The Weekly News Review: A look at the headlines from the past week.It has been a sombre week in the news, the kind where every headline feels like it should arrive wearing a black tie and carrying flowers.
Not just any embroidery, but the Bayeux Tapestry the world’s most famous 70‑metre graphic novel returning to the UK for the first time in nearly a thousand years. This is astonishing, because most things created a thousand years ago have either crumbled, been misplaced, or are currently buried under a Waitrose car park.The tapestry is essentially medieval Europe’s version of a blockbuster film: swords, horses, battles, questionable haircuts. It’s the only piece of art where you can say, “I’m just popping out to look at a 1066 spoiler,” and nobody blinks. Historians are thrilled. The rest of us are mostly impressed that something stitched before the invention of electricity has survived longer than my last attempt at sourdough.
Meanwhile, Gibraltar has entered a new era by removing 118‑year‑old border controls with Spain. This is huge. For more than a century, crossing that border required paperwork, patience, and the emotional stamina of someone trying to cancel a broadband contract. Now, suddenly, it’s open. People can stroll across freely, like it’s a giant international garden path.Of course, this raises questions: What happens to the little border booths? Do they get repurposed as artisanal coffee kiosks? Will someone turn one into a tiny museum called “The Queue Room”? Only time will tell.
Back home, the UK continues to be on fire. Literally. Wildfires are burning across the country, and firefighters are under “extreme pressure,” which is British understatement for “everything is terrible and also melting.”We’re not used to wildfires here. Traditionally, British weather consists of rain, drizzle, sideways rain, and the occasional sunny day that causes national panic. But now we have wildfires, which means we’ve officially joined the list of countries where summer is less “picnic” and more “apocalypse lite.” The NFCC says the heatwave is to blame, which is fair, because the heatwave has been behaving like a toddler who found the thermostat.
Speaking of things that went disastrously wrong, the Covid inquiry has revealed that NHS staff and patients were put at risk due to inadequate PPE—and that nearly £10bn of taxpayers’ money was wasted in the scramble to buy more. Ten billion pounds. That’s enough money to buy several small countries, or one London flat! The inquiry’s findings read like the world’s worst shopping spree: “Bought too much,” “Bought the wrong thing,” “Bought things that didn’t work,” “Bought things that were basically fancy bin bags.” It’s the kind of chaos you’d expect if you gave a credit card to a golden retriever and told it to “get whatever seems useful.”
In other news, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton has sold for £37.4m at Sotheby’s. Yes, someone paid fifty million dollars for a dinosaur. I assume the buyer is either a billionaire, a museum, or a child who found a genie.The T‑rex is 67 million years old, stands 12 feet tall, and is 60% complete—making it one of the most complete specimens ever found. Personally, I would want a full dinosaur for that price. If I’m spending £37m, I want the whole thing, including the bits that fell off. But apparently this is a bargain in the world of prehistoric shopping.
Meanwhile, teenagers aged 16 and 17 will soon face a social media curfew between midnight and 6am unless they opt out by changing their settings. This is classic government logic: “We’re imposing a strict rule, unless you don’t want it, in which case just click this button.”The idea is to protect teenagers’ wellbeing, which is noble. But enforcing a curfew on teenagers is like enforcing a bedtime on cats. They will ignore it, climb something they shouldn’t, and then post about it on TikTok
In Westminster, Sir Keir Starmer delivered his final Prime Minister’s Questions, calling it “the end of my political journey.” He said he was proud of what he achieved, and whether you agree or disagree, it was undeniably a historic moment.
It’s been a week of goodbyes, and sadly, we lost newsreader Dermot Murnaghan—a familiar, steady voice in British broadcasting. And in horrific circumstances, former MP Ann Widdecombe. Two very different public figures, both leaving behind long, complicated legacies.
So that’s the week: ancient tapestries, border revolutions, burning landscapes, PPE disasters, millionaire dinosaurs, teenage curfews, political farewells, and the loss of two public figures.A sombre week indeed—one that reminds us history never stops, even when we wish it would slow down for a moment.
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