Why our “wonderful, beautiful civilisation” will win in the end

Hero
God, according to Donald Trump, for saving him from a sniper’s bullet so that he could make America great again. The US president, says Charles Moore in The Spectator, wasn’t always terribly interested in God, “who was widely reported to be a never-Trumper – but now he sees Him as one of his greatest supporters, second only to Elon Musk”.

Villain
Astrid the rhino, who gored to death a zebra called Ziggy at Colchester Zoo. Officials claimed that Astrid was merely trying to move Ziggy out of the way, says Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times, but how do they know it wasn’t intentional? “How do they know Astrid wasn’t thinking, ‘That stripy tosser has wandered in here for the very last time – mark my words.’”

Hero
Pamela Hemphill, who has refused a pardon from Donald Trump over January 6, saying: “We were wrong that day.” The retiree, nicknamed the “Maga granny” by social media users, served 60 days in prison for taking part in the violence. “I pleaded guilty because I was guilty,” she tells BBC News. “Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation.”

Hero
A man in Germany who took fare-dodging to the extreme, clinging on to the outside of a high-speed train for almost 20 miles at speeds of up to 175mph. The unnamed 40-year-old sneaked on to the ICE service in Munich without a ticket, and was having a cheeky cigarette on the platform at Ingolstadt when the train doors closed. Knowing his luggage was still on board, he jumped on to the bracket between two carriages and clung on until witnesses spotted him and got the driver to stop.

“This is Milan. People are thin here. People smoke here.”

It feels like the “golden days of Milano” are back, says Elena Clavarino in Air Mail. Rich foreigners are moving in, rents are rising and private members’ clubs are opening their doors, “rekindling the spirit of the city’s hedonistic heyday in the 1980s”. But as Milan embraces its new wave of glamour, a “piece of its carefree past” is being stamped out: on 1 January, a law prohibiting smoking in public spaces – “streets, parks and outdoor areas” – came into effect. Nostalgic visions of Milan Fashion Week, “Campari spritzes in hand and cigarette smoke curling in the air”, have been thwarted.

Here’s what a few outraged Milanesi had to say about it: “We are Italians. You can’t take cigarettes away from Italians.” “What’s the point of drinking a Negroni without a cigarette? It’s like having pasta without parmigiano.” “They are killing the aperitivo.” “This is Milan. People are thin here. People smoke here.” “They are turning us into Americans.” “American Democrat bullshit.” “No one cares anyway. We are not Japanese.” “I’m moving to Rome.”

Isaac Newton and 3,000 virgins: the ancient quest for eternal life

The modern obsession with extending human life is nothing new, says Joe Kloc in The New York Times. Humanity’s oldest epic is a doomed quest for immortality: some 4,000 years ago, the Sumerians told of a Mesopotamian king called Gilgamesh who set out to find everlasting life and briefly located a youth-restoring plant, before losing it on his way home. Two millenniums later, a Chinese magician called Xu Fu convinced the emperor there was an elixir granting eternal life across the Yellow Sea. The emperor furnished the magician with ships, an army and the 3,000 virgins he insisted were vital to the quest. “Xu Fu set sail, and the emperor never saw him again.”

The desire to live forever also animated the conquests of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great and the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Léon. “They too ended in failure.” Nevertheless, for centuries afterwards, alchemists, including Isaac Newton, sought to create a drink that granted immortality. Newton died believing his alchemy would prove more consequential than his physics. By the 19th and 20th centuries, anti-ageing gurus, newspaper columnists and charlatans all regularly promoted lifestyle changes such as avoiding “excessive sleep”, eschewing water, marrying, and “moving to Nantucket”. Associations cropped up like The Hundred Years Club in New York, who were obsessed with the “theories of India, Egypt and the ancient Hebrews”. Guest speakers included Dr Cyrus Edson, who told the audience that “men of genius” live remarkably long lives. “He died three years later, in his mid-40s.”