Image of the week: Football madness
It doesn’t feel like four years since the last Uefa European Football Championship – because it isn’t, of course. Euro 2020, when it went ahead in 2021, was distinguished by “VIP bubbles”, reduced capacity venues and Covid-ridden public transport, with the Italy v England final then marred by mass public disorder at Wembley. Not ideal.
Security concerns are likely to be front and centre at Euro 2024, with German police anticipating that Sunday night’s clash between Serbia and England in Gelsenkirchen could be a particular flashpoint owing to the suspected intentions of up to 500 “violence-seeking” Serbian hooligans. Only low-alcohol beer is expected to be available at the stadium.
But after the sober affair that was the Fifa World Cup in Qatar in 2022 – which saw alcohol completely banned from all venues just two days before the start of the tournament – Euro 2024 is destined to be a boozier business overall. When it hosted the World Cup in 2006, beer sales in Germany rose by about 5 per cent and its brewers and hospitality venues will be hoping for a repeat. Still, if no one gets quite drunk enough to stick a flare up their bum, as someone was filmed doing in London in 2021, then it just might be for the best.
On to more serious issues now with a quick word about one of the most talked-about selections for Euro 2024: official mascot Albärt. The teddy bear, who was chosen to bring joy to the sidelines by schoolchildren across Europe and Uefa website users, follows in “the illustrious oversized footsteps” of past mascots Berni, Goaliath, Rabbit and Kinas, none of whom have made the squad this time.
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In numbers: Damp squib
111.4
Millimetres of rainfall in the UK in April, which was 55 per cent more than an average April and the wettest one since 2012.
0%
Economic growth in the UK in April, its Office of National Statistics said this week – theoretically spoiling prime minister Rishi Sunak’s campaign mantra on the economy turning a corner – after the rain dampened consumer spending.
20
The Conservatives are trailing Labour in various opinion polls by about this many percentage points – a gap that confirmation of economic stagnation will not exactly close.
Getting to know: Apple’s new head gestures
Here’s the good news: if you find yourself in a room in future with someone who is shaking their head, seemingly for no reason, they are probably not offering unsolicited disapproval of your outfit, your hair or your very existence. They’re probably just an AirPods Pro user declining a voice call. And if they’re nodding vigorously, they’re not trying to replicate some physiotherapy exercise they found on YouTube, they’re probably just – as unlikely as this might seem in 2024 – answering a voice call. AirPods Pro users will be able to avail of these new head-gesture features from later this year, Apple announced this week, as it unveiled an innovation that will have everyone in the non-AirPods Pro community wishing AirPods Pro owners the best of luck. Yes, this is the bad news: there is now a brand new way to accidentally answer a phone call you fully intended to reject.
The list: Paramount importance
Controlling shareholder Shari Redstone has called off a merger between media empire Paramount Global and the film studio Skydance, leaving Paramount’s future unclear. But what does it own exactly?
1. Paramount Pictures: The historic Hollywood studio’s biggest franchises include Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, with Skydance on board as a partner. Skydance boss David Ellison says he values its “ongoing partnership” despite the collapse of the deal.
2. CBS: Originally a radio business, US television network CBS has ties with Paramount dating from the 1920s. It is the home of Paramount’s Star Trek and NCIS franchises and reality series Survivor.
3. Channel 5: Paramount, when it was called Viacom, acquired the UK broadcaster from Richard Desmond in 2014, a move generally agreed to have improved the channel that notoriously featured in the final words of singer-actor Adam Faith in 2003. (“Channel 5 is all s***, isn’t it?” he was reported to have said before dying.)
4. Nickelodeon: The children’s channel used to be ubiquitous in households with kids of a certain age. Who was to blame? That would be Paramount. But in the streaming era, its sway is not what it once was.
5. MTV: The catalyst for the term “MTV generation” is definitely no longer ubiquitous in any household, having passed from much-namechecked cultural upstart to confusing irrelevance at a speed that would impress Top Gun’s Maverick.
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