Sell Watches To You

A team of researchers excavating a 3,300 year old Shang Dynasty palace-temple complex at the ancient city of Huanbei have discovered that it was burned down after only 50 years of use by the city’s own rulers.

The complex was stripped of all its goods before being destroyed, but a large number of human sacrifices were left behind, with 40 discovered in one building alone.

Professor Zhichun Jing, of the University of British Columbia, has been working with colleagues in China to excavate and study Huanbei, which is a large site, slightly bigger than New York’s Central Park. The palace-temple complex was at the centre of Huanbei, and would have had a population of at least 10,000 people.

Jing explains that the city was planned in accordance with Shang cosmology, with all buildings oriented at 13 degrees east. This is seen at other Shang sites, and researchers are hoping to decipher the meaning of this orientation. The complex itself, which would have served as both a temple and palace, contains at least sixty buildings. In the largest of these (the largest Bronze Age building ever found in China), a number of sacrificial pits have been discovered containing several skeletons.

A layer of red burnt earth covers the buildings, and the team have concluded that the whole city was destroyed by a single fire. The lack of bodies or other evidence of a battle suggests that the city may have been torched by its own rulers rather than invaders – a theory supported by the fact that few examples of pottery, gems or jewellery were found at the site. Jing suggests that the inhabitants took everything with them before setting the city alight. The whole city was abandoned, and another city, Yinxu, was founded on the other side of the river.

However, the inhabitants left behind a particularly large number of human sacrifices, with at least 40 in the largest building. Human sacrifice was not unusual during the Shang Dynasty, and most medium/large size tombs from this time period contain human sacrifices.

Professor Jing explained that that further scientific analysis needs to be done on the bodies, but that oracle bone inscriptions found at other Shang sites suggest that sacrifices were prisoners of war.

“According to oracle bones inscriptions the victims for the ritual killings (were) likely the captives of the war the Shang engaged with neighbours,” said Jing. “Definitely by the end of the dynasty the war captives were the primary source of human victims.”

Another possibility is that some of the sacrifices might be criminals, who were made to pay the ultimate price for their alleged crimes. Strontium analysis performed on human bones show that when Yinxu was first founded, after the abandonment of Huanbei, many of the sacrifices were local people.

Even though only a small portion of the site has been excavated, Huanbei, along with Yinxu, has recently been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site – a designation that will help protect it from modern development. Over 30 square kilometres have been designated as protected. Without the threat of development archaeologists will be able to excavate the site slowly and carefully, and will hopefully reveal more about the inhabitants of the hastily abandoned Shang city.

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Democrats are heading towards an even heavier defeat than previously forecast in November's midterm elections for Congress, political analysts say. Such an outcome promises big trouble not just for President Obama, but also for Republican leaders as they struggle to run what is likely to be an unruly majority on Capitol Hill.

There has long been scant doubt that, barring a swift and improbable upturn in the economy, Republicans will pick up the 39 extra seats they need to regain control of the House of Representatives they lost in 2006. Now, polls say, they are on track to do better still, and have a reasonable chance of winning back the Senate as well.

The respected Cook Political Report reckons that no less than 68 of the 256 House seats currently held by Democrats are at "substantial risk", compared to 58 in June, with, at most, 10 Republican seats in danger. A similar picture emerges from the latest "Crystal Ball" survey by Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, which projects a net gain for Republicans of 47 seats, translating into a comfortable majority of 226 to 209.

In the Senate, the Republican target of a gain of 10 to overturn the current 59-41 Democratic majority, also appears to be inching closer. Analysts now believe Republicans could pick up a net eight or nine seats – and if everything continues to fall their way, they could hit the required 10.

The party got off to a sensational start in 2010, with Scott Brown's shock victory in the Massachusetts seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy. Today, as voter dissatisfaction hardens, two-term senator Barbara Boxer is in a desperately close race with her Republican opponent Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard chief executive, in normally solidly Democratic California. Another example is Wisconsin, the widely respected Democratic incumbent Russ Feingold is now trailing his most likely Republican challenger in November.

August has tended to be a bad month for Mr Obama. In 2008, he suffered a major wobble in his ultimately victorious White House campaign against John McCain, while in 2009 he lost control of the health care debate as rowdy Tea Party-dominated "town hall" meetings made all the headlines.

If anything, this summer has been worse still, as the economic recovery on which Democrats were pinning their hopes has fizzled. "Successes" for the administration, like the end of combat operations in Iraq, pass largely unnoticed. With unemployment stuck close to 10 per cent, and fears of a double-dip recession growing daily, Mr Obama is being pilloried by Republicans as a profligate "big government" Democrat whose policies have succeeded only in increasing a deficit for which voters now blame this president, rather than the once-reviled George W Bush.

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An abortion hotline which has been set up in Pakistan is facing violent opposition. Islamic groups and political parties have condemned the hotline, which was launched yesterday, as "anti-Islamic" and "colonial", even though it will save the lives of thousands of women who die each year in backstreet abortion clinics. They have warned the organisers that they are at risk of reprisals.

The hotline, set up by a collection of women's groups in Pakistan and the Dutch pro-choice group Women on Waves, advises women how to use a drug to induce miscarriage safely and aims to reduce the estimated 890,000 unsafe illegal abortions performed in Pakistan every year.

"There will be very strong opposition," said Ahsan Iqbal, of the Pakistan Muslim League. "This could create misuse. It cannot be done as free choice under our law and our religion."

Access to abortion in Pakistan is very limited. Forbidden under Islamic law unless the mother's life is in danger, terminating a pregnancy carries a massive social stigma in the country, which is 97 per cent Muslim. As a result, a flourishing trade in backstreet abortion clinics has developed.

Figures from the Population Council of Pakistan show that the country has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with 320 women dying for every 100,000 live births – compared to 13 per 100,000 in the UK. The Guttmacher Institute, which researches sexual and reproductive health, estimates that as many as one in six deaths are a result of illegal abortions.

"We want to save women's lives," said Gulalai Ismail, founder of the Pakistani women's group Aware Girls, which is helping to set up the hotline. "We are empowering women, and trying to give them information to help them take control of their bodies. Any groups which try to help women will have problems with extremist and fundamentalist groups. Ninety-nine per cent of clerics will oppose this."

As well as the hotline, trained Pakistani staff will offer abortion information in communities in rural Pakistan, particularly in the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier Province, where opposition is expected to be fiercest.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, warned the organisers that they risked reprisals. "To go against the majority like this might be seen sympathetically in the West, but it will be counterproductive and will create huge problems. At best, they are misguided, at worst they are trying to provoke," he said. "It is part of the colonial idea that the West's way is the best, and that is not the case."

Women on Waves, created in 1999 by the Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts, operates a controversial "abortion boat", which offers free terminations in international waters around countries where abortion is illegal or difficult to obtain. In 2004, the ship was prevented from entering Portuguese waters after the government blocked its way with a warship; on another occasion, a flotilla of anti-abortion campaigners surrounded the vessel when it docked in the Spanish port of Valencia, and hundreds of protesters lined the streets. However, there are no plans for it to moor off the coast of Pakistan.

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Best buy: Javier Hernandez (Manchester United)

In 2003, when Chelsea dazzled the transfer market by spending £100m in a single summer, Sir Alex Ferguson went out and bought Cristiano Ronaldo for a modest £12m. Seven years later, as his noisy neighbours blot out the sun with their spending, the United manager acquired a little-known Mexican striker, whose father and grandfather had both played international football – Ferguson, as a horse-racing man, appreciates pedigree. Hernandez shone at the World Cup and has displayed a touching combination of humility and enthusiasm at United.

Bravest buy: Titus Bramble (Sunderland)
Bramble is a nice guy and a fine defender but, as Steve Bruce kept wearily pointing out during their time at Wigan, every error he makes invariably seems to lead to a goal that is replayed over and over again for the amusement of Alan Hansen on Match of the Day. He was also a prominent member of the young Newcastle side Sir Bobby Robson built; so for both player and manager this was the summer's ballsiest piece of business.

Biggest risk: Bebe (Manchester United)

On the face of it, to pay £7.4m for a 20-year-old who has yet to kick a ball in the Portuguese top flight, whom you have never seen play even on video and who was not fit enough for reserve football is a real punt by Ferguson. However, he comes on the recommendation of Carlos Queiroz, who was right about Nani and very right about Ronaldo. We probably won't know the answer for another three years.

Best value: Craig Bellamy (Cardiff City)

Seeing him return to his native city put you in mind of Kevin Keegan signing for Newcastle as a player in 1982. It had a touch of romance to it – not a noun you would ordinarily associate with Bellamy – while the fact that Manchester City are paying most of his wages made this an exceptional deal for Cardiff. Keegan took two years to see Newcastle promoted; Bellamy will hope to return to the Premier League in half that time.

Most surprising signing: Joe Cole (Liverpool)

As wedded to London as Tower Bridge, it seemed inevitable he would turn up at Arsenal. Instead, Cole arrived at Anfield, energising the opening days of Roy Hodgson's regime with his enthusiasm, although getting himself sent off and missing a penalty in his first few games for Liverpool was not how he imagined it. Crystal Palace signing a 37-year-old Edgar Davids just after coming out of administration seemed crazy. Employing him as a left-back in the 3-0 defeat at Scunthorpe at the weekend represents a form of madness.

Least surprising signing: James Milner (Manchester City)

Were you amazed to see James Milner in a City shirt? Neither was Martin O'Neill.

Best overall business: Birmingham City

Unaccustomed as Birmingham are to public spending, Alex McLeish has invested the first slice of Carson Yeung's transfer budget pretty well. Few imagined Alexander Hleb would ever don a Birmingham shirt while Sir Alex Ferguson rates Ben Foster the best English goalkeeper in the Premier League. The giant Serb striker Nikola Zigic and the Spartak Moscow captain, Martin Jiranek, complete a powerful-looking roster.

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Police took the unusual decision yesterday to step in and deny increasingly lurid reports about the private life of the murdered GCHQ officer Gareth Williams.

Scotland Yard sources said that reports of bondage equipment found at his flat and a "ritualistic" arrangement of his possessions were untrue. A spokesman later added that the detective team investigating the death, had clarified the accuracy of the reports "out of respect" for Mr Williams' relatives.

Mr William's body was found stuffed into a holdall in the bathroom on his home in Pimlico, central London, last week. Since the discovery suggestions regarding Mr Williams' private life and sexual tendencies have been rife.

Reports included the suggestion that the 30-year-old was, variously, a male escort or a transvestite; that bondage equipment had been found at his flat; and that a dozen mobile phone SIM cards had been laid out in a ritualistic manner in his home.

His family said they feared there was a smear campaign. Mr Williams' uncle told newspapers: "The family are concerned it may have been an attempt to put false, unkind details about Gareth's private life into the public domain to diminish him and take attention away from the security services he worked so loyally for."

All police have previously confirmed is that they are investigating a "suspicious death" – preferring that term to murder – and that the last known sighting of Mr Williams was in London on Sunday 15 August, eight days before his body was found. Initial reports said he had not been seen for a fortnight.

His body was discovered when police were called to check on him after a colleague voiced concerns.

Those scant details aside, little is known about precisely when, why or how Mr Williams died. As is usual in such cases, police have not confirmed any potential motive they are investigating. Early speculation suggested that Mr Williams' job may have been the reason for his death. But latterly, the focus has shone more on his personal life. Last week a pathologist was unable to establish a cause of death. Toxicology tests will determine if he was poisoned, or if drugs or alcohol were a factor. But the report suggested he was not stabbed.

On Saturday night Channel 4 News claimed that the initial police report had stated that Mr Williams' death was a "neat job", suggesting that he was killed by someone who knew what they were doing.

There are also suggestions that Scotland Yard detectives have become frustrated with the interference of colleagues in the intelligence agencies who are not used to their own organisations or employees being the subject of investigations. Police are also said to be investigating payments and withdrawals of thousands of pounds into and out of Mr Williams' bank account in the days leading up to his death.

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Imagine asking a pharmacist for condoms and being given the choice between a packet of Durex and socks. Photograph: David Levene/Guardian

The government has released its eagerly anticipated response to the Science and Technology Committee's Evidence Check on Homeopathy and, incredibly, it's even worse than I thought it would be. The verdict is "business as usual", with the main recommendations of the committee ignored in a fog of confusion and double-think.

You get a sense of this confusion very early on, with lines like: "given the geographical, socioeconomic and cultural diversity in England, [policy on homeopathy] involves a whole range of considerations including, but not limited to, efficacy." I actually have no idea what this means – do medicines work differently in Norfolk from the way they work in Hampshire? The report doesn't elaborate.

As expected, the word "choice" features heavily in the government's response:

There naturally will be an assumption that if the NHS is offering homeopathic treatments then they will be efficacious, whereas the overriding reason for NHS provision is that homeopathy is available to provide patient choice ... if regulation was applied to homeopathic medicines as understood in the context of conventional pharmaceutical medicines, these products would have to be withdrawn from the market as medicines. This would constrain consumer choice and, more importantly, risk the introduction of unregulated, poor quality and potentially unsafe products on the market to satisfy consumer demand."

So we can't regulate these products as medicines because they'd end up being banned, but we'll let them be called medicines anyway? It gives me a headache just trying to think down to the level of the person who wrote this stuff.

The report accepts that there's no evidence that homeopathy works, but apparently this shouldn't be a barrier to it being distributed via the NHS because not handing out medicines that don't work might infringe the freedom of patients to choose things that don't work. What makes this even more absurd is that they concede that:

In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available. He [the government's chief scientific adviser] will therefore engage further with the Department of Health to ensure communication to the public is addressed."

So the government is planning to launch a public information campaign against homeopathic treatments at the same time as it continues to fund those treatments through the NHS. In this glorious mess of a policy the government has come up with something so brain-meltingly stupid that even the satirical brain of Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, In the Loop) would struggle to match it.

What I find so frustrating is this dedication to a form of "consumer choice" that is absolutely anything but. If I walk into a pharmacist looking for a packet of condoms, and I'm given the choice between a packet of Durex and a sock, it isn't a choice, it's just a pointless piece of confusion that's going to lead to lots of people having really uncomfortable sex, and a localised population explosion.

Another feature worth picking up on is the way in which responsibility for these decisions has been passed down the line, allowing alternative medicine to fall conveniently into various regulatory gaps. The government doesn't believe that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has time to waste on a review of homeopathy, while the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has made its guidelines flexible enough to allow many homeopathic products a free pass, for reasons that are still unfathomable to me.

In this regulatory vacuum the government's response repeatedly delegates responsibility for making decisions on the use of homeopathy to primary care trusts, yet these are set to be abolished in the next few years, which will dump responsibility onto individual GPs.

The General Medical Council's guidance to GPs on the issue of alternative medicine is woolly at best (and the the council has ignored my requests to clarify it). The GMC states that "we are not in a position to advise doctors about the suitability or otherwise of particular treatments as our remit does not extend to collecting, analysing or disseminating clinical information" and basically leaves it to GPs' own judgement about whether or not a treatment is in the best interests of a patient.

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Black holes may play a far more important role in the evolution of the universe than scientists had previously realised, according to a study suggesting that these massive and mysterious structures in space could have been key to the formation of the earliest galaxies.

Scientists have used supercomputers to simulate what would have happened in the early universe when two galaxies collided.

They found that the collision quickly forms a "supermassive" black hole with a mass many millions of times greater than that of the sun.

The gravitational fields of supermassive black holes are so great that no cosmic objects, not even light, can escape them if they stray too close.

Until now, it was thought that they played only a secondary role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, but the latest research suggests they are in fact central players.

Cosmologists also previously believed that galaxies formed in a gradual, hierarchical fashion, with clumps of matter coming together to form stronger centres of gravity that would pull in further matter, eventually forming new constellations of stars.

However, the computer simulation suggested that galaxy formation occurs far more rapidly than this gradual process and that it may at least in part be driven by the formation of supermassive black holes, which are believed to exist at the centre of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way.

"The standard idea that a galaxy's properties and the mass of its central black hole are related because the two grow in parallel will have to be revised," said Stelios Kazantzidis of Ohio State University, who was part of the research team whose study is published in the journal Nature.

"In our model, the black hole grows much faster than the galaxy. So it could be that the black hole is not regulated at all by the growth of the galaxy. It could be that the galaxy is regulated by the growth of the black hole," Dr Kazantzidis said.

The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old. The new computer simulations suggest that the first supermassive black holes formed when early galaxies began to collide with one another within the first few billion years after the universe began following the Big Bang.

"Our results add a new milestone to the important realisation of how structure forms in the universe," Dr Kazantzidis said. "Together with these other discoveries, our result shows that big structures, both galaxies and massive black holes, build up quickly in the history of the universe. Amazingly, this is contrary to hierarchical structure formation."

Astronomers believe that the earliest stars in the universe were many times larger than present-day stars, some 300 times the mass of the sun for instance, a feature that had to be built in to the computer simulations.

The computer simulations of the cosmic collisions were also far more detailed than previous simulations – the new ones contained features that were 100 times smaller than earlier studies. Dr Kazantzidis said the work should help the search for the elusive gravity ripples in space, the "gravitational waves" predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, but never detected.

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When Heston blumenthal, Raymond Blanc, Angela Hartnett, and dozens of other top chefs come to dinner, what do you cook? How about the turbot in chicken crust with sage, or the scallops with peanut sauce – or the snail flan?

If you are celebrating running the most successful restaurant in British history and serving the country's best chefs, there is no need to choose. Last night, Michel and Alain Roux served 25 dishes – including the three above – along with some of the finest champagne and claret in the world at the most extraordinary culinary gathering witnessed in a British restaurant.

The occasion was the family's 25th successive annual award of three Michelin stars to the Waterside Inn, the £150-a-head restaurant in the Thames-side village of Bray in Berkshire, which has maintained the highest standard of traditional haute cuisine for decades.

Winning a Michelin star is an accolade for which many chefs sweat in vain; Britain has only four three-star establishments. So when the Rouxs, father and son, came to wonder how they would celebrate 25 years at the top, they hit upon a twist to the usual practice of inviting the owners of the world's other three-star Michelin restaurants to a banquet. Instead, they invited the 140 UK chefs in possession of a Michelin star.

"We invited them all," recalled Michel Roux, 69, whose son Alain runs the restaurant day-to-day. "We were surprised. I was expecting about 60 or 70 or 80 of them to say yes, because not everyone can take a day off from the kitchens, but we have 116 of them, which is a huge compliment."

He went on: "I wanted to share it with the one, two and three-star chefs from the UK and not the three-star club from all over the world. There will be a lot of people with one star who are 25 to 35 years old – and they are the future of the UK."

On the guest list were some of the best known faces in British cooking, among them six who have recently had their own TV series – Blumenthal, who runs the neighbouring Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, fellow Frenchman Blanc, Hartnett, Tom Aikens, Marcus Wareing and John Burton Race.

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The trouble with leaving the farm is that it always means missing something. The bat man came while we were in Bournemouth and his report was a beautifully written, fascinating document. I knew it would be. He did a really excellent job. You could tell that he was an expert just from his name. There were so many letters before and after it. I really wanted to see if he looked bat-like, too. But we missed him.

From his report it seemed he knew more about bats and their habits than they do themselves, but he cost less than a plumber. He had made two visits, both at unreasonable hours. The bats have to be measured at dawn and dusk. It's the only way to tell where they live. They go out at dusk and they come in at dawn.

They are nice to have around, bats. As soon as twilight falls, they are all over the garden with a glamour all their own, a fanfare of swooping and dipping. I thought everyone had them, like pigeons, but it's just us, apparently. They are quite scarce, to such an extent that all species are protected. You can't eat them or move them or even disturb them.

The bat is to the moth what the bird is to the butterfly, a darker mysterious cousin. The more you think about them, the more interesting they appear. They have all kinds of advanced weapons technology: radar, gps, the works.

I found out last night that Burford, the picture postcard fudge emporia epicentre of the billionaires' playground that is the Cotswolds, was half-empty after the war. Literally, only every other house was occupied. It's hard to imagine as now you can't park there.

As well as all the empty houses a generation ago there were grain stores, outbuildings, barns, sheds and lofts that have now, along with the empty houses been turned into 5:1 dolby surround cinemas. I recommend a bat box over a satellite dish.

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Jonathan Groff, the star of Glee, might have swapped the bleachers of William McKinley High School for a West End theatre, but one wouldn't know it to look at him.

His all-American style – tight T-shirt, trainers, blindingly white teeth – perfect for the award-winning TV show, appears at odds with the fusty drapes and swags of the Noël Coward Theatre, where previews of his new play, Deathtrap, begin this week.

As an fan of the hit US import, I half expect Groff – whose name is usually prefixed with the words "hunk" or "heart-throb" – to break into song, or at the very least punctuate his sentences with jazz hands, but he is more muted than the limelight-loving character for which he is best known. While the 25-year-old has been working on Broadway for some time, it was his appearance in the enormously popular TV show about a fictional high-school glee club, New Directions, which has brought him international success, and much controversy.

Groff has the good looks of Hollywood's golden age actors. Although he bears more than a passing resemblance to James Dean, which will do little to hurt his career, it is a comparison to another star, Rock Hudson, that has attracted the most attention. When a Newsweek magazine journalist criticised the performance of Groff, who is gay, as Jesse St James in Glee, in an article that also questioned the ability of gay actors to play straight characters, a furore was ignited.

The journalist wrote: "There's something about his performance that feels off ... he seems more like your average theater queen, a better romantic match for Kurt than for Rachel." This prompted a massive backlash.

While Glee's creator, Ryan Murphy, called for a boycott of the magazine, and guest star Kristin Chenoweth condemned the article as "horrendously homophobic", Groff appears much more relaxed. "It's just one of those things," he says. "You just have to take it like any good or bad review, and try to let it roll off your back. I've played all kinds of characters, with all kinds of sexuality, and I hope to go on doing that."

However, he doesn't believe the article was homophobic, and compares it to a scathing review of an actor's unconvincing accent. "It's all pretty much the same. People will say, 'so-and-so can't play this role because of this or that'," he muses. Sitting in the Royal Retirement room at the theatre, Groff seems positively Zen. "As an actor, it is great if you can leave your personal life at the door, but it is inevitable that the public is going to come to know more about you."

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