Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says
The panel finds that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out against Palestinians during the war.
The panel finds that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out against Palestinians during the war.
A new report accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, in "the strongest and most authoritative UN finding to date".
It will look at why the security service gave false evidence to three courts about conversations with BBC News.
Elizabeth and Henry are among those ditching technology in their bedrooms to see how they cope.
Mourners, including the King and other senior royals, will gather later at Westminster Cathedral.
Caulfield lost her seat at last year's general election, after nearly nine years as the MP for Lewes.
Earnings figures for the three months to July are used for the yearly increase.
Tyler Robinson is thought to have discussed the killing on the online platform before his arrest.
Official data shows the number of people who received winter fuel payments after now-reversed government cuts.
The 21-year-old was killed in 2012 and her body found in a septic tank in the garrison town of Nanyuki.
Months of preparations have gone into the state visit - but the Lord Mandelson question is not the only concern troubling insiders.
Lily McGarry thought she had "fresher's flu" but it was a condition that nearly claimed her life.
The BBC's political editor says people at the top of government acknowledge the last few weeks have been dreadful for them.
Palestinians tell the BBC whole residential blocks have been levelled as the Israeli army ramps up its offensive in the city.
The policy has been a success, but economists have raised questions around its fairness and its sustainability.
As a new exhibition opens about the Bank of England, the BBC takes a rare look inside the building.
Mark Ronson looks back on a troubled childhood, and how it informed his career as a DJ and producer.
Think you can work out where's hotter and colder than you today? Find out by playing our game
Three members of the self-proclaimed Kingdom of Kubala have been living near Jedburgh for several months.
The error - affecting England and Wales - raises concerns about the impact on the government's approach to drug deaths.
The firm will restart production on 24 September but industry sources warn the impact could last longer.
Karol G will also top the bill at the festival held in the Californian desert.
The proposed law would force public bodies to co-operate with investigations into major disasters.
He has accused the paper of defamation and libel, saying it served as a "mouthpiece" for Democrats.
Top stories, breaking news, live reporting, and follow news topics that match your interests
An aristocrat and her convict partner go on the run with their newborn, ending in tragedy.
Tory MP and shadow minister Danny Kruger defects to Reform.
As the Champions League returns on Tuesday, BBC Sport experts predict their winners, which English team will go furthest, a surprise package and most exciting player to watch.
Thomas Partey is "ready" to face Tottenham, a day before he is set to appear in court on rape and sexual assault charges, says Villarreal manager Marcelino.
Cramp cocktails and apps are just some of the ways women's' rugby teams have been trying to ensure their players are able to perform at the highest level throughout their menstrual cycle.
Newcastle United cancel more than 100 season tickets and apologise to supporters after seats sold to tour organisers a decade ago were "not detected until recently".
Lowles has spent his entire adult life organising against fascism, facing countless threats as a result. He discusses the street confrontations of the 80s, foiling a murder plot, Nazi satanists – and the urgent need for optimism and actionIn 1979, a 10-year-old Nick Lowles saw a hard-right party political broadcast. Born in Hounslow in London, he had moved to Shrewsbury when he was seven: “A very white town. There was a British Movement march soon after we moved up there.” Theirs was a “small-P political household”. His dad was a social worker, his mum worked for various charities. “She was from Mauritius, and now on the telly, the National Front were saying they were going to send people who weren’t born in Britain home in six months. I was petrified that my mum was going to get sent home.” The ambient racism of 70s and 80s Britain permeated everything. “I just remember being scared,” Lowles says. “We used to go on holiday and I tan really easily. I was frightened of coming back to school too brown.”You can’t meet terrifying politics except with politics of your own, he realised in his teens. How to Defeat the Far Right is Lowles’s memoir-cum-manual, telling the story of how Hope Not Hate, the anti-fascist campaign group, came into existence in 2004. There is no other organisation like it, in its range of actions and independence of spirit. It does a lot of data (polling and analysis) but also a lot of community organising; it infiltrates fascist spaces, online and off, to subvert their plans, and it organises counterprotests. It is connected to institutional politics, though its influence waxes and wanes – Lowles is a good friend of Gordon Brown’s, but doesn’t feel especially heeded by the current government. Continue reading...
People in the Shropshire town have been left cut off and frustrated by the collapse of public transportUK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation – studyThe city of Birmingham lies just over 40 miles north-east of Ludlow, but to the 10,000 residents of the quiet Shropshire town, it may as well be on the moon.“You can’t get a bus to Birmingham today, it’s impossible. It is really just up the road, our big regional centre but there are no buses. How ridiculous is that?” said Philip Adams. Continue reading...
It was the place to be through the 1980s, a nightclub where Johnny Rotten and Kim Wilde rubbed shoulders with the Beastie Boys and, er, Mel Smith. David Koppel’s new book captures it all Continue reading...
Knowsley is a Labour stronghold. But judging by the polls and the people I spoke to, the messages of the right are truly cutting throughAt the weekend, I took the well-worn journey from London to Knowsley in Merseyside. I’ve made this trip so many times that I can execute it with military precision, arriving just in time before the train doors close, even with a toddler in tow this time around. My uncle picked us up from the station and as we turned on to the motorway, I saw St George’s flags hanging over us from the sides of bridges. Union jacks circled the roundabout just before we turned off to go to my auntie’s house. Knowsley is Labour’s fourth-safest seat in the UK, but it felt like a newly minted Reform constituency.It was a Friday evening, so we opened a bottle of wine and put pizzas in the oven. I was updated on various family milestones – a house sale had gone through, a baby bump was starting to show, the poor dog was on its last legs. My daughter entertained everyone with an energetic rendition of Sleeping Bunnies. Behind her, the BBC News at Six played images of migrants huddled on inflatable boats sailing across the Channel.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Tel Aviv is known as Israel’s liberal capital; home to nearly half a million residents it’s also a holiday destination, with beaches, bars and nightclubs. But almost exactly 60km south is Gaza. Reporter Matthew Cassel speaks to Israelis in the city, to see what they think of the war, famine and genocide happening next door, and the growing international condemnation against it Continue reading...
The cuddly chatbot Grem is designed to ‘learn’ your child’s personality, while every conversation they have is recorded, then transcribed by a third party. It wasn’t long before I wanted this experiment to be over ...‘I’m going to throw that thing into a river!” my wife says as she comes down the stairs looking frazzled after putting our four-year-old daughter to bed.To be clear, “that thing” is not our daughter, Emma*. It’s Grem, an AI-powered stuffed alien toy that the musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, helped develop with toy company Curio. Designed for kids aged three and over and built with OpenAI’s technology, the toy is supposed to “learn” your child’s personality and have fun, educational conversations with them. It’s advertised as a healthier alternative to screen time and is part of a growing market of AI-powered toys. Continue reading...
Overnight advance aimed at ‘dismantling Hamas’s grip’ as Israel accused of genocide in UN human rights reportMiddle East crisis – live updatesIsrael has launched its long-threatened ground offensive into the densely packed streets of Gaza City, military officials have confirmed.One Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official said that troops had begun what he called the “main phase” of the offensive, with an overnight advance from the outskirts towards the city centre. Continue reading...
Former Tory cabinet minister David Davis leads debate, saying ‘abiding flaws’ should have disqualified him from ambassador’s jobVikram Dodd is the Guardian’s crime correspondent.Police expect to arrest 50 more people following Saturday’s large far-right-led march through London, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police said this morning.If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot. The same people who thought that Brexit would not happen think that Reform will not happen. They are in for a shock. Continue reading...
High court judge issues arrest warrant, saying a suspect has been charged in relation to 2012 death of 21-year-oldA warrant has been issued for the arrest of a British national on suspicion of the murder of the Kenyan woman Agnes Wanjiru, who was found dead in the grounds of a hotel near an army base in 2012.The high court judge Alexander Muteti issued the arrest warrant earlier on Tuesday in Kenya, with the prosecution telling the court a suspect had been charged with murder, and seeking the application for a warrant of arrest to facilitate his extradition to Kenya. Continue reading...
Analysis reveals ‘privatisation premium’ of £250 per household per year paid to owners of water, rail, bus, energy and mail services since 2010‘Birmingham is up the road but there are no buses’The public has paid almost £200bn to the shareholders who own key British industries since they were privatised, research reveals.The transfer of tens of billions of pounds to the owners of the privatised water, rail, bus, energy and mail services comes as families face soaring bills, polluted rivers and seas, and expensive and unreliable trains and buses. Continue reading...
US president announces defamation action, accusing title of being ‘virtual mouthpiece’ for DemocratsDonald Trump has filed a $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in his latest use of legal action targeting a major media outlet.The US president accused it of being a “mouthpiece” for the Democratic party and of “spreading false and defamatory content” about him. Continue reading...
US vice-president encourages ‘calling out’ anyone who celebrates Kirk’s murder, including notifying employersA mass “doxing” effort to track down, intimidate and harass people perceived not to have sufficiently mourned the killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk was endorsed on Monday night by JD Vance.The US vice-president guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast on Monday and said that people who “see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder” should “call them out”. He added: “Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.” Continue reading...
Investigation uncovers documents and satellite imagery that confirm children being taken to sites for patriotic indoctrination, weapons training and combat drillsRussia is running an extensive network of more than 200 camps to re-educate, Russify and militarise Ukrainian children, a new investigation has found.The facilities, across Russia and occupied Ukraine, include camps as well as schools, military bases, medical facilities, religious sites and universities. Continue reading...
Deputy PM says legislation will ensure public officials have duty to act with ‘honesty and integrity at all times’The guilty escape justice. Well, not any more | David LammyPublic servants who deliberately cover up state-related disasters will face up to two years in jail under a new Hillsborough law, David Lammy has promised, following concerns from campaigners that it could be watered down.Writing in the Guardian, the deputy prime minister and lord chancellor said legislation would ensure that state actors from “the bobby on the beat to the highest office in the land” will face “serious punishments for serious wrongdoing”. Continue reading...
Spain is the first of the ‘Big Five’ countries to threaten withdrawal from the competition following vote at state broadcaster RTVEEU commissioners will on Wednesday agree to impose new sanctions against Israel over its war in Gaza, a spokesperson for the commission said on Tuesday.“Tomorrow, commissioners will be adopting a package of measures on Israel,” spokesperson Paula Pinho said, as reported by Reuters.“Specifically, a proposal to suspend certain trade provisions in the agreements between the EU and Israel.” Continue reading...
Visit comes at sensitive time for UK government, which is laying on display of royal and military pageantryDonald Trump arrives in the UK on Tuesday for a historic second state visit. His trip comes at a tricky time for Keir Starmer, who is facing growing discontent from his own MPs and is in the middle of preparations for what could be a make-or-break party conference speech.The government is hoping to wow the US president with a show of royal and military pageantry, while keeping him away from sensitive places such as central London – and sensitive topics such as immigration and free speech. Continue reading...
Educators working in extremely challenging conditions in Lebanon, Niger, Ukraine and Afghanistan explain what drives them onMohamad El Dirany, 24 Continue reading...
New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul has finally lent the city’s mayoral nominee her support – but the party’s top congressional leaders, both New Yorkers, have notHe’s the hottest politician in the US, who managed to attract thousands of young and first-time voters to the Democratic party in his unexpected win in the New York City mayoral primary.With the Democrats suffering from historically low approval ratings, one might have thought the party would rally round Zohran Mamdani, to learn lessons from the media-savvy 33-year-old and bask in his soaring popularity. Continue reading...
Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on storytelling, their strangest interactions with fans and bonding over The Lord of the RingsHow does one measure success? For Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, the historians behind the hit podcast The Rest Is History, it could be the number of unexpected and overly familiar conversations with strangers. On a holiday high up in the mountains of Bulgaria, Holland was wandering around a secluded monastery when someone called out, “Love the podcast!”Sandbrook, meanwhile, is used to getting weird looks from fans who find it hard to compute that the man in front of them is one half of the soundtrack to their dog walks and commutes. “The weirdest thing that people say – which I’ve heard more than once – is, ‘My wife and I listen to you in bed every night,’” he says, looking mildly appalled. Continue reading...
She is Norwegian royalty. He is Gwyneth Paltrow’s healer. Now, the tale of their shocking marriage is shared in this shallow, gushing documentary. Still, at least they have Prince Harry’s blessingIn 2019 – two years after her divorce from her former husband Ari Behn – Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise went public with her new partner. To say that Durek Verrett wasn’t what the Norwegian public had in mind would be an understatement: as well as being a Black American man based in Los Angeles, Verrett was also a celebrity shaman who had worked with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow. The trailer for Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story plays up his wild side and the sense that Märtha Louise was dramatically departing from tradition by dating – and later marrying – him. But, really, this Netflix documentary shows that they have a tremendous amount in common. Märtha Louise may be a princess but she is, to use a trendy word, incredibly “crunchy” – a woman who was communicating with angels and teaching energy healing way back in 2007. The pair are convinced that they met in a past life. And by the time we see them flogging their wedding pictures to a glossy magazine, it’s clear that their connection transcends the spiritual realm and extends to the financial one, too.Rebel Royals is presented entirely via talking heads – most notably, Märtha Louise and Verrett – giving it little narrative cohesion. Interesting titbits are teased throughout, such as Verrett describing himself as “soul-sexual”, and saying he had previously thought he would end up with a male partner. There is a section on the vile racism he faced in Norway – much of it from online trolls, but not helped by initial silence from his new in-laws. (As Verrett notes, when his father-in-law, King Harald, did speak out, he was praised by Prince Harry, who was himself embroiled in a race-related row with his family.) Continue reading...
At 88, she has won a Munch award for artistic freedom – despite her pioneering work being cancelled by the US university she studied at. She talks protest, polarisation and propagandaIt’s a miracle I get out of my interview with Palestinian artist Samia Halaby alive. Not just because the creaky wooden stairs to her second-floor Tribeca, New York live-work space are alarmingly steep, but because certain people view the 88-year-old acclaimed abstract artist, a pioneer of digital art, as a dangerous security threat.In December 2023, Indiana University, Halaby’s alma mater, cancelled what was due to be the first American retrospective exhibition of Halaby’s work at the university’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. The exhibition had been three years in the making but Halaby was informed she was no longer welcome in a terse two-sentence letter from the museum’s director, citing vague security concerns. The real reason, she suspects, was the museum’s wish to distance itself from anything supportive of Palestine in the wake of 7 October. Almost a year later, says Halaby, Michigan State University abruptly cancelled the opening party for her solo retrospective and removed a painting whose title, Six Golden Heroes, referred to the escape of Palestinian political prisoners. Continue reading...
Our cartoonist tells the ancient Greek tale of one godlike figure’s pursuit of glory at the City GroundBuy one of David’s cartoons in our Print ShopDavid’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now Continue reading...
A century from now, a literature scholar pieces together a picture of our times in a novel that quietly compels us to consider the moral consequences of global catastropheThe sheer Englishness of Ian McEwan’s fiction may not be fully visible to his English readers. But it is clearly, and amusingly, visible to at least this Irish reader. It isn’t just McEwan’s elegiac, indeed patriotic, attentiveness to English landscapes – to the wildflowers and hedgerows and crags, to the “infinite shingle” of Chesil Beach, to the Chilterns turkey oak in the first paragraph of Enduring Love. Nor is it merely the ferocious home counties middle-classness of his later novels, in which every significant character is at the very least a neurosurgeon or a high court judge, everyone is conversant with Proust, Bach and Wordsworth, and members of the lower orders tend to appear as worrying upstarts from a world in which nobody plonks out the Goldberg Variations on the family baby grand. No, McEwan’s Englishness has most to do with his scrupulously rational, but occasionally and endearingly purblind, liberal morality: England’s most admirable, and most irritating, gift to politics and art.These thoughts were provoked by a brief passage in McEwan’s future-set new novel that describes the “Inundation” of Britain after a Russian warhead goes off accidentally in the middle of the Atlantic, causing a tsunami that, combined with rising sea levels, wipes out everything but a Europe-wide archipelago of mountain peaks. In these entertainingly nihilistic pages, the fate of that other major chunk of the British Isles is not mentioned. Presumably Ireland, with its dearth of high peaks, fared badly as Europe drowned. But from McEwan’s future history, you’d never know it. I began to think of What We Can Know as another of McEwan’s deeply English stories. It has, I thought, the familiar partialities of vision. Has Brexit, endlessly backstopped by those pesky six counties, taught English liberals nothing? Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people about their culinary disasters and what they think went wrongFrom an overambitious birthday cake to an adventurous would-be feast that ended up in the dustbin, we would like to hear about the worst meal you’ve ever cooked.We will feature a selection in an article of humorous (and non-lethal) anecdotes of culinary disaster for G2. Continue reading...
In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. Now he might hold the key to who wins the global AI raceBy the time Song-Chun Zhu was six years old, he had encountered death more times than he could count. Or so it felt. This was the early 1970s, the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, and his father ran a village supply store in rural China. There was little to do beyond till the fields and study Mao Zedong at home, and so the shop became a refuge where people could rest, recharge and share tales. Zhu grew up in that shop, absorbing a lifetime’s worth of tragedies: a family friend lost in a car crash, a relative from an untreated illness, stories of suicide or starvation. “That was really tough,” Zhu recalled recently. “People were so poor.”The young Zhu became obsessed with what people left behind after they died. One day, he came across a book that contained his family genealogy. When he asked the bookkeeper why it included his ancestors’ dates of birth and death but nothing about their lives, the man told him matter of factly that they were peasants, so there was nothing worth recording. The answer terrified Zhu. He resolved that his fate would be different. Continue reading...
The NHS needs cheap drugs, and our economy needs a thriving pharma industry. The president threatens both – no wonder Labour is grovelling to himGoverning in the era of Donald Trump has been Labour’s miserable misfortune. As our prime minister and king grovel to the global bully with royal folderol this week, we will probably feel the full humiliation of the would-be American king.The recent blow to British life sciences is a brutal example of our serfdom. Trump’s threat to put a 250% tariff on medicines made abroad by pharmaceutical companies, unless they move their factories, research and legions of jobs to the US, is driving out the UK pharma industry. What’s to stop him? AstraZeneca has ditched a £450m vaccine plant in Liverpool. In a shock announcement last week, the US drugmaker Merck axed a half-built, £1bn London research facility next to the Crick Institute it was destined to work with. Eli Lilly is pausing investment in the UK while Novartis is understood to be “keeping its investments under review”.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
I never thought I’d see fear spread so far and fast. Next year’s midterm elections are now crucial for the Democratic party – and for democrats everywhereI return to Europe from the US with a clear conclusion: American democrats (lowercase d) have 400 days to start saving US democracy. If next autumn’s midterm elections produce a Congress that begins to constrain Donald Trump there will then be a further 700 days to prepare the peaceful transfer of executive power that alone will secure the future of this republic. Operation Save US Democracy, stages 1 and 2.Hysterical hyperbole? I would love to think so. But during seven weeks in the US this summer, I was shaken every day by the speed and executive brutality of President Trump’s assault on what had seemed settled norms of US democracy and by the desperate weakness of resistance to that assault. There’s a growing body of international evidence to suggest that once a liberal democracy has been eroded, it’s very difficult to restore it. Destruction is so much easier than construction.Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The next pandemic or geopolitical shock could be close at hand. To look after our people, we’re looking after our supply chains, agriculture and fuel reservesMiika Ilomäki is chief preparedness specialist for Finland’s National Emergency Supply AgencyIn times of crisis, food is more than sustenance. It is a pillar of national stability. Finland has long understood this, not just because of policy, but because of who we are and where we live. Geography, a mild continental climate and our history have shaped a mindset where preparedness is essential. In a country with vast territory, a sparse population and long distances between communities, resilience must be built into everything we do.This understanding is deeply rooted in our society, in individual households as much as government institutions. Today, Finland’s approach to preparedness is rightly seen as a model for Europe. But it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. What works for Finland, such as our high levels of food self-sufficiency, strong institutions and a culture of cooperation, may not work elsewhere. Still, our experience offers valuable lessons. Preparedness must be proactive, inclusive and deeply integrated into national strategy.Miika Ilomäki is chief preparedness specialist for Finland’s National Emergency Supply Agency Continue reading...
The ‘knowledge economy’ promised cultural and social growth. Instead, we got worsening inequality and division. Artificial intelligence will supercharge itRecently, Palantir – a tech corporation that boasts no fewer than five billionaire executives – announced its Q2 earnings: over a billion dollars generated in a single quarter. Forty-eight per cent growth in its business compared with the same quarter last year, including 93% growth in its US commercial business. These elephantine numbers are maddening – and, in large part, a result of the company fully embracing AI.The AI revolution is here and, as its proponents remind us daily, it will remake our world, making every company and government agency more efficient and less error-prone while helping us unlock hitherto unheard of advances in science and technology. Not only this, but if we play our cards right, big tech’s latest explosion could yield unprecedented economic growth.Dustin Guastella is director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, and a research associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics Continue reading...
The claim is central to rationales for arming Israel even as leading human rights groups decry genocide in GazaMore than nine months after Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports that concluded Israel was committing genocide – and more than a month since key Israeli human rights groups asserted the same – the American political establishment remains in rigid denial while horrors continue nonstop in Gaza. Virtually all Republicans and most Democrats in Congress still support massive US arms shipments to Israel, so they certainly can’t admit that the weaponry is making genocide possible.Central to rationales for arming Israel is the claim that it is the nation of “the Jewish people”.Norman Solomon is the director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book is War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine. Continue reading...
According to a new survey, many people experience ‘tech regret’ – especially when it comes to surveillance devices they have boughtThe most regretted house tech, according to a recent survey, is smart lighting and video doorbells, with speakers in third place. It’s pretty obvious why: smart lighting addressed itself to the unbearable onerousness of getting off your arse and turning on a light, a problem nobody ever had, or if they did, they probably had 99 more pressing concerns. The appeal of the video doorbell was that something interesting may happen; maybe it would catch someone doing a crime, or a heartwarming moment when your kid ran back for one last hug on their first day of school, and you could put that on TikTok and be famous for five seconds, or – ideal world – it would catch one of your friends bitching about you. It is amazing, in this world of hypersurveillance and connectedness, how rarely any of those things, or indeed, anything interesting or unpredictable at all, ever happens. It’s almost as if constantly watching one another doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know.In fact, someone in the fitness industry once told me – he intoned this very conspiratorially, as if he was telling me a business secret that would make me millions – that tech-regret is at its fiercest in the wearables market. The great untold secret of the smartwatch is that, when they break, nobody ever replaces them. There’s a moment of raw panic. If nobody is counting your steps, did they even happen? How will you get through the day, if you don’t know how many quality-adjusted sleep minutes you got? Whither your resting heart rate? But then a day passes, and you realise that your watch was actually bullying you: pass-agg and patronising one minute (“Well done! Your move ring is way ahead of where it would normally be!”), hectoring the next (“only 375 more calories and you’ll have met your frankly pathetic target of 400 burned. Come on, it’s only 10 to midnight, you’ve got this!”). If there was a person in your life treating you like this, you’d bin them off.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Brexit removed many checks and balances from the UK government. That’s why leaving the European convention on human rights would be a huge risk‘Humbug”, and “a half-baked scheme to be administered by an unknown court”. Nigel Farage or Robert Jenrick attacking the European convention on human rights (ECHR)? No – Herbert Morrison, leader of the Commons, and William Jowitt, lord chancellor in Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government, respectively, both arguing that Britain should not accede to the convention.Labour was suspicious, fearing that it would prevent nationalisation. It did not. Today, Conservatives and Reform UK fear that it will frustrate immigration control. It need not.Vernon Bogdanor is a professor of government at King’s College London. His books include The New British Constitution and Beyond Brexit: Towards a British Constitution Continue reading...
As protesters go on trial, it is clearer than ever that ministers chose the wrong target and the wrong processThe court appearance on Tuesday of three protesters charged with terrorism offences because they held up signs declaring their support for Palestine Action should shame the government. The decision to proscribe the group, taken in June, was an alarmingly illiberal overreaction to the damage some of the group’s supporters are alleged to have caused to military equipment. Now ministers and the public are seeing the consequences, as non-violent protesters against the ban are brought before judges.A long and proud tradition of civil disobedience includes campaigners for women’s suffrage, and against nuclear weapons and the burning of fossil fuels. Yet with its rash decision to lump the kind of direct action practised by Palestine Action in with terrorism, ministers have turned their back on this. More than 1,600 people have been arrested since the ban, many of them middle-aged and older. More protests are planned.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
The industry’s retreat from the UK reflects a deeper shift about how Beijing is rewriting the rules of innovationWhen Merck abruptly scrapped its billion-pound London research hub last week, critics blamed Britain’s lacklustre support for life sciences and a Scrooge-like grip on NHS drug prices. But one important factor may have been missed. That Merck, which is also cutting jobs elsewhere – 6,000 globally – is recalibrating not just in response to the UK or the US, but to China.Merck’s cash cow is pembrolizumab (brand name Keytruda), an immunotherapy drug launched in 2014 that has successfully treated advanced melanoma, head and neck, lung, cervical and other cancers. It blocks an antibody called PD-1, teaching the immune system to fight the cancer. Because some patients are out of other options, the results sometimes seem miraculous.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Readers disagree with an article by Polly Hudson on giving up your place to people on public transportThe suggestion that young, fit people do not offer their seats on public transport to vulnerable people for fear of offending them is nonsense (Is anything more awkward – and potentially insulting – than giving up your seat on public transport?, 7 September). I was brought up to offer my seat to any woman (of whatever disposition) or elderly person as a matter of principle. In 60 years of doing so, I have never had other than a polite demurral – more usually acceptance.Now that the boot is on the other foot (for which I need a walking stick to maintain my balance), I find that about 30% of young people will instinctively offer me succour, which I gratefully and gracefully accept. The rest don’t seem to care. Continue reading...
A reader responds to an article by Susanna Rustin on the continuing boycotts and exclusions in the arts of gender-critical voicesThank you for publishing a measured and mature piece about the rights of people with gender-critical views to be heard (A gender-critical book at Scotland’s National Library is the latest in a long line of cancellations, 12 September). We are not horrible bigots who do not accept trans people and think they should face discrimination. But that is usually the narrative.We are mainly women who have real and well-researched concerns about, for example, the effects of medical treatment that was being given to young people – who do not have the maturity to appreciate the life-changing outcomes of puberty blockers and irreversible surgery. Continue reading...
Slow down and enjoy the slow burn in this overstimulating world, says Grace GoodaRemona Aly’s love letter to the 1995 Pride and Prejudice series was a reminder to me, a fellow fan of the show and all things classic, to slow down and enjoy the slow burn (‘Looks so sizzling they could fry an egg!’ How the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice adaptation changed my life, 9 September). Regrettably, a recently attempted rewatch found me craving a little more instant drama and maybe a little more instant kissing.I sacrilegiously switched to Bridgerton halfway through, a sin that has haunted me since. Aly’s piece highlights why. Continue reading...
Last Night of the Proms | Far-right fears | Deodorant harm | Saving money | Nuclear dealIn previous years, there has been animated discussion about the suitability of some of the traditional musical items in the Last Night of the Proms. But I could not help noticing the preponderance of one flag being displayed by this year’s audience – that of the European Union. Quite a difference from the ugly events on the streets of London a few hours earlier.Dr George Mowat-BrownHaytor Vale, Devon• It is an indication of Nigel Farage’s “patriotic” England, where “free speech” is paramount, that some of your correspondents critical of the far-right’s flag-waving behaviour are fearful of having their names published (Letters, 14 September). Dougie MitchellDoune, Perthshire Continue reading...
Discover and buy more of Ben’s cartoons hereOrder your own print of this cartoon from the Guardian Print Shop Continue reading...
Updates and news on the fourth day of action from TokyoDuplantis hits new heights with 14th WR | Email DanielWe’re almost ready to start with heat one of seven in the men’s 800m. The first three in each heat go through to the semis, along with the three fastest losers. Djamel Sedjati of Algeria, the Olympic silver medallist, is the class of this field.Hudson-Smith, we learn, tightened up on the bus to the stadium, hence his relatively poor run in the heat. Presumably he’ll have taken steps to recuperate and avoid the same problem; hopefully for him, two days was enough to get things sorted. Continue reading...
Athletic Club’s goalkeeper on hosting Arsenal in the Champions League and the magic of San Mamés“Sometimes you need some luck; that was mine,” Unai Simón says. “What I thought might happen in five, six, seven years happened in 19 days.”It was August 2018, Simón was 21 and although he had been training at Athletic Club for a decade, and with the first team for three years, the son of police officers from Vitoria didn’t think there was a chance of playing in Bilbao any time soon, if at all. It was all he wanted but he didn’t even live there any more, moving 800km in search of an opportunity with second division Elche. Which is when weird things started to happen. Continue reading...
‘If I can be trusted in the midfield then I’ll go for it’Freeman enjoyed a stunning 2024-25 campaignEngland’s reigning player of the year Tommy Freeman has revealed he sees his future at outside-centre and intends to continue his transformation into midfield in the coming season.A winger by trade, Freeman enjoyed a stunning 2024-25 campaign, racking up 23 tries for Northampton, England and the British & Irish Lions. Freeman scored a memorable hat-trick in the Champions Cup semi-final win over Leinster, having become the first England men’s player to score in every round of the Six Nations. Continue reading...
New stadium hopefully on way but Irish game needs boost after postponed T20 league and run of cancelled seriesFor England this is the end of another unrelenting summer. Three Twenty20 internationals over the coming days will make it eight white-ball matches inside three weeks, excluding a rain-abandoned game against South Africa. Jacob Bethell is captain because Harry Brook merits a lie down in a dark room. For Ireland, their opponents in Malahide, north Dublin, it is a radically different story.“It feels like the start of our winter programme,” says Paul Stirling, the Ireland white-ball captain. “We haven’t played a home international series since the West Indies in June. It feels like we’ve closed the summer.” Those three T20s in Bready three months ago included two washouts, adding to an already shrinking itinerary. Continue reading...
After becoming first club from the country to win a regional trophy, team set their sights on the CAF Champions LeagueFirst there was Letsile Tebogo, who put Botswana on the sporting map when he won gold in the 200m at the Paris Olympics. Now, there is Gaborone United Ladies, who became the country’s first football team to win a regional trophy and will make history when they appear at the CAF Champions League this year.United claimed the Cosafa Women’s Champions League Cup – a tournament played among southern African clubs – when they defeated the Zambian side Zesco Ndola Girls 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in August and their victory means they will represent the region at the eight-team CAF Champions League tournament this year. Continue reading...
Updates from the latest County Championship matchesT20 Blast review | And get in touch on email or post BTLKent are playing FIVE teenagers against Leicestershire: Jaydn Denly (19), Ben Dawkins (18), Ekash Singh (19), Corey Flintoff (19) and Olly Curtiss (19).Rishi Patel is still enjoying himself, 38 not out at just over a run a ball, but Budinger gave a first catch to Flintoff for 16. Leicestershire 66-1. Continue reading...
South Africa and New Zealand’s selfish decision to go it alone will lead to competition hiatus and looks foolishEnjoy it while it lasts. The current edition of the Rugby Championship has been captivating, the most open in living memory and with two rounds remaining all four nations are firmly in contention for the title. Last weekend witnessed another thriller between Australia and Argentina – the Pumas edging home 28-26 – while the Springboks produced their most dominant display since the 2023 World Cup with a record victory against the All Blacks.There had been suggestions that South Africa were beginning to decline after a plateau since their triumph in Paris but Saturday’s performance was some riposte. Australia were agonisingly close to another successful comeback at the soldout Allianz Stadium, meanwhile, and there remains a good deal of optimism around the Wallabies. Not least because they sit top of the table and believe they can get their hands back on the Bledisloe Cup in the coming weeks after New Zealand won it back in 2003 and never let it go. Continue reading...
He says his generation ‘just more talented’ than today’sLegendary sprinter no longer runs and is ‘into Lego now’Usain Bolt made his comeback to the world of track and field on Sunday night and, for a moment, it was like the good old days. There was his trademark To Da World pose before the 100m finals. The cheers and adulation of 60,000 fans in Tokyo’s National Stadium. A reminder of glories past.The 39-year-old Jamaican had not watched athletics at all since retiring in 2017 until seeing Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Oblique Seville win gold. And, as he also admitted, he now spends his time streaming movies and building Lego – and even gets out of breath when he walks up stairs. Continue reading...
Cincinnati have dazzled with their weapons but failed at the one job that matters most: protecting their franchise quarterback It sounds obvious, you don’t build an actual NFL roster like it’s a fantasy football team. It’s not enough to pack your squad with flashy weapons and hope you dazzle your way to the Super Bowl. You have to focus on more and different dimensions – roster depth, how players fit into coaching schemes, how they work together, and how even the “unsexy” positions are addressed at a high level.And yet that is generally not how the Cincinnati Bengals have built their teams over the years. And once again, they’re paying for it in the worst possible way – with an injury to their star quarterback, Joe Burrow, that will severely affect their season. In the Bengals’ 31-27 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, Burrow suffered a turf toe injury as he was being sacked by defensive lineman Arik Armstead; it’s estimated that Burrow will be out at least three months. It’s the third time in six seasons that Burrow’s underwhelming offensive line – the line that is supposed to protect him from this sort of stuff – has helped shorten his season. Continue reading...
Labour MPs talk openly about replacing PM, as third senior ally in two weeks departs after publication of messagesThe crisis engulfing Keir Starmer has deepened on the eve of Donald Trump’s visit to the UK after the resignation of a third senior ally in two weeks raised further questions about the stability of his government.Paul Ovenden quit as the prime minister’s director of political strategy after the publication of old messages in which Ovenden relayed lewd jokes made at a party about the Labour MP Diane Abbott. Continue reading...
Firms are reluctant to hire and unemployment is rising, as inflation dulls the impact of higher wagesUK labour market cools as pay growth slows and job losses riseBusiness live – latest updatesTuesday’s latest snapshot of the UK jobs market shows what is becoming a familiar pattern: a gradual slowdown in hiring, rising unemployment, yet with wage growth still uncomfortably high for policymakers.Whether because of Rachel Reeves’s £25bn national insurance increase, uncertainty over her upcoming budget, AI-related disruption or Donald Trump’s tariffs – or perhaps all four – companies seem to be cautious about taking on staff. Continue reading...
Company expects consultation process to result in about 600 roles being cut out of 23,000 UK staffBusiness live – latest updatesSky has put 900 roles at risk as the broadcaster continues to reshape its business in the streaming era.The company, which employs about 23,000 staff in the UK, expects the consultation process to result in about 600 roles being cut, with 300 redeployed. Continue reading...
Bill includes suite of reforms to improve criminal justice system for survivors of rape and sexual violenceThe unique Scottish verdict of not proven, long considered a global legal anomaly, could be scrapped this week as the Holyrood parliament votes on the country’s most radical shake-up of criminal justice in decades.Scotland is the only country in the world to offer juries the not proven verdict alongside guilty and not guilty, a poorly defined historical oddity that dates back to the 18th century. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Campaigners attack ‘outrageous’ situation, saying waters in protected areas of England and Wales should be cleanestSewage is pouring into the rivers inside national parks at twice the rate that is occurring outside the protected areas, it can be revealed.Campaigners described the situation as “outrageous” and said rivers and lakes in national parks in England and Wales should be the cleanest and most protected in the country. Continue reading...
Nigel Topping says shifting course risks deterring capital, as he urges ministers to hold firm on green transitionWeakening or changing net zero policy would deter investors and spook financial markets, the UK government’s new climate adviser has warned.Nigel Topping, recently appointed chair of the climate change committee (CCC), said there was “robust evidence” the UK would benefit economically from strong climate policy, despite calls from some politicians to back down. Continue reading...
Loss of spawning pools, insects and marshy habitats has had ‘catastrophic effect on our flora and fauna’Hedgehogs, salmon and birds have been put at risk by this summer’s dry conditions, Natural England has said, as drought conditions continue.The government nature watchdog addressed the National Drought Group of government officials and stakeholders in its meeting on Monday to warn of the dire effect on wildlife the dry summer weather has had. Continue reading...
Campaigners crowdfund £26,000 to seek judicial review of move to construct pitches in wildlife-rich areaCampaigners are mounting another legal challenge to the building of a women’s football academy by Tottenham Hotspur on wildlife-rich parkland in north London.The Guardians of Whitewebbs group has successfully crowdfunded £26,000 to seek a judicial review of Enfield council’s granting of planning permission for the Spurs academy, which will include all-weather pitches, floodlights and a turf academy built on 53 hectares (130 acres) of Whitewebbs Park. Enfield council’s planning committee approved the proposals in February, despite local protests, on greenbelt parkland rich in bats, newts and mature trees. Continue reading...
Experts hope that a ‘California effect’ will push other states to ban UPFs, similar to its law against six synthetic food dyesCalifornia has long led the way on school meals. In 2022, it became the first state in the country to make school meals free for all students, regardless of income. Many districts have implemented farm-to-school programs to bring local foods into the cafeteria. And last year, months before the “Make America healthy again” movement would make its way to the White House, it became the first state in the nation to ban six synthetic food dyes from school meals.This week, it passed legislation that will put it in the lead on school meals in yet another way – banning ultra-processed foods. On Friday, California lawmakers passed a bill that will define, and then ban, ultra-processed foods from school meals. The legislation, which must now be signed by the governor, Gavin Newsom, is believed to include the first statutory definition of ultra-processed foods in the world. Continue reading...
Thinktank says an ‘SUV loophole’ means UK buyers pay up to 20 times less tax on biggest models than in neighbouring nationsTaxing Britain’s SUVs in line with other European countries could raise almost £2bn a year for the public finances, research has shown.The Transport & Environment thinktank has urged the government to use the autumn budget to bring in a levy on the largest vehicles, which it said would reflect the damage they caused to the environment and infrastructure. Continue reading...
Group of people who crossed Channel by boat understood not to have been on Air France plane after legal challengeThe first flight to France carrying people who crossed the Channel under Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal has not taken place as planned, according to reports.A small group of individuals were removed from an Air France flight on Monday due to travel from Heathrow to Paris after a legal challenge, according to multiple newspaper reports. Continue reading...
Rachel Reeves says move is a ‘vote of confidence’ in British economy as she prepares to open firm’s first UK datacentreBusiness live – latest updatesGoogle has said it will invest £5bn in the UK in the next two years to help meet growing demand for artificial intelligence services, in a boost for the government.The investment, which comes as Google opens its new datacentre in Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, is expected to contribute to the creation of thousands of jobs, the US tech company said. Continue reading...
Medical tribunal rules ‘very low risk’ of Suhail Anjum, who had been dismissed by hospital in Greater Manchester, repeating behaviourA doctor who left a patient midway through an operation to have sex with a nurse is at “very low risk” of repeating his serious misconduct, a medical tribunal has ruled.Dr Suhail Anjum, 44, and the unnamed nurse were caught in a “compromising position” by a colleague who walked in on the pair at Tameside hospital. The consultant anaesthetist had asked another nursing colleague to monitor the male patient, who was under general anaesthetic, so he could go to the bathroom. Continue reading...
With the US no longer accepting refugees, Dzaleka’s residents have no prospect of relocation. Three women tell us what life is like in a camp designed for 10,000 people but which now holds more than 58,000• Photographs by Amos Gumulira for the GuardianTears stream down Francine’s* face as she pulls her glove off. Her right hand is covered by a pale, mottled burn scar. Her fingers are stiff and unnaturally bent. Francine turned to sex work to survive soon after she arrived alone at Malawi’s Dzaleka refugee camp in 2015, having travelled there from Burundi.On Christmas Eve in 2022, a client refused to pay. When she blocked the doorway, he grabbed a boiling-hot saucepan of beans and threw it at her, scalding her hand and chest. Continue reading...
Alexandre Padilha’s father fled dictatorship for the US – now the health chief’s family is a target of Trump’s bully tacticsWhen Alexandre Padilha’s father most needed help, the United States took him in.It was 1971, the height of Brazil’s brutal two-decade dictatorship, and Anivaldo Padilha, a young Methodist activist, had been forced to flee his homeland after spending 11 months in one of São Paulo’s most notorious torture centres. Continue reading...
President says three people killed in strike against vessel he said was transporting drugs ‘headed to the US’Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States had carried out a strike on a second Venezuelan boat and killed three alleged terrorists he claimed were transporting drugs, expanding his administration’s war against drug cartels and the scope of lethal military force to stop them.The US president gave few details about the strike, saying in a social media post that the action was on his orders and that it had happened earlier in the morning. The post was accompanied by a video clip showing the boat, which appeared to be stationary, erupting into a fireball. Continue reading...
Gary Kirsten was a top international player and coach but rates his work in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha as one of the highlights of his cricketing careerPhotographs by Chris de Beer-ProcterIt’s just after 3pm on a Friday and 22-year-old Sinelethu Yaso is in her happy place. Her spotless cricket whites pop against the synthetic green turf, while the upbeat rhythms of kwaito music waft on the breeze as she ambles in to bowl.Beyond the boundary, in the Makhaza area of Khayelitsha township, in South Africa’s Cape Flats, laundry flutters on a wire fence and the September sun reflects off a corrugated-iron lean-to. Continue reading...
The internationally feted choreographer has worked with pop megastars, a sculptor and the monks of the Shaolin Temple. Now he is tackling the cultural divisions and colonial legacy of his homelandSidi Larbi Cherkaoui is almost offended when I suggest he’s a busy man. “When people tell me, ‘You do so much,’ I cringe,” says the artistic director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève – the largest stage in Switzerland, with its ballet and opera companies – who runs his own company Eastman in his native city of Antwerp. He is also the creator of contemporary dance-theatre productions and a choreographer for film (Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina and Cyrano), musicals (Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill), pop (Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Madonna) and plenty more.This autumn alone, nine different works of Cherkaoui’s are being performed around the world, including An Accident/A Life, a collaboration with performer Marc Brew, about the car accident that left Brew paralysed from the neck down – “It’s maybe the piece I’m most proud of,” Cherkaoui says – and the UK premiere of Vlaemsch (Chez Moi), both in London. Continue reading...
Seann William Scott turns up to take over a small town murder, in this crime flick with a blokey, improv flavour One might be forgiven for forming very low expectations for this crime flick given its poster’s generically moody imagery showing star Seann William Scott holding a gun with an electricity pylon in the background. What a nice surprise to discover this is in fact a comedy, better yet one that’s actually often funny, in a blokey, improv sort of way.The conceit is that in the tiny Tennessee town of Colt Lake a man is murdered in the street, run over by a car so many times that he looks like meatloaf. Clueless but kindly local cop Sam Evans (Johnny Simmons) and his deputy DJ (Chance Perdomo) make a feeble stab at investigating, but are soon upstaged when special agent Bobby Gaines (Scott) suddenly shows up, representing a statewide taskforce, and takes over the case. Gaines’ methods may be a little on the violent side and not strictly by the book, but he gets confessions amazingly quickly and soon he works his way up the (admittedly) short crime food chain until he finds the main bad guy. There are a few twists but the crime plot is of much less significance than the southern-fried backchat: a constant patter of men insulting each other, maligning one another’s manhood, and generally describing each other as small town failures. Continue reading...
There’s real chemistry between Oh and Keira Jang as a mother and daughter living in a society where pastoral scenes hide a more brutal realityAnn Marie Fleming’s dystopian fable opens, not with gnarly destruction, but birdsong and lush greenery. The sensorial calm of rustling ferns and blushing bell flowers envelop the frame, while the Ink Spots’ recording of I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire plays softly in the background. This music cue recurs throughout the film, with each appearance more menacing than the last. Indeed, something wicked is lurking within this Edenic cocoon.Things start out innocently enough. We see Ellie (Sandra Oh), a radiant single mother, entrusting her daughter Kiah (Keira Jang) to the care of Daniel (Joel Oulette) as the pair of young adults head off on an important mission. It is quickly revealed, however, that the pastoral beauty of their surroundings comes with a price. In the aftermath of catastrophic environmental disasters, the human race has decided to become unplugged. Not only that, a method of population control is put in place where people are voluntarily euthanised after turning 50. Daniel and Kia, it turns out, are Witnesses, designated community workers who monitor these end-of-life procedures. Continue reading...
The last three contestants try to wow the judges with a trompe l’oeil creation. Plus: Michael Palin explores the barrios and natural wonders of Venezuela. Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, BBC OnePattern-loving scientist Yasmin, two-time garment of the week winner Caz and 19-year-old Órla – the show’s youngest contestant – are your three finalists in this year’s Sewing Bee. After making bias-cut gowns and sheer garments, their last challenge sees them grapple with the art of trompe l’oeil, creating illusions with fabric to fit their chosen friend or family member. Hollie Richardson Continue reading...
Linklater’s ahead-of-the-curve adaptation of a 1999 play about an alleged rape is reconfigured to try and reflect current concernsRichard Linklater’s 2001 movie Tape, and Stephen Belber’s 1999 play that preceded it, were ahead of the curve in their targeting of male sexual violence, blurred lines of consent, performative apologies and self-victimising aggressors. Now comes a remake from Hong Kong for the post-#MeToo era. It makes a few updates, such as situating the film in an Airbnb apartment (instead of a motel room), where two old high-school friends convene. But, somewhat too reverential towards the original, this new version from director Bizhan Tong doesn’t do enough either conceptually or aesthetically to dig down into today’s shifted gender battle lines.In Tong’s scenario, flippant lifeguard and small-time drug-dealer Wing (Adam Pak) invites his straight-laced school buddy Chong (Kenny Kwan) over to shoot the breeze at his apartment. Initially they smoke spliffs and banter testily about their diverging life paths; the latter, now going by the anglicised name of Jon, has become a promising low-budget film-maker. But steering the conversation to a touchy subject – Wing’s former sweetheart Amy (Selena Lee), whom Jon later slept with – Wing goads his so-called friend into confessing he raped her. Then he delivers the coup de grace: the room has been sprinkled with webcams that have videoed their exchange. Continue reading...
Barbican Hall, LondonBernstein’s Symphony No 3 evoked the Cuban missile crisis before Copland’s Third Symphony lifted us on a tide of postwar optimismThis felt like a very LSO way for the London Symphony Orchestra to open its season: two 20th-century American symphonies, both of them big, bold showpieces with something to say about the time in which they were written. Bernstein’s Symphony No 3 has a huge role for a narrator who speaks words written by Bernstein himself, against a choral backdrop of the Jewish Kaddish prayer, sung in Hebrew and Aramaic. Composed either side of the Cuban missile crisis and dedicated to the memory of John F Kennedy, it is unmistakably a product of the anxieties of the early 1960s. But have those anxieties ever really gone away?Thanks to the blazing conviction of Antonio Pappano’s conducting it didn’t feel at all dated here. The playing was bright and precise, the London Symphony Chorus equally responsive in a piece full of challenges: at one point half a dozen of them had to become conductors, each directing a sub-group of their colleagues as they sang in different tempos and rhythmic patterns. The Tiffin Boys’ Choir proclaimed their first entry through cupped hands so as to cut through the heft of the orchestra, before joining in the dancing rhythms of the finale. At the work’s centre, the soprano soloist Katharina Konradi sang a serene lullaby. Continue reading...
He was a genius of improvised music, a performer who abandoned composition – and wondered why anyone would buy his records. Comedian Stewart Lee celebrates the eccentric life of his great inspirationToday’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives is my third attempt to use my limited comedy fame to foist the non-idiomatic music-making of the Sheffield-born guitarist Derek Bailey on an unsuspecting public. In 2009, I chose Derek as my specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind, beating the comedian John Thomson, who chose James Bond villains. To be fair, I would also have won if I had done his round. I was getting questions like, “Which Japanese duo collaborated with Derek Bailey on the 1995 album Saisoro?” and John was getting, “What colour was Blofeld’s cat?”Musical minds immeasurably superior to mine have grappled more succinctly with the enigma of Derek, who died in 2005 at the age of 75. Writing in the Quietus four years ago, Jennifer Lucy Allan explained: “Derek Bailey is one antidote for anyone who thinks they’ll never understand improvised music. His guitar playing is that which requires a surrendering to your own ears. It is what it is, and that’s exactly what he intended it to be.” I, in turn, listen to Derek and think: “This, whatever it is, is resolutely and implacably this.” And that is what I, as a comedian, have tried to steal from it. Continue reading...
From his early 00s ‘gay church folk music’ via country-tinged indie, Joel Gibb has always been an outlier. Now he is back with an album of synthy pop pumpersAt a recent Monday night gig in London, Joel Gibb – AKA the Hidden Cameras – took to the stage with his acoustic guitar dressed in a sensible white shirt, looking for all the world as if he’d come straight from an office job. As he played a suite of Hidden Cameras songs old and new, the guitar was dropped, the shirt came undone then was removed, revealing a white vest. The room starting shaking to an electronic backing track, and things got sweaty. “It was a rebirth,” he says from a booth in the studio where he recorded new album of electronic pop pumpers Bronto, “like the indie boy gone bad.”The synth-driven purr and slink of Bronto makes for a startling shift from country-tinged last album Home on Native Land and the exuberant multi-instrumental pop with which the Hidden Cameras first emerged from Toronto, Canada in the early 2000s. This genre twist was thanks to the melodies largely being written in Gibb’s head on the house and techno dancefloors of Berlin, his home for the last two decades. “I kept singing the same refrains to myself over other tracks – the ‘ooh’ and the ‘ah’, the ‘ah’, the ‘ooh’,” he says, “what else are you going to do? Dance music is very empty, but dancing is meditative.” Continue reading...
The long-awaited return of the series about finding closure is a warm look at parental clutter. Plus, the incredible tale of Taj, who traces his roots from being kidnapped in India to being adopted in UtahJonathan Goldstein’s narrative pod about regrets, mistakes and the pursuit of closure – cancelled by Spotify in 2023 – makes its return this week under the Pushkin banner, and it’s been worth the wait. Heavyweight does up-close-and-personal like few other shows, and this first episode – about a son’s fears around his parents’ cluttered house, and a plot to relocate their trinkets to a barn – is both warm and spiked with melancholy. Hannah J DaviesWidely available, episodes weekly from Thu Continue reading...
The TV star and his co-author make a compelling argument for properly addressing the legacies of slaveryWhen slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1833, it was thought only reasonable that slave-owners should be recompensed for the loss of their property: the British government had to borrow the equivalent of £17bn at current values to do this and that loan was not completely paid off until 2015. Meanwhile, the slaves themselves never received a penny in compensation.There have always been dedicated Black campaigners for reparations, but it is only recently that their demands have gained momentum. Furthermore, it is impossible to talk about reparations without talking about race and migration – and these are issues at the top of the political agenda internationally. All this makes Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder’s new book both timely and vital. Continue reading...
As the author’s future-set novel, What We Can Know, hits shelves, we assess his top 10 works – from chilling short stories to Booker prize-winning satireTwo old friends, composer Clive Linley and newspaper editor Vernon Halliday, meet at the funeral of charismatic Molly Lane, a former lover of both men (along with many other successful men of the time). This sharp 90s satire – the Conservatives have been in power for 17 years – has the misfortune of being McEwan’s only novel to win the Booker prize in his 50-year career, despite being widely considered one of his slightest. But it fizzes along like the champagne that is part of the euthanasia pact hatched by the two men in a plot that even the author conceded was “rather improbable”. New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani was right when she concluded that it was testament to the author’s skill that he had managed “to toss off a minor entertainment with such authority and aplomb” to win the gong he had so long deserved. Continue reading...
The bestselling author returns with an account of how her homeland has changed – and the personal costs of fameRemarkable success notoriously brings its own problems. Wild Swans, first published in 1991 and written by Jung Chang with the help of her husband, Irish-born historian and writer Jon Halliday, had a global impact few authors dare to dream of. It told the story of three generations of women in 20th-century China – Chang’s grandmother, her mother and herself – and became one of the most popular nonfiction books in history, selling more than 13m copies in 37 languages and collecting a fistful of awards and commendations. For any author, following that would be a challenge. Now, Fly, Wild Swans returns to the story, picking it up after Chang’s own departure from China in 1978, and revisiting episodes from the earlier work with added detail.Wild Swans was Chang’s second book: her first was a biography of Soong Ching-ling, the wife of the early 20th-century revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, which, she volunteers, had deservedly little impact. Wild Swans was different: animated by a powerful family story, set against the dramatic political background of war and revolution and enlivened by Halliday’s formidable narrative talent, it was an instant hit. Continue reading...
The RSL president has set up a new literary award for female writers over 60 using the £100,000 she herself won through the Women’s prizeAuthor Bernardine Evaristo is using the £100,000 she won through the Women’s prize outstanding contribution award to fund a new prize for “pioneering” British female writers over 60.The RSL Pioneer prize – administered by the Royal Society of Literature, of which Evaristo is president – will award £10,000 to 10 living writers over the next decade. The prize will honour women across all genres who “have been trailblazers in their field, especially in the past when it was more difficult for women to have successful careers as writers”, said the RSL. Continue reading...
After a lacklustre response to the 2025 edition, the game has gone all out to engage players and respond to user feedbackIn an open office space somewhere inside the vast Electronic Arts campus in Vancouver, dozens of people are gathered around multiple monitors playing EA Sports FC 26. Around them, as well as rows of football shirts from leagues all over the world, are PCs and monitors with staff watching feeds of the matches. The people playing are from EA’s Design Council, a group of pro players, influencers and fans who regularly come in to play new builds, ask questions and make suggestions. These councils have been running for years, but for this third addition to the EA Sports FC series, the successor to EA’s Fifa games, their input is apparently being treated more seriously than ever.The message to journalists, invited here to get a sneak look at the game, is that a lacklustre response to EA Sports FC 25 has meant that addressing user feedback is the main focus. EA has set up a new Player Feedback Portal, as well as a dedicated Discord channel, for fans to put forward their concerns. The developer has also introduced AI-powered social listening tools to monitor EA Sports FC chatter across various platforms including X, Instagram and YouTube. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: the long-awaited release from the three-person Team Cherry studio has crashed gaming storefronts and put indie developers back in the spotlightJust one game has been dominating the gaming conversation over the past week: Hollow Knight Silksong, an eerie, atmospheric action game from a small developer in Australia called Team Cherry. It was finally released last Thursday after many years in development, and everybody is loving it. Hollow Knight was so popular that it crashed multiple gaming storefronts. With continual game cancellations, expensive failures and layoffs at bigger studios, this is the kind of indie triumph the industry loves to celebrate at the moment. But Silksong hasn’t come out of nowhere, and its success would not be easily reproducible for any other game, indie or not.If you’re wondering what this game actually is, then imagine a dark, mostly underground labyrinth of bug nests and abandoned caverns that gradually yields its secrets to a determined player. The art style and sound are minimalist and creepy (though not scary) in a Tim Burton kind of way, the enemy bugs are fierce and hard to defeat, your player character is another bug with a small, sharp needle-like blade. It blends elements of Metroid, Dark Souls and older challenging platform games, and the unique aesthetic and perfect precision of the controls are what make it stand out from a swarm of similar games. I rinsed the first Hollow Knight and I’m captivated by Silksong. I’ve spent 15 hours on it in three days, and it has made my thumbs hurt. Continue reading...
PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch 2; Bloober TeamAn intriguing setup sees an unnamed protagonist time-travel to discover the origins of a devastating outbreak, but a stingy inventory and one-sided battles lead to frustrationBloober Team, the Polish developer behind 2021’s hugely underrated psycho-thriller The Medium and last year’s excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, clearly understands that there is an established, almost comforting rhythm to survival horror games. It’s baffling, then, to see this latest game excel in so many areas while failing spectacularly on several of the genre’s most basic tenets.You play an unnamed traveller, the latest of many, sent to gather information about a devastating outbreak that transformed the citizens of a town called New Dawn into the sort of misshapen monsters that have become the staple of sci-fi-adjacent survival horror: contorted of limb, long of fang, and ample of slobber. As you explore the stark, often beautifully devastated aftermath of the outbreak, you search for places where you can travel back through time to when all hell was breaking loose, extracting persons of interest who may shed light on the disaster. A slow-burn story is revealed through the usual assortment of voice notes, missives and grim environmental clues (often, as is de rigueur, daubed in blood on walls). Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: an archaeologist and gamer on why we love to walk around finding objects in-game and in real lifeThe game I’m most looking forward to right now is Big Walk, the latest title from House House, creators of the brilliant Untitled Goose Game. A cooperative multiplayer adventure where players are let loose to explore an open world, I’m interested to see what emergent gameplay comes out of it. Could Big Walk allow for a kind of community archaeology with friends? I certainly hope so.When games use environmental storytelling in their design – from the positioning of objects to audio recordings or graffiti – they invite players to role play as archaeologists. Game designer Ben Esposito infamously joked back in 2016 that environmental storytelling is the “art of placing skulls near a toilet” – which might have been a jab at the tropes of games like the Fallout series, but his quip demonstrates how archaeological gaming narratives can be. After all, the incongruity of skulls and toilets is likely to lead to many questions and interpretations about the past in that game world, however ridiculous. Continue reading...
Tate Modern, LondonFrom filthy kissing to bullfights, fascists and drag acts, the artist who shattered visual conventions is thrillingly, forcefully alive in this illuminating showThe Acrobat sums up the effect Pablo Picasso had on art in his 91 years on earth. In this 1930 painting, lent by the Musée Picasso in Paris, a body with no defined gender contorts into an insoluble puzzle, a leg sprouting above its anus, the head, eyes closed, bulging where genitals might be, the other leg standing on the ground balanced by an arm whose hand functions as a foot while the other arm, fist clenched, bends like a tail. In just this way, Picasso turned art inside out and upside down, twisted it unrecognisably, yet made it all the more compelling, human and passionate.Born into a Europe of realistic sculptures and perspective pictures, he blew up those conventions, put them back together, then smashed them again, and a few times more. It’s hard not to be awed by his achievements, his turmoil of creative energy, the scale of his artistic breakthroughs, although Tate Modern tries its best. Theatre Picasso starts with coughing noises and references to gender and artistic borrowing. But those concerns go nowhere, vanishing in what becomes – almost despite itself – a riotous celebration of his genius. Continue reading...
Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffThe Welsh-Ukrainian singer was in ravishing voice, and the orchestra brought richness to a reduced score, while Edward Dick’s production seemed chillingly relevantWelsh National Opera have opened their autumn season with the production Opera North premiered in 2018. So this Tosca is neither new to the company nor helped by the attention focused on last week’s Royal Opera House staging in which Anna Netrebko commanded the headlines. Here, the focus was on the Welsh-Ukrainian Natalya Romaniw, who three years ago made an acclaimed ROH debut in the career-defining title role. This was emphatically Romaniw’s night, every inch the absolute diva, in ravishing voice and investing her characterisation with such fine nuances of gesture and colouring of the words as to hold one riveted. It was certainly worthy of Sarah Bernhardt, for whom Victorien Sardou wrote his original play and whose performance inspired Puccini to compose his opera.Puccini’s faithfulness to the specific Roman locations and the historical facts of June 1800 in this period of the Napoleonic wars, would seem to preclude a contemporary setting elsewhere. Yet director Edward Dick’s allusions to the rise of the far right and the thuggery of the regime which chief of police, Baron Scarpia, represents are all too chillingly resonant of the political machinations and skullduggery that have only escalated globally in the seven years since Dick conceived his approach. Continue reading...
Coliseum, LondonIf you wanted to learn about the composer’s female influences, you would have been disappointed – but the arias eventually built to an electric climaxEnglish National Opera’s first season with one foot in London and one in Manchester begins in earnest with Rossini’s Cinderella at the end of the month. In the meantime, feeling like a kind of warmup, came this one-off concert. It was filmed for Sky Arts, the cameras so unobtrusive as to be almost unnoticeable, but was still an odd hybrid of an evening, with a talking-heads-and-bleeding-chunks format that seemed geared more to TV than to a theatre audience.We had excerpts from nine of Mozart’s operas, with the ENO orchestra and conductor Clelia Cafiero on stage behind, and with a cutely cliched, periwigged child Mozart occasionally popping up as a kind of silent host. If you wanted to learn much about the women in Mozart’s life you would probably have been disappointed, although several were at least mentioned in the informal scripted links from the presenter Lauren Laverne, who slipped into friendly interviewer mode to ask the singers for more personal contributions. It was a big ask of the singers, who were required to appear at ease as themselves on stage, offer seemingly unscripted insights into the microphone, and then switch seamlessly into character – often to portray that character at a moment of peak emotional stress. Continue reading...
Citizens theatre, GlasgowThe people of a small Scottish town offer hope to bereaved families in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing in a moving music-theatre showWhat a joy to hear applause again in the Citz. The theatre’s seven-year renovation has been hard. In that time, many have been lost, including the victims of the pandemic and, only last month, the mighty Giles Havergal , the company’s artistic director from 1969 to 2003.Fitting, then, that the opening production should be a requiem. Less a drama than a mass, it is a eulogy to those killed in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, the single biggest terrorist loss of life on UK territory. The powerful act one closing song has just three words: “Let us remember.” Continue reading...
In her apocalyptic new film, everything’s sorted – but you have to die at the age of 50. The actor talks about tech shocks, doomscrolling and the agent who told her to go back to CanadaThis summer, Sandra Oh stood behind a lectern at a graduation ceremony in New Hampshire, preparing to give university-leavers words of hope at a time of permacrisis. She rose to the challenge, opening up about her past battles with depression and anxiety, before making a heartfelt case for embracing discomfort and kindness “so we can meet cruelty again and again and not lose our humanity”. This was increasingly important, she explained, when many world leaders “claim power through fear and oppression”. And then came the moment that would go viral. Oh instructed everyone to stand up and do something Cristina Yang, her career-making character on Grey’s Anatomy, used to do when times got tough. “Dance it out!” she exhorted as David Guetta’s Titanium washed over the crowd. “Remember this feeling!”“I was very, very, very nervous about it,” says Oh. “I worked really hard.” She had been putting herself into the mindset of 20-year-olds not just worried about their own futures but about the larger picture. “The world is burning!” she says, imagining their dark thoughts. “There’s wars all over! My heart is so heavy, so all I’m going to do is doomscroll.” But, crucially, Oh wanted her audience to find their way to joy – thus the dancing. “Sitting there trying to bear the pain in the world,” she says, neatly summing up the philosophy she shared that day, “will help you figure out how to be in the world.” Continue reading...
Rumours that Mike White’s hit series will be filming next in France have now been confirmed – but what can we expect?The White Lotus didn’t have the Emmys it expected this year, but a little thing like critical disappointment isn’t going to slow it down. In other words: forget season three, because we already know where season four is headed.In a post-Emmys conversation with Deadline, HBO’s Casey Bloys confirmed the rumour that The White Lotus season four will take place in France. Were there any other details? No. Did he offer even the slightest indication of even a sliver of what’s to come? Again, no. But this is the internet, so let’s speculate wildly nonetheless. Continue reading...
‘A guy from our record company told me to take out the whistling. I said no way. When the song went through the roof, he came to me, bent over and said, “Kick my ass!”’Being a West German band made playing the Soviet Union in the late 1980s particularly special. We’d grown up in a divided country and had tried many times to play in East Germany, but they would never let us in. When we did our first gig in what was then Leningrad, the atmosphere was a bit grey, not very colourful or rock’n’roll – but hearts started opening up over the course of the 10 gigs we did in the city. It ended up a bit like Beatlemania, with fans circling our cars after every show. Continue reading...
The actor, who was cleared of historical sexual assault allegations in 2020, says he has withdrawn as a result of a social media campaign against himFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCraig McLachlan has withdrawn from the Australian production of Cluedo after a backlash to his casting seven years after he was accused of, and denied, touching, kissing and groping his female co-stars without their permission.Last Wednesday the show’s producers Crossroads Live announced that McLachlan had been cast as Colonel Mustard in a stage adaptation of the 1985 film Clue, based on the boardgame. Continue reading...
We’ve assembled some of the freshest voices in food to bring you their finest tips and shoppable picks, from dreamy dinners and alfresco feasts, to the simple joy of a punnet of strawberries Continue reading...
True Turkish hospitality means providing more food and drink than your guests could ever consume. Here’s a great way to do it … with a little help from the 2024 Young MasterChef judge, best known as Big HasI spent a lot of my childhood sitting in the passenger seat of my dad Kamil’s Volvo, on the barbecue run, listening to Turkish radio. We would usually get the same things: chicken breasts for mum, boneless thighs for the rest of us, and some sort of lamb on the bone for dad. He would purposely butcher it poorly, leaving bits of meat on the bone to grill slowly and pick at as he cooked for the rest – a “trick” he had learned from his dad. My love for barbecues, cooking over live fire, and entertaining, definitely stems from him.Barbecues would always start with an impromptu announcement at the table after Sunday morning family breakfast. Mum would begrudgingly agree, knowing the mess my dad can produce in about 20 minutes. It didn’t take much persuading in my house to get the mangal [Turkish barbecue] lit. We didn’t need perfect blue skies. A dry day and enough sunlight to see us through to the evening would be enough to seal the deal, although dad has been known to barbecue under a tree in a bin bag if the weather didn’t cooperate. Continue reading...
Superhost and influencer Saff Michaelis loves nothing more than throwing a party. And if there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s to let shops she trusts do some of the heavy liftingThere is something so deliciously informal about summer hosting. Gone are the elaborate table lays, multiple courses and floral arrangements of the colder months. In exchange, we simply dust off the garden furniture, open a pack of olives and hope for the best. Picnics in the park segue straight into rosé-fuelled suppers – usually under the dappled shade of a tree your partner has been aspiring to prune since the sun first appeared.Through these little moments with family and friends, it becomes apparent that hosting is more than a hobby; it’s a love language. Independently of what’s served at the table, hosting is a way of providing meaningful in-person interactions in an age when much of our lives feel digitised and somewhat mundane.‘Special moments demand a suitably special menu’ Continue reading...
From fizz destined to make a girls’ night sparkle to a watermelon needed for an alfresco summer salad, we asked three shoppers to share the meaning behind their latest online orderThe meaning behind the choices we make can get lost in the rhythm of routine, particularly when it comes to the groceries we order week in, week out. But there’s a whole lot more than dinner in our shopping baskets, as these shoppers reveal. Even the most prosaic items can conjure a memory, speak to a value, or make good on an intention. It’s life, delivered by Ocado …Reena Mistry. Photographs: Helena Dolby Continue reading...
My husband and I still have sex – but something’s missing. Is stress the culprit?I’m a woman in my 50s and have been with my husband for decades. We have always had a wonderful sex life and I used to be able to climax vaginally very easily, often without clitoral stimulation. During an eventful time for the family a couple of years ago, my libido and ability to climax disappeared, though they did eventually return. A few months ago, I had a health crisis, which has slightly impaired my coordination on one side. Although I have recovered very well, I am again experiencing a loss of libido and sexual sensation.We continue to have sex regularly and I enjoy the intimacy. I can climax with clitoral stimulation but it takes a long time and can be almost physically painful. I really miss vaginal orgasms and the release they brought. Although I am of perimenopausal age, I have no obvious symptoms and a hormone test came back normal.Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. Continue reading...
A reader discovered her name did not exist in the system after attempting to register a much-needed card onlineI applied for a Lloyds Bank credit card, which duly arrived with my name on it. When I attempted to register it online, I discovered that my name did not exist in the system.Bank staff could only locate a profile associated with my twin sister, who has never had a Lloyds account. She has since been emailed about my card. Continue reading...
Nostalgic tech; autumn garden hacks; and what to wear when it rains• Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWhen I was 18, I bought a heavily reduced MiniDisc player. This wasn’t even what you could charitably call “fashionably late”, given the format was already on its last legs, but I loved it, and because nobody else was interested, blank discs were dirt cheap. I have a vague recollection of grabbing packs at Poundland, allowing me to create a glorious self-curated library of cheap music, five years before the birth of Spotify.I’m reminded of this because this week I’ve published a piece on the Filter about the portable audio technology that killed them: MP3 players. Or digital audio players, to give them their more accurate name, given MP3 playback is just one of many supported file formats.The best beauty Advent calendars in 2025, tested (yes, we know it’s early!)The finishing touch: great buys for under £100 to lift your living space, chosen by interiors experts‘It’s better than plastic and cheaper’: 20 sustainable swaps that worked (and saved you money)How to get your garden ready for autumn: 17 expert tips you can do now – and what to skip‘The crunch? Spot on’: the best supermarket gherkins, tasted and ratedWhat to take to university – and what to leave behind, according to studentsHow to decorate your university room: 16 easy, affordable ways to make it feel like home Continue reading...
Dry herbs, sow green manure, catch the rain: garden professionals share the simple jobs that will make all the difference come next spring• The best garden tools to make light work of autumn jobsThe nights are drawing in, TV programming is kicking back into gear and there are ominous warnings about “party season”. However, that doesn’t mean we should ascribe to horticultural tradition and “put our gardens to bed”.There’s still plenty you can do in the garden to make the most of those crisp, bright autumnal afternoons and relish the offerings of the season to come. Whether squeezing some more joy out of the garden before it dies back for another winter or doing jobs your future spring self will thank you for, these are the things that define the season. Continue reading...
From statement pieces to functional furnishings, 16 experts select accessories that will light up your home without costing a fortune• The best bedding brands interiors experts use at home, from luxury linen to cool cottonThe best thing about a beautifully decorated room is often not the most expensive. Though interior designers can work with generous budgets, the savvy ones also know how to spot great design in unlikely places (hello, B&Q).If you don’t have the budget for a full renovation, but still want to add a little design nous to your home, some help is at hand. We asked a range of experts in the interiors world for the pieces they’ve got their eye on – all of them less than £100. Continue reading...
Combining both salty and sour flavours, gherkins act as a great elevator for many a dish or just as a standalone snack. But whose strikes the perfect balance?• From kimchi to kombucha, it’s easy to ferment at home. Here’s all the kit you needA jar of gherkins reminds me of the sea around the British Isles – murky, seaweed-green and mysterious – and of that bizarre marine animal, the sea cucumber (though sea gherkin would perhaps be more accurate, given how similar some species look). Gherkins also happen to be one of my favourite foods, though I usually eat them straight from the jar and rarely save any for all those recipes that benefit from their addition, from potato salads to bloody marys.I like a gherkin that puckers the mouth with a sour smack to the gustatory cortex. It should also be salty, but not overpoweringly so – some of those I tested tasted of salt, vinegar and not much else. Aromatics such as onion, mustard and dill intensify when pickled, so how much is used needs to be well considered; too much mustard or black pepper, say, catches in the throat, while too much red pepper turns the liquor soupy. Dill, however, is essential. Continue reading...
Give cakes and cookies a fruity boost, lend breakfast a sweet lift – and save the rest to jar up as Christmas giftsI have a lot of jam made with all kinds of berries – are there any bakes that would use some of it up? Anne-Lies, Gouda, the Netherlands“Jam is at the heart of many great British puddings and cakes, so there are never too many jars in my house!” says Emily Cuddeford, co-founder of Edinburgh’s Twelve Triangles bakery. Her first thought, though, would be to tip a jar of the sweet stuff into a buttered ceramic baking dish and top it with sponge: “Make a classic, equal-parts mix scaled to your dish by creaming, say, 180g butter and 180g sugar, slowly beating in an egg and a dash of vanilla or lemon zest, and finishing with 180g self-raising flour.” Spoon that on top of the jam and bake at 190C (170C fan)/375F/gas 5 until the sponge “bounces back” and a skewer comes out clean. Serve warm with cream or custard, and job’s a good ’un.You’ll also want jam to fill or top cakes. “Obvious things are a Victoria sponge, but that doesn’t use much jam,” says the Guardian’s own Benjamina Ebuehi, so she’d be more inclined to spoon buttercream over the top of a coconut cake, for example, make a dip in the middle with the back of a spoon and pop some jam in there: “That’s a nice way to decorate a cake and it also uses up a decent amount of jam.” It wouldn’t hurt, either, to use berry jams to finish a classic school dinner traybake sponge: “Once it’s out of the oven, top with jam then scatter with desiccated coconut.” Otherwise, Ebuehi says, joy can be found in a nostalgic jam tart or Italian crostata (look out for Ebuehi’s blackberry version next week).Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com Continue reading...
A Korean-style rice bowl that’s ideal for using up vegetables – and to leave you with enough for lunch the next dayI love bibimbap, the Korean rice bowls – they’re a great way to use up bits and pieces in the fridge; arrange them beautifully on a bowl of rice and top with an egg and Korean chilli sauce. I don’t always have gochujang at home, so came up with this addictive miso-peanut chilli sauce instead. Roast the vegetables in some sesame oil in a tray, pop the rice in the microwave, boil or fry an egg, and that’s dinner sorted. Continue reading...
In the remote state of Meghalaya, foraged foods are helping to diversify state-provided menus – and tackle chronic malnutritionExcited chatter and the clattering of steel plates drown out the din of the monsoon rains: it is lunchtime in Laitsohpliah government school in the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya. The food has been cooked on-site and is free for everyone, part of India’s ambitious “midday meal” – PM Poshan – programme to incentivise school enrolment.The scheme covers more than 1m state-run schools across the country, but the menu at Laitsohpliah is hyperlocal, thanks to a recent charity initiative in the state.A lunch of rice, dal, potatoes with east Himalayan chives, cured dry fish and sohryngkham, a wild berry pickle Continue reading...
Enrich corn’s natural sweetness in a creamy and earthy curry, and in a fresh, herby chutneyInspired by a corn curry from Maharashtra, today’s recipe has the perfect umami flavour: a bit of heat from the chillies, some gentle sweetness from the sugar and lots of sourness from the lime juice, along with the creamy coconut milk and juicy corn. The sharpness of a fresh, herby chutney with salty butter, meanwhile, makes the perfect topping for barbecued corn on the cob. I often cook the corn straight on the hob, which is a bit tricky, but it’s how we did it when I was growing up in India. Continue reading...
As I reached my late-40s, I’d become anxious and risk-averse. A solo trip made me realise who I was again – and taught me to embrace the thrill of trying something newI used to pride myself on being a gung-ho kind of person, embracing change and thrills in life, whether that was travelling alone to South America or doing standup comedy. But, as my 40s progressed, I found myself becoming more cautious. I started to choose the safer option, such as booking a package holiday instead of a DIY adventure, or hesitating before sending a work email, worried it didn’t sound “right”.I felt anxiety, low mood and brain fog – all symptoms of perimenopause – creeping in. I was in what I would call a menopausal funk: weighed down by my feelings and my slightly aching body. I began experiencing this two years ago. I’m 47 now. Taking HRT (hormone replacement therapy) helped, but I felt as if I had reached a point in my life where I had to accept that I was just going to be a bit less “me” and not so brave. Continue reading...
After Jessica and I received expert counselling from the hit show Couples Therapy, I became public enemy number one. Here’s what didn’t make it to the screen“You are the reason women hate men,” a woman commented on one of my Instagram posts. “You don’t deserve Jessica, you schmuck,” another said in a direct message on Facebook. “I hope you’ve gotten the help you need and set your poor wife free,” wrote a third.I am a novelist who relishes connecting with his audience. That disposition has suffered. The reason: three months ago, the US network Showtime aired the latest season of the documentary series Couples Therapy, on which my wife Jessica and I appeared as one of the pairs. Continue reading...
It was a nice suit but it hadn’t exactly been tailored to fit me properly. Thanks to her, I walked into class with confidenceRead more in the Kindness of strangers seriesI started law school in 1976. Gough Whitlam had abolished university fees, which meant a lot of older women who previously wouldn’t have been able to afford to study were arriving at uni for the first time.I was 17 and nursing an otherness of my own. One day in class, our lecturer asked everyone who had attended a private high school to raise their hand. The sea of arms that shot up revealed that, in a class of 30 people, I was the only one who’d come from a state school. The lecturer didn’t do this cruelly – he was making a point about lawyers being privileged people, and how that affects the legal system. But I nonetheless felt very confronted by the different world my peers came from. Continue reading...
Grace and Theo’s long-distance relationship – and mismatched libidos – puts pressure on their sex life, but they are learning to build intimacy• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously“We’ve been getting to know each other and building intimacy in bursts of a few weeks at a time Continue reading...
Those trying to report a death can face bureaucracy, costly delays and other shocking mistakesElla Stevens* had steeled herself for the painful task of informing a string of companies that her mother had died.She notified her mother’s insurer, Direct Line. It responded by sending a letter to her late mother thanking her for letting it know of the change. When Stevens complained, Direct Line dispatched its apology and a goodwill cheque to her mother. Continue reading...
Despite repeated emails, letters and calls, and hiring a solicitor, a reader is still mistaken for their namesakeFor 10 years I’ve been harassed by letters from debt collecting agents claiming I owe money to companies I have had no dealings with. I even found a county court judgment (CCJ) had been issued against me without my knowledge.It turns out I shared my maiden name with the person who does own the debt, although we have different middle names and live in different counties. I’ve repeatedly asked the debt collectors to remove me from their records. Continue reading...
Newcastle building society aims for those with smaller deposits and no help hoping to get on to housing ladderFirst-time buyers are being offered the chance to borrow up to 98% of the price of a property – but they cannot get help with their deposit from the bank of mum and dad.Newcastle building society’s First Step mortgage is designed to help those who have been saving to get on the housing ladder. Continue reading...
From a grand Elizabethan hall to a timber-frame house offering ample parking, properties rich with detail Continue reading...
The JadeYoga Harmony helped me unlock a new form of fitness, and stuck with me for the long haulHave a buy it for life product recommendation – or disagree with our review? Email thefilter.us@theguardian.comSign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things.The original yogis didn’t have rubber mats, or foam ones, for that matter. They had bare ground, grass mats and animal skins, if they were lucky. So when my wife suggested I spend $90 on a natural rubber yoga mat like the one she had, I balked. Is that really necessary?It turns out the answer was yes. Ten years later, I’m still using the JadeYoga Harmony mat I sprang for, and I’m no longer a skeptic, I’m an evangelist. Natural rubber provides enough cushion for comfort, enough grip to safely push my limits, and the durability of a truck tire. Continue reading...
After years of miscarriages, I had abandoned the prospect of giving birth. Then, as we prepared to conceive using a surrogate, the impossible happenedThe first time I miscarried, I blamed myself. After getting pregnant early on in our relationship, at 34, I had a flash of doubt that my partner Alex and I weren’t ready to be parents. Then, a few weeks later, the pregnancy was over.My second early loss, just a few months later, hit me harder. We went to a fertility specialist, and the tests on both of us came back clear, but then I couldn’t get pregnant at all. Continue reading...
The idea that your vagina should smell as fresh as a daisy or look like a doll’s is an insult to your humanity and a hazard to your healthHi Ugly,I have been noticing a barrage of ads for “vaginal wellness” products: suppositories, balms and serums, and even a “vagi facial” at a local spa. What’s up with this? I was always taught that my vagina was self-cleaning and beautiful. Suddenly I am not so sure, and even find myself wondering if my labia are “normal” or in fact gross. Is this really happening?Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’?How should I be styling my pubic hair?How do I deal with imperfection?My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work doneI want to ignore beauty culture. But I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t look a certain way Continue reading...
The fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen for the third year in a row – a trend mirrored across the world, with two-thirds of the global population now living in countries with below-replacement-level fertility. In the second episode of a two-part series, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dean Spears, assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr Jennifer Sciubba, chief executive of the Population Reference Bureau, to ask whether declining birth rates are really something to worry about – and how societies can adapt to a future with fewer children.Watch the new Guardian documentary Between Moon TidesListen to episode one: are we on a path to depopulation?Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...
Created by photographer Jamie Morgan and stylist Ray Petri, the Buffalo look – tough, but also cinematic – was worn by Naomi Campbell, Neneh Cherry and Kate Moss. Morgan explains what it means, then and nowFashion’s historic references come and go. Currently, they might include Harrison Ford in shorts in the 1970s and 90s Oasis. But there are also some that are canon – such as Buffalo, the look masterminded by stylist Ray Petri and photographer Jamie Morgan in the mid-80s.Shaped largely through fashion shoots for the Face magazine, the duo created a look that reflected the culture and creativity of London at the time, but gave it the classy and cinematic feel of a Marlon Brando portrait or a shot by Henri Cartier-Bresson. This beautifully lit black-and-white photography of street-cast models and people – including a then-unknown Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Neneh Cherry and Nick Kamen, who later went on to star in Levi’s famous 1985 launderette advert – went on to shape both fashion photography and fashion. Continue reading...
The high street brand moves beyond fast fashion with a brutalist collection, while Paltrow loses the gimmicksThe headline act on day four of New York fashion week had all the hallmarks of a typical designer catwalk, including a pulsating soundtrack and a front row peppered with Hollywood stars. However, there was a twist. Instead of a luxury brand staging the show on Sunday, it was the high street label Cos.The Swedish label, founded in 2007 by the H&M group, welcomed guests including the British actors Jodie Turner-Smith and Naomi Watts as well as the singer Lauryn Hill to a former 1890s rope factory in Brooklyn. Continue reading...
The American dream has never looked more seductive, with long and loose summer wardrobes and beachy jewelleryWith the death of Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren became the world’s oldest major working fashion designer. The spotlight arrives with great timing for an 85-year-old on a hot streak. His brand is in better health than it has been for decades, with shares up 35% in 2025 and annual sales figures showing an 8% growth to $7.1bn (£1.25bn).On the first night of New York fashion week, Lauren hosted the curtain-raiser for a month of catwalks with a show in his Madison Avenue design studio. Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King chatted to Lauren’s family; Usher smiled broadly behind sunglasses, lounging on a plushly cushioned front row. Champagne was served on silver trays under twinkling chandeliers. In the fractious climate, with the US reeling from the shooting of the far-right activist Charlie Kirk, Ralph Lauren’s affable, charming vision of the American dream has never looked more seductive. Continue reading...
The white shirt speaks of formality without trying too hard and is making a comeback on the catwalk and on screenVictoria Beckham has positioned herself as a pop star, mother, perfumier, TikToker and fashion designer. But whatever job next month’s Netflix documentary focuses on – details are scant, but it’s thought the early October series will end at her Paris catwalk show – she will always be scrutinised over how she looks. How to temper that? Wear a plain white shirt.The documentary poster released this week shows Beckham wearing a diamond tennis bracelet, open-collar white shirt – and nothing else. Last week, the Princess of Wales appeared in public at the Natural History Museum, also in a plain white shirt. Earlier this month, the Duchess of Sussex launched her Netflix series in a white shirt (one of seven in fact), and when Taylor Swift recently announced her new album she did so wearing a white shirt. Laura Dern wore hers twice at the Venice film festival, and the woman with the most enviable wardrobe in fashion – Sarah Jessica Parker – chose a billowing version to promote her role as Booker prize judge. Continue reading...
A new wellbeing hotel on the tiny outpost of Styrsö in the Gothenburg archipelago is a perfect base for a relaxing, restorative breakIf you came to stay on the tiny island of Styrsö (steer-shuh) in the Gothenburg archipelago in the late 19th or early 20th century, there was a good chance it was because you had tuberculosis. The island had already begun to appeal to city folk who came here for fresh air, sea baths and peace, but the sanatoriums set up by the renowned Dr Peter Silfverskiöld gained such a positive reputation that the isle became known as a health resort. Those glory days have long since faded but Kusthotellet, a new hotel dedicated to wellbeing, aims to tap back into the restorative vibe.The conditions that first drew health-seekers to the island still pertain. It’s tucked away and protected from winds, but the lack of high ground nearby means the sun shines on its southern coast from dawn to dusk, and there’s no pollution. “This island is such a peaceful place – you can really relax and recharge your batteries,” Malin Lilton, manager of Kusthotellet, told my companion and me. “As soon as you get on the ferry your pulse rate goes down and you start breathing in the good air.” Continue reading...
Perfect for a weekend getaway, the Petworth Way takes in historic estates, welcoming inns and spectacular viewsThere are many ways to make an entrance, but lurching into a pub full of smartly dressed diners while windswept, muddy and more than a little frayed wouldn’t be my first choice. At 7.30pm on a sunny Sunday evening, the Welldiggers Arms – a country pub just outside Petworth in West Sussex – is full of people tucking into hearty roasts, the glass-walled restaurant overlooking glorious downland scenery, the sun all but disappeared behind the hills. For my husband, Mark, and I, it’s more than a stop for supper; the pub marks the halfway point on our two-day walking adventure along a brand new trail, the 25-mile Petworth Way.Twenty-five miles may not sound like much (I have keen walker friends who would do it in a day) but, for us, it’s the perfect length, with plenty of pubs along the way. The first leg, from Haslemere to Petworth, covers countryside we’re both entirely unfamiliar with; the second, Petworth to Arundel runs through landscapes I’ve known since childhood. Happily, the start and finish points can be reached by rail – meaning we can leave the car at home and set off with nothing but small rucksacks, water bottles and detailed printed instructions. Continue reading...
The sun is still shining but the crowds have gone … It’s the perfect time to head south, to gorgeous spots in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Morocco and CorsicaThe summer has left the water deliciously warm. We paddle into sea caves as stunning as cathedrals Continue reading...
Neil Gilson is undertaking a huge mental and physical task to raise awareness of a neuropsychiatric condition that affected his son JackThe physical effort as he battles currents, coldness and wind is massive, but the mental challenge of ploughing on alone for hours on end is even more testing.Neil Gilson, a father of three from Devon, is about to set off on the next leg of his attempt to become the first person to swim the 10 largest lakes in Switzerland, a total of about 230 miles. Continue reading...
Don’t panic! This plant has a natural seasonal rhythm, so resist the urge to overwater when it’s bareWhat’s the problem? My Euphorbia ritchiei sprouted a leaf, but it was accidentally knocked off and now it’s bare. Will it grow back?Diagnosis Please don’t panic, this east African succulent is unusual in that it grows fleshy leaves along its ridged stems during its growing season, then often sheds them in winter. In its native Kenya, rainfall is seasonal. The plant responds by producing foliage in the wet season, then dropping its leaves in the dry season to conserve water and energy. The green stems continue to photosynthesise so the plant can survive leafless for long periods. Continue reading...
Grady Harris spent his young life hitchhiking, working various jobs and playing in a band. When he met his future wife, he found his ‘bulwark’ and has never looked backOn Grady Harris’s wedding day, his father, a Presbyterian preacher, presided over the vows. “And when my father told us to kiss, and we did, I felt a sense of joy that I’d never felt before,” Harris says. “I’ve had a life full of happiness … But that was a new joy.”Harris was 60, and marrying for the first time. Now 69, he lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Marcia Wood, 66, who has an art gallery in the city. At times, their relationship must have seemed unlikely – 12 years separated their first and second dates, and they met by chance through a long chain of friends of friends. Continue reading...
The answer to today’s T-zerEarlier today I set you a classic 19th century puzzleThe T-puzzle Continue reading...
As Paul Robinson, he was one of Ramsay Street’s most notorious scoundrels. Now, he’s hoping to dazzle on the dancefloor. Here, he talks about the loss of his brother, leaving soap acting and his wildest storylinesStefan Dennis joined the cast of Neighbours as Paul Robinson, the git, for its first episode in 1985. He declines to tell me how old he was then. “See,” he says, with a glint of that Paul cunning: “That’s gonna give my age away if I tell you.” If I were to take a guess – looking at him today, in Boxpark in Wembley, pin neat and ready for anything (he could nip to the shops or go clubbing) in a Lacoste polo shirt, leaping on and off high chairs as gracefully as a cat, I would say early 60s. Wikipedia says he is 67 in October. My first and enduring impression is not his age, but the fact that he must, in some bigwig showrunner’s imagination, be this year’s Strictly Come Dancing crown prince. That’s just how it works – there are some irredeemably bad dancers who are fun to watch, there are some perfect physical specimens in their prime who look like the obvious contenders but then flame out, and then there’s the person who thinks they can’t cut a rug but has some inner dancer, that’s waited a lifetime to be activated, like a sleeper agent. Sorry to spoil it, everyone, but he is definitely that guy.Anyway, back to his age, which he insists is undisclosed. “The reason is, I was doing Flying Doctors …” This is the Australian drama about the outback. It was on in the daytime, if you were at school in the 80s you only watched it when you were ill, and I wonder how much the memory of it – very high drama, slightly terrifying, wide-open scenery, absolutely millions of sheep – was coloured by having a temperature. Anyway, Dennis was in the original miniseries but didn’t return for the series because, by that time, he was already Bad Paul in Neighbours. “And in the green room, I’m reading a magazine, and there was my wife on the cover, my first wife.” Continue reading...
Students may have had a reputation for boozy behaviour, but there are ways to make friends for those who prefer to keep things straight edgeFor as long as anyone can remember, drinking has been a key part of the student experience – but this is changing. An increasing number of young people are turning away from drinking, with a 2024 poll by Student Beans finding that half of first-year students did not plan to drink during their freshers’ week.If you’re considering a teetotal uni experience, or want to limit your drinking, here are four places to look for sober fun. Continue reading...
Money is almost always tight as a student, but fitting work around your studies requires a little forethought and planning if you want to avoid a negative impact on those grades If you’re planning to go to university, you may also be thinking about getting a job while studying. But it can be difficult to know where to look, especially if you’re moving to an unfamiliar city.The most important thing is to find a job that’s flexible enough to fit alongside your studies. With the third term increasingly quiet or even empty you might consider filling it with temporary work – but remember your main goal is to get a degree that opens the door to the career you want. Many universities, including Edinburgh, Birmingham and Brunel, recommend working no more than an average of 15 hours a week during term time so that your studies aren’t compromised. Continue reading...
AI is making universities rethink how they assess students, with some turning to presentations, vivas and quizzesFor 18-year-old Rose Kade from London, deciding between studying geography or maths at university is not just about the subject, it’s about how she will be assessed.“I don’t like exams,” she says. “I feel like anything can happen on the day, and I find it hard being judged entirely on that one performance.” She prefers coursework: “I like building things up over time. It’s less stressful and if I have a bad day it doesn’t affect my grade.” Continue reading...
Sea levels are rising in New England at some of the fastest rates in the world. On a quiet ribbon of saltmarsh in Rhode Island, septuagenarian Deirdre isn’t prepared to accept the loss of her beloved saltmarsh sparrow - the species is facing extinction before 2050 due to elevated high tides inundating nests and drowning fledgling birds. Leading a team of citizen scientists, Deirdre unravels the secret to finding delicate nests amid thick marsh grass, while they design and deploy a low-cost ‘ark’ to try to raise the sparrow nests to safety. Continue reading...
This week the first migrants could be flown out of Britain under the ‘one in, one out’ deportation scheme. They talk about their fears and incomprehension“We can’t eat. We can’t sleep. We have been locked up in this place for more than a month. Some people expect to be forced on to a plane to France today. Nobody wants to go. For us, this is a disaster.”The man speaking, Fessahaye, is an asylum seeker from Eritrea who fled indefinite military conscription in his home country, and walked through the Sahara before being tortured and enslaved in Libya. He eventually crossed the Mediterranean and reached Europe. From France he travelled to the UK in a small boat. Continue reading...
For decades, lung cancer has been viewed as a disease of older men who smoked. Now, cases among young women are on the rise and doctors are baffled. Could air pollution be behind it?Towards the end of 2019, Becca Smith’s life was full and hectic. At 28, she had taken on a unit in Chester to convert into a yoga studio, poured in all her savings and hired teachers, while at the same time working as a personal trainer. Her days started at 5am; she was driven, stressed, excited, and had no time for the back pain that just would not subside.“It kept moving around,” she says. “Every day it would be in a different part of my back. I was strapping on heat packs and ice packs just to get to work.” Smith saw her GP, her physiotherapist and a chiropractor, all of whom suspected a torn muscle. “What really worried me,” she says, “the worst-case scenario, was a slipped disc.” One day in March 2020, the pain was so intense that Smith took to her bed, fell asleep and woke with a crashing migraine and blurred vision. Her mum took her to the optician who shone a light behind Smith’s eyes, saw haemorrhaging and sent her straight to the hospital. Once there, Smith was admitted, and over the course of a week, had an MRI, a CT scan, and a biopsy taken from the cells in her back. Continue reading...
Exclusive: The duke talks about the cost of war, his portrayal in the press and boxing as the Guardian joins him on a visit to KyivIt’s about midnight. It’s raining. A small group is huddled around a lonely roadside cafe somewhere near the border between Poland and Ukraine, getting wet in the drizzle, sharing cartons of chips and bottles of beer.One of the bedraggled men wonders out loud why on earth the owner of the cafe would choose to close now, when surely this must have been the busiest it has ever been, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, with a captive and hungry audience. Continue reading...
The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking to speak to young voters. If you are aged 18-29 we would like to get your view on pressing political issuesThe Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking to speak to young voters. If you are aged 18-29 we would like to get your view on the pressing political issues of the day. We are particularly interested in speaking to people who plan to vote for the Conservative party or the Reform party in the next election.The idea is to ask your opinion on subjects like feminism, immigration policy and the welfare state. Interviews can be anonymous, if you would prefer to speak to us without revealing your identity. Continue reading...
Share a tip on your favourite city break in Europe – the best wins £200 towards a Coolstays breakWith summer holidays behind us, now’s the perfect time to escape for a city break. Whether it’s a gastronomic getaway in Copenhagen, browsing the vintage stores of Lisbon or getting lost in the twisting, medieval lanes of Carcassonne, we’d love to hear about your favourite destinations in Europe for a short break.The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from visitors to the V&A East Storehouse about their highlights from the exhibitionThe V&A has launched a new exhibition space, the V&A East Storehouse in East London, where visitors can choose from over 250,000 objects and have one delivered to a room for a private viewing.A recent addition to the collection is the David Bowie Centre, containing the singer’s archive. Continue reading...
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A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideasEach week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email. Continue reading...
Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of footballEvery weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter Continue reading...
The best new music, film, TV, podcasts and more direct to your inbox, plus hidden gems and reader recommendationsFrom Billie Eilish to Billie Piper, Succession to Spiderman and everything in between, subscribe and get exclusive arts journalism direct to your inbox. Gwilym Mumford provides an irreverent look at the goings on in pop culture every Friday, pointing you in the direction of the hot new releases and the best journalism from around the world.Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you Continue reading...
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