of finding her on the It had begun 18 years earlier at role of Viola in Twelfth Night led a
floor in the living room and of “She could only have been the West Yorkshire Playhouse, tutor to encourage her to become
my father leaving. He beat up my 13 or 14 and had blond hair, a Leeds, before a successful London an actor. While studying at Bretton
mum. She threw him out.” denim jacket, a crop top, a leather West End run starring Stephanie Hall drama college, near Wakefield,
miniskirt and white high-heeled Cole and directed by Ned Sherrin Mellor wrote her first play, Paul,
At the age of 16, she met shoes. Her legs were bare – they (Comedy theatre, 1994-95). which was nominated as best new
Anthony Mellor and became were blue and mottled with the play in the national students’ drama
pregnant, marrying him in 1967. cold. I remember being shocked On screen, Billie Piper and Sue festival. On graduation in 1983,
“It won’t last,” the vicar told her because I had daughters of her age.” she founded the Yorkshire theatre
on the wedding day – but it did. company with two friends.
As their two daughters, Yvonne When Mellor put pen to paper
and Gaynor, grew older, Kay took for her gritty story, Samantha Following a couple of episodes
O- and A-levels, then trained Morton was cast as the teenage sex playing Dr Baker in the Granada TV
in drama as a mature student, worker, alongside Geraldine James medical series The Practice in 1985,
before founding a touring theatre and Cathy Tyson as her more she landed the role of PC Marjorie
company and entering television. experienced friends. Kershaw in its soap Albion Market
(1985-86). After writing a script
Mellor scored another screen on spec for the serial, she became
one of its storyliners. This led to
her joining Coronation Street’s
storyline team (1986-87).

Mellor had success on her own
with Place of Safety (1988), a play
for Yorkshire TV about the effects
of child-abuse accusations on a
family, which was nominated for the
Prix Italia. Then, with Paul Abbott –
another Coronation Street storyliner
– she created Children’s Ward (1989-
2000, later retitled The Ward). She
wrote Just Us (1992-94), a children’s
series in which she also appeared,
and the women’s football drama
Playing the Field (1998-2002). Her
own 1997 adaptation of Jane Eyre was
a rare excursion into period drama.

Mellor was one of TV’s most
prolific writers, with her other
series including Between the
Sheets (2003), Love, Lies + Records
(2017) and Girlfriends (2018). She
also scripted the drama Girls’ Night
(1998) and wrote and directed the
1999 film Fanny and Elvis.

She received Bafta’s Dennis
Potter award in 1997 and a Writers’
Guild of Great Britain award in 2015,
both for outstanding writing for TV.
In 2009, she was appointed OBE.

Mellor’s two daughters worked
on some of her television series,
Yvonne Francas as a producer and
Gaynor – who as Gaynor Faye had
roles in Coronation Street and
Emmerdale – as writer or script
editor. They survive her, along with
her husband.
Anthony Hayward

Kay Mellor, screenwriter and actor,
born 11 May 1951; died 15 May 2022

Wednesday 18 May 2022 The Guardian •

 [email protected] 7
 @guardianobits

Other David then moved on to become Michael MacLeod After the army he studied Birthdays .
lives a senior lecturer at Madeley College painting at Hastings School of
of Education in Stoke-on-Trent, Art historian and talented sculptor Art, where the principal, the artist Holly Aird, actor, 53; John Bruton,
David Larder where he set up one of the first who championed the work of the Vincent Lines, who had been former Taoiseach of Ireland,
degrees in drama, dance and film. British artist Thomas Hennell one of Hennell’s closest friends, 75; Caroline Charles, fashion
College lecturer and promoter of In 1970 he took up a post at Trent My friend Michael MacLeod, introduced him to the artist’s work. designer, 80; Lord (Patrick)
safety education in schools through Polytechnic (now Nottingham who has died aged 93, was an art Cormack, historian and former
the Green Cross Man campaign Trent University) as a senior historian with a strong interest Michael then did teacher Conservative MP, 83; Rodger
My husband, David Larder, who has lecturer in mass media. In 1975 he in the work of the British artist training at Brighton and, in the Davis, golfer, 71; Prof Sir Anthony
died aged 88, was an educationist, gained a degree in education at the Thomas Hennell. His book, Thomas early 1950s, became a teacher Epstein, pathologist, 101; Tina
going on from schoolteaching to University of Birmingham. Hennell: Countryman, Artist and of life drawing at Staffordshire Fey, actor and comedian, 52;
posts as a college lecturer. After Writer (1988), was the first to be College of Art. There he met Audrey John Godber, playwright,,
promoting safety education for the Two years later David took published on his subject, and Thornton, one of his students, and 66; Albert Hammond, singer,
Royal Society for the Prevention of up the post of director of safety persuasively presented Hennell as they married in 1959. songwriter and music producer,
Accidents (Rospa), he worked for a education for Rospa, where he had an artist of rare achievement. 78; John Higgins, snooker player,
student welfare organisation. much to do with the introduction He was a talented artist, 47; Prof Dame Celia Hoyles,
of the Green Cross Man campaign, Michael was born in Eltham, particularly as a sculptor and mathematician, 76; Prof Malcolm
Born in Boscombe, Dorset, to involving the Darth Vader actor south-east London, to Frances printmaker, but was also interested Longair, astronomer, 81; Miriam
Rose Sque, a cleaner, and Walter David Prowse, into schools. (nee Wix) and Norman MacLeod, in other people’s work. From 1964 Margolyes, actor, writer and
Larder, a builder’s labourer and a captain in the First Gurkha Rifles to 1966 he studied art history broadcaster, 81; Mark Menzies,
farm worker, he was educated at Leaving Rospa in 1980, he who subsequently became first at the Courtauld Institute of Conservative MP, 51; Prof Dame
Brockenhurst grammar school in became the manager at Mary secretary at the British legation in Art in London, and in 1966 he Henrietta Moore, anthropologist,
the New Forest and then the Bristol Morris Student Housing in Leeds Kathmandu, Nepal. Michael and became lecturer in art history at 65; Yannick Noah, tennis player
Old Vic theatre school. for 17 years, helping to care his older brother, Ian, consequently Goldsmiths, University of and singer, 62; Guy Opperman,
for thousands of international spent much of their early childhood London – a post he held until his Conservative MP and pensions
His youthful acting career was students from across the world, in Nepal and India before they retirement in 1984. minister, 57; Natalia Osipova,
cut short in 1953 by national service many of whom stayed in touch ballet dancer, 36; Jane Root,
with the Devonshire Regiment in with him. He retired in 1997, when were sent back to Britain in 1936 to His book about Hennell was a broadcasting executive and
Kenya during the uprising of the we moved to Harrogate. board at Westerleigh prep school brilliant and deeply thoughtful former controller, BBC Two, 65;
Land and Freedom Army there. in Hastings, East Sussex. Their study, and was researched and Michael Sandle, sculptor, 86;
Seeing it as a colonial war, he David’s experiences in Kenya parents remained in India, and the written over a decade when those Jacques Santer, former president,
refused to use the propaganda informed the rest of his life, and brothers did not see them again who knew Hennell, who died in European Commission, 85; Lionel
term Mau Mau and after eight he was involved in peace activism, until 1940, when they sailed back to 1945, were still living. Shriver, novelist and journalist,
months’ service applied to register including as chairman of the North Bombay (now Mumbai). 65; Rick Wakeman, musician and
– successfully – as a conscientious of England committee of the United Michael was intellectually composer, 73; Jessica Watson,
objector on political grounds. Nations International Year of Michael spent the next five years curious, diligent, modest and kind. sailor, 29; Toyah Willcox, singer
Peace in 1986. He was a passionate at the Bishop Cotton school in It says much about him that he and actor, 64; Adrian Wootton,
In 1958 he qualified as a teacher supporter of the Labour party, Simla (now Shimla), in the foothills extended such a welcome to me chief executive, Film London, 60.
at Bretton College of Education in which he had joined at the age of 15. of the Himalayas, a time he when I began to research my own
Yorkshire before teaching first at remembered fondly. He returned book about Hennell in 2013. Letter
Darton school for boys, Barnsley In his spare time he was a keen to Britain in 1946 when he was William Nash
(1958-60), then drama and English amateur actor and director, and had 18, and was called up for national My experience of writing
at Woldgate comprehensive school, small roles in shows such as the ITV service as a second lieutenant in that book was immeasurably If you are facing a trial that could
Pocklington, Yorkshire (1960-65). drama Marcella (2016) and Mister the North Staffordshire regiment, improved by his support and end up with you spending several
Eleven (2009), as well as Sky One’s with postings in Egypt and Aden encouragement, not to mention years in prison, it is great to have a
Richard Evans Dream Team. Above all he was a between 1947 and 1950. the delicious vegetarian home- lawyer who is politically “on side”,
devoted family man. cooked lunches that he and and has a wry sense of humour
Teacher whose passion for further Cornwall College and in 1990 was Audrey gave me. Michael was and a clear disdain for much of the
education was fuelled by his An early marriage to Gertrude appointed principal and chief 45 years my senior, but the legal and political establishment.
experience of failing the 11-plus ended in divorce, and David and executive at Stockport College of generational difference was So I was fortunate that the first
My father, Richard Evans, who I were married in 1975. He Further and Higher Education. absolutely no impediment to time I was a defendant in a political
has died aged 79, dedicated his is survived by me, our twin a lovely friendship. trial, my solicitor – in his first high-
life to widening access to daughters, Victoria and Nicola, Throughout his career he profile political case – was William
education, a mission born of his his four children from his first looked for ways to help widen He is survived by Audrey, Nash (Other lives, 14 April).
experience of being called a marriage, Helen, Brendan, Duncan access and to support local their four children, Dominic,
failure while at primary school, and Mary, 11 grandchildren, and technical education. At Great Lucy, Edmund and Daniel, five The 1974-75 case – involving 14
thanks to the 11-plus. his sister Mary. Yarmouth he set up a class for grandchildren and his younger pacifists and anti-militarists facing
Linda Larder special educational needs, brother, Keith. conspiracy charges relating to
He was born in Solihull, West which he ran on top of his Jessica Kilburn the distribution of information to
Midlands, to Mildred (nee Bryant), including a PhD in physics. He lecturing duties. At Blackpool British soldiers telling them how
who went into domestic service credited this to the support of he established a primary school in 2002, he worked as a consultant they could leave the Army – ended
in her early teens, and Benjamin teachers who encouraged his science centre. At Peterborough he and was an active member of up, thanks to the commitment of
Evans, a career sailor who joined love of science. After attending created a centre for local technical the Institute of Physics, City Bill and others, with defendants,
the navy aged 14. Richard failed Hilsea secondary modern school expertise in sugar processing. and Guilds, and the Institute of solicitors and barristers working
the 11-plus on two occasions, yet in Portsmouth, Richard took his Leadership and Management. collectively as a team; and
he went on to achieve five degrees, A-levels at Portsmouth Technical Richard contributed to a national with political as well as legal
College, while working night shifts inquiry into technology education, Despite never passing his English considerations to the fore.
in various jobs, including at chaired by Monty Finniston O-level, he was a prolific writer,
R White’s lemonade factory. (1988), and to the Royal Society’s with 350 articles published on Over the following years,
Beyond GCSE report in 1991. He education and science. Bill went on to do similar, and
He studied physics at the also developed a maths teaching frequently similarly successful,
University of London, graduating diploma for primary schools. He Richard never forgot his sterling work for many of my
in 1965, and did his doctorate at was chair, member or representative background and, while this drove friends and comrades.
the University of Essex, which of more than 30 bodies, including his work, it often left him frustrated Albert Beale
he completed in 1969. He later the Engineering Council and the at the unfairness of a system
took a graduate certificate in Association for Science. stacked against so many. Reread our obituaries of
education in London, an MEd the Australian cricketer
at Manchester University (1977) On retirement from Stockport He had a lifelong love of blues Andrew Symonds and the
and also a DMS (diploma in music and film noir and always bird artist Robert Gillmor
management studies, 2000). had a hobby on the go: growing theguardian.com/
vegetables, learning Mandarin, obituaries
He started his career in 1971 as gazing at the stars through his
a lecturer in further education at telescope, or spending time on his
Great Yarmouth. After three years barge, the John Lee Hooker.
teaching in Blackpool, in 1978 he
became head of science, maths In 1971 he married Carol Morrell.
and computing at Peterborough She survives him, along with their
Technical College. In 1982 he five children, Matthew, Imogen,
became deputy principal at Dominic, Tristan and me, and six
grandchildren, Harriet, Daniel,
Ellis, Eric, Ruby and Olive.
Bec Evans

• The Guardian Wednesday 18 May 2022

8 Puzzles Codeword

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

Medium

Cryptic crossword Guardian cryptic crossword No 28,760 set by Crucible

Solution No. 28,759

E CD S I AMS 12345678 Across Down
V I RGO AUBERG I NE
E UWL E C L N 9 Box in occasional Scottish players 1 Old king left Queen’s Master of
RACONT EUR HOL S T
I SI IE 9 10 (9) Music (4,6)

NU N BL O AS O MA S A ME A R I AC 10 One penny collected by fan as 2 Capone’s neckwear expert (8)

B L E S S NOT DEATH contribution (5) 3 A Republican tucked into drink —

I S I ECE 11 Heard rumours about what porter, perhaps (6)
DI ALECT MI SF I TS
RNAE D 11 12 auditor needs (7) 4 On way up, came across

PETRA B I LATERAL 12 Barman orders reconditioned independent couple (4)
AT O HU G HC N EL S ES OP R AI C EE
grand to be wheeled in (7) 5 New missile submarine, say,

HR S T S ENK 13 Broadcasting old and new moving home? (10)

13 14 15 melody (2,3) 6 Exchanging introductions,

14 Wife of performer with opening discover friendly energy supplier

feature that’s amazing (3,6) (4,4)

16 Work of 12 that’s produced by 9 7 Optimistic conductor may start
16 17 18 (3,5,2,5)
with it (6)

19 North-east resort’s favourite way 8 Zoo trips occasionally lift

to welcome VIP (3,6) company (4)

19 20 21 Percussionist hero accompanying 14 Member of 9 to start up
21 Romeo (5) gramophone? (4,6)

22 Hear this instrument played — 15 Credit more staggering sporting

Aeolian harp possibly (7) achievement (6,4)

22 23 23 Stovepipe that’s struck by 21 (4,3) 17 Handel wrote one speech mostly

24 Fiddle perhaps somewhat to entertain troops (8)

melodramatically (5) 18 This ham’s potentially a huge

25 It’s blown up in home with success (5,3)

24 25 uniform undone (9) 20 Thrillers maybe shot while in
Glasgow (6)

21 Express ignorance about Italian’s

Stuck? For help call 0906 200 83 83. title (6)
Calls cost £1.10 per minute, plus your
phone company’s access charge. 22 Ring mate touring Spain (4)
Service supplied by ATS.
Call 0330 333 6946 for customer 23 Boost newsworthy people to
service (charged at standard rate).
Want more? Get access to more than some degree (4)
4,000 puzzles at theguardian.com/
crossword. To buy puzzle books, visit
guardianbookshop.com or call
0330 333 6846.