Back-of-an envelope calculations by Kemi Badenoch, Mel Stride and Nigel Farage are nothing but political fever dreams

You would think we were in the final three months of a general election campaign, not three and a half years out. Everywhere you look there’s a party leader giving a press conference. Demanding attention from a public that just wants to be given a break.

Even the news channels are losing interest. Sending along a reporter more on the off-chance someone says something idiotic, than in any expectation of anyone committing hard news. Well, anything more idiotic than usual. This far out from an election we’re just dealing in political fever dreams.

Bringing her black-belt screen presence to the role of Elphaba, Erivo leads a fine cast in a zingily scored conclusion to the hit origin story

Director Jon M Chu pulls off quite a trick with this manageably proportioned second half to the epic musical prequel-myth inspired by The Wizard of Oz – and based, of course, on the hit stage show. It keeps the rainbow-coloured dreaminess and the Broadway show tune zinginess from part one, and we still get those periodic, surreal pronouncements given by the city’s notables to the diverse folk of Oz, those non-player characters crowding the streets. But now the focus narrows to the main players and their explosive romantic crises, essentially through two interlocking love triangles: Glinda the Good, Elphaba the Wicked and the Wizard – and Glinda, Elphaba and Prince Fiyero, the handsome young military officer with whom both witches are not so secretly in love, as well as possibly having feelings for each other.

Jeff Goldblum is excellent as the Wizard, who pretty much becomes the Darth Vader of Oz: a slippery carnival huckster who is realising that his seedy charm is corroding his soul. Jonathan Bailey pivots to a much more serious, less campy, more passionate Prince and Ariana Grande is, as ever, delicate and doll-like as Glinda, though with less opportunity for comedy. But the superstar among equals is Cynthia Erivo, bringing her black-belt screen presence to the role of Elphaba, and revealing a new vulnerability and maturity. Elsewhere, Marissa Bode returns as Nessarose, Elphaba’s wheelchair-using half-sister; Ethan Slater is Boq, the Munchkin working as her servant; and Michelle Yeoh brings stately sweetness to the role of the Wizard’s private secretary Madame Morrible.

Australia have big injuries and concerns over their top order: if England start well in Perth they can win back the Ashes

It’s the Ashes in Australia and that is a series England have become used to losing, so much so that even Jimmy Anderson, the greatest English Test wicket‑taker of all time, has the home side as favourites. But if Australia have ever been there for the taking, it is now. Looking at how the two sides are shaping up before the opening game I feel punchy about England’s chances: the team are strong, settled, and I think that if Ben Stokes plays all five Tests they will win the Ashes and win them comfortably. I can’t remember ever being so confident before an away Ashes.

That confidence is based on a strong group of seamers and a top seven that have now played a lot of Test cricket and have a lot of runs under their belt. They will look at an opposition that will be without the injured Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood in Perth and fancy their chances of racking up runs. Once you do that, you’re bossing the game.

It’s not just Melinda French Gates. Many divorcees in their 40s to 60s are glad to be free – their male exes, less so

Name: Divorcees.

Age: Usually middle-aged, roughly between 45 and 65.

The great potter explains why he turned his decades-long fixation with Axel Salto – maker of unsettling stoneware full of tentacle sproutings and knotty growths – into a new show

Potter and writer Edmund de Waal, a dark silhouette of neat workwear against the blinding white of his studio, is erupting with thoughts, all of them tumbling out of him at once. He is giving me a tour of the former gun factory on a London industrial estate gently disciplined into architectural calm. It has work stations for his staff (it’s quite an operation); store rooms; and a main space nearly empty but for some giant black lidded vessels he made in Denmark, as capacious as coffins. At either end, up discreet sets of steps, are the places of raw creation. One, with its potter’s wheel, is where he makes; the other, with its desk and bookshelves, is where he writes.

He opens a door to the room housing his two mighty kilns, its back wall lined with rows of shelves with experiments in form and glaze, and tells me of his irritation when people comment on the sheer tidiness of the whole place. “It’s porcelain,” he says with passionate emphasis. Dust and dirt are the enemy. Potters, he points out, “have struggled for hundreds and hundreds of years to keep things clean so that they don’t blow up in kilns, or don’t bloat or don’t dunt or all the other myriad things that can happen”. He is old enough, he says, to have had the kind of potter’s apprenticeship that involved the endless sweeping up of clay dust. Dust is the traditional bringer of potter’s lung – the chronic condition, silicosis. Clouds of dust surround any pottery-making endeavour, if you’re not careful.

The perfect pillow is out there, whatever your sleep style. We put 10 to the test, including a budget buy that costs less than a posh pint

• The best mattresses, tested

Pillows, like mattresses, are personal things. What represents one person’s idea of heaven can signal a horrible night’s sleep for someone else. This makes reviewing them challenging, but also strangely rewarding – with no objective benchmarking software to fall back on, the reviewer must use their brain power alone to establish who might get on well with a pillow – and who won’t.

That’s exactly what I’ve aimed to do, testing different pillows of different heights, firmnesses and materials, so that you don’t have to. The good news is you don’t need to break the bank to get your hands on one of the best options because one of our top picks will set you back just £14 for a pair.

Best pillow overall and best memory foam:
Otty Deluxe Pure pillow

Best budget pillow:
Fogarty soft cotton back-sleeper pillows

Public accounts committee finds Labour’s progress ‘appears to have stalled’ despite billions of pounds in investment

The NHS has failed to cut waiting times as promised in its recovery plan despite billions of pounds in investment, the public accounts committee (PAC) has warned.

The influential parliamentary committee’s verdict raises serious doubts over whether Labour can fulfil its key pledge to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring that patients can once again get hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029.

Key NHS targets to improve access to both planned care and diagnostic tests by last spring “were missed”.

NHS England had spent £3.24bn setting up community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs but had not achieved the aim of reducing delays.

In July, 192,000 people had been waiting at least a year for care, despite a pledge to eradicate that practice altogether by March 2025.

22% of patients were having to wait more than six weeks for a diagnostic test, even though that was due to be cut to 5% by March.

Keir Starmer accused of failing to adequately strategise while in opposition, leading to uncoordinated policymaking

Keir Starmer is failing to make major improvements to public services partly because he did not plan properly while in opposition, according to a report from the Institute for Government (IfG).

The prime minister went into government without a clear idea about how to achieve his targets, the IfG found, resulting in haphazard attempts to reform various sectors, from the health service to the courts.

Dan Jarvis gives Commons statement after MI5 alert about LinkedIn profiles of Amanda Qiu and Shirly Shen

MPs and peers have been told they face “a covert and calculated” attempt to recruit parliamentarians through two LinkedIn profiles linked to the Chinese intelligence service.

After MI5 issued an espionage alert on Tuesday, saying that two people were operating on LinkedIn to obtain “non-public and insider insights”, the security minister, Dan Jarvis, told MPs the effort was focused on those “with access to sensitive information about parliament and the UK government”.

Hampden Park has hosted seismic occasions in a storied history dating back to 1903. Add this one to the list. Scotland’s long, long wait is over. You yearn for almost three decades to return to the men’s World Cup and do so with an overhead kick, a 22-yard stunner and a goal from the halfway line.

Steve Clarke, Andy Robertson, Scott McTominay, John McGinn; you shall go to the ball. So too Kieran Tierney, whose magnificent strike in stoppage time would have made all the headlines before Kenny McLean notched Scotland’s fourth. McLean broke forward, spotted Kasper Schmeichel in a state of desperation, and floated the ball over him. McLean was in the middle of the pitch when he shot. Cue bedlam. Cue wonderful bedlam.

Nearly two-thirds of ‘prevention of future deaths’ reports by coroners are not acted upon, say researchers at King’s College London

The advice given by coroners in England and Wales to help prevent maternal deaths is not being acted upon, research suggests.

Academics at King’s College London looked at prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports issued by coroners in cases of pregnant women and new mothers who died between 2013 and 2023. They found these reports were not being “systematically used nationally”.

World’s largest scientific review warns consumption of UPFs poses seismic threat to global health and wellbeing

Ultra-processed food (UPF) is linked to harm in every major organ system of the human body and poses a seismic threat to global health, according to the world’s largest review.

UPF is also rapidly displacing fresh food in the diets of children and adults on every continent, and is associated with an increased risk of a dozen health conditions, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression.

Bafta-winning director among contemporaries urging contrition and apology from Reform UK leader, who denies the allegations
Portrait: Tom Pilston

It is the hectoring tone, the “jeering quality”, in Nigel Farage’s voice today that brings it all back for Peter Ettedgui. “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right,’ or ‘Gas them,’ sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers,” Ettedgui says of his experience of being in a class with Farage at Dulwich college in south London.

Ettedgui, 61, is a Bafta- and Emmy-winning director and producer whose credits include Kinky Boots, McQueen and Super/Man: the Christopher Reeve Story.

Four people also rescued alive at popular Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia amid heavy snowfall and strong winds

A British woman and four other foreign tourists have been killed in a blizzard at a nature reserve in southern Chile.

Nine people went missing on Monday in the Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia, a popular tourist destination, amid heavy snowfall and winds reaching up to 120mph.

Study from University of Oxford looks into evolutionary origins of kissing and its role in relations between species

From Galápagos albatrosses to polar bears, chimpanzees to orangutans, certain species appear to kiss. Now researchers suggest Neanderthals did it too – and might even have locked lips with modern humans.

It is not the first time scientists have suggested Neanderthals and early modern humans were intimately acquainted. Among previous studies, researchers have found humans and their thick-browed cousins shared the same mouth microbe for hundreds of thousands of years after the two species split, suggesting they swapped saliva.

In the Oval Office the US president dismissed the murder of the columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying: ‘things happen’

Strongmen can have comeback stories too.

Seven years ago, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, became an international pariah after intelligence officers said to be acting on his orders abducted and murdered the Washington Post columnist and opposition critic Jamal Khashoggi. In a gruesome coda, it later emerged, the Saudi agents dismembered his body with a bone saw in order to dispose of the evidence.

As the government imposes stricter rules for families of asylum seekers coming to the UK, one mother tells how her son is growing up without her

“My son says ‘I miss you, when am I seeing you?’ Sometimes I lie to give him false hope. There’s a growing detachment there, because he knows I have lied to him.”

Kim is an asylum seeker based in Yorkshire, England. The 35-year-old, who has asked to use only a pseudonym out of fears for her safety, is among those in the UK who do not know when – or if – they will be able to see their children again, as the Labour government cracks down on the asylum system.

It started with a migraine but ended in hospital. When Gowend had dengue the first time she had no idea she was pregnant. This is Gowend’s story

Location Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso

Disaster Ill with dengue

Gowend (not her real name) lives in Burkina Faso. In 2023, in the early stages of pregnancy, she was admitted to hospital and diagnosed as having had dengue fever, a viral illness transmitted by mosquitoes which is, in a small number of cases, potentially fatal. It has been linked with miscarriage by some studies. Dengue is on the rise in Africa and Asia, partly thanks to the warming climate, and is increasingly being detected in Europe, too.

From Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones to the Hot Priest in Fleabag and of course Dr Frasier Crane, we salute the game-changers who boosted later seasons of our favourite series

Welcome. Nice of you to finally join us. Hope it was worth the wait. Yes, sometimes a late addition can improve a drama or comedy so much it becomes hard to imagine the show without them. Not every series gets the casting chemistry spot-on straight away. A select few of our favourite TV characters weren’t even on the show when it launched.

We’ve selected 18 characters whose gamechanging arrival in later seasons lifted the whole show and added to its legacy. Behold the super-subs who came off the TV bench and scored a winner …

This heart-stopping Danish investigation about a mob lawyer turned whistleblower is more dramatic than Scandi-noir as it drops one huge revelation after another. It’s easy to see why it absolutely rocked Denmark

As film-maker Mads Brügger explains at the outset of this four-part documentary series, a black swan is the name given to an event so extraordinary that you could never have seen it coming. In this case, Brügger’s black swan isn’t an event so much as a person: a lawyer named Amira Smajic, a “once in a lifetime” source for a journalist and the person who – he says – could “force us to rethink Danish society”. Smajic has spent years acting on behalf of some of the country’s most infamous criminal gangs, and is now exposing their activities as part of this major investigation for the state-owned broadcaster TV 2. Crucially, it’s not just the criminal underworld that Smajic is laying bare, but also their white-collar accomplices – the seemingly respectable businesspeople and lawyers unfazed by escapades involving dirty money and fraudulent invoices. It’s a co-dependent arrangement – one section of society “is feeding the other, and vice versa”, says Smajic.

It would be an understatement to say that The Black Swan made an impact on Danish viewers. Half of all Danes watched it when it aired in 2024, and it sparked a string of police investigations, as well as a tightening of laws around money laundering and gang activity. It has also turned the country’s almost prelapsarian vision of itself on its head. Brügger – a steely, often sandpaper-dry compere who has previously gone undercover in North Korea for the film The Red Chapel – claims making The Black Swan has shown him that the country could be “grim and dark”. Simply put: something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

It’s easy to see why the series has had such an impact. As well as the huge revelations it uncovers, the way The Black Swan unfolds often seems to go beyond the work of even some of the best Nordic noir dramatists. Our anti-heroine, Smajic, arrived in Denmark as a child refugee amid the Bosnian war. A legitimate career gave way to working with the mob, and she would go on to be dubbed the “ice queen” by her associates for her ruthless practices. And yet, as the series unfolds, Smajic uses those same practices to obtain a huge cache of evidence for Brügger and his team, often putting herself in seemingly imminent danger as she documents all manner of nefarious activities from a Copenhagen office rigged with hidden mics and cameras. While the production has arranged safety measures for Smajic during her six-month stint as their inside woman, it is still risky business. But as she explains, this could be her only way out of a life of crime that has become so innate to her being, and which she likens to being addicted to drugs.

Many of the scenes that unfold defy belief, not least those that involve Fasar Abrar Raja, a Rasputin-esque former member of the Bandidos biker club whose rap sheet includes convictions for assault, possession of firearms and drug smuggling. His braggadocio and insolence slowly turn to something darker. By episode three, broadcast next week, he threatens to “crush [Smajic] with my bare hands”.

Don’t splash out just yet! From a system update to better room lighting, a little fine-tuning could save you hundreds

• Do you really need to buy a new laptop?

Do you really need to buy a new TV? While the latest specs and outrageous screen sizes may well be a temptation, perhaps you can save money (and the environment) by holding off a little longer. With some simple tips and tricks, you can level up your TV experience.

Of course, the Fomo is real. Back in the day, the only reason to buy a new TV was when the old one fizzled and died. One telly was much the same as another, and features rarely changed.

His company is potentially creating the ultimate state surveillance tool, and Karp has recently been on a striking political and philosophical journey. His biographer reveals what makes him tick

In a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was “the most important software company in America and therefore in the world”. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir’s tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens’ tax records, biometric data and other personal information – the ultimate state surveillance tool. No wonder Palantir has been likened to George Orwell’s Big Brother, or Skynet from the Terminator movies.

Does this make Karp the scariest CEO in the world? There is some competition from Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel. But 58-year-old Karp could give them all a run for their money in terms of influence, self-belief, ambition and – even in this gallery of oddballs – sheer eccentricity. In his increasingly frequent media appearances, Karp is a striking presence, with his cloud of unkempt grey hair, his 1.25x speed diction, and his mix of combative conviction and almost childish mannerisms. On CNBC’s Squawk Box, he shook both fists simultaneously as he railed against short sellers betting against Palantir, whose share price has climbed nearly 600% in the past year: “It’s super triggering,” he complained. “Why do they have to go after us?”

Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System dominated the markets in Japan and the US. But in Europe, a technologically superior rival was making it look like an ancient relic

There’s an old maxim that history is written by the victors, and that’s as true in video games as it is anywhere else. Nowadays you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only console available in the mid-to-late 1980s. If you were brought up in Nintendo’s target markets of Japan and North America, this chunky contraption essentially was the only game in town – the company had Mario after all, and its vice-like hold on third-party developers created a monopoly for major titles of the era. But in Europe, where home computers ruled the era, the NES was beaten by a technologically superior rival.

The Sega Master System was originally released in Japan in the autumn of 1985 as the Sega Mark III. Based around the famed Z80 CPU (used in home computers such as the Spectrum, Amstrad and TRS-80) and a powerful Sega-designed video display processor, it boasted 8kb of RAM, a 64-colour palette and the ability to generate 32 sprites on screen at one time – making the NES (based on the older 6502 processor) look like an ancient relic.

As GenAI becomes the primary way to find information, local and traditional wisdom is being lost. And we are only beginning to realise what we’re missing

• This article was originally published as ‘Holes in the web’ on Aeon.co

A few years back, my dad was diagnosed with a tumour on his tongue – which meant we had some choices to weigh up. My family has an interesting dynamic when it comes to medical decisions. While my older sister is a trained doctor in western allopathic medicine, my parents are big believers in traditional remedies. Having grown up in a small town in India, I am accustomed to rituals. My dad had a ritual, too. Every time we visited his home village in southern Tamil Nadu, he’d get a bottle of thick, pungent, herb-infused oil from a vaithiyar, a traditional doctor practising Siddha medicine. It was his way of maintaining his connection with the kind of medicine he had always known and trusted.

Dad’s tumour showed signs of being malignant, so the hospital doctors and my sister strongly recommended surgery. My parents were against the idea, worried it could affect my dad’s speech. This is usually where I come in, as the expert mediator in the family. Like any good millennial, I turned to the internet for help in guiding the decision. After days of thorough research, I (as usual) sided with my sister and pushed for surgery. The internet backed us up.

You may have thought Qatar and Russia were tournament lows. You didn’t account for the US president and his Fifa soulmate, Gianni Infantino

“It’s very clear,” claimed haunted Fifa cue-ball Gianni Infantino not so long ago, “that politics should stay out of football and football should stay out of politics.” But is it clear? Is it really? On Monday, the worst man in world sport was – yet again – to be found in the Oval Office, this time nodding along to Trump’s declaration that games could be moved from host cities for next summer’s World Cup if the US president deems there’s “a problem” with security or that the cities are non-compliant in some other way. In practice, that seems to mean if they’re run by a Democrat/“communist”. Amazing that the Fifa president will gladly allow his tournaments to be held in any old violent autocracy but, for the purposes of the White House cameras at least, might need to draw the line at Boston.

Honestly, the very sight of Infantino these days causes decades of writing about Fifa to flash before my eyes. How could it have happened? How could we have ended up with an even bigger horror in charge of world football’s governing body than the various ones who went before? When Sepp Blatter was thrown from a moving gravy train in 2015 amid an explosive corruption scandal, it would have felt like a genuine feat of sporting excellence to have beaten his record for craven awfulness.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar
On Tuesday 2 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at another extraordinary year, with special guests, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

The government’s callousness has won it respect – from Tommy Robinson and the hard right. But true progressives must have lost count of the red lines it has crossed

You can learn a great deal about a government by who it chooses to fight. In the 16 months since this shambolic, soulless rabble were handed power by Tory collapse, they have trained their fire on pensioners and disabled people. Their latest target: refugees fleeing violence and persecution.

In time-honoured fashion, a desperately unpopular government lacking answers to the country’s multiplying problems opts to kick asylum seekers. No 10 is plainly in a panic. Barely one in 10 voters are satisfied with its performance – a figure comparable to the proportion of the public who believe the moon landings were staged.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

My social media feed is now a hellish stream of puerile AI slop. Am I stubborn to want to hang on to reality?

Recently, a friend sent me a video of a man dressed as a pickle. Following a high-octane car chase, the pickle flung himself out of the car and flailed down the highway. It was stupid and we laughed. But it also wasn’t real. When I pointed out to my friend that the video was AI-generated, she was taken by surprise, noting she’s usually pretty good at spotting them. She was also frustrated: “I hate having to be on the constant lookout for AI trash,” she lamented in the chat.

And I feel that. Becoming an AI detective is a job I never wanted and wish I could quit.

Whatever her motives, the Republican congresswoman’s ‘revenge tour’ against the president is proving surprisingly effective

There are 535 members of Congress; only a dozen or so are household names. If you want to achieve that sort of brand name recognition, there are a few tried-and-tested ways to do so. You can spend years working your way up the ranks until you’re a power-broker like Nancy Pelosi. You can burst on to the scene and dramatically unseat an incumbent like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did. Or you can go the Marjorie Taylor Greene route and achieve notoriety by being utterly unhinged.

Since becoming a congresswoman for Georgia in 2021, Greene has kept herself in the news by spouting conspiracy theories, fighting with colleagues, and being one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders. In recent months, however, something strange has been happening. Greene has continued to generate headlines, but largely because she has turned on her party and is part of a growing Maga civil war. Greene was the first Republican lawmaker, for example, to say that there is a genocide in Gaza and has been one of the loudest voices demanding that the Epstein files be released. She has also criticised the Maga movement for not focusing on affordability or putting America first. Now, things have escalated to the point where Greene is making Trump see red; the pair are in a full-blown feud.

Delivery company struggling to convince US chain Kroger, its most important customer, of the virtues of automation

That’s quite a stock market journey: from 180p at listing 15 years ago to the mighty heights of £29 during the locked-down Covid year of 2020 and now – oh dear – all the way back down to 180p. Welcome to Ocado, which looked like the future of grocery retailing once upon a time but now seems to be struggling to convince its most important customer of the virtues of robots and automation.

There is no positive gloss to put on news that Kroger, the US supermarket chain, is closing three of its eight warehouses that use Ocado’s technology. Kroger was the client that put a rocket under the UK group’s share price in the first place in 2018 by signing a partnership deal. If Ocado could prove the worth of its kit in the world’s largest consumer market, went the bulls’ argument, valuation doubts would disappear.

The home secretary’s idea makes her sound so much like a cartoon villain that I initially assumed it couldn’t be true ...

You can’t react to every piece of flotsam on the unending tide of nastiness that emanates from Westminster on the subject of immigration, or you’ll start to feel like you’re the idiot. Are we surprised that a Labour home secretary would want to remove any prospect of permanent citizenship for all refugees, thereby ending Britain’s standing as a place of sanctuary? Petty, vindictive, counterproductive, narrow-minded, yes, but you could hardly call this surprising.

But, finally, a policy arrived that was so out of the normal run of things that I assumed it was a joke – a piece of satire, floated on X by some member of the wokerati, to make Shabana Mahmood sound truly heinous. Apparently, she wanted to seize the jewellery and other valuables to pay for their accommodation.Deploying exaggeration to underscore how much like a cartoon villain a politician sounds is a little bit sixth form and so far hasn’t been effective. And yet it couldn’t possibly be real, right? Because it sounds like a cartoon villain.

Jamal Khashoggi’s plight and murder was a warning sign for the US, of the impending loss of freedom and censorship that would sweep the country

The first time I ever used the words “alhumdulilah”, which translates to praise be to God in Arabic, was the night of 16 November 2018. A Friday night news alert came through on my phone: “CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination.” I collapsed into my couch, repeating the words.

I am not Muslim. But Jamal, in life and death, has taught me a lot about faith and looking for hope in all the wrong places. As a writer with a history of criticizing America’s meddling in weaker countries, in normal circumstances, I should have been loath to celebrate the CIA.

Karen Attiah is a writer and educator whose work focuses on race, global culture and human rights

The bitcoin collapse lifts the lid on a society without opportunity, where risk is privatised and rightwingers sell illusions of freedom while ordinary punters bear losses

The crypto crash has come again. And it is as brutal as ever. In barely six weeks, more than $1.2tn has evaporated from cryptocurrencies’ market capitalisation. The sell-off has sent bitcoin back to levels last seen in April. The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly fell below $90,000 this week, shedding almost a third of its value since its October peak.

The key to understanding crypto is that it has no “value” in any economic sense. It generates no income, commands no productive capacity and pays no dividends. Unlike state money, it is not backed by a tax base or a fiscal authority. What props up its price is not cashflow but expectation: the hope that someone else will validate today’s valuation tomorrow. When sentiment turns sour or people pull their money out, there is nothing to break cryptocurrencies’ fall. Prices don’t correct, they collapse. In 2023, MPs rightly said that cryptocurrency trading in the UK should be regulated as a form of gambling – a demand rejected by the then Tory government.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

If the promise of a better private rental sector is to be realised, councils will need new staff as well as stricter rules

Tenants need rights. Apart from food and water, shelter is the most basic human need and relevant to almost everyone all the time – unlike, say, healthcare, which most people do not use on a daily basis. A rebalancing of the law towards renters and away from landlords, which the government has done in its Renters’ Rights Act, was sorely needed. Failures and abuses of power have been ignored for too long.

With no-fault evictions outlawed from next May, and tougher oversight from a new ombudsman to follow, life should be about to get better for England’s 4.6m households in the private rental sector. But will it? Troubling analysis by the Guardian shows that two-thirds of councils in England have not prosecuted a single landlord in the past three years, while nearly half didn’t issue any fines either. Over the same period, fewer than 2% of complaints led to enforcement of any kind. Just 16 landlords were banned from letting homes – a shockingly low number, given the volume of complaints and what has been revealed about the sector by the worst scandals.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Readers respond to Shabana Mahmood’s new proposals for asylum seekers

Shabana Mahmood’s proposal that asylum seekers must now wait 20 years before applying for citizenship, with reviews every 30 months (Shabana Mahmood warns Labour MPs ‘dark forces are stirring up anger’ over migration, 16 November) brought to mind my Hungarian aunt, a Red Cross nurse who sought refuge in Britain in 1947. She had been sacked by the Nazis in 1942 for helping her Jewish friends, and then fell foul of the Soviets in 1946 for helping friends deemed to be “class enemies”.

After retraining, she became a health visitor, later lecturing in health visiting at the Polytechnic of North London. She was immensely proud of her British citizenship gained in 1955, but her underlying sense of insecurity was profound. Suffering from dementia, she was admitted to hospital in 2001 after a heart attack and became very agitated and upset. “I am a British citizen,” she cried. “You have no right to detain me. I have a British passport!” Nothing I or the doctor said could reassure her.

Readers weigh in on the backfired briefings from Keir Starmer’s team against supposed leadership challengers

I despair of Labour’s ability to turn an election victory into a rumbling disaster (Briefing war spotlights relationships between three of Labour’s most senior figures, 12 November).

To see the kerfuffle over whether or not Wes Streeting has leadership ambitions and to see that become a huge distraction from everything that should be dominating political thinking is awful. I want everyone who has a role in this government to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. They can do this by showing that they understand their purpose: to act only in the interests of the country. Unless they do this, public confidence in politicians will continue to plummet.
Bevelie Shember
Rugby, Warwickshire

Former commissioner for culture Neil Mendoza says the sector must acknowledge the support it gets from all parties

Helen Marriage, a hugely respected cultural leader, writes that “there is no political party that will commit to the kind of investment needed to keep a living art and culture ecology alive” (Durham’s Lumiere festival was a beacon of hope and togetherness – we cannot let the lights go out on the rest of the arts, 11 November). But she also places the responsibility on all of us. She wants the culture sector to make a better case. But can it?

As commissioner for culture in the last government, I remain surprised that large funding decisions directed at culture have been forgotten, devalued and ignored, perhaps because the sources were then from a Conservative government.

Jane Ghosh says it’s time to value all library workers, while Keith Flett wonders if the local MP can help

Zadie Smith commendably pays tribute to the staff who make available the wonderful cultural gems in the British Library (Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library, 11 November). For decades, libraries all round Britain have suffered successive cuts, which have meant many have closed or are run by volunteers.

Librarians do not have a single high-profile trade union looking out for their pay and working conditions. So, unlike teachers, for example, they are unable to exert pressure to be paid on a similar level, given that the professional qualifications required are equally rigorous, and in some institutions exceed those of other professionals.

• ‘In the last part of the game, the crowd was still with us’

• Manager drew on 2022 disappointment against Ukraine

Steve Clarke believes the Scotland support could “smell magic” before World Cup qualification was sealed in dramatic style with a 4-2 win against Denmark.

At 2-2 in stoppage time, Scotland were bound for the playoffs in March. Stunning goals from Kieran Tierney and Kenny McLean triggered euphoric scenes as the Scots secured a spot in the men’s World Cup for the first time since 1998. McLean scored Scotland’s fourth from the halfway line.

Wales saved their best until last, securing the best available berth in the World Cup playoffs with an emphatic demolition of North Macedonia that should worry any visitor to Cardiff next March. The performance and result understandably left Craig Bellamy reaching for superlatives.

“I said to the players at the end, I am not a perfect person, I haven’t come across anyone who is,” the Wales head coach said. “But maybe I take a little bit of that back because that was as close to a perfect performance as I’ve seen. That was incredible.” He was not exaggerating.

• Bosnia led for an hour but have to settle for playoffs

• Spain and Switzerland held but qualify, as do Belgium

Austria qualified for the 2026 World Cup after snatching a 77th-minute equaliser through Michael Gregoritsch against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Vienna to earn a 1-1 draw and top Group H. It will be Austria’s first appearance at a World Cup finals tournament since 1998.

Bosnia finished second in the group, two points behind on 17, and go into a playoff in March for a spot at the finals tournament, which will be co-hosted next year by Mexico, the US and Canada.

• Defender was injured playing for Brazil against Senegal

• Havertz has ‘minor relapse’ in recovery from knee injury

Arsenal fear that Gabriel Magalhães could be out of action for at least a month after he sustained a thigh injury on international duty last week, with the Brazil defender expected to miss a crucial part of the season for the Premier League leaders.

Gabriel limped off during Brazil’s 2-0 win against Senegal in a friendly at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday and returned to the club for more tests this week after it was confirmed he had sustained a muscle injury in his right thigh.

• Lawrence, George and Roebuck all ruled out

• Arundell, Pollock and Daly among wing options

England have been hit by a triple injury blow before their final autumn Test with Ollie ­Lawrence, Jamie George and Tom Roebuck all ruled out of the game against Argentina on Sunday. The 19‑year-old uncapped wing Noah Caluori has been called into the squad and could profit from ­Roebuck’s absence.

All three injured players started the 33-19 win against the All Blacks on Saturday, forcing Steve Borthwick into a significant reshuffle as his side targets an 11th successive victory and a clean sweep of four November Tests for the first time since Eddie Jones’s first autumn in charge in 2016.

There is logic to the fresh international format, due to launch next year, but glaring issues and logistical challenges too

OK, let’s just pick the ball up and run with it for a little while. A reimagined global Test landscape pitching the northern hemisphere against the south commencing next July. Twelve men’s national sides playing six games each with a final playoff weekend. Concluding with one champion team hoisting a shiny trophy aloft in front of, hopefully, a worldwide television audience of millions.

On paper – and years of scribbling on the backs of envelopes have gone into this – there is some logic to it. Instead of seemingly random Tests scattered like distant dots on someone else’s map there is at least a discernible framework. Every game will, in theory, resonate. And, by virtue of pooling everybody’s TV rights, there are hopes of a collective commercial and promotional upside that can benefit the whole sport.

• Coach has no regrets at dropping Earps for Hampton

• Earps criticised Wiegman’s decision in her autobiography

Sarina Wiegman has defended promoting Hannah Hampton to be England’s first-choice goalkeeper ahead of Mary Earps, saying she makes “decisions to win”, after Earps criticised the head coach’s move in her autobiography.

Wiegman, speaking at Wembley after the announcement of her squad for fixtures against China and Ghana, said she had “really enjoyed working with Mary” and would cherish their time together with England but that she would make the same decision again.

When I was a college basketball player, some believed we were treated differently from other Black and Brown people. An event last weekend suggests otherwise

It was 1996, my first day stepping foot on Syracuse University’s campus. I saw a big student protest was taking place so, with my freshman’s inquisitive mind, I ventured over to see what was going on.

I listened to a passionate sista named Kathy Ade, the president of Syracuse’s student African-American Society. She stood there with her Bantu knots and a megaphone addressing the crowd, discussing the fact that campus security was now going to be able to carry pepper spray. In the 90s – which my daughter Baby Sierra calls “the 1900s,” just to keep me humble – campus security carrying pepper spray was a big deal. Now, they all carry guns.

President says ‘I don’t care when the Senate passes the House Bill’ after it agrees to unanimous consent request to pass act as soon as legislation arrives from House

• House passes bill to release Epstein files with near-unanimous support

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The Harvard professor and economist Larry Summers said he would be stepping back from public life after documents released by the House oversight committee revealed email exchanges between Summers and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who called himself Summers’ “wing man”.

Politico reported on Monday that Summers, a former treasury secretary, expressed deep regret for past messages with Epstein.

Home secretary urged to explain statement that asylum admissions will start at ‘a few hundred’ people

Shabana Mahmood is facing demands for compassion and clarity after it emerged that only a “few hundred” asylum seekers would initially be permitted to come to the UK under three new schemes for refugees.

The home secretary had justified a series of hardline policies – such as the deportation of families and the confiscation of assets from claimants – by saying she would work with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to open “safe and legal” routes for “genuine” claimants.

Bangladesh’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Dhaka for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year. The Guardian's Hannah Ellis-Petersen describes the events leading up to the conviction and what this unprecedented sentencing means for the future of Bangladesh

• Ousted Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina sentenced to death for crimes against humanity

Police officer suffered fractured spine during operation at factory near Bristol last year, Woolwich crown court hears

​Six pro-Palestinian activists armed with sledgehammers attacked an Israeli-linked defence firm, with one striking a female police officer twice with his weapon, a court has heard.

Opening the trial at Woolwich crown court on Tuesday, the prosecutor, Deanna Heer KC, said the defendants were involved in a “meticulously organised” operation by Palestine Action at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol, on 6 August last year.

‘Politically realistic’ for UK to make financial contribution so it can access European single market, Irish minister says

The UK must pay into the EU budget for future participation in the European single market in electricity, it has been confirmed, in what could become a major test for the post-Brexit reset.

Ireland’s Europe minister, Thomas Byrne, said EU member states had decided the UK should make a financial contribution for closer ties: “Ireland wants to see Britain getting the benefit of closer engagement with the European Union.

Countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Pacific and Europe plead for transition to be central outcome of talks

More than 80 countries have joined a call for a roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels, in a dramatic intervention into stuck negotiations at the UN Cop30 climate summit.

Countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific joined with EU member states and the UK to make an impassioned plea for the “transition away from fossil fuels” to be a central outcome of the talks, despite stiff opposition from petrostates and some other major economies.

Exclusive: Experts urge water companies to update plants to avoid another catastrophe, as analysis reveals scale of use

At least 15 sewage plants on England’s south coast use the same contaminated plastic beads that were spilled in an environmental disaster in Camber Sands, Guardian analysis can reveal.

Environmental experts have urged water companies to update these old treatment plants to avoid another catastrophic spill, which can lead to plastic beads being permanently embedded in the environment and killing marine wildlife.

Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’

The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.

Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.

Planned route linking Cambourne to Cambridge will go through one of county’s last traditional orchards

A £160m busway scheduled to be built through one of Cambridgeshire’s last traditional orchards would cause irreversible ecological harm, a public inquiry has been told.

The plans being examined for an off-road busway linking Cambourne to Cambridge follow a route through Coton Orchard, a 24-hectare (60-acre) orchard and nationally recognised priority habitat. A public inquiry, held by planning inspectors appointed by the transport secretary, is examining the scheme until 21 November.

On first official visit to UK, leaders say aim is not to ‘break the British Treasury’ but to find solution to help clean up ‘mess’ left by colonialism

The Caribbean’s slavery reparations body has decried misleading press reports that suggest their aim is to “break the British Treasury” by demanding trillions of pounds, as they call for a mutually beneficial restorative justice programme.

Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), which was set up to progress the Caribbean’s pursuit of justice for centuries of enslavement and colonisation by European nations, made the comments during the body’s first official visit to the UK.

Journalist rebuts accusation of obtaining sexual images by deceit in documents submitted to high court

The journalist Dan Wootton has denied he catfished a man who claims to be a former colleague in documents submitted to the high court, it has been reported.

It is alleged that Wootton exchanged sexual messages in 2010 with the claimant – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – while pretending to be “Maria Joseph” and encouraging him to send explicit photographs and a video.

Lords look ‘undemocratic and firmly against interest of working people’, say senior trade union and Labour figures

Dozens of hereditary peers – including the Duke of Wellington, landed aristocrats and millionaire business leaders – have been criticised for battling to unpick Labour’s plans to boost workers’ rights.

The Lords voted to support a string of Conservative-backed amendments to the employment rights bill late on Monday for the third time running.

Total of 48 degrees could disappear from Russell Group institution, with falling revenues and rising costs blamed

Nottingham will be the only Russell Group university not to teach modern foreign languages degrees if it approves plans to close a swath of courses including Spanish and French as well as music and dozens of others.

The University of Nottingham’s council will next week decide the fate of 48 degree courses currently on offer but many staff fear the worst after the university said it would not accept applications for places next year.

Federal judge instructed state to use older maps, with Republicans likely to appeal decision

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New maps that added five Republican districts in Texas hit a legal roadblock on Tuesday, with a federal judge saying the state cannot use the 2025 maps because they are probably “racially gerrymandered”.

The decision is likely to be appealed, given the push for more Republican-friendly congressional maps nationwide and Donald Trump’s full-court press on his party to make them. Some states have followed suit, and some Democratic states have retaliated, pushing to add more blue seats to counteract Republicans.

Varsen Aghabekian Shahin backs resolution, while Hamas rejects idea of international force inside territory

• Analysis: One of the oddest UN resolutions in history

The Palestinian foreign minister has described the UN security council resolution endorsing Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza as a necessary first step on a long road towards peace, even as Hamas rejected it as a form of international guardianship with which it will not cooperate.

Arab state leaders who have reluctantly adopted the plan said the US urgently needed to set out the composition of the proposed Palestinian technocratic committee that is to deliver services inside Gaza, as well as the leadership of the international stabilisation force (ISF), which is supposed to oversee security. Membership of the board of peace, the body that is to oversee the ISF and a Palestinian civilian police force also remains unknown.

Donald Tusk says two saboteurs crossed border from Belarus hoping to cause divisive ‘catastrophe’

Polish authorities have identified two Ukrainian men, allegedly working for the Russian intelligence services, as the key suspects in two cases of rail sabotage, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said.

The men are alleged to have planted a military-grade explosive device and attached a steel clamp to rail tracks in two incidents on a strategic rail route used for aid deliveries for Ukraine.

German pop duo who last year said their wish was ‘to leave together’ had joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald

Alice and Ellen Kessler, the pop singing sisters who were famous in Europe in the 1960s, especially in Italy where they were credited for bringing glamour to the country’s TV network, have died aged 89.

The identical twins had chosen to have a joint assisted death at their home in Grünwald, close to Munich, on Monday, said Wega Wetzel, a spokesperson for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humanes Sterben (DGHS), a Berlin-based assisted dying association.

Challenge to Meta could have forced it to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, but judge ruled company did not hold social networking monopoly

Meta defeated a major challenge to its business on Tuesday when a US judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking.

The case, brought by the US Federal Trade Commission, could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, with the former FTC chair accusing the company of operating a “buy or bury” scheme against nascent competitors. The tech giant bought WhatsApp for $19bn in 2014. Losing either the image-based social network, which generates an estimated half of Meta’s revenue, or the world’s most popular messaging app could have done existential damage to Meta’s empire.

Norwegian software group looks to ex-Worldpay boss Sir Ron Kalifa as it weighs up blockbuster flotation in London or Stockholm

Visma, one of Europe’s biggest software companies, has approached a leading City grandee to become its chair if it goes ahead with a blockbuster €20bn (£17.6bn) listing in London next spring.

Sir Ron Kalifa, a former boss of payments group Worldpay and a director of the Bank of England, is considered the leading candidate for the potential role after a round of interviews in recent weeks, the Guardian understands.

US oil firm blames UK government policy and supply costs for closure of site near Cowdenbeath

ExxonMobil is to close a chemicals plant in Scotland that employs hundreds of workers within months, blaming the decision on the UK government’s “economic and policy environment”.

Workers at Fife Ethylene Plant were told on Tuesday that the oil company would shut the 40-year-old facility near Cowdenbeath by February next year owing to the difficult policy and market conditions in the UK.

Buy now, pay later firm says pay has risen by 60% with staff numbers mostly cut by attrition and tech investment

Klarna has claimed that AI-related savings have allowed the buy now, pay later company to increase staff salaries by nearly 60%, but hinted it could slash more jobs after nearly halving its workforce over the past three years.

Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said headcount had dropped from 5,527 to 2,907 since 2022, mostly as a result of natural attrition, with departing staff replaced by technology rather than by new staff members.

The Yorkshire comic was going nowhere with his act which relied on gimmicks, set-pieces and standing on tables. So he decided it was time to live a more interesting – and stressful – life

What’s the opposite of an overnight success? Should we call Ian Smith a slow burner, a sleeper hit? The Yorkshireman’s last two shows, both fantastic, were nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award, he has a popular Radio 4 series, Ian Smith is Stressed, and growing TV visibility. Now he’s embarking on a second UK tour. But breakout success was a long time coming for the 37-year-old. “I did my first gig when I was 17,” he tells me over coffee in London, “which I find horrific. It makes me feel old.”

What took him so long? Might one factor be that Smith’s is a traditional brand of standup – fretful everyman sends up his own anxiety – in a culture that prizes the new and different? That can’t be it, he says. “Because I had so many gimmicks! That was a big part of my standup.” He cites the high-concept shows (comedy in a bath; comedy on a bed) that made Tim Key’s name. “I loved standup with slightly theatrical set-pieces. That was my voice for four shows. I got a review that said, ‘Ian substitutes writing jokes with standing on tables and shouting at people.’ And it was fair enough. I went through a real standing-on-tables phase.”

From Chicago to Stan & Ollie, the Oscar-nominated actor has sung on screen for years. Now he arrives on stage – inside a trunk – to serenade the audience

In one of Hollywood’s nicer ironies, character actor John C Reilly finally made it big with a song about being invisible. His Oscar-nominated performance as the duped and devoted schmuck Amos Hart in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago was defined by his solo, Mister Cellophane. Director Rob Marshall had him sing it in an empty theatre so Amos doesn’t even get an audience for his big number.

More than 20 years later, Reilly has dusted off a not dissimilar tailcoat and rouged his cheeks once more under a new moniker, Mister Romantic, and this time there’s a full house. Backed by a four-piece band he is here to win our hearts with 90 minutes of jazz standards and popular songs, plus the odd chanson and comic verse. After a dozen or so dates in the US, the show has a short run this week in London at Soho Theatre Walthamstow, whose beautifully restored interior and history as a music hall fits Mister Romantic like a glove.

Director Joachim Trier’s family drama has five nominations, including best actor for Skarsgård, while Oliver Laxe’s techno thriller Sirāt has four nominations

Norwegian director Joachim Trier is leading the race for a triumph at the European film awards, with five nominations in key categories for his family drama Sentimental Value.

The Cannes Grand Prix winner is nominated for best European film, best screenplay and best director, with further best actor and best actress nominations for Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve.

As Gore Verbinski’s AI-apocalypse film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die hurtles towards us, it’s clear from the over-caffeinated trailer that we won’t be getting another ponderous parable about robot souls, digital enlightenment or the hubris of man

It’s easy to forget, given the current glut of robot-uprising doom flicks, that Hollywood has been doing the artificial intelligence thing for decades – long before anything resembling true AI existed in the real world. And now we live in an era in which a chatbot can write a passable sonnet, it is perhaps surprising that there hasn’t been a huge shift in how film-makers approach this particular corner of sci-fi.

Gareth Edwards’ The Creator (2023) is essentially the same story about AIs being the newly persecuted underclass as 1962’s The Creation of the Humanoids, except that the former has an $80m VFX budget and robot monks while the latter has community-theatre production values. Moon (2009) and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are both about the anxiety of being trapped with a soft-voiced machine that knows more than you. Her (2013) is basically Electric Dreams (1984) with fewer synth-pop arpeggios.

Every scene in Cary Grant’s mistaken identity caper is pure absurdity – including that famous cornfield chase. You can’t look away

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Imagine: you’re a handsome and relatively successful ad man in idyllic 50s New York. You’re having a delicious mid-afternoon snack in the lobby of the Plaza hotel, which presumably cost all of $2.50, when suddenly you are abducted in broad daylight at gunpoint by two polite and well-dressed men. You don’t put up a fight. You merely walk with them to their car, trying to object in the only way you know how: asking nicely for them to stop. The kidnappers are gleeful; they’ve finally captured you, George Kaplan. That’s not your name, you exclaim, you’re Roger Thornhill! They must have the wrong man!

Thus begins Hitchcock’s funniest, most ridiculous and visually ambitious film, North by Northwest. All the hallmarks of a Hitchcock classic are here: Cary Grant as the leading man, a completely inexplicable MacGuffin (who is George Kaplan anyway? And more importantly, does anyone even care?), a director cameo, a mysterious and beautiful blonde (the darling and charming Eva Marie Saint), and a 20-minute opening so overstuffed with dialogue that you kind of tune out but it’s fine because once the inciting incident happens, you can’t look away. It’s so Hitchcockian that it borders on parody.

Mortified documentarian James Blake meets young men who have drifted towards misogynist influencers – and finds them lonely, heartbreaking and on ‘semen retention journeys’ to control their sex drives

Just as you can accurately measure the quality of a documentary about pornography by the number of examples of its subject that it does not show, so too you can judge a programme about “incel” culture/the manosphere/toxic masculinity by the amount of time it does not devote to the noxious leaders of the subculture. Porn documentary makers often seem to use their commission to indulge their own murky fascinations, or at the very least fill the screen with naked women as an easier way to hook viewers than constructing a decent programme. Similarly, stuffing any programme with footage of the poster boys’ diatribes, generally about pussies (female, metonymically; males metaphorically), power and the need for men to wield one over the other is a titillating opportunity and an easy shortcut to engagement.

Belfast broadcaster James Blake admirably avoids this trap in his hour-long film Men of the Manosphere. It has snippets of the loudest, vilest voices, doing their loudest, vilest thing, telling young, disaffected, vulnerable men what they want to hear: that the problems in their lives are the fault of women, feminism, woke society, beta men and anyone who is not full of ambition, independent spirit and willing to subscribe to the influencer’s latest course on how to be a successful man. If you have spotted any inconsistencies here, you are probably a blue-pilled cuck and not the target market, so please move along.

Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joy

I have made enough mistakes as a critic to feel mildly chuffed when a verdict is vindicated. In 1981 I wrote excitedly about a new Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along, that I had seen in preview in New York; reviled by reviewers and shunned by the public, it then closed two weeks after opening. In 2023-24 the very same musical ran for a year on Broadway, won four Tony awards and was hailed by the critics. Fortunately a live performance of that Maria Friedman production was filmed and I would urge you to catch it when it’s released in cinemas next month.

I say “the very same musical” but that is not strictly accurate. Based on a 1934 play by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, it is still the same story, told in reverse chronological order, of dissolving relationships: a success-worshipping composer and movie producer, Franklin Shepard, looks back over his life and sees how time has eroded both his creative partnership with a dramatist, Charley, and their mutual friendship with a novelist, Mary.

After serving time in jail, actor Allison Mack opens up about her experiences in a group with links to sex trafficking. Plus, a deep dive into Jane Austen

The 26-year-old’s debut album I Love My Computer has already netted her some of Australia’s most prestigious prizes – and it’s all about the delight and depravity of growing up on the internet

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Ninajirachi is having a dream run with her debut album I Love My Computer – and between leading this year’s Aria nominations with eight nods and the rapturous crowds at sold-out shows, she knows it.

“I want to live up this one before I move on, because it might be hard to come back to this headspace and time,” says Nina Wilson. “I don’t want to rush into the future.”

AO Arena, Manchester
The New Zealand alt-pop diva’s show has shades of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense colliding with frenetic digital glitches and moments of crowd-pleasing intimacy

Lorde has been trying to make sense of the gawky phases of girlhood since her 2013 debut Pure Heroine and while more stars open their therapy sessions to the public, the New Zealand alt-pop diva makes unpicking adolescence far less embarrassing.

A single blue laser sweeps the 21,000-capacity AO Arena before settling on the singer performing Hammer, barefoot in baggy jeans that hang from her hips. There’s a slinky, strung-out downtown New York theatre troupe slipping through the set showcasing her latest release Virgin; subtle nods to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense pile up as each song brings a new prop and body to clamber across tabletops in euphoric abandon.

An affectionate biography of the polymath includes details of never-produced gems such as Monty Python’s Third World War

Terry Jones was a Python, a historian, a bestselling children’s author and a very naughty boy. He loved to play women in drag, started a magazine about countryside ecology (Vole), founded his own real-ale brewery and was even once a columnist for this newspaper, beginning one piece in 2011 like this: “In the 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death, the other was the commercialisation of warfare.” He even used to write jokes for Cliff Richard.

It would be tempting in view of all this to call him a renaissance man, except that Jones rather despised the highfalutin Renaissance, preferring the earthiness of medieval times: his first published book was a scholarly reinterpretation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, arguing that the hero’s fighting and pillaging was being presented satirically by the poet as something deplorable. Later he raided the Norse myth-kitty for the beloved children’s book (and, later, film) The Saga of Erik the Viking. His illustrator told him that Vikings didn’t really wear those massive helmets with horns sticking out at the sides, but Terry insisted on them. Historical accuracy could only get you so far.

The author of The Employees goes back to 17th-century Denmark for an intensely poetic portrait of everyday sorcery and female solidarity

On 26 June 1621, in Copenhagen, a woman was beheaded – which was unusual, but only in the manner of her death. According to one historian, during the years 1617 to 1625, in Denmark a “witch” was burned every five days. The first time this happens in Danish author Olga Ravn’s fourth novel, the condemned woman is “tied to the ladder, and the ladder pushed into the bonfire”. Her daughter watches as she falls, her eye “so strangely orange from within. And then in the heat it explodes.”

The child is watched, in turn, by a wax doll who sees everything: everything in this scene, and everything everywhere, through all space and all the time since it was fashioned. It sees the worms burrowing through the soil in which it is buried; the streets of the world in which it was made. It inhabits the bodies that walked those streets: “And I was in the king’s ear, and I was in the king’s mouth, and I was in the king’s loose tooth and in the quicksilver of his liver, and did hear.”

Friends, enemies and lovers animate more than 60 years of the author’s remarkable correspondence

John Updike had the mind of a middling middle-class postwar American male, and the prose style of a literary genius. Such a lord of language was he that even the notoriously grudging Vladimir Nabokov afforded him a meed of praise. A reviewer, musing on the disproportion between the style and content of Updike’s fiction, likened him to a lobster with one hugely overgrown claw. It was a comparison Updike was to remember – for all his bland urbanity, on display from start to finish in this mighty volume of his letters, he could be prickly, and did not take slights lightly.

As a novelist he aimed, as he once put it, to “give the mundane its beautiful due”. Apart from a few rare and in some cases ill-advised ventures into the exotic – the court at Elsinore, Africa, the future – his abiding subject was the quotidian life of “ordinary” Americans in the decades between the end of the second world war and the coming of a new technological age in the closing years of the 20th century.

Toxic male behaviour of David Szalay’s protagonist reflects real-world concerns about a ‘crisis of masculinity’

In the immediate aftermath of David Szalay’s book Flesh winning the Booker prize, one feature of the novel stood out: how often the protagonist utters the word “OK”.

The 500 times István grunts out the response is part of a sparse prose style through which the British-Hungarian Szalay gives the reader few insights into the inner workings of a man whose fortunes rise and fall.

Flesh by David Szalay (Vintage Publishing, £18.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

From Demon Souls to Baby Steps, challenging games keep a certain type of player coming back for more. I wonder why we are such suckers for punishment

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Most people who really love video games have the capacity to be obsessive. Losing weeks of your life to Civilization, World of Warcraft or Football Manager is something so many of us have experienced. Sometimes, it’s the numbers-go-up dopamine hit that hooks people: playing something such as Diablo or Destiny and gradually improving your character while picking up shiny loot at perfectly timed intervals can send some people into an obsessional trance. Notoriously compulsive games such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, meanwhile, suck up hours with peaceful, comforting repetition of rewarding tasks.

What triggers obsession in me, though, is a challenge. If a game tells me I can’t do something, I become determined to do it, sometimes to my own detriment. Grinding repetition bores me, but challenges hijack my brain.

Guitar Hero’s controllers let anyone become a star in their own living room – and made the bands featured in the game household names again

It is 20 years since Guitar Hero was launched in North America, and with it, the tools for the everyday gamer to become a rock star. Not literally of course, but try telling that to someone who has nailed Free Bird’s four-minute guitar solo in front of a packed living-room audience.

Developed by Harmonix, published by RedOctane and inspired by Konami’s GuitarFreaks, Guitar Hero gave players a guitar-shaped controller with which to match coloured notes scrolling down the screen in time with a song. Each riff or sequence corresponded to specific notes, creating the feel of a genuine performance.

Activision; PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PC
With a deafening onslaught of massive shootout set-pieces in exotic locations, an evolving campaign mode and excellent multiplayer offerings, this maximalist instalment of crazed carnage is a hoot

It seems like an anachronism now, in this age of live service “forever games”, that the annual release of a new Call of Duty title is still considered a major event. But here is Black Ops 7, a year after its direct predecessor, and another breathless bombard of military shooting action. This time it is set in a dystopian 2035 where a global arms manufacturer named the Guild claims to be the only answer to an apocalyptic new terrorist threat – but are things as clearcut as they seem?

The answer, of course, is a loudly yelled “noooo!” Black Ops is the paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed cousin to the Modern Warfare strand of Call of Duty games, a series inspired by 70s thrillers such as The Parallax View and The China Syndrome, and infused with ’Nam era concerns about rogue CIA agents and bizarre psy-ops. The campaign mode, which represents just a quarter of the offering this year, is a hallucinogenic romp through socio-political talking points such as psychopathic corporations, hybrid warfare, robotics and tech oligarchies. The result is a deafening onslaught of massive shootout set-pieces in exotic locations, as the four lead characters – members of a supercharged spec-ops outfit – are exposed to a psychotropic drug that makes them relive their worst nightmares. Luckily, they do so with advanced weaponry, cool gadgets and enough buddy banter to destabilise a medium-sized rogue nation. It is chaotic, relentless and stupidly pleasurable, especially if you play in co-operative mode with three equally irresponsible pals.

Sports Interactive; PC (version tested), PS5, Switch, Xbox
After a two-year wait, Football Manager 26 upgrades every aspect of the football sim, but it may take some getting used to

You can imagine what the home fans are singing in the Stadium of Light: “Top of the league, you’re having a laugh!” Your Liverpool team, who until this afternoon were five points clear at the top of the table, trail by two goals in the 82nd minute. You wonder where Mo Salah left his shooting boots, or why Virgil van Dijk seems to have forgotten the whole concept of tackling. But this isn’t on the players, it’s on you – or so you’ll tell the press – as you stare at the tactics screen trying to figure out which of the dozens of potential tweaks will change the tide of this depressing spectacle.

Football Manager was always the data-driven alternative to the visually opulent Fifa series (now EA Sports FC), but the latest instalment starts to bridge the graphical gap. The 3D-rendered match highlights have been given an upgrade via the new Unity engine, and the results are impressive. Premier League derbies, Champions League finals, and even away matches in the north-east have visual gravitas now, even if the replays and so-called important moments often overstay their welcome. There are no Fifa-style authentic chants ringing around the stadia, but the atmosphere is palpable and your imagination fills in the blanks.

Borough Yards, London
This immersive riot of giant ferns, vine-tangled tree-trunks and sun-struck foliage dissolves in front of your eyes, but leaves you none the wiser about the natural world

Is it me, or is it hot in here? A jungle floats in the darkness on three big screens. Each depicts a riot of giant ferns, vine-tangled tree-trunks and sun-struck foliage in layered, dank profusion. With their jumbles of weathered rock, mossy wetness and tropical vegetation, you can lose yourself in these scenes. But, as I look, mist wafts over a patch of dense greenery as if someone out-of-shot were making with the plant spray.

I’m reminded of those unconvincing jungles in movies and on TV, where the plants have been trucked-in from some garden centre warehouse and arranged on set. Only the camera angles and clever editing stop us from recognising the artifice of it all. In the foreground on one of the screens, you can see rivulets crossing what appears to be a floor of waterproof matting. A small puddle is also forming at my feet. Either the film is leaking, though that seems unlikely, or water is dripping from the ceiling. Through the day, I’m told, the water slowly inundates the sheets of metal that cover portions of the floor, but I arrived too early for the flood.

The Frattini Bivouac is part of a Bergamo gallery’s experiment to ‘think like a mountain’. But in the thin air of the Italian alps, curatorial ideas are challenged in more ways than one

At 2,300 metres above sea level, Italy’s newest – and most remote – cultural outpost is visible long before it becomes reachable. A red shard on a ridge, it looks first like a warning sign, and then something more comforting: a shelter pitched into the wind.

The structure stands on a high ridge in the municipality of Valbondione, along the Alta Via delle Orobie, exposed to avalanches and sudden weather shifts. I saw it from above, after taking off from the Rifugio Fratelli Longo, near the village of Carona – a small mountain municipality a little over an hour’s drive from GAMeC, Bergamo’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – the closest access point I was given for the site visit.

EFG Jazz festival, Royal Festival Hall, London
The pioneering 81-year-old vibes player, keyboardist and percussionist creates a controlled whirlwind of experimentation and excitement

Absolutely nothing about this set feels predictable: at 81, Mulatu Astatke is still pushing the boundaries of genre. Even on his farewell tour, there is no easing in, either. The father of Ethio-jazz and his band immediately play Tsome Diguwa as if conjuring a thunderstorm, which in turn crashes straight into Zèlèsègna Dèwèl, a piece written in the 4th-century Ethiopian tradition, its harmonic minor tonality sounding almost Arabic.

Astatke has a serious demeanour. Unsentimental, he speaks only to introduce songs or instruct the band like a schoolteacher. But he views his vibraphone with care and bewilderment, playing with intense familiarity yet almost as though discovering it for the first time. His fascination with his instrument holds the audience captive in turn. During Yèkèrmo Sèw – which fittingly translates to “a man of experience and wisdom” – Astatke’s solo fills the room, water-like in its shapeshifting.

Howard Assembly Room, Leeds
Isabella Gellis’s first full-length stage work has the feel of a modern mystery play as it unpacks the legends surrounding an ancient Wiltshire monument

Sometimes it feels as though British folklore gets stranger the closer you look at it. The Devil’s Den, an hour-long opera with words and music by Isabella Gellis, is certainly one of the odder shows to have been hosted by Opera North. Following a try-out at the Nevill Holt festival in summer 2024, it was being fully staged for the first time here, courtesy of Shadwell Opera and the Sheffield City Morris.

Morris dancing in opera? That was being claimed as a first. The dancers filled the interludes between scenes like a hanky-waving Greek chorus, their bells and sticks adding another layer to Gellis’s music.

The hit BBC crime drama is coming back to screens for the first time since its record-breaking 2021 finale

BBC hit crime drama Line of Duty has been confirmed to return for a seventh series. A new six-part season following police anti-corruption investigations was today announced by the BBC.

“We couldn’t be more delighted to be returning for a seventh [series],” said creator Jed Mercurio. “Corruption in this country is supposed to have come to an end while Line of Duty was off air so I’ve been forced to use my imagination.”

The actor will appear opposite British film star Noah Jupe in a production directed by Robert Icke opening in March

Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink is to make her West End debut next year in Romeo and Juliet, opposite British film star Noah Jupe, in a production directed by Olivier award-winner Robert Icke.

Sink, who plays Max in the Netflix sci-fi hit, started her career on stage. She was cast in the lead role in the musical Annie when she was 10, and remained in it for 18 months in New York. “I was a Broadway kid, so I’ve always dreamed about doing a show in the West End,” she said. “To get to do that in one of Shakespeares’s most famous plays under Rob’s direction with Noah will be such an exciting challenge. London theatre has this incredible energy, and I can’t wait to be a part of it.” Sink becomes the latest in a line of US stars who have made their West End debuts in recent years, including Sigourney Weaver (The Tempest), Brie Larson (Elektra) and Susan Sarandon (Mary Page Marlowe).

Choreographers hear, somehow, a larger heartbeat; it’s fascinating and revelatory to have them reinterpret your compositions, writes the US musician, ahead of a triple bill featuring his music coming to Sadler’s Wells.

When I’m writing music, one of the primary challenges is figuring out how to notate rhythm in a way that is clear to the interpreters. When I hear a phrase in my head it is free of the confines of bar lines, but, in practical application, eventually it needs to get squeezed into recognisable shapes and containers. Every composer has their own strategy (some eschew bar lines entirely, or use alternative notational strategies outside the traditional western systems), but it’s always a negotiation: does the way the composer notates the rhythm correspond to how it should best appear on the flute player’s music stand?

I have distinct memories of being 13, hearing a piece (specifically, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements), basically memorising it from the recording, and then being absolutely shocked when I finally saw the score. “That’s where the downbeat is?!” Stravinsky’s sense of time and my understanding of the same were at variance in a way I still find exciting: the idea that there are infinite superimpositions of a practical system (notation) over a medium (sound) most often experienced by an audience without the score. Understanding that notating rhythm is artificial yet crucial requires both personal precision and empathy with future interpreters.

Brazilian actor will star in The Trial: Enemy of the People, which examines modern political and environmental conflicts

The award-winning Brazilian actor Wagner Moura is to star in a new play being staged at three European festivals next year, in the first joint production since their foundation two years after the second world war.

Moura, who is being tipped for an Oscar nomination for the Secret Agent, will take the lead role in a new production updating the Henrik Ibsen play An Enemy of the People to examine modern political and environmental conflicts.

We’ve tasted, sniffed and inspected more than 300 presents to bring you our ultimate Christmas gift guide – from must-have Lego and smoky mezcal to Meera Sodha’s favourite knife

Don’t you just love Christmas shopping? There’s a massive thrill in finding a present you know they’ll love and won’t have thought to ask for, but the pressure is enough to drive any sane person to hibernation.

We’ve gone the extra (2,000) miles to help you find the perfect gifts: we’ve tested out the latest products to see which ones are worth the hype (and which aren’t); trawled shops in person; enlisted babies (OK, their parents), tweens and teens to test out toys and give us their must-haves; tasted the good, bad and the did-I-really-put-this-in-my-mouth; and rounded up some of the products that were tried and tested by us this year.

Whether it’s a jacket to stay cosy in the cold or a clever multitool, our expert-selected gear means there’s something for everyone who loves life on their bike

• The best gifts for runners

As the proud daughter of the president of St Austell Wheelers cycle club in Cornwall, I know better than to wing it when it comes to giving gifts to a bike rider. That’s why we’ve asked so many people, from coaches to athletes, club riders to young cyclists, what they would like to receive.

Speaking of Dad, this year he has moved from his road bike to the world of gravel riding (check out Fairlight Cycles) and is loving it. He treated himself to a Cornish downpour-proof jacket and a set of panniers for a cycling trip to France – and highly recommends them (see below for details). Less so the bike bell someone told him “everyone” uses in France, only to get there and find not a single cyclist he saw had one.

Ten trees, one fearless rescue cat; gloriously silly baubles; and our big Christmas gift guide – packed with presents for everyone on your list

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In the world according to TikTok, the true meaning of Christmas is cats hurling themselves at 8ft trees to a Mariah Carey soundtrack. This particular trend always made me wonder what I’d been doing wrong. Every cat I’d ever lived with, notably my dear departed Iggy, was indifferent to my Christmas tree.

Maybe Iggy just wasn’t a tree kind of guy, despite (or perhaps because of) his face being all over my tree decorations. Or maybe I just needed to up my tree game. After testing the best artificial Christmas trees against all manner of metrics, including feline appeal, I’ve concluded it’s probably the latter.

The best Christmas baubles: 28 delightful decorations, from baked beans to tinned fish

‘Simple, well-crafted and excellent’: supermarket chutneys, tasted and rated

Coffee, crochet kits and … mashed potato: the best Advent calendars for 2025 – tested

The best self-care gifts for Christmas, from cosy PJs to massagers

The best Christmas gifts for swimmers, from swim socks to snorkels

The best Christmas gifts for 11-year-olds – picked by 11-year-olds

Whether you go for affordable luxury buys or true indulgence, you can’t go wrong with these presents for pampering

• The best 90s Christmas gifts: 15 nostalgic picks

By the time Christmas rolls around, most of us are ready to drop. There are the parties, the runaround to get everything ready for the big day, and the toll that the cold weather takes on our health and wellness.

So, if you’re planning to treat your loved ones, a gift that will help them feel well and pampered is always a win, especially if you have a beauty junkie on your gift list. From affordable luxuries to truly indulgent gifts, these are my favourite self-care buys.

Skincare, karaoke machines and must-have fashion are all the rage …

• The 26 best gifts for 13-year-olds

Struggling to buy a present for an 11-year-old – secondary school kids no longer young but also not fully fledged teens? Who better to ask for ideas than a group of their own peers?

We picked the brains of 11-year-olds from around the country for the best gifts for tweens their age. From skincare to fitness tech, today’s preteens are a cultivated bunch (and know their way around the words “trending” and “collab”). Read on for their best gifts.

They can be garish and ostentatious, or a sign you are softer than you might first appear. From the catwalk to the high street to the big screen to the rugby pitch, you just can’t miss them right now

Wuthering Heights is a story about pain, revenge and the Yorkshire moors as a metaphor for bad life choices. But if Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation is anything to go by, it’s also about bows.

In the two-minute trailer for the film, Cathy wears red bows and black bows, navy bows and pink bows. There are bows around garden pots, and bows around “baddy” Edgar Linton’s throat. Some bows flutter in the fell wind, others are unlaced at speed. In one memorable shot straight from the Jilly Cooper precoital playbook, a pretty white bow is cut from Cathy’s bodice using a labourer’s knife, which would be unforgivable hamminess were it not incredibly hot. Never mind that Emily Brontë rarely mentions bows in the book; that one is an entire plot device.

Mushrooms again come to the rescue for that meaty mouthfeel, but our panel also recommends the savoury flavours of Asia to sate those umami cravings

I’m a lifelong vegetarian, but my boyfriend is a dedicated carnivore. How can I cook to please us both?
Victoria, by email
“I have three words for you, Victoria,” says Anna Ansari, author of Silk Roads, who grew up in a predominantly vegetarian household: “Di si xian.” Typical of northern China, this stir-fry of aubergine, potato and peppers (otherwise known as the “three treasures”) is laced with soy, Shoaxing wine, white pepper, sugar, cornflour and, in Ansari’s case, doubanjiang. She also adds tofu (the fourth treasure, if you will) for “a rounded, one-pot/wok dinner” to eat with steamed rice. “It reminds me of being a teenager in Beijing, far from home and in need of warmth and comfort,” she says, and we could all do with some of that right now. “It’s also cheap as proverbial chips, not to mention quick to make, and it will knock both your socks off. Promise.”

Mushrooms could also pave the way to harmonious dining. “Surely they’re the closest thing to a natural meat substitute,” says Zak Hitchman, chef/owner of Other in Bristol. He’d be inclined to layer them up in a lasagne: “Slice a load of mixed mushrooms [chestnut, shiitake, oyster], then saute them in oil and butter with some seasoning.” Next, fry onion, garlic, celery, diced carrot, maybe some rosemary or thyme, until softened, then return the cooked mushrooms to the pot with some tinned tomatoes and tomato puree. “You could bulk it out with tinned lentils,” he says, but either way be sure to include a splash of soy and some miso for “that meaty flavour”, plus any vinegar you have knocking around “for balance”. Cook slowly until reduced, then layer between dried lasagne sheets. “Top that with bechamel [or simply dollop on some mascarpone] and lots of grated parmesan [a vegetarian one, if need be]. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until the pasta is soft, the sauce bubbling and the top golden.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

The MasterChef Australia winner and cookbook author puts a lemongrass-y, lime leaf-y spin on two Australian classics

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This warming casserole is melt-in-your-mouth tender, and comes with velvety white beans to soak up the rich meaty juices

My mum, Isabel, has always cooked slowly. Life on the family farm was busy, so a pot of lamb would often be bubbling away while she worked and, by the time we all sat down for lunch, the whole house smelled incredible. November takes me straight back there. It is the month for food that warms you, dishes made to sit in the centre of the table and to bring everyone close. Lamb shoulder loves a slow cook, turning soft and rich, especially when cooked with alubias blancas (white beans) to soak up the sauce, while a good splash of oloroso gives it a deeper, rounder flavour than any red wine ever could.

Tender hake in a punchy flavoured butter makes for a quick midweek supper or a knockout dinner-party show-off, and all in half an hour

I love this one-tray dinner; it feels elegant but easy, and worthy of both a midweek meal and if you are entertaining. The punchy anchovy and garlic butter does all the hard work, and gives the impression of more effort than was actually exerted. But what to serve it with, I hear you ask? Well, it wouldn’t be out of place with creamy mashed potato, buttery polenta or a salad. Just make sure to baste the fish halfway through cooking, to get all the flavour and juices back into it.

The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. Check ratings in your region: UK; Australia; US.

Celebrate the flavours of Palestine and bring heart, warmth and freshness to your plate

Hearty and warming, this prawn and tomato stew with fregola is a comforting bowl, with the fresh pesto brightening every bite. It pairs beautifully with a crisp, fragrant, quick-pickled vegetable salad; the freshness cuts through the richness of the stew perfectly. I’ve always loved leafy, lively salads, and I could honestly eat one with every meal, every day.

They both liked the Greens’ Zack Polanski and disliked the tech oligarchs. But could they find common cause over the power of the unions?

Andrew, 70, near Nottingham

Occupation Retired acupuncturist and herbalist

Maya worried about entering into an open relationship with Ollie, but being honest with each other has deepened their relationship

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

If I know that Ollie’s on a date, I find it difficult sitting around, not knowing what to do with myself

I was sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed when she stepped in and took charge

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

As a twin mum the work is constant. It is double the love and double the laughs, but also double the illness. Of course, my twins would never get sick at the same time. As one recovered, the other would start showing symptoms.

One day, when my girls were three, one had a vomiting bug. She hadn’t thrown up for 24 hours so I took my chance to do a quick run to the chemist to stock up on supplies. My husband worked away during the week, so I had to manage on my own. I was exhausted, carrying the sick kid in my arms, while walking the healthy one along next to me as quickly as I could.

A face-to-face conversation telling her how her behaviour affects you would give you peace, even if she ignores you

I have been friends with a woman for more than 20 years, who has overcome many challenges, which I admire. However, she’s constantly blindsided by people. Her husband left her, and it was a huge shock. A lot of her friends disappeared at that point as they were only interested in her husband. This surprised her. She made more effort to be my friend, and must have realised more clearly what friendship was.

Over the years since, quite a few of her friends have disappeared and she isn’t sure why. Her last employer turned on her, even though she was an excellent employee, and she left without knowing what had changed.

The offensive listing seemed more than a mistake – it was a failure of corporate responsibility, says reader

I found a baby outfit (sizes from newborn to five years) on Amazon bearing the phrase “Santa’s favourite ho”.

This isn’t just a tasteless mistake – it’s a failure of corporate responsibility and consumer protection. A corporation this large should have systems that prevent sexualised or exploitative language being associated with items for children.

A new generation of younger workers are being derided as delusional and unreliable, just as millennials were

Gen Z is undisciplined, apparently; entitled, some critics claim; and purportedly hates work. One viral column in the Wall Street Journal went so far as to suggest this entire generation was potentially “unemployable”.

As younger employees establishing themselves at work continue to face relentless criticism from the higher rungs of corporate America, those old enough to remember the arrival of the last generation could be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu.

My van was hurtled into motorway barriers by a driver who did not stop and the vehicle is still being held in a compound along with the tools of my trade

My van was hit from behind on a motorway by a speeding driver who failed to stop.

It spun across the carriageway, hitting the barriers on either side, and went up in flames. I thankfully got off with a small head injury. I reported the collision to my insurance company, Autonet, and was told it would be in touch.

To earn a living as a delivery rider, some work 10-12 hour days, contending with low pay, exhaustion, accidents, injuries and harassment. Is this a new form of modern slavery?

“I earn more cleaning toilets than I do from being a Deliveroo rider,” says Marina, a Brazilian woman who juggles two jobs to support her 12- and 18-year-old daughters.

It’s a “bullshit, horrible job”, says Adam, from Sudan, who combines riding for Deliveroo with studying for a law degree. “On a good day I can earn £50 or £60, although it’s really hard doing deliveries using a pedal bike.”

Since I was a teenager I had struggled in winter, experiencing excessive tiredness and low mood. A specific instruction lifted the gloom

I’m pretty sure I must be half human, half plant – how else to explain why I need the light to thrive? During the brighter seasons I feel fine, but when winter comes and the light begins to fade, I start drooping.

I have struggled with seasonal affective disorder (Sad) since I was a teenager. The symptoms of Sad are similar to regular depression, with low moods and lethargy, and can be equally debilitating. Over the years I’ve experienced the full Sad spectrum, from moments of excessive tiredness and carb cravings (yes, those are official Sad symptoms), to a low point of breaking down crying on the kitchen floor after school because it was so cold, dark and bleak.

More and more people are turning to egg freezing to increase their chances of becoming a parent. Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering it – from the hidden costs to the chances of success

When I first told my mother I was freezing my eggs, she asked: “So my grandchildren are going to be stored next to some Häagen-Dazs?” (Very funny, Mum.) I’m one of an increasing number of women in the UK who have chosen to put their eggs on ice in order to preserve their fertility, although this does – as discussed later – have clear limitations.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s regulator for the fertility industry, there was a 170% increase in the number of egg freezing cycles between 2019 and 2023. The technology has been around since the 80s, but became more accessible in the 00s with vitrification, a flash-freezing technique. Now, celebrities such as Florence Pugh and Michaela Coel openly discuss their experiences of it, and companies such as Meta, Spotify and Goldman Sachs subsidise the procedure for employees.

There are modest benefits to exercising on an empty stomach, but it’s more important to burn more energy than you’re consuming

‘There’s an element of truth to that,” says Javier Gonzalez, a professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath. “When we exercise, we’re always burning a mix of fuels – mainly carbohydrates and fat. If you’ve fasted overnight, you’ll generally burn a bit more fat and less carbohydrate than if you’d eaten breakfast, especially one high in carbs.” But that doesn’t mean fasted workouts are better for weight loss.

“We can only store a small amount of carbohydrate as glycogen in our muscles and liver. Any extra energy – from carbs, fat or protein – eventually gets stored as body fat. So to lose fat, you need to be in an energy deficit: burning more energy than you consume. If you’re not, it doesn’t matter whether you’re fasted or fed – your body balances things out over time,” says Gonzalez.

Meaningful therapy offers a path past our worst impulses. We should be fighting for it to be available for everyone

When I picture what a good life means to me, I feel a tension in my chest. I see my daughter and my husband and I feel the profound fulfilment of being exactly where I need to be, tightened by the terror that life is so fragile and I cannot protect them from that reality. Then a memory: lying on my analyst’s couch and describing a feeling of hollowness inside that I felt deeply ashamed of, and her listening and thinking and understanding – and my noticing that while I felt horror and repulsion, she didn’t seem to. Next: different walks around different parks with different friends, each with the same feeling of being warmed from the inside out; also, bumping into neighbours at the playground and feeling a part of my community. I remember powerful moments with my patients, who have felt understood, by me and within themselves. And I think of the moving messages from readers who have got in touch, sharing precious stories from their lives.

People often think that psychoanalysis and its NHS-friendly grandchild, psychodynamic psychotherapy, are all about looking inwards. And it’s true – good therapy should give us the time and space, the frame and the containment, to look inside and listen to ourselves.

A look at the editor-in-chief’s Vogue covers from her first radical combination in 1988 to her final ‘weird’ shoot

During her 37-year tenure as editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour has presided over more than 400 covers. December 2025’s, on newsstands this week, will prove her last before she steps away to focus on roles as Vogue’s global editorial director and chief content officer at Condé Nast.

The cover is certainly memorable: an image of the actor Timothée Chalamet photographed by Wintour’s long-term collaborator Annie Leibovitz in a Celine white polo neck, long cream coat and embroidered jeans, standing on a “planet” with a backdrop of a star-filled nebula provided by Nasa.

Closeup of studded stilettos in trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 causes fashion debate on social media

Posting the first trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Instagram on her birthday this week, the film’s star Anne Hathaway captioned the video with “it’s everybody’s birthday”, prompting copious comments featuring emojis of flames, hearts and – of course – the red shoe now associated with the film’s poster.

But with the trailer circulating on social media, it’s the shoes that have become the focus of fashion debate – and not in a good way.

Anchoring your look around a pair of statement boots is a winning winter formula. These styling tips will make getting dressed a doddle

For Black adolescents, a recent study found negative experiences around race in online spaces outweighed the good

People of color have long critiqued social media filters for perpetuating Eurocentric beauty standards. In one TikTok video, a young Black woman who used the app’s glow filter was vexed that her brown eyes transformed to blue. In another video, a user wrote that she liked a face-altering filter until she realized that it generated the appearance of a smaller nose. Now, new research shows that such filters, along with a collection of other race-related online experiences, can negatively affect Black adolescents’ sleep and ability to concentrate on schoolwork the following day.

A new study published in the Jama Network that looked at Black adolescents’ exposure to online racism – including traumatic videos of police violence, online racial discrimination and racial bias perpetuated by AI – can cause increased anxiety and depression. On average, Black adolescents experienced six race-related online experiences everyday – 3.2 of which were online racism, and 2.8 of which were positive.

The cosy cabins, bike rides and serenity of De Alde Feanen national park make it the perfect place to switch off and unwind in winter

If there are times when the sights, smells and sounds of a new destination are best downed in a single, heady, flaming sambuca of a weekend, there are others when a more slow-drip pace is called for. Such is the case with De Alde Feanen, in Friesland. One of the most peaceful national parks in the Netherlands, this 4,000-hectare wetland slows down naturally after the summer season. Its waterways shrug off their summer flocks of kayakers, paddleboarders, boat trippers and terrace diners. Museums and galleries close. The local tourist office winds down. Even the park’s population of nesting storks fly south.

A 20-minute drive south-east of Leeuwarden, in the country’s north-east, the lakes, ponds, ditches and canals of “The Old Fens” are the remains of the peat-cutting that began there in the middle ages. Now awash with reeds, rushes and sedges, its watery habitats are richly biodiverse, home to more than 100 bird species as well as otters, pine martens, roe deer and dragonflies. Hay meadows and wetland forest add marsh thistle, reed orchids, alders and willows to the list. Ribboned with well-marked hiking and cycling trails, the proximity to nature draws spring and summer tourists but treasures can be found there in autumn and winter too; among them thousands of ducks and geese, and some of the starriest skies in the Netherlands.

Crooked buildings, welcoming inns, ancient woodlands … it’s easy to see why the location scouts chose this idyllic corner of England

The door creaks as I push it back and move forward into the gloom. The ceiling is vaulted and dark, but light falls in shafts of gold from the upper windows, revealing ancient stone carvings and tombs. It’s the right atmosphere for a ghost-hunt. I take a few steps and the door clicks, making me jump. Must be the wind.

Exploring old English churches is always a pleasure. There is no one to disturb you, and in the dim quiet will be a historical jaw-dropper: a centuries-old face carved in oak, a grisly tomb, an inscription to the dead hero of a forgotten battle. Each site is a mini detective puzzle, waiting to be unravelled, often with a helpful booklet available near the door. The spirits of those who have shuffled off this mortal coil hang in the dust motes, but here, in Weobley, Herefordshire, I am looking for someone specific.

From a Tudor manor in Wales to a swinging 60s hotel in Prague, these hotels and guesthouses are steeped in history

The past lives again at an unusual immersive hotel housed in the cave dwellings of Italy’s oldest city, once ruled by ancient Greece

Diners fall silent as the haunting sound of the aulos – a double-piped wind instrument from ancient Greece – echoes through the vaulted breakfast room. The musician, Davide, wears a chiton (tunic), as do the guests; the mosaic floor, decorated vases and flicker of flames from the sconces add to the sense that we’ve stepped back in time.

This is Moyseion, a one-of-a-kind hotel-museum in the famous troglodyte city of Matera, in Basilicata, known for its sassi – cave dwellings carved into the limestone mountainside. Every detail has been carefully designed to transport visitors to Magna Graecia, as this area of southern Italy was known when it was ruled by the ancient Greeks from the 8th-6th century BC.

In a world full of distractions, it can be difficult to form a habit that needs attention. Experts advise on getting out of the rut

Most of us read all day – texts, emails, menus, utility bills, social media captions and news stories. But fewer people are reading for fun.

According to a 2022 report from the National Endowment for the Arts, 48.5% of US adults said they had read at least one book that year, down from 52.7% five years earlier, and 54.6% 10 years earlier. In the UK, a 2024 report found that half of UK adults do not regularly read for pleasure.

Decision over routine PSA testing is due at end of this month, though some feel the supporting data is unclear

Junior Hemans was having a routine health check in 2014 when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, at the age of 51. He knew there was an increased risk of the disease in black men so asked to have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which was not initially included.

“And when I went, they said I had a raised PSA level for my age,” Hemans said. “[The diagnosis] was a shock … because I had no symptoms.”

Rubbing the inside of the peel over leaves will leave a glossy sheen, but is it any more effective than a damp cloth?

The problem
Dust isn’t just unsightly; it also blocks light from reaching your plant’s leaves, slowing growth and leaving them looking dull. Plant forums are full of DIY polishing tips. One of the most popular? Banana peel.

The hack
Rub the inside of a banana peel on to your plant’s leaves to clean them and leave a glossy sheen. Some swear by it as a natural – and free – alternative to chemical leaf-shine sprays.

A jeans ad made her notorious. Then she got cosy with Taylor Swift’s arch-nemesis. Time to get up to speed before the actor/model next hits the headlines …

Spare a thought for Sydney Sweeney! Yes, she is young, beautiful, rich and talented, but she has also been getting it from all sides this week. Her passion project has bombed at the box office; she is still paying for a jeans advertisement she did four months ago, and being called on to address charges of having joked about eugenics; and fellow members of the Hollywood elite are breaking ranks to express their disdain (in one case, with a vomiting emoji). And, as she found out this week, she can’t even enjoy a kiss with her controversial new boyfriend without being snapped by the callous paparazzi!

Here’s what you need to know when Sweeney’s name next crops up – which, if current trends continue, will be soon.

Alan, 87, has devoted his life to trying to defy death, and has promised his wife, Sylvia, that they will be cryogenically preserved upon death to be reunited in the future. However, when Sylvia dies all too soon, Alan unexpectedly falls in love with another woman and is forced to reconsider his future plans. An extraordinary love story, told with humour and tenderness about how we deal with loss, our own mortality and the prospect of eternal life.

In Paris, a group of those returned from UK as part of the immigration scheme say they feel frightened and hopeless

Afran, an Iranian asylum seeker, sits forlornly across the road from a Paris shelter, hemmed in between vast slabs of concrete and thundering trains above. He has been here before – seven weeks ago, to be precise. The second time, he says, is as terrifying as his first.

Afran – not his real name – hit the headlines when he became the first asylum seeker to return to the UK in a small boat after being removed to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme on 19 September. He was sent back to Paris for the second time on 5 November.

Three women tell of blacking out, feeling dazed and dizzy, and of ongoing memory issues and fatigue

• UK survey shows ‘choking’ becoming normalised in sex

• Warning: this article includes graphic content

When Sophie* woke up on the floor after having a seizure, it took a while before she could comprehend that it had been caused by a man strangling her during sex.

“I blacked out, my legs were kicking, I broke a glass,” she says. At 19, it was the first and only time anything like that had happened to her. “When I came to, I couldn’t work out who he was, where I was, what was going on. And it was utterly terrifying.”

London and Moscow’s rivalry stretches back to the imperial era, but the Ukraine war has brought relations to a new low

In recent years, Britain has become the villain of choice in Moscow’s eyes. It has been accused of plotting drone strikes on Russian airfields, blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, directing “terrorist” raids inside Russia, and even abetting last year’s gruesome Islamic State concert attack in Moscow.

This week, a new charge was added to the pile: Russian authorities claimed that British intelligence had tried and failed to lure Russian pilots into defecting to the west.

We would like to hear your experiences of parcels being stolen

Parcel thefts from doorsteps are on the rise in the UK. We would like to hear your experiences of parcels being stolen. Have done anything to try and fight back or catch the thieves? Tell us about it below.

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Guardian column the Pet I’ll Never Forget is returning and we’d like to hear your stories about the amazing pets that you’ve loved

After a one year hiatus - and due to popular demand - the Guardian will soon be resuming the Pet I’ll Never Forget, a column celebrating the magnificent creatures and mischievous critters who have left an indelible mark on their owners.

It’s a real who’s who of pet royalty. There’s Nelson, the unapologetic one-eyed cat; Verity, the kleptomaniac pug; Thumper, the frisky rabbit who got pregnant through her cage; Rambo, the Dexter-watching tarantula, to name but a few.

We would like to hear your favourite characters whose gamechanging arrivals lifted the shows they were in

From Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones to the Hot Priest in Fleabag, we have picked our favourite 18 TV characters whose gamechanging arrival in later seasons have lifted their whole show. Now we would like to hear yours. Who is your favourite late-arriving TV character and why?

If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

We would like to hear about your name and how it affects people’s perceptions of you

What’s in a name? As people such as Peach, Riot and Aquaman have found, it can change your life for the better, or worse.

With this in mind, we would like to hear from people with unusual names about how it affects others’ perceptions of you. How has your name shaped your life?

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