It wasn’t all bad

An £11 Italian white wine sold in a bottle made from paper is going on sale through the online retailer Ocado this week, in a first for a British supermarket. The bottle, which was designed by a company in Ipswich, is made from 94% recycled paper, and has a carbon footprint that is around a sixth that of a normal glass bottle. Drinkers needn’t worry about getting it wet, because the wine is in a recyclable plastic pocket – but it shouldn’t be left in an ice bucket.

A restaurant manager who transformed the balcony of his 18th-floor flat in Manchester into a verdant oasis during the pandemic has been invited to display his work at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, in the balcony and container gardens category. Jason Williams says he was inspired to take up gardening after buying a marigold at B&Q, and that every plant in his exhibit can be bought at an ordinary garden centre. “What I didn’t want to do is create some show-garden masterpiece that people cannot replicate,” Williams said. He added that he also wants to challenge the idea that black people don’t garden: “We do.You just don’t tend to see it on TV.”

American soldiers based in northern Italy have presented a 90-year-old Italian woman with a birthday cake, to replace the one that US troops stole 77 years ago. Meri Mion was about to turn 13 when, in April 1945, US troops arrived in her village to take on the Germans. Following the fierce fighting, her mother made her a cake and left it on a window to cool. At last week’s ceremony, she recalled being “surprised” when it vanished, but then being happy to think of it feeding the hungry Americans – it was a “good end, given everything they’d done”.