Paul Greengrass’s Peasants’ Revolt epic, The Uprising, is just the latest in a long line of movies depicting an unsuccessful attempt at remaking the nation

The British are perverse. We fetishise our failures, even if they are essentially tangential to a national narrative that should be about imperial conquest, slavery and being unremittingly unpleasant to foreigners. We tell and retell, for instance, the story of Captain Scott even though he died in Antarctica in 1912 after losing the race to reach the south pole first to the unacceptably Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Similarly, Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk typified the British tendency to snatch national glory from the jaws of defeat. And then there was the tragicomic disaster of the Charge of the Light Brigade during the 1853-56 Crimean war in which our boys raced to putatively glorious if stupid deaths. It’s as if, for us British, pointless sacrifice and embracing failure are what heroism means. And our cinema has colluded with this perversity.

But there is an exception to this national veneration of failure. Britain has been reluctant to embrace its revolutionary defeats. There is, for instance, no film dealing with the Chartist movement’s 19th-century struggle for universal suffrage. Even more strikingly yet, it is only now, in 2026, that a film has been made about the calamitous 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, even though it is a pivotal event in British history. Paul Greengrass’s The Uprising, starring Andrew Garfield as a – let’s just get this over with – revolting peasant, joins a mere handful of other movies, including Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s 1975 Winstanley, Bill Douglas’s 1986 Comrades and Mike Leigh’s 2018 Peterloo, that dare depict how radical collective action was crushed by a ruthless state.

If you take a break from the gym you may lose muscle and gain fat, but it isn’t as simple as one turning into the other

‘This is not true,” says Prof Leigh Breen, a specialist in muscle physiology at the University of Leicester. But it’s a statement he hears a lot, particularly from people who have taken a long break from exercise. “They’ll often refer to the notion that their muscles have ‘softened’ or don’t feel as toned.”

The reality is that there’s no biochemistry linking the two types of tissue. Muscle and fat are distinct. “There’s no known process in the human body that would support muscle turning into fat, or vice versa,” says Breen.

In our major recruitment drive, the focus must be on underrepresented communities. It is not favouritism, it is fairness – and it’s essential

• Mark Rowley is commissioner of the Metropolitan police

• Met chief says ‘toxicity’ around DEI will not stop him recruiting more Black and Asian officers

Effective policing depends upon inclusivity. If you are committed to policing by consent that stands or falls on the trust of all communities, you cannot do without it.

Last Monday, we launched a major recruitment campaign. We have no interest in the politics and ideologies of the culture wars. Inclusion is an operational necessity.

Mark Rowley is commissioner of the Metropolitan police

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.

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This is a beguiling, endlessly inventive and frequently astonishing fifth LP from a group at increasing ease with being the best band of their generation

Fifteen centuries ago, the Byzantine archbishop Theophilus of Adana did first-hand business with the devil for his own superficial betterment. Today, we just blindly tick a little box marked “accept terms and conditions” or let high-street snake oil merchants inject poison into our faces. The Faustian pact has become as depressingly banal as it is endemic and destructive – and unlike Theophilus, we can’t rely on the Virgin Mary to save us now. In the midst of headlines about AI destroying humanity, the idea of listening to music submerged in precisely this shade of doom might sound like, well, hell. If anyone can thread that poisoned needle, it’s Fontaines DC.

When the Dublin band introduced their last album, 2024’s Romance, it came with a surprise new look. Their uncoordinated jeans and shirts had been replaced by neon hair, shiny trousers and bug-eyed sunglasses that split the difference between Korn and the Prodigy. As they faced up to having traded their anonymity to become arena fillers, it wasn’t hard to read this look as a sort of protective cosplay, a cybergoth Sasha Fierce for five fairly low-key Irish lads trying to make peace with leaving their roots behind. Newly melodic and lavishly produced, Romance made no bones about the band’s ambitions and became their first platinum-certified album.

Manchester City unrepentant in victory, Spurs make progress of a sort and Noni Madueke meets the moment

The manner of Manchester City’s victory at Liverpool was an article of both vindication and vilification. Those gleefully wielding inflatable bananas in the Anfield away end could thumb their noses. Why not enjoy the dances of defiance until the music stops? The same went for City players, asked to perform under the darkest of clouds, able to focus, at last, on football, rather than legal argument and uncertain futures. Beyond City, the sight of a club found guilty of 100-plus charges laying waste to such rivals as Liverpool was deeply uncomfortable. The Premier League season and product are badly damaged until the matter is somehow resolved. What happened at Anfield should double the haste for a resolution. Chants of “cheat” whenever City players, the game already won, slipped the ball around, are bound to be repeated at other stadiums. Enzo Maresca has described his club’s plight as “noise” but his team’s victory did absolutely nothing to turn the volume down. John Brewin

Match report: Liverpool 0-3 Manchester City

Match report: Crystal Palace 3-1 Nottingham Forest

Match report: Hull City 2-2 Everton

After Susan Brison was raped and left for dead, her husband, Thomas, did his best to support her. They are still together, while many relationships collapse after a sexual assault. What did he get right – and wrong? And why did she want him to write about her ordeal?

On a hot, still, silent noon, at a junction of dirt roads in rural France, Thomas Trezise stood scanning the horizon, looking and listening for his wife. He tried to soothe a deep foreboding. Susan Brison had headed out for a morning walk two hours ago. How could she be gone so long?

This was 4 July 1990, the start of what was meant to be a busy summer. Trezise and Brison were both assistant professors in the US – he in French at Princeton and Brison in philosophy at Dartmouth – and had just arrived at the remote farmhouse of Trezise’s French colleague. Life seemed packed with promise. “I’d found someone with whom I really wanted to spend my life and I just felt very, very lucky,” says Trezise. “Susan and I had fallen quickly and deeply in love – it was magical – and at that point, we were also trying to conceive a child. We loved being in France. I kind of felt I’d found my way. It was a good place … until it happened.”

PM ‘absolutely accepts referendum result’, says spokesperson

• Burnham to urge MPs to embrace closer ties with EU

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, is speaking now. He started his speech with an account of a 73-year-old woman dying in North Wales after having to wait 23 hours for an ambulance, and he sought to link this to immigration.

He said:

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that 15,000 people across Britain died last year due to excess wait times for emergency treatment. That’s 300 people a week, 300 lives destroyed, 300 families devastated.

And that number has increased tenfold over the last decade. This is a moral outrage, and it is a direct result of decisions made by Tory and Labour governments.

I don’t think that’s because he wants to have a fight over the European Union. I think that’s because he knows what we’re talking about today impacts hard in what is known as the red wall.

Ukrainian leader says he was surprised by Trump’s ‘energy ceasefire’ announcement, which was posted as Russian drones hit Kyiv

• Europe live – latest updates

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to respond to Russia’s continuing attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as European leaders rally around Kyiv amid a feud with Donald Trump over Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries.

Speaking to a gathering of European security officials in Warsaw on Monday, the Ukrainian president said Ukraine would retaliate if strikes on its power grid continued: “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond.”

Exclusive: Some of £2bn savings needed from energy budget expected to come from boiler upgrade scheme, sources say

Ministers are preparing to slash the amount of money available to subsidise heat pumps as they look for ways to fund higher defence spending, sources have told the Guardian.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, has been tasked with finding more than £2bn in savings from her budget to help pay for defence investment under a plan drawn up by the previous government.

Accountancy firm Deloitte Cyprus among those that appear to have backdated records outlining the Russian billionaire’s assets

Aides of Roman Abramovich – including staff at the global accountancy firm Deloitte – falsified paperwork mapping the oligarch’s sprawling offshore business empire, records suggest, helping his businesses dodge tax and disguise assets.

New analysis of leaked corporate records uncovers what appears to have been a long-running and carefully orchestrated strategy of backdating documents.

Survivors had criticised ‘outrageous’ appointment of Laura Johnson to £150,000 job with Barnet Group

A housing director who oversaw cost cutting at Grenfell Tower before the fatal fire has left a £150,000-a-year senior council housing role after a backlash from bereaved families and survivors.

Laura Johnson was the director of housing at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) at the time of the 2017 Grenfell fire which killed 72 people, and was criticised in the subsequent inquiry for her role in budget-cutting decisions prior to the blaze.

US economists developed models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilise their economies

• Business live – latest updates

Two US economists have won the 2026 Nobel economics prize for their work developing models that help central bankers and finance ministers to stabilise their countries, avoiding long recessions and runaway inflation.

Robert Hall of Stanford University, California, and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, New York, were recognised for developing the “microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation”, giving policymakers better tools to smooth out the peaks and troughs of their economies.

Energy minister says ‘fear has no place in the Saudi lexicon’ as paramilitary group again breaches stretched defences

Saudi Arabia was forced to extend the suspension of all flights to and from its main international airport in Riyadh on Monday after a further round of Houthi missile attacks caused more damage and left one dead.

The Gulf nation said it was taking the step after Houthi missiles killed 13 people on Saturday and left more than 300 injured. Saudi state TV broadcast CCTV footage that showed passengers deluged in smoke and falling masonry as they queued at the airport terminal to board a plane just as the Houthi missile struck.

Bethany Antonia wore a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Protect the Dolls’ in rehearsals, but the words were edited out on Saturday’s show

The BBC has defended its decision to edit out a transgender rights slogan from a T-shirt worn by a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, stating it was standard practice to avoid “overt branding or slogans”.

The actor Bethany Antonia was filmed wearing the T-shirt, which bore the slogan “Protect the Dolls”, during rehearsals before her live performance on Saturday night.

Exclusive: Finds suggest account in medieval folklore of a camp near Frenni Fawr hill was rooted in reality

Magnus Maximus, the Roman emperor who ruled Britain in the fourth century, led his troops against the Picts and Scots, but a theory that he also established a military camp near Frenni Fawr hill in Wales has so far been based on folklore.

Now fourth-century coins, among other finds at a newly identified Roman fort in Pembrokeshire, suggest the medieval tale was rooted in reality, to the excitement of archaeologists.

Descendant of 19-century artist demands removal of Marc Chagall’s 1960s canvasses that cover original fresco

In 1962, the then French culture minister, André Malraux, reportedly bored by the ballet he was watching at Paris’s opera house, raised his eyes to the classical ceiling and decided it needed a makeover.

In his ennui, Malraux thought his friend and artist Marc Chagall, sitting next to him at the Palais Garnier at the time, was the man for the job and commissioned him to make a new ceiling.

Experts say children who live and learn in institutions away from their parents will always be more vulnerable

• Warning: contains graphic content some readers may find upsetting

Benji* was in his early teens when a fellow pupil at one of the country’s most prestigious independent schools began a series of sexual assaults against him that went on for years.

He had previously been happy at school, where he excelled at sport. Then one night he woke in his dormitory to find the other boy’s hand on his penis. “I just froze,” said Benji.

As an alleged 2024 gang-rape at Cornell comes to light, universities are grappling with a choice: student safety or alumni donations

Daniel R Schwarz, an 85-year-old English literature emeritus professor, still works at Cornell University after 59 years because he loves teaching and “watching young people grow”, he said.

Most of his students, he also said, have not been part of fraternities at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, where seven men allegedly gang-raped a woman in 2024.

Life had come crashing to a halt when I lost my brother. But in the cinema I found comfort and a strange solidarity

In 2022, my younger brother drowned in an accident. His death reset life as I knew it. I had been offered my first proper job; I didn’t take it. I was planning to move out; I stayed at home. At this critical juncture, with my foot on the pedal, ready to enter adult life, everything exploded.

At home, there were now three of us. We orbited separate corners of the house, each needing a different thing for comfort: for my mum, exercise; for my dad, music; for me, escape.

As the sprawling art jamboree hits London, eight of the most exciting exhibiting artists share what their work means to them – and who they hope will buy it

First held in 2003, the Frieze art fair is a giant art supermarket that descends on Regent’s Park, London, every October. Some detest it for its blatant commercialism, others relish it as the opportunity to see a mind-boggling amount of contemporary art in one enormous tent. Here, eight British-based artists of the moment talk through what they’re showing.

Struggling to breathe, so big she could barely walk, Pumpkin practically begged for help when we met. Before long I was taking her home

Pumpkin arrived at our animal shelter in March, after her owner passed away. As CEO and president of SPCA Cincinnati, I expect something heartbreaking when my team asks me to see an animal – perhaps they have been neglected or abused. Pumpkin was neither. She was dirty and had some fleas but that was not our concern. She was severely obese.

At 25lb (11.3kg), Pumpkin could barely move. Her legs were bowed from the weight and she walked with a waddle. Examining her wasn’t easy. Her breathing became so laboured that she turned blue.

Peter Flannery’s 90s TV drama classic is getting a theatre reworking in Newcastle. The director and cast talk about doing justice to its themes of scandal and decay – and emulating its star-making actors

In a small room at the top of Newcastle upon Tyne’s Live theatre, four actors are bringing to life the principal characters from one of British television’s best-loved dramas. Sitting around a table strewn with coffee cups, water bottles and annotated scripts, Tosker and Geordie have been boozing in a nightclub and weighing up their chances of pulling. Mary and Nicky have been arguing about whether they have a future together.

The scenes are from a new stage version of Our Friends in the North, the landmark nine-episode series first broadcast in 1996 on BBC Two. Set against a backdrop of Labour politics and police corruption, it charted 30 years in the lives of four working-class geordies and made stars of Mark Strong, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Christopher Eccleston. It was a hit with critics and viewers, won awards and regularly makes “greatest ever” lists.

The latest attack by Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia may prove to be more calamitous for the region than the world imagines

On Saturday, Houthi rebels launched a shocking and deadly attack on Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh. At the time of writing, the missile strike on King Khalid international airport has killed at least 13 people and left 300 injured, marking a significant turn in a regional conflagration that is only getting more intense. It was the single most deadly attack on any Gulf country since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February. In Saudi Arabia, a country that is unaccustomed to such fatalities, the death toll is bewilderingly high and likely to prompt a bloody response.

Over the past year, the Gulf has entered a new era of instability that is not temporary and cannot be reversed. This may feel like an overstatement – casualties have been relatively low, after all, compared with Gaza and Iran – but the gradual erosion of peace and security in places such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE has changed the region more dramatically than its leaders would like to acknowledge.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

For those of us who don’t like the chilly seasons, ‘glimmers’ are the way to go. This year mine are woolly, furry, scaly and crunchy

It finally got cold and dark in my neighbourhood last week. While that’s just how I like it, I know not to alienate summer people by celebrating: screw crunchy leaves, soup, cosy sweaters, got it. I do, actually, sort of get it: fat bear week is over, decay is in the air, we’re dreading what El Niño might do, and somewhere, some content creator is plotting to ruin sofa season with an awful new self-optimisation concept (“Forget the winter arc, lock in for the Shackleton shred: a single rusk and 14-hour sled-pull daily for three months!”).

It’s time to find some “glimmers”, which is what we’re calling little fragments of cheer now. “Micro moments of happiness that can flip the script on your day” have gone “pretty mainstream”, Grazia magazine said last month, but if you missed the memo, me too. I was busy spiralling into heatwave-fuelled existential dread when trend forecasters explored the glimmer concept this spring – it’s been a low-glimmer time for me.

The quirky vase, the owl candlestick, my mother’s ring – these items hold part of me and carry with them an existential problem

A friend of mine recently discussed his will with me. He talked about the importance of looking after his daughter financially when he’s gone. As a child-free woman, I confidently told him my money will go to organisations that have meant something to me: Macmillan Cancer Support and animal charities. It bemuses me how people think the absence of children is a problem when it comes to inheritance money; it’s always been obvious to me that I’d give my money to causes that touch my heart. But then my friend served something of a curveball. He asked me who will have my deceased mother’s ring?

It made me think: where do the precious artefacts from our lives go when we are no longer here? Whenever I’m away from home I look forward to being reunited with these things: the quirky vase that sits in the window of my study, and the owl candlestick, a birthday gift from my potter friend. These items carry parts of me – what will become of them? If you have children, the answer to this question is not presented to you as a puzzle; like a constellation of stars, the answer is perfectly aligned. If you don’t have children, the question can lead to existential angst.

Kiran Sidhu is a freelance journalist and writer. She is the author of I Can Hear the Cuckoo. She also wrote the Bafta award-winning documentary Heart Valley.

The rise of AI makes the preservation of democracy even more urgent – especially as the technology threatens institutions

AI safety is having a moment. After years as a topic for techies and futurists, the potential risks from artificial intelligence systems – from cyberattacks to hyper-persuasion to rogue behavior – are suddenly under discussion both in the corridors of power and around kitchen tables.

In fact, the conversation now reaches beyond classical safety concerns, getting into AI’s impact on economic life and the environment, as well as possible responses, from alignment research to government regulation.

In a recent visit to Greece, the secretary of state suggested that Europe must rediscover the values of conquest and expansion

They had obviously worked hard on the backdrop – and it was magnificent. On 7 October, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, delivered a major speech in Athens, outdoors, with the Acropolis behind him. The sun was setting, bathing the ancient scene, including the Parthenon, in the light of the golden hour.

The golden hour, but yet not quite the golden age. This was not Pericles defending democracy. Instead, Rubio offered a haunting vision of the choices facing the west, arguing that the US and Europe must rediscover the values of exploration and conquest that once drove centuries of expansion, or face decline and irrelevance.

There is much to agree with in the Fonagy review into mental health support. Without serious public funding, however, its approach won’t work

Back in late 2025, when Keir Starmer’s grip on the Labour party was loosening and Reform UK was still in its pomp, the then health secretary, Wes Streeting, commissioned what the government called its “Independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism”.

Here, it seemed, was not just an inquiry into England’s ever-extending waiting lists for the diagnosis of mental illness and neurodevelopmental conditions, and the dire lack of support for people who experience one or both of them. The review would also dovetail with two other huge issues: mounting claims of “overdiagnosis”, which Streeting had appeared to partly endorse, and the government’s drive for the reform of so-called welfare. An apparently well-briefed piece in the Times seemed to speak volumes: work led by the renowned psychologist Peter Fonagy, it said, was commencing just “as Labour seeks a fresh crackdown on welfare spending” amid diagnoses “which have become the most common reason for a sickness benefit claim”.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

We must now have unity and a discussion about party democracy. And let me be clear: as leader, I will never tolerate antisemitism

When I stood for leader of the Greens in 2025, our party was at a crossroads. The transformative leadership of Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay had taken us to an electoral success we’d never seen before. I knew we had even greater potential – and that the country was crying out for the bold politics we could offer.

We have seen unprecedented wins this year – from our first ever parliamentary byelection win to our landslide council and mayoral victories in former Labour strongholds.

Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green party of England and Wales and a member of the London assembly

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.

Parity of esteem with physical healthcare remains a distant prospect. Ministers must do more to tackle rising distress

Perhaps the single most important finding of the independent review into mental health, ADHD and autism in England, published last Friday, is that mental distress across the population, and particularly young people, has substantially worsened. Its chair, Prof Peter Fonagy, told the BBC that the former health secretary Wes Streeting had been “completely wrong” to suggest that conditions and disorders were being overdiagnosed.

Mr Streeting acknowledged his mistake. But some rightwing politicians and commentators have leapt on the notion that medicalisation of ordinary states of mind is behind the huge rise in young people seeking help. This review should bury that idea. Instead, this should be a moment to face facts. First, that the rises in psychological distress, and the need for support with neurodevelopmental differences, are real and tied to social changes. Second, that current services are not up to what is being asked of them.

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 fuel deal with Vladimir Putin, and sanctions against the legal institution, ram home the president’s belief that might is right

On Friday, Donald Trump drove home his belief that might is right and the rule of law is an obstacle rather than an essential foundation stone of international order. First came the escalated assault on the international criminal court (ICC), sanctioning the body itself. Then he announced a deal with Russia to buy diesel.

The US has long chafed at the notion of being bound by the rule of law that it espoused publicly. That hypocrisy now appears as a lesser vice. The president has declared that “my own morality” is all that constrains him. His brazen flouting of the law, embrace of dictators and rhetorical attacks all undermine global standards.

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.

Nic Madge and David Lindsay respond to the government’s proposals to reform the criminal justice system

The government is right to abandon David Lammy’s main proposal to replace some jury trials with judges sitting alone (Ministers drop plans to cut jury trials in England and Wales after outcry, 4 October). There are other ways to reduce the appalling backlog of criminal cases and to protect victims. However, the government is wrong to proceed with its plan for judge-only trials in some fraud cases. As a circuit judge, I presided over fraud trials with juries, including a Ponzi fraud worth £48m and a Russian identity fraud with more than 40,000 documents. The juries were totally on top of both trials and delivered sensible, rational verdicts – in both cases guilty on some charges and not guilty on others. My experience is that the key issue in fraud cases is frequently whether the defendant acted dishonestly. That is not a technical question. It is something that juries are much better able to decide than judges.
Nic Madge
St Albans

• Although the government has shelved its plan to abolish most jury trials, it still intends to double the sentencing power of magistrates to two years, to introduce judge-only trials in “lengthy and technical” fraud cases, and to abolish the right to elect trial by jury in “either way” cases, thereby greatly restricting access to legal aid. It is not clear whether or not the government still intended to abolish the automatic right of appeal to the crown court from the magistrates court. Every one of those measures must be resisted without compromise.
David Lindsay
Lanchester, County Durham

Happy hormones | Fuel costs | Drive-in parking | Guys and girls | Young or old? | Singapore pollution

Re your report (‘Pull the plug’: protesters resort to direct action against AI firms, 6 October), the US neuroscientist Ben Rein has shown that there is a fundamental difference in our cognitive response according to the type of interaction we have. In-person meetings and conversations show a dramatic increase in serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine – “feelgood” hormones – compared with online interactions. I have been encouraged to speak to people at bus stops.
Judith Furner
Eastbourne, East Sussex

• Re easing winter fuel costs (Report, 6 October), it would benefit everyone if the outrageous daily standing charges were reduced or on a sliding scale based on usage. I can’t be the only person whose standing charges each month are half or more than the energy used.
Judith Pearson
Sheffield

Jane Middleton says the question we should be asking is not how can we use up surplus food, but how we can ensure that no one has to rely on charity to eat

Charlotte Hill (While British children go hungry, we waste 1.1bn meals a year. Bring on the redistribution revolution, 6 October) conflates two separate problems. One is food waste; the other is domestic food insecurity. If, as she suggests, we use the former to address the latter, we are simply creating a two-tier food system where people living in poverty do not have the dignity of making their own choices.

While the work of food-waste charities such as the that one Hill heads is commendable as a sticking plaster, in the long term it entrenches poverty and removes any incentive for large corporations to tackle the food waste they create.

Tulip Siddiq and a parent urge the government to take a number of steps to keep children safe, in response to an editorial

Your editorial on early years provision (The Guardian view on nurseries: some things are going right for under-fives, 4 October) ends by referring to the horrifying case of Vincent Chan, who worked at Bright Horizons nursery in north-west London. We write as the MP representing the constituency in which the nursery is situated and as the parent of children who attended the nursery and were victims of Chan. We believe his case exposed serious gaps in the safeguarding system that urgently need addressing by government.

First, CCTV should be mandatory in nurseries. When used with appropriate safeguards, it can provide both a deterrent and an important source of evidence when allegations are made.

• Robinson, Duckett and Smith get one-year deals

• Eric Simons hired as Test fast-bowling coach

Rob Key believes he can now “map out the next two years” for the England men’s teams, having handed out a record 39 central contracts and unveiled new split coaching setups under Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum that he hopes will produce homegrown candidates for the top roles in future.

The retirement of Ben Stokes mid-summer, plus Zak Crawley being dropped, has allowed Key, the England team director, to stretch the pot of money for player contracts further this year. Thirty main deals have been issued – up from 26 last year – while nine players have been handed development contracts that top up their county pay.

• Liverpool captain says players heard ‘cheat’ chants

• ‘I don’t think Anfield will be the only place’

Virgil van Dijk has suggested Manchester City’s treatment at the hands of the Liverpool crowd on Sunday was a sign of things to come and something their players will have to get used to. The Liverpool captain also indicated he would make his views known about City’s rule-breaking but said he wanted to wait until their appeal was completed.

City were barracked throughout the game at Anfield, their first since they were found guilty of almost all the charges they faced in relation to breaking the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018. An independent commission declared that City had overstated their income by £830.69m and would have been in breach of spending regulations in the Premier League and Europe if they had provided a true picture of their finances.

• Financial situation and psychological stress cited

• Fifpro global survey interviewed 800 players

Nearly half of female footballers are considering leaving the game early, with financial pressures and mental health struggles the main reasons, according to a Fifpro report highlighting the gulf between the sport’s rapid growth and conditions for most ⁠players.

The 2026 Fifpro global employment report “Working ⁠Conditions in Women’s Football”, billed by ​the global players’ union as the most extensive review of working conditions in the women’s game in a decade, interviewed 800 players and found stark disparities.

Son of Paolo and grandson of Cesare struggled to establish himself at Milan but Fabio Pisacane is beginning to unlock his potential in Sardinia

The abundance could not last for ever. Serie A’s first goalless draw of this season arrived in its 54th match, ironically between two of its more prolific teams. Perhaps things might have ended differently between Como and Roma if the division’s leading scorer, Donyell Malen, had not earned a red card at the start of the second half.

A missed opportunity for both sides? Roma started brighter and hit the post through Lorenzo Pellegrini. Como dominated absolutely after the red card, with 80% of possession, but could not make pressure count.

Saïd El Mala’s winner illustrated the task faced by new Die Fohlen manager in reviving an injury-hit team

A three-week break was exactly what Borussia Mönchengladbach needed after a chastening start to the Bundesliga campaign and perhaps what their new coach, Alexander Blessin, would have ordered. His first match, a derby against arch-rivals Köln, to train focus? Even better. Detail, though, was key. The terms and conditions were not something to simplify the task and Blessin begins his reign exactly where his predecessors Eugen Polanski and (temporarily) Jan-Moritz Lichte were, licking their wounds at the start of a long week. There is no respite.

And there are few weeks longer than the one after a derby loss. Blessin only got to meet a host of key players in the days before the trip to Köln, while several others were unavailable, with Franck Honorat joined on the injury list by striker Tim Kleindienst and defender Ko Itakura. There is little time to recover and reflect as Blessin tries to get his defenders, in particular, to absorb the “frontal instruction” of his defensive principles, which kept his low-budget St Pauli competitive.

The 21-year-old goalkeeper wants to impress on football the need to change old habits for the sake of the planet

“I’m a bit of an outlier as a person, I like being unique in who I am and what I do,” says the former Arsenal goalkeeper Alexéi Rojas, who combines saving shots with saving the planet. “I would say that was one of the biggest pulls for me to become a goalkeeper. I like being different.”

There is plenty to make him stand out. By 15, Rojas was changing the way people thought at Arsenal, transforming attitudes at the academy’s Hale End training ground where he would cycle, rather than get a lift from his parents. Rojas’s interest in the climate crisis began thanks to his mother, who works in wind energy. He would visit her office to learn more about renewables and their potential.

After three straight game-winning drives, Cleveland’s quarterback was sacked eight times in a dismal defeat that punctured the hype surrounding him

I guess the New York Jets didn’t get the memo. This was supposed to be a Deshaun Watson lovefest. A day where, much to the chagrin of those of us with a moral compass and a functional memory, football fans worldwide could declare Watson was “so back” and that the Browns were in some blinkered, alternate universe, a Super Bowl contender. No such luck, as the Browns looked like the Browns – reminding an otherwise jubilant city of Cleveland that they are trapped in the sports equivalent of the Backrooms.

Limping along for 155 passing yards and one touchdown, Watson fell to Earth harder than David Bowie in a Nicolas Roeg film (yes, I just watched the Dennis Miller Monday Night Football documentary on HBO). He completed fewer than 50% of his passes and ended the day with a 69.6 passer rating. I should also probably mention he got sacked eight times. Yes, eight times. EIGHT TIMES. He only completed seven more passes than he received punishing hits behind the line of scrimmage. It was a performance NBC NFL writer Patrick Daugherty called “unspeakably bad.” Actually, I think the performance was very much speakable, as I’ve demonstrated here. Stick around for another 400 words.

Wigan forward is one of England’s brightest hopes for the World Cup and says he wants to ‘inspire young black people’

England’s players will have no shortage of motivation when they step on to the field this Saturday for the opening match of their Rugby League World Cup campaign. But few, you suspect, have as strong a desire to send the right message out as Junior Nsemba.

Whether you are a seasoned Super League fan or a first-time watcher on Saturday morning, the 22-year-old Wigan forward is one of English rugby league’s must-see talents and a player the eyes of the world will be drawn to over the next month.

Brad Smith adds to calls for tougher rules for AI, including ‘kill switches’ and legal obligation to victims of rogue agents

• Business live – latest updates

Artificial intelligence is less regulated than milk and washing machines, the president of Microsoft has said, as the tech industry warns over the safety of AI.

Brad Smith said there should be more safety rules to govern the technology including a legal obligation to a “victim” if their system was breached by rogue AI agents.

MEP Raphaël Glucksmann issues call after becoming social democrat candidate for 2027 presidential election

The European lawmaker Raphaël Glucksmann has urged the French centre left to wage an “existential battle” to prevent Marine Le Pen’s far right winning the 2027 presidential election after he was chosen as the social democrat candidate for the presidency.

“We’ve got to rid our hearts of the spirit of defeat,” Glucksmann, the founder of the small party Place Publique, said on Monday morning after his decisive win in a centre-left primary race held by the Socialist party.

Mark Rowley says inclusivity is crucial for the force and he refuses to be ‘blown off course’ by critics

• Sir Mark Rowley: I will have more police officers of colour in the UK capital – and the culture wars won’t stop me doing it

Mark Rowley has said the Metropolitan police must recruit more black and Asian officers in order to gain the trust of minority ethnic communities in London, and vowed not to be “blown off course by the culture wars”.

The right has criticised drives for diversity, claiming they lead to lower standards. Rowley, who is commissioner of the Met and Britain’s top police officer, said that as a leader of a major organisation he was prepared to take a stand against the “toxicity” surrounding the diversity debate and criticised other leaders for “running away from the subject”.

Kanishka Narayan to say Britain cannot rely entirely on tech companies amid rising global concern over AI dangers

Companies building the most advanced AI systems must increase safety efforts, the UK’s AI minister will say, as he announces a strengthening of Britain’s cyber defences.

Kanishka Narayan will call on companies developing frontier AI to do more to make sure it is safe. He will say Britain cannot rely entirely on technology companies to police their own models and will argue the UK needs to build more of its own AI infrastructure.

India’s opposition parties and supporters of the ‘cockroach’ youth movement have been demonstrating against a ⁠controversial revision of election voter ⁠lists

Authorities in India’s capital closed six metro stations and warned of traffic disruptions on Monday, as opposition parties planned to march to the supreme court in protest against a ⁠controversial revision of voter ⁠lists that has sparked days ​of unrest in Delhi.

Opposition parties and supporters of the “cockroach” youth movement have taken to the streets almost daily this month to demand the resignation of chief election commissioner ⁠Gyanesh Kumar over the revision that critics say benefits prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).

Clear skies bring warm days and cold nights to Montenegro, while a low-pressure system moves towards Aegean Sea

• Europe live – latest updates

Temperatures fluctuated dramatically in the Balkans last week, with unusually large differences between daytime highs and overnight lows – known as the diurnal range.

An area of high pressure over the region brought prolonged sunshine during the day, while clear skies at night allowed temperatures to drop rapidly as heat escaped into the atmosphere without cloud cover to slow the cooling.

Food producers are adding their voices to the chorus of warnings about the vulnerability of British supply chains

“There are so many decent, capable, productive, efficient arable farmers out there, asking how they are supposed to finance the crop they are meant to be putting in the ground,” Jamie Burrows says.

Sitting in his tractor at his arable farm in Norfolk, Burrows is listing the multiple challenges facing him and other food producers.

John Mitani spent years studying a huge community of chimpanzees in Uganda. But then things took a dark turn – and his findings stunned the scientific world

John Mitani can still remember the first time he set foot in Uganda’s Kibale national park. The old-growth east African rainforest enveloped him, its canopy stretching to heights of 40 metres. Fruit trees bowed under the weight of African star apples and bountiful Ficus mucuso figs. And then there were the chimpanzees. Furry black blobs darted through the jungle, their raucous calls often deafening.

It was the summer of 1995, and Mitani, a primatologist from northern California, had just come from working with the chimps living in the Mahale mountains of Tanzania. At the time, Mahale was home to the largest known population of chimps, with about 100 individuals. But there were rumours that this section of Kibale – only accessible via a 12-hour drive from the capital, Kampala – might host an even more unusual abundance of apes.

Tories plan to scrap low-carbon housebuilding, Greens back new nuclear reactors, and Labour put oil-drilling decisions on hold

New homes could be built without solar panels, heat pumps and high-grade insulation, leading to higher household bills if the Conservative party wins the next general election.

Kemi Badenoch made scrapping the future homes standard (FHS) one of the central planks of her bid to become the next prime minister at the Tory party conference this week.

In first half of this year 1,600 tags also had no signal for over two weeks, highlighting scale of probation crisis

More than 5,000 offenders went unmonitored in the first half of the year because electronic tags were not installed, while 1,600 tags had no signal for more than two weeks due to faults, a report has found.

The Institute for Government (IfG) has revealed the full scale of the crisis in the probation system in England and Wales, concluding that “rationing probation supervision” due to a lack of staff meant sentences imposed by the court had become “essentially a fiction” for most offenders.

Online appeal and detective work by local historian help to return keepsake to couple’s son after it had been stolen

When Andrew Bedford discovered an old wedding album dumped outside his city centre cafe in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, he considered chucking it into a nearby wheelie bin.

But when he opened the album, the vintage photographs of the happy couple on their wedding day in 1957 seemed too precious to throw away.

As ‘one in, one out’ scheme ends, refugees still want to cross the Channel despite French police aggression and hostile welcomes

The smuggler works quickly. Using a small shovel, he digs up a dinghy buried in a sand dune on a beach not far from Boulogne-sur-Mer, assembles it and affixes a motor in record time.

“I never saw anyone work like this,” says Amad, from Iraq, one of a group of about 30 asylum seekers waiting to cross the Channel. “The UK government wants to stop the smugglers, but they are smart. They have plan A, plan B and plan C, so there is always a way for them to get people across this sea. For as long as asylum seekers will pay them, there is too much money involved for them to give up.”

Rapid growth means structures need to change and give leaders greater control, Polanski says in Guardian article

• Zack Polanski: How we’re transforming British politics

Zack Polanski has signalled a potential overhaul of the Green party’s cherished grassroots democracy, calling for leaders to have greater control over strategic direction after a divisive vote equating Zionism with racism.

The leader of the Green party of England and Wales has also questioned whether political parties should seek to define what members believe, in his strongest criticism yet of a motion that has provoked bitter divisions, international condemnation and calls for his resignation.

Senior official says president and US secretary of state are ‘extremely pissed off’ by conduct of US envoy to Greece

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, are considering firing US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a series of reports alleging she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

A senior US official said Sunday that Trump and Rubio are “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct and would likely decide on what action to take this week after Monday’s federal holiday.

President Zardari suspends provincial government in escalation of tensions as Khan supporters march to Islamabad

Politicians from ⁠the party of the former Pakistani ​prime minister Imran Khan have been detained after the suspension of a provincial government now under emergency rule.

Pakistan’s president declared a state of emergency and suspended the ⁠government in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, led by Khan’s ally Sohail Afridi, on Sunday.

A five-year trial is assessing whether the loudspeakers used to broadcast the call to prayer can help to warn hard-to-reach territories

Scientists working on an early warning system in earthquake-prone Indonesia have taken the spiritual path to designing a network of alarms that will reach even the remotest communities: they hope to use mosques to save lives.

A five-year trial is assessing whether the ubiquitous loudspeakers used to broadcast the call to prayer can double up as warning klaxons for earthquakes.

Polish PM praises police for ‘swift and decisive action’ after threat against him and defence minister revealed

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Sunday that a man accused of plotting to assassinate him and his defence minister had been detained.

“The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Tusk wrote on X, praising the police for their “swift and decisive action”.

Calls for planned fuel duty rise to be scrapped as analysis finds average fuel bill could hit £1,965, up from £1,294

Millions of British van drivers face a combined £2.5bn cost to cover the rising price of diesel this year, according to figures, fuelling calls for the government to scrap its planned fuel duty rise.

The owners of diesel vans and pickups can expect to collectively spend almost £8.5bn at the pump this year, according to analysis for the Guardian, after diesel prices climbed to record highs due to a global fuel shortage caused by disruption to refineries in the Middle East and Russia.

Brussels uses WTO rules to quickly impose quota, which will halve Chinese market share to 3%

• Business live – latest updates

• VW boss backs EU plan to bolster domestic industry

The EU is to limit the number of hybrid electric vehicles imported from China to 350,000 cars a year, the European Commission has confirmed.

Imports have been soaring in the past two years; about 800,000 battery and plug-in hybrids are likely to be sold this year.

Thinktank’s influential pre-budget report urges key decisions to be made now and not put off until next year

John Healey has been warned by Britain’s leading tax and spending experts that his budget risks being a “work of fiction” unless he sets out plans to cover £35bn in spending pressures.

As the war in the Middle East rattles the public finances, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the damage from higher inflation meant the chancellor would need to either top up funds for his current government spending plans or impose deep real-terms cuts by the end of the decade.

In the first article in a series on high end British manufacturing, we visit the Hiut Denim factory in Cardigan

Worn on the streets of London’s Soho, San Francisco or Sydney, every pair of high-end jeans made by Hiut Denim comes from the rather unlikely location of a small coastal town in west Wales.

Cardigan, with a population of just 4,200, has a proud history of denim production and was once home to Britain’s largest jeans factory, even if the town’s name recalls a different garment entirely.

The third series of Jimmy McGovern’s terrifying and acutely moving prison drama is set in a young offender institute – and the reality it depicts needs national attention

Jimmy McGovern has said that this new, third instalment of his prison anthology drama Time will be the last. For the sake of audiences’ emotional equilibrium, you have to hope so. For the sake of scripted drama, for the sake of art that has a hope of stirring the conscience of authorities and effecting change, you have to hope not.

This time, Time is inside a young offender institution. It is crammed with under-18-year-old males, locked up often for 23 hours a day, all subject to the relatively new “keep apart” system whereby prisoners deemed likely to be violent towards each other are not allowed out of their cells at the same time. Naturally, this leads to a lot more boys being banged up for a lot more of the day and suits the officers a lot better. It is a facet of modern YOIs that McGovern and his co-writer Sam Bailey, a man evidently cut from the same socially conscious cloth, are clearly intent on bringing to wider attention. Their script, and the direction by Paul Whittington, do a wonderful, terrifying job of conveying the kinetic energy pent up and desperate for release, and the seething fury ever threatening to erupt, in every scene.

Ibraaz, London
Too controversial for the Venice Biennale, this haunting video and audio work commemorates murders and genocides with an angry act of mourning

The sound of mourning spills out into the streets. A single, endless wailing note echoes out of the basement of Ibraaz, a relatively new cultural centre in London’s Fitzrovia. This is Gabrielle Goliath’s heart-wrenching Elegy, each of its three films featuring a woman singing just one note until their lungs falter and another woman steps up to fill in for her. Just as a note is about to die, it is sustained. It’s a haunting, shocking act of mourning for murder, injustice and genocide.

And it almost never made it.

Jay-Z in 8, the rap mogul’s HBO docuseries, covers his life and career in effort to mend his image – with no pushback. Why is he so fixated on the court of public opinion?

During the finale of Jay-Z’s Jay-Z in 8, the recent eight-part HBO documentary series on his life and career, the billionaire rap mogul talked with record producer Rick Rubin about the song Family Feud from his 4:44 album. He clarified one of its lyrics, “Al Sharpton in the mirror takin’ selfies / How is him or Pill Cosby ‘posed to help me?”, in which he chided Sharpton, the civil rights leader, and Cosby, the disgraced actor-comedian, for constantly criticizing rap music. He called Sharpton an “extortionist” who goes “from place to place” demanding: “You want our support … give us the money.” Listening to him chastise Sharpton, I pondered how he doesn’t see himself as a similar figure.

Starting in 2019, Jay-Z partnered with the NFL in 2019 as entertainment director, deciding the Super Bowl half-time performers and working with the league on other community endeavors. Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback, has recently alleged that the deal came after NFL owners decided they needed a “Black face” to help them quell outrage from Black people after Kaepernick was blackballed by the league for kneeling during the national anthems as a form of protest against police brutality. Jay-Z was lambasted for undercutting Kaepernick’s cause for personal gain, marring his reputation with many fans who came to view him as the same counterinsurgent figure he criticized in the documentary.

When influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King visits Copenhagen all the trips to trendy shops and fancy restaurants soon take a turn for the worse

British influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King stars as influencer/singer/content creator Chiara King, or some kind of parafictional version of herself, in this quease-inducing thriller exercise. The ick gets generated not necessarily by the eventual gore that erupts in the last reel, but by the tacky weirdness of the way the film apes the mannerisms of social media reels and streaming nonsense to both satirise the ugly side of the business but also exploit and profit off it at the same time. On one level, it’s an eerily clever exercise in bad faith, like a poor Michael Haneke film (think Funny Games) for gen-Z kicks; on another, maybe it’s just a crappy ripoff of online tropes that have been way overexposed already. Or both.

Anyway, here’s what happens: influencer Chiara gets invited to visit Copenhagen by a tourist organisation, a deal set up by her avaricious manager Alice (Jazmine Summer). Of course, this means practically every moment of her time awake in the city will be filmed, both by Chiara herself on her trusty smartphone, or a camera crew led by director Mike (played by Mike Nybroe, who is also director of The Influencer Project, ha ha); Mike is supported by sound man Daniel (Daniel Parmo) and cameraman Victor (Luca Storm). The early sections turn in all the influence-slop you would expect, with shopping trips to trendy merch vendors such as Baum und Pferdgarten, and meals at fancy local restaurants, and then a livestreamed visit to a “haunted house,” which is the big thing on Instagram and TikTok these days.

Debut feature from Ben Sottak provides outlandish Halloween-based scares, with Milly Shapiro superb as the naive yet resilient home-defender, Pumpkin

Home Alone meets Mad Max in this atmospheric seasonal chiller, named for Halloween and not a cheery greeting. A disease has wiped out most of humanity, leaving 16-year-old Pumpkin (Milly Shapiro) stranded alone in her rural family home in the middle of nowhere for the best part of four years. This classic American clapboard house has always been the perfect quaint yet unsettling place to celebrate Halloween, and she determines to uphold the family tradition and do just that, sending a radio broadcast to anyone listening to invite them to celebrate spooky season with her. Unfortunately, the message is picked up by some less than wholesome types, led by Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon), thus setting the stage for the proverbial to hit the fan.

It’s the first major screen role for Shapiro since her memorable debut as the little sister in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, and she is in almost every scene here, making for quite the showcase. It’s good casting: Pumpkin is an intriguing presence – at once young and old, presumably because she’s been fending for herself during such a key stage of her development. She’s not had any adult guidance since the age of 12 – arresting her development in some ways, while having to survive, be totally independent and grieve her entire family alone has simultaneously made her unusually tough in others.

Did Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless swashbuckling tale need the addition of a superpower? Is it better for reducing its young hero to an afterthought? Nope

A lever groans, a pipe judders and thunk: another unsolicited adaptation of a beloved literary classic is deposited on our screens. This particular emission is a six-part take on Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless tale of swashbuckling adventure, high-seas treachery and thick eyebrowed youths in tiny britches wrestling with double-edged superpowers. The 19th-century novel has of course long captured the public imagination, its themes of … hang on. Superpowers? Aye, that there be. An’ plenty more bilge besides. For this US-UK co-production be what lubbers refer to as a “reimagining”. Which essentially means much effort has been made to “jazz up” – or, if you will, “ruin” – the source material.

And so, for better or significantly worse, the Jim Hawkins (Tom Sweet) of this new Treasure Island, titivated by writer Robert Murphy, has been given a photographic and possibly quasi-mystical memory; a preternatural talent for recollection that is demonstrated in scenes of much whooshing excitement. Here we find the youngster scowling at various documents while the soundtrack whispers mysteriously and the camera zooms slowly in then quickly out of his face, like a bee too embarrassed to ask for directions to the toilet. Not that any of this makes him interesting, mind.

The Scandal star talks to Ben Affleck about his childhood in Massachusetts. Plus, the Eras strand returns with the story of 90s pop phenomenon the Spice Girls

Instagrammers have upended the British restaurant scene and amassed followings in the millions. But has their moment already passed?

By Stephen Buranyi. Read by Josh Berry

Read the text version here

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The singer shamelessly blasts Lady Gaga in the car and is brought to tears by Portishead – but which song does she have to be careful listening to?

The first song I fell in love with
I remember listening to Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics when I was really young. There was something about the line at the beginning that I was completely intoxicated by.

The first download I bought
When I was about 10 or 11, I would put my headphones on and wander through the park all angsty listening to Fake Tales of San Francisco by Arctic Monkeys, my first download on my iPod Nano. I loved the storytelling, the characters and the gritty tableaux they described: it felt so real, even though it was far away from where I grew up.

They spent their heyday on yachts, then rolled up their sleeves in the wilderness years. Ahead of a Halloween show at the O2, pop’s great survivors explain their staying power

In 2022, Duran Duran were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It felt like a big deal, a sweet moment of acknowledgment for the band’s five-decades-long career, the 100m records sold, the string of bulletproof hits: Save a Prayer, Rio, Hungry Like the Wolf, Girls on Film. They were inducted by actor Robert Downey Jr; Drew Barrymore, Naomi Campbell and Gwen Stefani were on hand to pay heartfelt tribute and, as keyboard player Nick Rhodes points out, “It’s a big national live TV broadcast in America that goes out to millions of people,” so the band booked some warm-up shows. “And it so happened that there was a date that came up in Las Vegas on 31 October,” says Rhodes. “And I looked at everyone and said: ‘Well, we can’t do a normal show. Las Vegas on Halloween – surely that’s the opportunity for a little bit of fun?’”

They worked up a set of suitably themed material, including covers of Billie Eilish’s Bury a Friend and Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer. There were, of course, costumes involved, because, as Rhodes drily notes, “When have Duran Duran ever not dressed up?”

Modernity means cities – or so we’re told. This bold new study of those who make their living from the land argues otherwise

The word “peasant” has a negative edge: it has come to mean someone ignorant, unsophisticated, lowborn. Such an attitude, writes Maraym Aslany in this impressive piece of anthropology-cum-history, is “a residue of the massive psychodrama which made us who we are … we became modern by expelling the peasant parts of ourselves”. Her book weaves together a global history of peasants and an account of the four years she spent travelling in India, Cambodia, Peru and Ghana, living with and talking to peasant families.

She aims to challenge the notion that the decline of the peasantry is the necessary condition for becoming “modern”. This notion arose in Britain, the first country to rid itself of its peasants when, with the enclosure acts, it turned its land from a common good into a financial asset. As this model of capitalist modernity began to take over the world, intellectuals of every stripe argued that peasants stood in the way of “progress”. Voltaire saw them as slow-witted people unable to understand their piteous state, stumbling blocks in the pursuit of enlightenment. Karl Marx believed that their “relentless property fanaticism” made them a reactionary element within capitalism.

The great Irish writer died, a broken man, at only 46. Imagining a second act for him is a great idea – but the results are sentimental and unconvincing

In 1895, four days after the opening of The Importance of Being Earnest, the Marquess of Queensberry left a card at Oscar Wilde’s club that publicly accused him of “posing as a somdomite”. Instead of instigating the libel case that led to his imprisonment and early death in a Paris hotel just five years later, what would have happened if Wilde had simply torn that card up? John Boyne’s new novel sets out to answer that intriguing question.

For starters, Boyne contrives a fate for Wilde’s beloved Lord Alfred Douglas which entertainingly redistributes the details of the real Wilde’s life before, during and after his time in Reading jail. This sets up the novel’s cat-and-mouse game with the history it is reimagining. Wilde himself, conveniently released from marriage by the early death of his wife, is then free to live not as a tortured, scandal-haunted genius, but as a randy, wisecracking, party-going queen. The upside of this is that Oscar gets to swap bons mots with a crowded cast list of celebrities; the downside is that he shows little sign of the troubled and radical mind that produced the real Wilde’s late journalism and fiction, never mind the subversive linguistic pyrotechnics of The Importance.

The bestselling writer talks about leaving Edinburgh for London in his latest mystery, and what the future holds for Rebus

Sir Ian Rankin rarely watches television. Certainly, there’s no gleaming flatscreen in the corner of the apartment in Edinburgh where he writes, listens to music and constructs elaborate Lego models (all four Beatles, their Yellow Submarine and, once, a 6ft version of the Eiffel Tower). Did he not see the most recent incarnation of his most famous creation, Detective Inspector John Rebus, this time played by Richard Rankin (no relation), in the wake of previous performances by Ken Stott and John Hannah? “I did,” he concedes. “They gave me them on DVD, so I could play them on my computer.”

Ah, his computer – it’s had its screen and hard drive replaced, and there are grooves in the keys. It sits on top of a plain, compact trestle-table desk he bought on London’s Charing Cross Road in 1987 and lugged back to his Tottenham flat on the tube; both have accompanied him from London to rural Dordogne, in southwest France, where he lived for a few years with his wife, Miranda, in the 1990s, and back to Edinburgh, where the couple and their two sons have been ever since.

The French author discovered Carson on a bus while stranded in a snowstorm and has been enthralled by her fearless imagination ever since

• Where to start with Anne Carson

• ‘Delights await!’: Margaret Atwood and other writers on Nobel winner Anne Carson

1. Anne Carson is one of the greatest writers of our time. I discovered her work on a Peter Pan bus from New York to New England. I’d bought Antigonick in a bookstore a few days earlier, almost randomly. From the very first lines, I was enthralled. While we were on the bus, a snowstorm suddenly blanketed the roads, and the other passengers and I found ourselves stuck for 10 hours in rural America, surrounded by an entirely white landscape. I took my computer out of my backpack and started to translate Antigonick into French. Spontaneously. I was so absorbed by the power of Carson’s text that I didn’t notice the hours pass.

2. One of Carson’s greatest strengths is that, unlike so many other contemporary writers, she doesn’t try to “make literature”. She writes. Sometimes clouds do the speaking, in her work, and sometimes monsters do; sometimes, in the middle of a collection of poems, she lets an imaginary Catherine Deneuve take over the narration. Sometimes she writes a letter to her own sleep and sometimes she publishes notes she’s scribbled on her hand. She writes about Homer, but also Rosalía; about Brecht, but also Marilyn Monroe.

Translated by Josh Cohen

PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox, PC; Epic Games Publishing
This fetchingly presented horror game brings style and scares, but overextends itself with repetition

A small band of soldiers enters an abandoned facility, where puckered flesh sprouts from cold steel. It’s a promising but familiar start to a sci-fi horror story, with heavy overtones of Alien and The Thing. Neither of those, though, were so … dinky.

End of Abyss’s facility is presented as a kind of a model-village recreation of The Thing’s Outpost 31 that you peer into from above. Your little bobble-headed hero takes up a tiny fraction of the screen, with most of the remainder drenched in foggy darkness, or even blanked out entirely. This is a world of Usborne-style cutaways, where anything outside the walls is total blackness.

The launch of a collector’s box hints at a new reality: the kinds of games I grew up with are becoming a luxury item, locked behind a forbidding spending barrier

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As a parent (and partner) to a habitual collector, I do feel like an unwelcome portion of my life is occupied by an endless war against stuff. Surfaces in my home ceaselessly accumulate piles of random objects: a JoyCon wrist strap, a sticker sheet, an unidentifiable plastic piece of a toy or gizmo, an Xbox 360 controller with no batteries, cases for Switch cartridges lost down the side of the sofa … Stuff encroaches everywhere, especially in a gaming household. Much as I regret the imminent disappearance of physical games, I do not regret the extra space I have in my attic as a result of switching almost entirely to downloaded games over the last decade or so.

Speaking of the imminent disappearance of physical games: Rockstar recently announced a £350 ($400) “collector’s box” of Grand Theft Auto 6 goodies … that doesn’t include the game itself. Not even a download code. The Grand Theft Auto VI: The Goodtime State – Vice City Collection, to give it its full and unwieldy name, contains a hat, a bag, a pair of sunglasses, a figurine, a poster and more, including a mirror and a “swizzle spoon” that looks, unambigiously, like a cocaine spoon. The game retails at £70, so if you want something to play alongside all your stuff, you’re looking at an outlay of £420.

PC, PS5, Switch 2; Wych Elm Games, Team 17
Abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks make up a dark landscape in which you play a private eye searching for a missing singer-songwriter

In a weird deserted town miles from anywhere, a troubled detective searches for a missing musician and the girl he may or may not have murdered. It could be a Silent Hill game or a lost David Lynch movie from the 1990s – in fact, it’s neither. And also both. If that whets your appetite, stick around, there’s plenty more to come.

Developed by Scandinavian studio Wych Elm Games, Silver Pines is a dark Metroidvania-style adventure, where you play as shambling private eye, Red Walker, exploring a 2D universe of abandoned shops, ruined apartment buildings and rotting sewer networks. Officially, everyone has left because of an incoming storm, but very quickly you learn that something much darker is afoot. Someone has hired you to find singer-songwriter Eddie Velvet, but you don’t know why; your only contact with your client is via the payphones dotted around town, where you can also save your progress – as long as you have a dollar to pay for the call. Each location is filled with clues and puzzles – a weird newspaper story pinned to the wall, a strange statue that needs a missing piece – and through these artefacts you unlock new rooms and descend further into the mystery.

Xbox, PC (version tested); The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios
E-Day boasts the best combat in 20 years of Gears games – but everything surrounding it is disappointing

Every Gears of War game released in the last 20 years has made reverent reference to Emergence Day, when alien creatures emerged from the earth, single-minded in their savagery. In E-Day, you’re there to witness it: the police lights, flipped cars, ground tremors, civilians running, aliens pouring out of fissures in the earth and ripping faces off. You’re at ground zero in a squad of four soldiers called Gears – Marcus Fenix, the leader; Dom, who wants to retire; Lucas, a green cadet with a buzzcut; and the dishonourably discharged Mags. Only this dysfunctional quartet can turn the tide. With guns. Lots of ’em.

Instead of answering questions raised by the ending of 2019’s Gears 5, we’re back to the start to find out why Marcus has a scar on his lip and why these soldiers started strapping chainsaws on to their assault rifles. Anything that was left to the imagination is here, for you to point at and say: “I understood that reference. This is a thing that I have seen.”

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Bizet’s incidental music for Daudet’s 1872 play The Girl from Arles was given its first UK complete performance by Sir Mark Elder, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and strong soloists in Jeremy Sams’ staging

‘The prettiest music in the world” was how the playwright Alphonse Daudet described the incidental music Bizet composed for his 1872 play The Girl from Arles – which is a bit like describing Carmen, the opera Bizet would compose less than three years later, as a charming little love story.

Daudet’s play initially flopped but was saved by the music Bizet wrote for it, which comprises 27 separate numbers ranging from string whispers a few bars long to full-blown orchestral entr’actes and celebratory choruses. Two orchestral Suites from L’Arlésienne have long been familiar in the concert hall. But, after more than 150 years, this was the first chance for UK audiences to hear the complete incidental music in its proper context. Presented by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and conducted by Mark Elder, there was a danger this play with music could turn into music with a play – but in fact the two elements complemented each other at equal strength.

Reading Town Hall
The standup’s new tour covers cross-cultural identity, Hollywood mix-ups and exactly how honest to be about your children’s arts and crafts output

How British is Sindhu Vee? And how Indian? That’s what her new standup show Swanky addresses in a wonderfully self-possessed opening that sees her give account of herself to an old duffer at a party. It’s a subject well suited to Vee’s beady and sceptical style, as she drops a tart gag about India-Pakistan relations, or later interrogates the assumptions of a micro-aggressing mum at the school gate. One might wish the whole show were themed around this topic, but its larger part majors in the relatable if not always revelatory subject of parenting. And that’s before we even mention her tacked-on final section, on another matter entirely.

The parenting material dominates the show, and ranges from the generic to the specific. Specifically, Vee has a big age gap between her first two kids and her third, and many of the jokes are about how differently Child 3 has been raised – cue sardonic eye-rolling at the helicopter parenting of others, and of her own younger self. Sometimes this shades into over-familiarity (teens and their mobile phones), or cynicism, or both – as in the routine about the rubbishness of her kid’s arts and craft output.

Leeds Grand theatre
Patrick Nolan’s thoughtful staging for Opera North shifts Pushkin’s story forward to explore the transition from Soviet state to elitist excess

For an opera rooted in 19th-century Russian romanticism it’s surprising how effortlessly Eugene Onegin can be brought up to date. Patrick Nolan’s thoughtful staging for Opera North, a co-production with Irish National Opera and his own Opera Queensland, manages to capture the aching melancholy of Pushkin’s original while reflecting on the equally gloomy transition from the Brezhnev-era Soviet state to the reckless excess of the pre-Putin oligarchy.

For Tatyana and Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s opera is a case of the road not taken, subtly reflected in the gently elasticated timeframe adopted here. In Act I, Leslie Travers’ crumbling civic gymnasium is commandeered to rehearse a pageant in praise of Soviet agricultural policy. When Madame Larina and the housekeeper Filipyevna chatter on about times past, Lenin-emblazoned flags remind us they would have grown up in the shadow of Stalin. As the gaudy tracksuits and 80s bling (costume designer Elizabeth Gadsby having a field day) of Act II give way to formal evening wear and diamonds in the final act, it feels as though an entire way of life has been swept away, and with it any chance to correct the mistakes of the past.

Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
Gayle Rankin is funny, sharp-tongued and sexually forthright as Vicky Featherstone’s production ditches 1930s starchiness for the bohemian avant garde

Jean Brodie has entered the classroom of Mr Lowther (Brian Ferguson). She tells the music teacher she will not be a distraction. “Proceed as if I wasn’t here,” she says.

Yeah, right. Nothing can proceed as if Jean Brodie was not there. Played by Gayle Rankin in a drape-sleeved top and figure-hugging leather skirt, she is impossible to ignore. Chloe Lamford’s dust-pink set is a little bit lecture theatre, an awful lot neo-classical staircase; Rankin floats across it like an exotic moth: colourful, distractable, ever present.

Estimates suggest the eco satire starring Tom Cruise could join the list of top turkeys, including Cutthroat Island and The Marvels

Digger, the ambitious eco-fable starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alejandro G Iñárritu, is heading for an even worse financial outcome than previously thought, with reports suggesting it will lose around $245m (£185m), placing it among the biggest disasters in movie history.

According to a report in Variety, Digger’s estimated second weekend revenue in North America of $3.2m is a 60% drop on its opening weekend figure of $8m, meaning its current domestic gross is $14.4m, for a global total of $35.3m, with a projected final box office total of around $50m worldwide.

The 85-year-old was helped on stage by actor John Stamos, who shared an emotional message about his ‘musical hero and mentor’

After months of cancelled comeback tours, the Beach Boys have played their first public show since July – with co-founder and frontman Mike Love joining the band on stage in Cincinnati, Ohio, despite “facing serious health challenges”.

Love was helped on to the stage by his son Christian Love and the actor and band member John Stamos, who told the audience at PNC Pavilion on Saturday night that Love has “been going through some health issues … but he would not miss tonight”.

For several years, Chloe Kerleroux has been photographing African American cowboy communities in the southern US. Her work has mainly focused on trail rides: large gatherings where horses, music, dancing, family and community life come together. This year, she explored rodeo culture including at the Bill Pickett invitational in Atlanta

The image of the cowboy widely portrayed in westerns and popular culture has long been almost exclusively white. Yet Black cowboys hold an important place in the history of the American west. After the civil war and the abolition of slavery, many African Americans found work on ranches and on the great cattle drives westward. By the late 19th century, historians estimate about one in four cowboys were Black.

Among the Black figures who shaped this history was Bill Pickett. Born in Texas in 1870, he became one of the most celebrated Black cowboys and rodeo performers of his time, known in particular for popularising bulldogging, which would eventually give rise to modern steer wrestling.

After the national anthem, Josh, a member of the Outlaws Most Wanted, rides around the arena to a pounding hip-hop track as his teammates cheer him on at the Bill Pickett invitational rodeo in Conyers, near Atlanta, Georgia, on 2 August 2026

The production marks the Hollywood director’s first play written for the stage, which he will also direct

Sacha Baron Cohen will headline Quentin Tarantino’s play The Popinjay Cavalier when it premieres on the West End in London in March 2027.

The production marks the Hollywood director’s first work written for the stage – which he will also direct.

A pleasingly proper curry-filled pie with a zingy chutney to go with it

This is one of my all-time favourite pies, pie born out of the Midlands. While studying at University College Birmingham, the now head of department at the college of food there, Lewis Walker, and I were in digs together and regularly ended up in very late-night balti houses after big nights out. These pies remind me of that really special time. It wasn’t much before my university days when balti cooking emerged in 1970s Birmingham, apparently created as a way to appease the British palate of the time. Its roots are in Pakistani-Kashmiri cooking and the base of the curry always has to contain tomatoes, onions, peppers and chillies, although variations can be built on those foundations. They’re a wonderful celebration of multicultural Britain.

Smaller and less visited than Como and Garda, Lake Iseo harbours a gorgeous car-free island ideal for easy-going cycling and sightseeing

Rust red and burnt sienna speckle the green mountain rising from Lake Iseo. Golden autumn sunlight shimmers on the water. Monte Isola, Italy’s largest lake island, is a peak of sheer cliffs and dense forest, dotted with old fishing hamlets and hillside villages, each as pretty as the terraced villas of Lake Como and Garda, but with far fewer visitors. I arrive at the small port town of Peschiera Maraglio – where striped wooden boats jut from the water like the gondolas of Venice – on a ferry from Sulzano, a five-minute hop across the water.

“Only three people on the island are allowed to own a car: the priest, the doctor and the mayor,” says Chiara, my tour guide from Brescia. Residents can zip up and down the steep island roads on mopeds, and a small fleet of van-sized buses trundle around throughout the day, but nearly all cars are forbidden and visitors have to explore on foot or bike.

Our wholegrain hero sorts the wheat from the chaff in the search for a simple pleasure: a satisfying sandwich loaf

• The best supermarket sourdough

I’ve broken my strict, like-for-like approach this week in the interests of just finding a really good sliced wholemeal sandwich loaf. Alas, most of these are made to the standard Chorleywood process, with each one a cardboard replica of the other and with only nuanced differences. However, I did find two with exceptional flavour and one with a notably good, firm texture that’s ideal for spreading stuff on; to my surprise, several have an impressive lack of additives, too, and they all score well on value.

The Chorleywood process is an industrial method for making bread in just three and a half hours using high-speed mechanical processes and chemical additives. It was developed in the 1960s, and now accounts for about 80% of the bread made in the UK. If you’re looking for palm oil-free loaves with zero additives, emulsifiers or preservatives, sandwich loaves are hard to navigate, but there are some that fit the bill – just check the label.

Whether it’s a super-glowy serum or a cult gardening tool, here are our writers’ favourite buys from the past year

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The Filter is turning two! To celebrate, we asked our contributors for their favourite products from the past year, and rounded up the team’s picks too.

From handbag-sized umbrellas and stylish yet practical wellies to reading lights and luxurious duvets, these are the products that stood out.

Our reviewer sheds some light on the best dawn simulation alarms, from Lumie and Philips to Dreamegg

• The best eye masks to help you sleep better

To wake each day in darkness is a plight you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, yet that’s what many of us do routinely throughout winter. Getting up in the dark decouples our life from our circadian rhythm (our body clock), with bodily processes such as cognition and metabolism put to work before they’re fully prepped.

Thank heavens, then, for sunrise alarm clocks. These “dawn simulation” devices glow with gradually intensifying brightness as your wake-up time approaches, kickstarting your circadian rhythm before you get out of bed. For many users, this results in a happier, healthier start to the day.

Oversized coats, relaxed-fit trousers and secondhand jumpers that will last for years to come … here’s how to build an effortlessly cool autumn wardrobe on a budget

• The best men’s shirts for every occasion

It’s time to pack away your weekly rotation of T-shirts and shorts and start thinking about layers.

As always, there’s no shortage of inspiration for your autumn look. The menswear shows displayed their usual styling tricks: at Prada, the exaggerated shirt cuff became this season’s unlikely focal point. Then, there are the It boys, old and new, who are always good for a sartorial steer: comedian and actor Jack Innanen is the latest addition to the roster, though Brad Pitt’s 90s looks are just as current. And that’s all before you get to the colour palette: this year, bright colours can be thrown in among the traditional rich, earthy shades.

A spicy Turkish dish with big flavours and big pasta, all topped with garlicky yoghurt sauce

Biber salçası is a Turkish paste made from concentrated cooked red peppers and salt. It comes in two varieties: acı (spicy) and tatlı (sweet). The hotter version adds a deep, umami heat to cumin-spiced lamb in this pasta recipe, which in Turkey is known as markana. Traditionally, markana is served with garlicky yoghurt and a generous drizzle of chilli butter enlivened with pul biber and sumac. With flavours this loud, it’s best to use a large pasta shape such as paccheri, because its cavernous middles can hold satisfying morsels of the filling.

Flavour Heroes: 15 Modern Pantry Ingredients to Amplify Your Cooking, by Gurdeep Loyal, is published by Quadrille at £27. To order a copy for £24.30, go to guardianbookshop.com

A smooth and satisfying soup in nine easy steps

Pumpkin soup, so delicious in theory – sweet, velvety, lightly autumnal – is so often disappointing in reality. Thin in flavour and consistency, thanks to squash’s high water content, it’s likely to make even the most conscientious cook regret not chucking those Halloween offcuts on the compost heap when they had the chance. This, I hope it goes without saying, is not that sort of pumpkin soup.

Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 4-6

Social media ‘chefluencers’ and open restaurant kitchens have made chefs more visible and inspired aspirational gadget-buying

The Duchess of Sussex is no ordinary home cook, but when Meghan appeared on Instagram this week at a hob presided over by a special pot filler tap, it spoke to a shift in the everyday kitchen – the rise of “cheffy” kit.

While the pot filler is now most often found in luxury residential kitchens, it was reportedly invented in the early 20th century as a functional fixture for commercial kitchens. It joins a wealth of other restaurant equipment to have infiltrated our homes, from squeezy olive oil bottles to stainless steel mixing bowl sets.

This fantastic tart is a minor miracle invented by a legendary chef, yet it has very few ingredients and an intriguing technique for baking it

Often, the greatest dishes are made from very few ingredients and with pretty standard techniques, and this tart is one of them. It’s based on an old Frédy Girardet recipe that, despite his reputation as one of the all-time greats, calls only for a simple application of process to deliver a knockout result (which is one reason I put it in my latest book). A pastry case is spread with sugar and cream, then dotted with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. The pastry is not blind baked, but filled and baked in a very hot oven. That sounds wrong, but it is not: a fierce heat is needed to bake the pastry under its filling and to meld the cream, sugar and butter. A pinch of flour is mixed with the sugar and, as it all boils up, that smidgen of flour holds everything together as it bubbles and reduces until it takes on the appearance of condensed milk while the pastry cooks and toasts at the edges. I still use Girardet’s quantities because, unsurprisingly, they work perfectly. Merci, chef.

Henry Harris is chef/co-owner of Bouchon Racine, London EC1. His book, The Racine Effect, is published by Quadrille at £40. To order a copy for £36, go to guardianbookshop.com

An English teacher and a personal trainer disagreed on emissions targets, but how did they fare on public spending and defence?

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

Edward, 38, Bristol

Occupation English teacher at a secondary school

I was standing at the traffic lights with the weight of the world on my shoulders when a man approached. He will probably never know the impact he had on my life

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

My cousin had recently died in a terrible accident and I had been the one who had to identify the body. It was one of the darkest periods of my life, on seemingly every front: I was in the midst of a divorce; it was during the global financial crisis and the company I worked for was badly struggling, making every day feel heavy with uncertainty and stress. Everything was a mess and I was emotionally exhausted.

One morning during rush hour, I stood at the traffic lights waiting to cross on my way to the office. I was lost in my thoughts but must have looked like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, because something unexpected happened.

A sex podcast opened up a whole new way of communicating for Helen and Ian

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

I’ve discovered I like to be spanked – my orgasms have become much stronger

His behaviour is certainly inappropriate, but take a quiet moment to try to find out where the anger is coming from

My partner and I have been together for 25 years and we have two sons, aged 14 and 16. Both are football crazy and have played since they were very young. My partner’s competitive nature was one of the things I initially found attractive about him (I wanted someone with drive).

However, this side of him rears its ugly head when our kids play matches. He shouts, criticises and, worst of all, swears at teenagers. I’m so embarrassed by it and it’s also affecting the boys. Their teammates hear their dad and it’s creating tension. I’ve tried to speak to him about it but he brushes it off. Our boys and the coaches have spoken to him too, but to no avail.

New post-Brexit rules mean that dual nationals cannot enter the UK unless they have a British passport

My teenage daughter is unable to see her grandparents because of the UK’s new requirement for dual nationals to hold a UK passport.

I’m a UK citizen, married to a French national, and we live in France. Our two older children have both French and UK passports. Our third child was born while we were living in Zimbabwe and only has a French passport.

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

From a flat in a new urban village in London to a family-sized home in a rural village in Norfolk

Finance expert launches Small Ideas Initiative to gather ‘practical, low-cost’ ideas to put before cross-party panel

Every day, people run into what the finance expert Martin Lewis calls “the life-potholes of unintended consequences” – clunky systems and poorly conceived rules that make life harder than it should be. His latest project, the Small Ideas Initiative, will attempt to address that, with a cross-party panel of politicians and policymakers crowdsourcing ideas for everyday fixes to take to government.

The ideas could cover anything from health and schools to policing, tech and money. Lewis is encouraging people to submit ideas for “practical, low-cost, non-controversial ways to improve the UK” before 12 November.

The sleep disorder has been the butt of jokes and a comedic plot point, but the reality of living with narcolepsy is anything but funny. Things could be about to change for people with the condition though, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first ever drug to treat narcolepsy itself, rather than just its symptoms. Madeleine Finlay tells Ian Sample how the scientific breakthrough came about, and Julie Flygare, who has narcolepsy and founded the non-profit Project Sleep, explains what it is like to live with the condition and how the drug could be gamechanger

The incident is the latest to raise questions about the growing reliance on digital maps for wilderness navigation

The route up the Widowmaker Arete, a 1,700ft wall in British Columbia, is deceptively described as “mostly easy slab climbing”, interspersed with “short steep sections that can include finger cracks” and “blocky face climbing”. It requires careful planning, and the right equipment.

When 16-year-old Bryce Vincent Gowryluk found himself facing its sheer headwall last week, he had neither. He did, however, ask the AI chatbot Claude for directions.

With cancer cases rising fastest in poorer countries, Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, president-elect of the Union for International Cancer Control, says Africa needs investment in research, diagnosis and prevention

When Dr Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu last saw Gloria in Abuja, the young breast cancer patient was so ill that she was in hospital. The cancer had spread to her bones and lungs, and she was struggling with complications from the disease.

Then, at a global conference on cancer thousands of miles away in Hong Kong last month, Bagudu saw her again. Gloria was walking with a stick because of the cancer in her hips, but she was attending sessions, speaking about her experience and advocating for other patients.

Researchers found five events, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, caused serious damage to mental wellbeing across UK

Brexit, Liz Truss’s mini-budget and other “shocks” over the last 10 years have led to a serious and lasting deterioration in the UK population’s mental health, research has found.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the first and second Covid lockdowns also triggered big rises in psychological distress, as measured by the number of people with depression and anxiety.

From commanding the catwalks to acting as plus-ones for their famous parents, celebrity kids are bang on trend

Knee-length skirts and bras worn as tops were two of the main takeaways from fashion month, which wrapped up this week. But the biggest trend had nothing to do with clothing. From New York and London to Milan and Paris, the shows were the ultimate proof of a nepo baby takeover.

John Travolta’s daughter, Ella Bleu, 26, made her Paris catwalk debut at Miu Miu. Apple Martin, 22, the daughter of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow, walked the Chloé show.

After 10 years as creative director of the Paris-based luxury brand, the designer bows out. From a rock’n’roll aesthetic to see-through brogues, here are 10 stand-out moments

Our four-legged friends are turning heads from Louis Vuitton to Schiaparelli – but what does their presence in the most exclusive of spaces say about the industry’s changing attitudes?

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The front row at a fashion week show is a known hotspot for celebrities. During the most recent iteration that wrapped up on Tuesday, sightings included Heathcliff, AKA Jacob Elordi, high-fiving the Adolescence star Owen Cooper at Bottega Veneta; Rihanna arriving 63 minutes late to the Matières Fécales show; and Dua Lipa gossiping with Nicole Kidman and Pedro Pascal at Chanel. But peppered in among the Hollywood crowd was another type of guest going head-to-head for the photographers’ attention: dogs.

From a cavapoo at Louis Vuitton to a shih tzu at Schiaparelli, four-legged companions – rather than designer bags – sat on the laps of many showgoers. At the Balenciaga show, Brooklyn Beckham and Nicole Peltz sat next to Miranda Priestly – no, not Meryl Streep in her Devil Wears Prada character, but the brand’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli’s rescue dog. Tommy Hilfiger took his post-show bow with a fluffy samoyed – a look-a-like of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s pup who stars with Kelce in a campaign for the brand. Elsewhere, a miniature schnauzer in goggles and a chihuahua wearing a puffer jacket took over the catwalk at Chopova Lowena.

Sarah Burton’s sporty, daffodil mesh dress made me smile. But the reason I chose it for Fashion Museum Bath is because it tells the story of our times, when bodies are more political than ever

One morning in February this year, I opened my laptop to find an email with an all-caps subject line: TOP SECRET. Being a fashion editor can be exciting but state secrets are not generally my beat, so I was intrigued. Sure enough, it was a thrill: an invitation from the Fashion Museum Bath to choose their Dress of the Year for 2025.

What an honour. Dress of the Year began in 1963, the brainchild of the museum’s founder Doris Langley Moore, as a way of keeping a static collection perpetually current. Each year a fashion expert picks an outfit or outfits that capture the year just gone, and these become part of the permanent collection. There is a Mary Quant dress and a Katharine Hamnett slogan T-shirt, Ossie Clark chiffon and Ralph Lauren pinstripes. There is sublime beauty from the catwalks of Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel and John Galliano, and pieces of cultural history: McQueen’s bumsters, Jennifer Lopez’s internet-breaking green Versace Grammy dress, Dior’s “We Should All Be Feminists” slogan, Naomi Campbell’s pandemic hazmat suit, a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, and the dress worn by the Duchess of Sussex for her Oprah interview in 2021. “Dress” is interpreted loosely, in the sense of clothing rather than a frock: the lineup includes men’s suits. The Bath museum is currently mid-revamp, having closed its doors in 2022, with construction soon to start on a new museum set to open in the city’s old post office in 2030. Meanwhile the collection is stored in Wiltshire and can be seen online.

An autumn break in the French mountain town of Saint-Gervais-Les-Bains offers thermal treatments and glorious walking trails before the winter ski crowds descend

Mont Blanc is hiding behind the clouds, but the Aiguille du Midi spears the sky above a mountainside ablaze with russet, gold and tawny tones. The maples flare red; rowan trees are dusted with crimson berries.

Our little group has trundled up to Mont Lachat station (altitude: 2,115 metres) on the Tramway du Mont Blanc, the century-old cog railway that climbs improbably steep slopes from the French alpine town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains. Operational since 1909, the railway was once intended to reach the 4,809-metre summit of Mont Blanc, but war, glacial terrain and waning funds put an end to that ambition. But even from Mont Lachat, the view is a showstopper. On one side, the Bionnassay Glacier slips scenically down the slope, a buzzard soaring over the milky-green glacial lake at its base, while on the other the Chamonix valley basks in soft autumnal sunshine.

The lost practice of hitchhiking is a subculture, an art, and a way of travel that satisfies wanderlust like no other trip. Plus, it costs nothing

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I’m alone, hunched over by a dusty road junction, and feeling the bite of the morning sun. I’ve already been waiting here, on the outskirts of Esperance on the south coast of Western Australia, for more than three hours. Another wave of traffic approaches. I smile, stretch out my arm and raise my thumb.

Most drivers who pass wave or give me a thumbs up. One gives me the finger. There isn’t much traffic. Someone tosses a water bottle out their window at me.

From a historic bathhouse in Sweden to forest bathing in Croatia, readers share their favourite places to relax and recharge

• Tell us about a small European ski resort – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Tucked away off a pretty shopping street in a beautiful art nouveau building is one of Stockholm’s oldest spas, Centralbadet where a day ticket costs from £23. As winter darkness descends, candles are lit around the pool and a quiet calm envelops you. Swimming by candlelight is a treat. Next a sauna followed by an ice-cold plunge. Afterwards a nightcap is in order so it’s a brisk walk in the cold crisp air to Fotografiska restaurant. It’s a great spot to savour one of Stockholm’s best views; the old town Gamla Stan and the twinkling lights on Lake Mälaren.
Sarah Rochfort

After electronics giant Philips left, the city reinvented itself as a multicultural hub for creativity and innovation, and the home of Dutch Design Week

A baggily clad skateboarder’s wheels clatter across concrete floors, the noise bouncing off exposed pipes and iron girders. Vaulted skylights set in high ceilings illuminate the industrial space and its central kitchen, from which my main course – a silky lemon risotto, spiked with samphire, rhubarb, garlic, baby onions and basil – has just been transported.

I’m in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, in North Brabant, famous for its historic connection to Philips, the one-time electronics giant. The restaurant, Radio Royaal, is housed in what was once their engine room, in the Strijp-S neighbourhood. Today, Strijp-S buzzes with concept stores, an indoor food market, MU Hybrid Art House and the Area 51 skatepark. The broader area, Strijp, was where much of the company was based: its zones are named S, T and R. In the late 90s, Philips withdrew from the city where it had started in 1891, and the letters I, J and P were never assigned.

A giant screen, big battery, rapid chip and top cameras push the great iPhone 18 Pro to the max with a price tag to match

Apple’s largest Pro iPhone gets its biggest battery upgrade yet to make it a true two-day phone with new Siri AI and a variable aperture camera.

The iPhone 18 Pro Max is the supersized sibling of the regular 18 Pro and, though it is no longer Apple’s most expensive phone thanks to the £2,000 iPhone Duo, it has a similarly large price tag to match costing from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299).

Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)

Processor: Apple A20 Pro

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: iOS 27

Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facing

Connectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)

Dimensions: 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mm

Weight: 249g

A puzzle for the ages

It’s made of wood, it’s in the shape of a circle, and it is the forum for many an important gathering.

It is also the setting for today’s puzzle.

Running is one of the easiest exercises to take up, but it can be easy to lose your mojo and get injured. Coaches give their advice on how to hit your stride

Whether you have never been for a run or are building up to a marathon, sometimes the biggest challenge is just getting out the door. Here, running coaches share their tips on everything from mindset to avoiding injuries – but mainly how to find joy in running.

With an extremely wet and windy winter forecast, take steps to keep you and your home safe and dry

With the Met Office warning that this year’s supersized El Niño could mean a wet and stormy winter lies ahead, it’s never been more important to maintain your home.

Payouts for storm damage to UK homes surged 32% to £244m in 2025 amid the destruction caused by the heavy rain and strong winds that accompanied the likes of Storm Éowyn and Storm Floris.

A teenager struggling with climate anxiety searches for hope in an unexpected place – writing letters to imprisoned activists. Max, 14, is on a quest to understand the human stories behind direct action and why so many climate protesters are in prison​. As replies begin to arrive, a dialogue bridging generations unfolds and connection transforms despair into purpose. ​When Max writes to the judge presiding over a high-profile trial​, he is surprised to hear the letter referred to in the judge's closing remarks

Could a drug intended to prevent painful rashes also protect our brains as we get older? The signs are promising – but not conclusive. Yet that’s enough to be driving a boom in shingles jabs

When Jenny, a 50-year-old marketing and branding professional from Cambridge, went for her shingles vaccine last year, an entirely different disease was on her mind. Having witnessed three of her four grandparents succumb to dementia, with all the distress that brought, she wants to avoid the same fate. She hopes the shingles vaccine might help.

Jenny is far from alone. Britain’s high street chemists have reported a rise in demand for the shingles vaccine, at least some of which is driven by people more worried about dementia than shingles. And while the vaccine is free for some on the NHS, most under-65s pay around £450 for the full two doses.

From the destruction of Gaza to climate breakdown, satellite imagery has become an indispensable reporting tool. But as a recent Guardian investigation illustrates, a lot of work goes into ensuring its veracity and keeping the focus on the people affected on the ground

How to bear witness when you can’t physically go there? Journalists have always grappled with this. Whether it’s because of armed conflict, repressive regimes or prohibitive terrain, some places remain too dangerous or difficult for reporters to access.

Enter low-orbit satellites. As the technology has evolved and proliferated, satellite imagery has become increasingly indispensable. But as with all reporting tools, it requires professional judgment and painstaking work to verify things.

Trump has used the full might of the presidency to supercharge executions, but an avalanche of mishaps has put the system’s flaws in the spotlight

It took more than an hour to establish the two intravenous lines through which Christa Pike would be injected with a giant and normally lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital, and in that time she did everything she could to assist those who were attempting to kill her.

“Please try here,” she said over and over again to Tennessee’s execution team, pointing to specific parts of her body where she thought they might find a vein as they repeatedly stabbed her with needles. “Please try here, I think it will be OK. Please try up on my shoulder, higher.”

Ahead of the budget later this month, we’d like to hear from people in the UK about what measures they feel might help – or not help – financially

We want to find out more about any financial concerns people in the UK have ahead of the budget on 28 October 2026. What measures would you like to see in the budget and what issues would you like to see addressed?

For instance, do you have particular concerns around energy bills, petrol, childcare, fiscal drag, pensions – or something else? Let us know below.

First Edition newsletter will be hosting a reader Q&A with economist Isabella Weber, a leading voice on inflation, affordability and cost of living and now’s your chance to put your questions to her

Isabella Weber is one of the most sought-after and influential economists of her generation, and has advised policymakers and governments in the US, Germany, Europe and Latin America.

She has become a leading voice on inflation, affordability and the cost of living. Her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics, looks at the relationship between economic insecurity and the rise of the far right, arguing progressive politics must respond to the rise of authoritarianism by urgently addressing the economic pressures people experience in their daily lives. For years Weber was treated as an outlier.

Weber is an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate in research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, and is the author of the prize-winning How China Escaped Shock Therapy.

We’d love to hear your questions. Perhaps you would like to find out how the cost of living affects the current political landscape? What’s happening in the bond markets? Or the advice she’d give to progressive politicians, from incumbents like Burnham and Mamdani to the German parties taking on the AFD. From austerity to zero deficits, nothing is too simple or complex.

We would like to hear from students and staff about the impact of the strikes

Students at Edinburgh, Dundee and Nottingham face a term without any teaching due to staff strikes as the higher education sector struggles with rising financial uncertainty.

University and College Union (UCU) members in Edinburgh launched their industrial action on 28 September, while their colleagues at the University of Dundee were embarking on a five-week strike. UCU members at the University of Nottingham announced a further round of strikes starting on Monday 5 October and lasting until the end of the semester in December.

We’d like to hear from people who have been monitored or assessed by AI at work and what they thought about the experience

Firms are increasingly using AI to monitor or assess their employees, leading to concerns about workplace surveillance.

Instructors at tech training company Multiverse recently blew the whistle at their “remorseless” and “unnerving” AI monitoring system, while The Co-Op has used automated listening technology that rates every phone call some of them make to customers.

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