Mohamed Nasser

Helen and Steve Errington Dormer, 56 and 43, met in 2006 when they were both working in the same prison It’s not the usual setting for a love story, but a chance meeting at HM Prison The Mount in Hertfordshire sparked romance for Helen and Steve. “It was 2006 and I was working as a teacher there,” says Helen. Steve, who was a prison officer, had recently moved to the education department to expand his career. “Back then nobody wanted to work in that area but I was keen to spend more time doing one-on-one work with prisoners. I was ready for something new.” They met for the first time while Helen was teaching a class in the prison’s library. “And I always joke that he is long overdue to go back,” says Helen. Although they both liked each other, Steve was reluctant to make the first move. “I was a prison officer and she was a civilian, so I was worried it would have looked inappropriate.” In September that year, Helen left the prison to start a new teaching job. On her last day, she wrote a note to Steve and originally gave it to a colleague to pass on. In the end she plucked up the courage to give him the letter directly, to let him know she was interested. “I had an idea what it might be. It was either going to be her phone number or a note to say get lost, you’ve got no chance,” he says. The pair began dating the following month, pursuing their shared interests of art, opera and musicals. When they met, they had a few concerns about the 13-year age gap, although Helen says it has become much less significant over time. “Steve was 29 when we started going out, and a few people raised eyebrows. It wasn’t a big deal for us though. Age is just a number.” While Steve admired Helen’s intelligence and education, she was drawn in by his fun nature. “I thought he had such a serious look about him, but underneath there is a very silly side. He just couldn’t show it at work.” At the time Helen was working as a teacher and a singer. They married in July 2008 during a silent Quaker meeting. “The vows, or promises as we call them, are spoken but the rest of the meeting takes place in silence,” explains Helen. “Rather than having an officiant, we marry ourselves in front of witnesses at the meeting. Some people can then stand up afterwards and speak with messages for you.” After the meeting the couple celebrated with a reception for friends and family. Not long after they were married, Helen’s father became unwell. “Between 2008 and 2016 we lost three of our parents which was really hard,” she says. They battled through bereavement together – Helen’s parents and Steve’s dad died in that time frame – and it brought them closer. Since then they have developed a passion for travel and visited many countries. “We have been all over the world, to Africa, Nepal, India, China, Australia and Brazil. I love that Steve is always up for anything and always enthusiastic. We do crazy things and change our plans at the last minute just because we can,” says Helen. That “can do” attitude is also something Steve loves about his wife. “I remember once we went white-water rafting after a difficult six-hour trek. Helen was absolutely terrified, but she still got in the boat and did it. She never gives up. It’s one of the things I most admire about her,” he says. The couple attribute the success of their relationship to a close friendship and a taste for new adventures. “I was an opera singer until I was 37, then a teacher and now I do some writing and composing. We are always reinventing ourselves and trying new things,” says Helen. “It’s so important to be able to do things together,” says Steve. “I think chemistry is superficial. When you really love someone you choose to invest that time in them.” While the pair admit they have taken an unconventional path compared with other couples, they believe it has helped them to build a stronger bond. “We are never stagnant and we never say still,” says Helen. “We have shared dreams and goals and I think that is really important for keeping a relationship alive.” Want to share your story? Tell us a little about you, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here.

Public banks could allow government agencies access to low-interest loans for infrastructure or affordable housing San Francisco and Los Angeles are moving forward with plans to create their own public banks following the passage of historic legislation that made California the second state in the continental US to legalize the financial institutions. Experts say their success and that of other California counties and cities with similar plans will depend on the governance structures they put in place and the financing they are able to secure. California’s Public Banking Act, signed on 2 October, paves the way for cities and counties in the state to create public banks that could take deposits and allow local agencies access to low-interest loans for funding infrastructure and affordable housing. The law requires public banks to be run by independent boards and to be operated by professional bankers in order to insulate against self-dealing. Supporters of the legislation see the bill as a way to divest from major financial institutions tied to controversial projects like the Dakota Access pipeline. And because public banks wouldn’t be under the same pressure as Wall Street banks to seek ever-higher profit, they argue, they could allow government agencies access to low-interest loans for funding infrastructure or constructing affordable housing. State and local governments across the country currently hold $502bn in bank deposits and $4.3tn in state and local public pensions, according to Next City, with the vast majority of that held in private banks. Under the new law, more of that money would stay local. Public banks aren’t new to the US. American Samoa created its public bank in 2016 after financial institutions abandoned the island, shutting down access to loans. But the first public bank in the US, the Bank of North Dakota, grew out of a brief socialist movement 100 years ago. David Flynn, the economics and finance department chair at the University of North Dakota, said the North Dakota bank came from a desire to keep out-of-state financial institutions from inflating interest rates on loans to farmers and to keep control of local interests – a slight twist from the aim to “keep money local”, as stated by those who championed the bill in California. “I think on some level the Public Banking Act is a logical outgrowth of public opinion of where we’ve seen financial institutions go in the last decade,” Flynn said, referencing public reaction to Wall Street’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. The Bank of North Dakota is working, fulfilling its charter to expand access to credit and promote agricultural enterprises in a way that’s allowed the state economy to move forward in its own way, he added. The Bank of North Dakota helped buoy the state’s economy after 2008’s financial collapse, Sushil Jacob, a senior attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area who helped draft the California bill, told the Guardian earlier this month “The state of North Dakota has six times as many financial institutions per capita as the rest of the country and it’s because they have the Bank of North Dakota. When the great recession hit, the Bank of North Dakota stepped in and provided loans and allowed local banks to thrive,” Jacob said. North Dakota, however, only has one public bank, whereas California will allow up to 10 cities or counties to create them. That has the potential to create conflict between institutions in cities and could put municipalities in competition over who has access to public banks, Flynn said. He notes that California has done well to bake protections into the law, like the requirement for municipalities to create independent boards to oversee banks and the decision to initially cap the number of public banks at 10. But he said the overall success of public banks in California is hard to predict. “California put in a good degree of protections. I think the question becomes how much independence will there be in practice, how much oversight there will be in practice, and you really won’t know that until we see the people who are placed on boards and are able to gauge the effort as it’s happening,” Flynn said. Jacob’s organization is a founding member of the California Public Banking Alliance, a grassroots network of groups in cities that campaigned for the bill including San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, where advocates are pushing to open California’s first public bank. In LA, public banks attracted early interest from some local lawmakers as a way to allow players in the cannabis industry to access banking services. Even though the state has legalized marijuana for both medical and recreational use, the pot industry has been largely locked out of banks because the plant is illegal on a federal level. Public banks, at least in California, may not be the answer those in the cannabis industry hope for. Because the state law requires public banks to obtain direct deposit insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, it’s unlikely the pot industry could benefit. “Until we see a change in federal law, we just don’t see how it’s possible,” Jacob said. Another potential hurdle for the establishment of public banks is cost. A feasibility study published earlier this year by the San Francisco tax collector’s office estimated costs for three different models of public banks – one that focuses on affordable housing and small business lending, a bank that handles the city’s cash, and one that does both – to add up to $184m and $3.9bn just to get off the ground and take the banks between 10 and 56 years to grow large enough to break even. Critics of the study, including Jacob, say the estimated start up costs listed in the report were greatly exaggerated because authors didn’t factor in ways that public banks could tap into already existing infrastructure and IT systems. But costs are part of the reason the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times panned the idea back in May: “Few public agencies have the budget for such huge upfront costs or the ability to wait decades for a bank to become self-sustaining. And public banks that have a mission of serving people who cannot qualify for commercial bank financing face greater risk of defaults, making it harder for them to sustain themselves,” the board wrote. Meanwhile, San Francisco and Los Angeles are moving ahead. A task force will put together a business plan in San Francisco which Jacob hopes could be ready in 10 months. A public bank could take several years to create and open.

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Our 2:34.9 lap in the Senna is the production-car record on VIR's Grand Course. For 13 years running, our Lightning Lap event gathers the new performance cars to see how quickly they can lap Virginia International Raceway's Grand Course. This year the McLaren Senna ran a valiant 2:34.9, our quickest lap of the 263 cars we've run to date and a new production-car record at VIR. However, since VIR only acknowledges times set during a sanctioned race, our record is unofficial, as have been the previous ones set by GM and Ford in the Corvette ZR1 and Ford GT. This year we had an impressive Lightning Lap first: a production-car lap record of 2:34.9 in the McLaren Senna on VIR's Grand Course. The quick lap came at the skilled hands of our K.C. Colwell, deputy testing director and capable driver who's set many a quick time during his 10 years driving at our annual track test at Virginia International Raceway. The $982,816 Senna's record-setting run was set during day three of our testing after a heroic effort by McLaren that included flying over parts to fix the front suspension which was damaged by the company's factory driver on day one (read that whole tale here). During its unequaled lap, the Senna logged a number of bests, including the fastest speed of 172.9 mph down the front straightaway among the 263 cars we've run to date, although the stripped-out, 789-hp McLaren isn't the most powerful car we've ever run—that's the 887-hp Porsche 918 Spyder. It also tied the Porsche 911 GT2RS for the fastest average speed of a heady 134.5 mph through the uphill esses. Next-quickest on our Lighting Lap leaderboard are all from our 2018 test: the Porsche 911 GT2RS (2:37.8), the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 (2:39.5), and McLaren 720S (2:39.7). Until our 2.34.9 run in the McLaren Senna, former Corvette engineer Jim Mero's 2:37.3 lap in a 2019 Corvette ZR1 was widely accepted as the production-car record on VIR's Grand Course. But since VIR only acknowledges times set during a sanctioned race, neither that record nor our new one is considered "official." No major automobile race series uses the 4.1-mile Grand Course (IMSA runs the shorter, 3.3-mile Full Course), so the official lap record is held by Gavin Bennett, who, at the 2007 United States Kart Grand Prix, lapped Grand in 2:35.6 in a 250-cc shifter kart. If McLaren wants a place in VIR's record books and not just our own, it should let us take one racing.

Explain your choices to your parents and don’t tell them they were wrong to vote Leave, says Mariella Frostrup. No matter what happens we all, Remainers and Brexiters, have to learn to live harmoniously The dilemma We’ve had a child since the referendum, and I feel a Brexit-related chasm is opening up between our family’s generations. My husband and I are moderate in our political views and both voted to remain in the EU. My parents and mother-in-law voted to leave. I look at my daughter and feel devastated that her world is potentially going to be smaller than mine, with fewer opportunities to live, love and work as she pleases. Our own parents are dependent upon us for varying levels of care. This has been mildly frustrating in the past, but we both have loving families and a strong sense of duty. We’ve talked about leaving the UK for a more open and inclusive society, but don’t want to leave our parents dependent on paid-for care. Whichever option we explore, we’re increasingly resentful our parents voted for us to be in this position (based on various arguments, some with racist undertones), and that they don’t even recognise the situation. Should we raise it with them? I fear a permanent rift, but brewing resentment doesn’t feel healthy either. Mariella replies Talk about the nation’s debate in a microcosm! It was only a matter of time before this toxic political fracas, currently dividing us like the most bitter of divorces, came to haunt lifestyle pages as well as the headlines. So many families and friendships have been torn asunder by the passion disgorged on both sides, with the only comfort being that it’s a long while since people engaged with politics with such ferocity. Brexit has unleashed a tsunami of frustration and fear and, as you point out, the generational divide is part of the fracture. What chance do you think you have of changing your parents’ minds? That seems to me to be the crux of this impasse. Those of us holding out for a second referendum do so with scant belief that the voting percentages would change dramatically. What seems to have occurred since that fateful June morning, when our children lost their right to roam among their closest neighbours, is greater entrenchment and growing resentment on both sides. I’m the first to admit that remain’s argument was lacklustre, out-of-touch and ultimately patronising. Their “better together” principle may have been right, but the delivery was badly flawed. It was like a complacent spouse explaining that while they might be dreary, the alternative would be a roller-coaster ride of uncertainty. Clearly, plenty are up for that ride! Far more compelling rationale has flowed from the likes of Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine, whose broader view of history and statesmanlike declarations about co-operation and democracy might have carried the crowd. On the opposite side are those who were sold the Brexit dream by a bunch of desperados who make secondhand car salesmen look like paragons of truth and virtue. Those torch bearers are like the serial adulterer – no matter how many times they are exposed as having deceived us, they plead their commitment and promise tomorrow will be different. The one imperative to have been swept from the table is what kickstarted the debacle in the beginning – the need for EU reform. Reform not just to ensure member states don’t end up in a bitter battle like ours, but to shape a cumbersome governing body for a fast-moving, globalising world. I’ve not witnessed political chaos on this level since the early 80s when strike action, union fury and the Iron Lady combined to create a social revolution of seismic strength that in many ways set the scene for the strife today. Where does your little family fracas fit in all this? Right in the epicentre, I’d say. No matter what happens we are all, Remainers and Brexiters, going to have to learn to harmoniously co-habit on our small island with understanding, patience, empathy and reduced hyperbole. At the moment, like you, we’re all waiting to see what the outcome will be; but actually, the time to start mending fences is now. Your parents have made a choice that may or may not influence where you choose to raise your children. It doesn’t mean you have to fall out; just that their choice has had an impact on yours. So, I wouldn’t try to change their minds or convince them they’ve got it wrong. Instead, illustrate to them that many of their fears – whether of marauding migrants or lack of self-determination – are unjustified. Be honest, but without acrimony when you explain the decisions you’ve made, bearing in mind their wellbeing and with your child’s future at the forefront of your mind. The only non-negotiable in this whole debacle is that we can’t compromise on our determination to carve a better future. In or out, we owe it to ourselves to ensure that we become again a nation we can be proud to inhabit for its values of inclusion, intelligent debate, democracy and basic human and equal rights. That’s plenty to be getting on with.

The former defense secretary James Mattis has said Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border has led to “disarray” in the war-torn territory, increasing the chances of a resurgence of Islamic State militants. But the retired general passed up an opportunity to directly criticise the president. Trump announced the withdrawal this week, taking supporters by surprise and prompting widespread accusations of a betrayal of Kurds allied to the US whom Turkey swiftly attacked. The president said it was time to end one of America’s “endless wars” – a sentiment he repeated on Saturday – and fulfil a campaign promise by bringing troops home. He also announced that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would visit the White House. On Saturday, airstrikes and shelling continued in Kurdish areas and harrowing scenes among panicked refugees were reported and broadcast worldwide. CNN reported that earlier this week Gen Mazloum Kobani Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, told a senior US diplomat: “You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered.” Also on Saturday, another SDF commander told a press conference: “The protection of Isis prisons will not remain our priority. The defence of our soil will be prioritised if [the] Turkish military continues its attacks.” Mattis spoke to NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday. “It’s in a situation of disarray right now,” he said in excerpts released by the broadcaster. “Obviously, the Kurds are adapting to the Turkish attacks. And we’ll have to see if they’re able to maintain the fight against Isis. It’s going to have an impact. The question is, how much?” Asked if the US would regret Trump’s decision, Mattis said: “We have got to keep the pressure on Isis so they don’t recover. “We may want a war over. We may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out as President Obama learned the hard way out of Iraq, but the ‘enemy gets the vote’, we say in the military. And in this case, if we don’t keep the pressure on, then Isis will resurge. It’s absolutely a given that they will come back.” Trump said this week any Isis prisoners escaping from camps guarded by Kurds “will be escaping to Europe”. He also said the Kurds “didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us in Normandy, for example”. Mattis’s apparent disinclination to directly criticise the president’s words and behaviour over Syria – which many usually supportive Republicans in Congress have been perfectly happy to do – is in keeping with his approach since resigning in December 2018. The retired US Marine Corps general has said he has a “duty of silence” regarding the president he served. That commitment has held despite Mattis having resigned in response to an earlier attempt by Trump to pull US troops from Syria and in protest at his treatment of America’s allies. In September, Mattis published a memoir, Call Sign Chaos. The book skirted his service in the Trump administration, focusing instead on his career in the US armed forces.

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The rental company teamed up with Hendrick Motorsports to create two custom Camaros. Next time you pull up to the Hertz car rental center, maybe skip the Nissan Versa. Hertz and Hendrick Motorsports have announced a partnership that makes two custom, high-powered 2020 Chevrolet Camaros available to consumers. Both of these cars get horsepower bumps a hot yellow-and-black finish. The first of the two custom Camaros uses the SS model as its base. With a new cold-air intake and cat-back exhaust system, the 6.2-liter V8's output improves from the stock 455 horsepower (340 kilowatts) to a hearty 480 horses (358 kW). Both the body panels and wheels wear a jet black finish, while unique yellow stripes stretch over the length of the body, and accenting trim trails on the door panels and front fascia. Thankfully, this Camaro SS uses the newly updated front fascia. The more powerful of the two Hertz Camaros is the ZL1-based, 750-hp (559-kW) option. Using the same 6.2-liter V8 from the standard ZL1, now with a new Callaway supercharge affixed, the Hertz Camaro is an impressive 100 horses (75 kW) more powerful than the stock version. Like the SS, it wears Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron's subtle number 24 team logo, signature, and yellow-and-black motif. Naturally, renting either of these Camaros for the day doesn't come cheap. The 750-hp ZL1 starts at $299 a day for only 75 miles (120 kilometers) per day. After that, the company charges a 75-cent-per-mile overage. The 480-hp SS option is more affordable at $99 per day, but has the same mileage rules: 75 miles and 75 cents per mile after that. Both Camaros are available to renters aged 25 and older. But, you could also win one of them. As part of the Hertz Ultimate Ride Sweepstakes, the company is giving away multiple prizes. The prizes include a driving experience at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Hendrick Motorsports facilities, NASCAR hall of fame passes, and lunch with Byron's racing team for five finalists. Each of the five finalists will also be in the drawing to win the Hendrick Motorsports Camaro SS. "We have a tremendous partnership with Hertz," said Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick. "Cars are my passion, so seeing this program come together is especially exciting for me. We’ve never undertaken a project like this in the history of our team. These custom Camaros are going to be a huge hit with car enthusiasts and customers who are looking for a special experience. Hertz has truly taken this to the next level."

Also, Fendi goes back to the 70s with crochet and terry towelling, while Missoni injects retro fun News that the next 007 is reportedly female has reached Max Mara HQ in Milan. At the Italian brand’s spring/summer 2020 show on Thursday, espionage chic was the main thread in a collection that cast the 1960s secret service agent Modesty Blaise as its undercover protagonist. The creative director, Ian Griffiths, kitted out his statuesque army of operatives in military-style shirts, skinny ties and strict pencil skirts with practical pocket belts – though there was space for only a baby magnifying glass in there. The palette was incognito too, with greys and whites punctuated by occasional spats of pastel. Several ensembles were accessorised with holsters which, although an unusual detail for a brand known for its heritage cashmere coats, the show notes placed them in the context of the fictional narrative. With the leading lady capable of working without weapons, they relayed, there was “no need for a gun then, but the holster makes for a very stylish design detail”. The audience was told the collection was inspired by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who has been livening up the upcoming Bond script. However, the long Pippi Longstocking-style plaits and knee-high socks were more aligned with the minxy and experimental wardrobe of her Killing Eve character, Villanelle. It fell instead to three-piece suiting and cashmere and satin coats to remind us that Max Mara caters to the everyday woman as well as wannabe secret operatives. Later in the day, Fendi was reconfiguring its aesthetic too, in the second season without its long-term co-creative director, Karl Lagerfeld. Staged against a glowing semi-circular lightbox reminiscent of sunrise, the set’s subtext was that it was a new dawn under a solo Silvia Fendi who worked alongside the Chanel frontman. Like other fashion houses this fashion week, the brand eschewed the big logos and Insta-friendly product to focus on a more nostalgic look. Quilted jackets in retro prints, crochet two-pieces and terry towelling paid homage to summer holidays in the 70s. Probably not packed in those suitcases were any of the many coats this collection had to offer. They came long and in suede and covered in fur which, despite growing pressure from animal-rights groups and commitments from other luxury houses to stop using, Fendi continues to produce year-round. It fell to Margherita Missoni of the Italian fashion dynasty to bring the fun to day two of the showcase. The third-generation designer has recently taken over the label’s M Missoni label and is intent on attracting a new audience by selling its wares at a competitive price. She staged her inaugural outing on a tram that circulated around central Milan, picking up new passengers modelling the SS20 collection over five stops. The designer said this was an attempt to avoid “catwalk antics”. The collection was inspired by the Missoni archive, from which she took never-seen-before prints and fabrics to fuse together a fresh – yet distinctively Missoni – aesthetic. “It’s conceptual and physical upcycling … authorised appropriation,” Missoni said. “A lot of our heritage isn’t the iconic parts that took off in the 60s and 70s that everyone is familiar with.” The models – men and women and ranging in age from 20s to 60s who were street-cast or friends of Missoni – wore their own items of clothing alongside her new collection. The range included sweaters with old logos spliced from two designs, necklaces made from old buttons, and a forgotten scribbled Missoni signature reproduced on tracksuit bottoms, evoking a sartorial timeline that Missoni put her stamp on.

A pair of aluminium legs that you strap to your bum could be the solution for people who find there are not enough chairs in the world. As long as they don't mind looking ridiculous On Wednesday night, the Tech Insider Twitter account made a simple statement: “This wearable chair could change how we work and travel.” The text was accompanied by a short video advertising the LEX bionic chair, a pair of £200 foldable aluminium legs that you strap to your bum and lean against whenever your legs get a bit tired. In the video, a man uses the LEX while sitting at a desk, waiting for a bus, and taking photos. It really does it all. The LEX began as a Kickstarter project last September, which claimed the chair was designed to enhance “posture, comfort and life”. It has already been fully funded – according to the Kickstarter, more than $143,000 (£115,000) has been pledged, smashing the $50,000 goal – which proves that there is a market for it, but the Tech Insider tweet provoked less positive reactions. “I’m not sure ass prongs was the invention the world was waiting for,” replied one user. Another simply stated: “LAME” The LEX website offers the tempting prospect of being able to sit down anywhere, whenever you want. Wear it on a hike and you can stop for a breather with minimal fuss. Wear it on your commute and you’re guaranteed a seat at the platform. It will stop you crouching down uncomfortably during DIY. More than that, though, the LEX is a nifty posture-correction tool. Used standing up or sitting down, it’s in essence an exoskeleton that helps to keep your back in good alignment whether you’re sitting or standing. It even comes with something called a “load distribution module”, a little platform that you can rest your backpack on as you wear it, significantly lowering the burden on your spine. When you think about the money that the NHS spends on treating back pain each year – not to mention the effect on the economy of days lost to back pain – then the LEX could become more than just a nifty little seat; it might even help fix a broken nation. But for every pro there’s a con. In the LEX’s case, the big con is that it looks absolutely ridiculous. It’s not really a wearable chair, more a shooting stick that you Velcro to your bum at the cost of getting to sit in a more comfortable chair. And, not to be indelicate about this, but what are you supposed to do when you need the toilet? Fastidiously spend a couple of minutes unfastening all the straps before you can sit down? Hardly. Listen, I’ve needed the toilet before, and sometimes these things happen without warning. For that reason, I’m out.

While they aren't available at showrooms yet, Chevy no longer needs to camouflage pre-production 2020 Corvette C8 test mules when they're on the road. These new spy shots catch a Rapid Blue 'Vette cruising near General Motors' Milford Proving Grounds. The 2020 Corvette is available in 12 colors, and Rapid Blue is one of the most eye-catching of the dozen to our eyes, although gets a little too close to the color of a Smurf. It and the similarly vibrant Accelerate Yellow Metallic add $500 to the price of a C8. Corvette buyers also have a choice of Elkhart Lake Blue, and you can see the difference between the shades using Motor1.com's slider tool below. Rapid Blue is a significantly brighter color but doesn't seem to highlight the C8's lines quite as well as Elkhart Lake Blue. This 'Vette also has styling elements from the Z51 package, including the more aggressive body kit. Other test mules (like the one on the right, above) with this option have special emblems on the brake calipers, but the branding is absent on the one in the new photos. The differences are likely because these are still pre-production vehicles. This comparison also highlights the C8 Corvette's removable roof panel. It means that any buyer can enjoy a form of open-roofed driving. If buyers want to feel even more wind in their hair, the 'Vette Convertible debuts on October 2 and should be on sale a few months after the premiere. Production of the C8 Corvette reportedly starts in early December. However, there's a possibility that the date could change because of the UAW strike affecting General Motors. Depending on how things progress, the new 'Vette might arrive in showrooms later than expected.

It’s easy to write beautifully if you can work yourself into a frenzy of love or loathing. Unfortunately, most meals are just quite pleasant was a restaurant reviewer for 10 years, and then I was let go, as they say. I expected to be distraught because I would miss the money, and also the food. Instead, it was an incredible relief. Reviewing food is fine when you hate a lot of things; it is fine when you stand ready and willing to do an elaborate and caustic hit job on an orange sorbet because you have been either absolutely loving or completely hating relatively benign things since you could talk. It is fine when you have quite a dedicated moral architecture of taste, when you admire good food so much that you can summon real dismay at even its very slight inferior. The problem is not that you run out of words for the best of it, nor that you take no demonic enjoyment from having unearthed the worst. The problem is the smörgåsbord of food that is just tasty. It’s not an angel dancing on your tongue; it didn’t crack open your understanding of what a vegetable should be, or its meaning in the universe; it wasn’t like an explosion, or an epiphany; it didn’t have the deep, resonating familiarity that brought you so close to the quiddity of a steak that you felt as if you could speak cow just by eating it. It’s just tasty – or quite tasty. Food critics hate the word “tasty” the way theatre critics hate the word “moving”. Of course it’s moving – that’s what it’s there for. Moving how? And I can see their point, but what if it is just tasty? I know the answer, by the way; if it’s no better than that, you just have to work harder at hating it. The whole enterprise must be envisaged by your most histrionic tendencies as a banjo duel between you and the chef: she is trying to find nine ways to reinvent an onion, you are trying to find nine words to describe it. But what kind of a monster, handed a perfectly tasty plate of pasta, with a bit of chilli and some bouncy, tasty olives, could hate it? It’s just so tasty! Cookbook writers are off that hook. They are not required to rhapsodise about how delicious anything will be – that would be boastful. But they are in the unenviable position of having to mythologise the ingredients. Beans are always humble, cabbage and parsnips always earthy. The animal kingdom is always magnificent, but they can’t overdo its majesty in case people feel bad that it is no longer alive. How are they so readable, with so many constraints? Because the best of them are like short stories – over in a flash, tantalisingly low on detail, peculiarly evocative – like Victorian erotica, mainly gripping because you can’t actually see anything. I like seasonality well enough, the dappling light on a fruit tree, the smell of a flatbread under a hot sun, Christmas spices against the cold. But what I really want to know, from a food writer, is what they are actually like. What kind of friend they are, what kind of parent, what kind of offspring, what kind of spouse – that way I will know if it’s going to be, you know, tasty. The axiom in general writing is that humour seems like an aside, but is actually always in the centre: that is what makes you trust the author. That is how you can believe the bits that aren’t funny. In food writing, you find the beating heart in what they did to a quail (Nigella) or a pea shoot (Rowley Leigh), an egg (Delia Smith), or 60 langoustines that all had to be slain one by one (Richard Olney). Your conclusions (Nigella has a heart as hot as a furnace; Leigh is a barrel-full of urbane mischief; Smith is the ground zero of moral certainty and may even be a saint; Olney is a tortured soul who lies awake at night wondering if mousse is the right thing to do to an artichoke) could be right or wrong. The important thing is that some confluence of food and words made you able to draw them. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown made this explicit leap from recipe to self-reveal with The Settler’s Cookbook, tracing her family’s journey from India to Britain, via Idi Amin’s Uganda, but, more importantly, the diaspora experiences of the dishes that went with them. Cooking from that book always feels presumptuous, like trying on someone else’s heirlooms while they’re in the toilet. But it is also so evocative, like being almost able to smell someone else’s childhood. Food historians have one over on everyone, with their deep anthropological purpose: nobody’s really talking about a Roman’s way with corn to get you to taste it, or the fact that orphan waifs used to squash themselves between diners in Tudor times so that you, too, can try gorging on someone else’s leftover gristle. They do it (the book everyone raves about is Margaret Visser’s Much Depends on Dinner) to hurtle you back through centuries. Unfortunately – and I’ll go to the wall over this conclusion – humans are at their least interesting when they are eating; they are only really interesting when they are killing each other.

Strong civil society movements are needed to ramp up pace of change, says study Greenhouse gas emissions could be halved in the next decade if a small number of current technologies and behavioural trends are ramped up and adopted more widely, researchers have found, saying strong civil society movements are needed to drive such change. Solar and wind power, now cheaper than fossil fuels in many regions, must be scaled up rapidly to replace coal-fired generation, and this alone could halve emissions from electricity generation by 2030, according to the Exponential Roadmap report from an international group of experts. If the rapid uptake of electric vehicles in some parts of the world could be sustained, the vehicles could make up 90% of the market by 2030, vastly reducing emissions from transport, it said. Avoiding deforestation and improving land management could reduce emissions by the equivalent of about 9bn tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2030, according to the report, but contradictory subsidies, poor planning and vested interests could stop this from happening. Key to any transition will be the growing social movements that are pressing for urgent action on climate breakdown. By driving behavioural change, such as moving away from the overconsumption of meat and putting pressure on governments and companies, civil movements have the power to drive the transformation needed in the next decade, say the report’s authors. Christiana Figueres, a former top climate official at the UN, said: “I see all evidence that social and economic tipping points are aligning. We can now say the next decade has the potential to see the fastest economic transition in history.” The experts identified 36 developments that would produce the emission cuts needed, from renewable energy to changes in food production, the design of cities, and international transport, such as shipping. All of them are judged possible to achieve by 2030. “While the scale of transformation is unprecedented, the speed is not,” said Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “This is now a race against time, but businesses and even entire industries have made many significant transitions in less than 10 years.” Social movements will be a top priority because consumers can put pressure on the companies whose goods they buy, and public support makes it possible for political leaders to adopt bolder policies. Countries including the UK, France, Sweden and Norway have adopted a net-zero-carbon target for 2050. Owen Gaffney, the director of strategy at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, a co-author of the report, called on digital platforms such as Facebook, Amazon and Google to play a part. “Given that [these platforms] are now mediating behaviour and consumption, they might do more to support societal goals, for example around advertising and the promotion of high-carbon [activities]. Governments might look here too as a place for policy innovation.” He said governments also needed to do more to support behavioural change, from dietary choices to making public transport more available. However, the detailed policy measures required to meet 2050 net-zero-carbon targets have yet to be worked out by national governments. The report’s authors believe they can demonstrate that taking action now across sectors such as energy generation, buildings, transport and food production and consumption will make it possible. Putting off taking action will result in higher costs and make more rapid change necessary in the future, they say. The report did not examine the potential costs but Gaffney pointed to a study last year by the New Climate Economy that estimated the economic benefit of a lower-carbon future at $26tn (£21tn) by 2030. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change has estimated the cost of reaching net zero at 1-2% of GDP by 2050. The need to move to net zero carbon by 2050 – effectively reducing most of the world’s output of carbon dioxide emissions, and increasing the absorption of carbon by vegetation and other means – is based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its report last year, the body of leading climate scientists found there would be dire effects if temperatures were to exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and found reducing carbon to near zero by mid-century was the best way to avoid this. The organisations behind the Exponential Roadmap report included academic institutes, green campaigning groups and private sector companies.

A woman in California recently had a terrifying experience while driving a new Chevrolet Camaro when she collided with a pickup truck and took a 200-foot (60.96-meter) plunge off of a cliff. Despite the crash and subsequent fall off the side of the road, there were no injuries. The crash occurred around 9:00 PM local time on Highway 175 near Hopland, California. Firefighters arrived at the scene, and four of them used ropes to lower themselves down the mountain. They found the woman in the Camaro, which was against a tree. "That stopped her from rolling 1,000 feet to the bottom; it’s so steep," Hopland Fire Chief Mitch Franklin told The Press Democrat, a local newspaper in the area. The rescuers then helped the woman back up the slope. The three people were in the pickup truck, and they also didn't sustain injuries. Rumors suggest that Chevrolet might be preparing to axe the Camaro from the lineup for the second time in the model's history. The sports coupe allegedly only has a future within the company until 2023. After that, Chevy might retire the vehicle and not introduce a new generation of it. The company isn't officially confirming this plan yet, but the evidence is making the prospect seem more likely. For example, the Bowtie let its trademark on the IROC-Z name lapse. While not currently part of the Camaro line, this moniker has an important place in the vehicle's history. Abandoning it could be a hint that Chevy doesn't believe that the branding is worth keeping because the Camaro isn't going to be around much longer

Ostrichpillow, and offering the total darkness an eye mask can never match, this is the only way to fly remember seeing an Ostrichpillow for the first time. It looked like a bulb of garlic had mated with a football mascot and their spawn had eaten a human. It is an immersive, outsized, semi-portable nap-station – and utterly compelling. Seriously, if you haven’t seen one, have a look. The Ostrichpillow website features some profoundly odd promo shots: a woman curled into the foetal position under a table; someone sleeping standing up like a horse, head resting on a wall; another encased in an outsized fist of grey fabric. The plump, segmented gourd totally envelops the head, with openings at the side into which hands can disappear. It looks so odd, and from the first second I saw it I thought: “I want that.” I didn’t buy one, though. As inviting as it looks, you would need courage to use it. An Ostrichpillow in the wild is a bleak snapshot of corporate burnout. The wearer appears to have given up on life, let alone their job. If your boss saw you cosplaying as Toad from Super Mario Bros and sleeping in a corridor, they would assume you were near mental collapse. Thank the Ostrich Lords, then, that the company has come out with a slimline alternative. Ostrichpillow Light (£32) is a segmented turban stuffed with tiny beads that wraps around the neck or eyes. It is an attempt to capture the engulfing quality of the original in a more elegant form. Rather than a job-jeopardiser, it is marketed as a travel pillow. To test it, I catch an economy flight home from Los Angeles where I had gone to eat cheap tacos. (Financially speaking, I’m good at making bad decisions.) The main thing I notice is that it is exceedingly soft. The microbeads take the contours of my features as I slip it on, which feels cosy rather than oppressive. It is so comfortable. There is an elasticated drawstring, so the pillow can accommodate pea-heads like mine, as well as larger-headed icons like the TV presenter Richard Osman. How much of a maniac do I look? Well, the thing is, I don’t know. I am the only one who can’t see me. Maybe I look fine? Sure, when it is worn with the rear slit facing forwards, I might look as if I am mid-incubation by an Alien facehugger. A fellow passenger may alert the flight attendant. But is that a minus? It could be a bit of colour on the journey home. If you are self-conscious, a sleep mask will suit you better. I, however, am looking for more. Most sleep masks let a little light in, often around the bridge of the nose. Being a spoilt emperor, I find even one errant photon unacceptable. With the Ostrichpillow, you get nothing but darkness. Stephen King, Mariana Trench, Madame Tussauds after closing time darkness. It is blissful. Unthinkably, given the proximity of farting strangers, I start to nod off. The effect is heightened by the covering of the ears, which sleep masks cannot replicate. Cocoon-like. It is not so much about eliminating sound as muffling its vibration and removing contact with the air. I couldn’t wear my bulky noise-cancelling headphones, but found to my surprise I was happy to do without. Earphones were accommodated just fine, and you can push the fabric above your eyes without losing neck support. I was able to watch Aquaman in peace; or I would have done, were it not the worst thing that has ever happened. And not just in the history of film. The pillow isn’t perfect. It is meant to be reversible, but I found one side more comfortable than the other. It runs warm, too. The full-sized version must be like a kiln with a porthole. But these are easy things to forgive. Nothing can redeem the plastic cauldron of suffering that is long-haul budget flying, but the pillow does a lot. I was able to use it as a neck warmer when I’d had enough refrigerated air blown directly into my face, and stuff it down the back of the seat just before my vertebrae had permanently relocated. This travel cushion has range. I wish I was brave enough for the otherworldly, uncompromising oddness of the Ostrichpillow Original. But its presentable cousin is far more my speed. In adverse conditions, it gets you dozy and cosy, and quickly. What is the literary term for the opposite of Kafkaesque? “The cocoon effect is so pronounced, Rhik Samadder was disturbed to find he had not awoken as a red admiral.” Wellness or hellness? Let sleeping divas lie. 5/5

Boris Johnson’s speech was ‘problematic,’ says Met police commissioner The UK’s most senior police officer has criticised Boris Johnson for making a political speech in front of a backdrop of police recruits and expressed puzzlement at how it was allowed to take place. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, was away earlier this month when the prime minister was accused of abusing the impartiality of the police by making partisan comments about Brexit and the next election at a police training college in Wakefield. Asked about the incident on an LBC radio phone-in on Tuesday, Dick joined the West Yorkshire chief constable, John Robins, in questioning the prime minister’s behaviour. She said: “To make a highly political speech in front of a group of police officers does seem to me to be problematic on all sides.” She added: “How it happened, I don’t know. But I’m sure everybody wishes it hadn’t happened.” Dick pointed out that the chancellor, Sajid Javid, had visited a police training college in Hendon, north-west London, after announcing the recruitment of 20,000 police officers to replace those cut since 2010. She added: “I’m glad to say nothing like that happened at Hendon.” Dick also promised to “learn the lessons” from Met failures during the multimillion-pound Operation Midland inquiry into allegations of a VIP paedophile ring based on the fabricated claims of Carl Beech. Dick was involved briefly at the start of the operation in 2014 before leaving the force for a stint at the Foreign Office. Just after she left, a senior officer in charge of Operation Midland, Det Supt Kenny McDonald, described Beech’s claims about historic child abuse by prominent members of the establishment as “credible and true”. She said: “Everybody thinks that that was just a mistake. It shouldn’t have been said. “When I heard I was very surprised. And I just felt for him immediately. I remember thinking: ‘Oh no, I know you didn’t mean to say that.’ What he would have meant to say was this person appears credible. And unfortunately when pressed he said ‘credible and true’. And that of course was a mistake. It was unfortunate and it dented people’s confidence in the investigation from there on in.” Dick added: “I was not in policing for the vast majority of the time that Midland took place. My job is to make sure that the Met has learned lessons and we look forward.” She added: “It was horrific in its impact on the individuals. I think it has damaged the Met’s reputation.”

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Nissan wants to capitalize on the success of the LEAF. After becoming the first electric car to hit the 400,000 sales mark globally, Nissan has cemented its name on the EV market since 2010. And of course, the carmaker wouldn't want to slow down with that. To follow up on the LEAF's success, Nissan is unveiling a new battery-powered electric vehicle to cater to the crossover SUV market. It won't be long before the Japanese marque reveals the car, though, as Automotive News has reported that the company has shown the electric crossover to U.S. retailers in a dealer meeting last month. Details about the electric crossover are scarce at this point in time, however. According to the dealers who saw the presentation, the crossover EV will have a 300-mile (483-kilometer) range, which puts it a bit at par with leading crossover EVs in the market like the Tesla Model X at 325 mi (523 km) and Jaguar i-Pace at 234 mi (377 km). Even better, the upcoming Nissan crossover EV is said to have the capability to sprint from 0 to 60 mph (97 kph) in under five seconds. Of note, the first crossover EV that Nissan revealed to the world was the iMx Concept in 2017 (image gallery above). It won't be a long shot if the production crossover would be based on the eccentric concept. By proportion, however, the Nissan crossover EV is described as a compact by the dealers – exterior proportions of the Rogue but with the interior space of a Murano. The new Nissan EV is expected to be unveiled by the second half of 2021 and will be part of the eight battery-powered vehicles that Nissan will launch in the few years to come.

She’s one of the faces of Rihanna’s recent Fenty campaign, but JoAni Johnson’s soaring modelling success only started when she was in her 60s… oAni Johnson, a sexagenarian model with a cascade of hair the colour of moonlight, arrives for our teashop rendezvous serene as a breeze, as if the humidity of a New York summer was something that inconvenienced only other people. She shares this serenity gladly. Today she calms young models with advice she was given by Bethann Hardison, a long-time activist who has fought to diversify the fashion industry for decades: “Close your eyes, take a deep breath, open your eyes, and walk.” Most of us are lucky to have one shot on life’s merry-go-round, but for JoAni Johnson the ride just keeps getting faster. Having grown up in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement, she now finds herself being feted as an exemplar of fashion’s reckoning with runway racism and misogyny as brands scramble to connect with millennial customers. When, in May, she was hired to model Rihanna’s fashion line, Fenty, fashion bloggers swooned at the symbolism of a young black designer choosing an older black woman as her muse. Older women who defy convention have been having something of a moment lately. Maybe you’re among the 3.8 million people who follows Baddiewinkle, the 90-year-old Instagram celebrity who posts images of herself in garish attire alongside innuendo-laden captions. And perhaps you have seen the New York Times video of Inge Ginsburg, the 96-year-old Holocaust survivor who fronts a death-metal band in Switzerland. Then there’s Iris Apfel, the lavishly accessorized subject of a documentary by Albert Maysles. Last February, Apfel signed with modelling agency IMG, home of Kate Moss and Karlie Kloss. She is 97. You can buy a Barbie doll in her likeness. You’d have to be a killjoy not to admire the ways in which these women thumb their noses at social pieties, but it’s hard to avoid a whiff of the Victorian sideshow in the way they are presented to us as kooks. Baddiewinkle may be a delicious riposte to a culture that has stigmatised the old as dull, but we also need templates to show how age can be strong, eloquent and beautiful. Johnson, 67, has walked the runway for Ozwald Boateng and Eileen Fisher, and featured in ads for Pyer Moss, arguably America’s hottest fashion label. When Peter, her husband of 21 years, died two months after her first fashion show, Johnson felt compelled to continue. It was his enthusiasm that had pushed her forward. “He encouraged me all the way,” she says. Her voice is gentle and clear. “He was so proud.” For many years, the couple had enjoyed a weekend ritual that involved walking around a different neighbourhood of New York together. The walks were a way of mapping a city they’d seen change and change again, but also of affirming the unchanging fact of their place in it. Having grown up in Harlem, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Johnson knew all about cycles of decline and resurrection. It was during one of their walks, one afternoon in 2016, that Johnson found herself posing, reluctantly, for a street photographer who had doubled back to ask to take her portrait. “After that, I started getting contacted,” she says matter-of-factly. She was cast in a video for Allure magazine, showcasing older, self-empowered women. When the video went viral, more bookings followed. If you needed an example of the ways in which social media has reshaped visibility and representation, that Instagram post would be a good place to start. It was the catapult that launched Johnson’s modelling career. Older models are not a new phenomenon – the legendary Australian model, Jennifer Hocking, was rediscovered in her 70s by Mario Testino; in 2017 Lauren Hutton, then 73, starred in an underwear campaign for Calvin Klein; earlier this year, Daphne Selfe, received a British Empire Award for a modelling career that is still going strong at 90. But those models got their starts young. Their reappearance in later life taps into a collective nostalgia. Johnson, by contrast, is emblematic of something new: a reflexive instinct of primarily young designers to think beyond the conflation of beauty with youth. For Bethann Hardison, it would be a mistake to think of Johnson’s sudden ubiquity as just a trend for older women. “I give Rihanna more credit than that,” she says. “I think she’s smart and has good taste, and she just found JoAni attractive.” She pauses. “I find her attractive,” she adds. In other words, when people look at Johnson in campaigns for Fenty are they seeing an older woman, or just a beautiful woman? For Hardison, true success will be the day we refer to Johnson as simply a model, without qualifiers around race or age. Every generation has its cultural reference points. For Johnson it was the Beatles and Twiggy; it was the beret sported by Faye Dunaway in Bonnie & Clyde; it was the mini skirt she rigged from her school uniform. “As soon as we left school we rolled them up so they were short and cute with our white blouse and little blazer,” she laughs. At least the makeshift mini was more successful than her Beatles shag. “I took a bowl, put it over my head and cut off my hair,” she recalls. “My mother went crazy.” Her mother is 94 now, and still a powerhouse who attends church every day. “She loves to dress,” says Johnson. “All my family were into dressing well – the way you looked played a very big part, especially if you were a person of colour.” It’s why Harlem has a storied place in fashion history. “You see photos of 125th street from the 1920s and 30s and everyone was dressed to the T.” At college, Johnson studied biology and art. It was a restless era and she felt giddy on the atmosphere of protest and idealism. “We were looking for possibility and change,” she recalls. “We were in environments where there were so many roadblocks, and the only way to get it changed was to do something, actively – so we did.” History was happening, but much of it was discernible only in hindsight. She saw Angela Davis speak before her name was synonymous with the Black Panthers and revolution. “I wasn’t like, ‘We’re going to see Angela Davis,’ Johnson says. “People didn’t know those names until they became who they were.” Her first job after college was in New York’s garment district, before she moved on to ride the wave of designer jeans as a sales associate in the 1980s, briefly designing scratch ’n’ sniff clothes for children, including a T-shirt that smelled, alas, like a Hershey’s chocolate bar. After taking time out to raise her child, she made her way back into the corporate world, one of very few black women to find herself in a senior marketing position, when she was struck by an anomaly. She and her colleague were the only employees working on a proposal in the office on New Year’s Eve. “I said, ‘Why are we the only people dedicated enough to make this happen?’” Johnson knew the answer, of course. “They were going to question us about everything, because we were women and we were black,” she says. The sense of being scrutinised, of having to hurdle a higher bar, was not new. “It’s better today, but you are always challenged,” she says. But that New Year’s Eve, Johnson and her colleague downed tools and left the building. “We went to the Plaza Hotel for tea and we had a marvellous time,” she says. They did it again the following year, this time with their daughters in tow. The next year their sisters joined in. “By the time we left the Plaza we were 18 people,” Johnson recalled. Too many to continue sitting together, they began hosting tea meet-ups on their own. When a member opened a tea shop, Johnson seized her opportunity. “I found my niche in blending,” she says. Today Johnson’s tea blends find their way into fancy New York restaurants where they are often used to create speciality cocktails. She misses drinking tea with her husband who died in November 2017, less than two months after she appeared in her first New York Fashion Week. “He dressed impeccably,” she says. “He had a collection of shoes and he could tell me every shoemaker from the stitches they used.” The shoes are still at home in Harlem, all 150 pairs of them. Johnson can’t bear to part with them. She smiles, fondly, then recalls his giddy excitement for her first fashion week. “He debated for about a week what to wear,” she says. “He ended up in a pair of black jeans with his vintage peace scarf from the 1960s.” She remembers spotting him scuttling back and forth to take photographs. “He was fabulous,” she says. “Just fabulous.” Recently, she attended a cocktail party and could not understand why she felt so discomposed. There was something at the edge of her consciousness that she only figured out as she was leaving. “The place that the event was held was where my husband got down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” she recalls, before smiling her dazzling supermodel smile. “And then I felt joy.” Makeup by Colleen Creighton using Fenty Beauty by Rihanna at Kramer + Kramer; hair by Koji Ichikawa at the Club NYC using Laicale; photographer’s assistant Lee Grubb; fashion assistant Peter Bevan This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set

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