Ministers are considering a new pay offer to health workers to end the "NHS chaos", says the Daily Mail. A one-off payment to reflect the cost-of-living crisis – previously dismissed by the government – is now on the table, with Health Secretary Steve Barclay to hold fresh talks with union leaders before the nurses' strike next week. Some Boris Johnson aides are believed to have had sex in No 10 during the lockdown party on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral, according to a new ITV podcast. Two couples were seen "becoming intimate" at the gathering, before retreating to dark rooms away from the crowd. Jeff Beck has died aged 78. The "genius" guitarist was "one of a legendary triumvirate" of British players along with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, says Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. His hands were once insured for £7m. |
Ambulances queuing outside the Royal London Hospital. Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty |
My "vision of hell" in A&E |
Last month, I hit my head on a scaffolding bolt and had to go to A&E, says George Monbiot in The Guardian. I called ahead and was booked in for 9pm, so I "naively imagined" that was when I'd be seen. No such luck. Upon arrival, 16 ambulances were queuing to offload patients. The waiting room was a "vision of hell": a man collapsed with symptoms of a heart attack; a toddler screamed "it hurts, it hurts!" for three hours straight. When I asked a nurse if it was an unusually frantic evening, she replied: "This is a quiet one." I was eventually seen by a doctor at 3am. |
This is what 13 years of austerity has given us. The NHS "funding gap" – the additional money it would have received had pre-2010 levels been sustained – is now £200bn. In that time, almost 9,000 general and acute beds have been lost in England. Among OECD countries, the average number of hospital beds is five per 1,000 people; the UK has 2.4. The "permanent crisis" in social care means 13,000 patients are needlessly kept in wards, fit for discharge but with nowhere to go. And up to 500 Britons are dying each week because of delays in emergency care. When the Tories refuse to boost spending, they "reject the idea of sustaining a functional service". Our NHS is "bleeding out in the government's waiting room, hoping for a call that never comes".
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After years of being confined to kids' parties, jelly is "ready for its redemption arc", says Eater. Big brands from Nike to Hendrick's Gin have used the dessert for ad campaigns, creating special moulds to imprint logos and shapes on to strikingly coloured creations. Jello shots – gelatinised alcohol set into shapes – are no longer a naff gimmick only seen at college parties: upscale cocktail connoisseurs have begun serving champagne-infused jelly squares and jellified negronis. One aficionado, American food writer Ken Albala, has even created an Asian-inspired jellied pho tartare. |
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When I returned to a "trainless UK" last week, says Matthew Parris in The Times, I ended up taking the National Express coach to Chesterfield instead. During my journey, I realised just how hard a bus driver's job is. Not only must they be "expert and attentive at the wheel", dealing with everything from fast motorways to stop-and-start city centre traffic, they also have to check passengers on and off themselves, as well as load and unload their luggage. Yet their salary – up to £31,000 a year – is less than half the £65,000 train drivers can earn. "Something here doesn't look right." |
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A seismic group. Michael Putland/Getty |
When Madness held a reunion concert in 1992, it caused a minor earthquake, says Mark Mason in The Spectator. As the band launched into their hit One Step Beyond, the 35,000-strong crowd in Finsbury Park, north London started jumping up and down in unison. The resulting tremor, which registered 4.2 on the Richter scale, caused cracked balconies and windows, with residents of three nearby tower blocks having to be evacuated. As lead singer Suggs recalls, it's "something to go on the CV". |
A "nice" read, but what kind of "nice"? |
The wonders of our changing language |
Following the advice of a colleague, says John McWhorter in The New York Times, I recently gave Henry James's The Ambassadors a try. Frankly, "it was a bit of a slog". James's writing is not exactly "for the beach" at the best of times, but particularly in his later novels the "tapeworm sentences" create a kind of "obsessive obfuscation". The author himself recommended reading just five pages at a time. But much of the challenge is that the meaning of so many words has changed since 1903. We're used to dealing with this in, say, Chaucer or Shakespeare, but James demonstrates just how much lexical evolution can happen in a century. |
When one character in The Ambassadors has a "wonderful look" at another, you remember that "wonderful" used to literally mean "full of wonder". Another character declares "I'm incredible" – by which he means not "awesome", but "unable to be believed" or non-credible. It's a reminder that some words have been on very long journeys indeed. "Nice", which today means "socially agreeable", meant "dimwitted" back in 1205, and in the intervening years has variously meant "weak", "careful", "observant" and "distracted by idle fastidiousness". "Silly" used to mean "blessed", "obnoxious" once meant "subject to harm", and today we speak of "heading" out from a party "without for a minute thinking it has anything to do with our noggins". The fit between words and meanings is "much fuzzier" than we often think. "The fun is in looking back at how things have changed and always having an ear open to what might be next." |
Whimsical programmer Matt Round has created an online game to see how good users are at drawing perfect circles. Play for yourself here. |
One reason San Francisco hasn't been too badly damaged by this week's biblical deluge is that in 2016, the city launched a program allowing citizens to "adopt" individual storm drains to keep them clear of debris. Anyone civic-minded enough to take part was rewarded with official naming rights for their drain. Top choices include "Grate Expectations", "Thirsty Boi", "You're So Drain", "Watergate", "Lana del Drain", and of course "Drainy McDrainface". |
It's BMW's latest colour-changing concept car. The multi-hued motor is covered in the same "e-ink" used in electronic books such as Kindles, says Dezeen, with 240 panels that can be individually controlled to display any of 32 colours at the flick of a switch. Alas, no word yet on when (or if) the feature will be added to cars you can actually buy. |
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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
Albert Einstein |
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