Week Ahead: Six Nations final in week marking 20 years of continuing human presence at International Space Station

RUGBY

The Six Nations tournament is due to come to an end this week after a coronavirus-enforced hiatus.

The final games will be played on Saturday after a delay since March. Wales will take on Scotland, Italy play England and France take on Ireland in the last round of the rugby union competition.

ART

A new exhibition exploring the work and times of one of the country’s greatest artists is due to open at the Tate Britain on Wednesday.

It will look at how J.M.W. Turner captured changing times, transforming the way he painted to better reflect life at the peak of the industrial revolution and will explore what it meant to be a modern artist in his lifetime.

Turner visited Yorkshire many times throughout his life, inspired by the region’s landscapes. There are many opportunities for people to walk in his footsteps and discover scenes that sparked his work. He sketched at Aysgarth Falls and Bolton Castle and visited Hardraw Force and Semer Water to name just a few.

HALLOWEEN

With South Yorkshire now under tier 3 coronavirus restrictions, and measures to try to control the pandemic in place across all of England, many people will be staying at home this Halloween.

Celebrated on October 31 each year, the holiday is believed to be a descendant of the festival of Samhain, a Gaelic celebration that marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the darker half of the year.

Much of what we associate with Halloween today is the product of the Americanisation it has gone through over the years, with modern traditions including pumpkin carving, apple bobbing and trick or treating.

SCIENCE

This year’s Bradford Science Festival is in full swing after being postponed from its original date in July due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As well as live shows and events at the National Science and Media Museum, this year there is also an online element with videos, Zoom classes and workshops, and Bradford’s BCB Radio are running a series of science shows and discussions with experts.

The festival, which runs until November 1, has two key themes - climate change, with a focus on what people can do locally at an individual level, and what Bradford district has to offer as a place to study science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and to work in STEM careers.

Elsewhere, on the theme of science, Saturday marks 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station.

On October. 31, 2000, a Soyuz spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Onboard were Nasa’s William M Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, who opened the hatches to their new home two days later.

RACING

Wetherby hosts its feature race of the jump season - the Charlie Hall Chase - this Saturday.

It will see Definitly Red, victorious in 2018 for Malton trainer Brian Ellison, bid to win the historic race for a second time.

Likely rivals include Sam Spinner who is on the comeback trail for Middleham trainer Jedd O’Keeffe.

Normally the meeting attracts around 8,000 racegoers - and is the traditional curtain-raiser to the National Hunt season.

However no paying spectators will be present - and those owners who are permitted to attend will now have to wear face coverings at all times as a result of a new ruling that comes into force tomorrow.

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