It wasn’t all bad

Travellers flying out of Laguardia airport in New York can now order a poem to reach them on arrival at their destination. The poem is free and delivered to their phones. “When it’s a short flight we have to be really quick,” said Gideon Jacobs, who runs the project, Landing Pages. It involves two writers, based in Laguardia, turning out stories and poems tailored to the reader, about families, journeys, love, loss – or whatever comes to them in the time available.

A Polish sailor last week set a world record for sailing around the world in the smallest yacht to have made the trip. On his 270-day solo journey, Szymon Kuczynski, 37, was confined to just four square metres of living space on the Atlantic Puffin, which is 20ft 10in long. He sailed the 29,000 nautical miles without medical or technical support, and stopped at no ports. His route took him around the capes of Africa, Australia and South America, where he experienced a snowstorm that damaged his mast. “It’s great to be back on land. I’m very hungry,” he told The Times, on arrival in Plymouth.

The Co-op is to combat food waste by reserving for charities fresh food that is on its “best before” or “sell by” date. Two hours before closing, all such food will be taken off the shelves so that homeless shelters, and breakfast and lunch clubs for children and the elderly, can get it in time to use or freeze it. While charities often receive bread, they tend to be short of fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. Co-op announced last week that a trial version of the scheme had worked and that it will now introduce it across all of its 2,500 stores.