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The emergence of prodigious chess talent has always exerted a peculiar fascination. From Capablanca’s youthful brilliance to the meteoric ascents of Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen, every generation produces a handful of players whose progress appears to compress years of learning into mere months. The latest name to command worldwide attention is the 12-year-oldArgentinian wunderkind Faustino Oro. His introduction to chess was remarkably modest.

The latest GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics were never going to dominate the headlines. They arrived just as England’s World Cup campaign came to a dramatic end against Argentina, prompting yet another bout of national soul-searching and, remarkably, a minor diplomatic spat over the Falkland Islands that even required Downing Street to reaffirm Britain’s unwavering commitment to the Islands and their people. And quite right too.

The football pundits were ruthless about Wednesday’s World Cup Semi-Final. Having hyped England excessively, they have been totally unforgiving towards Thomas Tuchel, savaging his substitution policy. Why was he so negative, bringing on too many defenders instead of continuing to attack, once England had taken the lead against Argentina? What the prosecutors seem to forget is that this was never a great England siide. Yes, there are several terrific players in Tuchel’s team.

Investigative journalism is a great way to make powerful and/or dangerous enemies and for lawyers to guarantee that investigations will need big budgets. Even without punishing legal proceedings, the work takes time, and time costs money. With an impressive portfolio of articles, books and TV productions dating back to the 1970s, John Ware is a notable survivor of a rare breed of journalist.

The first three days of the Buxton Festival featured three very operas from the composers Franz Lehár, Verdi and Handel. Lehár’s Merry Widow, originally an operetta set in Vienna, was shown in the updated setting of New York. The original involved the embassy of a fictitious grand duchy, which had the problem of keeping the vast wealth of a rich young widow “in the family” by finding her the right husband.

Political journalism has turned the page on a century of printed pages and balanced BBC reporting. On the nation’s trains and buses no-one is seen reading a paper other than the Metro free-sheet. The Sunday papers and weeklies are as expensive as cheap paperbacks. Today’s shapers of political debate are on social media, commercial radio phone-ins and guest interviews, Substack or mobile phone apps. One pundit who has successfully navigated the new political media waters is Iain Dale.

This year’s Wimbledon was one of the best for many years. Both Singles Finals were dramatic and the competition was full of surprises. Obviously, the success of the British wild card, Arthur Fery, was (among other things) a great advertisement for the American college circuit. But perhaps more striking was the rise and rise of the Canadian third seed, Felix Auger-Aliassime, just 25, and surely a star in the making, with a particularly powerful serve.

Member ratings This article has not been rated yet. Be the first person to rate this article. The Railway, by Édouard Manet (1873) Manet has some surprising similarities with his contemporaries. He took a long sea voyage to Rio, his close friend Charles Baudelaire sailed to Mauritius, Paul Gauguin sailed to Tahiti. Like Arthur Rimbaud, Manet had a gangrened leg amputated. Like Baudelaire and Guy de Maupassant, Manet died an agonising death from syphilis.

There is something peculiarly tragic about a man who conquers everything except the temptation to cease conquering. Alert readers will already know that Magnus Carlsen has now enrolled himself amongst that melancholy fraternity of giants—Morphy, Alekhine and Fischer—who departed from the high throne before the final summons had been answered. While still wearing the coveted halo and laurels of World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen publicly announced that he would not defend his title in 2023.

Nigel Farage has had a good run. Nobody of his generation has had a greater impact on British politics. But his latest bid to blow up the Establishment, by posing as a people’s tribune hounded by press barons and parliamentary busybodies, smacks of sheer desperation. Monday’s televised harangue from his wolf’s lair in Millbank Tower displayed all the signs of an increasingly paranoid chancer who knows he has been rumbled.