After a very hard landing into fame in the 00s, he decided to take a softer approach – and hit on a winning formula for classic comedy. The star talks about his fantastical new show Small Prophets, his obsession with middle-age and being ‘weird-looking’

In Small Prophets, BBC Two’s new six-parter, Mackenzie Crook plays Gordon, the manager of a massive DIY store. Sometimes it feels as if we’re falling through time, because it’s like watching Gareth, Crook’s breakthrough part in The Office, a quarter of a century on. “Pedantic and jobsworthy, he could be Gareth grown up, just with more disappointment, without the West Country accent,” says Crook. “I wrote Gordon as a monster, but by the end, I was actually quite fond of him.”

In person, Crook has a jumpy, modest energy. When he was young, on screen it used to look like nerves, but now looks more like curiosity. He has a surprising number of tattoos, but maybe I should stop being surprised when people have those.

In the first part of our series on digital politics, we look at how centrists have lost ground fighting disinformation – when the real battle is over emotion and attention

• Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London

There’s a strange tendency to describe social media as something other people use – those young people on TikTok, that conspiratorial uncle on Facebook, the rightwing trolls on X. In truth, we’re all online now. The number of global social media users surpassed 5 billion in 2024. To put that into perspective there are 8 billion people on the planet.

The internet has totally transformed the ways in which we communicate and share information. First the internet came for print. As free online content began outcompeting subscription newspapers, publishers briefly found new audiences on Facebook, only to see referral traffic plummet after the platform began suppressing posts with external links.

Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London

Construction works for Milano Cortina have been a lightning rod for suspected infiltration by organised crime, but anti-mafia groups have adopted an approach that will help future hosts

Early on the morning of 8 October, the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri in Belluno put out a press release announcing three arrests, in the culmination of a year-long investigation they called “Operation Reset”. Two of the three were brothers, were both known members of the notorious SS Lazio Ultras, the Irriducibili, it was stated in the release, and had boasted of having personal ties to former boss Fabrizio Piscitelli, who was murdered in 2019. The crimes the brothers had been arrested on suspicion of had not been committed in Rome, but 400 miles north, in the small alpine ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo, high in the Dolomites, and home, for the next three weeks, to the Winter Olympics.

The brothers are still awaiting trial, but the local public prosecutor’s office has alleged that they were running an operation in three phases. The first was taking control of the drug distribution network in Cortina, the second was to take control of three local nightclubs, and the third was to extort the local council into awarding the construction contracts for the works being done for the Games. Among the evidence the prosecutor says it possesses is a note on one of the brothers’ phones saying: “We want the cemetery area for the garages, the former pastry shop, the slip road and the new ring road, the construction of the tourist village.”

Ahead of the centenary of Davis’s birth, musicians including Terence Blanchard and John Scofield analyse his brilliance: from his soft phrasing and spiritual feel to his raspy cussing and leather outfits

The architect of the bestselling jazz album of all time, 1959’s Kind of Blue, trumpeter Miles Davis is a towering figure in the history of the genre. Possessed of a piercing tone, innate melodic sensibility and a singularly uncompromising approach on the bandstand, Davis spent his five-decade career presiding over numerous stylistic shifts: bebop to “cool” jazz, modal jazz, electronic fusion, jazz funk and even hip-hop. Always honing his ear for fresh talent, he turned his bands into incubators for rising artists, providing early starts for the pianists Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett, saxophonists Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, and drummers Tony Williams and Jack DeJohnette.

With 2026 marking the centenary of Davis’s birth, I asked several of his surviving collaborators to select his greatest recordings and discuss his enduring influence, including the 95-year-old Rollins, who played with Davis in the 1950s; the guitarist John Scofield and the saxophonist Bill Evans, who both played with Davis in his 80s fusion groups; and several contemporary jazz stars.

I heard this huff, then a stomp. A growl that sounded like a death warning

Last November, I’d been out for the evening with friends who were visiting Los Angeles. Afterwards, I checked the notifications on my phone. There was a motion alert from one of the cameras around my house. It had captured a big black bear nosing around my bins.

We get wildlife here: raccoons, skunks. But I’d never had a bear rummaging through my trash. I watched as it turned things over, then wandered off. I assumed he had left.

How does it feel when ICE agents swarm your city? Minneapolis residents on why they are rising up

Since the beginning of January, thousands of ICE agents have been deployed to the city. Confusion, violence and chaos followed. Two people have been killed, hundreds have disappeared – but that’s not the full story. Because thousands of residents in the city have been mobilising.

Annie Kelly spoke to five people living in Minneapolis about how they have been taking on ICE – and the consequences. Patty O’Keefe explains what it’s like to be a legal observer, and how ICE agents smashed her windows and detained her. Jenny talks about why her childhood experience of her father being detained by ICE has pushed her to stand up for others. A teacher explains how the city has changed and an organiser on why tactics have had to change as ICE strategies have developed. “We all grab a whistle before we leave. I know it’s a joke here. Make sure you’ve got your keys, phone, wallet, gloves, and now your whistle.”

Starmer confirms immediate removal, but it is unclear if sanctions remain on former MP, academic and barrister

• UK politics live – latest updates

China has lifted the sanctions it imposed on serving British MPs and peers in a significant sign of warming relations after Keir Starmer travelled to Beijing for landmark talks with Xi Jinping.

Nine UK citizens were banned from China in 2021, including five Conservative MPs and two members of the House of Lords, targeted for highlighting human rights violations against the Muslim Uyghur community.

Maj James Hook and Col Samantha Shepherd charged with offences relating to case of soldier who took her own life

Two serving British army officers face criminal charges over the handling of a case of sexual assault of the teenage soldier Jaysley Beck, who later took her own life.

Beck, a Royal Artillery gunner, was assaulted during a training exercise in Hampshire in July 2021, when she was 19, and killed herself five months later.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

President issues warning as warships deployed to Middle East but says ‘it would be great if we didn’t have to use them’

Donald Trump has warned Iran it must end its nuclear programme and stop killing protesters if the large US armada of warships deployed in the Middle East are not to be used.

The US president said protesters were being killed in their thousands, but that he had stopped Iran from carrying out executions.

Hannah Spencer, a Trafford councillor and plumber, ran as the party’s candidate for mayor of Manchester in 2024

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Green party has selected the former mayoral candidate Hannah Spencer to run in the upcoming Gorton and Denton byelection.

Spencer, a Trafford councillor and plumber by trade, has resided in the constituency in the past and was the Green candidate for mayor of Manchester during the 2024 election, where she finished fifth behind Labour’s Andy Burnham, who retained the post, as well as Conservative, independent and Reform candidates.

Activists call for Friday ‘blackout’ in protest against administration’s violent immigration crackdown

Activists are calling for a nationwide shutdown on Friday, advocating “no work, no school, no shopping” in a protest against the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdowns.

Organizers say Friday’s “blackout” – or general strike, as some are calling it – is part of a growing non-violent movement to combat ICE’s aggressive enforcement tactics, which have come under renewed scrutiny following a series of fatal shootings involving federal agents.

Book The Crown’s Silence details how crown profited from and protected trade in enslaved African people for centuries

MPs, experts and campaigners have called on King Charles to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery, after research highlighted how the British crown and Royal Navy extended and protected the trade in enslaved African people for hundreds of years.

The king has previously expressed “personal sorrow” at the suffering caused by slavery and has spoken of committing to “finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure”. However, the British crown has never issued a formal apology.

Updates from the second semi-final in Melbourne
Alcaraz beats Zverev | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Katy

We’ll have a bit of a delay before the next semi-final as the spectators leave and the night session ticket holders come in.

So what does this mean for Sinner sorry Sinner or Djokovic in Sunday’s final? Well if either of them wins the title, they owe Zverev a huge favour for beating up Alcaraz tonight. “It’s one of the most demanding matches I have ever played,” says Alcaraz, whose brother then helps him carry his bags as he hobbles off court. Alcaraz looks like Djokovic did after his five-hour, 53-minute 2012 Australian Open final against Nadal; absolutely spent. But Alcaraz has somehow got to find a way to play another match in less than two days’ time.

Pick of former Fed governor to replace Jerome Powell comes as White House seeks to tighten grip on central bank

• Business live – latest updates

Donald Trump has announced Kevin Warsh as his nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve.

The move ends months of speculation about who the president would pick to replace Jerome Powell as head of the US central bank, as he waged an extraordinary campaign to influence policymaking by repeatedly calling for rate cuts.

Exclusive: Ben Goldsmith will work on issues including fishing and green belt preservation to attract green Tories

Ben Goldsmith, the veteran Conservative environmentalist and ally of Boris Johnson, has been approached to write Reform UK’s policies on nature, as Nigel Farage’s party attempts to make inroads with voters put off by his stance on the climate crisis.

Goldsmith will work with the Reform leader and his policy adviser James Orr on policies such as fishing and preservation of the green belt, as party figures admit they are struggling to win over Conservative voters who care about the environment.

Exclusive: ‘Regional defence’ settler units are escalating violent displacement of Palestinians, Israeli reservists and activists say

Israel’s army has become a vehicle for violent settlers to escalate their campaign against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, with reserve units drawn from settlements functioning as vigilante militias, according to Israeli soldiers and activists, and the United Nations.

Hagmar, or regional defence units, were set up across the West Bank from October 2023, as conscripts and the standing army deployed there prepared to move to Gaza.

Colombian city launched its first clean air zone in one of its poorest neighbourhoods and has plans for green spaces too

Every Sunday in Bogotá, streets across the city are closed to cars and transformed into urban parks. Shirtless rollerbladers with boomboxes drift leisurely in figures of eight, Lycra-clad cyclists zoom downhill and young children wobble nervously as they pedal on bikes for the first time.

This is perhaps the most visible component of a multipronged plan to clean up the Colombian capital’s air. At the turn of the century, Bogotá was one of Latin America’s most polluted cities, with concentrations of harmful particulates at seven times the World Health Organization’s limits. In the last decade the city of 8 million has started to turn that around, cutting air pollution by 24% between 2018 and 2024.

The prediction market’s disciples and CEO believe its an unbiased way of knowing the future. But experts warn users could reshape the world to win big

In the early hours of 13 June, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets began pummeling Iran with bombs, lighting up the Tehran skyline and initiating a 12-day war that would leave hundreds dead.

But for one user of the prediction market Polymarket, it was their lucky day. In the 24 hours before the strike occurred, they had bet tens of thousands of dollars on “yes” on the market “Israel military action against Iran by Friday?” when the prospect still seemed unlikely and odds were hovering at about 10%. After the strike, Polymarket declared that military action had been taken, and paid the user $128,000 for their lucky wager.

The Chronology of Water is a ‘punk rock ayahuasca trip’ of a film that takes no prisoners. Stewart and her star, Imogen Poots, talk about the passion and pain that fuelled it

‘The movie is to be eaten alive and re-metabolised and shat out differently, from everyone’s perspective,” says Kristen Stewart, bracingly. The actor’s directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, has been doing the rounds at film festivals, and when we meet in London the reviews are coming in. Stewart knows that this impressionistic, arthouse collage of a film – adapted from an experimental memoir about a woman’s pain and loss, the elusive nature of memory and the reclamation of desire – is not going to be for everyone. “My favourite Letterboxd review is: ‘The Chronology of what the fuck did I just watch?’” But it matters to her that people respond to it. “Whether it’s your least favourite movie or your most favourite, it’s not lying, it’s genuine. And I’m so fucking proud of that.”

Stewart is sitting next to the film’s star, a slightly more sanguine Imogen Poots. Watching Stewart talk, her leg bouncing, her vocabulary ferocious, feels a bit like being sandblasted. It is invigorating and strangely galvanising, but you don’t go into a conversation with her half asleep. The same can be said for the film itself. “Language is a metaphor for experience,” writes the author Lidia Yuknavitch, at the beginning of the book on which it is based. “It’s as arbitrary as this mass of chaotic images we call memory.”

Be it The Night Manager’s Richard Roper or Blue Lights’s Gerry, classic TV characters are increasingly finding it hard to stay in the grave. Here are the 10 greatest televisual resurrections

On TV, you’re never really dead. When a beloved character is killed off on your favourite show, you can be forgiven some scepticism. Who’s to say they won’t be miraculously revived in future?

The BBC hit The Night Manager brought arms-dealing antagonist Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) back to life mid-series to face off against his old adversary, MI6 agent Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston). The action duly cranked up several gears, building temptingly towards Sunday’s finale. Will Roper be eliminated for good this time?

Exercising in winter can feel brutal without the right kit. Here’s how runners, hikers and outdoor swimmers keep cosy when the temperature drops

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

There’s a glorious smugness that can only be experienced by exercising outdoors in winter conditions. The fresh air, the endorphins, the reduced risk of heart disease – they’re all nice bonuses, but nothing beats that knowing nod from another rain-drenched runner, or the horrified faces of nearby dog walkers as you stride confidently into the sea for a winter dip. There’s only one catch. In order for that intoxicating feeling to exceed the very real sting of the cold, you’ll need to make sure you’re suitably layered up.

Whether you’re running, hiking or outdoor swimming, there’s some sage advice that applies across the board: “Always start by checking the weather forecast,” advises Richard Shepherd, purchasing director at mountain sports retailer Ellis Brigham. “What you wear should match the conditions you’re likely to experience. It’s the key to staying safe and comfortable outdoors.”

Installation remembers the names of over 18,000 children killed by Israel in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2025

First is وسام اياد محمد ابو فسيفس, or Wesam Iyad Mohammed Abu Fsaife, a 14-year-old boy. Last is صباح عمر سعد المصري, or Sabah Omar Saad al-Masri, an eight-year-old girl.

These names of two children mark the beginning and end of the Wall of Tears, a massive art installation paying homage to the 18,457 children killed in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 19 July 2025. Created by artist Phil Buehler, it opened next to Pine Box Rock Shop bar at 12 Grattan Street in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday.

At a family gathering over Christmas, I took on my 76-year-old mother once again at virtual bowling. Could I finally best her?

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving. She is the glue that holds our family together. But right now, I am kicking her ass at video game bowling, and it feels good!

In the 00s, my mum was the best Wii Bowling player in the world. She was unbeatable. Strike after strike after strike. The Dudette in our family’s Big Lebowski. So when she said she was coming to visit us in Canada, I thought the time was right to buy the updated Nintendo Switch Sports version of her favourite game. She’s 76 now, and I might finally have a chance of beating her, I thought, especially if I allowed myself a cheeky tune-up on the game before she arrived.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Pre-2008, voters with prosperous and improving lives didn’t mind being excluded from the conversation. Those days are over

Who was the last politician you listened to for any length of time? Perhaps it was Andy Burnham or Zack Polanski. Or maybe it was Wes Streeting, Nigel Farage or Zarah Sultana. Perhaps your dark secret is that it was Donald Trump.

One thing these politicians have in common is that they are all unusually good communicators. From Farage’s drawling provocations to Polanski’s pithy directness, Sultana’s concentrated blasts of outrage to Trump’s mesmerising ramblings, they compel you to listen. The completely forgettable passages that voters across western democracies have associated with political speech for decades are largely absent.

The Sánchez government is under fire after two crashes. But politicians of all stripes have prioritised opening new lines over maintaining existing ones

Spain has the most extensive high-speed rail network in Europe and the second-largest in the world after China. A source of immense national pride, the train system has grown and become more affordable thanks to a boom in rail passengers and competition among train companies. Every few minutes, a train departs from Madrid for Barcelona and vice versa, linking the country’s two most populous cities. This 600km journey takes less than three hours for an average fare of €65.

Thirty-four years after the first high-speed train between Madrid and Seville, the network now connects more than 50 cities in Spain. Along with being a badge of pride for the country, it even commands a rare political consensus. At least that was the case until this month’s calamities. In the first accident, one train derailed and collided with another near the town of Adamuz in Andalucía, killing 45 people and leaving dozens more injured. A second accident in Catalonia, caused by the collapse of a wall in bad weather, killed the driver of a commuter train in Barcelona. The local network, which has suffered delays and malfunctions for years, was completely halted for days as a result.

María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

The countries that invest in youth now will be the ones that define global innovation in the coming years

• Monica Geingos is founder of Leadership Lab Yetu and former first lady of Namibia

For the first time in our history, more than 70% of Africans are under the age of 30. This, along with entrenched inequalities, poverty, unemployment and socioeconomic fault lines, is reshaping how our societies interact with one another and the world.

This is Africa’s most consequential decade. Leaders who take office over the next 10 years will have to deliver on difficult mandates within a political, economic and social landscape that has been fundamentally altered.

A sip in the glass and the rest in a little carafe, please – and make sure it’s ice-cold, otherwise it’s an absolutely degenerate drink

There is very little in life as elegant as the martini. You select vodka or gin. But really, you’re an adult, you select gin. A whisper of vermouth, then it’s chilled. A twist of lemon is added or an olive and her brine, then it’s served. And it’s served – we pray – with a sidecar.

All martinis should have sidecars. You know when you get a martini and there’s only a sip in the glass and the rest is in a little baby carafe sitting on ice? That’s a sidecar and it should be the law.

Josh Sharp is a New York-based comedian. His show, Josh Sharp: ta-da!, is at Soho Theatre, London, from 9 to 28 February

Seeing large men dressed in goggles and trenchcoats echoes the camp fascism of musical comedies

An aspect of ICE’s deadly performance in Minneapolis that goes hand-in-hand with its mission to intimidate is the absolutely farcical tone of the ICE aesthetic. Broadway numbers like Springtime for Hitler in The Producers and, more recently, Das Übermensch in Operation Mincemeat, a showstopper performed with a German techno beat and Nazi boyband – “Third Reich on the mic” – vocals, present fascism as an essentially camp enterprise and we’re reminded this week that ICE fits the mould entirely.

It’s not what we can or cannot say that matters – rather, it’s whether what we say can get any visibility at all under the US-specific algorithm

We tend to think of censorship as the direct suppression of speech. We conjure images of mouths taped shut, courts seizing books and films, and journalists or activists thrown in jail to silence their voices. But what if, in a digital era governed by invisible yet highly consequential algorithms, censorship no longer revolved around the ability to speak, but rather around the visibility of content, its effective “reach”?

The launch of TikTok’s new US-specific algorithm underscores the urgency of this risk. This week, control over the platform’s operations has shifted to the TikTok USDS joint venture led by a consortium of investors that includes US big tech firms such as cloud-computing company Oracle, with the Chinese parent company ByteDance retaining a 19.9% stake. This arrangement is presented as a means of complying with US legislation introduced under former president Joe Biden, with the aim of protecting user data and preventing political interference from China. Yet many of TikTok’s 200 million US-based users now fear that Donald Trump and his allies may use algorithmic control to do precisely what China was accused of doing: interfering with political discussion by suppressing voices critical of Trump and his international allies.

Paolo Gerbaudo is a senior researcher at the faculty of political science and sociology of Complutense University in Madrid and the author of The Great Recoil

What is happening in Minnesota is proof that racist ideas lead to racist policies – and it produces bad, dangerous governance

Minneapolis is in a state of chaos. Since federal immigration agents flooded the region weeks ago, daily life has been destabilized in ways residents say feel unprecedented.

The president’s super-sized immigration force has now killed two people in the Minneapolis metro area since “Operation Metro Surge” began in December. Nearly three weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot Renee Nicole Good in the face, armed federal authorities on 24 January killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, who witnesses say was trying to intervene after seeing agents treat another person harshly.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Protesters need support following the bloody crackdown by a ‘zombie’ regime – not wild threats or worse from the US president

The brutality of Iran’s crackdown on protesters is almost unfathomable. Despite the authorities cutting off communications and destroying evidence, it is clear that a regime never reluctant to shed its citizens’ blood has done so with unprecedented zeal, sensing an unprecedented threat from unrest across the country, challenging not only its policies but its very existence.

Officials have reported 3,000 deaths, but human rights groups have tallied many more, and a network of medical professionals has estimated that 30,000 could have been killed. Security forces shot people dead as they fled a fire and are arresting doctors for helping the wounded.

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

A ground rent cap is a good start, but ministers need to go further in reforming an unjust system

Changes to lease agreements, leading to steeply increasing ground rents over recent years, are an outrage. An estimated 18% of leaseholders in England and Wales – around 1m households – have a so-called “modern ground rent” lease, with escalating charges that make it impossible in many cases to remortgage or sell. Cost-of-living pressures, including food and energy price rises, make it all the more urgent that their situation is addressed. Angela Rayner was right to argue in the Guardian last week that ministers must pick a side.

This market should never have been allowed to develop in the way that it has. An investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority found no evidence that leaseholders get anything for these annual fees – which are separate from service charges that pay for the maintenance of common areas. Campaigners for leasehold abolition are right that the rent-seeking behaviour of freeholders is wrong. Mortgage lenders, as well as politicians, should have put their feet down years ago.

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.

Readers respond to an article by Jonathan Freedland on the need for a new western alliance to stand up to the US president

Jonathan Freedland’s conclusion that Donald Trump’s most recent actions and insults leave the “middle powers” with no option but to strengthen their own defences fits well with the earlier assessments by both Mark Carney and Gordon Brown (As the world finally punches back, was this the week Donald Trump went too far?, 23 January). All three have identified the need for those countries that desire to maintain world peace, promote a collective approach to trade and security, and settle disputes by arbitration, should combine to create a body outside of the sphere of the US, Russia or China.

There is a growing consensus on the need for a non-aligned coalition of the middle powers, and Mark Carney has emerged as the spokesperson able to articulate a platform around which nations of goodwill can cluster.

Dr Claire Bessant says we should not vilify parents who are under pressure from family and friends to share photographs of their children on social media – but Rachel Linthe says the harms are well known

While it’s important to recognise that “sharenting” can impact children, should we really be blaming parents and telling them that their children are going to rebel (Brooklyn Beckham and Prince Harry are the canaries in the coalmine. The children of Instagram will be next, 25 January)? Many parents feel under immense pressure from family and friends to share their children’s photos. Academic research with parents shows that many struggle to reconcile their concerns about protecting their children’s privacy with their desire to make their family proud and to respond to family demands to share photos with them.

There are increasing numbers of parents who are making money out of sharenting, but we also need to think carefully before we criticise these parents and consider why they may be doing so. Research again shows that pressure on parents to ensure their children do well, expectations that parents are physically present to support their children, and workplace environments that fail to support parents juggling home and work, are all key drivers for them becoming influencers. And where parents start earning money through sharenting, but subsequently express concerns about harming children’s privacy, it can be a struggle to get out of it.

Responding to an article by James Murphy, Chris Scarlett writes that her amateur orchestra provides a great collective experience

It’s wonderful to read such a robust defence of classical music (Classical music brings us joy and meaning. In this time of doom and gloom, we need to talk about that, 26 January). As one of “the infantry” playing in and helping to run an amateur orchestra in my city, I wholeheartedly agree with James Murphy’s view that striving with others to give the best possible performance embeds our humanity and connection to each other.

It also teaches us something invaluable and increasingly hard to find. And that is that we can only make this kind of music with others and not by ourselves alone. We need each other to play a symphony. We have to work together, listen to each other, follow each other, stay connected. We put the “me” to one side and become an “us”. It’s one of the best collaborative and collective experiences we have available.

Citizenship | Apostrophes | Duvets | World Cup | Going Trumpless

Reading your interview with Sajid Javid, with its account of juvenile theft from slot machines, the beatings he received from his father (which Javid himself now recognises as abuse) and the official leniency that he says changed his life, it’s hard to believe that this is the man who, on spurious national security grounds, took away Shamima Begum’s British citizenship for choices she made, or pressures she was put under, as a child.
Mark de Brunner
Burn Bridge, North Yorkshire

• Re Adrian Chiles’s item (Is the wayward apostrophe in WALE’S LARGEST VAPE SHOP a sign of the times?, 29 January), while on holiday in Northumberland last year I visited a delightful cafe that sold various local crafts including handmade “Christma’s card’s”.
Jane Marsh
London

• Zverev served to reach Australian Open final in fifth set

• Spaniard holds out in epic 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4) 7-5

• As it happened: look back at an epic semi-final clash

Murmurs around Melbourne Park had been building. That the men’s Australian Open draw had not met expectations in 2026. That matches had been one-sided, and lacking memorable moments. That so-called SinCaraz was a foregone conclusion. That tennis had lost its touch.

Murmur no more. In this year’s first match on Rod Laver Arena to go five sets, Carlos Alcaraz leapt off the canvas to outlast Alexander Zverev 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4), 7-5 over five hours and 27 minutes – the third longest match in Australian Open history.

• Vonn crashes into nets and clutches left knee

• Race in Crans-Montana abandoned after early falls

• US star’s Olympic fitness now under scrutiny

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the final World Cup downhill before the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics on Friday, leaving the American skiing great limping and clutching her left knee as organizers abandoned the race amid worsening conditions.

The 41-year-old lost control after landing a jump on the upper section of the course in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, skidding sideways into the safety netting as snow fell steadily and visibility deteriorated. Vonn’s airbag deployed on impact and she remained down for several moments while medical staff attended to her on the piste.

⚽ News and previews heading into the weekend’s action
⚽ Premier League: 10 things to look out for | Mail Dom

Mikel Arteta and Eddie Howe will be speaking soon. Two titans of management speak.

This was interesting from Slot. He was asked why Premier League teams are becoming so dominant in Europe, with Liverpool particularly impressive in the Champions League this season especially compared to many of their domestic showings. See also: Spurs.

I played out a torturous, all-too-familar dance after the Gunners’ title-race stumble. But if we’re suffering like this in January, how will we feel in May?

I sometimes joke that I’m not sure I actually like football, just Arsenal. Hate-watching rivals aside, if a game doesn’t concern the Gunners it probably doesn’t concern me, such is my one-club tunnel vision. Even then, there are occasions where my love of Arsenal appears debatable. As a friend recently put it to me: “I’ve watched Arsenal games with you. I’m not sure you like Arsenal and yet you’re possibly the most fervent Gooner I know.”

Ah, the torturous dance between joy and torment. I relived it again last Sunday evening, when Arsenal lost to Manchester United. On paper, it should have been simple enough to compartmentalise: you can’t win them all and we’re still four points clear at the top of the league table and looking strong in all three cups. And yet, for the first time this season, I succumbed to true result-induced head loss.

Nico O’Reilly gives Manchester City options, Sunderland miss Granit Xhaka’s grit and West Ham find a way

Just when Brighton supporters were hoping their side was building some momentum after a run of five games undefeated in all competitions, Saturday’s stoppage-time loss at Fulham arrived. Fabian Hürzeler’s side led at half-time but their collapse was typical of performances on the road this season. Securing only two away wins – against Chelsea in September and Nottingham Forest in November – has undermined their challenge for Europe. Their next two games at the Amex, against Everton on Saturday and arch-rivals Crystal Palace next week, are an opportunity to make up some ground. Only seven points separate them from Chelsea in fifth place, but Brighton’s record against Everton at home is terrible, having failed to beat them since 2019 when a late Lucas Digne own goal sealed the points for Graham Potter’s hosts against a team managed by Marco Silva. Ed Aarons

Brighton v Everton, Saturday 3pm (all times GMT)

Leeds v Arsenal, Saturday 3pm

Wolves v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm

Chelsea v West Ham, Saturday 5.30pm

Well drilled, well balanced and boasting enviable depth, City can move closer to dethroning Chelsea on Sunday

After six consecutive years as champions, Chelsea find their firm grip on the Women’s Super League crown has been reduced to a little finger clinging to the side of the trophy. They head to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday nine points behind their opponents and surely sensing that only a win could prevent the title from transferring to Manchester City’s outstretched arms.

City have endured plenty of near misses since they last won the WSL 10 years ago, finishing second five times – or six, if we include 2017’s shorter Spring Series. They have frequently made it look as if “next year” would finally be their year, so there is a sense of irony about their flourishing form arriving after they ended 17 points below Chelsea last season.

Four points separate first from eighth in the Ekstraklasa and the aim is to establish Europe’s most interesting league as its sixth biggest

The temperature will be far below zero when Zaglebie Lubin and GKS Katowice restart Poland’s top flight on Friday evening. A bitter new wave of winter is about to hit central and eastern Europe, forecasts suggesting this is only the start. When the surprise Ekstraklasa leaders, Wisla Plock, play Rakow Czestochowa two days later the thermometer may plummet to -12C. It will take serious resolve to make these games happen but, after a break of almost two months, appetites to get back up and running are strong.

Why would they not be? The Polish league is in its best shape for at least 30 years, feeling the benefit of a booming economy that is outperforming most of its European Union peers. Attendances are soaring and its football infrastructure, whose transformation was catalysed by co-hosting Euro 2012, sets standards for much of the continent. Then there is the remarkable way in which this season’s competition is poised. The gap between first and eighth is only four points; even Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza, at the bottom, are only 11 points from the summit.

Today’s rumours are heavy on one side

The January transfer window is about to close (surely it cannot do so with the same melodrama as its summer counterpart) and, as always, certain parties are getting a little twitchy as the deadline looms. A fine example is Raheem Sterling, who has not kicked a competitive football in eight months yet somehow finds himself on more wishlists than a Tamagotchi in the late 90s.

Seven “Champions League level” clubs are said to be keen on Sterling – now a free agent after he and Chelsea went their separate ways – most notably Tottenham, where Thomas Frank is “on board” with the idea of signing the 31-year-old. Heaven knows Frank needs a boost from somewhere. Having represented Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal in a frankly remarkable career to date, a move to Spurs would leave Raheem with just one more to complete the big six set. Old Trafford in 2028, here we come. Napoli, Juventus and Bayern are also linked with Sterling, Champions League level clubs all.

The Uzbek GM, 21, has a half-point edge, but rivals from his own country, the Netherlands, Germany, the US, and Turkey are all within one point

Nodirbek Abdusattorov still has a narrow lead as the “chess Wimbledon” at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee heads into its final three rounds this weekend, but the Uzbek, 21, is battling to stay ahead of a quintet of rivals after being held to two draws and a loss in his last three games.

Leading scores after 10 of the 13 rounds are Abdusattorov 6.5, Javokhir Sindarov (Uzbekistan), Matthias Blübaum (Germany) and Jorden van Foreest (Netherlands) 6, Hans Niemann (US) and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (Turkey) 5.5. The world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, is among three players on 5.

Ukrainian president doubles down on target for accession despite pushback from some European leaders

But just as Volodymyr Zelenskyy doubles down on his 2027 accession target, so is Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in opposing the move.

In clips published by Hungary’s international spokesperson Zoltán Kovács, Orbán has claimed that during the last EU summit the leaders were given a document describing Brussels plans to admit Ukraine in 2027.

London-based satirist hails ‘amazing’ ruling that found Gulf state targeted and attacked him for his criticism

A London-based Saudi dissident who a judge decided should receive more than £3m in damages from the kingdom for assault and the hacking of his phone has insisted that it must pay up or face enforcement action.

Mr Justice Saini ruled that the Saudi government infected the phone of Ghanem al-Masarir with Pegasus spyware and, while surveillance was continuing, in 2018, its agents attacked him outside Harrods in central London.

Tour guide reports drawing of naked woman pointing knife at baby and coded writing at Old Calton burial ground

The tomb of the philosopher David Hume and two other memorials at a historic cemetery in Edinburgh have been vandalised with “disturbing occult-style paraphernalia”.

A tour guide made the discovery at the Old Calton burial ground. It included a drawing of a naked woman pointing a bloodied knife at a baby with a noose around its neck, and coded writing on red electrical tape attached to the David Hume mausoleum and two nearby memorial stones.

Agencies accused of failing to take precautions to stop former contractor leaking returns to ‘leftist media outlets’

Donald Trump on Thursday sued the US treasury department and Internal Revenue Service for $10bn over the disclosure of his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.

In a complaint filed in Miami federal court, Trump, his adult sons, and his namesake company said the agencies failed to take “mandatory precautions” to prevent former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from leaking their tax returns to “leftist media outlets”, including the New York Times and ProPublica.

More than 200 women with caring responsibilities have been freed from prison under the country’s Public Utility Law

Jennifer Chaparro Pernet cannot remember the exact moment she became aware of a commotion outside the prison. But she recalls feeling a ripple of excitement when she heard people shouting, and then a guard calling her name. By 6pm she was walking out of El Buen Pastor women’s prison in Bogotá, a small bag of clothes in her hand, to a cacophony of banging, cheering and stomping as her fellow prisoners celebrated her release. She was four years into a 12-year sentence.

It was 4 May 2024, and Chaparro Pernet, 36, was the first woman to be released under Colombia’s 2023 Public Utility law, which allows first-time female offenders who are heads of households with caring responsibilities to apply to serve their remaining sentence in the community.

Emergency pumps are deployed in attempt to stop water inundating homes around River Parrett

• ‘Like a sea out there’: flooded Somerset residents wonder how water can be managed

Since medieval monks started draining and managing the Somerset Levels, humans have struggled to live and work alongside water.

“At the moment it feels like a losing battle,” said Mike Stanton, the chair of the Somerset Rivers Authority. “Intense rainfall is hitting us more often because of climate change. It may be that in the next 50 years, perhaps in the next 20, some homes around here will have to be abandoned.”

When temperatures drop suddenly, trapped water can freeze and expand, splitting trunks with a gunshot-like sound

During the recent cold spell in the northern US, meteorologists issued warnings about exploding trees.

A tree’s first line of defence against freezing is its bark, which provides efficient insulation. In cold conditions, trees also enter a form of hibernation, with changes at a cellular level: cells dehydrate, harden and shrink, increasing their sugar concentration. This is the botanical equivalent of adding antifreeze, helping to prevent the formation of ice crystals.

The impact of fires on wildlife can be ‘catastrophic’, with some plant species feared extinct

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

As tinderbox conditions continue to hamper wildlife assessment and rescue efforts, bushfires in Victoria have burned habitat crucial to bird and animal species, including eastern bristlebirds and dingoes.

Some plant species are feared extinct.

Prof Don Driscoll, a terrestrial ecologist at Deakin University, said he was particularly concerned for the state’s population of endangered eastern bristlebirds – shy songbirds with cinnamon-brown feathers – after fires near Mallacoota burned about 60% of their habitat at Howe Flat.

Information tribunal rules Soil Association must disclose salmon farm inspection reports to WildFish campaigners

Campaigners have forced the Soil Association to reveal its salmon farm inspection reports, amid claims that certifying the farmed fish as “organic” is misleading to consumers.

The Soil Association’s Organic scheme, the UK’s oldest and most widely recognised organic certification, defines organic farming as “using methods that benefit our whole food system, from people to planet, plant health to animal welfare.”

Older men seen as ‘gaining wisdom’ but women must keep looking younger or be ‘idiosyncratic’, review hears

Older women disappear from presenting roles across the BBC while older men are regarded as “gaining gravitas and wisdom”, according to an independent review of the broadcaster’s record on representation.

A “noticeable mismatch” in the number of staff and freelance male and female presenters over the age of 60 was uncovered by the review.

Exclusive: Smartwatches, Oura rings, smart home devices and Fitbits being weaponised, says Refuge

Domestic abusers are increasingly using AI, smartwatches and other technology to attack and control their victims, a domestic abuse charity says.

Record numbers of women who were abused and controlled through technology were referred to Refuge’s specialist services during the last three months of 2025, including a 62% increase in the most complex cases to total 829 women. There was also a 24% increase in referrals of under-30s.

More than 300 brown hairstreak butterfly eggs discovered near Llandeilo this winter after decade of decline

Record numbers of eggs of the rare brown hairstreak butterfly have been found in south-west Wales after landowners stopped flailing hedges every year.

The butterfly lays its eggs on blackthorn every summer. But when land managers and farmers mechanically cut hedges every autumn, thousands of the eggs are unknowingly destroyed.

From textiles and neons to paintings and her unmade bed, the largest-scale retrospective ever mounted of Tracey Emin’s work opens next month. Book before Thursday 26 February and save £20

Tate Modern in London is opening the largest ever exhibition celebrating Tracey Emin’s life’s work, on Friday 27 February.

Spanning her extraordinary 40-year practice, A Second Life showcases career-defining works alongside works never exhibited before. Through painting, video textiles, neons, writings, sculpture and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries, using the female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain and healing.

Woman and man accused of sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol faced what is likely to be one of the severest punishments since Aceh province adopted sharia law

Sharia police have caned a couple 140 times each in Indonesia’s Aceh province for having sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol, likely one of the severest such punishments since the deeply conservative region adopted Islamic law.

Sexual relations between an unmarried couple are strictly outlawed in Aceh, the only place in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, to impose sharia law.

The network’s editor-in-chief unveiled a curious list of 19 people to be paid contributors across different platforms

A focus on wellness, nutrition, longevity and cosmology, mixed with more than a sprinkling of conservative ideology, appears to represent Bari Weiss’s vision to revitalize CBS News, and regain the trust of the network’s lost viewers and employees.

Editor-in-chief Weiss on Tuesday unveiled a curious list of 19 individuals – including podcasters, influencers, restaurateurs, climate deniers and a number of other opinionated writers – who will be paid contributors offering their wealth of wisdom and insight that will help CBS become, in her words, “fit for purpose in the 21st century”.

President’s obsession with 2020 Georgia election loss has not gone away, despite clear evidence there was no fraud

The FBI raid on the Fulton county election office Wednesday was an aggressive new front in Donald Trump’s effort to use his 2020 election loss to continue to sow doubt about American elections ahead of the 2026 midterms.

As Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, false claims of malfeasance during ballot-counting in Atlanta became a key part of the big lie about a stolen election. Misleading surveillance video showing ballots being retrieved from suitcases became the basis for a myth that fraudulent ballots were included in the tally. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer and a close ally at the time, was ordered to pay $148.1m to the election workers as part of a libel suit for spreading lies about them. He later settled.

Even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has received one, after Wagner Moura wore it in The Secret Agent

It is glimpsed in just a few scenes in The Secret Agent, the Brazilian film nominated for four Oscars and two Baftas, but that has been enough exposure for a vintage yellow T-shirt to become the latest object of desire among Brazilian progressives.

The garment, worn on screen by Wagner Moura, was first produced in 1978 by Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, a carnival group in the coastal city of Olinda, which until recently would sell just a few dozen a month.

Victims of terrorist attacks say BAT’s operations in North Korea helped fund weapons used in the Middle East

Hundreds of US military service members, civilians and their families have filed a lawsuit for unspecified damages against British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, and a subsidiary, claiming the company spent years illicitly helping North Korea fund terrorism weapons that were used against Americans.

BAT formed a joint venture in 2001 with a North Korean company to manufacture cigarettes in the country. The venture quietly continued, a 2005 Guardian investigation revealed, even as the US government publicly warned North Korea was funding terrorism and imposed sanctions on the country. Amid mounting international pressure in 2007, the company claimed it was ending business in North Korea, but secretly continued its operation through a subsidiary, the US justice department said in 2023. BAT’s venture in North Korea provided around $418m in banking transactions, “generating revenue used to advance North Korea’s weapons program,” Matthew Olsen, then the justice department official in charge of its national security division, said during a 2023 Senate hearing.

Experts say factors including Trump’s aggressive policies and pressure on the dollar are pushing investors toward ‘safe haven’ of precious metals

Last year’s extraordinary run in precious metals has only intensified in 2026, as Donald Trump has continued to rip up the rules of the global economy.

Gold has been on a tear since last summer, repeatedly breaking records. It has risen by more than a quarter this month and hit a new high of just under $5,595 (£4,060) an ounce on Thursday.

Meta wowed Wall Street with improvements in ad targeting fueled by AI alongside huge investment. Microsoft had less to show for its billions spent

Big tech earnings so far this week have sent a clear warning: investors are willing to overlook soaring spending on artificial intelligence if it fuels strong growth, but are quick to punish companies that fall short.

The contrast was clear in Thursday’s stock market reaction to earnings from Microsoft and Meta, highlighting how dramatically the stakes have changed since the launch of ChatGPT started the AI boom more than three years ago.

Great Western Railway service recharges in three and a half minutes between trips on west London line

The UK’s first superfast-charging train running only on battery power will come into passenger service this weekend – operating a five-mile return route in west London.

Great Western Railway (GWR) will send the converted London Underground train out from 5.30am to cover the full Saturday timetable on the West Ealing to Greenford branch line, four stops and 12 minutes each way, and now carrying up to 273 passengers, should its celebrity stoke up the demand.

Glen Tetley’s fantastical ballet, set to an atonal Schoenberg score, is finally returning to Covent Garden. Dancers Marcelino Sambé and Joshua Junker discuss how they came under its spell

Marcelino Sambé is hanging upside down from a scaffold tower. “It’s scary,” he tells me. Nevertheless he swings, he swoons, he balances with limbs entwined around the narrow bars, reaching up to an imagined starry sky (it’s actually the high ceiling of a Royal Ballet rehearsal studio in Covent Garden). This is the iconic opening of the ballet Pierrot Lunaire, where a childlike clown is wonderstruck by the sight of the moon.

Made in 1962 by the US choreographer Glen Tetley – whose centenary is celebrated this year – Pierrot Lunaire is a distinctive, eccentric, challenging work, set to Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal song cycle of the same name. It’s based on poems by Albert Giraud, delivered in sprechstimme, a vocal style halfway between song and speech that sounds sometimes like singsong nursery rhymes, elsewhere like a ghostly aural apparition. The ballet is not regularly performed – the last time the Royal Ballet danced it was 20 years ago – but it has a special status in the ballet rep, as a pioneering example of blending modern dance with classical, and as a juicy role for its male lead as the sad clown Pierrot, the commedia dell’arte stock character here given an emotional journey of surprising depth. It was Rudolf Nureyev’s favourite ballet, apparently.

Tenth edition showcases Belgian talent and introduces global themes and artists in a celebration of creativity

Where better to be in the midst of Belgium’s biting winter but in the warmth of Lee Shulman’s creation, The House. Cloaked in cosy mid-century nostalgia, the staging of this flagship exhibition at Hangar Gallery sets a fitting scene for Shulman’s collection of found photography, The Anonymous Project. The playful curation features all manner of family snaps from holidays to birthday parties, and sees characters peeping out of kitchen cupboards or lounging on the beach, photographed through the window of a caravan. The effect is a seductive step into the past, even if only the past of your dreams.

All the furniture used in the staging of The House has been sourced from online websites

From Kaouther Ben Hania’s reconstruction of the killing of a five-year-old Gazan girl in The Voice of Hind Rajab to Ira Sachs use of a taped interview in Peter Hujar’s Day, real-life dialogue is being turned into drama

Alfred Hitchcock, the director behind some of the best films ever, supposedly said that just three essential ingredients are needed to make a great film: “The script, the script and the script.” For a film-maker, it might seem a godsend when a fully formed one lands in your lap. But behind a rising number of films is a simple hack: pinch all your dialogue from real people. An increasing number of film-makers are turning to transcripts and recordings to re-enact episodes on film, with the promise that they are as an exact a facsimile as possible. From Reality (2023), Tina Satter’s true-to-life portrayal of whistleblower Reality Winner, which progresses in real time from harmless small talk to a full-blown FBI grilling, to Radu Jude’s Uppercase Print (2020), in which a rebel teen is given the third degree in Ceaușescu-era Romania, the title-card proclamation “inspired by true events” is being taken to a wholly literal new level.

Within the space of a month, two more “verbatim” movies are in UK cinemas. Peter Hujar’s Day, Ira Sachs’ time capsule of 1974 New York and its colourful culturati, is based on candid conversation between Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) and her photographer pal Peter (Ben Whishaw), who would die from an Aids-related illness less than a decade later. Meanwhile, Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is set in January 2024 amid the evacuation of Gaza City, revisiting beat for beat an emergency call centre’s attempts to rescue the six-year-old girl of the title to harrowing effect.

Kelly Reilly and Rafe Spall investigate the murder of a child in Under Salt Marsh. Plus, David Baddiel concludes his mission to celebrate cats. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
An engrossing crime drama that makes the most of its rugged Welsh coastal backdrop, complete with sheep running through the pub and cosy cardigans aplenty. Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly leads the (not very Welsh) cast as Jackie, a pensive detective turned teacher with permanent bed hair. When she finds the body of her pupil in a ditch, her former colleague detective Eric Bull (Rafe Spall) arrives on the scene, still disturbed by the cold case that forced Jackie to leave the force three years earlier. Are the two crimes connected? Throw into the mix an impending killer storm and Jackie’s secret lover played by Harry Lawtey, and it makes for perfect winter telly. Hollie Richardson

The AI-led robot is back in a fun, Mission: Impossible style sequel, and Emma Mackey and Jamie Lee Curtis’s sharp-tongued comedy is a cause for celebration

Like Chucky in the Child’s Play films, you can’t keep an evil doll down for long. So here’s a sequel to the 2022 horror about an AI-led robot that will do anything, including murder, to protect its young human charge. This time, M3gan has been superseded by Amelia, an even deadlier model that’s gone rogue from its military handlers. Allison Williams and Violet McGraw return as inventor Gemma and her niece Cady, who reluctantly join forces – Mission: Impossible style – with the rebooted M3gan to defeat the new bot on the block. With a healthy seam of sarcasm (there’s a superb misuse of a Kate Bush song), plus the odd serious thought about the future of AI, it’s a fun ride.
Friday 6 February, 12.30pm, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

Top-tier nostalgia as Miss Piggy, Kermit and co are back with new friends Sabrina Carpenter and Seth Rogen. Plus! The moreish cake or fake competition comes over all gooey and heart-shaped

The Muppet Show is top-tier nostalgia: it’s likely that the parents of this one-off revival’s target audience will be more excited about it than the kids of 2026. So there’s a fine balance to be located and the question of exactly who this is aimed at is never quite resolved. Still, the anarchic energy of the gang should transcend generational barriers. There’s simmering beef between Miss Piggy and guest Sabrina Carpenter, cameos from Seth Rogen and Maya Rudolph, self-aware musical spoofs, snark from Statler and Waldorf and much more besides. If anything, the special tries to squeeze too much in, which is perhaps a hint that a new series might be the next logical and welcome step? Phil Harrison
Disney+, from Wednesday 4 February

Barbican Hall, London
Robert Treviño’s sure hand led the London Symphony Orchestra through mystical Messiaen and cinematic Rachmaninoff with Patricia Kopatchinskaja precise and playful in Márton Illés’s Vont-tér

Back in 2017 a little-known young American, Robert Treviño, stepped in at short notice to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Third Symphony – the most substantial in the repertoire – for the first time. It was a seriously exciting debut. The year after, Treviño pulled off a similar coup in Zurich, establishing a career that has since caught fire across Europe. It has taken nearly a decade, but Treviño – this week announced as the new principal conductor of Bucharest’s George Enescu Philharmonic – is finally back with the LSO. It was worth the wait.

Treviño isn’t a flamboyant figure on the podium; his beat is tidy, his gestures deceptively contained. But there’s a coiled-spring muscularity and authority to his delivery that translated across the repertoire in this bizarrely programmed sequence. Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 2 was the crowd-pulling second half, but before that a magnificent 20th-century oddity and something even odder from the 21st.

Theo Zhykharyev, the Ukrainian wizard working low-profile under this brand since 2017 has pivoted to a new realm which blends ferocious energy with freewheeling fun

From London
Recommend if you like Devo, Home Front, Snõõper
Up next New album Bridge of Sacrifice released 13 March

Theo Zhykharyev is one of those brilliant weirdos capable of turning wild ideas into reality. Since starting Powerplant as a bedroom recording project in 2017, a couple of years after he left Ukraine to study in London, he has released records built around fizzing electro-punk, dungeon synth and treble-heavy hardcore, concocting Dungeons & Dragons-inspired role-playing adventures to accompany some of them, while slinging visually arresting DIY merch through his Arcane Dynamics label. Yet even coming amid an output this freewheeling, his upcoming new record is full of surprises.

As the superstar K-pop boyband prepare for their first album in three years – after its members completed their military service – we count down the best of their toothsome pop

At the start of their career, BTS were marketed as a cross between a Korean idol band and a blinged-out rap act: “Our life is hip-hop,” offered band member Suga early on. No More Dream is actually far tougher-sounding than you might expect: the vocals growl, the backing blares, the double-bass sample that drives the intro is great.

(Ronin Rhythm)
The composer’s first unaccompanied album turns extended harp technique into music of intimacy, restraint and conviction – inspired by the women who shaped her world

When the London jazz festival ran online only in 2020, an enthralling livestreamed performance by Swiss harpist Julie Campiche’s avant-jazz ensemble was a startling highlight, introducing UK audiences to a virtuoso instrumentalist and composer who was already turning heads in Europe. Campiche plucked guitar, zither and east Asian-style sounds from the harp, mingled with vocal loops, classical music, Nordic ambient jazz and more. You might call her soundscape magical or otherworldly if it didn’t coexist with a campaigner’s political urgency on environmental and social issues. But Campiche is too much of a visionary to overwhelm the eloquence of pure sound with polemic, as her new album, the unaccompanied Unspoken, confirms more than ever.

Campiche’s extra-musical agenda here is a celebration of sisterhood, dedicated to women in public and private lives who have inspired her. The opening Anonymous is built around a Virginia Woolf quote – “for most of history, ‘anonymous’ was a woman” – repeated by a chorus of women’s voices in different languages building to a clamour. Grisélidis Réal is named after the Swiss artist and writer who took her physical and mental life to every precipice, including sex work, expressed in gently lyrical harp lines around the spooky sounds of footsteps clicking on pavements.

Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Lately I’ve been going back to read some classic works that I had, in my zany life-arc, missed, in the (selfish) hope of opening up new frequencies in my work. So: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (the zaniness seems to lack agenda and yet still says something big and political); then on to Speak, Memory by Nabokov, newly reminded that language alone (dense, beautiful) can power the reader along; and, coming soon, The Power Broker by Robert A Caro – a real ambition-inspirer, I’m imagining, in its scale and daring.

White Moss by Anna Nerkagi; The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin; The Roof Beneath Their Feet by Geetanjali Shree; Berlin Shuffle by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

White Moss by Anna Nerkagi, translated by Irina Sadovina (Pushkin, £12.99)
“You, too, need a woman!” Alyoshka’s mother tells him. “Even a plain one, as long as her hands and legs aren’t crooked.” And Alyoshka, part of the nomadic Nenets people in the Russian Arctic, does find a wife, but can’t consummate their marriage: he’s still in love with a girl who left for the city years ago. This novel takes us around the camp, from Alyoshka’s family to Petko and his friend Vanu discussing old age to a new arrival who shares his tragic story of alcohol addiction: “The devil had entered my soul, and it was fun to be with him.” Meanwhile, Soviet representatives, intended to support the Nenets people, come and go: “They didn’t stick, because strictly speaking there was nothing to stick to.” This story of a solid community where people stick instead with one another is a perfect warming tale for winter.

The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Daunt, £14.99)
Agathe, a 30-year-old French woman living in New York, is so estranged from her sister Véra that when she receives a text message saying “Papa’s dead”, she replies: “Who is this?” Now she returns to the family home in the Dordogne to help clear out his things. “If we set fire to the books, there’d be nothing left.” Relations remain difficult: Véra communicates only by text message; she hasn’t spoken since the age of six. This is a book of absence and silence – village shops are closed, streets deserted, Agathe’s husband in the US doesn’t reply to her – and written with apt spareness. “I’m following the advice of decluttering influencers,” Agathe tells us, but it’s her past that she needs to offload, and slowly we learn the history of the family breakup. The balance between revelation and continued mystery makes this book both tantalising and satisfying.

The Booker-shortlisted novelist on the seismic effect of Sigrid Nunez, and wanting to write like Virginia Woolf

My earliest reading memory
Asking my mom if she could stop reading my bedtime book to me and just let me read it on my own, since I felt she was going too slowly. The book was either Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, both by Roald Dahl.

My favourite book growing up
I loved Stuart Little, and all his small, clever things – his tiny canoe, his tiny sailboat. He had such a relaxed demeanor and was so dapper! I also loved Mary Norton’s The Borrowers series – tiny people living under the floorboards and improvising household goods out of “borrowed” safety pins and match boxes and so on. Clearly I had a thing for miniatures.

A psychologist’s gripping guide to surviving dark nights of the soul offers both comfort and insight

I’m proud of how mild-mannered my midlife crisis is. While the cliche involves the purchase of a Porsche or a frantic fling with a colleague, I’ve mainly fallen back into the geeky preoccupations of my youth, such as founding poetry clubs and playing niche racket sports. Nevertheless, on the cusp of turning 50, and having just been beaten by my 11-year-old at Scrabble, I’m thrilled to have found a book that addresses my small struggle: an elegant discourse on the deep wisdom that I’m hoping will characterise my remaining years.

First, the author, a clinical psychologist named Frank Tallis, diagnoses the problem. Following some of the arguments in Ernest Becker’s 1973 study The Denial of Death, he proposes that such crises are at least partly the result of the western reluctance to face mortality. In Britain, we eschew open coffins, for instance. When our relatives die, as my mother did two years ago, they die in a hospital rather than at home. We can hardly even bring ourselves to say “die”, preferring euphemisms such as “pass away”. In this Instagram age, our lives are dominated by filters and distractions. The crisis strikes when reality can’t be held at bay any longer. We lose our parents. Then we notice, inevitably, that we are now at the front of the queue.

​In the fiercely competitive market ​of the online multiplayer game, Highguard​’s rocky start means it now has a lot to prove

• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

In the fast-paced, almost psychotically unforgiving video game business, you really do have to stick the landing. Launching a new game is an artform in itself – do you go for months of slowly building hype or a sudden shock reveal, simultaneously announcing and releasing a new project in one fell swoop? The latter worked incredibly well for online shooter Apex Legends, which remains one of the genre’s stalwarts six years after its surprise launch on 4 February 2019. What you don’t do with a new release, is something that falls awkwardly between those two approaches. Enter Highguard.

This new online multiplayer title from newcomer Wildlight Entertainment has an excellent pedigree. The studio was formed by ex-Respawn Entertainment staff, most of whom previously worked on Titanfall, Call of Duty and the aforementioned Apex Legends. They know what they’re doing. But the launch has been … troubled.

From rhino-sized Rhyhorns to worm-like Diglett, visitors to PokéPark Kanto will roam a forest populated by lifelike Pokémon statues when the attraction opens next week

In Japan, February is normally a period of quiet reflection, a month defined by winter festivals in Sapporo’s snowy mountains and staving off the cold in steaming hot springs. Traditionally, international tourists start to arrive with the blossoms in spring – but thanks to the opening of Pokémon’s first ever amusement park on 5 February, this year, they are likely to come earlier.

Unlike the rollercoaster-filled thrills of Tokyo Disney Sea or Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, PokéPark Kanto is essentially a forest populated by models of the creatures from the perennially popular games. Nestled in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Inagi, half an hour from the city centre, the park is a walkable forest with more than 600 Pokémonin it. Where the Mario-themed Super Nintendo World slots neatly into the massive Universal Studios Japan, PokéPark Kanto is hidden in the back of the less glitzy, funfair-esque Japanese theme park Yomiuri Land.

I’ve been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn’t much video games coverage that feels like it’s specifically for people like me. So I’m creating a home for it: Mothership

Whether you’re reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry’s mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What’s more, games journalists – as well as all other kinds of journalists – have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump’s White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world’s slide to the right.

The manosphere is back, and we’ve lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of “woke”. Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who’s been a games journalist and critic since 2007.

Quake Brutalist Jam began as a celebration of old-fashioned shooter level design, but its latest version is one step away from being a game in its own right

A lone concrete spire stands in a shallow bowl of rock, sheltering a rusted trapdoor from the elements. Standing on the trapdoor causes it to yawn open like iron jaws, dropping you through a vertical shaft into a subterranean museum. Here, dozens of doors line the walls of three vaulted grey galleries, each leading to a pocket dimension of dizzying virtual architecture and fierce gladiatorial combat.

Welcome to Quake Brutalist Jam, the hottest community event for lovers of id Software’s classic first-person shooter from 1996. First run in 2022, the Jam started out as a celebration of old-school 3D level design, where veteran game developers, aspiring level designers and enthusiast modders gather to construct new maps and missions themed around the austere minimalism of brutalist architecture.

Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
Composer Finn Anderson and director Tania Azevedo have created a powerful generational journey through the history of Appalachian song

Much of the music of central Appalachia – the mountainous region linking Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas – derives from the Scots-Irish people who settled there. It was the Ulster immigrants, passing down their boisterous tunes and melancholy ballads, who gifted the US some of its first iterations of country music.

Composer Finn Anderson and director Tania Azevedo have used that journey to tell a musical story across generations. Our starting point is New York couple Sarah and Alix, moving into their new home and Marie Kondo-ing a mystery box sent to Sarah by a dying aunt. It turns out to contain audio tapes tracing song origins back up the family line, a reconnection to Sarah’s West Virginia roots that is first unwelcome and then increasingly transformative.

The secret side of Japan’s warrior class, Holzer lights up Scunthorpe, Julia Phillips steels herself and Quentin Blake takes off in Dorset – all in your weekly dispatch

Samurai
A tremendous, awe-inspiring journey into Japan’s past, with samurai armour so sublimely crafted it seems darkly alive, as well as exquisite landscapes, erotica and other arts that delighted the samurai between battles. Read the review here.
• The British Museum, London, from 3 February to 4 May

British Museum, London
Extraordinary battle armour, complete with moustachioed masks, enlivens this scintillating show, which brilliantly captures the theatrical side of a chivalrous epoch

Japan’s pre-modern warrior elite can’t still be alive inside the suits of armour that hold you awed and scared in this scintillating journey through their world of gore, power and artistic beauty. But they surely seem to be: samurai armour is so vital, so electric, with its grimacing, moustached, black face masks and full-body metal and fabric plating. The crests of their helmets incorporate eagles, dragons, goblins, even a clenched fist of metal emerging from one warrior’s head. It’s so intense you feel a presence.

Then again, the samurai always were ghosts in their suits. The metal mask became their face to the world, their carapaces transformed them into someone else. This idea that in battle the warrior becomes other, a bloody demon, is not unique to Japan: Viking “berserkers” lost themselves in a ritualised frenzy and may have believed they changed into bears. Armour in medieval Europe, too, was never just practical but a second skin, a full metal jacket suppressing softness and symbolising the steely transfiguration of normal souls into killers. But no culture has ever put quite as much creativity into blood-lust as Japan did from the 13th century – when samurai courage saw off Mongol invaders – until the abolition of this class in the 1800s.

David Zwirner, London
Though they were created for comic books, the artist’s horny and hilarious drawings of his own neuroses, and of glamazons in thigh-high boots, are unnervingly powerful on gallery walls

It is unnerving to walk into a gallery and see all your deepest fears and anxieties splayed out across the wall, but that is the power of Robert Crumb. For more than half a century, the wiry, weird, difficult and awkwardly horny artist (now in his 80s) has been churning out underground comics that lay bare his deepest neuroses, and reflect yours back in the process.

Now he is being celebrated in an ultra-high-end London gallery, with pages ripped from his notebooks and framed up like the finest of fine art. Except this isn’t fine, it’s filthy and angry and paranoid. It’s classic Crumb: skinny men quivering with worry and fear and hormones in a cruel, uncaring, senseless world – filled with towering women in thigh-high boots, obviously.

Critics worry that heckling, such as that at a recent Royal Opera performance, is becoming more common

Opera audiences pride themselves on knowing when – and how – to make noise. Cries of “bravo”, “brava” and “bravi” have become a celebrated part of the tradition, with shouted approval seen as evidence of connoisseurship.

Booing, too, has a long history, and as a brave stand-in at the Royal Opera House found out on Tuesday night, its impact may sometimes seem a little blunter.

The actor on manifesting the part of Hagrid in Harry Potter, struggling with his looks and his issue with Strictly

You’re big on pies on your Insta. What’s your go-to pastry recipe and, briefly, your favourite filling – savoury and sweet? TopTramp
Well, as much as I can make it, I like to have a little block of shop-bought shortcrust or flaky pastry in the fridge. It’s so much easier to just roll it out and stick it on top. The pies have to be double crust. The one I make the most is slow braised, tiny chunks of steak with minced beef and roasted shallots, like a minced beef and onion pie. The kids love that with chips for Saturday night dinner. I like making chicken and mushroom with leek, although my partner’s a veggie, so she would probably say fish pie, with boiled eggs, which is a real labour of love, so I tend to save that for special occasions. I like a nice apple and cinnamon pie with a Demerara sugar crust, and cherry pie made with that really shit fake filling.

What happened to your live-action remake of Captain Pugwash? keithrickaby
That was nearly 10 years ago. There was quite a good script. I think the money was coming from China, and I’m not sure they’d seen Captain Pugwash before. I think it was one of those things that never quite reached escape velocity. I do remember they just had normal names, and not the double entendres like Seaman Staines or Master Bates that everyone thinks were in the cartoon.

The disgraced and despised British entertainer’s distinctive look is trending among some film fans on TikTok. Should somebody tell them what he did?

When British people think of Jimmy Savile, it isn’t typically as someone whose style to admire. But at screenings of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the latest film in the 28 Days Later franchise which was released this month, that does seem to be what some US filmgoers are thinking.

In the film, a murderous cult known as “the Jimmies” stalk the ruins of post‑apocalyptic Britain. Led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O’Connell, the sect are instantly recognisable for their cheap tracksuits, bleached blonde wigs and particular mannerisms.

As the musical version of the notoriously gory book returns to the stage, its tale of 80s yuppie nihilism feels more relevant than ever in the era of Andrew Tate, Trump and tech bros

I have just witnessed a murder. Spattered against the white walls of the Almeida theatre are several thin streaks of blood. Underneath them a particularly gruesome-looking hand axe rests on a table. And on the other side of the room, a clue to who the perpetrator might be. Discarded next to someone’s laptop is a business card – bone-coloured, raised black lettering – bearing a familiar name: Patrick Bateman.

Him again.

It took six years to identify the condition that caused my chronic pain: a blood sugar dysregulation condition

Seven years ago, when I was 27, I got my first-ever migraine. Ten months later, it was still there.

Even after the 10-month migraine ended, frequent weeks-long migraine attacks and bouts of stabbing “icepick” headaches kept me in pain more often than not. I was a software engineer at Facebook, but had to take leave from work because looking at my laptop screen made my head scream in revolt. I would never go back.

Natalie Mead publishes a Substack called Oops, My Brain about life with chronic illness and recovery. She is also working on a memoir about the tension between love and caregiving in chronic illness

Very few things are more daunting than a house move. But it doesn’t have to be hell. Here is how to transport everything without breakages – or injuries

Moving home can be incredibly stressful. How should you make sure you get everything from A to B without breakages or injuring yourself? Removal professionals share the secrets to a smash-free, smooth move.

Staying sober beyond Dry January? These non-alcoholic reds, whites, rosés and fizz bring all the joy – without the hangover

• I tried 75 low- and no-alcohol drinks: here are my favourites

Are you a zebra-striper, alternating your alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic versions to moderate your intake? Or are you booze-free? As curbing drinking becomes more popular, it’s clear that this moment of sober curiosity is moving beyond Dry January and into the everyday.

Luckily, the drinks industry is scratching our sobriety itch with a bevy of good alcohol-free products. If you’re ready to wet your whistle with something delicious that won’t have you stumbling into the next day with a sore head, read on to discover the best no- and low-alcohol whites, reds and rosés from my taste testing (as well as a couple of mid-strength options), perfect for any time, any place.

Textile bins are overflowing, but donating isn’t always the answer. Experts share the smarter, greener ways to declutter unwanted clothes

• How to look after your knitwear, according to experts

Have you even started the new year if you haven’t thought about having a wardrobe clearout? A recent trip to my local supermarket suggests that residents of my home town have been doing just that in their droves, with textile recycling bins overflowing on to the pavements. And we may think donating our unwanted clothes does us a favour while helping out someone else and potentially the environment, but there’s a chance we could be doing the exact opposite.

“Because our clothing is so overproduced in such large quantities, when you donate to charity, often it’s not getting resold,” says Aja Barber, author of the book Consumed. And she warns that much of our donated clothing won’t end up in the well-intended places we had hoped it would. “[It] will most likely end up in landfill or be exported in the waste colonialism chain, which means our excess volumes end up in countries like Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. It’s a business, but when a lot of the clothing is trash to begin with, sadly it creates a lot of pollution.”

This premium assisted machine makes every caffeinated drink under the sun, from flat whites to cold brew, but true baristas may itch for more freedom

• The best espresso machines for your home, tested

In ancient Greece, people in need of advice would seek out their local oracle. The fee for divine guidance would be paid for by animal sacrifice – a goat, or perhaps a sheep for particularly pressing issues. Fast forward to 2026, and inflation has taken its toll. The price of admission to Sage’s Oracle Jet is now closer to that of a cow. For anyone who isn’t a regular at their local livestock markets, that’s about £1,700.

However, the Oracle Jet does exactly what it says on the tin. This is an assisted espresso machine that guides users from coffee bean to espresso cup (hence the “Oracle”), froths milk to silken perfection, and heats up in seconds because of the use of fast-heating ThermoJet technology (yep, “Jet”).

Electric toothbrushes promise healthier teeth and gums and can transform your oral hygiene. We put more than 20 models to the test to reveal the best for every budget

• How to make your toothbrush last longer – and keep it out of landfill

If you grew up using a conventional toothbrush – essentially a stick with bristles on the end – you may be surprised to learn just how long the electric toothbrush has been around. The first was designed in the late 1930s, but that model was a long way from the sleek, feature-packed and Bluetooth-enabled beasts you can buy today.

There are now dozens of ultra-advanced versions on the market, but which ones are worth your cash? To help answer that question, my teeth have become figurative guinea pigs. Over the past year, I’ve put a bunch of electric toothbrushes from Oral-B, Philips, Suri, Ordo, Silk’n, Foreo and more through their paces to separate the best from the rest. Here are my conclusions.

Best electric toothbrush overall:
Spotlight Sonic Pro

Best value electric toothbrush:
Icy Bear Next-Generation sonic toothbrush

A richly textured and zingy loaf cake to enjoy with a cuppa

Anything bright and zingy is particularly welcome in January, even more so when it’s in the form of cake. I always have an odd end of marzipan after the festive season, and this is a great way to use it up and bring that cosy almond flavour. The marzipan gets blitzed into the butter for a plush-textured loaf cake, and comes together in minutes thanks to simply putting everything in a food processor.

From baked beans with a Gujarati twist to billowing Yorkshire pudding with bramley apples, Guardian readers share the dishes that have connected their families across the generations

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

A few years ago, I bought my mother a notebook for her recipes. It was a weighty, leather-bound affair that could act as a vault for all the vivid stews, slow-cooked beans and many other family specialities – the secrets of which existed only in her head. Although the gift has basically been a failure (bar a lengthy WhatsApp message detailing her complex jollof rice methodology, she still has an allergy to writing down cooking techniques or quantities), I think the impulse behind it is sound and highly relatable. Family recipes are a form of time travel. An act of cultural preservation that connects us deeply to people we may not have met and places we may not have visited.

Those realities shine through in this week’s gathered compendium of heirloom recipes submitted by readers. Baked beans given a Gujarati twist. An Atlantic-hopping riff on spinach and feta pie. A billowing yorkshire pudding with sticky bramley apples in its base. All of these preparations, particularly when a recipe for anything is a mere tap away, point to the power of human connection and the ingenuity of domestic chefs. And perhaps the best thing about ancestral culinary approaches is that they can be passed from one clan to another, living on even as they are adapted and evolve.

This crisp and punchy salad is a tribute to the late veg specialist Charlie Hicks and a shared love of the versatile Italian chicory puntarelle

Like many, I remember Charlie Hicks from Veg Talk, a weekly show that ran on Radio 4 from 1998-2005. The show, according to Sheila Dillon, came into being after her interview with Charlie, a fourth-generation fruit and veg supplier at Covent Garden market, for an episode of The Food Programme exploring where chefs bought their produce. Sitting at the kitchen table with her husband the following evening, Sheila recounted her day and Charlie’s enormous knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to communicate both. A few days after that, a similar conversation took place with her colleagues at Radio 4, which resulted in Veg Talk – what’s in and what’s out in the world of fresh produce. As well as Charlie’s market report, each episode included a feature called “vegetable of the week” and the participation of studio guests – Angela Hartnett, Alastair Little, Rose Gray, Darina Allen and Mitch Tonks, to name just a few – and took calls from listeners.

The show had its critics – in a 2005 interview with the Independent, broadcaster Andy Kershaw is quoted as saying, “This show should have been strangled at birth” – but it also had legions of fans (myself included), who tuned in mostly for Charlie’s expertise accumulated over a lifetime of working the markets, cooking with his wife, Anna, talking to growers and reading, so it was both practical and scholarly. Add to this his sharp humour, easy bantering relationships and warm voice.

All those odds and ends of chillies, garlic skins and rind can be used to flavour oil for dunking, dipping and marinating

Today’s recipe began life as a way to use up garlic skins and herby leftovers, all of which contain a surprising amount of flavour, but it has evolved over time. Infused oil has countless uses – drizzle it over carpaccio, pasta or salad, use it to marinate meat, fish and vegetables, or simply as a dip for chunks of sourdough – and some of my favourites include lemon rind, garlic skin and rosemary; star anise, cacao and orange rind; and makrut lime leaf, lemongrass husk and coriander stems, which I found especially delicious drizzled over some noodles and pak choi. Freshly infused oils of this sort aren’t suitable for long storage, however, so use them up within a day to two.

Edwin wants Chloe to join him at all of his large family’s events, but she values her independence. You decide who is playing happy families
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

It’s thoughtless to wheel me out to his family as a formality. I need my own space sometimes

After the failure of his police career, Jack came to live with us, caring for the whole family indiscriminately. When I was sickest, and felt unlovable, he reminded me I was loved

Jack, the cocker spaniel, was sacked by the police. His career as a detection dog was an utter failure – he was more interested in people than cannabis and made some embarrassing mistakes, including begging for treats from potential offenders rather than alerting officers about drugs.

A colleague told me about a police dog that needed a home and so Jack arrived – via police van – at our house. He was lithe, glossy black and animated. He ricocheted around the house, knocking over children and pot plants. He chased rabbits and pheasants over the fields. He ate off the children’s plates and collected shoes. He loved us all indiscriminately and liked to have us where he could see us. If anyone left the room, he’d sigh deeply and follow, remaining close until the pack was back together.

Can a prison officer turned tram driver and a retired medical tech operations manager agree on incarceration, antisemitism and Trump?

Ian, 60, Manchester

Occupation Retired, used to be an operations manager for medical tech

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects trivial and profound considers a heartfelt matter

• This week’s question: To shred or not to shred: is it OK to recycle sensitive documents?

How can we accept that what feels like overwhelming love for someone is unrequited, and how can we get over it? HH, Suffolk, by email

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

Try to focus on the long term, be clear about your priorities, and resist withdrawing money early

All employers must automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria: the employee must be a UK resident, aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, £192 a week or £822 a month, in the 2025/26 tax year.

I was stranded in Brussels after a power failure, but the promised refund for hotels, food and transport failed to arrive

Eurostar is refusing to honour expenses claims after a power failure in the tunnel stranded thousands of passengers last month.

Our party of four was stuck at Brussels station when all trains to and from London were cancelled for 24 hours. Eurostar staff told us to find a hotel and handed out leaflets promising that accommodation, food and transport costs would be refunded.

Holding multiple jobs without your employer’s knowledge has boomed in the age of hybrid working. Is it a canny response to job insecurity – or a fast track to getting fired?

Name: Polygamous working.

Age: It’s really a post-pandemic phenomenon.

She had entered end-of-life care and I relied on my car to get to her, but it hadn’t returned the licence

Our daughter, who has cancer, entered end-of-life care on Christmas Eve. I am a carer for her and her two young children.

We both live in rural villages with no public transport options, so I need a car to get to her at short notice, but last summer, out of the blue, the DVLA told me I could not drive until December and revoked my licence.

The ligament that connects your foot bones can cause severe heel pain when inflamed. Here’s how to avoid that

Recently, I decided to go for a jog after not running at all for more than [redacted] years. I did a half-marathon a couple of presidential administrations ago, so surely it would be fine? It was! Until the next morning, when I rolled out of bed, put my feet on the floor and felt a sharp pain in my heel.

Plantar fasciitis, my old nemesis.

Strengthen the muscles of the feet. Silverman suggests doing toe curls (with your feet flat on a towel, grip the towel with your toes and scrunch it towards your body) or marble pickups (using your toes to pick up marbles or similar objects from the floor).

Stretching. Specifically, stretching the calf muscles and the achilles tendon. Regularly stretching and massaging these areas “can help to not only assuage the inflammation, but prevent it from coming back”, says Aiyer.

Increase activity levels gradually. Allow your body to get acclimated to increases in activity levels rather than suddenly ramping up. Basically, don’t do what I did.

Wear the right shoes. Choose a shoe that’s too supportive, and your foot muscles can weaken over time, says Silverman. But choose a shoe that’s not supportive enough, and you may expose your plantar fascia to more direct trauma. Rather than sweating this Goldilocks challenge, Silverman says you should “choose footwear that matches the environment and activity”.

Traditional bodybuilding advice has been to push workouts to the point of failure, and that soreness is an indicator of effectiveness. But recent studies show there’s another way

Until pretty recently, the conventional wisdom about building muscle was that it worked via a system you might think of as “tear and repair” – the idea being that working out causes microtears in the muscle fibres, which trigger the body’s repair processes, encouraging the muscles to come back bigger and stronger.

That’s why many old-school trainers will tell you that there’s no gain without pain, and why a lot of bodybuilding advice includes increasingly byzantine ways of pushing your biceps and triceps to the point where you can’t do another repetition: the more trauma you can cause, the thinking goes, the more “swole” you can become.

While there may be benefits to the treatment, anti-ageing probably isn’t one of them – which is something better left to the professionals

‘Red light therapy, where LED lights are shone on your skin, has been around for a while,” says Afshin Mosahebi, a professor in plastic surgery at University College London. But what was once an expensive treatment you’d go to a professional to receive is now becoming widely available in the form of light-up masks you can wear at home.

“Reasonable reports show that the treatment is good for wound-healing,” says Mosahebi. This is why it is recommended for inflammatory skin conditions such as acne, dermatitis and psoriasis, as it increases circulation, decreases inflammation, and improves cell regeneration.

Used in healing practices for centuries, modern versions of these spiky mats are increasingly popular, and many people find them invaluable. Here’s what the science says

Ever since Keith, 39, from Kansas, was in a car accident in 2023, he has lived with “pretty much constant mid-back and shoulder pain”. Over-the-counter treatments didn’t touch the sides and he didn’t want to resort to opiates. “Having exhausted everything there was solid science for with no satisfaction, I delved into acupressure,” he says. He bought an acupressure mat made of lightly padded fabric, studded all over with tiny plastic spikes, to lay his back on, and was surprised to find that it actually helped.

Acupressure mats, also known as Shakti mats, are inspired by the beds of nails that Indian gurus used for meditation and healing more than 1,000 years ago. While today’s mats have the nonthreatening sheen of a luxury wellbeing product, the spikes are no joke. In fact, the internet serves up a plethora of images of flaming, dented backs after their use – although you’re unlikely to seriously injure yourself using them. While the mats have been widely available for more than a decade, there has been a recent surge in mainstream interest. You may have seen them heavily advertised on your social media feed, the most prominent brand being Shakti Mat, made in India and costing up to £99 for the premium model. But Amazon is full of acupressure mats and pillows – Lidl recently stocked a mat and pillow combo for a tenner. Yet there is still no compelling evidence that they relieve stress, pain and sleep problems, or help with any other unmet health needs.

Leather, lace and an unexpected accessory or two will perfectly complement bold trousers

If you’re wearing tight clothes and flashing your ankles, you may want to make some bold changes

Is your wardrobe cringe? Does it make you look out-of-touch and cause younger and cooler people to look upon you with pity? Do you really want me to answer that? Never mind, I’m going to anyway, so buckle up. Brutal honesty is very January, so I will give it to you straight. But before we get down to dissecting your wardrobe, two quick questions for you. Do you put full stops in text messages? Were you baffled by Labubus? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then I’m afraid the signs are that your wardrobe is almost certainly cringe.

Being cringe is essentially being old-fashioned, but worse. Being old-fashioned is what happens when you grow older with grace and dignity. Cringe is when you lose your touch while convincing yourself you are still down with the kids.

In 20 years, Danish capital’s fashion week has pushed for greener standards and catapulted homegrown talent to global success

When it comes to fashion weeks, there used to be four key cities: New York, London, Milan and Paris. While they remain titleholders, a host of other cities from Berlin to Seoul and Lagos have been vying for the same recognition to become “the fifth fashion week”. But so far only one real winner has emerged: Copenhagen fashion week.

On Tuesday, the Danish showcase, which has helped catapult homegrown brands including Ganni into the international spotlight while spearheading sustainability initiatives, kicked off the start of its 20th-anniversary celebrations.

Makeup textures embrace the flash and clash of formulas that you can ‘smoosh on carelessly’

I’ve always judged the Pantone colour of the year to be way less interesting to readers than to journalists. But the 2026 winner (an unremarkable off-white called Cloud Dancer) struck me as even less relevant when trends are finally looking interesting again.

Around the time of that news, Mac named glam pop queen Chappell Roan as its new global ambassador. The appointment of Roan – all grunge glitters, colourful face jewels and clumpy mascara – celebrates the experimental, edgy and playful Mac aesthetic, and signals what may be the end of what industry figures often describe as the “beige buffet” of post-Covid fashion and beauty.

Saunas, island-hopping, mountain hikes, great design and cosy cafes abound in our readers’ treasured memories of the Nordic countries
• Tell us about a romantic break in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

A week’s hiking in Jotunheimen national park (230 miles north of Oslo) last summer brought me tranquillity and peace. During four days of challenging hiking and wild camping through the area we saw hardly anyone else, having entire lush green valleys and still glacial lakes to ourselves. We were fortunate to have stunning weather throughout and, despite it being July, still had a reasonable amount of snow to traverse. Norway has a fantastic network of signposted trails and huts which can be found on the Norwegian Trekking Association website.
Ben

Forget flashy St Moritz or Zermatt, the unsung village of Arosa has childlike charm, with animal sanctuaries, cool accommodation and kid-friendly tobogganing

On the approach to Arosa in the Graubünden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret.

On the village’s frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand. A little farther along, on the snow-covered main street, children sled rapidly downhill, overtaking cars. The resort’s mascots are a happy gang of brown bears. And there are Narnia lamp-posts, which turn the falling snow almost gold every evening. Switzerland is replete with ski towns but none feel quite this innocent and childlike, like stepping into a fairytale.

Now a ‘wild river national park’, the Vjosa needs more trees to be planted to preserve its fragile ecosystem. And visitors are being asked to help …

Our induction into tree-planting comes from Pietro, an Italian hydromorphologist charged with overseeing our group of 20 or so volunteers for the week. We’re standing in a makeshift nursery full of spindly willow and poplar saplings just above the Vjosa River, a graceful, meandering waterway that cuts east to west across southern Albania from its source 169 miles away upstream in Greece.

Expertly extricating an infant willow from the clay-rich soil, Pietro holds up the plant for us all to see. Its earthy tendrils look oddly exposed and vulnerable. “The trick is not to accidentally snick the stem or break the roots,” he says. Message registered, we take up our hoes and head off in pairs to follow his instructions.

The volunteering week is the brainchild of EcoAlbania and the Austria-based Riverwatch. Back in 2023, these two conservation charities succeeded in persuading the Albanian government to designate the River Vjosa as Europe’s first “wild river national park”. It was a timely intervention. According to new research co-funded by Riverwatch, Albania has lost 711 miles (1,144km) of “nearly natural” river stretches since 2018 – more, proportionally, than any country in the Balkans. Now, the question facing both organisations is: what next?

On our first evening, Riverwatch’s chief executive, Ulrich (“Uli”) Eichelmann, gives a presentation setting out his answer. But before he does, we have a dinner of lamb and homegrown vegetables to work through. The traditional spread is a speciality of the Lord Byron guesthouse in Tepelenë, a small town in the heart of the Vjosa valley and home to EcoAlbania’s field office – our base for the week.

The distractions of daily life can make writing a book a frustrating task, so I sought boltholes offering creative support and solitude in inspiring landscapes

The idea for my novel came in a rush: as I walked over the Thames on the Golden Jubilee Bridge in central London, the scene at the heart of it leapt out of the deep blue dusk and clung on to me until I committed to writing it into existence.

A few months later, it became depressingly clear that the half-hour snatches of writing at the end of my working day just weren’t going to get me over the finish line.

Garden crops such as apples, garlic, carrot and beetroot will grow better if they experience low temperatures in winter

Having made it through January, I’m wishing for the swift arrival of spring. After a long winter (they always feel long) seasonal change starts to loom. Yet I remind myself why, for many of the plants and crops we love, a sustained cold period is essential.

While little plant growth takes place in winter, important biological processes happen in this stillness. For a great number of plants that are able to survive cold weather, a good period spent below a certain temperature is key to their flowering in spring – a process called vernalisation.

From a renovated Victorian village house in Hampshire to a new-build apartment in south London

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

Thanks to Anaïs Mims’s whimsical illustrations, this week’s quiz invites you to consider an important question: are you the moustache of misplaced confidence, or the question mark of honest uncertainty? Fifteen questions on the week’s headlines, pop culture and general knowledge await. There are no prizes, but we enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 232

Amateur conservationist and social media influencer Theerasak 'Pop' Saksritawee has a rare bond with Thailand’s critically endangered dugongs. With dugong fatalities increasing, Pop works alongside scientists at Phuket Marine Biological Centre to track the mammals with his drone and restore their disappearing seagrass habitat. Translating complex science for thousands online, Pop raises an urgent alarm about climate change, pollution and habitat loss — before Thailand’s dugongs vanish forever

Retail accounts for 5% of the UK economy – but its visibility gives it an outsize influence on public perception

Up and down Britain there are boarded-up shops. Banks and department stores have been replaced by vape shops, barbers and bookmakers. Shoplifting is at a record high, local services cut, and public frustration is mounting.

Politically, high street decline is perfect campaign fodder for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

Summer after summer, I used to descend into a creek that had carved a deep bed shaded by trees and lined with blackberry bushes whose long thorny canes arced down from the banks, dripping with sprays of fruit. Down in that creek, I’d spend hours picking until I had a few gallons of berries, until my hands and wrists were covered in scratches from the thorns and stained purple from the juice, until the tranquillity of that place had soaked into me.

Under Donald Trump, the White House has filled its social media with memes, wishcasting, nostalgia and deepfakes. Here’s what you need to know to navigate the trolling

It started with an image of Trump as a king mocked up on a fake Time magazine cover. Since then it’s developed into a full-blown phenomenon, one academics are calling “slopaganda” – an unholy alliance of easily available AI tools and political messaging. “Shitposting”, the publishing of deliberately crude, offensive content online to provoke a reaction, has reached the level of “institutional shitposting”, according to Know Your Meme’s editor Don Caldwell. This is trolling as official government communication. And nobody is more skilled at it than the Trump administration – a government that has not only allowed the AI industry all the regulative freedom it desires, but has embraced the technology for its own in-house purposes. Here are 10 of the most significant fake images the White House has put out so far.

We would like to hear from people living in a house share where there is a large age gap between housemates

New data from SpareRoom shows that almost four in 10 flatmates now live in multi-generational households, where the age difference between the oldest and youngest adult is 20 years or more.

Do you live in a house share where there is a large age gap between housemates? What impact does that have on your living arrangements? Do you enjoy living with people of different ages? What positives and negatives does it bring?

We’d like to hear from people in Jenrick’s Newark constituency about how they feel about him defecting to Reform UK

After months of denials, Robert Jenrick finally defected to Reform UK last week.

Nigel Farage called it the “latest Christmas present I’ve ever had”, while Conservative MPs called him a “coward” and a “traitor”.

Our clothes can be one of the most powerful non-verbal communicators – tell us yours reflect who you are and what you do?

From uniforms to suits to tracksuits to costumes, clothes keep us warm and covered – but they are also one of the most powerful non-verbal communicators, a second skin which reflects who you are and what you do.

We want to hear from people about why they wear what they wear. Do your clothes help you in the workplace? Are they making a statement? Maybe you’re a waiter and have worn the same work uniform for years, or maybe your job involves wearing very little. Please tell us about yourselves.

We would like to hear from people about the impact of the stormy weather conditions in the UK

Flood and weather warnings from both Environment Agency and the Met Office are in place across much of the UK as Storm Chandra brought heavy rain and strong winds to many areas of the UK.

As day broke on Tuesday, there were almost 100 flood warnings in England and nearly 200 alerts – meaning flooding is possible – in place, with heavy rain falling on already saturated ground. There 24 flood alerts in Wales at the time of writing. A red flood warning – meaning danger to life – has been issued for a river in south-west England.

Wake up to the top stories and what they mean – free to your inbox every weekday morning at 7am

Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

Get smart, sustainable shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox, every Sunday

The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.

A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.

Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.

Upgrade your space today, with eight emails packed with tips to brighten up your home - whatever your budget

Embrace your space: the Guardian’s House to Home newsletter is bursting with tips and tricks to help you boost your bedroom and give your living room some love.

Sign up any time, and get eight emails direct to your inbox every Sunday morning.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world