In the first of a two-part profile, Daniel Boffey traces the incoming PM’s early forays into politics and his rise to prominence – ultimately leading to him leaving London for Manchester

Andy Burnham had emerged victorious, but niggling doubts remained about his mandate. It was the summer of 1987 and the 17-year-old had represented Labour in a school hustings as Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock were battling it out in that year’s general election.

“Andy was standing against another guy, a really nice guy who was the Conservative candidate,” said Steve Harrington, a former English teacher at St Aelred’s Catholic high school, in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside. “Andy gave a speech, which was excellent, then the other guy came on to make his speech and Andy’s fans – unbeknown to Andy – snatched the plug out of the microphone. So they couldn’t hear what he was saying. Andy won by a landslide. Having said that, he probably would have anyway, as it was a heavily Labour area … But he was innocent, he hadn’t been involved in [the prank] and wouldn’t have been.”

As Hairspray and his ‘angriest movie’ Desperate Living are rereleased, the ‘Pope of Trash’ reflects on dead dogs, dirty rats, ‘that lunatic RFK’ and why there are no novelty dances any more

John Waters still remembers the day his 1988 comedy Hairspray was awarded a PG certificate. “It was horrible,” he says.

Until then, Waters, christened the “Pope of Trash” by the novelist William S Burroughs, was notorious for filming the unfilmable. In Eat Your Makeup, he recreated JFK’s assassination only five years after the event, casting the boisterous Divine in drag as Jackie Kennedy. He invented a blasphemous sex act called the “rosary job” in Multiple Maniacs, which also featured a rape-by-giant-lobster. Most repulsively, in Pink Flamingos, he persuaded Divine to scoff a fresh dog turd on camera.

At the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre broke new ground in selling readers an angry rightwing perspective. Today, most of Fleet Street is run by his disciples

In 1986, 131 years after the Daily Telegraph was founded, its editor, Max Hastings, wrote a memo to senior colleagues about the newspaper’s nature and purpose. “The Daily Telegraph is … ‘nice’,” he said, “in the business of reassurance, of providing confirmation each morning for our readers that their world is looking pretty safe and stable.” He went on: “We are not a strident campaigning newspaper – our business each day is to seek to give our readers the fullest possible information about what is happening in the world, and to suggest what it might mean.”

In practice, under Hastings and many other Telegraph editors, this ethos produced a journalism of pervasive but usually understated conservatism: often focused on the English countryside, the value of hierarchy and tradition, the pleasures of seasonal pursuits such as foxhunting and gardening, the interests of farmers and retired military men – and cautionary tales about more reckless lives gone wrong, often presented through enjoyably detailed reports from the divorce courts. The Torygraph, as many non-readers called it, could be inward-looking and “numbingly dull”, says Geoffrey Wheatcroft, the historian of British conservatism, but it was “thoroughly respectable”. Many of its most renowned figures, such as Hastings’s predecessor as editor, Bill Deedes, were “mildness itself”.

Passenger Ljubisa Karović was nearly sucked out of his seat when Boeing 737-800’s window blew out on flight from Greece

For nervous flyers, it sounds like the stuff of nightmares; for most, only contemplated in an action movie. But last week, a passenger really was nearly sucked out through a broken aircraft window mid-flight.

Ljubisa Karović was on a Ryanair-Air Malta flight leaving Thessaloniki in Greece when the adjacent window blew out of the Boeing 737-800, pulling his head and shoulders out of the plane. His wife and fellow passengers helped to keep him inside.

Psychologist Candice Odgers has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years. She fears the current debate around smartphones obscures some of the biggest issues facing teenagers – from the impact of Covid to the health of their adult caregivers

The quickest way to make being online safer for children and teens would be to kick all adult men off the internet, the Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers believes. Men are the biggest perpetrators of sextortion and most likely to spread misinformation, she says.

Odgers is not recommending this as a policy for governments to adopt: “That would be crazy, right? It would be unfair.” But she is on a drive to puncture the prevailing narrative that the best way to address online harms is a social media ban for teenagers.

When an investment fund bought their building, the residents of Tribulete 7 protested in the only way they knew how – through radical creativity

Spain’s housing crisis finally came for the tenants of Madrid’s Calle Tribulete 7 when their block was sold to an investment fund. Feeling pressured to leave by rent increases and aggressive construction works that flooded some apartments, they did everything they were supposed to do: organise meetings, contact the tenants’ union and find a lawyer. They also protested, spoke to journalists and created an Instagram account to spread the word. But they also did something I’d never seen before.

They opened up their homes to the public and invited musicians to play inside, in the very flats and shops that were suddenly at risk. A month later they flipped this concept on its head and took their furniture out on to the street. There the tenants cooked, knitted, played chess in their dressing gowns, worked from home and bobbed in their armchairs to a local band playing a brass version of Freed from Desire. It was a spectacular theatrical performance of everyday existence, but also a fight for their lives.

⚽ Latest news in aftermath from dramatic day in Atlanta
⚽ Tuchel takes blame | Player guide | Golden Boot | Mail us

Thomas Tuchel had already shown this week he’s not someone who is prone to mere pleasantries after a game. The head coach shouldered the blame for England becoming too passive after taking the lead against Argentina, but at the same time said he had “no regrets”.

I don’t believe so much in an English thing and a curse or whatever. It’s repeating itself in different moments. It’s different coaches, different players, different situations.

What cost us today was that we were not active enough in any structure. I can understand these discussions are out there and of course a million coaches after the game know it better. You can discuss this with a million coaches. I have to make a decision on the pitch. It’s how I analyse the match and I take the responsibility.

Green leader says expected appointment shows new PM ‘won’t challenge the power of the bankers, or tax their wealth’

Here is some reaction from journalists and commentators to the news that Shabana Mahmood is now expected to be Andy Burnham’s chancellor.

From Jennifer Williams, the FT’s Northern England correspondent

It seems to me there are a few reasons Burnham might choose Mahmood over Miliband despite bluesky thinking it’s outrageous. Many of them are not-ed reasons but not all

Ed basically has the potential to be too powerful. His own agenda (people don’t fundamentally change) coupled with a known ability to drive it through Whitehall, would be a rival for the centre of gravity, when the PM is still trying to set his own after a decade away

Secondly I have never ever thought the words “Ed Miliband” in well over a decade of coveting English devolution, despite him having a northern seat. That feels telling

Yes there’s the obvious immediate warring Labour factions going on, good to see that didn’t wait for Monday. But I wouldn’t really put Andy and Ed in the same bracket politically anyway. “Soft left” is unhelpfully vague and AB is actually quite hard to categorise, not least bc he moves

I think Shabana and Andy are closer than ppl might think in outlook. On immigration he’s not that fluffy - and his latest seat (almost the same as the old one) carries the same imperative. Where he would balk I think is if it feels cruel to him: some of the Morgan era rhetoric feels unlikely

I saw a clumsy quote from a Labour source earlier about Ed being London liberal and some of Andy’s people being working class northerners. These are distinctions that wind people up. But there is, from where I’m sitting, a difference in how these people view things, their electorates for one!

Finally, the markets. But if that was AB’s primary concern - ie if he was that worried Ed would freak them out - it may not have taken this long to reach a decision, assuming the decisions stands into Monday

NB I know Ed’s electorate is in Doncaster. I’m not sure it’s particularly reflected in his outlook, but it is in AB’s.

Where to even begin with these Labour briefings!

1) Louise Haigh is not working class.

What to expect from a Shabana Mahmood chancellorship?

She’s a migration hardliner and social conservative, who rejected Corbyn’s hard-left economic agenda in 2015

If Shabana Mahmood is chancellor it’ll end in tears…quickly. Through no fault of her own she’s given little thought to economic policy and yet likes to make a splash as a minister. There will be no rapport with Andy Burnham. The media and market will approve..until they turn.

I remain unconvinced that someone who has expressed no previous interest in fiscal policy, has no obvious economic policy expertise and whose views on the topic are unknown is an ideal candidate for Chancellor.

FWIW:

Miliband - obviously qualified. Effective minister. Brings political baggage. Probably (and somewhat unfairly) gets a negative market reaction.

The flip side of a CHX not known to have especially strong views on economic policy is a bigger role and say for a beefed up Number Ten. Suspect Number Ten North, MHCLG, DBT, Transport, etc will have a larger role.

You absolutely do not need any formal training in economics to be a successful chancellor.

(And I’d add - the same is true of central bankers).

We don’t know what the cabinet will be yet, but the mood music is ominous.

A Labour Party subservient to the City of London and harking back to the Blair years would be catastrophic for this country.

“City relieved” = Burnham’s government won’t challenge the power of the bankers, or tax their wealth.

Who is choosing our politicians - the people or the banking sector?

Arrival of outgoing British leader in Ukraine comes as Zelenskyy faces outrage after removing Mykhailo Fedorov

Koretskyi’s appointment comes just as Britain’s Starmer is meeting with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Here are first pictures from their first official engagements this morning:

Whistleblower suggests internal security services deployed spyware from 2017 against key domestic and foreign targets

A former member of Morocco’s domestic intelligence service has helped to provide an unprecedented insight into how the north African state used hacking software – including Pegasus spyware – to target journalists, human rights defenders, French politicians and Spanish cabinet ministers and police officers.

Pegasus, which is manufactured by the Israel-based NSO Group, allows its operator to access everything on a target’s mobile phone, including emails, text messages and photographs. It can also activate the phone’s recorder and camera, turning it into a listening device.

Iran reports explosions in several cities including capital while US military says it also hit and disabled tanker in strait of Hormuz

• US attacks oil tanker in strait of Hormuz as strikes reported in Tehran

Reuters has reported that Benjamin Netanyahu will not travel to the US next ⁠week ​because the ‌funeral ‌of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has been ‌postponed until the end of ​the month, the Israeli prime minister’s office said.

Earlier Israeli reports suggested Netanyahu had been set to fly to Washington on Saturday to attend memorial events for Graham, who died on Saturday, and potentially meet Donald Trump.

The dual national, who missed six weeks of school, is latest of several children affected by recent Home Office policy

A British girl was prevented from returning to her school in the UK for six weeks after a trip to see her grandmother in Italy because of the Home Office’s new rule requiring dual British nationals to have a British passport to get back into the country.

The 15-year-old, who was stranded in Rome in April, is just the latest of a number of children and young adults hit by a new Labour government rule that came into force in February.

Ofcom concerned platform’s age verification is ineffective, leaving some at risk of seeing posts about self-harm and suicide

TikTok is under formal investigation over concerns it has failed to protect children from harmful content, the UK’s online regulator, Ofcom, has announced.

The social media platform’s approach to checking the ages of users has sparked “particular concerns” at the watchdog, almost a year after measures to protect children from the worst of online content came into effect under the Online Safety Act.

Exclusive: More than 200 illegal holiday properties found in buildings at the highest level of seismic risk

Tourists in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, are staying in illegal accommodation listed on Airbnb and Booking.com in buildings considered so seismically vulnerable they could collapse in the event of a major earthquake, according to exclusive data shared with the Guardian.

Analysis of data collected by Re:Rise, a Romanian organisation working on seismic risk reduction, identified at least 207 illegal tourist rental properties advertised across the two platforms in Bucharest at the end of May, with a combined capacity to host more than 1,000 visitors each night.

Campaign hopes to buy site for community, fearing it could go same route of corporate gentrification as Camden and Old Spitalfields

Traders at Brixton market say they are in a battle of “people over profit” after submitting a last-minute plan to stop the site being bought by a private equity firm which they fear could price out longstanding independent businesses.

Those behind the Buy Back Brixton campaign said they are through to the second stage of a bidding process, competing against multinational companies to buy Brixton Village and Market Row for community ownership.

Many hoarders are scared to seek help but one UK housing association is taking a more empathetic approach

At one end of the table sits Tony*, who showers at his local leisure centre in Birkenhead every day. His landlord won’t fix his bathroom because of his hoarding. Then there’s Sarah*, who ended up homeless with her three teenagers after their landlord evicted them because of hoarding. In her new home the problem has started again, but she says she’s petrified to ask for help in case she loses her property.

Sian Cowley, 35, who has struggled with hoarding for decades, says: “I’ve lived without central heating for two years. A lot of us live without the basics like hot water, heating and cooking because we are too scared to get people in to do repairs because of the threat of eviction.”

Lewd propositions, drunken tirades, groping, grumbling and grubby behaviour – cabin crew have to experience it all, at altitude. They open up about the horrors they’ve seen from passengers and colleagues

Last week, right at the start of this year’s holiday season, a 30-year-old drunk British holidaymaker tried to kiss a male flight attendant on a plane, spent a week in Mallorca presumably thinking his actions were consequence-free, and was then arrested on his way back through Palma airport. In February, Jet2 banned two passengers from the airline for life after a mid-air brawl on a flight from Turkey to Manchester, and last week BA had to cancel a flight back from Barbados, because (some) members of the crew were still too drunk from the hotel bar to operate it. There’s a connection between these incidents, and it’s not just as flight attendant Thomas, 27, puts it: “Well, drunk Brits – you know how that goes”.

The term “air rage” was coined in the 90s, but the behaviour it describes went through the roof post-Covid. In 2021, the number of reported incidents in the US was greater than in the previous three decades combined. A new category of misdemeanour had appeared – mask non-compliance.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The chef and restaurateur talks vintage plates, proper photo albums and cycling with the Filter

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Angela Hartnett is a chef and restaurateur known for her sophisticated yet simple Italian cooking. Her passion for food was instilled in her by her Italian mother and grandmother. After starting out in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchens at Aubergine and Pétrus, Angela became head chef at Pétrus, helping the restaurant achieve a Michelin star. In 2008, she co-opened the now Michelin-starred Murano in London’s Mayfair with Gordon Ramsay before taking full ownership two years later. Several Café Muranos have followed, as have Hartnett Holder & Co at Lime Wood in Hampshire and Cicoria at the Royal Opera House.

She co-hosts the podcast, Dish from Waitrose, with Nick Grimshaw. She has an MBE and an OBE for services to the hospitality industry and to the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The annual rundown of Guardian writers picking their most played tracks of the season goes from club-ready pop to sunny tech house

• Check out a Spotify playlist of the choices

Kim Petras’ greatest song to date is also the best outsider country song in recent memory: if Ethel Cain and Lana Del Rey could ever put the beef behind them and duet, the dusty gutter romance of Jeep is exactly how you’d want it to sound. The song creates a flyover state love story in a strangely effective union of hyperpop and Americana, creating a windswept fantasy of “doing some middle America shit” with your man: Four Loko-fueled hookups, gas station canoodling and screaming along to rage music beneath the stars. The truly audacious thing is the bridge, a whispered and impressionistic slur that feels like Petras is eight drinks deep, doing donuts in her car until everything blurs. It’s total make-believe, but Petras is so good at making you feel her longing that it gets me choked up. When she recently came out at a Charli xcx show to perform Jeep unannounced, it already felt like an anthem. Owen Myers

The confessional classic opened the floodgates for a generation of brilliant female showrunners. But as risk-averse streamers tighten their purse strings, is the industry forcing women’s stories back into a box?

Ten years ago, Phoebe Waller-Bridge locked eyes with the camera and asked her audience: “Do I have a massive arsehole?” An unexpected punchline to a monologue about a booty call that went surprisingly – and literally – south, it announced Waller-Bridge as a new star of British telly. The half-hour comedy series Fleabag broke the fourth wall, and the internet. Its second season was even bigger, spawning countless thinkpieces discussing Andrew Scott as the “hot priest” and the sold-out Topshop jumpsuit worn by Waller-Bridge, which had a keyhole cutout revealing an aspirational slice of boob.

Both Fleabag and Waller-Bridge were praised for blazing a path that female showrunners and their feminist creations could later stomp down. It secured Waller-Bridge an exclusive deal with Amazon worth a reported $20m (£16m) a year. The show’s success certainly changed Waller-Bridge’s life. But, a decade on, as the British television industry has been reshaped by the rise of streamers, budget cuts and dwindling opportunities for new talent, how did it change TV?

JD Salinger’s wry, subversive classic inspired novelist Joseph O’Connor to be a writer. He reflects on why this story of a disaffected teenager remains as fresh and transgressive as ever

In 1981, when I was 17, my first girlfriend gave me a paperback of her dad’s favourite novel. I’d never heard of it despite living in a home full of books. My parents loved the work of Edna O’Brien, Muriel Spark, John le Carré, Dickens. So did I. But encountering the first sentence of JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye made the world burst into colour.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Damien says plants last longer, but Tolu doesn’t think things have to survive for years to be worthwhile. Who should turn over a new leaf?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Flowers are a fleeting gesture. Why not buy plants that last years instead?

Watching England lose is one thing. Watching them lose surrounded by millions celebrating Argentina’s march to another World Cup final, is completely different

Look, most people were awfully good about it. Our waiter at a restaurant near Plaza de Mayo shook our hands warmly and said nice things about Jude Bellingham. On the metro ride back from the fan zone there was no massive gloating either, just bright-eyed kids in Lionel Messi shirts swept along by the nationwide euphoria. “Vamos, Vamos Argentina!” they sang, barely able to believe their team were once again in a World Cup final.

And to be a stray English bystander in a city totally awash in sky blue and white was … a rare privilege. Some of us currently over here covering England’s rugby union tour have been lucky enough to visit a few iconic sporting cauldrons, but to be in Buenos Aires in the aftermath of Argentina defeating England at a football World Cup is right up there.

England head coach made changes that would have led to Southgate and Eriksson being hammered

Lionel Messi has seen buses reverse into position before. England did not confront the greatest player of all time with anything new when they dropped back with a place in the World Cup final within reach. The negativity was lamentable and it was no surprise when punishment arrived in the form of a clinical Argentina fightback in Atlanta.

This was a tale as old as time. There was a chance for England to push on after Anthony Gordon fired them ahead early in the second half, but they reverted to type. The mentality was passive and they looked scared to win. No one put a foot on the ball and offered control. Harry Kane? Invisible in another game. The midfield? Outplayed, outrun and outclassed by Alexis Mac Allister and Enzo Fernández. Thomas Tuchel? Outwitted by Lionel Scaloni, whose substitutions made a difference, and too quick to retreat when there was so long left for England to defend their lead.

While England shrank away in Atlanta, Argentina’s No 10 was not finished making his mark on the biggest stage

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Well, not to this lot anyway. On a day of ceaseless rolling noise under Atlanta’s vast refrigerated dome, England reached the end of the road, the end of their own capacities at this World Cup, the end of the gears within this team. Mainly they ran into Lionel Messi, who wasn’t ready to be done just yet. Not like this anyway.

With 55 minutes gone England were actually winning this game, 1-0 up thanks to Anthony Gordon’s goal, the only real moment of clarity they produced all match. At which point they simply disappeared as an animate entity from the stage.

• Banner refers to Falkland Islands conflict in 1982

• UK business secretary calls for Fifa investigation

The Argentina players celebrated their World Cup win over England with a banner saying “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, making reference to the 1982 Falklands war.

Argentina were 1-0 down with five minutes to go of the semi-final in Atlanta but rallied and scored twice in quick succession to reach a second straight World Cup final, where they will face Spain in New Jersey on Sunday.

Luis de la Fuente’s final-bound team have been fuelled by togetherness and a commitment to each other that goes back a long way

On the way out of the dressing room in Arlington, Luis de la Fuente gathered his “family” and delivered one last message before the World Cup semi-final against France. He had long known what he was going to say, if not exactly how – it’s what he has been saying for 50 days and more. “I’ll tell them that this is a unique stage, the kind of moment that may never be repeated again, and that we have to be ourselves,” he had suggested 18 hours earlier; now that idea crystallised in a line. “We’re facing one of the best lineups in the world,” the Spain coach told them, “but we’re the best team in the world.”

By the time they made their way back in again, a voice was heard above the shouts, another line to encapsulate it all, to define this. It belonged to Marc Cucurella and it said: “What a fucking recital!” A call came in to De la Fuente, King Felipe on the phone saying pretty much the same thing, if a little more politely. On went the music, Jamaican (Bam Bam) blasting out, pizza was passed around, and they bounced about. Some did, anyway. Some just sat there taking in what they had done. “It was written: we started in Atlanta and we end in New York,” Dani Olmo said, but a semi-final is not supposed to be like this.

Any boost for the military will be paid for by cuts elsewhere. Britain’s new PM should be careful he is not being sold a pup

For many British voters, politicians and journalists, public spending has had a bad name since the late 1970s, when Margaret Thatcher’s government began its long campaign to tame the supposedly bloated state. From this perspective, the public sector wastes money, commissions unnecessary or out-of-date projects and generates endless jargon and reasons for its own existence, while delivering strikingly fewer social or economic benefits.

Constant public and private lobbying for more funds from every minister, this argument continues, has helped make the job of prime minister impossible, and raised taxes and government debt to intolerable levels. Therefore the state requires a fundamental rethink – which means its sense of entitlement needs to shrink.

Devolution, tax, the EU and immigration: these are all opportunities for growth if Burnham abandons the excessive caution of the past few years

The economic inheritance Andy Burnham will receive from Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves is not, in any meaningful way, a crisis. That is worth saying, because the comparison is not with some imagined social-democratic Eden. It is with the Britain Labour inherited after austerity, Brexit, the inflation shock and the Truss episode – a country in which economic policy had too often alternated between drift, denial and irresponsibility. Restoring seriousness to fiscal and macroeconomic management is an achievement, and not one economists should dismiss.

But it is also a limited achievement. Labour was not elected simply to demonstrate that it could avoid blowing up the gilt market, or so that ministers could once again speak in complete sentences about public finances. The question is whether Starmer and Reeves changed the trajectory of an economy that has, for more than a decade and a half, been characterised by weak productivity growth, falling relative living standards, deteriorating public services, excessive centralisation and a damaging loss of openness. On that test, the answer is less comfortable.

Jonathan Portes is professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a former senior civil servant

The decision to shoot in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, where the Indigenous people can’t tell their stories without fear of imprisonment, helps erase our own brutal journey

• Peter Bradshaw’s five star review
• A classicist’s verdict

The simple act of holding a camera in my homeland of Western Sahara can be a crime. When Sahrawi film-makers and journalists attempt to document everyday life under Moroccan occupation, they can often end up in prison cells. For the Moroccan regime, a camera in the hands of a Sahrawi threatens its official narrative that Western Sahara is part of Morocco.

In contrast, when celebrated international names in the film industry wish to capture an ideal picture for an epic journey, and decide that our land is exotic enough to shoot the desired scenes, they are welcomed, escorted and granted access by the same authorities that usually deny us that right.

Marco Rubio has offered nonsensical rationale in attacking the court. The Trump administration’s real goal is impunity

With the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration’s real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents “could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America”.

It wasn’t his performances on Wednesday lunchtimes that did for the ultimate mid-table PM – it was all the other stuff

Who would have thought it? Most of us would have put money on Kemi Badenoch failing to read the room for Keir Starmer’s last ever prime minister’s questions. Not a bit. From her opening tribute to Ann Widdecombe to her final gags, Kemi was the model of warmth, generosity and tenderness. Pitch perfect. Not a word out of place. So much so that you couldn’t help wondering if the real Kemi had been locked up in her office and her minders had sent a doppelganger out to the Commons. If so, it would be lovely if we could see more of her body double.

There were loud cheers from the Labour benches as Keir made his way past cabinet colleagues to his place on the frontbench. It’s one of life’s little tragedies that a prime minister’s popularity peaks when they are on their way out of the job. Suddenly, any misgivings that MPs might have over their leader’s management of the country are forgiven. It’s like falling for an ex all over again. Which, on balance, is something best avoided. Things tend to get messy quite quickly.

Matt Damon’s sensitive and repentant Odysseus might come as a surprise to Homer, likewise some significant omissions concerning the poem’s female characters

• Peter Bradshaw’s five star review

• Nolan’s film shot on occupied land. That feels like a betrayal

It would be easy to think that the Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem composed over 2,500 years ago, is all about Odysseus. It’s called the Odyssey, after all. It opens with the invocation to the Muse, “Tell me about a complicated man” – pulling no punches about the poem’s theme. This is, on the surface of things, an epic about a man coming home, a return voyage that spans fluorescent fantasy worlds and yawns across 10 years in the wake of the fall of Troy; a one-hero clash with monsters and princesses, giants and whirlpools, the fight to reclaim his place as king of Ithaca, and as the hero of an epic of his own.

But the point about an epic is that it also contains multitudes. There is much that is epic about Christopher Nolan’s latest film. For those familiar with Nolan’s work, that hardly comes as a surprise. It’s a long watch, coming in at just under three hours. It reckons with the breadth of the Odyssean legend, from the sack of Troy all the way to Odysseus’s return, and seamlessly juggles the epic’s multiple timelines and flashbacks. And while the jaw-dropping cinematic effects of a feature film shot with Imax cameras might seem entirely modern, the way Nolan captures the smashing of a ship’s prow into the waves or the crunch of bones in the Cyclops’ jaws have their roots in the dynamic visuality of Homer’s poetry – what ancient commentators called enargeia, the epic’s ability to bring the world to life before your eyes.

A burst pipe left me high, dry and desperate to wash my hair. But around me, everyone seemed stoic and unsurprised - no rolling of eyes, tutting or, God forbid, speaking ill of the water company

On Monday morning, the water coming out of my tap was but a dribble. Disappointing. I checked the water company website and there was something about some problem somewhere that was being resolved. It was sorted. Then Tuesday evening, uh-oh, not even a dribble. Not again, surely. Back to the water company website which, in its own way, is rather helpful. But only in the same way that train companies have got better at owning their shortcomings with the efficiency of the Delay Repay system. Nice as this is, it would be nice if they were as good at stopping problems happening as they are at keeping you across how they are supposedly solving them or, in the case of rail companies anyway, bunging you some money to cheer you up.

Here’s what the website said: “Our specialist team have located a large burst water pipe causing no water, low pressure and flooding to the road …” It was the “specialist team” bit that irritated me, perhaps unreasonably. Specialist as opposed to what? Generalist? A couple of blokes who happened to be in the office and set off with some divining rods for a look around? Pardon my irritation but I’d had my hair cut in the afternoon and, you know how it is, you need a shower otherwise it’s a long, itchy night. My mood wasn’t improved by a couple of American students from South Dakota we had staying (long story) who had never been out of the US before. They were having a bit of a whine about the water, but soon gave up, obviously pitying us living in such an obviously backward country.

The outgoing prime minister was on good form during his sometimes emotional last PMQs. But Labour MPs were right that change was needed

Mercifully for a prime minister whose defenestration was swift and brutal after Labour’s catastrophic local election results in May, Sir Keir Starmer’s valedictory week has offered several opportunities to point to what he got right. Sir Keir’s steadfast record in corralling international support for Ukraine – and ensuring Britain stayed out of Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran – will be looked on favourably by history. A minute’s applause in Paris on Monday, from leaders of the “coalition of the willing” countries, was well deserved.

On Tuesday in the House of Commons, Andy Burnham paid tribute to the outgoing prime minister for his role in drafting the bill that finally became the Hillsborough law this week. On Wednesday, serendipitously, the England team’s World Cup exploits allowed Sir Keir to indulge his passion for football during his final prime minister’s questions.

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.

Obesity reflects prices, advertising and access, not simply weak willpower. Ministers must now act

Britain has spent the last three decades asking individuals to make healthier choices inside a market that makes those choices more expensive and less visible. It is no surprise then that the proportion of adults in England living with obesity nearly doubled in that time, to 30%. MPs on the health select committee have decided enough is enough. Preventing obesity in future generations, they say, must take precedence over the interests of the food and drink industry.

In a report to parliament, the cross-party committee argues that preventing obesity demands radical action to regulate food markets. To those who say “just wait for cheap Ozempic”, MPs offer a clear answer: off-patent GLP-1 drugs may transform treatment, but treatment is what becomes necessary when prevention has failed.

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.

Dr Alessandro Massazza says extreme heat is linked to poor mental health, but solutions do exist. Plus letters from Sean Smith and Woody Caan

The data published by Imperial College London on deaths caused by the May and June heatwaves is a stark reminder of how climate change is not only measured in degrees of temperatures but also in terms of lost lives (May and June heatwaves killed about 2,700 people in England and Wales, data suggests, 13 July).

While each death due to extreme heat is a preventable tragedy, mortality only represents the tip of the iceberg of how heat is impacting our health. Extreme heat also affects our mental health. Throughout the past weeks in the northern hemisphere, we have all experienced how it is making it harder for us to sleep, making us more irritable and reducing our ability to concentrate.

There is no majority support for use of gene editing on non-life-threatening conditions, writes Tom Lichy of the British Deaf Association

Your editorial (The Guardian view on gene-edited humans: darker uses must be acknowledged alongside medical ones, 5 July) offers welcome support to those expressing concern about the lack of public dialogue on gene-edited humans. These concerns are exacerbated when some scientists view the use of germline editing to eradicate hereditary conditions as inevitable.

The new polling for the Progress Educational Trust reported in your editorial indicates that the UK public agrees with the use of gene editing to correct life‑threatening genetic conditions. No such majority supports use for conditions such as deafness which are not remotely life-threatening.

Martin Bailey responds to a letter that said the word ‘welfare’ is American and has negative connotations

Ruth Lister is very much mistaken in her accusation that the word “welfare” is pejorative and American in origin (Letters, 13 July). William Beveridge refers to welfare 25 times in his report of 1942.

Moreover, the use of the word welfare in Britain has a long and positive history – it was the stated aim to improve the welfare of the British people by liberals, the labour and trade union movement, many Christians, friendly societies and other progressives throughout 19th-century Britain, much of this reaching political fruition in the reforms of the Lloyd George government and the acts of the 1945 Labour administration.

Carla Keen on the cultural signals we attach to how people speak, in response to a review on a documentary hosted by the inequality campaigner

Lucy Mangan’s description of Gary Stevenson as having an “adolescent bullishness” raises a wider question about how class shapes perceptions of authority (How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson review – how did this end up such an embarrassment?, 8 July). I am an artist from a working-class background working in theatre, and I am very aware how often authority is often judged through presentation. Our media landscape still has a narrow idea of what expertise looks and sounds like. Research by the Sutton Trust has shown that around half of newspaper columnists and over a third of BBC executives were privately educated, despite private schools educating only a small minority of the population.

Stevenson is now wealthy, highly educated and professionally successful, but class is not only about income or occupation. It is also about the cultural signals that we attach to voice, manner and presentation.

️Updates from the first-round action at Royal Birkdale
️Ewan Murray’s preview | Official leaderboard | Mail Scott

Bob Mac aside, it’s still a wee while until some of the more fancied stars take to the course. Time for a little scene setting, then. Ladies and gentlemen, on the tee, Ewan Murray …

A fast start for Bob MacIntyre! He sends his opening tee shot into the rough down the left, and only just finds the front of the green with his second. But he rolls in a 45-footer and birdie is not a bad way to start the week! Oban’s finest already has three top-ten finishes at the Open on his resumé, including a tie for seventh at Portrush last year. Keep an eye out.

• Alaphilippe gets in breakaway before being reeled in

• Pidcock’s rollercoaster ride continues on return to Tour

The records keep tumbling in the 2026 Tour de France. After race leader Tadej Pogacar shattered the record for the fastest climb of the Col du Tourmalet, Norwegian sprinter Søren Wærenskjold won the fastest-ever road stage, in a frenzied sprint into Nevers.

Pogacar revealed his stage had not been entirely straightforward. “I ran over a loose bottle with my front wheel and almost crashed,” he said. “I completely shat my pants there. Luckily, I managed to keep my handlebars upright. It’s nice to have days like this, but you still have to keep your focus throughout the stage.”

• West Ham winger available for right price after relegation

• Rashford has two years remaining on United contract

Manchester United will turn their attention towards Crysencio Summerville should Marcus Rashford leave this summer, with the West Ham winger’s potential fee around £30m. Summerville is viewed as having the right profile in regards to a left-sided forward to replace the England international.

Since relegation to the Championship, West Ham are open to selling the 24-year-old Dutchman providing they receive a suitable offer. Summerville, who was part of the Netherlands’ World Cup campaign, has three years remaining on his contract.

• Lionesses goalkeeper heading to Villa on a free transfer

• Millie Turner moves to Birmingham City for £100,000

Aston Villa have signed the former Everton goalkeeper Emily Ramsey on a free transfer.

The 25-year-old received a call-up by England in 2023 – as part of the squad that won that year’s invitational Arnold Clark Cup – and in 2021 for a training camp, but is yet to earn a senior cap. Ramsey was a regular in England youth international sides throughout the age groups and is highly admired by Villa.

• ICC reveals shape of expanded 2027 14-team tournament

• Only one of three lowest-ranked teams would advance

The men’s Cricket World Cup will undergo yet another revamp when it takes place in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia next year. A convoluted 14-team format has been officially confirmed by the International Cricket Council (ICC), albeit one that trims the competing nations to 12 almost immediately.

While at the last two World Cups the 10 teams played a round-robin league stage that produced four semi-finalists, the expanded 2027 edition will begin with the three lowest-ranked teams out of the 14 qualifiers playing what has been called a “Super Series”. Only one of these teams will progress through to the main event.

An unlikely match ‘like a World Cup final’ was for some first proof of Yorkshire immigrant community’s love of cricket

On 30 June 1986 the Yorkshire Post printed an invitation to a pre-match reception at the Majestic hotel. “Meet cricket club celebrities,” the invite read. “Auction, £10 (including buffet).” But these were not just any old cricket celebrities, this was India and Pakistan, led by Kapil Dev and Imran Khan, due to meet for only the second time on British soil at the genteel English town of Harrogate.

This unlikely match, a 40-over bish-bash fundraiser for Help the Aged, had been encouraged by the cricketing bigwigs of both nations. India were already in situ on an England tour, while the Pakistan ambassador, Ali Arshad, was in charge of pulling together a team, flying five players over specially.

This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Northampton Saint is embracing a friendly rivalry with his headline-grabbing teammate when they take on the Pumas

It has been a long road for several of the players who went on the British & Irish Lions tour to Australia last year. They are putting on a professionally brave face, but for some the final weekend of the season cannot come soon enough. Factor in the travel, the training and associated other stresses and strains and the 2025-26 campaign has been relentless from a physical and a mental perspective.

Crunch the numbers before the last hurrah against Argentina on Saturday and it is a wonder many are still standing. Of the English Lions, Henry Pollock is about to participate in his 32nd competitive game while his Northampton teammate Tommy Freeman is poised to play his 29th. Ben Earl and Ellis Genge, assuming their involvement against the Pumas, will be in the same situation with Ollie Chessum one behind.

Stigma and superstition surround those with disabilities such as Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy. But there is a growing move to raise awareness and increase inclusivity

When Fatima Muhammad was told to drown her infant son or abandon him in the forest to die, she brushed off the ludicrous suggestions fuelled by superstition. But when people began to run away, some screaming profanities at the sight of him, she knew they meant it. His crime was being born with Down’s syndrome.

Alameen was born in 2015, the fourth of Muhammad’s six children. He is happy and playful at home, his mother says; a child who loves to draw and dance. He communicates using the basic sign language he is slowly learning and the habit he has developed of taking Muhammad’s hand and leading her to whatever he needs.

Campaigners hail ‘landmark moment’ in early detection and treatment of rare muscle-wasting disease

Every baby born in England will be screened for a rare muscle-wasting disease, starting next year, the Department of Health and Social Care announced on Thursday.

Campaigners said the “landmark moment” should lead to babies who were found to have spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) being treated early and thus growing up without any of its debilitating symptoms.

For one placement, black applicants had a less than 1 in 100 chance of being offered a place, NHS data shows

Black doctors in England are four times less likely to be offered a training place than their white counterparts, according to analysis.

As part of their medical training, doctors across the NHS are able to apply to placements within specific branches of practice such as psychiatry, obstetrics and gynaecology, and emergency medicine.

Vessels believed to have departed from Myanmar in late June, with mostly Muslim Rohingya minority onboard

The United Nations has said more than 500 people are feared dead after reports of two large shipwrecks off Myanmar since late June.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) and its refugee agency UNHCR voiced alarm in a joint statement at reports “that two boats carrying more than 500 people may have capsized off the coast of Myanmar in recent days”.

Tim Steiner speaks as shares in the online grocer slide nearly 15% on plunge in pre-tax profits to £17m

• Business live – latest updates

The co-founder and boss of Ocado has insisted he has “no intention of being a puppet master” exerting control over its staff amid an apparent boardroom row over succession at the grocery technology company.

Tim Steiner, who is to stand down as chief executive in 2028, suggested that any successor would be happy to work with him.

Minister urges public to report cases of three or more sick or dead birds in a group after brown skua seabird tests positive for H5N1 on Wellington beach

The deadly H5N1 bird flu has been confirmed in New Zealand for the first time, sparking alarm that some of the country’s most beloved and vulnerable native birds could be wiped out if it spreads.

A single ocean-going seabird, a brown skua, returned a confirmed positive test on Wednesday, after it was found on Petone beach in Wellington on 10 July, said Andrew Hoggard, the biosecurity minister.

Birds are unable to sweat but they keep cool by seeking shade and bathing

As we humans sweltered in the record-breaking late June heatwave, we might not have spared much thought on how birds were coping.

Unlike us, birds are unable to sweat, so instead they have evolved other ways to avoid overheating. These include seeking shade beneath trees, bushes and hedgerows, spreading their wings to allow cooler air to circulate around their body, and opening their bills to cool down, the same as dogs do when they pant. Birds are also able to pump blood into their bare parts – bills, legs and feet – which allows their body heat to disperse.

Adaptation to frightening new normal and reducing emissions further and faster is critical, scientists warn

Dozens of people drowned, hundreds had to be rescued and thousands were displaced when floods struck the coasts of west Africa last month.

Now scientists have concluded that the rains that caused the floods were supercharged by climate breakdown. Global heating, they say, turned what should have been a routine weather event into a climate catastrophe.

Insects in study fared better in cold when given a probiotic and prebiotic mix alongside their usual sugar diet

Food supplements for honeybees could help the insects better withstand temperature stresses linked to a changing climate, early research suggests.

Scientists found that worker bees fed a mixture of probiotics and inulin, a plant-derived prebiotic, survived prolonged cold exposure better than bees given an ordinary sugar diet.

Politician spoke to senior figures in Reform in March 2024 about covering lost earnings, sources tell the Guardian

Nigel Farage told senior figures in Reform UK he would need “a million a year” to cover lost earnings if he stood for parliament in the 2024 general election, sources have told the Guardian, raising further questions about why he was given £5m by a crypto billionaire.

Sources say the discussion took place in March 2024 – shortly before the undeclared gift was made by Christopher Harborne on 5 April, according to the Thailand-based crypto billionaire’s lawyers.

In final PMQs, PM offers Burnham – and England team – full support and defends action on NHS waiting lists, child poverty and economy

• Politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has defended his record as prime minister in an often emotional final outing at prime minister’s questions, which largely avoided political jibes in favour of tributes and questions, many about the World Cup.

Answering the very last question, his voice breaking at times, Starmer paid tribute to those he had worked with over his two years in office, which will end on Monday when he hands over to Andy Burnham.

‘Documents of concern’ found at child’s home in the capital, with no other suspects sought

A 14-year-old boy from south London has been charged with an offence linked to “extreme rightwing terrorism” after a police search uncovered an alleged plot to target two mosques.

The boy was arrested on 9 July on suspicion of criminal damage to a vehicle, but officers dispatched to his address found “a number of documents of concern” during a search, according to the Metropolitan police.

Government – which provides significant portion of charity’s funding – is understood to have demanded an explanation

The charity Save the Children has angered the government with a social media post marking Keir Starmer’s impending exit from Downing Street.

The organisation suggested on X that the outgoing prime minister was complicit in the deaths of thousands of civilians in the Israel-Gaza war.

The R&B singer was found guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking and producing child abuse images, with his lawyer lobbying the US president for more than a year

R Kelly has formally appealed to the US president, Donald Trump, for a reduction of his 31-year prison sentence for racketeering, sex trafficking and child abuse images, in a filing to the Department of Justice.

The 59-year-old R&B singer, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, was found guilty in 2021 of leading a criminal enterprise that recruited women and underage girls for illegal sexual activity and pornography, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2022 he was found guilty on three counts of child abuse images and three counts of child enticement and sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he is serving nearly entirely concurrently but for one additional year.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Vice-president tells Joe Rogan administration botched handling and should have released all documents from start

JD Vance agreed with criticism that the Trump administration botched the handling of the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, telling podcast host Joe Rogan that “we absolutely screwed up the comms”.

The Department of Justice’s repeated moves to delay the release of documents related to the convicted sex offender drew bipartisan disapproval last year. The files have been one of the most significant political liabilities to Donald Trump since his second term began.

Woman in her 60s was riding on popular cycling trail in northern NSW when she ran over the two-metre-long eastern brown snake, one of the world’s most venomous

A woman in her 60s is recovering after being bitten by a two-metre-long eastern brown snake that had become entangled in her bike chain in regional Australia.

She was riding on the northern rivers rail trail near Burringbar, in the Tweed shire in northern New South Wales, when she ran over the snake.

Third round of arrests linked to independent bookstores after similar operations in March and June widely regarded as crackdowns on dissent

Hong Kong authorities have raided two bookstores and arrested five people on suspicion of selling allegedly seditious publications, according to local media reports, in the latest step targeting independent booksellers.

Videos and photos from multiple media outlets on Wednesday showed officers wearing vests marked with “police” seizing boxes from the building that houses Have A Nice Stay, a bookshop founded by former journalists. AFP reporters saw officers also lead away a woman in handcuffs to a van.

Uncrewed systems are the future for armed forces and the Netherlands is leading the way ‘to keep people out of danger zones’

On each side of the target ship, a black vessel keeps a watchful distance. Defender 1 and Defender 2 are the eyes and ears of the navy – but they have nobody onboard, and their paths are controlled by a computer system.

This is the future of the Royal Netherlands Navy, according to Capt Sjoerd Feenstra, head of the expertise centre for unmanned systems. He is leading a five-week mission, off the coast of Den Helder in the north of the country, to test the limits of systems that operate without the human touch.

James Sherwin-Smith says he will launch fresh campaign for change at the building society after losing vote at AGM

A Nationwide customer has vowed to fight on after losing a historic attempt to join its board and is plotting a fresh campaign to boost democracy at the building society.

James Sherwin-Smith secured about 12.5% of the vote, representing support from 75,939 Nationwide members, at the mutual’s annual general meeting on Wednesday.

Proposal to protect vulnerable and stop money laundering could affect Premier League clubs and Formula One

• UK politics live – latest updates

Unlicensed casinos could be banned from sponsoring sports teams in the UK from next year, in a move that poses financial questions for Premier League football clubs such as Everton FC and sports including Formula One.

Plans for a ban, revealed by the Guardian on Sunday and confirmed by the government on Wednesday, are aimed at protecting vulnerable people and reducing the risk of sport being used by organised crime groups for money laundering.

Worse-than-expected figures for three months to June come amid concerns over lopsided economy

• Business live – latest updates

China has posted worse-than-expected growth figures for the three months to June as its economy expanded by just 4.3% – one of its lowest quarterly readings on record.

The rate, which came in under the government’s target of 4.5% to 5%, was one of the weakest since reporting on official quarterly GDP figures began in the early 1990s.

Doing full justice to the Homeric legend, Christopher Nolan amasses an epic cast to convey the true cost of war with film-making of thrilling ambition

• A classicist’s verdict: soulful hero flatters our times as women and nuance pushed overboard

• Nolan’s film shot on occupied land. That feels like a betrayal

Christopher Nolan reinvents the Homeric legend as a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion, an epic ordeal of anguish witnessed by the dead and presided over by capricious deities who participate on almost equal terms with the humans. It speaks to the generational pain of PTSD; plenty of soldiers come home in person after any war promptly enough, but arriving back to their prewar state emotionally or spiritually can take years or decades and may never happen at all. The invisible odyssey of anguish is punctuated by flashback episodes, hallucinations, confrontations with the arbitrary gods of dysfunction. And all the time the spouses and children cannot move on with their lives.

This is a film with thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair. There are some broad-brush moments in the dialogue, yes, but even these are applied with a muscular flourish. It has gasp-inducing, Imax-sized landscapes of loneliness shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema – who, incidentally, avoids the sea’s traditional cliched colour – and full-tilt battle sequences and fight scenes accompanied by the throbbing and thrumming of drums.

Coming from the same developer as the Shard, London’s latest trophy building may be 54 storeys shorter than envisaged but should rise to building of the year

If Irvine Sellar, the larger-than-life developer who gave London the 95-storey hypodermic pinnacle of the Shard, had had his way, the UK’s tallest building would have been joined by a sibling: a 72-storey residential tower soaring above Paddington Station, the pair of leviathans winking conspiratorially at each other across the capital. In the end the Paddington Pole, as it became known, attracted the feather-spitting ire of heritage bodies and community groups, and after 1,800 objections, was refused planning permission by Westminster Council.

Undaunted, Sellar and his architect Renzo Piano – the Italian imperator of hi-tech and co-designer, with Richard Rogers, of Paris’s Pompidou Centre – went back to the drawing board and simply lopped off 54 storeys. And so, in a reverse ferret that was a gift to headline writers (“Pole-axed” trumpeted Building magazine), the Pole became the Cube: an 18-storey office block, homogenous, crystalline and curiously self-effacing, despite its cubic chonk, its glacial glass walls reflecting the grey London sky.

Ferrell’s brash ladies man and loser golfer could have been hilarious. But comedy has sped up over the last two decades, and all the genital gags and dodgy references fall flat

In the 2000s, American comedy had a rude awakening. While the preceding decade had been all attractive sophisticates bantering in big cities, the new millennium arrived in a miasma of crude, cartoonish buffoonery: Austin Powers, American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car? These were, sadly, the sacred texts of a millennial adolescence.

In comparison, the work of the Frat Pack – a group of comic actors that included Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Luke and Owen Wilson, plus writer-director Judd Apatow – seemed almost highbrow. By the middle of the decade, this cohort had funnelled ribald irreverence into much better films, including Zoolander, Dodgeball and Anchorman. Eventually, though, the worm turned; as chin-stroking dramedy and nerdy Marvel wisecracking took hold of the zeitgeist, this PC-needling silliness fell out of fashion.

Politicians are claiming that a hit Netflix animation is Russian propaganda aimed at the ‘militarisation of children’. But it’s far from a recent problem – even the CIA has funded kids’ entertainment

When Liberal Democrat MP Tom Gordon spoke earlier this month in the commons of the “militarisation of children”, he wasn’t warning of a generation suddenly taking arms. He was talking about a cartoon bear. Gordon, along with a cross-party group of more than 50 MPs, had written a parliamentary letter urging that an animated children’s show be banned on the basis it is Russian propaganda.

The accused animation is Masha and the Bear, a Russian programme aimed at preschoolers. The show is one of the most popular series on YouTube, and is available in the UK on ITVX and Netflix. The programme follows the adventures of the young, pink-hooded Masha and her brown bear companion in a remote woodland. But MPs – as well as Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation and Estonia’s minister for foreign affairs – see Masha’s use of Soviet-era military costumes as a flex of Russian “soft power”.

Five wealthy women set off for a weekend where everyone has something to hide. Plus: Dan Snow follows in Odysseus’s wake. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
This glossy drama about wealthy women who head off on a girls’ weekend is the perfect chaser for anyone who raced through Two Weeks in August. After her husband dies, celebrity cook Hollis Shaw (Jennifer Garner) organises a bougie trip with four friends: the school mom, the college bestie, the sort-of sister and the fan who reached out on social media. But everyone has a secret – and one is an absolute shocker. Gemma Chan, Chloë Sevigny, Regina Hall and D’Arcy Carden star. Hollie Richardson

These two half-hour classics of stop-motion pack in nods to more earnest cinema but are never distracted from producing pristinely beguiling family entertainment

Nick Park’s stop-motion Wallace and Gromit animations have an amazing ability to deliver an entire action adventure feature film at just 30 minutes complete with romantic subplot and loads of great visual gags thrown in, and A Close Shave (★★★★★) from 1995 is just another example of it. The situation is that Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) is working on his latest invention in his cellar, a giant machine, like a bungalow-sized cauldron, that automatically shears sheep and knits the product into lovely woolly jumpers.

While they are waiting for this to become a success, Wallace and Gromit run a window-cleaning business, and it is in this capacity that they meet Wendolene Ramsbottom (voiced by Anne Reid) who owns a wool-selling business oddly unaffected by the wool shortage. Wallace falls for the comely Wendolene and their intensely English and shy romance forms an ironic counterpoint to the fact that Wendolene has been coerced by her sinister dog Preston into being complicit in this hateful canine’s sheep-rustling business – as a result of which a runaway sheep finds its way into Wallace and Gromit’s house.

Prudential Center, Newark, New Jersey

Ahead of her World Cup final performance, the singer’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour whips through exuberant hits

In the dark of a sold-out Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, a screen lights up on a desert. Around me are girls and their moms in concho shell belts and coined hip scarves, and there are Colombia soccer jerseys and the country’s traditional vueltiao hats as far as you can see. An uncanny CGI figure of Shakira shakes loose the sand. She looks to be covered in a silvery oil slick. I immediately recognize the Shakira of the La Tortura video I saw on MTV’s TRL in 2005, her stomach flickering in fluid, controlled movements. She pounds the sand, and a silver-sequined Shakira emerges, first on screen and then on the floor.

“There’s nothing like when a she-wolf reunites with her pack,” she howls.

After the Guardian’s music critics chose their best of the half-year, we asked you for your picks – from Brian Jackson and Arlo Parks to Maya Hawke, Flea and more

• The best albums of 2026 so far
• ‘I saw it seven times in the cinema’: readers’ favourite films of 2026 so far

The album is a fun, punchy dance record that will definitely be the soundtrack of my summer. It’s propulsive, full of queer joy, cheeky lyricism, and relatable insecurities as they ruminate on “being past their prime” as pop stars in their early 30s. It will undoubtedly be an amazing live show and is a testament to the importance of artists taking breaks, going out and living and resting before coming back with new things to say and experiences to detail. Jane Tytla, New England, US

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
The veteran band may not have much new material to show for the past decade or so but this brutal, melodious mayhem still inspires catharsis

Since re-forming in 2010, System of a Down (SOAD) have existed in some weird limbo, playing numerous big-ticket tours but releasing only two new songs, with mooted further new material conspicuous by its absence amid grumbling of impasses and creative conflicts.

Tonight offers scant clues this deadlock has eased – certainly, there are no new songs – but SOAD don’t play like they’re retreading familiar material simply for filthy lucre. Viscerally heavy, they give everything a metal band should, including a guitar hero, Daron Malakian, who leads chants of: “Pull Oasis out of your ass!” and provokes a circle-pit that stretches from stage to exit; a bassist, Shavo Odadjian, gurning with unparalleled panache; and a frontman, Serj Tankian, who growls, croons, gets operatic and – at least once tonight – meows.

(Interscope)
Despite their goth-coded attempts at emotional turbulence, the saccharine songs of Abrams’ third album feel adolescent in their melodrama

Gracie Abrams’ third album is a full-blown crime scene. Across 16 songs, the US songwriter catalogues slip knots, blades, bullets, knives, more knives, ghosts, cages, drugs, car crashes, blood, burial, flaming tyres, choking, burning houses, sinking ships, drowning, more blood, bloody knees and even more knives. It’s called Daughter from Hell to acknowledge how much the 26-year-old frayed her parents’ nerves as a reckless teen, part of a wider theme about working out when to blame others for her pain, and when to accept responsibility. Clearly, there’s a lot of poetic licence involved in dramatising these mature revelations, but the dissonance between Abrams’ goth-coded emotional turbulence and the music’s insistent, quivering prettiness is the real uncrackable case on this bloodless record.

In one way, Abrams has had an outsized influence on pop. Her early bedroom songs inspired Olivia Rodrigo to write Drivers License, which kickstarted the former Disney star’s dazzlingly quick and continuing act of self-redefinition. Mostly, though, Abrams is the sum of her influences: you needn’t listen hard to clock Lorde’s vocal harmonies, Phoebe Bridgers’ intimacy or the tightly packed storytelling of Taylor Swift, who had Abrams support on the Eras tour. In Swift she also shares a producer in the National’s Aaron Dessner, a collaborator in Bon Iver (his jump-scare falsetto appears on two songs here, and he plays all over the record), and certainly a sound in Folklore’s pearlescent acoustics, injected with a whisper of stomp-clap vigour. That mix of melodrama and songs sung like secrets means Abrams’ audience skews young: her music carries the sensation of being the only person in the world grappling with huge emotions, as life often feels in adolescence. For anyone older, her music can feel a little starter pack.

From 18th-century pleasure gardens to Studio 54, the story of nightlife in all its hedonistic – and political – glory

In this fabulous alternative history of the modern world, the academic and “party historian” Imogen Willetts looks at the last 500 years of civilisation through the sometimes blurry lenses of its after-dark scenes, with fascinating results. She begins by trying to capture what it feels like to go on a big night out, focusing on a phenomenon that, in 1912, the sociologist Émile Durkheim labelled “collective effervescence”. In one passage, she explains this by referencing dancing as part of ancient tribal hunting rituals, listening to Charli xcx’s 365, or singing along to Sweet Caroline with tens of thousands of other people in a stadium.

This is no dry academic study, then, and its mix of historical research, critical theory and conversational references to pop culture makes for a bright and compelling read. What Willetts calls the “seemingly superficial act of getting gussied up to drink, dance, have fun and meet people” is, of course, much more than that, and she scratches away at the layers with skill. Nightlife can contain, or enable, rebellion, community, innovation, art, love, sex and political revolution. From Japan to France, from Shanghai to Germany, via many detours to the United States, she examines historical movements as they might be seen from dusk till dawn.

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some fantastic new paperbacks, from the gripping story of an international murder case to a state-of-the-nation yarn

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In a new book, Isaac Butler goes back to the 1980s to trace how battles started against the arts, from Piss Christ to Mapplethorpe, and looks at what we can learn for today

Isaac Butler is limbering up for an event at Politics and Prose, an independent bookshop and venerable Washington institution, but still has time to explain his arm tattoos.

They variously depict: a logo from his grandparents’ company in the 1960s; a satellite that his father worked on at Nasa; a “jaunty crab” for his wife, who finds crabs “hilarious”; an iris by Japan’s Utagawa Hiroshige for Butler’s daughter, Iris; a drawing of a scene from a production of The Seagull by the Russian theatre maker Konstantin Stanislavski; and an artwork by the American painter and photographer David Wojnarowicz that shows a house on fire.

In the follow-up to the Booker-shortlisted Burnt Sugar, a woman seeks liberation from her controlling relationships

Avni Doshi’s second novel is narrated by an unnamed woman in the suburban US who is shocked to hear her husband announce that he is leaving her. She isn’t in love with him, exactly, but she sees their marriage as a structure or “container” for her existence. Formerly a novelist, her writing has stalled since having children. Her husband controls their finances, and won’t tell her why the credit card keeps failing. She suspects he’s been sleeping around.

In the aftermath of his departure she tries to isolate herself, not only from her ex, but also from her own family, whose well-meaning interference becomes another kind of domination. She’s a practising astrologist – the “first house” of the title refers both to the couple’s home and to the astrological division of the heavens that has a bearing on the body, physical appearance and early life experience: foundations for a self. This self is exposed by abandonment. The First House, as a whole, is the story of its excoriation: a harsh, occasionally bitterly funny rejection of the narrator’s personhood and relationships as they stand. Marriage, she states, requires “a terrible fear of consequences”; “if either person in a couple stopped being afraid, it would certainly break apart”. Her parents bully her. Her cousin tries to set her up with other men. Her daughter just wants a phone. Relationships, like devices, promise connection and deliver alienation. “The tight, airless room of a marriage only created the conditions for us to realise we were alone, always alone.”

As global anxieties multiply, ​v​ideo games from Resident Evil to Mouthwashing are providing rich source material to help decode society’s problems

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Horror is so hot right now. There’s Obsession, Evil Dead Burn and Hokum in the cinema, Widow’s Bay, From and Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen on TV, and, of course, a rotting smorgasbord of horror games including Resident Evil Requiem (pictured top) and Reanimal, soon to be joined by Silent Hill: Townfall, Silver Pines and Dreadmoor. We’re also seeing weird cross-pollinations, with horror movie studio Blumhouse making games, while games themselves become horror films and the whole backrooms genre infects every medium it touches.

So it was fascinating to attend last week’s horror and gaming conference at Falmouth University, in Cornwall: a gathering of students, researchers and lecturers, all engaged in the academic study of horror games. There were brilliant talks on zombies and posthumanism, the gothic in games, and the role of monstrous little girls in survival horror (there are a lot of them!). Subjects as diverse as masculine fragility, disability and ageing came up; Will Doyle, creative director at Supermassive Games, gave a great keynote on the art of creating horror in games using tools such as revulsion, spatial alienation and the human instinct of apophenia. I learned a lot about theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Mark Fisher, and about the technical similarities between indie horror games and film noir (for example, the use of darkness and creative camera techniques to “hide” budget restrictions). It was incredible fun.

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2; Marimittu Games
A soft puzzle game makes a sharp point about the over-optimised future ahead

In the far future, on a planet that is not Earth, AI is in charge. This entity is no Skynet-esque killer robot but a machine that cares for humanity. Manifesting most visibly as cute droids, the technology is pervasive – embedded in everything from the design of the sleek architecture to the gorgeous, mostly sunny artificial weather. The so-called Optimization System has but one responsibility: ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

In less skilled hands this game might have felt like an undergraduate seminar on the limits of utilitarianism. But Japanese studio Marumittu Games elegantly marries its philosophical concerns with smart design choices. You play as a young, unnamed Facilitator tasked with tending to both the city’s bots and its human residents. Each morning you wake up, sleepily loping off to the bathroom before sitting down for an exquisitely rendered breakfast, and then embark on your day’s work. Like everything else in this near-future scenario, labour is designed to cause as little frustration as possible, amounting to simple maths brain teasers on a grid – nothing too taxing, but enough to keep you engaged.

Introducing a new sadistic psychopath and a corrupt secret society of Gotham grandees would mean Harvey Dent takes a backseat to Victor Zsasz and the Court of Owls

Matt Reeves’ The Batman was a strange beast from the beginning. Perhaps not comic-book weird in the usual sense – no cosmic portals or rubber nipples here – but strange all the same. This was a Gotham where Bruce Wayne seemed to have been styled by the ghost of Kurt Cobain, the Riddler appeared to have escaped from a David Fincher evidence locker, and the whole city looked as if it had been left to soak overnight in rainwater and civic corruption. The expectation was that Reeves would begin rolling back the bizarre in part two, perhaps leaving us with a more orthodox Batverse populated with mobsters and corrupt lawyers. Sebastian Stan seemed central to this, with rumours suggesting he would portray Harvey Dent/Two-Face, perhaps alongside Scarlett Johansson as his wife, Gilda.

In the last week, however, there have been suggestions that the sequel might just be priming itself for something a fair bit freakier. Hollywood industry veteran Jeff Sneider is reporting that the main antagonist this time around could be the Court of Owls, a sinister secret society of Gotham grandees who look at first glance like a murder-bird upgrade on the League of Shadows, but are really something nastier: the city’s masked, devious ruling class, living out of secret rooms and exploiting a property portfolio that probably goes back to the Pilgrims.

PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S; Ubisoft Singapore/Ubisoft
Ubisoft has removed all the boring parts of pirate life from its fantasy RPG, creating something more focused and fun

Edward Kenway isn’t your dad’s Assassin’s Creed protagonist. Neither sworn to ancient oaths nor given a noble destiny, he’s just a guy who likes coin, dislikes rules, and whose gold-chasing, rule-dodging lifestyle sees him embroiled in an ancient war between Templars and assassins quite by accident. After he’s shipwrecked with a man named Walpole who turns out to be a Templar, Edward assumes Walpole’s identity in the hopes of securing the bounty he mentioned.

Edward wears life lightly. The world around him is violent and chaotic, and those in his vicinity are more obsessed with double-crossings than a Mission:Impossible movie writers’ room. Ed just smiles, undeterred by it all, and gets on with plundering. It’s all just fun and games to him, and he is set on conquering the Caribbean on his own terms. He is a brilliant extension of the player, in that way, and that’s what this remake of the 2013 pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed does so well: the sense of freedom.

Birmingham Rep
With tremendous singing from Ramin Karimloo and Meow Meow, Joe Murphy’s superb staging of the story is full of dark gothic humour

Stephen Sondheim was drawn to fairytales – and not just in the storybook theme of Into the Woods. The origins of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, lie in Victorian melodrama, but in the hands of the composer, working with book writer Hugh Wheeler in response to a play by Christopher Bond, it is steeped in the tropes of folklore.

The story of a serial killer who provides the grisly contents for his landlady’s pies is ripe with the kind of dark gothic humour that appealed to the Brothers Grimm. There are shades of Hansel and Gretel in the cavernous oven and of Little Red Riding Hood in the prospect of being turned into someone’s dinner. The composer’s lyrics even quote the nursery rhyme Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Baker’s Man.

At Birmingham Rep until 15 August

Whitechapel Gallery, London
I feel bad for the artists whose work has been crowbarred into a wonky show about migration, protest, climate and identity

It’s rare that an exhibition is so bad you feel compelled to text a friend saying “you wouldn’t believe the garbage I just saw” as soon as you get out. And if you can walk around this badly explained, undercontextualised, barely linked, poorly thought through mess of a show without getting a migraine, you have a stronger constitution than me.

This is an exhibition about east London. Or maybe it’s about Britishness. Or migration. Or the climate crisis. Or music. Or global trade. Whitechapel Gallery doesn’t seem to really know, so what chance do the rest of us have of figuring it out? The gallery would argue it’s about all of these things; I’d say it manages to be about none of them.

Soho theatre, London
Josh Radnor is a music executive whose life is upended by his wayward brother, in a play about masculinity, creativity, appropriation and trauma

On paper, writer Jonathan Caren’s Hit Machine has all the makings of a chart-topping smash. Featuring the London stage debuts of Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Noah Galvin (Dear Evan Hansen), with direction from Daniel Bailey (Red Pitch) and music by Grammy-winning bluesman Ben Harper, the three-hander tackles the topics of masculinity, appropriation and buried family trauma through the prism of the creative process.

Set in the louche, soft-furnished home of music mogul Wes (Radnor), the play begins promisingly. Wayward younger brother Alex (Galvin) arrives and throws a plaid-shirted bomb into Wes’s carefully manicured and minimalist life. We begin to see how each sibling plays their role in the strained family dynamic: Wes the high-achiever on the hedonic treadmill always striving for more, and Alex the sprightly yet secretive youngster striving only for approval.

At Soho theatre, London, until 15 August

Committed to Bethlem hospital after killing his father in a psychotic episode, Dadd inspired Angela Carter and Queen. Now a new show is exploring his paintings with a more nuanced take on his mental illness

In the autumn of 1843, the influential journal Art-Union mourned “the late Richard Dadd”, an apparently kind and gentle man who a year or so earlier had been a rising star of London’s Royal Academy. Today, Dadd is known, if at all, for having murdered his father while in the grip of severe psychosis, for which he was committed to Bethlem Hospital and then to the new Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he remained for the rest of his life. As Art-Union concluded: “although the grave has not actually closed over him, he must be classed among the dead.”

At Bethlem, Dadd began painting again. Scenes remembered from his trip around the Eastern Mediterranean – when he first began suffering mental distress – were followed by portraiture allegory, satire, biblical scenes and intricately detailed fantasies, among them the unfinished The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, which he painted between 1855 and 1864, while at Broadmoor. By now he was more patient than artist, and the prism of mental illness through which his work came to be understood has never fully shifted.

Neill’s longtime representative says the actor’s family agreed to release the information due to ‘inaccuracies and outright falsehoods’ in media

• Gillian Armstrong remembers Sam Neill: ‘I can’t believe that the very next day he was gone’

• Sam Neill’s final interview and his life in pictures

Sam Neill’s cause of death was pneumonia, his longtime representative has revealed.

The 78-year-old actor’s “sudden and unexpected” death was announced on Monday, just three months after Neill revealed he was finally cancer-free since being diagnosed with stage three angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2022.

New exhibition in Oslo connects artist’s 1922 public work with the history of cocoa, the labour movement and women’s emancipation

At first, to be among Edvard Munch’s Freia frieze is almost to be swept up by a dance. Across the 12 canvases on display at Oslo’s Munch museum, fruit pickers’ arms reach with balletic poise, water flows from watering cans in unison, farewells are dramatically bid and synchronised couples move across a beach arm in arm. Even Munch’s brushstrokes, dominated by blues and greens, cannot sit still.

But as you start to ponder why these scenes – commissioned in 1922 as public art to decorate the walls of the women’s canteen at the factory for renowned Norwegian chocolate company Freia – were created, the urge to move evaporates.

The much-loved presenter had 10 years on This Morning before suddenly deciding she had to get out of there. She discusses sexual harassment, tabloid intrusion, Phillip Schofield and the power of forgiveness

On the daytime TV behemoth that is This Morning, Fern Britton always had an appealing mix of warmth, no-nonsense capability and a hint of danger, as if she could decide to blow it all up at any moment. And then she did.

On the day she resigned in 2009, Britton didn’t know she was going to do it, but amid rumours of a feud with co-host Phillip Schofield, she took the scorched-earth route and walked away from her high-profile, high-paying job with nothing to take its place. Was she not worried about what she would do next?

Five decades since punk bible Sniffin’ Glue, DIY magazines are in rude, rich health. Their creators talk fandom, community-building and resisting the algorithm

‘The most important part of the word ‘fanzine’ is ‘fan’,” says London-based zine-maker Jon Marsh. Existing outside mainstream media, free from the demands of release cycles and search engine optimisation, music fanzines are obsessions turned into tangible objects; self-published primarily for the maker’s own enjoyment, but with the potential of forging connections with like-minded people.

In the 1970s, punk zines such as Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative Ulster and Ripped & Torn allowed fans to share news and enthusiasm quickly and cheaply. Half a century on, music fanzines are enjoying a resurgence as a form of resistance to algorithm fatigue and the hyper-capitalist music industry. “Digital attention span is at an all-time low,” says hip-hop musician ExP, creator of the West Yorkshire Hip-Hop zine. “You’re almost definitely going to spend more time looking at a zine than anything you see scrolling. It’s more interesting and more real.” In the words of Stephen McRobbie, from indie-pop icons and fanzine regulars the Pastels: “It’s the long way round compared to other media, but the scenery is always better.”

Preston and St Helens were heartbeats of the industrial age, but their power faded. In the last of our series, we discover how their legacy is finally being celebrated

• Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-20

This double act of “Lancashire” locations is my final celebration of Britain’s bypassed towns. My native county has dominated my life of late, and one key question asked in these columns has been: can you holiday right at home?

The French author Xavier de Maistre believed you could fit a journey inside a single room. And in Instructions on How to Climb a Staircase the Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar turned a walk upstairs into a quest. An entire county offers enough adventures to fill a life.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

And so after nearly 70bn matches – or so it seems – the Fifa World Cup has reached the sharp end. But regular readers will know that they face the sharp end of the challenge of the Thursday news quiz every Thursday. Fifteen questions await on topical news, general knowledge and pop culture. Plus collective nouns for some reason. There are no prizes, but let us know how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 256

The Filter’s authority on camping and the outdoors, Sian Lewis answered your questions on the best tents for all conditions, how to keep out wildlife, and meals to make your kids happy

ejtp19 asks: My six man Hi-Gear tent complete with zipped off sleeping area is on its last legs and I need to replace it. I’ve got the romantic urge to go for a teepee/bell tent ... but I’m worried I’m going for style over substance. How annoying is not having a zipped-off sleeping area? Is there a teepee/bell type tent with a separate bedroom and is it worth it?

Sian replies:

I have a bell tent and I absolutely love it for festivals, weddings and family camps, but they do have limited uses - they’re heavy, only have one room as you said, and take a while to erect and dismantle. I also paid to have mine cleaned after a few years of use as polycotton isn’t fully waterproof and can get mildewed if you don’t put it away fully dry.

You could look at something in between a bell tent and a tech-y tent - I rate Robens for quality and its Fairbanks Grande and Fairbanks Venturer are gorgeous, teepee styles that are easier to transport and erect (but with no sleeping areas). The only teepee-style tent with sleeping compartments I can find is Decathlon’s Teepee 5.2.

Firstly, camping alone as a woman is brilliant - once you get used to it. It can take a few camps to feel confident, and I’d recommend starting in a comfy campsite by yourself or even going for a solo glamping trip and seeing if you enjoy having some time alone under canvas. I’ve wild camped alone hundreds of times and always really enjoyed it. I’d suggest trying one night alone not far from your car - if you don’t like it you can always drive home and try another time.

If you fancy trying wild camping, firstly make sure you’re aware of where you can camp legally, and let someone know your plans and location. I like to take some creature comforts such as a good book or a podcast (not a true crime one, mind).. Remember that no-one knows who you are once you’re inside a tent. Pitch late and leave early and you’ll probably have your spot all to yourself.

Want to recreate the lustre of days spent in the sun with none of the damage? Try these expert-approved formulas

• The best IPL and laser hair removal devices tested

The wise among us would never forgo our safe-sun protocol, but there’s no denying that many of us feel happier and healthier with a tan. The irresistible lure of sunkissed skin has long been a summer staple – and from tanning waters to wipes, instant tans to gradual tanning moisturisers, there are now more ways than ever to get a faux glow.

There’s also been a growing demand for multitasking beauty products, so the newest fake tan formulas often add skincare benefits alongside the bronze. Self-tans infused with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and vitamin C hydrate, nourish and protect, much like your usual body cream or facial serum.

Best fake tan overall:
Bare by Vogue Williams clear tan water

Best budget fake tan:
Dove Summer Revived Sunkissed Glow + Pro-Ceramides gradual tan lotion

They’re cheaper and greener than air conditioning, but which evaporative cooler impressed us most?

• The best fans to keep you cool, tested
• Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review

Air coolers should not be confused with air conditioning. An air cooler can lower your room temperature by a couple of degrees, while aircon can lower it by tens of degrees. So it’s important to manage your expectations. But air coolers are much more energy efficient: they use a fraction of the electricity of aircon.

Evaporative air coolers work by pulling warm air through water-soaked pads. The water evaporates, which uses energy, so the process cools the air. So while it’s not fridge-cold like aircon, the air is cooling – like a sea breeze taking the edge off summer heat.

Best air cooler overall:
Swan Nordic air cooler – currently out of stock

Best portable air cooler:
Morphy Richards Flexi Freeze

A lantern for night strolls, lace-free shoes and a microscope for mini beasts … parents on their top camping tips and must-pack gear, as well as what to leave at home

• The best camping mattresses

I have wholehearted respect for parents who recoil from any notion of family camping. Camping with kids is no picnic. In fact, it sets out from where a good picnic leaves off, venturing from the brevity and civility of a blanket on the grass into the uncertain – and certainly precarious – waters of soggy towels, tangled guyropes, cramped quarters and midnight meltdowns.

And yet a great many of us voyage these waters regardless, ardently asserting (to ourselves as much as others) that camping is good for the soul, for the imagination, and for instilling a foundational appreciation of the great outdoors.

Use the whole pod – husks, beans and all – for a rustic, nutritious version of a seasonal favourite

Tom Norrington Davies is a friend, fellow chef and one of the best yoga teachers I know, so you can probably imagine my pleasure on recently coming across his recipe for broad bean and mint risotto, which he wrote for The Eagle Cookbook in 2009. Like many restaurants, this legendary gastropub pods their broad beans to reveal the beautiful green bean inside; this is my zero-waste interpretation.

Not a ‘cake person’? Loaded with fruit and whipped cream, these luxurious pastries are sure to hit your sweet spot

Strawberry, or any berry, shortcakes are the perfect dessert to make for those in your life who are not cake people. I’m married to a “not cake” person, so I would know. For me, the contrast between the salty, slightly warm shortcake (which is more like a biscuit), whipped cream and macerated fresh fruit is perfection, and hits enough of the sweet spots still to feel like a dessert without actually being cakey. But, first, the cardenal, a truly elegant, light-as-a-feather cake that’s made with alternating rings of genoise sponge and meringue all sandwiched with whipped cream. Though the building blocks are simple – meringue, sponge and cream – when combined, they turn into something really special.

This often underrated but hugely versatile vegetable can be cooked in copious delicious ways. Here are two of them

Courgettes are an early summer delight, when, such is their appeal and versatility, you often can’t move for them in my kitchen. Even so, I am not entirely sure they get the full recognition they deserve in the UK, not least because we grow some marvellous varieties here. I use courgettes in everything from raw salads (very thinly sliced courgettes tossed in salt and lemon) to slow-cooked, crisp-fried (the flowers are especially good stuffed with cheese or meat, then deep-fried) or lightly charred on a barbecue, which brings out a wonderful sweetness; you can even bake them into a deliciously moist cake. Can you show me a more versatile vegetable?

Jerk aubergines, lentil-stuffed courgette, griddled pineapple with maple syrup … Meat-free doesn’t need to mean treat-free when it comes to barbecue season

I’ve recently turned vegan. How do I have a great barbecue?
Nia, by email
Happily, most vegetables benefit from a bit of barbecue action, but the key is not to get too carried away, says Genevieve Taylor, author of How to BBQ: “There’s a real leaning for people to overdo barbecues, but you should approach it just as you would any meal, with one central star and a few sides. After all, there’s no other meal where you’d be expected to eat a chop, a sausage, a kebab and a chicken wing.” Not a meal you’d find Nia devouring, sure, but you get the general idea.

Shaun McAnuff, author of Original Flava: Easy Caribbean, would be inclined kick things off with tostones. “They’re a bit like crisps,” he says. “Boil green plantain, which are more dense and not as sweet as yellow ones, then peel and cut into thick circles.” Smash those flat with the bottom of a mug, then barbecue until nice and crisp and serve with guacamole or salsa. Alternatively, grab some aubergines, Taylor says: “They’re such a sponge for smoky flavours.” Slice lengthways, brush with oil, season and grill until soft. “Spread a filling, such as walnut paté with spices, herbs and pomegranate molasses, over the slices and roll up.” Those would be nice at room temperature, which also helps with getting ahead.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is interested in hearing from couples, partners and former lovers to talk about their sex lives

How often do you have sex? The Guardian is looking for couples to talk honestly – and completely anonymously – about what they get up to in the bedroom for the Saturday magazine’s much-loved This is How We Do It column.

The idea behind the column is to provide a counterpoint to the airbrushed, exaggerated stories about sex we see on TV and in the media. We want to publish un-sensationalised interviews with real couples, so we are particularly keen to hear from you if you have hit a roadblock in your sexual life. How do you navigate intimacy when your partner wants sex more than you do? Or after an affair? Or when you are not feeling spectacular about your body?

We’re looking for couples of all ages and sexualities. We would not publish your names or where you live.

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

Rick and Rachel are non-monogamous – but they both know this arrangement may not work forever

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

I’ve tried knowing and not knowing, and I find both difficult. In an ideal world, we’d go looking for sex together

You and your husband need to have a frank discussion and decide whether you want to negotiate the next stage of life together or apart

I’m 55 and, after being a dutiful wife for 30 years, my sex drive declined after a traumatic hysterectomy eight years ago. My husband was patient and kind throughout. I love him dearly, but sex was never really the same afterwards, which I attribute to the surgery.

I’ve now been through menopause and suddenly find my libido returning. However, my husband no longer desires me due to weight gain. He can’t maintain an erection for long, and is very critical of my sexual performance. He’s seen a doctor, but nothing came of it, and he refuses couples counselling.

From Hollywood movies to confessional memoirs, three-person relationships are everywhere. But is it really possible to keep everyone satisfied? Happy trios, bruised couples and rejected lovers tell all

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?”

In the early days, Priscilla felt giddy with the excitement of being in a throuple. She and Kiara had been together for eight years, and adding a third person to their relationship felt like a way of exploring non‑monogamy without losing one another, because every new romantic experience would be shared. Olivia was an old friend, so Priscilla and Kiara’s children were comfortable with her. When the kids were in bed, they would walk to the beach holding hands as a three, to watch the sunset. At night, they would curl up to sleep together, and form a kind of cuddle chain. Priscilla would cuddle Olivia, and Olivia would cuddle Kiara.

Treasury says shoppers will get a ‘fairer deal’ as new rules for BNPL credit are introduced on Wednesday

Millions of shoppers will enjoy more rights and protections from Wednesday as new rules for “buy now, pay later” take effect in the UK.

The government said it was delivering on its commitment to end the buy now, pay later “wild west”.

In the UK, these scams have become an epidemic, rising 147% between January and March, compared with the same time last year. Why are they suddenly so common? And what can you do if you’re charged thousands for a quick, easy job?

Sarah was alone in her flat with her three-month-old baby when a man put a card machine in her face and demanded she pay £2,209. A few hours earlier Sarah, 30, had been for a walk with her daughter when it dawned on her that she had left her keys at home. She did what most people would do in the same situation: search Google for a nearby locksmith. “I had a screaming baby, so I needed someone to quickly let me in,” she says.

Sarah came across a seemingly legitimate company, near the top of the search results, which was sponsored. The company’s website said prices started at £45 and claimed they had received “4,500-plus five-star reviews and counting”, so she called them. When the locksmith arrived, Sarah says, he “seemed pleasant and relatively quiet” at first. After examining her lock, however, he told her it was a high-security one and the only way to get inside was to drill it open. He broke his way in and changed the lock before delivering another blow: he had accidentally damaged the internal mechanism, which also needed replacing. After Sarah got inside and placed her baby on a changing mat, the locksmith told her the price: £2,209.

We booked the £1,070-a-week retreat because of the facilities, but when we got there they were a round-trip away

Last month’s tale of a winter break spoiled because easyJet Holidays had neglected to state that the hotel’s heated pool and spa incurred hefty charges was discordant music to another reader’s ears. He writes:

We returned last month from an easyJet Holidays break at a “wellness retreat” with prominently advertised spa facilities, which turned out not to have any spa facilities whatsoever. We had booked a £1,070 week at the Vasia Sea Retreat in Sissi, Crete, because I wanted access to a gym at least twice a day as rehabilitation from a serious knee injury, and my wife was keen for pool and pilates classes.

Snappy performance, long battery life, great keyboard and excellent new haptic touchpad make the best of Windows 11

Microsoft’s Surface laptop for consumers is back, faster and with longer battery life and a hefty price increase because of the high cost of memory and chips.

The Surface Laptop 8 is a straight replacement for the seventh edition from 2024, which was the first of Microsoft’s new generation of ARM-based, Qualcomm-powered PCs designed to better rival Apple’s MacBook Air and other thin and light machines.

As a teenager I declined a painful operation to straighten my spinal curvature, and it was a decision I sometimes regretted. But through daily stretching and exercise, my relationship with my body was transformed

I was 13 when a spinal surgeon gave me unsolicited career advice. “Scoliosis won’t ruin your life,” he said, peering over his spectacles, “unless you want to do bikini modelling.” As a young teenager, I hadn’t thought much about job prospects, let alone modelling, but his words stung. It also curdled my situation into a lose-lose scenario: either have a painful operation to fuse metal rods with my spine, or endure a lifetime with an abnormally twisted back.

Until this point, I’d perceived my spinal curvature in terms of the inward experience: pain. Now, I became aware of an external dimension: a disfigurement. Something to be hidden. This did me no favours as a teenager in the age of Instagram. While I declined the operation due to the risks and the extended leave from school, the surgeon’s blithe remark burdened me with shame.

Analysis of 12 indicators including asthma, obesity and vaccination finds child health is ‘national embarrassment’

Children in the UK will grow up to be one of the unhealthiest generations in decades, with child health outcomes having declined or stalled completely across all areas, a group of leading paediatricians has said.

Reduced vaccination rates alongside rising hospital admissions for asthma and mental health disorders are all contributing factors to the UK’s record on children’s health, which should be seen as a “national embarrassment”, their analysis has found.

Doing a split may look impressive, but experts caution it should not be done without practice and it may not be for everyone

On Love Island USA’s recent eighth season, contestant Kenzie Annis quickly distinguished herself with her ability to perform the splits, abruptly deploying the maneuver in fits of both delight and rage.

Seeing the splits on TV shows such as Love Island and RuPaul’s Drag Race can make people “want to take on that challenge and to push themselves to new heights”, said Ramoni Overton, a yoga instructor and YouTuber based in Los Angeles.

Ministers consider bringing e-cigarette laws in line with tobacco as data shows 20% of teenagers have tried vaping

Vapes could be sold in plain packaging as part of a range of proposals to stop them being marketed to children.

The UK-wide plans also include limiting device colours to white, black or grey, and keeping vapes out of sight in shops, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

The ubiquity of GLP-1s is wreaking new havoc on bridal designers who must scramble to accommodate rapid weight loss

In bridal stores across the world, solicitous sales assistants are being trained to ask a new, blunt question: “Are you planning on losing a drastic amount of weight?”

Wedding season’s new disruptor is semaglutide, now used by 10% of engaged couples, according to a survey by the wedding planning platform Zola. In the same survey, 42% of couples said the ubiquity of GLP-1s has made them feel they should “look a certain way” for their wedding.

Wide-legged and flowing, they are causing a storm on social media, with people posting videos of the fabric getting caught in escalators and causing painful trips

Name: “Zara death pants.”

Appearance: Flowing, wide-legged, with a high waist, elastic waistband and front pockets.

Fashion is getting braver with accessories again, so lean into it by embracing loud earrings and chunky pendants

This summer, I want jewellery that makes some noise. Real noise – earrings that swish, bangles that clatter – and visual noise as well. Stuff to wear when you want to be seen and heard. The total opposite, in other words, of the jewellery most of us have been wearing lately. Charming, delicate jewellery has become the default. Two necklaces of different lengths on fine chains. One has a heart pendant, the other an initial or a birth stone, am I right? Maybe a curated earlobe of tastefully small mismatched diamond hoops.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this look. It is really nice. In fact, this is exactly the problem.

This nifty addition to your makeup bag will give the impression of a person with time, skill and polish – with every little effort

A liquid eyeshadow is the answer to all your eyeshadow misgivings, and I will die on this hill. One neutral, long-lasting shadow gives the impression, however false, of a person with time, skill and polish, when in fact its effort:effect ratio is a joke.

Just daub on to the middle of your lid from lash line to socket, avoiding the inner and outer corners in the first instance, then take a clean fluffy shadow-blending brush and buff in a windscreen wiper motion to spread across to the corners and soften any hard lines.

As Christopher Nolan’s star-studded adaptation is released, Australian archaeologist and cyclist Sam Wood has recreated Odysseus’ journey on two wheels

Backpacking around Europe is a rite of passage for many young Australians but when Sam Wood proposed a trip with his two brothers in 2009, he had something a little more ambitious in mind.

An avid cyclist who studied classical archaeology at the University of Sydney and spent three years working at the British Museum, he suggested retracing the route that the Carthaginian general Hannibal took over the Alps with his war elephants in 218BC.

A catamaran service from Dover to Boulogne is the perfect start to a trip exploring the Pas-de-Calais and marshes of Saint-Omer by bike, boat and kayak

“It’s all about tuning into the culture of the sea,” helmsman Chris O’Brien tells me, scanning the rippling cobalt horizon from the wheel of a catamaran. “People find the water, and the meditative experience of sailing, healing.” Meditative isn’t a word that usually comes to mind when talking about cross-Channel ferries on a bank holiday weekend, but this is no ordinary ferry.

Launched last year, SailLink operates a largely wind-powered (engines are only used when necessary) service from Dover to Boulogne up to five times a week between April and mid-September, with a new Shoreham to Fécamp route due to start trials later this year.

Would walking buddies convince reluctant children that hiking can be fun? A group trip with an Enid Blyton vibe proved a hit with the whole family

“I’m not going to wake her up,” I hiss at my 12-year-old son who’s standing half naked in a dark corridor of a Victorian house. “Please, Mum. She said we could come at any time! I don’t want to get Lyme disease,” he begs.

This is not the kind of drama I was expecting when I signed up to a family walking holiday in Exmoor. A few meltdowns about an extra mile or a blister perhaps, but not a night mission to one of the guides to request a tick removal.

The warm, gentle conditions I was hoping for turned out to be ferociously windy. The anchor couldn’t hold our boat in place. And then my mum got trapped in the cabin …

It started so well. A catamaran full of loved ones floating into the azure, taking pics, feeling glam, anticipating the sun sinking over the yardarm. I’d been reunited with my sister and family, who live in Australia, for the first time in three years, after Covid. Her husband, a fearless Australian giant, had got into sailing and offered to take me and my then 77-year-old mum, along with their three teens, out in the south of France for my sister’s 50th birthday. I knew sailing could get rough – my dad capsized us at the mouth of the River Dart when I was little – but it’s not every day you get such a generous invitation. How could I resist?

It was October. I was manifesting warm, gentle conditions, but instead the wind blew ferociously and stubbornly the wrong way. Before we knew it, we were charging up mountainous waves, then crashing into the void beyond. Our captain calmly steered while I sat below, feeling as if I was in a disaster movie, at which point I realised I hadn’t even located the lifejackets.

St Dominic, Cornwall, to Reigate: Along the way, this nervous passenger passes rolling downlands of cereals, Stonehenge, and of course, lorries loaded up with straw

At the start of the second heatwave, we visit Jack’s twin and her family in Surrey. From our landmark clump of beech loaded with mast, the car brushes through lanes of rampant deciduous growth woven with bedstraw, honeysuckle and incipient fruits of bramble. Our neighbour’s cut and cleared hayfield overlooks luminous flowers of sweet chestnut, with dead ash in Nanie Rowe’s wood.

Across the Tamar, through a patchwork of woods and pastures, we meet the first lorry-load of straw – essential supplies from upcountry needed for winter bedding. By Exeter, the dampness eases off and the motorway cutting through red sandstone reminds me of fertile arable land, much of it encroached on by suburbs. Along slower stretches, I look sideways beyond the ubiquitous ragwort to pick out features such as the wooded eminence of Cadbury Castle. Near Ilchester, Somerset, trailers of chopped “cut-whole” straw stems and unripened grain are carted along the three-lane highway.

When is it OK to go shirtless? What time can you start drinking on holiday? And can you ask a stranger to apply your sunscreen? Experts explain the behaviour that’s hot this summer – and what’s really, really not

Summer means a loosening of rules and norms. Eating with your fingers is suddenly encouraged, near-nakedness is everywhere and a 6am airport pint is unremarkable. It’s a hot, sticky recipe for social chaos and – if you share my view on showing off ungroomed feet – possibly the end times of human civilisation. Here, then, is everything you need to know about summer etiquette.

Easy to grow, hardy and charming, these once-maligned flowers are having a much-deserved comeback

You might not know the term Caryophyllaceae but I guarantee you’d be able to spot a carnation, which is part of this family. Garage forecourt carnations have been having a semi-ironic fashion moment as a cut flower for a while now, but I’m yet to see them making a garden comeback.

I’d always dismissed the whole family as fusty, old-fashioned bedding plants for fussy little gardens. But it turns out that whoever is in charge of the carnation comms is having a good run. I keep seeing them around. Rose campion, another Caryophyllaceae, has even turned up in my garden – or rather, it has survived there. I didn’t plant it, and a photo from last July shows a scorched wasteland (it’s now a haven for moths, grasshoppers and bees, which shows what not mowing can do). But they’re biennial (they take two seasons to get from seed to flower), so I guess it was biding its time. It’s bright pink with a soft grey leaf, and not the kind of thing I’d choose, but I’m enjoying it so much I’ll be encouraging it to self-seed in the wildflower patch.

It might sound brutal, but this is exactly the kind of damage plants are built to recover from – and thrive on

The problem
Trailing plants tend to grow long and bare. A pothos or tradescantia that started full and lush can become a few sad vines with all the leaves clustered at the ends, trailing toward the floor with nothing in the middle. The instinct is to leave the plant alone and hope it fills out on its own. It rarely does. Yet the fix – cutting off healthy growth – feels counterintuitive and slightly brutal.

The hack
Pinching out means removing the growing tip of a stem, just after a node. This redirects the plant’s energy, prompting it to activate and produce new shoots. The result, in theory, is a bushier, fuller plant rather than a few straggly vines.

Aiden is an unforgettable young caregiver in Walthamstow, east London, who has been looking after his mum for over half his life. Every few weeks, Aiden and other young carers get a rare night off thanks to tenacious council worker Satvinder, who fights to improve the recognition of young carers in her borough. This film joins them as they reclaim a few hours of their teenage lives back.

Is Mum OK? is released during Carers Week in the UK, a campaign that celebrates unpaid carers across the country and calls for better recognition and support for them. There are more than one million young carers in the UK – with an average age of 12 – which is the equivalent of two kids in every school class.

Anna Liedtke files criminal complaint in Israel over alleged attack by female guards and says abuse was intended to silence campaigners

The third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel.

She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain that her attackers had left open.

We often call England v Argentina a grudge match – a simple story of mutual hatred. But the truth is far more complex, says the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew.

It began with British influence, raising Argentina as a ‘faithful son’ in their own image through polo, tea, and football. But decades of nationalist rejection, iconic World Cup clashes, and a war over the Falkland Islands turned them into ultimate footballing antagonists.

Yet, the two teams haven't played a match in over twenty years. Lionel Messi has never faced England. In an era of over-saturated, commercialised sport, this scarcity has kept the romance of their rivalry alive. Because underneath the bad blood, there is a deep, mutual fascination: two nations that probably revere each other far more than they’d ever care to admit.

• Love and hate collide: England v Argentina is not simply a grudge match

Peat bogs are essential to the environment, holding twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests. But in the UK, 80% are damaged, most of what is extracted is used in horticulture – and some campaigners fear the problem is getting worse

‘I don’t see how I can possibly do my job and eat mushrooms,” says Sally Nex, a campaign advocate for the Peat-Free Partnership. “An awful lot of the food you buy in the supermarket is grown in peat: field mushrooms and little button mushrooms, salads and many brassicas, herbs in pots … all of those have started in peat.”

I’m taken aback. I’ve bought peat-free compost for years, but I’d never considered “hidden” peat. “I would imagine that most people are buying peat-free compost at the moment – certainly, you only have to go into a garden centre to see the amount of peat-free options you now have,” says Nex. “But you may not realise that an awful lot – probably most – of the plants that are on sale in that garden centre are also grown in peat.”

Ahead of Andy Burnham taking over from Keir Starmer, we’d like to hear what qualities, values and priorities people want to see in the next prime minister

Andy Burnham is to become the next prime minister after winning the backing of 349 of the party’s MPs to replace Keir Starmer.

In a recent op-ed in The Times, Burnham wrote: “Doing politics differently means levelling with the public, engaging them in decisions and ensuring more social value in return for increased government spending.”

We want to hear from those working or living at sea, including maritime workers, sailors, port staff and family about how the situation is affecting their work

The conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt shipping across the region, including in the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.

Donald Trump has once again threatened to take control of the strait of Hormuz, as he announced the reimposition of a naval blockade on Iran and demanded a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the key maritime passage.

We would like to hear about the highs and lows of university clubs and societies

As a new academic year approaches, we would like to hear from students and recent graduates (five years ago or less) about their experiences of university clubs and societies that freshers might find instructive.

What was your best experience of a university club or society? And what was your worst?

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From fierce flooding and escaped pigs to birds that can’t fly due to the weight of plastic in their stomachs, mankind’s biggest challenges are on stark display at Summit Photo 2026