She has already expressed sympathy for the anti-banking Occupy movement and suggested that global financial institutions are “rotten or inadequate”.

Now Diana Carney, the British wife of the new Governor of the Bank of England, looks likely to embarrass her husband further after she urged people not to buy beauty products from China, to shun tea bags because they waste paper and to avoid “out of control” bottled water.

As the home to many of the world’s biggest manufacturers, China provides British consumers with a vast array of competitively priced products, as well as being a key market for British companies.

But Mrs Carney, whose Canadian husband Mark takes over as Governor tomorrow, has bemoaned the amount of beauty-care products that are imported to the West from China, claiming that they not only pose a potential danger to consumers but also damage the environment by being shipped long distances.

Mrs Carney, an economist and vice-president of Canada 2020, a Left-wing think tank, writes a blog under her maiden name Diana Fox, in which she reviews green products and offers readers tips and advice on living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

In a recent entry, on how to keep skin well-nourished, she wrote: “I am horrified by the number of personal care items, soap, lotion and the like, that come from China. Even seemingly high-end brands are manufacturing there. Very many of the attractive and expensive-looking gift sets you find around Christmas originate in China. Shipping heavy, water-filled items makes no sense ecologically.”

She added: “Then there is the question of what exactly it is you are slapping on your skin. It amazes me how little many people seem to care about that, despite the compelling logic of absorption through a porous surface (ever wondered how nicotine patches work?).”

The new Governor’s wife has previously described the opinion that humans should halt all consumption to save the environment as a “good point”, while conceding that it would be “very hard given the way our societies function”.

She has also lamented the “relentless exhortations to buy and the fact that much of our sense of self is tied up in our possessions”.

In her blog, Eco Products That Work, Mrs Carney urges her readers to use loose tea leaves rather than tea bags to cut down on the use of paper.

She says: “My other pet hate is individually-wrapped tea bags. Yes, they can be pretty – especially Pukka teas from the UK – and convenient, but do we really need an extra 40cm² of bleached and printed paper with every cup of tea?

“The paper is recyclable/compostable but, as I have noted before, paper recycling is energy inefficient.”

Neither is Mrs Carney, nor her husband for that matter, a fan of air conditioning.

In a revealing entry, which will no doubt raise eyebrows in the air-conditioned steel and glass offices of the City where Mr Carney will soon be exercising his influence, Mrs Fox sheds some light on her and her husband’s domestic arrangements.

She states: “Both my husband and I hate air conditioning. I hate the artificial chill, the smell and the roar of it. His objections are environmental. So we both agree that air conditioning is a technology of last resort.

“My husband has a house cooling strategy that is meticulous in its execution. His first line of defence against heat and humidity is to lock them out. We adopt a vampire-like existence. Doors, windows and blinds are only opened at night and closed back up in the early hours before the sun burns off the coolness of morning. His usual admonishments about turning off lights take on a sterner tone.”

She admits that “it can be a harsh regime”, but adds “his approach is undeniably effective” saying that their house, with “lots of insulation, a thick canopy of mature maples and ceiling fans” is a “delightfully cool oasis”.

Of bottled water, so popular with workers in the banks and trading floors of the Square Mile, she says: “I abhor the out-of-control use of bottled water, and particularly the global traffic in water, when so many have completely inadequate access to drinking water.”

Mrs Carney disapproves of most plastic packaging. She decries shiny plastic wrapping paper and says of gel and lip balm tubes made of plastic: “If you look at the bottom of your purse or on the pocket of your winter coat, you will surely find one or two dying lip balms, just waiting to be cast into the landfill where they will wait … and wait … for several thousand years.”

Before Mr Carney, 48, was appointed to replace Sir Mervyn King as Governor, the couple, who have four daughters with dual British-Canadian citizenship, lived in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, one of Canada’s richest enclaves where their neighbours included ambassadors and executives.

In an article last year Mrs Carney said that income inequality in countries such as Canada and Britain was “the defining issue of our time”.

She wrote: “The politics of division are coming home to roost. The Occupy movement has provided a voice to many unhappy people.”

Attacking the “visibility and excess” of top earners, she added: “I perceive a fear that the institutions that underpin our country and the global system are either threatened, rotten or inadequate to face down the challenges of the future.”

In March she suggested that her family was struggling to find a place live in London, despite Mr Carney’s £874,000 pay packet and £5,000-a-week housing allowance. A daughter of a wealthy pig farmer, Mrs Carney was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire before graduating with a first in PPE from Oxford, where she met her husband after he put his career on hold in 1991 to study for a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics. She has a master’s in agricultural economics.

The couple married in 1995, before Mr Carney returned to investment banking. Her sister Tania married into the aristocracy and lives at Cornbury Park in the Cotswolds with her husband, Viscount Rotherwick, a shipping heir.

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Public school students trashed a £2 million home in Hampstead they had hired for an end-of-term party when the event turned into a 'riot’ that ended with clashes with police.

The sixth form pupils at a top north London private school had rented the £750-a-night house to celebrate finishing their exams.

But as more and more guests started arriving, the party spiralled out of control, with revellers dousing the furniture with petrol and smashing the owner’s crystalware.

The party then moved celebrations onto the road outside. When police arrived, the students began fighting in the street, creating scenes that local residents said were similar to the London riots.

The house is just yards away from the homes of a number of celebrities, including actor Tom Conti, Esther Rantzen, the TV presenter, and footballer Thierry Henry.

The owner, who did not wish to be named, said she thought they had rented the house for a quiet sleepover but was instead left with a £15,000 repair bill.

She said: “I really didn’t expect any of this, they said it would just be a small sleep-over.

“They were putting paint and petrol everywhere. They smashed an expensive granite sink, ripped up mahogany floorboards and they were flinging my crystal decanters around the place.

“The kitchen knives were out – somebody could have been killed. It was like a looting in my own house.”

Canisters of the “laughing gas” drug were found strewn around the house as well as a plastic bag filled with white powder and other paraphernalia.

Chris Fallows, 49, a writer who lives in the area, said: “There were about 40 or 50 kids, all well-dressed, and they were yelling right in the cops’ faces.

“They were inches away from them, shouting, cursing and refusing to move, and this went on until about 2am.

“A lot of the kids had their cell phones out and were thrusting them in the faces of the policemen, almost daring them to do something. It was as though they thought they were taking part in some kind of Arab Spring.”

Another resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “It felt like the London riots were starting again outside my house. I thought, 'this is about to go off’.

“Two or three were singled out and flung to the ground and then flung into a van. Nothing like this ever happens in this neighbourhood.”

Talking about the party on their Facebook accounts the following day, one of the revellers asked “shall we arrange another?” while another answers, “Yessss plzz (please) do it again - i think we could keep it on lock if there was security tbh (to be honest).. Then feds can say anything.”

Party-goes had a whip-round and left £480 in cash on a table for the damage. Then in a bizarre twist, another boy who would not give his name turned up the next morning and handed the owner a further £3,000.

However she said the money is not nearly enough to cover the repair bill.

She also criticised police for not taking the matter seriously enough, saying: “There were drugs everywhere but the police aren’t helping, they say it’s just a civil matter.

“I want to warn people. When you’re renting, even through an agency, you have to really get all the details of the people when you take them on. This could happen to anyone.”

The case against a 17-year-old youth charged with a public order offence in connection with disorder in the street after the party was dropped last week. A 17-year-old youth and a 16-year-old have been bailed to return to police at a later date.

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Since 2005, Google has mapped 28 million miles of road in 194 countries. And it won't rest until the whole planet is on its servers. Tom Chivers reports on the mammoth operation and asks: is it ruining the way we travel?

Are you planning a holiday to North Korea? Probably not. But if you are, your job will be a lot easier now that Google Maps covers the place. You could, if you like, use it to navigate your way from Yongbyon nuclear site, along Nuclear Test Road (as it is, apparently, called) and to Camp 22, one of the many scenic prison-labour camps along the country’s border with China.

What’s more, you can do it all on beautifully rendered satellite photos of the area. Of course, you’d struggle with mobile internet connectivity, but even that, nowadays, needn’t be a problem – you can download the maps before you go. Frankly, it is surprising that the Pyongyang Office of Tourism doesn’t make more of the facility.

“Our goal is to put together a sort of digital mirror of the world,” says Dan Sieberg, a Google exec and self-described “evangelist” for the Google Maps revolution. (Religious imagery comes naturally to Googlers: one of Sieberg’s colleagues describes him as a “guru.” The whole company has a slight hippy-cult feel to it; the Telegraph can report that there are few more awkward feelings in life than turning up at the Google office, surrounded by people in three-quarter-length trousers and novelty slippers, while wearing a suit and tie.

It feels like your cufflinks are burning your skin.) Anyway, the construction of Google’s “digital mirror” was never going to be stopped by a few pesky details, such as an unending 60-year war between North and South Korea, or the existence in one of those countries of a brutally repressive communist police state.

Google Maps is now so ubiquitous, such a vital part of so many of our lives, that it feels odd to think it didn’t exist until 2005. Of all of the search giant’s many tentacles reaching octopus-like into every area of our existence, Maps, together with its partner Google Earth and their various offspring, can probably claim to be the one that has changed our day-to-day life the most.

“I think that mapping is one of those things that we perhaps couldn’t live without,” says Sieberg. “It’s become such an essential part of understanding a new city, or getting to a meeting quickly, or planning a vacation.” Any of us who, now, sets off to meet someone with only the vaguest idea of where we’re going, confident in the ability of the magic box in our hands to guide us, knows what he means.

In the same way that the advent of mobile phones stopped us having to worry about arranging to meet at a certain place and time (“Ring me when you get to the station, yes?”), so the appearance of maps on those phones has stopped us having to worry about knowing our way around a city. We can arrive anywhere – Edinburgh, Cologne, Tokyo – and within moments know our way to our hotel, have a list of the best-rated restaurants and know the best route to take on the metro.

The figures involved are bordering on silly. About a billion people use Google Maps every month, working out at about a billion searches a day. One hundred and ninety-four countries have been at least partly mapped, with a total of 28 million miles of road.

(Google will tell you that its ability to warn you of heavy traffic on those roads saves humanity two years of frustration every day, across 600 cities worldwide.)

Street View, the bit of Maps that gives you a pedestrian’s-eye view of the roads you’re looking at, is expanding at an intimidating rate: its jaunty, ubiquitous little electric cars have driven down more than five million miles of road, across 50 countries, their camera-turrets recording all the way.

And it is unlikely to slow down, because Google, being Google, is uncomfortable with anything that looks like standing still. Recently it noticed that the aforementioned jaunty and ubiquitous electric cars were not much use unless they had a road to trundle down. So it looked at other options.

First, a Google tricycle began cheerfully Street-Viewing city parks and university campuses across the United States. Then someone decided that they needed indoor maps too, so they built a trolley and started pushing that through museums and the like: “In the UK, we’ve got all the major airports, lots of train stations, shopping centres, markets,” says Sieberg. “You can imagine that, if you’re at an airport and you want to find the right gate, or in a mall and you just want to find the toilet, this will come in handy.” He looks momentarily shifty. “I’ll let you into a secret. We actually have indoor maps of the New York Google building.” No longer will any Googler be caught short between meetings.

But trolleys and trikes can’t go everywhere, so the march had to continue. A camera-equipped snowmobile was sent down the slopes of Whistler, mapping it for any GPS-enabled skiers who wanted to plan their routes in advance.

And, finally, someone realised that until the Street View cameras could go anywhere humans could go, it wouldn’t be enough. So they built a backpack and started getting people to walk around with them. The Trekker, strapped to some operator’s back, has clambered down the Grand Canyon, trekked through the Canadian Arctic and Antarctica, and zoomed down the Amazon on a motor boat.

At the same time, underwater cameras have started mapping six locations, including the Great Barrier Reef and the Galápagos Islands and Google planes have started flying overhead, taking photos that are being made into 3D images of 40 cities in the US, and Rome, according to Sieberg, and soon many more.

And for those parts of the world where flying a plane or trekking with a backpack is frowned upon, Google has called on an army of 40,000 people worldwide to contribute photographs and fill in details. Sieberg calls them “citizen cartographers”, and it’s these foot soldiers who have built the maps of North Korea.

(In the North Korean case, it was complicated by the fact that the cartographers couldn’t get into the country itself: instead the maps were put together from the memories of people who had either visited the country or used to live there, and fact-checked against satellite imagery.)

When talking to Googlers about this, it’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement. The “evangelism” of Sieberg and his colleagues is infectious. But many people are worried about where it is taking us – not simply the Street View stuff, but the entire encroachment of technology on travel.

The most widely expressed concern has been privacy: Nick Pickles, the director of the pressure group Big Brother Watch, has warned “you won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden” without worrying about a Google plane spying on you in your bikini. (Sieberg is dismissive: “The resolution is not a concern for a person on the ground. It’s just not going to be identifiable.”)

And the internet giant has been forced to apologise after it was revealed that its Street View cars downloaded emails, text messages, photographs and documents from householders’ Wi-Fi networks while photographing their roads.

These are serious issues, but some people are just as concerned about the risk Google Maps poses to the experience of travelling. Part of the joy is the mystery that surrounds a trip; not knowing what you will see or where the mood will take you.

Maps can strip away that spontaneity. “People spend a huge amount of time and energy and resources planning their trip, researching where they’re going,” says Aaron Quigley, a professor of human-computer interaction at the University of St Andrews. “The risk is that you end up overplanning, when so much of travel is about serendipity, finding that little-known path.”

There’s also a risk that making it so easy to see anywhere in the world before you get there could take away the magic of seeing it for real for the first time. What’s more, because Google Maps is linked to review sites such as Yelp or Google’s own Zagat, there is the possibility that everyone will head for the same well-reviewed destinations. “There’s a risk that we all get sucked into this quagmire of sameness, a very banal, whitewashed sameness,” says Prof Quigley.

It’s not all negative, of course. As Sieberg says, the other side of this coin is that new places become visible to us in ways they weren’t before: “Whatever’s around you, whatever’s near you, opens up.” It provides tourists with a way of avoiding the ghastly overpriced tourist traps around the main square, by showing the well-reviewed, reasonably priced ones a couple of streets away, and then allowing you to find them with Maps.

“You can try before you buy,” he says. “My wife and I used Street View last year before a holiday in London, to look at hotels and see if they had decent access for strollers, because we were bringing our daughter.” He points out that you can also examine a neighbourhood for amenities, or check that it looks safe.

Prof Quigley agrees that the “McDonaldisation” of the world isn’t inevitable. “I’m sure we’ll all have our McDonald’s holidays, our easyJet experiences, but people realise that that’s a weak imitation of what they could be doing,” he says. “We went to a place in the mountains in Morocco, overlooking a big washed-out valley, and they had this festival on a hillside, and they lit it up with candles and a bonfire. It was an irreplaceable moment. No one else could do this. And there are hundreds of places doing something equivalent: not giving you a better breakfast, or more food, but an experience. And technology is allowing people to become an advocate for these experiences.”

And, of course, Google Maps allows us to see things we would never normally see. “I’m not Muslim, so I’ll never be allowed to go to Mecca, to see the Kaaba,” says Prof Quigley. “But I’ve seen it on Google Earth, and I can zoom in to the great black stone, and it’s incredibly impressive. And then I can zoom out, to a mile or so in the air, and you see the city like eight Las Vegases glued together, and it’s just mind-blowing. Similarly, there are islands off the coast of Scotland where tourists aren’t allowed because they were doing too much damage to the environment.

“There are lots of places, we’ll never be able to go, and this sort of thing provides a window.” But the “window” is damaging when you’re looking through it unnecessarily. “When you’re a tourist you should be there to see what’s in front of you – not looking at your iPhone, saying ‘Here’s an amazing photo of the thing I’m supposed to be looking at’,” he says.

He thinks an eyes-up, rather than eyes-down, technology could change things profoundly, “freeing our attention from our devices, reconnecting us with physical reality, the view of reality that we actually see”. That may be on the horizon, with Google’s Glass project – a pair of glasses that can overlay digital information onto your vision – although whether it catches on remains to be seen.

Whatever the risks and benefits, though, there’s no going back to a pre-Google Maps time. We rely on it too much. Last year, when Apple’s iPhones stopped using Google Maps, people were forced briefly to use Apple’s (at the time) unreliable own-brand equivalent. Within days, six motorists in Australia had to be rescued from the middle of a remote forest, after being directed 40 miles off target.

One of them had been stranded for 24 hours without food or water. That is an extreme example, but large sections of our species have forgotten how to get from A to B unless their phone points the way. Even, these days, in North Korea.

SEE ALSO: 7 Things Googlers Just Taught Us About The Magic Behind Google Maps

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Swiss investment bank UBS has been appointed by the organisers of the planned New York Grand Prix in a bid to secure $100m (£65.7m) of funding to enable the race to go ahead in 2014.

The 3.2-mile track is on public roads in Port Imperial, New Jersey. It snakes alongside the Hudson river and would give the race a spectacular backdrop of Manhattan's historic skyline.

The plans are close to the heart of Formula One's chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, as he has been trying to hold a grand prix in the New York area since the 1980s. There have been numerous false starts, most recently in 2011 when New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced with great fanfare that the race, known as the Grand Prix of America, would take place in June 2013.

In August last year, Mr Ecclestone tore up the contract for the race when payment deadlines were missed. However, in May he signed a new 15-year agreement after the organisers agreed to hire Chris Pook, one of his close confidants and former chief executive of F1's American rival IndyCar. Mr Pook is working alongside Leo Hindery junior, who is the promoter of the race and managing partner of private equity fund InterMedia Partners.

In 2011, Mr Hindery provided an initial $10.3m investment in the race organising company Port Imperial Racing Associates (PIRA) and, since then, it has obtained an additional $10.1m loan. It will require a further $100m to get off the grid, according to an investment memorandum released by UBS in early June. It adds that "incoming investors may choose to leverage current team's expertise or could acquire 100pc of PIRA".

F1 circuits typically cost over $250m to build, but using public roads avoids this expense. The downside is that there is no asset for investment to be secured on. Mr Hindery has confirmed that no public funds will be invested in the race.

The UBS memorandum states that the funding is required to complete the engineering work and build the Club of America VIP hospitality area, where guests will get a close-up view.

UBS forecasts that corporate hospitality tickets will cost $4,255 each and, along with general admission, will generate 80pc of revenues. It adds that the average ticket price is expected to be around £358 ($563) compared to £288 at the British Grand Prix which took place yesterday.

The organisers expect a total crowd of 240,000 over three days, slightly less than the 265,499 spectators who attended the inaugural United States Grand Prix in Texas last year.

UBS is the investment bank of choice for companies connected to F1 because it is an official partner of the sport. It was one of the first banks which signed up to be a bookrunner for the flotation of F1, due in the next 12 months.

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US holidaymakers have been warned to avoid all non-essential travel to Egypt after five people – including an American student – were killed at the weekend during violent clashes.

Andrew Pochter, 21, from Maryland, died after being stabbed in the chest in the coastal city of Alexandria, where anti-government protesters stormed an office of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

It was not clear what Mr Pochter was doing at the protest, but Egyptian officials said he was carrying a small camera. His family said they believed he had been witnessing the protest as a bystander.

The US state department has warned citizens to “defer non-essential travel to Egypt at this time due to the continuing possibility of political and social unrest”.

Despite the weekend’s unrest, the Foreign Office is not yet warning Britons to avoid travel to any major Egyptian cities. However, it is urging travellers to “avoid all demonstrations and gatherings”, and “exercise caution at potentially sensitive locations, such as government buildings and police stations”.

It continues to warn against travel to the Sinai peninsula, excluding the resorts of Sharm El Sheikh, Taba, Nuweiba and Dahab, St Catherine’s Monastery and roads connecting the five locations.

In January 2011, at the height of the uprising, the Foreign Office warned Britons to avoid travel to Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Suez. The advisory was lifted a few months later.

Unless a similar warning is issued, holidaymakers due to travel to the country will be unable to cancel or rearrange their trip free of charge.

Violent protests continued last night in Cairo. Several dozen youths attacked the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's capital using stones and firebombs.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square, calling for the resignation of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

SEE ALSO: These Photos Show Just How Massive The Protests In Egypt Have Become

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The BBC is seeking a new editor for long-running radio drama The Archers, after Vanessa Whitburn stepped down after 22 years.

It has now advertised the position, specifying the ideal candidate must be resilient, brave and not afraid to apologise for the show’s mistakes.

The list of attributes appears to be a response to recent controversies in the show, which have seen audiences complain the sedate country drama has become more soap-like.

The death of Nigel Pargetter, who fell off a roof in 2011, caused outrage among some fans, despite resulting in a record audience, while listeners last year complained about "sexed up" storylines and "ridiculous” plots.

The BBC is now seeking a replacement for Whitburn to take over the leadership of the show, who it claims “will be responsible for ensuring the continued success of this iconic brand”.

An advertisement published online specifies the new editor must be confident, brave and resilient. Among the key “leadership behaviour” executives require is: “Learning from your mistakes and saying sorry when you got it wrong”.

One skill explicitly requested is “resilience”, with the “ability to maintain personal effectiveness by managing emotions in the face of pressure, setbacks or when dealing with provocative situations”.

The new editor should also being the ability to be “brave and making challenging decisions”, as well as “celebrating great creative work and new ideas”.

The summary of the job, which begins in September 2013, states: “The successful candidate will have a proven track record in drama production at a senior level with an established reputation for strong leadership who will embrace the opportunity to explore new ideas and ways of working.”

He or she will also need to “create compelling content” for Archers’ storylines, and “create an atmosphere where new creative ideas are encouraged”.

The Archers is the world's longest-running soap opera, with 17,000 episodes broadcast since 1950. The "everyday story of country folk" is set in the fictional Midlands village of Ambridge.

Speaking of her decision to leave last year, Whitburn said: "I have had a wonderful time running The Archers, always interesting and exciting. But I want to step down now in order to take a holiday, develop a project for TV drama and get involved in some more training overseas.

"I leave the programme in good shape with some strong storylines planned. The BBC is a great place to work and I've been privileged to work with some very creative people along the way."

Under Whitburn's stewardship, the series has reached audiences of over 5 million, and won awards including the Sony Gold Award, two Television and Radio Industries Club Awards and The Royal Variety Club Personality of the Year Silver Heart.

Whitburn has also overseen an increase in celebrity cameos on the series, including Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in 2011, radio presenter Chris Moyles in 2004, and cricketer Mike Gatting in 2007. In 2011, Whitburn launched Ambridge Extra, a companion series to the show on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

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The full list of "leadership behaviours" needed for the role according to the job description .

Creative

• Creating a positive working environment where innovation flourishes

• Celebrating great creative work and new ideas

• Attracting creative talent to your team

Collaborative

• Fostering collaboration to achieve common goals

• Acting as a unified leadership team

• Encouraging the movement of people across the BBC

• Being prepared to make sacrifices within your team for the greater good

Focused

• Setting a compelling vision and story bringing the BBC strategy to life

• Measuring people on their results as well as their behaviours

Confident

• Being brave and making challenging decisions

• Trusting your team, supporting them to deliver

• Being resilient to internal and external pressures – driving change

• Learning from your mistakes and saying sorry when you got it wrong

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Major companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter, are in secret discussions to create a system that could banish child abuse images from the web.

The plan would be the first collaborative effort across the industry to block pedophiles from sharing images online, and would involve a single database of the worst child abuse images.

At the moment, each company has its own process for removing abusive photos but does not share details of the images for legal and technical reasons.

According to The Times, internet giants including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter and at least three other major companies have been in negotiations for about nine months to work together on combating the explicit images.

The database would be maintained by a Los Angeles charity Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, which was founded in 2009 by the actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

To take part in Thorn's project, each company would use Microsoft's PhotoDNA software to create a "hash" or digital signature for each abusive image. The companies could then use the hashes to easily identify and remove pictures from their own sites.

Julie Cordua, executive director of Thorn, told The Times: “This has the goal of cleaning this horrific content off platforms ... with the goal of the identification of victims.”

Sources told the newspaper that some companies had signed legal agreements not to discuss the project in public, and that secrecy was required to allow frank discussions.

Facebook is believed to be the first company to begin testing the system and Google will begin using it this month.

All images will be sent to the US police and Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has also reportedly been informed.

Google has confirmed that it is part of the Thorn database project. Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo! did not confirm involvement but said that they were participants in the charity’s task force, which discusses online protection. According to Thorn's website, 18 compaines are part of the task force. Facebook told The Times: “We are committed to using technology as a force to protect children.”

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Mount Everest now has 4G coverage at 5,200 metres above sea level, thanks to Huawei and China Mobile.

Climbers will now be able to live stream the view from Mount Everest after the technology companies deployed LTE TDD, a 4G wireless technology, at a base station from which mountaineers climb to the summit.

Last month, China Mobile demonstrated the service by live HD video streaming from the 5,200 metre high 4G site.

President of Huawei Wireless Networks, David Wang, said: “Bringing 4G to Mount Everest marks an important milestone in global LTE TDD development. We are very excited to make this possible, and look forward to working with more operators worldwide to bring high-speed mobile broadband services anytime and anywhere.”

Huawei and China Mobile have worked on Mount Everest mobile coverage before and the two companies were part of a project to create GSM coverage (Global System for Mobile communications) on the mountain to prepare for a leg of the 2008 Olympic Games torch relay.

The GSM stations at the Mount Everest base camp have continued to operate since then and the mobile coverage, together with the new 4G, is intended to protect mountain climber safety.

Huawei has also delivered 4G solutions to other parts of the region through integrated equipment rooms, base transceiver stations, microwave transmission and 4G devices.

Three years ago, a Nepali telecoms company Ncell launched the first 3G services at the base camp of Mount Everest, and successfully made a phone call from 5,200 metres.

Huawei has deployed LTE TDD solutions for nearly 40 operators in Asia, the Middle East, North America, South America, Western Europe, Russia and Africa.

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Tom Stevenson is an investment director at Fidelity Worldwide Investment. The views expressed are his own. He tweets at @tomstevenson63.

If you wait around long enough even the most discredited investment themes will come around again.

Ten years ago no one had a good word to say for technology stocks, which had blown a massive hole in too many over-optimistic portfolios.

But time is a great healer so I was not particularly surprised when on two separate occasions last week technology was presented to me as the sector to look at. Fifteen years on, I wonder whether we might be gearing up for another bout of TMT (tech, media, telecom) euphoria.

The first indication that we might be in the early stages of “Dotcom, the sequel” was a conversation I had with our chief investment officer about the relative attractions of the US and emerging markets. As I’ve written here, a strong case can be made for market leadership shifting back to the developed world after a decade in which emerging markets and commodities have been in the spotlight.

Part of that change is about the recovery of the US economy, the strengthening of the dollar and America’s growing competitive advantage on the back of the shale oil and gas revolution. Another key aspect, however, is a growing preference for intellectual property over stuff you can touch in a world that is being transformed by technological advances in a whole range of fields from healthcare to computing. Many of my colleagues are finding increasing opportunities as a result of the explosion of smartphone and tablet use, which is changing the way consumers shop and pay. The e-commerce market, which the first generation of internet enthusiasts pioneered but failed in most cases to capitalise on, is undergoing extraordinary growth. Global e-commerce sales topped $1 trillion (£670bn) in 2012 and this year they are expected to reach $1.3 trillion.

There is a clear generational aspect to this growth which argues for it continuing for years to come because while 38pc of over-65s in America are online, 93pc of those between 18 and 29 are. As that young generation matures and grows in affluence, consumption patterns will change significantly and the companies that ride that wave will be among the stock market’s best investment opportunities.

One example of the prize on offer is the market for non-cash payments. Between 2009 and 2013 it is estimated that online spending, or e-payments, will experience 20pc annual growth. M-payments, which, as the name suggests, are payments for goods and services using mobile devices, are expected to grow over the same period by more than 50pc a year.

And while the key beneficiaries of these trends are likely to be technology companies in the West, and particularly the US, the theme is completely global.

Worldwide shipments of smartphones to emerging markets overtook those to developed countries in 2011 and within two years they are expected to be twice as high. Not that sales are slowing in the developed world. Sales of smartphones in mature markets are expected to grow from 173m in 2010 to 464m in 2017.

A company that looks interesting in the developing world is Safaricom, which has a leading position in East Africa with over 60pc of subscriptions in Kenya, where it dominates phone payments.

Elsewhere, new technology offers the potential for disruptive new innovations. The move to reassure consumers about the security of mobile payments is providing opportunities for companies such as Infineon, NXP, Samsung and STMicroelectronics. Other opportunities arise from the need for companies to understand how the new kit is shaping their customers’ behavior.

Interesting developments here include Google Wallet, which allows users to store their credit and debit cards in the cloud, and threatens established players like the banks and mobile network operators.

This will all sound worryingly familiar to those of us who watched the dotcom bubble inflate. It will be fascinating to see whether investors are seduced by breathless projections of future growth and again forget the basics of valuation and investing with a margin of safety.

It is early days and I haven’t heard anyone talk about a “new paradigm” yet. But I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time.

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A giant lake buried more than two miles beneath the Antarctic ice has been found to contain a "surprising" variety of life.

Analysis of ice cores obtained from the basin of Lake Vostok, the subglacial lake that Russian scientists drilled down to in 2012, have revealed DNA from an estimated 3,507 organisms.

While the majority were found to be bacteria, many of which were new to science, there were also other single celled organisms and multicellular organisms found, including from fungi.

The diversity of life from the lake has surprised scientists as many had thought the lake would be sterile due to the extreme conditions.

Lake Vostok was first covered by ice more than 15 million years ago and is now buried 12,000 feet beneath the surface, creating huge pressures. Few nutrients were expected to be found.

However, samples of ice that had formed as water from the lake froze onto the bottom of the glacial ice sheet above have revealed it is teeming with life.

This will raise hopes that life may be found in other extreme environments on other planets. One of Jupiter's moons, Europa, for example, is covered with an icy shell that may hide a liquid ocean below where life could exist.

Dr Scott Rogers, a biologist at Bowling Green State University, in Ohio, and led the DNA analysis of biological material found in the ice cores, said: "We found much more complexity than anyone thought.

"It really shows the tenacity of life, and how organisms can survive in places where a couple dozen years ago we thought nothing could survive.

"The bounds on what is habitable and what is not are changing."

Lake Vostok is around 160 miles long and 30 miles wide, covering an area of more than 6,000 square miles beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

Among the bacteria found in the samples brought to the surface were those commonly found in the digestive systems of fish, crustaceans and annelid worms, raising the prospect there could be more complex life still living in the lake.

Isolated from the rest of the world for 15 million years, some of the DNA sequences were found to be unique to science and may belong to new species that have evolved in the depths.

Writing in the journal PLOS One, Dr Rogers and his colleagues said: "The sequences suggest that a complex environment might exist in Lake Vostok.

"Sequences indicating organisms from aquatic, marine, sediment and icy environments were present in the accretion ice.

"In addition, another major proportion of the sequences were from organisms that are symbionts of animals and/or plants.

"Over 35 million years ago, Lake Vostok was open to the atmosphere and was surrounded by a forested ecosystem. At that time, the lake, which might have been a marine bay, probably contained a complex network of organisms.

"As recently as 15 million years ago, portions of the lake were ice free at least part of the time. During these times, organisms were likely being deposited in the lake.

"While the current conditions are different than earlier in its history, the lake seems to have maintained a surprisingly diverse community of organisms.

"These organisms may have slowly adapted to the changing conditions in Lake Vostok during the past 15–35 million years as the lake converted from a terrestrial system to a subglacial system."

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Singapore Airlines (SIA) has revealed the latest generation of seats they will be fitting in all new aircraft from September. Passengers on certain flights on the London-Singapore route will be the first to experience them.

Although the new seats are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, and initially will be fitted to only eight new Boeing 777s, they are significant in some respects.

They reflect the changing demands of passengers, particularly in the way they can use their own electronic devices in conjunction with those of the aircraft, and provide further evidence of the ferocity of competition in the airline business.

Their development also represents the antithesis to the degrading factory farming attitude to passenger wellbeing of Ryanair and its ilk. The seats have been specifically designed to allow greater attention from cabin crew.

SIA is investing nearly US$150 million (£101m) to introduce the seats – ‘cabin products’ in the jargon - on eight Boeing 777-300ER aircraft due for delivery in September.

“It demonstrates our confidence in the future for premium full-service air travel,” said SIA’s Executive Vice President Commercial, Mr Mak Swee Wah.

The new seats will also be installed in the Airbus A350s that SIA expects to be operating from the end of 2015. While the seats could be retro-fitted to existing aircraft in SIA’s fleet there are so far no plans to do so.

The main changes are: in economy, softer, more comfortable chairs, an extra inch of legroom, power sockets and handy USB ports; in business class, more stowage space and better lighting, along with a flat bed 28 inches wide - the industry’s widest, claim SIA. In first class the bed is even bigger – 35 inches wide and 82 inches long. The first class seats, of which there are only eight on the 777 - all upholstered in dark brown leather - offer greater privacy, more cubby holes for stowing personal possessions and more sophisticated lighting.

The Panasonic in-flight entertainment system, controlled with touch-screen handsets, is the same in all three classes, except for the size of the LCD screens. All are bigger.

Those in first have been increased to 24 inches, in business to 18 inches and in economy to 11 inches. With some 230 movies, 340 TV programmes, 80 games, 790 CDs, as well as radio, audio books and Berlitz language lessons, there are more than a thousand options available on demand. Passengers in first and business classes have noise-cancellation headphones.

In-flight connectivity will allow internet surfing, emailing and text-messaging, services that SIA have already introduced to a number of their existing aircraft. All the new seats will have USB ports; in first and business there will also be HDMI ports to allow passengers to view their own video or photos through their seat screens.

One novel feature is that you can send messages to passengers in other parts of the plane, which will be useful for groups. But if Charlize Theron in seat 1A wants to block any billets doux from her admirer in 47D, she can.

Some personal observations from today’s launch – I was interested when James Park, managing director of London-based James Park Associates, who were involved in designing the business class cabin, told me that part of his brief was for all seats to be forward facing. SIA customer research has shown that people don’t like flying backwards.

They have also retained the elaborate bed arrangement in first and business classes which involves a cabin attendant folding down the seat backrest to form the bed platform. Apparently that ‘enhances the interface’ between passenger and crew. Who wouldn’t like to have their bed made for them by a Singapore flight attendant?

The dedicated bed also means you sleep on fresh linen, not on a leather seat. “Who wants to sit on a bed or sleep on a sofa?” as one designed put it to me.

Was it significant that the launch took place within days of BA introducing its A380? If you haven’t got a new aircraft to announce, you might as well invite 100 or so members of the international media to see you unveil a seat.

The new economy chair did seem very comfortable and for me, at 5ft 10ins, legroom would not be a problem. But upper body room would. It will be difficult either to eat or work at the small tray table when the seat in front is fully reclined.

The business class seat is a whopping 28 inches wide, almost 50 per cent wider than those in rival airlines. Some people don’t like it, but who in their right mind ever complained of too much room in an airliner?

PHOTOS: Qatar Airways Made Its Boeing Dreamliner Look Totally Awesome

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Two-Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc reveals his favourite restaurants in Provence.

Where Raymond Blanc would enjoy...

A typical brunch

My favourite food market is at Sanary-sur-Mer, where there are stalls selling beautiful slow-cooked squid, bouillabaise, bourride [a simpler version with aïoli, a garlic mayonnaise], country bread, olives, tapenade [olive paste], anchoïade [anchovy purée] and other picnic foods. You can buy these as a takeaway, or eat similar dishes in cafes and bistros surrounding the square.

Provençal Market Dishes from 5 euros (Allées d’Estienne d’Orves, Sanary-sur-Mer; open every morning until noon). There is also an excellent fish market.

Lunch

Since we are in Sanary-sur-Mer, I would recommend La p’tite Cour, which has a lovely shaded patio that’s perfect for a long lunch. They do marvelous things like locally caught rouget [red mullet] and supion [baby cuttlefish] with saffron risotto, or catch of the day with a flan of seasonal vegetables.

There’s a fantastic place in St-Tropez where I had my best bouillabaise. It is called La Bouillabaise, actually, and it’s right on the beach. It was a winter’s day, with the waves crashing on the shore, a beautiful spot. If you want to escape St-Tropez, head to Grimaud, where Les Santons does a good set menu at lunchtimes only. It’s authentic but sophisticated: carpaccio of purple artichokes in extra virgin olive oil with toasted sesame seeds, or ballotine of monkfish and smoked duck with baby broad beans. Just down the road, in Gassin, is La Verdoyante, set among vineyards, with views of the Bay of St-Tropez. I’d order the slow-cooked vegetable tart with warm goats’ cheese, followed by fish of the day with ratatouille, pistou and an orange vinaigrette.

La p’tite Cour
Three-course menu 29 euros, three-course gourmand menu 40 euros (6 rue Barthélemy De Don, Sanary; 04 94 88 08 05; laptitecour.com ).

La Bouillabaise
Three-course menu 49 euros (Quartier la Bouillabaise, St-Tropez; 04 94 97 54 00; alpazurhotels.com/en/restaurant-plage-bouillabaisse ).

Les Santons
Three-course lunch menu 37 euros, 59 euros with wine. (Route Departe­ment­ale 558, Grimaud; 04 94 43 21 02; restaurant-les-santons.fr ).

La Verdoyante
Three-course set menus from 28 euros, five-course tasting menu 54 euros (866 Chemin Vicinal de Coste Brigade, Gassin; 04 94 56 16 23; la-verdoyante.fr ).

An aperitif

Gérald Passédat, a truly great chef, has opened Le Café in the gardens of the Fort St-Jean in Marseille, where you can go just for a drink. On Fridays, it’s open until 10pm but it closes at 7pm on other days. It’s part of MuCEM (the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Mediterranée), at the entrance to the Old Port, so you can visit the museum then come here for a glass of rosé.

Le Café Wine by the glass from 5 euros, pitcher 11.50 euros, bottle 15 euros (Ground floor, MuCEM, Esplanade J4, Marseille; 04 84 35 13 13; passedat.fr/en ).

Dinner

I love sailing, which has allowed me to stay on the little islands off Hyères. They have some charming hotels, including Le Manoir, on the Ile de Port-Cros, and Le Mas du Langoustier, on the Ile de Porquerolles, which both have good restaurants. At Le Manoir, I’d have fish soup, bourride of John Dory or cuttlefish salad with pistou macaroni. L’Olivier, at Le Mas du Langoustier, has a Michelin star and does a lovely paella with monkfish sushi and chorizo, and a chèvre paysan [country goats’ cheese] with green olive tapenade.

Le Manoir de Port-Cros
Three-course menu 58 euros (Ile de Port-Cros; 04 94 05 90 52; hotel-lemanoirportcros.com ).

L’Olivier
Set menus from 62 euros (five courses) or 78 euros with wine, Ã la carte from 100 euros, tasting menu 130 euros (Le Mas de Langoustier hotel, Ile de Porquerolles; 04 94 58 30 09; langoustier.com ).

Fine dining

At La Bastide St Antoine, near Grasse, Jaques Chibois makes some great food. It has two Michelin stars and they do a wonderful starter of oysters, caviar and smoked scallops, and a superb lobster bouillabaise with olives.

In Marseille, Gérald Passédat’s Le Petit Nice is amazing. Some of his fish dishes are outstanding, such as his “Bouille-Abaisse” - three tiers of bouillabaises made with raw shellfish, shallow-water fish and deep-water species respectively. There’s a terrace over the sea and you can swim if you want, from the rocks. It has three Michelin stars, but Passédat now has some casual brasserie-style places at his Le Môle complex at MuCem (including Le Café, which I mentioned). I think that’s where the future of Provençal cuisine lies: a great chef, propagating better-quality food at a price people can afford.

La Bastide St Antoine
Three-course lunch menu 63 euros, six-course menu 178 euros, 10-course menu 198 euros (48 avenue Henri-Dunant, Grasse; 04 93 70 94 94; jacques-chibois.com/uk ).

Le Petit Nice
Six-course lunch menu 85 euros, 120 euros with wine, 13-course menu 280 euros, three courses À la carte from 66 euros (Anse de Maldormé, Corniche JF Kennedy, Marseille; 04 91 592 592; passedat.fr/en ).

Raymond Blanc was talking to Andrew Purvis

Provence travel guide

The inimitable Anthony Peregrine offers his expert guide to Provence, including how to get there, how to get around, and his pick of the best hotels and attractions.

Overview
Provence's best attractions
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36 Hours In... Provence

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He fires more than once and then, suddenly, turns the rifle and points toward the camera lens.

The film ends – and so too ended the life of Ahmed Samir Assem.

The 26-year-old photographer for Egypt’s Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala newspaper was among a least 51 people killed after security forces opened fire on a large crowd that had camped outside the Egyptian army’s Republican Guard officers’ club in Cairo, where Mohammed Morsi, the deposed president, was believed to be in detention.

Mr Assem had been on the scene as the pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters knelt for prayer shortly before dawn on Monday morning.

According to friends and relatives, the moment of his own death was captured as the grainy film culminates.

News of Mr Assem’s death filtered through after his bloodied camera and mobile phone were found at the site of the makeshift camp.

“At around 6am, a man came into the media centre with a camera covered in blood and told us that one of our colleagues had been injured,” said Ahmed Abu Zeid, the culture editor of Mr Assem’s newspaper, who was working from a facility set up next to the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, about a mile away.

“Around an hour later, I received news that Ahmed had been shot by a sniper in the forehead while filming or taking pictures on top of the buildings around the incident.

“Ahmed’s camera was the only one which filmed the entire incident from the first moment.

“He had started filming from the beginning of the prayers so he captured the very beginnings and in the video, you can see tens of victims. Ahmed’s camera will remain a piece of evidence in the violations that have been committed.”

Like much else about Monday’s incident, the exact circumstances of the shooting are hard to prove. However, other witnesses to whom The Daily Telegraph spoke have described snipers being stationed on buildings overlooking the site, which is in an area dominated by military installations.

Excerpts of a 20-minute video said to have been recorded by Mr Assem as the horror unfolded in front of him were shown at a Muslim Brotherhood press conference and are now being touted as evidence of a massacre on the streets of Egypt’s capital.

The other video, which purports to show the final seconds before Mr Assem was shot, have now been put on to his Facebook page, although the provenance of it could not be independently verified by The Daily Telegraph.

What is certain, friends say, is that Mr Assem has left a vivid testimony of events whose origins have been hotly disputed. Mr Morsi’s supporters say they were fired on from behind without provocation while they were praying. The army insists that security forces only fired after protesters attempted to storm the Republican Guard facility.

There have also been suggestions that the original firing may have come from agents provocateurs, triggering a wave of violence.

Whatever the truth, the Muslim Brotherhood says Mr Assem’s last film bears out its version of events and says it plans to use it as evidence — though it had not responded to requests for a physical copy by the time of publication.

However, Mr Assem’s brother, Eslam, 29, said the footage’s last seconds showed a soldier shooting demonstrators from a roof. The soldier then turned his gun towards Mr Assem and the film suddenly went dead, he added.

Colleagues described Mr Assem, a graduate of Cairo University’s communications department, as a dedicated professional who had amassed an archive of 10,000 photographs since starting his career as a photographer three years ago.

His work for Al-Horia Wa Al-Adala — the official newspaper of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing — put him in the front line of Egypt’s political turmoil. It had also put him at odds with his family, who were supporters of the late Egyptian nationalist leader, Gamal Abdal Nasser.

As Mr Assem’s friends and family mourned, Adly Mansour, Egypt’s new interim president, unveiled a draft constitution to replace the one drafted by Islamists and suspended last week. A committee will be set up to make final improvements to the document before it is put to a referendum. Parliamentary elections will then follow within three months and a date for a presidential election will be set once the parliament has convened.

Mr Mansour also named Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN atomic energy watchdog, as vice-president in charge of foreign affairs and Hazem al-Beblawi, a former finance minister, as prime minister.

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In a feminist revival, British brides are increasingly choosing to keep their maiden names after marriage

What’s in a name? More importantly, what’s in a maiden name? If you subscribe to the centuries-old ritual of giving it up on your wedding day, not much: more than 90 per cent of women worldwide ditch their family surname and take their husband’s when they get married. But new research, by Facebook, shows that young British brides are refusing to follow suit.

According to a survey of the site’s 33 million UK users, a third of married women in their twenties have kept their maiden name. The study tallies with research last month by the website host Siteopia, which found that 31 per cent of young wives dislike their married name, and wish they’d kept the one they were born with.

Marriage experts say feminism has sparked the revival of the maiden name, with an increasing number of women retaining theirs as a symbol of equality. Historically, maiden names have been associated with women’s liberation: the American suffragist Lucy Stone made a national issue of the right to keep one’s own surname in the 1850s, after refusing to change hers to that of her husband, Henry Blackwell. Women who choose not to take their husbands’ surnames in the US have been known as “Lucy Stoners” ever since.

Researcher Rachel Thwaites, who carried out a study of 102 women as part of her PhD in married names and identity at the University of York, found that a quarter of her sample continued to use their maiden names. “They said they wanted to be equal to their partner,” she says. “There was a sense of 'I am me and my surname is part of that’.”

Practicality is another reason for keeping the name you were born with. For women in the public eye, retaining your surname is a way of separating your identity from your husband’s. Jennifer Aniston was never known as Pitt during her marriage to Brad. Similarly, Zara Phillips (Tindall), Gwyneth Paltrow (Martin), Keira Knightley (Righton), and – perhaps understandably – Kate Winslet (Rocknroll), have all clung to their maiden names. But traditionalists will be pleased to know that there is still a significant proportion of young women (63 per cent, according to Facebook) who believe in taking their husband’s surname. The singer Lily Allen has been known as Lily Rose Cooper since marrying Sam Cooper. And the American singer Beyoncé, who married rapper Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) in 2008, stunned fans when she announced that her forthcoming tour would be called “The Mrs Carter Show”.

Other famous faces who have taken their husbands’ surnames are presenter Gabby Logan (née Yorath), fashion designer Victoria Beckham (Adams), writer Santa Sebag-Montefiore (Palmer-Tomkinson) and former MP Louise Mensch (Bagshawe). Mensch, who wrote 14 novels under her maiden name, says taking her husband’s name was “simply about choice”. “I am madly in love with him, and wanted to identify myself with him,” she says.

Jilly Cooper, the author of How to Stay Married, says she “longed” to rid herself of her maiden name, Sallitt. “Every time I said it I had to spell it,” she says. “So the absolute bliss of being called Cooper was amazing.” She believes the growing number of young wives refusing to take their husbands’ surnames is “another brick thrown against marriage”. “You’re making a commitment. It’s a partnership; two people becoming one. Taking his name is romantic.”

However, if you’re really attached to your surname but don’t mind your husband’s, there’s another option: why not use both? Former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and singer-songwriter Carla Bruni-Sarkozy do it – and television presenter Dawn Porter, who recently married the actor Chris O’Dowd, went for a bizarre mix of the two: she is now known as Dawn O’Porter.

Even Cooper admits it’s not always an easy decision. “If your husband had a terrible name, you’d be more reluctant to take it. Yvette Cooper didn’t become Yvette Balls, did she? Sometimes you have to exercise common sense.” Modern brides, take note.

SEE ALSO: What's Next After Historic Gay Marriage Decisions

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One of China's top football clubs has vowed to "crackdown on sloth" among its players with a slew of new measures including forcing underperforming stars to attend "patriotism education" classes.

Guangzhou Evergrande, which has won China's Super League twice, announced the new sanctions on Thursday, following China's humiliating 5-1 drubbing last month at the hands of Thailand.

Club chairman Xu Jiayin told reporters the national team's dismal performance, which involved several Evergrande players, could not be allowed to happen again.

"The result was beyond endurance," state media quoted Mr Xu as saying. "It is a humiliating loss, for all Chinese soccer players and Chinese people for players' lack of fighting spirit."

Under the club's new rules players will be "severely punished" if they are found guilty of playing "passively" during an international match.

Those dropped from the Chinese squad for putting in bad performances will be fined 200,000 yuan (£21,500) while players who break team rules will face both suspension and the prospect of being banished to a "closed compound" for a month of compulsory "patriotism education".

"We need to improve the sense of representing the national team. Only when the national team achieves better results can we say Chinese soccer has developed to a higher level," said Mr Xu.

Cameron Wilson, who runs a blog on China's not-so-beautiful game called Wild East Football, said the defeat to Thailand had been a "frighteningly bad result even by China's very low standards." But Guangzhou Evergrande's "old school, Communist rules" were unlikely to solve China's on-the-pitch problems.

Blaming the team's poor form on a lack of patriotism was "very simplistic," added Shanghai-based Wilson, who said part of the problem was the "completely unrealistic" expectations placed on Chinese footballers by the general public.

"Chinese people have found their football team to be an embarrassment for a long time now and that is quite a serious handicap [for the players]." Chinese players were now playing with "massive, massive millstones around their necks," he said.

An opinion piece in Friday's China Daily rounded on China's Football Association, the CFA, slamming the "shameful" thrashing against Thailand.

"Chinese soccer fans are the most tolerant in the world," the author argued.

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Another week and another raft of house-price data. Everyone now agrees that prices are going up. What they don’t agree on is by exactly how much – and whether it’s a problem.

There is excited talk in some quarters about a boom and risks of overheating. George Osborne was accused by MPs on Thursday of implementing policies which were “inflating another bubble”. Naturally he dismissed such fears. Other, less partisan, commentators agree with him: they say rising prices (which in any case lag well behind inflation) are nothing sinister, just a normal sign of confidence returning in the wider economy.

Trevor Greetham, who is responsible for asset allocation at fund group Fidelity and is a widely-followed commentator, was among those flagging a warning. “You might well ask how a recovery based on pushing house prices even higher is going to create sustainable growth,” he said, adding a “housing-led recovery” was Britain reverting to “pre-bubble form”. Current policies will spell a weak pound, he said, coupled with a wage squeeze for lower earners and “a period of chronic overvaluation in housing.”

That last point is chilling, because it touches keenly on most families’ wealth. If you share Greetham’s view and are already a property owner it is clear what to do to limit risk: pay down associated housing debt and build non-property assets like equities.

But what about your children?

Do you want them mortgaged up to the hilt buying something your gut tells you is already ridiculously overvalued (and the big mortgages enabling them to do this, by the way, are back)? Absolutely not.

But then, my God, consider an alternative scenario: house prices soar on and on, meaning your children won’t be able to own even a shoebox in hell, and instead must spend their lifetime – and a fortune – renting the shoebox from a landlord. Which is worse?

It’s a dilemma, but there are some practical solutions.

One is to delay buying and instead to invest in a vehicle that mirrors house-price growth. Castle Trust, for instance, is a new company offering accounts where returns are promised to exceed average property inflation because they are calculated as multiples of the Halifax House Price Index. For instance, a three-year investment pays 1.25 times the index’s rise; the ten-year deal pays 1.7 times.

These proxy-property investments are not perfect. They pose institutional risk and their terms are inflexible. There is also downside if the index falls, albeit limited. But they do offer protection from house price inflation and, also hugely useful, they allow the buying decision to be deferred, perhaps to a later period when risks clarify or other factors – marriage, children – tip the balance.

Another possible solution is for parents to release equity from their own homes through some form of mortgage.

This might sound extreme and unappealing. In fact it is already a noticeable trend, according to specialist adviser Key Retirement Solutions, and one which is taking hold. KRS, which regularly polls its client base, says it is like an “accelerated form of bequest, made while parents are still living.” In other words, with today’s elderly dying in their 90s instead of their 70s, they part with a chunk of their estate “ahead of time”.

In theory, at least, the notion of older generations borrowing more in order for younger generations to borrow less makes sense. The parents give up some of the capital gains they have made through owning property over the years, and share some of the risk their offspring must now take on as they in turn buy their home.

In practice, however, as with so much in our personal finances, these decisions are difficult and wrapped up in emotion.

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A new world record was set at the Goodwood Festival of Speed today, when a 1954 Mercedes-Benz fetched the highest price for a car sold at auction.

The W196R, which was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio and won a number of grands prix, sold for a hammer price of £17.5 million (US $29.65 million) at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed sale.

Once all the buyers fees have been added the total sale price will be £19,601,500.

The previous record price for a car sold at auction was $15 million - the equivalent price of the W196 is about $29,659,000.

The car was sold to a telephone bidder, whose identity hasn't been revealed. Bonhams confirmed that there were 11 bidders in total, with three in the room at Goodwood and eight telephone bidders, the majority of which were from the US.

James Knight, group motoring director, Bonhams, said: "Today we have witnessed a bit of history."

When asked whether the car would be a sound investment he said:"Demand for the W196 will be just as big, if not greater, in 10 year's time."

The record price will also " instill further confidence in the market place," he added.

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The American whistleblower Edward Snowden has sought asylum in Russia, in his first encounter with the outside world since becoming marooned at a Moscow airport three weeks ago during a globe-trotting flight from charges of espionage.

His move prompted President Barack Obama to pick up the phone and call Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, presumably to demand the return of the 30-year-old former analyst at the National Security Agency, who came from nowhere last month to trigger one of the biggest intelligence leaks in American history.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, warned Russia against allowing Mr Snowden a "propaganda platform" by letting him stay in the country. No exact details of the conversation have been disclosed, but Snowden was among the topics the leaders discussed, with security relations and counterterrorism preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi also covered.

Caey said such granting Snowden asylum would "run counter" to Moscow's assurances that it did not want the affair to harm US-Russia relations. He renewed Washington's call on Russia to expel Mr Snowden so that he could be returned to American soil to face trial for leaking US national security secrets.

There were chaotic scenes after Mr Snowden invited human rights groups and senior Russian officials to meet him at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, where he has been trapped in a closed area of the transit zone since he flew in from Hong Kong on June 23 with the US authorities closing in.

At least 200 television camera operators and reporters stampeded through Terminal F to see a group of about ten human rights activists, lawyers and at least one Russian MP ushered through a door marked "staff only". The guests were transported by bus to a meeting with Mr Snowden, who was accompanied by the British WikiLeaks activist, Sarah Harrison, who has been with him for several weeks.

"Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort," the fugitive told his guests, according to a transcript published later by WikiLeaks.

He declared he had no regrets about exposing details of "massive, pervasive surveillance" by US intelligence agencies, but that he was forced to apply for "temporary political asylum" in Russia while he secured an onward route to Latin America, where he hoped to seek final refuge, despite having no passport.

"Individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring," Mr Snowden said.

"Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice."

Mr Snowden's request for refuge gained immediate support from some senior Russian political figures – including Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament - and the Kremlin indicated his application would be reviewed.

A shaky video of the airport meeting showed the 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor leaker smiling broadly and joking "I've heard this many times" as a tannoy flight announcement interrupted his speech.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch's Moscow bureau, who was among those who attended the 45-minute meeting, told The Daily Telegraph afterwards that the American appeared in good health.

"He said that he was about to file a formal asylum claim with the Russian authorities," she said.

Mr Snowden was asked whether he would meet Vladimir Putin's condition for staying in Russia that Mr Snowden did nothing to "harm our American partners", which was issued when the American made an earlier less public application.

"Snowden said that he did not find the condition problematic because Putin said he would be ready to give him asylum in the case that he stopped damaging Russia's partners," said Ms Lokshina. "And in his [Snowden's] perception whatever he has done and is planning to do does not harm the United States. He stressed that he did not want to do harm, that he wanted the US to succeed and do well."

Other attendees said Snowden had made it clear his eventual destination was Latin America, where Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia have offered him asylum - and asked his guests to help pressure the US and European states not to impede his travel there.

Washington has urged countries whose airspace Mr Snowden might have to cross not to offer any assistance, as well as his possible final destinations.

Ms Lokshina revealed that before the meeting she had received a phone call from a representative of the US embassy in Moscow, asking her to pass on a message from US Ambassador Michael McFaul to Mr Snowden that "he's no whistleblower, that he broke the law and should be held accountable".

When he heard the message, Mr Snowden responded that he was not surprised, and that he "definitely viewed himself as a whistleblower who had revealed information of very significant public interest".

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Writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the Harry Potter creator wrote a 450-page crime novel called The Cuckoo’s Calling.

The book is billed as a “classic crime novel”, written in the style of PD James and Ruth Rendell, according to the Sunday Times.

Its plot centres on the death of a troubled model who falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony. Her brother calls in Cormoran Strike, a damaged war veteran turned private detective, to investigate her death.

Released in April, the book has generated heated speculation about the identity of the book’s author.

The secret could not last. Eventually it was noticed that Mr Galbraith and Miss Rowling shared the same publisher and editor.

Reviewers have described it as an “exhilarating debut” and marvelled at how a male author could ever describe women’s clothes so well.

When approached this weekend, Miss Rowling said: “I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”

The book is described as “a gripping, elegant mystery steeped in the atmosphere of London – from the hushed streets of Mayfair to the backstreet pubs of the East End to the bustle of Soho.”

After writing seven Harry Potter books, Miss Rowling published her first fiction for adults last year. The Casual Vacancy, a novel about a small town racked with political infighting, sold well but received a mixed response from critics.

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