Convenience Big Store: Here’s what happened when I called the police

25 October, 2021

In the headlines

Rishi Sunak says he'll splash a "game-changing" £5.9bn on the NHS in Wednesday's Budget. But the "chill of austerity" is in the air, says The Guardian's John Harris – expect a clash over cash between the boosterish Boris Johnson and his "Conservative grown-up" Chancellor. A former top Saudi spy has labelled Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a "psychopath killer" and a "threat to the planet" on CBS's 60 Minutes. Police are investigating an "offensive" banner unfurled by Crystal Palace fans during their match against Newcastle on Saturday. It listed the alleged offences of Newcastle's new Saudi owners: terrorism, beheadings, civil rights abuse, murder, persecution and censorship. Ben Stokes has been added to England's Ashes squad, having recovered from a fractured finger and mental health problems. "I'm ready for Australia," he said.

Comment of the day

Jeremy Clarkson in his Amazon Prime series Clarkson's Farm

Here's what happened when I called the police

When a suspicious-looking pair of chaps drove up to my farm last week, I rang the police, says Jeremy Clarkson in The Sunday Times. Earlier that day I'd seen a drone hovering over my farmyard, and didn't much fancy being burgled. I shouldn't have bothered. First I sat through an "extensive recorded message about how I should record a Covid breach". Then the call handler went all funny when I described the men as Travellers – even though that was what they'd called themselves. If I continued like this, she said, "she'd be forced to open a new line of inquiry into racist behaviour". Afterwards I "waited for the actual police to not show up. Naturally they obliged." So what was Plod doing that was more important than rushing over here? "Ungluing vicars from the Oxford ring road?" No: writing me a long letter complaining that my plans for a café had no provision for cycle parking.

That's the problem with the police. My local bobbies are brilliant, but work part-time out of a "broom cupboard" while all the resources are used by head office chasing people like me for non-offences. Everyone's fed up with this. Why doesn't someone set up a private police force that actually fights crime? Then the actual police can spend "more time pandering to the whims of social media and making sure everyone has somewhere to park their bicycle".

Nervous neighbours woo the Taliban

Afghanistan's largest neighbours have much to gain from the US withdrawal, says Zahir Sherazi in Al Jazeera. China is eyeing up between $1 trillion and $3 trillion in untapped mineral resources. Iran is Afghanistan's biggest trading partner. Pakistan hopes a tough, friendly Kabul will prevent the insurgents who have killed more than 83,000 people and inflicted billions of dollars' worth of losses on the Pakistani economy from pouring over its borders. Imran Khan, Pakistan's prime minister, has urged the world to support the new Taliban government. In return he expects arch rival India to be "out of the game" – and a $1bn boost in trade.

Each country has much to lose if it handles Kabul badly. China's border with Afghanistan is 57 miles long, Iran's 572 miles and Pakistan's 1,659 miles. Beijing fears a chaotic Afghanistan may cause a spillover of violence to Xinjiang province, undermining its Belt & Road initiative. More than two million Afghan refugees on Iranian territory are already worrying Tehran; it wants Afghanistan to be stable so these refugees feel safe to return. Pakistan is aware that the Taliban have more suitors than they did in the 1990s, and are less likely to do as they are told. Dealing with Kabul will be a delicate act for this "emerging anti-US axis", which also includes Russia. But each of its members has a "vested interest" in seeing the Taliban succeed.

Tomorrow's world

Turkmenistan is "one of the world's worst emitters" of methane, which has up to 80 times as much warming power as carbon dioxide, says Bloomberg. This 230ft-wide crater, known as the Gates of Hell, is the result of a drilling accident in the central Asian country in the 1970s. The crater has been burning methane gas continuously ever since.

Noted

Pablo Escobar's "cocaine hippos" are legally people, a court has ruled, making it trickier for the authorities to exterminate them. The Colombian drug kingpin kept four hippos as pets before his death in 1993. They've since bred in the wild and there are now more than 100 of them – the largest herd outside Africa. That figure could reach 1,500 by 2040. If only Geronimo the alpaca had had a cartel behind him.

Zeitgeist

Frazzled Hong Kongers can now take a "sleeping bus tour". The five-hour ride is aimed at exhausted insomniacs who struggle to nod off after work but are easily rocked to sleep on public transport. It includes a sleeping mask and earplugs. "BYO pillow and slippers," says Quartz.

Snapshot

Eating in

The innovative dishes on offer to delegates at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow will have "an estimated carbon footprint", says Josh Barrie in the I newspaper – the kale pasta comes in at a saintly 300g of CO2. A delicious plate of Scottish seaweed will have never seen a drop of fertiliser, while the energy that produced the Aberdeenshire potatoes and carrots came from wind turbines. The worst offender is a Scottish beefburger, producing a guilt-inducing 3.3kg of CO2.

Snapshot answer

It's Mussomeli in Sicily, one of more than 30 remote Italian towns running €1 house schemes to stop themselves becoming deserted. Young professionals from UK, the US, Norway, Dubai and Jordan have snapped up three-storey fixer-uppers there during the pandemic – Mussomeli has fibreoptic broadband. I "feel a small gold-and-silver coin burning a hole in my pocket", says Tim Moore in the Telegraph.