The prancing Italian war horse that thundered to victory in the last major cavalry charge in Europe in 1942 and was immortalised by Ferrari, has returned home after 50 years, saved from extinction by a Sicilian Prince. Beneath the shimmering cliffs of Mount Alburno a herd of the royal breed of Persano, manes streaming in the morning sun, galloped into the scrubby fields of their ancestors. Riding with them was Prince Alduino Ventimiglia di Monteforte, 68, a former champion showjumper, who rescued the breed and negotiated their return to this military base and former royal hunting lodge.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sicilian-princes-50-year-mission-to-save-ferraris-prancing-horse-l9gxfxx75

#thetimes

Anyone in the market for a used car will likely have been taken aback by how much a 'pre-loved' runaround can cost since the pandemic. But although second-hand car prices are still far higher than they were a few years ago, there are some tentative signs of stabilisation. For example, according to DoneDeal's price index for the second quarter of this year, price inflation on used cars has dropped to its lowest level — 0.9 per cent — since before the pandemic. Its figures show that there was a 9.7 per cent fall in demand for used cars in the second quarter, accompanied by a 7.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-let-used-car-dealers-give-you-the-runaround-bvh2wzcdw

#thetimes

Fabio Molle used to rely on his Instagram feed to drive sales of his Saber tennis training racket — but no more You cannot be serious. If Fabio Molle didn't use John McEnroe's immortal line this summer, he certainly should have. Molle is the inventor of Saber, a training racket that helps tennis players improve their game. Novak Djokovic, the world's No 1 male player, was seen with one at Wimbledon. Molle sells them around the world via his website, functionaltennis.com. But Instagram, where he has 750,000 followers, has always played a huge role in driving sales.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/instagram-rule-change-serves-up-lessons-on-self-reliance-hvwrcx0zh

#thetimes

Multiple Squares My grandson likes to compile 3x3 magic squares, where each of the three rows of numbers, each of the three columns of numbers and both of the straight diagonals, add up to the same total. This he did without repeating any of the nine numbers in the square. He has now progressed to compiling similar 3x3 squares, which instead of the eight rows, columns and diagonals of numbers adding to the same total, they instead multiply to produce the same product. In his first such square this product was 32,768.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3185-9jxd5hj0j

#thetimes

Labour hails by-election win as big step towards No 10 October 06 2023, 5.40pm Kieran Andrews , Scottish Political Editor | John Boothman | Patrick Maguire , Emma Taggart | Geraldine Scott | James Mitchell | Emma Taggart

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/morgan-mcsweeney-the-real-power-behind-starmer-who-would-rather-stay-in-the-shadows-sdx2dzqxw

#thetimes

Four Away The rectangular snooker table had four corner pockets and two centre pockets (one each in the middle of the left and right sides, which were 12ft long). A ball always left the cushions at the same angle as it struck them. The cue ball was by the bottom right corner pocket and Joe hit it off the left cushion; it bounced off another seven cushions without hitting a ball or entering a pocket, then entered the right centre pocket. Four away! Joe replayed the shot but the cue ball hit the left cushion further up the table than before, bounced another ten times without hitting a ball or entering a pocket, then entered the right centre pocket.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3184-k760pjrq9

#thetimes

Initial Public Offerings, when a company first lists on a stock market, have a bad reputation. The famous US investor Peter Lynch said IPO should actually stand for 'it's probably overpriced'. The Cambridge-based computer chip designer Arm Holdings listed on September 14: shares soared 25 per cent on the first day then lost all those gains. The grocery delivery firm Instacart and the marketing software firm Klaviyo, which both listed a week later, followed a similar pattern. Sponsored The allure of an IPO stems from the chance to grab the 'next big thing', but there are good reasons to be wary.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-can-you-tell-if-your-flotation-stock-will-tank-7ckt7m2f6

#thetimes

The Football Association is investigating whether a powerful football agent submitted false evidence to an arbitration hearing involving a Premier League footballer. The Times can reveal that a police investigation uncovered evidence which they believe showed that incomplete evidence was served for a private FA hearing to settle a dispute between the agent and a player he had acted for in a transfer between two Premier League clubs. Prior to the hearing, the tribunal made a specific request that the agent submit certain information to all interested parties.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top-agent-secret-hearing-and-false-evidence-fa-launches-investigation-bbgfxfvsc

#thetimes

Making businesses more sustainable is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity. Ciaran Maguire, a former IT marketer, saw a chance to launch his business, Love Earth Smart Water System, to eliminate the use of water bottles in hotel guest rooms. He launched the venture at the end of last year and so far his target market is lapping it up. Maguire's research found that 92 per cent of the glass, plastic or carton water bottles routinely stocked in hotels worldwide are not recycled but end up in landfill — a massive waste.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/green-bosses-show-plenty-of-bottle-9fb0xkwh7

#thetimes

Flavilla Fongang, founder of 3 Colours Rule and of the group GTA Black Women in Tech, which became an instant hit For Flavilla Fongang, the move from Paris to London in 2000 was supposed to be temporary but only a few weeks in the UK capital was enough to convince the aspiring entrepreneur that there were much better opportunities there for ambitious young black people. 'There's a level of hypocrisy in France because we have liberté, égalité, fraternité [as the national motto of France] but deep down people from different backgrounds have not been promoted or sponsored to go to the top.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-got-used-to-being-the-only-woman-in-the-room-but-i-realised-that-was-not-ok-m7tjc7h2z

#thetimes

A former Horse of the Year Show winner and his partner have been labelled 'greedy' after they stole more than £50,000 worth of riding tack from riders who were competing across the country. Kieran Quinn, 36, and Jamie Aston, 32, stole stirrups, saddles, riding boots and other items as the owners waited to compete in international competitions. In one incident the showjumpers hired a car and drove hundreds of miles to break into lockers in the stables while their targets were asleep, travelling home with the items on the same morning.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-greedy-showjumpers-stole-50-000-of-gear-from-riders-ndphck5hb

#thetimes

Stand and be Counted When bad light ended the first day's play, the total score was 182 with three batters having been 'out' during the day. Sponsored In the successive stands, the lower-numbered and the higher-numbered batters scored in the ratios 7:3, 10:7, 1:11 and 11:19, in that order. The total score was the sum of the scores of the five batters. The third batter was the highest scorer. [In cricket the batting team starts with batters 1 and 2 together, and each is able to score. When one of them is 'out' the third batter comes 'in' to replace them, when one of that pair is out the fourth batter comes in, and so on.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3182-tpp3lkqkz

#thetimes

Seeing significant patterns, such as faces, in inanimate objects is called pareidolia In 1994, a woman in Florida received what she took to be a religious message via a grilled cheese sandwich. As she gazed at its toasted surface, a familiar figure peered back. 'I saw a face looking up at me, it was the Virgin Mary,' she said. 'I was in shock.' Sponsored The rest of the world had cause to be surprised when she sold the snack on eBay for $28,000. The phenomenon of people seeing significant patterns, often faces, in inanimate objects is called pareidolia.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/love-hormone-makes-new-mothers-see-faces-in-their-food-c7ghm50lw

#thetimes

'No slack, Alice!' says Grace Grace mimicked Mr Dodgson: ‘'Take two different positive odd numbers with no shared prime factor. Multiply the larger by their sum, giving the perimeter of a distinct right-angled triangle with whole-number sides. Only such values and their multiples work.'' Alice created a loop from part of a 1m thread. She was able to pull it tightly on a pinboard into a right-angled triangle with whole-number cm sides in two ways (with different-shaped triangles). Alice then pulled the same loop tight over the thin polar spike of the classroom globe, down two meridians and along the equator.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3181-cnhf0gqdb

#thetimes

Class clown dreamt of being a cyberwarrior September 08 2023, 9.00am Fiona Hamilton , Shayma Bakht , Duncan Gardham , Tom Witherow

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wandsworth-prison-escape-easy-uk-jail-2023-3vcxvtkpd

#thetimes

The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction has had a strong track record of rewarding good books since it was founded in 1999 as the Samuel Johnson Prize. Antony Beevor's Stalingrad, Anna Funder's Stasiland, Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy, James Shapiro's 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare . . . all terrific reads. The 13-strong longlist, announced today, for this year's prize looks pretty strong. The judges have bucked the trend for awards panels by remembering that people actually read for pleasure: look, among the nominees is The Wager, a genuinely exciting piece of historical storytelling that is going to be turned into a film by Martin Scorsese.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/baillie-gifford-prize-2023-longlist-non-fiction-books-d39hfk0dh

#thetimes

Q: We're planning to double our team and can't all fit in our single-room office, even with some remote working days. I'm considering moving to a flexible office building nearby but what should I know? A: The concept of flexible workspace has been around for a while and by definition, it is space that allows a business to occupy immediately available, fully serviced offices which allow flexibility to grow or shrink their space over time. Sponsored In recent years hybrid working has markedly changed how and where we work.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-should-i-know-before-moving-to-a-flexible-office-building-072269x07

#thetimes

Results: Clue writing contest 1981 Knife grinder Winner Lynne Davis, Mill Hill, London NW7 He edges closer to caution, irking ref with extremely deliberate foul He edges = definition, with 'edge' meaning 'to sharpen (a knife, etc)'closer to caution = N – the closing letter of 'caution' = anagram fodder part 1irking ref = anagram fodder part 2with = link to …extremely deliberate = D~E = anagram fodder part 3 foul = entangled = anagram indicator This is a complicated clue, but disguises the defini

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunday-times-clue-writing-contest-1981-knife-grinder-jt6s8ndls

#thetimes

Taking The Chair There were eight people on the committee: four men — Jingo, King, Ling and Ming, and four women — Sheena, Tina, Una and Vina. They had to choose a chairperson from among themselves and so each of them voted for their choice, each person choosing someone of the opposite sex. Jingo's choice's choice was King. Also, Ling's choice's choice's choice was Sheena. Furthermore, Tina's choice's choice's choice's choice was Una. Just two people got fewer votes than their choice did. After further discussion the woman with the most votes was made chairperson.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3180-htr7f6k3x

#thetimes

He might not have the superhero status of Aquaman but Colm Lynch could fairly lay claim to being 'Aquatech man'. Lynch is chief operating officer of Aquamonitrix, an aquatech spin-out from the oil and environmental analysis company TE Laboratories in Carlow. The parent company started in 1991, carrying out fuel analysis and testing oil for signs of machine wear. From there it moved into environmental analysis, developing sensors for clients in sectors including life sciences and transport. Today it employs more than 50 people at its Tullow headquarters.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tide-turns-for-tech-minnows-in-aquaculture-f5jzxfgdw

#thetimes

C himamanda Ngozi Adichie is getting her teeth into a new subject. They are perfectly uniform and slightly gapped — like machinegun rounds. 'Tell us about your family. How did you end up the freelance correspondent in Lagos, or for west Africa? You didn't know anyone? Someone wasn't your dad's friend?' I almost escaped this. I am heading for the door after a perfectly serviceable interview. But she is blocking my way, a small, shimmering figure in a silk two-piece. 'I like your hair,' she says, glancing at the iridescent fury.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-the-outspoken-author-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-told-me-at-dinner-kgm3gtdjw

#thetimes

Nearly half of small and medium sized businesses grew sales over the past year as they continue to recover after the pandemic, a new government survey of business owners has found. However, rising costs and inflationary pressures, as well as ongoing staff shortages, threaten to put the brakes on growth for the year ahead. The Department for Business and Trade's annual survey of small businesses found that just over a third of company owners expect an increase in sales in the next 12 months, compared with nearly half a year ago.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cost-pressures-weigh-on-ambitions-for-growth-kq8rjzpqd

#thetimes

A cost of living crisis is a tricky time to start a business with a sustainability steer. Just ask Fergus O'Sullivan, the 38-year old founder of Nice Rice, a new eco-friendly rice brand which recently launched into 259 Waitrose stores. 'It's a tricky time to launch and scale a brand full stop. And yes, particularly tricky if you're at a premium price point and your main thing is sustainability. A lot of people are getting a bit fed up with being preached to about sustainability,' said O'Sullivan.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/its-still-nice-to-be-nice-during-hard-times-mpcp3j8p7

#thetimes

I grew up in love with Mick Jagger. He epitomised all that was bad and sexy and mischievous about being young. I was a teenager when he sang Little Red Rooster on Ready Steady Go . You Can't Always Get What You Want became the anthem of my 20s. Mick Jagger has turned 80. It is astonishing. It seems fine for a president of the richest democracy in the world to be over 80. After all, we don't expect Joe Biden to rotate his hips or scream into a microphone. Being dignified and seemingly rational is all that is expected of him.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rocking-mick-jagger-rolls-into-his-80s-with-lessons-for-us-all-l6sps6h8l

#thetimes

Benjamina Bollag was running out of money at her lab-grown pork start-up when she spotted a tweet from the OpenAI founder Sam Altman, the man behind ChatGPT. It was 2020, and Altman was announcing the launch of his latest investment vehicle Apollo Projects. The 38-year-old Silicon Valley heavyweight is an active backer of tech startups, with successes including Airbnb and Elon Musk's Neuralink. His tweet revealed that Apollo Projects intended to back more 'moonshots' — science-based start-ups looking to solve global challenges — and that applications for funding were open.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-lab-grown-pork-passed-taste-test-with-chatgpt-boss-0d08hldcn

#thetimes

F or almost four decades, Billy Walters has been widely regarded as the most successful sports better in history, using sophisticated algorithms to defy oddsmakers and earn millions of dollars. He was pursued by federal investigators, envious rivals, and avaricious criminals as his fortune spread to the stock market, seven golf courses and 22 car dealerships. It is an extraordinary rags-to-riches tale, charted in Walters' tell-all book, with a cast befitting a Scorsese film — Anthony Spilotro, the mobster who caused Walters to briefly flee Las Vegas, inspired Joe Pesci's character in Casino — but the key and unlikely villain in its unravelling is the golfer, Phil Mickelson.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jailed-gambler-billy-walters-blames-phil-mickelson-for-conviction-s8t23xhpg

#thetimes

The Blackening ★★★☆☆ The six friends who gather in a woodland house in this horror-comedy are black Americans, a key factor in the unpleasantness that befalls them. After finding a weird racist board game, they are tormented by an unseen psycho who eventually asks them to nominate the 'blackest' member of the group. Don't expect Tim Story's film to be as artistic as Jordan Peele's horror movies Get Out and Us . It's more knockabout, yet its salty, free-flowing dialogue makes sharp points. In cinemas, 15, 97min The Dive ★★☆☆☆ Two scuba-diving sisters swim into trouble in Maximilian Erlenwein's film.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-blackening-and-more-of-the-week-s-films-reviewed-j9flg8hzx

#thetimes

Sums and Products Mrs Green uses a dice game to improve the maths skills of her pupils. The children sit four to a table and each child throws five dice. Points are awarded according to the sum and product for each child; bonus points are awarded if the five scores contain three or more of the same number. At Liam's table all four children had the same sum but all achieved that sum in different ways. Surprisingly, all of the twenty dice scored more than one and no bonus points were awarded. The distribution of scores was: sixes.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teaser-3179-pm7cqq0dn

#thetimes

It was a balmy night in San Francisco when Peacock, my driverless taxi, gently rolled to a stop, switched on its hazard lights and waited for me to step into the future. After a disembodied voice urged me to buckle up, the steering wheel turned, the car accelerated ever so gently and we were off. It was as if there was, quite literally, a ghost in the machine. But the Chevrolet Bolt, operated by General Motors' Cruise subsidiary, navigated the quiet chaos on the streets of America's second densest city after New York surprisingly well.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/autonomous-driving-tech-runs-into-its-limitations-on-the-streets-of-san-francisco-9k6jkrlf0

#thetimes

Heart of Stone ★★☆☆☆ Gal Gadot accepts a Mission: Impossible -type job in this potboiler action movie, which justifies its title in a groan-worthy style. The star's tip-top secret agent is called Rachel Stone, and she is aided in her work by a powerful computer system known as the Heart. The advantage this technology gives her is so great as to seem rather unsporting. Modern action movies are bound to include fancy computers in their stories, but Tom Harper's film perhaps goes too far. Still, its biggest problems are more basic and old-fashioned: the characters are bland and the stunts, although watchable, are never amazing.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/heart-of-stone-and-more-of-the-weeks-films-reviewed-gttvhgg2m

#thetimes