Andy Burnham may already be facing a tricky obstacle in his push to return to Westminster. Past comments about rejoining the EU have come back to haunt him, particularly given that the Makerfield constituency voted overwhelmingly to leave in the Brexit referendum. Plus, Wes Streeting has confirmed he will stand in any leadership contest, raising fresh questions about where all this leaves Keir Starmer

Deep-rooted problems of food inequality are hidden behind area’s affluence and beauty

• Rural Britain is becoming ‘food desert’ for lower-income families, study finds

What does a “food desert” look like? In the case of the modestly affluent Cotswolds village of Kempsford, very pretty. When I visit the sun is shining from cloudless blue skies on to lovely honey-coloured stone houses, some draped in purple wisteria.

Aside from the loud hum of US air force planes revving up at the nearby Fairford airbase it’s a picture of rural calm. There’s a primary school and a pub. A house on the main street is called “The Old Bakery”. But there is no shop selling food for miles.

The only useful purpose Keir can play in helping Andy Burnham get elected is to be the focus of everything that voters dislike about Labour

On days like this you have to ask yourself one question: is it me who is going mad? Or has our politics just taken yet another turn through the looking-glass? How can we be sure that anything is real when all the old certainties are shattered?

Picture the scene. After a weekend down in Chequers sticking pins into his Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham dolls, Keir Starmer re-emerged in Labour HQ to give one of his trademark demotivational speeches to the staff. And towards the end, he promised to offer his 100% support to the Labour candidate in the Makerfield byelection. To do whatever was necessary to beat Reform.

From MP-baiting abominations to Engelbert Humperdinck, the UK has sent some real stinkers to the song contest – some so bad artists have even had to change their name. Here are the worst offenders

Well, this is awkward. The UK continued its run of disastrous results in the Eurovision song contest on Saturday night, when Look Mum No Computer finished rock bottom of the scoreboard. Cue the usual geopolitical conspiracy theorising and head-scratching about how to remedy matters next year. Paging Cliff Richard and faxing Bucks Fizz …

It put the cherry on top of a chastening week for Britons in Vienna. No less than Boy George had been roped in to add star power to San Marino’s entry, but it failed to even qualify for the final. The UK now hasn’t won the annual pop party for almost three decades. But where does this latest fiasco figure in the all-time hall of shame? We count down the UK’s 10 biggest Eurovision flops, from least bad to absolute worst. Hello Europe, this is humiliation calling.

Some of the homes have been repossessed, while others are being sold off by debt-laden housing associations. Who buys them – and who will end up living there?

Amid the high-stakes bustle of numbered paddles shooting up and gavels banging down, an unexpected voice calls desperately from the corner of the auction room. “That’s my house,” shouts the woman, watching her home of 20 years up for sale.

“I live there. You can tell the people who are bidding I’m not coming out of my house,” she continues.

Makerfield will be a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform – so prepare yourself for regrets, broken promises and baffling assertions about ‘red wall’ voters

It is a gruesome shock and yet was entirely predictable: we stand on the brink of a byelection that is three things at once. First, a straight popularity contest for Andy Burnham, which itself is a worry, because there must be a limit to how many times you can be called “King of the North” without it boiling your brain, and if that limit exists at all, it must surely have been reached. Second, it’s a limbering-up round for the coming Labour leadership challenge. Third, and most importantly, Makerfield is a test of what Labour would have to look like to beat Reform when it matters. So what could be more helpful than for everyone involved – every cabinet minister, every backbencher, every commentator – to reach back into their memory and find the stupidest thing that was ever said about Brexit, and say it again in a more excitable voice. Get ready for Brexit-argument bingo; if you think you’ve heard them all before, that’s why it’s so fun.

Keir Starmer jumped first, even before the byelection was on the cards. After announcing a plan to nationalise steel – an industry that is already under government control – he made some huge admissions about Brexit, followed by some even larger promises. He said it had made us poorer, it had sent migration through the roof and it had made us less secure. It wasn’t what you’d call hold-the-front-page, since it’s common knowledge that Brexit has made us poorer; but it’s extremely surprising, of course, to hear the prime minister make a straightforward statement on the EU which relates to reality, rather than a convoluted set of red lines, related to an alternative universe in which Europe is begging to take us back, but we’re holding firm.

Burnham vows to have ‘relentless domestic focus’ in Makerfield in first speech since announcing byelection run

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has said he will not try to return the UK to the EU, saying Britain would be stuck in “a permanent rut if we’re just constantly arguing”.

Burnham said Labour’s offer in general to voters had “simply not been good enough”, in his most explicit comments yet that he intends to stand to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister, should he win the Makerfield byelection. “If I get to stand, a vote for me will be a vote to change Labour, because Labour needs to change if we are to regain people’s trust.”

Accounts for Reform UK leader’s media company suggest money was not withdrawn at time of property purchase

Nigel Farage is facing fresh scrutiny over his claim that he paid for his £1.4m house from a reality show fee rather than the millions gifted to him by a crypto billionaire.

Accounts for the Reform leader’s personal media company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, suggest that money was not withdrawn from the firm at the time of the house purchase.

OpenAI CEO and president found not liable for breaking contracts made with Musk when founding the startup

A jury ruled in favor of Sam Altman in the culmination of a long and bitter legal battle that pitted the richest person in the world against a leader of the AI boom.

The federal jury in Oakland, California, found Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, not liable for unjustly enriching themselves and breaking contracts made with Musk when founding the startup.

Matt Brittin begins task of finding budget cuts as World Service and Radio 4 journalists protest against plan to increase workloads

Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new director general, has warned staff that “tough choices are unavoidable” under his tenure, as his first day coincided with a strike by a group of the corporation’s journalists.

Brittin, formerly Google’s most senior executive in Europe, arrived at the corporation’s New Broadcasting House while a group of journalists from the World Service’s Newshour and Radio 4’s The World Tonight were picketing in response to a plan to increase their workloads.

Tehran is said to have made or reiterated some concessions but source in mediator Pakistan appears pessimistic

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran has made a new proposal for a deal to definitively end the war in the Middle East, officials in the region said on Monday, though there was no sign of any immediate breakthrough in the stalled peace negotiations.

A ceasefire has paused most violence after six weeks of US-Israeli airstrikes and Iranian retaliation, but there has been little progress since Donald Trump said the ceasefire was “on life support”, and reports in Israeli media suggest a resumption of hostilities is imminent.

RMT union says two 24-hour stoppages from midday on Tuesday have been suspended

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Planned strikes by drivers on London Underground this week have been called off, the RMT union has announced.

The union said the two 24-hour stoppages from midday on Tuesday, which were set to disrupt travel over four days this week, had been suspended.

Closure of local shops and poor public transport leave households struggling to access healthy and affordable food

• ‘Absolutely beautiful’ but no shops for miles: the Cotswolds’ rural food deserts

Rural Britain is becoming a “food desert” for lower-income families as the closure of local shops and poor public transport leaves them at disproportionately high risk of hunger and cost of living pressures, research shows.

Over half of households with an annual income of under £40,000 a year living in the countryside struggle to access affordable and healthy food including fresh fruit and vegetables, the University of Sheffield study estimates.

• Three European finals restricted to TNT and HBO Max

• Uefa understood to be unhappy with the decision

The Champions League final will not be available to watch for free in the UK for the first time since the competition’s modern rebrand 34 years ago when Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest.

The rights holder, TNT Sports, is understood to have irritated Uefa by opting to charge fans to watch all three European finals despite English clubs chasing a clean sweep of titles.

Charity says absence of new name polyendocrine metabolic syndrome (PMOS) could cause confusion

The NHS must move quickly to update information for patients after the renaming of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as polyendocrine metabolic syndrome (PMOS), a grassroots charity has said.

Last week, the condition – which is thought to affect about one in eight women – was given a new name after a 14-year effort that brought together medical experts, charities and women with lived experience of the disorder.

The Brexit debate has been reignited after Labour leadership contender Wes Streeting called it a ‘catastrophic mistake’ and said the UK should rejoin the European Union. His comments put pressure on rival Andy Burnham, who has previously advocated for rejoining the bloc but is fighting a byelection in the leave-voting Makerfield constituency. But how would rejoining work and would the EU even agree to it? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley

Epstein said retired cop turned cocaine dealer attacked him, then retracted claim, before he was found dead in jail

In the murky world of criminal misadventure, what happened at the Likquid Lounge in Chester, New York, on a night in April 2016 may have some bearing on Jeffrey Epstein’s death in federal custody three years later.

In many ways what happened there has become a conspiracy theory within a conspiracy theory. For while speculation about the actions of Epstein and his circle has long spread across the US, the Likquid Lounge is at the center of a fresh mystery of exactly how Epstein died.

Mayor’s attempt to beautify the city with murals of mascot and plum paint jobs criticised as waste of resources

The giant purple axolotl peered up at Manuel Martínez from the black bitumen of the street. It was the second such painting of the rare amphibian he had walked past that morning. In recent weeks he had seen axolotl murals pop up in neighbourhoods across Mexico City.

“It’s a waste of money,” he said. “You could use that budget for fixing potholes, traffic lights, security cameras. They’re spending on something that doesn’t benefit us at all – it’s just for tourists.”

US comedian has a remarkable ability to transform amusing, if somewhat banal, anecdotes into meticulously crafted joy and preposterousness

In terms of both quality and quantity, Josh Johnson is producing standup at a more prolific rate than any other comedian on the globe. How often would you expect a professional comedian to release an hour-long filmed and edited set consisting of 100% brand new gear? Once a year? Every two years?

For Johnson, it’s every week. Every Tuesday since 2023, the American comic and rotating host-correspondent of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has uploaded fully fledged, highly topical routines to his YouTube channel. Filmed from his own tours and club drop-ins, many have eclipsed the 5m view mark. To call him a disruptor of the conventional comedy career path would be a heavy understatement; Johnson is playing by his own rules and the comedy cognoscenti around the world are undoubtedly watching with a keen eye.

A run of immaculate albums ended in 2018 with an identity crisis and the producer becoming a kindergarten chef. Now he’s back with a blissed-out new record

When Axel Willner went to Stockholm’s Funky Chicken food truck last February, he only expected to leave with a burger. While waiting, Willner – AKA the Field, artisan of looping minimal techno masterpieces – noticed another Axel standing two places behind him. This was unlikely enough given the unpopularity of the grandpa-ish name amid 40-something Swedish men. “I was like, oh, how will they call our burgers now?” says Willner.

Unlikelier still, not least given how out of the way the spot is, the Axel was fellow Scandi club music pioneer Axel Boman, co-founder of the joyous dance label Studio Barnhus. They got chatting during the long wait. “He asked if I had any music, what am I doing, because I had been silent for a very long time,” says Willner. He left with an invitation to send Boman some tracks, which eventually resulted in a new label deal and his first record since 2018, Now You Exist.

Showcase Cinemas is offering a medium Coca-Cola to anyone called Emily who goes to see new romcom Finding Emily this weekend. But what if 35,000 thirsty Emilys turn up?

Everybody knows that cinemas are finding it harder and harder to tempt people through their doors. The combination of the cost of living and the rise of streaming threaten to make theatrical exhibition a niche pursuit. But this is not a time to be disheartened, because cinema can still offer something that most forms of entertainment cannot. The collective viewing experience? No. I’m talking about one free drink for people with a certain name who go and see one specific film on a single weekend.

Showcase Cinemas has just announced that if anyone called Emily buys a ticket to see the film Finding Emily this weekend, they will receive a free medium-sized Coca-Cola in return. The offer comes with stipulations – you have to bring photo ID with you to prove that you are a real Emily – but what a wonderful promotion nonetheless.

For the first time ever, beer has overtaken wine as the drink of choice in France. Bad news for national identity, but potentially good news in terms of alcohol consumption

Name: French beer

Age: About 11,700 years.

‘All of Kirkby turned out for the premiere – many of them had been extras. And 500 people crammed into my mum’s council house for a party. It’s still talked about’

I started banging out the script for this on a typewriter in my scruffy flat in Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1981. Four years later, the film had its British premiere. My idea was for a working-class romance between a couple of girls from my native Kirkby and two Russian sailors on leave around the port of Liverpool, with a subtle political message at a time when the Thatcher premiership and the cold war were at their heights. There was a lot of anti-Russian propaganda in the press, but I was not prepared to hate a whole nation just because they had been demonised by the likes of press baron Robert Maxwell.

‘Concern’ about immigration has now morphed into policing how ethnic minorities exist in our communities

Turn away, for a moment, from Westminster and the battle to be the next prime minister – and towards the lives of the ethnic minorities and immigrants who live in England and who just saw many parts of their country turn turquoise at the May local elections. How are these people to be treated by Reform representatives when that party thinks they are lesser humans – and a threat to the social fabric of the very communities they live in?

A newly elected Reform councillor has allegedly said “Carnt [sic] believe amount of nigerians in town … should melt them all down and fill in the pot holes”. The deputy leader of Reform, Richard Tice, said that voters have heard all this “smearing and sneering” before when the comment was put to him. Another Reform candidate tweeted that Muslims “never coexist with others” and should be deported, and that Africans have IQs “among the lowest in the world”. And another stated that, “The only solution” was to “remove the Muslims from our territory” – and that Ashkenazi Jews were a “problem” who “caused the world massive misery”.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

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Over the past five years, I’ve spoken to people struggling to get by in former mining towns. They’re crying out for more radicalism, not less

Among other defeats, the recent local elections saw Labour lose heavily across the Midlands and the north of England. The results are reminiscent of the 2016 Brexit vote and, with the return of those electoral geographies, some of the old tropes have resurfaced, too.

Once again, England’s post-industrial towns are cast as the angry, reactionary counterparts to booming, progressive cities. Certainly, Reform UK is winning there now, but that is not the full picture. These places should not be chalked up as lost causes for the left.

Sacha Hilhorst is a Hallsworth Fellow at the University of Manchester and a senior research fellow at Common Wealth

As Starmer, Burnham, Streeting, Rayner, Polanski and Farage line up, I say ambition for power is no bad thing. It’s what they would do with it that counts

Ah, Mr Burnham, come in, take a seat. Mr Streeting, good to see you. We’ll also be interviewing Mr Starmer, then Ms Rayner; Mr Farage and Mr Polanski come in this afternoon. So, this prime minister job: what are you in it for?

That’s how I would do it. The “what are you in it for?” question gets to the heart of personal ambition. Of course we all tell prospective employers that we are hard-working, able, conscientious and ambitious. But that last claim, in particular, needs to be followed up and tested a bit. Ambitious for what? Ambitious for whom?

La cancoillotte, a low-fat liquid cheese product, has somehow taken the country of haute cuisine by storm

Exciting news from over the Channel: a viral cheese has dropped, but good luck spelling, or saying, it. As Libération reports, la cancoillotte (even native speakers struggle with the pronunciation, apparently), a liquid cheese from Franche-Comté in the east, is taking over fitness social media, thanks to its 16g of “prot” per 100g (as the French muscle bros and girls say), low fat content and bargain price. Its secret ingredient is a skimmed milk product, metton, traditionally a byproduct of butter-making repurposed by thrifty peasants to avoid waste.

Those Franc-Comtois(es) peasants could hardly have imagined where their waste-not-want-not gloop would end up. In April, the social media personality Johan Papz said that discovering cancoillotte was “the best day of my life”, flamboyantly flinging the pale ooze over a plate of potatoes like a moister Salt Bae, then flashing the abs its impressive macronutrients allowed him to cultivate. Another cancoillotte-fluencer has made 178 TikToks on the topic and travelled more than 300 miles on a pilgrimage to Franche-Comté. Julie Morin, the president of the association for the promotion of cancoillotte, called online enthusiasm for the product “incredible”, while the supermarket Carrefour told Libération sales of the garlic variety (of course) rose 16% last month.

If Zack Polanski can find the right balance – think policies like price controls to manage the cost of living – then he will have found a uniting mission

The Greens are jubilant after sweeping through Labour heartlands in last week’s elections, winning Norwich, Hastings, Waltham Forest, Hackney and Lewisham, while becoming the largest party in Haringey and Lambeth too. At the same time, there are reports that Zack Polanski is “plotting” to water down the Green policy platform. That’s not quite true. As leader of an admirably democratic party, Polanski doesn’t set the policy programme, and he knows it. It’s in the hands of the members. But his comments do speak to a real debate in the Green party: how to consolidate its newfound success and extend the coalition so it can replace Labour from the left.

To put things very simply, there are two emerging positions. The maximalists, often newer members who have cut their teeth in protest politics and social movements, want to seize on the radicalism of the moment, pushing controversial policies that grab attention and move the Overton window further left. Then there are the moderates – often longstanding members and councillors, branch chairs or party staffers – who are generally supportive of the politics but worry that seeming too radical or out there will hurt the party’s chances electorally. Employing the Ming vase strategy, they want to tiptoe the Greens’ newfound popularity over the finish line.

Joe Todd is co-host of the Life of the Party podcast and writes the New Party, Old Problems Substack

Demand for ‘formal sale’ is odd for slew of reasons including five-year plan analysts say is ‘sensible, credible and material’

The big strategy reset a fortnight ago from Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn, got a ho-hum response from the stock market for understandable reasons. The company said shutting Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants, or converting the space to hotel rooms, would involve upfront costs. Most of the goodies in the five-year plan, launched only two years after the last one, are intended to come towards the end of the period, which makes them less certain in the eyes of the market.

The big prize, according to Whitbread’s chief executive, Dominic Paul, would be an improvement in annual returns on capital from a pedestrian 11% to a decent 16%. But shareholders, already digesting a whack from Rachel Reeves’s changes to business rates, would have to wait a while for the “higher-margin, higher-returning pure-play hotel business” to appear.

Asking people how they feel about the places where they live is worthwhile. But will it change anything?

Established in the aftermath of the 2024 riots triggered by the Southport murders, the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion set itself the task of bridging divides. Set up on a cross‑party basis with Labour and Tory co-chairs (Jon Cruddas and Sir Sajid Javid), the project leans on a “more in common” philosophy of looking for what connects people, particularly in the places where they live. While it takes on board a range of activities and attitudes, the overarching theme is that heightened conflict and reduced contact between social groups are problems that are not taken seriously enough.

A new online survey billed as the National Conversation, which launched this week, is an attempt to build up a picture of how people across the UK feel about these issues. It will harvest information about, for example, whether respondents feel a greater sense of belonging to their local area or to the UK, and whether they are friendly with neighbours.

Narendra Modi’s austerity appeals reveal how war, energy insecurity and dollar pressures expose the fragility of globalisation

The Indian prime minister’s call for sacrifice last week marks a fundamental shift. He urged the country’s 1.4 billion people to consume less fuel and fertiliser, buy less gold and curb foreign travel as global energy prices surge because of the war in Iran. The message, redolent of the Covid-era restrictions, suggests something larger: a retreat from neoliberal globalisation in Asia and the return of strategic economic management. The Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi waited for key regional elections to finish before pressing for the austerity measures. He was following other Asian states such as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which have made similar requests and even demands of their citizens since March.

Mr Modi made an explicit economic argument: reduce energy imports because India must conserve its foreign exchange. About 90% of India’s oil and gas needs come from abroad. When prices spike, the country faces a higher import bill in dollars, inflation and pressure for higher subsidies. Despite India’s recent economic success, it has not built sufficient productive, export or homegrown green-power capacity to reduce its vulnerability. To prevent the rupee crashing in value, India’s central bank reportedly burned through more than $40bn in reserves.

Readers praise – and point to omissions from – the former home secretary’s proposed programme for government

Well said, David Blunkett (You’ve heard the king’s speech – but I think a better one might run like this, 14 May). A touch of radicalism. A narrative. A purpose. Clarity. Pretty much everything that the current government has failed to offer. I especially applaud his call for lifelong learning and citizenship education.

There are omissions from his list, though, notably a constitutional reform package, at the heart of which should be proportional representation. His lifelong learning package would link to that.

Iain Ramsay draws attention to the enhancing financial services bill and the influence of finance industry lobbying in proposed reforms that could be affect consumers

Press reports on the king’s speech, including in the Guardian (The king’s speech: what is the government’s legislative agenda for the next 12 months?, 13 May), gave little coverage to the proposed enhancing financial services bill, a central part of which will downgrade the role of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Cloaked in the guise of “modernisation”, the proposals reflect pure interest-group lobbying by the finance industry, which already exercises substantial influence on policy. Given that the costs of consumer redress may be concentrated in a few large firms, they have a strong incentive to participate in the policy process. In contrast, consumers of financial products have diffuse concerns and more limited expertise, and face high organisational costs.

Paula Briggs says creative experiences help children feel connected, empowered and engaged, while Nicky Goulder calls for more equal access to creative opportunities across society

The reported health benefits of engaging with art, discussed in your editorial (The Guardian view on public health and the arts: the all-singing, all-dancing science of ageing, 12 May) should come as no surprise to anyone working with children and young people. The government needs to get serious about wellbeing, school attendance and children’s health, and be much braver in joining up policy across education, culture and health.

At AccessArt, the UK charity I founded nearly 30 years ago to support visual arts teaching and learning, we hear repeatedly from teachers that creative experiences help children feel connected, empowered and engaged. Yet the arts have been undervalued in many schools for years, resulting in pressure to narrow the curriculum and prioritise measurable outcomes over meaningful engagement.

Liz McInnes says her fears about the move back in 2019 are coming true as towns such as Middleton will lose access to postal services with TG Jones closing

In 2019, I warned the Conservative government of the danger of moving post offices into branches of WH Smith (Fears of ‘postal deserts’ as owner of former WH Smith stores puts counters under threat, 15 May).

The post office in Middleton, Greater Manchester, was about to be relocated in this manner and I, and many of my then constituents, questioned the sustainability of moving such a vital service into a failing business.

⚽ Updates from the 8pm BST KO at the Emirates Stadium
⚽ Table | Top scorers | Football Daily | Email Taha

A reminder of the situation:

Burnley, who have won just one league game since the end of October, are unchanged. Arsenal have replaced the injured Ben White with Cristhian Mosquera. Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz come in for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Victor Gyökeres.

Hard work, respect and family values made Englishman a popular winner of the Wanamaker Trophy among his peers

By the time Aaron Rai was walking to the 18th tee, 71 holes into the week, 17 holes into the round of his life, three shots clear, Rory McIlroy was already in the clubhouse doing the media rounds. “Looks like he’s going to win,” McIlroy said, as he glanced at Rai on one of the TV monitors dotted around, “which is great. You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him.” He was right. Or at least if there was anyone out there who felt differently, he wasn’t among any of the many men Rai had just beaten to win the Wanamaker Trophy.

“There’s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron,” said Jon Rahm, three shots back. “He’s such a good dude,” said Xander Schauffele, five behind.

Red Roses showed the hunger needed to defend World Cup in 2029 by clinching an eighth successive Six Nations

If the top of the pyramid is defending their Rugby World Cup title in 2029 then this Women’s Six Nations has formed the base from which England can build. The world champions won their eighth straight Six Nations and proved they can succeed even when they have to stretch their squad to the maximum.

Blooding new talent was always the plan for the head coach, John Mitchell, but not in the manner it happened. The team knew they would be without some of the pillars of their side because of retirement or pregnancy but the sheer volume of injuries is not something they could have foreseen. Stars such as Hannah Botterman, Alex Matthews and Morwenna Talling were ruled out for either all or large chunks of the tournament with others like Sadia Kabeya and Maddie Feaunati missing the odd game.

One of the greats of Scottish rugby who went on to have a successful broadcasting career

Scott Hastings, the most capped centre in the history of Scotland’s rugby union side, played a key role in his country’s epic 1990 grand slam victory over England at Murrayfield. Scott, whose name will be forever linked with his elder brother Gavin, was a defensive bulwark of the Scottish team and his astonishing tackle from behind that day on Rory Underwood helped secure his country’s finest ever victory.

In many ways Scott, who has died aged 61 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Gavin were chalk and cheese. The full-back Gavin was affable enough but quiet and earnest while Scott always had a smile on his face. He was a practical joker in his playing days, the dying era of amateurism. “In the end,” he once said, “I recognise that rugby is still all about fun.”

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An occasionally contrary but invariably entertaining studio regular on Jim White’s TalkSport show before and between stints at Celtic this season, Martin O’Neill made himself available this morning to discuss his side’s dramatic weekend title heist. It’s not often a game of fitba completely overshadows the FA Cup final but Saturday’s denouement at Celtic Park was the rare exception. O’Neill could scarcely have been more complimentary about his players, his staff and the unprecedented levels of global interest generated in the Scottish Premiership by a completely unexpected Hearts title challenge that came up agonisingly short. For 12 minutes O’Neill traded good-natured barbs with White and Sidekick Simon Jordan while joking about “the two Japanese lads” in the dressing-room openly wondering “who is this old man?” on his first day in interim charge. It was only when the trumpeting of the giant elephant in the studio klaxon reached an ear-splitting crescendo that White asked his special guest about the pitch invasion that greeted Celtic’s third goal and whether it suggested “a lack of class” on Celtic’s part.

Gone. Get rid. I’ll tell you why. It’s killing spontaneity in the ground. I’m a season ticket holder at Everton. Killing spontaneity. You can’t celebrate a goal because you think someone somewhere in an industrial unit is going to rule it out. So that’s a bad thing. But No 2, it doesn’t get decisions right. You could put up with it if it then got decisions right, but it doesn’t get the decisions right and it’s not consistent” – Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor reportedly building a potential bid to become the new prime minister, is asked on the burning issue of the day: the war in Iran, the cost-of-living crisis VAR!

I think Michael Lloyd might be on to something with his suggestion for crowd entertainment during VAR reviews (Friday’s letters). Stadium announcers could play songs that match the (alleged) infraction under consideration - maybe Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line’ for offside reviews, Timbaland’s ‘Hands in the Air’ for when the ball has been leathered against an outstretched digit from incredibly close quarters, or Justin Bieber’s ‘Hold Me’ for set-piece grappling (if it’s one of those scenarios that has to be replayed 17 times, then some or all alternative tracks with the same title by Wilson Phillips, Santana, Alabama Shakes or Tom Waits could also be played). Finally, for dubious decisions made in added time, in games that have a direct impact on the destination of a league title, there is only one possible track: Prince’s ‘Controversy’” – Paul Taverner.

Can I be one of 1,057 others to suggest that Andy Burnham would be better to sport an Everton shirt sponsored by NEC if he wanted to curry favour with the Labour Party hierarchy” – Chris Richardson (and no others).

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Forward was dropped after a previous attempt to undermine coach, but doing so now could spark mutiny

We can safely say how Arne Slot would like to respond to Mohamed Salah’s latest attempt to undermine him. The Champions League trip to Inter in December, when Salah was left at home as punishment for his incendiary interview at Leeds three days earlier, provides as clear an indication as any. But should a repeat offence result in a repeat sanction on Sunday? Liverpool and their besieged head coach could do without inflaming a potential mutiny at Anfield.

Salah decided to draw up battle lines before his departure, with Saturday’s social media post criticising Liverpool’s direction under Slot. His concerns are widely shared by the Liverpool fanbase and the Liverpool squad, it seems, given the support it received from Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai, Andy Robertson and several members of last summer’s underwhelming recruitment drive. Arrive at great expense, fail to deliver and fuel the sense that a toxic civil war is erupting behind the scenes: thanks for your efforts lads. It is impossible to say what prompted each individual like on Instagram but that is the impression the collective has given.

Cricketer who captained England for 25 Tests and amassed 39,832 runs across his first-class career

The cricketer MJK Smith, who has died aged 92, was a well-regarded captain of England in the mid-1960s and a remarkably consistent run-gatherer for Warwickshire. His even-tempered approach was one of the keys to his success as a skipper not just with England, whom he led between 1964 and 1966, but with his county, which he captained from 1957 to 1967. Although the product of a traditional public school and Oxbridge background, he was unusual for the time in having a classless accent, an egalitarian outlook and a relaxed attitude to convention. Rank and file players loved him for it, and would do anything to support his cause.

Bespectacled and owlish, Mike Smith’s approach on the field looked laissez-faire, almost absent-minded. But he was far more astute than appearances suggested. “Though outwardly unconventional and in manner casual to a degree, he succeeds as a captain for the conventional reasons,” said EW Swanton. “He is thoughtful for his players, unselfish, does not fuss them or panic, shows a grasp of the situation which they deem generally sensible, and not least gives an inspiring personal lead in the field.”

Gambling Commission set to rubber-stamp new regulations which could inflict irreparable damage on the racing industry

James Noyes, one of the initial proponents of affordability checks for gamblers, has issued an urgent call for a pause in their implementation. Stuart Andrew MP, the gambling minister in the last government and also a former supporter of checks, agrees with him. The British Horseracing Authority has suggested that implementation could cost the industry £250m annually in revenue as punters refuse to supply personal financial information to gambling operators and shift to the unregulated black market instead.

And yet, at a board meeting scheduled for Thursday, the Gambling Commission is expected to ignore the rising tide of concern and rubber-stamp the formal introduction financial risk assessments, as the Commission calls them. Tens of thousands, and conceivably hundreds of thousands, of punters with licensed UK firms could soon be required to provide documentation on salary or assets before they can continue to gamble, despite initial promises – from Andrew, among others – that the process would be “frictionless” for all but a minority.

The WSL Golden Boot winner looks to have played her last game for the champions, while there are definite goodbyes at Arsenal and Chelsea

The focus was less on the performance and result and more on Khadija Shaw and her future. Manchester City had wrapped up the title after Arsenal dropped points against Brighton 10 days prior, so the game against West Ham was somewhat irrelevant. That Shaw scored two goals in City’s 4-1 win further highlighted what a huge error it would be for the club to let her go, with her contract expiring this summer. Shaw, though, gave hope to City fans so desperate for her to stay they chanted her name over and over at the club’s title party on Sunday. After the match on Saturday, she told Sky Sports: “I’ve always said Manchester is my home, it’s where I want to be, but there’s a lot of things which go on behind the scenes which I won’t talk about now. But I’ve always been proud of all the girls and everything. Manchester is where I would want to be, but ultimately we’ll see.” Suzanne Wrack

Bank founded 174 years ago could be phased out from as early as 1 July as part of group’s review

Bosses at Lloyds Banking Group are considering axing the Halifax as a standalone brand, as part of a sweeping review that could result in the historic 174-year-old lender disappearing from Britain’s high streets.

Lloyds has been assessing the future of its branding strategy and whether it will continue to operate everyday banking under three different brands – Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland – after government-backed rescue efforts at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Democrats criticize fund to compensate for supposed persecution as ‘slush fund’ for president’s allies after Trump ends lawsuit against IRS

• Trump dismisses $10bn suit against IRS and creates $1.7bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

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Democratic reactions to the news about Trump moving to withdraw his lawsuit against the IRS are coming in. Ron Wyden, a top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Trump deserved no credit for dropping the lawsuit, regardless of his reasons.

“Even by his standards the move he’s trying to get away with now is a stunning act of corruption,” said Wyden in a statement. “What Trump wants is a $1.7bn slush fund for right-wing political violence and subversion, and if he follows through, it will be the most brazen theft and abuse of taxpayer dollars by any president in American history.”

Chancellor has been under pressure to extend 5p temporary cut at an estimated cost to government of £2.4bn a year

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Rachel Reeves is planning to cancel a rise in fuel duty this week when she unveils a package of measures to reduce the cost of living.

The chancellor will announce she will not put up the tax by 1p as was due to happen in September, government sources said, and she could cancel all of a 5p rise that is due to happen in stages over the subsequent six months.

Pew research shows Americans are more worried than excited about AI as graduates voice fears over jobs

A former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was met with students’ boos at a university commencement address in Arizona on Sunday when he raised the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its effects.

Schmidt – who led the tech giant for more than a decade, acquiring a multibillion-dollar fortune in the process – was speaking to as many as 10,000 graduating University of Arizona students when he addressed the impact of modern technology on society.

Pandemic report warns of growing global threat as health teams in Africa move to contain Ebola outbreak

The world is becoming less resilient to outbreaks of infectious diseases, experts have warned, as health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda scramble to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) said in a report published on Monday that “as infectious disease outbreaks become more frequent they are also becoming more damaging”, warning that pandemic risk is outpacing investments in preparedness and “the world is not yet meaningfully safer”.

Rising demand for exotic pets is pushing many gibbon species to extinction, with their strong family bonds making them especially vulnerable to the brutal trade

It is a cool morning in Thailand’s hilly north, and a wildlife officer sits on the veranda of Omkoi wildlife sanctuary’s office. On her lap is a wide-eyed infant primate dressed in baby clothes. Not unlike a human baby, he kicks and waves excitedly. Most of his dark skin is covered in dense white fur, except for his face and the palms of his hands.

“We call him Chokdee,” the officer says. “It means ‘good luck’.”

Like many informal settlements, communities that have sprung up on the edges of Ayacucho in the Andes are on the frontline of extreme weather events

In December 2009, a late‑afternoon storm unleashed torrential rain over Ayacucho, in Peru, hitting poor hillside neighbourhoods hard. The deluge overwhelmed drainage systems, turning streams into lethal flows of mud, stones and debris that flooded houses and streets and trapped drivers at a busy junction.

Ten people died, 18 were injured, and 530 houses were destroyed or damaged, according to a government inquest. “It was a disaster,” recalls Edgar Castro, a leader in Ayacucho’s largest informal neighbourhood, Mollepata.

Requests for gas connections by operators amount to more than 15 terawatt hours per year, endangering climate targets

More than 100 new datacentres in the UK plan to burn gas to generate electricity, some potentially doing so permanently.

British officials say this is an inevitable consequence of a years-long wait to connect to the National Grid, and raises an “interesting question” about the UK’s climate targets.

Temperatures in France and England could rise by 15C, while hot air could to give way to snow in parts of US

After a prolonged spell of cool conditions across much of Europe, a dramatic swing in temperatures is expected in the coming days as warmer air surges north into western and central parts of the continent.

A large blocking high over the North Atlantic and slow-moving low pressure across southern Scandinavia dragged Arctic air southwards last week, sending temperatures 10-15C below the seasonal average for more than a week.

Bill Bailey and Alan Titchmarsh paint gnomes for king’s garden at event, in one-off to raise funds for RHS campaign

Garden gnomes should make a permanent return to the Chelsea flower show, say celebrities who have painted the mythical creatures for the king’s garden at this year’s event.

At the high-end event, which kicks off on Tuesday in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, south-west London, the “tacky” statues have been frowned upon since 1927. Speaking at the show’s press day, the comedian and musician Bill Bailey and the gardener and author Alan Titchmarsh urged the Royal Horticultural Society to lift the gnome ban permanently.

Why is the artist’s work racking up hundreds of thousands of views on social media? For a generation bombarbed with visual stimuli, it seems his canvases offer a meditative escape

The works of Mark Rothko have never failed to split opinion. Were those vast colour field paintings a bold new direction for abstract art or simply fuel for the “my child could paint that” brigade? To his detractors, Rothko’s abstractions appear devoid of symbolism or discernible message. Yet he is currently undergoing an unexpected cultural reappraisal thanks to his adoption by the art lovers of gen Z.

Across TikTok and Instagram, videos centred on Rothko’s work are accumulating hundreds of thousands of views. One creator has begun styling outfits inspired by individual Rothko canvases; another assigns Rothko works to personality archetypes, describing Untitled (Yellow and Blue) as a match for “someone who wakes up early, drinks citrus water and has their life together – or at least looks like it”. Elsewhere, users compare his atmospheric palettes to the hazy melancholy of the Cocteau Twins – the dream pop band also undergoing a gen Z renaissance right now. As one young creator put it recently: “Date idea: me, Rothko, and nobody saying ‘I could have done these.’”

For decades, Britain seemed to be leaving Christianity behind. Then a controversial report suggested church attendance was on the rise, published just as far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson began seizing on Christianity as a symbol of national identity. So is the UK really experiencing a Christian revival and to what extent is it being driven by Christian nationalism? To find out, the Guardian visited churches across the country and uncovered a growing schism over how Christianity is being interpreted in modern Britain

Singer took lead vocal on UK No 1 When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman, and had numerous other transatlantic hits

Dennis Locorriere, the guitarist and singer with the chart-topping soft rock band Dr Hook, has died aged 76.

A statement from his management company said he died on Saturday “after a long and courageous battle with kidney disease … Dennis faced his illness with remarkable strength, dignity, and resilience throughout, and remained deeply cherished by all who knew him”.

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, says any US strike would be catastrophic after reports of 300+ drones

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has warned that any US military action against his country would lead to a “bloodbath” with incalculable consequences for regional peace and stability.

“Cuba does not represent a threat,” Díaz-Canel said in a post on X.

‘Tank Day’ event causes outrage with ‘malicious mockery’ of deadly crackdown during dictatorship era

The chief executive of Starbucks in South Korea has been fired after the company ran a promotional event using slogans that evoked a massacre of pro-democracy protesters during the country’s dictatorship era, sparking outrage and boycott calls.

The coffee chain launched a “Tank Day” campaign on 18 May for its “Tank” tumbler series. The date coincides with one of the most politically sensitive days in South Korea’s calendar, when citizens commemorate the 1980 democratisation movement in Gwangju, 167 miles (270km) south-west of Seoul.

Singer says she has faced ‘years of public shaming’, as court rules tax agency made mistake over her 2011 status

A court in Madrid has ordered Spain’s tax authority to pay Shakira back more than €55m (£48m) after ruling that it had wrongly imposed huge fines on the Colombian singer and philanthropist because it had made mistakes over her tax status.

In a statement released on Monday, the Audiencia Nacional said it had accepted an appeal from Shakira against the fine she was handed five years ago after the Agencia Tributaria claimed she had not paid the necessary tax in Spain in 2011. At that time, the singer was in a relationship with the FC Barcelona player Gerard Piqué.

Spokesperson for Indian Ocean island nation says they will try to recover explorers in next couple of days

Rescuers have located the bodies of four Italian divers deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll in the Maldives, four days after they were reported missing.

Searches had resumed after being suspended following the death of a local military diver during a perilous mission to try to reach them.

Trump warning over peace talks drives up crude price as UK gilts hit by uncertainty over Starmer leadership

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Oil prices rose and global bonds wobbled on Monday, as fresh tensions in the Middle East fed inflation fears and bets that central banks will have to increase interest rates.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, rose on Monday, after an attack on a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates.

Ofcom to update codes of practice amid rise in ‘revenge porn’ and AI-generated deepfakes targeting women and girls

Social media, messaging platforms and online forums that publish intimate image abuse – often intended to humiliate women and girls – are being instructed to follow new guidelines to stop it spreading.

Ofcom said it would change its codes of practice to force service providers to detect and quash intimate image abuse – sometimes called “revenge porn” – and crack down on AI-generated deepfakes. A wave of deepfakes emerged in January when Elon Musk’s Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis.

Startup has declined to release Claude Mythos AI model publicly amid fears it could be used by hackers

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Anthropic is to brief the global finance watchdog on the implications of its Claude Mythos AI model, whose potential threat to cyber defences has alarmed experts.

The US startup will discuss Mythos with the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which is chaired by the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey.

Survey shows businesses ‘struggling to absorb latest economic shock’, while data says April vacancies down 7.7%

The worsening fallout from the Iran war is forcing businesses to halt their UK investment and hiring plans, bosses have warned, as Britain enters a renewed period of political and economic instability.

More than two months into the US-Israeli war on Iran, leading surveys of UK employers showed companies were increasingly prioritising cost management over growth as rising costs and global uncertainty weigh on confidence.

Cannes film festival: Na Hong-jin’s melee of running, chasing and shouting at the angry invaders is uproarious fun, mixing digital work with old-school spectacle

Some uproarious rock’n’roll moviemaking from Korean director Na Hong-jin, a sci-fi action thriller mixing digital work with old-school analogue entertainment values, serving up a spectacle with cheeky touches of Spielberg, Walter Hill and one other director and movie franchise that it would be unsporting to specify at this stage.

We are in the remote and sleepy retirees’ town of Hope in South Korea near the demilitarised zone (DMZ), where people already constitutionally used to the possibility of war and bloodshed, are astonished to hear of a farm animal killed and mangled – though not for food – by an unidentified beast.

At 82, the character actor is as frank and fired-up as ever with two hit stage shows and a summer blockbuster on the way. He’s embracing being odd, he says, even if everyone doesn’t quite get it

When I ask Wallace Shawn how he cast his latest stage work, What We Did Before Our Moth Days, the actor and playwright smiles matter-of-factly: “Well, I think that’s secret. I don’t think I’ll tell you.” It’s polite, to the point and sets a clear boundary: something that I soon discover that the charming 82-year-old is entirely comfortable with.

On an overcast Wednesday, we are in a restaurant atop the hip Manhattan arthouse cinema Metrograph, watching people trickle in a few days before a retrospective of his films opens there. Spending time with Shawn feels like stepping into his own constant sense of wonderment: something midway between a knowing shrug and puzzlement over his immediate situation. When the cinema’s publicist offers him a Twix bar, he cocks his head and asks what that is, but politely accepts one. (When she returns with more options, he opts for popcorn instead.)

She tells the untold version of the American Revolution in a fascinating two-parter. Plus, the Chelsea flower show kicks off. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC Two
Another sparky history lesson with expert Lucy Worsley, as she tells the British perspective – or “the untold version” – of the American Revolution. Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the two-parter starts in New York where George Washington read out “the ultimate breakup letter”, then looks at the events of King George III’s reign that led up to this moment. Hollie Richardson

Cannes film festival: The Palme laureate here makes a misstep with an odd, disquieting film that leaves too many issues unresolved

Romanian director and Palme laureate Cristian Mungiu – the winner here in 2007 with his stunning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – comes to Cannes with an anticlimactic, underpowered movie which it seems to me could be part of an odd phenomenon at this year’s festival, detectable also in films here by Kantemir Balagov and Ryusuke Hamaguchi: auteurs making coproduction movies outside their home turf and mother tongue with big foreign stars, perhaps as a result of creative conversations at international film festivals with admirers from all over the world – and losing focus.

Fjord is an odd film, bearing Mungiu’s signature, certainly, with enigmatic long shots and avoidance of closeups, and one very distinctive crowding of faces in a dinner-scene tableau. But the ostensible pain and trauma of its story is conveyed without the rewarding complexity that we have come to associate with him, and without revelation or mystery. Ultimately, the film does not compellingly deliver a blazing truth about its various relationships – but neither does it intriguingly withhold any such truth from us.

Sebastian Stan plays a Romanian guy called Mihai, married to a Norwegian woman called Lisbet (Renate Reinsve); they have to come to live in the beautiful, remote village of Lisbet’s birth because Mihai, a qualified software engineer, can get an IT job and there is a strong church community thereabouts which is a great attraction as Mihai and Lisbet are fundamentalist conservative Christians who are very strict. They are given a warm welcome by their (non-Christian) neighbours, who are the school’s headteacher and his wife.

The film begins on a disquieting, ambiguous moment: Mihai has clearly just delivered a punishment of some sort to their teenage daughter who is now required to give him a penitent hug. The school’s staff notice that the children have marks and bruises. They are gently but pointedly questioned and (perhaps) incriminate their parents because they are not sufficiently proficient in any language other than Romanian. Perhaps the language issue also contributes to the calamitous statement Mihai then gives to the police with no lawyer present.

With lightning speed, the children are taken into provisional care pending a hearing and criminal trial. Things are complicated by a growing concern about their neighbours’ elderly disabled father and about Mihai and Lisbet’s daughter forming a close relationship with their neighbours’ rebellious teen daughter.

There is something undoubtedly ingenious in the way Mungiu invites the audience to sympathise with the children, and side against this ice-cold patriarch – and then almost side with the patriarch against the blandly smug, supercilious officers of a system weighted against them.

Liberal prejudice against them as Christians or as Romanians arguably plays its part. But the facts of the matter do not seem to be in doubt: Mihai concedes he smacks or slaps the children occasionally – quite normal in the robust world of Romania. But don’t those bruises and marks show something worse than that? The matter is not resolved in court or in the film and then we have a strangely inert and suspense-free finale at the ferry terminal which reveals that the relationship between the teen girls Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen) is something else the film has not sufficiently told or not told us about. Mungiu’s technique will always be interesting but this is a disappointment.

• Fjord screened at the Cannes film festival

Dan Asma’s impressive debut feature follows a retired professor, played by the director himself, whose research leads him to Lovecraftian terrors

Dan Asma’s superbly unsettling debut feature could well be California’s answer to The Blair Witch Project, as it follows a retired professor protagonist heading out into the Cuyamaca mountains and into the bowels of Mount Shasta on the trail of a lost sect. Updating and complicating the found-footage movie for the era of too-many browser tabs, it comes with an icy Lovecraftian hint of terrors beyond and packs a hefty eschatological kick.

Our intrepid academic Devin (Asma) has bitten off more than he can chew, judging by the riverbed of bloodshot veins disfiguring his face and failing mental faculties that have left him unable to drive his car out of the wilderness. Still able to access his past recordings, he jogs his own memories about what led him out there in the first place: ex-wife Kate (Nicole Jones) dropping off old camcorder excerpts of college hangouts with pal Charlie (Keaton Asma), who recently killed himself. An orphaned member of the mysterious Church of Heaven’s Light cult, as a child Charlie was found staggering out of the Cuyamacas alone – but brought with him a wild cosmic pontification or two about superior beings stalking mankind.

The latest in our series of writers calling attention to their most rewatched comfort films is a celebration of the star-packed 2007 fantasy

For a period of time in my tweens, our Sunday nights followed a certain ritual. Me and my two siblings would sit on the sofa, ignoring the fact that school was on the next day, and put on our battered DVD copy of Stardust.

The first time we watched it is lost to history, but its effect isn’t. Over time, it has become something of a cure-all, treating everything from a bad day at work to an overdose of adult cynicism.

Barbican, London
The BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Teddy Abrams performed the world premiere of Davids’ sombre and powerful new work that tells of the colonisation of North America

Amid the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of US independence, Brent Michael Davids’ Requiem for America brings an abrupt and necessary shift of perspective. Subtitled “Singing for the Invisible People”, it tells of the colonisation of North America and the systematic erasure of its Indigenous people. We don’t hear the text of the Latin mass; instead Davids, a composer of Mohican heritage, has constructed a patchwork of first-hand sources: newspaper articles, military reports, telegrams, rare accounts from the survivors of massacres. It is, as Davids describes it, both a reckoning and a remembrance: it’s meant to be shocking, and it is.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that this premiere should have happened outside the US; nonetheless, a further performance is planned for Boston in November, of an even longer version. Here a lot was packed into 90 minutes by a stageful of musicians: the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, an eight-strong Native American choir, four vocal soloists as if for a traditional setting of the Requiem – and, to the conductor Teddy Abrams’s right, the mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta, a late stand-in who sang the Narrator with tremendous conviction, and Davids himself, playing the Native American flute.

The broadcasting favourites are up to mischief in their first pod together. Plus, a cool new take on Radio 4’s hit series A History of the World in 100 Objects

The Barbican, London
Mutter’s anniversary tour opened with a programme of Beethoven, André Previn and – ever a champion of new music – the European premiere of Aftab Darvishi’s Likoo, a rhapsodic lament for women under the Iranian regime

On 23 August, 1976, a 13-year-old violinist made her debut at the Lucerne festival – with her older brother Christoph at the piano. By the time the concert finished Anne-Sophie Mutter was the toast of the festival, invited to play for no less than Herbert von Karajan. It was the start of a career that has since yielded more than 50 albums, four Grammy awards, and works by a Who’s Who of 20th-century greats: Krzysztof Penderecki; Henri Dutilleux; Witold Lutosławski; Sofia Gubaidulina; John Williams.

So now, aged 62, Mutter is celebrating 50 years on the concert platform. And she’s doing it her way. If anyone was expecting the German star to launch her anniversary tour on Saturday night with a big concerto, they will have been disappointed. An only somewhat full Barbican Hall suggested fans may have voted with their feet. Those who risked it got Mutter in activist mode, using her platform not to revisit triumphs but to champion new music and young artists.

Kings Place, London
This was a virtuosic, witty performance of a mixed programme of works mostly by Benjamin Britten and Aaron Copland, who spent the summer of 1939 together in Woodstock

An internationally acclaimed composer from “the land without music”, the reviver of British opera and co-founder of the Aldeburgh festival: Benjamin Britten is firmly ensconced in our national cultural pantheon. The time when he and his soon to be life-partner, the tenor Peter Pears, boarded an ocean liner and travelled to North America in spring 1939 as “a vacation from the general European atmosphere” – not returning until mid-1942 – has proved harder to celebrate. But in a season marking the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death, the Britten Sinfonia have grasped the nettle.

The result is a programme split mainly between works by Britten and Aaron Copland, who spent the summer of 1939 together in Woodstock. Cue tennis, swimming and mutual admiration. But Britten was also hard at work – first on his Young Apollo, a fanfare commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and then on his song cycle Les Illuminations. Directing from the violin, Zoë Beyers launched a taut, witty performance of the former. Amid so much energetically engaged string playing, pianist Huw Watkins’ mercurial scales and delicate sweeps of glissando provoked audible giggles of delight from audience members behind me.

In this warm and tender debut, the family of Barbados-born Lucinda must try to document her decades in Britain after the Home Office threatens her with deportation

There is a particular kind of British cruelty that thrives on politeness. The 2018 Windrush scandal exposed this in full: rather than chaos or spectacle, it revealed a machinery of clinical decisions that stripped Black and brown people of their belonging with bureaucratic precision. It is now part of our national story, often spoken of in the abstract or invoked as a cautionary tale. But what can be obscured, in this telling, is the texture of the harm, the way complicated lives were reduced to paperwork.

Smallie, Eden McKenzie-Goddard’s tender debut, insists on restoring the humanity of those Windrush-generation immigrants who were erased by official language. The story begins decades before, in 1961, when 19-year-old Lucinda Brown leaves Barbados for England, in search of Clarence Braithwaite, the jazz musician who fathered her child (who stays in the care of her family) and then disappeared into the promises of Britain. On the boat crossing she meets Raldo, a magnetic Trinidadian – “the type of man women slap each other to point out” – whose easy charm hints at a freer life.

Mordecai Kurz argues tech oligarchs erode democracy through monopolies – and predicts how the trend may end

The billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality. In his new book, Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, publishing 19 May, he argues the US is living through an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated itself since industrialization: technological power concentrating in the hands of a few, which is eroding democracy.

According to Kurz, technological moguls have long seen themselves as superior beings whose natural role is to shape society – so they have no problem disrupting the institution of democracy. During the first Gilded Age, in the late 19th century, as the US was enjoying its first ascent as an industrial powerhouse, wealthy industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller “invented all kinds of theories about human evolution”, twisting the logic of social Darwinism to convince themselves that their success was a sign they had been selected by nature to influence society, Kurz explained. Now, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has suggested his technology has a mystical potential to become a transcendent good. He’s also openly acknowledged it could lead to mass unemployment.

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

Forgotten psychiatric patients are resurrected with imagination and compassion in this extraordinary book

Cork Mental Hospital, also known as Our Lady’s, was once the longest building in Ireland: a monster of 19th-century gothic, much added to before its closure in the 1990s, that stares from the north bank down to the River Lee and the city beyond. In recent years, a lot of the complex has been turned, predictably, into apartments. A developer’s website now invites you to “Live comfortably, live conveniently, live with us”.

This, surely, is a spectral sort of invitation: hard for “us” not to conjure, amid bright mockup interiors, the fretful shades of the unwell – and the unwilling. When Doireann Ní Ghríofa – celebrated poet and author of the nonfiction A Ghost in the Throat – began exploring the derelict site several years ago, she recognised it straight away as a place she might herself, but for historical fortune, have ended up. Said the Dead is an intimately researched but also wildly imaginative study of lives (mostly female) lived and often concluded during the hospital’s first 70 years or so.

The open world driving sim has roared through locations from Colorado to Australia, its authentic feel resting on exhaustive research. But, as the team explain, this was the toughest challenge yet

Since the arrival of the original Forza Horizon in 2012, a game that revolutionised open world driving sims by setting players loose in a virtual Colorado, British developer Playground Games has promised authenticity with its settings. For each instalment, design teams are sent out on location to take thousands of photos, hours of video, even detailed captures of the sky, before construction of a virtual copy begins. It’s a huge undertaking. But it seems that for much of the past decade, one country remained slightly out of reach – an intimidating prospect. “Japan has been on our shortlist for several games now,” says design director, Torben Ellert. “But we just didn’t feel like we were ready to take on the challenge of building it.”

It’s not just about the sheer variety of the country’s landscape. There’s something else going on. Most video game players hold an image of what it is like to explore Japan. It may be inspired by the fictitious rural town of Inaba in Persona 4, or the busy docks of Yokosuka in Shenmue, or perhaps the neon-drenched Kabukichō district of Tokyo, which forms a regular backdrop in the Yakuza series. For decades, gamers around the world have been bombarded with images of the country that are often highly stylised and fragmented, but nonetheless potent and persuasive. As art director Don Arceta puts it, “with Japan there’s such an expectation [of] what gamers want - it’s a certain version of Japan that they picture.”

Why are Nintendo releasing a straight-up remake of the space-flight shooter – with many of its original limitations – rather than a fresh new take?

The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the background noise to a huge chunk of my youth. But back in the 1990s (in the UK at least), it felt as if nobody had an N64. When everybody had a PlayStation instead, I felt I was the only kid in my whole city who cared more about Banjo-Kazooie than Crash Bandicoot.

If even Zelda seemed comparatively niche in Europe in the 90s, Lylat Wars (known elsewhere as Star Fox 64) was a real deep cut. It’s a 1997 space-flight shooter starring Fox McCloud and his squad of animal pilots laser-blasting across different planets in nimble crafts called Arwings. I played this game to absolute death in 1998, when I got it for my birthday alongside the fabled Rumble Pak, which made your controller vibrate and shudder whenever something cool was happening on screen (fun fact: Lylat Wars was the first console game to feature controller rumble). But I really hadn’t thought about it much since. Then, last week, Nintendo announced a Switch 2 remake.

Previously prohibited use of websites such as Omoggle that connect a streamer to a stranger’s video feed now allowed

Last week, at 4am, 19-year-old Sammy Amz was scrolling through X when something caught his eye: a popular Twitch streamer was competing in a 1v1 “mog-off” with a stranger, and losing.

The next day he opened the Omoggle gaming website and began to play. Quickly he matched with another user – green dots appeared on their faces onscreen, as the website began to compare their measurements: canthal tilt, palpebral fissure ratio, nose-to-face width ratio and so on.

PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch 2; Annapurna Interactive
The nostalgic antics of a trio of tenacious teens make for silly yet undeniably enjoyable gameplay, framed by a playlist of bona fide bangers

The older we get, the more we tend to romanticise our teenage years. As bills pile up, we yearn for the simple days of drinking cider in parks. We often tend to forget the bad parts: the frustrating lack of autonomy, the unrequited crushes and the doofuses you’re forced to tolerate in the playground. But after four hours spent hanging out with the pretentious teens in Mixtape, I felt pretty relieved to be in my 30s.

Set in a nondescript town in northern California, Mixtape follows the exploits of tenacious trio Rockford, Slater and Cassandra as they head to a legendary party on their last day of high school. With Rockford about to leave her friends to move to the big city, she wants to immortalise the gang’s time together in musical form. Every song on a carefully curated mixtape triggers a totally tubular flashback to one of their shared memories.

Bush theatre, London
Married aspiring standups confront on stage what they’re concealing in real life, in Piers Black’s compelling two-hander

Standup is performance in extremis, self-projection in the raw – and has long appealed to dramatists interested in the faces we present to and conceal from one another. That seems to be the territory of I’m Not Being Funny, too, as we meet two young parents prepping in their living room for a forthcoming open mic night. Peter wants to tell corny jokes; Billie wants to tell stories about her – well, their lives. An interrogation looms into the uses and abuses of onstage humour, but that is not, in the end, what we get.

I’m not convinced that Piers Black’s play quite marries how it starts with what it becomes. There is something off about the pair practising comedy together. Are they planning solo slots – the classic “tight five”, as Peter refers to it? (He frets he only has a “loose two”.) Or are they workshopping a double act? That question feels more pertinent when, after a few flashbacks hinting at a dramatic backstory, the play swerves into more traumatic territory.

Southbank Centre, London
Between a sci-fi concert for eggs and an interview with a bee, the scarecrow broadcasters in Philippe Quesne’s oddball performance piece make the case for art as salvation and for farms as the lifeblood of humanity

Bump into one of these scarecrows at night and you’d be forgiven for running a mile. But stick around to listen to this hay-laden gang of crop-protector castaways, who no longer have crops to protect nor birds to scare thanks to the climate crisis, and you’ll see they have only good intentions.

The sensorily ambitious Farm Fatale joins five scarecrows with faces of melted plastic and voices of children swallowed by machines in the artificial studio of their pirate radio station. It is set in the near future, when the air is hard to breathe and birdsong is recorded. The only people getting by are the industrial farmers capitalising on the ruin of others. When the scarecrows interview a bee, with a microphone charmingly taped to a pitchfork, the little creature is described as one of the last in Europe.

Exhibition explores how artists mainly known for their paintings helped revive a skill that had fallen out of fashion

They may be best known for their vibrant oil paintings but an exhibition opening in the English West Country is focusing instead on the subtle printmaking skills of artists such as Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

More than 50 prints created mainly by impressionists, post-impressionists and cubists are going on display at the Holburne Museum in Bath.

Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Forgoing Brecht’s usual distanciation, Anna Jordan’s new translation and Michelle Terry’s lovable performance bring out the humanity of a woman doing what’s necessary to keep herself and her family alive

This production of Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece seems to break the first rule of Brecht’s epic theatre, which requires emotional distance. It conjures Brecht’s upside down world, in which war denotes order and profit, while underlining all the losses that Mother Courage faces in spite of her relentless entrepreneurialism and attempts at profiteering – selling anything from burgers to ammunition and sex. But it is human, moving and funny. The distance closes and the production becomes devastating in its most savage moments, when Mother Courage loses her children, one by one.

Translator Anna Jordan justifies these moments by interpreting Brecht’s rule of verfremdungseffekt as making the drama “strange” rather than distanced. And in director Elle While’s powerful production, the emotional drama is tightly controlled, flaring up momentarily. In between flare ups, the narrator (Max Runham) pulls us away from the intimacies of this family to draw the bigger picture, summarising the gyrations of war and Courage’s travails over the years.

The Russian-born artist’s work can hypnotise, deceive or even transform into a mushroom. He talks about his Venice show full of Christian iconography and haunting depictions of children

Sanya Kantarovsky’s paintings are filled with the dishevelled and the fallible: figures that bite and pin each other into submission, draw blood, appear hypnotised or sometimes transmogrify into a mushroom. The otherworldly intensity that has defined the 44-year-old’s work to date is as strong as ever in his new show, Basic Failure, which recently opened in Venice to coincide with the Biennale.

Located at Venice’s Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts – a palazzo with high ceilings and a dark terrazzo-marbled floor, the walls lined with antique books – the exhibition opens with the diminutive portrait, Boy With Cigarette, in which the thickly painted, pallid, downturned young face of a boy, outlined in darkening blue brushstrokes, is seen caressing an unlit cigarette with tendril-like fingers. As Kantarovsky observes, his characters “feel both familiar and kind of alien at the same time”. This saturnine image is counterbalanced by the giddy expression of innocence nearby – a child spins on the spot, her dress flying upwards, as if free from the weight of any embarrassment.

Now that real life has caught up with science fiction, the imminent danger isn’t malfunctioning cowboys, it’s the robots convincing us that we’re great and everything is totally fine

All the best science fiction movies eventually get overtaken by reality. Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report predicted personalised advertising and biometric identification. Spike Jonze’s Her correctly guessed that AI would probably arrive as emotionally responsive digital companions that sound like Scarlett Johansson, rather than rampaging killer machines. RoboCop imagined militarised law enforcement on the streets of America long before the Pentagon decided to get in on the action.

Could Westworld become the latest science fiction franchise to catch up to the future? Deadline reports this week that a new film based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie about rich thrill-seekers heading to a techno-pleasure park for violence, fantasy and consequence-free debauchery is in the works at Warner Bros, with David Koepp attached to write. It will reportedly bypass the more recent TV reboot from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, which ran for four seasons between 2016 and 2022.

Last Week Tonight host spoke about structured settlements and the problematic industry surrounding them

John Oliver took aim at factoring companies on his HBO show and the industry that takes advantage of people with structured settlements.

On Last Week Tonight, he explained that the story grew out of “the JG fucking Wentworth ads” which have been a “pop culture staple” due to the “infuriatingly catchy” jingle that was even part of a Curb Your Enthusiasm storyline.

His extraordinary Auschwitz film won every award going. Now the Hungarian director is back with new drama Orphan, as well as a Jean Moulin biopic at Cannes. He talks about resurgent global prejudice – and refusing to be lectured by the film industry ‘overclass’

We’ve been talking for less than five minutes when I spot the swastika. It’s just above the head of László Nemes, one of Europe’s most acclaimed directors, as he sits in the suite of a London hotel, talking about Orphan, his intensely personal new film that dwells on – among other things – the impact of the Holocaust on the generations that followed. It’s an ancient, Hindu swastika, part of a decorative wall-hanging – but still.

I’m halfway through a question when I notice it. Nemes laughs; of course, he’d seen it immediately. “I wanted to point that out to you,” he says. “It is so funny. Before leaving this room, I will take pictures.” Mind you, he’s had worse. “When I was at the San Sebastián film festival with Son of Saul, they put me in the Mel Gibson room.”

You told us your camping must-haves, from portable pumps and blackout tents to a flask that keeps beer cold. Plus, women’s summer wardrobe updates and celeb booze, tested

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One thing we’ve discovered here on the Filter is that our readers are an outdoorsy bunch. Few topics have driven as many enthusiastic write-ins as when we asked for your best camping tips.

From a strap that turns your mattress into a chair to a super-smart peg-free washing line, here are your top tips and tricks. (And no, none of you has any commercial links to these companies or products – we always check.)

Fame, fantasy … and fish? Celebrity drinks put to the test

‘Don’t be fooled by fancy packaging’: the best (and worst) supermarket shortbread, tasted and rated

Ditch fabric softener and give jumpers a good steam: how to make your clothes last longer

Wobble boards, Duplo and screen-free stories: the top toys and gifts for three-year-olds

The best umbrellas for staying dry in the wind and rain – tested on a 517m hilltop

Learning to drive as an adult is humiliating because everyone knows how to drive, and frustrating because no one knows how to drive properly

Last year, at the age of 35, I decided it was time to grow up and get my driver’s licence.

I had considered it before, but it had never stuck. As a teenager, I thought driving was scary and significantly less cool than sitting on the bus, listening to the same eight songs on my MP3 player. As a news reporter in my 20s, not driving was inconvenient to both me and my editors, but so was spending days off learning how to parallel park.

Fed up with frizzy and dehydrated locks? Dyson’s latest travel model allows effortless styling on the go – but at a cost

• The best hair dryers – tested

With the summer holidays fast approaching, the usual anxieties might be taking hold: pickpockets and touts, lost passport, severe sunburn, holiday tummy, and – perhaps most pressingly – the horrors of the hotel hair dryer. That last one is not to be underestimated: an outdated dryer with one scorching heat setting is a fast track to frizzy, dehydrated, unfabulous hair – not something you want immortalised in your holiday photos.

Worry not, though: Dyson promises to fix that particular woe. The British engineering brand has shrunk its Supersonic into a smaller, lighter, travel-friendly dryer offering the same powerful airflow and heat-control technology as its full-size sibling. So does this admittedly very stylish compact dryer really justify its premium price?

Dunk, nibble or wolf them down: this classic biscuit is at its best when it’s just sugar, butter and flour, so be wary of those that stray from the rules

• The best extra-chocolatey biscuits

At its best and simplest, shortbread is made using a classic 1:2:3 ratio – one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour, by weight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, few supermarket shortbreads stick to that golden rule and include other ingredients such as cornflour and raising agents; they’re nothing to worry about – but some cut the butter (and costs) by using rapeseed oil, margarine or worse.

Unlike most manufactured products, however, the price of shortbread doesn’t always reflect the level of processing, and some of the cheapest are also the least processed. Look out for “all-butter” on the label, to make sure the shortbread doesn’t include oil and has that classic, buttery taste. And don’t be fooled by fancy packaging.

Whether it’s sandals comfy enough for walking, linen trousers or timeless sunnies, the secret to great summer style is all about keeping things simple

Don’t overthink it. That’s the key to summer style. The best looks are the ones you reach for when you aren’t thinking about clothes, but about the sunny weather, the long evenings, the good times.

You’ll already have your summer anchors, the pieces you come back to every year. The sundress that always works. Denim shorts that only get better with age. A breezy linen shirt you can wear open over swimwear or tucked into just about anything. These are your personal treasures, the pieces that never let you down. But it wouldn’t be summer without a bit of personality thrown in. Suddenly there’s room for pieces that might have felt a bit “extra” a few months ago. Stripes, florals, a pop of red – they all work when the sun’s out.

There’s a perfect perch for every camper. Here are our favourites, from ultralight models to inflatable pods

• The best tents for camping: 10 expert picks for every outdoor adventure

Ready to carry on camping this summer? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that a good collapsible camping chair can change your life. If you’ve never used one before, you’ll be astonished at how comfy a folding chair is, letting you sit off the cold ground when you’re cooking, eating or just chilling out around the fire, and making every evening at camp a social occasion.

There’s a folding camping chair out there to suit everyone, including wild campers who only carry the essentials, glampers and campervan fans who like a bit of luxury. I’ve tested 15 of the best folding camping chairs, from tiny portable stools that collapse to the size of a baguette to cushioned monster chairs that wouldn’t look out of place in your sitting room, at prices to suit all budgets and starting from just £15.

Best camping chair overall:
Montbell Base Camp chair

Best budget camping chair:
Mountain Warehouse folding chair

Punchy, breaded chicken with a miso-dressed green bean and cabbage salad

This is my current speedy weeknight favourite, and hits so many of my wishlist requirements. The flavours are intense – salty, sweet, a little spicy (I love to finish it with a crispy chilli oil), with the freshness of a shredded slaw. It’s punchy, quick and nutritious. And, as much as I love it just as it is, this would also make an excellent butty: pop the sliced panko-coated chicken in a brioche bun and pile the salad on top. Delicious.

Extend the short asparagus season by fermenting some into a vibrant kimchi, and then using that in an amazing springtime tart

Spring always reminds me of the diversity of kimchi. As some of my favourite produce comes into season, asparagus is easily at the top of the list, and turning it into a vibrant, tangy kimchi is a great way to extend its short season. All of the elements of the kimchi are then used in a tart: the brine is mixed into the cheesy base, which is then topped with the kimchi and finished with a final dollop of the kimchi paste to brighten the dish.

Light enough for spring lunch, hearty enough to satisfy as dinner on a chilly night, and as good a starter as it is a main

I cannot preface this recipe better than Skye McAlpine, who writes that, “as the name suggests, this risotto is a celebration of spring and all the glorious, verdant produce the season brings with it”. Verdant, certainly, but also pleasingly dense – this is a dish that champions the abundance of this time of year, while also acknowledging that it can still be bloody chilly once the sun goes down, both here in the UK and in north-east Italy, where risotto originates. It’s also a dish that’s versatile enough to incorporate whatever looks good in your local area over the coming weeks, as well as one that can be served in smaller portions as primi piatti or in more generous ones as a main course.

As is the peril with most small plates restaurants, this meal is more a collection of loose ideas than a coherent dinner

Auguste, a brand spanking new Italian restaurant in Hackney, east London, is named, loosely, after a clown. The Edward Hopper painting Soir Bleu hangs on the wall, depicting a tragic sort in a whiteface mask sitting forlornly in a cafe surrounded by hipsters. The clown’s light veneer of calm, it seems, masks his bare tolerance of both his life and his fellow customers. Hopper painted it in 1914, and now, more than a century later, this same sad clown feels more than a little symbolic of all those who have chosen a life in hospitality at this time. Paint on a smile! Get out there! Make the crowds happy! If only business rates could be paid with a bucketload of glitter …

Auguste’s owners, chef Mike Bagnall and general manager Dylan Walters, have taken over the 32-seater premises formerly known as Papi, which recently upped sticks and moved on to a much larger site at The Golden Tooth in Newington Green. The space has been transformed from its Papi days as an extremely hip, European-influenced, irreverent, small plates, low-intervention wine and hyper-cool spot, to its new incarnation as, well, an extremely hip, Abruzzo-influenced, irreverent, small plates, low-intervention wine and hyper-cool spot. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, you might be thinking, but pas exactement! The room now has white tablecloths and the big draw on Auguste’s menu are its skewers or, to be precise, arrosticini. Think tiny mini kebabs with the meat cut into 1cm cubes, then grilled over something called a furnacella. The live-fire craze among London hospitality’s menfolk shows no signs of abating. Man make fire. Fire good.

She might look like a wolf, but Nya’s temperament is so sweet that she now helps people who have a fear of trains and travel

I got Nya, a German shepherd, when she was a puppy. She has such a good temperament – she’s really calm around people.

When she was five years old, I decided to register her with Pets As Therapy, an organisation that brings therapy pets into hospitals, care homes, schools and other places to befriend people, and help reduce stress and anxiety.

When Sousan Samadani saw a video about soil degradation, she suddenly knew she would commit everything she had to the cause. Soon she was travelling thousands of miles to raise awareness, skydiving, hitchhiking and cycling

Sousan Samadani was watching videos on YouTube one day when she came across a post about how the world’s soil was degrading so rapidly that it was in danger of extinction.

The video – posted by the Save Soil movement – “was like a shock for me”, Samadani says. “I thought: ‘How is it possible that the soil that gives us food is dying?’”

I walked faster, sure that someone was lurking somewhere. Then a taxi pulled up next to me with an older businessman in the back seat

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

The Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst was not a safe place in the 1980s. There was this jittery vibe when the next heroin batch was coming in and people were overdosing like mad. But the area was also home to a scene of people who were into making little films or art and just going to the clubs in great clothes and dancing our butts off. I was one of them – 23, quite pretty and a hip underground darling.

One night I was walking home from Oxford Street after clubbing. I was always wary of my surroundings, because you grew up very quickly living in that area. But it was a nice night for a walk so I went for it. I remember how dark it was; a slender moon offering little in the way of light.

For Evan Lewis and Dat Tien Lewis, a cycling odyssey was a test of their relationship. A quiet whisky session revealed how far they’d come

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I met Dat in San Francisco in 2015. I had left a tourism consulting role in China and moved to the US to start my own Mongolian vodka product. Dat was a specialised nurse. He loved being a nurse.

They say opposites attract and I think that rings true for us. He had this way of calming a room. Dat would arrive at a party and somehow the volume in the room would come down a little bit. He did the same with me. It was a very busy time trying to build my business but he was always there – very supportive and curious about what I was doing. We moved quite quickly into the relationship and spent a lot of time together.

Mid-range Android stands out with huge screen, slick software and dot-matrix display, but falls just short of greatness

Nothing’s latest quirky smartphone is a huge aluminium Android with three cameras and a big LED matrix screen on the back that challenges the notion mid-range phones can’t be just a bit more fun.

The Phone 4a Pro is a bit of a departure from UK-based Nothing’s previous glass-clad transparent designs. It still has a touch of those elements but only in the camera island at the top, with the rest of the body now solid aluminium – a rare sight in the world of Android phones.

We cut out one leg of our journey, but a clause allows airlines to cancel a whole journey if a passenger misses just one leg

To celebrate my 60th birthday, we used an inheritance to book flights from Glasgow to Mexico City via Heathrow, where our son was to join us.

We worried that the transfer time of 90 minutes at Heathrow would be tight, given that there had been storms that week, so in the end, my husband, daughter and I instead took a train from Glasgow the night before.

Body says, on average, British women approaching retirement have half private pension savings of men – £81,000 versus £156,000

A shake-up of pensions in Britain must involve measures to close the gap in retirement savings between men and women, the revived Pensions Commission is to tell ministers.

According to the government-backed body, women approaching retirement have on average half the private pension savings of men, with a median pension wealth of £81,000 versus £156,000.

Some cheap fakes contain toxic chemicals that make pets seriously unwell – and leave you with a big bill

You want to save money whenever you can so when you see the usual brand of flea treatment for your cat listed at half the normal price, you click “buy”.

It arrives and you apply it to your pet, but they fall ill and you have to rush to the vet for treatment.

Exposure to high temperatures won’t have a noticable effect – unless your sperm count is already low

Could your post-gym spa habit affect your ability to have a baby? It’s a belief that gets repeated regularly online. But Prof Colin Duncan, a fertility expert at the University of Edinburgh, says things aren’t as clearcut as people make out. Cisgender men produce sperm in the testicles. It’s from here that these male reproductive cells are released to inseminate the eggs women produce.

Duncan says that repeated exposure to higher temperatures, such as those found in saunas, do inevitably have some effect on how much sperm is made by them. “Testicles are located outside the body because they work better when they’re cooler. If you’re incubating them in a sauna then they don’t work quite as well.”

Lindsay C Gibson’s book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents was an enormous unexpected hit in the pandemic. Now the psychologist is back with her advice for raising happy, healthy children

Around the time of the pandemic, a self-help book with a somewhat unglamorous but functional title – Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – took off on social media. It had been published five years earlier, but in 2020, when more people had time to reflect on life, it was rediscovered, its success fuelled by readers who recognised their own childhood in its pages and their experience with parents who had uncontrolled emotional outbursts, or were self-absorbed, unavailable or lacking empathy. In the view of its author, Lindsay C Gibson, these were parents whose own emotional developmental stage was closer to that of, say, a four- or five-year-old. Their own children had overtaken them, and were now recognising it.

Gibson’s latest book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child, is a guide for those of us who don’t want our children to experience the same kind of childhood we did. Perhaps you’ve realised – the self-awareness is key – that you’re lacking enough maturity of your own, and feel clueless about what you should be doing. “If you have an emotionally immature parent, it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed,” says Gibson, via video call from her home in coastal Virginia. “However, you’ve probably learned emotionally immature attitudes and behaviours that may pop out at times. The difference is that if you have adequate emotional maturity, you’re going to notice it and it’s going to bother you.”

From an elevated heart rate to weakened immunity, experts explain the hidden physical costs of chronic stress – and why our bodies aren’t built to stay on high alert

You wake up later than planned, so it’s a rush to get everything sorted out ahead of the school run. While you’re waiting for the toaster, idiotically, you check your phone. Something has happened, and your timeline is a scalding-hot mess of the worst takes imaginable. One of your children has left their shoes somewhere unfathomable, and there’s an envelope on your doormat scolding you for driving in a bus lane.

You’re undeniably stressed, and your body’s likely to respond by ramping up the same biological systems that evolved to deal with inter-tribe disputes and mammoth attacks. But is there a downside to being stressed – and having these systems switched on – all the time? Take a calming breath, and let’s dig into the science.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: You’re supposed to be quiet in the cinema. So why are the snacks so loud?

I was recently beset by a plague of clothes moths. After hours of research, I discovered the miracle that is the parasitic wasp, or Trichogramma evanescens – near-microscopic beasts that you can order online (in sachets of 2,000 wasps!), the life’s calling of which is to destroy clothes moth eggs.

It made me wonder: is there anything else in our daily lives that is so beneficial to us, but which few of us have heard of – or realise is there? John Forward, Brixton

Ralph Lauren the brand turns 60 next year, with the designer himself now in his ninth decade. A new book, Ralph Lauren: Catwalk, written by veteran fashion journalist Bridget Foley, explores the history of the all-American label’s influential catwalk shows from 1972 to now

The style on the Croisette is off to a strong start

Joan Collins, Catherine Deneuve, Isabella Rossellini and Jane Fonda among those representing wider age diversity on red carpet

The Cannes red carpet is, without question, a home of glamour. But in 2026 that glamour has a different spin. The women gaining the most headlines for style are, for once, over 70.

Joan Collins, 92, walked the red carpet this week in a white sculptural strapless gown by Stéphane Rolland. Jane Fonda, 88, wore a floor-length sequined Gucci dress. Isabella Rossellini, 73, has been seen wearing a striking patterned two-piece, while Catherine Deneuve, 82, was chic in forest-green satin and hoop earrings.

From Nike Mind, with its pre-game benefits, to recovery shoes from Hoka, bulbous sporty footwear is moving into fashionable circles. Will we see it beyond the jogging track this summer?

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When the much-hyped Nike Mind shoes were released in January, I bought a pair. I was grabbed by the idea that the orange nodules on the sole could, supposedly, focus the mind. The futuristic look of the shoe also appeals. If walking on knobbly things took a bit of getting used to, it was worth it – if only for that irresistible fashion smugness of having something rare. In the last week, I have been stopped in the street and asked where I got the shoes. It turns out they are now out of stock and have sold for over £300 on resale site Goat.

The Mind is part of a wider trend in “exercise slides”, a pre-game shoe designed to ground you ahead of your chosen activity. Nike claim that the 22 nodules on the sole stimulate the mechanoreceptors on your feet, engaging the sensory area of your brain, meaning focus is heightened. Meanwhile, recovery slides made by brands such as Hoka and Oofos use cushioned soles and a shape that cradles the foot to helpfight foot fatigue after a lot of exercise. The Mind are worn by footballers including Erling Haaland and Reece James, runner Keely Hodgkinson and basketball players Victor Wembanyama and A’ja Wilson, while ballerina Francesca Hayward namechecks Hoka’s slides as part of her daily routine.

With state-of-the-art fitness and spa facilities onsite and everything from hiking to kayaking the beautiful Bay of Kotor, it’s a perfect base for an active break

I was lying on a bed with no trousers on. A young man helped me into some crotch-high boots and zipped them up. He turned the lights down low, put on some music, pressed a button and left the room. Argh! The boots started to slowly inflate from the toes up, like a giant blood-pressure cuff. As they clenched around my upper thighs, I started to panic. What if they just got tighter and tighter until my legs exploded? As I was about to shout for help, the pressure suddenly released, leaving my legs feeling deliciously light. I took a deep breath and submitted to another 19 minutes of this sweet torture.

I was at Siro Boka Place in Montenegro, having compression boot therapy, which is supposed to boost circulation and reduce swelling. “It’s especially effective on women over 35,” my youthful assistant had told me, helpfully. The hotel, which opened last year, is proud of its “state-of-the-art wellness facilities”. In most hotels that means a poky gym. At Siro the facilities are so good the Montenegrin Olympic team is training here ahead of Los Angeles 2028.

From a stylish retreat in Norfolk to a remote hideaway on a Scottish island, these boltholes will make for a truly memorable stay

Tourism experts are predicting a bumper year for “staycations” with more of us choosing to holiday in the UK due to continuing uncertainty around jet fuel prices and possible flight cancellations. Holidaymakers are spoilt for choice with more than 350,000 UK self-catering listings on booking platforms, from rustic barn conversions to seaside villas with all mod cons for large family gatherings.

We’ve done some of the leg work and whittled down a selection of cottages which all offer something special, whether it’s a stunning location, a breathtaking view or a level of comfort and style that wouldn’t be out of place in a boutique hotel.

From Hadrian’s Wall to the locations of Happy Valley and Hot Fuzz, readers share their top discoveries

• Tell us about your favourite UK coast walk – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

“So this is where Officer Nick Angel [Simon Pegg] chased that swan.” As a fan of Hot Fuzz, I was excited to explore the cathedral city of Wells in Somerset, where much of the film was shot. This charming, compact and walkable city is awash with medieval architecture and magnificent buildings, such as the gothic cathedral, with one of the oldest working clocks in the UK (late 14th century) and the Bishop’s Palace and Gardens. Within easy reach of the Mendip Hills, Cheddar Gorge and the Wookey Hole Caves, Wells makes for a low-key alternative to tourist-soaked Bath.
Alison

There are few places where history can be felt more powerfully than these pathways, walked by explorer, author and TV presenter Nicholas Crane

How often do you look down and wonder who created the path your feet are following? Or ask the cause of its curves and dips? Formed over thousands of years, paths form an “internet of feet” – a web of bridleways and hollow ways, drove roads and ridgeways, coffin tracks, pilgrimage trails and city pavements. Whether you’re hiking a National Trail or pottering along a National Trust footpath, there’s a good chance you’re following ancestral steps.

It’s thoughts like these that led me on a journey to track the evolution of British paths for my book, The Path More Travelled. Eleven thousand years ago ice age hunter-gatherers arrived from Europe’s heartlands, moving through the wilderness along broad “routeways”, that later widened to tracks when horses and then wheels were adopted in the bronze age. For more than 2,000 years, traffic moved no faster than the speed of a horse, until the internal combustion engine drove pedestrians off the road just over a century ago.

Journalist Simone Stolzoff in a new book explores why modern life makes not knowing harder – and how to learn to live with it

Simone Stolzoff describes himself as “naturally an uncertain person” inclined to rumination and self-doubt. This tendency benefits him in his work as a journalist, but can otherwise be a double-edged sword.

While working for a magazine in New York, Stolzoff was approached about a job at a design firm in San Francisco. Now, he laughs at how tortured he felt “having to decide between two attractive career paths”.

A foreign face is often thought to add prestige to a product or business – what’s behind this unregulated economy?

Piers had been in China for all of two days in 2009 when he was used as a “white monkey” for the first time. He had travelled to a village in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, to attend a friend’s wedding and had stopped in the village to try a special crab dish at a small restaurant. Weeks later, a Chinese guest who had been at the wedding told him the restaurant had had an uptick in business because the locals had heard that a laowai, a foreigner, had been seen dining there, so people had assumed this restaurant must be good. Piers realised the boss had deliberately seated him in a way to attract attention: “I knew we were sitting outside in a premium spot, but I didn’t pick up on what was going on.”

When foreigners in China are used this way, they are called a baihouzi, a white monkey. They’re hired to help Chinese businesses appear more desirable, the foreigner association conveying prestige and a sense that your product is universally regarded. The industry is unregulated in China, operating in a legal grey area. White monkey positions are advertised on job boards and can fall into different categories, from acting and modelling for Chinese films and products to pretending to be the foreign CEO of a Chinese company to lend it credibility. They might be seat warmers or go-go dancers in Chinese nightclubs to draw in customers, or English teachers in language centres to make Chinese parents feel their children are being taught by legitimate native English speakers (even if a Chinese person is actually a better qualified teacher). These businesses believe that having the “foreign look” will give them an edge over other Chinese companies offering the same service. The phenomenon of recruiting foreigners for this performative purpose can be traced to the concept of mianzi, having “face” in Chinese society, which denotes bestowing and receiving respect for each other.

While there are still days the Thames is so dirty even dogs avoid it, steps are being taken to restore public waterways

Some people think we are odd for swimming in the Thames. “Isn’t it cold?” they ask with a shiver, like they are the ones who just took the plunge. Er, yes, that’s the whole point. Cold water ignites the central nervous system and reboots the mind.

“Isn’t it dirty?” they ask. Yes, sometimes, particularly when it’s rained. Then we don’t get in the Thames, we get in a rage instead, taking contamination measurements and signing petitions challenging the behaviour of the water company that spews sewage into the river.

The Rivals actor on his very skinny ankles, swearing like a sailor, and his enduring love for Marlon Brando

Born in Essex, Alex Hassell, 45, trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He co-founded an experimental theatre group and was noticed by the RSC where he went on to star in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V and Death of a Salesman. On TV, he appeared in His Dark Materials and Rivals. He reprises the role of Rupert Campbell-Black in season 2 on Disney+. He is married to actor Emma King and lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
Loneliness.

José Antonio Donaire is not against tourists but wants to return the city to its residents – and he is starting with its most iconic market

After decades of relentlessly marketing their vibrant Mediterranean city, the Barcelona authorities have appointed a man on a mission to say “no more” – and, he says, to return its most iconic market back to local residents.

Last year, the Barcelona area attracted 26 million visitors, up 2.4% on 2024. The appointment of José Antonio Donaire as the city’s first commissioner for sustainable tourism represents a significant change of heart and a shift away from viewing tourism as an unalloyed good to believing it is alienating citizens and eroding the Catalan capital’s identity.

With Israel blocking imports of building materials, those rebuilding in Gaza are recycling ruins to make new homes

It is difficult to see through the dust inside the cramped, low-roofed tent on the eastern edge of Khan Younis. Ibrahim al-Aloul works alongside four others, with a piece of fabric tied over his mouth and nose as his only shield against the toxic grey powder as he sifts and grinds.

Outside, a skinny donkey waits with a cart to carry the finished product to the next tent along, where it will be mixed with gypsum, calcium and binding agents before being bagged in flour sacks and sold.

While RAF Lakenheath holds its secrets, neighbours contend with plane spotters, protesters and sonic booms

The local people know there is something going on when the internet and phone signal drops dead, they say. If the heavy bombers are flying low, the teachers will pause their school assembly until the thunderous din has passed. The parish council has been briefed on the intricacies of sonic booms. Car insurance is more expensive here as the Americans “can’t drive” and sometimes find themselves on the wrong side of the road. The base became less open to its neighbours after 9/11. But everyone knows there are secrets held beyond the barbed wire, not least that this is where the nukes are stored.

RAF Lakenheath is home to the largest number of US air force (USAF) combat-ready aircraft in Europe, part of what is known as the “tri-base area” of Suffolk, a stretch of 20 sq miles (52 sq km) of land leased to the US government around which a peculiar ecosystem has developed over the eight decades of the American presence.

Share a tip on your most memorable family break in the UK and Europe – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

What makes the perfect family holiday? Whether you travelled with toddlers, teenagers or as part of a multi-generational group, tell us about the choice of destination and fun activities that made your trip successful, or even special. Where did you go in the UK or Europe, what did you do and what made it work?

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

Find out how we compiled our list of the 100 best novels published in English – and nominate your favourites

• See the list here

This week, we reveal our list of the 100 greatest novels published in English, as voted for by authors and critics around the world. We polled 172 authors, critics and academics for their top 10 novels of all time, published in English, and asked them to rank their choices in order of preference. We scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and then added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list of 100 greatest books.

What would be at the top of your list? Which authors do you think should be there? What are your favourite novels of all time?

Tim Allen, Joan Cusack and Greta Lee join Hanks to answer your enquiries about the forthcoming animation and its previous instalments

Is there a more eagerly anticipated movie this year than Toy Story 5? For many people (with and without children), you can keep your Odysseys and Minotaurs and Place in Hells, because the return of Woody, Buzz and friends is what cinema is really all about. The series so far has made $3.3bn, and last year’s teaser trailer had 142m views in 24 hours – of which only 140m were my son pressing refresh.

The new film, which is released worldwide on 19 June, sees Jessie the Cowgirl (voiced by Joan Cusack) leading the gang in eight-year-old Bonnie’s room, with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) her second-in-command, after the departure of Woody (Tom Hanks) at the end of Toy Story 4 to help abandoned toys find their owners.

As more childminders are quitting the profession amid concerns over costs, we’d like to hear why and from parents who’ve been affected

The number of childminders in England has roughly halved over the past decade, with many citing rising costs, low pay and increasing paperwork as reasons for leaving the profession. Childcare organisations have also warned that upcoming tax changes could push more childminders out of the sector.

Campaigners say the decline is making it harder for families to find flexible and affordable childcare, particularly in areas already struggling with shortages.

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