The world’s largest performing arts festival returns to the Scottish capital for three weeks – and over 4,000 shows – from this weekend. Brian Logan will be answering your questions about it all today

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Join us at 1pm on Tuesday 4 August, as the Guardian’s comedy critic Brian Logan answers your questions about Scotland’s singular performing arts festival.

In his many years of covering the fringe, Brian has seen it change and grow, and break stars and shows alike. But in a Guardian column four years ago he wrote that “in recent years, my enthusiasm has been increasingly smothered by caveats: that the fringe is too absurdly expensive for artists, to a degree that excludes many; that it’s insufficiently diverse; that it can be overwhelming, gruelling and lonely for many of the people taking part” and that it “must change or die”. Have the past few editions changed his mind? And this year, with dynamic pricing being trialled, will there be questions about who the fringe is for?

Cycling legend on living with a stage 4 diagnosis, fundraising with Miguel Induráin and why Andy Burnham could be key to his ambition of helping others

Sir Chris Hoy arrives a couple of minutes late and the apologies roll from him. I don’t have a chance to tell the six‑time Olympic sprint cycling champion that waiting an hour for a star interviewee is more common. Hoy is already deep into a story about how he and his wife, Sarra, were walking here when an unknown man stopped him on the street in Glasgow.

The stranger had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer and he wanted to share what had happened to him and, I suspect, find new strength by talking to a compassionate public figure. Hoy has lived a full life with stage 4 cancer for nearly three years. He has also worked tirelessly to highlight the fact that prostate cancer kills more people in this country than any other disease while, at the same time, to offer a tangible sense of hope when there is horror for men, and their families, after a terminal diagnosis.

It’s easy to lose your cool when you’re crammed into a train, bus or plane with a bunch of strangers and one of them is playing music without headphones or fighting you for the armrest. Here are the rules everyone should be following

Public transport can be a hot, noisy, cramped and stressful environment – and that’s before you add in people with pungent food, questionable hygiene and giant backpacks. Most of us know the general rules – though we don’t all follow them – about letting people off first, not putting bags on seats, where to stand on escalators and offering your seat to others. But what about the vaguer conventions? How can you avoid chatty passengers? Or manspreaders? Is it sometimes OK to put your feet on the seats? (Spoiler: it’s not.) Here, three etiquette experts show us the way to public transport propriety.

Even in the face of appalling repression, girls yearn to fulfil their educational potential. We must set up a global fund to help them

Next weekmarks the fifth anniversary of the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban as US coalition troops were evacuated from the country. That’s five years for the terrorists to have consolidated their grip, so now is a good time to reflect on what the “coalition of the willing” left behind.

Through vindictive edict after edict, these five years have brought an ever-escalating repression of Afghan girls and women – with far too little done by any outside authority to speak up or stand up against the most egregious denial of girls’ rights in the world today.

Soon after my first visit to Ukraine four years ago, I began language lessons. It taught me more than I ever expected

Almost as soon as I returned from my first reporting trip to Ukraine, in October 2022, I decided to start Ukrainian lessons. Not as an act of solidarity, exactly, but as a marker that I was committed to returning. I wanted to know some Ukrainian in order to feel less helpless, to edge towards a better understanding of what I was reporting, and to be more courteous to those whom I encountered. And I hoped, in time, to be able to pull myself through a piece of poetry in the original.

I began meeting Olha, my teacher, by weekly video call later that autumn. She was in Ivano-Frankivsk, her home town in the far west of Ukraine, I was in London. With endless patience and humour, she led me by the hand through the unfamiliar letters of her language, those elegant, sensuous shapes of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Globetrotter and TV presenter Alice Morrison trades in her camels and backup team for wild camping in one of Scotland’s most beautiful glens

‘I miss my camels. I miss the sun. I miss the vast emptiness of the desert plains …” These are my thoughts as I trudge through thick conifer plantations and my fifth consecutive hour of rain at the start of the Affric Kintail Way in the Scottish Highlands.

My last big adventure was a world first. I became the first recorded person to walk the full length of Saudi Arabia, north to south, from Jordan to Yemen. It took three years to organise, then 112 days of walking half a marathon a day, and I had a backup team plus Juicy and Lulu, my naughty but nice camels.

Government revises plans to tackle prison overcrowding amid pressure from MPs and victims but domestic abusers and killers could still be released early

Prisoners serving time for some sexual or violent offences where the automatic release stage is set at two-thirds will become eligible for release at the halfway point, provided they have not committed serious breaches of prison rules, as my colleagues note in this story.

This applies to two of PC Harper’s killers – Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers – who were jailed for 13 years in 2020 for manslaughter. Henry Long, the main perpetrator, will not be subject to early release.

I asked for an urgent review of the prisoner release scheme. I fully understand the anger, anxiety and distress that’s been caused. I’ve heard that loud and clear. That’s why we’re making significant changes: offenders who have been sentenced for rape, serious child sex offences and other grooming offences will be excluded from the changes.

Exclusive: Environment Agency is considering whether to prosecute Huntsman Polyurethanes over emissions of carcinogenic benzene

A plastic manufacturer in the north of England is facing potential legal action over emissions of benzene, a carcinogenic chemical with no safe level, the Guardian can reveal.

The Environment Agency (EA) is considering taking legal action against Huntsman Polyurethanes in Teesside for a potential breach of licence, which is a criminal offence.

Findings prompt calls for review of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence criteria

Young women in England who later develop breast cancer are not being referred for early tests or preventive treatment because current guidelines used by GPs miss 95% of patients, research suggests.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) criteria used to decide who should be referred by family doctors for further breast cancer risk assessment and specialist care is failing to spot the vast majority of women under 50 who will go on to develop the disease in the next 10 years, according to the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR).

Journalist’s son says his mother was examining leak from Electrogas, part owned by Yorgen Fenech who is on trial

Daphne Caruana Galizia was investigating suspected corruption by the businessman Yorgen Fenech and members of Malta’s government when she was killed, a jury has heard.

The heir to one of Malta’s biggest fortunes, Fenech is on trial for murder, accused of commissioning and paying for Caruana Galizia’s killing in a car bombing in October 2017.

Campaigners decry Angela Rayner’s backing for Brick Lane project that has only 11 affordable homes

A £500m redevelopment of the Truman Brewery estate in Brick Lane, east London, has been approved, clearing the way for the construction of a datacentre, offices and apartments despite opposition from Tower Hamlets council and local campaign groups.

The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, made the decision in a letter issued on her behalf last week by the housing minister Matthew Pennycook, rejecting demands from the council and campaigners for for the site to be used for hundreds of homes instead.

PM Péter Magyar says country nearly forced into decision as extreme heat and low water levels in Danube pose challenges in region

Hungary has come “within millimetres” of having to shut down its nuclear power plant overnight, prime minister Péter Magyar said, as low water levels in the Danube continue to pose challenges for countries in south-eastern Europe.

“Around 1:30 a.m. we were a few millimetres away from completely shutting down the Paks Power Plant, but then the water level stopped falling and by morning it had risen 1.5 centimetres. The last turbine is currently operating safely,” Magyar said on social media.

Police are focusing on Elisabeth-Jane Ross’s final hours in hope of discovering motive for her killing

Greek authorities are investigating what may have motivated a 26-year-old Afghan man to kill a Scottish charity worker found dead in a suitcase in an abandoned building in Athens last month.

Inquiries have focused increasingly on Elisabeth-Jane Ross’s last few hours alive and police believe they hold the key to revealing why the 38-year-old was targeted.

Numbers using finance rises 170% in a year as leasing firms boom alongside leapin secondhand vehicle supply and surging fuel prices

The number of people leasing used electric cars in the UK has more than doubled in the last year as drivers look for cheaper ways to avoid soaring petrol prices during Donald Trump’s war on Iran.

Used electric car leasing has risen by 170% in the last year across members of the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), a lobby group whose members buy about half the UK’s new vehicles to lease them out to businesses and consumers every year.

Lender was told money was being taken without authorisation, with cash used to buy credits for Claude chatbot

A Metro Bank customer has told of his fight to get more than £14,000 back after its systems failed to stop a fraud involving the AI chatbot Claude.

Zoli Rutter, a businessman from Sussex, had a total of £14,244 taken from his bank account. The scam involved fraudsters buying credits to use Claude.

Inside Skyral, part of a consortium that won a £2bn MoD contract to help forces game out complex decisions

On a sunny July day in Riga, Latvia, a Nato convoy drives down a street lined with kebab shops and a pharmacy. At a downtown intersection, there is the sound of an explosion and the lead tank bursts into flame.

These are real streets in Riga – Lāčplēša iela and the downtown corridor of Tērbatas iela. The kebab shops and the pharmacy are on them. The pedestrians who flee after the tank explodes and huddle at a distance are modelled after the population of Riga: some old, some young, some friendly to Nato, others less so.

The Cockroach movement protesters used memes, mockery and collective action to cut through mainstream media’s refusal to tackle problems plaguing the country’s politics

Hello! Welcome to This Is India from the Guardian. I’m Niha Masih and I’ll be writing to you every week about the stories, ideas and news makers of modern India.

I’ll do a deep dive into one story – from politics and internet culture to tech and entertainment – and round up key events, trends and debates that are dominating the discourse among Indians, especially the youth.

Meta glasses - they're everywhere, and people have a lot of opinions. Mostly about their ability to take photos and videos.

Rafqa Touma speaks to Guardian Australia's technology reporter, Josh Taylor, lifestyle editor, Alyx Gorman, and the Human Technology Institute's responsible technology policy specialist, Lauren Perry.

Just in case you hadn’t already realised how extraordinary the gigantic group of creatures known as invertebrates are, we’ve gathered together five facts that made our brains hurt (plus one more, because we couldn’t choose). Tell us your favourite extraordinary fact in the comments below

• The top ten invertebrates revealed

Did you know that the mantis shrimp can accelerate to strike its prey faster than a .22 calibre bullet. They can smash shells, and even crack aquarium glass with the power of the strike. “These impressive animals are armed with one hammer-like dactyl club on each side of its body. These clubs store energy in elastic, spring-like structures, which are held in place by latch-like tendons. When the latch is released, the stored energy, too, is released – propelling the club forward with explosive force,” says Nane Steinhoff.

Anna Cazenave Cambet’s adaptation of Constance Debré’s novel is a superbly acted and affecting – if restrained – portrait of child access and interpersonal strife

Vicky Krieps gives an intelligent, finely calibrated and sensitive performance in this marital-breakdown drama from writer-director Anna Cazenave Cambet. Cambet has adapted the autobiographical novel of the same title by Constance Debré, about her bitter experience of being denied contact with her young son after her marriage breakup – at the same time quitting her job in law and then coming out as gay, and also becoming a writer (these things apparently held against her in France’s patriarchal family courts).

Krieps mimics the author’s elegant, close-cropped hairstyle in the film’s final act, and is never anything other than excellent. But I wondered sometimes if, in the course of this slightly prolix movie, the reserve and control required from her by the material were quite doing full justice to the extraordinary 18-month ordeal of not being able to see your own child.

How did the pioneering director get involved – then fall out – with the 80s’ poppiest band? How are Sam Peckinpah and Michael Jackson’s Thriller involved? Prepare for a tale of ambition, deception and shuttlecock-stuffed shorts

• When Wham! squashed Lindsay Anderson’s China film

• Andrew Ridgeley on Wham’s surreal trip to China

It was the evening of 3 April 1985 in a hotel in Hong Kong. Lindsay Anderson, who I’d engaged to direct the theatrical documentary I’d instigated of Wham!’s historic trip to China, had called a meeting of the film crew. He wanted to give a pep talk the night before we flew to Beijing.

The 30-strong team my production company had recruited for this adventure duly assembled. Lindsay gave a speech in the stentorian tones of an elder statesman addressing the House of Commons and rooted in Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day oration. And typical Lindsay, he mixed shrewd observation with sardonic wit. “Tomorrow we embark on a great adventure,” he said. “We travel into communist China with George and Andrew – ‘Apostles of the New Materialism.’”

These images of Lee Espinoza’s iconic gym in the Coachella Valley weren’t just about sport – they also helped photographer Darren Vargas deal with the death of his grandfather

Forget cheesy acts, these days cruise ships boast the cutting edge tech to stage hip West End productions and Olivier award-winning musicals – and young people are loving it

The phrase “cruise ship entertainment” conjures vivid images, even to those who have never set foot on an oceangoing vessel. Starry backcloths, sequined frocks, tunes and croons from yesteryear, the lite-ent values of the 1970s preserved in aspic. Perhaps those stereotypes held water way back when the singer Jane McDonald ruled the reality TV waves. But – lazy thinking ahoy! – do they still?

Look at the shows currently a-sail on the high seas, from the Olivier award-winning 9/11 musical Come from Away, to hip theatre-maker Emma Rice’s acclaimed Brief Encounter. And look at the onboard production values, which “way surpass what you see in London theatres”, says Susannah Daley of Peel Entertainment, which provides shows for the Ambassador cruise line. “These ships are now being built with theatre in mind, to a really high spec, to hold between 600 and 1,000 people. What can be produced in them is pretty phenomenal.” Producer David Pugh, a veteran of the West End who has collaborated with Cunard cruises, says: “These are probably the most technical theatres, in terms of lighting and sound, that you’ve ever seen outside of the best theatres in the world.”

It was framed as a perfect storm because nativists dearly wanted it to be. Looking on, progressives failed to meet the moment too

The live streams are still running, training their cameras on the beach at Ceuta, where nothing is happening. The self-styled citizen journalists are still pounding the streets, capturing their shaky smartphone footage. Zia Yusuf of Reform UK was out there at the weekend, wearing a crisp white shirt and smart tailored trousers, lest anyone confuse him with the other brown people there. The bad brown people.

Why was the migrant incursion at Ceuta, on the Spanish-Moroccan border, such a big story across the world? How did it manage to pique the interest of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, to feature on NBC’s Nightly News, not – shall we say – a programme massively predisposed to spotlighting news stories from continental Africa? What about it so exercised Europe’s heads of government? What made it an irresistible front-page story in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph?

Even in a Europe-focused Nato 3.0, Washington would still want to call the shots. We need an insurance policy

How can Europe defend itself against Russia without the US, or with much less of it? This question sums up the existential challenge now facing the continent.

Russia’s imperial ambitions start with Ukraine, but they don’t end there. Moscow’s hybrid attacks, its political interference in support of Russia-friendly parties and its military sabre-rattling – including a warship’s live-fire exercise 45 miles off the UK coast – all point in the same direction. A kinetic war to defend ourselves against Russia in the coming months or years cannot be ruled out. This is why European defence budgets are rising across Europe, especially in countries closer to the frontline.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

Around the world, these trains have boosted economies, development and prestige. The costs of missing out are high

• Christian Wolmar is the author of Fast Track: The Extraordinary Story of High-Speed Rail

With all our grumbling about trains – and it is close to a national pastime – it is easy to forget the successes. There is a tale to tell, for example, about high-speed trains, that goes beyond the endless wrangling over HS2.

If you look at the history around the globe, as I have, you find that high-speed trains saved the railways. An industry that was gradually sinking into oblivion, thanks to motorways and aeroplanes, has been revitalised by a technological revolution that means trains travel faster, more safely and more comfortably.

The EU’s panic and the lack of solidarity emboldens smugglers and the far right – and makes Spain even more vulnerable

For the European hard right and the White House, it seemed almost too good to be true: left-liberal Spain punished with a migration crisis of its own making.

The histrionics came right on cue. As thousands of mainly Moroccan citizens streamed into the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta at the tip of north Africa, Spain’s far-right party Vox decried a migrant “invasion”, blaming Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s regularisation and leftist politics. The Trump administration did the same. A senior Israeli diplomat goaded Madrid over its “colonial” territories while Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen area. Denmark and Finland backed Italy’s move and, by the weekend, 22 EU leaders had penned a letter pointing an implicit finger at Madrid over its presumed failure to “relentlessly combat illegal migration”.

Both left and right have it in for Britain’s capital. But is London a stabby wasteland, a den of faceless bureaucrats, or just a mess of overprivileged wokerati?

‘I’ve seen no evidence of Andy being anti-London,” the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, told the Evening Standard last week, which is quaint and adorable: evidence is so 2009. This is all about feels. Some feel that the prime minister disfavours the capital because he frequently mentions that neoliberalism hasn’t delivered a fair deal for the north of England; tacitly, then, someone’s deal has been unfair in the other direction, and that would be the south, which must be London. Where else would Burnham mean – Hastings? The institution of No 10 North gestures audibly towards there being some problem with the OG Downing Street, and the use of the words “Whitehall” and “Westminster” as anything but geographical denominations – connoting “faceless” or “out of touch” or “rigid” or “having contempt for the ordinary person” – gives strong anti-London vibes, since Whitehall and Westminster are, indisputably, in London.

You could group all that as leftwing shorthand. For those moments when you want to describe a shallow, mammon-worshipping society, lurching blindly from one shiny, meaningless prize to the next, empty of proper feeling for others or for nature, “London” pretty well covers it.

Connection with voters on screen only pays off when it’s matched with bold policies in the real world – as it has for Zohran Mamdani in New York

Andy Burnham is having a good time. I can’t remember the last time a prime minister (or indeed any high-profile British politician) actually looked as though they were enjoying what they were doing. I saw a clip the other day in which Burnham remembered arguing with his dad about the point of an English degree, quoted poetry and discussed the importance of mastering words. It was almost enough to make you feel sorry for Keir Starmer. In his entire time as leader of the Labour party and then the head of the government, Starmer delivered not a single unprocessed moment. No natural sentiment escaped the carapace. And here is his successor, practically oozing it.

It matters. It’s good and healthy to have a leader who looks as though they want to be where they are. Whose approach isn’t that of a scold or a receiver who has taken control of the premises, or someone whose sole aim is to tenaciously clamber up to the top job and hold on for dear life.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker’s flirtation with a grand combo with US group Bristol Myers Squibb is baffling

• AstraZeneca shares fall 8.9% over merger talks with US cancer drug firm

Sir Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, starts with huge credit in the bank, obviously. His long tenure has been a triumph, starting with the against-the-odds victory over Pfizer’s charmless accountants in 2014.

The $39bn (£29bn) purchase of Alexion in 2021 looked a little over-priced at the time, but you could see how it sat well with Soriot’s sermons on the importance of backing science. The deal got AZ into the field of medicines for rare diseases, which should offer decades of growth.

An undertaker’s trial has exposed a regulatory blind spot. The public, as well as trade bodies, should be involved in shaping reform

There are few more vulnerable moments in life than the days before and after the loss of a loved one. The rituals of farewell surrounding a funeral matter deeply. Hence the horrified public reaction to the crimes of Robert Bush in Hull. Bush was sentenced last week to 20 years in prison for 67 offences including 30 counts of preventing a lawful and decent burial.

When his business, Legacy Independent Funeral Services, was searched, police found multiple bodies decomposing on racks. Bush had returned the wrong ashes to families, stolen money donated to charities and spent more than £42,000 on holidays over 12 years. In court, relatives revealed the distress caused; David Gorbutt, who scattered a stranger’s ashes in place of his wife’s, described feeling “abused”.

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

Instead of finger-pointing at Spain, mainstream EU leaders should be showing solidarity with its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez

At least 72 people are believed to have died late last week, most of them drowned or crushed as they joined tens of thousands of others in attempting to swim from Moroccan waters to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Yet the scale of that human tragedy has barely registered, as Donald Trump has decried an “invasion” while European politicians exploit the crisis to serve their own agendas. If further evidence were needed of the way that the radical right increasingly distorts the terms of the migration debate in the EU, the last few days have furnished it.

More needs to be understood about the drivers behind a shocking episode. Misinformation on social media – orchestrated or otherwise – appears to have played a big part, following a Spanish supreme court ruling that migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily turned back. Moroccan authorities seemingly did little to prevent the chaotic exodus, which echoed previous smaller incidents and focused international attention on a territory whose sovereignty Rabat contests. If there were online indications that such an incursion was a possibility, no alarm was sounded.

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

A genuinely competitive market would prevent any single company’s decisions from putting the system at risk, says Prof Erika Denton

Your article on the TPG/Optum UK deal, over the patient record system used by most GP practices in England, highlights a specific issue that is symptomatic of a much bigger problem (Alarm at NHS patient records being put under control of US private equity firm, 27 July). I’ve spent years working across the NHS, both in clinical radiology and in national policy roles, and this deal follows a pattern. Systems holding patients’ most sensitive data keep ending up with a small number of large suppliers.

The real opportunity now is to build on the progress already under way, so that ownership of any single system carries less risk regardless of who holds it. NHS England’s own steps, from guidance on AI-enabled tools to the health bill’s proposed provisions on the single patient record, point in the right direction. What should follow on from that is straightforward: data hosted in the UK, a clinician signing off before anything changes in a patient’s record, and an audit trail that regulators and patients can actually check.

Readers respond to an article on the swarms of houseflies people are having to cope with in hot weather

My experience of flies is that during the past 20 years or so there has been a significant decline in numbers – Highland midges not included of course (‘It makes you feel you’ve got a really dirty house’: what’s behind the UK’s plagues of flies?, 30 July).

Memories of childhood summers in the 1950s and 60s are of endless sticky flytraps, typically placed near doorways in the house. Any foodstuffs left out on a counter would immediately attract a variety of coloured flies within seconds.

Andrew Keeley will never forget Brian Moore and Alan Clarke’s commentary on BBC radio

Garry Richardson (England’s 1966 World Cup heroes were fun, humble and unlike today’s stars, 30 July) appears to make the assumption that everyone watched the 1966 World Cup final on television with Kenneth Wolstenholme’s iconic commentary. As a football-mad 10-year-old, I had the misfortune on the day of the final to be on our family summer holiday in the then sleepy village of Goathland, staying in a house with no TV.

Hope rose when my dad was invited to watch the final at a neighbour’s who had one of the few TVs in the village and he asked if he could bring his children. When the neighbour learned that there were seven of us, he not surprisingly drew the line at a still very generous three, but as the fourth in line I missed out.

Readers respond to an editorial about the threat to research funding, including plans to close the Jodrell Bank Observatory

Your editorial rightly criticises the decision to cease funding the Lovell telescope from March 2028 (The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics, 31 July). There are additional reasons why this decision is so shortsighted. Modern astronomy is no longer simply physics. It brings together physics, chemistry, biology and computing to understand how the universe evolved and where we came from. The universe is an inexpensive laboratory in which we can study the interaction of physical, chemical and biological processes under conditions that can never be reproduced on Earth. Understanding how galaxies formed and evolved requires complementary observations across the radio, optical and infrared spectrum. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

As a PhD researcher at Jodrell Bank in the 1960s, I saw first-hand how its innovations transformed radio astronomy. Jodrell played a pioneering role in the development of long-baseline radio interferometry, which links separate telescopes together to create virtual telescopes thousands of miles across. Removing the Lovell telescope from this network would weaken its ability to produce pictures of the radio universe with a sharpness comparable to that achieved by billion-pound space observatories such as Hubble.

• FA no longer endorses Fifa president for re-election

• Wales and Serbia join Finland in withdrawing backing

European countries began turning their backs on Gianni Infantino as moves intensified across the globe to end his crisis-hit tenure as Fifa president.

The Football Association was the highest-profile of several Uefa member associations to drop its support for Infantino’s proposed re-election next year. It will write to Fifa confirming it no longer endorses Infantino for a fourth term in charge after the intense controversy surrounding his failed plan to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors.

• Owners led by Gabriel Brener paid £15m in 2023

• Buyer would be the club’s fifth owner in six years

Charlton’s US owners have put the club up for sale just three years after taking over at the Valley. The ownership group is understood to have engaged Oakwell Sports Advisory to find what would be the club’s fifth owner in the past six years.

In a sales deck sent to potential investors, which has been seen by the Guardian, Oakwell describes Charlton as “the last remaining football club upside opportunity in London”. Oakwell also claims that Charlton would provide new owners with an opportunity for five to 10 times equity growth through promotion to the Premier League, commercial expansion and investment in women’s football.

Benjamin Nygren was quickly back on the goal trail as Celtic began the defence of their Premiership title with a 1-0 home win over Dundee. Before the game, Celtic fans cheered as the captain, Callum McGregor, unfurled the flag which confirmed again a 14th title win in 15 seasons.

It was all a bit flat in a first half with Martin O’Neill’s side struggling to get into their stride as the visitors posed problems. However, the Sweden midfielder Nygren, so prolific last season with 21 goals, struck with a close-range header in the 52nd minute and the goal proved enough to keep the three points in Glasgow as a new season got up and running for the champions.

Mikel Arteta’s team and the Brazilian star could be a perfect match. It also could be a risk that ends in disaster

Sometimes what is needed is something different.

There is a long history in football of counterintuitive thinking being successful, of the benefits of creative tension, of adding grit to the oyster to generate the pearl, but even so, the news that talks between Vinícius Júnior and Arsenal on personal terms are progressing comes as something of a shock. Mikel Arteta’s great followers of a blueprint adding a free spirit like the Brazilian? Really?

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• 2021 US Open champion out with stress fracture in leg

• Raducanu also missed Wimbledon through injury

Emma Raducanu will miss the US Open because of the stress fracture in her right leg that she sustained during the grass-court season and forced her to pull out of Wimbledon.

It is understood that following consultation with her medical team, Raducanu has concluded she will be unable to play in New York this month.

• UFC says Nascimento died in his sleep

• Brazilian flyweight was 34 years old

• Last fought in split-decision loss in June

UFC fighter Allan Nascimento has been found dead at home at the age of 34, the organisation has announced.

The Brazilian flyweight was pronounced dead after suffering an apparent heart attack in his sleep.

• Cooper misses final night of Commonwealth Games meet

• Relay gold medallist’s absence ‘in conflict with team expectations’

Gold medal-winning swimmer Isaac Cooper has stepped down from Australian swimming’s leadership group after missing the final night of competition at the Commonwealth Games, having instead participated in a drinking session.

The 22-year-old was absent as the swim meet concluded at Tollcross International Swimming Centre, and a subsequent team wrap-up meeting. He was seen drinking in Glasgow while teammates were competing, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

US president expects negotiations to begin in next day or two but Iran says it is not reviving talks with Washington

New talks between Washington and Tehran are the “last chance” for Iran to forge a deal and avoid an escalation of US strikes on the country, Donald Trump said on Monday.

Trump said he expected negotiations to begin in the next day or two to reopen the strait of Hormuz and create a pathway for Iran to address the US’s concerns about its nuclear programme.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, creator of satirical Crewkerne Gazette, has convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP

A former neo-Nazi activist with convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP has been selected as a Conservative candidate for a local election in Somerset.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI clips, is due to stand for election to Somerset council next year in a new Crewkerne South district. He told the Guardian he was an executive member of the Tories’ Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser.

Survey reveals medics were called ‘monkeys’ and ‘dirty foreigners’, and patients refused to be seen by black or Asian staff

NHS radiographers are experiencing racist abuse by patients, who have called them “monkeys” and refused to be seen by black and Asian staff, according to a report.

A survey of 381 members of the Society of Radiographers revealed a “noticeable” rise in instances of overt racism experienced and witnessed by radiographers across the health service over the past 18 months.

Juan Jesús Vivas says influx seen as ‘at least encouraged or permitted’ by Rabat, as Spain demands EU solidarity

• Explainer: why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint?

A growing chorus of voices has accused Morocco of helping to fuel the crisis in Ceuta, with the leader of the Spanish enclave describing last week’s border crossings as an attack on Spain’s territorial integrity that was seen as being “if not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco”.

Spanish officials ⁠said on Monday that an estimated 69,500 people who had arrived late last week in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory in north Africa, had returned to Morocco in recent days. About 2,500 people who had made the crossing were believed to still be in Ceuta.

Prime minister Sanae Takaichi visited Kumamoto prefecture almost a week after a magnitude 7.1 quake hit, killing 38 people

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has visited the south-western prefecture of Kumamoto, where recovery efforts are being hampered by heat and a lack of water supplies, almost a week after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake killed dozens and caused widespread damage.

Thirty-eight people died during the quake, including one person who died of apparent heatstroke while taking shelter in a car in hot weather, officials said on Monday.

From Europe’s deadly heat to floods in Asia, it’s been a terrifying summer. Environment writers Jonathan Watts and Ajit Niranjan answered Reddit users’ questions about their work – and their sources of hope

Extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis is fuelling an explosive wildfire season in Europe and extreme rainfall across Asia this summer.

Global heating made hot, dry and windy weather stoking wildfires at least 20 times more likely in Spain and twice as likely in France. EU officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land burned.

NatureScot refuses licence for hunt on Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir in which up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed

A controversial Scottish seabird hunt will not go ahead for the first time in 400 years, in what campaigners have called a “victory for common sense”.

In the annual guga hunt, up to 2,000 gannet chicks are killed over a 10-day period on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of Lewis and Harris.

Hundreds of structures damaged as firefighters battle to contain 15 major wildfires amid extreme heat and drought

Firefighters in Washington state are battling wildfires that have forced 60,000 people to flee and destroyed hundreds of buildings as drought and extreme heat fuel an “extraordinary” fire season in the Pacific north-west.

Fifteen major blazes are raging across the state, David Upthegrove, the head of Washington’s department of natural resources, told reporters over the weekend.

Farms and rooftop panels contribute 14.4% to the grid – and figures reveal a surge in new installations

Solar energy supplied more power to Great Britain’s grid in July than in any previous month as households turned to rooftop panels to cut their energy bills.

Solar farms and rooftop panels provided 14.4% of the country’s electricity after some parts of the UK recorded almost twice the average sunshine hours for the time of year.

Restore leader has countered charges he’s splitting the right while showing his party is a very real obstacle for Reform

Even by the standards of their rivalry, the speed at which Rupert Lowe’s olive branch to Nigel Farage morphed into fresh recriminations between the two was swift.

It began with a softly lit 12-minute video posted on Sunday by the Restore Britain leader, looking straight to camera and referring to “Nigel” as he suggested his party could be willing to cast aside its differences with Reform UK and work together.

Nathan Owen drove his electric Jaguar at up to 86mph and lied to police it was malfunctioning and out of his control

A man who drove his electric Jaguar at up to 86mph on motorways falsely telling police the car was malfunctioning and out of his control has been jailed for four years and three months.

Nathan Owen fabricated not being able to brake in a “frighteningly stupid” ploy to avoid paying car finance, Liverpool crown court heard.

Family update on GoFundMe page says child, who was six when badly injured in 2019 incident, is now back at school

A boy thrown from the viewing balcony in London’s Tate Modern art gallery has a “smile back on his face” after being discharged from hospital, his family have said.

The French youngster, whose name remains undisclosed for privacy reasons, was six when he was badly hurt in an attack by then teenager Jonty Bravery at the London attraction on 4 August 2019.

Ruling quashes Home Office policy to refuse asylum seekers’ right to have trafficking claims reconsidered after initial rejection

A high court judge has ordered the Home Office to bring an alleged victim of trafficking forcibly removed to France under the “one in one out” scheme back to the UK.

It is the first ruling of its kind and could lead to more people affected by the “one in one out” policy being brought back to the UK.

Fuelled by TikTok and street dance battles, the coupé-décalé offshoot is latest expression of Côte d’Ivoire’s pop culture

The 400-strong crowd, perched on plastic chairs and wooden benches in Abidjan’s Yopougon-Selmer neighbourhood, roared with approval as Sauce Graine twisted and turned on the spot with breathtaking speed and dexterity.

The dancer, named after the Ivorian palm nut delicacy, was competing in a series of street dance battles set to biama, a frenetic offshoot of coupé-décalé, a type of percussive dance music popular across west Africa that originated in Côte d’Ivoire around the turn of the century.

Large tabby cat that wiped out dozens of rare pāteke, or brown teal, has been killed after eluding trappers with its ‘very erratic’ behaviour

A notorious feral cat given the name “Nine Lives” because it eluded trappers for three years has been caught and killed in New Zealand, ending its devastating rampage against one of the country’s rare duck populations.

The cat, a large grey tabby, is estimated to have killed dozens of New Zealand’s rarest mainland duck – or 1% of its population – plus a host of kiwi chicks, native geckos and other native wildlife during the three years it was known to be roaming the Purerua peninsula, near the top of the North Island.

Campaigners say people who have had cancer face discrimination in areas including bank loans, adoption of children and insurance

German politicians who have survived cancer have spearheaded proposals to protect people long in remission from what they call rampant discrimination in areas including bank loans, adoption of children and insurance.

The policy known as “the right to be forgotten” (RTBF) is a central demand of a community estimated to number 5.5 million people in Germany: former cancer patients who have been given a clean bill of health by their doctors.

Seven people, including three children, dead after ‘drone debris’ strike beach in seaside town, says Russian taskforce

Ukrainian drone attacks on a Black Sea resort and the annexed Crimea peninsula killed 11 people, Russian officials said, after blaming Ukraine for another explosion that killed five people in a Moscow restaurant.

Seven people, including three children, were killed when “drone debris” struck a beach in the seaside town of Arkhipo-Osipovka, the crisis taskforce for Russia’s southern Krasnodar region said on social media.

Factories in upbeat mood despite fears over economic impact of US war on Iran, poll finds

• Business live – latest updates

UK manufacturers ramped up production last month for the fourth consecutive month and at the fastest pace in almost two years, according to a leading survey of the industry.

The S&P Global poll of manufacturers found them in upbeat mood in July, though anxious about the prospect of a long war in the Middle East that would block supplies of oil and gas, and raise the cost of production.

Proposed $400bn tie-up with Bristol Myers Squibb would create world’s fourth-largest drugmaker but analysts question rationale

More than £17bn was wiped off the value of Britain’s biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, on Monday after a report that it was in discussions to take over its US rival Bristol Myers Squibb in a deal that would create a near $400bn (£300bn) pharmaceutical group.

AstraZeneca, run by Pascal Soriot, its longtime chief executive, had been worth nearly £196bn before the news broke. BMS, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, and known for its cancer treatments, was worth $133bn (£98bn).

Investors scramble to make sense of a shock Chinese challenge to the dominance of western chipmakers

Even for the rollercoaster world of AI, last week was particularly volatile as investors scrambled to keep up with developments that threatened the dominance of the largest western chipmakers.

It began with a double whammy. On Monday, the Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT floated on the Shanghai stock market, soaring by 466% in value to 3.3tn yuan (£365bn).

New AI models, advanced robots and specialty computer chips are unsettling markets and the US tech industry

Over the past month, a series of advancements in China’s artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing and robotics technologies have rattled financial markets, caused divisions among US tech moguls and left the Trump administration scrambling to respond.

Silicon Valley has long pointed to China’s tech industry as a competitive threat and used its growth as rationale for why US firms should not face regulatory oversight that could slow them down. In recent weeks, however, China’s progress has pushed US tech CEOs past vague warnings and into open disagreement over how to address Chinese-made products upending their industry.

This near-hour of frothing wildness, in aid of Stand Up to Cancer, is utter chaos – interspersed with awareness-raising videos full of dignity and grace

If it’s early August, it must be Celebrity Hunted’s annual series in aid of the charity Stand Up to Cancer. The dozen famouses must evade capture for two weeks, which is a shorter time than civilians are required to manage it. Is it because celebrity schedules are fuller or their brains emptier? By the end of the first couple of episodes, I know which way I’m leaning.

The contestants, working in six pairs, include Britain’s last vaudevillian Brian Conley (“I’m like a coiled sponge!”) and his daughter Lucy (“Dad! Stop being funny”), TV property presenter siblings – a sort of hyphenate from hell – Scarlette and Stuart Douglas, plus comedians Jen Brister and Laura Smyth. In a game where predictability is the greatest – well, predictor – of failure, they may have the best plan. “I’m just not going to take my HRT for a week and let’s see what happens,” says Jen.

Celebrity Hunted is on Channel 4

It has 12 movements, 200 musicians and aims to unite America. The great US trumpeter and composer talks about his All Rise symphony, his jazz great mentors – and learning humility from his wife

At Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, Wynton Marsalis is hard to spot. When he first played this venue, in 1984, he was the prodigious 22-year-old soloist out front, blowing Haydn’s trumpet concerto under the baton of Lorin Maazel. Tonight he is embedded in the machinery: half-hidden behind ranks of strings and woodwind, a black-suited figure in the heart of his own symphony.

It’s a strange way for a composer to behave – especially one whose public persona has long been associated with certainty, polemic and the upright authority of a man who can make any argument sound like a moral law. Yet Marsalis seems almost pleased by his disappearance. “It’s my piece,” he says, as we talk in his hotel room the next morning, “but it’s not my show.”

This sensitive adaptation of Jansson’s 1972 novel, set in the beatific Gulf of Finland, is a quiet treatise on life and death

Glenn Close brings her totemic presence to this gentle movie – as well as a makeup-enhanced grandmotherly face. This is a sweet-natured adaptation of Tove Jansson’s 1972 novel; it has charm, though it’s sometimes becalmed in its own sensitivity.

Close plays a tough, wise, humorous-yet-cantankerous eightysomething woman who likes cigarettes and walking around outside stark naked when there’s nobody else around. She brings her recently widowed son (Anders Danielsen Lie) and six-year-old granddaughter Sophia (newcomer Emily Matthews) to a tiny, idyllic island in the Gulf of Finland, where they have a summer cottage. The grandmother may, incidentally, have unresolved feelings for local man Eriksson, in a fleeting cameo for veteran Icelandic actor Ingvar Sigurdsson.

Gripping first-hand testimonies walk through the events of the 2018 poisoning. Plus: a campfire showdown in Survivor Australia. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Documentaries
“I said to myself: ‘Don’t worry, nothing happens in Salisbury,’” remembers journalist Emma Volney of her first week in local radio in 2018. “You don’t expect to see two people on a bench foaming at the mouth.” This documentary uses first-hand testimony to walk through the events of the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The former prime minister Theresa May, intelligence officials and counterterrorism leaders also speak about the incident. Hollie Richardson

Now you’ve seen the new Spidey, let’s talk about new baddies (or are they goodies?), X-Men alumni, painful relationships and a potential Spidey-pig

• This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day

There was a danger that Spider-Man: Brand New Day might amount to little more than a palate cleanser between the multiversal excesses of No Way Home and the all-star chaos of Avengers: Doomsday. Why not just keep it small: a more grounded tale of New York crime-fighting, to keep the Marvel machine rolling before the inevitable return of world-ending stakes? Instead, the studio, once again in partnership with Spider-Man rights holder Sony, has produced a gamechanging comic book epic whose effects will continue being felt for years to come.

The film’s biggest twist is significant enough on its own, but Brand New Day keeps widening the implications long after the initial shock has started to wear off. Characters who seemed to exist for one purpose gradually reveal another. Throwaway conversations acquire unexpected significance. New gadgets, strange abilities and apparently routine subplots all hint at much broader shifts taking place beneath the familiar web-slinging adventure. By the time the credits have rolled, the film has answered some longstanding questions, raised several more, and left audiences with a surprisingly clear idea of where the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) could be heading next.

Pleasingly potboilerish tale of a woman trying to make sense of a traumatic fall that left her comatose slightly loses track of its toxic mind games

It is fair to say that spending your time doodling ouroboroses and picking open your surgical scar probably indicates you are not in a fantastic frame of mind. These are coping mechanisms for Mia (Simone Ashley) after she wakes up, at the start of this capable psychological thriller, from a coma resulting from falling several storeys of an airport building. A safety net is luckily there to catch her – but she remains in mental freefall. Assaulted by stray fragments of memory, she is unable to say whether husband, Jake (Austin Stowell), who is currently in jail, was the one who pushed her over the parapet.

As Mia tries to piece together shattered body and mind, her family, led by solicitous brother Ajay (Suraj Sharma), try to persuade her to cut Jake loose. But she dithers, held back by guilt about how seriously she took his own unravelling, the spiralling paranoia that made him quit his job as a New York actuary and led them to start a new life in Los Angeles. When she finally visits him in jail, is Jake gaslighting her – intent on further manipulation – when he suggests that Ajay is gaslighting her for his own ends by pushing her to break up with him? Or she gaslighting herself by giving him the benefit of the doubt in the first place? This is a Mexican standoff of gaslighting.

Royal Albert Hall, London
The intricate concerto was paired with the world premiere of Dani Howard’s likable Concerto for Brass and a lush Scriabin symphony, all admirably led by Paavo Järvi

London will be seeing a lot more of Paavo Järvi when the Estonian conductor takes the reins at the London Philharmonic in 2028. Here, on the podium with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he proved a model of calm, control and clarity as well as the most sensitive of accompanists, shepherding a breathtaking account of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto by Leonidas Kavakos.

The Russian composer struggled for three years to find a soloist brave enough to take on the work’s premiere, yet Kavakos was clearly undaunted. The Greek violinist’s exceptional dexterity and pinpoint intonation at the very top of the range made light of fiendish passagework that has foxed some of the finest. The first movement’s intricate variations were exquisitely decorated, while the intensity of his playing drew spontaneous applause mid-cadenza. Järvi, for his part, was alert to the soloist’s generous rubato, keeping the orchestra in soft-shoed lockstep. As the simple eloquence of the canzonetta gave way to a helter-skelter finale, Kavakos let fly, his bow skimming the strings with unerring accuracy. A Bach encore was dispatched with similar poise and precision.

Fern Brady and Alison Spittle return for natter with no rules. Plus, the viral red phone is back on the bridge

Comedians Fern Brady and Alison Spittle return for a second series of comically chaotic chat. Expect plenty of wildly pinballing discussions with no theme other than what pops into their heads. Topics so far include Robert De Niro’s much younger partner, podcasts about nuns playing ultimate frisbee – and Brady on how “so many of Bonnie Blue’s views are so close to mine”. Business as usual, then. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

The singer and actor is partial to Mozart and once did Édith Piaf at karaoke, but to which musical showstopper does she owe everything?

The first song I fell in love with
I used to sing All I Have to Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers with my schoolfriend who lived over the road, when I was 11 or 12. I sang the harmony and she sang the melody.

The song I do at karaoke
The only time was on holiday in Nice with a friend. We’d been out for a lovely supper and had far too much rosé, and I was about to play Édith Piaf in the West End. I ended up singing Hymne à l’amour, and he did Fools Rush In.

Royal Albert Hall, London
An acted prelude by Jane Mitchell teased out the composer’s motivations for his engrossing First Symphony before the orchestra assayed the work from memory

“Ridiculous,” “offensively trivial”, “a complete disaster,” just some of the critical barbs hurled at Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony following its Budapest premiere in 1889. A babel of such invective echoed around the Albert Hall launching the ingenious theatrical presentation – in effect, a staged programme note – that preceded Aurora Orchestra’s performance of the work in all its maverick majesty. Over an hour, actors and musicians took us on a light touch, deep dive into the circumstances surrounding the genesis of a symphony that frankly baffled its first audience.

“For those that listen closely, everything about me is explained in this music,” declared a beguiling Jack Bardoe, perfectly encapsulating Mahler’s combination of frenetic energy and artistic neuroses (“A bomb encased in razorblades,” is how one-time friend Ferdinand Pfohl put it). The setting was a psychiatrist’s office, with Sarah Twomey a forthright Sigmund Freud (“Tell me about your mother”) linking the composer’s compulsion to write music with a need to re-enact childhood trauma. Paternal cruelty, eight siblings lost in infancy and a disastrous love affair fostered a deeper understanding of what made Mahler tick.

From an ashram in India to an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru, a travel writer searches for meaning after the death of his wife

In this moving, sometimes grandiloquent grief-memoir-cum-travelogue, Rory MacLean pairs an affinity for new-age thinking with a habit of loftily holding forth (“none of us are created for naught”, “love can but lead to truth”) and a proclivity for arresting one-liners (“I watched gods walk on fire”). In his search for meaning in the five years after his wife’s untimely death from cancer, he shows himself to be both refreshingly broad-minded and unnecessarily crotchety, like a more cantankerous Michael Palin.

MacLean’s work as a travel writer has taken him across the world, whether flying a handbuilt plane over Crete or riding shotgun with a drug warlord in Burma. This is his first book since losing Katrin, for 32 years the “fixed point” in his life, whose final weeks and moments he describes tenderly. Unable to process her death, he turns to travel to seek out “thin places”: áiteanna tanaí in Celtic mythology, where the veil between worlds is porous. Starting in Jerusalem, his quest takes him to more than a dozen sacred locations, including an ashram in India, a Native American community in South Dakota, an “excruciating” Vipassanā retreat in Suffolk and, inevitably, an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru.

London’s 90s art scene forms the backdrop to this tale of a complex relationship between two artists whose identities become entangled in their creative collaboration

For all the wrong reasons, Damien Hirst’s Shark (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living) has a claim to being the most prescient British artwork of the last half-century: a grim parable of neoliberalism. In 1991, it was still possible to mistake the predatory violence of that system for a kind of animal vitality. But today, open-mouthed, dead-eyed and decayed, it speaks only of a regime preserved far beyond its natural lifespan, lauded exclusively by institutions that can profit from its ugliness.

Alex Hyde’s second novel, an elegant Künstlerroman which plays out during a lightly fictionalised version of the YBA explosion, explores the resonance of that particular cultural inflection point: a moment when the collapse of the postwar cultural settlement, municipal culture and public institutions was transfigured decisively and ubiquitously into individualised, confessional artistic capital.

This brilliant account of attempts by the old guard to take back control captures the ludicrousness of it all beautifully

Marxist-Leninist rule in Russia lasted 74 years, and in August 1991 it effectively collapsed in just three days: clear evidence of how hollowed out it had become. In the period that followed, Russia tried parliamentary democracy and unalloyed capitalism, then sank back into autocracy. Now it’s struggling under a wholly unnecessary war against its neighbour and former possession, Ukraine.

Why did the system of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev vanish so fast, without a fight? Because that’s how regimes fall in Russia: look at tsarism in 1917. (It almost happened again in June 2023, when the warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s men marched on Moscow largely unopposed; Vladimir Putin might have gone the way of Nicholas II had he not made some pretty wholesale promises to Prigozhin, then allegedly blown him up two months later.)

With smartphones stealing our attention, we’re picking up fewer books than ever. A novelist shares her eight-week scheme to get you back into the habit

Do you feel that it’s harder to read than it used to be? Not harder to read emails, texts and social media posts, of course. We’re reading those all day long. Harder to sit down and lose yourself in a book? How long is it since you even sat down with a weekend newspaper and read it cover to cover? Do you feel that you used to have a life-sustaining reading habit, everything from fun popcorn novels to serious nonfiction, classic and contemporary, many genres and writers, but somehow it’s gone away? It doesn’t feel like a decision that you made. It just happened.

I feel like that. At least more like that than I’m comfortable with. I’m a novelist and I present programs about thinking on the BBC, and yet even I am finding that I’m reading less than I used to. It seems more of an effort and less of a consistent, persistent habit than it was. I hate this feeling. I still have the habit of acquiring books, buying them, getting them from libraries, being sent them. And I do still read. Compared with many people, I probably read an enormous amount, but I know it’s not as much as I used to read. And I know where the time has gone.

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Game Freak/Fictions
Game Freak channels a post-apocalyptic reality that reflects our own repetitive erosion cycles, with a fair bit of hand-holding

Most of your time in Beast of Reincarnation is spent collecting last words. You cross paths with robots lying on the ground, who muster whatever energy they have left to provide guidance. These interactions are fleeting. Attempt to talk to them a second time, and protagonist Emma makes their fates painfully clear: “They’ve already passed on.”

The latest detour by Game Freak, the studio best known as the primary developer of Pokémon games, is an action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic Japan. Taking cues from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and NieR: Automata, you wield the sword of an outcast accompanied by an ever-loyal canine. The pair embark on a taxing and often monotonous journey to defeat the titular beast, which nonetheless serves a thematic purpose to bolster a decaying reality, while reflecting a possible future for ours.

Online multiplayer changed the trajectory of games, but the cost of keeping servers running means every virtual world is doomed to die – sooner or later

Nevan Hagarty had an idea. If he and other Halo 3 players stayed online the night of 13 January 2022, they could delay the impending server shutdown. Players knew this was coming: it had happened to Halo 2 when its Xbox Live servers were turned off in 2010, and a group managed to stay logged into the multiplayer servers for weeks.

And so, players gathered online before the server shutdown to pay homage and to mourn the game they loved so dearly. And, maybe, to keep it online for a little longer. “I must have played ’til about 4am the night of the shutdown, trading stories with so many players about their love of the game and their experiences over the last 15 years,” says Hagarty, 22. “It was a really wholesome experience I won’t forget.”

Hidden gems can be unearthed, but you have to dig deep into the bargain bins of countless outdated Fifas, Wii Fits without the controllers and partially finished quizshow games

As an eternally optimistic charity shop fan, I hold on to the fantasy that one day I’ll walk into my local Oxfam and find a pristine copy of the Sega Saturn shooter Burning Rangers for £1.50. Or perhaps a box full of old Neo Geo carts for a quid each. Sadly, this is now unlikely. Charity shops have caught on to the fact that old video games – like old vinyl albums – are highly collectible, and so they’re putting the good stuff on eBay. That’s fine, it’s their job to raise money, not to provide opportunist swine like me with bargains. But what games can you find tucked away in your local branch of Barnardo’s? To find out I visited about 40 charity stores across the country. Here is what I discovered on the shelves … And please do share your own charity shop gaming finds in the comments!

Playing as recent arrival Lena, your challenges include learning a new language and uncovering family secrets – its developer hopes it will spread ‘a little more compassion’

The cosy house-sorting sim has become a much-loved staple of the PC indie scene. Titles such as Unpacking, A Little to the Left and Momento charm players with their detailed interiors and quiet narratives of lives lived and shared within the same four walls. For Clean Start, Polish developer Serious Sim has taken a different approach – here you play as domestic cleaner, Lena, an immigrant who has arrived in an unspecified western country with little knowledge of the local language, and a family to support back home.

From here, you’re tasked with cleaning a series of houses and apartments, polishing tables, tidying shelves and scrubbing muddy pawprints from kitchen floors. It seems you’re able to rearrange the rooms, giving them a personal feel, which is after all one of the most pleasing elements of the genre. You can also, we are reassured, pet the dog.

Drew McOnie skipped school to audition for the original. It launched his astonishing career. Now he’s getting his claws into a no-pussyfooting version of the classic hit

At the age of 17, Drew McOnie was so determined to be in the musical Cats that he snuck out of school to audition. Four days later, he was on a flight to Germany to join the international production. (Luckily, he was at a performing arts school and they forgave him.) It was a life-changing moment: at that point, McOnie’s stellar career as a dancer, Olivier award-winning choreographer and director began – and, 23 years later, it’s all about to come full circle. McOnie has created his own version of the musical he’s been obsessed with since childhood.

For any dancer growing up in the 1980s and 90s, Cats was the musical: dance wasn’t just an accompaniment, but instrumental to the show. Gillian Lynne’s original choreography is iconic – much copied by local dance schools and student shows of the era. Lynne was a force of nature, still doing the splits at 88, four years before she died in 2018. For McOnie, artistic director at Regent’s Park Open Air theatre and famed for his blazing choreography in Jesus Christ Superstar, it takes some nerve to remake it.

Bayreuth festival theatre, Bayreuth
For the festival’s 150th anniversary, the creative team have turned to AI to generate visuals reflecting Wagner’s tetralogy’s past, present – and future. The hyperactive result is a dismal, mindless mess

Unveiled the same week in which tech company Anthropic admitted that its AI model Claude had gone rogue during testing, Bayreuth festival’s new AI-generated staging of Wagner’s four-part Ring of the Nibelungen is at least timely. But anyone who assumes that the cycle’s obsession with knowledge, power and possession might make it an ideal forum for reflection on AI as a major contemporary frontier will be disappointed, as will anyone hopeful about AI’s creative potential within opera.

Commissioned to mark the festival’s 150th anniversary, the production is “curated” – emphatically not “directed” – by a team led by German stage director Marcus Lobbes. He apparently spent weeks in dialogue with AI models about possible interpretations of the Ring. According to the programme book, “power structures, capitalism, mythology, gender roles, nationalism”, all came up. So far, so mainstream Wagner reception. But if these human-machine exchanges were revelatory, you wouldn’t know it from the resulting staging, which uses AI “as an extension of a cultural memory that is never complete”.

London Coliseum
A quartet of conjurors, calling themselves the Horsemen, perform fine feats of escapology and mentalism that are undermined by smoke, lasers and pomposity

Is there an opposite of close-up magic? If there is, it would look a bit like the magic in Now You See Me, which must be visible (and audible) from space. This new spectacle, heading later this year to its spiritual home of Las Vegas, spins off from the movie franchise of the same name and features a quartet of conjurors (identifying, rather awkwardly, as “the Horsemen”) performing feats of escapology, mentalism and even time travel amid much bombastic son et lumière and self-promotion.

It could scarcely be more pompous – but happily, there are plenty of entertaining tricks to keep pomp-phobes like myself onside. The Italian Andrew Basso has arguably the stoppiest showstoppers, including his recreation of Houdini’s water torture stunt, and another where he extricates himself from padlocked chains while harbouring something very undesirable in his mouth. His French counterpart Enzo Weyne delivers an arresting number with a paper bag and a lightbulb, and there’s a fine audience participation set piece inviting us all to shred, shuffle then – as if by magic! – reassemble the playing cards we were given on the way in to the theatre.

In this week’s newsletter: ​H​idden creators ​reveal how invisibility can be a shield and spotlight in an era of relentless self‑exposure

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In 1985, an anonymous group of women disguised in gorilla masks burst on to the art scene in New York. At night, the Guerrilla Girls, as they named themselves, fly-posted around the city: funny, eye-catching posters highlighting gender and racial biases in museums and galleries. (“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” read one now-famous poster.) “Of course, we were afraid that if we blew the whistle on some of [the art world’s] most powerful people, we could kiss off our art careers,” a founding member explained in an interview for their 1995 book. “But mainly, we wanted the focus to be on the issues, not on our personalities or our own work.”

The collective is still active; 55 members have come and gone over the years. When giving interviews, they use pseudonyms borrowed from dead women artists: Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner, Käthe Kollwitz. Only a handful of their true identities have been revealed over the years, mostly after their deaths or due to lawsuits. But this week, a Guerrilla Girl made headlines when she chose to unmask herself on her own terms. “I’d had a pact with another Girl that whoever died first, the survivor would bring her out,” said the 83-year-old artist Joyce Kozloff (codename: Liubov Popova). “But I suddenly realised that if I were dead, I couldn’t tell the story my way.”

She’s acting royalty – literally, having played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown – but what questions would you ask her?

It is perhaps fitting that Imelda Staunton ended up playing Queen Elizabeth II in the last two series of The Crown, considering she has been acting royalty for years. Her film career has seen her voice champion egg-layer Bunty in 2000’s Chicken Run, followed by roles in Mike Leigh’s 2004 drama Vera Drake and the 2005 comedy Nanny McPhee. In 2014, she played the formidable Welsh miners’ strike campaigner Hefina in Pride. She also plays Lady Maud Bagshaw in the first two Downton Abbey films, and voices Paddington’s beloved Aunt Lucy in all three Paddington films. For a whole generation, however, she will always be Dolores Umbridge in two of the later Harry Potter films, where she somehow made a pink cardigan almost as frightening as Voldemort.

On TV, she has cropped up in everything from Little Britain and Doctor Who to Psychoville, Brassic and a memorable guest appearance in the fourth series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, where – for reasons known only to F&L – she was introduced as “Snutty”. Whether she’s playing a chicken, a bear or the head of state, there is always something unmistakably Imelda about her performances: warm and calm but with the distinct impression that she won’t stand for any nonsense.

In a career spanning six decades, photographer Gered Mankowitz has nurtured trusting relationships with many of the twentieth century’s defining artists. As he celebrates his 80th birthday, Mankowitz opens up about the stories behind iconic images of Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, Annie Lennox and others that have have become indelible parts of pop culture history. These images are taken from Gered Mankowitz: Photographs, out now via ACC Art Books; much of his work is also displayed at Iconic Images Gallery, London

‘We were swept up in the moment and full of testosterone. The 90s wasn’t a time when men were encouraged to be sensitive’

We were hanging out with the lovely producer George Drakoulias at Abbey Road. He said, “We’re going to bring in some instruments for you guys” – and replaced the fairly low-budget ones we’d been playing. I was given this beautiful 1960s Fender Jazz bass.

American actor best known for his role as Salvatore ‘Big Pussy’ Bonpensiero in the US TV crime drama series The Sopranos

The character actor Vincent Pastore, who has died aged 80, made Italian mobster roles his speciality, most notably playing Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, one of the capos in The Sopranos. Although the character’s nickname came from his early career as a cat burglar, in a recent interview Pastore said the Soprano’s creator, David Chase, had written the part “for an actor who could play a tough guy but also could be sensitive. I saw Big Pussy as a man with a big heart.”

In the show, Pastore’s Pussy balanced the violent intensity of Tony Sirico’s Paulie Walnuts. “It was like sharing the camera with an elephant,” Pastore joked about the much smaller but intense actor.

Jimi Famurewa, restaurant critic and food journalist, discovers how American regional deli sandwich culture is being reinvented in Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. From hoagies and subs to hero rolls, Jimi samples the upgraded sandwiches people are queuing hours for and learns how to make the everything sandwich and a meatball sub that’s so messy, you need to eat it alone at home.

Whether it’s budget barbecues or clever travel pillows, here are the favourites defining your summer

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July’s hitlist paints a picture of a month well spent. A barbecue and nifty wine cooler sleeve suggest alfresco evenings, while a bargain tent and cool box point to camping trips. Sensible but stylish walking shoes and a trusty water bottle also suggest time spent in the great outdoors.

All in all – despite the climate crisis-charged heatwaves and hosepipe bans – it sounds like you’re making the most of the summer. From a cooling mattress topper to a cheap-and-cheerful mascara, here are your favourite things from last month.

We put 10 tinned and jarred varieties to the test to see which anchovies are the best catch for your cash

• The best supermarket tinned sardines

To taste these anchovies, I invited a friend, the food journalist and author Sudi Pigott, to join me. Arriving with a packet of Pujadó Solano anchovies and her new book, Consider the Anchovy, in hand, she and I tasted 10 brands of anchovies straight from the tin or jar with sparkling water and cucumber to cleanse the palate. According to Pigott, the best anchovies are “juicy, plump and velvety, with a sweet, nutty taste of jamón!”

The anchovy supply chain has been heavily affected by El Niño, which caused abnormal weather events in Peru, where the most economical anchovies in our test were fished. But premium anchovies sourced from the Bay of Biscay (the Cantabrian Sea) have also faced external pressures. A lack of supply, among other factors, has increased prices and left some supermarket shelves bare.

Our writer spent the hottest weeks of the year churning through the top ice-cream makers, from compressor models to the cult favourite Ninja Creami. Here’s the scoop

• Kitchen gadgets top chefs can’t live without

I love a scoop or two of the good stuff, even more so when the mercury hits 30C and ice-cream starts feeling less like an indulgence and more like an essential survival tool. This is why owning an ice-cream maker has always made sense to me. I’ve been using the original Ninja Creami for years now, but before that I was spending a small fortune on gelato, fruity sorbets, frozen yoghurt and other such desserts from the frozen aisle.

Some might argue that the best ice-cream makers are a luxury, but if you’re a true dessert devotee, I believe they can earn their keep in no time. A tub of Häagen-Dazs will set you back almost £6 nowadays, which is an expensive habit if you’re getting through a pot a week during the hottest months of the year.

They promise clearer, younger-looking skin, but is your money better spent elsewhere? Dermatologists and experts weigh in

• How to build the perfect skincare routine

Countless faddy products have crossed my desk over the years I’ve been reviewing beauty tech, from app-connected toothbrushes to AI-powered hair dryers. Few, however, have held such sustained interest as LED face masks.

At first glance, I assumed these scary-looking, space-age skincare devices would fizzle out of favour as quickly as they appeared. Instead, they’ve become a staple in some people’s skincare routines, including my own.

Levantine summer magic in a herby and moreish Arabic frittata with a peachy fruit, red onion and rocket salad

I’ve always loved food that can be enjoyed at room temperature, or even cold the next day. As the UK, along with many other parts of the world, swelters through another hot summer, these are exactly the kinds of dishes I want to cook and eat. Fresh, light and unfussy, they require little effort, yet never compromise on flavour. This herb-packed courgette and feta ijeh paired with a lush fruit, red onion and rocket salad alongside makes the perfect meal for warm days and relaxed summer gatherings.

British cheesemakers have struggled to find a use for the 95,000 tonnes of salty whey they produce every year. But researchers may have come up with a solution

Name: Whey.

Age: As old as milk.

Enjoy this big bowl of refreshing noodle soup with turmeric and coconut milk spiked with a kick of chilli

This is exactly what I want to eat when I’m under the weather: a big bowl of Thai-inspired, soupy noodles with turmeric and coconut milk, all spiked with chilli. It’s a soup base that adapts perfectly for vegetarians (add cubed tofu) or leftovers (shredded roast chicken). This makes a lot of broth (hydration is important!), so serve it in your best ramen or soup bowls. The choice of noodles is yours: rice noodles (flat or vermicelli) work well for a gluten-free option, but I inevitably use my favourite straight-to-wok thick udon.

Perfect for cooking in the heat, these light, fresh dishes that are bursting with flavour will have you falling hook, line and sinker

Summer is my favourite time of year to cook fish. There are so many fantastic seasonal species available and, so long as they’re properly fresh and of good quality, they need very little intervention. I often look for lightness, freshness and acidity to bring balance and lift to a summery fish dish, whether that comes from citrus, herbs or a sharp dressing, because those elements enhance the natural flavour of the fish, rather than masking it. These recipes are ideal for relaxed summer cooking: full of flavour, yet straightforward enough for a midweek meal.

He could seem judgmental, even moody. But the whole neighbourhood mourned when this remarkable moggy went to meet his maker

When my cat Eric passed away from stomach cancer in 2001, I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to have a pet again. But a few months later I was given another cat, Karl, by an old friend from Camberwell College of Arts in south London, who was moving back to Germany. I had known Karl when I was a student there, where he had been mates with Eric. Karl, an unassuming brown tabby with a judgmental glare, took me back to living in student halls in the 90s.

Karl was perhaps the most average-looking tabby in south London, but on my quiet street he became a legend of sorts. He accompanied my children and me on school runs. He would walk ahead with his belly swinging and take us to the top of the road. There he would wait until I dropped off the children and escort me back home.

Vivian and Thomas both left physically unfulfilling marriages and are rediscovering their sex drives in later life

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

Since menopause and being with Thomas, my interest in sex is much higher

A prospective Restore Britain voter and a Green-supporting Chinese immigrant found some common ground over small-boat crossings, but where did they land on foxhunting?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Phill, 58, Hertfordshire

Occupation Stairlift surveyor

Rachel forked out £700 for beauty treatments, Kojo confessed to a £25 cigarette habit, and Jake indulged his love of fancy timepieces. Were their other halves forgiving or furious?

Rachel and Kojo, Northampton

Reader expresses consternation after enforcement officer issues penalty notice outside station in London

I was outside London Waterloo railway station and was looking for a bin to dispose of an empty coffee cup.

The only bin I could see was completely full, but there was a plastic bag containing rubbish at the base.

Criminals hope by using threats of enforcement action, people will panic and click link to bogus parking app site

You use parking apps a lot – you have several on your phone – but it is not always straightforward. Sometimes there is a lack of reliable mobile signal, or the app crashes or behaves oddly, or it does not seem to want to accept your bank card.

Also, it is sometimes hard to keep track of which apps you have used when. So when you receive a text from RingGo saying you owe it money, you are not totally surprised.

From melted electric sockets to shabby alternatives, readers tell of dealings with platform when things go wrong

Jane Ripley* spent some time researching the best apartment to stay in for her family’s trip to Batumi in Georgia, eventually settling on one with an “exceptional” rating on Booking.com.

But when the Ripleys arrived at 11pm on the first day, they were directed to another property that was shabby and had stains on the furniture and ceiling.

Whether it is SpaceX or a bank, getting the right facts about a firm can offer vital insights before you invest in it

When Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched on to the stock market, tens of thousands of Britons clamoured to buy a stake, putting the spotlight on DIY investing.

Going it alone and buying shares in individual companies can be rewarding, but also risky. Unless you have a huge amount of cash, you are likely to end up investing in far fewer companies than if you invested in a fund. This means you are more exposed to the ups and downs of those companies’ fortunes.

From the 47-year-old runner who needs a double hip replacement to the 27-year-old CrossFitter with a ruptured ACL, those who push their bodies too hard often regret it. What are the lessons for the rest of us?

Jonathan Price has always been active and exercise-focused. Growing up in south Wales, rugby was his first love. Through school, university and beyond, he also surfed, rowed, played squash and ran competitively – on track, in 10k races and cross-country. Career and family demands meant that much of this fell away in later years, but the running stuck. He found time for marathons, half marathons – “I’d run a half marathon every weekend just for fun,” he says – and, through the working week, regular 30- or 40-minute runs to manage stress and clear his head. “I travel a lot for work,” says Price, now 50, a company CEO. “With running, all you need is a pair of running shoes and you can do it anywhere.”

By his mid-40s, though, Price’s body was beginning to object. He wasn’t recovering so well. “I could run just fine but I’d be in pain for two or three days afterwards,” he says. On top of this, every six months or so, his lower back seemed to seize up completely. A physiotherapist thought it was “tight hip flexors” and pointed Price towards “hip opening” exercises, designed to reduce stiffness and increase range of motion. Someone else prescribed him muscle relaxants, but the pain only deepened, and his range of movement continued to dip. Finally, in the summer of 2023, a chance encounter with a hip surgeon led to the diagnosis of osteoarthritis and, at the end of that year, Price, then 47, had a double hip replacement.

Want to lower your temperature and drift off to sleep quicker? An ice-cold shower might seem the best solution, but the truth is more complicated

It’s another sticky summer evening. You’re too hot to sleep. Surely an ice-cold shower is the best way to cool off and drift away quicker? Not really, says Mike Tipton, a professor of human and applied physiology at the University of Portsmouth.

“If you’re trying to go to sleep, the last thing you want to do is go into a freezing cold shower,” he says. The shock of cold water immersion causes the body to produce adrenaline and cortisol, stress hormones designed to keep us alert. “That’s just about the last thing you want before you go to bed.”

Menstrual and digestive discomfort often coincide, and a researcher who has been looking in to it for a decade tells us what she learned

Every period, right on schedule: the cramps arrive, and right behind them, the urgent need to poop.

If this is your experience, you’re in good company: in one study, 73% of healthy premenopausal women reported at least one significant gastrointestinal symptom in the days before or during their period. Abdominal pain and diarrhea were the most common complaints, but women reported nausea and constipation too.

Avoid espresso martinis and wear the right pyjamas: experts give tips on how to sleep when it’s hot outside

• Tell us: what impact have GLP-1s had on your relationships?

Getting a good night’s sleep when it’s hot out can feel impossible. Unfortunately, worrying about not being well-rested doesn’t help.

Experts say worrying about sleep in warm weather will inevitably make you feel worse. “When people cannot sleep because they are too hot, it often becomes both a physical and a mental challenge,” says Dr Shelby Harris, founder and director of NY Sleep and Psychology, and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia. “They may start watching the clock, worrying about how tired they will be the next day, or trying harder to force themselves to fall asleep.

Whether you’re in full summer mode or quietly planning for autumn, our fashion expert’s monthly picks will carry you stylishly between the two

• How to create the perfect women’s holiday capsule wardrobe

August: do you buy for the holiday you’ll be melting through this month, or the one you’ll be pretending to enjoy in a jumper come October? Answers on a postcard, please! The key to staying (relatively) sane in silly season is to embrace the contradictions.

Read on for the holiday-coded necklace I’ve fallen in love with and the elegant leather handbag I’m dreaming of when I hang up my straw basket. Plus, a lace camisole and a cosy jumper – and the absolute sweetest grip socks for my pilates girlies.

Private White VC’s James Eden says PM should not be criticised for wearing a high-quality British-made brand

It has not yet been two weeks since James Eden, the founder of the Manchester men’s clothier Private White VC, saw one of his best-known customers move in to No 10 Downing Street.

In any sane world the man who makes the prime minister’s jackets would be popping open the champagne. His garments have been seen by millions of people and described by journalists all over the world writing about Burnham’s buttoned-down style.

Celebrities including Charli xcx and Gabbriette and avant-garde brands honour tradition while also rejecting it

If a wedding day brings to mind a bride dressed in a big white dress, the styles coming down the aisle in the near future may strike you as a little different. Whether it is through celebrity references, or new brands, wedding gowns are entering a more experimental era.

For Charli xcx’s marriage to the 1975 drummer George Daniel last year, the bride wore a minidress and sunglasses.

Minty fresh flavours are out, gold plated toothbrushes are in, and dental experts are sceptical

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First it came for handwash. Then deodorant. Now, the fancification trend has claimed its next victim: dental products. From £20 toothpastes to bottles of mouthwash that sound more like a perfume than a breath freshener, a new wave of oral care is blurring the lines between function and fashion.

Rather than being shoved in an old tumbler on the back of the shelf, today’s iterations of toothbrushes and pastes are at the forefront of social media sink shots, proudly displayed alongside a three-wick candle and curated pile of skincare.

From Blackpool to Bournemouth, these quintessentially British institutions celebrate a lot more than fish and chips and amusement arcades

Perched in our glass-fronted eyrie, 300 metres out to sea, we watch a murmuration of starlings rise and fall and swoop around us. When the show is over, we turn our attention to the food. I have a bespoke vegan menu based on the best early summer ingredients: jersey royals, asparagus, strawberries. My boyfriend orders off the weekly changing à la carte: slow-cooked beef dumplings followed by butter-poached halibut.

We are at Ebb, a restaurant at the end of the pier in Worthing, West Sussex, which opened in May. Its art-deco design and fine-dining dishes are a far cry from the fish-and-chip shops and ice-cream parlours more commonly found on seaside piers. But traditionalists need not despair: downstairs at Perch on the Pier, fish and chips – as well as tofish (tofu) and chips – are always on the menu, with a knickerbocker glory to round things off in fine retro style.

Falling in love with a novel motivated these five travel writers to immerse themselves in locations from the Yukon and Kyrgyzstan to the Côte d’Azur

Inspired by Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express

Rabat is a gorgeous seaside city with great food and culture, but for book lovers there’s an added incentive to go this year

The first book I read willingly was Bridget Jones’s Diary. I was 19. Up to that point, I hadn’t been much of a reader. I’d been more into football, or Baywatch, or Robin Budd in the year above – anything really. Given the choice between reading a book and staring at a wall, I would have plumped for the latter.

After finishing my A-levels, I worked in a barbecue restaurant in Portsmouth – which is where I found Bridget Jones. The book was lying around in the staffroom. I picked it up and read a few pages, and then a few more, and then a few more. It felt exciting. Like I’d met someone. Like I was suddenly in a relationship. Over the next few days, I remember cancelling nights out so I could go to bed and read. My mum thought I was depressed.

From Dervla Murphy’s Northern Ireland to Elena Ferrante’s Naples, readers share the stories that inspired them to travel
• Tell us about a trip to Europe’s lakes and mountains – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Inspired by Dervla Murphy’s A Place Apart

It took a heatwave to get me to shed my shame and my sleeves, but now there’s no stopping me. Life is cooler in every way

‘Aren’t you hot in that?” was the question that plagued my summers as a teenager. I would never bare my arms; instead, I would cover up with a trusty black cardigan. Even T-shirts felt too revealing, too tight on the arm, too clinging to the body. I needed layers to feel comfortable. Well, comfortable isn’t the right word. I was never comfortable, despite telling everyone: “No, I’m not hot. I don’t really feel the heat.”

In my 20s and 30s, I collected a hot-weather capsule wardrobe of T-shirt dresses in various sizes, all baggy and sleeved. But why? I’m someone who should know better. I’ve read the books, I’ve shared the memes. I know, from body-positivity activists, that you don’t have to deny yourself the joy of being at the beach or pool just because a magazine tells you you have to get yourself “beach-body ready”: slimmer, hairless, perfect.

The solution to today’s puzzle

Earlier today I set you the following puzzle, suggested by Briton Alex Chui, the most successful ever candidate at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Last month Alex, who is a pupil at Tonbridge School in Kent, became the first person to win a medal at the olympiad for seven years in a row. Bravo!

Some reassurance that our puzzles are created by flesh-and-blood setters – and your clues for the name of Brockwell’s dog

The world of crosswords is generally a happy and sensible place. The human mind being what it is, though, we are not immune to entertaining ideas that are less than true.

Our equivalent of the conspiracy theory that humankind is being controlled by 5G phone masts is that puzzles are appearing that have not been created by people.

For hours we hobbled back, until we were close enough for him to place me down and run for help

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

We had heard there was an incredible waterfall somewhere deep in the Thai rainforest. Seeking it out almost killed me.

In 2003 I was travelling solo through south-east Asia when I met Paul, an American with an easy-going, natural warmth. We were the only two people bunking at a youth hostel somewhere in southern Thailand and got chatting one morning. When the staff told us about a beautiful waterfall not far from where we were staying, we made plans to hike there together.

This detritivore – known by a range of colourful names – tidies up our world and can withstand toxic pollution

• Revealed: the top 10 invertebrates of the year

Chucky pig. Slater. Monkey pea. Roly-poly. Boat-builder. Butchy boy. Cheeselog. Hobbling Andrew. Wood pig. If there were a prize for the range and joyfulness of a creature’s English-language names, the humble woodlouse would undoubtedly triumph over its million-plus invertebrate rivals.

Over centuries of easy cohabitation with humans, it has acquired more than 300 regional names in Britain alone, and many more in other languages (such as Gwrach y Coed, “witch of the wood”, in Welsh).

People among the more than 50,000 who entered Spanish enclave this week describe the journey and their prospects

Four days ago, Youssef El Abbas saw an opportunity to reclaim the life he had lost seven years earlier. News was circulating that about 400 people had swum from Morocco to the neighbouring Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north African coast, approximately 12 miles (19km) across the strait of Gibraltar from mainland Spain.

Here was a chance for the 44-year-old Moroccan father of four to return to Spain, from which he had been deported when his residency expired after the loss of his job in Bilbao in 2019.

Jason Arday was regarded as an academic superstar, but then questions about his work prompted scrutiny of his backstory and counterclaims of racism

When the superstar academic Jason Arday took to the stage at the British Sociological Association’s 75th anniversary conference earlier this year, he delivered a talk called Wanted Dead or Alive: the Playbook.

The youngest black professor in Cambridge University’s history told an audience of his peers that the playbook in question had helped bring down some of the biggest names in US academia. Conservative “activists” were trawling through the work of black academics, looking for anything to use against them: inconsistencies, citation errors, passages in their work that were similar to existing papers.

We would like to hear from people who have recently installed renewable energy sources in their home, or considered doing so

Great Britain has recorded more new solar power installations in the first half of this year than in any six-month period since 2011, with most of the new panels going onto household rooftops rather than large-scale solar farms.

The government’s data also shows a rise in households turning to other low-carbon technology: applications to the boiler upgrade scheme, which offers grants for replacing gas boilers with greener alternatives, reached 4,512 last month – up 21% on June last year – with demand for heat pumps expected to climb further in the months ahead.

We would love to hear about your workhorse appliances, why they’re so impressive and how long you’ve had them

An elderly couple in Gloucestershire are reportedly still using what is believed to be Britain’s oldest working fridge.

The Electrolux appliance was built in the 1930s and bought second-hand by their family in 1949, with the owners telling SWNS that it is “still going strong”.

We would like to hear your experiences of accessing, providing or relying on adult social care in England

Andy Burnham has said he is prepared to use his “political capital” to reform England’s adult social care system, with the new prime minister arguing that fixing social care is essential to easing pressure on the NHS.

Whether you receive care yourself, support a loved one, work in social care or are an unpaid carer, we want to understand what adult social care in England is really like for the people who rely on it every day.

Whether you’re part of a volunteer group or go out on solo clean-ups in the UK, we’d like to hear from you

Across the UK, people are getting together to clean up their local environments. Whether it be maintaining parkland, beaches, waterways or roadsides, we want to hear from the volunteers who are getting involved in the maintenance and preservation of their local areas.

Do you take part in weekly litter picking outings? Are you part of a group taking on the responsibility of keeping our beaches or rivers clean?

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