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The Guardian

David Beckham’s knighthood shows the unique - and utterly absurd - power of the British class system | Zoe Williams (lun., 09 juin 2025)
As the Beckhams finally get what they’ve apparently always wanted, what does it say about the institutions that put so much energy into blocking them? And what does it say about the rest of us? When the unauthorised, warts-and-all biography of the Beckhams, The House of Beckham, came out last year, it was in the distinctive style of its author, Tom Bower, which is to say, incredibly mean. But it was quite short of warts, to be honest: of course, there were youthful indiscretions – David Beckham’s Madrid years featured an alleged affair and an insufficient tip in a restaurant, and Posh once made a TV show that people didn’t like. But the Beckhams of today were guilty of nothing greater than that they wanted a knighthood, and had done for a really long time. That was why, according to Bower, David volunteered to help in the Philippines after the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, and why Victoria gave all her castoffs to the Chelsea Red Cross which raised some eyebrows at the time, just because the last imaginable thing you would need after being hit by a typhoon would be 78 pairs of cerise stilettos. That was why David had reportedly “unleashed his foul-mouthed tirade” (to use the proper tabloid phrase) by email once his honour was rejected, calling the honours committee a “bunch of cunts” and lambasting Katherine Jenkins because she got an OBE “for what? Singing at the rugby and going to see the troops plus taking coke. F—ing joke.” 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...
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Winter fuel U-turn and spending review standoff – Politics Weekly Westminster (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss Rachel Reeves’s U-turn on winter fuel payments: will it be enough to undo the damage done by the policy? Plus, they look ahead to this week’s spending review as negotiations with ministers go down to the wire. And after its chair dramatically quit the party only to return 48 hours later, what’s going on with Reform UK? Continue reading...
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‘A gift of a role for a mother’: Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer on playing Tolstoy’s tortured Anna Karenina (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
From Anne Boleyn to Lady W to Game of Thrones, she has played tough women who kick against society’s constraints. What will the actor bring to the great Russian character who leaves her husband and son? It was back in 2019 that the role of Anna Karenina was first mentioned to Natalie Dormer. Six years, many screen roles, one pandemic and two children later, Dormer is finally set to take on the titular role of Leo Tolstoy’s epic as Phillip Breen’s adaptation comes to Chichester Festival theatre. The delay has ended up working out well, says Dormer, since Tolstoy’s characters are at the “cutting edge of technology”. The new railways were transforming Russia, and that wasn’t all. “Electric light!” exclaims Dormer. “We talk about it in the play, how that’s going to revolutionise their lifestyles. That trepidation about new technology is so adaptable to today: the terror of the AI train that’s coming our way. That generation of adults in the story – they’re on the precipice of a futuristic world. I think we can identify with that.” It’s only a few days before the first preview of the play, after five weeks of rehearsals, and Dormer is speaking from her dressing room over Zoom, a rail of costumes behind her. She had two children during those years she waited to play Anna. “It was a gift to become a mother before playing this role,” she says, pointing out that Breen’s adaptation has “really zeroed in on her guilt and grief, realising that she replaced her maternal love with amorous love – and that, ultimately, was her undoing”. Continue reading...
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Reeves struggles to explain the genius of Labour’s winter fuel payment U-turn | John Crace (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Chancellor reluctantly tries to smooth things over but looks as if she can’t quite believe some of the nonsense she is saying Mmmm. That went well, didn’t it? One of the first things Labour did after winning the election was to cut the winter fuel allowance (WFA) for most pensioners. To show that they were strong. A signal to the bond markets that they would take the tough decisions to balance the Treasury books. And it was just one of those things if a handful of old people decided to die of hypothermia. They were dying in a good cause. Pour encourager les autres. Let no one take being warm for granted again. Time for some proper pensioner gratitude. Continue reading...
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‘I watched Bob Dylan play tennis with three of the Beatles’: how we made the Isle of Wight festival (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
‘It’s a myth that Jimi Hendrix played while the stage was on fire. It was a firework’ In 1968, when I was 22, my older brother Ronnie got a job as a fundraiser for a swimming pool on the island. I’d done a concert for CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament], so we started talking about doing some sort of festival to raise the money. My younger brother Bill suggested it had to be pop. An agency in London gave Ronnie a list of acts including the Pretty Things, the Move, Fairport Convention, Tyrannosaurus Rex and an American act, Jefferson Airplane. We only had a £750 investment from the Isle of Wight Indoor Swimming Pool Association, but after a friend lent us his £1,000 army pay-off, we managed to book all those bands, sell 10,000 tickets and break even. In the interim, the pool association pulled out because it didn’t like the publicity about hippies, drugs and sex, but they allowed us to use their investment and we were able to pay them back. Continue reading...
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The ‘death of creativity’? AI job fears stalk advertising industry (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
WPP and others roll out AI-generated campaigns as Facebook owner Meta plans to let firms create their own ads WPP chief Mark Read to step down as agency battles AI From using motion capture tech to allow the Indian cricketing star Rahul Dravid to give personalised coaching tips for children to an algorithm trained on Shakespeare’s handwriting powering a robotic arm to rewrite Romeo and Juliet, artificial intelligence is rapidly revolutionising the global advertising industry. Those AI-created adverts, for the Cadbury’s drink brand Bournvita and the pen maker Bic, were produced by agency group WPP, which is spending £300m annually on data, tech and machine learning to remain competitive. Continue reading...
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Winter fuel payments threshold to rise to £35,000, Rachel Reeves announces (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Change means about 7.5m pensioners in England and Wales who lost out on payment will have it restored What does the change to the winter fuel payment mean for pensioners? All pensioners with an income of £35,000 or less a year will have the winter fuel payment restored in full after Rachel Reeves finally responded to public outrage over the government’s most unpopular policy to date. But while the reversal was welcomed by Labour MPs worried about pensioner poverty and the political toxicity of the issue, there were concerns the £1.25bn price tag would mean more tax rises or spending cuts this autumn. Continue reading...
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California to sue Trump administration for ‘unlawfully’ deploying state’s national guard – live (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
California to accuse Trump of deploying troops to quell protests over the objections of governor Newsom; state attorney general says ‘there was no risk of rebellion’ LA braces for more protests against immigration raids Trump’s protest response risks politicizing military, veterans warn About 300 Guard troops have been deployed to LA so far. President Donald Trump earlier said he would deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests, despite the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom. Continue reading...
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Israeli forces take control of Gaza aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Crew of activists making symbolic attempt to deliver aid expected to be held in port until deportation hearings A boat seized by Israel’s military as it tried to break the blockade on Gaza was towed into an Israeli port after sunset on Monday, with the crew of activists including Greta Thunberg expected to be held there in advance of deportation hearings. The Madleen was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory. Continue reading...
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UK teenager who killed herself was ‘highly affected’ by terrorism arrest, inquest finds (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Rhianan Rudd died of ‘self-inflicted act’ after facing charges but coroner says failures in her case were ‘not systemic’ A vulnerable teenage girl who died five months after terrorism charges against her were dropped was “highly affected” by her arrest but failures in her case were “not systemic”, a coroner has concluded. Rhianan Rudd died at a children’s home aged 16 in May 2022, as the result of a self-inflicted act, said the chief coroner of England and Wales, Alexia Durran. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
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Thousands harmed and 87 dead after NHS equipment failures in England (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
‘Shocking statistics’ prompt calls for government funding to replace broken and obsolete medical devices Woman suing NHS trust after blade broke off during surgery and lodged itself in her body Almost 100 people have died and 4,000 have been harmed after equipment malfunctions in the NHS in the past three years, prompting calls for more government funding to upgrade broken and obsolete medical devices. A defibrillator advising paramedics not to administer a shock, an emergency alarm system on a neonatal ward failing, and the camera on an intubation device going dark were just three failures after which patients died. Continue reading...
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Advanced AI suffers ‘complete accuracy collapse’ in face of complex problems, study finds (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
‘Pretty devastating’ Apple paper raises doubts about race to reach stage of AI at which it matches human intelligence Apple researchers have found “fundamental limitations” in cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, in a paper raising doubts about the technology industry’s race to develop ever more powerful systems. Apple said in a paper published at the weekend that large reasoning models (LRMs) – an advanced form of AI – faced a “complete accuracy collapse” when presented with highly complex problems. Continue reading...
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Belgium v Wales: World Cup 2026 qualifier – live (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Updates from the Group J match; kick-off 7.45pm BST Email Michael | Live scores | Tables | Read Football Daily The teams are out! Belgium will play tonight in a racy yellow number, while Wales are in their traditional red. Wales’ anthem, Land of My Fathers, is belted out with hair-raising vigour. It feels like the match is being played in Cardiff, reportedly the biggest Wales away following for a qualifier since the October 2004 game against England at Old Trafford. Wow. The promise of watching Craig Bellamy’s exciting side and simultaneously drinking Belgian lager in the stands was an offer that thousands have obviously deemed too good to turn down. And who can blame them. Continue reading...
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Doctor guilty of misconduct over case of girl, 13, whose death led to Martha’s rule (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Panel found Prof Richard Thompson failed to escalate Martha Mills’s treatment to intensive care or to review her condition directly in person A senior doctor has been found guilty of “misconduct which impairs his fitness to practise” in relation to his treatment of a 13-year-old girl whose death led to the adoption of Martha’s rule. The disciplinary panel reached its decision having determined that Prof Richard Thompson failed to escalate the treatment of Martha Mills to an intensive care unit or to conduct a direct in-person review and assessment, including of a newly developed rash. Continue reading...
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Google battling ‘fox infestation’ on roof of £1bn London office (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Foxes have ‘begun to dig burrows’ in soil of rooftop garden at the as yet unopened King’s Cross headquarters It is intended to be an ultra-modern central London office that will serve Google for decades, but the new £1bn headquarters is beset by one of humanity’s oldest-known pests: foxes. The canines have taken over the rooftop garden of the new “landscraper” in King’s Cross and had an impact on construction – although the company stressed it was “minimal”. Continue reading...
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Public perceptions of Starmer and Farage are perhaps a bit hazy (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Polling shows disconnect between voter perception and leaders’ backgrounds as Reform gains ground in Labour heartlands The optics could hardly be more different. On one stage, Nigel Farage was in a Welsh former steel town talking about reopening coalmines. On another, Keir Starmer enjoyed a cosy chat with a tech multi-billionaire wearing a £7,000 leather jacket. Does this therefore show that the Reform UK leader has been successful in, to use his words, parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn and becoming the voice of working people? As ever in politics, it’s all a bit more complicated. Continue reading...
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‘We are just sitting here’: South African coal belt town split over green transition (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The country wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions without destroying livelihoods, but progress is slow – and the residents of a small town are in the crosshairs Cooling towers and smokestacks still loom over the single-storey houses of Komati, but the winter sky is clear: smoke hasn’t billowed from the vast concrete chimneys of the South African town’s power station since it stopped burning coal in 2022, 61 years after its inauguration. While the state power company Eskom didn’t fire any permanent employees, the end of coal generation and earlier job losses in nearby mines have fuelled doubts in the small town and wider coal belt that there are any benefits to South Africa’s “just energy transition” to renewable power. Continue reading...
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The best TV of 2025 in the UK so far (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
A dying woman’s quest for the perfect orgasm, incest in Thailand and the death of the internet’s daddy – it’s this year’s finest telly so far NetflixThe first streaming show ever to top UK charts. The second biggest English language Netflix series of all time. The most tense scene of an actor retching at the thought of a child eating a cheese sandwich. Such are the lists of firsts for this breathtaking drama about toxic masculinity in teens that it’s nigh on impossible to overpraise it. For a few weeks, the entire world seemed to be talking about the astonishing single-shot cinematography, the terrifying realism of a premise that saw social media fuel a 13-year-old boy to murder a female classmate and stunning performances not just from storied veterans like Stephen Graham, but hyper-young first-time talent such as Owen Cooper. From now on, this is the bar by which all UK drama has to be judged. What we said: “A deeply moving, deeply harrowing experience.” Read the full review Continue reading...
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Jaws at 50: Spielberg’s marine masterpiece transformed the movies – and us (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The original blockbuster turned fear of sharks into decades of persecution but, at long last, the tide may be turning Fifty yars ago the world was changed for ever by a shark. On 20 June 1975, cinemagoers in the US were the first to experience the visceral thrills and oceanic spills of Jaws. It’s the original blockbuster, it inspired an entire genre of “sharksploitation” entertainment, and it transformed what millions thought about sharks, for better and for worse. Continue reading...
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Toxic truth? The cookware craze redefining ‘ceramic’ and ‘nontoxic’ (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Designer brands such as Always Pan and Caraway are booming – but safety experts are raising questions Sign up for the Detox Your Kitchen newsletter The cookware industry has entered a golden age, largely driven by the wild success of a new generation of “nontoxic” and “nonstick” designer ceramic pans backed by stars including Selena Gomez, Stanley Tucci and Oprah Winfrey. But the pans are likely not “nontoxic” some independent testing and research suggests. Nor are they even “ceramic” – at least not in the way the public broadly thinks of ceramics. Now, regulators are investigating some of the pan sellers’ claims. Continue reading...
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‘It makes me sick!’ How the French impressionists went from ‘lunatics’ to luminaries (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The National Gallery of Victoria’s new show, French Impressionism, celebrates the likes of Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot and Pissarro, who painted in the face of public outrage Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email “Five or six lunatics deranged by ambition – one of them a woman – have chosen to exhibit their works,” French critic Albert Wolff wrote in a review of an art exhibition in Paris in 1876. The lunatics in question were a group of up-and-coming artists: Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas. Almost 150 years later, we know now that those lunatics took over the asylum. The impressionists, who rebelled against the old masters by painting lighter, brighter, ephemeral scenes, are today’s old masters; what was so shocking then is now all over our calendars, coffee cups and phone cases. But back in 1876, those looking at their works “are content to laugh at such things,” Wolff wrote sniffily. “But it makes me sick at heart.” Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...
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‘Inconceivable even three years ago’: hands-on with Xbox’s flashy new handheld console (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The new ROG Xbox Ally handheld games machines will be available at the end of the year – here’s what it’s like to play on one Just a few days after Nintendo finally released its follow-up to the Switch, Microsoft has announced its own long-rumoured handheld console: the Xbox Ally. This is a very big deal, not just because it marks the first time Xbox has co-branded a console (with high-end PC specialists Republic of Gamers), but because it’s packing top-of-the-line hardware under its hood. I played the Xbox Ally X, one of two models coming before Christmas, a few hours after they were revealed during 8 June’s Xbox Showcase, and can easily see it becoming a serious competitor for both the Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck. The Xbox Ally springs from the coupling of four different tech firms: Windows, Xbox, AMD and Asus, and it’s definitely their golden child. Both the Xbox Ally and Ally X models have 7-inch 1080p touchscreens, with 16GB of RAM in the Ally and 24GB of RAM in the Ally X, and 512GB SSD storage and 1TB, respectively. Each has Ryzen Z2 chips, though Xbox Ally X has the AI Z2 chip, which integrates an AI processor directly into the silicon. As for what that actually means for players, Microsoft’s head of gaming devices, Roanne Sones, said during a presentation that players will be able to “take advantage of AI experiences without having to compromise anything on the GPU”. The devices both run Windows, but the team has modified it for optimal gaming. Continue reading...
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The 10.30pm dinner: is British food culture becoming more Spanish? (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Forget propping up the bar or dancing the night away - the new face of UK nightlife is restaurant reservations that stretch into the early hours Name: 10.30pm dinners. Age: Previously unheard of. Continue reading...
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Trump has unleashed something terrifying in the US – that even he may be powerless to control | Gaby Hinsliff (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The protests in LA are what everyone feared, and a warning to countries that flirt with populism She was live on air to viewers back home, her TV microphone clearly in hand, when the rubber bullet hit her. The Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was the second journalist after the British photographer Nick Stern to be shot with non-lethal rounds while covering protests in Los Angeles sparked by immigration raids. But she was the first to be caught on camera and beamed around the world. There’s no excuse for not knowing what the US is becoming, now that anyone can watch that clip online. Not when you can hear her scream and see the cameraman quickly swing away to film a panicking crowd. It was the scenario everyone feared when Donald Trump took office. Deportation hit squads descending on the kind of Democrat-voting communities who would feel morally bound to resist them, triggering the kind of violent confrontation that creates an excuse to send in national guard troops – and ultimately a showdown between federal and state power that could take US democracy to the brink. Now something like this may be unfolding in California, where the state governor, Gavin Newsom, has accused the president of trying to “manufacture a crisis” for his own ends and warned that any protester responding with violence is only playing into his hands. Suddenly, the idea that this presidency could ultimately end in civil conflict no longer seems quite so wildly overblown as it once did. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist 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...
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Digital ID cards would be good for Britain – and a secret weapon for Labour against Reform | Polly Toynbee (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The BritCard project would cut down on bureaucracy, help guard our borders and prove Labour has pride in British identity “Papers please!” Those words strike terror in a thousand war movies. Stasi or Gestapo officers are a breed apart from the unarmed plod who demands no ID cards from free British people. So when the government contemplates a universal ID, it sends instinctive twitches down some spines. Though not many. Times and public attitudes have changed. And so have the political imperatives, for it seems that, for a Labour government struggling to seize the narrative after a difficult year in power, digital ID cards – and the sense of national belonging they could strengthen – may just be the weapon needed to fight off the ever-rising threat of Nigel Farage’s Reform. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
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As a child I showed little interest in my mum’s sewing skills. After she died, I realised what I’d missed out on | Nova Weetman (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
She filled my wardrobe with patchwork skirts and home-knitted vests and a dark-green corduroy coat – things that I would kill for now There is a photograph of a very young me wearing a homemade A-line denim dress with a peace sign boldly embroidered on the front. Mum made me the dress for an anti-nuclear rally sometime in the mid-1970s. I don’t remember wearing it that day, or being carried on my dad’s shoulders as we marched with thousands of protesters, but I do recall wearing many of the other clothes Mum made me as a child. There was a lemon floor-length cotton number that she pintucked by hand for my role as the narrator in the school play that would swish around my ankles as I walked across the stage. And a white cropped top that she splattered with neon paint, designed to show up under the fluorescent lights of the Blue Light disco when I was in my Wham phase and trying to attract a boy I liked from school. But my favourite was the spotted taffeta bubble skirt of my dreams that I wore to the high school formal, inspired by Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink. Continue reading...
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Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill is built on falsehoods about low-income families | Brigid Schulte and Haley Swenson (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Republicans portray those in poverty as lazy people who make poor decisions. They’re using that trope to justify huge cuts to the social safety net As they race to deliver Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill, Republicans in Congress are using familiar tropes to justify massive cuts to the safety net that will leave millions of low-income children and families without healthcare or sufficient food. The programs, they argue, are rife with waste, fraud and abuse, and the people who use them just aren’t working hard enough. So work requirements are necessary to force the obviously lazy “able-bodied” people to get to work. Here’s the reality check: a majority of those receiving this aid who can work are already working. More than 70% of working-age people who receive nutrition benefits or Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income children and adults that covers one in five Americans, are already working, according to the Government Accountability Office. Those who aren’t working, research shows, are mostly ill, disabled, caring for a family member, or in school. Brigid Schulte is the director of New America’s work-family justice program, Better Life Lab, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and the author of Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life and the New York Times bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play when No One has the Time. Haley Swenson is a research and writing fellow for the Better Life Lab Continue reading...
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Real Housewives is coming to London? I can’t wait for the boozed-up shouting to begin | Emma Beddington (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
As a middle-aged woman, I find it hard to identify with Davina McCall and her rock-hard abs. This lot, however … The cultural juggernaut that is Real Housewives is coming to London. The capital’s crop of glamorous, monied middle-aged women with short fuses will apparently include the wonderfully named Panthea Parker, someone known as “The Longest Legs in Belgravia” (Amanda Cronin), and a Chelsea baker called Nessie Welschinger. It sounds like appointment viewing, but I feel it incumbent on me to ask: is Real Housewives a Good Thing? Gloria Steinem doesn’t think so. “They present women as rich, pampered, dependent and hateful towards each other,” she said in 2021. Other commentators, however, have pointed to the visibility the franchise offers a relatively underexposed demographic; the weighty themes sometimes covered, amid the froth; and the fact that, belying the reductive title, most of the “housewives” are successful, confident, professional people (albeit with a taste for drama). 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...
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There’s an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading | George Monbiot (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Vast areas of land are now dominated by one species – purple moor-grass – and good luck with seeing a bird or insect there. How do we revive these habitats? Deserts are spreading across great tracts of Britain, yet few people seem to have noticed, and fewer still appear to care. It is one of those astonishing situations I keep encountering: in which vast, systemic problems – in this case, I believe, covering thousands of square kilometres – hide in plain sight. I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I’ve finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry. In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places. Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans. Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones. Continue reading...
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Ben Jennings on Donald Trump’s deployment of the national guard in LA – cartoon (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
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The Guardian view on Labour’s tough choices: they are costing the government dearly | Editorial (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Austerity-era scepticism runs deep – and Labour’s abstract promises are falling flat as Nigel Farage rises in the polls The Labour government’s abrupt U-turn on winter fuel payments – restoring the benefit to more than three-quarters of pensioners – reveals less a change of heart than a sobering realisation in Westminster: after years of austerity, the public no longer gives politicians the benefit of the doubt. The irony is hard to miss. Labour set out to prove that “grown-up” economics means difficult decisions – only to find that once trust is lost, voters won’t accept vague promises without tangible results. It turns out many are sceptical that sacrifices will produce better results for society. That’s why ministers are struggling to justify cuts to disability benefits as a way to “fund” public services – or to convince the public that Britain can’t afford to lift the two-child benefit cap even as ministers claim they will reduce child poverty. There may be more conspicuous retreats ahead for the government. Continue reading...
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The Guardian view on fitness: evidence of the benefits of exercise keeps growing, but who is listening? | Editorial (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Physical activity is part of a healthy lifestyle – ministers should grab the chance to shape the culture surrounding it The role of exercise in promoting good general health, and helping to prevent heart disease, strokes and diabetes is well established. No wonder, then, that long‑distance running keeps growing in popularity. Popular tracks and parks have never been busier, with groups in stretchy Lycra and fitness trackers on their wrists. The internet is awash with exercise videos, while figures earlier this year showed that gym memberships have climbed to a record 11.5m. The 16.9% of people aged 16 or over in Britain who belong to a gym is one of the highest proportions in Europe. The older teenagers and young adults of generation Z are a key demographic behind this social trend. And recent news from the world’s biggest cancer conference, in Chicago, shows how right they are to take the health benefits of fitness seriously. A landmark trial compared the outcomes of patients in several countries who were placed on a programme of structured exercise – assisted by a personal trainer – with those offered standard health advice. Continue reading...
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Pat Cummins: ‘We want to play hard and fair, and I think we’ve got it right’ (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The Australia captain talks about leading the side against South Africa and not getting too big for his boots – but plays a dead bat regarding the Bairstow dismissal at Lord’s As Pat Cummins opens up at the pavilion end, while gazing across the vast empty space of Lord’s a few days before Australia face South Africa in the World Test Championship final, it’s clear that the unexpected opponents this week have helped to frame his remarkable career. On Wednesday morning, while towering a foot over Temba Bavuma, his 5ft 3in South African counterpart, Cummins will lead Australia for the 34th time, in his 68th Test. The fast bowler stands at the summit of world cricket, his grizzled matinee idol charm allied to the grit which has helped him to become such a successful captain. Australia have won almost everything during his tenure of three and a half years and they are expected to retain their Test title. Continue reading...
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‘Boultercanu’ serve doubles delight as women’s tennis returns to Queen’s (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter’s infectious chemistry sparked a day of both jubilation and frustration at Queen’s Moments before Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter walked on to court one to add a touch of pizzazz to a historic day at Queen’s Club, a lady carrying an empty Pimm’s jug went to go for a refill. “I’m sorry but if you leave, we won’t be able to let you straight back in,” she was told by a steward. “You will have to queue.” The woman thought for a moment, looked at the packed stands, and returned to her seat. It turned out to be a wise decision. And not just because the queue to see the British pair – or “Boultercanu” as the press had already anointed them – was snaking halfway around Queen’s Club. Continue reading...
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‘Incredibly happy’: Rayan Aït-Nouri seals £31m move to Manchester City (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Left-back departs Wolves after five years at club Lyon attacker Rayan Cherki could soon follow Manchester City have completed the signing of the left-back Rayan Aït-Nouri from Wolves. The 24-year-old Algeria international has signed a five-year contract at the Etihad Stadium after the clubs agreed a fee of £31m. He becomes City’s first major signing of the summer, with the Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders also ready to join. Aït-Nouri will be eligible for the upcoming Club World Cup later this month, with City also looking to get Reijnders done in time. Continue reading...
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Women’s Super League club revenues soar to record-breaking £65m in 2023-24 (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Matchday takings help revenues to grow by 34% Every club generated over £1m for first time Revenues for Women’s Super League clubs climbed by 34% to hit £65m during a record-breaking 2023-24 season, according to analysis from the Deloitte Sports Business Group. Each of the 12 WSL clubs generated over £1m in revenue for the first time, with increases in commercial and matchday revenues contributing to significant growth across the league. Continue reading...
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Tottenham approach Brentford over appointing Thomas Frank as head coach (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Spurs confident deal can be struck in next 48 hours Personal terms already agreed with 51-year-old Dane Tottenham have approached Brentford over appointing Thomas Frank as their new head coach. The Dane is the club’s No 1 target to replace Ange Postecoglou, who was sacked on Friday, and there is confidence that a deal will be struck in the next 48 hours. Negotiations are due to take place on the cost of recruiting Frank, who has a £10m release clause, and his backroom staff. The 51-year-old Dane wants to join Spurs after almost seven years at Brentford, with terms already in place. Continue reading...
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Hirst off mark and Adams ends drought in style as Scotland thrash Liechtenstein (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
George Hirst scored his first international goal and Che Adams grabbed a hat-trick as Scotland eased to a 4-0 victory against Liechtenstein. Ipswich striker Hirst got Scotland’s third goal in the Vaduz friendly early in the second half with a close-range finish on his fourth cap. Adams was on target twice in the first half after scoring only once in his previous 19 internationals and the Torino forward headed home with the last action of the game. Continue reading...
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Jonathan Milan surges to stage win in Critérium du Dauphiné and snatches lead from Pogacar (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Italian sprinter collects victory and takes yellow jersey Britain’s Fred Wright is runner-up on second stage The Italian sprinter Jonathan Milan surged away from the pack to win the second stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné in Issoire and take the overall lead from Tadej Pogacar. Milan (Lidl-Trek) had to battle to keep up on a hilly 204.6km run through central France from Prémilhat. When the pack hit the home straight, he rocketed away from his rivals to collect a 10-second victory bonus and the yellow jersey. Continue reading...
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Rugby’s breakaway R360 league labelled ‘delusional’ by leading TV sport executive (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
R360 targeting ‘best of the best’ 300 male players Premiership does not see franchise league as threat A leading executive at TNT Sports has dismissed the proposed R360 breakaway league as “delusional” while Premiership executives have played down the rebels’ threat, insisting rugby “doesn’t need pop-ups”. Confirming that R360 has not approached TNT Sports about its plans for a globetrotting league that targets the world’s best players on lucrative contracts, Andrew Georgiou – president and managing director of WBD Sports Europe – joined Premiership Rugby in questioning the commercial and economic viability of the breakaway league. Continue reading...
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How every Premier League club’s summer business is shaping up (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Aston Villa and Manchester United must shift surplus players while Sunderland and Leeds seek extra squad depth Recruitment was cast as the main reason for the club’s disappointment last season. Mikel Merino playing as an auxiliary centre-forward after Kai Havertz had broken down made that apparent. This will be a summer with a marked difference with Andrea Berta ready to go as the club’s new sporting director. Berta spent 12 years at Atlético Madrid, supplying the players and foundation behind Diego Simeone’s dynasty. Arsenal seek to avoid friction between Arteta dictating as he did previously and Berta wielding the same kind of power that was so effective in Madrid. Benjamin Sesko of RB Leipzig is heavily linked to the striking vacancy with Sporting’s Viktor Gyökeres seen as too costly. Martin Zubimendi is expected to reunite with Merino in Arsenal’s midfield, though Real Madrid may yet turn the midfielder’s head. Kepa Arrizabalaga will come in as a back-up goalkeeper within a squad well set for success but missing the final pieces. John Brewin Continue reading...
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Russia could be ready to attack Nato within five years, says secretary general (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
In speech in London Mark Rutte says he expects alliance members to agree to raise military spending to 5% of GDP Russia could be ready to attack Nato within five years and leaders of the western alliance are expected to agree to increase military spending to 5% of GDP this month to contain the threat, the alliance’s secretary general has said. Mark Rutte said in a speech in London on Monday that Nato needed “a quantum leap in our collective defence”, which would include significant rearmament to deter an increasingly militarised Russia. Continue reading...
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Justin Baldoni’s $400m defamation claim against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds dismissed (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Judge finds Lively’s accusations of sexual harassment were legally protected and therefore immune from suit A judge on Monday dismissed Justin Baldoni’s $400m defamation claim against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, after finding that Lively’s accusations of sexual harassment against Baldoni were legally protected and therefore immune from suit. The entire lawsuit from Baldoni, the actor and director, which included claims of extortion, was dismissed by Lewis Liman, a US district judge of New York. But the ruling allows Baldoni to amend and refile some allegations regarding interference with contracts. Continue reading...
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Hegseth aide upended Pentagon leak inquiry with false wiretap claims (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Exclusive: ex-Doge staffer Justin Fulcher suggested he had evidence of wiretap that would help investigation Days before Pete Hegseth fired three top aides last month over a Pentagon leak investigation into the disclosure of classified materials, according to four people familiar with the episode, a recently hired senior adviser said he could help with the inquiry. The adviser, Justin Fulcher, suggested to Hegseth’s then chief of staff, Joe Kasper, and Hegseth’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, that he knew of warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) that had identified the leakers. Continue reading...
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Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86 (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Writer used his experience reporting on De Gaulle’s France to plot his thriller, and continued to draw on real-world research for subsequent bestsellers Frederick Forsyth, the author who turned his adventures as a journalist and work with MI6 into bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness aged 86. Forsyth brought a reporter’s eye to his fiction, transforming the thriller genre with a series of novels including The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War. Combining meticulous research with firecracker plots, he published a series of novels that sold more than 75m copies around the world, and won him honours including a CBE in 1997 and the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger award. Continue reading...
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Domestic violence can affect victims’ brain health for life, study suggests (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Most survivors of physical abuse by partners reported blows to the head, linked to brain injury and poor mental health for decades Women who are victims of domestic violence are at a higher risk of traumatic brain injury and mental health conditions for many years after the abuse has ended, a study has found. Almost one in three women around the world experience domestic violence, and researchers say the impact on mental health – such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – can last for decades. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org Continue reading...
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World must move from ‘plunder to protection’ to save oceans, UN chief warns (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Speaking at France summit, António Guterres called for bold pledges to stop deep sea from becoming ‘wild west’ Nations must move from “plunder to protection” in order to save the world’s seas from crisis, the UN chief, António Guterres, told the ocean summit on Monday. All countries must come forward with “bold pledges” including a biodiversity target to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030, to tackle plastic pollution, overfishing and for greater governance of the high seas, he said at the opening ceremony. Guterres also stressed the importance of multilateralism and warned, in an apparent swipe at the US, which was not present at the conference: “The deep sea cannot become the wild west.” Continue reading...
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‘Ticking timebomb’: sea acidity has reached critical levels, threatening entire ecosystems – study (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Ocean acidification has already crossed a crucial threshold for planetary health, scientists say in unexpected finding More on this story: How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans The world’s oceans are in worse health than realised, scientists have said today, as they warn that a key measurement shows we are “running out of time” to protect marine ecosystems. Ocean acidification, often called the “evil twin” of the climate crisis, is caused when carbon dioxide is rapidly absorbed by the ocean, where it reacts with water molecules leading to a fall in the pH level of the seawater. It damages coral reefs and other ocean habitats and, in extreme cases, can dissolve the shells of marine creatures. Continue reading...
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Trump’s EPA to claim power-plant emissions ‘not significant’ – but study says otherwise (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
US power sector would be world’s sixth largest emitter of planet-heating greenhouse gas if it were a country – study Donald Trump’s administration is set to claim planet-heating pollution spewing from US power plants is so globally insignificant it should be spared any sort of climate regulation. But, in fact, the volume of these emissions is stark – if the US power sector were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Continue reading...
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How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
In seas around the world pH levels are falling – and scientists are increasingly frustrated that the problem is not being taken seriously enough Read more: ‘Ticking timebomb’: sea acidity has reached critical levels, threatening entire ecosystems – study On a clear day at Plymouth marina you can see across the harbour out past Drake’s Island – named after the city’s most famous son, Francis Drake – to the Channel. It’s quite often possible to see an abundance of marine vessels, from navy ships and passenger ferries to small fishing boats and yachts. What you might not spot from this distance is a large yellow buoy bobbing up and down in the water about six miles off the coast. This data buoy – L4 – is one of a number belonging to Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), a research centre in Devon dedicated to marine science. On a pleasantly calm May morning, Prof James Fishwick, PML’s head of marine technology and autonomy, is on top of the buoy checking it for weather and other damage. “This particular buoy is one of the most sophisticated in the world,” he says as he climbs the ladder to the top. “It’s decked out with instruments and sensors able to measure everything from temperature, to salinity, dissolved oxygen, light and acidity levels.” Continue reading...
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MPs ask minister if he will claw back Thames Water executive bonuses (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Chair of troubled firm admits 21 senior managers were paid 50% of base salary on 30 April The environment secretary has been asked if he will claw back controversial bonus payments to Thames Water senior executives after it emerged some bonuses had already been paid out. Last month, Steve Reed vowed to block bonuses that Thames Water proposed to pay to managers at the beleaguered company. The firm’s chair has been forced to admit that bonuses have already been paid to executives out of a £3bn emergency loan paid by creditors for the purpose of rescuing Thames from financial collapse. Continue reading...
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Investigation launched after deportee breaks free on Heathrow runway (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Man apprehended after freeing himself from restraints and sprinting across runway at Terminal 2 An inquiry is under way into how an immigration detainee who was being deported from the UK managed to free himself from restraints and started to run, close to the takeoff paths of planes at Heathrow airport. The man, who was captured on film sprinting across the runway at Terminal 2 on Sunday, was about to be deported to India but managed to break free from the guards holding on to his waist restraint belt while escorting him to the plane. Continue reading...
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Nigel Farage’s pitch for Welsh elections: bring back coalmining (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Reform leader says steel and coal industries can be revived but does not say how beyond ‘scrapping net zero’ Nigel Farage has demanded the reopening of domestic coalmines to provide fuel for new blast furnaces, arguing that Welsh people would happily return to mining if the pay was sufficiently high. Speaking at an event in Port Talbot, the south Wales town traditionally associated with the steel industry, the Reform UK leader said it was in the “national interest” to have a guaranteed supply of steel, as well as UK-produced fuel for the furnaces, a close echo of Donald Trump’s repeated pledges to return heavy industry to the US. Continue reading...
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Man killed wife in stabbing attack as she walked baby in Bradford, court told (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Habibur Masum, 26, is accused of murdering Kulsuma Akter, 27, after tracking her down to a women’s refuge A man who killed his estranged wife in a ferocious attack in Bradford while she was pushing a pram stabbed her numerous times in the head, neck and body, a court has heard. Habibur Masum, 26, killed Kulsuma Akter after tracking her down to a women’s refuge where she was living. She had moved out after suffering threats and attacks from him at their home in Oldham, a jury at Bradford crown court was told. Continue reading...
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Canadian PM vows to boost defence spending and reduce dependency on US (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Carney says Canada will hit Nato target of 2% of GDP five years ahead of schedule amid ‘dangerous and divided world’ Mark Carney has promised to boost defence spending to its highest level in decades, warning that in a “dangerous and divided world”, Canada must reduce its dependence on the US for defence. Speaking at the University of Toronto on Monday, Carney said Canada would reach Nato’s 2% military expenditure target this fiscal year – five years ahead of his previously announced schedule. For years, Canada has been viewed as a defence loafer and successive prime ministers have failed to bring the country’s commitments in line with allies. A recent Nato report found that Canada spent an estimated 1.45% of its GDP on defence last year. Continue reading...
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University of Michigan ends undercover surveillance contracts after Guardian revelations (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Outcry after report that private investigators had been trailing and recording pro-Palestinian protesters for months The University of Michigan has canceled its contract for undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, following outcry after a Guardian story revealed the private investigators had been trailing and recording students for months, and published damning video of one investigator’s interaction with a student. “We recently learned that an employee of one of our security contractors has acted in ways that go against our values and directives,” the U-M president, Domenico Grasso, wrote in an email to students and faculty on Sunday night. “Going forward, we are terminating all contracts with external vendors to provide plainclothes security on campus.” Continue reading...
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Peru drops plan to shrink protected area around Nazca Lines archaeological site (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Critics had claimed that plan announced in May exposed complex of desert etchings to impact of informal mining Peru’s government has abandoned a plan that reduced the size of a protected area around the country’s ancient Nazca Lines, after criticism the change made them vulnerable to the impact of informal mining operations. Peru’s culture ministry said on Sunday that it was reinstating with immediate effect the protected area covering 5,600 square kilometers (2,200 square miles), that in late May had been cut back to 3,200 sq km. The government said at the time the decision was based on studies that had more precisely demarcated areas with “real patrimonial value”. Continue reading...
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Shot Colombian presidential candidate needs ‘miracle’ to survive, wife says (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Miguel Uribe Turbay from opposition party who was shot on Saturday is showing ‘little response’ after surgery Miguel Uribe Turbay, the rightwing Colombian presidential candidate who was shot at a campaign rally, has reportedly shown little response to medical interventions and needs “a miracle” to survive, his wife said on Monday. The update on his condition comes as a judge confirmed the arrest of the 15-year-old suspect, after the prosecutor’s office submitted 129 videos, witness testimonies and the seizure of a pistol as evidence. Continue reading...
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Voces8 review – agile and poised vocal group celebrate 20 years, with a little help from their friends (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Barbican Hall, LondonThe choir’s birthday concert focused mainly on 20th and 21st-century music with a contemplative bent. Joined in the second half by members old and potentially new, and also the BBC Singers, the sound was thrilling Voces8 are 20 years old this year, but with so many speeches and so much goodwill floating around the sold-out Barbican, this birthday concert felt more like a wedding. It was certainly a family celebration on one level: the main MC was Barnaby Smith, who co-founded this agile vocal group with his brother Paul and is still its countertenor and artistic director, while Paul is CEO. And there were several old friends of the ensemble among the composers. The first half showcased the group in its usual format – eight singers, a cappella. It started with Buccinate in neomenia tuba by the Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Croce, which, expertly sung, felt like an establishment of their credentials: crisp, poised and fast, the Italian skipping off the singers’ tongues. Continue reading...
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Whatever happened to Billy Bibbit? The extraordinary life of actor Brad Dourif - from Cuckoo’s Nest to Chucky (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
He was Oscar-nominated for his unforgettable work alongside Jack Nicholson, in one of the greatest films of all time. It was the start of his career as the ultimate character actor. He discusses David Lynch, Ian McKellen and the joy of playing a murderous doll Brad Dourif knew it was time to retire from acting when he stopped feeling … well, anything about the parts he was being offered. “I got to a place where if somebody offered me something, all I felt was an empty: oh.” It had started in 2013, after a production of Tennessee Williams’s The Two-Character Play. That had been an extraordinary experience, with his co-star Amanda Plummer “by far the best actor I’ve ever worked with”, but left him wondering if there was anything he still wanted to do professionally. Acting no longer got him excited; it just left him tired. “It became clear to me after a while that I just really didn’t want to work any more.” We speak over video call from his home in upstate New York, where he lives with Claudia, his girlfriend of 30-plus years, a poet and songwriter, and his tabby cats Honey Mustard and Snapdragon. Instead of working, he is building and decorating a swimming pool-sized enclosure for them, so that they can be outdoors safely at night. “You might call it a catio but we call it kitty city!” he says. “My friend who helped me build this thing gave it a once-over and he went: ‘Expensive cats!’” Dourif, 75, is enjoying retirement so much that it takes a nudge from his agent to pull him away from the fantasy novel he is immersed in to alert him to the fact that he is 20 minutes late for our call. Continue reading...
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Beth review – like a frustratingly unfinished Black Mirror (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Channel 4’s first YouTube show about a couple’s IVF woes looks stylish, but at just three 15-minute films, it feels wildly rushed. TV this brief needs to be perfectly formed …. and this is far from it If something is going to be small, it needs to be perfectly formed. If it’s a short story, you need to be giving it Katherine Mansfield levels of welly. If you’re contemplating a 90-minute adaptation of Great Expectations, you need to be David Lean. If it’s a canape, it needs to be a tiny yorkshire pudding with a mini slice of roast beef tucked in and a dot of horseradish on the top. A smear of cream cheese on a cracker won’t do. And if you are putting together a set of three 15-minute films as the first original drama for Channel 4’s digital platform, to be shown on YouTube to try to get the youth market to pump the brakes on its handcart to hell and see what this “art” business is all about (before it is streamed in one gobbet on your main broadcast channel), the same principle applies. It needs to be a miracle of compression, a story told without a wasted second or word. It will need to evoke much but still nail the key points and obey the narrative rules by which we make sense of any tale and through which we enjoy it. Continue reading...
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‘Still brings me hope’: why Submarine is my feelgood movie (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The latest in our series of writers calling attention to their go-to comfort watches is a recommendation of a meaningful 2010 comedy drama I remember the day anxiety took over my life. I was 12 years old and felt continually, grindingly nervous about everything and nothing. I had spent the morning in the student support office, coming down from a panic attack that had left me pinned to a classroom floor, heart pounding and tears streaming down my face. Over a post-recovery cup of tea and Jaffa Cakes, a pastoral adviser told me that if this was to become a regular occurrence, I would hit burnout by the end of term. The idea stuck. Within my first few weeks at high school, I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder – a condition characterised by excessive and persistent worry, according to the NHS. A perfectionist streak had spiralled into an acute sense of responsibility. I was an overly conscientious student; I felt I had to be better than everyone else and excel at my studies in order to prove my worth. I tried to do as much work as I could, as perfectly as possible, as a way to shore up low self-esteem. Continue reading...
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Mythica: Stormbound review – new chunk of swords and sorcery tale ripe for avid franchise audience (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The sixth instalment in this low-budget series has a meagre plot and shonky visual effects but the director and cast clearly care about the franchise’s audience This low-budget but reasonably competent swords and sorcery yarn is the sixth instalment in a series of Mythica films that goes back to 2014. It seems they were first bankrolled partly by crowdfunding, and then presumably kept going by the production’s low overheads and straight-to-retail distribution to an audience that clearly grooves to quasi-Tolkienian, Dungeons and Dragons-style quests featuring a motley band (there is usually an elf or dwarf). If you like your necromancy tales spiked with huge chunks of nattering as the characters endeavour to bulk out the running time with lots of banter and exposition, this may be just the ticket. Don’t worry too much about not having seen the other five films because this is reasonably watchable, especially as so much time is devoted to filling newbies in on the backstory via dialogue and voiceover. In any case, this is a bit of reboot with the meagre plot unfolding about 15 years after events in the last film. The ensemble is made of up all-new characters who allude to such figures as Marek the slave girl-cum-magician who led the franchise earlier. This go-round, our protagonist is The Stranger (Will Kemp), known just as Stranger to his friends; he is an apothecary/bounty hunter (clearly in this medieval economy everyone has two or three jobs) travelling with a mysterious cargo in his wagon. Stranger finds Erid (Nate Morley), an injured young man, on the road and brings him to an inn run by Irish-accented dwarf Giblock (Joe Abraham). The inn just happens to be where Erid had been living as a one of Giblock’s slaves along with comely Arlin (Ryann Bailey), but Erid recently got caught up in a catastrophe when the local witch, who goes by the delightful moniker Mahitable Crow (Barta Heiner), murdered everyone in the nearby village, making Erid the sole survivor. Continue reading...
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TV tonight: Jamie Oliver cooks up a new campaign – to help children with dyslexia (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Fuelled by his own experience, the chef bids high to spark an educational reform. Plus: Jane Austen’s Emma takes shape on the page. Here’s what to watch this evening 9pm, Channel 4Love or loathe him, there’s no denying that Jamie Oliver has used his profile more than most to campaign for better opportunities for young people. This time, though, it’s personal. Oliver, who has dyslexia, is calling for educational reform to ensure dyslexic children aren’t left behind. He speaks to pupils who feel “stupid, worthless, dumb” as he did, teachers who say training isn’t fit for purpose and dyslexic celebrities such as Holly Willoughby. This leads to a meeting with the secretary of state for education, Bridget Phillipson, who is presented with voice notes from dyslexic people: “I hated being me, I hated school, I hated life.” Is it enough to make change happen? Hollie Richardson Continue reading...
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New Music Biennial review – sitars, thorax-quaking bass and vibrators (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Various venues, BradfordA varied weekend in the UK City of Culture showcased a huge range of energetic, imaginative and boundary-crossing new music ‘Growling through the trombone is a new one for me,” admitted one musician between performances of Ailís Ní Ríain’s work Holocene. Bradford Cathedral echoed with squawks, rattles and primordial grumbling as the combined forces of Onyx Brass and Hammonds Band conjured Ní Ríain’s vivid soundscape of life on Earth 11,000 years ago (imagine prehistoric megafauna getting the Jaws treatment). But those lower brass growls weren’t the score’s most daring feature. That honour goes to the four percussionists who teased waves of soft rustling from cymbals with small battery-operated vibrators. All in a day’s work at the New Music Biennial – now in its fifth iteration and hosted this year in Bradford, UK City of Culture 2025, before the same lineup of 20 short pieces decamps to London’s Southbank Centre in July. Most weren’t strictly world premieres (nor is the Biennial strictly biennial) but as a free showcase of activity across the UK music scene, there’s nothing quite like it. Folk, jazz and electronic artists appear alongside classical ensembles – though such labels mean little when most of the featured music crosses such boundaries as standard. Continue reading...
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The gripping, emotive tale of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira’s disappearance: best podcasts of the week (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
An evocative deep dive into the environmental journalist and Brazilian Indigenous defender going missing in the Amazon. Plus, Richard Ayoade teams up with Warwick Davis, while Amber Rudd has some inside info to share … This six-episode Guardian podcast opens with evocative descriptions of dense Amazonian jungle teeming with macaws, jaguars and howler monkeys. But the pastoral beauty soon gives way to fear, as we hear about the disappearance of environmental journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira in a tale that pits them against the forces that run one of the world’s biggest drug-smuggling routes. This gripping investigation tries to get to the bottom of what happened and, given that it’s hosted by Phillips’s friend, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips, does so in a movingly personal manner. Alexi Duggins Episodes weekly, Widely available Continue reading...
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Pulp review – Jarvis Cocker’s captivating comeback turns a rapt crowd rapturous (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
OVO Hydro, Glasgow On a kitschy 1970s chatshow set, the Sheffield band play hits from across their career – and fans welcome their just-released album tracks like old friends A thick velvet curtain cocoons the stage as a cool disembodied voice projects over the audience: “This is an encore. An encore occurs because the audience wants more.” Since their initial breakup in 2002, Pulp have re-formed twice, for sold-out tours and festival sets played to loyal, rapturous audiences. Tonight, the stakes are higher: for the first time in 24 years, Pulp have a new album, More, released just one day before tonight’s opening show. The audience want more – but do they want More? Any anxiety about new material is quashed when set opener and comeback single Spike Island is received like an old friend. Jarvis Cocker rises from the back of the stage flanked by cardboard cutouts of his bandmates – recognisable from the cover of 1995’s Different Class – before joining their real-life counterparts, guitarist Mark Webber, drummer Nick Banks and keyboardist Candida Doyle, downstage. Continuing this mood, old and new songs on the setlist complement each other: the spacious psychedelia of More’s Farmer’s Market leads into the wide-eyed wonder of Sunrise from We Love Life; and the high stakes disco of O.U. (Gone, Gone) is echoed in its new counterpart Got to Have Love. With its illuminated staircase, kitschy backdrops and full string section, the stage is reminiscent of a 1970s chatshow set, with Cocker holding court in a corduroy suit, taking a seat – and occasionally laying down – during the spoken word sections, but always captivating. Continue reading...
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Pitbull review – like a children’s party, but with loads of booze (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Co-Op Live, ManchesterWith a hedonistic seize-the-day message, the pop-rapper resembles a cult leader or motivational speaker – and his followers are willing to overlook the faults in his live show Pitbull is trying to give over 20,000 people a language lesson. “I want to teach you a little bit of Spanish,” he says to the crowd, about 90% of whom are dressed in Mr Worldwide cosplay of bald caps, aviators and squiggly hand-drawn facial hair. The phrase he’s teaching? “Yo no quiero agua, yo quiero bebida”, which in English translates to “I don’t want water, I want a drink”. As people used to say: yolo. This is the vibe of Pitbull’s Party After Dark tour, which returns to the UK for its second run this year. It’s a relentless ride through the era of hedonistic and carefree EDM pop that sprouted up after the 2008 financial crisis, and given renewed economic uncertainty and horrific global events, it’s unsurprising that people are still seeking escapism. Why shouldn’t that be delivered by a bald man in his 40s known for rapping “I saw, I came, I conquered / Or should I say: I saw, I conquered, I came”? Continue reading...
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Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review – anything can happen on this remote Scottish island (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Life is turned upside-down by a new arrival, in this weird and charming tale of nature and family – with a guest appearance from the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson Often thought of as the northernmost point of the British Isles, the Scottish island Muckle Flugga lies on the outer reaches of the Shetland archipelago. Norse legend has it that this craggy and almost uninhabitable place was created by two warring giants, obsessed with the same mermaid. While throwing boulders at each other, one of the rivalrous giants’ missiles accidentally plopped into the sea: and so the island was born. A version of this mythic tussle is central to Michael Pedersen’s debut novel. When the narrative opens, delivered in a lively present tense sprinkled with Scots, The Father and his 19-year-old son Ouse are the only residents on the island. The Father mans Muckle’s lighthouse, and is as volatile as the waves he illuminates. A gossip from a neighbouring island describes him as irascible, with “a viper in his throat and … a broken soldier’s thirst for whisky”. Ouse, meanwhile, is “a queer sort” “who sounds as if he’s been sooking helium out of party balloons … always staring off into the distance”. He’s famed in the area for being an “artiste”, a dab hand at needlework with a reputation for producing beautiful handmade textiles. Continue reading...
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Artists, Siblings, Visionaries by Judith Mackrell review – the remarkable lives of Gwen and Augustus John (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Gwen’s talent vastly outshone her brother’s – but both are treated with subtlety in this outstanding dual biography A young woman sits reading, a pot of tea to hand, her blue dress almost the only colour in a still, sandy room. Gwen John’s painting The Convalescent shows a subdued yet happy moment, for this woman is free to think and feel. That, we see in Judith Mackrell’s outstanding double biography of Gwen and her brother, was her ideal for living: to be at liberty even if that meant existing in deepest solitude. The quietness of a life spent largely alone in single rooms, reading, drawing, painting and occasionally having wild sex with the sculptor Rodin, is counterpointed in this epic narrative by the crowded, relentless, almost insanely overstimulated life of Augustus John. Lion of the arts in early 20th-century Britain, he was a bigamist, adulterer, father of so many children you lose track (so did he), and an utterly forgettable painter. Continue reading...
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My mother was a famous feminist writer known for her candour and wit. But she was also a fantasist who couldn’t be bothered to spend time raising me (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
When Fear of Flying, her autobiographical novel about women’s sexual desires, came out in 1973, Erica Jong was suddenly big news. But growing up as her only child, I had a very different experience In August 1978, I was born in a hospital in Stamford, Connecticut. I came out with red hair. This was proof to my mother that I was special. The fantasy of my specialness continued my entire life. I was special even though I was dyslexic. I was special even though I got kicked out of college. I was special even though I was a drug addict. I was special despite my fatness. I was special despite all the evidence to the contrary. I was special because I was a piece of her. I read an interview with my mother in which the interviewer described me as a “stout” toddler. “Stout” means “kind of fat”. I never thought of a toddler as being able to be fat, but there it was. Continue reading...
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‘I’m here to open doors’: Bernardine Evaristo on success, controversy and why she plans to donate her £100k award (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
The Girl, Woman, Other author has this week been awarded a one-off Women’s prize award for her outstanding contribution. She talks about her long road to recognition, and using her profile to support other writers Back in 2013, Bernardine Evaristo gave a reading in a south London bookshop from her novel Mr Loverman. Only six people showed up, a couple of them were dozing and she realised they were homeless people who had come to find somewhere comfortable to sleep. Last month, the hit TV adaptation Mr Loverman, about a 74-year-old gay Caribbean man set in Hackney, east London, won two Baftas, including leading actor for Lennie James, making him the first Black British actor to win the TV award in its 70-year history. “I checked Wikipedia!” Evaristo exclaims of this shocking fact when we meet in London. Evaristo’s long career is one of firsts and creating them for others. In 2019, at the age of 60, she became the first Black woman to win the Booker prize – shared with Margaret Atwood – for Girl, Woman, Other, 12 interwoven stories of Black, female and one non-binary character. She is also the first Black woman to become president of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) – only the second woman in its 200-year history, not to mention the first not to have attended Oxford, Cambridge or Eton. And this week she became the recipient of the Women’s prize inaugural Outstanding Contribution award. Continue reading...
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The Nintendo Switch 2 is out – here’s everything you need to know (Thu, 05 Jun 2025)
It’s the first major console launch in five years, so is it worth forking out for? From new tech to add-ons, our guide will help you decide Since its announcement in January, anticipation has been building for the Nintendo Switch 2 – the followup to the gaming titan’s most successful home console, the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch. Major console launches are rarer than they used to be; this is the first since 2020, when Sony’s PlayStation 5 hit shelves. Whether you’re weighing up a purchase or just wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s everything you need to know. Continue reading...
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Nintendo’s Switch 2 is the upgrade of my dreams – but it’s not as ‘new’ as some might hope (Wed, 04 Jun 2025)
The long-trailed console offers sturdier hardware, improved graphics and seamless online functionality. ​But it’s more of an update than a revolution Launch week is finally here, and though I would love to be bringing you a proper review of the Nintendo Switch 2 right now, I still don’t have one at the time of writing. In its wisdom, Nintendo has decided not to send review units out until the day before release, so as you read this I will be standing impatiently by the door like a dog anxiously awaiting its owner. I have played the console, though, for a whole day at Nintendo’s offices, so I can give you some first impressions. Hardware-wise, it is the upgrade of my dreams: sturdier JoyCons, a beautiful screen, the graphical muscle to make games look as good as I want them to in 2025 (though still not comparable to the high-end PlayStation 5 Pro or a modern gaming PC). I like the understated pops of colour on the controllers, the refined menu with its soothing chimes and blips. Game sharing, online functionality and other basic stuff is frictionless now. I love that Nintendo Switch Online is so reasonably priced, at £18 a year, as opposed to about the same per month for comparable gaming services, and it gives me access to a treasure trove of Nintendo games from decades past. Continue reading...
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Survival Kids proves Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t just about Mario Kart World (Tue, 03 Jun 2025)
Everyone might be talking about the new title from gaming’s favourite plumber, but there’s at least one other interesting original launching with the new console this week The interesting thing about console launches is that you never know what unexpected treasures will emerge from the first batch of games. Who could have foretold that the hero of the PlayStation launch would be a fireworks simulation (Fantavision), or that the most joyous title in the initial GameCube lineup would involve simians racing each other in giant transparent globes (Super Monkey Ball)? The latest example could well be Konami’s Survival Kids, the only new third-party game in the Switch 2 opening wave. It’s the latest in the publisher’s cult series of tropical island survival sims, which began on the Game Boy Color and, despite never really attracting vast global success, continued on to the Nintendo DS under a new name, Lost in Blue. Now it’s back as a familyfriendly co-op survival adventure, in which groups of up to four players are shipwrecked on a mysterious archipelago, and must survive by gathering resources, crafting tools, finding food and exploring a series of lush, cartoonish environments. Four people can play online, but the game also supports Switch 2’s game sharing, which lets one person who owns the game connect wirelessly with other consoles to play together. Continue reading...
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Crime scene catharsis: how a darkly comic video game and TV show turned me into a murder clean-up specialist (Mon, 02 Jun 2025)
Slinging bodies into a pickup as Kovalsky in Crime Scene Cleaner reminded me of Greg Davies in The Cleaner – there is something grimly satisfying about death’s aftermath Lately I’ve been playing a new job sim game, Crime Scene Cleaner, while also watching BBC’s comedy series The Cleaner, both of which focus on the aftermath of gruesome murders – sometimes you just need some cosy viewing to take the edge off the day. In the TV show, Greg Davies plays Wicky, the acerbic employee of a government-endorsed clean-up company, while Crime Scene Cleaner’s lead character Kovalsky is a lowly janitor, mopping up blood and disposing of trash to cover up for a mob boss named Big Jim. The crime scenes in both are laughably over the top. Or are they? I’ve never actually seen a real-life murder scene, so perhaps copious blood sprayed over walls and ceilings and the masses of broken furniture is completely normal. Continue reading...
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Katherine Ryan: Battleaxe review – comedy’s ice queen melts into audience agony aunt (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Cliffs Pavilion, SouthendIn a show of two halves, the caustic standup is at her best when rolling her eyes at the weaker sex, but her post-interval crowd-counselling doesn’t quite cut it How would you like a ruthless cynic as an agony aunt? That’s the question thrown up by this touring show from Katherine Ryan, which pairs 45 minutes of caustic standup with a second 45 of counselling to the crowd. You might protest that that adds up to less than an hour of new material in Battleaxe, plus a second act that’s more improvised therapy session meets audience Q&A. But at least those three-quarters of an hour find Ryan on imperious form, dispensing tart put-downs of men in general and some men in particular. This ice queen of comedy pose is one Ryan wears lightly now, after a few years where it sometimes felt restrictive and for show. Then came her 2022 show Missus, which diluted (or enriched) the persona to address the Canadian’s then-recent out-of-the-blue marriage. Battleaxe is a retrenchment after that more expansive offering, with Ryan back in her high-status comfort zone, eye-rolling at her children’s foibles, breaching PC protocols for LOLs, and wrinkling her nose at the weaker sex. “If dildos could bleed a radiator, men would be obsolete.” There’s a fine routine on the contrasting ways male and female bodies husband their reproductive material, and many a weary remark at the expense of ’im indoors. See this masterpiece of double-edgery: “I love my current husband so much so far.” Touring until 28 June Continue reading...
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‘It’s not happy-clappy’: the extraordinary story of Speedo Mick (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
As a musical about him opens at Liverpool’s Royal Court, Michael Cullen tells of hope, heart – and hitting rock bottom When the lights went down on the final scene of Speedo Mick – the Musical, Michael Cullen had tears streaming down his face. He wasn’t the only one. On the face of it, the show about his life, which opened at Liverpool’s Royal Court theatre this week and runs until July, is a knockabout romp about a local character known for raising money for charity by strutting his stuff in a pair of bright blue budgie-smugglers. Continue reading...
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Yoshitomo Nara review: cutesy terrors swear, smoke, play guitar and burn down houses (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Hayward Gallery, LondonThe Japanese artist’s instantly recognisable delinquent infants fill a huge show that also includes more sombre – and still angry – work made since the Fukushima disaster There’s a video online of 100 kids playing football against three adult pros. The kids get absolutely annihilated. But they’d do a whole lot better if they were more like the menacing, knife-wielding little terrors who populate Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s world. Try dribbling past a toddler when he’s just jabbed a shiv in your calf, Lionel Messi. For 40 years now Nara has been dealing in cutesy kitsch with a vicious edge. His paintings and drawings of adorably bug-eyed little nippers are singularly Nara: love it or hate it, he’s carved out his own instantly recognisable aesthetic path. Continue reading...
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Saul review – probing, dark and engrossing staging of Handel’s oratorio (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Glyndebourne, SussexBarrie Kosky’s remarkable 2015 production returns to the summer festival with Christopher Purves and Iestyn Davies superb in the lead roles The Glyndebourne season continues with a revival by Donna Stirrup of Barrie Kosky’s 2015 staging of Handel’s Saul, widely regarded as one of the festival’s finest achievements and the production that cemented Kosky’s reputation in the UK as a director of remarkable originality. This is the first time I’ve seen it, having missed both its opening run and the 2018 revival, and it strikes me as an example of Kosky’s work at its finest: probing, insightful, sometimes witty, sometimes dark, always utterly engrossing. Premiered in 1739, Saul has often been compared to King Lear. There is much of Shakespeare in this portrait by Handel and his librettist, Charles Jennens, of the Old Testament king whose mind slowly disintegrates under the challenges presented to him politically and privately by David after the death of Goliath. Continue reading...
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Glastonbury sells ‘a few thousand less tickets’ to avoid overcrowding (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Festival organiser Emily Eavis says other changes include Shangri-La area ‘going full trees and green space’ Glastonbury festival is known for its huge crowds, but last year overcrowding at smaller stages led to areas being closed off to prevent crowd crushes and one act was even forced to halt their set. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year’s safety concerns, the festival has sold “a few thousand less tickets” for this month’s event, the organiser Emily Eavis has said. Continue reading...
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‘It will lift the spirits’: Kyiv to stage ‘most English of ballets’ after Russian repertoire boycott (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée to be performed for first time, replacing classics by Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky after fundraising in London One of the “most English of ballets” will be performed for the first time at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv after a boycott of the classic Russian repertoire, including Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, a celebrated romantic comedy, will be performed to a sell-out audience on Thursday after Ukraine turned away from the works of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. Continue reading...
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Tony awards 2025: red carpet looks and best of the show – in pictures (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Jonathan Groff, Cynthia Erivo, Sarah Snook and George Clooney were among the crowd for the 78th annual Tony awards, held in New York City on Sunday Full list of winners Continue reading...
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Tom Felton expresses support for JK Rowling despite controversy over her views on trans issues (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The actor who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films says he is ‘incredibly grateful’ to Rowling, and that her books have ‘brought the world together’ Tom Felton has expressed support for the Harry Potter author JK Rowling, saying he is “not really attuned” to the controversy over Rowling’s gender-critical views. Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the successful series of Harry Potter films, was asked directly about his position on the controversy by Variety at the Tony awards ceremony on Sunday. Felton said: “I can’t say it [impacts me], I’m not really that attuned to it.” Continue reading...
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The one change that worked: meditation cured my insomnia – and transformed my relationships (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
The practice that helped me to sleep also gave me the clarity to end my marriage, and to begin dating again In the run-up to Christmas 2018, wobbly with delirium on a station platform packed with partygoers, I nearly fell under a train. Insomnia – not the “I woke at 3am for a bit” type, but the brutalising “I might have dropped off for a fretful 45 minutes at around 6am” kind – will do that to a person. I have rarely slept well. But this particular stretch of insomnia was, almost literally, a killer. I’d tried every snake oil on the market. A Harley Street hypnotist gave up on me after two sessions. Prescription sleeping pills stopped working. As a last resort, I tried the eight-week NHS cognitive behavioural therapy course for insomnia. It involved a tedious sleep diary, increasing “sleep pressure” by forcing myself to stay up until 2am and strengthening the “bed-sleep connection” by sacrificing my bedtime read. Far from helping, these strategies ramped up my frustration. Then I found one thing that did work – something I had dismissed as the preserve of man buns and pseudo-spiritualists: meditation. Continue reading...
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‘This Dutch oven keeps my mother’s memory alive’: readers’ kitchen treasures (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
From a copper pot passed down generations to a simple serving dish, the emotional ties to seemingly everyday objects A few weeks ago, Bee Wilson wrote about how people sometimes invest kitchen items with strong meanings as they pass through generations. Here, four readers share stories of such treasured heirlooms, from copper pots from India to a cast-iron spatula from Italy. Continue reading...
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From hallway jets to ‘pregnant’ toothbrushes: my chaotic water flosser showdown (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
This week: everything I learned testing water flossers; summer wedding guest dresses; and the best Father’s Day gifts • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Cats and teeth. That’s my contribution to the Filter so far, writing recommendations for new cat owners and electric toothbrushes. Rather than combining the two in a piece on cat toothpaste, I’m instead doubling down on the latter, writing about the wonderful world of water flossers. Water flossers, for those that don’t know, are exactly what they sound like. Rather than sticking a bit of dental floss or an interdental brush between your teeth and along your gums, the idea is that you can instead fire a jet of water. It’s more convenient and saves you the embarrassment of seeing what grim detritus you’ve been hoarding between your teeth each day. Continue reading...
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From beeswax to baby wipes: how to make your leather last a lifetime (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
We asked the experts about the best ways to care for, clean and protect your favourite leather clothing, shoes and accessories • From smash-proof cases to updates: how to make your smartphone last longer Strong, beautiful and, if well looked after, endlessly long-lasting: leather has long been a staple of many of our wardrobes. And while there are ethical and environmental reasons to consider not buying new leather, the leather items you already own (or buy secondhand) could well outlast you, so it’s important to look after them properly. So, how do you make sure your favourite items – from a handbag to a beloved jacket – last so that you can pass them down the generations? I spoke to experts to gather their tips and tricks for how best to clean, preserve and repair leather items, so that they keep being useful, and beautiful, for as long as possible. Continue reading...
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‘The closest I tried to homemade’: the best supermarket mayonnaise, tasted and rated (Sat, 07 Jun 2025)
After a lifetime of making his own, our columnist put a selection of shop-bought mayos to the test. Which brands are rich and satisfying, and which smell like a pickled egg? • The best food processors and mixers – chosen by chefs I’ve spent my whole adult life making mayonnaise from scratch, turning my nose up at store-bought versions with chef-like snobbery, but after this tasting, I’m ready to accept that jarred mayonnaise is a valid addition to the store-cupboard. I wanted to consider in more depth what it is we want from a mayonnaise. According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, mayonnaise is an emulsion of two liquids that don’t normally combine – oil and water – stabilised by egg yolk’s lecithin, which allows the oil to form tiny droplets dispersed in the water and creates that wonderful, unctuous, fatty texture we so love. Continue reading...
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The best wedding guest dresses and outfits: 30 favourites for every dress code and budget (Fri, 06 Jun 2025)
From silk to linen, midi-dresses to co-ords, these styles are made for wedding season and beyond • Jess Cartner-Morley’s June style essentials You’ve sent off the RSVP, booked the hairdresser – and panic has set in. Despite a wardrobe bulging with dresses, you obviously don’t have anything to wear. If there’s a rigid dress code, you risk not feeling yourself; but if there is a dress code that reads “Big Lebowski meets Brat meets Blue Planet”, then there’s a very real possibility that you’re going to strike a bum note. Of course, a big part of what you decide to wear will depend on where the nuptials will take place – church or country home, beach or barn – and the weather. Either way, the crucial thing is to choose a dress that guarantees comfort as well as style, one that will see you through from ceremony to best man’s speech and propping up the dancefloor for many hours after. Continue reading...
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Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for harissa and gnocchi-topped fish pie | Quick and easy (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
A spicy, warming take on the classic British supper, and ideal for nippier summer nights I love fish pie, and gnocchi, and harissa, so what could be better than a combination of all three? Particularly if it saves you 15 minutes’ boiling and then mashing some potatoes. Bookmark this for chillier summer evenings – I’m determined to eat as many meals as possible outside right now, and this will keep you warm when the temperature dips to an unseasonal sub-15C. Continue reading...
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Beat the heat with Ravinder Bhogal’s recipes for chilled soups (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Perfect for summer dining, these cooling bowlfuls will quench both appetite and thirst When the thought of eating hot meals seems unbearable, chilled soups will help you beat the heat. Today’s ones are cooling, nourishing, hydrating and a little more fortifying than the usual chop-and-blitz raw soups such as gazpacho. As much as I love those, sometimes I want something I can get my teeth into; something with the satisfying chew of cold noodles, or a crunchy or herbaceous topping. These are perfect for dining al fresco, or to pour into jars and take along to a picnic. Continue reading...
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Osteria Angelina, London E1: ‘There’s a lot to adore’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Wait, they’re taking away the delicious white balsamic dressing that came with the tempura agretti? No, stop! One undeniable fact about Angelina, which has just opened a second site in Spitalfields, east London, is that in the now mini-group’s relatively short existence, they’ve singlehandedly made the phrase “Italian-Japanese restaurant” seem a much more normal thing to say. Patently, Angelina Mark 1 over in Dalston was not the first time in culinary history that Milan met Tokyo over the stoves, that miso met pasta, that truffle met sushi, and so on; hungry people have always travelled, merged cuisines and messed about with flavours. Still, the original Angelina’s kaiseki-style tasting menu, where chawanmushi (savoury egg custard) is served with datterini tomatoes, and pastas are topped with furikake, was clearly interesting enough to attract the attention of Michelin. Its new sister, Osteria Angelina, is darkly chic, spacious (handy for group dining) and tucked away down a side road on the Norton Folgate development close to Shoreditch overground station (fans of the Sri Lankan restaurant Kolomba on Kingly Street near Oxford Circus will find a second outpost, Kolomba East, in the same area, and Noisy Oyster, from the people behind Firebird, will soon be joining them). To give credit where its due, Norton Folgate is a refreshingly beautiful restoration project, where spruced-up Edwardian, Georgian and Victorian buildings mix with new-builds to create a little slice of sedate elegance away from the bottomless brunch, Box Park hellscape that is modern Shoreditch. Escape the main drag, hop into Osteria Angelina, sit up at the marble bar in front of the open kitchen and order snacks of pizza nera topped with moromi, a rich fermented soy paste, or a salad of zucchini and shiso leaves with ricotta. From the number of people eating here just two weeks after it opened, this cultural clash clearly has its fans. What Osteria Angelina’s Japanese customers, with their relatively orderly rules of social conduct and deference, make of the place’s excessively animated Italian servers, however, is one for the anthropology books. All this, I guess, is smoothed over by the likes of the nori-topped focaccia and the small, sweet mini-loaf of Hokkaido milk bread, the very memory of which has me salivating; that’s served with a kumquat reduction – OK, let’s call it jam – and a puddle of burnt honey butter. After the pane and insalate sections, the menu moves on to fritti and crudo. We ordered a plate of hot-as-hell tempura’d courgette flowers stuffed generously with miso ricotta. Crudo is so often a disappointment, but here the bream is cured in kombu and doused in yet more burnt butter, making it rather wickedly appealing. Hamachi sashimi was also very good, and smothered in truffled soy and furikake. Continue reading...
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How to make perfect tandoori chicken (without a tandoor) – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect … (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Don’t let the lack of a traditional clay oven stop you from making this ‘king of kebabs’ at home When was the last time you had tandoori chicken? Described by the Liverpool Daily Post in 1962 as “roast chicken Indian fashion”, this delicately seasoned, but often luridly coloured, dish was once the mainstay of the British Indian restaurant menu; yet, always greedy for novelty, I can’t remember when I last had the pleasure. The loss is mine, because it’s one of the very best ways to eat chicken – rich and tender, thanks to its yoghurt marinade, tangy with lemon and perfumed with spice. Vivek Singh argues that “no Punjabi celebration can be complete without tandoori chicken”, while J Inder Singh Kalra went as far as to crown it the “king of kebabs”, a sentiment echoed by Rohit Ghai. Continue reading...
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Meet the members of the Dull Men’s Club: ‘Some of them would bore the ears off you’ (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
An international club where dull people meet online to share the tedium of everyday lives is immensely popular. But for one man it’s a place of poignant connection Get Guardian Australia’s weekend culture and lifestyle email The 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson once wrote, “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others’. It’s a sentiment eagerly embraced by The Dull Men’s Club. Several million members in a number of connected Facebook groups strive to cause dullness in others on a daily basis. In this club, they wear their dullness with pride. The duller the better. This is where the nerds of the world unite. “Posts that contain bitmoji-avatar-things are far too exciting, and will probably get deleted,” warn the rules of the Dull Men’s Club (Australian branch). Continue reading...
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I was enjoying a midnight swim. Then my girlfriend kissed me – and the nightmare began (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Seventeen years ago Nathan Dunne was locked out of his body, or at least that’s how it felt. He talks about his battle with depersonalisation disorder – and his sudden fear of water On a cold winter’s night, in a “fit of spontaneity”, Nathan Dunne and his girlfriend went for a midnight swim on Hampstead Heath in London. They had been living together for a few months and, although it was dark and chilly, they “had a summer feeling in that first flush of the relationship”, Dunne says. They shed their clothes and waded into the shallows. After diving into the icy water, Dunne’s girlfriend put her lips to his cheek, and as they pulled apart, his life changed beyond all recognition. “It was like being struck. Like something came down,” he says, slicing the air with his hand. “The flip of a switch.” Dunne’s transformation sounds like a fairytale in reverse: one kiss, and his life turned into a nightmare. Seventeen years have passed since that night, and he still mostly explains the change in himself in metaphors and similes. His eyes filled with soot. His voice was a robot’s. He felt as if he were locked outside his body, which became a sort of “second body”. Any form of water, from a raindrop to a warm bath, made everything worse. His terror and panic were so great that the next day he smashed a vase and used a shard to cut himself. An “attempt to not live any more”, is how he describes it. Continue reading...
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I’m in my 20s with lots of online friends, but can’t seem to connect IRL | Ask Annalisa Barbieri (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
There’s this idea that friendships should just happen, but they need input and confidence • Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a problem sent in by a reader A couple of years ago, I moved to a new city. The pandemic put my university plans permanently on hold, and I’ve recently started working full time. I built up a sizeable network of online friends during and after the pandemic, but I’ve found myself craving real-life friends to interact with more often. I don’t drink and I’m struggling to find activities for people my age that I’m interested in. Apart from a few at my job, I haven’t been able to make any new friends, and my contact with old school friends has become less and less frequent. Continue reading...
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This is how we do it: ‘We live in a tiny flat with our kids, so we have sex in the woods at night’ (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Their love-life logistics may be tricky, but David and Anook have both been transformed by the intimacy they share I’d had orgasms with previous partners, but I’d never tried to give myself one – I felt too ashamed Anook had never used a vibrator before we met and now we have an enormous box of toys that we hide under our bed Continue reading...
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I face losing my electricity but EDF can’t replace my RTS meter (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
I’ve been told repeatedly to book an appointment before the switch-off, but there are never any slots available I face losing my electricity supply at the end of June when the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS), which controls my meter, is switched off. Every time I log into my EDF account I get a reminder and a link to book a visit for a meter replacement, but there are never any slots available. Continue reading...
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‘Freemen on the land’: YouTube videos tell homeowners they aren’t bound by mortgages (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
FCA has sounded alarm over growing conspiracy theory that uses arguments dating back to Magna Carta “Freemen on the land” sound like outlaws in a fairytale. But rather than stealing from the rich to give to the poor like Robin Hood, this group tries to convince hard-up borrowers they are not legally bound by their mortgage contract. It may sound far-fetched but the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has sounded the alarm over this conspiracy theory as a small but growing number of homeowners are using this argument to try to block repossession proceedings. Continue reading...
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UK mortgages: 100% loans are back – will they work for you? (Sat, 07 Jun 2025)
The controversial loan has returned. We look at the deals and explain why it’s worth saving up a 5% deposit or more UK mortgage guarantee scheme due to end Saving up for a deposit is one of the biggest challenges facing would-be homeowners, who can find that each month pretty much all most of their money is being swallowed up by rent and living costs. No-deposit deals – known as 100% mortgages – can provide a lifeline, and in recent months a new crop have come on to the market. Continue reading...
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Homes for sale in cultural hotspots in England – in pictures (Fri, 06 Jun 2025)
From a brutalist apartment in London’s Barbican to a flat in the heart of Shakespeare country Continue reading...
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Is it true that … cold water plunges boost immunity? (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Feeling energised after a cold dip may just be your body’s shock response –and increased immune cell activity doesn’t always mean fewer infections ‘It’s a long-held belief that taking to the waters is good for your health,” says Mike Tipton, a professor of human and applied physiology at the University of Portsmouth. From Roman frigidariums to Thomas Jefferson’s foot baths, cold immersion has long been seen as curative. But does modern science support the idea that it boosts immunity? The answer: it’s complicated. While cold water immersion does activate the body, that’s not the same as strengthening the immune system. “When you immerse yourself in cold water, your body undergoes the cold shock response,” says Tipton. “You get rapid breathing, a spike in heart rate and a surge of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.” This may explain why people feel more alert or energised after a cold dip. But does it mean you’re less likely to get sick? Continue reading...
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Many Black women consider synthetic braids safe. A study found toxins in all the brands it tested (Sat, 07 Jun 2025)
Chemicals found in the braiding hair have been linked to increased cancer risk and organ damage In recent years, personal care products marketed at Black women have received increased scrutiny for their toxicity, specifically chemical hair straighteners. These perms, also known as “relaxers”, have been condemned for causing severe health problems, including fertility issues, scalp irritations and increased risk of cancer. In light of this, many Black women have turned to natural hairstyles, including braids, as a way to avoid toxic chemicals. But recent research has revealed that popular brands of synthetic braiding hair, human-made extensions that are used in these protective styles, contain dangerous carcinogens, heavy metals and other toxins. Tested brands included in a recent study from Consumer Reports (CR) were Magic Fingers, The Sassy Collection, Shake-N-Go, Darling, Debut, Hbegant and Sensationnel, all mass producers of synthetic braiding hair. According to the CR study, all tested samples of braiding hair contained volatile organic compounds (VOCs), human-made chemicals found in paints, industrial solvents and other products. Exposure to VOCs can cause health problems, including respiratory issues, nausea and fatigue. Long-term exposure has been associated with increased cancer risk and organ damage. Continue reading...
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Don’t rinse raw chicken: nine food safety tips from microbiologists (Thu, 05 Jun 2025)
We all have questionable kitchen habits – experts break down how to avoid spreading pathogens at home Buy an exclusive print from our Well Actually series Do you use the same kitchen sponge for days on end? Let your takeout pizza languish on the counter overnight? We all have questionable kitchen habits – but when it comes to food safety, shortcuts we think of as harmless can open the door to dangerous pathogens such as bacteria and toxins, according to microbiologists. Here’s how experts suggest staying safer in the kitchen. Continue reading...
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Women and ethnic minorities less likely to be treated after diagnosis of deadly heart disease in England, study finds (Thu, 05 Jun 2025)
Research shows disparity in care after detection of aortic stenosis, also affecting those living in deprived areas Women, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, and those living in the most deprived areas of England are less likely to receive treatment after a diagnosis of a deadly heart disease, according to one of the largest studies of its kind. Researchers at the University of Leicester analysed data from almost 155,000 people diagnosed with aortic stenosis – a narrowing of the valve between the heart’s main pumping chamber and the main artery – between 2000 and 2022 across England, from a database of anonymised GP records. Continue reading...
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Skintight leggings or baggy joggers? What your gymwear says about you – and the world (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Social media will tell you that all millennials dress one way to work out, while gen Z dresses another. The truth is more complex and far more interesting Around me, a group of women in skintight gym sets are side planking. Some are wearing full-coverage unitards, others leave slices of midriff bare. No one is wearing a baggy T-shirt from 2008 with a naked Rufus Wainwright on it, and hardened flecks of damp-proof paint. Except me. If TikTok is to be believed, my gym-mates must be millennials, born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s; gen Z would find such skin-tightness a bit retro, or basic, or even “jurassic fitness”. Another generational schism has opened online – to add to socks, jeans and boundaries – this time over what millennials and gen Z are wearing to work out in. Tight-on-tight outfits supposedly single you out as a millennial – it is “giving middle school”, said one gen Z user witheringly – while gen Z prefers something baggier. Looking around me at pilates and in the park, though, I suspect some of the women wearing a second, seal-like skin are younger than 30. And here I am, days after turning 40 – squarely a millennial – wearing an enormous T-shirt. It is a muddled picture. Continue reading...
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Rodeo drive: Beyoncé UK tour spurs cowboy fashion craze (Sat, 07 Jun 2025)
Singer’s western-inspired Cowboy Carter tour is reminder of pop culture’s sway over shopping behaviour Rhinestones, cowboy hats and a whole lot of denim; not a hen party entourage, a Glastonbury fit or a Nashville rodeo, but the queues outside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this week, as Beyoncé kicked off her UK tour. And, seemingly, a new national dress code. Since the release of the Cowboy Carter album, Beyoncé fans have been quick to adopt the rancher style, sparking a surge in interest for western-inspired fashion. On Vinted, searches for “western” are up by 16% year on year this month, with “rodeo” up 13%. Meanwhile, denim searches have risen 8%. Continue reading...
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City slickers: what to wear to an urban wedding (Fri, 06 Jun 2025)
Happy wedding season. The good thing about city ceremonies is the weather is less of an issue (no sandals ruined in a soggy field) plus they’ve got their own dress code Continue reading...
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Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: Want a style update? Pull your socks up! (Wed, 04 Jun 2025)
You don’t have to get on board with this easy, fun and cheap fashion development … but a bare ankle is no longer cute If you get food in your teeth at dinner, you want someone to let you know, right? Of course you do. It is so annoying to realise on a bathroom break, after pudding, that for the past two hours you have been unwittingly showing the remains of your starter with every smile. However. It is also undeniably the case that when someone does the right thing, letting you know that you might want to check a mirror, that moment can be awkward. Especially if you don’t know each other well, the spinach-eater might feel embarrassed and flustered and even, irrationally, a bit cross. Continue reading...
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Riding high in Germany on the world’s oldest suspended railway (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Still gliding above the town of Wuppertal on an overhead track 125 years after it was built, the charming Schwebebahn has lost none of its magic It’s easy to be seduced by the romance of train travel. Think of sleeper trains, boat trains, vintage steam railways, elegant dining cars. But it’s rare that an urban transport system can capture the imagination quite as much as the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany caught mine, and that of anyone else who’s clapped eyes on the world’s oldest suspended railway. In October it will be 125 years since Kaiser Wilhelm II took a test ride in the Schwebebahn, just a few months before the hanging railway officially opened for business in March 1901. It was an incredible feat of engineering then, and remains so today. Even with sleek modern carriages having long replaced the original ones, it looks like something imagined by Jules Verne, with carriages smoothly gliding under the overhead track. They have even preserved the first 1901 carriage, nicknamed Kaiserwagen, which can be hired for private occasions. Continue reading...
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The ruff guide to Europe: 15 dog-friendly holidays (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
From Baltic beach holidays to Spanish city breaks and cruising on French canals, here’s our pick of the best getaways for dogs – and their owners Continue reading...
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Should you take your dog on holiday? We went on a European road trip with our border terrier to find out (Sat, 07 Jun 2025)
Dogs have a sense of adventure, don’t they? We thought Missy would enjoy exploring France and Spain. She had other ideas Plus tips on travelling with dogs When, two years ago now, our dog sitters cancelled on us just 24 hours before we were due to go on our summer holiday, we felt more than a little put out. Aware that we couldn’t leave Missy, our border terrier, home alone with a tin opener, we sent out frantic texts and made urgent phone calls before at last finding someone, a friend of a friend of, I think, another friend, and simply hoped for the best. What else were we to do? The flights were non-refundable. It all turned out fine, but it was not an experience we were keen to repeat. And so, the following year, we took Missy with us. Dogs are portable, after all, and have a nose for adventure. Also, this was to be an extended holiday, away for a full month – working part time in order to fund it – and we couldn’t be apart from her for that long. Continue reading...
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A brush with Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence, France: a blockbuster retrospective comes to town (Thu, 05 Jun 2025)
The city once neglected its most famous son. But this summer visitors can immerse themselves in a major new exhibition and see the artist’s restored studio, home and the landscapes that inspired him Paul Cezanne is everywhere in Aix-en-Provence: there are streets named after him as well as a school, a cinema and even a sandwich (a version of traditional pan bagnat but with goat’s cheese instead of tuna). And from late June, the whole city will go Cezanne mad, as the painter’s atelier, north of the centre, and the family home to the west reopen after an eight-year restoration. But during Cezanne’s lifetime, and for years after his death in 1906, Aix seemed at pains to ignore the artist later called the “father of modern art”. When his widow, Hortense, offered several paintings to the city’s main Musée Granet, director Henri Pontier declared that Cezanne paintings would enter the gallery only over his dead body. Continue reading...
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A new start after 60: My voice went and suddenly part of me was missing – then I discovered bellringing (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
As a lifelong singer and a teacher, Jean Walters was used to making a noise. At 67 she found a new way to do it One sunny August evening, Jean Walters was sitting in her garden in Meltham, West Yorkshire, when the church bells began to ring. She sipped her glass of wine; the evening seemed idyllic. “A quintessential English country garden,” she thought, and posted on Facebook: “Bells ringing, how lovely!” The next day when the plumber came to fix her toilet, more prosaically, he mentioned that he had seen her post, and being a bellringer himself, gave her the number of the local church’s tower captain. “He said, ‘Come along and try it.’ I did. I loved it. I said to my husband, ‘Did you hear that single bong? That was me.’” Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60? Continue reading...
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Can you solve it? The deductive decade – ten years of Monday puzzles (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Happy birthday to us Forgive me the indulgence of celebrating ten years of this column. Toot toot! I began posting biweekly brainteasers at the end of May 2015, originally addressing you folk as “guzzlers” – Guardian puzzlers. The cringy coinage didn’t stick, but the column did, and here we are a decade and 260 columns later. Continue reading...
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52 tiny annoying problems, solved! (Because when you can’t control the big stuff, start small) (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Experts, Guardian readers and writers share ingenious solutions to life’s everyday irritations, from wobbly tables to persistent hiccups Stuffed-up sievesAlways use a dishwasher. If one isn’t available, soak in the sink first, to loosen particles, then take a dish brush or nail brush to it. Rinse under a fast hot tap. Aggie MacKenzie, TV presenter and author Continue reading...
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Broadcaster Angela Rippon looks back: ‘I want to age disgracefully. It’s much more fun’ (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
The former newsreader on her career’s many twists and turns, her mother’s dementia and why she’s still working – and dancing – at 80 Born in 1944 in Plymouth, Angela Rippon is a British journalist, newsreader and presenter. Her career began at 17 as a photojournalist for the Western Morning News. In 1975, she became the first female journalist to permanently present the BBC national news; she has since hosted Top Gear, Antiques Roadshow and Rip-Off Britain as well as becoming the oldest contestant to compete on Strictly Come Dancing, in 2023. She is an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society and is supporting the charity’s Forget Me Not appeal. This photo was taken for the cover of the 1980s exercise LP Shape Up and Dance. Normally, I would have had bare feet if I were dancing, but the producers asked me to wear little pink shoes, which seemed incongruous. Nevertheless, I was quite happy in this outfit. What’s fascinating is that I still meet women who ask me, “Have you got a spare copy? Mine’s worn out.” Continue reading...
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No Man Is an Island: a British society and its historic push for gay rights (Thu, 29 May 2025)
This creative documentary immerses us in a little-known chapter of gay history. In 1992, the Isle of Man was one of the last places in western Europe to decriminalise homosexual acts. Through verbatim reconstruction and newly discovered archives, we understand the impact of discriminatory parliamentary debates, controversial media coverage and overreaching police surveillance. In a short period of time, this corner of the British Isles went on to create some of the most progressive legislation in the world. Do people change, or do laws change people?  • If you have been affected by the issues raised in this film, help and support is available. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
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In a dangerous era for journalism – a powerful new tool to help protect sources (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Today, the Guardian, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, launches Secure Messaging, a world-first from a media organisation Today, the Guardian launches a unique new tool for protecting journalistic sources. Secure Messaging is an important new technological innovation that will make it easier for people to share confidential information with us. Blowing the whistle on wrongdoing has always taken bravery. As threats to journalists around the world increase, so does the need to protect confidential sources. One of the most dramatic global shifts against whistleblower safety comes as part of the Trump administration’s continued assault on the free press. Continue reading...
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Single Black women on Covid five years later: ‘The pandemic taught me, no regrets’ (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Three women share how isolation, instability and loneliness led to creativity, family and community It was business as usual for Jordan Madison in early 2020. Her commute included taking a bus from Silver Spring, Maryland, to her job in Bethesda. Madison, 25, was working at the time on her license to become a clinical marriage and family therapist, and worked part-time at Instacart to earn extra money. By mid-March 2020, the world had shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The first two weeks, I was like: ‘OK, this is nice. I don’t have to leave my house. This is a nice little vacation. We’ll probably go back to work in like a month or so,’” Madison remembered thinking. Continue reading...
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Trump-Musk feud shows what happens when unregulated money floods politics (Sun, 08 Jun 2025)
Musk isn’t the first – or last – billionaire to pour big money into US elections Elon Musk said, very loudly and very publicly, what is usually the quiet part of the role of money in US politics. “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude,” he wrote on his X social media platform amid an ongoing feud with Donald Trump. Continue reading...
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Tell us how you might be affected by Trump’s new travel ban (Thu, 05 Jun 2025)
We would like to hear from people from the 19 affected countries on what the travel ban might mean for them Donald Trump has announced an order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel seven others, citing a range of reasons including national security and concerns that visitors from those countries are overstaying their visas. The nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be “fully” restricted from entering the US, according to the proclamation. Meanwhile, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted. Continue reading...
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Tell us how popular culture has prompted you to make a dramatic life change (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
We’d like to hear from people who have been inspired by a song, TV show, film or book to make a major change in their life Whether it’s leaving a loveless relationship after watching Sex and the City or a punk band inspiring you to quit drinking, we’d like to hear about your moments of cultural awakening for a column in the Guardian’s Saturday magazine. If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here. Continue reading...
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Nature boys and girls – here’s your chance to get published in the Guardian (Tue, 03 Jun 2025)
Our wildlife series Young Country Diary is looking for articles written by children, about their summer encounters with nature Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months, as the UK enters a new season, we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14. The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a thriving rock pool, a day fruit-picking, or a compost heap full of bugs. Continue reading...
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Tell us your favourite TV shows of 2025 so far (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
We would like to hear about your television highlights of the year so far. Share your thoughts now The Guardian’s culture writers have compiled their favourite TV shows of the year so far – and we’d like to hear about yours, too. Are there any new series that you would recommend watching? What have been best TV shows of the year so far, and why? Continue reading...
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Minding our language on the use of Americanisms | Letters (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Readers share their views on the evolution of the English language, in response to an article by Elisabeth Ribbans on the use of ‘gotten’ The continual expansion of the English language is inevitable and welcome. But while Elisabeth Ribbans is right that “it would be a mistake to regard language as a fortress”, it is not unreasonable to lament the effect of some invasive species whose proliferation is so rapid that native alternatives face possible extinction (How the use of a word in the Guardian has gotten some readers upset, 4 June). “Gotten” may be an innocuous, if inelegant, English word making a return journey from the US, but some other US variants are more problematic. For example, the phrase “Can I get …?” is suffocating more polite ways of making a request, such as “May I/can I have …?” or simply “I’d like …”. It is also annoyingly inaccurate, since in most cases the person asking has no intention of helping themselves and wouldn’t be allowed to, even if they wanted to. Continue reading...
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Lecturers are struggling with students’ use of AI | Letter (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
A Guardian cartoon strikes a chord with a music lecturer worried about the impact of artificial intelligence on academia As a lecturer in music at a major UK university, Ben Jennings’ cartoon on the threat posed by AI to the creative industries (5 June) is painfully apt, not only for the creative industries but the institutions that teach them. Universities are already in crisis due to a complex web of problems including the commodification of education. Now, I spend much of my time suspecting students of using AI to write essays and even – we increasingly think – to write music. Not being able to definitively prove it renders us powerless. I would estimate that a good half of the written work I see has had some AI input. I genuinely think some of these students don’t realise that it’s cheating. And it’s happened so fast that we don’t even know what to tell our students about these tools. Used properly they are useful, but academics have no idea how to do this. Continue reading...
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We need a better planning bill than this | Letter (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Leading wildlife and environmental groups say the government’s proposed planning legislation leaves a lot to be desired Environmental organisations have not “changed their tune” on planning reforms (England’s planning bill has many naysayers. I’m not one of them, 4 June). As it stands, the bill has major flaws and is a long way from achieving a win-win for nature and development. Environmentalists engaged around the bill in good faith, but, when published, it was clear it was missing the safeguards needed – and the government’s own independent adviser, the Office for Environmental Protection, agrees. The bill does not set out a responsibility to avoid harm to nature and communities wherever possible. We need such a duty to drive development that takes the best route for people and nature, not the low-quality option. We need the proposed Nature Restoration Fund to provide guaranteed results, with evidence to back this up. Without such guarantees the scheme allows destruction of nature on a wing and a prayer that it will effectively be restored elsewhere. Ensuring certainty of outcomes and robust protections are not just vital for nature, they are good lawmaking. Continue reading...
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A knock at the door of a snowy hostel | Brief letters (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Working in hostels | Gym clothes | Smug 80s | Best wedding gift | Special or specious? I agree with Nell Frizzell’s picture of youth hostels as egalitarian territory (If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a youth hostel to give their parents a break, 8 June). I worked in three in northern England in the 1970s. They too were unusual buildings – two former hunting lodges and a converted Land Army base. There was the same mix of people as she describes, but in the depths of winter, you could guarantee that the knock on the door would reveal a snow-covered Canadian or a New Zealander. I never understood why. Jonathan Hauxwell Crosshills, North Yorkshire • One of the joys of being an old lady is not giving a damn about workout clothes (Skintight leggings or baggy joggers? What your gymwear says about you – and the world, 8 June). All of us geriatric women at our pilates class wear loose jogging bottoms and baggy T-shirts. All that matters is we are still here and can move … just! Jennifer Henley London Continue reading...
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Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email (Tue, 20 Sep 2022)
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across 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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Sign up for the Feast newsletter: our free Guardian food email (Tue, 09 Jul 2019)
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas Each 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...
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Sign up for the Football Daily newsletter: our free football email (Mon, 14 Nov 2022)
Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of football Every 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...
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Sign up for the Guide newsletter: our free pop-culture email (Tue, 20 Sep 2022)
The best new music, film, TV, podcasts and more direct to your inbox, plus hidden gems and reader recommendations From 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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Medellín’s sublime return to nature – in pictures (Mon, 09 Jun 2025)
Over the last decade, Colombia’s ‘city of eternal spring’ has embarked on an ambitious effort to restore greenery to public parks, transit corridors and even high-rises Continue reading...
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