Walking on to the plane with the kids in tow, I could almost hear people think, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to be seated next to them!’

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I won’t lie – I was having nightmares before the trip. When my family immigrated to Australia from Europe, my husband travelled ahead to organise a place for us to live. I followed him seven weeks later with our four children, all aged under seven. I was a ball of stress for weeks in the lead-up.

Walking on to the plane with four kids in tow, I could almost hear people think, “Oh my God, I don’t want to be seated next to them!” And I completely understand.

It’s not clear that financial interests are driving White House policy, but they run parallel even as resistance mounts

Donald Trump’s sons, through a series of AI-linked defense and technology ventures, have picked up a $620m Pentagon loan, a Marine Corps robotics contract and an undisclosed air force drone deal in the past year. His longtime friend Michael Dell won a Pentagon contract worth nearly $9bn. And this week, as public support for artificial intelligence sinks to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, the president went to bat for the industry.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” he posted on Truth Social Monday. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers.” It was the first of many aggressively pro-AI posts he would make this week.

The Brit award winner on being scammed by a model agency, coming to terms with sexual assault, and wrestling with impostor syndrome

Born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 1994 and raised in Bewdley, Becky Hill is a singer and songwriter. She began making music at 14, performing in a band called Shaking Trees, before reaching the semifinals on the first series of The Voice UK. She has since had two top 10 albums and collaborated with David Guetta, Chase and Status, Joel Corry and Rudimental, and won the Brit award for best dance act in 2022 and 2023. Her latest album, Rebecca, is out on 13 November.

This was taken for a kids’ modelling agency, which we later discovered was a scam. Every stage of the process – getting pictures taken, sending them to the agency, getting them back – cost us more money. We’d wire over £100 and get nothing in return. Our family wasn’t rich, so Mum didn’t tell Dad what we were up to – he probably doesn’t even know about it to this day. As for my modelling ambitions, I never pursued it further. I was cute until the age of seven, then started to go on the turn.

Fourteen years ago, Twitter was the fastest, funniest game on the web. Now I’ve been driven out by so-called ‘online activists’. The only answer is to unplug and try this instead

God, I love social media! I cannot believe my exquisite luck – to exist in a time when it was invented! Bliss it is in this dawn to be @live! If you’ve not been on Twitter yet – please join! It’s kind of like a cross between your best ever pub, and the bit on Live & Kicking where celebrities like Duran Duran were doing the phone-in, and you could ring in and talk to them. Literally! Because Duran Duran are on Twitter! Well, Simon Le Bon is. And Spandau Ballet, too! Well, Gary Kemp. And they’re really funny. During the royal wedding with Kate and William, when all the lesser royals were herded on to some shitty coaches, Kemp was horrified.

Nigel Farage’s tactics are to play up the anxiety and resentment that people feel. Labour’s job is simple: to offer hope and change

Despite the energised start Andy Burnham has made as prime minister, plenty of his party’s MPs and hardcore activists are still haunted by a familiar sense of insecurity. Underpinned by a political version of impostor syndrome, it runs deep – and, bar the odd spell of Labour optimism, it always has. So it is with the battle between Labour and Reform UK that will define an election that could arrive much sooner than some people think, and a widely held ambivalence on the left about the possibility of Nigel Farage’s party taking power. Reform is apparently in deep trouble, yet also still in with a serious chance. How come?

Investigations into the party and its leadership’s finances by both the Metropolitan police and parliament’s standards commissioner may worsen Reform’s woes. Those investigations predate the two recently announced £36m donations from the crypto tycoons Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo, which themselves risk being backdatedly ruled illegal and are reportedly already being spent on 400 “field agents”. The two mega-donations symbolise two connected stories. One is about the possible buyout of our fragile democracy. The other centres on how, from much of the public’s perspective, all the allegations about Farage and his party might have already turned into an indecipherable blizzard. So, although Reform is down, it is still far from out.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

You don’t have to reveal the contents, but I’ve seen families torn apart by unexpected inheritance plans

My wife and I have three children and several grandchildren. Our will may contain some surprises for them. Is it better to reveal its contents while we are still alive, or let our beneficiaries discover them when we die?

We gave our children considerable financial help, enabling them to buy their first homes. We have also made sizeable contributions to our grandchildren’s education funds.

Exclusive: Intelligence officers say Russian campaign could intensify ‘in months, not years’ – but that panic risks playing into Kremlin psy-ops

European intelligence officials have raised the possibility of an imminent Russian test of Nato, with one saying a potential attack could come in a matter of “months, not years”.

The warnings come after Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, told parliament that intelligence assessments suggested Russia might launch an attack with drones or missiles on Nato territory in the coming months, as part of efforts to prove that “article 5 is more theoretical than practical”.

Tensions grow as Trump tells Fox News he is considering ‘wiping Iran out’ after attacks on Riyadh by Houthi rebels

Governments across the Middle East are bracing for an escalation of violence after Iran claimed it had received intelligence that the US was preparing for a renewed bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.

In a potential sign of growing tensions before the UN general assembly in New York this week, Donald Trump cut short a weekend visit to the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday with no official explanation, and a new security alert was issued by the state department to all US citizens in the Middle East.

Exclusive: Stark health inequalities in terms of deaths before age of 75, NHS data reveals

Adults with severe mental illness are nearly five times more likely than their peers to die from serious physical diseases before the age of 75, according to research.

The analysis of NHS data by the Rethink Mental Illness charity reveals that people with severe mental health problems die 15-20 years earlier than the wider adult population, largely due to preventable physical conditions.

Charles lands at Heathrow with just two bags and nowhere to go as a result of Brexit and Stockholm’s hardline immigration position

Doubled over a Heathrow baggage trolley, the former British business director is sobbing uncontrollably, exhausted emotionally and physically after being deported from Sweden.

Hours earlier the 65-year-old had been marched on to a plane in Stockholm, separated from his home and his Swedish wife after a five-year battle to stay in the country after Brexit came to an end.

Far-right AfD wins in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and leftwing Die Linke on course for victory in Berlin

Germany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic changes despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party.

Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just over the 5% threshold to enter the state parliament in the coastal region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its worst-ever state score, which he called a “disaster”.

Jane Adetoro, Christina Walters and Rebecca Walters from Uxbridge were found on 13 May

The deaths of three sisters found in the sea off Brighton beach did not involve any criminality or third-party involvement, police have concluded.

The bodies of Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, from Uxbridge, west London, were found on 13 May. A postmortem conducted that month confirmed all three women died by drowning.

Jovenel Moïse, 53, was shot dead in July 2021 in a killing which sparked chaos in Haiti

Eighteen people have been arrested in association with the 2021 assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, according to US officials.

Moïse, 53, was shot dead on 7 July 2021, at his private residence by a hired group of about 20 military-trained Colombian mercenaries. His security detail did not intervene to protect him.

Row at Athenian riviera resort turned violent after two elderly bathers reportedly argued over shortage of loungers

Greek police are investigating the death of an 82-year-old man after a brawl over a sunlounger at a beach on the Athenian riviera.

The man had arrived at the popular bathing spot of Vouliagmeni before 10am on Sunday hoping to secure a sunbed, but he soon began arguing with a fellow bather – described by authorities as a “76-year-old man unknown to him” – when it became clear loungers were in short supply.

Wife of former PM takes part in designer Edeline Lee’s show inspired by the Greek myth of Sisyphus

Victoria Starmer has taken part in a London fashion week show, in one of her first public appearances since her husband, Keir Starmer, stepped down as prime minister.

Lady Starmer appeared at Sunday’s Edeline Lee show. The London-based, Canadian British designer’s clothes are a favourite of the Princess of Wales, and have also been worn by celebrities including singer Taylor Swift and actor and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Economies thrown into renewed turmoil as AI debt, Iran war and soaring government bond yields fuel alarm

At the height of the summer, the mood was optimistic in the world’s financial capitals. Powered by the AI revolution, the US stock market had rallied to a fresh all-time high, as investors bet the multitrillion-dollar investment spree would overshadow the hit from the Iran war.

Now the warning lights are flashing red. As the fighting in the Middle East intensifies without clear sign of a resolution, financial markets have been thrown into renewed turmoil. A slowdown looms in the AI arms race, and tinderbox conditions in the market for government debt are fuelling alarm.

PM hopes to be firmer with US leader than his predecessor without provoking diplomatic warfare, as the Iran war weighs on the UK economy

No international relationship has more power to determine the success of Andy Burnham’s premiership. So you might imagine the stakes for the prime minister’s first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday would be high.

Yet Burnham may prove to be a lucky general. The balance of risk has shifted. Trump is unpopular at home, where inflation remains high, and is mired in an intractable conflict in Iran that has the potential to sink his midterm dreams.

Self-described moderates say Ed Davey’s party offers them a home as Conservatives shift further right

Climbing the party-branded stairs of the Brighton Centre with a Liberal Britain tote bag over his shoulder, Cody Butler looks quite at home at the Liberal Democrats’ annual jamboree.

But asked how he is finding it, the 21-year-old replied: “Odd.” The former Tory activist resigned as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network and left his old party in July, arguing that centrists, remainers and members worried about the climate crisis and conservation were no longer welcome in the party. A week ago, he joined the Lib Dems.

Some fans were hesitant to turn the page after Sheeran’s tour resumed in Philadelphia after the removal of Macklemore, who spoke out in support of Palestine

“This is not usually how I would open the show,” Ed Sheeran told the crowd at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday night, a humble preamble to a three-plus-minute speech addressing the greatest controversy of his career. Shaky-voiced and stealing glances at the monitor at his feet, he looked every bit the chastened superstar.

“I have tried in my career not to be a political commentator of any kind, because I want my music and shows to be about unity, not division, about humanity, not politics, but this is a humanitarian issue and I cannot hide how I feel about it any more,” Sheeran said. He described the Hamas-led attack at the Nova music festival in Israel on 7 October 2023 as “horrific”, and expressed heartbreak over civilian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank, describing the situation as “catastrophic and unjustified and disproportionate”.

Appointment of Kane as creative director signals the return of serious style ambition for former It-bag brand

With spicy leather mini-dresses and shoes with miniature axes for heels, two beloved British names made a swaggering joint comeback at London fashion week.

Fifteen years ago, Christopher Kane and Mulberry were two of the biggest shows on the line-up. Kane was the brilliant young designer who could find fashion in the most unlikely places: rubberised lace minis were inspired by “Princess Margaret on acid”; while illustrations from the 1972 classic The Joy of Sex appeared on slinky slip dresses. Mulberry was London’s home-grown It-bag brand: anyone who was anyone had a Bayswater or an Alexa.

Sanjeev Bhaskar plays a patriarch handing over the family firm in a spinoff of The Split. It’s full-on sudsy fun right from the off

I do like a soap that doesn’t hang about. That works itself up to a creamy lather and invites you to shut the bathroom door against real life and dive into a hot bath with it immediately for a much-needed break.

The Split Up delivers full-on sudsy fun from the start. From the team behind The Split, it’s another glossy tale of a family-run family law firm specialising in the never-too-complicated divorce cases of any high net worth individuals in their vicinity. This time, it’s written by Ursula Rani Sarma instead of Abi Morgan, the family is British South Asian and the location is Manchester not London, but beyond that it’s very much business as usual. A case of the week functions as the still eye of the ever-growing storm composed of the love lives, personal concerns and professional ambitions of the interrelated lawyers and their friends, colleagues and enemies – who are often, of course, one and the same thing. Mild glamour meets much plot; viewer happiness ensues.

The Split Up is available on BBC iPlayer

Former charity worker tells Big Brue festival in Somerset of the strange comforts that helped her during imprisonment

It is a TV show about women confined to prison in the US, but Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe found watching Orange is the New Black with her fellow inmates a strange comfort after smuggling episodes into her Iranian jail cell, downloaded on to an illegal USB stick.

The British-Iranian former charity worker was detained in 2016 for more than five years and kept in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran.

Cellista, an aerialist who regularly performs upside down with her cello, shares what her life looks like training for the stage

Mastering the cello is hard enough, but Cellista also regularly performs upside down. She’s based in Las Vegas, but the aerialist spoke to us while traveling in Germany, and told us about what her life looks like training and writing for the stage.

Rory left the monastery after feeling lonely; with Orla, herself a Catholic, he’s been making up for lost time

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

We had sex after a week. I remember thinking afterwards wow, everything has changed

To paraphrase a former Manchester United manager, Michael Carrick knew that the storm would come. Everything went a little too perfectly for him in the second half of last season. There would be ill winds at some point. Which was what Carrick could feel before this visit to Fulham. What were his emotions afterwards?

Relief was surely the main thing. Because after the derby defeat by Manchester City last Sunday and the midweek Carabao Cup exit against Brighton – both at Old Trafford – Carrick was starring at an unwanted hat-trick. All this on the back of other wobbles since the opening weekend when United lost at Hull. It is all extremely angsty and edgy.

Manchester City sent a message to Arsenal with this chaotic victory that takes Enzo Maresca’s team three points clear as leaders during the three-week international break.

Until the Premier League resumes on 10 October City can enjoy their status while Mikel Arteta’s champions have to stew following Saturday’s 3-0 humbling at Brighton.

At the final whistle, victory secured, Andoni Iraola embraced both his current players and those he guided to new heights at Bournemouth last season. Liverpool are not yet the overwhelming, suffocating force Iraola wants them to become but they did enough to claim three points here, Alexander Isak capping a peculiar performance with a simple finish.

Cody Gakpo was again the architect, the Dutchman the supplier for all four of Isak’s goals this season. Isak’s only other shot before scoring was to balloon a first-time effort high and wide but his second-half strike was sufficient to return Liverpool to winning ways in the Premier League.

• McCullum: Brook has ‘grown as captain and person’

• England begin ODI series against Sri Lanka this week

England’s white-ball coach, Brendon McCullum, was full of praise for the captain, Harry Brook, after Saturday’s eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka completed a T20 series whitewash and took the side to No 1 in the world.

Brook, player of the T20 series against Sri Lanka, has now won 23 of his 26 completed games as captain. If he is not yet considered a suitable candidate as Test leader, the cap fits nicely in the smash and grab format.

• World No 294 lets victory slip in agonising fashion

• JJ Spaun triumphs by two shots at Wentworth

We will come to JJ Spaun and Jeremy Clarkson later. Only those without an ounce of compassion in their body could feel no sympathy for Manuel Elvira. The Spaniard, without a professional win to his name, stood on the 18th fairway at Wentworth’s West Course with one of golf’s most extraordinary stories in his grasp. Having just eagled the 71st hole and found the short grass on the friendly par five, the 30-year-old who began tournament week as the world’s 294th ranked player knew a birdie would seal the PGA Championship title. A par would force Spaun into a playoff.

What happened next was a form of sporting torture rather than the realisation of a fairytale. Elvira pulled his layup into a bunker, flew the green, fluffed a chip into another sand trap and missed a bogey putt from 4ft. He did exceptionally well not to burst into tears. The disastrous 18th meant Elvira finished in a four-way tie for second place. Even Spaun, a winner on his Wentworth debut, had to be bashful at the manner of success.

Chicago were held to three points as Caleb Williams was carted off, while New Orleans fought back to upset Baltimore

Bengals 0-0 Texans 13:20, 1st quarter

It is ruled as not a catch so the Bengals punt it away. Cincy bring up a quick 3rd down on the Texans. CJ Stroud backpedals finds his receiver but the ball is juggled and the Texans have a punt of their own.

Will Reichard 35 yard field goal

Family is determined to ensure her ‘legacy lives on’ three years after the Sheffield United player’s death

Olivia Cusack says her sister, the late Maddy Cusack, is on her mind every single day and she is determined to ensure her “legacy lives on” three years after the former England youth international midfielder’s death.

Olivia, together with family and friends of Maddy, walked 29 miles from Bramall Lane, Sheffield United’s home, to their family’s home in Horsley, near Derby, on Saturday to raise funds and awareness. Maddy’s loved ones are still enduring a “frustrating and confusing” wait for answers about the circumstances surrounding her death on 20 September 2023.

• GB pair win doubles match in straight sets

• Finals to be played in Bologna in November

Few people across London enjoyed a more soothing night’s sleep than Leon Smith on Saturday. After an ideal first day for his team in their Davis Cup qualifier against Ecuador, where his singles players handled business efficiently, the Great Britain captain had the luxury of calling upon one member of each of the two best doubles pairs in the world to close out the tie.

In just their second match as partners rather than rivals the world No 1, Henry Patten, and Neal Skupski, the US Open champion a week ago, played their roles to perfection as they convincingly sealed their place in the Davis Cup Final 8 with a clinical 6-3, 6-4 victory against Gonzalo Escobar and Diego Hidalgo, securing for Great Britain an unassailable 3-0 lead. Harry Wendelken, the British No 7, closed out the tie with a 6-2, 6-3 win against Angel Veliz in the dead rubber.

• Remco Evenepoel dominates men’s event in Montreal

• Marlen Reusser denies Zoe Backstedt in women’s race

Remco Evenepoel etched his name into the history books with a dominant fourth successive men’s world time-trial victory in Montreal on Sunday.

The 2024 Olympic champion came into the race as the overwhelming favourite and he did not disappoint. Evenepoel was already more than 30 seconds ahead of the rest by the second intermediate time check, just over halfway along the 39.2km (24.4 mile) route.

As the organisation meets this week, it remains the best hope for restoring order. But it relies on goodwill from the US president – and that is lacking

If all goes to plan, at some stage in the coming weeks 15 diplomats will emerge from a small sound-proofed room deep in the bowels of the United Nations headquarters in New York and announce the organisation’s next secretary-general.

The person they choose will face a combination of challenges unlike any that their predecessors have had to deal with. Two of the security council’s permanent members, the US and Russia, are engaged in wars of choice that have no end in sight. A UN commission of inquiry has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, but the UN has effectively been reduced to the role of bystander, pushed out by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. The climate crisis is creating a cascade of new humanitarian disasters, while every day now seems to bring a new security threat caused by the unregulated rise of AI.

Steve Bloomfield is the former international editor of the Observer and a previous winner of the Orwell prize

Scale of debt issuance being used to fund the hectic pace of the datacentre rollout by tech firms is a worry

Warnings about powerful and uncontrolled AI have dominated the headlines this past week. But even amid the omens of apocalypse, it is still worth asking if the entire AI-industrial complex is sailing towards a financial iceberg.

It will hardly be our most pressing concern if the bots are poised to take over the world, but a collapse of the AI bubble would have repercussions far beyond the US.

Until now I’d never realised how much work is involved in sorting out a parent’s affairs, and how much heartbreak

In all the talk of the five stages of grief, I don’t recall one of them being spending hours on hold to energy suppliers. Perhaps I misunderstood, though, and that’s entirely what they’re about. This call won’t take long (denial); aargh, are they ever going to answer? (anger); if I hang on for five minutes more, they’ll definitely pick up (bargaining); they are never, ever going to pick up (depression); and I live on hold now – this is my life (acceptance).

You hear the term “sadmin” bandied about, you understand there’s paperwork to do after somebody dies – but until it’s you who has to do it, you don’t realise how much, what it entails or how encompassing it is. My mum’s death has basically become my full-time job. The hours are terrible, the pay is worse and the promotion prospects sobering, to say the least.

Mealtimes offer a pause in the day for parents and children to sit together, listen to one another and trade stories

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

When I was growing up in a Muslim household, food was rarely just food. As the youngest child, my job was to bring out a large water jug with a matching basin pot and soap to help the family wash their hands. Mum would distribute freshly baked breads to everyone to have with the soup or curry. Dad would have me sit next to him as he presided over the gathering – asking questions, giving directions all the while passing food and utensils around. My older brother would take turns helping everyone wash their hands.

There was even a small ritual around something as ordinary as a piece of bread. If it fell on the ground anywhere in the house or was even seen on the ground outside, we would pick it up, clean it, kiss it respectfully and place it somewhere clean and safe. Food was not to be treated carelessly.

The US’s deployment of weaponry in space marks the latest backward step from the show’s optimistic conception of the future

Who among us doesn’t dream of space in their youth?

OK, maybe some of us. Like the ones with lives. While you were out playing hopscotch with little Jimmy and Susie, I was locked in my room mainlining episodes of Star Trek or the weird, sanitized version of Aliens that aired on broadcast TV. Fantastical science-fiction adventure seemed to offer more than playground games and actual human connection. Spaceships over relationships.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

Another true-crime drama about a woman accused of murder is hitting our screens, feeding into our culture’s unhelpful obsession with ‘female rage’

On 20 June 1893, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a packed courtroom waited with bated breath for the jury to return its verdict following a gruelling double-murder trial. Against a backdrop of intense media interest, they had heard the prosecution argue that the accused had hacked to death their own parents with a hatchet, had burned their clothing to hide evidence of blood, and had done so out of hatred. The question the jury was asked to answer was simple – was Lizzie Andrew Borden guilty of murdering her father and stepmother? Jurors took just one hour to reach a decision: not guilty.

Yet, almost as soon as the trial came to an end, the mythmaking around Borden began – from fevered speculation about her motives and the infamous nursery rhyme to the many film and TV retellings of the story. The latest incarnation, Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, opens with an axe-wielding Borden committing the murders, and frames the crimes around a fictionalised queer romance between her and the family’s housemaid, Bridget Sullivan.

This week’s government announcement on school food standards is huge. It’s based on common sense and science. Beautiful!

More than 20 years ago, when I started the campaign and TV series School Dinners, I couldn’t believe that we had standards for dog food but no standards for the food we fed our children at school. I have never, and will never, stop banging that drum – even after this week’s momentous announcement on school food standards in England. Because it is so important we remember where we started from.

Children in the state sector are at school for 190 days a year. And if they’re eating breakfast and lunch there, the majority of what they consume each day is in the hands of their school. When we know that children are consuming less than half the recommended fruit and vegetables, but twice the recommended sugar, school food is a massive opportunity to directly improve diets at scale.

OpenAI claims its agents have solved the Navier-Stokes problem. But questions remain about how useful and independent its work really is

On 8 September, OpenAI claimed that its AI agents had solved the Navier-Stokes problem, one of the most famous and difficult challenges in mathematics. Had a human solved it, they would have collected both prize money and plaudits from their fellows. The announcement instead ignited what some mathematicians have called an “existential crisis” in their field over the power of AI, and accusations that OpenAI misused human work.

The maths behind Navier-Stokes is difficult to understand, but the critiques levelled by mathematicians will be familiar to artists, office workers, or anyone else concerned about AI. OpenAI’s results, like any arising from a large language model, depend on digesting work by human mathematicians. The OpenAI paper cites sources, but many believe the company didn’t give sufficient credit, especially to several mathematicians believed to be very close to a solution – bad form that erases human ingenuity and hogs all the glory. The mathematician Tristan Buckmaster also has concerns that work he was doing on Navier-Stokes using OpenAI’s Codex model was seen by the OpenAI team. OpenAI has denied directly accessing this material, but could not rule out that data from Buckmaster’s use of their products “helped improve our model”.

The compelling documentary series is drawing to a close. But following people from childhood raises difficult ethical questions

In 1963, a television crew documented the lives of 14 children. Michael Apted, then a young researcher, saw Seven Up! as an opportunity to expose the British class system, juxtaposing public schoolboys with counterparts from children’s homes and council estates. Seven years later, Apted returned to direct an update – then went back again, and again. For the most part, his subjects followed the socioeconomic paths one might have predicted. But what emerged over the decades was much more piercing and poignant than initially envisaged. It turned out – as its participants have noted – that the programme was as much about life itself as class.

The final instalment, 70 Up, currently being shown in two parts on ITV, is extraordinarily moving. We know that the children we see in the original footage will struggle with divorce, bereavement, depression, homelessness, redundancy and ill-health. Two of the original participants, and Apted himself, have died; Nick Hitchon, the boy from a Yorkshire farm who became an expert in nuclear fusion, gave a final interview days before his death. Yet these closing episodes, directed by Asif Kapadia, also capture deep joys such as parenthood, and the satisfaction of the self-knowledge they have earned. There are no simple arcs of redemption or tragedy, but something more muddled and nuanced.

Readers respond to William Pettigrew’s article about the lasting significance of the slave trade to Britain’s politics, economy, institutions and culture

William Pettigrew’s book, Britain’s Slave Traders: A Forgotten History, adds a further dimension and depth to our understanding of how entrenched and significant Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade was. The landmark University College London’s Legacies of British Slavery project previously documented the “compensation” payments to 46,000 persons who, at the time of its abolition in 1834, had a financial interest in slave ownership – the £20m paid out is generally reckoned to be worth around £17bn at 2019 prices, or 40% of total government expenditure in 1834 – a vast national debt that was only fully amortised in 2015.

The earlier study thus highlighted the extensive involvement of sections of the British public in profiting from slavery, and the further financial benefit from “compensation”. The recent study tracks back into the prior history from the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade through the 18th century, and shows how its tentacles throughout that time reached out deep into the economy and society. The economic impact over this whole period should not be underestimated. As Pettigrew observes (Slavery was not a footnote to British history. It helped shape the nation, 14 September), the slave trade provided some of the seed funding for the Industrial Revolution. The flow of income back from the Caribbean sugar plantations provided capital surpluses to fund new industries, through an expanded banking system, not to mention personal wealth. Defending these assets in turn stimulated the growth of the British navy, and its eventual control of the seas.

Readers reflect on an article which explored whether we should be cleaning ourselves twice

With reference to your article about the merits, or not, of double cleansing (Double cleansing: should we really be cleaning ourselves twice in each shower?, 15 September), I wish to report that I shower once a week, while in between times wash daily with soap, flannel and a bowl of water (which then flushes the loo). I do this because I am deeply concerned at our misuse of the planet’s resources. We currently use fresh water at a faster rate globally than it can be replenished. Here in the UK, it is predicted that by 2055 we will have a 5bn litre a day shortfall for public water supplies – with a further 1bn litre a day deficit for the wider economy. My skin is perfectly healthy and I don’t smell anything other than naturally human.
Judith Russenberger
London

• All right, so I am a man, and I suspect that this piece is aimed at women, but do we really need all this? It is now nearly 10 years that I have not used any body wash or hair shampoo. My showers last no more than two or three minutes: any more is a waste of hot water. The run-off from these “cleansers” is not environmentally friendly.

The actor Cheryl Hall certainly made an impression as a Kent county councillor when I served with her as a Labour member. After her first win for the party in Ramsgate South in 1993, she held the seat in 1997, while on the same day standing unsuccessfully as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Canterbury.

She deployed her acting skills to make her points forcibly on a NOC (no overall control) council run by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, specialising in the arts and culture. Indeed, her approach to debate was no holds barred for an old-fashioned council that had probably long needed a shake-up.

There should be provision for people who find themselves out of work when they approach state pension age, writes Peter Wade

I am now in my 61st year, haven’t worked for more than two years and have stopped applying for jobs (‘I feel invisible’: over-50s reveal harsh realities of trying to get a job, 17 September). The bulk of my career was as an advice worker, specialising in debt, housing and energy advice.

Some years ago I worked with a client in her late 50s who had been a hospital cleaner. She had expected to retire earlier, but the changes to women’s state pension age meant that she faced several more years before retirement. She could no longer do the physical work of cleaning, yet starting a new career while managing her physical health seemed a daunting prospect. At the time I was looking at this situation from the other side of the desk. Now my perspective is rather different.

US president on Truth Social claims his new plan for the 250ft arch comes at the ‘strong request’ of the US military

Donald Trump is proffering a new argument for building his triumphal arch in Washington DC: it will be converted into a “top grade military complex” replete with drone and ammunition storage space and customised sniper facilities on the roof and plaza.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, Trump claimed that his new plan came at the “strong request” of the US military. He said the 250ft structure would be able to “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage”.

Pop star has faced boycott calls since rapper Macklemore was removed from tour after shouting ‘free Palestine’ at concert

Ed Sheeran has opened a solo concert in Philadelphia with comments about Gaza, saying what is happening is “catastrophic and unjustifiable”, in his first show since his tour was plunged into turmoil.

“My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives,” Sheeran said on Saturday, adding that he wanted his music and shows to be about unity and humanity, not politics.

Action against Ofcom comes as social media companies are being accused of using courts to slow down implementation

Meta has launched a fresh legal challenge against Britain’s media regulator in the latest of a slew of actions by social media companies who are accused of using the courts to slow down implementation of the Online Safety Act.

Lawyers for the parent company of Facebook served notice during the week in an appeal against placing WhatsApp and Instagram, which are also owned by Meta, in a category that subjects them to additional duties.

As attacks on Muslim places of worship rise, more than 100 mosques this weekend have offered conversation, food and friendship to challenge prejudice

At one mosque in north London, a woman shouted at worshippers that more of their children should be killed, as children had been in Gaza. On another occasion, gas pipes were ripped from the building and reconfigured so leaking gas built up inside it.

These are among a series of incidents the London Islamic Cultural Society has faced in the past three years. But rather than retreat behind closed doors, the mosque has opened them wider. It is one of more than 100 across the UK, including in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Southend and Cardiff, that have invited in members of the public this weekend to learn more about Islam and British Muslims.

The queer period drama wins Oscar-predicting award, being named the most popular audience film at the festival

Spanish queer drama La Bola Negra has won this year’s people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival.

The film, which takes place in 1932, 1937 and 2017, focuses on the lives of interconnected gay men. It premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival with the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw calling it “handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed” in a four-star review.

People are increasingly crossing paths with the wild animals as homes ring the outskirts of forests, sparking a new era of coexistence

Every year, as summer draws to a close and fall begins, California’s bears get hungry.

Black bears have long roamed the state, hunting for acorns, ants and pine nuts by the bucketload to pack on calories before hibernation. But increasingly, for every berry and root, there’s an even greater temptation: our trash and the detritus of human existence.

Exclusive: Five gardening teams shortlisted for Royal Horticultural Society’s new Railway Stations in Bloom award

Every year since 1964, towns across the UK have bloomed with hanging baskets and brightly coloured flowerbeds planted by residents.

They wield their trowels in aid of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom competition, a coveted accolade for the 1,600 communities that enter each year.

While the country’s ambition is to be the ‘Saudi Arabia of green energy’, communities in the north-east are bearing the cost in diminished health and livelihoods

Beneath the power lines cutting across Antonio de Souza’s property in Serra do Mel, in north-east Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte state, rows of cashew trees once stood – until the clean energy company ordered them to be cut down.

De Souza cannot plant crops in the affected area and the tractor cannot be driven through it in bad weather, as the driver risks an electric shock. Cattle, another source of local income, are forbidden from grazing near the cables.

Much of the UK is still officially in drought after its hottest summer on record, but grasslands are slowly recovering their colour

The landscapes of southern England and Wales are slowly regaining their colour after this summer’s extreme heat.

The UK’s hottest summer on record left the south of the country dried out and brown, making the impact of the drought particularly visual.

Data raid comes amid targeting of lifeboat charity by far-right agitators who object to migrant boat rescues

Supporters of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have been warned that their personal information may have been stolen by hackers amid targeting of the charity by far-right agitators.

In a letter accompanying the autumn copy of its Lifeboat magazine, the charity warned members that their “name, contact details and records of interactions with the RNLI” could have been breached in the raid on a company it uses for customer relationship management.

Exclusive: Analysis ‘lays bare’ something midwives already know from their day-to-day work

About 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse are estimated to be made to maternity services in England every year, analysis has found.

The figures are likely to be an underestimate of the true scale of disclosures, according to experts, highlighting the role maternity professionals play in identifying abuse.

Bridget Phillipson says Burnham’s past criticisms of US president not an issue as PM prepares to meet Trump at UN

Next month’s budget will be made more difficult by Donald Trump’s war with Iran, one of Andy Burnham’s cabinet ministers has said, while adding she did not expect the prime minister’s previous disparaging comments about the US president to be an issue.

Burnham is expected to meet Trump early next week at the UN general assembly summit in New York, the pair having previously spoken twice by phone since Burnham entered No 10.

Comments come after he accused King Charles of gaslighting him in response to claims made in new memoir

Earl Spencer has said the relationship between the press and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “echoes” the way the media treated his sister Diana, Princess of Wales.

In an interview with the BBC to be aired on Sunday evening, Spencer described the press’s coverage of Harry and Meghan as having a “cancerous influence”, adding it would be “beholden on people to learn from Diana’s example”.

Candidates have been selected for November’s midterms – have Republicans and Democrats made the right choices?

Primary season has officially concluded in the United States, with Democrats leading the polls among voters amid widespread economic anxieties, a war with Iran and Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda continuing into the end of the year.

Democratic and Republican voters have selected contenders for key races in the 3 November midterms that will decide the balance of power in Congress, and the future of both parties. Democrats have been rocked by the primary victories of leftwing candidates. Republicans have doubled down on backing the president’s policies, despite his low approval ratings. And both parties are navigating the fallout from a series of scandals that have forced some candidates from the race, while others decided to press on.

Former president of Chile drops out after support collapsed in security council straw poll, leaving seven candidates in contest

Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, has withdrawn her candidacy to become the next secretary general of the ⁠UN, ending an attempt ​that had struggled to gain traction among security council members.

Bachelet, 74, announced ⁠her decision in a video posted on Instagram on Saturday, saying: “I will now continue, with the ⁠same determination as always, my international work.”

Rabid goats at a North Carolina petting zoo and a diseased beaver attacking a Maryland boy have set the public on edge

Recent unusual incidents involving humans and rabid animals and a subsequent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory have prompted concerns about rabies, but it’s not clear if there has actually been an increase in cases of the deadly disease in the United States, experts say.

In recent months, rabid beavers have attacked three people in Maryland, and hundreds of people were exposed to goats with rabies at a petting zoo in North Carolina, according to news reports. The CDC issued a health advisory on 10 September “in response to recent reports of increases in human exposures to rabid or possibly rabid animals”.

Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter of man who stabbed soldier continues to divide country

Israel’s president has pardoned a combat medic who shot dead a badly wounded Palestinian attacker who had stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank, in a case that divided the country a decade ago.

Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter and his release after serving two-thirds of his 18-month sentence drew enormous attention in Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jewish men.

Unit1 hopes to offer lower cost version of shows such as Abba Voyage, showcasing living and dead artists in any venue

The former chief executive of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s entertainment group has obtained a near-£15m investment for his UK music tech startup that hopes to recreate classic concerts by manifesting musicians as digital avatars.

Unit1 was set up last year by Barney Wragg, an entertainment executive who ran Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Cats-to-Evita empire for five years from late 2011. It has secured the $20m in funding from a group of investors, including tech backer Balderton Capital through its partner Daniel Waterhouse, who made early investments in Spotify.

Rafael Moreno, whose company has opened demo plant in Brazil, says market is ‘nervous’ as Trump-Xi summit looms

The head of a mining company hoping to supply the EU with rare earths in two years’ time has said it is “paramount” to end China’s stranglehold on the supply of the raw materials used in everything from cars to wind turbines and military jets.

As Donald Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping, prepare to meet on Thursday in their second summit of the year, Rafael Moreno said it was also “imperative” that they do a deal for Beijing to ease up, once again, on its threat to ban exports of rare earths.

Environmental Protection Agency asked firm to choose rules it wanted for dicamba, then put the choices in a proposed federal rule

The EPA allowed pesticide giant Bayer to pick from a menu of regulation options for the controversial and destructive weedkiller dicamba, newly released internal agency documents show.

The documents provide an unusually clear look into the process of developing pesticide regulations, which is typically done out of public view. It shows in detail how the EPA asked Bayer which regulations it wanted, received a response from Bayer, then put Bayer’s choices into a proposed federal rule.

Disclosure comes after OpenAI and Anthropic hacks amid fears that tech firms unable to control powerful AI models

In a first for Google, the company confirmed that its AI model, Gemini, breached the security of three other companies in May. The hacks occurred during a cybersecurity evaluation by AI-security firm Irregular.

Irregular, an Israel-based startup that scrutinizes the security of advanced AI systems, was also at the center of some of the recent OpenAI and Anthropic hacks of third-party entities, including OpenAI’s breach of AI software company, Hugging Face.

Arcola theatre, London
This slick production of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s adaptation is hampered by its own cleverness

Here is Henry James’s canonical ghost story with modern-day jump scares. And, more audaciously, a new framing device by writer-adapter, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, which explains itself in a final, added, twist.

The jump scares do their work, Hattie North’s jagged sound design enacting its shocks, and the production is slick and stylised – but not all the elements pay off.

At Arcola theatre, London, until 10 October

The presenters look terrified and some of the celebs are hard to identify, but Strictly remains a rare refuge of joy

At this point, Strictly Come Dancing cannot be allowed to fail. When we’re all living off our Wes Streeting-mandated prepper rations, it’s the only thing that will keep us going, linking us to a time when joy, sparkle and diversity brought the nation together. Enshittification stalks the show – it has long felt too repetitive, its celeb lineups seem to get feebler each year, and the departure of longstanding presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman threatened to be a lethal blow – so there’s a lot riding on this new series.

“Strictly Come Dancing – still fabulous,” said the continuity announcer introducing the launch show, not sounding entirely sure.

Raised on punk, alt-comedy and the church, Cregger’s Lynchian approach to horror is anything but typical. After two wildly original hits, his pivot to a 30-year-old video game has caused a storm among protective fans

When Barbarian, Zach Cregger’s debut film as a solo writer-director, came out in 2022, it was a big success, creating a buzz among horror connoisseurs, garnering good reviews, and grossing $46m. Then his second film, Weapons, came out in 2025 and did even better. Mounting industry buzz around the project crystallised into a fierce bidding war; Jordan Peele was reportedly desperate to produce and, incensed by his failure to secure the rights, allegedly fired his managers. The rumours went viral, resulting in a wave of incredible PR that saw the film wildly outperform box office expectations and win an Academy Award (for Amy Madigan’s blunt-fringed, bonsai-pruning best supporting actress turn as instantly classic villain Aunt Gladys).

Even if Cregger had not had a box-office smash that crossed over into awards contention, there would still be an atmosphere of hushed expectation around his next move. Both Barbarian and Weapons addressed hot-button issues – sexual assault and school shootings, respectively – while resisting easy interpretation. Both, too, started out seemingly heading in one narrative direction, before thrillingly careening off elsewhere. Thus, with just two features, Cregger had established a reputation for totally terrifying, utterly unpredictable and – most importantly – genuinely original movies.

Six-part drama Gènesi tells the story of Adrià’s Catalan restaurant El Bulli from the day he arrived as a kitchen hand

Revered and reviled, during the 28 years he presided over El Bulli, a small restaurant in a remote corner of Catalonia, Ferran Adrià changed cooking for ever.

Now he is the subject of Gènesi (Genesis), a six-part TV drama screening on Catalan television with a worldwide release later in the year that recounts the story of El Bulli from the day he arrived there in 1983 as a kitchen hand with no background at all in haute cuisine.

Lawyers juggle private chaos with professional brilliance in this new series. Plus: Michelle Keegan’s DI tackles a murder case and a corrupt police force. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC One
A spin-off from Abi Morgan’s The Split, this is another glossy divorce drama with the same soapy beats – and more lawyers who have a better handle on their clients’ relationships than their own. Aria is expecting to inherit her family’s Manchester firm from her bereaved father; it’s why she’s been putting off her own wedding for 10 years. But an old flame, a high-profile case with a podcasting couple and the discovery of an affair soon change her course. Hollie Richardson

Thousands of knock-off records worth a fortune are being seized in the UK by anti-counterfeit police stings

From 2017 onwards, Rehan Ahmed styled himself as a savvy business owner. But behind the facade of a successful entrepreneur lurked one stark fact: his empire was built on fakery.

On Friday, the man behind the biggest-ever UK case of producing fraudulent vinyl, who sold counterfeit copies of records by some of the world’s biggest artists including Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Kendrick Lamar, was jailed.

Kings Place, London
Works by the not-quite-minimalist composer’s included her Realm Variations and quartet Stringsongs in a compelling concert

There’s no one quite like Meredith Monk. So often grouped with her lionised contemporaries Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley and La Monte Young, she is 83 to their 90-odd years and sports long plaited hair as reliably as Reich wears a baseball cap. Yet she refuses the label “minimalism” for her music, and composition is just one element of a creative life that also takes in singing, choreography, film-making and drawing.

Monk was not present at this performance marking the launch of Phaedra Ensemble’s new album of her music, though she did loom briefly over the audience on video, professing “it’s a dream of mine for this music to be recorded and played”. (Compare that to the fortunes of Glass’s works.) But she had been closely involved, having invited the group to record some of her music after hearing them play.

Omar and Jamal Ikram, 21-year-old brothers, are making lo-fi glitchy dance-pop with the melodic sensibilities of Bollywood music

From Aldershot, Hampshire
Recommended if you like 2hollis, the Hellp, Jai Paul
Up next New single Wish U out now

You, like me, may be growing tired of the 2020s’ so-called “indie sleaze” revival, which has so far yielded a few good parties and not that much good music. But the music of the Twins – Aldershot-born brothers Omar and Jamal Ikram – is made of sturdier stuff. The 21-year-olds are progenitors of a sound they call “Bollywood electronic” – a strain of loud, lo-fi, ultra-glitchy dance-pop that sounds like 2hollis if his songs were heavy with screwy samples of south Asian pop. Their debut album, last year’s Turmeric, captures the still-potent appeal of Jai Paul’s classic Str8 Outta Mumbai – which fused the lackadaisical sheen of 2010s electronic pop with the shining rhythmic and melodic sensibilities of Bollywood music – and, as is de rigueur for the contemporary era, makes it bolshie and frenetic, taking in the euphoric aggression of early Skrillex and unnerving noise of Aphex Twin.

Turmeric was a minor hit, thanks in part to Fuckersby, a collaboration with on-the-rise British rapper Fakemink, as well as the Twins’ monthly NTS show, also called Turmeric, which turns one this month. (Its combination of classic British pop stars such as Lily Allen, Punjabi artists such as Sukshinder Shinda, and contemporary electronic acts the Hellp and Sophia Stel gives it the feeling of a late-night pirate radio station totally out of time and place.) The duo’s follow-up EP There&Back, released in May, polishes up the Twins’ sound a little, but not that much – if anything, their collaborations with Rada and Varg2TM on There&Back are even louder and wilder than anything on Turmeric. The duo’s future plans aren’t clear, but their mission is: “We don’t want brown kids to feel like they have to fit into anything,” Jamal said in an interview. “People are always gonna try to label what you’re doing, but you don’t have to move like that.” Shaad D’Souza

(March Hare Music)
This fusion of western folk and the traditional music of the Baka people creates an uneven patchwork of sound – but it astonishes when their vocals are placed front and centre

Over the past 30 years, British folk musicians Su Hart and Martin Cradick have been developing a distinct fusion of traditional Cameroonian vocal music with western instrumentation. Their 1993 debut record Spirits of the Forest, released on Joe Boyd’s Hannibal Records, focused on the female singers of the Baka people, who use a polyphonic style of yodelling to evoke dawn spirits. Hart and Cradick have maintained the relationship over the decades, splitting royalties equally and supporting the community through their Global Music Exchange charity. Sing the World Awake, their first album in 12 years, centres field recordings made with a new Baka generation and deepens their exploration into an ancient oral tradition.

Cradick’s instrumental arrangements are expansive and wide-ranging. Topé Malangui Kpode features sprightly, Ghanaian highlife-inspired guitar melodies and percussive polyrhythms. Fair Molly (Mál Bhán Ní Chuilleanáin) features Gaelic vocals from guest singer Irene O’Meara, and The Swift harnesses the intricate folk sound of Ben Moneypenny’s violin playing. Each song alights on snatches of Baka vocals, although the overall effect of splicing these unique melodies into different genres creates an uneven patchwork of sound.

The author of The Corrections talks about a new TV adaptation, the future of reading and why creating new work is ‘horrible’

When HBO dropped its plan to adapt Jonathan Franzen’s bestselling novel The Corrections in 2012, the author was so relieved he says he performed his first and last cartwheel on the lawn of his home in Santa Cruz, California. There had been an attempted film adaptation before that, but he had been unsurprised by its failure, having warned that it was impossible to condense his densely plotted doorstopper of a novel into a feature-length film. This time, Franzen had signed up as co-writer, with filmmaker Noah Baumbach. He says that HBO was “excluded from the development process. Mistake, because we didn’t know how to do TV.” Franzen himself hadn’t even owned a telly until a few years earlier and certainly didn’t have cable, so as he was wrestling with the script, he began renting box sets. Around three episodes into one drama series, he realised “we have no idea what we’re doing. This is not how you do TV. This is bad,” he recalls. The result, he says, was “one of the worst pilots anyone has ever made”.

Franzen used to think TV was the “enemy” of the serious novelist. In a well-known 1996 essay for Harper’s Magazine about the decline of high literature he had complained bitterly about the “banal ascendancy of television”. But after the HBO series failed, he watched Breaking Bad, Nurse Jackie and Silicon Valley and loved them. In the age of social media, AI and the endless scroll, TV has started to look like a “friend”, he says now. And The Corrections is finally being adapted into an eight-part Netflix series, with Meryl Streep playing Enid Lambert, the matriarch clinging to dreams of hosting a perfect last family Christmas, even as her husband Alfred is in terminal decline with Parkinson’s and dementia and their grownup children’s lives are falling apart in terrible, comical ways. Once Streep announced she was in, Franzen felt the “chances of making this show have gone up above 50%”. He says he’s a month away from finishing the script.

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some great new paperbacks, from an epic multigenerational saga by a Booker winner to a biography of an iconic Victorian poet

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A government scheme is giving citizens cash for spending time with a good book. We ask behavioural scientists, along with The Anxious Generation author and psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whether it’ll help make the habit stick

Could the solution to the reading crisis lie in paying people to put down their phones and pick up a book? That’s what one government, at least, is resorting to: this month, Singapore launched a scheme promising actual cash to citizens as a reward for logging reading time on a government website.

It’s unlikely to make you megabucks – you have to rack up 50 reading sessions of at least 15 minutes to earn one Singapore dollar (£0.59), with only one logged session allowed per day. But behavioural scientists and psychologists told the Guardian such a scheme could still help boost a habit in precipitous decline.

Celebrated thriller writer Michel Bussi explains why the plot of his new novel Code Yesterday isn’t so far fetched, saying ‘I wanted to give women revenge’

Relations between France and England have rarely looked brighter. The recent loan of the Bayeux tapestry has become a symbol of a renewed friendship between the two countries, evidenced further by the numerous smiles exchanged on the occasion between prime minister Andy Burnham and French president Emmanuel Macron. A new book released in France at the start of this month, however, could soon darken the sunny skies of a revitalised entente cordiale.

In Code Yesterday, author Michel Bussi proposes that every single song credited to the Beatles was in fact written by a woman … of French descent.

Her last case was 50 years ago, written by Agatha Christie just before she died. Could I really follow in the footsteps of the Queen of Crime?

When I was asked to write the first full-length Miss Marple novel since Sleeping Murder was published posthumously, 50 years ago in October, I immediately thought of my granny. My first encounter with the world of Agatha Christie was through her. Now I come to think of it, she was a rather Marple-ish figure in many ways: a keen knitter and gardener with a brilliant mind (she could complete the “big” crossword in seemingly about 15 minutes), highly perceptive about people and human nature and with a powerful moral compass. While kind and generous beyond measure, at times, like Miss Marple, she showed a steelier side.

Christie created Jane Marple in a Christmas magazine story called The Tuesday Night Club in 1927, and this “white-haired old lady” made her book debut in 1930 with The Murder at the Vicarage. Rivalling Hercule Poirot in her readers’ affections, Miss Marple eventually appeared in 12 of the author’s 66 detective novels, plus 20 of her 160 short stories. With more than 1bn Agatha Christie books sold in English, and another 1bn sold in translation, they are some of the most perpetually loved works ever written. But though Sophie Hannah was commissioned by Christie’s family to publish an authorised continuation of her Poirot novels in 2013, no one had ever been asked to write a new Miss Marple. Until now …

The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old.)

If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold much less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it.

The distinctively British RPG is returning courtesy of the makers of Forza Horizon – with comedy talent such as Richard Ayoade and Natasia Demetriou voicing sweary characters. We had our first play and spoke to its developer

When Playground Games was founded in 2010, its objective was straightforward: to make the best cars in video games. Operating out of an unassuming white building in Leamington Spa, the studio sought to challenge Gran Turismo with its critically acclaimed British racing alternative: the acclaimed free-roaming Forza Horizon series. Yet as the team grew, so did their ambitions. Now they are making the most intriguing British fantasy game we have seen in many years.

For those who have never ventured into Albion, Fable is a quintessentially British role playing game. Created by Lionhead Studios for the original Xbox in 2004, it boasted cheeky charm alongside world-altering player choices, and its droll writing was brought to life in later iterations by national treasures such as Stephen Fry and Simon Pegg. Thanks to its unique blend of farce and fantasy, Fable grew into a globally beloved franchise – before Microsoft unceremoniously shuttered Lionhead in 2016, after mandating that the studio turn its star series into a multiplayer game. The result, Fable Legends, was never released.

We have a first play of the forthcoming Tomb Raider remake and speak with its developers. Can they improve on the gameplay without losing what made the 1996 original such a classic?

We join Lara Croft in St Francis’ Folly – inspired by the Unesco-listed monasteries of Meteora in Greece – as the light shines through the cracked ceiling and a flock of bats glide across the vast ruins below. When Lara leaps down to the monastery’s crumbling pillared courtyard, it becomes clear that these screeching, leathery creatures aren’t just set dressing. As they lurch towards her with unpredictable movements, she dispatches the swarm with a flurry of gun fire and panicked punches.

It’s a suitably cinematic reintroduction to our heroine and her very first adventure. Co-developed by longtime Lara custodians Crystal Dynamics and Polish studio Flying Wild Hog, Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of the classic 1996 game Tomb Raider, and this familiar cliffside location is now brimming with new life and believable detail. Yet while our reunion gets off to an auspicious start, I have my concerns. It feels like reconnecting with an old friend at the pub, only for them to begin spouting conspiracy theories two pints in.

Minghella theatre, Reading
Soprano Claire Booth’s mouth is isolated against a black background to capture the racing brain of a desperate woman, with added operatic flair

There is a long preamble to Samuel Beckett’s short play, performed in darkness by an unstoppably animated mouth. First, Luciano Berio’s experimental Sequenza III, performed by soprano Claire Booth, which becomes a musical companion piece to Beckett in retrospect for its stuttering repetitions, gasps and throat-clearings. Then a trio of short films about the Irish playwright’s relationship to Folkstone (where he got married in 1961). It is a three-part programme, part of the 2026 Beckett Biennale, culminating in the drama.

None of the buildup is required. The mouth, also played by Booth, is still arresting in its speed and urgency, reaching for a truth that rests just beyond its rapid articulations, even as syntax breaks down.

Under the direction of Rufus Norris, the setup is academic, the theatre part of Reading University’s campus, but the production has nothing dusty or donnish about it. It is impressively delivered by Booth, who captures the racing brain, the split interior self and the speed of desperation to replay a life that seems to be flashing before a woman’s eyes – or rather, her mouth – from her birth to this moment in a field, among the cowslips at the age of 70, which might be the moment of death. You glean, from the repetitions and verbal hiccups, that it has been hard, loveless and undermining, yet there is an insistence on speaking it aloud.

Birmingham Rep
Alex Keenan perfectly captures protagonist Chris’s bewilderment and cheeriness in Ned Bennett’s ambitious new staging

The most alarming moment in Mark Haddon’s young adult novel is when Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old on the autism spectrum, flees his Swindon home for London. After a perilous train journey, he arrives at Paddington station and is overwhelmed. The book’s text becomes a barrage of fonts and type sizes to express the information overload: announcements, shop signs and adverts all shouting for his attention.

That sense of cacophony, a sensory assault of products, people and places, characterises Ned Bennett’s ambitious new staging of the Simon Stephens adaptation for Birmingham Rep and Melting Pot. Eleanor Bull’s bare stage, an outsize studio in white, alternates between clean geometric lines, such as the row of pastel-coloured houses that form a picture-book street, and more detailed high-definition projections.

Touring until 28 May.

Byre theatre, St Andrews
Warm-up routines lead into a reverie about life on the stage in Company Chordelia’s funny, carefully calibrated show

The inevitable aches and sprains of an ageing body take on heightened significance for a seasoned dancer turning up to work each day. Revel by Company Chordelia is a whimsical rumination on these changes, and a personal riposte to the fear that you might “make a spectacle of yourself” if you don’t stop at the “right” moment.

It is conceived and staged by the artistic director Kally Lloyd-Jones, who performs with the co-creator Steinvör Palsson, a well-known teacher and choreographer in the Scottish dance community.

Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
The sequence of richly atmospheric novels about lonely souls in the capital is condensed into an engrossing play that could be more unsettling

Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 novel The Midnight Bell unfolds over a series of weeks but has the air of one winding night on the tiles in London. The waiter Bob starts out flush, with £80 to his name, as he opens up the eponymous Euston Road pub for business alongside barmaid Ella. At the end of the novel, he wakes with a brutal hangover and loose change, thoroughly undone by his obsession with a sex worker, Jenny. In two later novels, Hamilton reframed each of these women’s stories in turn. His trilogy, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, gains great power through separating out their lives, giving each a concentrated interior monologue.

Simon Reade’s adaptation instead interweaves them throughout and opens in medias res, diluting the elements of surprise and downward spiral yet drawing out parallels between the relationships. When Ella muddles into a union with a better-off older suitor, Ernest, it raises not dissimilar issues of class, shame and control to Jenny and Bob’s own stumbling, equally imbalanced affair. Each couple is formed by the lonely seeking out the lonely.

Stage and screen actor admired for her television roles in Waiting for God, Tenko and Doc Martin

Stephanie Cole, who has died aged 84, was a skilful actor with a powerful voice. She was also an exemplar of the strong, no-nonsense characters that she played with layers of vulnerability, humour and kindness.

She made her television debut in a 1968 episode of Z Cars and maintained a solid screen career before coming to prominence as a leading member of a strong female ensemble in the BBC series Tenko (1981-84, and Tenko Reunion, 1985), as the stoic Dr Beatrice Mason, doing her best to maintain the health of her fellow internees in a Japanese prison camp during the second world war.

The 76-year-old rocker on her pre-gig routine, the one reality show she’d go on and who she’d cast as herself in a film about her life

Your new album is called Freedom and the title track interpolates The Girl Can’t Help It. You’re going to be rocking until they take you out in a box, aren’t you?

When I was 35, a journalist stupidly asked me, “When are you going to retire?” I said, “I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience, shake my ass, and there’s silence.” This followed me my whole career, so when I got to 65, I said, “I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience and my ass shakes by itself.”

Her catchy videos have racked up billions of views, but Rachel Accurso’s statements on everything from Gaza to LGBTQ rights have caused a stir. She talks about screen time, song fatigue and speculation she might enter politics

The YouTube star Ms Rachel, toddler whisperer extraordinaire, spots me before I clock her, and even from a distance and without her trademark pink T-shirt and denim dungarees, she is instantly recognisable by her wave, which is accompanied by an enthusiastic bounce. I half expect her to say, “Hi, friends”, as she does at the start of many of her videos. Instead she bounds over, wearing a classic off-duty mum uniform – Sesame Street sweatshirt, grey leggings, baseball cap that reads “Mama” – and removes her oversized sunglasses. She’s very sorry, she says, rubbing her eyes, that she is so tired – but her manner remains unfailingly, characteristically peppy.

It is only seven years since Rachel Accurso, who used to be a preschool music teacher, uploaded her first video to YouTube, a counting song for preschoolers called Bubble, Bubble Pop!. She and her husband, Aron Accurso, who worked as a music director on Broadway, made the video because their one-year-old son had a speech delay and there seemed to be a dearth of quality videos online that could help toddlers learn to speak.

Actor hails ‘proto-rock star’ as best poet, while musician argues for ‘Ireland’s Shakespeare’ WB Yeats at Somerset festival

Dominic West has said Lord Byron is his favourite poet because he was a “top shagger” and said he was not concerned the rise of AI might snuff out poetry.

The actor was taking part in a “poetry battle” at the Big Brue festival in Somerset, against rock star Bob Geldof, who said he preferred the Irish poet WB Yeats to the excesses of Byron.

A Reform politician and an NHS worker had different takes on Nigel Farage, but could they agree on renewable energy or tax policies?

Chris, 42, London

Occupation Electrical supervisor of the maintenance team at an NHS hospital

Which supermarket syrups ooze with potential? We put 10 of the finest, grade-A bottles to the test

• The best supermarket runny honey

Though today’s maple syrups vary dramatically in intensity, complexity and taste, they’re all of decent quality and have that classic and unmistakable flavour. I avoided blended or maple-flavoured syrups for this test, and instead tried only 100% pure, grade-A maple syrups, using Agriculture Canada’s flavour wheel and four-step tasting process as a guide. I poured a small shot into a glass to observe the colour. Then I followed the tasting process: I smelled the syrup with three quick sniffs, took a small sip and swirled it around my mouth before contemplating the flavours. Step four is to assess the flavour intensity. Alongside appearance, aroma, texture and taste, I awarded extra points for specific provenance and organic certifications, as well as for value.

Prices vary greatly, and although the dearest bottles taste divine, so do the cheapest. Each pure maple syrup is unique in flavour, with nuanced notes from mild clove tones to intense, woody and almost menthol-like piney flavours. Like wine, maple syrup has the tang of its terroir: it’s an artisanal product that tastes of the land.

Is an Oxford shirt the ultimate wardrobe staple? Are skin-tight fits ever a good idea? And what’s the perfect fabric for autumn and winter? Our menswear expert has all the answers

• The best white T-shirts for men

The photo above stopped me mid-scroll: Harry Styles, before his 30-show residency at Madison Square Garden, dressed in a big white shirt and smart tailored trousers. After a summer spent parked in front of three fans with ice packs on rotation, when wearing actual clothes felt like punishment, here was proof that normal service had resumed.

So, now the rain’s back and autumn’s creeping in, it’s time to follow Harry’s lead and reintroduce some structure to your wardrobe: coats, knitwear, tailoring, all the pieces that make you look forward to getting dressed in the morning. One staple that’s long overdue a comeback? Shirts.

Loop and tube bands are cheaper than a gym membership and take up less space than weights – our exercise buff put 18 to the test

• The best treadmills for your home

Movement breeds motivation, not vice versa. If you want a fast ticket to a regular training habit, you need to remove the friction between you and that first rep. When the sofa looks more appealing than getting a sweat on, it pays to have a simple, quick, convenient way to kick into workout mode. That’s where resistance bands come in.

Portable, lightweight, compact and convenient, the right set of bands could be the path of least, er, resistance to easy home workouts and reaching your fitness goals.

From sweaty kit to grubby trainers, here’s how to wash, repair and care for activewear more sustainably

• The best moisture-wicking underwear, socks and base layers

As a running and cycling journalist, I spend a lot of time in sportswear. Lycra is my leg coverage of choice, polyester or merino wool my base layer, and I reach for technical materials like Gore-Tex if the weather isn’t playing ball.

A near-daily workout schedule means my washing machine’s sportswear setting takes a hammering to avoid having a laundry basket overflowing with sweaty, salty, sour-scented clothes. But even then, tops can develop hard-to-shift smells in sweat-prone areas, synthetic materials can start to bobble and lose shape, and my sportswear occasionally gets a foamy detergent residue that hasn’t been properly rinsed out, particularly during wet or intensive training sessions.

From the blissful threat of ‘death by chocolate’, to a book made of sponge and the lemon drizzle to end them all, these are the bakes that left the biggest impressions

The Sorting Hat sponge I made for my son’s Harry Potter party is not the best cake I’ve ever tasted. That would be anything baked by my granny, or the coffee religieuse (a choux pastry puff) I ate in Boulogne-sur-Mer with my mum. But it’s the most surprisingly edible cake I’ve ever made – a vaguely Jamie-Oliver recipe with buttercream filling and tinned mandarin slices. It didn’t only work; it tasted great, and wasn’t quite as teeth-screechingly sweet as expected. My one regret is that I over-pimped the decoration: it looked so sinister in the fridge with its cold, Sorting Hat stare that the next day I stuck on googly eyes and further sparkles. This perhaps explains why everyone assumed it was a poo emoji cake, despite it being a Harry Potter party with heavy-touch theming. That people thought I actually wanted children to eat shit is a shame, but it still remains my greatest culinary success. Catherine Shoard

Our main course arrived heavy and somewhat intimidating, and left picked completely clean

Earlier this month, a kind-of Turkish ocakbaşı opened on a corner in London’s Soho. The brains behind Kid are chef Sertaç Dirik and restaurateur David Carter, and I say “kind-of” because, yes, while it has a Turkish-influenced menu – sucuk with grilled peach, pide, börek, hummus, içli köfte with aged beef – and the whiff of live fire, nothing either of them does is ever remotely straightforward, hence the buzz around their new place.

Carter founded Smokestak a decade ago in Shoreditch, a wild, Americana-tinged barbecue joint where, somehow, he made brisket in buns and peach cobbler old fashioneds London’s hottest ticket. Five years later, he opened Manteca, also in Shoreditch, a reimagining of the Italian trattoria for the 2020s, followed by Oma, his Greek-influenced Michelin-starred venture in Borough, and its little sister Agora, and all of them remain dependable places where you get serious bang for your buck. All of those influences – American smoke, Italian flair and Greek boldness – are present and correct at Kid. Dirik’s story, meanwhile, has about it elements of TV’s The Bear: a Copenhagen-trained chef cajoled home to bolster the family business and going on to create the hugely loved Mangal 2 in Dalston. What Dirik and Carter have in common, aside from reputation, is a love of setting fire to stuff, in a culinary sense rather than in a Prodigy’s Twisted Firestarter sense. Kid’s Galata mackerel is testament to this: it’s almost completely blackened and has an incredible hit of smoke in its flesh.

This fruity central European pancake dish can be served as part of a main course or as a dessert. Our resident perfektionistin flips through a selection of the best recipes

Schmarrn, or schmarren, Anja Dunk writes, is “peasant food at its best: filling, simple and comforting”. The usual English translation, pancake, a dish we generally associate with delicate desserts is, I think, somewhat misleading; schmarren, as it’s also spelled, bears very little resemblance to a thin, lacy crepe, and instead sits somewhere between our own plump, rich Shrove Tuesday numbers and a batter pudding. Indeed, you’ll find it on the sweets section of restaurant and cafe menus, but in Germany, Dunk reports in her book Strudel, Noodles and Dumplings, it “passes as a main meal, not dessert, because it is very filling and not particularly sweet in flavour”, and also, I suspect, because “it takes 10 minutes to make from start to finish” and is therefore a brilliantly quick supper. (“Quite frankly,” she adds,” as a mother, I find this recipe a godsend.”)

Austro-Hungarian in origin, it’s eaten in both Germany and Austria, and there are many variations, including kaiserschmarren (studded with rum-soaked raisins), savoury potato schmarren, semolina schmarren and bread schmarren, though fruit, often apples, but also stone fruit or berries, seems to be the most common pairing. Whether you’re serving this as a main course (it goes very well with sausages) or afterwards, it’s a very handy addition to the repertoire, especially when paired with soured cream or ice-cream.

A ‘packed lunch revival’ is under way among office workers who want to eat more healthily. From bread salads to rice bowls, food experts offer their ideas

Nearly half of office workers are making packed lunches more regularly than they were a year ago, thanks to the rising cost of buying food on the go, according to new research. Does this mean employees will be lunching on soggy sandwiches and ultra-processed snacks? Apparently not.

The survey, by online supermarket Ocado, found the “packed lunch revival” was, in part, driven by a rise in the number of people opting for more nutritious “lunch bowl” options, often inspired by ideas shared on social media. With this in mind, we asked food writers and chefs how to make the perfect lunch bowl – something to brighten up your break, and keep you feeling satiated until you clock off.

Anna Malos and Georgie bonded over their shared love of travel and horses. By their third date, an awkward encounter cemented their relationship

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

Georgie and I met at a kick-boxing club in London in 2004. We sparred together in a few beginner classes, just hitting soft pads. Although I didn’t pay her too much attention initially, I immediately recognised she was tall, elegant and very good looking.

It wasn’t until the club’s Christmas drinks that things kicked off between us. We started talking and couldn’t stop. We’d both travelled and worked in Latin America, and also loved horses – Georgie had volunteered with a horse-riding business for tourists in Ecuador. The sparks were flying all over the place.

David (left), 34, a children’s doctor, meets Dec, 31, a culture and sex writer

What were you hoping for?
A sweet-hearted madman who would make me belly laugh.

With growing support networks online and in person, these moms say they’re changing the narrative around Black single motherhood

When Chamise Alston was ready to have a child, she connected her computer to her TV and scrolled through profiles with her best friend, dismissing people who seemed like the wrong fit. Unlike the average millennial on a dating app, Alston was scanning a sperm bank catalogue for potential donors. The Maryland-based therapist hoped to conceive a child through the assisted reproductive technology in vitro-fertilization (IVF).

That winter day in 2023, Alston and her friend chose a donor who would help her become pregnant with her now 16-month-old daughter. As a Black woman, she felt empowered taking control of her reproductive destiny.

Are you someone who thinks they have all the answers? Is your experience relevant here? Experts on the questions to ask yourself before giving advice

“Often, when people approach you for advice, they just want to talk about how they feel,” says Annalisa Barbieri, advice columnist for the Guardian for almost 20 years. For example, you might vent to a friend about your awful boss, and if they’re shocked it could confirm you’re being treated badly. “I also think people can have a lot of shame when things aren’t working out, and we like to share shame because it’s a hot potato of a feeling.” In other words, not every situation warrants advice. Sometimes, the person just wants to gauge a reaction or to share.

Scam emails are increasingly using psychological tricks, such as using near-identical URLs like miсrosoft.com

You’ve read the email carefully and it looks legitimate. The link it asks you to click on has none of the usual red flags: there are no weird numbers or extra parts to the URL. You feel safe to proceed.

But if you had looked slightly closer you may have noticed something slightly wrong with one of the characters. Just as in the headline of this piece where instead of “a” we used the Cyrillic “α”.

It just goes to show that the split-second decision you make when clicking a link is often the most vulnerable part of the whole security chain.”

Energy bills are scheduled to rise next month but there are innovative ways to heat your home and save money

When Giles Gibson turns on the hot tap in his home, the water that comes out of it is not heated by gas but by the tiny datacentre strapped to the tank.

Attached to the hot water cylinder in his London home is a compact computer server that generates heat and then transfers it as it operates.

An app and a register of trusted traders may give greater protection to consumers but it is too late for some

In hindsight, Sheri Ingram, 35, can see the red flags. Lee Slocombe, a builder hired to renovate her ex-boyfriend’s home in the south Wales valleys, offered to do the work cheaply because he had materials left over from another job, then asked for money upfront to buy additional supplies.

“At the time, we believed him,” says Sheri, who was in her early 20s when it happened, and had just left university. The couple budgeted about £8,000 for work that included removing a supporting wall and building an extension with a balcony.

From a blue-grey converted iron chapel in Cheshire to a shiny black infill townhouse in London

Since the ancient Olympics, athletes like Hyrox competitor Joanna Wietrzyk have experienced runner’s diarrhoea. What does the science say about extreme exercise’s ‘mechanical jostling of the intestines’?

Soiling yourself in public sounds like a bad dream. But the Australian athlete Joanna Wietrzyk has now apologised for doing just that at the Hyrox games in Beijing on Saturday.

Wietrzyk won the fitness race but not before using communal equipment with faecal matter visibly running down her legs – and muddying Hyrox’s reputation.

Natalie Greenwood says surgery is no ‘magic fix’ for chronic pelvic pain – a view backed up by a new study

“It’s really frustrating to be in this cycle of continuous surgery. It makes you feel helpless,” says Natalie Greenwood, of a condition that affects her so badly she is “non-functioning most of the time because of the constant fatigue”.

Greenwood, 36, needs to have an operation every few years to limit the impact of the endometriosis that gives her chronic pelvic pain, as well as extreme tiredness and brain fog.

Collagen powders, gummies and pills have boomed in popularity in recent years boosted by claims that they smooth wrinkles, promote glossy hair and help with joint pain. Amid the noise it can be hard to figure out whether there’s any actual science behind the promise of looking younger for longer. Luckily Dr Xand van Tulleken has spent the past three years writing Make me well: a quest to understand the confusing world of wellness, and his chapter on collagen dives deep into the evidence. He tells Madeleine Finlay what collagen does in the body, how we can get it without splashing out on expensive supplements, and why getting to the truth behind wellness claims can be so hard

Handstands display a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt – and they look cool. Experts share their advice for building up strength and practicing

My aspirations in life are modest: I want to write, spend time with my loved ones, and someday find a lipstick that flatters my skintone. But perhaps my greatest ambition is this: I want to be able to do a handstand.

Why? It turns the world upside down. It seems fun. It displays a mastery of one’s physical form that I have never quite felt. And it looks cool! Maybe it has to do with that one time in third grade when all my friends could do a handstand and I couldn’t, but that’s for me and my therapist to sort out later.

To mark Oxfam’s Second Hand September, here are some of your best thrift discoveries and the stories behind them

Oxfam’s Second Hand September campaign encourages people to avoid buying new clothes for 30 days and choose preloved pieces instead. From £28 Prada skirts to £5 wedding dresses, we asked people to share their favourite fashion finds and the stories behind them.

Innovative journalist who as fashion editor of the Daily Mirror brought the latest 1960s looks to millions of readers

Felicity Green made a career on tabloid newspapers in their most masculine era when, after secretaries and tea-trolley ladies went home, whole buildings could be as all-male as a foundry or a battleship. By 1961 she was an associate editor across Mirror Group newspapers; in 1973, as the group’s publicity director, she was the first woman on the main board of a publisher. When she found out in 1978 that a new – less experienced, male – director was paid £30,000 a year, more than twice her salary, she resigned, insulted.

Green, who has died aged 100, knew how extraordinary her value had been to the group. The Daily Mirror, at its peak of five million-plus readers, besides being a household’s source of news and sport, offered families access to what we would now call pop culture – showbiz, celebrity and especially style. Newspapers were a main advertising medium through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and agencies yearned for content to attract women, who controlled household purchases, and young people, a new market for discretionary spending.

Steven Kolb tried to stop activists demonstrating against the use of wool – but he can’t curb consumers’ growing concern about where their clothes come from

On Sunday afternoon, Mason Melito took a front row seat at the Cos show at New York fashion week. A campaigner at Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), Melito wasn’t on the guest list – instead, he and four other activists had planned to briefly disrupt the catwalk show with the aim of drawing attention to the use of wool by the Swedish brand.

Protests on the catwalk have a long, rich history. Since the 90s, Peta have regularly stormed shows in an attempt to draw attention to the industry’s use of fur and leather. It’s a typically peaceful practice that happens regularly – during some shows, the catwalk is so long and security so swift that show-goers don’t even notice. (Sometimes, Peta take a different approach: in 1996, during a lunch, a protester famously dropped a dead raccoon on to Anna Wintour’s plate.)

Seeing a pallid, washed-out face in the mirror? Prepare to be diagnosed …

Name: Ferritin face.

Age: The name is new, but the symptoms are old.

Beautifully situated refuges with superlative views offering sanctuary to intrepid hikers and climbers

A good mountain hut, I reckon, should be small and only accessible on foot after considerable effort. Throw in a bit of historical interest and I’m bound to be happy. In which case, Cabaña Verónica in the Picos de Europa is a fine start to this list. It sleeps six, and at 2,325 metres requires a two-hour trek from the nearest cable car station, never mind road. It has incredible views and a friendly custodian who keeps things in good order. Yet the real attraction is that this place was formerly a gun turret of a US navy battleship that was scrapped in Bilbao in 1960. An enterprising engineer, Conrado Senties, had it carried up on horseback and reassembled on a plug of rock in the middle of nowhere. Don’t ask why, just enjoy the eccentricity.
€15, reservarefugios.com

From the foothills of the Pyrenees to the peaks of the Dolomites, you share your top views, meals and adventures at altitude

• Tell us about a trip to Germany – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

No doubt your first thought on hearing the words “double-decker” is of a bus. But in the Swiss village of Stans, an old wooden funicular carriage ascends to the station, where a double-decker cable car awaits. Inside, a spiral staircase leads you to an open upper viewing deck. At the summit, the views back to Lucerne are superb, and there are alpine marmots to spot too. There was a wedding ceremony going on at the summit on our trip!
Martin

Perched above the clouds in northern Italy, Santnerpass refuge doesn’t just look stunning. It’s a marvel of eco-building – and vegetarian cuisine

‘I think my boots are falling apart!” shouts Nigel just as we hit the pinnacles, a whole range of them jutting up and out from the mountainside, all thrillingly tall, spiky and knobbled. Through them we painstakingly step, fingers aching in gloves, heads sweating in helmets – squashing up narrow chimneys, squeezing through mighty boulders and inching along slender ledges on a twisting path that’s only just discernible through swathes of sharp white scree.

I know how Nigel’s boots are feeling: the going is far harder than I was expecting. This is only the first day of our annual trip to the Dolomites, a vast range of breathtaking sawtooth peaks in northern Italy, but my head’s already full of the thought I have every year as we start out: “If only you’d got fitter.”

Weekenders from Zagreb head to the rolling green Samobor Hills for nature, vineyards, delicious local food and Habsburg-era architecture

‘You’re going to Samobor? You must try kremšnita,” my Dubrovnik friends told me before I set off on my trip north. “But I’ve already had kremšnita in Zagreb,” I told them. They do it better in Samobor, they insisted. I wasn’t about to get embroiled in a battle of the cream cakes in a region where Croatians, Slovenes and Austrians all like to celebrate their own versions of this decadently thick, fat custard slice topped with puff pastry and icing sugar. But I was more than willing – happy, even – to follow everyone’s suggestions to try kremšnita in Hotel Livadić’s Kavana Livadić, in Samobor’s main King Tomislav Square, a mere half-hour drive west of Zagreb.

It lived up to the hype – delicately rich, creamy and with a light touch. After spending a few weeks in sun-bleached Venetian Dalmatia, amid the scrubby, limestone Dinaric Alps, I had swapped empires and was firmly in Habsburg Croatia. Here, in Zagreb County’s prettiest town, handsome baroque houses in pastel shades of buttery yellow, apricot and pistachio, festooned with stucco, line narrow King Tomislav Square, whose umbrella-shaded cafe terraces were filled with Croatians getting their morning fix of coffee and chatter.

The actor on a terrible accident as a toddler, her bossy nature, and feeling too old to play a Shakespearean heroine

Born in Brighton, Amanda Redman, 69, studied at Bristol Old Vic theatre school. She starred in the TV comedy drama El C.I.D. in the 1990s, and in At Home With the Braithwaites from 2000 to 2003, a role that earned her a Bafta nomination. She played the lead in the BBC series New Tricks for a decade until 2013, and her later work includes The Trials of Jimmy Rose and The Good Karma Hospital. On 28 September, her 2000 film Sexy Beast will be rereleased in a limited-edition box set. She has a daughter and lives in London with her second husband.

When were you happiest?
I am happiest when I have my daughter and granddaughter with me.

If you’re a fresher, this may be the first time you’ve ever lived away from home. So how should you socialise, feed yourself and look after your health?

You don’t realise until you leave home just how idiosyncratic every family is, and how many of its customs are tacit, invisible, or maintained by someone else. Now you’re among people who emphatically aren’t related to you. How would you have any idea which of your practices were universal, and which common courtesies your upbringing had totally skipped? How do you even know how to keep your own body and soul together without the behind-the-scenes input of parents, who also have peculiarities of their own? Here’s a starter pack on how to function.

Something quick that has protein in it and is not toast. Suggestion: an omelette.

Something that is a full meal, covers protein and vegetables, and can be eaten over several days. Suggestion: bolognese or vegetarian chilli.

Something that you can scale up to feed two or four without bankrupting yourself or showing off. Suggestion: pesto pasta, but please always add broccoli right at the end – such a small price to pay to not get scurvy.

Something that you can make for others that is comforting and nobody can take against or be allergic to. Suggestion: risotto.

Something that you can just pour boiling water over, like a cup of tea, only it’s food. Suggestion: miso soup or soba noodles.

Stanhope, Weardale: I’ve realised in that time that beauty and fascination can lie in the most mundane of plants – in this case, broad-leaved dock

After another exceptionally dry summer, there’s a nagging question lurking at the back of naturalists’ minds: which species will be the winners and losers in our evolving climate?

Throughout summer’s heatwaves and drought, I watched a dense stand of broad-leaved docks, Rumex obtusifolius, thrive while surrounding fields turned the colour of bleached straw. They have promising credentials as drought survivors, thanks to a deep taproot, fast, early spring growth and a long-lasting dormant seed bank in the soil.

The Adolescence actor and the psychologist Orly Klein asked fathers to write to their sons. The results – from famous dads to the wisdom of strangers – were moving and motivating. Here’s a selection

What can I say? From the moment you and your sister were born my heart has been full of a love I never thought was humanly possible. As a baby you were filled with wonder and so much energy. You had a beautiful, mischievous and inquisitive nature, which has always made me smile. You were climbing, running and jumping everywhere. You’d walk into a room wearing shoes that were four times, five times, 10 times too big for you … Sometimes they were ye mother’s.

Moment of reckoning for ‘Mr Nice Guy’ of music, who embraced Macklemore’s political cred only for pro-Palestine rapper to be dropped under pressure from billionaire

Ed Sheeran has long been known as the “Mr Nice Guy” of music. His is an unthreatening kind of pop stardom; he looks and talks like the bloke who might be standing behind you in a pub, rather than someone selling out stadiums. He champions other artists, he celebrates different cultures. His songs are about love, heartbreak and friendship. People get engaged at his concerts.

But this week, one of the most successful musicians in the world faced the biggest controversy of his career, and found himself dragged into exactly the kind of political row he has spent his career avoiding.

Equal Earth projection, adopted by the UN last week, provides an alternative to 16th-century Mercator display

Three cartographers have spoken of their astonishment at the UN’s near-universal adoption of a map they created to more accurately show the sizes of Africa and Europe, even though they have received a few complaints from some disgruntled diplomats.

The creators of the Equal Earth projection aimed to provide an alternative to the dominant 16th-century Mercator display, which critics have long faulted for giving the impression that northern hemisphere nations are larger than they are – and therefore subtly reinforcing perceptions of where global strength lies.

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

• Last week’s replies: What would be the most useful superpower?

It’s clear that the world as it is – considering the climate crisis, the rise of nationalism, geopolitical tumult, the possibility of AI killing us all by the end of the decade – could do with some more ethically astute and capable leadership. If you could timewarp them into the present day, which leader from history could the world do with now – and why? Bernard, Machynlleth

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

If you take lunch into work, is a sandwich, salad, soup or something else? We’re looking for the healthiest, best-value ideas

More people are bringing packed lunches to work as they try to save money and eat healthily.

According to a poll by Ocado, nearly half of UK professionals bring a packed lunch more frequently than they did a year ago, with 69% saying that buying lunch near their office was now too expensive.

We would like to hear about your favourite moments and storylines from the documentary series

As the 7 Up documentary series airs its final episodes with 70 Up, we would like to hear your highlights from over the years.

The ITV series started following the lives of 10 boys and four girls in England, beginning in 1964, when they were seven years old, and has returned every seven years since.

We would like to hear your experience of seeing the Bayeux tapestry exhibit at the British Museum

The British Museum’s Bayeux tapestry exhibit opened on Thursday 10 September, and has already broken the British Museum’s record for the number of tickets sold in one day.

Have you seen the Bayeux tapestry at the British Museum? How far did you travel to see it? Tell us all about your experience below.

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