A mountain to climb
Brexit secretary David Davis gave the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, a copy of Regards vers l’Annapurna by Maurice Herzog and Marcel Ichaq. What can be read into the gift?
— The book is about the 1950 French expedition to scale Annapurna 1, a 26,414ft peak in Nepal. Although the expedition was a success, it was eclipsed by the British Everest expedition three years later.
— Annapurna 1 was not scaled again until 1970, when a British army expedition and a separate bid by Chris Bonington to scale the south face reached the summit within days of each other. The latter bid ended with a British climber being killed by a falling ice pillar, establishing an unenviable record: the Annapurna massif has the highest rate of fatalities to climbing attempts of any mountain range in the world.
We’re having a heatwave
According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the official definition of a heatwave is five consecutive days where the maximum temperature exceeds the mean maximum for that month of the year.
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