- The Guardian Saturday 3 August 2019
(^26) National
Lucy Mangan’s
Digested week
Just what we need –
a billionaire telling us
money doesn’t matter
Monday
Today the bearded billionaire and
unsettling dentition display stand
Richard Branson shared his belief
that “ ‘stuff ’ really does not bring
happiness. Family, friends, good
health and the satisfaction that
comes from making a positive
diff erence are what really matters.”
Beautiful words enshrining
unprecedented insight there. Bit
odd, coming from a modern-day
Croesus who sued the NHS for
alleged fl aws in its procurement
process and settled out of court
for a sum many felt could have
been better spent. And, because
he was not sending them via the
wifi “provided” by Virgin trains,
they made it successfully on
to the social media platform to
which he intended to send them.
Twitter users duly did their thing,
pointing out that it was a leeetle
Marie Antoinetteish to post that
sort of thing when one was free
of the daily physical privations
that habitually aff ect one’s health,
one’s ability to maintain family
and friend relationships, and
how diffi cult it can be to make
a positive diff erence when fi rst
you have to pay the rent. But
we know, the kinder among us,
where Branson was coming from.
Everyone gets to an age when
one’s private island is no longer
the attraction it once was. It’s not
looking quite the way it used to,
and women aren’t looking at it
quite the way they used to either.
The race to cryogenic immortality
looks set to go to the big boys, and
at best an eternity of being laughed
at by the PayPal founder Peter
Thiel across the transdimensional
divide beckons. The heart turns to
the ineff able. Love, laughter, amity
and contentment. None of them as
ineff able as Virgin wifi , Rich, so the
odds are with you. Good luck.
Tuesday
The suspicion that the Boris
Johnson appointment is not
so much a premiership as the
latest phase in a David Cameron
rehabilitation programme run by
the deep state strengthens. (“You
thought he was lackadaisical,
toxically self-interested and
virtually indistinguishable from a
carrier bag full of yoghurt? Ha! And
Dave only left his kid in a pub – this
one doesn’t even know how many
he’s left round west London!”)
Further misgivings abounded
after his visit to the naval base in
Faslane, Scotland, where he was
given an overcoat (in local parlance
a “foulie”, but occasionally one just
has to look gift horses in the mouths
without breaking, you know?)
bearing the above-pocket legend
“Prime Minister ”.
Was it a helpful reminder to
Johnson himself? In which case it
should have been reversed so that
when he looks in the mirror – I’m
assuming that if he’s been able to do
it thus far, nothing in the past few
weeks will have altered the situation
- the tag reads correctly. It makes
more sense all round, however, that
it is for the good people on the base.
To remind these representatives of
the armed forces, Britain’s fi nest
examples of loyalty, fi delity, service
and all-encompassing competence
in their respective fi elds, that ... this
is happening. You can imagine their
commander’s pep talk before the
carrier bag yoghurted itself aboard.
“This is not an exercise! He IS the
prime minister. If in doubt, LOOK
AT THE COAT. On the other hand, if
he goes overboard, don’t all rush at
once, ’K ?”
Wednesday
America is riven with a new confl ict.
After one mother’s Facebook
rant went viral, there is only one
question on the nation’s lips: should
childless millennials be allowed to
go to Disneyworld?
“It pisses me off TO NO END!!!!!
when I see CHILDLESS COUPLES
WITHOUT AT DISNEY WORLD!!!!,”
she wrote. “People without
CHILDREN need to be BANNED!!!!!
Mothers with children should be
allowed to skip ALL THE LINE!!!”
She was particularly, and swearily,
enraged by a woman who was
buying a Mickey Mouse pretzel. Her
own child wanted one but the queue
was prohibitively long. “It broke his
poor little heart and he cried.”
Now, it is not my place to get
involved in other countries’ culturalschisms. I will only say that as a
mother currently on holiday with
my child, I can only sympathise
with the tone – if not the content –
of this plangent posting. I am living
that tone. My interior monologue
is delivered only in that tone. It is
the tone of a women who is either
hankering to be, or actually is,
three gins to the good, and who
has realised that she will never be
on holiday again. Sure, she will go
away. Sure, she will do diff erent
activities in a diff erent place for
a fortnight a year. But like brown
rice is technically the same thing
as white and yet carries not a jot
of its huskless compatriot’s joy or
comfort, any break taken for at least
18 years post-partum is a holiday in
name only.
Have another gin, FB mom. And a
Valium in the evening. Most things
are millennials’ fault. But not this.Thursday
BIG shout-out to Idris Elba who,
when asked by the host on The
Late Show with Stephen Colbert to
explain the plot of the forthcoming
Tom Hooper fi lm Cats, in which Elba
plays the not inconsiderable role of
Macavity, came up with: “It’s a big
musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I
guess it’s about cats?” T hus usefully
confi rming many fl oating theories
about Hollywood and its denizens,
generally, and Cats in particular:- Nobody knows anything.
- Nobody reads anything.
- It wouldn’t matter if they did,
because Cats absolutely doesn’t
make sense. - An entire episode of Unbreakable
Kimmy Schmidt centres round this
hitherto underacknowledged truth.
I remember the stage show
fondly, however. I went to see it a
few years into its London run for a
birthday treat. I was supposed to
go with my dad, but he was ill and
Mum had to take me instead. She
is not a devoted fan of any form of
theatre and especially not the kind
that involves actors pretending to be
cats rubbing against members of the
audience in suitably feline fashion.
My mother loathes animals too. That
was more than 30 years ago now and
her face that evening, both hate-
fi lled and haunted, delights me still.
TS Eliot meets Edvard Munch. Let
the meeeeeemory live again.Friday
The general idea in these situations
is to try to end the week on a
positive note. With every one that
passes, this becomes an increasing
challenge. We still had the £2.1bn
earmarked for no-deal preparations
(a chlorinated chicken in every
pot! A bunker in every home!),
Greenland losing 160bn tonnes of
ice in July (forget the bunker! A
hilltop fort in every county!), the
fact that an expert on the damaged
Whaley Bridge dam referred on
BBC Breakfast to the possibility of
it having to be “de-watered” (forget
everything! Let no deal end us all)
and much more to get through.
But then: I woke on the morn to
the sound of two people beneath my
window laughing about the Tories
and an election result. My heart in
my mouth, I crept to my computer
and found my way to a news website- to fi nd that the Lib Dems’ Jane
Dodds had seen off the outgoing
Conservative Chris Davies in the
Brecon and Radnorshire by election,
cutting his party’s majority to one.
The Boris bounce has boinged
right into the mire. My mouth
curved into a strange upward
shape that a quick Google search
confi rmed was “a smile”. I think we
should wreath ourselves in them
while we can.
‘Hello! Have
you been in a
car accident
recently that
wasn’t your
fault? ’‘Clucking
hell. We’ve
got a live
one here’PHOTOGRAPHS: DIT;
ADRIAN DENNIS/PAMore than
50,000 hit
as holiday
companies
collapse
Mark SweneyThe holiday companies Late Rooms
and Super Break have collapsed,
aff ecting more than 50,000 travellers.
Malvern Group, which owns the
booking website LateRooms.com and
York-based Super Break, said about
400 Super Break customers were on
holiday in the UK or overseas.
Super Break was a member of Abta
and the travel trade body said most
customers should be able to get a
refund. It added that those already
away should be able to continue with
their holiday as normal.
The two companies had about53,000 customers between them,
involving 20,000 bookings, with most
holidaymakers yet to start their trips.
Abta said: “The majority of custom-
ers are yet to travel and in most cases
they should be able to obtain a refund,
either through Abta or another fi nan-
cial protection scheme, depending on
the type of booking. The vast majority
of holidaymakers’ arrangements will
be covered.”
However, people who booked
accommodation-only through Super
Break are being asked to pay again
because Malvern Group has cancelled
those bookings and only package trips
are fi nancially covered through Abta.
Andrea Newton tweeted that the
Crowne Plaza hotel in King’s Cross ,London, was asking Super Break cus-
tomers to pay again or leave the hotel.
A representative of IHG, the parent
company of the Crowne Plaza chain,
said they would look into the matter.
“Super Break produced a hotel-only
brochure that displayed the Abta logo,”
Graeme Brett of Westoe Travel told
Travel Weekly. “It would seem many
agents and customers were misled by
the extent of the cover Super Break had
chosen to take with Abta.”Malvern Group, which has shut its
customer contact centre, said holiday-
makers with gift vouchers would not
be able to use them.
Late Rooms, which is not an Abta
member, said it did not take payments
directly from customers and that it
believed that bookings with accom-
modation suppliers would be secure.
“ We recommend, however, that you
contact your accommodation supplier
directly prior to travelling to confi rm,”
the company said.
Super Break and LateRooms contin-
ued to drum up business only hours
before the companies ceased trading.
On Wednesday evening, Late Rooms
tweeted that it was “never too late for
a cheeky weekend up in Manchester ”.400
The number of Super Break
customers who are currently on
holiday in the UK or overseasРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS