Roger Altounyan: the link from a hay fever remedy to Arthur Ransome | Letter
Letters recommending sodium cromoglicate for itchy eyes (14 April) are testament to a true drug discoverer of the late 60s who had an interesting earlier life,He was Roger Altounyan, born in Aleppo, Syria, and trained as a physician in Britain,Starting from khellin, a herbal remedy, he and his colleagues made and tested many variations, ultimately producing cromoglicate,Altounyan, as an asthmatic, tested these compounds on himself,Before this, he had been a fighter pilot and then a flying instructor, but before that he had a place in children’s literature as Roger, the “ship’s boy” of the Swallow, in Swallows and Amazons.
Arthur Ransome knew the Altounyan family in the Lake District and taught the children to sail.Ian SkidmoreWelwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it.A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
County cricket day two: Rehan Ahmed excels against Lancashire as opening batter
A fit looking Saqib Mahmood, with a tentative mullet, bowled in his first Championship game for Lancashire since May 2024. In he steamed from the Statham End at Old Trafford, up against Leicestershire’s tyro opening partnership of Sol Budinger and Rehan Ahmed.Budinger was dropped between first and second slip on a duck, and Leicestershire then made hay, fizzing past 100 in 19.4 overs. Ahmed, a pocket rocket with wrists of steel and a high‑fashion post‑shot pose, punched thrillingly through the covers, flashed extra‑cover drives, whipped with elan
Saudi Arabian GP: Verstappen takes pole after Norris hits wall in F1 qualifying – as it happened
And that’s all from me. I’ll leave you with Giles Richards’ report of a rather eventful evening by the Red Sea. Enjoy the race tomorrow!George Russell, who starts third tomorrow, has also been speaking to the TV cameras:To be honest before the session I would have taken a P3 but when I just saw how close it was, I was really happy with the lap. But you always think there might have been a little bit more in there.Being realistic we know this was the maximum today
Max Verstappen claims Saudi GP F1 pole after Lando Norris hits the wall
His confidence in the car already wavering, the world championship leader, Lando Norris, now has to cope with another serious blow to his title ambitions after crashing out in qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, while his Red Bull rival Max Verstappen claimed pole position, only one-hundredth of a second clear of Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri.Norris is notoriously self-critical and his costly error at the Jeddah circuit might well cause him to once more deliver a brutal self-examination. His own summation in the moments after the crash summed it up as he bluntly described himself as a “fucking idiot” over team radio.The pressure is intense this season, Norris in a nip-and-tuck fight with Piastri and Verstappen where every mistake could be crucial, as he leads Piastri by three points with Verstappen eight points back in third. Starting from 10th on Sunday his title lead is hanging by the slenderest of threads and his self-belief perhaps once more undermined
England 59-7 Scotland: Women’s Six Nations rugby union – as it happened
Sarah Rendell is in Leicester. And here is her match report:Thanks for reading. Roll on Twickenham next week. Goodnight.“I learn about this team every week,” says Mitchell
Rampant Red Roses rout Scotland to set up grand slam decider with France
England felled Scotland in devastating fashion to set up a grand slam decider against France in the Women’s Six Nations where the Red Roses will bid for their seventh successive title.John Mitchell’s side played some of their best rugby this tournament in the first half by scoring six tries with no reply. The rampant display set up the possibility of a record score against Scotland, which stands at an 89-0 thrashing in the 2011 Six Nations, but they could not produce the same rapid fire scoring in the second half to write a new page in the history books. They did, however, seal the team’s 33rd consecutive win in the tournament with a 59-7 victory.The Red Roses were heavy favourites heading into the match as Scotland have never beaten England in the tournament, with their last win across all competitions against their rivals coming in 1999
Leaders Bath survive Exeter onslaught to go clear at Premiership summit
The perils of going too early. We should know by now that no game in this competition is ever dead until it is dead, so common is the comeback these days. But when Bath, league leaders, had the bonus point by the half-hour mark – and a 26-10 lead to go with it – we did assume they were home and hosed.All the more so, given Exeter’s low levels of confidence, not to mention their low position in the table, with only Newcastle below them. But the Chiefs would not let matters lie
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Put down that chardonnay: try an aligoté instead
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The sweet story of how a chance meeting led to Australia’s ‘old baby cake’ going viral on Chinese social media