How can our understanding of mortality shape the way we live? Palliative care doctors and death doulas share the lessons they have learned

We will all face death one day, but our attitude towards this is individual. How can our understanding of mortality shape our approach to life? Here, palliative care doctors and death doulas share what they know about the end – and how it informs the way they live.

This summer’s extreme weather and wars in Iran and Ukraine have made our need for food stockpiles more pressing than ever

When a business makes long-term plans, they call it prudence. When a government makes long-term plans, they call it communism. Any sustained state intervention attracts the prefix “Soviet-style”, and triggers vicious attacks across the billionaire media. So governments have developed a bias against long-term thinking. This may explain why we no longer maintain strategic food reserves.

In Britain, where soils have parched, market analysts warn that we’re facing the most severe food security crisis in decades. In normal years, crop failures at home don’t threaten our security, thanks to global trade. This is one of the reasons why hunger and famines are rarer and less deadly than they used to be. But this is not a normal year, because the problem is now global.

Despite outcry from musicians, AI slop is creeping into the charts as record labels scramble to adapt to a new normal where hits can be made at the click of a button

This year, the battle for song of the summer has been eclipsed by a much more complicated – some would even say disturbing – debate. That’s because we find ourselves asking not “What’s the song of the summer?” but rather “Is the song of the summer even real?”

Among the top contenders for the title is Fenix Flexin’s Rubberz, a single released in June that has ascended to No 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and racked up more than 35m Spotify streams. It’s not the sort of fare Fenix usually cooks up. The artist is known for his trap music as part of the rap duo Shoreline Mafia, but Rubberz is a mildly noirish, 80s-inspired synth-pop track featuring a voice nothing like his. The song has drawn comparisons to Morrissey, but it more closely resembles Men at Work’s Down Under, or a Weird Al Yankovic parody of Men at Work. It’s pretty awful. But more importantly, it has an uncanny quality to it. It sounds off.

Biological factors mean a child’s core temperature rises faster than an adult’s – and that can result in a medical emergency

Children and babies are more vulnerable in heatwaves than healthy adults. As temperatures rise again, how do we keep children safe?

A mixed picture at the clubs coming down, more playoff places to encourage the pack – and the long shadow of spygate at Southampton

The relegated teams, naturally, will be the favourites to go back up but two have endured confusing summers. Jarrod Bowen committing to West Ham was a bonus and the quality available to Nuno Espírito Santo should make bouncing back straightforward for the calmest of the clubs to have dropped down. They brought in huge fees for Crysencio Summerville and Mateus Fernandes but incoming activity has been pedestrian, which is the only minor cause of concern.

When exiled Russian opposition campaigner Igor Rogov was accused of working for the Kremlin, his friends were shocked. Could this young activist have really been an undercover agent?

• The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order

The police came for Igor Rogov because someone had mailed him a bomb-making kit. The eclectic mix of items – a chrome vacuum flask, a pair of marker pens, a power bank and a bottle of antifreeze fluid – might have seemed innocuous to an untrained eye, but Poland was on high alert in July 2024. Two months previously, a shopping mall in Warsaw had burned down in an arson attack; an Ikea in neighbouring Lithuania was also set on fire. Authorities believed it was a sabotage campaign masterminded by Russia’s intelligence services, intended to sow panic and undermine support for Ukraine. They feared it was only a matter of time before the Kremlin escalated further.

A security officer at the parcel company’s warehouse was suspicious enough about the package to call in the authorities, who arrived with sniffer dogs and special equipment. X-rays of the marker pens showed they had 1980s Soviet-produced detonators concealed inside, while the flask had a false bottom containing a sachet of metallic powder. The power bank appeared to have been tampered with in some way, and a probe of the bottled liquid showed it contained a highly volatile nitroglycerine solution. With the right expertise, the items could be turned into a powerful bomb.

Northern Ireland best performing with 30.7% of grades being As and A*s but Wales and England close behind

• A-level results – latest updates

Sixth-formers have basked in a summer of record-breaking exam results in academic and vocational subjects, allowing more than a quarter of a million 18-year-olds to go on to higher education.

The proportion of students in England gaining the highest grade of A* in A-level subjects rose to 9.7%, up from 9.4% last year, setting a new record outside the pandemic era, when exams were scrapped.

The Reform UK leader resigned as the MP for Clacton at the start of July and forced a byelection

The number of patients in England being cared for in hospital corridors or makeshift areas has remained above 3,000 a day for the second month in a row, as the NHS experiences a “summer surge”, the Press Association reports.

This was happening as A&E attendance numbers reached 2.5m in July – higher than any other single month on record. May and June were also record months for A&E attendance, in part because of the extreme heat.

Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, warned yesterday the health service must start planning for summer pressures in the same way as winter.

However, the data shows overall waiting times for treatment fell slightly in June after rising for two months in a row.

The NHS normally experiences spikes in demand during the summer months, as the public spends more time outside which can lead to a rise in accidents. But this summer has seen unprecedented pressure, with the heat contributing to an increase in admissions caused by more outdoor activity and respiratory issues linked to dry weather, as well as worsening of underlying medical conditions.

The first minister is right to ask about this. This is 1,500 jobs in the north of Scotland. It’s also an area that is being transformed by that move towards offshore renewables, Scotland continuing to contribute.

It’s an area which is, in general terms, important for security. Scotland is contributing to European energy security, which is a concern across Europe when you speak to leaders there.

Mina Smallman, whose daughters were killed in north London park in 2020, says force ‘decides who matters’

The Metropolitan police does not take all cases of violence against women seriously and instead “decides who matters”, the mother of two murdered women has said.

Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were killed in a north London park in 2020 by teenager Danyal Hussein, also said Britain’s biggest police force was incapable of change. Two police officers were jailed in 2021 after taking photographs of the dead bodies of her daughters and sharing the images in WhatsApp groups, referring to them as “dead birds”.

A former UK government scientific adviser warned amid the ‘shattering’ heat that worse is still to come

Met Office has just offered an update on temperatures across the UK, with several stations already reporting temperatures above 30C – and it’s not even 11am.

It’s 30.4C in Wych Cross, 30.3C in Charlwood, 30.2C at Kenly Airfield.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group acquires majority of upmarket retailer’s sites from the administrators

• Business live – latest updates

The owner of Sports Direct has bought Harvey Nichols out of administration after the upmarket department store chain warned it could run out of money if it did not find new funding.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group said on Thursday it had bought the chain, which is headquartered at its store in Knightsbridge, for an undisclosed sum on the day it was put into administration. Harvey Nichols has 13 stores and 1,200 employees.

GDP expanded by 0.4% in three months to June, but analysts warn growth is ‘likely to fade’

• UK economy shows surprising resilience

• Business live – latest updates

Economic growth slowed in the second quarter of the year, as the disruption unleashed by the Iran war began to take its toll, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said GDP expanded by 0.4% in the three months to June, down from 0.6% in the first quarter, in line with City economists’ expectations.

Health secretary praises more collegiate style under Andy Burnham and says previous No 10 sidelined her from key policy launch

Yvette Cooper admits Labour has “not done government very well” in the last couple of years, and accused Keir Starmer’s No 10 of sidelining her during the launch of a key immigration policy when she was home secretary.

Speaking on the Political Currency podcast with the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, Cooper highlighted some of the difficulties ministers faced with Starmer’s leadership, which she summarised as “bring me solutions, not problems”.

Fellow pupils at his primary school have challenged Cambridge academic’s story, though others support it

The story of Jason Arday’s extraordinary rise to becoming the youngest black professor in the history of the University of Cambridge is all the more remarkable for one claim: that he did not learn to speak until just shy of his 12th birthday.

This claim was mentioned in a letter announcing his resignation last week, which came amid mounting questions about his academic work and statements he had made about his past.

Beginning in Russia’s remote Arctic north, the eclipse traced an arc over much of western Europe – with the best views in Spain, Iceland and Greenland

It was a moment of awe shared by millions across Europe: an eclipse that blocked out the sun, plunging parts of the continent into a daytime darkness in which temperatures dropped and birds suddenly went quiet.

Wednesday’s eclipse began in Russia’s remote Arctic north, going on to trace an arc over much of western Europe. From the UK to northern Italy, tens of millions of people turned to the sky as the light of the setting sun was almost completely blocked out.

George Finch plagued by bullying claims and other controversies since taking helm at Warwickshire council

George Finch, who made history last year after he was elected as leader of Warwickshire county council at the age of 19, is no stranger to criticism.

His year at the helm of a minority Reform administration has been dominated by a string of controversies, including three code of conduct investigations and a no-confidence call – which he survived by just one vote.

Two years after southern Brazil’s worst climate disaster ravaged the city, and with poor areas still recovering, many fear official neglect has left them exposed once again

In the backstreets of Porto Alegre, a state capital in southern Brazil, you can still see signs of the devastating flood that swept through the city two years ago: scattered debris, waterlogged homes and destroyed businesses.

In May 2024, flooding killed 183 people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and displaced more than 600,000. The neighbourhood of Sarandi was one of the hardest-hit parts of Porto Alegre, with water levels reaching up to 5 metres above normal, completely submerging many of its streets.

It’s a decade since the Los Angeles musician released the seminal album Blonde. To lessen the pain of his hiatus, we count down the best of an artist who redefined R&B

Frank Ocean’s pre-fame demos are hard to find – there’s a fan-made, 64-track compilation called The Lonny Breaux Collection floating around – but worth checking out, as evinced by this brief but potent piano ballad. Sweet but heartsore, it packs an emotional punch; it would have been a highlight of the mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra, had it made the cut.

Bat experts were shocked at how fast white-nose syndrome had spread to Canada’s northernmost colonies from the US. Now, the race is on to find a cure before species disappear

Crawling through a narrow passage in a cave beneath a boreal forest near Fort Smith in Canada’s Northwest Territories in May, two biologists spotted a lifeless bat on a limestone ledge, its body covered in a spindly white fungus.

When they shone their headlamps to get a closer look, they saw another bat with the fungus on its forearms. “It hissed at us and crawled back into a crack,” Jesika Reimer says.

In the 1990s, the photographer took portraits of punks, partiers and late-night lovers on the underground. His images show city life before smartphones – when people still had to rush to make the final train

Mark McEvoy’s tube photographs, taken in London Underground carriages at around 11pm on Friday and Saturday nights from 1992 to 1995, capture moments that may seem superficially frivolous, but might be the most significant of our lives. These are the golden hours of the end of the week, where friendships are found and sealed; gabbled conversation rolls along with the sway of the carriages; and new lovers meet up en route for an encounter that may turn out to be a fleeting one-off, or in fact the beginnings of a lifelong companionship.

All are swept along in the scramble to hop onboard the last tube – a panic that ended when all-night services began on some lines 10 years ago this month. The night tube arrived when my time of going out all weekend was fading, and gave me a slight feeling of missing out. Looking at photos of other people’s social lives can make one feel like that too; at the same time, it’s not hard to see ourselves in these tired, happy and thoughtful faces.

From spiders tuning their silken listening tools, to the beetle’s heady perfume, hundreds of conversations are happening in languages we don’t understand

• It’s invertebrate of the year – vote for your favourite

All around us, every day, hundreds of conversations are taking place in languages we don’t understand, or even, in most cases, notice. Birdsong is one you would probably recognise, and you may have heard of honeybee “waggle” dances. But what about the spider tuning their web to listen for prey, or a waft of arousing perfumes emitted by a passing beetle? At any moment you may be walking right through a whole critical dialogue – and have absolutely no idea.

To delve into the world of invertebrate communication about food gathering, coordinating nest building, defending a territory, attracting a mate, and babycare is to realise just how smart and sophisticated they are. Spiders, for example, can “hear” vibrations on the silken strands of their web using sensors on their legs. With their legs and body weight, the spiders will adjust the silk strings, as we would a guitar string, to change its pitch, pulling, loosening or reconnecting strands to adjust how it sounds. In fine-tuning the silk they can know just who is walking on it – a possible mate to woo, a fly for feasting on or maybe a larger bug on the lookout for prey.

Unseen material gives insight into how death-defying attempts by drivers made impact on public imagination

With the Bonneville salt flats in Utah echoing to the sound of a new land speed record achieved by a British team, the timing could not be more apposite. The historical legacy of the challenge of pushing the envelope of pace is being dusted down and made public in the form of an extraordinary archive from more than a century of record-breaking machines and their singularly driven pilots.

On Tuesday JCB’s Hydromax car took the hydrogen-powered International Automobile Federation (FIA) land speed record, reaching 406.320mph at Bonneville. Appropriately the car was driven by Andy Green, the former RAF wing commander who holds the current outright land speed record of 763.035mph, set in 1997 in the ThrustSSC car in which he also became the only person to have broken the sound barrier on land.

Global food prices have hit their highest level in over three years. We are told this is due to rising oil and energy costs, but how exactly do they affect prices? The most reported reason is that transport and fertiliser are to blame, but the reality is that the oil and gas industry is far more integrated in our food production than many of us realise. To get a better understanding, Josh Toussaint-Strauss takes a closer look at the production processes of three categories of food: meat, processed staples and fruit and vegetables. What he discovers is a level of involvement that is shocking

Restaurant critic and award-winning author Jimi Famurewa travels through London, Belfast and Birmingham getting messy with the fusion treat of spicy chicken, chips and curry sauce. Should you dip or pour? What’s it like with a Filipino flavour? And with a Michelin-style glow-up?

The UK is far from equality in academia or society. You don’t need a Cambridge degree to see that Arday’s story is being used to stop any progress in its tracks

In 1987, a college at the University of Cambridge considered offering a prestigious position to a black man in what would be the first appointment of its kind. Not only did the man not have a degree, but he had left school at the age of 13, struggling with dyslexia and – at the time – unable to read or write. That he would later to go on to accumulate 20 honorary doctorates and become a professor of creative writing is only one way, and in my view not the best one, of measuring his talent.

The man was the late, great poet Benjamin Zephaniah. And he had been nothing but transparent about his lack of credentials. In fact it was his background that made him eligible for this fellowship, which was designed to reach out to somebody in the community who didn’t have a degree, to give them the opportunity to have a connection with the university.

Post-Brexit visa rules and faceless pen-pushers were keeping me and my partner apart. But love finds a way

Consider your ideal wedding. You may picture religious pageantry, majestic domes and the auspicious light of the Divine beaming on a white dress. Maybe you see friends dancing on a pub’s veranda, cheering for you in front of a town hall, or anywhere really – the people you love are there, and it’s all that matters.

What you are probably not picturing is a meet-up with Chris and Mitch, two complete strangers waiting for you and your future spouse by a nondescript fountain in the middle of Copenhagen. Judging by my soon-to-be-wife’s bewildered laugh throughout the entire 20 minutes of our wedding, this is not what she was picturing either. Should I add that neither of us is Danish, or lives in Denmark?

Jules Darmanin is a French journalist

How a bride decides to look on the big day tells us a lot about that person. But the singer is leaving us hanging

Having hope in your heart is all well and good, but you also need to know when to give up. At a certain point it’s time to accept cold, hard reality: we’re never going to see pictures of Taylor Swift in her wedding dress, are we?

There are many reasons this matters, and the first, admittedly, is plain old nosiness, with a side order of entitlement. We’ve spent years absorbing – some unintentionally, by osmosis – the details of Swift’s relationships, following her journey to happily ever after every step of the way, including the photos she released of the engagement moment. Obviously she is allowed to keep her wedding private, but being denied a glimpse of the dress feels – insert foot stamp here – unfair. More than that, it’s like a romcom ending before the final embrace, the protagonist still en route to the airport they have yet to run through. For somebody who is essentially a storyteller, this tale is uncharacteristically incomplete, unsatisfying. It’s not like Swift to leave us hanging.

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.

Progressive and democratic socialist politicians are recanting pandemic-era statements on police and prison abolition

The north may not remember, but 9 August this year marked the 12th anniversary of the police killing of Michael Brown Jr in Ferguson, Missouri. That day, the US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reassured an ABC news anchor that she, like other progressive politicians and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates, had “moved away” from statements they made during the pandemic, particularly on police and prison abolition. Questioned further, she explained:

“I have a local city councilman that has this saying: ‘Woke 1 was crazy’… especially during Covid, I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down. And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today. And I’m grateful that these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to their electorate and what they’re campaigning on in this moment.”

The dangers of AI become clearer every day. Why are we still acting as if we have no choice about our future?

Rather than producing jobs, the US economy actually lost 23,000 jobs in July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Friday. In addition, May and June’s job numbers were revised downward, showing a combined 103,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

As if this weren’t bad enough, wage growth has also slowed. Average hourly earnings rose by just 0.1% from June.

The congresswoman’s decision is an assertion of women’s freedom and dignity at a time when our status is rapidly eroding

“Don’t be weird about this,” representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star and rumored 2028 presidential contender, said on her live video broadcast as she raised her shirt to angle the syringe into her abdomen. Then, with resignation, “even though I know all of you will be.”

The New York Democrat is 36 years old, and this week, she revealed that she is beginning the process of freezing her eggs during Congress’ August recess. In the video, Ocasio-Cortez said that she was seeking to destigmatize the realities of women’s lives as they navigate the conflicting demands of professional aspiration and family building; she explained to viewers the process of the hormonal injections she was administering to herself, showing them the drugs and injector she was using arrayed on a paper towel, beside a disinfecting towelette. The procedure, Ocasio-Cortez explained, was not covered by her insurance, and she would be paying “100% out of pocket”. She had been saving to afford it for some time. “This is a choice that I am making to feel more in control of my life,” she said, going on to assert her hope that transparency about such questions will destigmatize women’s reproductive lives and promote their dignity.

It’s a nice sentiment, but all AI users should ask three questions about their preferred choice of AI platform

On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay, The Future Is for Everyone. The essay came with something even rarer: a new Meta open-weight model. An open-weight AI model is the kind of AI with which you download the entire thing, and it works on your own computer (with or without the internet) and nobody can switch it off except for you. Almost every mainstream AI tool you use, whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, is one you rent access to. Meta’s is one that you can download and actually own. I downloaded it before I finished the essay. So can you.

This major move by the world’s largest tech heavyweight comes amid a summer heavy with AI news, full of nations at war. Washington against Beijing; tech founder against tech founder. But beneath those conflicts is a deeper contest between two kinds of power: a government that can order technology offline in an instant, and a company that can simply close your account. Neither is necessarily villainous. But the rest of us are not merely the audience in this fight; we are the prize. And the terms are already being written: intelligence on lease, a future we pay for but never quite own.

A cheap currency helps finance the US tech boom. Washington is intervening because allies matter only when they are useful

Japan’s yen has slid back towards 160 to the dollar, despite last month’s extraordinary US-Japanese intervention. Traders are betting that its role as a cheap funding pipeline for global finance will continue. Earlier this month the Trump administration stepped in to help Tokyo stabilise its currency. “Japan’s been very good to us, with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor,” Donald Trump explained. More help is likely to be on its way.

But this is less a rescue of the yen than an attempt by Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, to preserve a cash spigot that benefits the US. Japan’s ultra-cheap money has become a global funding utility: bankers borrow yen, sell them for dollars and buy higher-returning US assets, notably tech shares. Rising American stock markets support collateral and investment. Japan’s “carry trade” is one of the reasons Wall Street can lever hundreds of billions into AI. Research suggests AI sucks up more than 1% of US GDP.

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.

Empathy is a strength in a prime minister but there is a risk of letting emotional urgency obscure the strategic view in policymaking

There are no votes in leniency for criminals, which is why oppositions demand harsher penalties and ministers acquiesce. It is a policy ratchet that can keep turning as long as there are enough cells to accommodate those who are jailed.

But spending on new prisons, or for that matter improving conditions in the dilapidated, overcrowded ones already in use, is also not a vote-winner. Most people can think of more deserving beneficiaries of public money than prisoners.

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.

An Oxford academic says teaching and teamwork matter just as much as a CV full of impressive research output

The Jason Arday case is in danger of becoming a red herring when it comes to quality control of university appointments. An anonymous letter-writer (7 August) commented that Arday “is well known for the kindness he promotes” – a rare exception within a slew of commentary that has had nothing to say about Arday’s actual job performance. As an academic at Oxford University, I would say that underqualified appointees are significantly less common or problematic than those whose research output is excellent but who, nonetheless, devote little energy to teaching, are administratively indolent, and/or lack a collegiate sensibility.

There are two main reasons for this. One is that appointment panels are excessively preoccupied by impressive publication records, and pay too little attention to applicants’ willingness to put time and energy into teaching, and to engage empathetically and constructively with both colleagues and institutional systems. Too often bad appointments occur because of, not despite, the “rigour” of our processes.

A reader couldn’t believe his ears on a journey from Runcorn to London Euston

Jimmy Cricket taking over the aeroplane’s intercom (Letters, 5 August) reminded me of a memorable train journey. In 2008 I travelled from Runcorn train station to a conference in London.

As we approached the first stop, Birmingham, to my and the other passengers’ surprise, Ozzy Osbourne came on the train intercom to make the announcements. Later in the journey, the former US president George W Bush gave the buffet car details, with Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, doing the honours for the platform details coming into Euston.

Gary Calder on the differences in names for mealtimes in Scandinavia. Plus Dr Paul Brown on the class division in dinnertimes on the Titanic

Confusion over the names of mealtimes (Letters, 2 August) also reigns in Scandinavia. Breakfast in Norway/Sweden is frokost/frukost, but morgenmad (morning food) in Denmark. Lunch in Norway/Sweden is lunsj/lunch, but frokost in Denmark. At least they can all agree on the main meal of the day, which is middag (midday/noon) but served in the early evening.

If attending a wedding party or function in Denmark, don’t be surprised to be served natmad (night food) around midnight. It is used as a friendly indication that the event has come to an end, hence its colloquial name of skrub af mad (fuck-off food).
Gary Calder
Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire

A teacher asks how would parents feel if their child’s teacher took time off during the school term to get a cheaper holiday. And Nick Coupland points to the evidence that absences for family holidays do not affect academic achievement

The broad consensus of your readers seems to be that fines for holidays in termtime are unpopular and ineffective (Letters, 5 August). So far, so true. However, one point that has not been raised is that teachers – I am one – have families too, and are likewise bound by the extortionate cost of holidays outside termtime. I wonder how readers would feel about their children’s teachers flouting the rules and taking a few days off during termtime for a cheaper holiday?
Name and address supplied

• I agree with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s belief that “term-time holidays are clearly not the most urgent cause of poor educational outcomes” (Opinion, 2 August). Researchers at the universities of Strathclyde and Dundee found that, in contrast to overall absence, truancy, sickness and extraordinary family circumstances, absences for family holidays did not have an impact on academic achievement at the end of compulsory secondary schooling.
Nick Coupland
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Palace take a risk with new manager Pierre Sage, who is tasked with building on Glasner’s unprecedented success

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 16th (NB: this is not necessarily Ed Aarons’ prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 15th

About to start his ninth season, his first under a club manager who isn’t Pep Guardiola, this could be the year we finally find out who the City enigma is

Phil Foden says he is excited about working under Enzo Maresca, his new manager at Manchester City. We should call this exactly what it is: a very obvious barefaced lie. No doubt Foden is excited about playing football again, about challenging for trophies with his boyhood club, the new Premier League season, his new contract, a fresh start, etc, etc.

But let’s be real. Holidays are something you get excited about. Birthdays. Weddings. Amazon deliveries. The new Charli xcx album. Christmas. Playing for Enzo Maresca inspires plenty of emotions, but excitement would probably feature pretty low down a list. At best, you brace for Maresca. You steel yourself. You look in the mirror every morning and ask yourself whether you’re man enough for him. But if you’re excited, then he simply isn’t doing his job.

• Becomes first man to win three European 400m titles

• Hudson-Smith: ‘Nobody is going to beat me on this track’

Stand … and deliver. On a balmy night in Birmingham, Matt Hudson-Smith powered past the stand ­bearing his name at the Alexander Stadium and into history by becoming the first man to win three European ­Championship 400m titles.

And afterwards, as the ­adrenaline flooded his body and he posed ­wearing a crown in front of the Matthew Hudson-Smith Stand, the 31-year-old made it clear just how much it meant. “Nobody is going to beat me on this track,” he said. “This is my home. I have been here since I was nine. I know this track like the back of my hand.”

Teenager endured a frustrating wait for his registration to be approved but took no time to show his potential on the big stage against PSG

At first glance there was the usual stuff: the wide smile, the guttural release, the punch of the air, teammates quickly on the scene to offer congratulations. But then the real celebration followed for the 17-year-old Brian Madjo. After scoring his first Aston Villa goal 45 minutes into an unforgettable debut, the teenager clasped his hands behind his back and then unlocked them with the kind of force he exhibited on the pitch. “No distractions, I’m free,” he posted on Instagram after finally being cleared to pull on a Villa shirt in a competitive game.

After confirmation that the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) had upheld Villa’s appeal to register the 6ft 4in striker, the Madjo movement gathered pace. John McGinn and Amadou Onana responded to the club sharing the news on social media by posting “#freemadjo”. After Madjo shone in defeat in Salzburg, McGinn alluded to the painful and protracted waiting game. “Brian has had a terrible year,” the Villa captain said. “A player born in England should be able to play in England. He has the potential to be an unbelievable striker and he showed that.”

The former England full-back is back in the Championship after 12 years away, hoping to lead Wolves out of it

When the question inevitably comes, Kieran Trippier is happy to set the record straight. Fresh from training, head to toe in Wolves kit – vest, shorts and club-branded sliders – he walks into a suite at their Compton Park base, conversation soon shifting to an episode that rocked supporters and stopped outsiders in their tracks: three days after signing, the manager Trippier cited as a significant driver behind his decision to drop into the second tier, Rob Edwards, had been sacked. All the while, a deal for his replacement, César Peixoto, was being accelerated.

“I’m not going to sit here and lie, I wasn’t expecting it,” Trippier says. “But it’s the club’s decision. I had good chats with Rob, of course, but I’m here to play for Wolves. There are many surprises in football and that certainly was a surprise, I’m not going to deny that. But I just cracked on, I was with my kids on holiday, training in Mallorca and just looking forward to day one in pre-season.”

Back-to-back world champions can use Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry to establish themselves as one of the greatest teams of all time

South Africans are supposed to care about the All Blacks more than this. On Tuesday night 14,759 people dotted the 52,000-seat Kings Park Stadium to watch New Zealand dismantle the Sharks 54-0. Durban was cold and soaked, with snow falling elsewhere in KwaZulu-Natal, but even allowing for the weather it made for an awkward advertisement for a grand new project.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry – the eight-match tour by New Zealand, culminating in four Tests, including one in the US – is an attempt to turn more than a century of history into a modern commercial property. The unions have formed a 50-50 venture, sharing commercial income, while taking the final Test to Baltimore is expected to generate $4m-$6m more than another game in South Africa. Both unions need the money and professional sport is supposed to generate revenue. But a rivalry cannot live on branding alone.

• Cricket Australia boss backs women’s vice-captain’s leadership

• Monica Wright went public over ex’s affair with Georgia Voll

Australia vice-captain Ash Gardner has apologised for the pain caused by her marriage breakdown and thanked Cricket Australia for backing her leadership.

Gardner’s affair with Australian teammate Georgia Voll while married to ex-wife Monica Wright created headlines.

Valter Lavitola’s lawyer says he had intended attack to boost security for investigative reporter Sigfrido Ranucci

An Italian businessman has admitted to masterminding a bomb attack at the home of Sigfrido Ranucci, a prominent investigative journalist, claiming it was intended to boost his security protection.

Valter Lavitola, who was friends with Ranucci, the host of Report, an investigative programme aired by the state broadcaster, Rai, made the confession to investigators after his arrest earlier this week in connection with the case, the businessman’s lawyer, Sergio Cola, told the Italian media.

Settlers and soldiers cut off water and electricity to homes, and block medical care in campaign of terror

Israeli militants have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend, aiming to take over their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through a campaign of terror.

A group of settlers and soldiers set up a tent outside the home of Yousef Hassan’s family on Sunday afternoon, trapping him inside with his wife and two young daughters.

Ethics experts and Democrats express alarm as Trump uses office to grow his personal fortune to ‘unprecedented’ level

Donald Trump’s use of his second presidency to grow his personal fortune has alarmed legal and ethics experts and congressional Democrats as he has reaped an “unprecedented” $2.2bn in 2025 revenues by amassing big cryptocurrency holdings, benefitting from wealthy foreign interests, expanding his Truth Social business and more, while federal oversight of his actions has waned.

Trump last year raked in at least $1.4bn from his crypto ventures according to financial disclosure forms he filed in June. Simultaneously, about one million investors in a Trump crypto scheme suffered almost $3.8bn in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value.

Firms in England and Wales given green light for extra spending that will add billions to bills

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Andy Burnham has accused water companies of treating their customers “as a bottomless source of funding” for the industry’s failings, after proposals that will push households bills even higher were approved.

Millions of households in England and Wales will face higher bills after water companies were given the green light to spend £3.4bn more than planned, including to support new homes and datacentres.

Radical reimagining of Shakespeare play was due to run at Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 13 February to 3 April 2027

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced that it will postpone its radical production of Othello starring Sharon D Clarke, while the Olivier-winning actor undergoes treatment for cancer.

The production, directed by Monique Touko, was scheduled to run from 13 February to 3 April 2027 at the Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Clarke, 60, is best known for her role as Lola Griffin in the BBC medical drama Holby City, as well as for her theatrical performances in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Caroline, or Change.

Rise in new mine proposals, mainly in states of Odisha and Jharkhand, comes despite plateau in global demand

Enough new coalmining projects were proposed last year to increase global supplies by 2.5bn tonnes a year, an increase of 11% from the year before, even as demand for coal plateaus, according to a new report.

Global Energy Monitor, an NGO, found that India ignited a rise in new coalmine proposals in 2025 despite a global slowdown in the number of mine openings because of falling demand for the fossil fuel.

As a controversial Spanish plan for sustainable meat on an industrial scale is dropped, it has revived the ethical debate over farming these intelligent wild animals

In 2022 Nueva Pescanova, Spain’s largest fisheries business, announced it was investing €65m (£56m) in the world’s first industrial octopus farm and processing plant near the Canary Islands’ port of Las Palmas.

Despite the creatures being notoriously difficult to farm, the company predicted that by 2025 it would be producing 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year on Gran Canaria.

Indiana faced most outages at 267,000, about 8% of its customers, with severe thunderstorms and wind ahead

Power supply was cut on Thursday ⁠to about 540,000 homes and businesses across the US midwest as severe storms battered the region, data ⁠from PowerOutage.us showed.

Indiana ⁠was the ​hardest-hit state, with more than 267,000 outages, representing about 8% of its roughly 3.3 million customers, the data ⁠showed.

Move by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is latest government rollback of climate science activity

The Trump administration has pulled its support for an annual report on the environmental changes across the Arctic, a region that is already heating up four times faster than the global average due to the climate crisis.

On Tuesday, Kim Doster, the communications director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), said the federal agency was withdrawing its support for the Arctic Report Card, which has provided environmental updates on the region to scientists and the public since 2006.

Many of those affected in England and Wales think offences are not treated with the seriousness they deserve, says commissioner

Bereaved families or seriously injured victims of road crime feel “forgotten by the system” with offences not treated with the seriousness they deserve, an official review has found.

The victims’ commissioner for England and Wales found that many of the thousands afflicted each year by criminal driving felt that “the harm they had suffered mattered less” than that from other serious crimes.

Exclusive: Ministers explore diverting male prisoners serving short terms or on remand away from tougher jails

Ministers are examining a possible upgrade of security at men’s category C and women’s prisons to deal with an overcrowding crisis across the England and Wales estate, the Guardian understands.

Officials have explored diverting prisoners on remand or serving short sentences away from category B “reception” prisons such as HMPs Liverpool, Manchester and Pentonville in north London.

Family, friends and colleagues attend service at Buckfast Abbey, which former MP described as her ‘safe haven’

About 100 family, friends and colleagues of Ann Widdecombe have attended a funeral service for the former Conservative minister, who was killed in her home in Devon last month.

Politicians and broadcasters were among the mourners at Buckfast Abbey in Buckfastleigh, a Catholic abbey in Devon where Widdecombe regularly worshipped and which she described as her “safe haven”.

Errors by police and prosecutors after first murder had left serial sex offender free to kill again

Simon Levy, the prolific sexual predator left free by police and prosecution errors to murder two women, will never leave prison after being sentenced to a rare whole-life tariff.

Judge Lucraft KC said Levy, 40, “ruthlessly” exploited women for his sexual pleasure, and had a proven history of sexual offending dating back to 2018.

Japanese PM says islands seized by Soviets late in second world war are part of Japan under international law

The Japanese government has reacted angrily to Vladimir Putin’s first visit to the disputed Kuril Islands, which are claimed by both Tokyo and Moscow.

Japan’s foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, summoned the Russian ambassador Nikolay Nozdrev, while the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, called Putin’s actions “absolutely unacceptable”.

Incheon airport had 38.39m international passengers in first half of 2026, as traffic diverted from Middle East hubs

South Korea’s Incheon airport has become the world’s busiest airport for international passengers, in part owing to disruption in the Middle East caused by the Iran war.

The airport, South Korea’s main gateway, about 30 miles (48km) west of Seoul, handled 38.39 million international passengers in the first half of 2026, according to preliminary figures compiled by the Airports Council International (ACI), the global trade body for airports.

Leavitt’s departure three months before midterms raises questions over who will communicate Trump’s messages as his approval rating falls to record low, says YouGov polling

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The Trump administration has been accused of “bullying and intimidation” after a labor union leader and critic was put under investigation and suspended from his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Stephen Wheeler, a data scientist at the agency since 2022 and chair of the CFPB union organizing committee, was placed on administrative leave effective immediately earlier this month. The union said it was not provided with any specific violations or given any details of the investigation.

Hakainde Hichilema is bidding for second term, but feud between him and family of Edgar Lungu, who died in 2025, continues

As Zambians go to the polls on Thursday, the ghost of the current president’s predecessor hangs over the elections.

Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is bidding for a second term leading the southern African country after defeating his arch-rival Edgar Lungu by a landslide in 2021.

Falling water levels linked to weather system are expected to limit number of slots to transit shipping lane

Commercial ships travelling through the Panama canal are facing a rise in costs amid disruption triggered by the Iran war and falling water levels linked to this year’s intense El Niño weather system.

Highlighting the fragility of global trade, a container ship reportedly paid about $4m (£3m) to jump a queue of vessels waiting to pass through the vital maritime choke point.

Verdant thinktank says cost could top £25bn a year by 2030 and calls for maximum temperature for working and urban redesign to cool down cities

Repeated debilitating heatwaves this summer are likely to have cost the UK economy more than £4bn in lost economic output by the end of July, new analysis shows.

Green thinktank Verdant had suggested June’s unseasonally hot weather had an economic cost of £2.36bn. Updating its assessment to include last month’s high temperatures, it finds a £4.4bn hit to output.

The AI jobs apocalypse never showed up. Still, jobs are changing and economists expect more to come

The prediction was stark: artificial intelligence advancements would wipe out jobs en masse. “Half” of all entry-level white collar jobs would vanish, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May 2025. A month later, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, went further, foreseeing the end of “certain job categories”. Companies began citing AI in their layoffs. Workers organized. And students reconsidered their future careers.

But a year later, the mass carnage hasn’t shown up.

Music streaming platform creates ‘AI persona’ label that will appear on profiles and track listings in crackdown on fake performers

Spotify is to label AI artists and exclude them from algorithm recommendations as part of a crackdown on fake performers.

The world’s largest music streaming platform is creating a label for AI-generated artist identities called “AI personas” that will appear on the artist profile and on track listings on playlists.

As his new film & Sons hits the screen, the actor turned podcast agony uncle relives his ‘cliched’ ambitions, deplores working lunches – and yearns to do the splits like Prince

A dying patriarch summons his brood for a dramatic announcement. It may not be the most original starting point for a movie, but & Sons adds an eccentric twist – one that it would be unfair to reveal here but which nudges the material into the realm of science fiction. The father in question is a revered novelist who is as reclusive as JD Salinger and as whiskery and dishevelled as Catweazle. Dormant for decades, the fictional AN Dyer is first glimpsed in a horizontal position on the sofa, refusing to come to the telephone: “I don’t do phonecalls,” he grumbles.

That is patently not true of the actor who plays him. “I spend a lot of time on the phone,” Bill Nighy says breezily. He is speaking to me from north-west London, where he has been nosing around bookshops. “I’m also an enthusiastic texter. I was always very quick on the old Nokia. Quite proud of myself, I was.” Where does he stand on emojis? “I used to be philosophically opposed. Most of them are a bit naff.” He then proceeds to list the exceptions. “I like the flamingo and the purple dahlia. I like the leaping shark. Sometimes I combine it with the leaping dolphin. Very occasionally, I like the golfer in mid-swing if I’m congratulating someone. I don’t do smiley faces.”

Summerhall, Edinburgh
With increasing speed, Sam Ward tells the story of a woman who finds holes in her garden – but is it just a shaggy dog story?

And there is a man sitting at a desk, welcoming us to the theatre and opening a folder. And the folder contains a sheaf of paper that the man proceeds to read. And the more the man reads, the faster he goes. And the man hits such a speed we realise why he did not learn this script: it would be too prodigious a feat of memory.

And as if to emphasise the pace, the man is soon accompanied by a percussive score by Carmel Smickersgill, which has a jazz freedom as well as a sense of urgency and is rather good. And as the story rattles out, so Han Sayles’s lighting design closes in on the man, who is the writer Sam Ward in this solo show by his company YESYESNONO and he seems to be going faster still.

At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 31 August

All our Edinburgh festival reviews

Phillipa Northeast is brilliant as a young woman rebelling against society’s expectations in 1890s Australia. It is witty, intelligent and absolutely glorious to watch

“I’m hot headed, with a snub nose, and that’s why I prefer a direct gaze.”

So speaks Sybylla, the charmingly irrepressible and irrepressibly charming heroine of My Brilliant Career, played utterly convincingly and with vim, vigour and joy by Philippa Northeast in the new adaptation of Miles Franklin’s 1901 Australian classic of the same name. Creator Liz Doran must have wept with happiness when they found an actor capable of bringing so much to an already glorious script – and who embodies the joie de vivre upon which so much of the plot, as everyone she meets becomes part of her orbit, depends.

My Brilliant Career is on Netflix

This documentary follows the shocking case of Neil Hopper, a top surgeon who had his own legs removed due to a fetish.

No fetish or obsession is unique, and the internet can always connect you with others whose minds work the same way. It’s one of the great blessings and curses of the digital age, and central to An Amputation Obsession: the Monster and the Surgeon, a two-part documentary on which the “contains material some viewers may find disturbing” disclaimer is no exaggeration.

We begin at the Royal Cornwall hospital, known locally as Treliske, in Truro, Cornwall. It used to have a man on its staff who was a minor medical superstar: Neil Hopper, a vascular surgeon, was well known for his clinical expertise and comforting bedside manner, particularly when advising on and performing amputations. He acquired full hero status in 2019, when he was diagnosed with sepsis and had both legs amputated below the knee but miraculously returned to work within six months, astonishing physiotherapists and other medical professionals with how well he adapted to disability.

An Amputation Obsession: the Monster and the Surgeon is on Prime Video

Auto-hagiography it may be – most of the interviewees were in the band at some point – but this portrait of the seminal Manchester indie group is charming stuff

By the time of their first flush of success – concomitant with the turn-of-the-90s Mancunian baggy scene, when indie discos thronged with people in big daisy petal T-shirts, and the anthemic Sit Down was only kept off the No 1 spot in the charts by Chesney Hawkes – James had already had as many ups, downs and near misses as most bands have in a lifetime.

Subtitled Sects, Trance and Rock’n’Roll, this good-natured, funny and occasionally rousing documentary portrait details them all. It begins when their middle-class, boarding school-educated soon-to-be-singer Tim Booth meets cute with a bunch of working-class borderline hooligans in a band, after they sneak into the University of Manchester’s student union bar and swipe his drinks. Described by their manager as “a band that took all the wrong turns and made every mistake possible”, they turned down Factory Records’ offer to release a first album because they didn’t want to have a product number. They then turned down a support slot on the Smiths’ US tour because half the group had by then joined an esoteric meditation cult and the scheduling would have clashed with the bassist’s enlightenment.

Christopher Nolan’s epic will be released on Friday across most of the country’s 800 Imax screens, at a time when western films have been struggling

The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster juggernaut, has overcome an onslaught of attacks from the world’s richest man and stared down criticism from a classicist who translated the poem, to become one of the year’s most celebrated and highest-grossing films.

But this week, the film faces one of its biggest challenges yet.

(Loma Vista)
The genre-blending Californian artist casts off past toxic influences with a powerful set of tender, brooding and emotionally charged songs that wouldn’t feel out of place as festival anthems

When Chelsea Wolfe was interviewed by the Guardian in 2015 about her fourth album, Abyss, she revealed that her music had been informed by the bouts of sleep paralysis she’d suffered from since childhood. The condition – a transitional state between being awake and asleep – affects sufferers in different ways. Some wake up feeling paralysed, others see ghosts or demonic figures. For the California-born singer-songwriter, it meant “waking up, and you can move your body and your eyes are open, but there are figures and people from your dreams still present in your room”.

No surprise, then, that her music – a blend of drone, alt, folk, industrial and doom metal – had ended up so spookily unsettling. She appeared on album covers with pupil-less eyes, spoke in interviews about “following the path of witchcraft” and even covered Norwegian black metal act and convicted arsonist/murderer Burzum. She did have a sense of humour about it all, however, telling one interviewer, with a chuckle: “It’s not party music.” Since then, though, much has changed. Wolfe left Los Angeles for the mountains above the city – where she’s finally been able to enjoy a good night’s sleep. Sobriety since 2021 has also brought what she calls “a new clarity”. Both developments inform The Dark.

Royal Albert Hall, London
Esa-Pekka Salonen led an orchestra of players from London’s Royal Academy of Music and New York’s Juilliard School through 20th-century classics with Vilde Frang the electrifying soloist in Berg’s Violin Concerto

Hot on the heels of the National Youth Orchestra’s Prom, here was another outstanding student ensemble: an orchestra recruited half-and-half from London’s Royal Academy of Music and New York’s Juilliard School, brought together by an exchange scheme funded by the RAM alumnus Elton John. Esa-Pekka Salonen took no prisoners as he whipped the players through three great 20th-century works.

They tore smartly into the start of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, an exacting work requiring pinpoint-precise playing, which it mostly received. It felt as though Salonen was working hard to maintain that precision, though, and the performance didn’t quite achieve the buoyancy that would have let the music dance. Here and elsewhere in the programme, some of the music’s bright colours felt a little muted. Perhaps, for all Salonen’s guidance, this is one area in which there is no substitute for years of experience – in the ability to play to a venue and, for the wind and brass principals in particular, to fill a hall of this size not only with the instrument’s sound but with its character.

Old Royal Naval College, London
Playing their biggest headlining gig to date, the Russell brothers are in a bouncy mood, though their grandstanding rave melodies lose some punch in an outdoor environment

In the age of shortform video supremacy, there has been a great deal of angst about the authentic club music experience being rendered a vapid spectacle. Stop expecting DJs to be social media stars, put your phones away on the dancefloor, close your eyes and lose yourself in the beats, goes the revanchist wisdom.

It’s understandable, but worries about superstar DJs stomping on the face of the pure rave experience are almost 30 years old now. It is decades since the Prodigy, Chemicals, Orbital and Fatboy Slim lit up festival stages and the charts. And anyway, spectacles can be fun – and funny – and so can dance music.

Matt Baker invites celebrities to talk about their pets. Plus, US soccer legend Megan Rapinoe makes her hosting debut

This series by Blue Peter and One Show alumnus Matt Baker is a wholesome entry into the well-worn celebrity interview genre. Indeed, it’s hard to be too cynical when you’re listening to Bill Bailey detail his menagerie, which has included everything from parrots and lizards to armadillos and the dog he is ostensibly on the show to talk about, a Japanese chin named Chocho. Other guests for this run include Martin Clunes and Clare Balding.
Widely available, episodes weekly

The Scottish author focuses on gun culture and generational conflict in this darkly satirical tale about a great power in decline

“Why expect unconditional love from somebody you’ve brought into a fucked, dying planet, who then has to sit around and watch you screw it up even more?” So muses twentysomething college dropout Luke Ayrton on his parental lineage as he works the Las Vegas Strip, “comping girls for clubs” in Sin City. His job is to trawl the “plankton” of bacherlorette parties in order to lure the “whales” – rich men willing to spend to try to impress young women.

“In this game your sociology skills sharpened,” it’s observed, but beyond the seedy side hustle lie weightier concerns: the matter of his family legacy. Electronic dance music aficionado and aspiring writer Luke is estranged from his Maga-positive Mom and Dad, and now lives with grandparents George and Molly, affluent boomers with a countercultural past.

This joyous book takes readers on a literary adventure across 300 years of fiction, from Defoe to Zadie Smith

In his opening paragraph, Philip Hensher declares that a novel not only “tells a good story” but is a good story in itself. We could extend that neat formula to include this book, which is not only a masterful account of fiction since 1719, when Daniel Defoe set Robinson Crusoe down on his desert island, but is itself a wonderful read. There is nothing dreary here; no sense of being back in the seminar room taking notes. Instead it is 600 pages of deep pleasure, an excuse to revisit old literary loves and be reminded of ones that have slipped from view.

Hensher is smart enough to know why his book works so well and vain enough to tell us. The usual methodology for a survey is to assemble a roster of academics and invite them to trot out a chapter on their specialism, whether that be “Thomas Hardy” or “High Modernism”. The result is a series of silos, with little sense of historical connection or intellectual unfolding. Hensher, by contrast, gives us a joined-up account of creative call and response. Equally crucial to this project’s success is Hensher’s own experience as a novelist. He brings a practitioner’s informed eye to such questions as why some chapters in Dickens’s Dombey and Son are in the present tense or how Henry James pulls off free indirect speech in What Maisie Knew.

A twentysomething Scottish couple care for their autistic son in the bleak follow-up to Only Here, Only Now

Frazer and Caitlin have been emotionally entwined since schooldays. Now in their mid-20s, and parents of a five-year-old, they live in a grotty flat in a Scottish new town – the faded posters read “Happiness, Here” – that has crumbled into decay. Jobs are scarce and unrewarding; little Jamie, who has autism, is silent; and the pressure is starting to tell.

Frazer’s adored Caitlin is “beautiful and driven”, fit, petite – and a rageaholic. At her mildest she’s irritated and unreasonable, at her worst violent and intimidating. She is incensed at Frazer’s refusal to move from their mould-infested block to the new council house they’ve been assigned. Apex Court is where he was brought up, filled with relics of his dead parents, and it’s the only home his son has ever known. “You’ve become the sad sack guardian of a bunch of shite that belonged to your parents, including their hovel of a flat,” Cait sneers.

This multi-layered portrait is a fitting tribute to the man behind Ways of Seeing

The cultural critic John Berger was still alive and kicking when he donated his literary archive – heaped boxes of letters and notepads, sketches and scripts – to the British Library in 2009. From his home in the Alps, he proceeded to liaise with the collection’s curator, Tom Overton, sorting each item and recounting the wild stories behind them. When Overton sought permission to write Berger’s biography, though, the critic insisted that he wait a few years. Death changes the relationship between the writer and his subject. More often than not, it complicates and enriches it. Berger – who spent much of his career in passionate conversation with the past – probably knew that better than anyone.

Berger typically described himself as a storyteller, an elastic job title which allowed him to swing between fiction and poetry, essays and screenplays. Implicitly, too, the term helped frame his criticism as something propulsive and inclusive, an invitation to dance as opposed to a judgment from on high. Berger had no time for the “great man” theory of art as espoused by the popular historian Kenneth Clark and instead urged his audience to view each piece as a manifestation of society and politics: the tainted fruit of capitalism, inseparable from the marketplace. Oil paintings were status symbols. Nudes were the product of the lusty male gaze. Looking itself was a political act. “You cannot reply to me,” he would tell 1970s TV viewers, breaking the fourth wall to highlight the medium’s limitations. He liked pointing out the mechanics behind the manufacture of art, demystifying the process to better appreciate its results.

PC; Replicant D6
This GoldenEye 007-styled retro shooter is an agreeable set of straightahead shooting missions that hark back to a simpler time, with simpler controls

With 007 First Light, 2026 has already given us the best James Bond game in more than three decades, since the release of Rare’s N64 classic GoldenEye 007. But what about those players whose loyalties lie not with the super-spy himself but the particulars of that 90s interpretation of his adventures?

Enter Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Made almost entirely by a single developer (who goes by the very cloak-and-dagger alias Replicant D6), its production values couldn’t be much further from the blockbuster First Light. There’s no voice acting, with all dialogue instead delivered via subtitles, while each location on your globe-trotting adventure is depicted by a repeating texture wallpapered over scenery so blocky you can count the individual polygons.

As millennials return to the games of their youth, remakes of Star Fox and Halo suggest there is still plenty to learn from the past

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As much as some people more or less cease to listen to new music in their 30s, I have noticed a retreat to safe, familiar gaming territory among some of my fellow millennial gamers.

Retro collections are started, or resumed; jewel-cases of PS1 classics or cardboard boxes with SNES or Mega Drive games have started to colonise the living-room shelves. People are replaying things from their university days, or sticking to comfort games such as Stardew Valley. Many of the friends I used to game with never bothered to pick up a PlayStation 5 at its launch, and now that current-generation consoles are becoming prohibitively expensive, they see no need. With thousands of great older games, why bother playing something new?

After the success of space horror Mouthwashing, Swedish developer Wrong Organ has created a Battlefield-inspired co-op with a supernatural twist

‘Claustrophobic”, “oppressive”, “pretty depressing” – these are the words Jeffrey Tomec and Dave van Egdom volunteer when I ask them to reflect on their work as part of Swedish indie developer Wrong Organ. I’d add “nightmare-inducing”, too. Their last game, Mouthwashing, was an acclaimed work of horror storytelling set on a scuttled space freighter, in which players uncover the horrible things its desperate crew have done to each other.

When you’re planning a follow-up to something so pitilessly nasty, how do you raise the stakes? Well, you could set the entire game in the stifling crew compartment of a heavily armoured tank, a coffin-like interior you share with two other players as you co-operatively attempt to pilot your beleaguered war machine to safety through the crumbling remains of a city in enemy territory.

PlayStation 5, PC; Arc System Works/Sony Interactive Entertainment
With tremendous visuals and accessible controls, this superhero-themed fighter has the chops to inspire a new generation of champs

Arriving at the turn of the millennium and the twilight of the video arcade, Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes has long been a high-water mark for fighting games, with no heir apparent; its massive, colourful roster and frenetic, spectacular combos have lured newcomers and elite competitors alike. Developer Arc System Works, a fan-favourite studio famous for its hyper-fluid and extremely technical anime-style fighting games, has been on a long journey to usurp Capcom’s throne. With Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, it may have finally achieved this difficult task.

Marvel Tōkon is less an attempt to recreate a Marvel vs Capcom-esque phenomenon out of whole cloth, and more a thoughtful evolution of the developer’s previous riffs on the formula such as 2018’s BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Dragon Ball FighterZ, building on its low-floor, high-ceiling approach. Simplified inputs allow players to execute combos and finishers with a single button, which gives novices the confidence to keep playing and inspires them to study and improve – because when anyone can pull off a flashy ultimate skill or EX attack, strategy and mastery take on a premium. And Marvel Tōkon has great depths to plumb.

What music soundtracked 17th-century England? Ahead of a DJ set in Banqueting House, Georgia Mann looks at the wild, the experimental, the melancholic – and why a theorbo caused a security alert

King Charles is on the throne, there’s anxiety around the power-brokers of Whitehall, and an age of deep political division and conspiracy obsession is under way.

That’s right, I’m referring to the middle years of the 17th century, a period I’m immersed in as I’m putting together a Jacobean-Carolean Classical DJ set, where the beats are to be dropped beneath one of the UK’s most awesome works of art: the Rubens painted ceiling at the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

Traverse theatre, Edinburgh
An encounter in a police cell with a Nazi officer could have been the end of the political theorist, but Jenny Lyn Bader’s play has little feel for the dramatic

The Mrs Stern of the title is the married name of Hannah Arendt, the political theorist much remembered for her “banality of evil” insight. Jenny Lyn Bader sets her play not, as you might expect, in the Prussian state library, but in a police cell where Arendt has been hauled in for questioning not long after the Reichstag fire.

The Nazi apparatus has extended its remit to political crimes and she, what with her bookish ways, errant husband and associations with Jewish intellectuals, has come under scrutiny.

The Old Vic, London
The suburban romp of envy and infidelity in two different homes comes bouncing back to life with a fizzing cast led by Roger Allam

Early in a career that reaches 92 plays with The Trial of Romeo Oscar at his Scarborough home base next month, Alan Ayckbourn often spins titles from expressions: Absurd Person Singular, Relatively Speaking, Joking Apart and How the Other Half Loves, his ninth play.

In How the Other Half Loves (1969), the pun is doubled. Two couples – the Phillipses and Featherstones – envy how the well-to-do Fosters, boss Frank and wife Fiona, live. But structurally, the Phillipses and Fosters occupy half the set each, actors blanking out characters in the other house even while making phone calls to each other side by side. In the second scene, when the Featherstones – unwittingly used as adultery alibis by Mr Phillips and Mrs Foster – simultaneously attend dinner parties on consecutive nights with the other couples, the two actors in both scenes swivel their heads at tables laid across each other.

Barbican, London
The multi-platform phenomenon makes its way to the stage, with all the supernatural hijinks, J-horror tropes and emotional intensity intact

We know that people like to dress up for the theatre, but some of the crowd at Death Note: The Musical take it to a whole other level. Coiffured and corseted, bedecked in gauze or festooned with diamanté, it is a sight to behold, with an appreciable element going for full cosplay. This, for the uninitiated, is because the source material has emerged from the fan-cultivating world of Japanese manga, originating in 2003, and which has (in a characteristic manner) sold millions of copies in comic book and novel form, jumped to an animated TV series and feature film iterations, and even crossed over to a Hollywood treatment in 2017.

A live musical seems a bit of a sideways step, though; this kind of material doesn’t often find itself in theatres, but perhaps the success of the Barbican’s staging will see more given the go-ahead. (This is actually a second London appearance for Death Note, after a short run at the Palladium and Lyric in 2023.) You can certainly see the appeal. Shorn of the original’s convoluted digressions, and with a dilution of the original manga’s play for the teen-boy readership, this emerges as a smart, metaphysical whodunnit – or perhaps, more accurately, howdunnit – with a nice line in emotional intensity cranked up by its power-ballad musical score.

From dazzling shifts in perspective to astounding tricks using shade, reflections and rain, these winning images from the Pure Street Photography awards all capture ‘marvellous moments of fleeting serendipity’

The wait is over. From soap stars to athletes and Kim Kardashian’s hairdresser, we’ve rated this year’s celebrity hoofers in terms of likely glitterball success

No Tessbot. No Clauditorium. Three new presenters, five new professionals and a new-look “vodcast” It Takes Two sister show. Yes, the fast-approaching 24th series represents Strictly Come Dancing’s biggest ever shake-up. This has become a make-or-break year for the BBC’s ballroom behemoth.

Lineup announcements have been strung out over two months, like a boring byelection, but the Strictly class of 2026 is finally complete. There are the usual grumbles about a lack of household names, with theories that the casting department prioritised social media followings over mainstream fame. My personal feeling is they have smashed it with the women, who comfortably overshadow the far weaker lineup of men. This raises the pleasing possibility of the first back-to-back female champions since Abbey Clancy and Caroline Flack more than a decade ago.

‘On the day the youngest brother got married, they were out doing doughnuts and burnouts at eight in the morning’

As a Londoner with Punjabi roots, I’d say one of the best places to experience Punjabi culture is Southall, in west London, which has one of the UK’s largest Punjabi communities. This was taken there back in March 2021, when I was looking for people to feature in my short documentary, Zimmers of Southall. I like to capture everyday people doing something a little different, like these two brothers who fix cars. I had popped by to meet one of them and explain what I do, and take a few portraits for my broader work.

Rav, one of the brothers, had a dirt bike at the time and we were trying to photograph him doing a wheelie. The second brother, Inderjit, then joined and showed me his quad bike that he uses for off-road riding. Their father was at home and explained how his passion for bikes and cars was passed down to the boys. Their mother offered me tea and snacks, as often happens when visiting a Punjabi family home. It’s at that moment I suggested we get the whole family involved in a group photo – I knew it would make for something unique. Unfortunately, the third brother was not around, but their dad wheeled out his own bike to complete a beautiful family portrait. It felt natural and not forced at all – the energy was warm and welcoming. Ever since that day, I’ve stayed in touch with the family and try to visit when possible.

At first, I worried that only historians would find A House Through Time compelling. But its appeal is so enduring that fans of the show stop me in the street to ask when they can watch more

Why is that some TV programmes find an audience, catch people’s imaginations and become not just watched but loved? Most of course do not. Having been making TV since my late 20s and been involved in a number of “first” series that ended up being the only series, I am painfully aware of that. If producers knew in advance which shows would be hits, there would be no flops, as the industry cliche goes.

Producers and presenters are lucky if, during our careers, we get to be involved in a single show that makes that rare transition from being part of the schedule to part of people’s lives. Almost a decade ago, while we were filming the first series of A House Through Time for BBC Two, I was not at all convinced that this was a show that had the potential to break through.

A House Through Time is on BBC Two on Thursday 13 August at 9pm

Julie makes notes in the margin as she’s reading, but Charlie says she’s ruining books he may want to read. Should they get on the same page? You decide
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

It breaks my immersion in the stories – like when someone says ‘This next bit is so good’

Call it a crisis, call it a decline, call it a recession: the long, lusty snog is in trouble, harder to experience in real life or even watch on screen. But why? And what’s it like to think you may never lock lips with another?

Spencer’s last kiss was two years ago, on a first date. It started off promisingly: after matching on Tinder, they met for a walk, then got drinks and ice-cream, before having dinner at her place. Finally, they kissed. “I didn’t like it,” says Spencer. He still struggles to identify why. “I found her attractive. There was chemistry, but something was lacking. There was nothing behind the kiss – it felt like a mechanical thing to do.”

That wasn’t just Spencer’s most recent kiss – it was his first ever, at the age of 29. Now 31, he says a second kiss in some ways feels less possible than having sex: “The jump feels way bigger.”

Whether you want to improve your home’s security or simply know who’s at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease

• The best robot vacuums, tested

Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function.

If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see and whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested 11 popular video doorbells to find the best.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basics they scrimp on? The maître d’ and TV presenter talks secateurs, splurging on wine and terrible sofas with the Filter

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Fred Sirieix shot to fame as the smooth maître d’ on the Channel 4 reality show First Dates. He has presented shows including Million Pound Menu, Gordon, Gino and Fred’s Road Trip, Remarkable Places to Eat, and the travelogue series Tour de Fred, and authored the books Seriously British, Wine Uncorked and First Dates: The Art of Love.

Originally from Limoges, France, Sirieix cut his teeth in a number of top restaurants before becoming general manager of Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows. His charity, The Right Course, which teaches hospitality skills to prisoners, is opening restaurants in three prisons this year. He lives in London with his wife, affectionately nicknamed “Fruitcake”.

With wireless charging, a battery that lasts up to four weeks and recyclable heads, Suri’s latest eco-friendly model doesn’t lose much in the cost-saving process

• The best electric toothbrushes for every budget
• Suri Pro 2.0 toothbrush review

Last year’s Suri 2.0 toothbrush was a huge improvement on its predecessor. It fixed a handful of things that made the original hard for me to recommend, while continuing to focus on sustainability with recyclable heads made of cornstarch and castor oil.

But that kind of innovation doesn’t come cheap, and the Suri 2.0 brush costs £105 with the charging case, or £85 without (an option that wasn’t available at launch).

Whether you’re commuting, training or riding for fun, we asked specialists to break down what to know before you buy – from specs and safety to price

• The best bike locks for every budget

For me, cycling is therapy. It’s calming, meditative and uncomplicated. But there’s a catch. To experience the simple joy of riding a bike, you first have to navigate the maddeningly complex process of buying one.

Make no mistake: this is not a straightforward case of marching into Halfords, saying, “One bike, please!” and leaving with a shiny new steed. But, while complicated, it needn’t be stressful.

Bananas, peaches, strawberries – anything but ‘grapes’. What do all those volatile organic compounds really mean for your summer sipping?

“Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring,” sang Nancy Sinatra. “My summer wine is really made from all these things …” Overlook the angel’s kiss and, if you’re a wine drinker, you might recognise some of those fruity tasting notes – strawberries and cherries, indeed, but also citrus, orchard, other stone fruits and the whole berry family. In fact, it’s common to liken a wine to almost any fruit – except grapes.

A wine can have notes of almost anything – pencil shavings, tennis balls, cat pee – but fruit is the most obvious (clearly, wine is made from fruit) and universally recognised. If I told you I was getting, say, green apple and lime zest from a riesling, you would probably have a good sense of what that meant, and what you might be able to expect on tasting it yourself. If I described a petroleum aroma, that might sound a bit cryptic and much less appealing, unless you were familiar with this tasting note commonly found in riesling. In other words, a wine’s fruit profile is often leveraged as a marketing tool. What better example of this than the “strawberries and cream” of Provence rosé? It’s a tasting note that underpins our collective sense that rosé is a summer drop, perfect for sun-drenched days filled with watching tennis, ocean views and seasonal produce.

Parts of the UK are roasting but some of us are glad to turn the oven on. Bring on the​ ​curries and pasta pies

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I don’t wish to boast, but I’m typing this with a jumper on. Not because my flat has air-conditioning, but because it doesn’t – and the relentless heat of south-east England was having a seriously detrimental effect on my productivity and the health of my elderly dog (NB: the two are not mutually exclusive). So, with a second novel to write, I decided to rent a studio as far north, and as far west, as I could reasonably drive in a day. And, so far, I have no regrets. Driving through North Yorkshire, I had to put on a sweatshirt – the weather in the Pennines gave my car the first good wash it’s had in months – and now, in Scotland, the dog and I feast on hot porridge in the mornings. I’d genuinely forgotten what it’s like to be cold – and what it’s like to cook for pleasure.

This newsletter isn’t just for those parts of the country enjoying, rather than suffering, the sunshine; yesterday it was raining and tonight the temperatures will drop to almost single digits. It’s also for anyone, wherever you are, who’s eaten enough cool, crunchy salads and chilled soups to last a lifetime, or at least until next summer. (You’re not alone: last month, Waitrose reported a spike in sales of cottage pie and robust South African red wine.)

Combine these simple Italian baked treats with chilled fruit and thick cream for a playful summer pudding

In his exquisite The French Menu Cookbook, Richard Olney has clear ideas and strong opinions about everything, including dessert. He believed that rich desserts should follow only the simplest of meals, whereas with most menus (meaning all the sophisticated menus in his book), something light, airy and playful is best. His suggestions read like a summer fruit poem: peach melba, apple mousse with peaches, apricot fritters dusted with icing sugar, strawberries in sweetened orange juice, strawberries in beaujolais, strawberry mousse with raspberry puree, iced cherries and fresh almonds. One of his late summer/early autumn menus also suggests fresh figs with raspberry cream (figues à la crème framboise), which is both fun to make (the red puree streaking through the cream for a raspberry ripple) and to eat.

An airy and playful pudding calls for an airy and playful biscuit. What better than lingue di gatto, or cat tongues, so called because of their flat, elongated shape. Made from butter, sugar, flour, and egg whites, lingue di gatto are not complicated to make, but do require a piping bag, which can be mimicked by a zip-lock bag – just remember to scrape the mixture into the bag first, and only snip the end off when you are ready to pipe.

The Australian-born cook and author shares her recipe for a thick, fragrant Japanese curry – with one secret ingredient

Japanese curry – kare raisu in Japanese – is unlike any “curry” you might know from south Asian countries. That is partly because of the nature of yoshoku (western-influenced) cuisine but also because it made a roundabout route to Japan, via the British Royal Navy during the Meiji Restoration, a period when India was under British colonial rule. It arrived in the form of British “C&B” curry powder, so it was considered western food, not Indian. Curry became a staple in the Japanese naval and army kitchens at the turn of the century and this in turn brought curry into homes and even into school lunches. Today, it is considered a national dish.

Japanese curry needed to be thick enough so that it could be easily eaten with rice, with the help of a spoon. This can be achieved with a French-style roux base of butter, flour and liquid, or it can be thickened in a more Japanese style using a potato starchy slurry right at the end of cooking, which is my preference. Then there is the spice mix. Today, Japanese S&B curry powder is one of the best known, which contains 17 spices such as turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cumin, cinnamon, fennel, ginger and star anise.

Public displays of affection are widely mocked online and off, but they have a positive side – and now science has proved it

Name: Kissing in public.

Age: Kissing is 17m-21m years old – probably older than the notion of privacy.

After being on the brink of divorce, Antonia and Rob have experienced a radical revival of their sex life

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

The perfect storm of work stress, menopause and raising kids meant our sex life slowly slipped out of view

Boone needed a home; my own dog needed company. When she picked him out at the shelter, all our lives took a turn for the better

After 30 years working in the RSPCA, I had seen animals in unimaginable conditions. I saw dogs who had been left unattended at home for so long they began chewing doors and drinking water out of toilet bowls. I saw animals who had been stamped, kicked and even stabbed. But nothing could prepare me for Boone’s situation.

Carson, the older of my two cocker spaniels, died in January. I could sense Bessie, an excitable bossy nine-year-old, was lonelier without him. They were both rescue animals. Carson was picked up by an RSPCA inspector and Bessie was abandoned at our local vet. Any dog I brought into our lives was a dog who needed a safe home.

Truman Capote had a ‘crow bro’; Dickens had a raven. And I get standoffish Susan, who has never brought me a present or perched on my shoulder

One of the greatest failures of my life to date (along with my sons’ shameful inability to eat apples correctly, down to the core) is my inability to attract a “crow bro”. That’s a corvid companion, and more and more people apparently have them, including Washington Post journalist Caitlin Gibson, who recently wrote about hers, Cormac, a charismatic fish crow with a taste for cashews.

It’s not a new phenomenon – Charles Dickens had a pet raven, Grip; Truman Capote had a crow called Lola – but thanks to CrowTok (a wholesome online enclave where people post enthusiastically about the exploits of their feathery familiars), there seem to be more corvid whisperers than ever. Yet however many unshelled peanuts (the recommended treat) I scatter, I can never seem to get a shred of attention from a black-feathered beauty.

With great software and battery for two days, the pricey svelte folder strikes best balance between phone and tablet

Samsung’s top folding phone for 2026 is its first to carry the “Ultra” moniker in its name, packing a much bigger battery and better cameras into the thin and light body of a book-style foldable.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra continues from where the exquisite Z Fold 7 left off last year. With its svelte chocolate bar dimensions opening into a square tablet, the Ultra sits above the new passport-shaped Z Fold 8 as Samsung’s top model. Costing £1,899 (€2,199/$2,099.99/A$2,999), it is a lot of money to pay for a phone, regardless of how many other devices it can theoretically replace in your pocket.

The new PM could bring in revenue for social care or defence with a land levy or by reforming council tax

Residential property is the largest store of wealth in the UK, and has long been a target for those who believe homes should be taxed more. Real estate remains a juicy plum for Andy Burnham to pick as he searches for ways to pay for an overhaul of the social care system and higher defence spending, to name just two fiscal priorities. Yet how to tax property, or possibly the land it sits on, has vexed economists and politicians for centuries. Here we discuss the background to the debate and some of the tax options.

• This article was amended on 11 August 2026. An earlier version said home occupiers in France must pay the taxe d’habitation; in fact, since 2023 this only applies to second homes.

I was delayed, but I had prepaid through Holiday Autos and had provided my flight number as requested

I booked a car hire at Heathrow through Holiday Autos on a visit to the UK and provided my flight number as requested.

My flight was severely delayed, and when I reached the car hire desk, I was told I’d been marked down as a “no-show” and that my car had been rehired.

Novel squat Android opens to an iPad-like screen for video or multitasking, with plenty of power and battery life

Samsung’s latest folding phone breaks the mould with a squat, passport-like shape reminiscent of the Blackberry, which opens up to become a tablet similar to an iPad mini. It is certainly a better shape for a tablet than other designs, but is a short and wide phone when closed a compromise too far?

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is an entirely new variant in Samsung’s foldable family for this year launched alongside the Z Fold 8 Ultra with a more familiar candy bar shape. Both folders are extremely expensive, with the Fold 8 starting at £1,699 (€1,999/$1,899.99/A$2,699) and the Fold 8 Ultra at £1,899 (€2,199/$2,099.99/A$2,999), with RAMageddon driving up prices even at the top of the market.

Darren Miles had skateboarded all his life. But in his 50s, he realised he was losing his skills and flexibility. So he took it in a new direction

Darren Miles never thought he would compete in any sport for Britain. But in October, he will represent Great Britain in slalom skateboarding – a form of downhill racing – at the World Skate Games in Paraguay. Last week, he completed his World Anti-Doping Agency awareness training. He had to tick a box confirming: “I’m an international athlete.”

“Justification” is the word that comes to mind, he says. “A feeling that I haven’t wasted my life skateboarding, that diverging into something new” – he took up slalom in his late 50s – “and working hard at it has yielded a result of which I am very proud.”

The imaging test is most often used to help determine a person’s risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures

DXA – or sometimes DEXA – scans are important for people in their 60s and above. They are also increasingly used by younger people interested in body composition.

A DXA – dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry – scan is an imaging test that uses low-dose X-rays to evaluate a person’s bone health, explains Dr Michael Perry, associate professor of radiology and medical imaging at the University of Virginia’s school of medicine. Most often, DXA scans are used to measure the strength and mineral content of an individual’s bones. This in turn helps determine that person’s risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures.

A good scalp cleanse can be useful, but it partly depends where you live

We’re experiencing the “skinification” of the scalp, says Desmond Tobin, professor of dermatological science at University College Dublin. After decades of consumer obsession with improving the quality of facial skin, attention is now being turned to our heads.

A wave of products have launched – from scalp scrubs and acid exfoliants to deep-cleaning shampoos – claiming to “detox” the scalp and promising everything from shinier hair to boosted growth.

Madeleine Finlay is joined by Ian Sample, Guardian science editor, to discuss three eye-catching science stories including an investigation that has identified four distinct types of thinker. Also on the agenda is the unprecedented cyclosporiasis outbreak in the US which has now been linked to two fatalities, and the funding cuts that threaten the iconic Jodrell Bank world heritage site, home to the Lovell telescope

Alterations that don’t cost a fortune can transform old trousers, jackets or shirts into bespoke pieces

When I started shopping in vintage stores, I fell into the trap of thinking that if something wasn’t in my size there was nothing to be done. I’d still buy beautiful shirts that were huge, but never end up wearing them. I persevered with trousers that were three sizes too big and just scrunched in the waist with a belt, but it didn’t look good. Now I know that a belt is an accessory, not a necessity; it’s there to heighten the garment, not hold it up. And that’s because I have finally understood the power of tailoring.

Tailoring seems out of reach for most people, but more often than not a dry cleaner will be able to take in a waist or do the hem, which would set you back £30 max. And I mean, how much would you pay for a perfectly fitting pair of trousers?

Three new products – and one old favourite – achieve a glazed sheen in one easy application

As you will no doubt have noticed, “glass” skin – that is, a complexion with a smooth, glazed sort of sheen – has been fashionable for ages. Until now, however, it has only come as the result of a meticulous, umpteen-step Korean skincare routine. But the new glass skin moisturisers attempt to mimic the look in one simple application.

Erborian’s Glow Moisturiser (from £9, all skin types) is a Goldilocks’s porridge sort of face cream. Not too heavy, not too light, just dewy enough without looking oily, and with lasting hydration that never becomes wet. I must advise the glimmer-avoidant that it does have a smidge of pearlescence, but I find that flattering.

Due to the rise of GLP-1s and cosmetic surgeries, professionals who weren’t usually subject to high beauty standards are facing new pressures

In 1975, John T Molly’s book Dress for Success became a national bestseller. It promised the American workforce “scientific” proof that certain clothes could “increase your income” and “boost your status”. It offered searing advice like: “Sweaters give out nothing but negative impulses … they say ‘lower middle class’ and ‘loser.’”

For those with office jobs, the workplace has long been a place where fashion counts. Molly’s book gave rise to ideas like power dressing and the adage about “dressing for the job you want, not the one you have”. But a new casual office culture, spurred by San Francisco tech companies where hoodies are the norm, plus the work-from-home revolution, was supposed to ameliorate some of those pressures.

Bold colours are out and short, (seemingly) bare nails in, but some see trend as part of criticised ‘clean girl aesthetic’

Trends at Copenhagen fashion week are usually easy to spot. The so-called “fifth fashion week”, a laidback sibling to the other four main fashion cities, has previously popularised everything from romantic floaty dresses with practical trainers to giant hair scrunchies. But during its latest iteration that wrapped up on Friday, a much more subtle trend had emerged – naked nails.

From the models on the catwalks to show-goers and passersby, fingers and toes featured short and unvarnished nails. The trend is a sharp shift away from the long, bright and glossy mani/pedis that have more recently dominated beauty standards.

Söderåsen national park is one of Europe’s largest protected broadleaf woods, offering wild swimming, spectacular hiking trails and an inspiring story of regeneration

From the bus window, the ridge looks like a giant slumbering beast stretched deep green across the flat farmland. “It feels alive,” I say to the woman beside me. “Yes,” she answers. “It is where you would run for safety, don’t you think?”

I am in southern Sweden to explore Söderåsen national park, established in 2001 to protect more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of the larger Söderåsen ridgeline. Shaped over millennia by immense geological collisions, fractures, volcanic eruptions and ice ages, today it is one of northern Europe’s largest continuous protected broadleaf forests, and only 90 minutes by car from Copenhagen or, in my case, two hours by public transport.

The regeneration of historic warehouses has transformed this former red-light district into one of the port city’s most vibrant areas

A thin peninsula just south of Rotterdam’s centre, Katendrecht was once at the heart of the world’s busiest port, home to continental Europe’s first Chinatown and a lively sailors’ quarter. Its later reputation as a red light district has been shrugged off – part of the city’s wider reinvention in the aftermath of extensive second world war bombing.

Steam trains, horse-drawn trams and glorious coastal paths are all part of the adventure on a new self-guided walking tour of the island

On the shores of Douglas Bay, I could barely see the sand. Crammed on to the beach, on every available inch, were tourists bustling for the best spot. Luckily, I wasn’t there at the same time. I was looking at a black and white photograph taken some 135 years earlier, displayed in the Manx Museum in Douglas, the Isle of Man’s capital. When I’d stepped off the ferry earlier that day, the crescent-shaped beach was still there – but the crowds weren’t.

The self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea has always been a haven for outsiders. From the early hunter-gatherers who ventured here in 6500BC, to the Irish Celts (who brought over Christianity in the fifth century) and Vikings who established Tynwald (one of the oldest continuous parliaments in the world) to the Victorian tourists who transformed it into a popular holiday destination.

The spa town of Balatonfüred is a bucolic gem for sailors, hikers … and wine lovers. A new hop-on, hop-off bus tour offers a chance to get a taste of its little-known wineries

The 90-minute train journey south-west from Budapest to the spa town of Balatonfüred unveils a landscape that segues from gritty industrial compounds to long sweeps of golden sunflowers and fields of pale grain. The carriage is pleasingly retro, with thick velour upholstery; windows that open, awkwardly, with a stiff metal lever; and a bushy eyebrowed conductor replete with ticket machine slung over his shoulder.

But the real retromania is yet to come. Arriving at Balatonfüred station, I board a 1984 DAF bus, painted an almost audacious shade of green. From the open-air rear, I take in the view over Lake Balaton, central Europe’s largest freshwater lake, often referred to as the “Hungarian Sea”.

Brigg, Lincolnshire: I should be busy, but the boom-bust climate has upset all my usual routines

By the time you read this, I will be away in the Scottish Borders – a British arable farmer on holiday in August? This is unheard of. I’ve never done it myself in 30 years of farming. The reason I’m going away is that, remarkably, I have very little to do, and it’s all down to this destructive modern climate.

We have finished the harvest, all done in almost entirely the month of July. Overall our farm will be 20% down on our long-term average yield, with winter cropping 2 tonnes per hectare and spring cropping 1 tonne per hectare below normal. Winter barley will be the only crop close to normal yields due to its natural maturity at the time of the first heatwave in late May. Beans finished five weeks ahead of schedule, and are almost 50% down on expectations.

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

On this day in 1888, the mechanical mastermind John Logie Baird was born in Dunbartonshire. He was the pioneering inventor who first beamed a recognisable image across a room, giving the world the very first working television. Without his early experiments with biscuit tins, darning needles and bicycle lenses, half of the questions the Thursday quiz has asked would never have been possible. So tune in, turn up your mental brightness, and test your frequency with these 15 questions. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 260

Just a few years ago, women would fight for other women whatever their background or politics. Today, many loudly dismiss the struggles of those who are not like them. But the solidarity is still there, if you look hard enough

One June day in 2015, I stood outside Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre near Bedford and heard the women inside singing. “Set her free,” said the graffiti on the walls. “Shut it down.” I had often visited the centre and heard the desperate stories of women who were held inside it. But that day felt hopeful rather than despairing, as hundreds of women – refugees, campaigners, lawyers, members of parliament, actors, writers – gathered around the centre to demand freedom for the women locked up.

When I set up the organisation Women for Refugee Women, I was driven by my faith in solidarity among women. The organisation works with women seeking asylum in Britain to tell their stories and campaign for justice and safety. For years I felt that faith being proved in practice. Women turned up for other women at events and demonstrations; they were volunteering and campaigning, marching and supporting.

Frome, Somerset: While other plants are withering or skeletal, tansy is growing in great profusion, and it rewards close observation

At first light, the scent of ’76 hangs in the air, a reminder of that endless summer burning itself into autumn, just like this one. I first caught a sniff of it walking home one sweltering evening in the June heatwave and said: “Too soon, too soon.”

Now the toasted aroma of spent grass is everywhere – on crispy playing fields, straw village greens, and these scorched tawny meadows of the combe. Scattered groups of cattle have their heads down here. For them I think eating the grass must be like consuming a Pot Noodle before the water is poured in.

The climate crisis is hitting Europe hard in 2026, warming twice as fast as any other continent – and the consequences are deadly

The whole world is getting hotter as carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning traps ever more heat, but Europe is heating up twice as fast as other continents. The consequences are increasingly deadly, with tens of thousands of heatwave deaths so far this summer.

The Guardian’s climate forum 2026: On Tuesday 20 October, join Damian Carrington and our panel of experts, including Professor Andy Haines, Katie White MP, Asad Rehman, Shruti Suresh Gareth Thomas and Amy Fairman, for a hopeful and solutions-focused evening. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

In the five years since the Taliban’s return to power, the walls have been closing in on the women and girls of Afghanistan.

As the regime has tightened its grip, it has banned girls from education after the age of 12, ejected many women from the workplace and created legal frameworks for child marriage and husbands beating their wives. Taliban rule has ushered in a new era of women being whipped for minor infractions and constant inspections by ‘vice and morality’ officials, with men compelled to become enforcers in their own homes. Even the borders of the online world have been creeping inward, with a new spate of smartphone bans and internet restrictions.

Marking the grim anniversary, a dozen women and girls have, at great risk to their safety, documented their lives for the world to see

Herat province
Every day, I wake up to the silence of dawn. I feel as though I am still holding my weapon. I lie on my bed for a few moments, taking deep breaths. With every awakening, I make a promise to myself: if my husband manages to return home safely today, I will thank God even more.

Struggling on her meagre pay, Faten Ben Omar El Azizi dreamed of reaching Europe. Then she joined thousands trying to reach a better life in Spain

Football was the life Faten Ben Omar El Azizi had wanted. She had long played in Morocco’s regional league for Moghreb Atlético Tetuán, whose striking kit replicates the colours of the famous Spanish club Atlético Madrid.

And in the cruellest of ironies, on the day that she drowned last month, one of nearly 150 people who died in the illegal mass crossing into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, her mother was told that her daughter had just been granted a visa to go to Spain.

Perhaps you are travelling to see the celestial rarity? Or maybe you are making an event of it at home?

• How to safely watch the solar eclipse

On Wednesday evening, millions of Europeans will experience a solar eclipse.

A wide band of north and central Spain, plus some of Portugal and parts of Greenland and Iceland will experience a rare total eclipse.

We would like to hear from women who participate in the ‘looksmaxxing’ community

While “looksmaxxing” was once a predominantly male space, in recent years it has increasingly taken hold among women, with dedicated forums and apps where users have their individual features analysed and scored, with the aim of identifying areas for physical improvement.

If you’re a young woman who participates in the “looksmaxxing” community, and have been thinking about ways to optimise your appearance, we’d love to hear from you and learn more about your experience.

Have you - or a child in your care - been filmed by Meta’s smartglasses without your consent? We would like to hear from you

With more than 7m pairs reportedly sold in 2025, it’s clear that the popularity of Meta’s smartglasses is on the rise.

And while they can transform the lives of some people, for example those with visual impairments, others have raised concern about nonconsensual filming - including of children.

Have you - or a child in your care - been filmed by Meta’s smartglasses without your consent? We would like to hear from you if so.

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We would like to hear your favourite true crime TV documentary and why

From OJ: Made in America to Tiger King, the Guardian has compiled TV’s best true crime shows. Now, we would like to hear yours. What is your favourite true crime TV documentary and why?

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