Proud to be British. Read more from journalists who champion our culture, history and values. |  | Mick Brown Features Writer | Julian Barnes has written his last novel. He is a beacon in a generation that includes Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Christopher Hitchens, and Barnes is, or was, friends with them all.
In a career spanning 45 years, during which he has written 15 novels and 10 works of non-fiction, Barnes now feels that the time has now come to stop.
“I’ve played all my tunes,” he told me when we met recently. Barnes, who turns 80 tomorrow, is being treated for a rare form of blood cancer, and few writers have more to say about the human condition and its expression in art and literature than he does.
Barnes is a thought-provoking, stimulating and amusing companion, who talks absorbingly about his work, poignantly about his life and lightly about his condition.
The common line in obituaries is: “He died after a long struggle, bravely borne.” He says it should read: “He died after cancer had a long brave struggle with him.” Right now he says “it’s a score draw”, and he’s a long way from being beaten.
Continue reading ➤ | | John Bolton Nothing the US needs in the country requires sovereignty or military force Continue reading ➤ Zoe Strimpel Cometh the hour, cometh the Gen Z. Brave young people around the world are risking life and limb Continue reading ➤ William Sitwell An Army full of coke addicts and 65-year-old troops? I’ve never felt less safe Continue reading ➤ | | The self-assessment deadline is looming, but taxpayers ringing HMRC for help are facing an “impossible” uphill battle to get through to a human being. Charlotte Gifford reports on the customer-service crisis facing the agency, where callers report hour-long queues, being disconnected mid-call and say HMRC’s hold music has become the soundtrack to their working day. Continue reading ➤ | | | For a fashion brand, there is no media exposure quite as powerful right now as being worn by Claudia Winkleman on The Traitors. Her “aristo-goth” wardrobe features everything from kilts to Fair Isle knits, Saint Laurent to Zara. Here’s how to recreate (and shop for) every look she’s worn so far. Continue reading ➤ | | | The key to staying healthier for longer? Know your numbers, say experts. Over the past decade, scientists have accumulated increasing amounts of information on what to monitor to get the best picture of how we’re ageing in later life. Some of the metrics might surprise you. From grip strength to gait speed, here are seven health markers that could help increase your lifespan. Continue reading ➤ | | | There were plenty of concerns when AI became a part of our everyday lives, but few could’ve imagined the darkness it finds itself in today. When we asked ChatGPT to depict a “Jewish boss”, it drew gold coins, while X’s Grok leaned into “Fagin” stereotypes. Experts warn hatred is now “baked in”. Matthew Field investigates. Continue reading ➤ | | | Katie and James Genever, who run The Bertie Arms in Lincolnshire, are expecting a £17,000 tax bill | | Running a pub and making a profit is difficult at the best times. Especially when Rachel Reeves wipes out your margins by landing you with a 2,000 per cent rise in your business rates valuation. That is what Katie and James Genever are facing at The Bertie Arms in Uffington, Lincolnshire, leaving them fearful for the future of one of their village’s last remaining community hubs.
Continue reading ➤
Reeves’s tax raid on pubs claims first victim ➤ | | | Reports that Hamnet is causing cinemagoers to shed tears has prompted some of us at The Telegraph to think of the times when we started to blub uncontrollably at what we were witnessing on the silver screen. Here you can see our choices – from Dead Poets Society to Educating Rita, Shadowlands to… Norman Wisdom? Continue reading ➤ Below are two more articles that I hope will improve your weekend: - Whether you favour a classic filter coffee or a fashionable macchiato, a coffee maker can serve up a cup every bit as good as a coffee shop. Our guide will provide the best machine for your needs.
- Now is the time to begin preparing your apple trees if you want a good crop in the autumn. This is our expert’s guide as to how best to prune the trees in your orchard.
| | Every week, one of our writers takes an unfashionable position, either defending a subject that’s been unfairly maligned or criticising something that most people love.  | Anthony Peregrine Destination Expert | Please give me a break. We’re barely half-way through the ski season and already I’m up to here with the skiers’ conspiracy of exhilaration.
If you’re bourgeois like me, you’ll know a lot of skiers. You may even be one. If so, I hope you’re having a lovely time, keeping warm and haven’t broken too many bones. But, please pipe down. Skiers can’t help themselves. They become wild-eyed while talking about the swish of speed! Black runs! The majesty of the peaks! The purity of light!
Other people’s ecstasy is rarely edifying. I counter their supposed delights with the innumerable injuries invariably suffered, and the weirdness of mountain settlements, where everyone wanders about dressed as if ready for a nerve-gas attack.
Then there’s the snow. It’s frightful stuff, suitable only for red-faced men with shovels, kids under 12 and bears. It also features in blizzards, avalanches and other phenomena injurious to the health.
That’s only when it’s there. When it’s not, it’s worse. French TV news and other media treat an absence of snow on the winter slopes as a national catastrophe. It’s not, really. It’s bad news for the local economy, granted, but that sort of bad news is ubiquitous. Fewer than 10 per cent of French people ski regularly (it’s apparently around 2 per cent from the UK), so the overwhelming majority are unaffected.
Yet those who are affected still wish to ski, which means artificial snow and snow cannons, which consume a hundred gallons of water a minute. Ecologists will tell you that this is not a good use of resources. Normally, of course, I find ecologists as big a pain in the head as skiers. But I’ll go with them on this one. Anything to tone down the ravings from the slopes.
Do you agree with Anthony? Send your replies here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. | | When Erich von Däniken saw an engraving on a Mayan tomb in Mexico that experts believed depicted descent into the underworld, he saw something different: an astronaut, equipped with breathing apparatus, sitting in a rocket. The result was Chariots of the Gods, his 1968 work which suggested that the human race was the product of extra-terrestrial breeding experiments. He went on to sell more than 60 million books to people eager to embrace the New Age. “Was God an astronaut?” he asked, answering himself with a resounding “Yes”.
He had a rackety background: born in Switzerland, he was a young troublemaker who was taken to court for robbing the local scout troop. And even after the success of his first book he spent 15 months in jail for fraud. | Von Däniken in 2001 in the documentary The Real Erich von Däniken | But the wacky theories – and the bestsellers – kept on coming: he identified electric batteries in Mesopotamia and insisted that the Ark of the Covenant was a nuclear reactor designed to convert algae into manna. Respectable science writers like Carl Sagan did their best to discredit him and a BBC documentary exposed his fabrications. But his stock rose again the 1990s when The X-Files sent people back to his books and in 2003 he opened a theme park dedicated to his ideas. Described by one scientist as “a cultural Chernobyl”, it soon failed.
You can read more about his life here. | | 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 PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was EVAPORATE. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
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