Barometer

Pennies from haven Last week’s huge leak of the ‘Paradise Papers’ has put the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in the spotlight. But the original tax haven was actually New Jersey, not Jersey. — New Jersey was struggling financially in the 1880s until governor Leon Abbett liberalised the state’s incorporation laws. This persuaded many companies to set up there rather than in New York, where they were doing business. — In return, New Jersey charged a franchise tax. It has since lost its status as a tax haven, but it was copied by neighbouring Delaware, which still hosts the corporate HQs of many US companies. Shooting stars With 3.65 gun deaths per 100,000 population in 2016, how does the United States compare internationally?

Lynx on the loose — A Eurasian lynx escaped from a zoo in Wales, pre-empting plans to introduce six of the animals to Kielder Forest in Northumberland. The animal was once native to Britain, becoming extinct around the year 700, earlier than the wolf (possibly 1290) or the brown bear (around year 1000). — However, in continental Europe and near-Asia, numbers have been growing since a low of 700 between 1930 and 1950. There are now believed to be 50,000, spread from Uzbekistan in the east to Germany in the west. Of the smaller Iberian lynx, restricted to Spain and Portugal, numbers fell to 100 in 2002 but now stand at about 400. Collaring white collars Gordon Brown said more bankers should have been jailed for actions related to the banking crisis.

Littler Hitlers Cabinet secretary Damian Green appealed to commentators to halt the ‘ridiculous rise of routine comparisons to Hitler’. A small selection of examples in the past week: — Chants of ‘Go home, Nazis’ met a white supremacist rally in Florida, where at least one attendee was in a swastika T-shirt. — Ex-US vice president Joe Biden asked universities to respect free speech, saying ‘don’t give the Trumps of this world the ability to compare you with Nazis’. — An ultra-orthodox Jew protesting against military service called Israeli police ‘Nazis’. — Ex-National Front and BNP campaigner Kevin Wilshaw said he had ‘completely wasted’ his past life as a ‘Nazi’.

Cheat sheets The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education wants universities to catch out more students who buy essays online. How much do cheats pay for this service? — 1,000 words in seven days to 1st standard £103. Also offers 2:1 standard for £74 and 2:2 standard for £57. This website offers a refund if you don’t get the promised grade. —A rival site offers a 1st standard essay in seven days from just £18.99, with £13.99 for a 2.1 and £11.99 for a 2.2. — From £16.18 per page on a site which says ‘compare our prices with those set by solicitors, barristers, doctors or accountants’. Falling short Where would an early exit leave Theresa May in the prime ministerial ranks?

Bunny beginnings Hugh Hefner, creator of Playboy, died. How did he get the idea for bunny girls? — Hefner said he had been inspired by Bunny’s Tavern, a bar in Urbana, Illinois, named after its owner Bernard ‘Bunny’ Fitzsimmons, who opened it in 1936. — A closer match for Hefner’s clubs was the Gaslight Club opened in Chicago in 1953, where customers were served by ‘gaslight girls’ dressed in corsets and fishnets. — Originally, Hefner proposed dressing up his hostesses as baby dolls, then toyed with the idea of ‘stag girls’ wearing antlers, to match the name he wanted to give Playboy magazine, Stag Party. He had to drop that name when Stag magazine (men’s adventure stories) threatened to sue.

Lost in the post Postcard maker J. Salmon is to close after almost 140 years, because holidaymakers now send phone selfies rather than cards. — What is believed to be the very first postcard was a selfie of sorts. It was a caricature of postal workers that practical joker Theodore Hook sent to himself in Fulham using a penny black stamp in 1840, the year the penny post was introduced. — It was another 30 years before postcards were officially accepted by the Royal Mail, and the now standard design of a picture on the front, address and message on the back was established only in 1902. — Mr Hook’s card was sold at auction in 2002 for £31,750. Pay walls Which countries have the largest pay gaps between men and women, in a survey of 33 countries?

Selfie-worth The animal rights charity Peta dropped a case claiming that a macaque which took its own photo was entitled to the royalties, rather than the camera owner (but only after the photographer agreed to donate a quarter of the royalties to animal charities). — The idea of animal property rights was advanced by Australian philosopher John Hadley in the Journal of Social Philosophy in 2005. He suggested animals be granted rights over territories and human guardians appointed to represent them in court. — There are issues still to be reconciled, however: what of non-territorial animals, and those which dispute each other’s territories? Would cats be expected to resolve differences in court rather than yowling at each other?

Ethnic ethics Actor Ed Skrein withdrew from a cartoon film after protests that he had the wrong ethnic background to play a Japanese-American. Some famous performances which, on the same principle, could be regarded as unacceptable: — Laurence Olivier blacked up to play the lead role in the 1965 film of Othello. — Andrew Sachs, son of a German Jew, played Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers in 1975 and 1979. — Eddie Redmayne, who is not disabled, played Stephen Hawking in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. — Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican descent, played founding father Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, which he also wrote.

Big bong theory Big Ben, otherwise known as the Great Bell, is due to fall silent on Monday for renovations to be carried out on the Palace of Westminster’s Elizabeth Tower, in which it is housed. Why is it called Big Ben? —According to one version, Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the installation of the bell in 1859, also happened to be nicknamed Big Ben. He made a long and rambling speech on what the bell should be called, whereupon another MP interjected: ‘Why not call it Big Ben and be done with it?’ The comment is not, however, recorded in Hansard. Inside left Pressure groups representing the left-handed held an international left-handedness day. How does the percentage of reported left-handedness vary? Netherlands 13.2 UK 12.2 New York State 12.

Out with a whimper Usain Bolt managed only a bronze in his last appearance in the 100 metres at the World Athletics Championships in London. Final appearances often don’t go to plan: — Don Bradman was bowled for a second-ball duck by Eric Hollies in his last Test at the Oval in 1948. Four runs would have given him a career average of 100. — Stanley Matthews bowed out in 1965 in a testimonial between his personal XI and an international XI, which won 6-4. — Pelé appeared for the last time in a Brazil-Yugoslavia friendly on 18 July 1971. The match ended 2-2, with neither of Brazil’s goals scored by Pelé. — However, Martina Navratilova did win her last match — the final of the mixed doubles at the US Open in 2006.

But me no butts Boris Johnson, being taught a Maori head-to-head greeting, joked that it might be ‘misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow’. But did he offend the wrong city? In 2007 the OED appealed for details on the origin of ‘Glasgow kiss’, meaning a headbutt. Then, its earliest known first use was in the Financial Times in 1987, whereas ‘Liverpool kiss’ (meaning the same thing) was traced back to 1944. The appeal pushed back the Glasgow first use, but only by five years to 1982, when the Daily Mirror said: ‘Glasgow has its own way of welcoming people... there is a broken bottle gripped in the first of greeting. Or there’s the Glasgow kiss — a sharp whack on the nose with the forehead.