DINNER PARTY INTEL...

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

1. An immigrant embraced

Emma Raducanu, the British 18-year-old who has changed the landscape of world tennis, has a Chinese mother and a Romanian father. Even before she won the US Open title at the weekend, London’s Daily Express devoted the top half of its front page to her. The bottom half carried a report headlined: “Immigrants sent back.” It was about migrants trying to enter Britain from France on small boats being intercepted and returned their points of departure.

2. A land of letters

In the lawless Nigerian state of Zamfara, authorities have tried almost everything to curb the violence, from no-fly zones to banning the movement and sale of animals.

The latest attempt was to shut down the state’s 240 cellphone towers. This forced the people of Zamfara to write letters instead, except there is no functioning postal system. Commercial buses still run, and are now delivering those letters. Perhaps in SA, the Post Office could try the same.

3. Cool cricket

Cricket, with its long summer days, has always been associated with drinking beer. Now English cricket fans, no longer satisfied with only two colours of “fizzy piss”, have a wider choice. A cricket reporter from The Guardian found that the Test match grounds now carry a wide range of drinks, from craft beers to specialist gins. They even have wine bars and cocktail kiosks serving something called a Lazy Negroni (not available at Headingley). One venue sold Veuve Clicquot at £85 a bottle (not including the

£5 carafe charge).