Priest is investigated by Polish police after ‘gay orgy’ at his apartment ends in ‘clergyman friend’ overdosing on erectile pills and a male prostitute scandal

• Fr. Tomasz Zmarzły is under investigation after a sex party at his flat went horribly wrong
• A friend of the Polish priest keeled over after taking several potency tablets
• He refused to let paramedics in after a male prostitute he was with called them

By Ed Wight

Published: 11:47 EDT, 20 September 2023 | Updated: 14:33 EDT, 20 September 2023

Aaron Rodgers injured his left ankle after getting sacked by Leonard Floyd of the Buffalo Bills on the fourth snap in a nightmare start to his New York Jets career, ending his first game for his new team minutes after it had begun.

Rodgers was carted away for an X-Ray, which returned negative. He is expected to have an MRI scan amid significant fears he has an Achilles injury that could end his season, as well as his first Jets game.

Rodgers dropped back on first down from the Jets’ 43-yard-line and tried to roll out to his left before being sacked by Floyd for a loss of 10 yards. But his left foot appeared to get stuck in the Jets’ turf as he was being tackled.

The quarterback hit the ground and grimaced as he clambered back up to his feet for a moment, before dropping back down and sitting on the turf. He had to helped off the field as Zach Wilson made his way out to replace him. Rodgers, 39, went straight into the medical tent in scenes that left the entire NFL stunned.

The quarterback emerged to be helped onto a cart and was driven off for an X-Ray. He was listed as questionable to return but it didn’t take long for him to be officially ruled out of the rest of the game. He was seen with his left foot in a black protective boot.

‘He’s dealing with an ankle issue, we’re getting it checked out and we’ll have an update,’ Jets coach Robert Saleh said at the break between the first and second quarter. 

The amount of scrutiny and excitement over Rodgers and his move to the Jets had dominated the offseason and the hype had reached new heights in the hours before Monday night’s game. 

Things started quietly enough. After a 26-yard run by Breece Hall on the Jets’ opening play, Rodgers threw his first pass away after getting heavy pressure from Gregg Rousseau. Rodgers threw incomplete on the next play, but Terrel Bernard was called for defensive holding.

Then, Rodgers tried to avoid a rushing Floyd, who wrapped up the quarterback and took him down to the MetLife Stadium turf.

And in the cruelest twist of fate, his first game was over just as it had started. Rodgers looked stunned and ashen faced, albeit not in significant pain by his facial expression, with all eyes in the stadium on him rather than the play unfolding on the field itself in the immediate aftermath.

In the moment before the game began, Rodgers had played a central role in the 9/11 tributes at the stadium on the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attack.

He came out onto the field for his first game holding the American flag as fans got their first look at the quarterback who, in no uncertain terms, has underlined his dream of leading the New York team to Super Bowl glory. 

Rodgers had looked like calmness personified as he warmed up for his first Jets game and even headed over to greet Jake Paul, one of the celebrities watching on in the crowd. 

As a hurt Rodgers made his way off the field, coach Saleh looked lost for words as he tried to retain focus on organizing his team for the rest of the game itself. 

The Jets play Dallas Cowboys next Sunday, a game that Rodgers already looks destined to miss. For both Rodgers and his team, the question marks will inevitably rest on whether the quarterback can play again this season.

Social media was immediately engulfed by speculation on how Rodgers was hurt, with one account – ProFootballDoc – suggesting Rodgers had torn his Achilles due to the way his foot had plugged in the ground.

If so, it would rule Rodgers out for the season. People typically need 4-6 months to return to normal activity from such an injury. 

Rodgers has repeatedly said he won´t be one-and-done with the Jets. 

He agreed in July to a restructured contract that gives him $75million in fully guaranteed money over this season and next. It amounts to a nearly $35m pay cut from the deal he had with Green Bay in which he was set to make $110m guaranteed.

MARKET REPORT: FTSE ends its two-day losing streak as oil stocks rally on the back of higher Brent Crude prices

By John Abiona

Published: 17:09 EDT, 9 August 2023 | Updated: 17:09 EDT, 9 August 2023

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An adventurous British father’s dream to sail across the Atlantic from Canada to Cornwall in a tiny homemade yacht has ended in heartbreak after the vessel filled with water and was destroyed while still in the dock. 

Andrew Bedwell planned to make a 1,900-mile trip from Newfoundland, Canada, to Falmouth, Cornwall, in his 3ft by 11ft fibreglass yacht called Big C – which would have become the smallest boat ever to cross the Atlantic.

Announcing the devastating update in a video titled ‘The end of a dream’, Mr Bedwell, from Scarisbrick, Lancashire, said: ‘Hello everyone. Firstly I am so sorry. We had a difficult problem yesterday. We got back to the harbour and the boat had basically sunk. 

‘Because she was full of water, we had to kind of lift her out by her framework rather than put straps underneath the boat.

He explained that as they lifted Big C up, problems were caused by ‘half or three quarters of a tonne or a tonne of water’, resulting in the framework giving way. 

‘She’s dropped down on to the harbour side and basically it’s destroyed the boat,’ he added.

‘I don’t know what to say to everyone who’s supported me, helped me, you’ve all been absolutely amazing. Big C is no more. She can’t carry on. I can’t do it, I’m sorry.’

Mr Bedwell, who works as a yacht and sailmaker, had said yesterday that after the boat started taking on water there were plans to make modifications and relaunch the vessel, which took three years to build and has a top speed of two-and-a-half miles per hour. 

The father of a ten-year-old daughter Poppy only needed to reach a point within 50 miles of the west of Ireland to claim the world record for the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic, but he had hoped to finish in Falmouth in late August.

Within hours of his heartbreaking video going up, his JustGiving page had also been taken down. He had been raising money for cancer charities in memory of his father, mother and friend Tom McNally, who helped him design and build the boat before his death.

Mr Bedwell has spent his career making sails and delivering yachts all over the world. As a sailor, he has navigated around Britain and journeyed into the frozen reaches of the Arctic Circle.

Before his aborted trip, the mariner said: ‘You never know, you could hit an iceberg. The Titanic was considered unsinkable but it hit one, and there are a lot of icebergs out there.

‘But I wanted a big challenge before I am 50 – and I am taking on a huge challenge in a tiny vessel.’ 

He said his ‘biggest apprehension’ was probably encountering a storm in his tiny vessel.

He said: ‘When you get into a storm, you are battening down and hoping for the best.

‘You have got vessels who are also in the storms, and they are not always looking out for you. That is probably my biggest apprehension.’ 

The distraught father had designed his boat to be able to carry supplies to fuel him – which included moulding food stores of beef jerky, raisins and vitamin drinks into the walls of his cabin. He was also set to bring just one change of clothes.

To maintain a fresh water supply he had installed a desalination unit.

Joking about what it would have been like at sea in such circumstances he said it was going to be like being ‘stuck in a wheelie bin, on a rollercoaster for 90 days’.

Mr Bedwell added: ‘My one luxury item is going to be a flannel, and that is going to do the job for everything.’

Doctors had warned Mr Bedwell ahead of his trip that he might have had to have learned to walk again when he arrived home due to the lack of movement and only being able to stand up in calm conditions.

He said previously: ‘When I get back, it is debatable how easily I will be able to walk. So I will have to be careful with my legs.’  

After calling the trip off, messages of support flooded his Facebook account.

One user said: ‘I’m so sorry. Big dreams mean big challenges. I wish you all the best.’

A second added: ‘Sad to hear what happened, but the most important, happy to hear you are okay!’

And a third commented: ‘If it were easy everyone would do it. Get some rest, maybe go away for a couple of days and regroup. You didn’t promise anything to anyone but yourself. Carry On.’

 HISTORY

Palatine: An Alternative History Of The Caesars

by Peter Stothard (W&N £22, 336pp)

The eighth emperor of Rome, Aulus Vitellius, is not what you’d call a household name, and probably not even in his own household.

In fact, it’s doubtful anyone outside a small circle of classicists has even heard of him. He was despised by almost all who knew him and turned the vice of gluttony into something approaching an art form.

But Peter Stothard, the former editor of The Times and a brilliant classicist, bookends his latest scintillating excursion into the ancient world with a chilling account of Aulus’s final hours.

Obese, unshaven and panting with fear, he is cowering inside the kennel rooms of the palace of the Palatinate. It is 69 AD and Aulus, the third in what is called The Year of the Four Emperors, knows his time is up and is planning to escape with a fortune in gold coins tied around his waist.

Outside is the seething, swirling mass of Roman soldiers loyal to his eventual successor Vespasian and victors in a brutal, bloody civil war. The bed and mattress he has placed over the door crashes aside and an officer grabs Aulus by the throat.

He is an ordinary man with standard vices of the time: as a youth he was close to the Emperor Tiberius and nicknamed ‘Tight-bum’ and has a love of gambling, as well as getting obliterated by food and drink. He has little to bequeath to posterity.

Captured, he is marched by soldiers through the streets of Rome to the Forum, still trying to bribe and bargain his way to safety. People prod his belly and pull his hair — this is no treatment for an emperor. 

But he is not killed immediately, dying slowly by blows and cuts, his body torn to fat, fleshy pieces. Eventually his severed head disappears into the crowd at the foot of the Capitol. Being a Roman emperor wasn’t a job with great life expectancy. You needed special talents just to survive.

Palatine tells the story of Rome between Augustus, the first Roman emperor who died in 14 AD, and the military hero Vespasian, whose rule from 69 to 79 AD brought a long period of political stability and financial expansion.

With vivid prose in short, dynamic chapters, Stothard also covers the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, Jewish unrest at the time of Christ and the invasion of Britain, but this extraordinarily well-researched, exciting book is more a tale of increasing wealth and prosperity rather than war, as well as corruption, greed, gluttony and desire.

Inhabiting these pages are the bureaucrats, courtiers, slaves, chefs, freed men and women, prostitutes and lovers who flock through the rooms and corridors of power in the Palatine palace, intriguing, betraying, flattering and deceiving.

Life at court might have had its dangers and uncertainties, but there were huge rewards and pleasures, too. Unlike the macho militarism of the standard Roman history, Stothard highlights the role of women: powerful, devious and unlikely to be killed in battle, of course. 

We meet a host of unforgettable characters, including Calvia Crispinilla, one of the closest courtiers to the famously debauched Nero. She was born in Africa, and became the ‘mistress of the Imperial wardrobe’.

Her enemies described her as ‘Nero’s tutor in vice’, which is saying something, so she probably had more strings to her bow than just a good fashion sense.

She was a skilled political operator, too. Sensing Nero’s days were numbered, she turned a legion against him in her native Africa and precipitated his downfall. Deftly, she moved away from political life and made a pile in the wine trade. 

Wealthy and with no heirs, she had huge influence and is worth a film in her own right in my view. And of course there’s Messalina, third wife of Claudius — powerful and influential, ruthless and sexually predatory, she was said to prefer the beds of aristocrats and actors to that of her disabled husband.

The actor Mnester had to be ordered into Messalina’s bed. She was known to compete with prostitutes for the greatest sexual staying power.

She wanted everything, including Rome’s finest garden, full of cherry trees, vines and luxuries, which she forced the owner to sell to her. 

It was here that she was murdered on Claudius’s orders after he was convinced she was plotting to seize the throne. As Claudius got drunk at dinner, his once beautiful wife was murdered by a freed slave, so he didn’t see her wheeled off in a cart like garden rubbish.

Antonia Caenis, a freedwoman and former secretary, was famed in her youth for her beauty and extraordinary powers of memory. She was the long-time mistress of Vespasian, who entrusted her with the task of selling off priesthoods, governorships and other offices.

She was an immensely powerful woman behind the scenes, the Marcia Falkender of her day, if you like.

This is also a spectacular book about food. Politics and food were indissoluble in ancient Rome. Feasts displayed power. Ambitious politicians saw the benefits of banquets for votes: elaborate meals prepared by top chefs, served by elegant waiters while girls played the harp, which sounds good fun.

It is before the narrative of this book, but we learn Julius Caesar laid on a feast for 100,000 to mark his first consulship, just before he was assassinated. He and his guests dined on lampreys, eel-like delicacies, and four different wines.

Stothard introduces us to Marcus Apicius, the man remembered for force-feeding geese to produce foie gras, adding the flavours while the birds were alive.

Apicius was the most notorious gourmet of the age, master of minced seafood, stuffed dormouse and sow’s belly, an influential figure ready to scour the Mediterranean for the largest prawns. 

He stood for luxury and complexity of food, which made poisoning easier, of course, disguised by the flavours of goose liver, camel heels and roasted ostrich, washed down with flasks of different wines. Delicious, but dangerous!

Meals were taken on couches around the emperor. Dishes began with bread and wine, something with eggs, then cucumber, asparagus, mullet, sweet carrots, stuffed marrow. Sometimes there were more elaborate luxuries, like Apicius’s honey-smeared nightingales, stuffed with prunes, garnished with rose petals, served in a sauce of herbs and grape juice.

And if you could survive that, and a perfidious lover perhaps, or a scheming relative, or whatever the Palatine could throw at you, you could be on your way.

Once again, Stothard has written a brilliant picture of the vibrant realities of life in the ancient world.

Marvellous stuff.