samedi 12 septembre 2026

Farage lands £36m donation

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: ‘I still have nightmares’ | How to avoid midlife burnout
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Britain’s most popular daily newsletter, read by more than 850,000

Saturday, 12 September 2026

Issue No. 559

Good morning.

Reform UK has been given a record-shattering £36m donation. Writing for The Telegraph, Ben Delo, a cryptocurrency billionaire, said he gave the money to ensure “a fair fight” at the next general election. It is a welcome boost for Nigel Farage after a difficult summer. Gordon Rayner, our Associate Editor, reports.

Elsewhere, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe tells Louise Carpenter how she rebuilt her life after being locked up as a political prisoner in Iran for nearly six years.

I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk.

Chris Evans, Editor

P.S. Don’t miss our Summer Sale. Act now to try four months of The Telegraph free. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.


 

In today’s edition

How to avoid midlife burnout in your 40s, 50s and 60s

Ukraine’s biggest victory this year exposes lying Russian commanders

Plus, the 15 best holidays for October sun

Summer Sale: Try four months free

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Farage lands £36m donation

Gordon Rayner

Gordon Rayner

Associate Editor

 

Just when rival parties were hoping Reform UK’s bubble had burst, up pops one of its billionaire supporters with the biggest ever donation to a political party.

Ben Delo, the crypto king, has shovelled a staggering £36m into Nigel Farage’s war chest to “level the democratic playing field” at the next general election.

Breaking the news in The Telegraph, Delo, 42, said he wanted to give Reform the resources it needed to tackle the “entrenched advantages” of Labour and the Tories, which have built their party machines over more than a century.

His donation is a game changer. The previous record for a single donation was a £10m bequest to the Tories from Lord (John) Sainsbury, while the biggest gift from a living donor was the £9m given to Reform by another crypto billionaire, Christopher Harborne, in 2025.

Farage’s political rivals had been hoping he might give up the fight after a difficult summer in which both Parliament and the police launched investigations into Reform funding.

Instead, Farage has been given a breathtaking boost ahead of what he is convinced will be a 2027 general election, and the odds of him winning might just have shortened.
Continue reading

Ben Delo: I’m giving Reform millions to make the next election a fair fight

 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: ‘I still have nightmares. In my mind, I’m stuck in Iran’

Louise Carpenter

Features Writer

 

“I remind myself every single morning that today I am in charge of my day. Nobody is telling me what to do. You only appreciate it once you have lost your freedom.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British national, was snatched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at Tehran airport while holding her 22-month-old daughter in her arms back in 2016. She was thrown in prison accused of spying.

It emerged years later that she was a geopolitical pawn in a battle between the British and Iranian governments for a £400m unpaid British debt. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, refused to accept the lies and evasions that came from the Foreign Office. Why wouldn’t they bring her home?

In an interview with Zaghari-Ratcliffe, I was moved to tears by her resilience, by her losses but also by what she has reclaimed and is creating afresh. She returned to Britain in 2022 with unmanageable obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders.

How did she rebuild her life with her loved ones?

“I try very hard to be where I am today,” she tells me, “to protect my relationships from what happened to us. I will do my best to carry on trying.”

My conversation with Zaghari-Ratclife reveals that with dedication and determination (and the right therapist), love and kindness not only survive but they triumph.
Continue reading

 

Opinion

Charles Moore Headshot

Charles Moore

The defeat of assisted suicide is a victory for the vulnerable – and Parliament

Scrutiny by the Lords showed the Bill to be unsafe. The state must not try this again for a generation

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;"> Camilla Tominey</span> Headshot

Camilla Tominey

Labour’s war on the South is built on a poisonous myth

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Christopher Howse</span> Headshot

Christopher Howse

Catholic PMs shouldn’t be appointing Anglican bishops

Continue reading

 
Matt Cartoon
 

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In other news

Assisted dying will not become legal in England and Wales after MPs voted to reject the legislation. One MP changed her vote after having nightmares.

Migrant hotels will be exempt from Labour’s new tourist tax. The Conservative Party said it was “outrageous” that asylum hotels were being spared a levy that would hit hard-working families who had saved up for a break.

The Armed Forces are losing faith that John Healey will increase the defence budget, according to senior military sources. Earlier this year, Mr Healey resigned as defence secretary over a lack of funding for Britain’s military.

The US will sell Black Hawk military helicopters to Argentina for the first time, despite renewed tensions with the UK over the Falkland Islands.

• Finally, Emma Barnett is leaving BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Her departure is the latest blow to the corporation’s flagship current affairs show. As Anita Singh reports, it’s safe to say that some behind the scenes will not be sad to see her go.

 

Weekend reads

Ukraine’s biggest victory this year exposes lying Russian commanders

The Ukraine war is known for the proliferation of video footage captured on the front line, yet Kyiv’s forces launched their most significant attack of the year so far behind a veil of silence. On May 22, the 3rd Army Corps began a counter-attack aimed at relieving pressure on the embattled city of Lyman and the crucial Fortress Belt of cities that underpin Ukraine’s defence of the Donbas. Only now, five months later, are the results starting to emerge. There has been no official confirmation, nor any drone or GoPro footage of successful advances. In fact, the information black-out appears to have fooled the Russian president entirely. Only two weeks ago, he claimed that Russia had captured Sviatohirsk – a city, by then, far behind the new front line carved out by Kyiv’s marauding troops.

Continue reading

 

How to avoid midlife burnout in your 40s, 50s and 60s

Dr Anna Schaffner explained to me that burnout is a kind of “exhaustion that we can’t alleviate through rest”, and it is most likely to strike in midlife, writes Lauren Shirreff. Fortunately there is much that can be done to ward off burnout in life’s most stress-inducing decades.

Continue reading

 

Jerry Hall on embracing single life in her 70s: No surgery, no diet, no husband

Jerry Hall

Jerry Hall has seen it all, from nights out at Studio 54 to Vogue covers and marriages to Mick Jagger and Rupert Murdoch. Even so, at 70, she is now living her best life. As she tells Julia Llewellyn Smith, “You worry about getting old and being alone, then you get there and think, ‘Hey, this is really great!’” Not that Hall is fading from public life. She’s the star of a major new beauty campaign and will soon appear in Celebrity Traitors.

Continue reading

 

‘I outsource my life admin to a £100-a-week assistant in Nigeria’

Darya Simanovich is one of a growing group of women who believe they have found the secret to “having it all”. She’s a mother of three and a serial entrepreneur, but instead of working late or hiring a nanny, she has chosen to offload her personal and household admin to a virtual assistant based in Nigeria.

Continue reading

 

Your Saturday

 

Food for thought

Do you know what you’re going to eat this weekend? We’ve got you covered. Every Saturday, Diana Henry, The Telegraph’s award-winning cookery writer, brings you three recipes for a perfect weekend meal. Meanwhile, William Sitwell shares his view from the culinary world – and a recommendation or two.

Green chilli and coriander naan with kachumber salad

Diana Henry

Diana Henry

 

I am ensconced in testing recipes for my next cookbook, which is about food from northern Europe. It sounds very spoilt if you cook lovely and interesting food all day and then want boiled eggs and oranges for tea. The truth is I truly can’t eat any more beetroot, lingonberry sauce or sprigs of dill. I am craving spices – and spices beyond cinnamon and cardamom, the ones you smell in bakeries from Copenhagen to Helsinki.

Right now, I want Middle Eastern and Indian spices, and some of the simplest dishes I can make. To be honest, it will be hard not to give in to the temptation of ordering dishes from my favourite Indian restaurant. But at the same time, what is better and simpler than making your own naan bread? I promise you, you can make it; try my chilli and coriander naan and find out.

Roast red pepper, carrot and harissa purée

As for what to have with it, let’s not worry about where dishes come from, but about how they complement each other. Roast red pepper purées are made in Syria, Spain and Greece, and this one with carrots in it is hot with harissa. Use the naan bread to scoop it up and its accompanying kachumber salad (tomatoes, cucumber, lime juice) to soothe your mouth.

Roast potatoes with chilli, mint, preserved lemon, feta and yogurt

Lastly, these roast chilli potatoes with feta and mint are one of those Middle-Eastern-inspired dishes we are all so good at thinking up these days when we’re not respecting borders. It brings both Greece and Morocco to the table and is a good “anchoring” dish for the naan and purée.

You don’t have to eat these three dishes together, of course, but they do work. End it all with mint tea and baklava or halva. I will be chopping dill again on Monday.

And before you go…

If you’re bored of eating reheated leftovers for lunch, check out Silvana Franco’s transformation ideas for five delicious dinners. Turn a coconut curry into chunky wraps the next day, or tomato and chorizo pasta into muffins. Beats a lunch of dreary dregs.

William Sitwell

William Sitwell

 

There’s something beautifully simple when you enter a bar in Europe and ask for a glass of wine. They just pour you one. Not in Blighty, though. Of course not. Here, distrustful of everyone around us and bound by regulation and custom, the response to the request for a glass of wine is met with, “small, medium or large?” Bureaucracy butts into the moment, delaying the sweet joy of the sniff, swirl and sip of wine, so I’m determined to do something about it at my establishment, The White Hart. My campaign to stop this traffic warden mentality starts here…
Read William’s full column

 

Your say

Three little words

While Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, is away, Kate Moore is on hand to share an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories.

Kate writes...
Three little words, freighted with so much emotion. Readers certainly had a lot to say in response to Michael Deacon’s argument that fathers shouldn’t need to tell their children that they love them.

There is something rather British in all this. I am from the “emotionally intelligent” millennial generation, and therefore a softie. However, I still save most of my “love yous” for the dog, who at least is under no obligation to answer back.


 

A lot seemed to hang on the age of the parent. “I’m 78, a Texan,” said Mary Howard. “I don’t recall Daddy ever saying he loved me. I remember him picking me up when I was hurt badly in a bicycle accident. Mom drove because he wouldn’t put me down.”


 

“I don’t remember my father ever saying that he loved me,” agreed Ian Perry. “His was a generation that wasn’t verbally expressive (born in 1931). I do remember that when I was away at university he wrote to me every week. So maybe he did at least remember who I was, and noticed that I wasn’t around the house so much.”


 

Richard Eyre was inclined to think that previous generations had got it wrong. “As someone who only saw his father at best 10 weeks a year between the age of 9 to 18 (at which point I left home) and can’t recall my father ever saying he loved me, I absolutely make sure my son knows he is loved both through actions and words.”


 

Of course, there are circumstances in which an expression of love is imperative. I was particularly moved by David Nichols’ experience: “Last summer I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I wasn’t in a very good place. I went out with my sons and I broke down in tears. They hugged me and told me they loved me. That made me feel so much better.”

Is there a limit to the love a parent can – or should – express? Tell us what you think here.

Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name.

 

Puzzler’s corner

Saturday quiz clues

Welcome to Andrew Baker’s Saturday quiz. Test your knowledge below to see if you have been paying attention to our newsletters this week...

1. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham made their live debut as The New Yardbirds this week in 1968. Under which name would they later become famous?

2. Lord Benyon issued guidance on the status of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex this week. What is Lord Benyon’s role in the Royal Household?

3. What, according to Tim Spector, the health expert, has been unfairly demonised?

4. Which fictional pirate was educated at Eton?

5. Which new gadget, costing £1,999, was tested for us by Britta O’Boyle in California?

Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.

Panagram

Yesterday’s Panagram was FRAMEWORK. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.

Plus, can you tackle The 1% Club? Scroll down to see if you got the questions right – and play for free on our website and app.

 

On this day

1624 | The first submarine is publicly tested on the Thames for King James I

2013 | Peaky Blinders premieres on the BBC

2022 | Elizabeth II’s coffin makes a ceremonial procession down the Royal Mile, Edinburgh (you can see our front page from the following day below)

Birthdays: Sydney Sweeney (29), Jennifer Hudson (45), Hans Zimmer (69)

Telegraph front page
 

Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.

Chris Evans, Editor

Quiz answers:

  1. Led Zeppelin
  2. Lord Chamberlain
  3. Alcohol
  4. Captain Hook
  5. Apple iPhone Duo
 

The 1% Club answers:

  1. D C A B
  2. ST
  3. 2111
 

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vendredi 11 septembre 2026

Labour mayors plot 5pc tax raid on hotels

France wants Britain to take migrants from across EU | How 9/11 changed aviation forever
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Britain’s most popular daily newsletter, read by more than 850,000

Friday, 11 September 2026

Issue No. 565

Good morning.

Labour mayors are plotting a 5 per cent tourist tax despite businesses and Andy Burnham’s own backbenchers describing the policy as “anti-growth”. Hospitality bosses, already reeling from Labour attacks, are warning the raid would drive away tourists, result in job losses and cost the industry at least £1.6bn. Harry Brennan, our Consumer Affairs Editor, reports.

Elsewhere, France wants to end the “one in, one out” migrant deal and replace it with a scheme in which Britain would take migrants from across the EU. Charles Hymas, our Home Affairs Editor, has the story.

Please let me know what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk.

Chris Evans, Editor

P.S. Don’t miss our Summer Sale. Act now to try four months of The Telegraph free. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.


 

In today’s edition

How 9/11 changed aviation forever

Burnham’s rewired state is less democratic

Plus, the unusual indicators of heart health

Summer Sale: Try four months free

Get full access to this newsletter every day, plus our award-winning website and app. Be quick: this offer must end soon.

 

Labour mayors plot 5pc tax raid on hotels

Harry Brennan

Harry Brennan

Consumer Affairs Editor

 

Labour mayors up and down the country are preparing to seize on new powers to impose tourist taxes despite a growing backlash.

All Labour authorities, including Lord Khan of Tooting, the Mayor of London, Andy Burnham ally Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Kim McGuinness in the North East, are expected to introduce the new tax on overnight stays.

Reform UK and Tory mayors said they would not impose the levy, warning that the Prime Minister would be unable to “tax his way to growth”.

The policy has sparked a furious backlash from the hospitality industry, with business leaders saying it will lead to devastating job losses and damage local communities.

They say they are unable to cope with extra costs, having already been hit with higher minimum wages and National Insurance contributions. It means much of the tourist tax will be passed on to consumers, including families on staycations and professionals on business trips.

Trade group UKHospitality said families faced paying £198 more for a summer holiday and estimated the tax would cost the industry at least £1.6bn.

Labour backbenchers also said the plans would damage the economy. Emma Lewell, the MP for South Shields, where higher taxes are planned, said: “I am really sad about this – it’s anti-growth and comes at the worst time for hospitality.”

There is more pain to come, with Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary, confirming The Telegraph’s report that the rate of tax will be uncapped, which could allow mayors to raise the levy without limits.

She also confirmed that other combined authorities, without mayors, would be granted the new powers under Labour’s broader devolution push.

This report is available only to subscribers.
Continue reading

Ben Marlow: Burnham’s tourist tax is a Judas kiss for hospitality

 

France wants Britain to take migrants from across EU

Charles Hymas

Charles Hymas

Home Affairs Editor

 

Britain could take migrants from across Europe under French proposals to replace the “one in, one out” deal with an EU-wide version.

Laurent Nuñez, the French interior minister, said he had personally told Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, that he wanted to end the existing scheme.

He said France instead sought to replace the “bilateral” deal with a similar EU-wide “one in, one out” agreement where Britain would send back Channel migrants to Europe in return for taking legitimate asylum seekers from across the bloc.

Negotiations are under way between Britain and France on whether to renew the deal, which is due to expire on Oct 1.

While Britain wants it to be a permanent scheme to deter crossings, Nuñez says his country “should not have to carry it alone, and that it would be better to integrate it into an agreement between the EU and UK”.

Whether Britain, France and the EU can find a resolution will have to be decided quickly given the looming deadline.
For subscribers only

 

Opinion

Dominic Lawson Headshot

Dominic Lawson

It’s a poor reflection on Britain that no party would dare scrap the triple lock

The current guarantees over the state pension are unsustainable. But the backlash against Theresa May’s pledge to fix this was instructive

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Alastair Sooke</span> Headshot

Alastair Sooke

I watched with pride as the Bayeux Tapestry brought out the best in the British public

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Andrew Orlowski</span> Headshot

Andrew Orlowski

Don’t fret about the AI apocalypse, Andy Burnham’s hired a consultant

Continue reading

 
Matt Cartoon
 

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In other news

Hamas has praised Ed Miliband’s sanctions on Israel. The terrorist group said his use of the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe the actions of settlers in the West Bank was a “step in the right direction”.

Britain’s economy grew unexpectedly in July in a boost for the Chancellor ahead of the Budget. Britain’s gross domestic product expanded by 0.4 per cent during the month, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Labour’s mansion tax is at risk of being delayed because of a row with civil servants over working from home. Whitehall bosses are said to be concerned about “productivity, quality and delivery timescales”.

Anthropic has said it foiled attempts by scientists to use its AI software to produce potential biological weapons.

• Finally, Tatler has reimagined the Bayeux Tapestry. It depicts the country’s aristocracy, as well as a few famous British faces, including Benedict Cumberbatch.

Tatler Bayeux Tapestry
 

Your essential reads

New York honoured the memory of 9/11 by recreating the Twin Towers using 2,977 light-up drones, one for every victim

How 9/11 changed aviation forever

Today, families and friends of the victims of 9/11 will remember their loved ones 25 years since the attacks that changed the world forever, writes Simon Calder. On that day, Robert Burgess piloted a 747 from London to Washington DC. He diverted to the small Canadian town of Gander, where his passengers and crew remained for days. “No checklist can tell you how to deal with this,” he told me. Tim Jeans, a former airline boss, said: “The innocence and fun went from the world that day, and we all live with the consequences.”
Continue reading

The seeds of the next 9/11 are being sown in West Africa

Plus, scroll down to see how this newspaper covered the attack...

 
Karen O’Malley

Karen O’Malley with her newborn grandchild, whom she helped deliver

‘I was given six months to live a decade ago – I’m proof assisted dying is wrong’

Eleven years ago, Karen O’Malley was preparing for her own death, writes Cameron Henderson. Told she had six to nine months to live after being diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer, the former NHS nurse secretly planned her funeral and considered suicide. Today, she is cancer-free and fears her experience exposes a danger at the heart of assisted dying: patients facing a devastating prognosis may make irreversible decisions while at their most vulnerable.
Continue reading

Two-thirds of public think assisted dying bill should be paused ahead of Commons vote

 

John Lewis turnaround cracks under cost of living reality

Almost two years to the day since Jason Tarry, the John Lewis chairman, took the reins at the retailer, a gloomy set of first-half numbers published yesterday were a reality check. While Tarry’s appointment was meant to signal a return to retail basics that would help to revive the fortunes of the struggling group, yesterday’s results show the turnaround he was brought in to deliver remains stubbornly unfulfilled.

Continue reading

 

Craig Revel Horwood interview: ‘Strictly will be really different. Get over it’

Strictly Come Dancing returns later this month. It’s the BBC’s flagship show – there are people who say they pay their licence fee for this and almost nothing else. This year, we have a brand new trio of presenters replacing Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly. Will fans like the changes? Craig Revel Horwood told me how the new Strictly will look.

Continue reading

 

Burnham’s rewired state is less democratic

Andy Burnham has consolidated power since entering No 10, writes Helen MacNamara, The Telegraph’s new columnist. The paradox of the “King of the North” is that he claims to be determined to give it away. Local leaders are “better equipped to link public opinion and civil society”, asserts his white paper on “rewiring the state”, but democracy depends on attribution. Who should we credit when a policy works, and who should we blame when things go wrong?

Continue reading

 

Seize the day

What your waistline, handshake and postcode reveal about your heart health

BMI has long been treated as a shorthand for good health, but it can obscure more than it reveals. Here, experts explain the overlooked clues to cardiovascular health, from abdominal fat and grip strength to pain in the legs or jaw, and why some apparently alarming symptoms may have nothing to do with your heart.

Continue reading

Here is another article that I hope you’ll find helpful this morning:

  • From herbal teas to warm milk, we asked the experts which “sleepy drinks” actually work. This was their verdict.
 

As Anita sees it

Bafta-bashing

Jeremy Clarkson accepts the Reality Docuseries Award for Clarkson’s Farm at the National Television Awards

Anita Singh

Anita Singh

Arts and Entertainment Editor

 

You can always rely on Jeremy Clarkson for a bit of straight-talking. This week he celebrated a win for Clarkson’s Farm at the National Television Awards, where it was voted best docuseries. “Never, ever win a Bafta,” he said at the ceremony. “If you win a Bafta, it means you’ve made a s--- programme. If you win an NTA, the people like you.”

Bafta, you see, has never given an award to Clarkson, for his farming show or – incredibly – for all those years of Top Gear. The awards are judged by tastemakers in the industry, whose taste can be terribly pretentious and sometimes wilfully obtuse. The NTAs, by contrast, are chosen by the public, who know an entertaining show when they see one (except in the case of Mrs Brown’s Boys, which should be buried in the Earth’s core but instead beat Amandaland to best comedy).

The ceremony, televised on ITV, is also a hoot in comparison to the BBC’s Bafta borefest. Alan Carr’s special recognition award was announced via Amanda Holden serenading him with a rendition of I Know Him So Well from Chess, backed by Paloma Faith in an open coffin and a tuneless David Olusoga looking as if he was in one of those nightmares where you find yourself naked on stage. The funniest five minutes of TV you’ll see this year.

For what to watch and read, and one thing to avoid, read on...

Television
Fauda
★★★★★
Netflix’s global hit about an undercover Israeli military unit ranks as one of the streaming service’s all-time greats. Back for a fifth series, it’s as nailbiting as ever. Two episodes confront the events of October 7 and are not for the faint-hearted; they have been designed as standalone chapters, meaning viewers who don’t feel able to watch can skip them without missing any of the main plot. Avi Issacharoff, the show’s creator, told The Telegraph that its viewership includes officials from Hamas.
Read our interview with the show’s creator

Book
The Great Dictator – A Life of Barbara Cartland
★★★★☆
Matthew Sweet’s biography could have treated its subject as a figure of fun – the lashings of pink chiffon, those enormous eyelashes coated in Meltonian shoe polish – but instead he salutes the industry and achievements of this eccentric but phenomenally successful romantic novelist who achieved a staggering 750 million sales.
Read the full review

Film
Practical Magic 2
★★☆☆☆
Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock have reunited for a sequel to their 1998 comic fantasy about two witchy sisters trying to overcome an ancient curse. The action this time takes our leading ladies to a quaint English village, but our critic Tim Robey says the film is in dire need of some real magic.
Read the full review

 

Your say

Breakfast of champions

Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories.

Orlando writes...
Do you swear by a bowl of porridge in the morning? I know it’s wholesome and sustaining and all that, but I have always struggled to overcome a fairly important obstacle – that I find it pretty dull.


 

More fool me, it appears. In a recent series of letters, readers have been explaining how they turbo-charge their oats. I was particularly struck by this suggestion from Alan Belk: “Various healthy toppings may be added, such as nuts and seeds, but my favourite is a few glugs of Irish cream liqueur. It makes the mornings so much more worthwhile.”


 

I can believe it. Fear not, though: if you prefer to be entirely sober at 8am, there are other options. Janice Clay wrote: “I like my porridge with a few blueberries, raspberries, apricots and half a banana, a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and a generous splash of full milk. I continued with this routine even through the recent heatwaves. I’m in my eighties and in pretty good shape.”


 

John Hayter recalled: “At the end of the war, when rationing was in full swing and I was a tiny tot, my mother always gave me porridge for breakfast. To ensure that I was getting plenty of nourishment, it was topped with a spoonful of halibut oil, which was delicious. I’m not sure if it did me any good, but I do know that I was a very strong swimmer at an early age.”


 

Philippa Allen-Simpson, meanwhile, advised: “Try adding garam masala. Delicious.”

I concede I’m warming to the idea. How do you perk up your porridge? Send your responses here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of this newsletter.

Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name.

 

On this day

1789 | Alexander Hamilton takes office as the first secretary of the US treasury

1942 | Enid Blyton publishes Five on a Treasure Island, the first of her Famous Five novels

2001 | Two planes, hijacked by terrorists, crash into the Twin Towers in New York (see our front page from the following day)

Birthdays: Richard Ashcroft (55), Moby (61), Craig Cash (66)

Telegraph front page

Plus, in the news this week, the “revenge dress” worn by Diana, the late Princess of Wales, is up for auction and, according to Caroline Leaper, our Deputy Fashion Director, it’s grossly undervalued. What is the starting price?

Diana, the late Princess of Wales

1. £80,000
2. £140,000
3. £190,000
4. £220,000

Click one of the options to reveal the answer...

 

Puzzles

Panagram

Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.


 

Yesterday’s Panagram was GALLIVANT. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.

 

Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.

Chris Evans, Editor

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